Futuristic Hostile Contact IC

[RandomBlobMan]

Bad news, the Vornem managed to land a drop pod on the bunker Ten was taking cover in. Now he had to handle some more of those puny grunts. Even worse, he had just finished reloading. Now he was conflicted between beating them to death with his armored hands or shooting armor piercing beautiful 20mm ladies through their face like a rocket going through wet tissue. The man casually walked out of the bunker, thinking very hard to himself, as the grunts jumped out of the drop pod. Finally, he made up his mind.
"COME FORTH, XENO BASTARDS!"
Ten exclaimed-ignoring the fact that the only people that could hear them was his teammates on the comms, listening to his intense screams on 50% volume- and charged at the aliens with his gun mounted on his back. He lunged at the grunts and punched one poor alien soldier in the face. It was too graphical to describe how his dental appointment went. Then the hulking beauty of a man proceeded to make the other grunts' brains into .zip files with one clean hits each. After he was done, Ten finally pulled the gun off his back and turned to the approaching army of Vornem. The man made his way down and positioned himself behind one of the drop pods that dropped earlier, fixing his gun to the ground with the massive bipod thing. It was time to start the shooting again.
"Comms bunker's getting a bit hard to see from with drop pods around. I'm taking cover behind one."
He barked into the comms as he started blasting at the approaching troops.

 

[ParadoxiiNight]

2 | Welcome to the Comms

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

[BPM] 64
[Blood pressure] 121/84
[Body Temp] 36.6
[Cortisol (mcg/dL)] 21.6

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

For the first second after she sent the transmission through, Slip had already calculated that the likelihood of receiving a response from Titan command was somewhere between futile, hopeless and not happening. And then the voice came through. "Copy that, NAØRAK. Lotta fuckers out here, take down targets of opportunity. Get up close and try sabotage if possible, over."

Comms active

"Received; wilco," she responded, ignoring, for the most part, the casual tone and swearing. It wasn't an uncommon thing to come across within military forces in general. It was just... not a preference of hers. If she was honest with herself, she was just relieve to receive a reply. She hated being useless.

Shaking her head, she switched her view to her suit cams once again, selecting another setting on her wrist nav. Her drone responded, remaining stationary above the conflict and switching to automatic sonar detection mode. It wouldn't detect the SE soldiers in the soldier and supply drop pods, but as soon they came out...

Seconds later, another voice came over the comms. "Vampire Zero-Niner to NAØRAK. I have the targets in my sight and I am preparing to strike. Requesting splash, over."

"Roger that, Vampire Zero-Niner. Need a few seconds. Wait over." She took all of 1.5 seconds to act, removing her HTI from its magnetic back holster with a practised twirl and focusing in on the spot which a hail of missiles had just battered with merciless efficiency. Visually, she raised an eyebrow as she scanned the wreckage for precisely another 5.4 seconds, but inside, she was impressed. "Vampire Zero-Niner. All dead except four tangos; three disabled, one uninjured. Currently targeting the last. Will eliminate others. Wait over."

Tensing her shoulders and clenching her jaw, she let the suit still her body in a second; with too much adrenaline and not enough time to settle down and still herself. Well, there was, but she would not sacrifice reaction speed for steadiness when she didn't require 98% immobility and could let CTM take it to 70% for her. Then, she levelled the aiming cross of her beautiful HTI at the soldier's head and pressed the trigger. Instead of falling like it may on Earth, the soldier just stopped, floating slowly to the ground, a tiny trail of suspended blue blood droplets drifting behind him. But she didn't stop to watch the sight, instead moving onto the other three with the same efficiency.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

They hit in succession, and even as she lowered her sniper to make a report, she knew intuitively that she had six shots left until she needed to reload and that it had been approximately 12 seconds since last contact with the pilot. "Vampire Zero-Niner. Tangos down. Out," she said shortly, ending the transmission and focusing on another group enemies.

Then, just as she focused on the HUD, her ears were assaulted by the loudest shouting she had heard for... quite a while.

"COME FORTH, XENO BASTARDS!!!"

"Pfft." she muttered, finding herself irritated by the other soldier's overenthusiasm. "Does he not realise that sound doesn't travel in space?"

She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the other group of enemies. They were isolated from the rest of their forces, unsupported by other units. For the most part, they appeared to have avoided attacks from the rest of Sword 1. "Sword 1. Tangos spotted. Engaging. Out."

Of course, they wouldn't be so unscathed in a few minutes. Slip sighed and switched out the magazine, replacing it with some implosive 11mms, and turned her aim on them.

She breathed in slowly and fired.


