taalismn wrote:Mexico, Post-Rain of Death
”Damn it! Where are all you bastards coming from?! I thought most of the renegades bought it with Khyron!”
Rick Hunter threw his fighter across the sky to avoid the barrage of fire from the pack of Regults trying to haul him down. Then he had to duck back down as a trio of Gnerls, waiting above, swooped down on him and tried to catch him by surprise. He put his Valk into Gerwalk, sliding in VTOL under them as they screeched overhead, pickled off two of his remaining Stilletos into their hot venturis, then had to dive again as his hovering mecha caught the attention of the Regults again.
All around him squadrons of UNDF mecha clawed and scrambled in their own furballs with the Zentraedi mecha that were trying to hit Mexico City. It seemed like every remaining Malcontent mecha in North America was making a hallelujah end run on the city, their quantity, if not their quality, threatening to overwhelm the available defenders.
“Lisa?! Talk to me! ETA on reinforcements?”
#“Orbitals and transcontinentals are still 30 minutes out.”
“Damn! Khyron’s spoilsports are thick as flies out here and we can’t swat all of them by ourselves!” Rick frantically tried to spot the Gnerl that had tried to wax him earlier.
#“Got another IFF signal coming up on your position, Rick.”
“Who? Don’t tell me we got more rogues!”
#“No, IDs as Civil Air Patrol. Probably Mexican air national guard or militia.”
“Great! What the hell can THEY contribute? Jets?” Rick already knew every Mexican Sector VF was committed to the battle, and every conventional fighter that wasn’t already up was shot down. The skies were most definitely NOT friendly around here.
#”Registration reports it as a helicopter.”
“You’re kidding me! This isn’t a heli fight!” $#!+, there was the Gnerl, minus its two buddies, but with a fresh Gnerl dropping in beside it, both angling back towards him.
#”That’s what it says. It’s approaching your position QUICKLY, Rick.”
Rick glanced up at his HUD, to see a new cursor coming into the aerial battlefield.
<<Missile Alert! Tracking Incoming>>
Rick made ready to dodge and throw chaff. Most of the UNDF mecha had already lost their missiles early in the fight, which left the Malcontents with available ordnance.
<<Confirmed. Double Vampire. AAM Targeting Alpha-Zebra-One.>>
As Rick looked up, he saw the Gnerl suddenly get hit by a bright streak and blow up. A second streak hit its wingman, sending the Gnerl rolling and staggering wide as it tried to regain control.
Rick caught a glimpse of the launch aircraft as it entered visual range, banking after the wounded Zentraedi mecha.
What the -hell-? That looked like an old Bell 222! What the heck was it doing in this hairball?!
Then he was back in the furball, chugging away with his GU-11 as a Zentraedi Stinger tried to ream him with pulse laser fire.
Several times during the fight, as Rick tried to keep track of his fellow fighters, he caught a glimpse of the mysterious copter as it ducked and weaved in its own dogfights. The thing may have looked like an executive chopper, but it moved with a speed and fluidity that almost the equal of a Veritech. And it seemed to bristle with armaments.
Whatever it was, he saw it make a pass on a hand’s worth of Regults. By the time it had finished its flyby, half the battlepods were smoking ruins, shot through by what looked like chain gun fire and ASMs. Another time he caught a glimpse of it reversing on a pursuing Male Power Armor, then blowing the Zentraedi’s head off with a nearly point-blank Hellfire launch. He even saw it take a glancing hit from Regult cannon fire, the particle beam strike staggering the helicopter but not obliterating it as it should have; instead the chopper had turned and bullseyed the battlepod with what looked like laser fire of its own.
Suddenly aware of a new player, the Malcontents had begun to start moving towards the newcomer with fell intent, and Rick was back to fighting, picking off distracted targets of opportunity with his remaining chain gun ammo and few remaining missiles.
