"Want me to hop out with McGuyver, sir? Might be able to cover him better that way." Aurius asks, getting his gear ready for a rapid exit of the vehicle regardless.
Hard on the five minute mark, Margret stops ten meters before the wall. MacVyger hops out and is at the wall after a few seconds of a dead sprint.
At the very same moment hell breaks loose - at least at the three other ends of the camp. The roaring salvos of multiple heavy bolters opening up are nearly drowned out by the screeching of over-tasked metal giving way under an incredible force.
MacVyger slabs the charge on the wall, turns and runs back - a small wire in one hand. As he reaches the APC, the wire stiffens, then snaps and a decent portion of the wall disappears in the ensuing explosion.
Weylund kicks the chimera forward the moment the expert reboards and after a few seconds of furious acceleration you are thoroughly shaken around as Margret powers through the not-quite-large-enough blasted hole into the Ork camp, Angelus hard on your heels.
It's total chaos in there.
It seems like the complete camp has underground tunnels, 'rat-nests', semi-buried bunkers and crude buildings made of slab-metal. Seemingly every opening of the camp spews
Solid projectile fire at the advancing imperial forces, grenades explodes, smoke billows, Las bolts criss-cross over every surface and the roaring Swoooosh of Hellblazers heavy flamers is audible in the distance.
In the middle of the camp is a big building looking like a manufactorum in small.
You notice white-blue flashes coming from the inside of the large building. It reminds you of electric welding torches.
Mere couple of meters in front of you is a pit that may prove dangerous if the chimera drives into it.
Your under fire from at least three different places:
There's a half-buried bunker at your 10 with at least two heavy machine guns firing at you. Then theres a ratnest with one or two boys firing their guns at you at 2 o'clock. And finally a smaller Ork building right beside the wall you just burst through (so at your 7) that houses three gretchins firing their small guns at the back of your chimera.
Aurius does not notice the shenanigans at the manufactorum.
Being on the left side of the Chimera and to the rear, Aurius decides to just fire on the Gretchin with his emplaced lasgun.
Luckily for Aurius, the elevated position from which he was shooting with regards to the Gretchin and being all but impervious to their small arms fire made shooting them for effect all that much easier.
Pete opens up on the rat's nest.
[Ooc]BS45+15 emplacenent-10semi+10 half aim+10 short range
But their cover is tricky and his shots are a little off.
"Well I don't see anything imidiatly dangerous. I think it is time to indulge you, Fater. The bunker to the left seems to beg for a holy cleansing. Will the heavy flamer be enough or do you wish to bring the holy flames to them personaly?"
If we run into something dangerous now, I wonder how the commissar will act?
Could tell me a lot about our fearless leader here...
Aurius well aimed salvo kills two gretchins outright, severly wounding a third.
The remaining gretchins break away from their firing position, running back inside the scrap building.
"Thats right you little s$%~s, run away!"Aurius says, more to himself, once he sees the Gretchin break and run for cover.
With the rear ramp still open as they start moving through the camp, Aurius will forgo his emplaced lasgun and pull up his Hotshot Lasgun ready to fire on any ork brave enough to try and get inside the vehicle.
"There's white-blue flashes coming from the inside of the large building, this could be where the ork mek is hiding"
As a driver you cannot a priori control the turret from the driver seat.
That's why the operator gets the Gunner comrade advance for, so your comrade
can command the turret but essentially you shoot, since the comrade
uses your BS for shooting it.
But I ruled that you can fire the fixed-mounted fron-gun (in this case the
heavy flamer) if you succeed on an operate test (including the usual modifiers
for the size of the vehicle, speed, etc) to 'aim with the vehicle'.
1 DoS (+1 for Hot-shot Pilot) so 2 DoS
With a fluid motion, Weyland turns the Chimera around a tank-pit no-one but him noticed such that the front faces the bunker now ... Then a quick motion with his left hand triggers the front-mounted heavy flamer of your Chimera.
SWOOOOOSH
A 30m long stream of high-pressured, burning promethium crosses the distance to the bunker with ease, flooding it with the burning liquid.
With no escape whatsoever, the gretchins operating the heavy guns die a horrible death within the first seconds.
