Locusts Chapter One: Hot sun, white sands, and large scary bugs.

[Toastburner B]

The summer sun beat down the soldiers protecting Evacuation Point North America 875, formerly known as Utah State Park Antelope Island. EvPNA875 was build there for two reasons: Firstly, the mountain on the island gave the military an excellent view of the countryside. The second reason was that the lake bed, drying after a few years of vicious drought, formed a flat, seven mile long kill zone.

The take off of another transport went unnoticed by the members of the Colonial Militia who were dug in on the island. Whether it was in a trench or behind a rail-cannon, not one of the few hundred CM soldiers were in the open. With the coming of a swarm, to be unarmored and in plan site was near suicide. As such, the Militiamen had nothing to do but to sweat under the hot desert sun, waiting.

On the other side of the island, thousands of refugees waited to be put on transports. The Wasatch Front was one of the last major population centers in North America to be overrun, due to it’s mountainous location, and because as far as people go, 2 million isn’t all that many, so it was low on the Locusts’ “To-Do” list.

However, even those factors had run out.

It was the same around the world as the final exodus of Earth was taking place. Everyone who was willing and able was either outbound for the colonies, standing in line to get on a transport, or stood in the ranks of the United System League’s military. Thousands of Evacuation Points existed in the world, so what made EvPNA875 so special?

EvPNA875 was special because it had the singular distinction of being protected by the 1st Joint Strike Force, the Martian Remnant, the most experienced bug fighters in the whole of the USL.

The fact that they had been deployed to a evac point was telling in of itself. It meant that someone high up thought that EvPNA875 was going to be hit hard enough to require the best to be out there to hold it.

And that person was right.

As the thunder of the departing transport lessening, a new roar took it’s place. Artillery fired. The ground shook as orbital missiles broke through the atmosphere, denoting hundreds of feet above the ground, causing shrapnel to rain upon hundreds of square feet of ground.

From the peak of the mountains, more than 2,000 feet above the lakebed, stood General James Kirkham. He watched the chaos in a distracted way, tracking various sources of information as it was fed into his command suit. A grid containing everything from troop positions to target areas of incoming orbital bombardments to where the artillery was shooting filled his heads up display. However, for the most part, his focus was one the growing red portion of his display. The crawling red blob indicated where the swarm was.

The fire from the heavens changed from missiles into streams of light…the only sign of a passing hyper velocity missile. Any trooper worth his salt knew that the change from the area denial fragmentation roads to the more accurate HVMs knew that it meant that the Locusts were getting near friendlies.

Or, as was more often the case than not, them.

“All units, prepare for engagement.” The General said over the general band. With a flick of his fingers, he changed frequencies. “Evac Control, how long do you have to buy you?”

”The last few transports are being loaded up now, General. We should be ready to leave 30 minutes, tops.”

From the ruins of houses and fields, the first edge of the Locusts swarm came into view, their dark exoskeletons easily picked out against the salty sands of the lakebed. They were in view for only a few seconds before an artillery shell wiped them away…but they were quickly replaced.

“Hurry.” The General said.
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For five long miles the Locusts dashed across the dry lakebed. For five long miles artillery from Armored Cav units and HVMs from Fleet ships in orbit killed them in their dozens, even hundreds.

But still they came.

The General was down near the trenches now. The 1st JSF’s complement of Mobile Infantry troopers were dug in, forming the dead center of the defensive lines. The General watched as the bugs ran towards them, seemingly oblivious to the dozens of their brethren dying around them. On his screen, the large red mass was slowly moving towards a thin green line: the maximum effective firing distance for the majority of his troops.

The swarm was mostly made up of warriors and soldiers at this point, the heavier Locusts strains mercilessly targeted by artillery and orbital strikes. Still, the odd Crawler still crawled along with the horde of smaller bugs. From behind the tree line, the plasma trails of missile-strains rose, only to be engaged by the Aegis anti-missile systems scattered across the mountain.

Tracer rounds from autocannons and rail guns screamed over the trooper’s heads, the Colonial Militia’s heavy weapons already having range. Metal and explosives hurled at supersonic speeds crashed into the living wall of the swarm with spectacular effect, culling warriors and soldiers by the handful.

But still they came.

Such was war against the Locusts. For every one dead, a hundred more take its place.

“Mobile Infantry, fire on my mark!” The General ordered. The handful of MI snipers were already at work, focusing on disabling the heavier strains.

Finally, the line was crossed.

“All units, open fire!”

((OOC: Take it from here. Warriors are close-range bugs, much like zerglings. Soldiers are basically warriors with an attached plasma weapon. Alone they can’t hit a thing, so they rely heavily on massed fire…which they usually have. Crawlers are large, heavily armored beetle like things, the Locusts equivalent of a tank. It takes a heavy weapon to crack them open. Feel free to make up strains as you wish. If I don’t like it, I’ll ask you to take it out.))

[Tarrin]

Reapers sighting scanned the incoming swarm, three strains were most prevalent however none of them were Strykkers target.
Other snipers were targeting crawlers, Hitting weak spots in the armor yet Strykkers cloak concealed him, Reaper never spoke in the language of death.

Still scanning the battle field the sights lit up there was what Strykker was looking for, In the midst of one group of warriors a bug slightly bigger than the rest, the tell tale synoptic node on it back of it's head, A hive node one of many on the battle field.
Breathing out, The armored figure compressed the trigger, Gas vents kicked in along with sound suppressors a whisper of wind was the only sound.

Over 1km away the nodes head vanished green ichor drenched anything in the area, The group around the bugs vacinity became confused some ran onwards, Some turned and fled, Others stoped dead still, Not knowing what to do.

That would only slow them for a few seconds but every second counted.
Reapers scope was already scaning the swarm again looking for another target.

“All units, open fire!”

The Generals command echoed thru Reapers comm systems, All hell broke loose, Each MI opend fire, Had Strykker been lined with everyone else the sound would be defining, How ever his position was a little different to the rest, Alone... a sniper was always Alone.
Shaking the thought from his head he started to line up the next target.

[Gorefiend]

Angel looked through his scope from his vantage point slightly separate from the line. His cloaking device worked perfectly, his comm system was fine, and a panel showed him the general and the line of fellow MI's ready to shoot. The scope was one of the newest ones, with a specialized camera on one end, and a screen on the other. He saw through this screen a small dot slightly off-center, a crosshair, and a large swarm of bugs--mostly warriors and soldiers, though a few crawlers and nodes ran with the swarm. He knew that the dot was the expected target after calculating wind speed and direction, and the crosshair was the possible target area should wind change within regular parameters. The bugs were coming.

Come on, come on...

His right index finger slipped around the trigger, and his left hand cradled the barrel end of his bugsnipe. He was ready to go.

"Mobile Infantry, fire on my mark." Came the general's voice over the radio. It had a little static, which he decided to mark up to the large amounts of HVMs thrown about. Somehow, some ancestral part of him found it fitting as he aimed the dot at a crawler's leg joint. He pushed a small switch on the gun's grip with his thumb to set the shot to maximum strength. He didn't want to miss.

"All units, open fire!"

Angel squeezed the trigger. Over his scope he saw the crawler's leg break off, causing the crawler to fall over, crushing a few bugs beneath it and creating an obstacle for the rest. It didn't matter, though; soon it was overrun by the soldier bugs, who continued their tireless charge. He pushed a button, causing a chamber to open to expel the spent cartridge, and let it go. Amazing how rifles had fundamentally the same reload system since the dawn of man when they were first made.

After he let go, he fired again, this time at a node. It's head splattered the temporarily confused bugs before they fell under the influence of another node. Reload. Point. Shoot. Reload. Point. Shoot. And the bugs just kept on coming.

[Azisien]

"Raider One, light up plasma barrages in our vicinity. Rearguard, suppress the barrages. The rest of you, standard suppression barrage directed at Grids D4 through D10." Sergeant First Class Felix Omara spoke through the comm. Even though the audio was relayed directly beside the squad's ears respectively, it was a little fuzzy over the noise of the majority of the Remnant unloading on the swarm.

Specialist Burnelli nodded, a pointless gesture, since he didn't have a line of sight with anyone in his squad. He was already stealthed, laying prone on the ground with his HVvixen launcher prepared to fire once he was able to activate them. "Roger, sir." He input several commands via his virtual HUD and the EOLDS Hawkeye sensors activated. Half of his vision turned orange as the targetting system quickly outlined every enemy target within its range. Several filters and two commands later, and only the Locust bio-missiles were lighting up to the whole Raider squadron. Corporal Sevenice fired his hyper-rifle somewhere to his rear, taking out one of the bio-missile targets that had been streaming towards the MI line. Burnelli smiled grimly. "Nice shot, Raider Three."

"All right, all right, cut the chatter, let's concentrate on the mission and get out of this alive." Omara rang in. Burnelli really didn't have much to do until things got uglier, or he received further orders. He watched as bio-missiles streaked into the range of the Hawkeye, fired from somewhere within the swarm, and then his HUD friendly panel reported Raider Two and Three firing with their hyper-rifles.

Raider Squad was composed of nine members, all using variants of the EOLDS model Burnelli was wearing. Sergeant First Class Omara was Raider Zero, the CO and official dickhead of the squad. Burnelli was acting sensor operator because of his Hawkeye system, and depending on the circumstances he reverted back to "Blow The Shit Out Of Locusts" duty. Corporals Sevenice and Darrel were rearguard, wearing ultralight runner suits and armed with long-barreled hyper-rifles. They were Raiders Two and Three.

Private First Class Mitchell, Corporals Ellyn and Smith, Specialist Werick, and Sergeant Zulyka made up the bulk and usually the vanguard of the squad. Mitchell, Ellyn, and Smith were all in standard light suits with gauss rifles and plasma grenade launchers. Specialist Werick was the artillery "expert" in the squad. He was the only man in Raider Squad with a heavy suit. And with good reason, given enough time he could wipe out thousands of Locusts with his armaments. Built into the thick spine of his EOHSS Mk III were two plasma cannons. Each volley packed the punch of one of Burnelli's HVvixen missiles, but the ballistic slugs were more difficult to intercept. The downside was the kickback, the reload, and of course, the fact that the slugs were ballistic. Two heavy gauss rifles were built into the arms, both with built-in plasma grenade launchers. On each shoulder he sported a high-powered X-ray laser cannon.

Burnelli shrugged to himself. "At least I have nukes." He clicked on Werick's icon within his HUD and the Hawkeye instantly highlighted him in the field, two o'clock, thirty-four meters from his position.

"This is Raider Seven, beginning standard suppression barrage." Raider Three took down a bio-missile that had come within two hundred meters of the Remnant lines. Werick dug into the ground and fired both plasma cannons. The air around his suit was all fire for a moment as the shells cleared the muzzle and disappeared into the air on their trajectory. Eight seconds later the shells hit the very front of the advancing Locust hoard. The explosion was big enough to distinguish itself from the hundreds of kilos of submunitions. White-hot plasma burst out from the two impact points and engulfed the Warriors and Soldiers in the thirty-meter wide blast radii. Hawkeye estimated one hundred plus kills. Werick opened up with his heavy gauss rifles and the rest of the Raider vanguard did the same. Hundreds of supersonic projectiles filled the air and slammed into the unfortunate Locusts running between Grids D4 to D10. At this range the gauss rifles were at the lower end of their effectiveness, with a thirty percent penetration rate.

Burnelli started crawling forward while in stealth mode, a remarkably easy maneuver given his suit's amplified strength. Hawkeye warned the squad that the swarm was nearing the one mile mark. And still it seemed like an endless field. Burnelli figured it would be another three or four minutes at most before the shit hit the fan and people really started dying.

"Raiders Two and Three, remain on bio-missile suppression duty. Raider One, get targetting the Node bugs. Everyone else, take up Burnelli's feed and suppress those targets. They are past the one mile mark people, we need to slow them down and buy more time." Omara rang in, and they all began to reposition. The whole of Raider squad moved into a rough line spanning grids D4 to D10, nearly one man to a grid. "Werick, fire off a full volley and start your retreat, you'll need the headstart. Fire as you move back, and for God's sake watch out for friendlies."

"Sir yes sir!" Werick's bulky suit started its slow jog behind the Remnant line. Burnelli looked to his peripherals and saw other heavies being ordered to do the same. The next stage of the battle was about to begin.

[Barahad]

William Kerr was only half watching the unfolding carnage to his front. He'd seen so many bug advances that he'd started losing interest. What he was more interested in was the disposition of his platoon. After a few moments of silence, he clicked his comm channel over to the leader of the first section of the platoon. "Sergeant, I need you to tighten your ranks. You're going to leak like a sieve if the bugs hit you." Without waiting for acknowledgment (these were MI dammit!) he clicked over to the section leader of the second section. "Sergeant, I need you to redeploy your heavy-weapons team. They need a better field of fire if they're to slow the advance." He didn't use the word stop. He'd long since ceased to believe in such a word when it came to bugs. They didn't stop. They paused, rested, waited, delayed, stalled, milled, and occasionally retreated, but they never stopped.

Kerr clicked off his comm and watched the telemetry feeds from his platoon. Some of the snipers had added their own noise to the rattling cacophany which had been shaking the ground he'd been standing on for the past few minutes. Satisfied with the disposition of his sections, and confident in the platoons on both sides of his own, (he served with the best company in the best division in the whole MI!) he clicked his comm over to the command frequency. "Captain, Kerr. We're ready."

"Hold steady lieutenant. They'll be here soon enough," the captain's voice was measured and steady, and Kerr could only imagine what was running through his mind at the moment. Organizing and caring for a platoon of men was hard enough. A company must be a nightmare.

"Any recommendations sir?" Kerr asked.

"Looks like you redeployed your heavy weapons. Watch your left flank though. There's some rough terrain providing for a twenty-foot blindspot on our front."

"I see it sir. I'll have the left-most flankers keep a good two eyes out. Can we spare any engineers to lay down some claymores?"

"Too busy," was the terse reply. The captain didn't have to say anymore. They'd be helping with the evacuation. Kerr could respect that.

"We'll keep an eye on it." he promised again, then added "Kerr out." and clicked off his comm. Now it was time to wait, and check his own gear. He'd checked it twice before starting, and had let his sergeant run over his systems, but there was always time for one more check.

"Fire on my mark!" The general's voice meant that it was time to get down to business.

Running over his suit's internal diagnostics, he noted solid greens. Reaching over his shoulders with both hands, he pulled down the retractable flamethrowers. Releasing his grip, he noted they snapped back into their resting position. The same was true of the grenade launcher, and his automatic rifle was never far from his hand, it being possibly the only part of the suit which wasn't connected somehow to his back. It rested on the chest of his suit, held on by a series of magnetic clamps, and was capable of being pulled off and put into action in the blink of an eye. He'd done it so many times it was reflex now (They didn't put just any apes in these suits! They put in apes who would FIGHT!).

"All units, open fire!"

The general's order caused the ground's shaking to change slightly in pitch and character. The bugs were closer now. Not quite close enough for the lieutenant, but close enough for his front line. He frowned, then clicked his comm over. "Corporal, focus three section's fire. Pick your targets and stick with them." His comm clicked off, and the lieutenant pulled his gauss rifle off his chest. Pulling it to his shoulder, he brought up his targeting sight. Several of the bugs were starting to fire back. Not with any particular accuracy, but they would eventually be guaranteed casualties by the sheer volume of fire.

Kerr didn't even twitch as a missile bug broke through the air defenses and plowed into a Colonial Militia position. Filtering out the screams for medics, he took aim at a soldier bug who was getting uncomfortably accurate with his fire. Letting go a three round burst, Kerr watched the bug stagger backwards, green ichor running down its forward carapace from three fairly angry looking holes. After a moment, it shrugged and resumed its advance "Missed," he grunted as he shifted his aim a hair lower and repeated the exercise. This time one of his rounds punched through the bug's 'brain' (really more a motor-control station and transmitter). The bug crashed forward, several plasma bursts firing wildly into its own ranks as its damaged controls tried to carry out their orders. "Better."

The bugs were closer now. Kerr frowned as he looked at the rough terrain which separated his platoon's anchors from the next platoon's anchors. "First section, I want you to switch your heavy-weapons teams to cover the empty space on our left flank."

The young sergeant's voice came over. "Sir? That'll double our workload on the front."

"I'll have second and third sections switch off their heavy weapons to cover your avenues of advance when possible. For the moment, you're stuck with extra duty. I'd rather not have soldiers rolling us up on our left flank."

