No positive response. What a pity.
The order to fire was taken by the Assassins; consequently, their leader's death was taken poorly by the Enforcers, and Hektor and his two companions were engulfed in a storm of autocannon fire. This was not precisely what they were designed for, but it was nonetheless more than sufficient to keep them alive and well for the time being, even if shooting back was tricky. The Repressor, by contrast, was quite well-suited to enduring modest weapons fire, and those within retaliated accordingly: it pressed forward just behind the infantry formation even as that moved to one side to let it pass, unleashing a storm of autopistol fire and shotgun shells from its sides, and a combination of tear gas grenades launched over the walls and disorienting blasts from the water cannons, not to mention both the Marshal's heavy stubber and the Magistrate's bolt cannon unleashing hell upon those on the wall.
What really did the trick, at least from Hektor's perspective, were the Judge's homing Executioner shells - no shotgun was precisely engineered to hit targets with both a height and distance advantage, but the Judge sharing a locked formation with him managed to get several clean shots in, taking out at least three Enforcers before reloading. Not to say either himself or the Arbitrator failed in their positions either, the Arbitrator's shotgun offering a fairly wide spread to at least ensure damage, if not precisely kills, whilst his own bolt pistol hammered out rounds that, more often than not, pierced armour and blew apart flesh.
But they couldn't get all of them. Suffice to say, the Guard's support was much appreciated here even if it was as good as covering fire, and the Assassins handling both enemy snipers and dealing with their own targets would be an easy enough procedure for them. The problem was that, even after the Lockshield formation moved to take proper cover behind the Repressor, and even as that moved in close enough for the cannons to stop being merely confusing and start being enough to push targets back and to a fatal drop, there was far too much firepower coming their way even if it was slowing gradually. They had to be much more efficient: if they moved that lascannon over to this side, then never mind the Lockshields - it could very well eradicate the vehicle and everybody inside it with contemptuous ease in very short order.
Which made it a very good thing when the sound of mechanical baying began to be heard, followed not long after by yells of surprise, and then screams of pain and fear. The cavalry had found a way on to the barricade.
Cyber-Mastiff Handler Victoria Ceras
Victoria had to be honest: Michael's relative lack of talk with her was annoying. He and his fellow Verispexii had a vox connection running, and he was using the opportunity to chat with them a lot more than he was chatting with her. She liked having people to run her mouth with when she wasn't actively controlling the hounds, and somebody doing so without her was, honestly, frustrating.
But, it did leave her with plenty of room to keep her eyes open for a doorway into the facility, as well as keeping the cyber-mastiffs on track alongside the bike. She had to keep a good deal of distance and a few buildings between the Rumbler and the estate proper, just to make sure she wasn't pinged along the way, but that made actually finding a door-like object that much harder. It was armoured, but it wasn't perfect.
Then again, Mikey was apparently just an expert when it came to peripherals - quite abruptly, mid-sentence even, he called out 'Stop!', and by the time Victoria had slammed the brakes on the bike and called the mastiffs to a stop, they'd gone an alley past where they wanted to be, seemingly. It didn't take too long for her to bring the Rumbler back around, though, and... well, there it was. A door. Heavily reinforced, and clearly difficult to break into, but it was a weakpoint! They had their in!
Now they just had to break it open. That would be the job of the assault cannons. But with Enforcers already beginning to mill up top, they'd have no time to do this even semi-subtly... busting through it was, apparently.
'Hold on tight, love,' she suggested rather than ordered, giving Michael a chance to cling to her waist before she slammed down on the accelerator, charging the closed-off opening with increasing exhilaration and ever more gunfire aimed toward them. To any layperson's eyes, this would just look like a suicidal charge - but as they got in range, she pressed a button, and unleashed hell in the form of a wall of sound and light, and hundreds of assault cannon rounds per second straight toward the doorway.
Michael screeched. Vickie laughed. The door... well, it might have been made of adamantium for all she knew, but assault cannons had been known to melt Guard-grade armour for sheer output, and she had two going at once. The door stood no chance - though it was still standing as she drew close, it was riddled. One more big impact...
'Wait NO- WUAAGH!'
She'd slowed a little bit before halting the fire and pulling the bike back on one wheel. That was so she didn't just crash straight into a wall. Or, for that matter, the door. But with all the Rumbler's energy focused at the top, crashing through it was less a matter of brute force, and more of extremely potent leverage. It snapped off the top hinge like a gunshot, and the bottom like a lawbreaker's arm being twisted beyond integrity. The end result was a very heavy bike smashing through a perforated door, skidding sideways and barely slowing itself in time to turn a fatal impact with the wall not far opposite into an unpleasantly hard knock for the passengers.
