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

"Roger that, sarn't, settling in here to cover ya'll." Sawyer said as he started running some diagnostics on his armor and redoing some of his targeting programs to ensure that the maximum weight of fire fell onto any enemy unit that came across his field of view.

Phaedra analyzed the information she was given and relayed the building plans to the rest of the squad.

"Alright Marines, listen up. The data core is on the fifth floor above us. Barracks, armories, and ammunition storage is below. Morris, Mayhew, Sawyer, and Balithor, see if you can make your way up to the command center, three floors above you. The rest of us will head up the elevators to the data core and make our way out through the roof entrance once we have what we came for. Lets move out!"

And that was when the elevator to the left chimed and began rising up to their floor, before anyone had activated it. Phaedra cursed to herself.

"Looks like we have company. Morris, Mayhew, lead your team as planned. Staff Sergeant, see if you can leave a nice surprise for our NMX friends when they exit. The rest of you; into the elevator now!" said Phaedra as she opened the nearby elevator door.

"Move it Cavaliers! Time is short! Lets go!" she shouted, pushing her Marines into the elevator and waiting for Cedric to join them.

As the map uploaded to the rest of the squad, Matteo tried to keep on digging in the terminal for more juicy tidbits, but to no avail. "This one's gone dry." He called out over the comms. As the elevator sped up up towards them though, he had an epiphany. "Sarge, I think I can slow down the elevator maybe. Just a bit. Hang on - " Matteo quickly ran through several subroutines inside the network, trying to set off fire alarms, temporarily reroute power to other systems; he hoped to cause harmless, annoying havoc.

"Ok, it'll work or it won't - can't find out until they arrive late or not, so I'm out of here!" he said, dashing after the others and into the elevator heading up.

"Rodger that, Sargn't!" Cedric barked.

He headed for the elevator, dropping to take a knee as he quickly retrieved some of his remaining RX33. There wasn't much he could do to really devestate the enemy. After all, he doubted that the Sergeant (or the Admiral) would approve of him blasting an elevator to horrible shreds so as to make it plummet down the shaft, and outside of that: an elevator doorway didn't provide for many surfaces on which to form a shaped charge. So he used what he could, setting up a fat string of explosives on the right side of the frame, curling on to the room to hit the enemy forces from two different directions as much. He then slammed a large handful of plastique just in front of the elevator doorway (making it look like somebody threw up all over the floor after a pancake breakfast). He rigged up the explosives to detonate simultaniously once anybody on-board passed through the door.

Cedric turned and ran at a dead sprint for the elevator, "Hit that button and let's get the fuck outt'a here!"

As he entered the elevator and pivoted around to train his shotgun on the elevator door.

As Henry managed to get the final part of the welding job done, he turned off the Condensed Fusion Cutter and punched the hatch, causing his welding job to fall into the room below. He couldn't help but smile at Alex's enthusiasm, and followed her in on her heels.

He kept his HPAR at the ready and scanned the room, "Seems clear to me," He confirmed before motioning for the others to jump down, his voice carrying that tone of voice that carried an air of age and experience, "As Alex said, don't be afraid to get some blood on the suits."

He let his shield drones follow him, and he felt prepared to let it rip with his HPAR. Or if push came to shove, his CFC was ready too.

Rita had been listening quietly adnd following orders the entire time. When the inside of the facility was spaced, she seemed to barely notice, and ignored the crushing feeling of air being spread into thin nothingness while she stormed into the room. Ordered up the elevator, Rita stepped inside before Matteo while he rigged the explosives, and leaned up against the far wall with her HPAR and LPA slung across her hostile's torso.

This was too easy. Getting in, and getting the layout of the facility. "Anybody else get the feeling we're about to walk into a trap?" She asked, shifting about until her HPAR was pointed at the door of the elevator, still hanging by her hip, with her finger off the trigger but her hands holding the weapon steady.

Elevator music softly streamed over their radios as the doors opened, the automated sound system inside immediately broadcasting for them.

As soon as they all filed into the elevator, Matteo carefully pushed the button with a fat, power armored finger. Nothing happened. He pushed it again. And again, nothing. He stood there, finger outstretched for a moment before pushing it a third and final time. "Oh shit...I think they stopped ours from moving or something - I can fix this!" The marine called out while trying to keep his cool. As he wrenched off the maintenance panel for their cage and set up the link, the elevator opposite them stopped with a crisp 'ding'. "Damn Rita, did ya have to jinx us?" Matteo's tongue playfully snapped at Rita - a hint of nervousness crept into his voice despite his attempt at pushing the feeling down.

