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

Suddenly, several vehicles screeched around the corner, headed directly for the Marines.

"Sharpshooters and heavy weapons on those trucks! Everyone else, stop those cars!" shouted Ran.

Phaedra saw the two trucks and three cars barreling down on their position. Anselm already started firing molten metal at the lead truck and Phaedra followed suit; she zoomed in on the gunner with her eye implant and fired several bursts at its head. She then quickly switched targets and centered her targeting reticle on the driver's upper torso, sending several more bursts of fire towards her target. Her assault rifle clicked empty and Phaedra paused to drop the spent magazine and slam a fresh one into place.

"Volkov, remind me to submit ideas for squad-sized versions of these guns to those Reps," said Anselm.

Phaedra made a mental note to remind him; an infantry-sized version of the HPAR would be devastating.

Chad sighed and sat down as the last zombie blew up from the combined efforts of molten coin round, 00 buck, and HE-rounds. Finally all was calm on the western front, and the greenhorns would have a chance to actually think about what was going on and how to respond. The first thing Chad was going to do though was catch his breath.

"Alright, well dudes," Chad started, "first thing we need to do is find out how the senator guys are doing, and while we are waiting on word from them, I propose that we create a little more cover for these security blokes". With that Chad got up and walked over to the truck, flipped it on its side, and skidded it over to the entrance where the guards were standing. The bed and front seats would provide a good wall cover for the shaken guards, and would give them a little room to tend to there wounded.

"Hey Jack, why don't you take a look at those half dead security guys so we can get them back to doing some good". Chad then looked at Kajiim, " and what ya say if you and I try to move a few more cars to barricade this building with? I doubt if everything in this city will be as easy to deal with as those blow hards."

Kajiim nodded towards Chad, after reloading his boomstick, he headed over to some cars and started to rearrange them into a semi circle barricade in front of the entrance of the building.

Taking a short second to inspect the car fort, "There's enough cars to make an outer perimeter for us to guard, this way the fuckers will concentrate on us and relieve some of the pressure off the guards." Kajiim suggested to Chad, "We should probably hurry." Kajiim noted heading off to move more cars for an outer perimeter.

Sean had been standing in place at the moment, covering for some of the others when it all went down at the end of the street. When the cars turned the corner he reflexively pulled the trigger once, sending a lone round flying towards the group of vehicles (Though the lack of a real target meant it probably wouldn't do much.). Settling down, he took his time from that point forward, putting repeated single shots as accurately as he could at the driver seat of the lead car. "I got the point car."

"Shit," Sam noted cheerfully to no one in particular. She flipped the bipod underneath her Zweihander down, bracing the weapon on a pile of rubble and herself against a particularly large chunk of concrete. It didn't take long for her to focus the weapon's sights on the driver of the truck that wasn't being shot at; another moment and a deep breath, preparing for the pain to come, and she was pulling the huge weapon's trigger.

The projectiles Anselm fired splashed around the lead vehicle, producing a field of molten metal that would prove to be hazardous for the already worn tires of the truck, should the driver of it decide to move the truck in any direction.

Phaedra's intial bursts ended up lower than planned; one round hitting the ammunition belt of the gunner and severing the belt of ammunition in half. Her second follow-up shot went high and skimmed across the roof of the truck, serving to cause the driver to panic and reverse the truck.

Unfortunately for the driver, his truck's wheels immediately popped when driving over the molten metal lying on the ground, and the truck was turned into a roadblock with just 14 rounds of ammunition before needing to reload.

Sean's single round did indeed serve a purpose. It impacted upon the front left tire of the second vehicle, causing it to veer to the right suddenly, which caused the car behind it to shake one plate off the windshield as it clipped the second car. His subsequent rounds fired at the lead car only impacted off the armor plating on the windshields, though a few did find their way inside, as evidenced by a body rolling out of the back of the lead car.

