1112/Automated Armament II

Automated Armament II
Date of Scene:	09 December 2014
Location:	The Eastern Valley
Synopsis:	In which teamwork is lacking, but somehow the day is saved. Mostly?
Cast of Characters:	Maya, Staren, 368, 596, 650

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Zwei (596) has posed:
    The scene is of a picturesque, rolling valley of verdant green, bordered by old forests that stretch out in a sea of vegetation all the way to the horizon, the center of which gives way to patchwork squares of farmland. The shining city built within is especially large; of reinnaissance design rather than medieval, and built in tiers that steadily raise towards the middle. A steady, rainbow coloured light emenates from the tallest tower of the palace on top of the peak, projecting a scintillating dome of cascading colours over the entire capital. It shimmers with every impact, fading steadily by the moment.

    Bright flashes pop against a hillside far away from the city walls, going off like fireworks visible for miles. White hot bolts of light streak from the ground one after the other, detonating against the magical barrier in massive, rumbling explosions of smokeless fire; flattening trees all around with the powerful shockwave of each blast, visibly distorting the air. Approaching the source, one can see the hill dominated by a black shape the size of a modern house. A strangely organic, hexapodal silhouette, affixed with what is unmistakably a giant cannon jutting from its back on a turret. It is flanked by a pair of smaller, truck sized shapes, raised high up on three legs, seemingly scanning the area around them.

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
I'm sorry, but by the end of the night the valley is not going to be either as green or as picturesque as it once was. But that is favorable to having your city reduced to ruins, right?

Tearing up the grass and topsoil is inevitable with the treads of the heavy machine rumbling towards the city under seige. The sound of the thing's engine is a growl equal to any monster; smoke and embers belch out of it's towering exhaust stacks like a grumpy dragon roused from it's slumber. Spikes and chains clatter with its movement, while the oversized arm-like constructs are currently folded against it's sides for ease of travel.

As shots from the hillside explode against the prismatic dome over the city the impacts are captured by sensors and relayed in still-frames to the multitude of holographic displays within the machine's control center, accompanied in strings of text and calculations speeding by faster than the average eye can follow as computers run dozens of analytical logariths to determine the types of energy used in the shots. One screen does bring up a long distance shot of the hilltop and it's occupants, but despite that Tesla Armadia keeps the Mad Maxizer churning towards the city proper.

"Master," Saiga speaks up from her aclove just behind Tesla's head where the Shinki is using the multiple arms of her exo-suit to manage some minor mechanical controls, "shouldn't something be done about those cannons?"

"Let the so-called 'heroes' concern themselves with reckless frontal counterattacks," Tesla replies calmly. "That is just attempting to break the defenses, nothing but the first stage in what is certain to be an escalating confrontation." She pauses to flick a couple of toggles, warming up the Maxizer's combat subsystems.

"We will be ready for whatever gets past them."

Staren has posed:
    The Star Hawk flies from the warpgate, looking like some kind of heavily armed jet fighter. As Staren approaches the scene, he sees the attacks flashing against the field. A sensor scan confirms magic. Could these three invaders be all there is?

    They might be all that's needed.

    Staren could try to just crush them with his machine, but they may be deceptively powerful. If they dumped all available energy into raiser projectiles, they might just blow him up! So his first serious thought is to pop their shields with the raiser rifle, then just fire ALL THE MISSILES and melt them in plasma.

    But that would give them time to react, and they might be able to shoot down the missiles.

    The Star Hawk deploys some camera drones as it turns away and flies off.

    Staren lands on a distant hill. The Star Hawk changes to humanoid mode as it lands, then turns to face the distant city. He can no longer even see the attackers from here, but he doesn't need to.

    The right shoulder pack opens and unfolds into a massive sniper railgun supported on a shoulder mount, the mecha's hands holding foregrips to guide it. Panels with stabilization thrusters open along the barrel, and laser drills in the Star Hawk's feet melt holes in the ground so that stabilization pylons may be deployed. This is the might of magic and technology turned to war -- the entire weapon has been enchanted, magic and science packing as much power as possible and to exploit the weakness of the weapon's original target. Inside the chamber sits a warhead containing a bomb, not of chemical or nuclear power but of magic -- crystals charged with opposing elemental energies, that will explode with great force when combined. Not to mention the kinetic force of impact, nanoseconds before the explosion. On the front of the round is a laser drill, to vaporise a tunnel into the target so the bomb can blow it apart from inside.

