[NSMC 309th] Mission 1: Finding Hope

Fort Puckett

Fang-Yin was already ducking down, despite now seeming immune to the shock of gunfire. They were fixing the dead soldier's body into a more respectable position, as a matter of fact, closing their eyes and drawing their hands across their now-still chest.

"...Indeed." A short prayer followed, under her breath. "... Exactly how we can stay in radio contact with the mortars, through... I don't think we have time to sort that out, do we?..."

The woman knew explosives, and running into their own shells didn't sound too smart...

Brisk moves. She jogged back up the parapet, to what she presumed was the artillery officer, or at least the survivor who seemed to be acting the most like one, and tapped on his shoulder.

"Honoured sir. Might you have a radio frequency, so that we can give you firing data?" A hand was directly to one side of her head, suggesting that she was intending on plonking her Golem's helmet right on the guy, if the answer was a negative. "We need to advance, before the tank shock wears off."

Fort Puckett

As Fang took initiative to approach the mask-wearing bomb coordinator, the male turned and met her view just long enough to hear her out. Only then would he turn back and bark out a quick 'resume firing' command. As the mortar was loaded up and the clink of another sniper round tore through metal framing not far from Fergus, the male finally looked toward the amazon woman and looked up slightly to speak as loud as he could over the following thunk of the mortar.

"We do! Lock in on channel three, frequency one-zero-seven!"

His attention turned back to the command of the small mortar position, elements of the rest of the platoon visible from within the walls as the support staff began to deploy their FOB within the fortress. The camo netting, deployed deskwork, and gravity dampener panels were laid out. The last of which would likely be where the Maximus waited between missions or during repairs, the second was already being filled with modules and surfaces to ensure the support elements of the platoon could better work and organize, and the last was being thrown over supplies. The Hray module was practically going to be ignored, as the inside of it was prepared to be much like a barracks as they'd all seen prior to the deployment. It wasn't pretty, but nothing in Nepleslia ever was. And among these deploying support staff was one of the newest members of the 309th who had lagged a bit behind in getting prepared! Private Nasif was wrapped up in that Golem Assault Armor at long last, ready to go and join the infantry at the walls!

Outside the Fort

"This is Juno, to the NSN Call-Fry. Requesting the Captain to circle back and prepare a plasma barrage. Bombardment area is direct west of us, along the enemy formation's back line."

The buzz and chatter of official jargon would fill the ears of the tank squad as Juno set to calling in their support, but both would be rewarded. Suddenly halting as they did scored another hiss and fizzle as an infantry recoil-less rifle launched and smashed into the shields. The smoke poured out but the thermal vision suite was enough to provide both Ella and their gunner with eyes through the blinding battle-fog. The yells of the pirate scum could be heard, the landed-rabble rushing up and out of their trenches in a near one-hundred and eighty degree front from their west. A cluster of eight rushed from the west-northwest, five from the west, and another ten from west-southwest. There was no sighting of the sniper's nest yet, each time he shot giving a cloud but no heat. The enemy sniper was either somehow not giving off thermal recognition... or more accurately was wearing some high-speed suit or powerarmor with stealth technology.

These besieging criminals weren't all that poorly armed after all.

Jaron's hands ran over his chest, checking the equipment on the Golem Assault Armor one more time. He hated these exoskeletons and power armors. As a sniper, he had trained to be as light and nimble as he could be (Although carrying considerable amounts of equipment in his own right) having to infiltrate enemy lines by crawling for days at a time, shielded from discovery only by a haphazardly made ghillie suit. But his first assignment after finishing basic training and Sniper Qual Course required a Golem rather than the flimsy natural fiber fabric of the ghillie suit. The sound of the violent thunderstorm of gunfire reminded him of why he was wearing it. This was not an infiltration mission; it was a warzone.

His marksman M3 across his chest, Jaron began to run up towards the walls. A soldier fell down from the wall, hit by a bullet, and as his closest brother in arms shouted, others returned fire - though at what they were firing, none of them seemed sure. The young recruit climbed the parapet like a monkey, donning his helmet and attaching it to the Golem just as he got up, immediately lying down in a prone position by a hole in the wall, and pushing the barrel of his unusually long M3 out through it. He took a deep breath, and then aligned the scope of the weapon with his eye, finger resting on the trigger guard.

