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

"Holy shit" was all Max could say as he watched Ylfa disappear in a flash. If Ylfa really was gone, then they probably didn't stand much of a chance against this thing anyway. Things would get much worse if these guys decided to collaspe the ceiling on a space station, for all they knew they could get sucked out into a vaccum of space. "DON'T DROP THE CEILING OF A SPACE STATION ARE YOU CRAZY!!" Max shouted over comms trying to keep the rookies in line. "We don't have the firepower to drop this thing, we need to pull back! Concentrate your fire on the weapons mounts or joints so we can outmanevour this thing" ordered Max over comms.

Max moved from his cover spot to attempt to get out of the line of fire, with so many autocannons blazing around him he was conflicted on which way to go, but he decided to angle his moves to capaitalize on the fire he had just put on the TASHA legs and angled himself to fire on it again with all his weapons hoping to at least reduce its mobility somewhat.

Though a glowing crater was melted into the floor, partially burned into the projector depression that Ylfa hid in, the TASHA brought its gun to bear as several drones scattered as Max fired away with his rifle.

Its front rapidly turning towards him, his plasma lances simply splashed off the wavering field before he was forced back into cover. Even then, it definitely had its eyes on him. Either unnoticed or ignored, the aether gatling swept back and forward over the lip of the astrometrics pit as the shots simply started to eat through the floor. It quickly started to heat up inside Richard, Max, Stenos and Kelly's suits as lances of white started pelting their barriers, but the Gynoid quickly stepped up, her wrist shields springing to life, expanding and blocking them from the barrage as the alloyed floor simply washed away under the torrent of Aether.

"Damnit, I don't know how long it's gonna hold!" she quickly told them as clear, translucent red fluid wept down her thighs.

Though the marines were down, they weren't out yet. The various drones that Quentin and Richard deployed gave them clear, unobstructed views of what had happened, and what was going on. One of Richard's in particular dove into Ylfa's still-glowing foxhole. With the cacophony and thunder, he added his voice to it.

"Juuuuuust five more minutes mom," the damaged Daisy he found replied, dreamily muttering over the comms. Though the entire front of her suit was ablated away like a piece of armor dropped from orbit, Ylfa lay there on her back, dazed.

At the same time, Rachael grabbed what she could and moved fast. Dashing with her thrusters, the hail of shells from the Spider-Mech's left autocannon shifted off of Richard and Max's hiding hole and spat at her as she got behind it. Two or three of the heavy, fat shells struck the marine and knocked her down into Quentin and Tatiana's hiding spot as the two talked, but not before she let loose a barrage of missiles and bullets. Unimpeded by shields, her shots were clean. The hyper-velocity rounds tore through the air, sparks flying as they started to bite into the armor plating just in time for the mini-missiles to streak in. Brilliant balls of fire blossomed over its surface, fragments bouncing off of its two autocannon turrets while the armor plate of the TASHA's back started to look like the surface of an asteroid. With bullets lodging in its hide, the rounds started displacing the alloy itself, large cracks starting to pop and spread.

"Y'cn drop the ceiling...later Quent..." Ylfa mumbled, the woman's mind only just registering what the marine was suggesting to the others.

Shouting out to them all, heavy shells quickly punched through shields as a cannon boomed. With Mark's timing being spot on, he moved fast with his thrusters as well and managed to evade the TASHA's suppression. Terrance followed up right on his heels and mag-dumped on it, his own rounds managing to cut through the field thanks to the flanking shot as Mark rapidly jinked and juked with his fusion thrusters. Both marines managed to get their shots into its rounded side. Placed right over where Ylfa had frantically dumped as many shells as she could, further chipping away, denting, and then popping it at the seams. The armor still clung on, and Mark's missiles streaked in after, however, only splashed against the shields. The Spider-Mech's right side autocannon stopped trying to suppress both of them as a whole and instead swiveled after Mark in the open, but he was quick. Shells hammered into the floor as he quickly retreated back in, bursting as their fillers exploded. Fragments peppered Mark's shields, but he made it back into cover with Terrance.

Just as she yelled.

