Eileen was not at all pleased to hear the news of a KIA pilot, she flicked on her afterburners and flew towards the pickup point breaking the sound barrier. The natives shouldn't have had the tech to be able to bring down a pilot, this had to be something else and whatever they were... Eileen had a feeling this was just the beginning.

"securing the rendezvous point."

Eileen soared over a nice spot of grassland on the edge of the jungle, transforming mid-air and crashing into the ground in a classic superhero landing. She quickly turned on her short range scanner and looked around the immediate area. He sensors read nothing so she felt it safe to call in the pick up ship. Eileen patched herself through the to command cruiser.

"This is Eileen. Marking a location for pickup, be warned possible hostile still on the planet. Proceed with caution."

With the evac on its way Eileen fired a flare into the air and waited for the rest of the pilots. And by the time the others had trudged their way through the jungle, the evac ship would have landed at Eileen's location.

---

Jenny waited patiently as Azai topped up the fuel reserves of her mecha. Though Jenny couldn't help but gasp as she heard of the murdered pilot, she was happy her helmet covered her face or people would have seen the tears rolling down her cheeks. Sure Jenny hardly knew the person who'd died, but now that they'd passed Jenny would never be able to get to know them. It was a pain Jenny wasn't ready for, though Jenny knew that as a pilot death was one of the many risks. She just prayed that next time she'd be there to help protect her fellow pilots.

Jenny didn't get much time to sob as they needed to get to the evac point that had been designated by the senior pilot Eileen. It wasn't too far but the jungle would obviously make the trip more difficult.

Jenny obediently followed behind Azai and Kaselith until they reached the evac point, luckily the trio wasn't intercepted by the natives or the mystery assailant. Jenny let out a sigh of relief and climbed into the ship plonking her rear onto the floor with a loud clang. Yes, she wasn't being very professional at the moment but she wasn't really worried about that right now, she was more struggling not to cry.

"Azai, you wouldn't happen to know where our pick-up point is, would you?" Felix paused, flitting a bit too close for safety should the pilot be annoyed by her chesire-presense. "If not, I think it's best you follow us... towards the front so that the rest of the team can help if you run into any trouble."

At news of the death of the third pilot, and the need for immediate rendezous and pickup: Felix physically busied herself with clearing a path in order to shut her mind -her emotions- out. And yet she couldn't shake Azai's odd behavior, showing no prior sign of concern for the other members of her team... But maybe Onies were just like that, shutting out their emotions in order to stay professional.

From the corner of her eye she saw the pulsing glow of a plasma-bolt... and managed to duck out of the way as a five foot wide ball of blue superheated-air cleared a swath of trees ahead. Looking down this narrow avenue, she saw Cahreli had managed to test-fire her cannon in a somewhat-useful manner... although she did wish the spider would've warned her, only to remind herself of the little scuffle in the cafeteria... Both were a bit over-confident in the others' ability to dodge each other's shots and trade insults... but ever since they landed she seemed... quiet.

---

Now, only now did everything fall together. The enemy bunched up, in a highly volatile container too. They aren't escaping today... From a distance Stasis rises up, waits, and then... FUSHCHROOOM! A violent alpha attack extends from all the energy emitters, aimed straight at the engines of the escape vessel! The shot will surely disable it for long enough, long enough to kill every last excuse of a pilot 'fighting for good.' She'll kill every last one of those gremlin if they don't submit... The area denial drones are sent out, leading to tighten up the enemies further with small energy blasts, whilst Stasis flies around to avoid being hit. Kalida, oh Kalida enjoys this. She chuckles softly to herself, eyes scanning over the field. Some of the drones go to use their energy to light the forest on fire, smoke em out and shoot them.

Jenny remained curled up in her corner of the ship when the engines were hit. Jenny was almost flung from her seat, only saved by a quick reaction. Grabbing onto whatever she could Jenny quickly powered up her power armor, the shields flickering back to life as Jenny looked around to try and figure out what was going on. But before she could come up with any kind of theory the ship had crashed back into the thick jungle.

"I-Is everyone alright!?" Jenny groaned as she slowly got herself up. That when she noticed all the smoke that was getting into the ship, this wasn't good.

