RP: 5th Fleet [Chapter Three] Attackers

[Kai]

The second half of their trip through the city had been much less eventful than the first, as the sheer number of troops joining them made any resistance the Mishhu remnants could mount. The reason for this became clear, as the squad suddenly came to a huge opening between the battered, crumbling skyscrapers. It had once been a vast square, more than a Kilometer in each direction, but currently it was a pummeled, broken, and misshaped hole in the the heart of the dilapidated old city. It had been bombarded for most of the day, both from orbit, and from artillery on the ground.

Across this void, firmly dug in, were the Remnants. From Squad XIII's position behind the front lines, they could see numerous fortifications that had somehow managed to survive the bombardment. Since the Planetary Infantry was now present, the majority of the bombardment had stopped, aside from the occasional precision strike called in by some forward spotter to try and blast past some sort of defense that had been found.

The tank that the Squad had been escorting, as well as the other squad, both went directly into battle, but Nakamura Juni held back Squad XIII, waiting for further orders.

 

[cyborgakadjmoose]

Rin was surprised that the squad didn't continue following the tank onwards into the square. She peered out from behind a large chunk of rubble and watched the ongoing battle.

Rin was certain the Juni held them back for a reason. She watched the battle with fascination and waited patiently for her orders.

 

[Gwathdraug]

“Siegen!” Fieke called out her well-wishes to the tank and its crew as the war machine trundled off to get into the thick of it no doubt. As the other troops trotted by and Squad XIII remained stock and still the Abwehran OriSec Corporal – standing the odd one out in her Impulse Powered Armour – crouched and ground the butt of her rifle into the turf before leaning on it.

Surveying the wasted battleground set before them Fieke drummed her fingers against the side of her weapon. The scene was one of total destruction – though one which seemed to be decidedly in the favour of the side the Abwehran had signed herself into.

“'s impressive stretch.” Fieke stated, nodding her helmeted head towards the beaten and broken square. “Shame to only get to see it like this.”

 

[Kai]

"It seems we are receiving special orders from the Taii" Kai announced, and a moment later, a chibi-fied image of their platoon leader appeared in everyone's HUD. The small, fairy-like stature of the Chibi, mixed with the playful body language and platinum blonde, wavy hair, made it an incredibly strange juxtaposition to the grim, demolished battlefield before them.

"Helloooo, Squad Thirteen~!" the Taii's virtual visage vocalized. "I have a special mission for you guys, since pretty much everyone else in the platoon is busy, and you happen to be closest. Convenience can be a bitch sometimes, can't it? Hehehe." The Taii seemed to be lost in some bemused thought for a moment before continuing, "anyway, There's an enemy forward command center about three quarters of the way across the square, and headquarters wants us to capture it rather than destroy it. We've discovered a tunnel beneath the square that leads part of the way over there, so that should give you cover, but intel says the exit is heavily guarded by enemy marksman. it's up to you guys to decide how to get through there, but you have to get through; with the information we can get from that command center, we can break the stalemate at the square and push forward to the spaceport, and finally take complete control of the planet."

With that, the little Chibi-Taii disappeared, and the Juni now grabbed their attention, leading them with a hand signal to the tunnel entrance. "Please be on the alert, we aren't sure what's in the tunnel, just that it exists and ends near where we need to go. Everyone, Please activate your Thermoptic camouflage- Fieke, please hang behind and try to stick to the shadows." With those words, Kai's form suddenly disappeared, but a wire-frame outline of his armor remained as a ghostly reminder to the squad as to where he was, jogging down the tunnel and into the darkness.

 

[Reynolds]

Anzu watched the tank speed away, mentally storing away all the information she had about it and its crew. She'd track them down someday...

The Neko put that aside, for now. The figure dancing across her HUD was hard to ignore. She snickered at its antics, although the mission being given out wasn't very amusing. Simo shook her head as the message concluded. "Go through an unexplored tunnel, fight through unknown forces, then infiltrate an unfriendly base. Can't say this is unexpected..." She giggled.

Anzu switched her camo on as she collapsed and stowed the bazooka once more. It was far too large to wield inside the tunnel, and such a long range weapon was useless in the cramped confines anyway. It was back to the LASR for now, although she'd probably use the suit's built-in weapons before that. The Neko lifted up off the ground, floating through the center of the tunnel to minimize noise.

 

[Brett M]

The ravaged square had almost taken Aya's breath away; her trek through the city had given her some small inkling of the destruction that had been wrought, but the sheer scale of the desolation could only be fully appreciated now that she had a better look at the landscape.

She watched the retreating shapes of the tank and the other squad with a small pang of anxiety. She would have appreciated the extra firepower that they could have brought to any confrontation, but the Neko knew that they had their own jobs to do.

It was then that the Taii decided to give Squad XIII special orders. The highly stylised avatar that she decided to employ was extremely distracting to Aya, not least since it was completely at odds with what lay ahead. However, it did take the edge off of Aya's reservations, and helped her to relax (though she was hardly going to admit that to her squadmates).

