RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 4]: Heads of the Beast

Anselm's initial shot impacted high on the Staff Sergeant's chest, and coupled with the projectiles fired into his stomach and right shoulder by the Chief and Sean respectively, sent the infected Marine down.

Sean's accurate fire resulted in three of the Staff Sergeant's squad receiving several bullet holes in the chest, sending them down as the rounds tore new channels through their body, breaking bone as they sent hydrostatic shock through their bodies.

Alex missed the Staff Sergeant that was assaulting the Chief as he fell down in a heap, but managed to catch an infected Marine behind him in the head as a few pellets bored holes into his forehead.

After all was said and done, the Chief slowly got up and holstered his RPB, reaching down to grab his CQBS-A2 which dropped to the floor in the scuffle. Turning around and just nodding at Anselm, the Chief brought his shotgun up in a ready stance.

"Advance. Consider anyone hostile, but do not fire unless fired upon. Morris, you're on point."

Alex missed but at least her shots got someone other. Well if sergeant wouldn't be offed by Chief and Chalk before she shot, she would probably hit him.

"Is everyone okay?" she spoke out loud and looked around to see if everyone in her unit is okay.

"Three M1 DDs and one M2 SD. We would have brought a 'Crooked if it wasn't confiscated." The shuttle pilot mumbled in return. "ETA 5 minutes."

The suppressing fire that the leading line of three Rippers were putting out was gradually becoming more accurate. They were targetting the barriers that the marines put up. Some of the vehicles resisted the low-end Aether beams that the Rippers fired, but none were capable of holding back a fully charged Gauss hit and subsequently tipped over. One of the three cars that were targetted in this manner was Jack's car, the Gauss round overpenetrated and impacted itself deeply in his left Monoeye, almost ripping it from its shoulder housing. The previously damaged unit was now very much beyond repair.

In that slight moment the Medic's Mass Mesher systems flinched. Picking up the return the three Rippers upfront momentarily paused as their leader considered its options. The Ripper group had conviniently stopped between the other two Greenhorns.

"NOW!" Kajiim yelled as he threw his first grenade towards the center of the group following up with a rocket from his panzerfaust directed at the closest Ripper.
As soon as he fired the rocket he dropped the launcher, picked up 2nd grenade and headed to another window, 5th window to the left to be exact. Tossing the other grenade into the group of squids and layed in wait for the dust to clear so he could start lining up shots with the smg.

Jack couldn't help but swear as he heard the gunfire, withholding a physical flinch as the hostile fire destroyed his monoeye. That meant that his once machine-assisted aim was down to his intense training as an ID-SOL to hit these targets. Then again, even if he was inaccurate the gun he was holding had one hundred rounds in it's magazine...not to mention the five reloads he had for it.

Then if all else failed...Jack almost grinned, adrenaline in his system driving him to somehow like this conclusion. Then he would have to get close and mean with his vibrosaw knife. Until then Jack would have to keep moving, keep low, and not get hit because the "cover" (which would more appropriately have been called poor concealment) he had been behind wouldn't do any good against Ripper weaponry.

"Stay on the ground!" Jack yelled to the security guards.

Then he fired a stream of twenty rounds in short controlled bursts for the red-marked Rippers, assuming him to be the leader of the group. Then he burst up from his cover and moved for cover in a nearby alley while firing off quick bursts of gunfire as accurately as he could afford before crouching down in the alley.

Anselm casually loaded three new shells into his Sv-SSG-01a, leaving five bright red bars slung over his shoulder, and an agitated scowl on his scar-tracked mug.

"I'll get their tags..." the ID-SOL offered crouching down near the resting marines, collecting each man's paired identification tags, leaving one on their person if SMoDIoN ever came back for the dead.

Sam reloaded her HHGs with a grunt, tossing the spent casings away. The butch marine advanced down the hall with her squad, the revolver kept at the ready just in case.