The elevator doors opened as white fog from the fire extinguishing systems billowed out to obscure the passengers of each cage from each other. Just as soon as anybody would think getting a proper bead on the targets was impossible, a bright fireball erupted at the other end of the room in front of them; Cedric's explosives detonated, swaying the numerous power armors that hung from their racks and blasting the fire suppressant away to reveal a pair of clearly Zesuaium armored Rippers. If anyone was saving their firepower for the right moment, now was the time to use it.

Until their own elevator was working, they weren't going anywhere.

*****

The other squad was having a much, much easier time.

Despite entering through the 'sub roof' and being several floors higher than the others, they still had to make their way up to the sixth level of the building where the final prize lay. As the group finally made their way down one of the many hallways and took a turn, a pair of Daisy power armors popped out from behind them and indiscriminately sprayed the Nepleslians down with the rata-tat-tat of LASR fire, cutting their shields down by a good quarter.

Ambush.

"Damn." Cedric muttered darkly, glancing over his shoulder at Matteo upon the bad news from the aforementioned hacker.

He looked back to the opposing elevator, with only Laura's two shield walls (one in front of each elevator) serving as barriers between fire from either side to the other, and he watched intently as he waited for the far door to open. As it did, he could see the fire extinguisher systems obviously worked well given how vision-obscuring smoke came billowing out in a rather dramatic fashion. However, in an equally dramatic, and far more impressive fashion: the explosives he had set went off. A fire-ball engulfed the doorway of the elevator and shook the room. The smoke was carried away in the blast, to expose the other elevator's occupants -- who Cedric wished hadn't been there. Picking a single Ripper, Cedric took aim for the face, and rapidly began emptying his 4-gauge tungsten carbide slugs in to the optics of the machine. While doing so, he quickly stpped out of the elevator, and strafed around, in the general direction of the door they had all come in through: attempting to draw the aim of at least one of the contacts.

As soon as his shotgun ran empty of it's fourteen slugs, he dived in a rather dramatic fashion behind the first cover he could find, he would then quickly load in twelve more, switch his weapon to spread (which did significantly more damage to armor, especially at close range), chamber a round in either barrel, and pop in two more shells.

"Bring it on, son!" Cedric bellowed over his Aggressor's speakers.

Rita felt like facepalming. Of course it was a trap, it had seemed way too easy to get into the facility! As Cedric drew one of the Rippers' attention, Rita threw her LPA into her left hand and stepped out of elevator, hunching over and swaying to and fro to the tune of any incoming fire in order to make herself a smaller target behind the shield wall. She silently congratulated herself for having the foresight to save her antimatter missiles for the tough guys, and proceeded to fire away with all of her weapons at once.

A volley of BOLTs soared down the room into the Ripper opposite the one Cedric had targeted, while Rita let loose with her HPAR and Plasma Lance in tandem. The pulse lasers in her Hostile's shoulders went off wildly to obscure the Ripper's sensors, and shoot down any solid projectiles that moved slow enough to be blown up in mid-air. She strafed around the opposite side of the room from Cedric while she fired her weapons, in order to catch the focus of the Ripper he'd left alone so that the rest of her comrades could blindside both of them.

"Still feelin' clever, assholes?!"

Lisa's eyes went up as they were called to board elevator. She did not udnerstand why they couldn't just smoke those incoming rippers. They had defensives set and could just shred them. She sighed and recalled all her drones in hurry and moved to board elevator. Shitty elevator music could be hear but Lisa's make that go away with punch of powered fist.

"I hate elevator music," she said to clarify what everyone knew anyway. And then she waited... and nothing happened. Mattheo sweared and started working on the elevator but there was no time. Opposite elevatro stopped with DING.

"Deploying drones!" Lisa said not waiting for anything and as soon as Cedric and Rita ran out of the elevator she followed, setting barrier wall few meter in fron of friendly elevator. It went from one side of the room to another and was about 150cm tall, so anyone could take cover behind it and still shoot over it. Lisa slided behind her shield wall, then leaned out and started firing in the smoke left by Cedric's explosion with her LPA.

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Alexandra was moving forward, she held her AS4GS in both hands ready to fire at enemy enemy with enough balls to jump them. She did not even have to wait too long, when two Daisies decided it was Ambush time.

"Kill them!" Alexandra shouted. There was no cover in the hallway so they had to kill them fast, it was only few meters distance and Alex boosted forward. She wanted to ram into left Daisy giving it nice straight punch into helmet and good old push from her PPG plates.

"Shit," thought Phaedra when the elevator refused to budge.

"So much for not getting bogged down..."

After Cedric's explosive went off, Phaedra ducked out of the elevator and ran back out into the lobby, thankful that Lisa had redployed the shield drones without having to be told.

