Author: Rattler3
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“Son of a!”
Rat ducked back behind some boxes as pulsar fire streaked through the air he had just occupied. The air temperature instantly rose, temporarily warming his freezing body up in the chilly Ceryshen atmosphere.
Beside him Bishop grinned before saying through chattering teeth, “W-w-w-w wish we had of b-b-b-bothered to stop and upgrade our suits for c-c-c-cold temperatures.” Rat nodded enthusiastically before popping up to throw out a handful of gauss rounds. They had been sent in a flanking attack to keelut while the main force headed north to take nerrivik from there sole base. The hope was that keelut wasn’t heavily defended. D2A ‘emerald’ as the NC faction was called, had been called in directly from solsar defense against the VS. The battle had basically been theres anyway, and mop up sucked. So there were sent directly to cery. They didn’t even stop to change out of the warm weather suits, which helped ventilate heat, not keep it in. Next time they respawned they could get it… but who WANTED to die? The warm suits of course had an option to go for cold weather, but it did nothing more then stopping you from dieing.
Beside Rat Bishop popped up before pulling back down. She was armed with a deci and jackhammer… she needed them closer.
“Damn… at least a dozen of them, and I can’t rack up the kills,” she said angrily beside Rat.
He flashed her a grin. “Whoring it up some more?” He popped up and snapped a few more shots off, as across from them TJ used his own Gauss to do some damage, while Mack looked just as pissed as Bishop, unable to return fire. Wolf was somewhere… considering she couldn’t cloak she should be with us, but she somehow got separated probably.
As Rat dropped back down he got pushed slightly from Bishop. “What was that?”
Rat grinned even wider. “You heard me…”
A red flash of light beside them, and they heard a, “Yesss,” over the radio. That would be Brewer, sniping out enemies.
Bishop opened her mouth to reply but never got anything out as purple streaks burst out from behind us, cutting up the ground nearby. They must of circled around them on the catwalks and now had us pinned down either way… no way to get cover. 4 of them above… 2 with pulsars, one with a looted MCG and another with a thumper…
Rat swore and laid down suppression fire, desperate to keep that thumper user from getting off a good shot.
“Shit, no way we’re getting out of this one, at least 9 in front of us.”
Rat swore as he slammed home another clip into the gauss, resuming firing.
“TJ, got any ideas?” he asked nervously over the radio. Beside Rat bishop did nothing.
“Shoot them bishop… even if only a pellet hits it will help, I’m running out of ammo here!” he exclaimed to her, so she opened up. TJ kept them from being overwhelmed at the front as Rat, Bishop and Matt tried to clear the rear.
“Nope… sell ourselves I guess. Main force is pushing at the backdoor now.”
Rat sighed. Just there luck they get to charge into the Courtyard. By themselves no less.
“roger that Sarge…” Rat ceased fire and put a hand on bishop’s arm. She stopped shooting. Rat carefully took aim, watching…
There! He turned towards it, pulling back on the trigger once, then twice in single shots. The figure dropped, minus a brain.
And then another face appeared, and behind that, green Plasma directed towards TJ and Mack.
“Ah, Fuck!” yelled out Mack angrily. Rat never understood why soldiers tried to push it off them. It only spread it around more, making the pain worse. Granted, he did it himself… rational thought just went out the window. Another grenade and they both collapsed to the ground, missing there outerflesh and severely blackened.
“Move!” yelled out Rat as he broke into a full run away, desperate to escape.
He shouldered the gauss, and concentrated on his running. Beside him, Bishop broke out from cover, chucking a pair of grenades behind her… smart thinking. He also knew she was as good as dead, while he stood a chance.
Even with her surge implant, she was slower then him. And when he did engage his implant… well, in his Rexo he could race a vanguard over 500m flat and win…
He engaged the implant and felt his speed increase again… meters away from the corner and temporary safety.
Behind him he heard a cry of pain, and seconds later the sound of someone plowing into the ground. She probably knew she was dead the second he said run… but it was the best idea. There AMS was a 5 minute walk, someone needed to get away and at least do a slowing up job… and that person was Rat.
