Pete manages to figure out which two wires connected directly will short out the force field, which drops revealing what looks a lot like a helicopter cockpit, with two more lizards inside it that seem to have been focusing on doing something with the consoles. But by the point you drop the force field they are waiting and unleash full auto bursts into the first two visible targets.
The one in a panic misses completely, the other scores 3 hits to Mark as he follows Jack in. The first two to the arm for 7 and 12 damage then one to chest for 11. All with 4 pen. The hail of fire tears into Mark slamming him into the ground stunning him for rounds along with levels of fatigue. Make an agility test or catch fire.
Pete seems to be both surprised and angered at the attacks. " Gun them down! Don't hit any of the controls! " Pete readied his shotgun.
Pete seems to be both surprised and angered at the attacks. " Gun them down! Don't hit any of the controls! " Pete readied his shotgun.
Yes he can try to dodge.
At this point everyone can act.
Hey jerk-offs, I hope this is to.....scale.
Shotgun (auto)
BS: 31+40+5-10=66
Pete rushed in and fires on the other Lizard with his shotgun. " Ashley lay into them! "
Pete rushed in and fires on the other Lizard with his shotgun. " Ashley lay into them! "
[dice=Shotgun Ballistics 110]1d100
[dice=Shotgun Damage]1d10+3
[dice=Shotgun Damage]1d10+3
[dice=Shotgun Damage]1d10+3[dice=Shotgun Damage Righteous Fury]1d10; 1d5
how do you have 110 to hit with your shotgun?
"melee only! This bird is mine!"
Roger runs in with his Bowie knife to melee the first alien
Charge attack
I don't have the books, I'm out ATM. So not sure about modifiers. Its a good machete with a custom grip
Regardless, Pete places the shotgun in his left hand and draws the longsword on his lower back and wields it in a reverse grip.
"melee only! This bird is mine!"
Roger runs in with his Bowie knife to melee the first alien1d100 Charge attack
I don't have the books, I'm out ATM. So not sure about modifiers. Its a good machete with a custom grip
you should deal with 2 pen
Regardless, Pete places the shotgun in his left hand and draws the longsword on his lower back and wields it in a reverse grip.
point blank is only +30
point blank is only +30
Regardless, Pete places the shotgun in his left hand and draws the longsword on his lower back and wields it in a reverse grip.
How is the alien feeling after my cut?
"S#~~F##!!" Anna rushes in to grab Mark and pull him out of the way with Jessica's Help.
point blank is only +30
Regardless, Pete places the shotgun in his left hand and draws the longsword on his lower back and wields it in a reverse grip.
I forgot about that.
"S~%$F%$!!" Anna rushes in to grab Mark and pull him out of the way with Jessica's Help.
I
If he dodges at least one hit he is still standing.
Otherwise at -6 HP, stunned, with 1 fatigue and potentially on fire.
Between Pete wrecking one with his shotgun and Roger hacking one apart with his machete the aliens are both dead. You see that some kind of failsafe has triggered and is spilling liquid down the control panels, which are starting to become pitted and smoking.
" S*~+! Jessica, Anna get Mark out of here. Roger Help me stop this fail safe we might be able to salvage something! Someone Else grab the remains of the guns and Lizards! If we cant stop it, try and get the mounted weapons as well. Otherwise it might blow. "
Pete takes the Combi-tool and tries to stop the damage from spreading, then passing the tool to Roger trying to do as much as he can.
Tech Use: 31
Fate Point
Jack frantically grabs his laptop (data slate), mashes buttons on the console and tries to gather whatever Intel he can before the console fries.
Bob! Search those aliens for anything useful then GTFO!
Unfortunately you are able to get little more than pictures as the acid quickly eats into the console. Your tablet can't even link to their system as there are no ports that correlate to any human computer cable you are aware of.
