RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 6] The Cow Level

“We’re eating up a lot of time thinking about this and I am thinking that is their goal right now. Even if he is using reverse psychology we still need to get down in there.” Harm replied to Cedric as she brought up the probe’s video on her armor’s hud.

“If they are trying to delay us instead of launching an outright attack then it is likely that they are doing something that requires a little more time.” Wazu said, “I would like to find out what that is.”

---

The probe would slowly float down the staircase. Both the stairs and the walls were made out of the same thick concrete that the building’s ceiling was made from. The lights were out and the staircase slowly wound down several floors until it stopped at a single open door. This door let out into an area with a labyrinth of empty cages, hallways extending off in all direction. Closely spaced bars made up these cages as well as the floor and ceiling, letting someone on one level see the floors and cages of the others. The only creature here was a single dead ID-Cow laying in one of the cages. Its head was gone entirely but the massive blocky body was still there, slowly decomposing inside of one of the closed cages.

---

“Alright Naomi and Matteo, give us 20 seconds then send down the lift. Break in the ceiling and make a lot of noise on your way down. Everyone else is going downstairs and Avel has point.” Harm said, letting the P4C have the short straw on this operation.

“And leave the speakers up. One guy operating a microphone is one less guy operating a gun.”

"Whatever they're doing involves the ID-Cows becuase they aren't in their cages anymore." Avel replied to Wanzu's comment. "Either they ate them or have something else planned."

Avel then addressed the marines that were to follow her. "Alright, stay a few feet behind me. If the place is boobytrapped I'll be the only one being torn to ribbons in the resulting explosion."

With that said she would begin marching down the stairs at a brisk pace when everyone else was ready to follow.

Cedric quirked a brow at Harm's comment. He hadn't been suggesting something stupid, like that they should stay up on the roof. He had simply been stating that they were probably both traps. He was also curious as to her choice to send Matteo with Naomi. In his mind, she should have sent another Aggressor pilot (such as himself). Double the destruction with a pair of Aggressors marching through the building; especially importan for a job like what they were going to be doing. He brushed all these thoughts from his mind, instead listening as Avel spoke. She gave an order (wasn't she a rank below everybody else?) to stay back while they went down: obvious.

"We all know how to advance through a dangerous area." Cedric replied, taking place behind her at a safe distance to provide her cover with his Repeater, "We were all trained, you know."

"Sorry, force of habit." Avel said as she scanned the stairway ahead for possible traps. Still thinking the squids had something set up for them.

Naomi raised her eyebrows in mild surprise that her plan had been so readily accepted, thankful Harm could not see her face through her helmet.

"Alright," she said. "Matteo? I guess we've just been made buddies, so let's get it."

Moving to one side of the shaft entrance, the Funky City-born Marine looked inside the elevator, taking a moment to locate the control panel before checking her weapons and taking a few deep breaths to steady herself. She closed her eyes and ran through the ad hoc planning in her head. If it worked out, they could seriously get the drop on this little band of trappers. Even if it didn't, they would still force the forces inside to divide their fire between multiple targets.

Naomi opened her eyes. She smiled.

This was going to be awesome.

In the central control room Fraunkeun was carefully watching the displays infront of him. The building lacked internal cameras, but it did have other ways of keeping track of the Nepleslians. It showed the elevator was not in use, and that the stairwell door had been opened. ~if they waiting a few moments to come up with a plan then took the stairs,~ It thought, ~Then they should be in the main cow pen about now.~

He then reached for the microphone again. One of its guilty pleasures on this planet was the Nepleslian daytime TV, especially Phalanx Phillip. The style and booming voice of the badguys there was unmatched, even amongst the NMX. ~Now…~ He thought, ~What was it that they usually say right now?~ As his tendrils started sliding over the controls, pumping life into the machines, the mic was brought up to its mouth.

---

“I hope you enjoy my… funhouse,” Boomed the NMX’s voice over speakers that were throughout the building. “You can come play with me… FOREVER.”

Red warning lights started turning on in the cage room, their spinning beams occasionally lighting up patches of floor and wall as the room came to life. One by one all of the cages started opening up, their doors sending the sound of metal against metal reverberating through the room. Metal panels, held upright by moving sections of floor attached to the metal bars that made up these corridors, would start moving towards the entrance of the staircase from either side, stopping just short. Each would leave about an inch of clearance between the walls of their hallways, leaving only the hallway directly forward unobstructed.

Harm and Wazu were both a few steps behind Avel, HPARs at the ready. Both were thinking the exact same thing. ~Did the NMX just quote Phalanx Phillip?~

"Ha-ha. Very funny Naomi; there's not much to get to other than wait to push a button." Matteo quipped at the other marine. The Hostile he was in strode over to the elevator and stood off to the side of the doors; he sent a small timer over to a corner of Naomi's HUD, counting down the minus 20 or so seconds left before they sent the elevator down.

"At the very least, we get to make some big noise after this to compensate." he smiled, even knowing she couldn't see.

