Alice watched in awe at the new ivory MAS. It was faster than any machine she’d ever seen before! It was incredible, and she knew it simply had to be captured so she could pick it apart, piece by piece to figure out how it ticked. But before that she’d need to fight off these Coalition machines. One of the Destroyer’s MAS teams raced towards the Lincoln, and Alice extended the barrel of her Scorpion rifle. The damage to her Eagle's hull had not been completely repaired, and while her shields were back in order, they would not be enough to protect enough damage as she had sustained from the last battle. Not only that, if she could even survive that much damage and come back to the Lincoln alive, Reina might not be able to save her from deresolution like she did last time.

For now, it would be best to maintain her distance, and even more than that, remain calm. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? She hoped as much as she lined up her sights and opened fire at the upcoming Coalition squad, while they did the same. She smoothly dove and dodged from the barrage of bullets and missiles, almost as if she was dancing. After several shots, she managed to take down two of the Mk II’s, causing them to burst into hot, twisted metal.

As she did this, she noticed an ejected Coalition pilot, her MAS taken down by Ms. Nishizumi. For a moment, she thought to point her rifle over to her and take a shot. She should do it. That was one of her primary functions, to terminate Coalition personnel, wasn’t it? She was almost going to aim her rifle at the pilot when Hunter requested she be taken as prisoner and Alice shook the thought out of her head. But the memory of her primary functions still lingered.

“Alice, two kills confirmed…”

Suddenly, she heard Ariana over the comms, calling for assistance. In the distance, a Ferir closed in on her position. Nishizumi began heading towards to her, and Alice turned towards her to help her. She aimed her last operable rocket launcher in the Ferir's trajectory and fired.

Click.

She fired again, and again, and again.

Click.

Click.

Click.

She let out a whimper when she began to remember herself firing that launcher point blank into a Coalition Ferir, and realizing it probably did more damage than was noticed. Her whimper began to turn into a soft growl before she held it back in a huff. She couldn’t let this get to her. Especially not when she realized how close the Mk III had gotten since she last noticed. A volley of bullets were slamming against her shields, bringing them down, and forcing Alice into the defensive. Alice sped off as the Mk III gave chase and motioned to the remaining Mk II, who broke off and left her with the Mk III. It seemed they wanted to hunt the White Rabbit on their own. Not good.

“This is Alice, I have a Mk III on my six and I could use some help, please.”

Yuu nodded at Gerard's instructions, despite knowing that no one could see the movement inside her MAS. However, noticing the sheer mobility of that white MAS, she couldn't help but to smile. Experimental reactors. There was a request for the Sovereign to be outfitted with an experimental reactor, but the request got over turned during the planning phase as it was counted as unnecessary.

Taking aim, she fired the Trinity, the lasers aimed towards the thrusters of the white MAS. From what she could see, this MAS' trump card was with its mobility. Although it seems that it was just her luck, as the moment she fired. The MAS shifted towards the Sentries, causing her shot to fly through empty space.

For probably reasons best left under the table, Yuu nearly frowned as she beheld the sight of the two Sentries becoming scrap metal, debris floating around it. Quickly snapping her attention back to the white MAS, she was just in time to hear the request to soften the target.

With a smile, and a heavy, metallic thud, Yuu activated the Calamity cannon, as well as switch her Trinity lasercannon for the Saviours.

Starting Bombardament

With that as a warning, she fired both kinetic weaponry, while engaging the thrusters every shot to compensate for the ridiculous recoil of the artillery.

Trapp almost smiled to himself as he rallied out his last orders to the 7th. He was sitting comfortably in a defensive position watching and waiting. The Sentry was still pretty banged up from there last encounter so there was no need for him to go charging into the fray with abandon. He only had to causal glance at his systems readout to inform him of what happened when you got too carried away. The cold piece of metal pressed against his chest in its usual position, a memoir and a reminder of what happened when he didn't do his job correctly. He took a breath as the ghosts of the past muttered in his hands you can't save them, their going to die, why are you even trying? He shook his head and flexed his hand grasped around the throttle as it shook from an unseen weight. For a slip moment he was somewhere else as voices called out on a panic comm and explosions painted the world red around him and then it was gone. He was back in the present his vitality monitor warning about his peaked heart rate as a flash of red warned him that the Coalition forces were now in effective combat range. He cleared his mind as the doctors tried to teach him back when he was on recovery and gripped the controls with more vigor than before the shaking in his hand subsiding. He had a job to do, he could run away from the past later.

As his targeting computer started to whine and targets started to become highlighted in front of him. He braced the M90 into a sustained firing position as his fingers squeezed the trigger. Spiraling packets of death was thrown forward from the autocannon sending them into the approaching force. Having no intended target the effective blast was in none way shape or form taking any of them out but effective suppressing fire was something that some pilots took for granted. It was a lot harder to concentrate on your intended target when somebody else with throwing rocks at you and calling you names or in Trapp's case sending hot death to graze your shields. Though apparently his actions had drawn a friend as a MK II was soaring forward to meet him. A three round burst fired from the A70 hit into the shoulder of the sentry followed closely behind by another one.

<< Shields: 75%

Trapp responded in kind slamming his thrusts to the side as the next volley came in. The speed was slower than he anticipated due to the damage already done to the thrusters from before and he barely made it out of the way in time. Trapp brought the M90 up and focused down his target putting his trajectory a little bit ahead of him to compensate for any movement he let out a long burst. Luckily for Trapp the Coalition pilot moved in just the direction that the UEE pilot wanted as the MK-II's head snapped back as several high velocity rounds found there way home. Trapp had one opening and he intended to use it as he pulled the trigger and fired straight into the chest of his currently stunned opponent. Finally he pierced through the Coalition heavy armor and hit home as he saw a flash as the MK-II's reactor went critical and when the light subsided all that was left was the shattered remains.

"This is Odin, one more down!" Trapp called over the Comm as he pulled the Sentry back towards the Lincoln. He had been lucky on that one and the MK-II had done little actual damage to him but he had still gotten hit. He was sloppy and sloppy out here got you killed. He rotated his MAS searching for other targets but before he could home in to chase another Coalition pilot Alice's voice came over the Comm. He checked her Squad indicator on his radar and made some quick calculations in his head. Accounting for the damage engines he was just in range to be able to intercept the MK-III. He would have to push the Sentry though and looking down he let out a curse. It seems that the crew chief had been correct about the reactor leakage as the numbers in front of him had steadily dropped over the period of time he was outside the Lincoln.

<< Reactor: 68%

He would have to worry about that later though because it seemed the Coalition pilot was not going to give up on the White Rabbit. The wolf and the hare Trapp mused grimly to himself as he floored his thrusters and give them as much juice as he could manage. He soared after the MK-III and Alice on a straight line intercept path and judging from his current speed he would be upon them soon. He raised the M90 as he did and waiting for his targeting computer to give him a lock as he approached closer and closer. Come on baby, come on baby, come on Trapp thought to himself as he glanced down checking the reactor which in its damage state did not appreciate the stress he was throwing on it. The numbers were dropping faster than he wanted. If you couldn't save us... how can you save her? Trapp gritted his teeth trying to keep the voices out of his head as he drew in closer, and just a little bit more. There was a hum and a flash of green as the Targeting computer acquired a trajectory. "You don't touch my men!

