Futuristic Hostile Contact IC

[GearBlade654]

Max Braum​

Status: Quite Surprised​

Actions: None, Braum is stunned​

​

Max nodded in appreciation of Drew's high five, taking the offer and performing said high five. However, on hearing a certain dropship pilot's remark, the shock trooper turned to give de Vries a "please no" look underneath his helmet.
All seemed in order, just a successful mission...
Until a giant in armor popped up.
Max could only stand there, utterly speechless, at the giant. The shock trooper hadn't anticipated this at all.
"Uh... welcome to the team. Name's Max Braum."
Max chose to follow up Archer's greeting, still not quite sure how this had happened. More guns on their side was always helpful... but damn, that's one way to do an intro. What's next, the next new guy comes out of a Toblerone bar pile to the tune of some outdated song?
( Viper Actual Midrick Trappy RandomBlobMan )​

 

[Kabboom]

GM

The oh-so-heartfelt greetings and exchange between the members of the Swords would've continued on, and maybe Max Braum would shake off his unfortunate label when debriefing came up. Unfortunately, the Vornem had a say in it, and CONE was not ready for them to have a say in things this early.

The thrum of impact could be heard for a brief moment, before everything went to shit. Alarms blared rapidly, explosions went off near and far, in every direction, all at once. The impact was enough to knock most of the nearby personnel off their feet, but the EARS system keeps most of the members more or less on their feet, if barely. Maintenance crews and transport crews leaped for cover beneath a hangar pad, as a few docked VTOLs are dislodged from their restraints and go crumbling down onto the hangar floor. The cacophony wouldn't stop.

But it did. And that meant they were alive. After the barrage of explosions, deep bellowing sounds echoed throughout the tortured frame of the hangar bay - not the groaning of structural failure, no, this was different. As the helmets filter out the dust that had befallen most of the hangar and probably put a few extra pounds onto the squad car, one of the techs run towards a reinforced camera feed panel and opens up the external feed to see what's up. Turns out, what's up is a Vornem motherfucking battleship.

Well, was a Vornem battleship. It had apparently warped into the area or whatever alien trick it had up its sleeve, and unleashed a salvo of rounds upon the base. In return, the base's railgun systems returned the favor in kind. The battleship's shield system, whatever the hell it is, was breaking off into purple bits as its superstructure takes a nasty super-fast fuck-you round, blowing a hole clean enough to see the sun through it.

Wilhelm

Bloody hell, the smoke. And dust. Good thing EARS helmets come with audio mufflers. Getting up was trivial for Wilhelm, seeing as the fuckfest was only enough to get him down on one knee. The first thing his eyes made contact with was the computer panel some damn tech opened, and what he saw through that screen was unholy as all hell. It got better after a rail-round drilled a hole in it though.

His comms immediately opened up, with a video feed of the big honcho himself, Colonel Arlois. "This is Wilhelm, standing by, sir."

"Sanderson, thank God you're still up! We're under attack from a Vornem warship, it hit us hard! Gun 3 took a hit, and its targeting controls are unresponsive! I'm sending a tech team over there to get the Gun back online, but they're gonna need some cover in case the aliens-" as if on cue, the Vornem warship warps back to a safer distance, its sun-baked silhouette now spitting out many more tiny shapes and shadows out of its bow. The bastard's sending in dropships, from the looks of it.

"Got it sir. Sword team en route." was all Wilhelm spoke before he rallied the rest of the men. "On your feet, and get in the fucking car! We're going bug-hunting!" the squad car wasn't heading for the debrief anymore, as its tires screeched across the sheet metal floor. Pulling up a quick schematic of the area around Gun 3, Wilhelm soon distributed it to the rest of the team's feeds.

The area around it, as gathered from camera feeds and quicknet battlefield update software, was shot to shit. Perimeter outposts and walls surrounding the railgun itself was demolished almost utterly by the Vornem rounds, while the gun seems to have narrowly avoided the fate of a direct hit. To the gun's left, a sole guard tower stood mostly untouched with a great view of the surrounding asteroid rockscape. To its right, a half-crushed communications bunker lies smoldering, its occupying personnel likely dead or wounded. The entire complex was in space, so it was going to be zero-G and oxygen feeds from here on out.

"What have you guys got? I'm open for game plans."

Midrick FabulousTrash RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Togy Trappy GearBlade654

 

[Viper Actual]

Trevor watched as the team greeted the newcomer who was an absolute unit in comparison to everyone else. He was also in the process of thinking up something witty to say when the Vornem suddenly dropped in. As the squad was tasked with new orders to retaliate de Vries looked at Wilhelm.

"Sir, permission to leave this station." He paused and loaded a fresh magazine into his sidearm. "With any luck and assuming that the techs did their job my usual set of wings should be standing by in one of the hangars. Let me at them, boss."

 

[RandomBlobMan]

Suddenly the station shook from impacts of-presumably- Vornem rounds. Yun furrowed his brows in anger. Just when he could meet his future team in peace, there was an alien attack at the station. Never could they have a break. As soon as Wilhelm barked at them to get in the car, the giant man stomped over to the car, and dug his hand into the trunk. From deep within the storage space, he pulled out a hulking hand held 20mm machine gun. unnecessary firepower against a human sized individual, but you never knew. Trying to leave enough space for his teammates, Yun crammed himself in the corner of the car.
"If you don't have any mobile cover available, I'll take point."
He said.

