RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 2]: Brotherhood and Sisterly Love

Viktor hunkered the VOID PA behind an Aggressor that until three minutes ago had been occupied by one of his fellow Marines. Then silence while Epsilon squadron awaited the arrival of more Pirates. When the DD appeared, Viktor almost pulled the trigger. Instead, he froze for a brief second, reminding himself that there was still a shield between himself and the Dark Demon. So it became a waiting game while the rest of the squad attempted to devise a plan; sounded like they would be taking a hostage, but at the moment there was nothing Viktor could do.

Anselm gritted his teeth as he fought the urge to shoot the tumbling enemy, it would have been too easy. "I'll knock his lucky head off if he makes a wrong move, just move quick, he could be coordinating with his buddies too." Anselm claimed the role of executioner, raising his AOP at the Dark Demon, ready to fire at the slightest indication of a SNAFU-in-making.

The Albino switched to his suit's loud speaker and spoke at the DD "Hey, you, lunchmeat; disarm yourself and exit the armor, NOW!" Anselm tagged the pirate with a monoeye to emphasise his point.

Come on, guys, get this guy quick, I don't like being the distraction. The marine thought, watching the Demon and the open door behind him for any sign of attack.

"So what's your verdict, MC? Do we take him, or kill him?" Trey asked, as Anselm showed his hostility towards the DD. "We need to act now or we might scare him off, which could be bad."

In response to both Lilly and the voyeur DD, all the Monoeyes on the abandoned suits lit up, their Savtechs automating the active sensors to search for targets. Preliminary data showed that there were a number of suits including two Crooked Demons in close proximity to the DD but still out of sight of the marines. In the light of this the Master Chief figured it was a bad idea to stick anything out of the safety of the shields, but he didn't like being looked at with such impunity either. "Penton, lets move to the side behind the hangar doors, we'll stick it to whoever comes in first."

"Right." Trey confirmed, moving off to the side, hoping the DD would be distracted by all the monoeyes, and made his way to the left-hand hangar door. Upon arrival, he began to charge his PPP, readying for a grab if something came through.

Fian too did the same. The weight and bulk of the AIR-R did not betray the fact that it was highly manuverable. Without any sudden movements the MC bent his knees slightly to lift his feet half an inch of the ground, and slowly with ghostlike movements glided to the side of the hangar.

Two marines out, two pirates in. Filled with false confidence, both CDs leaped off their perch to hang next to the DD. Other assorted suits also followed, assembling behind the trio for the marines to see that they were slightly outnumbered. Grabbing the DD with both their hands, the Crooks flung the now twice unlucky guy headfirst into the shield, before leading the charge in themselves with cannons aglow.

"Ignore this one!" The MC shouted to Trey, being able to watch the entire spectacle unfold through remote cameras. The poor DD was instantly turned to plasma as the other marines concentrated their fire on the currently only target. Fian winced at the overkill, but whoever choose to live a life of crime had it coming. "Scatter now!" He commanded to the troop, almost sure the Crooks were going make a sweep through their entrenched positions.

He was half right, the first CD through had a severely dented headpiece the massed but slightly inaccurate fire from the moving marines brought its shields to near zero and tore off an arm, but it seemed hell bent on Aethering Anselm. From the time it passed through the shields to when it hit the ground running were solely firing at the Albino. How dangerous (or fatal!) this attraction is was up to the skill of the Aggressor's pilot.

The second one, as predicted, started an all-annihilating sweep from one end of the hangar to the other. The twin beams caught two parked suits, dropping their shields to zero and dealing minor damage. It was just about to clip a running M8 Hostile before the Master Chief yanked it into the space occupied by him and Trey. He counterbalanced the backward motion of the PPG arm by bringing his other broadsword wielding arm in a thrusting motion, though he was not confident that the balance of forces were enough for him to impale the demon.

Other pirate suits, oblivious to the mini-melee going on to the side, also re-streamed into the hangar bay, letting off micro missiles and other beams and projectiles of all kind. The ballroom was getting crowded, and the dance of death has just begun.

At melee finally, Trey Grabbed the Second CD to aid the MC, as well as firing his Micro missiles at the inflowing targets, while his PLA's focused on doing whatever little damage they could to the CD's shields. Trey was glad he had moved; the Sniper winced as he watched an aether beam or two or three lance straight through where he had been standing. He felt bad for the poor DD pilot, but that was only a minor thought, usurped by the more pressing influx of enemies.

