RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 7.1] Exercise: Loud Party

Aleksei had nodded an affirmative to the Corporal before pulling his frame into the bunker, inserting his AMP through one of the firing slits waiting for the appearance of 2nd fleet marines to make their appearance in the effective range of the multibarreled weapon. "Hope they don't take them all. I'd love to get some mines out there." mumbled the newly graduated demolitions tech from behind his helmet. He spun the barrels of the AMP up one more time before hunkering down and waiting for whatever hell the 2nd Fleet had moving in on them.

Max moved into the bunker where he took up his firing position. He had to admit that the volume of fire was rather impressive. It was something riveting about fighting amongst equals, but Max had to remind himself that they were the "enemy". Max raised his HPAR and fired for his fighting position. He could see several dots "blink out" on his HUD, presumably marines that were caught in the open. While Max knew he was a much juicier target huddled in the bunker, but at least he would be more protected from the small arms fire. Much better than the hapless souls that were being thrown against them. Max turned to his squadmate Aleksei, cracking a smile inside his helmet. "Alright mate, I'll take the 200 on the left if you take the 200 on the right" Max said semi-seriously in an attempt to coordinate their fire.

Stan bit back a curse as the 2nd Marines made their displeasure known. Even worse, it seemed that their surprise attack had minimal effect. Just my luck, he noted with annoyance. His Aggressor politely informed him that his shields had been drained; in short, things were not going well at all. "Alright, but things are gettin' pretty hairy!" he replied to his cohort. Like Wulfe, he beat a hasty retreat from the crater, the Aggressor's thrusters flaring as they powered the armour's bulk along.

Like Stones, he didn't see much sense in making himself an easy target, and so he threw the Aggressor into several hard and erratic maneuvers, letting the suit's own Noisemaker help in his efforts. Keeping an eye on Wulfe, it took him a moment to figure out what he was doing, but it suddenly clicked. Clever... I just hope it'll be enough. He knew exactly what to do, and tried to circle their adversaries from the opposite side to Wulfe. The ID-SOL decided to take a chance by firing a salvo of dummy ARROWs whilst on the move at the 2nd Marines Aggressor that had fired on them earlier. "Wulfe, we should take out the Aggressors first - they're going to keep being a pain in the neck until we take them out! I'll keep 'em distracted, maybe knock out one or two."

Unlike Wulfe, Stan decided to remain mobile, continuing to fire at his chosen target. He wasn't sure how successful he would be in his endeavours - firing on the move was rarely an exact art - but hopefully by keeping his speed up he would frustrate attempts to pin him down.

The data had now been sufficiently gathered and contact had been firmly established between the Marine Groups participating in the exercise. The red blips of possible targets discharging weapons lit up the radar. The Radar banked back towards the friendly Marine group, away from enemy fire now that the opposing force was visible. Any further data gathering could run the risk of having the drone get exploded. It flew back above the violin case Henry was kneeling over and lowered itself back inside, safe and sound for now.

With the data ready to go into the function, it was time for said function to execute. Henry stood up and started looking for somewhere that needed reinforcements. He could only see a further flood of 2nd Fleet marines heading towards his position - 4th Fleet marines were falling as they approached the lip of the crater. He had to coordinate and launch another mortar as he was closing in on the lip of the crater. The conditions were adjusted and once again deemed favourable, launched just beyond the lip of the crater to prevent 4th Fleet marines from getting roasted in the blast too.

He had his LPA and shield drones at full charge, anyone stubborn enough to survive the simulated antimatter blast was going to encounter some stiff resistance as Henry darted across the battlefield, using his mobile suite of shield drones and kiting/hit-and-run techniques he observed from Yamataian and Lorath armour doctrine in addition to independently made training scenario videos.

Stan & Wulfe

The AIR2s pulled back when they saw the two Marines leaving. With one last shot, they rose for higher altitude to find another target of opportunity.