The recoil of Sam's large weapon sent the shot flying lower and further to the right; such that a desired headshot wasn't possible, but the result would be satisfactory enough for the sniper. The left arm of the driver was separated from his body at the joint, sending him tumbling out of the door and into the street. He was half-screaming and half-searching for his dismembered arm.

Ran's slugs only managed to rattle the remaining armored plates of the third car as they glanced off the thick plating; whereas the squad behind his managed to blow the front tires off of the same car, bringing it to a stop as the occupants of it opened each armored door and took cover behind them.

Jack nodded at Chad's plan, able to vouch personally for the firepower that the zombies were capable of putting out when they needed to. Jack knew that the cover they had wouldn't stop every type of firepower that might be thrown at them, but at least it would give them cover to fire from, and give Jack some room to work on the injured members of the security team. He headed behind the barricade, retrieving his medkit as he went, and quickly began evaluating the wounded to see who was the least wounded.

He instantly set to work, following the basic rules he had been told in training when it came to field medicine. He had to try and work on the ones most likely to survive first, going through them in the order of least injured to most injured, but he had to go through them as quickly as efficiently as possible in order to get them all in the 'Golden Hour' to help increase their odds of survival until they could get better medical attention from a better supplied facility.

"I won't be able to get them all moving again." Jack called from over the barricade, not taking his eyes from the three bullet wounds in one security guard's dislocated right arm.

Jack peered over the barricade for a moment to scan their surroundings for threats while his fellow green-horns busily worked away making cover. He then glanced around for the guard who had gone in to the senate building, checking to see if he had returned with word of the senators' condition.

"The best I can do is get most of them stabilized, but as soon our radios are up we'll need to get them dusted off." As Jack said that, his sentence was punctuated with a popping sound and the guard crying out as Jack relocated the man's arm, not having time to pain killers he had given him have the total effect.

Talbain had spent the time the rest of the squad spent shooting at the vehicles to find himself a nice little spot to set up shop with his Type 1 on the back of a car along a building. Jamming the front of the weapon through the passenger compartment and using the vehicle itself to help brace the weapon. "Covering fire!" was all he said before lining up a clear path to the hostile vehicles and starting to hose them down with the chaingun portion of the rifle.

Harrison, having no cover in his present location, did the reasonable Marine thing: shout an oath at the tangos and throw himself onto the ground. He belly-crawled towards a traffic barrier on the side of the street and removed the Longbolt from his back. Admittedly, he had never fired a sniper rifle before, and had only the barest in marksman training, but from what he had heard the calculations required for artillery support and marksman support were similar in nature. Not exactly the same, but close.

Then again, the Marine he had been speaking to was about a half a stein from being under the table at the time, so the ex-mercenary was probably wrong. Harrison scowled, poking head, shoulders and sniper rifle over the top of the barrier. "Oh well, what the hell," He said in a singsong voice, bringing the scope to bear on the first of the tangos that had taken cover behind the third car. He aligned the sight's distance markings on his target, took a deep breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger. After firing, the ex-mercenary immediately crouched below the barrier and cycled the bolt on the Styrling-made rifle, noting how smoothly it moved before the next round settled into the chamber, and then looked for another piece of cover to move to.

Anselm adjusted his aim for the distance, blinking as a bullet aimed his way spanked off the top panel of his cover, sending glaring sparks jumping in his direction and denting the light metal composite. Several high-caliber rounds had already buried themselves into the engine block, eliciting a muttered praise to various deities of luck, protection, and war when nothing flew above the top of that solid metal barrier. The pasty marine let off another string of shots at the hostiles, aiming for the driver and passenger positions of the cabs, his HPAR would easily punch through the improvised armor.

Talbain's fire missed the lead vehicle as it swerved to avoid the fire poured down the street by the squad behind Ran's, leaving the car behind it exposed to the hosing Talbain sent downrange. Rounds ripped through the front of the car, causing it to come to a sudden stop. The driver of it got out a bit too hastily; as one round fired by Talbain's Type 1 caught her in the chest.