    As a bar on Staren's HUD begins to fill, Staren takes aim. Miniscule nudges of the rifle swinging the reticle about on the drones' view. Until it is at last centered on the largest of the three machines.

    A couple of seconds later, the capacitors reach 100%, and Staren fires.

    The Star Hawk's thrusters fire to hold it stable and counteract the force of the railcannon. All that electricity is dumped in a tiny fraction of a second to produce incredible current and incredible force. The enchanted railgun transfers not only kinetic energy, but magically-enhanced power and accuracy to the warhead that's launched straight through the air at several times the speed of sound. The round moves through the air so quickly that there is nothing to see but a streak of fire and smoke, like one long explosion, and a great boom. And, of course, if the warhead operates as planned, there should be some impressive fireworks at the destination!

Eiko (650) has posed:
ELSWHERE:

    In an ordinary-looking city, a young woman moves at a brisk trot down a foot-path lined with shops. Looking through a window, she can see a line of televisions for sale, showing the evening news. One of the screens suddenly devolves into static, and she pauses a moment, to look more closely.

    "You are chasing off after that transmission, that the gate guardians have chosen to ignore." The voice coming from within the static is sonorously masculine, unlike the pretty anchorwoman that was on the set a few moments ago.

    As if holding a conversation with the TV, the woman nods her head.

    "This is a foolish action, likely to result in your demise. You are unready for such forays." The voice continues. The woman shrugs, but she's smiling.

    "Very well. It does not contradict the pact. Know merely that my support shall be withheld until your return." The woman leans forward and sticks out her tongue as the new channel reappears with a soft blip. Then, she continues on her way.

Eiko (650) has posed:
NOW:

    The same woman is standing in a fantastical city. She's got a sidebag on one arm, and a katana sheathed at her other side. In a hoodie, baseball cap and jeans, she probably could not look more out of place if she'd tried, but she's not showing the least trace of self-consciousness. Not even the panic of the city's inhabitants, nor the bright explosions against the shield, seem to really faze her. She looks, if anything, like a kid in a candy store.

    Then she gives her own cheek a slap, dials down the grin, and interposes her (still sheathed) sword between the nearest important-looking person and wherever they're trying to go.

    "Yo, take me to your leader." A quarter-pause. "Unless they're not controlling your defenses. You got some cannons, right? Take me there."

    Even with the effort at calm, she's just visibly manic.

Maya has posed:
SO here they come again something has spilled out of Zwei's universe again not tha tMaya knos the entire details at this point. However what she does know is something moving in and attacking again. Maya's in a craft she's not seen use in a very long time a Alpha Fighter the variable mecha is in jet mode at the moment and Maya's flying in as she calls out over the comm.

<<So just what are we looking at here Staren??>>

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Tesla finds a very strange truth. As far as she can determine, each projectile launched by the lead machine is comprised entirely of photons. Rather than being emitted as the unique kind of wave that light is comprised of, they seem to be firmly rooted in the realm of particles. Each bolt travels at roughly 3000 meters per second, but slowed down from the speed of light, relativity appears to be working in reverse, giving them 208 times the energy actually used to fire them. With firing intervals of three seconds, the machine stops to vent small quantities of hydrogen plasma between each shot. The explosions appear to be nothing more than conventional light, but of such intensity that the air at ground zero undergoes nuclear fusion, creating a massive fireball every time they hit. The explosive yield can be estimated at roughly 50 tons of TNT, requiring a massive 6 gigajoules of energy just to fire.

    As luck would have it, Eiko seems to have pinned down a petty officer, scrambling to the outer walls where other soldiers are gathering. His face is pale, and his expression betrays barely controlled panic. "You're an offworlder, right? With the Union? I don't know what you're planning but it better be good. We've got all available personnel diverted to defense, but I'm not sure it's going to be enough. Follow me." He resumes moving at a brisk job, winding through the lower streets, and producing a key to climb up one of the guard towers, coming out onto a thick, crenellated fortification, where rows of what look like silver mortars are being wheeled up to the edge, and loaded with cannonballs made of glass, coruscating with arcs of energy within.

