Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

The Marines are Berthed in the belly of the starship, and essential for attack and defense, whether it be on the gorund, or inside the ships during boarding actions. Fighter pilots and ships may win battles, but Marines will win the War.
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CadetNewb
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Re: Foothold: Chapter one.

Post by CadetNewb »

Pepper continued walking, even after what Asher said - it was as though she were thinking of something else, something distant.

"If distilled piss is drinking water, does that mean that all drinking water is distilled piss?" she asked, raising a hand to her chin in contemplation. "And if everything we've drank so far was drinking water, doesn't that mean we've been drinking distilled piss this whole time?" Pepper went on, now perking up to look genuinely alarmed at the concept in her mind. As the others talked however, their own little discussions only served to provide fuel for the fire which sat atop Pepper's head, her mind busily at work.

"We're having distilled piss and Camilla kabobs?" asked as the woman in question glanced her way with a rather mean look. "She doesn't look very tasty guys...like jerky or something," Pepper explained, shrinking away from Camilla.

At Winters' order for silence however, she quickly obliged, saluting rigidly when the Lieutenant arrived, face blank and staring off into forever.
Last edited by CadetNewb on Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Straken
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Re: Foothold: Chapter one.

Post by Straken »

Up until the Lieutenant showed up, Dom was avoiding any more whining by pinpointing all the pieces of scrap metal that lay strewn about the No-Man’s-Land, and considering what could be done if all of it were recovered. Upon the Lieutenant’s arrival Dom stood and snapped a salute like a good soldier, before returning to his distraction that oddly enough kept him focused on the tree line.

Off to the side however, he had picked up a glaring example of a logical fallacy produced by the naïve Pepper. His head dropped as the woman made the almost painful conclusion. “No Pepper, what you’ve got there is a classic secundum quid. A logical fallacy,” Dom said as he answered Pepper’s question about drinking water. “Just like how a surgeon is not a criminal even though it is a crime to cut people with knives. It is similar to a post hoc ergo propter hoc, which goes ‘X happened then Y happened; therefore X caused Y,’ understand?”

Setting his sights back on the tree line, Dom’s mind began to wander a bit. “Although, I suppose if you think about, at least within a closed system, after a certain point and a large enough quantity of living organisms, it could be possible for all drinking water to end up as distilled urine.”
CadetNewb
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Re: Foothold: Chapter one.

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"Uh huh!" Pepper nodded enthusiastically, breaking her rigid stance
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Kokuten
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Re: Foothold: Chapter one.

Post by Kokuten »

"Y'know, I've always wondah'd somethin'. 'Dis jungles all dangerous and shit, and it's gotta buncha fuckin' draths all up in its shit." commented Asher aloud, looking out the thick sea of green rolling on before him. Waves of leaves turned side to side as the wind pressed currents through its ocean of branches, with the occasional bird specimen taking flight from the recesses of the canopy. The coal-smattered PFC regarded the sight before him with a resolute silence, beads of his sweat rolling and cresting over star-bursting scars and staining onto a woven uniform. In any other moment, somebody could expect some wisdom from those time-tested eyes of his. Asher looked like he was about to utter a wizened quip to enforce his age.

"Hey Dom, you're a smart mutha' fucka, why don't we just burn this whole shit hole to tha' ground and make some cities on it?"

Not really.
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Straken
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Re: Foothold: Chapter one.

Post by Straken »

Dom sort of gave a quick snort in response to both Asher’s questions as well as how the other man had addressed him. It was definitely a first for the engineer, but it was definitely a remark that was in character for the more brutish marine. That being said, the question itself seemed to be a reasonable one once you got past the language. Why didn’t the Terran’s just torch the jungle? If nothing else it would eliminate the hostile environment. Of course, Dom had grown up on a dead planet that was simply used for stripping the remaining resources, so the efficiency-focused engineer was not the best judge when it comes to maintaining the indigenous life forms.

“Well Asher, Terran history is filled with an unfortunately large number of cases involving us wiping out native life on planets,” Dom began as he sort of grasped at straws. “Realizing the irresponsibility of such actions, we have adopted more conscientious approaches to our interplanetary activities. Bottom line, we are looking to preserve life and make as little of impact as we can manage.”
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Kai
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Re: Foothold: Chapter one.

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It started. First, a ways away, maybe a half mile to the east. There was a whistling, and then a crash-boom signalling the first bits of artillery flying in, although the explosion wasn't as fiery as a Terran might expect. Of course, this was nothing new to the marines. Instead of fire, the exploding bit of artillery had launched a payload of corrosive, acidic goo everywhere, though most of it ended up uselessly around the wall and the ground in front of it. It was soon followed by another, and another, and another, all focused around one area. However, along with it there came a smattering of other objects from the sky. Smaller projectiles launched from just inside the edge of the forest, arcing upward before coming back down on top of the wall, and therefore, the Marines. At this point it was less a danger and more of a nuisance than anything else, the sharp needles falling mostly uselessly onto the wall, or bouncing off of armor, occasionally, it would find a little hole or gap to cram itself into, but the underlayer of the Savior armor was more than enough to take care of it at this range. However, it did serve a purpose.

While the marines were distracted trying to pull spines out of their armor, the real fire began- longer, larger spines were being fired with more force from the treeline, accompanied by conventional projectiles, and the occasional laser or plasma weapon. A few marines fell, caught off guard, but the majority were able to remain safe behind the barriers as the voluminous fire smattered harmlessly across the armored facade. The rattle of Gauss machine guns and assault rifles could be heard, accompanied by answering plasma and laser weapons. Finally, the THUM THUM THUM of the larger weapons emplacements joined the fray.

