RP: NSS Altomir [Mission 1.2] Bal'Sharok Boogie

"While I am familiar with the concept of piloting a vehicle, I am not exactly familiar with its maintenance," mentioned Saveli as he was ordered to check the engine. The Iromakuanhe stood and stared at the hood of the vehicle, and then looked off towards the others. His fingers began to invade the creases, worming around the edges and contours trying to find a way to open it.

Then... Success! A latch! Saveli let out of a successful grunt, as if he were a caveman impressed by fire. The Iromakuanhe lifted his hands up, only to be stopped by the hood again. His hands rattled against the lid, repeatedly tapping the latch under it. As he was not a native Nepleslian, he was not familiar with the typical Nepleslia design of vehicles. So Saveli had no concept of popping the hood.

"I think... this lock ѯӋҜᶑῺצԏטҝ is broken," piped up Saveli, struggling at trying to lift the hood, but at the same time, trying not to rip it off, "It will not open no matter how many times I pull the lever under it!"

Amongst the ruins of the city and the burnt out husks of crashed vehicles and picked over power armors, a Raider power armor covered in muck blended in well with the brown and grey landscape. It was easily enough for Autumn to stay somewhere and hide but what she had seen, coupled with the hope of escape forced her to instead, weave around the ruins towards the subway tunnels.

She knew that she did not have too much time.before they reached the subway. Her fear made her abandon some of her reservations about conserving her fuel as she pushed the Raider's planetary speed capabilities to the limits of what she could cpntrol as she tried to avoid collison with anything that might slow her down.

The Geshrin marine's heart leapt into her throat as her suit's AI started pinging the presence of another Marine in the proximity of her approach.

She sent a fast broadcast to the armor at the mouth of the subway. "Don't shoot! I am P2C Wilde, and you have to get out of here! A large group of hostiles are enroute to this location!"

The Hostile's Monoeye seemed to bore into Saveli with an incredulous: 'Are you fucking serious right now?' It looked at the other Marines, then to the truck, and back to Saveli. Yuriko walked past the Cohronl toward the cab and opened the door. Leaning in, Saveli'd hear a little *Pop!* from the hood.

"Try it now." The voice from the suit said in an almost deadpan manner.

Alexandra suddenly got a ping. It was a nepleslian IFF and her savtech reacted to it, but she personally did not know that kind of armour. It was something very light, but it was not NIGHT. Maybe a Demon? Who used a Demon nowadays?

"We got contact!" Alex called the admiral and the other over closed communication circuit. "Nepleslian code, I don't recognize the armour type though. Calls herself P2C Wilde. We got incoming enemy according to her."

"Oh! ƷǚƣƊƛǤƔƏǂ!" exclaimed Saveli as the hood came open when he tugged on the latch under it. The engine was now exposed, and Saveli was now amazed. "A double-locking ѯӋҜᶑῺצԏטҝ, how redundant! Not for functionality it seems, but protection from vandals, perhaps? If that is the case, then why not simply place a single lock inside the car, if one needs to step inside the car every time they need to check the engine?"

Saveli quickly checked over the engine. A yes. That engine was definitely an engine. It surely looked like an engine, and probably even worked like an engine. That little cylindrical tube was likely a point for pouring in coolant. Yes, he recognized all of these things, as he was trained to recognize them. He could do minor maintenance on these kinds of things, but that was mostly servicing.

"There are no bullet-holes in this engine. I can assume it is functional by those means, yes?"

"Because, with two locks if one goes bad we have the other one to keep the hood from flying off." Yuriko's voice coming out like a tired sigh. "And for protection from thieves."

As Wilde's Raider armorsuit approached the entrance to the subway station, both Violetta and Flint turned to watch her close in. Violetta, in the midst of assisting the Geshrin woman and her infant into the large back end of the truck with the rest of the civilians, called out a short alert to the soldiers slowing grouping around the vehicle in the garage. "Marines, we might have incoming. Get this thing started and load up unless you feel like walking!"

Last to enter the back of the truck was the Delsaurian, his large metal feet scrambling up the sides of the vehicle before stumbling ungracefully into the bottom of the elongated truck bed.

---

Although the civilians, Violetta De Luca and Flint Vanderhuge could not see the incoming hostiles, it didn't take long before the monoeyes of the surrounding Nepleslian soldiers picked up on the multitude of signals. They were unlike the enemies they had faced so far; they were smaller, perhaps three or so feet tall with long bodies. Although they appeared small, their numbers were not; roughly forty of the small organisms were approaching fast from the opposing street, no doubt drawn to the red-smoke flare hovering in the morning sky above the subway station.

