RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 6] The Cow Level

When hearing that it would be built in a few minutes Avel inwardly jumped up and down with excitement but kept a normal outward expression. "Just some directions to the gym. When my custom weapon is finished, place it with the rest of my equipment."

A volumetric arrow appeared in front of her, pointing in the direction of the gym. "Deck 6 Miss Sitkeas." With preparations for the next mission now taken care of, Avel headed off at a jogging pace to where her new room was. There she quickly changed into her workout shorts, tank top, grabbed a towel and headed to the gym.

Upon reaching the gym she was greeted by a drone and requested a bottle of water.

"I'd like you to adjust the resistance of the machines." Avel said and gave her specifications. "Thank you, that will be all."

Avel sighed and headed over to the exercise equipment. There was a lot on her mind but right now all she wanted was a quiet workout.

As Darux entered the mess hall, he was greeted by the 'chef' came over to him. At the sight of the machine, he clenched his teeth trying not to burst out laughing, though he couldn't hold back a smile. "I have no need of your assistance, but thank you anyway," Darux said as he walked over to the buffet. He picked off some eggs and toast as well as got a cup of orange juice, then chose a table with only a few marines on it before eating. He glanced once more to the 'chef'. "Wonder what happened," he said out loud, his smile never leaving his face.

@ cyborgakadjmoose

“Alright! Be sure to call out if you need anything!” The junker drone would enthusiastically shout before scurrying back behind its desk.

---

@ Divided Crown

The Quartermaster drone was a bit slow to respond, seeing to other marines before finally turning its attention towards Rachel.

“Only the HPAR is typically issued with the Hostile power armor.” It explained, “A hostile is already set up in your assigned power armor node. I’ll see to it that a case of plasma grenades are ready for you as well.” The drone would automatically relay the request to the other drones working on this level of the ship, sending a fresh HPAR and case of grenades to Rachel’s node.

“Some of the marines have been using StickyGoo Industrial to attach the grenades to the armor. A tube of glue will be in your armor node if you wish to use it.”

---

@ Brett

“Very Well!” The Chief drone shouted before returning to its job of seeing to the other marines.

Harm and Wazu would also enter the mess hall at about the same time. Each would quickly grab a plate of food, find an empty seat, and get to eating. Each was focused on eating what was infront of them as fast as possible to make the best use of the time before the operation. Harm ended up sitting close to Brett, and with a mouth still somewhat full of food she’d say.

“One of the marines…” Her words were interrupted by a deep swallow. “… tried to show off his shooting skills by blasting the chief-bot there. Guess the other patched him up.”

---

@ Everyone

Drei’s voice would come on over the PA so that everyone could hear.

“The Shuttles are ready. Suit up and report to the shuttle bay in six minutes.”

The short down time between operations was coming to an end.

Though Darux tried to hold back from bursting into an uncontrollable laughter, instead concentrating on his plate of food. Still, he couldn't help but chuckle. "It doesn't really matter if you can hit something that can't fight back. There's no point, and no fun." He added the last part as an afterthought then reconsidered, "I guess it's not fun when they DO fight back though,"

As Drei announced over the PA, Darux frowned at his plate, which still had two pieces of toast on it. He took both pieces from the plate and bowed his head in his particular fashion to Admiral Wazu and Harm in turn, "If you excuse me," he said as he took his two steps backwards, almost backing into a passing marine, and sharply turned toward the power armor bay.

As Phaedra made her laps around the track, she noticed that Avel had found her way to the gym as well. Phaedra was having a difficult time accepting the fact that Avel was back in the unit. She contemplated ignoring her presence again, but retaining a level of trust with one's comrades was more important than personal feelings. Deciding to start the communication process, Phaedra simply said a courteous "Hey," and then continued over to the vacant area of the mats to do her cool-down stretches.

Phaedra was on her way back to her room from the gym when she heard the ship-wide announcement.

