RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 6] The Cow Level

Phaedra saw the giant fireball she had accidentally created engulf the tunnel in front of her.

"Shit!" thought Phaedra, the concussion of the explosion sending her straight into the tunnel wall. She had only blacked out for a second, but when she came to warning alarms were telling her that her shields were virtually non-existant. Phaedra had no idea that those barrels were explosive, she had simply responded to a threat to herself and her comrades.

Heavy footfalls came closer and she suddenly found herself in the air. Avel had grabbed Phaedra's NIGHT armor by the collar and held her up at eye level.

"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!"

"Oh and don't shoot any more barrels," she said before boosting after the rest of the train.

"I have no excuse," is all Phaedra would say, half to herself. She collected her LBR and took off after Avel.

Avel could feel the hard tug coming from her push/pull system as she used it, but she wouldn’t see anything happen to the tank from the quick burst other than continued blind cannon fire down the tunnel, bits of metal and concrete flying around at high speeds.

Inside the tank was a different story.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” One of the ID-Sols yelled out as the gravity beam invisibly slid through the vehicle, passing just next to one of the crew members and grabbing a loose belt of cannon rounds. The ammunition belt flew towards the front of the vehicle, pulled by the beam, and ended up impaling the soldier in the arm, the sharp tips of the ammunition buried into his flesh. The main compartment of the tank was still on fire, but he didn’t care, “SOMEONE CLEAR UP THAT FUCKING SMOKE SO I CAN SEE WHAT I’M SHOOTING AT!” He yelled, wondering if anyone heard him as the two soldiers operating the side guns shouted back, “YOU DO IT! I’M BUSY!”

---

“SHOOT THEM! SHOOT THEM NOW!” Harm shouted out to Matteo, wanting to end this before she lost the last bit of shields protecting her armor. The buzz saw arms on the tank were making it difficult to get close enough to the vehicle to get around it or to get to a blindspot in the guns, instead harm was simply trying to stay out of the way of the cannons as they peppered the tunnel with cannon shells. She would also start raking her Push/pull device over the tank, hoping to hit and kill a gunner to shut down the vehicle’s offensive capabilities.

"Well that didn't seem to do much. Maybe if I should throw- That's it!" Avel thought to herself and spoke to Harm over the radio. She instantly wished she had brought some grenades but honestly didn't foresee a fight with any real threats. Let alone a tank inside a train tunnel.

"Hey Harm, try tossing a grenade into the open top where the turret used to be."

Harm's words were music to his ears; he believed killing was the simplest, easiest and most base thing a person could do, hands down. Anyone who said otherwise, was either a liar, or someone who had their head stuck in the clouds. So, Matteo gave killing his best shot. It was easy, wasn't it?

White streams launched from the calves of his Hostile, right at the enemy tank.

"Are you crazy?!" Cedric exclaimed as he heard Matteo, "You better not miss, Matteo!"

Cedric fell back slightly, in case one of the rockets mis-fired, or richocheted off the tank. There was no way he wanted to be caught in that blast. Instead, Cedric took up the actions of Harm and Avel. He started strafing the tank with his push-pull systems. He hoped that he might catch one of the gunners and turn the man in to paste against one of the back walls of the tank.

The main, hull mounted, cannon on the tank went silent as push/pull beams hit the gunner, killing him through the thick protective covering of the vehicle. Fractions of a second later Harm and a few of the other marines would end up getting as low as possible, skimming just above the metal rail as Matteo’s missiles flew overhead. The weapons would blow off small chunks of the tank, sending the massive circular saws on front flying towards the marines. Ammunition then began to cook off as missiles struck home inside of the tank, completely choking off the tunnel with thick black smoke.

Finally the tunnel came to an end and the smoke dissipated as the wind started to blow it away. The monorail then released its last few cars, the cargo containers slowing down on the tracks as the armored front car started to move away.

---

“Draw them in,” The shocktrooper inside of the train said, “While I make my escape.” The ID-Sols did so obediently, moving to man the guns on the front car while the Shock trooper planned to sneak out when he got an opportunity, still carrying several barrels full of biological agents and explosives.

The front car had a single large turret on top, equipped with a pair of cannons and a co-axel machine gun while the sides were lined with small slits to fire weapons through. The front was equipped with a large ramming device, a blade of armor designed to knock barricades aside and the rear was equipped with crane arm equipped with a cannon, machinegun, and a giant claw…

… and on the side, in big, brightly colored letters, was ‘EAT AT NEPPIES!”

---

As the tank came apart Harm flew up to the top of the tunnel, trying to avoid the wreckage coming at her, flying mostly blind through the smoke until she came out of the tunnel and saw the armored front car climbing up the monorail track that was raised above the various shanty houses below.

“Oh come on!” She said, thoroughly annoyed by the persistence of the NMX.

