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PrinceAlexus
Heckno12Zahra Mazghuuri + Maria Leonora "Len" Trillanes + Marianne Solenn "Maman" Trudeau
(Done with permission from @Stern Algorithm.)
(Also a collaborative post between @Sgt Vandingo and @Selvariabell)
(Also a collaborative post between @Sgt Vandingo and @Selvariabell)
Moments before combat…
Zahra was momentarily surprised at Oh-Cee’s greeting, then further surprised when she learnt that she was Cassius’, the man who was drunk before the battle even began, AI. A well-spoken and polite AI, Oh-Cee made quite the first impression, almost a complete opposite of what Cassius gave. It now made sense how Cassius was still alive, despite his poor combat ethic and habits. He had his very own guardian angel, or something akin to one. Of course, that alone didn’t excuse Cassius’ behaviour, but, surface level inspection aside, Cassius did not appear to be as useless as some would be lead to believe. There was a spark of intelligence in him that he hid well with his intoxication, but Zahra could tell there was something indeed. Oh-Cee was proof of that. An AI that formal wouldn’t stick around with a drunkard. They’d ask for a transfer, or something like that. She’d have to keep an eye on them, for sure.
”Thank you for the warm greeting, Oh-Cee. We look forward to working with you as well. Good luck to you as well, and many thanks for saving us from Pilot Chaplain, we appreciate it immensely.” She responded, silently uttering a prayer of gratitude for not being forced to listen to the drunken mans ramblings or anything of the sort. That wouldn’t be good for morale, at all. Here’s hoping that would actually make a difference…
Moments after the first post done in regards to the Battle of Haven…
There are very few times in combat when a plan stays in-tact after first contact, and this was not one of those times. The squad of Haven pilots fell into disarray soon after First Contact was made, with a couple going off on their own, others firing before being instructed to do so. It was up to Zahra to pull them all back together, and form a cohesive battle formation to break the wave of Red Star forces. The drones she had sent up started building up their multi-dimensional map from their vantage point up high in the sky, finding targets then reporting them back to Zahra.
Isaac- the pilot in Algemon, the sniper, requested that all pilots link maps and sensors so that they had a better view of the battlefield, and Zahra quickly obliged, and sent her map to the rest of the squad as one of her observation drones was blown out of the sky by a well-placed shot by an enemy NC. Zahra, as calm as ever, reported the location of all of the NCs that she had spotted as the rest of her drones started jerking around in the sky to avoid any stray shots that came their way while still reporting enemy positions. She finally gave out her orders in the calming yet commanding tone she would be known for in the future, further cementing her role as the best choice for team leader. Commander Narra had chosen wisely indeed.
”There are several NC combatants on a collision course with us, and while I would rather we outnumber them and take them down by focused fire, I trust you to deal with the one you are after, Pilot Laeda.
Pilot Ang, LaBelle, Trillanes, please stay to the rear and provide covering fire where you see fit, stay sharp though, we still do not know where the cloaker went. There is another enemy NC around, however it doesn’t seem to have taken an interest in us just yet, please keep an eye on it and report anything it does. Take it out when you can, but only if there’s no other target.”
A moment passed, she waited for the squad to respond to her orders. Something else caught her attention, however. Her drones spotted the form of Phoenix Inferno seconds before it barrelled into Kxeyun, much too late for Zahra to yell a warning. She winced as the battle was well and truly joined, then sent the six drones that were building up the smokescreen to support her. Things were going to get bad fast, she thought to herself. Another contact appeared on her drones feed, far more alarming than Phoenix Inferno, since this contact was barreling right towards her. A gargantuan ursine-like NC, leaping from building to building, its target, Zahra’s own NC, Hisn-ul-Ghayma. She braced herself, holding out her axe in an attempt to skewer the enemy NC as it charged into her, but nevertheless was calm and collected when giving her follow-up orders.
”Pilot Amarati has been engaged, Pilot Ang, LaBelle, provide her cover as best as you can, Pilot Trillanes, make sure nothing gets closer to them more than it needs to. Pilot Chaplain, d’Vexille, Trudeau, back up Kxeyun as best you can, Pilot Laeda, let us know if you need support. I have a contact coming my way, but I can handle them. Pilot Steiner, stick with the group. You’re one of the most valuable to us, and the enemy are bound to focus you should they get the chance. Keep your head down, support us as best you can without exposing yourself.”
“Yes ma'am. They shall not pass!”, Len affirmed as her drones made a killzone, determined to keep the enemy at bay. Len's drones, while not as advanced as her commanding officer’s, are undeniably more disposable, and Len would not think twice to send some scout drones to make kamikaze runs should the killzone be overan.
