Tania Edison a combat pilot of the Lewis Clark Initiative sat in silence, her only light came from the various readouts before her. She had her orders and those orders were to wait, alongside the rest of her wing they were in position for an ambush, waiting for Vothani to show their dammed squid faces. Tania's craft, a heavy assault mech, slowly spun in space being unable to correct itself. The pilot had to resist the urge to stop her spin, but unless she wanted to give them away by firing up her thrusters, she had to deal with the slight annoyance, this is what she got for forgetting to properly stop.

The only object in view, and at the moment Tania's only source of entertainment was the distant planet with which they shared an orbital path. VH-28, a totally unexplored planet, and other than a few preliminary scans they knew close to nothing about it, well she at least knew nothing about it. Even if her vantage point was a couple of hundred kilometers away from the celestial body, she had to admit it did look pretty. The majority of the planet's surface was a dull red, astonishingly similar in appearance to Mars actually, although the main difference being the presence of oceans. Somewhat like Earth a good percentage of the planet was covered in the stuff, and they could only call it stuff, they didn't know for sure if it was water, however the possibility alone made venturing closer worth any risk. What they did know was it had an atmosphere, and the chance of it holding breathable oxygen was very high.

Tania was pulled out of her daydreaming by an alert from her on board computer. The built in radar picked up on a few hits approaching very quickly, they had to be Squids. The pilot sat up straight in her seat, prepared to engage the targets at the drop of a hat. Without any audible commands her wing started to mobilize, Tania followed suit. Quickly she fired up her main maneuvering thrusters, and any other combat important systems, her entire cockpit was now brightly lit which was a very welcomed change.

One by one the units belonging to her wing shot forward, Tania waited until everyone else was already on the move, leaving her at the rear of the six man team. The human pushed her throttle to full power, at this point speed was off the essence, and her class of mech wasn't known be the fastest craft in the fleet. In practically no time they made visual contact with the enemy, then imminently her wing scattered in all different directions hoping to catch one of the Squids before they realize what was happening. It was time for her first combat engagement of the day, yet little did Tania knew it was also potentially her last one as well.

Chynn, a vanguard soldier in the divine armada, was listening to the chatter over the comms. It was the usual strategy discussion, as if they were in one of the ancient forums rather than flying through space searching for any fleeing enemy. It was less a discussion about how they’d fight when they did find anyone, and more speculative about strategies in general. The earth crawlers hadn’t been much trouble for the armada in the beginning. Their planet had been mostly unprepared when they arrived, and the first months of fighting had been so bad it had felt more like pest extermination than a war. She’d been sent in with the vanguard too at that, the first wave of soldiers that the matriarchs thought expendable.

Some of those on her side that had been in the vanguard were still stuck thinking that it would be as easy as it had been back then. It’d cost a lot of soldiers once the earth crawlers had adapted at a remarkable speed. Their home planet was more or less lost at this point, but they’d captured Vothani technology which had helped them fight back. That technology had been outdated before her race had even begun their assault though. Years of traversing the stars while your science advanced back home yielded that result. A second smaller wave was on its way, and they’d bring more advanced weapons, but compared to the technology that must exist at home it would still be old. Chynn longed to return to her home. Something that felt more unlikely the longer she stayed on the frontlines. She’d never expected to survive this long once she’d initially been included in the vanguard, but here she was.

The chatter on the comms changed tone. It became clear that someone had detected their quarry. Strangely enough it appeared that they had been waiting for them to show up, even though her system didn’t pick up all that many signals that weren’t friendly. They had to be at least twice as many as the earth crawlers. Someone made a mocking comment, and others laughed before engaging the enemy head-on. Chynn had become more cautious as her hope to return home grew, and remained in the flank to not die unnecessarily. If anyone asked she was making sure they weren’t about to get jumped by a larger number. Her weapons had a long enough range that she could still hit the earth crawlers’ crude mechs from her position. The flashy close combat kills others strived for was not as interesting to her any longer.

Chynn fired off a number of precision shots, while keeping her attention on the onboard systems in case she would pick up a larger number. It seemed like she would survive another battle without any major incidents though. Maybe they’d recall the soldiers of the vanguard when there was no earth crawlers left to fight. If they did, she would probably just get sent somewhere else to die.

Tania scanned the battle scene using both her sensors and her own eyes, a quick count showed they were outnumbered two to one... not the most favorable conditions to be fighting in, especially with their objectively sub par equipment. This meant they had to make up the difference through superior skill, tactics and honestly with a bit of luck, actually a lot of luck, but that's how interstellar war usually was. She decided she had enough looking around, Tania leaned forward and flicked a few switches, on her cockpit view a targeting reticle appeared. Even in the pressurized cabin she could hear the quiet hum from her main weapon, a massive rail gun, because it placed so much strain on the mech's reactor it had to be kept off when not in action.

