Transformers: Steel Reign

[SirNitram]

Overshock's body strode out of the base, closing in one the drones. The targetting systems were already analyzing the strange, strange nature of the beasts.

Command and control seems to be a cyber-augmented human in the head. Jeez, you'd think they'd know not to make the bit controlling them so obvious.

As the cannon cleared the air, the left arm grabbed the blade Overload had stored in his alt form. While it had been too big for the Autobot, the combiner now had a sword perfectly sized for him as he closed in on the strange drones.

[frigidmagi]

I hear Deathstrike's alert and based off of it realize that it is a air based attack. This is not good. I can engage on a limited basis with some of my missile load out but bunker busters are not meant to hit fast moving air borne targets. I am now at 20% effective firepower without a shot being fired.

Most of the human tanks are worse off, as is Crimson, despite her accuracy.

Odds of aircover protecting my unit against incoming enemy forces... 81.92%. We need to relocate to be able to meet any possible ground thrust however, likely 78.68%. I see a ridge that runs along the 2 most likely paths of advance, we will head there.

"Gentlemen, follow me, we are relocating. Major I would appreciate it if you ordered your mobile anti-air assets to stay with us and provide overwatch in case." I say turning and heading out with the tanks in tow.

"Crimson can you met us at this position? I may need your sensors." I sent along with the coordinates of our intended end point.

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike remained on overwatch. Human piloted cannon fodder droids. A clever innovation, given the retisence of most Autobots to hurt organics. It was, however, merely the first wave. It would serve to shock and wound Autobots and force them to consume resources. The real attack was still to come.

[Dark Silver]

Blitzwing hung back, watching from a distance, his sensors routing him information on the battle, even as he gave the drone's their orders.

The human headmaster components were re-engineered, cybernetic organisms reformatted with the drone bodies. Sparkless beings, totally obedient to his whims. Shockwave was a genius.

His sensors picked up something interesting, as the Fulcrum ground units marched on the human base. A particular Autobot transponder code, one he knew well.

One he hated.

Breakout.

the orders were routed even as Fulcrum's where shot out of the sky, the air cover was being quickly obliterated. The loss of these drones were calculated, Shockwave factored in 98% of the strike force not making it out functional.

Well, As long as they did as ordered...

Blitzwing changed his course, his powerful scramjet engines pushing him through the atmosphere. As he came into weapons range, he unleashed three anti-radiation armor penetrators directly at Breakout, before pulling up, the first swarm of SAMes hot on his tail.

------------

The Fulcrum drones where, even in their alt modes, completely unimaginitive. The human pilots, while rusty from not having flown a actual jet in five years, settled into their old ways, pulling off manuvers which allowed them to out perform the cybertronian MiG's. The Autobot flyers only made the aerial combat more lopsided.

On the ground, the Fulcrum drones merely walked on, their lasers unleashing blasts towards the humans and Autobots.

Warpath lead a line of tanks against a group of Fulcrum's, the uproarious Autobot's voice exuberrant as he fired off his cannon, "BAM! BOOM! POW! YEAH! Let's show these things whose boss! BOW!"

More Fulcrumes continued to march forth, their single optic glowing with a yellowish light, not unlike Shockwave's, as they marched on. Human tanks and infantry poured laserfire into the line, taking down not a few, Autobot's joining the line, opening fire as well. It was turning out to be more of a massacre, than a battle.

[SirNitram]

Overshock waded into the Fulcrum Drones, not wasting laser energy on them. Between sword and fist, he targetted the heads, felling them with frightening ease. Again and again the drones dropped. A sitrep was dutifully filed across the tac-com channel.

"Overshock engaging. Analysis: Dronecraft. Structural integrity minimal at head. Spark: Missing. Carrier Wave: Detected. Recommendation: Obliteration."

[General Havoc]

Though clearly nervous at the prospect of being thrown into yet another battle, Hornet did his best to put on a brave face, not that he succeeded much, but the intent was clear.

"I'll... I'll be careful," he said, and he had intended to ask Crimson to do the same, but found he couldn't get his speaker to work right. The prospect of his friends getting hurt was too much to even think about. He settled for a hug, a very quick hug around Crimson's waist, and then he raced off down out of the building, switched to airplane form, and took off.

