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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Mr. Blackbird Lore
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Mr. Blackbird Lore »

Camilla snorted derisively, crackling over the comms. In a more peaceful situation, she would have pistol-whipped the dumb right out of Asher's skull. Instead she retorted scornfully, "That's one ugly angel." At approximately the same moment, Private Enos felled a larger Drathos. THe WHUMP! of its collapse dotted the end of her statement quite clearly. She smirked with satisfaction, then dropped low and repositioned a couple feet farther down. When the Papa was blaring once more she added sourly, "Get your head out of the clouds, Tits McGee. We've got plenty of work to do without you dying like a chump."
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Gwathdraug
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Gwathdraug »

Card grumbled through the artillery barrage, but headed Winter's orders as she reloaded her weapon and prepped herself for another session of indiscriminately blasting away at the enemy. A sigh made its way out of the soldier's thoughts and announced itself muffledly in her the depths of her helmet.

Watching the last of the supportive fire rain overhead Emma couldn't help but shudder violently. At least they aren't bombs. Card reminded herself forcefully as she placed her left hand against her right shoulder to steady the shakes.

Rolling out of cover at Winter's order and coming up next to Camilla Card added her own weight of fire on top of the heavy weapon's specialist as she steadily picked targets, let off a burst, recorrected her aim and fired again.

“Westwood, any angel that came looking for you had the wrong number.” Asher's former instructor added as the last of the shakes tore her aim off target but ended up clipping her a kill anyway.
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Straken
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Straken »

Dom remained tucked away for the duration of the barrage along with the rest of his squad, all the while thinking a series of steadily paced thoughts that came to mind due to the developing chaos. One such thought was about how bleeding reduced the body’s efficiency after watching Winters pull a large spike out of Asher’s chest, and how it could be handled in a way similar to patching a hydraulic pump line. Another thought had to do with the clever solution Pepper found to fix her poor throwing arm. While another thought was about how he was looking forward to repairing so many helmets after this shift was over.

Once the order came to once again begin firing, Dom pushed all of these auxiliary thoughts to the side as he began to focus on a different engineering problem; namely, efficiently halting a war machine. Peeking around the edge of his cover, Dom set about picking his targets carefully based on how efficiently they were going about their own assigned tasks, and how important they were to the over-all push the enemy was making. Sometimes to stop an engine you simply need to poke a hole and let the oil drain out; then it is just a matter of watching as the engine grinds to a halt.
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Kai
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Kai »

It was somewhat surreal. They were getting off so easily. Sure, several of the soldiers in Squad 22 had been hit, even wounded in Asher's case. But, the artillery had taken none of them, the wall was holding fast, and the number of enemies before them were dwindling. It looked, so far, like the Drathonians were simply making a half-assed attempt at the wall to probe fore weakness, or perhaps they felt that they had more soldiers and could afford to spend a few in this war of attrition. Even Winters was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this battle, no, this skirmish, was coming towards an end.

But then, the thundering they had heard before the artillery shelling began again. Or, was it? It was similar, oh, so similar, but, there were no shells coming down, and indeed, the pace was much faster than it had been before. And, despite the lack of shells, the ground was shaking. the wall was shaking. the very mountain of which foothold colony was built, was shaking. Dust, flying creatures, and bits of foliage could be seen flying above the canopy in several lines, and the screeching and complaining of the local fauna could be heard, along with drawn out, guttural groans and roars coming from the direction of the forest.

Suddenly, with a force that sent the edge of the forest flying meters into the air, it arrived. or rather, they did- Deuce-type Drathonains, and Hammerbeasts, some of the largest creatures, used for hauling heavy things or horribly grafted with enormous weapons to serve as artillery, these creatures burst forth with a fury that no Terran could match by themselves, if only for the sheer difference in size. Like an enormous tsunami, they barreled down upon the wall, attempting to smash it. In most places, they simply rammed headlong into it, coming to a violent rest, cracking and shattering the face of the wall, but not defeating it. However, not all of the wall was truly whole.

