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"Hey, Hey, I thought I told you guys to be nice." Kai said with a raised voice. "Last thing we want is him to be freaking out. Obviously, command put him with us because he thought we could keep him alive, so quit it. Although, standing behind Thomas just might be a good idea" The Captain added, smirking a bit.

****

"YES SIR!"Emma Said, Way too excitedly, before shooting off toward her scimitar, which was near the other two. Checking really fast to make sure it was hers before grabbing a sprayer from the rack, ignoring the paintbrushes the other two seemed to favor, and began to paint her starship black in the nose fading to teal at the wingtips. Finish that, she stencilied the name "Azure Phantom" on the nose in teal, along with a ghostly black outline of the grim reaper under the words. Adding her name and rank under the cockpit. Satisfied with her work, she looked over at the other two female pilots whom had recently joined the group.

"Mental note: Switch her to decaf." Steven said to himself as he quickly lost ground to the hyper-active young girl. But he was quite pleased to see she had such an eager disposition about taking care of her ship. He was also pleased to see Arcadia and Raji busy at work on their scimitars as well. He himself having already done pre-flight checks on his scimitar, and being a few months away from needing a new paint job, he began standard diagnostics on his scimitar. Reclining on the left wing of his ship he inspected each new member of his squadron, how they were taking care of flight preperations, and how they were painting their fighter.
Pleased with some of the creativity he saw being expressed he turned to look at his own scimitar. Dark sage at the tip of the nose that gradually fades as it moves towards the tail until it is a light pistaccio green, the blades of the wings edged with the same dark sage color. Just below the rim of the cockpit, intwinned with the title The Green Phoenix is the image of a phoenix in flight. Heaving a heavy sigh he thought to himself that it was times like this when he was most at peace.

Raji put the finishing touches on her ship design, stepping back as sweat dripped down her forehead. Her scimitar had been painted a wonderful space black, with hundreds of seemingly glowing speckles all about it. It was a perfect image of the galactic horizon: stars glimmering from every angle. On the side of her cockpit, she placed her name and ship number, and beneath that her ship's name. Rather than thinking hard about it, she simply put the first thing that came to mind when she saw it. "Black Jupiter" she wrote, and inside of her icy blue rendering of Jupiter, she drew the sign of Virgo.

Satisfied, she climbed into the cockpit, which felt very cozy and homely now that she knew it was hers. She began going through diagnostics and specification programs, adjusting her knowledge of shuttle flight to this more agile killing machine.

Chapter 4 End
Chapter 5: Jupiter Rush, Begin!

The APC continued to trundle along, a few hours passed by, waves of boredom countered by sudden games, stories, and jokes, followed by more boredom would wash through the inside of the armored vehicle. Occasionally, the roof mounted Machine gun would fire off a few rounds, no dout taking out some sort of obstacle or enemy, but otherwise the progress was unhindered. At the end of it all, the Tracked vehicle clanked to a stop with a loud BANG! sound, and Kai's communicator notified him they were there, on time and ready for action. They could hear that they were there as well, Bangs, booms, the distinct sound of a blaster rifle, scattered machine-gun fire as well as some other sounds could be heard.

The drop zone was indeed hot. Their Apc Rocked a bit, and the back end creaked, but that wasn't heard over the deafening roar from outside. Figuring they better get out of the huge target soon, Kai unlatched the rear ramp door and kicked it open. It squaled on it's way down to bang obnoxiously on the side of a crater formed just feet behind their vehicle. Thank God for armor.

"Allright guys, Let's scram! We need to get to the door as fast as possible, because they will have guns trained on us. Use the Crater for cover and come out closer to the trees, I would bet they have the APC zeroed" The captain yelled, jumping down into the defilade. He scrambled up the side near some blackened, burning trees, hiding behind a large bush but looking over the area ahead of them. 100 or so yards stretched deadly in their way, luckily pockmarked with artilerry shell holes and cover that was supposed to be for the Lizards, but had been abandoned in the terran shelling the night before. Right now they were being shelled by the lizards, who were vaulting their shots from one side of the base to the ground on the other, so taking out the emplacements over here would help their allies opposite them, but not themselves.

About 20 yards from the door, the cover stopped, and they would have to make sure their path was clear before running it. Kai motioned to his squad to follow, beckoning Hendlow closer "Hey, Hendlow, We need something sticky to take out the door once we get there. Have it ready as soon as you can, but don't forget to cover people when they need it."Looking at the two grunts, Kai called for them "Gallagher and Peterson, you two share point, and cover Hendlow. Sol, Go with him. Sehene and Mortego, Go next, Rose and I will bring up the rear. But before we go, everyone with a Sugar, try to take out any obvious threats. Rose, I need your skills to pick off any of their snipers before they see us. Once we run out, switch everything from single to Auto or Semi-auto and get ready to do some Runnin' and Gunnin'."

***

Ten minutes before the marines arrived

The call went out for all pilots to ships, and the lighting in the Hangar changed to the reddish tint that meant it was serious. Green, Blue, and Red squadrons were on duty for escort planetside, while White and Black were on call to guard the ship in case the Lizards had any nasty suprises. Green, Blue and Red had a simple mission, Get to the base where the marines were and take out any artillery as quickly and cleanly as possible, then fly cover in case the lizards had anything up their sleeves.. well, Scales.