“The Shuttles are ready. Suit up and report to the shuttle bay in six minutes.”

"Six minutes?" thought Phaedra. "I guess that shower will have to wait..."

Phaedra sighed as she entered her room and dressed quickly. She hustled to the power armor bay and began to inspect the LBR and incendiaries which were delivered for her NIGHT armor.

In all honesty? As curious as he was about some of the new arrivals, the down time was just too short to poke around and get to know them. Matteo sat by his Hostile and munched on a few generic energy bars and drinking water. He knew there was better food in the cafeteria, but something just seemed to draw him to the armor bay instead. Perhaps it was because it was where the action was at. Who knew? He climbed into his Hostile, the suit closing in on him snugly. The cold faded away just as quickly as it pricked his skin as the suit warmed up. Helmet in one hand and HPAR in the other, he started to make his way to the shuttle.

But something had been nagging at him for quite a while now. The curiosity was killing him. Matteo decided to walk right up to the redhead, Rachel, and ask her front up; "Hey. Did they rush you through basic or something? You sound like you don't know too much about the simple things." He didn't care if she was talking to the damned bot, he had to know!

The reason why though, was simple; her reply would tell him much about just how well, or poorly, the war effort was going.

"Well that was a fast break." Avel though to herself as she quickly exited the gym to get changed. She had hoped to have at least a little time to herself so she could get back into the same shape she was in before whatever happened. But it did mean that she was now going to be field tesing her customized HPAR. She just hoped it didn't explode and take her arm off when she tried to fire it.

Avel quickly got changed and headed to the power armror bay. There, sitting with the rest of her equipment was her modified HPAR along with a couple spare clips of ammuniton. The thing looked like a double barreled shotgun on stimulants.

Climbng into her Hostile, Avel picked up the flamethrower and attached it to the PA's hip armor, along with the spare ammnition magazines. Then she reached down and picked up the double barreled HPAR and was plesantly surprised to find that it was already loaded. She swiched it on and a live camera feed from the optics scop appeared on her HUD.

"Hey Harm." Avel would ask the Neko when she entered the room. "Do you know who I'm going to be partnered up with?"

Cedric quickly finished his meal upon hearing the announcement to suit up. Heading to the armory quickly, he quickly did a once-over of his equipment. Everything seemed to be perfectly fine and combat-ready. The flamethrower, plasma grenades, his AMP-01a, and knife all seemed ready and properly secured. That was good: at least he wasn't hitting bad luck so early in this mission. That cheered him up some.

Climbing in to the Aggressor (an out-of-place sight amongst all the Hostiles of his fellow Marines, he felt), the suit closed up around him, and Cedric moved to stand behind Matteo just as he heard him probing the new girl for information.

"Leave the new kid alone, Matteo." Cedric said flatly, "Some combat should chip that green of her's right off."

@ C-Man

“You’re supposed to stay with the group…” Harm told Avel as she came into the power armor bay after finishing with her food in the mess hall. Both her and Wazu would suit up in their respective armors before heading towards the lift that would take them down to the shuttle. “… I’ll go over this all again once we’re on our way down.”

---

@ Everyone

-A few minutes later, once the shuttle is full of marines.

While Wazu sat down and buckled up, Harm took hold of one of the handholds inside of the shuttle and locked her armor in place. The external screens started showing the shuttle leaving bay of its mother ship, the jet black void of space giving way to the blue and browns of Nepleslia. For a few moments all of Funky City was visible, its buildings stretching out across the contentment filled with billions of people going about their lives and brightly lit by the morning sun. The shuttle’s view screens would then dim slightly as the craft began cutting through the atmosphere, blinding the external view with a white hot light.

“Alright, Lets go over this one more time.” Harm said, transmitting over the power armor’s comm. systems. “Everyone in this shuttle is to stay near Wazu or Myself. If you can’t see us then you are doing something wrong. Keep up this time and we won’t have a repeat of Higaflan.