"WAIT, WHAT?" Ylfa sat bolt upright as Quentin's words finally started to sink in properly. "God damnit!" The Master Sergeant, realizing the situation, tried to stand, only to fall on all fours as she lost her balance. "Quentin, just toss the charge through its shields! None of ours can stop slow shit!" she yelled at him. The world spun around Ylfa, but she could still make out the flickering static of her HUD enough to see Takahiro's status and location. "Damnit, get in cover, don't stay out in the open long and don't clump up!" The woman grimaced in pain and grunted, but she didn't stop or let up on any of them. "Maybe you're all girls after all, but the cannons on your backs aren't some big, dumb dong that just hangs there! Put them to use! It's the only thing that can go through the side shields, and it's ass is wide open!"

Though Ylfa was alive and kicking, it was good news before the bad. Under their assault, the TASHA was hurt and took note of this. Killing machine or not, it wasn't dumb. Not entirely. With the gatling spinning down Kelly dropped her shields and fell to her feet as its legs quickly scuttled like any other bug's. As flooring crumpled under its feverish footsteps, it turned on the main astrometrics bay, and fired its main cannon at Terrance and Mark. A flash of white, lightning-blue light washed everything out of view for just a second, as the shell exploded at the back of their massive foxhole, now even larger than before! The miss - the flat out miss - drained a chunk from their shields, but that wasn't the biggest of their worries.

It was coming, and wanted to hop right in with them.

Quentin listened to the seemingly endless talking on the comms for a moment, and simply chose to act rather than try and argue with someone about what should be done. if he had acted sooner he could have gotten away with collapsing the ceiling, maybe even the floor, around the stupid spider, but now it was getting a little too close for comfort to some marines.

As he stared at the view the drones gave him for only a moment longer, he noticed the cracks opened up in the spider’s defenses. A weakness that was begging to be exploited. Retreat was impossible without leaving what looked to be a little less than half the group to the spider at this point any ways. Detonator at the ready, he flew to see it with his own eyes before lobbing the charge at the structural failure, staring as it arced to its target, ready to make some fireworks once it hit.

"Oh shit," Mark muttered as he watched the TASHA come right at him. Without time to give it much thought, he did the first thing that came to mind. Mark threw himself onto the floor and used his thrusters to slide himself head first under the thing. He fired several rockets into it's belly hoping that it would have thinner armor.

Richard let out a sigh when he saw that Ylfa was alright, or rather alive she looked far from alright. He had his own problems with the TASHA raining down fire on them. But during that time he heard something very interesting. He took the two drones that were not monitoring Ylfa and moved them low and slowed them down trying to keep them unnoticed as they closed in on the TASHA/ Once it's attention turned to the main astrometrics den he could breath easy but his work wasn't over.

He made a dash for the front right astrometrics pit like he planned before it rudely interrupted him. He took the time to send a laser message to Kelly as he fired at the joins in the leg with his rifle hoping a few would make it through the shield. "Kelly, can you release your drones? Between you and me we can scatter some about and try to keep them moving slow and sneak them into the shield. If we can get it inside we can try to fire on it's sensors, or maybe even detonate the drones on the, black it out."

Though he was ready to move he waited for Kelly's reply and all the explosives to clear the area, last thing he wanted was for his drones to be blowe up before they complete their objective so he continued to fire aiming at the leg joints with his rifle, and sent 4 misses to the rear hoping to keep it on it's toes.

Tatianna was disappointed that the ceiling wouldn't be going down yet that, would have been spectacular. She noticed the new resident of her hiding spot, " Hey! Are you alive?"

Before she got a response Tatianna was up and shooting at the mech again with her 50. Her goal was to put what ever she had left down range to keep it off what ever Quentin was about to do.

