[centre][h2][colour=008000][u]Gerad[/u][/colour][/h2][/centre]

The trip over to what was left on the [i]Balrog[/i] was uneventful…right up until the new boy started playing target practice with the rocks. [colour=008000]”Flat-brain’d, o’er stimm’d young blood,”[/colour] Gerad chuffed. [colour=008000]”Lucky hes not Militia. Be on shit buckets ‘til he be a silver back.”[/colour]
-
Once the shuttle had touched down, he followed Cyne outside and down the corridor. Unlike either of the human’s suits, Gerad’s armour lacked any thrusters as ‘flight packs’ were only issued to Militia troops that were expecting to be operating in low/null gee environments. Gerad followed along by de-activating the mag-locks on his hind legs and reducing the ‘grab’ on his fore legs; this allowed him to ‘bound’ along at a similar pace to Cyne, using his stronger upper arms to help turn by grabbing bits of bulkhead for turning, while his legs provided propulsion and breaking when needed.

Moving deeper into the ship, they began to find signs of fighting, though strangely no bodies. [colour=008000]”Best I got is ‘Somethin’ Bad’,”[/colour] Gerad replied, his eyes trailing over the burns and blood. [colour=008000]”Th’ went down swingin’ tho…”[/colour]

Passing a large hull breach he let out a low growl. [colour=008000]”Like somthin’ took a taste…”[/colour] The only thing he could think of that [i]might[/i] do damage like this was a grav-lance on a salvage station, but those were huge, and rather immobile, and from what he’d seen the [i]Balrog[/i] had taken far too much damage to have moved much after she got hit. Getting to the bridge there was more signs of combat.

[colour=008000]”Gonna need ta punch de new meat if we gettin’ out.”[/colour] Gerad muttered, surveying the darkened consoles. He shot Pathfinder a short glare as Cyne sent it off to restore power, it wasn’t that he didn’t like the drone, it was just that he had a hard time trusting tech that he hadn’t laid eyes on how it worked…and for some reason Cyne was unwilling to let him open up Pathfinder and have a look at its internals.

As soon as power came on, Gerad began to interface with the console before him. Using his smaller lower arms and their more dexterous fingers, he flashed across the console, while at the same time using the tools built into the gauntlets to tap directly into what was left of the ships systems. He was at a tactical console, but very little of the [i]Balrog’s[/i] weapons survived, and what was left was more likely to cause more harm than good if he’d attempted to use them on the approaching ships. Built in protocols were ripping as much raw data as they could from any system he could access, though with the amount of damage, much like the weapons, there were few of those intact.

He was currently patched into Environmental, and had been about to inform Cyne that he could override the blast doors, when he saw the same readouts. [colour=008000]”Shadow an’ Pit, what do-”[/colour] Anything further the Gerad may have been thinking was cut short by a sound he’d hoped to go to his grave never hearing again. [colour=008000]”Oh I be hearin’…an’ I wish I wasn’t.”[/colour]

The thundering deck plates and Cyne’s shouting snapped him out of it as the first Swarmer burst into sight, moments before it exploded in a pile of gore. Separating from the console, his VLA was in his hand in a flash, while the PRP unfolded from the mount on his shoulder.

To most species, the VVD 45-30/R Plasma Rail Projector would have qualified as a ‘Heavy Weapon’ and mounted either in fixed positions or on armoured attack craft; to the Militia it is simply the standard issue anti-armour weapon. He cursed himself for being too slow to stop the initial break in, but he [i]could[/i] at least slow down whatever was behind it.

Even as he saw the Swarmers rush him, he sent a mass of super-heated plasma through the way they’d come in, filling the opening with a momentary tiny star as the plasma packet struck something solid. There was no time for follow up shots however as the ones that’d headed his way were upon him.

He met the leaper with his raised left upper arm, letting the creature jam its mouth onto his forearm…then he simply deployed his Defensive Barrier. The shield was meant to deploy as fast as was possible, no matter the condition; so when it opened up [i]inside[/i] the Swarmer’s mouth, the beast’s head simply exploded, showering Gerad’s armour and the console with blood and bone.

At the same time, he’d brought his TXZ-11/A Variable Laser Armament to bear on the remaining four. Like his PRP, the VLA would probably been classified as a vehicle grade weapon, so when his sight aligned on the next Swarmer, and he fired, the blast flashed right through its chest, the head of the one behind it and the front leg of the last one in the pack, before boring into the light internal bulkhead of the ship.

Unfazed by its companions demise the fourth one slammed into Gerad. Taking the hit on his barrier, he pushed back, launching the creature back, but only for a moment. Realizing this was to be a point blank fight, he bared his teeth and with one fluid motion swapped his VLA for his Hammer. Meeting the Swarmer’s second charge, he lifted it into the air as it clawed at the Barrier, before collapsing it while simultaneously swinging the hammer to meet it. There was a dull thud as the head connected, followed by a much louder bang as he drove the being to the floor. It let out a surprised squeal and tried to attack once more but the impact had stunned it enough that Gerad has able to recover from the swing and bring the hammer back for a vicious, spike first, blow to the top of its head which was followed by an extremely satisfying crunch.

Prying the weapon free, he looked to where he’d last seen the wounded Swarmer, only to find it missing; that said he didn’t need to look for it. While he’d been distracted, it had circled around behind him, and pounced as soon as it had seen a clear chance. The Swarmer’s intention had been to drive the annoying little morsel to the ground and then bite its head off; instead when it hit, Gerad’s armour automatically triggered the grav-locks in his boots to prevent such a thing.

Due to their physiology one of the Garundin’s biggest weaknesses was their near inability to twist their torso to any meaningful degree, or rotate either set of arms enough to reach their own backs. It had landed in the near perfect place to attack without Gerad being able to respond…assuming he’d been without his armour. As it was, he deployed his combi-torch and used the plasma jet to gut it from end to end.