By that time, though, the radar had lit with dozens more signals, IFF painting them as the reinforcements from South America and Liberty, finally arriving. As the fresh forces inserted themselves into the firefight, depleted mecha and men began to drop out and fall back. Rick, fresh out of ammunition and missiles, was one of them, gratefully gaining altitude to assume an overwatch as the battle wound down in the defenders’ favor.
Thus Rick was able to see the dark angel bow out of the fight, lofting out of the fight, then accelerating away at an incredible performance curve, before its radar image sputtered out.
Rick looked at the clocked speed recorded before the black helicopter had vanished.
No ####ing way! That helicopter broke the sound barrier?! And sensors say that loss of sensor contact was...active stealth?!
What the hell was that thing?
Caitlin O'Shannessy, late of the Texas Highway Patrol, eased back on the stick as she lowered The Lady into the Lair, the cool shadows folding over stealth helicopter as the camouflage tarp retracted back into place above it, preserving the illusion of the Valley of the Gods being more lifeless waste.
Like so much of the Earth now, Caitlin sighed as she powered down The Lady and pulled off her helmet.
Aliens, giant robots, and the Apocalypse...certainly not what she’d been expecting to be facing one day when she’d gone chasing a mysterious black helicopter back in the day.
With a hiss the cockpit hatch opened, and Caitlin tiredly climbed out of her faithful stead.
“How’d it go?”
“Just swimmingly, Jo. Took a hit, but the armor held. Bless old Michael Briggs for those last tech handouts before the Firm got folded.”
Jo Santini was staring at the burn marks along her favorite bird’s flanks. “I can SEE that! Fortunately I got enough of the armor stock to effect repairs, but I’d rather you didn’t get hit!”
“I try, but it’s not like we’re pot-shooting Migs anymore. Those Zents are trigger-happy bastards.”Caitlin set her neural helmet, another gift of purloined technology from the late Firm director, on one of the drums of supplies packed into the Lair’s cave tunnels.
Jo was already prying at the melted and warped composite armor with a tool. “Anything else go cocked?”
“ Laser almost overheated. Gotta do something about the cooling jacket on it. Engines acted up again. Almost lost power a few times during the hairball.”
“I’m telling you, we should move to a metallic hydrogen powerplant; they give more power.”
“You know as well as I do LMH’s military mecha fuel and they’re watching where every drop goes! On the other hand, av-gas is cheap these days with the synthesis plants feeding the Reconstruction. Jo, av-gas is good enough for supersonic on The Lady without having to rebuild her guts.”
“We’re going to have to rebuild sometime. And you keep calling it The Lady.”
“Good enough for your Uncle Dom to call her that. Just keeping up the tradition.”
Both women fell silent for a moment as they remembered lost loved ones and missing friends, most lost in the Rain of Death, which the two women had only survived because they’d been huddled up in the Lair at the time, doing maintenance on the old Lady.
“We’ll also have to consider going legit some time. We can’t hide from the bandits, Malcontents, or the new government forever, especially if we need new parts and materials. Missiles and SLAP rounds cost on the market, and the new Southern Cross is sniffing around coming to catch Malcontents re-arming. ”
“I know, I know, but I’m hoping to establish our rep with the communties as a security contractor, what with the Firm being gone and most of the records of The Lady’s past actions probably decorating a glass-bottomed crater somewhere.”
Man, that takes me back. I was a little kid when I show that show. And I liked it too. Good job at combining them.
I'll just bring out my BOOM STICK, it's nice and glittory. 
Well, if worse comes to warse, I could always call in an orbital bombardment via reflex canon. 
"
Wait....YOU went to Atlantis!?"
I'm a black belt, trained primary in Tae Kwon Do, Judo, and Jujutsu, with at least 4 or 5 other styles sprinkiled in. I own a real katana and a real M4. Sorry I don't scare easily. 
PSS: Not meaning as a threat or anything of that nature, just stating facts. Will always try to peaceful rout first.