Post by Krag7 on Oct 6, 2021 20:54:42 GMT
The orbits of stars in the multi-million year "death window" were dreadfully quiet, as some would find. Only a sparse population of search-and-rescue crew and death cults interested in novel passings currently occupied the terrestrial world that had long been increasing in temperature and was now cooking under the heat of its bloated star. The process had begun long, long ago, and the natives of the world had a galaxy-famous history of civilizational development under the star, but gradually across the past five hundred years it had been nearly entirely evacuated. Orbiting one of that worlds' sister planets was an entirely unmarked Phalanx-class battlecruiser of the would-be ASN, though the pedigree of the ship blatantly announced its operators. A handful of Carnaithian Prowlers and Union-operated Unity-class ships lay docked along its hull, scalar antennae reaching out into the void.
Within, a groggy old Tunora officer sat mumbling at a comically undersized desk for his species in a briefing room - A team of disparate personnel including pilots, operators, and organizational staff, all wearing varied equipment unified only by an unmarked olive-drab patch. They were professionals, as denoted by the silent wait for the officer to begin the briefing.
"Welcome to our esteemed ship, gentlemen," The booming, echo-prone voice of the horned behemoth announced. "Firstly, I'd like to thank you on behalf of our framework organization for joining the Strategic Relief Group. As you know, our nominal mission is to provide humanitarian aid for worlds who request it, such as assisting in evacuating poor Modr Oba from its cosmic misfortune. But of course, we're not orbiting Modr Oba. And you're not doctors, scientists, or- Well, some of you are doctors and scientists, but you're not here to vaccinate poor children from Oukal Plague.
"No, we're here to clean up messes for the Traqe of Modr Oba who tried to terraform the would-be martian hellscape of Cera Pr, which we're currently orbiting. As you might notice, it's exploded into a verdant savannah landscape. Those soon-to-be-aborted amber fields house ancient lava tunnels from back when Cera Pr had geological activity that was actually capable of fueling tectonic motion. Those lava tunnels are home to an unknown group of unaligned mercenaries who set up last month and have since been attempting to remote-hack the similarly ancient military library on Modr Oba. We've since blocked the transmission. However, their system isn't giving any leeway to our breaching attempts, so we're sending down a doorkicker team to access their hard nodes, identify their target files, and find out who put them up to this gig.
"With the pretense out of the way, my title is Scutum Vocarrus of the Tunoran Legions - a subsidiary of the Carnaithian Imperial Military," He seemed to scoff at this comment, "and you all are the operating team. Our frontmen, starting at the front to my left here with the pilots are-"
"Lieutenant Brecar, Carnaithian Void Arms,"
"Remex Ssil, Radithi Talons,"
"-And our operators. Don't be shy," The commander finished, staring down the Carnaithian at the front, who bore a strained smile.
"Sergeant Makhil Trece, JTAC."
Sat next in line was an Artificia of a strong blue colouration. Of all things though, they were of the rarely seen Artifician men, something some people aware of the species on the galactic net refused to believe could possibly exist. Dressed in combat boots and slightly baggy dark grey camo trousers, a heavy-set belt separating it from the dark, desaturated navy sleeveless jacket alongside the fingerless gloves and a bandanna dust mask, the lattermost contrasting his deep, backswept hair.
Some might've made him out like some sort of cosplayer.
A brief moment went past before the glowing synthetic grumbled something under his breath, leaning forward.
"...Five-five...CQC." he muttered, loud enough those on the opposite end of the table could just make out what he said. Evidently, someone wasn't a fan of talking much.
After the Artifica, a scarred man wearing urban camo fatigues and with a prosthetic arm was the next to speak, looking out at the room with the glint of a cybernetic eye. Though he wore no gear that set him apart from the rest like Five-five, he still had a mien about him that spoke of hard experience and a life used to taking other lives, a consumate operator and to those that had read his file, veteran of this long war. Arms folded across his chest, he sat straight in his chair and cleared his throat before the accent of a Restevian made itself known.
"Captain Vanya Trulko, team leader." he said by way of introduction, giving a nod to the officer and to Five-five before he unfolded his arms and returned to how he had been sitting before and looking over the others.
Sitting next to Captain Trulko was a human woman. Her short, dirty blond hair was wild and unkempt with bits sticking out at old angles. She wore a new olive drab uniform, so new in fact that there were still crease lines from where it had been folded. The flag of the ZSR was displayed on her right arm with the flag of the TPU underneath it. She kept the first three buttons undone, revealing a white tank top dirtied with oil and grease. Resting just above the start of her cleavage was a bullet casing with a chain going through the neck. On her face she wore small smug smile which bent the scar on her left cheek.
“Staff Sergeant Grace Donner, Fire Support.” Grace gave a two handed salute and leaned back in her chair. She looked to her squad mates on her left and right and chuckled to herself. Only a few months ago the only other sentient alien they’d encountered had been the Zentherans. Now here she was in a room filled with aliens and humans from alternate dimensions.
Beyond Grace Donner was an imposing, unsettling figure. It was a humanoid robotic, with shiny hot pink casing and spindly long limbs. His face was an okina-style oni mask, seeming like a smiling old man with wispy moustaches flowing down past his chin.
He was one of the first 'babies' of Project Mercy. A fully sentient Real Artificial Intelligence in a synthetic Frame body, he was legally a citizen of the Jade Empire and had all the reasoning capabilities and emotional range of a biological human. At least in theory. Nobody at the Project could pin down why, but he made the whole staff uncomfortable. He had originally been designed to appear human, but had swiftly arranged for several modifications. Turfed over to the Jade Intelligency Agency Network after he had shown remarkable aptitude for marksmanship and stealth, the spymasters had soon been looking for a way to get rid of him. The Strategic Relief Group had provided that outlet.
He sat eerily still, but then with a faint whirr his eyebrows raised and his eyes, such as they were, crinkled as he smiled a gap-toothed smile as SSgt Donner finished speaking. Taking his cue, he spoke, his voice curiously monotone, like a text-to-voice application.
"Hello boss. I am Agent Yagaan of the Jade Intelligence Agency Network. Yes. I am a qualified marksman and graduated with comprehensive marks from the Jade Sniper Academy at Kitai. I will kill anyone you want. I have no self-control in the matter."
Following Brecar, SSil, Trece, 5-5, Trulko, Donner and Yagaan in the line was a figure in power armour. The armour itself bore the olive-drab patch affixed as an extra on the right-side shoulder plate, the rest of its surface being grey surfaces with dull red stripes across some of its plates. It was pockmarked with divots and burn marks from combat, with heavy blast shield plates used as reinforcement on the normal armour standing out for their relative lack of damage. Wearing this was one of the Order of Hastrax's Elite Primarii troops, and a Velnatharius rather than a Velnatharian, which was instantly obvious from the slight of robotic sound mixed in with the somewhat loud, but very clearly spoken, biological speech: "Specialist Sergeant Hulsar, Demolitions.". As the words echoed slightly across the room, Hulsar gave the best salute his heavily reinforced and bulky armour would allow him toward Vocarrus, before the Hastraxian trooper returned to silently observing the room.
The last two to speak seemed to bring a bit of wonder to the Tunora's eyes. His dry lips stretched into a smile all while his eyes lit up. All as if to say "This is exactly what I signed up for!" before speaking, the groggy tiredness purged from his voice.
"And that's our eight; Now, the ships' analysts have identified an optimum insertion time within the next twenty-four standardized hours that I would hope you all are aware of. Due to the belt mining on part of the local unaligned biting at the scraps of the Traqe, there's a meteor shower scheduled for Cera Pr's nineteen-hundred hour equivalent. You'll be dropping hot into a fifteen-by-five-kilometer LZ, in the midst of a bunch of softly-sloping valleys; of course, you can decide what specific point you hit, but that's the area permitted by our orbit. It's a pod, so the pilots won't be getting involved until exfil.
"From there you'll be making your way towards your choice among the following points-" He carried, off, the screen behind him lighting up with several overlays that depicted the underground tunnels. On them there were several highlighted points, made clear by the rotating three-dimensional scan, that identified entry positions into said tunnels. Notably, they converged towards a single area that the scanners couldn't reach.
"And you'll breach, following communication to find their command staff and their associated hardware. As you can tell, there's quite a bit of unknown variables underground, but telling by the troop movements so far," two overlays, one thermal and one magnetic, displayed, exemplifying the amount of forces present in the subsurface, "There's a lot more space down there than we can tell.
"Any questions as of now?"
"I do have some questions sir, yes." Hulsar remarked, as he continued to stand, observing. "Now, judging by what was just said we're all dropping in a single pod, and I'd like to ask what equipment and carrying capacity the pod has - if any." The specialist sergeant continued, seemingly working something out mentally before speaking again after a short pause. "The other question I will ask with respect to the breaching: What obstructions are there likely to be entry besides that..." He inquired as he stepped forward to indicate the troops on the overlay, before returning to his position. "... chaff. At least so far as com-int has told you." The Hastraxian elite continued seemingly trying to work out things based on the data on the mapping in front of him at least so far as the cold metallic exterior of his armour gave away. "No further questions at this present time, sir."
There was a whir as Yagaan's eyebrows raised. "Yes. Good questions. Also boss. Is there anyone down there we are not allowed to kill?"
"It's an Imperial assault pod, usually carries more like a platoon of troops," the Tunora quickly responded, bringing up a recognition page. "You'll be able to bring a light FAV with if you so wanted. As to worries," he began,
"Each entry point has a relatively hard defensive suite considering the area is just a bunch of brush. Double-trenches surrounding the entries, and suspected observation points atop the higher hills. You'll also be unable to receive updates once within the tubes and for the duration of your presence down there. You'll be able to breach loud or quiet, by the way. The pod should be slow enough by the time you're planetside that there won't be much of a signature to spot you with - just be sure to take out the OP here-" he pointed again to the overlay -"ASAP."
The response to Yagaan was far less long-winded as the tunora turned, grinning.
"Each other, preferably."
"Anyways," He began after another pause, "If that's all there is, then we'll be ready to get you lot over to the armory. We've got a few hours before our orbit takes us through the drop window," He stated calmly, shutting off the overlays and heading towards the door, "Staff are dismissed; frontmen, with me, please."
Being a battlecruiser, there was a bit more walking than usual but, being a Union-Carnaith ship, everything was fairly proximal to other related elements. The armory was structurally standard, though the weapons visible in the lockers were anything but. Special operations and shock infantry weapons were present from a wide array of AGA states, with smaller numbers of weapons from nations that the fireteams' constituents hailed from.
"Enjoy yourselves, try not to piss off the quartermaster," Quipped Vocarrus before turning and going back to his office.
Yagaan reached out a long arm and hefted a WH-TIR "Kodiak" marksman weapon. At 140cm long it was a beast, usually requiring a two-man team for deployment, but in Yagaan's sleek artificial hands it sat perfectly. It was a railgun, semi-automatic and rated to deliver 15x200mm slugs at ranges of up to 3,500m. Yagaan had no scope attached to the weapon, as his own 'eyes' had inbuilt digital binoculars, his face and body clacking and whirring gently as he checked the weapon over and slung a bandolier lined with clips over his torso. He then slung a belt around his waist carrying what looked like a katana. Drawing the hilt from its sheath to reveal there was no blase, he flicked a switch in the hilt and a ruby red framework of slender beams wove itself into the shape of a blade, before filling with coruscating energy. He waved it appreciatively before deactivating the glowing blade and slotting the hilt back onto the sheath. Finally, he stood stock still and a faint crackle of energy filled the room with the burnt chlorine stink of ozone. His pink exoskeleton shimmered into a dark grey, as did his face.
"There," he said triumphantly, to no-one in particular, "I am now ready to engage in acts of violence."
Five-Five, by comparison, seemed entirely disinterested in the wide array of firearms, as much as they dominated warfare of the day. He'd tried to get to grips with guns many times, and while by no means was he a bad shot, they had never suited the blue Artificia. Instead, he drew a pair of heavy-set swords, or rather they were in the crossguard. The blades themselves were fairly standard-made, single-edged nanoblades about 80cm long, darker segmented periodically breaking up the smooth sheen of the flat. Heavyweight emitters of some sort were built into the weapon, with an angular, simple handguard. With a flick of a switch, the emitters engaged, the darker sections of the blade glowing as the magnets within them reacted, and a running saw of plasma ran along the edge and back of the sword with a seething hiss. Disengaging them again, he mounted the thick, angular black scabbards on his belt, sliding the swords into them with a click. Next, six daggers followed suit, stacked like chevrons against the base of his spine, and again with another dagger in each boot.
Finally, Five-Five went for his only apparent firearms. Twin revolvers both drawn with a twirl, each looking heavy enough an average human would need both hands to steadily lift and wield it, and a gun bore enough they looked like they could blow a man's arm off. Mounting the holsters against his sword scabbards, bayonets were slotted in next to them, spare ammo tossed lazily into ready pouches.
Seemingly content with his somewhat unnecessary amount of sharp things and two heavy pistols, Five-Five backed from the assorted weapon racks, allowing the rest of the team access. And to give himself a moment to his thoughts.
Hulsar nodded in acknowledgement of the extra information, before browsing through the armoury until he came to the set of bulky-if-not-aesthetically-pleasing single set of Hastraxian gear that had been put here for him. "Good, unaltered, just as I asked..." he muttered as he loaded up his equipment with a background hum as the servos in his armour kicked in to prevent any strain while lifting. It consisted of several objects: one a large tubular device, presumably some sort of anti-tank or demolitions launcher; what at least looked like some sort of machine gun or light autocannon in size, but was held more like a rifle despite its relatively large calibre and bulk; a much smaller weapon, a PDW or SMG if one were to guess what it was; and a large pack, clearly holding demolitions gear and explosives as well as reserve ammunition. As the specialist sergeant finished fitting his bulky set of armaments by adding ready clips for his weapons, he checked over the battle worn equipment carefully along with their attachments before between the armour and his own brute strength he lofted the 2 large weapons onto mounting points on the rear of his armour, encumbered heavily but still capably mobile if a little on the slower side. He evidently had no interest in taking a melee weapon for himself, and moved to the side so others could pass as his armour-weapon interfaces spooled up inside the suit ready for use. "This will serve as equipment for battle, I already performed a proper check and cleaning before our meeting. So, what is the consensus on taking an LAV with us?" And with that comment he stepped out from the weapon racking section of the armoury and into the vicinity of the door from which they had entered, and waited for the others. Perhaps such a large amount of equipment may seem unnecessary, but Hulsar was not one to be found unprepared and always wanted more than needed rather than the exact amounts, for unforeseen eventualities.
Staff Sergeant Donner walked past all of them to a large crate the size of a small shipping container. The markings in the side labeled the crate as food stuffs but that was a ploy used by the TPU. Pressing a hidden panel revealed a number pad and key-card scanner. Grace reached down into her shirt and pulled out a longer chain with a blue key-card attached to the end. Sliding it down the scanner and inputing the password caused a green light to flash and sounds of locks clicking open to echo from inside.
“Staff Sergeant Grace ‘Keres’ Donner, identity confirmed.” a robotic voice spoke. The crate split open down the middle revealing a suit of power armor. Green paint was hastily applied to the armor which was an improved version of the Mk.3 Kratos armor. The panels slid further revealing several large caliber rifles and machine guns including Grace’s pride and joy.
“Demon Bane!” Grace called out as she ran over to the large General Dynamics M340 20mm Assault Cannon that took up most of the crate’s space. Her hands flew over the gun, inspecting every bolt and screw. Slowly her fingers ran over the 261 scratches she’d etched into the stock of the gun. She’d come close to avenging her home, but was glad to put such thoughts behind her.
With a snap that turned into a thumps up her inspection was over. Walking over to the power armor she pulled a red handle under the chest plate causing the armor to open up. Crawling inside she pulled down the safety straps and clicked them into place. Reaching into the arms she pulled down two levers causing the armor to slowly slide back closed. With a hiss followed by clicking the armor was locked up. Lights where her eyes should have been flickered on as antenna folded up on the side of her helmet. Grace moved her arms around to test the servos. Seeing that they worked she took a step, the boot made a heavy clang sound as it hit the deck. Nodding her head Grace walked out and “stretched” the Armor out. Pressing a button on the side of her helmet caused the face plate to slide up revealing her face. She winked down at Five-Five before walking over to pick up Demon Bane. The suits new Zentheran motors easily picked up the massive gun as she aimed it at an imaginary target. Turing her back to the crate she stepped back. A click sounded telling her the backpack had been connected. Stepping out she held Demon Bane to her side and an arm slid out for the gun to rest on.
“Staff Sergeant Donner reporting combat ready!” Despite the bulkiness of the Power Armor and the equipment she carried the transition from resting to attention was smooth. Turning to Yagaan she pointed at his sword. “You call that a knife?” A smug grin split her face as she reached to her right side and pulled out the suit’s combat knife.
“Now this is a knife.” She said in a broken Old Earth Australian accent. The knife looked like a large Kabar Knife at a foot long and was more of a thick machete than a knife. She laughed inwardly and slid her face plate back down.
Trece quietly made his way to the equipment racks through the rest of the commotion, fetching his plate carrier, webbing, canteen, flares, grenades, knives... and most importantly, two radios. One was a fairly standard-looking one with a very large antenna that was no doubt for contacting command, but the other was a curious antique device, caked with decades-old mud that seemed like it had always been in the seams and speakers. A bullet-hole quite glaringly ran through the outer casing and out of the earpiece - no doubt killing its operator and disabling the radio, but Makhil had strapped it to his chest as if it were still serviceable. He glanced about the rest of the armory, including all of the foreign weapons. A lingering stay on some indicated his desire to train with some, but he wouldn't bring any with him - He beelined for a Carnaithian-made CQC battle rifle, reminiscent of a G3 or FAL, before grabbing an unaligned-made sidearm that seemed to bear ex-EPA markings.
The Radithi quartermaster that Vocarrus had warned the team about simply grimaced at the lot from the corner. It was obvious that he wasn't happy with keeping track of so many models of kit, much less letting this brand new away team ruckus through his domain.
"Honestly," Trece spoke up, "Telling by the briefing, we probably won't be making much use out of the thing. We're better off going in on foot if you ask me," He stated, responding to Hulsar.
Yagaan turned a confused face to SSgt Donner, looking at her knife and then back at his weapon. "I call this a hardlight-pattern fourth generation Hikatana manufactured by the Hidetoshi Swordsmith Workshop in Shinjii Prefecture. You are correct in your statement that your weapon is a knife."
After delivering this judgement in his robotic uncanny-valley text-to-speech style, he offered a smile, the tiny gyros in his face whirring.
Five-Five's brow furrowed slightly at Donner, evidently not sure if he should say anything or do anything, briefly panicking internally as his lack of social experience reared its head, his look softening again as Yagaan spoke.
And promptly rolled his eyes.
Captain Trulko let out a soft sigh as the team went about their gearing up, comparing their weapons and going about the same usual izmereniye chlena that soldiers so often did before mission. It was nothing new, but the faces around him and their armaments were. Quietly the Prizrak captain checked his armaments, raising his rifle to perform a visual inspection before setting it back down on the weapons table and field stripping the carbine in less than a minute. Unlike most Restevian arms, this weapon was sleek and trim, it's attachments seeming to be part of the weapon's frame than attachments in the traditional sense of things. For another thing that set it apart from many Restevian arms, the caliber appeared to be heavier, and the writing etched subtly into the metal and polymer if anyone there could read Restevian seemed to indicate it as some sort of fifty caliber ETC round-- and some sort of AP/HE at that. This was a weapon built for a singular purpose clearly with an integrated masterkey/pump grenade launcher, and there was no mistaking that in any capacity. The rest of his weapons were similar in their understated capacity to kill and do so quick and ruthless, with a sabre of a brutally simple design lifted and tested with the plasma edge humming for a moment before it was shut off, a knife of the same sort, and a wicked-looking pistol that fired similarly heavy and specialized rounds as the rifle.
After that came his armor, and what an armor it was. Sitting next to his armament's table was a suit of space-black light power armor with a camouflage cloak of some kind, sleek and specialized as the weapons. Trulko checked it with rote routine, going over servos and synthmuscle strands before replacing plates and going about the process of donning it. When he had finished, the captain looked singularly sinister, with a small light ghostly blue snapping on his visor for a moment.
This was before his form flickered out of existence, turning invisible to the naked eye and vanishing from both motion detectors and IR readings. After about twenty seconds he turned visible once more, reassembled his rifle and pistol, and turned to the rest of the team.
Perhaps the most unnerving of all, was that he hadn't said a word throughout this entire process.
"Make absolutely certain that your gear is checked, double checked, and prepared for fast movement once we embark. I want no fuckups and I want no casualties, not even a stubbed toe. Hulsar, we'll take an LAV if strictly necessary. Everyone clear?"
Donner's blank armored faceplate looked at Yagaan and she face-palmed while chuckling. "Robots man." She said as she walked over and stood at attention before Trulko, her faceplate slid up and she saluted.
"Staff Sergeant Donner reporting, this soldier's equipment is green across the board and ready for combat."
Hulsar finished looking at the team leader, somewhat unsurprised by active stealth dropping his only view of them to some sort of vague signature on his gravimetric sensors. "Second triple check today." He boomed, as he stood ready to depart the armoury when ordered. "Demolitions all clear, ready and waiting Captain." He saluted trulko, with noticeably more difficulty than he gave Vocarrus given he now had some combat gear on his arm, complementing the back held weapons.
Trece meagerly glanced at his kit for a few seconds before looking back to the Captain with an amused expression. Overbearing and casually domineering, he thought.
"All's ready here," he reported, giving a sweeping look along the rest of the group once more. "Honestly, I don't think anyone <i>isn't</i>," He commented, leaning against a support pillar, waiting for the last two to report.
Five-Five stared back as Trece's gaze sweeped past him, arms crossed.
A moment. Another.
Then it clicked people were expecting words out of him again.
Motherfucker.
"...Five-Five, ready for duty." he muttered slowly.
Yagaan emitted a series of electronic beeps which, in reality, were completely unnecessary, but he felt like he should show willing and pretend to be running some checks before answering.
Seemingly pleased, he offered a spindly thumbs-up. "Green light, Captain."
With the team having stated their readiness, the captain seemed satisfied. Trulko clipped his own rifle to it's sling and his other weapons into their holsters, and nodded once.
"Good." the man stated. "Let's get moving to the drop bay, time's wasting and we're on the clock. Last thing I want to do is have to hoof it overland without full field gear."
And with that, the Prizrak led them out of the armory, heading at a brisk clip to the drop bay.
Trece pushed off of the pillar, glancing once more at the variety of equipment stored along the armory's walls as he made his way out of the room with the rest of the squad. Vocarrus wasn't lying when he said the launch bay wasn't far- it was only two hatches before the small force found themselves in a massive, cavernous series of rooms separated by monolithic blast doors. Fighters, recon craft, strike bombers - a massive variety of snubcraft and shuttles in any and every role hung from launch racks, once more reaffirming the unique stance of this ship. Along the lower rows of the outer walls were lines of drop pods, with associated catwalks for boarding. Hissing torches, humming batteries and generators, and booming announcements from each bay muddled the ear - visually, the group could just barely make out, through sparks and wisps of smoke, the waving baton of a launch officer. Their chariot awaited.