    Tesla, Maya and Staren showing up in large, powerful machines makes them difficult to miss. The pair of tripods flanking the main battle tank turn to scan each inbound Elite as they arrive, fixing them with staggered trios of baleful red optics. One of them in particular turns to Staren, bracing itself on all three legs as it detects the energy signature from the laser drills, locking onto him even at his considerable distance. Almost the instant he fires his railgun, the air sizzles in a straight line from the machine's center to the flying projectile, striking it dead on with a beam only visible on the electronic spectrum, and prematurely detonating the warhead. The bomb is just fast enough that by the time it is intercepted, it is well out of the range it could hurt Staren, but the problem is obvious. The ponderous tank is being guarded by drones entirely dedicated to point defense; defending it while it continues its bombardment.

Staren has posed:
    <<Really high-tech autonomous war machines destroying anything that might be a threat to their long-gone creators. Every once in awhile one stumbles on a warpgate, and then this happens.>> Staren explains. <<They're annoying to fight, so I'm gonna try to take them out in one shot before they can react.>>

    The massive railgun sprays a cloud of vaporized coolant out of vents in the rear. Staren's first attack is over in nanoseconds. The railgun round exploded in midair! "...What the--?!" He replays the video and sensor feeds a few times. <<...They must have shot it down.>>

    He switches to broad-band communications: "The little ones are point defenders! I'm going to pop their shields -- anyone tanky enough to get up close and fight them, do so as soon as the shields are down! Once the little ones are down, we can tear apart the big one!"

    The Star Hawk retracts its pylons and folds up the sniper railcannon again, then takes off and transforms. When it gets close, it buzzes the attacking machines in hybrid mode, like a plane with arms and legs: One of its right fingers has the raiser rifle inside it, firing a full-auto burst of shots beginning at moderately powerful and increasing until he finds the shield-popping setting. The left arm positions its energy shield under one side of the mecha's body. Staren hopes between the shield and his mecha's armor, he doesn't have too much to worry about yet. Still, he expects to take some hits, and hopes he won't need to do this repeatedly.

Eiko (650) has posed:
"Are you with the Union?"
    A. The what now?
    B. Of course!

    "Yeah, totally." Eiko follows after the guy, glad she didn't have to waste time finding anyone else. Stuff is working out.

    Along the way, she gives her sword-sheathe a punch from her other hand, hissing under her voice. "War's your schtick! You gonna stay quiet now that I've found one?" The sword, of course, doesn't respond. It is a sword. It cannot talk.

    She's in time to see Staren's warhead go off, to great effect in the air, if less so on the enemy. It takes her a little processing time to figure out that there was something travelling toward the tripod for that particular sight to happen. The gears turn. The petty officer is hopeful for her to take charge--wait, is that normal?

    Well, whatever. She's figured out that the enemy's got a big cannon and interception--confirmed a moment later by Staren's voice on her headset. That's enough for a start. Too bad she can't go out there to work any magic on the big uglies, but they'd splatter her under these circumstances, shields down or not. Yeah, that'd be a bad idea. She doesn't even have the armor you'd put on a warhead.

    "Man, I was hoping for some big laser turrets or something. Oh well, guess this'll have to do." More inspiring words hath never been spoken in war. She points to the ammo being loaded into one of the cannons. "Only got one trick that might work on this. And I still hate this part." She takes a breath, and then rushes, as if eager to get it over with, "Curse."

    Nothing happens to the glass ball. Instead, she doubles over with a sudden, hacking cough, through which she barely gets out, "Cycle," and straightens, apparently relieved. "Cycle. Cycle. Cycle. Cycle. Got it! Transfer. Mutate. Yes!"

    The ammunition nearest to her, to some distance, begins to brightly glow, as if supercharged to the point that it'll go off prematurely--but it won't. It will last exactly long enough, and then explode with the full power of the curse she'd laid into it--such as that is.

    "Fire it all at once. Overwhelm the defenses. Anything that gets through'll work well enough. Doesn't matter which you target."

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
"Interesting dissimulation from standard particle physics. Photons do not normally behave in such a manner." But for now the information is filed away for later disection. Tesla turns her attention to the primary problem at hand, just as one of the tripod 'tanks' intercepts Staren's attempt at a quick resolution with a premature mid-air detonation.

"I'm guessing that is why you wanted to wait," Saiga murmurs as the detonation splashes through the air overhead.

"Precisely why," Tesla replies, even as she's making adjustments to her own controls. "The high ground gives them a strategic advantage over the city, they would not set up there without some sort of planned defense against enemy counter artillery. Power up the gravimetric catapult and load the 'special package'."

