PHD #413: EVENT - For Our Altars And Our Hearths
For Our Altars and Our Hearths
Summary: Cerberus marines storm the Areion hangar deck.
Date: 15 Apr 2042 AE
Related Logs: All 15 April logs. Continued in From Hell's Heart.
Players:
Kincaid Spade Lunair Corrath Samuel Vandenberg Circe Lysander Constin Croke Kepner Keller NPC Volans Polaris 
Port-Side Hangar Deck — CEX Areion
A hangar deck with Raptors, crates, and things that go BOOM!
Post-Holocaust Day: #414

The Marines have been waiting restlessly in the Port Hangar Bay since Specialist Bannik's briefing ended just thirty minutes ago. They've listened to Kepner order the execution of not one but two hostages since this mad nightmare began, and now — more than an hour since Kepner seized control of the Fleet and placed his metaphorical finger on the trigger of Cerberus' nuclear missiles, they've started to get restless. Hair-trigger tempers explode into fistfights squad leaders have some difficulty breaking up, to the point at which they just stop giving a proverbial frak about the shouting matches erupting across the deck. These highly-trained men and women — so stolid against Cylons — find themselves fraying when confronted with this new threat.

Small wonder, then, that even the most hardened NCO breathes a sigh of relief when Lieutenant Vandenberg rushes down from CIC with orders to mount up. Wild rumors fly round and round the deck as to precisely how Captain Nikephoros and her people interrupted Areion's hold over their nuclear detonation codes — rumors that are by no means dispelled as the Marines board the Raptors slated to carry them through a nest of fighters to the Hangar Deck beyond. The plan is as simple as it is audacious, and for one Command isn't trying any fancy tricks: Command just doesn't have time. The goal? None other than the rescue of the hostages being held aboard the enemy ship, and to take down traitorous Kepner while they're at it. In other words, these Marines are being asked to do what they do best: blast through an impregnable defensive position prepared and held by the best soldiers ever to wear the badge of the Colonial Marine Corps.

The time is 1601 hours when the Raptors' FTL engines disengage and the yawning maw of Areion's hangar approaches. It's 1602 when their skids touch down — and by 1603, the Marines have seized the airlock separating them from the inside of the ship while the space battle rages above them. Their techs decompress and recompress the chamber from the outside, having hotwired the thing as quickly as humanly possible — and then they're in, to be met by a hail of withering gunfire from not one but four bunkers set up where the hatch opens up onto the cavernous room beyond.

"COVER!" someone shouts — and then it's time to make a mad dash for anything that might afford them shelter against a hail of bullets that just won't seem to end.

Vandenberg is one of the first in through the door. Toting a Zasta, the small woman seems to handle it with the experience of someone much larger than herself. Seeing the bunkers, the Marine leading this assault takes cover down behind a wreckage bulldozer and braces the big gun there. "Flashbangs out!!" she yells before moving forward, firing. Her rounds find home on a Marine, tossing him out of the game about the same time Elf's G48 hits home. She drops to a knee beside a large crate and falls prone. "FORWARD!"

"Oh, yeah, forward." Kincaid piles out the door of his Raptor and through the airlock, skittering to a halt behind one of the Areion Raptors parked across the deck. He's going gingerly in his attack, only peeking out from behind the side to squeeze off a three-round burst before ducking back again. His vest on his combat blacks takes the hit from the return fire from the Areion Marine he's targeting, the two of them in a game of cat-and-mouse already. It's a game Kincaid is more than happy to play; no heroes here.

With bullets peppering down like rain pellets on a proverbial stormy night, Spade quickly ducked his head as a level of firing lets loose in his direction. The return fire snapped off more quickly than an overladen branch in an ice storm. Still the Marine did his best attempt to cross over towards a more suitable cover and allow others to unload the Raptor. Even with his movements the slamming of a heavy shot thudding into his chest like a sonnet from a raspy singer dug into flesh pulling forth a grunt of disapproval. "Frak." The grunt came forth as fire was returned, followed again by a more steady burst as the man dove for the cover against bullets and metaphor.