Terrence's eyes widened when he popped back up to see the TASHA coming for himself and Mark. Evidentally, their antics with its weak spot had annoyed it enough to scratch the itch that was the duo of NSMC Marines. He turned to yell at Mark, something about the Colonist covering him while he relocated, but the bigger Marine charged forward and slid under the enemy war machine's belly. "My God." He muttered with wide eyes as watched Mark go. However, they quickly narrowed as he was determined to assist his comrade in whatever way he could. "Mark's under the fucking thing! Pour it on 'em!" He shouted into the comms for everyone's benefit. He stood above the edge of the pit and placed his right leg on the metal in front of him, firing off ten offensive, multi-purpose missiles at the Tasha. He placed his firing elbow on his knee and fired another magazine of suppressive goodness at the TASHA's face. The plan here was to distract the warmachine, or at the very least, get it to redirect its shields to him so that Mark could do some serious damage to its belly!

Rachael got shot, and hit, hard. She got hit hard enough to get thrown back into Quentin and Tatianna’s spot of hiding. She groaned a moment, but before she knew what she was doing she hopped back up and grabbed her weapon before looking around for a moment and noticing how everything was going. She boosted once more, flying out to get behind it, however this time she did drive by hits. As she blasted by the back she’d drop back into cover on the other side of the room. Every pass by she shot more cannon shells towards the back, hoping that she was moving quick enough that it couldn’t lock on, and that she recovered by getting behind cover every time she passed through.


She was going to kill this fucker, and she was going to make it -hurt- for what she just felt... Pain... This fucker was going to die. Nobody hurts her, Nobody overpowers her, she is -strong-, stronger than this stupid fucking tank!

Max felt the heat as the aether lances warmed up his suit. "Scatter" he thought, hoping to draw the enemy fire in separate less coordinated directions. It certainly looked like the rest of the squad was doing their own thing and no real concentrated fire going on. Max knew that they needed to find a weak spot or something to exploit. Partially hearing Rachel's suggestion, he let loose his own drones, thinking of switching them to scan mode and sending the info to the squad. Hopefully these suits had some sort of link that they could share info and then properly form a counter attack. In the meantime, Max knew he couldn't stay where he was. Thrusting out of cover to his left towards a hole in the floor, Max fired off his Guass Cannon and Plasma cannon, aiming at the Aether Gatling cannon firing on him, he let loose another volley of offensive missiles, knowing that they might have the best shot of getting through, then for good measure he would aim and fire his grenade launcher at the spot his rounds impacted, hopefully it would distort the shields enough for his incendiary round to get through. He could hope at least...

Like a team of adventurers fighting off a monster, the squad leaped into action. Only, this was no game, and they all played for keeps.

As the TASHA bore down on Mark and Terrance in the main observatory, thrusters blazed to life as Quentin steeled himself and dashed forward out of cover, demolition charge in hand. Except he wasn't the only person with the same idea; Mark did so as well while the Aether gatling swept back and forward over his cover. Moving forward, right into its maw in an evasive zig-zag, the massive war-machine was caught off guard, but only for a moment. Dodging the majority of its fire, Mark was only clipped on the way in, his energy shields draining before he began to slide in under its weapons towards its more vulnerable belly.

His missiles at the ready, the marine felt cold, unyielding hands grasp him by the left arm, another metal palm coming down to clamp over the face of his helmet, obscuring his vision.

The two smaller arms that hung off its body like a pair of mandibles grabbed hold of him as the Spider-Mech merely dipped its hulking body down to intercept! Slamming Mark into the ground and knocking the wind out of him, it rose to ready the next blow. At the same time, its right autocannon swiveled around after Quentin. Shells leaped at the marine, but he focused, focused, focused on that weak spot on its back! Throwing the plastic explosives, he stopped and watched as it gracefully arced in. Unlike Quentin, the TASHA wasn't intent on watching the explosives be hurled through the air, and pummeled him with shells. Energy barriers crackled and burst before he heard the harsh sound of metal screeching off of metal. Struck while in the zone, he felt like a champion boxer was using him as a speed bag.

He was going to die!

A fiery blast erupted directly across the surface of the TASHA's rear, and not a moment too soon! Buying him the precious moments he'd need to take cover, Quentin could still see the standing form of the Spider-Mech through the smoke and debris. All of its outer armor to its rear was broken away, revealing a much thinner looking layer of shining silver underneath. And judging by the flickering, its side shields were taken out as well. More importantly, with the blast, Mark found himself partially shaken loose out of the TASHA's grasp! If he struggled and fought, he had a chance to escape its deadly grip. Terrance followed up the satchel charge as well, and let loose a flurry of missiles alongside a hail of bullets. However, the explosives splashed harmlessly across its front while the shots literally arced away, the shields shimmering strongly. Still, the added smoke and confusion only added to the chance that Mark had to escape. Despite this effort, the aether gatling spun up again, and was pointed right at Terrance!

