>>>ON
Heavy rifle rounds continued to whiz by through the trees and thick brush surrounding the first SAM site, fired by the desperate, unarmored defenders in the hopes of stalling the marines bearing down on them. The ploy seemed to work, as just as the SMODIN forces arrived to destroy the emplacement, a trio of Red powered armor appeared on the scene. Among them, was the last of the Crooked Demons and a pair of Dark Demon units with Type 1 Rifles. They split up, with the two weaker units flanking on either side and the hunched, twisted figure of the CD darting towards the center of the attacking group.
"Oh, fuck on a stick. Alright, Gyles, I want you and Weynolt to focus your efforts on taking down the Crooked. I'll try and suppress the DDs while you guys do it." At that, the Chief sent several bursts of fire from his chain guns, as well as a few grenades, towards the DDs. His objective wasn't so much as to destroy the flanking armors outright, but to simply stall them so that they won't be able to flank Gyles and Weynol
"Yes sir. On it." Despite having an arm hanging there uselessly and her targeting still refusing to cooperate, she still managed to aim her LPA with one hand. She fired at the Crooked Demon in short bursts to keep her shots from going too wild. She fired the last of her DART's as well in hopes of throwing it off guard long enough for the others to get some good shots in.
"I've got 'em." Gyles replied, unleashing a rapid barrage of plasma fire from his LPA and boosting to flank it gently on the left side. Hopefully, it would take the bait and attack him instead of Weynolt, or otherwise, present him with an easy target. He only hoped that the other marine, with her aim as it is, wasn't going to hit him with her slightly uneasy weapons fire.
The flanking DD's were not immediately killed by the Scalar grenades due to having proper antigravity systems to protect them from the otherwise crippling electrogravitic assault. However, their conventional shields were immediately rendered inoperative, allowing a hail of laser burst from the VOID's GLC's to scour the outer armor of the left unit and narrowly missing the right one. Unfortunately, this did not seemed to do much more than anger them, causing them to both head towards Ran, Type 1's blazing. The resulting swarm of bullets would not deal much damage immediately, but might begin to wear his shields down if Ran didn't move to evade.
The pilot of the CD, firing several poorly aimed bursts from his Shoulder Aether Cannons towards the flanking Gyles, began rapidly heading towards Weynolt's WATER2, the unit it detected as partially damaged. hoping to weed down the number of opponents he would have to face.
However, the combined assault from both LPA's had effective worn through his shields, and before he could close into close quarters he was riddled with several large, burning holes before he could even put so much as a scratch on Weynolt. His ploy to attack head-on in melee had failed and the smoldering shell hit the ground hard, sliding all the way to Amelia's slightly hovering feet.
"Ah, fuck!" Gyles had managed to loosely evade several of the shots, but had been struck with one shot, that he had managed to block with his heavy forearm shield. The blast of transdimensional energy evaporated the upper portion of the armored bulwark that protected his armor's forearm and caused very heavy damage to his left arm. Electrical systems seized up, rendering the nanomuscles in that area temporarily inoperable.
"Oh you little shits." As his HUD displayed the shields of his VOID taking fire, the Chief deployed two Barrier Shields on either side of his VOID, so that as he boosted sideways to the right flank of the DDs, his flanks would remain protected. While boosting, Ran would fire several long bursts at the DDs, as well as sending two more Scalar grenades directly at the Type 1s they carried.
"...." Amelia said nothing as she watched the CD fall at her feet. Without a word she turned on the DD's and began firing upon the one closest to Ran. She seemed to be getting used to firing without the targeting as her shots were a bit more focused and there were fewer strays.
The grenades struck hit the left DD unit square in the arm, causing the HE grenades stored in it's Type 1 to detonate, blowing out the armored limb and knocking the unit aside, while a spray of plasma crashed into his torso and side. After hitting the ground, the pilot seemed to remain immobile, and a small pillar of smoke and vapor rose up from his wounded body. The other unit was more fortunate, and managed to evade the grenade successfully, and moved behind the unarmored infantry. Now with a clear shot, their anti-material rifles resumed firing and the large caliber rounds were sent flying in the general direction of the squad.
Kagura kept herself low to avoid being fired upon where she was and would wait til the firefight was either over or she was behind the friendly lines. Having in mind to fall back some to relative safety, being unable to participate anymore with any form of sanity.