Roger's heart audibly breaks as the acid eats the console. To his Bowie knife he says "At least we were the first to kill an alien in melee Mr. David"
Roger radios in to Powerline to see if the radio works as he looks over what he can do to salvage any of the tech
Roger's heart audibly breaks as the acid eats the console. To his Bowie knife he says "At least we were the first to kill an alien in melee Mr. David"
Roger radios in to Powerline to see if the radio works as he looks over what he can do to salvage any of the tech
"Thi..is Pow...ine...Yo...re faint an..oken bird i..fely lan....4 I sa...ain 4 kil...ters ea...of objec... over"
" Alright, Grab what we can! "
" Alright, Grab what we can! "
After Jack snaps some pictures and Bob searches the corpses for anything useful, both Jack and Bob grab a lizard corpse and start the 4km trek back to the bird.
" Alright, Grab what we can! "
By the time you go out to look at them, acid is eating them as well.
"Self-Destruct Systems...should have seen that one coming dammit..."
"Self-Destruct Systems...should have seen that one coming dammit..."
not from what you can tell.
" Alright people seems we couldn't salvage anything, but we got information and 4 corpses and atleast one weapon that might be usable. We can have the rest be picked up. Even if there isnt anything functional, every bit can help. Looks like Powerline Landed 4 kilometers east of the area, we should go rendezvous. Anna, check Mark's wounds. "
Pete signals to the east doing a sweep, he plots out the quickest and safest route from his experience to where he would think a landing spot would be east. As he takes a moment to watch over Mark's progress.
"I'm on it, just give me a quick minute to patch him up."
Medic: 32 (int) + 10 (trained) + 20 (medkit) and if any bleeding is occurring +30 (field sutures) = 62 / 92 and Jessica's there to provide assistance too.
Pete nodded, " Granted, I want everyone to get back to base alive. I rather you take the time than not. And when we get back to the bird, maybe look at my own. Its nothing life-threatening like his. "
As she finished administering the final touches, Anna muses aloud "I wonder if an EMP would have disabled their fail safes? If it does maybe we should get the bean counters back at base to miniaturize the damn things so we could nab one without it melting on us."
"And, there you go Mark, as good as I can make you out in the Canadian Wilderness surrounded by Lizardmen Corpses and Acid."
A hail of energy bolts blasts at Mark, and he tries to roll aside.
Mark dodges two of the energy rounds, but the third hits him in the chest. His armour does little to soften the blow, and he is slammed backwards, crying out in pain as he feels the crunch of ribs breaking. He barely registers Pete and Roger's assault on the flight deck as Anna swiftly moves over and starts providing him with excellent battlefield first aid.
"Thanks Anna," he croaks through gritted teeth, the pain still immense as she patches him up.
" Good to see you arent going home in a body bag Mark. Let's get home everyone. Move out. Roger, keep Radioing Powerline. That way we can figure out the range on this Jamming or when the systems eventually fails. "
Roger pulls out his las cutter as soon as we see the acid starting to work to cut out samples of whatever he can, cutting off slices of the metal, any wall panel, as much "structure" as he can, to see what's inside the walls as well and photographing anything new he sees.
"Let's get samples of their materials and all possible fabrics, they might have more advanced alloys or fabrics that we can replicate or exploit their weaknesses"
Once he's loaded up with several samples (with more than 1 piece of each if he can, having someone else carry the extra parts) he's good to go.
"all righty, time to reverse engineer some Gecko tech"
Heading out Roger uses standard 1 meter steps and radios to Powerline the distance from the bird constantly "three meter, six meter, nine meter"
Over the first kilometer or so the signal to powerline gets progressively better, from that point on it is excellent 95% of the time.
The trip back to the helicopter is different than the one to the objective. people are quiet because they are contemplating what just happened not hyped up and on alert due to the mission.
Once you load up the chopper and start heading back it starts off even worse, everyone sitting in their corner just thinking.
Jack and Bob throw the corpses on the chopper and hop aboard. They mull over what happened today, and lament in the fact there would be no moose burgers en route back to HQ.
Pete seems to sit arms crossed, re-evaluating the events that happened during the mission. He was both impressed and bitter, having successfully fought some unknown threat but failing to retrieve the vessel intact. Similarly he was impressed with the squad's overall performance though Mark took heavy shots. Ashley realized why she stuck close to Pete sometimes, especially after that last foray. Meatier shield. The situation would mean they very well were under attack as a world and the enemy was deadly and cunning.