He rounded the corner, feeling a single pulse hit his back. The heat burned, but it warmed him up again. He healed and repaired himself. He wasn’t even the least bit tired by the 100 meter sprint. Hell, he could keep going for 200 before he even felt it. He stowed the thoughts as he drew his gauss out, popped around and opened up. The VS were in no real formation. They probably thought once Rat had rounded the corner he’d kept going.
3 of them were walking over to Bishop’s body, either to steal weapons… or do something else. He’d heard of nasty stories about what some guys did with bodies… he himself had never seen it done, but there was some desperate sickos out there.
The 3 of them were also the closest, and dropped down in the first 8 or 9 shots, clearly dead. He continued to fire, training on a pulsar user nearer to the back. His first burst went wide right, but his second was dead on, pounding into the barnies chest and head, dropping him. On the other hand, the other 7 of them had some things to say to him… Lasher, MCG, Thumper, Pulsar… whatever they had. A few MCG bullets and some Pulsar shots hit him… but nothing concentrated.
Armor drew in the energy from a shot and dispersed it throughout the body. So even 2 shots hitting at the same time in the same area didn’t make it through the armor. Some armor was destroyed throughout the body, but little overall. If too much fire impacted a certain area, or if enough fire hit all throughout the body, then penetration would occur. The general rule was with most weapons that after the 2nd shot, the armor was open for about 2 seconds, during which times bullets cut a person to shreds.
His armor held, though it hurt like a bitch… some stray energy from the pulsars.
He drew around the corner… and the lasher fire reached him. It lashed out at him, burning right through the armor, searing skin, burning.
They passed and he staggered away, groaning and smoke rising from him. His entire left side was blackened… he’d lost all feeling over there, though he still had limited leg movement, but next to no arm movement. He staggered around the next corner, again, his eyes burning, and fell against the wall.
‘Uhhhhhh…” He reached for his med applicator on his left side with his right arm. It was singed, and it was twisted on the reload side… whatever was in it was it. He plugged it into him, injecting the life saving fluids. He couldn’t really feel anything… he was half passed out from the pain…
but within seconds he was back, able to move at full speed, and have full use of his arm, though he looked like shit. He reloaded the gauss, grabbed his shottie and jumped around the corner, already firing. And he’d guessed right. There was 3 of them creeping up silently. The first one took it right in the chest at less then a foot… he fell away, staggering. Rat switched targets, putting one in the second guy as return fire scythed into him.
He was lucky that the 2 of them didn’t have shotties… and not to mention they were screening him from 2 other soldiers at range. The seconds ones return Pulasr fire burned up his armor, ripping through it and vaporizing the flesh beneath it. Beside him Punisher fire exploited the hole in his armor, destroying what little internal organs were left…
They’d missed his heart, but he’d bleed out in seconds.
Rat grunted and dropped to the ground, triggering a med pack. The stims coursed through him, many of them being lost to the surrounding area, but they allowed him to summon the strength to blast away again at the second guy, destroying his head… as Punisher fire ripped into his head…
“Damn… rearguard is down… 1 sec.” Brewer concentrated on sighting in on the punisher toting soldier who had killed Rat. He had grabbed a medkit and was working on fixing the lead soldier. He pulled the trigger, saw his target drop, a tiny hole in his head, and went to reloading.
He snapped open the rifle, slammed in another bolt, zoomed in and took down the injured soldier.
“3 down. Dunno how many Rat got as well. They’ve retreated sir… probably waiting for reinforcements. You have time.”
“Roger that Brewer. Where the hell is Wolf?” asked TJ.
“I dunno… scratch that… she’s… how the hell is she on the wall? She’s in agile armor!” Brewer exclaimed amazingly.
“where?” TJ asked impatiently.
“West wall. She’s in cover in some boxes. Though theres 3 VS closing… Why didn’t you just use the comm?”
“She turned it off. See if you can’t help her. Rest of group, Waypoint… 2.” A yellow arrow appeared about 150meters away from the wall.
A number appeared at Brewers AMS.
“Rat’s back sir,” Brewer said coolly.
