RP: NSS Sledge Mama [NSS Sledge Mama] Ep. 2 - Forged

Space. Someone once said it was 'the final frontier' - and even though they were likely right - that didn't mean it was friendly in the slightest.

It was utterly hostile. Inhospitable. Lethal.

Squads of Nepleslians hurled through the inky black and towards the ship. Several NMX Battlepods took notice and veered off from their swarm, and like blood sucking flies, bored own on them. Almost immediately, tracers jumped out of their plasma autocannons as they tried to shoot down the marines, the long exhaust trails of mini-missiles visible as entire volleys arced down on them all. And yet, the marines endured - already, flashes of light could be seen as the others darted, jinked and juked through the dark void while their weapons firing as fast as possible to intercept missiles and shoot down the enemy drones.

When Ylfa's own squad fired their guns, their weapons' sounds muffled, reverberating up and through their own suits, many who hadn't figured it out before would understand why space marines hated space. Human kind did not belong there. And yet, it called. They all knew where they needed to go. Missiles streaked in from friendly fighters as small stars exploded into existence. Sledge Mama herself carefully neared, focusing more of her heavy point defense guns than before, quickly shredding the Battlepods to bits as she guarded the marines like a her children. And before they knew it, the worst of it was already over. Boots clunked against alien, armored hull painted in disgusting puke pink. "I'm breaching the door now!" a Marine from another squad yelled over the comms.

As the squad gathered together on the ship's hull, the swarm of Battlepods overhead thinning out, they could watch as several women were suddenly sucked out into space. Seeing them flail as they helplessly drifted away, one could almost hear them scream. "We're going in now Marines, if you haven't already, check your weapons - it's a bug hunt!" Ylfa ordered, ignoring them. In moments, they swarmed in after the others, sealing the doors behind them to allow the pressure to balance out. And open the path in front of them. What they saw didn't match NMX - not quite. The NMX were cleaner, more 'professional' as they liked to think of themselves, with much more generic interiors for their ships. But this? The hallways in front of them were overgrown with cancerous flesh and dimly lit.

"Stay frosty - we need to move deeper into the ship before it starts branching out proper," Ylfa instructed them all. Following the squad of marines in front of them, the pathway soon divided as meat squished underfoot, and they were traveling on their own.

Sawyer took up a position near the middle of the squad, he was tired of taking point and getting parts of him replaced almost every mission. "Roger that Top" he replied to Ylfa's orders. Looking around at the innards of the NMX ship he was mildly confused. "This doesn't look right, something is wrong with this ship itself Master Sergeant" he said as the environment registered fully on his mind. He had his HPAR at the ready as he scanned the area while waiting for the rest of the squad to get formed up.

Inez began maneuvering the Hostile to continue making sure that everything was all in order for advancing into the battleground. Watching Ylfa take off toward the arena as Inez more readily imagined this space combat. Falling into the ranks she sadly found herself caught in the back with her bloodthirsty eagerness being relatively tame as she was unable to see any of the action unless they were to be snuck up on which she can only hope for. HPAR raised in a ready position it would only take a few seconds for her to raise it up to the mono eye and aiming down the sight for quick snap shot. Although her skills were more effectively placed in explosives she would enjoy using pistols and various rifles. As they stepped in behind Ylfa she could feel as the pressure now changed in its attempts to reach equilibrium.

Richard found himself less bothered by the sight of NMX soldiers being sucked into space than he thought, and maybe that was a good thing, no one else seemed to mind at all. Now inside the enemy vessel he looked around at the 'decor'. "Is this what these ships always look like?" He of course had never seen the inside of an NMX ship before, but this was a good comparison to how he had pictured it in his mind, evil aliens always had ships like this in media. This by no means had him relaxed though, his HPAR was ready to fire and he had to struggle with himself to keep his finger off the trigger. He dis a quick scan with his armor for any signals that weren't Nepleslian in the area, he didn't want to get caught with his pants down.

Finding himself near the front of the formation with the other veterans, Aleksei observed the interior of the ship from under his helmet. "Anyone else think this is fucked?" asked the marine with his weapon in a ready position. Glancing behind him at the squad of Hostile clad marines, he continued to march forward with the others while Ylfa informed them of the need to go further into the ship. He then heard their resident superstar ask about the state of the ship, causing him a short glance. "No it isn't. There's something up with this particular beehive." answered Aleksei as he thought about the first NMX ship he had been on. The organic matter along the corridors were nowhere close to what he saw before him.

Keeping his eyes front with an occasional glance at his sensors, the marine clicked the safety off his rifle.

