RP: NSS Acadia Mission 5: Quick Save

"And you're sure this won't disengage after a few shots?" Anselm asked the Junker quartermaster, holding up the cleanly assembled and what might have been spit-polished HPAR.

"YES, PRIVATE FIRST CLASS, I AM SURE THE MODIFIED FIRE SELECTOR WON'T DISENGAGE AFTER ANY NUMBER OF SHOTS..." the drone paused, "MIGHT I SUGGEST A SMALLER PERSONAL FIREARM?" The machine produced several examples of high-end firepower.

"Nah, I've got this too," the albino marine unholstered and displayed up his HHG.

"AN EXCELLENT CHOICE, SIR, MAY I SUGGEST SEVERAL CHOICES OF AMMUNITION SUITED FOR YOUR FORAY?"

Anselm picked up one magazine and inspected the round indicators, "these are-" he looked up at the drone, rolling a black-tipped hybrid shell between two fingers, uncomfortably gauging the bullet's weight.

"YES, THEY ARE PERFECTLY SUITED FOR YOUR NEXT MISSION, PLEASE RETURN ANY UNSPENT MUNITIONS TO THE NEAREST QUARTERMASTER STATION UPON MISSION END"

The marine loaded the free round back into its magazine and slipped it into his holster along with two mags loaded with staggered white and red hybrid rounds, one of which was slammed home into the weapon. Anselm muttered a small "thanks" under his breath and scanned the bay for any familiar faces. Catching sight of Phaedra jumping into her armor, Anselm followed suit, sealing his Aggressor before patching a private line to her NIGHT. He slaved the suit's Precipice Savtech to diagnostic functions while the targeting computer meshed with the BULLDOG's sub-systems and confirmed the linked ammunition feeds were spooling properly. Spotting an unfamiliar file in the middle of the HUD, Anselm blink-clicked the message open and read it:
"Well, shit," the marine grumbled, "XO went and put a leash on my bulldog." He thought about fiddling with the restrictive FoF ID parameters, but decided against it since command usually refrained from mucking about with individual pilots unless the mission was sensitive.

So, Anselm thought, if they don't want me shooting at unconfirmed targets this bad, we must be doing some sort of rescue op... or, the magazine of black shells pressing into the small of his back came to mind, we're doing something that would look bad if it got out in a press release.

"Hey, Volkov, you read?" he asked genially, distracting himself with the ignition checklist, while he awaited the sharpshooter's confirmation on the private channel.

Phaedra took a moment to toss her beret onto a shelf to the side of the armor and then fitted a comm-bead into her left ear. The separate sections of the NIGHT folded shut and sealed Phaedra inside the armor. As the suit quickly booted through it's start up protocol, she heard Anselm open up a private comm channel.

"Hey, Volkov, you read?" asked Anselm.

"Loud and clear. Go ahead Anselm," she replied.

With the armor fully activated, Phaedra felt that she could now move around. The clamps restraining her armor in place retracted one by one and she stepped out of the armor node. She rolled her shoulders and flexed her limbs to ensure that the armor had a secure fit.

The albino double-checked the signal to make sure no one sideways of the command structure was listening in before continuing, "Are we doing some sort of black op near Yamataian space?"

He continued, feeling the explanation would come up anyways, "'Cause the quartermaster just issued me a magazine of black rounds for my HHG after suggesting a high-powered sidearm."

"Roger that, then. I'd better get to picking out another armor instead of just a Hostile." Without really waiting for Wazu to speak, the Chief pulled his DataJockey out of his rear pocket, canceled his order for a Hostile and sent in a request for a VOID.

"Roger that, sir." Without a word following, the Chief immediately pulled out his DataJockey, canceled his request for a Hostile and put in a request for a VOID. With his request sent, the Chief immediately started to pull up the roster of Marines whom were under his command, selecting a certain Marine's file, making sure to bring up his previous combat experience.

