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

Seeing that Ylfa held of the remaining young Mishhu, Richard turned his attention to the crab. Obviously just firing at the thing would take some time to take it down, but with the push-pull plating fresh in his mind he had a bit of an idea. Setting the system to max power he targeted one of the creature's legs while it was making it's charge and pulled, trying to get it out from under the beat to trip it up some. While it was hopefully stumbling he sent out a volley of arrows heading for the joint of one of it's powerful front claws.

Max watched helplessly as he attempted to pick himself up after his brawl with the crab. Had it not been for Demlar's crazy move, he would have certainly been killed. Max noticed that Delmar's move didn't actually work, but it did distract the crab-type long enough for the rest of his squad to start pouring more fire into it. Max, crippled on his left side moved to help Delmar up and cover him against any attempts by the immatures to finish him off. Once in position, Max began to fire his HPAR one handed towards the crab-type, aiming for its hind legs as it charged towards list. He would help bring this bastard down even if it killed him.

Defying all logical physics the Crab-type left Delmar steamrolled him into the floor of the ship. Breathless, he lay still, not moving, for what felt like forever before a brief rise in air pressure reinflated his lungs and painkillers were injected into his neck. He struggled onto his knees. His allies seemed to have the right idea with the missiles and joints as it charged but Delmar wasn't one for planning. He racked the shotgun and began his charge.

The Crab-type was smart and would most likely be listening for thrusters now but during the missile strike it would be too loud to hear the plasma jets. With only a shotgun and three shots his range was limited and chances few so he knew he'd need to get close to make it count.

Running only on his CGD he pursued the beast in its left side blind spot. He was counting on its reaction to the missiles to give him the shot.

When the missiles impact his jets would engage to bring him over the Crab's back and should the shot be open his right barrel would launch a single tungsten slug, not spray, at the opening in its hide.

"Shit that got his attention," Lisa said as the Crab turned and charged at her. She fire her Push/Pull system at him just to slow it down a bit and fired up her thruster gunnin up to the ceiling. She hoped to grab onto something up there and then open up on the crab from above, hoping to see something she could shoot. After all it was not impossible to fire HPAR from one hand in a Hostile.

With unrelenting torrents of fire raining down on the massive crab, it was finally becoming bogged down by the molten metal that coated its armor and stuck fast over its joints. Making its final charge at Lisa, quick and precise fire shot out its legs from under it as the thinner plates finally gave way, while other limbs were literally pulled out from under it, tripping the Mishhuvurthyaran Crab. A ripple passed through the floor as its weight slammed into the deck, the alien collapsing from the onslaught. Even then, it began to rise on its remaining legs, only for missiles to slam into its hulking form, blasting several more pieces of its ruined armor aside - target exposed, Delmar had no trouble finding his mark this time. The huge metal slug punched into its weakened hide as a horrific dent appeared in its armor on the other side, the bulge glowing red hot from the impact.

Despite all this, it was still twitching.

"Keep away from that thing and form up - I won't have any scrubs getting shanked just after finally killing that big bastard!" the Sarge yelled out, the blonde's voice icy cold. Just as she cautiously backpedaled to the group again, the rest managing to get into safety of numbers, more marines arrived in engineering, quickly sweeping the area as they moved in. "Give me a sit-rep marines; who's hurting?"

Even with this fight over, there was still more they had to do; there was no telling what happened in the rest of the ship.

"Well Sarge, I twisted my ankle when the crab knocked me over and scratched the nice new suit I was given but besides that I'm just dandy," Mark said grinning under his helmet. "What are we going to do with O'Neil's armor anyway and if he has it on him, can I have his wallet? Oh and why were we being attacked by juveniles, that's not standard by any means." Mark asked the sarge while nudging a mishu corpse with his foot.

Delmar's landing wasn't quite graceful but it stopped him. Stumbling as his feet touched the ground, he regained his footing with the shotgun still trained on the monster. He was shaking, thought it wasn't obvious through the armor. The adrenaline and painkillers numbed the pain but he could still feel the damage the crab had done to him and there was no way he would be letting it get back up. The voices in the background were faint as he didn't take his sights off the hole in its side.

