RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 3]: Between Lambs and Wolves

Keladrian followed the Chief back to the Sunburn. He wondered why new marines were here. 'Ah hell, what do I care?' Kel thought to himself. All he wanted right now was a cold shower and a stiff drink. And maybe a girl to lay down with. The ID-SOL leaned up against a rock and waited for the Chief to give them evac orders.

"We'll be leaving, now. Looks like these guys have it all covered. I'll save the pep talking and giggling for when we get off this fuckin' planet. Divide up into squads and head into the Vipers. We're through here."

"Hell yes!" Keladrian shouted. "Oh...uh, sorry!" He said, shrugging slightly. He was ready to be out of this Aggressor, even if it was a fine piece of machinery. He scanned the group of Marines, and found two he hadn't yet met. His FoF ID'd them as 'Alexandra Meyhew' and 'Avel Sitkeas.' Kel walked up to them. "Hey, do you mind if I hang with you guys on the ride home?" Kel asked.

Anselm tumbled backwards, a well-aimed gauss round tearing out his right pauldron, rendering his good arm useless. Cursing up a storm, he noticed the inbound Vipers and got the call to fall back. The marine huffed, he was exhausted anyways, a changing of the guard was exactly what he needed. Working into a slow jog, the Albino dashed between cover until he met Kingston and three others, whispering their names under his breath, a little memory excercise from his social training "Mayhew, Sitkeas, Keladrian,".

The Aggressor's scarred and dirtied face regarded its three squadmates, "Seems like you four had less fun than I did, eh, Viktor?" Anselm could have been without his helmet the way his armor seemed to grin at Viktor and the others.

"Keep firing while our boys fall back," Harrison grunted to the fire support team. The ex-merc watched the advancing biological tsunami of Mishhu armor with a vaguely perturbed eye. The Rippers definitely had the advantage in numbers; but Mishhu weren't wily and cunning like Nepleslians. No doubt his boys had a plan in mind somewhre within the ranks. Harrison wasn't the planning type; he didn't have a daring and cunning stratagem to defeat the oncoming hordes; but he still could do one thing.

He could hold down on that trigger bud until his cold dead fingers had to be pried off it by force. So that's what he did. The ex-merc crouched against a pile of fallen sandstone boulders, aimed high and fired another PAL blast into the Ripper contingent as the Marine lines began to step-by-step retreat down the slope towards the Sunburn.

"If I have anything to say about this," The merc shouted in his best gung-ho manner, "it's that we're going to be the last ones out of this location, smeared in Mishhu blood. No excuses!"

Alex rememberes Avels attack and thought that she had enough fun fo today. She looked at newcomer in Aggresor. Some guy name Anselm. "Hmm maybe we didn't have that much fun but at least we have all four limbs." she joked and walked to him. She put her HPAR on her backs and took out medikit. Shoved around marine head she put in the medikit when she treated pilot.

She took Anselms hand, or stump. It shot off very cleanely and the wound was burned so he won't bleed to death. "You won't die now, but you have to go see a doctor as soon as posibble. Understood?" She asked with strict tone in her voice.

"Seems like you four had less fun than I did, eh, Viktor?"

Keladrian eyed his squadmates stump of an arm, and the area where a pauldron should have been, and laughed. "Man, you have no appreciation for your appendages huh?" Kel laughed again as Alex walked forward and started chastising Anselm for his general lack of safety. 'Hope he doesn't chew her out like he did the last medic.' He thought to himself, chuckling once more.

Keladrian stood against his boulder, and surveyed the team. Somewhere inside him, he had a feeling he was going to like it on the NSS Acadia.

"If I have anything to say about this,"

Click to expand...

"Permission denied. Get in the shuttle!" A familiar voice resonated in the P1C's helmet. Someone wasn't as absent as they thought. Harrison's PAL shot arced across the desolation to impact upon the ground deep within the first gigantic Ripper wave... Except the pods weren't there, they had all taken to the air like a black tsunami of metal and tentacles. The horizon and terrain behind this wave was completely obscured.

"This is absurd." The leader of the new squad deadpanned. Random Gauss Rifle shots fired beyond their effective range bounced off the ground and a few shields.

Preliminary fire between the two fleets radiated enough energy into the atmosphere to generate a beautiful Aurora Borealis that played across the dusk sky. The wispy strands were broken in places by the contrasting events of the Mishu pods dropping in and Marine shuttles jumping out. While the torrent of pods were diminishing somewhat, the shuttles taking to the skies in force.

"Even High Command has evacuated." The shuttle flight leader shouted, exasperated. "Anyone not onboard in the one minute it takes to power up the jets is squid food!"

A commlink was patched through to Avel from a certain MC Vel Steyr. "Think you can do it in one minute?"

