At the command from Thessalia, Richard slyly nodded as he saluted, watching Thessalia stride past him towards. "Your call, Sergeant," he said as he turned back towards his own drop pod, following Feurer in and watching him interface with his own A.W.E. "See if you can keep up, Jerry," Richard said, using the racial slur as more of a playful jibe than an actual insult. Across from Wolf, the DEMON was kneeling, as if in supplication to a lord, one arm on the floor and the other across his chest. With a snap of his armoured fingers, the front of the DEMON seemed to dissolve as the nanites broke apart to reveal an empty chest cavity. Ternung around, Richard gripped one of the support struts and hauled himself in, moving his limbs to the appropriate positions. As his back contacted with the gel-lined insides of the machine, multiple spikes fired out and stabbed into the ports in the interface suit, the nanites reforming over Richard's chest. With a low gurgle, fluid pumped into the gel-lined vessels of the pilot's cavity, expanding the systems so that it fitted to Richard's body, before solidifying. Slowly at first, the DEMON rose up, Richard's head seemingly misshapen as his HUD remained informed. Flexing his arms and back, the Englishman let out a grim smile as he ensured he would be at full combat efficiency. As a melee model, maneouvrability was everything to him. +Complete preparations+ he subvocalised into his personal comms,. Hearing his command, his machine completed final checks, loading ammunition batteries into his STINGERS while feeding energy briefly into his RIPPERS. He could feel the nanites rippling accross the surface of his A.W.E as they received a surge of power, and they quickly made their way to his face, slowly covering the Englishman's visage with a bulbous nodule of pure black...until they turned on their holographic systems. With a sudden flash, Richard's face was replacd by the image of a flaming, horned skull which leered at everything and anything in his way. The holographic flames lit up the room as Richard turned around, slapping his chest with each arm to make sure everything was secured. +Perfe-perf-ct+ he said, the voice distortion system coming into play, +let's go hunt -let's go- some Saurids -hunt some-...+

Climbing into the gunmetal grey interior of the drop pod, Richard locked himself into one of the crash harnesses located along the walls, between the five petal-like doors. Pulling the straps over his A.W.E. and tightening it so that it pushed him into the wall, the Englishman looked out into the central spire that dominated the drop pod, a single pillar that . Making sure he could still reach the controls in front of him and read the console above him, Richard watched Wolf climb in and make himself comfortable as well. Reaching out, the Englishman punched a few more keys into the console, linking his pod with those of his squadmates and bringing their statuses onto his console. +Sound off+ he said into the pod comms, having turned his voice distortion off. One by one, the different pods sounded off, and Richard let out a satisfied grunt as he keyed in a few more runes over the console. +Well then, Team Rapid will be heading down first.+ he said as he reached over to one of the buttons along the side of the central spire. The drop pod was a standard design, build to deliver a fireteam of five men into battle, or, in this case, two A.W.E.s in somewhat cramped conditions. Thankfully, this meant that Richard was able to reach the majority of the controls.

Flicking the switch, there was a low drone as the conveyors hidden under the drop pod trundled them towards the launch bays. The Rapid pod was silent as they felt the tiny vibrations of their ride reaching its terminus. A countdown appeared on their HUDs as their pod was fitted into a firing barrel. 3...2...1...With a sudden lurch, the pod was fired from the barrel like a bullet from the gun, and Rapid found itself hurtling rapidly towards their deployment positions. The G-forces would have caused an ordinary man to faint already, but the shielding of the A.W.Es provided protection as they rocketed towards terra firma. The pod shook and shifted as the atmosphere gripped them in its turbulent fist, and if it weren't for the harnesses, Richard would already have been knocked unconscious. The air in the pod started to heat up as atmospheric entry burned up the outside of the pod, the metal doing what it could to conduct the heat away, but nevertheless letting some leak through. Once again, Team Rapid remained silent.

With a sudden clarity, their pod stopped shaking. They had entered past the atmosphere...but then it seemed to open up a new type of problem. With a sudden smash, their pod shook even more violently than before. Grunting in surprise, Richard opened up the external pict-capturers and got a hazy view of the ground. Some sort of projectile was being fired towards them...and in great numbers. Once again, their craft shook as something smacked into their rear. +Theres frakking AA fire!+ Richard shouted as he assessed damage, +rStarboard reverse thruster is out...and gyroscopic stabiliser is in bad condition! Taking over manual control!+ Smashing the autopilot key as if in anger, the Englishman grabbed hold of a pair of handles. The Drop pod was usually just a single straight line down from orbit, but in the event of something like this, a pilot could take the controls to exert some control over their descent, if only a slight increase to horizontal thrust. Yanking backwards as their pod started to list, the thruster fired and Richard managed to right them, but just as he did so, another round smashed into the bottom of the drop pod, shaking the crew compartment, and causing Richard to lose control for a second. Hurtling end over end, the two members of rapid had no more idea of their orientation, but nevertheless, Richard fought for control over their gyrating craft as his face turned red from effort. Managing to stabilise them, Richard looked down into the pict-caster. "SHIT!" he shouted, the word echoing through the compartment as his speaker screamed. They had cleared cloud cover, and were about to hit ground. Literally ripping his harness off with his claws, Richard took a faltering step forward as he fought for balance. With half of his thrusters gone, he would have to start the reverse early if they wanted to stay in the shape of a human. Yet at the same time, he had to fight for control over the ship. Yanking back on the two control rods to reorient themselves, the Englishman reached for the emergency reverse thrust, but he couldn't reach as the G-forces pushed him back. "COME ON!" he shouted as he stretched. Just then, there was a flash of movement, and the lever was ripped down, and out of its socket...but it did the trick. Like a banshee released from her prison, the thrusters screamed out. Now falling below the depression angle of the AA fire, the giant globs of bioacid stopped their assault and the drop pod fell to the ground like a heavenly arrow. "Brace for impact!" Richard shouted as he yanked back on the controls.

With a thundrous crash, the drop pod slammed into the earth, creating a small impact crater. With little time to spare, saurids already started to swarm around the foreign object, trying to pry it open with their talons. Without warning, the five metal doors opened like some sort of absurd metal flower, quickly followed by five sharp bangs as bolts of shrapnel fired outwards, shredding every creature within a ten meter radius. From out of the smoke stepped the form of DEMON, hunched over, but bloodthirsty. +Team Rapid down...twenty meters off course...orders?+ he asked as he breathed heavily. The Saurids, taking notice of this new enemy, chittered and swarmed towards Richard. With a feral scream of his own that would have cowed any sentient creature, Richard unsheathed his claws and prepared to meet them in the sinews of melee combat.