The Mad Maxizer wheels around in a rapid turn to bring the back end facing the hillside bombardiers as well. Vents hiss and machinery can be heard churning within as some sort of reformation is happening internally. Then warning lights flash as the rear hatch opens upward, the manipulator tendrils mounted on the back of it pulling an additional launch ramp into place over the scrap bucket that forms the lower read of the craft.

Within the dark depths of the vehicle, a pair of slits, almost like eyes, briefly flash on and then dim again.

Making the adjustment controls is easy with her extra arms, Saiga looking down at her master as she does so. "Do you think they have defenses against close combat as well?"

"Most likely," Tesla replied as she reached for the launch lever. "We may have to set our sights... a little lower." Followed by a somewhat ominous chuckle as she pulls the lever. A high electronic whine splits the air as the launch system hits full power, and fires with a rumbling boom, the recoil rocking the Maxizer audibly.

What comes hurtling out of the launcher with enough force to rock the heavy machine firing it is not a bomb in the literal explosive sense. No, what was launched out of it was none other than Tesla's own animate war machine, Shardcore. The robotic saurian has its weapons folded away to reduce drag resistance as it's hurtled headfirst into the fracas.

An engine of destruction in its own right, easily packing as much mass to it as a tank, flung at high velocity over a relatively short distance towards the invading machine... wait... there's no arc in that path to get to the top of the hill!

Which was never the intention. Tesla fired the warmech -into the side of- the hill, intent on causing an impact with that much bulk hitting the hill at exceptional speed to possible cause part of the hillside in itself to collapse. At the very least the resulting shockwave should be from an unexpected method and throw off their stability up top.

Considering it's survived one on one fights with the likes of Thor, Shardcore is probably going to walk away from that tactic in the end.

"When the enemy has a tactical advantage," Tesla replies calmly to her cockpit company, "Remove it."

Maya has posed:
Maya is seeing that there are things heating up she notices the thing coming after them and she ownders about them. She sees that they are all about point defence fine she's going to start closing her machine's moving in fairly fast anf she's not firing any weapons just yet no she needs toget in up close so she can engage the point defence units directly.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Staren recieves no return fire from the interceptors. Point defense beams are likely all they have, designed to punch holes through shells and disrupt energy blasts, rather than having true anti-armour capabilities. That however, seems to mean that a proportionally larger amount of energy is dedicated to shielding, because it takes over half Staren's battery before the shield brightens, flickers, and then bursts. The drone inside of it bounds out of the way at high speed, retreating over the hillside in a strange, three legged gallop to allow its shields to recharge. As he closes the distance however, ball mounted firing ports, like large, metallic eyes, open up in the tank's side; swivelling to fix him with targeting beams, before blazing away at a ridiculous rate of fire in return. The rounds they fire don't seem to be of high enough energy to explode, instead showering him with a computer guided fusillade of armour piercing, anti-tank, hard-light slugs, raking over his target profile in order to maximize the chance of hitting something vital.

    The officer atop his own sword, using it to motion the armoured soldiers up there with him to load the new ammunition, shouting orders to be heard over the explosions striking the giant magical wards above his head. Working in teams of three, one loads each cannon, one primes it, and the third works a series of gears and cranks to subtly adjust the gun's elevation and tilt to aim for the second drone. Screaming the order to fire with a downward chop of his sword, the officer's response is the thundering boom of a well coordinated cannon volley. At the same time, the guard towers glow in alternating lights as powerful mages launch a screen of fireballs, lightning bolts, icy shards, flying blades, and just about everything in the book. The converging wall of projectiles is subsequently thinned out at an alarming rate. The point defense beam mounted on that drone is apparently capable of extreme rapid fire, as spell after spell after cannonball is shot out of the air at dizzying speed. Only a tenth of the volley actually reaches it, consuming half the hillside in a coruscating blaze of magical energy. That must have cracked its shields, because it too begins to retreat.

