Futuristic ParaCom: Adversary Uncertain

[KaldorDraigo]

With approval from command, Leon slipped his finger from the guard to the trigger. Experienced eyes noted idle debris floating softly in the breeze and he adjusted accordingly. '2 knots, south east. 554 meters. Shifting 4 degrees....' Then pulled the trigger. His rifle, a heavily modified version of the Barrett XM109 anti-material rifle jerked heavily into his shoulder, armour piercing .50 caliber bullet blasting towards the ghoul's head. The sniper compensated for the recoil without thinking, and even before the suppressor muffled 'boom' sound fully registered with his ears, he'd scoped back to view the results of his shooting.

 

[DerUbermensch]

Center then showed the action in the main halls of the base recreational areas. "Reserves, watch and learn from our strike team! Those in the first meter of the television will be nauseated though." The screen was shown via top-notch satellite imagery.


Leon's shot connected to the ghoul's nose, leaving a messy mist. Needless to say was that Center's warning might come true to those who were too close. The other ghoul was startled and the first reaction was to take cover near a tree and then going on overwatch. It was ready to fire at anyone that gets within the effective range.

 

[KaldorDraigo]

The large .50 caliber brass shell tinkled off the roof and onto the floor. "Kill confirmed, Hostile 1 is down. Hostile 2 has taken cover behind a large tree, 300 meters on Alina's 2 O'clock. Be advised he is armed and on overwatch, proceed with caution." He didn't whoop or cheer for the kill. There was too much at stake to be distracted for even a moment, he swept his scope across his field of view. Searching for other enemies that might have reacted to his rifle fire.

 

[Fletchr]

Falk glances up towards the televisions screen, staring at the incoming video feed - He quietly folds his hands together, cocking an eye as the Ghoul's head is split into a mass of small, fleshy chunks. "Scheiße." He mutters, shifting his arms across his kneepads, He glances around the barracks for a moment before letting out another dull sigh, "Should be out there..." He says, grinding his teeth for a moment before simply leaning back in his seat, an irritated groan leaving his mouth.

 

[Derpestein]

Timothy had been hiding behind some nearby debris the entire time, watching everything happen. When the ghouls head exploded, he didn't even recoil. The man had already been in several battles in his tour of duty. Checking his rifle again, he almost sprinted forward to run forward and shoot at the creature.


Until it went into overwatch. Son of a bitch.


So instead, Timothy stayed in cover and hunkered down, keeping his head below the low cover he was in.

 

[Splat]

After the last of the soldiers had gotten off the craft, the Little Lady took to the air. "Alright lads, I've got a nice view from up here. Everything looks okay..."


He did a quick 360 of the area, then a warning flashed onto the screen.


"Alright lads, looks like we got eight ghouls heading our way in a hurry. They're about five hundred meters east. Know they're coming. Let's not attract any more attention than we have to."

 

[DerUbermensch]

Alina saw her chances. Assessing the amount of ghouls around the group's perimeter, she readied a rocket launcher. Leading the gaggle of ghouls to where she wanted, Alina aimed where collateral damage is minimal relative to the direction of the ghouls and to the group's position.


The Russian heavy fired with the rocket connecting to most of the ghouls. BOOM! Five were down and one of the remaining ghouls injured from the blast. It was now one on one when it came to operatives to ghouls.


Center then radioed, "Be careful when using explosives! At least nobody was in that forest when the rocket hit..." It also became apparent that the paranormal weaponry self destruct when the wielder dies. Nonetheless, the ghouls would make a good autopsy for the science team to help find out their origins. Dr. Semyonov then said to Center, "I have a request. For next mission or two, I'd like a live paranormal. We will provide a means to capture and an area to house them." Center felt weird at the request. "I'll...consider it though we may not know their language." Dr. Quincy backed her colleague with, "I have devised a way to do so! With it, we can find out their motives and their origin." "Fine...I'll look into it."


Meanwhile, the ghouls retreat into the barn to take cover. They didn't know it, but Alina was not too far from them. The ghouls were too busy hunkering down.

 

[ARSENIC]

For all his loud-mouthed talk, the moment the cameras were on, this was the real deal, and he was in his game. Bending over himself, Roderick disappeared into the tall grass, bolting through the barnyard area. For an assault, position was everything. Close-quarters meant if he wasn't able to get in and out before he exhausted the element of surprise or panic that he or his team would induce, he was a dead man. So the moment the ghouls decided to run with their tails between their legs, that was his moment to strike.


