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

Luck.

That was likely all that was keeping them alive right now. Matteo wanted to swear under his breath as the scrubs needlessly bumbled overhead right into the turrets. Didn't he mention the turrets couldn't reach them from the lower breaching point? He shook his head as the wall exploded, atmosphere rushing out of the building as the marines stormed in the opposite direction and in.

As they spoke, Matteo cleared the room with his HPAR at the ready before coming to kneel by the inner door's terminal and ripped the maintenance panel out. One hand grabbed at the hacking device while the other leaned him against the wall.

"I hate to say this, but we're loosing momentum here - to hack or not to hack?"

Alexandra did not get any response yet so she just moved with Henry. Her armour still was not linked with the Cavaliers, but that was okay. She had eyes and did not see anyone injured. She followed Henry and his drones up to roof onl tosee total clusterfuck.

She could that Henry who was trying to cut the hatch open got rammed by ally even. Her lips tightened under helmet, her screen showting that the guy who ran into Henry had his shields quite drain and there were still three turrets.

"Bloody hell! Use your eyes!" She said after hearin Admiral. That made it even worse, even though Alex and Henry just really got there.

Alex boosted forward landing between Alrik with his drained shields and turrets. Her shields were still full and she was sure Henry will move the drones fast.

"How about a Dome-shield Henry?" She asked while her HPAR was raised, aiming at the closest turret. While aiming on the turret she commended her Savtech to lock on the remaining two with her arrow missiles. She Pushed ther trigger, making her old trusty HPAR go alive as it started spewing bullets. Alexandra then released the missiles as soon as they locked on the remainig turrets.

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Lisa did not get response from sergeant and it was also too late by now. Staff sergeant blew up the doors and first marines went inside. Lisa remained outside by the doorway. She was supposed to be hacker or something and her armour was not made to be first in the fray.

Lisa tried other stuff for now. She concentrated on her neural implant, trying to see if there is any net or wi-fi connection around, looking for squid information network.

Rita sighed. She had been completely ignored by both of her commanding officers and given no orders whatsoever. On a whim, she entered with the others into the building with the blown-open airlock and rose an eyebrow. Why hadn't they blown open the other door yet? She wanted to get back to killing squids, and all this dilly-dallying was getting on her nerves.

She stayed quiet for now, like Bernhard had told her to, and waited for someone, anyone to give her orders

Henry collected himself and restrained himself from cutting Alrik's leg off, "Wait your fucking turn, you impatient bastard!" Instead, he simply gave him a backhand slap to push him away before moving back to where he needed to be, "Let me work in peace."

Henry gave a nod to Alex's suggestion as he continued to try and get the hatch open, inch by inch with the fusion cutter, "That would be wise, but I fear we're going to encounter more resistance within, and I want the fresh drones I have left for that."

He then grumbled, as the hatch was being very slow to open and his drones took more of a beating. He decided to focus on two things at once, and go for the other turrets with the forearm grenade launcher. He fired one EMP shot between all of them to disrupt their shields, and three HE shots at each to finish them off.

Meanwhile, the cutter still tried to cut through the hatch, inch by sodding inch.

Samuel shouted commands to his AI, trying anything to fix his monoeye system - the last thing he wanted before they dropped into an enemy base was to go in half-blind, but that's what was going on. He could smell something overheating in the lower part of the armor, but couldn't do anything about it, not while his shields were almost down and his partner was getting knocked down by some idiot who had flown into him from below. He decided he didn't have to worry about it anyway, since he still had containment. Slightly more urgent, though, was the condition of the shield drones that were currently saving their bacon.

He was just about to check their condition and leave the hatch to Alrik, when a message crackled through his communicator. The message was from High Command, and it was simple: get things done, or get off the roof. Obviously, with people still knocking each other over and someone from another squad showing up to cause more trouble, he decided it was best to just clear off and go through the front door. "Sir!" he called back to the Admiral, breathing heavily as he eyed the blasts pinging off the drones' shields. "In my opinion, roof entry not feasible, sir! Suggest we clear out soon, sir!"

Lisa's attempt to intercept NMX transmissions received mixed results. She did manage to get fragments of several messages on the NMX frequencies but they were encoded and extremely disjointed. The cause of the messages' poor quality could have been through poor reception on Lisa's part, NMX encoding and countermeasures preventing her from intercepting everything or a combination of the two.

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The firepower put out by Alexandra and Henry was enough to destroy the three remaining turrets. One after another, they exploded as the moneyshots hit true.

On Bernhard's HUD, a medical report from Samuel and Alrik's suits showed that they had been burnt by the intense heat absorbed by their armor. He checked to see what the armor systems had done and saw that minor painkillers had been injected but nothing more. If he recalled correctly, one of the Marines up on the roof was a medic.

