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RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 6] The Cow Level

When the grate had passed, Avel deactivated her push pull system and landed on the floor next to Cedric. "Hey are you ok?" She asked the marine. "Why didn't you just jump out of the way like I did?"

Avel would then help Cedric to his feet before returning to the bars she was cutting. The second there was enough room she would send her drone in through the hole and down the tunnel. The more she knew about the enemy was up to the better.
 
The first bar would come loose after a short bit of prying with the vibroknife, creating a space large enough for Avel’s probe to side through. The floating camera would then shoot off along the ground, heading straight for the monorail track and following it down the tunnel, relaying its images back to the group.

Shortly afterwards several more bars would be removed, creating a gap big enough for a power armor to slide through and reach the bottom floor where Matteo, Naomi, and the monorail tracks were.

“Alright, everyone through.” Harm said, sliding down the hallway towards the opening Avel had made. “We’ve got a train to catch.”

“This building is not going to be standing much longer.” Wazu added. “And I do not want to let the chemicals in the air leak out. Once I take the prisoner out of the building I will have Drei sterilize the area from orbit. I will catch up with you guys when the train comes above ground and I will bring a hazmat ship.”

“Right, splosions… Someone should collapse the train tunnel once we’re through.” Harm added. “I’m not too interested in getting caught up in ‘sterilization’.”

---

Meanwhile in the train tunnel,

The NMX ID-Sol on the rear car of the train was lining up barrels of explosive along the rear of the flatbed car. With the large load the train was only able to move through the tunnel at near 70 MPH, allowing Avel’s probe to quickly catch up and start relaying images back to the squad.

“Ah hell…” The ID-Sol said, taking aim with his machine pistol and unleashing a barrage of bullets towards the drone.
 
"Call it a lack of thought." Cedric replied with an irritated grunt, "I just reacted on instinct, in case you didn't move in time."

He watched as Avel continued to cut away. Once she was done, he moved aside just in time to let Harm through. Then he went down after her. Once he hit the ground, he didn't even acknowledge Matteo or Naomi. Instead he just started moving to the entrance of the train tunnel: his personal mission already set.

"Do you think plasma grenades could bring this tunnel down?" He asked, "How sturdy is this tunnel?"

Cedric was too impatient to wait on his fellow Marines to answer.

"Drei: would I be able to collapse the mouth of this tunnel with my current equipment?" He asked.
 
The smaller Hostile tried to muscle aside the Aggressor, a little impatient at Naomi's lack of progress on turning off the grinding machine. "Please cease grinding operations and shut down in preparation for maintenance." he asked the machine politely. Of course, by 'maintenence' Matteo meant 'orbital bombardment'. He sent a message over radio to Naomi so that the grinder's simple AI wouldn't hear; it was for the best that it didn't know it's existence was coming to an end anyways. It just seemed like a common courtesy.

"If it doesn't stop grinding, can we just start shooting it up already? You're standing around like a statue."
 
Avel saw the recording of the ID-Sol lining up barrels before the screen changed into static. It looked like they weren't the only ones interested in making more explosions. "Damnit! They're going to collapse the tunnel for us!" She said over the radio and followed after Harm through the hole.

Hopefully she would catch up with them before they were finished setting everything up.
 
@ Matteo

“Sure thing! I will shut down right away.” The smiley face said, “Please stand by!” The entire grinder shuddered, sending out a deep groan of metal skidding against metal as the mechanical parts inside of it were slowed to a stop. Its teeth pulled apart and locked into place against the sides, opening up a small passageway between the still burning plasma from the grenade and the exit conveyers that led out into the bottom floor where Matteo and Naomi were.


---

@Cedric

“I’d think that incendiaries wouldn’t be too good at demolitions.” Harm said, her voice slowly trailing off as Drei reduced the volume on her transmission in order to make her own.

