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>>>Warning. I have contacts. Lifeforms approaching. Almost certainly hostile,<<< the battlemech states over the groups internal-comms.
Atlas sets the mechanic down and quickly surveys the area. He draws his rail gun and sprints off to the side to some cover. He lowers himself prone (and odd sight for a large battle-machine) and aims his weapon downrange, the grenade launcher patiently scanning the forest's edge.
"Attie, please don't attack unless we are attacked first. And please try to not to look ready to open fire. We don't know if they are hostiles."
"Thank you so much," Jazz says to Jonis when she gets back out of the armor, "For letting me try your Glitter Girl! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
On the hike over, Jazz alternates between excitement and wonder and occasional, brief periods of moody quiet. She walks about half the time, but the rest she's happy to spend in Attie's arm, and willing to listen to him whenever he reels off a list of facts.. Though she doesn't get quite as touchy as the first time she still constantly handles everyone's tech at any opportunity. She loves seeing the wildlife and even the Fury beetles. Mercifully, she doesn't try to pet those. At night, she keeps to herself, seeming to be a little embarrassed when she's out of her armor--it makes her posture and skinny limbs even more apparent.
Jazz nods to Attie as he sets her down, and then immediately, her hands dive into her bag for a spare com piece and a couple of spare tools. She tweaks the headset, breaks it open, re-sodders a wire and flicks a piece of transparent plastic over her eyes. "And, hopefully this worked..." She says, and flicks the comm-piece on.
"I am such a genius," she says, hunkering down in the grass next to Attie and peering off at the approaching... People?
Gavryn slides his helmet on and stands tensely beside the Glitter-Girl, his rifle is pointed at the dirt, eyes scanning the area ahead. Almost subconsciously he summons his Cyber armour shell that covers his skin beneath his regular armour.
Auriel Touches the Sword tattoo on his inner-right forearm and left shoulderblade and as both tattoos fades in both color and detail an identically solid blade appears in his left hand, with a shield appearing strapped onto the right arm.
Auriel says nothing but scans the direction that the disturbance is approaching from.
Burgurk stands still, waiting to see who or what the approaching creatures are.
Jazz's vision suddenly shows her what appears a group of blue-skinned beings running out of the forest at top speed. They appear more panicked than anything. This confuses her until she sees what is right behind them, a whole squad of Coalition Skelebots, their vibroblades waving in the air as they chase the D-Bees...
As Jazz prepares her new toy, everyone else picks up on their visuals a group of blue skinned people running right towards them...
"D-Bees, but they look like non-coms," Jazz says aloud, the piece of glass over her eye lighting up with some sort of crude outline-targeting system. "They're being chased by Coalition, looks like Skelebots only." She turns, tapping Attie on the shoulder from where he's hunkered down in the grass. "Hold your fire, don't shoot the D-Bees. Once they get clear, light up the bots."
"Clear the Glitter-Girl, her fire boom will deafen you."
Auriel will move forward and begin speaking.
"Keep moving forward. We mean you no harm. We will keep you safe." Auriel will then touch his right shoulder and a set of what appears to be Roman Legionnaire armor will surround him, glowing with the same color as the leylines. As the bots approach, he will roar out a challenge.
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Atlas peers outward, trying to get a firing resolution on the still far-off targets.
>>>Target acquired,<<< he comms over the internal link. >>>We should fire as soon as the blue-skins clear the trees for maximum effect.<<<
Attie, please don't attack unless we are attacked first. And please try to not to look ready to open fire.
If Atlas could grin he would have. The old 'don't fire until closest range' was an effective tactic. Ambush plan Alpha-five-niner-Tango. Chromium Guardsman pilots always made the best combat leaders.
>>>Acknowledged Glitter Girl Pilot Jonis Witta. Will appear passive until optimum range is achieved, then will open fire. Good plan.<<<
The suggestion to not "appear" aggressive, though, was just illogical. One may as well ask his chainsword to appear passive as to ask an assault mech.
Still, if she wanted an ambush she was going to get one.
Laying behind an old tree, one of his hardened battle-fists lifts a large dead tree and deposits it just to his front, creating a sort of abatis.
= 5
True enough, behind the dead tree, at first blush, the rail gun appeared to be just another dead limb.
