Whoami

Falling Skies

[Double post deleted]

Falling Skies

The Killing Fields

(Mood Music)

The Blackout's DCA caused a low hum inside of the cockpit of the MAS. The special armor trapped the heat inside of the unit to mask its thermal signatures which made Hex sweat, even when the air conditioning was cranked to max. With the Blackout knelt down to one knee with its LR-90 propped up on some wreckage, it looked like another piece of rubble within the destroyed firebase, the automatic color and texture changing plates of the DCA ensuring it blended in with the surroundings to combat the naked eye. The MAS itself was motionless. The faceplate of the MAS' head had split in four quarters to reveal an advanced sensor array capable of seeing through the atmospheric distortion and noise. It waited like an ambush predator for its next prey.

Leah turned her eyes to a screen on her right to check on the status of her funnel drones. They were all docked with her backpack unit and quickly recharging for another deployment. And they would be deploying again soon. Leah heard a chime as her sensors spotted something. She looked back to her main display, seeing a battlegroup highlighted in red on her main display. It was a whole damn mechanized infantry company closing in on Rhino and the new guy. While that might only be a minor pain in the ass for those two, the backing of a complete squadron of Fenrirs would most certainly complicate things. Leah reported it immediately over the team net, "7th, Hex. Enemy battlegroup spotted southeast of my position at Grid 366 045. Eight times Fenrirs and one full mech. inf. company. Moving East in battle formation. Rhino, Rook, looks like they're committing to a frontal on your position. I've got 'em sighted in on their flank and will engage, but I suggest you take up some positions and get ready for a slog. Over."

Hex selected the nearest of the eight fenrirs as her first target, her displays zooming in on the machine as her targeting reticle switched on. With an atmosphere and a gravity well in play, her reticle was much more complex. The targeting gratical accounted for the planet's atmospheric density and gravitational influence as well as distance and the target's direction of travel to ensure an accurate shot. The Blackout's firing computer corrected for all the variables to ensure the aiming was properly zeroed in for Hex. She heard a tone in her helmet that signaled she had a clean shot. Before pulling the trigger though, Leah deployed the drones again. They detached from the Blackout's backpack and fanned out before racing toward the APCs rushing her teammates' position. Once the drones were deployed, Leah turned back to her main target.

With a squeeze of her trigger, the LR-90 let out a thunderous boom. The shockwave from the muzzle blew bushels and tree aside, and the shock absorbers in the Blackout's legs pressed into the muddy earth below with force, causing the mud and dirt to splat outward from the Blackout. The 90mm sabot round travelled straight for three of the five kilometers between the Blackout and the fenrir. The round began to lose energy and start dipping on its trajectory exactly as the firing computer had calculated. With the battlegroup unaware that they were in the sniper's killzone, the first fenrir stood no chance. The round, a hot white line in the air, punched through the side armor of the fenrir, sparks and fire blowing out the opposite end as the round punched clean through. The explosive decompression of the pressurized fenrir cockpit signaled to the witnesses of the sudden shot had outright killed the pilot. The impact of the shot caused the fenrir to lurch to one side as its boosters continued to propel it forward. It slammed into the ground, dirt and mud blowing out from the heavy machine scraping into it. The boosters continued to fire on full, pushing it further along until a large clump of trees entangled and halted the cored out machine.

The next two fenrirs in line saw their teammate on the flank go down, making them immediately react by veering off from their battle line and taking positions behind large rock formations. "Where the hell did that come from?! Did anyone see where that came from?!" one of the pilot's asked over their net.

"Negative Two-Seven! I've got no visua-" SCRRRR-

Another round said through the head of the second fenrir, knocking it back out of its cover and exposing its core for a third round to punch through the torso of the MAS. A fireball blew out the back of the fenrir as the impact of the superheated sabot round pierced the fuel cells of the fenrir's boosters. Metal creaked and howled as the fenrir tombstoned onto its back, lifeless. "Shit! Two-Actual! This is Two-Three! Eight and Six are down! We've got some sort of AT on our right flank. No visual, I say again, no visual!"

Two-Seven lowered his MAS further against the rock formation to keep its critical components obscured from the enemy fire coming from the northwest. A small sensor arrow rose up from the fenrir's shoulder to peer over the rocks in an attempt to discern the position of their assailant. But instead of finding his enemy's firing position, he found eight small drones flying low over a tree line in a fanned out formation, bound for the transports his squadron was meant to be escorting. But the flank had collapsed and been pinned down, leaving the left flank exposed. "Shit! Hostile fast movers closing in on the transports! Unable to support!"

The drones spotted their first target, an APC charging across open ground to deliver its payload of infantry to the feet of the Secutor and the Venator. The crew of the transport heard the report on the net and began turning its turret to face the threat, but before the turret could acquire its first target, the drones had unleashed their first laser volley. The unshielded, light armored transport didn't stand a chance from the convergence of several lasers. Four glowing hot lines traced along the hull of the transport, parts of the armor totally melting and exposing the soft bodied infantry inside to the extreme heat of the directed energy. The APC ignited and rolled to a halt, a column of black smoke rising from the husk of the vehicle.

Sergeant Reymers sat next to his comrades in their own transport. He glanced to his right, seeing the turret of their transport spinning and hearing the commander give firing orders to his gunner. The rest of his squad turned their heads too as the thirty millimeter cannon opened up, filling the troop compartment with heavy whomp whomp whomp! as the transport's gun fired at whatever they were engaging with. Business as usual for mechanized infantry. But everyone could hear the crew commander's yelling become more and more frantic as the gun fired, and sergeant Reymers knew something wasn't going well. Then he spotted the sidewall of the crew compartment rapidly begin to glow orange, then white. The armor melted and exposed the crew for just a moment to open air before the troops immediately behind the melting armor were vaporized. Sergeant Reymers could barely process what was happening before he too was slagged by the lasers. The transport went up in a fireball as another one of the drone's lasers hit the turret's ammo magazine, causing it to cook up and send a column of fire through the turret hatches and into the air.

Two-Seven watched as two transports under his charge were minced to pieced by the fast moving drones. The transports couldn't afford to stop though. It was open ground and too far to the position for the infantry to dismount early. Their defense was their speed, and they were helpless against the airborne threats unless the MAS's could keep their predictable and vulnerable battleline in lock-step with them. But that only left them open to the sniper fire that picked apart the left flank of the battle line. He tried to move out from his cover to rejoin his squadron, but at he did, a sabot round traced a hot line along his front armor and took out the hand of his MAS, the cannon in that hand dropping to the ground. He pulled his MAS back behind the rocks and cursed under his breath. He was thoroughly pinned down. Then he heard a whistling sound for a split second for feeling a light impact on his MAS. An alarm went off, telling him of an impact. But after a quick systems diagnostic, things returned green. Well... Except the missing hand.

Hex watched as her stiletto missile connected with the shoulder of the fenrir in cover. Immediately she was greeted with a data feed on one display as the stiletto went to work breaching the fenrir's firewalls. The target outline of the fenrir appeared through the rocks now that the stiletto had breached the fenrir's systems. Even with the full knowledge of the MAS' posture behind the hard cover, Leah wasn't able to get a clear lethal shot on the MAS. She could send some drones, but she needed them to harass the transports to buy the Secutor and Venator time to prepare to receive them. Leah reached over and flipped a few switches in her cockpit, changing her radio channel to the fleet in low orbit as her SFCC expanded from her shoulder. There was a nearby destroyer supporting another UEE battalion as they pressed into Gelcastre's perimeter defenses, the EENS St. Joshua. Using the SFCC, Leah overrode the St. Joshua's fire control. "St. Joshua this is 101st operator Hex, 7th Squadron. Authority: Obsidian. Fire mission, over." Leah sent the loc-stat of the stiletto'd fenrir to the destroyer.

She received a prompt, albeit frustrated response. "Hex, this is St. Joshua. Authority recognized. You have the guns. Over."

In low orbit, the lower dual laser cannon turret of the St. Joshua traversed and locked onto Hex' target. Her HUD cycled to show her firing data from the St. Joshua, along with an augmented reality display of the cannon's firing line. Once the lines fell over the AR silhouette of the hunkered down fenrir, Hex heard a tone in her helmet and pulled the trigger.