"Yes sir!" the sergeant switched his comm off, and started barking orders to his troopers. The lieutenant smiled. The sergeant was a good kid, and would probably make it to OCS...if he lived long enough.

Switching his attention back to the battle, the lieutenant kicked in his 'jets and made a long low jump down towards the front. Ducking behind some well-arranged cover, he started picking targets and taking them down, occasionally ordering concentrations of fire on particularly dangerous looking groups. For the most part, he tried not to focus too much on the red chronometer which clicked ever so slowly down in the corner of his eye.

[Toastburner B]

The General had his grenade launcher leveled, firing at the incoming swarm.

The fact that they were within grenade launcher range was a bad sign in and of itself.

“Colonial Militia, pull back to position 5!” The General ordered. The soldiers would were clad only in body armor were getting the worst of the fight. Shots that would be nothing more than a glancing blow to a fully outfitted MI trooper were often killing or maiming blows to the Militiamen. Exposed on the front line as they were, they were being cut to shreds. As the order filtered through their lines, the troops reaction was varied. Some just broke and ran for it, while others performed a fighting retreat, while even more tried to pull their injured from the trenches. With a flick of his hand, he switched over to the MI only channel. “Troopers, we’re the only ones on the line for the time being. CM is heading to the fall back point, which is where we are going as soon as they’re dug in. Keep you eyes on the flanks, we’re exposed now. The roaches will hit minefield any second-“ as if on cue, the front wave of bugs exploded in flames, “-but that won’t hold them long.”

Another wave of explosions racked the bug lines. Almost as one, the bug line slowed. From it’s reaches, warrior strains field out of the main body of Locusts and onto the minefield. Kirkham scowled. Freakin’ bugs are getting smarter. Using warriors to sweep the minefields so that the stronger strains can get through…

A bleep on his command overlay caused the General to check his readings. Oh, as if we really needed that at the moment. He switched over to the overall command frequency.

“Heads up, troopers! Screamers and Shriekers inbound!”

The sky darkened as the mass of Locust fliers cleared the horizon. Screamers were the older strain, not capable of super sonic speeds, and only able to launch a handful of missile-strains from the pods on their flanks. Shriekers were an entirely different story, the bug version of a high performance jet fighter. Able to fly at supersonic speeds, double the amount of missile-strains as the older Screamers, and a plasma ejector. The Shrieker strains only started showing up three years ago, but they began to challenge the USL for air superiority ever since.

SAMs flew from their positions on the mountain, streaking towards the still distant mass of fliers. The Armored Cav artillery began to move off the mountain, no longer safe with the fliers around, and no longer effective with the Locust closing in fast. A handful of Fleet fighters rose to challenge the fliers, but not enough to change the outcome.

Things were about to get a lot messier.

[Tarrin]

Reapers motion sensors went off like a firecracker, Which didn't make sence the bugs were still a distance off.

“Heads up, troopers! Screamers and Shriekers inbound!” The Generals voice crackled over the comms.

"That explains it then" thought Strykker, The airborne bugs wern't his concern at the moment however, The ground based troops of the enemy had just hit the first mine field, It slowed them but not for a heck of alot of time.

The bunching of the bugs made it harder to find any nodes, Instead the crawlers became His new targets, His shots striking their weak spots thining they a bit.

"Thining them" Strykker smerked it was like taking a glass of water from the ocean, there was always more coming.

[Barahad]

Kerr clicked his comm to a general frequency almost before the general had finished talking. "Platoon! They're channel building! Focus fire on the advancing soldiers in your area of responsibility, and keep 'em bottled up as long as possible!" then he clicked to heavy-weapons specialists. "I want you boys to discourage the bugs from getting adventurous anywhere else on our front. Pick your targets and fire at will."

As he finished speaking, he shifted his own fire to a soldier which was charging up one of the channels, scuttling over the bugs who had gone before. Letting rip a two-second burst from his rifle, Kerr was pleased to see the bug collapse in the lane of advance. Across his platoon's front, the other channels were also being filled with Locust dead. It didn't stop them, of course. Nothing ever really did. It did make all attempts to advance more costly though.

Checking his tactical display, Kerr frowned. The bugs were making deep inroads on the minefield, and were expanding the channels. At this rate, they would have at least five clear channels open in the next three minutes. From there, it would be a matter of expending more soldiers to widen those channels. After that, it was anybody's guess how they'd advance.

A new blip showed up on his tactical display, and disappeared a moment later. Frowning, Kerr saw another blip, and then another. Soon dozens of blips were appearing and disappearing. Then the sound reached him and Kerr knew: fliers.

Kerr clicked over to the command frequency. "Captain, fliers inbound."

"They're all over the place lieutenant," the comm fuzzed briefly, then cleared. "Dammit where the hell are my heavies?! We need air interdiction! What do you need lieutenant?"

"Anti-air sir. Our heavy-weapons weren't exactly designed to take out fliers."

"You'll know when we have active interdiction up and - " the comm fuzzed again, and this time Kerr could clearly hear from his rear the roar of missiles leaving their launch tubes. "Running! Hit 'em again! Hit 'em with everything you've got!"

Kerr smiled and clicked off his comm. The captain didn't usually get excited. Fliers were always a cause for worry though. Kerr pressed himself tighter against cover as a shrieker let a missile bug go. The crater couldn't have been more that twenty feet to his left. His platoon's signals were unchanged though.

"Section leaders, spread your men out," Kerr didn't need to explain. If you bunched MI up, they made an awfully tempting target, and in this war 1 dead MI for every ten thousand dead bugs was a net loss for the good guys.

Another missile strain howled overhead, only to be met mid-air by an interceptor missile. Second section's heavy-weapons team had switched to anti-air. The rockets weren't always effective, but they were better than nothing.

Two hundred feet to his left, Kerr watched a missile bug swarm past the bright tracers of the MI and retreating colonial militia and smash directly into a heavy-weapons bunker. The plasma ball set off the ammunition, adding to the spectacular devastation. The screams of panicked CMs mixed with the calm assessment of the MIs platoon and section leaders. They'd lost four. Three had bought farms, and one was fast on his way to his own real estate deal.

Kerr's attention snapped back to his own platoon as one of his soldier's beacons dropped off. The concussion of a missile explosion rolled across him, and he swore. "First section, sound off."

Kerr listened. One of his troopers didn't report in. "Sergeant, what is McKay's status?"

"Looks like he decided to take up farming sir," came the reply. Kerr swore. "Alright. Keep your heads down, but keep the pressure on the bugs!"

"Captain, those fliers are getting to be a real nuisance," Kerr switched channels. "I've lost one, and the Kodiaks on my left just took four." Kerr looked up and saw a wounded screamer driving for the ground behind his position. A missile was streaking to intercept it, so he turned his attention to the captain's reply.

" - the CM hit the second line, they'll be able to give the fliers something to worry about. I just need you to hold your little piece of the war."

"Roge-" Kerr found himself in the air before he heard the explosion. The interceptor had missed, and when the screamer had hit the ground a few hundred feet behind him, the remaining missiles in its pods had gone off. The blast nearly tumbled the armour suit's gyroscopic stabilizers, but Kerr cut in his 'jets and recovered, landing closer to the bugs than he would have liked at this stage of the battle.

"Lieutenant, report!" the captain's voice maintained its steady note, but Kerr thought he detected a hint of worry.

"Screamer crashlanded behind me sir. Took out part of the mountainside and sent me for a short jump," Kerr was already running back to his former position - or what was left of it. The explosion had left a crater with guttering fires burning around the edges. His neat cover had been ruined by tumbling rocks and debris. As he reached his position, he checked his ammunition counter. In all this time, he hadn't stopped firing. It wasn't a smart thing to do when fighting bugs. As he noted the reading, his platoon sergeant cut in.

"Sir, first section is reporting that the bugs in their area are dangerously close to clearing a channel through the minefield. They'd like to divert a heavy-weapons team from second or third section to provide additional support."

"Tell them it's not possible right now," Kerr checked the glowing red line which marked the edge of the minefield on his HUD. At that moment, the captain cut in on the conversation.

"Lieutenant, we have a couple of damaged heavies back here which might be able to help. Have your section leader read off the coordinates, and we'll see what we can manage from this end."

"Aye sir," the lieutenant clicked his comm. "Corporal, where are they cutting the channel?"

Having received the coordinates, he forwarded them to an unfamiliar name and rank. Still, he was more than happy to watch mortar shells come crashing down amongst the scuttling soldiers. First section opened fire with renewed vigour and shifted their line without orders to compensate for the earlier loss of one of their troopers. "Thanks captain," Kerr shut off his comm, and tried to ignore the numbers rolling by at the bottom of his HUD.

[Azisien]

"Rearguard, forget the missiles, you're on Shrieker Ignition duty." Omara said on the squad comm.

Burnelli hadn't moved much yet. He changed position every twenty seconds to keep himself busy, but his job at the moment consisted of letting his Hawkeye to all the work. As the Screamers and Shriekers caused more damage, he might see some action.

The vanguard of Raider Squad were all firing their gauss rifles nonstop, and as the primary magazines reloaded they were firing their plasma grenades. All of them were aiming at the Warriors as they tried to sacrifice themselves to clear mines. They were doing a good job, and that would pay off with plenty of kills in the bottom line.

Internal alarms blared as a bio-missile came within fifty meters of Burnelli's suit. It had been launched from a Screamer, and crashed near Raider Five. Immediately, Corporal Ellyn rang in. "Grazed, I'm fine." Burnelli watched as the Screamer flew further into protected zones. An interceptor missile zoomed out from an emplacement on the mountain and struck the bug in the midsection. It's plasma stores ignited, and both the bug and missile were completely vaporized in a white flash. Similar white flashes were visible every few seconds as Screamers were destroyed. Shriekers were a little less frequent, due to their incredible speed and maneuverability even compared to modern interceptor missiles.

Burnelli noted a group of Screamers coming up on their flank. "Raider Two, transmitting prime targetting information. Aim for the wing."

"Roger." Raider Two said. Burnelli turned to look at Corporal Sevenice as he fired his hyper-rifle. The weapon kicked back hard and with negligible delay the left wing of a Screamer blew off. The Locust started into an uncontrolled counterclockwise spin, veering off from the rest of the flock, headed straight for the Locust ground swarm. Robert couldn't help but smile a little as the crashing Screamer slammed into the writhing swarm, ignited its plasma stores, and obliterated dozens of its kin. At the same time, two of the Screamers in the group were destroyed by interceptors.

The remaining six in the group dove on an attack run. They topped out at nearly seven hundred miles per hour, all of them spitting off a bio-missile. Four of the missiles missed entirely, while the other two only caused minor splash damage. They got off lucky that time, but there would be many more attack runs to endure before evac.

Burnelli turned his attention back to the ground. Many of the Warriors had been killed before they managed to sacrifice themselves, and the corpses were starting to pile high. There was increasing optimistic chatter over the general comm as some of the Soldier strains were forced out onto the minefield, sacrificing for the greater swarm. The vanguard shot more Warriors where they were to be found, but most had been chewed up by the massive initial barrages. The Locust, they always put the weak ones up front to absorb our bullets. And what do we do? We waste the bullets like good little meatsacks.

A Shrieker exploded several thousand feet overhead, but the flash was still blinding. The plasma stores within totalled to a few hundred kilograms of conventional high explosives, easily. Burnelli accessed the general tactical display, and watched as the massive blob of red slowly encroached closer to the much smaller line of green. The red monster had grown tentacles for the moment, signifying Locusts that had found channels in the minefield and were doing their best to exploit it. To his grim delight, one of the channels would intersect with Raider Squad in the next few minutes.

Specialist Burnelli deactivated stealth mode and activated his HVvixen launcher. The missile rack on the back of the his whirred and whizzed mechanically, until the weapon diagnostics icon went from inactive blue to active green status. He eyed his nuke icon and thought grim thoughts.

[Barahad]

Time is always hard to judge on a battlefield. Not that there is any real difference in the rate time flows, but the immersion in the moment tends to cause soldiers to experience a kind of odd tunnel-vision. Lieutenant Kerr had been well-trained in OCS, but even officers tended to experience this tunnel vision. As he continued firing, cursing as the soldiers managed to detonate another series of mines, he heard the captain's voice crackling over the comm.

"All units, shift right one-four-five feet and pull back one-five-oh feet," the captain paused. "We need to start circling the wagons. The bugs are starting to spread out."

Overhead, Kerr watched a group of UNS fighters dive through a swarm of Shriekers. Clouds of expanding gas marked the former position of the bugs, but Kerr could see that whatever it was that the fighters had been escorting had taken a pounding at some point on its way down from orbit.

"Captain, what the hell is that coming in?" Kerr was puzzled. It looked like an MI transport, but they weren't due for a while yet. What the hell were they carrying that merited them coming down in the middle of a warzone?

"I just bounced that up to command. I have no idea what they're carrying. Last I heard from the major, he was checking with the colonel."

Kerr swore. The last thing they needed were downed anybody! "They're coming in pretty hard sir."

"You have your orders soldier. I expect you to follow them," Kerr nodded. Ignoring orders was a one way ticket to a battlefield execution by his own platoon sergeant. The rate and angle of descent, though, seemed to show that the transport would come down about four miles from Kerr's new position. That wasn't much for an MI trooper in a fully functional suit, but he doubted there were MI in that transport. Worse, their eventual crash zone was right along the bug's new axis of advance. It wouldn't take the critters long to overrun the transport.

Firing as they moved, the entire line of defenders shifted with the bugs. If anyone had had a bird's eye view, it would have looked like a fluid kind of dance. Of course, the partners traded kinetic slugs and plasma, and any slip-ups in movement were usually fatal, but there was a kind of terrible grace to the fighting. The firing had intensified as the MI moved, trying to keep the bugs off balance.

Finally, after hitting their new positions, the volume of fire returned to its former rate. The MI dug back in. Then, he heard a cry from one of his forward line. "There's another transport coming in! She's afire!"

Kerr swore as he watched an interceptor missile streak past the burning transport, slamming into a pursuing screamer. Then, a third transport was in view, lumbering down after the two damaged craft. As it began to flare its nose upwards to prepare for landing, the first of the transports hit, skidding sideways and snapping its landing gear as the pilots fought for control. The entire craft rolled once and came up at a sharp angle. Smoke billowed from the engines and Kerr could just make out men piling from the burning craft. The larger of the three transports was settling in close by, and its engines were only idling. The third transport crashed in a manner even less elegant, and it was only thanks to the tough engineering which had gone into it that the cargo and crew compartments survived mostly intact. The rest of the craft lay scattered over a hundred foot area, and a long furrow marked the craft's trail once it had touched down. The smoking remnants were also within reach of the third transport, whose landing bays were opening now.

"Oh no." Kerr watched as Colonial Militia rushed from the cargo bay. They were sheltered for the moment by the bulk of the craft, but it was only a matter of time before they were exposed to the Locusts. When that happened, it would be a bloodbath. Still, he had to salute their insane courage, running towards crashed transports to recover injured men and undamaged materials.

"Lieutenant," the captain's voice crackled over the comm, and he sounded strained. "You're seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Yessir," Kerr waited.

"They're going to get chewed up out there, and we're going to lose all three transports," the captain mused. Kerr didn't need to add what they were both thinking: unless we do something. The comm went silent, and then the captain came back on. "The colonel agrees. Lieutenant, how does your platoon feel about a rescue mission?"

"Who'll cover our position?" Kerr asked. He didn't like leaving a hole in the circling wagons.

"Hold your first section and heavy-weapons teams back, and take your second and third sections. They'll be able to form a thin line along the front."

"Orders?"

"Keep the CMs alive, help them move the gear and men, and then get the hell back to the mountain."

"We could use a little help out there sir. It is a kill zone," Kerr pointed out.

"I think we have the unit just right for the job," Kerr couldn't see it, but he could hear the captain's grin. "Yes sir. Give my men one minute."

"You have thirty seconds," the captain replied, then clicked off the comm.

Kerr smiled and flipped channels. "Listen up troopers! We're going for a little run!"

[Toastburner B]

((OOC: Good post, Barahad. It gives me some more ideas to play with.))

The General watched as the three transports landed hard. He barely remembered to switch off all channels before began to swear viciously.

Once his tirade was done, Kirkham got to work.

"Fleet, this Kirkham. Who in all that is holy gave the orders to bring additional CM unit down?!"

"Sir, orders came directly from General Tobias."

Tobias. Blasted glory hound, he's going to get his men killed! Kirkham thought to himself.

