> Battle Helix < > Sequence I : Coordination < The day was pristine, which seemed to mean to all sides involved that it was their God-given duty to destroy it. DCE Qibing Mk. 7 dropships swiftly and silently cut through the morning air, their ports opening to release the Thavs stored within. The plan was a simple one, easily concocted and so far easily executed. USP interceptors could not possibly pick up the Mark 7 on their sensors, and any relay stations that could pick up the dropships would be out of range. The raid assured the DCE at least a small portion of USP land, as well as further bragging rights for the dropships that had proven themselves in the Battle of Madagascar. The strategists were certain that it would be a success. "Five Qibings, apparently at their dropzone," came the report over the loudspeaker, directed towards all the USP Rangers within the belly of the HVD-2X Thunderbird dropship. The Qibings had slipped under the radar of USP border interceptors, as had been expected, but that was precisely what the Thunderbird was designed to counter, and precisely what the Rangers had been trained for. They were the rapid response force of the USP army, and this would be the dry run for a longer line of training for the Thunderbird - a fast dropship with incredible sensors and not much else. Assuming, of course, that they defeated the DCE forces. She tensed. This was, after all, what her Thav was designed for, but it was still not what she enjoyed. She'd been trained on a Leo, a slow machine suited for longer, frontal engagements. The Taurus-V she piloted now was quicker - which she liked - but it wasn't going to see assignment to the longer engagements she had become accustomed to. No more slugging it out toe-to-toe. "Pay attenion!" came the blare of the commander's loudspeaker. She forced herself to focus as the commander stood up, piloting a Virgo-C. She was impressed and surprised - most commanders in the Rangers piloted S-mods, and most wouldn't even look at something as focused on speed as the Virgo. Her guess was that he was very good with the Virgo and had never chosen to pilot another Thav. "This is going to be rapid-insertion, first strike. We will not have backup until it's too late to call them in. The DCE will not know we are coming, or how many of us there are. That's our big advantage. Virgos, Geminis, and Aries are all with me - we're going to rush the central drop zone and flush them into the forest. Tauruses, Cancers, Scorpios, and whoever is piloting that Capricorn -" there were a few chuckles at the out-of- place heavy Thav "- are going to establish a perimeter. If the DCE can't get organized, we'll have 'em. Any questions?" Nobody moved, and the commander chose to take that as acknowledgement. He turned to the blast doors, waiting for them to open, and he was not disappointed - they were flung open as he strapped his Thav back down. Part of the design of the Thunderbird was the Ejection Insertion System - as near as she could tell, a glorified title for standing back and throwing the Thavs towards the enemy. Her seat lurched forward, then the straps snapped back and she was sent flying through the air towards the DCE dropzone. She'd been trained for it, though. Letting her hands tighten over the controls, she jerked back, using the vernier thrusters that were normally for added agility to bank her descent into the woods. With a crash and the snap of broken branches, she fell through the canopy, alone for a few seconds. She sat for a moment, letting the Taurus's sensors pick through the added interference from the Qibings. As she began to get a clear picture of the battle before her, she leaned the machine back and felt herself sinking into the old feeling of being one with the Thav, of being the massive hunk of metal herself. She drew the Taurus's dual pistols - she had always preferred a solid handgun armament - and began to move towards the fringes of the estimated DCE dropzone, her HUD providing her with the location of her fellow troops. "TR-T12, do you read?" The message came through slightly garbled, but she could make it out. Standard operating procedure was for squads to know the names of all their mates, but the group had been rather hastily assembled for the mission. She checked the display - it was TR-S9, according to the ID trace. "You're about fifty meters from my position. The commander is shunting some of the DCE forces this way. If we set up a crossfire through the trees -" "Understood and acknowledged," she replied, sliding into position and aiming the pistols. The visual hadn't picked up the DCE forces yet, so she switched over to thermal and picked them up as the display became moving masses of color. "Got them. Five marks, 2 Longxias, 3 Weishous." Targeting systems were brought on-line. "I can most likely drop one of the Longxias before it can pick up on us, but that would be it. Are you in position?" "Affirmitive. I'll drop the other Longxia. We'll have to keep moving afterwards. Maintain radio