The faint sound of fighting, explosions and even the faint rumble of cannon could be heard and felt. The alien ship itself was nearly blind and only able to see Mama herself, while the Battlepods mindlessly swarmed against whatever enemies they found. This meant that they were going in fast and hard. Running through the corrupted interior of the ship, they ran down corridor after corridor. The marines in front quickly dispatched what few humanoid crew members they ran across quickly, but otherwise, there was little action so far just a few minutes into the breech. Amongst the brief snippets of comm chatter, a marine, another Sarge like Ylfa noted, "It's looking like a skeleton crew - probably just a raid for the supplies on the colony being rebuilt down there I think." This wasn't reassuring however - despite what little, occasional resistance they encountered, always caught by surprise, it all felt to easy. With each step they took however, the overgrowth of flesh became thicker as the floors began to become soggy and eventually pool with a thin, slightly opaque fluid Each and every single step seemed to practically announce their arrival as they found themselves

"Yeah, what those two said," Ylfa agreed. The squad finally showed up just outside of engineering, the doorway itself a disgusting sphincter instead of the more conventional electromagnetic ones they've encountered so far. As the squad in front of them got ready to breach and enter, she checked over her own rifle. "I heard about this - long story short, the SMX is still around and they're getting more political leverage back 'home', since the NMX got its ass blown to shit and handed back in rags."

"Ooh-Rah!" a Marine shouted the ancient war-cry with enthusiasm.

Half a dozen hand grenades were suddenly tossed from the far corner behind them, all landing amongst Ylfa and her squad - fire instantly erupted, engulfing them all in the explosion as a dozen particle beams began lancing through the smoke at their large, bulky armors. But the red glow of each and every single one of their monoeyes shone through the haze. "EN-GAGE!" she pointed to their six with a shout, their shields barely noting the drop. A second later, a wet, disgusting 'SLULCH' announced the fleshy door stretching wide open like an unfathomable horror as mechanical monsters rushed out at the other squad like an armored tide.

"Shit!"

"OPEN FIRE!" Lisa enforced Ylfa's shout, she went closer to the wall and knelt on one knee to give other room to fire. She has been hanging to the end of the group, coring the back. As the grenades exploded, Lisa's heart jumped at first, but then she saw those were just anti-personnel grenades and could not really damage the marines in heavy armours. Lisa reminded herself that she was in a walking tank as she knelt, she switched her HPAR to full auto and pressed the trigger, sending hailing storm of bullets down the hallway against mechanical monsters coming in. SMX, that meant Misshu rather then nekoes, and that was bad thing. Lisa wanted to deal with the mecha-monsters before any of the squids would show. She was also ready to use her push-pull plating to send off any monster that would try to get up close and personal.

Sawyer shifted to the side and started taking aimed shots at the onrushing mechanical beasts. His HPAR was on single shot since there were friendlies in his line of fire and full auto could lead to friendly casualties. "Watch your fire, we don't want to have any blue on blue this time" he shouted to the others. He also readied a short volley of BOLTs in case of more heavily armored opponents that couldn't be easily engaged with a line of sight only weapon like the HPAR.

"Firing!" shouted Aleksei in response to the multiple orders to begin engaging the ambushing enemies. Being at the front of the formation he focused his fire on the incoming mechanicals, stepping to the side of Sawyer that he could effectively aim and fire into the tide of enemies. "Sawyer! Take a knee!" called the ID-SOL who had the idea to maximize the limited space of the ship's corridor by having the shorter Nepleslian take a knee so Aleksei could fire over his head from behind him, allowing another duo of marines to do the same to maximize fire without the heightened risk of friendly fire.

Richard inwardly was panicking when he realized a grenade had landed right in the midst of the group but he wasn't fast enough to move out of the way before it went off. The barrier easily soaked the shock from the grenades but did nothing for the daze that the blast had left the marine in. The lack of physical sensation on his body made him feel detached like it was a video game and only the shouting of orders to open fire snapped him back to his senses. Once he got moving he was rather quick to turn and take a knee and begin firing, not out of any strategy but simply that out of a PA that was the only way he could get a decent shot in with a rifle. His rifle was firing in 3 shot burst as he tried to pinpoint anything behind the smoke, using their lasers to figure out their positions.

Through the smoke, beams sliced through the air while tracers streamed back in reply - in this chaos, it was nearly impossible to tell who was hitting what.

The shrill, high pitched screams of women being cut down could be heard through the fog of war, telling them that people were dying in just a stone's throw away as the squad of marines fired back. Before anything more could be done, more yells came over their comms - "Forward! Through the door!" Ylfa could be heard. To their front, the other marines could be seen knocking the Rippers out of their way, an invisible force hammering them back through the passage as they bull rushed the Mishhuvurthyar machines. "Use your PPGs! Smash them back and get in there! We gotta shut the damn reactor down NOW!" A single Mini-Missile was shot out of her launcher, arcing around the corner before exploding - a half dozen bodies were thrown into view, but there wasn't time to pay them any attention.