Constin had piled out of the Raptor as soon as the hatch had opened. Rather than immediately taking cover, the Gunnery sergeant opts for a clear field of fire, barking, "Karl up!" before loosing an explosive anti-personnel round at the first bunker. For his troubles, the big bull of a marine soaks up round upon round of counterfire from the entrenched enemy. Someone had to be first out the door. Stumbling backward off his feet, Elf grits his teeth and reloads the gun, loosing a second shell from his mercifully unwounded knee to keep the enemy's heads down.Croke may note the glint of bared bloody titanium where one of the bullets has blasted away the skin over his recently repaired right hand.

Falling in as one of the last, Circe pulls up her rifle, shifting in the undented bodyarmor this time around. She moves forward, the ping of shots missing her as she ducks for a Raptor, hugging along its wing before she drops to a knee and down to pepper out some shots with a sudden lean outward. Trying to stay out of the way, she watches as the hail fire slams into her comrades. Wincing, the medic moves then, letting her rifle hang from her sling as she reaches out to Corrath, "Lieutenant" She intones, slipping open her pack and beginning to address the wounds immediately.

The shell from Constin's rifle slams into the hastily-erected array of empty boxes and other such things with remarkable power, arcing up and down on the enemy position with perfect precision. The Areion Marines scatter as one of them is thrown backwards and separated into forty-some-odd constituent parts; the others, following a barked order, begin to fan out. Some of them run to push apart the barricades so they can no longer be thus targeted by that Karlstov of doom; the others move toward already-prepared heavy weapons emplacements hidden behind canvas or inside boxes — weapons kept secret to avoid being targeted by the initial bombardment they know is coming. Their line of black now stretches across the gigantic room, granting them that remarkable thing known as 'overlapping fields of fire' that every Marine dreams of owning.

And the good guys? Croke bends to treat Constin's wounds, leaping to his aid heedless of the bullets whizzing by his head, while behind him in rows of five surge the rest of Cerberus' two platoons and change.

"Heh," coughs Sergeant Lysander as his boots hit flight deck proper. It looks like Hell's empty and all the devils are here. Tickle him humored in that they lack chrome domes. The marine is pounding forward and signaling for a pair of marines behind him to suppress their joined flank while taking cover behind fore of a parked Raptor. He's in the middle of firing downrange when a round rips into his leg and down he goes. He doesn't even know who's grabbing at his shoulder to pull him back under cover.

Right. Tally ho and what have you. It's been far too long since Lunair bolted into battle with the metaphorical black banner. Someone's feeling a bit odd. The sickly nervous rush of waiting. Worse who they're fighting. Still, she's an officer who subscribes to the old genteel model. She looks pained at Constin's fall. Right. "Charge! But with COVER!" She's a dork. But a well intentioned, motivational dork. It'd be funny if it weren't in the thick of combat. For better or worse she doesn't subscribe to her own policy. /Officers/ charge in first, with big hats and horses. A noble idea - not so much in practice it seems. She hisses. She stumbles a step back as she's lightly peppered with AP rounds. Her armor - someone is looking out for her - manages to take the brunt of it. She makes sure The second Marine has trouble enjoying use of his hand for awhile at least. She's damp, but not too badly hurt. She looks worried though, as people fall and scatter.

Being one of the first out of his Raptor, Samuel tries to get to the @emit Being one of the first out of his Raptor, Samuel tries to get to the cover of a Raptor, while firing off a burst at one of the enemies. Unfortunately, he's too slow to get into the cover, and gets riddled with bullets from more than one enemy, and falls down, crawling as best he can into cover now. Bleeding all over the deck in the process.

Following directly after the other Marines, Corrath's bolting out of the Raptor, eyes scanning the flight deck briefly for some for of cover, even as the hail of bullets begin to reign down upon them. There's a grunt as one of them catches him in the chest, though his armor manages to absorb most of the impact. Then, he's off towards a barrel that's caught his eye. There's a press of his finger on the trigger, sending a harmless hail of bullets in the Areion Marines direction and just before he manages to get to the barrel, he's riddled with bullets once more, causing him to stumble and fall to the deck. There's a muted grunt of pain, followed by a faint wince as he begins to crawl his way towards that barrel. Circe's words draw his attention and he's simply giving a slight shake of his head, perhaps being a touch too far to reach or that someone might be a little more wounded then he. When the barrel is reached, there's little to do but stick his head out and around to fire off a quick burst in his assailants direction.