This meant that the entire squad of 2nd Fleet Marines, minus a casualty and squad medic tending to him, were now free to turn their attention to the pair of grounded 4th Marines. Stan and Wulfe's missiles flew towards the 2nd Marines. The opponents' laser pulses started cycling, shooting out ARROW after ARROW. However, Wulfe's HE round did have the desired effect of knocking back the enemy Aggressor. However, the impact of their actions was minimal since neither Stan nor Wulfe capitalized on the unit's distraction by firing more. And now, they realized that their bait wasn't being taken. The trio of armors were stepping back to rejoin the squad, which was heading for a different sector of the battlefield.

In the distance, however, to the northwest, they saw dust clouds. Large dust clouds like those thrown up by a column of vehicles. And overhead, they saw K4 tanks in the air, Marines in armor hanging off them. A quick check to their landing schedule would reveal for them that 4th Fleet's armor was just being deployed. Warning messages appeared on their HUDs about incoming high velocity rounds.

And just then, two high explosive shells "exploded" around them as their shields went back to zero and their armors registered new hits. Neither Marine had been able to react to the sudden attack in time. The armor plating integrity for their upper bodies was now dropping to 65%. The two shells had not come from the retreating 2nd Marines on foot. Neither of them had even heard the report of heavy caliber firing, which was the only thing it could have been given the sudden attack, was the only thing it could have been. None of the 2nd Marine K4s were even paying them any attention.

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"Stones, we have reports of dust clouds. Can you confirm?" Chief Santiago asked as he joined the FMF reserve of Sergeant Hardman and his squad.

Drop triages had arrived and set up shop. Shuttles carrying K4s had dumped their grav-tanks into the air and kicked for orbit to prevent premature "deaths." The Super Sprites redlined their turbines to offset the inertia from their hasty dumping and began a controlled dive to strafe the besieging infantry.

Phaedra watched as the grenade "exploded" with a pop! and her targets continued their advance, though their shields were reduced. They hadn't seen Phaedra shoot at them and were firing at another group of 4th Marines.

To her right, Sergeant Rochester's squad was down by three Marines. "Sniper! Where's that sniper!" one of them, P1C Black by his tag, shouted.

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Max and Aleksei rocked in the bunker as it absorbed the shockwaves from live munitions fired deliberately to miss but still impart the realism that things explode violently in a pitched battle. For maximum coverage, Max watched right and Aleksei watched left. Across their entire frontage, they saw a platoon of forty to fifty Marines advancing, stopping to fire, then advancing again. Except for the Aggressors which held back to provide continuous fire support. Raiders led the way, firing their 30mm rifles or chainguns. Behind them, Hostiles firing with HPARs and ARROWs.

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No one saw what happened with Henry's round but it was shot out of the air by a pulse laser that was able to track it.

A dozen 2nd Marines turned to focus on Henry, stopping to aim and fire at the high speed target that Henry Morris presented. Their rounds were ineffective against his deft shield drones usage and his armor's own shielding. But it did draw some fire from the main area long enough for one Marine to get, fire and take out one's shielding. At that point, Laura fired a second mortar round that landed and "killed" that Marine.

Bernhard moved from his original position to cover Henry with his HPAR. As he stuck his head up, a 40mm round smashed into the dirt, causing him to fall back. "Shields out, optics fuzzy. Sniper out there, Corporal," Bernhard said as Laura moved to check on him. He waved her away as he got back to his feet. "Epic Sequence, where are you?"

The Marines left shooting at Henry stopped and spread out more to continue their advance on the LZ. In their place, Marine armors that registered damage were appearing several hundred meters away. Part of their group were still firing at something farther out.

Letting his AMP spin up, spitting dummy rounds at the approaching 2nd Marines in controlled bursts the young marine housed within the Aggressor frame gave a chuckle. "You got it, brother." replied Aleksei in Max's general direction while he let another burst loose in the direction of the approaching enemy combatants. Feeling the bunker shake from the live ordinance kept the marines mind in the game as he dropped to a knee, keeping his monoeye suite zeroed on the 2nd Marines allowing his shoulder mounted chainguns to pick up the slack in fire. Raising his frame back up, he opened with the AMP again, focusing his fire on the 2nd Fleet Aggressor frames hoping to take them out of commission.

