Earthsphere 2404

[Solaris]

Rockets started streaking from several of the troopers as they all fell back into more sheltered positions, shattering anything that looked like it might maybe provide cover for an enemy marksman.

Pike knew better than to bother trying to get one of the humans to help. With surprising dexterity and intelligence, she maneuvered James onto her back and, seizing James's forearm in her jaws as delicately as she would have handled a pup or infant, half-carried, half-dragged her partner towards the shelter of a nearby wrecked car.

"Agent!" the platoon sergeant barked over the net. "Get yer dipshit ass into cover!"

[PoisonousSpider]

"Sergeant! It might be advisable to announce that your rocketing my location.....BEFORE you rocket my location!" Logan rolled to cover just as the first explosion hit. Thankfully enough, it was the same wrecked car Pike and James were hidden behind. He throws a heavy arm over dog and handler, pulling both their bodies over the fallen form of James. "I'm telling you, Pike. These guys are -trying- to kill me at this point."

"Logan? You're getting a call from an Angela Berkley. Should I put it through?" The AI's welcoming voice drowned out the apparent chaos that was their radio set.

"What? Angela?! NO! Absolutely not! I'm in the middle of a firefight! How the hell did she get this number?"

"Logan, I'm not an answering service. Programming states that you either take the call to find out the reasons for it, or I put it through to your voicemail."

"Voicemail! Voicemail! Voicemail! Where the hell are those chariots?!"

[Solaris]

"Those aren't ours!" the platoon sergeant snapped. A part of his mind took offense at the presumption that his grenadiers would shoot at their own platoon leader.

"Might I recommend we no longer go with the plan of dropping us off a quarter-mile away and walking to the target?" someone quipped over the net. A couple of the troopers laughed.

"Shut up!"

"Clear the ****ing net!" the platoon sergeant roared. "Our drivers hit an ambush! Zeta Ops, Kaberos seven, requesting you get your ass out here and do your job! How copy, over!?"

While he spoke, someone cut loose with a gyrojet gun. A cascade of near-simultaneous explosions brought down the street-side of the building first squad was hiding in. Someone returned fire with a rocket, and the gyro abruptly stopped. War-cries filled the air as dozens of Trillstani attacked from all sides, picking off a couple of unlucky troopers before the platoon managed to batten themselves down and out of sight. A couple, though, were not in the least bit interested in hiding. Two troopers across the street from Berkley were trading fire with the enemy, taking cover in an alley as they prairie-dogged in and out. Very shortly, surviving elements of first squad started shooting from the second floor of their building. The Trillstani scored kills of their own, as a handful more troopers went down.

"Zeta six en route," Alder said crisply. "There appears to be an uprising in the works. Ramirez is officially a warzone."

"Zeta Ops, Gamma Ops. We are sending assistance," a woman's voice said over the net. "Estimate inbound, call it fifteen minutes."

Pike snarled her agreement with Berkley. She looked towards the street, where the troopers were engaged in a gunfight with Trillstani commandos, then looked back up at him expectantly.

[PoisonousSpider]

"That building?" Logan nods at a building across the street. The structure was one of the more defensible locations in sight. It boasted controlled access points, high windows, and a modern construction more suited to be a prison then anything else. The sign posted outside confirmed the fact that it was, indeed, more like a lockup then anyone could imagine. First Midgardian Financial Bank. "Mine."

Berkley laughs, helping to secure James to the back of the neodog and patting the animal on it's head. He starts from behind the cover before his rifle is even resecured to his back. Within moments, though, his assault rifle graces his hand. A quickly placed shot blows the throat out of one Trillstani as he peers from a third story window. His body bounces when it hits the street below. Between the high impact rounds and the extra piercing power of jacketed cartridges, shots hit skulls regardless of the cover taken.

When they hit the doors to the bank, Pike does the rest. Logan's entrance is precipitated by a slight laugh. The neodog was ripping the throat out of one Trillstani while her foot was planted in the throat-hole of her previous victim.

The individual who thought he'd sneak up behind the genetic monster with a shotgun was suprised by the bullet that pierced his throat. "This doesn't mean you're winning."

[Solaris]

"Dude, I hate the escort missions where the escortee goes off running by itself," complained one of the troopers as he followed a couple of heartbeats behind Berkley.

"Tell me about it," the Herc drone agreed as it ducked through the doorway, a thin wisp of smoke curling out the gun barrels mounted on its forearms. "It's okay. I like it when the squishies run."

The trooper knelt beside James after glancing at Berkley, checking her pulse and reading the vital output on her breastplate. "I think she's got five, maybe ten minutes before the brain starts suffering," he said tersely. "Not that she had many brain cells to spare." He looked at Berkley as he stood up. "Have your suit start a timer for six hundred seconds. It runs out, she gets another shot of oxy-juice - that's the white syringe with a drill where most have needles." He pointed to one of the pouches built into his chest-plate, then down at the ones on the lieutenant's. "She should have two more left, if you've already used one."