“Affirmatif, je suis sur le cas (Affirmative, I'm on the case).”, Maman meanwhile answered as her NC broke the speed of sound. As a fighter-type mech with hard light, it took awhile for the La Maman to launch. Fortunately, her top speed allowed her to respond and engage at a moment’s notice once airborne.
The bad news kept coming, though. Pilot Isaac sent a distressing messaging, informing everyone that he was being assaulted mentally, and to stay out of his sights until he had it under control. There was no doubt in Zahra’s mind, this was the doing of the nefarious Red Star Commander, Osamu Akiyama. She let out the rest of her drones, then sent half of them towards his location, and then kept the rest of them to open fire on the ursine-like NC as soon as it was in range of their coilguns.
”Negative, Pilot Ang. Keep any other enemies off of Pilot Amarati as best you can, firing into the combat is too risky. Pilot Trillanes, assist Pilot Ang to the best of your abilities. I will attempt to disable Pilot LaBelle.”
“Affirmative.”, Len replied as she tries to contain her disdain of Cody, particularly the fact he is ethnically Chinese.
Len's hatred for the Chinese stems back from her youth as she experienced Chinese oppression and atrocities firsthand. For her, the Chinese are nothing less than the spawn of Satan himself, godless barbarians hell-bent in destroying all of God's creations and erase Christian civilization.
Zahra's drones flew through the air at breakneck speed towards Algemon, and although small, he could most certainly make out their shapes coming towards him, coil-guns already spinning up.
Things were definitely going south, and fast.
Cassius/Oh-Cee + Maria Leonora "Len" Trillanes + Marianne Solenn "Maman" Trudeau
Oh-Cee, and by extension Cassius, shared Zahra’s feelings. Already almost half of their number were occupied in one way or another. One of them had leapt forward to meet an enemy NC while asking the group to “trust her”, another one was in the middle of a brawl with another NC, the cloaker was nowhere to seen, another ally ran forward to engage Red Star ground forces, and someone was already compromised by the Red Star commander. All in all, things could have definitely gone better.
But, they had their orders. Like good soldiers, they were going to follow them. Oh-Cee had already changed directions, shifting her focus from the pilot-less NC back to Sahaquiel, and started boosting her way towards her, albeit still quite the distance. Between them, was a proper battlefield too. More Red Star ground forces entered the fray with every passing second. Ahead, several jets screamed out of the carrier bays of one of the larger transports that had penetrated the barrier, and arced down towards the group, firing off missiles towards the largest clusters of Haven forces-, those being the ranged fire support at the back, as well as the small part of the squad that was heading towards Sahaquiel, Oh-Cee excluded. The missiles failed to hit their mark, but they got close. The ground thundered with the rippling explosions, and the jets screamed away as they began preparing for yet another pass.
Ahead of her, pulling into the road that Oh-Cee was running down, a large, quad-treaded battletank with two giant, menacing barrels drove into view, and started aiming down the ruined road, towards Oh-Cee. She barely managed to warn Cassius to jerk to the side as both of the barrels fired at once, both large shells passing beside Oh-Cee harmlessly, before impacting against a building close to Alexei. Luckily for Oh-Cee, it still hadn’t seen her, which she had to thank her jamming field for. Barely seconds after the shells had impacted the side of the building, steam and smoke stopped billowing out of the barrels, obviously it had finished reloading, and was going to fire once more.
Well, Oh-Cee couldn’t allow that, could she?
Unjamming right beside the massive Overlord, she could only imagine the crew’s surprise when she grabbed the right-most barrel, and yanked outwards to pull it off. Small arms fire from the coaxial mounted LMG pittered off of her armour, more an annoyance than an actual threat, to which she responded by pinching the small gun barrel, and silenced it. Inside the tank, she could hear the panicked crew argue back and forth about what to do in Chinese. They didn’t manage to come up with many ideas, however, as she placed her other hand underneath the right tread, and lifted the Overlord up onto its side. Soon, it went from panicked voices arguing about how to eliminate the enemy NC, to terrified voices forced to await their deaths.
Oh-Cee would oblige them.
Releasing her hold against the Overlord, but still forcing it on its side, she stepped back, and kicked at its underside as hard as she could. Her foot sunk in, easily piercing the (comparatively)thin underside armour of the tank, and she heard the wet, sickening crunch of bodies being crushed between two hard places, then the tank itself fell onto its top. The voices inside had stopped, either dead, or wounded enough to be put out of the fight for good, just like the tank.
Len smiled with delight as she witnessed Oh-Cee mercilessly kill the Overlord crew.
“That's right! Send those bastards to the hell where they came from! Deus Vult!”, Len cheered at Oh-Cee as the latter finish off the crew.
