Cyclones came in clutch for doing hostile bunker missions…
But it all started with a bored Sunday afternoon – Figured to mess with some ground vehicles – preparing for a future raid, maybe figure out a way to storm a train station..

A small crew of us; Echo, Hobo, Pluto, and myself at first figured to Roll through some ground missions.
but with an Asgard thanks to Pluto, and a Spartan supplied by myself, we decided to hit up some ground-based missions as a warm up and some practice.
First mission, Microtech’s surface – Cold and terrible, snowy and dark. Spartan is reluctant, climbs the hills and the flood lights show us a way. First into a hill face, then another and another – bumping around, high-centering on crests of hills but we find our way through the dark in our first ground mission. Easy in-and-out clear, we begin to head back. Decided to look for hostile bunkers or missions to get a better idea of were to look for landing.

Second mission;
A hostile ground cargo facility out on Hurston.
Asgard lands, besides another the rear door drops – we roll out with the spartan again. Not sure where to go as the marker was a vague area, we rolled through the facility. It felt like driving through Fallujah while in the spartan, Not sure where combatants are, but it’s just us. isolated.

we head down a short road, see nothing and begin to turn back, maybe we passed by something, and we did. An oil refinery looking part of the facility. 8 floors of cat-walks around a central fuel tank of some sort. but it’s quiet.

Myself as the driver, I drop the boys (Pluto and Hobo) off and gun fire lights up the streets. Echo on their way over, I switch over the remote turret and take on two GT-215s. As i do, Hobo dummy-ing an NPC into the concrete is one of my first views (it was sick). After we clear the platforms to the top – we get a wave warning. more to come. on a building across the street, Echo perched up – sniper in hand. 2 shots ring out from Echo and Hobo as the boss shows up. Dropped like a sack of potato. Nice. missions accomplished.

After the take out, we rolled out of the tight roadways and underpass but we loose the Spartan to a Tree (in the business, we call this foreshadowing). a 70 ton APC defeated by a branch. It was like watching a master swordsman holding a pupil down with a  kendo sword in a fight to the death battle. Head pinned into the earth – Unmoving, humiliated. We bailed, wrote it off as a loss, but also an opportunity.

Head over to a local Garage surface side, figured to take a look at whatever other vehicle would make sense. As we land, night as fallen. and a Avenger titan and its pilot, loading full sized SCU boxes from the freight building into the little space penguin, a reminder of where most of us started with so many years ago. Simpler times. Hobo stops to the lone pilot to chat, reassure him we’re not here to bother him. Just looking for the ground vehicle terminal. As i turn the corner of the freight building – Big and beautiful.

big lit up sign saying “AMD” in red.

Mustang Omega – such a rare sight to see, even as someone who is lucky to have one. Behind it, the vehicle services building. Pop on it, Hobo in tow, who starts being a loot goblin and finds another red chest to the other side of the room from where I’m facing. Nothing fun of note. But  we decide on Cyclones, a TR and MT. both 3 seaters, both with ways to deal with ground crew in another way than out own rifles. Figured some air support of the MT would be nice as well. (in the business, we call this foreshadowing). loaded the Asgard, and off to the next.

As we clear another Bunker with the 2 cyclones, we’re met with a 5th. Superion who joins us. He figured it’d be best to bring along a Pieces rescue. Asgard doesn’t have it and no one hurt too badly yes so we accept.

Superion is a bit far out so we head off to our 4th hostile bunker for the night and figured to meet him there. landed a bit out of distance but the hostile bunker. AAs were hot and took Echo out in a F7C-M Mk2 Heart seeker hornet. See his marker and watched it land over a click and a half from the Asgard. Pluto and Hobo off to the bunker, i return and head to pickup Echo. Clear the bunker and begin to head back. We find a second Asgard not far from ours. It seemed abandoned and Echo takes control – Bird is still good, and figured it’s worth it as a backup.

Onto the next mission, another Hostile bunker.

As we land Hobo and I head to the bunker with the MT. Pluto driving the TR. We reach the bunker but somehow
someone got stuck, don’t get the full story but it sounded like Pluto was heading to Echo or Superion to pick them up. But  between us and them, was a mountain range.

Pluto went to pick them up in the cyclone TR, climbing the mountain side like a Toyota of the future would. all grip, and little power but somehow managed to get the TR stuck in a tree at the top of a mountain.  Pluto heads back figured the Cyclone was a loss and Hobo and i cleared the bunker quickly and headed out. 1 red box that time. The loot RNG has not been favourable to us tonight. we load up the MT and begin to head back, i was determined (stubborn) to get the cyclone TR back, it’s been good until now.