    Already weakned by the impact from the capital defense forces, the front half of the hill collapses into a sliding avalanche of dirt and chunks and stone, crumbling like wet sand. As the steadily avancing cliff edge reaches the tank, it lowers its chassis almost all the way to the ground, and then launches its tremendous bulk into the air; leaping back from the newly made precipice and planting itself on the new peak. Its main gun momentarily goes silent as it readjusts its aim, giving the city a very brief respite. The tank doesn't seem content to ignore Tesla or her creation however, as tiny ports all over its back open up and launch a shrieking salvo of blue lights; trail-less missiles cutting through the air and swerving both ways. Though utterly miniscule in size, each warhead contains a tiny quantity of anti-particles held in such fragile stasis that they'll go off the moment they crack open against anything, spreading a disproportionaly huge swathe of explosive firepower over Shardcore and the Mad Maxizer.

Staren has posed:
    Staren's plan was, as soon as the shields pop, to drop down and engage the drones in melee -- but they have other plans. "Tsch..." Staren is rather irked that it took /half/ the battery to pop /one/ drone's shields... and then, they run away! AND the tank starts shooting at him! Staren gives chase after the drone while the tank's weapons rain down on him. By the time Tesla's collapsed the hill, the underside of the mecha, except for part of the left side covered by the shield, is pockmarked, scratched, dented, cracked, broken, and riddled with holes -- some small sections of plating have just been torn apart, shrapnel raining down below the mech. "/Dammit/!" He can't keep doing that -- but right now, his objective is to destroy the drone in front of him so it can't recharge. In a blur of tiny moving parts, the Star Hawk transforms to fighter mode and pours on the speed, chasing the drone and firing a full-auto stream from the gatling railgun supplemented with some kind of weak homing beams.

Eiko (650) has posed:
    "Got 'em!" Eiko shouts, even though they only got one target, and even though they only forced it to retreat. And she probably can't pull the same trick twice. There's bound to be mages up top with a long cooldown. Damn. "Really wish I had a Gundam right now. Though I'd settle for some flying assassin droids," preferably the kind inexplicably modelled on Japanese schoolgirls, she doesn't add.

    "Yo, officer! What've you got to get me out there that won't be blasted out of the sky soon as it shows? I'll settle for a stealth glider. Just gotta get out there before the defense shows back up."

    She holds up her weapon. "I wanna hit 'em with my sword."

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
Prehaps not as effectively as one would of hoped, but it worked none the less in forcing the enemy to readjust their position. Between the Union and the city's defenses the two defense drones have been forced into retreat. This would be the time to move in and take advantage of the situation.

But coming under heavy fire kind of puts a damper in that. The attackers aren't the only ones with point defenses. The 'spikes' mounted down the front of the Mad Maxizer burst from their housings and into the air, fragmenting into a spread of interceptive shrapnel. Which is nowhere near as large as the discharge of explosives hurtling towards them, but it does punch a hole in the spread that would of hit something more critical like the control section of the machine. The rest of the barrage slams into the bulk of the vehicle though, sending chunks of armor plating whizzing through the air to impale the ground with their sharp edges. Electrified smoke spirals upwards from the damage, but as it starts to blow clear the Maxizer can be seen still sitting there, battered to hell and back, but still functional. Ablative armor designed to be blasted off with damage to absorb it does wonders.

That and Tesla may be using her technopathy to help keep things together under the assault. With a grunt she reachs for one of the controls. "Now that we've got their attention, we need to keep it." She pulls a trigger and the vulcans atop the Maxizer light up, peppering the cannon machine in rather low caliber fire. Probably not going to do a lot of damage if it even gets past its remaining defenses.

What Telsa is hoping for is that it, and whatever attacks coming from other vectors from the Union and city defenses, will be enough of a distraction for it to not notice the equally battered by still functional form at Shardcore climbing up to the newly formed ledge of the hilltop, angling his much more potent shoulder gatling cannon at the alien tank and firing away at it.

Maya has posed:
Maya is followin in after Staten at this poing her machine shifts into it's half way mode between aerospace unit and mecha. A LArge rifle appears in the machine's arms off the belly of the unit anf is folling him up. She's been lucky enough to avoid damage and she muses another idea she does however follow up the attack Staren is making with the heavil calibure solid slug weapon after the drone.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    The officer stares in bafflement at at Eiko talking about gundams and assassin droids, but he at least seems inclined to trust her after she'd just help them, especially with two out of three foes retreating. Calling up a mage from below the battlements, a young woman staggers in like she'd just run a marathon, holding one hand for patience while she tries to catch her breath, before finally standing up straight, holding out her staff, and uttering an incantation. The ground beneath Eiko lights up with a pair of magic circles. The first turns her almost completely invisible. The second wraps her in a gale of howling wind, and then launches her like a catapult, sending her screaming through the air is a trajectory far less controllable than she would have perhaps liked.

