All the sneaking about was a bit frustrating for Gerad, but he guessed that was the price one payed for working with such squishy compatriots. A Militia assault would have involved the unit forming into a box
formation with their Barriers up, before advancing straight towards the strong point, engaging targets as necessary with VLAs and PRPs, and simply weather any incoming fire until they closed to point blank; as it was there was a decent chance that whomever was manning the defences might be able to bring Gerad down if he tried that on his own.
The news that the targets had powered armour suits and at least one piece of heavy armour,
did get his attention. Depending on the suits, the right type, or enough of them, could potentially bring him down, and the type of crew served weapons generally found on all up armoured vehicles was nothing to dismiss; Militia power amour may be tough, but it had its limits.
As everyone moved in, Gerad shared Cyne’s concern about the missing tank; a treat like that was not something anyone wanted to be surprised by. That said, he, Silas and Sven found they had more pressing issues as three suits moved to engage them.
”Oi, Boss Man!” Gerad called out with a laugh.
”C’n ye make sure Sven be shootin’ a’ th’ right skags in stomper suits!” One of his first missions, Sven had clipped him with a burst of weapons fire, and while it’d done no harm, he was
damned if he was going to let that clanker forget it.
-
He growled in frustration as one of them came charging at him, dodging and weaving just fast enough to throw off his aim; he was sorely tempted to just fry the skag with his PRP, but he needed to save the shots for the tank, if it had a decent point defence system, to could be a very tough
rokka to peel.
As the suit skittered in close, he spotted the snout of a plasma lance and tripped both his Barrier and shields just as it opened up on him. Tucking in tight while the superheated plasma glassed everything around him, thermal alerts squealed as the shields took the brunt of the abuse; that said, they were more meant for quick and sharp kinetic strikes so after a few moments they began to fail and the armour itself began to heat up. Fortunately however the plasma lance lacked endurance prompting the suit to pop
VIRS smoke and withdraw, tossing a trio of missiles into the mix.
Unfortunately for Gerad, the smoke hid the missiles almost up until impact, more damage alerts nagging him as they slammed into his Barrier; it held but that wasn’t something he wanted to test again. Activating his PRP, he disconnected the projector itself and extended just the armature, bringing it in front of himself. He’d made a few custom changed to his systems over the years and this was one of them; his VLA was already in his right main hand, and with a few quick movements from his secondary hands, he’d removed the manual controls for the VLA and stored them in his armour before mounting the weapon on the armature. Booting up some associated software, his VLA was now a miniature point defence laser that could react
far faster than he could.
Drawing his hammer, he heard the approach of the suit that was engaging him as the smoke began to dissipate. Another trio of missiles screamed out of the thinning smoke, only to be met with Gerad’s PDL, which intercepted them easily to the anger of the pilot. As the enemy suit charged in, Gerad remained stationary behind his Barrier, only rotating in place to keep his opponent to his front. As the last second the suit juked to one side for another plasma lance pass, and Gerad made his move.
Because Garundins had a reputation in fights for just meeting opponents head on and pushing through on sheer durability and stubbornness, many folks tended to forget they were a high grav species in some of the most advanced suits of power armour available; they eschewed things like jump jets and the like not because they couldn’t use them properly or that they were too heavy as a species to make them worthwhile…such things just weren’t part of the Garundin mindset. In reality a fully armoured Militia trooper could move
incredibly fast when and if needed.
In a flash his Barrier came down and he lashed out with his hammer, throwing it at the legs of the attacking suit while simultaneously charging after it. The hammer hit with a resounding crash and served to stagger his target long enough for Gerad to close the distance. Hitting the enemy with a full bore tackle, he drove the enemy suit off balance even further, and despite his smaller stature, he dragged it to the ground.
While the enemy trooper tried to regain their balance, Gerad’s combi-cutters lashed out. Arcing around behind his opponent, he used the cutter to carve ruinous damage into the armour, rendering its thrusters non-functional, before doing the same thing to the on-board weapons. At full power a Militia cutter could cut through the armour of a tank in few minutes; in this instance the damage was catastrophic. While the cutter worked, Gerad was doing his best to maintain control of the fight as his larger opponent attempted to batter and crush him; returning the favour, he’d wrapped his main arms around the lower torso of the other suit and exerted as much force as he could.
The two armoured figures grappled with one another, while the cutter burned and hacked at the outer plating. It was a fight that had the potential to go on for a while, until suddenly it didn’t. In the cutters attacks it’d managed to damage a main power conduit, triggering a surge and causing automatic failsafes to cut power. All of a sudden Gerad’ opponent stopped moving; extracting himself from his opponents embrace, he grunted in satisfaction with what he’d doing. The armour was beyond all but the best Armour’s skills to repair and with the damage so severe, it would take that sort of skill just to get the pilot
out.
Setting his systems to auto-repair, Gerad retrieved his hammer, swapped his ranged weapons back to their normal states, and left his opponent to whatever fate awaited him.
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