It was over quickly as it had begun; just like before. Viktor had a feeling they would get a lot of that here, but that was alright: his shotgun was meant for just such occasions. He moved toward the front half of the group, letting his weapon do the talking. He made sure it was plain to see in his hands, hefting it slightly if anyone looked his way, as if to say, "Pardon me, close range butcher coming through."

Crouched behind the same truck as Jack was, Lucas watched the approaching Rippers closely, drawing a bead on them down the length of his Ripshot. While he knew the Squid armor would be able to shrug off the shots easily, he felt safer being able to harry them some at long range before they closed into close combat; truthfully, though, he welcomed the chance to fight face-to-face, something he greatly preferred. His thoughts were inturrupted by the Gauss shell blasting through his cover and Jack's subsequent curse, moving himself over more to get his targets back into view. Lucas just hoped the Rippers hadn't spotted him yet.

However, as Jack's armor momentarily dropped camo, Lucas acted quickly. He raised the Ripshot and fired in tight bursts at the group of Squids, hopeing to draw some of their attention away from the already shot up Jack before following his fellow greenhorn's example and moving to the opposite alleyway from Jack for better cover.

The rest of the apartment would provide no further surprises, save for the occasional corpse strewn across the floor or table. As the squad advanced through the apartment, there became a surplus of civilian-clothed dead and a notable lack of dead Marines.

As the squad advanced towards the west side of the building, the sound of people talking became more apparent. Tracing the sound to a single door at the end of a hallway particularly littered with corpses, the Chief ordered the squad to line up along the left wall of the hallway, with two Marines at either ends of the door.

Pointing to Viktor and Anselm, then to the door, the Chief gestured for the squad to be ready to breach through the door.

Sean lined up close to the door, switching out his weapons for the Ripshot. Shorter, should work better for the breach. Wonder how many guys are in there. Quickly checking his magazine and gun to make sure it was a full mag and everything was loaded properly, he looked back up, ready for the go.

"Advance. Consider anyone hostile, but do not fire unless fired upon. Morris, you're on point," ordered the Chief.

Phaedra made her way out from behind cover and cautiously advanced with the rest of the squad. She again let the rest of the squad continue forward while she stayed behind to guard the rear. As they continued through the apartment, more and more civilian corpses littered the floor. Phaedra felt anger and adrenaline rush through her veins as the piles of civilian dead accumulated.

"DAMN YOU ALIEN BASTARDS!" thought Phaedra. She held her GSAR tightly and glanced behind the squad to ensure that they were not caught by suprise. Eventually the squad arrived at a single door at the end of a hallway. Chief Ran ordered the squad to line up against one side of the hallway while two Marines stacked up at the doorway. Phaedra made her way to the side of the hallway and crouched; the sights of her GSAR were trained down the long hallway in the direction they had come from.

Kajiim threw his grenade into the space between the front and rear elements of the four Rippers, which was directly infront of the Commander-Type that acted as the eyes, ears and mind of the group. While it froze in surprise for half a second, the next half second was spent commanding the forward three to boost forward to put as much distance between them and the grenade while the commander itself took a long step back. The explosion did not do any significant damage but caused the Commander to flinch.

Next, The closest Ripper to Kajiim was one of the three that made up the broad line that was on his side of the road. By the time the Greenhorn fired the rocket, the Ripper was just finishing the short boost that the Commander had it do, it could not immediately execute another boost to get out of the way. Also, with the Commander briefly stunned, it was in no position to intercept the rocket. It was a clean hit, the antimatter explosion completely knocked out the Ripper's shields and tipped it over on the ground.

A veteran of Rok'veru, the Commander wasted no time in recovering and was ready by the time Kajiim was about to throw the second grenade. It shot the weapon out of the Greenhorn's hand with a precise and powerfull Gauss Rifle hit. While the grenade did not explode, Kajiim's right hand certainly did. Constriction bands built into the armor's forearm quickly went into action, applying a local anesthetic and choking off the blood supply to the stump.

