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

The burning pain in his chest was so intense, that Cedric barely even registered the plasma. In fact, it wasn't until his lung was sealed off from the vacum once again that he was really able to focus on anything, such as the fading pain of the plasma being used to seal his armor (really more of a minor, distant tingling), or the pretty sight of Phaedra's face leaning over his armor. Followed by the not-so-pretty experience of her yelling at him. However, even in his pain-addled state, he could tell it wasn't the yell that she would give to the new guy who messed up on some simple task. No, it was more the shout of a fellow Marine trying to root on a squadmate. Not to mention that she had just yelled a fully lawful order. So, if it made her feel better, she could think that was why the loyal and gung-ho Marine had pulled through in the end. He, however, was going to say it was because of the drugs his suit was pumping through him, and the immediate reaction of quick-thinking Marine medics and fellow squadmates.

"Ooh-rah, Sargn't!" Cedric said, through gritted teeth.

With that, he tilted his head in the direction of Rochester's squad..

"Ya'll better hurry the hell up." He began, "I've got some Squids ta' kill!"

With that, he tried to sit up on his elbows despite his pain.

The patchwork repair to the armor by Bernhard and Lisa sealed it, allowing Bernhard or another medic to begin treatment. However, Sergeant Volkov's orders were clear. Bernhard packed up his medical gear and hopped onto the elevator behind Phaedra.

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"Thomas, get to it," Rochester ordered, his voice sullen, "And Staff Sergeant, no one orders my squad but me."

A VOID walked up to Cedric's Aggressor and unpacked its MED kit. "Need you to lie down. Harder to treat when upright," the Marine behind said. His voice was a lot friendlier than the dour Rochester's.

At the entrance, a blast door slammed downwards from the anteroom's ceiling. "Building sealed, pumping O2 in here. Old Hawkins and his boys are stuck outside in the cold," the Marine at the console sniggered.

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The two remaining Daisy units were motionless, one holding her hands up and the other still unconscious. "Are you going to take me out of here?" the conscious Neko asked fearfully.

Cedric grumbled something under his breath, most likely aimed at the medic, but unheard outside the confines of his own suit. However, he obligingly laid down on his pain, despite the pain that still burned in his stomach due to the now frozen interior of his lung.

"Just get to it." He groused in pain, "I need to get back to work, soldier."

As the little rendezvous occurred, Matteo extricated himself from the mess of suit parts as quickly as possible. "Hey, it's better being late to the party than missing out completely, right?" he commented to the third, lamenting newcomer. Both of them were silenced though, but it didn't matter - that Sarge wasn't his and if he had a stick up his ass, it was that squad's problem. Not his.

As he came to board the elevator, the marine removed the nearly spent magazine and swapped it with a new one instead of discarding it altogether. "Good to go here guys." he spoke, giving a thumbs up to the rest of them.

He was happy. After all, the squids couldn't have anything worse up their sleeves.

Could they?

Rita brushed herself off and jogged over to the elevator, all the while sticking the Hostile's pinky finger through the hole in her armor and playing with it. "That's so weird... Huh?" She asked when Bernhard perked up, looking over at him from the elevator. "I'm fine! Just the armor's damaged. Did it fuck up the vitals sensors?" She asked, assuming the answer was yes. She leaned up against the wall of the elevator and just breathed in deep for a while, recovering from her brush with death.

"I'm more concerned with suit integrity now. Is air leaking? Can you hear any faint hissing noises?" Bernhard asked, looking at the damaged area. It was certainly a clean stab through the front and back but he couldn't tell if air was leaking.

"I'd feel guilty for killing something defenceless," Henry admitted to the conscious Nekovalkyrja with a hint of bitterness in his voice, "But - we can't have you following us when we're gone, giving away our position and shooting us in the back," Before stepping over her with his hands without a weapon.

Henry downloaded some information on the Daisy, and found that the capacitors were located along the insides of the forearms, the insides of her calves, and an emergency one on the back.

Disabling the Nekovalkyrja's Daisy was a cold and intrusive procedure, tearing the relevant parts out of the suit one by one. He then disabled the forearm weapons and countermeasure pods with some well-applied brute force, and took her LASR rifle and broke it over his knee.

