THE COURIER
—Arcturus Pit, Day 2 Early Morning—
The plan was set in motion. Keyes checked over Lorens once again as JULIAN and Kazaaak moved out. “You took a beating,” the captain told the Guardian standing nearby, who looked eager for instructions as involved as the ones just given to the other two. “Can you keep an eye from here once I go down? Make sure she’s safe; be my spotter while you’re at it.”
The Guardian seemed hesitant for a moment, but it was quickly shied away as he gave a determined nod. “You got it, cap’n!” he whispered loudly, placing a solemnly sworn fist upon his battered chestplate.
With that, Keyes moved himself toward the edge of the clearing, waiting for the signal.
“Sorry, I need this.”
The unggoy squealed as he was flung unexpectedly from his seat, which the mantis clambered into. Despite his alien proportions... it seemed he fit rather efficiently into the seat. This checked out, an alien conglomerate would need to design their equipment to be used by every member species. This made the controls also impressively intuitive and simple.
The ghost was fairly large up close, despite being the smallest vehicle the Banished had. Its entire top was much too high to see over, leaving Kazaaak without anyway to look ahead - until he looked down to see the console of the ghost was a pink-ish screen, depicting a 160 degree view in front of the ghost in infrared vision. Two bars jutted out of the ghost at arm-level, and upon experimenting, Kazaaak would quickly find that the left bar controlled four-directional movement in a smooth, floaty manner, allowing the ghost to move any direction on a flat dimension. The second bar on the right manipulated the ghost’s angle, allowing for zero-turning. Finally there were two triggers on the bars. The left bar’s trigger, upon being pressed, fired rapid-spewing balls of white-hot plasma from dual cannons on the ghost’s nose, while the second (he may find with surprise) activated the ghost’s thrusters, propelling it violently forward at breakneck speeds, jumping from zero to a hundred in a heartbeat.
The grunt wailed on the ground, shouting curses and deadly insults at Kazaaak, such as “stupid head” and “fart face” or a rather cruel one: “you have a particular odor reminiscent of oxygen - a putrid stench, mind you!"
This drew the attention of the second ghost, as well as others, but it was the first to move. Its on-board grunt let out a yelp as he zero-turned the vehicle to face Kazaaak’s ghost and began rapid-firing a hail of plasma from the twin cannons. It would quickly be revealed that only the first second of rapid-firing was accurate, as afterwards the blasts would begin to spray in more wild, uncoordinated directions. This could be mediated by feathering the trigger rather than holding it down, allowing it to maintain relative accuracy.
The ghost grunt didn’t seem to know this, as his shots began to fly in every direction, almost entirely missing Kazaaak after the initial accuracy.
The more deadly entities were the two shade turrets, both of which were facing out from the pit already, and had a clear view at Kazaaak from the clearing, though the trees obscured the additional turrets deeper in. The shades had much more impressive accuracy with a similar projectile speed and count to the ghosts. Just after the ghost grunt’s response, they too began to fire in unison at the mantis, attracting further attention.
Jackals, grunts, and brutes began to move and assemble to defend Arcturus Pit.
That was the signal he’d been waiting for.
Keyes emerged from the brush and stopped at the lip of the pit, glancing down. The patrolling jackals had now taken up defensive positions, hunkering down in their corners on the ledges to take aim at the entrance with their snipers, waiting patiently for a clear shot at anything they could get in their sights.
The captain braced a hand behind him before he dropped, sliding down the dirt wall to the ground, knees buckling on impact. He compensated by tucking into a short roll. The primary turrets nearby, nor the jackals, caught wind of this yet. The load-bearing brutes had already lumbered toward the entrance as the sleeping grunts waddled after them.
“Wha-” one marine muttered, looking up towards the captain as he approached.
Keyes lifted a finger as he charged his plasma pistol. One shot should be enough to break the restraint core.
Hopefully the noise of the erupting battle would cover it up...
DETOUR
—Ambush Clearing, Day 2 Early Morning—
He had a much better grasp on the controls now. After trying to get the movement down comfortably, Copen had taken the Mantis through its cardio paces, shaking off the rust and cobwebs as they set off for the pit to regroup and support Keyes’ team.
Kaminski seemed to be having a blast riding atop the mantis, one arm wrapped around the belt to keep steady, his other holding up his precision rifle.
Yet as they neared a clearing, it became clear the Banished had been attracted to it already for some reason. A total of three phantoms hovered overhead, search lights sweeping the area, and there were no doubt ground units running amok.
Kaminski found this obstacle appealing.
“Hey, Copen!” he called down to the android. “Let’s put her through her paces! Target practice!”
With the movement down and calibrated, this did seem an opportune time to get a battle diagnosis on the mantis. The stomp worked, but there was still a massive chaingun and an arm-mounted missile silo to put to use.
“Big tip,” the marine added, glancing down at Copen. “If you hold down the rocket trigger, it’ll charge up the silo to rapid-fire the missiles. They’ll fly faster, too! Good to keep on standby when the chaingun starts to overheat and needs to cool down!”
[[ OST - COOL PLASMA; HOT LEAD ]]