In a matter of seconds the gun's electromagnetic rails were fully warmed up, and ready to fire. It was then Tania picked out her first opponent, a Squid outfitted with one of those large swords they seemed so fond of, in fact this very one was attempting to charge her from a long distance. It never made sense, why do the Squids throw themselves so willingly into a melee, even when it's more than likely they'll be gunned down before the could enter close range. Tania brought the over sized rifle up, aiming directly at the berserk Squid. Now at this distance it was probably a done deal she'll hit, more so if the Squid doesn't change it's path, yet she wasn't about to take the risk of missing. Instead she allowed the targeting computer to give her a firing solution, slowly the reticle narrowed until eventually it flashed green, indicating the computer found the best angle to use.

Tania popped open a capsule on the side of her throttle control, much in the style of old school sci-fi movies, whatever engineer designed this had to be nostalgic. Her thumb hovered over the button for a second, before she caught her hesitation then slammed down on it. The rail gun's blast shook the mech something fierce, not enough to topple it over, but more than enough to shake Tania around in her seat. The large slug catapulted through empty space until it found it's mark, she wasn't quite able to tell where it hit, but it was enough damage to take a huge chuck out of the Squid mech's side. Whatever pilot was in there had to be dead, and if it wasn't dead it's craft was effectively disabled. Automatically the used shell popped out the gun's back, the metal glowed white hot from the sheer energy it had to endure, as for the rifle itself, well it had already cooled down thanks to state of the art coolant technology.

When two of the crude mechs exploded without any reinforcement showing up, Chynn thought it was safe to assume that none would be coming. The earth crawlers usually didn’t deploy a larger number of mechs unless they were attacking one of their fleets. She had to wonder if any thought from the species had gone into this reckless plan to wait for a technologically superior and more numerous enemy. Maybe they’d gotten too close to a fleet and these had been left behind to slow them down. It reminded her of her own fate. Granted, the earth crawlers did manage to kill a few of her fellow soldiers, but those were the reckless ones looking for glory in battle. The strategy behind the vanguard was basically to just throw lives at the enemy until they succumbed anyway, or the Vothani ran out of soldiers.

Chynn watched as one of her allies’ mech had a large chunk ripped out of it, and the soldier within almost certainly perished with it. She rolled out of the way of a slug fired right at her mech before she met the same end. Her quick reflexes had saved her once more. They better end this encounter before too many died though. The next battle would be even worse if they didn’t, and who knew how many they would fight before they could regroup with another force or return to base.

She switched weapon from the long ranged rifle she’d been using to the more powerful cannons, and advanced on the few remaining earth crawlers. Chynn evaded any weapon fire aimed at her with adept and skillful maneuvering while firing away at anyone within her range. Her skills as a pilot was one of the main reasons she’d survived as long as she had. It wasn’t like she could be cautious and in the background of every engagement, not that she’d even done that during the first months. The other Vothani would have had her executed for cowardice if they thought she was deliberately holding back too often. The earth crawler mechs were thankfully slow in comparison to her own mobility.

Chynn shot her first mech of the day to pieces in a blaze of light, which scattered debris everywhere. The battle seemed like it would turn a lot more one-sided once the reckless Vothani had been killed off. They still had a clear numbers advantage, and the few veteran pilots on her own side would be a lot harder to deal with. She had the skills and experience of an experienced pilot, but she hadn’t ended as many earth crawlers lives as the best. It was an area she could stand to improve in.

They were already down two pilots, while they have managed to take down a few of them, it really wasn't nearly enough. Through her communications system Tania received her orders from the wing leader, they were to engage in an offensive retreat, after all they were still supposed to slow down the Squid advance, couldn't forget they were acting as the rearguard. Tania pushed her mech into a backwards flight, moving away from the battle, but still facing the enemy, there she was continuing to provide fire support. Another Squid quickly became nothing more than a floating hunk of metal, although this was another one of the chargers, probably wasn't going to make much difference.

Throughout the fight Tania had been observing a practically skilled Squid fighter, no matter what they threw at it the pilot was able to evade everything. It became clear if they wanted to survive, that Squid had to die, and even more importantly by taking away one of their more skilled pilots, the Squids become that much weaker in the future. Tania was confidant in her marksman skills, especially with computer assisted targeting she should eventually land a shot. So the Squid Ace became the focus of her attacks, slug after slug was fired at it, yet each time she failed to connect.

Tania kept up her assault, hoping to become the target of the Ace's wrath, much easier to take it on directly than attempting to hunt it around the battlefield. (Hope you don't mind me taking a little control of Chynn here.) After a few more shots, it seemed she succeeded, the Squid was starting to seriously engage her. Tania upped her thruster power, and started heading in the direction of VH-28, away from the rest of her wing. They were hurting pretty badly as is, if she were to be unable to defeat the Ace... and die, then maybe she can at least buy them some time.

