- RP Date
- YE 40
- RP Location
- New Bernese
ON>
Day 187
New Bernese
Sunnyside
A bird crowed in the sky above the wartorn landscape that played as home to Fatnecks and Leathernecks alike. At this point, nothing felt new about New Bernese, a loathsome air hung over the place when one spent enough time here. Everything seemed almost designed to make like more difficult on the rock, and as the days waxed, one could see the poetic tragedy and struggle in this place. Even now, there was bittersweet irony to the region's name that the 309th found themselves trudging through.
Sunnyside.
Before the bullets flew about, Sunnyside was a hilly area south of Fort Puckett that seemed a promising zone for residential development. There were intentions and plans to make it a fresh expansion on the budding colonies fresh population, but since the war began, any and all development fell to waste. Now Sunnyside was a ruin of building husks and lost material abandoned by all sides. There was nothing to be gained here, but the insurgency was beginning to take root in the area, and it was upon 309th to weed it out before it settled in and made base of what minimal structures there were.
Second Lieutenant Chiaki observed from ground level, the extent at which development had been stopped on the planet. Skeletons of homes and apartments were like dead hives on the husk of a starved tree. Paved tracks of dirt meant for roads were only dusty trails at this point, the sidewalks having been marked, but not laid. Landscaping had been taken into consideration, but what had made it onto the ground was already being overgrown by the aggressive flora. Wherever one looked, there were signs of what could have been, but would never be at this rate.
He sighed aloud, wondering how he always found himself sent to such dismal places.
"Even the Reds have to find this place depressing," commented the Officer aloud, squatting down to feel his hand over the packed earth. He chuckled, "I wouldn't be surprised if they up and left for somewhere a little more... sunny."
"More depressing than their current arangement?" Minnie offered bored response, Tacking another Clear flag on their location through her datajockey. "I mean they used to have free reign over the whole planet, Right? But they still left even this place for the wastes as soon as our colonists set down."
She studied the ghost town around them unfinished habs and all. It was... Creepy, To say the least, But in the several days she and the lieutenant had been surveying the location, It was more about just how empty the whole place was. Picked clean of everything useful but the shells of the buildings themslves by scavengers the whole area gave off the vibe of a classic horror movie where sounds in the distance would play fright at ones ears, and objects would seemingly pass just barely into the peripheral often enough to keep you on edge. But no source of distant sounds where ever found, and a piece of paper blowing on the wind past them had quickly lost its novelty.
"Seven blocks left for the day. Thirty-seven in all on our rotation." She changed the subject and offered yet another sigh that indicated she was clearly over such a monotonous task before turning to the lieutenant, Her helmet tucked under her arm and her goggles and mask hanging below her neck if only so she could focus her unblinking gaze towards him with conviction. "Why do we have to do this again?"
"Us? As in the two of us?" The Officer's helmet turned in her direction, a curious lime glow turning yellow under his visor at the question. He seemed to give it a bit of thought before turning back to his own task. "Because the other unit to this detail is on rotation, and we're picking up the slack. We don't have enough people to clean sweep a town, much less a hulled-out metro. So we do it street by street, block by block, until we're confident enough tell General Wiegand himself he doesn't have to worry about this spider nest."
A modulated chuckle reverberated off his speakers, carried a bit by a surging gust of wind that kicked up dust and hair. The visor turned back to her, a cyan color illuminating the shielded gloom, "What, you already regretting coming out here with me, Valentine?"
"I don't think I was given much choice in the matter, Sir." Was her response, As she adjusted the carbine laying lazily on her hip and started toward the next block. "And what I meant was why us? With the exception of the privatly funded ones we send to in the hive when we're overbooked, Im arguably the only real surgeon we have tacked right now. And you are not only a hard third of the unit's command power, But also the only veteran doctor we have to lean on..."
She left out her own deeper, Personal reservations about her own self importance and being tasked with such mundane and monotonous tasks when the militia had a whole fortress full of idle bodies who where content to continue their defensive vigil while the 309th and their naval counterparts from the first assault fleet carried more than their own share of the weight on their behalf to this point and continued the repetivie task of clearing the block.
Sweeping the next street and banging on the doors to draw non existant squatters and inhabitants into motion, Shouting out pre-dictated statements and declarations about local laws and customs on squatting and ownership rights and requirements to vacate established military exclusion zones before moving onto the next building on her side of the street, Each block taking anywhere from one half to a full hour depending on how many buildings they each had to cover.
"Six blocks left, Thirty six in all." She recounted on their rendevous, Marking the block with another little clear flag before glancing at her own notes on her jockey. "Some recent damage to shopfronts. Nothing's molded or decayed from the acid rain like some of the last ones. So it had to have been within the week. Has to be long gone though."
She paused before glancing at the time and frowning at her superior. "Going to be dark in a couple hours, and it'll take a good hour to ruck back to the jack. Can we call it a day and just mark off the rest?"
This time, the commander's visor turned on her with a red glow. His gaze seemed to burn under its protection, scalding at the mere suggestion.
In the time she had come to know Chiaki, she learned he was very resistant to any breach in protocol. The man's reputation for regulation was well known throughout the unit, and despite his amicable nature, he wasn't willing to cut even the smallest corner. Some would say he was a workaholic, some would call him a masochist, but Second Lieutenant Chiaki would always do his due diligence, even down to the most administrative of details.
"I'm a little dissappointed in you," confided Chiaki, the mirth in his voice stunted a bit. The color in his eyes shifted down a grade to yellow, and then to green as he continued forth. The officer checked at another door. "You already know the answer to that."
Silently inclining her head in submission at her lieutenant's ocular mood-ring feature giving her the best warning it could, Minnie struck out without a wordlessly and droned on to her side of the next block. The block was identical to all the previous ones; Empty streets and abandoned buildings devoid of activity.
She started off through a nearby alley, quick to seperate herself from her superior and possibly skip most of the buildings in the process, Slapping notices on doors and archways without the formalities of the day required of her until a distant sound in the silent settlement caught her attention.
"LT, You prime?" She placed her mask on temporarily to transmit as she carefully tuned into the sound of something akin to beating on thin sheet metal. "I can hear you over this way."
As if on instinct to a foul situation she slipped on her goggles as well to confirm his location. The HUD and overlay quickly coming online and the small inconsequential mini-map of the settlements layout drawing her somewhat into the next block and closer to the settlements center than intended. And more importantly that the beating rythm and the settlement center where to her north compared to her superiors pip on her map to her south...
"That's not me, Valentine," confirmed Chiaki, his blip began to advance upward, and came around the corner. His eyes had returned to that yellow color, his weapon shouldered and at the ready. There was a purposeful and silent movement to his stride, his feet carefully crunching past bigger pieces of rubble and gravel. The Officer used the carbine variant of the M3, giving him a bit more ease in navigating the urban spaces.
He scanned about as he began to link back up with her, listening to the noise as he planted his feet, "Sounds like we've got a few squatters in the center. We'll have to get down there and confirm before finishing our route."
The radio sparked to life as Chiaki reported the inconsistency, and their intention to investigate further. Different responses came popping up all over, with the controller reporting incredulity at how they were still doing their rounds. Most of the other patrols had returned to post already. Some of the patrol leaders jabbed at them in good fun, until the controller cut the chatter.
"Starting to feel like Kennewes out here, " idly remarked the Officer, his thumb coming off the button on his helmet. He checked his three-six before pressing on, "Everyone cuts out early, and a bit of banging gets the whole network lit up. Congratulations, Private, you found the first thing worth talking about today."
"Oh?" Minnie mused, Having sat herself on the curb to burn the time as the lieutenant seemingly took his sweet time clearing the distance between them. "You dont talk about Kennewes much. Was the war really that disorganized?"
She brushed herself off, Doing little to break that image herself whith her carbine unready and still on its sling and her helmat still tucked under the crook of her arm.
She casually gestured behind her towards the city center beyond the row of buildings and alleyways, A look of uneventful boredom still plastered on her face.
"Stopped a couple minutes ago when something big and hard fell, Woudlnt doubt they're long gone. Sure you want to try to track them through the whole city when everyones called off?"
Already knowing the answer she side stepped to allow her executive officer the lead, Adjusting her gear and stretching to prepare for an even longer day that soon threatened to span into night as the sun just began to cast shadows over the buildings as it decended to the tip of the distant mountaintops...
"We should be at least filling out the rest of our zone here, we'll go as far as that, if we don't find anything, we go straight back." answered Chiaki, who rubbed the plate of his Golem's helmet. The man took a moment to sling his weapon to his back, letting it clack to his gear. The tall man brought his hands up to pull off his helmet. His glowing eyes emerged from the bottom, along with a face that seemed very taxed. It seemed he didn't want to do this either.
With a sigh, signaling his exhaustion, he gave Mouse an tired stare, "I'm going to have the reserve ready to go in case we run into something. I'll be honest, I am dead tired right now, and quite frankly, a little pissed everyone's already bugged out."
A small moment of silence passed, with the man searching the ground, as if it had some answer ready for him. Sunnyside was a hole, an empty, empty hole that was proving to be more exhausting than anything. Still, it wasn't exactly their call whether or not to search it up and down for trouble. That was the nature of these operations.
"We broke the Reds on Kennewes," The words just came out of his mouth, he had a distant look in his eyes, "but they kept fighting well after the landing. They fought with all the tricks in the book, some things crazy, some things unspeakable. I spent most of it in a Drop Triage, but it was still an ugly sight to see whether you're up front or in the back."
He slotted his helmet back on his head, taking a few steps past her to continue the trudge, "Yet, we kept going out on patrols and searches, because if one guy didn't do it, his buddy would have to. Which is why we're only going so far as the battle-plan says to do. We do our part, and then we go back."
She knew it was rare for the lieutenant to speak about the war without hiding behind humor or sarcasm.
She also knew she had been too young to understand at the time of the civil war that her father and the lieutenant fought in. If the Reds had won, would the green faction have fled to the far reaches of the sector like they did? Would her mother have been able to get her out of the city before the Reds came to take it back or the NMX landed and seiged the city years later?
