Roadrunner, Pegasus Scout Vehicle of 5th Company
South of Phillipsburgh
The wind whipped around Sergeant Emily McKinsey's face as the Roadrunner tore down the highway. It was a simple joy for her, to have everything from the shoulders up sticking out of her armored steed's cupola. This feeling reminds her of when her father took her out around Dunham with his motorbike.
"Auspex is picking up contacts1 Three, maybe four footmobiles at ten o'clock, two hundred meters out!" Speer's voice over the comms broke her reverie.
McKinsey looked in that direction, but could only see woods. Time for a closer look, then. She pressed the communication device's button and barked "Pierre! Bank left! Head into the treeline!"
The scout commander glanced at the sister-Pegasus, the Raptor, as the Roadrunner made its way towards the forest. "Pegasus-2, hold back! Cover our escape path!"
Aye aye, ma'am!" her counterpart, Sergeant Bethany Schmidt, affirmed. Though they shared rank, McKinsey held seniority and thus called the shots.
Emily ducked back down into the scout vehicle's hull, locking the hatch as she did so. "Park up ahead and kill the engine, Pierre." she ordered, "Can you get any better readings, Speer?"
"No, ma'am. The trees are mucking up any clearer Auspex readings. I'll take a look around with the thermo."
"Do that. I don't want to accidently shoot up some hunters. Tanaka?" McKensey turned to the gunner sitting in the turret, "I want you to also switch to thermo."
"Y-yes ma'am!" squeaked the rather mousy specialist.
"Ma'am, I think this is them!" Speer turned to her commander, "I-I mean, it's not a hundred percent clear but-Oh, damn! The camera's going haywire!"
"M-mine, t-too!" Tanaka added.
"I thought I told you two to make sure everything was up to task this morning!" bellowed Emily as she once again rose up behind Tanaka's seat, magnoculars in hand.
"I did! I did!" Speer called back as the sergeant flipped open the cupola's hatch.
Emily grumbled a response back to her subordinate. Whelp, nothing to do now except to take a look with her own eyes. She barely brought the magnoculars to her eyes when a sudden blur of movement dashed right by her, startling her. "Shit!" she yelped, almost stumbling back into the wheeled tank as she fumbled for her sidearm.
"Wha-what is i-it?!" Tanaka heard her shriek, looking up to her NCO with a worried look.
"I=I don't know!" McKinsey shouted as she stumbled back into the crew compartment, closing and locking the hatch, once again, above her.
She only got a look at whatever it was for a split second, but her mind was quickly analyzing what she briefly saw - blue and steelcolored outfit, golden hair. Wait, could it be? "I think it was Americana! Pierre! Back up, back up! Take usback tot he highway!"
As Pierre started up the Pegasus, McKinsey tried hailing the other armored scout vehicle "Schmidt! Schmidt! Americana just ran passed us! She probably didn't recognize us, and she's heading your way!"
"Schmi-....-ca jus...recognize...your way!"
Sergeant Bethany Schmidt couldbarely understand anything Emily was saying over the static over the radio. "Say again, Pegasus-1? I didn't read that. Over."
"Ma'am, auspex is picking up a footmobile running our way, ten o'clock! Contact in five seconds!" her assistant driver called back to her.
"Gunner, take aim at the tree line!" Schmidt didn't hesitate, shouting the order as she rose up to her cupola's periscope.
Sure enough, a person emerged from the treeline, a person any Dunham citizen knows all too well. "HOLD FIRE! HOLD FIRE!" Beth frantically yells, stopping her gunner from making the biggest mistake in their unit's history.