Kabboom Viper Actual RandomBlobMan

 

[GearBlade654]

Max Braum​

Status: Full of Adrenaline​

Actions: Holding the Line​

​

Toblerone man was not enjoying his day.
Max Braum grunted as he checked his MP42. Ammo count still running high, but it was definitely starting to look a bit low. But Max wasn't one to back down from overwhelming odds.
"Alright... bring it on."
MP42 rounds shrieked forward as Braum took position to one of the railgun's sides. A MP42 wasn't the best at taking out big enemies, but in terms of smaller enemies, it was perfect for the job. And Max proved it by spraying round after round at the oncoming horde.
Now, in normal cases, he would run out of ammo soon. But Max was no ordinary person. He was a Sword Battalion trooper... with the ability to control metal.
And metal, could go into rounds.
"Max Braum here, holding these damn Vornem off. Running low on actual ammo, going to have to make my own real damn soon."​

 

[Kabboom]

GM

Clusters of Vornem were encircling the entirety of Titan base quickly; the bastards don't seem to give up, or have any concept of finite reinforcements. Drop pod after drop pod after drop pod came crashing down onto the surface of this moon, with grunts flooding out and being subsequently mowed down. The human Interplanetary Military units on-base at the time, which included the 250th Brandenburg Regiment and the 2nd New Olympus Regiment, were dug-in as all hell, with machine gun nests, bunkers, trenches, minefields aplenty - but the Vornem kept coming. How many have come now - two thousand, three thousand ish? There's still more. Worst of all, this meant that the Vornem dreadnought that fired upon the base prior had enough capacity for all these bastards - is this even a dreadnought? What if this is actually the combat capability of one of their troop ships?

Regardless, they must fight on. The other gun platforms are being held by platoons of men, with heavy machine gun support, air support, artillery support and divine support. The Swords numbered to around ten, with a singular gunship doing the supporting - but by God, they were holding like hell.

The Vornem that Slip targeted had hoped to sneak by undetected and hit the platform from the flanks. Of course, that hope vanished when their squad leader's sternum-equivalent exploded from the precision strike explosive 11mm she delivered. Springing quickly into action, the rest of the grunts hit the moondirt and started firing indiscriminately in her general direction. They wouldn't hit shit and they'd give away their position to the rest of the gang, but that was enough to signify to the Vornem sniper a bit further behind them that something was amiss. A purple corkscrew alien shell torpedoed its way right over Slip's head, missing by mere centimeters.

The Vornem LZ that de Vries had lit up now lies in ruins. Dead, mangled, crispy grunts lay strewn about, as the destroyed AA guns and damaged smooth black box-ships sit there. A pretty good show from the pilot, but a fighter like that attracts competition, and it came in the form of a Vornem fighter duo. Two signatures soon popped up on Vulcan 1's radar scans closing in quickly, and a volley of corkscrew rounds soon pinged off of the gunship's hull and wings. The two bastards were flying cloaked, and they were intent on blowing the human rustbucket out of the sky.

Wilhelm

The railgun had recharged, and Wilhelm had sent it blasting at another hot-spot of Vornem, namely the one Max Braum had let some rounds loose at. A deep thrumming, massive fucking vibrations, aaaaaand the entire Vornem group was gone. This seemed to trigger something in the bigger Napoleonic group forming in front of them though. The Vornem grunts seemed to hoot among each other, and they broke out in a running charge. All of them, at once.

Shit.

"The big group of grunts are charging, everyone focus fire! Focus fire!" Switching to automatic fire, Wilhelm squeezed the trigger and didn't let go. The rounds weren't as accurate as before, but it doesn't fucking matter much when there's a wall of Vornem coming your way. In between reloads, he had to duck and squeeze tighter onto the railgun's body, as Vornem plasma rounds came his way, plinking and staining the railgun's chassis with scorch marks. Things kept getting better and better.

RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Midrick FabulousTrash GearBlade654 Trappy ParadoxiiNight

 

[ParadoxiiNight]

2 | Welcome to the Comms​

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

[BPM] 90
[Blood pressure] 121/84
[Body Temp] 36.6
[Cortisol (mcg/dL)] 21.6

[Internal Threat Level (ITL)] Low
[External Threat Level (ETL)] Extreme
[Team Threat Level (TTL)] Extreme

Naturally, instead of backing down from the fire, she stayed herself unflinchingly as the bullets flew past, sending CTM into a panic, and moved onto the next soldier. Her arms moved like she had been sniping since the day she was born and she shot the next one, more out of spite than anything. She ducked down and sighed. She would have to move. It had been a good position, too, but SA soldiers were noticing that their units were firing on her position.

CTM chimed with another warning that the threat level had increased to extreme and reported that enemy count had increased by however-many-percent - really, she knew that as the enemies increased, the likelihood of their survival went down. She glanced behind her and her deadpan expression became, if possible, more deadpan. Behind her, two dozen SA soldiers pursued her, and not a second later, plasmablasts slammed into the ground and wreckage around her. Her heart sped up, though not with fear. A grin spread over her face.

Comms active

"Let's play hide and seek," she whispered, letting adrenaline fill her and sprinting down one line of wreckage. She activated the comms. "Currently engaged, two dozen tangos and a stealth unit in the west. Out." She ducked around one corner and then another and climbed on top of the wreckage. With an efficient roll, she came to rest on her stomach and stilled herself. Her body vibrated; she could feel the valves in her heart working, pumping blood around her body. CTM autoactivated her cloak and brought her to maximum system steadiness - 80%. With a conscious command, she willed the adrenaline to go away. Movement decreased the efficiency of her cloaking, and to achieve maximum efficiency, 98%, she needed to be as still as it was possible to be.