After a minute he started to relax a bit and began to lower the weapon.
It twitched.
The gun snapped back up and fired the other barrel. It was official, Delmar was terrified by crabs now and didn't care what type or where they came from. The self control his martial arts instructors had taught him was failing and at this point a good crab is a dead crab. His mind simply wouldn't accept it as dead yet.

He quickly racked the shotgun with sights frozen on the seemingly immortal foe.

Richard straightened his posture as the fire started to die down. The crab was not dead, but it at least lost it's battle capability, but according to Sarge they still had to steer clear of the thing. "I've got some damage here and there, but I'm all good inside. " He moved over to a all he could lean against and relax, then started checking how much ammunition he had in this rifle he 'borrowed' he didn't want to suddenly run out again.

"I'm up Top, checking ammunition status now but otherwise I'm in the green." Sawyer replied as he checked his ammunition counter to decide whether or not he needed to reload and sighing at the over-enthusiasm of some of the new Marines. "I really dislike these things, both the Hostile and the NMX" he muttered to himself as he hunkered down and waited for further orders from Ylfa.

LIsa, hanging up from the ceiling by her hand, put her HPAR on the back of her suit. She then grabbed with her other hand as well and swinged herself front and back. She then let go and flew in the arc, so she would not fall down on top of the crab. With a short burst of her thrusters she slowed the fall, but still landed with audible THUD! Lisa then recalled her drone and grabbed her rifle again, checking the ammo. The wound in her side made itself known upon her landing, especially now that her adrenalin levels were going down with the fight over. She grabbed her side and hoped the painkillers from her suit will keep her going.

"Simmons here, I got stabbed in the side. I will live," she reported to Ylfa. "Just don't expect sommersaults from me boss. I am still good with ammo and missiles."

As Max watched the combined fire of the squad finally bring down the crab, he was greeted with a satisfying groan as the thing finally went down. If the other marines had been busy fighting this thing before he got there, he could only wonder what sort of hell they had gone through. I'm sure it would make quite the war story, but for now, they still had to finish writing it. As Max checked his suits status, he was reminded on the enormous pain coming from him left side. His suit was doing its best to keep it down, but it was still remarkably unpleasant.

"Sarge, my left arm is trashed, hurts like a bitch, but other than that, I think I'm good to go..." Max said reluctantly. No doubt all the marines were hurting in someway, but he had a duty to press on.

As one last shot rang out, the massive Crab continued to twitch like an animal that had just been put down. It was going to twitch regardless of what was done, and the Sarge didn't seem to mind. "Beats me," Ylfa replied to Mark. Despite the heavy armor she wore, they could still see her shrug before moving over to take a look at Max first. "I can take a few guesses, but unless we find someone who actually knows, we won't know for sure. They just pay me to tell you guys what to kill." Her lips were soon pressed into a thin smile however. "At least you're not dead weight in here," she replied to Sawyer, deliberately looking at the unmoving Aggressor.

Stomping across the bloody red muck and mire, she was soon standing by the marine. Her red monoeye looking him over for a moment, the lead Hostile turned its head to the new arrivals as they set themselves up, "Medic - you able to take a look at his arm? We're moving out, and I don't want him dying of a blood clot of all things," she remarked. The plate over his arm was largely intact, but with a visible dent inwards - the suit itself took the brunt of the blow, but it didn't take much to hurt the person inside of it. The medic carefully took the pressure off of Max after making sure there wasn't any vascular involvement, and got to work setting the bone.

It was something that would have been painful if it weren't for the drugs the young man was on. He was lucky; the fracture was a simple break, and an injection of bone-cement easily held the two halves together for the the time being. He got a new plate, salvaged from one of the fallen. The same soon went for Delmar, with their suits splinting them both. Turning to Lisa and Richard, she pointed at the two, "You guys that got stabbed will need stitches and shit when we get back, but since they obviously missed the vitals and didn't have poison, you'll have to wait until we get back," Ylfa remarked. The suits were going to eye them.