As the group marched amongst the ground clutter, the full scope of their designated pod became apparent. It was most definitely a custom build; the nose couldn't be seen through the launch chamber, but the reinforced frame and conspicuous hatches told that this thing was significantly more durable than would otherwise be expected from a drop-pod. The ramp below held an FAV; ready to be loaded upon request, but not done so to comply with the desire of the squad, whatever that would be.
"Combat arms, huh," The officer with the baton opened - barely audible over the din of the hangar. "I don't precisely envy your jobs. Were you wanting that FAV?" He asked as he turned, pressing a large analog button to open the infantry boarding hatch for the squad themselves. His patch identified him as an unaffiliated crewman; an ex-unaligned individual who had been hired into the new fold. He quietly tapped away at the keypad for a moment - whirring audible from the pod itself as a result - before turning back to Trulko to greet a response to his query.
Trulko was silent for a moment as he considered, looking over the FAV and then the transport pod before he nodded, inclining his head about half an inch precisely before returning to his prior posture.
"Load it up, crewman. Better we have it and not need it than the inverse." he stated, waving the rest of the team aboard. No more time to waste, he ready to get going and get this done. Waiting just a moment longer, Trulko then gave another nod to the crewman and headed into the pod to strap in.
The crewman shot a quick thumbs up to Trulko - likely grinning behind his mask as he gunned the vehicle into the pod, the rapid-load rack below the squad making an entirely unnecessary racket, giving the untrue appearance of ill-fitting military equipment. It was almost enough to drown out the standard safety warnings inside the pod - going through an uncomfortably long checklist before the doors sealed and the radio link in the entry unit beeped. Trece could be seen smiling in the dim red light.
"Away team loaded. Individual ready checks bypassed. Maneuvering to launch," the traffic officer's voice echoed as a rumble indicated a fast yet brief downward movement. "Magnetic propulsion green. Maneuver thrusters green. Brake thrusters green. Cargo clamps green," He continued - the checklist going on for a dozen-and-a-half more items before an uncomfortable stretch of silence. The voice abruptly returned; "T-minus ten seconds until launch. Seven. Six. Five. Four." Trece shot a thumbs up to the rest of the squad. "Three." Then bumped his helmet with his fist. "Two". Recollected himself. "One." Braced. "Drop, drop, drop."
In truth, the second and third instances of "drop" were inaudible behind the initial hissing ramp-up of the magnetic launch system, followed by the burst-and-rumble of the primary thruster. A din of rattling and rumbling and hissing encompassed the interior of the pod as its own acceleration carried it along for about a minute, before what could be described as a "crash" was felt as it began to penetrate the thermosphere, initiating even more rattling. Luckily enough for the squad in question, they had comfortable padded rollbar seats - but that didn't mean the big red numbers on entry statistic interfaces directly adjacent to their faces was any less worrying to the untrained eye. Another whole minute. A long burn, the feeling of being in a stopping elevator turned up to eleven. The burst and flapping of a parachute. The bang and stop of impact.
Trece slammed his hand down onto the opening button for his seat as the exit doors opened on their own, the JTAC sprinting to one and cross-referencing with a compass before brandishing a thermal binocular and sweeping the horizon. He turned, looking back to the other scrambling operatives.
"Yagaan!" he shouted, waving him over, "Spotter position - bearing 282, elevation five degrees, range twenty-six fifty, three targets!"
Yagaan stepped up to the door and, following Trece's callout, sighted in on three distant humanoid figures, who seemed to be squinting in their direction, clearly alerted by the loud intrusion of the strike team. Yagaan had found the ride pleasantly stimulating, enjoying the erratic and unpredictable jolting of the craft as it came screaming through the atmosphere, and now it was time to get down to business.
He hefted the Kodiak rifle, bracing it against his shoulder, his eyes performing the same role as a scope normally would. The range was long, close to the extremity of his weapon's range, but he was not concerned. His lower body locked into positon as his upper body twisted slightly, the entirety of his frame coalescing to the tip of the barrel. Whilst he did not have all the same biological concerns as a real human, a lot of the same theory came into play when finding the right firing position thanks to his simulated skeletal structure.
He stilled his breath, something he was able to do indefinitely since his 'breathing' was an affectation designed to make him more relatable to biologicals, to prevent any minor variation in his aim, and then squeezed the trigger. Three resounding booms heralded the departure of the 200mm long saboted slugs. Travelling at well past supersonic speeds, it would take them less than two seconds to traverse the kilometres to their target, but that, combined with the thousand other factors that went into long range shooting, meant that despite Yagaan's near-perfect aim, the three rounds were not guaranteed to hit center of mass.
Which was why, moments later, another three cataclysmic cracks shook the air as Yagaan fired another three rounds. The Jade military emphasised a healthy tooth-to-tail ratio, believing that a well-equipped and trained soldier was worth far more than a multitude of ill-supported conscripts, and it also believed that there was no such thing as 'too much ammunition'. Yagaan was comfortably stocked with magazines and so double-tapped each target. Two simply jetted spurts of blood from the already-mangled corpses, but the third target had by sheer luck shifted a couple of feet to his left when the shots began to hail down. Throwing himself down flat to duck further incoming fire, all he achieved was to ensure that the second 15x200mm alloy slug punched directly through his face, running the course of his body and virtually disintegrating him.
Yagaan made the rifle safe and then stood up straight, the servos in his face whirring faintly as it rearranged itself into vaguely pleased expression, the tiny black pebbles that were his 'eyes' glinting in the reflected light of the lander's interior.
"Contacts neutralised sir."
The drop itself was of no concern to Hulsar as numbers flashed past his viewscreen from the pod readouts, but now they had struck ground he immediately performed the procedures that had been rehearsed many hundereds or even thousands of times - he didn't keep count. Having disengaged the harness and its cumbersome padded embrace, he drew his rifle from his back with its power system already letting out a low humming whirr as he stepped through the door and onto the surface.
The HUD immediately flagged the callout of hostiles but he took minimal note of it and let the sniper do his business, the HUD flag proptly being cleared out as the specialist sergeant heard the muffled booming of Yagaan's rifle. This all happened as he rushed to provide a complimentary arc of fire for all-around defense as the others disembarked or took their own positions, knowing full well that the loud shooting would have drawn attention to their position if the drop had not done so already. His vision filtered through his reinforced helmet cycled through the standard pattern: visuals, infrared, x-rays and the rest of the spectrum before the gravimetrics adjusted to the planetary gravity and kicked in as well. Possible and likely threat locations were flagged to him with various markers, and of course they were a great help but he knew better than to wholly rely on them - a competent enemy would know the obvious positions too.
With the immediate reactions seen to, Hulsar waited for confirmation that the team had cleared through the disembarkation SOPs while considering what the movement scheme was likely to be once the commander saw fit that there was no immediate threat.
Grace felt a rush of adrenaline fill her as the pod was launched. Numbers in the top left of her HUD flashed by as their altitude decreased, and a timer counted down till impact. The timer reached zero and Grace launcher herself from the pod.
Landing outside sensors and lasers scanned the surrounding area. Demon Bane slammed up into her grip and she scanned the horizon. Seeing three contacts light up behind her she spun around and took aim. Hearing Trece call them out and the three cracks of Yagaan’s rifle Grace relaxed a little. Using the built in telescopic sight Grace watched the aftermath of Yagaan’s shots, then the three more that followed.
“Nice hits Yagaan. No other targets identified in surrounding area.” Grace announced as she turned to face the rest of the group. Despite her assurance she kept her Assault Cannon in a ready position.
As the pod had descended, Trulko had to the rest of the team remained silent, though within his own private world of cut off comms he recited a prayer common to Restevian troops. It never ceased to amuse him how nonreligious many on the galaxy tended to view Restevians... but now wasn't the time to ponder that, as the pod slammed hard into the ground. In moments, the team had called out and were already firing upon enemy contacts, and Trulko had to admit, that was fast work.
Stepping out of the pod with only the slightest of sounds from his armor, Trulko watched as Yagaan's shots dropped the enemy rapidly and with great efficiency. Good.
"Maintain vigilance, our landing wasn't exactly quiet." the captain ordered as he booted up his scanner, doublechecking the scan with the overlay from the briefing.
"Let's get the FAV unloaded quick and load up, we're moving out for insertion in two minutes, let's shave that down however we can people."
Five-Five had remained utterly silent during the drop, the glow of his hardlight skin giving the interior of the pod something of a blue tint alongside the various other lights. His eyes did not stray to the readouts. They were of little importance to him. If everything went right, reading them would do him no benefit. If something went wrong, he would likely be able to tell. Instead, the Artificia's eyes remained firmly ahead, steadying his thoughts. Regulator or no, there was a lot going through the head of a Banshee.
Fortunately, having to think of a way to survive a hot drop from low orbit sans a pod wasn't necessarily, as the pod made landfall.
Five-Five waited none for the doors, almost booting his down with his Artifician strength and lunging out of the pod, drawing one of his swords and one of his revolvers, watching with an expressionless face as Yagaan cut down three men with impunity.
One less issue for him to deal with, though he gave the synthetic a thumbs up. Five-Five almost didn't seem to acknowledge Trulko speaking, instead moving a short ways from the pod, where he could get a good look at their surroundings.
Evidently, he'd decided for himself he was on lookout duty, with his wide peripheral view. That, or he just didn't feel like dealing with getting an FAV off its mounting.
With the hostiles eliminated, Trece allowed himself a smile as he turned back into the pod, brandishing his CAA machete as he jogged towards the FAV, quickly making work of the softer restraints involved; "Just... a note, guys... It's a drop pod, no point... in trying to keep it clean," He shouted to the others who came around to help him in his efforts. Finishing off the second of the tie-downs, he paused.
"Captain, do you have any suggestion regarding the approach? Better to hash it out now rather than argue with ourselves on the way there, if you ask me - Hulsar, some help on that release pylon over there?" He interjected himself, pointing to the corner of the vehicle opposite himself.
The specialist sergeant immediately clipped his rifle onto his back and headed over to where Trece was indicating. "On it!" he boomed as he got to work on the offending release pylon, disengaging the appropriate releases, using his strength to sheer off completely one that had gotten jammed with a squeal of broken material accompanied with power armour servos humming as it broke off. "Everything unhitched this side, doesn't look like its taken any damage in the drop."
"Ready to move on your orders Captain, who's riding where?"
Yagaan offered a thumbs-up to Grace and then clambered aboard the FAV. As good as he was, trying to use a sniper rifle from a moving vehicle was futile so he stowed his rifle and drew a pistol, leaving the better seats for those with automatic weapons.
Following Yagaan, Grace jumped into the back of the FAV. Unlike Yagaan she placed her autocannon on the roof. Using her binocular function she scanned the surrounding landscape. "I've got eye's up her commander. Nothing spotted on the horizon, though no telling how long that'll last." Grace reported.
"Yagaan and Grace where they are, Trece passenger seat. Five-five, pick where you're most comfortable and able to dismount in a hurry. Hulsar, you drive." Trulko said as he clambered up onto the FAV as soon as it was free and on the ground with his rifle held ready as he ran another scan of the terrain for anything his heavy gunner might have missed. He considered Trece's question as to how they wanted to insert for a moment, before he turned his head to look at the JTAC.
"We approach wide and out of sight as best we can, I want to get as close as we can before we make for the IP. We've already made a mess here, let's make them think we're still here, make them waste time."
Five-Five, having returned from his spot keeping watch, made a vague grunt of affirmation to Trulko, sliding his swords back into their scabbards, instead drawing one of his revolvers and clambering onto--rather than into--the FAV, seemingly content to sit on the outside with an arm looped around the frame bar.
Well. Nobody could argue he couldn't dismount fast.
"Ready." he grunted after a moment, eyes on their surroundings.
Trece nodded as he thumbed-up his ready status, clambering into the passenger seat. He flipped open the arm-mounted monitor that kept him uplinked to the temporary satellites above - Grasping his standard-issue radio in one hand, he reviewed the available picture from their current positions.
"Adjust number fifteen two degrees north, number eleven a degree and a half east, and number seventeen point-two to the south-south-west," he ordered up to the remote crews on their mothership, taking advantage of the temporary boost in signal strength as offered by their drop-pod's array. "Bearing 130 is the best egress for a mile or so before we hook around. Hostiles will expect us moving past that OP once they catch on to what's happening. Let's go."
Hulsar checked that everyone was securely embarked as he took position in the driver's seat of the FAV, checked everything was working and then let the roaring engine boost the vehicle forward as it headed to the first location. "Moving fast to target, advance warning on any route changes would be appreciated." The specialist sergeant allowed the various screens on the FAV and those indicators of his own HUD do most of the work identifying the given fastest path and possible threats as the craft drove along. He also tried to get a feel for the controls of the FAV, not because he was a vehicle enthusiast but rather because he wanted to be comfortable driving the thing unassisted if it was needed - bullets and electronic driving aids don't mix well.
Mostly, he was content to let the terrain go by although he did make a point of talking to the others about how smooth the ride was seeing as firing on the move wasn't going to be much use if the vehicle wasn't riding at least somewhat smoothly. He made a point of keeping his sidearm to easy access so he could quickly arm himself if there was an ambush or some other kinds of trap out here, those he watched for much like one would admire scenic views on a holiday. Of course, this holiday concerned him more with looking for mines, early warning traps and concealed positions rather than the natural environment.
Yagaan, his rifle not much use at high speeds over rough terrain, was content to watch the world roll by, whirring and buzzing gently as he shifted in his seat occasionally to get a better view. Modeled, at least theoretically, on human biology and with a synthetic neural pattern created via an amalgam of real human minds, he was not the stoic, unblinking mechanical that some Artificial Intelligences presented as. From time to time he glanced at his rifle, wedged on a pair of stowage hooks, or fidgeted with his pistol. Without speaking to anyone in particular, he announced to the occupants of the FAV in general;
"I have never been on a ground vehicle before. The song was correct. The wheels do go around and around."
At this, Five-Five rolled his eyes in an almost exaggerated fashion, turning to look elsewhere with a sour, contemptuous grumble, his backwards-swept hair whipping in the wind. Breaking up the monotony was one thing, but they could at least make it a witty comment.
Hopefully, they wouldn't be all cramped into one vehicle for too long. He was hanging off the side and he was feeling claustrophobic.
The Radioman of the group was more than willing to allow himself a chuckle as he watched the readouts beaming down from the satellites he'd just ordered adjusted. Not content with the results, he retrieved the second of his handsets - the beat-up antique one, specifically - and whispered unintelligibly, no, inaudibly over the FAVs engine, before allowing himself to be absorbed entirely into listening to the earpiece. After a dozen seconds or so, his eyes shot back open and he was no longer silent.
"Three hills from now, turn right," He said, as the vehicle thundered past one of those said hills, tall grass whipping and billowing in their wake, "Continue due west for two miles. There's a concealed compound we're going to raid," He announced quite loudly so that everyone present could hear. "That should give us a better idea of what we're looking for."
Hulsar pulled the vehicle off the track and stopped as he approached the compound, stopping short of where it actually was. "Dismount so we can get a better look at the place rather than just charging in?" He questioned, as he positioned himself to see what he could see from within the vehicle. "Alternatively, we can try and rush the place but we wont know what we'll be dealing with."
He awaited the others to see what approach they would prefer as he continued to look for any useful natural or artificial features that might be of use in a raid. Mainly, he looked for things concerning his role, demolitions: any sort of structure that might need destroying or breaching, a good vantage point if he needed to use the launcher, and any sort of hazards to demolition like enemy munitions that would create an uncontrolled detonation.
Then he noticed something about what the signaller had said. "Well it isn't a very well concealed compound if your friends with satellite views know about it, are you sure this isn't some sort of trap?"
"Those satellites have quite pricey optical suites and scanner arrays aboard - and our friends, according to brief, only have a temporary setup..." Trece initially responded, dodging mention of his handpiece for the time being.
"...That said, your point holds water; Like that brief said, Cera here's got a ton of lava tunnels - we have no idea how many are cooped up in there and how large it is on the inside. Views showed three guys patrolling," He continued, swinging out of the FAV as it came to a stop, beginning a jog towards a dip between two hills ahead. "Let's find some more," He quipped, brandishing binoculars.
On the other side was quite the concealed compound indeed - professionally dug, with a gentle enough grade to match the surrounding terrain to the naked eye, only betrayed by the comparatively-amateur mistake of personal lighting shining through firing windows. Indeed, thermal optics showed the lazily-sauntering trio of hostiles patrolling to the left of the artificial hill's current facing; a myriad of species, with only half-standardized gear. Mercenaries, it would seem. Trece frowned.
"I count four more at least inside the surface-level fortification. Anyone else?"
Yagaan, who had hoisted his rifle from the FAV and meandered after Trece with his long, gangly legs, paused for a moment to frown into the distances, his eyebrows whirring and clacking as he took in the scene before sweeping the horizon.
"It looks like you are correct. I cannot locate any secondary entrances to the tunnels in the immediate vicinity, but that does not mean they do not exist."
He slowly lowered himself into the sand, propping up his rifle. "I can cover the building from here as you approach. Any reinforcements will have to come through the bunker to engage you, and I can warn you of any mercenaries approaching from the hills. I will warn you by shooting them."
Hulsar dropped out of the FAV to take a look as well, making sure he had taken it off the track so it was somewhat concealed if any enemies also happened to use it while they were busy with the compound. He joined the pair who had gone forward so far, but kept himself further back due to his bulky armour being much more easily spotted by any enemy casting a glance over the area.
"I don't see any more, but the size of the place and the amount of lighting makes me feel like there's another one or two we can't see, maybe they're on break away from the main gathering."
He paused for a moment. "And if you're wanting explosive entry to this place now would be a good time to let me know. Looks like its easily entered enough without that, though. And keeping this low-key might be to our advantage."
He hefted his rifle from his back so he was ready to start shooting once combat began.
"I'd guess at least five or six more in those trenches we can't see." Five-Five spoke up suddenly, the most vocal the man had been yet. His eyes were locked on the fortifications ahead of them, his mind going a million miles a minute.
"Likely more surrounding." he added, rolling his shoulders, glancing at the others. "I'll draw them out. Cover my back." he finished, taking a few steps back, seeming to gather himself, before sprinting forth again, swinging his arms forward as he jumped.
And the team finally saw what 'tenuous adherence to anatomical norms' meant on the blue Artificia's file. His arms extended like rubber, thinning but extending to several dozen metres long, gripping rocks protruding from the earth. And with this, he fired off ahead like a slingshot, propelling himself into a spin as he flew straight into enemy lines, swords drawn midair.
The exposed trio of soldiers had a mere moment to raise their weapons before being sundered apart like dough hit with razorwire, Five-Five not even slowing as he careened into the trenches, another man screaming as an arm flew into the air accompanied by a kick of dirt, followed shortly by a singular, heavy gunshot.
Well, if there was ever a decoy move to draw attention, there it was.
Trulko muttered a curse. Five-Five had gone ahead already, and to say that he had more than likely gotten their attention was just as likely to be an understatement. Silently he hefted his rifle, motioning for the team to spread out to his flanks as he began to advance towards the structure. So long as the Artifica could keep them occupied the team could get in their quickly, and deal with any surface defenders that Five-Five hadn't before breaching into the facility proper.
"Yagaan, you are clear to engage any targets that enter sightline, take them down fast." Trulko ordered, activating his cloak, fading from sight until he was but an IFF tag on the team's HUDs.
"The rest of you, small arms, Let's refrain from the big guns until situation dictates otherwise. Move."
Trece quickly swung the binoculars back to their place and brought his rifle to bear as shouting began to erupt from within the bunker; cursing under his breath, he quickly swung his supporting arm to his webbing and back - tossing out a smoke grenade as it went, which quickly burst into a cloud opaque to IR and visual spectrums just before he began a steady combat-paced canter in the direction of the trenches that Five-Five had blitzed so gruesomely, the hushed whisper of two shots making their way out of his wipe-based silencer as two silhouettes fell on their exit from the bunker in focus.
The hostile encampment had quickly exploded into activity; At least five had just been rapidly slaughtered by the Artifician, supported by the quick downing of two on Makhil's part; there were an unknown number in the remainder of the trenches, much less the bunker and whatever tunnel network it was linked to.
Hulsar let the more agile and the more stealthy members of the group do their thing, making sure they had time to clear the line of fire before he let rip with controlled bursts of automatic fire as he slowly moved up in support, relying more on his armour to keep him safe than any form of trickery or obfuscation. Not that he was too proud to make use of the smoke grenade that Trece had thrown. He walked forwards, mopping up any that the first group missed. "Understood, Trulko. I'll keep the explosives in my pouches for later."
While less of a distraction than the artifician, he considered such positioning and his bulky target might well make him a pick for any enemies wanting to choose an easy target. Then again, there had to be enemies left standing after this onslaught for that to be a serious problem. Not to get ahead of himself though, he made sure to keep cover in dashing distance as he moved up just in case there were any nasty surprises.
As the team approached, the occasional enemy who popped up from the trenches disappeared in a spray of misting blood, the sonic boom of the railgun round buffeting their senses even as their eyes and minds were buffeted by the gruesome sight. A firing embrasure in the bunker ahead disappeared beneath a hail of rubble as a round ploughed into the defensive structure, debris tumbling down to reveal a second entrance blown into the building.
The hail of fire slowed as Yagaan began waiting for his targets, only wasting munitions on those who actively posed a threat to the advancing group - he only had a limited carry capacity of the long railgun slugs and he did not want to run dry too early.
Trulko advanced, his cloak leaving nothing but a ghostly flicker on EM sensors as he went. Silently the captain reflected that with teams like these the Spetsnaz would have been even better in the war... but now was not the time to reminisce. Sweeping left and right the Sheptat rifle whispered death to hostiles that crossed his path, advancing past the perimeter, checking his HUD for team status as he followed the trail of destruction that Five-Five had left as he made his way towards the bunker.
Bringing the massive 20mm gun up she let loose a few short bursts. The monstrous roar of the gun filled the battlefield as 10-15 20mm rounds hurtled towards their targets. Dirt was ripped up and a violent spray of blood marked enemies down. Spotting nothing else in the surrounding are Grace quickly got up and raced to join the rest of the squad. In a burst of speed that seemed almost impossible for the power suit, Grace caught up with the rest of the group. She quickly stowed away her rifle as panels opened up to reveal pairs of LMGs on both arms.
Five-Five had blitzed straight ahead and turned a corner farther down the trench, out of view of the rest of his squad. He alone had come face-to-face with a significant unit of trench-manning soldiers of multiple species armed with shotguns and melee weapons; they were hopelessly outmatched by the sole combatant in front of them, but steel themselves they did, chambering shells and brandishing myriad clubs and blades.
Trece was more content to immediately turn right and come up against the side of the bunker that overlooked the area; almost as if on the queue given by the thunderous report of Yagaan's railgun, fire began firing blindly through the smoke that concealed the open stretch that the group had just pushed across while the sounds of weapons readying on the side overlooking the trenches echoed out. Trece's heart stopped, however, as he heard the soft "thud" of a grenade being dropped out of a firing port into the area where his smoke was spreading from.
Quickly ducking, he was saved from the majority of the overpressure, though given the passage of a few concussed seconds, the smoke was clear - and the silhouettes of hostiles bearing their weapons on the hulking form of Hulsar, who was lagging a bit behind the rest of the forward element, menaced the image of the scene before opening fire.
