An immense horizon of white spread out before the peircing gaze of Kristogar Velo, as the Stormloader dropped through the last bank of clouds.
Velo glanced down, hitting a few buttons, and back again, staring intently through the cockpit windshield.
Across the massive wasteland of ice, a hazy film of black seemed to decorate the land as far as the eye could see. A moving inky swarm, surrounding an immense artificial moutain. It took Velo a moment before he realized the dark haze was, in fact, a quarter-of-a-million metallic figures.
Droids. Attackdroids.
He studied his sensors briefly. The massive number of statue-like figures measured, each, thirty-feet tall.
"So..." Grimm asked, one hand clutching a support brace as he leaned forward in the cockpit. "...did we get their attention?"
Almost on cue with the words, multiple blips of light began flickering on one of the sensor screens. Through the transparent titanium windshield, hundreds of flaring pinpricks began to appear in the skies ahead.
"...you could say that..." Velo replied, slapping a few switches, and locking the pilot's body-brace across his chest...
"...all hands...brace for evasive manuevers..."
Velo's voice echoed throughout the ship, even as the pinpricks of light began to reveal themselves as missles.
"...EPS transport, drop altitude, and prepare to go dead signal for three seconds..." Kristogar's voice chattered away into his helmet-mic, hurriedly adjusting coordinates. "...I'm going to do a slow-burn on the Loader...draw their heat-trackers--"
"Stormloader...this is EPS-1..." Walker's voice came over the comm. "...cut engines, and fall back....we will cover you..."
::WARNING::-Thirty seconds until impact:: the mechanized voice announced.
"Walker...you've got civilians..." Velo replied. "...we will lead the missles away--"
"Trust me." the voice cut through, simply.
"Do it." Grimm said.
Velo jerked his view up at the avatar.
::Twelve seconds until impact::
"Are you mad?!" Velo asked.
"DO it!" Grimm barked. "If there is one certainty in this universe, it's that Charles Walker has his own safety in mind. And, since he's on that ship, he's not about to risk his own death..."
::Five seconds until impact::
Velo huffed, throwing the stick up with a sharp jerk.
The Stormloader's engines flared with a high-pitched whine, as the ship cut straight up, allowing the EPS transport to sail directly under it.
Inside the EPS-1 cockpit...
::Impact imminent::
"...do it..." Walker nodded to the pilot.
And, even as the massive spread of missles neared the ship, a sudden flash of white erupted from the nose-cone of the EPS-1.
Immediately, the sky was ablaze with the hundreds of missles detonating their payload simultaneously.
"...son of a bitch..." Velo said, amazed, even as the flaring lights burst all around them. "...EMP..."
Grimm held onto a support strap sticking out from the ceiling of the cockpit.
"That's one thing I'll say for that bastard..." the avatar of death replied. "...he's always prepared..."
Grimm turned, walking down the interior of the craft, past all the cramped metahumans. He stopped in the rear, slamming a single button. The back cargo bay began to rumble open.
"OKAY...VANGUARD..." he yelled above the turbulence. "...LAST ONE ON THE GROUND IS MY NEW BITCH..."
And, with that, Grimm leapt straight out into the open skies...
