FourtyTwo

Juggernauts (BigPapaBelial and kingkonrad) IC

"Got it, Nolan. Moving." Andrew replied, the Kiwi moving down to another rock in the snowy hillside, the ghillied-up arctic sniper under the cover of his collegue, and knowing he had his own explosives to set. While Eric had a hell of a job to lace the site's SAM and AA sites up, Andrew knew his was just as valuable, needing to eliminate the secondary radar array. And while it wouldn't be much, it was better he went alone, making sure that Nolan could at least cover them both while they laid the site up. The dawn sun was beginning to slowly arise on the horizon, very, very gently bringing the light in

With a bounding move, he stood above the dome, seeing the a fireteam come out, sweeping out and across the ridgeline, as if they were returning from patrol. They were radio'd up, which was an issue- one of them having a headset on over their warm beanie hat, or as more likely that Nolan would call it, a toque. Once he started this, it was gonna be a matter of time for Eric. So instead of using his MP5 to spray up the group, Andrew waited, letting them walk away.

"Eyes on, four tangoes, moving out of the dome. Don't fire on them. Let em go. Look like they're headed over your way, Eric, they have comms and radios. They're way too close to the base to put them on edge. Let's buy some time here, let em go till we're ready to start picking them apart." Andrew called out quietly into his throat mic, aware that while they had the rounds to shoot at anyone here, doing it this close to the facility was going to burn them. After all, the other patrol had at least been scattered and far enough away from the base to go missing for a few hours- these lot were about to go into the base, likely returning from the last posting. That would lead them to be in the shit- and as difficult as it was to not act on intiative, these poor bastards had another hour to live, it seemed.

As they moved away, Andrew dropped down the rocky slope, moving into the fenced perimeter of the dome, MP5 drawn, watching his quarters. Approaching the front door, he pushed inside, sweeping the inside of the radar facility. Up the steps, he slowly went around, hearing the sound of Russian. Crouching by the door frame, he took a peek, before taking a moment's breather. Time to go. With a sweep, he pushed in, nailing the two operators inside, quickly railing them with a hail of silenced 9mm fire, the sound unlikely to leave the building at all given the MP5SD's effectiveness. They barely had time to even react, the control room now clear and and giving the Kiwi the opportunity to work away. Pushing them aside off the chairs, Andrew set up the plastic explosives he was carrying, lacing it in the mainframe of the radar station, the 2kg of charges able to blast this entire place apart to pieces, at least the internal components. Dragging the bodies aside, an icky task, he placed them into a store cupoboard, a crude move but the only thing he could think of- trying to mop the blood from a brush that was inside there as best as possible. From a master sniper to a fucking cleaner, honestly, what was this life Andrew wondered to himself....but the job was done and in the case another rotation was coming through here, there wasn't a soul to be obviously seen. Charges ready, he came out of there, the sniper aware he had more to take on.
"Radar dome is rigged to go. Cordite Two, I'm headed back to you. Looks clear to me. Osprey, how you doing down there?" The Kiwi added, hot-fotting it back up the hill, aware that the darkness was slowly fading away, and soon they'd have to get themselves entrenched in their OPs to snipe from. They had a panoramic view of the bay from up here, and as the pink sunrise continued, it brought the crystal-clear glacial white into view, the snow flurries finally beginning to die back. It wasn't going to help the insertion teams, but they wouldn't have an AA threat to deal with once the job was done.

----

Natalie nodded, chuckling at the thought that Victor had of the Moon's Gaze.
"I'm up for that, Victor. Well, not sure if I'm very wise...but I try my best. Give me what you got." She replied, giving a beaming grin, snuggling up as close as their armours would allow them to, being ready to let him paint away.
"You know, I never used to be much of a warpaint woman but....you do have a knack, Victor." Natalie added, feeling intimate in spite of everything going on. They didn't give a damn- if someone had a problem with their relationship, they were welcome to ask them to stop, but like anyone was going to even dare that...

On the other side of the bench, Ross looked over to them, back to Carl.
"Oh definitely....he seems like a good bloke to work for, too. Gotta admit, while this programme we're on is working well, after this is done I know my papers are coming up for renewal and depending on what happens, that could mean reassignment. I mean they'd be high to put the project on ice after this but...well, it's not exactly like this is going on the record. Not sure about yours, Carl but uhh...well, let's say I'll keep my eyes open on job postings over there after this is done." Ross commented cooly, watching as Natalie finished up, the blonde Russian now getting her paint applied.
"Thought you liked this line of life, Ross? They're mercs, not exactly going to be like what we get, calling in a hell of a lot more support and resource that we've got. It's a challenge...but I know what you mean."
"True but....well, the game is changing. There seems to be a lot more interest in their circle than there is in ours. Wouldn't doubt it."