 

[Kabboom]

Wilhelm

"Permission granted, de Vries. Get your shitbucket ready to provide close air support, leave the anti-air stuff to the actual fighters this time." Tires squealed as Wilhelm pulled into one of the hangars, which coincidentally housed Trevor's ship. Miraculously, it was left undamaged among the other hangar bays, which were varying levels of fucked up. With the pilot dropped off, Wilhelm's eyes simply scanned over the spaceworthy gunships as he drove past, with the count not rising above 4. Fuck. Hopefully, the fighter bay wasn't hit as hard. Taking glances at the rear mirror, the commander slapped his plan together just as he slaps the gear stick to an even more outrageous speed.

"Good call, Yun. Set up shop in the comms bunker, dig yourself in securely, you'll be the anvil. Max, Drew, hide yourselves in the perimeter debris, pop the fucks when they get in range. Kana, you're on guard tower duty, kill anything that looks valuable. Everyone else will be with me, we need to protect the techs. Sound good?"

Leaving no time to answer, Wilhelm switched over to the techs' frequency that the big boy up top just sent him. "Techs, this is Sword, we're almost there, where the hell are you?" Mere garbled static greeted his words, but he didn't have to look far to find the guys. As the squad car miraculously pulled together and saw sunlight through a mostly intact tunnel, the techs were in another squad car to the left, with the backseat riders holding up a broken radio. Wilhelm's oxygen count popped up on his HUD, as he approached Gun 3's general area. Hitting the brakes early, the team skidded to a halt right outside the communications bunker. "Showtime, everybody. Let's move!"

Midrick FabulousTrash RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Togy Trappy GearBlade654

 

[Viper Actual]

Trevor nodded in response to Wilhelm and even sighed with relief once he set eyes on his gunship. With the rest of the squad hauling ass away from the hangars Trevor quickly boarded his ship and inserted his personalized piloting settings and data into the cockpit computer. Blinking lights and the sound of automatic engine pre-flight thruster controls signaled that the ship was online as Trevor strapped in and booted up combat, flight and auxiliary systems.

Once the computer gave him a notification that pre-flight controls were finished Trevor activated his IFF-tags, flight transponder and some classic music.

Despite the rather grim situation and despite the fact that he was about to take flight against some outright shitty odds de Vries couldn't help but grin underneath his visor as the sound of Metallica echoed across the hangar. He opened up a line on the general comms.

"Vampire Zero-Niner taking off. Stand by for air support."

Suddenly his thrusters roared to life and angled themselves to propel de Vries forward and out through a shielded hangar bay door. What awaited next was a fifty meter tunnel just to get some momentum until he was catapulted out from the reinforced hangar area and into the cold dark space. Once the hull cameras kicked in (alongside the radar) de Vries grimaced. It looked grim down there.

Then again calculating odds wasn't part of his job description.

Shrugging, Trevor initiated a sensor sweep to get his bearings straight and to identify any possible targets.

 

[FabulousTrash]

Kana

Still in the squad car, she glanced outside to see what was all the commotion about. Kana noticed that there was a new face, and a really big one too. The man was massive in size. She could see Archer and Max were greeting him while Drew was shouting at him. Kana sighed, sitting back in her seat. However, she wasn't allowed to relax for long.

The explosion and impact jolted Kana upright, but the alarms disoriented her. Her eyes darted around, trying to figure out what was going on but with all the dust kicked up, it was hard to see. Kana's eventually came to her senses, looking up into the sky to see the Vornem warship.

Her attention was caught by the sudden communication from the colonel, followed by everyone suddenly piling up into the vehicle, including the new guy. Kana listened to Wilhem as he barked orders. Hearing she was assigned to watchtower overlook, she nodded promptly, reaching for her helmet and slid it back onto her head.

As they say, one problem gone, another one comes up.

When the car stopped, she quickly got out, AMR in hand and ran for the corner watchtower. Kana headed straight for the ground entrance. Lights were blinking on and off from the damage and there were some debris strewn around the floor. She went to the stairs, beginning to run up them. Kana didnt want to take a risk with the elevator lift, assuming it was non-functioning from the power damage. It took her only a few minutes to get to the top. setting up her rifle and peering down the scope. She could see the car the tech team was in, as well as everyone else from the Sword detachment moving into position. Kana shifted her aim to what was up ahead of them, picking off any loose Vornem holding the front line or moving to engage them.

 

[Midrick]

Drew barely stayed on his feet when the initial barrage hit the asteroid base. "Not a minute of peace, of fucking course!" Drew yelled as he secured his helmet back to its locks. He piled into the squad car with the rest of the Swords. He heard Wilhelm's orders and gave a thumbs up. He was prepping his gear in the car when he saw the size of the Vornem war ship, the thing was huge, he played two dilemmas in his head, if it was a big ship like a cruiser or battleship, that was problem. But it would also be a problem if it was a destroyer, frigate, or god forbid a corvette, because if
THAT was a small ship, then how large were the big ships.