Trapp muttered to himself silencing the voices in his head as he pulled the trigger. The entire Sentry shook as Trap let lose all he had into the MK-III the M90 launching round after round into its back. The assault must have caught its attention as it spun around breaking off from Alice to face Trapp. Trapp took a breath as he watched the MK-III fling a bolt of plasma his way and Trapp pulled hard the bolt soaring to his left. As he moved the MK-III pushed forward closing the distance and letting out another volley. This one grazed by the Sentry's shields enough to make them flare up as Trapp scrambled to make corrections. The shields flared and dropped to fifty percent as Trapp fired another volley into its side pulling away. Trapp muttered something under his breath an eye still on his reactor status as cut his thrusters downward dropping him below the MK-III as it charged for another run at him at the last moment. Coming up behind the MAS he flipped a switch and fired two Claymore Missiles straight at the MK-III, the Coalition pilot turned around with good reflexes and manged to shot one of them out of the sky but the other one hit home.

<< Reactor: 53%

Trapp panted watching the explosion clear hand still on trigger waiting. There was a shift as something charged out of the explosions wake, the MK-II. It was clearly damaged and seemed to be intent on taking his opponent out with him as it switched out its rifle for its energy saber charging forward. Trapp raised the M90 and fired as it approached but even with the damage the others had already accumulated to it, it still flew forward. Trapp cursed under his breather as he reloaded the M90 before letting into it again. Die, die, die! Trapp thought to himself as it neared closer and closer, it was almost there it just needed a few more good hits. Moments later There was a lurch as the Sentry shook as the two collided with one another hard. A warning single activated as his shields stuttered before something found its way home in the lower body of the sentry. The two MAS were entangled together, the energy saber embedded hilt deep inside the Sentry and Trapp who now had the M90 barrle basically pressed against the head of the MK-III. Trapp acted on instinct as the MK-III pulled an arm out to plunge it back in, having missed the reactor by inches barely. Trapp knew what he was about to do was stupid, but when all else failed all you had left was stupid.

He pulled the trigger and emptied the M90 straight into the head of the MK-III. There was a shudder as the concurring blast from the autocannon at this range was close enough to damage the Sentry as well but the commander was not thinking about that at the moment. Moments later the MK-III "head" shattered and Trapp grimaced as whoever was inside had surely been pulverized. Trapp pushed his thrusters back as quickly as he could to get out the blast radius as the MK-III went critical but due to him being impaled and also with the damaged thrusters he didn't make it just in time. The outer edge of the explosion caught the Sentry and sent it flying into a tumble away from the Linclon and towards Jehan. As Trapp fought to recenter the MAS he noticed out of a corner of his eye that the MK-II that had pulled off from Alice before had come back and was now hurtling right towards him. This did not look good at all.

"MK-II on my six and I'm a little fucked right now!" Trapp called out in frustration as he continued to tumble further and further away from the Lincoln.

<< Reactor: 33%... 32%....31%.....30%
<< Armor: 55%
<< Shields: N/A
Warning Mass Lock with Jehan in T-minus five minutes

Trent's Rules of Space Combat:

Rule 1: Immediately get above, or below, the plane of battle.

It was something he remarked on occasionally, though rarely was it implemented. Static battlefields had been ingrained in the mind of every military commander since before man had taken to the stars, and no matter how much they tried it took admirals and generals, the best of them, to stop them from seeing the battlefield as a lateral plain. So it was that as the group started to break up into their defensive patterns, throwing themselves into the fray, that Tom Trent dove. Screaming underneath the field of battle until he was far enough away to get some perspective, his hands worked on autopilot to make miniature adjustments to his trajectory while he took a good long look at the situation.

Defense for a sniper was a combination of overwatch and threat analysis. The new machine was obviously the largest threat on the battlefield but there were the cogheads stepping in to study it, which meant Tom didn't have much to help it with. Tom's method of acquisition included 'put a hole in it big enough to make it stop', followed occasionally by 'put enough smaller holes in it to make it stop'. Capture, interrogate, reverse engineer...none of these were things that Tom was any good at or had any interest in. He was a flyboy and a marksman, plain and simple. And as the hotsy-totsy little firecracker of their group dove in to save the rookie, the marksman side of things saw a golden opportunity to fulfill that command from on high.

"Don't you worry, darlin'." He was already drawling into his microphone, tongue between his teeth as he magnified the target on Maki's tail, waited for it to break into a pattern to close distance...

"Not about to let some Coalition kid get there before I do."

Lightning.

The shot speared through the unit from collar bone to hip and punched right out the other end--if it was a comfort to anyone, the pilot probably hadn't even realized he'd been hit by the time the green bolt vaporized him, exciting his molecules until the energy between them was greater than the energy holding them together. Did time slow down, in that moment of death? Would sensation somehow transcend the nervous system, a moment of physically unimaginable pain transcending simple limitations to achieve some lingering meaning or horror before death, perhaps even into the afterlife?

Nah. Probably just a matter of light's out.

Fire and move, fire and move. Better than any sniper on foot, the Mosquito careened through space at dizzying angles to get away from its marked firing position and still managed to search for a new target--parallel processing was a bitch, Tom thought with an idly smile around his tongue as he flicked down towards the middle of the battlefield, harder to spot for his distance from the line of scrimmage that was the defensive perimeter of the Lincoln. A risky maneuver but he thrived on risky maneuvers, and out of range of all but the most dedicated opposition...

His attention flicked to Trapp, watching the glimmer of him slide through space even as his tactical readouts spat all sorts of information out at him. It scrolled across the screen faster than he could read, useless as ever...but not useless was the red line that had already pierced the Mk II on approach to him, its coordinates locked and triangulation already beginning to occur from the targeting systems. The firing time wasn't stellar--there might have been some bleed through in the energy systems, he would have to note that to the egg-heads--but he flicked a finger to the Tesla drive to compensate. Cutting it momentarily, momentum in space carried him along at an even clip as he tried to get past the tangled that was Gerry and his new dance partner.

"Come on, come on..." He hummed idly to himself, idly amused that Trapp would call the rest of them out on their shit but completely ignore his own, getting in that close to blast up a Ferir just because it was on the tail of his squad-mate. Like it wasn't their job to get shot at. Obvious enough that the man had some guilt issues from his little speech back on the ship, but that was no reason to leave him hanging.

"Don't worry, Mama, I'm not about to let the old warhorse go down..." He smirked, the drive's boost bringing the Arbalest back online in record time. A quick jet to clear the fray and move past the obscuring shrapnel of Yuu's Calamity Cannon--that beast of a gun--and it was all green light and dropped Ferir. Not as clean as his first move, the blast still took out the upper half of the machine. If the pilot was lucky, he might even have survived long enough to get sucked out into space and processed as a prisoner. If he wasn't blown apart during the combat first.

Who could say.

"Eye in the sky reporting in." He drawled as he flicked over the Tesla drive and shot backwards with a sudden jerk of inertia, his padded piloting harness jerking against his chest as he screamed backwards towards the Lincoln. He'd made two shots out of position, so it was time to get back behind the bruisers--Wes was a much easier target. Besides, the man liked being shot at. The few missiles that had been streaking for his location were left behind, detonating hard on a scattered burst of flares that made Trent smirk a bit in his suit. "Two dead birds, two chickens out of the fire. Anybody got something fun for me to light up yet?"

This White MAS danced easily out of the way as ballistic shells flew past it, crashing into the shielded hull of the Lincoln behind it. Winding through the glowing lines of tungsten created by the Lincoln's point defense turrets, the White MAS's shoulder mount dipped, as it aimed the thin barrel at the breach in the Lincoln.

"Oh no you don't!" Gerard shouted as he took a swing with his Ravager, its plasma lined edge cleaving a glowing blue line across the deep void of space. The lateral swing scraped gently across the hull of the Lincoln, leaving a slight glowing trail before heading straight towards the white MAS's shoulder.

With an almost impossible insight, the White MAS slid out of the way at the last possible moment, turning to face the attacking Marauder. As the White MAS turned, Gerard could see an intricate red rose painted onto the left shoulder plate of the MAS, with a thorny stem wrapping around the flower. The flower was a well known symbol of a Coalition ace.