Another soldier was hit by the sniper. Jaron gritted his teeth, and let his scope wander the area surrounding the fort, searching for the dug in sniper.
"Can somebody find that fucking sniper?" A voice cut through on the radio system, increasing the pressure on the young sniper's nerves. He took a deep breath, and once again let the rifle sweep the area. He focused on the area to the left and west south west. His eyes searched behind the enemy lines, and along the trenches, for anything that could indicate the enemy sniper's position. A sudden glimmer of metal caught his attention, at a point three fourths out to the right flank of the trenches. Then, there was a cloud of dirt.

A bullet violently shredded its way through the wall only half a meter from his head, ripping through the wall clean, and ripping a soldier's shoulder clean off. Nasif's eyes widened, and a shiver ran up his spine. He was certain that the sniper had been aiming for him. He did not hesitate, taking aim at the enemy position and opening fire. He pulled the trigger again, and again, and again. And he kept pulling the trigger at an even pace, until his chamber locked in an open position, signifying an empty magazine. As he ejected it and slapped in a fresh one, he exhaled, and looked through the scope once again.

There was no further sign of the sniper. Though he didn't think he had hit the man, at the very least he had sent him running. He gritted his teeth as he realized his hands were shivering. He wasn't afraid, or nervous - at least not consciously so - but he couldn't make his hands stop shaking.

He ejected the half empty magazine and replaced it with a full one. Retracting his rifle, he sat down with his back to the wall, looking to his hands, which were now shaking even more.

Outside the Fort

The on coming rush of hostile soldiers put some discomfort into the tank driver as she watched through the tank's various cameras. "Baddies rushing in, sweeping northwest to southwest." Ella announced over the internal comms. "Stop them before they scrap off some of the paint on the tank." She propped her DataJockey up against one of the control panel as she reached for one of the levers to shift gears. "Lieutenant, let me know if you want me to get the Sōkō Neko moving. Infantry from the front seems to opening fire on the sniper."

Fort Puckett

Fang-Yin immediately keyed the new frequency in, before turning off, and giving a thumbs up of confirmation to Private Mallan. There was no time to fuss about any longer, so she just made her way straight to the western exit of the fortress, and presumed he was following along behind.

"Just keep your heads down and make sure their reinforcements do the same, please." A gritty tone, her broadcast back to the firing team sounded particularly sinister with all of the radio interference. "If we get eyes on a specific target, I'll let you know."

Not exactly feeling the most confident about taking the lead, but heck, this entire situation was a mess, and it was only going to get worse.

Heavy feet moved in leaps and bounds, crunching gravel and disturbing loose pavement slabs. The dusty and cratered streets had the disturbingly out of place texture of there having been a meteor shower, despite the bonne fide natural atmosphere protecting the planet.

Cautiously wasn't exactly the right word for such a headlong charge, but it wasn't like these Golem suits were ever going to accomplish stealth. Instead, she just bolted forward like a rhino, gun raised, huffing loudly, keeping her eyes out for any aggressors. With any luck, it was just that bit too fast for snipers, as long as she didn't move in a straight line for too long. Enemy automatic weapons, well... She just had to hope she was scary enough to get the first shot in.

Charge, hug cover, take a breath, charge...

These 'special snowflakes' had to be close. Her radio headset was also seeking out new connections, but there was no telling if these fellows were even equipped with one...

A big flag would be nice, at the very least.

Fort Puckett

Fergus checked over his gun one last time before Fang returned. After seeing the firefight that was ensuing, having a gun jam or not one in the chamber could end grisly. For a brief instant, his mind forced a flashback to the man that got obliterated infront of him by the sniper. Shutting his eyes and shaking his head, the image vanished but still left an uneasy feeling about him. Fang's reapproach followed by a thumbs up gave him some reassurance, however. Just enough for him to nod and follow her as they became an unstoppable force of Golem Armor through the Fort.