"Wolf, Tybalt, get yourselves checked out by the medic up there. Those burns aren't going to heal themselves," Bernhard said to the two Marines.

On the roof, with the turrets destroyed, Henry could focus on getting the hatch cut open and was steadily making progress. He was about half way through to cutting it open.

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Admiral Valken watched. The turrets had been destroyed promptly but it was still taking too long for the Marines to get into the complex. He could hear every single word the Marines under his command were saying and this dilly-dallying was not helping. The more time the NMX had, the higher the chances they were going to purge their databanks before the Marines could access what they needed.

"Staff Sergeant Sommerville, blow that door down and do not stop until you reach your objective."

He toggled to see which Marine it was who was doing the cutting. Private 2nd Class Henry Morris. Not one of Sergeant Volkov's men but a sight more experienced than the majority of Marines in her squad. "Private Morris, your opinion on how long it will take to open that hatch and deal with what's inside?"

"At this rate, I'd say I'll be done in four minutes, Admiral," Henry replied without missing a beat. His saw was at least a quarter of the way through the material by now, "I need to reverse engineer these designs if I get an opportunity to find another hatch like this. They're very robust. Could use them for our spaceships."

His compliment to the opposing engineers was proof of his engineering acumen, but he evidently wasn't above plagiarism. Even then, he focussed on getting the hatch open, and without the turrets to distract him, he put six of his nine shield drones away to recharge and left a trio to cover himself, just in case.

"Aye, sir." Cedric barked.

Retrieving some more of his RX33, he headed for the interior door of the airlock. He loved violence of action.

"Clear from the door!" He ordered, beginning to form some of the explosives in his hand, "Direct orders from the Admiral to start breakin' shit."

He put the RX33 in another thick line around the entire edge of the door, in a fashion identical to how he had done on the outside door: wide and tall enough for multiple Aggressors to enter simultaniously. He then retrieved one of his det-caps and keyed it to the detonator frequency, before hooking it up to the plastique on the door. He then waved everybody back to the other end of the currently vented airlock. He once again assumed a point-man position as he glanced back at everybody else, holding up the detonator for Phaedra to see.

"Are you ready, Sargn't?" He asked.

Lisa frowned as she was trying to focus on the NMX lines. "Sarge, I intercepted NMX transmission, but I cannot get through. EIther I am too dumb, they are good at encryption or both." She reported to Phaedra.

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Smile appeared on Alexandra's face as turrets were destroyed. Like the old times, she though and looked at Henry for a few seconds. Too bad there were only two of theme her, but it surely felt good to be in the fight again. She then heard some guy, that was identified by IFF as Greer encouraging two marines on the roof to get help from her.

"Okay you two, get your bottoms here. Cover P1C Morris while he cuts the hatch. I will check you meanwhile," she ordered them. She waited fro them and then linked up with their armours. She could see their armours got little heary from the fire theirs shields soaked.

"Okay you two." She said to them. "You got some minor burns, nothin I would waste hypolathe on. Your armours will take care of it, so just clench your teeth and be marines. I will get you some burn salve after the mission. Keep on your toes and hang back a little."

Yes. They pretty much hit a wall.

Matteo dashed away from the second door as soon as the order came down from above, Cedrick himself already moving to place the breaching charges. Things were starting to boil down to a thick, slow moving sludge fast. If some good old high explosives wouldn't do the trick at getting them moving, nothing would. The designated hacker got into the back of the formation and readied himself for whatever lay beyond the doors.

Time was of the essence, and if Matteo didn't get to the terminals in time...kaput. All for nothing.

"Staff Sergeant Sommerville, blow that door down and do not stop until you reach your objective" said the Admiral.

"Staff Sergeant, you heard the Admiral! Breach that damn door; time is ticking!"

"Sarge, I intercepted an NMX transmission, but I cannot get through. EIther I am too dumb, they are good at encryption, or both."

"Acknowledged. Forward the transmission to the Dauntless."

"Admiral, we intercepted a heavily encrypted NMX transmission. Perhaps Drej could crack it faster than we can. Forwarding it now," she said.

"How long does it take to breach a door?" thought Phaedra, realizing they should have been inside of the facility by now.

"Looks like some of us need to be reminded how to properly breach and clear in a timely manner," she thought, making a mental note for a mandatory training session once they returned to the Dauntless.

"Morris, I'm not sure what you are doing up there but you better make it quick. We needed to be inside this facility yesterday."

"Are you ready, Sargn't?"

