Jackalyn wastes no time. She aims down the sights of her Barrett to the head of the insect... thing, and fires.
As the bullets start to fly, Borax fires.
Kris dives for cover and fires at the first thing that he can
What the f@!* is that! Kris shouts
AP2
As the strange insectoid creature comes roaring towards the group, the harsh echo of Jackalyn's Barrett comes just a second after the monster's head erupts into a shower of exoskeleton and green, syrupy blood. The creature collapses dead, its spider-like legs curling in on itself as it falls. As the rest of the group opens fire on the grey creatures lurking behind cover, a spray of bullets collides with collapsed buildings, sending up a cloud of dust. One of the three goes down in a hail of gunfire from Jacob, while the two others manage to hunker down behind cover and only take a grazing from Borax and Kristophe. Gavril unloads himself, catching one of the creature's in the arm as it comes up from behind the rubble, but it doesn't fall just yet.
Of the two remaining, one scuttles back farther behind the rubble, obscured from your view; after a few seconds, you catch sight of a strange, purple aura surrounding the creature still within your line of sight. It moves back slightly, finding a more defensible position, before it fires on Borax with its wrist-mounted weapon. Three bursts of green energy careen from the weapon, catching the soldier in the chest. He stumbles backward from the impact, but must take a moment to catch his breath as some of the strange energy sears his shoulder; not enough to cause permanent injury, but enough to throw off his concentration.
The medic growls and shifts, putting herself directly between the creatures and the civilians behind the squad. Seeing the strange creatures moving into cover, Rosa elects to pick her shots as opposed to spraying them down. She takes aim at the one poking its head out to shoot and fires, but her shoot simply clips the stone and has no effect.
"آخر من وحوش !" shouts the man again, ducking as the gunfire starts. He points to the rooftop nearest Jackalyn, screaming in Arabic. "الشياطين ، وتأتي لقتلنا جميعا! حفظ لنا ، من فضلك!" Following his arm, you can spot one of the insectoid creatures as it leaps across a rooftop towards Jackalyn, its maw dripping with blood much like its compatriot. Meanwhile, two more of the gray creatures scamper across the opening between the piles of debris and take up a position behind a broken building and screech unintelligibly to their compatriots.
"More of them!" Gavril shouts, his machine gun turning to aim on the creature attacking Jackalyn. "Keep close and stay down!" The insect-like thing screeches loudly as it bears down on Jackalyn, spearing one of its legs towards her chest. She manages to deflect the attack off the bayonet of her rifle, but a second appendage whips around and cuts her along her collarbone, inches from her neck. She staggers back for a second, breathing heavily as the monstrous creature rears up in front of her.
Borax: Joker
Gavril: Five of Hearts
Jackalyn: Nine of Diamonds
Jacob: Eight of Spades
Kristophe: Ten of Hearts
Rosa: Ten of Diamonds
Sectoids: Ten of Clubs
Chyrssalid: Queen of Diamonds
Son of a b*tch, how many of these... things are there?" She fires at the creature again, adjusting her aim to compensate for her poor aim with her last shot. She smiles as the shot goes much better and slams into her small creature's body.
Borax moves to get cover.
Kris looks around for an avenue to flank the grey skinned monstrosities
AP2
Borax steals a glance at his shoulder, as if waiting to see if it burns through his flesh. Garvril's warning shakes Borax out of his reverie and Borax unloads his weapon on the creature above them before moving for cover.
Borax's hail of gunfire catches the creature attacking Jackalyn in the chest, its torso leaking blood as it claws and rakes at her. However, despite its wounds the creature remains standing, its spear-like legs searching for an opening in the sniper's defenses. As he rises to take the shot, another blast of energy catches him in the chest. While still not seriously injured, this time he can feel as it eats into his skin, leaving a small burn on one of his shoulders. Kristophe, as he makes a dash to flank the creatures from behind one of the buildings, gets caught in a burst of enemy fire that sends a searing pain into his chest and arms, as he feels the substance, whatever it is, burning and eating away at his flesh. The creature that shot him sports the same eerie glow as its companion on the other side of the street, a purple aura radiating around its head.