He didn't have time to fret, because as soon as the car stopped, he got out and started running towards a large pile of rubble and pulverized asteroid. He suddenly had an idea. He began burying himself under the rubble and small rocks. He activated his comms and flicked his rifles safety off. "Kana, when those assholes get within range let 'em fall back after you pop a few." He said as he finalized his setup.

He settled into his makeshift spider hole and held his gun close, his suit would be able to get him out of it fairly quickly, he was just glad that his suit coloration matched the rock and rubble color. He steadied his breathing and eyed his oxygen meter as well as the readouts for the other squad members. Hopefully Wilhelm had heard his message to the sniper, that'd be fun to explain if he thought one of his subordinates had disappeared, he wouldn't be able to respond on the radio or speak in general, he didn't want the vornem knowing he was there earlier than they had to, but if he had his way that would only be a few seconds before his AUG tore them to chunks.

FabulousTrash Kabboom

 

[RandomBlobMan]

Ten-Twenty, about to mount and load

Yun dropped out of the car and moved forward, his gun out and aimed forward. The giant piece of armor pushed himself into the communications bunker. Having been half smashed into a pile of rubble, the interior was a mess. Any furniture that was inside was either buried in the demolished side or broken into small and big pieces littered around the place. The habitants... better not talk of it. Yun took a look at the outside from the opening. It was a perfect view for anything that deserved a 20mm punching their face in deadly velocity. Too bad he couldn’t fire it any faster. He cocked his hand held death’s bipods down, and put them against a nice solid surface that’d stand the recoil. The iron rods planted themselves hard on the concrete, and Yun took position. It was a shame he couldn’t utilize his shield fully, but he had a solid position so it wasn’t that bad.
“In position. I hope my gun’s big enough. I wanted bigger but they said no.”
He squinted, his massive armored finger on the trigger and ready to fire.

 

[Kabboom]

Wilhelm

Clambering onto the railgun platform was easy enough, with the suit's magnetic boots. Keeping up with the techs proved to be a bit more difficult. Wilhelm moved up onto the gun itself along with the techs, in order to try and get a better view of the area and shoot down at targets of opportunity, as well as use his shield system to protect the techs. The technicians had done this a thousand times, which meant spider-monkey jumping up the length of the gun, all the way up to the 20m apex of the gun. Diagnostics and emergency reparations were underway when Wilhelm finally got his ass up there, with the asteroid's weak ass gravity allowing him great freedom.

From the top, he could spot the enemy drop-ships landing at a distance, a few kilometers away from the gun. The ugly black flying boxes seem to be offloading important troops and materiel, accompanied by some unknown shield technology, based on the AA shells bouncing away from their trajectory. Seems like the 'shield', whatever it is, is of a bulbous shape, based on the AA cannon rounds being affected around it. A full-on fucking deflector shield to protect their troops, while they just take their time. Neat. Wilhelm just took advantage of his suit's capabilities, and broadcasted his live feed all over the battle network, especially back to Command. Those Intelligence boys would love this.

Honest-to-god drop pods started falling out of the sky, landing very near them. Two-story tall, circular boxes falling out of the sky in the dozens, with the ones headed towards the base itself getting swatted like flies in a withering rain of tracers from the CIWS guns. The only drop pods that made it were the ones that dropped near the outskirts, a few hundred meters away from the gun platform and the Swords team. Without missing a beat, Vornem grunts, the kind that they'd just encountered on the space station, started pouring out of the pods like angered wasps. Wilhelm didn't bother to count individual ones before he started calling orders, but the pods must've had 30 grunts a piece. Goddamn, that's a lot of cannon fodder.

"Ten-twenty, light them the fuck up - Kana, start dropping bodies - de Vries, get your fucking ass in the air ASAP. It's a turkey-shoot now!" He couldn't help hide his excitement with that. The grunts are in the open with no cover, and a few hundred meters away from their objective. Granted, they kept coming, but how many bodies does it take to stop a 20mm round?

Midrick FabulousTrash RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Togy Trappy GearBlade654

 

[Viper Actual]

It didn't take long for Trevor's screen to light up with all manner of colorful icons marking enemy units, vehicles and position. As he leaned in to power up the auxiliary thruster systems for additional maneuverability the pilot chuckling to himself. "My HUD is starting to look like ancient Egypt."

When Wilhelm barked out his order Trevor nodded to himself. He had already seen the blob of infantry.

"Ten-four, Vampire Zero-Nine on approach. Danger close, over."

Slowly the ship came into position for a strafe. Just as de Vries' started his descent he unleashed a volley of flares just prior to unleashing a devastating salvo of armor-piercing projectiles. "Guns, guns, guns!"

Once the strafe was complete the gunship boosted itself back into the sky. "Strafe completed. Requesting splash, over."

