Disclaimer: Repetitiveness can get very annoying. Like it is right now.

Vandread: The Unknown Soldier

Chapter Sixteen: Ambush

Location: Uncharted System, Approaching Planet.

Checking his sensors for perhaps the tenth time in the last five minutes, Aidan didn’t spot anything. This was getting frustrating, for the enemy was nowhere to be found.

“Do you think we should head back? I haven’t found a trace of them,” Aidan said with a little irritation in his voice.

“Not yet, I still have a feeling they are nearby,” Meia replied.

Aidan checked his sensors once again, and still no trace of them. He checked over his weapons systems again as well. Once he was satisfied, he followed Meia towards the massive planet that they were approaching. It was mostly blue-green, similar to what Earth had been. He was knocked out of staring at the planet by a blip on his sensors. He quickly checked, but the blip was gone. Something wasn’t right.

“I think we should pull back, something isn’t right…” Aidan said before being cut off by what appeared to be a swarm of missiles heading straight for them. He had been right, this was a trap.

This was disturbing, that was for sure. Both Meia and Aidan were not on board the ship. Meia’s Dread and the one remaining Striker were not onboard the Nirvana. Where would they have gone? Magno didn’t like it one bit. She had a feeling they had gone to find the enemy’s location.

What are you guys up to?

Evading the directed missile attack with just a little difficulty, Meia dodged and returned fire at the fighters that had suddenly appeared almost out of nowhere. Several of her shots struck the body of the fighter, jarring the pilot and knocking slightly off course. Off to her left, Aidan took several shots at fighter that a pass by him. She tried to contact the Nirvana to inform them of their situation, but all she was getting was static.

“Damn, they’re jamming out long-range communications,” she said.

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that,” Aidan replied, taking yet another shot, then ejecting the rifle’s empty magazine, and loading another one into the weapon. “So, what do we do?”

She was about to reply, but then a massive object came out from behind the planet, it was a ship. She saw it’s weapons charge, and the fighters took evasive action.

“Evasive action!” she yelled as several energy beams shot out from the ship. One of them struck her Dread, and it tore completely through her shields, and completely tore off one of it’s wings. She fought for control of her Dread as several sparks showered over her cockpit as one of the panels exploded. Her Dread started to spin out of control, it’s path leading straight towards the planet.

Maria stood in front the mirror in her room. In her hand was a pair of scissors, and she was busy cutting her hair. She was also thinking about what both Aidan and Ezra had said to her.

“Yes, but you need to be strong, there’s nothing you could have done.”

“But you are strong, otherwise you wouldn’t be here today,”

Yes, she would become strong, if not for her, for the people around her. And for that, she needed to change. She set the scissors down on the edge of the sink, and ran her hand through her violet hair. It was now as short as most men tended to keep their hair.

“I’m going to change,” she silently told herself before she left the bathroom.

After seeing her Dread start to plummet towards the planet, Aidan immediately began to pursue. He was cut off by a Striker that managed to get in front of him.

Lousy bastards, he thought at seeing them using the stolen equipment. He drew his vibrosword and drove it into the chest of the stolen Striker. The Striker fell away, them exploded into a ball of light as it’s engine went critical. He was knocked around by several shots, some of them battering against his left arm’s shield.

“Get the hell out of my way!” he yelled as he charged through them towards the planet. He took a few more hits, but it didn’t deter him from his course. Her Dread began to enter the atmosphere, as was evident by heat now surrounding it. He charged forward positioning his Striker’s battered shield in front of the cockpit and drove forward into the atmosphere as well. He began to sweat as the heat started to become unbearable, and some the armor all over the Striker started to warp and melt. It clearly wasn’t meant to do this. But he kept on going, and an image of Sakura flashed into his mind.

“Not again! Not again!” he yelled as he finally entered the atmosphere and began to scan for her crashed Dread. Because of the angle of his Striker and the speed at which it was falling, it was heading straight for the jungle infested terrain. He slammed on the reverse thrusters but they didn’t help much. The Striker slammed into the ground violently threw him around in the cockpit and knocked him unconscious.

Captain Arturo Mehtan grinned savagely as he saw the enemy fighter plunge into the planet’s atmosphere, as well as the enemy Striker. He knew the heretics were going to send a scout team, and he had set up this ambush to capture any enemy foolish enough to follow. His destroyer, the Avenger, had been allowed to detach from the main group to lie in wait for the enemy.

“I want a recovery team dispatched to the planet’s surface. If they are alive I want them taken prisoner and I want that enemy fighter recovered and brought back to the ship,” he ordered.

Slowly awakening, Aidan took a few seconds to orient himself. He was facing downward, with his restraining harness the only thing keeping him from falling out of his seat. He surmised he was on the planet’s surface. He unhooked himself and dropped onto the cockpit hatch. He then remembered that he had to find Meia to see if she was alright.

He reached up and opened a panel, and grabbed a first aid kit from it, as well as a sub-machinegun from a compartment underneath the seat, as well as a few extra clips of ammo. He grabbed a few other things and put them into the bag along with the first aid kit. He slung the bag over his shoulder and grabbed the SMG. He then pressed the button to open the cockpit hatch. When it wouldn’t budge, he tried again. After a few more failed attempts, he just pounded his fist against the emergency release switch. The hatch blew off on small charges and he jumped out of it and onto the ground.

He immediately felt hot, humid air with a stench he couldn’t care for. He scanned around and noticed that it was a thick jungle he was in. He glanced back the wrecked Striker.

“Man, that’s two destroyed, they’d have my head for this,” he said to himself, referring to the Solaris Defense Force.

He opened up the compact computer strapped to his left forearm. On the map it located a metallic mass about ten kilometers east of his location. He immediately headed in that direction.

Meia woke up to a biting pain in her left arm. She looked down to see there was a bad cut on it, and it was bleeding. She instinctively applied pressure to the cut to try to stop the bleeding. She looked out of the canopy to see raindrops start to patter. She had blacked out when her Dread entered the atmosphere. She must have crashed somewhere in the jungle region of the terrain. She tried to start up her Dread, but to no avail. She heard tapping against her canopy and looked up. She noticed Aidan standing above her. She opened the canopy and he held out his hand.

“Are you alright?” he asked as she grabbed a hold of his outstretched hand. He pulled her out of the cockpit an helped her down off of the Dread and they both took shelter under the remaining wing.

“How’d you find me?” she asked, holding her left arm.

“This,” he said showing her the compact computer. “ It has the ability to detect large amounts of metal as far as fifty kilometers away.” He then noticed her wound. “Let me take a look at that,” he said as pulled out the first aid kit.She winced slightly in pain as she rolled up her sleeve.

“You came prepared,” she said as he started to treat her wound.

“Always be prepared,” he said, as if quoting something. “It was drilled into me ever since I started military training.”

“There,“ he said as he finished applying the bandage to her arm.

“Thanks,” she said as she leaned against the hull of her Dread.

“No problem,” he replied.

Yep, I do plan on a lot more on-foot action for Aidan. Just lettin’ ya know.