"Hey this isn't fucking boring at all." The gunman stood in the corner of the showering block, sending a very steady stream of piss crashing down upon the soap scum-covered floor, causing a nearby hostage to wince as some of it splashed on him like a light drizzle. "Oh sorry, lady. I normally have to pay bitches like you to give out golden showers." A zip ended the urinal onslaught upon the poor hostage, as she and the rest of them huddled together to avoid being a larger target for bored gunmen.

"Hey Jacks, how long we got before the Greens kick down the door and start burning us? I'd at least like to know how long I got before they shove approximately 4,000 lbs of lead up my ass." Johnny Falcon just sighed, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, making sure to get some fun out of these hostages by dropping ash on them.

"And we got that fucking freak hiding around somewhere. This isn't uncomfortable at all, being on board this death coffin with you ass bandits."


===

Elsewhere on the top deck of the Hray, safeties went off and actions were closed on numerous types of infantry weapons, some found in the rooms lining each corridor, some found in the canteen. All in all, there were at least 50 men on the top deck for the Greens to fight.

===

"Shit, I didn't fucking notice that second staircase next to the escape pods." Ran rounded up 5 Marines and directed them towards the staircase to the rear of the ship to make sure that the hijackers wouldn't use the staircase to escape to the mid-deck and hit their backs using the stairs to the front of the ship. "Don't fucking go up the stairs and shoot down the hallways in our direction, just be ready to move when the shooting is over."

Ran stacked up against the right wall next to the staircase, aiming his A2 up the stairs to catch any would-be surprises that would try to pin them down on the stairway. "Use flashbangs if you have them, don't get caught taking cover on the stairs or we'll get chopped up fucking fast. Volkov, Morrison, get going. Everyone get ready to rush out of the stairs once the two clear them."

===

"Hey." Sunny McBean whispered into the ear of Jason Alex, much to his chagrin. "I think they might be coming, I can hear them and shit." If his annoying close-ear whispers didn't guarantee a swift slap, this comment did.

"No shit, fucknuts. Why do you think they've got us holed up in these darker than shit rooms? Think they want to pay us to whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears? That sure seems to be what you want out of this fucking job, fucking light in the loafer motherfucker."

Sunny simply shook his head. Keeping a hand on his pistol and another on his grenade, he would wait until the Greens made contact with the few hallway sentries before chucking the grenade towards the staircase.

"Oh fuck me-" was all Anselm could say over the loudspeaker before he devoted all his concentration to dodging the aether beam that seemed intent on vaporising him, spotting the Crooked Demon he'd headshotted earlier, Anselm laughed "So, the little reddie wants to play with me, how ni-" being cut off in mid-sentence by the second cannon unleashing another torrent of disintegrating death. The marine narrowly dodged, getting clipped by the energy stream as it swept aggressively after him, taking the Albino's shields down to half, the HUD registering damage to the projector unit, dropping overall field strength by 20%.

"Well, fuck you, asshole!" The marine retorted angrily, launching a BLUE rocket from his AOP at his new nemisis; the shot fell wide, scalding the CDs shields as Anselm's other hand drew an ammo drum from his belt.

Close quarters wasn't going to bode well for his suit, Viktor knew, and with CD's on the scene, it was starting to look ugly. He didn't even bother to remember that they were outnumbered. Instead, he hefted the GAFM over his shoulder, aimed for the back-center of the Red onslaught, and then made the VOID drop the mortar launcher. It would only be a hindrance in this scenario, and he needed all the maneuvering power he could get out of his PA. The mortar struck as Viktor had intended, but his timing was off, and it only tickled the shields of a few Demons coming in the door. When the aether came blazing through, he clung to the Aggressor and watched its shields fry; its front side was beginning to melt, but Private Kingston was never made aware of that fact (and perhaps for the better).

With the Crooked Demons temporarily relieved of their main firing weapons, he boosted in reverse to keep himself clear of the micromissile barrage, and as it began to die down, he emptied his BOLT rack. In the midst of the heated moment, an idea struck him, and he simply went with it. He activated a single monoeye and locked onto the Crooked Demon with the foremost position and launched six TRACERs with the intent of sticking them to the behemoth; if any of the Reds got stupid with missiles, the idea was to wreak havoc with friendly fire. He only hoped it worked in stifling missile damage to his team, but enemy friendly fire would be a definite plus.

Next was shield deployment: four for Anselm because he was such a hot target, four for Trey because everyone else the Private knew was in a suit built for mobility, and three for himself because the VOID wasn't built with close quarters as its primary operation. As his triangular shield lit up, two more drones were downed by stray fire on their way to the sniper's position. With no useful function, the remaining pair floated back to the VOID's backpack. In the meantime, monoeyes on Kingston's PA selected the nearest targets and guided his LPA and hip-mounted laser cannons as the pilot took aim. "Well isn't this fucking lovely."

