Final Destination: Ad infinitum

DeletedUser35174

Inside the ship, Saracen saw many octopus-like robots and mechanical equipment used for repairing large machinery. Xane informs them of the make and origin of the ship. Terran. Xane then informs them of the plan, the mercs are split into three teams. Saracen was paired with Dante and Chal. They were to enter the station and seize control of the control room. Saracen nods to show approval. After Xane informs the other two teams about their missions the ground-hogs got ready. "Plan of action? or will we do it old school and charge in blastin and roaring" Saracen asks Dante and Chal.
 

Apelatia

Well-Known Member
Nelx stiffened subconsciously when Ghor replied to her question. She had thought that she could count on the seemingly nice guy to be her friend during this mercenary thing, but that voice... It was so menacing, perhaps even irritable... Deciding that Ghor was perhaps having a bad phase, she shrugged it off. He would come round... What really amused Nelx though, as she continued to experiment with the intricacies of Sarixa's movements, was that when Ghor came out of his large mech, he seemed to have automatically returned to his normal state of being... His eyes, they seemed to change colour too... No, this was just a bit too confusing for her. She could think about Ghor's apparent personality change late on... Now though...he was asking her something about tactics... Nelx jerked back into reality suddenly... "Erm, yes... Tactics...right. Ah yes! Tactics! So, I'm happy to just fly around and shoot those little rascals into oblivion... What tactics would we need anyway?" Nelx's smile flickered, then she noticed her blonde that last statement must have sounded. In an attempt to correct herself, she continued, "Well, of course, we could arrange ourselves in some sort of a formation, right Ghor?" She would have to do better to avoid those sorts of blunders. After all, Dantaaay was going to be preying on her every sentence. Stalker much...
 

DeletedUser13682

"Fine, be that way," Ilsa yelled out to the still unknown alien. (S)He was just a sore loser. Of course you would lose if you couldn't justify your points. Sun Tzu still applied to space, just as he applied to deserts (though you needed a special kind of mindset to fight in deserts). As the guard turned back away after soothing his fears that a fight wouldn't break out, a group of men began talking about a strange Exchange ship and its even stranger cargo. That wasn't exactly good news. The Exchange wouldn't be too happy, and you could guarantee that there were multiple Exchange agents here. Still, if the man provided free drinks over it, Ilsa wouldn't complain.

As she recieved her prepared absinthe, Ilsa dodged dancing people, drunk people, people who were both (not entirely successfully, for she got a bit of absinthe on her), and moved over to sit backwards in a chair next to the group, positioning the back between them. "Hey boys, you're being really loud," Ilsa began, flashing a friendly smile to indicate she meant no harm. "But you talk interesting. Hook me up with your boss, and I bet I can help him with his problemme. I am a very skilled person when it comes to ships." The truth was, Ilsa let Byte take care of the maintenance, and though she knew the basics of ship repair, hacking into an Exchange secret ship was probably out of her realm of ability, and quite possibly out of Byte's realm as well. But, and this was probably the alcohol talking, Ilsa felt confident in getting money out of this, and maybe some Exchange tech to repair and/or upgrade her ship and armour.
 

DeletedUser

Location: Pirate Space station, cantina Planet: Asteon

The pirates standing around the loud man briefly looked at Ilsa before returning to their conversations about past glories. The loud man looks her up and down. " I bet you are." He replies garnishing groans from a few females and aliens in the group. Scowling at the reaction to his comment he continued. "Yea no, not gonna happen Boss doesn't wan't anyone he doesn't trust near our haul or the ship. There are exchange agents everywhere you know." He remarks bending over conspiratorially through failing as he's still talking loudly. A guard shouts from across the room to keep his talk to himself the loud man gives the guard a dismissive gesture and then turns back towards his group. "Hey guys boss wants us downstairs, he wants to talk to us about some thing lets go." with a groan the group stands up to leave. "Better luck next time girly, no treasure for you." The loud man laughs as he follows the others out of the room. Without the man and his group the cantina is much quieter, though still busy and some of the guards leave the room.
 