“Roger that. Move to Waypoint 2. You can catch us Rat. What did you get after I went down inside the CY?” he asked authoratively.
“Sir, uhhh, 1 on the catwalk, 4 before Brewer would of seen. Making my way to WP2 in a sec.” Brewer could hear a med app in the backround…
And within a few moments the number 2 at his AMS was moving towards the rest of the group. Not his problem.
He turned back to searching for targets.
Rat fell into his normal thought patterns as he sprinted the kilometer to the base. Just his luck to have TJ decide to group the squad up. He usually did end up rearguard simply because if they needed someone to catch up, he was always able to.
He leapt over a fallen log, barely breaking stride as the pounding of feet continued.
And he heard a crack to his right… not a shot, like a twig breaking.
“I think I have a cloaker,” he said into his radio as quietly as he could. He didn’t react, just kept running, watching.
“Roger… you taking him or gonna try and outrun.” Rat considered this for a second.
“Roger sir, I’ll hold here.” He didn’t think a cloaker would see or hear his first one, but hiding a second one would be suspicious. Rat instantly stopped and stood there, breathing a bit deeper. Running with all that armor was tiring. At least he wasn’t cold anymore.
“k Rat, we’re moving on.”
Rat knew that while he was fast, a cloaker in an infiltration suit would probably be able to keep up with him in Rexo. And then he could get a single shot in the back and never know it. He watched carefully for an glimmer, but got none.
“Brewer, wanna take a gander?” he said easily into his radio…
“Sure… gimme a sec. Wolf’s in trouble guys… I think she blacked out.” Suddenly Rat got this feeling, and dove to the side, not exactly knowing why. The sound of a beamer, and a flash of light… but only one, and his dive didn’t let him see it from where.
“Shit… “ He clawed for his gauss, watching carefully, eager to get his Darklight implant to power up. He’d put all power to Surge, so it had booted up first. He dearly wished he had Darklight now. “Taking fire Brewer…”
Rat rose carefully and moved slowly and deliberately. Taking a cloaker sounds easy, but some were very good. They would be so silent, so careful and deliberate that they could literally come right up to you, and kill you before you knew it.
TR and VS cloakers were a real biatch. The really good ones would wait… as long as 5 minutes for that perfect shot. The pistols would take 5-6 seconds to kill a normal person, unloading as many shots as that time would be. And in that time, a soldier would probably blow you away. The helmets soldiers won protected the back and sides of your head really well. Well enough that a shot took too long to kill them. However, the front of the face, at certain angles would kill you in one shot.
Rat’s sub-conscious mind had probably sensed something, faster then his normal consciousness had missed, and had let him dodge the probably deadly shot.
SNAP! Rattler wheeled as the sound of a beamer rang out. He felt his armor absorb a shot in the chest, saw a tree branch had snapped and a slight outline of a figure. He triggered of a single shot, hitting the cloaker in the stomach. He ran over, gauss on the cloaker.
“Clear brewer, Shepard the rest,” he said quietly as he came up to the cloaker who was moving slowly on the ground.
“Uncloak,” he said coolly. Nothing. He fired off a shot at the nearby ground and waited.
The figure uncloaked in front of him. “Not so bad. Size of VS forces?” he asked. He couldn’t see the… well, shapely figure’s head, it was head down. No reply. A swift kick and a gasp of pain and the figure… which was actually as he thought not a figure anymore… rolled onto her back. He reached down and ripped off the mask.
“I’ll ask you again, and then I’ll take your gun and leave you here… minus kneecaps.”
Pure anger shot up through her face. She had seen the med tool… knew he’d probably fix her gut and leave her to die… she’d have no real way of killing herself, and she’d be left in the freezing cold to die.
It was not a pretty way… Rat knew of plenty of times he was almost dead in the middle of a big battle, but until you died you didn’t respawn. One time he’d been alive but unable to move for 2 hours in the middle of esamir… and it sucked ass.
“You wouldn’t!” She said through trembling lips. Rat shifted his aim to her knees. “Wait!” Rat waited.
“There was 2 entire regiments… 6 battalions at keelut.”
