RP: NSS Sledge Mama [NSS Sledge Mama] Ep. 3 - Into Steel

The silence was deafening.

Each and every single footstep they took reverberated through their suits, their rubberized footfalls dull and muffled against the hard floor. Those that glided in heard even less as the very sound of their own flesh tensing under their uniforms, skin straining against the form fitting suits became louder and louder with each passing moment. It was a silence that they had to break. "Keep those demo charges in the pack for now - let's not go loud until we have to," Ylfa replied to Quentin. As Terrance made his way over to one of the terminals, the woman couldn't help but chuckle as Rachael and Richard talked to one another. "He's on the right track - it's been practically a Cold War with the cats ever since we broke away from them. I don't think either of us are going to change so quick, DATASS or not," she remarked in regards to the treaty.

"Jeeze, I'm really glad you can't read Moonrunes," Kelly remarked as Terrance gave up on the nearby console. She was already climbing one of the ladders leading up to the catwalk above. "If you turned that on, they'd probably come looking, you know?" the Freespacer marine pointed out to him. Looking down at Mark from up there, she couldn't help but comment. "I knew a few people out there that were eager for space combat actually," Kelly began. "There was this pair of brothers that looked forward to mixing things up in space at every opportunity they could get. They hated being in small, cramped spaces though. Exact opposite of most of us." She paused for a moment before they heard the strangest thing. "Heheh - then again, they were both AI's for torpedoes that expired. We don't use them once they're self-aware." It was only a snicker, but it was also the first time they heard the irritable Freespacer give out anything close to a laugh. Hearing this, Ylfa grinned behind her helmet, not that anyone could see.

"She's got the right idea marines - let's go up one level and use the doorway up there to get into the main hub. Some of use are too fat to get by the passageways," the Sergeant sarcastically remarked. "And the drones aren't a bad idea, but it' too early. They can't cloak, so don't use them until comba - SHIT! HIDE!"

The doorway into the lower level of engineering suddenly snapped open without the classic 'swoosh' to warn them. Though they were caught off guard, the volumetric camouflage they had faced earlier was now something held in their favor - the two figures didn't immediately spot them. A pair of Daisies stood stark still, observing the room before taking their first steps inside. Jerking. Twitching. Unsteady. There was something horribly wrong with them both, the situation made clear as neither showed up on the squad's IFF. As the two slowly made their way through the center of the room towards the airlock, they could all hear Ylfa's voice as she slowly spoke to them over laser-comms.

"Squad. We either wait for these two to get in closer and take them down fast, or we leave as carefully as possible."

They had to choose, and choose fast.

"Eh, I guess you're right. At this point, it'd be surprising to find anyone still alive in a zero life-support zone." Terrence replied as he followed Kelly up the ladder. He listened to her story while keeping his LASR aimed at the door below, an eyebrow shooting up with the delivery of her punchline. "You know what? I wouldn't want self-aware, claustrophobic torpedoes in my ship either." He shut up real quick when the two zombo-Daisies showed up. He had been about to fire before Ylfa let him know there was a choice here. Frankly, he didn't know what the Hell was up with these Daisy operators, but he also felt he didn't want to. Either way, it seemed like a good idea to take down roaming guards, in case they came back around again from behind. In that case, the squad's camo wouldn't be able to hide them. However, neutralizing them may raise suspicions. Either way, he provided over watch for anyone willing to approach the Daisies stealthily, his sights on the head of the Daisy on the left.

Richard moved quickly to hide himself when Ylfa called out, even with the camo he didn't want to be out int eh open. He was quick to recognize that these two suits were not showing up on IFF and it was making him rather nervous. They were enemies and they looked a little trigger happy and all he had to keep him hidden was some Yamataian camo that probably did not work as well as the simulators portrayed it.

However it seemed like it was working, they weren't getting shot in fact it looked like the patrols had no idea what was going on."Best to get rid of them while we still can." Richard spoke as his confidence grew and he activated the inertia control systems in his armor keeping his movement slow so the active camouflage did not cause too much of a distortion. "I'll try to take out the one on the left." He spoke once more using laser comms as he then began to maneuver himself around the mysterious armor stopping on what was now his right but everyone else left armor. He wasn't sure if the armor had it's shields activated but rather than a surprise attack with bullets that would take time this was much more his style and efficient. He suddenly activated his plasma blade and before anyone could hopefully respond he tried to pierce the opposing armor with it.

At Ylfa's order Mark tried as hard as possible to somehow hide his large body from the creepy as hell Daisies. He listened to Richard as he stated what his plan was even though he found that he didn't really care what the words coming out of his face were.