[PoisonousSpider]

"These damn things have come a long way in fifty years." Logan mutters quietly, watching the counter his AI automatically set up within his lense display. "Pike, my dear? Could you please keep an eye on the door?" The dark green eyes settle on the neodog, clearly ignoring the comment about the Lieutenant's brain cells. "And if you hate escort missions when I decide not to stand in a street and get destroyed, consider yourself free to go." The former centurion taps the auditory input sensors on the sides of his helmet as his sniper rifle unfolds in his hands. "If you don't mind it so much though, I'd say that you could have the drone suppress some of these vantage points and give the people on the street an opportunity to change their situation." The bipod extends and finds a bank teller's desk, several feet behind the window. "Or, you know, I think I saw a drink machine in the reception area." The special agent moves another two desks into similar positions behind other windows. When he settles behind his rifle at last, he exhales and pops off two shots. Immediately thereafter, the former legionare picks his rifle up and moves to another position to engage whatever was popping out of the woodwork.

[Solaris]

"This one hears and obeys," the Herc unit intoned while the trooper chuckled. It stood boldly in the open, popping off shots against the Trillstani commandos.

An inky black neodog slinked in, muzzle and paws dripping red. He met nose-to-nose with Pike before walking about to the trooper. "Y'know, the drones really are that - you're talking to a person who's remotely controlling it and the rest of its squad. I'm Banner Sergeant Takeioshi, he's Spec-Four Lin."

"Han," the drone stated as a barrage of gunfire rocked its chassis.

Takeioshi winced, but it didn't put a hitch in the banter. "You all look the same."

"Lin's pissed," the drone remarked. "All his drones bought it, and nobody's wanting to give up any of theirs."

"Yeah, no ****." Takeioshi patted his ink-black partner on the shoulder before rising to his feet and looking around. "At least you picked a good spot," he said after a moment. "Hey, Han, move over. I wanna shoot somethin'."

"Get your own spot." The drone picked out a couple more shots while more Herc drones lumbered up. "Why not look after the ma'am?"

Ignoring the drone operator, the banner sergeant took his scout rifle, checked its ammo readout, and set up beside Berkley. "Shadow, post up with Pike. Lemme know if anything comes."

The ink-black dog looked back at him.

"Yes, snarling as you rip his head off is adequate," Takeioshi sighed as he lined up a shot and picked off a Trillstani Berkley was aiming for.

"Kill-steal successful!"

[PoisonousSpider]

"And yet, you failed to get the one on the other side of the wall." Logan chuckles as he pulls the trigger, his head shaking slightly. He simply picks his rifle up and moves to a spot on the other side of Tak. "I've seen drones before. It's a big suprise the Alliance can afford them, I know. But my command authority here is..." He looks down at James and shakes his head. "Spotty at best." He looks back up in time to pop off one more round into the kill triangle of a bold insurgent who was walking behind a rolling news disk stand. It wasn't nearly enough cover. "Logan Berkley, Sergeant. These are interesting circumstances to meet under." When the alarms within his suit began to sound, Logan calmly moved to James' unconcious body. He positions her head forward and tilts his chin slightly back in the most respectful manner a human can muster. "We're not going to be able to hold long." The drill pierces her skull with a soft crack. "Any ideas for an escape route?"

[Solaris]

((Drones are the bulk of Alliance fighting forces, about 75% of non-Legion troops, and a good chunk of Republic and Commonwealth too as they don't have the Legion.))

"Well," Takeioshi said, "we got three CCPs, counting this one." He squeezed off three quick shots, taking out two Trillstani. "Seven's counting twenty-two wounded out of our original forty-three." He paused. "Twenty-five."

A half-dozen gyrojets and heavy machineguns opened up outside, and Alder's voice came crisp and clear over the 'net. "Kaberos elements, we have arrived."

One of the Chariots drove up to the bank, popping smoke canisters as the tiny medic onboard leapt out with a pack in her hand, a pistol in the other. Where the majority of Zeta century troopers wore unmarked black armor, she had a red cross on her shoulders and right breast. "Help me get her loaded," the medic said in a girlish soprano.

"Roger," Takeioshi said. "Berk, cover." The request was unnecessary; only someone in a powersuit, with its ability to penetrate nearly any visual obstruction, could see through the smoke. The Trillstani certainly couldn't.

But men have died for confusing cover with concealment.

The medic crouched beside James, checking her suit's readouts. "She's stable. Good work."

"All this guy."

"Her suit'll hold her stiff. On three." At Takeioshi's nod, she counted off and they easily lifted the immobilized officer. Pike looked on anxiously, and jumped into the back of the Chariot alongside her partner. The medic hopped in, focused on her patient.

"Drive!" Takeioshi yelled. "Kaberos seven, six is in casevac."

"Copy," the platoon sergeant's haggard voice came back. "All Kaberos elements, I am uploading a route to your suits. We advance to meet our rides."

[PoisonousSpider]

"Roger." Although the cover was not necessarily needed, Logan provided what he could. Red lights were extinguished as soon as they showed up on his visor display, though one eye was always on James.

