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

Henry had spent the morning doing background tasks, such as fixing the armours from the training a few days back. It dawned on him that he'd become an unofficial armourer, but he liked the challenge that fixing fixable damage could yield.

He took sips of brandy whilst looking at the new shipment of armours that'd come in.
He'd found poorly placed limb servos, wrong concentrations of oil to lubricant, and thin armour plates in vital areas amongst other flaws which get are supposed to ironed out in extensive testing.

He tutted the bimbos who'd put Hydraulics meant for the legs into the arms of an Aggressor. If used, it'd probably lead to metal fatigue, and breakage - which would be a beyond horrible situation in a battlefield - especially against the Mishhu.

"Excuse me," Henry asked for a representative to come forward. Two female reps attempted to move forward, but one came along quicker and greeted the technician.

"Yes, sir?" The lady in a NAM uniform replied, looking down at Henry's handiwork. She was a blonde who looked to be in her early twenties, free of obvious cybernetics, like most Nepleslian women were. She was also a bit top heavy.

The engineer held up the offending piece.
"I see you're inspecting the inner workings of our Aggressor?" The representative asked politely, leaning forward, making Henry lean away.
"A top of the line armour, sir," A friend of hers added.

"Indeed, now tell me, where do these hydraulics connect to, and what concentration of oil to lubricant do they use, along with radius in millimetres and pounds-per-square inch this puts forward?"
She looked over to a couple of working colleagues, looking for an answer. They made glances and shrugs amongst themselves.

That's when sirens blared, as he looked away, and realised that there was something that needed doing, and by the sound of it, something big.

"Hold that thought. I want you and the rest of the ladies to reassemble these suits - correctly," Henry told the lone representative in a calm, demanding tone as he handed the hydraulics to the representative, "That servo goes to the legs, with a thirty-one to eleven oil to lube concentrate used. The rest is printed on the damn cylinder!"

He then looked over to Chief Ran as he came barging in, "Sir, the armours!" He tried to tell out as the Chief suited up, "They're ineffective at present!"

Alex was listening to MC when admiral Daves said that Acadia will be on escort duty while moving capital. But they were in bloody nowhere? It also seemed that MC was quite frozen upon hearing it.

Alarm followed and problems stucked. "Bloody hell, what now?" half-whispered Alex as she stood up. She took a small whiskey bottle from her ration and put it in the pocket. MC was called upon by captain meanwhile. MC told something to chief Ran and shouting began.

Quick jogg into hangar-bay. Alex had to be careful to not get trampled by angry marines. Half of them weighted half of what she did. When they got into hangar, Alexandra's eyes widened in sheer horror. Power armours were there. Everywhere and taken apart. "Bloody hell!" she shouted again. Representatives running around trying to clean that mess up. She saw Henry shaking hsi head in disbelief and trying to work it out.

At least Quartermaster was not taken by surprise and took out few crates full of weaponry and body armour. At least something, though Alex as she took out one of Styrling armour. It took her few seconds founding one that should fit her.

She got inside as fast as she could. She had her RPB but she still neded bigger gun. Something thac could be used against PAs would be nice, but she was still medic. Running around with something resembling bazooka was not such a good idea. She looked Zweihander for while but that thing would rip her shoulder apart and it weighted bloody nine kilos.

She finally found think that could be used. Na-W/P-08 version 4B. Longer version of automatic sidearm. It was a little heavy but great weapon. Reflex sight made it easier to aim and it had stock that made it more accurate than shrot version. Alex managed to dig a extendedm magazine for it, two double-magazines and extra battery for mass driver. She hoped it will be enough.

Now she will need something to fo her medic stuff. She walked to chief Ran and saluted in front of him. "Sir!" she started. "P3C Alexandra Mayhew, I would like to run quickly to medical bay and grab Hypolathe and first aid kit sir!" Maybe asking was to slow but she could get chowed if she ran away just like that.

The Chief had long since finished a cigarette, and was already a quarter of the way into his second one. After directing a few Marines towards the Panzerfaust crate, the Chief turned around to face Alexs question.

"Yes, get your med kit immediately. And hurry the fuck up here, double time."

"Yes sir!" Alex responded and started running towards medbay with SMG on her back. It took her only few minutes to get back. She took hypolathe and med kit, plus extra one from both. When she got back she scanned area around looking for Gayden. She found him after while and ran to him. You are going to need this." SHe said to him and gave him hypolathe and medkit. She remembered him saying something about being combat medic on her way over to the med-bay.

