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

"You'll be waiting for a long time then, but that sounds just fine to me." Sean stood down, with the other squad coming from the direction of the fighting. Looks like we'll get a bit of a break. Then he thought of something, and turned towards Fian. "Sir, have we heard anything from the power plant team? It shouldn't take that long to jury-rig it, or to tell us what's going on."

"Why didn't you answer when I called?" the marine asked, still tense from the effort of entry, a monoeye looking backwards at the three workers who left, checking on Ezra as well, drones still attending him.

"Half-expected to drop in on Rippers every time I opened a door, why was no one up in the security station and why were all the cameras out?" he spat out quickly, feeling his paranoia spike despite his relaxed stance and lowered weapon.

"That's the most realistic hallucination yet." Avel was suddenly brought out of her thoughts by the sound of Anselm talking. "Never mind that. We need to link up with our squad before we get left behind." She said and glanced at the timer on her HUD, it was already down to 20 minutes. "Speaking of our squad, I better radio them on what's been going on before they assume we're dead."

Volkov said:

"What happened to you?" she asked, motioning towards the slick goo covering portions of his armor.

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"Equipment malfunction." Harrison grunted. He squelched out of the puddle of brain slave he'd been standing in, making his way over to Volkov. He looked over the rest of the MC's squad, noting with satisfaction that everyone was alive. That was one more skirmish everyone had made it through, which meant there wouldn't have to be a newbie coming aboard in someone else's stead.

Then Phaedra's real question hit him. A mental facepalm was Harrison's first reaction, followed by a deadpan reaction: "I stepped in something."

Sam saluted Phaedra snappily, then bobbed her armored head at her. "Emergency recruitment. We were told you needed reinforcements," the younger sniper grunted.

Fian opened up a link to Avel, there was minor static in the background.

"P3C Avel if you are done setting up the bomb, we'll rendezvous at the landing zone in five minutes. Copy, over?"

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Meanwhile...

"Got hit by an EMP strike." The guard explained. "You should have seen the other things the squids thrown at us. There is a big gaping hole in the storage room." He stretched his arms wide to show how big it was. He was then shoved into the rear column of the leaving workers by the other guard.

"We need to get going." The other guard interjected in an emotionless monotone, still looking at brand's general direction. The guards and workers then petered outside.

To Avel, while she had already broken eye contact with the hallucination, she could tell that it was still there because her suit had registered it as a dot on the radar screen of her HUD, so as it is on Anselm's suit.

Ran simply nodded at Jan and dropped his LPA from a "ready" stance, relaxing a bit now that they made it to the relative safety of a friendly squad. "Good job. I'm going to look for the Master Chief. Play nice with your new friends, in the meantime."

"Chief, it's good to have you back sir." Keladrian said over the comm.

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"Good to be back. Looks like the Master Chief took you all through the grinder a bit." Ran bit a piece of his inner lip and chewed it a bit, starting to walk past Keladrian towards Fian. "Oh, meet your new squad mates." He pointed backward at Jan and Sam. "They've already been through combat on their way over, so no use scaring them."

On his way over to Fian, the Chief noticed Sam making nice with Volkov. "Hey Volkov, see if you can't take our newest sharpshooter and watch our flanks, but don't wander too fucking far from us." At that, Ran made a beeline for Fian's white AIR-R.

Stopping behind Fian, the Chief simply asked, "So what's the plan here?"

"So what's the plan, Vel Steyr?"

If anyone had been able to see Phaedra's face after she saw Harrison's reaction, one would have seen her lips curve up into a slight smirk of amusement. She turned toward Sam, who had saluted her. Phaedra wasn't one to suddenly forget protocol, nor embarass a new squadmate who wasn't very far behind herself in experience. She dropped the stock of the MPR onto the ground and shifted the five-foot weapon to her left hand. She then snapped off a texbook salute with her right hand briefly touching her helmet.

"I saw the shot you took on the striped squid; not bad at all," said Phaedra, returning the MPR to rest in both of her hands.

"Hey Volkov, see if you can't take our newest sharpshooter and watch our flanks, but don't wander too fucking far from us," said Chief Ran.

"Roger that, Chief," replied Phaedra. She glanced at Sam and motioned with her head over her right shoulder.

"This way," she said, turning and walking out of the circle of squad members.

"Oh, meet your new squad mates. They've already been through combat on their way over, so no use scaring them."

"Aye sir." Keladrian responded, walking over to the two. One of them, identified as 'Sam' on by his FoF transponder was standing next to Phaedra. As he came nearer to them, they walked away, prompted by the Chief's orders. 'Well, maybe next time then.' Keladrian thought, turning directions toward the other member. Kel's HUD ID'd the newcomer as "Jan." Keladrian approached him.

"Hey, welcome to the squad. The name's Keladrian." He said, introducing himself to the newest member. "Nice work you did out there. Good to know we're getting people with some combat experience."

"Yes the power plant has been rigged and we have twenty minutes to get out of here." Avel quickly replied, relieved to know that things were going well to some degree out there. "We're heading for the landing zone with the evacuated civilians now."

With the Chief finally updated on the situation Avel walked out of the mess hall and began speaking to the civilians. "Follow me to the landing zone and keep your heads down." She said and then headed towards the exit at a hurried pace.

Shaking his head at his own suspicion, Sean stood down finally, deciding that if any of the squids were going to randomly pop out on them, they most likely would have by no, with most of the squad standing down. That decided, he hopped his way (with only slightly more agility then Kel in the Aggressor), and followed him that way, simply nodding to the chief who he hadn't really had a chance to meet yet. Once he'd made his way over to Kel and Jan, he nodded in the second's direction. "Sean here. Call him Kel, full names a bit of a mouthful, though he doesn't seem to realize that."

