Celestia's Finest: Comrades in Arms

[Elbeyon]

Love keeps talking with the cave people. She starts talking with the people out in the town. Trying to get a feel if they need help. They seem to be protecting the town fine? She can feed tactical information to them or their commander. If they have TactNets, Love could boost their sensor count?

Love stiffens up when the guards report what happened. She will help plant nonlethal grenades around as per Longshot's and Brazen's instructions. Her movements bringing her closer and closer to the cave exit. Her head turning towards town.

[Miltonian]

With the use of the beds, tables, and other furniture scattered around the room, Longshot thinks they can devise an excellent barricade that will shield not only them, but also those trapped behind them. The civilians and whatnot. A few of the civilians seem ready to fight too, a few old, grey ponies and griffons who claimed to have served in the Vedinian navy once upon a time.

Love's localized near-omniscience helps her some. She finds that the Vedinians, though keeping the flights of corvids back, are similarly pinned beneath roofs and inside a few, fortified buildings. Any who step outside receive a hail of gunfire in reply. Unfortunately, though, the Vedinians do not have a Tac-Net network set up, so Love is unable to connect them.

However, when she tries to talk with them via her bots, many of them think it is a new corvid trick. One mare even tries to shoot the spot where 'that voice' is coming from. Another calls for somepony skilled in exorcism. Yet another just begins to mutter prayers for a swift and painless death, oh merciful ghost.

[D.KnightSpider]

Since Brazen made his demolition roll in the Discord chat, Longshot will assist him in placing the explosives and building the barricades. With his soft spot for former military, there's little resistance to accepting the old soldiers' aid. They do get placed in the back, behind the others, however.

While the barricade comes together, Longshot works with the current Veridian soldiers, reassuring them and making certain they understand the plan. He also gathers their comm information so he can communicate with them in the heat of battle.

At length, he turns to Rose: "Do you have the juice to hide the explosives? If not, I'll improvise camouflage."

Via robot insect, Longshot checks the back entrance of the cave and makes sure the Bugbot network is set to alert them of any intruders.

It was almost showtime.

[DigoDragon]

At length, he turns to Rose: "Do you have the juice to hide the explosives? If not, I'll improvise camouflage."

"I should have the juice for it now. How big is the area to cover?"

[D.KnightSpider]

Longshot shows Rose their hidden stash of grenades.

"Stun grenade up front on the floor, SJA on the walls and some good old explosives on the ceiling. This is our last line of defense, so if it gets bad we detonate the packages and force them to fall back, regroup and approach more carefully."

The grenades are all in the same line, but one that wraps around the circumference of the cave.

[Elbeyon]

Situation assessed.

Comm (EDF), "The town needs help. I'm requesting a personal redeployment."

Love sends a comm request to Admiral Stormwind. "Admiral Stormwind, Sir! My unit has fortified the area and bunkered down. I'm requesting a personal redeployment to reinforce the village line. I'm ready to deploy."

[DigoDragon]

Rose attempts two spells--the first a simple illusion to disguise grenades as rocks in the cave. The second a spell to self-power the illusion to last. They'll fool sight, but have no ability to absorb any damage or resist being trampled on, but by then the enemy is hopefully in blast range.

(3d6)[12] v. 15

(3d6)[13] v. 15

[Miltonian]

The old soldiers accept the logic of being at the back, though they grumble that if the had their old kit with them, they'd be able to man the line with the best of them. The total force at the EDF's command is now up to twelve ponies: four EDF members, assuming Love only counts as one, the three Vedinian soldiers, and five old warriors.

The camouflage job is done to satisfaction. In a decent amount of time, the tunnel is mined and ready for invaders, the back entrances are watched, and all they need now is the invaders.

Love, it seems, has other plans.

When she calls the Admiral, she hears the sounds of gunfire in the background. An explosion goes off nearby. "I'M SORRY?!" he practically screams into the mic, "NO! THE CIVILIANS IN THAT CAVE ARE THE TOWN AND THEY ARE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY! KEEP THEM SAFE, YOU EQUESTRIAN NINNY!"

