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

Anselm looked around "fucktastic, our pants are literally down... Talbain, you and me are taking the rear, we're gonna be last ones to leave once the Master Chief gets out of his dressing room; it'd be best if we all get ready to run all the way to the Armory..." he checked in on the drone he'd left there "no one's touched it yet, the doors are still shut, we probably don't have much time till some jimmies get the bright idea to check it" as if enforcing his decision he floated to the back of the squad and readied himself to unleash a barrage of fire at the unknowns coming around.

He looked back at the squad "You're free to disagree and give orders otherwise seeing as... well, everyone else is higher ranked than me, but we need to move as soon as the MC is suited up."

"Roger, moving to cover rear. Someone take up point."

With that Talbain moved back down the hallway to where the corner was and stuck his shoulder monoeye around to check for the incoming enemies. It bothered him that someone had just picked up and left a position without being relieved when enemies were coming, but he didn't voice his concerns. It could wait.

"Sounds like use of the PAL is in your discretion, Harrison, seeing as the Master Chief doesn't have communicative abilities at the moment. If they hit that corner before he's ready, I'm all for using it, but I'm not the one holding the weapon." He looked behind him toward Talbain and Ansem and the general direction of the Armory. "Anybody good with mental math want to give a calculation on how long it'll take those jimmies to get there?"

Talbain's Aggressor could see the Daisy-Chained Panzerfausts lying just before the next corner where Harrison left it, together with a large number of wrecked PA carcasses littering the corridor. His sensors suddenly flashed red briefly, a small klaxon sounding and a trio of arrows pointed at a large glowing red dot staring back at him from the corner... It was the shoulder Monoeye unit of a Hostile... A hostile Hostile.

At first it was merely content to keep staring back, mimicking Talbain. And then the unit started descending, as though the suit was bending it's knees. Very sneakily a nerimium guarded arm slowly snaked into view, trying to grab the trio of Panzerfausts that was just inches away from it's outstretched fingertips.

Talbain called out "Enemy PA identified as Hostile" as soon as he recognized the shoulder armor. And was content to let it stare at him hoping it would buy Chief Vel Steyr enough time to finish suiting up.
When the arm popped into view going after the Panzerfausts only one thing mattered. Not letting the enemies get them. Even without considering the PPG of the Hostile this was not something Talbain was going to allow.

He popped out of the corner and started firing AMP rounds at the Panzerfausts while he tried to activate his Monoeyes and shoulder turrets.

"Shit, a Hostile? I really don't think I want to know what the other two are." To make matters worse, his HUD was reporting that Talbain was engaging since Viktor was currently experiencing a lull in combat. Godamit, he thought. We'll have to move up then... but we can't abandon Fian. Think... Kai and Harrison would make great cover. "Anselm, come with me! We're gonna make sure Talbain has support." Without waiting for an answer, he boosted down the corridor, monoeye reactivated. At the corner he veered sharply, hugging the wall. He turned the boosters off and came to a halt. He fired his LBR every time he could get a clear shot past Talbain, which occurred thrice, using his monoeye and SAVTECH to aim for the chest.

Knowing his own skills, Trey simply hunkered down in place, pointing down the hall in the direction the others had rushed; in case they had to fall back, The sniper was ready. Although he figured he didn't need to, the Sniper voiced his decision. "I'm sticking back to cover the Master Chief. If anything other than you guys turns that corner it won't live long."

Harrison didn't complain. He'd left the daisy-chained Panzerfausts behind because he'd planned to blow them up when (if) push came to shove, and if the hostile Hostile decided to go for them, good for him- it would be exploding in his face instead.

So he stood at the door and aimed his PAL down the corridor, mouthing "Covering the Master Chief."

Anselm nodded as Kingston boosted past him, he quickly followed suit, flicking his HPAR to autofire and jetting to the corner. His landing was sloppy and caused him to skid along the floor, spinning his Hostile to face down the corridor; the marine swore under his breath and unleashed a torrent of semi-molten metal down the hallway in the opposing Hostile's general direction "Have a coin on me, friend, buy yourself a drink in the afterlife!" Then he remembered they were fighting tin cans in tin cans and silently cursed the tele-operators for ruining his line.

"These tin cans are gonna keep coming, right?" the marine asked rhetorically of his fellows over comms "wave after wave until we run out of space, shields, and ammo; gods be damned, these fuckers are really starting to PISS ME OFF!"

Henry could only fire his HPAR in single bursts with one hand if he wanted to make sure he didn't hit anyone else. He had the feeling that since his arm was out, and there was nothing else to suit up in nearby, he'd have to duke out the pain in this condition.
He decided to stay near the walls and keep close to use them and any supports nearby as cover.

"Fuck off." Henry mumbled to himself as took Mono-eye assisted aim and let off one stream of liquid metal to compliment Alselm's shooting. It took him a moment to re-adjust his aim after each shot without his left arm to brace the weapon.
However, Henry was aiming for the weapon on the Hostile rather than the hostile itself. He always learned that shooting out the other guy's primary weapon was a viable way to save you trouble.

"Wow... Henry, it's just a combat op. Calm down, buddy." Harrison said, shouldering his PAL and getting ready to fire when more opponents came- if necessary firing the big cannon at the hidden, hostile Hostile.

Seeing Talbain raise his AMP, the Hostile quickly activated the 'pull' function on its PPP, sending the Daisy Chain into it's waiting arms but not before a close shot from the Aggressor's AMP melted off part of the handle, making the device impossible to fire. Tracking the trio of 'fausts, the next plasma round dissipated into the Hostile's full shields, creating large ripples in the shield bubble.