There were dozens of Decepticon signiatures in the air and on the ground, and the humans were already in the middle of a dogfight. No sooner was Hornet airborne than two of the Decepticon jets were diving towards him. His IFF screamed out a warning, and he took evasive action, jinking hard right, nearly taking the head off another Decepticon on the ground. One of the persuing con fighters did not have his manuverability, and slammed right into the Decepticon he had just missed, consuming them both in a massive fireball, but Hornet did not even see it, as he clawed and fought for altitude, trying to make sense of what was going on.

[B4UTRUST]

The enemy was airborne and mobile, giving Slipstream his oppertunity to strike without coming to close to whatever AA defenses the 'cons had in play below. Where his exhaust ports had glowed with the pent up power they now were obscured by the flames as his thrusters increased their output. Over 60,000lbs of thrust from each of his massive engines launched him forward at such high velocities most Cybertronians wouldn't even stay with him.

He approached the enemy formation in a matter of seconds, the screaming of his massive engines dulled only by the sound of the deafing sonic boom left in his wake. His targeting computer was already calculating angles of attack and course positions, overlaying the vectors across his vision. As he moved towards the formation he targeted the foursome. Red missile lock symbols hovered over each of his targets for the brief instant it took to designate the bogeys to his missiles. With a thought he unleashed a salvo of four of his mid-range high-manuverability missiles. Not even bothing to confirm the kills he dropped down as soon as the missiles cleared his launchers. He snapped a quick series of jinks and barrel rolls before blasting off at another formation, now approaching mach 3.

He barely listened for the detonations of his missiles as he moved into gun range and began to line up his targets. The pulsing beat of the music fell into a loose counterpoint to the thrumming of his engines as he engaged his new targets.

[LadyTevar]

Crimson was not far behind Hornet, transforming to her AltMode in order to deploy faster. She wove her way to a place she'd scouted earlier on base as a possible sniper nest, tranforming and summoning both pistols from subspace.

"Overshock engaging. Analysis: Dronecraft. Structural integrity minimal at head. Spark: Missing. Carrier Wave: Detected. Recommendation: Obliteration."

"Good enough for me," Crimson said to herself. Shockwave had given her a bonus -- nice, shiny single optic sensors in the middle of the heads for her to bullseye. With the methodical ease of a shooter at the target range, Crimson took made four shots, one to a drone. Only one did not impact the optics.

The last drone did not fall over as scrap. The bolt hit the neck and the head popped off. To her shock it transformed into an armored human, who looked right at her position and started running straight for the soliders lined up below her position. As she watched in mounting horror the armored human was mercilessly shot down within five paces.

Her voice cut across the Convoy communication channel as a shocked wail. "The Drones......... They have **HUMANS** inside Them!"

[General Havoc]

"WHAT?!"

Hornet stopped short of launching his missile as Crimson cried out the news. It was nearly the last thing he did. Four flying drones scythed in towards Hornet and launched ordinance at him and he madly dashed for the ground, twisting and turning, managing barely to evade all four weak locks. His processor raced as several human pilots engaged the drones that were tailing him. Humans?! Humans in the drones?! How?! WHY?! This didn't make any sense?! Were they prisoners? Hostages? Mind-controlled somehow?

He glanced about the battlefield, unsure of what to do, of who to target, of how to fight humans that were no doubt fighting them against their will. Hornet had thought he would face many things in this fight, but the prospect of killing humans had not been among them. He cried to himself as he regained altitude. How COULD the Decepticons do this?! To the HUMANS of all people. Sure he knew that they had been massacreing humans and everything else, but to see it up close like this... he wasn't ready for it. He cried. He hesitated.

He spotted something else...

On his radar, a single unique target stood out. Blitzwing at the head of the drones, was making ground runs, firing on Breakout. Blitzwing was driving these humans into combat. Blitzwing and the rest of the Decepticons were forcing his friends to slaughter innocent humans or be killed.

...

And Blitzwing would pay for it.

Hornet rarely ever got angry, but this time his anger, his revulsion, his disgust at what the Decepticons were doing overcame his fear, even of Blitzwing, and he spun around in a 180 turn, dodging a burst of laserfire as he screamed past the drones at Blitzwing. His targetting computer calculated a shooting solution, and as soon as he had the proper tone, he shouted into his radio with a voice that for all its shaky, chirpy, fearfulness, contained a core of righteous indignant anger.

"This is Hornet. Rippleshot! Fox three!"

