Silas gently swayed in his hammock, hung up in the cramped habitation module of the JAMMER, humming along to the steady synthesized beat he had playing on a speaker from the cockpit. Snug over his eyes was an old virtual headset, flashing images projecting over his eyes. While his body was onboard a dropship heading for Himinbjorg, his mind was running through an old simulation of the Battle of Bifrost. He had run the simulation dozens of times, an impossible wartime scenario reconstructed from various battle reports and fragmentations of audio-visual recordings from scrapped AUGs in the fields by EINHERJAR. It wasn't perfect, but machine learning and careful tweaking to the program made for good training in how quickly firefights can shift from good to bad... and from bad to worse. While his eyes were watching the playback, his fingers occasionally coiled around imaginary triggers. He had run this sim enough times that his muscles almost acted on their own.
The music lowered in volume automatically when a soft voice buzzed from the cockpit. It took the kid a moment to realize the briefing had started, and he quickly flung the headset off, recoiling at the sudden change in lighting. While blinking away at spots in his vision, he fumbled and fell out of his hammock and onto the metal grate of the habitation module. He groaned a little as he began pulling himself through the open hatch into the cockpit, hoisting himself up into his chair to listen to the briefing. While listening to the voice walk through the mission objectives, Silas pulled two side monitors into view and flicked a few overhead switches, activating the screens and various sensors and readouts. On the left screen ran an automated flight check of the JAMMER, ensuring no mechanical or sensor issues were being reported. On the right screen, all the AUG's sensors were running render checks of basic optical, thermal, and magnetic imaging displays. The quick flash of the thermal display showed Silas a quick view of several of his fellow pilots in their own AUGs, the faint trace of a cigarette or two glowing as clear bright spots on the sensors. He never understood mercs and their obsession with smokes. It was bad for the wires.
Once the briefing was done, several voices began calling out over the radio. Silas's view was quickly able to see small icons on his left screen with various callsigns lighting up as his team spoke up. It sounded like over half wanted to go for the comms, while a couple were eager to deal with the main force. He felt a little bit of anxiety cling up in his throat. This was his first mission, and the last thing he wanted to do was come off as too green. Some of the mercs were using their callsigns, some weren't. He took a deep breath as he unhooked his headset from over one of the monitors, nestling it over his ears and adjusting the mic in front of his lips. He flipped a switch, blocking outgoing transmission to run a quick mic check.
"One two, one two."Nothing but static over the headset. Silas groaned, unharnessing himself in his seat and following the wires back to their plug: unsurprisingly, it was a bit twisted. Great. Silas flipped a switch on the comms array, playing the conversation on speaker while he uncoiled a fresh cable and went about splicing it quickly to fix his headset. It was quick work at this point, and a known issue with the cheap wires he usually worked with. Of course this would happen on his first day. Just as he finished his patch job, small warning lights began to light on the screen. They were dropping. Silas hastily scampered his way into his seat, just managing to get his harness on as the bay doors and clamps released JAMMER. He clutched at his controls and engaged the basic boosters to help minimize the fall... but JAMMER came down like a meteor into the landing zone. The shock absorbers helped to minimize the strain, but Silas felt shaken and disoriented. He had never experienced the kinetic forces like this before. This was going to be a lot different than his simulations.
Upon landing, Silas fixed his comms and joined the rest of the squad moving to disable the Comms array.
The air hummed like electric snow, the faint sound of radio static echoed around in the cockpit with Silas. His eyes were focused on his right screen, one hand on his movement controls while another was busy fiddling with various nobs and sliders on a sound-board of sorts that swung out of his lap. He was busy tuning between different radio frequencies, trying to get an idea of what channel the enemy was using... before finally, a small spike out of the sea of calm waves of sound. Silas pulled the nob back that he had adjusted, and flicked two switches to patch in. Silas quickly tapped two buttons on his console, flipped a switch, and watched as a loading bar filled the screen. He looked up briefly from his controls, watching through the large view-screen as Banshee, Watcher, and Fallen Angel began moving in to attack.
"Command, we have incoming! Three Matsuzawa Drive readings, closing in fast! We have AUGs on site, I repeat, we have AUGs on site! The lead's coming in at three times the speed of the others!"
"All Ultima Universal forces, we are under attack! I repeat, we are under attack!"Script smiled slightly. It looked like the other team was engaging as well. He flipped to the EINHERJAR communications line, encryption locking in on both teams.
"Turn down all radio receivers except this line, team. I'm going to start flooding their comms."As soon as the loading bar finished and was complete, Script flipped his comms over to Ultima Universal's channel.
"Let's Jam!" He pressed the play button on his sound-board, and smiled as the
harsh static began to flood their comms system, bouncing off the satellite array in an attempt to overwhelm and flood any attempt at enemy communication.
Once that was in position, Script took control of JAMMER's controls and forced the AUG to kneel on his vantage point. He lowered his chassis, and flipped to his left screen to a top-mounted camera on JAMMER's back. He made a few adjustments, before squeezing a big red button on his left control stick, firing off two EMP AA missiles at the farthest Kinetic Projectile Cannon. They weren't strong enough to destroy it outright... but the farthest cannon's sensors and targeting systems would surely be knocked out until the team could move in and disable it.
With that, JAMMER slid down the small cliff with the Variable-Munitions Rifle drawn and set to burst fire as he pushed in to cover the team's rear flank... and clean up any MAs, vehicles, or cannons that Fallen Angel missed in the mad dash forward.
"I bought us some time, I think... but this won't hold them long."