General Tobias was the commander of the Colonial Militia in the 1st JSF. While Kirkham had overall command of all units, each branch had a commander just below the General. Tobias was a fellow Martian, but unlike most of the Martains in the Remenant, he hadn't been on Mars during the invasion. His personal command had been off planet, running low-G drills on the Lunar Base. For some reason, the man seemed to think that Colonial Militia could do the same thing as MI...which it could, given enough bodies.

And Tobias is going to get more than enough bodies today. But he'll have to wait.

From his comm, he heard the group under Kerr being deployed to protect the scrambling CM troopers. Now instead of just holding the line, we have to protect the crash site. Tobias may of just cost us the battle.

"Sergeant Omara, I want you and the Raiders to help protect the crashed transports."

With one more flick of the wrist, Kirkham changed over to the CM frequency. "Who's in charge of the troops in the transport?" he demanded.

With a few bursts of static an answer came few. "This is Captain Janson, sir. I'm the ranking survivor on the transports..."

"Captain, I want you and you're men to the LZ ASAP."

"Begging the Genera's pardon, but I have my orders from General Tobias too..."

"Tell me, Captain, is General Tobias here?" The General asked calmly.

"No, sir. He remained on the Austria to control-"

"Exactly, Mr. Janson. General Tobias is, at the moment, a few dozen miles above our heads. I am here. And in case you had forgotten, the 1st is my command. This is not a dug in postion, Captain. You and your men would die very quickly. So you will get your butt over to the LZ, and get off this rock, and I would suggest you do it on the bounce, because I am pulling men off the defensive line to cover your butt. Is that clear?" Kirkham's voice never actually rose it seemed, but it was very clear to anyone who heard the conversation that that the General meant business.

"Sir, very clear, sir! I'll get out of here ASAP, sir!"

"Get off my comm." The General snarled, and changed the frequency before the poor CM captain could respond.

They just added a good 10 minutes to our evac time, Kirkham thought to himself. The Locusts pushed deeper and deeper into the kill zone. Ten minutes we don't have.

[Azisien]

Burnelli heard General Kirkham's familiar voice filter into Raider Squad's comm node. "Sergeant Omara, I want you and the Raiders to help protect the crashed transports." He had just watched the transports crashing down, and his Hawkeye was working away trying to estimate all the Locusts heading towards it.

"You heard the man, we move, now!" Sergeant First Class Omara shouted in strict obedience.

Specialist Burnelli was up and accelerating before Omara had finished his sentence. With strength-amplified strides, he was moving at eighty kilometers per hour seven seconds later. Another seven seconds after that, and he was at his top speed. It would be a race to beat the Locusts. EOLDS Mk III was faster than Warriors and Soldiers, but the Locusts were closer to the fallen transports. Burnelli kept his HVvixen launcher ready as he sprinted across the salty, evaporated lake bed.

Corporal Sevenice and Darrel came into his peripheral vision and slowly pulled ahead as his Hawkeye sent trajectory alarms off in all the Raider's suits. Burnelli immediately identified the threat. "Four Shriekers on an intercept course between us and the downed transports, full tilt!"

Sergeant Omara's curse over the line was barely audible. "Vanguard, take them down."

"Ten seconds to intercept, we can't get them in time. They're starting to dive!" Robert raised his voice, half-shouting into the comm now.

Sevenice and Darrel aimed up their hyper-rifles while still running at over one hundred and thirty kilometers per hour. Hawkeye locked in on their center of mass and instantly transmitted targetting information to the two Corporals. They both fired, and one of the four Shriekers broke away from the group, split in two and trailing copulous amounts of unignited bio-fuel. Omara shouted over the line, "Get down!"

Had anyone been watching Raider Squad from a distance, they would have seen eight suits all dive towards the ground in unison, all the while running at full speed. Burnelli's Hawkeye picked out the Shriekers launching three bio-missiles each in what looked like a small carpet bomb maneuver. Smarter than they look...

Nine bio-missiles hit the area occupied by Raider Squad. Three went off in a concentrated area, while the other six were nicely spaced apart. Shit luck was the only reason Burnelli wasn't engulfed. He had been in the very center of the squad, the only part of the impact area not affected by direct blasts. Even so, splash damage from multiple plasma explosions coursed over his armored suit and structural integrity warning icons popped up on the entire right side of his HUD. The temperature inside his suit increased by twelve degrees instantaneously.

The main blasts cleared, but the ground had been uniformly blackened and the whole area was filled with combinations of both black and white smoke. Hawkeye immediately filtered the smoke cover away, and Burnelli queried all of Raider Squad's tactical icons. "I'm all right, suit reports moderate damage. Nothing that can't be fixed, integrity reads at 82% overall. Systems unaffected."

Corporal Ellyn was the second to respond. "I took a close-prox hit, the hydraulics on my right leg are nonfunctional. Speed is down to one-quarter norms. 63% overall integrity. God damn it! My rifle is sealed shut!"

Corporal Smith was third. "Two near-direct hits, both arms are fucked, rifle disabled, suit is reading 42% integrity. My HUD is starting to glitch."

Burnelli was moving towards Sergeant Zulyka's suit when Corporal Sevenice rang in. "Major splash damage, but no direct hits. Systems unaffected, integrity reads at 78%."

Private Mitchell came in a few seconds later. "Direct hit on my...ah, fuck..." It was a familiar pained tone, Burnelli knew Mitchell had been hit directly. The plasma had burned through and ravaged some part of his body. He was alive, for the moment, so it wasn't overly vital. Burnelli reached Sergeant Zulyka's suitted form. She was clearly alive, but her left arm was making it very difficult to move around. It was also strange that she hadn't rang in on the comm. Burnelli figured out what the most likely cause was. He moved right up beside her and placed his armored hand on her suit's shoulder. "You all right?" He said.

"Comm system is junked, along with my left arm. Where's Omara?" She started.

"He hasn't rang in yet, sir." Burnelli replied. "Looking into it now." He ordered his Hawkeye to bring up sensor data from before the Shriekers hit. He delved into positional data and told the database to pinpoint Omara's last recorded location in relation to the realtime battlefield. "Got it. Mitchell is hurt, sir. I think this rescue mission is over for us."

"You'll be told when the rescue is over, Specialist. Check on Omara, I'll get over to Mitchell and start our regroup."

As Burnelli was running over to the orange square painted on his HUD, denoting Omara's last position according to Hawkeye, a chill went down his spine as he wondered where the Shriekers had gone. Hawkeye will tell you if they're on top of you again. Move, soldier.

He reached the edge of the blackened crater. Taking one step into it, he heard the crunch of glass. Omara's position was near the very center of the bowl in the ground. Fuck. "Sergeant Zulyka, Omara is down. I repeat, Omara is down. No remains whatsoever."

Zulyka's voice replied, filled with rage. "Mitchell got burned through on his lower left torso. Organ damage is likely. We need to get him to a hospital immediately. Specialist, I want a sit rep on the Shriekers, the transports, and the inbound ground Locusts right now."

Burnelli looked up into the air. The Shriekers weren't in sight anymore, though they had been recovering from the missile strike for at least a few minutes now, they could be anywhere on the battlefield by now. He turned to face their destination, the fallen Colonial transports. They were still a kilometer off, black smoke from the two damaged ones was clearly visible. One of them was spewing antiflammatory suppressor over its hull and onto the ground around it.

The Locusts were twelve hundred meters away from the transports, easily several thousand Warriors and Soldiers. Hawkeye also counted five Crawlers from this vantage point. Then Burnelli saw a formation of Colonial Militia that seemed a little off scale for their distance. He started running towards the transports, hoping a shorter distance would resolve the picture. As he left the smoke cover of their own impact zone, he realized what they were. And just as he did, an MI with officer authenticity certificates channeled into his comm node. "This is Lieutenant Kerr. Looks like you took a hell of a beating, need any help?"

Burnelli forged a comm link between the officer and the rest of Raider Squad. "Sir, we have Lieutenant Kerr on the line, he has reinforcements at the transports already."

"Lieutenant Kerr, this is Sergeant Zulyka, acting squad leader of the Raiders. We suffered heavy casualties from a Shrieker bomb run, most of our squad is unable to deploy." Zulyka said.

"Roger that, Sergeant. You are ordered to evacuate those in your unit unable to deploy on the rescue op. You will retreat to the LZ, your part in the battle is done. Functional units from your squad will temporarily merge with my platoon. We need all the firepower we can get to fend off the horde headed for the transports. Move out, Sergeant."

"Sir, yes sir!" She severed the comm link with the officer and continued to speak to Raider Squad. "Omara and Darrel are down. Corporal Smith, you're helping move Private Mitchell with me. Corporal Ellyn, get a move on, as fast as you can. Burnelli and Sevenice, you're merging with Kerr's platoon until you're ordered otherwise." Without another word she used her command routines to boot Burnelli and Sevenice out of Raider Squad's tactical nodes and shunted them to Lieutenant Kerr.

The officer responded with impressive efficiency, merging the two fully functional MIs left from Raider Squad into his own platoon nodes. "Welcome. You better haul ass, the horde will come under firing range in two and a half minutes."

"Sir, yes sir!" Both of the ex-Raiders replied, and started their mad sprint towards the downed transports.

[Barahad]

There wasn't time to waste, so Kerr started handing out orders while they were still bouncing towards the three transports. The bugs hadn't really registered the small number of MI sprinting across their new line of advance, so the fire which did come in was scattered and inaccurate. "Second section, I want you to take the two downed transports. Assessment only. Report in when you've finished. You have thirty seconds to do so. Third section, I want you to deploy by the working transport. Keep it that way! Burnelli, Sevenice, I'm not sure what your load-outs are. Read them off for me, one at a time."

"Hyper-rifle sir and a vibro-knife," Sevenice's answer was terse.

"You're with three section on fire support," the lieutenant's reply was almost instantaneous. "Specialist?"

"HVvixen missile launcher with six missiles, two Raid Mk IV tactical nukes, and a vibroknife, sir," came the specialist's reply.

Kerr paused for a moment, and then flipped to a private channel. "You've got atomics?"

"Yes sir. They're last resort weapons, two kiloton yield at the top of the dial," the specialist stopped talking. It seemed that the lieutenant was thinking.

"I think, specialist, that we just might need to borrow one of your rockets before we leave," Burnelli couldn't help but smile at the lieutenant's thinking. "Until then, I want you to use your conventional missiles to the best effect possible. Attach yourself to third section. My platoon sergeant will direct your fire where he thinks it needs to go."

"Yessir," Burnelli was still sprinting to the crash site, and he was finally starting to pull away from the advancing bugs. "Time until your arrival?"

Kerr checked his speed and the distance still left to cover. "We're moving at full-tilt. We're two-oh seconds out and closing. Keep your head down until we get there."

"I don't think you have to worry about me sir," was the reply. "The CM are another story entirely."

Kerr nodded. "Keep your comm on this channel. Kerr out." he flipped his comm line over. "This is lieutenant Kerr of the MI, calling CM commander. Please respond."

There was a hiss of static, and then a voice cut in over the sound of whining engines and gunfire. "-aptain Janson here. How can I help you lieutenant?"

"You can help me by telling me what the HELL you were doing coming down with minimal air support!" Kerr's voice was sharp.

"Ammunition, reinforcements, and tech crews sir. General Tobias thought the CM on the ground could use the morale boost and extra weapons we were carrying," the captain seemed confident in the decision.

"Alright captain, now I know why you were coming down. I need a preliminary assessment. Which transport was carrying what, and what are their conditions?"

"Smaller transports were carrying ammunition and tech crews. They took a real beating, but we've recovered the techs who escaped the craft. The ammunition and weapons should still be in the transports."

"Did you check the transports for immobilized survivors?"

"Sir?" the captain seemed bewildered. "We got everyone we're going to get. If there are any wounded, they're as good as dead."

Kerr wanted to scream at the man, but he could understand the reasoning. Colonial Militia had about as much hope against bugs as a chihuahua had fighting an angry Grizzly bear. Still, MI doctrine was the polar opposite: it was an officer's responsibility to make sure every man in your platoon made it to the dropship.

"I want you to detach two platoons of CM and have them start moving ammunition and weapons to the transport. If they locate survivors, they're a higher priority. Get the injured back to the transport. We'll give you what help we can."

"But the bugs!"

"Bugs nothing! You leave a single wounded man behind, and I'm going to make you wish that you'd been left for the bugs! Kerr out." The conversation had let him close the rest of the distance to the transports. The CM were starting to fan out in defensive positions, and Kerr could see two platoons racing towards the downed transports. The feelers thrown out by the bugs had been repulsed, but Kerr could see that there were a fair number of dead CMs lying around the transport. It would only get worse when the bugs decided this was worth their while.

"Second section, thirty seconds!" Kerr barked, and watched part of his unit peel away with calm precision. "Third section, defensive positions! Fire only when it will be effective!" he clicked his comm to his platoon sergeant. "I trust your judgment, sergeant. It'll be your call."

Kerr looked with some surprise on the CM huddling against the transport for cover. "Captain, what are you doing?"

"Waiting until the new group of bugs are in range sir," the captain replied.

"Captain, how long will it take for that to happen?"

"A little while...maybe a minute."

"Then why the hell aren't you taking the time to deploy some heavy weapons? I've seen those impact rifles at work. You need to have a bug more or less on top of you before those things have any effect! I want you to have your heavy-weapons teams take up positions on each side of the transport! You've lost enough men already!"

"Now see here lieutenan-" Kerr cut him off.

"I don't have time for arguments, captain. Heavy weapons, now. My men will give you a hand." He flipped channels. "Sergeant?"

"Yes sir," came the reply. The powered armour suit strode into the transport and emerged a moment later bearing a heavy machine-gun. "Where do you want this?"

"Beside the rocket launcher," Kerr replied as the sergeant put it down.

"What rocket launch-" the captain stopped talking as the MI carried out a rocket launcher, which would normally have taken the CM two or three men to put into place.

"I suggest you put some men on these weapons captain," Kerr said quietly. Kerr flipped the comm off. A moment later, it crackled into life.

"Second section reporting in sir. Assessment complete. Significant amounts of weapons and ammunition, ranging from small arms to stationary guns. Technicians and CM too. Most of them are dead."

"Save who and what you can, and put it on the working transport. Sergeant, how soon until the bugs are in range?"

"Just got there sir," came the reply, and Kerr watched as the MI around the transport opened fire. A few moments later, the CM's heavy-weapons joined in. "Second section, you have until my order to save as much as you can. Men first, material second. When I give the order, you get up, and you run and don't stop running until you hit the mountain. Same orders for third section. Burnelli," Kerr flipped channels. "Once we start running, I want you to target one of the downed transports. Once we hit the safe zone, let your rocket get a good lock and then let fly."

"Yessir," Burnelli answered.

[Gorefiend]

Angel hated it when things got like this. He cursed. Repeatedly.

Who the hell couldn't realize we had it under control?

Angel's scope gave him the full picture: one small unit of MI's organizing the CM's, and another group of MI's sent nearly to their deaths that got hit. One or two of them seemed to be going ahead, while the rest headed back. Smart move.

Angel saw the Locust ahead of them. Mostly Warriors and Soldiers, with a couple crawlers that made themselves visible. Angel shot their legs off, one by one, as the line of Warriors and Soldiers advanced. Maybe I can clear it up a bit for them...

He quickly set his radio to send directly to the guy who seemed in charge: "Lieutenant, emr, Kerr is it? This is Lieutenant Veracruz from sniper detail. I thought you'd appreciate knowledge that you got a sniper on your back. I'm focusing on crawlers right now, but if there's anything on the ground you want downed, don't hesitate to ask." He said as he shot a crawler's leg off.

[Barahad]

"Veracruz, this is Kerr. We'll take all the help you can give us. Use your best judgment, and shoot accordingly. We'll do what we can down here." he was about to click his comm off, when he thought the better of it. "Oh, and Veracruz?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." with that, Kerr clicked his comm off and moved to join second section in the recovery operation. Within moments, he was carrying a wounded man across the open ground between the transports. He could see the bugs advancing, a dark smudge rapidly resolving into an imminent threat. He just hoped that he'd done enough to ensure that his men would make it out of here in one piece.

[Gorefiend]

OOC: In case you care to check this post: I changed split the difference and set it at 15 meters, ok?
__________
Angel hated it when the bugs were there. It was almost a melee at the crash site. Which meant, of course, that they had some 15 meters or so, but with the bugs that meant the CM's were almost dead.

Shoot. Reload. Shoot. Reload. Shoot. Reload. One head, one plasma-shooting arm, one leg off a crawler.

Where is it? Where is it?

