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

"I got that." Ice said, rolling her eyes inside her helmet. "I was talking about using it to mine through nekos, not rock."

"Cut the chatter, Cavaliers. Keep your eyes open for movement," said Phaedra as she advanced with her HPAR at the ready. She frequently glanced across the chasm, expecting enemy fire to come at them from below.

"Stay on your toes everyone; I expect we will be losing comms with the surface shortly."

The door which Wulfe and Stan broke through led to a large food storage unit. Frozen sides of meat hung from hooked racks all over the room and a deep chill permeated the room.

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As Talbain, Ice and Bastilen proceeded farther into the tunnel, the sensor ping which Ice received showed a solid wall of red. The entire mine was rock and metal. The waves returned with a complete lack of useful data.

She had, however, also unwittingly alerted the NMX that she was there. They knew she was there and it was time to destroy her.

Amongst the stalagmites, shadows moved swiftly and silently.

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On the surface, Leon didn't see Luke Daniels reappear and made a note to have the man demoted and transferred.

"Chief, are you sure you're okay? I'm looking at your vitals and it's like you're barely holding together. Your heart rate's really fast and stress levels are higher than everyone else's," Laura asked him again.

"I am fine, Romero! Focus..." Leon stopped midsentence. The ground beneath him was shaking. It wasn't a seismic event. It was something definitely artificial. Like an underground passage opening up. Right under his feet. "Lasalle, get to cover!"

Leon sprinted to the building doorway, followed right behind by Laura. The pain was excruciating. It felt as if his gut was being torn apart, which in truth, it was. The burnt flesh had not been replaced and the hole left in his side by the aether blade was only held together by a variety of medical quick-fixes, namely a liberal application of liquid bandage and medical nano. The exertions he was making now were tearing those fragile bonds apart. Laura was aware of his treatment and condition but if the Chief said he was fine, she wasn't going to press the matter. Yet.

Francis could feel the rumbling beneath him and where the Chief had once stood, a gaping maw rose out of the ground. Out of it rushed NMX Nekos and a quartet of unidentified armors.

"Room's clear." Wulfe said through comms, poking one of the hanging pieces of meat with his AS4GS -as if expecting some NMX neko to come out of it- and then lowering it.

The marine moved out of the room and looked around , he clearly remembered Daniels saying he had been ready, but the man hadn't breached the room with him in the end, being replaced by Brandt instead.

"Has anyone checked the second room yet?" He asked afterwards, already moving to the other door. Chances were that room was probably just another broom closet, but the last thing he would want would be for someone to sneak out of it and get him from behind.

Stan raised an eyebrow as he took in the room. He was expecting all sorts of things, but this was a different story. Sure, he figured they had to keep their meat somewhere, but nobody really believes they're going to breach a food storage unit, even by complete accident. He tried not to think about what the meat might once have belonged to. Doubtlessly it wasn't anything pleasant.


After a sweep of the room (as foolish as it made him feel to be searching a meat locker of all things), Stan steadily backed out of the room, keeping an eye on the interior at all times. Relieved to be out of the chill of the food storage unit, he then turned around and lumbered after Wulfe. Awkwardly jockeyed himself at the door, he looked at his cohort. Hopefully this time they'd accomplish something of note. "Let's check it out. Ready?"

"Alright, let's do it." Wulfe replied to Stan via direct comms, hefting his AS4GS and standing in front of the door like last time. He didn't expect anything after the door, but he'd still do it by the book.

"Stones here, breaching the second side room." He announced over squad comms, then turned his helmet towards Stan, the single monoeye staring at the other marine's Aggressor.

"On three. One, two, three." He said, crashing through the door again with the bulk of his armor.

Ice cut the comm chatter, mouthing 'yeah yeah yeah' while she did it. It made sense, but it still rankled her to be ordered to shut up. Focusing back on the tunnel up ahead, the young Marine continued forward with the lead fireteam. As she did, she felt an old familiar finger down her spine. It was hard to tell, and likely harder from inside a suit of power armour, but the shadows seemed to move further into the mine. It was as much a feeling as a sight, like the atmosphere shifting around them, but it was definitely there.

"Sir, I think we've got company coming in from up ahead." She said, slowing down and slipping into the cover provided by another convenient stalactite. She turned her suit's active camo on as she did, hoping that she wasn't about to be shown as a jumpy idiot.