The bright light of daytime coming from outside was also supplemented by bright column of light coming down from behind the marines, consuming and setting fire to the beef farm complex that the marines had been in not to long ago. This intense light would briefly blind the weapon systems on the armored front car of the train that were pointing back towards the entrance of the tunnel.

“Can we blow this up from orbit?” Harm ended up asking, Drei’s response would them come over the group channel so the question didn’t need to be asked twice. “Attack craft are being deployed to support you but are still a few minutes out. I do not want to strike the train from orbit either, the strength of blast required to ensure that any biological contaminates onboard are destroyed would also destroy the housing structures below the monorail line.”

Cedric prayed quietly to himself as he hugged low to the ground. He quietly hoped the missiles would hit their targets, and in a few moments he realized that his prayers were answered. One of the saws came flying past Cedric, which he was easily able to avoid, and as they came out of the tunnel he was able to see the current situation. With the tank dead, that left the front car.

That meant the squid bastard was right in their grasp.

Cedric looked to the crane with it's rear-facing weapons. His Aggressor was equipped with a load-out of BOLT missiles. He grinned as he looked to the crane. That was his new target. If Cedric could take that out, it would make their approach on the train car that much easier. Locking on to his temporarily disabled target, Cedric let loose a volley of BOLT missiles from one of his two 240-missile racks.

Naomi slowed down and allowed the distance between herself and the remnants of the train cars to open up a bit as Matteo fired his missiles.

"And here I thought I was the crazy one!" she shouted. "Not only does he fire missiles in a train tunnel, he fires them while we're heading into the blast! Awesome!"

Picking up speed again, Naomi was finally adjusting to seeing the world by her maintenance drone. It was still quite annoying, but, at least she had the ability to see what she was doing while keeping her suit sealed.

"Argh! The sun burns my eyes!" she cackled humorously as she rushed in to place with her squadmates behind the last remaing portion of the largely destroyed train.

Even as she advanced to join the others, Naomi saw Cedric firing some missiles at the leading car, a heavily armored behemoth with some built in gun emplacements from what she could see.

"Drei?" she asked. "Are there any major inclines on this track coming up in the new few minutes?"

"Nothing major." Drei's voice sounded apologetic. "There are a few dips, raises and turns here and there, but nothing too massive."

"Gotcha', Drei, thanks." Naomi said, her mind working quick. Then, she raised Harm. The channel was open to the others as well, just in case.

"Harm, this car's probably not as heavily armored on top as it is on the back, front and the sides. Drei tells me there are a few level shifts just in front of us on the road. I'm fixing to use one of those to catch them blind with a strike from up top. I have enough missiles, I could probably blow them apart. Could you or one of the others keep 'em busy from behind?

Even as she addressed the mercenary, Naomi realized she didn't even know which of the main lethal missile types was packed on her missile racks.

When the tank exploded Avel went up high with Harm to avoid the flying blades and explosives. They them found themselves outside just in time to see the beef ranch be scorched by orbital fire. She was briefly blinded by the light and when her vision cleared she saw the front car up ahead. "Alright, just one left to go and we take care of the squid." She thought to herself. Her head was throbbing but she ignored it for the time being.

Avel then sent Matteo a text message. "Nice thinking Matteo. When this is over expect an invite to my quarters for the business deal of a lifetime."

After sending the message she overheard Naomi's plan over the comms. "That's just what I was thinking. I vote for Naomi's idea." Avel said as she fell back to where her Aggressor was and waited for the dip in the landscape.

She also asked Drei to keep tabs on the train up ahead. The squid was no doubt going to make a bid for freedom while it's last line of defense went up in smoke. She intended to be the one to bring it down.

The crane would turn to fire towards the missiles that were being fired at it, the machinegun and cannon fire criss-crossing the micro missiles. Some of the swarm ended up detonating prematurely while others kept going, striking the crane and sending a series of explosions up the arm. The entire apparatus seemed to lurch forward slightly, a yellow hydraulic fluid shooting out from the sides as the arm slowly toppled, falling off the side of the train and crashing into a structure below. The rear armor on the car had several holes torn into it from the missiles and these were soon filled by the soldiers inside who started using them as gun ports.

The machinegun fire and the occasional missile were fired out the back of the vehicle towards the marines, the bullets harmlessly bouncing off the power armors. The shoulder launched missiles, on the other hand, streaked upwards towards the sky for a moment before arcing back down. They homed in on the heat signature of the armors, one tracking Avel’s armor and another seeking out Cedric.

The turret on the top of the train also joined in, turning to track Cedric’s armor. The guns couldn’t lower down past the top of the train, making it hard for them to draw a bead on the armor. They had to wait until the tracks took the monorail upward slightly, allowing the guns to angle down enough to fire. The cannons would fire one at a time, giving Cedric a few moments pause between the first shot and the second.

