RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 3.5]: Back into the Frying Pan

One of Anselm's upward flying PALshots had an energetic union with one of the downward flying micro-missiles. The resulting explosion took out the missiles within its blast radius and disabled a few more further away with secondary EMP effects. Avel's SAVTECH launched six of her BOLTS on an intercept course with the Albino's plasma balls, the first three lost guidance when their target literally went up in flames, the other three hit their mark where one of the Shredders were expected to be... Except the Gunboat wasn't there, it was nigh impossible to hit an actively evading airborne target with a slow and unguided plasma artillery designed to hit land targets.

With Noisemakers, Mass Meshers and other various ECM systems active among the marines at and near the LZ, the Mishhu micro-missiles were not really locked on anything except the ground. A small number followed Viktor's TRACERS into the horizon and a similar number followed Phaedra's IFF bolt into one of the bombs, the other bomb received no missiles but Talbain's AMP and Sam's MPR. Both bombs exploded into a shower of fire and napalm.

Those that were still on a collusion course with Rok'Veru were met with an ungodly amount of PLR lasers, HPAR rounds, assorted counter micro-missiles and even metallic debris emitted/fired/launched/thrown from Acadia and non-Acadia marines. This however was not enough. At least 60 or so made it through to land randomly on the LZ and the marines. Any structure still standing was leveled, and the resulting rubble set on fire when the napalm landed all over.

Two more planes whizzed overhead, these were thankfully not more Shredders but two belated N/F-As. Their worn and slightly battle damaged armor hinted that they were the surviving pair of the NSS Alder's fighter wing, but with that ship gone the insignia of that venerable Hray was painted over with that of the Acadia and Emden respectively. In the light of this new opposition, two of the Shredders broke off their attack. The third one continued on its run and fatally Aethered two more marines damaged by the micro-missile attack.

The Master Chief could easily make out both ships now descending side by side. They were about the size of a thumb in the sky. His squad readout showed his marines in varying stages of armor and shield damage. Already there were Gauss rounds being fired way beyond their effective ranges pitter-pattering all over the area. "Forget the Rippers and the Shredders, boost up to the Hrays RIGHT NOW!" He shouted over both loudspeakers, squadnet and general comms.

Fian boosted over to the now unconscious E2 and hefted him over his shoulders. He then opened up a company-wide program exclusive to someone of his rank or above. The other still surviving Chiefs in the area quickly assented to the prompt that appeared on their screens. Finally a general warning popped up on the HUD of all the marines in the area. "SWARM MODE ACTIVATED".

P/p systems were useless for self propulsion when there were no large masses nearby, in land combat this generally meant anywhere very far off the ground. Instead of self propulsion, the P/ps were now configured to help pull the heavier armors upwards with the side effect of slowing the P/pers, making sure the M9 Aggressors were not left behind by the nippier M8 Hostiles. Fast suits without P/ps were also linked and slowed down to contribute. By varying the strength of the P/p connection, autododging by linked suits were also enhanced. The act of calculating and managing this swarm of 400 Marines were delegated to all the SAVTECHS in their suits, which were also hived into a massive computing network.

Fian could hear his P/p equipped AIR-R creaking under this unprecedented stress. Not wanting to test how long his M1 could stand under this pressure he triggered all his boosters and laboriously took to the air, followed by the hundreds of other Marines that would not count Rok'Veru as their eternal resting place.

Luckily for Jan, being the pointman meant he was away from the center of the minimissile strike, and managed to avoid most of the damage. Hearing the order, he jumped into the air first, taking "point" again, taking a few potshots at the remaining Shredder with his Hostile's own missiles. As he continued to rise up towards the Acadia, he realized something: "This is going to hurt a lot."

Sean had gotten lucky when it came to the missile impacts. The only one that hit close enough to cause damage had been partially obstructed by a chunk of building he hadn't thrown at that point, and it bled off a little bit of the missiles impact on his shields and armor, leaving him with most of his armor in one piece. He used his P/P system quickly to boost himself up into the air and then let the computer take over, guiding him up with all of the others.

During the missile spam, the Chief had been strafing from side to side, firing several salvos of ARROWs at the incoming missiles, as well as just firing his PCTs and LPAs at them, really doing anything to thin out their numbers.

A few missiles impacted on the barrier shields he erected, but as soon as it took too many hits and overloaded, the Chief's armor had only really taken a beating as a result of the missiles impacting on the ground around him.

Following the Master Chief's orders, the Chief immediately boosted up towards the Hray, going a bit slow as to let the other Marines pass him by.

This isn't good. Henry said to himself as he watched the swathe of missiles flying everywhere, and a few were headed in his general direction. He was out of shield drones, and even if he deployed the ones with the most charge, they'd only last a single missile.