---

Eileen was patiently sitting in her mecha while she waited for the craft to get into orbit. But before that could happen the ship was hit by something Eileen was pretty sure it was by whatever it was that offed the pilot. Eileen girt her teeth as she braced herself and her mecha for the crash landing.

Eileen shook her head as she slowly leaned up in her cockpit, letting out a pained sigh before getting her mecha back on its feet. That's when she caught Jenny asking how people were doing. "I'm f-fine. I'm going to go find out who's responsible for this." Eileen fired up her after burners and leg blades,blasting her way through the top of the ship, hopefully her exit hole would help drain out some of the smoke.

Eileen took a quick scan of the area and found herself looking straight at some thing that she couldn't really find words for. It was some kind of winged, flesh monstrosity. But it didn't matter what it was, this thing was obviously what was responsible for the death of the pilot and the crash of the ship. "I see a target. I'm engaging." with a flash of flame from her thrusters Eileen closed the distance with the attacker and sent a rocket powered kick at the mid-section of the biomech.

Alas, they had not escaped the scene without a fight. A false alarm had been raised by Cahreli's test-firing, something Roxanne intended to take her to task over once they had returned to the station, especially considering how close it had been to injuring one of the other operatives. This, unfortunately, left most in the ship not expecting a fight. Truthfully, Roxanne herself had been expecting to escape the planet unscathed, too; she was merely more capable of being prepared for the aftermath than the organics on board.

All said and done, once the transport capsule had finished crashing, nobody other than Eileen was in the best condition to handle continued operations. Or rather, they had yet to respond in sufficient manner to preserve their own lives. The transport ship's systems weren't critical, yet, but the engines were burning. An explosion risk, potentially harmful to pilots if they remained.

'All agents evacuate the transport capsule,' she proclaimed, not so much yelling as stating much more forcefully than usual. Naturally, this came shortly after Eileen's announcement, and right before she broke a hole in the transport's side. Roxanne followed on after her, performing her own scans and ultimately spying the rogue mech. It was, of course, evident that this mech was the rogue, as it was not only undocumented, but of highly non-standard design.

And it had released drones. These would likely prove to amplify the rogue mech's threat, if left unchecked. Thus, whilst Eileen engaged the rogue mech proper, Roxanne hovered away from the crashed transport, orienting her mech to face one of the drones - and then, after some modest calculations, unleashing a flurry of plasma bolts from the four smaller emitters on its torso, the intent to force the drone to move in a certain pattern, that could then be taken advantage of to guarantee damage and probable destruction. And if successful, the process would be repeated with each subsequent drone, at least as long as Roxanne remained uninterrupted.

Upon realizing they were going-down, Felix quickly took stock of the situation, kicked-out the door --and with a surprisingly great amount of ease for such a tiny powered-armor-- started pushing Luna, Maria and Lilliana out; knowing that they could fly/hover on their own and she could not afford to let anyone get trapped in the shock-absorbing wreckage that didn't have to be. She wasn't sure about Kaselith and her mech, and Azai was much too tired and exhausted to be counted-on in a fight.

She too had to disembark, although not fast as Eileen, she made up for this by taking time to try and make the best of her surroundings. Using grappling-lines, she snagged a pair of downed-trees and slingshot them and herself at the offending mecha that presented itself, brandishing the tree-trunks like hilariously oversized nunchuks that easily dwarfed her armor, which she flung furiously at Kaladia's mech, Stasis; replacing them with fresh tree trunks nearl as fast as her plasma-tentacles could obliterate them.

Just as the shuttle crashed, she heard Roxanne over the radio urging the others to get out of the wreck and prepare to defend themselves. To which she realized something: their comms were not being jammed.

She opened a line of comms with the ship with her chin: "Felix here. Request immediate kinetic orbital strike. Six Rods. Fire for effect on my position. Roxanne, expidite this request. Oh, and requesting all the graduates to provides immediate reinforcements," She then fumed quietly to herself, "But if that flounder finds out I'm asking for her help, I'm never going to live this down..."

It was a risk, but a calculated one. She knew from the execution-style death of the previous pilot that their foe liked to 'play' with her prey, it also helped that her own mecha was not only smaller than Stasis, but probable hit location of any of those orbital strikes was likely to hit and impale the larger of the two.

She just had to get Stasis to hold still and say "Aaaaaaaa!"