"Easily sir." Avel responded as she activated her thrusters and shot off towards the downed Sunburn, the occasional stray Gauss shots bouncing off her shields. A timer was on her HUD, slowly counting down the seconds she had left before the shuttles took off.

50 seconds. Avel reached the downed Sunburn and jumped in through the hole. She linked up with the Savtech computer and her suits AI added a new command to the combat system. She then directly linked the Encrypted Radio with the Savtech system and added a voice command to the new combat program.

35 seconds. With her task complete Avel jumped out of the Sunburn and saw the shuttles in the distance. Most of the marines were already aboard. She activated her thrusters once more and headed for the shuttles. She established a commlink with MC Vel Steyr. "Sir, the surprise is set and I'm heading for the shuttles now. I'm sending you a copy of the voice command I added just in case something happens to me."

"Fighting retreat," Harrison ordered bluntly over the SQUADCOMM, climbing away from his little patch of cover after the CO chastised him for his defensive motivational orders. "Everyone get to a shuttle, any shuttle, right now."

The merc stumbled over a few loose rocks and pieces of debris, at one point leaping over a burnt-out shell of what may have been an EARTH armor, heading straight for the shuttles. The soldier half-way leapt into the back of the shuttle, and braced himself against the walls.

He was ready to leave.

As they began boarding the Shuttles, Avel boosted back towards the Sunburn. "What the hell?" Keladrian shouted, looking at the other Marines and wondering if they knew what was going on. She jumped into the downed ship, disappearing. Kel began counting off the seconds. 'What in God's name is she doing? We're leaving in thirty seconds!' Kel thought to himself, using the optical enhancers in his Aggressor PA to magnify the hole Avel went into. After Keladrian counted to 25, she reappeared.

"Hurry it up!" He shouted to her, then realizing she wouldn't hear him over the roar of the other shuttle engines.

Deciding that leaving was the priority, not getting with a squad, Sean rapidly found a place on one of the shuttles, not bothering to worry about what the others were doing, at least for now. The orders had been more or less completely clear; if they didn't feel like listening to them, they were idiots.

Looking after Avel, the born and bred Nepleslian Marine accidentally tugged his stump out of Alex's attending grasp, muttering a half-hearted 'uh, sorry' as he turned back, the only working monoeye in his helmet orienting to watch for the other woman's return.

"I can always get a replacement hand, Santhis, it's more important that the job gets done and everyone is alive at the end of the day; I'd give my hand and more if that were the only price to pay."

The Albino sounded angry, though it was hard to tell with the damage to his Aggressor's external sound projection system. Anselm was perceptably edgy until Avel showed up again, once their little group was aboard the shuttle his integral plasma chainguns stopped twitching at movement out in the field where other squads fought, died, and pulled back into their own Vipers. Silently, the marine wondered how many injured and dead would be left behind in the retreat. There were ideal soldiers who never left a man behind, even against the worst odds, but those ideals fell away like smoke from an exhaust stack on a windy day. They didn't have the manpower or the time to retrieve all their casualties in the face of the NMX war machine; it put a bitter taste in Anselm's mouth and an aching fire in his belly to see Nepleslia in such a state.

Time to get out of here. Alex left Anselm and others for a while and gently picked up injured pilot. She ten went with other into one of Vipers covering pilot with her body.

Minute until leaving. That is nto enough time! Alex wanted to get out here and get some heads ot help injure soldier get into one of Vipers. But there is nto enough time. Avel didn't board with them, she went into Sunburn. Minute is still a minute. It is enough time when you know what you have to do and where to do it. Not when you wan to get out there and search for heads.

"Bloody hell." said Alex and looked outside. This was miserable mission, but she hoped that they saved enough people who had time to evacuate while they were fighting. At least what other did. Alex didn't do much whatsoever.

Alex had her HPAR in her hands if something happened. "I don't about you mates, but I hate leaving now." she muttered on external audio. So many injured and dead they coul take with them. So many not worth the risk of loosing more while doing that.

Avel landed at the entrance to the shuttle and ran inside. She checked her HUD and saw that she had 12 seconds remaining. Underneath her helmet she smiled. "All that and I still had time to spare." Looking around she saw some familiar faces; Alex who she tried to kill in her delusional state, Keladrian, Anselm and... "Hey, where is Phaedra?"

A dark silhouette emerged from a pile of rubble, pushing out from under newly fallen debris caused by the bombardment. Phaedra shook her head and re-assessed her current situation. The Mishhu had fallen back for the moment, but their numbers were increasing rapidly; Squid pods fell from the sky and shuttles soared into the air, evacuating the beleagured Marines.

