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

That was it, the fallback order! It was time to move to the point of egress and get the fuck out of Dodge, so to speak. Harrison couldn't have been happier. His goddamn software glitches and soft landings on Squiddie's fried ass were about to all come to an end.

So his thrusters flared and he whipped off towards the exit point.

"Affirmative," replied Phaedra. She also activated her NIGHT's gravitic drive, taking to the sky alongside Sam. While her maximum speed was limited due to the NIGHT's damaged wings, the momentum provided by the gravitic drive was sufficient to keep up with the rest of the squad.

Poking his armors head out of the crater he had bunkered down in Talbain started up after the squad, Keeping his AMP at the ready and a monoeye to the groups rear for pursuit.

"Can't wait for a couple minutes of rack time. Been a long day." The ID-SOL called out to no one in particular. He didn't like quiet on the way to an extraction point. To Talbain that meant a loss.

Kingston liked the casual conversation, tried to keep it going. "I'm looking forward to a proper shower," Viktor added, hoping someone else would keep the little game alive.

Ran had simply nodded, and upon giving the order to move to the landing zone, activated his gravimetric drive and took off after the squad, lingering further in the rear to provide cover if the squad were to be pursued.

5 Minutes later...

Fian was not the first marine to arrive at the Landing Zone, but he was the first marine to be saluted by the same Chief in the scorched M8 Hostile that they had encountered previously. Only one of the disheartened soldiers remained, the other two were conspicuously missing together with most of the other marines in the base. Burn marks on the tarmac and discarded medical stretchers indicated that the LZ had seen lots of activity between then and now, but where escape is concerned, there were no shuttles anywhere in sight or any ongoing signs of evacuation whatsoever.

"Report!" The MC snapped.

"All wounded evacuated, together with as many uninjured we can fit in the shuttles." The Chief started. "As you know, there isn't enough shuttles to go around, so High Command is sending down two Capital Ships to pick us up."

"They shoulda thought of that earlier." The E2 grumbled. A small number of other marines have started to stream into the area.

"They are the..." The Chief dragged out the sentence as he looked for something on the HUD. "... The NSS Acadia and NSS Emden. Two Hray-classes should be just enough for the 400 still planetside I think. They are about 60 kilometres above us and descending. Hope the squids don't get us by then."

Fian nodded, and then switched over to the squadlink. "The Acadia is picking us up personally, we might have to meet it halfway. Phaedra, there should be a spare wing here somewhere. Brand, go find yourself a suit quickly. Everyone else, standby for further orders."

Personal pickup by the NSS Acadia, Talbain couldn't help but smile at that.
"Hey Kingston. Looks like the showers are coming to you. Might be a line though." Content with his attempt at humor the ID-SOL looked back to the perimeter. After all they weren't off the rock quite yet and it wasn't time to relax.

Alex took off and used her thursther to get to LZ with others. In formation of course, watching sqauds flanks fot any danger. Luckily they got to LZ without a problem.

She stopped with others and looked around. There weren't many people left and it looked likr the people who are still here al met a lot of fighting. No injured here so also no job for her. It was good in it own way. She just stood next to Kingston looking around for any danger.

"Shower will be good. So far we were only showered by squidds." she said to man in Void. She will finally see Acadia.

Viktor laughed lightly at the news. "Yeah, hoping for them to respect the fact that I was part of the rear vanguard securing their evacuation is probably hoping for a little too much... But I can dream." He turned to face the direction from which they'd arrived. If any Misshu were going to attack, it'd probably be by following the Nepleslians' dust-trails. He gripped his gun with renewed vigor, still smiling beneath the helm. "Let's not lose our wits, though. We're still in hostile territory."

Anselm, having returned to his squad with yet another addition in tow, grumbled about the blood stains on his armor.

"Sir, PTC Wyatt reporting in, Master Chief; your orders, Sir?" the Aggressor saluted crisply, its pilot clearly pleased to be saluting again.

"Ah, Anselm. I trust you got the job done. Go help P3C Bran... h...r...f-" The Master Chief was slightly annoyed by the interference that was building up, but he had to pass on the orders first, he switched over to loudspeakers to continue. "... Help P3C Brand find an armor quickly. Static means the Mishhus are coming." Fian deadpanned.