The pair must've looked odd. Both taller and more fit than most in Nepleslia, out here they must seem like avatars of war had come to the aid of the loyalists. Their technology far outclassing any available, their training outpacing anything within miles, and their sheer force would probably be the beacon of hope those around them needed. For a moment, Fergus felt a tinge of pity as the responsibility of winning rested upon their shoulders. However, the sound of their foot fall and the gun shots forced back the heart of Nepelslia that he inherited from his mother, and brought forward the spirit of an ID-SOL from his father.

His vision narrowing once more, the cook and support followed behind Fang as she charged from the Fort. Covering the opposite of where she aimed. If she shot left, he watched right, if she shot up, he looked down, and occasionally looking back checking their flanks. Ready to unload a buck shot if an enemy surprised them by getting too close, or shoot the rifle half of his gun to lay down cover.

Private First Class Mallan had his headset searching for new frequencies as well, ready to switch back to the tank frequency at a moment's notice for new orders.

Outside the Fort, Sōkō Neko

"This is the NSN Call-Fry. Fox one, red. Watch above."

Juno seemed uncertain, but instead turned his gaze to the displays as the tank's massive gun fired and sent another HE round into the group of ten. It hit the flank of the formation before they could even get very far, slightly off-target with the rate the turret had spun. Despite this, eight of them vanished in a flash of the explosion and the shrapnel and force tore the other two into shreds and sent them flying away in a fiery display. To his credit, the corporal had swung the gun to the right toward the western approach. The hum of the chaingun co-axial came just a deafening moment before the weapon almost quite literally sawed through them in a fine red mist. If not for the devastating damage, there would have likely been a far more grisly and visible scene, instead lost in a blink as they collapsed out of mind and out of sight to the uneven battlefield. But there wasn't time to keep spinning and to handle their other attackers.

True to their word, the Hray had returned... and as it flew high and above the battlefield like a hawk it reared its talons. With the atmosphere likely to hinder its plasma weapons even with their sheer size, the Hray simply adjusted and let loose something far above overkill. More specifically, the red-tipped HE torpedoes intended to take care of far larger ships and mecha within the NMX armies. Juno saw them on the camera, cautiously grasping a handle within the tank for stability as it came down.

Even with six of them, the earth was torn asunder under the small torpedo barrage. An entire trenchline almost two-hundred yards away from the Golem-geared soldiers simply vanished in a ground-shaking explosion that sent a shockwave to throw them up and into a nice, lovely ditch. The rippling of the Maximus and its shields kept the tank safe from such a force, the following explosions wracking all around it as it simply tore the western front apart. Entire groups of the criminals simply weren't there, the black and compromised trenches and clouds of ash and hot dirt the only reminder. But the sheer smashing of the shield had an unintentional backlash beyond throwing around their own soldiers. More precisely, the final torpedo simply smashed a lot closer to the Maximus' side than it could have been. The shields buckled from the kinetic force, the tank getting hefted upward and throwing those inside it around. Hanako memorabilia was going everywhere, the machine groaning as it raised and almost rolled... but the turret had just enough of an angle to smack the ground and pivot it. The machine groaned as it came down with a powerful crash, strong enough to send even Juno crashing to the floor.

"Fuck! Guh," he reached back to the chair and thumbed his radio, "That's enough Call-Fry! You're going to turn us into a burning wreck if you fire again!"

Shaking and grasping the chair to heft himself up, he quickly checked in with a push of the button.

"Private, Corporal, are you both alright? We took one hell of a shake... we need to push ahead and seize the advantage!"

Outside the Fort, The Nice Ditch

With the bombardment over, the pair's rush had to recover. They'd shot a few foolish enough to appear before them, but the throwing strength had disrupted the fight. The silence following the area-covering barrage had left the cries of wounded above all else... and an arm of one toasty pirate resting on Fang's lap. They'd been lucky enough not to lose their guns... but with the long silence finally came a cry out unlike any yet. A shrill whistle, the distant calls and yells of more enemies coming through the cloud. There wasn't a way for the sniper to be as dangerous as what was coming... more precisely, as the debris was settling, both Mallan and the leading woman could almost twenty of the criminals running ahead. The pitter of bullets and the burning of rock could be heard around them, the two foot deep earning them a moment of relief. But it was time to choose. If they pushed ahead, the sniper likely couldn't hit them thanks to the smoke covering the charge... but they'd be exposed and have to rely on their training and equipment to make the difference. They had to have a value that surpassed twenty scumbags. Running likely meant they'd get shot in the back... and it seemed unlikely they could hold such a small ravine. But that was before the thump of the mortar was heard some ways away.

