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

"I copy, Morris" Trey said, maintaining position but turning around to keep his rear covered. As soon as the S1C turned around he saw the DD fire its rocket, and took aim at it from behind, with less time he fired for the center of mass to increase his chances of a hit. Hopefully he hadn't just doomed himself by turning his back on a target, but he knew it was his responsibility to do what he could for his little squad.

"Oh -" Henry sighed to himself as the Panzerfaust rocket began sailing in his direction. He then armed his Pulse Laser Array on the WATER 2 and fired it at the incoming rocket, hoping to blow it up before it got to him.

When the more immediate threat was over, he then aimed his LBR at where the missile came from and fired - aiming for the head. He assumed that whoever fired that missile had space to rent there.
"Son of a bitch must die!" He mumbled to himself.

The first blue bolt of death from Harrison, guided by the finest in NAM sensor technology, impacted squarely on the DD's chest bypassing the shields as though they weren't there and ripping through the thickest portion of the suit's armor. The DD staggered and tilted backwards, in the process sending its mini missiles flying upwards to vanish into the horizon of space.

The second blue bolt from behind, a short range and efficient snapshot by Trey, passed right through the gap between the Dark Pack and Fast Booster kissing the DD in its thinner rear armor. The impact of the shot coupled with a residual magnetic wave from the LBR propelling its positron payload strongly pushed the DD forward.

With an active Monoeye lock on his target, Henry's PLR lasers found their way easily, intercepting the antimatter warhead about halfway between his WATER2 and the DD. A small white explosion sent antimatter droplets spraying everywhere but the one or two raindrop sized globs that did hit him only frazzled his shields dealing negligible damage.

Henry's vengefully aimed LBR bolt sallied through the small cloud created by what that is left of the warhead. At first it is as though he would miss as the DD stumbled unexpectedly backwards but as the group leader's shot pushed him back forward, the bolt tore into the section between the head unit and Dark Pack breeching the Aether Converter. It was all over for this unfortunate unit as his generator lost containment and exploded in a red cloud, almost leaving nothing behind to mark its demise.

Rapidly fired laser beams from Type 1.5s were directed towards Trey and Henry from two points in a distant trench. Trey's silhouette partially obscured by the trench walls only caused the beams to deal him small damage characterized by his shield indicator turning one shade of blue lighter. Henry, not really in cover but at a distance much further from the enemy also only received minimal damage with the prospect of more if he didn't find better protection.

Harrison's HUD blinked red again, not to indicate that he was spotted however as the enemy had that over and done with. What it pointed to was a high energy reaction beyond visual range, and a bright orange-red ball being launched at an angle upwards but towards him at the conclusion of this reaction. This watermelon sized ball, currently about 300 meters away and closing, seemed all too familiar to the former mercenary, who had spent most of his time in the SMoDIN lobbing similar balls at the enemies of the Nepleslian empire.

"shit" trey muttered to himself, crouching behind his cover so it would be more effective and drawing a bead on the type one shots' owners. Figuring that he was no longer hidden anyway, Trey finally turned on his Monoeyes and had them help aim towards the enemies in the distant trench. "It's getting hot guys" the P1C finally said over the radio "Fall back if it gets much worse." At about that moment the large ball of orange began flying in their direction, and Trey knew the enemies had some heavy hitters at their disposal, cursing that he was now an open target. Trey pulled his trigger soon aafter his monoeye gave him a lock, making sure to add his own personal touch to the shot, then turned the blasted sensor/bright glowing beacon off.

"Oh, you've got to be shitting me." Harrison said as he swapped out positions for the nearest trench, avoiding the all-too-well-known blast radius of the round discharged from a FIRE1's projector- a weapon he was all too familiar. He crouched his head below the trench and switched the comlink on, quickly sending a message to Fian:

"Master Chief Vel Steyr, it's Harrison. We have an active FIRE1 armor on the field, position unknown, although within firing range."

Behind his helmet, Viktor smirked. "Yes sir." As he took the chainsword from the Master Chief, he noticed the blip on his HUD. "We've got an incoming Power Armor, sir, and I'm pretty sure he noticed our little scuffle." With the rifle in his right hand and the chainsword in his left, Viktor was quite prepared to handle a distant or near threat, but he was at a loss as how to approach this situation. If he went over the top, he'd definitely alert any other Power Armors -- possibly snipers! -- to his location, and bring about his own demise; on the other hand, if they waited and the enemy was carrying large explosives, they were fish in a barrel standing in the trench. "Suggestions for engagement, sir?" he asked, and at the same time took five steps back, putting distance between himself and Fian... just in case the PA was carrying something big.

The plasma bomb's inefficient angling and distance gave Harrison all the time to move away to another trench out of the blast radius. At the end of this time the bomb smashed into wrecked vehicle, its dissipating magnetic containment field breaking the hulk apart and after that, the erupting plasma sending molten metal flying in all directions. He also managed to avoid taking suppressing fire as these were directed at his other two teammates.

While Trey was drawing the bead, his opponent was merrily sapping away at the upper portion of the S1Cs shields with the Type 1.5, causing the indicator to drop from blue to green. The pirate also managed to duck in time just as the LBR actually fired, the shot grazed the DD's shields but dropped it to zero anyway. The timing was near perfect, they weren't dealing with run-of-the-mill pirates here.

"Master Chief Vel Steyr, it's Harrison. We have an active FIRE1 armor on the field, position unknown, although within firing range."

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Fian pretended he didn't hear it, but forwarded it to Harrison's immediate superior anyway just in case. He expected to draw a lot more suits than that away from Rico's team, ideally, so many that the Casanova would have to bail them out.

"Suggestions for engagement, sir?"

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"Let me look at that."