Tania's mech wasn't nearly as agile as the Squid made craft, in a straight up dogfight she would quickly lose. The Ace's weapons proved to be quite powerful, but it seemed they couldn't exactly punch through her heavy armor at a long enough range. This was good, it meant she had some fighting edge here. All the while Tania was still flying backwards, still constantly firing, and still constantly missing time after time. It was no good, she was starting to lose space, her rail gun simply wasn't fast enough to catch such a swift target. It was then Tania had an idea, it was a stupid idea, and probably one that would get her killed, yet she wasn't in any position to do anything else.

The pilot started the process of bypassing the safeguards built into her weapon, these were power limiters designed to make sure the rifle wouldn't literally melt itself, but without them in reality it could fire with much more force at a higher velocity. When the last limiter was deactivated, the effects were already noticeable. The gun's rails and coils started to glow faintly, obviously from the overwhelming charge flowing through them. Tania waited for just a little longer, a little longer to build up as much energy before her weapon would ultimately fail... then fired.

The slug was launched at unbelievable speeds, much too fast for her to even see with the naked eye. This time the Ace had no opportunity to maneuver, no normal sentient being could. Unfortunately the shot went a bit wide, probably due to the warping of the barrel, yet it still hit. The blow took off both of the mech's lower wings, while Tania didn't exactly understand Squid engineering, she knew they probably had to be important for movement, meaning without them the craft was unable to control it's direction anymore.

Tania was almost about to celebrate, she didn't kill the Ace, but she landed a serious blow to it, yet suddenly her cockpit was filled with the sounds of blaring alarms. She pulled up the mech's diagnostics, her heart instantly dropped. Engine failure. She was overusing her thrusters at such a high power for way too long, the entire system quite literally burned out. Next she found her navigational data, again she was filled with even more dread. Good news, she wasn't about to float in nothingness until she'll eventually expire, but instead she was on a direct collision course with VH-28. Her relative speed was so high that she will reach the celestial body in the matter of minutes even given her long distance from it. Tania was absolutely stuck on the course, there was nothing she could do about this.

Chynn suddenly found herself the target of one of the crude mechs, apparently she must have angered the creature inside of it for some reason.They couldn’t just surrender and be done with it already.They stood no chance of winning, not after losing half of their small force, yet they never gave up. She was about to break off the engagement that the earth crawler was trying to drag her into when another pilot signaled her to deal with the threat. All of the slugs Chynn had evaded had to end up somewhere after all, and her allies had been in the way of a few.

She reluctantly did as she was commanded, and engaged the enemy. The crude mech increased its speed and flew in the direction of the nearby planet. Chynn figured it was no threat to the rest of her squad by then, but if she didn’t destroy it the pilot would probably just follow her back to the others. The earth crawlers should take the whole fleeing concept further than they were if they wanted to continue as a species.

Chynn skillfully evaded the slugs that were aimed at her, amused by the fact that the earth crawler was slowly backing into the planet behind her. If she could push the enemy far enough the mech would likely get caught by the gravitational pull, and she wouldn’t need to waste energy trying to punch through its armor at the range that separated them. It was the plan with the least risk and effort, so she kept up the charade. She’d never met anyone who’d been able to escape after crashing on an unexplored planet, assuming they even survived for more than a few hours. There were stories about it though.

She should have realized that it wouldn’t be that easy, that she was being overconfident. The maggots had a knack for finding ways to bring their betters down with them. Chynn had seen it before, done to pilots that were way more skilled than herself. Yet the overcharged rifle came as a surprise. She attempted to evade the slug, even though she couldn’t see it, but had no such luck. Her lower thrusters were torn off, leaving her with very few ways to control the direction of her mech. If they’d been further from a planetary body it wouldn’t have been a problem, but she’d been flying towards it. Now she feared that she’d get pulled in by gravity as well.

Chynn tried using her comms to call for help, but there was no response. Unusual as that may be, she didn’t know how they could have helped her even if they’d responded. There probably wasn’t enough time for them to catch her, and she doubted they’d risk their lives for her by following her to the surface of the planet. Better to count their losses and move on at that point.

She decided to do the same, but if she was going to die like this she’d make sure to destroy the enemy before she succumbed. She increased her speed, switched weapon to close combat and went after the crude mech. Normally she wasn’t a reckless or emotion driven individual, but losing what small chance she had at returning to her home one day unleashed a burning rage within. A rage she took out on the other mech with her weapons as they entered the atmosphere of the nearby planet, both heading for death when they crashed.