"St. Joshua. Shot. Out."

Within a second of that report, a bright lance of energy pierced through the clouds and melted the fenrir down to just a set of legs in the center of glassed earth, heat ripples distorting the air around the site of the orbital strike. "Hex, target destroyed. Your cooperation is much appreciate, St. Joshua. Hex out." With that, Leah relinquished control back to the St. Joshua so it could continue with its own operations.

She turned her attention back to the rest of the battleground, seeing that her drones were still engaging transports. But the main body of the force had gone into some low ground, obscuring the Blackout's view of their battle line. "Rhino, Rook. Hex. I've softened 'em up for you. I'll maintain overwatch while you meet 'em. Over."

Falling Skies

Planetfall

(Mood Music)

The start of any planetfall operation was always the most dreadful part. The anxiety. The silence. Not knowing what defenses the enemy would bring to bear on you. They harkened back to the old beach landings of Earth's most infamous wars in history. Much like those landings, a planetfall required overwhelming numbers to outmatch the volume of fire the defenders could send back. It meant that hundreds, if not thousands, would die before ever setting foot on enemy territory. That was where the dread sank in. Not knowing if you were going to be one of the unlucky many who wouldn't make it to the bottom. The first wave always saw the worst of it. Part of their job isn't just to land, but to force the enemy into revealing their hand so that the following waves could exploit weaknesses in the defense and land forces where resistance was lightest, or where it was crushed by those of the first wave who actually managed to land and still be combat effective.

As the 7th began the initial stages of their drop, Leah sat calmly in her seat as she watched her displays and saw the thousands of fiery streaks in Skosgra's upper atmosphere, signaling MAS units and dropships, debris, and skyfire from the surface. It was in the moments before reaching the upper layers of a planet's atmosphere did Leah get a moment to truly comprehend and appreciate the sheer scale of modern warfare. As a gutter-runner on Cerol, Leah had been too focused on surviving to think about what was happening outside the city's perimeter, let alone Cerol itself. Then as a grunt, she could only see things from the ground. But as a MAS pilot, she could see the dozens of squadrons all launching from their respective motherships. The battlegroups of warships flying in formation over different planetary sectors dropping ordinance to support the assault. The flares of lingering space battles where the Coalition's navy refused to give up. The flashes of thermonuclear detonations lighting up the dark side of the planet. The fiery orange glow of massive swathes of land and infrastructure burning. Leah was aware of Skosgra's history. How it seemed cursed to never escape the century of warfare and bloodshed perpetrated by the UEE and the Coalition. It was scarred, and it would likely never fully recover.

Leah heard some warning beeps in her helmet notifying her of the next stage of the orbital drop. The cockpit began to shake and vibrate as her drop plate began to break through the upper atmosphere. Plumes of orange fire began glowing around the hard edges the shield and extending past the Blackout. The cockpit started heating up, and Leah's breath began to pick up in her helmet. The O2 additives her lead tech had put in the tank was spiking her awareness and helping her hyper focus on what was happening. Her body was jostling from the air resistance, but she remained on target during the drop. The distress call from another squadron dropping alongside the 7th came out, and Leah turned the Blackout's optical sensors toward the dying MAS as it was shot out of the sky and sent into a deadly uncontrolled spin. Leah clenched her teeth and looked back to her own landing. There was no time to dwell on the lives of other soldiers with their own missions. She had her own life to worry about as well as the lives of the 7th. Her cockpit suddenly shook violently as airburst munitions began to come her way. One got particularly close, enough to alter her course slightly.

Leah hissed and corrected her trajectory before reporting, "This is Hex. Taking fire." she said, her voice calm and cool as she got to work angling the drop plate below the Blackout to shift her trajectory and be a more difficult target to track.

Once they broke through the atmosphere and the entry flares simmered down, Leah activated the Blackout's Legion backpack. All eight drones deployed from the pack, fanning out with four to either side of her MAS. They raced forward with a high pitched howl, moving ahead of the Blackout as their lasers charged. Switching the drones to a defensive intercept stance, the drones began targeting incoming munitions and firing off low energy beams. Pre-mature detonations erupted along the paths of the blue beams as the funnel drones kept her path clear. "Back trace this incoming AA fire." Leah said to the Blackout's onboard AI.

It took only a few seconds before a AA site was highlighted on her HUD with several lines projecting from the surface to indicate traced ordinance. Seeing Rhino sight in and go for another AA site, Leah decided to take this one. The Blackout was screaming toward the surface, and as she breached a cloud, she could see without any augmented visuals the firebase she had locked onto. A warning ping notified her of a Fenrir at the firebase, armed and active. Leah shifted her landing trajectory and narrowed her eyes. "Hex engaging at Grid 361 099."

---

Lieutenant Morgan of the Coalition 203rd Army Battalion walked his Fenrir through the open ground of Firebase Bravo Six as he directed his platoon of infantry into fighting positions. Behind him, a battery of AA guns sang as they shot upward toward the incoming UEE MAS units. "Stand to, men! We've got incoming! Get those recoilless rifles ready! Howes, you son of a bitch, get your ass moving already!"

There was a high pitched howl that could be heard just moments before a laser sliced through one of the AA guns. The gun's ammo magazine erupted in a fireball. Another one of the AA guns was tracking a fast moving drone as it zipped by and sliced one of the logistics trucks parked at the firebase in two. Morgan heard a warning alert as his Fenrir received a radar lock. He boosted sideways, a blue energy beam missing and scoring a red hot line in the mud as it chased after his MAS. Then another laser coming from another angle. He growled and boosted away from that too before raising his cannon and aimed it into the air to shoot at the next drone that tried to make him dance. But when he looked up, his visual displays were filled with the sun, eclipsed by a drop plate. He pulled the trigger, his cannon thundering as the explosive round launched up and split the drop plate in two. The Blackout pushed through the fireball, black smoke wisping off of the MAS unit's edges as its knife gleamed, poised to claim the Fenrir.

Morgan gasped, but before he could boost away, another drone laser cut a line alone the back of the Fenrir's torso. A booster erupted in flame and unbalanced the Fenrir. Morgan groaned, stunned for just a second. But it was all the time the Blackout needed to close the gap. The Blackout landed on top of the Fenrir, the two great metal bodies slamming into each other as dirt and mud splattered around them. Sparks flew. The Fenrir's leg suspension had been utterly overwhelmed by the weight of a MAS dropping on it. It lay on its back, raising a steel fist to try and punch the Blackout. The elite MAS kicked the arm aside and stomped it into the ground as dozens of infantry rifles crackled and fired up harmlessly, small sparks flashed along the armor of the MAS. The Blackout raised its knife and dropped it down into the MAS unit's core. Morgan was impaled on the blade. The infantry continued firing on the Blackout as it withdrew its bloodied knife from the hull of the dead Fenrir. Behind it, another laser drone detonated an AA emplacement and its ammo magazine, backlighting the black MAS with flame as it turned its optical sensors onto the infantry below. The soldiers dropped into foxholes and trenches, and one duo was seen shouldering a heavy anti-tank weapon.

The Blackout drew its pistol, armed with airbursting munitions, and fired just above the foxhole of the anti-armor team. The blast turned the two troops into mist. It began walking toward the next AA emplacement as it raised its heavy pistol to destroy it was well. Meanwhile, the MAS's three-sixty degree sensors locked the individual infantrymen dug into their foxholes. As the Blackout fired a trio of rounds at the last AA emplacement, a volley of Stiletto micromissiles whistled out from the Blackout's shoulder mounted pod. The highly agile missiles raced up and snapped around toward the infantry behind the Blackout. The stilettos were merciless. The infantry couldn't hide from them as they approached from weird angles and quickly adjusted if they missed to come back around for a second attempt. Those that were hit were skewered to the ground and left to bleed out if they weren't immediately killed by the rifle-sized darts. A second anti-armor team rushed from a tent, the gunner kneeling to fire a round at the Blackout's legs. But again, the team was intercepted. A drone making a pass had spotted the threat designated by the Blackout's AI and streaked a laser over the team and the tent they emerged from, causing a detonation from within the tent. Another stiletto punched through the canvas of a tent and carried a hiding trooper through the other end of it, spearing him to the side of a smoldering logistics truck.

