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[IC] Falling Skies Page 2

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Hidden 5 days ago Post by Eisenhorn
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Eisenhorn Inquisitor of some Note

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Lieutenant Commander Johann "Rhino" Von Brandt




"Solid copy Vulture, breaking off to engage priority target."

Johann throttled the thrusters to max, the one useful thing about space being able to get even a brick like the Secutor up and moving at high speed, and maintaining it, was far easier than in a gravity well. The situation was turning quite decisively in their favor overall, even with the Fafnir unit still highly operational and dangerous. Moving at maximum thrust, he was already calculating what his plan would be when comms lit up once again, Hex confirming that she was going on overwatch for him as he created the most overt signature out of the entire team, throttling the reactor to full power in the process to gain just that little extra bit of energy as he continued fine tuning power distribution. He had a plan building in mind, and that meant getting close enough to Fafnir to make a play, and fortunately he had some overwatch to help make that happen.

"Solid copy Hex, take your time. Secutor can take anything Fafnir thinks it can throw my way."

Throttle fully open, Johann continued burning towards the Fafnir, not even slowing down to attempt to line up a shot with his MAC-011, even as it pinged that loading sequence for HESH was completed and awaiting targeting sequence, which he toggled to manual as he continued burning headlong towards Fafnir. Alarms blared as the energy signature built, but Rhino put full faith in his fellow pilot to prevent the shot from going off, and when Hex sounded off, he felt an almost feral grin flash across his face, locking into a dueling mindset as he continued his approach. Undeterred by the energy signature, his faith was rewarded by the solid impact from Hex's Blackout, 90mm round tearing clean through the ESR Beam Cannon and disabling the building flare on view, and silencing at least a few of the alarms. Rhino kept pushing, alerts notifying of the drone deployments, though none of them pivoted to engage him fortunately. Unfortunately that meant the two pilots he was moving to support were the targets instead.

"WARNING: Entering minimum safe distance for MAC-011 operations, recommend securing weapon platform."

"Good guns Hex, I'm on him. Rook, Commie, watch those drones."

Rhino ignored the minimum range safety on the MAC-011, turning to take the brunt of the incoming plasma enhanced 35mm on non vital parts of his frame, armor registering damage and several non vital systems flashing alarms on his HUD. Nothing worth writing home about, he treated most of his non vitals as fodder for wasting enemy ammunition and baiting them into less advantageous positions anyways. Sure enough Fafnir was closing in, plasma talons flaring to life as the Secutor's own Plasma Gauntlet lit up, glowing as it spooled up, and to all onlookers it looked like the Secutor would be too slow to catch the incoming blender of talons, but at the last possible moment the Class 3 shield flared to life, deflecting the incoming dive and Johann fired his maneuvering thrusters, putting the entire momentum of his Mech into a deceptively fast backhanded hammer blow aimed directly for the core of the Fafnir. A blow like that would be highly damaging even to a Heavy, and Rhino was gambling on the Fafnir taking the bait and using its own Class 3 to blunt the blow, though the impact would still create a narrow opening between the two of them.

"WARNING: Within minimum safe distance for MAC-011 operations..."

"MAC-011 safeties overridden, HESH on deck, standby."

Rhino kept the momentum of his backhanded swing going, cutting off the automated warning with an override, taking advantage of the momentum carrying him past the Fafnir and using the maneuvering thrusters to control his spin, positioning himself naturally to point blank the Fafnir with the MAC-011 as he snapped into a firing stance, hurtling backwards but still far too close for comfort for any official doctrinal use of his superheavy weapon. The moment the targeting reticule swung onto Fafnir the entire frame shuddered as the HESH shell launched, both energy signatures on sensors and visuals of the magnetic accelerators crackling to life as they caught the conventionally launched shell, sending the HESH shell straight for the core of the Fafnir. At this range he wouldn't waste time recharging another shot in the MAC-011, instead shunting all power from its charging systems to refreshing the Class 3 Shield as fast as he could, MAC-011 swinging back into its mounting on his back as the Rotary Autocannon deployed from his right hand instead, watching power steadily build on the Plasma Gauntlet as well.

