Near the bombed-out husks of glorified land battleships, the two remaining functional NC's, and their pilots, couldn't help but feel something. Even the Swarm was giving off a vibe...
They weren't alone.
Elizabeth could feel something, sitting inside the cockpit. That feeling she'll get accustomed to as time goes on, that.. unexplainable sixth sense. Joe, while to a lesser extent, could 'sense' something too.
Again.. they weren't alone.
Their fears were confirmed. The Captain frantically notified them. "Holy... Swarm! Blur! Dodge!"
As Swarm's joints were partially blocked, the best Joe could think of was to promptly fall onto the ground, face first.
In hindsight, that was a terrible idea. Underneath the sand, a burrowing.. thing revealed itself, and before Joe could even react he saw right in front of him two massive heat-blades cut off his NC's head from below the dunes, then retreat back underground.
Eli very nearly shouted again, going rigid when the captain's order blared through the NC's comm lines and into her head. Still ,her reaction was quick nonetheless, and she darted to the side, away from the Mad-E and hopefull whatever threat had spooked command.
"Great, now I'm blind and deaf." Joe commented on the dire situation, as if it all was just a game.
A voice, filled with... nostalgia, yet an unfamiliarity came on the comms, a radar blip blinking in and out of existence right underneath them while the new contact at least introduced himself.
"Hmm, may the best pilot win.", and the Captain warned again. "Get off the damn ground immediately! We'll use your sensors to scan remotely, focus on dodging! Joe, back-up sensors should come online... now."
Their predator decided that the heartier prey wasn't worth it at this time, before going for the more enjoyable hunt and kill.
As the backup sensors were finished initializing and calibrating, Joe used them to try to stand up again. The rather immobile joints made it all the more difficult, but after a minute of continually shifting weight, balance and slow progress, he made it.
As the Swarm was getting back up, Blur presumably scanned the area around itself in panic. Little did the pilot know that she should've been looking down. A heat-based talon stabbed into her NC's left leg from behind, right into a leg-mounted thruster, and tried to rip the leg off.
Eli watched in muted horror as the Swarm was decapitated, and it took a moment for memory to kick in that the cockpit wasn't in the head. As Joe got the Swarm back onto its feet, her hesitation cost her dearly, and she felt a sudden numbness in the back of her leg, followed by an involuntary drop to a kneel.
She grabbed her blade from its hold on her back, ignited it and tried to swing blindly at the ground behind her.
"Kneel before-" was all their assailant got to say before the tip of its' talon was cut off. "Playtime's over!" he chuckled in retaliation. Their new enemy revealed itself in full, mainly by thrusting out of the damn ground and pointing its' two scythe-like arms at the Blur's shoulders, bringing it along for a ride into the lower atmosphere before turning off its' blades and throwing her down into the ground.
Who the hell is this guy?
Joe meanwhile tried to run away, but the blocked joints turned the attempt into a slow walk. He had no functioning weapons whatsoever, so the only option was to run. While he ran, he unintentionally didn't limit the joints to their new physical limit, putting immense stress on the joints and what was blocking them. In time, the soil that got inside was squeezed out, and the malformed armor malformed even more to not get in the way of the joints' movements. The joints themselves were ruined as well though, and while they regained their flexibility, lost their speed.
Get off the ground, now it made sense, dammit. Blur was in the air before she knew it, and before she had the opportunity to try and open comms with the assailant, she was plummeting back to earth. The impact sent a wave of equally unsettling numbness along her spine, and it almost felt as though the actual wind had been knocked from her lungs.
Snapping back her composure, Eli rolled Blur onto its stomach before leaping back to its feet. She ignited the other blade, mounted on her left wrist, and glared up at the other NC.
"This is NC Blur of Smith's Rest, identify yourself," she barked into the comms. It became fairly evident at this point her only option was to hope the Swarm either got away or found some method of getting itself back into the fight.
On a seperate line back to command: "Captain, requesting any information on the airborne tunneling NC."
"Scans suggest it's suited for extremely quick maneuvers, and lightning fast CQC combat. Even at mid-range you're just gonna have to react quicker then him, shoot his arms off as a priority!"
Their enemy scoffed, "Gee, she sounds familiar. Your encryption is terrible. Is that Sophie?"
"WHO THE HELL IS THIS?!"
While running away, Joe recalled, that there was an unaimed firing mode for the missiles. He only had one single volley left and was unable to reload, so he had to make it count. He stopped, turned around, and ran back. He wanted to be at point-blank range while firing the missiles, to ensure hits. Joe attempted to use the ancient RSA encryption method to establish an almost 100% secure low-bandwidth connection to Blur.
RSA is a 2-key encryption method, one key is public, and can only be used to encrypt messages, while the 2nd key is private, and not to be shared with ANYONE, even those you are communicating with, and it can only be used to decrypt messages. This way of encrypting was 100% safe, so long as you yourself are not hacked, but it was slow, and thus unable to be used for voice or even video transmission.
