Pegasus Combat Helicopter

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*"As it glided above the clouds and beneath the stars, the sky was its earth and wings were its feet. It had only just protested its strange bridling, when its light hoof dug Aonia’s spring. Now it enjoys the sky, which it wings sought before, and gleams resplendent with five stars and ten."*

- Ovid, *Fasti*
## Tactical Analysis

* **A chariot fit for a god**: The epithet of Syndicate airpower, the Pegasus is deadly to anything that flies, swims, or crawls. Twin missile pods blast apart tanks, ships, copters, and other gunships while a trio of gyrojets deal with more mobile targets like troops and jets.

* **Nothing but net**: If an enemy proves to be truly vexing, the Pegasus can launch a mononet missile. This weapon is capable of instantly killing infantry and battlesuits while heavily damaging anything else. Even if the target survives, it is usually disabled until it can free itself from the net.

* **You CAN put a price on safety**: The Pegasus is an expensive craft and losing one is a blow to both the Syndicate’s wallet and image. Unfortunately for all it offers the copter can still be overwhelmed by enormous quantities of triple-A fire.

* **Protect me, it’s what I’m paying you for**: With experience under their belt, and a whole lotta money, veteran Pegasus pilots tend to upgrade their helicopter to carry an aggression AURA, which amps up surrounding forces' aggression and desire for blood, to help support the ground forces and a special jammer that makes it so that so long as there is someone on their side is near them, whether an Auxiliary or a battlesuit, the enemy can't target them. Just be wary that another Pegasus with the jammer will cancel each other out, so a group of heroic Pegasuses are just as vulnerable as if they were alone.

## Background

The lack of heavy air support in the form of a dedicated gunship led to many Syndicate-owned mercenary companies to request the development of a combat helicopter with the capability to engage any land force with extreme lethality. The effectiveness of the Twinblade and the Cryocopter, which have proven time and time again to be some of the most efficient designs available, led to the conclusion that a flexible weapons platform could potentially surpass such designs as an even more effective helicopter. However, the armament needed to succeed in such a task would require an entirely new frame that would have to be designed to support the stress and heat produced from multiple weapons systems.

Westwood, an offshoot company of Syndicate subsidiary Electronic Armaments, finished a radical design on the very day of the Imperial invasion of the US West Coast. As soon as word reached the president of EA, he deployed all available security to Westwood's location, and proceeded to evacuate the staff and precious data. Tragically they were surrounded by hostile forces when they left the safety of compound and found themselves in between the Empire and Allied forces. Their strange equipment, professionalism, and utter indifference caused a brief moment of astonishment for both the Peacekeepers and the Imperial Warriors. Not willing to take any chances, the security Legionnaires opened fire first, and managed to gun down all of the onlookers to prevent potential future complications. The development team took notice of the effectiveness of the Helios Security personnel and recorded the tactics and handling of their weapons. When the Westwood team reached the relative safety of the Silicon Valley, they immediately began to refine their design. An improved, if not outrageously heavier, design soon attracted the interest of the board of directors.

The tail rotor was removed in favour of a third propeller and the entire gunship was stabilised with a servo driven weight distribution system. This allowed the Pegasus to use a modular design improving the flexibility of the platform, while greatly increasing the modular hard points needed to attach the multiple weapon systems. At the right perspective, an incomplete Pegasus could be seen as the mythical beast it is named after. Several other teams were soon drawn into the project as it continued to implement the advances made by nearly every major manufacturer into one monstrous design. The designers combined all of these pieces of technology to create one of the most revolutionary weapons in the world. It even contended (though it failed to win) with the FutureTech Mesofortress for the title of "The Greatest Aerial Threat to Soviet Conscripts!" (A yearly award given to Western weapons manufactures by the Soviet Conscript Monthly newsletter/picture book in exchange for accurate statistics).

With the majority of the necessary systems in place, Westwood met with Blizzard Microsystems in order to employ the use of their Warcraft armament line. The result was an unadulterated aerial battleship armed with remote controlled gyrojet turrets, flechette missile launchers, and the Starcraft Mononet Cruise Missile. The Starcraft was designed to destroy enemy bombardment ships using a state of the art mononet that would cut through any armour regardless of design. The net shape itself would prove to be the most reliable design available as a result of its ability to be used just as effectively against infantry, tanks, and aircraft. All of the systems are used in tandem by a surprisingly traditional crew of six made up of three gunners, a pilot, engineer, and commanding officer. The choice to use human pilots was questioned until the Westwood team explained that their choice was based on the ability of human beings to surpass the limitations of machines in the process of irrational thought.

The Pegasus Combat Helicopter is an astonishing sight of the full might of the Syndicate's industrial might. It is quite the strange spectacle of a three rotor combat helicopter that is often the last sight of many enemies of the Syndicate; its huge number of missiles, gyrojets, and mononet launchers boggle the mind about as much as they tear apart ground targets. Normally it keeps the mononet in reserve for special targets, which can be designated by a commanding executive. The near siege range of its numerous weapons systems, allow the Pegasus to perform indiscriminately against any ground targets. Even the notorious Soviet Bullfrog is unable to adequately respond, much less protect itself, from the brutality of the Pegasus's range.