Battle Hymn of the Republic

Armory Front

As Arty, and Imp made their way out the front door, it would become quite quickly obvious to them where the 'distraction team' was; roughly one hundred meters to the northwest of the westerly facing armory doors, a couple of squads of Planetary Guardsmen were engaging with a currently unseen enemy that was hiding behind the corner of a building just a bit further on. They would quickly realize that this meant stray friendly fire had a chance to hit them, but it also meant they had the PG in a surprise pincer move.

Camilla's chosen position would turn out to not be the best, as she quickly found out the window was not only bulletproof, but had armored shutters on it to top things off. There was a latch at the bottom of the window, but like a lot of garrisons left over from the Drathonian war, small details like latches hadn't exactly been looked over properly, and several layers of bubbling paint around the frame and latch told her it was likely corroded shut. The Sergeant's strength would likely be enough to force the window open, but it would take a bit of time.

Niall's voice could be heard from just inside the doorway of the weapons room, confirming what they could see "'Oi, Brownie'n 'ers are jus' up pass those guardsmen. Ah Let'm know we'r here, so they juss' need fire support 'n then they'll scoot over thisaway once it's clear!" after his report, the young Ireshireman made his way to partial cover at the front door and hefted his GUR and took careful aim at one of the distracted guardsmen before pulling the trigger and letting off a short burst from his Gauss rifle.

Arty's position from above the entryway gave it a pretty good view of the battlefield. From there, the AELF could see the two squads of four guardsmen, whom were all handily distracted by the other group doing it's job quite well. additionally, the Arditi could see a third squad closing in on the large open area between the Armory and the other buildings, and even another group or two of grey-uniformed combatants rushing from a bit further off in the UGR compound.

Cormac's wait for a signal had been answered by his childhood friend's report and opening shots- at this point Niall had taken away the last bit of surprise that they had, but the enemy was thrown into confusion as fire from both sides rang out, first one guardsman falling from Niall's burst, then another from the other side as they turned around to try and face this unexpected source of fire.

Armory Rear

When Dhalsim and Skip opened the back door to check if all was clear, they would find a wholly unexpected sight greeting them- a severely injured Drathonian was there, being held up by a similarly heavily damaged AELF- around them were a pile of grey clad bodies and a scattering of limbs; most human, but one was a scaled, red Drathonian arm that had belonged to the now raggedly breathing Marine before them. If nothing else, the area was secure, and the pair that had already been outside showed no sign of thread outside of the red scaled individual tensing up for a moment then relaxing when he noticed Marine Special Forces uniforms.

A Heavily tinny robot voice emanated from the Aelf, but its mouth did not move, asking "Please... Help..."

Distraction Team

Radio Confirmation was a wonderful thing for Morale, and as Ketta relayed the message to her team, the temporarily rebelling marines shouted an immense "OOH-RAH!" and pressed their advantage as soon as shots from the armory rang out in support; swiftly, two PG fell, and the vanguard of the Distraction team rushed out from cover, pressing their sudden advantage. As the majority of the group went forward however, the rearguard found their hands swiftly full, as yet another squad of PG separatists rounded a nearby corner and started pressing in on the back of the advancing Marines.

"Brownie! More Uglies from the rear!" one of the Marines called, laying down what little fire they could before falling back to positions behind the next set of rearguards.

Arty took up a quick analysis of the open area ahead of them, and then looked to its left to spy on the approaching infantry force moving up to reinforce the main group. The geometrics software quickly assigned objects to all visible individuals and potential group locations, before the network sniffer picked up and analyzed all access points currently active. After a couple of milli-seconds it offered up all the unique addresses it could find with associated signal source locations. Using its own judgment, it pushed the intel-package of friend/foe locations to the active tactical-suites near-by of friendly forces. Anyone wearing any proper HUD software would see the locations of enemies as Arty had seen them.

“Battlefield update: Squad comin’ up the left, two more behind them,” reported the Arditi as it worked to formulate its next step. The swapping gunfire between the distraction team and their current enemies seemed to bring up something deep inside. Then came the tracers from below him, its own squad was initiating contact. “Assault routines activated; Brawla’ sub-routine online. Terran Marines unda’ fire. Protocol One activated. Segregationist Sapient Species Monita’ modified. Planetary Guard Units. Designation:”

“Non-Terran.”

The gauss coils on the harpoon motor began to whine as Arty aimed the ranged-combat arm at the center of the two squads. A restrained fwit! let loose as the harpoon fired and sank into the near-by cover used by the squad, and embedded itself. Then, the Arditi bent its knees, jumped, and blared an alarm that everyone could hear.

“YIPPEE-KI-YAY MOTHA’ FUCKAAAAAAAAAAAAAS”

From its position above, it flew, riding the retracting coil all the way across the field and into the group of guardsmen. The pristine blade fired from its CQC arm and it embedded the blade into one of the guards, using their body to soften the landing. Arty wasted no time and began leaping and cleaving into the line.

ENEMY ENGAGED. ORDERS - FOLLOW UNIT: MCS-8-1, ARDITI.

From her place behind cover - from where they should have been opening their ambush - Imp attempted to shoulder her SMG but her joints seized up halfway through the motion.

COVERING FIRE NOT APPROVED. UNIT: de Vos, IMP; ASSIGNMENT - CQC. ORDERS - FOLLOW UNIT: MCS-8-1, ARDITI.

Imp couldn't even growl in frustration as control of her voice was limited to reporting or responding to orders during combat. Letting her weapon hang loose on its sling the android pushed off and over the wall she had taken cover behind and beat feet to follow after Arty's wire guided charge. A strike of burning pain from her Warden-module ran down from her temple along the sides of her jaw until she shouted out: "NGH-En-engaging!"

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The data from Arty's combat suite was picked up by the Warden and quickly laid over Imp's vision as she closed in on the line of reinforcements the Arditi had decided to fight with a fucking sword. Picking a guardsman that had turned their back to target the combat droid that had dropped into the middle of their formation Imp spun the soldier around by their armour and crushed one of their knees with her boot as she stepped closer to them. Her orc came off her hip and its maw slipped beneath the lip of the guard's plate carrier.

She pulled the trigger once and grabbed the soldier by the neck in a stronger-than-human grip as the blast tried to send them away from her. Pulling the orc up and bracing it against the dying guard's shoulder, Imp held the trigger down now as the automatic shotgun began burping out nearly two rounds every second as she aimed the weapon at the target lowest on Arty's combat list.

The weapon barked and shot out flame once, twice, thrice, then four times as it bucked against her human shield.