When we reach the Neppies Beef Ranch facility, keep your power armor on and consider the area to be a biohazard. We are in charge of burning out an NMX we find in the facility. Consider everything we find in there hostile, even if they claim to be civvies it is likely they have at least been exposed to a parasite in which case check them for weapons and keep them detained somewhere, we can leave cleaning up the facility to follow up units.

Once Wazu has the information he needs about this latest attack and we’ve checked the place thoroughly for NMX we can leave.”

As she finished her short speech, the flames surrounding the shuttle would begin to dissipate. The screens now showed a vast expanse of shanty housing, muddy roads, and billboards. Cars and trucks, with attached guns or pieces of junk serving as armor, were driving around here on the outskirts of Funky City. Just in the distance was a large grey square that easily stood a good 300 feet tall. Smaller buildings surrounded this, and smaller police cars and tanks surrounded that. The Neppies Beef Farm was a truly massive facility but instead of the large fields, the farm consisted solely of industrial structures without windows that housed the beef making enterprise.

The shuttle doors would then slide open, bathing the interior with natural light and the roaring sound of the shuttle engines as it slowed to a hover just above the massive cube. Harm would take a step out the doors and stand on the wing, grabbing onto the handholds on the exterior of the ship.

The roof of the Neppies Beef farm was covered with blocky air-conditioning units, pipes, and ventilation shafts. The floor was a dull brown, white splotches dotting the ground where birds had flown over or taken roost. A single set of doors and a elevator lift were in the center of this area, and had been locked from the outside using a thick chain tied around the handles.


“Alright, Everyone out!” Harm shouted

During the shuttle ride down to the beef ranch Avel was mostly silent. Other than introducing herself to Phaedra who was sitting next to her there wasn't much else to say. That is until the shuttle got closer to the beef ranch and she saw just how large it relly was.

"It looked smaller on my datapad." She commented. Then Harm spoke up and ordered them out.

Instantly, like a machine, Avel stood up and marched out the shuttle door. She briefly entered freefall and activated her armors thrusters when she got close to the roof. She landed lightly on the floor and moved close to the edge.

She stood at atention with her gun at the ready while waiting for everybody else to arrive.

Clad in her NIGHT armor, Phaedra was crammed into the shuttle with the rest of her squad, most of whom she hardly knew. She was further disturbed by the fact that Avel re-introduced herself, as if the two of them had never met previously. Deciding not to be the aloof one, she replied:

"Phaedra, but you can just call me Wolf."

Although Phaedra managed to keep her emotions in check the majority of the time, she couldn't help the feeling that she was alone in a crowd. Nearly all of the squadmates she had come to know since she joined up had left for one reason or another; most recently several of them transfering to another deployment.

"Should I have gone with them? Would I be forsaking my duty if I left this unit and joined another? What should I do?" thought Phaedra.

“Alright, Everyone out!” Harm shouted. Phaedra was yanked out of her thoughts and jumped to her feet along with the rest of the marines.

"Dammit, this isn't the time to be distracted," thought Phaedra with a grimace.

She filed her way up to the doorway and jumped off the shuttle without hesitating. After freefalling for a second or two, black wings unfolded from the back of the her armor, the NIGHT suddenly gaining the appearance of an avenging angel. Phaedra activated her thrusters to slow down her descent and landed quickly. The wings folded neatly onto her back as Phaedra reached behind her and retrieved the Long Beam Rifle stored there. The weapon unfolded to it's full five-foot length and Phaedra held the LBR tightly as she advanced to cover behind one of the ventilation shafts. Training her sights on the elevator doors, she held the weapon tight against her shoulder, her left hand on the foregrip and her finger on the trigger.