“I hope you enjoy my… funhouse. You can come play with me… FOREVER,” boomed a voice.

"What the hell?" thought Phaedra.

Seeing that Matteo and Naomi were in position by the elevator shaft, Phaedra advanced toward Harm's location by the stairwell. She positioned herself in the stack and prepared for entry into the stairwell.

Cedric made no comment about Avel's "force of habit" as Harm and Wes came in to the stack behind him. Instead, he simply focused on watching his sector as they advanced in to the cages. Once they had, he still remained silent, and watched as their path through was determined for them by their ill-intentioned host. However, one thing did cause Cedric to quirk a brow beneath his helmet as he observed their suddenly changed surroundings.

"Did he just rip off Phalanx Phillip?" The demolitionist sounded almost incredulous, "I'm going to rip him a new one if I get to him first."

When the cages started moving Avel Whipped up her HPAR and looked for a target. Not seeing anything she lowered it and started walking down the hallway. Half expecting something to happen

She decided to send the spare probe ahead again. Someone had to be comming for them.

Naomi's brilliant purple eyes stared in attentive silence at the numerals running down on her HUD as she awaited the right moment. As the one made its debut and then was replaced by a big, fat zero, she looked at Matteo and smiled, though she knew he would not see it.

"Let's get it."

Reaching inside the elevator, she managed to ham-hand the big switch inside. She heard the engines start whirring, and the car's downard trip began. As she listened for it to stop, she checked her kit one last time.

'Repeater? Check. Shoulder-mounted las-cannons? Check. SMG? It's lookin' good. Vibrosaw Knife? Hell yeah, man.'

Done with that, she looked at Matteo.

"I'm goin' first," she said. "Gimme' a few seconds to get clear, and then head down behind me. Don't worry, I'll leave plenty of 'em for you, too."

Lifting up the AMR-01a Repeater, the Marine aimed loosely at the car's metal roofing down below, pulled the trigger, and held it down for three long seconds, spewing a grand total of roughly 225 rounds through the metal surface.

"This is what they pay us for!" she shouted as she stopped firing, took maybe a second to steady herself, and jumped in to the shaft, howling bloody massacre as she went down.

Hitting the boosters as she neared the end of the drop to avoid going right through the floor, she came down facing the exit, and opened fire immediately with the Repeater, and with the twin PCT-01b turrets that held position on the suit's shoulders. She didn't even try to achieve an ideal lock with the weapons, just opened up and hosed anything which had been unlucky enough to be in front of the doors.

"Matteo!" she called to the other Marine. "Get down here!"

Moving forward to open up a space for her partner, Naomi stopped the intense hail of fire, and took a look around at her surroundings...

Matteo was not far behind Naomi, but unlike the other marine, he held his fire. In all honesty? He felt both irked and tickled at the same time; she sent the elevator down as a distraction as ordered, but then piled right down the shaft after it! The Hostile landed behind Naomi, HPAR raised and ready to fire, but, chances were, he didn't think much was going to greet them quite yet.

"Weren't we supposed to send this thing down as a distraction, so we could, I dunno, break in somewhere else without being bugged?" he asked Naomi teasingly.

It was only after everyone else had landed that he got up from his unconventional landing. He had just lowered his weapon when a voice popped on the PA speakers

Welcome to your doom…

This instantly brought his weapon back up until he was sure no enemies were around. With a sigh he lowered it once more, only half listening to the plans as he scanned the area for hostiles.

After the plan had been decided, Darux followed the rest of the group, making sure to stay behind them with his plasma chaingun turret ready to fire at a moments notice.

I hope you enjoy my… funhouse, you can come play with me… FOREVER

The booming voice once again made Darux bring up the grenade launcher but saw nothing after the cages were moved. "That was... an odd thing to say," He said refering to what the NMX had said.

The elevator had been partially blocked with tables and a refrigerator which were cut to ribbons by Naomi’s weapons fire along with a single unfortunate ID-Sol who was trying to blockade that path of entry. The other ID-Sols, quickly dived behind anything they could use as cover. Some hid behind ID-Cow corpses on the ground, others hid behind conveyer belts carrying big lumps of meat, others went to hide behind barrels that were being packed with a special mixture of ID-Cow blood and high explosive. These barrels, corpses, and conveyer belts were all arranged around a single, massive, machine in the center of the room. The sound of metal crashing against metal coming from that machine was deafening, drowning out the sound of Conveyers taking lumps of bone, meat, and blood away from the machine as they were separated away from something that had fallen into it through the massive feed chute on top.

In a few moments Naomi would be greeted with a hail of SMG fire coming from five of the six ID-Sols in the room while the last one kicked over a barrel, sending it rolling right towards the entrance of the elevator. A seventh ID-Sol was already leaving the room, shutting a door behind him as a hail of gunfire tore into the walls.

