Pete has several small heart attacks in rapid succession. One when he drops his gun, one when he heard footsteps, several when the patrol approaches. He's stunned that the rock trick works and hurries to the next tower at Aurius's urging.
Squadnet: "IN-Team we might have to take on the returning patrole if they notice us. Try to move to a side of the camp where you're not in the path of an orkish stampede if things go wrong."
"Father, we'll have to make some room here if we don't want to be spotted."
As Pete starts to fiddle with the explosives, he accidently connects a wire
wrong - this would prevent the explosive to trigger.
Pvt. Smith looks confused at first, then stops Pete's hands and presents him
the wrong-connected wire.
Meanwhile nearly 700m from them ...
Commissar Ansley really has a streak of good fortune, as he first detects a
closeby heap of rock that would prove good cover - why they did not went
there in the first place remains a mystery to him ever after...
After a whispered conversation with Bolus, he takes the lead and quietly crosses
the few dozen meter to their new cover. He is so quiet, that not even Bolus
hears him move - making it all but impossible for the closing Orks!
Bolus really really wants to set the orks on fire. But his respect for the hierarchy of the Imperium overrides his hatred of the orkish filth. He follows the commissar, copying his motions as best he can.
Bolus and his comrade do their best to follow the commissar - not exactly silent, but also not terribly noisy.
Lind, who carefully observes the Orks at this point, notices one of the Gretchins suddenly stop, and looking in their direction.
You can guess that he says something, because the whole group stops a few moment later, but you can not hear the voice of the small Ork.
What you can definitely hear, is the angered voice of one of the big Orks as he 'replies'.
"Whooz now, Snaga? He'in fings 'gain?! Wuzz wrong wif ya?
Me can hear nuf'in. Ten 'eres nuff'in, hear 'at? NUFFIN!
Now move, or me squigg ya! We ner'y at Boss Campa-Steala's camp!
He hav sum gud boys. Wif 'em we can mosh da hummies fer gud!"
And with that, the 'discussion' is over and the group continues their path, on a
direct course towards the camp... and the minefield MacVyger had set somewhere
on the way...
Commissar! Bolus whispers Will that damaged filth not set off our means of covering our escape? Is that acceptable?
The setting of the charges on the second tower turned out to be nearly fatal for everyone involved in it - or being within its average vicinity for that matter.
First Pete was about to connect to completely unrelated wires - which would
have caused to charge to do nothing whatsoever.
That pointed out by the helpful watchful eye of Pvt. Smith, Pete 'corrects'
himself. In his eager to do it right, he connects the wire he was holding
directly to the triggering mechanism. A moment of utter shock and realizations
follows by the quick relief as he discovers that he does not have put in the
power source into the device. So what could have been terminally fatal, turned
out to be only a 'minor' hiccup and 'short' heart-attack.
After that near-death experience, the setting of the charge wents over neatly.
At the same time Pete is done with setting the second charge of the evening -
leaving him with two more 'reserve' charge packs - the sound of confusion
coming from within the camp ends in an abrupt shouting-game and the report of
a way-to-noisy gun and the sound of two falling bodies.
"YA STUPID, OR 'AT?! OH BOY, LOOK OUTSIDE NOW !!!!
AN 'ERES MY FLUFFY, YA GROXES?!"
As the shouting stopped in an awkward silence, you notice something FLYING over
the man-height metal-wall in a somewhat ballistic arc, landing a couple of
meters from your position.
Your goggles show you an incredibly ugly ... ball of teeth with powerful legs.
It looks directly at you, growling loudly, showing of row upon row of
razor-sharp teeth.
Aurius, still operating under stealth pretenses will attempt to knife the life out of the squig so that they don't immediately give away their position.
"Smith, Pete, if things go south, you are ordered to retreat and make sure those explosives go off once the big guns arrive. I'll do what I can to draw them away from you and give you a window."