Harrison's shot ended up lower than expected, however it did punch through an area on the door which wasn't armored, catching the hostile hiding behind it in the left shoulder. As he dropped to the ground, he instinctively squeezed the trigger of his SMG in pain, sending inaccurate but dangerous fire down the street towards the Marines.

Anselm's shots did their job as they punched through the improvised plating on the cab of the second car, catching the driver and passenger in a hail of molten metal.

One of the machine gunners in the trucks had finally gotten a bead on the squad. As he turned the heavy weapon at Ran's squad and chambered a round, his disposition turned from excited to worried as the sounds of rotors approached. He nearly yelped as a pair of Sunburn gunships approached from the direction of the Marines' landing zone.

The two gunships armed their main nose cannons and stitched the entire alley with fire, with one shredding apart the two trucks and the other following closely behind it, making a wreck out of the three cars and whatever hostiles were still around it. Needless to say, as they passed over, Ran's squad was showered with hot brass.

Much to his chagrin, a single shell found it's way into the collar of his vest. After a few seconds of holding his shotgun up and making sure there were no hostiles remaining, the Chief swore and dug into his collar to retrieve the offending object.

"We're all good here! Continue to the apartment building!" Was his order as Marines from other squads ran up the street to secure the wrecks of what once were armored cars and trucks. "Anselm, on point!"

Sean paused for a second, arching his eyebrow. He wasn't sure, but he thought that first round might actually have done somethi... At which point his thought process was interrupted by a miniature hailstorm of bullets. "Damn it!" As soon as it let up, he popped back out, aiming at the cars, only to see them get lit up by the air support. "Well, that makes things a bit easier." That said, he followed orders, proceeding into the building, checking to make sure he was still on single fire.

"On point, roger," the marine affirmed, taking stock of the building.

Anselm engaged in the lengthy process of exchanging his HPAR for his shotgun, strapping the massive weapon securely across his back. With the 12-gauge shotgun in one hand and the compact Dart in the other, Anselm advanced across the street and into the apartment's lobby, helmet-integrated HUD squeezing 150-degrees of vision from the camera into a flat panel.

Long-range communicatons, Tac-Net connection, SAVTECH and major life support systems has been activated for the Greenhorns. Shields, proprietary weapons and thrusters are next but would take more time than usual due to their high power requirements.

Over the Tacnet, a Security Force Personel, most likely the the Chief was coordinating the defense and evacuation of the Senate. "This is the Senate to allied birds, the surviving senators are ready to go. Requesting immediate pickup. Grunts on the ground are holding NMX forces at bay."

A shuttle presumably answering the call zoomed overhead before it was pelted with small arms fire from the zombies in the area interleaved with Gauss Rifle rounds and Aether beamlets. It was the latter two that was fired from way down the street from amongst the roadblocked cars that severly weakened the shuttle's shields. Some were even breaking through the energy barier to strike the hull.

"LZ IS HOT! ABORT ABORT!

Kajiim listened to the chatter, still concentrating on moving vehicles into place when he heard the rumble of the a shuttle on its way to pick up the Senators. As he watched the shuttle approach and retreat from the LZ Kajiim cursed under his breath.

Moving the final piece into place Kajiim took up cover behind the outer wall of cars. "Luke, Chad you're up front with me. Jack, stay back there with the wounded. I'm gettin the Chief on the horn." Kajiim barked as he tuned to the radio to MC Vel Steyr, "Sir, Ashad reporting. Pvts. Hayden, Vanguard, Squeeglef and I have all regrouped in front of the Senate and have taken cover, most of the security forces have been badly wounded. Hayden has stabalized them but they won't be doing any fighting soon. Shuttles can't evac the Senators, there's squids too close to the LZ, I would lead the squad and clear them out but the security can't fight, leaving the Senate vulnerable. Orders Sir?"

