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

Chad watched as the first three rippers passed in front of him and watched as Kajiim threw a gernade and fired a panzerfaust while recieving return fire from the fourth ripper who was olbviously the commander. Chad didn't fire yet, but allowed himself to walk further back along the building to find a window more suitable to destroy the red Ripper fireing on Kajiim.

Once he found a suitable window positioned further behind Kajiim and the Red Ripper, Chad looked over the street and aimed his HPAR at the Commander vetren. He took aim at the large broad opening on the Ripper's back, and from there pinpointed an even smaller area right between the two shoulder blades. Chad knew that with the inaccurate HPAR it was important to aim small, even on a larger target. With this in mind, the he exhaled and held his breathe as the slowly pulled back on the heavy trigger. Along with this he planned to concentrate on the Ripper and tap the trigger in attempt to concentrate the coin rounds and take out some of the recoil.

Chad's finger finally felt the trigger let the action slide and felt the first round leave the chamber.......

Once in cover, Lucas assessed his condition. The Ripshot seemed to have no effect on the Rippers, so he racked the weapon and pulled out his LSP instead; how he wished for an HPAR right now. Instead, he looked over his armor and caught sight of a small block on his left calf: the BOLT launchers! A plan began to form in Lucas' head, and he opened a channel on his comms.

"Hey, Jack," Lucas' grin seeped into his words, "Check your armor for the BOLT launchers. We might have some heavier firepower after all."

Lucas paused to pop out of cover and fire three quick bursts from his LSP at the nearest Ripper suit.

"We can soften up the lead Rippers before closing in to finish them off!" Lucas looked over at the ID-SOL for his input on the situation.

"Yeah, you missed a few, don't worry, we didn't let the Chief get himself toasted..." Anselm shouldered his 12-gauge with a sardonic grin, "he tried though."

The Chief lightly kicked Anselm in the calf as he walked past him and into the room, smirking at Morris. "Shit, Morris, I guess that's one way to knock someone out." The Chief teased, before nodding to the Senior Chief and walking over to the gathering.

With a few exchanged words and some protests, the Chief came back in about 10 minutes to address the squad.

"You all know the situation in this building, so I'm not gonna give you the Senior Chief's lecture about how hard it is to kill an infected Marine. You're all hard enough to deal with it." The Chief cleared his throat and lit a cigarette.

"Now that we've secured this building, we'll be using it as a staging area for the assault on the mall across the ways. Before there are any jokes made about the relevance of laced bras and panties to a military operation, the value of this mall is it's monorail." The Chief pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, and began to draw a crude schematic of the building.

"Two levels, all-glass. Normally we'd just hang back and pick off the dumbfucks who are holding a primarily glass building, but according to our recon teams, the bulk of enemy forces are hold up in the train station in back of the mall." The Chief motioned to a few crates being opened in the far right corner of the room.

"That station has reinforced doors, so the plan is for us and two other squads to secure the mall itself for a demolition team to arrive. In case you want extra Panzerfausts, you'd all better polish off a few balls in that squad there."

The Chief motioned to the squadleader overseeing the unpacking of the crates, who responded with an over-the-shoulder finger.

"We'll be getting air support for the mission. Morris, I want you to hang back and communicate with the pilot. Oliver, I want you to hang back with him to spot targets and provide cover for us. We've got 10 minutes before the assault begins."

In the five or so seconds that Jack Haden needed to fire off fifty LSP rounds, the two Rippers that were concentrating on him opened fire again. The rain of Aether beamlets fell mostly on the left side of his suit. One beam entered his M8 Hostile's head unit just outside the radius of the suit's protective mask, producing a geyser of cryrogenic gasses from the now junked MEC. Another beam entered to gap where his left Monoeye was, breeching the exposed under-armor there to superheat a small spot on the ID-SOL's shoulder, the skin there erupted as blood and intracellular fluid vaporised with explosive force. The remainder of the beams were absorbed by the left forearm guard or missed.

With sure footing now, the two Rippers switched over to their Gauss Rifles to finish the job. The first one shattered on the luckless forearm guard, which also shattered in turn to dissipate the excessive force. The second projectile was locked on by the ID-SOL's remainder Monoeye unit, which then forwarded the data to his SAVTECH which then triggered the suit's newly activated thrusters to autodoge. In one smooth motion Jack as boosted away into cover while the last Gauss shot whizzed by.