"Cavaliers! Take the squids down!" shouted Phaedra into the comm. She popped out from behind one of the shield drones to fire a salvo of EMP sabot rounds at the closest Ripper. She aimed at the Ripper's faceplate, fired, yanked back on the bolt to eject the spent round, aimed, and fired again. She then ducked back behind the shield.

"Matteo! Forget the elevator! We will use theirs!" she said, working the bolt to place a new round into the chamber.

The upper hatch was completely dark except for the faint glow of the armors' monoeyes. Samuel's vision was still flickering, smearing his squaddies' infrared signatures as they marched through the maze of passages. He tapped the side of his head with his free hand, hoping that it'd knock something back into place; it didn't seem to do anything. Worth a try, though.

Just as he was putting down his hand, he was nearly knocked over by laser fire from behind. Whipping around to face it, he dropped a shell into his AS4GS and sprayed the attackers with pulse laser fire, shooting around the Marine from the other squad as she punched one of the power armors. She really punched it, that crazy chick, or at least that's what it looked like.

He couldn't tell how many PAs were attacking the Marines, but it was more than one, at least. At least we outnumber them, Samuel thought; he hoped he didn't just jinx everything.

Bernhard stayed quiet as he dashed out of the elevator and took cover behind a wrecked workstation. The new position was to the right of the squad. If they kept advancing, Bernhard intended to catch them in a crossfire. "Flank around their sides!" he said belatedly to the squad.

He pulled out his plasma autocannon and fired three bursts at the Ripper closest to him. Here's hoping it wasn't shielded.

Sawyer ejected the drum of red rounds out of his aop and loaded in a drum full of Greens, he took aim at one of the oncoming power armors, fired a round at them and then opened up with both of his plasma chainguns at maximum rate of fire.

Henry figured that it wasn't worth using his GLC or Grenades against the Daisies, however, he still had to kill them - and the perfect tool for this job was the HPAR - a weapon that defied the very laws of physics or common sense, but was very deadly and Nepleslian made.

He raised his arms to reveal the cannons and opened fire on the Daisy that Alexandra wasn't firing at. While he was at it, his Shield drones hovered in front of him, and a group of four was starting to form a wall - ready to spring up if there was return fire.

In orbit, Rear Admiral Dominic Valken had finally stopped his infernal pacing and taken a seat. In place of his pacing, the Admiral had started ceaselessly drumming his fingers on his command chair. So great was the annoyance that Captain Valencia Ironside had ordered a Lieutenant to get coffee and serve it to the Admiral. Every five minutes.

The first glass had stopped him for a while. The second for less. The third even less. By the fourth, the Admiral was politely refusing coffee and drumming his fingers on the empty cup!

They had commenced ground operations thirty minutes ago. She had served him coffee fifteen minutes ago. How strong was this man's bladder, the Captain cursed.

"Captain Ironside, Sergeant Hawkins' squad needs a medical shuttle for three Marines. Does Dauntless have any available?" the Admiral asked. Ironside looked to an ensign, who shook his head. "No sir, though my console tells me that Intrepid has one ready. Shall I signal them?" the Captain replied, making sure not to betray of that annoyance.

"Do so. I'm busy coordinating the Marines' movements. We're far behind schedule. It's taking the piss out of me," he said, shooting her a wary glance.

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

On the surface, the remaining four Marine squads moved towards the NMX outpost. Each one had been greatly reduced so that in total, they numbered twenty. In fact, Staff Sergeant Sergeant Holmes and Sergeant Rochester had combined their squads to make a total of eight.

Holmes was still trying to figure out where the NMX had hidden forty Rippers and how they had simply sprung out of the ground.

They didn't falter in the slightest.

The two Rippers immediately dashed forward, their legs a blur of shocking motion in comparison to the dumb and stupid Rippers from before - and plowed into the Nepleslian fire. Plasma, HPAR and emp rounds from Lisa, Matteo and Phaedra hammered one as it bull rushed them. White hot metal splattered across its armor as blue flashes went off on it's body as EMP rounds did nothing to phase it. Plasma burned away pockmarks in its hull as it charged. Cedric however, might as well have been ringing a broken bell, as the tungsten slugs bounced off it's plates uselessly with a dull peal.

The Mishhu Power Armor fired on the charge, it's two forearm weapons pummeled Cedric's shields as the shoulder mounted cannon belched massive 50mm slugs into Lisa; the first smashed into her shields, but she dodged, the second one only clipping her plates as it whizzed by before punching through the wall. The Zesuaium blades flared to life as Aether ran across their surface - a slash - and a horrid, molten gash appeared on his Aggressor's chest as the blade passed halfway through the thick plates. Cedric had barely leaped back to avoid the worst of the blow, but it raised the other blade up into the air as it moved to cleave him in two.