“Plasma grenades lack the concussive force necessary to bring down the tunnel by themselves. However, grouping your grenades inside of the tunnel should create enough heat to weaken the tunnel enough for its weight to collapse it. You will need to expose the structural supports and weaken the tunnel a bit first, I suggest HPAR fire to remove some of the concrete first.

---

Harm and Wazu dropped down onto the lower floor, deciding to take the opening Avel opened up instead of crawling through the grinder. While Wazu picked up the prisoner Harm headed toward the tunnel opening. “I take it you’re going to catch up with us once you’re done here Cedric?” Harm asked as she talked to the rest of the group, “Everyone else, Catch that train!”

Harm went to the monorail track and hunkered down on the rail, leaning forward and lighting up her Hostile’s thrusters, rocketing the armor forward after the train.

The train itself wasn’t that far ahead of the power armors, and the fast moving armors could easily catch up with the electric train.

---

“Took you long enough!” One of the NMX soldiers snapped as his accomplice finally came back, carrying a black bag and a rifle that was at least twice as big as he was. The soldier would then turn back towards the drone following them and fire off another burst from his machine pistol, sending the recon drone trailing them down onto the rails.

“Now… lets get that gun set up,”

“Fuck you,” the other soldier said, tossing over the bag, “I get the rifle, you get the ‘nades.” The soldier then set up the rifle’s bipod on the line of explosive barrels that were on the rear of the train as the other soldier opened the bag and got a ready to toss his explosives.
 
"Alright: I'll bring this thing down. The rest of you get going." Cedric called over his shoulder.

Looking at his Mass Repeater, Cedric frowned. He didn't know if it would be a good substitute for HPAR fire. He didn't want to waste ammo if he didn't have to, but it didn't seem like he had much of a choice. Waiting for his fellow Marines to pass him, Cedric took aim, and opened fire at the wall in hopes of exposing some of those supports.
 
It appeared Avel was one step ahead of Harm because she had already activated her thrusters and chased after the train when the order was given. The NMX troops were lining up explosive barrels. Her best bet to avoid accidentally blowing everything up was to use her Pulse Laser Array on the enemy troops. They didn't have any protection so a precise shot to their collective faces would do them in.

Looking at her HUD Avel saw that Harm was right behind her. Good, if she couldn't get a shot off then the neko could use her as a valuable distraction.
 
@ Cedric

The Mass repeater would blow out chunks of concrete from the wall, choking the air with dust and rock fragments until exposed sections of rebar and shiny metal arches became exposed near the entrance of the tunnel, supporting the weight of everything above. The Mass Repeater rounds were strong enough to crater these supports too, deforming them every time a round impacted.

Drei would highlight the main support on Cedric’s HUD, “I recommend packing the grenades in some of the rubble.” She said, paraphrasing Nepleslian demolitions training.

---
@ C-Man

“Hey, I hear rockets.” One of the soldiers said from the back of the train as it followed a lazy left turn in the tracks.

“P-As” The one with the rifle said, “Start throwing the grenades!” That particular soldier wasn’t willing to give up his oversized rifle to help out, leaving the other to grumble under his breath as he set a long timer on one of the grenades and then threw it behind the train. He would then set a shorter timer on the next one and toss it, followed by another, then another…

Harm and Avel would zoom past the first grenade, and a second later it would explode behind them harmlessly as more and more grenades started to show up on the tracks as the pair closed in on the rear car of the train. The anti-tank rifle equipped soldier was still taking aim and the moment he saw the glow of the thrusters appear against the walls of the tunnel he started firing, large bolts of metal flying towards the power armors and blowing holes in the sides of the tunnel.
 
"Thank you, Drei." Cedric smiled, "I don't know what we little grunts would do without the techies who programmed you."

He set to work rigging his plasma grenades to remote detonation.

"God bless their pointy little heads." He mumbled.

Cedric piled up debris at the base of the exposed supports. He would place plasma grenades in the debris piles, rigged to a remote detonator. While he hadn't used explosives in this particular fashion in the civilian construction field, the military had taught him well, and so he knew exactly what to do. While he worked, he made sure to stay out of the path of his fellow Marines, and let them go after the train.

