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RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 4.1] In Before the Close

Sigma

Sigma

Inactive Member
Both cruiser squadrons of the 4th Fleet drifted lazily in space. Their calm and quiet manner belied the high level of activity within each vessel. They were at the edge of the Artume system, the launching position for Admiral Valken's recently dubbed, "Operation Plunder."

Sailors were running around on errands or duty, ensuring a constant air of organized chaos reigned. In the hangars of the various warships, fifty-eight Marines were getting into their armor for the attack.

"Do you really think that five squads can pull off this attack? Especially when only two Marines know what we're after?" Captain Ironside asked the Admiral quietly on the Dauntless' bridge.

"Captain, the one thing I've learned about Marines is that if you tell them they can't do something, they'll do it. I'm looking to make use of that," Valken replied with a smile, "Now, I do think a piratical air would liven the mood little more... "

--------------------

The power armors were lined on either side of the hangar, like giant soldiers on parade. Bernhard and Laura walked down, looking for Laura's new VOID. They quickly found the armor and soon, Laura was all over it, inspecting every joint and part. Bernhard wondered if she even knew what to look for.

Then their attention was stolen by an announcement from Drei. "Avast, ye damned pox-ridden Marines! The Admiral beggars you remember that we be after buried treasure and prisoner wenches! No taking pets or befriending the locals! Come back alive and there be plenty of wine and song to drown ye spirits! And beware of mermaids!"

Bernhard blinked and glanced at Laura who shrugged. "We be after loot and plunder, Bernie lad. Don't be friendly with the locals, ye hear?" Laura mimicked, checking the charge on the VOID's Light Plasma Autocannon. "Where be your pistol and cutlass, sonny Jim?"
 
They had been in transit for what? Three days? A week? It was hard to keep track. Even with all the daily announcements and drills where one day ended and the other began in the back of her mind began to blur. Each day sped by so quickly that she wasn't sure to attribute the cause to fear or excitement. Either way, she was about to find out soon enough. Alarm klaxon blared in her ear as everyone got ready for deployment.

"A pirate? Well that's original,"she mused to herself as she mulled about the hangar bay. A sideways glance told her her power armour was ready for use, but in all honesty she had wished she had gotten some more practice with the thing first. All she had booked was simulation practice with very little time to get any live fire drills in. Still, supposedly that was the thing you did in boot camp for a good year or two to get warmed up. As she gave the machine one last look her fingers toyed with the uppermost button of her uniform habitually.

"Is she ready?"she asked a passing mechanic with a quick gesture to her assigned unit.
 
Rita stood next to her hostile, making a last systems check on her TAC/COM and the suit's integrated weapons, just to be sure that everything was up and running. She had changed the suit's loadout slightly to suit her frantic style of fighting. A PLR-02A Plasma Lance Rifle had been attached to a sling, carried on the armor's back, and she replaced the DART launchers with BOLT launchers, and her vibrosaw knife with a vibro-shortsword.

She had been waiting for this all week, so she was excited. Fighting - no, killing was all she ever looked forward to anymore. The adrenaline and exhilaration of combat, and the satisfaction of making the killing blow. She couldn't wait for the mission to start.

"Pirates? What the fuck? Come on, let's just get this shit on the road!" She mused, waiting to be ordered to suit up. Rita was holding an HPAR underslung beneath her right arm. She hefted it up and shouldered it, looking down the sights toward the armor bay's doors. "When I'm fishing, we'll all be swimming in a sea of squiddy gravy."
 
Typed away on his data-jockey, keeping the device busy even when he spent a moment to look up at the hostile infront of him. His gaze blurred with a series of numbers as he ran a diagnostic of his eyes, 'am I ready for this?' he thought to himself, as his attention fell back to his data-jockey. "Everything's green..." he murmured quietly to himself. 'Looks like,' the thought answered himself. He turned from the armored suit, as the broadcast played, snorting with a slight hint of amusement.

Rita seems to catch his attention, and her display brings his brow raising for a short moment. 'Friendly fire isn't,' he remembered his drill sergeant bellowing at him. He turned back to his hostile, forcing away the idea that he might 'cop it' from a teammate, that was entirely more unsettling then the idea of facing these squid things.
 