Corporal Klaussen had been in a position several hundred meters from the firebase when the Blackout landed. He stared in horror was the drones and dozens of micromissiles swarmed around the black UEE MAS like a hive of perfectly coordinated bees. On the horizon, a white nuclear flash backlit the Blackout as it calmly strode through the firebase, systematically wiping out any resistance the firebase could mount against it. Fear had paralyzed him. So much so, that even when his fireteam partner was tugging on him and telling him to hurry and help rescue survivors, he didn't even hear him. Private Venner left the paralyzed Klaussen in his foxhole and climbed out to rush toward the ruined firebase, only for a drone to vaporize him seconds after emerging. Klaussen just kept low and hidden, his eyes locked on the sight of the nightmare MAS and the drones it commanded. Finally he had the sense to do something. Reaching for his radio, Corporal Klaussen tried to listen for anything. But he heard only static. The Blackout was jamming comms. He was alone. Isolated.

---

Leah fitted the Blackout's heavy pistol and knife into their respective mag-plates before pulling the sniper cannon from its carrier pylon. "Hex. AA installation destroyed. And scratch one Fenrir. We have a beachhead. I will set up a position and begin supporting the team's advance."

The drones howled as they all pivoted and returned to their respective slots on the Blackout's backpack. Once they were all in place, the Blackout too a knee and raised its LR-90 sniper cannon, taking aim toward the city as the rest of the 7th made planetfall. The DCA plates on the Blackout's hull flashed for a moment before recoloring and retexturing to match the surrounding environment and blend the MAS in. For those not looking for a MAS, they'd only see the columns of flame and smoke mixed in with mud, gray skies, and drab foliage. The only one left to witness the Blackout merging with the surroundings was the terrified Corporal Klaussen in his dirt hole.

Falling Skies

Once More Into the Fray

(Mood Music)

Leah had chased Sabine all the way back to the hangar just as the commander was forming an O-group with the rest of the team. She caught up with Sabine, practically tackling her. "Got you, you little shit!" she said as she twisted a knuckle into the top of Sabine's skull.

It didn't take long for Leah to realize she had made a strange return to the team. Looking up to the other pilots, Leah just quietly let go of Sabine and took a step away, clearing her throat awkwardly. She huffed and stuffed her hands in her pockets as Sagan went over the details of the mission. When he got past the summary of their task, Leah pulled a notepad and pen from her pocket and began to write down the important information in short-hand form. It sounded like it was going to be a pretty hot drop... Going in with the main body, using their signature umbrella to mask their own insertion through skyfire and every orbital defense in the hemisphere. Urban combat, fortified to the max by an enemy that knew they were coming. And an ultra-sensitive package that needed liberating.

Thankfully, Hex was far more comfortable fighting on the ground, a preference that came from her service in the infantry. Movement was so much more predictable when there was solid ground below you. It was easy when cover and concealment didn't drift around and move, and one could easily see the predictable pathways in low ground that forces would take to advance. Ranges for shooting were far closer too with atmospheric pressure and friction to contend with. Weather could be a problem, but there wasn't much one could do about that if Mother Nature decided to rain on their parade. But none of this was all too different from what she and the 7th had done in the past. Plus, in the event of rain, Hex was thankfully not made of sugar... even if the sugar pills offset that a bit.
__________

The 7th was beginning to mount up for their next sortie. Hex stood before the Blackout in her flightsuit, her helmet resting under her left arm. She looked up at the machine, spotting the replacement chest plate in standard gray paint underneath the new DCA plates. Leah took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh. She wasn't going to let that happen again. She was too reckless last time. Her eyes drifted to the repaired sniper cannon mounted on the Blackout's shoulder hardpoint. Her engineering team lead stepped up next to her and planted a firm hand on her shoulder. "I trust my message reached you in the medbay."

Leah nodded. The tech smirked, "Then you know what to do. But for what it's worth, I looked through your flight logs, and you pulled some real cowboy shit in that last scrap. Nobody's doubting your talent anymore, grunt. Just don't come back to the Roanoke on a stretcher, yeah?"

Leah nodded again, "I certainly don't plan on it. Thanks, Tex."

The tech chuckled and patted her shoulder some more. "Your MAS used a ton of the spare parts the Roanoke had on hand for it. I'm sure we could source more parts from elsewhere in the fleet, but the paperwork's gonna be a bitch. You're on the mend, and in spirit, so is your machine. Don't push it, otherwise you'll be grounded by default without a functioning machine." he pointed at the sniper cannon, "Sniper things."

Leah sighed, nodding for a third time. There wasn't much she felt the need to say. She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a pill bottle, taking two pills as prescribed by the nurse before a sortie to fight the light sensitivity. After downing the medication, Leah brought her helmet up and pushed it down onto her head. The suit sealed around the neck with a small hiss. She stepped onto the gantry elevator and mounted the Blackout, slipping in through the hatch and sitting herself down in her seat. After plugging her helmet in to the MAS unit's life support, she gasped a bit. "What the-... Woah..."

Tex's voice chimed in over her radio, "Oh I forgot to mention. I got clearance to put a little additive in your O2 supply. You should be experiencing some hyper awareness right now. Take a second to get use to it, it'll keep you awake, conscious, and more attentive for the op."

"A warning would have been nice..." Leah said as she looked at her hands while curling them into fists.

"Like I said. I forgot to mention." Tex said with a chuckle.

"Right..." Leah responded, unconvinced.

She powered the Blackout on and went through all of its preflight procedures before walking it out to join the rest of the 7th. She stepped onto an empty drop plate and locked the MAS in position for a launch. As she did, she listened over the squadron net as Sabine recounted the harrowing drop of Targovo. That was a wild ride, one that resulted in Leah being forced to land on a passing Coalition frigate in atmo at high speed. The landing had fractured the hull of the coalition warship and collapsed several decks, but the sudden emergency deceleration the Blackout had to do meant that she didn't have enough fuel to retroburn her way down to the surface. It was one fiery surf through the atmosphere before she managed to reach an altitude she could use her primary thrusters to land safely. The cowabunga jokes that flew around after that mission took a while to simmer down.

Hex didn't speak, not wanting to dredge up the surfer-bro lingo again. Hex was not feeling 'radical', and she knew mentioning any of her part in the Targovo assault would wind up with someone reminding her that 'life's a beach'. So she focused on her job, prepping the Blackout for atmospheric drop. Once all of the measures were taken, she signaled to the commander, "Hex, the Blackout is ready for launch."

Then she heard Vulture's return. It was a comforting display of caring leadership which Leah appreciate. "Understood, commander." she said professionally as she settled into her seat and waited for the drop.

Falling Skies

Patient-Doctor Priviledges Null and Void

Leah was swiftly moved to the Roanoke's medical bay, which was deliberately placed not far from the hangar for just such an occassion. Hypoxia was a common injury in theater among pilots and crew where everything needed life support and pressurized environments. The medical staff were quite experienced at treating it, and thanks to medical advances pressured into existence by a storied history of life support failures, new oxidizer drugs were developed to rapidly bounce crew back from a lack of oxygen to the brain.

As soon as she was placed on one of the bed, the medical staff went to work hooking her up to an IV and injecting her with a HyperOx pen to quickly level her out. She still had the mask placed over her mouth and nostrils to control her breathing.

Leah was out for roughly forty minutes. She stirred before she opened her eyes, her brows furrowing as she languidly brought an arm up to pinch the of her nose, only to find that plastic mask over her face. Leah opened her eyes slowly as regretted it as the sterile white lights of the medbay flooded her vision, making her quickly squeeze them shut again. Leah took a moment, slowly removing the mask herself while she kept her eyes shut. When she started opening them again, Leah was face to face with someone hovering mere inches away from her. Her vision was blurry, but the first thing she picked out was the pink hair silhouetting the figure's head. As her vision focused more, she saw that it was Sabine looming over her, staring her dead in the eyes with a creepy, studious expression while she held a cheeky grin.

"Oh, you're still alive. Dang." Sabine said playfully.

Leah let her eyes close again as she exhaled slowly. "Glad to see you too, Sabine." she said groggily.

"Well great, now I gotta call off Rhino from plundering your contraband locker."

