RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 5.5] The Digging Cavaliers

Bastilen's Hostile turned its mono-eyed head towards Phaedra, the focus on the eye visibly going in and out, before turning it's attention elsewhere. The man needed to find a terminal now? These things don't just hang out in the open like some kind of evil NMX ATM! Perhaps a security station? Augh, that's not likely to be on a facility like this, right? Terminals are usually further in.

The soldier got to his feet, separating from Talbain and making his way in. He brought a hand to his helmet, pressing his earphone just a bit.

"Ice, you're further in than me, have you seen a terminal or a security room, yet?"

Picking up after his AI had reported all clear Talbain started moving into the building.

Hearing the reports from Plainsview and Wulfe, Talbain got onto the open squad line. "Move in pairs at least. And at make sure you're both on the same page before one of you starts moving." The second part or his statement carried some irritation.

waylan16 said:

"Wreno, see if you can find a terminal with blueprints or a layout of this facility."

Click to expand...

As Talbain moved by Bastilen to take up position in the stack with the Sergeant he put a free hand on the Marines shoulder and gave it a bit of a shake. "Good job on the door. It worked and was still more subtle than I would have been. We'll see about finding you a real terminal to do some damage from." Letting his hand drop from Wreno's shoulder he took his position in the stack.

Bastilen's shoulders turned up as Talbain's hand clasped on his shoulders. His free hand instantly clasped on his knife, and almost drew it to spin around and shank the larger Marine. Luckily, the man offered his compliment, yanking the hacker out of his brief prison flash-back. He stood silently for that moment, quietly contemplating the words from the Corporal.

It had also been the first genuine praise he had received in three years, face to face, at least. Relatively. A little bit of pride swelled in his tattered chest.

"It would've been wasting good missiles for a better target," muttered Bastilen, before mentally cursing himself. "A waste, since I'm around to do it." No, that was an asinine response! Say something relatively nice. "I mean, it was just a matter of a common sense."

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Private Wreno jerked his fist up and down, as if slamming it on a desk, before turning around to Talbain, and spurting out a "Thanks."

Then he turned back down the way, waiting for Ice to respond, or at least someone to announce they had spotted a terminal for use.

Ice kept half an eye open for the techie's terminal as she advanced to cover Wulfe. But until they were sure the area was clear, most of her attention was directed towards making sure that they weren't about to get perforated by a sneaky neko.

"I'll go with Wrteno," Luke announced as everyone began to take their positions. Since they should be in pairs, he might as well be with Wreno who may need some cover if they run into any trouble. He moved towards the hostile with his gun lowered. " Luke Daniels, New here.I got ya covered man," He said when he was right beside the hostile. "I mean, I can take down any threats within a ten feet radius. Just don't be stabin' be," Luke snorted and gave him a light punch to the arm.

Laura stood around, sweeping her guns around the atrium. Absolutely nothing. A trio of shield drone walls hovered around Laura. There was nothing. She watched the three idiots enter the far room, Wulfe ahead of the others, half-expecting an explosion. None came, to her slight surprise.

The Most Brilliant Medic noticed that the elevator shaft lights were changing. Both elevators were coming up. That couldn't be good. "Sergeant... elevators...And who is covering that door?" She kept her plasma autocannon pointed at the unguarded right door.

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Wulfe, Ice and Francis entered a huge store room with hundreds of mining tools. It was poorly lit and seemed unoccupied.

Since Wulfe's entrance killed any chance of subtlety, Ice activated her mono-eyes to pick out anything that might be lurking around. The place looked deserted, but she could spot a dozen hiding spots with just a glance. Better to ferret them out now then to miss something and take a round for it. "Yo, mono-eyes open boys. Wulfe, you take the center, Francis get the left, I'll take the right. Let's get this place swept clean."

Satisfaction and relief filled Stan in equal measure as the initial firefight died down. There was no time to celebrate, however, as the way into the facility was cleared. Rather than blindly following his comrades like last time, he moved with greater caution, keeping his monoeye working overtime as he entered the building.