Almost halfway toward the back of the room, Viktor wasn't a very popular figure at the moment, so he had relatively free range on where he applied his firepower. This played on all the VOID's strong points as he was able to spend precious milliseconds determining who next needed the assisting gunfire. Currently it was a fellow in a Hostile who was being coerced into melee combat by a Dark Demon that had already lost half shields during its kamikaze bum rush through the shielded entrance.

Henry didn't give an audible response, but nodded to Ran as he used the Drone, to peer through the floors and walls of the Hray. He could spot the figures of at least ten people nearby, probably those of the prirates.

Henry moved down the hall, towards the aft of the ship quietly as he could, signalling the others to follow him closely, and took a sharp starboard-side turn into the Hallways of the ship, poking drone out to act as his eyes for a moment.

He stayed behind cover, and his Drone (sans Monoeyes) observed two men having a smoke at the top of the staircase leading into the living passages. They were poorly dressed, but still armed and dangerous.
He signalled his Drone to stay behind cover, and temporarily stop observing. He had to concentrate to get these shots right, and to retain the element of surprise.

He stepped out of cover for a moment and lined up, squeezing a controlled three-round burst off quickly and quietly into one of them, the pirate slumping backwards. He moved up the stairs as the other pirate tried to draw a pistol. However, he was easily gunned down like his mate.

Henry had 14 bullets left in his mag. He signalled for the rest of the team to hurry on up and charge in. As for the Drone, that wouldn't be needed, for now.

Seeing his chance with the CD's main cannon recharging and his new buddies providing extra shielding, Anselm charged the Crooked Demon, a beserk yell pounding out of his still active loudspeakers and a white shell glancing off the Demon's shields. Intimidated by this overt aggression the CD took step back before remmbering why it had targeted this particular PA, the dent in its head glinting in the glare of the hangar's lighting. Returning the charge, the CD reared up and stomped towards Anselm, extending its arms to shred the Aggressor in a brutal bearhug.

The shield drones merged with the CD's own barrier, Mono-claws scraping against the Aggressor's personal shields, the pilot realizing too late Anselm's trick as the canister of RED torpedoes flew through the opening. Reflexively, the pilot jumped backwards, expecting a grenade; the weapon arms of the CD pulled back with the rest of the armor, seperating the barrier of Viktor's shield drones and the CD. The six programmed torpedoes detonated as their firing conditions were met, bathing the interior of the CD shield-bubble in fire and shrapnel from the ammo drum. Smoke and debris flew away from the wrecked CD as its shield's collapsed and the monstrous armor slumped to the floor, the front of its torso ripped to shreds and several arms blown off or severed at the joints.

Anselm lept behind a cluster of unpiloted PAs in case he drew any return fire from the CD's comrades, the four shield drones following silently.

Thud. Harrison's armor fell under the weight of an entering Dark Demon, then slowly stood back up as the weight was removed. Gripping the Demon's right arm, Harrison pulled the pirate's suit directly in front of him, and at point-blank range fired his wrist chainguns into the poor sucker. Within seconds a small hole had been melted through the armor's central mass, revealing two separate halves of an unfortunate pirate.

Discarding the spent corpse, Harrison turned and drew his Chainsword as another demon filled the gap where the previous one had entered. Using the Demon's momentum against it, and taking advantage of the FIRE's heavier weight, Harrison thrust forward into the Demon. It missed the pirate pilot's compartment, but caught the armor in the shoulder. However, the blade of the sword was "pinched" and stopped whirring almost immediately. Harrison lifted one fat, bulky leg, pressed it to the Demon's chest, pulled on the sword (after turning the chains to "reverse") and heaved it from the shoulder.

The Demon pressed forward towards Harrison again, who barely had enough time to bring one shoulder down on the right side of the approaching armor's head and lay it out. Harrison brought his chainsword down tip-first on the torso of the armor and made sure the pilot was dead, not stopping his blade until blood began spurting from the torso.

One of the rounds fired from Henry's gun had impacted into the neck of one of the hijackers, at an angle such that the pirate went down sputtering and choking, kicking against the wall next to him and flailing around. While not loud enough to alert the entire upper floor, it did send a third gunman walking towards the stairwell to investigate the source of the noise.

Meanwhile, Ran motioned for Talbain to get up the stairs to give Henry some backup, hearing the noise that the gunned-down pirate was making.

Phaedra traversed the corridor closely behind Morrison as he took down several hostiles in short order. Her view of the infrared spectrum showed humanoid-shaped heat signatures in many of the rooms nearby.