Hulsar was immediately concerned as the thick storm of bullets came towards him, only for him to realise he was safe from them as various bullets ricocheted, shattered or buried themselves in the surface of his power armour. He continued to walk forwards seemingly completely unfazed towards the enemy, watching for hostile heavier weapons as he calmly reloaded his weapon amidst the punishment of the enemy gunfire before spraying the entire fresh clip full-auto into various of the offending enemies. The one who had survived the return fire probably thought he would be able to take down Hulsar's power armour until his face got pulped by the Specialist Sergeant's power armoured fist moving at high speed.
"Trece, you O.K. from that grenade?" He announced flatly as he moved over to the radioman's position with no apparent regard for the swiss-cheesed corpses he had just made out of the enemy, very much in contrast to a few divots in his own armour. Once he saw that Trece was alive, he planted himself in front of the firing port the grenade had come from and observed the gunfire that glanced off him, before ripping the rifle out from the firing port much to the dismay of the grenadier behind who saw Hulsar's undamaged faceplate for the few moments it took the hulking figure to insert his own rifle and hose down the unfortunate with another burst of bullets.
Seein that Hulsar and Trece had reached the bunker and were laying siege to it in the most direct of terms, Yagaan stood, shouldered his rifle and began to stride after the others, his long-limbed form throwing disturbing shadows through the smoke. He arrived behind the group, crouching low to minimise his profile in the trenches, emerging from the smoke with an artificial smile on his artifical face.
"Hello everyone. I am pleased you have not died." he said as he palmed the hilt of his hikatana, although he did not activate it, seeing no need to turn on a big red glowstick whilst they were still exposed.
"Let's stay that way." Trulko's voice whispered over the comm. The captain advanced up to their position, calmly reloading his rifle as he slid the empty magazine into his vest. Calmly he checked team status, Five-Five was still tearing the enemy apart, Hulsar had or was working on eliminating enemy presence in a bunker sector... all was going well so far. He hoped it would stay that way, but he admitted that it might not.
"Move up to breach, support Five-Five if you are able."
Five-Five took a mere second to register the array of soldiers in front of him.
Oh, what an unfortunate day to be a mercenary.
The Artificia's arms lashed out and stretched in front of him, the blades digging into the trench walls either side of the men at the front. Rather than propel him into them, however, Five-Five did something different. An attack from the front was something they were expecting, after all.
Instead, the team saw the blue light of Five-Five propelled skyward and over the combatants, his arms lashing out once again and bringing him down hard into the midst of the formation, three men instead sliced to ribbons by a whirling of nanoedged swords. Grabbing the shovel of one and tossing it into the skull of a man attempting to turn around with a shotgun, Five-Five leapt into the men who would have been at the back of the gathering, showering the trench in blood, viscera and sliced apart gear in a whirlwind of glimmering blades and sporadic gunshots, whipping around as the last man fell and shooting a man raising a rifle squarely in the visor.
Half of them down. Another half to go. The Artificia sprung forward, bouncing off the trench walls and throwing any attempt to aim to the wind, the mercenaries reeling and some panicking as the blue-hued banshee was upon them, the same fate befalling them, limbs shorn from bodies, heads sent skyward, uniforms and armour sliced through, a few unfortunate weapons meeting the same fate. The last man, Five-Five paused before, locking eyes with him through his fogged visor, the mercenary managing a steeled battlecry and charging with his bayonet.
A slash to the rifle, slicing it in twain and taking one of his forearms with it, just below the elbow. A slash to the waist, rendering him half the man he used to be. A sharp kick to the side of the chest.
The upper half of a man, in a spray of blood, landed with a twirling thump next to Trulko.
"Trench cleared." came through comms in the distinctive voice of Five-Five, as he strode out of the trench, spattered in red and blades dripping fresh, moving towards the bunker
The Specialist Sergeant was quick to take the information and cornered the bunker towards Five-Five and the door. "Should I presume that you want us to breach through the door?" Hulsar said into comms back to the team leader chiefly but also to notify the others of his question. Hulsar began looking over the various features of the bunker with his well-trained eyes and sensors. As much information as possible on what they were going into would help tremendously in breaching operations. Then there was second message to the breaching team, especially Five-Five: "Grenades?"
Trece nodded quite repetitively for a few moments as he knocked on the sides of his head in order to eliminate the residual tinnitus - "yeah, I'm fine," he responded, even as the piercing sounds of a gory melee erupted from the trenches to their flank. He looked up to the firing port, covered in blood, that had just been firing out at Hulsar, before quickly changing face to the door; luckily, one that these mercenaries had failed to consider cutting a firing port into. Letting out a sigh and recollecting himself in the time it took the others to regroup in the entry trench, he didn't need to think much as far as a response was concerned.
"Yeah, grenades would be more than appropriate - you seem safe enough to go putting grenades through the windows, but I think most of us will be going in head-first," He said as the scrambling yells of more mercenaries entering the bunker announced the approach of more conflict.
After some uncomfortable moments of ponderous silence on part of the team, with hostile shouting echoing out from within the bunker, Grace smiled - "As cute as you all are, sitting around like this," She quickly stood and marched towards the door, brandishing her autocannon as if charging with a bayonet. Trece, surprised, quickly backed out of the way as the shouting within picked up in volume and rate, with pot-shots out of the firing slits expressing the panic involved; With a final jab, the barrel broke right through the makeshift hatch, and not a moment later, began firing with thunderous report. Shells ejecting at high enough velocity to clear the trench the team huddled in entirely, clots of dirt leading the ghostly outline of shockwaves as they exited the firing ports, splinters of wood ricocheting casually after losing their momentum from bouncing about the interior space. After expending about twenty rounds directly into the room, the noise almost deafening the SRG squad much less the unfortunate mercenaries within the enclosed space.
"There you go, grenade away!" Donner shouted, moans and cries conflicting with the noise of falling debris within. Trece smiled and turned to those that had stacked the approaching trench with him, motioning towards the firing ports on either side of the hatch as well as the gaping hole left in it as Grace extracted her weapon.
Hulsar had been looking through what he had available and now picked out a trio of grenades. "I don't want to be patronising, but stand back - these have more 'oomph' than they look." The specialist sergeant noted over comms as he strode up to the hole in the bunker entrance and posted the grenades in - one with considerable force to get at the far end of the interior, and the others dropped much shorter, to get anyone on the inside waiting near the door. As soon as the grenades had gone in, he rapidly moved to the side despite his heavy armour; and waited.
An explosion more befitting of an artillery shell than a grenade shortly thereafter caused the ground to tremble slightly for anyone nearby the bunker on the outside, with the shock-waves of the explosives in the confined bunker being much worse as they reverberated from walls, turned loose objects into high velocity projectiles, and blew out any weak points in the firing ports and well and truly ruined the door. Anyone in the bunker outside of the initial blast was having a bad day, and any unfortunates who had been near it either felt nothing as they were immolated, or were now a mangled corpse - and the bunker itself was worse for wear.
Hulsar nodded to five-five and the others as he used his rifle to shoot off the points attaching the remainder of the door to the wall. "Pointman, I think it's time for their meeting with your blades."
Yagaan activated his hikatana, the hardlight blade knitting itself out of nothing and casting a faint red glow on the swirling dust and rubble around them. He raised his eyebrows with a click-clack and smiled.
"I am glad we are outside the bunker and not inside it. Everyone inside it is probably having a bad day." he announced, unprompted, as he waited for the point fighters to launch their attack on the ruins of the entry bunker.
Five-Five watched Hulsar's explosive demonstration blankly, though an eyebrow did raise at the sheer magnitude of the detonation for the size of the explosive.
He'd have to consider getting some.
Regardless, there were likely still people inside good for stabbing, and he seemed the best suited here for stabbing people. Rolling his neck and twirling his blades, Five-Five nodded to Hulsar as he passed, a confident stride rising to a low run as he crossed the threshold of the battered bunker.
Sure enough, the insides were a tattered mess of shrapnel marks, cracked masonry and obliterated furniture, alongside some mangled corpses. Several other men were rushing in to investigate and back up the faltering defence from deeper inside, sprinting headlong, calling out as they went, into the smokescreen already occupied by a man equipped for melee.
Several sounds of blades striking metal and flesh, the spraying of blood and abrupt shrieks, marred only by a couple of gunshots, rang out from inside.
A pause.
"Room...clear." came over comms, Five-Five pressing on at a slow stride.
"Five-Five clear up, I'm behind, everyone else sweep and clear. Not the last of these mudaki." Trulko ordered, snapping a fresh magazine into his rifle as he swept into the room. If the enemy had any heavier units coming up now, then he would knock them back down, checking the chamber to make sure the HYVHEAP had loaded-- which it had.
With the damage that Five-Five and the team's explosives had done in the entrance chamber, Trulko scanned the room for exits, marking them on his HUD. Running through he scanned for a more likely route than others, his suit's sensors marking every set of footfalls it could detect, allied and enemy both. The effect was something akin to seeing ghosts on the gravimetrics, but long experience had told the captain how to filter such things.
"OPCEN." he stated, marking what seemed like a most-probable door of the ones in here the team's HUDs. "That way. Five-Five, you're up. As before people, let's keep this ball rolling, check corners."
With the initial command, Grace very quickly took the opportunity to cram her frame into the not-quite-appropriate space that the bunker provided, followed by Trece - who seemed to have quickly recovered from his mild case of shock. While the room was densely smokey, anything that wasn't trapped at the ceiling was actively filtering out through the firing ports and now-ajar doorway... leaving Five-Five's partially-obscured silhouette standing stoically above clearly-displayed bodies that had either been indiscriminately minced by the liberal application of explosives or more deliberately dispatched via the point man's blades. Grace gave a grinning approval to the bladesman on her way to poke herself gun-first into the adjacent rooms, as opposed to Makhil, who walked by with a very simple nod.
After walking past the doors on his side of the earthwork, he began bee-lining for the path indicated by Trulko. The footstep analysis proved to be a very high-tech solution to something solvable by the naked eye... the wiring of the bunker all bundled together and ran down the doorway indicated by the squad lead, which opened to an uncomfortably long hallway at a slightly-downwards angle, curved just enough to the right so that one couldn't make out the other end from this position.
"Clear. Non-melee-friendly environment coming up," Trece sharply responded across the ten-meter distance. "I'll move alongside Fives."
Hulsar filed in, checking the bunker as he passed through. His power armour was also rather bulky for the confines of the bunker, but powerful enough to plow through the smaller obstructions that got in the way, though it was still awkward to move around inside. He paused to take a look at the damage his explosives had caused, so he could make a mental note for how to better calibrate them in future, his armour's computer doing a quick analysis of how things seemed to have happened inside with the breaching for later analysis.
"Not ideal for me in here, not much I can do aside from body blocking. Too little room to manuver. I'll stay back - I don't want to block up your fallback route if they have a nasty surprise waiting for you." Seeing as that was his disposition, he now had a closer look at what remained, seeing if any useful information could be gleaned from or about the wrecked equipment and other ancillaries lying about.
Yagaan perked up as Trece announced a "non-melee friendly environment". He sheathed his sword and tugged his rifle into position, the huge barrel menacing the long, curved arcway. There was a whir as his eyes optimised themselves for the conditions, and he crouched his spindly frame at the entrance to the tunnel, a terrifying silhouette had anyone been there to look back towards the entrance.
"I can lead the way." he said, chambering a round with an audible clang.
"Very well, Yagaan. You up, we'll cover you. Stand by to fall back if needed." Trulko said, raising his rifle again. The weapon was performing exactly to specifications that he'd been told so far... good. Reactivating his armor's cloak, the only indication of the captain's position became indents in the dust on the floor as he moved, flanking the door and waiting for the team to move-- or for the enemy to try a counterattack.
"Alright, ready," Trece commented after the rapid re-assembly of the group - Yagaan, himself, and Grace in the forward echelon, with Trulko supporting and Hulsar and Five-Five remaining behind. Yagaan promptly led the way, three guns in unison tracking the longest sightline possible as the curved wall slowly twisted away and under the hills surrounding the bunker. Anxiety-inducing levels of agonizing suspense weighted the scene, as even minute pebbles falling and moisture dripping caused clear echoes up and down the narrow causeway - in the distance, sporadic and dim lighting gave way to brighter sources at the very literal end of the tunnel, seemingly worksite lights. A dropped bucket in the next room, with paint spilled about itself that tracked into boot-prints leading farther in, combined with the lack of noise from afar indicated that anyone beyond was startled and aware... potentially already assembled.
"Depth: fifteen meters; Distance: Seventy-five. Think you can get down low and hit anyone hiding?"
Hulsar continued to pace the wrecked part of the bunker, looking for anything useful, before eventually retiring himself into a rearguard position, recessed from the ex-door-now-frame and covering it with his rifle, in case the enemy got any ideas about following the team into the bunker. He waited patiently, doing mental checks, observing what his HUD told him about ammunition expenditure and so on, while he waited for the rest of the team to clear ahead.
Yagaan advanced down the hallway, his long joints clicking and whirring surreally as his bizarre form was silhouetted by the dusty sunlight from behind him. A man with an SMG popped at the entrance to the worksite, but immediately the boom of the Kodiak railgun filled the narrow space, reverberating from the walls as the man was hurled backwards in a burst of blood.
Yagaan's quick advance caught a second guard unawares, stumbling backwards and staring in horror at the ruins of his comrade. He did not even have time to register the Frame's appearance before a second round tumbled him back down into the dirt.
He halted at the bottom of the slope, taking cover behind a crate and squinting into the confusing mix of darkness and light beyond. There was fire from beyond and a bullet spanged off his head, denting and deforming the cheekplate so that when he turned to the others he had an even more alarming appearance.
"There is significant resistance beyond. Transmitting visuals now."
All those with equipment capable would receive a feed from Yagaan, letting them see what his optical suite saw of the resistance ahead. They watched as he snapped up above cover, the gun booming once more as it punched through a cable spool to kill the unfortunate sod who had dented Yagaan's sleek pink plating.
Trulko moved up to the doorway as Yagaan stated the situation, setting a flash grenade with one hand. Yagaan had eyes on alright, and this was going to be... exciting.
"Five-five, on my mark, get in there and clear. Yagaan, keep their heads down and maintain fire discipline. Everybody cover up, flash going out." the captain said over the radio before he pulled the pin on the flash grenade, and with the strength lent him by his power armor, hurled it in through the doorway.
The noise and the brightness of the grenade filled the area with light and noise for a moment before Trulko snapped his rifle up, sweeping in through the door past Yagaan and riddling the first man he saw with bullets. The trooper jerked about like a puppet on strings that had just been cut, and Trulko's rifle was already sweeping to the next when he keyed his comm.
"Five-Five, go, go, go!"
Five-Five had responded to Trulko calling for him to be ready simply by twirling his blades around in his hands and a simple comms ping. He didn't see the need for anything more, personally, and he knew he was ready. As far as he was concerned, that was enough.
Sure enough, when the call to attack came the two nanobladed swords lodged themselves in the dirt near Trulko's feet, before again the blue Artificia fired past like a slingshot, buzzsawing through two men before hitting a crate--and the unfortunate sod that had been next to it, raising his rifle to face the attack--with an echoing crash of cratering metal and pulverised bone, allowing inertia to hold his swords aloft just long enough to draw two of his throwing daggers.
Before gravity caught up to him, Five-Five flipped back off the crate through the air, loosing the daggers through the visors of two more targets, grabbing the grips of his swords right as he landed.
"Support requested." came through comms in his usual tone, as the Artificia sprinted off, looking to draw attention from any surviving mercenaries away from the entrance his allies were piling through.
"Confirmed," Trece acknowledged both Trulko and Five-Five. Gun up, he made a quick approach through the exit into the next branch room, now of a natural cave, with Grace following at a medium distance. Makhil checked the opposite corner from the rest of the squad's attention, making eye contact with a stunned and scared young mercenary before placing a merciless two rounds into their sternum and about-facing to view the next hallway as the soldier collapsed into the stream next to him, Fives having already half-cleared the path ahead. The next room appeared to be a massive cenote, mossy-walled and well-lit, covered with a false roof, with the top of a structure visible within. They must have cleared a significant portion of the enemy force already - This appeared to be the core structure, and their primary objective. He downed another two stunned soldiers with well-aimed shots as return fire intensified as an enemy squad moved to occupy the end of the tunnel ahead - a SAW gunner determinedly hosing the cover that Five-Five now found himself behind.
"Suppress that exit!" he called, enticing a grin on Donner's face as she moved, wordlessly, into the open and began hammering the area with 20mm fire in controlled bursts, fragmentation airbursts initially inviting panicked shouting before the self-correcting gun silenced the position, complete with the disabling of the SAW that had easily dumped sixty rounds in Five-Five's direction by the time it was over.
Cheering after her burst's very clear effect, Grace ran up to check the primary room - not so much as getting her shoulders over the edge before receiving fierce gunfire in response, quickly ducking down. Trece had been following and stopped to check on Fives, but the sounds of automatic weapons fire in a close-quarters environment were nonetheless startling.
"Machine gun to the right behind sandbags, at least two squads spread throughout the cenote!" Donner yelled back at the team, grimacing and hefting her cannon up to the ledge and blind-firing at targets she had seen.
"What size squad?" Makhil shouted back as a rifle grenade hit just below the lip of the exit, spraying the ceiling of the tunnel with shrapnel.
"Like, six per!" Grace yelled again as she turned her gun, peeking momentarily to get an accurate shot off before chuckling to herself - she must have hit.
With the immediate route cleared, Hulsar was ready to move forward, but not without abandoning his rearguard position completely. He affixed what amounted to a small proximity mine on the roof above the doorway into the bunker. It was slightly time delayed so it would hopefully wipe out more than just one person as any potential assailant entered, and configured to not trigger on allied IFF - just in case. Manual detonation via its albeit limited sensor feed was also an option.
The specialist sergeant made as much speed as he could through the cramped area before arriving at the rear of the pinned position with rifle in hand, taking cover as was available."You certainly seem to have gotten their attention. Any alternative way in there without going straight into the front of their killing area?"
One of Yagaan's spindly arms came arcing around like a windmill, the joint moving unnaturally to allow him to throw a grenade at an angle without exposing himself much. The strange, lantern-looking grenade clanked down just beyond the entrance to the cenote and detonated, crackling like a firework as it filled the area with a brief but intense cacophony of smoke and sparkling flares.
Calmly he walked into the middle of the corridor and lay prone, taking aim at the doorway based on the last visual picture they had received. When the grenade began to fizzle out, he began hammering shots at everything visible. After a short, thunderous volley his magazine ran dry and he rolled to one side, his head staying level like an owl as his metal frame clattered across the floor. Once out of line of sight of the entrance, he stood, loading another magazine into his railgun.
"This is my last magazine." he said matter-of-factly.
"Fuck. Watch your shots then, keep an eye out for any ammo you can use." Trulko replied just as matter of factly, popping up to fire a burst before he activated his cloak and began to move. The captain He picked a fireteam on the far right of the cenote as he advanced by small increments, firing before moving to strike them from somewhere else. This was a trick he had used before and it had not failed him yet, though he remained keenly aware that not every member of his squad had the ability to cloak like he did, nor did they have power armor that could take hits like he could. They needed a way in past that machine gun.
Trulko marked pieces of cover that could withstand enemy fire as he went, at last ducking into cover to avoid the machine gun as he took a obscuration grenade from his belt and armed it.
"Get ready to move up on my mark," he said to the team, still invisible, before he tossed the grenade towards the machine gun nest, spewing smoke, jamming signals and tiny strips of chaff as it landed. It wasn't going to last long, but it hopefully would last long enough.
"Mark!"
Five-Five had similarly paused in the tunnel, watching a vicious torrent of bullets fly by with a raised eyebrow. They were certainly doing their best, he mused to himself, watching Trulko's form melt away and the shimmering form of slightly distorted light moved away into further obscurity, marked only by periodic flashes of gunfire.
That machine gun was a pain, if the party felt the need to drop two separate jammer grenades just to throw it off. Well, if there was one thing Five-Five was good at aside from making croquettes and failing to do much with his hair, it was to buzzsaw straight into troublesome things.
Of course, 'straight into' here preferably meant 'from the side where the gun was not at all ready to stop him'.
As Trulko moved off, Five-Five took a few steps back.
Then a couple more.
He sheathed one of his swords, drawing and twirling one of his pistols, taking a moment to make sure it was loaded as Trulko spoke.
Mark.
His sword arm lashed out, the blade burying itself--stretched out hand still attached--in the stone of the tunnel exit, the blue Artificia firing out into the cenote in a blur of light, impacting the far wall with remarkably little noise as his legs immediately kicked into action, sprinting along the wall of the cave structure, revolver flashing with the echoing call of a high-caliber sidearm six times, each fired for a different man.
When that emptied, the blue blur changed direction again. He fired off the wall with a kick, shoving his pistol into its holster and drawing his sword mid-flight, turning into a wheel of blades flying straight for the machine gun nest's flank.
"Mark!"
It was a quick plan, but staying suppressed was the worse of two options. The burst of smoke, and the light-speed artificia leaving curling contrails in his wake, was enough of a distraction, it seemed, as all guns on the opposite side turned to fire at Fives - including the non-machine gun team. In fact, there were more gunshots and more yelling than would be expected from two six-man squads, undoubtedly down half their number before Five-Five blitzed them.
"Fives, confirm reinforcements or lack thereof?," Trece shouted through comms as he jogged down the slope and to the right, behind a prefab building, gun up and monitoring a window on its side. Grace had taken the opposite route, moving to get an angle around the obscuration grenade's cloud. Makhil kept up the pace, switching his point of aim to the entrance on his right, firing a three-round burst at each hinge of the door and brandishing a sizable, short-fuse, blast-fragmentation grenade as tracers spewed out of the building, pitching it in response and diving back to where he came before - fire stopping and being replaced by shouting and thuds of cover or footsteps before the device went off, bursting the windows and throwing debris out of every opening in the building, the overpressure being far too similar to the grenade that had almost ended him not ten minutes prior.
"Breaking radio silence!" Makhil shouted on the local network again, looking up at the camouflaged, but still open-skied, entrance to the cenote as he reached for his modern handset. "Command, intel was off. Hostile concentration is diffuse, this outpost is a remote listening position - Encountering significant resistance here, need updates as far as response forces, over!"
Grace swung her autocannon around her corner to an eyeful of three more squads responding from another tunnel and buildings within the cenote alike - Within a second, she flicked over to flechette ammo and began suppressing infantry that weren't in close quarters with Five-Five; the machine gunner was quite decidedly out of commission , she guessed, telling by its slack position atop the blooded sandbag emplacement.
"This is getting out of hand!" She thundered over the roar of her weapon, pausing only to switch targets to the doorway into a prefab.
The booming fire of Yagaan's gun slowed to a snails pace, shots ringing out only occasionally to kill a high-threat individual or rescue a comrade from being flanked and killed. He worked his way around the perimeter of the cenote, at one point using his spindly limbs to snatch a rifleman's weapon from his hands and clock him in the head with it, slinging it over his shoulder as a fallback weapon since he was very close to empty.
His mechanical eyes whirred as he took in the fresh waves of reinforcements rushing across the cenote towards the rest of the team. If any of the defenders had bothered to scrutinise the shadows to their right they may have spotted a bizarre, gangling figure watching them from cover with a frozen expresson of genial bemusement on its face.