DeletedUser28032

"Hmmm? oh yeah it was no doubt the height of hilarity I am sure" Dante spoke absently not really listening to Nelx as he once again resumed reading from the book in his lap whilst silently lamenting this is going to be a long job at this rate.
Upon receiving the summons from Xane, Dante returns the book to its place under his seat and exits the cockpit; scaling the ladder down to ground level as he does so.
Joining the other merc's he listens as Xane not only talks about the assault craft but outlines the basic mission plan, Dante's mental conditioning causing him to automatically study the ship for weak points within its design and take pictures using his lenses upon hearing it was Terran. However no sooner had he finished acting on this particular compulsion that he erased the data hoping that he wouldn't have too many incidents such as this before returning his attention to the briefing "On foot? you know if you'd said that at the beginning you could have saved yourselves a lot of money right?" it'd been a while since he'd had to operate outside of his mech in fact the last time had been when he was back in the Adis army "I take it you have technical plans with which we can locate the control room?" Dante asked, hoping but not really confident of getting the answer he wanted.
 

DeletedUser

It wasn't long before the rest of Msxwell's crew had changed, looking at them, they made for an equally colourful and badass mix.
Zhou's armour was in the same style as Maxwell's, reinforced plastoid plates covering most areas of the body, and a bodysuit beneath. But Zhou's armour was painted head to toe in a bright crimson, the symbol for yin and yang was painted on his chestplate, and stylized Chinese lettering was painted on his backplate in bold black. He liked his armour like that, and repainted it after every battle to keep it in pristine condition. In his hands he held a tricked-out laser assault rifle, the same as Maxwell's, but without the scope and with a powersaw and blowtorch bolted onto the sides, making it a vicious melee weapon. Just like his armour Zhou had decorated his rifle with an elaborate Chinese dragon stretching along the length of the barrel, its' jaws opening in a roar at the muzzle.
Next to him Shahin bore a stark contrast, wearing a chameleon bodysuit, which changed according to its' surroundings, nearly making the small man invisible, if it wasn't for the black plastoid armour that covered his chest, back, knees and elbows. On his head he wore nothing but a balaclava with night-vision goggles. In his arms he cradled a matte black machine pistol, no more than a foot long, although extended slightly by a suppressor.
Across from them Dubhglass checked and rechecked his weapon thoroughly. It was a long and heavy 40.cal assault rifle, but with cyclic fire and extendable bipod. Dubhglass' armour was painted in a green-grey camouflage pattern. Red kill markers covered his fully enclosed helmet, which had a limited vision slit, but an excellent respiratory system. Finally an X-shaped bandolier covered his chest, crammed full of spare drum magazines for his weapon. Each of the magazines was filled with a lethal mix of hollow point rounds, explosive-cored full metal jackets, tracers and phosphorous rounds.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor was Maella, who was calibrating the multi-function scope on her Deadeye sharpshooting assault rifle. She was dressed in a tough-fibred bodysuit, with dark grey armour covering all the essential areas. Her head was covered in a modified helmet. It was a standard fully-enclosed model, but with an enlarged tinted visor.
Last of all, Erlend Torgeir stood sentinel, watching over his comrades. He was clad in ochre coloured armour that covered very nearly every bit of his body, a bright red biological symbol was painted across his back, a reminder of the suits' origins; an NBC suit combined with standard combat armour. His ochre helmet was kind of bucket shape, with a black tinted 'T' at the front making a visor. His rifle was slung by his side, a standard laser rifle like Maxwell's but with an added grenade launcher.
Erlend fingered his rifle and stepped forwards towards Maxwell. "The other mercs are still playing with their mechs, or asking questions."
Maxwell nodded, and glanced over to look at all the mechies, clustered around Xane, some still toying with their giant metal suits. So vulnerable...
"Bunch a' wannabes, they're all gonna die." Dubhglass muttered.
"Well they would die if we are not there would they not?" Maella responded, before slamming a magazine into her rifle.
"Don't get cocky, we have rules and we're gonna stick to 'em." Maxwell snarled.
"Au diable les règles!" Maella muttered, luckily Maxwell didn't hear her.
"Shahin, come with me." Maxwell ordered. "Let's try and get some layouts for you."
Shahin nodded and stood up, he trod silently upon the floor as he followed his boss towards the others.
"Oi! Xane!" Maxwell shouted. "My scout 'ere needs the floorplans."
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Deleted User - 819397