The doors crashed inwards and immediately, blue-white beams from NMX Impaler rifles lanced through the air. A couple of beams splashed against Wulfe's armor, a brief moment of heat and brightness before the energy was dissipated by the armor's shields. Impaler beams were amongst the most powerful rifles that an infantryman could use against a power armor. However, the two beams alone were not strong enough to penetrate the armor's shields. More powerful, dedicated anti-armor weaponry was necessary for that accomplishment.

Ahead of the two Marines, a large kitchen with rows of stainless steel counters stretched for a good distance. It looked like any large professional kitchen on Nepleslia, if somewhat cleaner. Some of the counters were bolted to the floor. Others, however, had been upturned and made into a barricade for a platoon of Nekos and two large NMX Crabs. All of them were armed with Impalers. All of them were, theoretically, capable of fighting a Hostile in hand to hand.

Wulfe returned fire with a trio of plasma shells as he moved into the room. Each one sent an umbrella spread towards the nearest barricade. The thick metal counters, however, absorbed most of the plasma's kinetic energy and negated their deadliness. It resulted in blackened holes all over a few of the large counters where the plasma had stopped and started to eat away.

"Contact! Contact!" Wulfe quickly yelled over comms, before dashing for the nearest counter, both with the intent to get some cover between him and the enemy and also to give Stan a clear line of fire with the more powerful weapons from his Aggressor.

The marine bumped against the nearby counter with enough force to dent it, only feeling a bump thanks to the power armor, then quickly looked at what he had fired at first. He could see the barricade and his Hostile's SavTech was already working to pick some of the enemy ahead of him.

His first salvo had been a reaction shot if anything else, and the fact that he had hit the barricades and nothing else clearly showed it. "Enemy infantry, and one- no, two crabs!" He said as he pumped a fresh round into the empty barrel of his AS4GS and changed the fire mode for the solid slug, where the shot wouldn't spread and hit the barricade, instead focusing the energy in a single point.

Wulfe didn't focus on the Nekos yet, and paid attention to the crabs instead, ever since the boarding action he knew what they could do up close. He took aim with his AS4GS and fire at the first crab he saw.

Stan powered into the room after Wulfe and absorbed the gist of what was happening in a few short seconds, though it felt more like an hour. Noting with something between exasperation and amusement that today had seemed to have taken on something of a culinary theme for Wulfe and him, he wasted no time in bringing up his BULLDOG and opened fire in 3 second bursts, sending most of his rounds toward the Crabs. The Nekos, as dangerous as they were, were of secondary importance for now.

"I'm on it! I'll try keeping their heads down," he told Wulfe over direct comms. "Be careful if you're going to take any potshots."

Even if Wulfe wasn't actually in any direct danger from Stan's shooting, the ID-SOL didn't want to become known as 'That Guy Who Shoots His Buddies A Lot' (though the real moniker would probably be much more harsh and/or profanity laced). He could almost hear his heart pumping hard as it flooded his body with adrenalin. Scrambling for every chance to gain fire superiority he could get, the ID-SOL also let loose with one of the Aggressor's plasma chaingun turrets, sweeping it toward the Nekos.

If you were going to kill the enemy, you might as well go overkill, right? Part of him, though, wondered if perhaps he might end up damaging the mine's structural integrity if he wasn't careful.

"Sir, watch out!" shouted Francis as the NMX launched their surprise attack. He sprinted over to the building and found a rock to take cover behind. Francis made sure he wasn't presenting too big a target, and opened fire with his HPAR. He aimed for whatever seemed to be closest to him, putting bursts of fire downrange to keep the Nekos and PAs from getting to close. He was also giving covering fire while the Chief and the others got into firing positions themselves.

As he fired, Francis realized that he had been right in his assumption that the NMX would attack from underground. What surprised him though was how he hadn't noticed them getting close until they were right under him. They might have been able to notice the trap had Daniles been with him combing the surrounding area. Francis would make sure Luke knew about his mistake, if of course the Chief didn't kill him first.

He kept his fire up, and made sure that his BOLT was read to go in case the NMX started to overwhelm their position. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that, but Francis wanted to prepared just in case.

"Contact! Contact!" yelled Wulfe.

"Enemy infantry, and one- no, two crabs!" He said.

"Stones! Brandt! Hold your ground! I am moving to assist!" said Phaedra as she began running up towards the room above.