"Since I'm leaving my squad with no NCO during the mission, mind if I suggest a replacement NCO for the squad?" At that, the Chief placed his DataJockey on the table and slid it towards Wazu, the picture of Henry Morris displayed on the screen.

"He's been my go to guy during every mission. He's got combat experience, has called in air support, and isn't too bad of a shot. " At that, the Chief pulled out his flask, and hoping to get himself demoted and Henry promoted before he took this mission, took a sip and offered it to Wazu.

"Are we doing some sort of black op near Yamataian space? 'Cause the quartermaster just issued me a magazine of black rounds for my HHG after suggesting a high-powered sidearm."

"I do not know for sure, but I certainly do not approve of the presence of a Nekovalkyrja on a Nepleslian vessel. Something is very unusual with this mission," she said.

Phaedra reached around and tucked her long mane of hair into the helmet ring of her armor. Retreiving the helmet from the rack nearby, she lowered the helmet onto her head and locked it into place. The displays winked on almost immediately and Phaedra turned her head around experimentally, ensuring her displays and neural probe were in working order. She unsealed the helmet and held it in the crook of her arm as she strode over to Anselm's location. She looked up at the "head" of the AGGRESSOR, her small NIGHT dwarfed by the massive machine.

Anselm looked down at the NIGHT from his perch inside the larger armorsuit, the enhanced targeting protocols taking a second to register Phaedra as friendly and lock down the firing mechanism on his RFMD, "Alright marksman," the Aggressor's loudspeakers growled, "let's hope the brass doesn't take too long to get this show on the road."

He was less than pleased at having a Nekovalkyrja on board a Nepleslian vessel, but it was better than going into combat against them, especially with the Mishhuvurthyar devouring Nepleslia proper. Well, I guess I only have to shoot her if she gets uppity, then.

Luke headed towards the bay his Hostile was at, and getting there, he entered his modified armour.

Multiple visuals interacted with his Left Brain and soon he had a small area wide scan loaded up in his sight. He could see forwards and backwards simultaneously, and he smiled at the 360 vision.

"Alright, mods are still working, no surprises, but I want to test if this Repair Kit's functional. Is there a spare armour I can use?" Luke called from within his power armour.

“Drei handles equipment requests,” Wazu told him as he listened to the request for Henry to be placed in the role of NCO. He would look over the data gathered on Henry, scrolling through it using one of the datapads on the table in front of him. As it turned out he wasn’t onboard the ship, having either been left on Nepleslia, or more likely left in the monorail and crushed to death.

“I’ll consider Morris,”

Wazu then turned down the drink offered, “too much to do at the moment. If you have no questions about what I need you to do then you should go get geared up. Harm already has the battle plan and will go over it with the marines in a few minutes.

--

Meanwhile down in the power armor bay another one of the hostile power armors was being removed and replaced with a freshly constructed VOID armor, a pair of junker drones hoisting the armor up over their head to carry it away from the node while two more brought in the new equipment to place and inspect. The spare hostile power armor was taken past Luke, both drones stopping and looking at each other as they heard Luke’s request for something to practice on. Eventually they would decide to move over to him, holding the armor up at chest height while suspended face down.

Makari would find the power armor in his node was brand new, the displays showing zero previous users or combat usage for any of the parts as they cycled through a basic check up procedure as he approached the blocky grey armor. Small plastic baggies were over the thrusters on the back to help keep out dust and in the front a polished cap was over the eyepiece with a ‘remove before use’ emblem printed right on it. Simply opening up the power armor would fill the area with that new armor smell.

Next to Makari’s node was Harm’s. The green haired woman would zip up her tight fitting bodysuit and unclip her belt, tossing it into the node before opening up her armor and slipping in and opening a channel to all of the marines, letting Drei handle the hard part of hooking up her voice to power armors, data pads, or the ship’s speakers were appropriate so the marines could hear her.

