"Did I pass?" She asked, leaning in with a smile, her scarlet bangs parting slightly as she leaned forward in that way that made him want to cup her cheek in his hands for hours.
"Flying colors." Chase replied, echoing her smile as he looked up at her. He was glad to know that his mom and Dri approved of Miranda, and had taken to her as if she were family already.
"So, what do I win?" She asked, with a cheeky smile.
"Me." It was an innocent reply, but there was a certain cheek of his own that he added. He had an idea of just where they could go after leaving the canteen.
"Yes!" She clenched her fist in victory.
In truth, she'd already won him weeks ago, when after one of their usual post-exercise chats, they had awkwardly leaned in close to one another, eyes locked in a suspended trance. They had remained there, frozen, unsure of what would come next, before he mustered the nerve to kiss her, and found her replying as earnestly as he. Everything since then had mostly been autopilot, and he'd enjoyed every moment of it, even if that meant Ma sharing embarrassing stories from his childhood.
Which reminded him…
"So, you had fun?" He stood up.
"Mmmhm." She was earnest, and he was glad.
"Good, so for the next one of these, I look forward to your mom telling me all of your embarrassing stories." He walked off, smiling as she took a moment to process what he'd said before protesting.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! That's not how this works!"
He had a feeling he'd pay for that little jab later.
As she walked out of the canteen, she found Julian with his friends, talking about gaming as usual, while Jodie began to ask something.
"Hey, if Miranda dumped you, then…"
"Then what?" She asked, making her presence known, and watching Jodie struggle like a deer caught in headlights.
"Then, uhh… That would be tragic, and… we should mourn the death of your relationship… from a respectable distance." He seemed reasonably happy to put that forward as a statement, though she could tell what he'd really been meaning to ask.
"Smart boy. What's this about a game?"
"Siege?" Migas whined, as if it were painfully obvious.
"Sorry fellas, my Queen summons me."
She could get used to being called that, she thought, even as Migas frowned and asked again hopefully, "So… no siege?" before taking Julian's head shake as his final word on the matter and heading off with Jodie and Leon.
"See that? Said no to gaming with the boys and everything."
She scoffed, "What, you want a cookie?" But despite playing it cool, she knew what he really had in mind as he walked closer, his eyes bright.
"Well, what do you think? Meet you know where in about thirty?"
Thirty? She wouldn't wait that long if she didn't have to, she thought, her breath rising.
"They haven't ordered us to stop yet…"
"My girl."
She could get used to being called that, too, she thought, as they leaned in to kiss.
A claxon sounded.
Of course it did.
"Battlestations, Battlestations. Repeat, Battlestations." Able's dull voice doing nothing to make the situation any less aggravating. Then again, it was perhaps selfish of her to be more annoyed at missing out on that kiss than worrying that the war had finally begun, and she felt a little guilt at that fact.
"Come on, be a drill…" Julian voicing what she hoped herself.
"This is not a drill. Interceptors Ready One and Ready Two, scramble, repeat, scramble."
She knew he was on duty, and she knew that being one of the Vanguard's aces, that made him part of the first Ready element. That meant they were both going, so she wasn't about to let her chance slip by.
"How'd the song go? You only live but once?"
"Let the good times roll." He finished for her, and she pulled him to her by his uniform, lips meeting hungrily.
She loved this, the fact that she made her feel slightly shorter, that she had to pull him closer to kiss, the way his hands enveloped her shoulders with a firm, but gentle grip. Even if the kiss itself seemed to last only a few seconds, she savoured every sensation, knowing it might be the last time she got to.
"We're detecting some sort of anomaly in the area, could be bio-hazard, could be something else. That means until we know more, containment protocols apply. Sending unit specific priorities now."
The view of Central Park, enveloped in nano, scared him. The fact that it moved so fast, that it covered everything, like locusts blotting out the sun. He had to know.
He pulled up his contacts list and dialled.