Jack had only taken a moment to glance up at the sound of an approaching dropship, feeling grateful: at least he wasn't put through physical hell for absolutely nothing. However, he quickly went back in to the state of mind that had been drilled in to him ever since he had first started his medical training. So what if he had a few broken ribs and a fragged finger? He was an ID-SOL combat medic, his job was maintaining the in-field health of the men and women around him first. Jack could sit down and start fixing himself up later.

Jack barely even gave the dropship much of a look as it came under fire, simply checking to make sure that it didn't come crashing down. The last thing Jack needed was more patients to tend to right now.

"Correction." Jack said after giving Kajiim time to finish "I'd say about a two or three of them will be moving wounded; the rest are a mix of static wounded and priority cases for medevac." Jack said, starting in on another series of bullet wounds; thanking whatever greater power there was for having most of those high caliber wounds aimed at him.

Jack once again gave a cursory inspection of their surroundings.

When the vehicles came plowing down, Viktor had sprinted his way across the street rather madly, looking for a unique vantage point.

By the time he'd raised his rifle to take a shot, however, the air was abuzz with weapons far larger than his own, and shells were raining down on the squad. He shook his shoulders at the sensation then rose. As quickly as trouble had arisen it had been put down like a bad dog. The joys of being a Nepleslian Marine were ever-present it seemed.

As they got moving again, he decided to voice his inner questioning to the team: "Think there'll be much action left by the time we get there?" From the sounds of it, most if not all was being cleared out ahead of them, and the air support was obviously doling out more than its fair share of death. He wouldn't be surprised if everything was winding down by the time they arrived at the Senate.

Anselm sneered at Viktor's doubts, pointing his Dart SMG at a suspicious-looking shadow, "Kingston, eyes up, mouth shut; we're clearing a building, dammit, this IS the action."

Sam cursed idly as her shot went wild; she'd be sure to compensate for the immense recoil next time she had to fire. At least the gunships had coveredd them, though, and it didn't seem like she would need to use up any more ammunition just yet - the two extra power packs strapped to her back and ass would help, but they still only held six shots each.

"Aye-aye," she hollered at the Chief's order, detaching herself from her rubble-nest and making her way into the apartment building.

Chad sat in horror as the dropship imploded not to far from the greenhorns position. He had been around weapons his whole life, he knew what kind of gun was being used from a good distance away and could classify them from the enty point on the target, and the noise of the initial blast. What he heard and saw at that point was not good for any of the rookies.

Most of it was small Nepleslian made rounds, so that meant a lot of zombies were now intellegent enough to aim at a dropship, and could do it with a bit of accuracy. The next bad part was ten times worse news. The shots that actually brought the ship down were Gauss and Aether. Aka, Primary weapon systems for PA equivalent NMX troopers, and there was no way a zombie could fire either of those weapons. No, these would either be on a mounted cannon, or opperated by some NMX monster. Not good.

"Chad, up front with me!" was all Chad caught off of Kajiim, and by the looks of it, 'hold position and try to mow down anything in front of us', was going to be the primary plan. And Chad knew that wouldn't be a good idea.

"I hate to rain on your parade buddy, but we won't be just taking pot shots at zombies this time man. Those were full scale NMX assault weapons that brought down that ship, and we don't have shields or suit operated weapon systems on yet." Chad pointed at the street and alley from which the shots came. "We really only have one choice. You and me need to get in those buildings and create a crossfire so those damn things can't just come down on all of us with Gauss rounds. Without shields we would just fall over to those cannons, and Im really the only one with a gun that can do a whole lot against armored targets." Chad paused and looked at two buildings on either side of the street. "If we can get in those, or at least me, we can hammer on the fuckers before they can get a bead on us, and we can have a little more feet between us and the Gauss. I'm going wether you are or not, but Lucas and Jack need to stay here."