contact." "Opening fire," she replied, squeezing the trigger and hearing the familiar burst of the weapons. Shots tore through the foliage, and her thermal display began to distort as her pistols heated up from firing. She switched back to visual, saw the DCE Thav stagger backwards as the energy pellets shredded through its side armor. One of the Weishous seemed to be wise to the fact that the assault was coming from her direction, so she fired her vernier thrusters and slid sideways as it spit a few rounds at her previous position, still facing the Longxia. As she spun, she saw another Longxia being hit by what looked like a pellet cannon - presumably, what S9 had mounted in his Scorpio's "tail". The Longxia had barely turned to face her before she got a head shot, probably knocking out its sensors. She stepped backwards to avoid another volley from the Weishou, then sidestepped to get a clear shot at the Longxia's arm joints. A few shots sent the left arm flying off, and she began running around, hoping to catch the now-unarmored joint in a few clear shots. Her computer whined an alert as a few shots from the Weishou clipped her back, but she ignored it as she found her shot wide open. Two shots from her right-hand pistol sent up a shower of sparks, and the Longxia started stumbling. "Mine's down," she shouted over the comm, turning to see if the Weishou was tracking her. "Yours?" A rifle burst came over the comm. "Yeah, but two of the Weishous noticed me. I thought I could snipe it out in place. Trying to lose them, but it's not that easy..." She checked the display. He wasn't far from her position. Her pursuer took a couple shots, and she rolled aside. "Keep trying. I've only got one, and I think I can take him out. Stop using your cannon so much - it throws up such a big halo that they'll be able to track you for a while without much trouble. What's your secondary weapon?" "A chaingun. But it's shell-fed..." "Doesn't matter. You'll only need to keep them held off, not take them down." She looked carefully. The Weishou actually hadn't spotted her yet - he just was tracking the position of her shots. She had stopped shooting, so he was scanning for her. She knew the Taurus-V's coolant system was enough to keep her from running hot, but her pistols might show up on his thermal scanners. Still crouching, she looked at the oak next to her, then carefully holstered her left pistol. Flexing her clawed fingers, she slashed through the tree's trunk, then pushed it towards the Weishou, sprang up, and started towards the Weishou's side. The Thav looked towards the tree and started firing on it, but she had planned on that. There was no time to draw the second pistol, only time to aim and unload upon the Weishou's left arm. As it turned to face the Taurus, her shots beginning to affect the Thav's ability to hold the rifle correctly, the tree crashed into the Weishou, half-destroyed but still inhibiting. She pressed the advantage, running forward and firing her pistol. The DCE Thav had half-emerged from the wreckage of the tree, but she was already on him, pistol down and firing point-blank into the trapped Thav as quickly as she could. There was a ping as the Weishou grabbed her leg with a free hand, then she felt the Taurus falling backwards through the air. It was too close for the pistol now, and she let it go, flexing the Taurus's hands and pushing hard on the vernier thrusters, spinning so that the Thav's feet hit the ground with a long crash. The Weishou was bracing the rifle against its body, but she was already moving towards it, claws slashing across its armor. She smirked; the claws were part of what she liked about the V-mod. Dodging a punch, she grabbed the arm with her left hand, then tore into the shoulder joint with the right hand. The Weishou jerked back, which was probably the worst thing it could have done, since it left a clear shot for her to exploit. A few more slashes had its chest armor in tatters, and she lifted the fallen pistol, emptying a few dozen shots into the unarmored adversary. The voice over on the other end of the comm crackled back in. "I'm taking heavy damage! The Weishous are pinning me down - it's more than the Scorpio can handle!" She ignored the panic in his voice, focused on getting the Taurus's tracking systems to lock onto his location. V-Mods weren't known for their tracking systems, but at close ranges, it would be enough. It was easy enough to pick up on him - he was still throwing up a heat halo from his primary weapon large enough for atmospheric detection. "T12!" "Shut up, keep moving, and stop using your damned cannon if you want to see tomorrow," she snarled over the comm, crashing through the forest with both pistols drawn. Her targeting system zoned in on the Weishous - he'd managed to do some serious damage to one of them, but they were both in fine fighting condition. She could tell that the same was not true of the Scorpio. As the pair of Weishous turned to face her, she dove and rolled to the side, firing