"C'mon, pick up, please…"
The call went through. His mom and Dri were running down the steps of the apartment block, and they were panicked, but safe.
"Ma! Thank God you're safe. You need to…"
"I know, Julian! We're heading for the subway. They just finished making one of the lines airtight after the attack in Boston. Nano won't get in there."
Julian breathed again, feeling as if he was doing so for the first time in his life.
"We're coming, Ma, so you and Dri stay safe. We'll have this sorted out, soon as possible."
As his mother and sister ran out of the block and raced for the subway entrance, he saw a little doubt in her eyes. Roberta was a police officer, and she knew how to control her fear. The fact that she said little told him plenty about how she was holding up.
"I hope you can, Julian. Stay safe yourself. You and Miranda. Don't worry about us, we'll find a way out."
That commanding tone that he'd known since he was a child set his mind more at ease. If there was anyone who would find a way out of the city if they had to, it would be his mother and sister. Right now, he had a mission to attend to.
He looked up, and saw his hand hovering over the swing-wing switches that would push his fighter's wings forward. He pulled back his hand. No need to break formation.
"Razzle, are you seeing this?" He asked, staring at the satellite image of New York that slowly disappeared beneath the thick, drifting clouds of Nano.
"I am, Chase. Let's show these Union bastards what happens when the Vanguard has no need to hold back. We'll make sure everyone gets out."
The Silver Falcons stayed in close formation, heading above the cloud cover and arming their cannon and missiles for combat.
The remnants of Central Park were desolate as she pushed through them, trees bereft of leaves, even the grass devoid of colour, as if someone had painted over the area with tar.
Ahead, a thin line of NYPD officers were holding position behind overturned transports, and she pushed the strider to take position beside them, trying to draw the fire from the advancing Union troopers. She hadn't seen any transports, so she couldn't help but wonder where they'd all come from. Remembering talking to Roberta what seemed like a few moments ago, she swore as one of the officers fell, taken down by the hap-hazardly firing troops.
"Come on, you Union bastards." She muttered, firing a few rounds of the autocannon, blasting some asphalt and troopers. Their armour might be proof against the low-calibre pistols that the NYPD was using, but it sure as hell couldn't take a round from a 30mm cannon, and she smiled with grim satisfaction as the cannon shells punched through the red and black carapaces, scattering skull-helmeted corpses.
Behind though, besides the already burning wrecks of buildings, she saw the real threat: scorpion walkers, their guns firing shells that burst overhead, scuttling forward on their insect-like legs. She fired her cannon, and found her shells bouncing harmlessly off the thick armour of the drone's carapace.
"Ok, let's switch it up then."
She switched to her missile pod, firing a single missile that arced slightly into the drone's side, detonating and forcing it off it's perch on the side of the building, legs splayed and clawing at the air as it tried to right itself. Another round screamed past her, exploding on the drone's less protected underside, sending robotic limbs scattering. Her other section striders were finally catching up with her.
"Sorry for the wait, Tempest. Looks like a hell of a fight."
"It's the big one. Stay close, boys. Let's keep the NYPD alive long enough for them to pull back to the hornbill."
"Roger that. Engaging."
The platoon spread out, doing their best to put themselves between the scattered NYPD, their civilian charges and the advancing trio of Scorpions.
It was intense, but the four surviving members of the Silver Falcons had managed to break through the drone swarm and lost their pursuers in the maze of buildings that made up Manhattan. Razzle led her final bandit towards Hudson bay, before reversing thrust and destroying it with a short burst from her cannon.
"Chase, you see that big bastard by Lady Liberty?"
Chase craned to see the walking monstrosity, a behemoth, demolishing the venerable statue simply by striding past it. His anger rose at the way the machine just trod on his city's history as if it were trash.
"I'm with you. Blitz, Chopper?"
"We're with you, Razzle." The other two pilots chorused, the flight forming up as they approached the abomination that strode over the rubble of Liberty island.
