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

Seeing nothing left to salvage, Viktor had waited patiently with Fian while he inspected the Crooked Demon; the discovery was a serious upset, but the Private remained silent all the way back to the Dust Devil. He was quiet while Fian raged and the others discussed the supposedly fried FIRE1 PA. And even though he was a little upset that Fian had not remarked upon his actions in the recent foray, still he was quiet. He clambered out of the Power Armor, perused the crate from NAM, and failed to find anything really worth swapping his current loadout. So he ran another check on his weapons to fill the time; they were all fully loaded and/or charged, and ready for use. That still left him with a solid eight minutes to wait. While Kingston had been investigating his weapons, armorers had been catering to the needs of his PA, which were very few considering he hadn't taken any damage nor even had his shield depleted.

Fian took a brief detour to the washroom. While his hands were in the sink and his eyes on the mirror, his mind was somewhere else. It was in these moments away from the maps and tactical aids that he turned off his analytical mind and used his intuition and gut feeling. Would the new plan work? Gut feeling responded by the tap water temperature rising by a few degrees as someone else on the ship turned off the hot water on his side. Satisfied, the Vel Steyr followed suit.

Things might get hotter than expected, just like earlier. Keep an eye on everything, keep them together, and play everybody to their strengths.

Back at the cargo bay, the transport technicians did not find anything broken on both Henry's and Viktor's suit. Lacking the intimate knowledge of Power Armors that a full fledged military armorer would have, they did not re-calibrate the shields to optimum performance but topped up the Xenon tanks on the suits, it was the least they could do. The damaged faceplate on Harrison's previous suit was also replaced.

"New plan, people!" The Master Chief announced as he re-activated the tactical map display in the room. Having sortied with the men at least once, he took a more casual stance towards them. "Teleoperation is jack shit if the Droids cannot send and receive data to and from their ship. The best we can do with our current PAs is to rip or shoot out each individual communications antenna on all their suits. Which is why we are upgrading."

The volumetric map gave way to small representations of three different Power Armors. The first one was easily recognisable by some of the people in the bay as an AIR-type, it was the latest model in that series, the 'M1 Storm' to be precise. The other two were completely new designs, one bore similarities to the M1 AIR2 and the M2 WATER2 except it was labelled as a 'M8 Hostile'. The other, a large juggernaut in the vein of the M4 EARTH1 with M3 FIRE1 influence was tagged as a 'M9 Aggressor'.

"Previously Electronic Warfare in our PA based operations were conducted by supporting DD4s and LHAs. As our colonial territories expand, we cannot expect Capships to be available on site, our current situation is a perfect example. These three suits are equipped with a miniaturized NAM 'Noisemaker' jamming device, the larger real thing is standard issue on 'S1 Hrays', which is a good reason why they are keeping a heavy guard over the NSS Acadia." He then switched back to the map, highlighting the armories near the NSS Dust Devil.

"The large one here is Team Rico's target, we don't want to stir that place up until he gets near. The smaller ones 'might' have what we are looking for, but they are also guarded and being emptied as we speak. So, we have four chances to find what we are looking for. As they come looking for us, we will also accomplish our other primary objective of playing Decoy."

"We hit each location hard and fast as a group, and then hightail it before enemy reinforcements arrive."

Fian grinned for reasons only known to himself. "Any questions?"

When called, Viktor gathered with the others to hear the new plan and lay eyes on the virtual images of the new PAs they would be using. He'd seen images of them before, and he couldn't help but give a faint grin as well. He knew what they were capable of -- well, he had heard of what they were capable of during their test runs. No matter what he was given, Private Kingston knew he'd be happy. "Just one question, sir: who's piloting what?" This was turning out to be an exciting little venture.

"Just one question, sir: who's piloting what?"

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"Aaah..." The Master Cheif hesitated. "I... Don't know because I have no idea how many of which suit are we going to find in those smaller armories, if any at all. I suppose whichever one of us is most damaged by that time would just junk his suit and get a new one." He then turned to face the P3C with a neutral expression. "You weren't half bad in the DD, would you like to take Harrison's M2 for now?"

"If Kingston goes out in the M2, it still needs a little work, but we should be able to get it 100% in a few minutes, seeing as we have everything here" Trey interjected, looking at the suit, which wasn't too bad but still had some obvious damage to the shield unit and a few other minor things, as well as needing to be reloaded. Not waiting for a confirmation, the former tech-sentry turned sniper began rummaging through the box of NAM PA parts for what he needed.

