_Thunk!_
Adrian heard the impact of a marksman’s rifle on the shell of his GEAR and immediately swayed as he searched for the source. A second shot landed at the edge of his camera as he picked out the muzzle flash of the offending weapon. The sounds of battle echoing through the cavern rendered his machine’s audio monitors virtually useless. Fortunately, he had no need for them, when his target was in visual contact.

“Alright, go, go,” a voice came over the external audio, followed by the scraping sounds of magnetic objects sticking onto the GEAR’s armor. Upon realizing what had happened, Adrian felt a swell of frustration, more than any other emotion. 

“Seriously? When? For fuck’s—” He growled, muted his GEAR’s microphones, and braced against his seat’s heavy restraints. He was just in time to ride out the blast of multiple explosives on the upper half of his GEAR. The curvy frame of the L-68, while not incredibly robust as far as a GEAR was concerned, performed admirably in deflecting the force of the explosion. When the dust settled the GEAR had taken damage and the pilot’s face was red with embarrassment, but both were still in working capacity. With a sigh, Adrian backed into the mine’s tunnel, where a sure roof sat over his head, and swapped his pistol for his rifle. “I guess I’ll look _up_ next time,” he grumbled as he stewed in the darkness of his machine’s cockpit and squinted at his auxiliary monitory. “Thanks,” he said over the radio, before he took up a position to cover the cabin and its surrounding area.