 

[RandomBlobMan]

The station rumbled as drop pods hit it. Grunts flooded out of the structures. They were marching forward in an open area, where they were letting Ten feast his eyes upon his victims. The man neared his finger to the trigger, bracing himself for the recoil. Hearing the announce of an approaching airship, Ten pulled the trigger without hesitation. His gun opened fire, along with the airship's guns. His was slower, but hey, this one was hand held. It couldn't be perfect. The man let out something like a fierce growl, remembering to lower his radio's output to the channel as empty casings flew out of the gun.

 

[Kabboom]

Wilhelm

"Good fucking strafe! Ten, no, twenty plus KIAs. Spin around for another run." Wilhelm wasn't even hiding the excitement on that transmission. The glimmer of the gunship flying past the ample clouds of dust kicked up by his barrage of death was just icing on the cake. The grunts' disorganized groups were broken up even more - figuratively and literally - by the strafing, and destroyed bodies lie strewn about the asteroidscape, there were even some bits of Vornem floating off into air. The few survivors were quickly turned into mush by indiscriminate 20mm fire from Ten-twenty (pretty overkill, but it's pretty cool).

But the deluge of ugly alien fuckers didn't stop. More drop pods were still going down onto the moonscape, with the sheer density of the metal rain overpowering the sky filled with CIWS fire. Fighters were being scrambled by both sides, with spectacular fireworks displays going on overhead. A pair of drop pods manage to land right near the gun platform, obstructing Ten-twenty's line of fire. The first drop pod's grunts hop out and charge directly at the smashed comms bunker where the big hulking machinegunner was posted up, while the other seek cover behind their drop pod, unknowingly flanking themselves to Drew's spider-hole. Wilhelm swung his gun over and started throwing shots at the grunts charging - even at this rate, some of them would make it into melee range.

In the corner of his eye, one of the techs fall limp with the purple trail of a Vornem sniper rifle. Goddammit! "Kana, sniper! Find them and fuck 'em up!" Wilhelm shouted, as he swung his rifle back around and put random suppressing fire over where the shot came from - a small group of craters 300 meters to the left of the gun platform.

RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Midrick FabulousTrash GearBlade654 Trappy

 

[RandomBlobMan]

Ten-Twenty, feeling the impact of the drop pods

Ten glanced at the box, noticing that he was running out of ammo. Then he looked up, seeing two drop pods landing near him. Very, very near him. Near enough to obstruct the entire view he was having. Did 20mm go through that piece of junk? He didn't really want to find out, he'd rather move to a better position. But before that, he had to deal with the charging grunts. Grabbing the barrel, Ten ripped his gun off the concrete and unleashed fury on the charging grunts. Many were blown to pieces and shreds and whatever words there were for very small bits, but the bullets ran out quite fast. Between the tattered drop pod that took his from bullets that went past the grunts, there was a pair that survived and charged at Ten. He let his gun float next to him and cracked his knuckles. They can't hear him since they were in space, but hey, they could see it happen.
"UNDER ATTACK, WILL ENGAGE MELEE!"
He roared as he charged. The grunts charged toward him too, not knowing of their painful death that is soon to come. They fired their guns, the bullets hitting the shield system installed on Ten's armor. The bullets did little to no damage to the actual armor, and within seconds the two sides were face to face. Ten's giant arm swiped at a grunt,holding it by the face. Crunching it good, the giant then chucked the grunt at its friend, sending them flying to space. Then he remembered he had a handgun. That was very unnecessary. He quietly pulled out the handgun and fired a few bursts at the already flying grunts.
"Drop pods are obscuring my view, do any of you see another spot to fire from?"
He said as he walked back to the bunker, crawling in and grabbing the gun that was floating, waiting for him. Time to reload.

 

[FabulousTrash]

Kana

Kana was aimlessly taking shots at any Vornem she saw moving. She primarily focused on the ones faw away from the ground team to give them an easier time advancing.

As she rained down hell, Kana heard the distinct sound of a Vornem sniper rifle. By the time Wilhelm called out the sniper, her attention was already directed to tracking the position of the new threat. She could see the air trail that the bullet left. Her mind raced as she processed her thoughts, changing her aim towards the craters. She increased the zoom of the scope, looking quickly but carefully. It didn't take long for Kana to spot the sniper, who was readying their next shot.

Kana stared at the sniper for a moment before quickly shifting her aim down and firing. The bullet raced forward and a small explosion in the air went off. It was hard to see, but Kana blocked the sniper's shot with her own. As she shifted her aim back to the sniper, she loaded another bullet into the chamber and fired, killing the sniper before they had time to process what just happened.

"Sniper down, moving back to close targets"

Kana shifted her aim back to the swarm of Vornem in front of the ground team, focusing the ones hiding behind the drop pods.

 

[Midrick]

Drew waited as smaller peebles and rocks shifted as the drop pods made impact with the asteroid landscape. He could feel the weight of some of the larger rocks and rubble pressing down on him. He could hear the chittering bugs around him now, he couldn't hear any comm chatter, he had gone dark, no way he was taking a chance on them intercepting a transmission and tracing it to him. Only after he heard asshat No. 1 start screaming about entering melee, did he decide to make his surprise entrance. His thought of the suprise entrance made him laugh on the inside, whenever one of the CO's birthdays they would get on of those strippers in the cake. You boys are gonna get one helluva suprise, that's for sure. he thought.