"Talbain, Wreno, Plainsview, continue downward. I noticed movement below, but remember they may not be all hostile. Challenge them if there is any doubt."

cyborgakadjmoose said:

Talbain, Wreno, Plainsview, continue downward. I noticed movement below

Click to expand...

The ID-SOL looked over his displays again. Certain that nothing had actually popped up on them for the Sergeant to see. But the fact was that now would be the best time for an enemy to attack the small group out here anyways.

Continuing to sweep the shadows with his weapon and various spectrums the Aggressor provided he mad his way towards one of the light fixtures. All it took was a thought to open a new comms channel between Wreno, Plainsview, and himself. "Prepare for contact now."

Reaching one of the lighting sets he took a hand from his weapon picked it up and proceeded to lob it through the cavern. Fully expecting to see enemies in the changing lighting of the cavern. No matter. He was prepared to serve some death.

Whatever good Wulfe's shotgun rounds had done, they were eclipsed by the multiple detonations in the kitchen. On an open battlefield, the Bulldog was the ultimate expression of Nepleslian direct-fire support. In an underground, confined space with numerous propane tanks underneath the stoves, it was a deathtrap for all

The chain of events that caused the entire room to cave in happened within two seconds. While one crab was hit by a red shell, multiple stoves behind it were also hit. These shells did not explode on impact, instead first piercing through the metal stove and puncturing the propane tank and then exploding. The already powerful detonation of a single UMD shell would have been enough to level the stove. The addition of propane gas and multiple explosions created a fireball that washed over everything, even overwhelming the Nepleslians' shields.

Then the ceiling and walls collapsed, weakened by the terrific explosions. Stan, who had been at the door, fell out backwards into the chamber the rest of the Cavaliers were in. Sergeant Volkov stood above him. But Wulfe, who had been farther in, had been buried beneath the rubble. Worse, he had been skewered through his armor by steel wire. One had gone into lower left leg while another had punctured his chest, narrowly missing his spine and lungs. Nonetheless, he was now trapped underneath several tons of rock and metal.

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Leon, Francis and Laura were sheltered behind the building and using Laura's numerous shield drones to absorb the incoming shots. Behind the four power armors, Neko infantry with Impaler rifles began firing as well, trapping the trio of Marines.

Laura fired with everything she had. A volley of twenty ARROWS streaked towards one of the Squiddy armor's path. The armor managed to avoid the missiles but in doing, lost its forward momentum. Laura's guns tore through its shields and destroyed its handheld weapon before the armor could recover and get out of her fire.

Francis had similar luck. A single round managed to penetrate another armor's shields and do some damage but it wasn't visible what effect his single had made.

Chief Santiago wasn't even firing. He stood behind the two of them, yelling into his radio.

"Damn the intel, Rochester! Excuses don't kill cats and squids! Get here now! Spitfire leader, where the hell are you?"

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In the tunnels below, the flying light revealed NMX Nekos darting amongst the stalactites. When the light revealed them, they immediately opened fire with their Impaler rifles and began retreating farther into the tunnel.

Seeing how ineffective their firing was, Francis decided to use his BOLT now. He aimed at the NMX armors, and the mini missiles would hopefully take them out of the fight. He held the launcher in one hand, his HPAR in the other, and fired both weapons at the oncoming enemy, all the while waiting for orders from the Chief.

Just as Phaedra came into the room there was a terrific explosion which collapsed the ceiling of the second room. Brandt lay just outside of the room, but the HUD icon for Stones showed him just inside the room, buried in rubble. Phaedra walked up to the prone Brandt and promptly kicked him in the ribs.

"What the HELL were you thinking, Private? Why would you fire a RED round when we are underground? Get off your ass right now!"

Phaedra rushed to the pile of rock that once was a doorway and began inspecting the rubble, gauging what she could actually remove without causing further collapse.

"Stones! Wulfe Stones! Can you hear me? Respond!"

"Wreno, it looks like we might have use for one of those mining tools right about now."

"Brandt, go fetch one of those mining tools from Wreno! And change your ammo type to WHITE dammit!" she said, attempting to remove some of the smaller rubble chunks.

One moment, Stan had been trying to take down the enemy. The next, it felt as though he had been thrown bodily out of the room, landing hard, which jarred the ID-SOL in the Aggressor. Stunned and battered, Stan felt somewhat detached from the world around him. Staring blankly at the ceiling, he was very abruptly brought back to reality by Phaedra's kick to the ribs and her barked commands.