Another three-round burst, another bullet hits his target. At this point, a one-for-three batting average is pretty good for Kincaid. After all, with his rifle fire plus Constin's heavy weaponry, that's enough to take the Marine out of action. But Danny doesn't have time to savor his take-down. He turns his rifle on another threat, looking to take one of the newly-appeared rifles down. Still, he keeps himself behind the Raptor he's claimed as his cover.

Vandenberg's LMG chunks out rounds, the weapon firing in five second bursts. Chungachungaghungachunga.. There's a nice sheet of brass casing skittering across the deck beside her. The muzzle blast alone is enough to point right at her as 'OHAI TARGET!'. She's been out long enough. The woman rolls away in her combat gear and back behind the bulldozer for a few seconds. She leans around once more for a quick burst and then scoots back

Having dived himself now behind a box of crates displaced by the boarding action, Spade creeps himself over the top enough to fire off rounds from this rifle with the accuracy of a Pyramid player suffering from a night of wine. The flurry of bursted shots rips through the remnants of one Marine before he switches target. The utterance of a prayer for the departed forsaken instead with a grunt of approval at the progress of the assault. With the new target gained in his sight the shots of rapport echo in his ears.

Seeing to Samuel, at least slowing and stopping most of the bleeding, Circe is moving then, skirting across the ground for the Lieutenant as swiftly as she can. Keeping low and trying to get past the ifring safely, she slides in next to him. Bandages already in hand, the medic presses a hand to the first wound, the one at his chest given a look as she presses gauze to it. She stays low to allow the Lieutenant to keep firing, her gaze narrowed upon her work as the firing is just background noise at this time.

Constin looses the second shell after Croke has done his level best to contain the MaA's blood on the inside of his torn hide. The combination of blast and bullets clean out the men in the blasted bunker, even as reinforcements rush up. Jaw muscles visible beneath the skin, Elf looks up at the distinctive sound of ship scale weapons spinning up. "Sonuva-" A third shell is loaded, marked only slightly by a smear of blood from his freshly blasted hand, before the Karl is fired at the nosecone.

Areion's Marines didn't run fast enough. Constin's second shell rips through the gap in their lines, flinging back not one but fully four enemy soldiers. Flashbangs detonate all around, their blinding explosions confounding friend and foe alike. But the battle has coalesced into two surging waves, now: Vandenberg, Constin, and her men advancing on the left barricade; Corrath, Lunair, and theirs pinned down on the right. And as the enemy falls, more soldiers dressed all in black rise up to take their place, while to reinforce the smashed left side there rises a single Colonial Viper, her KEWs going rat-a-tat-tat-tat over the scream of her engines.

Orders to keep up the fire are growled out by Lysander. He has a hole in his leg because of the Areion and so with his back pressed against cold metal he ducks down under a hail of fire before turning over and unleashing a stream of gunfire toward the opposing marines. He keeps his rifle steadied on the Raptor with the suppressing fire up until his current clip runs dry. That leads into pressing the magazine release and ignoring it rattle upon the floor alongside as he ducks back down. A fresh clip is shimmied into place.

"Thanks," Samuel offers weakly in Circe's direction, before he attempts to aim for one of those enemies again, trying to take as careful aim as he can now.

Having managed to fire off a three round burst, Corrath doesn't manage to connect with his target or even come all that close. There's a muted grunt as a result of this and just as Circe makes her way to him, he's discarding the rifle and lowering his hand down to draw the pistol from the holster on his thigh. "Careful .. Crewman. Keep .. head down." That's about all that he'll bother to say and when she moves to press the gauze to his chest, there's a hissed wince of pain. It's not enough to keep him from the task at hand, though, for he's peeking around the barrel, only so that he can take aim at one of the Areion marines.