Hopefully he wouldn't be too far behind.

"Drei, how fast is the train going?" Cedric asked, finishing up setting the grenades, and watching his fellow Marines pass him, "Also: how long until you...uh, "cleanse" the place?"
 
Avel took care not come into contact with any of the thrown grenades as she headed down the tunnel. Then she and Harm reached the rear car train where an NMX soldier opened fire with an anti-tank rifle.

Making a slight turn to the left, Avel slid up the rounded wall of the tunnel in a spiral pattern to hopefully avoid most of the gunfire. She would then slide over the ceiling and reach the rear car while on the left wall, then jump onto the train car and use her push pull system to throw the attackers off.
 
Phaedra was the last to slide down the concrete embankment and through the hole to the lower area.

"Everyone else, after that train!" shouted Harm.

Phaedra unfolded the wings to her NIGHT and activated her thrusters, taking off after the train behind Harm and Avel.

The NMX ID-Sols fired back with a booming heavy weapon, the high-caliber rounds wizzing past Phaedra at high speed.

"Harm, Avel, do not move to your 3 o'clock. Repeat, do not move to your 3 o'clock!" said Phaedra over the comm.

Phaedra jinked to the outside right of Harm and Avel, aimed, and fired a rapid burst of five shots from her LBR at the ID-Sol's apparent location. She then quickly jinked back into formation behind her comrades.
 
'That was easy enough.' Matteo thought.

"Harm, this is Witt; the grinder is shut down. We'll proceed to rendezvous with you and catch up to the train if there's nothing else needed wrapping up on this end." the now bored Marine spoke over the radio, careful not to let it show. Truth be told, as exciting as things were a moment ago, it all cooled down rather quickly. There was a promise of it picking up again, but, how hard was it going to be to catch up to a train and kill one NMX shocktrooper?

The thought of that one Mishhu irritated Matteo to no end. He wished to be the one to stomp it into the ground and make it very personal, even though he knew that was unlikely to happen.
 
Naomi wa sstarting to feel a bit sick in the stomach, but at least the blasted machine was dealt with and the rest of the guys were secure.

Harm wanted to go chasing a train, it seemed, and was ordering every Marine down the blasted tunnel, except Cedric who was apparently the man in charge of blowing things up today.

Fine.

"Here," she said, removing two of her own plasma grenades and tossing both his way. "Take these."

Making sure everything was in order, she dashed off with the others to run down the enemy.
 
@Cedric

“The NSS Asp is in Geosynchronous orbit, I can execute an orbital strike on the beef farm at any moment. Of course I will wait until you and the others are clear before destroying the facility. Wazu wants the tunnel closed before the strike, so it will not be triggered until you’ve closed the tunnel entrance.

The train is currently at 87MPH and accelerating. Your power armor as a much higher top speed and should be able to catch up with it fairly quickly.” Drei said over Cedric’s private channel. Coming from further down the tunnel was the soft glow of power armor rockets and the loud crack of explosives and weapons fire.

---

@C-Man and cyborgakadjmoose

As Avel flew up near the wall, the ID-Sol armed with the anti-tank rifle took aim. He unleashed repeated blasts from his rifle, heavy explosive rounds tearing into Avel’s shields and the sides of the tunnel, showering him with fragments of concrete that were being blown off by the impacts as grenades and incendiaries were exploding all along the length of the track as they were thrown from the back of the train.

Then came Phaedra’s burst,

One of the anti-matter beams struck one of the barrels the ID-Sols were using for cover, knocking it back towards the ID-Sols and detonating the dispersant charge contained inside. The explosion liquefied the two soldiers and then set off the other barrels on the flatbed, sending a pressure wave through the tunnel that cracked the concrete walls. As chunks of rock started to fall from the ceiling the flatbed cars ended up breaking off from the monorail, twisted bits of metal debris, flaming shards of wood, and the thick magnetic rails that held up the flatbed car were all now coming at the marines behind the train.