Henry raised his hand in Fian's direction.
"Sir, I prefer - the familiarity, of the WATER M2 - to the Hostile. Is the switchover necessary? I could swap - the LBR out for - the HPAR."

Henry wasn't sure about all of the ins-and-outs of the Hostile, since was a fairly recent make, and he hadn't had the time to research it because of all this combat.

"If Kingston goes out in the M2, it still needs a little work, but we should be able to get it 100% in a few minutes, seeing as we have everything here"

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Fian's turned his head to follow Penton's movements between the crate and the parked WATER2. He noticed the care and dedication which the former tech-sentry turned sniper attended to the damaged M2. Inside the Master Chief an unknown feeling started growing, and somehow he felt a correlation between the three veteran pilots had something to do with it.

Looking for answers, he now observed Harrison on the other side of the bay. Earlier the former mercenary had patched up the FIRE1 in the same manner as Trey is doing now to the WATER2, and he is now sitting rather comfortably in the half open suit. Fian could not understand why, the heat of battle was sometimes hot enough, their pilots would also have to contend with the cavity's oven-like properties. The feeling grew stronger.

"Sir, I prefer - the familiarity, of the WATER M2 - to the Hostile. Is the switchover necessary? I could swap - the LBR out for - the HPAR."

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It was Henry's request that nailed the correlation and feeling. As of now Henry, Trey and Harrison were in their favored suits, this was the correlation. The feeling was jealousy because there were no AIRs in sight, the suit which he felt from the very beginning was made for him. He bottled this frustration up.

"If only we have the luxury to choose, I wish we always do." Fian stretched and stifled a yawn, the last battle wasn't terribly exciting for him. "Like I said, we don't know if we will end up finding new suits for all of us, only one suit or none at all. We can have someone else get into first Noisemaker-enabled suit we find, but if the situation calls for more jammers, I'm afraid both you and I won't have a choice."

"Hmmh. So be it." Henry mumbled with a shrug as he took a look at the Hostile. A big imposing armour, fitted with the HPAR. Neither weapon he had any knowledge about.
He decided to rectify that by getting his datapad and searching for information on both items. It'd be readily available to a combat engineer such as Henry.

It came to his understanding after some quick research that the Hostile was a healthy mix of the WATER's defensive and endurance capabilities and the AIR's speed and mobility. He iterated this to the group as he got comfy in his WATER2, which had the HPAR fitted to it.

"...After all - if one does not, expand horizons in combat..." He said as he put his arms into the metal shell and putting the helmet on, "You never know - your fullest power..."

Fian eyed Henry's HPAR. 'And someone here wanted to play them to their strengths.' He re-fitted his Super Demon suit one limb at a time and then walked over to the cargo door release switch again. "Right, if everyone is ready, get into the trench on the left about 20 meters from the door. We'll leapfrog from there." Again, the sound of air being vented into vacuum reverberated throughout the bay as the heavy metal ramp dropped. The Master Chief descended to the station surface cautiously.

Just outside the ramp about 100 meters away were two DDs in another trench. Their gunmetal grey armor melded with the station walls while Mass Mesher systems hid them electronically. Both had LBR-00ps and one of them carefully aimed at the new arrivee...

Trey was locked and loaded before Fian was, due to the nature of the Master chief's armor. when the airlock opened up, the P1C followed the Vel Steyr out the door and landed in the trench just behind him. Trey scanned about visually for any signs of enemies, but couldn't really make out anything other than some debris in another trench. so, he crouched down and began to work his way around, at the ready for anything he could be.

Harrison was out of the Dust Devil about thirty seconds after Kai, already moving into a fire support position at the opposite side of the trench network. He ducked into the trench and immediately checked the displays on his HUD, looking for enemy cloaked units, or any sneaky bastard who felt lucky that day.

Without Active Monoeye systems, Harrison could only detect one of the hostile Dark Demons just as it charged up it's LBR-00p's antimatter ionisation chamber... Which was about 0.25 seconds before the all too familiar bluish bolt erupted from the barrel and arced towards the Master Chief.

The positron bolt overpowered the SDD's relatively weak shields and impacted hard upon Fian's chestplate, ripping apart the outer Neutronium armor and knocking him over. Seeing that his partner's target didn't outright explode the other DD quickly let off a snapshot to the best of his ability, this bolt flew over the squad and into obscurity not hitting anything.