He'll redraw his knife and run towards the thing and get in between it and Pete/Smith so that they might be able to retreat to a more secure location and ensure that the explosives detonate as the mission requires.
"Alirght this place looks good. Now we have all the time in the world to aim for their ugly necks, if we even need to."
The commissar will place his hotshot las pistol on the ground next to himself and aim for one of the orks in the group with his lasgun.
Since he has to watch them intensly to aim for them anyway he checks where they are headed. Since there is a barricade where the IN-Team is planting charges they should not be headed there, or even towards the mine field they planted.
-> The commissar will engage them before they reach the mine field, as that is ment for a lot more orks from the other direction but he has hope that they'll simply walk past and return to camp without being much of a bother now that the ambush team is out of sight
The snapping teeth of the little Xeno lifeform sound fearsome.
But that is nothing compared to the fearsome, brutal force with which it attacks! A powerful jump brings it up to Aurius' face, opening it's maw wide for a bite to the face!
R, Pen:0
The teeth of the creature clashes against the well crafted helmet of the Storm Trooper, emitting a noise that is not easy to forget.
Luckily, it's teeth do not bite deep (yet)!
The Ork/Gretchin group that nears the camp, continue their advance in a straight line. Whether they don't know were it's entry is, or simply don't care is beyond you, but they take the exact same route the IN-team took on their way in.
They will probably reach the minefield within the next minute.
A spotlight waves over the advancing group of Ork, wandering off as if the Ork waving it around were not able to spot a total of 6 of its kind, brightly illuminated ...
Team-Com: The whispering voice of MacVyger speaks up: "On our way to the lascht tower - 10 meter out. Passched kind of a gate at the schouth of the camp. Turmoil in the inschide. Have schpotted two groupsch heading out of the gate a few momentsch ago. Looked like they are schearching for schomething. Were you dischcovered?"
Grunting at the Kerunch sound his helmet makes as the Squig comps down, Aurius, being the tough SOB that he is, slams his free arm onto the squig to keep it locked in place while he brings up his knife to stab at it.
In his own minds eye this is quite the gruesome battle but for outside spectators, were it not for the fact that both combatants were trying to kill each other, it would border on the silly what with a storm trooper trying to stab a toothy watermelon planted onto his head.
"Guh, Ca-Can't talk...ri-guh-right now, busy!" Aurius hisses back, squig growls audible in the background.
Pete is frozen. Melee was the last place he wanted to be, but Aurius looked like he was having trouble not being swallowed whole. He thinks desperately of what he can do. Any of his weapons will be too loud...
He draws his knife. He unloads his weapons onto Mord and motions him to fall back, then begins circling. Once at the thing's back he attacks it!
The 'watermelon-with-too-much-teeth' tries to gnaw and gulp down Aurius' helmet - but it's teeth are simply not designed for such activity and they glide off once again, the creature slumping down to the ground after it's futile attacks - growing with unconstrained anger.
Miraculously, the Ork on top of the watchtower seems not to notice the muffled sound of battle echoing from just underneath his position and the mad melee continues...
Pete tries again to stab the thing without success
"C'mon you toothy sonova..." Aurius growls as he lunges once again with his knife with little regard for keeping himself out of bite range since its teeth have, so far, proven ineffective against his gear.
Auriius swipe opens up a tiny gash of the disghusting creature's hide, letting
a small amount of green blood out. Despite the minor wound, the creature let
out an aweful loud screetching sound that sounds like a metal object getting
grinded by an enourmous machinery.
Once again, the little Ork is unable to penetrate the thick hide of it's enemy.
But a "Ehhh, wuz'ya sa'in?" coming from above and a "Bozz, Bozz, iz
he'ed Fluffy sc'eamin. For sure! Near da towaz over 'ere!" tells you, that
the scream of your enemy finally reached someone's ears ...!
Pete tries his best but he just can't get a good stab in...