As Matteo outfitted his Hostile appropriately for electronic warfare and system infiltration, he couldn't help but look up from his work as Drei spoke up. "Heh! The girl's been getting more and more lively as of late. They must be feeding her something new or other since Valken took over." he remarked. This time around, Matteo was making sure he was packing REAL mini-missiles, the ones that weren't EMP and held high explosives worth their weight. As he finished checking over the pods, Matteo looked up and at the rest of the squad.

"Hey Rita!" he called over to the cyborg. "You really think the Squids would make good gravy? You gotta be crazy or something to think that!"
 
Obvious enthusiasm overtook Victor's face as the broadcast began play overhead. He had been hoping to play with the squids for quite awhile now. Looking straight ahead at his Hostile the excited marine could feel his muscles tighten around the Light Plasma Autocannon currently housed between his right arm and torso. It was a shame, he was sure that a Lancer would be more fun if not slightly...okay completely suicidal. "I wonder if pirates scream in that same stupid tone they talk in," as he contemplated on that though Victor decided to double check that everything was in order before outfitting it with the Autocannon. He didn't want the fun of his first skirmish to end too quickly because he didn't maintain the blasted thing properly.
 
"When was the last time anyone even encountered a pirate?" she commented to no one in particular as the deck began to fill with idle chatter on the topic. It was almost like the AI had done it for that very purpose. Still that was beyond her at the moment as she gave her Aggressor one final look as the mechanics began to pull away from it. Compared to the rest of the squad she really did have one of the more heavily armoured power armours. However, she wasn't quite sure how to take that. Did they give it to her because they knew she was capable, or was it because she was incapable? Either way she knew she'd enjoy toying with the the RFMD-02b, otherwise known as the Bulldog.

Even as the final checks were slowly being done on each and every unit for what seemed like the third time she couldn't help going through things in her mind. How the paint was slightly scratched from the last user, and how the settings had just been adjusted to those suited to her. Real combat for the first time was going to be a bitch, but everyone else seem excited. It almost made her wonder if they knew what they had signed up for....Oh well, yelling at someone always took her mind off things.

"You have me loaded up with 75-25 split of red and blue rounds, right? Wait, where's the power assist arm! You grease monkeys! Ammo costs money! Just put the submachine gun somewhere else, I want that assist arm! Also, the knife, don't forget the bloody knife this time like you did during training....Hey don't give me that look! You're the one that forgot the mission outlines and attached BOLTs earlier! Look, you did switch them with ARROWs right?....well at least you got one thing right."
 
"I was a pirate." Rita said in response to Rana's impudent comment. "And a real pirate would chew you up, little girl." Rita added, laughing heartily. Compared to her anti-social behavior over the past week, that little quip could have been considered affectionate.

Rita opened the hostile from the front and turned around, backing into it. She let the armor close around her and then shoved the helmet onto her head, grinning as the heads-up display fired on. "I don't know, sarge, I've always been a fan of that Yammie Tako Sushi crap!""

Rita slapped the magazine into her HPAR and stepped forward. She was gonna be the first into combat, clearly, unless ordered otherwise. "I'll bet anyone who'll go for it that I'll kill the most squiddies today. One week's worth o' booze rations!"
 
"A bar back in Funky City, or atleast he was bragging about being one before someone hit him with a chair," Artan offers his own answer to the comment on pirates. His eyes moved over the gear for his Hostile, everything there was standard issue, equipment he had trained with constantly since basic. He looked over his HPAR master-set, ensuring every piece was properly maintained.

""As for the bet, I'll see how hard it really is to kill these things, and take you up on it next time." Artan states his answer on the wager, shifting to lay down his weapon as he moves to "mount" his armor. Slipping into the comforting confines of the metal exoskeleton as he began to boot up the rest of it's systems.

"Nothing like being seven foot tall," he murmured jokingly to himself.
 
Cedric looked at his Aggressor approvingly as he made sure the last details were in place.

The first thing that he gave the most attention to was his AS4GS. He had been told they were going to be inside a possibly very confined facility, so the Staff Sergeant wasn't taking any chances, and he was making sure to take along plenty of both slug and spread-shot ammunition. Along with that he was bringing along a NA-W3302: the old "toy" Wazu had developed for him before he had left to help with the foundation of the demolitions school. It would help cut, burn, or just wreck their way through anything that might get in their way. A PCT-01b and VCS-03b vibrosaw knife were both also a must for the upcoming mission. He left the LSP-01b light submachine gun in order to make more room for his other equipment. He also made sure that his baby had two extended BOLT racks.

