Before she could raise her weapon in time, Maki was already on the move, and by the time she was finished, Alice was virtually speechless. This was actually the first time she had seen her wingman’s combat prowess on the field outside of her Hellcat. Her technique was efficient, lethal, executed without any flaw Alice could recognize, and all with an improvised weapon no less! It didn’t help that that the top half of her flight suit was tied around her waist, exposing much of her upper body. Her slacks had even been pulled down slightly, giving her some fleeting glimpses of her underwear. Alice had never seen her like this. It was…kind of attractive.
Wait, what?
She pushed more of these strange new feelings out of her head, soon realizing that her face mask was still raised. Oh god, what if Maki saw her staring at her? She probably had the most inappropriate expression on her face. Maki was already upset with her, and Alice didn’t want to do anything else to draw her ire any more than she already had. Once as Maki turned back to them with a dark smile, she quickly looked away and pulled the mask back over her face.
Alice didn’t flinch when Trapp promptly dispatched two Coalition grunts that arrived in the elevator. She even took a few moments to casually push their bodies out of the elevator to make room. The ride up out of the prison was calm enough, but all throughout it, Alice tapped her gloved fingers against her rifle. Even after Trapp had given his approval for raiding the data center, she was still nervous about it. Would she even be able to crack the Coalition operating system in ten minutes? The hacking itself shouldn’t be that hard, even with what would likely be a highly secure system; the problem was doing it on a Coalition computer: something she had never done. Before the elevator reached its stop, Alice instinctively took a human shield position in front of Trapp and Maki to protect them in case any Coalition personnel were to meet them when the doors opened. Both of them were fairly taller than her, so she gently guided them, Maki even more so, into a slight crouching stance behind her. It also helped that Alice was still disguised so she would be the first thing anyone saw, if even for a second until they noticed the obviously escaped prisoners behind her. For them, a second was that was needed.
The doors opened, revealing nobody at first. As a precaution, Alice peeked out of the elevator to confirm no one was in the vicinity, then nodded at Maki and Trapp and whispered for them to stay close. While she was guiding them towards the data center, a soldier suddenly appeared from around a corner, pushing her rifle down away from him and delivering a punch right into her face. His fist landed with a flat thud and the crunch of several comminuted fractures. Alice’s head was pushed back only slightly from the force, nothing broken except her face mask while the soldier instantly recoiled back, howling and clutching his hand.
Not long after, another soldier arrived and quickly noticed his injured comrade, as well as the escaped prisoners and Alice. Putting two and two together, he raised his rifle to them and pulled the trigger. Alice instantly stepped forward, letting herself take a few bullets into her torso before she grabbed his rifle and rammed the stock back into his gut.
Alice flinched and instantly pulled off her broken face mask, looking down at her body. Only a couple bullets had hit her; causing some slight damage to her abdomen, but nothing critical was disabled. That didn’t stop her from growling softly as she looked back at the soldier responsible for it. Roughly yanking his rifle away, she raised it above her head and swung it down hard on him like a bludgeon. She stopped for a beat, only to strike him with it a second time, and a third time. Then she was relentlessly pummeling him with the rifle-turned-club, not stopping even after it was perfectly clear the man was no longer among the living, and after her improvised cudgel had started to break into different pieces. A short while later, she stopped for good, dropping the weapon to the ground. The first soldier was still watching with horror, weakly propping himself against a wall. With a huff, she paced over to him and push kicked his chest into the wall. He went silent and fell forward onto the floor with a large dent in the wall left in his place.
“Phew…”, she exhaled. After what just happened, she felt...calm. Relaxed, even. As usual, Dr. Santoro was right. Granted, in this case, she had released a great deal of pent-up frustration all at once, but maybe she really should find a way to add sparring to her routine. That is, if she could convince her teammates to allow her to spar along with them. Speaking of her teammates, Maki and Trapp were still there, having seen the whole mess unfold. She might have a harder time convincing them to let her fight them after this ordeal. She calmly took back her gun from Trapp
“Um...I’m sorry. I kinda needed that. The data center isn’t far now, we shouldn’t waste any more time.”
When they reached the center shortly after, Alice pulled a roughly fist-sized retractable cable device from her back pocket. It was similar to the cables used on the Lincoln to connect Alice to her Eagle and other UEE technology, but this one was made for tactical use, such as infiltrating enemy systems. Thus, it was designed to interface with even Coalition technology. Usually it remained in her cockpit, but for situations where she would operate on foot, namely the activation of the Odyssey Protocol, she was required to keep it on her person at all times. Pulling out the cables, she plugged in one into her own data port, and the opposite one into the closest Coalition server. Her thumb rested on a button at the base of the device that, when pressed, would initiate the transfer from her body into the server.
