Welcome to Gaia! ::

[[ lol Kai, you need hearing aids or something. Your character never hears what we say xD Btw, in case the positioning doesn't make sense, Jack's hanging onto Kai's shoulder and walking backwards to keep the lizards off their tails. ]]

Jack grunted as Kai talked to Steven about the bombers, a little preoccupied with the platoon of angry Drathonians with swords getting close enough for him to smell their rank breath before he shot each one down. "I think the risk of getting blown up is worth taking to avoid the risk of getting shot. Kai, radio the Hymn for bomber support -- oh $#!T!" As he spoke, his reflexes were fractionally slowed, and a Smasher sidestepped his shot and tried to sideswipe him. Jack shoved Kai forward a little, and the giant blade came arcing dangerously past Jack's chest. The sword ever-so-slightly scraped against the chest plate, making a fingernails on chalk sound. As his walking partner regained his composure, Jack dropped a pace to kick the lizard in the shin before making a broad sweeping of fully automatic fire across it's body. The creature fell dead, but the one behind it was going to come even closer to decapitating him with all the time it had taken to kill the first.

"--and do it quick!" Jack growled. He unleashed an indiscriminate wave of rounds out of his sugar, shooting straight through the trunk of a tree and delivering fatal shots to 3 more Drathonians. With a fatal click, a chill went down Jack's spine. He needed to reload. One of the nearest Drathonians had made it all the way to him, and obviously heard the sound. It grinned sadistically as it lunged, sweeping it's sword straight towards Jack's head with perfect accuracy. Jack swore out loud, and did the first thing he could think of: shove his sugar between the sword and his face. He closed his eyes, cringing, unsure how good of a shield the gun would be. With a very dull thud, Jack was pushed backwards into Kai by the heavy blow. Opening his eyes, Jack was relieved to find the sword had sliced through the gun but was lodged in his chest armor. The gun had been strong enough to absorb most of the blow, and redirecting it just far enough to send it into his armor, just inches below the neckline. In the back of his mind, Jack thanked whichever god was looking out for him as he kicked the filthy lizard in the crotch.

Doing two things at once was usually no trouble for Kai. Right now, Paying attention to Steven AND Jack was a bit much, especially when jack was trying to use a sugar like a Bro. Hearing the click, then the swift thunking sound, he looked back to see jack holding half a Sugar, with a sword stuck to his chest. Kai turned around and blew the attacking drathonian's head off before turning back to Steven, Taking off his helmet and throwing it to the pilot. "The HUD should give you all the info you need, talk into the mike, someone at HQ's gotta be listening, right now, i have something else to worry about." Turning back around, Kai yanked hard on the Sword in Jack's armor, pulling it out, then handed it to him saying "This is what you get for breaking one of our guns", in a half sarcastic tone of voice. Jack would also hear a couple of clicks, as Kai reloaded the Bro for him.

She shot a heated flare towards the slowly sinking enemy Scourge, and watched as it shuddered with the impact and fell to the planet’s surface in a fiery ball. She smirked at the crushed Drathonians below, and looked to her radar, seeing that there were now only two of the enemy Scourges left. One of them was smoking from its right wing-tip as it sped in ‘terror’ from two following Scimitars. The Scimitars were hailing it with clouds of bullets; most missing their target, but some hitting the wings and leaving scorch marks. She could tell even from this distance that the Scourge would be losing the engine shielding soon, and hoped that not soon after the bullets would pierce the engine core and ignite the fluids inside. She quickly turned to see if the Marines had traversed any farther away, and was pleased to note that hordes of Terran Marines were approaching the battlefield. She wasn’t sure what to make of the brush fire now scorching the ground, as it could turn out to either help or hinder the Terrans. She hoped it wasn’t the latter; she had a hunch that the fire had been started by her gunfire.