Shoot. Reload. Shoot. Reload. A head off a soldier about to fire, a leg off a Warrior that was getting too close.

Where the hell is it?

Shoot. Reload. The head of a stubborn crawler. Shoot. Reload. The head of a soldier.

Found it!

Through his scope Angel saw the head of the bug he sought: the Hive Node. He had a plan. Using one of his rifle's functions, he set the bug as Target 1, effectively making it easier to find in the future, and kept shooting. As he did so, he turned on his comm to Lieutenant Kerr again.

"Lieutenant Kerr, do me a huge favor and let me know when you choose to pull out, ok? I got a way to buy you a couple of seconds."

[Tarrin]

Reapers scope was scanning the MI lines, that crash had just placed the whole deployment in jepordy.
As he scanned thru his sight stopped on a MI officer, The figures hands waving and pointing in various directions.
"hehe, Kerr u never change" a slight smile crossed Strykkers lips, He had known Kerr for a while now and trhey had become commrads after on of the many battles that they had both fought in.

Suddenly Reapers scope flashed red, Drawing his scope upward a lone Screecher appeared, "Damnit Kerr why can't you see that?", Reapers scope estimated five seconds till impact.
Still Kerr stood there hands waving, "Damn he must be using all his channels to direct troops" cursed, His targeting system flashed as he let go with one of the fifty cal rounds from his Barret, The weapon was old school compared to any of the weapons other MI used, However a round from this baby would hole up a crawler real good.

A fine green mist showered over the Series 35 CS, A buzz came over the Lieutenants comms, "Bill you keep this up and I'll be drunk by the end of this fight." Strykker taunted as his sights scanned back to the main fight.
The bet they had was simple, Each time one saved the other they'd get shouted a drink, So far Reaper had made him quite a fully stocked bar.

Raider Squad or what was left of them, Were just arriving at the downed transport, The CM there started two timing it back to the lines.
"Just as well" Tarrin thought "they've screwed this up enough".The gasss vents and sound supressors kicked in again and again as Reaper did its best to give cover fire to the Raiders.

[Barahad]

(OOC: Gorefiend, ten meters sounds okay, though I'd almost be more comfortable with fifteen or twenty. Still, given the numbers involved on both sides, ten sounds reasonable. Perhaps mildly optimistic, but these are MI!)

"-keep this up and I'll be drunk by the end of this fight," Kerr looked up as the remnants of a flyer ignited and splattered off the transport. He thought he recognized the accent and voice. "Thanks Strykker," he said shortly into his comm. The bugs were getting very close to the green line now. They hadn't started trying to push around, but when they got that idea into their heads, the situation would become entirely untenable.

Kerr watched as Sevenice's hyper-rifle blew open a gaping hole in an advancing crawler, stopping it about a hundred feet outside a truly dangerous radius. "Keep it up!" He ordered. The first crashed transport was empty of all useful supplies and wounded personnel. The dead, well under other circumstances Kerr would have ordered them carried out, but his priority was making sure no one else joined them. Already the CM had started soaking up casualties, not crippling yet, but certainly demoralizing. Their heavy-weapons were still going, and they had even hauled a few more out to supplement the fire. They were doing a pretty good job keeping the bugs at bay behind the green line.

The second crashed transport was in the process of being emptied, and Kerr had a feeling they wouldn't be able to salvage everything before it was time to go. He turned as part of the green line turned an angry red. A half-dozen soldiers had gone over the line. He watched them descend on a heavy-machine gun manned by the militiamen. They screamed as the bugs swarmed forwards. Cutting in his 'jets, Kerr landed just behind the militia and reached over his shoulders. Grasping the stocks firmly, he pulled his flamethrowers into the ready position, and without a moment to waste, proceeded to douse the advancing locusts in a stream of concentrated fire.

Waiting the requisite five-count, Kerr stopped firing and let go, grabbing his gauss rifle and bringing it to his shoulder. A five second burst into the pile of bugs and he was bounding back towards the working troop transport. Captain Janson was there, yelling orders into his comm. "Captain!" Kerr didn't bother with the radio. "It's time to get your men out of here. Get them into the transport and get off the ground!"

"But we lost an engine on the way in! The thing can barely fly!" was the captain's response.

"I don't care if it can barely hover! There are four miles of ground between here and the mountain! Your men will not be able to cover that on foot, even if my squad and I act as a rear-guard! You get this bird in the air, and if you have to, you crash it in front of our lines and run the rest of the way!" the captain gulped as Kerr rushed to the side of the transport to watch the swarm's continuing advance. "You have your orders captain!"

"Yes sir!" the captain replied, saluting. Soon he was shouting orders into his comm, and the militiamen started falling back, firing in as disciplined a manner as they could. Right now, their lives depended on it, and having two sections of an MI platoon backing them up gave them a little more confidence than they would have had otherwise. One by one, the heavy-weapons went silent, with MI filling in as best they could. The kits were picked up by second section and placed in the transport. The recovery effort on the second crashed transport was over. Whatever was still inside would be an acceptable loss.

"How long until you can get off the ground?" Kerr called to Janson.

"It'll take us a little while to get to a safe distance to cut in main thrusters!"

"We'll buy you that time! Get your men out of here while you can!" Kerr turned his comm to a general frequency. "Second section, third section, keep them back. Once the transport is in the air, fall back to the two downed craft! I want a double check for survivors and anything we can use against the bugs!"

[Azisien]

Burnelli was climbing atop one of the crashed transports to get a better view of the swarm, linking the sensor information from his Hawkeye to all compatible MI units. Unfortunately, none of the Colonial Militia could make use of it. He was also getting a little antsy about not getting to kill any bugs himself. Then again, if this scheme with the nuke goes according to plan, I'll have racked up my kill quota for the day.

The suppression fire being laid down by most of Kerr's platoon and the Colonial Militia was an impressive sight eight meters off the ground, at the apex of the crashed tech transport. For the moment the Locusts were held back. Every minute or so, a bunch of Soldiers would push through the growing walls and mounds of corpses and break the near-uniform defensive line.

It was a well-executed defense, but it was also standard. With so much combat experience, Burnelli could write a book on how things would go from here. The breaks would continue to happen, becoming more and more frequent. More men and suits would be diverted from the main line to pop a cork in the smaller breaks. With less bodies defending the main line, a feedback loop begins where more and more breaks occur. Finally, the defensive line collapses and a hell of a lot of people die. Exactly how long defensive lines held for depended on the equipment at hand, the skill of the soldiers and more importantly the officers, and dumb luck.

Over the years, Burnelli had also worked out that very large plasma munitions and high explosives added more time to the clock when one wanted to keep a Locust swarm at bay. Without further ado, he used sensor data from his Hawkeye to determine the three most densely populated areas of the advancing bug line. The blast shield on the back of his suit slid open and three HVvixen missiles spat out of their launch tubes. The slim missiles were about one foot long. The warhead was a state-of-the-art plasma bomb, heavily miniaturized for use in light suits, and for speed and maneuverability. Burnelli felt the pressure on his legs even through the amplified strength as the missiles ignited, accelerating at fifteen Earth gees.

Before he had time to blink the missiles were a third of the way towards the swarm. One second after that, they all slammed into the ground at their respective targets. All the MI visors and Colonial Militia helmets polarized against the brilliant flashes. Many of the Locusts not hit directly by the energetic nightmare reeled back in shock. Locusts close to the explosions were blinded and burned by the intense heat.

As for the unforunates caught in the direct blast, they were the lucky ones. Any bug within a twenty-five foot radius of the warhead's impact site was vaporized. For twenty feet beyond the killzone, exoskeletons were severely burned and eyes blinded forever. But that doesn't stop them. Locusts don't feel pain. Ah well, at least it makes them squishier. The flash dissapated, and superheated air and plasma rushed upwards into the sky along with a nominal amount of black smoke. A cool breeze blew against the backs of the Remnant.

There was a moment of boosted morale and high hope as the HVvixens blew gaping holes in the Locust line. Ten seconds later, the Locusts were back where they had been before the missile strike, crawling over the black craters and scorched carbon remains of their kin. A sense of hopelessness returned, and most shoved it aside for the time being.

It was then when Burnelli heard the sounds of the working transport's ion thrusters warm up over the intense roar of the battle. "Retreat's coming soon. Wonder if we'll hold out." He said to himself as he watched any Colonial Militia in combat pull out. Their heavy weapons were packed up and carried into the transport. Any MI standing near the craft backed away. The transport wouldn't use its main thrusters until it was a good distance away, but within reason the ion thrusters were safe in almost any position.

"Prepare to work double-time defending the transport while it takes off. We're without Militia support now." Kerr's platoon sergeant said over the general comm.

[Barahad]

Kerr could hear the transports engines whining as the thrusters cut in, the exhaust stirring up clouds of dust from the dry lakebed as the pilot went for a hard takeoff. "Fall back! Fall back!" Kerr recognized the danger. The dust being generated would cut visibility, and make it all the harder to keep the bugs at bay.

They were getting closer, and Kerr could see that the gentle green line on his HUD was turning an angry red in a variety of places. Trading his rifle for his flamethrowers, he had every third man in his section do the same. Soon bullets and fire had worked to restore the line. If there was one things the bugs hated, it was fire. Kerr could appreciate that feeling. Fire was an ugly thing to use as a weapon. Then again, so were the bugs. He figured the two balanced out. Even with the switch in tactics, the bugs were closing to an uncomfortable distance, and Kerr knew that the time to circle the wagons was over. Now it was time to play a game of cat and mouse. He wasn't entirely sure who was who, in this case.

Still, this was the time to exploit the unique strength of his men and their suits, the strength which had earned them the name 'Mobile Infantry'. Looking up, Kerr could see that the transport was gaining altitude, and his men were shifting their fire from target to target as quickly as they could to protect its departure. Sevenice's hyper-rifle was constantly shifting, and Burnelli’s well-timed Vixen salvo gave the entire platoon some breathing room. Finally - after what seemed an interminable wait - the main thrusters on the transport kicked in, and the transport was away, keeping a steady speed as it headed towards the relative safety of the mountain. Kerr knew they had to move - and fast.

"Kerr, we've got the transport covered on the way in. Nothing's going to get below a hundred feet anywhere near it. I want you and your men back here on the bounce!"

"We need to run one more check of the downed craft sir, and then we'll be on our way," Kerr answered. He had to be sure they weren't leaving any wounded behind.

"You have one minute," the captain acknowledged. Kerr was already issuing orders.

"On the bounce you apes! We're on a deadline! Second section, first transport! Double-check! Third section, second transport! Go, go, go!" he flipped channels as he bounced away from the bugs, his flamethrowers still throwing out their angry deterrent; moving with the rest of third section towards the scattered remains of the second crashed transport. "Sergeant, take the transport. The rest of you get what cover you can and fire!"

True to his orders, Kerr crouched behind a rather hefty section of the craft which had broken away and had come to a stop jutting from the scarred lakebed at a steep angle. It would serve as impromptu cover. Clicking off his comm, he listened to his squad leaders dole out their orders. They'd been through this a thousand times, sometimes as a practice, sometimes as a real situation. They were good at what they did. Switching back to his rifle, he joined in the hail of fire which whittled away the bugs' lines.

"Clear!" came the call from second section. "Coming home to you lieutenant."

"Roger," the lieutenant acknowledged. "Third section, report."

"We've got two wounded sir. I'm bringing them out." the lieutenant stood up from behind his cover, letting it shelter the lower portions of his body, still firing at the bugs which were now charging towards the new MI position. The soldiers and warriors were coming with all speed, and the plasma fire was starting to get thick. There was a curse over the comm, followed by the terse command 'report'. One of the men in second section had taken a grazing hit, and his gyros were acting up. "Can you make it home?" the section leader asked.

"I can damn well try," came the reply. "The computer's trying to compensate for the wonky readings."

Kerr fired as he moved to the hatch of the downed transport craft and stuck the gauss rifle to his chest, accepting a groaning man from the MI standing in the opening of the tilted cargo bay. "Where's the sergeant?" Kerr demanded.

"Right here!" the sergeant came bounding out, carrying the second man in his arms, cradling him rather protectively against his suit. He didn't even have to ask Kerr the one question on everyone's minds. Instead, he barked over the comm: "Alright you apes! Time to stretch your legs! By section, move out!"

Second section jumped away first, moving as quickly as their suits would carry them. When they had achieved a safe distance, they slowed their speed, and turned to provide covering fire for third section. "Third section!" Kerr called. "Move!"

[Gorefiend]

Angel kept shooting through the scope on his vantage point. The occasional beggining of a break was plugged by his shooting, but he knew they'd be retreating soon. It was time.

"Local Fleet detail? This is Lieutenant Veracruz from the MI's. I need one area bombed here on the surface, on my mark. Anyone up for the job?"

I know I'll piss someone off, but those Fly-boys up in orbit aren't going to get shot.

"Lieutenant Veracruz? This is Captain Smith from Fleet. What do you need roasted?"

It was a youngish female voice. Mid 20's, probably. That'll do.

"Captain Smith, I'm sending you a set of coordinates and I need you to try to zoom your camaras on that location."

"I got your coordinates on visual."

"Ok, you see the MI's and the CM's holding those bugs? They're going to pack up and go on the mark of a Lieutenant Kerr. I'm providing sniper cover. Now, I need you to do me a favor and watch them. As soon as they are out of range of the effects, drop an HVM on the Locust trying to overrun them, and no sooner. Send conventional bombs down in the meantime, if you'd be so kind, but avoid this target," he sent the targetting information off his bugsnipe, revealing the location of the local node he'd identified. It was highlighted a sick green on her display. "I want to buy them time to run, you see."

"I do. I'm on it. Smith out."

Moments later, while Angel was taking out a stubborn crawler's 3rd leg, small seeker missiles rained from the sky like fireworks, exploding directly behind the main line of Locust before Kerr.

[Barahad]

Third section was away, and Kerr knew the Locusts would pause to investigate the downed transports, but that wouldn't give them much time. He just hoped his men could bounce fast enough. "Burnelli, I need you to get target acquisition on the transport!" Kerr swore at himself. In all the chaos, he'd failed to have Burnelli get an early fix on the transport. Picking it up now under the charging mass of Locusts would be nigh-on impossible.

As he ran, Kerr felt a concussion, then another, then another, then the world behind him exploded into a maelstrom of fire and death. HVMs mixed with cluster munitions were bursting almost directly over the charging insects, turning the area targeted by the blanketing fire into a charnel-house from which almost nothing would escape. If Burnelli's portable missiles had been impressive, the devastation wrought by the orbital bombardment was even more intimidating. The bugs which had survived were so badly injured that they would be dead in seconds. The dead...well the dead bugs were everywhere, and very few of them in one piece. The bugs didn't stop, of course. It was never that easy. The Locusts came on through the rain of missiles and bombs. Once that rain stopped, the bug advance would resume. For the moment though, the angel in orbit was buying Kerr's men time - time desperately needed for several things.

Kerr turned to Burnelli's frequency as the HVMs disassembled the bugs near the crashed transport. "Burnelli!"

"I've got a confirmed lock," came the reply. "What's the plan?"

"Run while we have the cover," was Kerr's answer as a second series of cluster-munitions detonated above the swarm, showering the area with hyper-sonic shards of metal. Clicking his comm over, he called his company commander. "Captain, this is an early warning to have the defenders on the mountain take cover."

The captain's response was almost immediate, and surprisingly calm given what Kerr was about to do. "Acknowledged. I'll have the men prepare themselves and the remaining civilians for the shockwave and fallout. Will your men be okay?"

"If we can get far enough away, we will be," Kerr glanced at his HUD. "We're going to curve around the mountain as we go, and approach our defensive positions from the flank. Once we hit the edge of the danger zone, Burnelli will let fly and we'll go to ground. Once the blast clears us, we'll run like all hell for the mountain."

"Acknowledged. Good luck lieutenant," the captain clicked the comm off and Kerr switched to his platoon sergeant.

"Keep the men orderly sergeant, and have them go to ground once the rocket hits. Find whatever cover you can, and have them keep their heads down." He clicked his comm again to Burnelli's frequency. The HVMs had delayed the pursuit, and the swarm was starting to fall away behind his sections. The plasma fire, so thick up close, had dwindled to an inaccurate storm passing around them. Kerr watched a new line approaching in his HUD. They would cross it in twenty seconds, with the bugs about forty-five seconds back. It would be enough time. Hopefully. "Burnelli, I want your rocket in the tube and ready to fire."

[Toastburner B]

The General watched while the ad hoced team of Kerr's squad the Raiders fought to keep the CM transports clean and on the move. I love it when I don't have to babysit. he thought to himself.