You are not part of the players squad - yet. Your CO is Sgt. Dominges and you were riding the Chimera "Angulus" until now.
While the players advanced, you had a bit of idle time, until Dominges decides to distribute his forces a bit better.
"In case of disaster, we should not die all at once, eh?
Liam, Weyland, Jorn, Roberto.
Get your stuff and head over to Margret. You will hitch a ride with the Lady for now. If things devolve to a clusterf*@% - as always - you are part of whichever squad happens to end next to you.
Now get over there."
++++
After moving over, greeting the driver and gunner of Margret - both are rather silent fellows but greet you friendly nevertheless - you settle in the crew compartment and listen to the teams vox.
It's rather nerve wrecking hearing all the close calls during the advance and you have the feeling that it can only be seconds, before everything will get hectic ...
Liam finds a seat where he slumps in a rather undignified pose.
Roberto is quick to join him, but while Liam slumps due to perpetual boredom, Roberto's slump is due to laziness.
Opening his medikit to check it over, Liam shakes his head and sighs.
"No stimms, no de-tox, no suture...
Whomever I am going to operate on can thank the emperor that I am as good as I am..."
"FethFethFethFeth! We gotta kill the damn thing and get outta here ASAP or we ain't going to last long with those things boss possibly on the way!" Aurius hisses behind clenched teeth as loud as he dared lest they locate them faster, lunging to stab the squig once again and landing a solid blow that, once again, punctures it skin to draw some blood but doesn't seem to do all that much.
"Commissar, sir, we might be in some trouble, they've got Squig Hounds and one of them found us." he says over his combead interrupted by the occasional grunt of exertion as he tries to skewer the thing alongside its own growls as it gets close to him trying to rip him to shreds and the sound of screeching carapace armour.
"Just stick that Plasma Pistol you received down its throat and fire. Muffles the sound and they are not so tough on the inside.
We have a group returning which is not worth the mine field, we're engaging. Be ready to start the distraction and pull out if large amounts of orks start moving."
Lind ties the splits of his 2 Frak Grenades together so they can be thrown easily as one, then braces again and says while aiming: "Take Aim..., Fire." then and fires on overload and semi auto.
Toughness damage
The second knife-strike opened the previous wound some more, letting more blood
spurting out. The creature does not look very good. Maybe another swing will
finish it off?
For now though, it's mad howl and the snap-snap of it's oversized maw tells
you, that is alive enough to counter attack!
R, Pen:0
From inside the Camp: "WUUTZ?! FLUFFERZ' SCRIMIN?! 'ET OUT 'ERE AND FIND 'ER!
OII, BOYZ, 'AKE SUM LIGHTZ!!"
Pete is quick enough to disable his goggle and close his eyes, as suddenly all spotlights flame up - in a kind of broadcast-mode illuminating the camp and at least 50m of it's surrounding with blinding light.
Aurius, focused on the squigs - that just made another futile attempt to bite through the tough Storm Trooper's armor - is not so lucky and surprised by the sudden light.
Bright spots of light are filling his vision, and everything else vanishes in a wave of pain...
++++ Ambush team ambushes ambushed Orks ++++
Commissar Lind Ansley starts the attack with a perfectly aimed salvo of lasgun
fire.
His lasfire crosses all over the Ork, burning away flesh and sending the creature howling to the ground where it continues to twitch and howl in pain, surprise and anger.
Just as the surprise attack of Lind and Bolus hit, the bright light flashes up. Being outside the illuminating-circle, both men just have to blink the sudden light away, but are not in danger of getting blinded.
"GAH FETH ME EYES!" and Aurius starts swinging for the Squig blindly in frustration trying to home in on the sounds its making.
R, Pen 0 Damage
S$~$ hitting the proverbial Mars-Pattern Air Accelerator Mk MMVI, Aurius more or less drops all pretense of stealth and just stabs furiously at the squig.
