Cthulhutech: The Borderlines of the World

[EarthScorpion]

At the moment, the Radar does not detect anything directly hostile in the air or on the land. The Atlantic ocean, about a mile and a half to the south, appears completely flat and smooth in the Limited AI rendered model of the environment; the water-air interface impermeable to the reflected ambient signals, hiding whatever is within its depths. There are several objects consistent with the radar profiles of concrete and steel scattered around the environment up to Alex's maximum range, consistent with being buildings, but the low resolution provided by the passive reflections isn't enough to tell their exact size, and they leave a radar shadow in their wake where things could be hiding. Moreover, the radar only picks up sizeable objects; even in passive mode, it'll probably detect something of a suit of powered armour that the LAI could interpret, but even in active mode, infantry are invisible to it. It is somewhat reassuring, though, to find that a horde of Leviathans aren't obviously on the warpath.

From the readings, therefore, Alex can conclude that the source of any vehicle scale threats are from the water or those unidentified buildings that scatter the landscape. There could be infantry moving on his location, and most probably is, but nothing mechanised can be seen.

If it was the Dagonites who shot them down, as suspected, then they'll be using mostly infantry (Hybrids and Human cultists) and Powered Armour (piloted by a mixture of Deep Ones, Hybrids, and Cultists). They have a real shortage of aerial units, using mostly old designs dating back to the First Arcanotech War or even before, retrofitted with D-Engines and A-Pods, and use very few larger mecha. They do have extra-dimensional allies, but far less than the Rapine Storm.

[Academia Nut]

Letting his LAI compile all the data for a few seconds, Alex then announced quietly, "Okay, I've got no actively transmitting sources out here, or any big metal targets lighting up off other radar sources. That doesn't exactly mean much in that while I don't see anything, I can't see infantry. Anyone ready to run and gun I'll provide support and cover to getting the APC. For those of you with medical training, how are those who need your attention?"

[Marcao]

It looked like the brain trust was more or less intact. That is good.

The thought swam through the surface of his mind before it sank deeper beneath his mindscape dragged down by a host of other more pressing thoughts and concerns. The co-pilot looked like he was well and truly fucked. He had seen broken legs before. The man had courage however, for he had managed to administer himself some sort of painkiller even as the nerves in his now useless limbs screamed an angry message to his brain. He was trained to kill, but at the moment the needs of the others was more pressing. Frankly, whatever had swatted them out of the sky was probably immune to whatever his submachine guns could do. The best he could do right now was to see if his medical knowledge could be used for someone's benefit.

I am more proficient at inflicting harm than fixing it.

"I have basic medical skills, I will assist as best as I can but don't expect miracles from me." He said frankly.

The co-pilot with the broken legs was beyond his skills and as such he did not immediately approach him. He expected that someone with better skills would attend to him. He approached another, the trooper that had spoken earlier before Jonipula's life had been snuffed out. His eyes slid over him, trying to diagnose what was wrong with the man and searching for any obvious injury or source of his current circumstances. His left hand reached out to check his pulse before he reached for a small bag that hung to his side and retrieved a small but well stocked first aid kit.

Don't try anything fancy Dovara...

He knew the limits of his own medical skills and had no intention of getting in over his head. If he ran into a situation that was beyond his experience, he would stop and ask for help rather than fuck up and make something worse. He did look over his shoulder several times, wanting to be aware of what was going on around him. He hoped that someone had a brilliant idea that would get them out of this little fuck up relatively intact. When Alex spoke he replied without looking in his direction.

"The co-pilot is doped to hell and his legs are broken." He was pretty sure of that. "This one is unconscious, I don't see any overt wounds on him just yet but I have not looked everywhere at the moment. He may have internal bleeding, I am doing what I can but I am not a doctor." He went silent then. "Frankly, I am better at killing people than fixing them." He admitted.

[frigidmagi]

He grunted at the news and grabbed the girl. She was the only other real shooter they had left. Wonderful. He wished he was religious so he could curse a god, any god. He pointed towards the APC and started moving and gave a low command.

"Come on. I'll run security but you got to work the radio on the APC. We need Evac ASAP. Longer we're out here the more people are going to die." It hurt his throat to speak so much so quickly, but he would have to choke it down.

