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 Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 8:32 pm
The scourge whipped through the air, hitting top speed for the vehicle, and confusing the hell out of the Drathonians below. She shot down many, taking no heed to their cries of outrage. Her partner was also achieving the same, and together they were starting to shrink the battalion rapidly.
She was circling back for another round of shooting, when her scourge was hailed. She presumed that the Drathonian commander was the one hailing her, and prepared herself for the verbal attack about to come. She opened the channel, ”WHAT ON DRATHONIA ARE YOU DOING, YOU WORTHLESS TRAITOR!” was all that came through amidst the swearing and screeching. ”YOU SHALL BE ELIMINATED!” the commander yelled fiercely, and the comms. Link was broken. She turned the comms. Link to her partner, ”I think we will be having some company soon...” , she sighed into the link, and then disconnected.
She shot down a whole row of Drathonians with a hail of bullets, and flew around again for another go. A few Drathonians were aiming shots at her ship, but shielding was too strong for such a small weapon as a Dross or Beater could penetrate. Then a few bullets came that could rock her ship, and she knew that the ‘company’ had arrived. She activated evasive manoeuvres and put shields at maximum, turning sharply to the right in efforts to avoid the bullets now spearing their way towards her scourge. The ship shook violently; it wasn’t built to withstand such sharp turns. She grimaced and dropped altitude abruptly, causing the ship to veer backwards and end up behind her enemy. She rose again, and let loose a rain of bullets upon the Scourges heavy shields. She watched with satisfaction as it shook violently, and flicked a switch to her left. The ship adjusted to a slightly higher position, and the scraping of metal announced that the small rocket had done just as she had commanded. The heat seeking rocket immediately locked on target and sped towards the Scourge. The blue shimmer of cracking energy filled the air as the rocket exploded, and a heat wave passed through her Scourge. She cursed under her breath for not moving farther away, as the explosion shook her ship violently. But her goal had been achieved, as the other Scourge was hurtling towards a conveniently Drathonian covered patch of land.
Warning lights flashed in the cockpit and high pitched whining erupted from the dash. Shields have been weakened to 81%. She flicked some switches and turned off the computer warnings almost as soon as they had begun.
She looked for her partner, and spotted his Scourge performing only what could be described as a clumsy dogfight with the other fighter. She veered towards him and unleashed bullets upon the offending enemy, wincing as her ship shook yet again with the loss of more shielding. The enemy Scourge began to smoke and she knew they had him. Her partner unleashed a hail of thick rounds upon the enemy, and the Scourge began losing altitude, bullet holes piercing the ship in various areas. Eventually it landed with a dull thud, and then but a moment later an explosion rented the ground around it into pieces.
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Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 2:37 pm
About 30 seconds after Jack fell face first, Another stream of weapons fire erupted on the edge of the stream, but this time it was the opposite side, and comprised of the bright green energy bolts of the Terran Sugar and Bro rifles.Drathonian after drathonian fell, some tumbling down the clif, as a squad of marines boured fire into the unexpecting lizards. There was a reason why Terrans wore green, and Drathonians were red.
Kai jumped down just in time to pull the unconscious Jack out of the water, hefting him into better cover. He yelled for Kwon and Ruth to bring Steven over, which they did immediately. Soon as they were safe, kai noticed the problems with all five of the soldiers before him. Aside from the unconsious pilot, every one of them had been at the very least grazed with a bullet. Jack was severely overheated, and Steven was going into shock. "just in time" thought Kai, calling back to command to report that they had made contact with the downed pilots and were pulling out.
Lugging the group up the side of the river was no easy task, but was accomplished just in time for more lizards to show up. Those tanks had been APC's, each carrying ten Drathonians, of various types; drakes, brawlers, shooters, the works. They now flung themselves full force upon the squad, who were in the process of retreating into the undergrowth. The marines weren't wuite fast enough, and soon a firefight began anew, drathonians dropping quite quickly, due to their obvious colorings. Their numbers, however, were simply astounding, and they kept on coming. "Dang it! We need back up! send a platoon! we're being swamped" kai shouted angrily over the radio, dodging a few incoming rounds. His men were barely hanging on, the only reason none had died yet was due to the full body armour that had been slowing them down. they were now quite thankful for it.