"COME HERE YOU LITTLE S!%! I'M GOING TO GUT THE F$$$ OUT OF YOU AND TURN YOU INTO A BALL!" he pretty much shouts through tear-filled and blinded eyes as he shoves his goggles up and out of his face, onto his forehead.
- 3dos
= 8 damage
Pete stabs wildly at the thing and finally hits! He raios Mord and says, Mord! Meet us on the way back I may have to cover us!
The cross-stab of Aurius wild swing and Pete's wild attack, finally manages
to put the little creature down. With a last whipp it slumbs to the
ground. You hear a voice directly above you shout a scream of surprise. As you
look up, you directly look into the face of the Ork guard.
The moment of surprise is over in the blink of an eye and the Ork starts to
shout into the camp: "BOSS! 'UMMIES! 'EY 'ERE! AN 'EY MOSHED FLUFFERZ!"
This results in an agonnized scream of condensed hatred echoing from within the
camp that ends in a long cry of that get
echoed by a multitude of bestial voices all over the camp!
Right into this, the voice of MacVyger comes over the team's vox: "Well,
schit. Commissar, we're schpotted. Kalemisch, get back and throw a nade on the
charge. It schould trigger it. I plant the lascht one with a 20 schecond
countdown."
"Alright boys, we've killed the toothy ball, now we're getting the feth outta here and blowing this place sky high. MOVE MOVE MOVE!"
And with that, Aurius will kick the squigs corpse and start ushering his charges away from the ork camp before announcing to the Commissar "We're also on our way back, looks like we killed their bosses pet."
Pete sprints away from the scene of the crime and generally toward Mord (and all his weapons). He covers the distance between them rather quickly and grabs his launcher. Time to set off those charges a little prematurely.
Weyland is damn excited to get a new Chimera to drive. I hope it's not a piece of s+#+, although I do have some ideas if it is...
Looking over at Liam "Sounds like we're in for some excitement, you might want to keep that medkit open"
Liam merely snorts.
"For all the good it will do, I don't even have my bonesaw for amputations.
Better hope nobody needs a limb hacked off...."
Bolus rises out of cover like an avenging geriatric angel and shouts The Emperor's FIRE take you!
Squadnet: "Distraction go. Charges go once clear. Head for Ambush. Pop smoke on heavy incoming fire."
Commandnet: "Infiltration spotted. Most charges planted. Requesting immidiate mission start."
The commisar takes another moment to aim and fires another burst from the lasgun.
Command Net: Lt. Harker responds nearly immediatelly: "Roger that. We're
out. Light-em up when ready."
Despite the noise of battle erupting all around, you can clearly hear the sound
of several engines kicking in at once in the distance.
Squad: MacVyger responds a few seconds later "Dammit, yesch! Letsch
schtart thisch!" YOu can literally hear a trigger being pressed over the
com. Then the 'distraction' starts off. Smoke starts to billow, bright lines
of colourful light shouts towards the ork camp, crackers emit noises from within
the smokeshield. It's marvelous, really!
One of the towers on the far side of the camp, shakes violently under a starting
rocket from it's launcher - the noise drowning out any other noise as the
missile is screeching towards the distraction - missing misserably and adds
a new crater to the wasteland several dozen meter beside it.
The surprising fire onslaught dropped one Ork and the other (hit to the head by
Bolus) waves his weapons around like blinded while howling in pain.
The Gretchins - surprised and fearsome-by-nature - take the sudden ambush not
well. Three of the four break and run away in different direction, the fourth
firing his weapon in the direction of the ambushers. The pathetic weapon
is not able to fire the projectile more than half the distance though.
The follow-up salvo of the Commissar sets the Ork he had dropped in the ambush
on fire and the creature simply drops to its side.
Pete, Aurius, Smith and Mord are sprinting from the tower, bringing several
dozen meters between them and the ork tower.
Between the franatic run, the screeching missile and the noise of an approaching
Ork horde, the four are surprised, as a long burst of solid projectiles start to
land all around them.
