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

"Kay Esser!" Matteo playfully shouted out at Rita. The marine quickly got up to relocate and avoid bunching up with the others before going prone again. As he did so, his eyes glanced over the squad's status. "Looks like Romero's down - I'll hand out some support fire over there." he called out over the comms. His HPAR let out a much longer burst from prone at the same Ripper Tybalt was being shot by.

"Samuel! Get down for a sec would you?" he called to the stricken marine. "I'm trying to keep its head down and take the pressure off you for a moment."

Bernhard barely registered the Sergeant's requests. Right now, the critical information was coming in and he needed to pay attention to that. He was still a little uncomfortable with the use of all the different electronic medical devices.

Pretty severe concussions and some broken ribs. She also had some back injuries, micro-fractures up and down her spine, according to the datascreen. The concussion and quantity of micro-fractures made his decision for him. She needed medical attention that he was unable to render on the battlefield.

Even if he had the proper tools and worked on her inside the facility, there was no guarantee that he and the datascreen had caught everything. Best way to diagnose a patient was to see them face to face, not through a list of data. His last concern was that if she wasn't regaining consciousness now then who knew when she'd wake up. The squad could not babysit Laura's armor and if they left it alone, no one would be there if it ran out of air or power and she died of suffocation.

"Sergeant, we need a medevac. She needs help that I can't give with what I've got. And if she wakes up now, she's going to want to fight more, which could aggravate her condition more making her a greater liability in combat."

Right after he said that, the datascreen showed signs of Laura regaining consciousness. Medically, a good sign. In this situation, quite possibly a bad one as well.

"Fuck yeah! Happy trails, asshole!" Rita cried out as her target burst into pieces, metal shrapnel sailing through the air and bouncing off her shields. She cackled loudly at Matteo's comment, but, given the fact that she had a moment before the Rippers stopped being disoriented, she stopped suddenly, took a deep breath, and pressed the attack. While her shields regenerated, she popped out of cover and fired at another Ripper with all of the weapons she had available to do so. "Focus them down one by one and we'll reduce their volume of fire! Everyone on my target!"

Alirk felt the cool juice of the adrenaline inhibitor flowing through his veins, icing them over. It must have been out of control for the suit to inject him with the stuff, he hadn't even kept close monitor on his own status on the HUD. His mind was focused on the battle entirely, not even noticing the situation with Laura behind her remaining shield. He decided it was time to move from the cover, less he kept being targeted until one of those Gauss rounds actually managed to hit him. " Requesting a shield, far side of Alpha squad, use me as a position." He said over the communications channel of the mission.

With his words, he would use his thruster to propel him into a flanking position of the remaining Rippers, attempting to find a deep enough crater to give him some cover while he hoped a shield drone would be accompanying him or shortly behind him. As soon as he found some cover, he would shift around to better make use of the cover and keep firing shots at the damaged Rippers. Hoping to take them out, while the others concentrated on the fully active ones.

Mentally, Samuel cheered as he wiped out another Ripper's main gun. Score another win for us Marines, he thought, taking aim at the next one over. Before he could get a good target, one of the bastards nailed him with its sidearm guns. Buzzers went off as the shields when down; he felt something hit him in the legs, triggering even more alarms.

"Computer, check containment!" he cried out, stepping back out of the way to get a good look at the damage, dropping to a crouch. The front armor on his ankles had been cooked off, but the innards still seemed stable, something the computer confirmed.

Witt's voice came through the speakers, telling him to get out of the way. "You got it, sir," he called back, creeping back and out of the way. He hunkered down, pointing his plasma rifle at the target. "You're clear for fire; I'm ready whenever you are."

Lisa chuckled at Pilot'S response. It made her a little sad since she would like to be up there and being thanked by marines. She did enjoyed fire support trianing back in flightschool a lot. Maybe the most. But she was marine now and she was not one to dwell on past. Maybe remember it and sight every now and then, but she will focus on task at hand.

"Haha, Raspberry Fruitall? Sound liek realy tough guy!" Lisa responded with laugh. "Well let's chat up when we are done with this! I gotz squid to shoot!" SHe said and her attention went back to battlefield.

She was still behind her shield and there were still two shield un-used. She moved droids to cover Bernie and Laura. One from front and second from above. "Okay sarge I took liberty of giving Bernie some cover!" Lisa said to her superior.

Victor stopped moving stabilizing in the air to further survey the situation down below. The rippers numbers had been dwindled even further and that was great. He wasn't a medic so he had no interest on the status of the injured marine as he couldn't exactly help out there. After all the very best treatment that an infantryman can administer would be more rounds towards the enemy. Luckily they weren't lacking firepower as it stood.

