"And even if they didn't, someone will have heard all the gunshots. So I'm all for bailing."
"And the grenade," Thyx added as he hurriedly gathered equipment. "Looting the bodies will be a giveaway as well."
"Drones?! No fair!" Kip's face fell as she saw the robots in the air. Taking aim at one with her purloined gun, she tried to shoot it out of the sky.
Rifles over his shoulder and ammo packs on his back, Thyx followed Kip's example and smoothly drew his sidearm, pointed at a drone, and made a fist.
"Well, question answered," Robert grunted. "Into the forest! They'd have a hell of a time flying between the trees... or whatever the heck these bloody things are."
Following his own advice, the technomancer began his retreat, pointedly moving away from the town as he sought the cover of foliage. After all, the locals had proved somewhat useful, and it wouldn't be worth it to lead the drones and their operators to their local safehouse.
"Agreed."The captain ordered "But keep the comms, kill the signal!"
Grabbing a rifle and ammunition the captain turned to walk backwards while firing at the drones - more as distraction than with any real chance of hitting.
Kamiya was on the move as soon as it was decided they make a break for the forest. "I would also suggest staying low in the mist if at all possible."
She looked up at the drones with the sad realization that there was nothing she could do. Grenades wouldn't work against something flying and she couldn't daze something that was a machine. "I've really got to find myself a gun that isn't a rifle," she mused.
She ducked around a tree, "But where are we going? Just further into the woods?"
Read the OOC.
Questions, comments, and/or suggestions?
Game on!
, miss
, hit
, Thyx
, miss
"Hey!" Kip yelled in surprise, as the drone tried to electrocute her. "Stop it, you overgrown toaster!"
Dodging one that came too close to her head, she straightened up and took aim at the one she'd hit before, hoping to knock it out of the sky for good.
The bullet must have hit something vital, because the drone spun out of control before crashing against a tree and falling to the ground. "One down!" Kip celebrated.
The electrical charge hit Thyx full on and he nearly fell to one knee. Smoke rose from his body and his voice was modulating wildly as he managed a, "Goooood Shhot ot KiyyyyP!" He squeezed off a raggedy shot before pulling back. His bullet ricocheted off the armour of one of the drones and hit the other!
Kamiya stopped running when she realized that Kip and Thyx weren't with the rest of them. She rushed over to Robert, "Can you reprogram one of the comms to override the drones operating system? Maybe we can crash them or else take control of them and go on the offensive."
Drones are not hackea le in a combat situation at your level.
The drones are about 10’ off the ground.
Questions?
Game on!
"Would be fun, but were I running the show, any autonomous or remote units would use a dedicated network," Robert grunted, dodging behind a local tree-analogue and conjured humidity from the air, murmuring equations that altered the chemical balance of the water, turning it highly corrosive before sending a bolt of the freshly-transmuted acid to splash on the nearest drone's casing.
OOC: Given those that want to post a few more hours...
I intend to move things along later tonight.
Questions?
Game on!
OOC: I don't think so since the grenade will fall to the ground and then explode, potentially leaving the enemy outside of its radius.
Questions?
Game on!
Read the OOC.
Questions, comments, and/or suggestions?
Game on!
, hit
, hit
Kip didn't like the way that felt. Not. One. Bit. AhhhhhHHHHhhh....
Diving (or rather, falling) into cover, the ysoki tried to stay low and out of sight of the drones.
"Kip!" roared the captain. "Over here. Behind the trunks!"
Even as he spoke the captain fumbled his claws through one of the plundered rifles' trigger guard, doing his best to aim and shoot a weapon made for small primates.
Muttering a curse under his breath, Robert focused his attention to the forest around Kip’s position and murmured another incantation, this time to bend light as he had done when camouflaging the graveyard to hide their ambush. But this time, he added instead of subtracted, creating half a dozen clones of Kip, each one rushing to find cover or escape in different directions, hoping the drones’ sensors would not be able to figure out which was which… for the short time he intended to maintain the reality alteration.
Kamiya ran over to the Captain and struggled with another one of the rifles they had appropriated. "How do you work this thing? I've never shot something this big before. How do you even hold it?"
The lashunta studied the Captain as he took his shot and did her best to follow his lead.
Thyx eyes squinted into minus signs as he saw Kip take another hit. 'Dammit they're going to kill her!' He stepped forward slowly and calmly as he watched the drones bob and weave, then snapped his gun up and fired. The round barely made a dent.
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, hit
, decoy
, miss
Thyx flung his left arm back to balance his gun arm reaching forward as he leaned into the shot. The round made a tidy hole in the drones shell and was quickly followed by sparks and a burnt wire smell. The android rushed to her side standing tall and staying on his toes.
@Robert: reading the spell, it talks about an image that you can move within the area of effect. I took it to be like a weak version of mirror image (only one image).
Dismissing his hologram as the enemies flew uncomfortably close, the technomancer cast another glob of conjured acid at the nearest drone before retreating once again, hoping one or few of the others would feel the need to stand and fight, and thus act as convincing targets for the drones' weapons.
The Captains eyes glaze for a moment, then nictating membranes snap shut. A second later there is a flash of light as a the two robots line up and an arc of static spreads from tree to tree via the most conductive route.
Shaking off the worst of the shock, Kip again took aim at the drones that were harrying her, but she was seeing three of them instead of two, and fired at the wrong one.
