"Taking a flanking route through the forest for cover and ambush route. Moving out." Crow said as he landed his cybernetic eye scanning there surroundings as his mech did formulating a plan to flank the enemy while the others took there own possible route, even if they took out the mechs he could use this approach to cover him and try to ambush any enemies that they may encounter well as having cover from the air. His mechs legs moving forward it would quickly stride into the forest to begin its route through the colony.
"I'll do the same on the opposing flank. Soon as you make enemy contact, we'll come running." Kingslayer turned to the other mechas, did a brief salute before running off into one of the side roads, closely flanking the middle road. Kingslayer's movements were more lifelike than one would expect from a mech.
Paul was sitting in his tank's command chair as his mind busy trying to evaluate the situation while Clara rolled the tank along with the rest of the mechs. Once they came up to the fork and noticed the raider mechs making their way towards them he assumed proper command of his vehicle. "I'll stay in the middle road, snapping turtle ain't good for a forest." He then began aiming towards the raider mechs, making short calculations about aiming and waiting for them to get into effective range of his main weapon.
~~ Earlier ~~ @BadDo9 "Of course I stay on the Starseeker. Starlex wants me to make sure your AI operates appropriately. And I surely won't have their AI crash their ship on the first combat mission. Just lean back, be a good co-pilot, give me data and help with sub-systems such as targetings. Learn from my actions so you can rationalize an appropriate combat protocol in the next dogfight. Besides. You told me to put my gear on, since there is a danger of being boarded, remember?" Vern replied calmly. After all, he could imagine the headlines already. 'Rhinelander intentionally destroys billion credit Starlex prototype', he shook his head just on the thought. ~~ Now ~~ Vern gritted his teeth when he threw the Starseeker to the side to evade the incoming missile. With the mapping information from Kira he could make evasive close-to-the-ground movement to at least throw the defenders off his trails for now. He closed in on the landing zone and made a rough instant-stop and opening up the bays. "Go go go! Good hunting out there!" He semi-yelled over the team comms, only to take off the moment everyone had deployed. Only Avalanche resided still in the belly of the Starseeker. The Rhinelander took the Starlex bird back into the skies and flew low to another location before popping out from all the vegetation, not letting the air units attempt to pick off the mechs and tank. "Charge Railguns, full-power. And get ready to kill the engines. Parachute maneuver." Vern told Kira, hitting a few buttons to calibrate into dogfight mode from cruising. "We have to make short process of the fighters and hope they don't have too many more where these came from. So we can give aerial support." Vern stated as Kira, letting her know the long-term plan for the air-to-air skirmish. It was time to push the Starseeker to its limits and re-improve his rusty flight skills.
"Two allies already flanking, so I would recommend sticking with the tank." Gideon said to Kaeleen, who replied "Well then, guess someone has to hold up the front." She brought Apollyon's rifle to being ready to upon any hostiles as she advanced behind the Tank (treating the Tank as mobile cover, if needs be), ready to react if the Raiders fired the first shots at her and the Tanker. After all, while there was the shoulder weapon as well as the rifle, it might do her well to not fire off every trick she had up her mech's sleeves just yet.