her pistols at the weaker of the pair, letting fire ripple across its chest armor. With a plan in mind, she sprang up, only to find the Scorpio opening a wide- range fire spread. "S9! What are you doing?" "I'm keeping them down!" he shouted back as the undamaged Weishou turned back towards him. She didn't have time to explain to him that the wide-range spread was useless in an area like this, with one damaged opponent and one relatively unharmed one. She didn't even have time to lecture him on not listening to her. All she had time to do was to slam into the undamaged Weishou hard with a shoulder tackle, then pressing the muzzle of her pistol into the vulnerable shoulder joint and firing. Sparks erupted as she heard the other Weishou firing, then the sound of tearing and scraping metal. Looking up, she saw the Scorpio standing, badly damaged, but intact, unlike the smoking and sparking Weishou. For a moment, she hesitated. That was enough for her opponent to smack her away and aim at the Scorpio, who hadn't thought to move. S9 noticed the Weishou's reactivation, and began to fire on it, but a few shots colliding with it wasn't enough to stop it from lancing the Scorpio with firepower. The shots ripped right through the torso, and even as she retrained her pistols and unloaded upon her opponent's head, she saw the Scorpio stagger and fall, smoke rising from it. The Weishou's head burst apart, and she thrust her clawed hand deep into the body of the Thav, hearing a crunch as she killed the pilot. Making the Taurus stand again, she walked over and kneeled by the fallen Scorpio. Its head turned to her, almost forlorn. "What's... your... name...?" She hesitated, then let the chest flip open and move to reveal the pilot within. "Lieutenant Colonel Alisia DeCourcy," she replied, watching the Scorpio try to return the gesture. It could not - the machine was too damaged, and the pilot within too weak. "Some of those shots hit the pilot's compartment. You're dying quickly. I might be able to -" The Scorpio lifted a damaged arm and ripped away its chest armor, revealing a nondescript young man whose legs seemed to have dissolved into a bloodstain. "Alisia. That's... a... pretty name. I'm... Aaron. Aaron..." A choking sound came from the pilot, and he lurched forward in his chair, then lay back and ceased to move, eyes still wide open with fear and pain. For a moment longer, Alisia looked at him. No tears welled, no emotions stirred. She closed the cockpit of the Taurus-V and prepared for another skirmish. > <> < Officer Quentin Dolan was riveted by the woman from the moment she stepped into the mess hall. Long blonde hair, swaying ever so slightly as she strode through, riveting amber eyes, and her tight red pilot's uniform caught his attention. "Eric," he hissed to his companion, who sighed and rolled his eyes, accustomed to the routine. "Who is she?" "Lieutenant Colonel Alisia DeCourcy, Quentin. Now just let it go and forget about her entirely. Trust me on this one." Eric took a sip of the steaming liquid in his cup, frowning as he did so. Whatever the USP military saw fit to give its troops to drink, it sure wasn't coffee. "This isn't someone out of your league, this is someone that you just can't touch." He looked up. "She was on the strike force today, so I'm surprised you didn't notice her earlier." Quentin blinked. "She was? I'm surprised I missed her." He spooned his food, obviously simply playing with it as he focused his gaze on Alisia. "She's beautiful, Eric. Why wasn't she in the hall earlier, if she was on the strike?" "Filing a death report," replied Eric matter-of-factly. He had always been gifted with the ability to take the most extreme news as a standard occurence, but Quentin had never developed such a skill, and his eyes widened. "Some Scorpio she was running with on the strike. She had to file the report as a witness." "Poor girl. I should -" He stopped, because Eric wasn't stopping him, and the two had been pals for long enough that Quentin knew the interplay between them like clockwork. "You're not trying to stop me. That can only mean that you know something I don't, and you're going to wait until I fall flat on my face before you tell me." He glanced over at Alisia, now sitting and eating her meal. "What is it, Eric? I know that a death witness is a traumatizing position..." Eric chuckled bitterly. "You really have no idea, do you?" He sighed, brushed his brown hair out of his eyes, and spared a quick glance at Alisia before leaning forwards. "See, Alisia entered the service at the same time as her sister, Reina DeCourcy. You probably heard about them before. They were military miracles, the pair of them, and they went through training so quickly that most people expected them to burn out quickly." Another sip of the pseudo-coffee, then continuation. "Something about the way the two of them operated... it was their knowledge of one another taken to an unusual extreme. The two were assigned to the same unit for combat, and together they