Just Like Old Times

Maria

Delithita grinned as the next fireball from the dropship landed directly in the center of the enemy formation, destroying a pair of Disrupters and sending an Apoc careening into a Gorgon. She averted her eyes as the vehicles' weapons magazines went up in a blaze of light.

"Tycho, remember how we swept the glitches off the Fantasma entrance a few years back?"

She smiled as the nearly forgotten voice rang clearly through her commsystem. "I do indeed. Let's get to it."

The brown-spattered Talon swerved and took up formation beside Del's new Executioner, recently refitted from a captured shell fitted over a Gorgon chassis. The new vehicle was rather more durable, faster, and had more capacity, but was still painted in its marble pattern. The new vehicle swerved under Del's control, to ram a Minotaur and tip it over, exposing its vulnerable reactor casing to her weaponry. Tycho beat her to it though; ELFs tore through the thin armor and the Mino went up in a fireball

"Taking some heat here," Altas said. His Shepard was dogfighting a trio of enemy Apocalypses, only Altas's fast reflexes keeping it out of their firing cones. His quad blasters spat green death at the Apocalypses, wearing down the shields on one and flicking the left shoulder pod away to crash on the stone a hundred meters away. Xenogears's Emancipator leapt forward and cut the cockpit section apart, and the Apocalypse blew up.

The other two Apocs tried to pin her, but Ko'ah was there in his own Apocalypse, ripping into both of them with a hail of autocannon pellets. That vehicle backed away, but smashed into Altas's Shepard behind it. Trapped, it quickly fell to their combined power.

Del's Exec and Tycho's Talon behind stood on the rim of a crater, and traded potshots with a pair of Gorgons. The blast cannon of the other vehicles bounced off the Executioner's shell, while her fire cut through their noses.

A moment later, six more vehicles broke through the furball behind and charged them both.

"Back," Del said, and their two vehicles backpedaled, falling down over the crater rim. With a loud bang, the mismatched pair struck the flat bottom of the crater.

The enemies above stopped at the crater rim.

"Allow me," Tycho said.

Less than five seconds later, a flash of light appeared in the sky as a space vessel blossomed into flame. A half a second after that, the six vehicles on the crater rim fell down the steep slope, struck by a rain of massive debris. Two of the vehicles exploded immediately, their hulls penetrated by metal striking at five thousand klicks. The other four fell in a messy heap at the base of the crater wall.

"Repeating history," Tycho reported gleefully, running forward and blasting at the crater rim. Del grinned, and added her more massive weaponry to the mix. Explosions rocked the crater, and a massive landslide came loose of the crater's bowl.

Seconds later, only the leg of a Minotaur peeked out of the pile of stone and sand at the base of the crater rim.

"UAO," Del said. Tycho's Talon obediently picked the closest slope and climbed out of the crater.

"You still use our battle code eh?"

"Yes," Del said, with a pang of regret.

"I'd have thought to see Maria here," he said, engaging a fellow Talon and quickly running circles around it. Icey's Gorgon snuck up behind it and finished it with a single pair of Shrikes.

"They're retreating," Altas reported. "Advise letting them go."

Sure enough, the few remaining enemy vehicles, two IB Apocs and three BDU Basilisks, had turned tail and run off to the west.

"Let's finish them," Razor said, swooping down from on high. Minion missiles flashed and arced downward, finishing off an Apocalypse in one volley. "We pay them back for Maria."

At that, the other Ghosts chased after the enemy vehicles. "Get back here," Del snapped. "Let them go. That's an order."

Grudgingly, they all obeyed, their vehicles slowing to a stop.

"Pay them back for Maria?" Tycho muttered.

Del sighed. "Some things have changed around here..."

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