---

Harm listened to Naomi’s idea, setting her EMP pistol to wide spread at the same time and giving the missile heading towards Cedric a burst, frying its guidance system on the way down.

“Avel and myself will draw fire.” Harm said, “Try and pop the top and tear off that turret. We can move in and clear out the front car. Drop a few grenades in the top then move in for close quarters combat.”

---

Missiles also started to fly up from the side gunports on the train, tracking an E3C that was descended to follow the train.

“Wazu here, Brought our prisoner and the NSS Sugarpea.” The transmission was disrupted briefly as the shields absorbed the hits by the missiles. “Remember, you guys are still hot, try to avoid touching civvies or getting out of your armor until we’ve had time to decontaminate.”

"Another one bites the dust!" Cedric cried out in triumph.

His feeling of joy was cut short as the small-arms fire from the occupants inside was joined by a duo of homing missiles. One came barreling down for him, but it was thankfully taken out by Harm's ever-handy EMP pistol. Moving aside, he let the now unguided missile go on it's merry way. It was going to hit the area below, but there was just some collateral that couldn't be prevented, now wasn't there?

Cedric would have helped with the one heading for Avel, but he had the minor problem of the roof-mounted cannon trying to give him a structurally superfluous new hole or six. Thankfully, there was a brief pause between each shot, and so Cedric was able to once again dip down below the roof of the train. As long as he stayed below the train, and close, then it would have a hard time shooting him, and so he would only have to contend with anti-PA missiles and small-arms fire. He could stay below the roof of the train where possible, but that meant the cannon would be free to shoot at Naomi during her manuevering in to position.

"Somebody keep those ass-hats in the train busy!" Cedric said over the whole squad's comms, "I'll keep the turret busy for Naomi!"

Cedric rose up above the roof, moving in a random pattern in order to avoid the fire, and infuriate the gunner. To further cause trouble, he sporadically strafed the roof with his Mass Repeater.

"Hurry up and blast the thing, Naomi!" Cedric yelled, frantically dodging cannon fire.

Any other soldier would have simply used their pulse array to shoot down the missile but Avel was much more 'creative' and 'resourceful' than that. She would instead wait for the missile to get closer before raising her hand and using her push/pull system to fling it towards the roof mounted cannon. "Return to sender!" She would then shout.

Avel would then use the smashed scope on her HPAR as an improvised iron sights, raising it up to eye level and start shooting at the holes with guns sticking out of them. Hopefully that would distract them long enough for Naomi to do her thing.

Matteo let himself smirk under the helmet before replying to Avel.


The ex-hitman's Hostile continued to follow in the rear of the formation, watching as his teammates were swatted at by the train. This wasn't any good; they were doing damage, yes, but there had to be an easier way of stomping the monorail out. Matteo thought back; a flicker of memory when he first ran across the squad. The Monorail, hanging from the tracks, derailed. Derailed?

"Harm, any chance we can just derail this thing and call it a day?"

It was a matter of no more than a few seconds to check the missiles in her suit's EMR, finding a full loadout of Bolts, and make certain they sat ready in her launchers. Then it was a check on the drone and weapons.

'Here we go.' Her eyes blinked against stinging hot sweat, but did not stray from the monorail otherwise. Moments later, she noticed that her target began to dip down as a depression in the tracks approached rapidly. Now was as good a time as any, really.

"Here goes!" she barked across the squad's comms. The big Aggressor's massive bulk was sent hurtling upwards at an angle.

"There you are," Naomi growled to herself, grinning as she achieved the lock on the large turret. Now, there was only the one thing...

"Firing!"

In that same moment, the Extended Missile Rack lit up and disgorged a horde of white streaks as a swarm of missiles, all aimed for the turret's uppermost armor, fired.

Avel’s missile simply exploded when she swept the push/pull beam across it, the electronics keeping the missile on track until the built up force smashed the warhead, causing it to explode. Molten hot fragments of metal would rain down on his armor, cutting deep gashes along the front. With the shields gone, some of the panels on the front of the armor were only barely hanging on.

“Warning,” Drei said, “Exterior armor is heavily damaged. Punctures have been detected, increasing internal pressure as an NBC countermeasure.”

---

Naomi’s missiles exploded along the top of the train car, ripping the turret off of the top and sending it crashing down into the houses below. A large hole had been torn into the top of the car where the turret used to be and a dense smoke was pouring out of the various fire ports on the train. The gunfire slacked off as the soldiers inside hurried to put out the fires, most quickly dieing from toxic fumes.

“The Old Man said not to let it crash down into the houses below, that means stopping it without derailing it.” Harm replied to Matteo, sounding annoyed as she followed the train. She increased her speed, coming up right behind the train and grabbing onto the rear firing port. "All that is left now is to clear out anything that is left!"

One of the explosive barrels was then tossed out from the top of the train, followed by another.