Ghor shrugged as Nelx suggested a formation. "The Savior turns into a one man spacecraft when I'm fighting off the ground. Makes traveling easy for me, and it also makes for a pleasant change of tactics. As such I haven't had the need to read up on mech formations. However, judging from your mech's appearance it's not exactly the best at taking hits, am I right? Mine can handle stuff like that pretty well. I'll try to draw most of the fire and leave things open for you to smash up, throwing my own blasts into the fray when I can. Sound like a plan?" Ghor figured this was a solid plan. His own machine was more than capable of taking large blows...the scientists had overcompensated for his own body's weakness when they made it. It made sense to take advantage of this armor, and he figured Nelx' mech was good at quickly taking things out, judging from its appearance. Xane would likely do what he wanted, as it was a chance to see their abilities, not his, so he wanted them both to put on a good showing.
 

DeletedUser28032

"Oh well aren't we the hero looking out for our little tourist" Dante spoke derisively in response to Ghor's suggestion that he should draw the enemies fire so that Nelx wouldn't get hurt, the fact that he'd overheard her previous statement concerning tactics not exactly improving his opinion of her.
It was as he had been both expressing his disdain towards Nelx and waiting for an answer from Xane that Maxwell and his unit had suited up; their remarks hard to miss despite the Creole they spoke "Aww now isn't that quaint, combat armour! I'll have to ask to borrow my grandfather’s armour...I so dig the retro look!" Dante spoke loudly fixing the merc’s with a broad grin as he did so before turning to stare at Zhou or at least he might have been staring...with a pair of opaque lenses covering both his eyes and eyelids it was rather hard to tell. After several seconds of seemingly staring a rather smug looking smile touches Dante’s lips as he finally decides to speak a single word to the red clad mercenary "Ten"
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser13682

"Yerall a buncha smegging lowlife scumbags!" This particular exclamation was followed by an absinth glass, which immediately won Ilsa the attention of the guards. "Out before we make you," was all that was said. Ilsa did leave, but not without forgetting to bring some colourful phrases in her native language, which sounded a lot like German trying to play by Russian's rules. At first, Ilsa was going to head back to her ship, see if any offers had made it to Byte, who was now tasked with playing secretary, since Ilsa proved that she didn't play that part very well. But then she remembered why she got thrown out in the first place. Ilsa headed towards the hangers, in search of those smegging dirtbags and their stolen exchange ship. She didn't know what she would do, some choices were best made in the heat of the moment. Still, to ensure at least one choice was open, Ilsa checked her revolver, ensuring that all six chambers were filled with ready cartridges.
 

DeletedUser

"Aww now isn't that quaint, combat armour! I'll have to ask to borrow my grandfather’s armour...I so dig the retro look!"
All of Maxwell's mercs turned their head at Dante's sudden intrusion. Zhou and Maxwell began to walk towards him.
"Ten" Dante said, looking towards Zhou.
"
Nǐ yǐwéi nǐ hěn cōngmíng ma? Xiǎo jiāhuo? Nǐ yǐwéi nǐ shì bǐ wǒmen gèng hǎo de ma?" Zhou replied in a flash, his fingers played upon the blade of the powersaw bolted to his rifle.
"Dantaayyyyyyyyyee." Maxwell began. "Dantaayy, Dantay, Dante. You mechjocks never change do you? You think that just because you play around in your big stompy robots you're better than us." He threw his head back and laughed coarsely. "Nǐ shì báichī ma? Nǐ zhīdào ma?"
Zhou stopped walking as Maxwell stopped a few feet in front of the mechjock. "You never get it do you? Well let me lay it out for you. Airhogs exist to kill airhogs, mechs and groundhoggers. Mechs exist to kill other mechs. Groundhoggers exist to kill mechs, other groundhoggers, storm and hold facilities and win wars. You may be more technologically advanced, but it won't be long before you become outdated, like the cavalry or tankers of old. But we groundhoggers will still be here, because we're better. We are constant. We are solid. Gùtǐ."
 