Steadying his assault rifle with his mechanical arm, kneeling over a bale of hay, the Scotsman decided to go completely and utterly to town on the poor, mangled sods, ruthlessly puncturing as many bullet-wounds into as any bogies as he could get - it didn't matter where they hit so long as they hit. They could die slow for all he cared, so long as they bled.

 

[Splat]

Every conversation that they had through their earpieces could be heard from the ship, so Chade got to listen in on Alina's one on one coversation with Center. This intrigued him greatly, telling Alina, "I'm willing to help you in this endeavor... No catch."


Then, switching channels to all combatants, "All right lads, news from the higher ups says they want a ghoul. Alive. Find one, restrain it and I'll come down for an extraction. You then have orders to proceed to the dragon crash site. They want us there in ten."


It's only a ghoul, how difficult could it be to take it out without killing it?

 

[DerUbermensch]

With Roderick beginning his onslaught, One ghoul turned into Swiss cheese during the time of panic and the injured ghoul finished off. The rest had their covers destroyed, leaving them open. Alina took advantage of the moment and peppered her bullets at the ghoul, leaving one to be captured. Fortunately, the ghoul that was left all alone was still in panic. It was ample opportunity for the group to capture the ghoul alive. Alina tackled it to disarm it and she wrestled with the ghoul, managing to send its crossbow flying to the assaults direction to catch. She then restrained the ghoul with zip ties. Surprisingly, the ghoul didn't fight back as much. Maybe it was smart enough to know when to fold them.


"Tell Center we're bringing home a prisoner of war!" Alina was to show her capture to the rest of the team. "I knew they'd want one alive for some odd reason." She then turns to O'Connely. "Take the weapon. You'll need it more than I will."

 

[ARSENIC]

Roderick caught the butt of the crossbow with his mechanical arm, chuckling to himself amusedly. The man knew how to load and fire a crossbow, but had never needed to do so outside of ceremonies, or carnivals - never in an actual combat situatiin. Luckily, he was good at carnivals. Noticing Alina continuing to work on the ghoul after she had already incapacitated it, he attempted to convinced her there was more on the line.


"Youse zip'd 'em a'ready, lass, leave 'im be. Central'll pick up the dogshit. Well, either that or Chade. We got places ter be. Namely balls-deep in a fookin' dragon."

 

[Bazmund]

Meanwhile, back at the base, Jacob was having a great deal of trouble understanding what exactly the Scotsman was saying, through the monitor.


"What? Balls deep in a bloody dragon? I get that there's a dragon there, but balls deep? Really? What is this guy even saying? Can you lot understand him?" He asked the various other people on the command deck, in a growing state of confusion.


"And - wait, he has a crossbow?" They day was getting more and more out the wazoo weird as the seconds went by, and Jacob has seen some awfully weird stuff and gone unfazed by it in the past. "We have one of their crossbows now? Is that what's going on?"


Nobody could give him a satisfactory answer. Such is the curse of being what ostensibly amounts to an Englishman in the company of a Scot.


Ah well. At least their people had an equal (roughly) love of alcohol. They could share a pint later, off duty, and then they would understand eachother, most likely - or at least think they understood eachother.

 

[rskde]

Shrake groans as he finishes his last set in the weights room, he's fucking bored. "I came here for action, not sitting around.." He thinks to himself as he walks out of the room.


Shrake walks over to the Command Deck, looking around for a moment before spotting Jacob. "Hey! Any news on what the hell is going on?" He asks Jacob, walking over to the monitor. @Bazmund


While Shrake doesn't know Jacob, he can clearly see he is in communication with the team, therefore he decided to ask.

 

[Bazmund]

"Well, this bloke has a crossbow, and I can't understand a bloody word he says. You have a listen to him, when he speaks, and tell me if it's any better for you."


He clicked his neck, and set his hands in his pockets.


"Other than that? There were some ghouls at the crash site, but they dispatched 'em pretty quick, and took one prisoner. They're on their way to mark the dragon for salvage or something now. I think. To be totally honest, just listening to that son of a gun talk has completely frazzled me, so I might have it totally backwards."


He could think of at least one person who'd be able to straighten him out here. Always was good with accents, she was.


He sighed.

 

[rskde]

"I'm pretty good at understanding pretty much everyone unless they're from the fuckin' Middle East." He says to Jacob, watching the monitor with him. @Bazmund

 

[Splat]

"Good job lads. I know a few science nerds who would love to poke around on this guy."


Chade lowered the Little Lady down to Alina for pick-up. He lowered the door to the holding area and set the craft to hover.


