There was no time to waste. It was time to get the XX-frames into space. The trio of Charlie, Caleb and Cameron went first. They all arrived at the mouth of the tunnel. It walked down the guided path to the center of the complex one right after the other. When it got to the launch pad, they stepped on and grabbed onto metal hooks in the wall. Now latched on the hooks, Paul gave them a countdown. As he counted, the wings extended, and we saw their mecha's feet begin to glow red and white hot from their flames. It lifted and met their 20 foot threshold. When it shot up into the air we watched them go. They did a lap around town before going up into space. "We have liftoff!" Brett yelled out loud. Everyone in the hangar was very quiet. We had seen all of it before. It appeared that there was a 10 minute cooldown period for using the launchpad. It was going to be over 10 minutes to reach the coalition pilots anyway. It was fine to wait to send the second one up. We were in contact with Charlie, Caleb and Cameron the whole time. They seemed to be having smooth sailing all the way. Good.
As they found the stranded XX-frame, it was past the 3 minutes after the cooldown time had elapsed. It was time for our second pair to go up. Adrian was the pilot in the important Negative Charge position and Charlotte was in the Positive Charge platform for this launch sequence. They achieved liftoff and went straight up. There was no time to play around. "We have found the coalition XX-frame." Charlie reported. "Great job guys. See if you can contact them and see how they're doing." Paul said on the intercom. "Copy that." he responded. There was a 5 minute pause. They got in contact with 05-010. Because we were in the coalition all of our communication devices could link up. We could hear from them as well. The viewing theatre got a big 3-way split screen effect. No doubt those still waiting in the Heat Clan hangar could see us now. 05-010 was in a really rough shape. He could barely answer us. If we were even a day later, he probably would have been completely unresponsive. Charlie was the talking to him. He told them to open the cockpit on signal for the rescue. 05-010 agreed.
Everything was in place. I got on the intercom now. "Alright Caleb. It's time for the rescue to commence. Begin the Positive Charge pilot transfer to Cameron." Caleb did not look happy about it. "Understood." was all he said. We saw the handles retract from Charlie and return to Caleb's sides. Next, Caleb took his limbs out of the platform one by one. All the functions of the XX-frame powered down. That was when Cameron took his place. The monitor above him came back on. The blue ring filled up 4 times before stopping at 3 bright blue ticks on the fifth ring. His paracapacity was 83. That was not as good as the 100 from Caleb, but it was still in the optimal range. It was lucky that he was so similar to Caleb. Cameron was a last minute replacement. All of the functions of the XX-frame that powered down came roaring back to life. We cheered from the hangar. Cameron's handles extended from him and Charlie took hold of them. He was able to pilot the XX-frame. That was what mattered. Cameron's smile was wide as he reported "Positive Charge transfer complete." We were all very close.