Taking cover wasn't an option too, since he had to hightail it to the Acadia, and that's what he was doing - but he had an idea to lighten the brunt of what was coming towards him.

He used his Pulse Laser arrays to knock out incoming missiles in concert with his twin Gatling Laser Cannons to knock out other missiles - with no abandon for accuracy, and just letting the streams fly and intercept the missiles. Some stray shots even managed to hit the Shredders below.

This was proving to be an effective strategy, and he was getting closer to the Acadia steadily. He wouldn't let this shithole be his resting place by a longshot - but he didn't feel like dying in bed either.

Then a missile struck him, sending him off balance a little since it only took out a third of his shields, then another managed to strike him, "Taking hits!" He cursed as he quickly deployed the final shield drones he had handy to deflect a third missile - which would've finished him off otherwise.

He was getting closer to the Hrays, and away from the atmosphere with the aid of his thrusters - not a Push/Pull system like the others were decked out with. Either way - he was almost out of it.

The eight drones that had been fielding Viktor's pair of rectangular shields all went down in the micro-missile barrage, and he recalled his remaining three shortly thereafter. Before that, however, he endured the missile barrage which dropped his shields to a tentative 10%. What's more, the napalm splash landed some of the flaming goo on his left shoulder. It didn't do any damage immediately, but was slowly burning away and would become uncomfortable shortly, dangerous if left burning too long. For now, though, it was just pretty damn cool, like a multiplayer mod no one else had. Those had been the days...

But that was unimportant! Right now he was flying upward at full speed, trying to board the NSS Acadia, and firing only when something looked at him the wrong way.

The few missiles that came towards Avel were taken out by her suits NAM system. She then activated her push pull system and began rising with the rest of the marines. "A swarm of marines slowly floating upwards and an NMX shredder prowling the area. I know where this is going." With that thought she raised her HPAR, made a quick check of her armors mini missile rack and kept her eyes peeled for the Shredder.

If it did come back she was personally going to shoot it down. Then she was going to stuff her face with several large meals on the Acadia, have a shower and make love to MC Fian. Weather he wants to or not.

Talbian didn't fare as well as most of the squad in the missile barrage. Having already lost most of his shields to an aether strike. The rain of missiles easily wiped out the rest of the Aggressor's shields and the concussion blasts from them put him down on his face. Loosing consciousness for a moment Talbain scrambled to get up and follow the only thing he could make out, the Chief's order. Looking at his displays he couldn't make much out of any of them. Something in yellow across the middle of his display, red splotches all over the place, some damage on his armor display though he couldn't make out what. After regaining his feet he went to wipe something wet off his face before realizing the futility of it. Red splotches must be blood he though to himself. The Aggressor started it's boost upwards. Talbain hadn't bothered to collect up his AMP since he didn't know where it was left and wasn't keen on looking for it. Obviously more content to follow the armors on his display into the sky.

Alex didn't have time to use P/P on bomb since it got blown away before ti got into range, but het anti-missile fire was somewhat effective. Even that wasn't enough though. Some missiles got through and one of them was hurling herself precisely for Alex. Bloody hell, was that came through her mind as she tried to jump away. Explosion sent her flying few more meters draining her shields.

Landing wasn't comfortable, but Alex was glad to be alive. WIth her shield around 30% she stood up. Her rifle flew away somewhere so she took out her machine pistol, to have something in her hand at least. They MC called a retreat. Alex was ready to took off, but she saw a head of one of marines hit by the shredders. She couldn't leave him there, so she activated her P/P system and pulled head to herself. Caught it with one hand and only after that she took out into sky with others.

With this delay she was somewhat ofter others and there were still one shredder prowling around. She turned to it in flight and aimed her pistol. It won't probably do much but she aimed and shredders aether gun, which shouldn't be armored that heavily. Problems were shields so she activated her minimissile system and sent out all her rockets she could at once. Cloud od dart and arrow missiles flew against gunboat and Alex prayed that at least few will hit its target. With that in mind she started spraying shredder with her pistol.

The third Shredder upon turning around for another run was beset by an airborne swarm of 400 angry marines. No doubt this was unfamiliar to a craft designed to hit hapless ground based targets. Not knowing any better the Shredder's computers flashed the words "BIRD STRIKE BIRD STRIKE!" in Mishhuease across the pilot's screens, birds that poop semi-molten plasma and micromissiles no doubt.

