Interval 20: Rain After the Shooting Star
[X] "I still don't think we can take them. We can escape through the roof hatch. That way they'd be forced to come through it at us."
"Do you mind if I coordinate this?" you ask Delona. "I think I've got the ware in my head for it."
Delona gives you a rueful smile. "Go ahead. I was a vanguard, not a coordinator."
"Okay." You look up at the hatch. "Here's how we do this. Can you seal the doors and vents in here?"
"Yeah." Delona says.
You fish around beside the reactor and pull up several cans of discarded looking paint. "Toss these into the vents and then seal them up. It'll restrict the amount of drones. Then leave the drone hive in here behind the reactor and deploy everything into this room. Aletta, do you know how to run a hive?"
"Yes."
"Alright, we need to delay their screen as much as possible. If they realise we're up top they'll try to flank low. Once we're on the roof Anna, Marisa, Delona, set your carbines to intercept and cover the hatch out. I'm going to cover the flank and behind and make sure nothing sneaks up on it. Aletta, run the hive until they destroy it and keep your head down. Reizay, can you keep our scan up?"
"Yeah."
"What about the spin shield? If it cracks the whole loft space will be ruined." asks Anna.
"Set your grenades to frag. We're just trying to keep them back until my friend gets here. Any questions?"
"No, we're good. Let's go." Delona climbs up to the roof hatch, peeks, then hauls herself up onto the roof. "There's another drone watching out here but it doesn't look like what the Firewatch team is using. Maybe militia?"
"I can't detect any connection to the Firewatch team, but they could be relaying," reports Reizay.
"Will the militia be mad at you if you shoot it down?" You ask Delona as you pull yourself up through the hatch.
"Nah. If they wanted to not get shot at they should have identified themselves." Delona looks upwards and then her catapult discharges. There's a distant high altitude explosion. "Let's get into position."
You move down the roof with the others and find places on the slope. Up close, the dome is not perfectly smooth. There's cooling fins, NBC sealable vent covers and even some hatches that Delona makes sure will stay closed. You find yourself a good spot behind one of the covers and aim downward towards the lower airlock on this side. That seems the most likely egress point. Even a shearing charge would have difficulty blowing a hole right through the thickness of the dome rather than the relatively thin airlocks. You check the minimap; everyone is in place, marked ready and with their auras in combat mode. You were half afraid Reizay or one of the others might forget that. <<Free fire on anything that comes out of the hatch.>>
There's a few moments pause. A slight wind has picked up, you feel it in your hair..
<<Drones in the room below,>> reports Aletta <<I'm counterattacking.>>
A column of green fire lances up through the hatch, made lambent rather than blinding by your eyes' flash protection. Metal and carbon become briefly molten and collapse inwards. There's a pause for a moment then the crab deploys a cooling aerosol grenade and extends its sensor turret through the ruined hatch. It has countermeasures up, but the heat is so fierce it burns through clearly on thermal.
The crab begins to fire grenades and streams of beehive rounds from three carbines reach to intercept. The sky is full of airbursts as rounds pluck the incoming grenades. Defence aura intercept lasers reach out as well, filling the air with explosions and the roof with bouncing fragments. Several still get through, but the trajectory, almost vertical, is bad. The grenades are coming in almost entirely ballistic, easy to intercept while your knowledge of the crab's exact position lets your catapult projectiles hug the roof line. The crab rears out a moment later, exposing more of itself from the hatch to try to get a more direct angle. The grenades themselves are almost invisible blurs of countermeasures, visible only by the bright blue flames of their afterburners as it tries to overwhelm the defence with sheer firepower.
This isn't your concern. The airlock you were watching explodes out. You switch targets and fire a pattern of grenades, two explosive and one anti-countermeasure glitter, and are rewarded by the sight of the Kusanagi appearing for a moment before her concealment systems compensate.
<<They're out below!>> As you try to track the Kusanagi's location the octopus sculpt clambers out after her. You're at a definite firepower disadvantage on this front now. <<Bound left! Aletta, Reizay! You first!>>
There's a dot in the sky, over the forest, out in the direction of the city.
Aletta and Reizay run down and to the left, using the slope of the dome to stay in cover from the crab even as they get out of line from the two emerging fighters below. Both enemies spit out a wave of grenades and you switch your catapult from attack to intercept mode.
You're at the limit of your defence here. You can fall back around the roof but this is just delaying the inevitable.
And then a shuttle slams into the crab drone.
It hits almost at maximum speed. The crab sees it coming and switches fire, sweeping up its energy cannon and coring the incoming craft through the middle. It saves the crab's life but isn't enough to stop the cloud of debris, fire and bits of engine obscuring the hatch, knocking out the machine's targetting.
The sky is full of falling Luyu. A half-dozen of her, each surrounded by an aerodynamic forcefield dart. The octopus sculpt and the Kusanagi drop back into the airlock immediately as catapults and other weapons zero in on the doorway. There's a ferocious burst of jamming that turns the area around the airlock into an impressionistic nightmare for an instant as the short life jammer bombards everything from radar to the naked eye with desperately contradictory impressions. Then the explosion destroys it.