Debriefing was going to suck.
Roger turned a piece of the alien vessel over in his hands and resisted the temptation to experiment on it himself on the way. He was glad to see the high caliber of his team mates, although the lack of a team leader made things a little chaotic.
Turning to Lema he says somewhat absent-minded"if we can figure our the molecular structure of the acid we could make a base that would counter it ...but how do we get the quantities right when its pouring from the ceiling" Lema pats him on the head "if you can figure that out I'll buy you an apartment" Mark grins "I dread asking where it would be"
They lean back again and lose themselves in thoughts again
Hauling himself back to his feet, Mark checks over his weapons and begins to grab whatever samples he can with the rest of the squad.
The trek to the exfil site is difficult, with the pain in Mark's ribs making it difficult to breathe, but he grits his teeth and sucks it up. Selection was worse than this, it's only a couple of K, he thinks to himself.
The squad piles onto the chopper, and Mark slumps into his seat. He reflexively checks over his kit, before leaning back and closing his eyes, letting the stress of the mission flow out of him.
Without cutting into them, as Anna ponders, she just looks over the corpses looking at their physiology, the way the muscles and ligaments interact, how flexible the joints are, what the teeth look like, the eyes, etc. all the while taking notes.
Once you get to base the duty Sgt tells you that the debriefing is at 0600 tomorrow. The Col and Maj will both be there.
---
0600
Back in the briefing room you left maybe 18 hours ago, sitting with the same group that gave you that briefing.
The col starts off "so tell us what happened, we will ask questions afterwards. "
"Well, Sirs, where to begin?"
"I guess by starting with: They're Extraterrestrial, thats for sure and, after having spent some time examining the bodies theyre Reptilian; Lizardmen, if you would..."
Well sir, they are chameleon-esque lizardmen who use energy pistols, trip wire with stun grenades, intelligent enough to use the principles of war that we factor into our tactics such as kill-zones and concealment. Their UFO had energy shields on the sides with automated turret defences; their doors are energy barriers that will drop of hit with a rocket launcher.
Inside their UFO looked like a slaughterhouse, containing various cut-up animals on hooks, once we killed the pilots it triggered a fail safe that covered the console in acid and rendered the ship inoperable. Their weapons also become inoperable upon death, seems like they have some kind of biometric interface with their equipment.
I managed to take some photos, which I believe are among the first to successfully develop. Hopefully our nerd squad can make some sense of them. With this species, conventional small arms can bring them down, although they pack a punch themselves.
Bob nods.
"We can't say for sure they are extra-terrestrial, we didn't see their vehicles in action. They look reptilian so they might actually be something prehistoric that developed parallel to us at the bottom of the ocean or somehow below the earth's surface. We know solid projectiles can kill them as well as my knife."
Roger looks thoughtful
"I'll put in my will that I donate my knife to a museum post mortem, as it's the first hand weapon to kill one of these"
"How quickly do they move? Do they have any melee capability? armour or force fields on their soldiers? How quickly does the chameleon ability work? Why only the one mine?"
"They wore no discernible clothing, sir, nor any armor. As far as I could tell with my preliminary assessment, their scaly hides are what served as armor and clothing for them or at least for this bunch we encountered. I noticed no externally-visible implants either."
"As for their melee capability, we can only assume since we either shot them dead or gutted them before they could properly fight back. However, their physiology means that even unarmed they'd not be off-put in a fist fight due to their natural claws and teeth. Sadly, in the dim light, I wasn't able to properly assess their movement rates."
"The Chameleon-like ability is beyond me. The only species I've seen it act so quickly on earth would be in Cuttlefish and Octopi. I assume that the limited duration might be reliant on stress levels, impacts taken and movement of the host. If they were to stand still and unmoving with no outside forces acting on them to perturb them, I assume they'd be able to remain hidden for much longer, sir."
