| From: | ANGLISS BRIAN EDWARD <angliss@****.Colorado.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | IFV Insertion, Maxim raid part 4 |
| Date: | Sun, 10 Mar 1996 19:27:39 -0700 (MST) |
We were in position about 2 kilometers from the perimeter to the southwest
when Tigger and the rest of the distractions team fired up the missiles and
the artillery. We had been in position for at least an hour. Gunny, one of
the locals, and Green Hornet had been sitting behind their Great Dragon AVMs
for at least half that time, waiting for the distraction to kick in. When it
did, it only lasted a minute, maybe less, before we got confirmation from one
of our deckers inside, Dick Tracy, that not only had a Thug been dispatched
that would come through our area, but that the HALO team had been discovered
already by a communications glitch when the plane through a narrowband,
tightbeam satlink. Most of us looked up and saw, as DT was saying that we'd
be needed badly soon, the explosion that took out the HALO drop plane.
At about this time the Thug came rumbling by and was pounded by three
different anti-armor missiles, which blew the thing into hot chunks. At
about the same instant, we armed the missile scuttling charges and connected
with our already moving Thug. Inside, we plugged ourselves in and started
broadcasting on all channels about being ambushed. Kato did an amazing job
of limping really fast back to the road, and Phantom was still in contact
with the deckers inside, who told him that they had intercepted a visual of
the switch from a Jovian-6 surveillance drone. Phantom was also able to
modify the IFF transponder on our Thug to closely match the other's, with
intentional degradation to duplicate the effects of true damage. The
internal mikes were kept active and all 12 of us were screaming as if we'd
taken a LOT of damage and we were severely wounded.
Now, you need to get an idea of what the Thug looked like. It's treaded,
with a remote medium turret set off-center on the top, over where the
passenger would sit if it were a civilian vehicle. it's got four exit
points, a top hatch, two single side doors, and a rear ramp hatch. We'd
duplicated the effects of having the top and one side door blown off and
punched holes through it with heavy weapons to simulate the effects of an
ambush. The Thug is only lightly armored as these things go, I've been told,
so it wasn't unreasonable to expect the level of damage we inflicted on our
Thug. The turret was also damaged, but carefully enough that it still had
full fire capability, one of the two missile pods still attached, but looked
like it was about to fall off it's mounting. And we attached a small
submunition dispenser, for remotely activated anti-personnel minelets, to the
bottom between the tracks. Jasmine didn't like the minelets, being a Snake
shaman and all that, but Green Hornet assured her that they were for
distraction and confusion only and that they weren't powerful enough to
really hurt someone unless they stepped on a bunch of them.
Our goal was to get through the gate and then destroy as much of Maxim's
ability to pursue us as we could, and by about this time, we'd made it to
the gate. Phantom told us that the Nightglider and HALO teams were on the
ground, but that things were already going badly for them in the armory, and
that Maxim was probably less than a minute from figuring out that they had
deckers in their system. We kept coming closer and closer to the gate, but
it was fraggin closed! Closed, to a friendly Thug with wounded. It was
this point when I was glad that we had Jasmine along. She was playing the
squad's combat medic, a job she did very well, and she radioed the gate and
told them that we had wounded and dying troops here, and that we needed to
be let in NOW, and that she'd take responsibility if she needed to, and that
if they didn't let us in immediately she'd get them nailed to a wall. Well,
it worked, and the gate slowly opened, even if all the guns of the three
pillboxes were targeting us directly.
Going through that gate complex was very uncomfortable. Not only is it
concrete lined, 5 to 10 meters tall and topped with coiled razor wire, it's
lined with mines and you're under the barrels of at least 6 heavy weapons
and a missile launcher, not including the elementals which are always around.
As we got closer, Kato said he could see AJ waiting just inside the inner
gate complex. Behind us the gate closed again, including all the tank traps,
the gates, everything, and we knew that there was no way we were getting out
through that gate again. AJ was in the forefront of the medical personnel
and was obviously taking charge, since all the other doctors and medics were
taking his orders. They scattered as he addressed the only other doctor
there and faced him down. That man has some incredible charisma and
willpower sometimes, and that's what got us past the MSI medical personnel
and let us rush right in, past guards, medical personnel, a tower and a team
of military riggers running toward their hovertank as we passed it. And all
through it Kato was having our dispenser scatter AP minelets all over the
road we sped along. AJ said that our destination was the main hospital in
the Security center, since it had the best medical facilities in the site,
but that we'd better prepare for operations when we got close to the
airfield.
Everyone got the RPGs and rifles ready and we doublechecked the main gun and
the missile pod so we could use them instantly if necessary. But you know
something? Looking around, I realized that there wasn't anyone non-essential
on the streets. Sure, there were 8000 or so Maxim employees there, all
wearing sidearms, but only a fraction of them were out and visible. All the
others had disappeared into the housing buildings, medium sized 2 story
buildings. It was obvious that all the drek that we were doing to the
facility had either been tried before or been simulated so many times that
this was not much of a shock or inconvenience. Frag, even the production
lines didn't stop, although we found out later that they were throwing parts
and breaking by the time that the deckers got done with them.
