Saif was pleased with her mistresses progress thus far. She was less pleased about being more or less forgotten in the oddly comfortable seat behind the pilot chair within Falak. She lamented the fact that she would never be able to pilot a Vain Glory due to her abysmal pilot affinity, never stand side by side facing down hordes of foes with the princess.

She was certain that she could feel her heart break when Evona hastily lashed out and struck Benni in her GM and resolved to remember to bring a better means of communication the next time she was along for the ride. It was odd that her phone implant could not communicate with the VG system and she knew from experience that it could not transmit or receive a thing from Solstice’s radios. As a result it was difficult to communicate effectively in the heat of battle and she refused to break Evona’s focus.

Now however seemed to be the perfect chance, since the trashed GM that had swooped in to kill the mostly spent Hydras had decided to then promptly power down.

“Excellent job Your Majesty.” Saif said, though Evona gave no response. Deciding to be much more direct, Saif removed her harness and stood next to the princess. Then lifted her arm and brought it down repeatedly over the top of Evona’s helmeted head with a pleasant pap pap pap sound. This seemed to do the trick and Evona started in her seat.

“Saif! What are you doing?” She shouted.

“Bringing you levity and comfort in this trying time.” She said in her typical monotone. “Excellent job Your Majesty, will we be adding tally marks for all your kills in future?” Pap pap pap.

“Stop that.”

“Are you sufficiently comforted and spiritually buoyed?” She asked, the pap pap pap continuing.

“Yes, now stop that.”

...Pap pap pap

“Alright. Oh look, one of them is trying to crawl away.” Saif pointed out a Hydra missing its legs attempting to crawl away on screen. “I’ll go put my seat belt back on and you can ignore me again while you deal with it.”

Falak stalked over to the Hydra and placed a foot on its back. For a moment Evona thought of taking the pilot alive, perhaps having someone question them could shed some light on what had happened here but she quickly discarded the notion as she noticed Jenny’s coffin lying in the Hydras path. She ground her heel in a bit before firing off the pile bunker into the cockpit.

“That’s two whole Hydras now. Well, perhaps that one will count as half. I’m sure you’ll make ace in no time.” Saif chimed in from her seat.

“Oh hush, Saif.”

Evona proceeded to retrieve the coffin, Falaks sensors displaying vitals on screen that seemed to indicate that Jenny was rattled but mostly fine. She began to head to the second coffins beacon when she noticed an oddity.

“Excuse me, Benni? Are you still there?” She asked.

“Yeah, whats up?”

“The other GMs coffin isn’t displaying vitals at all? Does that mean…” She trailed off, not wanting voice the possibility that their savior paid the ultimate price.

“Shit, yeah I’m seeing it too. The GM was clearly moving after coffin eject and that shouldn’t have been possible I’ll check it out. Oh and thanks for grabbing Jenny.”

======================

Esperanza surveyed the damage to the courtyard, It was a minor miracle that only a single wall had been taken out when the Cerberus unit arrived and a swarm of repair crew under the watchful eyes of a handful of fireteams were already putting a temporary patch on it. Elijah was nowhere to be found and she couldn’t help but feel responsible. What had she been thinking? Putting a man in a large metal target that he couldn’t control. She was done after this, if Bianca and Lumi winter didn’t sack her she’d resign. Until things had calmed down however she still had a job to do.

“I need the four of you to get in a truck and get ready to follow me out to secure that Cerberus. Two fireteams and a medic should come with.” She yelled out, pointing at four arbitrary repair crew then relaying her request over the radio and hustling out past the wall. Making sure that she had a clear space around her she pulled a small remote from her pocket and in a flash where once stood Esperanza Alonso stood her Vain Glory, Salvia.

It was considerably smaller than the average VG, three and a half meters tall compared to the five and a half that most were and a bright orange with yellow stripes in a safety vest pattern. She had minimal shielding, not even enough to survive sustained conventional weapons fire and armor plating unsuited for combat. In exchange almost every inch of the main body was covered in different sensors. Its 4 arms were already flexing and tensing as Esperanza ran through her pre-flight checks. Each hand could convert into various tools on the fly and mounted on the back were four towing cables with magnetic anchors.

She remembered how much she was mocked by battle maniacs on Social-Cannon when she has asked around about non combat units, everyone telling her that her high pilot affinity was being wasted. She would have let herself get bullied into buying a more traditional unit if it weren’t for a hand full of posters pointing out that in the same way that tanks were basically upjumped tractors, Vain Glories originally were made for repairs and construction in space. They were especially vital in the construction of the different Lunar and space colonies.

The moment she saw her Salvia in all it’s glory she knew she had made the right choice. It had come with a touching hand written letter of thanks from the person who had apparently finalized the design of it based off her suggestions, and she kept it framed in her small apartment.