Damn… D2A Emerald consisted of a regiment and a half, but only a regiment had been commited. The remaining 2 battalions were being used in mop up on solsar. There 3 battalions would be pushed back pretty fast.
They had thought there was only 2 battalions at keelut.
“Any major outfits?” She shook her head.
Another few questions and he was done questioning.
“Alright… thanks, how you want it?” he asked.
She shrugged, turning away. Rat nodded and opened fire.
Blood splattered onto the ground, and the body dropped minus a head.
He opened a comm. channel to command and started jogging again.
The sound of lashers made Wolf cringe. Being a cloaker, she feared normal soldiers. She quickly peaked around the boxes. 3 VS soldiers were coming towards her. She gripped her Sweeper tighter. She wasn’t used to this shit. Damn interlinks.
She ducked back down and flicked back on her comm.
“Need a hand here…”
Brewer’s voice came back instantly. “On my mark, jump up and hit the left guy, then the center guy if he’s still standing. Right is mine.” A red streak went right by her and she heard a yell.
“MARK!” She jumped up and opened up. The right one was down, she didn’t know where he was hit, but she opened up, 2 shots into him, then she shifted aim.
At the same time, the lasher user opened up on her. She dove to the right, praying Brewer was about to shoot. She missed the main orb, but the lash ripped into her legs, melting the armor all off and burning her legs.
But that was the least of her worries. Originally she was going to have her arms stop her from hitting her ahead against the low wall stopping someone from falling to the courtyard.
However, when a lash hits you, it can make your arms spasm a bit. Something to do with nerves and the electrical impulses of the lash. Normally its so minor that’s it’s un-noticeable. However, when your just about to use your arms to guard your head, and they jerk to the side, suddenly she had no leverage. Her forehead, which was protected only by the light helmet afforded to agile, which included next to no forehead protection unfortunately, slammed into the concrete wall.
She recovered fast… an advantage of being a cloaker. She was able to get on her hands and knees, but she could feel the blood running down from her forehead. Her vision was blurry… to the degree she couldn’t see anything.
“Any last words bitch?” Wolf said nothing, unable to hear that statement clearly…
The Lasher soldier lined up… and Everything went black around Wolf as she collapsed.
“Rat, ETA?” No response on the comm… but he was moving towards them. “Rat…” said TJ calmly, as they reached the wall into the courtyard. “Brewer, Whats Rats status, and give me the status of the courtyard.
“Rat captured the infil, did some interrogating… hes talking to command now… Courtyard is…” A 5 second pause. “Your clear around the corner. Can’t see anything else.”
TJ double clicked his mic and motioned for Mack to come up. He went around the corner quickly, watching for mines. There was none thankfully. He creeped up to the next corner and peeked around. The sound of Pulsar and Lasher fire reached TJ’s ears, and he was crowded back by Mack’s impressive bulk as he fled from the corner.
“7 guys set up in defensive positions. Now would be a good time for your phoenix sir.” TJ nodded appreciatively and shouldered his gauss for his Pheonix Rocket Launcher.
The Rocket Launcher was primarily anti-armor, but would serve in a pinch against soldiers. The problem was its limited rate of fire and that it could only take down 1 enemy, generally it was a half meter to a meter squared explosion. The Pheonix rockets themselves were weird. No one knew how or why, but sometimes they would explode over a smaller blast area. The same force, but just more concentrated. They would also explode over a large area, just spreading the force out more. TJ aimed into the sky and launched the rocket. His entire vision turned into the vision of the Pheonix. He turned it skillfully towards the VS, homing in on 2 who were crouched right next to each other. One of them pointed towards the missile and started to move, but it was to late. The missile hit, but TJ didn’t know the aftermath. While he’d been guiding it, Bishop had reloaded the launcher so he immediately launched another one. The 2 half bodies clued him in to the damage he’d done. He took down another one before shouldering the missile launcher.
“I take lead and lay down covering fire. You 2 close and do some damage.” He glanced at his radar. “Wait a sec, Rat’s 10 seconds out.”
10 exact seconds later Rat came barreling around the corner at a flat out sprint, skidding to a halt.
