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

Phaedra moved from building to destroyed building, making her way quickly and using what cover was available. She held her MPR at the ready as Gauss rounds ricocheted off brick and Aether beams seared the air overhead. Phaedra reached the remains of an intersection and ducked inside the nearest building, startled at what she found there.

What she found in the dim light could have only been described as a mess; the tangled remains of a Marine HOSTILE were intertwined with the remains of two Mishhu Rippers. Although the Marine was dead, he had apparently taken his attackers with him. Phaedra scanned with her HUD for some sign of identification, but she found none; the armor was badly scarred from intense heat. She knelt and began inspecting the armor further and checking the corpse for ammo.

The inevitable flashbacks came;

Burning

Agony

Failure

Blame

Phaedra winced and grabbed at her left arm, phantom pain flaring for an instant before subsiding just as quickly as it had come. Once she realized what had happened, Phaedra growled in frustration. She quickly set her mind to the task at hand to forget the images, grateful that no one saw her weakness. She managed to procure the magazine from the HPAR, but she was reluctant to continue until she located Mayhew.

She stood and hefted her MPR, sheltering behind a wall as an explosion in the street rocked the building. Without hesitation Phaedra stormed through the settling dust cloud and across the street.

It was only a few moments until Phaedra located Mayhew inside the remnants of a ruined home. She emerged from the dust-choked street clad in her black NIGHT armor, the five-foot MPR held in her right hand.

"Mayhew I presume? You can call me Wolf; I'm here to escort you to the Chief."

Alex had been waiting at the corner of the building until some explosion started going off. She quickly moved inside. The building looked like it can take a barrage of mortar fire, or whatever caused those explosions.

She didn't wait to long, when one round exploded really close to building and half of the hall Alex stood in was full of dust cloud. Out of it suddenly a marine emerged. Alex almost shoot that person out of reflex, but squid wouldn't wear new shiny NIGHT armor.

"Mayhew I presume? You can call me Wolf; I'm here to escort you to the Chief." Said the person. Wolf? Well probably a codename. The voice was female but there couldn't be said anything else about that person now. Alex looked out of window to check the street. "Yeah I am Mayhew. Lead the way. Thanks for the lift by the way." Said Alex to woman who came to baby-sit her. Alex smiled under her helmet and went to the door ready to follow Wolf.

"Tracer signal up, acknowledged. I'm ready to haul ass out of here when you guys are ready." Harrison ducked abruptly as another volley of Ripper fire tore the aerials over his head to a pile of hissing metal that rained down around his head. The mercenary rolled and fired another PAL round down over the edge of the building, hoping to suppress whatever Ripper forces were advancing on him. The firing lulled briefly, then renewed with gusto, concentrated bursts punching holes in the walls, roof and broadcast equipment scattered around him.

"Fire's picking up, though," the ex-merc warned, "might wanna get here fast."

Around the time that the last of his two rockets was ready to fire and Victor recieved no offer of covering fire, he suddenly realised the fact that he wasn't going to get any cover with the way things were going at the moment: he would just have to run and pray to whatever god that rested above would have mercy on this poor, green Marine and make sure that he was able to keep his head, along with the rest of his limbs and extremities, attatched to the rest of his body.

"God help me." Victor muttered as he moved to the doorway.

He broke out running for the dead Marine who he had spotted earlier, moving just fast enough that the initial fire which was intentionally aimed at him directly fell just far enough behind to not hit him but close enough to still make Victor pee himself in total fear. Once he approached the body Victor ran past it and smashed open the door so he would have cover. Then he reached out as far as he could while remaining in the door and dragged the Marine partially within.

It was there he stripped the Marine of his rockets, gave him a silent thank-you which was barely audible over his radio, and then did something odd. Reaching out from cover once more Victor retrieved the head of the Marine, still in the helmet, and placed it within the crook of one of the body's arms.

"This is Private Adair, I'm fully stocked and ready to rock!" Victor sounded as eager as a kid at a candy store.

Sean hadn't felt the need to speak up, but the incoming airstrike and the lack of a positive response from Harrison gave him a definite feeling that it would be a good idea to either be right over there with Harrison shortly, or be a good, safe distance away. He didn't look that much like a Mishhu, but it was a warzone, and mistakes happen.

With that thought in mind, he turned to run back the other way, deciding not to chance taking fire from the same group that had Harrison pinned, only to discover he'd been cut off by a decently sized squad of Rippers only a block away. He ducked back inside the building he'd been planning to go over, deployed his probe, and used it to check whether he'd been spotted yet or not. He promptly breathed a sigh of relief when it showed he was still uncovered, then tensed again when he remembered why he needed to get going that way.