    The drones are fast, but not fast enough to escape the star hawk on foot. Furthermore, they're lightly armoured underneath the shields, and Staren's railgun and beams, though partially intercepted, chew through the first one easily, shattering it to pieces with repeated kinetic penetrator impacts. Maya has similar luck with her second drone, repeatedly pummeling its thin plating until it caves in completely and the internals are pumped full of lead. The, generously put, 'anti-personnel' guns mounted on the tanks sides sweep from Staren as he flies out of range, towards Tesla and Maya. The projectiles don't seem to lose any energy over distance, ripping through the ground and sky towards them with unerring accuracy.

    The tank itself is multitasking, engaging several targets simultaneously while still besieging the city walls. With its gun readjusted, it resumes firing, and the next bolt crashes against the shield with a cascade of multicoloured lightning. The dome fades completely from view, bursting like an oversized bouble. The bolt after that impacts the walls directly; kicking up a titanic cloud of flying dirt and stone that momentarily blots the view of a quarter of the city. The pieces continue to rain down as it goes for a third shot. The soldiers and cannons not far from where Eiko had stood have been annihilated instantly. Before that third shot goes flying into the city however, Shardcore manages to grab the tank's attention as his vulcan rattles against its shield in conjunction with Tesla's. Obviously well fortified, it responds by lifting one of its legs up high and then stabbing down like a piston, hitting the ground with earthquaking force, aiming to crush Shardcore beneath it.

Staren has posed:
    "Ha!" Staren sees one drone go down, then another thanks to Maya. "Thanks!" Finally free of the tank's fire, he deploys the three longer-range HE missiles and comes around for another pass behind them. The railgun spins up again and sends a stream of metal downrange, and as he closes in, he fires the other half of the RAISER rifle's power in one shot, then the homing beams fire, as does a salvo of nearly three dozen missiles of various types from the main missile pod. If those aren't mostly blown out of the sky, indicating that defenses are down, the missile packs contribute a followup salvo of 60 more plasma minimissiles.

    Time to end this!

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
Despite Tesla's best efforts the Maxizer is starting to suffer from the damage done to it. "Saiga, go repair the main drive systems. I'd like to at least have enough mobility to get this thing back hom again afterwards."

"Of course Master!" The shinki opens the compartment hatch behind her niche and climbs into the machine's access conduits. A design addition Tesla made specifically to take advantage of her small size when it comes to internal problems it would take too long for traditional system scans or Tesla's machine empathy to find.

Said empathy is being strained enough by the machine struggling to not fall apart around them as it is.

Shardcore on the other hand is roughed up but far from beaten. As the leg comes down to stomp on the warmech he throws his hands up alongside his head to catch it. Having a very sturdy cranial structure was an advantage of being modeled partially upon a triceratops. Still the tremendous forces meeting is enough to force bending his legs and slamming his heavy tail into the ground for anchorage, alloy plating and various mechanical components screeching and groaning with the protest of effort in keeping him from winding up like a tin can under someone's heel.

Tactical processors fire rapidly, all coming to only one possible course of action at this point. Shardcore's optics flare to an irradiant green color as he shifts as best he can to angle his head up at the alien tank. A similar glow flashes from the depths of his mouth as he opens it, only to erupt outward as he vents overflow from his power supplies to prevent the struggle's strain from overheating mechanical systems.

Due to the nature of his experimental, volatile core this resulting in a massive plume of acidic plasma blasting up towards the tank's underside. Are these invaders smart enough to shield the underside of their constructs or not?

Eiko (650) has posed:
    "Ahhahahaha!" Eiko's only thought, once she's oriented enough to keep her target in sight, is, "FUCKIN' AWESOME." Since it was a friendly that launched her, she has no doubt that she'll land intact and, if not on target, then close enough to it. This may not be entirely sound reasoning, but really, what would be the point in worrying at this late juncture?

    Momentary worries, if they'd existed. Her course seems to be carrying her close enough--though not quite dead-on while still avoiding lines of fire. Whoops. What can she do about that? Not a hell of a lot. At least she's too low of an energy signature for the giant machine to care about.