And with that, Hornet loosed not one but TWO missiles straight at Blitzwing. The first was a standard, High explosive Anti-aircraft missile. The second was not. The second was a high-velocity kenetic energy penetrator, a missile that would close to within a few hundred yards of Blitzwing and then fire a tungsten-cored shell into him at Mach Eight, ripping his internal systems to shreds as it blew a hole the size of a car out the backside of whatever it hit.

[frigidmagi]

"INCOMING! EVASIVE ACTION!" I scream backing up and transforming as Blitzwing's shot came screaming in at me. The human vehicles to either side of me beginning to move to their secondary firing lines. One missile impacts on the face of the ridge wasting it's power. Another hits next to the track of a nearby tanks, blowing it off and flipping the tank on it's side. The last one strikes behind me, throwing me onto my face. That damn coward! He should came down and faced me! Damage reports flood my processors for .98 seconds.

Rear armor damage 35%. Damage to internal structure 11%. Movement circuitry damage 14%. Balance processors 13%. Transformation gears 10%. Fluid carrier lines 18%. Secondaries on line, redundancies not damaged. combat effectiveness rating 89%.

I get up groaning, my secondary systems are in full operation but I am sore and in pain. It gets worse.

"The Drones......... They have **HUMANS** inside Them!"

This is bad. Decepticons have not shown interest in using humans to bloster their numbers and firepower before. This is Shockwave's hand in action. Likelihood of these being allied humans from the nation-state of China... 55.67%. My estimate is likely thrown off by emotion. Or so I hope, I really want them to be Decepticon allies not slaves.

"Crimson maintain fire. If you do not more humans will die." I order her. She will not like it. I do not require her to.

The tank that was destroyed has surviving crew, they are bailing from their burning tank. I transform and head over.

"You have a better chance of survival if you under armored cover, get inside." I order opening my rear hatch. This warmachine has space for some infantry troops and it has been useful more then once. I should tell Prime about the humans... But I decide not to. It is better that there is no chance that our firepower will be lessened.

[Agent Fisher]

Stryke kneeled on one knee, his cannon firing an energy blast at one of the drones. He shifted his attention to the other drones. The presence of humans didn't bother him too much. He was a soldier and so where they. He opened a private comm with Crimson. "They are soldiers, and if you don't kill them, they will kill you. Just don't think about it, Crim." He told her.

He looked to his left, at the unit that he had 'taken' command of. It was a mixed bag, three tanks, and a platoon of infantry. He opened a comm to the tanks. "Foxtrot 32 and 33, target the drone far left. Foxtrot 12, hit the drone next to it." He said, opening fire with his machine pistol at the second target.

[LadyTevar]

"Crimson maintain fire. If you do not more humans will die."
"They are soldiers, and if you don't kill them, they will kill you. Just don't think about it, Crim."

BreakOut's orders, followed closely by Stryke's own private encouragement, come over Crimson's comms as she slumped behind her cover trying to process what she had seen. Humans ... functioning as the heads of the drones! Fighting for the Decepticons! Crimson knew that the humans called the Chinese were allied with them, but to work for them, fight for them... Transform for them?

Humans don't Transform! They can't interact with their technology in that way! How did they learn ... or did the Decepticons find a way to do it? The way the head had popped off, spinning, moving in ways she'd not seen any other human move. What had been DONE to them?

Her processors spun, her circuits straining to find a moral path in the quagmire. Protect Humans... by killing the others? It wasn't right! It was even more heinious if these humans had been forced to submit to whatever had changed them, reformated them...

Reformated.

Like the Autobots that had been reprogrammed to fight on Cybertron, joining the Decepticons against their will. Slowly, Crimson raised to her feet, looking out at the battle again as her memories came back in glimpses.

The Decepticons ... had fallen back to ancient tricks. RoboSmasher. Reformating. ReProgramming. All to get a numerical superiority over the Autobots, by stealing away allies and friends. Friends who never were the same again, who actively refused having their original programming returned.

The pistols raised, laser and ion. Methodically, the shots started, each one hitting the joint at the neck where Human mated with Drone. Sometimes she had to take a second shot, when the first didn't do the trick. Yet on her side of the battlefield, the drones were losing their heads, almost two by two, forcing the armored humans to revert and allowing the Autobot's allies to finish them off easily.

If Crimson had Hornet's ductwork, she'd be crying.

[Dark Silver]

Blitzwing juked and dodged, the SAM's constantly closing in on him, even as he hit the afterburners, pushing him past Mach 2, they followed doggedly. Finally, Blitzwing did something he wouldn't normally do.

