pleasure,” Cora said as she saw the missiles
beginning to hit Kip’s group of mechs. She cut the comm and sent a message to
the transport in orbit to go ahead and detach, with Kip’s coordinates already
preprogramed into the navigational program.
The big transport released two spherical pods of
considerable size from berths on the underside, with them coming out of racks
in a specialized bay. The specialized dropships accelerated towards the planet,
coming down into the upper atmosphere within minutes and heading on an angled
trajectory to get to Kip’s location. Cora watched her fellow trailblazer fend
off round after round of missiles as she fell towards the planet, hoping they
didn’t get too much through their shields but also hoping that he kept the
Type-1 distracted.
The two pods passed into missile range of the Type-1
but didn’t get any response fire for another thirty seconds…then missile
streaks began to come out towards them en mass, with some still heading towards
Kip.
“Looks like they noticed us,” Jarvan-1381 commented
from the other enormous pod.
“The shells can take it…but we may need another lift
afterwards.”
“Understatement of the year,” the fellow Clan Scorpion
mechwarrior specialist said dryly.
A few moments later the pods began to take hits, with
their thick armor absorbing the impacts after the limited shields went down.
That hurt their insertion angle a bit, now that they didn’t have the invisible
wings to navigate with, but such a situation had been anticipated and built
into the design with the anti- gravs still capable of
keeping them on course, though without the shield the front of the giant sphere
began to sprout an ablative fireball of reentry friction in addition to the
missile impacts assaulting it.
Watching the status telemetry, Cora rode in the shell
down all the way to the surface, then braked hard allowing the damaged pod to
set down on the surface with only a tiny thump as its landing legs sunk in and
stabilized the giant egg as it continued to take missile hits, some nearly
getting all the way through.
“We’re down,” she told Kip as she powered up the mech
inside.
“We’ll get there as soon as we can,” her fellow
trailblazer reported, with her seeing his group now running at top speed since
the Type-1 was no longer shooting at them.
“We’ve got this,” she promised, triggering the pod
release.
“Damn straight,” Jarvan agreed as his pod also began to crack apart along a single seam. The two halves
rotated out exposing one side of the protective cocoon and the Archon walked
his giant mech out, but Cora’s shell had been damaged enough that that pivot
function wasn’t working so she triggered a secondary release and the two pieces
flower-petalled out, with her hitting the jump jets and shooting her Mk. 3
madcat into the sky in a giant hop that got her outside the pod.
It took a couple of moments but the missile streaks
hitting the pod eventually switched targets to the big mechs that had landed
about a kilometer apart from one another. As soon as they did the ‘missile
boxes’ on the mechs returned fire, save for the Mk. 3s didn’t have missiles.
They were prototypes that Kip had been working on in conjunction with Cora and
designed specifically to fight the Skarron walkers. They were slightly taller
and massed more than a Mk. 2 Hoth, with both shoulder boxes containing all
anti-air weaponry.
When those boxes came online the missile plumes
disappeared in a torrent of topaz light as the rapid-fire Sammies ate up the
missiles and began to push the explosive collision point back further up the
stream given the anti-air’s exceptional range and firing speed. Cora and Jarvan both began walking their enormous mechs forward,
with nothing but an occasional missile or two getting through to hit their
shields.
“How’s that?” Cora asked as
the Skarron walker continued to fire relentlessly.
“I want one,” Kip said seriously.
“We’ve
beginning to hit Kip’s group of mechs. She cut the comm and sent a message to
the transport in orbit to go ahead and detach, with Kip’s coordinates already
preprogramed into the navigational program.
The big transport released two spherical pods of
considerable size from berths on the underside, with them coming out of racks
in a specialized bay. The specialized dropships accelerated towards the planet,
coming down into the upper atmosphere within minutes and heading on an angled
trajectory to get to Kip’s location. Cora watched her fellow trailblazer fend
off round after round of missiles as she fell towards the planet, hoping they
didn’t get too much through their shields but also hoping that he kept the
Type-1 distracted.
The two pods passed into missile range of the Type-1
but didn’t get any response fire for another thirty seconds…then missile
streaks began to come out towards them en mass, with some still heading towards
Kip.
“Looks like they noticed us,” Jarvan-1381 commented
from the other enormous pod.
“The shells can take it…but we may need another lift
afterwards.”
“Understatement of the year,” the fellow Clan Scorpion
mechwarrior specialist said dryly.
A few moments later the pods began to take hits, with
their thick armor absorbing the impacts after the limited shields went down.
That hurt their insertion angle a bit, now that they didn’t have the invisible
wings to navigate with, but such a situation had been anticipated and built
into the design with the anti- gravs still capable of
keeping them on course, though without the shield the front of the giant sphere
began to sprout an ablative fireball of reentry friction in addition to the
missile impacts assaulting it.
Watching the status telemetry, Cora rode in the shell
down all the way to the surface, then braked hard allowing the damaged pod to
set down on the surface with only a tiny thump as its landing legs sunk in and
stabilized the giant egg as it continued to take missile hits, some nearly
getting all the way through.
“We’re down,” she told Kip as she powered up the mech
inside.
“We’ll get there as soon as we can,” her fellow
trailblazer reported, with her seeing his group now running at top speed since
the Type-1 was no longer shooting at them.
“We’ve got this,” she promised, triggering the pod
release.
“Damn straight,” Jarvan agreed as his pod also began to crack apart along a single seam. The two halves
rotated out exposing one side of the protective cocoon and the Archon walked
his giant mech out, but Cora’s shell had been damaged enough that that pivot
function wasn’t working so she triggered a secondary release and the two pieces
flower-petalled out, with her hitting the jump jets and shooting her Mk. 3
madcat into the sky in a giant hop that got her outside the pod.
It took a couple of moments but the missile streaks
hitting the pod eventually switched targets to the big mechs that had landed
about a kilometer apart from one another. As soon as they did the ‘missile
boxes’ on the mechs returned fire, save for the Mk. 3s didn’t have missiles.
They were prototypes that Kip had been working on in conjunction with Cora and
designed specifically to fight the Skarron walkers. They were slightly taller
and massed more than a Mk. 2 Hoth, with both shoulder boxes containing all
anti-air weaponry.
When those boxes came online the missile plumes
disappeared in a torrent of topaz light as the rapid-fire Sammies ate up the
missiles and began to push the explosive collision point back further up the
stream given the anti-air’s exceptional range and firing speed. Cora and Jarvan both began walking their enormous mechs forward,
with nothing but an occasional missile or two getting through to hit their
shields.
“How’s that?” Cora asked as
the Skarron walker continued to fire relentlessly.
“I want one,” Kip said seriously.
“We’ve
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