Avel would catch the worst of this blast, though it wasn’t as bad as the one that split the beef farm building earlier, it was enough to overpower his shields and slam the armor into the concrete tunnel walls.

“Warning,” Drei said over Avel’s private channel, “Energy shield emitters have been depleted and need to be replaced. Fractures have formed on the exterior armor and primary sensors have been damaged.” The mooneye sensor on the headpiece of his armor had fractured, but was still functional, with a little special effects wizardry the computer was able to stitch around the visual distortions, giving Avel only the occasional blurry vision.

The blast wave would reach Harm only a fraction of a second after it hit Avel, her shields absorbing most of the blast and ended up virtually depleted. The blast also knocked her armor down against the monorail track, slowing her down slightly as she tried to get back on her feet to use her thrusters.

Phaedra was hit next. The blast would knock her around inside of her armor, draining a considerable amount of her shields and tossing her back as the train continued onwards. “Warning,” Drei said over Phaedra’s private channel, “Your shields are severely depleted. I strongly suggest having them replaced as soon as possible and avoid further weapons fire.”

---

“INCOMPOTENTS!” The NMX shock trooper yelled out, causing the ID-Sol clones in the room to flinch, “GET BACK THERE AND STOP THEM FROM WRECKING MY TRAIN!”

“….uh, does that mean we get to use the tank?” One asked.

“YES! USE THE TANK ALREADY!”

“Sweet… I GOT DIBS!” another shouted as he ran towards the back of the train.

The soldiers would climb into their vehicle, each one taking one of the seats before looking out of one of the viewports. “Shit, I can’t see anything!” One said.

“That’s because we’re inside a shipping container, Fire the main cannon already!”

---

After the rear car exploded, the flatbed car next to it was only barely hanging on. A hexagonal cargo car was attached to that and for a few moments it remained intact as the tank inside started to power up. The tunnel was then filled with a high pitched whine as buzz saws started to cut through the rear of the cargo car, and then a large blast tore the rear off entirely exposing an old shredder tank. Its buzz saw arms were spinning out infront of the tank, which was facing towards the marines as it was pulled backwards by the monorail.

“DIE NEPPIES!” A soldier yelled as he opened up the top hatch on the tank, taking hold of the gattling gun on top and spraying the tunnel area with weapons fire.
 
Cedric gave Naomi a nod of thanks as she handed him the grenades. He had more than enough, but that would save him having to use all of his. Cedric made sure that every exposed support had at least one plasma grenade at it's base. The rubble would act as a sort of shrapnel for the explosion of the grenade. That would surely cut through the metal, robbing the tunnel's entrance of it's structural integrity, and bringing it down to the ground.

That way the tunnel wouldn't be "cleansed" as well.

"This is Cedric. The charges are set at the tunnel mouth. Anybody who isn't out of the facility now is going to have to find another way out!" Cedric shouted out over the radio, "Here comes the boom, people!"

Cedric started off down the tunnel as fast as he could. Having set the grenades to remote detonation, Cedric signaled the grenades to detonate once he was safely away from the blast, and rocketing towards the train...just in time to see the tank and it's gatling gun.

"Oh, crap!" Cedric yelled, moving up the wall to avoid gunfire, and doing his best to close in on the tank.

He closed in, drawing his flamethrower in one hand as he rocketed along the roof with a zig-zag pattern to avoid gunfire. He didn't really bother to aim with the thing, except to make sure that it was pointed in the general direction of the man on the gun. Cedric squeezed down the trigger, hoping to cover the man in a cloud of fire.
 
Avel groaned after being slammed head first into the wall, sliding down and falling into a kneeling position. Her head was throbbing and she probably had a concussion. She was vaguely aware of Drei warning her about deplete shield emitters and armor damage. "Why can't they recharge line on the Air2 model?" She thought to herself.