Time to nut up or shut up.

Outside the Fort, Sōkō Neko

Ella was caught up in looking through her DataJockey for any approaching foot baddies to notice a good deal of the explosions. As soon as the cameras shut off, she felt the tank lift up from the ground. Hanako pictures dropped from the walls and flutter out from the driver's compartment, lining the floor the of interior with various faces and poses of Hanako in varying degrees of undress. Ell quickly reached over and clutched her figurine of the Neko and held it tightly as she tumbled around the interior, waiting for the shaking to stop. As soon she felt the tank somewhat leaning back to slam on the ground, she held the figurine up to keep from slamming it in the ground. With a loud thud, she bashed her arm against the deck as the tank settled back on it's treads.

With her arm bruised but her figurine still in one piece, Ella hefted herself up to her seat. "Hanako is still in one piece so all is well!" She announced to the crew. Carefully and painfully, she started shifting some of the gears, trying to get the tank moving.

The Nice Ditch

Unharmed but mentally disorganized after getting thrown about so much, Fang just made a hefty grimace whilst rapidly forming a new plan of action in her ringing head. Sitting there cross-legged, it might well have looked like they found that severed arm in their Neppy Burger, but really, they were so absorbed in the mission that the frightening absurdity of it all barely hit them.

Weren't going to get a surprise attack going, not head-on like this. They needed to find some way around.

Pointing westward to Fergus, down a desolated street running parallel to the battle lines. It would be nice to plan out their route better, but simply running at an angle until they found either an alley, or indeed, a sufficiently decimated building-turned-skeleton, would just have to do.

Bionic eye snapped to infra-red mode, ready to catch a glimpse of that sniper, if they took a pot shot at least. It would make it harder to aim at those random infantry footsteps audibly clambering towards them, but balls to it, they weren't going down with one well aimed salvo anyway. Letting her rifle hang off the sling, both hands gripped frag grenades, yanking them free of both the harness and their pins. Already set to impact mode.

A quick deep breath, and then she crouched around and heaved them both in the general direction of the enemy.

On the very moment of impact, hit or miss, it would then be time to leap out, and get their asses down that street...

The Cozy Hole in the Dirt

The steel will of the ID-SOL gene kept the cook grounded as they made it to the ditch and had the explosions of an H-Ray pass by them. The screams and shouts, followed by an arm, did little to phase Fergus as he was knelt down low next to Fang, and kept himself from being exposed. When the excitement was over, he checked over his gun and did a once over of Fang to make sure that wasn't her own arm in her lap. Her gesturing beyond him towards the buildings cemented in that she was ok, and he picked up on the grenadier's idea.

As she threw the grenades over the dirt line above him, Fergus readied himself in a sprinter's position to run for the abandoned building as soon as it went off. He looked over his shoulder before then, and relayed a thumbs up over at Fang to signal he was ready and that he was in decent spirits.

Outside the Fort, Sōkō Neko

The tank whirred, the engine running but the knock-up having proven to be a bit much for the machine's track to handle. It did seem ready to move, but it was likely that the battlefield had partially bogged from the blood and guts of war to prevent it from having the easiest time moving. That didn't stop Ella from seeing the large man push into the driver's area, Juno reaching out to grab her hand with his human grasp while the other kept his homemade submachine gun perfectly still with its metal grip.

"Hold off on it. I'm heading out of the tank to get us moving. Head to the commander's cabin and operate the shield arrays and defense lasers. Once I find the problem, we go from there."

He turned and started back, knowing he'd need to turn-out and climb out of the tank. The man was ready to fight, to make sure the Nepleslian tank didn't fall because of accidental friendly fire. The enemies so far hadn't promised much to threaten them, but it only took one bad bit of luck for the machine to be up in flames.

