Humming slowly, Laura took a moment to collect her thoughts, beside the fact that her best friend had been mutated into a bug, that she had dumped her boyfriend in the middle of a firefight, she had also lost her home and now was very much in the sights of the government (somehow to a greater extent then she had probably been previously). She quickly scanned the battlenet, realising that there were no other ships in the immediate area. Fortunately, the dropship itself had an extended radio connection. As a result, she had some connection to her home base, the drones reporting only minor concerns with the base air supply, other than that her other project was progressing just fine, with it being ready in a half hour. Sitting back Laura began assessing what she had, the robots had set up a field of 16 mines set into a box with a dozen energy collectors set up to ensure that there would be enough energy for the foreseeable future. With that in mind Laura figured it was time to be more proactive, with that in mind she began sending a series of new orders. First things first she had to do was get to work on dealing with the lack of troops, with that in mind she started sending a series of orders to the base, firstly she ordered an expansion of the bunker from its original single room with an airlock to a full-blown facility with 5 more pods connected by a corridor with two more dedicated purely for the purpose of housing the new fabricators. Of course, the whole thing was going to take a while with a cost in the thousands in terms of energy and material, it was something Laura simply couldn’t leave to the wayside any longer. With the orders given, Laura sat back as comfortably as she could as the dropship rattled its way through an air pocket, apparently despite being produced by an advanced fabricator along with the new and more powerful engines the dropship was still the ungainly brick with a crate that it had been when produced from a basic fabricator. Laura sighed, new plans already formulating in her head
There was a silent chime. /Enemy units detected/ Laura sat up slightly, opening a top-down radar view of the surrounding area. She swore as she saw the cause of the problem. Four red dots on the map, travelling Northeast, as she watched the dots began to change their direction, lazily curving their flightpath towards her craft. As she watched the blips began to close.
/Deploying weapons/ the ship computer reported.
“No, hold for now.”
“We’re still over the city, if we start shooting, Oh Shit.” Laura swore as two more contacts lit up to the rear of the dropship, there was a sudden jolt of alarm as a new report crossed her mind:
Two flaring red dots had joined the rest, rapidly separating from the trailing contacts, rapidly closing the distance between the aircraft and the dropship.
“Evade! Evade! Evade!” Laura yelped, quickly grabbing hold of her seat.
The dropship apparently interpreted that instruction in apparently the most sickening way possible namely by aggressively reversing the flow of the left ion thrusters and thus threw itself upside down, and then firing its jets upwards while dumping chaff. Inside the dark compartment, Laura shrieked as her head was compacted into her body by the G forces while Seven watched on with something approaching bemusement. More increasingly alarmed alerts sounded as the missiles drew closer, 2 kilometers, 1 kilometer, 800 meters, 500 meters, 200 hundred. Two muted cracks. Laura yelped as the dropship righted itself, now skimming rooftops as it fled on a new Westward bearing.
/Commander Under Attack/ two more missiles were detected from the aircraft ahead.
“Get away from the houses Dammnit” The simple mind of the dropship went silent for a moment.
/No successful routes available/
“Shoot those missiles down then!”
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/Complying/
The dropship had two turrets attached to three jointed arms on the front and rear, one to cover the front and suppress and a heavier one on the rear top to provide some anti-air protection. There was a protracted hum that shook through the compartment indicating that the guns had found their targets, opening the view of the rear-mounted gun, Laura watched as the night sky was lit up with a cerulean barrage of energy fire, there was a flash and the guns halted for a moment as they moved to track the second missile, unleashing another several seconds long burst that was rewarded by another flash in the distance. The guns jerked again, tracking the offending aircraft that were now turning to flee.
“No, No, No. Not over the fucking city dammit!”
/Orders/
“maintain heading, get us into the valleys and engage them there.”
/Complying/ The engines howled as the dropship squeezed every drop of juice out of its engines.
For a third time a series of alarms burst out prompting the dropship to adjust its heading, now tracking along the highway, moving at tree level, another barrage came from the guns, knocking down both the missiles. The alarms didn’t stop however as the pursuing planes unleashed another wave of missiles. The drop ship opened fire, its barrage significantly slowed on account of only having the slower-firing rear cannon available, while the first missile was burst into flames not long after getting into range, the second kept coming, detonating within tens of meters of the dropship, the blast rattling the craft and shattering windows of houses. As the dropship continued, Laura opened the radar view to check on the drones and found four of them now forming up to unleash another wave of missiles.
“Hey Alan.”
“What missiles are those things firing, how fast can they shoot and how do they target.”
“That explains the waves.”
“Regarding detection the standard missile configuration uses an active radar system.>
“Ok” Laura stated. “Good to know.”
/Obstruction detected/
Glancing through the external view port, Laura caught sight of the obstruction, an intersection of half a dozen roads twisted into a messy knot of concrete.
“Alan, I have a plan, maintain course and wait for my signal”
“Just fire flares and swing between those pillars.”
/Ready/ The gunship chimed in.
/Missiles: 950 meters./
Laura watched as the structure drew closer.
/500 meters/
“Just a little closer” Laura muttered
/200 meters/
“Now!” Laura shrieked, the gunship jerked sideways, swinging hard and burning, the G forces forcing her down into her seat. The guns hummed, unleashing a barrage of fire towards the oncoming missiles, the first blew up while the second continued on its way, blowing past and disappearing into the darkness.
/Hostile air elements detected/
Laura watched as two aircraft slid into view, they were shaped about the way one would imagine a large drone to look like with to massive angled wings attached to a quite chunky body that tapered out to a domed point. From the back protruded a large V tail with a single rotor on the back.
The two ships swept in low, their forms not favoring the knife fighting range that they had stumbled into.
“Fire.” Laura snapped her order was closely followed by a barrage of fire from the shuttles guns. As it turned out, these drones were, much like their terrestrial counterparts not built particularly sturdy as a barrage of fire ripped apart the tailing plane before it even had a chance to maneuver, the leader faired no better, as it banked hard it exposed its underbelly to a barrage of fire that ripped into its fuselage, bright blue bolts searing glowing red wounds into the craft’s skin. There was flicker from inside followed by a crack as the whole aircraft was ripped open, its bomb bay failing in a shower of broken metal.
Odin sat back as two of its drones blinked out.
The woman’s survival was something that he was starting to infuriate him, not to mention the apparent entrance of a new hybrid that had ripped apart his supposedly elite mercs.
“If you want it done right.” He muttered as he ordered the drones to attack.
/Missile detected/ Missile Detected/ Missile Detected/
“What the fuck?” Laura yelped as alarms screamed in her head.
“Shit” Laura swore as the first missile struck the roadway, the impact causing the entire structure to shudder, chunks of concrete as well as a car breaking off and tumbling down. The second and third missiles struck supports, the shrapnel causing the hull of the dropship to ring like a bell.
/Impact Imminent/
The impact came immediately, the shock knocking Laura from her seat. The concussion knocking her out before she even hit the floor.