Still confused, the Shredder dove through the marine formation anyway and in the process taking so much vengeance fuelled small arms fire that even its Gunboat-class shields were severely crippled. Because of this, instead of being bounced off when shield met shield, Jan's Hostile which was in the flight path of the Gunboat met no resistance from the Shredder's shields, but a f**ing lot of it when he smacked into the nose of the Gunboat. His right hand dropped his HPAR from the shock, and had become securely wedged in an indentation in the Shredder's armor. He was now dangling dangerously just a mere meter infront of the Gundboat's main Aether turret, which had started to swivel around to permanently remove the marine from the Gunboat's dashboard and from existence.

In the meantime, Gauss Rifle fire from the Rippers were steadily increasing in frequency, accuracy and power. The were positively swarming all over the defence lines, LZ and powerplant. Cumulative damage from previous battles, the missiles and now the gauss shots have caused some of the marine's PAs to opt out of the race for survival, the ones failing from the top of middle of the SMoDIN cloud were caught and prevented from falling by their comrades below them, but those near the bottom of the cloud found no saviours and thus joined the Rippers.

When they were close enough, gravitron projectos on both Hrays gave the marines assistance by boosting them up. When they were even closer tech and defence crews standing on the edges of the wings offered literal helping hands. Those that could not walk were dragged inside the safety of the hangar doors. Those that could often chose to stay on the wing to help.

Fian was somewhere in the middle of the metal cloud and was yet to reach the Acadia. His AIR-R was already registering structural damage from the stress. Not willing to drop the E2, he instead casted off his weapon containers and missile racks. "Come on, just a little further!" He whimpered, hoping his suit had use for verbal encouragements.

Anselm, at the bottom of the pack and relatively unscathed in his replacement Aggressor, dropped another mortar shot to clear an LZ for unfortunates that would be forced to make a last stand, trying to disrupt the ungodly horde of Rippers below. He watched somewhat helplessly as a marine got stuck on the remaining Shredder gunboat, launching his second mortar in a token effort to do something for the dangling marine.

"Kick 'em in the face!" the Albino yelled out his loudspeaker, not really expecting anyone to hear him over the whine of thrusters and pounding weapons fire.

Jan glared at the turret, his unstuck hand reaching out for it but failing because his right hand WAS STUCK. Trying a few more times, the marine became more and more panicky as the aether turret turned towards him. Turning his head to glare at his hand for a second, almost as if willing it to come unstuck, Jan cursed loudly, using his left hand to draw his vibroknife. Bracing himself for the inevitable pain, Jan Kancre grit his teeth and put the knife to his right wrist and pushed.

Anselm's plasma ball missed miserably. He had also suddenly found himself being moved the outskirts of the cloud, the SAVTECH Hive had decided that his pristine Aggressor spend time in playing bullet sponge against the Rippers to protect those deeper in the cloud. On the way there he passed another Aggressor being moved away from his new post, it had zero shields and critically damaged armor, including one gauss round prominently half in half out in an area where the sun didn't shine. The PA pilot's condition was unknown. Even before reaching there four gauss rounds impacted on his shields, dropping them to 25%. The Albino would share that marine's fate or worse if the Rippers were not distracted soon.

What Jan felt when the Vibrosaw cut through his and his Hostile's wrist could not be accurately described to the other marines, as the sensations regardless how traumatically intense were his and his alone. The marine fell and glanced off the fully charged Aether turret, the momentum imparted by his suit into the barrel of the weapon forced it to pivot back to the rear and beyond its specified specs to point towards the Shredder itself. Unable to hold the all powerful Aether energies much longer the turret discharged, removing the tail end of the craft together with all flight capability. The Gunboat started its slow spiral to the ground.

In the meantime Kancre also narrowly missed a wayward plasma ball the size of a car tyre and narrowly missed repeating his whole previous ordeal by NOT crashing into a pursuing N/F-A. His P/p hooked into the passing fighter like an invisible lasso. With its prey essentially destroyed the N/F-A started looping back towards the direction of the Acadia and to another Shredder beyond it.

"HA-HA!! Take that you, fucking woman-rapers!" Anselm shouted, pumping a fist in the air as the Shredder spiralled groundward and then grimaced as his shields dropped quickly, the marine swiftly aimed downward and poured as much plasma as his suit could manage down at the Rippers below.

"Come on, come on, charge faster dammit" he berated the slowly climbing energy levels in his PAL cases, dearly wishing his thrusters had a better climb speed, he could always dump the PAL cases, but they'd barely been used and the marine didn't want to return to a ship with more expensive equipment left behind yet again.

While PALs were an order magnitude stronger than most PA weaponry, Anselm did not stand a chance to dish out any firepower in return to what he was receiving. Gauss shots enough to screw his Aggressor over at least three times whizzed past him. Six shots actually hit. The first two dropped his shields to nothingness, the third broke it and with the small amount of kinetic energy left smacked the albino in the face. The next two impacted squarely on his chestpiece, the equivalent feeling was like being socked twice by an ID-SOL. The last one thankfully missed his nether regions and instead glanced off his tight.