”This is Oh-Cee, moving to respond. The battle has now been well and truly joined, good luck everyone, again.” Oh-Cee allowed herself to respond to the group, then darted backwards once more as the jets finally made their next pass, this time firing off a pair of missiles towards her as well as the two targets they had fired and missed the first time around. She got a better look at them now, as they were closer, though she had seen them countless times before. This was just the most recent encounter she had with their sleek, dark black-red death-raining forms. Six missiles sat underneath their wings, though by now four had been used totally, allowing the jets to make only another one pass before they were forced to change to their miniguns. That wasn’t any better, of course. That would shred Oh-Cee if she was hit by a round or six, so she had to keep her distance. Didn’t help that she didn’t have anything that could deal with them very well. They were both too fast, and too far for her shotguns to reach them.
”I may need some help dealing with the hostile air before I can get to Pilot Amarati. Pilot Trudeau, d’Vexille, would you kindly?”
”Maman t'a couvert, ma cherie (Mama has got you covered, my dear).” Maman responded as she changed her objective from supporting Kxeyun to dealing with the enemy air force.
She tracked her radar on the enemy fighters. La Maman's radar acquired multiple targets, and locked-on the closest seven fighters. She aimed her Rhongomyniad on the lead fighter, trimming her NC. She breathed slowly, inhaling, then held her breath for a moment as the target is squarely in her sights.
She pulled the trigger.
The Rhongomyniad fired a spiral beam of hard light traveling at the speed of light at her target.
Suffice to say, the lead plane was evaporated in a blink of an eye, probably unaware of what had struck him. Knowing the rigid command structure of the Red Star, it was safe to assume that the rest of the formation would stick to their last order.
Not letting the opportunity pass, she fired six air-to-air missiles, one per each fighter. True enough, the headless formation didn't even abandon their strafing run to make evasive maneuvers. The missiles made quick work of the fighters.
La Maman may have wiped out an enemy formation, but she was still a long way away from achieving air superiority, as the Red Star still had an overwhelming number of fighters over Darwin’s forces.
While momentarily surprised by the cold efficiency of Maman’s NC, Oh-Cee was jostled out of her state as a single round clipped her left shoulder and tore a chunk out of the top of it, though it still worked fine. Less than half a second later, she dashed to the side as yet more rounds chewed through the ground where she had been standing moments before. Behind her, two jet-like NCs transformed and landed on the ground, kicking up dust where they landed, and let loose with their dual-minigun arms, looking like something similar to a Viking from Starcraft. One went for Oh-Cee, whereas the other one made a beeline straight towards Vectis. Up above, more jets tore into the battlefield, and took up positions behind La Maman, preparing to engage her in an air-to-air battle.
Oh-Cee dashed behind a building in time to avoid the next spray of high velocity rounds, which tore chunks out of the building Oh-Cee was hiding behind. Cassius was tossed around in the interior, and his shoulder was already bruised from the hit Oh-Cee took, but nonetheless, he neither complained nor comment about how he should have seen or heard them earlier, especially since he had known they were there, thanks to Zahra’s drones.
”Jamming field still has a cooldown for three minutes, Pilot Cassius. What do you say we do?” Oh-Cee asked in Cassius’ private comms.
”Dunno darlin’, m’drunk an’ yer in m’ead. Y’know me better than’nyone.” He grunted in response, trying to bite his tongue to better deal with the pulsating pain in his shoulder.
”Mm. You are an annoyance, Pilot Cassius. Guess we run at them and hope they don’t hit us.”
”G’luck darlin’, and y’know y’love me for it.
”A humans concept of love requires admiration, attraction, devotion and respect. Conclusion: I am 75% in love.” And with that, Oh-Cee darted out from behind the building the moment the barrage of gunfire ended, then started boosting her way towards the enemy NC, shotguns already firing at it. The NC took the shots in stride, finished reloading, and opened up on Oh-Cee once more, forcing her to jerk from side to side along the road to avoid the rounds from absolutely trashing her chassis. Of course, she couldn’t avoid them all, and took several glancing hits to her body, legs and arms, each of which got a grunt out of Cassius.
All around the battlefield, situations like these were becoming more commonplace. Haven ground forces, while powerful in their own right, simply didn’t have the numbers against Red Star’s superior forces, and soon were pushed back through Darwin, slowly getting to the second battle-line, though they were bleeding Red Star for all they were worth. Soon the ranged support NCs were being fired upon by enemy tanks across the battlefield, finding that their cannons were just at good at targeting far away targets as they were close ones. The rounds themselves were deadly. A single blow from them would disable most NCs, and so far, their shots were getting closer and closer to actually hitting something important.
All the while, Zahra’s precious drones kept feeding the 1st Volunteer Division invaluable information, maintaining their three-dimensional map of the surrounding area, marking targets as they entered their field of vision. Said information was giving Haven perhaps it’s only edge against Red Star. They knew where almost every enemy was, though how they used that information, was up to the individual pilot.