Mark watched Richard move for a moment before quickly becoming bored. "Fuck this stealth shit, I'm not exactly good at hiding," he said over the comms. Without giving anyone time to react, he stepped out and began firing the LASR and 50mm cannon simultaneously at the daisy on the right. While it would probably come and bite him in the ass later, it just felt right.

As the proverbial fecal matter began to hit the oscillating rotating air moving device, rather than act right away Quentin took a moment to analyze the situation. Either these were two friendlies with high damage to their internal systems, or enemies who had no idea how to pilot the suits. For the sake of simplicity, the hovering giant thought it best ot assume the latter. Assuming these were militants, it was time to get in the mindset of the enemy. They liked to consider themselves freedom fighters, and more often than not the words terrorist and freedom fighter were essentially interchangeable. Quentin had heard stories about some of them that were very willing to strap some plastic to their chest and walk into populated areas, these guys might be doing the same but with aether drives. those things can pack a punch when they get detonated, or so he had been told. He wasn't eager to see the results.

This contemplation cost him valuable time as others leaped into action far quicker then he felt was needed."Maybe we should keep our distan-" Yeah, too late for that, one guy was way too eager to try out the plasma blades obviously, and somone else was already using explosives. Why didn't he ever get to use the explosives first? He sighed and took aim on the daisy to the right with some burst fire from the LASR, not wanting to catch the friendly swordsman in the face, and wanting to save the ordinance for later. Now was the time to take them out efore they could call and alert everyone, but they probably wouldn't quite manage that since these guys were machines, they could make thousands of calculations a minute, and at least one of those calculations on the odds of the militants winning would be 'I'm boned' and warn his buddies before trynig to activate the meltdown.

"We might want to take cover!" He said a little too loudly over the comms. "They can start a meltdown sequence on those things right?"

Max watched his teammates open fire and start their attack. "Look like subtly is out the window. Oh well, we probably wouldn't have snuck around them anyway" Max thought as the squad started firing. Knowing that all hell was about to break loose, Max trained his weapons on the nearest door, ready to let loose on the next person he saw that wasn't a friendly.

As Sunadori and Williamson helped Grimalk onto one of the catwalks above from a ladder, the main entrance into Engineering opened. Like Terrance and Kelly, who were also caught in the open on a ladder, they froze in place. It seemed like they held still for an eternity as the figures below twitched about, their limbs jerking as they moved. They were lucky though; it didn't take long for a fight to break out.

As the Daisy on the left awkwardly moved to one of the terminals, Terrance moved up on it undetected. Right before a bright blue flash burst to life! Shields flickered and flared as Richard decided to stab at the Daisy, the brilliant show of lights done complete silence. Just as its shields gave out, the figure pointed one of its forearms at the young man and fired, his ears barely picking up the faintest hiss of energy blasts washing over his barriers. Just as his blade melted and boiled through armor plate and burned into the interior of the enemy suit without a sound.

At the very same time, the rifle in Mark's hands shook as he fired on the Daisy to the right. The staccato jolts of the gun were all accompanied by the sound of rapid-fire clicks, each and every single one conducting through his own suit. A heavy thud ran through the big Daisy as the shoulder cannon followed up. The others watched as a thick and heavy tracer slammed into the figure without a sound, the projectile bursting through the shields with sheer brute force. Sparks flew as though a giant grindwheel had struck it, but it was still moving. Just as it leveled one of its weapons on him, a rapid fire trio smashed into its chest and punched through to finish it, the faint red glow fading from one of Ylfa's hot cannons.

Just as quickly as it began, the fight ended.

"I want everyone up onto the catwalk level above us and out through the large entryway there - we got to get moving before they realize something's up," Ylfa ordered them about. Gliding over to the fallen enemies, Kelly replied to Quentin.

"Militants like myself take a bit longer than you think to m3lt down. It's when meatheads like you cripple us but don't deactivate us fast enough that we do that, and only if the situation warrants it. On the bright side, the explosion will only take out most of your shields if they're full," the female droid pointed out to him. Just as she finished, the Master Sergeant swore over the comms before hurrying to ascend with the rest of the squad.

"These suits are fucking empty."

Quentin took a breath and said "All right, so either they've got a remote control, or they've downloaded AI into the armors right? I'm not totally familiar with what free spacers can do here, so... kelly?" Quentin considered that he could be too hung up over the possibility of nuclear scuicide, but now sending in whole armories of unoccupied power armor to walk into the other areas to self destruct and cuase as much death as possible with whatever was on hand sounded like a real possibility, especially if they could repeat the process with no risk to themselves. While considering these things, he took the time to check the entrances more carefully. Without a depresurized hiss to warn them, a stealthed daisy could get the drop on them fairly easily if it knew they were there.