Drew surged through rubble, he also kicked up a giant cloud of dust from the sudden shifting of the rock, it might mess with his optical targeting systems, but that didn't matter, he was way to close to miss. He felt recoil driving back into his shoulder as the AUG ripped golf ball sized holes into the Vornem. He heard the click of an empty mag, and cursed himself for not reloading his empty and used mags when he had the chance. Instead of drawing his sidearm like any sane individual, he made a quick jerking motion with his left arm while rapidly clenching his fist, the blade that was resting inside the armor gauntlet shot out and he charged one of the grunts that survived his initial onslaught.

He punched into the Vornems stomach feeling the serrated edge of the long blade grind through tissue, he ended his kill with a particularly violent flourish, he brought his arm up through the corners torso and head, bisecting it in a clean vertical slice. He suddenly remembered what he had attached next to his handgun. He drew the plasma sword, the hilt being the only thing left, he hit what he guessed was the activation switch, the Ice colored plasma shot out of the port at the end of the hilt, and some of the Vornem were visibly shaken by seeing a human in possession of such a dangerous piece of vornem tech. He began to slice one handed with the plasma sword, amputating, and even cleaving bodies and body parts. It was like cutting butter with a hot knife, and body parts that were separated from their original owners floated freely in the low gravity of the asteroid, alien blood floating in globules along with them.

He felt himself getting stronger as adrenaline started pumping, and two grunts made the erroneous mistake of trying to engage him in hand to hand combat. He delivered a swift rear leg front kick to the first grunt, definitely cracking ribs, he then whirled around grabbing the grunts neck in a vice grip with his left hand. He then lifted it above the ground about 4 feet and then shifted to a downward throw in a savage choke slam. While the dazed grunt looked up at him he curb stomped it, crushing the head and spilling brains of the dusty landscape. The second grunt had finally recovered enough to stand. He rammed his arm blade into its midsection much like his very first victim, but instead of making fast movements, he moved slowly, actually hauling the grunt off its feet with one arm while it was impaled. Once he had reached the point where the grunt was sliding down the blade he brought the plasma sword across its midsection, bisecting it horizontally.

Drew looked at his handiwork, the broken and mauled bodies scattered around him, before shouting up at the sky, his display of strength and brutality shocking some of the other grunts into a rout. He turned his comms back on as he looked toward ten twenty and Wilhelm. "Now THAT is what a real melee looks like boys, don't forget it." he looked at the big man as he said the last part, he was still sore about the hangar incident. He disengaged the arm blade and plasma sword, he the walked inside the bunker and reloaded his AUG.

RandomBlobMan Kabboom

 

[Viper Actual]

With fighters being scrambled de Vries made sure to keep his back clear. As much as he could he'd rather not go into a dogfight unless he had some really good odds to win it. For now he'd remain on strafing duty. By the look of things the Vornem were intent on storming the base like there was no tomorrow which in turn provided Trevor with a very target-rich environment.

He grinned once more underneath his helmet and, as he got into position for another strafe, he activated his hull-mounted speakers.



Flares, ECM projectiles and heavy gunfire was all unleashed upon the Vornem as Trevor's gunship came soaring down for another strike. The loud BRRRRRRTTTT was followed by a thunderous crackle as the gunship reached optimal speed. For a few seconds it looked like de Vries was about to crash when the ship suddenly yanked itself back into space.

Over the radio the sound of de Vries laughing could be heard. "Secondary strafe completed. That'll show those motherfuckers."

 

[GearBlade654]

Max Braum, Sword Battalion Shock Trooper
Status: In Combat
Actions: Opening Fire!

Max had a grand total of zero seconds to be ready before the Vornem counterattack started. The shock trooper grunted, and stared at the sky, before calmly chuckling.
"It seems we have yet more Vornem to slaughter, ja?"
The shock trooper instantly followed Wilhelm ( Kabboom ) without a word, but was noticeably tense until climbing onto the railgun platform.
Then Max finally spoke.
"A good day for war, isn't it?"
The shock trooper wasted no time going to work. He looked absolutely idiotic, yes, but looks could be deceiving.
A point Max proved as he stormed in towards a group of Vornem, MP42 firing away into the group. As Vornem weapons fire harmlessly bounced off Braum's armor, grunt after grunt crumpled on the ground, and the last grunt found itself engaged in melee with Braum, who had conjured dual knuckles out of metal.
Braum ducked under the grunt's punch before delivering a powerful right hook, sending the grunt flying a good foot away.
"Storm our base, eh? Well, all of you are going to learn quite the painful lesson today!"
Braum felt a shot dink off his chestplate and instinctively took cover, noticing a couple grunts that had chosen to open fire. Braum decided to greet his oppressors with an incendiary grenade, smack dab in between them.​

 

[Kabboom]

Wilhelm

The team of Swords were raising hell as is. Kana's quick annihilation of the snipers gave everyone relief from the snipey twerps. Those two pods that landed within the perimeter were close, but no cigar. Braum's incendiary grenade melted a fair few of grunts, dropping a few and wounding the rest. All of this information, while Wilhelm sat on his ass atop the railgun. This armor's capabilities were a godsend. Unfortunately, it seems their luck is up.