"Forget about the drones - at this range, the backup optics are still good enough to wipe the floor with us," Kelly replied to Richard. "My leg hydraulics are out by the way, but I still got servos." The young man was already firing at the mech as she told him this however. The four missiles he let loose exploded over the rear, but only left scorch marks! "Fucking cats, that's Zesuaium!" the Freespacer swore. Despite this, Richard fired on the TASHA's joints with his assault rifle. With the majority of its outer armor gone, the leg foundation was far more exposed, but despite this, the rounds were bouncing off of the rounded plate there. However, it was rattling and shaking with every single impact it took, sparks flying out from inside and in between the plates themselves. Even then, Kelly quickly joined him and added her aether cannons to his barrage, eroding the joint coverings enough that rounds were starting to slip through!

At the same time, Tatiana stood out of cover enough to bring her cannon to bear. Though she called out to Rachael to see if she was alright, her focus was on covering Quentin! The air cracked as her cannon boomed, and with the shields to the sides and rear wiped out, the rest of the armor at the TASHA's side easily peeled and broke away from the punishment it continued to take. Shells pummeled its hull, and soon broke off in chunks, revealing the inner armor layer and exposing the leg joints' lightly plated foundations. Rachael managed to move as Quentin did moments before throwing, and dodging, weaving in and out of cover, barraged its back. The cannon rounds, incredibly effective before, were being stopped cold by the silvery Zesuaium, but a lucky shell struck the joint foundation, smashing the thin covering into the machinery underneath.

This giant stumbled for the briefest of moments.

Max had taken the opportunity and moved up in a flash, firing his weapons as he did so. Unfortunately, the shots bored into relatively untouched and fresh armor. He just couldn't get an angle on its aether cannon from the side; its front leg was covering the bulk of the weapon! Despite this however, the mini-missiles' shaped charges left small holes in its armor before an incendiary grenade's contents splashed and clung to the side of its left front leg and burned away, weakening the armor there. Ylfa was close by to him and managed to get back on her feet as well. Shaken hard, she needed to recalibrate her weapons; aiming high with both her cannons, the woman fired, the massive slugs haphazardly smashing into the armored base of the left autocannon turret.

With all this damage being taken, the TASHA wasn't going to let them hammer at it without a fight though; it's left autocannon quickly turned on the marines to its left and started to fire to suppress. Luck was on their side however; it was trying to cover both the observation areas on its left side and was spread thin. "Richard, Stenos, Ma - Damnit!" she swore, seeing the marine go. Despite this, the machine girl quickly steeled herself."When you're ready, I'll activate my shield and draw fire while you guys shoot!" Kelly called over to them. That way, they could circumvent the fire, if only for a short while.

"Aim for its autocannons first! After that, we can move freely and break its legs off at the joints!" Ylfa ordered the marines. "It goes for whatever's exposed or moving in plain sight first and anyone who hurts it bad after that - someone needs to play rabbit to grab its attention!"

Quentin took the oppurtunity, diving back to the previous spot of cover, seeking solace in the glory that was copious amounts of dense matter between himself and the thing that was attempting to murder him with projectiles. Heart beating like a jackhammer, his ears ringing, and feeling a bit light headed, he smashed his back against the cover after arriving, breathing like he had just ran a marathon. He didn't think anything penetrated, but he certaintly felt like he had at least a broken rib from those impacts, and his lightheadedness he was expereincing was making him worried. it would already be miraculous enough if he didn't have a new bullet lodged in hiw body, he hoped he could get another one and not have a broken rib puncture some organs. As he finished reloading and began double checking how much of the explosive goodness he still had in the butt pack, he looked over to the marine that had covered him to the best of her ability and asked a question.