Emma, whom had just put the finishing touches on helping the technicians load her fighter with mini-missiles, two AA missiles, and wing mounted EMP cannons, thanked them quickly and brightly before hopping into the cockpit of her fighter. Initiating startup sequence, the darkened canopy slid back towards it's seals, enclosing the small girl in her cockpit. Checking her flight suit and helmet one last time, she ran a quick check on the ship. Everything showed green, so she flicked on her comm. "Green lead, this is green four, Reading, well, All green" She giggled at the supposed joke, and smiled a bright smile no one could see behind her mask, and engaged the Antigravity engines and inertial compensators. Suddenly feeling lighter, and noticing her ship bob upwards, she waited for confirmation from lead.

Steven was woken up from his light sleep by the sound of alarms and people running to their stations. In one fluid motion he pulled off his brown suede jacket, which he was using as a blanket, tucked it behind his seat and redid the seals on his flight suit. Having done this on several prior occasions that less than two minutes had passed between the time he had woken up and when he was finishing flight preparations. Running through his flight checks and checking all the systems on his helmet's HUD.
He found it odd that even after so long and even at a time like this that he was still amazed at the sophistication of the system. As the leader of the squadron his HUD could give him status checks on every fighter in GS, as well as health gauges on his wingmen which could be made to show anything about the person's well being from their heart beat, to their breathing rate, and even stress levels.
Finishing his personal flight prep, Steven turned his attention to his squadron. "This is Green Leader, T-60 seconds until it is our turn for take off," Steven said over GS personal comm channel, "Okay, Greens 3, 4, and 5, Arcadia, Emma, Raji, this is your first flight as a part of this squadron. Just remember your call signs and follow the instructions you are given, and you will feel like a part of my big, happy family before you know it."
Looked out the tempered permaglass canopy of his scimitar he saw another squadron, the blues he was guessing, take off. Almost Green's turn, and Steven could feel the excitement well up inside of him. "Alright everyone here is the deal. We, along with Blue and Red squadrons, will be flying ozone giving support to our marine buddies on the ground. Our main objective is as follows: One, destroy any and all enemy artillery units to give the marines room to advance; Two, when all artillery units have been taken out we are to fly patrol around the battlefield and provide general air support. If anybody has questions, you had better ask them quick. T-15 to launch." Steven said over the comm. He was still watching other squadrons take off.
"There goes Red. We are up!"

Clarissa felt a wave of adrenaline wash through her as she dashed out of the APC for the nearest source of cover. Being directly in the fray like this wasn't really how she worked, but she still found the thrill of it to be intoxicating. Brushing aside the initial rush, she dashed into a nearby crater and psyched herself into a sniper's state of mind. Her first order of business was to find a suitable vantage point from which to strike. Peaking just over the edge of the crater, and zoning out all of the movement and background noise of the marines and gunfire, she scanned her surroundings.
Nothing but flatland in her immediate area. Probably a hundred meters away to either side was the forest line. But given urgency of the task she was given, and given the amount of crossfire, the best she could do was the move from crater to crater and gradually work towards better cover.
Now that she had her intended course plotted in her mind, she settled down into the crater she was already in and unslung her rifle. To any who have ever watched a sniper at work, they could testify to how meticulous they were about preparing a shot.
Scanning with one eye and looking through the scope with the other Clarissa was ready to hunt for the enemy snipers.
"That is where I would be, now, where are you?" she thought to herself as she scanned all the areas that any good sniper would be. Searching. Carefully scanning inch by inch for any indication of where a target may be. Until finally, she found one. A glint of light coming off of a scope lens. That was all it took.
"One," she thought to herself as she began scanning the field once more.

Sehene was jolted out of her stupor – having been bored during the long drive – by the increasing volume of explosions, gunfire and the like. She sat up suddenly, her face becoming cold and emotionless, and prepared for the sudden stop and rush out of the APC. She removed her sunglasses, and quickly put her helmet on, setting the HUD on ‘tint’. She set her Sugar to ‘automatic’ and held it ready for combat. She followed out of the APC, and made her way to the nearest cover, scanning the area swiftly as she did so. She took out a few Drathonians who were...too close for comfort...and then sped out of there, aiming to reach the door as soon as possible. An explosion of gunfire from a little ‘gathering’ of Drathonians led her to launch herself into another crater, and she rolled into it gracefully, coming up into a crouching position, ready to fire, which is exactly what she did. Now to wait for the rest of the Unit to catch up...

((woah lame post sorry...I thought I would write WAY more than this, but oh well...yay excitement! Action! Adventure!))

Hendlow was just behind Dante, giving him a light shove as they came down into the crater. "You move like that, and you'll be dead sooner than I thought." He smirked. "Keep moving." Then he heard Jack; he'd have to cover himself? Not too difficult, he figured. "Just keep pushing, Jack! Looks like you've got competition for craziest man on the squad!" Despite his jibing tone, Garrett's expression was quite serious.

He came up over the crater's rim at a sprint, and slid into crouch behind a rather large chunk of rock. "Engy, watch my back!" he shouted, reaching around his back for the bag of goodies. From it, he withdrew an adhesive C4 charge. Plain, simple, and effective so long as the Drathonians hadn't decided to make their doors out of concrete without his knowledge. With the C4 in his right hand and the S/GUR in his left, he charged ahead to Thomas' position. "I like your idea better; keep moving, you beast of a man!"

As soon as the alert went out, Arcadia finished suiting up and closed the cockpit hatch. She flicked the 'systems green' switch to inform Kerning, and then answered, "Copy sir. Able, ready, and willing." She took a deep breath, and scanned her weapons loadout quickly, having forgotten to requisition something other than the standard. Luckily, there was an EMP and a few standard missiles. The EMP was what she was really glad about. In her head, she was following the countdown until they all took off. Arcadia's Scimitar was up and running smoothly, awaiting zero.