"C'mon, this is gonna be easy peasy! We can take 'em," said Aya to Anzu, sounding slightly more confident than she actually felt. Hopefully, putting on a brave face would harden her resolve further. Activating her thermo-optic camouflage, Aya followed the more senior Nekovalkyrja's lead and began to float after her and the Juni.

She kept her LASR in a near-ready position, keenly aware of the surrounding area. If there were any NMX lurking in the tunnels, Aya was ready to fight them off at a moment's notice (not that she needed much encouragement).

 

[Warriorx1]

Damien was surprised at the turn of events. He was under the impression that they would be escorting the tank. When it rolled forward into battle and he was given the order to halt he was confused but didn't question it. He was a soldier after all and soldiers didn't question orders because they didn't understand them. Taking a position with the rest of the squad he waited for his orders.

After a couple of minutes, their commander popped up on his HUD and began to lay out the plan. It was much more stealthy than Damien thought that it would be. Well it would be stealthy up until they started causing trouble. Something that he was sure his squadmates wouldn't mind. He however was against charging an unknown number of enemies where they would have the tactical advantage, especially if the squad was discovered. Still orders were orders and Damien knew he had to move out.

Switching on his OC he moved into the tunnel behind his squadmates. Keeping his LASR ready and checking his PEW he moved into the darkness ready for action. The eagerness of his other teammates meant that Damien was towards the back, bringing up the rear. He didn't mind too much this time though, he was kinda over being the walking squad target this time.

 

[cyborgakadjmoose]

"Please be on the alert, we aren't sure what's in the tunnel, just that it exists and ends near where we need to go. Everyone, Please activate your Thermoptic camouflage," said the Juni.

Rin did as she was instructed and activated her armor's thermoptic camouflage. She collapsed her bazooka and stowed it on the back of her armor and then quickly retrieved her plasma rifle from the small of her back. Rin then hefted her shield and trotted down the tunnel after her squadmates, her eyes constantly scanning the dark for threats.

 

[Gwathdraug]

“Richti – ah, affirmative Sir.” Fieke let a lopsided smile spread across her face at the fact that the Juni wanted her to “try to stick to the shadows”. She was a Nightwalker after all, if it was time to spend a spot down in a tunnel or two she couldn't be more comfortable.

Though, grimacing as she looked down at her armour, the OriSec Corporal admitted that it would be the first time she would be tromping around under the earth covered head-to-toe in a bulky set of power armour.

A bulky, primary green set of armour at that.

“Grün... heh.” Fieke muttered to herself as she got into position at the back of the squad. The Abwehran shook her head at the choice of colour for the armour she wore – while it was a company colour, so was black and it was rather clear which one would have been the better choice if R&D had ever imagined their security forces planning to sneak about deep in enemy territory.

 

[Kai]

Very soon, the squad encountered a set of stairs, Which dropped them swiftly to a depth of about 20 meters below the street level they had entered from. It appeared to be a damaged subway tunnel, though the amount of rubble that had fallen to what might be the tracks completely obscured the purpose of that part of the tunnel. There was still a large amount of debris in their sturdier section of tunnel, but not enough to hinder their forward movement.

Suddenly, the squad's HUD's simultaneously lit up with a halt signal, and a transmission from the Juni's armor pointed out a number of suspicious signatures, which the squad's own sensors pointed out as threats a moment later.

"Take cover, and open fire in ten seconds" The Juni ordered, crouching behind a nearby column which had fallen over. He lined up his sights on one of the signatures behind a low wall several meters away, and waited for the ten seconds to pass before pulling the trigger.

April wordlessly complied with her superior, moving to the other end of the fallen column and silently, invisibly sighting in on a signature concealed within the obfuscating rubble to the left of the tunnel.

 

[cyborgakadjmoose]

Rin quickly took cover behind the large fallen pillar. She picked her target, a red icon to the far left of the tunnel, and waited for ten seconds to elapse.

She then aimed her plasma rifle at the target and began firing precise bursts of plasma at the unknown foe.

 

[Arieg]

Geiger grunted as he to took cover, a blackened and burnt hover car that had somehow found it's way down here. He didn't like being underground, hell he didn't like being in this suit on the ground but that was the assignment and now he was stuck with it. Even as he steadied the ASGR his mind was awash with niceties of days gone by... even as the pipper lined up on one of the red contacts down the passageway.

 

[Brett M]

Aya followed Rin behind the pillar, landing gently on the ground as she did so. Peeking over the debris, she took aim at the glowing signature on the far right, behind the wall. It almost seemed like it took forever for her to count the seconds, but soon she was shooting controlled bursts with her LASR.

Hopefully, that would be all it took to down the enemy. They were trying to do this on the sly, after all.

 

[Warriorx1]

Damien followed behind his invisible squadmates. There was something eery about being in the dark but that was their mission. Hopefully they could circumvent the main defenses of the enemy and hopefully outflank them. Of course they could run into a couple hundred enemy soldiers down here in the dark and be outgunned but eh, that was the random chance you took when attacking an unknown enemy.