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Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 3:55 pm
Clarissa was mentally yelling at herself, tell her body to keep moving. While rushing to a new vantage point so as to continue to be of use to the marines, she saw that she was gaining on them. They were slowing down. Confused by this she stopped and kneeled down to look through her scope. One of the marines had collapsed into the water, the unconscious pilot with him, while the other two marines hauled the other pilot towards the river. She also saw more drathonians approaching from down river, but there was little she could do about the lizards from where she was. So she began sprinting once more across the rocky slope.
Clarissa had almost reached a spot she had pre-designated as a snipe point when three gun shots broke her concentration and when three rounds flew past her head. Cursing under her breath she kept running without looking to see where the shots came from, for she already knew that the shots were from lizards and she would only slow herself down by trying to pinpoint them. The best she could do now was to scrub the snipe point and try to get to either a new snipe point or back to Terran controlled territory. Judging by how many rounds were now flying past her, she decided that the second option sounded the most sane.
Without further delay she picked up her speed and bolted in the same direction the marine company was going. Already aware that she would face a similar problem that the marines did, she was prepared when she came to the river. Behind her she was being pursued by a group of lizards, just down river from her was a twenty foot waterfall, and beyond that there was more lizards. Left with one option she ran up river a ways until the water became less deep and much less rough. That, however, didn’t say much for the water, even at only about six inches deep, was still moving swiftly towards the waterfall. She began to move carefully across the river. Stumbling only a few times she was almost across when another enemy round flew past her. Picking up the pace, she made it to the other side and wasted no time before renewing her sprint.
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Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 9:44 pm
Unfortunately for Clarissa, Drathonians are unfazed by water less than a foot or so deep, and splashed through at high speed, gaining on her as she stepped carefully across. Seeing it's opportunity, a Smasher leapt at her, the powerful burst of speed easily overcoming the smaller human's sprint. landing next to her, it kept running and swung a huge bladed weapon towards her legs, hoping to cut them off. the only good thing for the terran was that the smasher's buddies stopped firing at her, and were now behind, cheering him on.
***
The retreating squad of marines took note of the struggle going on just upriver of them, but were too preoccupied to do much to help Clarissa. Even so, Kai made a hand signal and two marines plunged sideways through the undergrowth to make the half mile sprint to her aid. Powerful and long ranged as they were, Sugar rifles were at a disadvantage in overgrown forests with no clear spots to fire through.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 9:55 am
Clarissa felt as if she were watching herself through a small window. Seeing the blade arcing towards her legs, and seeing herself try desperately to avoid it. She saw herself leap to the side and summersault away from the drathonian but not quick enough to keep the blade from slicing through the skin and muscle of her left leg.
As she pulled out of the somersault she winced as she tried to stand. Thinking as quickly as her mind would let her she thought of how in the world she would get away now. Almost unwillingly she looked up at the Smasher, making eye contact. Almost as if it were laughing the smasher grinned, showing off its jagged teeth and making a sort of low growling noise. For one of the few times in her life, Clarissa found herself panicking for she was thinking that if this little duel turned into a hand-to-hand match she would be done for.
All she could do right now was to keep slowly circling the smasher while carefully moving towards the forest. She kept her gun ready.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 3:39 pm
No. I'm not done here, yet. Get back up you worthless sack of flesh.
At length, Jack slowly came to. His head hurt like there was a pipe sticking through it and his entire body was feeling strangely numb. Stupid fool. You're probably dying. Pushing away from the marine holding him up, Jack caught Kai's gaze. "I'll hold them off. Get these men out of here." His words were low and deadly serious. There would be no arguing. Hobbling slowly back to the edge of the river, Jack could barely stand. His world was swaying like a ship at sea.
Dropping to a knee in the bushes, Jack brought his rifle up. He was seeing double, but was still aware enough to be able to hit between the two images of a lizard. The riverbank was taking fire from three directions, but that wasn't what caught his attention. Just up the river a ways, a small woman was trying to hold her own against a hulking Smasher. He was aware of the two marines heading up at his 9, but knew they wouldn't make it in time. He waited until they circled away from each other so he wouldn't risk shooting the girl, and let out a fully automatic spread against the lizard. The hail of blasts caught the thing in the side, sending it flopping sideways, being carried off in a pool of its own blood down the river.
Before he could turn to its comrades, Jack felt a lurching gag. Eyes going wide, he held himself back for a split second as he frantically pulled off his visor. Throwing it aside, Jack fell to all fours and vomited, spasms wracking his body.