He called a flight of drones back to him, racing towards them just as the SAMs tagged along. Directives were given, and two of the jets flew straight into the missles. The explosions caused fratricide amongst the others, and Blitzwing was home free.

Until he received notice of another target lock, and two incoming bogeys.

"Slag this!" Blitzwing shouted out, turning a 180, before flying back towards the the base, letting the rest of the drones be slaughtered.

-------

Sixshot watched as Blitzwing flew his drones into combat, watched the triplechanger break off the SAM's by sacrificing some of his drones, and then high tail it back towards the base. In his beast form, Sixshot's optics watched as the twin streaks of Hornet's missles followed past, and he was in motion.

In a instant, he had leapt out of the cover, transformed into his hypersonic space fighter form, and streaked after the missles. They exploded in a barrage of particle beam fire.

Sixshot set his course, flying to LEO-1, and watched from the height, remaining near motionless, as he waited to see the outcome.

-------------

Crimson's shots seperated the head components from the bodies, the cybernetic humans flipping through the air to land on their feet, miniture laser pistols gripped in their hands. The drone bodies fell as heavily as the debris from the overhead battle which was quickly drawing to a close.

Three of the headmaster components placed a bead on Crimson as she focused on the other drones, and began to open fire wildly at her.

--------------

The drones on the ground seemed to be more numerous than the ones now gone in the air, their bodies taking only a few laser bursts, before collapsing to the grounds, the light gone from even the headmaster's optic.


The battle was quickly suiting up to be a massacre, and even the few headmaster components which seperated from the disabled drone bodies were mowed down by the military weapons.

[Cynical Cat]

There were Decepticon warriors that were more powerful and more intelligent Deathstrike, but few were more skilled. Sixshot was one of those few. Deathstrike watched him dispatch the missiles homing in on Blitzwing. Deathstrike lowered his nose and fired his thrusters.

Sixshot was a more skillful warrior than he was, but that did not guarrantee victory. The drones were a minor annoyance, albeit a numerous one, but Sixshot was menace. He needed to be dealt with before he did anymore damage. Power was transfered to his cannon. Targeting scanners went active.

Deathstrike fired a rapid triple burst at maximum power.

[SirNitram]

Warning. Alloted time in Overshock form has been exceeded. Warning. The alarm went off in the Combiner's brain, but the controlling consciousness didn't care. It was that very reason that the alarm was there, as the horrors of war weighed too heavily on the civilian programming, and the measured actions became less calm.

The head-components on the ground were targetting individuals behind the massive Combiner, near the base. The brain within knew only one thing: These insignifigant specks of metal and flesh were Enemy. And they would burn.

It was a fraction of full power, but permafrost melted under flesh that caught fire. Still the massive Autobot fought, losing the finely tempered control. Shellshock would guide the destructive impulses, but too long had been spent like this. Overload was now filled with a simple drive and desire: Burn everything. Let the tranquility of silence reign. There had been too many comrades, Autobot, Decepticon, or organic, lost. There was now only the cleansing fire that the cannon dispensed as it waded through the drones that remained on the ground.

[Dark Silver]

Sixshot had not known the Traitor was in the air, until Deathstrike angled down and opened fire.

Sensors in Sixshot's nose detected the blazingly fast bolts of power, and he only barely managed to twists away, the ionizing radiation left in the beam's wake causing a fluctuation in his primary guidance control circuits.

Sixshot's systems rerouted control, as he picked up speed, heading for his own attack run on the Traitor. Particle blasters unleashed energetic death at Deathstrike, as Sixshot waited for the targetting solution for his missles.

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike had loaded up with missiles with heavy warheads for engaging combiners and Guardians. They would do massive damage if they hit, but scoring a hit with them against Sixshot was unlikely. Particles beams flashed near to him and grazed his armour.

Deathstrike jinked out of the path of the beams and sent back a stream of high energy laser bolts as he fell towards Sixshot.

[Charon]

Shellshock guided the destructive force as best he could. But that wouldn't last long. A coded message was sent to Breakout.

Keep everyone back. We don't need any friendly losses here. As soon as most of the drones are gone I'll break the link.