“Do you see that?” Harm said over the all hands channel.

“Yeah,” Wazu replied, “I am on it.” The NSS Sugar pea slowed down, tracking the barrels with the ship’s pressure cannons, looking to break apart the explosives before they went off.

The NMX shock trooper then floated up from the train, hiding just inside of the hole that had been blown in the top of the train, “INCOMPTENT FOOLS!” He shouted, upset that his soldiers had failed him. He would then toss one of the explosive barrels at Cedric, spraying his chin mounted cannon at the power armors following the train. "I will have to kill you myself. I'll break apart those tin cans of yours and eat your brains!"

Initially feeling a sense of success as the gun-fire faded, Cedric was caught off-guard by the sudden appearance of the Squid. The freak began throwing down barrels of explosives, only to have them be blasted safely away by the nearby ship. Unfortunately, the next target for the Squid's violent rage was Cedric. He picked up a barrel hurling it for Cedric. He knew he couldn't shoot it: the packing plant was proof of that. The push-pull system wouldn't work either. That meant he would either need to take one of the team (unneccesary, assuming nobody was behind him), or just dodge it, and hope Wazu could take it out before it hit the ground.

"Look out!" He called out for the benefit of anybody following too close behind him.

He zoomed up to avoid the incoming barrel. Once that was out of the way, he had an idea.

"Wazu: you think you could hit that guy with those pressure cannons?" He asked, trying desperately to avoid the Squid's nose-cannon.

"Oh for the love of fuck." Avel said as the superheated metal came into contact with her armor and inflicted even more damage. That was it, if her armor took any more hits she would be exposed and infected by whatever virus the squid had come up with.

"Phaedra would you kindly put a bullet in that things face so we can all go home?" She said over the comms.

Phaedra, now extremely aware of the violate nature of the barrels that the squid was throwing, bided her time and waited for an opening. She narrowly avoided being hit in the face by one of the barrels as it flew past. She glanced ahead of the train, noticing that the area above the track was relatively free of obstacles.

"Phaedra would you kindly put a bullet in that things face so we can all go home?" said Avel.

"Gladly," replied Phaedra. "Stay alert in case it decides to toss out another barrel." Phaedra exhaled a breath and zoomed in her target reticle on the squid. Despite flying at high speed behind the train, she managed to keep the squid in sight long enough to fire a single shot at its face.

The squid’s cannon missed Cedric, flying under him. For a moment Cedric was fine until the cannon fire hit its target, detonating the barrel that Cedric had just flown over. The blast wave would quickly catch up with him, knocking his power armor up into the air followed. The Mishhu then started tracking his armor with the cannon, firing off a few more shots to catch him while he was still disoriented by the blast. Drei’s familiar voice was giving him shield warnings at the same time as Wazu responded.

“Sure, I’ll have the Sugarpea move in.” He said, the ship rapidly zooming overhead and slowing down to match speed with the monorail. One of the pressure cannons would swivel towards the monorail and unleash a high speed torrent of water and foam that coated the NMX’s shields.

Phaedra’s shot then came next, the shock troopepr’s shields shining brightly for a brief moment as they strained to absorb the shot, the LBR’s explosive payload reacting with the water around the NMX to create a beautiful white and yellow steam explosion. The shock trooper then disappeared back down into the monorail.

---

He was outnumbered and outgunned at the moment, stuck in a monorail car with a handful of bio-bombs and a few barely alive ID-Sol clones. “Well… I have one last play to make.” The Shock trooper said, setting the timer on the bio-bombs.

---

“Alright, Move in,” Harm said now that the target was no longer shooting back, she quickly boosted up to the top of the monorail and then dashed along towards the hole that had been made in the top of the monorail. Right before she reached the edge of the monorail the entire vehicle would explode, a massive blast wave expanding outward and spreading a dense black smoke out, choking off that entire block of the slums with a dense, hot, cloud.

Cedric was close enough to the exploding barrel that it quickly sapped his shields. He was sent spiraling up, arching over the general area of the train. The Mishu's nose cannon tracked him. Some of the shots went wide and others glanced off the armor plate while he twirled through the air in a manner akin to a graceless ballerina. Cedric was struggling to recover, and was just about to when one of the Squid's final shots tracked almost like fate, and glanced harshly against his helmet. While it didn't seem like it had done much damage, the shock of the impact had carried through the armor, and directly to Cedric.

From outside, he seemed fine, and at first he felt nothing out of the ordinary.

Then he suddenly yelled out, almost screaching, (unintentionally) over the all hands channel as the left side of his face was overcome with a seering pain the likes of which he had never felt before. In his agony, he felt a sickly warm liquid moving along his face as he tried desperately to stay airborne and in control of his PA. He had a gross and chilling realization as he felt that same alien-feeling liquid slowly drip down to his chin.

"That's my blood . . . that's my blood!"