"Chief, I hate to ruin a great plan, but unless those birds are gonna be real careful with their aim, I'm in trouble. I'm close to the target zone, and I have no way to clear out at the moment."

"What the fuck? Why do you need a new armor, Trey?!" Grinding his back molars, the Chief opened a comm with Henry. "Morris, it sounds like Trey's got some problems with his armor. Head over there and help him out."

The Chiefs attention was primarily directed towards arranging air support for Harrison, as well as making sure there were no friendly fire incidents due to Sean's proximity to enemy forces.

"Kingston! I want another TRACER round fired at Sean's position. Harrison, I need you to keep the Mishhu around Kingston suppressed so they don't home in on the TRACER. You two need to stay put. The Sunburns won't engage anything 10 meters out from your positions."

There were two Sunburns approaching the city from the rear of the Marine lines, about 10 minutes out. The gunships were immediately put in the middle of a swarm of other gunships, both leaving and heading towards the city that the Marines were guarding.

Noting that several other platoons in better fighting condition had joined the frontlines, the Chief decided to pull the squad back from the front so that he could gather everyone up.

"We're falling back to the second line of defense once Harrison and Sean get picked up! I need our big guns to suppress the Mishhu around the two of them and communicate with the gunships coming in. Everyone else, start falling back."

"Affirmative, Sir!" Henry said as he took a moment to jump from building to building and run between alleys back to the Second Line. As he did so, he opened up a line between himself and Trey, "Trey, whereabouts are you?"

"Probably less than a couple blocks from the second line." He responded, using his muscles to heft the HGR up and onto the Hostile's gun rack, glad to have it carried by an augmented part of the suit now. The sniper pulled out his LSP, wary of the little weapon, and continued on his way towards the line "I had my shoulder armor forcibly removed, and now the suit can't hold a gun still"

"I have a fix for that. Are the shoulders intact?" Henry asked as he wove between streets in a search for tools to use in the operation. He contemplated his approach to the fix as he found a small array of tools in a nearby hardware shop.

"The nanomuscle underneath is still mostly there, but without the support of the pauldrons, it's about as useful as a fire hose that no one's holding." The Marine commented. "If we could find a torch and some metal tubing, we could probably rig up a fix." the ex-tech sentry suggested "But I'll have fused shoulders, if we do that."

"Fused shoulders are a bit of a worry," Henry nodded knowingly, "But, you'll have your aim problem solved," The remark came off as strange while he used his spare hand to hang onto his tools. He started to think of alternate ways to get the job done, possibly having to salvage a fresh pair. He was about a block away from Trey's position at this point in time. "Another thing, should've asked earlier, which armour am I fixing?"

"A Hostile." Trey answered, huffing a little as he hurried his way down the street, not wanting to ignite his boosters to close the distance faster, as that might do some more damage to the already stressed frame. "You got any other ideas on how to fix it?" he asked, seeing the defensive line up ahead.

Henry paused for a moment, coming to a stop. He rubbed the chin of his armour as he looked at a fallen Hostile. It'd been shot through the head and torso area - but one of the pauldrons was in good enough condition to work, "Possibly, I hope you don't mind grave robbery to go with your fix," He knelt down and started to carefully detach the intact shoulder with his tools, detaching nanomuscles and the Durandium plate that came with it.

"Harsh as it sounds, It's probably a better idea than just letting it sit there. The more we keep alive, the less have to die, right? and besides, the dead have no use for armor." Trey responded, with a touch of bitter irony to his voice. "What have you managed to scrounge up? he asked, watching Henry's dot appear in his HUD, paused around a specific spot. The Sniper trudged closer over toward Henry, ready to get some repairs done.

"Shh," Henry cautioned as he had to concentrate to make everything just right as he lifted the intact shoulder pad away from the armour, without harming what was left of the person underneath, "Marvellous, isn't it?" He smiled as he noticed Trey's armour stomping towards him.

"It's the wrong color." Trey remarked, flatly. "But Beggars can't be choosers. How's the shoulder under that beat up PPP look?" the sniper inquired, hoping that the dead marine's armor was intact underneath the broken push/pull system. Idly, he wondered how the marine died this far back from the line, before he looked to the side to see a lone ripper, blown to bits a few meters away. "Strange how the rounds don't penetrate this far much" Trey commented, just as a single round ricocheted somewhere above his head. "Makes you wonder just what the guys up front are absorbing for us."

