[center][h1][color=LightPink]Rose[/color][/h1][/center]

There was a joke to be made here that went something along the lines of ‘no grace period except for doing systems checks’ that Rose thought might have gone down alright, but now was hardly the time. The assertion that the Lieutenant had made was, after all, true. Unfortunately they lacked the clarity of a chain of command to make these kinds of snap decisions necessary in this situation properly, nor the exact systems specs of the other mechs and pilots capabilities to make informed decisions about that.

Still, she had one pretty safe bet and that was: [color=LightPink]“Assertion: I am the fastest and fragilest”[/color] and as for what that information meant she was going to do, it was: [color=LightPink]“Confident: Can sweep the long path for ambushers with time to spare, then get sight on hill once close! Suggestion: come if you can keep up! Reassuring: Can come help if needed!”[/color]

The narrow profile of the very light mech, combined with its unorthodox limb configuration, ment that she might very well be able to squeeze it between the trees to hold true to her words (or take a shortcut or two). If that failed, well, she was fast in the air too, and her initial combat vocation as a fighter pilot ment she knew how to be evasive up there as well. Her framewerk was capable of being classed as a fighter craft when it was up in space as well, so she’d not gotten rusty either.

Still, for now, she had a road ahead of her, and the framewerk pilot wasted no time hitting it, racing ahead of anyone who might also be coming that way to act as a forward scout. The motion the tripod performed to do this was a strange undulating gallop, three legs flowing beneath it like water as the chassis was held high in the air, its six tendrils limbs fanned out behind it, training like ribbons. 

The speed she traveled at was, in a way, a kind of armor, but mostly stuck on a path like this as she was, that had its limits. Thing’s be better when they hit the hill and she could really duck and weave to throw off shots instead of just going in a predictable direction faster than something her framewerks size really should.

Fortunately she had a pair of other defenses against being ambushed on this road by bush camping Cruxi. First of course was seeing the enemy so she could react to them, and the alien’s third eye roaming this way and that beneath the strobing blindfold had that well in hand as she kept her main pair on the road ahead. 

The second was her Stargazer system, which she intended to use to try and deflect any shots coming her way up wards. With none of the larger frameworkz coming this way, she didn’t have to worry about this tactic flicking projectiles right at their heads, though the risk of blowing the top off of a tree was still a concern. 

If she could, she’d redirect incoming shots to fly above the direction she was coming from, but she wasn’t picking where she was getting shot from, and so if some of the canopy had to go to keep her alive and the mission on track, then the forest would be getting a bit of light pruning, and that was that.