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

@Silverwind Blade

Ah useful to know! Of course, I was thinking it was around 8 foot or so tall- definitely not as big as the ones at the bottom!

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Lionheart watched as Gabby tore things apart, running the gauntlet near the cabins, Tobias taking the chance to lay down fire and suppress the vehicle pool, eliminating another onrushing team of hostiles, using the dump truck as cover on the far side from where Gabby was, as she came over. She had a dry and funny sense of humour, even while getting directly shot at, and he had to admit, it was why it was a pleasure to work alongside her. As much as she pissed him off, he took it well, just like she took how annoying he was, saluting back to her.

"You know, the usual. Making holes in things...how 'bout yourself?" He replied, turning and firing the minigun on another team, quickly decimating the cover they were behind, dropping an elevated walkway with a group of enemies on it as what could almost be a Wilhelm scream could be heard, Tobias coming back into cover to let his M134 cool. The barrel was glowing orange hot, and while miniguns were the shit, it did go to show just how much lead they were both burning through- as serious as their supply was, rounds like that would heat weapons fast.
"Like uhh...getting the drop on them? No?" He added, moving out, aware she'd get that shitty pun, as he moved back into the open, bullets ricocheting and bouncing off the suit as blared more rounds out, moving up through the courtyard up to the maintainance shed.

"Right, so since your fat Israeli arse can't make it in, mind running security? I'll handle the inside of this. I'll be back in a jiffy." Tobias added with a calm demeanour, moving to the front door and sliding his M134 onto his side, taking an axe into one hand and a P90 into the other. It was a pretty wild dual wield, but one that would be effective, as he gave a nod to Gabby, moving past the jeep in the garage and into the bay itself. A lot of gunfire could be heard, and a couple of screams even as he went out of view, before coming back a minute later, a lot more blood and rounds over his suit. It'd been fun, whatever he'd been up to- Gabby hadn't seen it, though maybe she'd see the footage latero n.

"That's that one cleared.....wait, shit, the plant's manned!" He said, looking to Gabby as he came out, hearing another rumble from inside. With a gentle run, Tobias shoved into Gabby's suit, pushing her out of the way as he turned and laid fire out with the remains of the P90's mag, watching as the wheeled loading shovel drove out of the maintainance shed's shutter door and slammed straight through, rolling over the pickup in the garage and steaming towards them- the fact Tobias had shoved Gabby out of the way probably putting them out of harm's way. With a spray of rounds, Tobias laid out the operator, and in comedic fashion, the plant continued, the throttle pinned as it drove through the base's interior, towards another enemy group. For nearly dying, well, he'd take it.

"Well, that could have ended badly! Honestly, some people, you take mining equipment out of a Cornishman's hands and that fucking happens!" Tobias remarked, aware of just how stupid a way that could have been for them to die...and now another squad that had just come in were running away from it, as Tobias switched back to the M134, spraying in their direction and catching them while they were scattered. Oh, this was fucking hillarity, and Tobias was chuckling. With that taken down, other rumbling could be heard, as the BTRs were on their way, likely with more men.
"That sounds a bit more serious...the pleasure's all yours, Dunner. Don't go punching the drivers out of their cabs. Or do. I'll get the rest of the teams coming in, UAV shows they're coming out of the central area itself. Should be easy pickings, most of them will run once we start firing down there....and then it's fucking brekkie time, and my pasty is gonna be fucking freezing." Tobias said, a little nonchalant towards nearly getting run over by 10 tons of machinery, with or without armour, that was pretty much how you died a stupid death as a merc. But it wasn't over yet- and they still had the BTRs, and a few more squads to mop up.

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Tobias had his target in mind- the AAA battery, a target that barely needed much at all compared to some. With a singular blink and a call-out, he assigned two pings to it, the mini-missile rack popping up for only a moment and flurrying rounds with another blink to confirm, the rounds outbound and flying into the distance. While it didn't compare to the sound of the GMG blasting and Tobias's M134 blaring, the gentle puff of smoke and fire in the distance of the mine was nice to see for the few seconds it took, before he came back to looking for other targets.
"Roger that Duner. AAA threat is gone, you have good connect right there. Eyes on BTRs coming out of the mine itself- want me to run security while we run in?" Tobias asked, knowing that on this run Gabby was packing more heat, but he was. It was a strange dichotomy- Gabby's suit was certainly heavier and had a lot more firepower, hell, Gabby almost treated it like a mini-mech compared to how Tobias's worked. But then again, what he lost in firepower he gained in movement- he could actually go indoors, it seemed more "wearable". Well, some indoors, at least. Depends how you enlarge the doorframe, and well, with the tools at his disposal, there were a lot of ways to do that. Suppressing a squad on the gate, Tobias quickly cleared them down, steering his canopy gently to avoid the trees and into the wide road coming out of the mine. The ground closing and closing, Tobias yanked on the yellow toggle, the three enormous black airbags firing moments before he hurtled into the ground.