"I got an eyeful of the squiddy bastards with Harrison," He said as he searched for a Push-Pull system and eventually found that he'd taken it out along with the rest of the shoulderpad he'd taken so carefully, "And frankly I've seen the Reds pull better tactics than them. Shall we get started?"

"No harm in doing so." Trey said, fiddling with the busted pieces of armor hanging onto hist suit. "And the reds have nearly killed me before. This is just an inconvenience." the sniper noted. "Need me to sit?" he asked, looking over the gear in Henry's hands.

"Yes, please," Henry said as he knelt down and started carefully replacing the shoulderpad, starting with the nanomuscle connections.

Trey sat down and shifted his LSP so that, if need be, he could fire it around Henry. "You know, I used to be a tech boy myself." the sniper mused, thinking back on the old days.

"Heh, as a matter of fact," Henry said as he begun to put power into the Push-Pull system, the plate still needed to be applied, "My dad told me that I was a good shot with a hunting rifle when I was a kid,"

"I took to the fixing when I was a kid, actually." Trey commented. "Wasn't till my second time through training that I realized I was more than a natural with a rifle." he said, in a conversational tone. "I've seen you do some shooting. you're no slouch yourself. Hey, didn't you used to stutter?" the Yamataian-bodied Nepleslian accounted, suddenly remembering.

Henry smiled warmly as he affixed the plate in place, "Yeah... times change, though," Trey's shoulder was now good as new, "The NSS Emden and Alder mission made me rethink a few things. Over the break I practiced while my leg recovered,"

"Well, It's good to hear from a fellow soldier." Trey said, getting up and feeling how his now-repaired Left shoulder felt. "Shall we go find a right shoulder or do you think this will do?" Trey asked, handing off the LSP to the now-supported arm.

"Your shooting arm should be good for now," Henry said, admiring the finished work, "Use the Push-Pull system to dampen the recoil," He nodded knowingly as he gave Trey's shoulder a few taps, "I decided to reroute some extra power through it to compensate for the other one."

"Ahh, Yeah, that's a good idea." the sniper commented, looking around for any signs of enemies within LSP range before stowing the weapon and pulling out the larger Gauss rifle he had acquired and had been using. "Shall we go now?" Trey asked.

"Yes, let's," Henry left his tools where they were and hoped someone else would find them just in case. He then cradled his LPA, and got ready to depart.

"Let's go," said Phaedra, running across the intersection again. She headed toward the building on the corner that she had previously occupied. She stopped just outside the doorway and turned back toward Mayhew.

"Prepare yourself, it isn't pretty in here; but we need to retrieve the ammo." Phaedra entered the building and once again knelt next to the Marine corpse.

"Here, take this," she said, handing the HPAR drum mag to Mayhew.

"Keep an eye out, this will only take a moment," said Phaedra, working on one of the missle racks to retrieve the unspent projectiles.

It was then that Chief Rui came on the comm:

"We're falling back to the second line of defense once Harrison and Sean get picked up! I need our big guns to suppress the Mishhu around the two of them and communicate with the gunships coming in. Everyone else, start falling back."

"Affirmative," replied Phaedra. After another moment of fiddling she managed to remove the missle rack, holding it tight in her left hand.

"Alright, you heard the Chief, lets get out of here," she said breaking off into a dead run. She stayed no more than a few feet away from Mayhew, ensuring that she arrived in one piece.

"We're falling back to the second line of defense once Harrison and Sean get picked up! I need our big guns to suppress the Mishhu around the two of them and communicate with the gunships coming in. Everyone else, start falling back." The Chief, who was among some of the squad members who he had yet to actually see, came over his radio.

"Rodger that, sir." Victor replied.

Stepping out over the nearby dead Marine's body from before, Victor fired off the last two high-explosive rockets in the general direction of the first Rippers who he saw. He reloaded as he ducked back within the doorway and leaned out to scan the street quickly for more targets. Spotting more Rippers he opened fire with a volley of three tungsten rockets before hiding within the doorway yet again.

"Suppression for Harrison's position incoming. I'm far left and slightly forward of his position in a fresh crater, shield drones would be nice too. I'm going to get shot at pretty good for this one." Talbain called on the squad comms line from the position slightly forward of the line that he had worked his way to while the mishhu were focused on. His shields having managed to recharge since he made his way to the squad. "Fuckdamn this is going to suck." He thought to himself with a grimace. "Targeting data incoming." The ID-SOL shouted as he switched all his monoeyes to active mode and started firing with all his weapons on the mishhu group. His hole in the ground lighting up with flashes from all his plasma weapons and BOLT launches.

