Assault on Decker's Hideout - Marines
A couple of hours south of Trenton is wooded region with intermittent valleys that are bespeckled with farms or secluded little homes, connected by dirt roads. The location that Eliza gave up as Decker's hideout is a ten acre spread of land with some overgrown gardens around a little home with attached garage. There's also what looks like a small, crashed ship half-buried in the field, partially overgrown by weeds and vines, so it's been there for a least a couple of years, if not longer. It looks like an ASREV-class ship with the name 'Starfire' scrawled on it's side, but one of the wings is broken off halfway, the tip missing completely. Despite it's rundown appearance, the crashed ASREV looks like it's actually *running*.. or at least, the reactor is. There are some running lights lit as well, and some heavy cables running from the ASREV to the house.
As for the house, it looks like an old, unkempt home that's been neglected for some time. The paint on the siding is peeling, a couple of the windows are boarded up, and the chimney is partially crumbled, the top having fallen away.
The marines and the crew of the Praemia have convened about a mile away, landing in a clearing where their ships will be protected, and they collectively decided to move in via mules. Now, hidden back behind some thick trees and overgrowth, the collective group has assessed the 'hideout' and decided to split up, the marines approaching the Starfire from the west, across an overgrown pumpkin field, and the Praemia folks approaching the house from the east through a mucky pond that's more mud than water. <English>
The Marines pull up along the western edge of the overgrown, vine-ridden pumpkin field. The ASREV is about two acres in from the edge of the property and the hum of it's reactor can be faintly heard. There are no signs of anybody around. It's quiet otherwise, only the sounds of birds in the trees or insects drifting to the prepped soldiers. <English>
Lt (JG) Heather Jacy has a grand total of two Marines with her, Corporal Boycott and PFC Gooch, since that's all she could pull off Deadwood Reaver mopping-up duties. Still, at least it's a semi-official venture right now, the mention of weapons of mass destruction (and the chance of putting one over on the DAS) being reason enough for the powers-that-be to send Jacy and the two Marines to 'investigate'. "Investigate, Lieutenant, that's strictly all," she has been told. So, naturally, she's investigating from the front.
All three Navy personnel are in the Alliance battledress - basically Impax armor with NBC capabilities, and all three Navy personnel have the NBC masks in place. "Try not to shoot the Praemia crew," has been Jacy's terse orders. "Amateurs," she adds dismissively, completely disregarding the fact that Anya's interrogation of Eliza has actually had results. Whether they're good results or not will stand to be seen. As for Decker, she gives a dutiful cover-your-ass order: "Take him alive if you can." She doesn't sound too enthusiastic about the 'if you can' business, though. <English>
So there they are at the edge of the field, just under cover. It's twilight. The hour of dimming light, when minds are naturally winding down with the setting of the sun and easing up on the mentality of the daily grind and thinking more about dinner or what the evening's recreation might bring. The house is another acre from the crashed ship, and the Praemia folks are even further yet. Jacy's task is to look at the ship. So far, it looks crashed, and like it's not going anywhere. <English>
The three Marines are laid flat in the first few yards of pumpkins, Jacy using her Steiner-Zeiss monocular with IR scanner and ranging HUD to examine the ship and the house. "Let's see what the heat-signatures look like," she mutters to herself. Of course the Praemia crew and the Marines will have a common comm frequency agreed beforehand, but she's also talking to the Marines on their own private encrypted frequency. Gooch, a young woman with very short-cropped hair, is a few yards away, staring through a massive telescopic sight down the barrel of his own L85, while Boycott, an older fellow with a scar turning his mouth into a perpetual sneer, is alert to closer threats. <English>
As they look over the area with the scanning visors, the first thing they'll notice is a lot of fluctuations in the air. There's some kind of electronic field that is pouring out of the house and interfering with a lot of the readings. In fact, come to think of it, they haven't heard anything from the Praemia crew, nor has the Praemia responded to any of the communications from the marines. Some kind of communication dampener? Likely.