"Nothing personal, just war." Henry's parting words with the Nekovalkyrja. He wondered if it would've been better for her to go down fighting rather than suffer walking wounded. He knew that there was a backup capacitor that powered her life support, but little else that was essential or considered deadly.

He gave Alexandra a nod of confirmation. The kitten had been declawed.

Lisa would sweat from all the concentration wouldn't it be for internal cooling of her armours. She slowly welded the piece of metal to Cedrics suit. When she was done she turned of her cutter and said back.

"Oof," she sighed, done with her effort. She then patter Cedric on the shoulder and stood up. "There you go sarge." She said, picked up her PLA and moved to the elevator with others.

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"Yes Wolf," Alex responded to Phaedra and looked back to Henry. THey actually had two prisoner and there were only three of them.

"Henry, we need to move on. I suggest we let this one carry her friend, we are supposed to take prisoners with us. Tybalt you take point, your armour is not damaged. One of my thrusters is busted so I will keep an eye on the prisoners. You run this show though Henry." She said noting the fact that altough Alex and Henry both were P1C now, Henry was veteran and much more experienced soldier.

She looked at the nekoes in their Daisy armours, while she reloaded her AS4GS. Alex was not sure what to think, from the reacion on the nekeos just gave, she wanted to get away from here and NMX. Could that be a play though? Alex never heard anything good about nekoes after all. On Nepleslia you just hear that hey are bloodthirsty living weapons, but this one seemed like defeated and scared little girl.

With Cedric on his back, the medic placed the datascreen and injector set from his MED above Cedric's left arm. "Don't worry, it'll hurt you far more than it'll hurt me," medic Thomas said, inserting the injector.

The long needle poked through the Aggressor's nano-muscles and broke into Cedric's arm. Even pumped with drugs, it was still a fairly painful experience since it had entered with force. The sudden infusion of nanobots was like cold water being flushed into his arm.

Slowly, Cedric began to feel a warmth in his chest. As the seconds passed, it began to feel like a blazing inferno. "Oh yeah, you're going to feel some discomfort in your chest as the bots repair the damaged tissue. Feel free to cough violently, helps restart the lungs," the medic added cheerfully as though it were a picnic.

"Sergeant Volkov, leave those prisoners with a guard. I'll be sending one of my men and your Staff Sergeant along soon." Cedric identified the voice as Rochester. And then the heat and pain got worse and Cedric began coughing.

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Down below, Staff Sergeant Holmes was realizing he had bitten off more than he could chew. "Fall back, fall back! Get to the elevator! Watson, on point!" He watched as a 50mm round smashed into Private Perkins' left forearm. The kid's shield was down and so the armor soaked up all the damage. The result was a bloody mess of metal and blood. But Perkins was still firing at the NMX with the HPAR his right hand.

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The elevator took the Cavaliers to the third floor, the doors opened. Bernhard exited, LPA up and set on beam mode, and saw the trio of Marines and their prisoners. "Having fun, guys?"

He walked up to examine the prisoners and Marines. "How's it going, Tybalt? Miss us?"

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In Orbit

The twelve warships of 4th Fleet's Second Cruiser Squadron glided into formation beside their counterparts from the First Cruiser Squadron. The single damaged warship had already left the system to Artume and the Nepleslian support bases there.

Combined, the twenty warships formed a pancake with the escorts on the outside and the cruisers within. Hovering around the pancake were the fighters of Grey and Green squadrons as well as their attendant F2 drones.

"All ships report full combat readiness, Admiral," Captain Ironside reported. Valken nodded in acknowledgment. He wanted to tell the Marines to hurry up but that was micromanagement.

Armor not damaged nothin', Samuel thought to himself, stepping to the front as they mounted up. You try getting around in the dark when your mooneye's tweaking out... The screen on his helmet flickered between night vision and darkness, and if it weren't for his painkillers, he would have had a migraine like no other. Somehow, the parts that were messing up before had held together just long enough to take out that Neko, only to shake apart when he did. Funny how that worked.

Speaking of Nekos, he checked back at their two prisoners, one carrying the other over its shoulder. If he had his way, they'd be in front, clearing the way for any booby traps. He flipped over to X-ray vision to try and see where they were going, but the only thing that changed was the smell of burning plastic coming from somewhere in the suit. There was only one thing to do: blindly keep moving through the passage, and hope it led to their objective.