A few moments later, the Vornem rounded the corner and stopped up short, staring around confusedly. She ordered CTM to fly her drone close by and use its explosive function a couple of times. The drone swooped down seconds later, dropped a few small flashbangs and darted away again. The soldiers visibly tensed, dazed expressions on their face. Their eyes still darted around, searching for her. With a violent gesture, the commander divided them into four groups and they split up to search. She grinned. The command group went west, and two other groups went north and south. The remaining group marched east towards her, drawing closer and closer until they were right under the convenient piece of wreckage she was hidden on. Slip removed a smoke bomb manually, threw it down and jumped right after it, adrenaline pumping through her once again.

She hit the ground silently. Danger glittered in her eyes. There was a reason she and her boyfriend were on different deployments.

The smoke only obscured four of the six soldiers, but that didn't really matter. With her HTI in one hand and her Silencerco Maxim 9 Pistol in the other, she swung the larger gun mercilessly, feeling it crunch, pulverising the first soldier's neck and snuffing out its life. At the same time, she felt the vibration in her hand as she fired a shot from her pistol. The vague shape of a falling soldier and the disappearance of a dot on her HUD told her that the second was also dead. She holstered her HTI and shot the other two soldiers - bang, bang - and wasted no time leaping out of the smoke, pistol in her right hand and the blade in her left wrist extended.

She slashed one, stunning it, and shot the other. Before the first could recover, she delivered a spinning kicking, pressed her right arm up to its throat and shoving it back into the wreckage. With one swift stab, the sixth was dead and there were only three groups left out of the four.

"The big group of grunts are charging, everyone focus fire! Focus fire!"

The voice came through loud and clear. It almost made her jump, but her pride would not allow it. "Currently engaged. Wilco, out," she said through the comms, her voice edged with a dark, silvery undertone of enjoyment. Not that she enjoyed killing of course. No, no - it was the terrifying possibility of dying and the physical challenge and expertise that drew her in. Like drugs, it was addicting, and like drugs, it was easier to let them course through than to resist their pull. With a glance at her HUD, she confirmed the situation and made a new plan of action. She didn't have the time to kill all of them, but the west group would be in her way. Shrugging, she decided to do what she always did when she did have time.

Her pistol was holstered and her P90 was in hand. She let the adrenaline flow through her and sprinted. She really saved her P90 for when she absolutely needed it. It was an ammo drain and loud and had a hell of a lot of recoil even with a suppressor, whereas snipers and pistols were quieter and more exact. Nonetheless, she knew that sniping and stealthing required time - time that she currently did not have. Anyway, the P90 was a powerful weapon. It was great at mowing enemies down very quickly and worked amazingly on large groups.

Her sprint brought her to the group. They didn't hear her coming, but they must have felt the vibrations because they began turning, their guns loaded and primed. Taking advantage of the low-grav environment, she sprung into the air. Bullets flew past her, both from the group on the ground and that pesky sniper on the other fucking side of the battlefield.

In response to the bullet spray, she aimed her gun and released short bursts of fire. She saw her ammo count going down by six or seven bullets each time and grimaced. But they did there job, because when she landed and continued sprinting, all six, including the unit commander, were floating, dead corpses.

She was fully visible, but that didn't matter because she was quick. P90 aimed ahead of her, she slid into the cover of a small pile of wreckage barely above her waste and stilled, letting the cloak efficiency works its way up again. Staying crouched, she ducked, rolled and crawled until she was positioned nicely between two piles of wreckage and swapped for her HTI. The explosive rounds called out to her like fucking sirens and she loaded them with barely a thought. Her arms were light and sure and through the scope, she was dead on target.

Bang. Dead.

Bang. Dead.

Bang. Dead.

She shot them all mercilessly, took out the sniper with a grim finality and finished off the last of them with a flourish, and then her P90 was in hand once again and one bullet flew her head, and then another. Adrenaline and danger sang enticingly through her blood and body and mind. Their enemies were charging, countless aliens running towards them, firing madly, their mouths wide with unheard battle screams, rolling towards them in a sea of death and light and bodies. Her P90 tore into them like a sword through tissue paper.

"Stealth unit down, firing on the swarm, out," she reported. CTM chimed in with threat level warnings and ammo count and the little graphs and numbers on the edge of her helmet display went absolutely fucking crazy.

Turning off her comms, she whispered to herself, secretly, "Let's take this shitstorm."


Kabboom Viper Actual RandomBlobMan

 

[RandomBlobMan]

How many grunts could his trusty 20mm beauty of destruction go through before losing any fatal kinetic energy? It didn't really matter when the box filled with bullets was far from empty. Each shot sent recoil through his body, even through the massive armor, as Ten Twenty directed his fire to the charging cannon fodders. If they wanted bullets, well, they were going to get it. Big ones too. The destruction wasn't as big as the railgun's fire, but it was still quite more than a normal assault rifle's work. At least two grunts were mowed down with each shot, the energy literally shredding the first two victims. The ones behind them... they were a bit too far away for Ten to see.
"IS IT TOO EARLY FOR ANOTHER RAILGUN FIRE?!"

 

[Viper Actual]

"Shit!"