Crab-Type Mishhuvurthyar. Although they were normally seen in much larger sizes, it wasn't uncommon to see smaller versions acting as scouts or used to soften up dug-in enemies. Individual ones were not much of an issue; they had thick carapaces and muscular, talon-like crushing claws, but these were their only strengths. Forty of them, all swarming in towards the entrance to the Liganda Subway Station, was a bit more distressing.

At the speed they were approaching, the Nepleslian crew and their small cluster of civilian survivors had a very limited window of time left before they would be up to their chins in chitinous, scurrying Mishhu.

Saveli brought himself up into the back of the truck, coming to one knee at the edge of the bed facing towards the entrance. The Iromakuanhe could see the numbers pile onto his sensors, and further knew the implications. His ever helpful SAVtech counted up the number for him and even gave him small descriptions of the projected foe. Nepleslian technology was so handy and practical.

"Equipment is picking up almost forty contacts on the edge of the station!" reported Saveli aloud, turning to one of the gang-members on his left. The soldier then turned a gaze at his LSP, before presenting the man with his impaler rifle and the extra magazine. "Here, we'll need all guns firing, and you look as though you possess nerve."

Saveli yanked his LSP out, and stared towards entry way to Liganda, waiting for a visual to spill forth.

"Thanks for telling us, Killer." Yuriko said as she walked right on past Saveli, seemingly unaffected by the news while she rummaged amongst the refuse and cabinets. The sound of rattling cans, ripping of duct tape and the telltale *Clacka, Clacka* of spray paint can peas evident.

The Hostile held a bundled mass of spray paint cans, duct tape and a small red canister bundled in the middle. Waving it at Saveli, then toward Violetta and Flint the improvised explosive tiny in the suit's hand, and would've been even smaller in the ID-SOL's.

"Anyone care to figure out what this'll do? No? Well, guessing none of you played with paint bombs when you were kids. Except I strapped a hand-held fire extinguisher to this. If those little bastards get close enough... heh... heh..."

The chuckle was a little menacing, almost demented and tired. Her suit climbed into the back of the truck as well, holding the little device appreciatively. Hell, she didn't even know if there was any paint or fire retardant in the cans. If anything it'd make a nice little boom if needed.

Once Autumn's Raider was in the station, she heard Yuriko's comment about the spray paint can bomb. "Nice idea. Any more around to make a second one? There are about 40 of those crabs things... they are smaller than the other ones kicking around but still nasty."

Her voice sounded cheerful if incredibly strained, "We might have the time to cobble together another bomb depending on what ya'll have to use. I have 5 flash bangs for maker knows what reason and I think I have 1 grenade left." The Geshrin Demolitions Specialist tried to get her bearings again as her AI was screaming about the contacts and recalculating her location.

"But yeah, leaving is a good thing."

Yuriko's Hostile turn its Monoeye on to the Raider armor, the small camera inside of the red eye focusing in on the suit.

"Don't know, I just know if this works as intended it'll disperse enough paint and fire retardant foam or powder mixed together to blind the little shits for awhile." The suit's large thumb jerked backward to the workbenches behind her.

"Check there or the cupboards. Rest of what I got on my suit is anti-armor ordinance and my HPAR." Her voice suddenly booming.

"Thomas! Hustle it marine, I want something to fill those tanks if they're dry. Even if it's your g'damn tears."

John hopped into the driver's seat of the truck, checking over the electrical systems of the vehicle to make sure that everything was functional.

"The vehicle seems satisfactory," he called out. "I'm getting her ready to move out! Get her closed up so we can get moving!"

Thomas got back up, turning his head to face the direction from where there would soon be some very angry and murderous cockroaches. Multiple signatures popped up as he did so, and he knew there probably wouldn't be enough ammo to engage all of them.

On the bright side, at least the fuel tanks weren't hit during their fight to retake the subway station, and from the looks of it the truck still appeared to have some juice left in it.

"The fuel tanks are intact! Start the vehicle already!" He called out, moving to the back of the truck and drawing his LSP.

Autumn seeing that they had no real time, threw open the cupboards and tried to find something usable. She would have killed for some simple road flares or any sort of fireworks right about now but she was more than happy to settle for any sort of aerosol can.

