Out in the deserts of Nyx, a small convoy rolled through, stirring a cloud of the sands as they passed over it at a slow pace. The convoy consisted of a single Gustav, with a single trailer, with a single crate of cargo, and a pair of Blade Ligers taking the positions of point and guard.
"Twenty kilometers to drop zone."
Rachael sighed and relaxed a bit. "It's about damn time," she muttered while stifling a yawn. The pair had been escorting this Gustav for hours, so news that it would end and they could finally get paid was appreciated. She needed a hot shower and a nap and neither was available inside of the cockpit of her Blade Liger.
"Hey Rachael, after this mission, want to grab some dinner? Maybe some wine and a trip to the hot-tub?"
Rachael groaned and hit the button to activate the mics around her. "Brandon, would you keep your head in the game? And I've told you, countless times before, I'm not interested in being wined and dined, or you for that matter."
"Oh don't be so cold, baby," he pleaded through the speakers around her. She slammed the mute button with her fist to silence his annoyances.
"Seventeen kilo's to the drop point, you could at least keep them peaceful," she muttered.
Suddenly the Gustav's pilot cut through the line. "Abnormal heat signatures detected four kilometers east. One of you check it out."
Rachael rolled her eyes at his [I]order[/I] and unmuted the communication lines to her ally. "Rock, paper, scissors on the video screen or are you going to be a gentleman?"
"I'm always a gentleman," he said in mock hurt. "I'll check it out. Be right back dear, don't miss me too much."
"How can I miss you when you won't shut the hell up?" she asked before closing the communication line to Brandon again and opening one to the contractor. "We're stopping while he's gone. Standard procedure, we don't move while split up."
"Whatever, but if he's not back within five, we're leaving without him." The man sounded incredibly irate.
"If he's not back in five, you'll sit there and wait. You're not in the position to give orders, snail." The man cursed on the other side of the line and closed it with a grumble. "I'm so sick of these jobs… I'm taking a vacation after this one. Bartend or something." She grabbed a small canteen and took a swig of water, waiting for Brandon to check in. He'd had time to travel the four kilos and was likely checking the area right now.
"Honey, we may have a problem." Ignoring the name, she ushered him to go on. "I have no visuals at all, not even light warping, but it's sweltering over here. Temp. readings are out the roof. It's like the sun is focusing it's light right on this spot-" he trailed off letting his sentence hang in the air. "One moment. I may have just found that visual."
A drum of fear hit her. "Brandon, proceed with caution. The Gustav is the prime objective right now."
"I'll just be a minute, babe. Looks like it was just a trick of the heat-" His sentence cut off with a crackle. Another surge of fear hit her. It wasn't so much his sentence cutting off that worried her the most though. What caused the most panic was the heat. There was a sudden surge right as he cut off that she could feel in her cockpit four kilometers away.
"Brandon?" She waited for a full ten seconds with no answer. "Brandon, do you read me?" Twenty seconds. "I swear to God, Brandon, if you're joking, I'll kill you when you get back, I swear I will." Thirty seconds, no response.
Then three things seemed to happen at once. Number one, a zoid suddenly became visible, what appeared to be some time of Liger unit, one she'd never seen before. Two, a heat wave hit her that one could only find inside of a microwave. And third, the gustav, it's cargo, and the rear half of her Blade Liger ceased to exist in a mixture of an explosion and melting.
Rachael nearly lost consciousness from the heat, orbs of color spiking her vision. Her Blade Liger collapsed to the sands on which it stood, jarring her even in her harness. As the orbs of color in her vision began to turn black and bleed, mixing with reality and pooling around her vision, she took her last glimpse of the world. All she could see were the smoking remains of the Gustav and the Liger disappearing as it strode away through the sands.
[I]Brandon…..[/I]