Missiles and Grenades - presents from Rita and Sawyer - flew out and detonated; bright flashes of blindingly brilliant light marked the antimatter reactions. Large portions of the second Ripper's armor simply vaporized under the onslaught, but it kept on coming despite being slowed down by the massive detonations. Despite having shaken the building down to the lowest level and cracked the floor, the small fire from them wasn't anywhere close as impressive and only maddened the small creature inside.

Like the other, it too fired on the run, but focused everything it had on Rita - though half the aether and gauss cannon fire smashed against the barrier set up, the rest practically melted through her shields and started to bite into her armor. A single 50mm round struck her square on the chest, crumpling the plate slightly and winding her. But luck was on their side; Rita and Bernard's HPARs sprayed jets of molten hot metal all across the armor, the splashes peppering the joints. An ankle locked and it tumbled forward, cannons spraying wildly.

*****

"Gyaaaaaah!" The Daisy Alexandra charged after shrieked in girlish terror and immediately backpedaled with her thrusters, her companion quickly following suit as both shifted their fire onto the rushing Nepleslian - though Alex could no longer bash her face in, the PPG on her shoulder pulsed, knocking the Daisy off balance and sent the Neko flying down into the floor on her ass, tearing up the floor as she crashed. "Help!"

Alexandra's fist finally collided with the Daisy's helmeted face.

The Neko was practically floored as a fist print was smashed into her helmet and went still. The other however, kept on backpedaling and fired a grenade right into Alex - it detonated and nearly flattened her shields. Henry's HPAR pelted the remaining Neko with white hot metals. They splattered over her shields and pierced through to torch holes into the armor plate and splatter across her chest.

It wasn't over yet though - a second pair of Daisies rounded the corner seconds late; a trio of missiles smashed into Henry's back and exploded, knocking the man forward and completely exposing his armor to fire. The second one sprayed Alex down and finally bit into the woman's armor with the small rounds the LASR fired, riddling the plate with holes across the back, damaging one of her propulsion units.

Their fight had only just begun.

Pumped full of more adrenaline than a busy Nepleslian hooker, Cedric barely registered that his shields were barely active, and so it would have been rather unrealistic to expect him to realize just how close the Ripper's blade had come to penetrating his armor as it had come around the area in which he had been taking cover. He backpedaled as quick as he could from the strike, moving to dodge the second strike intended to give him a structurally superfluous new addition to his body.

As he did so, he angled to the left in his retreat, and reached behind him to retrieve his NA-W3302. A tool designed for cutting, bashing, and burning: in his hurry he felt it was the only weapon that could "do the job" so to speak, even if that only meant getting his enemy away from him for the time being. So grabbing for it with one hand, he didn't even bother holding it by both handles, and used his PA's remote control ability on the device to open it's sharp maw wide: letting out a superheated stream a little over a meter in length, with power designed to cut through pieces of building in hopes of at least throwing the thing off it's assault. He felt he was far too close for his anti-matter missiles: as those were to be a last resort in this proximity. It'd kill him for sure if he couldn't get the Ripper away. After all, in order to get the accurate fire needed: it would need to come from somebody currently not tap-dancing with the thing.

The impact against Rita's chest did little more than piss off the full-conversion cyborg, who had adrenaline coursing through her. With one Ripper completely distracted by Cedric and friends, and the other on the ground, Rita decided to take matters into her own hands. She boosted forward and planted a firm leg on the back of the Ripper who had fallen over with a broken ankle joint. Even though they were tough, Rippers were far smaller and lighter than Hostiles, so she had more than enough leverage to keep it from standing.

Rita reached down and grabbed the "wrist" of the Ripper's arm right where it met the Zesuaium blade, then pulled backward with all of her might to try to rip the appendage from the mecha's body by snapping the joint with raw force. Upon success, Rita would spin the blade around and force it downward into the core of the Ripper in order to impale the brainslave inside.

Immediately after her shots, Phaedra realized that standard weapons were ineffective against the Rippers before them. Thankfully the first Ripper was able to be disabled with a salvo of plasma, molten coins, and antimatter.

"Standard weapons ineffective! Use plasma, antimatter, or an HPAR!" said Phaedra to the squad.

She saw Rita beating up on the single Ripper that had fallen, and she would have smirked in approval if it were not for Cedric charging at the other Ripper with his...Demolition tool?

"Cedric! What the hell are you doing? Get away from it! We cannot get a clear shot!" she shouted over the comm.

After she watched them struggle for a moment, Phaedra decided that she was done being a spectator. She stowed her MPR and drew the VBCS from the scabbard on her chest. She hopped over the shield wall and ran towards the struggling pair of armors, keeping low and trying to get behind them.

With a snarl, Phaedra brought down the whirring blades of her VBCS onto the weak point behind one of the Ripper's knees in an attempt to disable it.