Shellshock sent the coded transmission and then got back to the job at hand, keeping Overshock remotely effective. Even under a bare efficiency, drones died in scores. The land burned, the drones melted to slag. The very air became heavy with the stench of smoke and burned metal. A drone that had strayed too close was grabbed by both hands and torn in two. The lower portion was tossed to the side, the head was placed infront of the massive cannon just as it fired. The head of the creature as well as most of it's upper body disappeared in the massive explosion. The bits of the drone rained down as Overshock picked up its massive sword and ran it through three drones, picking them up into the air and shaking them off, blowing the flying drones into pieces as they fell. The huge combiner roared in triumph.

[General Havoc]

Hornet's missiles disintegrated instantly as a Decepticon flier melted them out of the air with a particle beam. The responsable party flashed past a moment later. It was Sixshot, the Decepticon multi-changer, a viscious and brutal enemy soldier Hornet had never before seen in person, but had heard stories told of. Five minutes ago, Hornet might have ducked and dove for the deck, leaving Sixshot to someone far better capable of handling him, seeking out a more reasonable target. But that was five minutes ago, and in his indignant, blind, furious revulsion at what these Decepticons had done, what they were forcing people to do... he did something he really should not have done.

He banked as hard as he could, and followed Sixshot into the thickest maelstrom of combat he had ever seen.

Planes flew in every direction, no longer a dance nor even a dogfight, but a wasp's next of missiles, contrails, lasers, cannons, and airplanes themselves. Straight into and through this berserk cauldron Hornet flew, ducking and banking and twisting in mid-air as planes, enemy and friendly, flew past and over and around him, and shots spun by his wings and fuselage. Like Deathstrike, he was not after the drones, but Sixshot himself, albeit for an entirely different reason. Deathstrike was targetting Sixshot because Sixshot was the most dangerous enemy, and his defeat would be a heavier blow to the Decepticon cause. Hornet neither thought in such ways nor wished to. Blitzwing was escaped, but Sixshot was here, before him, the agent and the catalyst for this terrible crime. Sixshot was sending enslaved humans in to die in his own place, and while some would have called this cowardly, Hornet thought of it in other terms. It was vile, a vile, sick, twisted betrayel of everything he had been taught to believe, everything he thought he understood about the nature of this war, and he would not, he could not, let Sixshot laugh at the slaughter of so many humans and get away. His fear, his apprehension, his trepidation, all were blown from his mind as he drove towards Sixshot, not sure if he could even hurt the Decepticon, and not caring either. Sixshot had condemned dozens, hundreds of innocent humans to their deaths.

He would not do so again.

Several drones moved to cut Hornet off, but Hornet was faster than they, and more manuverable, and he danced past them like a racecar outpacing a minivan. Their shots fell short, their missiles failed to lock, and before they could react he was past them. A single drone managed to plot an intercept, flying head-on towards Hornet with missile tracking systems engaged, but before the drone could fire, it was blotted out of the air by a cannon burst from one of the human pilots. Hornet flew straight into and through the resulting explosion, bits of machinery pinging off his skin, drenching himself in a cloud of mech fluid. And when he was clear of the cloud he was suddenly alone in the sky, save for the two Decepticon aircraft ahead of him. Deathstrike, and Sixshot.

The range was too short to get a reasonable missile lock, and Hornet flipped off his two remaining missiles, activating instead his gattling lasers. Sixshot, having obliterated both of Hornet's previous missiles, had decided that Hornet himself wasn't worth fighting, and was presently making a head-on run at Deathstrike, clearly trying to lock his own missiles on the Decepticon flier. Hornet was coming in obliquely to the pair of jets, un-noticed, unexpected, unheralded. For the second time in as many battles, the Decepticon before him didn't even seem to care what he did, considering him too weak to be a threat.

As Blitzwing himself had found, that was unwise.

Only once he was certain he could not miss, did Hornet open fire. He did not shoot a shot, nor a burst at Sixshot. He opened fire and did not stop, an unending hail of green energy bolts flinging through the air at a combined rate of fire of over four thousand shots per minute, more than sixty blasts every second. He held down his trigger and unleashed a tropical storm of laserfire at Sixshot, not caring if he was or wasn't doing damage, for while each one of his shots was almost negligeable in terms of power, the hundreds and thousands of shots he now unleashed were certain to have a cumulative effect of SOME sort....

[LadyTevar]

Crimson ducked behnd her cover as laser fire spattered her position. She leaned out to return fire ... and hesitated as she realized it was the armored humans shooting at her. Her hesitation earned her a scorchmark on her shoulder from a glancing laser, making her fall back with an oath.