But as Jazz councils to not shoot the D-Bs, Atlas groans. And shrugs.
The grenade launcher purrs over to the Skelebots, calculating maximum spread.
"Attie, please don't fire on the fleeing people. Even if that means not to fire on the skelebots."
Upon hearing Jazz's description of skelebots, Burgurk takes action a couple of rounds before the skelebots arrive :
And activates his psionic mega-deflection ability, with a Raise (-6 to be hit by any attacker).
The distraction of hearing everyone talk in his ear causes him to lose his focus, and cursing, he tries again :
...and he gives up on trying to cast Smite on his weapon.
Once combat (initiative) begins, he casts his eyes on four of the skelebots, waits for them to get within range (12"), and concentrates again :
= 15, two Raises
= 8, a Raise
And mentally attacks the creatures with bolts of pure mental energy :
Skelebot #1 (Wild die result)
total
Skelebot #2
= 26 total
Skelebot #3
= 15 total
Skelebot #4 (Psionics Ace result)
= 16 total
= 4, a Success (barring any penalties)
Smiling beneath his helmet as Jazz says Skelebots, Gavryn slides his rifle to his back on its sling and begins charging across the open clearing.
" Get behind the shining robot! We will cover your retreat!" he yells to the blue folk as he charges past.
Then with a moments thought he activates his glowing blue Psi-Sword, ready to charge into battle!
Psi Sword (currently non mega damage)
Cyber Armor Shell (+2 Toughness)
Auriel's armor activates and he is surrounded by the shimmering blue of ley line power. The Coalition Skelebots seem more focused on the blue skinned humanoids than the threat now appearing from the trees..
On top of the line of Skelebots, you pick up another group of signals heading into the trees, attempting to hide in between the branches and trunks...
Burgurk waits until the last moment and then directs his power forward, into the line of Skelebots, attempting to slow them down. The first one gets past him, but is still hit. The second is not so lucky and explodes into a pile of junk. The next two also are nailed with Burgurk's power and they are destroyed instantly. More Skelebots continue to chase the D-Bees though.
Attie's targeting array adjusts and recalculates as the Skelebots run by, the hasty cover he made protecting him from their visual scanners. He is barely able to track Gavryn though as he becomes a blur, racing to place himself between the advancing metal killers and the blue folk.
In any case she will appeal to the Coalition Soldiers coming behind, using her loudspeaker.
"Citizens of the Coalition! Please refrain from attacking! These people are under protection of the Tomorrow Legion. We don't want to hurt you!"
"Speak for yourself," murmurs Jazz, not loud enough for her to hear, especially not if she's able to fire. She draws her gun, scanning the Coalition soldiers and lining up a shot with the farsight from her goggles still active.
The deafening sound of a mix of thunder and a volcanic eruption sends a shockwave through the area, a gust of wind blowing leaves from trees and branches snapping with it. At the far end of the clearing, where once was an almost full squad of Skelebots, now stands only one and a smoldering pile of junk and debris.
Over an open comm channel you hear, "You are interfering with a legal Coalition operation. Stand down or you will be destroyed."
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Atlas was confused.
Glitter Girl Pilot Jonis Witta had said not to attack unless they were fired upon, and then obliterated the robots.
Now it looked like they were bent on interfering on a legal Coalition operations.
And that was...bad? No, good. No, bad. Goodbad? ...badgood?
>>>Advise we stand down. They are correct, and we do not know anything about the situation. Wouldn't we be embarrassed if we are coming to the rescue of accused slavers?
...perhaps we should talk to both parties and gather data?<<<
The voice of Jonis reach Attie.
"Protect the people the coalition are pursuing."
Then she calls to the Coalition Soldiers again on her loudspeaker.
"Please stop. We won't let you harm innocents!"
"Your Coalition of technologists shall not harm the innocent."
Auriel swung his blade in a arc intended to destroy one of the robots.
The last Skelebot goes down amid the swing of Auriel's blade, being cut in half did not compute with its programming. The Coalition soldiers don't respond to Jonis' pleading...
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The logic board taking up five-sevenths of Atlas' temporal lobe kept trying to close a loop, but kept coming back to a chasm where there should be a logical connection.