Jack had been watching the debate intently and that would have been obvious to anybody that looked at him with the look of concentration on his face as the ID-SOL began to work out his own opinion...but then that expression was lost with a wide-eyed realization as Senator Davis informed the others that the NSS Acadia. Jack knew that the Mishu had a habit of using infiltrators and other ruses in order to hit their enemies as hard as possible, and as they say: one plus one equals two.

Klaxons starting ringing across the entirety of the ship as marines were ordered to brace for the jump. Jack bolted up from the bench he had been sitting on as Chief Ran began ordering them to move for the hanger bay, being careful not to trample anybody of course. Jack bolted for the hanger at top speed, just behind Chief Ran, and he almost had to do a double-take at sight of all the armors out before them...not working!. Jack had to brush it off and keep going, pulling on a full set of Styrling Muur armor that was handed to him.

Then Jack quickly grabbed one of the first weapons from the crate that he saw, a Styrling Shot 12 pump action shotgun. Securing that to the front of his vest, Russel stuck his standard-issue HHG revolver in to the belt. Then he heard Alex nearby as she asked Chief Ran for permission to leave the hanger for a hypolathe and a med-kit for the mission. Jack looked over his shoulder at her as he spoke.

"Grab me one too, will ya'?" Jack asked.

At first he had thought she hadn't heard him but when she returned he was grateful to see that she was carrying both two hypolathes and two med-kits. She handed one of each to him and Jack gratefully accepted both of them.

"I know, appreciated." Jack replied, putting the hypolathe in his belt and the medkit on his back.

Lucas had little experience with the art of power armor modification, as all the ones used at Boot were baseline (and slightly overworn) models, but he voiced his agreement with a few of the others that more firepower was always welcome. Otherwise, he sat quietly while the rest of the marines called dibs on their mods. He finished up his breakfast tray, and was contemplating his ration box when the MC turned on the senatorial debate.

As the conversation turned toward the debate, Lucas watched with half-interest; he wasn't much one for politics, but debates (especially from their race) were entertaining at least. He understood that the current topic was the movement of the capitol to one of the colonies, ostensibly for greater protection from the Misshu threat, and he simply shrugged at the thought; either way, he was still fighting the squids.

"I have already ordered the NSS Acadia to make way here before we scheduled this debate."

Click to expand...

That caught Lucas' attention. He turned a questioning glance toward the Master Chief. "Uh, sir? What do they mean we will-" Vel Steyr's brief look of terror cause Lucas' blood to run cold. He didn't know what the MC knew about the situation, but he realized whatever could scare a hardened marine was a fragging big problem. Maybe a Misshu ploy or... he thought with increasing horror. However, once the alarms started going off, and with the Chief's shouted orders to gear up, he had to push the thoughts aside and rushed to join his fellow marines in the hanger.

Once he arrived in the hanger, Lucas' eyes widened in shock at the state of their power armors. The gravity of the situation was becoming greater; not only would they be going into an unknown combat situation, but they'd be doing it without their greatest assets. Lucas steeled himself, though, and went to grab some gear. He strapped on the proffered Muur body armor, and grabbed a few weapons: a second .45 to supplement the one he owned, an ESG for any close-quarters work, a bundle of grenades, a couple clips of ammo for each weapon. He also found a case with some non-standard NAM weaponry, and grabbed a Styrling Ripshot for general-purpose shooting, along with a bandolier of ammo. While the equipment was fairly heavy and constrictive to his movement, Lucas felt he'd rather be able to take the hits and keep moving than strip some of the armor.

His gear assembled, Lucas moved over to the other marines, sticking near the big ID-SOL Jack, and gave the weapons a double-check, clearing their breaches and sliding home fresh cartridges of ammo. Nice and easy, double-quick he thought, just like the Sarge taught us. He gave a hesistant look around at the other marines then looked away and took a deep breath. They were in deep, for sure.

Phaedra was intrigued by the instrument Kajiim had called a "blues harp," and she looked forward to hearing the music it could produce. After she recieved her food she sat down at the table next to him, greeting Sam and Alex and the other shipmates she knew. While Phaedra ate her breakfast, the Master Chief began speaking of the modifications that the crews PAs were undergoing.

"...They've also sent me unofficial proposals to attach SSP-01as on the underside of NIGHT1 MPRs so if need be both weapons can be fired at once. Snipers, Yes-No?" asked Fian.

"Hell yes, sir," Sam replied cheerfully, "More guns!"
Phaedra nodded in agreement with her fellow sniper. She had barely been able to finish her breakfast when alarms began to sound and emergency lights began to flicker.