DeletedUser35174

Saracen watched through Iggz's eyes as Braet commented on the ground-hogs, "Aww now isn't that quaint, combat armour! I'll have to ask to borrow my grandfather’s armour...I so dig the retro look!". Then he said "ten", why?, Saracen had no idea. One of the ground-hogs replied, but in some language that Saracen didn't understand. He was about to translate it all through iggz but decided to hear what Maxwell had to say first. "You never get it do you? Well let me lay it out for you. Airhogs exist to kill airhogs, mechs and groundhoggers. Mechs exist to kill other mechs. Groundhoggers exist to kill mechs, other groundhoggers, storm and hold facilities and win wars. You may be more technologically advanced, but it won't be long before you become outdated, like the cavalry or tankers of old. But we groundhoggers will still be here, because we're better. We are constant. We are solid. Gùtǐ."
Saracen muttered a word an the back of Iggz opened up, he stepped out and walked in front of Maxwell. "Some of us are as good in our mechs as we are on foot. Don't assume otherwise" Saracen said, the words flowing out of his mask.
 

DeletedUser

"Some of us are as good in our mechs as we are on foot. Don't assume otherwise" Butted in the masked merc, who walked over to join them.
Maxwell shrugged, he still had no idea who this masked man was, he should probably get Erlend to try and find out. "Some of you." He replied. "But not others, and to them I say; Nǐ huì sǐ de jiān jiào bèi kùn zài wúyòng de shuàigē jīnshǔ jiānruì de wùtǐ zài nǐ de tóu shàng, wǒ zhàn zài nǐ xiào."
Zhou laughed, and the rest of Maxwell's crew looked on. "Tha's ri't boss, ye tell 'em!" Dubhglass shouted.
"Nous allons tous mourir avant que la mission commence." Said Maella.
Maxwell looked hard at the mased man. "I don't know nuthin' about your prowess in battle, so I'm ain't gonna say nuthin'. But for lǔdùn àomàn zhū like him," He jabbed an angry finger at Dante. "well, I'm entitled to voice my views."
 

DeletedUser

Location: Old Iron

Xane sighed as he cut communication with his friend, So he finally realized that I left, its not like they need me for anything right now but I suppose he is one to follow orders to a t. Xane looked up as Richard turned on the combat alarms. "Everyone get to your stations, entering combat momentarily." Xane smiled and left the room activating his omnitool, sending everyone the building schematics of the base. It wouldn't be perfect but the local Terran forces weren't really interested in the station and dealing with the Exchange would have been more expensive than what the information was worth.

Xane entered the hanger, took note of what the obvious divide between the mech team and Maxwell's team and got into his mech. Entering the passcode and activating the engine Xane stood his mech up and walked to one of the launch hatches for the hanger. "Team one and three follow the robots, you are going to be boarding with hull breachers, I assume you know how to use them. Nelx, Ghor suit up and follow me." He says turning around and walking through the now open hatch to one of the catapults.
 

Apelatia

Well-Known Member
Nelx smiled sweetly at Ghor, having removed herself from her mech for the time being. He obviously seemed quite at home talking about his mech's capabilities. What he was suggesting was that he act as a defensive barrier so as to draw fire away from her own mech, which, he said, would be doing most of the 'taking things out'. "That sounds good to me Ghor. I'll always defer to your judgment on these matters ahaha! After all, it's good to have someone who knows what they're doing alongside you isn't it?" Nelx winked at Ghor, then groaned as dear old Dantaay once again began to antagonise Ghor, calling her a tourist. "You should be careful Dantaay." Nelx winked. "You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of both me and Ghor now would you dear?"

Nelx ignored the argument that the quiet guy, Dante and the group of mercs led by the strange Chinese man proceeded to have, instead concentrating on thinking up how she would perform in the approaching battle. Soon, Xane returned to the hangar and ordered Ghor and herself to suit up and follow him. "Immediately sir!" Nelx said, before repeating the earlier process of materialising her mech with her inside, not caring if anyone had seen, this time round... Once this was done, Nelx moved Sarixa forwards, and then into the open hatchway leading to one of the catapults. Now, she would wait for further orders from Xane. Ghor and her would make quite a team, she thought.
 