With the Commander Type concentrating on Kajiim, most of Jack's long string of LSP shots found their target whilst guided by his sole remaining left Monoeye. Factoring in the inherent inaccuracy of a short barrelled weapon, P3C Hayden managed to knock off maybe 20% of the Ripper's shields but did not faze the Commander at all while it was in the process of mauling Kajiim. The two Gauss shots from the two forward Rippers were aimed at him but in their haste to fire had missed their mark. Jack had also taken five Aether Beamlet shots to his general chest and torso area before he ducked. These did not penetrate, but left small deep holes the size of a pencil in his armor.

Before Kajiim threw his grenade, the target the Commander designated to his underlings was Jack, and it still was. The Rippers ignored Lucas Vanguard completely. The Greenhorn's SMG was hopelessly outclassed in both range and power and did absolutely no damage to their shields. On the plus side, Lucas also did not receive any damage in turn.

All the PA's inbuilt weapon systems are now online for the Greenhorns, and their Tacnet showed an ETA of two minutes for reinforcements.

The corpses, while gruesome, were easily ignored by Viktor. He could focus on just business when things had to get done. Clean hallways- bodies aside- was a definite plus.

Voices, while suspicious, weren't entirely alarming to him. He suspected friendlies planning a continuation of their mission, but didn't let down his guard.

The P1C nodded his silent 'Yes, sir,' to Chief Rui, then set up on the right side of the door, nearest the knob. He put one hand on the knob, the other hefting his weapon steadily. Kingston locked eyes with Anselm, awaiting his ready.

"Certainly, sir!" Henry nodded to the Chief as he looked to his three empty magazines. He needed a resupply, "However, if I want to take point properly, I'm going to need some additional ammo," He motioned to the empty magazines he was hanging onto.

He eventually scrounged a spare magazine's worth of ammo, "Thanks," He nodded as he moved forwards, and into the building. He was hugging the walls and keeping away from the corpses, should they rise again.

As his companions got to the door, it was Henry's job as a point man to boot it open, "Breaching door in three, two..." He lifted his left leg into a booting position, whilst keeping his loaded Styrling Dart at the ready, "One!" His strength-augmented leg connected with the door.

Jack once again swore at the thought of the fire which he had just received. The front of his armor had just about been sanded of it's paints and it was dented beyond all reason, he winced as he hoped the chief wouldn't punish him for damaging one of the few suits that had been working aboard the ship. It didn't seem likely, but still. Jack moved to the corner, still crouching, and stuck out to fire for the commander once more. He only stayed out long enough to acquire his target, empty the remaining fifty or so rounds, and duck back behind cover of the alley to reload.

"FUCK!!!!!" Kajiim yelled as he fell to the floor grasping his arm. After a few seconds spent in shock of what just happened to his hand he crawled to another window. Making sure he was well hidden from the bastard that maimed him, he checked the rounds in the smg. Satisfied he poked out of cover, training his sights on the big red ugly. "YOU BASTARD! I'LL MAKE CALAMARI OUTTA YOU! Kajiim yelled unloading the LSP's magazine. After the last round left the barrel he dove back into cover and made his way to the next floor up reloading on the way.

In the midst of the fierce battle going on planet-side, the Medical Bay on board the NSS Acadia was relatively quiet. The crew on board the ship were busy manning stations and attempting to figure out exactly how the Mishhu succeeded in invading Nepleslia. Within the Med-Bay, tucked away in a corner behind a various sundry of boxes and supplies, lay a rather large man. Anyone from within the Nepleslian Empire would realize quickly this man was an ID-SOL, a genetically modified soldier. Boxes aside, the table the man was laid on seemed to have not been disturbed for a while. Wires protruded from underneath his green shirt, and a monitor seemed to attached to the other ends of these cords.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

The heart monitor had not changed since the comatose patient had arrived. Indeed, things were not looking good, and perhaps this man would soon need to be reborn. But that was not Fate's plan for this man today.

BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.

The monitor speed up. Normally an alarm would have alerted a Nurse to the changing situation, but under the current situations stress, no call was answered. From underneath the harsh glow of fluorescent lights, a finger moved. Barely, slowly. Again the hand twitched, the first movement in over two and a half weeks. The eyelids slowly raised, light flooding into irises and pupils that hadn't seen it in what seemed like a lifetime. Blinking rapidly to restrain the tears that began to well, Keladrian Santhis rose from the dead.

He sat up slowly, resting on his left elbow. Looking around the room, Keladrian was utterly lost. 'Where the hell am I? Where's the MC? Weren't we just on the ground?' He sat completely up, slightly unsteady. Using his right hand, Kel removed the heart monitors wires and the IV he had in his left arm. He swung his legs over the left side of the table, took three deep breaths, then rose.

He caught himself on the opposite wall. It felt as if he hadn't walked in weeks. He stumbled, bumping into a desk. There were papers strewn about on them, with the days date. Keladrian picked them up, confused. "What? No, that's...that's not possible!" He stumbled out of the room after replacing the papers. Looking back at the door, Kel discovers that he had been lying in the Med-Bay. "What the hell happened to me?" He noticed a crewman running down the corridor he exited onto. "Hey, what's going on?" He asked the man.

"Have you been asleep the whole time? The fucking Senate's under attack! Wait, aren't you one of Vel Steyr's men? They were supposed to all be planet-side!" The man looked annoyed and slightly confused, wondering why the eight foot tall beast of a man wasn't down on the ground kicking squid ass.

"That's what I'm trying to find out." Kel said, walking off. He read a sign in passing that pointed toward the Mess Hall and the Hanger. Suddenly his stomach growled. Realizing that he felt as though he hadn't eaten in weeks, Keladrian stumbled off toward the Mess Hall.

Upon arrival, Kel was greeted with two very agitated Mess workers who wanted to know why there was still a Marine on board the ship when everything else in the fucking universe had gone to shit. Rather than explain, Keladrian said he was under orders to wait, and that seemed to suffice the overrated cooks. The meals were ready-to-eat, after all.

Scarfing down a delicious BBQ Pork Sandwich and whiskey, Keladrian set off toward the Hanger, figuring if he could get some answers, that would be where he could. He entered the large room and spied several PA's, many which he recognized as his squadmates. 'Why would they go planet-side without their armors?' Kel thought, walking up to young girl in a NAM uniform.

"Excuse me ma'am, but where exactly did Master Chief Vel Steyr and Chief Rui go?" He asked, hoping to discover the bottom of this mystery.

At the very last second, the door that Morris was breaching would open. Morris would come face to face with some poor, unfortunate Private, his surprised face lit by the cigarette which he was planning to smoke outside the room. The door opened and kicked by Morris, it connected solidly with the Private's forehead, sending him falling down to a chorus of profanities.

The rest of the Marines in Ran's squad would be able to peer into the room. In the middle of it sat a few officers looking over a map, along with several enlisted men who were currently busy throwing the corpses of hostile troops through the many collapsed portions of the walls in the room. A body scan would indicate that these Marines were NOT infected.

One of the officers - a Senior Chief - eyed Morris and looked down to the Private on the ground, who appeared to have swallowed his cigarette during the whole event. "Well, shit." The Senior Chief simply shrugged and looked up at Morris, "Guess we missed a few infected. You got an officer in your squad or is he toasted?"

Harrison stepped forward, taking a position on Morris' left flank. The ex-mercenary looked at the Senior Chief briefly, surmising him in case of his being an infected. Eventually, he was satisfied with the lack of marks on any exposed skin signifying the injection of a worm. He raised one thumb up and pointed it towards Ran.

"That would be Chief Rui, sir. The guy with the plume of cigarette smoke around his head," The private said simply, then stepped back into the fold with the rest of the squad.