We were continuing as quick as we could while still maintaining some
semblance of our cover when Kato announced that the submunitions were all
out. That's about when Phantom also told us that the deckers had gone off
line after saying that they were under intense pressure and that we were on
our own. Unfortunately, this meant that our cover was about to be blown,
and we'd just cleared the corner of one of the production facilities.
Luckily, Jasmine had cast a mask spell and was keeping it up around the IFV,
which now looked like an ambulance. In front of us was about 300 meters of
airfield, taxiway, tarmac, and armored bunker, plus a mortar pit, chopper
pad, and a beautiful target, a Maxim semi-ballistic sitting outside the
hanger. We sped up a little and followed our route toward the one place we
shouldn't have been going, the central security complex, but Kato rotated the
turret to face the missile pod toward the plane while the rest of us took up
positions to fire RPGs and spells at the drones, choppers, and the planes we
could see in the bunkers.
And there were some of them. Our recon, as good as it was, and as good as
the sat shots were, didn't prep us for what Maxim really had in those
bunkers. At this point, one Massif-4, a Maxim ground support fighter, and a
Blood Rose air-superiority fighter were out trying to engage, and possibly
succeeding, our distraction team in the jungle, but in the bunkers were two
more Massif-4s, another Blood Rose, and a Wyvern aerospace fighter too. Not
nice. And the chopper pad near the gate was empty, although we were
overflown by a Hughes Bandit on our way in, and we saw the other pad was
slightly damaged. There was another chopper, Kato said it was an Apache Mark
3, being wheeled out to the tarmac from the bunkers, and we saw at least 5
more inside being armed and readied for combat. This was a bad thing. And
the drones.... There were dozens of them, from MRD-4 and -7 rotodrones to
tilt-rotor Shadowhawk RPVs and even a couple of Bloodkite RPVs too. Kato
seemed impressed, and he was chatting with the rest of his chummers about
Maxim's firepower.
Even with all 24 RPGs, we couldn't hope to destroy or even damage all the
vehicles that could pursue us, so we got ready and, just before we reached
the next corner of the production building, Kato fired the AVM and Jasmine
dropped the mask. With the start of gunfire, it wouldn't have worked much
longer anyway, and she said that it wouldn't work against electronics either.
Everyone armed with RPGs popped up and fired them at various vehicles, hoping
that the area effect of the blast would damage enough drones or troops to
slow them down. The AVM met with a beautiful ending that probably gave us
enough to confusion to get turned around and heading toward the far
perimeter. The AVM hit a wing fuel tank and detonated, sending a fireball
into the sky that lit up the jungle and the facility with a beautiful but
hellish light. It worked, until we heard the whines of vectored thrust
turbines starting up from the other side of the Security building, where the
Collussus MBT was stationed. We were in a lightly armored and intentionally
damaged Thug. That fraggin thing wouldn't stand a single shot from the
Collussus's RVL-1, never mind the 175mm cannon. AJ swore as Kato threw it
into a u-turn and almost threw him from the Thug, and then ripped off his
medical outfit and started putting together his Ranger-X bow. You could see
that things were not going as well as he had hoped just by looking in his
eyes. Frag, we all knew that. Jasmine again came through, this time casting
a spell that created a darkness around us so that the flashes from the rifles
wouldn't give us away, although the RPGs still would. Too bad it didn't work
against mechanical sensors....
The rest of us were blasting away at anything that was firing back at us.
Gunny got a cheer when his grenade launcher lit off a couple of rotodrones
with an expertly placed minigrenade. But Maxim was starting to get
themselves together and we were starting to run out of ammo. Jasmine's
illusion worked only as long as we didn't run into any drones or cameras
and, wouldn't you know it, the next thing we know we're getting strafed by
three rotodrones. One of them was nearly a full chopper in its own right,
and it comes barreling in at us, guns blazing. I was only barely able to
cast a bullet barrier in time to partially shield us from some of the shots,
but enough got through to hit and wound a couple of the locals. Gunny, with
a couple of air-timed grenades, was able to blast the sensors of one of the
drone, and the rigger controlling it lost control and crashed the fraggin
thing. The combined effects of 5 or 6 assault rifles brought the other one
down after its rotor was damaged. But the MRD-7 stayed up until the fire
elemental I sent at it ignited it's fuel, at which point it made a beautiful
explosion.