She saw the Other Scourge approaching from behind a grove of trees, it seemed the pilot had hidden until the ‘proper’ time, and she grimaced as a few bullets pinged off her shields. Warning. Warning... her computer chimed tonelessly. She ignored the warnings and instead began shooting at the Scourge, and sped up in chase. The pilot grinned evilly, figuring that he would win, and sped away. She kept chase, and shot bullet after bullet after her ‘prey’. She grimaced again as a stray bullet from the other Scourge scraped the surface of hers, and the shielding was brought down to 68%. Her ship was shaking slightly from going too fast, but she knew that the enemy was probably suffering the same thing. She flicked a switch and heard the scrape of metal and releasing of hatches as the last two of her heat-seeking rockets sped towards the enemy. She raised altitude and went as far away as she could, signalling to Scimitars near to follow suit. One rocket hit the left wing and blew it straight off, the metal hurling through the air and into the forest. The other rocket hit the undercarriage and blew it almost completely apart, pieces of ship flying to the ground and the sounds of tearing metal causing the Drathonians to look up in alarm.

She pondered the victory momentarily, then turned the Scourge around to join the Scimitars, only to see that the last enemy was about to be blown to smithereens by the combined forces of four Scimitars. She gave the Scimitar pilots a thumbs-up as she passed them and flew over the Drathonian crowds. She threw bullets down onto their forces, following the lead of the Scimitars.

Suddenly, Still would notice a small continuous, whining beep, growing ever louder. Soon, In Drathonian toungue, a warning began playing in her cockpit, which translated to this: "Warning, Incoming Cruise missile" From the direction of the main drathonian force, the missile soared, locked dead on it's target, moving fast enough to intercept even a scimitar in the atmosphere. there was no avoiding it, only trying to get hit in a way which didn't kill her.

***

"You Really need to get your head checked, Soldier" Was all Kai could say, to the fairly deranged Jack Ghallager hanging from his shoulder. "hey, check your HUD, How far to the main force, Five minutes or so, right?" he asked, somewhat clumsily reloading his Sugar, as it was a bit awkward with Jack on one shoulder. Bringing the thing up to firing level, he began to take potshots at unsuspecting lizards, and, in a couple minutes, the green bursts of Sugars in sniper mode began flying over the group's heads as Terran snipers began throwing covering fire over their comrades. It seemed that, against the odds, the rescue party would come out intact, with all of the downed pilots. one thing was for sure. Every single soldier would need to see the medics, and every single soldier would need a new suit of body armour.

"Sir! Shamshirs inbound! ETA 45 seconds and counting!" Steven shouted to Kai. He had just finished the antagonizing process of authority checks and rechecks that was required to access the locked channel, and to top it off he had to deal with his squadron's insistent questions about what had happened. "We might want to hurry home. It is gonna rain!" he chided as he ran with the marines. He even managed to get a laugh in between his heavy breathing. But his spur of humor quickly died out as he became once again aware of his limitations compared to these marines, and he had also become aware that he had been hit on his right shoulder blade. "I will never understand how in the marines do it" he thought to himself casually.
"10 seconds and counting!" Steven shouted as more time had passed. Out of anticipation he glanced back over his shoulder and up to the skies. Off in the distance he spotted a glint of light bouncing off of an unpainted fuselage, followed by two more similar glints of light. He grinned proudly as he watched the approaching ships for a few more seconds before looking forward again, but he also felt envious of them. He wanted to be flying again.

The shamshirs approached the drop coordinates that they had received from Steven and prepared to let loose the desired payload. As requested by Steven, they had prepared two salvos of missiles strong enough to level three city blocks. They were going to make two passes to be sure the entire area was enveloped. "Drop coordinates approaching. Release locks and drop on my command," said the lead pilot. A few moments later six objects, each the size of a grown man, began plummeting down into the center of a mass of drathonians who only now began scrambling for cover.

Jack went careening through the air, blasting over Kai like a freaking rocket. He went slamming into the next marine in front of him, having just enough time to throw up an arm to protect his head from being crushed like a melon by the force of the impact. Instead, a searing arc of pain shot through the arm for a split second before going completely numb. His armor gave a small grinding noise from within, and the nauseated Jack suspected it was broken bones rubbing against it. The marine he landed on was relatively fine - the lucky b$#%&rd just got pushed to the ground by Jack. How many mortal wounds had Jack sustained already today? The number seemed absolutely ridiculous. He was glad his medical costs weren't subtracted from his paycheck. He tried to sit up, but all that would move was his neck. "Hey, Kai, looks like you're gonna have to freaking carry me now. Hahahahaha." Despite the feeling that he was going to pass out, Jack couldn't help but laughing. Oh, wait, there it goes. He passed out.