Hearing Volkov's request for his presence (along with Talbain's), he slotted himself into the stack and mentally steeled himself for whatever might be on the other side as the Sergeant took action. He moved as soon as it was necessary.

"Looks clear; Comencing sweep." Wulfe said, walking to the center of the room, weapon sweeping from one side to the other as he crossed a stack of mining tools as his Hostile made a slow approach towards the . The marine kept switching from the regular optics to thermal back and forth, looking to detect any survivors or potential enemies in the room.

Francis heard Ice call for a sweep of the room, and complied. His mono-eye swept the large room, looking for any possible enemies in among the large groupings of mining supplies. He moved cautiously around the left side of the large room, his AS4GS leveled to fire at any hostiles. Hopefully, a mech wasn't lurking somewhere. He kept the mono-eye running on a constant scan.

Ice shifted to the right, sweeping the room with her mono-eye closely followed by the barrel of her AS4. She moved down the room apace with her fellow Marines, careful to make sure that she could cover the other two as they moved. At the same time, she swept the room, keeping an eye on what her years of hiding in dilapidated inner city and industrial areas told her were the best hiding spots in among the abandoned machinery.

Talbain moved out of the stack with Volkov and motioned for Stan to take his position.
"Sergeant, I'm shifting to Romero. Brandt is in position to support you."

Moving to his new position he could see the telltale sweeps of monoeyes from the room the crowd of P3Cs had wandered into. Not really and issue since the squad had already announced their presence via the doorbell they had set off. "See if you can use the monoeyes to look through the walls while you're doing your sweep Privates. Time for caution is about to be at a premium."

The position that the ID-SOL took up was spread some ways away from Romero. At least as much as was reasonable inside the building. He wasn't exactly interested in sharing and explosion with anyone in particular if the new arrivals happened to be hostile. He was left waiting on the elevator with his AMP and his armors PCTs standing by should the expected enemy reprisal come.

"Sergeant... elevators..." said Laura.

"Damn. I thought we would have had more time," thought Phaedra.

"Laura, relocate two of your drones from the door and give us some cover in the hall."

"Sergeant, I'm shifting to Romero. Brandt is in position to support you," said Talbain.

"Understood. Plainsview, Francis, Wulfe; if that room is clear get out here into the hall pronto. Cover the elevators."

"Brandt, follow me," said Phaedra, kicking open the door and firing a stun grenade from her underslung launcher into the room. After the grenade detonated Phaedra quickly entered the room; her HPAR was raised as she scanned the room for threats.

Laura watched the pulleys grind as the elevators rose. She studied them to see which ones were important. Bastilen was obviously not going to be useful here and now since the twit hadn't yet found a terminal to interface with.

So it fell to the Most Brilliant Medic in the Universe to, once again, save the day. There were two options. The subtle way and the not-so-subtle way. Subtlety involving using her plasma autocannon's beam to cut the wires. Being not-so-subtle involved just blowing the whole thing up with her mini-missiles.

These were large mining elevators with all of their mechanical components and important bits exposed. It made them easier to work on. After all, who expected military grade equipment to be used against them? Either option would have probably worked, it was just q question of style. One couldn't decide on a whim.

The seconds slowly ticked by as Laura debated and decided. A quick flick of the autocannon placed it in beam mode. The bright, white-blue lance streaked across the room. Like a surgeon cutting at flesh, Laura guided the beam across the wires. Some snapped instantly from the intense heat. The more vital, thicker ones took a few seconds. Soon though, the first elevator was dealt with it. Wires had snapped and a sudden tension released as the wires flailed in the air, unconnected, before dropping downwards a second later. Gravity was a bitch. Especially when it was three times the normal.

She didn't even need to hear the strangely satisfying crash-crunch of metal and rock to know she'd succeeded. But it still felt good.