The big mean fuckers beyond, the ones gathering under their own shield generator with all the fancy armor and tactics, seem to have been done gathering. The withering rain of grunt drop pods did not let up, but intensified. More and more drop pods came raining down in front of the kill-zone set up by Ten-twenty and the two skirmishers, Drew and Braum. The big mean fuckers stepped out from their shield's protection, and... marched at the railgun's position, like it was still the Napoleonic ages. What the fuck are these guys doing?!

Their weaponry was not Napoleonic, though, for rounds similar to their sniper rounds - though without the precision of their snipers - started landing around both Wilhelm and his men. The grunts marching were a lot better equipped than the drop pod guys. Zooming in while popping off some shots, Wilhelm took a better view, and sent the information through to the team, and High Command: Napoleonic rank and file marching, three grunts deep by ten, no, twenty grunts wide, using higher quality guns. Inbetween the blobs were big-ass walking armored aliens - a different species than the grunts, no doubt - charging up some sort of plasma weaponry.

Good news, though: the techs relayed the information that the railgun was online. Even better news: The techs managed to jury-rig the thing for tactical fire support. Plugging his controls into the railgun's tech interface, and the techs did their magic - the railgun was online for blowing up grunts. Wonderful. "Everyone, be advised, railgun is live and ready for tasking. Call out any targets worth blasting, and I'll blow it to bits, over."

RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Midrick FabulousTrash GearBlade654 Trappy

 

[RandomBlobMan]

Ten gave Drew a big thumbs up as the man finished off the grunts in a stylish, sword slashing fashion. These soldiers were simply the greatest humanity could offer. They were indeed good teammates he could count on.
A menacing “click” as Ten finally finished reloading echoed to his ears through his armor. The giant man’s grin widened even more. The armored man crawled out of the bunker for a better view of the killzone. Soon he almost regretted his choice. There were huge number of drop pods dropping onto the area. Taking position next to one of the now empty drop pods, Ten mounted the machine gun on his left and aimed for the incoming enemies.
“We have more grunts inbound, I can see more drop pods on the surface.”
He said as he pulled the trigger. Recoil shook his body as each bullet left the gun to ravage the aliens.
“No need for fire support sir, not yet! I’ve got this HANDLED!”

 

[Viper Actual]

Trevor glanced over his shoulder and down at the battle. By the look of things and by the sound of the comms it looked like the Vornem had finally deployed some real troops. He chuckled.

Too bad they just walked into a firing range.

While the others made their moves de Vries spun around for a third strafe though this time there was no sound of a cannon. It looked like he was gliding down towards the Vornem troops at an accelerating speed. Then, suddenly, a burst from every forward-facing weapon he had onboard meant to shock and disrupt the enemy advance. He was getting closer. The dropship ceased fire and maintained a steady approach now mere meters over the ground.

As the ship began to fly right above the heads of the alien horde it suddenly rolled over. One Vornem in particular looked up and was met with a Human pilot flipping the bird on him just seconds before a cloud of razor-sharp metallic ECM-projectiles were ejected into the aliens followed by a series of incendiary flares.

The ship rolled back over, accelerated and made a quick ascent. On the way up de Vries wondered if he had just committed a warcrime.

 

[FabulousTrash]

Kana Mitsu

Kana continued to rain down fire from above, taking out exposed targets and covering her team down below. Every few minutes, she'd double check on the repair team working on the railgun, making sure they were getting swarmed.

It felt like forever until she heard the comms fill with chatter once again. She heard the call that new enemies had joined the front. Shifting her aim, she looked down to where the new threat was located. Kana immediately noticed the different weaponry, which seemed energy based. The people behind the weapons looked different too. Lining up her sights, Kana took a shot. The bullet raced down, punching through whatever armor the Napoleonic-like baddies were using. She quickly aimed another shot, and fired. One by one, they began to fall. Some were looking around, trying to figure out where the fire was coming from. One managed to spot her, but Kana noticed immediately through her scope and was quick enough to reposition before plasma fire came raining down at her location.

From where she was now Kana could see alot more of the battle going on outside the station. There were ground troops all over the place and some ships were deployed to counter the Vornem fleet. That was when she heard the call that the railgun was up and running and that they had direct control over it. Kana was quick to scan the surrounding area, seeing if there were any targets of value. Across from her, she could see the main gate that lead out onto the surface of the moon they were on. There was a large flood of Vornem pushing through. Quickly, Kana got on her comm.

"Theres a large group of Vornem pushing the main gate, looks like a small battalion. We cant let them advance or else they'll swarm the station and get behind us."

Kabboom

 

[ParadoxiiNight]

1 | Her name is Slip because she might just 'slip' reports about you to your commander... What a snitch...