Just then, his radar picked up something new.

Not just new to the battlefield...new new.

"Oh, what the frag is that?" he muttered to himself. There were a trio of new Locusts...a strain he had never seen or heard of before. They were fliers, but instead of the plasma driver Screamers and Shriekers, the trio were low to the ground, driven by three pairs of wings that moved so fast you could barely seem them, like gigantic bumble-bees. Bug High Command had come up with a new strain, and had decided to take it for a test drive against EvPNA875. I hate new strains! the General thought to himself, What the frak are these going to do?!

His question was answered in a horrific manner. The three new Locusts opened up at once. Rapid plasma bursts flew from them, so fast it almost looked like a single, solid stream, and torn into the MI lines. Casuality reports began to flow in. On top of that, the light counter fire failed to bring down any of them.

Oh, glorious. Close air support with heavy armor! Just what the bugs freakin' needed!

((OOC: Whee! Locust version of an A-10 Warthog! Have fun!))

[Gorefiend]

Angel flicked a small switch on his bugsnipe, and fired at the newly locked-on target. Moments later the Locust on the area near the downed transports froze momentarily, as the MI's bolted out of there. After that, he closed his eyes. He could hear the blast of multiple HMV's as well as conventional missles on the target area. Well done, fly-girl!

"Captain Smith reporting. I believe the mission was accomplished."

"With flying colors. The extra HMV's were nice. Use your discretion to decide whether or not those MI's will need the cover, and whether or not you can keep providing it, ok?"

"Affirmative Lieutenant Veracruz. By the way, you might want to look up."

Angel looked up from his scope to see the new strain flush hot plasma at the MI's stationed on the main line.

Fuck!

He almost instinctively switched weapons to his small rocket launcher, and instinctively fired. Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot SHOOT! He emptied a volley at the nearest bug.

Not a scratch... Fuck...

He put the launcher away, and began to think, frustrated. Fucking bug's gotta have a weak point somewhere.

"Is there anything else, Lieutenant?"

He abruptly remembered the transmission to the Captain was still open.

"Just one thing." He thought for a moment. If the new strain could possibly be trusted to stay put then bombing it would be effective, but given these were individual flyers, not swarms of anything, it was unlikely at best. The best bet might be a self-targetted small nuclear missle, but he didn't quite have one handy and the closest thing to what Angel was thinking--full-scale nuclear warheads--were considered outdated for Fleet use since HMV's were invented, so it would be no use asking the kind Captain for anything more. But he'd already commited to saying something, so he blurted out the first thing that came out, which was surprisingly sincere. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Smith out."

[Tarrin]

Dirt showered over Strykkers position, One of the bombards had drifted off course.
A readout flashed across his HUD "Comms out ....Comms out".
"Great just what i need" Thomas thought, His eye still scanning the incoming bug lines.
"What the fuc..." Sweaping in from behind the bombard were three bugs, Bugs he'd never seen. "General new strain incom....Aw hell" the red flash on his Hud once again reminding him of the malfunction.

The trio of bug hit the MI front line, Reaper's imaging system zoomed in showing the devistation left behind by the new strains weapons.
Strykker started aligning his targeting systems for this new threat, His crosshairs zoomed across his Hud followed by yet another flashing red warning.
"System unable to lock... No Target...No Target" What the hell was this new strain, Reaper had one of the best targeting systems in the MI and it couldn't lock.
Switching to his standard scope Reaper started tracking the Hazes, Watching their pattern waiting for the perfect shot, Waiting to see a pattern to appear, Everything had a pattern these bugs would be no different.

"Hazes" the word appeared in his head "Nice name, i'll call em that from now on".

[Azisien]

"Burnelli, I want your rocket in the tube and ready to fire." Kerr said on a private channel. He brought up his nuke icon on his HUD and set it to active status. As he ran towards the mountain at top speed he started to hear a lot of chatter over all the general lines. He reduced the volume, but picked up enough to know there were new Locust strains cropping up and causing serious damage. Platoons were concentrating fire to little effect, and whole suits were being lost.

First the transport crash, which probably cost us a half dozen MIs. Now a new strain decides to emerge during an otherwise successful op, and we're completely fucked. Kill quota is going completely out the window. The brass is going to be very, very pissed off when this is over. Burnelli didn't bother looking back, he had also heard there was an inordinate amount of jamming emanating from the new strain. His Hawkeye may not be effective either, and running was the best idea at this point. The Locusts were adapting to highly advanced human technology? Our tactical thinktanks are going to shit themselves.

"Requesting position of the new Locust strains. Are we being followed?" It took a solid minute before an answer came through, the comm channels were breaking down into chaos.

"No, Burnelli, the main contingents of Remnant and their counter fire are drawing the new bugs there. The remaining contingent of the Locust swarm attacking the transports is still in hot pursuit."

Seconds later, Lieutenant Kerr sent Burnelli a priority message on a private channel, overriding and muting all other communication with his command functions. "The platoon is over the line, let 'em burn!"

Hawkeye had acquired a fix on the target location what seemed like ages ago, all Burnelli had to do was arm the Raid Mk IV in his HUD and press a physical button to confirm. He was shoved into the ground, slowing his movement, as the missile left its launch tube and rocketed upwards at ten Earth gees. The missile was significantly larger, and both Raid's took up over two thirds of the space in Burnelli's back-mounted missile launcher system. For a nuclear bomb, however, it was deceivingly small. We've come a long way...

The Raid Mk IV took off into the sky on a ballistic arc with the target. "Nuke is away!" He reported to his section. There was a moment where he could feel a surge of adrenaline rushing through his body as he turned around to look at the nuclear missile flying upwards into the sky. At the same time, everyone in Kerr's platoon dove behind any sizeable rock they could find, or simply onto the ground, using their arms to shield their bodies.

The missile reached the apex of its ballistic arc when Hawkeye spotted trouble. Ignoring the gauss rifle, plasma, and high explosives fire of several hundred Mobile Infantry, the three new Locust strains veered off their original course, straight for an intercept course with the missile. "What the fuck." He said, straight into the general comm. He would get speared for that later.

"Specialist Burnelli, report." Kerr said immediately.

"The new strains are headed straight for the missile, sir. I don't know how the-" The bugs opened fire into the air, turning the sky in front of Burnelli into a blizzard of deadly plasma. One second after they had opened up, Hawkeye displayed a message that scrolled across Burnelli's HUD: RAID MK IV-01, GUIDANCE SIGNAL LOST. Hawkeye started scanning the new bugs, and it too encountered significant jamming, it would take a while to weave around it, if it was even possible. But it didn't take an advanced sensor system to notice as the trio of superbugs turning on a direct attack course with the platoon.

"Lieutenant, we have a serious problem."

[Heliomance]

Rob heard the radio chatter from his position, where he had been downing screamers and shriekers for a while.
"New air-strain, huh?" he mused. Uprooting himself, he ran to where the hazes were attacking.
"Anti-air support has arrived, sir," he said over the radio. Taking careful aim, he launched three heat-seeking missiles, one at each bug, and followed them up by strafing the hazes with high-calibre slugs from his machine gun.
"Try stopping that lot," he muttered.

[Toastburner B]

In the midst of the chaos, the CM reached their fall back point.

Unlike their starting point, the Militia spent long days preparing this series of trenches for the inveitable attack, and it showed. While the MI was the main offensive, the CM was the main defensive.

"General, this is Kitspan." a voice grated over the comm. Colonel Kitspan was in charge of the CM defense of EvPNA875. "We are in position, and weapon emplacements are coming online. Get you're boys ready for some outgoing fire, sir."

Inside his suit, Kirkham smiled. "Copy that, Colonel. Contact me when ready."

Surveying the field one more time, the General's smile faded. The new strain at hit the MI lines at the worst possible moment. Despite the fact there were only three of them, their armor made them as tough as Crawlers, but they could manuver out of the way of most heavy weapons with ease. It is not going to fun when the bugs start mass producing those.

"MI, this is Kirkham. Colonial Militia is in place. Get ready for some cover fire, boys. Squad leaders, I am uploading rally points to your computers now. Retreat to rally points on my mark."

A burst of static interrupted. "General, his is Kitspan. Weapons online."

"Roger that. Fire at will. MI, take cover! Fire outgoing!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For all intents and purposes, it was a simple weapon. Such weapons had been seen on the battlefield for hundreds of years. What it lacked in elegance, it made up for in simplicity. A set of large caliber automatic weapons put on a turret. In the old days, it was four .50 caliber machineguns. Currently, it was six impact autocannons.

The rig was considered old fashioned…it probably hadn’t seen service in decades. But it worked well against the Locusts, where the need for pinpoint accuracy was not needed.

Now, it turned out it was useful again. For once, it’s lack of complexity made it perfect. Instead of relying on sensors and computers to aim, the Colonial Militiaman who sat in the belly of the turret took aim at the three new strains, aimed visually. And shot. And shot. And shot. And shot, shot, shot, shot, shotshotshotshotshotshotshotshotshotshotshotshot…

Six streams of metal impacted one of the hovering close air support Locusts. Where hand held…even MI issue hand-helds…failed to penetrate the exoskeleton of the new strain, the shells from the Colonial Militia emplacement was an entirely different story. The bullets were much large, traveling much faster, and coming in greater numbers. Still, not all of the round penetrated the hide…but enough did. As the rounds entered the body of the Locust, they exploded, causing massive damage to the unprotect innards of the creature. With a howl, the wounded Locust hit the ground hard. Even then, it began to stand back up. However, the humans were going to have none of that. A ground mounted HVM impacted the head of the creature dead on, and tore through it’s entire body, almost turning the monster inside out.

More and more weapons fire came down as the heavy emplacements of the Colonial Militia came online.

“We won’t be able to keep up this spread for long, General,” Kitspan said over the comm. “It’s only a matter of time before those Missile Crawlers start to zero in on us.”

“Copy that, Colonel. Keep it up for as long as you can.”

A rumble filled the air. The General looked west in time to see the last wave of refugee transport clear the mountain. The five spaceships had no real weapons to speak of, only a handful of point defense lasers to keep Screamers and Shriekers off them. This time, however, it wasn’t the fliers they had to be worried about.

From wherever they were beyond the treeline, the Missile Crawlers changed targets. The green trails of plasma heralded the size of the volley. The Anti-Missile System roared to life, firing a hail of counter-missiles, and thin lances of energy leapt from the transports as the point defense systems came online.

However, some still got through. For most of the transports, their heavy armor was more than enough to get them through.

Most of them.

“This is the [i]Thames! Mayday, mayday! Heavy damage to port engines! We’re going into a spin! Shutting down all engines! We’re going down! I repeat, we’re going down! Someone get us some cover-“

As the General watched, the Thames banked east…into the Locust swarm.

“Thames, this is Ground Control!” Kirkham yelled into his comm. “Break west! I repeat, break west! You’re heading towards the Locusts, I won’t be able to get any of men over there to cover if you crash in the middle of them!”

“Negative, Ground Control. I don’t have anything to steer with my engines gone. If I turn on what I have left, I’ll just put her into a spin.” There was a pause, but everyone who heard the transmission knew what was coming next. “Thames is omega, repeating, Thames is omega. I’m setting detonation to one minute.”

“Roger that, Thames. Godspeed.” The General said.

“Thank you, Ground. And good luck to you.”

The transport hit the ground with a earth shattering crash. Plumes of smoke and dust bellowed as the spacecraft grated along the sands of the lakebed. A portion of the swarm broke from the main column towards the still moving wreckage, intent on gathering the biomatter.

Before they could reach it, the Thames denoated, it’s fusion reactor going through a controlled cataclysmic failure. The ship vanished in a wave of fire, taking all hands and a sizeable portion of the Locust swarm with her.

“Troopers, fall back to rally points! Repeat, fall back to rally points!” The General ordered. The Locusts would be momentarily distracted by the lost of so many of their number at once, and in those precious seconds that it took for controllers to command the unbound bugs, the General hoped his men would fall back.

“Log: Thames went omega at 14:36:24. All hands lost…25,000 Fleet personnel and civilians dead.” The General sub-vocalized. His computer added the log to the list of the dead.

[Azisien]

"What's the problem, Specialist?" Kerr said with seemingly genuine concern.

"The new Locust strains seemed to be...attracted to my missile. They veered off from their old course and took it down before it detonated." Burnelli said. Kerr swore over the channel, at which point the Colonial Militia defensive emplacements opened fire. The platoon didn't really have time to watch or listen to the spectacle of new fire, they were up and running further along the mountainside.

"You've got one missile left, Specialist. You will hit that target. That's an order." Kerr said. All of a sudden Burnelli didn't like the man very much anymore. What a ridiculous order. Ah well, I guess I'll hit the target.

The Hazes were redeploying their seemingly infinite supply of plasma against the MIs and CMs that were making a slow retreat. The ground emplacements were doing a lot of damage to them though. Burnelli saw one of them go down, and then another emplacement rip it apart with a HVM. The other two were starting to take heavier damage. He saw a cluster of missiles crop up from the crowds of MIs and slam into one of them, splattering Locust ichor all over the side of the gigantic bug and ripping off two of its huge wings. The bug had to slow down to compensate for balance.

Hawkeye reported incoming Screamers and Shriekers, on a direct interception course with their position. One of the other MIs in the platoon reported it first. "Incoming flyers! Jesus, there's nearly fifty." Kerr got onto a command line immediately after hearing the report and seeing the small flock with his own eyes. "This is Lieutenant Kerr, we need immediate Anti-Air support against flyers near our position. I am relaying their coordinates."

A Colonel in charge of Anti-Air Support came on the line. "You and half of Remnant could use more AA support right now."

"Sir, one of our men is going to nuke the swarm, but those flyers are sure to take out any missiles our platoon fires. We only need it for a few seconds."

"God damn it, fine. We've got your coordinates, why the hell are they clustering so much and charging you?" The Colonel noted.

"I don't know, sir." Kerr said.

Flak guns and interceptor missiles rained down on the incoming flyers in seconds, killing over forty in the initial barrage. The rest were killed or fled over the next ten seconds. "Consider it your birthday present for the next two hundred years, Lieuten-Oh, Jesus Christ."

The Colonel, and everybody else in the Remnant including Kerr and Burnelli, watched as The Thames was hit by multiple Shrieker plasma missiles. Fires exploded out of their engines and they veered out of control, straight into the Locust swarm. Even miles away, the ground shook as the massive transport slammed into the ground. Huge dust clouds exploded outwards of the impact site, shrouding a quarter of the lakebed in the fine, salty particles in a matter of seconds.

Burnelli got an Omega warning on HUD, issued by General Kirkham to all Remnant units. Fuck. Somewhere within the dust cloud Thames fusion reactor went critical. The ground shook violently as the explosion prompted an earthquake. Burnelli nearly lost his balance, as did most of the rest of the platoon. When he looked up again there was a massive mushroom cloud rising where The Thames had crashed. For what had to be a few miles in either direction there was complete destruction, a black, fused glass crater made up of the ground and all of the Locust that had been standing on it. A large fraction of the Locust swarm had been destroyed, but there were still enough left. The two now heavily damaged Hazes had been out of the blast radius, and due to the confusion of the explosion they were causing more damage against retreating MI units.

“Troopers, fall back to rally points! Repeat, fall back to rally points!” General Kirkham said through the global comm. Kerr's platoon had been on a rough course towards their rally point anyway, putting them miles ahead of the rest of Remnant. But they still had one last blow to deal. A radiation warning came up in Burnelli's HUD. The explosion from the Thames had pumped out a good deal of gamma rays. Plenty of Militia would be suffering some minor radiation sickness in a few days, and the Locusts would be feeling some hurt too. Ah, they already spread some fallout, what's a little more?

[Azisien]

The platoon reached the their new target line, five miles from the transport site and another four to their rally point. Burnelli brought up a new window in his HUD, manual guidance control. "Firing." He said on the platoon comm. Several troopers told him not to miss this time. Bastards. He fired every missile he had, three HVvixens and his last Raid Mk IV. "Nuke is away!" He got to work quickly. He accessed the HVvixen guidance controls and changed them to fly with the Raid Mk IV, acting as escort. He set a ballistic course for the nuke to hit the target site. "Impact in 20 seconds, roughly." He said, unsure of how long this would actually take.

