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

Chad had made a sizely hole in what seemed to be a large number of zombies, although with further investigation their only seemed to be about 15 and they were somewhat sluggish and not exactly very threatening to the rebelious youth. He kinda laughed at his stupidity and walked away, firing a few rounds over his shoulder and picking up some ammo off of a zombie who had previously been a security unit.

After making a few more steps toward the rendevous point, he noticed a large backup of vehicles. It made sense. If an alien invasion started, the standard tactic would be to get the hell out of Dodge, but still there seemed like there should be a reason for such a back up of the vehicles. And after trodding around around the vehicles Chad saw what was stopping the cars. In front of him and the congregation of automobiles, was a very thick and problematic concrete road block that would probably be somewhat difficult to pass over while the PA was still powered down.

Chad then heard a very loud crash behind him, and as he spun around, caught a glimpse of a decent sized building and its infastructure colapse. So naturally, curiosity got the best of Chad and he started to backtrack towards the building hoping it was one of his comrades that brought down the building.

As he got closer he fired through the zombies in attempt to mow down the remaining opposition in his path, and walked through the small hole that allowed him to walk toward the colapsed building. What he saw next to the rubble and the dumpster made him happier than he had been in awhile. "Hey kiddo's", he yelled over the firing of his STAR, " you two feel like site seein or you wanna help me figure out how the hell we are gonna get around that damn roadblock"?

Harrison was one of the last few Marines to depart the shuttle carrying MCPO Rui's squad. The ex-merc's heavy booted feet clomped onto the pavement and immediately set out at a jog after the rest of the squad. The Longbolt's weight clunked comfortingly against his back, reminding him that - even though he hadn't carried out an infantry op in a while - he was well-armed enough to deal with whatever came along.

He crouched amongst the members of his squad, holding his S-TAR like a lifeline, which it essentially was. Chief Rui was issuing orders as soon as he hit the ground, in a scene not entirely unlike the one that had played out at the Kennewes beach-head where he'd lost one of his arms. The merc shuddered a bit, then shut the memories of Kennewes out of his mind. "Sir," Harrison said, carefully watching Anselm. "Those Sunburns opened fire pretty close to our position. I'm thinking it would be a good idea to get to an elevated location and recon a path to the objective. Maybe we should try and link up with whatever non-hostile armed elements are in the city. Strength in numbers."

Rather than tromp after the rest of her squad, after Sam disembarked from the shuttle with a grunt, she crouched by a small pile of rubble near their landing site and swept her Zweihander around the landscape, peering through the scope. Windows and doors loomed at her from the blown-out cityscape, each threatening with the possibility of someone more well-armed than she was. What I wouldn't goddamn give to be in one of those, she thought wistfully.

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be anything leaping out to remove their faces at that exact moment. She stood, making sure that the bipod slung underneath her weapon was still attached with its velcro strap, and advanced to join the rest of her squad. She was used to the popcorn sounds of gunfire that filled the air around them, but this time it was different - she tried not to think about the possibility of her own family with a parasite lodged inside each of them, running at her with hate in their eyes.

After the falling dropship shook them up a bit, Lucas looked around again, spotting Jack much farther away from the group. Looking back at the other two, he froze for a second as he saw Kajim fumbling with his gear, his rocket ignition lost in the wake. These events passed fast before Lucas' mind, with the adrenaline pumping in his system and the slow growth of the surface in his vision, Lucas felt like it had only been a few seconds since they were Catapulted from the Acadia before the NAM reps ordered them to fire their rockets.

Lucas landed gracefully, his knees bent, weapon at the ready, head up and moving to scan for hostiles. Satisfied, he looked over toward the carpark to see Kajim crash through the roof. When the other rookie called out to him, Lucas realized he was holding his breath, and let it out in relief. 'Better not have hurt himself, we have too much trouble as is...'

"Yeah, fine here," he responded, then paused for Chad's 'you feel like sightseeing.' "Guess we should help him out, eh?" he grinned a little as he moved to Chad's position, his Ripshot held up and taking potshots at any zombies that shambled into his view.

Kajiim, dusted himself off a bit and remarked at the two younger marines, "Sure you boys had quote, unqoute textbook landings, but mine brought down the house!" Kajiim exclaimed with a grin. Grabbing his shotgun he stepped out into the clearing training his sights on any movements.

Seeing nothing in the immediate area he slightly relaxed, lowering his gun, "So anyone hear from Jack or the others?" Kajiim inquired as he moved towards the barricade to examine it for a way to remove it.

