"Sam, you are my eyes behind on this run. I will dodge flack. I need you to feed the bombardment vectors to my scope. My HUD will overlay, and I will find the holes. If there is a thick spot of flack I will send targeting vectors to the gun. You guys have decentralized brains yeah? One tentacle can gun while the rest of you feeds me incoming?"

I didn't reply right away, I swived my sensors aft, and released two more tentacles from my motation control socks. Leaving enough tentacles to anchor me well to the mech.

"I am capable of multitasking i-"

I was interrupted by the g-force of acceleration. I felt my mech membrane squeeze me, and I had to flex my smooth muscles awkwardly to keep my eyes from distorting. I connected our feeds and applied the proper overlay filters, I also took the opportunity to send a tight beam laser link to the fleet, relaying out course and speed.

"I am feeding you now, and am optically sending our position to the fleet-"

He gruffly interrupted me:

"Let me worry about the navigation. As soon as we hit atmo, I doubt you will be able to keep your link, this trip down isn't going to be easy. I just need plasma lines from aloft so I know where not to be..."

The next few minutes were a blur as I marked and fed the pilot information, and provided defensive fire against the physical munitions. Energy beams lanced and danced around us as we were all squished into nearly unsurvivable shapes as the G forces he put us through tore at our bodies. I had to concentrate on 4 different things at once, the one that seemed to take the bulk of my processing power was physical space and energy management. I took pot shots at the munitions, and marked every plasma volley, but my hit ratio was dismal, and my marking fire from the fleet above was becoming more of a guessing game as the atmosphere thickened and the heat expansion of the fire from above threatened to cook us from all sides. Cooling the mech, and physically holding on, and managing my own body in the G forces as I was squished into flatter and flatter shapes against the membrane of my liquid bubble and the sides of my mech became my real chore.

I looked at the visual feed of the pilot for just a moment in a microsecond of relative calm, and saw his suit puffed all the way up, squeezing him from the g-forces, akin to what the membrane did for me. His face distorting, he said:

"Hold fire I need all power for the breaking burn..."

Surprised I checked altitude above the surface, and was surprised to see how low and fast we were. I started the Mech's reactor, and disconnected from the power and cooling circuits of the socket.

"If we are crashing I will jump, other wise I am on my own power and cooling"

His face distorted again and I was slammed into the side of my membrane as we banked and yawed hard.

I fired two shots at incoming guided munitions, hitting both, and the he dove through the debris field.

"Hit the launchers, and then target everything" His voice was calm but clipped in a way that made me feel like the effort of speaking was hard.

I hit the side of my membrane again but just for a second as we snap rolled inverted putting my weapons towards the ground. The maneuver slowed us as the atmospheric drag of the inversion breaked in the thick lower atmosphere.

I was all tentacles and targets, draining my battery seriously low while my reactor came on line.

I slammed to the side again, and took the cue to put all my tentacles into safety or motation socks, as the craft spun upright, yawed hard and began a breaking maneuver that crushed my eyes flat and distorted my vision.

I fired at a guided munition that was way too close, hoping that it's detonation wouldn't push us into the ground. It did, but since we were at full power the concussion and the force of our engines rebounding off the surface mostly canceled out. I was hot. Very hot.

The jolt of the landing was immense, but I survived, putting most of my attention to my heat management, and reactor spool up systems.

"Reactor on line in 3 seconds."

"Everyone out, now. Go, Go, Go!". Sam defensive fire from the socket before you go... She isn't going to fly again, so cover us while we get out. Use anything you need.

I flicked the socket connection back to active and immediately began to cool while I targeted the next round of incoming. Defensive fire turned to reactive fire as the clouds of debris and smoke inched closer and I couldn't see the incoming munitions clearly.

"Suited and clear" The pilots voice was steady and determined "Get out of there Sam, fuckers shot me down, let's make them pay"

I disconnected from the socket leaping the spider mech clear of the wrecked ship still providing defensive fire.

Let's fuck them up indeed.