Deadnaut — Roleplayer Guild

Pulled back from the moon of Jehan by Lin's bright pink Sparrow and several of the Naginata fighters, Ariana had found herself re-docking the Astelion much more quickly than she had originally anticipated. All in all, she supposed, it had gone well considering it was her first time working with the ship's crew aside from her engineering team. Climbing out of the MAS, she leaned against the Astelion's leg and let out a long, wavering breath exit her mouth, shutting her eyes for a moment as she sank to the floor. Some disconnected part of her was aware that the previous combat, and her three team mates going down, was catching up to her. In Planetary Survival training, she'd been taught to recognize such events, and they'd received a nickname amongst her fellow recruits "The Despair Horizon...the part where it finally catches up to me. Fear that I or one of my teammates will die, the pain of not knowing, the anger that the Coalition did this, feelings of inadequacy, all lain out before me. I can identify these feelings...so should't I be able to control them?" She shook her head, a vague feeling of frustration bubbling up since, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't suppress these feelings and simply feel fine.

A few deep breaths came and went, and she allowed the feelings to ebb and flow. For a moment, anger was dominant, and a low growl emanated from her as she slammed her fist into the deck, the pain of the act registering and sending her into the next phase. Her own feelings of inadequacy now took center stage as she gingerly held her still-closed hand, mumbling to herself "I bet if it'd been their last pilot, Astelion's sister, out there fighting with them, Maki, Alice and Trapp would all still be here." She shut her eyes and tried to stop the guilt from overflowing, from letting tears roll out, but she couldn't. At this point, she became dimly aware of the engineering crew moving about around her, no doubt repairing more of the Astelion despite its pilot having a breakdown. She was just glad they were letting her have her space for the moment.

She was scared, so scared, for her team-mates. Maki, Alice, Trapp, they'd all accepted her with open arms in to the 7th. What if they had been tortured? What if they'd already been killed? Could the 7th even handle losing three more pilots? All these thoughts and more swirled around inside her, making her curl in on herself even more, mumbling "Dear God, please don't let them be dead or injured...please." After a few moments of pleading with a god that may or may nor be listening, Ari became dimly aware of someone poking her on the head. Looking up, she found Schwiss standing there, her engineering uniform stained with coolant and a small welder held in hand. The engineer held a gentle smile and jerked her thumb behind her, saying "Seems like the rest of the 7th is gathering together for a briefing. You should head over, don't want to keep the others waitin on you."

The thought of holding up the rest of the squad got Ari to her feet, and she gave a small smile and a thankful nod to the engineer. She was lucky she'd been nestled up to the leg of the Astelion, out of sight to all but the nearby engineers. She didn't need the others thinking she wasn't fit to fly, not with such a big operation now upon them. Gently cleaning up her face, and thanking the lord that she wasn't wearing any makeup, she straightened out her uniform and strode over. When she arrived, she gave a small nod to McKnight and the others before straightening up her posture once more to listen with rapt attention. This was, at least to her an official mission briefing and was to be treated with all the respect due to one. She listened to McKnight as he went along, nervously nodding back when he nodded to her during the briefing. She wasn't so sure if her and McKnight would be able to hold off the entirety of the Coalition's planetside response, or their orbital response for that matter, but the Shrike and Astelion were the only ones light enough to try with the exception of Lin's Sparrow.

Walking off to the Astelion in the aftermath of the briefing, she found the members of the engineering crew hurriedly doing repairs. Whole parts of the Astelion, including many of its redundant systems, were being simply removed and replaced by spares, the others left in piles behind the Astelion for repair when the time came. Schwiss directed one of her engineers to close up a currently open panel and recalled her crew as the other pilots began loading up. Offering Ari a confident smile and a thumbs up, Ari couldn't help but smile in reply as she climbed into the Astelion. Climbing aboard the Astelion, she began to return it to operational readiness, but noticed something with a slight jolt of surprise. It was already beginning to come naturally, even though this was just, technically, her fourth sortie. Was it supposed to feel this natural this fast? She wasn't sure, but oh well. The mag launch came and went, the thrill just as intense but for now she was focused.

With the Astelion righted, Ari glanced at her sensor readings and noted incoming enemies. Releasing a slight cough, she heard McKnight's orders and she intoned in reply "Aye aye Gallant. Unit Astelion locking down that three." Her eyes shifted then to the Ferir Mark III approaching them, and sent the Astelion lurching upwards, its X-50 cannons already charging. Energy was gathering fast, but it seemed the III had noticed she was locked on, as its own guns were already running hot. The blast raced out towards her, forcing Ari to jerk into a sharp right dive as her targeting AI reported a firing solution. Glancing over, her fingers began tapping away at keys to adjust the solution, accounting for enemy movement as best she could. The blasts raced out towards the three, but the enemy pilot dodged the brunt of the attack, his shields sizzling and probably taking some damage from the near miss. Ari didn't have time to stay still though, she kept dancing around, focusing more on occasionally firing a blast in the III's direction to keep it off balance than on really killing it, though she could swear she pegged its shields with one blast. She had to be ready to get planetside and fast, so she couldn't afford to commit to a fight.
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