And sure enough, the two Hazes turned towards Burnelli's four missiles and started to open fire. Burnelli took manual control of the nuke immediately. He gripped a physical joystick that was attached to his wrist and ran back to his launcher system where all the guidance took place. He veered the missile straight upwards and accelerated hard. The copulous amounts of plasma fire from the Hazes missed entirely. The Hazes had aimed perfectly for the ballistic arc, though. The nuke reached an altitude of 20000 feet, with the three protective HVvixens escorting it with ease. The massive close air support Locusts changed their firing pattern to try and match the flight path, but Burnelli would adjust it whenever they started getting close. He was also burning a hell of a lot of fuel doing so. He cut back on some of the acceleration and started to level the missile off back onto its target. The nuke slowed significantly as it did a 270 degree spin and started accelerating towards the transport site, making use of Earth's gravity as well. The Hazes took full advantage of the loss of speed by firing full volley into the air, more wildly than before, hoping to score a lucky hit by sheer volume of their plasma fire. "Damn, these bugs are good."

Burnelli made modifications to the guidance paths of all four missiles as they passed 10000 feet altitude, still accelerating hard. Each would take a different, overly complex trajectory towards the transport site. He input the commands and watched as Hawkeye showed the missile breaking off from their escort formation and accelerating in different directions. The Hazes started firing at the closest missiles to the transports, which were both HVvixens. For now. The little missiles were quick, but the Hazes simply pumped too much plasma into the air. The heat eventually became so intense the first HVvixen detonated in mid-air, adding to the energetic storm. The second HVvixen must have been grazed by one of their volleys, it lost control and ripped apart without igniting due to the harsh gee forces.

Only the nuke and one HVvixen remains, both of which had been sent on a longer course, farthering away from both Hazes. Still, both of the Locusts each chose a missile and started firing at it.

"Burnelli, what the hell are you waiting for?" Kerr finally said over the private channel. Honestly, he had expected the officer to bitch at him sooner, but he hadn't really been thinking about the rest of the platoon all taking cover, waiting for the explosion that hadn't come in 20 seconds.

Burnelli didn't respond, he was too busy getting ready to take manual control of the nuke again. That's when he noticed it's fuel capacity, down to 6%. That would allow for absolutely no maneuverability. The nuke was on target with the transport site, but his only option left was to have it keep accelerating. The Hazes were probably going to take it out if he didn't modify the flight path. He cursed as his last HVvixen was engulfed by a plasma stream. Come on, fuck, come ON!

Both Hazes charged up for another volley, when two miracles happened. Well, the timing was miraculous, anyway. An HVM emplacement hit one of the Hazes, tearing through the thorax and removing the head from the abdomen, splattering the bug's guts over a thousands of square feet. Seemingly out of nowhere, a heat-seeking missile had been fired with perfect aim and timing at the swelling plasma outlets of the Haze bug. The missile locked onto the rapidly rising temperature and hit dead-on, igniting the plasma stores within the Haze and causing a horrendously violent explosion. Thank you, random people!

"Impact in 5...4...3...2...1..."

The nuke continued to accelerate until it had burned all of its fuel up, and glided through the air at over Mach 5. It hit the transport site and trumped the explosion caused by the Haze by several fold. The entire battlefield became white for a split second, and a huge mushroom cloud rose above the target. His HUD reported additional radiation bursts, but from this distance his suit would protect him from that and the EMP. A second later a small earthquake shook the ground beneath their feet, not quite as violent as the thermonuclear explosion created by The Thames going Omega. Seconds later the sound and pressure waves hit them, but they were well beyond the safe zone. The Locust swarm, on the other hand, were definitely not. The front of the swarm had long since passed the transport site, but most of them hadn't made it out of the killzone. Approximately two miles in every direction from the former transport site was shrouded in smoke and, with Hawkeye filtered activated, looking as desolate as the blast crater around from The Thames. A little over a third of the remainder of the swarm had been wiped out by the Raid Mk IV, and almost none were near their quadrant of the battlefield. Judging from past intelligence, it was likely more than half of the swarm would die off from the radiation poisoning in a matter of days, and their nightmareish agricultural endeavours would be severely hindered in this area for the next five decades or so.

The platoon began their retreat to the rally point, still miles ahead of the rest of Remnant. Burnelli's part in this battle was over. All he had to do now was run, then hope Fleet could get him off the planet alive. And then there would be the nightmares later tonight.

(OOC: Double posted due to length).

[Barahad]

"Section leaders, report!" Kerr swept his gaze over what remained of the battlefield. The Thames and Burnelli's A-rocket had done quite the number on the bugs.

"First section," it was his men still at the mountain. "Clear sir. We have wounded, but they're mobile. We also picked up some strays."

"Mobile?"

"Mostly CMs without units sir, some wounded MI. We're bringing them in."

"Acknowledged," Kerr heard the section leader sign off, just as the leader of second section chimed in.

"Second section reporting. We are 0-k." Kerr breathed a sigh of relief. In all that mess, second section was still in one piece.

"Wounded?"

"We have some plasma scoring that'll take a while for the techs to repair, and a few injuries, but we're all functional," Kerr nodded. He was surprised he hadn't heard any of the damage reports earlier, but it seemed that his non-coms had done their job.

"Third section sir. 0-k, one badly injured flyboy from the transport, and middling-to-serious damage - not counting the additions - on four suits...including mine."

"Sergeant?" Kerr turned to glance at his platoon sergeant, and registered with some surprise the angry black scoring along the heavy armour plating on the back of his suit. "Damage?"

"Not as bad as what we did in turn," the sergeant replied, and Kerr could hear the fierce pride in his voice. Kerr smiled and clicked his comm over.

"Burnelli,"

"Yessir?"

"Good work," Kerr would be filling out some paperwork (provided he got to orbit in one piece) that evening. One would be a request to attach Burnelli and Sevenice to his platoon until Raider squad was put back together. The other would be an application to pin a medal to Burnelli's chest - for conspicuous gallantry in the middle of a seemingly impossible situation.

"Captain, this is Kerr,"

"Go ahead lieutenant,"

"We're ready for dustoff and on our way to the company rally point. We will adopt a standard defensive posture until you arrive."

"Agreed," the captain answered. "We'll be home in half-an-hour."

"Not quite sir," Kerr answered softly as the captain shifted away to deal with another subordinate. Home was some millions of miles away - and that was a lot of space to cross. EvPNA875 was just the first step. Kerr glanced at the sky briefly. "Alright troopers, check your power supplies and ammo. The retrieval boats will be here soon."

[Toastburner B]

It is said that no plan ever survived contact with the enemy.

The Battle of EvPNA875 was a prime example of this.

“Ground, this is Fleet. We just go the transports up here. We are ready to pick up you and your men..”

The General sighed with relief. “Copy that, Fleet. Can you send us any support? It’s going to be a crap shoot getting out of here in those dropships.”

[i]”Negative, Ground. The bugs must of caught on to the fact that we’re leaving. Hive Delta is en route to intercept us. I need everything I need everything I have up here to protect the transports…we lost a good number on the way up. All three Hives are in motion…we’re not going to get everyone off Earth.”

The commander of the Fleet elements of the 1st JSF, Admiral Samuel Harmon, knew what he was about. If he said he needed everything, the General knew he wasn’t kidding.

“Copy that, Admiral. Keep the door open for us.”

The General quickly changed frequencies. “Alpha…we’re going to have to do a hot pick up if any of us want to get out of here alive. You copy.”

“Roger that, General. We are lighting up as we speak. Get you’re boys ready to board.”

“Copy that. Kirkham out.” Another flick of the wrist. “Okay, boys…the designated drivers are here. Let’s leave this party.”


From behind the mountain came a small swarm of small craft. Standard military doctrine called for the use of “dropships” rather than transports. The transports were smaller, harder to hit…and if they did get hit, you only lost a handful of troops, as compared to the thousands you would loose if a transport was taken down.

The dropships themselves were not unarmed. As they peaked the mountain, the fired a salvo of missiles into the front of the bug horde. They were also quite heavily armored for ships their size. Fire from most basic bugs would not breach the armor. Missile-strains, however, were still a worry.

The ships streamed into the fight, missiles flaring, nose mounted autocannons firing. The drop ships reached the CM positions first. Hovering feet above the ground, the ships quickly dropped their ramps and picked up as many troopers as they could before incoming fire forced them to move. There were more dropships than needed…mostly because it was a fact of life that many would die before they reached the troops.

A trio of dropships, piloted by more daring (or suicidal, depending on your point of view), sped ahead of the formation, and began to hover over Kerr’s group. The ramps opened, and a voice was heard yelling “Get your tin cans up here!”


((OOC: Not my best post...but I'm in a rush.))

[Barahad]

Kerr's platoon was in position at the company beacon - their assigned ship was the Austria, and unless she got pasted in high orbit, that was where the dropships would be taking them. As his men waited, fingers tight on their weapons, Kerr noted that the locator beacon had just come to life. A moment later, its unique signal came over the comm: 'The Blue Danube'.

"Heads up apes!" he could hear his platoon sergeant. "We've got incoming friendlies."

A moment later, the ripping scream of dropships doing a hard dive through the atmosphere reached them, and a moment after that, there was the distinctive 'swoosh' of a missile salvo passing overhead. The defensive positions had mostly gone quiet as MI and CMs scrambled for the beacons which would take them to their own assigned ships in orbit. There wasn't a lot of time to do a dustoff against the bugs before ships and men started dying.

"First section double-time!" Kerr called. "We have incoming!"

"Fifteen seconds out sir," Kerr could now make visual contact with first section, and knew the dropships would be here a good five seconds before them. The rest of the company wouldn't be far behind. The three dropships detailed to Kerr's platoon came in fast and hard, and braked nearly as violently. Those had to be female pilots, Kerr reckoned. They made some of the best pilots - period - because they could withstand on average more Gs than most men. The beacon cut off as the dropships braked.

The dropships dropped lower, but never put down their gear, hovering instead mere feet above the ground as their ramps came down. "Get your tin cans up here!" Kerr could see first section making a direct line for the dropship closest to them. "By the numbers, be ready to move out!" Kerr called. Another two dozen or so dropships were screaming in not far behind, coming to collect the other platoons in the company - which would probably be scattered among the smaller fleet vessels in orbit.

"Captain, our rides are here," Kerr radioed.

"Roger," the captain replied. "Rearguard reports light fire from the reforming swarm, but they're only five seconds behind us, and we're ten seconds from your position. Cut and run lieutenant. That's an order. I'll see you in orbit."

"Aye sir," Kerr gave a quick gesture to his sergeant, who immediately began issuing commands.

"Move you apes! Into the ships! Gogogo!" The platoon began an orderly bounce into the vessels, until it was Kerr, his platoon sergeant, and the section leaders alone covering the entrances. "Section leaders into your ships!" The sergeant ordered. They complied, and Kerr was alone in front of his dropship.

The other two dropships were already starting to button their hatches. Kerr stepped onto the ramp. "Count me off!" Ten seconds later, all the MI in his platoon, as well as the lost sheep picked up on the way, were accounted for. "Pilot, any sign of wounded troopers needing pickup?"

"No lieutenant," came the reply after a moment.

"Close the ramp and punch it!" Kerr was already bouncing into the troop compartment. "Third section, brace for acceleration!" he settled his suit into a series of restraints designed for MI while the CMs strapped themselves in to cut down versions of a pilot's chair. "Cutting in main engines," the pilot reported over the dropship's comm. The kick of the engines cutting in was on a par with a mule's kick to the chest. The transport turned on its tail, fusing the ground under it into blackened glass. A moment later, it was rocketing skywards.

"Are they ever going to install inertial dampeners on these things?" his sergeant complained. "It's like getting kicked by a mule everytime."

"If you can come up with a design, I'm sure Fleet'll be more than happy to do so." The pilot cut in. "And we can be gentler if you'd prefer to wait around...and let the bugs get a nice missile lock...and then smear us all over the evac point while we try to break for space. Otherwise quite whining and get used to the mule-kick."

Kerr smiled at the conversation as he settled back into his restraints. For his platoon, the battle for EvPNA875 was over. He just hoped the other pickups went as cleanly as they had for his platoon.

[Heliomance]

Rob heard the order to retreat, and told his Hawkeye display to show the nearest dropship. Firing a covering salvo of missiles, he broke away from his position and sprinted for it. He reached the ship just as they were about to close the hatch, and got aboard. Disarming the suit, he strapped himself in and smiled, an expression of pure relief that he survived.

[Tarrin]

The dropships started hiting the ground, Their thrusters kicking up dust obscuring them from sight for a moment.
Strykkar moved towards the general, Covering his retreat was paramount, Were the general to go down their whole military proceedure against the bugs would go with him.

The general was usually head strong, leaving close to last.
Reaper had been assigned to be one of those who covered his ass till dust off, The generals tub landed the pilot waving him inside.
The general just stood there watching his men get off planet.

[Gorefiend]

“Okay, boys…the designated drivers are here. Let’s leave this party," came the General over Angel's--as well as everyone else's--comm. Angel sighed. Time to go... Parting is such sweet sorrow... At any rate, sniper detail got a pretty clean pickup. Heck, it could almost be called a military affair, as opposed to the more desperate pickups of those further from the actual evac point. All Angel did was disable the bugsnipe, hang it off his back, and run to a transport that waited at his assigned location where a small line of MI's and CM's still waiting to get in entered in a relatively organized manner. Heck, no one could wait to get off this rock, eh? It was strange that they were in a hurry: with the exception of him a a couple of other snipers, everyone back here was the last-ditch defense, and with the exception of a few potshots and the incident with the Hazers, no one this far back had really even had to fire. Meh, all the better!

Angel climbed in, took his position latched on to a wall with special restraints set for MI's, and braced himself as he saw the last few enter and seat themselves.

"Let's get y'all off this rock, shall we?" said the pilot over her shoulder. Moments later Angel, along with everyone else in the ship, shuddered as they acelerated from 0 to 200 kph in what seemed an instant. A few folks complained, but as the acceleration levelled off and the speed remained a constant "too damn fast," Angel just didn't care. He sighed, closed his eyes, and let himself nearly doze off.

[Toastburner B]

Only the General and a handful of MI troopers were left. The Locust horde now advanced practically unopposed. Ground that not 20 seconds ago men died defending was crossed without a single loss in the Locust ranks.

It has to be, Kirkham told himself. For us to win, we have to leave…just like we left Mars.

It was the second planet the Remnant had fled in 9 years…Kirkham wasn’t happy about it, but he knew the plan, and believed it would work.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Kirkham announced over the comm., “It is time for us to leave.”

The General and the last few troopers board the dropships, which kicked into gear as soon as all the troopers were seated. The Locusts, their goal departing the atmosphere, hurled plasma and missile-strains after them, but the nimble dropships avoided destruction.

All across the globe the same scenario was being played out in various degrees. At Evacuation Point African 42, no Locust attack. In EvP Asia 598, not a single transport or dropship made it off the planet. All told, however, Operation Exodus was a success. The last free human, Private Samantha Conners, stepped of Earth and onto a dropship at 1335 GMT, on August 3rd, 2249. If all went according to plan, United System League forces would be back to retake the homeworld of their species inside of three years.

If not, Earth was now a Locust world.

The 1st JSF wasn’t the only force in Earth orbit. A full quarter of the Fleet battle flotilla hovered over the planet. However, the number of warships paled in comparison to the number of refugee ships. The lucky ones were transferred onto larger super-transports…converted pleasure liners that actually had some degree of comfort, but most of the people were stuck on the transports that had carried them off Earth. Tugs scrambled around the ones that had been damaged in the atmosphere, patching them up or hooking them up for towing, as time was short.

The dropships of the Remnant headed towards the U.S.S. Austria, the carrier for the first JSF. As the Austria grew larger and larger in the view screens, the talked into his comm once more.

“Admiral, this Kirkham. Is it working?”

“Yes, sir, it is. Both Hives are changing course to attack us…Alpha and Beta.”

“Their taking the bait then…excellent.” Kirkham said.

“Do you think they’ll take the bait all the way to the Belt?” The Admiral asked.

“We’re taking off with a few billion pounds of biomatter. The Locust will have no choice but to follow us…right into the trap.”

“I hope you’re right,” the Admiral said, “Otherwise, we gave up the homeworld for nothing.”

The transports landed on the Austria, and the troopers filed out of the dropships with practiced ease. “Good job, troopers. No formation today,” the General’s voice said over the comm.. “Get out of those suits and get some rest, you all deserve it. If you’re hurt, report to the Infirmary…I know you MI troopers like to think you’re all that, but I don’t need someone breaking their leg on the next action because they didn’t want to get it patched up. The 7th Fleet is running rearguard, so we shouldn’t have to worry about any attacks, but keep your ears open for general quarters. I’ll pass word along the chain of command when I have our next set of orders. Until then, consider yourselves at Class 2 Leave…no hard booze, no drugs. We’re still in a warzone, people, and I don’t want any drunks running around with weapons on this tin can. Kirkham, out.”


