RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 1] A Side: "High and Dry over Golding"

"Ready sir. When do we start?"

Click to expand...

"Hey hey, stop requesting orders and start giving them." Fian grinned, but he doubt anyone could see that.

After receiving the go-ahead from the ship's Quartermaster, the Master Chief trudged over to the console near the cargo bay ramp and gave it an iron-fisted smack. Red emergency lights and sirens snapped on to remind everyone and everything in the bay that they should be securely strapped, having life support or both.

A few creaking noises later the ramp descended, sending air rushing out into vacuum. A few pieces of litter follow suit, adding to the general junk and pieces of Golding floating outside on the station surface. The bumpy gunmetal grey of the surface was pockmarked with small craters and zig-zagged with man-deep maintenance trenches. Far away isolated flashes of light signaled pockets of resistance from the helpless station forces.

"We are on a roll, people. Lets move quickly. Viktor, follow me." Fian squeezed the flight stick to send his SDD into a controlled acceleration skimming the station surface. Just about 50 meters away he dropped into a trench and entered a cautious stance with laser chaingun pointed down one direction.

"Aye aye, sir." Viktor was on Fian's six in a second, a hand gripping the flight stick of his Dark Demon. Once in the trench, he kept himself about 10 meters behind the Master Chief. "How strong are we anticipating their defenses will be?" he asked quietly over the radio. He was slightly amused at the pitiful distortion of his voice, smirking.

"Sir" Trey responded, watching Fian and Viktor exit the bay and begin moving towards their targets. To his group, Trey ordered "Keep hidden for as long as you can, only take easy shots to avoid giving away your position. After we exit, maintain radio silence unless it's an emergency. Once we're spotted, form back up at the Dust Devil so we can have cover from her defensive guns. Other than that, Have fun, and don't shoot any friendlies." With that, the marine tapped his helmet to remind Harrison and Henry to keep it down and exited the bay himself, searching for something sticking up off the surface to use as cover, and scanning for targets.

"Yes sir." Henry grunted to Trey over radio as he stayed close to the bay, scanning the area for cover, "They won't hear - a thing." He decided to get out of the bay cautiously, staying near the ship so retreat would be simple. He held his LBR up and began to search for targets, carefully as they came, looking mostly for stragglers and loners.

"Harrison." He radioed, "Keep - near here. Keep it low..."

Fian noted that Viktor had moved the DD competently. Excellent.

"How strong are we anticipating their defenses will be?"

Click to expand...

"...Defenses?" Fian laughed on the inside. "We ARE the defenders, probably the best immediate hope of the station too." The Master Chief cradled his chin. "But I like your thinking, lets pretend we are the attacking team for now." Fian stuck his head out of the trench to nod towards a solitary figure scanning a cloud of debris about another 50 meters away. "Take that guy, part of the pirate raiding team, but now stationary and completely oblivious like a typical station sentry. Lets show him how to be a real pirate."

Station schematics showed that the trench they were in splits up just ahead and then both new paths parallels 20 meters from each other, with the 'sentry' standing in the open ground in between. Some parts of the trench had small pieces of wreckage floating around inside. Fian motioned Viktor to take the other path to execute a flanking manuver but to wait for his signal before actually springing the attack. "But avoid visual contact!"

...Meanwhile...

Surprisingly for Alpha, only a single lone DD was in visual range south of the whole team. Further targets were in radar range, but radar disturbance from the pirate vessel were fudging passive sensors. Going active monoeye mode might solve the problem, but it might cause additional problems as well. There were also many trenches in this area as well, in addition to broken scaffoldings that once supported ships in external dock with the station. These griders stuck out like iron pillars from the station surface, some even falling right across trenches.

This lone DD, uncommonly, was carrying a looted LBR-00p making it a formidable sniper. However everything else of it was uncharacteristically sniperish, from standing out in the open to waving its weak active radar around looking for new players in the fray emerging from the just-docked Dust Devil. It was approaching the Red Hill slowly hoping to find something, and it would succeed if Alpha didn't have anything to say about it.

The barrel of Trey's LBR poked through a piece of scaffolding, which was serving as the sniper's cover. He sensed the guy was bait, and didn't want to fire, but knew it would be just as bad to let him get here. Sorely wishing he had an AIR, the rapid movements would make relocating for another shot easy as cake, Trey took aim, glad he didn't have to calculate for wind resistance to his shot. Cursing the Delimma, the Sniper took his chances and pulled the trigger, aiming for a head shot, figuring a quick decapitation would prevent him from radioing for help if he were wounded.

