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

Seeing the Ripper boost towards him blades forward Kajiim ordered his armor to pivot 180 degrees out to the left at the last second allowing the infuriated squid to miss. As he pivoted he dropped his smg and grabbed his knife reversed and followed up the dodge with a short boost to the rear of the foe. The carnage of the street battle below set the mood for their violent duel as Kajiim used all his strength and rage toi drive the vibro knife into its back.

Phaedra stood in the doorway as the Chief explained the situation. While the discussion continued Phaedra checked her GSAR, ensuring that it was fully loaded and she shifted the weight of the Panzerfaust still strapped to her back. She strode over to the stack of crates at one end of the room, grabbed several spare fragmentation grenades, and clipped them into place on her belt and harness.

While checking the workings of her sidearm, Phaedra noticed one of the Marines from the other squad staring at her. Whether he was staring at her body or the scars on her face, she could not say. But she was not going to become self-conscious at a time like this. Phaedra gave him a frigid glare before slamming her RPB into the holster at her side.

"Asshole," she thought.

Without a word she turned on her heel and strode back over to the doorway, her right hand fingering the grip of her GSAR.

Alex felt a little stupid when Harrions marched from the command post with Panzerfaust in his hands. She just shaked her head and went and got one for herself too. She will probably just have it for someone more experienced like Kingston or Chalk.

She then stepped back an put Panzer on her back standing next to Wolf. Phaedra looked kind of ticked off. "Everything okay?" Asked Alex.

"Aww bloody 'ell." The Leader of the Kennewesian trio boosted over to his wounded comrade. Using a small vibroblade he popped the chestpiece of the DD open to relieve the pressure the bent piece of metal was inflicting on the pilot. His efforts were rewarded with a long gasp of air from his patient.

At full strength, the AIR-R's shield bubble overwhelmed the Ripper's newly regenerating shields, preventing it from interfering with melee attacks. True to it's design, Chad's broadsword cut a clean swath through the left waist of the Ripper from it's weaker rear armor to the stronger front, the increase armor thickness negated from the fact that it was designed to stop outside attacks in as opposed to inside attacks out. The half-disemboweled Mishhu was still shakily standing though, and was about to put a Gauss Round through the AIR-R's fleeting back when the Daisy landed on it, reducing anything above it's waist into bright lights and pure nothingness.

The three marines stood triumphant, all that was left of their opponents were three pairs of stumpy legs. The fourth Greenhorn was not so lucky.

Unlike the Mishhu grown Brain-Slaves, the 'thing' driving the Commander suit had more than thirty years of experience in bipedal motion, and half of that in Yamataian, Zen-Arms and Nepleslian Power Armors (in that order). Kajiim's downward stab was easily blocked by the Commander's backhand as it skillfully turned to re-face the Greenhorn. Kajiim's remaning hand was not strong enough to force the blade through. With the other arm the Commander jabbed into Kajiim's stomach twice, each time drawing blood and bits of organ. The third attack was a wild one aimed at the Greenhorn's neck, but instead took off Kajiim's lower jaw and brough him facedown into the ground. Finally, seeing that his opponent could no longer put up any resistance, it shot a Gauss round point blank into the Hostile's backpack, immobilizing the suit completely and starting a cataclysmic chain reaction in the UCFu reactor.

WARNING! REACTOR CONTAINMENT BREECHED!
EMERGENCY SYSTEMS FAILED!
MELTOWN IN 50 SECONDS!

The HUDs of the other Greenhorns would show a dramatic drop in Kajiim's lifesigns, the critical condition of his PA and the Commander leaving the area, fleeing into the darkness that was Funky City's underbelly.

Kajiim's mind was a malestrom of pain and anguish. "Aghgel..." is all he said as he fought to remain conscious and remove himself from the suit, shock being his closest ally and friend. He won't let this asshole have the pleasure of adding another kill to his record. Kajiim was determined to seek revenge.

Jack had been relieved at the lack of remaining hostiles in the area, panting heavily as he had looked to what little remained of the three Ripper with a smile hidden beneath his armor...until he watched the commander unit leaving Kajiim's position: the Mishu didn't retreat, ever. That meant that Kajiim was in one of two terrible possibilities and Jack's rising fears were confirmed as he saw the drop in his life-signs. Jack began moving for Kajiim's position.

"Come on guys, let's move: help me with Kajiim!" He called.

He boosted up to the opening to Kajiim's position and didn't even pause to check his surroundings. Instead he set to work, setting his medical kit at his side, retrieving his knife, and he set to work powering down the generator. Unfortunately he found himself having to try and hold down a both badly wounded and wildly thrashing Kajiim.

