If these 'Hulkers' had any self-preservation instinct, they would by now be retreating back into their long-forgotten lairs within the massive space debris complex... but they didn't. Instead, they continued to fight on despite the decisive beating their numbers were enduring.
As it was, only two enemy dreadnoughts continued to fight when there were eight before. The unusual mutants of significant value had been cut down to twelve. Of the normal, power shield rabble there were maybe thee score men still left fighting, shooting and finding cover from the invading crew's augmented firepower. The Tempest Bolts would break through the power fields pretty easily, then land into the enemy bodies and blow them up from the inside, creating cavities the size of volley balls within their bodies from the resulting explosions. They were nearly dying after three shots each and would now have to necessarily hide behind cover or quickly and brutally perish.
Zidarus rushed forward in his battle tank and began fire on one of the two remaining bipedal enemy tanks that was nearing Dzan.
"Oy, Coyote, leave this one t'me! Take care a' th'other one!" "Aye aye, cap'n!" The man known as
Coyote disengaged captain Belcamel's target and proceeded to unload anti-armor ordnance towards the other remaining mech. Coyote had been the perpetrator behind the fall of the other three tanks and a lot of the mutants that were heavily armored. While the rest of the team was off doing their own thing, this heavy, anti-armor beast of an exosuit was off shooting guided anti-armor rounds and shock batteries into enemy lines. Power shields and armor alike would be penetrated altogether by some of the heavy ordnance that the heavy armor Coyote was wearing sported. Two stage, armor-piercing discarding-sabot guided missiles were shot at the enemy tank, which would do short work of it if not for the tank's point-defense systems. However, it could not catch 4 different missiles headed in different directions at the same time, and would get hit and perforated anyway.
Zid's own dreadnought began a brutal beatdown of the other remaining tank, though at a price... shooting missiles racks into the enemy while attacking in melee range was going to damage both vehicles pretty badly.
"Get th'rekkin' Khorne daemon outta yer Throne-damned systam, Streea, or we all likely t'die here!"
Wedge, Biggs and Jay would be cut off by another pair of massive mutants. One of them grabbed Wedge by the arm and tossed him out of the way, leaving Biggs behind to shoot the bolter into the feral, armored mutie until he'd run out of ammunition or killed the damn thing. Each electric burst from each bolt hitting the force field depleted it until it became useless, but even though he was receiving bolter fire straight to his armor it didn't seem to face him.
"BLARRRGHHH!!!" The mutant grabbed a hold of Biggs and lifted him into the air, opening its mouth wide in a roar and spat fire into the man's armor, breathing a massive tongue of searing flame that nearly melted the plasteel he wore. Biggs screamed in agony from within the powered armor as a second mutant bounded up behind Jay and attempted to grab Jay and perform the same horrible torture on the armored woman.
The psychos followed after Seth even as he tumbled into cover, avoiding laser shots. The two that were shooting at Seth with laser rifles had been reduced to one, as the other was hit by a sudden case of 'head explody' when a series of Tempest Bolts broke his shield and subsequently his head. The remaining one had managed to stay in cover and still continue aiming at Seth with an intent to kill. The lasers would sometimes hit his own teammates' shields, but he didn't care. The cover would thankfully prevent Seth from being struck with laser fire, but the Hulker continued to wait for Seth to get out of cover and for his teammates to coax him into melee.
When Seth quickly popped out of cover to pop bullets into his enemies, he'd be highly disappointed. The shots from the handgun, mere bullets that were or lower caliber than the assault rifles and machine gun turrets from the space pirate crew, would impact the power shields minimally, at most being able to break the shields if a good dozen shots hit any single particle shield. Since he was just shooting for cover against psychos that didn't really care for their own well-being, he wasn't exactly going to leave out of this one without some melee interaction, apparently.
"No, don't run away, I need your face!"
"Strip the flesh! SALT THE WOUND! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!"
The three chain-axe holding psychos covered the distance relatively quickly, completely unphazed by the handful of shots that had managed to hit their shields. The
foremost of the three, deformed and raving, growled as he jumped over the console and used his only good arm to swing the chain-axe towards his new prey in a fit of angry growls.
The other, a whole lot less angry yet more
a whole lot more 'whole', was laughing as he came up from behind Seth and tried to catch him with one arm, the other slicing the air frantically with the chainsaw aimed to hit Seth's shoulder... except he got a daemon-possessed chainaxe slammed into his gut, breaking his shield and carving a jagged open wound across his body before he was batted a few feet away by the weapon and landing on the remains of the third psycho'd body, who was now mashed pudding after being trod over by a powered armor.
Dzan's powered armor, to be more precise, as Dzan arrived near where Seth was clad in blood, organs and ceramite.
But mostly blood and organs.
The little amount of time that Dzan had to use to fight off his daemons was enough time to have a crazy b*****d come up from behind him and stab him in the back with a sharpened pipe before Raof shot a plasma bolt that turned the Hulker's torso into a charred hole and a blinding blanket of gray smoke.
"s**t! Streea, get over here! Find a ******** wall to place behind you, dammit!" Raof was taking care of the riffraff trying to shoot holes into Dzan's back, which was hard enough to do without the man rushing headlong into battle. And Dzan went ahead and did just that.
Luckily for Dzan, Raof was keeping the few psychos shooting the Khornite berserker entertained so they were unable to shoot Dzan properly in the back. For a moment Raof got rather angry at Dzan's carelessness, until he saw he was headed for cover at a generally deserted console. Sighing, he proceeded to open a man's head with a chainsword as Dzan accidentally helped someone else's chances for survival.
The cyberpunk went lunging straight into a group of psychos picking on a new guy, tackling then trampling over one without remorse, crushing the man into meat pudding, then swinging the chainaxe into another one who was double-teaming Seth with another friend of his.
Dzan arrived just in time to help Seth with the one-armed mutated freak... but with his condition, perhaps it was best left to Seth to fend for himself.
- - - - - - -
Zidarus switched from wireless comm to the loudspeakers on the dreadnought and announced loudly and clearly so that the enemy could hear him.
"A'righ', lissen u' y'Throne-damned freaks! Ye go' bea'! YER DOWN TA A HANDFU' O' YER NUMBERS! SURRENDER AN' YE CAN SURVIVE IN THE BRIG, YE GROX-ARSED SCURVERS!"
"DEATH TO THE OUTSIDERS!"
"FOOD CAN'T TALK! STOP TALKING!"
"A Warrant of Trade was my key to freedom.
Betrayal, the door.
And now, here I am.
Embracing heresy, and thriving in it."
-Zidarus Lial IX