Outside the Fort, The Death Field

They were lucky as the enemy didn't seem to pick up on their advance, not until the two grenades came sailing into the path of the group. The explosions shook and sent a few of them that weren't simply incinerated flying, giving the cook the opening to get cookin'. A quick dash across to some abandoned buildings within the warzone had him positioned on the flank of the group before the pirates were steadied and prepared to attack the position the grenades had come from. Bullets, lasers, and plasma smashed into the cover around her position both on the cover and into the dirt beyond it. She was pinned, a man calling out in some of what sounded like Yamataigo before she'd hear a grenade priming. She had to move fast, the ditch behind her position the best place to leap or run to. It meant she'd be exposed briefly to the suppressing fire... of course, the man pulling the charge out could be seen from Fergus' new position.

There was no way to know how many others might be nearby their cluster of rubble, but he could count four of them in close proximity. If he rushed them, he'd need to dispatch them with precision. Their weaponry was mostly kinetic, so it was possible his Golem suit could endure it. If he didn't move now on the cluster of four in the hovel of cover, then they'd continue pushing the advantage on his squadmate! But all wasn't lost, the other cluster of troops suddenly forced down and between the destroyed pillbox's walls that they were hiding in. In the corner of his eye, the rear flank of the pirates was being pressed by a group of five militia fighters. Unlike the others, however, they were notably better armed.

Their dusters were shorter and more akin to a heavy jacket, the sight of an old staple of Nepleslian armament visible on their bodies. Unlike the soldiers who wore lighter bulletproof cloth vests, this squad was wearing an age-old NAM-upgraded Ballistic Vest, the harder outline of the heavier variant obvious even from a distant. Their helmets were styled to look like hats, worn low with a ballistic facemasks that wrapped around and covered even the sides of their heads. All of them had black hair, despite their sizes and frames suggesting three of them were women and the two at the front were men. The crck of one of the pirates' rifles could be heard, the bullet smashing one of the women back... but not off her feet as she let out a shrill, techno-modified cry from what could only be an artificial voicebox. She rushed ahead of the two men with their M2's firing full-auto bursts to keep most of the group pinned down. Like a woman on hero fuel, the militia woman simply jumped, bionic legs powering her leap to a staggering five feet high. A boot to the face of one of the pirates cracked his neck into a terrible angle, just as she turned to face one of the pirates and fire what looked and sounded like a shotgun. The man went flying out over the low cover, his friends turning and about to fire before they were picked off with bursts from the M2's of the other women rushing ahead to keep up with their friend.

They'd found the locals.

Inside the Fort

While the teams were handling their own issues, one person in particular had finally gathered her equipment. With the amount of fighting, the platoon's originally intended support crews were now being armed. Minnie had been strapped up in one of the Golem suits, given her M3, and pushed out of the 309th's established FOB. She could see the stretch of dead, covered in their cloths within the fortress' walls, as well as hear the cries of wound from atop the wall and beyond it. The fighting was intense, the sight of blood as a deafening boom from the sniper rifle as the enemy's crackshot took another life. This was where she could best help now, rather than being held in reserve for the combat-heavy soldiers to fight together.

She had to get moving.

Fort Puckett

From the moment she and her fellow support staff had commandeered the Headquarters building, Minnie had felt optimistic. The short statured doctor was rather proud of herself when she had set up a surgical theater in an office space, atop a long conference table she had displayed all the tools of her trade.

Then the call to arm the support staff had gone out.

Minnie knew there was always a possibility that she would have to leave her comfort zone and would possibly end up closer to the "pointy end" than she'd have liked. But for it to have come during the opening stages of her first deployment filled her with a rising sense of dread, and oddly enough; nervous excitement.

Remorse and excitement aside, she didn't know how far the situation had spun out of control, it was completely out of her purview. For all she knew the commanding officer she had never met, and the grunts deployed with him were stuck in it, And somehow Minnie and the other rear echelon personnel were expected to help relieve them. She was, after all. Just someone to keep the marines alive, and make sure they kept their fair share of scars in the process, and maybe if she was really lucky, get to replace a limb or organ with its cybernetic counterpart.

"Three-Oh-Ninth!" Minnie pushed back the troubling thoughts and shouted when she managed to reached the top of the rampart, her high-pitched voice only carrying as far as there where gaps in rare din of the battle.
"I need to find" was all she could continue before a crack of a travelling round passed by her, causing her to shriek and throw herself to cover against the battlements.