“Alright, Listen up noobs. Today we are going to smash up an NMX prison camp and grab all their prisoners.

We will be using two shuttles to drop down to the surface, they will drop us off at speed in a cornfield only a mile and a half south from the camp. Backing us up will be the 4th fleet’s air wing and a tank, all of which will be hitting the prison camp as we land. Their job will be to remove any defenses, Our job will be to extract the prisoners. You will need to guide them to the south, four minutes after we land our own transports will be landing south of the prison camp to begin picking up the prisoners.

Don’t expect the flyboys to be able to clear everything out. If you get lost, just head towards the prison camp because that is where everyone is heading.

The prisoners should have just arrived at this camp according to our intel, but keep your distance when possible and don’t pop your armor. We don’t have time to check all the prisoners for bugs and other nasties here so we’ll have to do our best at moving potentially hazardous personnel.

We’ll have shuttles and military transports ready to pick us up when we’re done here.

The Prison camp is on a planet called Higaflan, breathable atmosphere, about 1g of gravity, and deep inside NMX territory. The longer we stay planeside, the greater chance we have of getting our ships in orbit, and then us, exploded so work fast. Get your gear ready and head down to the shuttle bay, we’ve only got a few minutes left before deployment.”

Luke took the power armour the drones had held up to him, thanking them with a simple gesture of the hand.

He engaged the repair mechanism with a thought command and the kit loaded up and opened in front of his chest. Luke took one of the laser cutters he found there and started to patch up some of the dents in the power armour. The whole procedure started smoothly, but soon Luke noticed something dangerous;

"Hmm... there's a strain on the power supply... looks like..."

At this moment, the engine kicked in and the power armour failed; Luke performed an emergency restart, just enough to prevent total collapse, but accidentally knocked one of the other power armours over (he wasn't sure which one).

"Whoops... sorry... I guess I'm going to recalibrate the power to be taken from weapons control while I'm repairing... I guess this is what I get for making modifications" Luke said sheepishly. He began to reconfigure the distribution chips inside the suit.

Luke reattempted to make the repair, and this time things seemed better, although his backward visuals were losing focus from time to time.

"Hmm, guess I will have to try to do some tuning..." Luke said, as he attempted to find ways of keeping the system stable while using his new repair system.

"I can see why it says it's only compatible with Water PAs..." Luke thought.

Luke battled with the systems, thinking of systems he could try to remove, even contemplating the disengaging of the safety feature, but he finally gave up.

"This repair kit just won't work... I'm going to have to hope I get access to a Water at some point..." Luke said, removing the system and exiting his PA in frustration, reverting the power distribution settings to their default.

Makari, quite surprised at his new HOSTILE, removed the remaining factory tags and proceeded to do his own one over and tweak the settings to his own preferences.

As he was doing so, he saw the green haired babe zip up her jumpsuit and whistled. He was suddenly glad he was inside and the comms were off and therefore no one heard the whistle. After the "demonstration" at the cafeteria, he didn't wish to cause himself to go into deep shit with that babe. Damn, he thought, I'm glad that wasn't me. Makari decided his HOSTILE was tuned to his liking and crawled out just in time to listen to the green haired woman's briefing.

The Chief gathered up his flask and DataJockey, saluting Wazu "No more questions, sir. I'm gonna head out now." Turning around, Ran immediately bolted out the door of the Bridge and ran the rest of the way towards the Power Armor bay, trying his hardest to not knock a few people over. He wouldn't exactly succeed in this endeavor, but he's done worst things before.

And somewhere, a pair of Suku's panties lay folded in his duffel bag.

With the required amount of time spent hustling, the Chief slowed down as he neared the Power Armor bay, spending some time listening to Harm's briefing. No fucking way a cat is dishing out orders to Marines...we must really be fucked for personnel. Entering the Power Armor bay once the briefing ended, the Chief immediately located the Void which was assembled for him.