"HESH away, standby for effect on target."
Hidden 13 hrs ago → 12 hrs ago Post by Whoami
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Whoami All things atmospheric...

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Good Hunting

(Mood Music)


Leah watched as the Secutor closed the distance on the Fafnir thanks to her cover fire and funnel support. But as always, Hex was a busy bee in the squadron. She always had wingmen to cover, targets of opportunity to eliminate, and positions to shift. Anyone who said a sniper's job in a battle was to just sit back and take it easy in the backline had clearly never had to do the job. With Rabbit and Vulture moving to take out some more major Coalition fleet assets, Rhino dismantling the Fafnir, and Commie and Braid assisting other elements in the fleet, Hex had a moment for herself. She enjoyed her friendly competition with Sabine, and she most certainly wasn't about to let her come back to the Roanoke with a boast.

Leah scanned the debris field that bisected the battlelines. The Blackout detected several drive plumes in the field and booster flares matching Fenrir sigs as they moved navigated the debris to close back in on their fleet. If they weren't taken care of, they'd wind up behind the much faster Sparrowhawk and Watchdog picking apart the Coalition battlegroup. Plus everyone else had their hands tied. She brought her sniper cannon to bear, but with the density of the fenrir's local debris, coupled with her new distance and drift vector, the odds of landing a successful shot on any more than one of them were too low to justify using the ammo. Leah smirked and fired her main boosters, "7th, this is Hex. I'm moving into the debris field to intercept the remainders of the fenrir squadron that are withdrawing. Rabbit, Vulture, that'll give you two the breathing room to get the big ticket items."

The fenrirs were doing the right thing: moving in teams while others remained in somewhat defensible positions in the debris to cover the hard burn away from the UEE. Hex reactivated the DCA on her MAS and cut her main boosters when she reached the debris field. The ambient reflections off the debris would make radar a living hell for most MAS units, and the DCA would serve to just make it all the more difficult. Hex was on the hunt here, and she didn't need to move as erratically or hastily as the fenrirs did to get back to their fleet and support them. She had the advantage while the fenrirs took turns hard burning, their backs and main booster flares giving off all the emissions the Blackout needed to see through the noise of the debris field. While she couldn't keep a constant eye of their movements, Leah was able to deduce which positions the fenrirs would move to and from just by the pings on her passive sensors.

The Blackout landed on a slowly rotating piece of debris, the feet locking on its surface as it positioned the LR-90 down a sight tunnel through the debris field. Hex kept quiet and focused, waiting for the moment when a fenrir would move along the most obvious path through the tunnel to get the next, most optimal position for a withdrawal. Her trigger finger was itchy. Then she saw it, the distinct humanoid silhouette of the fenrir, backlit by its orange booster flares as it rocketed directly into her field of view. Leah didn't waste time getting a firing solution. At this range, manual was good enough for her. She squeezed the trigger, the LR-90's recoil going into the Blackout and altering the spin on the debris it had been anchored to. The round pierced straight through the core of the MAS, a cockpit kill. It immediately stopped burning its boosters and careened hard into a large piece of wrecked station, a fireball erupting as the hull of MAS' reactor went critical from a shell breach.

"Target destroyed."

"Hex, one down." she reported her progress.

Hex immediately disengaged her maglocks and kicked off from the debris, maneuvering only with her RCS thrusters to keep a low sig. That ambush would slow the fenrirs down now that they were aware they weren't the only ones using it for cover. She drifted slowly, firing her RCS thrusters only if she saw she was on a collision course with some debris. "Scan for radio frequencies reflecting off the debris. Isolate and lock."

"Scanning... Three radio sources detected within one kilometer... For your consideration: Without Coalition encryption, intercepting their communications is pointless."

"We're not listening. Arm Stilletos. Fire volleys of six at each source, saturation, spread fifty." Hex said. She could immediately hear the mechanical whir of her machine as her missile pod shifted into a firing position over her MAS' shoulder.

