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

Sean wasted no time on admiring the Sunburns. He'd seen them before, and honestly, he was more concerned with the incoming fire then anything else at the moment. Scrambling out of his building, he opted to just run as hard as he could, rather then fire at the Mishhu. While there was a chance he'd do some damage, he was much, much more concerned with the damage he would most likely be seeing very soon unless he vacated, so getting the hell out of there seemed like his best option. Not like there was any shortage of the bastards to kill, anyway.

Avel followed closely behind Phaedra and the other marine. She continuously checked the area for signs of movement. It was only a matter of time before they ran into more Mishhu. When Phaedra asked about her squad she winced at the memory.

"My squad is dead. I've been fighting my way through the area and looking for a squad to join up with."

She looked up and saw two Sunburns fly overhead. Then she heard an explosion. "That sounded close." She commented, instinctively raising her HPAR and searching for targets.

Alex followed Wolf once more, with new soldier following them. "My squad is dead. I've been fighting my way through the area and looking for a squad to join up with." Said Avel. Alex was looking around checking her surroundings. "Well we are under command of Chief Rui. I bet now you are under his command too." Said Alex to new girl.

Two Sunburns were flying above them engaging enemy not that far from their position. According to HUD it was where one of their teammate under name Harrison was stuck. "Those gunships must gave those squid one huge spanking." said Alex and laughed.

They stopped for a while eyeing an intersection in front of them. "Avel we are falling back to another line of defense now." Added Alex so her new team-mate would know. Wolf was too busy checking their near vicinity to brief Avel.

Victor was nearly panting as he ran as fast as he could the possibly salvagable Marine's head in one hand and his rocket launcher in the other as he ran in the opposite direction of the Sunburns towards Chief "Red's" location as fast as he possibly could. Victor almost felt bad falling back to the secondary line knowing that two other Marines were still being pinned down in the opposite direction.

The thought of those two Marines being in any danger quickly vanished as Victor glanced behind him and watched the two gunships lining up for a missile run and then promptly opening fire on Mishu ground forces that were trying to push through the Marine defenses.

"I have a question." Victor said "If the civilians are evacuated..." Victor stopped tucking long enough to duck in an alley for cover "...then why are we still here?" He asked.

"My squad is dead. I've been fighting my way through the area and looking for a squad to join up with," said Avel.

"I know that feeling all too well..." thought Phaedra.

"The helplessness, their faces haunting you...Damn it! Focus!" she thought with a mental kick. She peered around another street corner, spotting the Chief's position several blocks away. Phaedra glanced towards Mayhew and Avel.

"We're nearly there; stay alert," said Phaedra. She gripped her MPR and then took off down the street; the Sunburns hammering the lines ahead with ordinance. Reaching a pile of rubble she waved Mayhew and Avel forward, covering their advance with her MPR held steady.

Harrison welcomed the familiar sound of Sunburn engines ripping up the ground around his building. As soon as the fire turned from his position to the Sunburns, the ex-merc was up and running for the edge of the building. He jumped unsteadily, using his boosters to get down from the building and back into the alleys. He didn't want to spend any more time pinned down, so he ran hard after Sean, knowing he was heading for the frontlines and safety.

"Roger that!" responed Alex to Wolf. Sniper was covering them with her large gun and Alex knew better then to stand around. She checked around to see if there were any enemy quickly and then she used her pull/push system to get to the next corner. There she knelt and covered others with her HPAR.

Keladrian brought up the tactical map on his HUD. He could see Harrison and Sean's FoF tag's moving rapidly towards the group of marines. As he watched them run, an explosion rocked the earth, and he subconsciously put his hand in front of his face. The Sunburns were pounding the Mishhu lines hard.

"Better help where I can." Kel muttered, and aimed down his AOP with a regular tungsten round. He found a Mishhu soldier attempting to run away. Keladrian fired the round at the squid, and moved to the next target. He wanted to save the High Explosive round in case he needed it.

The Sunburns moved to the right flank of the group of Mishhu that had gone after Harrison and Sean, hovering about half a mile away and pummeling the Mishhu with whatever ammunition was left in their chainguns. Once the area was clear of friendlies, the Sunburns would angle their noses down and sweep towards the Mishhu, firing several salvos of Pufferfish missiles at groups of Rippers and saturating the area with fire from their grenade launchers.

Preoccupied with maneuvering through enemy fire, the Sunburns' gun runs didn't do as much damage as hoped to the Mishhu forces, inflicting only about 1/5ths casualties on the Rippers. At the tail end of their gun run, the Sunburns would bank hard to the left, rushing towards friendly lines. During this maneuver, one Sunburn took three missiles to the tail rotor, effectively destabilizing it and causing it to go into a slow spin, gradually becoming faster as it neared the ground.