A hundred meters to the left, another similarly patched hole could be seen- and a Deuce smashed its way through the crude metal plating and scaffolding, sending hunks of metal and marines flying in all directions as it did so. GUAC cannons fired incessantly, the large weapons trying futilely to stop the beasts' rampage, but even if they did manage to kill the things, momentum insured nearly every single one reached the wall. What was more, the Deuces and Hammerbeasts each had a compliment of Dragoons riding upon their backs, who were easily able to jump up onto the wall. The perimeter was breached in many places, and the tide was not yet finished rushing in.

Squad 22 could watch in horror as a Hammerbeast bore down on their compromised section of wall.

"DOWN! OFF THE WALL! GET AWAY FROM THE DAMAGED SECTION!" Winters roared, more than just a hint of fear in her voice as she could not hide the dread of what she knew was about to happen. Hastily, she grabbed the nearest soldier- Asher, And threw the slightly disoriented marine over toward Armstrong's gun, before following suit herself, hoping the others in her squad could evacuate in time.
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Mr. Blackbird Lore
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Mr. Blackbird Lore »

"Oh, fuck this," groaned Private Enos at seeing a wall of Deuces charging out of the treeline. She had fired until the first Deuce hit the wall, then slung the Papa over one shoulder. Before sliding down the ladder she lobbed a grenade to the hole in the wall to stymy Drathonian advancement; she rolled a second one along the parapet in hopes of impeding Dragoon progress on the wall itself.

Then she was plummeting to the hard packed dirt below the outer wall, gloved hands and boots braced on the ladder. The extra weight of her weapon expedited the process, and she struck ground with an audible, "Umgh!" No harm came to her, but it had been jarring. They had to retreat, which meant the team needed cover fire. It was time for Camilla to flaunt her abilities.

She shrugged the strap off her shoulder and caught the the aptly nicknamed Organ Grinder with both hands. Her right swept under to release the battery- it was not empty, nor was it charged enough to provide the amount of ammunition Camilla intended to unload. She left the partially spent box where it fell, and slammed in a fresh one. Her right hand cupped the hard point where the tripod was typically attached and served as the fulcrum for the following endeavors.

It was like something out of a movie, but Camilla was not acting- she intended to kill them all herself if need be. She strode calmly toward the fallback point, the Papa sputtering on full-auto. Plasma was perhaps the ultimate suppressive weapon, burning anything it did not kill- even scaly freaks. She sprayed indiscriminately at any and all things entering Foothold by way of the freshly rent hole in the outer wall. Any collateral to the Deuce was just an added bonus. There was really nothing she could do about it, other than pray some snipers would get their shit in gear and start shooting the scaly bastard in the head.

"Let's go!" she half-ordered her squadmates. "You've got a minute before I run dry, so make it quick!"
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Kokuten
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Kokuten »

Asher went tumbling over the adjacent section as he was thrown over it. He tumbled, turned and then fell on his ass near the gun, haffing stunted breaths as his lungs began to object to any sort of tomfoolery like saving ones own life. Due to most of the fresh pain he felt at landing flat on his back after bouncing one, he seemed to have little gratitude to his squad leader. So, instead of thanking her as genially as he could, he slapped her on the rear end and muttered a small thanks, as he tore over to an overhanging section. The man still had plenty of shot left his Orc, and went to firing off the massive rounds into the hides of these Deuce beasts.

Honestly, Asher thought, if they really wanted to cut them down in morale, they should just try landing on the wall and maybe trying to eat them alive or something. Compared to fighting for his life back home, this was barely scary at all, having metal and what not rain down and shoot at oneself. Getting shot was more fun that something tugging your intestines out and munching on them while you choke on your final breaths. Heck, even being stabbed in the chest with rebar was more appealing.

The Surandanian Wild-Man liked to think of himself as optimist, but speaking of that rebar.