Scrambling back to his feet, Stan tried to ignore his mind's 'response' to her rhetorical question - that he was a complete fool who had gotten so caught up in the fight that he had forgotten the basics of taking the environment into account - and answered anxiously, "Yes ma'am!". There was nothing more he could say, at least not without risking Phaedra's wrath and leaving Wulfe trapped longer than he needed to be. He made sure his weapon was safe (taking a moment to switch to WHITE rounds), and set off for Wreno's position at a run.

He felt numb. The incident during the boarding action was bad enough, but this felt much worse. Wulfe had been one of the few Marines the ID-SOL had interacted with for any significant length of time, and because of sloppiness on his part the Nepleslian might well be dead or maimed. Sloppiness that Stan had set out to eliminate. Any thoughts about his future in the squad (or anywhere else, for that matter) were lost in the flood of concern that now hit him like a hammer blow.

Hang in there. If I'm going to get one thing done right for once, it'll be this. Stan couldn't bear the alternative. Not so soon after his latest failure. He needed good luck now more than ever.

Watching the Neko infantry darting deeper into the cave Talbain held up gauntlet in a fist signalling the group to stop. Between the sound of the collapse and the implications of the Neko's simply breaking off contact he had to reevaluate the team's position.

"Wreno. Check on the rest of the squad. Safe bet you can assess damage better than the rest of us."

The Corporal looked around the cavern before taking a deep breath. The squad was getting spread out more than he would have liked.

"Plainview. I suspect we were supposed to chase those infantry into an ambush. We're switching to full monoeye search. Don't need to stumble into nasty surprises."

The ID-SOL complied with his own instructions as well. All the suits monoeyes flared as he started searching all the surfaces of the room again. Starting with the entryway they had entered the room through. He didn't like the slowdown with the rest of the squad bogged down it would be foolish to advance.

Wulfe tried to strain against all the rubble around him, the nanomuscles in his suit straining along with his own. He kept that up for some time, ignoring the warnings from his SAVtech about the injury he had suffered. He wasn't in a really comfortable position to begin with, and apparently he had suffered two injuries, which explained the excruciating pain that he then realized were coming from his chest and leg. He only stopped fighting against it when the realization that he had been buried alive hit, on top of all that.

And instead of panicking he only got pissed off about it.

"Yes, ma'am... I read you. I can't move and my suit tells me there's- there's metal in my body that the doctor didn't put in there." came the faint reply from the marine, strained but calm.

Leon turned to look at the enemies encircling them. The four armors were zig-zagging using their thrusters. It made them difficult to hit but it also threw off their accuracy by a bit. There were two ways to take them down. Supremely accurate gunfire or bathing the entire area in munitions. With the covering fire from the Nekos and the presence of Romero's shield walls, accurate fire was impossible. Using overkill was possible but it would deplete the trio's missile stocks.

The Chief watched as thirty or more mini-missiles swarmed around one of the armors before exploding in a large fiery bubble of antimatter. He felt the shockwave as the ground shook from the detonation, dropping flat. Even Romero's drones broke up and buffeted in the air, much to the medic's chagrin.

"Spitfire Leader to Mudpuppy Leader, I'm incoming with another bird. Got anything for us to light up or have you killed it all?"

Leon looked up as the dust cleared. "Spitfire, you're late. we've got a trio of NMX armors and a platoon of infantry surrounding the facility. We are by the entrance. Anything outside is fair game."

"Sorry, Mudpuppy. Kept having my birds tasked to help out the Third. Seems that they're having a tough time with the main NMX troops."

Overhead, two black Sunburn VTOL gunships buzzed over the facility in a flyby.

"Lasalle, next time, fire fewer BOLTs. That big explosion just killed one of them."

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Talbain's active sensors swept the mine. Now that the Savtech had gotten data from Ice's suit, it had refined the search to ignore the surrounding metal and rock, giving greater priority to particle and other emissions. The sensors showed no particle emissions but there were heat emissions similar to what a human body would exhibit. It returned with a count of forty bodies.

He didn't see anything else out of the ordinary.

The majority of the bodies were definitely active, over fifty meters down the entryway. A dozen of them were dashing towards them, obviously the Nekos the Marines had spotted earlier.