JB CVIII: A Dream of Armaggedon
Situation Normal. All Fucked Up. It's a military term that the Shock Corps are fond of, because unexpected complications are very, very common.
Being ambushed through Hangar 1 from a series of 1950s-styled WarBots with atom blasters and missile launchers packing .0001kt micronuke warheads? Expected. Bringing point defense weapons and running the DSCA suits Hamilton and Khan were wearing into a networked anti-missile defense meant no missiles got into the kill radius, and keeping the lightly armored people out of the way was a must.
Finding that he'd have to leave Parker behind because the corridors didn't fit his borrowed
Bogatyr? Expected. Very few ships are designed so that heavy assault units like that can fit inside. Securing the hangar so that they couldn't infiltrate in commandos or reinforcements was important, as well, and the
Bogatyr had enough Primium that he could take on RDs without too much worry.
Shooting your way through Robbies and other 50s-styled retro-futuristic atomic warbots as you go through Hangar 1 to the bridge? Business as usual, scarcely something he cares about. The X-14 he has might be old, but it still does its job just fine. Behind him are the remaining 4 of his crew, old war veterans who've done things like this before.
[Strength Augmentation at Maximum], the N2 thinks at him, and he kicks down the sealed door to the bridge as the geiger counter goes tick-tick-tick. And he comes face-to-face with an enlarged brain, glowing sickly green as radioactive mutagens are pumped into it. Dr. Freiger. A woman in a labcoat, who also shows up as a radiation warning, is there with an atomic disintegration ray in her hands, aimed at him. He dodges back as the gun takes glowing blue chunks out of the thick armored wall.
"So the Enemies of Ascension come to my door? I should thank you then, for you will be the first witnesses to the new world. After I dispose of you, I will annihilate your centers of power! The resulting nuclear war will recreate the world, one where the strong will be able to seek Ascension unfettered by the crushing weight of the Masses! Atomic power will set us free from this dull gray prison you have created!"
"Just once I'd like to deal with a mad scientist whose plans for humanity only involve 'THEY CALLED ME MAD! THEY'LL PAY!' or something like that." Kessler yells back. "I suspect you're not going to surrender peacefully."
"Why would I, when I hold all the cards against you arrogant Technocratic fools?!" Dr. Freiger boasts. "Dr. Grey, why don't you demonstrate to this brain-dead
Neanderthal why the inferior stasis of Technocratic science will eventually be defeated by true Science!!? And robots! Kill these men!"
"Certainly, my dear." Grey says, and she moves
fast. And it's Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. He barely gets a 10-round burst off, tearing cloth and bouncing off of metal before she's on him with the speed and momentum of a freight train, and she hits
hard. The steel bulkhead buckles and tears like canvas as he's sent careening through the
Oppenheimer's Light like a baseball. She's strong. Stronger than him. He didn't expect Freiger's right-hand man to be this strong. The N2's tactical software runs analyses for him, sees the radiation hazard beating inside her heart, the thin layer of false plastic skin-not true synthflesh but something close enough for touch-that covers blue-gray metal. Servos whine as she chokes him with one hand, slamming his helmet into and through a pipe containing boiling-hot coolant. The thick kevlar that her labcoat is made of boils as she does so, and her skin flakes and peels away, but she doesn't notice or seem to care. He slams blows into her gut, blows strong enough to shatter Garou and vampire alike, blows strong enough that armored vehicles would buckle and break, and she doesn't seem to notice.
She's strong, fast, and tough, but clearly running on brute force rather than real skill. With the moment of surprise lost, Kessler realizes she's a brawler, not a martial artist. He snaps strength augmentation sky-high, hits her in the elbow joint
just so that it causes her to let go in reflex, and swings
her surprisingly heavy body around into the steam vent. Auburn hair and alabaster skin boils off to reveal seamed gray plastic on half of her face. The arm still works, but it seems slightly slower, and her movements now favor her left side a bit more, probably some sort of combat programming. She's overconfident. She can be damaged, and if she can be damaged she can be stopped. Good. Little robotic tentacles, segmented metal worms, wriggle out of hidden ports and start welding it back together. She has a self-repair system. Less good.