Leah let out a puff of air through her nostrils at that comment. "You guys aren't getting access to my treasure trove that easily."

Leah shifted some more and sat herself up, needing to squint her eyes again as the bright lights elsewhere in the medbay. One of the nurses spotted that Leah was conscious and made her way over to the pilot. The nurse glanced at Sabine for a moment, but before she could speak, Leah waved her hand dismissively, "Screw confidentiality. Sabine would probably be a gremlin until she found out what my status is anyways."

The nurse blinked and nodded pensively, "Oh. Okay... In that case..."

The nurse held reached into the drawer next to Leah's bed and pulled out two bottles of pills, as well as a paper slip. "You sustained a combat injury during your last sortie. Hypoxia, due to your life support module being breached and subsequently drained into hard vacuum. We administered a moderate dose of HyperOx to combat the effects." The nurse leaned over the bed and began examining Leah's eyes, noticing their dilation. "You will be a experiencing mild sensitivity to bright lights for the next seventy-two hours. Take two of these every three hours," she held out one of the pill bottles, "And two more before a sortie to combat the sensitivity."

The nurse then held out the other bottle, "These are, essentially, concentrated sugar pills meant to increase your heart rate and heighten your breathing. Take one every twelve hours to ensure the HyperOx is running its course in your body. Take a dosage of both pills now."

Leah took the bottles and did as she was told, starting with the ones that quelled her light sensitivity. It'd take a moment for them to kick in. After Leah swallowed the last pill, the nurse was holding an Oxypen out to her. "This is an emergency HyperOx pen. You've been cleared for combat operations. If you are unable to stick to your prescription on operation, this pen will be good for four doses. Each should last you roughly eight hours."

Leah took the pen and checked it out as two slips of paper were stuck in her face by the apathetic nurse. "Your medical chit clearing you for PT at your own pace in non-combat activities. And your flight clearance. Bring both to your commanding officer."

The nurse turned to make head to another patient, leaving Leah sitting in the bed with a small pile of items on her lap. But before she truly left, she stopped and pivoted on her heel to look back to Leah. "I nearly forgot. Your lead mechanic told the medical staff to relay a message to you for when you woke." she cleared her throat and put on a gruffier voice to imitate Leah's crew chief, "The Blackout isn't meant to be piloted by a barbarian. Stick to sniper things next time, dumbass." she cleared her throat again and went back to speaking normally, "That is all. Good hunting, Hex."

The nurse left, and Leah slowly glanced over to Sabine who was trying to be discrete about her chuckle-snorting to the crew chief's message, and failing. Leah tried jabbing Sabine's side with an elbow, "Hush you. Those fenrir's were going to flank you if I didn't do something about it."

Sabine continued to chuckling more openly now as she started making her way to the door. "Sure! Sure! I'll go let the Commander know that Grognar is ready to keep on clubbing people with her cannon!" she took a wider stance as she cartoonishly stomped out of the medbay, imitating 'Barbarian Hex' with a deep caveman voice, "Hex see badguy! Hex no like puny boolet! Hex smash!"

"You son of a- Hey!" Leah said as she threw herself from the bed, stumbling a bit but able to keep on her feet. Sabine hurried away down the corridor, her laugh echoing back into Leah's ear tauntingly. Leah grabbed her prescriptions and ran after her, "Get back here, you little goblin!

"Ohh Hex angry! Too bad Hex can't catch sneaky little Rabbit!" she said in her Barbarian Hex voice as Leah chased after her.

Falling Skies

Hard Landing

(Mood Music)

Leah flew along an unsteady line on approach to the Roanoke. She took slow deep breaths as the malfunctioning booster fired on occasion and threw her violently off her course. It took a lot of focus and fast reflexes to keep the Blackout going relatively straight as the g-forces from the random impulses slowly wore at Leah. Red lights blinked in her cockpit, and a small repeating chime in her helmet alerted her of a handful of system malfunctions and errors. Her eyes drifted over to the hole in her cockpit where she could see open space through. Small fragments of debris and sparks drifted in her cockpit. She stared for a touch too long at the void beyond, her mind recalling a similar moment when she was a street punk on Cerol.

She was in the backseat of a speeding car bleeding from a grazing bullet wound to the neck. One of her friends was trying to stifle the bleeding while another raced the car. "Keep your eyes open, Jaina! Focus on me! Fuck sakes, Marco can't you drive this thing any faster?!"

"You wanna drive, Joshua? No? Didn't fuckin' think so!" the driver said as he turned his head and looked over his shoulder to see how Jaina was doing.

Jaina looked him in the eyes while blood poured from her neck. She watched as a bullet ripped through the back window of the car and embedded itself in Joshua's forehead. He went limp, and the car's RPMs climbed dangerously high. The wheel listed, and before Marco could react, the car clipped another, then another, and then veer off into a barricade. Jaina was thrown against the backs of the front seats, and Marco was ejected through the windshield. Everything had gone to shit in an instant, and now it was all over because Joshua had turned his head at the most inopportune moment to check on his girl.

Leah kept staring at the hull breach, thinking about how she could have suffered the same fate. She was lost in thought long enough to not hear Roanoke's flight tower trying to reach her. "The round she took to the hull ripped through her O2 tank. She was flying on a leak for nearly ten minutes... Yes, sir... I'm not sure about the corpsmen clearing her out yet, but I'll have the team work overtime on getting the Blackout combat ready before the next sortie. No, sir... It shouldn't be a hassle. Understood, sir."

Leah's eyes went back to the Blackout, notably at the breach where the Fenrir's cannon ripped through. As the MAS was lifted with grav-pads and moved, it looked uncannily alike the way it had looked when Leah's predecessor had died at the Cerol spaceport. The breach was merely eight inches away from shot that had turned that pilot into mist.

Perhaps, the Blackout may be cursed.

Falling Skies

Good Hunting

(Mood Music)

Leah watched as the Secutor closed the distance on the Fafnir thanks to her cover fire and funnel support. But as always, Hex was a busy bee in the squadron. She always had wingmen to cover, targets of opportunity to eliminate, and positions to shift. Anyone who said a sniper's job in a battle was to just sit back and take it easy in the backline had clearly never had to do the job. With Rabbit and Vulture moving to take out some more major Coalition fleet assets, Rhino dismantling the Fafnir, and Commie and Braid assisting other elements in the fleet, Hex had a moment for herself. She enjoyed her friendly competition with Sabine, and she most certainly wasn't about to let her come back to the Roanoke with a boast.

Leah scanned the debris field that bisected the battlelines. The Blackout detected several drive plumes in the field and booster flares matching Fenrir sigs as they moved navigated the debris to close back in on their fleet. If they weren't taken care of, they'd wind up behind the much faster Sparrowhawk and Watchdog picking apart the Coalition battlegroup. Plus everyone else had their hands tied. She brought her sniper cannon to bear, but with the density of the fenrir's local debris, coupled with her new distance and drift vector, the odds of landing a successful shot on any more than one of them were too low to justify using the ammo. Leah smirked and fired her main boosters, "7th, this is Hex. I'm moving into the debris field to intercept the remainders of the fenrir squadron that are withdrawing. Rabbit, Vulture, that'll give you two the breathing room to get the big ticket items."

The fenrirs were doing the right thing: moving in teams while others remained in somewhat defensible positions in the debris to cover the hard burn away from the UEE. Hex reactivated the DCA on her MAS and cut her main boosters when she reached the debris field. The ambient reflections off the debris would make radar a living hell for most MAS units, and the DCA would serve to just make it all the more difficult. Hex was on the hunt here, and she didn't need to move as erratically or hastily as the fenrirs did to get back to their fleet and support them. She had the advantage while the fenrirs took turns hard burning, their backs and main booster flares giving off all the emissions the Blackout needed to see through the noise of the debris field. While she couldn't keep a constant eye of their movements, Leah was able to deduce which positions the fenrirs would move to and from just by the pings on her passive sensors.