Someone up there is looking up for Lunair. She keeps her black banner waving. Metaphorically. She keeps standing with her rifle. She looks worried by the injuries suffered by her own side. "You've got them! Well done!" It's yelling into the wind, as her bullets tear into a hapless bastard. "Keep it up!" She seems to be holding up relatively well and helps add her own bullets to the fire. "Well done medics. We've got it." She's - doing her best, pinned as she is. She reaches for a grenade and scoots forward a teeny bit. Right then. "Right then! No quarter for no surrender!"

It's only a glancing hit to Constin's chest as the Gunnery Sergeant pushes along with the Charge of the Mountaineers, but as shot-to-shit as he already it, it causes him to stumble, gritting his teeth as he clatters into the deck plating, gripping the Karl and pushing to his feet again. "Semper Fi, Do or Die!" he hollers, slamming another shell into the Karl and trying to focus his aim on the Viper spitting hot death.

The bullet striking his hand brings another flurry of words that certainly would cause a priestess' ears to turn red with embarrassment. Ducking behind his boxes, Spade unhooks a grenade from his vest and taking a glance over pops the pin before tossing a nice lob towards the gathering of Marines. As soon as it flies free from the bloodied hand the yelp of discomfort is quieted away with the squeezing it against his leg to help the blood flow.

Kincaid is shockingly the Teflon Marine, charging forward after firing three rounds right into the armor of his designated target. He seems to be focusing on the Marines, leaving the Viper to his more heavy-weapon oriented colleagues. "Fire in the hole!" he shouts out, chucking the frag out towards the Areion soldiers.

Vandenberg takes a nick to her hand and looks back up towards the Viper hovering around, firing. "Eat shit!" She grabs a grenade off her vest, yanks the pin, and starts counting. "One. Two. Three! FOUR!" She slips out from cover and chucks the damned thing right at the Viper's cockpit.

Thump! A bullet — a stray one — slams Kincaid in the chest, his first-ever real combat wound. But in the adrenalin of it all, he doesn't seem to quite regist what has happened to him. Instead, he's yanking out another grenade, aiming it at the two remaining marines — or at least the ones he can see. "Another one in!"

Constin doesn't curse under fire. He does, fumble through the Shell satchel in search of one of the rounds he hadn't expected to use. Under normal circumstances, loosing a HEAT round aboard a ship falls somewhere between terminally stupid, and just plain crazy. "Loading HEAT!" he barks, clapping the shell into place, and balancing again on his knee, blood dimmed sights fixed on the Viper.

The Viper's engines shriek like some dreadful banshee as she circles the battlefield, spitting out gorgeous red tracers that slam up and down the Mountaineers' lines. Kincaid's down-for-repair Raptor takes the brunt of the damage, her fuel tanks exploding in a massive gout of flame that has the man scrambling for a new place to hide. And as hand grenades ping against the hull of the Colonial fighter, those with more reasonable aims find their patience rewarded. Three more Areion Marines are dislodged from their position on the left; two more on the right — but even as they leave, still more flood into their place, unholstering their rifles as they lay down still more fire.

As for poor Croke? Those close to Constin assaulting the rightmost bunkers might see the medic smashed by three armor-piercing rounds to the chest. His lifeless body collides with a pair of fuel tanks as the call for "MEDIC!!!" rings out above the din of battle; sure enough, one of his mates steps up to the killing fields, while brave Circe finds herself alone with more bodies and wounds than fingers and toes combined.

As she is in the midst of treating Corrath, Circe turns to draw out more badnages when the shots come scattering her way. The barrel doesn't cover them both and as some ping off and ricochet, she gets hit in the hand and arm first, causing her to wince and let out a grunt. Breathing heavily before more shots slam into her chest and arms, her other hand also wounded. Corrath is sprayed a bit by the blood that comes from her arm and cuts off a hard cry before collapsing down a bit to her knees. "FRAK!!" Cries the corpsman as she is dragging the bandages hastily around her wounds, trembling with the pain as she blinks to stay conscious. She starts to drag herself further behind, seeking to as least lay low as the cry for medic hits her ears she closes her eyes, forcing herself on.

Getting hit by a number of bullets again, Samuel ducks down behind whatever cover he's found, staying there for now as he looks around a bit carefully. Staying down on the deck for the moment trying to avoid the incoming fire now.