>>>So, are we certain that there is not a non-zero percentage that the blue-skins might be guilty of legitimate crimes?<<<
His own targeting program kept flipping back and forth, putting the percentage of the blue-skins being criminals at either 3%(mild suspicion) or 78%(P̛͢U̷͢R̡̕G̛͠É ͢T̴̢̢H͞È̴̸ ͜U̕N͠Ć̨LE̕͡A̕͠҉N!̧). It was very confusing.
"Get clear! Hide in the trees! " Gavryn says to the Blue skins.
He concentrates for a second as he moves into the trees and a shimmering see through shield appears in the air before him.
His glowing Psi-Sword disappears as he grabs his rifle, takes cover behind a tree and fires on the Coalition soldiers.
Cyber Armour Shell, +2 Toughness
Deflection: 3 rounds, -2 to incoming attacks
Auriel will move forward and begin speaking.
Gavryn's shot sends one of the soldiers behind cover, the bolt glancing off his black armor. The other soldiers take cover behind trees and then take potshots out of them towards you. Each shot either misses or bounces off of your armor. All but Jazz. The shot that hits her burns a hole in her armor and puts her down, but not out.
Jazz winces and hisses as the C12 tears a chunk out of the side of her armor. Rolling over in the grass next to Attie, she tries not to lose her lined-up shot. "S&$* s%~~ s*+~ ow hot!"
Jazz clears her head, takes a deep breath, and doing her best to ignore the pain in her side, squeezes off a shot.
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As gunfire commences and hostilities initiate, Atlas frowns and sighs...if he could either frown or sigh. And as Jazz cries out in pain that solidifies the action.
He pops up, faster than anything that big has a right to move, and shifts a few meters outside of the blast radius of the panzer.
Going prone again and reasserting his firing position, he picks out the the flanking soldier and concentrates theauto-fire, assured that the rest are about to be caught in a blast radius anyway.
Out of nowhere, Attie's minigun whirs into action, sending 20mm shells at extremely high velocity towards one of the soldiers. The man doesn't stand a chance as his armor is shredded off of him and he becomes a crimson mist. If there was any chance of a cease-fire, it's gone now.
Burgurk concentrates again on the remaining four soldiers, left-to-right :
= 14
And mentally blasts them (Mega-damage) :
Soldier #1 :
= 19
Soldier #2 (with Raise)
Soldier #3 (with Raise)
= 12
Burgurk lets loose with his telekinetic power and sends on soldier smashing into a tree, slumping to the ground. Another one gets a tree branch slammed into him and a third is narrowly puts his hands up to stop a rock coming at him.
Gavryn and Auriel watch as the blue skinned folk huddle behind some trees while the firefight continues...
Jazz's pain seems to give her focus as she shoots but the shot seems to fall short as it hits one of the trees.
"Jazz! No!!!"
Another thunderous roar from Jonis' Boom Gun obliterates a large area of the forest, shredding trees, Dead Boy armor and anything else in the area indiscriminately. All that remains is a smoking crater of stumps and shattered black armor.
When the dust settles, no more laser fire appears from the forest and the blue folk are shaking and huddling behind the trees, afraid to come out...
Without undigging the Glitter Boy Jonis jumps out of it and runs towards Jazz, med-kit in hand.
"Jazz, are you ok?"
Jazz's shot goes off, needlessly, a second before the boom gun. Shielding her eyes against the wave of sound and energy that flows over the area, she scans for a moment through the wreckage, then flips the little jerry-rigged headset up over her eyes and lowers her gun. She turns to Jonis and gives her a shaky thumbs up. "Yeah, I'm gonna be fiiiiiI'm going down..." Her torso folds to her wounded side and Jazz crumples to the earth.
Half-muffled, through a faceful of grass, she says, "Actually, on second thought, do you have painkillers? I would love painkillers." She snaps her head back up, abruptly, before the pilot reaches her. "Oh, and someone should go check the D-Bees. Not you, Attie." That said, she flops back into the grass.
Auriel will dismiss his sword and shield tattoo and approach the blue-skinned humanoids.
"Hello, do you speak American?"
If they do not, he will repeat his question in each language he knows.