Their cover blown to no actual kills, both DDs opened up their micro-missile launchers, sending about 60 angry hornets towards the marines.

"Shit." Trey muttered, disappointed that he hadn't noticed the enemy suits. Having gone the other way, the Sniper stood up from his crouched position and turned around, aiming a shot for the first DD at about the time his missiles launched. Drawing a bead on the enemy armor's head unit, the sniper took a second to steady himself and open a Monoeye lock before firing, confident that his PLA's and shields would be enough to keep the barrage from hurting him, especially seeing as the missiles had other targets to account for as well.

Henry was the last man out with his HPAR fitted to his favoured WATER2. He wanted to get familiar with the preferred weapon of the Hostile if the chance was that he had to use it.
"Protect the chief!" Henry directed over radio as he moved forwards towards their position.

He noted the missiles headed in everyone's general direction and activated his PLA - it had saved him once. Once the thread had subsided, he activated the Monoeyes and pointed his HPAR at the DD armed with an LBR-00p.

"Not your gun." He mumbled to himself as he let a three-round burst of the semi-solid goo in the DD's direction.

Thin red beams streaked out from Henry's and Trey's WATER2s, criss-crossing into the cloud of micro-missiles. Thanks to the distance between the two groups of adversaries, a large number of the missiles were shot down, creating a large cloud of soot between them. About a dozen missiles managed to escape interception and continued on their way.

Trey Penton briefly lost visual contact when the cloud was generated, but the subspace particles from his Monoeyes easily penetrated the smoke and singled out the target. All the opposing DD saw was a brief flash of two red lights in the smog and then a bright blue one, after that he would never see anything again.

Same for Henry. It seemed that the WATER2's arms (or at least just this particular unit) was not calibrated to handle the HPAR, but treating it like an LBR, the three shot burst flew straight and true. The first two impacted and overpowered the DD's shields, forming a grey clump that bounced off. The remaining orangish bolt smacked into the left eye of the Dark Demon, a little off considering Henry's Savtech aimed between both eyes but the overall effect was the same. The DD tumbled over into the cover of the trench, damaged, but not out.

The remaining micro-missile swarm rained randomly on the group. A large majority exploding near enough to cause their shields to frizzle but a few direct hits were scored as well. Two explosions directly above Trey caused his suit to wobble, one a few feet above Henry's left shoulder threw off his aim, one more would had hit the Vel Steyr had he not recovered and quickly slammed his flightstick to move out of the way.

'Careless!' Fian growled to himself, he patched into the squadwide channel. "We have to move down the trenches before more of them come to pin us down! Henry, you're on point! The rest follow! Harrison, give them something to think about and then bring up the rear!"

"I'll give 'em a good philosophical discussion, Master Chief!" Harrison said as he stood to his full height, drew a bead on one of the enemy DDs, and let loose plasmatic death from his PAL.

After steadying himself, Trey simply grunted in reply, shutting off his monoeye and hunkering down to trudge along behind the Master Chief, figuring his sniper skills would be of more use towards the back of their line, just a bit farther from the action, so he could have time to aim. Right out the gates and already a kill the Yamataian-bodied Nepleslian thought.

"Yessir." Henry responded over radio in an uncharacteristic manner. Even his voice sounded different, more confident, less shaky and stuttery, more powerful. This was odd, even for Henry as he considered just what he was saying, but he liked it.

"Squad, take defensive positions and use your grenades. Trey, remove anyone's head that pokes up over cover. Harrison, force them into one area with suppressive fire and - we'll pick them off."

Henry took out and threw a plasma grenade with his off-hand into the right of the trench ahead. He had two left.

Harrison's plasma ball sailed over the short distance between the two groups and landed just as the remaining DD decided to stick his head out again. Needless to say there wasn't anything left to identify the two suits after the crater generated by the blast cooled down.

Henry's grenade, being proximity activated failed to explode after he tossed it, due to there being no enemies in visual sight. In radar sight however a sizable group of unknown PAs were headed towards the Dust Devil from a distance. It would be wise to move away from the Red Hill to avoid a potentially disadvantageous fight.

"Time to book, guys." Harrison was already down in the trench and moving away from the Dust Devil, moving slowly and waiting for everyone else.