The steady screech of air raid sirens filled the cafeteria, and Echo Cadwallader looked up from his tray of food. People around him were already sprinting to their stations, abandoning their late night dinners. With a heavy sigh, Echo shoved a few more rations in his mouth and casually strolled towards the lockers. Pilots and navigators were already tightening their pressure suits and strapping on their belts. Each pressure suit was color coded with the mecha each pair controlled. Echo spotted a lone figure in green and white and walked that way, still chewing his food.

Eon Cadwallader spotted her brother and threw his pressure suit at him, her normally calm face lined with annoyance. As Echo stumbled a bit under the weight of his suit, she checked the gun at her belt and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You need to hurry whenever the sirens go off, stupid," Eon said, pinning her short brown hair away from her face with barrettes. "If we launch late again, the field commander will kill us."

"Hey, I was eating," Echo protested, pressing the button on his suit that made the thin fabric stick tightly to his skin. "Besides, I checked the Beta K-3 earlier this morning. We won't have to go through a ton of tests like the other teams."

Strapping his belt on, Echo ran after his sister towards the towering machine that waited for them. It knelt, bowing its gigantic metal head to reveal the cockpit. Eon climbed gracefully into the navigation seat, activating the circular touch screen that surrounded her chair. It lit up with diagrams of the mecha and maps of the area, as well as targets, radar, and an uplink to the pilot's cage. Plugs and wires slithered up her body to plug into her wrists and the back of her neck, activating her mechanical left eye, which glowed red. Echo followed, nearly falling down a few times before he finally settled into the pilot's cage, wires plugging into his wrists, ankles, and the back of his neck while metal sleeves covered his arms and legs. His mechanical left eye glowed red as well, replacing his vision with that of the mecha. A metallic purr filled the space, and the cabin closed up, leaving them with only Eon's control panel as a dim light source.

Echo stretched his legs and the mecha stood, his line of vision rising with the enormous machine. He moved his arms slowly and the metal arms mimicked every movement down to the finest detail. As he maneuvered the mecha towards the elevator shaft-like launch pad, he called up the maps and schematics Eon sent directly to the wires that led to his spinal cord and brain.

"Engines ready?" he asked, stopping the mecha on the launch pad and crouching down, the machine mimicking him exactly.

"Engines are go," Eon called from her seat behind the cage, her hands lying over the controls.

"Schematics ready?"

"Schematics are go."

"Uplinks ready?"

"Uplinks are go."

"Weapons ready?"

"Weapons are go."

Taking a deep breath, Echo closed his eyes and tried to steady his nerves. What he needed in this battle was the hyper-awareness that he had been taught in basic training. He let himself become one with the mecha, his limbs becoming its limbs. He exhaled and opened his eyes, his mechanical eye whirring softly in the near silence.

"Control tower, are we cleared for launch?"

There was a moment of silence, and then a tinny female voice suddenly filled the cramped space.

"Beta K-3, you are cleared for launch."

Echo smirked and gave his sister a thumbs up before he straightened his legs, the mecha jumping out of the shaft and pressing the siblings back. Suddenly, the mecha was out of the shaft and Echo quickly moved so that it landed on firm ground, shifting it into a full-out sprint almost immediately.

"Enemy gunner approaching!" Eon yelled, sliding her fingers across the screen.

A small red icon appeared in Echo's field of vision and he turned the mecha smoothly, guns snapping out of the wrists and aiming at the fast approaching enemy.

"Fire!" Eon screamed, whirling around in her seat to watch her brother in action.

Triggers moved up into Echo's hand and he let out a wild yell as he squeezed them tightly, thrusting him arms forward. The mecha's arms also thrust forward, the twin machine guns unleashing a hail of bullets at the enemy gunner. The chatter of gunfire filled the cabin, nearly drowning out Echo's screams. The enemy's machine stopped suddenly and burst into flames as some of the tracer bullets ignited the flammable fuel inside. Echo hurriedly backpedaled and barely got the mecha a safe distance from the gunner before it exploded, bits of metal showering down on the ground around them.

"Yeeeeehaw!" Echo screamed, giving his sister a smug look. "How many more do I get the pleasure of utterly annihilating now, sis?"

Eon rolled her eyes and called up the radar on her panel, her left eye whirring and clicking as calculations and maps ran through her brain. She turned back to her brother, tugging slightly at the wires plugged into her wrists.

"About fifteen more have been assigned to us," she said calmly, her face startlingly blank compared to her older brother's jubilant expression. "Think you can handle it, shithead?"

"Bitch."

"Dickbag."

"Cunt."

Grinning a bit, Eon sent locations of their targets to Echo's uplink, turning away from the cage to put her attention back to her screen.

"That's what I thought. Now let's deal a big old blow to the Republic of the East. North American style, of course."

Images, maps, and tactics whirled through Echo's head and he led the mecha into another run. The light from the flames all around them lit up the green and white metal body they were guiding through the night.

"Sis, you sure know how to speak my language sometimes."