It had been a process of trial and error, but Victor felt he was getting a better handle for things. He pointed his LPA at one of the Rippers firing at Cedric switching over to its beam mode. As he fired the concentrated plasma beam aimed directly towards the Ripper's head, Victor calmly relaxed. He was prepared to try and move out of the way if they suddenly felt he was a good target again. It seemed like an improvement over flying all about while shooting. Besides he was in great mood after having seen so many Rippers die. It was relaxing; almost therapeutic. Y'know if he went to a therapist promoting sociopaths.

Bernhard tried to control his breathing but the pressure and adrenaline were causing him to breathe too erratically. He kept tapping in commands to the suit to use the medical nano to heal Laura's internal injuries. That's what the tech was for! But it was working too slowly, which considering the extent of her injuries was still very fast.

Laura was coming back into consciousness and he needed her stable enough for whatever she was planning to do next. If she planned anything.

"My head hurts..." she groaned, rubbing her armor's head with her hand before realizing that she was still in the VOID. Bernhard immediately keyed the emergency armor lock on the VOID. The power armor immediately locked all of its joints and systems to the armor user.

"Romero, need you to focus. You've got lots of internal injuries and you need to get back to the ship for a checkup. Then you can come back with a new armor," Bernhard said to her.

"Bull. Unlock my armor and let me fight! Sergeant, tell him I can fight!" Laura spat back angrily. Bernhard sighed before pointing out that her back mortars were gone. Her forearm chainguns were still operable as well as the gatling lasers.

The medics looked to Sergeant Volkov to settle the matter, evacuate Laura or let her stay?

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To the east, another squad of Marines had not fared quite so well as the Cavaliers. They had only numbered ten and faced twice their number. Four were dead, three critically wounded. One of the medics was wounded and had chosen to stay behind to keep an eye on the wounded as they waited for a shuttle to evacuate them.

Privates Henry Morris and Alexandra Mayhew were left to continue the mission.

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Faced with now overwhelming firepower, the two remaining Rippers died spectacularly. One's aether generator overloaded, causing a bright flash before instantly vaporizing the Ripper. The other Ripper simply exploded.

It was, for the moment, clear and quiet. The only indicators that combat was happening elsewhere were the bright flashes and occasional explosions in the distance. None of the sound carried to the Cavaliers in the void of space, though if they switched their communications to allow other squads' messages, they'd hear a lot more.

Kurt, meanwhile, had attempted to keep distant from most of the fighting, mostly out of a need to keep himself alive, but also because most of the targets he had picked up before and after the gun run by the Cavaliers were already being engaged by his fellow Marines.


Well, shit. He thought, getting up from his kneeling position while there was a lull in the action, and took time to do a cursory visual scan the horizon for new threats.

He had been paying a little attention to the squad chatter, but mostly to the news regarding the injured Laura, who was now apparently trying to get herself back into the fight.

Shaking his head and checking himself and his armor for any damage, Kurt simply looked in the direction of Cedric and spoke,

"Sir. You want me in front again?"

After hearing Bernhard's medical report on Laura, she opened the channel to the Admiral; rising to her feet as she did so.

"Admiral, this is Sergeant Volkov. Marine down and in need of immediate evac. Repeat, marine down in need of medevac. All opposition outside of the facility has been neutralized, sir; we are now heading to investigate the interior." She changed the channel back to both squads once she saw the last Rippers go down.

"Good work, Cavaliers; that was one hell of a firefight. Regroup and check weapons and ammo. Private Wolf, Private Tybalt, head up to the roof of the facility and ensure no hostiles are hiding nearby."

"Bull. Unlock my armor and let me fight! Sergeant, tell him I can fight!"

"Negative, Private Romero. You will stay right where you are until the medevac arrives," said Phaedra, placing a boot on Laura's armored torso to make her point.

"I do not doubt your willingness to fight, but I will not let you injure yourself further."

"Staff Sergeant, take a look at those doors, see if they can be opened," she said, pointing towards the large double door behind the pile of dead Rippers.

Phaedra noticed the flashes of gunfire to the East and noticed several NSMC signatures in the distance. She opened up a comm channel to them.

"To the Nepleslian Marines East of my position, this is Sergeant Phaedra Volkov, please identify yourselves."

When the last two Rippers blew to bits, sending shrapnel in every direction and harmlessly bouncing off of Rita's shields, she stood up from behind the force-field drones and took a deep breath. She put her Plasma Lance on her back and held her HPAR in one hand, swinging it upward to rest on her shoulder. "I think we overcooked the calamari." Rita said, as a wide grin spread underneath her helmet.