"An evac? Hell, I'm not getting left behind!" thought Phaedra. She vaulted a ruined wall and leapt into the air, black wings unfolding as her thrusters activated. She boosted toward the nearest shuttle, which had already begun to climb into the sky.

Unfortunately for Phaedra, boosting at maximum thrust rendered her NIGHT's stealth abilities useless. Despite her suit automatically taking evasive maneuvers, Mishhu fire pounded at her shields. She could only hope that they held long enough for her to reach the shuttle.

Sean watched as Phaedra's NIGHT de-stealthed, and promptly got pounded. Damn it.... "Everyone, Phaedara's right there, covering fire, we can get her back if we play it quick." With that said, he put one foot back off of the shuttle, leveling his HPAR and firing streams of bullets into the Mishhu attacking her. Figuring now was as good a time as any, he also emptied a salvo of BOLT and ARROW missiles that way, taking care to keep his aim away from friendlies. Quickly slamming another magazine home, he resumed fire, this time using burst fire to try and suppress as many of the enemy as he could.

Avel was back and her question was good. Darn it. Wolf was not around. Alex looked around and saw her running towards the shuttle. She was under enemy fire and her shields were taking it hard. Guy near the exit leand out and started pounding Mishu but Alex had better idea.

She aimed carefuly at Phaedra and caught her with a tractor field with her P/P system adn started pulling her in the Viper. Combined with Phaedra's thrusthers she should be inside in a second.

Keladrian shook his head as Avel landed in the shuttle. The engine shakedown cycle finally finished, and they began taking off.

"Hey, where is Phaedra?"

Keladrian looked around, realizing the sniper was nowhere to be seen. "Oh shit..." Kel trailed off, scanning the ground for where she might be. Suddenly, his optical scanners caught movement, and he noticed someone emerging from under a pile of rubble. "Hey! She's still down there!" Keladrian shouted, trying to figure out how she could get on the shuttle. It was then that Phaedra started flying. Kel was astounded at first, and realized that she was in a NIGHT suit, so of course she could fly.

Mishhu soldiers must have seen her, because a torrent of fire began pelting her mid-flight.

"Everyone, Phaedara's right there, covering fire, we can get her back if we play it quick."

Keladrian didn't recognize the owner of the voice, but he nodded in agreement and leaned out with his HPAR. He let out a hail of the round coin-shaped ammunition, not sure if he was hitting anything. "She's not gonna make it!" Keladrian yelled, still firing at the horde of squid on the ground. Almost to spite him, Phaedra began speeding up. Kel eased off of the trigger for a second and saw that Alex was using the Push/Pull system on her Hostile. "Good thinking!" He said, returning to the task of suppressing the Mishhu.

The top of a boulder next to the new squad leader exploded as a gauss rifle round passed through it. The Mishus were almost close enough to be dangerous. "Okay that's it, fall back to the city!" He commanded, the squad acknowledging by backboosting and backpedalling, front of body and rifle still facing the enemy.

In a similar fashion, one of Phaedra's wings exploded into zanarium shards during her accent, but a strong pull from Alexandra's P/p fields provided the final hurl to send the sniper over the dropship ramp and into the huddling marines. The Nepleslian woman wasn't the only thing to hit them, more gauss rifle shots slow enough to be let in by the shuttle's shields but fast enough to do some damage smashed into the hull, making neat indentations and ripping out some of the seats. The pilot was accelerating both upwards and backwards to buy more time, but the Ripper pods were now all over the crashed Sunburn, some making a beeline straight for the depleted Vipers and unarmed shuttles.

"HQ HQ we need fire support on our position right now!" The flight leader yelled, but the amount of jamming from the Mishu wave was making communications difficult.

Avel's HUD sounded off with a garbled message from the MC. "D-... now!"

Anselm pulled Phaedra fully into the shuttle's hold and stepped in front of her, Plasma Chainguns spitting liquid fire at the Rippers trying to tear at him and his squadmates. 'Not while I can still swing a blade,' the next-to-useless marine thought darkly, chainknife clenched in his fist, ready to stab the whiring vibroteeth into the first Mishu that got close enough.

"D-... now!" Avel wasn't sure what he had meant by that. Did he mean detonate? She checked her HUD and saw that they were still in the blast radius but getting close to the edges. "I guess we're far away enough to avoid any serious damage." Another indentation appeared in the hull. "Not like I have much of a choice!" She opened up a commlink with the downed Sunburn. "Commence detonation in t-minus 6 seconds. Voice authorization code: Be somebody."

"Everybody get into a seat and brace for impact! You'll know what I'm talking about in a few seconds!" Avel spoke to the other occupants of the shuttle in a serious tone. She then marched over to Phaedra, hauled the sniper to her feet and shoved her into a seat before sitting down in her own.