"Prepare yourself, it isn't pretty in here; but we need to retrieve the ammo." Said Wolf to Alex and went into some building. Not like expected war to be pretty. Thought Alex and followed Wolf only to discover fallen marine. Wolf knelt by dead soldier and started scavange it for ammo. "Here, take this," she said and handed a HPAR magazine to Alex. She took it and added to ones she had with her. She then took dead marines HPAR and took magazine in the gun too. It wasn't empty.

"We're falling back to the second line of defense once Harrison and Sean get picked up! I need our big guns to suppress the Mishhu around the two of them and communicate with the gunships coming in. Everyone else, start falling back." Could be heard from communicator. Well in that case Alex can do what she had in mind first when she saw that body.

"I just hate this." said Alex as and knelt next to dead body. It's chest was burned badly, but the head was okay. Looks like a PA had malfunction and helmet wasn't ejected. If they were to took it with them, then this marine could be revived. Alex took out her knife and slowly and carefully cut marines head off and held it in her left hand. Wolf meanwhile took marines rockets.


"Alright, you heard the Chief, lets get out of here," said sniper and started running. Alex followed her tightly with head in her hand. Next time she will take a bag with her to carry things like this. HPAR was in her right hand and she was checking for any danger, prepared to let head go and start shooting from her HPAR.

Suddenly Alex didn't felt so eager to join battle as she felt before. Not that she was afraid, but she would rather be somewhere else. That was probably normal or at least she hoped it to be normal. But still any squid that won't die today could do some damage somewhere else. Or kill some of her comrades in arms.

"Tell ya what," Anselm remarked, adding his scavenged HPAR to the volley of fire holding the intersection against a slowly growing tide of Rippers, watching the 700 round magazine dwindle to a few dozen coins in short order, "these squids might not be pulling any game-winning maneuvers, but they damn well know how to drain our magazines." The marine tasked a monoeye to scan the friendly casualties for any spare ammunition and weapons, a pop-up display highlighted a few HPARs and several VBC Knives within a quick boost of the Albino's position.

Avel ducked behind a corner just as a wave of Gauss fire smashed into the wall in front of her. Grabbing an explosive device scavenged from the battlefield, she threw it down the hall and continued running through the building. The explosion vaporized the Mishhuvurthyar following her and blew a large hole in the side of he building.

"These bastards don't know when to quit." Avel thought to herself as she raised her HPAR and gunned down a Ripper that jumped in front of her. Her squad had been killed off and she was looking for another squad to link up with. There was one in the area and she was hoping to catch up with them.

She turned another corner and spotted who she was looking for. Avel quickly marched up to the three power armored marines and saluted. "Private third Class Avel here. Who's in charge of this squad?"

"We're falling back to the second line of defense once Harrison and Sean get picked up! I need our big guns to suppress the Mishhu around the two of them and communicate with the gunships coming in. Everyone else, start falling back."

"Yes sir!" Keladrian replied, crouching further into his cover. Checking his ammo counter, Kel was dismayed. Anselm was right, he was running low. "Anselm, take these shield drones for a sec, I'm going on a gun run." Keladrian said, transferring the control of the drones to him, and noticing several bodies on the ground about 20 meters to the right of his location. Keladrian fired a shot at a Mishhu soldier who ducked back into cover, and then Kel boosted over to the location of the fallen Marines. He grabbed an HPAR with 372 rounds left in the drum, and another clip of ammo for his AOP.

Keladrian secured his AOP to a hardpoint, and hefted the HPAR into his hands. His HUD updated with a new targeting reticule and an updated ammo counter. He looked both ways, and boosted back to his previous location. "Locked and Loaded." Keladrian said, smiling at his own cheesy remark.

Phaedra glanced behind her to ensure that her charge was following; Mayhew was only a few paces behind, carrying the head of the deceased Marine they had discovered.

An explosion went off nearby, accompanied by the rattle of automatic weapons.

"Move!" shouted Phaedra, shoving Mayhew towards the nearest available cover.

"I will not let one of my comrades be hurt again!" thought Phaedra. She dropped the rocket pod and held her MPR at the ready. A friendly icon popped up on her HUD and she cautiously peered around the corner of the building. A lone Marine was running toward their position. Phaedra stepped out from behind cover and barred the Marine's path.

"Identify yourself," said Phaedra to the newcomer.

"Private third Class Avel here. Who's in charge of this squad?" said the Marine.