< @Vulpas > As Crow moved into the forest, he would soon be able to see very little through the thick, dense foliage. Indeed that was one of the reasons that Aspect failed, and soon the man would find out a few of the other reasons. As he moved forwards, his mech would become entangled in thick vines that would be very hard to cut himself out of, with his left leg and right arm being entangled and unable to move. At the same time, a rather large beast would move through the trees and lunge at Raptor, claws digging into the metal of it's torso as it latched on and began clawing at the mechanical warrior. [Raptor: 95HP - Entangled. Takes 5AP (one turn) to escape] [Beast - 20HP] ~~~ < @Wata > Kingslayer and Yumi would begin moving down the right road, moving as fluid as one might expect from such an advanced SSP neural link. She was moving quickly enough, keeping eyes out for enemies. However in one of the buildings there was a blast of light, and a streak missile flew forwards, slamming into Kingslayer's left shoulder. It didn't do too much damage, having hit a pauldron and most of the blast being deflected or piercing nothing vital, but it still would hurt Yumi's own shoulder. When she looked, she would see a squad of pirates in that room, and they were presumably loading the launcher once more. [Kingslayer: 93 HP] [Missile Squad: 25 HP] ~~~ < @TuskatheDaemonKilla @Maleth > The two pirate mechs - which did look as if they were built to work similarly to HEM-Tech machines but otherwise just seemed to be made out of whatever materials were available - continued their march forwards, raising up a pair of HEM 20mm rifles and fired a few shots at Apollyon and Snapping Turtle. The rounds all flew past them however, and cut through the forest behind them. This didn't stop their advance though. [Apollyon - 100HP] [Snapping Turtle - 100HP] [Raider Mech I - 60HP] [Raider Mech II - 60HP] ~~~ < @Uriel1339 > "Acknowledged, Vern. Charging railgun from standby.. complete." Kira replied as the fighters from the Hemterra began their approach to the battlefield, seemingly having not noticed the Starseeker's movements. They weren't yet in range of the battle on the ground, but they would be soon enough. "Three contacts on radar at the moment, seem to be standard Verite Interceptors, the fighter class that Halcyon Cruisers held in their bays." Kira replied, searching for information on their targets. "They can quickly change speed so we'll need to be careful about leading targets, but based on current trajectories..." she paused, and a trio of circles appeared in front of the ships, once for each - where the gun would be targeting to hit each ship. "We probably only get one shot before they know we're here. Pick a target." [Starseeker: 500HP] [Verite Interceptor I: 25 HP] [Verite Interceptor II: 25 HP] [Verite Interceptor III: 25 HP]
"Encountered hostile wild life, and fauna have slowed me done and prevented movement, Addressing issue now." Crow said through the radio to his team mates on there channel. Already Nyx was registering the damage on his torso as the beast scratched causing dents and scratches. Calmly he replied to the beasts attack with a cold calculated actions he had his mech's close combat drill tail move methodically with a predatory like movements before attempting to strike at the beasts. "Calculated attack pattern aligning and aiding in striking maneuvers" Nyx said both of them calm and collected as the combat drill striked.
"So they will outrun us for sure. I wonder what they think of the Starseeker class-wise, since there is no information on it. They are going to know it is a Starlex vessel. Soooo... Let's play a little pretend game, shall we." Vern kept the shields and guns powered up, but started to cut the engines by fifty percent, starting to approach the interceptors while broadcasting on a wide spectrum of standard Starlex frequencies, including emergency. "This is Frontier Research Recovery Team Starseeker, Dr. Vern speaking from Starlex with an important recovery mission. I picked up three vessels inbound for interception. Please do not open fire. I'm on a recovery mission for important people and goods that have gotten lost in this system from Starlex. I was told in case of a hostage situation to pay not just in funds, but also technology. We do not seek conflict, but resolution in returning our people back to their families and will reward handsomely for a safe return." Vern then cut the transmission, leaving it on a loop repeat while readying for the inevitable potential of this not working out. After all, would these saboteurs and pirates be that stupid? Then again, their greed might have finally overcome them. The Rhinelander sighed softly, addressing the AI of the Starseeker. "Kira, before you say anything. I'm aware this might backfire horribly. But I rather destroy their flagship from the inside than the outside in case this works out. Because I doubt our little strike force can capture their entire ship. At the least, we need to find a way to permanently disable it's engines so it may never go for a raid again, but the UN always could recover it with a tow vessel." And with that, he hoped that in case this was going totally south that his trust in his comrades-in-arms was going to pay off long-term.
Yumi barely reacted to the pain, she was a tough girl to begin with. "Hostile infantry, building straight ahead." Alspaer reported and showed the relevant data to its pilot. Yumi grinned with sadistic intent. "Don't let them out of our sight." She ignored her pain and tagged her targets, Aslpaer tracked the enemy movements now. Kingslayer's arm went to the hilt of Raiken. The sword was pulled out and the mecha charged. With speed and precision the sword was stabbed right into the spot where the infantry were. Right after that Kingslayer peppered the building's indoors with the laser gun on its offhand. Felt like overkill but that's what Kingslayer was about, quick and unquestioning decimation of the enemy. This was also delaying her promise of flanking support to the team on the middle road, she'd have to be fast after this to actually make it in time.
Paul was not very amused by the Pirate mechs firing upon him first, their aim seems to be about as poor as the construction of their mechs. He couldn't really blame them for missing when they were using such trashy mechs to begin with though. Honestly he could only see such things intimidating a few farmers or being used to help salvage crashed ships. Just terrible really, he was going to enjoy destroying them with the snapping turtle's main gun. As such he quickly took aim and fired a single shell at the one on his right.