"Hold still, moron!" Jack yelled.

He deactivated the generator in order to avoid a meltdown.

The Chief's back was to Sam, while he fumbled around inside of a crate. "Set yourself up on the top floor. We've already got a sharpshooter team up there, so your jobs will be to call in air on whatever we come up against." The Chief grabbed a Panzerfaust himself, letting his CQBS-A2 dangle.

"We're going to be part of a larger platoon securing the outer perimeter of the mall. They've already got guys to infiltrate the mall." The Chief turned to Harrison, setting the Panzerfaust on the ground next to him as he pulled out and lit another cigarette.

"Unless the guys inside happen upon and explode some awful device made up of aether and bad dreams, we won't be needed. In the event we don't get to kill anyone, the upside will be that we'll have done our jobs without any casualties. Shit, I might try to persuade whatever logistics personnel to let us keep t-"

The Chief was interrupted by a Sergeant, who had just finished whispering something to another squadleader.

Throwing his cigarette on the floor, Ran picked the Panzerfaust back up. "That's the move order. Everyone get back outside and assemble in the street we just shot those cars in."

Sean snorted, as he finished collecting a Panzerfaust and a pair of grenades. "Why the hell'd we come up here if we're going back the other way? There are other squads, they coulda done it just as easy." Despite his griping, he turned to make his way back down the way they came in, now slightly more weighted down then before.

Anselm checked over the electronics on his HPAR, snapping the casing together once more when Chief Rui gave the order to move.

"Geez, we just get the popular assignments all the time, huh?" the marine asked sardonically once the squad was mostly by itself, "I'm starting to think the top-brass might be refering this humble, rough, and tumble unit by name in their planning sessions."

"Anyone hear rumors to the effect that they're planning on giving everyone here a coronation as 'Heroes of the Imperium'?" he looked around at the familiar faces he'd been slowly learning over the past couple missions, "nobody?" he asked rhetorically, shugging slightly.

"I should have figured, this isn't Yamatai after all" he finished with a savage grin.

Chad skidded to a halt in front of the Senate building. He let out a sigh, and watched the remaining red dots on the HUD disapear almost instantly. He turned around to see the fruit of his impulse plan, and what he saw made him feet 10 feet taller. "I cant belive that worked", he mumbled to himself as he let another breath out. He looked at his two comrades and smiled a very big smile.

But that was when he remembered that there were four of them.

He saw the Commander type jet out of the upper building and took after it, assuming the worst. Chad dropped the HPAR for what little speed could be gained and tried to pursue the Red Ripper. He then drew his complimentary Carbine once he had closed in 100 yards between him and the fleeing Ripper, and came to a halt in prone position on the ground. The Beast had gained 30 yards when the finally opened fire, and from what he could tell, two of the three shots fired hit the Ripper, but did not falter it.

He had let the bastard get away, but Chad made sure that if he ever saw it again only one would walk away intact.

"Requesting a med evac" he said over the general com link. "Sending Coordinates now. We better get it too because we just single handedly saved the Nepleslian heirarchy!". This was a day that nobody in the system would forget.

Although Alice would me much more glad if she were in her hostile, she wasn't nervous. She still had a body armour and fine gun in her hand. As long as they won't meet any rippers, they will ge fine. And what would rippers do here anyway.

She felt even more secure with panzerfaust on her back. Smile on her lips widened a little as walked out of the building. She didn't go jsut dilly dally but as soon as she got out, she sat behind some cover and checked her surroundings. Even though there is not much for them to do now, there can still show up some troubles.

The football-shaped UCFu that was undergoing a meltdown could not be deactivated, however Jack's prying had managed to unstuck the fail safe mechanisim which popped the glowing reddish-green reactor out of it's socket and caused it to settle in a small depression just two feet away from Kajiim. The suit's SAVTECH was still counting down on backup power.

10... 9... 8... 7...

The reactor was still emitting generous amounts of radiation, it would be unadvisable to touch it directly.

In the meantime Chad's radio crackled to life. "Negative all available air resources occupied. Carry the patient to Mercy Hospital at 25 Carrols Road. We have military units securing the area, over."

The generator was out...but it was still ticking down. Jack remembered that they had been drilled more than enough about the dangers of a suit's reactor if it was about to go in to meltdown: "don't touch it" was the general message of that training. There was no way that Jack could get Kajiim away in time, even with his suit's power. Kajiim was too heavy and unwieldy in his suit to get him out to the ground below, not to mention he might compromise his very fragile condition in the process.