The crashing Sunburn was lost from view in a shower of dust as it's rotors first made contact with the ground, followed by the body of the aircraft as the Sunburn landed on it's side four miles away from the extreme right flank of the Mishhu forces, who were by now being forced out of the bulge that they created in Marine lines.

The crashed Sunburn's twin immediately rushed to its aid, circling the area as a platoon of Rippers started to converge on it. There were already Vipers heading into the city, and these Vipers were being redirected to the platoons closest to the downed gunship.

"Chief, there's two Vipers on their way to pick up your squad to rescue that gunship. I don't want any Marines being captured today." The rather curt order given to him by the Senior Chief would simply elicit a scowl from Ran, as he opened up a channel with the squad.

"Alright, we've got a downed gunship. Vipers are 2 minutes out and ready to ferry us over there. Morris, take everyone in a Hostile with you to secure that site. I want everyone else with me to provide fire support. We'll probably only have another friendly squad with us, so I want us pouring more firepower at the enemy than they can at us. We need to go in fast and get out fast." At that, three Vipers landed on the ground behind the second line of defense set up by the Marines.

Done with a cursory ammo check, the Chief simply waved the rest of the squad his way, as he started running for the Vipers.

"Alright, we've got a downed gunship. Vipers are 2 minutes out and ready to ferry us over there. Morris, take everyone in a Hostile with you to secure that site. I want everyone else with me to provide fire support."

Seeing as how Keladrian wasn't wearing a HOSTILE armor, he assumed that he was assigned to the support squad. Which was just fine with Kel. The Vipers landed, and the Chief took off running, waving the group with him forward. Keladrian attached his AOP to a hardpoint, and grabbed his HPAR. He was going to need to shoot a lot of bullets fast in this scenario.

"Chief," Kel asked, boosting after him. "do we know the status of the pilot in that Sunburn?"

Avel ran from one corner to the next, keeping her HPAR raised and ready for any Mishhu. She saw one trying to hide in an alleyway and gunned it down. Her attention briefly turned to one of the Sunburns that was hit by missiles and crashed four miles away in a cloud of dust. Then who she assumed was Chief Rui came on the radio.

"Alright, we've got a downed gunship. Vipers are 2 minutes out and ready to ferry us over there. Morris, take everyone in a Hostile with you to secure that site. I want everyone else with me to provide fire support."

Avel glanced down at her Hostile armor and hurried her pace. Then she saw a group of friendly icons appear on her HUD.

"Alright," Anselm growled in his usual tone, grabbing several HPAR drums off the dead, grabbing one marine's JAM bottle almost as an afterthought, stuffing the soldier's head-in-a-jar into the crook of his handless arm, "saddle up, kids, looks like we're gettin' out of this dump."

The marine got a level glare from one of the Hostiles in the other squad. 'Probably their Chief', he thought as everyone else made for the downed gunship with a gesture from the angry powersuit.

Anselm moved with them through shrapnel-ridden streets littered with the remains of Rippers and Mishhuvurthyar Infantry towards the wounded Sunburn.

"You heard the chief," Henry radioed out to any man wearing a Hostile in the area, "Doubletime! We need to get there before the squids get cozy, and hold it!"

Henry was a little slower than the others to move, but he was keeping his eyes open for squids whilst he went. As he did so, he raised two personal shields, one to follow himself, the other to follow Anslem. He only had six left, meaning he'd be able to create a wall to stop the Rippers from pouring in through a flank, or another two personal shields.

Those were Henry's present concerns, but his biggest concern would be how to hold the downed Sunburn from the squids, and making sure it got held until the marines could safely get out.

Either way - it was all in a days work.

Alex heard orders from her communicator. She was also in Hostile, so she was supposed to went with this Morris. SHe looked back to Wolf and opened a private channel with her.

"I am off to get to Morris. Thanks for escort." she said and started running. SHe opened minimap and scanned for Morris. When she found him she set his PA as a waypoint. It was roughly in the direction Avel was running.

"Avel wait for me." Alex said to the running woman. "Nevermind." she said after using Push/ Pull system to get to Avel. They should go together, they are still in combat zone after all. "I located up Morris, let's go over to him." She added. Morris was moving already so they needed to catch up with him.

Alex opened channel to him. "Private third class Mayhew and Avel. We are movin to you position, will be there shortly. Don't wait for us, we will catch up." She said to him and started moving quickly.

Victor had moved as fast as he possibly could the moment he had heard the order from his squad leader about the Vipers. There was a man down, assuming he was still alive, and Victor had paid enough attention in the actual classroom lessons to know that the Mishhuvurthyar weren't exactly the kindest scum-bags that could capture you out on the field of battle.