Allowing herself to take a hard moment to catch her breath and collect herself, finding the section of the ramparts she entered was vacant to everyone but the dead. She knew already from a rushed briefing before she was evicted from the FOB that the medical situation in the fort was a mess. Eventually the medical personnel on hand would run dry on the necessary equipment and supplies they needed, and shortly after that the 309th's stock would follow. Her primary goal, as one of said medical personnel, she decided, should be to follow her predecessors and secure whatever medical stock was left, and ensure it was put to good use while the lieutenant routed the EI, Allowing some pressure to lift.

With a sigh, Minnie blinked away the Overlay map on her visor that she was using to follow the primary infantry unit of the main force, Bringing her carbine close, she carefully side-stepped a corpse in front of the next section of the battlements and continued on, albeit slowly and cautiously, outside the ramparts and into the field bellow, towards the sounds of distant gunfire.

Sōkō Neko

The sudden hand grabbing at her own carrying Hanako caused Ella to jump in seat before pulling her hand away. She nodded as the Lieutenant climbed out of the tank before looking towards Hanako for guidance the situation. The figure simply smiled back. "... Okay. You're right, no time for fear." She moved to the commander's seat of the tank, Hanako in one hand and her DataJockey in the other.

Ella scooted into Juno's seat, the command suite at her disposal seeming somewhat larger and larger with the more anxiety she felt. She looked over to the Hanako doll for another stepford smile before looking back at all the suite. She flipped through some of the camera feeds to get an eye on the situation before looking over the controls, trying to decipher the shield and laser controls from the everything else.

Putting the "Eat" in "Death Field"

Fergus knew that he only had moments to act in favor of Fang's position. Even if his armor didn't take all of those shots, stories aren't remembered or retold because everything went according to plan. Charging forward with the heavy stomps only a half-ID-DOL in Golem can deliver, he unloaded the shotgun modification of his rifle into the man prepping the charge, knowing that would at least knock him on his ass. Then proceeded to unload on those that were firing down on his demolitions expert with the semi auto fire of his rifle, taking care not to hit any soldiers that are trying to help them.

Outside the Fort, The Death Field .Feat Cyborg Locals

Fang Yin was preparing to simply get to better cover and call down those mortars, when the strange other figures appeared. Carrying incendiary bombs might have been a better option in hindsight, seeing as none of these fellows had fire protection quite as good as her and Fergus' Golem armor...

Then, something happened that the cards didn't predict. These newcomers began fighting with the original pirate assailants. Was this part of the missing brigade that they had been sent to look for?...

Ricocheting bullets, mere inches away. She ducked back down behind some shattered bricks, but then heard Fergus thundering along in support of her. Wasn't going to let an act like that go to waste.

Heaving upwards, the she-gorilla fired her assault rifle around the corner with one hand. Not like they were going to hit anything, but the chaos projected outwards was simply meant to keep the enemy confused. Covering fire for Fergus' covering fire. Hopefully it would give her time to move flush against the wall, and in a better defensive position to punish anyone else turning out onto this effective T-junction of smashed houses.

"NEPLESLIA~! I AM NOT AFRAID TO DIE~!" Her deep voice rang out. Half rallying cry, half seeing how these cyborg strangers would react. "NEPLESLIA FOREVER~!"

Outside the Fort, The Death Field

From her current position a couple hundred meters ahead of her, the telescopics in Minnie's eyes allowed her to focus just beyond her normal range of vision allowing her to take in the full spectacle before her. A nearby concussive blast had drawn her vision to sharpen and focus on a group of rebels, or perhaps pirates, Minnie wasn't sure she cared for what the enemy affiliated itself as. They were slugging it out at standoff range with a group obscured by rubble and debris from her.

Minnie took another long moment to resign herself and attempt to get some line of sight to what she assumed was either the marines she had been following in their wake of destruction, or at least some allied party, to skirt the edge of her position for something more suitable to engage. She wasn't a marksman, in fact the short barrel of her carbine offered less range and ballistic capability compared to the standard length variant of its parent, the M3. She understood this much and took up a position considerably closer on the second floor windowsill of a building that likely stood a lot straighter and carried more than two floors in its past. Minnie braced her carbine against the windowsill and focused down her sights at the pirates when a distant synthetic shriek drew her attention to short series of actions of inhuman vigor as what cshe could tell was the result from the art of a beautiful example of her trade crashed into the pirates and began reaping in close quarters with support quickly on her heels.