helped take battle after battle, win promotion after promotion." Sip. "Their unit was one of the ones that was assigned on defensive duty in Eastern Europe, before the Rising Dragon campaign kicked the DCE into action and took a hard drive into the region. Reina was killed in action." Quentin was already apalled, but Eric's story wasn't concluded. "The two sisters were never apart on the battlefield. They worked too well for any reasonably commander to keep them apart. When Reina died, Alisia's Thav had been gutted, unable to move or even react while her sister was torn apart. Irony? Reina thought she was protecting Alisia. Turns out that the DCE forces thought that Alisia had been killed already. The initial survey of the field had both listed as casualtires." "My God," breathed Quentin, standing again. "That poor woman has had to deal with enough suffering. I should go over and console her, when she's had such a -" He looked back at Eric, who still was not stopping him. "Oh. Does the story ever end?" "That's pretty much it, except for Alisia's personal change afterwards." Eric tried to sound disinterested, but some small touch of sorrow crept into his voice somehow. "Something inside her died when Reina died... something that you can't replace. She'd lost the will to live. She exists now to take life from others, not to live her own. The death of her sister, in many ways, spelled her own death." With an involuntary sigh, Eric sipped the coffee again. "That's why you shouldn't waste your time, Quentin." "Quentin?" Eric looked up to see his friend absent. He looked behind him to see Alisia missing as well. "God, Quentin. You just aren't satisfied with anything." Deciding to abandon his drink, Eric stood, brushing off his uniform and heading towards the training area - the one place he was almost certain to find Alisia, and Quentin as well. > <> < Alisia paused for only a moment, pistol in her hand and eyes shut tightly. Then, as if suddenly returned to life, she jerked upwards and turned around, firing twice. She barely heard the thump as her shots hit the target, because she was already rolling sideways and firing up, hitting two more targets as a trail of shots raked beside her. Two more blasts rippe apart all but the last target, and a quick hand gesture from her send the killing blow to the final simulated opponent. "That was a Level 9 simulation?" she muttered, half to herself, half to the computer. "I took care of it in thirty seconds." "Impressive," came a voice from the door. Without even stopping to acknowledge who it was, Alisia sprang into action, getting into a firing stance and training the pistol dead to the intruder's head. He blinked. "Um. Sorry to surprise you, Alisia." She sighed, then raised the pistol as Quentin stepped into the room. "I should have introduced myself earlier. I'm Quentin Dolan, part of the strike from earlier today. If we're going to be on the same rapid-insertion team, then we should -" "Jerk," muttered Alisia with barely-concealed disgust. Before Quentin knew what had happened, she had flipped him over her shoulder and had the pistol trained at his head. He blinked again, and she sighed as she looked at him. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to walk in on a training simulation? You could have been shot, and I wouldn't have given it a second thought until you didn't disengage with the rest of the simulation. And you're the sort of person on the team?" Eric sighed. It usually took women longer to get this ticked off at Quentin, but apparently Alisia wasn't about to put up with his crap. "I have to apologize for my friend, Miss DeCourcy. He suffers from the critical and incurable disease known as idiocy." He stepped over to Quentin, helping the other man stand again. "Other than that, he's a decent Thav pilot, but you wouldn't know it from this display..." Quentin scowled, then shoved Eric away. "Just showing off for a pretty lady, Alisia. Eric's problem is that he doesn't know real beauty when he sees it." He smiled at Alisia, who was staring at him completely deadpan. "Anyhow, I wanted to introduce myself to you, seeing as how we're going to be on the same -" Sighing, Alisia threw up her arms and turned away. "Look, Quentin, I'm going to make this really easy for you. I don't date. I don't have any desire to. I've got more important things to do with my life than deal with personal relationships." She waited for a moment, then turned to find Quentin unmoved. "You're still here?" "I'm persistent," he replied, making a slight bow. "Besides, people have changed their minds before, and I'd -" Quentin's remark was cut short as a warning siren split the air, and the shade of the lights in the training room shifted to red. He blinked. It wasn't unusual - the alarm lights came on fairly regularly, especially since the DCE had taken Northern Africa. But it hadn't been more than five hours since the last attack, and that was unusual. "Come on, Quentin, get to the hangar!" snapped Eric, grabbing Quentin's wrist