'I know that symbol...' Gerard muttered to himself as he almost instantly spun around and brought his axe into a defensive position, the long shaft covering his body, 'rose...rose...Rose de Ilya!' The memory finally surfaced as he adopted a more defensive position. He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. This...this was the person responsible for the taking of the UEE fortress world of Lisat...so many lives, lost that day. He opened up a channel to Yuu. "Echo...I'm going to need your support here...and lots of it," he said as he gripped the handle of his axe tighter. He was confident in his skill...but this pilot had caused the downfall of an entire world...he was not going to take any chances.

The White MAS fired its shoulder mounted weapon at the Marauder, a large, bright bolt of energy flew from the weapon, barreling towards the Marauder. Its shape and speed said plasma bolt, buts its tracking ability said missile Already tightened to a hair trigger, Gerard blasted his thrusters as soon as his eyes registered the shot. Rising up, he expected the bolt to simply fly past him, but instead, it followed up. "Mon dieu!" he exclaimed as he rolled away, the plasma bolt barely searing past him and leaving a scorch mark against his gleaming shoulder plate. With no time to think he dived straight back down at the Rose, taking a cautious horizontal swing with the blade.

Backing up out of the way, the White MAS easily dodged the swipe. Surging forward immediately afterwards, the White MAS lunged with its glowing claws, intent on stabbing them through the Marauder's cockpit. All the while, it opened up with its EKP cannon, sending a dozen plasma sheathed slugs flying in the direction of the Soverign.

He had expected the strike to miss. Bringing up the Ravager to block, he interposed the head of the axe against the business end of the claws, letting the force slam it against the cockpit. Grunting as he felt the alloy give a little, he instantly followed up with a left armed punch...or so it seemed. A moment before impact, he fired the grapple system, letting the electromagnet out at almost super sonic speeds, seeking to pull the MAS to his pace.

The White MAS moved to block, its arm getting caught by the grapple. As the Marauder began to pull on it, the White machine discarded its EKP cannon and drew a beam saber out of its waist, slicing through the wire. Falling back, the White MAS grabbed at its EKP cannon with the clawed arm, allowing it to continue holding its saber.

A message apeared on Gerard's HUD, a unsecured comm line had been opened with him, apparently with the pilot of the White machine. On the other side of the screen, Gerard could see the pilot of the White MAS. While the white coalition flight suit and helmet hid most of the pilot's physical features, Gerard could spot firery red hair through the unpolarized visor, along with the piercing grey eyes of the Rose. The slighter than average frame of the pilot identified her as a woman.

"Not bad for a UEE pig."

As the alloy wire of the grapple was severed, Gerard pulled back, letting the cord whip around his MAS' arm. If it could no longer serve its proper purpose, it could do well as a flail...though in these Zero G conditions, it may be hard. As the Rose fell back, Gerard slapped the axe to the side and inspected the grooves the claws had left in the alloyed metal. They were deep. Not deep enough to make it unfunctional, but deep enough to make it need proper repairs.

With a soft beep, Gerard's peripheral vision alerted him to an intrusion in his comm lines. Curious and trusting in his OS' antiviral protocols, he enlarged the screen and placed it to the side. The fiery red headed woman seemed to glare defiantly at him even as she smirked, her cold grey eyes completely at odds with her hair. "Ahh, bonjour madamoiselle," he said cordially with a small nod of his head in place of a bow, "I am glad to see I have chosen such a wonderful lady to dance with today." With that said, Gerard shifted the grip of his ravager to a looser one, the head pointing downwards.

The Rose regarded him with an almost arrogant glance. "I wish I could say the same, but I've never been particularly fond of french." The Rose leveled her beam saber at Gerard, as though she was preparing for a stand off. A split second later a second plasma missile burst from the barrel of her shoulder weapon, soaring upwards a short distance before it turned and streaked down towards Gerard, at the same time, she lunged forward, stabbing with her saber. At the same time, Gerard met the lunge with his own charge. Depressing his left arm, he levered his axe upwards and met the edge of the beam saber with the plasma edge of his axe, sending it upwards before jabbing downwards with the hook, aiming to catch her off guard. At the same time, he jerked his left shoulder away and boosted, aiming to move behind her. "Shame," he said as he executed the movement, "I can assure you you are missing out."

The Rose flowed with the movement of Gerard's axe, boosting upwards out of reach of his hook. Pointing downward with her EKP Cannon, she boosted to the side as she let loose a burst of EKP rounds towards Gerard.

Boosting further to his right, he let the EKP rounds curve towards him but once again dived towards the Rose, not letting up in his assault. Striking with the pommel of his axe, he brought it around in a wide arc as she tried to dodge. "Support coming any time Echo?" he subvocalised into the squad chat as he tangoed with the Coalition pilot.

Ducking right below the wide arc, her shields flaring as the heat from the plasma edge washed over it, the Rose reached out with her beam saber, the tip of her blade sinking across Gerard's wrist. Still underneath his blade, the White MAS collided with the Marauder for a mere moment as she pressed her foot against the Marauder and pushed off, boosting away. The plasmatic missile launcher on her shoulder glowing for a moment before launching a deadly bolt of guided plasma directly at Gerard, screening her as she boosted away from him.

Stabilising himself with his boosters, Gerard looked up just in time to see the bolt of plasma searing towards him. With no time to dodge, the Frenchman lifted up his axe and blocked it with the shaft. There was a loud squelching and hissing as the plasma made contact. His shields flared as they tried to spread the heat and alarms blared in his cockpit until he shut them off with a fist. A bright flash foced him to close his eyes. As he opened them, he saw that the bolt had cut his axe into two pieces, and the plasma head was already spluttering. "Mon dieu..." he said again as he tried to track her.

"Thanks for the assist, Wizard." Maki sent her thanks over the comms as she noticed the blip right behind her drop off the console screen. "But it's ladies first, and then everyone else but you." She retorted his earlier comment as she watched him fly off to assist their fearless leader. All that talk about not getting themselves killed, and he was the one drifting off with a failed reactor.

"Hunter, in the clear and moving to assist Odin." Maki reported over the comms, moving and firing as she went, taking shots of opportunity while never flying in a straight line or predictable pattern. Trent had already taken care of the Coalition pilot, but someone had to help Trapp's wounded machine get back to the Lincoln or he was just a sitting duck for any Coalition pilot who noticed him.

"Alice, Wizard, cover me while I get Odin back to safety." Maki requested over the comms to her two closest squadmates as she stopped the Hellcat beside the Sentinel and the tow cables ejected from its sides, fired right at the Sentinel's hull.

>>Magnetic Lock Engaged. Tow ready.

Maki was throwing away the Hellcat's agility like this, but was extremely confident that between Alice and Trent, the two had enough fire power to stop anyone who might pose a threat. She just had to keep an eye out for plasma fire. "For all your talk about not getting ourselves killed, you sure made a dog's dinner out of the whole leading by example thing." She teased their leader as she opened up a burst into a Ferir, whose pilot had severely underestimated Maki's capabilities.

If firing and taking out a MAS while her Hellcat and the enemy was moving at fullspeed, it wasn't going to be problem when she was being slowed and (somewhat) stabilized by a Sentinel. The problem, however, was that she was going to take time to get Trapp to safety and her own Hellcat back into the fight. "Oi, Napoleon, just stay alive until I get this big fat ass to the Lincoln!"