<<Everyone fall back to the ground!>> Luyu has given you a moment and you don't want to be stuck up here while she uses it. Each of her bodies is wearing an old style hexagon-armoured suit and combat mask, and she's better cover than anything you can find up here.
The five of you slide and slalom down the side of the dome, hitting the purple grass below at a run. You put your head down and sprint to the positions where some of Luyu is landing. She deploys entrenching charges, blowing up quick diviots of earth which she drags you behind.
"Hi," says Luyu as you're pulled into cover. "Get what you came for?"
"Yeah. Then Reizay's friends wanted to abduct her, and then these guys turned up."
"Mirareki didn't have a good interview." Luyu says. "A couple of me got her and Atet out while I was flying over. They're on their way here. Hopefully they don't get into a scrape, believe it or not I'm not great at multitasking." She gives a distracted blink under the helmet, and sighs. "She wants to talk to them."
"Well I don't mind her doing so."
"Do you know who these guys out in the woods are?"
"No."
"Mysterious!" Luyu aims her plasma gun over the edge of the fighting position and fires a burst at the door.
The comm opens. It's Mirareki, using visual. She looks a little haggard. <<I would suggest you all stand down. You don't have the numbers to overcome us now, and if we continue fighting it'll just attract further attention. You've already drawn a third party here.>>
<<You're infected, Mirareki,>> says the hacker with the pet brain, joining the circle playing out in everyone's AR. <<There was an update about it from the main server. A threat bulletin.>>
<<I'm not infected. Stella is possessed but there's no sign it's invasive. It's been catatonic ever since this unknown alien attacked it. That alien itself, the Quiet and whatever conspiracy set all this up are the threat. Not what's in Stella's head.>>
The battlefield falls momentarily silent. <<You're still claiming Central is wrong?>>
<<I don't know what's wrong with Central, but you tested me and you didn't find an infection. Don't you even trust your own data?>>
You glance back at the woods. Luyu left a drone up at high altitude and its feed shows intermittent signatures of a group withdrawing through the woods. You need to decide what to do.
<<I don't think we can get a good angle on them.>> Luyu says. <<It'll be pretty hard to get them out of that structure even with the firepower I've got with me.>> She grins. <<They're pretty good.>>
[ ] Wait in place and let Mirareki try to negotiate.
[ ] Use this chance to withdraw into the woods yourself, being careful of the team there.
[ ] Use this chance to move into the woods with some of Luyu and try to get a look at the third party group.
[ ] Take control of negotiations yourself and offer to undergo Firewatch medical analysis to prove to firewatch you're not a threat [Warning: delays revival of Alex]
"Do you mind if I coordinate this?" you ask Delona. "I think I've got the ware in my head for it."
Delona gives you a rueful smile. "Go ahead. I was a vanguard, not a coordinator."
"Okay." You look up at the hatch. "Here's how we do this. Can you seal the doors and vents in here?"
"Yeah." Delona says.
You fish around beside the reactor and pull up several cans of discarded looking paint. "Toss these into the vents and then seal them up. It'll restrict the amount of drones. Then leave the drone hive in here behind the reactor and deploy everything into this room. Aletta, do you know how to run a hive?"
"Yes."
"Alright, we need to delay their screen as much as possible. If they realise we're up top they'll try to flank low. Once we're on the roof Anna, Marisa, Delona, set your carbines to intercept and cover the hatch out. I'm going to cover the flank and behind and make sure nothing sneaks up on it. Aletta, run the hive until they destroy it and keep your head down. Reizay, can you keep our scan up?"
"Yeah."
"What about the spin shield? If it cracks the whole loft space will be ruined." asks Anna.
"Set your grenades to frag. We're just trying to keep them back until my friend gets here. Any questions?"
"No, we're good. Let's go." Delona climbs up to the roof hatch, peeks, then hauls herself up onto the roof. "There's another drone watching out here but it doesn't look like what the Firewatch team is using. Maybe militia?"
"I can't detect any connection to the Firewatch team, but they could be relaying," reports Reizay.
"Will the militia be mad at you if you shoot it down?" You ask Delona as you pull yourself up through the hatch.
"Nah. If they wanted to not get shot at they should have identified themselves." Delona looks upwards and then her catapult discharges. There's a distant high altitude explosion. "Let's get into position."
You move down the roof with the others and find places on the slope. Up close, the dome is not perfectly smooth. There's cooling fins, NBC sealable vent covers and even some hatches that Delona makes sure will stay closed. You find yourself a good spot behind one of the covers and aim downward towards the lower airlock on this side. That seems the most likely egress point. Even a shearing charge would have difficulty blowing a hole right through the thickness of the dome rather than the relatively thin airlocks. You check the minimap; everyone is in place, marked ready and with their auras in combat mode. You were half afraid Reizay or one of the others might forget that. <<Free fire on anything that comes out of the hatch.>>
There's a few moments pause. A slight wind has picked up, you feel it in your hair..