Still speaking in quieter tone, Viktor replied, "The way I see it, sir, we are trying to recover Golding, which means that it's their fort." He moved down the other path, keeping low to avoid visual detection. "If it's their fort, sir, they're defending. That's my logic, anyways. He was at the point in the trench nearest to the lone sentry. "I don't see nor detect any other sentries, sir. How does it look from there?"

Viktor was just itching to leap out of the trench and knife this sentry; unfortunately, he didn't have any sort of melee weapon. Slowly and quietly he pulled the EMP rifle off of his dark pack. "May I make a suggestion, sir? I can drop an EMP on this guy and you can tear him a new one. Won't ever know what hit him."

"Negative, Viktor." Harrison crouched against a low bulkhead, obscured partially in shadow- save the telltale glow of his monoeye. He held his LBR at the ready position, stock pressed lightly against his shoulder, barrel down.

"If we were to set off an EMP, we might fry ourselves and any security systems in the localized area so badly we couldn't re-activate them. I suggest one of us obscures himself, gets in close and takes care of him quietly while the others provide cover." The merc-turned-soldier suggested as he carefully drew a bead on the sniper's shooting arm with his LBR.

The shot was so easy to make, it was like routine target practice.

"BWUSH!"

A flash of blue light, an arching recoil and a streaking white beam later the DD's entire head unit and a small piece of station hull directly behind it was annhiliated. At first the headless Power Armor stopped in it's tracks still standing, but a split second later the second shot fired by Harrison passed right through the upper assembly of the LBR-00p and then ripped out its left arm in a small explosion. The unfortunate DD piruetted twice and then collasped as the station's artificial gravity took it down.

The HUD of the M2 suits flashed as the passive sensors detected a radar pulse was fired on their location from the pirate vessel across the station, but detection was unlikely if the WATER2s were in ideal Mass Mesher conditions (Cover) during that time. Not suprisingly, their own radar capitalizing on this pulse did not return any hostile units slightly beyond visual range, the enemy could have either wised up or were also using their own MM systems.

Meanwhile...

"Harrison, the help is appreciated but I didn't put you on the M2 for you to be distracted." Fian snapped, checking on non-immediate squadmates was a squad-leader's job and the Master Chief had noted the almost unessesary overkill on the first hostile DD.

On closer inspection, the prey of the duo was a banged-up AIR1. It was utilizing both monoeyes to inspect the floating debris cloud for any worthwhile salvage.

Fian switched the channel back to Viktor. "Just dont set the EMP rifle off at point blank, thats all." In the trench opposite Viktor, Fian dropped into a ready stance, checked his directional fins one more time and then cracked his knuckles in delight. "None here either. We'll go with your plan Viktor, ready when you are."

Harrison hmmphed as he adjusted his cover position, looking through the debris cloud.

"Alright, I'm ready when you guys are."

After the Radar ping dissipated, Trey moved to a new cover, 10 meters or so farther from the Dust Devil than his last one. "Harrison, Keep it down, they can pick up on communications." The Sniper shook his head. the poor saps didn't know how keep a low profile, or how to be sneaky. Too used to open combat. he figured, scanning the area in front of himself. He might have to put some of the other marines through a crash course in sniper tactics once the mission was over. they would need it if this ever happened again.

Harrison mentally rubbed his temples as he considered flicking the switch that would disconnect the comlink between himself and Penton. Apparently no-one had read his background dossier when he had been accepted, and he briefly amused the thought of swooping in and rescuing Trey when things got too hot just to show him up, but he quickly tossed that thought aside as he adjusted his aim again, still searching for hostiles.

"Yes sir." He was slightly surprised that his idea had been approved after Harrison's talk down, but none the less, he knew exactly how he was going to do it. "Dropping the Emp in three... two... mark!" As he said two, he gave his DD the slightest boost to bring half of it above the trench's top. On mark, he had targeted the AIR1 and pulled the trigger on the EMP. Then his Dark Demon dropped into the trench; then he waited for the sound of victory... or Fian's untimely defeat. He was highly doubting the latter, though. This man was highly capable, and it was just one enemy.

A blue electric arc emitted from Viktor's gun, overwhelmed the AIR1's negligible shields and struck it cleanly in its right shoulder, sending the Monoeye and arm twitching wildly. It turned towards its attacker to release an ill-aimed bolt with an LBR-00p, the shot missed everything and disappeared into space. The remaining Monoeye glowed and looked furiously for Viktor, but did a 180 degree turn when a loud screeching noise sounded behind it.

"HO, BOY-YO!" The Master Chief shouted as he smashed his heavier armored SDD into the Element 1 suit, sending both suits into the trench occupied by Viktor. The AIR1 hit the sides of the trench hard, denting the left Monoeye unit severely. Being on top of that pile of metal, Fian ripped out the suit's communication's antenna and was about to begin punching the lights out of the head unit when he realized his opponent had gone completely limp.