Rita did an about-face and sauntered over to Laura, Bernhard and her COs. She felt absolutely lively, having torn apart a good quarter of the Rippers herself. She approached the downed engineer and knelt down, looking into the VOID's monoeye. "You're not made of metal, Laura. If you get fucked up again, you can't just get repaired. You'll die. Do as your CO says. You don't have the right to refuse while you're on your back." Having finished pep-talking Laura, Rita stood up and turned her head toward the building, heading over to the door at a quick jog to see if she could assist the demo-men.

Matteo snorted derisively.

"Yeah, last time I let you do the cooking Rita." He grunted, dissatisfied at how the food was cooked. There wasn't so much as a morsel left, the way this woman used molten jets of metal and aether to make the meals! "Not even a bone to pick at." he mourned. He was grinning under his helmet and briefly went over the comm channels, a pair of fingers pressed against the side of his helmet out of habit.

"Shit Rita, forget the bantering - looks like the other squad east of us nearly got their asses handed to them." Unlike the other marine though, Matteo kept his distance and maintained a vigilant watch as some of them crowded around the downed Laura. They'd be shot for clumping, Cedric ordered!

"Yeah, what Rita said - relax a bit, you've got a ticket out of hell, and who knows, maybe there's a nice looking guy that'll check over your medical clipboard while you eat ice cream or something." he told Laura.

"Damn, I want some ice cream..." he muttered over the comms.

"You got it Sarge." Cedric replied.

Putting his shotgun away, Cedric moved towards the facility, and retrieved some of his RX33. However, he suddenly paused as he remembered the Admiral saying that he wanted the facility intact. He stood in front of the larger of the two doors on the 'front' of the building, the one to the right, and thought for a moment. However, this hesitation only lasted a moment before he went to work. As he set up a thick-looking, fat line of plastique, he 'consoled' himself about the violation of orders, and justified it with the thought that the admiral would have to understand that they just didn't have time to just politely ring the door-bell while waiting for the Squids to answer. So he set up a breach taller than an Aggressor, and wide enough to admit several Marines side-by-side at once. He set up a det-cap to the breaching charge and keyed it to his detonator.

"Sarge, I've got one charge hooked up. I'm thinkin' we may want somethin' more to distract whoever's waitin' for us inside, but I don't know if the Admiral would 'appreciate' me blowing any more holes in this place than I have to on the way in." He shrugged, "It's your call, Sargn't."

As he held the detonator loosely in one hand, the other hand rested lazily on one of the blades of his Dragon's battering ram/mechanical claw. He waited patiently, then glanced over his shoulder at the Marines fighting in the distance. He had a feeling that Phaedra had already noticed the scene.

"Sarge: you want me to send some of mine over there to help?" He asked, on a private comm-channel to Phaedra.

Victor chuckled at the calamari jokes dropping down to the ground to make a quip of his own. "Oh come on now, just have to sprinkle something spicy maybe a season it a bit. Meal's still good to go." Still the killing was over and while he was feeling quite nice. Euphoric even. It left something to be desired afterwards. Hopefully there'd be more squids to shoot at. They filled a nice little void.

He decided to start pulling security around the area just in case they ran into more surprises. He wouldn't be of any help with a breach, and he'd be even less help medically. So the only thing he really could do that would be of any use at the moment would be to stay alert scanning the area. Good time to get some use of observation probes as well.

Alrik moved from his position in the crater to an observation stance, checking the area over while they delt with the injury. He had not died, that was a good sign for his first firefight. He felt proud of it and the fact that me managed to damage one of the enemies and not get damaged himself. Aside from his shield that is, he checked the status of it while he waited for another command. Alrik chuckled at the seafood comments made by the other marines, it was odd to Alrik. He figured that there would be a no nonsense attitude much like himself in this kind of work. He didn't mind it though, all of these people must have seen more action than him. They deserved to joke around at the least bit.

"Private Wolf, Private Tybalt, head up to the roof of the facility and ensure no hostiles are hiding nearby."

Click to expand...

" Yes, Sergeant." He said over the communications channel and then switched to a private channel with Samuel Tybalt, " Hello, Private Tybalt. Private Wolf speaking, let's head over to the facility's rooftop and see what we can do. Activate Observation Drones and Camouflage if you have it." He thought introducing himself to another member of the team would be a good way at building trust with him and the already established group. With that, he would head over to the facilities wall, switching on an Observation Drone and his camouflage, waiting for Samuel to catch up.

Lisa pulled back her drones and collected those that overcharged earlier. They were still operable, just needed some time in a cradle. She was scanning around to be sure every Ripper is powerless and looked for others.