Phaedra ran out of the shuttle behind Harrison and quickly found cover behind one of the nearby apartment buildings. She flicked the safety off her GSAR and gripped the assault rifle firmly. Glancing at her surroundings, Phaedra noted the positions of her squadmates and waited for the order to advance.

Viktor Kingston hopped out of the shuttle and rapped harshly on the transport's side; the pilot would undoubtedly understand the message. He checked himself over one last time: grenades secure and safe (as they could be); shotgun loaded and ammo ready; rifle loa- "Damnit," he cursed under his breath, realizing it was a bolt-action. It wasn't what he'd been expecting, but that's what he got for not paying attention. Attention to detail is crucial, even in dire straits, he reminded and berated himself before shrugging the rifle off and taking time to get a feel for it. It was times like this he was glad to be a left-handed shooter: he could keep his trigger finger ready while loading a fresh round.

He grouped up as requested, but was perhaps five paces from the huddle his gaze on the rooftops and windows, rifle up at the ready. He didn't like this place either: it was a killing floor, the kind of square made for massacres and ambushes (which were often one in the same). The Private First Class considered tossing in his own two cents' worth, but figured the Master Chief had enough on his plate as it was. Besides, everyone else had pretty much said it for him.

The concrete roadblock was about chest high and about two and a half feet thick, parts of it are anchored to the ground. It would be normally scalable to any Nepleslian not in Power Armor, but the weight and inflexibility of the suit made it impossible to vault or mantle over. These shortcomings can be easily rectified by powered limbs, thrusters or firepower, which the Greenhorns may or may not have.

One of the cars had repeatedly tried to ram its way through the roadblock, the roadblock is fine but the car is not. A parked monster truck about ten cars to the back may be more suitable for the job, indeed the cars behind it looked like they were forced aside, the cars infront of it would have been too if the driver wasn't stumbling around nearby being a recently infected. Speaking of which, the zombies in the area may have matured somewhat since the marine's arrival, and are starting to eye the Greenhorns suspiciously.

In the meantime, if something could be accurately described as a bullet rain, P3C Jack Hayden is definitely feeling it. Droplets of all shapes, sizes, grains, trajectory, rate of fire and muzzle velocity were bouncing off his durandium armor. While thankfully nothing rated against PA armor was being thrown at him by the fifty something zombies, some of the larger stuff feel like pain(t)ball hits as they transferred their kinetic energies through the hull. As a testimony to the sheer amount of lead coming from the opposite direction, the Greenhorn's panzerfaust shot never made it. The warhead exploded midway through in a flashbang-like effect as its anti-matter payload mutually annihilated the air particles it came in contact with. As with a regular flashbang, the hostile crowd was briefly stunned. The mini pellet-storm Jack returned downed two zombies permamently and pissed off a few others. The crowd was still beyond the shotgun's effective range.

The bullet rain stopped for now, but the damage was done. A bullet was lodged in the PA's right elbow, no permament damage but it hindered the pivoting of that joint and would require some fingerwork to clear (courtesy of the left hand most likely, that arm was spared due to its mounted guard). A hairline crack can be seen along the glass covered visor of the left monoeye. Also, Jack may not be sleeping on his front for a very, very long time but for the briefest amount of time, he had bought a few precious seconds to the senators.

"Damn it all!" Jack yelled out in frustration.

Most of the bullets that were hitting him weren't much: he just hoped that they wouldn't hit anywhere vital. It was the heavier ones that were the problem, sending painful vibrations through his suit that Jack knew would leave him bruised all to hell. It was the bullet to the right arm that was the main problem, sticking that arm in the position of shouldering the 12 gauge shotgun, and making reloading somewhat awkward as Jack stopped backpedaling for a moment.

He had reached an impasse. If Jack fell back to the guards he would be able to communicate with the guards and fight from a position of cover for the time being, however, the fire from the hostile contacts ahead of him would once again focus on that position, and the guards would be pinned down by the full force of the hostile fire. If Jack stayed out in the open the zombies would focus on the biggest and meanest looking thing they could see: Jack's armor, but the heavier rounds could start to penetrate his suit at closer range.

For a moment Jack had to focus on the problem of his right arm before he executed his plan: raising his left hand and bringing it down sharply in an attempt to dislodge the offending round. Jack advanced four steps now, undoing his process of falling back, and began firing his shotgun at the closest of the zombies. At least they didn't have anything that was designed to take out his armor: that would have been bad. Now as the rounds made contact with Jack's armor and he listened to the sounds of their impact, feeling the heavier ones as they hit, Jack realized that he had lost track of his mental timer until his suit was fully activated.