And sure enough, it led to an elevator. Seeing the lights above the doors flickering, Samuel readied his weapons, but quickly stood down as a band of Marines stepped out. They did the same, lowering their weapons as they surveyed the scene. The one at its head - Greer, the medic - casually asked them how things were going; Samuel just rolled his eyes. "I'm just glad you're not another Daisy, that's all," he said, motioning at their prisoners. "How'd things go downstairs?"

The elevator. Again. As they slowly ascended, slowly because of all their combined weights on the lift, the elevator music started up again as it was broadcast to their suits. After the squad's close call and lucking out earlier, Matteo figured nobody was in the mood for it at the moment, and broke into the console, quickly squelching the tune. "I kinda figured nobody likes elevator music anyways." he explained, delivering a one liner even he felt was horrible.

Upon departing though, Bernard was the first on the uptake, with Matteo himself staying quiet again with ass all to do or say. Unless...that'd work. "You guys aren't having fun with those girls, are you?" he asked in a joking manner, referring to the two Neko they had caught.

"Swimmingly," was all Bernhard said casually. He looked over the two Nekos. Then at the two Marines accompanying Samuel. Alexandra Mayhew, P1C, and a trained medic. Henry Morris, P1C, engineer. "Sergeant, requesting permission to volunteer for baby-sitting duty. Private Mayhew can take my place until the Staff Sergeant and I rejoin the squad."

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In Orbit
"Contacts dropping out of FTL. Four capital ships, no, six capital ships. Pending identification. Eight Cruiser-types, four Pillager-class, ten destroyers, sixteen smaller vessels that Drei is still analyzing," the sensors watch officer reported.

"Well, Admiral, I hate to say it but your bad feeling was right..." Captain Ironside said.

Valken hit a switch and spoke into the microphone to address the crews of the ships. Many of them were inexperienced, with only a handful of veterans from the other fleets in the senior and mid-level ranks. This would be the reforged Fleet's first true blooding.

"All hands, this is the Admiral speaking. The Squids have returned in force. We're outclassed in tonnage, firepower and numbers. I ask that you remember this. They are not Nepleslian, they do not have the courage or fortitude which makes us great. What we want, we take! We took our independence from the Yamataians, we took our sovereignty from the Reds and today, we will take those Squids, smash their ships and make them wish they had never heard of Fourth Fleet. Death to the Squids!"

Valken ended his transmission and was rewarded by cheers from the bridge crew. He smirked, perhaps he should have been an actor. "Sound General Quarters," he ordered. It was an archaic tradition but one that Valken enjoyed. Drei began repeating on all ships, "General Quarters, General Quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!" The words pre-empted battle and battle required getting pumped up.

"Captain Ironside, kindly let the Marines know our schedule has just tightened." Now the first move was the Squids'.

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NMX Complex

Sergeant Hawkins was the first to receive the message. He relayed it to Rochester who in turn relayed it to Holmes and Volkov. "Squid cavalry is here. Whatever you're doing, get it done!"

At that moment, Holmes and his three surviving squad members reached the surface, their armors smoking from all the hits they'd taken. "Staff Sergeant Sommerville, if you're going to rejoin your squad, now's the best time," the Renegades' leader said gruffly, "Black, get on that elevator and bring back those prisoners!" A Marine in a Hostile bounded into the elevator but waited to see if Cedric, who was still coughing, would follow.

Holmes stumbled up to report. "Dozens of armors down there, the underground part is huge. I think we got the schematics but a close run thing," the man puffed, trying to catch his breath.

With a string of profanities, Cedric began to cough violently, and in a hoarse fashion as his lung began to repair. He was starting to gain the ability to breath again and his body was having to acclimatize once again which, to be frank, hurt. Yet he was able to restrain himself enough so as to not disrupt the medic's work before he slowly began to sit up. He watched as a soldier identified simply as "Black" entered the elevator. The much larger, hulkier Aggressor rose up, and Cedric lurched for the first two or three steps from the burning in his chest, but overcame it well enough that he was able to get in to the elevator with little effort. Leaning against a wall tiredly for a moment, He supported himself with one arm, and held his loaded shotgun with the other. He glanced to the soldier beside him in question: some Marine from another squad. He didn't know the kid, or even his rank, but he had to trust the guy enough to watch his back while deep in hostile territory. Cedric's gaze shifted back to the front of the elevator and he opened a private channel to Phaedra once again.

