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[h1][color=blueviolet][b][u]Hard Landing[/u][/b][/color][/h1]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk2bpo5paPw&list=PL6iR_RbKnymx4J3hoXPnfekP0pKYcS8L6](Mood Music)[/url]
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Leah flew along an unsteady line on approach to the Roanoke. She took slow deep breaths as the malfunctioning booster fired on occasion and threw her violently off her course. It took a lot of focus and fast reflexes to keep the Blackout going relatively straight as the g-forces from the random impulses slowly wore at Leah. Red lights blinked in her cockpit, and a small repeating chime in her helmet alerted her of a handful of system malfunctions and errors. Her eyes drifted over to the hole in her cockpit where she could see open space through. Small fragments of debris and sparks drifted in her cockpit. She stared for a touch too long at the void beyond, her mind recalling a similar moment when she was a street punk on Cerol.

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps, the Blackout may be cursed.
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