A second later, Gavril unloads several shots into the creature that shot Borax, and it falls to the ground as it is riddled with bullet holes. Watching one of them fall, he turns his SAW and fires at the creature attacking Jackalyn. While the shots connect, the creature's thick carapace either deflects or absorbs the blow, and it seems unphased by the attack.
Jackalyn stares the creature right in the eyes, and raises her gun to its chest.
Jacob's spray of bullets catch the creature in the chest, and it stumbles backwards for a moment. However, it quickly rears up again and swipes its front two legs at Jackalyn again. She manages again to catch one on her Barrett, but the other slams into her stomach as she doubles over in pain, feeling the claw rake into her skin and muscle. A second later another group of bullets slam into the insectoid monster's side, and it careens to the side from the force of the blow, momentarily stunned.
Borax: Two of Clubs
Gavril: Nine of Clubs
Kristophe: Five of Diamonds
Jackalyn: Ten of Diamonds
Jacob: Eight of Clubs
Rosa: Seven of Spades
Chyrssalid: Ace of Spades
Sectoids: Six of Spades
Rosa picks her target on the next of the little grey creatures and opens fire again.
Jackalyn grits her teeth and prepares herself for the possibility that she might die to this creature. But that would be a few seconds from now. She tightens her grip on her pistol as soon as she stops reeling.
Steeling herself, Jackalyn's fingers double-tap the trigger of her Eagle, sending two rounds crashing into the alien's carapace.
Kris snarls through the pain and dive for cover.
As Jacob again catches the creature, this time in the head, Jackalyn manages to line up a shot; two blasts of gunfire later, the creature falls down dead, it's blood leaking from its bullet-riddled corpse. Rosa gets another lucky shot, blowing away one of the gray creatures still hunkered down behind the rubble. As it falls, another of them scuttles out and raises its weapon as the familiar purple glow surrounds it. Instead of targeting either of those attacked before, the creature instead fires on Rosa, after watching two of its comrades be taken down by her hand. The shot catches her in the hip, splashing against and eating through the stone of the house behind her.
Rosa hisses in pain and clutches at her side for a moment. Her hands comes away and she's a bit surprised to see that despite being quite painful, the shot only burned her skin and doesn't seem to have done any permanent damage. Perra! They just keep coming!"
Borax focuses on the last(?) sectoid.
Kris unloads on the remaining alien he can see
Total Shot 1=4 (Normally a hit)
Total Shot 2=12 (Hit and Raise
AP2
Total=13AP2
Die grå avskum ! Dø din jævla monster! Kris is shouting as he unloads on the grey skinned thing.
Borax's expert marksmanship blows the head off of one of the grey creatures, its blood spilling along the stones as it tumbles down from its perch atop the rubble. Kristophe takes up cover on the corner, the strange energy from the attack still burning at his skin. He spins to fire as he hears Borax shoot, and catches the other creature in the chest as it watches its ally fall dead. As quickly as it began, the skirmish is over; an eerie silence overcomes the streets again. After a few more seconds, the survivors you've found slowly come out from their hiding place, their heads still down until they're sure the creatures are dead.
"What... what the hell are these things?" Gavril asks, approaching the dead body of one of the creatures with caution. The first of the insectoid beasts, the one Jackalyn put down with her rifle, has curled in on itself much like a spider, its legs shrunken and pulled in by its torso, while its fractured skill still leaks its thick, green blood. Assuming they are investigated, the strange little gray creatures lie still, but there is one thing of note; it seems all of their weapons have mysteriously shattered, no longer operational. The bodies already seem unnaturally stiff, is if rigor mortis had set in extremely quickly. "These aren't any robotic drones, that's for sure..."