[EarthScorpion]

The female soldier called Henna, a woman of sub-Continent origin, nods and puts on the helmet of her heavy armour, and says brusquely, "Yes. I'm trained in military comms."

The terrain around the crash site is fairly flat; that's probably why the deceased pilot aimed for here, insofar as he was able to aim with only one manoeuvring thruster. The soldier Henna moves to take as much cover as possible from the channel that the crashing transport left in the soft soil. She manages to get to the IFV without any inopportune perforations in her body.

Back in the downed flier, the medicinal attempts proceed. The Co-Pilot is very carefully transferred from his seat to a stretcher, although he faints from the agony that burns through the painkillers from the movement of his shattered legs. It's just as well that he wasn't trapped physically; it wouldn't have been possible to extract him without further damage. Of the people in the hold, Salky still works to stabilise Mala. The other Nazzadi male soldier has, by Erik's best guess, a concussion; he'll wake up in time, but not now.

The woman with the very weak vitals stirs, coming around without even a groan. "We appear to have crashed," she says, in a rather acerbic voice, reaching up and pinching her own nose to try to stem the flow of blood.

It is found, at the IFV, that the A-Pod has been knocked out of alignment by the crash. The black-box part of the arcanotechnology will need to be opened up and looked at by a trained arcanotechnician, and will probably need replacement parts that you don't have. That leaves the vehicle purely terrestrial in nation; it's amphibious capacity is reliant on the A-Pod. On the other hand, the water is probably not where you want to be right now.

The main D-Engine is working within operational limits, however. That leaves the on-board energy weapons, the stealth systems, the sensors, the communications, and the tracks functional, which is the first really good news that you've had in a while.

[frigidmagi]

While the trooper got on the radio and started trying to contact HQ Aiguo went prone outside of the APC, about 7 meters away. If he tried doing security on the APC and it got hit, he would dead along with it. He kept scanning the area looking for approaching movement towards the wreck, if he was the enemy (granted they were alien beyond measure and so such though exercises might be pointless) he would send a team out to sniff the wreck. Alien or not military requirements in this situation were near universal.

Everyone else was focused on the wounded and they did need help, he would have felt better if anyone else had realized how dangerous a spot they were in and the need for security.

[EarthScorpion]

The communications equipment bleeps, as the broadcast equipment on the APC adjusts to point to the right place to set up a narrow beam link with one of the contact places. Apparently, before the start of the Second Arcanotech War, there was a full network of satellites that allows amazing point-to-point, heavily encrypted military communications. Not now; the Migou had swatted that all out of the sky when the Hive Ship appeared in orbit. The only satellites were black ops ones, wrapped in stealth systems, reserved for high priority military operations and espionage. Even with those precautions, the Migou orbital supremacy meant that they were found all too often. The grade of equipment the IFV has is designed to bound a narrow-beam radio wave off the ionosphere, where it passes to a secure radio station back in controlled territory, where it is passed safely into the fibre-optics network that replaced the old satellite network.

Outside, it is quiet for a while. After about three minutes, a muffled curse can be heard, even through the sealed door, in a language that doesn't sound like English. The woman pokes her head out, shaking out of what looks like fear.

"Machchi, but that was close! They're bringing out specialist ECM gear; looks like one of the old Eagles, or maybe an Ovum support truck. I managed to break it as soon as I got the interference from their active radar, but they almost certainly know that we're here." She takes two deep breaths, in her hands. "Message from Command, right. Standard Evade orders; get away from the crash. If we can, wreck the D-Engines to stop the fishmen salvaging them, but that's a low priority order." The shaking seems to be getting worse. "Looks... well, just before I had to yank it, it seems that the Echo-Oscar-Delta are launching attacks all along the coast; just preliminary ones now, but it might be something bigger. We just seem to have had the luck to stumble into one probe; the bastards probably thought we were a recon flight. No evac. They're all tied up. Nobody cares about us; we're not proper soldiers anymore. Nothing is going fucking right with this mission."

She shakes her head, calming down.

"Either way, we're going to need to get away from the crash sight. If they're using Eagles or Ovums, this place is going to be screaming out to even those obsolete things. We could head for the trees, maybe; see if we could hole up in one of those buildings the PassRaid's picking up. Foot or IFV doesn't matter as much as getting away quickly, although the IFV's certainly better for speed and stealth."