[System] Milky Way
[Vector and Sub-Vector] 2FES, 1FS
[Stellar Body] Saturn
[Location] Titan
[Coordinates] 223.10114

[BPM] 54
[Blood pressure] 121/84
[Body Temp] 36.6
[Cortisol (mcg/dL)] 21

[Internal Threat Level (ITL)] Low
[External Threat Level (ETL)] Highly Critical
[Team Threat Level (TTL)] --

Slip listened to the Titan comms silently and observed the ongoing battle from in between a few piles of rubble. Crouched silently with her IC cloak tech activated, she couldn't help but appreciate what the techs had called the 'Shadow Pattern CTM0'. It kept her almost completely hidden when she was still and camouflaged her better than any human tech could when she moved. Nearby, rows of Star Empire aliens marched past in perfect rows - spiked, coloured or semi-humanoid, the diversity was strangely intimidating, and that was before one took into account the weapons they held.

"CTM, remind me to salvage tech for R&D when ETL is low."

"Noted." The response the Shadow Suit's AI was almost immediate despite the rapidly fluctuating graphs and numbers on the bottom left display of her visor. That wasn't counting that the suit was almost constantly monitoring her basic medical stats, the number of enemies around her, her exact location within space and the general status of her allies, which she saw as 'alive', 'injured', 'deceased' and 'unknown'. "Current ETL is highly critical. Would you like to adjust suit mode to auto?"

[Suit Mode] Converting...

Glancing out at the battlefield and the hundreds of Star Empire soldiers lying dead and eviscerated on it, she nodded slowly. "Yes, thank you, CTM."

Smiling at the comforting weight of her treasured HTI, a sniper rifle that she liked to melee enemies with, a rather useful SMG - a P90 with a plasma ammunition adjuster, the PAD, which allowed her to use IC ammo - and a fancy pistol that she liked to construct and deconstruct to pass time, she unhooked one of her special drones. Space drones were older technology, but sometimes, she liked to do things the old-fashioned way. They were also useful for blowing things up from a distance in strategic or hard to reach places. She had two drones; one for normal and high gravity environments and the other for low-grav environments like the goddamn rock that she was supposed to call home for another year - and that brought her back to her current situation.

'Titan my ass, it should have been called fucking shark bait.'

Trusting CTM to alert her if she was in direct danger, she tuned her helmet display to her drone's recording and control channel and used the nav screen on her wrist to fly it around the battlefield and mark enemies. On her mini-HUD, a couple of gold arrow indicators appeared - the Sword Battalion that had just returned from a mission, most likely - and then dozens of green indicators and hundreds of red ones. Her eyes widened as she comprehended just how screwed they could be. She could only hope that the Star Empire commander on that huge ship that just crashed into the base wasn't as sharp as she feared. Which was stupid, but what was she supposed to do? She had been denied permission to board the battleship if or when a boarding party was deployed - goddamn beauracrats - so she had to stay here and somehow fight hordes of enemies and 'join Sword 1'.

And that was on top of everything else going through her mind right now. Being a stealth expert, her main missions had always been special target sole takedowns - STSTs, as her ex-commander would say. Unlike most operatives, she was always thinking high - that is, thinking of high priority targets like commanders, snipers and enemy stealth operatives or units. After all, behind the soldiers is a higher authority, and much like when you cut off the head of the snake, the rest of it won't last much longer. That, and snipers were a pain in the fucking arse. In her early stealth days, she had learned quickly that snipers were the most likely to spot you and ruin a mission. Not that they were always competent, but taking them out before they took you out or put the rest of their forces on alert was always a good idea.

Sword Operative Trevor Van de Vries marked for discipline report.
Sword Operative Honjin Yun marked for resource misuse.
Sword Operative unknown marked for resource misuse.

As she scanned the field for any big targets, she stopped and zoomed in on one of the strangely smooth black boxes that had led the assault. She switched on her drone's admittedly somewhat dated analysis system and pinpointed the supervisors who were directing the unloading process.

'They must have balls of steel,' she thought, watching the supervisors do their work unblinkingly as railgun rounds pummeled the shields and were rendered useless to a level she had rarely seen. "CTM, make notes to report resource waste issues after the conclusion of the battle." She glanced at a giant man firing 20mms from a machine gun and shook her head. "Mark him on the collection footage."

"Operatives marked," CTM acknowledged, and then went silent once more. Sometimes the AI was comforting, but other times it just made her feel... empty.

Shaking her head, she turned back to searching and watched a pilot start into a beautifully executed strafe... while rotating towards the ground and flipping the Empire soldiers the bird. Maybe it would have amused her if they were playing a game, and it did, admittedly, amuse her somewhat now, but she nonetheless told CTM to mark him as well. It wasn't a war crime exactly, but it needed review. If she ever did something like that, her ex-commander would have decked her. Not literally, but it was ethics and discipline, and both were no less important out here in space than they were on Earth or Mars, even in low-grav environments against aliens that wanted to wipe out their entire fucking species. They were goddamn soldiers, not terrorists or criminals, and that was so close to crossing the fucking line! Her ex-commander had said it on her first day: they weren't Vornems and the tragedy of New Olympus could not be inflicted upon the enemy unless there was no other option.

Therefore, ethics.

Therefore, discipline.