Hulsar pushed himself forward assisted by his power armour as his rifle hummed with each burst fired at the enemy as he moved up to a better vantage of cover within the cenote. The specialist sergeant took a moment to stop and assess the situation before crouching behind his cover...
...Then as he came back up he did so accompanied by his throw of a grenade from each hand, letting the devices bounce exactly once as they headed to their targets, one rolling under a gap beneath the floorboard of a small prefab that was occupied judging by the gunfire coming from within it, while another was in midair amidst a group of reinforcements.
BOOM! As the explosion of the devices echoed across the cenote, one devastating the squad it was within with its fireball and the other exploding up through the weak prefab floor to screams as those within were consumed by the blast or impaled by the prefab-shrapnel as the bottom floor of the building turned into a slaughterhouse.
Trulko moved up after Fives, keeping his cloak up as he went. There were a lot of hostiles in here, no doubt of that, and more were arriving every moment it seemed. In any other circumstance he would have preferred Makhil confer with him before he broke comms silence, but in this case and in this fight he did not question it-- he was moments away from giving the order himself.
As the enemy moved in he opened up, firing short bursts from his rifle to engage enemy infantry as they came into view. The power of the weapon was more than enough, and had he not had the brick of a suppressor built into it, everyone and their dog would know where he was, cloak or not. He ducked into cover to let it cycle as more hostiles filtered in, fishing a grenade from his belt and tossing it into the tightest concentration of them he could see before he recloaked, reloaded, and got moving again.
To say Five-Five had possibly, maybe, quite potentially bitten off more than he was prepared to chew was to put things lightly. The Artificia's reflexes and on-the-spot thinking ahead were being pushed to their limit, a whirlwind of swords parrying guns, lopping limbs and dodging bullets.
A lot of bullets, mind, putting him on the backfoot as he kicked a freshly disarmed--in more ways than one--man into a man toting a shotgun, swinging his sword free and controlling its flight with its cord to guide it into the shotgunner's skull, yanking it back to pull it free and toss the armless man into his other sword.
"More than expected! Much more!" Trece heard in reply, Five-Five's usual dry and dour tone replaced by one of frustration and mild irritation.
The sound of gunfire and parting flesh coming down the line seemed to indicate he was more than a little occupied. With a grunt Five-Five fired off again, bouncing off the walls of the nest in a zigzag that ended with six more dead men.
A lot more were coming, Five-Five dodging back behind a wall to evade a burst of assault rifle fire and tossing a knife back at them, eliciting a yell from whoever he had hit.
"Assistance requested." came down the comms moments after his first, his tone mildly calmer.
"Fuck," Trece exclaimed to himself over the explosions that were undoubtedly caused by Hulsar as he quickly confirmed the prefab he was next to was clear, before moving at combat pace to the far corner, giving him a clean shot at the tunnel that Five-Five was so dangerously close to. The smoke had dissipated far faster than might be expected with the initial force estimate, but given the sheer volume of explosives used, was rather understandable. He braced his battle rifle against the corner of the building, aiming out and towards the sandbags that had initially pinned the squad down, before firing precise shots at hostiles moving through the open towards cover... notably ignoring a particularly shellshocked mercenary that was dazedly wandering through the pool in the center of the cenote, below a communications dish that was undoubtedly part of the breach attempt they were busy stopping.
Grace wasn't so merciful, however, as she fired a pair of rounds at the man, airburst rounds throwing up pillars of water that left a floating body and blood-stained pool in their wake, before turning her attention back to the tunnel that the enemy sourced from. Kicking her gun to a slower rate of fire, she crouched and couched the weapon best she could before permitting a long, steady burst of fire to speed straight into the mouth of the passage, entirely halting the reinforcements. Seconds went by that felt like minutes, with a soldier eventually popping out of the sandbags to scream in desperation at the unending deluge of autocannon rounds, quickly and skillfully put down by Makhil, even as Trulko transitioned between shooter and target as he moved to meet up with the squad's breacher.
"That working for you?" the JTAC asked to the Artificia over the communications network as the burst ended, the shouting and cries from the mercenaries within the sparse fortification being made obvious.
"Captain, I suggest sweeping for intelligence. Assuming it's still intact," he radioed.
Yagaan's rifle ran dry just as a pair of mercenaries came around the corner. Wasting no time, he hurled it like a javelin, the sheer force of his mechanical arm propelling it through the man's chest and lifting him off his feet. His right arm, following through on the throw, fell to his left hip and he drew his hikatana even as the second man fired a burst. The rounds crashed into Yagaan's chest, punching holes in his endoskeletal structure and sending sparks and pieces of metal flying.
There was a momentary pause as both of them looked at one another, before Yagaan swept forwards with one long, spindly stride and hacked the shooter's head off.
He took a few shaky steps towards a stalagmite, slumping into cover behind it and drawing his looted rifle with one hand, his left arm no longer responding properly. Propping it on the rock, he held his fire, not wanting to attract more attention in his damaged state, but some mercenaries spotted him anyway. They hurled themselves into cover, avoiding his first haphazard burst of fire, and opened up on his position, chipping flakes of rock from his cover and forcing him to duck.
"Do it. Anything still legible, find it." Trulko ordered tersely. With the halting of enemy reinforcements they had a reprieve for the moment, but that was not going to last, not with their luck and how tits up this mission had come already. He moved up to the comms dish, watching any and all routes of approach for enemy forces with his rifle, silently snapping another magazine into place. If anyone appeared to reinforce the enemy, even if they were a damned janitor he wanted to know about it. This was before his scanner alerted him to the situation near Yagaan, and he spun. That, was not going to do.
Snapping his rifle to his shoulder, Trulko sighted up and began putting single shots down towards the enemy, the first one he targeted losing part of his chest and his left arm in a spray of blood, bone and armor pieces as the 12.7 round smashed into him. The next Trulko aimed at, he aimed low as their center mass was obscured. They didn't die, but they were in no fit state to keep going unless they were faster with painkillers than Trulko reckoned they were. And so he advanced, his scanner still up to watch for enemy reinforcements as he closed in on the mercs hosing down Yagaan.
Hulsar changed magazines on his rifle with a clunk before continuing to plant bursts of fire into enemy positions or even shooting straight through some of the thin prefab walls to make kills. "Suggest exfiltration and possible casevac planning if we can't take the pressure off, commander. If you want this place blowing I'll need to set charges at some point but we're all currently a bit tied up."
The Specialist Sergeant seemed content that his team were dealing with the marksman casualty and five-five's position at least for now and so continued providing surpressing fire into buildings and across the cenote while his brain and his systems began calculating the positioning and weight of explosives for any demolitions that might be required in the near future. There was another loud bang as he tossed out another grenade which obliterated one of the remaining fighting positions actually in the cenote itself.
Upon Trulko's response, Trece immediately released his handpiece, the chirp of a disconnecting line scratching out, and bolted for a prefab that seemed to be there the longest - long enough for lichen to be growing in the valleys in the corrugated metal paneling. The door was open, staffers long shot out by now telling by the body slumped on the doorway, face on the damp rock, but that didn't mean the building was entirely empty. As the Carnaithian's boot slammed against the flooring of the unit, the burst of movement int he corner of his eye immediately called his attention to a remaining staffer. He didn't look like a mercenary... He looked like a scholar, if anything. A very rich one. The panic in his cybernetic eyes and shuddering gasp of fear conflicted with the impossibly fluid movement of an undoubtedly-artificial arm that had just gripped something on the back of the man's belt.
The JTAC instinctively switched his battle rifle to full-auto, charging as he fired eight rounds into the center mass of the outlying man, recoil conveniently carving a path to the shoulder of the synthetic arm. The impact had definitely killed the biological element of the individual, but in response to the jolting movements of the would-be corpse as well as the stress-inducing click of the hammer in his own gun, Makhil launched his arms away from his shoulder, as if stabbing with a bayonet, and forced the muzzle violently into the hostile's eye all the way to the gas block and slamming the body into the wall - and for good measure, he brandished a knife and severed the spinal column at the neck.
Panting, the JTAC sidestepped and let the body collapse. The four seconds since he stepped into the building had been everything that ever mattered in the moment - and the item in the now-still cybernetic hand was not a weapon. Not a gun, not a knife, not even a detonator - a phone. A phone that hadn't even opened its security screen. (edited)
Quickly separating the device from the downed would-be hostile and pocketing it in a Faraday pouch, Trece took a moment to evaluate the rest of the room. As expected, it was a now-empty command post, including an unlocked terminal where the staffer had first seen him. Even as gunfire and another explosion rocked the outside, maybe this had remote access to the other diffuse sites, and maybe even information regarding the target of the hack.
On a very bare militarized display, options for intranet communications, center control, and data management were listed, with the first and lattermost options existing as open windows. Makhil grasped his radio once again, calling out the positions of the other sites. "We're engaged and pinned, no chance of moving to engage on our own. Requesting support!"
"Affirmed. Routing to engage. Break. Warning. Hostile contingents converging on your current position. Prior Renaissance inaccurate - armored elements present. T-minus ten minutes. Earliest EVAC available in fifteen. Over."
The news was startling. A problem, definitely, but one they'd have to get through regardless. Makhil was, at this point, flipping through the terminal's onboard files. Images and scans of truly ancient carvings were present, depicting nightmarish shadows dueling at first, then one slaughtering the other. The losing figure seemed vaguely familiar, with a triangle of negative space on the head of a serpentine body.
Opening the terminal cabinet and shutting down the terminal, he removed the memory assets and placed them into yet more Faraday pouches before reloading his rifle. He wouldn't dwell on the intel; it wasn't his job right now, and it wouldn't help in the moment anyways. What he could help with, however, was right back out that door.
Grace's barrage had all but cleared the sandbags about the far entrance, and the additional grenade contributed by Hulsar finished the ordeal in that corner of the depression. However, the gunfire in the direction Yagaan had moved, and the cessation of his echoing fire, was more than enough information to recall her attention to her allies. Trulko was pushing the sniper's assailants, and the Artifician hadn't said anything. Dropping her gun, she brandished her knife as she stood in her immense armor, immediately breaking into a jog to check on their melee specialist.
Trulko's advance on the surviving mercenaries drew their attention for long enough that Yagaan judged it prudent to push his own attack. As the enemy turned their guns towards Trulko, Yagaan stood, bracing the assault rifle tight against his good shoulder and firing in single shots. He put down first one attacker, then a second, but a third turned and sprayed half a mag at the advancing sniper. A round grazed against Yagaan's shoulder, twitching him to the side, and then another punched through his head, erupting in a burst of sparks and broken electronics as the mechanical collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, clattering to the ground noisily even as Trulko finished off the last of the mercenaries near Yagaan's position.
"Affirm on evac time frame. Hurry it up if you can, we need a casevac." Trulko responded to the call over the radio, making his way to Yagaan's position. Damnit, that wasn't good. He knelt to check Yagaan for any signs of life that there might be, snapping his rifle up and putting two through the chest of one of the mercenaries that popped up down the path to spray at him. He checked team vitals on his HUD and muttered a curse-- where the hell was Five-Five?
"Hulsar, start setting those charges, Grace, Five-Five, cover him. Everybody else, extract what data you can however you can, we'll strip this place bare before we burn it!"
"On it." declared Hulsar as he knelt down to retrieve demolition charges from his pack. He held them for a short moment, weighing them up while he looked around for good positions to place them and lay detonation cord to link them up - a remote detonation from the surface might not be reliable.
Almost zoned-out he walked around, carefully positioning the explosives and laying out detonations cord, around the structures holding up the cenote as well as the walls and a few choice pieces of equipment. He was conciously aware of the occasional burst of fire but he continued unfazed as his armour swatted away stray bullets. "If we time it right we might be able to get the armour to roll over the top of this cenote with a little bit of deception... some of it at least." the Specialist Sergeant spoke from his mind with somewhat of a different tone as he continued to place charges into nooks with a great deal of precision. While not obvious to an observer, they were meticulously spaced to achieve the detonation pattern Hulsar was trying to achieve.
"I'm more than a little convinced that we should get out of here sooner than later, Captain. I've already recovered the drive for this center, an unidentified cyborg was monitoring the terminal. I've got his phone on me, too."
The response from Makhil was fatigued and, in a way, dismissive. But he walked out of the HQ structure all the same, with the mines laid in the previous tunnel going off with theatrical timing. The crashing collapse of the way back precluded the aural detection of any desperate cries, evidently less sturdy than initially assessed. Rocks, pebbles, and dust belched and bellowed outwards from the mouth of the tunnel, quickly adding an earthy smell to the haze of cordite and high explosive byproducts that had already filled the chamber.
"And that leaves one direction."
Grace, having received Trulko's new orders, had already stuck a dazed mercenary that was cowering behind a sandbag wall as bullets from the tunnel ahead ricocheted off of her armor. Grimacing, she twisted the hefty knife in his chest, cracking ribs, and let him slump to the ground, liberated of his rifle. Brandishing it one-handed, bursts of rifle fire snapped towards the handful of remaining hostiles that were actively engaging Hulsar. One fell. Another. Between bursts, she looked to Fives at the epicenter of the gore left by his initial assault.
Five-Five had disappeared into the fortified MG nest for a worrying amount of time, falling quiet on the comms to the extent he didn't acknowledge when ordered to cover Hulsar.
He had, evidently, heard it though. In the midst of the chaos, a hastily assembled sandbag wall covering its flank exploded, a shower of bullets in that direction signalling the cause had been a detonated ammunition crate, accompanied by a shower of limbs and at least one corpse mangled beyond recognition.
Following behind this were three more men, stumbling clear of the nest, clutching wounds.
They barely made it five paces from the nest before, in a whirling display of plasma, the blurred form of Five-Five flew out of it, slicing them to ribbons with his nanobladed swords now wreathed in an edge of plasma.
He had evidently decided he needed to up the ante. Still, there had seemingly been more trouble in there than the Artificia has expected; he was out of throwing knives, and the muzzles of his revolvers were visibly glowing, steam issuing from their tips. His attire was now tattered, holes and rents marring his vest and trousers both as crack-like breaks in his hardlight skin sealed themselves with a quiet but audible hiss. Still, he wasn't dead. He raised one finger to his comm.
"Apologies for the delay." grumbled through in his distinctive voice.
Growling as more men moved to attack their demolitions specialist, Five-Five sprung back into motion, firing off the ground, then the ceiling, back and forth until he reached the wall behind them, once again whirling as he fired into them, dicing all but three of them and catching the grenade launcher of their leader. Whipping about, he fired one shot before dropping it, the grenade exploding off the wall he had hit, pelting the three with rubble and killing one with a blow to the head. One, then the other, he swung his swords by the cable, lodging them in the two remaining men's skulls before yanking them close, grabbing the swords and ripping them free, leaving the corpses to flip once and hit the ground.
"Move for exfil. I'll mop up stragglers." he grunted.
Hulsar took a moment to stand back and double check the placement locations as his hud highlighted them. He made a quick dash over to one which he removed from its place and moved it down slightly before announcing: "Demolition charges set." in a very serious tone.
"And thanks for the cover. Commander, detonation on your say-so once we're at minimum safe distance." The Specialist sergeant trailed his detonation cable as a backup in case he couldn't get a wireless - and he expected he wouldn't down here. He motioned that now was the time to leave, team leader or not he was a man fully aware of the amount of high yield explosives he had just set and had no intention of staying here longer than neccessary.
"Understood, Makhil. Everybody pull out, fire as you go." Trulko ordered, firing off a long burst that punched foot wide craters in the wall of the cenote as the rounds passed through their targets, sprays of blood and sparks as casings hit the ground. He checked his HUD for a round count and frowned. Not dangerously low, but still lower than he would have liked by far, and with their situation he'd have to make every round count. With that in mind he switched to single fire, snapping the rifle around and sending a contact screaming into the cenote with a single round through the upper thigh.
"Grace, Five-Five, cover and move, I've got Yagaan. Hulsar, this is going to be close." he said as he moved to pick up the gangly form of the sniper, slamming out two more rounds with two more kill pips on his HUD. If his cloaking could cover them both, he would buy the R&D boys a drink when this was over.
Wordlessly, Trece's footfalls increased in tempo, rushing for the remaining exit. The sustained fire from the rest of the team decreased in density as he approached the opening itself, the sounds of ricochets and panicked shouting further in. Grace followed up, quickly "slicing her pies" as her retrieved canon's muzzle hugged the longest available angle. "Firing!" she abruptly shouted, the overpressure from the weapon surprising the team JTAC before she even finished speaking - this passage was much straighter, and the rounds' tracers could be tracked by eye from report to detonation outside of the now-daylit exit.
"Pushing! Low on ammo!" she called out, Makhil gesturing the other four soldiers towards himself as the power-armored human began an assault canter. He watched as Five-Five fell into formation with Trulko after mopping up the remainder of hostiles, who in turn carried Yagaan - "behind me, Hulsar," the carnaithian uttered, moving behind Grace as to put more bodies between the enemy and the wounded. The awkward, loud, and stressful file-formed exfiltration could have felt like an eternity of marching towards that little hole of light. Yet it did slowly grow in intensity and clarity before finally punching out and into an open-topped fortification.
Grass had been grown on what looked like a hastier effort than the last pillbox, built of low, dirt-concealed palisade walls that were built in an obvious mutually supporting hierarchy, and signs of life were low. The reasons it wasn’t used as much were not immediately obvious, even as the squad spread out over bodies mauled by the continuous shrapnel barrage and taking cover, complete with Makhil about-facing to place a duet of rifle rounds in the chest of a survivor from the squad that had been here, though the combatant’s rifle did let off a burst that dug into the dirt next to the group.
“Clearing the area!” he shouted as the squad lead lowered the sniper slowly into a nestled position of cover, Five-five darting off in the other direction to the trenches below with a pained grunt after that thorough melee he had engaged in. The obvious screaming and gunfire before the JTAC engaged from the opposite end for a matter of moments signaled the removal of this group of reinforcements.
Curiously, though, it was quieter than expected given the warnings from earlier - Trulko had time to examine the Jade construct, tracing the cracks that radiated from the hole punched in the marksman’s mechanical skull, ruining the oni faceplate. The restevian swallowed - Yagaan was a machine, surely this wasn’t guaranteed to be lethal. He reached for his PDA and radio.
“This is captain Trulko, what’s the ETA on our evac?” he shakily shouted into the handpiece. A second went by before his eyes traced a lazily-flying orange light rise up into the sky before the appearance of a small detonation and a puff of smoke took its place… though the thin walls of overpressure that rushed outwards from it were evidence enough to the opposite end of the scale.
“This is Voccarrus. ETA unknown, Azure One is going down. Hostile elements moving in force. Unknown advanced elements are present. Get your JTAC on station, he’ll know what to do. Enemy mechanized elements within two kilometers of your position from the east. You’ll have counterslope positioning. You have one minute until contact. Break.”
The restevian looked back down at the marksman’s motionless body in a moment of considering silence before the shockwave from the heavy SAM hit the position, large enough of a warhead to knock some air out of the squad’s lungs. He grimaced and looked to Hulsar as he lifted the wounded Ingenious Frame once more; “Get down a tier and hit it!” the seasoned officer shouted, grace lifting herself from her position without needing to be addressed directly. The human jogged past the heavily-armored Primarii, the armor of the latter adorned with new scars to join the old. “Everyone down,” The half-mechanical voice of the Hastraxian specialist called to the rest of the force, finding his own position and giving a few seconds for the others to do the same.
The thunderous detonation of the charges that were, indeed, masterfully placed, was only amplified by the long tunnel they had exited from, acting as a barrel to a chamber as ejecta soared over the squad and into the valley below. Looking up as the pressure wave passed, the sky turned a hue of orange.
“That wasn’t you, I’m afraid,” Trece shouted to Hulsar as he turned his attention to what was the approach vector for their exfil. Lightning-fast streaks of light broke the clouds, flashes of light backlighting the hulls of outdated tanks and IFVs as they crested the hill, their guns sitting still in the air as their crews braced - but Makhil stood, brandishing his old, broken radio once again and whispering softly into it. Infantry dismounted from their transports and hit the dirt. Trece sighed and recoiled as if responding to a slight pain moments before the much larger shockwaves of the kinetic strike munitions from the horizon reached the squad’s position. “What the fuck!” grace cried out as she poked her scarred visage over the edge of the position. The guns of the vehicles began to lower towards the squad, though the infantry on the hill were too stunned to begin firing yet.
The vehicles never had the opportunity to begin firing, as ethereal gunships - far more archaic than the mercenary forces - strafed their positions, wire-guided missiles and rockets tearing the mechanized assets apart as high-explosive cannon fire ravaged the lines of infantry. Panicked machine-gun fire arced up into the sky, passing right through the soft blue glow of the rotorcraft’s hulls, which promptly turned away. The sonic boom of phantasmal low-flying bombers punched the squad as they passed parallel to the opposite hilltop, with drogue bombs impacting and spreading very real napalm across what remained alive; a buzzing thunder of rotary autocannon fire and its impacts echoed through the air as a straight-winged attack plane pulled up from beyond.
“What. The. FUCK!” Grace said again, angered confusion on her face as she looked towards the carnaithian… who seemed so much better-kept now. Two tiltrotor VTOLs came overhead, speeding towards the horizon and Azure 1, and a third began a lazy controlled descent towards the Strategic Relief Group’s agents as its belly-mounted minigun hosed the hilltop.
Eventually, the craft came to a hovering stop at the edge of the hill, a ghostly loadmaster in its offload ramp motioning for the squad to come aboard, which Makhil repeated. “Let’s get out of here!” He shouted with a grimace, clutching his chest. Understandably pensive about the suggestion, the squad hesitated behind the JTAC - but the VTOL was as real as any other as the sergeant climbed aboard and took a seat.
In minutes, they were soaring towards another landing site fifty miles away, the orange glow induced by the nuclear-kinetic strikes serving as an incredibly high-contrast background to the light blue glow of Trece’s supernatural swarm of air support. Yagaan, unconscious as he was, had no ability to object to the apparitions of twenty-first-century aircrew medics fixing an oxygen mask that he did not need to his face. Planes crisscrossed the sky, tracers still pouring down on enemy positions in the landscape pockmarked by cenotes, so many crumbling as laser-guided bombs detonated within, the pressure waves rushing out of hidden exits.
“Looks a lot like where I got this thing,” Makhil said, waving the old, broken radio he had called this all in with. “I never want to go back.”
In just as much time, they were being saluted by the ghostly soldiers as they left the VTOL and transferred to an SRG SSTO; Brecar and Ssil had been recovered, and silent, still forms of otherworldly special forces stood in the bays of the other landed aircraft. The physical form of modern-day void-capable crewmen performed their checks as usual, unbothered by their counterparts, as the squad was secured to their seats for a much more natural antigravity-to-exit maneuver.
--//--
Aboard the unmarked Phalanx-class, after having all of its assets recovered, the meeting room was filled with the angered shouting of a CIGO officer berating Vocarro, who drowsily sat in the same position he did a day ago. Five of the soldiers were here, with Yagaan’s fate in the mechano-medical bay being undisclosed pending the arrival of Ingenious specialists. After what had been half an hour of shouting, the Operant very abruptly collected himself.