[frigidmagi]

"Shit." Aigou swore feelingly. Always the sharp end of the stick. Always.

"Get everyone into the APC. They'll likely find us just as fast on foot and we can't carry all the wounded that way anyways. We'll just have to go fast and quiet." He said rubbing his throat as he rasped that out.

[Academia Nut]

Continually surveying the landscape through the sensors of his powered armour, Alex heard the conversation between the soldiers at the APC on his pic up and he quietly resisted the urge to let out a pained groan.

He did however say back into the compartment, "Anyone here good with a detonator? Cause we're going to want to blow this bird and immolate our dead to keep the enemy from getting their hands on them. I think I can probably rig some of the more explosive weapons to blow and then cook off the D-Engine, I just don't want to be around them when it happens, especially if the fireworks guide the enemy to our location instead of away from it."

[Academia Nut]

At nods from Aiguo and Bertram, Alex went over to one of the exposed rocket pods on the side of the downed Werewolf and carefully removed it from its hard point, proceeding very quickly as the various connection points did not require any delicate measures to ensure that they could be reused. Hauling the weapon back, he carefully slid it and its payload of high explosive rockets into the cargo bay.

Crouching down with his armour, he then peeled back the exterior of the D-Engine housing, revealing the outer casing of the eldritch technology. He then pointed out a few things.

"Okay, this here is the primary distribution point, it is by nature the thinnest part of the casing, which is why the housing around it tends to be the thickest and most well armoured to prevent what we want to do from happening. Now, if you hit it with a charge at an oblique angle the blast will go into the inner casing where things are only a little weird and it will burn out the control mechanisms, forcing a shut down that will require a wiz of an arcanotech to repair. It will probably be easier just to make a new D-Engine than repair this one, and subsequent blasts can scrap it futher without causing uch damage. If you hit it at a deep angle then the blast could hit the core and rip the containment system open before an automatic shut down can occur, and then the crops around here will be octarine for the next couple of decades. Any questions? Good. Now, I'm going to go grab as many rounds for the RGM-10M from the hoppers as I can while you two work, then I'll try and keep guard," Alex explained quietly and quickly. Before he exitted to grab the ammunition he glanced back and said, "Oh yeah, if either of you have any questions about the rockets I can help out there as well."

[Hotfoot]

Bertram regarded the munitions and the situation carefully, a quick plan forming in his head. "Okay, anyone with a weak stomach should probably get in the APC. This isn't going to be pretty." Taking the explosives, he nodded to Aiguo and began setting up charges in key locations around the APC. "Okay, here's the plan. I don't know much about the finer points of D-Engines, but one thing I've found out is that when they get damaged in certain way, bad things happen," He paused, securing a warhead near one of the D-Engines with a smirk. "Very bad things, now hand me that fuse, will you?" His teeth gritted as he sucked in a breath, the pain in his leg refusing to go away.

"No, damnit, not the contact fuse! We don't have the time to set up a trap! Timer, timed, the other one!" The irritation in his voice was rising, but his hands kept moving, setting up as many charges as he could, each one poised to strike the D-Engine in a particularly nasty way. When he was done, he looked to Aiguo and nodded. "Let's get the hell out of here."

He didn't say as much, but he had seen something like this happen before, just not intentionally. Leaning heavily on his cane, he began to limp towards the APC, checking his watch carefully. This would likely cut things a little close...

[EarthScorpion]

"Contacts! Inbound. from the East! Two land vehicles, look car sized. Smaller than IFVs, certainly," calls Henna, over the radio from the IFV, where she's been monitoring the equipment. "Look like... I think they've land vehicles; I'm not getting the triple-pip of hover. Through... must be a road in those trees to the east. Damnit, PassRad sucks! I should have noticed this earlier!"

This warning, late though it may be (the only other radar operator, Alex, in his Crusader, only sees this once she had drawn attention to it), is enough to prevent the emergence of the two vehicles from the trees, four hundred metres away to the East, from being a complete surprise. They're old models; like much of the stuff in the EoOD not specifically built for underwater use, they're designs back from the '60s, if not earlier; more like ancient combustion engine models with the power source replaced by a D-Engine. They're fairly broad, wheeled cars, painted a monotone dirty green. They've got some kind of heavy weapon, too, mounted on the roof, but they're not like modern, servo-operated camera eye weapons; no, these weapons require someone to stand up through the roof and fire them. That's good; it precludes the use of quite a few modern weapons, as anyone stupid enough to fire a PS-V6 in that way would be scalded by the flash-heated air. Probably some kind of machine gun.