Lucas Vanguard had a clear shot at one of the stationary Rippers targeting his fellow Greenhorn. While his bursts were accurate, they were too accurate. In this situation full auto from his LSP might have missed more, but also hit more. In any case, his attack dropped the shields of his target by 15%. By this time the third forward Ripper had gotten back up, and fired an ill aimed Gauss round at Lucas. The projectile tore into the vehicle he was using for cover, but other than a few stray metal bits and screws pitter pattering on his suit, Lucas was otherwise unharmed.

Same with Lucas, Chad's fire on the commander would be accurate enough to exploit any small structural weaknesses on the rear of a Ripper's armor, except his HPAR was no MPR and the Commander still had his shields up. Chad's attack dealt 20% shield damage, no different that if he tried the attack to the side or front of the armor, and much less than if he simply fired on full auto and relied on his suit's Power Assist, SAVTECH and Monoeye Sensors to compensate. However, the Commander's shields were now visibly weaker as they were now down to 50%.

Unloading the LSP's 200 round magazine required about 20 seconds of sustained fire. Kajiim Ashad did not have this time. The second also well-aimed Gauss Rifle shot from the Commander smashed right into the greenhorn's head unit, tearing the suit's head from the body. Luckly the pilot's head is actually situated in the suit's neck. Nevertheless, Kajiim had lost his MEC, secondary Monoeye, neural probe and combat visor. His face also suffered some cuts and was now exposed to the elements. For the first time since being transferred to the Acadia, the Greenhorn saw Funky City with his bare eyes and smelt its smells.

Kajiim only managed to empty one third of his magazine (Dropping the Commander's shields to 30%) before the Commander followed up with Aether Beams. As with Jack, his suit's newly activated thursters quickly scooted him away from the ledge and into cover, avoiding further damage.

The Commander was getting anxious now, desperate to hide and recover his shields, but also desperate to finish off Kajiim, he unsheathed his Vibroblades and boosted upwards towards the Greenhorn's floor with a vengeance.

Chad watched as his well placed shots did much less damage than what was expected. He had never been in this sort of situation before, that is where quantity beat quality. He had always shot knowing that he could place a few shots near eachother and could take down whatever the opposition. His ability to shoot quickly but with accuracy and with few rounds ment nothing.

He now watched as the commander became anxious. He saw the shields drop dramatically but with still a little ways too go, and the Ripper wasn't going to allow another heavy hit get him in the middle of the street again. He was gonna finish off Kajiim up close, and without any interference from Chad. So as the Commander boosted up to meet Kajiim, Chad fired, finally in full auto, at the moving Ripper.

Once Chad was done with the little help he could give his comrad, he decided that it was time to take care of the other three Squids in forward position before they got off too many Gauss rounds. In response, the Greenhorn activated his thrusters to plummet himself through the window and on to the street.

Once there, he turned, auto targeted, and let every missile in his box loose on the forward Rippers.

Kingston was frankly disappointed with the turnout of the "breach," but only let it show for a few seconds. He could tell they were going to get moving again.

When the Chief finished his explanation, the Private spoke up. "Do we have any more intel on the condition of the mall's interior? Namely the condition of the stores; if we don't have cover going in, we'll be just like the Misshu- sans the ridiculous numbers."

Alex was more in the back while Morris 'kicked' the doors open. But she saw someone got hit. Voice full of pain could be heard followeb by some swears that Alex didn't even know.

Then Chief came in to talk with other chiefs. Alex looked in and saw man sitting on the ground holding his forehead. She let her smg on sling and kneeled next him. "Let me look at it," she said. Well he must have been okay in first place. If he wouldn't he couldn't swear as he did.

His whole forehead was read and he had a part of boot imprint there. It looked kinda funny, although it must have not been funny to him when he got kicked. "You should be okay. If you start feeling dizzy held back for a while. It can't be much mre than mild concussion but it seems to me that you are okay. Grab yourself a candy later, I got nothin on me now." She smiled and went back into corridor. Well she could start walking around with candy for her patients. It would be good joke.

When chief then got out and talked about mall, Alex did her best to listen carefully. She then asked, "Sir do we know how many of those wankers are there? I mean is a bloody lot a or just a few or something between?" She asked in the end.

The Chief looked to Kingston while lighting up a cigarette, keeping it cradled in the right corner of his mouth.

"Take a look outside if you want to check out the stores and mall. Pretty much what you'd expect during a disaster; most of the stores have been ransacked of anything of worth. It's pretty fucking cluttered inside.