Shaking off the reminiscing she began to head to the Cerberus just laying on its side. It’s chest was wide open, the armor segments parted like a flower in bloom. There was no sign of a coffin, not that the Cult of Echidna was known for self preservation but stranger things had happened before. Had the pilot tried to escape on foot? Her sensors pinged drawing her focus to something off to the side. Moving in to take a closer look she saw a body, or rather half of one laying in the sand. She silently wished good luck to whoever was going to try to identify her with just an ass and a pair of legs in a low end pilot suit. She wondered if it was the cultist or one of their pilots.

“Base we’ve got a body here, nothing to identify it. I’m marking the location and moving to secure team EM’s coffins.” She transmitted. “The Cerberus is remarkably intact, I don’t know why the pilot left but I’m not picking up any traps or explosives. GM is missing as well might have been hijacked by the cultist since it wasn’t locked for repairs”

“Copy that, we’ve got their vitals coming in as stable so you’re free to transmit the release code once transport for them arrives. We’ll alert the patrols to keep an eye out for the missing GM as well.”

“Got it. Am I heading straight to salvage team EM’s VGs after this?”

“Negative, wait for the all clear first.”

“Understood.” She closed the connection and began to go over the downed unit more closely making sure that it was safe to remove Maria’s coffin from where it was attached to the back of the Cerberus. She couldn’t help but fume over the underhanded tactic of taking human shields. If this spread she doubted anyone would be going out of their way to keep cultist pilots alive after this…

======================

Benaiah quickly knelt down and zoomed into the open cockpit. The bright orange crash webbing had torn free from where the coffin had ejected and hung down in a way that reminded her of spilled entrails. The cockpit that would normally be well lit from the various screens and components was dark and the minimal light provided from the GM made it hard to see but she soon realized what she was looking at. There in the cockpit was Elijah, slumped over and covered in dark fluids.

“Base this is GM B. Priority message for Eight. Ally is critical, need medivac at our location.” She transmitted.

Benni switched channels and told Evona to place Jenny’s coffin on the ground. She hardly waited a second before transmitting the coffin release code and watched as the lid slid open, and a mildly irritated Jenny sat up.

“Jenny, Code Blue and a Code Eight. I’m deploying my cable, take over while I asses, got it?”

Jenny’s features sharpened as Benni’s instructions came over the radio and she quickly got up and ran over. Benni’s GM moved its hand, palm up as makeshift bridge towards the other VG. As soon as the cockpit opened and the ladder deployed Jenny Clambered up to take Benaiah’s place in the pilot’s seat then plugged in and kept an eye on the sensors.

As Benni approached to asses Elijah’s condition she gave a soft sigh of relief, the dark fluid staining the front of Elijah’s uniform wasn’t blood like she first assumed. At least not all of it was, and he was breathing steadily. She cursed as she noticed that his Railgun was still firmly on the rigging he was wearing and was not looking forward to moving the extra 20 kilos if she ended up needing to move him.

“Benaiah, switch to Eight and respond.” She heard from the radio at her side. She took a deep breath and prepared to deliver the news to the boss.

“Vanilla.” Came the stern voice of Bianca Winter.

“Ice ice baby.” She said with a cringe, she again swore to herself that she would punch whoever was responsible for their challenge phrases and waited for the countersign.

“Cool.” The woman on the other end responded with the correct countersign. “Report.”

“Found Echo Whiskey injured.” Benaiah answered.

“What’s happened to my son?”

“He’s breathing, pulse is steady. Broken right arm, unconscious.” She rattled off.

“And what exactly about that made it a priority message?”

“He’s sitting in the cockpit of Penelope’s GM Ma’am.”

“Fuck.”

“Orders Ma’am?”

“Who else is aware of this?”

“Just Jennifer so far Ma’am.”

“Good, is there a coffin available?”

“I don’t have the release codes for this unit and it may have been damaged when your son used it as a bullet. Jenny’s and mine are currently unoccupied though.”

“When he what? Never mind, I’m having the team that was going to rendezvous with EM meet with you first, place him in Jennifer’s coffin and seal it with the new release code that I’ll provide you with.”

“And if they try to cut the coffin open or he destabilizes?”

“Let the medics intervene if he takes a turn for the worst, if not just claim that the coffin malfunctioned and it needs to be dealt with back at base. I’ll handle the rest.”

“Understood Ma’am.”

“What should we do about the princess? She’s not aware of the situation yet but we can’t exactly hide loading him into a coffin, and while mine is available I don’t think the ejection would be healthy right now.”

“If you feel she can be discreet, loop her in.”

“And the ETA on our reinforcements?”

“What reinforcements?”

“Ma’am, we were ambushed and outnumbered eight to three with a novice pilot. We called for backup first thing.”

“I see. Consider all approaching Vain Glories hostile with the exceptions of Frozen Apollo and Salvia.”

“Understood.” They settled a few more details before disconnecting. Benaiah setting to work loading Elijah into the coffin with Evona’s help. The battle had been hard fought and they had a long way to go before anyone was prepared to call it a night.