RP: SNV Gam'trosha [Chapter 3.3] Away Team - Cave Exploration

[Kyle]

Shar's quick thinking prevented her from taking any serious injuries, although one of the shots from the creatures did graze her leg - the laser didn't actually cut into the suit as the suit absorbed the energy; although her HUD did bring up an audible warning that the armor located around her ankle had been weakened.

The creature that had been attacking her didn't fair as well, its attention focused so much on Shar it didn't notice the volume of fire coming from Def'leor and Ye'gor, as several shots impacted along the creatures front and side, punching holes that went clear through it and out the other side - the creature let out a screech as it fell to the ground and began to twitch.

This screech seemed to have an effect on the other two creatures, as they moved quickly to take cover behind debris and use their tentacles to worm their way around said debris and fire on the away team.

 

[ShotJon]

Shar, crouched down and moved from the spot where she landed. She was sure that laser cannon used by the creatures, would punch through the wall with ease. And she hoped her rifle was more then good enough for the same thing. Using her helmet she fired up the controls of the tank and started it up, she moved it closer to their position and activated its sensors, for now she just wanted to know where the thing are.

 

[BionicSamurai]

Success in seeing Shar's escape was heartening; however his new target managing to hide as his shots passed it by was frustrating. The kit tried to aim for of the cannons as they were swivelling around; but his shots helped work out where he was. A couple hits to the tree he was in and the engineer knew it was time to go.

He dropped down to the ground with a roll, putting a piece of debris between him and the creatures before attempting to fire again. The smaller targets, ended up being quite the challenge; but then he heard the tank start up. Nodding at what must be happening, the young Laibe shifted to more trying to keep the attention off of their big guns by continuing to fire upon what he was now sure to be the enemy.

 

[Nashoba]

Def'leor was grateful to see that Shar was not badly injured by the 'creatures' She moved to a defensible position. Small arms were not going to be much use with the enemy. She saw the tank start moving. 'Need to commend Shar on bringing the tank up.' she thought.

She fired a few rounds at the creatures when they provided a minimal target. They needed away to flush the creatures out to get a better shot at them. She was reluctant to ask Shar to fire the tank at the creatures. There was no way to know how stable that crystal was, and at this range if the tank did cause a reaction there would little chance of surviving.

 

[Kyle]

Somewhere in the sky

Several kilometers northwest of the away team was a CC-32 Orso'dian Dropship that was flying at near tree-top level; the pilot flew the craft at a slow speed so that its onboard survey team could more easily inspect the surrounding area. The dropship only had four crewmen onboard, including a pilot, co-pilot, and two soldiers who were in the back, one of those - a Laibe - was presently standing by the rear boarding hatch and looking out. "Combat Air Patrol," remarked the soldier as he turned toward his companion. "We haven't found any signs of hostiles and yet they have us out here...." his voice was only barely heard over the sounds of the dropships four heavy anti-gravity engines. "So, what are you going to do once you reach your new duty station?"

 

[BionicSamurai]

In the breaks between shots, Ye'gor thought he heard a whispering noise on the breeze. After a few sonic samples, some recognition set in, promoting him to use his much better eyes to scan around when he could. It took time; but he finally noticed the lit up pinhead slowly changing position against the background sky.

Unsure of whether it might be help or not, being well out of his detail acuity; the engineer figured he would try his communicator and check with Def'leor. "Mah, do you think there might be aerial patrols out this far?" he tried sending, not expecting, but hoping.

 

[Shadow]

Dropship

C'baruce Got'ti Ni'kita C'ross had been silently scanning the trees with his ice blue eyes as they whizzed by. The pools of blue darted back into the Dropship when he heard the Laibe next to him mumbling under his breath. "Hmph, likely a talkative one." Thought the Youth Corps soldier. He crossed his legs and laid a paw on the hilt of his sword for the umpteenth time this patrol. The Daur scanned his fellow passenger once again when the Laibe actually addressed him clearly. He shrugged as he crossed his arms. "Report to the commanding officer." Ross said with a blank tone. He leaned against the hull of the Dropship and looked out into the land below. He tightened his grip on his sword as he scanned the ground for some form of movement or activity.

 

[Kyle]

Dropship

"Makes sense," remarked the Laibe as they continued to stare out of the rear hatch. As the dropship banked back toward where the main force was, flashes of light could be seen in the distance - although the Laibe was apparently not paying much attention to this and instead looking away from it and in a different direction; faint 'booming' sounds could also be heard coming from that direction.