The sound of steel on steel rang out as the bio-mech blocked the kick and pushed Eileen back. Eileen narrowed her eyes as the target started to fire multiple beam weapons if it weren't for Eileen's mecha's speed the Valstrax would have been mincemeat. But before Eileen went in for another shot on the aggressor Felix had decided to call down an orbital strike on herself in a foolish maneuver that would no doubt get her killed. "Roxanne, belay that order. Call in another pickup ship instead, we're pulling out. I'll keep the target busy while you all escape. My mecha is capable of escape velocity. I will meet you back on the command ship."

Eileen then powered on her mechs knuckle blades and jetted towards the target. "Roxanne make sure that everyone gets out safe. You too Felix."

---

Jenny listened in as Eileen called for everyone to get ready to fall back while they distracted the enemy. While Jenny wasn't one to argue with her superior, she didn't like the idea of leaving Eileen to face off against this aggressor solo. But orders were orders. "I'll clear a landing zone." Jenny said as she raised a leg and started kicking out the closest wall. A few solid kicks later and Jenny punched a hole through the hull of the dropship and pushed her way out. "Tell them to look for the smoke of the crashed dropship. I'm going to clear out the nearby trees."

That said Jenny started to demolish the nearby trees using a mix of punches and stomps. If you listened carefully you could hear her quietly apologising to the trees as she leveled them.

---

The operation was a partial success, some of the missing pilots were recovered while the rest weren't as lucky... A new enemy had been found, one just as if not more dangerous than the necromorphs. While the details weren't abundant at this time it was certain that this new enemy had a tech level that matched their own. But now wasn't a time to worry about all that, now was a time for rest and recovery. The medical staff has already seen to it that everyone is in a stable condition so that everyone is able to mentally unwind and recover.

Ultimately, the mission was mostly a success. Eileen, alongside Roxanne herself, had managed to keep the enemy mech contained for a while, but defeating it even with everybody present was likely to be a Pyrrhic victory at best. A pickup vessel had been called in, and those sent on the mission as well as two of the three downed pilots were recovered in good condition.

Which left two matters. First, reprimanding Felix for suggesting a foolish course of action such as ordering an orbital strike on herself, and to a lesser extent Eileen too, as both simply demanded Roxanne do as they insist; when discussed later on, Doctor Rei considered the matter "un intriguing caze ztudy into ze defelopment uv selv-identity und pride in your zyztemz". The description did spark a sort of self-examination in Roxanne, particularly considering how the Doctor focused on the far lesser infraction as the focal point. Pride... was she prideful? Or rather, was she proud of herself and her being? She could say that she was quantitively more capable in matters of thought processing than the vast majority of biological beings, with the capacity to process and retain information much more efficiently to boot. But, this would be a statement of fact. What might give her pride in these capacities? Perhaps the notion of making it a boast - using more abstract descriptors, and perhaps exaggerating her capacities intentionally for greater effect. But these would simply give the impression of boasting, rather than igniting any particular feelings in her per se. For the time being, Roxanne would set them aside for future examination.

Second, and more importantly, she needed to figure out how, exactly, an infected and clearly far-gone individual was able to not only retain their intellect and apparent sense of self, but to then acquire the technology for a highly-advanced mech. Bio-organic, subsidiary drones, strength enough to violently kill another mech pilot one-on-one, within their own mech no less. It was, evidently, not the best situation for anybody else to deal with - and nearly impossible, without further information, to calculate how it had come to pass, though the intelligence at least could be explained with a sudden and drastic mutation of the infection agent. Nonetheless, the entire planet now represented a potential infection threat until further notice - the mech's pilot had not been slain, and whilst it was likely to continue its hyperaggressive behaviour without consideration for long-term infection, it could easily turn the feral populace into a personal army if it so wished. An elite team would be necessary to deal with it, all things considered. Something to plan for future missions, perhaps.

And if the pilot was able to leave the planet's atmosphere, that only amplified the threat exponentially.

Felix, upon boarding after a less than glorious evacuation via riding upon Eileen’s back into orbit, had finished doffing her power-armor to leave the spent and badly battered hulk in the hangar.

She already knew she was likely going to get escorted back to Rei’s office to have every decision she’d made under pressure be second-guessed, and how her small practical-joke on Jenny had managed to escalate into precious seconds lost in evacuation that could have cost them their lives… apologizing to trees…

But, as she passed through the halls, she could hear an all too familiar scampering… and it was getting closer… fast.