"BREACH IT NOW! ONCE WE ARE INSIDE DO NOT STOP UNTIL WE HAVE THE PACKAGE! GO! NOW!" shouted Phaedra.

Cedric triggered the explosives and blew open the door. Like the last, the air was quickly sucked out of the room and mechanical equipment came shooting out. The high speed debris prevented the Marines from entering immediately.

However, no one seemed to be on the other side shooting at them.

When it was clear that nothing else was coming out and the room ahead was devoid of air, the Marines advanced inside to see an NMX armory. Weapons remained locked into fallen racks whilst half complete Ripper and Daisy hung from the ceiling.

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Henry found himself almost through. Another minute or so would see him succeed in cutting open the hatch.

Alrik had the good sense to stay well back this time.

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"There's a working computer station over there," Bernhard observed, pointing to the far corner of the room.

There was no chance of the half complete armors coming online. Most of them looked like they had been cannibalized for parts. But there were two doors on either end of the room. If the NMX came in now, they'd catch the squad in a cross fire.

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"Transmission received, Sergeant. Drei is working on it now. Will let you know if it is pertinent. Dauntless out," Captain Ironside said to Phaedra.

Cedric hesitated in entering the room only long enough for the debris flying out to be clear of the doorway. After that, he led the way in once again, and moved out of the "fatal funnel" of the doorway in order for the rest of the team to move without needing to manuever around him. From where he was on the floor, he couldn't really closely inspect the Mishu PAs on the roof, and even if he could: he knew no more about the Daisy PAs than any other Marine, and he knew only slightly more about Rippers (possibly because much of his career involved fighting the things). However, he knew enough to recognize that most of the important components that either unit needed to fight the Marines in the room were now drifting at a high speed somewhere out in space: most likely bound on a course for some unsuspecting Ripper.

The thought of a large piece of machinery hitting some Ripper out of the blue would have made Cedric chuckle if he weren't wired on adrenaline at the moment.

He examined the two other doors in the room as he surveyed the room to make sure it was clear. Of course, like any good Marine he didn't take more than a few moments to realize the situation of the doors. It went without saying that the situation was concerning the Marine. He didn't like this kind of scenario in the slightest.

"Lisa, get in here and get me some shields over these two unbreached doors. I don't want any unexpected visitors until Sargn't says what door to head through." He ordered, "Beta: get ready to move further in the facility. So far we have no hostile contacts, but be ready."

He then looked to Phaedra, over the private comms, "Phaedra. Which door do you want to head through? I wouldn't suggest splitting up the team further, but if you think it'd be best then we could each take a hacker and blast any Squids who get in our way."

Seeing as how nobody had given his section any actual orders, Sawyer walked up to the door and posted himself looking outwards to prevent any NMX units from ambushing the squad inside from behind or as they left the facility. He settled down for a long wait and commed in "Sarn't I got the exterior door covered, I'll make sure none of these damned squids show up unannounced in ya'll backsides. Should I remain posted here at this door or should I initiate a patrol to make sure there are no unpleasant surprises when it's time for us to leave?"

The doorway exploded, and for a moment, a ball of fire, dust and debris hung frozen in time.

And then it all came rushing right over Matteo as what atmosphere inside the facility was suddenly sucked out. Even in his two tons worth of powered suit and armor, he could feel its push as it collided into him and then around as it decompressed into the airless world behind him. If he were a spectator, Matteo would have suspected that if he were a dog, he'd never want to stick his head out of a moving vehicle's window ever again after that. But he wasn't a spectator - he was in the thick of it.

The armored marine stormed in after the others, picking up the rear. The very floor shook with each slamming step that they took, as though a heard of giant beasts were making their way in. As he cleared the breach, rifle ready, Matteo found nothing of imminent interest. Later interest, yes, but right now, his eyes feverishly searched through the blood red monoeye of his suit for two things. Hostiles, and a god damned computer terminal.

As luck smiled at Matteo, he smiled right back under the cold skull helmet he wore and thunderously strode over to it, semi-ignoring Bernard as the medic pointed out the obvious. "Thanks. I'm breaking it now." he alerted the others, cracking open the housing open with his augmented hands and plugging in directly to the console underneath. Data streamed across his HUD and hacking tool as he did so.

"Now, now. Show me the goodies." He spoke with bated breath, the glee barely hidden.

"Transmission received, Sergeant. Drei is working on it now. Will let you know if it is pertinent. Dauntless out," said Captain Ironside.

Phaedra entered the first room with the rest of the Marines, fanning out and finding two doors on either side of the room.

"Phaedra. Which door do you want to head through? I wouldn't suggest splitting up the team further, but if you think it'd be best then we could each take a hacker and blast any Squids who get in our way," said Cedric over a private channel.