At the forefront, the squad of marines were like a Phalanx of Spartans, literally shoving against a tide of enemies, both mechanical Rippers and flesh and chitin Mishhuvyrthar engineers. The Rippers themseves were shot up to the point that their arms were missing, and all they could do was just push against the Nepleslian marines as the engineers behind them shoved to keep everyone out. Ylfa, dashing forward, put her shoulder into the mess. "PUSH YOU APES! PUSH!"

Hefting her rifle with one arm, she braced it on the Marine in front of her and fired a burst into the mass of aliens.

Richard flinched at hearing the sounds of screams come from inside the smoke. He was ready to shoot up 'alien scum slave masters' but not women, it was starting to bring up memories of the last two years that he'd rather stay buried. He clenched his teeth and told himself they were his enemy, they were trying to kill him. "Shoot or be shot" he told himself as he continued to fire. He glanced back at hearing Ylfa's orders, he wasn't expecting the forward team to have trouble, but seeing that a rocket was just launched he figured now would be the best time before they can regroup. He moved out of the way of friendlies and then to the front of the formation where he joined the others putting his back into it and his PPGs to try to force an opening.

Kevin wished he had focused more on zero grav training when he was in basic. Getting pulled into space he had spent some time spinning until his AI assisted him in getting right side up. He loved flight training but in those situations at least there was an up and down with space he couldn't get his head around not having a point of reference. But with the AI's help he falls in line ending up in the back of the pack to his disgust he wanted to be up in the front with the them where the excitement was at but he did what he could from his position, grateful for the training and his mono eye assisting in helping him find a firing line f0r his rifle and he fired off bursts during the barrage and when ordered to push forward he powers up his PPG and since he was in the back of the pack he stands behind the line pushing forward so that when the enemy pushes back he did his part to make sure the phalanx didn't get pushed back too far.

Lisa was at the front of the push now, as she was at the back, when the enemy hit them from behind. The tables turned now, and it was nepleslian marines kicking the squid right into the tentacles. Lisa just moved forward, making sure to keep shoulder to shoulder with the armour to her side. She was and her partner were a duo, one body. A fireteam, ready to engage anything. Lisa breather for the them, and they breathed for her. One organism, living only in the moment with one purpose in their existence. Killing the enemy. Lisa used her PPG, kept firing her HPAR and made sure nothing would get a drop on the marine next to herself, without even having time to check who it was. It did not matter. Every marine was a brother or sister, every marine was her blood and ever marine fought for the rest of the unit. The Unit. They were not some goons anymore, within the battle, they became one living being. A machine comprised of many bodies, working together and defeating what stood in their way.

Watching the chaos at the front and hearing the order from his NCO, Aleksei rushed into the phalanx with his rifle raised. Activating his PPG to aid the push of metal and flesh, the ID-SOL braced his HPAR on the shoulder of the marine in front of him, firing rapidly aimed single shots into the mass of Rippers and Mishu at the front. He didn't know who was standing to the right and left of him, nor did he care. All he knew is that they all had a single objective in their Nepleslian hivemind that desired, even lived on the destruction of the enemy in front of them. The corridor was a tight squeeze, but even still the large marine attempted to push his way through the crowd of marines, using his superior height to rain superheated coins on the Rippers. His PPG was still active as he continued to aid the phalanx in it's push forward toward the reactor room.

The metal wall began to surge forward, the Mishhuvurthyar's attempts at pushing back and stopping them feeble as the Nepleslians used the decimated bodies of their Reapers as shields. Assault rifles fired, cutting apart the aliens at each attempt they made to fight back, invisible hammers smashing them away as they tried to rush up and over to cut and strangle the marines.

But something was wrong. Something had been wrong since the beginning, when they first arrived.

Even as they rushed into the ship's engineering itself, the room set up like a series of gut covered, descending concentric rings, the Mishhuvurthyar engineers were flittering in and out of view between all of the engineering systems. The first marines, their armor battered and scarred from enemy fire and blades, took up position and secured the entryway. This allowed several others, along with Ylfa and her group, the opportunity to charge forward and descend towards the bulbous sphere located in the center of this bloody hell. The marines themselves had to carefully take their shots, or risk hitting the metallic components sticking out of the flesh and possibly turn the entire ship into a brand new sun for the system. Glimpses of the aliens themselves could be seen between the dangling canopy of wires as they moved in and out of view like animals circling prey. It felt like each and every individual marine was already hounded by several of the lightning fast creatures.