    What she has is a hoodie, and in a moment later she instead has a make-shift parachute, just enough to introduce some drag and influence her path. She just doesn't want to be instantly reduced to theoretical particles by taking the main cannon head on, but she /does/ want to land on the thing. She's not going to be able to do much to it otherwise.

    And she does. The shield must not have registered her as moving fast enough to be an attack. She reaches a point somewhere past the defenses, on the thing's heavily armored back. She pulls her sword out from under her arm, and gives a tug to the hilt--at which it refuses to budge from its sheathe. Another tug, and she gives up. No time for that. She pulls a common utility knife out of her sidebag, flicks it open, and promptly slashes her left palm.

    "Agh! Shit, why!" She does it again, amidst a string of invectives, only one of which is the word "curse," half at some mysterious entity and half at the robot under her, and all against whatever cruel fate renders this an effective strategy. She's only a mildly augmented human, and this hurts like--like being slashed repeatedly in a moderately sensitive part of the body, until the blood is making a good flow down her sword sheathe.

    "Infect!" She smacks the armor plate with the blunt side of the sword sheathe, getting more of her blood on both. It's at about this point that she tries contacting Staren over the radio, but a quick look up tells her that that is no longer an option. Should have tried sooner. Oh well, change of plans! Time to take a running leap and maybe scramble down the leg of a giant robot as it's attacked from every side. Not the stomping leg; she'll take another one. This is likely going to be awful, either way.

    Meanwhile, though she's paying no attention to it, her Bleeding curse travels into the giant tank 'bot. It doesn't matter if it's dead or alive. So long as it has some kind of fluid that circulates through some portion of its mechanisms, it'll either resist the curse, or it will bleed.

Maya has posed:
Maya is trying to do what she can and she eems to get some luck as she is able to put th thing down. She's quite happy about that btu there's no time to celebrate these automatic weapons are a big problem and she wants to be certain they are all scrapped her machine twists about and is heading after the tank ow he machine keeps closes in in as eh closes in on the tank now she drop her machine shifting into a humanoid form and it's rifle comes up now as it hit the ground it might have been winged but it's not out.

She comes up and now fires the shoulder mounted missile pods along with the rifle.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    What is basically Maya's and Staren's entire payload detonates on the outside of the tank's shield frame, only centimeters above Eiko's head. Despite the blinding, deafening explosion taking place so close to her, washing over her surroundings in clouds of fire, not a single hair of hers is disturbed. As Shardcore adds his own attack to the salvo however, that formiddable shielding finally fails, winking out just in time for Eiko to clamber off. Reprioritizing the two threats (completely ignoring the girl), the turrets on the side of the machine swivel to face Shardcore while he is immobilized, and begin firing on him at point blank. The main cannont swivels to face Staren almost instantly, tracking his trajectory, and then firing as soon as he reaches close range; aiming to completely obliterate him in a single shot, before he can sweve out of the way.

    The tank doesn't work on any kind of hydraulic system, and so it won't bleed fluid that will lessen its mobility, but a kind of liquid used for the kerr lensing of the lasing chamber shortly before the machine's guns convert light into rydberg energy begins to gush out of miniscule seams in its armour. The moment after it fires at Staren, its main gun explodes into a hail of shrapnel as the warmup cycle of the second shot superheats the interior mechanism instead. The guns on its sides do much the same, leaving the tank almost completely without weapons. A second set of micromissiles open up in its exterior, primed to fire at any moment.

Eiko (650) has posed:
    Eiko is pretty damn sure that the thing she's supposed to be doing now is to get as far away from that thing as possible. More than humanly possible would be preferred. Too bad she's still in terrible pain from her left hand--though a version of her prior trick will handle that for at least the few seconds she needs.

    "Mutate," the word is hissed. Bane to boon. Temporarily. A massive endorphin rush dulls the pain and puts strength into her legs. Full on the fight or flight response, she's done both flying and fighting, and is ready to flee. Almost--almost, she drops her bag in the process. But it would take nearly as much time to get off her shoulder and ditch as it would save her by reduced weight. Besides, she's got her stuff in there, and that city didn't promise to replace anything.

    Damn. Damn! Damn all invaders who don't give the defenders time to organize payment for services soon to be rendered.

    Eiko gets the hell out of the way.