Deleted User - 819397

Ghor's response to Xane's order was to nod at Nelx before clambering back up into The Savior. His voice changing back to the deep, menacing tones as the suit came to life, he gave a verbal order to his mech. "Prepare for flight mode, take Systems 1, 2, and 4 down in preparation. 3, 5, and 7 through 9 stay up until my command. Switch 6 now." The suit began to comply immediately, small changes being made to its appearance. A dome rose out of the front and encircled Ghor, sealing off with a pneumatic hiss. He looked at Nelx, who was in the process of apparently summoning her mech as the changes continued. "Don't have to give the orders verbally, but it's always good to show the boss you know what you're doing." The Savior then engaged its hover mode and floated down the hall towards a catapult. He needed the mech half changed if they were to be launched out of the ship by force...otherwise he'd waste precious time transforming once they launched, and he figured time would be of the essence.

As he continued toward the catapult, the mechanical man focused on fully integrating his thoughts with the structure of The Savior. The more he did this, the better control he'd have over it, but the more he'd lose his natural sense of self and identity and gain the mech's personality. This meant he'd be rather abrasive during the fight, but he'd be performing at his best...he figured it was worth it...after all, better hurt feelings than a death on his conscience, right?
 

DeletedUser

Before the chasm between Dante and Maxwell could widen, Xane entered as the combat alarms began to wail, and ordered them to get ready.
Maxwell turned and jogged back towards his group, with Zhou in tow. As his mercs formed up into a loose circle he donned his horned helmet, his vision changed suddenly as his HUD sprang to life, presenting him with infra-red, night vision, thermal and normal options all at once, the names of his fellow mercs tagged onto their bodies, presenting him with names and an analysis of equipment and weaponry. To most people it would just have been a jumble of text and symbols flashing past their eyes, but to Maxwell it all made perfect sense.
"Team one and three follow the robots, you are going to be boarding with hull breachers, I assume you know how to use them. Nelx, Ghor suit up and follow me."
Hull breachers huh? It had been a while since Maxwell had used them, and he had been anxious to keep it that way. But it seemed that now they were inescapable.
"Hull breachers?" Shahin said bitterly.
"Yes, hull breachers." Maxwell growled. "You all heard him! Huòqǔ lǘ chǐlún! Zhāo ba! Zhāo ba!" He shouted, powering up his rifle.
He jogged towards where the robots sat, his team followed him in a spread out formation, all equally taking the safetys off.
 

DeletedUser35174

Before the debate could get out of hand, Xane gave the orders, "Team one and three follow the robots, you are going to be boarding with hull breachers, I assume you know how to use them. Nelx, Ghor suit up and follow me.". Saracen gave a nod to Maxwell and walked back to his mech, he picked his sabres and walked to where Dante and Chal stood. "good luck out there, and watch your backs" he said to both men and started following the robots like Xane said.
 

DeletedUser31931

Chal's mech nodded to Saracen's mech. He had been sitting quietly observing the argument and in his mind he was with Saracen. He started off following the robots and checked his weaponry was fully functioning it before enabling it, only the final safety switch left on, he didn't want to blow a hole in the ship after all. "Do we have any maps of the station?" he commed over to the others on his team. "I don't think I got one if we did."
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser28032

The smile remained fixed upon Dante’s face as his comment had the desired effect; the stupid ground hogger’s sending a tirade of insults in their incomprehensible Creole only the leader Maxwell seemed capable of making any form of logical argument as he cited that there would always be a need for infantry even after mech’s had become obsolete…a fair enough point in his opinion “True and throughout history you have died in droves due to our fancy new toys and always will…and anyway we don’t need those damn flyboys to win a war for us, Hell they’re worse than infantry!” It was with this statement that the call for battle station’s was announced meaning that they would have to continue this little discussion on a later date. However Dante still had just enough time to give Maxwell the dame strange stare that he’d given Zhou before speaking “Six…no…five…yeah five…shiny” with his statement made he then leaves to join the rest of his team for the briefing.