((OOC: Downtime. Feel free to talk and get to know each other. Oddly enough, y’all are going to get stuck together a lot, so now would be a good time to let you’re characters get to know each other. The carrier will have basic entertainment centers…bars and that sort of thing. When things slow down with this, I’ll whip up the next chapter.))

[Heliomance]

Rob unstrapped himself from his suit. Climbing down, he unfastened the maintenance kit he kept fastened to the mech and began to go over it, checking for any signs of damage. He always preferred to look after it himself, unless it was damaged beyond his expertise.

[Tarrin]

Once aboard the main ship Strykker hunted down the first tech guy he could find, Draging him kicking and complaining all the way back to Reaper he pointed at the suit.
"You have exactly fifteen minutes to have the Comms back online, Also take a loot at the targeting system it's about a hundreth of a mil off".Strykker made to leave.

"But Sir" the Tech guy begain "I have somewhere else i have to be"Strykker shot the man with a look of pure death "You now have fourteen minutes, If it isnt fixed by then, Let's just say it's very cold outside" The threat Strykker gave wasn not a hollow one.

The poor thech guy dove strait into fixing the armor, His face had however lost all of it's color.
Turning Strykker left to go hit the cafiteria food was a definate need at the moment.

[Barahad]

It had taken nearly an hour before Kerr could let his hair - what remained after a buzz cut - down. Half an hour to turn suits over to the company quartermaster, ten minutes for the men to check power, ammunition, and the condition of the suits, and another fifteen to check the men themselves. Once they'd finished enjoying their R&R, some of the platoon would be detailed to hammer out the dents from the suits.

If the platoon tech-heads found any which were beyond their equipment, they would turn the damage over to fleet techs - who would either repair the suits, or down-check them and remove them from service until they could be cobbled back together at a place like Io Station.

Kerr shrugged these thoughts from his mind and turned off the shower. Grabbing the towel hanging nearby, he wrapped it around his waist and stepped out. Before the shower, he had laid his mess dress out on the bed, and after satisfying himself that it was crisply pressed, he had attended to himself. Now, looking at his reflection in the mirror, he selected a razor from his kit and began shaving the stubble from his upper lip, chin, and cheeks: all other personal grooming had been attended to before the shower.

On an all-stag ship, Kerr might not have bothered with mess dress - but the Austria was mixed company, and that meant there were women aboard. While fraternizing was discouraged within a single service - inter-service relationships were often overlooked. Kerr had to admit that it was nice to be able to go to dinner with a pretty pilot every now and then, but for the most part he concentrated on his job. Female service members did keep him on his toes though - and more importantly, it did the same for his men (especially the younger ones).

Throwing his towel on a nearby peg, Kerr began dressing. The majority of the uniform was 'MI' blue - a very deep and startling colour. The trousers were accentuated by two light grey stripes running down the outside of each leg (the same colour as the low-cut turtleneck shirt which was worn under the jacket), while the jacket (a rather unique creation in its own right) had similar stripes running down both sleeves. When fastened, the jacket covered every part of the shirt save the collar, which provided a sharp border for the dress jacket’s collar.

Rank pins fastened on both shoulders, while decorations could be worn over the left breast. The jacket itself fastened twice. First the left section was pulled over to the right and clasped at the hip, shoulder, and midsection, creating a straight line from shoulder to pelvis. Secondly, the right section of the jacket was pulled over to the left and clasped in the same manner - the visual line being dramatically illustrated by a light grey hem running down from shoulder to hip. The standing joke amongst MI rank and file was that the jacket had originally been designed to be worn while still IN powered armour. When unfastened, that might be the case, but Kerr had to admit that when fastened, the jacket provided a snug but comfortable fit. The only two buttons visible when finished was where the jacket sections fastened at the shoulders, and the brass gleamed softly when the light hit it right.

All in all, Kerr thought it a rather dashing outfit. Having clipped his last rank marking into place, he opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, pausing to take the salute of two passing ensigns. Tugging briefly at the cuffs of his jacket, he straightened his back and picked up his heels, swinging jauntily down towards the officer's mess, humming.

[Gorefiend]

Angel walked out of his transport, tired, weary, and relieved. Only one thought coursed through his head. I made it. Again. Sonehow, this helped him get through the one part of the entire operation that he felt could at all be considered "orderly." That was, reporting to a techie, turning in his suit and weapons, and reporting to his quarters. They were rather nice, with a bathroom all to himself, a desk with a computer, and a fairly large bed for a military vessel. Being an officer had it's perks. The desk with the computer on it also had some papers. Damn these beaurocrats. Already shoving their paperwork at me... He leafed through them: a request for a statement of the battle, a letter commending him for calling the orbital strike, a letter slapping his wrist for the same orbital strike, and a letter stating that he was for the moment assigned to the Austria and would recieve new orders upon arrival at their next destination.

He sighed deeply, and peeled off the bodysuit he wore beneath his MI suit. He tossed it in the laundry chute in the bathroom, and took a long, relaxing shower. When he finished, he dried off, opened the toiletry package that came with the room, and began to shave what little stubble had developed through the day. He had to be careful--it wasn't uncommon for him to cut himself doing this. After he finished, he started to try to comb his hair. It was hard, since it never took on any sort of shape in particular except "roundish" but he managed to get it to dry into something that looked neat enough. Then he checked the uniform on his bed. It was strange how whenever sudden reassignment like this happened on earth, there was always a freshly pressed uniform waiting for him, with all the insignia and decorations in a little case. He started to put it on: blue pants, a gray turtleneck, and a blue jacket. After he was satisfied that it was on right, he painstaikingly put on the rank pins on both shoulders, and the pins denoting him as sniper detail that went on his lapels. He looked in the mirror. Sharp enough. For a moment, he felt he had put the day behind him. He smiled a little. It felt good. Then he walked out, and headed for the officer's mess hall.

[Tarrin]

Strykker walked down the hall heading from his room, He'd just finnished his shower and made sure his weapon was secure.
Walking down the hall to the mess, Strykker never liked getting dressed up he always prefered to keep lowkey as far as rank was conserned, The fact that he had only put his dress uniform on twice was affermation of that fact, To further that fact he was currently dressed in nothing more than typical MI trousers and a deep blue singlet.

As Strykker neared the mess he doused the stoggie he had been enjoying, Stepping into the room he went strait for the line grabing the grey green slop that passed for a nutritional meal and the stale bun that had nodoubt been sitting in the basket for the past month. Finding an unoccupied table he sat down and started eating the meager meal. A thought struck Strykker of the rest of the "Ranked" men and the officers meal room, He smiled too himself he was a good teacher, he could instruct men easily yet he couldn't get used to the frills that went along with rank and so he would hang down with the grunts, That suited him just fine.

[Toastburner B]

“I was well within my rights to deploy my men as I saw fit, General,” General Franklin Tobias stated.

“I am not arguing that,” Kirkham said as calmly as he could in the face of the insufferable arrogance of the CM General. “I am questioning the wisdom of the decision! Fleet was ready to move out at a moments notice, and you decide to send down three transports into a full fledged battle?”

The older Militiaman loosed his collar. “To my defense, it was not a warzone when I dispatched my men…”

“But you knew it would be. You had a bird’s eye view of the action up here, General. You knew better than I did when the bugs were going to hit the line. You also knew we had a pre-established plan in place.”

“’No plan survives contact with the enemy’, General” Tobias said.

Kirkham sneered. “Don’t quote clichés at me, Tobias. You knew full well that the area would be hot by the time your ships got down! And why transports? Were you trying to get your men killed?”

Tobias stood, his hands palm down on Kirkham’s desk. “I would of used dropships, but they were all planetside. I saw the size of the Locust swarm, and made the decision that you didn’t have enough men on the ground to repel it until the refugee transports were loaded. It was as command decision I made with the information I had at the time.”

“And it was the wrong one!” Kirkham hissed, trying to keep his temper under control. “Not only did you lose all three transports, you lost more than a hundred men in the wrecks. And I lost men because I had to break up my firing line by moving two squads over to cover the medevac of the transports…I practically lost one of those two squads. While you are in command of the Militia, I am in overall command of this strike force, which means you answer to me. Which means that you clear any such decisions through me. Is that clear, General?”

“Crystal, sir.” Tobias answered.

“Alright. I’m sorry you had to sit through that, Sam. What’s the status on the pursuit?”

The Admiral, decked out in his white Fleet uniform, gave a predator smile. “Both Hives are chasing us. They don’t seem to like the fact we’re making off with a few million pounds of bio-matter. With us gone, they have Earth wrapped up, so they’re sending the Hives after the next biggest source of bio-matter…us.”

“So the plan is working, then?” Kirkham asked. “How are the preparations in the belt going?”

“They’re almost ready for us. By the time you make you’re detour, the trap should be set. Speaking of your little side trip, we’ve finished transferring refugees to the Cuba and the Peru. It’s a little more cramped than I would otherwise like some of my ships, but they’ll hold for the time it takes us to reach the colonies.”

“Good. At 1300 hours tomorrow, the 3rd Group will break off and head for Mars as planned, then. Both of you will remain with the main body of the strike force, with you in overall command, Admiral. Just get the strike force to the other side of the belt and you’ll be in the safe zone.”

“And you, General? What forces will you be taking?” Harmon asked.

“The Austria will be our command ship for the operation. We’ll also have to take the Mongolia and the Brazil to field the numbers of troopers I’ll need. Along with their support ships and escorts…the New York City, Tehran, Tokyo and that group, I’ll be taking less than twenty ships all told off you’re hands, Admiral, most of them transports.”

The Admiral leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “I suspected you would take more, considering what your objective is.”

Kirkham shook his head. “Sir, if I need to fight my way out, I’m dead anyways.

((OOC: I’ll do the briefing post tomorrow more than likely…unless there is a sudden rash of posting about your downtime activities.))

[Azisien]

Robert Burnelli sat in silence during the ride up to the Austria, buzzing from the near constant adrenaline rush of the past two hours. Even as the gravity in the dropship changed slightly as they left the planet, his hands were still trembling. The dropship never actually went into freefall, as it was always accelerating in one direction or another as it approached Austria. Though there were no windows in the main cabin, he had watched dropships approach from the outside before. They would reach low orbit and flip over, then burn in the opposite direction. Contrary to the mule kick, the experience was more like having your stomach launched into your brain, as the dropship went freefall for a brief moment, flipped over, and accelerated in the opposite direction to slow down on docking approach.p

Having participated in several orbital battles, Robert had already been certified in Zero-G Combat. It was always a mild discomfort, but that was made up with the grim humor of counting the number of MIs and Militia that threw up. He counted nine, but he wasn't paying full attention. The docking procedure was standard. Robert sat in his designated MI cubby hole until the dropship had been secured in the bay, and the ramp opened up.

Robert was secured in the middle of the cabin, so it took a good minute or so for the troopers and suits to file out once the ramp had opened. He reported to his designated area where technicians would help him get out of his suit and take it away for tune-up and cleaning. Even though he had been reassigned to Lieutenant Kerr’s platoon during combat, he could still follow the rest of his assignment once he had boarded the Austria. One of the things at the forefront of his thoughts were the status of Raider Squad, aside from Sevenice who was getting unsuited only a few meters away.

A male technician, who looked to be in his twenties, walked up to Robert and saluted him. Robert saluted back, which probably looked strange in the bulky suit. “Specialist Burnelli? I’ve been assigned to your repairs.”

“Great.” He said, still not fully back into reality yet. Or perhaps, too deeply imbedded in reality? Whatever. He ordered his helmet to unseal, and physically detached it after he heard the hiss of equilibrating pressure. It took another ten minutes to get the suit off and organized into its tune-up rack. He saluted the young technician and headed straight for the showers. His quarters had already been delegated before the mission. Officers got very nice rooms, they were nearly hotel suites in their own right. Regular grunts like Robert Burnelli got bathroom stalls, by analogy, but they were better than mass bunks. Enough room for a bed and…actually that was really the only thing in the room.

He went to the public showers first. They were already jammed full of very dirty, very smelly Colonial Militia and Mobile Infantry soldiers, but he was just as dirty and smelly himself. He undressed out of his MI jumpsuit and tossed it in a laundry chute. He showered for ten minutes before his allotted time ran out, grabbed a clean towel and headed for the exit, where he received a fresh pair of MI fatigues. When he had moved out of the public shower area, he decided it was time to eat and drink. He started down the corridor towards the nearest mess hall.

(OOC: Part one of a likely two)

[Barahad]

Kerr looked up from his food as he heard the scrape of a chair leg. He began to stand, but stopped half-way as his company commander waved his hand dismissively. "None of that, Will. It's been a long day."

William Kerr nodded and sat back down, resuming his dinner where he had left it. Judging by the amount of food on his plate, most people would have suspected he hadn't eaten for a week. Well he hadn't...or at least it felt like he hadn't. "We lost thirteen suits today."

Kerr stopped eating and looked straight at the captain. "How many did we recover?" He was referring to the men inside the suits. The equipment could be replaced.

"Eight," the captain answered as he began tucking into his own food. "Five were dead by the time we got to them, and one died on the way up. The other seven are in various conditions ranging from bad to...worse." Kerr nodded. It never got easier. The two ate silently for some time, before Kerr spoke.

"I'm going to be forwarding some paperwork to you later on," he saw the captain arch an eyebrow. Before he could ask the obvious question, Kerr continued. "I'm going to request that Burnelli and Sevenice be permanently attached to my platoon. I'm sure there are a few holes in the company T.O. that need to filled, and I've got a couple of good lances who should be moving up soon."

The captain sat back and nodded. "We lost an assistant squad leader, and I'm sure there's room for a second corporal. I'll wait for your paperwork, and see what I can do." he went back to eating.

"There's one more thing sir," Kerr smiled inwardly as the captain put down his fork with a long-suffering sigh.

"I swear lieutenant, you are going to end my career in the MI," the captain shot across the table.

"Of course I am sir. How else am I going to move up the ranks?" Kerr shot back. "This is about Burnelli sir. I'd like to put him in for a commendation."

"How shiny?" the captain asked as he went back to his steak.

"Moderately sir. His suit was damaged in the initial pass which disabled most of his squad. He and Sevenice continued on, integrated with my platoon, and performed their duties masterfully. Further, in covering our escape, Burnelli went above and beyond his duty in getting the A-rocket to hit home - especially given the circumstances."

The captain stiffened and looked around. Those new bugs had put quite a scare in the upper echelons, Kerr reckoned. Especially since they seemed partly designed to take out atomic rockets...previously the 'ace up the sleeve' of every platoon and company commander in the MI.

"I'll definitely consider the request," the captain finally answered. "Though don't be surprised if you get a semi-favourable write-up in my after-action report."

"I'll be on the lookout for it sir," Kerr answered. "I'm also going to suggest Sgt. Hossain for a commendation - he managed to do the work of an entire platoon, and kept his section of the line anchored until recall sounded."

The captain laughed. "It's like Christmas in your platoon, isn't it?"

"I'm only trying out the other half of the 'carrot and stick' approach," Kerr answered.

"Are commendation carrot or stick?" the captain asked as he pushed his plate aside and began to stand.

"For an MI sir? Definitely stick." Kerr answered.

"Sounds about right," the captain stretched. "Will you be here when I get back?"

"Should be sir. I still haven't filled the hole in my stomach."

"As long as it wasn't made by a bug, I think that won't be too hard. I'll be back in a little while," the captain smiled and walked away.

Kerr sat for quite a while, simply savouring his food, before pushing his plate to the center of the table and joining one of the many lines which had formed in the mess hall. As he reached his seat, he found the captain sitting back down, with a couple of pretty navy girls in tow.

"Captain?" the title was a direct question.

"Sit down lieutenant," the captain smiled. "These two asked if we could use some company."

'Oh. I see how it is. Cap'n found two cute Navy Ratings and they turn out to be inseparable friends. He wants me to take one of them off of his hands so he can concentrate on the other one.' Kerr put on a broad smile as he sat down, but his heart wasn't in the ancient game. Part of him was elsewhere, and though he enjoyed the company of the woman beside him - Ensign Brathwaite, a willowy dark-skinned beauty formerly of Grenada - his heart wasn't in the chase.