“You saw something very classified today, you all,” He addressed the soldiers. By all right, this was a classified program with a disclosure that constant updates were not necessary, and someone in a commanding position could just put the troops in a high-sec prison on some zero-G moon if it was too big of an issue. “But you also dug up something that troubled my Union counterpart on this ship quite a bit. I’d say you earned the right, but I do ask that you stay on board with this project of ours into the future. We think we might need you for much, much bigger plans.”
Within, a groggy old Tunora officer sat mumbling at a comically undersized desk for his species in a briefing room - A team of disparate personnel including pilots, operators, and organizational staff, all wearing varied equipment unified only by an unmarked olive-drab patch. They were professionals, as denoted by the silent wait for the officer to begin the briefing.
"Welcome to our esteemed ship, gentlemen," The booming, echo-prone voice of the horned behemoth announced. "Firstly, I'd like to thank you on behalf of our framework organization for joining the Strategic Relief Group. As you know, our nominal mission is to provide humanitarian aid for worlds who request it, such as assisting in evacuating poor Modr Oba from its cosmic misfortune. But of course, we're not orbiting Modr Oba. And you're not doctors, scientists, or- Well, some of you are doctors and scientists, but you're not here to vaccinate poor children from Oukal Plague.
"No, we're here to clean up messes for the Traqe of Modr Oba who tried to terraform the would-be martian hellscape of Cera Pr, which we're currently orbiting. As you might notice, it's exploded into a verdant savannah landscape. Those soon-to-be-aborted amber fields house ancient lava tunnels from back when Cera Pr had geological activity that was actually capable of fueling tectonic motion. Those lava tunnels are home to an unknown group of unaligned mercenaries who set up last month and have since been attempting to remote-hack the similarly ancient military library on Modr Oba. We've since blocked the transmission. However, their system isn't giving any leeway to our breaching attempts, so we're sending down a doorkicker team to access their hard nodes, identify their target files, and find out who put them up to this gig.
"With the pretense out of the way, my title is Scutum Vocarrus of the Tunoran Legions - a subsidiary of the Carnaithian Imperial Military," He seemed to scoff at this comment, "and you all are the operating team. Our frontmen, starting at the front to my left here with the pilots are-"
"Lieutenant Brecar, Carnaithian Void Arms,"
"Remex Ssil, Radithi Talons,"
"-And our operators. Don't be shy," The commander finished, staring down the Carnaithian at the front, who bore a strained smile.
"Sergeant Makhil Trece, JTAC."
Sat next in line was an Artificia of a strong blue colouration. Of all things though, they were of the rarely seen Artifician men, something some people aware of the species on the galactic net refused to believe could possibly exist. Dressed in combat boots and slightly baggy dark grey camo trousers, a heavy-set belt separating it from the dark, desaturated navy sleeveless jacket alongside the fingerless gloves and a bandanna dust mask, the lattermost contrasting his deep, backswept hair.
Some might've made him out like some sort of cosplayer.
A brief moment went past before the glowing synthetic grumbled something under his breath, leaning forward.
"...Five-five...CQC." he muttered, loud enough those on the opposite end of the table could just make out what he said. Evidently, someone wasn't a fan of talking much.
After the Artifica, a scarred man wearing urban camo fatigues and with a prosthetic arm was the next to speak, looking out at the room with the glint of a cybernetic eye. Though he wore no gear that set him apart from the rest like Five-five, he still had a mien about him that spoke of hard experience and a life used to taking other lives, a consumate operator and to those that had read his file, veteran of this long war. Arms folded across his chest, he sat straight in his chair and cleared his throat before the accent of a Restevian made itself known.
"Captain Vanya Trulko, team leader." he said by way of introduction, giving a nod to the officer and to Five-five before he unfolded his arms and returned to how he had been sitting before and looking over the others.
Sitting next to Captain Trulko was a human woman. Her short, dirty blond hair was wild and unkempt with bits sticking out at old angles. She wore a new olive drab uniform, so new in fact that there were still crease lines from where it had been folded. The flag of the ZSR was displayed on her right arm with the flag of the TPU underneath it. She kept the first three buttons undone, revealing a white tank top dirtied with oil and grease. Resting just above the start of her cleavage was a bullet casing with a chain going through the neck. On her face she wore small smug smile which bent the scar on her left cheek.
“Staff Sergeant Grace Donner, Fire Support.” Grace gave a two handed salute and leaned back in her chair. She looked to her squad mates on her left and right and chuckled to herself. Only a few months ago the only other sentient alien they’d encountered had been the Zentherans. Now here she was in a room filled with aliens and humans from alternate dimensions.
Beyond Grace Donner was an imposing, unsettling figure. It was a humanoid robotic, with shiny hot pink casing and spindly long limbs. His face was an okina-style oni mask, seeming like a smiling old man with wispy moustaches flowing down past his chin.
He was one of the first 'babies' of Project Mercy. A fully sentient Real Artificial Intelligence in a synthetic Frame body, he was legally a citizen of the Jade Empire and had all the reasoning capabilities and emotional range of a biological human. At least in theory. Nobody at the Project could pin down why, but he made the whole staff uncomfortable. He had originally been designed to appear human, but had swiftly arranged for several modifications. Turfed over to the Jade Intelligency Agency Network after he had shown remarkable aptitude for marksmanship and stealth, the spymasters had soon been looking for a way to get rid of him. The Strategic Relief Group had provided that outlet.
He sat eerily still, but then with a faint whirr his eyebrows raised and his eyes, such as they were, crinkled as he smiled a gap-toothed smile as SSgt Donner finished speaking. Taking his cue, he spoke, his voice curiously monotone, like a text-to-voice application.
"Hello boss. I am Agent Yagaan of the Jade Intelligence Agency Network. Yes. I am a qualified marksman and graduated with comprehensive marks from the Jade Sniper Academy at Kitai. I will kill anyone you want. I have no self-control in the matter."
Following Brecar, SSil, Trece, 5-5, Trulko, Donner and Yagaan in the line was a figure in power armour. The armour itself bore the olive-drab patch affixed as an extra on the right-side shoulder plate, the rest of its surface being grey surfaces with dull red stripes across some of its plates. It was pockmarked with divots and burn marks from combat, with heavy blast shield plates used as reinforcement on the normal armour standing out for their relative lack of damage. Wearing this was one of the Order of Hastrax's Elite Primarii troops, and a Velnatharius rather than a Velnatharian, which was instantly obvious from the slight of robotic sound mixed in with the somewhat loud, but very clearly spoken, biological speech: "Specialist Sergeant Hulsar, Demolitions.". As the words echoed slightly across the room, Hulsar gave the best salute his heavily reinforced and bulky armour would allow him toward Vocarrus, before the Hastraxian trooper returned to silently observing the room.
The last two to speak seemed to bring a bit of wonder to the Tunora's eyes. His dry lips stretched into a smile all while his eyes lit up. All as if to say "This is exactly what I signed up for!" before speaking, the groggy tiredness purged from his voice.
"And that's our eight; Now, the ships' analysts have identified an optimum insertion time within the next twenty-four standardized hours that I would hope you all are aware of. Due to the belt mining on part of the local unaligned biting at the scraps of the Traqe, there's a meteor shower scheduled for Cera Pr's nineteen-hundred hour equivalent. You'll be dropping hot into a fifteen-by-five-kilometer LZ, in the midst of a bunch of softly-sloping valleys; of course, you can decide what specific point you hit, but that's the area permitted by our orbit. It's a pod, so the pilots won't be getting involved until exfil.
"From there you'll be making your way towards your choice among the following points-" He carried, off, the screen behind him lighting up with several overlays that depicted the underground tunnels. On them there were several highlighted points, made clear by the rotating three-dimensional scan, that identified entry positions into said tunnels. Notably, they converged towards a single area that the scanners couldn't reach.
"And you'll breach, following communication to find their command staff and their associated hardware. As you can tell, there's quite a bit of unknown variables underground, but telling by the troop movements so far," two overlays, one thermal and one magnetic, displayed, exemplifying the amount of forces present in the subsurface, "There's a lot more space down there than we can tell.
"Any questions as of now?"
"I do have some questions sir, yes." Hulsar remarked, as he continued to stand, observing. "Now, judging by what was just said we're all dropping in a single pod, and I'd like to ask what equipment and carrying capacity the pod has - if any." The specialist sergeant continued, seemingly working something out mentally before speaking again after a short pause. "The other question I will ask with respect to the breaching: What obstructions are there likely to be entry besides that..." He inquired as he stepped forward to indicate the troops on the overlay, before returning to his position. "... chaff. At least so far as com-int has told you." The Hastraxian elite continued seemingly trying to work out things based on the data on the mapping in front of him at least so far as the cold metallic exterior of his armour gave away. "No further questions at this present time, sir."
There was a whir as Yagaan's eyebrows raised. "Yes. Good questions. Also boss. Is there anyone down there we are not allowed to kill?"
"It's an Imperial assault pod, usually carries more like a platoon of troops," the Tunora quickly responded, bringing up a recognition page. "You'll be able to bring a light FAV with if you so wanted. As to worries," he began,
"Each entry point has a relatively hard defensive suite considering the area is just a bunch of brush. Double-trenches surrounding the entries, and suspected observation points atop the higher hills. You'll also be unable to receive updates once within the tubes and for the duration of your presence down there. You'll be able to breach loud or quiet, by the way. The pod should be slow enough by the time you're planetside that there won't be much of a signature to spot you with - just be sure to take out the OP here-" he pointed again to the overlay -"ASAP."
The response to Yagaan was far less long-winded as the tunora turned, grinning.
"Each other, preferably."
"Anyways," He began after another pause, "If that's all there is, then we'll be ready to get you lot over to the armory. We've got a few hours before our orbit takes us through the drop window," He stated calmly, shutting off the overlays and heading towards the door, "Staff are dismissed; frontmen, with me, please."
Being a battlecruiser, there was a bit more walking than usual but, being a Union-Carnaith ship, everything was fairly proximal to other related elements. The armory was structurally standard, though the weapons visible in the lockers were anything but. Special operations and shock infantry weapons were present from a wide array of AGA states, with smaller numbers of weapons from nations that the fireteams' constituents hailed from.
"Enjoy yourselves, try not to piss off the quartermaster," Quipped Vocarrus before turning and going back to his office.
Yagaan reached out a long arm and hefted a WH-TIR "Kodiak" marksman weapon. At 140cm long it was a beast, usually requiring a two-man team for deployment, but in Yagaan's sleek artificial hands it sat perfectly. It was a railgun, semi-automatic and rated to deliver 15x200mm slugs at ranges of up to 3,500m. Yagaan had no scope attached to the weapon, as his own 'eyes' had inbuilt digital binoculars, his face and body clacking and whirring gently as he checked the weapon over and slung a bandolier lined with clips over his torso. He then slung a belt around his waist carrying what looked like a katana. Drawing the hilt from its sheath to reveal there was no blase, he flicked a switch in the hilt and a ruby red framework of slender beams wove itself into the shape of a blade, before filling with coruscating energy. He waved it appreciatively before deactivating the glowing blade and slotting the hilt back onto the sheath. Finally, he stood stock still and a faint crackle of energy filled the room with the burnt chlorine stink of ozone. His pink exoskeleton shimmered into a dark grey, as did his face.
"There," he said triumphantly, to no-one in particular, "I am now ready to engage in acts of violence."
Five-Five, by comparison, seemed entirely disinterested in the wide array of firearms, as much as they dominated warfare of the day. He'd tried to get to grips with guns many times, and while by no means was he a bad shot, they had never suited the blue Artificia. Instead, he drew a pair of heavy-set swords, or rather they were in the crossguard. The blades themselves were fairly standard-made, single-edged nanoblades about 80cm long, darker segmented periodically breaking up the smooth sheen of the flat. Heavyweight emitters of some sort were built into the weapon, with an angular, simple handguard. With a flick of a switch, the emitters engaged, the darker sections of the blade glowing as the magnets within them reacted, and a running saw of plasma ran along the edge and back of the sword with a seething hiss. Disengaging them again, he mounted the thick, angular black scabbards on his belt, sliding the swords into them with a click. Next, six daggers followed suit, stacked like chevrons against the base of his spine, and again with another dagger in each boot.
Finally, Five-Five went for his only apparent firearms. Twin revolvers both drawn with a twirl, each looking heavy enough an average human would need both hands to steadily lift and wield it, and a gun bore enough they looked like they could blow a man's arm off. Mounting the holsters against his sword scabbards, bayonets were slotted in next to them, spare ammo tossed lazily into ready pouches.
Seemingly content with his somewhat unnecessary amount of sharp things and two heavy pistols, Five-Five backed from the assorted weapon racks, allowing the rest of the team access. And to give himself a moment to his thoughts.
Hulsar nodded in acknowledgement of the extra information, before browsing through the armoury until he came to the set of bulky-if-not-aesthetically-pleasing single set of Hastraxian gear that had been put here for him. "Good, unaltered, just as I asked..." he muttered as he loaded up his equipment with a background hum as the servos in his armour kicked in to prevent any strain while lifting. It consisted of several objects: one a large tubular device, presumably some sort of anti-tank or demolitions launcher; what at least looked like some sort of machine gun or light autocannon in size, but was held more like a rifle despite its relatively large calibre and bulk; a much smaller weapon, a PDW or SMG if one were to guess what it was; and a large pack, clearly holding demolitions gear and explosives as well as reserve ammunition. As the specialist sergeant finished fitting his bulky set of armaments by adding ready clips for his weapons, he checked over the battle worn equipment carefully along with their attachments before between the armour and his own brute strength he lofted the 2 large weapons onto mounting points on the rear of his armour, encumbered heavily but still capably mobile if a little on the slower side. He evidently had no interest in taking a melee weapon for himself, and moved to the side so others could pass as his armour-weapon interfaces spooled up inside the suit ready for use. "This will serve as equipment for battle, I already performed a proper check and cleaning before our meeting. So, what is the consensus on taking an LAV with us?" And with that comment he stepped out from the weapon racking section of the armoury and into the vicinity of the door from which they had entered, and waited for the others. Perhaps such a large amount of equipment may seem unnecessary, but Hulsar was not one to be found unprepared and always wanted more than needed rather than the exact amounts, for unforeseen eventualities.
Staff Sergeant Donner walked past all of them to a large crate the size of a small shipping container. The markings in the side labeled the crate as food stuffs but that was a ploy used by the TPU. Pressing a hidden panel revealed a number pad and key-card scanner. Grace reached down into her shirt and pulled out a longer chain with a blue key-card attached to the end. Sliding it down the scanner and inputing the password caused a green light to flash and sounds of locks clicking open to echo from inside.
“Staff Sergeant Grace ‘Keres’ Donner, identity confirmed.” a robotic voice spoke. The crate split open down the middle revealing a suit of power armor. Green paint was hastily applied to the armor which was an improved version of the Mk.3 Kratos armor. The panels slid further revealing several large caliber rifles and machine guns including Grace’s pride and joy.
“Demon Bane!” Grace called out as she ran over to the large General Dynamics M340 20mm Assault Cannon that took up most of the crate’s space. Her hands flew over the gun, inspecting every bolt and screw. Slowly her fingers ran over the 261 scratches she’d etched into the stock of the gun. She’d come close to avenging her home, but was glad to put such thoughts behind her.
With a snap that turned into a thumps up her inspection was over. Walking over to the power armor she pulled a red handle under the chest plate causing the armor to open up. Crawling inside she pulled down the safety straps and clicked them into place. Reaching into the arms she pulled down two levers causing the armor to slowly slide back closed. With a hiss followed by clicking the armor was locked up. Lights where her eyes should have been flickered on as antenna folded up on the side of her helmet. Grace moved her arms around to test the servos. Seeing that they worked she took a step, the boot made a heavy clang sound as it hit the deck. Nodding her head Grace walked out and “stretched” the Armor out. Pressing a button on the side of her helmet caused the face plate to slide up revealing her face. She winked down at Five-Five before walking over to pick up Demon Bane. The suits new Zentheran motors easily picked up the massive gun as she aimed it at an imaginary target. Turing her back to the crate she stepped back. A click sounded telling her the backpack had been connected. Stepping out she held Demon Bane to her side and an arm slid out for the gun to rest on.
“Staff Sergeant Donner reporting combat ready!” Despite the bulkiness of the Power Armor and the equipment she carried the transition from resting to attention was smooth. Turning to Yagaan she pointed at his sword. “You call that a knife?” A smug grin split her face as she reached to her right side and pulled out the suit’s combat knife.
“Now this is a knife.” She said in a broken Old Earth Australian accent. The knife looked like a large Kabar Knife at a foot long and was more of a thick machete than a knife. She laughed inwardly and slid her face plate back down.
Trece quietly made his way to the equipment racks through the rest of the commotion, fetching his plate carrier, webbing, canteen, flares, grenades, knives... and most importantly, two radios. One was a fairly standard-looking one with a very large antenna that was no doubt for contacting command, but the other was a curious antique device, caked with decades-old mud that seemed like it had always been in the seams and speakers. A bullet-hole quite glaringly ran through the outer casing and out of the earpiece - no doubt killing its operator and disabling the radio, but Makhil had strapped it to his chest as if it were still serviceable. He glanced about the rest of the armory, including all of the foreign weapons. A lingering stay on some indicated his desire to train with some, but he wouldn't bring any with him - He beelined for a Carnaithian-made CQC battle rifle, reminiscent of a G3 or FAL, before grabbing an unaligned-made sidearm that seemed to bear ex-EPA markings.
The Radithi quartermaster that Vocarrus had warned the team about simply grimaced at the lot from the corner. It was obvious that he wasn't happy with keeping track of so many models of kit, much less letting this brand new away team ruckus through his domain.
"Honestly," Trece spoke up, "Telling by the briefing, we probably won't be making much use out of the thing. We're better off going in on foot if you ask me," He stated, responding to Hulsar.
Yagaan turned a confused face to SSgt Donner, looking at her knife and then back at his weapon. "I call this a hardlight-pattern fourth generation Hikatana manufactured by the Hidetoshi Swordsmith Workshop in Shinjii Prefecture. You are correct in your statement that your weapon is a knife."
After delivering this judgement in his robotic uncanny-valley text-to-speech style, he offered a smile, the tiny gyros in his face whirring.
Five-Five's brow furrowed slightly at Donner, evidently not sure if he should say anything or do anything, briefly panicking internally as his lack of social experience reared its head, his look softening again as Yagaan spoke.
And promptly rolled his eyes.
Captain Trulko let out a soft sigh as the team went about their gearing up, comparing their weapons and going about the same usual izmereniye chlena that soldiers so often did before mission. It was nothing new, but the faces around him and their armaments were. Quietly the Prizrak captain checked his armaments, raising his rifle to perform a visual inspection before setting it back down on the weapons table and field stripping the carbine in less than a minute. Unlike most Restevian arms, this weapon was sleek and trim, it's attachments seeming to be part of the weapon's frame than attachments in the traditional sense of things. For another thing that set it apart from many Restevian arms, the caliber appeared to be heavier, and the writing etched subtly into the metal and polymer if anyone there could read Restevian seemed to indicate it as some sort of fifty caliber ETC round-- and some sort of AP/HE at that. This was a weapon built for a singular purpose clearly with an integrated masterkey/pump grenade launcher, and there was no mistaking that in any capacity. The rest of his weapons were similar in their understated capacity to kill and do so quick and ruthless, with a sabre of a brutally simple design lifted and tested with the plasma edge humming for a moment before it was shut off, a knife of the same sort, and a wicked-looking pistol that fired similarly heavy and specialized rounds as the rifle.
After that came his armor, and what an armor it was. Sitting next to his armament's table was a suit of space-black light power armor with a camouflage cloak of some kind, sleek and specialized as the weapons. Trulko checked it with rote routine, going over servos and synthmuscle strands before replacing plates and going about the process of donning it. When he had finished, the captain looked singularly sinister, with a small light ghostly blue snapping on his visor for a moment.
This was before his form flickered out of existence, turning invisible to the naked eye and vanishing from both motion detectors and IR readings. After about twenty seconds he turned visible once more, reassembled his rifle and pistol, and turned to the rest of the team.
Perhaps the most unnerving of all, was that he hadn't said a word throughout this entire process.
"Make absolutely certain that your gear is checked, double checked, and prepared for fast movement once we embark. I want no fuckups and I want no casualties, not even a stubbed toe. Hulsar, we'll take an LAV if strictly necessary. Everyone clear?"
Donner's blank armored faceplate looked at Yagaan and she face-palmed while chuckling. "Robots man." She said as she walked over and stood at attention before Trulko, her faceplate slid up and she saluted.
"Staff Sergeant Donner reporting, this soldier's equipment is green across the board and ready for combat."
Hulsar finished looking at the team leader, somewhat unsurprised by active stealth dropping his only view of them to some sort of vague signature on his gravimetric sensors. "Second triple check today." He boomed, as he stood ready to depart the armoury when ordered. "Demolitions all clear, ready and waiting Captain." He saluted trulko, with noticeably more difficulty than he gave Vocarrus given he now had some combat gear on his arm, complementing the back held weapons.
Trece meagerly glanced at his kit for a few seconds before looking back to the Captain with an amused expression. Overbearing and casually domineering, he thought.
"All's ready here," he reported, giving a sweeping look along the rest of the group once more. "Honestly, I don't think anyone <i>isn't</i>," He commented, leaning against a support pillar, waiting for the last two to report.
Five-Five stared back as Trece's gaze sweeped past him, arms crossed.
A moment. Another.
Then it clicked people were expecting words out of him again.
Motherfucker.
"...Five-Five, ready for duty." he muttered slowly.
Yagaan emitted a series of electronic beeps which, in reality, were completely unnecessary, but he felt like he should show willing and pretend to be running some checks before answering.
Seemingly pleased, he offered a spindly thumbs-up. "Green light, Captain."
With the team having stated their readiness, the captain seemed satisfied. Trulko clipped his own rifle to it's sling and his other weapons into their holsters, and nodded once.
"Good." the man stated. "Let's get moving to the drop bay, time's wasting and we're on the clock. Last thing I want to do is have to hoof it overland without full field gear."
And with that, the Prizrak led them out of the armory, heading at a brisk clip to the drop bay.
Trece pushed off of the pillar, glancing once more at the variety of equipment stored along the armory's walls as he made his way out of the room with the rest of the squad. Vocarrus wasn't lying when he said the launch bay wasn't far- it was only two hatches before the small force found themselves in a massive, cavernous series of rooms separated by monolithic blast doors. Fighters, recon craft, strike bombers - a massive variety of snubcraft and shuttles in any and every role hung from launch racks, once more reaffirming the unique stance of this ship. Along the lower rows of the outer walls were lines of drop pods, with associated catwalks for boarding. Hissing torches, humming batteries and generators, and booming announcements from each bay muddled the ear - visually, the group could just barely make out, through sparks and wisps of smoke, the waving baton of a launch officer. Their chariot awaited.
As the group marched amongst the ground clutter, the full scope of their designated pod became apparent. It was most definitely a custom build; the nose couldn't be seen through the launch chamber, but the reinforced frame and conspicuous hatches told that this thing was significantly more durable than would otherwise be expected from a drop-pod. The ramp below held an FAV; ready to be loaded upon request, but not done so to comply with the desire of the squad, whatever that would be.