Our plan was to head across the airfield, which we were doing, and to get
close enough to some of the rotodrones to destroy all or most of them. With
the Thug's cannon covering us, Green Hornet, Doc Savage, and I got out to
set charges on the drones we were near. Unfortunately for us, a fraggin
ground combat drone, a Black Angus, if I remember correctly, decided to take
this opportunity to introduce us to it's Monster combat gun. If you've never
been face to face with Monster combat weapon, be glad. It's got four barrels
including an LMG, automatic grenade launcher, and two assault rifles, all
modified for belt feeds. Well, this fraggin gun sends us scurrying for cover
and goes and kills two of the locals in the Thug. Green Hornet makes it back
to the Thug, which starts moving around to pick us up before taking LMG
rounds and being forced back by exploding grenades. I don't know for sure
what happened with the rest of the Thug's crew while we were running, but
this is what Doc Savage and I ran into.
We ran into a Quad. The grenades had driven us back from the Thug and around
behind a concrete barrier at the edge of the drone pad. Doc poked his head
over the barrier and saw that the Thug was being driven away, and that Green
Hornet was clear of the drones, so he blew them and created a large hole in
the ground in the process. Well, we hauled hoop, keeping low, and almost
missed them. Doc was as surprised as I was when, suddenly, there were four
armored and armed figures running across the tarmac at our position. We
could barely see them, and I was NOT about to kick over perception to Astral
to verify that they were there, so I summoned up my best Hellblast and flung
it at them. Something was very wrong, because it worked, but didn't do
anything. A hellblast as powerful as I threw should have melted the flesh
off their bones and fused it with their armor, but it did nothing. Nothing.
The only thing that makes sense is that it has to be the same kind of armor
that those dragon people are wearing, at least in principle. If I'd looked
at it in the Astral, I'd be able to verify this, but that would have been
suicide in this place. Doc fired off some rounds from his SMG, but the
figures just seemed to shrug them off, and one of them even showed a
shimmering like an anchored bullet or physical barrier. Not pleasant. We
looked at each other and began to run.
Let me tell you, that Quad could move. Not only did the armor likely contain
either magical masking of some kind or Ruthenium coating, but they made no
sounds as they ran. They were carrying ramjet rifles with grenade launchers,
and as we began to run, they began to fire, following us. The impact of the
rounds on the concrete disintegrated part of the barrier we had been hiding
behind originally, and we ran hard and fast. I ended up calling on an air
elemental to help me, since I couldn't keep up with Doc or outrun the Quad
behind me without it. Well, what happens when you're in enemy territory with
an elemental helping keep you alive? Your pursuers try to take control of
your elemental, and fragitall if the Quad mage didn't succeed too. Next
thing you know the elemental is sucking the breath out of my lungs and I've
stopped cold. Doc must have realized that I wasn't still behind him, because
he stopped cold, landed on his back, and flung an aerodynamic grenade at the
Quad, which distracted them long enough for me to banish my own elemental
before it could kill me. Needless to say, I was starting to get really
fraggin pissed, but before I could sling a spell, a single black arrow
punched through the physical barrier, the armor, and out through the Quad
member's back and stopped the guy as if he'd hit a wall. You gotta love AJ
and his bows. AJ sent a second arrow at one of the Quad members, but this
one was fast enough to get out of they way, but the surprise was enough. The
Thug, with the rest of the team providing cover, put itself between us and
the surviving Quad members, and Doc and I climbed aboard.
Kato pulled away hard and fast, but this time I was prepared for it and
didn't fall out of the back again. We got a couple hundred meters away when
something exploded on the left side and the Thug lurched to the left and
almost rolled. Kato shouted "Busted Track! Everyone out NOW!!!" and we
grabbed what little we could and scattered, me going with Doc, Kato, Phantom,
and Green Hornet, and Jasmine, AJ, and Gunny going together. No sooner had
we all gotten out that a supersonic blast nearly knocks us on our hoops as a
couple of shells from different directions intersected with the Thug, turning
it into scrap metal. One was later described to me as a HESH and the other
a HEAT shell, one each from a Jackson and the Collussus MBTs. The blast did
what the shell passage didn't: it blew us out and away from the Thug and to
the ground. The blast also caught the last of the locals, leaving only us
Seattlites alive. But we were hardly unwounded. I took some shrapnel in my
side, Doc some in his left forearm. Doc's was buried so deep that it was
lodged in the bone. The best we could do was bind it tight and run. Green
Hornet, seeing that the vehicle that took out our track was still active,
blew off a track with a well placed grenade, and a second one blasted off the
sensors, effectively taking the tank combat drone out of action.
The team was split, and Kato and Green Hornet got us going toward a chopper
he saw about 500m away. The last thing I saw of Gunny and that part of the
team until after the raid was Gunny going down on one knee and taking aim at
the Collussus MBT with his RPG. Then I turned and followed Kato and the rest
of the gang.
I'll let AJ tell that side of the story and tell how we escaped in a
bit..]<<<<<
-- Foxey Roxey <19:25:53/03-10-57>