We drive up the mountain side and reach the first hump, 700m out to the TR. how hard could it be?

the sun begins to set as we crest the top of this hill, it opens up to an entire canyon to get to it. Unwavered, i press forward (and “A” and “D” and “S”) weaving through the massive rocks, in my years of playing mud runners and offloading IRL – Easy. get pinched in a few spots, hard to see paths as you climb, turn around and nearly get stuck a few times. AAs still in range on this side of the mountain, we can’t get stuck…  but we find a patch upwards, 300ms out. straight shot. Dodge the last few rocks and we find the Cyclone TR, in the same low-lying branch the Spartan was shamed under. Hanging.
A few bumps and rams with the MT, and the TR is free. I jump out (as i originally drove the TR the fist few missions, Hobo takes His MT back down. We learned CIG implemented the Anti-roll and Anti-flip counters from the Mule to the cyclone, caution to the find, bounce down the mountain side. It was something out of ski-free to get to the Asgard, except the Yeti was a rock that you’d get stuck on. thankfully i know how to doge the Yeti.
loaded up again, 2 Asgards and the pieces

Headed to the next hostile bunker on the dark side of the planet.

Now this is where the fun begins

Land and touch down, mountain range tapering to the right, cliff face barely visible to the left. We head right, Hobo part way, trying to climb the mountain side in failed effort, we both head right. Echo landing much further ahead in a valley, he wandered drunk into the night. Lost but using his intuition and headed some vague direction towards out next bunker. Having room, I pick up heading about 90 degrees in the wrong direction. It’s all good. the cyclone eats the bumps and rocks all day. But it was in fact night time, and we hit every stationary object physically possible, spinning us repeatedly, flipping us occasionally.

we roll up to the front gate. 6 enemies guarding the elevator. The GT-210 on the Tr lights up. the 9-series longsword canon on the Cyclone MT canon sending bodies flying 50ft into the air. Cartwheeling out of our way.

As the cyclone shields shimmer we were not going to stop at the NPCs attempt at a defence. we wouldn’t let them. we’re taking this bunker.

all 5 of us, Echo Pluto, hobo, Superion, and myself all jump in, down the elevator and see our first red box as the elevator clicks into place on sub-floor 1. Nice! Quickly three FS-9s echo through, ringing in our ears. Watching Superion hold the left side corridor, Echo send rounds between Superion’s legs, Hobo above Echo’s and myself above Hobo’s shoulders, text-book phalanx manoeuvre. easy clear as the last enemy falls. We search around after finding the first red box.
A second one pops up. We’re rich boys.
and a 3rd

and a 4th.

and a final 5th hidden away in a corner.

5 Red chests, we hit it big tonight – we had been chasing a 4-red box bunker high for 3 weeks now. however the loot wasn’t great… none the less. lets get out here.
30 minute leave warning pops up or else we get trespassed. a notification we’ve ignored until now.

Time to move onto the next bunker…. or so we thought.

We came up the elevator, and see that its still dark outside from the busted blast-doors. we see AA light up the sky as we head out into the open, guns going mad – gunning something out in the air. A Connie in the air – coming in.
wait, a second shows up behind it, following, taking hits. Shields shimmering in bright blue against the black sky.

we scram to the cyclones, a single Connie can mean anything, but two means something more organized. but as they come into the airfield, we see a 3rd ship trailing. Bad news. we have to go.

The AAs continue to fire upwards, red laser beams looking like tracers out of something straight out of the bombing of Berlin WW2.
the 3rd massive ship had its headlights on – can’t see for a while as we loaded up. but we did catch a glimpse, Reclaimer coming in hot behind the 2 Connies. A big crew munching abandoned ships at bunkers. Good money idea, one we didn’t want to be part of.

Dark still the cyclones scatter and we see the reclaimer laser something from a distance. Turns out I got turned around was was heading the wrong way the entire time, away from the asgard. Pluto’s 7520 plate on his Asgard popped up 4.6km. targeted it and flip around and haul ass back, in hopes to load up and head off this god forsaken planet.
we keep apart, trying to not attract attention, the Reclaimer hovered right over Superion and Hobo in the Cyclone MT – they tried to fight them, but the missiles weren’t coming online. From my view looked like a UFO abduction of a cow. until i cross over the hill – out of sight.

checking scans, a gladius had shown up, running distortions, started to blast the connies and reclaimer. We figured we still had time, that we can make it before the Reclaimer feasts on our only way out.

Another hill, two, a bounce off a few rocks and a tumble down a hill.

We reach Echo’s Asgard over the mountain side. Engulfed in flames, nothing to take away, we keep going.
700m to Plutos Asgard.

Fire. Also gone.