She had little time to appreciate or even record the marvel before her with her Datajockey when she heard shouting ahead of her, drowned out by the gunfire she could make out a strong female voice scream what Minnie could only barely make out the word "Nepleslia!" that was followed by a brief glance of a towering form made even imposing by the bulk of what Minnie assumed must somehow be a "Her" in the same, if not larger to fit Golem armor crossed into her field of view before disappearing again in the direction of the enemy.

"Wait!" Minnie squeaked at the suicidal act, but was drowned out by the sounds of war. Knowing full well she was the one who would somehow have to attempt drag her away or to put her back together in the middle of the lane-way if her bravado didn't hold up to the enemy fire. Without thinking, or even remembering the presence of her radio, she bounded down the stairs towards where she had seen the marine charging.

Outside the Fort: Sōkō Neko

The tapping and working of Ella slipped up and out the hatch as Juno emerged, the large and commanding soldier hefting his personal weapon in his robotic hand like a sidearm rather than a submachine gun. Commanding the troops of the platoon meant that he had to be man enough to lead from the front if needed, pulling his cap hard into position to ensure the piece didn't flutter off as he turned to about within the Maximus and its shielded vista. The battlefield was certainly hectic, a sound that the soldier sometimes forgot from within the loud beast of a tank. But the fine work of his group nearby wasn't what he sighted, rather a new group rushing up on the tank's many flanks. Juno didn't even hesitate, lowering the gun at the posse and firing. His arm had grown accustomed to plenty of weight thanks to lugging the fist around, the hand countering the kick of his SMG as it spat in a steady cackle of slugs. As quick as it was, the ground spit back its own clouds of clutter and dirt around the men as blood erupted from the chests of the four man team. It wasn't likely fatal, but enough to leave them calling out and bleeding to death as Juno stepped from the turret and then dropped to the ground beside the Nepleslian warmachine.

Ella watched the displays from within as the controls for the defenses hummed and slowly checked off under her control, the commander passing to the rear of the tank and grabbing one of its panels to simply tear the metal away. Warning signs would kick in showing more pirates approaching the fallen four, prompting to request immediate action to eliminate them. It was up to Hanako's Stalker to see to the survival of the machine while Juno worked to get the machine moving... one that seemed doable from the slightest of smiles on the stern man's face.

Outside the Fort: The Death Field

"Puckett or Fuck it!"

The response call cut loud in a somewhat effeminate voice, the shrill mechanical hiss behind it implying it came from an artificial voice box. It was necessary with the bang of Fergus' shotgun ripping pellets through one of the pirates and then the bark of his rifle as he gunned down the startled faces of two of the three that had remained. The third one had fallen back and out of cover in time to get hit by the stray firing from Fang, the busty and powerful gal's blind firing peppering the chest of what was a panicked woman who crumpled to the ground and lost her weapon. There wasn't a chance for the invading female to recover, either, as one of the larger of the colonial soldiers walked up and brought a boot down to push her into terrafirma. She howled in agony, the large figure sparing no hesitation in putting a burst of lead through her back to end the suffering.

"Clear," a masculine voice cut crisply through the ballistic facemask, "This sector is-"

A distant boom cut through the field, the arm holding the man's large rifle simply flying off as a round tore through his shoulder. To most normal Nepleslians, losing an arm in such a traumatic way would be death... but the man simply staggered and fell down beneath the dip of the fortifications. The shot had come from the western flank, a hill with plenty of hiding spots... and the lack of a fast motion implied that the sniper who had been tallying a massive kill count against the militia had dug-in roughly two hundred meters across the active battlefield and was preparing to take on the Golem-strapped reinforcements. The colonists ducked into their own cover, the other male firing his rifle to shower the hill in suppressing fire to ensure each of them ducked down. The now one-armed male crawled his way over to Fang's cover, ducking down and hiding by the time the new medic made her way over. Armless as he was, the likely half ID-SOL male could only hiss in pain as he moved his free hand to cover the newly made stump.