and dragging him along behind Alisia, who had already taken off in a full sprint. Quentin sighed, broke free of Eric's grip, and began to run full-force, easily overtaking Eric. Eric sighed. One of these days, Quentin's impatience would get them both killed... > <> < "Just one Qibing, but it's driving fast," came the loudspeaker's report. The squad was still down a few members after their last battle, but it had been a big victory in any event. Since the DCE got hold of Africa, the European front had been coming under hard assault, and the loss of Madagascar prevented the USP from striking them from the inside out as they had been able to beforehand. Quentin managed to turn his Scorpio-B's head towards Alisia, who had been pointedly ignoring him since they had boarded the Thunderbird. He was well aware of that fact - Quentin was not an idiot - but he was determined to move past it. "Here we go again, back into the breach. Quite an experience, isn't it? Hopping all over the planet, visiting site after site, all in the orders of destroying the DCE. Almost like a free vacation -" "Shut the hell up, Quentin," muttered Alisia, finally turning her Thav's head towards him. "You're getting annoying. At this point my opinion of you couldn't get any lower. Stop while you're ahead." The Scorpio shrugged. "The way I see it, Alisia, if I'm at rock bottom, I can't go anywhere but up. I'll take my chances." She sighed and turned away, but Quentin did not. An idea had struck him, and he leaned over. "How about we make a bet? If I can't improve your opinion of me within a month, I'll never bug you again. If I can... well, that's reward enough." Alisia thought for a moment, then nodded as the commander stood up to address the crew. The Virgo-C still had a noticable scar across its shoulder - Alisia guessed it was simply battle damage that hadn't gotten repaired in time. "All right, everyone. Different rules this time - we're picking them off in a frontal confrontation. We've got the numerical advantage, but don't get cocky. DCE tech isn't the hottest stuff in the world, but it can tear through your Thav if you just stand around. Like before, blitz Thavs with me - we'll hit the DCE hard and fast as they land. Other Thavs, keep them down while we're engaging them. Got it?" There was no time to acknowledge such - the blast hatch had opened, and the commander only barely strapped in as the Thavs were thrown into the fray. Alisia kicked her vernier thrusters in, and glanced behind her to see Quentin's Scorpio and Eric's Cancer-A tailing her. "What are you two doing?" she shouted back at them, somewhere between surprise and anger. "I don't need backup!" "We're providing it anyways," replied Quentin with finality as they landed. Alisia caught sight of a Weishou charging almost immediately, apparently one that had managed to break free of the commander's blitz forces. She prepared to draw her pistols and skid aside, but before she could, a pair of laser blasts slammed into the Weishou, sending it off-balance before pellet blasts tore into the Thav and sent it reeling. Glancing back, she saw the Scorpio and Cancer give her a thumbs-up before snapping back to attention. As the engagement Thavs moved towards the fray, Alisia took stock of the situation. The blitz had attained its purpose - it had caught the DCE off-gaurd, and that meant that the engagement Thavs had an easier time of things. Flares of exhaust erupted from Eric's Cancer as it launched a flight of missiles - his primary weapon, Alisia guessed, noting the sabre projection unit in his right claw. Bringing her attention back to the issue at hand, Alisia drew both pistols and sent a series of blasts ripping through the rear armor of a Longxia, then blasting a Zhonglong off-balance before Quentin's pellet chaingun tore into it. Much as she hated to admit it, he seemed to be doing very well in the battle, despite her initial impressions of him. As she shot off a Longxia's arm, already weakened by other assaults, she saw a flash of green light burst through its center and smirked to herself as Eric's beam sabre shredded it down the middle. "It's working well," he noted, glancing around the battlefield. "The first blitz threw their forces out of rank, and the DCE soldiers aren't trained to deal with that. With us rushing in, the blitzes still coming strong, and our assaults being steady, we're eating these guys up so quickly that it isn't even -" The world snapped into slow motion as a pair of blasts slammed into the Cancer's leg, and Alisia couldn't identify the source before more raked across it and blew it to smithereens. The Thav began to fall, and Alisia snapped back into action, dashing towards Eric and picking out her targets. A few shots sent some DCE Thavs to the ground, but the source of the blasts hadn't been those Thavs, it had been a Guanxishou standing behind him. Alisia tensed for a moment - her Thav wasn't really suited for engagements against heavy DCE Thavs, but she didn't have a choice in the matter. She