"Logan? Angela Berkley left you a message. Voice analysis shows confusion and anger mixed with disbelief. Overall analysis states that you should not call her back. She may be a threat."

"She probably is. You don't abandon someone for fifty years and expect them to blatently forgive you. I'll listen to the message later. Right now, show me an in depth readout of enemy vitals within the penetration system. Some of these targets are indistinct. I need a target to shoot at." Within seconds, the readout goes into greater detail. Indistinct blobs gain much more distinct parts, namely, large glowing orbs in the center of their chest and on the crown of their head. They were bloodflow zones as well as the centers of hominid magnetics.

The special agent pops off two more rounds.

The route display comes up in the corner of his vision, but it only takes a passing thought to bring it to the forefront of his sight. "This...Is going to be a right pain in the bollocks."

[Solaris]

"Second squad, rally on me," Takeioshi called over the squad net - Berkley could only hear him because they're standing right next to each other. "We are plus one pax."

"Second squad, confirm you have plus one?" the platoon sergeant called over the net. Something exploded next to him as he spoke.

"Affirm, plus one," Takeioshi replied.

"Sweet, escort missions," the Herc drone quipped. "Don't worry, I hardly ever lose these." He paused. "So... if you all get whacked, I can just load from a save game, right?"

"I can never tell if you're serious or not," Takeioshi muttered. With a lull in the combat from the Chariots pushing out nearly all of the Trillstani attackers, his squad came loping up to the bank. Takeioshi counted them off as they jogged in; another neodog handler, four scouts, and four sharpshooters. While the handlers and scouts had C-M12 scout rifles along with their M-CP8 pistols, the sharpshooters had C-M18E3 carbines in the standard configuration with their C-M11 sharpshooting rifles affixed to their packs.

"Hu, Lao, you take point," Takeioshi said to two of the scouts. "Murphy, you and Musashi take rear. Troopers, move out!"

The streets were eerily quiet when the squad moved out, half of them taking up one side of the street while the other took up the other side. The neodogs roamed up and down the line, padding almost silently as they sought out an enemy that could evade the troopers' snoopers.

"Third squad reports no contact," Takeioshi remarked to Berkley. "First went out with the Chariots. Fourth found a couple of fighters, but they ran rather than make contact. What gives?"

[PoisonousSpider]

"No idea. You would've thought they would've fell back in on us as soon as the chariots rolled out." Berkley remained in the middle of the column, walking in a way very different to the auxilary's usual SOP. His finger was on the trigger, with eyes scanning the windows above them, not the streets ahead. "It may well be a calm before the storm." The tall former legionare in the black powersuit looked left, then right, nudging Tak gently and nodding toward a pair of young scouts. Their weapons hung from their necks by slings, and they were currently throwing rocks at one another within the column. "Is your partner hungry?"

[Solaris]

((Trillstani scouts. Mwahahaha!))

"Sir, kindly get out of the killzone," Takeioshi said evenly to the agent. "The way this works is my men on the left side of the road cover the windows to the right, and vice-versa. They're on the sides of the road because that minimizes angles of hostile attack. Bullets deflecting off the walls stopped being important about sixty years ago - y'know, when they came out with charge guns and stopped using mass drivers."

"Kids with rocks, Sarge," Hu said over the squad net.

"Rocks are weapons," Takeioshi pointed out. He barely finished speaking before two gunshots rang out. "Outstanding, Hu."

"Score two for me," the Herc's operator announced over the radio. "You puny meat-things are slow."

"Sarge, he's kill-stealing again," Hu said with a note of mock whining in his voice.

"****," Musashi said, "I haven't even gotten a target yet. Doc went down next to me, had to spend the last thirty minutes playing CCP."

"Really?" one of the snipers piped up. "I got at least fifteen."

"Kill counts out of the kill zone!" Takeioshi snapped. "You bastards know better than to taunt Murphy."

"I'm good," Murphy quipped, "We're clear of the enemy. What's the wor-"

Takeioshi found it ironic that a blast from an enemy rocket ensured Murphy never finished that sentence. He was busy diving for cover in a doorway, though, as were all the rest of his men. Nobody had to call out 'contact'; their suits took care of that for them, and one of the last packets of data Murphy's suit transmitted was a probable location of the enemy attacker.

"Push for the enemy," Takeioshi called over the net. "Dogs and scouts, cover! Sharpshooters, take a position and take that bastard out!" Following his orders, the handlers and scouts started pecking at the building the enemy shot from while the sharpshooters maneuvered into position. Two of them jumped up, trailing a whisper of smoke as their jetpacks lifted them up onto the rooftops, while the other two ran into a squat, ugly one-story building next door to the enemy. Following Shadow, the four neodogs ran around to cover the back of the building and make sure the enemy didn't escape.

"Han here. I got one of my birds overhead. Piping feed now." An image appeared in the squads' visors, projected into the helmet's HUD. "See the li'l feller in the second floor, currently running for the staircase? That's our man. Building's about a hundred meters down the road from you. Hurry."