Suddenly there was movement. Phaedra saw one of the heat blurs increase its pace rapidly, heading toward the sound of the gunfire. Without time to warn Morrison, Phaedra took a step to away from the wall and raised her GSAR. She aimed over Morrison's left shoulder and fired a short burst just as the newly arrived assailant strode into view.

The projectiles found their target and buried themselves in the pirate's torso. The gunman slumped to the ground mid-step, his weapon clattering loudly on the decking.

"Hostile down," reported Phaedra.

Just as Fian thought, his Vibro-Broadsword penetrated about an inch into the Crooked Demon's frontal armor and remained at that depth. However seeing that Trey had immobilized the massive suit, he locked the joints of his sword arm and boosted into the CD. The extra force plunged the blade through the entire length of the suit. With only mere centimetres till the pommel of the sword, Fian felt a strong resistance which he could only guess as the rear armor of the Crooked Demon. Unable to retrieve the sword, he let the spasmodic CD fall to the floor on it.

Throughout this entire time, more pirate armors were streaming into the bay.

Meanwhile...

"Captain, the NSS Alder has engaged multiple enemy ships!" The NSS Acadia's Sensors Officer sounded. A wave of alarm swept through the room. "Unknown type and make, they came from the south!"

Mishus?! Peter's lips were a thin line across his face, this had galaxy sized implications, but most importantly that of the mission. A trickle of sweat rolled down his forehead. Forcing himself to act, he hesitatingly started. "Get me..."

"We are being heavily jammed, I can't raise the Alder." His Communications Officer pre-empted. Peters wasn't pleased. That little bit of dissatisfaction made him raise his voice.

"No not the Alder, get me Master Chief Vel Steyr, tell him to abort the mission!" One of the ship's cameras pointing into space lit up, as though someone drew a line in the backdrop of space with a glowing yellow chalk, it was unmistakable that the Alder had let off another Aether blast.

"Captain, another contact!" The SO's fingers were flying all over the interface. "FTL speed, approaching from the southwest, it will be caught in our interdiction field at point Z15 to our left in fifteen seconds!"

"Turn the ship around and ready the Positron Cannon Arrays." The elderly captain was standing up now. "... And keep trying!" He yelled at his Communication's Officer, who had just started to turn his head to say that the MC was unreachable.

When the Demon collapsed, both Viktor and his partner-in-combat stood firmly with negligible damage on the VOID and half the shields dissipated on the FIRE Armor. A channel between the two carried a brief exchange of, "Thanks," and, "No problem," and was then severed as they each engaged a new target.

Kingston had the upper hand this time as a Dark Demon approached the same M1 Power Armor that had Viktor had just been aiding. It seemed a second favor was in order. The boosters lit up and the VOID's LPA went full auto with monoeye assistance, tearing up what shields remained. The Dark Demon had only half completed its one-eighty spin when Viktor's fusion cutter- activated a mere second earlier- plunged into the DD's torso. With the M7 and Demon at odds in terms of momentum, the CFC slit through with relative ease. As the Red collapsed, his gun fired one final shot that simply fizzled out on Kingston's shields, one final and futile attempt at revenge. It was almost laughable, but the Private PA pilot wasn't in a laughing mood at the moment.

Talbain rushed up the stairs after Henry and Phaedra coming to a stop behind the tech. Taking a glance around he noticed the techs handiwork. The ID-SOL was impressed at how quickly he had brought down. Upon hearing Phaedra's rifle discharge into the pirate Talbain's jaw tightened into a scowl. "Well they know we're here now. Time for everything to go to hell." He stated in a rather flat tone to no one in particular. Choosing a door that neither of his comrades had a bead on he prepared to open fire on anyone coming out the room with a weapon.

Anselm watched the engagement, mentall calculating the number and types of remaining suits; to his reckoning all the formidable units had been destroyed, leaving a bunch of Demons and their variants.

"This is going to be pathetic, those Demons are worthless in a fight-" the marine said to himself moving from behind his cover to engage a wounded unit.

As if to argue otherwise, the albino was surprised to find a Super Dark Demon chewing into his shoulder armor with a chainsword. Twisting away, his shoulderguard was stripped off, leaving tatters of durandium behind.

Anselm drew his chainsword, taking another blow on his heavily armored forearm, the screech and heat of the chainblade uncomfortably warming his flesh. The SDD pulled back quickly as the marine thrust at it, parrying Sindri with one easy movement, lunging back in for another strike.

"Not today" Anselm growled, unloading his plasma chainguns into the SDD, stunning the pilot and stymieing his charge. The Albino quickly struck out at the enemy armor only to be blocked again, the SDD retreating backwards to detatch its shields from the Aggressor and take cover from any ranged assault; Anselm noticed most of its armor had been sheared away by his plasma barrage.