As for the IR readings, the ship itself is glowing brightly, the hull bleeding off the heat from the sun beating down on it all day. In the field itself, dozens of little spots pop up, little tiny heat signatures that seem strange to be pumpkins. Looks more like the heat signature off of something electronic. <English>
"In the field. What do you make of those heat sigs?" Jacy asks Boycott in a low voice, passing him the monocular. "Has some fucker mined the approaches? Can you tell from here?" Clearing a minefield isn't going to be a problem - they have grenades for the squat little grenade launchers on their L85s. Clearing a minefield /quietly/ is less easy. <English>
Boycott flips some settings on his visor, "The electronic readings are getting scrambled." Even his voice over the comm is whibbling a bit with distortion. "Looks like mines of some kind." <English>
Heather Jacy sighs. "Oh, great. That's just gorram great," she mutters. "Are there any heat sigs in the house? And is there a clear path between the house and the ship?" Gooch, chewing steadily on some gum, chips in, "M'am? My guess is that they're anti-personnel claymores. Maybe tripwires, maybe prox or heat-sig detonators. They're kinda close together to be anti-vehicle mines." Jacy mutters under her breath, but can't disagree with Gooch's assessment. <English>
Boycott 'hhmmms' thoughtfully. "Well.. I think I could pick out a path. I can't see as many between the ship and the house." He gets up onto his knees and fiddles with a magnification setting. "Looks like some kind of dirt walking path, along those power cables. I see heat signatures in the house, kinda blurry. A lot of distortions. Could be people.. could be an oven with dinner cookin' in it." <English>
"How many signatures in the house? Give me a worst-case, Corporal," Jacy mutters as she thinks. "And give me a path that'll take us up to the house or the ship with minimum contact with the mines. Gooch, see if you can raise Ozera's crew." She's grumpy when faced with minefields. Well, who wouldn't be? <English>
"Uhh.. looks like.. maybe.. five.. lieutenant. Maybe more. Some are moving in and out of range. I have a lot of ghosting on my readings. It could be glitching." Boycott replies. "I see a path." He gets into a crouch and carefully starts advancing, working his way through the pumpkin field with careful steps. Gooch isn't having any luck, "Ma'am, I'm not getting anything. Just static." <English>
Thinking hard, Jacy comes to a quick decision. "Gooch, you're tail-end-Charlie. Keep back, keep out of the minefield, and when the shooting starts, cover us. Boycott, let's clear the ship first. I don't want some genius sending the reactor critical if we can avoid it. Ozera's civilians don't have NBC suits," she says sourly, indicating that this is clearly a personal failure of Anya herself. "Head for the ship. If they spot us and start shooting, watch your footing. Look for tripwires. I'll cover you, and I'll walk where you've walked." <English>
Gooch settles in with her weapon ready, "Yes, ma'am." Meanwhile, Boycott creeps through the field with a steady, sure step. He points out mines, pumpkins, and vines alike, moving at a decent pace with all the confidence of a secret agent navigating a hallway full of criss-crossing lasers. As they near the ship, they'll both see the heat signature of warmth pouring out of what is the open cargo door. The ramp is sealed up, but the hatchway door is hanging open. There are the beginning signs of rusting around the metal components of the ship that are exposed to the elements. However, it should be noted that the closer they're getting to the house, the worse the electronic interference is on the scanning visors. They're flickering and fritzing a lot now. There's definitely some kind of dampening going on. Maybe this is how they've avoided detection from low-flying patrol ships. <English>
Heather Jacy steps over a vine that may or may not be a tripwire and taps Boycott on the shoulder, pointing back at the house, then at Boycott, then spreading forefinger and middle finger to point to her own eyes. Watch the house. Then she's approaching the cargo door, senses straining to pick out any sign of life..or death...around her and within the open cargo bay. <English>
Boycott gives her a nod and carefully moves up flat against the Starfire, keeping his eyes on the house and his weapon ready. As Jacy creeps up to the open hatch and peeks in, she'll see the cargo bay of the gutted, disarmed ASREV. There are boxes stacked up, and what looks like a couple of coolers rigged up, wires running off towards the engineering hatch. In fact, there are a lot of wires running through that hatch. Some are the heavy cables that lead outside and to the house. Others are running up the ladder to the crew area above.
There's a man in a flak jacket sitting in a fold-out lawnchair, yawning in boredom as he reads a magazine. He doesn't seem to have noticed Jacy. However, he's not alone. In his lap is a Reising M55, one hand lightly resting on the weapon. Over the humming of the reactor and the buzzing of electricity running through the cables, a small radio is playing some music, though where the radio's actually located is not immediately obvious. <English>
Jacy backs off slightly, out of sight of the fellow with the Reising, and she looks over at Boycott. When he makes eye contact she points inside, raises a single finger, and does some complicated gesture that means 'follow and cover me'. Then she lowers her L85, sets it to burst mode, and starts to move slowly back up the ramp. Mentally she's making the decision to try to keep things as quiet as she can, at least until the shooting starts. Outwardly her eyes are cold behind the lowered visor of the inhuman-looking armor; just the black visor, and some curves indicating that she's a woman, visible to the external observer. <English>
The man with the magazine is rather oblivious of impending disaster at first. It looks like a tittie mag based on the cover art -- Buxom babes with boobs out. Jacy makes it to the top of the ramp and can get behind some boxes with 'Beaumonde Technitronix' stamped on the side.