Even now, planetside with the purpose of fighting the reds and pirates it still felt foreign and distant to her. Until she fought against these reds for real she couldnt begin to understand Autumns words or the lieutenants recolections.The old saying War Is Hell came to mind from their tone whenever they spoke of Kennewes or when Autumn spoke of Rok'veru. It didn't feel real to her...
"Do you think..." She mumbled as they continued on towards the end of the alleyway and the location of the previous racket. Wondering if it was an appropriate subject to someone who had served through the war to bring up to them. "That maybe if the reds won we might have ended up-"
A pause. Something distant and vocal catching her ears registering just enough to hear and silence her as voices picked up just far away to hear but too far to make out.
"Sir." She fumbled with her helmet and mask and unslung her carbine waiting for order.
Chiaki raised his hand calmly, as if Mouse needed the signal; it seemed more for his sake.
"Yeah, neko's luck."
Another noise seemed to ring out from a small open district ahead of them, the sounds of tools and work being muffled by the rising buildings in this area of the city. Those voices could be heard, but only because they were the only voices in the urban center. As Kokuten and Minnie neared the district, the people they heard spoke in native accents, words still difficult to make out.
Chiaki's breathing had become low, as if whatever had spoke was going to hear him. The man's gauntlet carefully eased the Carbine close, before placing his hand to his helmets comm-piece, pressing to the send button.
"Control, there's something out here. Private Valentine and I are going to scout, feeds are live. Stand-by." reported the Officer, before looking back over his shoulder at Minnie, giving her a thumbs-up. "One look, we confirm, and we go home, alright?"
The alleyway opened up onto one of the main outlets of what would have been the main thoroughfare that cut through the center of the territory and off to the next settlement in highway that would have spanned hundreds of miles. If it had been completed.
The road appeared half paved, old rusting equipment left to the elements and stacks of brick and mortar still piled on the sides of the road creating easy cover for Minnie to exit the cut through first, and hide, signalling an all clear for the lieutenant to follow.
The nearby buildings mimicked the stature of much of the ones they observed before the past few days, stripped and destroyed from looting, trash and debris piling up and thrown about the road from either careless looters or the natural elements slowly reclaiming the city.
Further down the road the city center was somwhat visible to her. Her cybernetic eyes hyper enhancing to give her a closer and sharper view as if she were only a stones throw away.
Official looking government buildings centered in a roundabout adjacent to the half completed walls of what might have looked like a precinct house for the NPF, were it ever finished. A majority of store fronts and resturants with old pattio dining furniture were still strewn about for summer dining. All of this was to be expected except for how populated it seemed. Men and women loitered around like the expected citizens of sunnyside, armed to the teeth and hauling debris into neatly assembled barricades. Down the road, Fatnecks hammered fortifications into the already half fortified government buildings in the town center not unlike a fortress in itself.
Gun emplacements obvious by stacked sandbags and rested barrels to heavy weaponry poked from windows and trained into the sky as their owners leaned lazily against them. The glow of freshly lit burners were still visible in the fading light of the setting sun.
All this and more became visible to the mouse as the shadow of night crept closer and the city thought abandoned came to life. Fatneck pirates and raiders went through a daily, or perhaps nightly, routine of preperations when the militia and marine presence would have retreated for the night and flyovers ceased. Leaving the pirates hours and hours to dig in each evening too deep for the sparse forces scanning the city to ever dig out.
"Clever bastards. Work at night, hide in the day," surmised Chiaki, the second pair of cybernetic eyes staring alongside Minnie. His helmet cam was sending the feed of all they saw back to command, a less close-up and detailed look, but it was enough to light up the communication network. Incredulity reigned until the control operator managed to settle everyone down. "They're shoring up defense to make a stand whenever we find them. This kind of coordination means there's probably a greater purpose to this place than just being an outpost."
Carefully, Chiaki settled down next to the brick pile, tapped the other medical specialist on the shoulder. He smoothly thumbed back towards the direction they came. "We came, we saw, we..."
The crunch of boots on the road just ahead cut him off, "... hide."
A pair of the fatnecks moved attentively down the road, a tall woman and a short man. The two seemed geared for patrol, patch-work armor, dirt-blackened skin, and dark rags shrouded them. The woman yawned, her voice synthesized through the helmet she wore, rather loudly. Their voices became more audible as they closed in, walking on the opposite end of the street.
"Ugh... I hate sleeping during the day..." she groaned, heaving a heavy slug-throwing machine gun.
"It's only for a few more days, quit whining," moaned the smaller fatneck, rolling his head as if he were rolling his eyes. He caught the butt of her weapon on the head, nearly sending him tumbling.
The larger bandit laughed, watching him get riled up in response, "Are you trying to kill me!? Careful where you swing that thing, I could've tripped on something."
The patrol began to pass by, not noticing the pair of Marines not so far away, the Greens were cloaked in the harsh shadows of the setting sun. A synthesized gout of laughter burst from the fatneck woman, in a way that showed they were trying to be aware of their volume. She put a hand on her partner's shoulder and pulled him close, "Don't wanna trip on stuff and have an accident? Then stay close and watch your mouth, teddy bear."
Grumbling and growling, the two continued their walk into the city, turning off onto the path that the Marines had arrived on. Silence began to permeate the urban air again, and the lieutenant seemed quite mirthless to the development.
"Alright, looks like we'll need to take an alternate route. We'll take a different street, and see if we can avoid any night patrols. The last thing we want to do is shake up this hive." mentioned Chiaki, eyeing one of the less developed streets that looked like it would hook around to the other side. He pointed in its direction, "We'll go through there, and B-line it for the Jack."
Fear gripped the smaller doctor as the pirates passed by, the click of her gear sounding impossibly loud to her, even muffled and distorted by her equipment. She expected them to look to the side at any time and lock eyes with her, She expected them to turn on a swivel at any moment and come about.
But they didnt...
More than a single glance was thrown over the cover when she assumed it was safe, Expecting and searching for the moment another patrol might pass into her line of sight before the ideal moment arived.
Out of coincidence, a shouting match began between two of the pirates trying to lift a piece of equipment two different ways and had quickly come to blows over the correct method, easily distracting most as the brawl turned into a spectacle with all eyes on it.
Seizing the moment Minnie burst out of cover and made a stright line for their exit, throwing herself against the wall and training her carbine down towards the city center, still distant sounds of cheering and exasperation as someone likely landed a critical blow.
"Clear," she ground through clenched teeth, the sound of her heart beating in her head as she covered the lieutenants egress towards her and their exit.
The adjacent areas belonged to one of the militia teams and had already been marked clear so it was at least reasuring to know they should have a straight shot to safety...
The officer was much louder than the smaller Marine, but thankfully, to the senses of all keenly aware of his presence, he moved at the next roll of cheers and chants. His boots were heavy as he struck at the ground below him. Were he not moving low to the ground, the man might have been heard in his movement, but the Fatnecks were thoroughly taken by the brawl, as Nepleslians were keen to do.
Crunch, crunch, crunch... Boots churned the dirt and gravel beneath them as the Officer passed Minnie. He tapped her on the shoulder as soon as he was in place, but halted the advance.
"The map says we're clear all the way back, Bravo 8 signed off on all of these zones before they returned to base," Chiaki seemed to take comfort in the fact, as Minnie had, but there was a noticeable apprenhension in his voice. "We'll follow the patrol lane B-8 took, and we'll be home Yam-free. We won't beat the sun back, but we'll beat the Fatnecks."
As if to agree, the shadows began to stretch long over the streets, fading the colors of the day into night. The night sky was, for once, clear, and the two could start to witness a rare glimpse of the beautiful canvas over their heads as the light faded. The Lieutenant craned his head upward to take in the sight, a small sense of longing cutting into the tension. "Hey... what say we crack out a bottle after the de-brief? Kick back on the wall and enjoy these stars, like we didn't just dodge a hive of angry, gun-toting hornets? Heh heh! Got a bit of Delsaurian rum stowed in the gear locker..."
Checking the street first, and the road they had just come from, Chiaki began to make his way across the flattened gravel lane.
"As long as it means we get to leave the cleanup to the militia and not be here tomorrow" Minnie allowed herself to settle down after the tension had obviously passed with their departure. "You dont think Lieutenant Rickett is going to have us hard-charge after this, do you? I mean we can leave some stuff to the militia besides garrison detail."
She followed behind him at a leasurely pace, Her carbine falling back into disuse on its sling and her sense of impending peril fading back to a calm and placid retore as if the whole pirate incident had never happened.
She flared her goggles, switching from the night vision mode into a simple UV where she could allow her eyes to passively amplify and sharpen what light was left instead of losing her depth perception to the goggles NV function. It wasnt as effective but it was worth missing out on the disorienting headache.
"Besides" she closed the distance between them from tactical to casual with the lack of threats about. "Eight cleared all this in record time so it at least proves they can handle the responsibility, right?"
"I think we've well-enough earned a break from all of this," answered the officer in good spirit, almost laughing.
All at once, everything stopped as the safe-zone erupted from below them in a cacophonous roar. An explosion rocked the block, opening up a crater where Chiaki had been standing, with Minnie close in tow. One moment they had been standing almost in one spot, the next, both had been flung apart by the sudden, explosive force. Mouse was thrown back onto one end of the street, and Kokuten to the opposite, shrapnel and gravel raining about their bodies like a horrid black storm. Dust and dirt hazed the area, cloaking the incident in a a darkened veil that made the coming night all the more pitch black. Their helmets would help shunt the brunt of sonic force, to limit ringing and damage, but it could only do so much from such a direct hit.
Chiaki had triggered a mine with his last step, and the offending leg was far from his unmoving body. The other leg had shorn off from the knee, mangled and tossed further off, the grisly pair marking the scene with red lines of blood. What remained of the Lieutenant was brilliantly mauled by shrapnel and jagged armor, having taken the worst of the explosion that had crushed through his Golem.