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Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 4:33 pm
Kai was busy with the battle at hand, firing as well as he could through the undergrowth as his squad made it's way back to safewtay with the rescuees in tow. HGe turned aroiund to check just in time to catch Jack's eyes before he shouted something and ran off, firing somewhat wildly. Obviously the man had lost his wits, due to stress and exhaustion. As soon as Jack crouched and began vomiting, a medic was on him, quickly injecting him with a calming medicine that kept him alert, and slapping a nutrient supplement patch onto an exposed area of skin. Once jack stopped vomiting, the Medic helped him to his fet and pulled him back to the group, which had had to halt, allowing the Drathonians to move a bit closer to the group, the wild shots coming ever closer to the men with every second.
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Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 7:36 pm
[[ Heh, sorry Kai, I'm having too much fun controlling the lizards biggrin ]]
Jack shoved the medic away as he tried to ease him back towards the group. Whatever the guy had shoved into his body, it sure as hell wasn't making his brain hurt any less... although his vision was pulling a bit into focus now. The adrenaline was pumping hard through his veins once again. "I said get the hell out of here! I'll cover your @$$es." he yelled furiously, enunciating every word with harsh vigor, ensuring he would be heard clearly. He gave the medic another shove in the right direction. Turning back around, he found an unpleasant sight before him.
Namely a Drathonian trying to scale the ledge behind him. Firing wildly, a shot went through its throat and sent it tumbling back down, into what must have been half a dozen more lizards. As angry, gutteral shouts rang out below, Jack's gaze was once again drawn upstream...
In the moments he'd wasted with the medic, the rest of the squad of Drathonians after the unfortunate sniper had broken out in a full charge. There were four of them, just splashing into the river about 20 meters away from Clarissa. He swore under his breath as he swung up his gun and fired. He'd have to cover her and the marines still closing in on her as well. Within a fraction of a few seconds, the two charging Drathonians in front went plummeting to the ground. Their comrades, unhindered by the crumpling bodies, leapt cleanly over them, now just a few steps away from Clarissa.
He froze before he could fire the last shots, hearing a harsh grunt from right next to him. Without even turning, Jack knew what was coming at him. He dove backwards as the heavily muscled Smasher came careening into the spot Jack had just been standing. It threw its weight sideways, bringing it to an abrupt halt... but not before bringing its blade around in a swift and deadly arc. It struck home, plowing into the leg of Jack's body armor. In a cough of sickly smoke, the leg jittered for a moment. No doubt the assisting hydraulic had just been cleaved in half. Immediately afterwards Jack felt the sting of the blade biting into the flesh of his calf. It wasn't very deep - the armor had done its job - but Jack still felt a slackening in his foot as the muscle holding it up was practically cut in half.
Jack came crashing to the ground, being pulled down by the blade lodged in his leg. The lizard gave a grunt, trying to tug it free of his victim. The first pull failed, and before he could have another go, Jack's good leg had come around the side of its ugly, contorted face. About two dozen energy bolts came blasting up behind it, turning the face into an indistinguishable mosh of craters and blood (definitely an improvement). Forced to leave Clarissa to fend for herself, Jack kicked the still-standing corpse down, shuffle-crawling away as the rest of the Drathonians hopped over the precipice. Jack met them with a hail of bullets, knocking the unprepared lizards to their deaths.
Jack struggled to his feet, swaying precariously as he did so. His left leg felt stiff as lead, and refused to budge. He was forced to move his entire leg, armor and all, with the strength of his thigh. He clomped awkwardly over to the edge of the riverbank, leaning against a tree for support. Immediately greeted by a hail of fire, Jack fell back on his butt, firing back feverishly at the source. The rest of the battalion of Drathonians had finally reached the river, and the bank directly adjacent from him was now swarming with them.
As at least 50 Drathonians fired, charged, or took aim at Jack, he was forced backward along the lip. With a deafening rumble, a Drathonian tank came pushing through the trees, knocking them aside without prejudice like twigs. Swearing yet again, Jack let loose a barrage of fire at the connective plating of the tank, to no avail. He swore once more. His tiger rifle couldn't pierce heavy armor, and he didn't have time right this second to switch to his sugar. With a growl of total frustration, Jack shoved himself farther backwards, knowing he had at most 20 seconds to get back to a more defensible position before half the Drathonian army was on his side of the river. All the while his headache was in full swing, practically punching him back every time he made a tactical decision.
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Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 8:18 pm
She saw a few Marines stumbling about near the riverbank, Drathonians fast approaching. She cleared a row with hurled gunfire, and veered the ship in the direction of the riverbank. An ominous creaking sound rushed from the cockpit, notifying her that the scourge was not built to handle such manoeuvres. She grimaced and scanned the situation, realizing that with the scourges manoeuvrability and accuracy she would not be able to approach much closer to the Marines without putting them in danger.
