Plus, any Ling-Sanjeet-Henriette confrontation is going to be hot with emotions and drama and HUMAN WEAKNESS, and given it's implied that Blanc was the first EXEMPLAR IV to activate, that means that it's narratively sound that the failings of his plan come from the HUMAN WEAKNESS of his underlings - and how Jamelia has made Henriette far less brittle and prone to shattering, using the things he taught her to ends he doesn't work. Ah, the symmetry.
Meanwhile, Ling has been getting all sorts of strange and confusing feelings. Like the funny sensations she gets whenever she sees Yinzheng talking to Sanjeet that make her feel slightly sick and uneasy and s-she doesn't understand why this is happening she must be experiencing some strange side effect from the treatments Ms Clock is making her undergo
The cockpit of the multiped tank is a a smooth walled, primium-lined sarcophagus, filled to the brim with oxygenated nanogel. There are no displays made for unaugmented eyes, no controls that could be used by a baseline pilot. The only imperfections in the perfectly machined surface of the cockpit interior are the emergency ejection handle, the DNI jack-in point, and the escape hatch. Only an augmented Iteration X pilot--one with the implants that would allow them to interface directly with the vehicle's systems--could pilot such a vehicle.
Ling Clarent's physical body floats motionlessly inside the coffin-like cockpit, like a lifeless doll. Right now, the tank is her body. Its sensors are her eyes, its weapons her claws. She understands her orders. A heavy vehicle like the one she piloted would be of limited use within the confines of Izanagi, so she had been instructed to take control of the topside defences.
She assigns Spektr-3 targeting perimeters, ordering it to open fire on one of the remaining Rolands, but microseconds before the UGV's railgun can finish its cooling cycle a figure smashes into the vehicle, bisecting the railgun's barrel in a lighting fast stroke. The next strike pierces all the way to the AI core, and she triggers the vehicle's self destruct microseconds before the telemetry feed cuts off. Ling watches from a different feed as the figure emerges from the burning wreckage completely unscathed, and tags it with a high priority marker.
The alien auxiliaries and re-purposed test subjects are mostly operating without her input, her implants intended for managing dumb AI-piloted vehicles rather than commanding a mixed force like this.
Her commander had opted to hold many of her heavier assets in reserve inside the facility, erroneously predicting that the vehicular assault was merely a diversion. It is apparent that this was a miscalculation. More forces are being scrambled to reinforce the above ground defences, but caught out of position they are being expended inefficiently. She detects one of the ORION operatives just as they land on the multiped tank with a loud thud that reverberates throughout the vehicle, even as she triggers the electrical discharge armour reflexively. Stress warnings indicate that the tank's entry hatch will fail in 4100 millseconds, so she redirects both plasma cannons to open fire on the intruder. A charred husk falls off the hull of the vehicle, even the superhuman constitution of an ORION unable to withstand repeated high energy plasma discharges at point blank range.
Li Yinzheng. The unpleasant feeling she gets whenever she thinks about the Operative is especially strong at the moment, now that it is clear that the enemy has tricked them, that she failed to correctly predict the enemy's primary assault. The feeling is almost as strong as the one she gets when she sees the white haired woman conversing with Pilot Langara. She especially dislikes those feelings, but she doesn't know how to make them go away. She switches over to one of the tank's remotes, firing its flamethrower in a three second burn that rakes over a squad of Damage Control operatives. It does not kill them, but it gives her enough time to collapse the entryway they were attempting to use with a volley of smart grenades.
Her feelings for Pilot Langara himself are even more convoluted. She has many memories of associating with him, perfectly preserved by her ADEI.
"Why don't you try smiling more?" That had been one of their earlier interactions, when they were still pilot cadets.
"I don't even understand why you're wasting your time on her; she's a damned emoneut! Look, she doesn't even care that we're right in front of her!" She remembers the flushed, angry face of Henriette Langley, shouting at Sanjeet Langara.
Ling has reviewed her memories hundreds of times. She does not understand why she has been getting strange feelings about these particular memories recently. She feels conflicted about how the current Pilot Langara is colder and less warm than the one in her memories, even though logically she knows it is more efficient that he does not spend his time trying to be "nice to her", as he had put it. It must be a side effect of the treatments Director Belltower has been ordering her to undergo, she thinks.