The first instance of something awry to Minnie had come from a sudden gap in her memory on how she ended up on her back when she had been speaking to the lieutenant just moments before. An inense pain filled her body not unbearably but still to some concern, feeling a lot like the time she opted to spar with Fang and things got too serious.
Before even trying to sit up she tried to asess herself. Her body felt heavy and one side of her felt like it was made of lead. Her vision had been cut off from something, The goggles while reinforced had distorted and covered in a spide webbed pattern of cracked material. Her mask felt bent at a weird angle against her face, Struggling to recycle the air she needed and despite her rasping a report into it gave no feedback she discarded them and gasped in the new cool night air.
The return of her vision and breathing capacity was only half fold. Her depth perception seemed to shift oddly, Making her lean off onto one side as she tried to gain her ground and sit up, The right cybernetic she could feel upon dragging her left hand against it was cracked and dead, Leaving her a single orb from which to see.
She also discovered much to her dismay that the feeling and weight in her arm wasnt dislocated as she feared when her right arm simply hung limp and lame on her side when she finally was able to stagger to her feet. A long, Twisted piece of metal portruded from her shoulder and wrapped around it like a cuff, Cutting deep into her upper arm and shoulder and letting out a slow trickle of blood down her armor.
She could move the fingers on her right hand somwhat painfully but made the appriasal that the cuff digging into her was too deep to remove and doing so would likely cause her to bleed out before it was completed...
A distant sound brought her back to reality and her own self diagnosis when it cut just over the rinnging in her ears, A quiet wimper just enough to remind her she wasnt alone in the ordeal.
"Loo-Ten-Ent!" She slurred, Each word throbbing and echoing loudly in her head. She cried out at the mangled body that somwhat resembled her superior. The body didn't move, inviting the worst prospects to reality.
Then, his head turned, his helmet falling off as he looked to Minnie. There was blood that was running down from his nose, a bit of purple decorated his face. Those green eyes glowed across the dusty ground at her, signifying he had life in him yet. A harried smile spread while he struggled at breathing, coughing out the dust that was still falling on him. He reached out a hand towards her, before realizing his position. With a struggling effort, he tried right himself, his managled arms with enough apparent function to push himself up.
The color in his eyes washed from green to white as he saw what remained of his legs. There was a moment of silence before the constant ringing was broken with a bit of laughter, he shook his head, as if having witnessed the antics of a troublesome child.
The reality began to settle in a bit more as far-off voices could be heard, the Marines' hearing only getting slightly better in the wake of the explosion. A needle extended through the Lieutenants gauntlet as he jabbed himself with something. At that, he grabbed his Styrling side-arm, and gestured at Valentine, pointing the weapon at the next street. He was mouthing something, lacking the strength to call out to her.
Minnie... Run...
Those words triggered minnie's fight or flight response, she froze, unable to react. In such a situation she knew she had to defer to her superior, her training ingrained in her that much. But her superior was chuckling and clearly unstable from the situation, a seperate set of training after NepMed and her field medic training sounded in her head even louder.
They will look to you to save them from pain and fear. So put all else aside and give your all even for just one life.
Wordlessly she dropped herself to her knees and grasped blindly for her medical kit. By routine most of her more important equipment was on her dominant side and was now inacessable to her now from her kit to her styrling and her carbine. She couldnt feel the latter carbine on the swell of her back but could at least hear it clanking softly against her, Not that she could use it with a single working hand.
She silently secured a couple tourniquets, ignoring his repeated protests and injected a blood clotting agent to at least slow the bleeding. She couldnt do anything for the pain, at the amount of blood he'd lost the lieutenant would die from more than he already had in his system and any stimulants to keep him going would likely do the same.
She sucked in sharply when her limp arm suddenly shot throughout with instense pain just from bumping him while she worked. With tears rolling down her face she repositioned behind him, using the thick collar of his armor as a drag handle to pull him towards one of the nearby buildings. If she had the time she could properly stabilize him and even use her hypolathe to stop some of the arterial bleeding, but distant exicited calls forced her to work chaoticly.
Even now being lighter by two legs the lieutenant was impossibly heavy for someone as weakened as she was. She pulled him foot by foot until a bright spotlight centered on her from down the street and a series of hoots and hollars called out mockingly at her.
Even about them she could hear the loud clack of a heavy weapon being racked and forced her to pick up the pace, her lame arm jerking occasionally and dripping an increased stream of crimson off her dangling fingertips to accompany the stabbing and pulsing agony with it.
The fatneck jeering and taunting paused abruptly in time for a burst of heavy fire to spray down the street just feet from the marines. She screamed in panic which caused another set of laughing and obscene remarks from the sound of the girlish shriek as a group of the fatnecks advanced under the overwatch of their MMG gunner. The four of them casually advancing with little tactical grace or regard for their own safety towards their wounded prey.
She had only made it to the curb at one of the storefronts before the fatnecks closed half the distance to her and her wounded charge. Any of the weapons at her disposal from the styrling to her carbine's release on its sling impossible to reach. The body she drug behind her was terribly heavy, unmoving, and feeling more lifeless by the minute. Chiaki's hands drug limply on the groud with a metallic skid, a burnished 11.5mm Styrling clutched in his deathgrip.
Then, a cool, metal hand reached to grab Minnie's arm, and a hypo-needle pushed into the SynAraS mesh between the plates. A warming sensation of painlessness began to spread from there on. From there, the helpful arm fell back to the ground, lifelessly.
"... ou think we should see how far she gets before she keels over?" asked one of the Fatnecks, his voice audible in the closing distance.
"I've got three rations saying she drops dead at the end of the street."
"You're on!"
"C'mon, I like her spunk, I say we keep her! We can stick a pair of cat-ears on her!"
The squad laughed, their cackling roaring over a crack, and a sudden flash. They hadn't noticed what had happened at first, only two of them had realized that a gunshot had gone off. Perhaps thinking that the heavy gunner was playing with warning shots, they looked back, only to see her leaning over her weapon with a hole cracked in her visor.
"Shi--" the next Fatneck cursed before his throat burst open, a blossom of blood spraying onto the street, a second bullet caught his shoulder sending him spinning to the ground. The next, dumbfounded by the shots, caught two bullets, one in the chest, the next in the visor of his helmet. The two that had turned to check their gunner spun back around with their weapons, but were hit like sport targets, two bullets each. One caught both in the chest, sinking her to the ground, while the other caught their first in the shoulder and the next in the neck.
The one that had not immediately been killed, grasped her chest, sucking bloodied air. Minnie felt the strap of her Carbine lose weight as the strap was cut away. The last woman alive leveled her weapon, spraying up the street, before a small burst of 11.5 mm Slugger rounds joined their shorter brothers in her chest. A silence chased away the soaring noise of gunfire, replaced by heaving breaths. The Lieutenant was very much alive, his eyes burning a bright red, Minnie's carbine pressed tightly to his shoulder. More than that, her quick treatment and resourcefulness had enabled him a murderous second wind.
Yet, the lights in his eyes faded in and out, as his breathing shallowed. The firefight had stirred up more voices, a clamoring alarm began to ring out. More were coming.
"Valentine," said a voice, Kokuten's, haggard. "I gave you... an order."
She didn't hesitate to take the time he bought her to drag her into the storefront and hide the lieutenant behind the counterspace. It was a critical time to stabilize him but she needed to ensure their own safety first. Stumbling over to the entrance with its broken door she hit the lever on the emergency shutters, the sheet metal shutter slamming down over the previously indefensible doorway. The windows where broken but covered with bars to prevent looting and offered some reprise from entry.
She had to keep reminding herself to keep going as anxiety and confusion continued to grip her, followed by a feeling of weakness to the point she had to force herself just to stay upright. All early signs leading towards her slipping into shock, a fatal coma would overtake her soon that she likely wouldnt ever wake up from. She could treat it properly but didnt have the time, the lietenant was already unconcious and was worse off than her. If she didnt stabilize him soon he would die from any number of things ranging from shock to bloodloss.
And he was worse off than Minnie thought when she appraised his condition under a smothered light, trying not to draw any attention. She could already hear the idling of engines and frantic chatter not far off, and it wouldnt take the fatnecks long to notice the trail of crimson left from dragging him. The mine had ruined one leg beyond repair and essentially torn the leg that had tread on it into oblivion. And there was damage she couldn't properly gauge on his groin, hips, And ribs.
She laid out her kit beside him to make it easier to access and got to work trying to stablize Chiaki. Mild stimulants would keep him from slipping into shock while she carefully used her hypolathe to pick out pieces of shrapnel and close minor wounds to avoid the buildup of bloodloss pooling around him.
When she was done, he was stable. He wouldnt survive the night without propper incubation but neither would she. Minnie realized that the growing puddle of crimson she was sitting in was half her own. She carefully stripped away her armor to reveal the purple and discolored mess around her shoulder and upper arm, The arm itself was a total loss to the point she couldnt even manage to wiggle the fingers anymore and the swelling had dug the metal casing even deeper to a degree that had severed the nerves.
Without proper treatment to remove the mines casing digging into her and closing the wound she would bleed out before even he did. Without the knolwedge and codes to navigate the command net on the lieutenants datajockey she was blind to the outside situation and unable to send out for help.
Minnie slumped Chiaki into the interior of the sales counter and closed the cubord obscuring him before leaning against it, barricading him inside. She managed to wiggle out her 45. in time, Not that she could hold it straight in the hopes that the fatnecks might asume she was alone and the sole contributer to the bloody mess on the floor just in time for the voices to stop outside the shutters.
She was too numb to be scared, and focused all her remaining strength into staying concious and holding the weight of the impossibly heavy sidearm outwards towards the thin sheet metal shutters, even with the situation at hand she didnt feel she could pull the trigger...
A sudden spree of noises and vibrations painted a picture of the outside world one could only describe as thunderous and rapidly brutal. It didn't have the repeating 'clink' of an armoured vehicle, but whatever the tremendous weight was, it rattled the shutters almost to the point of destruction upon landing.
Small arms and heavy machinegun fire could be heard immediately barking to life in a much closer proximity to the two soldier's hiding place, drowing out a more subtle untone of paniced yelling. Wild sparks and muzzle flashes were indirectly visible through the slats, causing a dizzying retort of high pitched pings as the ordnance ricochetted from something far larger and with increasing proximity.