Phaedra saw Matteo already investigating the nearby computer terminal. She positioned herself by the door on the right side of the room, MPR held tightly. She inspected the nearby door to see if it could be opened quickly.

"Matteo, see if you can find a layout of this place, and also the location of the data we are looking for. Quickly!"

"Sarn't I got the exterior door covered, I'll make sure none of these damned squids show up unannounced in ya'll backsides. Should I remain posted here at this door or should I initiate a patrol to make sure there are no unpleasant surprises when it's time for us to leave?"

"Stay there and cover the entrance for the moment," she replied

"Morris, what is your status up there?" While waiting for status updates from Matteo and Morris, Phaedra switched to the private channel with Cedric.

"Cedric, as much as I know that time is running thin, we at least need a layout of this place; I'm not waltzing in there blind. If we happen to get a fix on that data or whatever it is we're looking for, we head there doubletime; I don't want us to get trapped in here while being surrounded by Squids. We need to get in and get out."

"Rodger that, Sargn't." Cedric shrugged openly, though still on the private comm-line, "Bull-rushin' in is more fun, though." He chuckled.

With that, he looked over his shoulder to Bernhard while covering the door on the left side of the room with his shotgun, opening a private channel with the medic to avoid comm-line clutter, "Greer. How are readin's doin' on the suits?"

He knew that in adrenaline-induced excitement, it was more than possible to not notice a wound, or damage to one's body: even in a severe case. He had a feeling the medic was already monitoring such a thing, but he just wanted to know for himself if anybody (outside of Laura, who had been given CAS-VAC) was very seriously hurt.

Holding his breath, Samuel watched as Henry cut the last of the hatch, from a safe distance this time. The dust from the junk that got sucked out from down below was still settling over the ground, and he didn't want to get caught in a repeat of that, no matter what came out of that thing.

Around them, the drones' shields were holding, but just barely. Or at least that's what he thought he saw; it was hard to tell with his sensors freaking out every few seconds. The radio channel was full of chatter from down below, as they got ready to storm the fortress, save the hot princess, whatever they were going to do down there. Up on the roof, though, things felt so calm, even though there were turrets blasting away at them, just a few meters past those shields.

"So do we have any idea what we're going to get into when we open this hatch?" said Samuel, checking the targeting programs on his shotgun; fortunately, that seemed to be in good condition, unlike everything else he had on. "Is it gonna be their ready room down there, their ventilation shafts, what?"

Matteo's scan revealed that the complex extended both upwards as well as downwards. In fact, there were six storeys above them and ten below. The layout revealed that there was an elevator to either side of them which served all floors. It also revealed the location of the data core, on the fifth floor. All of the lower levels were ammunition storage, troop barracks and armories.

The floors between Phaedra's detachment and the fifth floor were officers' quarters and private armories. The sixth floor was the command and control center.

Matteo swiftly relayed the information to Sergeant Volkov. Just then, the data showed the elevator to their left coming up with a squad of NMX power armors.

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Henry finally cut his way through the hatch to find that they had entered a storage unit. No air rushed out since the items had been stored in a vacuum. There was, however, no lighting and the Marines who entered through the hatch would have to depend on their suits' enhanced optics.

Lisa did not rush in. She was in specialist armour, so she let the ones in grunt armours go first. She then swapped her LPA for AS4GS and walked in. She looked around. Since Sgt. Sommervile gave her orders, she put triangle shield on each of the doors.

"Nice," she said, as she walked through the room her weapon raised. She then noticed Daisy and Ripper hanging in the room. Since Matheo was already working on the computet she walked to the Daisy, giving it quick scan to see if it wasn't booby-trapped. She ten picked up it helmet. "Cool, I am goign to take this and check it out when we get home. Mind if I take a blade from that Ripper too sarge?" She asked, not specifying which sergeant she meant.

But before she could get answer, elevator started moving. She quickly put a shield wall, about 150 centimeters tall, in front of the elevator door. It was high enough for marines to take cover behind it, and to be able to shoot over it.

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Once Henry cut the hatch Alexandra did not waste any time. She jumped down first, using her booster so slow the fall. She held her HPAR at the ready, scanning for any possible target, while she moved aside to make more room for others. She fired up her night-vision.

"Clear," she said and waited for others. "Rookies don't forget. We might get into close-combat. Rippers are deadly with they blade, but we have sever advantage of weights. We are ten times more heavy then they are, withou loosing any speed. So if any of the bastard gets close, use your knife to your advantage and try to get close and pin the bastard." She said to two newbies that were with them while she was loking for doors or hidden enemy. She knew all too well, that neko can survive vacuum for short period of time.