Standing up and trying to shake her head clear, Avel assessed the situation. The tunnel was now collapsing from the explosion and was also being littered with large chunks of train wreckage. On the plus side, nobody had been killed by Phaedra’s brilliant tactical decision to open fire on the explosive barrels and her modified HPAR had survived with only the optics scope being smashed.

Speaking of Phaedra...

Avel would force herself into a standing position and march over to the downed NIGHT armor. She would then attempt to haul her up to eye level and begin speaking.

"As much as I'd like to whoop your sorry ass for nearly blowing us up, we have a mission to complete. Now come on!" She would say and take off down the tunnel, carefully maneuvering past all the derbies.

"Oh and don't shoot any more barrels."
 
Harm had been slowed down by the sheer amount of junk that was falling off the tunnel and the train. She had to claw her way around bits of the last flatbed car before she could again catch up with the train, finding that the last two cars were gone, and had been replaced by a tank that was shooting up the tunnel.

“The tank lacks shields!” Harm shouted over the comm system, pausing to slow and duck behind the slow curve of the tracks to avoid explosive shells coming from the hull mounted cannons. “Push/Pull systems can be used to kill the crew inside.” She said as she tried to close the distance again.

“Harm, The T1 ‘norris’ main weapon is plasma based and…”

“BUSY DREI.” Harm shouted, swapping her lasers over to a bright strobe light mode, using them to try and blind the tank’s crew as she took aim with her EMP pistol at the main turret and let off a sustained burst.

---

Gattling gun fire sprayed against Cedric’s shields for a few moments before the soldier ducked down inside the turret of the tank, flame partially washing over the top of the turret. Much of the flame would also fly back against Cedric’s shields, the intense speed causing the flame to wash back over the armor that had fired it.

The hull mounted gun and the main turret weapon both turned to start tracking Cedric, pelting him with high explosive shells as the main cannon started to glow from the barrel as it charged up. A fraction of a second later the main cannon would try to fire, the electromagnetic field containing the plasma instantly failing due to the electrometric disruption coming from Harm’s pistol. The resulting blast would tear the turret off the tank.

Thick black smoke would start filling the tunnel, though the loss of the main turret didn’t seem to slow the tank down at all, which was still using its side and hull mounted cannons to blind fire down the tunnel towards the marines, their sight blocked off by their own smoking tank.
 
Avel boosted down the tunnel and rocketed over a barely visible piece of wreckage as she finally managed to catch up to the train. She then passed Harm who was providing a useful distraction and kept to the far side of the tunnel to avoid the weapons fire.

Although she couldn't see the tank through the thick smoke, her somewhat functional sensors provided a blurry outline of the tank. Or what was left of it.

"All it took was a shot from an EMP pistol to make the turret explode and a hit from a Push/Pull system can kill the crew inside due to the lack of shielding. Holy shit that thing has a lot of design flaws." Avel thought to herself as she ordered her suits AI to reroute as much power to the Push/Pull system as it could handle and then took the shot when she rounded the slow curve.
 
The collateral carnage sped by as Matteo's Hostile carried him closer to the monorail, the smoke of the damaged tank partly obscuring his vision. He hefted the SMG in his hands; he knew he was in no position to put up a fight, not without the now missing HPAR. Not only that, but the others weren't in a good way either. The former crime figure quickly checked over his inventory on the HUD, briefly lingering on the missiles he had with him. The confines of the tunnel made their usage dangerous, but if they were outside again...

"Ma'am, I have a loadout of antimatter missiles on my Hostile. I can use them now and risk hitting you and the others, or wait until we're out of the tunnel." he calmly spoke Harm's way. "I can also use them to destroy the tracks up ahead as soon as we get out of this kill-tube. Your call."

He wasn't comfortable on the idea of hitting friendlies, or getting shot at without a good weapon plus optics. But one thing was for certain; he did not want to be accused of doing nothing.
 
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