The cumbersome thing didn't fire back, or even audiably activate a close combat weapon. A distinct whine of energized nano-muscle chains instead ended with several heavy thuds, and the almost haphazard grinding of whatever the large thing was skidding to a halt.
-"L-Tee? L-Tee, are you here?"- It was a low voice, not from the thing outside, but whispering urgently through Chiaki's communication device. Considering that both of them had their senses battered, it was a small miracle Private Fang's husky voice was audiable. -"I don't have my rifle, so you better tell me where you are quick! I can hear trucks!"-
Minnie could hear the gunfire, But not Fang. Her mask was bent and broken across the street, Her goggles where cracked and strewn somwhere else and she had only just noticed her helmate was missing.
Regardless someone was fighting the fatnecks, Not that she was in any condition to help. She knew she had to get their attention somehow now that the enemy outside the shutters had paniced and reloacted when something big had come skidding down the street, Sweeping them away in its landing. She didnt get a good look at the PA but knew that the general was augmenting some of the new generation of Sols with hostiles and that the 1st AF in orbit sometimes deployed their own hostiles groundside.
Regardless it was help Minnie intended to signal somehow, Dragging herself over to the shutters. Unlike the release, To raise the shutters required a crank just barely within her reach. Weakly she began to crank the shutters furiously open, Until the shutters where just high enough to crawl under. Wedging the shtters open with her axe and still unable to stand, Minnie dragged herself back onto the curb and into the line of fire.
She could see the Agressor now, Whooper emblazened on its chest and shoulders as it shrugged off the gunfire from down the street.
"Fa-ng" She managed to moan out patheticly weak with tears streaming down her face. Even minutes ago she could manage a vocal tone but found herself incapable of doing more than whispering in her current state. She knew who it was in the agressor, Only Fang-YinZhou would have rushed to the scene without caring to wait for Lord Slep to be painstakingly armed and made ready when time was so short. Moreover, the cinderblock sized SMG clutched in it's right hand was caked in blood, clearly having just been used to deliver a pistol whip like a freight train.
The suit was looking everywhere but at her, And crawling towards the giant bullet magnet would only seal her fate, Not that she thought she had anymore strength in her. Instead minnie did something stupid.
With a great deal of effort, Minnie brought herself to sit up against the doorway and raised her 45. The first few rounds missed the massive suit of armor but she managed to hit the aggressor in the side of its helamte, Just near the monoeye. She was hoping Slep's secondary chasin turrets wouldnt be loaded either to respond to her fire and would force her savior to asses the direction of the new fire beside her. She emptied the mag while she still had the momentum, Scoring another hit with her final round on its pauldron before letting the sidearm fall between her legs. Time was quickly running out for her, Only keeping her concious through the stimulant the LT had injected in her- And for just a pace, it seemed like that time might be even shorter.
The hulking giant reflexively swung it's firearm to meet what it perceived as a new threat, smashing a pavement slab simply by throwing one foot backwards and grinding into a new offensive alignment.
Then, for a second, it just plain froze, meeting Minnie's gaze exactly, but evidently baffled by what it saw. Fang apparently was thrown into such confusion by the sight that they didn't move at all, sans turning their head to look back up the mine-cratered alleyway from which the two soldiers had previously dragged themselves from.
"M-Minnie, is that you?" A vox-boosted voice, but one shocked out of Fang's normal trance of brutal advancing melee. "I... I was sent here for an extraction, but I didn't expect... I didn't expect..."
Renewed gunfire. A hand-held AT gun flashed from a window about three blocks down. An older model, apparently, given by the fact that Fang merely lurched sideways and was not punctured through. A grenade was fetched from the belt of the Aggressor and lobbed several dozen feet in that general direction.The smoke and flying rubble that resulted probably didn't solve the problem, but it gave Fang more time to think as they flattened their back onto one of the storefronts, crumpling the shatterproof glass inwards.
"The Soko has a track off, they aren't coming!" More irate words, as the giant attempted to both look at their wounded companion and the phantom enemy at the same time. "W-What happened, Valentine? Is the L-T still with you!?"
Fang didn't have a rifle because they were only supposed to be doing an extraction. Taking on an unknown enemy force alone would be like kicking the hornet's nest. But, could they even perform that task with their friends in this state? Would physically lifting them up do more harm than good?
It was unsettling for Minnie to hear Fang so distressed. She would have cried out if she could, There wasnt much time and she had so much she needed to tell fang about their conditions that she would need to pass on.
She glanced away when Slep staggered and responded in time. Already stray and errant rounds where striking too close to Minnie, And her area would become the focus of fire if Fang came too close to recover her. Instead she opted to drag herself back into the storefront, Her legs pushing weakly and her one good arm dragging her full weight in armor until she left a red trail back to the countertop.
She didnt want to make it look like she was rejecting Fangs rescue. But she was just holding her friend back by being in the way, Even barely armed Slep and Fang were more than a match to scatter the fatnecks minnie truely belived. She wouldnt be responsible for fangs death because she restrained herself to protect them instead of herself. ROE was always to clear the threat first and worry about everything else second.
By the time she reached the lieutenants location she could barely move. Her body felt numb and heavy, Too much so to continue any further. A single hand still held onto the cupboard latch that concealed her superior with a death grip as her forehead bumped the cold floor. Her eyes where getting heavy and she couldnt find the strength to keep herself concious anymore...
There was another loud bang in the distance, and a chunk of pavement was gouged out from about three meters to the right of Fang's armoured boots. A pot shot, judging by the fact that the smoke hadn't cleared either. With the sudden approach of an engine, the brawny marine snapped into the realisation that the sniper's purpose was only to pin them down.
Her chest tensed and her eyebrows furrowed, refusing to take such an insult lying down. Angry at themselves for stuttering like and infant, and putting her injured freinds in even more danger.
"Pure steel awake me." A growl of a prayer, unclasping their vibroknife and begining a new pounding march towards the source of the sound, up towards a bare intersection. "Slep, guide me! Help me to avenge this disgrace!"
The chunk of metal which errupted into veiw next was a flatbed truck, armoured at the front with a manually crewed gauss rifle sitting on a pintle at the back. The crew knew exactly what they were doing, and came up at the far side of the street in order to pound a shot into Fang whilst they were still in the open.
Letting off a maelstorm of blue sparks, the enemy gun vomited forth a blinding streak that struck the Aggressor both in the raised knife and the shoulder. Something must have deflected along the way, but Fang could still smell the stink of smouldering Nerimium seaping in.
Her boots kept thundering forward. She felt like she was screaming, but the rush of a adrenaline blinded her senses to it.
Didn't have a knife anymore. Backhanded the long barrel of the weapon instead, so hard that it jolted around on the pivot and struck the top half of the gunner's cranium clean from the bottom half. The driver put his foot to the floor, but the vehicle spun out, kicked upwards from two of it's tires by a foot the size of a tree trunk.
Enraged and thinking nothing of the cranberry sauce that had now been left behind as a vile arcing streak along the junction, Fang then just grabbed the axel of the truck and began to drag it backwards. It was a deafening screech and shower of sparks, but when the deed was done, the shop front now had a makeshift metal barracade.
No more time to waste. The aggressor hunched down and put it's shoulders through the flimsy shopfront, spreading their palms open like some bizzare statue of a forgotten idol.
"...Minnie. Come on." Fang's breath was heavy. The were pushing themselves even with the advanced armour. "Let's go. Only so long before he hits the gas tank."
Silence. Dead silence. An eerie air that reminded one of the one sounds of the vacuum, rather than planetside. The movements outside sounded far removed within the store. The two she needed to rescue were not immediately visible, but the blood was an uncoventional guide to where they could be. Boot-smatters and greasy, red lines drew a path from the doorway to behind the counter, where a pair of small golem boots protruded. The worn treads were caked in dirt and gore, their owner's share mixed with others after the hard toil of the day.
Fang's eyes refused to blink, fighting back a suspicion that this had all been for nothing. She mentally activated her mono-eye system and set it to active, bathing the dust-strewn interior in harsh red light. A haywire crackling of broken pixels and painful noise was shot back down the feed, and it was only then that the soldier realised the camera track on her left shoulder had been totally pulverized by the gun on the truck.
"MINNIE! COME ON!" A repeated yell, this one half angry and half frustrated. They could feel the crosshairs lining up on their back. "CHIAKI! ARE YOU THERE!? YOU HAVE TO BE!"
Groaning doorway supports finally gave way with one last push, as they threw caution to the wind and rammed the oversized armour all the way inside. Even on their hands and knees, the backpack ripped up the styrofoam roof tiles and snagged several pipes and wires hidden above.
They fought the static hard, and concenrated on the flickering, momentary frames of clarity. At first they thought that the medic had crawled into a cupboard, but then realised it was a seperate signal, finally drawing a standard visual on the pair of them.
It was a cruel reversal in tension. Fang's muscles were amped up and fatigued, coated in layers upon layers of boxy armour. Those bear claw hands now had to carefully raise Minne's hand back off the handle, pick up her limp form, and then anxiously open the little plywood box like a doll house.
The LT looked even worse than Valentine. Fang was sweating. She didn't dare breathe.
Two bodies in hand, they turned and made their way back out of the shop. Took half the rest of the ceiling with them.
Immediate gunfire. Something clanged, but Fang could apparently still run, so they simply bolted and didn't give it another thought.
Wanted nothing more than to just boost straight away, but she knew the inertia would rip what was left of her friends to bits. So it was slow. Increasing bounds, building and building, until they let just a little bit of gas out of the thrusters, and the gargatuan machine pulverised it's way into the air.
The stars were out, Fang realised, internally lit with the red glow of damage indicators. The ride had become smoother. Trees flew past below like the begining stages of some euphoric dreamscape.
A healing prayer came to mind, but a desperate will reserved it. A situation like this said that fate had pulled the number of her two passengers.
But, just this once, as her scanners pathed them a way back home, Private Fang was determined to fight it.