"I am, " she said lowering her MPR. "P3C Phaedra Volkov, but you can call me Wolf. Mayhew and I were falling back to the Chief's position," she said, gesturing to the medic behind her.

"Where is the rest of your unit?" asked Phaedra. She retrieved the rocket pod and headed off down the street, ensuring both of her charges were right behind her.

As Victor waited in absolute silencing near the dead Marine's body he suddenly noticed the firing starting to weaken in his general direction. Then Victor looked to the Marine's body, his head resting beside it, and remembered what he had been told about their emergency freezing procedures. The head looked relatively okay...from what he could tell with the helmet still being intact.

"This is Private Third Class Adair, is there a medic out there?" Victor asked, putting a hand atop the helmet.

The suppressive fire that the Marines poured onto the assaulting Mishhu had only served to draw even more Rippers to Harrison and Sean's position, tempted by the idea of two lone Marines that were in trouble, as the suppressing fire implied. At least 15 more Rippers joined in, all converging on Harrison and Sean's position.

However, as the Rippers closed in on Harrison and Sean's position, the two Marines would suddenly see the ground amongst the Rippers almost boil in a mess of dirt and glinting metal as the pair of Sunburn gunships started hosing individual Rippers with their 30mm cannons, staying well behind Marine lines and lobbing EMP grenades into the mass of Mishhu that were descending on Harrison and Sean.

The presence of gunships on the scene had diverted the Mishhu attention from Sean and Harrison to the Sunburns, which were now repositioning themselves to the right of the flanks of the Rippers that were attacking Harrison and Sean, one of them taking a round from a Gauss rifle near the tail rotor. With their cannons nearly empty from a previous gun run, the missile pods on the Sunburns opened up, revealing several Pufferfish missiles.

"Shit, they're going on a gun run! Harrison, Sean! That's your cue to get the fuck out of there! Everyone else, help out the Sunburns by blowing up some missiles and keeping the Rippers busy. Get ready to move!"

Alex moved closely behind Phaedra. There was sound of automatic guns in background and explosion went from time to time somewhere. Sound of war. Only Alex wasn't really in that war. They coul go to where chief Rui is and help him out while falling back. Every person who knows how to shoot a gun must be useful now.

Alex was looiking around and watching for any ripper who could somehow get so far. Everything is possible. Wolf suddenly tried to shove her in cover of a empty crater. Night trying to shove Hostile with one hand was very interesting though, but Alex knew better than to resist and went with and jumped in the crater. "Oy you could point you know. Or tell 'take cover'." said Alex to Wolf. She sounded annoyed a little.

She checked aroud for any danger, except explosion that went-off nearby that could make Wolf push her in the crater. Only thing she saw was a friendly icon on her minimap. Wolf who was nearby behind a corner of the building stepped out in the street so other marine could see her. Ale climbed out of ther crater and ran up to the building.

Wolf was talking to the marine, but Alex was quiet. She was watching her perimeter and only greeted new marine with a nod. New guy was actually new girl. Lot of girl joined the marines. thought Alex for herself. Or she could be clone like herself.

Anselm's hardmounted plasma chainguns flashed to life as his Precipice Savtech pulled targets from the air as the marine put several volleys of super-heated metal into the Mishhu recklessly swarming towards the gunships and his fellow marines. Around him the remains of two other squads joined the Albino in a turkey shoot, but everyone ducked back into cover as Rippers at the rear of the swarm had enough sense to engage the group of hostile armors rather than be shot apart.

"Apparently some of these dogs have enough brains not to go after the biggest bone in the yard," the clone huffed inside his armor, checking the bandages and casting foam capping his stump as gauss slugs chipped away at his cover "at least when those bones have anti-armor weapons trained on them."

Keladrian looked on in envy (Of the very large guns) as the Sunburn's came in for a missile strafe. "That shit looks lethal." He muttered, admiring the raw power behind each one.

Incoming Mishhu fire brought him back to reality, and he quickly responded with some rounds from his HPAR. He was starting to like this gun.

"Shit, they're going on a gun run! Harrison, Sean! That's your cue to get the fuck out of there! Everyone else, help out the Sunburns by blowing up some missiles and keeping the Rippers busy. Get ready to move!"

"Roger that!" Keladrian responded into the comm unit, and switched out his HPAR for the AOP. He slapped in a fresh clip for the launcher, and aimed one of his final two High-Explosive rounds at the Mishhu advancing on Harrison and Sean. "Boom..." Kel said, pulling the trigger and releasing the deadly projectile straight at a cluster of Mishhu soldiers.