"Suit the fuck up everyone! FUCKING MOVE, DOUBLE PLUS FAST," shouted Chief Ran.

Phaedra jumped to her feet immediately and legged it to the hangar bay as fast as the swarm of Marines around her would allow. Once in the hangar, the reality of their situation hit home: all of the power armors were undergoing maintenance. Phaedra quickly grabbed her combat armor from the pile and strapped it on. She clipped as many fragmentation grenades as possible onto her belt and then began choosing a weapon for herself. By default she chose for herself a GSAR M1 as a reliable assault rifle, but she was lacking serious firepower against power armor. After securing fresh magazines for the GSAR, Phaedra slung the weapon sling over her chest and made her way over to the large crate labeled "PANZERFAUST."

Phaedra instantly recognized the anti-armor rocket launcher she had used in basic training, and she retrieved one of the four-foot weapons and rested it on her right shoulder. She then approached the Chief and stood at ease.

"Give the word sir," she said with a confident nod.

Kajiim had missed the mentioning of the NSS Acadia during the debate, being too enthralled in his discussion with Chad over it. This meant he had no time to stop and think when the klaxons went off he was completely caught off guard and fell to the floor.

Lifting himself up off the floor he heard Chief Ran shouting, telling everyone to get their asses to the hangar. He got up and ran his ass there not stopping to noitce he was bleeding from hitting his head... again.

Once there at the hangar all he could say was, "Shit.." Seeing all the armors in disarray concerned Kajiim deeply about the success of the operation but he forced himself to pay it no mind and instead focus on gearing up. After donning the armor he grabbed another revolver just like his and double ammo for both swiping a couple grenades and clipping them on. He needed something else he grabbed a 12 gauge and as a second thought a Panzerfaust even though he wasn't trained with them. He thought, "At least I can help carry some ammo and protect the guys who actually know how to use these." He chased after his squad following right after Phaedra.

Stopping before the Chief, "Sir! Ready when you are!"

Captain Peters wasn't happy. All he wanted to do in his life was lay low, aether a Yui 4 or two and then return home to Gin and Bourbon. He had no idea when his ship became so prestigious as to be mentioned in the Senate, it had to be those crazy marines he is carrying. Initially he thought they were just a precaution against enemy boarding but one station, ship and planet assault later he had regretted his 'safe decision' of picking the ship with a marine complement.

The Acadia rocked a bit from the pre-jump stress, the ship's Ion and Gravimetric drives were on full power swinging the vessel around coreward and bringing the ship up to speed for the Hyperstream. The Master Chief Fian Vel Steyr wobbled up at the side door with an impassioned cry of "Captain!", Peters gestured him to strap himself into the XCO seat.

"The Senate broadcast was from a nearby commercial transmitter. We just found out that our SMoDIN.Net connection is being rerouted, someone is on the inside wants us out bad." Peters mumbled.

"Try the IPG.Net or the NAM.Net!" Fian exclaimed.

"Comms is on it now." The Captain gestured to his Communications Officer in the level below, the poor man was frantically speaking into an infolink. "Word is they are just as confused as we are." He then sighed. "We can't depend on anybody now. If the enemy succeeds then it's all over for this ship and this nation. We don't know what we're up against so get your men groundside as soon as possible, the Acadia will cover the air. Understood?"

"Sir!" The MC saluted grimly. Downstairs in the 'wings' of the Hray the twin proprietary advanced Hyperstream drives were spinning into action. For the first time since shakedown they were being brought up to their theoretical maximum capacity of seventeen thousand and five hundred times the speed of light and beyond. The Acadia had seen much action since then and all the screws were not as tightly fastened anymore, it was starting to vibrate with growing intensity. Down by the bay, the large Nerimium hangar doors slid shut, it was the last view of the Colonial Expanse for the marines.

"ATTENTION!" The Nav Officer spoke into the ship's Public Announcement system. "PREPARE FOR HYPERSTREAM JUMP, ALL CARGO SHOULD BE SECURED AND ALL CREW STRAPPED IN THEIR QUARTERS." The sailor then gave one look into the Hangar Bay to see that there was no way this standard procedure was going to be followed. "OH BY DAVIS'S BEARD, JUST HIT THE DECK!"

The NSS Acadia gave one last shudder, and then lurched into slipspace.

When Sean arrived in the Armor Bay, and was handed the suit of combat armor instead of getting his PA back, he froze for a moment, then turned and sprinted back to his quarters, shuffling through his stuff quickly. He pulled out his Ripshot and Porcupine, and searched for a moment before replacing his Zen .45 with his SiZi79. He then proceeded to belt a box magazine onto the back of his belt and fill his pouches with 4 clips for his Ripshot, and two spares for his SiZi, before loading on final full clip into each weapon. He was already on his way back, bunk mostly back together when they made the jump to hyperspace, and just hit the deck right outside the bay.