---

A few levels above Naomi and Matteo,

Avel’s probe would find a large drop at the end of the hallway. A powerful mechanical separator was at the bottom of this shaft, grinding and tearing away at anything that fell in. As the probe began to look around it was abruptly hit from the side and smashed into the bars of one of the open cages. Now, directly ahead of Avel, was a ID-Cow that was large even by ID-Cow standards. The beast looked like it weighed upwards of ten tons and was made entirely of muscle and boney hors coming off of its tiny head. The entire front of the creature was covered in armored plating, including two razor sharp points attached to the ends of its horns. It would slowly turn in place, having a hard time turning given its size, and stop once it had faced Avel. With a grunt it would charge down the hallway.

With Avel blocking her line of sight forward, Harm decided to try and move into one of the side halls that were blocked off by the mobile wall sections. She’d give the base of the section blocking her passage on the left a burst from her HPAR and then a solid kick, causing it to bend backwards. She would then grab Wazu’s arm and shove him into the side hallway.

The marines still in the stairwell only had two directions to go now, either back up to the roof or out of the bottom of the stairwell and into the hallway with Avel and the ID-Cow. Though there were side hallways that led away from the path of the charging creature, they were all being blocked off by small wall sections on a moving conveyer attached to the bars that made up the floor of this area.

When the giant ID-cowcharged down the hallway, Avel briefly had the urge to step back and run through the hole Harm had created. But the feeling instantly vanished as she thought up a way to bring the thing down. She then took note of it's small head and instantly had a plan.

Targeting the ID-cow's head, Avel launched a few BOLT missiles at it to take care of the armor plating. She would then open fire on it's exposed head with her HPAR and hopefully take it down. With an emphasis on the word 'hopefully'.

She wasn't sure if using her push pull system would sop it though and decided to follow after Harm if death didn't stop it's momentum.

Phaedra had to admit that an armor-plated ten-ton Bull ID-Cow was the last thing she expected to encounter upon exiting the stairway.

"C...Contact," she said into the Comm. She saw Harm yank Wazu into one of the small side halls and Avel open fire on the charging hulk.

Exhaling a breath to steady herself, she quickly found what appeared to be the only unarmored part of the thing's front; the eye-slots for its armored head. Phaedra set her target reticle on one of the eye-slots and fired several beams from her LBR. She kept her shots on the ID-Cow's head whenever possible, hoping to kill it before it could reach the stairwell.

"Contact, our twelve!" Cedric bellowed.

True, he hadn't expected to face off against a cow, but he was a trained Marine: he was going to fight it. After Avel had opened fire on the thing, Cedric acquired a line of sight on the first unarmored part of the cow he saw. His Mass Repeater opened fire with it's 72 rounds per second. It was joined by his shoulder-mounted PCTs and their 300 rounds per minute. After a brief spurt of fire from these three weapons, he grabbed one of his plasma grenades (at a 4-second timer) to land ahead of where the thing was now.

"Ooh, I'm going to kill this hamburger till he dies from it!" Cedric yelled.

He began back-pedaling towards the entrance Harm had made.

Naomi grinned as she surveyed the results of her work, watching as an ID-sol leapt behind a conveyor belt. More seemed to be seeking safety behind barrels, and others, behind shredded ID-cows.

"Weren't we supposed to send this thing down as a distraction, so we could, I dunno, break in somewhere else without being bugged?"

Naomi did not turn to face Matteo as he spoke.

"If that's what you heard, then maybe you should have led the way, Matteo," she replied calmly.

Her next sentence was delayed as the enemy began firing on the two Marines. Naomi paused a moment as she picked her targets.

"You think we're gonna' bore 'em to death using some calming lounge music?" she demanded coolly. "Let's move!"

Raising the Repeater, she decided on the barrels at least one ID-sol had been using to hide behind. Whatever was in there it probably was not going to stop her bullets. She fired a burst, then turned the heavy killing weapon to the nearest ID-sol apart from that one and fired again in a split second.

Even as she fired, Naomi's eyes scanned the grounds to find something usable as cover. Aggressors and Hostiles were both tough suits, but an ID-Sol with an SMG could still get in a good shot here and there.

Even a good shot here and there wouldn't hurt a Hostile or an Aggressor. Or, at least not with SMG's; the suit's shields and then ultra hardened armor plates took care of all of that. Matteo let Naomi have her fun, and scanned the room, raising the HPAR at the only fleeing ID-SOL. Too late, too bad. 'He's probably bringing the buckets of fun our way. Hurrah.' the ex-hitman thought to himself in a bored tone. He rolled his eyes with a smirk as Naomi replied to him before shifting them to a glint of red which rolled his way, the barrel full of high explosives nearing. Matteo smiled.

"Return to sender!" The Push Pull Plate on his shoulder pulsed, hurtling the barrel right back at the ID-SOL who kicked it at him; the HPAR barked as molten metal tore at the mid-air explosive before being swept across the others.

"C...Contact

Darux looked toward where everyone was firing and froze, though only for an instant. He grinned at how much firepower was put into stopping that thing and decided not to fire at it, rather he placed the grenade launcher down and unstrapped the repulsion rod warhammer from his leg. "Just in case it gets in close," Darux said over the Comm with a grin