The sound of rapid metallic clicking could be hear as eighteen slender stilleto missiles launched in rapid succession from her missile pod. The missiles zipped out in front of her, their only giveaway to Leah's naked eye being the local star glinting off of their thin white surface. In the debris field, they would just be seen to sensors as more random pieces of metal broken off from the station. The micro missiles were nimble, able to corner with much higher accuracy than any standard seeking missile. Their pointed, armor piercing tip could easily punch through unarmored debris at their velocities, making this environment ideal for them to root out targets. It didn't take long before she received two positive returns of hit targets.

It seemed one of her volleys hit nothing. But it didn't matter. She could work with two. "Crack their comms and tag their locations. I want eyes on them. And flag me as friendly in their systems. I want to get in close."

A screen in Leah's right hand field of view began streaming data to her, raw code as her onboard AI went to work infiltrating the two Fenrirs' firewalls and systems through the stilleto dataspikes. It didn't take long for Leah to be hearing the coalition comms.

<<Shit! Whoever got Jackie tagged me with something! All systems green but I don't have a good feeling!>>

<<Take it easy, ensign. Remember to breathe. We've only got one more kilometer of debris to clear and we'll be under the fleet's coverage. We'll remember Jackie once this is over. Gabriel, the ensign and I are moving in one minute. Cover us.>>

<<Sir!>>

Hex watched her radar and saw it ping with the locations of the two tagged fenrirs. She fired her RCS boosters again and kicked off some more debris to change course without causing a booster flare. Keeping her sig down got her in line of sight of the two MAS units. No wonder the team lead wanted cover, their position was the only piece of debris in a huge open gap in the field. That must've meant the unit covering was already clear of the gap and watching from a relatively dug in position, likely maglocked to debris to reduce their own emissions. The Blackout was drifting slowly in the shadow of a large chunk of station at the edge of the gap in the debris. She traced along the debris field with her naked eyes. "If I needed a covering position in this... I'd want to be... Riiiight... There."

Leah tightened her passive sensors' area to focus a shadowed nook that was likely a shuttle hangar before the station broke apart. It was held in place by a large strut and not spinning fast enough to be useless as a position of overwatch. She grinned when her sensors detected the third MAS set up with a heavy machine gun inside the hangar. She fired her RCS thrusters again, drifting along the length of her debris until she could get in close to hangar. She readied her LR-90 and fired her main booster, cruising straight for the hangar. Landing on top of it, still outside of the covering fenrir's line of fire, she quickly maglocked to the surface and laid her MAS down along its surface. Leah fired the afterburners on her MAS, a large drive plume blazing out behind her MAS. The hangar quickly began to spin, to the point where the fenrir inside lost line of sight on his two other wingmen.

<<What the hell?! Shit! I think a fuel cell just blew out on this hunk of junk! I need to shift!>>

Leah saw the two fenrirs burning to their next position hard. She locked her LR-90 to one, and fired, the round ripping through the main boosters of one and causing it to spin violently. The centrifugal force inside of the cockpit easily pushing past nine G's as the MAS's boosters fired uncontrollably. There was no way any pilot could keep conscious in those conditions.

"Target disabled."

"Two down."

<<Gabriel?! What the hell are you doing?! You just shot the chief! Friendly! We're friendly!>>

<<That wasn't me!>>

The stilletos were doing the trick, and Hex's IFF was showing up as blue for the two tag fenrirs. Unfortunately for the overwatch, having such a well concealed position and no more line of sight to the rest of his squadron, his IFF was obscured. As far as the coalie rookie was concerned, there was only one IFF marker present on the overwatch's position. And it was blue. Unfortunately for the rookie, that blue coalition IFF marker was bringing a UEE sniper cannon to bear on him next. But before Leah could pull the trigger, a series of heavy rounds ripped through the debris just in front of the Blackout. Leah cursed under her breath and unlocked her MAS' feet from the debris, firing the fore boosters to pivot the Blackout out of its prone position and skate backward along the hangar's exterior surface as a torrent of cannon rounds traced a line in the Blackout's wake. Leah kicked off from the hangar and shouldered the LR-90, opting for her Kruger heavy pistol and combat knife as the spinning hangar module span below the Blackout to the point where its opening was in line with her.