Crashing down in front of the gates, soldiers ran out, Tobias clambering out forwards, cutting the material and the airbags away, leaving the mess behind. They were armed with nothing more than AKs....man, they had no idea. With a turn of the M134, quickly the front group turned to paste, the rest realising very fast what the hell was going on, as Tobias cut the last of his bits away, seeing an RPG-7 carrying infantryman raise up and fire a round. It wasn't gonna hit, but the Trophy System still snagged it, yapping it out of existence as very quickly Tobias's M134 did it to him, the shrill of the minigun roaring as he moved forwards, seeing Gabby come in.
"Got your six, gal. We've got a shitload more hostiles coming in. Let's take em hand-in-hand, hey?" He added, moving forwards as the suit's actuators pushed into the dried mud, giving him the chance to push forwards and get around. With another burst, the M134 cut down another fireteam deeper inside, tearing apart their technical in the process, the Cornish merc able to create a bridgehead for Gabby to join in with. The compound was fairly thin in terms of buildings- a large group of portacabins, a vehicle pool for the mine, a small warehouse-sized maintainance shed and a few dump trucks sat about here, with enemy forces milling all over. Quite the scene, and quite the canvas to paint.

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Yup, it's in BF4 as well I believe- low recoil, low fire rate high capacity SMG, very much like an Uzi!

Ah lovely- a nice name to have, looking forward to seeing how that gets explained out later down the line!

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Tobias watched as she clambered in, Gabby someone who even in a spar the Cornish merc found relentless like his method. Perhaps he did have the handicap of his legs, but even so, she was powerful, someone with that similar kind of fire and energy. Regardless of the suit's capabilities, it was a needed characteristic to have, despite however much technical knowledge you had on what the suit could do, it was all about having that mindset, that warrior's fight. He stood up, himself pulling his suit's gauntlets into fists and back open again, chuckling as he heard her comment. Sliding his helmet down over his head, the HUD and OS fired up, quickly calibrating in Tobias's personal diagnostics, heart rate, and so on, before connecting to the weapons systems he was carrying. The suit wasn't there yet but in theory, it wouldn't be a huge step to pump adrenaline or other drugs into an operator's body to help survivability and combat resilience- though Tobias didn't want to be all drugged up if he had any say about it. The ultramarine blue tinted visor of Tobias's surrounded by the the black honeycomb contrasted the orange polarised visor and combat green of Gabby's Stormhound, the Cornish merc aware the Israeli had a heaping grin underneath as he did too.
"But not late enough to flex your big guns? I get it, you started pumpin' more iron so you can turn down the motors a percent. You could just piss yourself in there anyway....though please don't don't say you need a poo now. This whole jumping out of planes malarky is not going to help lurve, honestly..." He had his tongue out at this point in time as the accent drawled, aware that her deadpan deserved an equal reaction, and he gave her exactly much shit as she gave him as he looked out towards the pilot, before looking back to Gabriella.

"Looking good, sounding good, Gabby. Drone feed should be live. Looks adequately spicy, main compound is certainly where the most of them are, so that's where we're headed." Tobias called out to him, the little icon coming up as it stayed pinned in the top-left corner of his HUD, giving a bit of an oversight of where the enemies were, movements, and where the IFVs were posted up.
"DZ is five minutes out, door opening." The pilot called into their comms, as Tobias watched the door open, the wind howling as he looked back to the other armoured titan, Gabby's Stormhound certainly a lot more vast and larger. While she had a lot more armour, she was still a bit more lumbering, it was less of a suit of armour and more of a minature mech, better at being an anvil while his own armour was more like a hammer, and between the two of them they could pincer anything. He could at least take his indoors, but then again, he couldn't wield another weapon on a hardpoint, so sacrificed firepower for movement. The glowing pink sunrise could be seen as the door finally opened up wide, but was rudly interrupted by the noise of flak, pumelling away into the sky around the V22 as the pilot turned hard, banking in a combat manuever. It almost threw the Cornish exoskeleton, Tobias putting strain on the side wall as the pilot dived the aircraft, bringing the tiltrotor onto a different heading before the craft took any damage.
"It's a slightly warmer DZ than we expected...hold on, I'm taking us lower into the valleyside and popping up, I'll get you there....you two both able to find that AAA and knock it out when you get out on the green?"
"Got a visual of it chief, it's in the southern corner of the mine. We'll knock it out for your way out, just get us to that LZ without getting killed!" Tobias called out, aware that while this thing would survive it, getting flak on an engine would be the end of their fun- or their parachutes. These suits were pretty fucking good, but falling out of a tiltrotor at 2,000 feet without one was not gonna be survivable...well, at least not yet. Pulling out of the valleyside and skimming past the mine's entrance, they had a short window on the green light, as the red flickered off on the reflection of their suits to a green.