"Sargn't." He began, his voice wheezing lightly from his newly rebuilt lung, "This is Sommerville. I'm up and moving as we speak. I'm gonna' try to make my way to your location ASAP." He glanced to Black again, who was left out of the conversation, "I've got a Marine with me from Holmes' squad who's going to get some prisoners first."

With that, he looked to Black, "So -- Black, right?" He shrugged, "You doin' okay, Marine?" He asked, eyeing the state of the Marine's armor from behind the skull-like face-plate of his Aggressor.

"Other than having half my squad blown up or seriously wounded, everything's just peachy, Staff Sergeant," the Marine replied sarcastically. What fool of a Sergeant would ask that question when he could see how understrength the Nepleslian Marine units were? Wasn't the answer obvious?

The elevator rose to the third floor with both Marines silent. As the doors opened, Black spoke on an open frequency. "Bring the prisoners here, I'm not leaving so that the squids can call the elevator down," he said, his finger on the "Open" button.

Bernhard herded the two Nekos onto the elevator as Cedric left. "Cool, have fun. Clock's ticking," Black said as the elevator doors closed and it descended. "I'm surprised you're not turning your lungs inside out, Staff Sergeant," Bernhard commented as they walked towards everyone else.

"Sergeant Volkov, leave those prisoners with a guard. I'll be sending one of my men and your Staff Sergeant along soon," said Rochester.

"Roger that," replied Phaedra, retrieving the MPR from her back. She unfolded the weapon and held it at the ready.

"Sergeant, requesting permission to volunteer for baby-sitting duty. Private Mayhew can take my place until the Staff Sergeant and I rejoin the squad."

"Granted," she replied.

With her MPR raised, she began making her way down the hallway towards the objective.

"Squid cavalry is here. Whatever you're doing, get it done!"

"Cavaliers, on me!" barked Phaedra into the comm. Once the prisoners had been handed over and the squad had rallied, Phaedra began speaking.

"Alright, the Squids are on the way and we are out of time. We will need to double-time it if we are to retrieve the package. Stop for nothing! Move out!"

Phaedra began to run down the hall, following the blueprints Matteo managed to get from the NMX console in the first room.

She quickly found the nearby emergency stairwell and forced her way through the door. From there she scaled the steps up to the fifth floor.

Sawyer thundered down the hall after Phaedra, his AOP at the ready with a full cylinder of green rounds loaded into the weapon. Reaching the stairs he thundered through and headed up to the fifth floor following his sergeant.

Bernhard watched, confused why they were abandoning the elevator for the stairs. "Um, Staff Sergeant, would it be faster to blow a hole in the ceiling and just go up that way?" he asked the squad's other NCO.

"Doesn't matter anymore, Bernie, we're already moving! Hussle!" Rita said, bounding up the stairs after Sawyer. Once they reached the fifth floor, she dropped into a low crouch and shouldered her rifle, just incase. Rita took note of the environment, potential hiding places, cover, spots that could serve as ambushes. She was taking special precautions, because this was the last stretch of the big game, and she aimed to hit a grand slam by the time it was over. "At the risk of sounding cliche, I don't like how quiet this floor is."

It was good to see some friendly faces emerge from the elevator, but the news that the Squids were coming back around in vengeance flattened the joy quickly. Matteo's light hearted banter would've been more comforting if they weren't on a schedule. "Perish the thought, I think we have bigger squids to fry," Henry was rushing up the stairs with the others, "I'm inclined to agree with Stenton. Silence is deadly, they could be waiting for us."

He flicked on his monoeyes' best scanning, and lamented the fact that his previous Monoeye-wielding drone had been shot down in a previous engagement with the NMX. Fortunately, he had the rest of the marines to help cover his flanks.

"Aww damnit!" Matteo swore under his breath at Bernard's suggestion. "We could have just done that with the &%@# elevators and flew up the shaft!" he explained from his position in the rear of the squad. "We didn't have to fight those Rippers!" he went on, lamenting the lost time fighting. As he marched along with the others, listening to their growing unease, he realized something.

Hindsight truly was perfect. Every. Single. Time.