Kamiya winced at the kickback from the rifle but had no choice but to try shooting it again. She raised the barrel and as she squeezed the trigger she also squeezed her eyes shut, expecting more pain in her shoulder.
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, pass
, fail
, Kip
CRITICAL
Her fur standing on end and slightly smoking, her whiskers trembling, her tail lashing, the small ysoki howled in pain, frustration and anger. Of course, given her size, it came out more like a terrified squeal than a satisfying howl.
Forcing her arm to be still through sheer strength of will, she raised her gun, sighted carefully at the dodging and weaving drone, and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet tore straight through the machine, leaving a hole she could see jungle through. The drone, not knowing it was dead, hovered a moment longer, then fell like a stone to the ground.
Kip leaned against a tree trunk, closed her eyes, and mumbled, "Just need to rest a moment..."
"Don't rest long. I think we're 'out' now." Thyx trotted north to scout out the path into the jungle, gun still in hand and the new rifles on his back. His voice could be heard faintly as he talked to himself in that familiar monotone. "Here's where the fun begins."
The captain lumbered forward and tucked the little Ysoki into the crook of his arm. "Rest as long as you want." he countermanded "I'll carry you. We're leaving before more of those things come. Everyone has thirty seconds to grab anything they need to and head off into the woods with me."
"Don't rest long. I think we're 'out' now."
"Right, was bound to happen sooner rather than later - astonished we got this far, really," Robert grunted, taking a look at the carcass of one of the fallen drones. But he didn't want to actually hang around to dismantle one, nor drag one with him.
"So, now we are officially on the clock. Before, the Azlanti might have suspected something was afoot. Now, they know, and they have to respond. And considering how they have responded to the colonists' attempts at resistance thus far..." Robert went on, giving the drone's chassis a kick. "Lock-downs, crackdowns, extra patrols, preemptive executions... some of these, surely, depending on how much manpower they really have, and how much automation to free that manpower for policing. So I doubt our little safe heaven in the colony is safe no longer."
Kamiya dropped the rifle and rubbed the feeling back into her shoulder. "So where are we going? Are going into the wilderness to do a full regroup? If that's the case, maybe we find one of the mining settlements. If we're not going far then I guess we just go until we figure we aren't being followed."
Kamiya dropped the rifle and rubbed the feeling back into her shoulder. "So where are we going? Are going into the wilderness to do a full regroup? If that's the case, maybe we find one of the mining settlements. If we're not going far then I guess we just go until we figure we aren't being followed."
”I don’t think we should go to the town – were I the Azlanti, that’s the first place I’d be looking for insurrectionists,” Robert grunted. ”And our ship is too far. Let’s just find a dry spot to rest our feet for a moment and plan for our next move in the forest – this bloody place is too large to search easily, and if the enemy could just scan it for us they’d have done so in the first place, instead of sending out small patrols.”
”Those isolated settlements won’t help us, I think. First, we don’t know their exact location, only approximations on a map we don’t have with us, so it might take days for us to stumble into one. Second, if the Azlanti have left them alone they almost have to be either too far away or too small to pose them any trouble. And third, if they have been left to their own devices, would they want to risk that changing by aiding us, total strangers, against another group of strangers, but then being the bad guys, unlike us, promise?”
”No, I think we need to lick our wounds as quick as we can, and then make a decisive move. The next time we go back to the town, we go with the intention of leaving only by walking over the dead bodies of the Azlanti.”
Sigirijus looks thoughtful "Makes sense. Hmmm. Their night vision is terrible, correct? I'd suggest we rest longer, get some energy. We're tired, but not so tired we can't post a watch in case they do have a way to find us. That motion sensor would be helpful as well..."
Kamiya began moving deeper into the woods. "Alright, we find a place that's safe enough to regroup. Too bad we can't send word to Arebretta so she doesn't worry about us. But it would put her in too much danger now if we go back to her place."
The lashunta kept an eye on the ground as she walked so that she didn't trip over a tree root or anything, "Even though we're regrouping, we can't afford to take too much time. The more time we take, the more time the Azlantis have to also fortify their position."
Kip rested in the crook of the Captain's arm, surprisingly comfortable. Her body still twitched occasionally, and her whiskers were blackened. She let the talk wash over her, not really caring where they went next. It had been a long day already, and she had a feeling if they kept fighting, one of them was going to end up dead. But that was a decision for the big folk; she'd go where she was pointed, and try to stay alive.
Thyx took out his baton and beat a path through the jungle leading the way into the wild. He kept going until he felt gunfire could no longer be heard from the camp. When he stopped he rushed to reload his sidearm and his rifle. "OK, so, what's next?"
"Ok, so, what's next?"
Kamiya pulled out some of the med supplies she had liberated from the colony stores. "What's next is that we get everyone patched up the best we can."
Thyx pulled out the med kit and started removing supplies. He looked at some gauze and a quick-spray antiseptic wand, a blood scope and a strange kind of staple gun. It was like his hands became angry with his brain. He knew what these things were. He knew how to use them. He knew it! If he could just let go and let his hands do what they were competent at.
He sat back on his backside on the wet ground staring at the tools in his hands.
"Kip? Mags??"
The android looked ... lost.
OOC: Busy weekend so updating tomorrow evening.
Game on!