Sure enough, unknown contacts were appearing on the edges of the Marine's radars. Most of these were obviously Rippers, but three signatures were way larger than normal and were traveling way faster than normal.

And then they struck. In a fraction of a second Viktor and Alexandra's SAVTECHs identified with passive sensors the objects flying at 800 miles per hour as Type 32 "Shredder" Gunboats, switched over to active mode and then triggered the autododge. Hostile and VOID boosted away from each other as a large Aether beam cut a swath right between them, leaving a molten divide. Two more continuous death beams penetrated the dusk sky. The bulk of Talbain's suit prevented it from reacting with similar effectiveness, a brief less than 2 second exposure before the Aggressor got out of the way netted him 70% shield damage.

The Chief that Fian was talking to took similar damages to Talbain. The main Aether turret of the Shredder was specifically designed to take out Yamataian PAs in one shot. The Chief's PA was no Yamataian suit, but shield de-calibration and armor damage took its toll. The M8 Hostile fragmented, the extreme heat caused the pilot and some internal components to vaporize, the expanding gasses blew out some armor panels but the exoskeleton was still in one piece. The husk stood still for a moment, and then collapsed under its own weight.

Fian looked up just in time to see the three Shredders pass each other in a flyby, but not before disgorging more than 300 mini-missiles and two large bombs. He brought his RAPTOR up, cycled the FMD, opened up the DART racks and then cranked his speakers up to max.

"INTERCEPTION!"

Alexandra quickly reacted and moved herself into position to intercept enemy missiles in the most effective way she could think of. She almost instantly hit her PLA and send small laser beams against those speeding wasps as soon as they got into range. She also started firing against that cloud of missiles with her HPAR set in if full-automatic. She has to hit at least few of them. Dead missile, good missile.

But that wasn't enough so she quickly prepared to use her P/P system. When of those bombs get about 100 meter from her she will start pushing it away. With some luck it will put it away and make it explode somewhere where it won't hurt anybody.

Anselm let his Precipice drop PCT bolts on the missiles, the Savtech working interception vectors far faster than the marine could intuitively aim and fire at the mass of warheads, his armor's Noisemaker and Monoeyes shouted back at the Misshu, drawing as many missiles as possible into the field of plasam his armor was spooling out. Dropping the AMP for a moment, the Albino grabbed both PALs and pointed them up into the air, tracking the Shredders on their next pass, "Avel, pop the containment on these mortars when they start falling!"

If he was right in his guesswork, mentally imposed markers floating in the air on his and Avel's HUD showing the other marine her target, the mortar shots would hit their appogee, and hopefully explode on the nose of the leading Shredder; if Avel was paying attention and the shots were on their mark the mortars would pop whether or not they actually hit the gunboat. The marine had spaced the shots far enough apart that the Shredder could just squeeze between them or catch it in one shot if the other missed or the gunboat tried to evade them altogether.

Sam hadn't turned off her gravitic drive when she and Phaedra arrived at the LZ; she had simply been hovering slightly above the ground as everyone talked, in preparation of further orders to move out. Thusly she was prepared when the attack struck - she reflexively shot backwards, almost into the path of one of the bombs.

When her mind caught up with her automatic reaction, she raised her MPR towards one of the bombs and fired, her sniper training letting her lead the shot; she was glad that it was somewhat easier than firing at a living target, since though the ordnance was falling quickly, there was little chance it would suddenly change directions and decide to go somewhere else.

Phaedra had barely finished adjusting to her new NIGHT armor when the attack came. Caught unprepared, her instincts immediately threw her to the ground behind the nearest cover.

A few minutes earlier...

When Phaedra inspected her NIGHT's damaged wing, it seemed unlikely that the necessary replacement parts would be in supply, and repairing the wing would not be the most time-efficient process. Phaedra decided to skip replacing the wing and simply procure a new PA. Thankfully there were a handful of PAs still available, one of which was a NIGHT. The NIGHT seemed slightly worn with its share of scars from previous battles, but appeared fully operational. While painted the usual jet black, this NIGHT in particular displayed some personalization from the previous owner: A Death's Head had been painted on each of the shoulders, and emblazoned on the helmet was the face of a snarling wolf. Initially Phaedra wondered if such personization was against regulations, but there were far more pressing matters at hand; she needed this NIGHT, regardless of its appearance. She opened up the NIGHT and quickly slipped inside to allow the suit to adjust to her size.