With every roaring howl of the Orc, Asher's chest pained him to breath, up unto the point where he actually began to bleed again. He had the urge to tell a story of something like this happening a while back. His best judgement on the current situation made a story seem a bit inappropriate, as no one would hear him tell it if he tried, what with all the explosions. Still, the weapon rattled him as he emptied out the magazine. At that he had to squat and clench his chest as the urge to to tell a story almost became too much.
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Straken
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Straken »

Dom gave an exasperated sigh as the giant Drathonian beasts thundered onto the field. “Told ya this wall was crap,” the engineer said as he braced his gun and got ready to quickly vacate this section of the wall. Unfortunately, and much to Dom’s bad luck, there was a small piece of metal lying just behind him, and this piece of metal managed to find its way under Dom’s foot as the soldier turned to leave. Now off balance the man tried to regain control with a few bracing steps, and to add to Dom’s growing list of things that were making it a bad day his last step connected with, well, nothing at all. With a pit instantly forming in his gut, Dom’s foot dropped and his body followed suit as the engineer disappeared from the top of the wall.

Before he could properly react, Dom had fallen the twenty-five or so feet and landed flat on his back. Dazed from the impact, Dom stared up into the sky not thinking about much of anything aside from catching his breath. However, through the ground he could feel vibrations that were growing steadily stronger, and he regained enough of his senses to remember the sight of the large beast barreling towards the wall; then, in a moment of clarity, realized that he would soon be trampled if he did not get up and move.

With some struggle, Dom flipped himself onto his stomach and with some slightly panicked breaths clawed his way behind one of the stronger walls sections, hopefully leaving enough space to save him from being crushed when the monster broke through.
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by CadetNewb »

For Pepper, it was like watching that really, really, really old movie that was remade through history who knew how many times.

'But what was it?' she absentmindedly thought, caught stuck between deciding if she should chuck the last grenade or just cut and run. The very fact their backs were laden with rifle toting infantry like elephants with endless archers ready to fire decided that for her - bits and pieces of the wall simply vanished or chipped away as fire forced the redheaded girl back down into cover. She quickly rolled over and over and over to the stairs before jogging down them as quickly as her legs could manage. 'Lord of the Hobbits' I think?' Pepper wondered. 'No, no, that's not right it was - ' the ensuing impacts and raining men and women cut her thoughts short as they suddenly became very, very relevant to what was happening right now - the Hammerbeast. It roared.

At her.

'A-button, A-button, A-button!' the youngest marine cried in her mind, frantically sprinting in between cover as she imagined the wall exploding, quickly boiling over with Drathonians. "Wiiiinteeeeeers! Where do I goooooooo?!?!?!" she bawled, still running as fast as she could!
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Kai
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Kai »

In a rush, as the members of squad 22 scrambled to get out of the way, the Hammerbeast made contact with the wall. A horrendous noise of grinding and groaning, popping welds and shearing metal, as well as some bone-chillingly fleshy tearing noises, emanated from the structure as the beast collided with it, plowing into and under the the thing and tearing it off the sturdier sections of wall next to it. the clattering of bits of metal and concrete could be heard as the edges of that also bore the brunt of the force, but it was all lost in a tumult and haze of dust, dirt, and other particles while the compromised section itself became airborne for a few moments as the hammerbeast passed underneath in a slight daze, but it soon became enraged again as a bit of it smashed down on the end of its tail, causing the Drathonian beast of burden cum war machine to turn into a several ton behemoth of anger. Amusingly, however, the Beast's insistence at plowing through the wall had ended up knocking all the Dragoons off its back, killing most of them. The Squad's luck however, was not as good as they might have thought, as the beast was formidable in and of itself.

The Hammerbeast trampled forward toward the beams of Plasma that Camilla spat forth from her automatic weapon. Asher's Orc fire compounded this anger, as the shots blew chunks from its prodigious hide, while Winters' carbine filled its side with angry sharpened needles that normally would spell death to a foe, but in this case were not much better than pinpricks unless someone was shooting at a certain spot. This fire from the side caused the thing to turn in rage, whipping about its enormous tail and causing all kinds of havoc for those whom had decided to go 'down' instead of to the side.