Darux climbed into his Power armor. "Be ready," he muttered, talking to both the on board Savtech as well as himself. He was about to leave when he saw the NAM Observation Probe standard to the Earth models. Darux shrugged, "Couldn't hurt I guess," He said to himself as he grabbed the violin shaped contraption. As he closed in on the shuttle, he started looking the probe over. "I know this..." Darux said to himself becoming frustrated with the device. With a growl, he placed the probe on the ground before going onto the ship. "If someone else wants to use that dam contraption then who am I to complain," he growled to himself, though he had unknowingly brodcasted that to everyone around him.

As they descended, Darux listened to the orders in silence with his eyes closed. The orders were simple, almost laughably so. Burn all the infection and any who stand in the way, stay near admiral Wazu or who appeared to be someone he trusted, stay in your power armor, and recover the main computer. He heard the door open and shortly, "Alright, Everyone out!" Without thinking he jumped out, unfortunately while free falling he blanked out. It was only until the last second that he turned his thrusters on full. He still hit the ground hard, jerking Darux inside the power armor sharply before it started to lift once more due to the thrust still being on. He shook himself out of his daze and shut off the thrusters when he had lifted himself 13 feet off the ground, landing on his feet and staggering forward before falling forward. "Dam it," Darux growled as he activated the Mass Mesher cloaking device and readied the FGL-01a he had asked for.

Matteo got an...interesting reply from Rachel, but that didn't matter right now; he was going to jump out and take part in a deceptively easy mission. The ex-syndicate member thought back to his first mission, the one prior. It was anything but simple, or easy. He sighed and jumped out after the NIGHT; if anything, she knew how to make an entrance. His Hostile's rockets briefly flashed, and allowed him to touch down on both feet gently for a two ton killing machine. Matteo quickly took a defensive position a few meters away from the veteran and went prone, eying the elevator shaft with his HPAR.

'I wonder, how does the Long Beam Rifle handle? I'd have to ask later.'

Wazu would pull himself to standing inside of the shuttle before making his way towards the doors, watching one marine after another dismount and drop down onto the roof of the building.

“I’m still not certain you know how to use a power armor.” Harm quipped, “Want me to show you how? Maybe give you a few lessons?”

“Oh yeah, ladies first,” Wazu replied sarcastically right before harm jumped off the side of the shuttle, her rockets flaring for a fraction of a second to slow her decent before her power armor’s legs smashed onto the roof of the Beef farm. Wazu would follow shortly afterward with a much less spectacular drop, his rockets firing a bit late resulting in him smashing into the ceiling a bit hard, his armor over onto its side as he landed.

As soon as they landed, the lift doors on the top of the building would slowly start to open, the hydraulics sliding the doors sideways with enough force to pull apart the metal chain holding them together with a loud, ear splitting, screech of metal against metal, followed by silence.

“Well, that is creepy.” Harm said…

---

Meanwhile, Inside Neppies Beef Farm.

A bald ID-Sol would approach an NMX shock trooper floating in front of a set of controls inside of one of the control rooms overlooking the stacks of ID-Cow cages in the center of the facility. “We saw a shuttle heading towards the roof on the external cameras.”

The Shock trooper ran one of his tentacles over the patchwork armor on his body, made from pieces that had been wielded together over the course of weeks leaving jagged corners and wields all over his body.

“I am aware Mr. Brown. Finish loading our prizes and be ready to depart. I will slow the Nepleslians.” The ID-Sol would then march off as the Shock Trooper’s tentacles wrapped around a microphone.

---

Back on the roof.


“We will take the stairs.” Harm said, aiming her suit’s lasers at the door to the staircase and cutting off the door handle, exposing an unlit staircase that descended down into the facility.

Certainly a cramped staircase was not a good tactical position to be in, given that it was only wide enough for a line of single file power armors. Harm was distrustful of the elevator simply coming up to greet them, but the stairs were not much better. Worse yet she considered that the elevator could be the quickest way down and it was simply being presented as a trap to keep them from using it. She also considered simply blowing a hole in the ceiling and jumping in… but no. She considered it far better to go with her gut plan and exude confidence rather than second guessing herself.