Damien halted as his sensors picked up enemy signatures hiding in the dark. He wasn't sure if they enemy knew they were there or not. If they didn't they were going to get an education in 10 seconds. Damien raised his rifle and targeted an enemy. He began to countdown from 10 and fired when he reached zero.

 

[Gwathdraug]

Fieke crouched behind the first piece of cover she found at the bottom of the stairs into the subway tunnel – the Abwehran having to rely on natural shadows to remain unseen instead of the rest of the squad's reactive camouflage.

When the Squad Leader piped his sensor information to the rest of the group's armours the OriSec Corporal let her FATE Type S refine the data with respect to her position. Nodding to herself as she braced her ASGR for firing and watched the digital counter blip down on her HUD Fieke picked out the two targets that her AI read out as most vulnerable.

When her timer flickered down to a clear and strong red “00:00” the Abwehran let off a single round at her first target instead of the bursts being favoured by the SaoY troopers. Twitching her barrel immediately towards her second enemy signature Fieke depressed her trigger once more and fired another single round.

 

[Reynolds]

Anzu frowned inside her helmet, as the orders came in. Something didn't smell right about this. She liked to see what she was shooting at. That was half the fun. Simo kept her feelings to herself for the moment, but approached with caution. She floated to the far right end of the fallen column the squad was using for cover, still hovering slightly off the ground.

Her Daisy's boots finally hit the ground as the firing began. She simply unloaded her LASR at the two targets behind the wall to the far right. Her shots mostly sprayed across the wall, but demolishing the cover would be fairly helpful anyway. Anzu wasn't really bothering to aim, not that there was anything to aim at. Her sensors were on high alert, the Daisy's cameras letting her keep an eye on practically everything.

 

[Kai]

At the end of Kai's ten second countdown, all hell broke loose as the sudden explosion of Gauss and plasma rifles lit up the dim corridor, and began making a mess of everything. One of the enemy armors to the left dropped immediately, LASR and plasma fire bringing its shields down to nothing before a well-placed ASGR shot from Fieke pinned it in the helmet, denting the faceplate in and at the very least knocking the pilot unconscious, if not killing them. The second target in the rubble to the left suddenly beat a hasty retreat along with the enemy behind the pillar. the two enemies behind the wall of rubble had no idea what hit them, and the one closest to the right side of the tunnel didn't have enough time to react as both its cover and shields were depleted, and then it found itself riddled with Gauss rounds. The pilot didn't die immediately, but the sheer number of wounds that had found their way into weak points of the armor put it down for the count. Its compatriot, though behind slightly less cover, hadn't been focused on as much, which allowed it to flee, making two kills and three escaped enemies.

"Pursue them down the tunnel! We can't have them alerting reinforcements!" the Juni ordered, just as the first return volleys of Impaler and stolen LASR fire came flying back toward them from the fleeing enemy. Kai set off after their targets, choosing to run rather than use his fusion thrusters, due to the cramped space and numerous obstacles. Instead of firing, however, he used his armor to send telemetry to his teammates so they could focus on chasing and firing rather than having to find their targets. April held her position for the moment, providing covering fire for the rest of the squad as they went.

 

[CadetNewb]

As gunfire crackled, a voice came over only April's comms.

"This isn't easy Jackson-Heisho," the weary sounding woman sighed, her calm yet tired words a sharp contrast to the bloody fight. The trio of rapidly retreating Reapers were fleeing as quickly as they could, but burning tracers continued to bounce or bend away from their barriers. "How do you do this? I can't see how you've kept yourself calm in the face of this the whole time," she went on, the Reapers sprinting, weaving in and out of cement pillars to dodge the squad's wrath. "It's as though both Yamatai and the Mishhuvurthyar are horribly punch drunk." Out of sight, the small woman hugged herself.

"I have never dealt with recruits so fresh and green," Sif sadly admitted to April.

 

[cyborgakadjmoose]

"Pursue them down the tunnel! We can't have them alerting reinforcements!" the Juni ordered.

Rin took the initiative and leapt up from her position. She boosted just past the first intact pillar with her fusion thrusters, cutting them off quickly so she could control her landing on the rough terrain.

Using the data provided by the Juni on her HUD, Rin fired rapid bursts of plasma at the nearest fleeing target. She knew she was vulnerable for the moment as she closed the distance, but she was more concerned about disabling her foes for the success of the mission.

 

[Warriorx1]

Damien wasted little time engaging in pursuit of the enemy. He quickly ran away the fleeing troops hoping to catch them before they could raise the alarm. If they got away they would certainly bring down a whole lot of trouble upon them. He couldn't let that happen.

Damien followed Rin, leveling his rifle and firing on the enemy target closest to him using HUD data from their Juni. Firing on the move was hard, but it was their only option if they were to catch the enemy before they alerted their friends, they would have to move quickly. Damien just hoped that they made it in time.