Seeing that he managed to take out at least one DD and send the other behind the unarmored infantry, the Chief's current priorities switched to destroying the unarmored infantry. Firing a single Tracer at their position, Ran then formed a Bubble Shield, signaling for Gyles and Weynolt to get under it. "Kagura, I've got a target marked for you. Send about 3 PAL shots onto it, because we've got a DD hiding in the area."
Kagura nodded and sucked in a breath and closed the chest plate and stood up and got the telemetry in from Ran and fired the three PAL shots with a few second delay between each one. "There you go." She said.
If Amelia's accuracy had improved, her mobility hadn't. She rather clumsily boosted over and got under the bubble shield made by Ran. She didn't hit anyone on the way over, but it was clear she needed to have made an effort to do so. "Almost done... aren't we sir?"
"Jeez, I guess I underestimated the sheer asskick a FIRE can mount." Gyles followed underneath the shield and redocked his drones to recharge, figuring he would not need them deployed for the moment. He glanced around, taking note of the semi-spherical deployment of drones . "Oh, so this is what the Dome Shield deployment looks like."
The blasts crashed into the enemy emplacement, killing the entrenched infantry and overheating the remaining DD, to the point where it detonated behind the infantry it had arrived to protect. The soldiers that weren't immediately incinerated were severely burned, crushed by the concussive force of the armor exploding near them or hurled out from their positions by rapidly expanding gasses.
For the first time in what seemed to be hours, there was nothing between the marines and their objective.
"To tell you the truth, I like the WATER series better." Ran just stood there, surveying the damage that the PAL shots caused to the infantry and DD. "I'm more of a General Infantry kind of guy, anyway. Let's go!" Re-charging his drones, the Chief rushed off to the nearest SAM site, opening a channel with one of the Shaika's above. "Currently marking SAM sites with Tracers. Please disregard any targetting signals that have been set up before this one." At that, the Chief fired a single Tracer at the SAM site when it came into range.
Not having any tracers herself, Amelia hovered behind the chief a ways, watching as the tracers were set. "Heh... hell of a first mission..." She seemed to be speaking to herself more than anyone else. She relaxed a little, not seeing or reading any more enemies.
A reply message from the orbiting NSS Crusade came in on Ran's S-Transceiver. "This is NSS Crusade fire control. We will begin bombarding the target in 10 seconds. Suggest moving to safe 500 meter distance, if not already there."
"You got that right. Did you serve in the KO, or did you just come out of training after it ended?" He was referring to the Kennewes Offensive, which seemed like a mission that had gone underway a long time ago. "This mission wasn't so much difficult as it was poorly planned. Back in Kennewes, my squad held down a platoon of Reds, with the other squads kicking as much ass or even more."
Ran's conversation with Weynolt was interrupted by the message from the NSS Crusade. "Roger that. We've got to move 500 meters away. Let's get going." By the target on his HUD, the Chief figured that they were about 600 Meters away. "...Or not, enjoy the show."
Kagura moved back as requested, just to be sure and to stay ouf the range of any flying debris. "man this battle sucked. I need to get a new armor..."
Amelia listened to the message and stayed where she was next to Ran. "Actually they just sent me here right after training. ...Heh like they say, simulations are nothing compared to the real thing." She looked up at the sky in anticipation of the bombardment. "Considering how we got sent into this? I think we did alright..."
With the marines at a safe distance and the alloted time elapsed, the weapons fire from the Shaika began. The clouds overheard seemed to split and swirl around what appeared to be massive plasmatic pillars coming down onto the first SAM site. Though the initial blast had detonated it's munitions and disabled the emplacement, the weapons fire continued for several seconds, repeatedly smashing the charred remains deeper and deeper into a blackened, smoldering crater.
Gyles grinned a little at the sight of the destruction, and tapped his LPA enthusiastically. "How many more do we have left again?"
"Yeah, well..." Ran at this point needed a cigarette or a very strong drink, considering the fact that the lull in the fighting was sufficient enough to let him think of such things. "Hopefully next time we'll get an actual SMoDIN member command us." The Chief's attention was then directed to the orbital bombardment that was underway. He then opened up another channel with the NSS Crusade. "Nice fireworks show, there. Please send us the coordinates of SAM sites that need to be destroyed in order to create an LZ at my platoon's location, so that they may be evacuated and resupplied."
"Our pleasure." Rather than the text that was displayed previously, the new reply from the NSS Crusade was a woman's pleasant soprano, with a slight Cockney accent to it. "There are currently five more positions remaining. Locations sent. And your LZ is the position where your Vipers cr-... touched down."
"Good luck out there, marine."
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