"What the hell? Viktor, put a few more EMP shots into it as I move away." Fian nudged his flight stick backwards.

Further away...

Nothing new appeared on Harrison's HUD, But Trey had spotted two DDs moving across the station in a shallow trench at extreme visual range. They appeared to be moving towards some radar activity, possibly a small firefight further away. It was not easy to tell as the characteristic Fast Boosters were not visible, but the head unit and dark pack could be identified with magnification.

For Henry however, his sharp eye had noticed a brief and slight movement in a trench about 40 away from the Dust Devil and between him and his immediate superior. It could be a hostile suit or stray machinery, stationary or moving. It was hard to tell with just eyeball.

Trey crept forward a few more meters, to another piece of scaffolding, which he was liking because it provided cover for most of his suit while still allowing him a fairly clear shot. He trained in on one of the DD's heads, and mentally calculated the odds of hitting at this range. Since they obviously weren't looking for him he still had the advantage. The sniper looked for a good shot. He knew that a well timed shot could kill both of them, but he wasn't counting on that. Instead, he focused on the closest one, leading for the movement and mentally prepared himself for possible close combat, pulling the trigger once more.

Harrison spotted Trey moving and traced the path his head was following down to the moving DDs. Also noting their position, Harrison shifted so that he could draw a firing line on the DD units and support.

Trey fired before Harrison was ready, so he was left with no choice but to shoot the gun from the hip, firing a three-shot volley at the first DD.

"Hm?" Henry noticed a small amount of movement. Small, but it could pose a threat nonetheless. He decided to get the WATER2's Monoeyes in an attempt to further assess the target. He had to get a full judgement on the object to eliminate it if it's a threat or leave it be if it's scenery.

He knew it'd make his presence known to get a better look - but if it he was found out by whatever that was on the ground, it wouldn't last for much longer.
"Sir. Movement..." Henry radioed to Trey and Fian, "40 away from - Dust Devil."

"Copy, sir." Viktor took aim and blasted the headpiece once Fian was out of range. Then he charged a second shot and loosed it on the chest piece. "Disabled sir, and I'm still not reading any enemies in the area. What's our next move?"

"BWUSH!"

It was a shot that tested the Sniper's finesse plus a bit of luck, Trey's LBR bolt missed the head unit but tore right into the upper portion of the Dark Pack. The pack violently exploded, sending the DD to its knees and its partner diving for cover. Now fully obscured by the upper portion of the trench, it is not known if Trey's victim can continue fighting but the chances were very very slim.

"BWUSH!" "BWUSH!" "BWUSH!"

Harrison's bolts went wild, the first one punched a hole in the scaffolding near the pair by virtue of the rifle being pointed at that general direction plus minimal Savtech-aiming, but the other two disappeared into the horizon as the LBR arched upwards from the heavy recoil. The remaining DD touched the bottom of the trench and disappeared from sight.

Henry's Monoeyes took a moment to focus and then begain to glow furiously red. Subspace particles bouncing back from the small area illuminated a maintenance control panel and a DD with Panzerfaust ready. It appeared to be trying to ambush Trey as the S1C revealed himself by taking the shot, but as soon as it realized it was spotted, it quickly turned towards the source of the particles and fired its Antimatter rocket while its racks were preparing to release a swarm of mini missiles.

A second radar ping resonated through the area, a red exclamation mark under the M2's HUD indicated that Harrison had been spotted as his Mass Mesher was still in the cooling off period.

Elsewhere...

Fian Vel Steyr was puzzled by the AIR1 pilot's unusual behaviour. But at least it wasn't an immediate concern as the suit was thoroughly disabled. As a precaution and a degree of practicality, the Master Chief disconnected the AIR1's skirt armor and removed its VBCS Chainsword plus 10 UMD/FMD High Explosive shells that could double as grenades. He set aside 5 of the shells for Viktor and then offered up the Chainsword.

"You want this?"

As Viktor's directional radar was pointed in the direction away from the Dust Devil and behind Fian he picked up, albeit in low-resolution, a large bulbous Power Armor moving towards them under gravitic drive from a distance away.

Harrison quickly moved further back towards the Dust Devil and dove behind an overturned cargo transporting vehicle, hoping that any shots directed at him would miss. Crouching behind the vehicle, Harrison poked his monoeyes over the top (bottom?) of the vehicle and looked around, drawing a bead on the next armor.

"Trey, can you get a number on the amount of enemies?" Harrison asked as he squeezed the trigger ever-so-lightly, sending the beam of death at the target.