The Blackout landed on a slowly rotating piece of debris, the feet locking on its surface as it positioned the LR-90 down a sight tunnel through the debris field. Hex kept quiet and focused, waiting for the moment when a fenrir would move along the most obvious path through the tunnel to get the next, most optimal position for a withdrawal. Her trigger finger was itchy. Then she saw it, the distinct humanoid silhouette of the fenrir, backlit by its orange booster flares as it rocketed directly into her field of view. Leah didn't waste time getting a firing solution. At this range, manual was good enough for her. She squeezed the trigger, the LR-90's recoil going into the Blackout and altering the spin on the debris it had been anchored to. The round pierced straight through the core of the MAS, a cockpit kill. It immediately stopped burning its boosters and careened hard into a large piece of wrecked station, a fireball erupting as the hull of MAS' reactor went critical from a shell breach.

"Target destroyed."

"Hex, one down." she reported her progress.

Hex immediately disengaged her maglocks and kicked off from the debris, maneuvering only with her RCS thrusters to keep a low sig. That ambush would slow the fenrirs down now that they were aware they weren't the only ones using it for cover. She drifted slowly, firing her RCS thrusters only if she saw she was on a collision course with some debris. "Scan for radio frequencies reflecting off the debris. Isolate and lock."

"Scanning... Three radio sources detected within one kilometer... For your consideration: Without Coalition encryption, intercepting their communications is pointless."

"We're not listening. Arm Stilletos. Fire volleys of six at each source, saturation, spread fifty." Hex said. She could immediately hear the mechanical whir of her machine as her missile pod shifted into a firing position over her MAS' shoulder.

The sound of rapid metallic clicking could be hear as eighteen slender stilleto missiles launched in rapid succession from her missile pod. The missiles zipped out in front of her, their only giveaway to Leah's naked eye being the local star glinting off of their thin white surface. In the debris field, they would just be seen to sensors as more random pieces of metal broken off from the station. The micro missiles were nimble, able to corner with much higher accuracy than any standard seeking missile. Their pointed, armor piercing tip could easily punch through unarmored debris at their velocities, making this environment ideal for them to root out targets. It didn't take long before she received two positive returns of hit targets.

It seemed one of her volleys hit nothing. But it didn't matter. She could work with two. "Crack their comms and tag their locations. I want eyes on them. And flag me as friendly in their systems. I want to get in close."

A screen in Leah's right hand field of view began streaming data to her, raw code as her onboard AI went to work infiltrating the two Fenrirs' firewalls and systems through the stilleto dataspikes. It didn't take long for Leah to be hearing the coalition comms.

<<Shit! Whoever got Jackie tagged me with something! All systems green but I don't have a good feeling!>>

<<Take it easy, ensign. Remember to breathe. We've only got one more kilometer of debris to clear and we'll be under the fleet's coverage. We'll remember Jackie once this is over. Gabriel, the ensign and I are moving in one minute. Cover us.>>

<<Sir!>>

Hex watched her radar and saw it ping with the locations of the two tagged fenrirs. She fired her RCS boosters again and kicked off some more debris to change course without causing a booster flare. Keeping her sig down got her in line of sight of the two MAS units. No wonder the team lead wanted cover, their position was the only piece of debris in a huge open gap in the field. That must've meant the unit covering was already clear of the gap and watching from a relatively dug in position, likely maglocked to debris to reduce their own emissions. The Blackout was drifting slowly in the shadow of a large chunk of station at the edge of the gap in the debris. She traced along the debris field with her naked eyes. "If I needed a covering position in this... I'd want to be... Riiiight... There."

Leah tightened her passive sensors' area to focus a shadowed nook that was likely a shuttle hangar before the station broke apart. It was held in place by a large strut and not spinning fast enough to be useless as a position of overwatch. She grinned when her sensors detected the third MAS set up with a heavy machine gun inside the hangar. She fired her RCS thrusters again, drifting along the length of her debris until she could get in close to hangar. She readied her LR-90 and fired her main booster, cruising straight for the hangar. Landing on top of it, still outside of the covering fenrir's line of fire, she quickly maglocked to the surface and laid her MAS down along its surface. Leah fired the afterburners on her MAS, a large drive plume blazing out behind her MAS. The hangar quickly began to spin, to the point where the fenrir inside lost line of sight on his two other wingmen.

<<What the hell?! Shit! I think a fuel cell just blew out on this hunk of junk! I need to shift!>>

Leah saw the two fenrirs burning to their next position hard. She locked her LR-90 to one, and fired, the round ripping through the main boosters of one and causing it to spin violently. The centrifugal force inside of the cockpit easily pushing past nine G's as the MAS's boosters fired uncontrollably. There was no way any pilot could keep conscious in those conditions.

"Target disabled."

"Two down."

<<Gabriel?! What the hell are you doing?! You just shot the chief! Friendly! We're friendly!>>

<<That wasn't me!>>

The stilletos were doing the trick, and Hex's IFF was showing up as blue for the two tag fenrirs. Unfortunately for the overwatch, having such a well concealed position and no more line of sight to the rest of his squadron, his IFF was obscured. As far as the coalie rookie was concerned, there was only one IFF marker present on the overwatch's position. And it was blue. Unfortunately for the rookie, that blue coalition IFF marker was bringing a UEE sniper cannon to bear on him next. But before Leah could pull the trigger, a series of heavy rounds ripped through the debris just in front of the Blackout. Leah cursed under her breath and unlocked her MAS' feet from the debris, firing the fore boosters to pivot the Blackout out of its prone position and skate backward along the hangar's exterior surface as a torrent of cannon rounds traced a line in the Blackout's wake. Leah kicked off from the hangar and shouldered the LR-90, opting for her Kruger heavy pistol and combat knife as the spinning hangar module span below the Blackout to the point where its opening was in line with her.

Hex pivoted and hard burned forward into the hangar. The fenrir pointed its HMG at the Blackout as it entered the hangar and began skating along its deck. It fired off a non-stop burst at the Blackout. Hex skated forward and to the side aggressively, evading the first handful of rounds before one round ripped a shoulder plate clean off the Blackout and another ricocheted off her core, leaving a long line in her DCA plates. She raised her 40mm pistol at the fenrir and firing four heavy airburst rounds at the fenrir to destabilize it. The force of the explosions and recoil of the HMG caused some shots to veer upward and into the torn apart ceiling, giving the Blackout room to boost in the opposite direction and close more of the gap. With a main overboost, the Blackout got in close. The fenrir tried to smash the muzzle end of its HMG against the Blackout. Hex raised an arm, easily deflecting the blow of the unwieldy MAS weapon which wasn't designed for close combat. Leah's combat instinct as an infanteer was kicking in. She may have been in a multi-million credit MAS, but the fact that everything was humanoid shaped really eased her into translating certain hand-to-hand techniques into MAS close combat. She kept her titanium knife low, stabbing it upward into the core of the fenrir. She pulled the blade back, causing sparks to fly and mechanical fluids to spill out into the vacuum. The fenrir did what it could to fight back, driving a steel fist along the Blackout's core. DCA armor sparked and fragmented but held together from the pilot's feeble attempt. He clearly had never expected thing to get this up close and personal.

Leah jostled in her seat from the fenrir's punch, but that didn't dissuade her. Withdrawing the knife from the fenrir's core, Hex raised the blade up, flipping the grip and dropping the blade down right over the cockpit hatch. The blade sunk it. The Blackout brought a foot up, maglocking itself to the Fenrir while the other maglocked to the hangar deck, keeping it place against the back wall of the hangar. Leah pried with the combat knife, ripping the front armor and glacis plate completely from the MAS. The coalition pilot stared out directly into the vacuum of space at the Blackout as sparks flew about him. Display flickered, and it seemed the first stab had destroyed part of the pilot's controls. His leg was severed and floating elsewhere in the cockpit. Despite that, the pilot fought on by drawing his service pistol and firing harmlessly at the UEE MAS. Leah could hear the small pings of the nine millimeter contacting her hull. Leah had to give props to the pilot, but it wasn't about to change the outcome. Leah embedded the knife in the fenrir's leg, just so she had a place to keep it so she could free up a hand. The Blackout grabbed the pilot and yanked him from his cockpit, throwing him out of the hangar where he could spend his last moments witnessing the chaos of war with his own eyes rather than through a screen. Something not a lot of pilots actually ever saw.

Leah pulled the knife out of the fenrir's leg and locked it back to the Blackout's thigh as the MAS' AI reported, "Target disabled."

"This is Hex. That's three." she said coldly to the team.

