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

Two Panzerfausts were still attached to the bullet ridden swing-panels of the Dark Demon, miraculously unscathed.

Two LBR bolts from Trey Penton and Viktor Kingston struck the Aggressor cleanly, wiping off large amounts of shield energy and leaving the shield bubble teetering on collapse. Henry Morris and Anselm Wyatt's HPAR shots were bouncing off the bubble closer and closer to the surface of the PA before the shield finally gave way and the coins started imprinting themselves on the heavy Nerimium armor. The Albino's one in particular damaged the magazine of the AOP, it was too far to tell the extent and effect of the damage.

The swarms of micro missiles from both sides met in the center again, producing similar predictable results. The many explosions caught the trailing wires of Trey's arrestors which were still on-route to the enemy, the sniper would never see them again. Due to the cutbacks on Talbain's part, about 30 ARROWs managed to temporarily evade destruction before 12 automatic PLAs from the Marine's suit started mercilessly cutting them down. While the point defences were busy however, an AOP torpedo that was using the smaller missiles as a decoy shot forth from the smoke cloud, threatening to catch the entire squad in an explosion.

It flew past the two tankers upfront and had started angling downwards to smack into one of the snipers before a PPG field caught it in midair and flung it to explode further down the corridor. Fian Vel Steyr might not profess to knowing the capabilities of the new Hostile or Aggressor, but the M9 uses the same AOP from the EARTH1, a suit from his generation. Now finally clad in the all new AIR-R STORM, he raised his FMD to deal some damage of his own.

The Crooked Demon poked a cannon round the corner to unleash a sweeping shot that dropped both Talbain's and Anselm's shields to 30%. It also seriously damaged Henry's shields, who made no attempt to simply duck to avoid the beam. A return shot of two tungsten rounds from Fian put two medium sized holes in the CD's shoulder, the aether cannon jerked upwards and sideways as its internal mechanisms were smashed by the rounds. It shyly moved back in deeper and out of sight to avoid further punishment.

The hostile Hostile's HPAR burst flew over and completely missed every member of the group. It was laughable, seemingly embarrassed it withdrew from sight.

The enemy Aggressor took further armor damage from Talbain's plasma turrets, together with the AMP they melted off staggering amounts of armor from the suit, the molten golden liquid pooling near the behemoth's feet. Noticing a bright orange ball headed in its direction it quickly turned around to have the damage distributed over his undamaged rear. Luckly for him even though the PAL was angled as high as possible for maximum range without hitting the celling, the shot fell short. The Aggressor's backside looked like it was on fire when it scurried away from its unadvanceable position. The enemy has completely retreated, and the marines had breathing space for now.

Fian grabbed Henry on both shoulders and shook the techie hard. While vital signs were still fine, the marine's brainwaves were dropping, he was entering a comatose state while still standing. "Hey, soldier, Answer me. Hey, hey? HEY!"

Henry was a bit concussed from the overload of sensory information given by the massive hit to his shields. His head felt very heavy on his shoulders as his eyes tried to refocus on what was going on, but to no avail.

"Pardon me - could you, follow that cab...?" He radioed groggily to Fian before going a bit limper in his grip, dropping the HPAR, which had about 30 shots left in it, "... I feel ... kinda ... kinda ... heavy ... like my armour ..."
His words began drifting off as the suit went completely limp, slumping conveniently against the wall.

The sensory overload had done a bit of hell to his head, leaving a nasty bruise, some concussion and some minor damage to the computer database in his brain, and in turn, the images in his cybernetic eyes.

Talbain holstered his AMP and picked up the two Panzerfausts while checking his reserves of BOLTs. Sixty and ninety, he couldn't help to be disappointed with the DD as the only enemy casualty.
Henry's collapse didn't sit well with the ID-SOL either. All his physicals were green. He should be fine. But he didn't know much medical beyond if it bleeds put pressure on it.
"Chief, what should we do with Henry? Carrying him could be an issue but we can't just leave him in the open either."

"Give him to me, sir. The LBR's my only real weapon at the moment because I'm all out of missiles, and I'm pretty sure everyone else is better equipped to continue this fight than I am." He boosted the short distance over to Henry, believing that there was a 99% chance his idea would be selected as the best option, but hesitated to pick the limp body up; there was always that 1%...

"Fuckin' run, you pirate wenches!" Anselm cursed over his loudspeaker, his internal monologue was quite different "Shit, Henry is out of it and my legs are useless, two fuckin' casualities and we still have that fuckin' hallway to get down..." the marine used the enemy retreat to check on his drone and the armory it was guarding, the armory his squadmates intended to get to, he hoped the pirates hadn't sacked it yet.

Fian unshouldered Henry to Viktor. "Careful about the arm, don't put unnecessary force on it or the inner armor will break." He also took the time to reflect, he always had a presumption that Nepleslian marines were the kind that would take any opportunity to shoot at something. But it seems that this didn't apply to this group, well, not every Nepleslian marine is exhaused, out of ammunition, armor damaged and bogged down by a member.

'Damm it Rico! If this goes on you're gonna get your work cut out for you. We're in this shit long enough already, where are you?!

There were a few ways to continue on with the mission, it was best to assess the situation and condition of the squad before moving on. The Master Chief signalled for the group's attention and asked mellowly, it was difficult to be all officer-uppity when he didn't contribute much in the last fight. "Gentlemen. How are you holding up?"