With the civilians nestled into the center of the large vehicles' bed, Violetta De Luca followed suite and jumped in. Flint stood near the back of the vehicle, waiting for the others to enter before he took up the final spot. Before Violetta was even settled, sharp hissing sounds and the distinct clatter of several hundred chitinous legs smattering against pavement began to sound out from the subway stairwell. It wasn't long before a single crab-like thing fell into their viewpoint.

It had fallen from above the stairs, dropping unceremoniously from the mouth of the escalators. It fell rather gracelessly, spinning in mid-air for the split-second it remained airborne, it's many legs flailing in all direction. It hit the ground with a sharp crack, continuing to flail around on its side until it up-righted itself in the direction of the stairs. In another moment, it scuttled its body about-face, turning to view the soldiers and civilians with a multitude of small, jet-black eyes.

"*Crackle* The shiiii*Crackle* iiiiit?!"

Autumn would likely be the first to hear the approaching comm lighting up, followed by the rest of the monoeyes watching as an unseen explosion rumbles from above and a hostile comes down the stairwell at an angle that suggested it wasn't intentional. It lands on one knee, the rubble scraping up the armor but it doesn't look like any bad damage is done.

The hostile itself looked a little worse for wear, a couple armor plates ripped off the midriff but the internal workings interestingly unscathed. It quickly scatters to it's feet and charges the enemy creature it had fallen down after. The PA bodyslams into it, throwing both off their balance and her one hand grabbing at it's face and the other grabbing a handful of it's chitinous legs. The PA pulls, digging the large digits into the many eyes of the creature and ripping off a few of the legs. The two struggle, the legs denting her armor as it flailed against the hostile ripping it apart. Whatever happened to the PA's weapon was unclear, but it was nowhere in sight. After a few heavy punches to the things skull and another few legs ripped off, it stops moving finally.

Eventually, and perhaps unfortunately for some, the comm clears up, and a rough woman's voice comes through. "Shit, I knew I should've primed the timers before I left.." Though it seemed to be muttering to herself. Her own monoeye -just now- seems to pick up everyone else who probably already had a gun trained on her or something.

"Hey, P4C Val Faire here. Any of you wimps seen the big penis? Been told he's the new boss." She gets back up to her feet, much to the PA's protest in a odd creaking noise.

Autumn was fairly surprised by the sound of explosions, but she frowned slightly- she hadn't primed anything herself since she was concerned with accidentally collapsing the subway on the survivors below. She was still very concerned since she was now inside the tunnel herself.

She grabbed a couple of boxes from the cabinet and hopped in the back of the truck. "Yeah, welcome to the party. We got to go!" The boxes were settled in the lap of her RAIDER as she started fiddling with her discoveries, quickly trying to figure out if she could make it all go 'boom' later on. She quickly came to realize that she still needed a few things that the civilians might have on them. "Crap."

John didn't need any more prodding. After everyone had loaded into the back of the truck, the Nepleslian started the engine and cranked that baby into action. He first made some space, backing out a few feet to get a bit of maneuverability, then punched the throttle forward and began the vehicle's escape from the subway and their imminent doom.

Alexandra remained guarding the entrance, she held her LSP and was about to fire at first crab, when suddenly a Hostile rushed in, crusthing the beast and making its way into the subway station. Good thing she arrived in time, because if she came two minutes late, all that would be here was a ton of crabs.

"Get going I will try to hod them back meanwhile!" Alex said to others. Her LSP should be more than enough to deal with crabs.

Stern-faced, Bernhard began walking alongside the truck as it picked up speed. The faster it accelerated, the more Bernhard matched its speed with his faulty thrusters. He didn't dare use too much power, coaxing them gently to ensure that the strain wasn't too much. Bernhard also had to correct the leftwards skewed angle that his power armor's rear thrusters kept sending him. Bernhard really didn't want to crash into the truck.

Vanderhuge was not that impressive to him. Physically, the man was imposing. But tactically, he seemed completely lost. Bernhard tried to remember what the then-Rear Admiral Valken had said when he first took command of 4th Fleet. Something about how he knew little about ground combat and did not want to interfere with the commanders. Yet he was also doing his best, at least when Bernhard had left, to ensure that the cooperation between Marine and Naval assets was top notch. Maybe, like Valken, Vanderhuge was useless on the ground as a commander.

Admiral De Luca seemed more aware of what was going on. He wondered about that. "Hey, Yuriko. Does it seem like the Grand Admiral isn't all that hot as a ground commander? I mean, he's a Navy officer so his training isn't in this sort of thing. Maybe you should ask him to let you lead since you're the ranking Marine," Bernhard said to Yuriko over a private channel.