But not only around them though. The sheer amount of bullets that are fired at
them from atop the tower, ensure several hits on them as well ...
Aurius takes a hit square on his back, the bullet punching through
his armor with easy, clipping at a rip for a huge amount of pain (18I, Pen:4).
Smith and Mord are both hit as well, Mord takes a bad shot to the arm
(wounded) but Smith takes a shot to the leg and falls to the ground with a bellow of pain.
The leg looks badly mangled and his face is white and pale from shock.
Weyland shakes his head "Typical, they forgot to give me frag grenades"
Jorn chimes in "We got the lascutter though. That should cut through limbs AND make the place smell like cooked bacon! YUM-MY!"
Dodging the stray bullet that was headed his way but seeing Smith get tagged in the leg, Aurius will shout to Pete and Mord "I'll get Smith, go, go, go!" before heading back to fireman carry Smith back even if it meant exposing him to more fire, he wasn't about to leave a man behind.
The attack breaks a rib and the target is knocked Prone. The target is also Stunned for 1 Round.
Aurius hits the dirt, gasping for the breath that just got knocked out of him in the manner every guardsman fears: being shot. Seeing Smith get knocked down and go into shock, Aurius starts crawling to him under the hail of fire.
Pete grabs the offered grenade launcher from Mord and slams a frag clip into the weapon. Their only hope was to do that fire, so he does his best to remove the orc on the tower
- at least 4 DoS
Bolus takes another shot at the ork as he hums a litany under his breath.
Unfortunately his gun jams. Bah he grumbles This is a sign that the Emperor wishes me to set the green filth alight with the promethium of his holy wrath!
- 14X damage.
Squadnet: "Drop smoke troopers. Space them. Use your googles."
"Father, flames only when they are close enough for it to reach. please. One more salve"
The commissar continues to barage the orks. While he does not take the fallen one for dead just yet he focuses his aim on the one still standing.
A sudden shout of warning from the Commissar triggers the hard-earner reflexes
of the Storm Trooper and causes the projectile - that was destined to hit his
back - to miss him by less than an inch.
Looking up and around, Aurius sees Smith and Mord getting hit for good and Pete
lifting his grenade launcher ...
THUMBB
...
Pete's well-aimed grenade hits the placed explosive dead-on, causing them to
detonate with a powerful force. With the screeching of over-tasked metal, the
watchtower starts to collapse, causing the next stream of bullets from the
turret on top to go skywards - before cutting out suddenly as the top of the
tower crashes to the ground.
Another heavy explosives, and then yet another echo from the other side of the
camp. Two more watchtowers shake violently, the one crashing down right into
the camp, the other just falling apart. Orkish screams and curses fill the air,
shooting starts at the far end of the camp, and there is the sound of noisy
machinery coming to life.
+++ Backup Team +++
The roaring of engines running on overdrive is everywhere around you. In the
distance you can clearly see eplosions, smoke and lasfire. It has started.
Lt. Harker has ordered a Wedge-Formation with the Fist at the tip.
Margret takes the rear-left of the formation - but for now, you're out of range.
Despite pushing the vehicles to their absolute max speed, it feels like a crawl
- knowing full well that your allies are in the thick of the mayham you can
make out from afar.
+++ Ambushers +++
Bolus in franatically reloading his lasgun - a task he is not fond of - while
Lind keeps on pouring high-enery lasbolts into the Orks.
The ongoing fire wears down the second Ork, but for now he remains upright,
shouting and waving his blazing weapon around.
The Gretchins, stop in their track, looking back at the shouting Ork. Two of
them turn around yet again, starting a mad sprint towards the ambushers
location. It will be along march for them ...
Seeing that the distraction had been sufficiently sprung, Pete grabs his extra nade clips from Mord and the two go to help Smith out. Once they have him they all beat a hasty retreat.