When Boycott is about halfway up the ramp, that's when the fellow glances up, noticing the movement. A marine in full battle gear is rather unmistakable and alarming. The magazine is thrown to the ground and rifle brought up to bear, pointed at Boycott with trigger already being depressed. <English>
Enough of this nicey-nicey shit. Her Marines are being shot at, and while this is Jacy we're talking about, she's not exactly emotionally attached to them, she /is/ annoyed at this affront to her command style. So she sways around the side of the crates she's behind and opens up with the L85, a burst at the fellow to try to fell him. Boycott, too, will almost certainly fire back, since he's probably more than a little annoyed at feeling the rounds slam into his armor. <English>
The man's shot with the Reising M55 is brilliant considering he reacted so quickly. However, the armor of the marines is superb. The bullets deflect away as if the man were shooting bb pellets instead of .45 rounds. Then the marines open fire and while Boycott's aim is a bit off, Jacy's pumps some into the thug with trained accuracy and efficiency. The man screams and fires a second shot, this one towards Jacy, before he dives for the hatch down to the engine access, barely reaching it and spilling over to fall down through it.
The sound of the gunshots alerts someone above, because a second thug looks down from the access hatch above and starts shooting at the marines, yelling Spanish obscenities. <English>
Boycott curses and rolls into cover behind some crates, although in truth with their Impax armor they could stroll up to the hatch and tweak their assailants' earlobes without taking significant damage. But it's the principle of the thing. Boycott opens up with another burst towards the access hatch above, while Jacy switches to her grenade launcher and tries to send a grenade down the hole after magazine-man. That'll cause a few headaches in a confined space. Let's just hope she gets the grenade down the hole, then. It's just like Beggar's Canyon back home, isn't it, Luke? <English>
There's a womanish scream up above as the assailant with the Tavor rifle is pegged by Boycott. She fires back, switching the weapon to auto mode and unloading at Boycott.
Jacy's grenade shot is a beautiful arc, but the grenade clips the edge of the hatch and flies wide, landing and rolling behind some boxes that are labeled Manderly Munitions.
There's a moment of stillness, the sound of the music coming out of the radio in that brief lull before there's the explosion of the grenade *BOOM*, the boxes bursting to pieces and metal and plastic shrapnel flying everywhere. Then there's a second explosion off in the corner near the closed cargo ramp, other boxes, and Boycott, some other incendiary device triggered and blowing. *KABOOM* Those boxes burst and must have had glass in them that shatters as it's projected all over the cargo bay and smoke fills the air. <English>
Boycott sticks to his orders, concentrating his fire on the woman with the Tavor, unleashing another short, controlled burst. Jacy ducks behind her own little crate of salvation, and she's expecting at least the first explosion (because she caused the gorram thing), so when it happens she breaks cover and charges across towards the floor hatch. This time there's a flashbang in her hand, because by gosh she's going to get this grenade down the hole if she has to physically shove it down there herself. <English>
After Boycott gets that shot off, the explosions throw him off his feet and he slams hard into a bulkhead before falling limp to the floor. It looks like he got the woman above, however. She topples down the hatch (not using the ladder) and hits the debris-strewn floor of the cargo bay hard, blood leaking from many parts of her body.
As Jacy sprints across to the hatch, that first thug is poking his rifle up and spraying towards the charging marine. Just as he ducks back down defensively, Jacy's flashbang rolls down into the engine access and there's a loud POP and a flash of light. The ship's lighting flickers for a moment, but stays lit. <English>
Heather Jacy reaches the hatch a moment after the explosion and fires down into it, emptying her magazine down into the engine room below. Subtle she ain't. There's a hardness in her eyes as she squeezes the trigger, the L85 bucking in her arms like a living thing as she unleashes its wrath into the confined compartment. Her armor is doing a grand job of filtering out the cordite and smoke and gas, so she's just breathing in that slightly metallic taste of the recycled air. She glances briefly towards the downed woman, trying to judge if she's still alive. <English>
Some deity somewhere must love the crazy navy lieutenant, because as she's unloading that magazine into the access tunnel, the flashes of light from the weapon illuminate not only the corpse she's pumping full of bullets, but several fuel cans that are stuffed under the reactor that the crawlspace parallels. The bullets ricochet off of the hull and metal components, but somehow manage to miss both the fuel cans and the reactor itself, which is running.