Whatever sense of pride and imagined cheering that would come as the result of having absolutely obliterated the Vornem LZ was quickly overshadowed by the thought (and fear) of being shot down. As far as his sensors and rear cameras could tell the enemy bogeys were shifting in and out of a invisibility cloak. That's going to make targeting a bitch.

While performing some basics rolls and yaws to dodge the incoming hail of plasma fire Trevor went over his alternatives. He had little in the way of anti-air weaponry. His ship wasn't equipped to handle stealth-craft. He had no other Human onboard to assist him with manual targeting of the rear gun. Lastly he couldn't call for help; the ground assault was keeping everyone on the ground too busy to even consider attempting to engage the enemy interceptors- a task which would be even more difficult as they went in and out of their invisibility.

Glancing over his shoulder, a daring plan began to take shape alongside a very, very evil grin which formed underneath de Vries' opaque visor.

Quickly, he made sure that his pilot chip began to prepare the onboard systems for an advanced form of autopilot. It would be relatively easy for the chip to provide the onboard navigational computers with some basic patterns and maneuvers taken directly from Trevor's own handbook though it wouldn't be too long until the Vornem might start to see the pattern.

Once the ship was ready de Vries steered upwards while rolling and spewing a thick smoke around him. It was a cheap move that wouldn't buy him much time. Luckily he only needed a few seconds. His piloting chair unlatched itself and began to move alongside a rail on the floor all the way into the rear of the craft where it stopped in front of the rear gunner station. Usually, during "normal" operations, a marine or another Sword member would man the gun standing or be seated behind it using a small and very stiff metal pad which was currently slotted neatly in the ceiling above the gun.

But because Vampire-9 had been launched without any proper mission planning and crew assigned to it Trevor would have to man the gun himself. He grabbed hold of the gun's twin grip and watched the HUD connect to his helmet, showing a brief scan of the smoke cloud in front of him. Even without the advanced gunnery HUD the pair of Vornem craft would have been easy to spot; large shimmering shapes pushing smoke aside as they emerged out of the decoy hellbent on shooting Trevor out of the sky.

Too bad they picked the wrong pilot.

De Vries' squeezed the trigger and watched as the 25mm autogun began to spew out armor-piercing projectiles at a rapid rate. The projectiles formed a spiral of lights- a side-effect of the dropship's constant barrel roll- which might have been something that Trevor would have thought to be beautiful if it wasn't for the fact that a cocktail of adrenaline and combat stimulants were trying to keep him as focused as possible despite the extreme G-forces he was currently fighting.

Kabboom

 

[Midrick]

After having a rail gun fire as well as lots of dead alien bits floating around for the air men's strafes. Drew was pretty satisfied, until the fuckers started to march out in napoleonic fashion. He had moved back into the bunker with the big man, after he heard Wilhelms cries. That fancy plasma sword wouldn't and his arm blade wouldn't help against a swarm. He started blasting with his AUG and did quick mag changes, there was literally targets everywhere, aiming wasn't a problem, then he suddenly had an idea. A lack of atmosphere meant that a shockwave would still form, albeit weaker then those in an atmosphere, it was better than nothing though he thought as he lobbed a high explosive grenade over the ruined piece of concrete he had taken cover behind into the center of the Vornem horde.

 

[FabulousTrash]

Kana Mitzu


Throughout the entire firefight, Kana kept up the pressure from above, covering her teammates and picking off key targets. Whenever enemy snipers showed up, she was quick to eliminate them, sometimes even before they fired a single round.

However, she was running out of ammo.

Kana didnt have time to replenish her ammo since they got back from the space station. Thankfully she brought more than enough, but she was down to her last 3 mags. She'd have to do something to make every shot worth it from here on out.

Kana got up from her perch in the watchtower, calling over the comm channel.

"Repositioning. I'm nearly dry of ammo."

Kana fired her grappling hook from her armor into the metal of the tower, jumping off the edge, the momentum swinging her back towards the wall of the tower. Her buckler system took most of the impact, but it still sent a shock through her body. She quickly lowered herself down to the ground, positioning herself directly right of the oncoming charge of Vornem. Kana released the hook, retracting it back to her armor as she took cover behind a barricade that was nearby. She rested her AMR on top, scoping in. She wasnt that far from the horde, but that was intentional.

Shots rang out as she fired. The large bullets punched through not just one, but lines of Vornem at a time, 3-4, sometimes 5. In regular circumstances, using such a high powered weapon close range was wasteful. However, when there are multiple bodies to hit, it tends to matter less.

Kana continued to support her team from the side, eliminating scores of Vornem from the back to try and reduce the number that would meet the rest of her squad head on.

Kabboom

 

[ParadoxiiNight]

Nasheen 'Slip' Korak​

4 | Blind Fire​

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

[BPM] 90
[Blood pressure] 121/84
[Body Temp] 36.6
[Cortisol (mcg/dL)] 21.6

[Internal Threat Level (ITL)] Low
[External Threat Level (ETL)] Extreme
[Team Threat Level (TTL)] Extreme

The P90 was quite remarkable, thought Slip. It wasn't the biggest gun - not like the giant of a man and his 20mm - but it was large enough and far better than a standard-issue assault rifle. That, and it had a ludicrously high ammo count. She was only lucky that she was carrying everything at the time, as she had only recently been deployed on the small moon. Again, the irony of its name - Titan - hit her and she deadpanned. The sooner they were off the little rustbucket, the better. Or not, as she would likely be fighting aliens or space pirates on another lonely moon.