<<Drones in the room below,>> reports Aletta <<I'm counterattacking.>>
A column of green fire lances up through the hatch, made lambent rather than blinding by your eyes' flash protection. Metal and carbon become briefly molten and collapse inwards. There's a pause for a moment then the crab deploys a cooling aerosol grenade and extends its sensor turret through the ruined hatch. It has countermeasures up, but the heat is so fierce it burns through clearly on thermal.
The crab begins to fire grenades and streams of beehive rounds from three carbines reach to intercept. The sky is full of airbursts as rounds pluck the incoming grenades. Defence aura intercept lasers reach out as well, filling the air with explosions and the roof with bouncing fragments. Several still get through, but the trajectory, almost vertical, is bad. The grenades are coming in almost entirely ballistic, easy to intercept while your knowledge of the crab's exact position lets your catapult projectiles hug the roof line. The crab rears out a moment later, exposing more of itself from the hatch to try to get a more direct angle. The grenades themselves are almost invisible blurs of countermeasures, visible only by the bright blue flames of their afterburners as it tries to overwhelm the defence with sheer firepower.
This isn't your concern. The airlock you were watching explodes out. You switch targets and fire a pattern of grenades, two explosive and one anti-countermeasure glitter, and are rewarded by the sight of the Kusanagi appearing for a moment before her concealment systems compensate.
<<They're out below!>> As you try to track the Kusanagi's location the octopus sculpt clambers out after her. You're at a definite firepower disadvantage on this front now. <<Bound left! Aletta, Reizay! You first!>>
There's a dot in the sky, over the forest, out in the direction of the city.
Aletta and Reizay run down and to the left, using the slope of the dome to stay in cover from the crab even as they get out of line from the two emerging fighters below. Both enemies spit out a wave of grenades and you switch your catapult from attack to intercept mode.
You're at the limit of your defence here. You can fall back around the roof but this is just delaying the inevitable.
And then a shuttle slams into the crab drone.
It hits almost at maximum speed. The crab sees it coming and switches fire, sweeping up its energy cannon and coring the incoming craft through the middle. It saves the crab's life but isn't enough to stop the cloud of debris, fire and bits of engine obscuring the hatch, knocking out the machine's targetting.
The sky is full of falling Luyu. A half-dozen of her, each surrounded by an aerodynamic forcefield dart. The octopus sculpt and the Kusanagi drop back into the airlock immediately as catapults and other weapons zero in on the doorway. There's a ferocious burst of jamming that turns the area around the airlock into an impressionistic nightmare for an instant as the short life jammer bombards everything from radar to the naked eye with desperately contradictory impressions. Then the explosion destroys it.
<<Everyone fall back to the ground!>> Luyu has given you a moment and you don't want to be stuck up here while she uses it. Each of her bodies is wearing an old style hexagon-armoured suit and combat mask, and she's better cover than anything you can find up here.
The five of you slide and slalom down the side of the dome, hitting the purple grass below at a run. You put your head down and sprint to the positions where some of Luyu is landing. She deploys entrenching charges, blowing up quick diviots of earth which she drags you behind.
"Hi," says Luyu as you're pulled into cover. "Get what you came for?"
"Yeah. Then Reizay's friends wanted to abduct her, and then these guys turned up."
"Mirareki didn't have a good interview." Luyu says. "A couple of me got her and Atet out while I was flying over. They're on their way here. Hopefully they don't get into a scrape, believe it or not I'm not great at multitasking." She gives a distracted blink under the helmet, and sighs. "She wants to talk to them."
"Well I don't mind her doing so."
"Do you know who these guys out in the woods are?"
"No."
"Mysterious!" Luyu aims her plasma gun over the edge of the fighting position and fires a burst at the door.
The comm opens. It's Mirareki, using visual. She looks a little haggard. <<I would suggest you all stand down. You don't have the numbers to overcome us now, and if we continue fighting it'll just attract further attention. You've already drawn a third party here.>>
<<You're infected, Mirareki,>> says the hacker with the pet brain, joining the circle playing out in everyone's AR. <<There was an update about it from the main server. A threat bulletin.>>
<<I'm not infected. Stella is possessed but there's no sign it's invasive. It's been catatonic ever since this unknown alien attacked it. That alien itself, the Quiet and whatever conspiracy set all this up are the threat. Not what's in Stella's head.>>
The battlefield falls momentarily silent. <<You're still claiming Central is wrong?>>
<<I don't know what's wrong with Central, but you tested me and you didn't find an infection. Don't you even trust your own data?>>
You glance back at the woods. Luyu left a drone up at high altitude and its feed shows intermittent signatures of a group withdrawing through the woods. You need to decide what to do.
<<I don't think we can get a good angle on them.>> Luyu says. <<It'll be pretty hard to get them out of that structure even with the firepower I've got with me.>> She grins. <<They're pretty good.>>
[ ] Wait in place and let Mirareki try to negotiate.
[ ] Use this chance to withdraw into the woods yourself, being careful of the team there.
[ ] Use this chance to move into the woods with some of Luyu and try to get a look at the third party group.
[ ] Take control of negotiations yourself and offer to undergo Firewatch medical analysis to prove to firewatch you're not a threat [Warning: delays revival of Alex]