Meanwhile, the cargo bay is thick with smoke. The woman on the flood is still leaking significant blood all over the floor, her flesh draining of color. <English>
At the sight of the confirmed corpse, and the fuel cans, Jacy's gloved fingers come off the trigger as though she were stung. Then she's turning to the woman, letting the L85 drop on its sling across her chest and instead drawing her Walther, placing it between the woman's eyes. If the woman is indeed capable of rational thought still, her last impressions must be of the dreadful Alliance armor looming over her, the cold ring of the end of the barrel pressing into her mutilated flesh. "Where's Decker?" rasps Jacy's voice. <English>
The woman sprawled on the deck plating is at an unnatural angle, her hair soaking full of the blood that's leaking from a bullet wound in her head. She stares at Jacy, but there's no words from her mouth, only choking, bubbling blood spurting out as she convulses and twitches, her body dying. <English>
There's a single shot echoing through the cargo bay as Jacy's finger closes on the trigger, ending the woman's suffering. Then, her Walther still in her hand, she's hurrying to Boycott's side, checking the vital indicators on his armor. She isn't going to risk breaking open his NBC seal, not yet. "Boycott, dammit, talk to me," she snarls, trying to watch for threats coming from all directions at once. <English>
Boycott is unconscious, but according to his suit, his vitals are relatively stable. He's bleeding from the bullet wounds, but it's not critical. As she's crouched over him, there's the sound of a voice upstairs, very faint but it sounds like they're yelling. "... -ow.. dead... ..apped.. !!" <English>
Heather walks over to the hatch that leads up, slotting another magazine into the L85 as she goes. She keys her mike for public address, and her voice booms out. "This is the Alliance Navy. Throw your weapons down the hatch and come down with your hands up, if you want to live. You have five seconds to comply. Five." <English>
There's no response from above.
Heather primes another grenade. "Four. ThreeTwoOneZero. Fuck it." She tosses the grenade up through the hatchway. <English>
As Lieutenant Jacy shifts her weight to throw the grenade up through the hatch, her boot slips on the dead woman's blood that's all over the floor and the grenade rebounds off of the ladder and falls back into the cargo bay. Heather has enough time to take cover before there's another *BOOM* that resounds through the cargo bay, more debris flying through the air and further smoke filling the bay. <English>
Heather curses at the skid, which is totally the fault of the dead woman on the floor and not on, you know, the dead woman on the floor getting shot a lot. She just hunkers down, covering the hatch in the sky with her L85, and tries to raise Gooch. "What's happening out there?" she mutters into the comm. And then a thought strikes her. She squints at the power cables running from the ship to the house. Thinking. <English>
There's no response from Gooch outside, only static over the comm. Either the jammer is knocking out their communication, Gooch is busy, or Gooch tried to get to the ship and made friends with a land mine. Probably one of the first two. Jacy's on her own. There's no sound from up the ladder. The cargo bay is a mess of broken, burnt container debris, shattered glass, exploded dead woman that's not spread all over the floor, and smoke swirling about. <English>
Heather figures this one out. And not only that, but she gets to blow up more shit. She takes one more grenade and scoots over to tuck it into the cable bundle as it emerges from the engineering hatch, wedging it into place with her boot. Then she pulls the pin and runs for the cover of a bulkhead. Add another to the list of explosions heard by Anya and the cavalry! <English>
As the next grenade goes off, another boom echoes thunderously in the cargo bay, and this time all the cables are blasted to pieces with it, frayed ends flying about and electrical flashes and sparks showering from the exposed wires as that land about the deck like maimed, thrashing snakes while they discharge electrical current. One wire lands against one of the ship's power conduits and there's a horrible hissing, thrumming sound before it pops loudly and suddenly the entire ship goes dark, the reactor whining, shuddering, and powering down with some very unpleasant scraping noises. Everything is silent. It's dark in the cargo bay, the smoky haze blocking what was left of twilight outside.
*Beep*.... a few seconds go by.. then *beep*... and again.. and again. Up through the hatch above, something is beeping. <English>
It could be a smoke alarm with a low battery, right? No. Probably not. Jacy lets the L85 dangle, then runs over to grab Boycott, because she's a big damn hero and she'll have to drag Boycott out of there rather than leaving him to his fate - even Heather Jacy isn't so callous that she would leave him. Well, actually, she IS that callous, but this isn't the time or place for that. Struggling under the weight of the man plus the armor, she grasps the loop at the nape of his neck and drags him painfully (for him) down towards the ramp, praying that young PFC Gooch is keeping heads down over at the house. <English>