Then the laser fire stopped. As Crimson sighted around her cover again, what she saw was somehow just as vile as the reformated humans. Overshock had waded into the fray, his gunfire searing armor and flesh, the huge sword swinging a bloody harvest with each pass. Unlike before, the Combiner seemed to be moving more jerkily, less in control of his actions. As Crimson watched the Combiner tore a whole drone in half, then callously held it in the line of his own weaponsfire and roared in triumph as the drone's head disentigrated.

All Crimson could do was sink behind her cover, back to the wall, knees to her chest as she shuddered. She'd fought on Cybertron, yes ... and she'd been forced to defend herself more than once during her long vorns alone ... but this. This was ... this was ...

She had no words for it. Slaughter. Massacre. Murder.
What had this War done to the Autobots while she'd been traveling alone?

[B4UTRUST]

"Like shooting Sharkticons in a tank."

He blew through the debris as he scanned for another target. In his scan he noticed the hightailing Blitzwing along with Hornet and Deathstrike's assault on Sixshot. It took him about half a second to make the decision.

Ignoring the rest of the drones, as useless as they were, he swung around in a tight high-G 180. He continued to accelerate as he manuvered into missile range on Blitzwing. As soon as he was within range he moved to get a target lock.

[frigidmagi]

I stifle the urge to curse. The heaviest unit on the battlefield is going crazy, another is going into a borderline form of processing dissonance shock, something that hasn't happened in Primus knows how long. I have been sloppy is what it is. A quick review of Crimson's file tells me I should have seen it coming even if no one else would have bothered to look. Her long term friendly contacts with organics has left her woefully unprepared for having to kill them in numbers. I have preformed poorly. I hate command.

"Pull back 300 meters !" I call out to the human armored unit. One stray shell would tear them apart.

"Crimson fall back, Overshock's firing lane is getting to close to our unit. Pull back behind the unit for now." I comm her to ensure she knows what to do.

[Charon]

Shellshock keeps his full intent on controlling the raging beast now. Another few drones get too close and are torn to pieces by the giant bade. Targets are becoming less numerous now, the fire that impacts upon the armored hide is considerably lessened, and the weakness of the fire in the first place means that Overshock is not yet in any real danger from the drones. That he is a danger to himself is quickly becoming a fact however.

Shellshock spares a moment to look at where Breakout and the others are now. Far from the killing field now, that's good. Shellshock's momentary lack of vigilence leads to a temporary loss of control as Overshock fires a full power shot at a group of drones that were firing on it. The drones disappear in a rapidly glowing field of plasma that expands for nearly thirty meters around before finally disappating, leaving nothing behind but a charred crater.

Shellshock curses as he reigns in the mad mind again, Overload can't handle anymore of this. Programming in place for just such a situation is activated and with a burst of otherwise dormant 'thrusters' Overshock splits in two. Shellshock transforms into his robot mode and before he even lands, another three drones that were nearby are turned to little more than scrap, their heads blown off by precise, low powered shots. Shellshock stands over his weakened and disoriented brother protectively. Keeping the threat away while Overload has a chance to get back.

Shellshock activates his comm unit. "Breakout, this is Shellshock. You're in the clear and we just made a nice little hole for you to drive through."

Shellshock turned off the comm and looked up at the sky, taking a quick assesment of what was going on while drone fire pinged off of his thick carapace, digging small divets in it with each shot. His optics focus in on the flier that Hornet and Deathstrike are chasing after.

"Hornet." The 'bot did not respond. "Hornet! Break off your attack right now!"

[SirNitram]

Overload, yanked from the madness by the sudden loss of contact with Shellshock, tumbles end over end as he transforms. Protocols designed to get him clear snap him into Venturestar mode, and massive engines ignite and send him skyward while his mind reels. A mind overtaxed with battle is still scrambling for thought as the craft roars by the MiGs, it's engine-wake dangerously volatile. Yet the programming is good; he avoids crossing the predicted paths of the allied fighters, clawing for altitude and safety.

[frigidmagi]

I drop my rear hatch and address the human crew inside.

"I am heading into enemy lines, I do not believe this is a safe place for you anymore." They exist quickly double timing to the base. I am thankful, but worried that they may fall easy prey.

"Crimson, escort the men on foot to the base and return at best speed. All otherwise functional vehicles follow me!" I cry, gunning my engine and tearing out for the hole pointed out by Shellshock. My cannon flares to life and I shot down the few remaining drones. This fight should be over soon.