Pete sat lacing his fingers within themselves and leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees. He wore sagging army fatigue pats with several pockets not unlike cargo pants. A White path of Bandages and medical attention rested square in his chest, a darkblue tank top shirt covering a portion of it yet somehow drawing attention to it more with his brown skin. When it was his turn he seemed to suck in air almost dejected. Eventually standing up.
" Alright, sir. If I'm going to do this I might as well be as accurate as possible. " Placing his hands behind his back.
" We set out two kilometers from the target. Using the knowledge of the area I took it upon myself with the skill of the group and led our squad toward the indicated site. It was relatively smooth it seems within that time the targets had not gone far from the vessel. We met some of the wild fauna but encountered no resistance one kilometer in. "
" One hundred meters from the clearing I had a suspicion it was a trap. Separating the group into rear support and flanking positions, The advanced guard of Jack, Bob, Ashley and Myself we set the trap off on our own terms. The rest of the squad hid themselves in wait as best they could. When the trap initiated an explosive of great magnitude knocked us to our feet, the radius was at least six meters. It released a green energy and then we were under attack. Initially the shots seemed to come out of no where, but with a combination of Suppression Fire, Stealth and positioning we eliminated them. Their hide was not wholly resilient to bullet wound trauma. You can thank Anna for that brilliant outcome, she was the first to Suppress the enemy. Mark Flanked them. "
" As Jack recounts, once they had died their weapons had a fail-safe. I'm sure the Engineers are having a field-day with the samples. They were Lizardlike and even after death in little time perhaps seconds scales would adjust to the environment. They did not carry heavy weaponry but powerful energy pistol-like armaments. Based on interaction I put forth we call these creatures Spectres. Light armed, Stealth capability, deadly strikes, used for scouting and guerilla tactics. "
" After Killing the first contact Roger there located the Ship, which was cloaked, it fired upon our squad with automated weaponry after the rocks bounded of its hull. Taking it upon myself I drew the fire closing the distance. This allowed Jack to breech the side which was using some sort of force field as their doors. Getting inside I figured out a way to disable the systems. This proves their technology, while clearly advanced, are not out of scope of our capability. The inside housed several sample of wildlife inside, much like a butchery. The upper end of the craft held another forcefield which, due to wanting to preserve the craft, used the skills of Roger and I. This took some time which when done gave the two Spectres inside time to activate the fail-safe on the ship. After blasting Mark at point blank range Jack and I laid into one with shotgun fire while Roger executed another with his Knife. We retrieved as much intel as possible and retreated as the ship seemed to scuttle. I have sent word to our people directions to retrieve whatever might be left. "
" That is all, Whatever was jamming the radio signals persisted after a kilometer from the site. That either means the ships existence interferes with our communications or there was another device that did so. Overall I say everyone performed adequately and we had no casualties. Despite the fact we had no commanding officer. You may ask more questions. "
"was there any indication what the animals were for? Why did their automated weapons not engage you earlier? At what point did the failsafes engage?"
" Likely either Food, Experimentation or Categorization would be my guess. The Automated weapons did not likely perceive us as a threat. Once the rocks struck the ship that must have done so. another reason could have been our realization of its positioning and thus its programming to eliminate threats. A cloaking field is useless if you alert yourself to undesirables early. And as I have said, the Spectres upon death and the Ship upon calculated inputs from the cockpit Spectres. "
"excellent work troops, unfortunately one of the other options is no longer available. Something causes the ranch at the centre of the missing animals to burn to the ground last night. But in the jungle, the village we predicted to be attacked was. Our analysts already have a projected next target for tonight.
We also have an above average number of people missing in Canyonlands national park. 13 people have gone missing there in the last week.
And several copies of photos and video show a man in Vancouver firing an energy pistol and staring at people with glowing red eyes have surfaced on social media in the last 48 hours."
" Thank you sir. It seems there is no rest for the wicked. Personally, I think its time we stop the enemies assault against those people in the Jungle. We need to show them they cannot do as they please. Especially considering we took the last mission assuming we would get some sort of knowledge. Is it possible to run concurrent missions Sir? Assuming we are not fully unable? The previous village, was there any operatives to get the people out in time? "