"Combat arms, huh," The officer with the baton opened - barely audible over the din of the hangar. "I don't precisely envy your jobs. Were you wanting that FAV?" He asked as he turned, pressing a large analog button to open the infantry boarding hatch for the squad themselves. His patch identified him as an unaffiliated crewman; an ex-unaligned individual who had been hired into the new fold. He quietly tapped away at the keypad for a moment - whirring audible from the pod itself as a result - before turning back to Trulko to greet a response to his query.
Trulko was silent for a moment as he considered, looking over the FAV and then the transport pod before he nodded, inclining his head about half an inch precisely before returning to his prior posture.
"Load it up, crewman. Better we have it and not need it than the inverse." he stated, waving the rest of the team aboard. No more time to waste, he ready to get going and get this done. Waiting just a moment longer, Trulko then gave another nod to the crewman and headed into the pod to strap in.
The crewman shot a quick thumbs up to Trulko - likely grinning behind his mask as he gunned the vehicle into the pod, the rapid-load rack below the squad making an entirely unnecessary racket, giving the untrue appearance of ill-fitting military equipment. It was almost enough to drown out the standard safety warnings inside the pod - going through an uncomfortably long checklist before the doors sealed and the radio link in the entry unit beeped. Trece could be seen smiling in the dim red light.
"Away team loaded. Individual ready checks bypassed. Maneuvering to launch," the traffic officer's voice echoed as a rumble indicated a fast yet brief downward movement. "Magnetic propulsion green. Maneuver thrusters green. Brake thrusters green. Cargo clamps green," He continued - the checklist going on for a dozen-and-a-half more items before an uncomfortable stretch of silence. The voice abruptly returned; "T-minus ten seconds until launch. Seven. Six. Five. Four." Trece shot a thumbs up to the rest of the squad. "Three." Then bumped his helmet with his fist. "Two". Recollected himself. "One." Braced. "Drop, drop, drop."
In truth, the second and third instances of "drop" were inaudible behind the initial hissing ramp-up of the magnetic launch system, followed by the burst-and-rumble of the primary thruster. A din of rattling and rumbling and hissing encompassed the interior of the pod as its own acceleration carried it along for about a minute, before what could be described as a "crash" was felt as it began to penetrate the thermosphere, initiating even more rattling. Luckily enough for the squad in question, they had comfortable padded rollbar seats - but that didn't mean the big red numbers on entry statistic interfaces directly adjacent to their faces was any less worrying to the untrained eye. Another whole minute. A long burn, the feeling of being in a stopping elevator turned up to eleven. The burst and flapping of a parachute. The bang and stop of impact.
Trece slammed his hand down onto the opening button for his seat as the exit doors opened on their own, the JTAC sprinting to one and cross-referencing with a compass before brandishing a thermal binocular and sweeping the horizon. He turned, looking back to the other scrambling operatives.
"Yagaan!" he shouted, waving him over, "Spotter position - bearing 282, elevation five degrees, range twenty-six fifty, three targets!"
Yagaan stepped up to the door and, following Trece's callout, sighted in on three distant humanoid figures, who seemed to be squinting in their direction, clearly alerted by the loud intrusion of the strike team. Yagaan had found the ride pleasantly stimulating, enjoying the erratic and unpredictable jolting of the craft as it came screaming through the atmosphere, and now it was time to get down to business.
He hefted the Kodiak rifle, bracing it against his shoulder, his eyes performing the same role as a scope normally would. The range was long, close to the extremity of his weapon's range, but he was not concerned. His lower body locked into positon as his upper body twisted slightly, the entirety of his frame coalescing to the tip of the barrel. Whilst he did not have all the same biological concerns as a real human, a lot of the same theory came into play when finding the right firing position thanks to his simulated skeletal structure.
He stilled his breath, something he was able to do indefinitely since his 'breathing' was an affectation designed to make him more relatable to biologicals, to prevent any minor variation in his aim, and then squeezed the trigger. Three resounding booms heralded the departure of the 200mm long saboted slugs. Travelling at well past supersonic speeds, it would take them less than two seconds to traverse the kilometres to their target, but that, combined with the thousand other factors that went into long range shooting, meant that despite Yagaan's near-perfect aim, the three rounds were not guaranteed to hit center of mass.
Which was why, moments later, another three cataclysmic cracks shook the air as Yagaan fired another three rounds. The Jade military emphasised a healthy tooth-to-tail ratio, believing that a well-equipped and trained soldier was worth far more than a multitude of ill-supported conscripts, and it also believed that there was no such thing as 'too much ammunition'. Yagaan was comfortably stocked with magazines and so double-tapped each target. Two simply jetted spurts of blood from the already-mangled corpses, but the third target had by sheer luck shifted a couple of feet to his left when the shots began to hail down. Throwing himself down flat to duck further incoming fire, all he achieved was to ensure that the second 15x200mm alloy slug punched directly through his face, running the course of his body and virtually disintegrating him.
Yagaan made the rifle safe and then stood up straight, the servos in his face whirring faintly as it rearranged itself into vaguely pleased expression, the tiny black pebbles that were his 'eyes' glinting in the reflected light of the lander's interior.
"Contacts neutralised sir."
The drop itself was of no concern to Hulsar as numbers flashed past his viewscreen from the pod readouts, but now they had struck ground he immediately performed the procedures that had been rehearsed many hundereds or even thousands of times - he didn't keep count. Having disengaged the harness and its cumbersome padded embrace, he drew his rifle from his back with its power system already letting out a low humming whirr as he stepped through the door and onto the surface.
The HUD immediately flagged the callout of hostiles but he took minimal note of it and let the sniper do his business, the HUD flag proptly being cleared out as the specialist sergeant heard the muffled booming of Yagaan's rifle. This all happened as he rushed to provide a complimentary arc of fire for all-around defense as the others disembarked or took their own positions, knowing full well that the loud shooting would have drawn attention to their position if the drop had not done so already. His vision filtered through his reinforced helmet cycled through the standard pattern: visuals, infrared, x-rays and the rest of the spectrum before the gravimetrics adjusted to the planetary gravity and kicked in as well. Possible and likely threat locations were flagged to him with various markers, and of course they were a great help but he knew better than to wholly rely on them - a competent enemy would know the obvious positions too.
With the immediate reactions seen to, Hulsar waited for confirmation that the team had cleared through the disembarkation SOPs while considering what the movement scheme was likely to be once the commander saw fit that there was no immediate threat.
Grace felt a rush of adrenaline fill her as the pod was launched. Numbers in the top left of her HUD flashed by as their altitude decreased, and a timer counted down till impact. The timer reached zero and Grace launcher herself from the pod.
Landing outside sensors and lasers scanned the surrounding area. Demon Bane slammed up into her grip and she scanned the horizon. Seeing three contacts light up behind her she spun around and took aim. Hearing Trece call them out and the three cracks of Yagaan’s rifle Grace relaxed a little. Using the built in telescopic sight Grace watched the aftermath of Yagaan’s shots, then the three more that followed.
“Nice hits Yagaan. No other targets identified in surrounding area.” Grace announced as she turned to face the rest of the group. Despite her assurance she kept her Assault Cannon in a ready position.
As the pod had descended, Trulko had to the rest of the team remained silent, though within his own private world of cut off comms he recited a prayer common to Restevian troops. It never ceased to amuse him how nonreligious many on the galaxy tended to view Restevians... but now wasn't the time to ponder that, as the pod slammed hard into the ground. In moments, the team had called out and were already firing upon enemy contacts, and Trulko had to admit, that was fast work.
Stepping out of the pod with only the slightest of sounds from his armor, Trulko watched as Yagaan's shots dropped the enemy rapidly and with great efficiency. Good.
"Maintain vigilance, our landing wasn't exactly quiet." the captain ordered as he booted up his scanner, doublechecking the scan with the overlay from the briefing.
"Let's get the FAV unloaded quick and load up, we're moving out for insertion in two minutes, let's shave that down however we can people."
Five-Five had remained utterly silent during the drop, the glow of his hardlight skin giving the interior of the pod something of a blue tint alongside the various other lights. His eyes did not stray to the readouts. They were of little importance to him. If everything went right, reading them would do him no benefit. If something went wrong, he would likely be able to tell. Instead, the Artificia's eyes remained firmly ahead, steadying his thoughts. Regulator or no, there was a lot going through the head of a Banshee.
Fortunately, having to think of a way to survive a hot drop from low orbit sans a pod wasn't necessarily, as the pod made landfall.
Five-Five waited none for the doors, almost booting his down with his Artifician strength and lunging out of the pod, drawing one of his swords and one of his revolvers, watching with an expressionless face as Yagaan cut down three men with impunity.
One less issue for him to deal with, though he gave the synthetic a thumbs up. Five-Five almost didn't seem to acknowledge Trulko speaking, instead moving a short ways from the pod, where he could get a good look at their surroundings.
Evidently, he'd decided for himself he was on lookout duty, with his wide peripheral view. That, or he just didn't feel like dealing with getting an FAV off its mounting.
With the hostiles eliminated, Trece allowed himself a smile as he turned back into the pod, brandishing his CAA machete as he jogged towards the FAV, quickly making work of the softer restraints involved; "Just... a note, guys... It's a drop pod, no point... in trying to keep it clean," He shouted to the others who came around to help him in his efforts. Finishing off the second of the tie-downs, he paused.
"Captain, do you have any suggestion regarding the approach? Better to hash it out now rather than argue with ourselves on the way there, if you ask me - Hulsar, some help on that release pylon over there?" He interjected himself, pointing to the corner of the vehicle opposite himself.
The specialist sergeant immediately clipped his rifle onto his back and headed over to where Trece was indicating. "On it!" he boomed as he got to work on the offending release pylon, disengaging the appropriate releases, using his strength to sheer off completely one that had gotten jammed with a squeal of broken material accompanied with power armour servos humming as it broke off. "Everything unhitched this side, doesn't look like its taken any damage in the drop."
"Ready to move on your orders Captain, who's riding where?"
Yagaan offered a thumbs-up to Grace and then clambered aboard the FAV. As good as he was, trying to use a sniper rifle from a moving vehicle was futile so he stowed his rifle and drew a pistol, leaving the better seats for those with automatic weapons.
Following Yagaan, Grace jumped into the back of the FAV. Unlike Yagaan she placed her autocannon on the roof. Using her binocular function she scanned the surrounding landscape. "I've got eye's up her commander. Nothing spotted on the horizon, though no telling how long that'll last." Grace reported.
"Yagaan and Grace where they are, Trece passenger seat. Five-five, pick where you're most comfortable and able to dismount in a hurry. Hulsar, you drive." Trulko said as he clambered up onto the FAV as soon as it was free and on the ground with his rifle held ready as he ran another scan of the terrain for anything his heavy gunner might have missed. He considered Trece's question as to how they wanted to insert for a moment, before he turned his head to look at the JTAC.
"We approach wide and out of sight as best we can, I want to get as close as we can before we make for the IP. We've already made a mess here, let's make them think we're still here, make them waste time."
Five-Five, having returned from his spot keeping watch, made a vague grunt of affirmation to Trulko, sliding his swords back into their scabbards, instead drawing one of his revolvers and clambering onto--rather than into--the FAV, seemingly content to sit on the outside with an arm looped around the frame bar.
Well. Nobody could argue he couldn't dismount fast.
"Ready." he grunted after a moment, eyes on their surroundings.
Trece nodded as he thumbed-up his ready status, clambering into the passenger seat. He flipped open the arm-mounted monitor that kept him uplinked to the temporary satellites above - Grasping his standard-issue radio in one hand, he reviewed the available picture from their current positions.
"Adjust number fifteen two degrees north, number eleven a degree and a half east, and number seventeen point-two to the south-south-west," he ordered up to the remote crews on their mothership, taking advantage of the temporary boost in signal strength as offered by their drop-pod's array. "Bearing 130 is the best egress for a mile or so before we hook around. Hostiles will expect us moving past that OP once they catch on to what's happening. Let's go."
Hulsar checked that everyone was securely embarked as he took position in the driver's seat of the FAV, checked everything was working and then let the roaring engine boost the vehicle forward as it headed to the first location. "Moving fast to target, advance warning on any route changes would be appreciated." The specialist sergeant allowed the various screens on the FAV and those indicators of his own HUD do most of the work identifying the given fastest path and possible threats as the craft drove along. He also tried to get a feel for the controls of the FAV, not because he was a vehicle enthusiast but rather because he wanted to be comfortable driving the thing unassisted if it was needed - bullets and electronic driving aids don't mix well.
Mostly, he was content to let the terrain go by although he did make a point of talking to the others about how smooth the ride was seeing as firing on the move wasn't going to be much use if the vehicle wasn't riding at least somewhat smoothly. He made a point of keeping his sidearm to easy access so he could quickly arm himself if there was an ambush or some other kinds of trap out here, those he watched for much like one would admire scenic views on a holiday. Of course, this holiday concerned him more with looking for mines, early warning traps and concealed positions rather than the natural environment.
Yagaan, his rifle not much use at high speeds over rough terrain, was content to watch the world roll by, whirring and buzzing gently as he shifted in his seat occasionally to get a better view. Modeled, at least theoretically, on human biology and with a synthetic neural pattern created via an amalgam of real human minds, he was not the stoic, unblinking mechanical that some Artificial Intelligences presented as. From time to time he glanced at his rifle, wedged on a pair of stowage hooks, or fidgeted with his pistol. Without speaking to anyone in particular, he announced to the occupants of the FAV in general;
"I have never been on a ground vehicle before. The song was correct. The wheels do go around and around."
At this, Five-Five rolled his eyes in an almost exaggerated fashion, turning to look elsewhere with a sour, contemptuous grumble, his backwards-swept hair whipping in the wind. Breaking up the monotony was one thing, but they could at least make it a witty comment.
Hopefully, they wouldn't be all cramped into one vehicle for too long. He was hanging off the side and he was feeling claustrophobic.
The Radioman of the group was more than willing to allow himself a chuckle as he watched the readouts beaming down from the satellites he'd just ordered adjusted. Not content with the results, he retrieved the second of his handsets - the beat-up antique one, specifically - and whispered unintelligibly, no, inaudibly over the FAVs engine, before allowing himself to be absorbed entirely into listening to the earpiece. After a dozen seconds or so, his eyes shot back open and he was no longer silent.
"Three hills from now, turn right," He said, as the vehicle thundered past one of those said hills, tall grass whipping and billowing in their wake, "Continue due west for two miles. There's a concealed compound we're going to raid," He announced quite loudly so that everyone present could hear. "That should give us a better idea of what we're looking for."
Hulsar pulled the vehicle off the track and stopped as he approached the compound, stopping short of where it actually was. "Dismount so we can get a better look at the place rather than just charging in?" He questioned, as he positioned himself to see what he could see from within the vehicle. "Alternatively, we can try and rush the place but we wont know what we'll be dealing with."
He awaited the others to see what approach they would prefer as he continued to look for any useful natural or artificial features that might be of use in a raid. Mainly, he looked for things concerning his role, demolitions: any sort of structure that might need destroying or breaching, a good vantage point if he needed to use the launcher, and any sort of hazards to demolition like enemy munitions that would create an uncontrolled detonation.
Then he noticed something about what the signaller had said. "Well it isn't a very well concealed compound if your friends with satellite views know about it, are you sure this isn't some sort of trap?"
"Those satellites have quite pricey optical suites and scanner arrays aboard - and our friends, according to brief, only have a temporary setup..." Trece initially responded, dodging mention of his handpiece for the time being.
"...That said, your point holds water; Like that brief said, Cera here's got a ton of lava tunnels - we have no idea how many are cooped up in there and how large it is on the inside. Views showed three guys patrolling," He continued, swinging out of the FAV as it came to a stop, beginning a jog towards a dip between two hills ahead. "Let's find some more," He quipped, brandishing binoculars.
On the other side was quite the concealed compound indeed - professionally dug, with a gentle enough grade to match the surrounding terrain to the naked eye, only betrayed by the comparatively-amateur mistake of personal lighting shining through firing windows. Indeed, thermal optics showed the lazily-sauntering trio of hostiles patrolling to the left of the artificial hill's current facing; a myriad of species, with only half-standardized gear. Mercenaries, it would seem. Trece frowned.
"I count four more at least inside the surface-level fortification. Anyone else?"
Yagaan, who had hoisted his rifle from the FAV and meandered after Trece with his long, gangly legs, paused for a moment to frown into the distances, his eyebrows whirring and clacking as he took in the scene before sweeping the horizon.
"It looks like you are correct. I cannot locate any secondary entrances to the tunnels in the immediate vicinity, but that does not mean they do not exist."
He slowly lowered himself into the sand, propping up his rifle. "I can cover the building from here as you approach. Any reinforcements will have to come through the bunker to engage you, and I can warn you of any mercenaries approaching from the hills. I will warn you by shooting them."
Hulsar dropped out of the FAV to take a look as well, making sure he had taken it off the track so it was somewhat concealed if any enemies also happened to use it while they were busy with the compound. He joined the pair who had gone forward so far, but kept himself further back due to his bulky armour being much more easily spotted by any enemy casting a glance over the area.
"I don't see any more, but the size of the place and the amount of lighting makes me feel like there's another one or two we can't see, maybe they're on break away from the main gathering."
He paused for a moment. "And if you're wanting explosive entry to this place now would be a good time to let me know. Looks like its easily entered enough without that, though. And keeping this low-key might be to our advantage."
He hefted his rifle from his back so he was ready to start shooting once combat began.
"I'd guess at least five or six more in those trenches we can't see." Five-Five spoke up suddenly, the most vocal the man had been yet. His eyes were locked on the fortifications ahead of them, his mind going a million miles a minute.
"Likely more surrounding." he added, rolling his shoulders, glancing at the others. "I'll draw them out. Cover my back." he finished, taking a few steps back, seeming to gather himself, before sprinting forth again, swinging his arms forward as he jumped.
And the team finally saw what 'tenuous adherence to anatomical norms' meant on the blue Artificia's file. His arms extended like rubber, thinning but extending to several dozen metres long, gripping rocks protruding from the earth. And with this, he fired off ahead like a slingshot, propelling himself into a spin as he flew straight into enemy lines, swords drawn midair.
The exposed trio of soldiers had a mere moment to raise their weapons before being sundered apart like dough hit with razorwire, Five-Five not even slowing as he careened into the trenches, another man screaming as an arm flew into the air accompanied by a kick of dirt, followed shortly by a singular, heavy gunshot.
Well, if there was ever a decoy move to draw attention, there it was.
Trulko muttered a curse. Five-Five had gone ahead already, and to say that he had more than likely gotten their attention was just as likely to be an understatement. Silently he hefted his rifle, motioning for the team to spread out to his flanks as he began to advance towards the structure. So long as the Artifica could keep them occupied the team could get in their quickly, and deal with any surface defenders that Five-Five hadn't before breaching into the facility proper.
"Yagaan, you are clear to engage any targets that enter sightline, take them down fast." Trulko ordered, activating his cloak, fading from sight until he was but an IFF tag on the team's HUDs.
"The rest of you, small arms, Let's refrain from the big guns until situation dictates otherwise. Move."
Trece quickly swung the binoculars back to their place and brought his rifle to bear as shouting began to erupt from within the bunker; cursing under his breath, he quickly swung his supporting arm to his webbing and back - tossing out a smoke grenade as it went, which quickly burst into a cloud opaque to IR and visual spectrums just before he began a steady combat-paced canter in the direction of the trenches that Five-Five had blitzed so gruesomely, the hushed whisper of two shots making their way out of his wipe-based silencer as two silhouettes fell on their exit from the bunker in focus.
The hostile encampment had quickly exploded into activity; At least five had just been rapidly slaughtered by the Artifician, supported by the quick downing of two on Makhil's part; there were an unknown number in the remainder of the trenches, much less the bunker and whatever tunnel network it was linked to.
Hulsar let the more agile and the more stealthy members of the group do their thing, making sure they had time to clear the line of fire before he let rip with controlled bursts of automatic fire as he slowly moved up in support, relying more on his armour to keep him safe than any form of trickery or obfuscation. Not that he was too proud to make use of the smoke grenade that Trece had thrown. He walked forwards, mopping up any that the first group missed. "Understood, Trulko. I'll keep the explosives in my pouches for later."
While less of a distraction than the artifician, he considered such positioning and his bulky target might well make him a pick for any enemies wanting to choose an easy target. Then again, there had to be enemies left standing after this onslaught for that to be a serious problem. Not to get ahead of himself though, he made sure to keep cover in dashing distance as he moved up just in case there were any nasty surprises.
As the team approached, the occasional enemy who popped up from the trenches disappeared in a spray of misting blood, the sonic boom of the railgun round buffeting their senses even as their eyes and minds were buffeted by the gruesome sight. A firing embrasure in the bunker ahead disappeared beneath a hail of rubble as a round ploughed into the defensive structure, debris tumbling down to reveal a second entrance blown into the building.
The hail of fire slowed as Yagaan began waiting for his targets, only wasting munitions on those who actively posed a threat to the advancing group - he only had a limited carry capacity of the long railgun slugs and he did not want to run dry too early.
Trulko advanced, his cloak leaving nothing but a ghostly flicker on EM sensors as he went. Silently the captain reflected that with teams like these the Spetsnaz would have been even better in the war... but now was not the time to reminisce. Sweeping left and right the Sheptat rifle whispered death to hostiles that crossed his path, advancing past the perimeter, checking his HUD for team status as he followed the trail of destruction that Five-Five had left as he made his way towards the bunker.
Bringing the massive 20mm gun up she let loose a few short bursts. The monstrous roar of the gun filled the battlefield as 10-15 20mm rounds hurtled towards their targets. Dirt was ripped up and a violent spray of blood marked enemies down. Spotting nothing else in the surrounding are Grace quickly got up and raced to join the rest of the squad. In a burst of speed that seemed almost impossible for the power suit, Grace caught up with the rest of the group. She quickly stowed away her rifle as panels opened up to reveal pairs of LMGs on both arms.
Five-Five had blitzed straight ahead and turned a corner farther down the trench, out of view of the rest of his squad. He alone had come face-to-face with a significant unit of trench-manning soldiers of multiple species armed with shotguns and melee weapons; they were hopelessly outmatched by the sole combatant in front of them, but steel themselves they did, chambering shells and brandishing myriad clubs and blades.
Trece was more content to immediately turn right and come up against the side of the bunker that overlooked the area; almost as if on the queue given by the thunderous report of Yagaan's railgun, fire began firing blindly through the smoke that concealed the open stretch that the group had just pushed across while the sounds of weapons readying on the side overlooking the trenches echoed out. Trece's heart stopped, however, as he heard the soft "thud" of a grenade being dropped out of a firing port into the area where his smoke was spreading from.
Quickly ducking, he was saved from the majority of the overpressure, though given the passage of a few concussed seconds, the smoke was clear - and the silhouettes of hostiles bearing their weapons on the hulking form of Hulsar, who was lagging a bit behind the rest of the forward element, menaced the image of the scene before opening fire.
Hulsar was immediately concerned as the thick storm of bullets came towards him, only for him to realise he was safe from them as various bullets ricocheted, shattered or buried themselves in the surface of his power armour. He continued to walk forwards seemingly completely unfazed towards the enemy, watching for hostile heavier weapons as he calmly reloaded his weapon amidst the punishment of the enemy gunfire before spraying the entire fresh clip full-auto into various of the offending enemies. The one who had survived the return fire probably thought he would be able to take down Hulsar's power armour until his face got pulped by the Specialist Sergeant's power armoured fist moving at high speed.