He just prayed his suit would come online soon...and that the security personnel crouching behind their barricades would be grateful for his effort to draw the fire of the enemy contacts ahead of him. Jack retrieved a grenade with one arm, managed to pop the pin with his thumb, and tossed it under-handed, rolling it quickly across the ground out of paranoia that it might be intercepted in the same fashion as the Panzerfaust he had just wasted.

As soon as the rest of his squad was in place at the corner and after he conferred with the rest of the squad leaders in the area, Ran immediately whistled at his squad and motioned south.

"We're gonna hit a building occupied by hostile forces. Green forces are currently holding half of it, but need our help. It's right behind the complex to the south of us. What we're gonna do is hug the west wall of this building -" at that, the Chief pointed to an apartment complex across the street to the south.

"-and move south along it until we come to the corner of it. It looks like hostile forces on the far half of the target building have a bit of an angle on it, so we're gonna send one Marine at a time inside the target building while the rest of us cover them. Real simple, should be no fuc-"

The sound of close gunfire interrupted the Chief, as a second speeding car came barreling down towards them from the east. How it managed to avoid a Recon team and a small convenience store occupied by Marines would be chalked up to shock or plain incompetence. The fact of the matter was, there was a rather large vehicle speeding towards the squad.

"FUCK IT! LIGHT THAT THING UP!" Was the only thing the Chief screamed as he immediately loaded a magazine full of slugs into his shotgun, getting a bead on where the driver of the car was.

Anselm fired several semi-molten jets of super-heated metal at the vehicle's engine block, grimacing as the single-shot modifcation turned into a three-round burst and nine rounds left the weapon instead of three. The marine ducked behind cover and rammed his dislocated shoulder into the wall, painfully setting it into its proper position. Gritting his teeth and hoping this was the only time, he pried open the HPAR's casing and squinted at the bundle of extra parts one of the Reps had courteously installed into the weapon so it wouldn't rip his arm off with every shot.

'It'll fire single shots, but these modifications are slapdash at best, so I programmed a power bleed into the accelerator coils; its damage rating is going to drop a grade if I did it right and not two or three, but at least if the single-fire mode fails to engage, a burst isn't going to dislocate your arm,' he recalled the conversation perfectly, the clone could remember every syllable her ruby-painted lips formed. He glanced at the dislocated fire selector switch and toggled the mechanism between full auto and burst fire a few times before pulling the knob all the way around to the marked position that denoted single fire until he felt a click run up his flesh-and-blood fingers. Tucking the jury-rigging securly where it had been nestled the first time it was installed, Anselm popped the casing back on and brought the weapon to bear on the alley in less than eight seconds, leaving thoughts of a massage requisitioned from the tech after the fight in another part of his brain.

Ok, so it appears the zombies were starting to perk up a little, and you only had three simple greenhorns in disabled power armor to defeat them. This was going to be really fun considering the simple yet diabolicle 4 foot tall road block was the only real thing stopping them from getting to reinforcements and the mission objective. Fun stuff all the way around.

Fortunatly, Chad handles "fun" fairly well.

There seemed to be a few more zombies, and there was still the stupid road block to consider. Time was of the essence, and Chad wanted to get this over with so he could go back to the ship for a relaxing post mission shore leave that would hopefully lead him to Neppies.

Upon closer inspection, Chad spied a very much intact possible solution to the problem at hand. Back farther in the line of cars was a very hillbillyish Monster Truck. What the hell a monster truck was doing waiting on the long line of cars trying to escape the current NMX apocolypse was beyond Chad, but it would probably move this shindig along before the zombies became too self able, and every one died. So he walked as fast as he could in the laiden armor, and open the door to check for the keys. No dice. The keys must have been removed by the redneck who previously owned this vehicle, and he doubted he could hotwire the thing while in the PA.

"Hey dudes!", he yelled to his Comrades, "we need to find the most trashy looking zombie in the bunch! He has the keys to the monster truck, and I'll bet you my stash of weed that this puppy can break down this freakin wall!".

Kajiim turned around to see Chad standing next to a monster truck at the end of the line of cars.

"we need to find the most trashy looking zombie in the bunch! He has the keys to the monster truck..."

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upon hearing him Kajiim started to look around.

"And how the hell are we supposed to find a redneck zombi-" Kajiim stopped mid-sentence as he saw a zombie wearing a flannel vest, trucker cap, mullet combo dragging a double barrel shamble amongst the cars. "Really!?" Kajiim exclaimed at the odds, lining up his shotgun at the hick he then pumped two shells at the animated corpse.

Sean complied with Ran's orders more or less immediately, bracing his Porcupine and releasing a burst of 3 rounds at the driver's seat, before releasing another burst at more or less the same location. Firing at a moving target wasn't the most accurate job without computer assistance, but it helped that the target was moving more or less straight at them.

