Athol

Circus of the Supernatural

Okay, two weeks since @Majoras End said they were going to start, and no start or communication...I'm pulling out.

Murder for Fun and Profit: Mercenaries in London

A few more faces entered the waiting area, more mercs looking for a (semi) legitimate payday. Unless pressed, Monika had little intention of introducing herself; odds were that at least some of the folks here would be dead before tomorrow.

”Monika, support.” She replied, accepting one of the RFID tags; shifting her rig about so she could get under all her stuff, she attached the tag to the tank top she wore under her milsurp cammo. ”If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not find myself owning you any money.” She added, giving her gear one last check.

A few moments later Monika found herself on an outbound helo, while the mission brief went on in her ear. Hold the line, smack anyone who tries to get in. Easy enough...in theory. She had an old American made 'Claymore' anti-personnel mine that'd be good to limit access, and depending on local scenery she might be able to make a barrier or two with her shape charges.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Gerad

Gerad let out a pungent sting of profanity in his native tongue as the erstwhile tank made it's presence known. Scrambling for cover, he joined Cyne in snapping off a few shots with his PRP; though despite it being a much heavier weapon than Cyne's it had almost as little effect.

He fired three plasma bolts in rapid succession, the first two actually managed to collapse the shields of the tank...but unfortunately the cycle time on the shield was fast enough that the first one was back up in time to intercept Gerad's third bolt.

”Bossman, any idea be better th'n lettin' tha' hefty boi slag us!” He called out. Peeking around his cover he snapped a shot with his upgraded VLA; the tank's shields couldn't wholly stop the beam of coherent light, but they twisted it all to ruin, meaning what got through did little more than cosmetic damage.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

(Posted from my phone) I'll be delayed a bit as my laptop keyboard has stopped working properly; I'm trying to get it fixed ASAP

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Wow...that was a bit bigger than I'd intended.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Gerad

All the sneaking about was a bit frustrating for Gerad, but he guessed that was the price one payed for working with such squishy compatriots. A Militia assault would have involved the unit forming into a box formation with their Barriers up, before advancing straight towards the strong point, engaging targets as necessary with VLAs and PRPs, and simply weather any incoming fire until they closed to point blank; as it was there was a decent chance that whomever was manning the defences might be able to bring Gerad down if he tried that on his own.

The news that the targets had powered armour suits and at least one piece of heavy armour, did get his attention. Depending on the suits, the right type, or enough of them, could potentially bring him down, and the type of crew served weapons generally found on all up armoured vehicles was nothing to dismiss; Militia power amour may be tough, but it had its limits.

As everyone moved in, Gerad shared Cyne’s concern about the missing tank; a treat like that was not something anyone wanted to be surprised by. That said, he, Silas and Sven found they had more pressing issues as three suits moved to engage them. ”Oi, Boss Man!” Gerad called out with a laugh. ”C’n ye make sure Sven be shootin’ a’ th’ right skags in stomper suits!” One of his first missions, Sven had clipped him with a burst of weapons fire, and while it’d done no harm, he was damned if he was going to let that clanker forget it.

-

He growled in frustration as one of them came charging at him, dodging and weaving just fast enough to throw off his aim; he was sorely tempted to just fry the skag with his PRP, but he needed to save the shots for the tank, if it had a decent point defence system, to could be a very tough rokka to peel.

As the suit skittered in close, he spotted the snout of a plasma lance and tripped both his Barrier and shields just as it opened up on him. Tucking in tight while the superheated plasma glassed everything around him, thermal alerts squealed as the shields took the brunt of the abuse; that said, they were more meant for quick and sharp kinetic strikes so after a few moments they began to fail and the armour itself began to heat up. Fortunately however the plasma lance lacked endurance prompting the suit to pop VIRS smoke and withdraw, tossing a trio of missiles into the mix.

Unfortunately for Gerad, the smoke hid the missiles almost up until impact, more damage alerts nagging him as they slammed into his Barrier; it held but that wasn’t something he wanted to test again. Activating his PRP, he disconnected the projector itself and extended just the armature, bringing it in front of himself. He’d made a few custom changed to his systems over the years and this was one of them; his VLA was already in his right main hand, and with a few quick movements from his secondary hands, he’d removed the manual controls for the VLA and stored them in his armour before mounting the weapon on the armature. Booting up some associated software, his VLA was now a miniature point defence laser that could react far faster than he could.

Drawing his hammer, he heard the approach of the suit that was engaging him as the smoke began to dissipate. Another trio of missiles screamed out of the thinning smoke, only to be met with Gerad’s PDL, which intercepted them easily to the anger of the pilot. As the enemy suit charged in, Gerad remained stationary behind his Barrier, only rotating in place to keep his opponent to his front. As the last second the suit juked to one side for another plasma lance pass, and Gerad made his move.

Because Garundins had a reputation in fights for just meeting opponents head on and pushing through on sheer durability and stubbornness, many folks tended to forget they were a high grav species in some of the most advanced suits of power armour available; they eschewed things like jump jets and the like not because they couldn’t use them properly or that they were too heavy as a species to make them worthwhile…such things just weren’t part of the Garundin mindset. In reality a fully armoured Militia trooper could move incredibly fast when and if needed.