Richard and Keven were forced close together as a pair of the Mishhuvyrthar rushed in from their left and right like a pincer, their tentacles bearing sharp blades. At the same time, Aleksei was being cut off by the forest of cables and terminal towers, one of the Mishhuvurthyar descending down on him above, its tentacles outstretched! Another darted out of the wet, sloppy mess behind Sawyer, its tendrils just beginning to grasp him as Lisa finished putting a burst into one of the creatures herself, the scene clearly in sight at her 10-o-clock. Worst still, a thick, ribbed length shot out from the squad's right flank and wrapped around Inez' leg, reaching up her armored thigh before yanking the woman clean off her feet with inhuman strength. Ylfa's rifle rounded on the alien and fired as the other marine was dragged away, killing the creature. But two more were coming straight for her. In all this chaos, Kevin had ended up leading the charge, the massive primary reactor clear in his sights up ahead. But two of these monsters burst from their cover, flinging their masses at him, one high and the other low.

Other marines charging with them fared much worse, already being torn apart - one deflected many of the pointed jabs with her thick plates as she desperately fought several off, only to be stabbed between the joints. Weakened and in pain, they quickly descended on her, stabbing the woman over and over again. Her horrified screams only grew as the blades plunged deep into her body before it was suddenly cut off at its climax. Another Hostile was grabbed only moments before Sawyer was, and was lifted up into the clutches of the Mishhuvurthyar - in a panic, his PPG missed, blowing off several of its chitinous plates and a limb. In anger, it maimed him in an instant, every single one of his limbs breaking as they turned far too far in the wrong directions. And then it pulled, hard, his red mixing with the ship's. Tossing him aside, the man cried for his mother, nothing more than a head and torso left together.

It was obvious that these ones couldn't defeat their armor, but they could kill the pilots. On top of it all, during all this, was the sound. The Mishhuvurthyar roared with rage, the wordless, animallistic calls for their blood deep and booming.

The nightmare has came to life. If there was somethign Lisa was afraid off, it were Misshu. As she gouhht NMX in past, there were very few of those. Mostly it was jsut Rippers and nekos, with occasional Crab-type cavalry. Nothing too bad. Misshu though, they were scary. Lisa still had bad dreams about her first encounter with one, as she entered the bridge of enemy ship all alone. The thing turned to her then, both being surprised of each other. Luckily, Lisa gathered her wits faster then and blew it apart spending whole magazine of her chaingun.

Now it was worse, there was not one surprised Misshu. There were what appeared to be dozens of them. This was no NMX ship, this was worse. The monsters have come out of wood work and Lisa was scared. Luckily, her old training came back to her. She remembered her Master sergeant in boot camp and his advice. 'Trooper, you will be afraid of shit, it will happen, it happened to all of us. But you don't bloody let it control you, you see the scary motherfucker and you blow it away. The easiest thing to deal with your fear is to kill the shit out of whatever is scaring ya.' Good man.

Lisa snapped back to reality, after freezing for a split of a second. Just so she could notice Sawyer being taken. Sawyer was one of her own, the old buddy. They shared a lot together and she even gave him things he should remember. Lisa would not let these monsters take away, not in million years. She yelled out and charged her thrusters, aiming to hit the Misshu tangling its tentacles around Sawyer. She wanted to be cannonball, hitting the monsther and then going with it straight against the wall. It was time to see, how Misshu-carapace could handle a nepleslian in 2 tons of angry armour.

"Shit" Sawyer muttered when he saw the tentacles wrapping around his armor, he'd brace himself and fire a burst into the Misshu that was trying to grab him. If the burst missed he'd take hold with an armored gauntlet and yank on the tentacle, making full use of his armor's mass and augmented strength. If all that was insufficient he'd shout "Danger Close" before activating his PID-01a and attempt to fry the creature grabbing him with superheated plasma.

Letting his eyes shoot around him, he saw that he was effectively cut off from his squad by the mass of wires and other systems of the Mishu ship. "Fuck." muttered the ID-SOL as he looked up, seeing the Mishu descending on him with it's bladed tentacles outstretched. "Not today!" yelled Aleksei as he raised his HPAR, hitting the fire selector to Full Auto and opened up on his approaching enemy. Taking a knee to give him a bit more distance between the two of them, Aleksei fired up his PPG with every intention of hitting the Mishu with the force of a hammer.

Richard stumbled a little after finally breaking through with everyone inside. He didn't have time to dodge to on coming tentacles so he did only what he could and activated the push pull system to brush them aside. However the Misshu still coming to charge him. His instincts took over at that point instead of his military training, and quickly rushed the Misshu using his boosters to deliver a shoulder ram, raising the PPG to max power on contact to send the thing flying back. It was only then that he raised his rifle to it and delivered a few few burst of shots at it.