“Thank you for the assist, Odin!”, Alice gratefully sang once Trapp had helped take down the Mk III. Then she noticed the severe damage he had taken in doing so, as well as his machine drifting towards certain death at Jehan. The surviving Mk II was also nearing towards him, likely to make a finishing blow. Fortunately Trent had turned them into scrap, but Trapp still hurtled away from the Lincoln. Maki headed to help him, and Alice raced as well to reciprocate his efforts in eliminating the Mk III. She went to his Sentinel and grabbed its hand, stopping his plunge towards Jehan and holding him in place until Maki hooked her tow cables to his machine and began pulling him back to the Lincoln. At her orders, Alice took her place beside the two to cover them, along with Trent.

“Odin, are you okay? I appreciate your help, but you did not need to endanger yourself so drastically. You could have died!”

She took a moment to plant several rounds of EKP ammunition directly into the cockpit of an incoming Ferir and kick the wreckage away when it reached her. She was rather embarrassed; if she would have just taken on the Mk III herself, she wouldn’t have put her commander in such danger. Of course, one’s life is always at risk in war, but she couldn’t help but feel guilty.

As she covered Maki and Trapp, she kept an eye on the skirmish between Delacroix and the white MAS. The latter machine still held her attention, even after what just happened. Then she noticed something strange: the pilot of the same machine had opened a comm line with her opponent Gerard. What would Coalition personnel have to say to a pilot of the UEE? Usually she wouldn’t eavesdrop on her team mate’s private comm lines, but...any information on the mysterious new MAS may prove useful, right?

Snooping secret files on the Lincoln computers was different than wiretapping an unsecured comm channel with a Coalition MAS, but Alice was confident she’d be able to cover her tracks. The conversation was limited, but from what she did hear, she got the sense that Delacroix and the Coalition pilot were familiar with each other. She could not determine to what extent, but that in and of itself seemed significant. The new information left her curious to learn more, but she returned to her current task of protecting Maki and Trapp.

The White MAS charged at Yuu, the muzzle of its EKP cannon flashing as bolts of deadly
energy rocketed towards her position as the MAS drew back with its claws. At the same time, the barrel of the White MAS's shoulder mounted energy missiles pivoted, and launched a pair of homing projectiles at Maki, far in the distance, the glowing projectiles rocketing through the black space towards the MAS.

Yuu narrowed her eyes, as she engaged the thrusters, forcing her MAS sidways, avoiding several blasts from the EKP, although the data being viewed simultaneously from her eye showed that her shields took a pretty heavy hit as well. Ignoring the warnings onscreen, she aimed the kinetic cannon currently held, firing three rounds, while letting loose two of her own missiles, targetting the ones flying towards Maki.

EKP rounds continued lancing through space, the glowing projectiles ripping into the missiles and causing them to explode whilst it simultaneously lunged forward and stabbed at the heavy MAS's chest with its glowing claws.

Clicking her tongue, Yuu narrowly shifted her MAS, aiming to have the omniously glowing claws lodge into the alloy shield, while simultaneously aiming the cannon, and firing it. Truth to be told, this was not her forte. a heavy MAS designed for ranged and area bombardamenr, fighting against a fast, medium to close range MAS in its own turf. The artillery was out of the question, as not only would it be too slow, but perhaps self-destructive in this scenario.

The plasmatic claws tore into the alloy shield, its burning surfaces rending into the shield and damaging the Soverign's arm, the cannon rounds flying past the White MAS's head. Planting its foot on the Soverign's shield, the White machine kicked off away from the Soverign, a flurry of EKP rounds firing from its cannon to prevent Yuu from giving chase.

What a stubborn yet skilled pilot. Despite being in a life or death battle, Yuu couldn't help but to be impressed by the pilot of the white MAS. However, that did not affect her from firing more missiles, allowing the EKP rounds to impact those, while aiming and prepping the artillery, before firing, the massive recoil propelling the destructive projectile forward, and sending the Sovreign futher back.

Ari breathed a sigh of relief as the shots from the Hellcat crippled the one about to put a few rounds through her. Truth be told, that MAS probably could've killed her. Maki had one on her six in return though, so Ari couldn't afford to spend the charge the 50s had built up on the crippled one. She sent the Astelion straight at her target and extended her blades, ready for a close in kill. The blades on her wrist were stabbed into the plating covering the cockpit, stabbing in and opening the cockpit to space with an explosive decompression, all while the blades in the lower part of the Astelion anchored her to the enemy MAS. Retracting her blades, Ari put the barrel of her arm auto-cannon right to the cockpit and fired one round, a quick Coup de Grace. She could see the pilot's face, or at least she thought she could, as she depressed the firing stud, and watched the shell burst through the cockpit, she felt an overwhelming sense of guilt coming over her. "I'm sorry...really sorry." She said to herself as she whirled around to assist Maki, watching as instead a blast from Tom speared the MAS, freeing up Ari and Maki.

The next situation she became aware of was Trapp and Alice's issue, and she looked over to find Trapp in a decaying orbit and Alice trying to recover. Maki was the first to respond, darting over and affixing a mag-lock to their TL and beginning to pull him to safety. She released a sigh of relief at this, glad that Maki had it covered. If the Astelion had been the only one around to push the bigger MAS to safety, she would've had to physically push him, possibly anchoring herself to his MAS with her melee weapons. That would be a messy solution, and could backfire explosively if things went bad in the middle of combat. The next pressing issue presented itself very shortly after when she heard Gerard and Yuu's COM traffic. It seemed they'd engaged the enemy experimental MAS, and thus far they hadn't made much headway. The Astelion was fast, possibly fast enough to keep the white MAS in its sights, but was Ari good enough?

She hesitated, but again she heard Tom's lesson in her mind "He said not to hesitate, and not to be scared...but I can't help it Tom. I'm so scared, I don't wanna die....but I don't wanna let the Lincoln die either...." She was frozen stock still at the prospect, and nearly payed the price. Her sensors suddenly pinged a warning, and she was made aware of a Mk. II shooting at her, her already depleted shields folding quickly underneath the barrage. She flipped around, halfway in a panic, and loosed her shots the moment her targetting AI had a solution. She was lucky that solution was accurate, striking solidly center of mass and sending the Mk. II flying away. This was just another painful reminder of what fear did on the battlefield, she supposed. She was lucky the shots hadn't hit anything important, but she did notice with a grimace several new armor penetrations were flashing on her screen. Consulting the same screen, she found she still had 50% hull integrity left, she was only half dead.

With a smile she definitely wasn't feeling, she keyed the COM and croaked nervously "E-Echo, M-Marauder, Williams..enroute." With these final words sealing her fate, she keyed her X-50s into boost and shot towards the field of battle, near the hull of the Lincoln. Her auto-cannon still had 50 rounds in her, not much but maybe enough if she caught a few lucky breaks. The standard operating procedure for engaging a foe that was faster than you was to try and account for that movement, using your own as much as possible to make that easier. Yuu was slow, Gerard not much better, but the Astelion was a speed demon. She may not be able to match its speed, but just maybe she could get fast enough that the speed difference would be small enough to make a shot. So, she changed course, and mumbled to herself "Probably gonna get one shot at this. That pilot is worlds past me, if I miss...." Ari shuddered and very nearly reconsidered her little plan at this, but forced herself to keep moving. She adjusted course so that she could get parallel to their battleground with the white MAS and accelerated to top speed with the X50s. She'd only have a few precious seconds to get charged and shooting, so she had to replicate her earlier stunt.

Everything was running on increased power consumption so, while with the Astelion at full steam she may've been able to skid by with dropping only non-essential systems, as it was now she had to drop almost everything. Flying parallel to the battle at her full top speed, she began acquiring a solution on the MAS, and dropped power from everything except Nav and targeting to charge the X-50s. She wasn't calm enough to hold her breath, and her ragged breathing was consuming her supply of O2 quickly, so she had to be fast. Around the time the solution was deemed ready, Ari immediately had to depress the firing stud, unleashing fast moving plasma towards the White Knight (A good name for that MAS, she figured). She was already beginning to feel light-headed by the time she was rebooting life support, and she was careening towards the edge of the battle zone pretty fast. She turned her MAS around and flipped the 50s into boost to begin rapidly losing speed. She'd be able to get back to the Lincoln fast, but she wouldn't be providing anymore help from out here, so she could only hope she'd done some good.