Dominic found himself very nearly crushed, as a section of wall came and smashed to the ground right where he had lain dazed for a few seconds, and his armor made a sound like a sort of rain stick as bits and pieces of wall, combined with a few spatters of gore from the Drathonians and the Hammerbeast, fell down upon the combat engineer, obscuring his vision, though his HUD was kind enough to give him a wireframe warning of the beast's tail flinging wildly at him- He reacted just quick enough that the tail only clipped his boots, bringing him once again to the ground, this time on his face.

Pepper didn't fare much better, her chosen method of removing herself from the wall proving to have been slower than the others' and she found herself knocked sideways by a section of wall, her cries over the radio drowned out by the horrendous noise. When she regained her senses, the little redhead found that the knock was a blessing in disguise- she had been blown clear of the wreckage and the beast, now finding herself at its feet, staring up at the softer underside of its head as it was distracted from several directions by gunfire.

As the Hammerbeast whirled, it began to charge the cannon grafted to its back, pointing it at Winters, Asher, and Armstrong's gun. Its tail, not satisfied with simply knocking Dom to the ground, continued its nearly supersonic sweep of the courtyard, finally finding purchase on Camilla's torso, whipping her with a force usually reserved for automobile accidents. She flew, saved by the Savior armor's tough plates, but not out of harm's way, the Papa torn from her hands, dropping to the ground where she had been standing, Camilla found herself to be tumbling like a ragdoll toward one of the low buildings in the courtyard, the wind knocked out of her. She touched the ground, tumbling and finally rolling to a stop just shy of the wall, thankfully not majorly injured, but definitely hurting, and now more than just a few yards away from her weapon.

The Hammerbeast roared once more, taking a threatening stance at those on the wall whom dared defy it.
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Straken
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Re: Foothold:Ch. 1, Wall.

Post by Straken »

As much bad luck as Dom was having, he did have his moments of good luck; such as narrowly avoiding being crushed into pulp. Sadly, pulp was still thrown into the equation as the engineer’s visor was once again accosted by sticky, pasty residue that clung in his field of view, and much to his displeasure this paste was decidedly not from coal fruit. What’s more, before he could go about cleaning his visor off for the second time today the massive tail of the hammerbeast swung past and knocked him once more onto the dusty, metal strewn ground.

“Oh, by Asimov’s muttonchops!” Dom groaned as he struck the ground and once more picked himself back up onto his, now shaky, legs. Thanks to his visor he was still able to make out the silhouette of the massive beast as he desperately wiped the guts and grime and dust from his abused helmet. With relatively better view of the situation through his brown-streaked visor, the combat engineer took a literal step back to view the situation.

“Alright, angry hammerbeast in the courtyard, and it appears to be somewhat perturbed,” Dom said to himself as he considered what he would be personally capable of. Then with a snap of his fingers and a clap of his hands he thought of something. “Kit! I still have my engineery demolitions kit. Perfect for eliminating roadblocks ranging from barbed wire, to land mines, all the way to repurposed starship hulls!”

With a bit of childlike enthusiasm he took his pack off opened his demo-kit. “Sadly though, I am no EO, so I can’t exactly take out starship hulls,” Dom said as he continued his monologue. “But…”
He then pulled out the entire ordinance his Engi kit carried, “This amount of det will still wreck up organics something fierce, but unfortunately a hammerbeast’s hide is too strong for this amount. So I need to set it right…”

Taking a look back at the raging enemy beast, he had the sinking feeling that actually being able to plant the charges would be tricky, and likely would result in sustaining more injuries; and Dom was not Asher. With rapid glances around the beast he tried to think of how he could do this. “Well, I am not Asher, but I am also not Pepper…”
That said the combat engineer quickly jury-rigged together his explosives with a joint, trigger detonator.

“Hey squad, anyone think of a way to get that thing to say aww?” Dom asked as he took his brainstorming onto the squad’s comm channel. “I want ta see if I can give it a wicked stomach ache.”
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