Not so lonely anymore, she thought dryly, letting her P90 do all the work; mowing down the charging SE soldiers that stretch one side of her vision to the other, making holes in their alien faces, if some could be said to have faces, and leaving floating, undignified corpses in their wake that would be shoved aside or trampled seconds later. The terror-driven adrenaline that had filled her veins had since vanished, replaced by the same sort of calm and slightly disgusted boredom one felt when mowing the front lawn or taking out the trash. There was a point where the sheer, unending number of enemies stopped being terrifying and became pitiful.

She wasn't exactly behind the best cover either. If the aliens fired metal rounds instead of plasma, it was true that the ricochet could end up killing the SE soldiers, but ricochet in an area like the one she was crouched in would be deadly back on Earth. Perhaps not Mars, though.

Crackling beams of plasma flew over her head and slammed into the everything around her, leaving a plethora of singe marks and vaporising her cover little by little. The fire let up whenever she peeked over her cover and shot almost blindly into the horde, but the number of enemies was so ridiculous that it was hard to tell.

"Repositioning. I'm nearly dry of ammo." The voice that came over the radio was almost foreign to her. Despite the advancement of human civilisation, it was less common than she would have liked to meet other women on the field. Nonetheless, there were better times to think about things like that, so she shut the thought out and narrowed her eyes at another sniper.

She ducked back behind cover as a burst of plasma scraped over the shoulder of her armour, leaving a fine dusting of ash. CTM beeped and made yet another report on the close call - not like she could have missed it - but Slip didn't want to hear it. Between the danger level warnings and ammo and enemy counts and atmospheric gravity, her patience was running thin. Did she even need to know the gravity level when she'd been running around and fighting in it already?

Comms active

So she clicked on the comms, cutting of CTM in the middle of its recital and said, "NAØRAK to sniper. I have ammunition to spare. What do you need? Over."

Another blast from the sniper fizzled overhead, driving CTM crazy with more warnings. She would have turned it off, but her former commander had always told her not to. Instead, she set eyes on the pest in the three-second window she had before it could fire again and marked it on her HUD. She ducked just as another shot cleaved through the air where her face had been and swapped the P90 for her HTI. An idea struck her, and she grabbed a piece of wreckage and threw it over the cover, smirking when a shot zapped through the air and taking the opportunity to eliminate the target. Hold her breath, steady the cross aim, pull the trigger. And then it was dead. She ducked down again and switched back to her P90.

After a swift reload, she risked a glance over the wreckage, which was enough to assure her that the sniper was dead. She doubted she would forget the sight of its not-so-caring comrades shoving its body out of the way and charging onwards. Now all she had to was reposition before her cover was vaporised by the overwhelming plasma-gun fire from the horde.

FabulousTrash

 

[Kabboom]

GM

De Vries was a master of the dakka. Dakka dakka dakdakdakdakka. That's his specialty, and the Vornem were more than aware of it - their brethren on the ground loathed the rustbucket for blasting their broodmates to smithereens, while the pilots above hissed internally at his piloting skills. His burst of 25mm out the ass of his gunship nicked one of the two stealth-craft as they emerged through his smokescreen. The vehicle sparked blue and red, as its energy shields struggled to keep up with the incoming rounds; seems they were more than prepared for energy weapons, and less so physical projectiles. The afflicted stealth-craft soon had its shields collapse inward, and its cockpit splattered with autocannon rounds.

Without wasting time, its counterpart fired off a salvo of 6 tracking missiles, along with a complementary burst of corkscrew shells that littered the hull of Vulcan 1. The shots didn't do shit, but the missiles definitely will blow him out of the sky. With that done, the stealth-craft soon pulled up and out of sight as its stealth rendered it invisible to all but radar.

On the ground, the mass of Vornem took massive hits. Rank after rank, body after body of Vornem grunt lied dead and gone on the moon dust - their comrades would step over the splattered corpses, only to be splattered in turn by the overwhelming firepower put up by the Swords team. Ten-twenty's autocannon was particularly nasty, cutting swathes through the charging formation like a lawnmower; those who tried to avoid the 20mm madman's ire soon found themselves (along with 3-4 other grunts behind them) cut apart by the precision of Kana's AMR. The mass was thinned out, but even as they died and charged, more were seen atop the horizon, adding to the dogpile of grunts clawing their way into Titan base.

A shocking crack of gunfire raked Ten-twenty's position, its plasma pulses glowing a bright green, as opposed to the purple and blue color schemes produced by the grunt plasma weapons. A lumbering figure, towering a full meter above even Ten-twenty, soon emerged from the ranks: the thing looked like a centaur, if a centaur were armored by nasty alien carapaces, and had a few machine guns for a right hand. The grunts cleared the path for this juggernaut-thing like clockwork, and the thing charged at Ten-twenty, all 3 barrels blazing - this unknowingly put the thing at risk of Drew, as it passed his position without much notice of the skirmisher.