"Distract him, I'll try to get close for my last attack this fight." The text message appeared on Eli's HUD. Joe then used the same encryption to send "This is my last attack, I could only try to fistfight without fists after this, so I'll retreat."
Eli's focus flicked to the message Joe had sent her, and hoped that it was either hidden or that the other NC wasn't paying attention.
Blur's engines revved to life once again, minus one on her leg, and she ascended to level with the enemy. One engine wouldn't do too much to her flight capabilities, but she would have to avoid many more similar incidents if she wanted to remain airborne for long.
"This is NC Blur Smith's Rest," she said, trying once again to contact the other NC. "Identify yourself, and leave the area, or we will use lethal force to remove you. Smooth, Eli, that'd convince him.
Meanwhile, Joe attempted to use the wreckages of the former tanks to stay out of the enemy's sight, to get as close as possible unnoticed.
Both still in the air, the enemy was seemingly at a slight disadvantage. He boosted towards the Blur and went for another 'slam attack' or whatever the hell he did before, having the talons swipe downwards from above the Blur at close range, trying to grab on and then boost downwards, preferably cracking the cockpit. That would've been horrible.
He would've done it too, but instincts are a funny thing.
Blur lowered as the swipes came down, avoiding the same fate as before, if only narrowly. Then again, that was the idea, it was all about spacing. There was little room between them when she dodged, so now it was time to see just what kind of hardware she was up against.
She shot back up at the enemy, readying a counter attack, and both blades lashed out at him in a cross-movement. Fast, but then, clearly the guy was fast as well. Indeed, he noted her movements before impact, and it was a decent shot. Or, attack, really. He boosted backwards just in time to not get cut into four chunks, but his frontal armor was stung by the strike in any case, the residual heat from her plasma-blades making an X-formation on the other NC's chest.
The other NC did a 'sommersault' afterwards, halfway-through boosting downwards quickly to land relatively gently on the ground with a counter-thrust right above the sand. "You're pretty good - just what I'd expect with the same training as Sophie, as I presume."
Joe stepped into plain sight from behind the former tanks. "Surprise, motherfucker!" were his words as he launched the barrage of missiles. He sent the words through an unencrypted voice-broadcast.
About time... Joe could just feel the surprise of the other guy as he saw the heavy NC he thought he disabled come from behind some destroyed tanks and fire a barrage of missiles.
"Fuck." He sent through the comms, a whisper of defeat. The missiles impacted seconds later as the pilot of the enemy NC resigned himself to his fate, the first few explosions knocking it on its ass and the rest blowing up its upper-most body parts.
"Fuck!" Eli's attention turned to Swarm, and for a moment she thought she might scream at him. Instead she looked back to the wreckage of the NC, descending and approaching as quickly as possible. "Don't explode, don't explode, don't explode."
"Any demolition charges should have been set off by the missiles," Joe replied, he sounded a little proud.
Blur crouched by it, trying to get as close as possible. "Command, look for any allegiant markings, who was this NC working with?" she asked, before turning her comm's focus at the reamins of the NC. "Hey, guy, you alive? If you're alive, do...something. Fuck."
"This NC seems to have been working with team B's current enemy, which... you should probably help out with. Detailed scans are showing the cockpit is severely roughed up but technically still in one piece, he's probably fine."
That was probably a lie, but he did shoot first.
"Blur, you go help team B, I can't fight right now anyways, so I'll take Mad-E back to the base on foot. If you finish before I'm there, pick us up." Joe suggested. He then proceeded to attempt to push Mad-E, as Swarm had no hands to begin with.
The Mad-E? Eli had nearly forgotten about their damaged teammate during the struggle, and now that it was over she didn't feel the same urgency as she had before.
"If Madison is dead, she's dead. We have a potential living source of intelligence here," she said, rising and starting off towards the location of team B. "Make sure the pilot is dead, then return to base."
"If the pilot is still alive, it is likely he doesn't want to get captured. I can't move to the base fast, so the pilot would likely either escape or commit suicide on the way. You are the fastest one here right now, so if you care about the intelligence more than team B, you should see to it. Unless the captain delcares otherwise." Joe not only transmitted this to Blur, but also the base, to get the captain's judgement.
"Elizabeth, Joe's right. It's just one NC, team B can handle themselves. Help Joe get the Mad-E back to base, ASAP."
"...Come talk to me when the mission is over."
"Ouch." Joe silently commented. He made sure the base couldn't hear it though.
Blur came to a halt, and Eli couldn't help the snarl that curled her lips. "Yes ma'a-" "Don't call me ma'am."
Eli went quiet, unsure of how to respond an affirmative other than "affirmative", which the captain likely understood anyway. So instead she merely returned to the Mad-E and Swarm. She hooked her arm's around the former's hull as her engines revved to life.
"Start heading back, I'll come get you once I've dropped off the Mad-E, Eli muttered over the comms to Joe. A few moments later and Blur was airborne, Mad-E in tow, and heading back to base.
"I'll be on my way on-foot to shorten the 2nd flight". Joe replied, and walked basewards.