Despite his close call with the new machine, McKnight had little time to ponder the potential loss of his life, as the rest of the Coalition forces were upon them, and McKnight had to maneuver to face them. He watched as Williams and Maki began engaging enemy Ferir's and moved in to assist. Noticing his approach, a Mk III and a Mk II broke off to engage. McKnight breathed out deeply and leveled his EKP cannon at the oncoming enemies. As the two approached them, McKnight began firing his weapon. Instinctively, he triggered his boosters and strafed to his left.

As soon as his thrusters flared up, his weapon ceased firing. It took McKnight a split second to realize what was happening, and in those moments, the two enemy units took the initiative. Splitting up and encircling him, McKnight suddenly faced by an opponent on either side, unable to engage one without turning his back on the other- an elementary but incredibly effective team maneuver that McKnight should've anticipated. The 101st was too used to fighting by themselves or in small teams, as their squad was in general, relatively small when compared to the standard Coalition MAS squadron. To make matters worse, due to the unfinished repairs to his machine, McKnight could not effectively defend himself and maneuver at the same time. McKnight blocked a plasma bolt from the Mk III with his alloy shield and returned fire with his EKP cannon, only to be battered in the back by a burst of autocannon rounds from the Ferir behind him.

>> Shields: 40%

Against his better judgement, McKnight boosted directly upwards, his high mobility unit easily outpacing the heavier, slower Coalition units. As he did, he watched his shields drained rapidly, alarms blaring red in his cockpit as the shield capacitors hit 0. A clear layer over McKnight's unit fizzled blue and dissipated as his unit lost shielding. His tesla boosters also cut off at the same time- his unit needed a few moments to restore his shield capacitors- which were linked to his boosters due to their exorbitant power usage. Spinning around 180 degrees to face his foes, McKnight was relieved that his standard thrusters were still working. Turtling behind his shield as a flurry of Autocannon rounds flew past his unit's shielded body, McKnight quickly loosed a quartet of missiles at the oncoming foes.

The Ferir Mk II exploded in a blaze as he dodged one missile, only to be struck by the second. The Mk III was considerably more tenacious- strafing in circles as it shot aimed bolts of plasma at the missiles turning away as it destroyed the oncoming explosives. Charging back towards the Shrike, McKnight wondered if the Mk III pilot was surprised to see that he had so suddenly closed the distance between them, as he lunged with his plasma saber. Flying away from the incapacitated Mk III, McKnight took a moment to lick his wounds- watching his drained shield unit slowly recharge as he observed the battlefield.

It was a fairly desperate battle- while the 101st typically had no trouble dealing with a few Coalition units, their units were still damaged from their previous engagement, and the new White machine was having its way with them. McKnight grimaced as he watched the White machine hold back both Delacroix as well as Yuyami. Out of the corner of his eye, McKnight saw the Astelion flying towards the edge of the battlescape, X-50s primed. The twin plasma bolts fly fast, but only grazed the White MAS, its shields glowing as heat washed over them. But was successful in stopping its advance on the Lincoln.

"Stay back Williams." McKnight called over the comms. "You're not ready for this one, let the big kids handle this one."

"Command be advised, we are in no condition to necessitate the capture of this machine as well as protect the Lincoln."

---

Alarms blared in the cockpit of Maki's machine as the tell-tale sign of a missile lock came from behind her. The only issue was, the oncoming missile appeared to be more akin to a plasma bolt than a conventional missile. At the same time, the remaining Mk III along with a trio of Ferir Mk II's converged on Maki as well as Alice, capitalizing on the vulnerable Hellcat as it was stuck helping the crashing sentry.

As soon as the Rose of Ilya turned away from Yuu, she barely had enough time to put up herbeam saber to block an intense strike from the Ravager. "How greedy, taking two partners madamoiselle!" Gerard taunted as he put all of his momentum and power behind that single blow, causing the already damaged surface of the axe to creak under the impact, "surely you have not forgotten about moi?" The sudden stop of the force sent both of them shooting away into space but the white MAS superior speed let it restabilise itself and commence an attack with Gerard was hard pressed to match. Used to the feeling of double handing his axe, the frenchman grunted as he used his shortened ravager to parry the rapid stings of the beam saber, though he felt more than a few of the attacks strike home against armour plates, leaving scorching piles of slag in their place. With another strike, Gerard put the Rose on the defensive, driving the edge of his axe against her beam saber.

"E-Echo, M-Marauder, Williams..enroute." Ari's voice chimed in through his comms. "Stay out of this rookie!" Gerard shouted as he renewed his attack, slamming the axe down again against the beam saber, "you are not ready for this yet!" With that split moment of concentration laxed, the rose broke free, too wily of an opponent to not require all of Gerard's attention. "Merde!" he shouted as she boosted away from him, before firing her damnable cannon again. Using the head of his axe, he dissipated her attacks against it, but it left it a melted pile of slag. A series of rather uncharacteristic French swears began to filter past his lips as he discarded what remained of the ravager. Ripping the Scattergun from its holster, he racked it and began to boost after her. He would not let this bitch get away.

5 months ago

"Nishizumi. We need to talk about what happened earlier." Tori came to look for Maki as she sulked alone in a quiet corner of the hangar, watching the technicians repair the severely damaged Hellcat. For a machine that wasn't very well armoured, it seemed to have taken a beating that would have killed her ten times over.

"Come to lecture me on being suicidal?" Maki droned, having heard said lecture from different members of the team already. Tori just chuckled and shook her head. She probably knew that job was taken care of.

"No, I came to thank you for saving those idiots. Someone had to do it. We get a lot of suicide missions but it's not our job to die doing them." Tori replied. That was unexpected. Maki expected commiseration, sympathy. Hell, even a counselling session, but not gratitude. "But you know, that goes for you as well. Don't get yourself killed. You're good, but you're not immortal. Trust the rest to take care of themselves. Your job is just to fight with them, not for them."

Present Day

Maki heard the alarms blaring in her cockpit and cursed. Nothing ever went their way. For once, she'd like to have a day where nothing went wrong and everything just went smoothly as planned. If she continued trying to drag Trapp back out of his fall, they'd be hit by... what the hell was that thing? A missile made from plasma?

Well, a normal missile would have killed two of them, maybe one if they got lucky. That thing was definitely going to get them both. She didn't really have time to dodge it even if she let Trapp go. Dealing with four Coalition machines even with Alice for back up, was a risky bet with the Hellcat wounded. So it meant she had to take option two.

"Trapp, you owe me a fucking drink after this. I'm always covering your ass." Maki grumbled into the comms as she cut power to her thrusters and let Trapp's Sentinel drag her along into the atmosphere. The missile missed, obviously not accounting that the pilots would willing enter freefall with a wounded machine rather than fight back. "Hunter to Lincoln, coming under heavy fire and unable to recover. We're making planetfall."

"Alice, I'm going to need your help. The Sentry's too heavy, once we enter the atmosphere I won't be able to slow this damn thing down."

Alice's mind raced as she suddenly spotted a projectile on a trajectory set for Maki's hellcat. She had never seen such a weapon before: some kind of missile incorporated with plasma. Could it be a new form of EKP weapon? Whatever it was, in the meanwhile, the weapon itself wasn't as important as the damage it could inflict on her teammate. For a moment, she considered moving into it's path and taking the blow for her, as one of her primary functions would require of her. But her already diminished shields couldn't take such a hit, and if she even survived, she would have to return to Santoro and Beil with a wrecked Eagle. One choice would end in certain deresolution, the other with dead teammates and a failed function.