Climbing into his Void, the Chief ran the required diagnostic checks for the armor, checking life support systems, weapon system, etc. Letting Drei do all the other work, the Chief immediately opened up a channel with Harm's armor.

"You're Harm, right? I'm not gonna be a paranoid fuck about you being a cat, but for appearance sake, I'd like you in my sight most of the time when we're together. Don't feel shy about berating any of these guys if they fuck up, however." The Chief turned his head away from Harm as the Void closed around him, and stepped forward from his node, holding the LPA in his right hand.

Turning on the Void's loudspeaker, the Chief screamed "You all have one fucking minute to get into your armors! Anyone who isn't is gonna be sent down wearing nothing but the boot I shove up their ass! Fucking move!" At that, the Chief turned to Harm's suit, and in that channel which was still open, said "You know, after this, you and me could share a bottle of cleaning alcohol. I'm pretty sure it's still half full."

"At one point or another in our career, we're going to need to improvise and make do with what we have. Fortunately, now isn't that sort of situation," Henry was down in the engineering bay with a cigarette in his mouth and tools in both hands, pointing out that ZPE Capacitor bank was experiencing unwanted power drain.

He knew the solution to this problem, but wanted to test the greenhorns that'd come in, "Any ideas as to how to go about this problem, gentlemen?"
"Why don't you call the cat who moved in recently?" One of the nearby engineers suggested, "She seems to know enough."
"Yeah, she has a nice rack too," One of the others chuckled, prompting him to get a nudge in the ribs.

Henry scowled and exhaled a cloud of smoke, "I wouldn't trust a flighty Yamataian broad to fix my glasses," He grumbled as he recalled, "We had a few of 'em in a while back to fix our armours after an engagement on Nepleslia."

After looking at the wiring of the machine and finding someone else's unwanted handiwork in the form of a power tapping device, "They couldn't tell arse from elbow and we had to go against Rippers in what amounted to a torch and a shirt."

He then forgot himself for a moment and continued his lecture, "Anyway, the first thing you look for is to find undocumented additions to our system," He held up the offending object and put it on the ground for the other engineers to see. They took notes and listened attentively.

"As far as I can see, this probably powers a personal computer that's transmitting or downloading something, and on an unencrypted, private connection," He then mashed the power tap into oblivion with a monkey wrench, "That connection could be intercepted and give our position away to the fucking squids."

Somewhere in the crew quarters, someone could be heard yelling angrily, followed by the musical sounds of percussive maintenance, and then a laptop computer and peripherals being hurled into the hallway. The engineers had a chuckle at this man's expense.

"If we want to look at pornography or play games whilst we're waiting for our next sortie, we can do so on our datapads. I don't want any other channels coming in or out of this ship which don't have a solid 512 kilobit encryption on them, you understand?"

He then heard the sound of sirens, and his name coming up on the list of people to sortie out and go forth on the next engagement.
"Lesson concluded, have your notes ready for me by Monday at the latest!" He hastily said as he put his tools down and made a run for the hangar.

The only question left in his mind was what to armour to wear. He liked his stint in the VOID Tactical back on Rok'Veru, and wanted to see if he could get his hands on one. Otherwise, he'd settle for a simple Hostile.

Sean grinned at the chief's newest threat, glad he was already suited up in his HOSTILE. He flicked his systems on, and ran all of the standard checks, not really expecting anything to be wrong, and not finding anything either. "He most definitely will follow up on that, too. Don't doubt it."

Chad had felt better, but it could have been a lot worse. It was probably for the best he had thrown up some of the booze and the accompanying heavy painkillers. And Chad was perfectly contempt with laying there for the next few hours to feel better. That was until......

Koenig808 said:

"You all have one fucking minute to get into your armors! Anyone who isn't is gonna be sent down wearing nothing but the boot I shove up their ass! Fucking move!"

Click to expand...