Richard pulled his blade out of the suit soon after pushing through the armor. He couldn't tell if there was resistance or not since he was using plasma but with such a weak response he could tell something was strange. However after the two armors were very quickly dispatched everyone was ordered to move on. He didn't question his orders and used his inertia systems once more and began to maneuver himself up to the catwalk. When he heard form Ylfa that the suits were empty however he grew a bit worried. "Do you think whoever was controlling them is going to send word back we were here?"

"Dammit, Mark!" Terrence cursed as he retreated along the catwalk. He habitually ejected the magazine he had in his rifle to check on its dangerous cargo, before returning it to its place. He cursed again at the news that the zombo-Daisies were completely empty. "I don't know, Richard, it's a flip of a coin between your theory and the new guy's." The colonist kept his rifle raised as he advanced, ready to fire as soon as a hostile showed its face... Or visor, if the rest of these hostile suits were remotely controlled or something.

Rachael was completely zoned out the entire time, put on auto-pilot and survival mode, she didn't pay much attention to anything other than shooting and surviving and orders. She had stayed rather quiet until she shook out of it at seeing the Daisies completely empty. She looked confused for a moment before looking back at Richard before looking at Ylfa and nodding, she followed Richard. She didn't have a clue on how the Daisies were moving on their own, perhaps the newbie was right that it was AI... the way they moved seemed less stiff than that of Remote Control... "Those things moved much less stiff than a Daisy under remote control, I'd put my money on AI."

Mark followed the others to the catwalk whilst checking on his ammo. "What the hell did I do to you," he yelled back at Terrence as he glared at him from behind his visor.

"Of course they're AI controlled," Mark replied more than a little annoyed to Rachel and whoever the hell the new guy was. "Since you've failed to pay attention thus far, I'll help you out. So far we've been fighting militants or as I like to call them big killer AI. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say someone or something we haven't seen yet downloaded some of them into the armors."

Quentin just shook his head at the clear evidence of testosterone poisoning as he he discovered how relatively simple the propulsion systems on the Mindy were, flying up to the catwalk. "I'm well aware of what we are fighting, the chance still exists that they could be using a remote control system, so which do we assume is true and operate under? Because if they are controlling them from a distance, they saw us and know we are here, and will probably send several small squads of remote controlled armors after us. If they were crazy enough to download themselves into armors, then we will probably be facing a whole armory's worth of Daisies, Mindies, whatever modular armors they cobble together, as well as all the weapons they can carry, hopefully not all at once."

As he landed and continued his monologue, he checked his own ammo count after seeing some of the others doing the same, seeming to study the rounds intently as he spoke. "We have one small squad, limited munitions, suits most of us have never used before, and the vague possibility of help from the cats if they don't get slaughtered... We will lose in a contest of who has the most fire power in the end." Quentin was liking this situation somewhat less than before, but they most likely still had the element of surprise, and a pack of explosives to knock their way past a couple walls.

After that he spoke, slamming the rounds back into place with what would have been a satisfyingly loud noise should the vacuum of space not be sucking away the sound, and you could almost hear the grin through his voice. "So, let's show these cats how its done yeah? We probably still have the element of surprise for the time being, and we have a plan, of a sort, so lets just hope they don't try and replace the station AI with one of their own eh?" He finished half jokingly, not really sure on how possible that was himself.

The very brief flutter of combat surprised Max. He was half expecting a spectacular fail, instead it was sort of a graceful takedown. Hell maybe they were getting better, or maybe they were just lucky? The unluckies lucky? Who woulda thought... Looking up Max could see his team ascending to the next level. "Better keep up" Max said out loud, moving quickly to the next level and then out of the door. Reading his weapon he was ready for whatever was next.

"Shit," Takahiro cursed softly to himself, clenching his fists at his sides. He couldn't believe it. He froze. The first sign of hostiles and he stood like a deer in the headlights.
Get it together, idiot, this is nothing. You've handled worse than this back on the streets, he thought.
But he hadn't. This was unlike anything he'd ever faced before. Suits of armor that walked on their own, trying to kill him? The fight had been over in an instant, and he still couldn't get the image out of his head of those Daisies twitching and jerking around like horrific marionettes. His hands started trembling again, so he clenched them tighter until his knuckles were white.
Wait, did that Ylfa lady just give an order? Oh shit, what'd she say? Fuck!
Silently cursing, Takahiro moved along the catwalk, gripping his Knuckler sidearm in his right hand, hoping he wasn't going to get chewed out on his first day.
It'd be just my luck too.