Kajiim dove to the floor upon hearing the warning, he cringed as the ship jumped as this was the part he hated most.

This is goin to be something. Alex listened to navigation officers words and has hit the deck just before ship went into hyperspace. Her fall was followed by what was her favourite two words lately. "Bloody hell!"

Jack had been pleased with how he armed himself, even without power armor, and when he noticed one of the other crates outside of the ones containing the suits of armor they all wore or the small arms and grenades they all carried: Panzerfausts. Jack retrieved one of the last ones from the crate and rested it on his shoulder just as the ship began shuddering from pre-jump energy build up. Then the Nav-Officer made an announcement over the PA system that could be summed up simply as "duck and cover".

Jack threw himself to the floor, landing with a grunt next to Alex.

At the call to take cover for the Hyperstream jump, and seeing the other marines hit the deck, Lucas got down as well. Looking up, however, he saw one of the NAM representatives still standing nearby, unsure of what to do. He quickly moved over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder and pushing down, followed by a terse "You should get down"; she quickly laid on the deck, Lucas following suit. I just hope these crates will stay down... he thought as he covered the girl's head with his arm in case of flying equipment.

"Shit shit shit fuck!" Sam shrieked as she jerked up from her seat at the sudden clamor onboard the ship. She didn't know what exactly had gone on - she was no politics buff - but even she was sharp enough to know that since they weren't anywhere near home, something had gone very, very wrong somewhere.

She ran through the halls down to the armor bay, dodging in between other running marines, trying to avoid any pileups but clocking a few poor bastards with her elbows. Eventually she made her way there, her skidding heels practically kicking up smoke. Her face fell at the state of their power armor.

"Shit," she hissed again, anything besides profanity escaping her. She rifled through the crates and grabbed as many grenades as she could carry as well as some body armor and another HHG just in case. A Zweihander found its way into her hands, and she felt slightly more at ease, though using it without support was almost certainly going to wreck her body. There wasn't really a choice, though -

She was too busy suiting up to acknowledge the jump announcement, and she simply toppled to the floor as Acadia entered Hyperstream.

Phaedra heard the warning to hit the deck, and she readily complied. Due to the fact that she was carrying live ordinance, she hugged the Panzerfaust to her chest and dove backward.

But as her feet left the ground, the Acadia made the jump into slipspace. Everything around her seemed to slow for a moment, as if the entire hangar was underwater. And then in an instant the world returned to normal; Phaedra crashed into the deck beside Kajiim and the Chief with a painful grunt.

"Gah...What the hell is going on?" thought Phaedra.

Anselm had barely quirked an ear at the debate, realizing he'd missed something very important when things went hectic and his body responded on autopilot, joining the rest of the squad in the parts-strewn armor bay. The albino avoided the heavy anti-tank missiles several others had fawned over and busied himself with strapping the plates of his Muur armor on and tossed several pieces of kit on over it, feeling slightly uncomfortable gearing up for an infantry deployment. Saving the H-1 launcher for last, Anselm started by arming his HHG with red shells and packed two speed loaders filled with the explosive hybrid ammunition into the combat mesh, affixing the pistol and its holster to the back of his belt accompanied by a Na-itd32 Infantry Target Designator in a seperate pouch.

Working his way up the weapons racks, the marine snatched an Sv-SSG-01a 12-gauge from the arming racks, loading six shells into the gun and another eight into bandolier loops across his chest, finally attaching a sling to the shotgun and securing the weapon across his back. Next came a 7.65mm Dart SMG hung across his shoulder and then holstered with two magazines in web pouches at his hip. Moving over to the PA weapon storage, Anselm snagged several grenades and hung them along his front like christmas ornaments; among the baker's dozen of thrown explosives were Movement Restrict, Smoke, Scalar Pulse, and Plasma charges. Pulling out the VCBS sheath that had been emptied from their previous training several days ago, the marine snapped a vibrosaw knife into the holster and lashed it facing hilt down to his chest.

Picking up a heftly HPAR-01a, the albino checked the weapon's function, coolant, and battery before slamming an ammunition drum home and easing his way between his comrades to get at a remaining H-1 Panzerfaust-style launcher system. Overeager to pack as much firepower as he could, the pint-sized ID-SOL frowned when the stump attached to his cybernetic sent fire up his arm as the metal tried to seperate from unfused bone.