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Jacob casually kicks the crysallid on its big dumb dead head as he walks by "They are ugly, that's what they are." after releasing his inner football player with the ugly, he crouches and looks to see if the thing was carrying anything of interest. "Mister big ugly is too heavy to carry, but we are carrying two of the others back to base, as well as whatever things they carry. If they are some ruskie, yankee or chinese bio-weapon, we'll want to know more. And we'll need corpses and equipment if anybody is to tell us more." as he finishes he walks to the gray uglies and chooses the two less fired upon, and after making sure they are dead, he uses some cloth to envelop one and carry it at his back, picking up its gear if there is any. Before resuming the march he tries to contact the Lieutenant "Sir, Jacob here. We got ambushed, heading towards the base now."
When he's done he turns to the rest "The hell you waitin' for, mates? A emotional speech? A funeral? 'Nother ambush? We got civs to escort, grab another ugly and let's get moving before every ugly in this thrice damned s%@+ of a city comes greet us too."
"You think that someone would build a drone like that anyway? Humanoid is horribly inefficient for a mechanical drone." She looks around at the rest of the squad. "Alright, I have no idea what those weapons were shooting, so I want anyone who took a hit front and center so I can take a look before we get moving."
Kris grunts and grabs a corpse.
We'd better go ya. he says
As the last of the enemies falls, Borax quickly reloads his weapon with a fresh clip.
"As I was saying we need to consider the extra-terrestrial. Nothing made sense up to this point except for this. It was the only logical explanation unless you believe in devils and demons...which I don't."
As Jacob barks out orders, Borax shakes his head in the negative.
"Think it through Farrell, the last thing we want to do is parade what are possible aliens from another planet in front of field reporters and terrified civilians. The brass is going to want this on lockdown, not on display. Sure, these civilians will talk, but no one is going to take them seriously without hard proof."
Borax pauses and turns his back, scanning the city for signs of something. Then he turns back to the group.
"I'll stay here with the our 'friends' until we can get these loaded on some secure transport vehicles. Assuming this is what we all think it is, it's going to be world-changing. I've spent my whole life waiting for this moment. Besides, you don't just leave something like this behind and hope to find it later. Get the wounded back to base. I'll stay hidden and when you're inboud, I'll light a signal flare. Anyone want to stick around, you're more than welcome. If there are more of these things about, they are most likely headed here and won't be interested in some wounded civilians. Besides, I plan on trying to track these things back to their craft after these are secured. "
Borax lets Rosa examine him before finding a spot to hunker down in.
Jackalyn slowly makes her way down the building as blackness swims at the edge of her vision. She clutches her side and slowly walks over to the rest of the team. "Those things hit hard," she says, gritting her teeth.
Jackalyn gives a nod towards Jacob. "Good man." At Borax's rambling, she arches an eyebrow. "Considering how quickly rigor mortis set in, I'd say these things are going to decompose quickly. Maybe to the point of being recognized as children in a day or two, and trust me, convincing the brass that we got weird hostiles out in the city and its totally worth diverting a few trucks that could otherwise be used for evacuation and transport is going to take longer than that. We do not want to answer those questions. We have got to get either photographic evidence or bring the corpses back with us."
"I know you want to keep moving," Rosa tells Kristophe. "But if we run into more of those things while you're still injured, we're putting ourselves and the civilians we're here to protect in danger. Now sit down and let me look you over." Without waiting for him to actually listen, she sets about checking over his wound and quickly bandages his arm and shoulder. "Burns... what kind of rifle leaves burns but no bullet?"
As Jackalyn approaches, she walks over to the sniper. She leans over and begins to examine her injuries. "Jesus, you're lucky. You didn't get any of your important organs cut out by whatever that bug thing was. Hold still. I need to close this up before you bleed out." She goes to work cleaning the wound and bandaging it up. "It's not perfect, but it should make it easier to move and make sure you don't lose any more blood."
She moves to Borax last. "You have some grazes, but I don't think that any of the hits were serious. I can clean the scorches, but you should be alright." She disinfects the grazes just to be sure and finally closes up her medical bag.