Day 187
New Bernese
Sunnyside
A bird crowed in the sky above the wartorn landscape that played as home to Fatnecks and Leathernecks alike. At this point, nothing felt new about New Bernese, a loathsome air hung over the place when one spent enough time here. Everything seemed almost designed to make like more difficult on the rock, and as the days waxed, one could see the poetic tragedy and struggle in this place. Even now, there was bittersweet irony to the region's name that the 309th found themselves trudging through.
Sunnyside.
Before the bullets flew about, Sunnyside was a hilly area south of Fort Puckett that seemed a promising zone for residential development. There were intentions and plans to make it a fresh expansion on the budding colonies fresh population, but since the war began, any and all development fell to waste. Now Sunnyside was a ruin of building husks and lost material abandoned by all sides. There was nothing to be gained here, but the insurgency was beginning to take root in the area, and it was upon 309th to weed it out before it settled in and made base of what minimal structures there were.
Second Lieutenant Chiaki observed from ground level, the extent at which development had been stopped on the planet. Skeletons of homes and apartments were like dead hives on the husk of a starved tree. Paved tracks of dirt meant for roads were only dusty trails at this point, the sidewalks having been marked, but not laid. Landscaping had been taken into consideration, but what had made it onto the ground was already being overgrown by the aggressive flora. Wherever one looked, there were signs of what could have been, but would never be at this rate.
He sighed aloud, wondering how he always found himself sent to such dismal places.
"Even the Reds have to find this place depressing," commented the Officer aloud, squatting down to feel his hand over the packed earth. He chuckled, "I wouldn't be surprised if they up and left for somewhere a little more... sunny."
"More depressing than their current arangement?" Minnie offered bored response, Tacking another Clear flag on their location through her datajockey. "I mean they used to have free reign over the whole planet, Right? But they still left even this place for the wastes as soon as our colonists set down."
She studied the ghost town around them unfinished habs and all. It was... Creepy, To say the least, But in the several days she and the lieutenant had been surveying the location, It was more about just how empty the whole place was. Picked clean of everything useful but the shells of the buildings themslves by scavengers the whole area gave off the vibe of a classic horror movie where sounds in the distance would play fright at ones ears, and objects would seemingly pass just barely into the peripheral often enough to keep you on edge. But no source of distant sounds where ever found, and a piece of paper blowing on the wind past them had quickly lost its novelty.
"Seven blocks left for the day. Thirty-seven in all on our rotation." She changed the subject and offered yet another sigh that indicated she was clearly over such a monotonous task before turning to the lieutenant, Her helmet tucked under her arm and her goggles and mask hanging below her neck if only so she could focus her unblinking gaze towards him with conviction. "Why do we have to do this again?"
"Us? As in the two of us?" The Officer's helmet turned in her direction, a curious lime glow turning yellow under his visor at the question. He seemed to give it a bit of thought before turning back to his own task. "Because the other unit to this detail is on rotation, and we're picking up the slack. We don't have enough people to clean sweep a town, much less a hulled-out metro. So we do it street by street, block by block, until we're confident enough tell General Wiegand himself he doesn't have to worry about this spider nest."
A modulated chuckle reverberated off his speakers, carried a bit by a surging gust of wind that kicked up dust and hair. The visor turned back to her, a cyan color illuminating the shielded gloom, "What, you already regretting coming out here with me, Valentine?"
"I don't think I was given much choice in the matter, Sir." Was her response, As she adjusted the carbine laying lazily on her hip and started toward the next block. "And what I meant was why us? With the exception of the privatly funded ones we send to in the hive when we're overbooked, Im arguably the only real surgeon we have tacked right now. And you are not only a hard third of the unit's command power, But also the only veteran doctor we have to lean on..."
She left out her own deeper, Personal reservations about her own self importance and being tasked with such mundane and monotonous tasks when the militia had a whole fortress full of idle bodies who where content to continue their defensive vigil while the 309th and their naval counterparts from the first assault fleet carried more than their own share of the weight on their behalf to this point and continued the repetivie task of clearing the block.
Sweeping the next street and banging on the doors to draw non existant squatters and inhabitants into motion, Shouting out pre-dictated statements and declarations about local laws and customs on squatting and ownership rights and requirements to vacate established military exclusion zones before moving onto the next building on her side of the street, Each block taking anywhere from one half to a full hour depending on how many buildings they each had to cover.
"Six blocks left, Thirty six in all." She recounted on their rendevous, Marking the block with another little clear flag before glancing at her own notes on her jockey. "Some recent damage to shopfronts. Nothing's molded or decayed from the acid rain like some of the last ones. So it had to have been within the week. Has to be long gone though."
She paused before glancing at the time and frowning at her superior. "Going to be dark in a couple hours, and it'll take a good hour to ruck back to the jack. Can we call it a day and just mark off the rest?"
This time, the commander's visor turned on her with a red glow. His gaze seemed to burn under its protection, scalding at the mere suggestion.
In the time she had come to know Chiaki, she learned he was very resistant to any breach in protocol. The man's reputation for regulation was well known throughout the unit, and despite his amicable nature, he wasn't willing to cut even the smallest corner. Some would say he was a workaholic, some would call him a masochist, but Second Lieutenant Chiaki would always do his due diligence, even down to the most administrative of details.
"I'm a little dissappointed in you," confided Chiaki, the mirth in his voice stunted a bit. The color in his eyes shifted down a grade to yellow, and then to green as he continued forth. The officer checked at another door. "You already know the answer to that."
Silently inclining her head in submission at her lieutenant's ocular mood-ring feature giving her the best warning it could, Minnie struck out without a wordlessly and droned on to her side of the next block. The block was identical to all the previous ones; Empty streets and abandoned buildings devoid of activity.
She started off through a nearby alley, quick to seperate herself from her superior and possibly skip most of the buildings in the process, Slapping notices on doors and archways without the formalities of the day required of her until a distant sound in the silent settlement caught her attention.
"LT, You prime?" She placed her mask on temporarily to transmit as she carefully tuned into the sound of something akin to beating on thin sheet metal. "I can hear you over this way."
As if on instinct to a foul situation she slipped on her goggles as well to confirm his location. The HUD and overlay quickly coming online and the small inconsequential mini-map of the settlements layout drawing her somewhat into the next block and closer to the settlements center than intended. And more importantly that the beating rythm and the settlement center where to her north compared to her superiors pip on her map to her south...
"That's not me, Valentine," confirmed Chiaki, his blip began to advance upward, and came around the corner. His eyes had returned to that yellow color, his weapon shouldered and at the ready. There was a purposeful and silent movement to his stride, his feet carefully crunching past bigger pieces of rubble and gravel. The Officer used the carbine variant of the M3, giving him a bit more ease in navigating the urban spaces.
He scanned about as he began to link back up with her, listening to the noise as he planted his feet, "Sounds like we've got a few squatters in the center. We'll have to get down there and confirm before finishing our route."
The radio sparked to life as Chiaki reported the inconsistency, and their intention to investigate further. Different responses came popping up all over, with the controller reporting incredulity at how they were still doing their rounds. Most of the other patrols had returned to post already. Some of the patrol leaders jabbed at them in good fun, until the controller cut the chatter.
"Starting to feel like Kennewes out here, " idly remarked the Officer, his thumb coming off the button on his helmet. He checked his three-six before pressing on, "Everyone cuts out early, and a bit of banging gets the whole network lit up. Congratulations, Private, you found the first thing worth talking about today."
"Oh?" Minnie mused, Having sat herself on the curb to burn the time as the lieutenant seemingly took his sweet time clearing the distance between them. "You dont talk about Kennewes much. Was the war really that disorganized?"
She brushed herself off, Doing little to break that image herself whith her carbine unready and still on its sling and her helmat still tucked under the crook of her arm.
She casually gestured behind her towards the city center beyond the row of buildings and alleyways, A look of uneventful boredom still plastered on her face.
"Stopped a couple minutes ago when something big and hard fell, Woudlnt doubt they're long gone. Sure you want to try to track them through the whole city when everyones called off?"
Already knowing the answer she side stepped to allow her executive officer the lead, Adjusting her gear and stretching to prepare for an even longer day that soon threatened to span into night as the sun just began to cast shadows over the buildings as it decended to the tip of the distant mountaintops...
"We should be at least filling out the rest of our zone here, we'll go as far as that, if we don't find anything, we go straight back." answered Chiaki, who rubbed the plate of his Golem's helmet. The man took a moment to sling his weapon to his back, letting it clack to his gear. The tall man brought his hands up to pull off his helmet. His glowing eyes emerged from the bottom, along with a face that seemed very taxed. It seemed he didn't want to do this either.
With a sigh, signaling his exhaustion, he gave Mouse an tired stare, "I'm going to have the reserve ready to go in case we run into something. I'll be honest, I am dead tired right now, and quite frankly, a little pissed everyone's already bugged out."
A small moment of silence passed, with the man searching the ground, as if it had some answer ready for him. Sunnyside was a hole, an empty, empty hole that was proving to be more exhausting than anything. Still, it wasn't exactly their call whether or not to search it up and down for trouble. That was the nature of these operations.
"We broke the Reds on Kennewes," The words just came out of his mouth, he had a distant look in his eyes, "but they kept fighting well after the landing. They fought with all the tricks in the book, some things crazy, some things unspeakable. I spent most of it in a Drop Triage, but it was still an ugly sight to see whether you're up front or in the back."
He slotted his helmet back on his head, taking a few steps past her to continue the trudge, "Yet, we kept going out on patrols and searches, because if one guy didn't do it, his buddy would have to. Which is why we're only going so far as the battle-plan says to do. We do our part, and then we go back."
She knew it was rare for the lieutenant to speak about the war without hiding behind humor or sarcasm.
She also knew she had been too young to understand at the time of the civil war that her father and the lieutenant fought in. If the Reds had won, would the green faction have fled to the far reaches of the sector like they did? Would her mother have been able to get her out of the city before the Reds came to take it back or the NMX landed and seiged the city years later?