"Just another day with that crackshot. Each time we almost get him, he runs like a coward. Some sort of light suit of power armor for maneuvering..."

Outside the Fort: Sōkō Neko

The sudden prompt for action put Ella in a bit of distress the full weight of situation came down on her. She could see the troops approaching, their weapons drawn and aimed the tank as they stalked towards it. She choked up, watching them spot Juno before the barrels of their guns lit up and peppered the Lieutenant before turning their attention the tank, explosives in hand and grins that lit up their faces with pure malice pasts the console's prompt for action. She turned to Hanako for guidance but the smile had morphed to mirror the pirates own evil grin.

Ella blinked. The soldiers were still a good distance back, Juno was still up and alive at the back of the tank, the screen still displayed its warning, and most importantly, Hanako still had her usual smile. There was as sharp inhale as Ella snapped back to reality before hammering away at the console as the Hanako doll smiled onward. "THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, JUNO!" she yelled as the tank's Pulse Laser Array spat out several bolts of energy at the encroaching pirates through the smoke. Several more bolts were cracked out at each target, either out of some professionalism for double-tapping or desperation of wildly firing at the spooky bad men.

The latter was more possible as Ella sat in the suite, breathing heavily as she commanded the PLA's impromptu and lethal light show towards the pirates, sweat beading down her face as her face was illuminated by the screen's footage and the crackles of lasers that screeched across it

Pinned Down In The Death Field

"Shit." Fang Yin spoke with simple frustration, pulling the cyborg native further into cover and taking point herself. She gave him the quickest of a glancing over, but it seemed a little redundant seeing as a normal person would have been flat out. "You with the government forces? That supply bunker?"

If she had known they were going to be operating so far away from the tank, she would have brought smoke grenades. With two scalar and two plasma left they could probably blow up whatever building the spook was hiding in, but without even a muzzle flash to go by, that was just took much guesswork.

Damn airstrike was still ringing in her ears. How did the asshole even redeploy during all of that?

-"Mortar team. Can you give us a quick volley?"- Radio unit activated, they simply decided to pelt the middle of the street in a vague direction of the shooter, and poke their head out in time, to observe if the sniper made a run for it. At the very least, the dust should mess with his aiming. -"I'm sending you the coordinates now."-

Then, out of the blue, she spotted another Nepleslian Golem armor dashing towards them. Reinforcements from the fort?...

"Lady! Stay down!" The larger woman wafted an arm towards her, but then ended up doing the same dumb move of firing her gun randomly around the corner again, providing a distraction. "Sniper out there! A good one!"

Where the hell did Fergus run off to?

Outside the Fort: The Death Field

Minnie's momentum had begun to slow as she trailed along a short distance away from her fellow marine...

Between her fatigue and her own courage fading, She had begun to consider her alternative options for the situation when a boom and crack from a high velocity round snapped her back to attention, causing her to let out a startled squeak before she dashed the remaining distance and threw herself into nearby cover somewhat near the female marine who she'd been following and had waved her down.

She quickly scrambled to the edge of her hard-cover, her Carbine held tightly to her chest. Peering just beyond to her comrades. Her training kicked in the moment she noticed the draw of crimson and the one-armed militia fighter. Her eyes enhanced again beyond her normal range of vision, letting her examine close enough as if she where right next to him before ducking back into cover.

"Single limb, debrachiated." She mumbled to herself, starting the process of taking her mental notes. "Ballistic amputation-trauma, blood vessels have to had retracted by now or else he'd have bled out. Muscular walls will hold for six minutes before trauma supersedes and he starts hemorrhaging, Hes pretty big so he might be half SOL, or maybe just genetically gifted? Eight minuets at best then." she droned on, making a secondary list of her kit and what she had on her. It wasn't enough...

At some point the influx of casualties would, in all likelihood, take serious stock from the 309th's medical unit without the relief provided by the storage bunker they so desperately needed to take.

Until then, Minnie knew she couldn't waste her own stock, short of a critical situation.

"Hey, Lady?!" She shouted through the din. "I need you to tie something around that arm, like a tourniquet. It's to staunch the bleeding until i get there." she packed her kit up again and braced against her hard-cover; mentally cursing herself, adding after a long pause "I'm a doctor!"