"Trece, you O.K. from that grenade?" He announced flatly as he moved over to the radioman's position with no apparent regard for the swiss-cheesed corpses he had just made out of the enemy, very much in contrast to a few divots in his own armour. Once he saw that Trece was alive, he planted himself in front of the firing port the grenade had come from and observed the gunfire that glanced off him, before ripping the rifle out from the firing port much to the dismay of the grenadier behind who saw Hulsar's undamaged faceplate for the few moments it took the hulking figure to insert his own rifle and hose down the unfortunate with another burst of bullets.
Seein that Hulsar and Trece had reached the bunker and were laying siege to it in the most direct of terms, Yagaan stood, shouldered his rifle and began to stride after the others, his long-limbed form throwing disturbing shadows through the smoke. He arrived behind the group, crouching low to minimise his profile in the trenches, emerging from the smoke with an artificial smile on his artifical face.
"Hello everyone. I am pleased you have not died." he said as he palmed the hilt of his hikatana, although he did not activate it, seeing no need to turn on a big red glowstick whilst they were still exposed.
"Let's stay that way." Trulko's voice whispered over the comm. The captain advanced up to their position, calmly reloading his rifle as he slid the empty magazine into his vest. Calmly he checked team status, Five-Five was still tearing the enemy apart, Hulsar had or was working on eliminating enemy presence in a bunker sector... all was going well so far. He hoped it would stay that way, but he admitted that it might not.
"Move up to breach, support Five-Five if you are able."
Five-Five took a mere second to register the array of soldiers in front of him.
Oh, what an unfortunate day to be a mercenary.
The Artificia's arms lashed out and stretched in front of him, the blades digging into the trench walls either side of the men at the front. Rather than propel him into them, however, Five-Five did something different. An attack from the front was something they were expecting, after all.
Instead, the team saw the blue light of Five-Five propelled skyward and over the combatants, his arms lashing out once again and bringing him down hard into the midst of the formation, three men instead sliced to ribbons by a whirling of nanoedged swords. Grabbing the shovel of one and tossing it into the skull of a man attempting to turn around with a shotgun, Five-Five leapt into the men who would have been at the back of the gathering, showering the trench in blood, viscera and sliced apart gear in a whirlwind of glimmering blades and sporadic gunshots, whipping around as the last man fell and shooting a man raising a rifle squarely in the visor.
Half of them down. Another half to go. The Artificia sprung forward, bouncing off the trench walls and throwing any attempt to aim to the wind, the mercenaries reeling and some panicking as the blue-hued banshee was upon them, the same fate befalling them, limbs shorn from bodies, heads sent skyward, uniforms and armour sliced through, a few unfortunate weapons meeting the same fate. The last man, Five-Five paused before, locking eyes with him through his fogged visor, the mercenary managing a steeled battlecry and charging with his bayonet.
A slash to the rifle, slicing it in twain and taking one of his forearms with it, just below the elbow. A slash to the waist, rendering him half the man he used to be. A sharp kick to the side of the chest.
The upper half of a man, in a spray of blood, landed with a twirling thump next to Trulko.
"Trench cleared." came through comms in the distinctive voice of Five-Five, as he strode out of the trench, spattered in red and blades dripping fresh, moving towards the bunker
The Specialist Sergeant was quick to take the information and cornered the bunker towards Five-Five and the door. "Should I presume that you want us to breach through the door?" Hulsar said into comms back to the team leader chiefly but also to notify the others of his question. Hulsar began looking over the various features of the bunker with his well-trained eyes and sensors. As much information as possible on what they were going into would help tremendously in breaching operations. Then there was second message to the breaching team, especially Five-Five: "Grenades?"
Trece nodded quite repetitively for a few moments as he knocked on the sides of his head in order to eliminate the residual tinnitus - "yeah, I'm fine," he responded, even as the piercing sounds of a gory melee erupted from the trenches to their flank. He looked up to the firing port, covered in blood, that had just been firing out at Hulsar, before quickly changing face to the door; luckily, one that these mercenaries had failed to consider cutting a firing port into. Letting out a sigh and recollecting himself in the time it took the others to regroup in the entry trench, he didn't need to think much as far as a response was concerned.
"Yeah, grenades would be more than appropriate - you seem safe enough to go putting grenades through the windows, but I think most of us will be going in head-first," He said as the scrambling yells of more mercenaries entering the bunker announced the approach of more conflict.
After some uncomfortable moments of ponderous silence on part of the team, with hostile shouting echoing out from within the bunker, Grace smiled - "As cute as you all are, sitting around like this," She quickly stood and marched towards the door, brandishing her autocannon as if charging with a bayonet. Trece, surprised, quickly backed out of the way as the shouting within picked up in volume and rate, with pot-shots out of the firing slits expressing the panic involved; With a final jab, the barrel broke right through the makeshift hatch, and not a moment later, began firing with thunderous report. Shells ejecting at high enough velocity to clear the trench the team huddled in entirely, clots of dirt leading the ghostly outline of shockwaves as they exited the firing ports, splinters of wood ricocheting casually after losing their momentum from bouncing about the interior space. After expending about twenty rounds directly into the room, the noise almost deafening the SRG squad much less the unfortunate mercenaries within the enclosed space.
"There you go, grenade away!" Donner shouted, moans and cries conflicting with the noise of falling debris within. Trece smiled and turned to those that had stacked the approaching trench with him, motioning towards the firing ports on either side of the hatch as well as the gaping hole left in it as Grace extracted her weapon.
Hulsar had been looking through what he had available and now picked out a trio of grenades. "I don't want to be patronising, but stand back - these have more 'oomph' than they look." The specialist sergeant noted over comms as he strode up to the hole in the bunker entrance and posted the grenades in - one with considerable force to get at the far end of the interior, and the others dropped much shorter, to get anyone on the inside waiting near the door. As soon as the grenades had gone in, he rapidly moved to the side despite his heavy armour; and waited.
An explosion more befitting of an artillery shell than a grenade shortly thereafter caused the ground to tremble slightly for anyone nearby the bunker on the outside, with the shock-waves of the explosives in the confined bunker being much worse as they reverberated from walls, turned loose objects into high velocity projectiles, and blew out any weak points in the firing ports and well and truly ruined the door. Anyone in the bunker outside of the initial blast was having a bad day, and any unfortunates who had been near it either felt nothing as they were immolated, or were now a mangled corpse - and the bunker itself was worse for wear.
Hulsar nodded to five-five and the others as he used his rifle to shoot off the points attaching the remainder of the door to the wall. "Pointman, I think it's time for their meeting with your blades."
Yagaan activated his hikatana, the hardlight blade knitting itself out of nothing and casting a faint red glow on the swirling dust and rubble around them. He raised his eyebrows with a click-clack and smiled.
"I am glad we are outside the bunker and not inside it. Everyone inside it is probably having a bad day." he announced, unprompted, as he waited for the point fighters to launch their attack on the ruins of the entry bunker.
Five-Five watched Hulsar's explosive demonstration blankly, though an eyebrow did raise at the sheer magnitude of the detonation for the size of the explosive.
He'd have to consider getting some.
Regardless, there were likely still people inside good for stabbing, and he seemed the best suited here for stabbing people. Rolling his neck and twirling his blades, Five-Five nodded to Hulsar as he passed, a confident stride rising to a low run as he crossed the threshold of the battered bunker.
Sure enough, the insides were a tattered mess of shrapnel marks, cracked masonry and obliterated furniture, alongside some mangled corpses. Several other men were rushing in to investigate and back up the faltering defence from deeper inside, sprinting headlong, calling out as they went, into the smokescreen already occupied by a man equipped for melee.
Several sounds of blades striking metal and flesh, the spraying of blood and abrupt shrieks, marred only by a couple of gunshots, rang out from inside.
A pause.
"Room...clear." came over comms, Five-Five pressing on at a slow stride.
"Five-Five clear up, I'm behind, everyone else sweep and clear. Not the last of these mudaki." Trulko ordered, snapping a fresh magazine into his rifle as he swept into the room. If the enemy had any heavier units coming up now, then he would knock them back down, checking the chamber to make sure the HYVHEAP had loaded-- which it had.
With the damage that Five-Five and the team's explosives had done in the entrance chamber, Trulko scanned the room for exits, marking them on his HUD. Running through he scanned for a more likely route than others, his suit's sensors marking every set of footfalls it could detect, allied and enemy both. The effect was something akin to seeing ghosts on the gravimetrics, but long experience had told the captain how to filter such things.
"OPCEN." he stated, marking what seemed like a most-probable door of the ones in here the team's HUDs. "That way. Five-Five, you're up. As before people, let's keep this ball rolling, check corners."
With the initial command, Grace very quickly took the opportunity to cram her frame into the not-quite-appropriate space that the bunker provided, followed by Trece - who seemed to have quickly recovered from his mild case of shock. While the room was densely smokey, anything that wasn't trapped at the ceiling was actively filtering out through the firing ports and now-ajar doorway... leaving Five-Five's partially-obscured silhouette standing stoically above clearly-displayed bodies that had either been indiscriminately minced by the liberal application of explosives or more deliberately dispatched via the point man's blades. Grace gave a grinning approval to the bladesman on her way to poke herself gun-first into the adjacent rooms, as opposed to Makhil, who walked by with a very simple nod.
After walking past the doors on his side of the earthwork, he began bee-lining for the path indicated by Trulko. The footstep analysis proved to be a very high-tech solution to something solvable by the naked eye... the wiring of the bunker all bundled together and ran down the doorway indicated by the squad lead, which opened to an uncomfortably long hallway at a slightly-downwards angle, curved just enough to the right so that one couldn't make out the other end from this position.
"Clear. Non-melee-friendly environment coming up," Trece sharply responded across the ten-meter distance. "I'll move alongside Fives."
Hulsar filed in, checking the bunker as he passed through. His power armour was also rather bulky for the confines of the bunker, but powerful enough to plow through the smaller obstructions that got in the way, though it was still awkward to move around inside. He paused to take a look at the damage his explosives had caused, so he could make a mental note for how to better calibrate them in future, his armour's computer doing a quick analysis of how things seemed to have happened inside with the breaching for later analysis.
"Not ideal for me in here, not much I can do aside from body blocking. Too little room to manuver. I'll stay back - I don't want to block up your fallback route if they have a nasty surprise waiting for you." Seeing as that was his disposition, he now had a closer look at what remained, seeing if any useful information could be gleaned from or about the wrecked equipment and other ancillaries lying about.
Yagaan perked up as Trece announced a "non-melee friendly environment". He sheathed his sword and tugged his rifle into position, the huge barrel menacing the long, curved arcway. There was a whir as his eyes optimised themselves for the conditions, and he crouched his spindly frame at the entrance to the tunnel, a terrifying silhouette had anyone been there to look back towards the entrance.
"I can lead the way." he said, chambering a round with an audible clang.
"Very well, Yagaan. You up, we'll cover you. Stand by to fall back if needed." Trulko said, raising his rifle again. The weapon was performing exactly to specifications that he'd been told so far... good. Reactivating his armor's cloak, the only indication of the captain's position became indents in the dust on the floor as he moved, flanking the door and waiting for the team to move-- or for the enemy to try a counterattack.
"Alright, ready," Trece commented after the rapid re-assembly of the group - Yagaan, himself, and Grace in the forward echelon, with Trulko supporting and Hulsar and Five-Five remaining behind. Yagaan promptly led the way, three guns in unison tracking the longest sightline possible as the curved wall slowly twisted away and under the hills surrounding the bunker. Anxiety-inducing levels of agonizing suspense weighted the scene, as even minute pebbles falling and moisture dripping caused clear echoes up and down the narrow causeway - in the distance, sporadic and dim lighting gave way to brighter sources at the very literal end of the tunnel, seemingly worksite lights. A dropped bucket in the next room, with paint spilled about itself that tracked into boot-prints leading farther in, combined with the lack of noise from afar indicated that anyone beyond was startled and aware... potentially already assembled.
"Depth: fifteen meters; Distance: Seventy-five. Think you can get down low and hit anyone hiding?"
Hulsar continued to pace the wrecked part of the bunker, looking for anything useful, before eventually retiring himself into a rearguard position, recessed from the ex-door-now-frame and covering it with his rifle, in case the enemy got any ideas about following the team into the bunker. He waited patiently, doing mental checks, observing what his HUD told him about ammunition expenditure and so on, while he waited for the rest of the team to clear ahead.
Yagaan advanced down the hallway, his long joints clicking and whirring surreally as his bizarre form was silhouetted by the dusty sunlight from behind him. A man with an SMG popped at the entrance to the worksite, but immediately the boom of the Kodiak railgun filled the narrow space, reverberating from the walls as the man was hurled backwards in a burst of blood.
Yagaan's quick advance caught a second guard unawares, stumbling backwards and staring in horror at the ruins of his comrade. He did not even have time to register the Frame's appearance before a second round tumbled him back down into the dirt.
He halted at the bottom of the slope, taking cover behind a crate and squinting into the confusing mix of darkness and light beyond. There was fire from beyond and a bullet spanged off his head, denting and deforming the cheekplate so that when he turned to the others he had an even more alarming appearance.
"There is significant resistance beyond. Transmitting visuals now."
All those with equipment capable would receive a feed from Yagaan, letting them see what his optical suite saw of the resistance ahead. They watched as he snapped up above cover, the gun booming once more as it punched through a cable spool to kill the unfortunate sod who had dented Yagaan's sleek pink plating.
Trulko moved up to the doorway as Yagaan stated the situation, setting a flash grenade with one hand. Yagaan had eyes on alright, and this was going to be... exciting.
"Five-five, on my mark, get in there and clear. Yagaan, keep their heads down and maintain fire discipline. Everybody cover up, flash going out." the captain said over the radio before he pulled the pin on the flash grenade, and with the strength lent him by his power armor, hurled it in through the doorway.
The noise and the brightness of the grenade filled the area with light and noise for a moment before Trulko snapped his rifle up, sweeping in through the door past Yagaan and riddling the first man he saw with bullets. The trooper jerked about like a puppet on strings that had just been cut, and Trulko's rifle was already sweeping to the next when he keyed his comm.
"Five-Five, go, go, go!"
Five-Five had responded to Trulko calling for him to be ready simply by twirling his blades around in his hands and a simple comms ping. He didn't see the need for anything more, personally, and he knew he was ready. As far as he was concerned, that was enough.
Sure enough, when the call to attack came the two nanobladed swords lodged themselves in the dirt near Trulko's feet, before again the blue Artificia fired past like a slingshot, buzzsawing through two men before hitting a crate--and the unfortunate sod that had been next to it, raising his rifle to face the attack--with an echoing crash of cratering metal and pulverised bone, allowing inertia to hold his swords aloft just long enough to draw two of his throwing daggers.
Before gravity caught up to him, Five-Five flipped back off the crate through the air, loosing the daggers through the visors of two more targets, grabbing the grips of his swords right as he landed.
"Support requested." came through comms in his usual tone, as the Artificia sprinted off, looking to draw attention from any surviving mercenaries away from the entrance his allies were piling through.
"Confirmed," Trece acknowledged both Trulko and Five-Five. Gun up, he made a quick approach through the exit into the next branch room, now of a natural cave, with Grace following at a medium distance. Makhil checked the opposite corner from the rest of the squad's attention, making eye contact with a stunned and scared young mercenary before placing a merciless two rounds into their sternum and about-facing to view the next hallway as the soldier collapsed into the stream next to him, Fives having already half-cleared the path ahead. The next room appeared to be a massive cenote, mossy-walled and well-lit, covered with a false roof, with the top of a structure visible within. They must have cleared a significant portion of the enemy force already - This appeared to be the core structure, and their primary objective. He downed another two stunned soldiers with well-aimed shots as return fire intensified as an enemy squad moved to occupy the end of the tunnel ahead - a SAW gunner determinedly hosing the cover that Five-Five now found himself behind.
"Suppress that exit!" he called, enticing a grin on Donner's face as she moved, wordlessly, into the open and began hammering the area with 20mm fire in controlled bursts, fragmentation airbursts initially inviting panicked shouting before the self-correcting gun silenced the position, complete with the disabling of the SAW that had easily dumped sixty rounds in Five-Five's direction by the time it was over.
Cheering after her burst's very clear effect, Grace ran up to check the primary room - not so much as getting her shoulders over the edge before receiving fierce gunfire in response, quickly ducking down. Trece had been following and stopped to check on Fives, but the sounds of automatic weapons fire in a close-quarters environment were nonetheless startling.
"Machine gun to the right behind sandbags, at least two squads spread throughout the cenote!" Donner yelled back at the team, grimacing and hefting her cannon up to the ledge and blind-firing at targets she had seen.
"What size squad?" Makhil shouted back as a rifle grenade hit just below the lip of the exit, spraying the ceiling of the tunnel with shrapnel.
"Like, six per!" Grace yelled again as she turned her gun, peeking momentarily to get an accurate shot off before chuckling to herself - she must have hit.
With the immediate route cleared, Hulsar was ready to move forward, but not without abandoning his rearguard position completely. He affixed what amounted to a small proximity mine on the roof above the doorway into the bunker. It was slightly time delayed so it would hopefully wipe out more than just one person as any potential assailant entered, and configured to not trigger on allied IFF - just in case. Manual detonation via its albeit limited sensor feed was also an option.
The specialist sergeant made as much speed as he could through the cramped area before arriving at the rear of the pinned position with rifle in hand, taking cover as was available."You certainly seem to have gotten their attention. Any alternative way in there without going straight into the front of their killing area?"
One of Yagaan's spindly arms came arcing around like a windmill, the joint moving unnaturally to allow him to throw a grenade at an angle without exposing himself much. The strange, lantern-looking grenade clanked down just beyond the entrance to the cenote and detonated, crackling like a firework as it filled the area with a brief but intense cacophony of smoke and sparkling flares.
Calmly he walked into the middle of the corridor and lay prone, taking aim at the doorway based on the last visual picture they had received. When the grenade began to fizzle out, he began hammering shots at everything visible. After a short, thunderous volley his magazine ran dry and he rolled to one side, his head staying level like an owl as his metal frame clattered across the floor. Once out of line of sight of the entrance, he stood, loading another magazine into his railgun.
"This is my last magazine." he said matter-of-factly.
"Fuck. Watch your shots then, keep an eye out for any ammo you can use." Trulko replied just as matter of factly, popping up to fire a burst before he activated his cloak and began to move. The captain He picked a fireteam on the far right of the cenote as he advanced by small increments, firing before moving to strike them from somewhere else. This was a trick he had used before and it had not failed him yet, though he remained keenly aware that not every member of his squad had the ability to cloak like he did, nor did they have power armor that could take hits like he could. They needed a way in past that machine gun.
Trulko marked pieces of cover that could withstand enemy fire as he went, at last ducking into cover to avoid the machine gun as he took a obscuration grenade from his belt and armed it.
"Get ready to move up on my mark," he said to the team, still invisible, before he tossed the grenade towards the machine gun nest, spewing smoke, jamming signals and tiny strips of chaff as it landed. It wasn't going to last long, but it hopefully would last long enough.
"Mark!"
Five-Five had similarly paused in the tunnel, watching a vicious torrent of bullets fly by with a raised eyebrow. They were certainly doing their best, he mused to himself, watching Trulko's form melt away and the shimmering form of slightly distorted light moved away into further obscurity, marked only by periodic flashes of gunfire.
That machine gun was a pain, if the party felt the need to drop two separate jammer grenades just to throw it off. Well, if there was one thing Five-Five was good at aside from making croquettes and failing to do much with his hair, it was to buzzsaw straight into troublesome things.
Of course, 'straight into' here preferably meant 'from the side where the gun was not at all ready to stop him'.
As Trulko moved off, Five-Five took a few steps back.
Then a couple more.
He sheathed one of his swords, drawing and twirling one of his pistols, taking a moment to make sure it was loaded as Trulko spoke.
Mark.
His sword arm lashed out, the blade burying itself--stretched out hand still attached--in the stone of the tunnel exit, the blue Artificia firing out into the cenote in a blur of light, impacting the far wall with remarkably little noise as his legs immediately kicked into action, sprinting along the wall of the cave structure, revolver flashing with the echoing call of a high-caliber sidearm six times, each fired for a different man.
When that emptied, the blue blur changed direction again. He fired off the wall with a kick, shoving his pistol into its holster and drawing his sword mid-flight, turning into a wheel of blades flying straight for the machine gun nest's flank.
"Mark!"
It was a quick plan, but staying suppressed was the worse of two options. The burst of smoke, and the light-speed artificia leaving curling contrails in his wake, was enough of a distraction, it seemed, as all guns on the opposite side turned to fire at Fives - including the non-machine gun team. In fact, there were more gunshots and more yelling than would be expected from two six-man squads, undoubtedly down half their number before Five-Five blitzed them.
"Fives, confirm reinforcements or lack thereof?," Trece shouted through comms as he jogged down the slope and to the right, behind a prefab building, gun up and monitoring a window on its side. Grace had taken the opposite route, moving to get an angle around the obscuration grenade's cloud. Makhil kept up the pace, switching his point of aim to the entrance on his right, firing a three-round burst at each hinge of the door and brandishing a sizable, short-fuse, blast-fragmentation grenade as tracers spewed out of the building, pitching it in response and diving back to where he came before - fire stopping and being replaced by shouting and thuds of cover or footsteps before the device went off, bursting the windows and throwing debris out of every opening in the building, the overpressure being far too similar to the grenade that had almost ended him not ten minutes prior.
"Breaking radio silence!" Makhil shouted on the local network again, looking up at the camouflaged, but still open-skied, entrance to the cenote as he reached for his modern handset. "Command, intel was off. Hostile concentration is diffuse, this outpost is a remote listening position - Encountering significant resistance here, need updates as far as response forces, over!"
Grace swung her autocannon around her corner to an eyeful of three more squads responding from another tunnel and buildings within the cenote alike - Within a second, she flicked over to flechette ammo and began suppressing infantry that weren't in close quarters with Five-Five; the machine gunner was quite decidedly out of commission , she guessed, telling by its slack position atop the blooded sandbag emplacement.
"This is getting out of hand!" She thundered over the roar of her weapon, pausing only to switch targets to the doorway into a prefab.
The booming fire of Yagaan's gun slowed to a snails pace, shots ringing out only occasionally to kill a high-threat individual or rescue a comrade from being flanked and killed. He worked his way around the perimeter of the cenote, at one point using his spindly limbs to snatch a rifleman's weapon from his hands and clock him in the head with it, slinging it over his shoulder as a fallback weapon since he was very close to empty.
His mechanical eyes whirred as he took in the fresh waves of reinforcements rushing across the cenote towards the rest of the team. If any of the defenders had bothered to scrutinise the shadows to their right they may have spotted a bizarre, gangling figure watching them from cover with a frozen expresson of genial bemusement on its face.
Hulsar pushed himself forward assisted by his power armour as his rifle hummed with each burst fired at the enemy as he moved up to a better vantage of cover within the cenote. The specialist sergeant took a moment to stop and assess the situation before crouching behind his cover...