"Ughhhhh", Chad groaned as he forced himself up and over to his AIR. The Elemental looked tons better than it had when he had first left it, and the new LSP was a striking addition to the ensemble.

"Back into the fray", he said as he climbed into the armor, "Awesome". And with that the AIR closed and fired up as he took a step out of the node.

Although, Chad still had no idea what was going on.

Hey opened his comm to the nearest new guy, who was listed on his HUD as Makari.

"Hey, Makari," he said, "What the hell are we doing?"

When luke had finished with the spare armor the two Junker drones would pick up the space power armor in front of luke and begin taking it back for disassembly. Henry would also just barely make it to the quartermaster in time to order a VOID power armor, the junker drones swapping out one of the hostiles in a node with the requested unit.

---

“That is the name I’m using now.” Harm replied teasingly to the Chief as she began picking up the gear in her power armor node, “I promise not to hold being a neppie against you either.” As she spoke, she was making her own modifications to her armor, slathering one side of a LG-23 pistol with the StickyGoo Industrial before pressing it against the back of her right shoulder on the armor. She then began to glue grenades to the chestplate of the armor, four stun grenades, five frag, and one movement restrictor. An HHG was glued to the back of the left shoulder and a small bag of ammo to her left hip.

With a more serious tone she would add, “Keep up with me and we can raid the old man’s alcohol stash together, or we can just yell at your noob marine team-mates, already met one who doesn’t know how to hold his liquor… Hope you can do better otherwise the after-party is going to be boring.” By this point she was cracking up inside of her suit, opening a new channel,

“Drei, set that armor’s mode to remote pilot and map the controls to my left hand.”

She would continue gluing things together, attaching a target designator to her moneyshot rifle and a pair of anti-personnel mines to the sides of the hostile’s armored skirt. She’d then pick up a second LG-23 and the hostile’s moneyshot rifle as she moved towards the lift, stopping in front of the door, twirling her left hand around…

... elsewhere on the same deck Chad’s armor would lock in place for a moment. The Air’s left leg would then rise up on its own and step forward, followed by the right, forcibly marching the marine over to the lift with his hands locked in place by his sides.

“GRATS SCRUB!” Harm shouted over the air’s speaker system, “Your display of marksmanship in the mess hall has gotten you promoted to ‘keep my ass alive’ duty. I assure you that taking a bullet, rocket, grenade, or nuke just to keep me alive is a very selfless action that will surely get you noted in history… Now, into the lift!” She would then point at the lift’s floor, causing the armor to auto-walk inside followed shortly by herself. She would then shout.

“ALL ABOARD!”

One of the massive Aggressor armors would walk up next to Sean, commenting over a private channel, “Damn cats are going to be the death of us all… its bad enough they let one of them aliens run our ships.”

"Hey, Makari," he said, "What the hell are we doing?"[/quote]

"Suicidal rescue mission led by a babe, though regrettably the cat-lady you pissed off. Wish I had brought my scotch with me...." Makari trailed off at the end.

"Hey, Makari, you there maAHHHHH"

Chad was moving, and wasn't at all the way he wanted to go. What the shiz man. Remote, was the only thing that came to mind, and when the bombshell cat came over his loudspeaker he knew for sure.

Fuck, Fuck, Fuckity, Fuck

Hey was walking onto the shuttle before he knew it. This better not be permanent. Normally he could handle the headache, but through the cat in and it was pure hell.

And thats when he finally realized why Nepleslians hated Neko's. They are probably all just as freaking annoying.

The lift took Harm and her new meatshield down to the shuttle bay, a large open space with a pair of rounded nose shuttles, dagger shaped attack craft, and a single hover tank with two girls dressed in matching drab grey uniforms climbing inside. Junker drones were floating about, running final checks on all the craft. Chad would end up getting pushed forward out of the lift then auto-piloted through the shuttle’s side door after it opened. He was moved to the back of the shuttle while Harm remained in the front. The smaller hostile could easily stand two wide inside of the shuttle while all the extra bits on the air required that it stand in the center.