“Well...here goes nothing...”
Wait, what?
She pushed more of these strange new feelings out of her head, soon realizing that her face mask was still raised. Oh god, what if Maki saw her staring at her? She probably had the most inappropriate expression on her face. Maki was already upset with her, and Alice didn’t want to do anything else to draw her ire any more than she already had. Once as Maki turned back to them with a dark smile, she quickly looked away and pulled the mask back over her face.
Alice didn’t flinch when Trapp promptly dispatched two Coalition grunts that arrived in the elevator. She even took a few moments to casually push their bodies out of the elevator to make room. The ride up out of the prison was calm enough, but all throughout it, Alice tapped her gloved fingers against her rifle. Even after Trapp had given his approval for raiding the data center, she was still nervous about it. Would she even be able to crack the Coalition operating system in ten minutes? The hacking itself shouldn’t be that hard, even with what would likely be a highly secure system; the problem was doing it on a Coalition computer: something she had never done. Before the elevator reached its stop, Alice instinctively took a human shield position in front of Trapp and Maki to protect them in case any Coalition personnel were to meet them when the doors opened. Both of them were fairly taller than her, so she gently guided them, Maki even more so, into a slight crouching stance behind her. It also helped that Alice was still disguised so she would be the first thing anyone saw, if even for a second until they noticed the obviously escaped prisoners behind her. For them, a second was that was needed.
The doors opened, revealing nobody at first. As a precaution, Alice peeked out of the elevator to confirm no one was in the vicinity, then nodded at Maki and Trapp and whispered for them to stay close. While she was guiding them towards the data center, a soldier suddenly appeared from around a corner, pushing her rifle down away from him and delivering a punch right into her face. His fist landed with a flat thud and the crunch of several comminuted fractures. Alice’s head was pushed back only slightly from the force, nothing broken except her face mask while the soldier instantly recoiled back, howling and clutching his hand.
Not long after, another soldier arrived and quickly noticed his injured comrade, as well as the escaped prisoners and Alice. Putting two and two together, he raised his rifle to them and pulled the trigger. Alice instantly stepped forward, letting herself take a few bullets into her torso before she grabbed his rifle and rammed the stock back into his gut.
Alice flinched and instantly pulled off her broken face mask, looking down at her body. Only a couple bullets had hit her; causing some slight damage to her abdomen, but nothing critical was disabled. That didn’t stop her from growling softly as she looked back at the soldier responsible for it. Roughly yanking his rifle away, she raised it above her head and swung it down hard on him like a bludgeon. She stopped for a beat, only to strike him with it a second time, and a third time. Then she was relentlessly pummeling him with the rifle-turned-club, not stopping even after it was perfectly clear the man was no longer among the living, and after her improvised cudgel had started to break into different pieces. A short while later, she stopped for good, dropping the weapon to the ground. The first soldier was still watching with horror, weakly propping himself against a wall. With a huff, she paced over to him and push kicked his chest into the wall. He went silent and fell forward onto the floor with a large dent in the wall left in his place.
“Phew…”, she exhaled. After what just happened, she felt...calm. Relaxed, even. As usual, Dr. Santoro was right. Granted, in this case, she had released a great deal of pent-up frustration all at once, but maybe she really should find a way to add sparring to her routine. That is, if she could convince her teammates to allow her to spar along with them. Speaking of her teammates, Maki and Trapp were still there, having seen the whole mess unfold. She might have a harder time convincing them to let her fight them after this ordeal. She calmly took back her gun from Trapp
“Um...I’m sorry. I kinda needed that. The data center isn’t far now, we shouldn’t waste any more time.”
When they reached the center shortly after, Alice pulled a roughly fist-sized retractable cable device from her back pocket. It was similar to the cables used on the Lincoln to connect Alice to her Eagle and other UEE technology, but this one was made for tactical use, such as infiltrating enemy systems. Thus, it was designed to interface with even Coalition technology. Usually it remained in her cockpit, but for situations where she would operate on foot, namely the activation of the Odyssey Protocol, she was required to keep it on her person at all times. Pulling out the cables, she plugged in one into her own data port, and the opposite one into the closest Coalition server. Her thumb rested on a button at the base of the device that, when pressed, would initiate the transfer from her body into the server.
“Well...here goes nothing...”