"This face took
months to perfect!" She snarls. Kessler takes a moment to give her an in-depth scan. Ultradense chassis, super-high power electromagnetic servos, and instead of a beating heart inside her chest is a fission reactor of incredible power, overclocked to such an extent that the N2's "skin" prickles with radiation warnings, that if it wasn't for the primium in his skeleton and the energy-absorbent layers in his augmented skin, he'd have to get detoxed. It's lucky she's not around Kessler's comrades-in-arms. Otherwise they'd probably be needing immediate radiation sickness treatment. Dr. Grey he knew of, she was in the briefing, a mysterious actor who helped Freiger with cloning and neural enhancement technologies. But they didn't know she was in an atomic warbot chassis after the last assassination attempt. Freiger's trump card. The threat level analysis of the N2 has simply thrown up an error for her danger rating and recommends retreat or threat avoidance. Good advice. It's a much smarter computer than he'd give it credit for.
He draws his sidearm and a primium vibroblade, fires a few test shots at the Doctor. It's a superheavy pistol, a two-barrel 20mm "Derringer" that holds 4 shots total of ammunition that can kill light tanks. The shots visibly curve away from her and lightning arcs around her body. Electromagnetic shielding. It'd explain her toughness. She brings her arm up, and the center of her palm glows with a sickly green light for a moment before a gamma-ray burst hits where Kessler was a moment ago, strong enough to melt through steel. Another shot, and he reflexively deflects it with the primium knife. Maybe if he had some serious firepower, like a plasma cannon, he'd be able to win this duel. But he doesn't-and he's going to have to improvise. Her body's hard metal, some sort of supertough thing that resists radiation and kinetic energy very well. But the joints are vulnerable, the servos are vulnerable, and there's too many joints in a human body that he can disrupt or break.
And it means he's isolated from his soldiers. He's going to need to finish this, lest his allies and comrades start dying. But he's been in worse situations. Not many, but a few. Most of them, to be fair, were on that goddamned dragon planet.
Dr. Freiger is a Master-level mage, with Forces and Matter 5. Dr. Grey is a Master of Life and Mind, allowing her to create clones, and isn't too shabby at direct fighting. You chose to avoid the two easier battles to take a look at the actual boss-level one. Which could be bad, but it also means that you get the maximum amount of loot 'not destroyed in fighting,' including potentially a very high-powered gynoid body (that runs on nuclear fission and is thus not exactly kosher). Remember, Rogue Council people are often veteran Ascension Warriors. Freiger was responsible for Brass Cog (thus having at least Matter 5 and Forces 5), the clone thing (Life 5) and he thought his plan could actually succeed-he's
crazy, not
stupid.
@Nuts! voting for the N2 may have been a stroke of inadvertent genius though. Because it is very possible you will need that ability to bring Kessler back to life. Luckily for you, nobody's really posted any combat buffs for Kessler so you might want to do that
right now. For both you and the Expendabros, because they are being overwhelmed by legions of killer robots (Matter 4, Forces 3 killbot legions goooo).
The Expendables:
Note that they
aren't mages, they're just really good at their job (and one of them has the ability to understand and use "magical items")
[ ] (0.2x) Try to take down Freiger themselves while swamped by an endless legion of robots
[ ] (1.5x) Fall back to the armory, get some Etherite weapons and gear, and see if you can push the attack
that way.
[ ] (2.0x) Retreat.
Kessler's Finest Hour:
Please make sure you remember that Kessler does have the ability to self-buff,
and remember that he can also cast independently.
[ ] (3.0x) Stall for time. Pump yourself up and hope she doesn't decide the fight while you're doing so.
[ ] Play defensively. Stealth around, see if you can't avoid her.
[ ] (1.5x) Retreat!
[ ] (0.5x) Figure out a weakpoint, neutralize it, and then make a desperate attack.
Kessler has full WP (10) and Prime Energy (5) right now. He might need a lot of it.