...Then as he came back up he did so accompanied by his throw of a grenade from each hand, letting the devices bounce exactly once as they headed to their targets, one rolling under a gap beneath the floorboard of a small prefab that was occupied judging by the gunfire coming from within it, while another was in midair amidst a group of reinforcements.
BOOM! As the explosion of the devices echoed across the cenote, one devastating the squad it was within with its fireball and the other exploding up through the weak prefab floor to screams as those within were consumed by the blast or impaled by the prefab-shrapnel as the bottom floor of the building turned into a slaughterhouse.
Trulko moved up after Fives, keeping his cloak up as he went. There were a lot of hostiles in here, no doubt of that, and more were arriving every moment it seemed. In any other circumstance he would have preferred Makhil confer with him before he broke comms silence, but in this case and in this fight he did not question it-- he was moments away from giving the order himself.
As the enemy moved in he opened up, firing short bursts from his rifle to engage enemy infantry as they came into view. The power of the weapon was more than enough, and had he not had the brick of a suppressor built into it, everyone and their dog would know where he was, cloak or not. He ducked into cover to let it cycle as more hostiles filtered in, fishing a grenade from his belt and tossing it into the tightest concentration of them he could see before he recloaked, reloaded, and got moving again.
To say Five-Five had possibly, maybe, quite potentially bitten off more than he was prepared to chew was to put things lightly. The Artificia's reflexes and on-the-spot thinking ahead were being pushed to their limit, a whirlwind of swords parrying guns, lopping limbs and dodging bullets.
A lot of bullets, mind, putting him on the backfoot as he kicked a freshly disarmed--in more ways than one--man into a man toting a shotgun, swinging his sword free and controlling its flight with its cord to guide it into the shotgunner's skull, yanking it back to pull it free and toss the armless man into his other sword.
"More than expected! Much more!" Trece heard in reply, Five-Five's usual dry and dour tone replaced by one of frustration and mild irritation.
The sound of gunfire and parting flesh coming down the line seemed to indicate he was more than a little occupied. With a grunt Five-Five fired off again, bouncing off the walls of the nest in a zigzag that ended with six more dead men.
A lot more were coming, Five-Five dodging back behind a wall to evade a burst of assault rifle fire and tossing a knife back at them, eliciting a yell from whoever he had hit.
"Assistance requested." came down the comms moments after his first, his tone mildly calmer.
"Fuck," Trece exclaimed to himself over the explosions that were undoubtedly caused by Hulsar as he quickly confirmed the prefab he was next to was clear, before moving at combat pace to the far corner, giving him a clean shot at the tunnel that Five-Five was so dangerously close to. The smoke had dissipated far faster than might be expected with the initial force estimate, but given the sheer volume of explosives used, was rather understandable. He braced his battle rifle against the corner of the building, aiming out and towards the sandbags that had initially pinned the squad down, before firing precise shots at hostiles moving through the open towards cover... notably ignoring a particularly shellshocked mercenary that was dazedly wandering through the pool in the center of the cenote, below a communications dish that was undoubtedly part of the breach attempt they were busy stopping.
Grace wasn't so merciful, however, as she fired a pair of rounds at the man, airburst rounds throwing up pillars of water that left a floating body and blood-stained pool in their wake, before turning her attention back to the tunnel that the enemy sourced from. Kicking her gun to a slower rate of fire, she crouched and couched the weapon best she could before permitting a long, steady burst of fire to speed straight into the mouth of the passage, entirely halting the reinforcements. Seconds went by that felt like minutes, with a soldier eventually popping out of the sandbags to scream in desperation at the unending deluge of autocannon rounds, quickly and skillfully put down by Makhil, even as Trulko transitioned between shooter and target as he moved to meet up with the squad's breacher.
"That working for you?" the JTAC asked to the Artificia over the communications network as the burst ended, the shouting and cries from the mercenaries within the sparse fortification being made obvious.
"Captain, I suggest sweeping for intelligence. Assuming it's still intact," he radioed.
Yagaan's rifle ran dry just as a pair of mercenaries came around the corner. Wasting no time, he hurled it like a javelin, the sheer force of his mechanical arm propelling it through the man's chest and lifting him off his feet. His right arm, following through on the throw, fell to his left hip and he drew his hikatana even as the second man fired a burst. The rounds crashed into Yagaan's chest, punching holes in his endoskeletal structure and sending sparks and pieces of metal flying.
There was a momentary pause as both of them looked at one another, before Yagaan swept forwards with one long, spindly stride and hacked the shooter's head off.
He took a few shaky steps towards a stalagmite, slumping into cover behind it and drawing his looted rifle with one hand, his left arm no longer responding properly. Propping it on the rock, he held his fire, not wanting to attract more attention in his damaged state, but some mercenaries spotted him anyway. They hurled themselves into cover, avoiding his first haphazard burst of fire, and opened up on his position, chipping flakes of rock from his cover and forcing him to duck.
"Do it. Anything still legible, find it." Trulko ordered tersely. With the halting of enemy reinforcements they had a reprieve for the moment, but that was not going to last, not with their luck and how tits up this mission had come already. He moved up to the comms dish, watching any and all routes of approach for enemy forces with his rifle, silently snapping another magazine into place. If anyone appeared to reinforce the enemy, even if they were a damned janitor he wanted to know about it. This was before his scanner alerted him to the situation near Yagaan, and he spun. That, was not going to do.
Snapping his rifle to his shoulder, Trulko sighted up and began putting single shots down towards the enemy, the first one he targeted losing part of his chest and his left arm in a spray of blood, bone and armor pieces as the 12.7 round smashed into him. The next Trulko aimed at, he aimed low as their center mass was obscured. They didn't die, but they were in no fit state to keep going unless they were faster with painkillers than Trulko reckoned they were. And so he advanced, his scanner still up to watch for enemy reinforcements as he closed in on the mercs hosing down Yagaan.
Hulsar changed magazines on his rifle with a clunk before continuing to plant bursts of fire into enemy positions or even shooting straight through some of the thin prefab walls to make kills. "Suggest exfiltration and possible casevac planning if we can't take the pressure off, commander. If you want this place blowing I'll need to set charges at some point but we're all currently a bit tied up."
The Specialist Sergeant seemed content that his team were dealing with the marksman casualty and five-five's position at least for now and so continued providing surpressing fire into buildings and across the cenote while his brain and his systems began calculating the positioning and weight of explosives for any demolitions that might be required in the near future. There was another loud bang as he tossed out another grenade which obliterated one of the remaining fighting positions actually in the cenote itself.
Upon Trulko's response, Trece immediately released his handpiece, the chirp of a disconnecting line scratching out, and bolted for a prefab that seemed to be there the longest - long enough for lichen to be growing in the valleys in the corrugated metal paneling. The door was open, staffers long shot out by now telling by the body slumped on the doorway, face on the damp rock, but that didn't mean the building was entirely empty. As the Carnaithian's boot slammed against the flooring of the unit, the burst of movement int he corner of his eye immediately called his attention to a remaining staffer. He didn't look like a mercenary... He looked like a scholar, if anything. A very rich one. The panic in his cybernetic eyes and shuddering gasp of fear conflicted with the impossibly fluid movement of an undoubtedly-artificial arm that had just gripped something on the back of the man's belt.
The JTAC instinctively switched his battle rifle to full-auto, charging as he fired eight rounds into the center mass of the outlying man, recoil conveniently carving a path to the shoulder of the synthetic arm. The impact had definitely killed the biological element of the individual, but in response to the jolting movements of the would-be corpse as well as the stress-inducing click of the hammer in his own gun, Makhil launched his arms away from his shoulder, as if stabbing with a bayonet, and forced the muzzle violently into the hostile's eye all the way to the gas block and slamming the body into the wall - and for good measure, he brandished a knife and severed the spinal column at the neck.
Panting, the JTAC sidestepped and let the body collapse. The four seconds since he stepped into the building had been everything that ever mattered in the moment - and the item in the now-still cybernetic hand was not a weapon. Not a gun, not a knife, not even a detonator - a phone. A phone that hadn't even opened its security screen. (edited)
Quickly separating the device from the downed would-be hostile and pocketing it in a Faraday pouch, Trece took a moment to evaluate the rest of the room. As expected, it was a now-empty command post, including an unlocked terminal where the staffer had first seen him. Even as gunfire and another explosion rocked the outside, maybe this had remote access to the other diffuse sites, and maybe even information regarding the target of the hack.
On a very bare militarized display, options for intranet communications, center control, and data management were listed, with the first and lattermost options existing as open windows. Makhil grasped his radio once again, calling out the positions of the other sites. "We're engaged and pinned, no chance of moving to engage on our own. Requesting support!"
"Affirmed. Routing to engage. Break. Warning. Hostile contingents converging on your current position. Prior Renaissance inaccurate - armored elements present. T-minus ten minutes. Earliest EVAC available in fifteen. Over."
The news was startling. A problem, definitely, but one they'd have to get through regardless. Makhil was, at this point, flipping through the terminal's onboard files. Images and scans of truly ancient carvings were present, depicting nightmarish shadows dueling at first, then one slaughtering the other. The losing figure seemed vaguely familiar, with a triangle of negative space on the head of a serpentine body.
Opening the terminal cabinet and shutting down the terminal, he removed the memory assets and placed them into yet more Faraday pouches before reloading his rifle. He wouldn't dwell on the intel; it wasn't his job right now, and it wouldn't help in the moment anyways. What he could help with, however, was right back out that door.
Grace's barrage had all but cleared the sandbags about the far entrance, and the additional grenade contributed by Hulsar finished the ordeal in that corner of the depression. However, the gunfire in the direction Yagaan had moved, and the cessation of his echoing fire, was more than enough information to recall her attention to her allies. Trulko was pushing the sniper's assailants, and the Artifician hadn't said anything. Dropping her gun, she brandished her knife as she stood in her immense armor, immediately breaking into a jog to check on their melee specialist.
Trulko's advance on the surviving mercenaries drew their attention for long enough that Yagaan judged it prudent to push his own attack. As the enemy turned their guns towards Trulko, Yagaan stood, bracing the assault rifle tight against his good shoulder and firing in single shots. He put down first one attacker, then a second, but a third turned and sprayed half a mag at the advancing sniper. A round grazed against Yagaan's shoulder, twitching him to the side, and then another punched through his head, erupting in a burst of sparks and broken electronics as the mechanical collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, clattering to the ground noisily even as Trulko finished off the last of the mercenaries near Yagaan's position.
"Affirm on evac time frame. Hurry it up if you can, we need a casevac." Trulko responded to the call over the radio, making his way to Yagaan's position. Damnit, that wasn't good. He knelt to check Yagaan for any signs of life that there might be, snapping his rifle up and putting two through the chest of one of the mercenaries that popped up down the path to spray at him. He checked team vitals on his HUD and muttered a curse-- where the hell was Five-Five?
"Hulsar, start setting those charges, Grace, Five-Five, cover him. Everybody else, extract what data you can however you can, we'll strip this place bare before we burn it!"
"On it." declared Hulsar as he knelt down to retrieve demolition charges from his pack. He held them for a short moment, weighing them up while he looked around for good positions to place them and lay detonation cord to link them up - a remote detonation from the surface might not be reliable.
Almost zoned-out he walked around, carefully positioning the explosives and laying out detonations cord, around the structures holding up the cenote as well as the walls and a few choice pieces of equipment. He was conciously aware of the occasional burst of fire but he continued unfazed as his armour swatted away stray bullets. "If we time it right we might be able to get the armour to roll over the top of this cenote with a little bit of deception... some of it at least." the Specialist Sergeant spoke from his mind with somewhat of a different tone as he continued to place charges into nooks with a great deal of precision. While not obvious to an observer, they were meticulously spaced to achieve the detonation pattern Hulsar was trying to achieve.
"I'm more than a little convinced that we should get out of here sooner than later, Captain. I've already recovered the drive for this center, an unidentified cyborg was monitoring the terminal. I've got his phone on me, too."
The response from Makhil was fatigued and, in a way, dismissive. But he walked out of the HQ structure all the same, with the mines laid in the previous tunnel going off with theatrical timing. The crashing collapse of the way back precluded the aural detection of any desperate cries, evidently less sturdy than initially assessed. Rocks, pebbles, and dust belched and bellowed outwards from the mouth of the tunnel, quickly adding an earthy smell to the haze of cordite and high explosive byproducts that had already filled the chamber.
"And that leaves one direction."
Grace, having received Trulko's new orders, had already stuck a dazed mercenary that was cowering behind a sandbag wall as bullets from the tunnel ahead ricocheted off of her armor. Grimacing, she twisted the hefty knife in his chest, cracking ribs, and let him slump to the ground, liberated of his rifle. Brandishing it one-handed, bursts of rifle fire snapped towards the handful of remaining hostiles that were actively engaging Hulsar. One fell. Another. Between bursts, she looked to Fives at the epicenter of the gore left by his initial assault.
Five-Five had disappeared into the fortified MG nest for a worrying amount of time, falling quiet on the comms to the extent he didn't acknowledge when ordered to cover Hulsar.
He had, evidently, heard it though. In the midst of the chaos, a hastily assembled sandbag wall covering its flank exploded, a shower of bullets in that direction signalling the cause had been a detonated ammunition crate, accompanied by a shower of limbs and at least one corpse mangled beyond recognition.
Following behind this were three more men, stumbling clear of the nest, clutching wounds.
They barely made it five paces from the nest before, in a whirling display of plasma, the blurred form of Five-Five flew out of it, slicing them to ribbons with his nanobladed swords now wreathed in an edge of plasma.
He had evidently decided he needed to up the ante. Still, there had seemingly been more trouble in there than the Artificia has expected; he was out of throwing knives, and the muzzles of his revolvers were visibly glowing, steam issuing from their tips. His attire was now tattered, holes and rents marring his vest and trousers both as crack-like breaks in his hardlight skin sealed themselves with a quiet but audible hiss. Still, he wasn't dead. He raised one finger to his comm.
"Apologies for the delay." grumbled through in his distinctive voice.
Growling as more men moved to attack their demolitions specialist, Five-Five sprung back into motion, firing off the ground, then the ceiling, back and forth until he reached the wall behind them, once again whirling as he fired into them, dicing all but three of them and catching the grenade launcher of their leader. Whipping about, he fired one shot before dropping it, the grenade exploding off the wall he had hit, pelting the three with rubble and killing one with a blow to the head. One, then the other, he swung his swords by the cable, lodging them in the two remaining men's skulls before yanking them close, grabbing the swords and ripping them free, leaving the corpses to flip once and hit the ground.
"Move for exfil. I'll mop up stragglers." he grunted.
Hulsar took a moment to stand back and double check the placement locations as his hud highlighted them. He made a quick dash over to one which he removed from its place and moved it down slightly before announcing: "Demolition charges set." in a very serious tone.
"And thanks for the cover. Commander, detonation on your say-so once we're at minimum safe distance." The Specialist sergeant trailed his detonation cable as a backup in case he couldn't get a wireless - and he expected he wouldn't down here. He motioned that now was the time to leave, team leader or not he was a man fully aware of the amount of high yield explosives he had just set and had no intention of staying here longer than neccessary.
"Understood, Makhil. Everybody pull out, fire as you go." Trulko ordered, firing off a long burst that punched foot wide craters in the wall of the cenote as the rounds passed through their targets, sprays of blood and sparks as casings hit the ground. He checked his HUD for a round count and frowned. Not dangerously low, but still lower than he would have liked by far, and with their situation he'd have to make every round count. With that in mind he switched to single fire, snapping the rifle around and sending a contact screaming into the cenote with a single round through the upper thigh.
"Grace, Five-Five, cover and move, I've got Yagaan. Hulsar, this is going to be close." he said as he moved to pick up the gangly form of the sniper, slamming out two more rounds with two more kill pips on his HUD. If his cloaking could cover them both, he would buy the R&D boys a drink when this was over.
Wordlessly, Trece's footfalls increased in tempo, rushing for the remaining exit. The sustained fire from the rest of the team decreased in density as he approached the opening itself, the sounds of ricochets and panicked shouting further in. Grace followed up, quickly "slicing her pies" as her retrieved canon's muzzle hugged the longest available angle. "Firing!" she abruptly shouted, the overpressure from the weapon surprising the team JTAC before she even finished speaking - this passage was much straighter, and the rounds' tracers could be tracked by eye from report to detonation outside of the now-daylit exit.
"Pushing! Low on ammo!" she called out, Makhil gesturing the other four soldiers towards himself as the power-armored human began an assault canter. He watched as Five-Five fell into formation with Trulko after mopping up the remainder of hostiles, who in turn carried Yagaan - "behind me, Hulsar," the carnaithian uttered, moving behind Grace as to put more bodies between the enemy and the wounded. The awkward, loud, and stressful file-formed exfiltration could have felt like an eternity of marching towards that little hole of light. Yet it did slowly grow in intensity and clarity before finally punching out and into an open-topped fortification.
Grass had been grown on what looked like a hastier effort than the last pillbox, built of low, dirt-concealed palisade walls that were built in an obvious mutually supporting hierarchy, and signs of life were low. The reasons it wasn’t used as much were not immediately obvious, even as the squad spread out over bodies mauled by the continuous shrapnel barrage and taking cover, complete with Makhil about-facing to place a duet of rifle rounds in the chest of a survivor from the squad that had been here, though the combatant’s rifle did let off a burst that dug into the dirt next to the group.
“Clearing the area!” he shouted as the squad lead lowered the sniper slowly into a nestled position of cover, Five-five darting off in the other direction to the trenches below with a pained grunt after that thorough melee he had engaged in. The obvious screaming and gunfire before the JTAC engaged from the opposite end for a matter of moments signaled the removal of this group of reinforcements.
Curiously, though, it was quieter than expected given the warnings from earlier - Trulko had time to examine the Jade construct, tracing the cracks that radiated from the hole punched in the marksman’s mechanical skull, ruining the oni faceplate. The restevian swallowed - Yagaan was a machine, surely this wasn’t guaranteed to be lethal. He reached for his PDA and radio.
“This is captain Trulko, what’s the ETA on our evac?” he shakily shouted into the handpiece. A second went by before his eyes traced a lazily-flying orange light rise up into the sky before the appearance of a small detonation and a puff of smoke took its place… though the thin walls of overpressure that rushed outwards from it were evidence enough to the opposite end of the scale.
“This is Voccarrus. ETA unknown, Azure One is going down. Hostile elements moving in force. Unknown advanced elements are present. Get your JTAC on station, he’ll know what to do. Enemy mechanized elements within two kilometers of your position from the east. You’ll have counterslope positioning. You have one minute until contact. Break.”
The restevian looked back down at the marksman’s motionless body in a moment of considering silence before the shockwave from the heavy SAM hit the position, large enough of a warhead to knock some air out of the squad’s lungs. He grimaced and looked to Hulsar as he lifted the wounded Ingenious Frame once more; “Get down a tier and hit it!” the seasoned officer shouted, grace lifting herself from her position without needing to be addressed directly. The human jogged past the heavily-armored Primarii, the armor of the latter adorned with new scars to join the old. “Everyone down,” The half-mechanical voice of the Hastraxian specialist called to the rest of the force, finding his own position and giving a few seconds for the others to do the same.
The thunderous detonation of the charges that were, indeed, masterfully placed, was only amplified by the long tunnel they had exited from, acting as a barrel to a chamber as ejecta soared over the squad and into the valley below. Looking up as the pressure wave passed, the sky turned a hue of orange.
“That wasn’t you, I’m afraid,” Trece shouted to Hulsar as he turned his attention to what was the approach vector for their exfil. Lightning-fast streaks of light broke the clouds, flashes of light backlighting the hulls of outdated tanks and IFVs as they crested the hill, their guns sitting still in the air as their crews braced - but Makhil stood, brandishing his old, broken radio once again and whispering softly into it. Infantry dismounted from their transports and hit the dirt. Trece sighed and recoiled as if responding to a slight pain moments before the much larger shockwaves of the kinetic strike munitions from the horizon reached the squad’s position. “What the fuck!” grace cried out as she poked her scarred visage over the edge of the position. The guns of the vehicles began to lower towards the squad, though the infantry on the hill were too stunned to begin firing yet.
The vehicles never had the opportunity to begin firing, as ethereal gunships - far more archaic than the mercenary forces - strafed their positions, wire-guided missiles and rockets tearing the mechanized assets apart as high-explosive cannon fire ravaged the lines of infantry. Panicked machine-gun fire arced up into the sky, passing right through the soft blue glow of the rotorcraft’s hulls, which promptly turned away. The sonic boom of phantasmal low-flying bombers punched the squad as they passed parallel to the opposite hilltop, with drogue bombs impacting and spreading very real napalm across what remained alive; a buzzing thunder of rotary autocannon fire and its impacts echoed through the air as a straight-winged attack plane pulled up from beyond.
“What. The. FUCK!” Grace said again, angered confusion on her face as she looked towards the carnaithian… who seemed so much better-kept now. Two tiltrotor VTOLs came overhead, speeding towards the horizon and Azure 1, and a third began a lazy controlled descent towards the Strategic Relief Group’s agents as its belly-mounted minigun hosed the hilltop.
Eventually, the craft came to a hovering stop at the edge of the hill, a ghostly loadmaster in its offload ramp motioning for the squad to come aboard, which Makhil repeated. “Let’s get out of here!” He shouted with a grimace, clutching his chest. Understandably pensive about the suggestion, the squad hesitated behind the JTAC - but the VTOL was as real as any other as the sergeant climbed aboard and took a seat.
In minutes, they were soaring towards another landing site fifty miles away, the orange glow induced by the nuclear-kinetic strikes serving as an incredibly high-contrast background to the light blue glow of Trece’s supernatural swarm of air support. Yagaan, unconscious as he was, had no ability to object to the apparitions of twenty-first-century aircrew medics fixing an oxygen mask that he did not need to his face. Planes crisscrossed the sky, tracers still pouring down on enemy positions in the landscape pockmarked by cenotes, so many crumbling as laser-guided bombs detonated within, the pressure waves rushing out of hidden exits.
“Looks a lot like where I got this thing,” Makhil said, waving the old, broken radio he had called this all in with. “I never want to go back.”
In just as much time, they were being saluted by the ghostly soldiers as they left the VTOL and transferred to an SRG SSTO; Brecar and Ssil had been recovered, and silent, still forms of otherworldly special forces stood in the bays of the other landed aircraft. The physical form of modern-day void-capable crewmen performed their checks as usual, unbothered by their counterparts, as the squad was secured to their seats for a much more natural antigravity-to-exit maneuver.
--//--
Aboard the unmarked Phalanx-class, after having all of its assets recovered, the meeting room was filled with the angered shouting of a CIGO officer berating Vocarro, who drowsily sat in the same position he did a day ago. Five of the soldiers were here, with Yagaan’s fate in the mechano-medical bay being undisclosed pending the arrival of Ingenious specialists. After what had been half an hour of shouting, the Operant very abruptly collected himself.
“You saw something very classified today, you all,” He addressed the soldiers. By all right, this was a classified program with a disclosure that constant updates were not necessary, and someone in a commanding position could just put the troops in a high-sec prison on some zero-G moon if it was too big of an issue. “But you also dug up something that troubled my Union counterpart on this ship quite a bit. I’d say you earned the right, but I do ask that you stay on board with this project of ours into the future. We think we might need you for much, much bigger plans.”