One more elevator to go. With the same precision aiming, Laura burned her way through wire after wire. Just as she was finishing the last vital central pulley, the top of the elevator appeared. The heads of NMX Nekos and power armors barely visible. And then it broke. What had been coming up was suddenly on an express return trip. The heads that been visible were no more.

"Well, that was easy," Laura commented, ignoring the scorch marks all over the far wall. Her brilliant aiming had not been... entirely on target all the time as she had imagined. "What's next?"

Talbain really wasn't in a position to do anything about the elevator cables while Laura chewed through the cables. And he had seen the second car start to open up to the real welcome wagon. But he still found himself heading to the elevator shaft and using his suits flight systems to point himself down the mine shaft, AMP at the ready. He didn't really expect an enemy presence in the mineshaft right after the cars went back down but he would rather be prepared.

Looking down the elevator shaft the ID-SOL was trying to make out the crashed car that had dropped first and anything that would identify the contents of it. He didn't care for how the medic hadn't even bothered to identify what was in the elevator cars. "Would really be something if the enemy did something half intelligent like attempt to send a car of non-combatants up first to cause some confusion."

The room Phaedra and Stan burst into was empty. Rather, it was empty of anyone. There were, however, dozens of large cushioned pits with blankets. All around Phaedra, simple wall coverings and motivational posters in Yamatai-go decorated the sparse quarters. A communal bathroom lay off to the corner and equipment lockers were sequestered along the walls. At the far end, a staircase too small for power armors rose to the upper floors.

From the surroundings, the conclusion was obvious. This room served as a barracks for a lot of NMX Nekos. Far more than the handful which the Cavaliers had so far encountered. If each nest held five Nekos, there were at least 60 who would have occupied this room. But if they were not here, where were they?

GM Note: Going upstairs will be done in a JP format, only by players who are 18+

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No matter how one looked at it, there was only one conclusion. The room where Ice, Francis and Wulfe were in was only full of mining equipment.

"Room clear! Replacing to entry hall." Ice announced over the squad channel, gesturing to their little impromptu fireteam to follow as she snapped back to the central room with a spurt of thrust. As the Sergeant and one of the other troopers burst into the room on the other side, Ice fell into a position to cover Corporal Talbain as he in turn moved to cover the mineshaft. He seemed to be one of the people in this outfit that had their head screwed on straight, so for want of further orders Ice set about doing her own little best to make sure that he wasn't turned into particulate matter in the immediate future.

"Copy that. Relocating." Wulfe replied over in the squad channel, giving one last look in the room. From what he could tell, either everyone was underground in the complex or... Somewhere else.
The marine raised his AS4GS, fanning out of the room after Ice. He got back into the halway, also covering the elevators with his weapon as Phaedra and Stan moved to sweep the other room.

"Looks like a barracks for NMX Nekos. A large amount of them," said Phaedra over the comm.

"The question is: where are they?" thought Phaedra. She saw a small staircase leading upstairs, but it was too small for a Hostile.

Then Phaedra heard weapons fire and a distant crash. She came out into the hallway just as Laura disabled the second elevator.

"So much for leaving the facility intact..." thought Phaedra.

"While that was certainly an excellent solution to the problem, Laura, I'm not certain it was the best one. If there are non-NMX personnel that need to be evacuated down there it will now be a major pain to retrieve them."

"Plainsview, send your drone over to the room we just cleared. There is a small staircase leading upstairs that is too small for a PA," said Phaedra, motioning with her hand.

"It looks like we are going down the hard way. Hopefully the wreckage will not impede our descent," she said, hefting her HPAR.

Phaedra tapped Talbain on his armored shoulder.

"After you, Corporal. We'll be right behind you. Stop at the first level you discover."

"Roger."
Talbain was already prepared to head down. Having oriented himself while he tried to confirm the contents of the first elevator car.

quickly scanning the sides of the corridor for elevator doors he returned to keeping his attention towards the wrecked cars. Less out of expecting there to be survivors and more due to the likelihood of there being an entrance at the bottom.