The planned seemed simple enough and he’d been thankfully teamed up with the only merc’s he actually deemed to be competent; sure the Quarian was somewhat fragile in that suit of his but neither he or Saracen possessed pig headed ego of the ground hogger’s. Ghor was just too friendly to be taken seriously as a mercenary and as for Nelx… well she was just a complete liability and one that he would they would be best removing in a permanent way should she be lucky enough to survive the battle but hey Dante was an expert at removing problems it’s what he’d been built for.
With the station schematics downloading onto his omni-tool and the rest of the merc’s heading for their battle stations, Dante follows Saracen and Chal trying to remember whether breaching charges had a five or three second timer…or at least he thought they had a timer?
 

DeletedUser

Location: Pirate Space station, Hanger Planet: Asteon

Following the corridor from the cantina to the hanger Ilsa reaches the point were the hall connects to the larger path connecting the Hanger to the space elevator. As she approaches it she can hear the sound of the group that had left before her to the right in the direction of the elevator. Walking into the large path Ilsa is shouted at by some heavily armed pirates, there are eight and each is decked out with armor and space bound weapons (Designed not to pierce hull but still hurt). They walk flanking some crates on hoverpads and what appears to be some sort of large metal machine with tubes coming out of it filled with green liquid. Getting out of the way she sees more groups with crates coming from the hanger. The Ilsa hasn't seen these men before but apart from annoyance at her being in the way most of the pirates don't give her any more trouble than usual.

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

Location: Pirate Space station, combat range Planet: Asteon

As Old Iron drops out of hyperspace Xane watches as the sensors map out the area and is stunned by a moment with what he sees. "There is a change of plans: Team one go about your mission as usual; My team you two will make sure the breachers reach their destinations; Team three your new task is to take control of the Exchange battleship, I don't know why it is here but the fact that the ship has just missed us means its AI is down and it is an enemy. Take extreme caution, take control of the environmental systems first then the command center and do not. I repeat do not. Under any circumstances allow the AI to activate." Xane states to the team before quickly opening a private communication to Richard. "Richard you have clearance to open fire, the mercs are here as a test not to be killed in space. Help me take out those cruisers."
"Yes sir! Weapons are live Good luck out there sir and tell Maxwell and his men to be quick Our ship can't fight for long against an Exchange battleship." Richard replies as he open fires at the nearest cruiser which breaks under the surprise onslaught.
"Alright get ready. Deploying now!" Xane shouts as the catapults launch the mechs into space.

The space station has several fighters moving around it and a cargo ship moving between it and the other notable object in the area, the Exchange battle ship. The ship floats a little bit off from the space station and is surrounded by about 10 cruisers. The ships around the Exchange ship start going into battle mode and the slight visial disturbance appear signifying that the shields have been activated. One of the ships explodes from Old Iron's attack. At the space station the active fighters change course towards the group.

Team 1 and 3 find themselves lead to breacher pods which as soon as they enter move to the launcher mechanisms and await a moment to fire.

Xane takes in the look of the battlefield as his mech flies through space on the momentum from the catapult. I guess I do get to play today, he thinks to himself looking at the cruisers. "Nelx, Gohr get rid of those fighters around the station and protect team one and three's breacher pods team one will go first for the station and three for Exchange ship. Don't worry about the cruisers Richard and I will be dealing with them. After that its up to you." Xane say through the com-link.

His orders given Prototype blasts off towards the cruisers dodging fire, leaving an orange trail in its wake.

-------------------------------------------------------
Team Objectives

[Team 1] Objectives: Enter space station; take control of space station; take control of space elevator; pacify opposing forces on space station.
Current status: In breacher pod launched towards space station.
Mobility: limited
Combat chance: Zero
Time to destination: 60 seconds

[Team 2] Objectives: Defeated fighter squadron around station, prevent more from being launched from the hangers and protect breacher pod of Team 1 and Team 3
Current status: Launched
Mobility: Vs Cruisers/ Battleship, superior; Vs Fighter, equal
Combat chance: Vs Cruisers/ Battleship, negligible; Vs fighters, advantage

[Team 3] Objectives: Board Exchange ship, Take control of environmental systems (Optional), Take control of Command center; Remove hostiles from ship; Use ships weapons to pacify remaining enemy ships (Optional)
Current status: Loaded, waiting for opening
Mobility: Limited
Combat chance: Zero
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top