A sudden shot connected with the Blackout's drone backpack, causing a series of alarms to go off in the cockpit. Leah grunted and, out of reflex, overboosted right. She span her MAS, sparks flying from the Blackout's feet as it skated in a pirouette on the hangar deck to change face to the threat. At the hangar mouth was the rookie MAS firing his rifle one handed at the Blackout while holding the dead pilot in the older. <<You monster! You killed them! You'll paaaay! AAAAHHH!>>

Another round hit the Blackout, punching a hole through the core armor. The round passed through Leah's cockpit and just narrowly missed her head, a flare of sparks showering her as she maneuvered again to get out of the line of fire. But the hangar was a barrel, and she was the fish. She had to get out. Firing her mains directly upward, the Blackout jumped and forced itself through the shot-to-hell ceiling. Debris scattered in every direction as more of the rookie fenrir's rifle rounds followed behind her. It didn't need to be stated how dangerous it was for a MAS to force its way out of hull, let alone how damaging to a MAS' peripheral equipment it could be. The LR-90's barrel was bent, and the stilleto pod was forced back down its track with a burst hydraulic pistol. DCA plates fragmented off of the Blackout's hull, spinning away with the rest of the hangar module's debris. But it beat getting shot to hell in the hangar like a cornered animal. The Blackout flipped and burned to break line of sight while the fenrir tried to follow and keep up. Leah was the better pilot, managing to keep maneuvering one step ahead of him and keep out of line of sight while she evaluated her options.

She clenched her jaw, fighting the G-forces of her evasive maneuvers. Sparks in the cockpit showered her from time to time and blaring alarms in her ears forced her to take just a second to suppress them so she could focus. Leah ran a weapon systems diagnoses as she burned erratically in every direction. Another rifle round hit her, but the armor held. She jostled in her seat again and grunted.

"LR-90... Damaged...
MT-SmM 10DS... Damaged...
DCCM-8... Damaged...
HP-40... Lost..."

Leah cursed under her breath. But she did see a way out of it. She flipped her MAS and burned hard for the open space in the debris field. No cover. Nowhere to hide.
__________

Captain Torres stood on the bridge of the destroyer EENS Anvil. He was looking over the holoscape as his sister ship, the Hammer, burned up and fell victim to a series of secondary explosions from the Fafnir's plasma cannon attack. Torres shook his head, "Give me a sitrep on the search and rescue efforts! And someone work out a firing solution on those damn cruisers already! We're sitting ducks and I haven't heard any of our railguns fire in the past four minutes!"

"Aye aye, sir. Coalition Cruiser Scarlet Horizon locked and- what the..." the gunnery chief paused.

Torres glared at him, "What's wrong, lieutenant? Don't tell me someone failed to load the gun."

The gunnery chief shook his head, "Er- No sir, it's just... We're receiving a weapon systems override. Authority: Obsidian? Sir, I've lost control of railgun two, controls are slaved to another unit!"

Captain Torres raised a brow, "Obsidian?! Ahh shit..." he said as he pulled a credit from his pocket and dropped it in a glass jar sitting near his command chair labelled as the 'swear jar'.

"Sir?" the gunnery chief was confused.

Torres sat back in his seat and placed his head in his hand as he watched the Anvil's firing lane shift several degrees off the coalition cruiser to a single Coalition MAS in the station's debris field. "Here's a good lesson for you to learn quick, lieutenant. Obsidian authority sucks ass." he said, placing another credit in his jar, "There's one operator in our flotilla that has that clearance... Lo and behold it's one of those cowboys from the 7th- cowgirl, rather. And she's about to use it overkill some poor soul who probably looked at her the wrong way."
__________

<<You're running?! That's all you do after wiping out my team?! I'm not letting you escape! I have you! You're going down!>>

The fenrir burned after the damaged Blackout, following it out into the open gap in the debris field. It fired more rifle rounds at the Blackout, one scoring a hit on a booster. The Blackout's trajectory suddenly changed, causing Leah to gasp at the sudden shift in G's. She clenched her jaw and corrected, putting more juice in another booster and angling her MAS to rectify her vector. She kept her eyes on a monitor, watching as a line of fire slewed over her local space and begin tracking the berzerking fenrir. She listened to the tone as it picked up in frequency, right up until the tone went solid and her onboard AI said, "Fleet Command and Control Uplink established. EENS Anvil overridden. Target locked."

Leah squeezed the trigger and remained evasive while she listened to the fenrir's comms. <<Nowhere to hide now, you bastard! You lead yourself right out into the open! You're dead!>>

Leah overboosted left and rolled her MAS to face the fenrir. Then she switched her comms channel to the fenrir's to speak to him directly. "Guess again."

Right after she sent her transmission to her opponent, the heavy rail passed through the fenrir. There was a flash as the round blinked past, then a stream of sparks that stretched out several hundreds of meters, and a blooming cloud of glowing hot metal slag where a MAS used to be. Leah dropped her head back against her seat and took a moment to breathe deep and come down from the strain of high G-forces.

"Target destroyed."

Leah panted quietly and looked around her mess of a cockpit. Her self status monitor was flickering on and off, but she could make out the status of her machine. It was compromised in several areas. That rookie almost had her. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before going onto the 7th's net, "This is Hex... Coalition MAS squadron confirmed KIA..." she took another moment to breathe before continuing her report, "My machine took some hits. I'm okay though. I'm RTB for repairs."

Falling Skies

Deadeye

(Mood Music)

Leah was drifting through space while her DCA and distance kept her hidden from most sensors. She was always sure to reposition and drift on different vectors after firing each shot so her rounds couldn't be traced onto to any predictable path. Between the calls for cover from both Rabbit, the newbie, and the dozens of other UEE assets in the immediate battlespace, Leah had her hands full. Of course, she prioritized her team and her mothership, but it never hurt to spend a round to deliver a care package to a colleague in need.

Leah's main focus was on supporting Sabine now that Commie had taken up the rookie's slack. Despite the overextension, he was handling himself decently well. He scored his first kill within minutes of the sortie, which is something not a lot of MAS pilots could say for themselves. Perhaps that was why he was sent straight to the 101st. Leah watched Sabine race ahead to fight the Garmr's head on. Damn she was fast. It made covering her a difficult task with all of the sudden direction changes and rapid variation in target distances as the Coalies tried to keep up. Leah had gotten accustomed to the unique type of overwatch Sabine demanded, making her into something of a snap shot ace within the 7th.

Leah kept the Sparrowhawk in her field of view, but her eyes were moving everywhere the light MAS wasn't. She searched for booster flares, muzzle flashes, sensor feedback, and parallax against the starry void to track the Garmr units. Eventually, Leah's sights fell on one light Coalie MAS who had boosted too far out of Sabine's threat range, opening up a clear shot for Hex to engage without running the risk of the Sparrowhawk winding up back into the LR-90 shot's trajectory. Her FCS immediately calculated a firing solution and Leah wasted no time in angling the Blackout into the right position to fire. Her boosters flared as she pulled the trigger to counteract the heavy recoil of the sniper cannon in zero-G.

"Rabbit, Hex. shot out. Wait. Hit."

The Garmr came apart in two halfs at the waist, causing both halves to spin rapidly in two different directions. The Garmr pilot was impetuous however, and they still tried to use their limited boosters to keep the upper half of the MAS in the fight. It brought its autocannon to bear on Sabine. Leah gritted her teeth and fired another shot, not bothering to report it to Sabine The second round ripped through the elbow joint of the Garmr, severing the limb. Just to make sure the Garmr pilot didn't have any more fight left in them, Leah sent a third round through the core of the MAS. The light armor stood no chance against the LR-90 as the upper half of the MAS seperated at the shoulder and neck joints.

"Hex. Splash one Garmr." she reported, mainly for Sabine's own situational awareness.

Her attention was quickly taken away from Sabine's skirmish when her onboard AI announced the arrival of an elite Coalition unit in the battlespace.

"Warning: Elite Fafnir detected. Range. 8 kilometers. Three o'clock high.

Leah pivoted in her position toward the callout, seeing a bright flash and an incoming plasma beam. "Shit! She cursed and quickly overboosted to the right and back. The plasma beam just narrowly whizzed past the Blackout, searing some DCA plating and causing the digital coloration to flicker from the damage.