He signs off. Or gets blown up. It's hard to tell.

The botnet warns of a flight of corvids that's descending towards them, about twenty in all.

[D.KnightSpider]

Love requesting to go to the town? This wasn't going to end well. Longshot silently sighs. EDF Subvocal Comm.: "Let us know what you're going to do, Love."

Alright, no matter. It was time to get down to business. Longshot gathers their forces' attention.

"There are twenty Corvids inbound. Now, this isn't the time to think about heroics or making a last stand because we're not standing alone. We're standing together. So long as each of us plays our part then we will win this day. Fight for your friends, family and loved ones. Fight for their security and safety. Fight for the comrade next to you and show these Corvids that their thirst for blood cannot stand before our resolve. Focus on your zone of responsibility and watch your partner. The Corvid advance ends here! Let's go!"

Armed civilians in the back, EDF in the center, Veridian soldiers on either end. Remember to watch the entire space as winged creatures could fly.

Longshot hefts his rifle and prepares for business.

[DigoDragon]

Rose switches to a fresh clip and hunkers down behind cover with carbine ready. Hmm, when was the last time she really had to defend against a corvid assault? The station, right? Well, that was more her on offense... Meh, let's worry about this later.

[Elbeyon]

Scomm (EDF), "I'm sticking to the plan and staying here."

Love puts two ScoutBots in the back to help watch the caves. The stronger sensors might prove useful. She keeps one ScoutBot by her side. She starts radar locking on the Corvids.

The HoloLoves are talking the civilians through this and ready to spring into instructs to guide the civilians to safety.

Scomm (EDF), "Coordinate your targets through TacNet."

Love claims a spot on TacNet and readies a shot for the first corvid to enter her line of fire. She is ready to set off some grenades.

[Miltonian]

With everyone on the line and ready, the defenders are well and prepared for the incoming assault. And come it does. They watch on the TacNet as the corvids land outside the cave and, instead of blindly charging ahead, produce a small, wheeled drone with a camera on top that they send on down instead of them, preparing to map out any defenses.

[D.KnightSpider]

Longshot leverages his rifle and draws a bead on the drone.

"Love, mind shutting that thing down remotely so we can use it later?"

[Elbeyon]

Scomm (EDF), "I can do that."

The thing has a fixed camera on top? The first bend is pretty soon? Once it's around a bend, Love sends in a BugBot to examine the thing.

If there are no worries, she tries to hack into it and the controller. Once inside, she examines whatever data is available. If nothing valuable appears, she will have the robot quickly lose connection with the control and lose radio contact.

Spoiler: Roll

Show

Drone
(3d6)[6]
vs 13 (Perception: Sight) + 2? (Infra)
vs 13 (Perception: Hearing)
vs 13 (Perception: Smell/taste) or 18 (Sensor) +4 (BugBot)
vs 13 (Perception: Touch)

Hack
(3d6)[11]
vs 16 (Hack) +2 (Tool)

[Miltonian]

The drone is simple to hack. Love gets it without any sweat whatsever. They really need to work on their security protocols. With it under her control, she can disable it as there's nothing of value.

The corvids do not react well to that. They hold a quick, squawking conference before sending forward a single, lightly-armored scout with night-vision goggles to aid his kind's already excellent night-sight. He approaches slowly, cautiously, but cannot penetrate Rose's illusions and enters the minefield.

[D.KnightSpider]

A hoof signals the others to drop down out of sight.

Longshot prepares himself to fire on the scout at the first opportunity. He waits and aims. The assumption was that the scout was relaying video feed to the rest of the Corvids. That meant the scout needed pegged as soon as feasibly possible.

EDF Comm (Subvocal): "One Scout inbound."

In all the power armor training and timeskip jump, he'd forgotten to pick up some reflector mirrors. They would have come in handy right now but he had only himself to blame for that one. Served him right.