He had served his purpose though, as the captain and other Navy rating excused themselves from the table. Eventually, the ensign suggested that maybe she and Kerr should take in a movie. Kerr agreed - one didn't just say no to Navy ratings (especially onboard their ships - word got around!). They headed for the nearest recreation room movie night, and Kerr ended up having a nice time (though his mind continued to be elsewhere). He kissed the Ensign goodnight, agreed to meet again in the future, and finally made it back to his quarters, where he undid his duty jacket and proceeded to do six things: two recommendations for commendation (Hossain and Burnelli); one request to permanently attach Burnelli and Sevenice to his company; two recommendations for promotion to the rank of corporal (Lances Wei and Meyer); and one letter of condolence (McKay). The last one was the hardest, because Kerr wasn't sure if McKay still had any family left. He was a native Martian...but he probably had an aunt or uncle or enterprising cousin somewhere in the outer system.

After finishing his paperwork, Kerr removed his mess dress and collapsed onto the bed, barely managing to get under the covers before he was fast asleep. The steady hum of the Austria's engines was the last noise he heard before he fell asleep.

[Gorefiend]

As Angel walked began to walk out of his room, he realized he wasn't particularly hungry. He headed back to his computer, and looked through the papers. He decided to begin his statement. The battle, from his point of view, called for a short summary anyways.

It would be inaccurate to say that the battle was without incident, but it would also be inaccurate to say it was completely derailed from the plan. Only two major incidents occurred, and both were resolved with relative ease. The first was the failed delivery of the transports. General Kirkham and Lieutenant Kerr deserve the most commendation for their actions: their swift organization and ability to work with the resources they had--two platoons of MIs--one of which was severely crippled at that--and the CM's sent down in the transports--saved many lines. Furthermore, the actions of Captain Smith of the local Fleet detail, as well as those of the MI who launched the Small Nuclear Missile greatly aided the escape of the CMs and MI's in the incident. Commendations are highly recommended.

The other, more disturbing though less foolish incident was a new, possibly experimental breed of flying Locust, which has been currently dubbed the Hazers. They are slower, have reinforced armor, and appear to have an ability to jam any attempts to lock onto them electronically. Unfortunately, most of our heavy weapons are electronically targeted. They also had a tendency to intercept missiles. This was observed when a member of one of the MI platoons fired what appeared to be a Small Nuclear Missile at the landing site of the CM transports. The new strain naturally targeted the missile, and it took much work on the part of one MI--who's name I am not aware of--to hit his target. In any case, a recommendation for any future deployments on non-fortified positions is that all MI's be issued one heavy, manually aimed rocket launcher. If this is not possible, then at least one such heavy weapon should be present in any group deployed on a non-fortified position.

The evacuation went mostly as planned: only one transport, the Thames, went omega. While we all grieve the loss, their sacrifice practically cleared the field of Locust within firing range for long enough for the last civilians and all remaining troops to be evacuated. The captain, crew, and civilians on board should receive some sort of posthumous commendation. They certainly deserve one.

When he finished the statement, he sent it through to the central computer. Then he sat down for a while. Meh, it won’t hurt to go out and socialize a bit. And, my duties on board are done for the day. With that, he walked out.

[Tarrin]

Strykker sat back in his quarters scribbling notes on a pad of paper, He had noticed something about the Hazers flight path that may be of use next time they came in contact, hitting the play on the recording that Reaper had taken he watched the battle again and again.
"There" Strykker cheered, He knew he was right, he had pinpointed a flaw, A small flaw but one that may be of use.

Downloading part of the recording he needed, Tarrin continued to type up his findings, Although the targeting lock would still be of no use, Strykker hoped that this may be what was needed for this new strain to be dealt with.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Tarrin strode down the hall leading to Kers room, Knocking on the door for a minute Strykker got boared and entered, There on the bed was Wil sound asleep.

"Wake up you mug" Strykker yelled as he kicked Kers foot.
"Got something for you" tossing the vid pad on kerr before he could fully wake up Strykker sat on the nearby chair and waited for Ker to look at the data he had given him.

[Barahad]

Kerr did not move, even as he heard Strykker - a captain - plunk himself down at his desk. Maybe he would go away if he didn't move. Then Kerr woke up a little more, remembered Strykker was a sniper, and groaned. They were trained to be patient. He'd probably perch there the whole night. Still, it wasn't nice to use command overrides on a door and wake up a sleeping officer.

"Strykker, I swear there had better be Locusts rampaging through the Austria -"

The sniper laughed. "Hardly. Remember that new strain?"

"Hard to forget them - they nearly bolloxed my whole escape plan," Kerr replied. "What about them?"

"Take a look at the data from my suit sensors," the Australian urged. "It might be useful in the future."

Kerr rolled over and picked up the 'pad. Hitting play, he watched several sections of the recording loop several times - and each time, at the end, there seemed to be...

"What am I looking at?" Kerr was too tired to think on his feet.

"You see those pauses at the end of each arc?" Strykker asked.

"Yeah. What are they doing, precisely?"

"I dunno, but they don't behave like Shriekers and Screamers do - they hold a straight line at these moments, before turning to resume their runs. They don't even seem to evade. I counted at least three kinetic impacts on one bug during one of these instants - the thing didn't even try to dodge."

"Why the hell would they do that?" Kerr wondered aloud.

"Damned if I know," Strykker shrugged. "It could be any number of things. I just thought you might like to look at it."

"It's certainly interesting," Kerr conceded. "But this is better off in the hands of our civvie scientists."

"Probably," Strykker agreed. "I thought you might be better at delivering the recording though. I have a tendency to...ruffle feathers. Bad as a dingo in a chicken coop, usually."

Kerr nodded. "Alright, I'll give you that much. I'll pass this on to my company commander, and I don't doubt that it will make its way up the chain of command. Any reference to where it came from?"

"I'd rather not," the Aussie answered. "But if you have to, go ahead."

"Got it." Kerr put the vidpad beside his bed. "Anything else?" Strykker stood and moved to the doorway.

"Well you do still owe me that drin-" Strykker ducked out the door as a pillow sailed into the hallway, intended for him. "I'll collect some other time then."

"Damn right you will. Now pass me my pillow and get out!" Kerr rolled over as the pillow landed neatly beside him. He heard the hiss of hydraulics as the door slid shut, and was promptly asleep - again.

[Toastburner B]

Kirkham found himself hunched over a hologram of a very familiar sphere as he planned the next move of his men.

Mars. Home.

As far as the other members of the 1st knew, they were outbound to the colonies, with the scuttlebut being that command has some sort of surprised planned for the bugs. For the majority, that was true. For the mobile infantry, it involved one very important detour.

Kirkham looked over the hologram of Mars once more. In his mind, could remember where terraforming had turned dust into crops, cold into warmth. He could remember where green had shown up to pock-mark the surface of Mars.

Now, after eight years of Locust infestation, Mars was truly the red planet once more. However, Kirkham forced these thoughts from his head. His objective was the third planetiod orbiting Mars: Hive Delta. With Alpha and Beta already chasing the fleeing 1st JSF, and Hive Charlie destroyed in the Last Stand, Delta was the only Hive that remained. This was why the Austria and a small task force of carriers, battleships, and transports were going to risk entering orbit around a dug in Locust world.

Kirkham scanned the picture with his eyes, looking for the few tell-tale signs of life. With the terraforming of Mars mostly reversed, only a few sources of bio-matter remained to the Locusts...a source that most people didn't care to think about.

Very so often, the stealth satillites that orbited Mars picked up a signal...a sign of life. As Kirkham cross-referenced these signals against old maps of Mars, the Locusts' solution to their problem became clear. Remains of old bio-domes, constructed to house people before the terraforming took place. Now, they became Fields.

It was a terrifying find on Earth. The bugs, it turned out, had some sort of long term plan when it came to bio-matter. They grew crops, and bred animals...including humans. The first Field was found five years into the Earth invasion. In that time, the will of the humans in the ranch was completely broken. The few rescued died within days without responding to any kind of stimuli. However, Kirkham hgad been presented with a theory that he bought into, and now, he planned an entire battle plan around it.

To lure Delta into the trap with it's sisters, he had to give it reason to chase him...the same he had lured Alpha and Beta.

He had to take what the Locusts wanted.

(((OOC: Yeah, I know...not very good...but it's 3 am in the morning, so cut me some slack. :p At least I got the post up like I said I was going to. And I didn't want to cut the downtime posts short, since Azisien said he had another part coming))

[Tarrin]

On his way back to his room Strykker stopped by the mess again, You never knew when you'd be able to eat again so he took every advantage he could.

Also late a nite was when a few of the cutier flight girls were finnishing shifts, So as he entered he was waved over by a gaggle of those same ladies.
"Hey Tarrin, It's been a while since we have seen you, You didn't get hurt down there did you?" the look of consern on the girls face almost made him smile.
"It takes more than a few roaches to knock off this cobber" he loved acting up his australian background with this group.

The conversation continued for a bit longer as each of the girls drifted off to their rooms, Soon only Strykker and Kellie were the only two left, Then as Kel rose up she draged Strykker off to he room, He followed willingly the thought of sleep crossed his mind for a second but just as quickly dissapeared.

[Barahad]

"This is Armed Forces Digital Radio, coming to you at ten past the hour," the muffled noise caused Kerr to roll over and blink at his radio-clock. He hadn't set the alarm...unless he'd forgotten to reset it from the last time he'd been aboard. He checked the radio. It wasn't on. Frowning, Kerr looked around the room. He couldn't see anything which would allow for the transmission, but there had to be something. Frowning at the muffled quality of the announcer's voice, he began opening the drawers on the dresser that sat beside his bed. The third drawer down, he found a small portable radio, which had evidently been set to turn on at this time. Why, he had no idea.

"Coming up after the news from the outer planets is some soothing music to take you into the early morning hours. This is Armed Forces Digital Radio - going everywhere you're goi-" the transmission suddenly garbled and then cut out. Kerr frowned, and waited. The burst of static ended, and the transmission cleared up. What came in, though, was not Armed Forces Digital Radio. It was something much more sinister.

"I am the Harbinger, and this is the Holy Word," Kerr's face darkened as he heard the familiar distorted voice. It had been hundreds of different faces all throughout the system, but no matter who it was, the voice never changed. It was eerie as all hell, which was appropriate - Kerr thought - as that was what the Plaguers were trying to bring about in the system.

"First, a reading: "Raise your hand over the land...to bring the locusts. They will come and eat everything that grows..." Kerr growled. He knew what was coming. "You can find that passage in the Good Book, as you can find a thousand others which speak to the wickedness of man. The Lord raised us up and gave us dominion over the Earth...and now we flee, leaving it to the animals we once ruled. See how we are being punished? Surely God is angry with our stewardship. We are a race unworthy of survival, and the Locusts are the punishment allotted to us - for allowing ourselves to live in sin."

There was a pause, and then the voice continued. "The great towers we built will be thrown down and forgotten, and we will fade into the dust of time - for that is God's will, and who are we to oppose Him - join with us, my brothers and sisters, and bow before the Lord's will, and the inevitable. We cannot overcome the Lord, and since the Locusts are the Lord's instruments, they too cannot be defeated. We will die in a Hell of our own makin-" There was a sudden break in the transmission. Then there was the hollow 'waboom' of an explosive charge, followed by shouting, and the distinctive 'cracklepop' of gunfire. Then the transmission resumed.

"That was Ella Fitzgerald singing 'Fever'. Coming up next, we have some contemporary recordings of 'The Planets', brought to you from Io's concert halls. It is now fifteen past the hour, and we're glad that you're tuning in to Armed Forces Digital Radio - going everywhere you're goi-" Kerr clicked off the portable radio, his face clouded by a seething rage he had not known for many years.

With all his strength, he hurled the tiny device into the wall. Kerr stood staring at the broken radio for a moment, almost daring it to offer up another Plaguer transmission. The room was silent, save for the hum of the engines and the lieutenant's sharp intakes of breath. After an endless moment engulfed in pure fury, Kerr slumped back against the cool wall of his cabin, hung his head, and did something else he had not done in a long time. First lieutenant William Kerr of the 1st JSF allowed himself to mourn what he had lost.

[Azisien]

He had been aboard nearly an hour now, and the mess halls still resembled a full-on Locust siege. The line for food was on the opposite end of where the food was actually served, which meant he might be waiting for a while. He searched for the end of the line, and by the time he found it, saw he was near the officers seating area. There were no signs or borders demarking the area, but there might as well be due to the abrupt change in uniform. Here and there he could see grunts mingling with the officers, as the rules were fairly lax, especially after a battle.

A young woman smiled through her visor, “Burnelli, was it?”

He waited in line for over forty-five minutes before he got to the serving area. One small bun and a measured amount of unidentified stew-like substance was plopped onto his tray. He smiled weakly, remembering how many bets were floating around the MI to the person who could figure out what the stuff was composed of. He grabbed a cup of mineral water at the end of the line and found a deserted seat. No time to talk, I need to check up on the Raiders.

“This’ll be my second battle. I’ve only been in the Colonial Militia for a few weeks.”

He wolfed down the food, suddenly remembering how hungry he was. Before he knew it his tray was empty, which he only noticed because his fork scrapped loudly against the metallic bottom. He didn’t waste a moment. The tray was thrown into a waste chute where it would be washed and recycled for the next meal, and he was headed out of the mess hall. Burnelli figured the ship would follow a normal Fleet layout, which put the main hospital and infirmary one deck below him…somewhere. He found an elevator, got off on deck F, and started wandering. And wandering, and wandering…

The typical male reaction reminded him he wasn’t lost, and his destination was just around the next bend, just keep walking. “Are we a little lost?” A giggle. “I know you’re new here, Colonial ships are a bit different from your Mobile ones. Come on, I’ll show you the way…”

Burnelli clenched his fist and kept walking. The largest hospitals were on this deck, as he found out a few minutes later. It was easy to tell when he got close. The frequency of people rushing in the same direction got higher and higher, until eventually he’d see Fleet Medical uniforms. The hospital was a crowded mess, resembling the mess hall, but with more screaming. He tried his best to stick near the walls away from all the action so as not to get in anyone’s way, and scanned as best he could to find anyone he knew.

After ten minutes of searching through seething crowds of injured and uninjured alike, Burnelli spotted Specialist Werick. “Hey, Werick!” He shouted, and the familiarly scarred man turned his head to look at Robert and smiled grimly. Burnelli shuffled his way over to Werick, who was nearly as veteran as he was, and about the same age too. “How are the Raiders?” Robert asked.

“Record-breaking worst ever.” A moderately thick German accent replied. “A Joint Mission, how exciting. I’ve only seen those big suits of yours operate from a distance. It’ll be interesting working right beside you.”

“Ugh, specifically?” Robert wanted details.

“I saw Sevenice and Ellyn in the mess hall, they’re both fine, suits should be repaired by the time we get our next mission. I checked casualty lists…we lost Omara and Darrel…”

“I know.” A crunch of glass. Staring down at the graphic where Omara used to exist seconds ago.

“Zulyka was here a while ago, she had a few bruises but nothing out of the ordinary. She was checking on Mitchell, who was stabilized. But he’ll be out of combat for a while…”

“Damn. Not really a squad anymore.” Burnelli sighed and Werick looked at him and frowned.

“I haven’t seen or heard Smith, but that probably means he’s fine.” Werick finished, and Burnelli nodded at him. It truly was a record-breaker. Other platoons had lost more in the battle, but this was an all-time high for their squad in particular. They had lost two privates in the past, both on separate occasions, but that was it. This time they lost a fucking Sergeant First Class. Fuck.

A Warrior talon cleaving off her right arm, going right through the armor. A blood-curtling scream. Blood spurting out of arteries with each pump of her weakening heart.

“All right, you know where my quarters are?” Robert asked. Werick nodded. “Well, if you need me, you know where to find me.” Werick stopped him as he started to turn.

“Are you feeling okay, Robert?” Genuine concern. Werick was a top notch squad mate.

“I’m fucking terrible, I was just in battle two hours ago, where more than half my squad got junked and a quarter…” He checked himself. “Sorry. I’ll be all right, I just need some rest. You need anything, let me know.” He turned and left, striding away at a faster than normal pace. His quarters were two decks below with the majority of the grunts. He found the same elevator he had used before and descended with six others to Deck H.

“I took it like a…fucking…game…” A HVVixen detonates nearby, followed by heavy fire from gauss rifles. The corpse of the Warrior is still twitching. “Goodbye…Rob...”

Robert Burnelli plopped down on his bed, eyes bloodshot, ready to tackle the real nightmares.

[Toastburner B]

((OOC: Sorry if I interrupt any plans, but I figure it's time to move along. New chapter up.))