"Damn! That Fafnir got a bead on me. Probably backtraced my shot. Someone get its attention and line it up for me! I ain't about to let that one slide!" she said over the squadron net.

She didn't have to wait long. Rhino was hard charging the Fafnir, and a MAS the size as his with a signature as hot as a frigate, she'd have no doubt the Fafnir would have no choice but to take its attention away from the Blackout to engage the very loud and very angry problem barrelling in straight at it. Leah's sensors pinpointed the Fafnir. She enhanced her visual on the MAS and watched as it rotated to engage the charging heavy MAS.

"Rabbit, Hex. Gotta take my eyes off you for a moment. Don't steal all the glory while gone!" she said to Sabine before reaching out to Johann, "Rhino, I'm your overwatch! Keep it's attention, I'll cover you and keep that Fafnir on the backfoot!"

Leah's FCS began working out a firing solution as she deploy all eight of her funnel drones from her backpack unit. The funnels seperated from the backof her MAS and fanned out on either side of her. Leah sent four to escort the Rhino to keep missiles and other small munitions off the heavy MAS as it committed to its overt charge. The other four raced ahead toward the Fafnir to harrass and keep the MAS from being able to sit still in relative space to accurately use its oversized plasma cannon.

"Fafnir energy spike detected." her AI said.

"It's charging its main gun! Standby, Rhino, it's not going to get a chance to use it again!"

Leah listened to the tone in her helmet's headset as her FCS continued working out the best opportunity to fire. Her eyes flicked between the aiming pip and the growing energy emissions coming off of the Fafnir. She had seen those types of cannons before and had a rough idea on the output they had before firing. That'd be her metric to gauge how much time she had before it fired. Timing was critical though. As the Fafnir's emissions rose, the easier it was for her FCS to track and get the absolute best firing solution on the slender target that was the plasma cannon.

"Come on, Blackout... Give it to me..." she said under her breath as she micromanaged the funnel drones, her drift vector, and radar.

The tone went solid. "Target locked.

Leah squeezed the trigger, her boosters flaring again as the round was sent out on the long distance shot. "Rhino, shot out! Stand by!"

The energy buildup in the plasma cannon was a visible light now, a flare from the Secutor's perspective. Energy readings spiked, but just before it could fire, a thin line of a glint passed straight through the cannon. The plasma beam came out in a blooming flash as the needle-like barrel broke off and span away into space, the breakpoint glowing and melted into slag. The plasmatic explosion against the Fafnir's shoulder caused it to suddenly jerk and spin momentarily.

"Target hit. Weapon disabled." the AI informed.

Leah let out a sigh of relief, but she couldn't relax just yet. Even without the main gun, that Fafnir was no joke. She had only managed to strip away its threat at long range. Thankfully the rest of the 7th was exceptionally well equipped for a close in brawl.

"Rhino, you've got your opening! Get in there and rip that thing a new asshole!" Leah said as her funnels fell into formation around the Secutor.

Meanwhile, her other four funnels racing toward the Fafnir entered firing range. The drones immediately engaged, firing off volleys of their lasers at the Fafnir. The first four hits connected and forced the Fafnir to evade against the small swarm of drones arriving at its flank.

Leah glanced at her ammo load and saw that the LR-90's current magazine was empty. She took the opportunity to reload, preserving the magazine and slotting in a fresh one. She could hear the mechanisms in her sniper through the vibrations of the Blackout's hull. Leah watched as the ammo indicator for the LR-90 switched to green. "I've got the Fafnir pinned down, team. Happy scrapping!"

Falling Skies

First Blood

(Mood Music)

Leah was positioning her MAS alongside Sabine's when the rookie sounded off on the net, making her wince a bit and pull her head to the side as if that'd distance herself from the speakers inside her helmet. She was about to comment on his enthusiasm, but once again, Sabine had beaten her to it. She smirked, finding it funny how there always seemed to be one person Leah always shared brain cells with. Perhaps that's why they made such good partners in action, and why they were always trying to outdo each other in wilder and wilder competitions. Sabine launched first, followed shortly after by Leah since they were the first two on the line. The launch sucked Leah back into her seat, making her grip her controls tight before the inertial dampeners in her MAS kicked in. She let out a breath and immediately sucked it back in when she saw what Sabine was dodging right out of the launch bay. Leah pulled a stick hard, kicked in on one pedal, and yanked her other stick back, causing boosters to fire on three axis to spin and burn out of the incoming cannon shot's path. She rolled inward where Sabine went outward. Her MAS flipping sideways over the top of the Roanoke's hull.

She quickly levelled out with the Roanoke's plane and brought her MAS' feet down onto the hull of the ship to arrest her moment, causing a rumble throughout the ship and surely making a few of the crew think they had just taken a hit to the hull. Sparks flew as the Blackout scraped a few dozen meters along the surface of the Roanoke's outer armor. She fired her boosters and skated along the surface, leaving two wonderful streaks along the ship's paint as she boost-skated along the length of the ship. Her onboard AI quickly back traced the source of the cannon shots she and Sabine were forced to dodged, her sensors quickly picking up on the Coalition frigates and their MAS escorts. She saw more incoming cannon rounds heading for her wingman, and the ever present humor that usually followed from such intense brushes with death. "Stay evasive, Rabbit! I'll return some of that hate back to sender."

The Blackout's retro thrusters fired as its feet scraped along the Roanoke, bringing the MAS to a complete halt neat the prow of the carrier. Stabilizers lowered down from the calves of the MAS, flattening against the hull and engaging their magnetic locks to keep the Blackout in position. Raising the LR-90, Hex scanned the debris field for targets, spotting a Fenrir aggressively burning through the debris to try to get through it as quickly as possible. The pilot was bloodthirsty, and no doubt inexperienced. Its position was ahead of the rest of its squadron, and its aggressive maneuvering past the debris made it very easy to predict where it was going to be. Hex's visor changed into a targeting HUD, reticle sights projecting over the visor directly in front of her eyes. "Target: Fenrir II on my LOS."

"Target acquired. Fenrir II, distance: 6 kilometers and closing. Relative speed: +345 meters per second."

"Switch aim pip to lag, compensate for drift."

Leah watched as the Fenrir became highlighted on her HUD, and a small dot with a line tracing the LR-90's boresight zipped around her field of view. She nudged her controls, making adjustments in the Blackout's arms while the FCS did most of the legwork to track the Fenrir.

"Warning: Significant debris may interfere with maintaining a target lock. Recommendation: Hold fire."

Leah rolled her eyes. "Switch to manual."

She could immediately feel the controls become more touchy as the Blackout ceded control directly to its pilot. Leah squinted as her focus intensified. The display on her cockpit magnified with a picture-on-picture window showing a much more high definition view of the Fenrir. Her targeting pip overlayed on the Fenrir's body. She breathed deep, keeping her hands steady as she continued to track the Fenrir's evasive maneuvers through the debris field. "Come on... Just show me that pretty waistline of yours..." she said out loud as she aimed.

The Fenrir flipped sideways to dodge a solar panel, then it boosted down hard to avoid wrecked hull. Seeing that there was only more wreckage below, the Fenrir flipped back, firing its main booster to slow itself fast before making impact. Leah's sensors pinged as they detected the spike in thermal emissions from the over boost. She watched the drive plume blast out the Fenrir's back. The unit bled speed fast to avoid a reckless collision. It was a well executed maneuver, but unfortunately for the rookie pilot, it left them completely defenseless. Speed was everything, and now they were a sitting duck and totally exposed to Blackout. The line between her boresight and lagging pip closed to nothing, and Leah pulled the trigger.

The LR-90 fired, the mag-stabilized legs keeping the MAS in place as the recoil was absorbed in the MAS' knees. In atmosphere, a sabot round would've shot a flat trajectory for several kilometers. In space, the tungsten dart may as well have been sent by a railgun. It covered the distance fast. Faster than one could react without realized they were being targeted. The sabot round connecting with the upper right quadrant of the Fenrir's torso, ricocheting up and to the right before punching into and out through the back of the Fenrir's shoulder joint with a line of sparks and debris. The impact sent the Fenrir into a spin as the shoulder was torn about by the sudden centrifugal force. The Fenrir's arm came off, spinning away with its heavy rifle still hand.