On top of all of that: he was going to bring along some RX33 . . . just to be one the safe side.

Just as the Marine was about to climb in to his Aggressor, Drei's voice suddenly came from over the PA system.

"Well." A smile tugged at the corners of Cedric's lips, and he couldn't help but chuckle, "It seems Drei keeps getting more and more personality each day. It won't be long till she's declaring to be our cybernetic overlord." Stepping in to his power armor, "The moment she orders us to start calculatin' Pi: i am done."

Fully suited up, he firmly secured his helmet, and did a once-over on all the gear he had attached to him. Once that was done, he glanced over each of the other Marines in the squad. Some of them were as green as fresh cut grass and you could tell by the professional, by-the-books way that they went over their equipment and armor. Have them duke it out once with the Squids and that green would wash right off. At least, if they were smart enoguh to stay alive it would.
 
Lisa was there in time. She did not spent last few hours frolicking. She was rather working with Drei. Getting Hacking 101 lesson from the computer. She did not learn much as expected, but she asked Drei for simple hacking program, and copied much of the info into her storage space. It could get handy.

She looked at the suit she got issued. Apparently the extent of her technological knowledge let her become a Tech Sentry. She looked at tall VOID suit in front of her and sighed. It was not easy suit to operate but she could do it. Not like it is excepted from ehr to do sommersaults in it.

Lisa climbed in the suit and locked it up. She enjoyed small hiss of suit pressuring itself up. It was almost like cockpit of a fighter. Of course there she would have no problem. She was great pilot, best in her class. Here, she was just another of the bunch. Lisa sighed and ran control on her suit. All was green.

As she requested earlier her suit was armed with its regular LPA and she also had AS4GS on her back for later use. She made sure her drones are fully charged. As for mini-missiles she went with mix of Arrows in right calf and Tracers in left calf of her suit. Last but far from the least was her mortar. She had regular ammunition in it, but that was more then enough. Lisa could do without fancy EMP and scalar ammo. Big bang was more along her line and 16 round of deadly presents was all she needed.

She was of course listening into the conversation going around. Matteo seemed like fun fellow more and more. She was glad it was him who was on the assignment with her. That Rita lady sure seemed over-confident but that might not be bad. Except she used to be pirate, but she is not anymore so Lis won't judge her. For now. Lisa decided to pitch in with what she had to say too. "Well pirates one made a run on me daddy's ship. Luckily some of the crew are ex-marines. They kicked those pirates assess the moments they air-locked. Those probably were not these 'real pirates' either." She said.
 
At that sharp retort she couldn't help, but offer a frown. She knew that corps drew from some seedy places. However, a pirate? Or whatever this girl considered to be a pirate was something else entirely. "Did you wear an eye patch and sail the seas?" she asked, barely giving an effort to hide the sarcasm dripping off every word as she stripped off her uniform jacket and began to slip into the machine as the final adjustment was made: Legs in first, then arms, and finally that helmet came down to seal her within the metal coffin.

A quick glance at her readout told her everything was as it should be as she tested a mechanical hand. Each digit curling into a fist before it came to rest on the grip of the Bulldog attached to her waist. Even indoors it'd be more than capable of unleashing hell. All she had to do was reach the hallway first. They were about to hit a military compound that normally houses power armours far larger than what they had. It wasn't as if they were doing ship to ship combat.

"Private Kalev here, I'm reading all systems green and I'm ready to deploy."
 
"What the...?" said Phaedra in disbelief. She had been in the middle of readying her NIGHT when she heard the rediculous announcement by Drei. Phaedra had stopped what she was doing in order to sigh and rub her forehead.

"What, are we pirates now? I hope someone isn't screwing with Drei's systems..." she thought.

Finished with her last minute checks, Phaedra removed her boots and slid into her armor; the NIGHT's black armor plates smoothly sliding closed and sealing her body inside. Once the armor completed its startup sequence, Phaedra retrieved her helmet and donned it. The helmet was black like the rest of the armor with an emblem of a wolf skull emblazoned on it. Ensuring that the neck seals were sound, Phaedra closed her eyes for the moment of darkness inside the helmet before the HUD booted up.

The HUD winked on, and then Phaedra opened her eyes, noting the icons of the other squad members as they appeared one by one.