"Light's green, go go go!" The pilot yelled, the Cornish marine already prompted to go. With that, Tobias gave a visible thumbs up to Gabby, grinning like mad as he ran the suit out towards the gaping rear door and with the mine and hostiles in full view, and lept into the void. This was a low-drop at full speed, so they weren't going to be under their parachutes for long as it fired automatically, the rectangular-shaped black and white-crossed parachute Tobias's personal choice. Well...it wasn't like there was room for personalisation in the military, but there was over this pride and joy, right? The airbag system would be a final crashing impact, activated by a large yellow handle- indeed, much like an ejection seat in some ways when it came to it. But right now, they had an LZ to clear, as Tobias brought the M134 to bear, and with a gentle pull of the trigger, the barrels span.
"I'm clear and on target...light em' up, Gabby!" The sound of roaring fire erupted downrange, as tracers flew from the sky, and the two armoured exos announced they were coming.

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Oooh lovely! Forgot about the CBJ- the Swedish Uzi, doesn't get enough look in.

Random question- does Gabby use a callsign, or is Stormhound good enough? I feel like I've added far too many callsigns to things...

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

@Silverwind Blade

Haha, yep I'm gonna sort out Tobias's a bit more as I feel it's a little spread all over- annoyingly this is what comes with not having a standard template!

Yeah, there's something to that extent I would argue- there is some stuff that is blaringly obvious, but it's the idea like you said that it's not really known to many. It's a "Shadow War"- while the world's geopolitics still remains and an army will always trump a PMC, they are now escalating a bit more than ever before.

Pretty much what I was thinking- Hellfires/Stingers could be more dedicated larger-scale weapons systems, the mini-missiles in my mind were more as a general-purpose, easier to carry system for when you don't know what the main threat is. A Carl Gustav would work rather wonders- I never really thought of that much but like it!

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Somewhere over New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
0600 Hours

The grey-coloured V22 Osprey was a magnificant warbird, if your classification of magnificent was an ugly hunk of metal that flew only thanks to a pair of very powerful, variable angle turboprop rotors. And inside sat our two, the VTOL subcontracted in from a Australian-based aviation firm to support Iron Wolf's operation here, a specialist assault that needed not so much numbers but a show of firepower and direct attack. The cost of deploying this way and using very expensive but then again, the reward from this was huge. The thick foliage could be seen through the thick banks of cloud coating the rainforest, the white puffs illuminated by a pink sunrise past a distant peak sticking out of the thick cloud. It was not your usual warzone this- there was nothing here at all apart from thick rainforest, well, not apart from the mining facility they were taking back that was a distant brown scar on the landscape. An unnatural crevice in an otherwise untouched, verdantly green landscape.

Sitting across from each other, the two titans were ready to go, Tobias sitting armoured up with his helmet off and his hair left long, the black and white Cornish cross on a fabric patch on the suit's main frontal webbing reminding the Israeli across from him that he wasn't English- he was of Kernow! For this op, Tobias had gone with a fairly standard loadout- a M134 Minigun with a 12-round mini-missile pod on his left shoulder, the standard comms array and Trophy system on his right shoulder. He had a pair of modified P90s on his suit's chest, a backup for blasting rounds in quarters the minigun couldn't be wielded in- as well as a aerial insertion setup, comprised of a parachute and an airbag system mounted across the suit's legs and lower back beneath the minigun's ammunition rucksack- they were going to be dropping from above into the mine, and all the way to the ground, covering their own insertion. They weren't here to blow the entire mine apart, but take it back- and while a flamethrower in the rainforest sounded like a wet dream to clear out a squad like this, the mine had been mostly cleared of trees and vegitation from the main command area that they were assaulting. It still felt pretty surreal, the two of them taking up multiple seats in the rear of the tiltrotor and spread across.