As for cover, we've got a platoon-sized force heading in alongside us, as well as another platoon hanging back. We've also got a few gunships." One of the Marines in the other squad dropped a Panzerfaust, eliciting a swift disciplinary kick in the ass from his squad leader.

"And don't fucking worry about numbers -too much.- They've got more than us, but we're far better trained and equipped. These fuckers are probably using old and decrepit shit they found off their dead."

The Chief spit out his cigarette and stomped it dead on the ground, addressing Alex's queries as he ground the butt into the concrete.

"Estimates are about two to three squads. Not really much to worry over, since it looks like they're the remaining forces who retreated from this building.

Recon reports a few of them scurrying in and out of the station in the back, with a few possibles hunkered down in the stores. Unless we all suddenly go fucking blind and shit during the assault, we'll be OK.

Make sure you all get some more Panzerfausts in case we decide to lob them into the stores that are occupied."

"DAMMIT" yelled Kajiim as his head unit was torn off. Now without his HUD and interface, Kajiim collected himself. "Command - Move six yards back." Kajiim ordered the armor. "Command - prepare the DART missile pods to lock on and fire." As the suit moved to the back of the room the missile pods readied. Kajiim was now standing at the rear of the room facing the window holding his LSP up to fire.

As soon as Kajiims armor finished its commands the Squid barged in. The DARTs locked on and fired volley after volley as Kajiim pulled the trigger on the smg raining hell upon the hand fragging asshole.

Alex thought for a while. She had no Panzerfaust so she will concentrate on any zombies that will require more precise shooting then punching a rocket into middle of a bunch. She then remembered something.

"Sir," she started," I think we should also expect to meet them shocktroopers we got briefed about. Better be ready." She didn't want to by paranoid, but if this was some kind of staging area for them they should pull some of their bigger guns there.

"Duly noted," Henry said as he put his hands to the temple of his helmet. His datapad was neatly put in the back of his armour and wired to his helmet, so he could easily communicate to others. It wasn't too hard to acquire the pilot's identification and frequency.

Under his breath, Henry spoke the right commands to patch his radio through to Ran, and then made a connection on the same line to the pilot, so he could relay information to the both of them in a hurry.
On top of this, he overlaid an effective encryption, lest the Mishhu find the squad's next moves.

"Encrypted connections established," Henry told the pilot and Ran via radio, "Keep me posted."

There probably weren't enough curses and vulgar words in the vocabulary of the average Nepleslian that Jack didn't use with each hit, swearing loudly over the radio. His head unit was perforated and the pain on his left shoulder was burning. If it hadn't been for the automatically dodging systems of his suit then the damage probably would have been worse. The pain was searing, to say the least, but despite that his medical training didn't allow the man to think about himself in this situation: his thoughts went out to both his fellow Green horns and the undoubtedly scared remainder of security personnel laying on the ground behind the barricade.

"Crap, they've pierced my suit!" He called out, steeling his nerves as he did so.

Jack once more emerged from the alley, locked on to one of the offending power-armored squids. The one he targeted was the one that he was mentally accusing of the damage to his shoulder: whether it actually was the one responsible didn't matter to the ID-SOL medic. He discharged a volley of DART missiles, simultaneously firing thirty rounds from his submachine gun before taking cover once again.

After having dropped off those noisy marines, El had headed off to transfer out of her shuttle, seeing as there was a higher demand for killing off the zombies and less for extractions. It wasn't as if she could get in close enough to that anyway, as an earlier pilot had found out.

The pilot was out of her shuttle and into something much more fun: a lovely Sunburn. Then came the wait for a request for air support... and it appeared as though it had finally come.

El double checked all the systems and weapons, as the datapad in El's pocket was playing some Aethersperm. "Ready whenever you guys are."

Anselm nodded at the H-1 launchers, addressing the other squad leader "might wanna save the 'boom boom' for heavy stuff, got anything more..." he waved his cybernetic hand in a circular fashion as the marine went through the time-consuming process of switching his shotgun for the bulky HPAR slung across his back, "pew pew?"

After a second, the marine straightened up cradling the heavy anti-armor weapon, "like a heavy machine gun or twelve?"

Sam holstered her HHGs and drew the huge gun off her back with a slow, satisfied grin. "Got it, sir," she murmured happily as she caressed the weapon. "Anywhere specific y'want me to set up?"