Currently...

"Shit. Not a good time to be caught unprepared," thought Phaedra as she placed her helmet on her head and sealed the neck ring. She held her eyes shut for the split second it took for the HUD to activate; she couldn't let her fear of darkness cloud her mind at a time like this. She pushed herself to her feet and boosted over to the rest of the squad. In the time it took for Phaedra to draw the stowed MPR from the back of her waist, her NIGHT's wings had extended and the stealth systems had activated.

There was little an MPR could do against a massive wave of missles, but Phaedra could still prove herself useful. Landing besides Anslem in his Aggressor, Phaedra ensured that at least some of the missles would be thrown off by the NIGHT's cloaking field.

Free of the threat of the missles, Phaedra loaded a IFF round and aimed ahead of one of the large shapes descending from the sky. She pulled the tigger, hoping that the IFF round would make some of the Mishhu missles do the work for her.

In the quickest manner possible, Viktor Kingston performed the following:
He boosted in reverse after his dodge to put distance between himself and the squad's assailants. He activated his monoeyes for increased performance of his counter-assault which entailed acitvation of his PLA and GLC. Once the plasma was firing, he activated his shield drones and lined them all up, forming a pair of square shields and a single triangle; together, they seemed to form a translucent arrow, telling the enemies to go away, or at the very least veer to their left.

Once this was done, Kingston was raising his Light Plasma Autocannon and spraying in the hopes of knocking some missiles out. Not even a second later he recalled he had TRACERs and deemed it helpful to launch ten of them toward his enemies. "Tracers launched!" he declared.

"Well shit" was the only thing the ID-SOL could think of as he caught up to the situation. The alarms in his suit blaring at his sudden lack of shields not helping him out at all he shut them off. Looking up to the sky filled with veritable doom and unpleasantness and started firing his PCTs into the cloud of missiles. He continued to space himself from any other nearby marines to make himself a less tempting target for another aethering. Spotting the bombs he opened up on them with his AMP as another thought came to mind, "Wish I still had some missiles to fire into that mess."

When they had arrived at the Landing Zone, Avel avoided the rest of the marines and kept to herself, trying to get whatever rest she could until the ships arrived. Although she was most likely going to be behind bars for taking part in the insubordination, jail was currently the least of her worries as she tried to come up with a rational explanation to the hallucinations. "Let's see.. I witnessed the slaughter of my entire squad, narrowly escaped death multiple times, came face to face with my worst fears and went on a suicide mission that nearly got me killed. All on the same day... Stress maybe?"

Then a NMX Shredder appeared and all hell broke loose, again. Avel was glad she was leaning against a large piece of wreckage when the attack started, gaining instant cover. She was especially glad she never got to know her new squad outside of their names and ranks or she probably would have been bothered by the sight of one of them being vaporized. "Just a friendly reminder why I don't make friends in the military. Well except for high ranking-Wait, what did Anselm say about exploding mortars in mid air?"

It took Avel half a second to figure out what Anselm was up to. "On it" She replied and brought up the mortar rounds specs on her HUD. After a few seconds of making the AI do all the work she radioed Anselm. "Alright I'm done, fire away."

"Roger that," at the last moment the marine launched two bolts of ignited tungsten at the lead Shredder, pausing for a moment to assure himself of their path before ducking down, scooping up his AMP and boosting back to avoid the missiles and Aether-fire he'd inevitably attract with his Noisemaker and PAL shots. Plasma bolts pouring out of his PCTs and AMP as the multi-ton hunk of advanced electronics barreled backwards across the broken ground on gravatics and thrusters.

Sean quickly moved back towards some sort of cover, deciding that while he might be able to do some damage to the shredders, unless he was alive to do so, he wouldn't be much help. To this end he put his P/P system into effect for a use other then propulsion; at least, other then propulsion of the self. Locking it on to any reasonably sized metal chunks within his range (that weren't other marines), he then proceeded to chuck as many of them, as fast as he could at the could of missiles. Even if the chunks didn't take many out, there was a chance that the explosions from the ones they did hit might take more out then sheer kinetic force. With that in mind, he also told his SavTech to flip all of his missiles to proximity detonation, for when he ran out of chunks of metal.