Though, even through all that pain the Albino was suddenly bathed in a warm comforting glow. His guardian Elysian had taken mercy on him. A giant mushroom cloud at a distance away at the Power Plant annihilated all pods within two KM of the blast site and sent the rest scurrying for cover (if they could still scurry) in various states of damages. The inverted rain of pain had stopped. The Marines could now escape in peace.

Fian offloaded his burden to one of the attending deck crew. There was no more feeling in his arms, but the feeling in his feet, the feeling of the Acadia's surface was awesome. He temporarily forgot that he was in command of the situation, and instead took in the glorious sight of four hundred marines being successfully evacuated. A new deckhand, unaware of who he was, was screaming at him to clear off if he isn't helping but the MC couldn't hear it over another sound.

Phaedra arrived in the Acadia's hangar and quickly moved towards the outer edge, away from the influx of marines landing behind her. She yanked off her helmet and sucked in a lungful of recycled air; despite coming to terms with her fears and her claustrophobia, she was far from being cured. Phaedra leaned against one of the hangar bulkheads and breathed deeply to catch her breath, relieved to see her teammates arrive safely one after another.

Once her breathing was under control, Phaedra stowed the MPR on the back of her armor and ran a hand through her snowy mane; she was ready for a shower and some rest, although the fatigue did not show on her face. She inspected her helmet more closely and ran an armored finger across the snarling wolf painted onto it. Phaedra decided the armor suited her; it was worn and weathered, just like herself.

"First things first, I need to inspect and service my wargear before that shower," thought Phaedra.

"Come on. Come on. Come on." Harrison grunted repeatedly as his FIRE slowly gained altitude. His armor was near the very bottom of the stack, not quite in the aid field of the Acadia, but close. Very close. Gauss rounds whizzed around his head, popped and fizzed on his shields, and eventually started sparking and whining into the thick armor of the artillery support ELEMENT. Harrison continued his climb even as, one by one, armors around him fell to the hail of fire around him.

"God, God, God..." Harrison grunted. He looked at his dead shields and transferred most of the remaining shield power over to thrusters.

Sean had managed to avoid geting hit most of the way up, simply due to the fact that his shields were already gone when they had started, thus causing the SavTechs to leave him generally near the lower mid section of the cloud of Marines. Being himself, with his luck, that wasn't going to last though, and he discovered just how it was going to stop lasting when a gauss shot managed to find it's way through the cloud of Marines to his knee. Even though it wasn't a direct hit, it managed to connect with enough force to blow his knee straight out of it's socket, just about knocking him unconscious with the sheer shock and pain it imparted.

This said, when he finally managed to get onto the deck, he just about collapsed when pressure was put on his knee, making him very glad he still had at least the one working leg, and a nice, soft wall to lean on. So very... soft. Deciding that if anyone wanted him to be moving farther then had had already managed to make ity with the walls support, they would be moving him themselves, he slumped down in a pile of pain and suffering against the wall, content to stay that way until he was given orders specifically otherwise.

Alex was still near the lower part of ball for first half of the way, but with hostile she quickly gainedsome altitude and got into middle of the swarm. With that she couldn't shoot to avoid friendly fire and she stuffed her pistol into holster and concentrated on flying.

Enemy fire was biting into them and every now and then a marine would be seen falling down. One of them flew by Alex, but she managed to extend and cought body in hostile by the hand. She slowed down almost instantly. Man inside was either unscounsious or dead, she couldn'T know but she won'T leave. With that she fired her thrusters even more and used her P/P system as she could. Her started to hurt with how she clenched around her comrade.

Getting to Acadia seemed like and hours instead of minutes, but she managed to get there. SHe was quickly caught by hands in PA and pulled on board. There she threw head in her hand in the hangar and let body she dragged back from edge. Then she returned to help other on board.

When the Shredder returned Avel found herself unable to shoot it without hitting the nearby marines. Sighing in frustration she activated her boosters and was soon in the Acadia's hanger. The second her feet hit the floor she immediately headed for the top deck. Unlike the other marines she still had objectives; Getting to the showers before everybody else, getting something to eat, finding out which room belonged to the MC and getting there before he did to name a few.

Despite her hurried pace Avel took a minute to remove her helmet and examine her face in a reflective surface. For the most part, she looked the same. Her hair was a little messy and she could faintly see rings under her eyes but other than that, she looked the same. "That's a big relief."

Glad to see that she didn't look like an escaped mental patient, Avel quickly put her helmet back on and continued her hurried pace.