She lowered her altitude and sped forward, shooting as many enemies down as she could. She sped past the riverbank and shot as accurately towards the Drathonians closest to the Marines as she could. Water sprayed out of the river as bullets penetrated the surface and corpses fell to the banks.
She pulled upwards and away, and veered back towards the still approaching battalion, shooting down more lizards. A loud beeping erupted inside the cockpit, and she almost gave herself whiplash the way she moved to the scanners. Five blinking lights signalled the arrival of more Scourge fighters in her area, and she saw them approaching on the horizon. ”There’s more? Goddamnit, can we take this many?” her partner crackled through the comm., the sounds of gunfire pouring through both links. ”Should we try evasive manoeuvres?” she questioned, ”I think so...” he replied grimly and closed the link, moving his ship to a higher altitude. She followed suit, checking various switches, levels, and shields on the way up.
A warning shot from the head Scourge whizzed past their ships. She ignored the hail from them, and instead fired a round back, knowing full well that it would just anger them. She hoped that in their anger they would become confused, but also knew that it was against the odds that they would be able to defeat all five of them. The five enemies split up and headed for them from all directions, aiming weapons with precision that only a lifetime of training for battle in these machines could achieve.
She swerved to the right and sped downwards, screeching filling her ears. Gunshots whizzed past, a few clipping the tip of a wing and shaking the whole ship. Warnings were already sounding, yelling to her overworked ears that the shields were weakened. She ignored the noises approaching her, and focused on keeping the ship steady as it twisted through the air away from the triangular formation. She rose again, her ship steadying for but a moment as the followers changed direction as fast as they could. She heard, and felt, a rough explosion, and quickly looked back to see the remains of one of the enemy spiralling towards the ground as her partner sped away. She took the distraction of the moment to shoot back a few large explosive shells, two of them hitting the tip of a scourge and seriously damaging the shielding. Her enemies’ screams of anguish could almost be heard by looking at their expressions as they glared at her through the glass of their cockpits.
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Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 11:05 am
The heavy fire from the scourges bought Jack some time, enough to get himself back a good 50 meters and switch over to his sugar rifle. He flinched a bit at the arrival of the attacking ships, their engines screeching over his head. Moments later, a heavy explosion rang out overhead, and a scourge came plummeting down just over 30 meters away. It came down like a meteor, throwing chunks of tree, stone, and earth all about. The cloud of dust it threw up blinded everything nearby for a good minute. Jack used the opportunity to switch to heat vision on his scope and blast away the few Drathonians that had made it across the river in the confusion.
The ship was burning heavily, it's gas reserves leaking out in small explosions. The fire had spread to the nearby plant life, and within the time that the dust was settling, the smoky fire had been kicked up by the wind, throwing flames all along the river bank. Jack had the tactical advantage for the moment, but now more Drathonians were crawling swiftly up the ledge, undetectable in the raging flames. Their tough scales granted them a fair level of protection from the fire, and soon enough at least a dozen lizards were charging past the wreckage of the downed fighter.
Presently, a sudden barrage of fire came at both Jack and the marine squad from the east flank. A large segment of the Drathonian battalion had swung around in a pincer formation, putting heavy fire on them from the side. At least 100 Drathonians and a dozen tanks were swinging down from upriver.
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Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 10:35 pm
Soon the two soldiers reached clarissa, and in the relative openness of the area above the waterfall, easily downed the remaining 3 or four lizards, grabbing clarissa and hauling her up in a two-man carry, the marines hurriedly added another to the list of rescued.
Now Kai himself was getting miffed by Jack's brazen stubbornness, and ran to get the man, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket sticling up above the top of his armored suit, and pulling him bodily away from the fast approaching enemies "No-one gets left behind Dumb@$$!!" The captain yelled at Jack, ignoring the weapons fire, trusting the armor to take care of any of it at this range.
With the addition of a second flank being fired upon, the squad had do divide it's duties, and with so many helping the wounded, only about seven men could be utilised to fire in each direction at a time. The retreat changed directions again, heading in as opposite a direction from both groups as possible. If backup didn't arrive soon, it was going to be a hard five miles back to base.