After all...

"We're going to need the sheer numbers to do a thorough sweep, and even then, there's no telling if there's a squid or two hiding in some hole in the wall! So stay frosty!"

It didn't take long for them to get started at all.

*****

They were already moving through the ship, sweeping the corridors. The squad passed by rooms marked clear on their HUDs and marine sentries that were patrolling the ship; it quickly became obvious that once, the ship was somewhat familiar in design, but just deliberately made to be alien and intimidating. Most of it all came off as Cheesy and B-Grade Camp, considering the puke colored walls, amongst other things. Before, they already saw that the flesh covered walls were new, seeing the point where ship met creeping meat, but now that they were exploring? The deeper they went, the worse it got. It became thicker and thicker, more ordered, more deliberate. To the point that they soon found the corridors lit by yellow, bio-luminescent bulbs as they stood before a pair of large, chitin plated sphincter set into the wall.

Under her helmet, the look of disdain Ylfa had could have burned through it alone.

"Ok. Know what? It looks like they're going oldschool on us. Old SMX, but not quite. That means less Neko and more Squids - it was all back before the pushover NMX came along with sheer numbers," she told them. "Since we're sweeping the ship bit by bit, we don't need to rush in. We're going to take our time since they're not going anywhere anyways. Stack up near the door-things into this big room and get ready to shoot anything that can actually hurt us. If it's a Neko, we'll want them alive since we can make them talk." Getting herself ready by one of the doors, the Sergeant stood by what she guessed was the terminal. "Any questions?"

"Stack at the arse-doors, get in, kill squids, take nekoes alive. Got it boss," Lisa replied to Ylfe and grabbed her rifle. She did not feel like going in first, as she was hurt. If she was all right, she would go in right away, charing and shooting anything and everything that needed to be shot. Like this she stood a bit more to the back. "Remember Greenies, you shot neko with Money-Shot she is dead. These rifles pack a wallop. You shoot her legs off, she will live though, so if they have anything dangerous, better you then them. Nekoes are tought bitches, they can loose a limb or two."

With an almost clean bill of health and a little more confidence in the crab's death it was time for him to ready up. The shotgun was on its last two rounds and Delmar wasn't sure how many slugs O'Niell had packed. Using the wrecked aggressor as a reference point he found where he'd lost his rifle and looked in the direction it would have flown. The scuffed HPAR's magazine had some dings but on the whole it was fine.

With the rifle in his left hand and the shotgun in right he searched O'Niell. An almost full ammo box hung of his right hip attached to the hardpoint. With two chainguns there really wasn't much of a point in firing his shotgun until someone got close enough for the full spray. Delmar removed it and placed it on the same hardpoint on his hostile. After reloading the shotgun he strapped the HPAR to his back figuring he'd fall back on it when he needed range.

*****

At the bizarre organic door Delmar stacked up on the left side up front with the shotgun set to spray. "Anyone have a flash grenade?" He asked to the team in general.

Mark scowled at Lisa when she called them greenies. "I'd appreciate it if I wasn't called that. I really fucking hate that term." He said, his voice dripping with malice. Mark stacked up at the door and reloaded his HPAR. "Let's just get this over with. I just want some vodka and my smokes."

Richard decided to stack up at the right side of the door, he felt that being the newest one here he kind of felt like even if he didn't want to go in first someone would tell him to anyway. As for being called a Greenie, he wasn't about to say anything about it, though he was starting to take a little bit of a liking to 'Rook'. He looked to Delmar at the door and shook his head "Nah, they just kitted us out with the basics, probably didn't expect many of us to make it back."

"They most likely expected bunch of Rippers and cats in mindies here." Lisa said back, ignoring Mark for now. Calling new folks greens, rookies and what not was part of a job. Lisa was called that when she was P3C so she would well darn enjoy herself now and let the the shit follow the path. Besides it gives the new guys some incentive to do better and show the 'old guard' that they have it in themselves. "Flashbang would not help much against a Ripper boys. Also remember this is Nepleslia and not a bunch of fucking gartagens. We always expect people to come back and we don't leave people behind. We just don't make battles too easy for them. Otherwise it would be boring wouldn't it?"