 

[Shadow]

"Hm?" The contrast of the lights against the green trees was noticeable, to say the least. The booms (firearms discharges perhaps?) were easily detectable to Ross's acute sense of hearing. The kit in question stood up and went to speak to the pilot without another word to his temporary companion. He knocked to warn the pilots of his presence in the event of one of them panicking and flying straight into the treetops. Stranger things have happened, an example being of Neshatens killing each other over unrelated things like race. The Daur, once he had entered, faced the senior of the two pilots from the position of attention. "Sah, I've noticed some activity in the forest rear of our position."

 

[Kyle]

Cockpit

The pilot glanced over his soldier toward the Kit, for a brief moment he was going to say something but didn't and instead tapped the air in front of him - causing a holographic sensor screen to appear. "Activity is right," remarked the pilot as he dragged the display off to his side and brought up another one that engaged one of the dropships camera's that were located on the undercarriage. The camera focused on the ships east, or rather, south east now given they were still in the mist of their turn. The image blurred for a brief moment, then focused, and zoomed in as far as possible - at this distance the only thing that could be made out were the discharges of energy weapons such as a laser that fired up into the air.

"And Activity for certain," the pilot smiled and stopped the ships banking and then turned it toward the activity. "Get on the rear gun, and get ready for combat. Tell the Laibe to stop loathing off and get ready," as the dropship continued its bank the rear hatch opened further to give the ramp mounted gun more room to fire and a better angle to fire 'down' into the forest.

 

[Shadow]

"Acknowledged." Ross quickly turned around and exited the cockpit. But the noble was now biting his lip in worry. "I'm not any good with a firearm of any kind! Oh, calm down you fool, you can ask the Laibe for assistance if need be." His self-motivation helped in putting a determined instead of a worried expression on his face. "Activity, we're moving to engage." Ross informed his companion. He quickly wrapped his paws around his new-found weapon and prepared himself. While he waited for his firing platform to stabilize, eyes scoured the ground, looking for any sign that would tip off which side was friendly and which was hostile.

 

[Nashoba]

Def'leor surveyed the situation. It was definitely a stalemate. They were not equipped for an assault, and the hostiles had a defensive position. She decided to move to another position. She moved to where the floor had holes and dropped down through one. She landed with her hands and feet spread wide to disperse her weight. She then started making her way to the entrance and get to the tank as quickly as possible.

 

[Kyle]

Away team

Shars commands to the tank caused it to move forward a little bit, allowing its sensors to more easily scan the surrounding area; and present Shar with a picture of what was happening behind her. On her helmet's HUD, the sensor data was translated into something more easily understood, as a 3D display of the wall appeared and showed the creatures behind it, additional scan results showed that the wall was in a rather precarious state, cracks could be seen across much of its surface with several located deeper into the wall.

The creatures seemed to be buying their time, staying behind their cover and only take shots every so often when they felt that they could do so without overly exposing themselves to enemy fire. Their behavior, however, shifted when one of them looked toward the west; and hovered up above its cover in order to get a better angle on whatever it was seeing - suddenly its tentacles, which had been separate up until now, came together to form a single tentacle which unleashed a torrent of energy fire that burned through the forest canopy and into the sky.


Dropship

The ship shuddered as its systems registered energy fire splashing across its shields. "Lasers?" remarked the pilot as he shifted power away from the rear shields and more toward the forward ones. The pilot gritted his teeth as the ship continued to shudder, it was quite a bit aways yet whoever was firing at them seemed to have good accuracy - thankfully it wasn't anything heavier like a plasma cannon, else they'd have to break off. "Going to do a fly over to see where the fire is coming from, becareful of friendlies on the ground!" she said to the two in the back.

It wasn't long before the dropship flew over the away teams location.

 

[Shadow]

"Copy that!" Ross replied, wincing when he heard whoever was hostile start shooting at them. "Calm down, calm down, breath." The swordmaster's eyes flew across the field, looking around with an expression of excitement and worry. "I'm actually under fire." They'd always talked about it, the fear or remorse that could paralyze you on the battlefield. Perhaps this is what they were talking about? Regardless, Ross bit his lip to hide any further emotion as he scanned the ground below him, identifying the Neshaten tank rolling around below. "That's us... Which means..." Ross followed the source of the small-arms fire. He didn't exactly catch a glimpse of the enemy, but he could tell where they were. Lasers tend to do that to people. With the idea of providing suppressing fire, Ross fired in bursts at the wall the enemy seemed to be utilizing.