​

Wilhelm

Command established comms with him as Wilhelm slapped another magazine into his weapon. The common chirp of radio interference and callsign exchanging went in one ear and out the other, until two words filtered into Wilhelm's brain through all the adrenaline: 'artillery' and 'available'. A battery of rocket artillery has been made available for him - perfect. He took a pause from lighting up alien scum to contact the battery of arty, codenamed 'Deathstorm 2' (nice). "Deathstorm 2, this is Sword 1, I've got a swarm of hostile infantry here, sending coordinates. Fire for effect, HE and Frag, over." His personal AI took care of the coordinates and rangefinding - thank you technology! The response came quickly, which was just the coarse voice of Deathstorm 2's radioman repeating target composition and munitions; unfortunately, Wilhelm didn't catch the second half of the response due to a surprise Vornem teleportation.

The lone tech manning the railgun platform was skewered through the back with a plasma sword, killing him instantly. A lightning-fast blip appeared on the railgun, and his AI soon updated the battlemap with 6 new unknowns around his position. An elite Vornem teleportation attack?! Acting fast, Wilhelm swung his rifle around, but was soon intercepted by an alien palm grabbing the rifle tightly. His gun swatted out of his grasp, Wilhelm now stared down an elite Grunt, much like the one he fought back on SDS-445 - except this Grunt had its plasma spear-halberd-thing driving directly into his gut.

With reflexes saving him, he sidestepped to the right and slapped the weapon tip away at the non-plasma base of the blade. His right hand manifested Fingers of Doom - a very nifty ability to have in this situation - slashed across the Grunt's chest in retaliation, leaving 4 bright yellow trails across the width of the Grunt's torso. Looking directly to the right just in time to spot another elite Grunt going for a diving attack on him, the leader of this Swords team swung the bulk of his momentum to work, dodging to the left of the plasma blade and arms firmly placed on the shaft. Redirecting the spear tip, Wilhelm fatally stabbed a third elite Grunt (which had failed in sneaking up on him) with the captive plasma spear; the slight hiss of the advanced Vornem suit being ruptured could be felt through the vibrations on the plasma spear's shaft. A complementary smash to the face dislodged the Grunt still holding onto Wilhelm's plasma-spear, sending cracks throughout its visor.

Without missing a beat, the first Grunt that Wilhelm sliced with his powers came for seconds with a frontal stab, narrowly parried with a quick flick of Wilhelm's newly acquired plasma-spear. The Fingers of Doom across the chest should've been enough to wind the alien, as its skin would now surely be superheated and enduring massive amounts of fuckin' pain. Do these bastards have pain inhibitors? No time for thoughts, only combat. Stepping backwards, Wilhelm narrowly dodged or parried one stab or another from the two Grunts (another elite Grunt joined in, to make matters worse). One Grunt down, five more to go.

His lucky break came when he managed to deflect one plasma blade into another: drawing his Ruger Strikeforce .45 like a cowboy, he emptied half a magazine into the torso-slash Grunt, blowing hefty holes in its head and abdomen. His gun couldn't finish the job for Grunt 2, however, as the thing dropped its spear and lunged at him with a backup plasma-shortsword-thingy. A sidestep put Wilhelm at enough of an advantage to use his left hand to push the Grunt's arms out of the way, saving his face from being skewered by the stab - he swung his pistol around to blow holes into bellies, but was interrupted by the thing giving him a quick knee to the sides - the second Grunt wanted to do more, but Wilhelm wasn't one to go down quickly. Grabbing the thing's right leg with his left hand, both his palms activated Fingers of Doom - his left hand quickly tore through the thing's armor and lobbed the Grunt's right leg off, while his right hand created enough force to block the Grunt's next blade swing. As Grunt 2 lost balance (accredited to the loss of its leg), his left hand moved up to its featureless visor, and sizzling high temperatures soon burst through the alien glass alloy, cleaving directly into the brain.

Three down, three to go. Where was- Oof! Wilhelm had just been kicked to the side of the head, bringing his knees down to the metal platform. Looking up, he saw the same Vornem commander he'd faced off against on SDS-445. The bastard wanted seconds, and he was getting his rematch. With no weapons except his own powers, the Sword operative was defenseless, and his Fingers of Doom were barely enough to block the plasma longsword aimed for his throat; it didn't help that he was sent onto his back with another kick to his belly. With a glance, he could see that the other two signatures were combat engineers or something, as they'd dragged the dead tech out of his seat and started planting some sort of technological bullshit on the control interfaces. If they hacked into the railgun (somehow), they might blow a hole in Titan base defenses - and like hell was Wilhelm going to let that happen.

His left leg swept across the air, netting both of the Vornem commander's legs and dropping his ass to the railgun platform. With a trained hand, Wilhelm plucked a grenade from his pouches and tossed the thing - sans grenade pin - at the two combat engineers. With a roll, Wilhelm dropped off the railgun and left the two Vornem engineers to panic, before exploding violently. With great pain, he landed on the ground with the rest of his team, his servo motors strained to the max to prevent damage to its user. He had a feeling that the Vornem commander up top was still alive, but he should have more of an advantage down here. All of Sword 1 was updated on the situation with the railgun, and Command soon received the AI message that the railgun was lost.


RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Midrick FabulousTrash GearBlade654 Trappy ParadoxiiNight

 

[ParadoxiiNight]

Nasheen 'Slip' Korak​

5 | Making Friends

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

[BPM] 90
[Blood pressure] 121/84
[Body Temp] 36.6
[Cortisol (mcg/dL)] 21.6

[Internal Threat Level (ITL)] Low
[External Threat Level (ETL)] Extreme
[Team Threat Level (TTL)] Extreme

There aren't many situations in which Slip would admit to panicking. She was a trained agent, an efficient killer and well-disciplined. However, she would admit, perhaps only to herself, that her welcoming to Titan was less warm and sensible and more 'terrifying initial mass invasion by the Star Empire'. She hadn't been briefed for an invasion, nor had she ever participated in any large-scale conflict. Her previous unit had been a collection of lone-wolf types who liked to work in twos and threes to eliminate large groups of enemies. The only reason she knew how to operate a P90 was because her entire platoon had been required to have some sort of weapon that would save them if they botched up. Hence, the P90, affectionately known as 'the neighbour's lawnmower'.

In the past, she had been able to appreciate the P90 as an emergency measure and insurance in case she messed up a mission. It worked quite well to keep her alive on those occasions where she needed to get out fast and disappear. But now, she really wished she had something with a nickname like 'your everyday farmer cousin's thresher', or 'the local chainsaw murderer', because it would probably have been a much louder, but much more effective weapon against giant hordes of aliens. Really, if she had been told that she would have to - untrained and unbriefed - fight back against the initial wave of an alien invasion, she would have applied to take her vacation sooner, or to go somewhere else for war training, because she was not ready for this shit.

Then, CTM, which really needed a battle setting so that it wouldn't prattle on constantly about things that would inevitably occur in combat like this, stopped going off and highlighted something on the map. She asked for more information and swore. "Holy fucking shit," she blurted, immediately thankful that she hadn't left her comms on. "A new friend."

A few moments later, the comms crackled on to inform Sword 1 of their leader's brush with death, eliciting from her a stifled sigh of frustration - how goddamn many aliens did they have to go through? After some swift calculations and checking her yet unknown leader's position and then the positions of the team members closest to the three-gun, four-leg monstrosity, Slip decided that her commander would probably appreciate the assistance more than an experienced skirmisher and that huge force of nature that might be called a human, but should really be called a tank.

Her armour, already on visual, thermal and sonar cloak mode and synced to 70% effectiveness by her nice stay at the Rapidly-Being-Incinerated-Cover Motel - with complementary mints and lavender-scented bath towels - was ready for action. Her drone veered around to check the area near him. Slip, who lived by the phrase 'better safe than sorry', turned on the sound and impact absorbers in her suit and ducked through the mangled wreckage of what was once a functioning part of the Titan base. Plasma shots hammered almost everything around her, but she was trained enough in her stealth profession to know that it was mere bullet spray. As far as the charging SE army knew, she was still behind cover about 50 metres away. She smiled amusedly.

Comms active

In the corner of her display, an indicator in her HUD pulsed. She stopped in the shadow of some wreckage to switch her drone to area scan mode and holster her P90. It was a good substitute for the times when no one was there to watch her back on missions. Turning her comms on, she addressed the leader of Sword 1. "NAØRAK to Sword 1 actual, I am nearby for combat support." Another indicator pulsed on her HUD. Her drone had spotted the enemy commander. "Enemy commander spotted, 90 degrees left, 20 metres from Sword actual. Over."

While she communicated on her comms, she forced the adrenaline from her body and stilled herself to a level rivalled only by a statue or a particularly stubborn cat. CTM buzzed with a notification that her cloaks were on 98% efficiency and her absorbers on 99%. With a slight smile, she settled down and waited. It was only a matter of time.

 

[Soviet Panda]

Connor ran through the carnage of a battle the sound labored breathing echoing in his EARS helmet. His previous unit, as far as he knew, was dead, their position over run or gunned down as they mad their mad dash towards the nearest ally held stronghold. Well, as held as one could be with wave upon wave of Vornem crashing upon it and the railgun spontaneously exploding. Wait, he was no engineer, but he was fairly certain that was not supposed to happen. No, there was no time to think about that, he needed to stay alive. Keep moving, keep shooting, reload and repeat.

His automatic shotgun kicked into his shoulder as he fired round after round into the seemingly endless horde, his suit vibrated as it propelled him through the carnage. He was almost there, he was almost to the base, he was almost... A Vornem shot ricochet off his EARS, causing him to slip and fall to the ground, where he quickly scrambled behind cover. He saw Swordsman all around him, but due to him not being on the same radio frequency, didn't hear a word of what they were saying. but judging how their guns were pointed outwards and firing, he got the gist of it and did much the same.

 

[Viper Actual]

De Vries narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Under his gloves his knuckled turned white and under his flightsuit his muscles tensed up in response to the dogfight continuing. He was happy to see that at least one of the Vornem craft being blown to bits though whatever joy he had felt quickly turned into dread as the other followed up with missiles before breaking off.

Refocusing his attention to the missiles the onboard computer pulled up statistics related to the speed, size and type of payload related to the missiles as they slowly neared him. Shit.
Judging by the numbers on his screen he'd be nothing more but dust, should the missiles hit. No titanium-alloy armor or witty Top Gun references was going to help him.