Max accepted the medical treatment and replacement part by his fellow marine. It was better than nothing and at least kept him combat effective. After composing himself, he followed the rest of the squad down the hall. This sort of combat was something he was more used to, room clearing reminding him of his old police days. If those days were filled with something out of a horror-vid that is. Focusing on his task at hand he stacked up on the door with the rest of the team as he listened to the orders. . Max got a chuckle from Lisa's joke. "We wouldn't be marines if we made it easy" he commented before turning his attention back to the task at hand. Max knew that joking around was fun, but not taking your enemy serious was deadly. He didn't plan on making that mistake today. Remember that he wasn't a P3C anymore, Max felt a certain obligation to make sure none of the other rookies didn't either. "Remember you sector, don't kill the cats, kill everything else" he thought to himself. Exhaling he readied his weapon, ready to make entry into the room

The Mishhuvurthyar were slippery. Already, they were able to go practically anywhere in a ship given their nature, but to make matters worse, this was their home turf. That meant that any number of things could be waiting for them on the other side, especially since they had no clue what the room beyond even was.

When they opened the door, they had to be ready for whatever was on the other side.

Which, Ylfa didn't do quite yet. "Everyone starts out green rook - don't get butthurt over it," she commented. "Honestly, for this work, you don't really need much anyways. Extra equipment will just get in the way." Somehow snapping, scraping, rasping the metal plated fingers of her suit together, she got their attention and reached for the door controls. Pushing against the fleshy knub, the doorway snapped open as they all stood, ready to pour fire into the portal at the slightest provocation. The remains of ripped up, torn apart rations and ration boxes littered the room as far as they could see. They likely put up a fight at one point in time, but today wasn't the day. Moving in, the squad cleared the messy room, combing its shelves and various storage containers, only to find nothing. And to top off this letdown? Ylfa told them there was more.

"Alright, next room."

By the time they found a 4th compartment and had it cleared, the squad was leaving it with their tension slowly waning. It was becoming a little routine. Despite that, for the briefest of moments, they could hear gunfire down the hallway as another squad found themselves in a fight. Before they could move though, the all-clear was piped through their comms. The blond leading them sighed. "It's official everyone. Welcome to The Suck. The part that nobody signed up for, and nobody saw coming. And the part that can kill you anyways." They hadn't been at this for long, but already, the bloody mess of a ship was becoming monotonous. Stacking up at a doorway, opening it while tensely standing at the knife's edge and then finding something like a shower room out of hell was, only to do it all over again was draining. "They're rotating in fresh guys so we can get a break, but at this rate, we'll end up clearing another room or two before our replacements show up," she explained to them. "And apparently this pile of shit is going to have a long term detail on it too. Pray to whatever you worship it's not us."

At their 5th portal, they could all see some sort of writing on the wall that was partially overgrown. Reaching out and scraping the flesh off, their suits translated it immediately - 'Prison Block 1'.

"Ok, here's t deal guys. I'm f*ing bored and tired. I don't want to deal with this shit, so why don't we just ding-dong ditch this one? Just open it and give it lots of room? It's pretty obvious that there's something on the other side, but it's not going anywhere." Ylfa's red monoeye tracked across them all, looking at the equally faceless marines around her. "If they got a prisoner or two, why catch them in the crossfire? Besides, it's not like they'll kill their bargaining chips anyways."

Her last words held a particularly cold ring to them.

"Whatever we do, let's just make it snappy. I just wanna get this helmet off and drink ASAP." Mark looked at the writing for a moment before asking, "What sunova bitch do you think they have in there sarge?" He stood trying as hard as humanly possible not to look scared. There was something off about this ship and that room especially that made him ill at ease. "Let's just get moving." He muttered quietly to himself.