"How do I look?"

Richard was about to fire on the thing once more but then he heard Ylfa give orders. After a quick glance at his HUD he nodded to himself and then spoke up on the communications line. "My barrier has gotten back up to full strength, and since I don't have a shoulder canon I'll play the rabbit, just make it quick everyone." He had his arm shield too so he was confident he could at least give the group a few seconds to act.

Before anyone could stay no he fired his thrusters and instead of dashing around side to side he first went up, fast, getting above the TASHA as quickly as he could to try to draw it's line of sight upwards. He held his shield between himself in the Tasha ready for any surprises before he began darting around above the thing like a fly. All his attention was on recognizing and avoiding incoming fire now so he didn't bother to lift a weapon to it yet.

Rachael followed suit, continuing to duck in and out of cover in time with the person she was working with, but now that Richard was grabbing its attention she used her hud to lock onto the autocannons. She used her shoulder rockets and guns to start launching an assault on the things, all while continually dropping in and out of cover in different formations so the TASHA couldn't; A) Hit her, and B) Get used to her pattern of movement to counter her getting into cover.

Tatianna slid back into cover after she saw that Quentin made it back alive. The last thing she wanted was to draw it's attention any more then she already had. She went to his side to make sure he wasn't on the verge of dying at any moment.

"After what you just went through I'd say you look like one hell of bad ass. I can't see anything on you and your not acting like there's anything inside. So let's finish this fucker." She had no idea if Quentin was actually okay but they needed him in fighting condition and she wasn't going to stop that momentum. She started to fire in bursts she would hop up fire once or twice into its auto cannon quickly duck down breath for a bit and repeat.

Terrence grimaced at the lack of effect that his missiles had on the TASHA. He was hoping to maybe take out a forward visual sensor or something, but that's the price of going in light. However, the aether gatling that was now staring at him was cause for concern. "Shit!" The colonist cursed as he kicked off from the edge of the pit and hit the bottom of it, reloading when he landed on his rear. One of his hands darted to the side of his helmet, as if to make sure he was indeed hearing Ylfa. He sighed in relief before biting his lower lip as he began to inch his way up, keeping his head below the edge of the pit, ready to ride out the wave of projectiles and pop back up for return fire, aiming for the most exposed autocannon he could catch sight of as per instructions.

Managing to flee back into cover, Quentin felt his veins were burning with adrenaline, hands and feet hot with blood yet numb with the sheer pressure thumping away in his chest. For him, it was practically surreal as he looked at the feminine armor he wore - several fresh and shining craters had been smashed into his suit, but it somehow held. He was alive! Quentin couldn't help but excitedly ask how it looked, and though Tatiana got ready with some pep talk with him, Rachael was silent and as taut as a bowstring. Each marine was getting prepared to dive back into the breach in their own way.

"S-shit! I was supposed to!" Kelly swore. Richard had taken her idea and flew right up and out of cover instead, drawing fire in her place. With that tossed out the window, both autocannons automatically tracked the high-flying target, the barrels of both weapons turning with mechanically smooth speed as his fusion thrusters fired. His mind completely focused on evading its fire, the Daisy clad marine jinked and juked as the barrel was brought to bear, tracer fire leaping up at him and hammering into the roof instead. Several shots sent sparks and light arcing across his energy barriers, battering the shield on his arm about, but Richard didn't stop moving.

Seeing their opportunity, the other marines began their attack!

Popping out of cover, Rachael locked on to the TASHA's right side autocannon as it turned towards her and the others. Letting loose a flurry of mini-missiles before pounding away with her big guns, she kept ducking in and out of cover at random spots to avoid its methodical retaliation. Tatiana did the same, letting off quick bursts of her rifle as Quentin finished checking over his weapons and joined her. Without a thing out of place, his shoulder mounted LASR joined hers and hailed on the TASHA. On the other side, plasma bolts and columns of brilliant white light chased after the bullets Ylfa and Stenos sent tearing out of their rifles as Max and Kelly opened up on the autocannon. And from behind, a rapid-fire barrage of energy pulses peppered away; thinking he was down and out, the machine didn't make sure to finish him off. This only gave Takahiro the time he needed to muster enough willpower to stay in the fight and fire a wrist gun, the rifle in his other hand empty.