The Master Chief switched his command view to Viktor's perspective. At first he didn't recognise the silhouette of that specific Power Armor, as he had not fought one before. But soon the memories of the reports he had read, the tapes he had seen and the testimonials of its very first victims, the feeling of uncertainty gave way to the very certain feeling of fear.

"Get down! Stay there!" He hissed at Viktor as he crouched even lower to reduce his profile, it was easier to do so with the DD, but Fian now wished more than ever before that he was in his trusty AIR2. "Its a Crooked Demon, pray it isn't here for us. If it is, we are as good as dead!"

An annoyed Trey would cut in on Harrison's Line "Private, The master Chief put you in my charge, report to me, he has enough to deal with." cutting back out, the sniper crouched into the trench better, to keep his shields from being hit, and started off towards Harrison's position.

Henry was not fazed by the damage to his armour, while his position was still visible, he tried as best as he could to mass-mesh himself back into a stealthy state and tried to blend in with the Station Surface, moving slowly to a better firing position. He radioed the commander with a frown as he stared at the Crooked Demon down on the ground.

"A crooked demon... Trey, you've any idea - what you're dealing with?" Henry asserted to his superior. He'd fought one of these before and his captain at the time (Ran Rui) had gotten a nasty injury because of it, "These hulks, will simply shrug off a frontal assault - we need to aim for the back."

Henry was considering firing at it and luring towards him and away from the group on the ground and attract its attention to Henry, and showing off its vulnerable posterior to Fian and Viktor. A risky move, but could keep their arse from getting toasted the same way Ran did.

BWUSH!!

Harrison scratched his head. The CD wasn't facing him, and as of right now he didn't have a proper line of sight to the beastly armor's back. He would have to relocate, and in that process poke his head up into the enemy line of sight. So, with nothing to do but wait for the beast to move itself, he waited.

Viktor's eyes widened slightly with surprise, and he gave no response, but crouched against the trench wall all the same and listened to the chatter coming from his distant teammates. The back was its weakness. So the only real hope for Viktor and the Master Chief was if the Crooked Demon was distracted by another source and displayed its back to them. I might get a chance to use this after all, he thought, weighing the chainsword in his hand.

Henry's LBR bolt smashed into the Crooked Demon's face, but unlike the opposition they have encountered so far, the CD's shields completely absorbed the blast. In response to this, the monstrous armor turned to face Henry with its arms in the 'shielding' position. The slight dimming of the generators on its forearms indicated a 1/3 shield energy loss from the first hit.

A second high energy reaction was detected, this time 200 meters away. The plasma bomb angled high into space, threatening to fall onto Henry.

Disappointingly however, the Crooked Demon started reversing cautiously.

"Penton, FIRE1 discharge, 200 yards out!" Harrison stood up from the trench and released a long, 6-shot blast from his LBR before dropping prone in the trench and crawling towards another firing position.

200 yards? That's nothing in a PA if I have time to aim the sniper thought, watching the plasma bomb's arc and having the suit figure out where it came from "I copy Harrison" Trey replied, before getting an Idea "Harrison, Morris think you can keep those two DD's busy while I line up a shot on that FIRE PA? I just need thirty seconds to find him, aim, and kill the bastard" Trey said, moving into the next trench, near where the Ex-Merc was now hiding.

"Affirmative." Harrison stood up from his prone position and looked around for the first DD.

However, the weapons discharge that depleted his shields and burnt his shoulder arrays put another thought in his mind.

"D'ohh shit!" Harrison leapt out of the trench and sprinted across the hangar, heading for another area of the trench where he could still be in combat range with the DDs but the heck out of the way of the Crooked.

Harrison's first two bolts hit the CD in the shoulder and leg, depleting another one third of it's shields, the next two bolts went completely wide. He didn't have the chance to fire off the last two because even under heavy fire, the Crooked Demon approximated the former Mercenary's position and unleashed a twin Aether Cannon blast. The reddish semi-transparent beams passed just above Harrison's shoulders, completely smashing the WATER2's powerful shields and reducing his shoulder laser arrays to mush.

Not willing to take anymore damage, the CD dropped into a trench further down the bend from Fian and Viktor.

Seeing this, the Master Chief pulled out a missile tube from his SDD's panels and motioned for Viktor to do the same. "CD or no CD, front or back, nobody takes a hit from these and walk away!" He proceeded to boost towards the bend. "Henry, Keep him down or pop him if he tries to escape!"

One of the DD's fired at Harrison's fleeing form in the trenches, the beams passed by harmlessly overhead but the general intention was to suppress the former mercenary.

"Yes, sir." Henry replied as he discreetly aimed his LBR, without the Monoeyes at the Crooked Demon. He had his trigger finger on the 'Continuous Stream' attachment. He knew that a slow moving target like the Crooked Demon would be drilled the entire way through the armour and its systems, one by one with one of these if he just kept it aimed in one location and didn't pull away, such as the head.

"Yes sir," the private replied. He thought of swapping out his rifle and chainsword for his own missile tube, then decided against it. If, for some reason, Vel Steyr was wrong, they'd need immediate weapons fire. Feeling rather unprepared but well equipped, Viktor boosted after Master Chief Fian, keeping a few meters between them.

Harrison, keeping his nerve as the aether whined overhead, kept his head low and sprinted to the trench. Being careful not to expose himself too much, Harrison peeked over the trench network and fired two quick shots at one of the Dark Demons before moving back into cover.

Trey continued moving closer to where his suit told him the FIRE should be, glad that Harrison was doing his job. The sniper peeked up over the trench top and activated his Monoyes, searching for a lock on the FIRE PA. His LBR ready, Trey would fire as soon as he got a good firing solution.