 

[Kyle]

The pass over and the barrage of fire that came with it caused one of the creatures to stop firing entirely and get as much of its body behind cover as possible, but the other one - the one that was up in the air - seemed stubborn and intently focused on the dropship as it buzzed over; its tentacles tracking and firing as it went. Shots from the dropships rear gun were wild though, not one of them hit the creatures, but enough did hit the cover that some of it had crumbled...

Where Shar was hiding though she would feel some bits and pieces of her cover bouncing off the top of her helmet.

Inside of the dropship, the rear area became peppered with laser fire from the creatures, none of it hit the soldiers inside but some did get rather close. As the dropship disappeared over the forest, the pilot banked the craft around. "Going to back us on, I'm diverting power to the rear shields to provide you two some protection, I'll hold position and keep her steady as much as I can just make you take those hostiles out!" shouted the pilot to the ones in the back.

 

[Shadow]

Ross hunkered down when the enemy fire was diverted towards the dropship. Interestingly enough, he didn't look quite as surprised or scared anymore. "Much appreciated!" He shouted back to the pilot. Shields would be nice. When the ship did another attack run, the swordmaster actually took the time to aim at the enemy, only slightly registering the fact it was basically a floating ball of tentacles. "Thanks for coming out to entertain us." He shortened the bursts to three rounds per trigger pull to get more accurate results... Hopefully, it's not the gun's fault that he was missing.

 

[Nashoba]

Def'leor wondered briefly where the Dropship had come from, but beyond that she focused on the problem at hand. For all she new the Dropship might not even be friendly, given the problems of the past year with traitorous factions.

Seeing one of the 'creatures' had chosen to remain in the open, she trained her weapon on it and fired at it.

 

[Kyle]

Dropship

The pilot banked the dropship around, turning its 'rear' toward the enemy as a flare in the shields registered its change in distribution; the shields on the rear solidified briefly and gave off a slight glow before slowly fading away as the dropship came to a stop and hovered almost directly above the away team. As Ross let loose a blistering array of fire, the tentacle creature recoiled as a number of shots slammed into it - enough that it was forced back down.. however..

Below

It wasn't just the fire from the dropship that had done the floating creature in, Def'leors attacks had also scored several good hits including one in its 'head', which caused it to pop like a balloon. The creature spiraled around in the air before crashing to the ground with a sickening thud, its bloody slid across the surface a few feet as its tentacles slithered out of reflex. The final creature, seeing this, choose to keep itself hidden behind cover and stopped firing - it wasn't about to reveal itself while a dropship with a heavy weapon lay hovering nearby.

In High Orbit

The NSV-Yuieya'she shuddered as a drop-pod was jettisoned from its undercarriage, the small pod - shaped almost like an elongated egg - punched through the atmosphere as its forward edges began to heat up; its occupant wouldn't even know this if it wasn't for the armored windows which showed the flames licking the edges and dissipating into the air. "Twenty seconds before reverse thruster's engage," said the pods computer.

 

[Mortem]

High up in the clouds as the drop-pod that raced down to the ground, a Laibe by the name of Kub'lukov Dom'inic Vik'tor smiled as the computer mentioned that the reverse thrusters would activate soon. A strange mixture of excitement and nervousness was rising in the Youth Corpse Marine as he felt the force of the reverse thrusters activate when they did. With the rate of descent slowing, Vik'tor took a brief look at the map and wrapped his right paw around the joy stick as he prepared for some quick course correction.

Despite the reverse thrusters slowed the fall, the drop-pod hit the ground with a hard bang. Almost instantly a transparent door opened up on the side of the pod that was facing away from the fighting. Nearly jumping out of it with his Velarious Swordrifle pressed against his left shoulder, Vik'tor turned right around the pod and found himself confronted with the sight of an orb-like creature with what he could only comprehend as tentacles moving independently out of the main body. Vik'tor aimed for center of mass against the orb beast and fired a seven-shot burst at it, knowing full well it would have fired at him, assuming it already hadn't, if it had a better chance.

 

[Shadow]

"Hostile down!" Ross yelled in excitement. He forgot himself for a moment and began fist-pumping the air before he realized that there had to be more than one of those things to give an away team that kind of trouble. Right when he figured that out though, he heard distant popping sounds from above. He didn't bother taking his eyes off the area where that alien had been taking cover behind. The "popping noise" dropped down in the background in the form of a drop-pod. Ross knew his previous assumption had been correct when the marine who jumped out fired at the cover he had been looking at. He prepared himself to open fire on anything that jumped out to escape the marine.