Thankfully, she didn't have to make the choice. At the last moment, Maki cut off her thrusters, letting her fall with Trapp into Jehan's atmosphere and the plasma missile flash past her. But while they avoided that danger, Maki and Trapp were still left tumbling down into the atmosphere, and hostile territory. As fast as she could, Alice blasted towards them and grabbed the tow cable connecting their machines.

"Don't worry, Hunter! You didn't think I'd let you explore a research colony without me, did you?"

She felt a tinge of guilt at leaving the rest of the team behind, but Trapp's Sentry was disabled, and Maki might not be able to hold off the Coalition forces by herself on Jehan's surface. No, they would need an advanced MAS piloting AI on their side for. Besides, the rest of the team had each other. Hell, she was probably more worried that she wouldn't be there to dissect the new white MAS, if the others would even be able to capture it.

With the three beginning to enter Jehan's atmosphere, Alice pulled Maki's and Trapp's machines close and out of the way of her thrusters before diverting as much power as she could to them. Her Eagle wasn't as fast as the Astelion, but she could come damn close, and hopefully could decelerate their entry enough to soften the blow upon impact. Indeed, she slowly began to slow down their fall, but they still plummeted at a dangerous rate, at least for organics.

The ground eventually became visible as they broke the clouds, and while Alice might live when they crashed, Trapp and Nishizumi were still flesh and bones, and likely would be crushed inside their MAS's from the force of the impact. Their shadow became visible on the ground, and she rerouted just a little more power to her thrusters. A few of her systems started to shut down when their power was transferred to the thrusters, but thankfully the rate of their fall continued to slow.

"Trapp! Nishizumi! Brace for impact!"

"That's the understatement of the century." Maki deadpanned as she put power to her thrusters as well. The Hellcat had a lot of grunt in her mobility, but that wasn't meant for decelerating in the atmosphere with a deadweight MAS in tow. The best she could do was to find a soft landing spot. Hopefully Jehan had deserts or lakes somewhere in their trajectory.

"Okay, we might risk bogging ourselves down for the enemy, but there's a lake right there that shouldn't hurt too much." Maki cried out, desperately trying to ignore all the warning sirens going off in her cockpit. The console was very helpfully reminding her that the Hellcat was descending too fast, too quickly, and to cut the cables. The machine was trying to save its pilot. The pilot was trying to save someone else. [/i]"Worst case scenario, we'll punch out of the cockpit before impact and hope the debris doesn't hit us." She wondered for a moment if it might have been better to just let Trapp fall on his own and get hit by the missile. It was probably a less messy way to die than being crushed by her own machine. At least the recovery crew wouldn't have a mess to clean up then.

"I don't think we have much of a choice at this point. It's worth a try!" With that, Alice tilted herself to somewhat try and aim the trio towards the lake Nishizumi indicated. While they still had the advantage of altitude, Alice scanned the horizon, taking note of the terrain surrounding the lake and searching for any Coalition activity in the area. When they landed, they would need to plan what to do next, and understanding the lay of the land would help considerably in that endeavor.

The blaring of the sentry’s siren as the reactor slowly reached critical rose Trap from G-LOC. Body feeling entirely numb and buzzing like a swarm of bees as blood began to rush back to its facilities. He had half expected to be dead by now or at least close to dead but apparently he wasn't so lucky. Out the view screen he could see a mixture of metal, green, and blue as Jehan was slowly getting larger and larger. Though he had not expected to see the Hellcat and Eagle coming down with him for the ride. What were they doing? Trying to save him?

Trapp cursed under his breath for that was the most idiotic thing he had ever heard. Risking two highly experienced pilots and their very expensive toys to save one more? What are they thinking? Flipping a series of switches he waited as static came through and eventually the backup communications array made a low whistle as it came to life. Voices filled his helmet as he checked the Sentry’s condition. All main systems were down making the sentry the equivalent of a very large and expensive falling brick. Reactor integrity was at 20% and falling fast. Alice seemed to be directing them towards a lake which may just actually save their hides if they could cool it down.

”First of all let me say you two are showing blatant disregard towards 101st basic operating procedures. Secondly thank you even though you two are crazy. Thirdly not to put any more pressure on us or anything but the Sentry’s reactor is about to go critical. So we have about three minutes to hit water before we all are consumed in a small nuclear explosion.” He explained checking to make sure he brought his service pistol still strapped to the side of his chair as the lake began to take up more and more of the view in front of them.

The White MAS nimbly dodged out of the way of scattercannon rounds, its superior maneuverability allowing it to weave through the cones of fire created by the scattergun. Taking advantage of Gerard's single minded chase, the enemy machine slowly began to draw him out away towards his own lines and closer towards his enemy.

"Gerard! Pull back! You're getting singled out!" McKnight called through the mic as he flew after him, his standard thrusters struggling to keep up as he had to avoid using his booster to maintain his shields and weapons system.

The white MAS, once it had satisfactorily led Gerard into the open, it spun on a dime and flew back towards the Marauder, plasma claws and blade ready to bear. Quickly closing the distance, the MAS swung upwards with its long plasma saber, the energy blade slicing clean through the Marauder's forearm, the blade's momentum sending the arm gripping the scatter cannon tumbling into space. It reared back to puncture the Marauder's cockpit through with its claws. Through some sort of intuition, the machine suddenly ceased its attack and juked to the left, right as a flurry of EKP rounds tore through the space it had just occupied from above. The White MAS looked up to see a McKnight's Shrike charging it, EKP cannon firing in one hand, the other hand discarding its slagged shield to draw a plasma saber.

Using some of his precious boost power, McKnight tore through space, slicing at the enemy machine with his saber. His heart tightened in his chest as he saw the machine sidestep him, its own saber prepared to strike. Deflecting the first blow through sheer luck, the second energy saber strike knocked McKnight's guard open, and he spun away erratically as the third strike cut his machine's left leg off at the knee joint.

"Fire support on my location!" McKnight called through the mic as he boosted away from the enemy, the disarmed Marauder in tow.

A warning flared in the corner of his peripheral. Shooting a glance at the warning, his computer zoomed in on an image of Trapp, Maki and Alice glowing read as they fell into the planet's atmosphere. The implications on their current conflict were obvious. Even if the three of them were to survive the fall, the loss of 3 pilots constituted 25% of their fighting forces. Even though they had succeeded in destroying several Ferir Mk II and Mk IIIs, the enemy still outnumbered them, and the White MAS seemed to be more than a match for several of them combined. If they could gang up on the White MAS, they'd be able to defeat it easily, with the very least overwhelming numbers and firepower. But as it were, the 7th were spread out, and forced to fend off multi-pronged attacks against the Lincoln and its escort ships, and could not afford to focus their firepower on a single machine, at the risk of allowing the lesser, but still dangerous Ferirs to get past the Lincoln's point defenses and destroy it.

"7th Team! Fall back to the Lincoln!" McKnight called over the squadwide comms. Opening up a second channel with the command ship, McKnight reported in.

"Command, this is McKnight, assuming control of the 7th Team." McKnight reported, "We're no longer in control of the situation, advising a tactical withdrawal."

---

ONBOARD THE LINCOLN

The bridge of the Lincoln shook, as one of the orbital platforms fired on it, the kinetic shell rumbling against the Lincoln's active shield. The bridge was a controlled cacophony of noise, bridge crew communicating with different parts of the ship, as well as the escort ships. The Gemini I's shields had failed, and several holes had appeared in its hull where orbital platform shells had struck, fire and atmosphere venting from the breaches. The Gemini II fared only slightly better, exchanging fire with the both of the Coalition Destroyers as it provided cover for its damaged brother.