Hex pivoted and hard burned forward into the hangar. The fenrir pointed its HMG at the Blackout as it entered the hangar and began skating along its deck. It fired off a non-stop burst at the Blackout. Hex skated forward and to the side aggressively, evading the first handful of rounds before one round ripped a shoulder plate clean off the Blackout and another ricocheted off her core, leaving a long line in her DCA plates. She raised her 40mm pistol at the fenrir and firing four heavy airburst rounds at the fenrir to destabilize it. The force of the explosions and recoil of the HMG caused some shots to veer upward and into the torn apart ceiling, giving the Blackout room to boost in the opposite direction and close more of the gap. With a main overboost, the Blackout got in close. The fenrir tried to smash the muzzle end of its HMG against the Blackout. Hex raised an arm, easily deflecting the blow of the unwieldy MAS weapon which wasn't designed for close combat. Leah's combat instinct as an infanteer was kicking in. She may have been in a multi-million credit MAS, but the fact that everything was humanoid shaped really eased her into translating certain hand-to-hand techniques into MAS close combat. She kept her titanium knife low, stabbing it upward into the core of the fenrir. She pulled the blade back, causing sparks to fly and mechanical fluids to spill out into the vacuum. The fenrir did what it could to fight back, driving a steel fist along the Blackout's core. DCA armor sparked and fragmented but held together from the pilot's feeble attempt. He clearly had never expected thing to get this up close and personal.

Leah jostled in her seat from the fenrir's punch, but that didn't dissuade her. Withdrawing the knife from the fenrir's core, Hex raised the blade up, flipping the grip and dropping the blade down right over the cockpit hatch. The blade sunk it. The Blackout brought a foot up, maglocking itself to the Fenrir while the other maglocked to the hangar deck, keeping it place against the back wall of the hangar. Leah pried with the combat knife, ripping the front armor and glacis plate completely from the MAS. The coalition pilot stared out directly into the vacuum of space at the Blackout as sparks flew about him. Display flickered, and it seemed the first stab had destroyed part of the pilot's controls. His leg was severed and floating elsewhere in the cockpit. Despite that, the pilot fought on by drawing his service pistol and firing harmlessly at the UEE MAS. Leah could hear the small pings of the nine millimeter contacting her hull. Leah had to give props to the pilot, but it wasn't about to change the outcome. Leah embedded the knife in the fenrir's leg, just so she had a place to keep it so she could free up a hand. The Blackout grabbed the pilot and yanked him from his cockpit, throwing him out of the hangar where he could spend his last moments witnessing the chaos of war with his own eyes rather than through a screen. Something not a lot of pilots actually ever saw.

Leah pulled the knife out of the fenrir's leg and locked it back to the Blackout's thigh as the MAS' AI reported, "Target disabled."

"This is Hex. That's three." she said coldly to the team.

A sudden shot connected with the Blackout's drone backpack, causing a series of alarms to go off in the cockpit. Leah grunted and, out of reflex, overboosted right. She span her MAS, sparks flying from the Blackout's feet as it skated in a pirouette on the hangar deck to change face to the threat. At the hangar mouth was the rookie MAS firing his rifle one handed at the Blackout while holding the dead pilot in the older. <<You monster! You killed them! You'll paaaay! AAAAHHH!>>

Another round hit the Blackout, punching a hole through the core armor. The round passed through Leah's cockpit and just narrowly missed her head, a flare of sparks showering her as she maneuvered again to get out of the line of fire. But the hangar was a barrel, and she was the fish. She had to get out. Firing her mains directly upward, the Blackout jumped and forced itself through the shot-to-hell ceiling. Debris scattered in every direction as more of the rookie fenrir's rifle rounds followed behind her. It didn't need to be stated how dangerous it was for a MAS to force its way out of hull, let alone how damaging to a MAS' peripheral equipment it could be. The LR-90's barrel was bent, and the stilleto pod was forced back down its track with a burst hydraulic pistol. DCA plates fragmented off of the Blackout's hull, spinning away with the rest of the hangar module's debris. But it beat getting shot to hell in the hangar like a cornered animal. The Blackout flipped and burned to break line of sight while the fenrir tried to follow and keep up. Leah was the better pilot, managing to keep maneuvering one step ahead of him and keep out of line of sight while she evaluated her options.