Satisfied that everything was in order, Phaedra rolled her shoulders and inspected her weapons. The MPR was folded and stowed on the small of her back. On her right thigh was an SSP silenced smg, and the custom VCBS was vertically strapped to the upper left of the chestplate. She strode over to Cedric in his Aggressor and opened up a private channel.

"Hopefully we will not have our shuttles shot out from under us this time, eh Cedric?" she said.
 
Now standing at thirteen feet tall, Cedric gyrated his shoulders as he once again got used to the comfortable feeling of being in a power armor once more. As he did so, he watched his HUD, and saw the display click on. It wasn't until Phaedra approached, only around two feet taller now in her NIGHT, that Cedric took his attention away from monitoring the open com-channels, and looked down to the senior NCO. Though she spoke with a smile (or at least, he assumed she was smiling under her custom-painted helmet), Cedric had very few fond memories about that day. Rocketing down to 'terra-firma' in the flaming hulk of a once functional shuttle was not something he looked back on fondly, outside of out-boasting the run-of-the mill grunts in the rest of the beloved Corp at the bar. He shrugged casually, a movement which was almost invisible in the power armor unless you were looking for it (Or had the keen eyes of a Marine sniper).

"Well, I don't know about that Phaedra." He was more willing to refer to her without her rank, knowing it was a private channel, "Figure I could do to get my heart pumpin'. Spent so long at school that I'm itchin' to get in the thick of it." He grinned under his helmet, "S'why I brought this baby." He said, motioning in a surprisingly casual manner to the shotgun secured to his suit.

He looked off in the general direction of the rest of the squad, before he looked back to Phaedra once again.

"Just hope all those Green-Beans keep their heads down. Between you, me, Laura, Naomi, and Matteo: we're gonna be stretched thin keepin' track of all those swingin' -- " He caught himself (after all, there were at least a few extra X chromosomes around, present company included), " -- Green-Beans over there so they don't go gettin' their heads blown off by some Squids." He shrugged again, "Hate to have their brain spiders act up and give 'em fits like me if they bite it."
 
Bernhard shook his head at Laura's antics. "You really need to learn to be serious more often," he said as he walked away towards his Hostile.

"Why? So I can be dull and boring like you?" he heard Laura yell back. He raised his right hand and waved slightly.

The Hostile he'd been assigned was factory new and the junker drone chided him by reminding him how expensive these things were. It'd been loaded with BOLTs, as he'd requested. And painted on the shoulders was the bear motif he had provided.

Bernhard inspected the new LPA from NAM. He'd seen the older models and this one seemed fairly unchanged.

He then moved to grab some of the stun and relaxant grenades from one of the crates nearby. The Admiral obviously wanted more prisoners so Bernhard needed some tool to take captive the more unwilling Nekos. Couldn't expect them to come running like children to candy again.

Bernhard got into his Hostile and began running his power up and diagnostics. "Ready to go, Sergeant."

-----------------------------

Laura had traded her LPA for a pair of the new forearm plasma guns. The manual said they were re-designed for Close Quarters Battle.

Her VOID had been loaded with a mix of TRACER and ARROW mini-missiles.

"Learn to lighten up. If you get so worked up that you have a stroke, the most brilliant medic in the universe would have to work overtime," Laura said to the others, without a trace of the childishness she had spoken with earlier.

Laura mounted it quickly, feeling comfortable in the new suit despite her limited knowledge of it. It just felt right and she knew what to do. "All green, standing by."

------------------------------

"Hostile suit ready!" a junker drone squealed happily to Artan.

----------------------------

Other junkers weren't quite so happy with another fleshy. How dare she accuse them of imperfect maintenance and outfitting! They would have to complain! It was an abuse of mechanical pride!

---------------------------

One of the junkers attending to Cedric's suit looked at him. "Why do you not wish to compute Pi? It is a fun distraction," it asked.
 
The announcement came across Samuel's datajockey; he replayed it a few times just to be sure that he had heard it right, it was so weird. At first, he thought they were supposed to be hunting pirates, but now it sounded like they were going to be pirates? Nobody in boot camp had said anything about that. He couldn't imagine that the Squids would have anything worth stealing, but he'd been wrong before.