"Lionheart, Gabby, Bluestone here, can ya give me a comms check? Reading me loud and clear?" The South African accented voice rang out in both their intercoms, Tobias acknowledging. Their boss, well, their handler really was a nice enough guy, but he hadn't been on the other end of being shto at for a very long time. Managing two multi-million pound assets was more than enough for him to concentrate on, after all.
"Gotcha loud and clear, Blue." Tobias replied, his cool, crisp voice exuding the kind of confidence that came with being used to sitting in a shell of armour with a weapon that didn't normally go as easily man-portable as this.
"Righto. Anyway, give me a moment, you two. Just gotta check the UAV feed. How's the flight?"
"Fucking textbook. It's noisy as fuck and we have the fucking cooling cranked to max." Tobias replied, sighing as he looked across to the Israeli on the other bench, giving a sigh. With the headphones from the V22 on they could talk, just about.
"Good to be back here again. I don't miss the heat..." Tobias commented to Gabby, knowing she'd likely be feeling the same, even with all the cooling the suits had in the morning sun it was still humid as hell.

The sound of "Careless Whisper" by George Michael could be heard on broadcast over the commms as Bluestone went off, Tobias looking across to Gabby with a look of disapointment, and underhandedly, some amusement.
"Oh, fuck you, Bluestone..." Tobias replied, chuckling at his terrible sense of humour. He was a cunt, but a funny one at least....the comms came back as Bluestone pitched back in.

"Anyways...welcome to the South Pacific, you two. Just to remnind you, we're heading for the Taron Range Mine, brief still stays the same as we went over earlier. It's an open cast rare earth mine that's been taken over by a local insergency group- and our client obviously wants this sorted out very quickly and cleanly. Easy pickings- they have a couple of BTR-80 vehicles on site, you're looking at around 90 or so insergents on the ground- and more to come if we don't drive them out here. From what I can see, they've got some AT and some emplaced weapons scattered about, but nothing you can't handle. Just remember the plan. We're dropping you direct half a klick north, use your chutes to guide in and clear the road, then breach the main compound. Don't fuck up and land in the trees- if you do, we are not getting the ladders out, ladies and gents! Once we have the mine under control, their security team will take it from there. It isn't gonna be pretty when you arrive- they massacred a lot of people in the mine, so they're not exactly free of blood on their hands, just focus on what's at hand here. Then we get you out, and we get paid." Bluestone reminded, Tobias knowing as easy as that sounded, there were still questions to be asked.

"Affermative. Bluestone, wth all due respect, why did the client just drop the money on our operation, not send in another PMC that would be cheaper? They know we're not exactly cheap, nor uhh...well, committed to sending a lot of operators in, right? Seems a bit more mild compared to I don't know, a few weeks back?" Tobias asked, the South African chuckling a little as he knew it did seem just that easy.
"Our contracts team just smashed it out of the park, and the client wants nobody to know this even happened. It'll hit their shareholders confidence for their next stock release, you think having a bunch of insergents moving house into your prized mine using it as a tool against the PNG government looks good for PR? Way, way easier for them to sweep it under the rug...and you two happened to be right in the area after all."
"I'll take your word for it, Bluestone- we'll give them lead. Over and out."

Looking to Gabby, Tobias sat up as he checked the M134's breach, loading the belt inside and checking the aerial insertion kit over once again. Dropping out of one of these things wasn't exactly a skydive, more like a plummet into hell's kitchen- but easier because at least you could reply with a bit of fire from the sky.
"Ten minutes out, Gabby. How you feeling?" Tobias enquired, checking over the rest of his suit's systems, the motorised synthetic muscle of the exoskeleton whirring into life, as he clawed his hands in and out, just making sure he still had the same connection going as earlier.

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Awesome stuff- that CS of yours looks amazing! I'm gonna put the final polishing touches on my CS and kick us straight into something, straight into the thick of it. There's a little more worldbuilding I'm going to put in, but I actually want to remain specifically vague- what I love the idea of is that a lot of this just isn't known to the public, so it doesn't feel like some massively different world to ours.

As for shoulder-mounted munitions, one that Big proposed in one of our RPs (ironically, these suits in that RP were used by actual giants, so yeah, people over seven foot!) for one of his chars was the use of a mini-missile system, so something that was able to be loaded with specific or multipurpose munitions that could defeat Trophy systems and get into entrenched positions- not a huge dakka but enough of those can stop a tank or kill a bunker. Shoulder mounted ATGMs sounds about right- after all, the suit can handle the launches so it's just about having a launch tube!

Edit- Post is up, gonna usually stick to a three-paragraph limit but thought I'd introduce the first op with a bit of a leap of a literal kind! I love the idea of playing with warzones most military RPs see- so Papua New Guinea seems to me like a bit of a natural fit. It's not going to explore all the themes of our operators in this world, but begin to slowly open the lid!