That egg-laying tentacle was just plain nasty!

Victor took off as fast as he could and once the Chief had appeared on his radar it wasn't long until he rounded a corner that he saw the Chief off in the distance with Vipers coming in. He didn't wave or anything, his common sense not wanting to make himself even more of a target for any Rippers or Mishu in general that might have been carrying a long-range weapon of some kind.

"Sir, this is Private Third Class Victor Adair: reporting for duty." Victor said in to his radio as he approached, the deceased Marine's head still under one arm.

Sean did a very cartoonish skid as he ran around a corner nearby. Being in a Hostile and all, especially with as much ammo as he had left, he figured he was included in the rescue squad. HE at least was still moving, and could shoot back, so that was enough for this situation. Slipping a clip into his HPAR, he proceeded at a much more leisurely pace, since he was out of the firing range now.

Snagging a spare clip or two from some bodies as he went, he trotted up behind Morris. "I take it you're Morris? P3C Sean Masson. I'm with you as well."

Private Kingston was one of the last soldiers off the heated line of combat. Getting down from his position had proven tricky, but the VOID's SAVTECH managed to cope well enough. A few minutes and a few alleys later, Kingston was standing beside Chief Rui and recalling his shield drones for a brief recharge. Hopefully they'd be useful in the next stage of operations because he was starting to run low on ammo for his bigger weapons.

"Ready sir," he muttered unobtrusively over the com as he made his way into the Viper.

The ride over in the Vipers was as typical as could be expected in a war zone. The shuttles had pitched right, left, in any direction that would make them a harder target to hit. Ran's squad was one amongst an entire platoon, and as the Marines hit the dirt they would already be exposed to enemy fire, mostly in the form of potshots.

The area in which the Sunburn crashed was relatively more dynamic, compared to the flat area in which the bulk of the Marine force was defending the city. The terrain here was much more rocky, and was essentially a very large river that must have dried out centuries earlier. The Sunburn was lying in the middle of the river bed, surrounded by a smaller platoon of Marines.

The larger platoon, made mostly up of Hostiles, were all deployed to face the Mishhu on the right side of where the lake carved out this scar on the planet, positioned on ground that varied in height.

"I want all our big guns spread out and avoiding counter-battery! Our defense is going to be an incredibly fucking strong offense!" As if to reiterate his point, several Aggressors started advancing towards the downed Sunburn, which was currently surrounded by several fire teams of Hostiles, small 2-3 man teams that kept far away from each other to minimize the chances of artillery scoring a group kill.

The Hostiles were currently split into two platoons. Alpha was currently defending the Sunburn, and thus equipped with a large number of VOIDs, as well as providing suppressing fire for Bravo, which was a larger force of Hostiles holding the outer edges of the riverbed.

Currently, the majority of the armors were engaging the enemy. "Morris! Take Kingston, Keladrian, Sean and Victor to the Sunburn! Harrison, take our heavy armors and join up with Alpha. Everyone else, divide yourselves up into fire teams and spread out. Two to three per team! We're heading in Bravo's direction." Ran shook his head, forgetting about his sharpshooters.

"Trey, Volkov. I need you guys to position yourselves on the opposite side of the river, on the flanks of this formation. You need to scan the horizon and make sure we don't get flanked in here. It'd be nice if you could pick off some Mishhu that get too close, too." At that, Ran waved at anyone not divided between Morris, Harrison, and whomever wasn't a sharpshooter to follow him to where Bravo was situated.

Keladrian nodded simply; a gesture of understanding. He was too focused on the mission at hand. Kel found the man designated as Morris, and stepped towards his direction. Keladrian didn't bother to initiate conversation, however, and instead pulled up a tactical map of the area.

The Sunburn was located in the middle of a wide valley, which was probably created by a river. Keladrian zoomed the map out, and didn't like what he saw. Surrounding the Sunburn was a group of marines, designated 'Alpha.' On the bank to the north was 'Bravo,' which was Alpha's first, and only, line of defense. The Mishhu were north of Bravo and advancing. Keladrian let out a sigh: they were fighting an uphill battle. History had shown how those generally turned out.

'Well, thank God we're better than everyone else in History...' Keladrian thought, his Marine pride sneaking through. He checked his HPAR and his AOP. Replacing the magazines for both guns, Keladrian was ready to rock and roll.

"Roger that," said Phaedra. She boosted towards the southwest part of the ravine, taking up a firing position on the left flank. She knelt on the opposite incline of the riverbed, using the elevation to gain an edge against the Mishhu onslaught. She watched the horizon intently; not one of the Mishhu would survive to flank the Marines, not while she still drew breath.

"Come and get it bastards..." thought Phaedra.