While she did that, she walked over to Bernard and Laura. "Laura, can you transfer the control of your drones to me? THey could be handy." She asked.

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Alexandra was back in field and that was good. She already has enough chance to get back into action with her team bumping on some heavy ressistance. They won, but with heavy injuries. Just she and good old Henry were undamaged. Other medic of the team was luckily still relatively okay.

Now they walked forward to the target location. She had her HPAR in her hands and her Hostile swiftly moved forward. Her HPAR was still the old one, but she was okay with her. She even had her Hostile transferred since it was her armour and she knew it well and had it calibred for herself. On her back was AS4GS with tungstens in one barrel and slugs in second. SHe had her medical bag, hypolathe and sack for heads. Though she hoped she won't need that.

They got friendlis on scanners and friendlies had them. Alexandra raised eyebrow when she heard familiar voice. She looked through IFF which designated friendlies ad Cavaliers. And her NCO was Sergeant Phaedra Volkov. Alexandra smiled. "This is Private First Class Alexandra Mayhew. We met heavy resistance and me and Henry are only ones capable of continuing on. I see you are still killing Squids Phaedra." She said with smile on her face.

"Roger that, Private," Tybalt radioed back to Wolf. He switched over to his AS4GS shotgun, snapping a shell into it with a quick motion as he followed his partner over to the building's wall. Doing some quick trigonometry, he figured they had about 80 meters to climb; combined with the moon's gravity, it'd make the ascent the easiest part of this thing.

"I'm ready when you are. Thing is, you'll probably have to go first, my shield's still cranking back up from the fight. That's not gonna be a problem, is it?" Flipping on his camo, he primed his thrusters with a quick burst before they started their flight.

With that, Alrik would activate the Hostile's thrusters and start the jump towards the roof of the facility, using the observation drone above him as a scout while they made it to the roof. He would approach the roof carefully, with his LPA on the ready just in case their were enemies up on the roof waiting in ambush.

"It's your call, Sargn't."

"Do it. Make us an entrance, Staff Sergeant."

"This is Private First Class Alexandra Mayhew. We met heavy resistance and me and Henry are only ones capable of continuing on. I see you are still killing Squids Phaedra."

"Alex? Henry? I did not think I would see either of you again," said Phaedra, surprised to be reunited with old friends.

"Sarge: you want me to send some of mine over there to help?" said Cedric over a private channel.

"Mayhew, Morris, head to my coordinates and join up with my unit. You can request a transfer later; right now the two of you can do some good over here." She quickly switched to the private channel between herself and Cedric.

"No, that will not be necessary," she said quickly, and then switched back to the squad-wide channel.

"Alpha, Beta, stay out of the Staff Sergeant's way and prepare for entry into the facility."

Phaedra zoomed with her HUD in the direction of Alex and Henry to watch for any stray NMX in the area.

A medical shuttle signaled its approach to Bernhard's armor as the Cavaliers regrouped. Bernhard wasn't surprised to see that it was nearly full. Other squads were fighting and most likely suffering casualties as well.

When it landed, he jetted over to it. "Space for one in power armor?" he asked, trying to see inside. "Barely, we got three Aggressors taking up space back here. What's he in?" a space-suited medic replied quickly. His voice was strained but Bernhard could see that they weren't panicking. It must mean that the assault was going well, overall.

"She's got a VOID. Locked down to prevent her from trying to do anything. Be right back," he told the medic.

He lifted Laura's armor slowly and jetted back over there, ignoring her protests. "Internal injuries, mostly. Cracked ribs, lots of spinal microfractures, severe concussion, and probably a lot of mental trauma. Oh and a dirty mouth; been yelling at me ever since she woke up so maybe she's not as badly hurt."

The medic turned Laura's VOID to that it would fit through the shuttle's door. Once she was inside, he handed her off to another medic. "Got a HPAR in there?" Bernhard asked. Not having a secondary weapon was beginning to bother him. A moment later, the medic returned with a HPAR and a couple magazines. He took the weapon and ammunition gratefully. "You guys got off lucky. Most other squads have one or two dead already. We're going, good luck in there."

Bernhard saw the medic salute quickly before the door closed and the shuttle took off.

"Romero's away, Sergeant. Wouldn't it be easier if we went in through the roof than the front door?"

The newbies and their random nonsense were starting to annoy Bernhard. Even Rita. There were dead Marines out there and they were talking as if this was an adventure? "You guys, shut up. This isn't some weekend lark!"

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Alrik and Victor saw some nothing on their sensors or through their observation probes.