”Kitty!” Sami zoomed through the ship's corridors. Her eyes targeting the recently returned Felix, Sami was excited because she heard the mission went poorly and she couldn’t wait to rub it in Felix’s face.

Felix felt a combination of dread at having to deal with Sami right after a barely-successful rescue mission, and a bit of relief that this gave her an excuse not to attend her own debriefing for a few more minutes… oh, and she also felt Sami’s chest pressed firmly against her face when they embraced in a manner resembling an automobile-collision.

<“You know, days like this is why I usually wear a hard face-mask.”> She stated calmly as possible with her ears back, since it was muffled beyond any recognition; her pliable face smooshed against the plesioth. She’d decided to give her until the silent count of three before she’d start biting.

Sami continued to hug Felix, giggling a little at the muffled gibberish that was Felix trying to speak. ”Aww don’t worry Kitty, we all have bad missions. At least you’ve rescued all the survivors!” Sami finally let Felix breathe, though Sami’s hands remained on Felix’s shoulders. ” Though from what I heard the head honchos aren’t the happiest with you, in fact even Eileen is getting a little grilling.”

Sami smirked and grabbed Felix’s ears ” Hopefully they don’t yell your adorable little ears off.” Sami said as she started to play with Felix’s fuzzy ears. At which point Felix's eyes began glowing red with annoyance as she took the plesioth by the hips with her talons and slammed them against a nearby wall with a loud wet 'smack'. Sami's wetsuit probably protecting her from an inadvertent mauling.

"Do not presume to know what happened down there. It was just me, Eileen, and a bunch of new students against a veteran mecha pilot waiting to ambush us." She hissed, bringing a set of talons up to the fishy's neck, "Any of us getting out alive was lucky, the fact that none of us died was a small miracle." Her grip tightened, her thoughts being what sort of disciplinary measures she'd get for cutting this one open and trying to pass it off for an accident, "Consider yourself and Ori-Oreario lucky you two were already stuck scrubbing the hull for contaminants." She finished, releasing the fish she had caught the unwanted attention of in hopes it'd swim away.

Azai went to the showers first thing. Being in the jungle and cooped up in her mech had made her sweat to the point where she felt rather disgusted with herself. Yes, a hot shower was well-needed. And very refreshing. Then was hot food and water. She hadn't had much to drink either, which was also bad. More purification tablets would be packed for future missions in her survival kit. Between the heat and the lack of water, she didn't remember having to dig a latrine for herself.

She donned fresh clothes and headed into the mess hall for some food. The lack of energy was causing her to shake uneasily, but only on such a small level that she was able to control it. Her stomach growled audibly as she moved through the line, grabbing just about everything she could fit onto the tray, before taking a seat. She began the ungraceful procedure of wolfing down her meal, pausing only to chase it with water before going back in again.

Sami coughed and rubbed her neck. ”Oww. That was a bit rough.” Sami pursed her lips and a mist of water sprayed from her mouth right into Felix’s face. ”Bad kitty!”

“Well if I’m a kitty, then you’re food!” Felix shouted, before biting into Sami’s shoulder, utterly annoyed that she’d need to correct Sami again that nargas and nekoes are not the same, as though the wings weren’t enough of a giveaway.

Sami gasped as Felix bit her, well if she was going to play like that then Sami would have to return the favour. Sami pulled Felix’s shoulder close and bit down, injecting some of her sleep-inducing venom. ”Hawve fwon fleeping.” Sami said her mouth teeth still digging into Felix’s shoulder, waiting until Felix passed out before letting her go, although the nargacuaga’s teeth were still sunk plenty-deep through Sami’s wetsuit and into her shoulder, she was stubborn like that. The only upside being that her fangs were also plugging the wound they’d just created.

”Great…” Sami let out a sigh and headed to the mess hall, bracing Felix so that she’d not get a chuck of her shoulder ripped off. Sami slid onto a seat beside Oriro. ”You look strong. Could you help me pry this kitty off my shoulder?” Sami’s wings shifted so they wouldn’t obscure Oriro.