Falcons 3 and 4 fired their long range missiles, though they collided with some sort of cloud of nano the huge walker was projecting, and its' turrets tore off Falcon 4's wing, sending Chopper crashing into the cloud of nanotech swarming over the tip of the island.
Chase cursed. This thing would have to mean resorting to their big guns.
Razzle clearly thought the same. "Anvil Ops, Razzle, permission to fire up an ESD?"
"Razzle, Ops, Permission granted. Aim only for the nanotech, you must not damage air traffic."
"Ok Falcons, set yield for low inductance, we're heading Brooklyn. Blitz, this one's on you, we'll cover you."
Falcon 3 turned around, pulling into a stall to flip on it's tail.
"Roger, Razzle, Arming now. Wait, I'm locked! They can detect the…"
A flurry of fire erupted from the walker that disintegrated Falcon 3 and Blitz along with it.
"Shit." Razzle cursed. "Anvil Ops, ESD ineffective, I say again, ineffective. Lining up for another attack. Chase, we go in together, split their fire."
"Roger that, Razzle."
The two jets began charging their ESDs, splitting North and South to draw the machine's fire, and approaching each other.
"ESD released!" Chase yelled as he pushed his jet heavenward to escape the blast radius.
"ESD releasing… Shit! I'm hit!" Razzle spat as her jet caught some of the return fire, its' left wing shorn from the fuselage. "Ejecting!"
The ESDs detonated, but Razzle's jet screamed into the sea-wall below, as a single parachute opened above the now fading cloud of Nano.
"All right, that's it. All teams begin tactical retrograde procedures. Cover civilian transports as long as you can then get out of there. Evac, evac, evac." Marin sounded as unhappy as Julian was to have to pull out, but he knew that she had the full picture.
"Anvil Ops, Chaser, what about Razzle? I can see a chute."
"Negative, Chaser, that area's too hot. Pull out and cover the transports. We'll recover her when we can."
"But Colonel…"
"That is an order."
Julian sighed, but didn't argue. "Copy that, Ops." He just hoped that Razzle would be able to find her way out, and pointed his fighter back to the hornbills now rapidly ascending.
It was all going to shit.
While the ESDs had stopped most of the nano from the bay, more now approached from the West, and Miranda couldn't see any way out from her strider's perch atop the fallen scorpion. Several members of the Vanguard strider team had already been destroyed, and she was running out of ammunition, fast.
"Tempest to Chaser."
"Go for Tempest." She grimaced, firing another few rounds into the approaching scorpion to little effect.
"How you holding up?"
"I don't know how we're gonna get out of this one."
"You better head to the transports while there's still time, there's more coming." Chase sounded worried.
She fired a final salvo of missiles at the approaching walker, and watching as it exploded, ignoring the ammunition counter which told her that she was out. She looked down and saw the Strider's left leg had been destroyed by the last exchange of fire.
"I'm going deck-side…"
"Julian, don't. We've been fighting to secure these civilians, keep them safe."
A stray shot from another Scorpion caught her Strider full in the side, sending it sprawling against a nearby deli. Lights screamed at her from her dashboard, and she felt heat on her cheek, turning to see a smouldering fire from one of the severed electrical connections in the cockpit. She strained at her seatbelt, and found that it was stuck.
"But Miranda…"
She sprayed the fire with her extinguisher, but as she did, she saw more sparks across the rear of the cockpit. The flames were slowly engulfing the whole strider.
She felt tears in her eyes as she saw the cloud of nano rolling towards her, a thick layer of black that enveloped everything. She'd seen the soldiers on the ground exposed to it, heard their screams.
Her cockpit was sealed.
She preferred to burn alive than face whatever they had.
"Get OUT, Chase! I'll come back as soon as I can!"
"Miranda…"
"I love you, Chase." She ended the call, feeling her skin blister.
She didn't want Chase to hear her scream.