"Captain, we're taking a beating." Aston stated as a fact, though she could sense the concern in his voice. "A tactical withdrawal will allow us to rearm and repair the MAS team as well as send support to the Gemini I and II."

"The moon orbiting the planet can provide us ample cover if we stay on the other side of it."

---

ON JEHAN

As the three MAS's collided with the water, Alice's scanners picked up a rough map of their immediate surroundings. There was what appeared to be a small outpost to the south, as well as a larger complex towards the north. The lake they were landing in opened into an ocean to their east, and a small mountain range bordered the west. The MAS's crashed into the water, the sudden impact overloading the Hellcat's shield, causing sparks to fly off the controls, and bouncing harmlessly off of Maki's visor. The impact destroyed the Eagle's remaining missile launcher, and rendered its left wrist shotgun inoperable. Trapp was half-flung into the interior wall of his cockpit, as the impact strained the harness, ultimately causing it to snap. On impact, the Sentry powered down completely, shutting Trapp in darkness, as a breach in his cockpit began to let water to seep into his cockpit. Luckily for him, his flight suit's comms were still working.

It took all of Gerard's concentration just to not lose sight of The Rose as she darted around. Not particularly built for maneouvrability, the Marauder struggled jsut to keep up, though Gerard knew intellectualyl that she was toying with him. Tapping the fire key as rapidly as was humanly possible, he sent cone after searing cone of iridium rounds towards the white streak but each time it would dance and weave through the rounds. The Frenchman gritted his teeth. What sort of inhuman monster was this...Of course, with all his concentration spent on tackling the enemy's ace, he failed to notice the other ferirs closing in, or rather he did, he just chose to ignore them in his single-minded pursuit. What jolted him into reality was McKnight's voice screeching through his comms. His eyes widened as he cut his thrust and he really took stock of where he was. This wasn't good. He had to retr-

At the same moment of that thought, the white MAS spun around and accelerated towards him. By instinct, Gerard raised his armoured left forearm up to block the strike, sending it and the scattergun tumbling away into the void. As it latched onto the Marauder and prepared to stab its long claws into its cockpit, Gerard smiled grimly and glared at the red haired woman thoruhg their armorcrys windows. So this was how it ended. He would not return to Noveau France, there would be no small farm, no children, no vineyard of his own. He scoffed. Of course. He accepted that the moment he put on a UEE uniform. What happened next surprised him. Jerking away, a flurry of blue-white rounds tore through where the white MAS previously was and was almost instantly replaced with McKnight's Shrike. A valiant effort to ripost by the man was met with defeat as he grabbed the exposed cabling of the Marauder's back and dragged him away. "Monsieur Mcknight..." Gerard crackled through the comms, before pausing, "...merci..."

As he was rapidly towed away, Gerard looked at the image of Nishizumi, Trapp and Alice freefalling into Jehan's atmosphere. He silently brooded. Would they be able to get the three back? With the Marauder disabled and in its current condition, there was no way he could get it into fighting shape even if he worked tirelessly for the next week. Not to mention that all of its main armaments were now gone so it would essentially have to become a brawler."Well Mcknight, any ideas?" Gerard asked as he tapped away at his controls, preparing a full damage report.

Chaos. That one word definitely fitted well with the current situation. Three of the 7th were forced to breach the atmosphere and fall planetside, while the Marauder was disabled. It could be said that the two combat-capable MAS units still flying through the void would McKnight's and her own.

Upon receiving the orders from the Captain, she gunned the throttle, discarding/disconnecting the mangled mess of what was once the alloy shield, she rapidly ran a scan over her MAS. While the shield was more easily replaced, the arm was a bit of a problem. Granted, it's use was really for carrying the shield, although in technicality she could have utilize both mains if she abandoned the shield. However, in the current situation, that just wasn't possible.

Making her way towards an optimal location amongst all the point defense turrets, Yuu couldn't help but to check on the White MAS. It's speed was high, along with its damage potential. Mostly likely equipped with an experimental reactor and Teslas, although extra addons are unknown, but most likely advanced AI of some sort.

Temporarily setting aside her musing, she 'landed' on the hull of the Lincoln, before looking towards the damaged destroyer. Using the Soveriegn as a target designator for a low-power WMG shot, that was something unexpected, and probably earned the Captain praise.

Syncing up the MAS' systems with the Lincoln's, Yuu sent the data over, with the breach in the hull of the destroyer as the target, while collecting the data on the estimated time before the cannon sent the beam of death upon the Coalition destroyer.

The silence hung over the submerged MAS like a thick cloud. The towing cables snapped on impact sending the MAS floating away like a giant expensive metal brick towards the bottom of the lakebed away from its attempted rescuers. It completely shut down more than a minute ago and all Trapp could notice was the deafening silence. The electric whirr of computer and electronics was absent, the familiar blue afterglow of their screens no longer shining on his face. His ears continued to ring the same shrill tone of the warning alarms that had been blaring constantly moments ago now replaced only with the sound of his own breathing and the sound of his heart slowing down from the adrenalin high badump badump badump. Part of him wondered if he was dead already, he very well could have been with the darkness that engulfed him. Though if he was dead why did it still hurt so much the entire left side of his body consumed in the dull pain that followed after you hit something really hard that isn't supposed to be hit really hard. He pressed a hand against his skull feeling where most of the pain seemed to be originating from and pulled back to feel the familiar texture of blood against his hand. A single deep breath as he slowly pushed himself up from a cramped position flung as far forward as he could in the cockpit of his fallen warrior and back into his seat. He closed his eyes trying to stop the drumming in his head as he listened to the slow trickle of water splash against metal as it slowly entered the cockpit through the cracks and fissures in the sentry's glass.

My name is August Johannes Trapp, I'm thirty five years of age and a pilot in the Imperial Navy. I had recently been reassigned to lead the 7th Mobile Armor Suit Team after the death of their commanding officer. We were ambushed by enemy forces above the planet Jehan and do to a series of unfortunate circumstances I and two other of my team have crashed landed on the planet. As the kids would say I'm totally fucked. He laughed to himself all the facilities seemed to be in order so at least he had that. Opening his eyes he began to feel around in the dark in front of him brushing his hands against familiar controls so he at least could find his bearings. He tried turning on the emergency power but not response came just a rumble from somewhere below him as the reactor tried to switchover but just couldn't find the resolve. Cursing to himself he tried to think of what he did have in the current situation. The emergency release on the cockpit was manually operated but even if he could get it to open he had no idea how far down he was and if there was anyhting lesss than friendly in this lake that would try and kill him before he got out. He couldn't necessarily stay inside the MAS either because either coalition patrols or just the damn water coming in would get to him eventually. As he felt about around the cockpit he eventually found what he was looking for wedged in a small space between the seat and the interior wall , his service pistol having broken off from the straps that kept it locked in tightly to his chair. So there was at least that. But really he was more or less shit out of luck without support. Luckily for him he had two bravely idiotic cohorts that decided to come along for the ride.

Experimentally he tested his in suit commms and the sound of static grinding against his ear never sounding so wonderful. Static at least meant that it was still functional that he still had a lifeline to the outside world. The in suit comms were short ranged used in absolute emergency as the communication suite built into a MAS could provide a much more stable experience and allowed for a greater range of communication that could be selective in its audience through respective channels and the like. The suit comms broadcasted publicly and in a very short radius meaning anybody in his immediate area could pick it up, hopefully that just meant the remnants of his team. He hoped that they were still close enough to hear him as he began to speak out into the darkness throwing his last lifeline out into the unknown. "This is Trapp....Anybody alive out there?"

Anybody alive out there

“Don’t worry, Trapp! Three minutes is definitely more than enough.”