'Attack mode, lethal force! Go go go!' Victoria yelled back through the doorway, instinctive command rather than any conscious will, the cyber-mastiffs charging into the ruined doorway even as both humans struggled to regain their bearings after such a heavy impact. Had Michael been knocked out? She knew she hadn't, he was more lightly armoured though... her arm felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer even through the carapace, though. She hoped he didn't die on her account, the Justicar would have her head for that.
Nonetheless, as the carnage audibly began, and the mastiffs began to kill, Victoria smacked herself once across the jaw, then leapt out the clear side, shotgun in hand and firing over and over at the first Enforcers she saw, managing to clip one's arm before she took cover behind a nearby pillar. Thank the God-Emperor most of them were occupied with the defense from the forces out front right now, because it made her job so much easier! Even Michael was getting involved with his own weapon from inside the bike, bless him, but the real force multiplier was the hounds. Busker and Vaudeville were top of the line when it came to cyber-mastiffs - top-end tracking equipment, sure, but more pertinently a good deal of armour for their size, enough agility and posture to become very difficult targets for incoming fire, and an array of incredibly lethal hidden "teeth". Right now, both had the chain-threshers out, easily capable of gnashing through carapace, muscle and bone in one fell swoop. And that was a huge psychological factor as well: these untrained clowns could barely handle a single real Arbitrator, she suspected, which made a pair of mechanical mutts with chainsword maws all the more insurmountable, not to mention all the more terrifying for them.
They'd started with five opponents in the hallway. It took maybe fifteen seconds to take that down to zero, but with more coming from the right-hand corridor. Ordering the mastiffs to heel, she dragged Michael out of the bike and carried on left of the Rumbler's entry point. The key, of course, was with her, and any Enforcer stupid enough to try and force it to start would be unpleasantly surprised when the engine blew out on them. Not that having it blow was a good thing, but then who would try to drive a bike through a pretty narrow corridor?
'Alright, Michael, we need to find some stairs,' she announced, reloading the shotgun swiftly. 'Any idea where they-'
'One hundred seven meters ahead, spiral stairwell, likely accesses the top wall.' Oh, wow, she didn't know she had a Tech-priest for a partner now. What was with that emotionless voice, anyway?
Sure enough, about a hundred meters into that corridor, they spotted another doorway, this one connected to a conspicuous half-tower embedded in the wall. And, yep, it opened on to a spiralling staircase, an ascending square running up the inside of the embankment, to what looked like somewhere up the top of the wall. And from up top... that sure did sound like the enemy starting to come down.
'Stealth mode, combo pin-execute, up the stairs,' she murmured. The dogs went silent very quickly - unnervingly so as they charged up, actually. For this one, Busker got the piercing spikes, whilst Vaudeville took out the monoblade; SOP was for the former to snare the target's limbs and drag them down, whilst the latter went for the throat, almost always a poorly-guarded weakpoint between helmet and chestplate. And they'd still need a distraction - luckily, Victoria had Enforcers to shoot up at.
She did, but not before climbing to the point that she and Michael were first noticed. Or was that the mastiffs? Didn't matter; the Enforcers were quickly distracted by a minor fusillade of autopistol fire, their own rounds being deflected by the lockshields she and Michael put between them and their foes. And not long after that, the cyber-mastiffs found their way to their targets, starting to turn them into mincemeat one by one. She trusted Vaudeville to take out the weapon hands of anyone trying to aim at them directly, of course, just as much as she trusted Busker to keep the body he was wrangling between himself and the enemies trying to shoot him; after all, that's how she's programmed them to act in a scene like this.
Suffice to say, only one Enforcer was left by the time Handler and Verispex made it to the top; Vaudeville had taken some hits to one side, but he was still raring to go, snapping at the hand of the last opponent even as he desperately tried to keep it away from the dog and aim at it at the same time. A burst of autofire to his face quickly put an end to those aspirations, and no further resistance met them before they made it up.
They were there. The top of the wall was visible - and so too were quite a lot of big gun installations.
'Lascannon spotted,' Michael intoned, pointing off in the mid-distance of the wall. Yep, that was big and heavy and sure looked like it had a big honking energy pack moving with it. Toward the bulk of the fighting, at that.
'Michael, shields up, cover our back,' she announced, before turning to the cyber-mastiffs again. 'Attack mode, full lethal, prioritise heavy weapon operators. For
ward!' With those orders, out came the thresher-maws again, the mastiffs charging ahead along the wide passage, Victoria charging along with them with her autopistol raised and ready to open fire, and Michael taking up the rear with the lockshield in one hand. He'd know before she did if they were about to be attacked, either way. She'd just focus on taking out the heavy weapons.
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