She clenched her jaw, fighting the G-forces of her evasive maneuvers. Sparks in the cockpit showered her from time to time and blaring alarms in her ears forced her to take just a second to suppress them so she could focus. Leah ran a weapon systems diagnoses as she burned erratically in every direction. Another rifle round hit her, but the armor held. She jostled in her seat again and grunted.

"LR-90... Damaged...
MT-SmM 10DS... Damaged...
DCCM-8... Damaged...
HP-40... Lost..."

Leah cursed under her breath. But she did see a way out of it. She flipped her MAS and burned hard for the open space in the debris field. No cover. Nowhere to hide.
__________

Captain Torres stood on the bridge of the destroyer EENS Anvil. He was looking over the holoscape as his sister ship, the Hammer, burned up and fell victim to a series of secondary explosions from the Fafnir's plasma cannon attack. Torres shook his head, "Give me a sitrep on the search and rescue efforts! And someone work out a firing solution on those damn cruisers already! We're sitting ducks and I haven't heard any of our railguns fire in the past four minutes!"

"Aye aye, sir. Coalition Cruiser Scarlet Horizon locked and- what the..." the gunnery chief paused.

Torres glared at him, "What's wrong, lieutenant? Don't tell me someone failed to load the gun."

The gunnery chief shook his head, "Er- No sir, it's just... We're receiving a weapon systems override. Authority: Obsidian? Sir, I've lost control of railgun two, controls are slaved to another unit!"

Captain Torres raised a brow, "Obsidian?! Ahh shit..." he said as he pulled a credit from his pocket and dropped it in a glass jar sitting near his command chair labelled as the 'swear jar'.

"Sir?" the gunnery chief was confused.

Torres sat back in his seat and placed his head in his hand as he watched the Anvil's firing lane shift several degrees off the coalition cruiser to a single Coalition MAS in the station's debris field. "Here's a good lesson for you to learn quick, lieutenant. Obsidian authority sucks ass." he said, placing another credit in his jar, "There's one operator in our flotilla that has that clearance... Lo and behold it's one of those cowboys from the 7th- cowgirl, rather. And she's about to use it overkill some poor soul who probably looked at her the wrong way."
__________

<<You're running?! That's all you do after wiping out my team?! I'm not letting you escape! I have you! You're going down!>>

The fenrir burned after the damaged Blackout, following it out into the open gap in the debris field. It fired more rifle rounds at the Blackout, one scoring a hit on a booster. The Blackout's trajectory suddenly changed, causing Leah to gasp at the sudden shift in G's. She clenched her jaw and corrected, putting more juice in another booster and angling her MAS to rectify her vector. She kept her eyes on a monitor, watching as a line of fire slewed over her local space and begin tracking the berzerking fenrir. She listened to the tone as it picked up in frequency, right up until the tone went solid and her onboard AI said, "Fleet Command and Control Uplink established. EENS Anvil overridden. Target locked."

Leah squeezed the trigger and remained evasive while she listened to the fenrir's comms. <<Nowhere to hide now, you bastard! You lead yourself right out into the open! You're dead!>>

Leah overboosted left and rolled her MAS to face the fenrir. Then she switched her comms channel to the fenrir's to speak to him directly. "Guess again."

Right after she sent her transmission to her opponent, the heavy rail passed through the fenrir. There was a flash as the round blinked past, then a stream of sparks that stretched out several hundreds of meters, and a blooming cloud of glowing hot metal slag where a MAS used to be. Leah dropped her head back against her seat and took a moment to breathe deep and come down from the strain of high G-forces.

"Target destroyed."

Leah panted quietly and looked around her mess of a cockpit. Her self status monitor was flickering on and off, but she could make out the status of her machine. It was compromised in several areas. That rookie almost had her. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before going onto the 7th's net, "This is Hex... Coalition MAS squadron confirmed KIA..." she took another moment to breathe before continuing her report, "My machine took some hits. I'm okay though. I'm RTB for repairs."
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