Eric's small group of engineers were having a rough time trying to build any bunkers. The fire rained onto them as the approaching army halted their progress. He went prone and rolled onto his back in a small mound of dirt as his partially completed bunker slumped to the side.

His radio caught his attention, "Epic Sequence, where are you?"

"Spence here, I'm several hundred feet down the line, trying to get these damned bunkers up." A small squad of troops moved into the ruins of the bunker and the surrounding area, quickly drawing the fire from his position. "The engineers I was with were tagged, unable to complete the construction. I'm on my way back to your position." He leaned out and fired some rounds downrange into the enemy, and quickly jettisoned himself off the mound. He was crouch running between his erected bunkers using them as a leapfrog attempt to get linked up with his unit.

"Son of a bitch!" Wulfe exclaimed once he was shot by the training round and his armor had taken the make-believe damage, although the tension was just as palpable as in a real mission, which only made him think that this was the point of the military exercises. Not wanting to muse on the nature of these exercises anymore, the marine decided that he had more than overstayed his welcome on that area, and whatever had hit them would certainly hit again if they didn't get out, "Alright, guess it's time hightail." He said to Brandt, hefting his Kegbusted and prepared to get out.

"I can confirm those dust clouds, chief, most likely vehicles." Wulfe said as he boosted out and away from yet another reason to not hang around the same place for a while, maybe it was just time to get back to the main group and actually help in the defense since their attempt to lure the enemy squad out had completely failed. "Think it's time to get back with the main group? Looks like armor's about to roll in." the marine said, the single monoeye on the Hostile's helmet turning towards Brandt's Agressor as he spoke, "I don't think we'll be that much use out here once the big stuff starts rolling in." He added.

Stan had to resist a powerful urge to reel off every curse he knew as the 2nd Marines emphatically failed to take the bait and decided to find richer pickings elsewhere. This mission really wasn't going well. His eyes kept flicking to the update on his armour's status, half-expecting it to plummet like a rock. In the distance came the tell-tale dust plumes that heralded the arrival of K4s. Abruptly, incoming fire began to pelt them, the Aggressor taking a not insignificant amount of 'damage'.

"Yeah, let's not stick around." Even as he turned to join Alexei, the ID-SOL took a brief moment to try to have his armour's internal AI ascertain just what sort of rounds they were up against. Perhaps he could figure out from there what had them in their sights. Simultaneously he tried to open communications with Santiago. "Sir, this is Brandt. Be advised that we've just been fired upon by an unknown threat - I'm currently trying to have my AI deduce what might have hit us. I'll keep you updated." With that done, he triggered the Aggressor's thrusters and followed Alexei. "That might be a good idea. As much as I hate to admit it, we haven't really achieved much by ourselves... and I doubt that's gonna get any better with our current track record."

Stan fell silent, lost in his own thoughts and waiting for the results of the Aggressor AI's analysis.

Henry realised that as they were spreading out, it'd mitigate the effectiveness of explosive or mortar attacks - they were now able to watch the skies and react accordingly by shooting down the ordnance with point defence or scattering further. He figured that pulling back was the best move.

"Change of plans. Direct fire..." he pondered aloud as he took advantage of Bernhard's covering fire and withdrew, spraying bursts of PLA fire at the 2nd Marines. "They're charging us and forcing us to turtle by sending snipers at us so they can flank and wipe," was his first thoughts on the enemy tactics. Just gut feelings honed by combat experience and mistakes. "Or - wait." He paused as he saw the extended radar feed him more data.

He saw the marines that were receiving damage several hundred metres from the Landing Zone. Something else was hitting them too. What was it? "Something's got the 2nd tied up further back. I'll send my drone out to identify it." He'd retreated back to the Drone's violin case and opened it up. He gave it some quick directives to dogleg around the incoming 2nd Marines and see what was damaging them from behind. He wanted to keep the thing close to the ground like before, following the contours of the hills as cover from the 2nd Marines and from other antagonists. "I'm thinking: if it proves beneficial we could move up and direct them towards whatever's hitting them, turn it into a three way and wipe them in the confusion."