Why the hell am I following this asshole? Tatianna was not happy about having to follow this Yamataian but for now survival trumped racial prejudice.

She watched the carnage unfold before her, it figures these damn cats couldn't make their equipment secure. She just wished she had a real weapon not this neko crap, it's gonna be a long firefight if I have to stay crammed into one of these... What do they call them? Daffodils, sunflowers, daisies? Who names this shit?

She stayed low and waited for something she could shoot.

Moving up ladders or simply flying up with their inertia controls - it didn't matter - they all began to make their way up. "Knowing us, it's probably a new AI uploaded to the suits," Kelly explained to them, her voice carefully modulated despite the faint trace of something similar to an auto-tune. "They already come with their own AI's, and they're no slouches, so those were probably deleted. Any new ones uploaded are probably finding out how to run the things the hard way." With the jerky, unnatural and doll-like movements the enemy suits made, the theory made perfect sense. As the squad stacked up by the exit on the upper floor, their numbers evenly split left and right, Ylfa glanced at the still-running reactor before answering Richard.

"They probably didn't get a word out - the Aether taps powering the station are screwing up our sensors." Pausing for a moment, she added, "Those of you with Mindies, power down your own aether systems and run off of capacitors. Otherwise, you're just a sexy 'shoot me' sign with that massive energy signature." Making sure the rest of the squad was ready, Ylfa gave the next set of orders. "I want us to fan out through the doors and spread out - if we find hostiles, don't engage unless they've detected us, got it?" Just as Terrance finished checking his rifle, its magazine still full since Richard blocked his line of sight earlier, she gave a quiet, "Go, go, go!" across the comms.

The doors opening without a hint of their iconic 'swoosh', the Nepleslian Marines piled on through, the sound of their clothing rubbing against the unfamiliar suits and breathing the only thing they could hear. Out in this hallway, there was nothing to be found. "Alright, down the hall and a left at the cross-section up ahead, nice and slow. We gotta get to the lifts and go up if we're going to have a chance at stopping this," the woman told them, soon addressing the latest squad members. "New guys, I've got no clue how good you all are, so stick close to me. Keep calm, and stay focused." Just as they started making their way down however, more of those possessed Daisies appeared, walking across their path at the intersection up ahead. The four of them shambled along, their footsteps uncertain and clumsy, but the two in the rear stopped. "Don't move," she whispered in their ears.

Heads snapping at the squad, their bodies rotated over as they took their first awkward steps towards the marines.

Stenos felt truly claustrophobic in his Daisy, feeling his wrinkled clothes rub uncomfortably against his dry skin. Sweat pooled in each empty space of the suit and he cursed under his breath. Though he heard the orders, understood them and intended to follow him, something about fighting empty suits of armor seemed a much less predictable circumstance than he would have anticipated as a member of the Nepleslian Military. No, it felt more like the old days, where expecting the unexpected saved his life more times than he could possibly hope to recall. Feeling that familiar adrenaline pulse through his blood, a tie between his past and present, he let go. Atavism overtook him and he gripped the greatsword resting on his back. Though his skin couldn't feel the cool metal handle, he felt complete wielding it, like it was merely an extension of his arm.

He looked around at his comrades, Sunadori and Williamson in particular, and said, "Fuck being cautious. These things aren't alive, they're just empty suits of armor way too small for any real man to even put on."

With that, he gripped the handle of his blade with both hands, charged at the nearest empty suit, let out a scream that said more than his words ever could, and swung down as hard and fast as his arm and suit would let him.

Mark followed Ylfa through the door wishing for the first and more than likely the last time that he wasn't wearing clothes while creeping through a combat zone. Upon seeing more of the unnaturally moving Daisies he quickly dropped into a crouch in an attempt to make his large form less noticeable. Some part of him practically begged for him to attack but his training kicked in and Mark decided he could stand to wait a little longer.

"God fucking damn it," Mark muttered over the comms as he watched the FNG charge at the daisy with a damn sword of all things like an idiot. "If this fucktard wants to disobey direct orders and try to be a big shot, let's let him guys. No one do anything I want to see how this plays out." He just couldn't believe it, he might just have found someone more poorly trained and even stupider than Terrence. "Someone needs to be arrested for child abuse because that thing was clearly thrown at a wall several times as a baby," he thought to himself.

"You know we can't do that." Tatianna quickly sent over the comms. "Just because his training didn't stick doesn't mean he has to die".

Tatianna took aim with her gauss cannon and fired off a few precise shots to disable the shambling masses of armor. " Please don't die yet, we need to give the Sarge the satisfaction of killing you."