Chad's rain of HPAR fire destroyed what was left of the Ripper Commander's shields before it disappeared over the ledge, preventing any exploitation of it's vulnerable rear armor. As the forward Rippers never paid any attention to him, his salvo of DART micromissles streaked to their targets unopposed.

Kajiim's DART swarm briefly disorientated the Ripper Commander that had just landed on the ledge on the greenhorn's floor. Knowing that it will not be able to take precise aim with its Gauss Rifle at the moment, it fired that weapon first. While the shot was fired too wildly to hit Kajiim's suit, his newly regenerating shields which formed an elongated sphere around his PA was hit instead, dropping its shield strength drastically. The follow up Aether Beamlet and Scalar shots broke the greenhorn's shields and lightly damaged his armor. It was a miracle none of the widely dispersed beams managed to hit the exposed upper part of his head.

Kajiim's counterfire with his LSP also damaged the Commander's armor, but did not slow it down. In the next five seconds only one of the two combatants would still be standing. With all its weapons exhaused, it boosted straight towards the greenhorn with vibroblades.

Jack's DARTs were quickly intercepted by the attentive Rippers (it was certainly unwanted attention). As this was done with their forearm based systems, the Medic would not need to worry about getting hit by aether or scalar beams. Though, there was still the Gauss rounds. The first one was narrowly avoided by the autodoge, the second one hit his newly recharged shields and dropped it to critical as the suit tried to recover from the sudden movement. It was about this time when Chad's DARTs hit them from behind, weakening their shields and shutting down their sensors momentarily. The Mishhus were helpless as to what would happen next.

Three M1 Demons, ancient relics from the Nepleslian Civil War, were dropping from the sky high above the Senate. All three were armed with homemade T-1 Panzerfausts, the secret recipe as what many Green soldiers painfully learnt during that war, was that the warhead is a daisy chain of three T-1s. This made them slow and ungainly, but the Rippers were helpless. The first two Rippers engaging Jack were annhilated in a blindness-inducing light. The third one recovered just in time to put a Gauss shot through the third Demon, penetrating through its weak shields and caving in the chestpiece. The Kennewesian dropped his unfired T-1 Daisy Chain, it was expected to make a rough landing on or near Jack's position, and would certainly explode if it touched the ground.

"Anselm, less 'pew pew', more 'dakka dakka'." Harrison grunted, thumbing the fire selector on the S-TAR back to automatic. He activated the safety, then made his way into the command post and commandeered a Panzerfaust for himself. The ex-merc hooked that into the slot on his vest that the assault rifle had formerly occupied, and then hefted the weight of the three main guns he was now carrying.

He clomped his boots back into the hallway and nodded at Sam and Henry. "Stay safe out there, guys," he grunted, and then made his way back towards the rest of the squad. Once there, he turned to Chief Rui. "Alright sir, how are we going in? Despite the fact that we're a superior force, I doubt waltzing through the front door would be a brilliant plan." He shrugged. "Any secondary entrances? Loading docks, storage room entrances, that sort of thing?"

Jack couldn't help but once more swear over the radio and mentally berate himself. Though he was obviously very engaged in the combat before him, like any good Marine he was well aware of his surroundings, and when he looked up at the dropping PAs he saw the Daisy Chain that was falling almost straight for him, and Chad.

His eyes practically became saucers because he knew that once that thing touched down it was going to go off. He ran for it, straight towards Chad while aiming behind him with his SMG.

"Get down!" He called.

He looked behind him and up to the offending weapon, firing at it in an attempt to blast it away before it could hit the ground.

Chad watched in utter amazement at the Dark Demons dropping from the sky. He had heard amazing stories about these heroic rebels of Kennewes, and to actually see them in action was a true honor. He had heard rumors that this veterens had been integrated into the Green military and it was good to hear that these past enemies were now friends. Everybody seemed to want a piece of the Mishuu bastards.

He also saw the first casualty of the new power armors and watched in horror as the Daisy fell from the sky in what looked like Jacks position. This was what they needed to end this damn thing, and Chad was prepared to take advantage of it. Slinging the HPAR, and fireing his boosters Chad rocketed towards the area where Jack had been. He drew his Broadsword attempting a slash at one of the Rippers as he passed. Once passed Chad turned on his PPS system and beamed the Daisy, grabbed a hold of it, and slung it toward the Rippers. The explosion should be more than enough to do damage to the rest of the Ripper's Shields and maybe even a bit more.

This all happened in a matter of seconds from where the first Demon was killed, and was perhaps the fastest Chad had ever travelled.....