The disconnect bolts fired.
Then, freefall.
Sephy ignited the boosters - not enough to keep aloft, but enough to slow her descent. She sent out a deep scan pulse - three, no four enemy contacts and two allied GS. She spooled up the cannons, both were green, but the reactor pulse was back.
Impact - ADDICT's hydraulic dampers kicking into action as six tons of synth muscle and cybernetics slammed into the desert sand. She could feel every reverberation of the impact, shaking her to her core, but she was fine. She was holding it together.
ADDICT's optical cluster could make out the enemy - OZM-subverted guardsuits, their humanoid frames stretched, the OZM units breaking their way out of the joints of each GS's armor. They were a total loss. One of the allied guardsuits, a wide-shouldered Kannazuki model armed with a quartet of grenade cannons, had already engaged, peppering the infested GS with cannon fire. The second, armed with a single rifle, was missing an arm.
She opened short ranged comms.
“This is ADDICT. I'm engaging the enemy. Pull back - I'll give you an opening on the transport.”
“Roger!” The voice was gruff, masculine.
Sephy and ADDICT dove to the side, boosters igniting, white hot exhaust cascading across the sand. She pulled wide and to the left, letting loose shots with ADDICT's plasma cannons, superheated hydrogen sprays impacting the OZM. Too far away for any real damage, but enough to pull their attention away from her allies. Good, now all she had to do was let them come to her and-
She felt something lurch, the pulse got louder, angrier. What had once been a dull arrhythmia became red-hot pain throughout ADDICT's core, bleeding into Sephy's own senses. Her mind screamed - the data buffer overflowing, every nerve in her body igniting with pain.
ADDICT's boosters cut out, and the whole thing fell into the dunes, a puppet without strings.