“Yes sir. Thank you sir. Happy to help sir.” TJ grinned. Just in time.
“Ok Rat, you’ve had your fun. We cover them. We go now.” TJ ran out and started firing off at 2 of the enemies, trying to keep them pinned down. Rat was right behind him, breathing a bit heavier then normal, and was laying down gauss fire like TJ. Mack and Bishop charged out, sprinting towards them. TJ and Rat slowed down a bit to get better aim, taking the occasional shot from the enemy. They were bad shots for some reason… really bad shots. They should have been seriously injured by now. They kept ahead of Bishop and Mack until they entered the Jackhammers ranges.
TJ had gotten a luck shot, taking down one of the enemies. Rat’s fire had injured one, hitting his arm, but he was one arming the pulsar, still able to do some damage.
Mack and Bishop quickly finished off the remaining enemies.
“That was weird, there should have been more defense,” thought TJ to himself as Rat went around patching everyone up.
And just as suddenly, 2 Magriders and a dozen infantry appeared ahead, immediately opening up.
TJ dove for cover, noting that Mack took a Mag Blast dead on, instantly being vaporized. Rat had dove into Bishop, pushing her behind cover before being blown away by Pulsar fire. A useless gesture, what with respawning and all, but there had been no way he would make it to cover. Guess he figured Bishop could take a few with her…
TJ popped up and let off gauss shots at the infantry, who weren’t behind any cover. His first shot found its mark in a head shot incredibly, instantly dropping the soldier. He held down the trigger, stitching fire across 2 others as fire raged towards him. Cover and Armor soaked the infantry shots up, and thankfully the mags suddenly drove off firing wildly. The sound of 150mm shells landing clued him into that at least.
He saw one fall, and dropped for a reload. He noticed Bishop had crashed behind cover, holding her Jackhammer lightly. They wouldn’t be able to see her there… they’d come up and she’d blast em… but they knew there was 4. They’d approach cautiously, knowing there was someone else. So he had to die 2 times.
He scuttled over to a nearby piece of cover and opened up. Return fire creased across him, until one hit him in the upper head, where the last of his armor there was expelled. He dropped… partly of his own will, partly from the force of the blow. He could feel a bit of blood start to seep out, but he ignored it, pushing over to where he was before as reloading. He popped up and opened up again, taking another one before a bright pink light flashed followed by blackness.
“Shiet that hurt like a bitch,” Rat said as TJ spawned, plugging away with his medtool.
TJ grinned. “Your telling me… I had to ‘die’ twice.” He headed over to the equipment terminal and grabbed his stuff.
Rat finished up healing and grabbed a reload for his med applicator.
“So, whats the plan chief? They got that AMS there. Not much fun,” asked Mack beside Rat.
TJ held up his hand. “Roger that sir… Yes sir, we’ll get on it right away.”
TJ turned back to us. “Rearguard duty… We have to get 2.5 kilometers North West in 5 minutes… we also have to get this AMS there. We’re in serious trouble, they need this AMS. They blew most of them away, and reinforcement AMS’s are a good 15 minutes away. Bad planning. They need our firepower as well.”
Rat called up his map. That put them directly in between Keelut and there sole base…
“Uh, sir, 2.5 kilometers…” Mack said beside Rat. “You know what I think of that.” Rat grinned.
“Suck it up woman,” Rat said jokinly. He glared at Rat, who just turned and started jogging beside Bishop and TJ towards Waypoint 3 TJ had laid down.
“She’s out cold? What do you… well… jeesuz your kidding me.” TJ didn’t looked to happy. Rat flicked on his radio and dialed it over to TJ’s channel.
“She hit her head sir. Awhile ago. She hasn’t been found yet, but its ju… Ah shit. Take the shot sir?” Brewer sounded kind of dejected… in order to keep Wolf from being captured, he’d have to blow her brains out… not an easy thing to do to a squadmate, Rat knew having had to do it before.
“Sorry Brewer… take the shot, then get to the AMS and get it moving.”
“Sir.” A single shot… “Hoofing it now sir.”