He rounded a corner and entered the PA hangar; inside, marines were bantering back and forth, nearly shouting at each other over the sound of their suits powering up. The things they were talking about, and how lightly and easily they did it, reminded him yet again that he was the still the new guy. Even his Hostile, shiny and fresh from the fabricators, showed him that he'd have a lot of catching up to do. After all, he'd only been here a couple days, and had spent most of his time getting settled and exploring the ship rather than socializing.

Strapped onto his armor were an AS4GS and an LPA-01B, just as he had requested, but maybe a cutlass was more appropriate for the mission. Samuel slipped into the armor and ran the startup sequence, just as he had done over and over again in training, sinking into the padded interior as he watched the computer run through its diagnostics. There was that familiar vibrating feeling on his back as the reactor turned on and the respirators kicked in; the AI told him he was ready to go. Just like in training, he told himself, stepping up and away from the sides of the hangar.

"Tybalt, standing by to launch," he half-mumbled into his communicator, following procedure. "Arrrrrrr," he added, trying to distinguish himself.
 
Sawyer walked into the PA hangar looking at his datajockey and studying the specs for the proposed FEC-02b forearm plasma chain-guns, instead he had them mount dual FEC-02A chain-guns and attached his AMP to the back alongside the AOP which he had a trio of reloads for. He'd switch from the plasma chain-guns to the other weapons when he either ran out of ammunition for them or when he needed more power to punch through some sort of enemy armored unit. He made sure both launchers were loaded up with BOLT mini-missiles. "Well at least I'll be well prepared" he said as he looked over at the others.
 
Having finished his last checks, Victor opened up his Hostile from the front before climbing into the cavity with little difficulty. Grunting as the straps clamped in he could already feel that single minded desire to inflict pain creeping in. While the sense of bloodlust did give him quite an empowering feeling within the suit, he wasn't idiotic enough to not note his skills in the Hostile were only as expansive as his training allowed. Which hopefully would be enough to suffice. It wasn't the most comfortable feeling in the world that mixture of excitement, anticipation, and a bit worry. At least the fun part came next. Looking forward as the display on the HUD came on Victor parted his lips to speak, "Private Balthior standing by to launch."

He gave the doors in the bay an impatient look before slowing himself down and taking a moment to stop and exhale. He knew he had to calm himself down before the adrenaline sets in if he wanted to be effective in combat. Taking a few more deep breaths, Victor began to sort himself out curbing his natural urges as he waited for the go ahead to play with the Squids.
 
Rita couldn't help but laugh at the newcomer's retort, and Lisa's comment. "Actually, I killed a marine in my previous life. Shot him right in the head, three times, 'cause he shot my buddy in the gut. It's why I'm here. The IPG values people who are good at killing. Hell, I didn't choose to become a marine, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you pussies take all the glory. Besides, I woulda joined up a lot sooner if I knew how much squid-squishing was involved."

Rita appeared to be the only person left using a Hostile instead of a VOID or Aggressor or a NIGHT in Phaedra's case. She didn't want to switch unless the 4th Fleet recieved some ELEMENT-series suits, which she had an affinity for. The Hostile had always been one of her favorite Power Armors, not necessarily because it was extremely powerful, but because it was fast, robust, and reliable.

Rita looked over to Rana and approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She spoke clearly and grimly to remind the girl that she was new to killing, and Rita was not. "No. I wore a spacer jumpsuit, and I liked to trick cargo haulers into coming to help me with a distress signal, then slit the good samaritans' throats and sell their ships. You got any more questions for me, smartass?"
 
Oh, so it was going to be like this, huh? Little miss butch throwing her weight around as she brushed the hand off the armoured shoulder of her power armour before letting it rest on the weapon at her side once more. "Oh no, I think we've had far too much talking already. Don't want your mind wandering elsewhere during the fight," she mused as she began to trundle off in preparation for the drop. A simple walk around the hangar to do a more practical test of the motor functions as she waited for the last stages of preparation to commence. Now this brought a question to mind. How were they getting down there? Dropship? Drop pod? She wasn't even sure if the latter existed, but wouldn't that be fun?

"I thought we weren't allowed any anti-matter warhead weapons, sir." she asked as she noted the BOLTs that almost everyone seemed to favour. While it was true the admiral had said that, if she remembered correctly, he never did specify as to the size of the warheads he was restricting...or did he?

"Does anyone know our ETA?"
 
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