Oorah! Lunair is - apparently actually doing well this moment in time. She hisses softly at the Viper. There's a look of pity and sadness for Croke. She liked the kid well enough. But it's just a blur in the moment. Lunair seems to be fond of the odd, scraggly sorts of Marines and medics. Likely being an oddity herself. She's likely drawing attention now as her grenade lands with spectacular results. "Shooting medics! You bastards!" Huff. Weirdo. Playing fair in a /fight/. What madness is that? She reaches for another grenade, hellbent on destroying as much of their cover and clearing a path to that viper.

The first grenade underway, Spade rolls around some to take a peek at the damage it did. Hearing the call from somewhere of another being launched, he reaches down and plunks off another ball of death letting it arc through the air in the same direction as the previous. "Ball out!" He calls again to echo what the other said before retreating himself to cover.

Vandenberg's grenade only seems to piss the Viper off rather than do anything. "Man! Frak this!" She brings the Zasta around and aims it right at the Viper's cockpit, squeezing off a burst.

"Frak," a bullet ricochets off of the metal plating next to Lysander's head. It zings by as he shoulders his rifle long enough to reach for a fragmentation grenade at his side. Something heavily stings and burns at his lower right but he ignores the apparent wound long enough to seize the frag and launch it forward towards the Areion marines.

The cry from the medic draws Corrath's attention, just as he's sprayed by her blood. There's a soft curse, then a frown and he's moving out from the side of the barrel, but only so that he can reach out with one hand to grab Circe's vest and haul her in behind the barrel, so that she at least has some sembleance of cover. This, though, leave him a little more exposed that he'd like, but he compensates by lowering the pistol to the holster and grabbing a grenade from his vest. It's then prepped and launched in the direction of the Areion Marines.

Even with Kincaid jammed up against some spare crates of supplies as cover, the shrapnel from the grenade being lopped in against him doesn't know from cover. He is cut to pieces from the shards of metal, his blood beginning to cover his black combat dress — death by a thousand tiny shards. "Medic!" he calls out, even as he reaches for another grenade on his chest.

As the Medic comes over to him, the most recent grenade lobbed off, Spade sits patiently waiting for the quick patching up to take place. Hand is held out for a wrapping and a motion made to the other injuries. A nod towards the Medic in brief gratitude and quickly the Marine is pulling his rifle up in order to resume firing at the entrenched opposition.

"Medic, get your ass on the El-Tee!" Constin roars to the medic- barely hearing himself over the ambient buzz that fills his hearing after the recent blast. Woodenly he climbs to a knee- stumbles, and climbs back up to a knee. "Set still you sunovabitch.." he mutters through clenched and bloody teeth to the faceless Viper.

Vandenberg's attempts to keep fighting aren't met with much. The rounds miss and she doesn't just get blown up by a frag, she gets peppered by 20mm shrapnel from the Viper overhead. "M- Medic!" she calls out, depserately trying to plug every leak she's suddenly sprung.

There are risks to giving up your cover to someone else and as another hail of bullets comes reigning in, Corrath's hunching himself down as best he can. For the most part, the bullets manage to miss him, but one of them does splat into his abdomen, drawing a soft *woof* of air from the S2's lips as his armor manages to prevent any serious damage. "Frak me. We need to get this cleared up. Fast." Another grenade is procured from his vest and it's then prepped and tossed once more into the throng of Areion Marines.

Lysander closes his eyes and ducks down, glass and metal from the Raptor erupting as heavy machinegun fire rips into the cockpit. The Sergeant reaches out to push a marine's head down while glancing to another clutching to a wound at their arm. Under all of the explosions and sporadic fire it's hard to single out his grenade's explosion; none the matter though, he's priming another one and lobbing it out of cover.

Finally having gotten himself together a bit, Samuel prepares to throw one of those grenades himself, hoping that he'll get it far enough away for it to have any effect now.