The charge is finished, though, the timers set to detonate and make sure that anything in this area wishes it wasn't. Aiguo jumps down, while Bertram lowers himself down gently, trying not to hurt his knee. The crashed Werewolf is between them and the Dagonite troops; the enemy may not have even noticed them. They have noticed the power armour and the IFV, though, from the way the pintle-mounted guns swing and the cars swerve off the road.

[Academia Nut]

His plasma cannon already out and ready for use in repelling other vehicles, Alex focused hatefully on one of the technicals and lined up his targetting systems, marking it for death. Aiming at the centre of mass of the vehicle, namely the engine block as on light technicals plasma had a tendency to overpenetrate if it hit the passenger compartment, he quickly lined up his shot. He didn't want to put a hole in the body and maybe fry one of the fish fucks within, he wanted to turn the whole thing into a collection of shrapnel that would go careening out of control, maybe even flip a few times and pancake the passengers. His machine, linked to his movements in part through the Operator Side-Effect reacted smoothly and triggered the weapon, spitting forth a compressed bolt of super heated and ioninzed matter.

[EarthScorpion]

The plasma ball flies out faster than the eye can see, a burning white shard of a newborn sun that only leaves an afterimage in the eye, so rapid is its path. The driver of the lead technical had seen the suit of armour raise its gun, terror in her red eyes, and so had swerved just before the trigger was pulled. The plasma thus did not collide with the engine block, as intended, but instead merely clipped it, slagging a wheel (leaving it with only 5) and a bank of auxiliary D-Cells, before tearing through the passenger seats. The vehicle itself was a mess; steering heavily to one side as the driver fought to keep control even through the scalding on the side of her face from the mess of her commander.

The fhtagah of the squad had been sitting in the front right, from Alex's point of view. Had, being the operative word; the Hybrid sergeant-chaplain of this squad was now a few bloody gibbits of flesh and a cloud of expanding gas. The bolt torn through a cultist, in the back left, too, sparing his torso even as it took his legs.

Back in the IFV, Henna, in the driving seat, checked the interior cameras before sealing the ramp, starting up the engine to rotate the Ranger, to get its front, and its main guns, facing the targets.

[Losonti Tokash]

Knowing he wouldn't be of much help in the chaos outside, Erik focused on getting his patients secured to prevent anyone, particularly the co-pilot, from suffering any additional injuries from the inevitable shaking the IFV would endure. Other than that, he did his best to pretend there was nothing going on out there. Easier to deal with that way.

[EarthScorpion]

The driver of the technical freezes up, red eyes fixed on the hole running through her vehicles and the smeared mess that remains of two of her comrades. Shaking her head, the horrible sight before her remains real.

She screams then, jerking the wheel hard to the right in an attempt to turn to flee. But the damage done to the vehicle was enough to destroy a wheel and leave the structure a mess; it gives way, the melted side buckling like a hot piece of plastic as the stress of turning proves too much.

From your location, you can see the car, crippled by the plasma shot, swerve, out of control. The wheels lift off the ground, and it rolls, crushing the cultist manning the heavy weapon on top. Over and over it goes, tearing up the ground until, with a final clunk, it stops, on its roof, smoke coming from the interior, from the things set alight by the plasma shot.

[Marcao]

I have not exactly trained to use one of these.

The thought lingered on his mind as he strapped into the turret and prepared to give a good showing for himself. Ultimately, the fact that he was surrounded by armor gave him little comfort. He had seen first hand how much protection the armor of their vehicle had afforded some of its inhabitants mere minutes before. He took a deep breath and held it before slowly releasing it.

Showtime.

He was aware of the fire that erupted from his side but it was too quick to track with his eyes. The explosion moments later was met with a satisfying grin. As he did so he used the sensor systems on the turret as best he could to identify a target and see if he could improve the odds of their situation.

How hard could this be?