"Avel, Brand, get your weapons up," Anselm growled, having finally been able to make a head count, his shield drones snapped away from Brand and blocked the room's door, bumping several of the plant workers back into the room.

"Nice try, but Nepleslians aren't that dumb," the marine brought his AMP up and forced the workers backwards, Avel's connection to the Master Chief cut out as the Aggressor activated its Noisemaker, "don't let any of them escape".

The marine opened up with his AMP and PCTs, bathing the room in cleansing plasma.

Avels eyebrows shot up and she spun around. Activating her NAM Pulse Laser Array and raising her HPAR, the hallway instantly became a light show of laser beams and high explosive HPAR rounds. The hallway was given a new coat of red paint in a matter of seconds. Avel spotted the floating squid she had seen earlier make a run for the elevator door and immediately shot it. A few rounds to the control pad put an end to any further trips to the reactor room.

After a quick check to make sure she hadn't missed any zombies Avel poked her head in the cafeteria door. "The Chief says we have five minutes to get to the LZ. Let's get out of here. Oh and watch your step in the hallway."

The zombies upon realizing their doom and futility engaging fighting back against the two Power Armored marines tried to overrun Brand, but were instead overrun by the sheer mass of gaseous and semi-gaseous metalloids unleashed by the Hostile and Aggressor. By the end of it any wall that was not splattered with blood was tinted red by a bloody mist.

Master Chief Fian winced from the sudden outburst of Noisemaker from the commlink. He switched the comm to Chief Ran, turning around to face the veteran marine as he did. "The Squids are rallying for one last attack, we are getting out of here." A slight pause was on his lips when he realized this sounded familiar. He swept an arm over the makeshift marine base in the distance. "Everyone is getting out of here, again."

The black haired Nepleslian then patched into the squad-wide channel. At first the transmission from the MC sounded like static, but then each individual marine's SAVTECHs quickly decoded the heavily encrypted orders into something intelligible "Listen up! Our work here is almost finished. P3C Avel has rigged the plant. The only soldiers left planetside are marines with working suits and thrusters, the latter is important! When I give the order to return to the LZ, take the opportunity to test and push every plasma, gravitic and P/p drive you have, if anything malfunctions we'll get it fixed or replaced before we leave this Maker forsaken planet."

Fian's AIR-R parted its skirt armor, bringing every plasma drive it had to bear on the ground below at full power. This upward thrust was nullified by his P/p system, which was also pointed directly downwards but was pulling and holding the AIR-R slightly above the ground. Amidst the resulting dust storm the MC issued his formal orders in his silver tongue. "Squad, Break formation and regroup at the LZ! P3C Oliver, help P3C Volkov if she needs it. P3C Jan, take the lead!"

"Move out!"

Jan half smirked as he was told to take the lead again, using the push/pull system and the Plasma Impulse Drive to hover off the ground for a meter or so.

"Well, Gee. Why don't you just call me Pointman. Understood, sir. On the Bounce!" The marine, fully confident that absolutely nothing could go wrong, used the thrusters on his HOSTILE to make a single long jump towards the LZ.

"Sir!" Kingston's trademark curt tone rang out briefly over the com. He activated all his thrusters briefly to run the most basic diagnostic: does it work or not?

Everything registered green, so he engaged any and all propellants that would get him off the dusty surface and moving toward the LZ. He broke formation almost immediately, bobbing and weaving through the streets, occasionally crossing paths with others. He was trying to stay around center of the squad in case anything got ugly, but he was feeling rather confident this time around, and more often than not- or so it seemed- his gut was right.

"Sir!" Henry responded to Fian's orders. He was doing small bits of attacks here and there, flanking, hitting things from a distance, doing negligible amounts of damage. He never did get to fire that mortar. He sighed somewhat, but felt as though he'd find a use for it in some other engagement.

His Void Tactical suit had some very powerful thrusters, but it also had a respectable running speed of 75 kilometres an hour. He used this to get a running start, a quick hop, and off towards the LZ whilst facing the horde. He was then able to see the sheer depth of the swathe of advancing Mishhu. It was a terrifying sight to behold, and this gave Henry an idea.

A wicked grin came across his face as the armed the Guided Assault Fusion Mortar - and he wasn't going to just let it sit pretty. He fired the Mortar in a light-guided dumbfire. The end result was some truly devastating area denial. Everything in a 470 metre radius was subject to the explosive power of fusion based nuclear warheads.

In a colloquialism: 'A mighty fine headache.'

"This'll keep their heads down," He kept this as commentary in case he'd have to explain himself. He had another one primed for launch, he just had to let the system cool down.

Sam had started to follow Phaedra, but her movement was interrupted by Fian's sudden orders. She listened and nodded firmly, transmitting in return. "Sir, yes sir!" She turned away from the woman and activated her NIGHT's gravitic drive, taking to the air and shooting off towards the landing zone. Asking her fellow sniper how her armor had lost its wing would have to wait for later.

"Right then," Anselm deactivate the drones and scooped Ezra up in one arm, "let's high-tail it the fuck outa here".

The aggressor made its way out of the gorefest of a room and up to the elevator with Avel; his AMP ripped the ceiling off of the car and sent it plummeting down to the bottom of the shaft, "hold on tight, kid, armor airlift away," the marine snarked to Brand as he pushed his armor up to the first floor on columns of plasma where concentrated AMP fire unlocked the doors for their escape, shield drones at the ready incase the remains of squid down below had any friends that might take offense to the Albino's harsh treatment of prisoners of war.

Sean didn't really respond, aside from turning himself that way, and engaging any and all systems he could to propel himself faster. There was no point in wasting any of his ammunition in a vain attempt at harming something as he went. That said, he didn't do anything to specifically to avoid tossing some force the way of a Ripper or two that got in his way with his P/P system.