Even now, planetside with the purpose of fighting the reds and pirates it still felt foreign and distant to her. Until she fought against these reds for real she couldnt begin to understand Autumns words or the lieutenants recolections.The old saying War Is Hell came to mind from their tone whenever they spoke of Kennewes or when Autumn spoke of Rok'veru. It didn't feel real to her...
"Do you think..." She mumbled as they continued on towards the end of the alleyway and the location of the previous racket. Wondering if it was an appropriate subject to someone who had served through the war to bring up to them. "That maybe if the reds won we might have ended up-"
A pause. Something distant and vocal catching her ears registering just enough to hear and silence her as voices picked up just far away to hear but too far to make out.
"Sir." She fumbled with her helmet and mask and unslung her carbine waiting for order.
Chiaki raised his hand calmly, as if Mouse needed the signal; it seemed more for his sake.
"Yeah, neko's luck."
Another noise seemed to ring out from a small open district ahead of them, the sounds of tools and work being muffled by the rising buildings in this area of the city. Those voices could be heard, but only because they were the only voices in the urban center. As Kokuten and Minnie neared the district, the people they heard spoke in native accents, words still difficult to make out.
Chiaki's breathing had become low, as if whatever had spoke was going to hear him. The man's gauntlet carefully eased the Carbine close, before placing his hand to his helmets comm-piece, pressing to the send button.
"Control, there's something out here. Private Valentine and I are going to scout, feeds are live. Stand-by." reported the Officer, before looking back over his shoulder at Minnie, giving her a thumbs-up. "One look, we confirm, and we go home, alright?"
The alleyway opened up onto one of the main outlets of what would have been the main thoroughfare that cut through the center of the territory and off to the next settlement in highway that would have spanned hundreds of miles. If it had been completed.
The road appeared half paved, old rusting equipment left to the elements and stacks of brick and mortar still piled on the sides of the road creating easy cover for Minnie to exit the cut through first, and hide, signalling an all clear for the lieutenant to follow.
The nearby buildings mimicked the stature of much of the ones they observed before the past few days, stripped and destroyed from looting, trash and debris piling up and thrown about the road from either careless looters or the natural elements slowly reclaiming the city.
Further down the road the city center was somwhat visible to her. Her cybernetic eyes hyper enhancing to give her a closer and sharper view as if she were only a stones throw away.
Official looking government buildings centered in a roundabout adjacent to the half completed walls of what might have looked like a precinct house for the NPF, were it ever finished. A majority of store fronts and resturants with old pattio dining furniture were still strewn about for summer dining. All of this was to be expected except for how populated it seemed. Men and women loitered around like the expected citizens of sunnyside, armed to the teeth and hauling debris into neatly assembled barricades. Down the road, Fatnecks hammered fortifications into the already half fortified government buildings in the town center not unlike a fortress in itself.
Gun emplacements obvious by stacked sandbags and rested barrels to heavy weaponry poked from windows and trained into the sky as their owners leaned lazily against them. The glow of freshly lit burners were still visible in the fading light of the setting sun.
All this and more became visible to the mouse as the shadow of night crept closer and the city thought abandoned came to life. Fatneck pirates and raiders went through a daily, or perhaps nightly, routine of preperations when the militia and marine presence would have retreated for the night and flyovers ceased. Leaving the pirates hours and hours to dig in each evening too deep for the sparse forces scanning the city to ever dig out.
"Clever bastards. Work at night, hide in the day," surmised Chiaki, the second pair of cybernetic eyes staring alongside Minnie. His helmet cam was sending the feed of all they saw back to command, a less close-up and detailed look, but it was enough to light up the communication network. Incredulity reigned until the control operator managed to settle everyone down. "They're shoring up defense to make a stand whenever we find them. This kind of coordination means there's probably a greater purpose to this place than just being an outpost."
Carefully, Chiaki settled down next to the brick pile, tapped the other medical specialist on the shoulder. He smoothly thumbed back towards the direction they came. "We came, we saw, we..."
The crunch of boots on the road just ahead cut him off, "... hide."
A pair of the fatnecks moved attentively down the road, a tall woman and a short man. The two seemed geared for patrol, patch-work armor, dirt-blackened skin, and dark rags shrouded them. The woman yawned, her voice synthesized through the helmet she wore, rather loudly. Their voices became more audible as they closed in, walking on the opposite end of the street.
"Ugh... I hate sleeping during the day..." she groaned, heaving a heavy slug-throwing machine gun.
"It's only for a few more days, quit whining," moaned the smaller fatneck, rolling his head as if he were rolling his eyes. He caught the butt of her weapon on the head, nearly sending him tumbling.
The larger bandit laughed, watching him get riled up in response, "Are you trying to kill me!? Careful where you swing that thing, I could've tripped on something."
The patrol began to pass by, not noticing the pair of Marines not so far away, the Greens were cloaked in the harsh shadows of the setting sun. A synthesized gout of laughter burst from the fatneck woman, in a way that showed they were trying to be aware of their volume. She put a hand on her partner's shoulder and pulled him close, "Don't wanna trip on stuff and have an accident? Then stay close and watch your mouth, teddy bear."
Grumbling and growling, the two continued their walk into the city, turning off onto the path that the Marines had arrived on. Silence began to permeate the urban air again, and the lieutenant seemed quite mirthless to the development.
"Alright, looks like we'll need to take an alternate route. We'll take a different street, and see if we can avoid any night patrols. The last thing we want to do is shake up this hive." mentioned Chiaki, eyeing one of the less developed streets that looked like it would hook around to the other side. He pointed in its direction, "We'll go through there, and B-line it for the Jack."
Fear gripped the smaller doctor as the pirates passed by, the click of her gear sounding impossibly loud to her, even muffled and distorted by her equipment. She expected them to look to the side at any time and lock eyes with her, She expected them to turn on a swivel at any moment and come about.
But they didnt...
More than a single glance was thrown over the cover when she assumed it was safe, Expecting and searching for the moment another patrol might pass into her line of sight before the ideal moment arived.
Out of coincidence, a shouting match began between two of the pirates trying to lift a piece of equipment two different ways and had quickly come to blows over the correct method, easily distracting most as the brawl turned into a spectacle with all eyes on it.
Seizing the moment Minnie burst out of cover and made a stright line for their exit, throwing herself against the wall and training her carbine down towards the city center, still distant sounds of cheering and exasperation as someone likely landed a critical blow.
"Clear," she ground through clenched teeth, the sound of her heart beating in her head as she covered the lieutenants egress towards her and their exit.
The adjacent areas belonged to one of the militia teams and had already been marked clear so it was at least reasuring to know they should have a straight shot to safety...
The officer was much louder than the smaller Marine, but thankfully, to the senses of all keenly aware of his presence, he moved at the next roll of cheers and chants. His boots were heavy as he struck at the ground below him. Were he not moving low to the ground, the man might have been heard in his movement, but the Fatnecks were thoroughly taken by the brawl, as Nepleslians were keen to do.
Crunch, crunch, crunch... Boots churned the dirt and gravel beneath them as the Officer passed Minnie. He tapped her on the shoulder as soon as he was in place, but halted the advance.
"The map says we're clear all the way back, Bravo 8 signed off on all of these zones before they returned to base," Chiaki seemed to take comfort in the fact, as Minnie had, but there was a noticeable apprenhension in his voice. "We'll follow the patrol lane B-8 took, and we'll be home Yam-free. We won't beat the sun back, but we'll beat the Fatnecks."
As if to agree, the shadows began to stretch long over the streets, fading the colors of the day into night. The night sky was, for once, clear, and the two could start to witness a rare glimpse of the beautiful canvas over their heads as the light faded. The Lieutenant craned his head upward to take in the sight, a small sense of longing cutting into the tension. "Hey... what say we crack out a bottle after the de-brief? Kick back on the wall and enjoy these stars, like we didn't just dodge a hive of angry, gun-toting hornets? Heh heh! Got a bit of Delsaurian rum stowed in the gear locker..."
Checking the street first, and the road they had just come from, Chiaki began to make his way across the flattened gravel lane.
"As long as it means we get to leave the cleanup to the militia and not be here tomorrow" Minnie allowed herself to settle down after the tension had obviously passed with their departure. "You dont think Lieutenant Rickett is going to have us hard-charge after this, do you? I mean we can leave some stuff to the militia besides garrison detail."
She followed behind him at a leasurely pace, Her carbine falling back into disuse on its sling and her sense of impending peril fading back to a calm and placid retore as if the whole pirate incident had never happened.
She flared her goggles, switching from the night vision mode into a simple UV where she could allow her eyes to passively amplify and sharpen what light was left instead of losing her depth perception to the goggles NV function. It wasnt as effective but it was worth missing out on the disorienting headache.
"Besides" she closed the distance between them from tactical to casual with the lack of threats about. "Eight cleared all this in record time so it at least proves they can handle the responsibility, right?"
"I think we've well-enough earned a break from all of this," answered the officer in good spirit, almost laughing.
All at once, everything stopped as the safe-zone erupted from below them in a cacophonous roar. An explosion rocked the block, opening up a crater where Chiaki had been standing, with Minnie close in tow. One moment they had been standing almost in one spot, the next, both had been flung apart by the sudden, explosive force. Mouse was thrown back onto one end of the street, and Kokuten to the opposite, shrapnel and gravel raining about their bodies like a horrid black storm. Dust and dirt hazed the area, cloaking the incident in a a darkened veil that made the coming night all the more pitch black. Their helmets would help shunt the brunt of sonic force, to limit ringing and damage, but it could only do so much from such a direct hit.
Chiaki had triggered a mine with his last step, and the offending leg was far from his unmoving body. The other leg had shorn off from the knee, mangled and tossed further off, the grisly pair marking the scene with red lines of blood. What remained of the Lieutenant was brilliantly mauled by shrapnel and jagged armor, having taken the worst of the explosion that had crushed through his Golem.
The first instance of something awry to Minnie had come from a sudden gap in her memory on how she ended up on her back when she had been speaking to the lieutenant just moments before. An inense pain filled her body not unbearably but still to some concern, feeling a lot like the time she opted to spar with Fang and things got too serious.