After a couple of more seconds, a series if follow up detonations causes the bunker to collapse - as does a 20m area around the bunker!
The awesomeness of the scene is enough to penetrate Liam's lethargy, and in response he punches his fist into the air, letting out a mighty whoop as the enemies of the Empire dies in flames.
"Hahahaha!"
I See Blue And White Flashes from the Large Building! And a Pit Most Foul Ahead! Bolus intones somewhat superfluously.
The commissar grabs for a hold with his free hand when the chimera suddenly changes direction.
Hearing the woosh of promethium a moment later he peers out through the sight slits.
"Well well looks like the decision was taken from you, Father. Nice manouver Trooper Yunson."
Fixing his cap back into place
"Their... officers... being in the central building sounds sensible. Get us close to it at a measured pace. Everyone else clean up the fiends with the hull mounted lasguns or your own weapons."
The cheering inside the chimera suddenly drowns as Wayland curses echo over from the driver's compartment and a the chimera suddenly shakes violently and then FALLS DOWN.
Only the quickest of the squad can grab a hold in time, everyone (and everything) else is thrown around violently.
Looking outside you can see that the ground under the chimera has collapsed and you have dropped some 5+ meters into some kind of underground pit/cave of some sort.
The 'cave' is roughly ten meters in diameter (so not much driving around here) with two exits.
Navigate Surface +20 / Logic +0:
The one runs roughly towards the - now gone - bunker, the other runs north, so it may lead to the big building you suspect to hold the leader.
Awareness +10:
The cave is not empty! You can see several small, incredibly ugly creatures running around the cave like a flock of frightened cattle - or more fitting: A flock of headless chicken.
From the pictures you were shown these are most likely some - or better put: various - sub-species of the 'Squigg' orkoid life form.
Having already grabbed a hold after the last lurch to the side the commissar stands almost unperturbed when the Chimera suddenly falls downwards.
Letting go off his hold the commissar takes position behind the hull wall from which the open boarding ramp extends. He points is hs laspistol outwards, guarding for anything that might come at them.
"Well, this is not exactly the central building but we'll have to work with it for now. Casualty report, Troopers."
Watching the Chimeras back through the rear hatch, Aurius has no time react before he gets flung back, hitting the roof of the vehicle as it plunges down into the cavern below. Luckily his armour protects him from taking any real damage but getting knocked around so violently solidly kicks the wind right out of him.
"Specialist Thantus reporting, got the wind knocked outta me, need to grab some stuff that got strewn about but otherwise in fit for duty, sir."
Pete is tossed about like a rag doll. He somehow ends up on the opposite side of the chimera and upside down. Everything kinda hurts. He rights himself and starts gathering his weapons as quickly as he can.
Same here, sir. He reports.
"Sorry about that sir! But I think I know where we are, if we follow this tunnel we should end up under the main building"
"Damn dust in my eyes, shall I gun it and get us under that building before they know what happened?"
The exits and the respective tunnels are way to small for the chimera though.
Good thing you have no Ogryn with you, since one of these 'Big'Uns' would probably have big problems to squeeze through the tunnels.
It doesn't seem like the aged priest was strapped in or even if he grabbed onto anything at all but he seems unaffected by the bumpy ride at all.
Standing upright he intones.
Take heart fellow weapons for the glory of the Master Of Mankind. He has Delivered Us a Route to Strike Directly At The Foul Heart of the Xenos Filth
Liam slowly gets up from the undignified heap he had landed in on the floor.
After securing his lasrifle, to avoid the possibility of field execution for losing, it he takes a deep breath, wincing at the dull pain in his side.
"Mild bruising commissar, nothing major.
Still fit for duty."
Mere moments after the last 'I'm still here' message, a couple of incredible ugly creatures appear at ether side of the still-lowered ramp and start to pounce at the squad inside.
Four of the six creatures are nothing more than a giant maw with powerful legs that feel awful familiar for Aurius, Pete and Mord.
The other two look like a overfeed, fat and oily version of the others, their bodies swollen beyond reason and dripping some disgusting, black liquid out of every pore. Those two make up the rear, obviously slower than the others.