Viktor was up next, speeding round the corridor and on Talbain's side, two out of the three bolts he unleashed found their mark, the first one hitting dead on dealing the most shield damage, the second one hitting just a little higher breaking the shields and damaging it's right Monoeye unit, and the third one missing as the Hostile executed an auto-roll, oddly, away from the cover of the corner and further out. It shielded the potent warheads with its own curled up body.

Anselm's rapid-fired shots had no problems hitting the stationary target. The plasma coins caked themselves all over the left arm of the Hostile and some on the backpack. The shoulder guard which took the most damage fell off to prevent the heat from spreading. The enemy suit shuddered, as though writhing in pain.

The Hostile's weapon was not visible, so Henry's SAVTECH took the prerogative to switch the fire-selector to burst to assist in controllability and zoomed for the damaged arm. The first three melted into the armor and created two successive gushes of steam from the hole, the first one which was greenish was from the vaporized cushioning gel, the second one which was reddish was new.

His next burst however bounced off an invisible barrier, it was impossible that the hostile regenerated it's shield bubble that quickly. Zooming out, the tech-sniper caught sight of a heavily armored foot stepping out from the corner, followed by a plasma rain from twin chaingun turrets. While inherently inaccurate, the PCT from the aggressor Aggressor had an easy time hitting the four suits packed into the tiny corner down the hallway, most of them even had Monoeyes activated. It unshouldered its massive AOP and took aim at its aggressor Aggressor who was also returning auto-fire from his own PCTs.

The warning klaxons of all four suits rang again, tri arrows pointing behind the Aggressor where the shadow of a suit with two large shoulder-mounter cannons appeared, waiting for the large M9 to move forward to give it legroom to move it's equally huge body into the firing line.

Through the station walls, a faint radar ping was detected.

"You must be fucking kidding me," Kingston muttered to himself. "Hostile, Aggressor, and Crooked Demon! Fall the fuck back, we need to lure them to the PAL! Move move move!" His shield took a couple hits from the heavy plasma weapon, dropping them to 82% as he moved behind the wall for some cover. "I'll lay cover, just drop back!" The Hostile was now hidden behind the form of Talbain, and the CD was obviously still tucked behind the Aggressor, so all his cover fire at the moment was targeting the Aggressor. "Harrison, we're on our way, be ready to waste some really big bastards."

"Heh, say goodnight-" Anselm smiled as he activated his Noisemaker again, the rest of his witty one-liner was drowned by static noise as the ECM device flooded the hallways. Anselm really hoped these suits were tele-operated, he communicated as much to his fellows giving strong suggestions to fall back in case there were flesh-and-blood pilots in the enemy PAs. Anselm fired another long burst into the Hostile and Aggressor units, sound pickups on his comrade's armors might have been able to hear his muffled yelling even despite the white noise from his Noisemaker unit. Despite looking impresively meatheaded Anselm was ready to use his boosters to full effect if any of the suits looked like they were still active.

Talbain almost had a plan formulated but that went out the window as soon as Anselm flipped the switch on his noisemaker. "Fucking fuckdamn!" was sworn over the communications channel but Talbain didn't care if anyone heard it or not.

He immediately reached out and grabbed Anselm's Hostile and practically threw him behind cover. Too bad about that leg but being pissed was better than dead. Then he got behind the corner of the hall, killed his monoeyes, and started blind firing down the hall on automatic with his AMP hoping to keep the pressure on the shields of the enemy Aggressor.

He had one more thought as he sprayed rounds down the corridor, "I hope AOP rounds don't go around corners."

The noisemaker had rattled Henry's senses considerably, making his suit slump against the wall somewhat. When the noise subsided, he steadied back up.
"Warn us first, damn it!" He said while his ears stopped ringing.

Henry said as he raised his HPAR again, still aiming at the enemy Hostile, "Talbain," Henry said as he fired from cover, "The day the boffins at NAM, invent that, is the day Trey and I, cease to be snipers. Trey, more so."

"Ten-four on the PAL request, keep them coming." Harrison said, moving forward slightly and attempting to get a line of sight on the hallway where the Triple Alliance was advancing on his crewmates.

"Just keep drawing them, I'll tell you when to drop so I don't nail you instead of the hostiles."

The enemy Aggressor seemingly ignored the massive outpouring of firepower from Talbain, Viktor and Henry. The plasma and antimatter reflected off its shields devastating the walls of the tunnel, with each deflection however the shield bubble resounded weaker and weaker, while absorbing an attack like that was no mean feat, if repeated, would certainly deal permanent damage to the lumbering suit.

During a pause in the attack, the Aggressor steadied itself, and then launched a large continuous swarm of potentially 500 over ARROWS from it's racks. In the obscuring smoke it also pulled the trigger on the AOP, sending a mini torpedo intermingled in the mini missiles racing towards the group.

Anselm stumbled into the wall cursing like a... well, like a marine. "Talbain!" he yelled into his comm, shutting off his Noisemaker since it wasn't going to be of much use "You better not get yourself killed," he checked his missiles and rifle for damage, everything was green "that's my job!"

The marine backed up and made room for the others to retreat and so he could give them covering fire, making sure he'd be well out of the path of Harrison's line of fire to the corner, taking the far wall so he'd have the earliest warning when the enemy started approaching the corner.

"Damn it!" Viktor shouted. The aggressive attitude was bound to get that Marine killed sooner or later. For now, it was their duty to make an effort at prolonging his existence. "Back up, I'm popping my CPD." As Private Kingston's M2 came around the corridor junction he let off the CPD, leaving the smokescreen hanging around the entire junction. "Keep moving guys, let Harrison hit 'em with the big gun." He had his back to Kai and Harrison, backboosting with his gun trained on the smoked corridor. At the last second he remembered to disable his monoeye.