Tears form at the edge of her eyes as she pulls the bandages as tight as she can, Corrath draggin her out of sight. "Frak, frak frak frak.." The multiple cries for medics makes her hurry, her hands shaking as she tries to get herself some relief, a chance to stop the bleeding. As she starts to push herself to her knees and crawl, she grits her teeth and lifts her head look at the squad. Lunair is given an assessing look as her body shudders against the wounds that it has taken and by sheer adrenaline alone she starts to soldier on. But it is the clink, clank of the grenade that as her stop and the medic moves, ducking and rolling over the side of a fallen barrel from the explosions, hands lifting to cover her face and vital areas. She lets out a groan as she hits her wounded arm against the ground.

Ares is fickle. Lunair is death on wheels left alone today. It's an odd gift. Until she pokes the beehive one too many times. She grunts and gasps. Lunair staggers back, eyes widening "I'm - fine!" Is she? Her vision goes grey, tunnels a bit. She wobbles desperately. No. They can't - be beat back. Her eyes are wide, blank. Then she reels for a moment. Conscious, gotta - stay - conscious. Seeing what hits the others, she rallies herself. "Steady on. Stiff upper lip." She takes a deep breath. "Have at them! No quarter!" She still has some steam. Last grenade… Make it a good one. She crawls towards the enemy one more time. Once more unto the breach as it were.

It's a killing field out here. Grenades detonate all around, catching unwary — or simply unlucky — troops on both sides with so many bits and pieces of shrapnel. The Viper screams backwards as a tank of fuel catches fire, sending a blast of flame into her nose cone that forces her pilot to do a series of agile maneuvers just to avoid crashing into one of the room's four walls. Bodies are strewn everywhere as the sound of alarms fills everybody's ears, their woop-woops mixing with so many moans and screams while the battle lines waver, twitch, and bend. But the Areion Marines' training grants the vanguard a bit of relief — at least on the left side, where their sharpshooters focus fire on anybody bearing a first-aid kit. On the right, though, seeing no such angels of mercy available for the taking, the enemy soldiers feel free to pick apart the Cerberus formation, if in fact the wavering crowd pressing forward can be called a formation at all. In the center, a group of orange-clad knuckledraggers break out of cover, running towards — the back of the room, where the stairwells and ships are stored. And above it all booms the voice of Commander Kepner, exhorting his men:

[TAC1] Kepner says, "All Marine fireteams, the mutineers have escaped! Hold the Hangar at all costs! Do not let them establish a beachhead!"

Kincaid sends one more grenade over the breach, letting it explode where it does. Shockingly, it doesn't do much of anything, considering how ripped to shreds his arm and hands are. The medic is able to provide him some succor, but right before that same medic goes down in a hail of bullets from the Areion Marines.

Tossing his grenade in the direction of the Areion Marines, Corrath isn't bothering to watch the damage it does, chosing to try and seek some form of cover now. Unfortunately, even as the thought of cover comes to mind, he finds himself riddled with bullets and sharpnel. The combined assault to his body as him somewhat 'flopping' in place as he's abused by metal, but it's the bullet that slices throught he soft meat of his neck that finally spins him sideways, only to have him then drop to the ground. All thoughts of returning fire are lost, now, as he raises a hand in a somewhat stunned fashion, so that he can press it upon the wound of his neck. Which, is rather foolish, considering all the other wounds that are bleeding.

Disoriented from the hits he took earlier on, Samuel's grenade doesn't go quite where he wanted. Taking a minor hit near the head, he ducks back, growling a bit as he hears Kepner's voice talking. "If we, by chance, don't eliminate that guy, can we at least cut out his tongue or something?" Spoken loud enough for people nearby to hear him, at least.

Vandenberg is looking up to the Medic on his way over when he goes down, deader than a post. She's still frantically trying to put bandaids on those bullet holes, dumping powdered sealant all over them. She's rolled and drug herself behind the blade of the bulldozer and keeps working.

As the explosion rocks next to her, the barrel is blown apart and slammed into her. A piece lodges into her head and mostly along her legs. She cries out, the explosion rattling the deck. Gasping, she rolls to her side, her poorly treated wounds are still bleeding and this just disorients her further, causing her to blink and try to focus past the ringing in her ears. Breathing heavily, she sees the figure of the medic over her. She tries to push herself up but then falters, letting herself rest back as she closes her eyes and lets the medic do what they need to do.