Oriro had been sitting at one of the many lunch tables, making a partially lucrative attempt to utilize a set of eating utensils, despite her cumbersome digits. She was definitely getting better at it, but she couldn’t focus on doing so while somebody was asking her questions. She looked up, having not heard what was asked.
”What did you-” Her eyes widened a bit as she saw the unconscious feline latched onto the other girl's shoulder via what Oriro could only assume were some sizable fangs. ”Woah. What happened?” She asked, standing up and backing out of her seat as she stared at the pair.

Sami let out a soft sigh ”Felix just can’t take a joke. Got upset when I poked fun at her about how the higher ups were gunna grill her. And I may have sprayed her face with water.” Sami shrugged as well as she could with Felix latched onto her shoulder. ”So she bit me and I knocked her ass out, now we’re here. It’s all in good fun don’t worry, we do this all the time.”

”Riiight.. okay..” Oriro responded as she bent over to get a better look at Felix’s grip on the seated fish girl’s shoulder. She put her hands on either side of Felix’s sleeping face, trying to decide the best grip to take with her large hands. ”Alright...I hope this doesn’t hurt too much..” She said tentatively. Oriro applied pressure to either side of Felix’s jaw, loosening its grip as she pried the fangs out of Sami.

Sami hissed a little from the pain, letting out a sigh as she gently placed Felix’s head on the table. ”Thanks for that. Oh also the name’s Sami, Nice to meet you! Are you new around here or something?” Sami looked Oriro up and down taking note of the wings and especially the tail, that thing looked strange.

Oriro stood a little awkwardly as the other girl looked over her. "No problem. My name's Oriro.." she responded, offering one of her paws for a handshake, "..and, I guess you could call me new, yeah."

Sami shook Oriro hand sinching a little because of the bite wound. " Ooooh so you're Oriro Felix mentioned you before she bit me. I would love to stay and chat, but I need to get this thing bandaged up." Sami said pointing to the bite mark on he shoulder. " I'll see you around kitty 2.0~!"

Sami grabbed Felix under the arms and walked out of the canteen, while Sami was tempted to drag Felix by the tail that could result in getting tail spiked. Sami chuckled to herself as she headed towards the hanger rather than the medical bay. After getting there she flopped Felix onto the floor and started filling a bucket with water. Sami paused for a moment and looked across the hanger and saw Jenny sitting there looking a little puzzled. " Oh hiya! Don't mind us, Felix is just really sleepy from the mission. And I figured the hanger would be a nice quiet place to set her down. Jenny nodded " O-okay, I'll clear out then so s-she can sleep better." With that Jenny squeezed her way out of the hanger. Perfect! Sami thought as she tied some rope to the buckets handle.

After placing the bucket onto a shelf Sami dragged Felix right next the shelf giggling to herself. Then she tied the bucket to one of Felix's arms. And if all went according to plan, when Felix wakes up she would dunk herself with a bucket of water. After the trap was set Sami would finally make her way towards the medical bay.

---

Jenny had been lamenting over her power armour taking some rater serious damage in the mission. It wouldn't have been so bad if Jenny were able to fix the armour herself, but alas her size again made things hard. Though she heard someone enter the hanger and turned to see Sami dragging Felix. " Oh hiya! Don't mind us, Felix is just really sleepy from the mission. And I figured the hanger would be a nice quiet place to set her down." Oh that made sense Felix did work really hard last mission. " O-okay, I'll clear out then so s-she can sleep better."

Jenny got up and squeezed her way out of the hanger and headed towards the canteen, getting a meal and perhaps talking to some of the other pilots would probably make her feel better. Though last time she went into the canteen she got yelled for being clumsy... Jenny ended up opting for sitting next to the door of the canteen rather than entering and risking getting yelled at again, she could get some food later while everyone was asleep and safe from her clumsiness.

Some time after the reprimands of Felix and Eileen, and with calculations regarding the nature of a sentient infection vector no closer to completion despite further time spent assisting Doctor Rei's latest experiment, Roxanne took the liberty of wandering the halls, bearing witness to nothing particularly out of order. Despite the relatively more approachable frames of her Jury and leisure chassis - and, considering the purpose of her programming was to better approximate human-like thought, such appearances were generally the proper approach - she did believe that they omitted a lot of information which was more readily acquired whilst her software inhabited the station's servers. Information, supposedly, was power - though in literal terms, what required power was the storage and retrieval of information. Of course, if the information she had stored was accurate, the phrase actually referred to the ability to control others' actions, which made more sense in context, and was incidentally also true for Roxanne.