[DigoDragon]

Rose follows LS' idea and drops down out of sight.


Stealth skill check if needed: (3d6)[14] vs. 12

[Elbeyon]

Scomm (EDF), "I see them."

Love will crouch down. She gets the other ponies that haven't gotten the message to lower down as well with a bit of localized whispering.

Love will continue to hack into anything wireless, poke her snout around, and 'lose' the connection as any corvids move into the tunnel. There is no cell reception here!

Spoiler: Roll

Show

(3d6)[7] vs 18 (Hack)

[Miltonian]

The scout rounds the corner, sticking his head juuust beyond the edge.

As for Love, she now has access to their comms.

[D.KnightSpider]

The scout rounds the corner, sticking his head juuust beyond the edge.

Bye.

Spoiler: Seriously, toodles

Show

Attack
(3d6)[1][5][2](8) VS 25 -Distance (34 Skill, -7 Target: Skull)

Lethal Damage
(6d6)[5][6][6][4][1][1](23)
(6d6)[2][5][6][4][6][2](25)

[Elbeyon]

Love keeps her armor camouflaged. She is ready to aid Longshot with the silenced weaponry, but holds to hold the comm.

[Miltonian]

And scratch one corvid! His head explodes, splattering across the back of the cave. One of the soldiers cheers.

The corvids outside react...poorly to that. They squawk, scream, and leap into the air to caw and shout at each other in confusion. Eventually, they decide to do the stupid thing. They bunch up at the entrance and charge ahead all at once, planning to overwhelm with sheer numbers.

Shutting down their comms won't do much at this point.

[D.KnightSpider]

Longshot watches their advance on TacNet. Eventually, he nods to Love.

"Drop the hammer."

[Elbeyon]

The admiral may find the enemy's comms useful. She adds the corvids' comms to her own so she can listen to everyone.

Love stoically nods at Longshot's words.

She waits until they get 60 feet inside the tunnel (60% through the twisting turns). She flips the switch to activate Sleep and Riot gas behind them. She activates sleep on the back and several shock grenades on top of the large group. The worse is to come when they start moving and tripping more traps.

Spoiler: Rolls

Show

Shock Grenades. Love can probably only hit them with two Shock Grenades in the first turn before they start moving. (Assuming they aren't super spread out). Sleep is HT-6. Riot Gas is HT-4.

Stun
(8d6x2)[52]
(8d6x2)[56]

[DigoDragon]

Rose peeks up from her cover using her gun's camera and awaits to see if any corvids manage to get past the traps.

[Miltonian]

Fifteen of the corvids go down in the first barrage of grenades, leaving only four up. Those four charge backwards through the gas, blindly coughing and hacking, fighting to get through. Against all odds, two succeed, making it back to the sweet, fresh air.

And with that, anyone who wants to get down here will have to find a way past the gas. Of course, it makes the whole affair pretty uneventful and unexciting, but who can argue with results?

[Elbeyon]

As they retreat, Love sets off on more round of grenades. The troops are moving faster than she expected.

She sets off another Shock, up to 4 SJA, and up to 4 Tangler. Hopefully, trapping them in the sleep gas.

Spoiler: Roll

Show

Shock Grenade

(8d6x2)[58]

[D.KnightSpider]

Results are all that matter given their line of work. Longshot has nothing of which to complain.

"The Corvids have retreated. All but two fell to our gas trap." Longshot informs the others. He continues dryly. "I guess they didn't appreciate the atmosphere down here."

He toggles his TacNet settings to look in on the rest of the battle. Hopefully, things are going better.

[DigoDragon]

Rose snorted at Longshots little bit of humor. With the first wave stopped, Rose sat up and watched in the direction of the civilians.

[Miltonian]

Right as Longshot says that, the next batch of grenades go off. This time, the Corvids do not succeed in escaping. They fall.

The tunnels still belong to the EDF. Huzzah and hurrah.