Constin has put himself wide out on the open, to line up a shot on the bird that had lit up the deck beneath his people. It's happened before- in the midst of chaos, that one moment of clarity lines up. As before, it happens now, and the scowling sergeant lines up the sights of the G48 Karlstov, and for a pregnant second, he has the shot. A click precedes another rush of a rocket steaking toward its target, punching into the retreating Viper and belching out a wash of heat as the explosion tears the bird apart. Letting the Karl slip to the deck beside him, Elf draws a breath. The MaA bellows, "We are the One-Ninth! Oorah!"

"We're frakking cut to ribbons! Shut up!" That might be the morpha that the corpsman slammed into Kincaid's veins talking, but it's one of those things that he shouts out in response to Constin nonetheless. He leans against the crates he's found for cover, panting heavily, still bleeding from his wounds and onto his combat blacks.

All. Out. Attack. This stirred on by Kepner's voice. Her voice is raspy. "Medics be careful -" She objects to the whole 'shooting medics' business really. A muttered 'bastards'. What monsters - oh sure, it's a good tactic for demoralizing the enemy, but dammit. Lunair "Van-" Lunair starts to call for the blonde woman but - there's no air. Are those chest wounds? Can't be. It's not fair. Her last grenade is mostly an annoyance compared to the murder havoc wrought earlier. She at least lets herself stay low and find cover, so the poor medic doesn't go down. "Good show!" She's less of the oorah variety of Marine, but one can tell she's pleased with the Marines. "Easy there, Lance. Easy …" Lunair wheezes. This breathing thing? Just got a bit more painful and unpleasant. For now, the violet-eyed officer is taking a moment to gather herself.

"What did that bas-," the rest of Lysander's words are enveloped by an explosion too close to him and his squad. More than half of them go down from the explosion, their point of cover and bodies littered here and there from the shrapnel. The Sergeant can't tell, but his helmet saved his life once again. Deafened by the concussive blast, he's reaching out blindly to stand up. He'll call for a sitrep with Charlie Two once he's back up. And once he's back up, coherent, he's calling for a medic instead- and then moving to staunch bleeding, like his arm, because folks be donating all over the deck.

Bullet wounds? Check. Sharpnel bits? Check. Spade begins to pull himself out from the cover as the fire team starts to secure. Spotting down Constin, an easy enough task to do with the bellow, the Marine begins to assess what is what. Legs unhindered and only bleeding slightly less than the rest he moves towards a better position, rifle still up as he does.

The beleaguered right flank of the three-headed Cerberus formation shatters at last. A well-placed grenade from an Areion Marine explodes directly in the middle of the van. The white lines painted on the deck begin to stink as fire burns and burns; above them, the Deck's sprinkler systems go off all at once. Cooling water begins to shower the hangar, making the ground even slicker than it was. Rivulets of blood stream from so many shattered bodies, while Navy corpsmen on both sides go to work to tend to the wounded — provided those can be distinguished from the dead in the fray.

This, as they say, is a heavy triage environment.

The troops on the left are faring better, but only just. Both medics, having stepped up, are showered with enough lead to cast a life-size statue of Kepner himself. But that Viper — still hovering — finds itself on the wrong end of Constin's G48, whose rocket sings out in all its ear-piercing glory before all the noise from the sirens and the bullets and the grenades and the fires and the deluge of water just —

Stops.

The Viper loops — loops — and in a very graceful arc, detonates in a cascade of molten metal that incinerates those unfortunate orange knuckledraggers directly beneath. A gasp of horror can be heard from behind the barricades, a gasp crushed by a defiant cry: "IS THAT ALL?!" Master Sergeant Amika Keller ranges forward, rifle at the ready. "REMEMBER WHO YOU FIGHT! WE ARE EVOCATI! AND EVOCATI WILL NOT BE BOWED!" So loud is she that one might be excused for missing the fireteam of four Marines that escorts a tall, wild-faced man still dressed in his greys. His dirty blond hair sways about his craggy features as he runs toward one of the Raptors sitting on the far side of the Deck, making for the minigun inside.

History will remember that the time is 1617 hours when Commander Rudolph Kepner joins the fray, fighting like all the rest of these men and these women for his altars and his hearths.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License