Ran stood there, his finger still on the trigger of his shotgun as the Marines from his squad opened up on the incoming vehicle. Anselm's fire had done it's job of reducing the engine block to a molten mess.

The ground around the vehicle came to life as the three round burst from Sean's rifle impacted all rounds around the car, with the windshield finally cracking and frosting over as a round from his second burst entered the vehicle. From where the Marines were, it would have been possible to see a slight discoloring in the windshield on the driver's side.

A commotion down the street brought the barrel of the Chief's shotgun down, as Marines from across the street piled out of their hides to approach the vehicle. After hosing the inside of the car with ammunition, the Marines opened the doors to let three bodies roll out of them.

A thumbs-up from an NCO in the group to Ran prompted him to motion for his squad to get moving to the target destination. "Harrison, I want you on point. Anselm, back him up. And keep that fuckin' thing on single shot. I don't want to be out one heavy weapon once you tear your arm off. Let's move!"

The Chief moved off to the side to let the Marines move, intending to jump in the middle of the advancing group.

Having arms that weigh tens of kilograms helped with the absorption of recoil, hence Kajiim Ashad's shotgun blasts travelled more or less the same direction downstream to turn the redneck into a permanently inanimate corpse. Three faint ringing noises could be heard immediately afterwards, two of these were spent shells hitting the floor, the third was the keys falling out of the driver's pockets. There was really nothing more that would stop the Greenhorns from running down the cars, the roadblock and maybe some other things further down the street.

Though, said other things had recovered from the flashbang-like effect of the intercepted Panzerfaust and were busy running down Jack Hayden. Here his heavy unpowered arms proved to be detrimental, without sufficient arm-speed his grenade did not even make it as far as the H-1 before it exploded to no effect on the enemy.

The steps forward that the Medic took was brave and commendable, it would look good on the condolence letter the army would send to his family (The NAM Company). The greenhorn's generators now had now warmed up enough to activate the twin Monoeye system, except the one Hayden had mounted on his left shoulder was quickly put out by a high-caliber hit. Everything except the grip of his infantry shotgun no longer existed, the weapon was shredded by the hail of bullets. The bullet that the ID-SOL dislodged in his right elbow is now replaced by two more stuck in the right knee. All this damage to his suit was accompanied by the damage to his body, a regular Nepleslian would have passed out from the pain by now.

With the zombies concentrating most of their fire on their Power Armored adversary upfront, the remaining security forces popped up from their cover to unleash a little hell of their own. Twenty of the parasited citizens were cut down. However some of the shots that did missed Hayden instead hit some of the security personnel, injuring or killing seven out of the twelve present. The remaining thirty something zombies were joined by ten others filtering in from the main street. Without marine reinforcements of their own the battle would certainly end there and there on the pavement of the senate.

The Master Chief quietly flicked the safety off on his Assault Rifle after furtively pulling the trigger a few times at the incoming vehicle. By this time the situation had resolved itself. Thank the Maker he decided to hand the reins over to the Chief for this one, the Vel Steyr figured that he's (himself, that is) completely incompetent on the field without being clad in powered armor.

Koenig808 said:

"Harrison, I want you on point. Anselm, back him up. And keep that fuckin' thing on single shot. I don't want to be out one heavy weapon once you tear your arm off. Let's move!"

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"You heard the man!" Fian yelled, taking up position to the side of the group and advancing cautiously.

"Yessir!" Harrison said crisply. He looked down the street towards the objective and attempted to discern a path. When he had completed that, he lowered himself into a crouch and began making his way down the street, S-TAR raised.

Kajiim walked over to the bloody mess sliding two shells into the shotgun to replace the spent rounds. Picking up the keys he hurried back to the monster truck. "C'mon! we don't have all day! Chad you get shotgun, Lucas hop in the back and cover the rear!" Kajiim yelled at the two as he turned on the truck and revved it up, "Hang on!" Kajiim was nearly drowned out by the squealing tires as he peeled out getting as much speed as he could before hitting the barricade.

Once over the roadblock he drove the truck towards the sounds of gunfire. Seeing a familiar powerarmor being pelted by bulllets Kajiim gunned the gas towards the horde of unsuspecting zombies.

"...Oorah, Chief" Anselm gave Chief Rui a sidelong glance as he followed after Harrison, Dart at the ready in the marine's off-hand, the HPAR too big to be carried in a proper firing position while moving quickly in a crouch.

"don't tell me, tell the gun," the ID-SOL grumbled quietly; glancing down at the weapon, he gave it glare, "and you'd better listen to the Chief."