"Throw it in the back. I'll strap it in a bit more securely and spray it down with febreeze."

 

[KaldorDraigo]

Whilst the rest of the squad got to work securing and marking the dragon, Leon crouched some distance away. Rifle held readily in hand for any would be ambushers, the sniper went on overwatch.


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[Bazmund]

"That's good, because I can understand people from the middle east perfectly, mate. Funny thing is, that they generally speak English with better English than the English, when they speak English." He nodded, reaching for his mug of tea, which absolutely did not contain any alcohol he had garnered from flirting with the bartender in the officers' bar, which he had also absolutely not been in illegitimately, not being an officer.


Actually, was that barmaid gonna give him away? Crap. He should have given her more than a kiss.

 

[DerUbermensch]

Moving along, Alina cooperated with Chade to secure the ghoul. "The higher ups realized they're more valuable alive." Making a note to mark it in the history books, she sets off with Roderick and Timothy to secure the dragon. She had a grenade with her in case the heavy needs to blow up it's innards.


"Shall we? The dragon can wake up any minute! We need to hurry!" Alina was running to where the dragon was marked. So far no ghouls were around save for the captive.

 

[Splat]

After moving over to the dragon's location, Chade very quickly became bored. He got up and walked around, smacked the ghoul around a little (He had nothing to say), and resolved to open another beer and chug it down. After one more, he decided it was a good idea to go onto the hood of the Little Lady for a better view. It was nice outside, probably around 74 degrees Fahrenheit. The view was nice, too. He could see the whole operation from up here. Everyone looked like ants next to the dragon, it was funny to a buzzed Chade.


Few things sober up Chade other than sleep, food, and his medicine. One of these things, was looking down to see the dragon slightly stir, just barely moving his tail enough to notice.


Just a twitch. He told himself. It's still unconscious.





It twitched again.


"Anyone else seeing this movement?"

 

[Bazmund]

"Hold on - oh bollocks. It is moving."


Grabbing the nearest mic, Jacob started speaking to the pilot, Chade - or he could have been speaking to the whole squad. Or a telephone sex line in Bengal, really, he had no idea what the mic was linked to, he'd just nicked it from some poor confused desk sergeant.


"Hey flyboy, this is Jacob Wings here, at HQ. I see the movement too. You lot are gonna wanna hurry up - I saw one of 'em wake up after crashing on ops with the British, before I joined you lot, at the start of this crap, and it was ugly. I'm a good doctor, but I can't sew people back together from more than four pieces."

 

[DerUbermensch]

Alina was shocked to see and hear the dragon twitching. "Shh...I have an idea." He motioned to Roderick. "Take a grenade from me. If that thing is waking, shove a primed one down it's mouth. It should blow up the innards."


Chade's designs may come in handy. The dragon was slowly but surely waking up. Shields in particular will help. Things might become hairy for the team of four if the plans fail. The engineer in the sky also has a communication link that can call in an air strike from local forces if needed.

 

[Splat]

The dragon began to stir more and more, its eyes straining to open. Chade could tell that it was struggling to regain consciousness.


"Orders from higher ups. Enter battle positions, assume enemy is at full strength upon awakening. It's going to be pissed off, scared, and in a hurry."


The Little Lady buzzed to life as its weapons began to activate. (Remember, it's a bit in the future and war has forced us to develop weaponry rapidly.) The craft was armed with six miniguns that had automatic targeting, capable of tearing down concrete walls in seconds. (388mm shots with 2000-6000 rpm).


"I'm here if we need it, but I'm on orders to only engage the dragon-class paranormal if it means that 25% or more of the operatives are incapacitated, or dead. So, if one of you gets taken out, that's when I can join in."

 

[ARSENIC]

Roderick caught the grenade with a quick nod, slipping it into his belt as he held the crossbow in one hand and his assault rifle in the other, grunting as Chade spoke. "Ye hear tha', boys? Apparently minigun shells 're mar 'spensive tha' we are. Anyone want to volunteer getting shot i' tha foot so Chade decides t' be useful, o' shid I jus' shoot Tim?" Roderick said, grinning like an idiot for the ground team to see as he gave the likely terrified support a playful wink.

 

[KaldorDraigo]

"You're the one with the robot arm O'connor." Leon retorted cheerily into his ear piece, scrambling the hell off his perch and finding some distance between him and the awakening dragon. Moving to just below the hovering dropship, he peered through the scope, able to see muscles tensing beneath scales and nostrils flaring to life. "So guys and gals, how you wanna do this? I could take a potshot at it's eye...."