"Well, looks like you won't be much trouble despite your fancy bladework," chuckled to himself, thanking NAM for its liberal use of heavy armor on the Aggressor.

The gunfire had, indeed, attracted the attention of the hijackers. Not in the form of immediate action, but only to serve as a definite "HEY FUCKER, SAFETY IS OFF HERE THEY COME"-type warning to them. Fearing that they would be out-gunned in this situation, most of the pirates stayed in their current positions, happy to wait for the Greens to come to them instead of the other way around.

Meanwhile, two gunmen in the right hallway and 3 in the left started moving towards the stairway, in an effort to keep the Greens pinned down until the rear force could make their way past the Green fire team guarding the rear stairwell, to go down into the middle deck to catch Gamma on the front staircase as they heading up to the top deck.

=====

"This is fucking horseshit. We can't fucking stay close to the stairwell or we're fucked." Ran signaled for 2 more Marines to join Henry and Volkov, and signaled for Weynolt and 3 more Marines to join Talbain. "Make your ways down the fucking hallway. We need to get these soft little civvies out of here before the shit hits the fan a little too hard." At that, the Chief made his way up the stairs, situated behind Volkov with his A2 pointed down the hallway she was watching.

As soon as the two pirates came into the ID-SOL's view he started laying down suppressive fire with his HAS on full auto. Hopefully they didn't want shot and would take cover, it was the only form of defense Talbain had in this situation.
"Need more shooters up here!" He shouted over the sound of his weapon firing while he moved to the wall away from the stairwell. "Fucking fuckdamn." He muttered under his breath while making a mental note to buy some personal armor and maybe the riot shield attachment for his HAS.

Henry's ears rung a little from having the GPAR fired RIGHT next to his head.
Oh well, stealth had to go some time sooner or later, He thought to himself as he raised his Styrling Dart, charged up the stairs, took cover and called his Drone to look through the walls from downstairs.

It saw three men in the left corridors, and Henry took a moment to line up his shots before coming out of cover. He had to go down the left hallway, towards the Computer Core - then he could really toy with the ship. He had an idea crazy enough to work.

"Volkov, watch my back and get to the canteen. I'm heading for the Computer Core," He co-ordinated over radio, "You," He voiced to another marine that Ran had sent to him, "Assist me."

He intended to go for the centre of mass, keeping his posture low, and as soon as a pirate came along - he'd let them have it. On the aft direction of the left corridor, there were two pirates for the limbs of two pirates charging towards him with Zen-Arms 10mm SMG's.

Henry came out of cover and fired off two more thee-round-bursts to down the men, leaving 8 bullets left in his magazine.
"Chief - idea. Ample distraction through firefighting emergency systems, via access to computer core," Henry communicated to Ran, "Yes or No?"

He had the feeling that maybe it wasn't such a good idea now that he was listening to it. It meant him splitting from the team.

"Volkov, watch my back and get to the canteen. I'm heading for the Computer Core," said Morrison over the comm.

"Roger," said Phaedra in affirmative. She headed in the opposite direction down the corridor toward the canteen, GSAR raised and her eyes searching for targets. She hugged the left wall of the corridor as she came up to the canteen. She once again saw numerous humanoid-shaped heat signatures on the other side of the wall. Most of the shapes seemed to be huddled on the ground together on the far side of the canteen. The other shapes that were standing were definitely armed. After a cautious glance down the corridor, Phaedra removed a small breaching charge from her utility belt and affixed it to the canteen door. She took several steps back down the corridor and retrieved her remote detonator.

"Breaching!" she shouted into the comm. She turned away from the doorway and pressed down the detonator.

BAKOOM!

The breaching charge blasted the door from the frame, sending the battered remains of the door flying inward. Phaedra immediately rose to her feet and rushed through the smoldering doorway into the smoke-clogged canteen. Shouts of terror and alarm filled her ringing ears. Phaedra's eye implant revealed the canteen's occupants through the thick smoke and she immediately fired bursts upon any of the armed heat signatures

Phaedra walked towards the group of shapes huddled in the corner, her GSAR raised threateningly. As the smoke cleared, Phaedra could see at least two pirates on the ground in pools of their own blood. A third pirate had the misfortune of being in the direct path of the breaching charge. The door had slammed into him with the full force of the blast; he never knew what hit him.

The group of shapes in the corner was revealed to be a group of bound hostages. They cried in both terror and jubulation as Phaedra stepped closer.

"This is Volkov," said Phaedra into the comm. "Several hostages located in the canteen area. Count three hostiles terminated. Request immediate assistance."