Rat did some quick calculations… At there present speed of running, they would reach WP3 in another 7 minutes… Brewer wouldn’t even get to his AMS for another 3 minutes and then have to do the 3 minute drive. Mack behind them would probably take a good 10 minutes…
“Lets pick it up guys,” Rat said gently, glancing at TJ and Bishop, who were already tired from the little they’d run. They ran a bit faster…
The sound and feel of Rat’s gauss rifle was re-assuring as he crouched behind a log, firing off at the VS as they approached. They were at the top of a hill, and at the bottom of the hill there was a small forest with an enemy AMS at it. There was at least 40 VS down there, and only 18 NC up here defending… though most had gausses. So far they’d managed to mow down most of the VS before they could make it up, but intel had enemy MAX’s coming up…
“Here they come again,” someone said beside him. He checked his ammo… there AMS was only 50meters behind them, but making that run meant he wasn’t in the line… they needed every man/woman.
The VS charged up, laying down Pulsar fire and Lasher fire to keep us pinned. The Lasher Orbs sucked, but the logs managed to pull a bunch of the lash away somehow. Rat laid out the ammo, laying waste into the soldiers.
“4 MAX’s!” another voice said farther down the line. Rat glanced over, seeing 3 Quasar MAX’s charging up the slope. The sound of 4 Pheonix launchers, and one of them dropped… the sound came again and the second one dropped before the remaining 2 jumped the barricade and started laying waste to the soldiers. Rat ignored it… this flank had its own problem. There was probably 20-30 attacking this flank against his squad and 2 others…
He saw TJ fall beside him, minus his head… no time to revive, let the AMS handle it. He took damage from a lash, but ignored the pain, ordering his suit to dump the last of the painkillers he had into him.
The dry sound of the rifle alerted him to the fact he was out. He glanced at his belt, grabbed his last clip that only had 13 bullets and opened up. Didn’t matter, they’d soon be in Shottie range. He heard a scream of anguish over the squads radio… he glanced over at brewer, who was clutching his face madly… Lasher Orb probably came pretty damn close. His gut was also smoldering from what looked like Pulsar shots.
The VS got to close range, where his cover wasn’t much of an advantage.
Rat dropped his gauss and reached for his shottie, he had it out of its holster and pulling it towards the VS when the first one put his pulsar rifle right into his face from the other side of the log.
Rat dove to the side, feeling a shot in his left shoulder and then heat in the area, as he grabbed the rifle and the VS’s hand, yanking the rifle away as he flipped him over the log. The VS landed on his back. An elbow into the helmet faceplate shattered it and he felt something break. Another elbow and he forgot about him, using his stolen pulsar on the next VS as he came flying over the log… the enemy VS’s lasher orbs burned into him, eating through his armor as his rifle shots burned through its armor.
He heard the injured VS beside him groan, then scream, clutching his face… lashed, or late reaction….
The lasher VS had fallen, down for the count probably. The pulsar in his hands felt incredibly heavy. He let it drop down, knowing he was seconds from death.
“Maybe they’d be allowed off this hellhole…” Rattler thought to himself as the blackness claimed him.
The fighting continued for another 3 hours before our rearguard action was forced back to the base. Our forces had taken Nerrivik and another base, but were unable to make more ground. The VS had brought in way to much firepower, there was just no way to hold the continent. Consequently, Command ordered a pull out and TJ’s squad headed over to Searhus, where their former Comrades, D2A Markov, was making a strong push, already having captured a base. The regiment and a half that D2A brought to the battlefield slowed there push and eventually managed to stonewall it at the next bases tower.
The battle was brutal, but it was better then fighting the VS on ceryshen…
TJ sighed as he brought up his new orders and read them… another mission with the VS.
“Alright guys, we’re heading over to fight the VS… they’re making some trouble while we’re busy with the TR. Our entire Company is making the move, mount up, we got us a thunderer.” His squad hustled over to await the vehicles.
“Another day another battle,” TJ said to himself as he drove the thunderer out for battle.
Planetside and Auraxis are copyright, 2003 by Sony Online Entertainment. All rights reserved.
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