Departure

Psycho stood at the rear door of the VTOL watching Lee from the ground below. As the huge machine approached, Lee came back into consciousness. This was going to be fun to watch.

After all, Lee and his team stole one of the machines and were planning to reverse engineer the design to build a weapon that could place the Korean People's Army (KPA) into a position of power. The machines were likely not happy knowing one of their devices had been hijacked.



Lee stood upright and turned to the huge machine.



A hole opened under the bottom of the machine. A bluish light began to coat Colonel Lee as he stood in place, obviously too frightened to run or even move away. The glow of the beam intensified greater and great until Psycho was able to see a red ball of fire burst from the position where Colonel Lee was standing.

For all known purposes, Lee was presumed to be no longer living. The Nanosuit can take a lot of damage, but the damage he just witnessed was certainly in the megaton range.

The machines began to set their focus on O'Neill's VTOL. Did they notice the container hanging underneath?



O'Neill instructed Psycho to buckle up and hold on, because they had to evacuate the area now, as quickly as possible.

The VTOL was able to outrun the huge machine with ease. Psycho realized he had finally met the goals of the mission and for the first time, he could relax. The container was secure and Colonel Lee was either dead or not in the best of spirits.

Things would get hectic again soon when they reached the USS Constitution and hooked back up with me (Nomad) to face one of those huge machines head on. I can still recall seeing Psycho sitting on the deck of the ship for the first time when I landed my VTOL on the Constitution. He looked wiped out.

Another benefit of the mission was that Psycho and O'Neill were able to let go of the Code Blue incident which brought me (Nomad) to the team in place of O'Neill four years ago. While O'Neill may have ruined his chances to be on a Delta Force team four years ago, he still proved his value and honor with the actions he performed on this mission

With that gap in the story complete, Psycho, Helena and I continued our quest toward Prophet back on the island to further battle against these machines who entered our world without permission or invitation.

Destroy the Exosuit

Just as Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes had reached the tower to guide the Vulture One-Niner VTOL toward the airfield, a situation arrived to the area. This time, the situation didn't involve a herd of those smaller alien-machines or even a pack of the larger machines. This time, a huge machine appeared out of the sphere and onto the airfield.



JSOC picked up the machine on their radar and within seconds Admiral Morrison ordered all VTOLs back to base. At the same time, hundreds (of not thousands) of the larger machines took to the sky. Now the war had changed from Korean People's Army (KPA) troops being the enemy to a War of the Worlds-type alien invasion. Surely, the evening news would have a much different slant this evening.

With Vulture One-Niner now out of range, Psycho figured it was going to be him against these machines to try and save the container. Psycho realized that staying alive was his primary objective at this point. First things first, was to get out of this tower - as the machines were aware that he was using it as an observation point.

As he moved down the stairs, his radar echoed the voice of Sam O'Neill. O'Neill was back and was there to assist Psycho. O'Neill passed on some vital information as part of their conversation.

A C-18 cargo jet had crashed on the runway earlier in the day. In the cargo area of the C-18 was a container which held a PAX, which is a Plasma Accumulator Cannon - that was truly experimental, but was the only item that contained enough firepower to take down these machines.

With the larger machines flying around the area, they attempted to freeze Psycho in his tracks. However, Psycho weaved a path through ground clutter and KPA troops, focused on the machines above, until he reached his Armored Assault Vehicle (ASV).

The larger machine beamed down an Exosuit machine as Psycho drove toward the crashed jet.



A handful of the smaller machines were hiding in the cargo area of the C-18, but Psycho was able to take them out quickly using his Gauss rifle. Soon, he located the PAX and dropped his SCAR in favor of the experimental gun.

It was now time to face off against the Exosuit, which was the primary target now that the huge machine had left the area. Looking back to the crashed C-18, Psycho was very thankful for this event - which is typically the opposite reaction one has in viewing a crash site.



Psycho ran for cover in the direction of the Exosuit. This thing was just as large as the one he had faced earlier. Only this time, he didn't have support troops assisting the cause. So, this is where the PAX had to prove it's weight and value in battle.

Psycho aimed for the Exosuit and fired the PAX directly at the heart of the machine. O'Neill watched from above, providing updates back to Psycho. It looked like the PAX was working. Just after he fired a shot, he ran for cover while the PAX reloaded and charged back up. Then, he pushed back quickly, aimed, then shot again directly at the heart of the Exosuit.

The process repeated multiple times. Every other time, Psycho was hit briefly by the Exosuit while he attempted to run for cover. None of the hits were strong enough to freeze him, but the hits did require his Nanosuit to heal itself.

Psycho hit the Exosuit one last time and O'Neill alerted that the machine appeared to be taken down.




The Exosuit froze in it's motions and stopped firing back at Psycho. Psycho kept his gun aimed at the machine, just in case there was a secondary source of power that was about to fire into action. Then it happened...

The Exosuit exploded over the airfield with a light blue beam at the heart of the explosion.

The larger machines continued to fly over the airfield, but were not focused on the airstrip. They appeared to be flying in the direction of the USS Constitution - where Nomad (me) was likely planning for battle.

Time to head toward that crate and work with O'Neill to lift it from the area before the KPA arrived.