************

"Contact!" Winters roared over the comms, Ducking behind the wall and finding the best angle she could to return fire. She stuck her carbine through, and began firing; From the edge of the forest burst at least a platoon's worth of Drathonians, who seemed quite intent on taking the weakened portion of the wall. Drathoni, about fifty of them, lead by a few Dragoons. With them was a mix of Spitters, Zappers, and Whizzers, the latter of which began to fire off the missile-like structures they grew all over their backs, which as their name suggested, whizzed toward the wall, smashing into it and exploding, causing the damaged portion to shudder, but, it held firm.

"Take The Whizzers first!" Winters ordered, almost rhetorically- it was pretty obvious that those were currently the most dangerous enemy, at least toward their goal of keeping the wall safe. Indeed, the larger Drathoni and Dragoons hard already become busy with Capella and Armstrong's squads and their cannon.
CadetNewb
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by CadetNewb »

"I think we're too embarrassed to do it all over again," Pepper mused, her expression dreamlike as she pondered over this dilemma some more.

As she thought, the air seemed to thicken. It was moist, and became so dense as to the point it was almost like drinking soup - this was the prelude to something big. This world's version of clouds gathering on the horizon. The sound were distant at first, but they slowly got closer and closer. The sounds of the Jungle were all gone, dead silence hanging in the air as the animals fled for their lives. They knew best, and the Terrans, who in many cases did not, held their ground firmly. "I wish I had a tank," Pepper commented.

And then hell broke loose.

Unlike others, the young redhead got into cover as soon as possible, rather than milling about. When the hail of needles came, she was safe - into her pocket went her hand, pulling out a silver shard. The mirror gave her clear view over the parade of monstrosities that came at them in waves. The white glint flashed, catching her eye and fixating on the creatures Winters demanded to be killed. "Frag out!" the girl called out, grabbing a grenade from her belt. Armed, the explosive was hurled through the air.

And landed just a little too short. Peppered by Pepper's grenade, they kept on coming, faint trickles of blood oozing out of their softer bits of hide.

"My arms, noodles!" the young marine yelled, leaning out of cover and firing a good burst into the Whizzer ranks with her rifle.
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Mr. Blackbird Lore
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Mr. Blackbird Lore »

The Lieutenant was a mildly entertaining man, albeit foul-smelling and too chummy for her likes. Even so, Camilla had decided quickly that she liked him: months had proven him a solid leader and his brief briefing had just proven him a very concise orator. She ran through the motions- salute here, at east there- but had nothing to contribute to the matter.

When the Drathoni made their presence clear, Private Enos hid from the flak. When she resumed her position, though, she resumed with a vengeance, firing on full auto into the ranks of the approaching Whizzers with a sweeping motion of the barrel. She fully intended to bleed the heavy battery dry on full auto, which would get her just over a minute's worth of nonstop plasma.
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Straken
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Straken »

Dominic was one of the first to notice that the initial attack had begun. The way he knew this was because of one of the first few spines flew straight and true striking Dom square between the eyes, or at least it would have if it hadn’t bounced off of his visor. With an irritated grunt, the engineer’s head tilted back a little ways from the impact.

After resetting his stance and rubbing his visor with his glove, all the while growling complaints to himself, Dom readied his gun and began firing back in controlled burst as he vented his frustrations about being stationed on shoddy wall out on the attackers. Once his irritation had mostly passed Dom was back to his typical mode of thinking, e.g. thinking about ways to increase efficiency.

“I should build some drones or something,” Dom mumbled to himself as he ran over ideas in his mind all the while enemy rounds flew passed his head. “So long as I got the body taken care of I could get the systems up and running no problem. Drones are deceptively simple constructs, hell I could probably even use a Stone Age version of OS6. But then I suppose the drone would keep getting turned around.”
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Gwathdraug
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Gwathdraug »

Card's thoughts screeched to a halt as the Drathonians forces threw their opening salvo against the defending terrans. Still standing casually as if nothing was even coming the former officer weathered her way through the whole fusillade of needle fire by the merit of her armour alone.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Card shuddered for a moment as her mind roared back into full gear. For the first time in years here it was, back and without out any limitations, she was once more in the engulfing grip of a battle-fueled adrenaline rush.

Ducking and moving closer into the wall just as the longer, more dangerous spines began to rattle against the defenses – and, unfortunately, through some of the defenders – Card scooped up her rifle and let old reflexes ready the weapon as she took stock of the lines of fire her fellow marines had begun to lay down.

Popping up into her chosen firing position Card quickly put sights on an enemy whizzer and with a light finger to the trigger sent three burst of return fire to damper the creature's day rather permanently. Shifting her aim Card half-swore, half-grunted, and grumbled altogether rather negatively as a spine winged her armour and sent her tumbling and twisting back under cover.

Flicking the gouge in her armour and letting out a distasteful grunt Card opened up the squad coms, her voice eerie sounding and just a tad too mirthful considering the conversation. “Any chances you'd order a couple of us -” Finding a small chunk of shattered spine Card threw it Asher's way. “ - to advance, though right now it would be more of a 'jump', outside the perimeter in case of a concentrated close-quarters push from all these Draths Sergeant?”
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