The unrelenting barrage quickly demolished both weapons, immediately freeing up the entire squad from their suppression, but the TASHA wasn't done yet!

Leaping back and into the bottom of the observation pit, Terrance smashed through several tables and chairs as he dodged the worst of the mech's fire. The young marine quickly learned that with aether, the fun never stopped; the gatling just kept on sending an endless barrage of white-hot lances at his position as he reloaded. The cone of fire was widening as it kept on firing, making it hard for him to get any shots off. Quickly blind firing with his rifle, the bullets literally curved away from its chassis, his ears picking up the tell-tale crackle of energy barriers pushing back. Even though the others were wailing away at it, the armored autocannons shearing apart and melting under the sheer weight of the squad's fire, Terrance wasn't in the best of positions, and it just wouldn't go away!

It was just too busy trying to simplemindedly kill Mark.

"Use your thrusters Mark!" Ylfa called out to him. Even then, it was easier said than done. Held off the floor, the marine was desperately kicking, punching, twisting and pulling against the machine's mechanical arms, but every time he got one limb free, it'd grab another and attempt to literally tear him apart like a doll! The air around Mark was literally distorting with the sheer amount of heat pouring off of the aether gatling above him as well, making even seeing hard. With neither making progress against the other and the rest of the squad pressing in, the TASHA's running lights lit up as a new thrum came to life from within. Before they all knew it, the spider-mech leaped up and forward its anti-grav systems fully active. In the briefest fleeting moment, time raced faster and faster yet slowed down to a crawl. Terrance looked up at the under belly of the machine above him, while Mark caught a glimpse of Terrance below, both coming to realize the same exact thing.

It wanted to crush them underneath it.

Rachael couldn't realize faster that it was going to attempt to crush them, She quickly activated her boosters as fast as they could jumping into a nearby wall and activating her boot thrusters as well to lunge her off the wall towards the large tank, considering how fast she was going, and the fact it wasn't planted into the ground and was in the air, she should be able to ram it hard enough with her full boosted power armor to move its trajectory enough to make sure it didn't crush anyone, or at the very least was capable of making it for the others to escape quicker.

Seeing that the auto canons were quickly done away with the top of the beast was exposed, but its armor was still nothing to joke at. Rather than floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee though, he was the kind that preferred to hit hard. He leaned forward and rose his shield for defense and then activated his thrusters, closing in as fast as he could and tried to land on top of the Tasha before it's shield came back up. Once up there he activated the plasma blade on his projector and thrust it firth through the main canon barrel to try to disable it, and pull it back, to attempt to cut the barrel and armor shell open.

Quentin chuckled after tatianna's pep talk, not so much that it, or anything else was funny, but the adrenaline fueled giddiness that came from dodging death demanded he do so. Shortly afterwards, he stared in some mix of disbelief and the sense that a joke along the lines of spider squishing other people was sorely needed as he too realized the situation. At first, he was raising his gun to fire before Racheal flew a little too fast, and a little too close to not notice. Not all that confident in his aim, Quentin took the briefest of moments to contemplate how many times he could cheat death under a minute before setting himself on a collision course for the not so itsy bitsy spider, and dropping the LASR, intent on digging an aether blade through the Zesuaium plating covering all those squishy internal components. As the marine flew towards the great beast, he was inspired to sing a lyric in his head. Down came the aether and washed the spider out!

Max watched as the autocannons slagged and fell, freeing them from suppression. It didn't take long for the rest of the squad to move to exploit the move. He saw three of them take flight, launching themselves towards the metal beast. It reminded him of that scene out of that godfrasken Bill Smith Movie Wild Wild East where they try and bomb a giant metal spider from a hover bike. It was an insane plan and it didn't really work out but eh, he had nothing better to do so why not. Activating his own thrusters, Max headed back towards the leg joint he had previously but fire on, aiming to finish it off and at least partly reduce the spiders mobility. Flying over and up, he let out a barrage with everything he had hoping to break off the leg.