"Chief." Talbain called out, "No damage. One hundred-fifty BOLTs, AMP down to thirty percent, and 2 Panzerfausts." He held the anti-armor weapons out for display a moment.
He paused for a moment before continuing. "They're actually starting to send people after us in good PAs that use tactics. I can't keep fighting like this. I just don't have that kind of ammo reserve sitting around."

"Ammo for the chainguns is way down," Harrison relayed from his post in the hallway, still keeping an eye on the T-junction where every hostile armor in its vicinity had just attempted to invade, "But okay on PAL ammunition. How much longer can we hold out here, anyways?"

"I am out of any form of Micro-missiles, and seem to have misplaced the prongs from my arrestor guard" Trey said, holding up the shield two demonstrate. "But, I have plenty of LBR ammunition for now. I can hold off, But i'll need a re-supply soon." the sniper said, sounding none too concerned. to his mind, having survived that assault at such close range without being targeted was a good thing, and he was fairly happy with himself. However, he had wished that he had been able to score a kill on one of those two bigger PA's, they would be a problem in the future, if they decided to follow the group.

Anselm looked at everyone else "Not too bad, Master Cheif, I'm out of BOLTs, about 500-some HPAR rounds left, LSP is in good shape, but I lost my other one, my legs are both disabled..." his gravity drive kicked on again and the marine floated himself into better cover "if we sit here any longer those pirates are gonna get that armory.. if we want to have anything to resupply with I suggest we haul alloy and get moving..." he added a quick "Sir" to avoid offending his superiors.

Viktor took on Henry's weight, careful not to catch the arm in his grip. With his left arm now he held the limp Nepleslian and with his right he was still carrying the LBR. He kept his back to the storage room door. "Cozy on shots with my LBR, but missiles are empty. Shields are still at safe levels."

"All right." Fian mentally noted down what each of them had said, not just the hard facts (These he could pull out from his HUD with some effort), but how they said it. A bit of anxiety, but also some determination. The ammunition might be low but the will is still high. He clenched his armored fist. "We'll take the fight to them yet!"

"Harrison, Talbain, bring up the rear. Your suits are excellent at buying time. Trey, upfront with me. Anselm, Viktor, stay in the middle. Cameras show no more hostiles between here and there, but I'm not going to take any chances."

"Move out!" The Master Chief kicked in his vernier thrusters, the M1 AIR-Rs large skirt armor parted slightly to angle the jets downwards. Hovering off the ground, he held up the RAPTOR battle rifle that came with the suit and advanced down the corridor at slightly faster than walking pace.

"Confirmed, Master Chief. Bringing up the rear." Harrison continued to face the T-junction as everyone prepared to move out.

"Let's rock and roll and nail this sucker home."

"Read you sir," was the fresh Marine's response. Once Anselm was on the move, Kingston kicked his PA into action, which was exerting slightly more energy than usual to keep afloat and apace with the larger Power Armor. With the downtime, he checked to make sure his monoeyes were off, his shields were rebuilding to full strength, and that Henry wasn't showing any signs of trouble. On that train of thought...

Either Henry really wasn't cut out to be a Marine or he was having a really bad day, because this was the second time he'd fallen unconscious. Admittedly, he had been hit by a Crooked Demon and then a harsh shot from an Aether Cannon, but this wasn't exactly the best time or place to go limp, excuse the pun.

"Aye, Sir" the albino confirmed taking up position behind the vanguard, keeping his eyes to the rear while the rest of the squad formed up, just in case.

Trey simply nodded, figuring the motion would make sense. He trotted up to the front and made sure that his LBR was functioning properly before following just behind Fian, at a light jog.

"Roger Chief" was the only thing hear from the Aggressor as it took up its position at the back of the line. With all his monoeyes set to passive Talbain hovered behind the group facing the way the had come. Ready to launch his liberated Panzerfausts at anything that tried to sneak up behind them.

Exactly as what the Master Chief said, the group did not encounter any enemies along the way. They have, however discovered an unproportionally large number of deadlocked doors, the consoles that opened them were frozen and unusable. Here and there a body perforated and burnt with laserfire, but not enough to constitute wholesale slaughter, it was a nice departure from the Reds who generally killed unnecessarily.

As the neared the hall where the entrance to the armory was, a faint tapping and whirring noise could be heard. Signalling the company to stop, Fian pressed himself near the corner, trying to edge closer to take a peek but withdrew back quickly when he saw the tip of a Dark Demon backpack across their position near a door marked General Storage 1. This was not the source of the noise however, it was closer to the armory door.

The Master Chief peevishly opened the squad channel. "Can't see how many are there. Anyone's got any bright ideas?"

Viktor didn't take more than a second to respond. "Didn't Anselm have a drone in the vicinity?" He paused just to let the thought course through each mind before continuing. "And if it's not capable of providing the information, we could send three across to the other corridor strafe-firing to draw them out, and then pincer."

"I'll draw them out, if I have to," Harrison volunteered, raising his hand slightly and giving a small wave of it. "Even if I don't move as fast as Talbain or Anselm, my suit's got the third-heaviest armor and the second-highest shield strength. I reckon if I haul ass, I could make it."