The building’s PA system would then crackle to life.

“HU…HU….HU…. Welcome Nepleslians…,” boomed a deep voice, thick with a mishhu accent. “Welcome to your doom…”

While everyone else was getting off the shuttle Avel busied herself with the two observation probes she had on her. One had come with the Hostile armor she requested while another was found lying down on the floor near the shuttle. With the push of a button the two violin shaped deviced activated and began hovering in the air around her.

Then Harm spoke up and told them that they were heading down the dark and crampt staiway. That sent alarms blaring in Avel's head and was about to speak up when a sinister voice welcoming them to their deaths came over the PA system. She had to say something before that neko's hubris got them all killed.

Avel marched over to Harm and used her external speakers so that everyone cold hear.

"Harm this is obviously a trap to force us into a bottleneck. I strongly recommend that we blast a hole in the roof above one of the larger rooms and enter through there. Or at least let me send one of my observation probes in just to be safe."

"Traps usually don't work to well if you make it clear before hand that you are laying out a trap." Harm said. "Toss your probe down the staircase then follow."

Cedric got out of the shuttle, touching down, and keeping his Mass Repeater trained on any threats. He moved cautiously, his nerves on edge, and he nearly opened fire when the door to the elevator had opened up. Fortunately, no threat presented itself from that way. Taking a knee to reduce his profile (as much as one could in an Aggressor armor), Cedric's eyes followed Harm, and watched as she opened up the entrance to the stairs. Listening to Harm and Avel converse, Cedric had to interject.

Whether it was simply out of mistrust of a Cat, or simply because it was his true opinion wasn't even clear to the speaker himself.

"Haven't you ever considered reverse psycology?" Cedric asked, "He's presenting it as a trap, simply to lead us in to another trap? Don't get me wrong, either way we may be walking in to an ambush, but I guess it's just a case of the lesser of two evils."

Having given his two cents, Cedric once more went back to observing his surroundings.

Avel nodded and sent the observation probe down the stairway. She then activated it's Monoeye scanner and a live feed from it's camera appeared on her HUD. If there was anything down there, it wouldn't be hiding for much longer.

At Cedric's comment Avel sighed. "That's what I meant. I say screw whatever mind games the thing wants to play and make our own entrance."

"Preferably in the side of the building to further throw it off."

Naomi was standing close to the back of the group, listen to somebody making small talk and discussing an entry plan, something she felt they really should have been working on along the way down from orbit, and basically discussing the likely intent of the enemy.

Decked out in an Aggressor, fitted out with the exact same kit loadout her buddy Cedric had chosen, Naomi was ready to destroy some Mishu.

"Maybe we could send it down empty?" she piped up. "The elevator's a big fuckin' trap just waitin' to happen now, but maybe we can use that back against them?"

Her dialogue started, the former gang thug continued rapidly.

"Hell," she said. "Maybe we could leave a couple guys up here and send it down, give it a few seconds to let 'em do what they're plannin' to do in there, then blast it from above and have those two guys drop down inside from the shaft while the rest come in by the stairs?"

Having said what she meant to say, Naomi quieted down once again, as if she were almost embarassed to have spoken at all.

A distinctive clunk could be heard as Matteo's hand met his helmeted face. He was still lying prone behind cover and aiming at the elevator, but the cheesiness of the Mishhu's statement got to him. "I say we blow several holes in this place at once to keep them guessing and send the probe in first at whatever spot we pick to enter at." He suggested. For now, there wasn't much he could do in his position besides flapping his lips; one thing Matteo learned was that the military had a 'hurry up and wait' deal. They hurried out of the shuttle, but now they were all waiting on what to do next. And maybe the elevator. Space Marines wait for elevators.

"We really have to shove something into that Misshu to shut it up. I'd like to see how it likes it." he bitterly sighed.