Before even trying to sit up she tried to asess herself. Her body felt heavy and one side of her felt like it was made of lead. Her vision had been cut off from something, The goggles while reinforced had distorted and covered in a spide webbed pattern of cracked material. Her mask felt bent at a weird angle against her face, Struggling to recycle the air she needed and despite her rasping a report into it gave no feedback she discarded them and gasped in the new cool night air.
The return of her vision and breathing capacity was only half fold. Her depth perception seemed to shift oddly, Making her lean off onto one side as she tried to gain her ground and sit up, The right cybernetic she could feel upon dragging her left hand against it was cracked and dead, Leaving her a single orb from which to see.
She also discovered much to her dismay that the feeling and weight in her arm wasnt dislocated as she feared when her right arm simply hung limp and lame on her side when she finally was able to stagger to her feet. A long, Twisted piece of metal portruded from her shoulder and wrapped around it like a cuff, Cutting deep into her upper arm and shoulder and letting out a slow trickle of blood down her armor.
She could move the fingers on her right hand somwhat painfully but made the appriasal that the cuff digging into her was too deep to remove and doing so would likely cause her to bleed out before it was completed...
A distant sound brought her back to reality and her own self diagnosis when it cut just over the rinnging in her ears, A quiet wimper just enough to remind her she wasnt alone in the ordeal.
"Loo-Ten-Ent!" She slurred, Each word throbbing and echoing loudly in her head. She cried out at the mangled body that somwhat resembled her superior. The body didn't move, inviting the worst prospects to reality.
Then, his head turned, his helmet falling off as he looked to Minnie. There was blood that was running down from his nose, a bit of purple decorated his face. Those green eyes glowed across the dusty ground at her, signifying he had life in him yet. A harried smile spread while he struggled at breathing, coughing out the dust that was still falling on him. He reached out a hand towards her, before realizing his position. With a struggling effort, he tried right himself, his managled arms with enough apparent function to push himself up.
The color in his eyes washed from green to white as he saw what remained of his legs. There was a moment of silence before the constant ringing was broken with a bit of laughter, he shook his head, as if having witnessed the antics of a troublesome child.
The reality began to settle in a bit more as far-off voices could be heard, the Marines' hearing only getting slightly better in the wake of the explosion. A needle extended through the Lieutenants gauntlet as he jabbed himself with something. At that, he grabbed his Styrling side-arm, and gestured at Valentine, pointing the weapon at the next street. He was mouthing something, lacking the strength to call out to her.
Minnie... Run...
Those words triggered minnie's fight or flight response, she froze, unable to react. In such a situation she knew she had to defer to her superior, her training ingrained in her that much. But her superior was chuckling and clearly unstable from the situation, a seperate set of training after NepMed and her field medic training sounded in her head even louder.
They will look to you to save them from pain and fear. So put all else aside and give your all even for just one life.
Wordlessly she dropped herself to her knees and grasped blindly for her medical kit. By routine most of her more important equipment was on her dominant side and was now inacessable to her now from her kit to her styrling and her carbine. She couldnt feel the latter carbine on the swell of her back but could at least hear it clanking softly against her, Not that she could use it with a single working hand.
She silently secured a couple tourniquets, ignoring his repeated protests and injected a blood clotting agent to at least slow the bleeding. She couldnt do anything for the pain, at the amount of blood he'd lost the lieutenant would die from more than he already had in his system and any stimulants to keep him going would likely do the same.
She sucked in sharply when her limp arm suddenly shot throughout with instense pain just from bumping him while she worked. With tears rolling down her face she repositioned behind him, using the thick collar of his armor as a drag handle to pull him towards one of the nearby buildings. If she had the time she could properly stabilize him and even use her hypolathe to stop some of the arterial bleeding, but distant exicited calls forced her to work chaoticly.
Even now being lighter by two legs the lieutenant was impossibly heavy for someone as weakened as she was. She pulled him foot by foot until a bright spotlight centered on her from down the street and a series of hoots and hollars called out mockingly at her.
Even about them she could hear the loud clack of a heavy weapon being racked and forced her to pick up the pace, her lame arm jerking occasionally and dripping an increased stream of crimson off her dangling fingertips to accompany the stabbing and pulsing agony with it.
The fatneck jeering and taunting paused abruptly in time for a burst of heavy fire to spray down the street just feet from the marines. She screamed in panic which caused another set of laughing and obscene remarks from the sound of the girlish shriek as a group of the fatnecks advanced under the overwatch of their MMG gunner. The four of them casually advancing with little tactical grace or regard for their own safety towards their wounded prey.
She had only made it to the curb at one of the storefronts before the fatnecks closed half the distance to her and her wounded charge. Any of the weapons at her disposal from the styrling to her carbine's release on its sling impossible to reach. The body she drug behind her was terribly heavy, unmoving, and feeling more lifeless by the minute. Chiaki's hands drug limply on the groud with a metallic skid, a burnished 11.5mm Styrling clutched in his deathgrip.
Then, a cool, metal hand reached to grab Minnie's arm, and a hypo-needle pushed into the SynAraS mesh between the plates. A warming sensation of painlessness began to spread from there on. From there, the helpful arm fell back to the ground, lifelessly.
"... ou think we should see how far she gets before she keels over?" asked one of the Fatnecks, his voice audible in the closing distance.
"I've got three rations saying she drops dead at the end of the street."
"You're on!"
"C'mon, I like her spunk, I say we keep her! We can stick a pair of cat-ears on her!"
The squad laughed, their cackling roaring over a crack, and a sudden flash. They hadn't noticed what had happened at first, only two of them had realized that a gunshot had gone off. Perhaps thinking that the heavy gunner was playing with warning shots, they looked back, only to see her leaning over her weapon with a hole cracked in her visor.
"Shi--" the next Fatneck cursed before his throat burst open, a blossom of blood spraying onto the street, a second bullet caught his shoulder sending him spinning to the ground. The next, dumbfounded by the shots, caught two bullets, one in the chest, the next in the visor of his helmet. The two that had turned to check their gunner spun back around with their weapons, but were hit like sport targets, two bullets each. One caught both in the chest, sinking her to the ground, while the other caught their first in the shoulder and the next in the neck.
The one that had not immediately been killed, grasped her chest, sucking bloodied air. Minnie felt the strap of her Carbine lose weight as the strap was cut away. The last woman alive leveled her weapon, spraying up the street, before a small burst of 11.5 mm Slugger rounds joined their shorter brothers in her chest. A silence chased away the soaring noise of gunfire, replaced by heaving breaths. The Lieutenant was very much alive, his eyes burning a bright red, Minnie's carbine pressed tightly to his shoulder. More than that, her quick treatment and resourcefulness had enabled him a murderous second wind.
Yet, the lights in his eyes faded in and out, as his breathing shallowed. The firefight had stirred up more voices, a clamoring alarm began to ring out. More were coming.
"Valentine," said a voice, Kokuten's, haggard. "I gave you... an order."
She didn't hesitate to take the time he bought her to drag her into the storefront and hide the lieutenant behind the counterspace. It was a critical time to stabilize him but she needed to ensure their own safety first. Stumbling over to the entrance with its broken door she hit the lever on the emergency shutters, the sheet metal shutter slamming down over the previously indefensible doorway. The windows where broken but covered with bars to prevent looting and offered some reprise from entry.
She had to keep reminding herself to keep going as anxiety and confusion continued to grip her, followed by a feeling of weakness to the point she had to force herself just to stay upright. All early signs leading towards her slipping into shock, a fatal coma would overtake her soon that she likely wouldnt ever wake up from. She could treat it properly but didnt have the time, the lietenant was already unconcious and was worse off than her. If she didnt stabilize him soon he would die from any number of things ranging from shock to bloodloss.
And he was worse off than Minnie thought when she appraised his condition under a smothered light, trying not to draw any attention. She could already hear the idling of engines and frantic chatter not far off, and it wouldnt take the fatnecks long to notice the trail of crimson left from dragging him. The mine had ruined one leg beyond repair and essentially torn the leg that had tread on it into oblivion. And there was damage she couldn't properly gauge on his groin, hips, And ribs.
She laid out her kit beside him to make it easier to access and got to work trying to stablize Chiaki. Mild stimulants would keep him from slipping into shock while she carefully used her hypolathe to pick out pieces of shrapnel and close minor wounds to avoid the buildup of bloodloss pooling around him.
When she was done, he was stable. He wouldnt survive the night without propper incubation but neither would she. Minnie realized that the growing puddle of crimson she was sitting in was half her own. She carefully stripped away her armor to reveal the purple and discolored mess around her shoulder and upper arm, The arm itself was a total loss to the point she couldnt even manage to wiggle the fingers anymore and the swelling had dug the metal casing even deeper to a degree that had severed the nerves.
Without proper treatment to remove the mines casing digging into her and closing the wound she would bleed out before even he did. Without the knolwedge and codes to navigate the command net on the lieutenants datajockey she was blind to the outside situation and unable to send out for help.
Minnie slumped Chiaki into the interior of the sales counter and closed the cubord obscuring him before leaning against it, barricading him inside. She managed to wiggle out her 45. in time, Not that she could hold it straight in the hopes that the fatnecks might asume she was alone and the sole contributer to the bloody mess on the floor just in time for the voices to stop outside the shutters.
She was too numb to be scared, and focused all her remaining strength into staying concious and holding the weight of the impossibly heavy sidearm outwards towards the thin sheet metal shutters, even with the situation at hand she didnt feel she could pull the trigger...
A sudden spree of noises and vibrations painted a picture of the outside world one could only describe as thunderous and rapidly brutal. It didn't have the repeating 'clink' of an armoured vehicle, but whatever the tremendous weight was, it rattled the shutters almost to the point of destruction upon landing.
Small arms and heavy machinegun fire could be heard immediately barking to life in a much closer proximity to the two soldier's hiding place, drowing out a more subtle untone of paniced yelling. Wild sparks and muzzle flashes were indirectly visible through the slats, causing a dizzying retort of high pitched pings as the ordnance ricochetted from something far larger and with increasing proximity.