"Target hit."

"But not dead. Keep tracking."

The large bolt on the LR-90 drew back on its own and fed another round into the chamber. Leah could hear the hiss of pistons through the vibrations in her MAS as the bolt went forward and locked back into place. The Blackout corrected itself and kept the LR-90 on the spinning MAS. Its boosters were firing wildly and only contributing to its loss of control. The shot had disabled some of the boosters, making the confusion more intense for the Coalition as they tried to figure out how to regain control of their MAS. Leah remained calm in her seat and kept her hands on the controls, continuing to make her adjustments while manually aiming the sniper cannon. She was tuned in, listening to the rhythm of beeps and tones in her ears that assisted her with aiming while her eyes worked with her hands to close the line for another shot.

The line closed, and Leah heard the flat tone in her ear. She squeezed the trigger again, the round quickly travelling the meager six kilometer distance and connecting with the underside of the Fenrir's back plating. The round went in, severing the main booster from the Fenrir and punching out through the neck. The head of the Fenrir detached and span away as the Fenrir's thruster plume went from a vibrant blue to a dark, rusty orange. Smoke billowed out, leaving an inky black trail of wisps in the hard vacuum of space that cocooned around the spinning, dying MAS. The spin only intensified, causing the centrifugal force to increase even more. The pilot inside would have likely blacked out from the spin if not from suffocating in smoke inside the cockpit. As the spin increased, more parts and debris broke off from the MAS, until eventually the booster pack exploded and broke the MAS apart in the flash of an orange fireball.

"Target destroyed." the AI announced, even though it was obvious.

Leah tracked her optics right, sighting in the other Coalie MAS units in the debris field as they scattered and slowed to take cover from the precise cannon fire. Leah chimed in over the net, "Hex," Leah started, "One escort Fenrir destroyed. The others are going to ground in the debris. You've got your window to advance, Rabbit. Get in close and-"

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

"Missile. Missile. Missile."

Leah clenched her jaw and cursed under her breath. They back traced her shots already? Impressive, but that also meant she had to move right now! Leah fired her retro boosters to max and disengaged her maglocks to detach from the Roanoke. She boosted backward, skimming along the carrier again and likely causing more flight violations in the process. But it wasn't without a reason! As the missiles screamed toward the Blackout, they flew into the Roanoke's defense umbrella. Several point defense turrets locked and tracked the missiles as they approached, opening up with a brrrrt! brrrt! brrrrrrrrt! that vibrated through the hull of the ship. One by the one, the saturation of proximity bursting rounds intercepted the incoming missiles until none were left to harass Leah and the Blackout.

As she backboosted, Leah found herself headed straight into the launch path of the rest of the 7th. She twisted her stick and overboosted laterally, causing her to spiral around the hull of the Roanoke and pass along the edge of the launch window. It was a close shave, and one that'd certainly make the next pilot out have a minor heart attack. As she passed, she faced the Blackout toward the outgoing MAS and did a cheeky salute with the Blackout. She noticed it was the shiny new MAS that had just recently transferred to the Roanoke. As the Blackout sailed past into open space, Leah spoke over the net, "Welcome to the 7th, Rook. Get used to the chaos. It's all we ever do here."

Her comms then pinged from an incoming transmission from the Roanoke's flight control, "Hex. Tower. How many times do we need to tell you that the Roanoke is not a jungle gym?"

"My bad, tower. But in my defense, I had to evade somewhere!"

"Do it again and I'll let the captain know you volunteered to repaint the hull instead of the EVA crews, Hex. Tower out."

Hex clicked her tongue as she took the scolding from flight ops for the umpteenth time. That was one thing she missed in the infantry, the distinct lack safety officers in the heat of combat. But the Roanoke was used to the antics the hot-shots of the 7th got themselves into. It certainly wouldn't be the last time one of the pilots did something wild and mostly got away with it. At least this time wasn't just for theatrics... like every other time...

Blackout fired her main booster again and headed toward the newly discovered squadron of Garmr units set on flanking the Roanoke. She could see the drive signature of the Sparrowhawk in flight mode speeding to intercept them. "Rabbit. Hex. I'm overwatch. Set 'em up and I'll knock 'em down!"

She levelled her LR-90 on the garmr units as slowed her MAS into a slight drift. Her armor darkened in color to match the void of space. "DCA activated. Reducing emissions."

Falling Skies

General Quarters

(Mood Music)

Leah took a lot of lessons over from the infantry. 'Invest in your comfort'. Never just settle with the issued kit, because frankly, it sucks. It sucks ass. It's the cheapest, easiest to produce garbage that was bought at the lowest price and a pilot's pay can absolutely pay for the best, most preem kit for sale. Leah was laying on her bed in her quarters, enjoying the fact that she had bought an absolutely twin-XL size mattress topper than turned her shitty crew cabin bed into something fit for UEE royalty. Just... Maybe a quarter of the size...

She had an arm draped over her face, and her mouth was hung open as she was in a deep. Deeeep sleep. It's a term the infantry used called being 'zonked out'. That's exactly what she was. Zonked out. Gone. Leading into the second crucial infantry lesson. 'Get your winks in when you can. Never turn down an opportunity to get zonked'. She was half in her flight suit and half on her fancier-than-the-rest best, and her fancier-than-the-rest mattress topper was half on the shitty normal bed because there's no way in hell that topper was designed to set on the shitty plastic surface of the shitty military mattress. But Leah didn't mind. The upper half of her body was more comfortable than everyone else asleep on the ship, she could guarantee that.

On the front line, in the midst of a fresh offensive, it's amazing that anyone could get any sleep. One would think that sleeping on the front was some sort of military misdemeanor. But that was the thing about the infantry... There was a third lesson. Arguably the most important one at that...

"General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands to battle stations. I repeat: General Quarters. General Quarters..."

Leah shot up like a spring chicken, whilst snorting to life like a surprised pig as she threw herself out of her bed!

'Be ready to rock and roll in a heartbeat.'

Before the call for general quarters was even finished, Leah had her flight suit zipped up and she was half way out of the 7th's lounge. She ran quickly, practically bowling over a few crewmen as they were rushing to their own stations. Leah checked her watch as she ran, once again nearly taking a crewman out the moment she didn't look forward for a second. Leah burst into the hangar, seeing Sabine practically parkouring her way around crates and equipment to race to her MAS. Leah was taller though, with a longer stride and a soldier's pace. She was closing the gap to Blackout. She whistled ahead of her to get the attention of the MAS tech nearest to her helmet sitting on a table. "Helmet! Toss it!"

The tech grabbed the helmet and pitched it at her, which she quickly swiped from the air and shoved over her head. The helmet sealed to her suit just a second before she was ascending to get into her own MAS cockpit. Leah even pressed the button to close the cockpit before she was even fully seated! That's a big safety no-no for those by-the-book types. With both hands, Leah was flipping switches and engaging systems. It might have been the fastest pre-flight someone had ever done... Ahh probably not, but it sure felt like it!

> Confirming Pilot Assignment: LT LEAH VESS_
> ...Pilot Confirmed
> Initializing systems...

"Come on come on..."

> Reactor: Online_
> Life Support: Online_
> D.C.A: Online_
> Weapon Systems: Online_

"Comeoncomeoncomeon!"

> All Calibrations Complete
> Fleet Control Uplink: Synchronized_
> All Systems Nominal
> Standby for Launch

"YES! SCREW YOU SABI-" She looked up from her instruments to see the Sparrowhawk taking its first step. Leah blinked and looked back to her watch.

91 seconds.

"DAMMIT!"

The wind had been thoroughly taken from her sails as she took her first lazy steps forward out of her MAS bay. Listening to Sabine rub her victory in. "You were waiting for the general quarters! I was busy being absolutely zonked okay!" Leah wasn't sure if her infantry lingo translated well into the oh-so-civilized, pinkies-out, posh high society that was the Navy. So that probably sounded way worse to the several crewmen on the flight deck than it actually was. "Ah nevermind..." She said over her MAS' megaphone before switching to internal comms.

In the laziest, most deflated voice ever, Leah reported to flight control. "Tower, this is Hex... All systems green. Proceeding to launch... Over..."