She sighed and bit her lip. Maybe it was only those two operatives, but Sword 1 was looking more and more like a mess. New and talented, certainly, but if someone wasn't harsh on them now, then they wouldn't learn. There was a huge difference between being a veteran and being a Sword veteran, after all, and that made most of Sword 1 a bunch of newbies despite their much higher than average skills and knowledge.

After only 76 seconds of searching - 18.5 of which were used to mark and capture footage of discipline issues - she decided on her most likely target: the strangely smooth black boxes. They had led the assault but dropped down further away to unload people and materials. They were still bringing out more materials and stacking them nearby, and among them, she could spot a few AAs and even crates of SE plasma swords.

Comms active

Despite the large-scale attack, Slip had received no orders apart from the response to her query about the boarding party and as she hadn't been able to join Sword 1 yet, she had no commander and thus, no target. She clicked her comms on. "TIØTAN, TIØTAN. This is NAØRAK. Supply dropships equipped with some sort of deflector shield sighted. Large supplies of Star Empire technology are on Titan now. Objective requested. Over."

 

[Kabboom]

GM

Vornem McVornemface was having a great time on this battlefield. Unknown to most of the Homin scum, his broodkin are landing all around this despicable base on the gas giant's moon - in a few more waves, the blood of his broodkin would've paved the way for the Vornem lords to march inward and slaughter Homin with valor. Marching in line with his elite brood, McVornemface had a good overview of the current battlefield, marching upon one of the enemy railgun emplacements. The regular broodkin landing in front of his formation were doing their righteous duty, occupying the foe for the Vornem lords and their divine masterful tactics.

Rank and file was fun! They were firing off shots at the railgun emplacement defenders now! The Homin scum there, which McVornemface estimates to be at least a hundred, are putting up a good fight. He was so carried away with firing shots while marching that he didn't notice the human ship flying up on the formation. McVornemface paid attention however, when all forward-facing guns on the ship annihilated all the broodkin to his left. Looking up at the thing flying past, McVornemface just happened to catch a glimpse of a Homin pilot, raising up its longest digit pointing down at him and his broodkin. The rain of ECM-projectiles and incendiary flares soon followed, slapping into the rest of McVornemface's position.

And McVornemface fucking died.

Wilhelm

"Copy that, Kana. Rotating now." Wilhelm spoke easily, as he redirected the gun platform. He could feel the whole gun rumble through his suit and moved at a leisurely speed - thankfully, the techs had limited the traverse speed to accommodate him being on the gun itself. The other flanks were getting pounded as hard, if not harder than this railgun platform the Swords were defending, which wouldn't be a problem if it were also Swords defending those points. Unfortunately, the regular boys got those fronts, and God knows they'll need a shit ton more help. The railgun rotated just in time for Wilhelm to catch the full spectacle of de Vries' pass (hopefully the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to the aliens). "Good fuckin' pass, flyboy! Helluva drop, lots of fucking dead." Without even zooming in, Wilhelm could tell that the Vornem were very concerned about this turn of events. The front row of big-ass danger grunts were completely annihilated, while the formation behind it was horrified at the act. de Vries received very little in the form of pursuing infantry fire from that pack.

The railgun pointed down at the Vornem grunts pushing the main gate, and with an earthshaking discharge, cut the Vornem battalion in half. A bright blue blaze, accompanied with electrostatic interference in a wide angle, enough to scramble Wilhelm's HUD for just a moment. A large bunch of debris was flung up in the air, as well as Vornem grunt bits and pieces mixed in with Titan's dust. The tech spewed out a bunch of specs and recovery time, as another voice joined Wilhelm's feed. More drop pods made it through the thick AA blanket and landed closer to the railgun, with one landing right on top of Ten-Twenty's communication bunker as the new voice, apparently called "NAØRAK", detailed her findings and requested new objective.

Wilhelm relayed the information to de Vries. "Copy that, NAØRAK. Lotta fuckers out here, take down targets of opportunity. Get up close and try sabotage if possible, over." Wilhelm commanded calmly, as he popped off more shots down at the Vornem. This was getting more hefty.

RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Midrick FabulousTrash GearBlade654 Trappy ParadoxiiNight

 

[Viper Actual]

"Good fuckin' pass, flyboy! Helluva drop, lots of fucking dead."

Trevor couldn't help but grin as not only was his stunt very effective- it had been quite the show as well. Reckless or not the boots on the ground could use all the inspiration they could get while the Vornem motherfuckers deserved to know that they weren't safe as long as they were still breathing. That was a promise.
When the comms began to light up with intel on Vornem supply ships de Vries paid close to attention. He began to circle for a bit as his sensors zeroed in on the alien LZ sitting behind the oncoming enemy forces. "Vampire Zero-Niner to NAORAK. I have the targets in my sight and I am preparing to strike. Requesting splash, over."

That said the dropship began to spun momentarily as de Vries planned out his attack run before suddenly boosting forward. Roughly five hundred meters out the air above the LZ was lit up with gunpod projectiles, missiles and flares followed by two bright trails as Trevor steered upwards with a quick yaw-maneuver.

Kabboom ParadoxiiNight