fired and skidded aside as it moved closer. Eric sent a flight of missiles into the Thav's frame, but it didn't even turn its attention towards him as Alisia skidded around it. She was having trouble getting off a clean shot, but she saw the massive pellet chaingun it was holding and decided she was better off keeping it from shooting her. It spat rounds at her, and she decided to take a risk, diverting force into her thrusters and jumping upwards as she holstered a pistol. This was what her Thav was designed for, and she slammed into the Guanxishou with a forceful thrust of her claws. The other arm came around swiftly and pressed into the Guanxishou's chest, ready to fire a lethal shot. Before she could pull the trigger, Alisia felt her Thav being yanked backwards, and realized it had grabbed onto her. The other Thav strained, then slammed the Taurus hard against the ground, sending a shockwave through Alisia's body and a screaming alert out of the Thav's systems. Figures of damage estimates flashed across her HUD, but she had trained hard to ignore such distractions and get out of the way right away. A burst of thrust from her vernier thrusters sent her skidding away as the chaingun spat fire at her location, and she rolled back to a standing position as quickly as she could. Her pistols spat fire with accuracy as she dashed towards the Guanxishou again, but the machine knew what she was doing now and sidestepped with a burst of exhaust from its thrusters. Another flight of missiles from Eric distracted the Guanxishou for just long enough, letting Alisia dash towards it with claws outstretched, pistols holstered as she tore the sharp metal across her opponent's armor. The chest armor began to give way, and another slash of her claws send it into pieces. Before she could assault the pilot, the Thav smacked her away with its weapon, and then fired. There was no time for her to move out of the way completely, only time for her to try and minimize damage as best she could, lurching to one side and wincing as her left arm had its armor sheared away. A quick glance at the HUD told her that it was only barely left at functionality. Without a second thought, Alisia drew a pistol with her still-good right arm and dashed right at the Guanxishou. She knew that the pilot wouldn't expect something like that, especially after she had just had her arm nearly destroyed by his Thav. Her bet was right, and as it stood almost dazed, she fired her pistol dead into the chest. Durable machines though they were, Thavs housed their pilots in the chest, and once the chest armor had been destroyed, subsequent attack almost always meant death for the pilot. A burst of blood exploded from inside the Guanxishou, and she smirked as it fell backwards. She heard her HUD beep, and winced. She had spent too much time taking care of the Thav, and now she had multiple targets moving in on her. Turning, she started to question if she could really take on the lot of them, but she never gave herself an answer. The first one was felled by a burst of pellets shredding through its chest armor, the second by a dual burst of pellets and plasma. Glancing over, Alisia saw Quentin, moving quickly to keep Eric and Alisia safe. "Quentin! How long have you been there?" "Long enough," he replied, firing at another Thav with his tail weapon, sending it staggering. Alisia picked up her cue and fired at it again, knocking into a fellow Thav's path of fire. "I knew you were good enough to take down that Guanxishou, but I had to make sure nobody took down you or Eric in the interim." He glanced at her. "That's what friends do, isn't it?" Alisia blinked as the DCE forces began to withdraw, retreating back to the Qibing. Their defeat had been decisive - she could only see one wrecked USP Thav. "I suppose it is, Quentin. You win the bet. I don't think I would have been able to -" The Qibing began to lift off as the roar of pursuit jets came over the horizon. A few straggler DCE units were left to cover the Qibing's escape, but it was clearly not going well for the DCE. "Don't mention it, Alisia," replied Quentin, popping open the Scorpio's cockpit and smirking at her. "Just having you around me is thanks enough -" "Shut up, Quentin," growled Eric as he rolled his Thav over so he could climb out. He surveyed the damage to his Thav and sighed. "Help me carry this back to the dropship, will you?" Quentin chuckled, then closed his cockpit and grabbed on to the damaged Cancer. Alisia took a moment longer, then sighed and grabbed the Thav as well, helping Eric lug it towards the descending Thunderbird. / ¤********{ e l e c t r o n i c t r a n s c e n d e n c e }-+†‹±ø£'? /*/>>>>ø>>« Eliot Lefebvre, AKA Lost Factor, Stormcloud, Q! »<<ø<<<<\* ¥ø==« Transfan, X-Fan, X-Phile, Trekker, Gamer, Otaku, and more »==ø¥ ÷----ø--« ET Website: http://www.crosswinds.net/~lostfactor »--ø----÷ *====ø==« Mirror: http://members.fortunecity.com/lostfactor »==ø====* *\>>ø>>« Contact: eltf@hotmail.com, Eliot.Lefebvre@uconn.edu »<<ø<