As we pull up Superion flew in with a pieces. figured it was in tact – nah. burnt to a crisp. I see the reclaimer coming down to land, or so i thought, from the corner of my eye – Echo corrects me and it’s going down hard. Full swan dive into the planet’s surface. flames and all.

Fuck it, our rides are trashed but we have the cyclones. Hop a few mountains and get to the flaming wreckage of the reclaimer, but it’s upside down. not much we can do with that.

Flip around and head towards the First of the two Carracks, surprisingly it was on its feet, front landing ramp down. We’re taking it. We need to. We have no other way out. I park up the cyclone against the bottom of the ramp that was a bit too high up and boosted Pluto and Echo into the ramp to check if the ship is still operational – they cleared it, checked the bodies, a player.

I get a notification for destruction of personal property. The Cyclone MT is gone. Hobo and Superion got out in time before it went out. The Gladius starts to head out, 4.6km out and doesn’t notice the TR with Pluto, Echo and myself.

I figured, okay i dropped off Echo and Pluto to check the Carrack, I’m gonna go pick up Cosmic and Superion – Start heading over.

15 minutes remain.
leave or be trespassed from the bunker area.

I see the other two’s markers in the distance and start to head out that way. I see the second carrack, it’s belly up. As i near closer to Hobo and Superion, i see the wrecks of a dragonly and a hurricane off to my left. I pick up the stranded.I hear back, the first carrack is confirmed dead, nothing works inside. Turn and haul ass to the hurricane, seemed intact, little red but landed on its feet. Dead on arrival after some inspection.

no options left, our flights are gone. the 3 that could have are dead as well, and the few we found don’t work either.
We found ourselves in a wasteland. but had to return back to a station.

We need out – We need a hero.

a few of our boys in Redscar are online

called out Wikkett, JarJar, and Duke sitting in voice chat, thumbs up their butts, bullshitting the evening away. I pop in and ask for help. We’re 5 souls – and we need extraction, told them the 5 of us but 1 wasn’t redscar. JarJar begins ragging on me “Ohhh look whooo needs heeeelp! someone from Exterra.”. A little bit of back and forth banter, Duke was already in the sky. Wikkett following in something that wasn’t a drake to sooth Hobo’s anxiety to everything Drake-shaped.
The call for help was put in. We have a chance to get out.

10 minutes remaining.

Flip around and head to the horizon, much like the sun, daybreak was here. With Hobo and Superion. had to get out. Death was on the line and the timer we never really noticed was ticking faster. Cyclone putting in the work, Seen what looked like a white valkyrie from a distance, sitting up on its landing gear but can’t make out the rest. It was hope, had to pop over another hill – it was another Asgard. Toasted. Engines ripped off, never to see any more use. But maybe it could still help us. Pull up the rear ramp that was down – no additional ground vehicles. damn. Bird was gone, and nothing left.

We pull away and head for the Horizon.

7 minutes remain

We crossed the boundary, we’re free – Dropped off Cosmic and superion safe from whatever execution that would be caused from still being within the quest zone.
they hunker down while i head back back to Pluto and Echo – they’re still in the zone. heading to their own safety.

6 minutes remain

5km out
hope over the same fresh corpses and wreckage, the dragonfly on its side.

5 minutes remain

they’re still 3km out. I pass the Connie, and they surprised me how far out they’ve made it so far.

4 Minutes remain

roll up beside Echo, have him join me.
Pluto another km ahead of where Echo got picked up

3 minutes remain

Hope over a hill, Cyclone giving it all – Land beside Pluto. He loads up

GO.
Looking for flat land, what direction, bump into a cactus, get flipped around.

how much further man – we’re not gonna make it.

15 seconds remain

We’re not going to mak-

a new warning appears, Leaving area

we’re out – free. into the wild. out of the zone. safe. stranded, but safe. the TR sputters to a stop at the top of a hill. overlooking the combat zone, wreckage of the reclaimer and connie visible from where we are. I continue to roll out. Around the mountain range, heading back to Hobo and superion for evac. The scorching heat and the sun in full morning, lights the lands. We pull to a stop as Duke arrives in the airspace, Wikkets marker following behind from a quantum jump. we park up beside the Quasy grazers Pluto and Echo feeling for the hunt – the Cyclone and its last 200 rounds open up. lighting the wild herd. those that were hit, died. The rest were uneffected. built different i guess.

Duke in a cutlass black, turn and burns – lands, opening the small doors of the cutlass black. Pull the cyclone TR into the back and shut it off for the last time.

You did good my little war machine.

We all meet back up on seraphim station. It usual crowded-ness only improved with a stray red couch, a wing of an arrow and a golfcar added to the floor decore. Pose up for a group photo. Rescued.