***
In the sky, a sudden barrage of green flashed across, hitting another scourge fighter, causing the shields to crackle before finally going out to let more green energy bolts in, frying the ship and it's pilot, the thing came tumbling down, landing atop a tank, hitting about five or six lizards as it came to rest. More Scimitars had come to the aid of Still, and rushed past in a multicolored blur, the military's lax policy on paint scemes making the craft all the more phantasmic as they rushed by in the atmosphere.
***
The drathonians, now on the Marines' side of the gulley, continued after the small group, whom they outnumbered almost twenty-to one. Not bad odds for a terran marine in most cases, but right now, with injured pilots and marines, plus the ones needed to carry them out, the group was slowed and shorthanded. Lizards suged ahead, firing wildly, hoping to catch a terran by suprise. Unfortunately for the Drathonians, Dross and Beater rifles just didn't have the power to kill an armored foe at that range without a really luck shot, and were so innacurate that that shot was nigh impossible for all but the mosty skilled marksman. Most of those Drathonian marksmen were now dead, their bodies forming a barrier to protect the now-entrenched terrans from an onslaught of scaly madness.
A few Drathonians, mostly Smashers, were running ahead of the group, zig-zagging through the undergrowth, attempting to pinpoint the group of terrans. Getting closer each time, every single one was shot down as it ran. though it did much to thin out the drathonian ranks, it gave them a clear path towards their prey, allowing the tanks to point in the correct direction. These metal behemoths now came rumbling forth, firing wildly into the trees, knowing their chance wasn't in hitting a Terran, but in crushing them with fallen trees.
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Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 7:09 am
Jack grinned wildly at Kai, keeping up his suppressive fire as the other soldier dragged him away. With the number of Drathonians coming up their butts, they needed it. "Kiddo, just wait till I can pull rank on you, I'd still be back there soloing the whole damn Drathonian army." The devilish grin he gave Kai was priceless. Hobbling along with Kai in a kind of 3 1/2 legged walk, Jack was back to the group within the next minute.
Looking up to see the new ships in the sky, Jack turned to Kai. "We can't outrun them at this rate. Our best bet is to buckle down and let air support give us some cover fire while we wait for help." Jack may have only been a private, but he was smarter than the average person.
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Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 9:49 pm
"If you keep acting up like this, you'll never pull rank on me" Kai joked back, noting how Jack was coming back to his old self, the nutrients being absorbed by his bloodstream were reinvigorating him and allowing him to keep moving better than he had when he had 'crashed'. Kai saw the blood dripping out of Jack's leg, and the nasty hole in his armor. "You're definitely getting sent back up when we reach the LZ, buddy" The captain said.
Gazing up at the passing Scimitars and Scourges, Kai could only comment "They're pretty busy up there i think, the lizards sent up another wave of ships, and once those are down, the Scimmy's can only take out Tanks decently, not soldiers" Hobbling along in such an odd manner carrying jack, Kai still managed to hip-fire a few Drathonians into oblivion, the optical sight uplinked to his HUD.
***
Overall the group was making pretty good time, seemingly approaching the main force of Terrans twice as fast as they were moving. Then one guy realized that the main force was moving towards them, in a major push, as several troop transports had landed nearby and were offloading a few thousand Terran marines. The drathonians kept following the squad of rescuers, not noticing they were chasing the bacon right into the frying pan.
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Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 1:20 pm
She was frantically steering the Scourge through the sky, unleashing bullet after bullet to lose her enemies, when a number of beeps appeared on her screen. She looked over to see a multi-coloured blur of Scimitars soaring through the air past her. She almost screamed with joy. She hoped the pilots would recognize her as a Terran, she figured they would, as her signals had been set to appear as ‘friendly’ on their screens.
She flew upwards and made a turn, so that she was facing the same direction as the Scimitars. She unleashed a hailing of bullets towards one of the damaged Scourges which now, thanks to the Scimitars, was on the defensive. The enemy ship shook violently and started losing altitude.
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 3:15 pm
Steven regained consciousness to find himself being carried on the back of a marine and he was welcomed with a throbbing headache. He gazed around trying to shake his disorientation. He still heard gunshots and explosions, so he knew he was still in the field. Much to his dismay he heard shouting close by, which agitated his already painful headache. Looking over his shoulder to find the source he saw Kai and one of the marines that had rescued him, so to speak. For the most part he could not understand a single word, but eventually he could hear well enough to make out the dilemma. "Hey Captain," he said quietly. Aware of how quietly he had spoken he said it again, this time louder. "Hey Captain! If scimitars wont work I can always call my squadron of shamshirs bombers to lend a hand."
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