Now it's Borax's turn to raise an eyebrow. "None of us out ranks the others, so if you thinks it's a smart move to take these creatures back to base without quarantine, that's your call. I suggest you put them in a body bag if you do. Taking pictures now is a good idea. As far as getting the brass out here quickly, make up something."
"Rosa, I'm staying here either way, so if you want examine these things before its taken out of our hands, now's your chance. I'll cover you while you work."
"Farrell, where are you?" The lieutenant's voice is fuzzy, but clear enough to understand. "Is your team alive, do you have any dead or wounded? What about those survivors?" The radio crackles for a while, the sound of what could only be the lieutenant running coming through the streets, giving muffled orders to the soldiers still with him. "We've got problems, the base camp... compromised. I've been in contact... with the first team. We're headed to regroup, the camp's--death trap." The crackling stops for a second, picking up a second later. "You said you got ambushed? What by?"
Borax, while you aren't positive how the two relate, it's not completely unreasonable to assume these bodies may decompose faster if they enter rigor mortis this quickly, considering that this is one of the first things for a human body to experience upon death. Granted, whatever this is it clearly isn't human, so there's no way of knowing if that assessment is true or not.
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Jacob recount what the Lieutenant have said. As the group debates Jacob explodes in a jolly dance after Jackalyn words "Photographic evidence! You are a teasure, lady! A real treasure." he says as he drips his backpack and inserts a hand, producing an old fashioned but sturdy camera. Taking photographs of the corpses and the battleground, the irish say "If any of you want a memento, wait for later. And I am open to nudes. Now we better answer the Lt. And regroup with them."
"Sir, I can only describe them as f%&$ing ugly little gray bugs and f~@~ing ugly big bugs. We got woundeds, no deads. Pass coordinates and we will regroup with you." he says as he produces a gps with the same movement with which he stashes the camera and prepares to program it. "And Borax, you right son. None of us outrank anyone else. Not that it matters as it seems these f#$#ing uglies are badass enough to have turned the camp into a hunting ground."
Jackalyn gives terse thanks as Rosa stops her fro bleeding out and gives a small smile at Jacob's compliments. "Keep your eyes on the rooftops, lieutenant. One of those damn big bugs ambushed and nearly gutted me while I was sniping from up there, over. They're tough bastards, too-priority targets."
The soldier then turns to Jacob. "If the bugs took the camp, we need to find a way to radio in some sort of extraction. And soon. If this team dropped out of contact, and with the lieutenant making noise, if they're smart they'll start searching the city for us. We need to find a defensible position."
Jackalyn tries to think back to see if she saw anything while she was scanning the city for sniper's nest and fallback positions on the initial approach.
Takk skal du ha Kris says to Rosa
Kristophe shakes his head at Borax Of course some of us outrank the others. I am Loynant yes? Farrel is Captain. He has rank. Chase is Sergeant, Rosa is civilian...You, I'm not so sure about. Kris looks to the Farrel.
Ready to move on Sir. Kris says
As the radio comes to life again, the lieutenant rattles off the list of coordinates to meet him at. "Listen, the brass wouldn't like this, but--look, f*ck the ranks, listen to me. Meet up with us here... we're trying to get a radio tower working, call for extraction. But there's... you've gotta see this to believe it." You can hear the lieutenant sigh, with other soldiers talking in the background. "I'll have men watching the rooftops, thanks for the tip. We managed to fight off whatever the hell attacked us, made a break for it, but... I suspect there's more of them; when you get here you'll see what I mean." The lieutenant shouts orders to a few men, barking about having people watch the rooftops, as well as something to people who must be engineers. "Keep your heads down, there's no way to know what else is out there. We're in a lot of trouble here, but at least the lot of you are still kicking; that's more than I can say for some others under my command. I'll see you when you get here... if you get here."
Gavril grits his teeth as he helps the civilians stand up, making sure they're alright. "Looks like we're heading east, then... I wonder what it is they might have found..."