The cumbersome thing didn't fire back, or even audiably activate a close combat weapon. A distinct whine of energized nano-muscle chains instead ended with several heavy thuds, and the almost haphazard grinding of whatever the large thing was skidding to a halt.
-"L-Tee? L-Tee, are you here?"- It was a low voice, not from the thing outside, but whispering urgently through Chiaki's communication device. Considering that both of them had their senses battered, it was a small miracle Private Fang's husky voice was audiable. -"I don't have my rifle, so you better tell me where you are quick! I can hear trucks!"-
Minnie could hear the gunfire, But not Fang. Her mask was bent and broken across the street, Her goggles where cracked and strewn somwhere else and she had only just noticed her helmate was missing.
Regardless someone was fighting the fatnecks, Not that she was in any condition to help. She knew she had to get their attention somehow now that the enemy outside the shutters had paniced and reloacted when something big had come skidding down the street, Sweeping them away in its landing. She didnt get a good look at the PA but knew that the general was augmenting some of the new generation of Sols with hostiles and that the 1st AF in orbit sometimes deployed their own hostiles groundside.
Regardless it was help Minnie intended to signal somehow, Dragging herself over to the shutters. Unlike the release, To raise the shutters required a crank just barely within her reach. Weakly she began to crank the shutters furiously open, Until the shutters where just high enough to crawl under. Wedging the shtters open with her axe and still unable to stand, Minnie dragged herself back onto the curb and into the line of fire.
She could see the Agressor now, Whooper emblazened on its chest and shoulders as it shrugged off the gunfire from down the street.
"Fa-ng" She managed to moan out patheticly weak with tears streaming down her face. Even minutes ago she could manage a vocal tone but found herself incapable of doing more than whispering in her current state. She knew who it was in the agressor, Only Fang-YinZhou would have rushed to the scene without caring to wait for Lord Slep to be painstakingly armed and made ready when time was so short. Moreover, the cinderblock sized SMG clutched in it's right hand was caked in blood, clearly having just been used to deliver a pistol whip like a freight train.
The suit was looking everywhere but at her, And crawling towards the giant bullet magnet would only seal her fate, Not that she thought she had anymore strength in her. Instead minnie did something stupid.
With a great deal of effort, Minnie brought herself to sit up against the doorway and raised her 45. The first few rounds missed the massive suit of armor but she managed to hit the aggressor in the side of its helamte, Just near the monoeye. She was hoping Slep's secondary chasin turrets wouldnt be loaded either to respond to her fire and would force her savior to asses the direction of the new fire beside her. She emptied the mag while she still had the momentum, Scoring another hit with her final round on its pauldron before letting the sidearm fall between her legs. Time was quickly running out for her, Only keeping her concious through the stimulant the LT had injected in her- And for just a pace, it seemed like that time might be even shorter.
The hulking giant reflexively swung it's firearm to meet what it perceived as a new threat, smashing a pavement slab simply by throwing one foot backwards and grinding into a new offensive alignment.
Then, for a second, it just plain froze, meeting Minnie's gaze exactly, but evidently baffled by what it saw. Fang apparently was thrown into such confusion by the sight that they didn't move at all, sans turning their head to look back up the mine-cratered alleyway from which the two soldiers had previously dragged themselves from.
"M-Minnie, is that you?" A vox-boosted voice, but one shocked out of Fang's normal trance of brutal advancing melee. "I... I was sent here for an extraction, but I didn't expect... I didn't expect..."
Renewed gunfire. A hand-held AT gun flashed from a window about three blocks down. An older model, apparently, given by the fact that Fang merely lurched sideways and was not punctured through. A grenade was fetched from the belt of the Aggressor and lobbed several dozen feet in that general direction.The smoke and flying rubble that resulted probably didn't solve the problem, but it gave Fang more time to think as they flattened their back onto one of the storefronts, crumpling the shatterproof glass inwards.
"The Soko has a track off, they aren't coming!" More irate words, as the giant attempted to both look at their wounded companion and the phantom enemy at the same time. "W-What happened, Valentine? Is the L-T still with you!?"
Fang didn't have a rifle because they were only supposed to be doing an extraction. Taking on an unknown enemy force alone would be like kicking the hornet's nest. But, could they even perform that task with their friends in this state? Would physically lifting them up do more harm than good?
It was unsettling for Minnie to hear Fang so distressed. She would have cried out if she could, There wasnt much time and she had so much she needed to tell fang about their conditions that she would need to pass on.
She glanced away when Slep staggered and responded in time. Already stray and errant rounds where striking too close to Minnie, And her area would become the focus of fire if Fang came too close to recover her. Instead she opted to drag herself back into the storefront, Her legs pushing weakly and her one good arm dragging her full weight in armor until she left a red trail back to the countertop.
She didnt want to make it look like she was rejecting Fangs rescue. But she was just holding her friend back by being in the way, Even barely armed Slep and Fang were more than a match to scatter the fatnecks minnie truely belived. She wouldnt be responsible for fangs death because she restrained herself to protect them instead of herself. ROE was always to clear the threat first and worry about everything else second.
By the time she reached the lieutenants location she could barely move. Her body felt numb and heavy, Too much so to continue any further. A single hand still held onto the cupboard latch that concealed her superior with a death grip as her forehead bumped the cold floor. Her eyes where getting heavy and she couldnt find the strength to keep herself concious anymore...
There was another loud bang in the distance, and a chunk of pavement was gouged out from about three meters to the right of Fang's armoured boots. A pot shot, judging by the fact that the smoke hadn't cleared either. With the sudden approach of an engine, the brawny marine snapped into the realisation that the sniper's purpose was only to pin them down.
Her chest tensed and her eyebrows furrowed, refusing to take such an insult lying down. Angry at themselves for stuttering like and infant, and putting her injured freinds in even more danger.
"Pure steel awake me." A growl of a prayer, unclasping their vibroknife and begining a new pounding march towards the source of the sound, up towards a bare intersection. "Slep, guide me! Help me to avenge this disgrace!"
The chunk of metal which errupted into veiw next was a flatbed truck, armoured at the front with a manually crewed gauss rifle sitting on a pintle at the back. The crew knew exactly what they were doing, and came up at the far side of the street in order to pound a shot into Fang whilst they were still in the open.
Letting off a maelstorm of blue sparks, the enemy gun vomited forth a blinding streak that struck the Aggressor both in the raised knife and the shoulder. Something must have deflected along the way, but Fang could still smell the stink of smouldering Nerimium seaping in.
Her boots kept thundering forward. She felt like she was screaming, but the rush of a adrenaline blinded her senses to it.
Didn't have a knife anymore. Backhanded the long barrel of the weapon instead, so hard that it jolted around on the pivot and struck the top half of the gunner's cranium clean from the bottom half. The driver put his foot to the floor, but the vehicle spun out, kicked upwards from two of it's tires by a foot the size of a tree trunk.
Enraged and thinking nothing of the cranberry sauce that had now been left behind as a vile arcing streak along the junction, Fang then just grabbed the axel of the truck and began to drag it backwards. It was a deafening screech and shower of sparks, but when the deed was done, the shop front now had a makeshift metal barracade.
No more time to waste. The aggressor hunched down and put it's shoulders through the flimsy shopfront, spreading their palms open like some bizzare statue of a forgotten idol.
"...Minnie. Come on." Fang's breath was heavy. The were pushing themselves even with the advanced armour. "Let's go. Only so long before he hits the gas tank."
Silence. Dead silence. An eerie air that reminded one of the one sounds of the vacuum, rather than planetside. The movements outside sounded far removed within the store. The two she needed to rescue were not immediately visible, but the blood was an uncoventional guide to where they could be. Boot-smatters and greasy, red lines drew a path from the doorway to behind the counter, where a pair of small golem boots protruded. The worn treads were caked in dirt and gore, their owner's share mixed with others after the hard toil of the day.
Fang's eyes refused to blink, fighting back a suspicion that this had all been for nothing. She mentally activated her mono-eye system and set it to active, bathing the dust-strewn interior in harsh red light. A haywire crackling of broken pixels and painful noise was shot back down the feed, and it was only then that the soldier realised the camera track on her left shoulder had been totally pulverized by the gun on the truck.
"MINNIE! COME ON!" A repeated yell, this one half angry and half frustrated. They could feel the crosshairs lining up on their back. "CHIAKI! ARE YOU THERE!? YOU HAVE TO BE!"
Groaning doorway supports finally gave way with one last push, as they threw caution to the wind and rammed the oversized armour all the way inside. Even on their hands and knees, the backpack ripped up the styrofoam roof tiles and snagged several pipes and wires hidden above.
They fought the static hard, and concenrated on the flickering, momentary frames of clarity. At first they thought that the medic had crawled into a cupboard, but then realised it was a seperate signal, finally drawing a standard visual on the pair of them.
It was a cruel reversal in tension. Fang's muscles were amped up and fatigued, coated in layers upon layers of boxy armour. Those bear claw hands now had to carefully raise Minne's hand back off the handle, pick up her limp form, and then anxiously open the little plywood box like a doll house.
The LT looked even worse than Valentine. Fang was sweating. She didn't dare breathe.
Two bodies in hand, they turned and made their way back out of the shop. Took half the rest of the ceiling with them.
Immediate gunfire. Something clanged, but Fang could apparently still run, so they simply bolted and didn't give it another thought.
Wanted nothing more than to just boost straight away, but she knew the inertia would rip what was left of her friends to bits. So it was slow. Increasing bounds, building and building, until they let just a little bit of gas out of the thrusters, and the gargatuan machine pulverised it's way into the air.
The stars were out, Fang realised, internally lit with the red glow of damage indicators. The ride had become smoother. Trees flew past below like the begining stages of some euphoric dreamscape.
A healing prayer came to mind, but a desperate will reserved it. A situation like this said that fate had pulled the number of her two passengers.
But, just this once, as her scanners pathed them a way back home, Private Fang was determined to fight it.