Anselm turned to a technician still on deck among the marines preparing for war, arsonist's twinkle in his eye "Hey, speaking of those underslung UMD launchers the MC mentioned, are th-"

Fian said:

"ATTENTION!" The Nav Officer spoke into the ship's Public Announcement system. "PREPARE FOR HYPERSTREAM JUMP, ALL CARGO SHOULD BE SECURED AND ALL CREW STRAPPED IN THEIR QUARTERS." The sailor then gave one look into the Hangar Bay to see that there was no way this standard procedure was going to be followed. "OH BY DAVIS'S BEARD, JUST HIT THE DECK!"

Click to expand...

Anselm hurled himself at the nearest wall and hunkered down over the heavy 75 kilogram HPAR, hoping nothing sent him flying upwards as his whole body lurched in the transition to hyperstream.

Chad was the last to get to the hanger, seeing as how he only knew that the Acadia wasnt where it was supposed to be and they were all probably going to die eventually, so he thought Whats the hurry? and walked behing the large stampede in front of him.

When he finally did get to the Hanger, he did start to feel a little uneasy at the sight of the dismembered PA's litering the floor. He then saw all the boxes of awesome-things-that-go-boom scattered around for people to pick up and assumeably use. So, he grabbed some of the Muur armor that he was fimiliar with, another Styrling .45, a Man Cannon, an auto-12 of his brother's handy work, and his favorite of all Styrling weapons, The STAR. These should get at least some of the job done. A couple of extra clips and a bandolier of Slugs were thrown around him, and he grabbed a few EMP charges in case he met a squidy with a thick shield.

As he attached the last spare clip to his armor, the ship floored it, and he went flying into the 'Scary White Haired Chick' (Pheadra). Luckily, this placed him close enough to Chief Ran to eventually get chewed out. Not fun.

Moments before the jump, Ran was preoccupied with either approving or disapproving of weapons selections with individual Marines, as well as shouting out requests for more crates from the workers in the dock.

Upon Volkov and Kajiim approaching him with their weapons selections, the Chief simply nodded an approval. Another crate was rolled out in front of him, and just as he was about to pry it open and suggest that Chad only take a single primary and single secondary weapon, the ship jumped, sending the crate into the welcoming arms of Ran.

"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU-" Was the only response he got out before he met the case with the elbow of his heavy cybernetic arm, allowing the case to tackle him to the ground instead of rocketing off to hit someone.

The NSS Acadia hit the ground with its feet running, there was no time to check for pieces and fingers left in the 4th dimension. Any element of stealth was left behind too in Slipspace, both the S-1s Ion and Gravitic drives were at maximum, communications were blasting out status reports and requests for datalinks and lastly the ship's six Monoeye systems were desperately hunting the hidden Doppelgänger amidst the tens of thousands of ships high above the planet of Nepleslia.

The Master Chief wordlessly unfastened himself and hurriedly made his way to the Hangar Bay. With their guest self-excused, Peter's crew quickly went into high gear.

"Captain, the planet's defence network indicated that the Acadia was last seen in this region of space, sir!" The Comms officer exclaimed, she quickly displayed a space map on the main screen, highlighting a broad region that almost touched the planet's atmosphere. It was one of the areas that the Navy cleared out for the senate session, save for some random space junk it was eerily quiet.

The old man Peters drew upon his vast experience in stalking and hiding to narrow down the area to a few key derelict satellites. "If we have not detected them by now, then they are probably Mass Meshing. Give me a monoeye burst on these areas!"

MEANWHILE
Down by the Hangar Bay both elevators were in operation to bring up the landing shuttles. Unlike the PAs these shuttles still had work to do in the calm of the Expanse and were thus spared an early overhaul. Of the three squads on the Acadia, two were being sent down immediately. The last will go once sufficient Power Armors were re-assembled, there were a number that was back in one piece, but their UCF-4a Fusion Reactors had to be restarted from cold, a process that would take thirty minutes.

Fian had prior knowledge of the work Henry and the Representatives were doing, he hoped that there were at least some suits available but this was not the case. It was both bad timing and bad luck. Nevertheless he went up to the four greenhorns panting from his run, saying their names and hitting those on the shoulder who did not notice him coming in. "P3C Hayden, Ashad, Vanguard, Skwigleff. I can't wait for the suits to power, I need you four in them... Walking!" The MC gestured towards some of the complete suits. "Bring your infantry weapons along, suit up, and wait on the catapult! The rest of you, get in the shuttle and buckle up!"