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
Before they overheat and detonate the guns manage to slam several rounds into Shardcore, who indeed has nowhere else to go with the tank's leg still held on top of him. They tear large junks off the robot, causing considerable damage while at the same time proving while redundant modular systems are a core concept of Tesla's designs, at least when it comes to the commando units that need to remain function under heavy duress and injury. Finally he manages to shove the leg forward and let go of it, leaving it to slam into the ground in front of him. With a lumbering step back Shardcore pauses for a moment to readjust, much of his upper chassis blasted down to the internal infrastructure. As he raises his head several dozen warning points flash across his HUD for the multitude of ports opening up on the tank's body.

In response he raises his arms, the blasters he's partially named for extending out of his forearms. The triple barrels fire in alternating fashion, pumping out rapid fire volleys of metal shards aimed to penatrate through those openings being revealed in order to fire the micromissiles.

Maya has posed:
Maya makes sure the tank is down ot is it she does see that it's not dead yet, fine she's going to keep after it at this point and she sees the thing is diarmed but it's not dead fine she's moving in at this point she is keeping track it and those whoa re on foot she's got She wants to amek sure it's doiwn as she pops off several rounds from the rifle trying to make sure it's dead.

Staren has posed:
    "Gaaaah! Break already!" Staren shouts at the offending shield, until finally it /does/ -- but he's used up most of his explosives to do it. (There are still the launchers in his gunpod, but they're currently reloading). He comes in close, preparing to transform and pull the beam swords... when it fires and he barely has time to react -- the projectile is dodged at all costs, sending the Star Hawk careening off and Staren almost stunned from G-forces. By the time he recovers and realizes he's not being fired at anymore, he's far away, and pulls into a loop to come in for a second pass. "Hhhh... dammit!" This time, he keeps his distance, and just fires another salvo of mini- and micro-missiles, about three dozen of mixed-yield armor-piercing and plasma warheads.

Zwei (596) has posed:
    Eiko has the right idea in trying to get away as fast as possible. Shardcore's and Maya's firing shatters the warheads currently just under the tank's armour, setting off the miniature antimatter reactions prematurely. One of Staren's missiles collides head one with one of the tank's launched from its opposite side; daisy chaining the detonations so that the backblast hurls the Starhawk away and crashes against the side of the Arma; stripping its hulk away layer by layer, thankfully shielding Shardcore as the internal magazine detonates as well, seriously endangering him if he remains in close proximity. The already destabilized hillside collapses entirely; being driven into a massive crater with an eardrum-popping thump; blasting a wave of white mist through the air as it compresses from the blast wave. The upper stratum of the dirt turns to sizzling, orange glass, leaving a bizarre, crystalline scrochmark on the otherwise idyllic countryside. The remains of the tank are nowhere to be seen, but at the ceter of where it once stood, an infinitsmally small point of light burns away like an ember, steadily sending out overpowering waves of heat that makes the glass boil, bubble and vapourize.

    Up in the atmosphere blazes the light of a second, tiny sun, followed by the faint sound of an explosion over a minute later. That takes care of the ship.

Staren has posed:
    Counter-missiles, the bane of every RIFTS missile volley! "Damn it!" Staren curses as most of his volley is wasted again... and then, /something/ happens, and there's a crater with something in it, making it boil. "Did it... self-destruct?" And then there's a fusion explosion in the sky. So that's where Zwei was.

    Staren flies around the crater at what he hopes is a safe distance a few times, and radios: <<Is everyone alright?>>

Tesla Armadia (368) has posed:
Under normal circumstances like this Shardcore would just do a last minute memory core dump to backup remote drives and let the explosion do it's worse. But being abstractly aware of how much strain Tesla is already under, even the machine realizes how much of a bad idea that could be if she picked up the physical destruction with her machine empathy. Preservation of Creator overrides what would otherwise be the most practical action.

Which little other options, Shardcore activates his railcannon, aims it down at the ground, and fires. The recoil of doing so without bracing himself is enough to initiate an improvised 'cannon-jump' launching him into the air with enough force to make it almost all the way back to the starting point before hitting the ground. Hard.

Hard enough it takes a few moments of work with the Maxizer's claw-arm to pull him free again.

"Well I think that about wraps up here."

Maya has posed:
MAya's machine lower it's rifle as she looks to see how everything seems to be over for the moment. She's aware something needs to be done about this. She opens up a radio to the others.

"I'm fine, I'm going to see what I can do to help the locals with my healing abilities."