In a flash his Barrier came down and he lashed out with his hammer, throwing it at the legs of the attacking suit while simultaneously charging after it. The hammer hit with a resounding crash and served to stagger his target long enough for Gerad to close the distance. Hitting the enemy with a full bore tackle, he drove the enemy suit off balance even further, and despite his smaller stature, he dragged it to the ground.

While the enemy trooper tried to regain their balance, Gerad’s combi-cutters lashed out. Arcing around behind his opponent, he used the cutter to carve ruinous damage into the armour, rendering its thrusters non-functional, before doing the same thing to the on-board weapons. At full power a Militia cutter could cut through the armour of a tank in few minutes; in this instance the damage was catastrophic. While the cutter worked, Gerad was doing his best to maintain control of the fight as his larger opponent attempted to batter and crush him; returning the favour, he’d wrapped his main arms around the lower torso of the other suit and exerted as much force as he could.

The two armoured figures grappled with one another, while the cutter burned and hacked at the outer plating. It was a fight that had the potential to go on for a while, until suddenly it didn’t. In the cutters attacks it’d managed to damage a main power conduit, triggering a surge and causing automatic failsafes to cut power. All of a sudden Gerad’ opponent stopped moving; extracting himself from his opponents embrace, he grunted in satisfaction with what he’d doing. The armour was beyond all but the best Armour’s skills to repair and with the damage so severe, it would take that sort of skill just to get the pilot out.

Setting his systems to auto-repair, Gerad retrieved his hammer, swapped his ranged weapons back to their normal states, and left his opponent to whatever fate awaited him.

Circus of the Supernatural

@Majoras End Is this thing still going?

Murder for Fun and Profit: Mercenaries in London

She’d powered through her meal and gotten out fairly quick; jobs usually started not long after the call went out and she wanted to run by the place she’d ‘appropriated’ a few months back. At one point before the bombings it must have been a nice little place, tucked away over the once high end tailors shop.

She’d found the place purely by chance, breaking in to the abandoned shop to sleep off a serious drinking binge. The next morning while fighting the hangover, she’d stumbled up a set of stairs in the back to the locked door of an abandoned flat. After forcing the door, she found the place absolutely untouched and still fairly weather tight. A quick root around showed that whomever had lived there had left rapidly, most likely just after the bombs went off.

Since that day, Monkia had moved out of the iffy place she’d been renting, and into the old flat; along the way beefing up security and laying a few traps to keep scavengers away. Now she hustled through the streets, ducking into an alleyway that led to a hidden entrance; in this day and age, a civvie ducking into an alley was asking for trouble, but the local gangs knew better than to fuck with a woman in combats, carrying a GPMG. Dodging her traps, she slipped into the building and up the stairs into her place.

She dind have a whole lot there, a few changes of clothes both work and civvie, a few personal mementos, bits of gear, and a stash of ammo. Snagging her mask, a couple of extra belts that she tossed into a pack, and a full water bladder, she locked up and headed for the CDA base she’d been messaged about just as she’d gotten home.

----

Gear all strapped down and ready, Monika strode through the bustling facility towards the helipad. Waiting at the gate was a woman with a clipboard, waiting for CDA’s newest contractors. “HERE FOR THE JOB?” The woman shouted over the noise.

“NO, JUST WINDOW SHOPPING.” She shouted back with a smirk. The other woman merely rolled her eyes and made a mark on her clipboard before ushering Monika into the holding area. Once she was outfitted with her new temp ID, the ‘greeter’ headed back to her post and Monika went to find somewhere to sit and wait for whoever else was coming along.

Dropping into a seat near Larson, she began doing a gear check, looking for faults (real or imagined), before hefting her UKM onto her lap to do a field strip and clean, even though the MG was spotless.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

@ShiningSector Yikes, well wish him luck the next time you're speaking with him, and thanks for getting the answer.

Murder for Fun and Profit: Mercenaries in London

Monika sat in a boot with her boot up on a chair and shook her head in minor amusement as she surveyed the King’s Head pub; it wasn’t the first time she’d remarked to herself that the current clientele was probably much rougher than it had been at one time.

Cadpat from all corners of the globe, and nearly as varied a selection in weaponry, filled the pub from wall to wall and she was no different with her surplused Polish camo and guns. Working her way through a semi-decent lager and a not so interesting Fisherman’s Pie, she grunted in annoyance as her phone chirped.

Digging into her vest she dragged out her battered CAT S41 to see what the message was, at the same time as pretty much everyone else. <PL>”Now, what do we have here?” Seeing the job offer from Pale Horse, she considered if for a moment before binning the message; she was still a little sore at them for trashing a data extraction job she’d spent three weeks on. Looking up from her phone she tried to do a quick scan to see how may said ‘yes’, though that was interrupted by her phone going off again, this time with CDA’s counter-offer.

<PL>”Oh matching pay, must be worried.” A couple of taps and the CDA video began to play as she stuck an earbud in her ear. 20% up front? Eh, I’ve seen better, but there seems to be plenty of takers… After another moment or two of thought, she hit the [ACCEPT] button and set about finishing her meal.

Language

_{<> + letter code is the language she's speaking Polish = PL, Russian = RU, German = GE, French = FR, Farsi = FAR, Pashto = PS}