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"High...way...to...the...danger zoooone!" Chris Burnett absent-mindedly hummed the old song from a movie about fighter pilots as he started up the mighty Braw Bro. He was engaging in combat with another Newtype unit today and he wanted to make sure he was at the top of his game. The Braw Bro's thrusters kicked to life and Chris ran through old maneuvers from his fighter pilot training while he waited for the signal that his opponent was nearby. A green box indicating a friendly unit showed up on his main monitor and he grinned. "RIDE...IN...TO...THE DANGER ZOOOOONE!" he belted out as he deployed his wire-guided weapons. Burning intensity attacked the Dom from all sides, the Braw Bro's wire-guided cannons catching Florian's Dom in a crossfire. For having barely a split-second to react, Florian did well, getting only some shoulder damage as he spun through the all-range assault. The wire-guided cannons began shifting their positions as quickly as Chris' mind could move them. Florian fired back as best he could, pounding on one of the two-barreled turrets but failing to destroy it. A rear attack from a single-barreled turret went right through Florian's legs, surprising the quiet Newtype, who quickly turned and shot the turret down with a spray of bullets and a well-placed grenade. Chris was momentarily caught off-guard by the destruction of one of his turrets, giving Florian a moment to find where the attacks were coming from. He reached into the remote turrets and felt the conciousness controlling them through their wires and quickly moved toward the source. The Braw Bro's cannons took chase, but weren't able to hit the Dom with their barrage. Florian began watching for anything the wires could be connected to and quickly spotted the Braw Bro. Chris saw that he had an incoming enemy and recalled his turrets. The Dom had set aside its machinegun for a heat saber stored on its back and Chris realized that his turrets wouldn't be able to hit the Dom in time. He reached down and gunned the Braw Bro's throttle, bringing to the life the mobile armor's powerful engines. He grinned as he saw the approaching Dom flinch and whooped. The two Newtype weapons quickly approached each and, at the point where neither could break off, Chris pulled a level, separating the cockpit section from the rest of the Braw Bro as Florian swung his heat saber. Without a pilot controlling it, the bulk of the Braw Bro's thrust died out, though it still had the inertial to run the Dom over like a large truck. Florian gasped as his main monitor cracked with the impact, but he soon relaxed. He could feel Siobhan's presence approaching to pick him up and everything would be all right. Chris Burnett: 6 VP gained, Repairing 2 Injured 1 Florian Cuyler: 4 VP gained, Repairing 2 Injured 1 Space. The final frontier that urged mankind to devote its resources, manpower, and minds to the exploration of its frigid, unknown depths couldn't hope to be understood in any measurable time. Its expansion, its secrets, its everything presented an unfathomable image even to the brightest of minds. Its colonization was only one piece in the infinitely large book that would detail mankind's progress into the annuls of time, but even then no significant human presence entrenched itself past Jupiter. And that was certainly being generous. What was once the playground for scientists and imaginations was now a reality for all, and as with any place with human life came the effects, good and bad, of the human being. Of course, none of this probably was probably given an initial thought in Robin's mind. Well, at least not for the time being. The substance that was colloquially known to a certain indigenous group of historical North America as firewater was definitely plentiful inside the man's stomach, and its effects were very well present in the Irishman's mind. Any lesser person would not have been able to think at all with the amount of alcohol ingested, but the last romantic was not a lesser man, and he could certainly think straight and more-- well evident by his ability to adequately control the Zaku II. "Oi, cap'n! When is this damned thing s'posed to starrrt?" The man's temporary speech impediment was joined by a long, drawn out groan before silence overcame the short range communication channels. This was exactly what the captain wanted to avoid. Pinching the bridge of his nose, the Arse of Jupiter forcibly pressed down on a touch sensitive pad and tersely replied, "Sayer. I'm a tell you this one las' time, so listen good, y'hear?" Pausing to exhale, Samuel continued, "when Addie fires the purple flare, then we star-" The bandana'd pirate stopped mid sentence to follow the path of a recently launched flare as it streaked across the relatively uncluttered space, a relatively slow asteroid obscuring its luminous shine for a short time. Not long after, he could see a telltale thruster signatures zig zag through space off in the distance, though its exact path seemed erratic; no doubt the work of either a drunkard or a pilot engaging in evasive maneuvers. His answer would come soon enough when he saw a series of muzzle flashes in another vector in space forcing him to jerk his controls in an effort to move away from his original position. No less than a second after he had done so did a shower of high velocity paintballs fill the void left by the Zaku. Sporting a grin rivaling that of the devil himself, the white vested female pilot continued to strafe the Wraith's mobile suit, paying little attention to the mick who appeared to be chasing after the flare proper. "That drunk," she thought to herself as another trigger pull spat several