Lovely, this is going to slow us down...
Seeing the ugly things pounce Lind shoots at the first one
"Hostiles!"
Having a moment to see the ugly things Lind switches his aim to one of the sludgy ones at the back, takes a moment to sight in on it an fires again.
Bolus, if he is able to pushes his way to the front before anyone else can react and sprays everything he can with his flamer.
"GAH more bloody squigs!?"
Being in such close proximity to those little devils, Aurius will opt to look for his Plasma Pistol first if he doesnt already have it on him in a holster.
...so 12
Weyland scrambles out of his seat with his shotgun
BS 36
short range +10 ...or am I at point blank?
standard attack +10
nada!
The reflexive shot of the Commissar, causes the foremost squig to drop dead after it's latest jump.
Just as it seems like the battle will devolve into a hairy melee inside the vehicle's troop
compartment, Bolus leaps up, flamer in hand and a smile on his face.
Finally, the time of cleansing has clearly come! The ignition flame of his flamer springs up and a
press of the trigger causes a long line of burning promethium to wash over the Xeno creatures.
The intense heat-backwash causes everyone to caught - especially after the smell of burned hair and
xeno flesh add in as the first squigs are caught in the firestorm.
As the roaring flames reach the back-line of the attackers, blue and green flames start to lick
over the body of the dripping squigs ...
Then both explode in a violent blue-green fireball that sucks away the air from your lungs and
causes a torrent of smelly black, now brightly burning, liquid to flood the Chimera!
With no way to escape, every last occupant of the proud imperial vehicle gets caught by the flames!
Mord and Smith take the worst of it. Both were still strapped to their seats (just beside the ramp)
as the fireball washes over them. Both being wounded from the onslaught of the Ork-Tower this
firestorm is too much for their bodies to bear. Mord - after a soul-crushing scream - simply
collapses into his seat like a puppet which strings got cut.
Smith is another matter though! The big man, empowered by the intense pain and fear he experience,
manage to simply jump out of the straps holding him - a horrible clutch-krk tells everyone
that he dislocated his shoulders in the process. With a terrible scream, echoing Mord's the
bright-ablaze man runs around the inside of the chimera in blind panic, just adding to the already
incredible havoc inside the vehicle. All put together is enough to instill fear in even the bravest
soul. You can tell already, that this scene will hunt you in your nightmares for a fair amount of
time ...
The only real good aspect of this havoc ist the fact that all squigs in the general vicinity of the
vehicle are now thoroughly roasted and present no danger anymore.
The burning commissar sprints out of the inferno in the chimera without any
visible target.
I'll go for a Fate point reroll
PHEW!
NO!
Pete sees his friend die. He knows what happened. But right now he has other things occupying his attention. Namely, I'M ON THE GROUND AND OH MIGHTY EMPEROR I'M ON FIRE!
2 DOF
6 DOF
1 DOF
Bolus' flames come back to him in a way he never thought imaginable.
Fear grips the character and he begins to shake and tremble. He suffers a –10 penalty on all Tests for the
rest of the encounter unless he can recover his wits (see Shock and Snapping Out of It, page 305).
Being set on fire after the squig goes up in an inferno, Aurius immediately stops trying to salvage any of his gear - like any man on fire would - and runs out of the Chimera to try and douse the flames.
Being in full "Every man for himself" mode, he deftly gets out of the way of Smiths wild flailing, and tries to hit the dirt outside the Chimera and start rolling in it to put himself out.
Rounds until flames die out.
Your luck that it is not Promethium or the distilled variant of their oil. This 'natural' one does not burn as long...
Remember that you get 1 level of fatigue per round-in-flames.
The commissar continues to run around in flaming circles.
The flames not going out despite him rolling in the, unbeknownst to him oil-soaked, ground, Aurius continues to just roll around in a blind panic trying to put them out as fast as he can.
phew!
As the pain finally lessen (a bit), you can hear your com-bead blaring out words and requests.
"-ort in! Commissar Lind, what happened to you and your squad? Requesting status and position, report in!"
It takes you some time to recognize it as the voice of Sgt. Dominges. His voice is worried and you can hear the sound of battle from above.