The inside of the shuttle was lined with displays that were showing the exterior of the ship and the blue planet below. The ship had already exited hyperspace, leaving the other starships in the squadron to fight off the NMX ships in the area. Ships that were trying to take off from the planet had already been destroyed, their flaming hulls just short of reaching orbit were still arcing upwards as parts began raining down on the massive fields of corn below.

Luke finished with his Power Armour and simply waited inside it. He decided to test his Chess AI.

The game started very unusually for him;

1. e4 c6

"The randomiser picked an interesting opening!" Luke thought as he kept on playing.

2. d3 e5 3. h4 Bc5 4. Bg5 Qb6 5. Nh3 Qxb2 6. Nd2 Qc3 7. Be3 Bxe3 8. fxe3 Nf6 9. Qb1 h5 10. Be2 g6 11. Rf1 Ng4 12. Rf3 O-O 13. Ng1 d5 14. Kd1 Qc5 15. Nb3 Qe7 16. Nh3 dxe4 17. dxe4 Qxh4 18. Kd2 Nh2 19. Ng1 Qxe4 20. Rg3 Ng4 21. Bxg4 Rd8+ 22. Nd4 Rxd4+ 23. exd4 Qf4+ 24. Ke1 Bxg4 25. Qxb7 Qxg3+ 26. Kd2 Qxg2+ 27. Kc3 Qe4 28. Qxa8 Qxd4+ 29. Kb3 Be6+ 30. Ka3 Bxa2 31. Kxa2 Qa4+ 32. Kb1 Qb4+ 33. Ka2 Qa5+ 34. Kb1 Qb6+ 35. Ka2 f6 36. Nf3 Kf7 37. Nh4 Qa5+ 38. Kb1 Qb4+ 39. Ka2 Qc4+ 40. Kb1 Qf1+ 41. Ka2 Qa6+ 42. Kb1 Qc4 43. Qxb8 Qxh4 44. Qc7+ Ke6 45. Qxc6+ Kf5 46. Qc8+ Kg5 47. Qa6 Qb4+ 48. Ka2 Qb6 49. Qa3 a5 50. Qg3+ Kf5 51. Qh3+ Kf4 52. Qg2 Qb1+ 53. Rxb1 g5 54. Qf2+ Ke4 55. Qxf6 h4 56. Qxg5 h3 57. Qh4+ Ke3 58. Qxh3+ Ke4 59. Qh4+ Kf5 60. Qe1 Kf4 61. Qf1+ Ke3 62. Qf5 Kd2 63. Qxe5 Kxc2 64. Qxa5 Kd3 65. Rb3+ Kd4 66. Qb5 Ke4 67. Qc4+ Kf5 68. Rb5+ Kg6 69. Qc6+ Kg7 70. Rb7+ Kf8 71. Qc8#

He was shocked at how the computer unnecessarily played a gambit killing its queen and tried to find where the bug was, and rather unsuccessfully. "Must be something to do with the tree search, I should probably extend it, it's becoming too weak for my tastes. Maybe I'm just impoving..." Luke thought. The game had gone on quite quickly, and he was surprised he had played it in about 5 minutes.

He noticed the Neko walking about giving commands, and he couldn't help but veer away from her. He always got strange vibes around Nekos, he often avoided them at all costs.

If this cat was the one giving orders, it'd be very hard for him this mission. But unable to use his repair kit properly due to his modification failure, he felt quite annoyed.

"What's going on with me... this should be a blast, easy for me... why am I screwing everything up!" Luke said in frustration, realising his communicator was turned on.

"My bad, computer malfunction in my left brain!" Luke said sheepishly.

The reply from Harm came quickly and was broadcast so everyone could hear.

"Luke right? If you don't get your ass to the shuttle now the NMX are going to be the least of your worries."