more paint filled projectiles at her sole target. With no ships around, the three could engage in a fight relatively free of any detrimental effects of Minovsky particles which was practically a wet dream for the experienced pilots on both sides of the war back on Earth. So it came as no surprise when the female pilot noticed the incoming Irishman's Zaku from far off and took precautionary measures to avoid its laughably inaccurate shots. However, Addie's smiles subsided a tad when more accurate fire came from her captain's position, thereby forcing her to go on the defensive. Narrowly avoiding a rather lucky shot on the part of the XO, Addie attempted to gain some distance from Samuel and the now rapidly converging Sayer, shouting obscenities at the "Cyclops"' inadequacies whilst doing so. Her preoccupation with Sayer would unfortunately have her move in a path predictable enough for the targeting computer of Samuel's Zaku to connect a few of the colourful rounds. The rude awakening of the high speed rounds splattering on her NBC armour reminded Addie to resume a zig zag pattern, though the G-forces encountered by such rapid changes in direction were definitely taking a toll on the former JDEG employee. Much to the Wraith's bemusement, he watched as his executive officer flew into the latest string of paintballs that he had fired in the quartermaster's direction, prompting the embittered man to berate Sayer after the latter failed to disengage the spar match. But the experienced pirate knew that those who worked under him weren't exactly the most disciplined of men, so he decided to resume following and targeting the remaining "live" participant and saved his anger for later. Between the captain and the rapidly approaching third Zaku, Addie decided that it would be prudent to ignore the rounds that began to strike her legs and instead began to let loose her compliment of armaments at Sayer, eventually realizing that he wasn't exactly following the rules very well. This realization would, to her chagrin, come too late. Not unlike that of a car crash, Addie felt the effects of a several ton mobile suit crash into her own, effectively entangling the two monoeyed machines together. Samuel could only sit by silent, not particularly shocked, disappointed, or even angry anymore. Amused, perhaps, but this once againreminded him of the caliber of people he was employing on his journey, and they never seemed to disappoint in that aspect. Showing a rather direct side of herself, the quartermaster screamed, "Get off of me, you damned drunk!" Her lovely plea only fell on deaf ears. "Done worry, m'love, I got me a Johnny jus' fer the a'cashun!" slurred Robin, sprouting out words that would most definitely not be proper to say around his devout mother. Still holding his liquor, he dug into his pocket in search of his promised prophylactic, but instead his hands ended up holding a wrinkled white handkerchief. "Aw feck. We can make do without, m'love!" Samuel Riley: 6 VP Gained, No Damage Addie Joiner: 4VP Gained, 2 Day Repairs Robin Sayer: 4VP Gained, 1 Day Repairs Jane Sheppard sighed, and leaned back into the chair of her GM S Type's cockpit. A single bead of sweat rolled from just under the hairline of her dark red tresses. It passed in between her blue eyes, and rested just atop her full lips, which were slightly parted. She waited for a moment, thinking it would drop to the floor of its own accord. However, it simply hung there on the edge of the chasm that was her mouth. Finally, she shrugged, and the motion slung it free from her skin. Jane rolled her head back along her shoulders and tried to rub the stiffness from her neck with one hand. "I don't know how much more of this I can take... Dammit, Thorvald..." The GM S continued to plod amongst the dunes of Northern Africa, in search of the erstwhile Blue Destiny and its pilot, Thorvald Siggurdson. 'Unfortunately, this damn machine's AC decided to break down NOW, of all times,' Jane grumbled inwardly. Though she would never let such a minor inconvenience force her to give up her search, she could certainly have done without the added discomfort from the heat. It invaded her cockpit, and pressed upon her like a great weight. Even with the endless flat desert sands, she still felt almost claustrophobic. Jane couldn't help but kick at one dusty mound as she passed, causing it to explode into a cloud of powdered earth. 'Hmm. That's not being very productive...' Turning her mind to more useful endeavors, she pulled up a map of the area, and checked to make sure she was marking off regions already visited. A slight flicker caught her attention briefly, and she slapped the side of her monitor. The sight that followed caused her to curse in aggravation. "Shit!" Her notations had been hidden by some glitch in her software, and so she had begun to search again along the same section of - 'Where am I? Hmm, still in Tunisia?' - that she had previously examined. She felt fairly certain that, having failed to discover her fellow Private on her first pass, she would do no better in this area a second time. Carefully scanning the screen, she picked out the shortest route to a different portion of the desert as-yet untouched by her efforts. "Well, Thorvald, guess all I can do is keep trying. You're lucky I'm all about that 'no-one left behind' junk - though you might get me to abandon it yet at this rate!" Even as she said the words out loud to herself, she knew they were a lie. She'd never abandon a teammate. So all she could hope for was that the Blue Destiny would turn up sooner rather than later. 'Or, if nothing else, at least that my climate control starts working!' Jane Sheppard: 2 VP gained, no damage |