[Hotfoot]

Bertram turned to Aiguo and grumbled. "You know, I'd almost think this was revenge for all that sushi I ate back in college. Oh the price one pays for being trendy. At least the girls were cute." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a smoke grenade, tossing it to create cover between the Werewolf and the APC. As the grenade began to fill the area with smoke, he pulled out another cigarette out and lit it nonchalantly, taking a deep drag and then exhaling.

"Smoke out," he smirked as he began a quick hobble towards the APC.

[EarthScorpion]

Bertram lobs the smoke grenade as far as he can, an overarm toss that uses all the strength he can muster. The grenade flies in the right direction, although not as far as he would have liked, and begins venting forth its smoke; dirty white with an odd, slightly reflective hint to it from the metal particles incorporated to increase its opacity against non-visible lights means of detection.

It was advisable not to breath in the smoke, though.

Dovara, meanwhile, slowly moved the joystick around to get a sight on the surviving technical.

"Just centre the circle in the middle of the screen on the target and squeeze the trigger," called Henna, the driver, from the other seat. "It's a laser, so you don't need to account for drop or travel time."

Following that advice, Dovara aimed as best he could, and fired. It really was that easy, if you were used to weapons.

The blue green beam, only visible from the scattered light and the atmosphere it ionised along its path, reached out and kissed the second car right in the centre, punching right through. The vehicle exploded, tearing itself apart as the onboard ammunition cooked off in all directions, accompanied by a secondary cluster of explosions from the rear-right of the technical. The heat fused the tires, and it skidded to a halt, cut nearly cleanly in half by the laser beam.

No, it didn't appear to be that hard at all.

[Marcao]

It was remarkably straight forward to line up the target in the middle of the screen and let the NEG technology do its work. With the target locked, it was as simple as squeezing the trigger. It was just as the driver had indicated. The resulting explosion was met with a blank look at first which blossomed into a feral grin as the secondary explosions manifested themselves.

"I could get used to this." He managed to whisper as the optical sensors of the weapon system gave him a front row seat to the devastation that he had created.

All I did was press a switch. Those years of education paid for themselves.

[EarthScorpion]

With the death of the Dagonite scouting patrol, it would be best to vacate the area. This is promptly done, everyone piling into the Ranger IFV (although it is quite a cramped fit; with the addition of the stretchers for the injured and the powered armour, it's about as packed as your average arcology link). The vehicle sets off in a standard Evade pattern, moving as rapidly as can be done to preserve the stealth field, because of the little matter of the explosives set on the D-Engine.

And not too soon, either, as the passive radar picks up several more signatures coming along the same path as the now-deceased technicals, accompanied by what quite well could be some Dagonite Powered Armour.

You're several kilometres away, when there is a bloom on the passive radar from the crashed Werewolf, while quickly vanishes. It seems the charges went off just as planned. Some really odd interference lingers in the transport's signiture, which suggests that the designed collapse did... something.

Henna slows the transport right down, to minimise the chance of anyone spotting it without specialist equipment (equipment that the Esoteric Order of Dagon is rather defficent in).

"I can say one thing," she mutters loud enough for everyone to hear. "Had this happened in Migou territory, we'd have Dragonflies all over us. It's a small mercy." She shakes her head. "Well, we're far enough away that that cluster shouldn't stumble over us, and I'm keeping an eye on the radar anyway. But now we need to talk. " She grimaces. "So what do we do now?"

[frigidmagi]

Aigou would have screamed if he had a working throat. As it was his throat felt raw and scraped. He rubbed it with his left hand.

"Nothing to talk about. Need to link up. Get wounded to medical. See if there are new orders. Means go inland, towards base if can." He said. He felt a bit odd outlining basic training like this. He missed the military already.

[Academia Nut]

While nodding with power armour within a confined space was not recommended, Alex agreed with Aiguo and said, "We need to find a defensible position and link up with the rest of the NEG forces. As much as I would prefer to not to enter an unknown, potentially compromised, position it's probably safer than sitting out in the open waiting for a scout to catch us with our pants down. Having some cover and the ability to conceal our numbers, and our wounded, would be most appreciated if we have to get into a firefight with anything more potent than technicals."

[frigidmagi]

"No, other base. One where reinforcements and hospitals are, not more monsters." Aigou corrected.

[Academia Nut]

"Well, I'm glad someone's briefing covered information like that," Alex muttered bitterly. "Then yes, let's get to the nearest non-compromised base possible."