1.2 - Combat Part 2

"Not half bad I guess."
     The calm words came as a muffled slur over the radio connection and upon her monitor Una watched as the red eye and glowing weapon of her impending demise, were replaced by the back end of another machine - One of a deep blue, almost brown hue.
     Just like that it passed, her defeat was over. For a time atleast as Sabban picked back up the fight, having had a chance to regain his bearings, he quickly fought back off the monstrous red-vijaik in quick succession, a whole new duel of blades beginning between the two once more.

For her part just Una stared out, still trying to reclaim her breathing but it was no longer just that which ailed her. Her mind raced, screaming at her to run: 'To run, to run, to run anywhere that isn't in view of that cruel lonely red eye!'
  Her throat wretched but she held back the urge to vomit. A minute atleast seemed to of passed when she finally fixed her posture and attempted to dry her soaked face with the sleeves of her uniform.

'It's nearly done, just a little more and the plan is over, You can do it, You definitely can do it- Do what again?'
  She trepidatiously felt her way around the controls and instruments of the cabin, it suddenly felt so very small. Claustrophobic almost with its myriad of artificial lights and screens, cold steel control levers and panels of uncaring switches.
     Trying desperately to recompose her mind she began processing the information said screens portrayed, the plan hadn't exactly covered the unpredictable specifics before her. The battle had moved away from her now and was clearly entering a final stage.
  The red mech having almost beaten Sabban before, was now pressing another merciless attack. For his part, despite his heroics in rescuing his young colleague, Sabban had been reduced to a purely defensive pursuit, no longer able to get in any of his own offences.
     This had culminated in his being struck twice by the cyan rifle wielder whom had taken advantage of Sabban's more hurried positioning to strike around the red-Vijaik, claiming for itself the left leg of Sabban's machine and from the elbow down of the right appendage, further landing a number of lesser hits to the limbs and backpack.
 
Una had been growing more depressed observing this gradual dismemberment of her ally's mech until a thought crossed her mind; 'They think I'm already dead!'
 Indeed if her sensors were even remotely right it seemed the massacre she'd taken had reduced her armour to ash, especially that of her frontal sections but by some miracle it had failed to pierce the cockpit. From the outside her Vijaik must have appeared as a floating husk with the cabin seemingly having been punctured - Just another random piece of space debris.
    As she sat there free-floating, this new information in mind, she began to think on what would be the best course of action.
 A part of her still screamed for a retreat, preferably to an alternate solar system if possible, but she knew it wasn't the time to sit idly by.
This was her chance, the time to prove herself to the others, but simply charging the red enemy again surely wouldn't do, no she would be hit by the sniper first as soon as she showed any signs of life, no doubt.

'Nothing fancy, just buy time, time for the last part of the plan, yes the plan, right? The plan...'
 It took easily another minute or two but finally she decided on her course, carefully she reached to a panel on her left and in one simple act, flipped a single switch.
 A small note flashed in the top corner of her main viewscreen:
    --Magnetic Clap A Released--

She held her breath expecting at any moment for a streak of navy to come straight for her, for the enemy to easily see through her ruse, but no such thing occurred. The sniper's scope remained firmly trained on Sabban, who continued to desperately fight back slash after heavy slash from the red Vijaik.
     With still bated breath she watched her rifle, now floating freely from its restraint, move slowly up across her monitor screens and with all the precision her trembling and saturated hands could manage, she moved a single finger of her mech's own gargantuan hand, a metallic finger multiples bigger than her own hands in their entirety. The seconds moved on, her trap painstakingly lain, the weapon continued its steady journey sluggishly upwards, all the while her eyes also focused on the still ongoing clash.
     She knew really it couldn't of been that long, the fight was going too badly for it to of been more than a few minutes - Sabban had by now been reduced to just a lone arm and single staff, at this point it seemed almost as thought the red-machine should've already won.
  In fact it struck Una that the red-mech actually seemed almost not to be trying, its movements had slowed from before, there were little visual injuries to be seen compared to Sabban's Vijaik, and yet in-spite of this the battle continued on.
 
Sabban's machine grew ever more battered as it desperately sought to fend off seemingly lazy but powerful strikes from the red-menace and even more powerful attacks from the cyan-bystander in the back.
     Nonetheless it was clear to Una that she would need to act any moment now. Unless the final stage of the plan came first, she'd have to buy more time and like a scheduled event that moment came.

The red machine effortlessly, side-lined a desperate counter from Sabban before grabbing his mech's final arm and swinging the whole machine afield in one big broad motion like some mechanical wrestler - Straight into the snipers line of sight.
 The sniper fired.

In a remarkable stroke of almost unnatural intuition, Sabban almost seemed to of predicted the enemies firing path to the exact detail - He reached out still in free-fall, and grabbed a passing piece of debris - Una's discarded shield in fact - tossing it with blinding accuracy at the incoming line of deathly blue energy.
The shield predictable melted and split apart in a matter of moments but it had been enough to stop the beam striking Sabban's crew cabin.   Now there was just the red machine closing in, but it seemed Sabban was all out of bright ideas on that front, with no more tricks to prolong his defence. The brown-coloured Neo-Type, reduced to a single arm for limbs, floated helplessly as the enemy closed in, it seemed the red one would finally stop playing and deliver the finishing-blow.
----

Una sprang for a second time that day, the rifle had by now been hooked on to her Vijaik's outstretched hand, which from afar simply looked like a natural happening, pieces of debris floating around one another.
 Moving subtlety as possible, she confirmed the hook she'd made from one, lone outstretched digit, grabbed the weapon proper, took aim and fired a slew of shots in the direction of the lunging enemy unit. It stopped dead in its tracks for a moment, appearing to easily sidestep the orange-coloured barrage with minimal effort before turning its attention straight back to Sabban's mech.
     But Una was determined now, taking a more careful aim, she readied herself for one last attempt, one direct strike right at the moment the enemy went to take out her comrade - When it would be most vulnerable mid-swing with one of its mighty Calabar blades.
 She never got that chance however.

The sniper had already taken aim before Una had finished loosing her first shots but now seeing Una ready to fire once more with a great degree of certainty, the enemy unit seemed to hesitate and change tact.
  At the crucial moment it took the mark, destroying Una's rifle rather than targeting her cabin. Threat dealt with the cyan-machine re-aligning itself ready to finish her with a simple shot to the ruined frontal armour of Una's mech, where the red machine had already struck it before.

'That's it then', she thought as the explosion of her rifle filled her viewscreen anticlimactically. She lay back reluctantly in the chair, her early determination leaving her feeling exhausted.
 There was nothing else to do, even if she tried to shield Sabban with her mech's body, she would first have to get there and she clearly had no time left - She felt a small pinch of pride for having managed to atleast grab her rifle and slow the enemy before getting detected, better than she had expected from herself - 'Though of course not enough to make any real difference.'

No weapons remaining, no-where to take cover for very long in that vast colourless void, and thanks to the damage from earlier or some other technical fault, her monitor unhelpfully informed her that ejection was:
--Not an Available Option at This Time--

'Not a bad try though right? I mean better than having your mech stolen this time eh? ha..ha...
 What a difference just one day can make, just yesterday I was......'