He swiveled his gun around and began to engage the missiles using his autocannon, setting the ammunition to be fuze-activated which in turn made it act like airburst or flak munition, while the targeting computer presented neat reticles in front of the missiles to allowed for better and much more effective aiming. At the same time more flares and ECM-decoys were deployed though at this point the computer alerted De Vries that he was running dangerously low on countermeasures.

 

[Kabboom]

GM

The rocket artillery that Sword Actual called in was rocket artillery only by name - in truth, mass surface-to-surface bombardment in low-G environments demanded that the projectiles have navigation and guidance systems, since there was no gravity to rely on. Cluster-munitions directed HE and Frag missiles raining down from the skies, tearing holes into the ranks of Vornem charging. Preliminary damage reports using the Mk. 1 Eyeball reveal that over half of the Vornem grunts charging Sword 1's position have simply ceased to exist - pulped or powdered, the masses have been thinned to noticeable levels. Some of the grunts alive seem to hesitate, but their officers from behind are forcing them forward still. The ones who survived the blast have already reached the debris wall where Drew was stationed, but their fire is wildly inaccurate.

Things were not as lucky everywhere else, however. The Interplanetary Military were less capable than this team, and spread much more thinly - plus, they didn't have railgun support, so they're fucked. Garbled transmissions, clearly disrespecting protocols, began transmitting on common channels. "--Walls breached-- Fall back-- Enemy tanks-- Covering fire for the medics--" the list goes on and on. A unifying voice from the higher chain of command hits every member of the Swords team at once. "Sword 1, pull back to the interior defenses. Hostiles have overrun most positions, pull back now!"

Up in the 'air', de Vries' flak gambit had paid off: in the direction of the Sun, small flickers and glitches could be seen after a few flak round detonations - the cloaked stealthcraft has been made. Ducking down with great speed, it opened up with two corkscrew missiles, both of which went after Vulcan 1's countermeasures. Its deluge of autocannon rounds however were more successful, piercing the gunship's valuable engines. The stealthcraft then promptly exploded, as shrapnel from one of de Vries' rounds went right through the vehicle's rear hull, detonating its own engine and ammunition supply. In a sputtering cloud of smoke, what once was a Vornem vehicle now rained down onto the ground as a pile of debris. de Vries now finds himself without adequate propulsion, and limited control over his own spacecraft.

Wilhelm

Well, fuck then. "Copy, NAØRAK. Provide support whenever." Comms protocol has gone out the window now. "Grenades out! Regroup and fall back!" There was rubble behind them, and behind that, friendly units in makeshift defense positions - not ideal, but maybe the close quarters combat can delay the Vornem a bit longer for miracles to start working. Lead with example, always - Wilhelm reached for his packet of grenades, and started throwing them as he ran to cover. His own personal barrage of hell killed a good chunk of the newly-entrenched grunts at the perimeter wall, and he reloaded his sidearm in the (relatively) safe cover behind the railgun platform.

NAØRAK would soon pick up a signature directly behind Wilhelm, with the latter being distracted by looking at the overall defense situation of Titan base.

RandomBlobMan Viper Actual Midrick FabulousTrash GearBlade654 Trappy ParadoxiiNight

 

[Viper Actual]

"Fuck."

De Vries scrambled in near-panic to get back to the cockpit as his own engines began to spin out of control. His seat moved through the craft quickly and slid away from the rear gunnery position and back behind the flight controls. At this point every alarm that existed within the cramped space was going off. Engines were sealing themselves up to prevent an explosion. Coolant systems were kicking in. Ammunition storage was being locked. SOS beacon was being primed.

Cursing, de Vries tried to yank the stick in several directions in and effort to steer the craft using gliding and rudders only- an effort which proved to be very difficult. On the plus side some systems were working phenomenally; the climate controls and automatic cockpit shading systems were working just fine. As were the lockdown protocols. Gritting his teeth de Vries opened up comms:

"Mayday, mayday. Vampire Zero-Niner going down. Attempting emergency landing. Sword Actual- give those fuckers what they bargained for."

Then, before anyone could reply, the comms turned into white-noise before halting completely. I guess I'm all alone.

As the battle rage don below de Vries was slowly gliding downwards to the base. At this point there wouldn't be any open hangar doors so he'd have to land on one of the external launch pads and runways for larger and heavier craft, if not directly on the base roof. During the graceful descent the metal of the ship screamed in agony as one of the tail rudders and a couple of panels detached themselves mid-air.

Eyes locked on a rectangular bunker with a runway running next to it de Vries made small movements and adjustments to better guide himself down. When the ground approached rapidly he momentarily closed his eyes to utter a silent prayer before steeling himself for the collision that was about to come. Metal against metal was never a beautiful sound but in this case, at this speed, the sound resembled something of a scream as the dropship finally made contact with the ground. Tarmac and metal plating scraped against the hull of the ship as it slid across the ground in a crescent, leaving paint and scrap behind.

Finally the ship halted and de Vries felt all of his muscles and limbs slump down as he let out a long sigh of relief.

Kabboom