Alice took a deep breath, one that was more of an expression of preparation for their imminent crash-landing rather than for any real physiological need for oxygen. War-machines don’t really need to breath after all. It seemed like they were falling even faster than they really were as Jehan’s lake came closer, and eventually they finally slammed deep into the water. Thankfully, due to her currently being installed in her MAS, she didn’t suffer any discomfort from the force of the impact, though she was certain her primary body had jostled around a bit inside her Eagle. Alice kept her head cool while they began slowly sinking. The first thing she thought to do was run an instant diagnostic of her machine, to check for any damages and how extensive they were. Thankfully most of her systems appeared to be functioning adequately, except for two:

SHOTGUN L - DISABLED

ROCKET LAUNCHER R - N/A

Well shit. This left her with only her Scorpion and a single shotgun, both with limited ammo, for dealing with any Coalition until they’re able to return to a UEE ship. They were in hostile territory now, and a trio of UEE mechs falling right out of the sky most likely didn’t go unnoticed. There was no telling how much time they had until a search team was sent to investigate. With her diagnostics done, she started to look for her friends, a pair of searchlights on her chest flickering as they began to activate. One needed a couple light taps from a mechanical finger before it turned on, albeit somewhat dimmed. She could see Nishizumi’s signal on her sensors, not far from her, but Trapp’s signal was absent. His MAS must have shut down after the impact, and she couldn’t get any visual confirmation of him either, though she did see some aquatic fauna swim past her machine. A metaphorical and entirely non-existent pit grew in the stomach she didn’t have from the increasing worry for the safety of her commander.

“Hunter, this is Alice. Are you alright? I can’t find Odin; I think his Sentry shut down…”

After several nerve-wracking minutes she finally heard a crackle from her comms followed by Trapp’s voice. A wave of relief filled her as she replied: “Trapp! Me and Hunter are here!” She was able to track him by his comms, finding him sinking down to the lakebed. She quickly raced to him, soon his machine appearing to materialize from the darkness of the lake in her searchlights. A scan revealed a breach in his Sentry’s hull, letting water fill the machine’s cockpit. She grabbed his arms, urgently trying to pull him up.

“Nishizumi! Trapp is sinking and the Sentry’s hull is compromised!”

""7th Team! Fall back to the Lincoln!" The words filled Ari's cockpit, but she couldn't believe she was hearing them. "What? But Hunter, Odin and Alice are down there! They co-...Acknowledged, Williams returning to Lincoln." She sighed and shook her head, her mind quickly processing what the plan was. They could shelter behind the planet or its moon, making it a much closer range gunfight and shielding them from most of the fire of the other vessels. These two factors together made it a much better engagement for the Lincoln and, as much as it pained her, this was the best solution. The Astelion was on its way back to the Lincoln at top speed, X-50s angled back and thrusters straining as she gave it all she had. She was lucky she'd only taken fairly minor hull damage this time around, thanks to Maki...they had to get all three of them back home. The 7th couldn't afford to lose any pilots and, as much as it pained her, from a logical standpoint it was best for them to lose her if anybody.

The ship was closing in rapidly as Ari began to reduce speed, braking thrusters activating as she turned the MAS around. She was decelerating fast enough that the little trick she'd pulled last time, using the X-50s to decelerate, wasn't needed. She raised her arm-mounted auto-cannon at an approaching Ferir II and let loose the last of the magazine, the rounds damaging its hull and convincing it to back down as the 50s charged. As she backed into the hangar, she let the heat drain from the guns and released a sigh of relief at being back in the Lincoln. As horrible as it made her feel, being relieved when 3 of her team-mates were down on the planet with no support, she knew from her survival courses that they could easily hold out for them...wait, Alice may be a problem. Maki and Trapp could leave behind their suits to evade the enemy if need be, but Alice IS the suit. That obviously wasn't an option, and this made Ari nervous all over again. Just as she began to come to peace with it however, she was struck by a wave of emotion. All that fear she'd suppressed during the battle, all the nerves and hesitation rushing out to meet her.

Sealing her cockpit and flipping off the COMs, Ari took the time to curl into a ball, hugging her legs to her chest tightly. Maki, Alice and Trapp all went down, she almost died, and there was a superior enemy force in the area, including that white MAS. She shivered at the thought and whimpered slightly, fear beginning to overtake her. She'd been so close to death out there! She was STILL close to death! The Imperial Service pilots, all no doubt better than her, had died, three of the 7th's best were shot down, and now it was just her and a few more. How long would it be before her turn came. She stayed like this a solid 10 minutes, locked in and cowering, before she finally was able to gather her wits and unlock the cockpit, leaving the Astelion running so it'd be ready to go down. As she stepped out with wobbly legs and an equally wobbly smile, she said to everyone who may be around "So..uhh...when do we go after the others?"

"Ghost, it's your time to go. Be ready to broadcast on the emergency frequency."
"Roger, beacon is coming online now. I hope it'll reach them. Fell a wee bit out of range of my cameras," replied a high pitched female voice, flipping a few switches to send commands to the hidden antennae. The panel briefly flashed to acknowledge the commands, and faded just as quickly, leaving the woman with no name sitting in her powered down machine, looking out towards the barely visible lake.

"Aight, ye Coalition dolts, as soon as we send out the signal, ye move in to keep a close eye on the situation, got me? Don't shoot em or try anything funny, and stay in cover. This ain't some UEE newbie squad we dealin' with. We need em alive," Ackerman said, almost yelling into the microphone at the two 'official' representatives of the Coalition on this wonderful little side adventure. How he hated working with some corporate fools who insisted on sending their own lackeys along with the mission to ensure it got done 'correctly'. He wouldn't lose sleep if they managed to catch a bullet or a sword to the cockpit, but it was best to cover all his bases to get paid.

"Bould, I hope ye've covered yourself well, the fools almost landed on top of ye there. Give em a minute to respond, and if we don't like what they have to say, put some holes in places where it won't kill em, or destroy the machines. For some reason they're needed alive." No answer came forth, as expected. The passive receivers would likely pick the message up, and if they didn't, Ackerman knew his team had drilled this since they first got the contract.

"Hit it Ghost!" he yelled. He could hear the woman scoff - she was only a few meters away from him, sitting in that open cockpit-, but moments later, the microphone in his hand came to life. Hooked to a long wire that ran all the way to the beacon set up earlier, it made detecting the actual source of the transmission almost impossible.

"Dearly beloved, -perhaps soon to be deceased- members of the UEE 101st. We respectfully ask that ye disengage all your weaponry and get out of your rusty tin cans, lest ye want to resemble the finest of swiss cheeses in a minute or so. If ye do, we'll make sure we get yer friend out o' his predicament and transport ye all safely to some warm lodgin', a pint o' two and the welcoming arms 'o the Coalition. If ye choose to disobey this simple suggestion and invitation to drink, the units surrounding ye will be forced to open fire with trained accuracy. Ye've got about 60 seconds to decide. If we detect yer mechs powerin' down, we'll treat ye with the utmost hospitality, scout's honour. If we don't, we'll just be taking yer tin cans with neat holes in the center. I don't want trouble with the famous 101st, but I got me a large stack 'o cash tellin' me what to do." The microphone clicked and fizzed as Ackerman threw it out of the cockpit and into a tree. The wire, as programmed, quickly started to incinerate, the sparks running away towards the beacon. With a smile on his face, Ackerman grabbed some old binoculars and peered out into the distance, hoping to catch a glimpse of the upcoming events. It was only when he heard the distant sound of engines that the mercenary switched his view and sighed, watching the two greenskins in their Ferir MkIIs slowly moving towards the three downed mechs, not even bothering to hide.

"Looks like a good day fer some Coalition burgers."