Speaking of power, Roxanne came across one of the survivors of the infected vector's assault - Lilliana, alone and seemingly unoccupied. It might be largely reasonable for most such individuals to be on their own after such an event, so as to recover from the shock. For Lilliana, however... there was a reasonable likelihood that the event of encountering a sentient vector had upset her, by Roxanne's calculations. It also occurred belatedly that perhaps intentional experimentation had been performed on the vector in question. Roxanne would retain this information for later. At the moment, it might be best to engage the Gazer in conversation.

'Greetings, Lilliana,' Roxanne began smoothly, stepping up to the undead girl and halting at a reasonable distance. 'How are you feeling at present? Hopefully well, though I understand if not.' Realistically, it would indeed be preferable if Lilliana wasn't affected by recent events - but, of course, it was much more likely that the opposite was true, and Roxanne was accordingly prepared to respond to that situation primarily.

Tenebyth 'slid' across the hallway, the body lower than her torso being nothing but a black blob of nanomachines. It was easier to keep form that way, and sometimes legs just weren't so classy. She made her way to the door to the canteen, where the cluster of nano sized machinery came to a halt. She came across who seemed like a giant colleague. The void eyes stared off into the dragon girl, observing the figure.
"Hello."
She said in a dreamy tone.
@LemonZest1337

Jenny was looking up at the roof when she heard a faint 'hello'. Looking around Jenny found a blob looking up at her. "U-umm-h-hello." Jenny responded before shifting so she wasn't blocking the cafeteria door. " S-sorry I didn't mean to block up the hallway..." Jenny slumped a little, even just sitting here was causing people grief... If only she wasn't so cumbersome...

Tenebyth's lips quivered from a emotionless rest into an interested smile. So much timid atmosphere from a being with such power and size. The girl seemed interesting. Instead of investigating the canteen, Tenebyth slid to next to Jenny and rested on the floor. The machines started to scatter, climbing onto her torso to make a coat over her hoodie, while her legs in jeans formed.
"No, it's fine."
She said as she looked up the giant.
"It's not like I need to eat anyway. I'm Tenebyth Altair. You?"

Jenny tilted her head ever so slightly. Wait she wasn't annoying this person, wonderful! "Oh I-I'm Jenny! P-pleasure to meet you T-tenebyth" Jenny's tail went to wag a little but Jenny held it still with one of her hands, a nervous chuckle escaped her mouth. "..." Jenny shuffled a little having no idea what to say, Jenny wasn't well versed in how to hold a conversation. Her cheeks went a little red as she started to feel embarrassed and awkward.

---

"Excuse me? Is this thing on?" the recognizable voice of Simmon's crackled on over the ships speaker system. "Oh it is? Good show. Apologies everyone but I have an urgent mission that requires pilots. Meet me in the hanger for debriefing. Oh and bring your tactical gear, you won't be piloting your mecha for this one. Also Jenny you'll have to sit this one out as well, I know you don't do confined spaces."

When those who wished to attend the mission gathered in the hanger they would be met by the tiny Simmons, who stood atop a crate with a hologram projector next to him.

Ah. An interruption. That was unfortunate, but sometimes, pilots were required for multiple missions in a row. Evidently, this was one such event - though it was unusual for the smaller droid to actively profess a mission in lieu of Doctor Rei or herself.

'Pardon me, Lilliana,' she excused herself, 'I have to attend to the new mission with Simmons. If you wish to participate, then do come along, and we can continue our conversation there.' With that uttered, Roxanne left her chassis behind, once more adopting the lenses and microphones of the station as a whole.

Whilst the Jury chassis was ferried toward the hangar by claw and mechanical subsystems, Roxanne focused her attentions on the hangar proper. Or at least dedicated a more substantial portion of her processing toward that matter than she usually would. She had already established that Simmons headlining a mission was unusual, of course. Within the hangar, her voice rang out loudly: 'Might I ask what situation you need to bring to our attention, Simmons?' she queried, her voice as level as ever and ever so slightly tinny coming from the station's speakers. In the back of her mind, she made a note to suggest to the good Doctor that an upgrade was due for them any time soon; they ought to be producing clear noise, as though she were present in a chassis proper.