Jack had crossed the room in next to no time. He reached down and clamped a hand on either side of the generator. He suddenly felt the strangest sensations and it seemed only his intense training as an ID-SOL kept him from dropping it in a mixture of shock and pain. The palms of his hands quickly went numb as he made contact (even through the suit), there was a strong and almost painful tingling up his arms as if they had gone asleep, and he was quickly becoming nauseated while a tingling dizziness lingered at the edge of his consciousness.

"Fire in the hole!" Jack yelled through his comm-system.

He chucked it out the nearby opening in the wall and moved to cover Kajiim out of well-trained reflex, as if it was a fragmentation device, and not a highly radioactive impromptu bomb that was mere seconds from going off.

"Everything okay?" asked Alex.

"Oh nothing, just letting my emotions and lecherous bastards influence me too much," thought Phaedra. What she said in actuality was:

"Yeah, I'm fine."

The Chief then gave the order to assemble outside. Without another word Phaedra turned and headed down the long hallway to the lobby, and then outside onto the street. She racked the action on her GSAR and knelt behind one of the destroyed cars. There she waited for the remainder of the squad to arrive, her eyes scanning her surroundings for hostiles.

Harrison filed out of the building next, moving in a half-jog, still getting used to the weight of the antimatter cannon now sitting on his back. The Panzerfaust was a heavy weapon, there was no doubting, but he was a Marine. He'd had to carry heavier things both as a mercenary and in boot. He'd sack up and get over it at some point in the near future; probably when everything went swirling around the bowl and Alpha ended up having to single-handedly overrun the mall.

The ex-merc crouched down behind an overturned postal van directly adjacent to Phaedra's vehicle. He turned towards the scarred clone and raised one thumb, showing he was prepped for battle. "You ready?" He crowed to Phaedra, looking somewhat grim as he went over his own S-TAR, making sure it was prepped to do its duty without backfiring and unloading a mag into his own face.

Everything was blurry, there was a person.. something else, it glowed. Kajiim was trying to make sense of what he was seeing but his thoughts were becoming cloudy so much that the pain from his grievous injuries was now a distant pulse. 'Damn.. cut down first day in the field.... ain't that a bitch.' and with those last comprehinsible thoughts Kajiim went unconscious.

Chad saw the explosion in the distance and decided he needed to get Kajiim out of there ASAP. So he jetted back not nearly as quickly as he came, and proceeded to pick up his HPAR and head up the stairs to Jack.

"Hey man, I just requested air evac and it sounds like a no go. They said something about a hospital that they have under friendly control so we need to figure out the best course of action. I think sense we have the DD's here we can sacrifice one of us to take him to the infirmary. And your to beat up to do it and I can move the fastest so I vote on myself in this one. Here's the HPAR, it will only slow me down and it will help you guys out," he explained to Jack. He then sauntered over to Kajiim and picked him up and asked Jack one last question, "your the medic, does he need any touch ups before I take him to the pros?"

"Are you retarded?" Jack asked.

He rose up and walked over to the pair.

"I'm the team medic, not you, and I can move just fine!" Jack snapped "Besides that, even with my training I can't guarantee he'll remain stable the entire trip..." Jack motioned to the unconscious Kajiim "...if he could be called stable now!"

He hefted the HPAR, making sure that it was loaded.

"If you insist on being the glory-hound: I'm running rear-security and that's final, now let's move." Jack said "If you get caught out alone with somebody in as bad a way as Kajiim then you're a dead man."

He would let Chad lead the way out of the building but after that he would take point in order to provide security for them as they moved along with the fact that, as Jack had already mentioned, he was the most medically oriented of the green horns.

Chad was a little shocked at this out burst from Jack.

"Listen buddy", Chad said at Jack fairly sternly, "There is nothing I haven't done for the team and I really dont give two shits about glory. I can get there faster, period. If you wanna leave these guys then go ahead and risk courtmarshal. I really don't care. Just give the HPAR to one of them." He stopped and caught his breath, then sighed and in a much calmer voice continued. "I will be back within the hour, hopefully with a few more toys for us and the Kenneys. I really don't wanna lose Kajiim so im gonna cruise over there now."

Phaedra noticed Harrison hunker down behind a nearby overturned van.

"You ready?" he asked with a thumbs up. She glanced in his direction, the grim expression on her face lessening.

"Are you?" replied Phaedra, one corner of her mouth curving up into a smirk.