The transmat pad slowed down, it's energy temporarily expended, its job done, the massive shipping container sized machine creaking as something lept off it, sailing through the air, the roar of short range engines heard, helping it glide a little ways, increasing the apex of the jump, before cutting off completely……
And then several tons of combat mech slammed down on the Horror bearing down on Scout and Medic, who stood infront of the civilians, causing biological goo to spray everywhere, loud, booming, mechanized laughter ringing out from the bulky, bipedal mech.
On one arm was a brass nameplate, reading Katsuya, the feet round circles with three 'toes', one set pointed forward, the other two pairs each parting the circular feet into thirds, long, cylindrical, armored legs leading up to the bulky, blocky armored cockpit and control module, angled to deflect physical projectiles, heat vents on the back just under the engines, belching heat. A circular, stocky optical unit sat, a red sensor going back and forth, giving the pilot, while cylindrical arms swung down, smashing into the neural nodes of the beast, before the mech leapt off, forgoing the boosters this time, and caused a smaller crater then before.
Bolted on each arm were massive rotary railcannons, three barrels each, spanning the length of the forearms, with large capacitors, six on each barrel, all whining as they charged up. "Behind me, Doctor!" Came the recognizable voice of The Heavy Weapons Specialist, as both arms swung up to firing positions, barrels spinning, before he let loose his war cry.
"YAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!" Heavy roared and laughed as the massive railcannons opened up on another beast charging towards them, even as the one he squished turned to goo and slithered off to reform, even as the mech mulched up the onrushing horror, steam hissing off the beast as the superheated rounds, a byproduct of the railcannons system, seared into the creature, each spike of spinning metal shaved off a main chunk of metal on the ammo spindle.
Screeching, the beast backed off, snarling as more began to come over the hills and the horizon, snarling and slathering, hungry for a fight, even as Heavy rolled his mechs shoulders and smashed his metal knuckles together. "Come, let us fight like men" the burly human in the mechanized war machine rumbled, settling into a boxers stance, even as the Human Inside grinned under his helmet, before charging forward, swinging with a hard left punch, burying his mech metal fist in the skull on one of the beast, railcannons on the same arm chattering as he unloaded at point blank on the beast, before ripping his arm out and rammed the other fist into its underbelly.
Both hands grabbing the horror, Heavys mech spun at the waist in a full degree of motion, using the horror he had his hands on, using it like a bludgeon, forcing the other creatures to try and move out of his way, distracting them from Scout and Medic ushering them to the safe house, even ad the teleporter stopped spinning again.
"Oi, don't hog all the fun, ya great lump! Leave a few for me ta send ta hell!" Echoed out a very familiar Scottish voice, followed by a few sounds of rapid fire thumping….
And a literal stream of cylinders with blinking red domes on their ends were seen flying through the air, accompanied by crazed laughter, as a similar mech to the one Heavy was Piloting sprinted forward, though one hand was completely replaced with what looked like a 100mm grenade launcher, with two smaller shoulder mounted machine launchers chattered, unloading 40mm grenades like they were candy into the sky, arching down and detonating in sprays of napalm and explosive blasts, making the horrors that were too close screech as they burned to a crisp, forcing the others to back off….and more the show up, these ones armored with a mix of metals and chitin, or coated in hastily applied ablative armor, Taking the hits from the grenades and shrugging them off as they were thrown away, and attempted to make another layer, only for the streams of grenades to bore through them
"Demo! Come! Let us fight!" Heavy laughed as the two slammed into the horrors with roaring laughter, one slightly drunker then the other, Heavys railcannons shredding them down, Demos grenades burning them to a crisp in moments, or in the case of the 100mm, completely Obliterating them, leaving behind a smoldering crater of thermite and phosphorus.
The two towering mechs were back to back as the horror charged at them from both sides, reaching forward, only for heavy and Demo to duck, allowing the beasts to slam into one another, the mechs rolling out from underneath, and popped up, pinning the horrors between them, allowing Demo to get a good shot off and incinerate the two as Heavy unleashed a squirt of rounds over his comrade in arms shoulder, mulching the beast behind him, while Demo lobbed grenades behind Heavy, blowing chunklets off the one trying to sneak up on Heavy.
Meanwhile, the teleporter spun up again, and flashed as it spat out another mecha, this one, however, didn't have arms, oddly…..
Just four massive napalm sprayers, two per side, it's legs double jointed, digitgrade, rather then normal single jointed, allowing it to leap farther and move faster, muffled giggling coming out of its Vox and speakers, as it's maniacal pilot charged forward, letting loose a spray of unignited napalm as soon as it was in firing range, dousing all of its opponents with the flammable liquid, just as Demo unleashed another spray of fresh grenades, courtesy of the Enterprises accurate transmat and crews, right into his ammo bays, linked into his grenade lines.
The explosions ignited the incendiary fluid, making the pyromaniac laugh, igniting his pilot lights and continuing hosing down the general area with the stuff, even as more horrors raced in, coated in fireproof chitin…
Which only lasted ten seconds under a devastating kick from Pyros mech, or a hail of bullets or grenades, cracking the armor to the meaty, flammable biomass horror inside. "Not one o' ye is gonna survive this!" Laughed Demo as the trio began to set up a rather battlefield, burning flesh filling the are, turning it into a hellscape. One would think the horrors would feel right at home…….
/------------------/
Meanwhile, Scout, Medic, Soldier, and Sniper were clustered around the teleporter, or more specifically, the shuttle it had just spat out, offloading additional equipment and loading up the survivors. "Go, go, go!" Scout muttered, waving civvies on, carrying the younger ones on his back, piggyback style, Spy appearing out of thin air next to him, with several little ones in his own arms. Medic had a hover gurney out and was hauling the injured out, while The Sniper and Soldier were hauling heavy boxes out and placing them on the battle field, moving back and forth rapidly, despite Soldiers heavy armor.
The teleporter spun again, spitting out another shuttle, which took off and landed next to the already landed shuttle, disgorging more marines who took over offloading supplies and loading civilians, setting up barricades and defenses, while the Engineer waves the five remaining of his teammates over.
"Alright boys, looks like we managed to get here in time to help pull yer chestnuts out of the fire. Unfortunately, looks like someone on the other team wants to make a bit of a statement, and sent a few ugly son of beaches our way. Thankfully, I got a few solutions to that little problem." The engineer said with a grin, motioning to the utter chaos that was Heavy, Demo, and Pyro unleashing hell in three several ton death machines. "Excellent work, engineer." Spy said with a grin, opening a hatch on his helmet as he pulled out his cigarette. "Oh, I ain't done yet, not till we have these mother Hubbard's crying uncle." The Texan said, with a dark chuckle, like the Frenchman had said a joke, getting a head tilt out of the balaclava colored helmet.
"What do you mean?" He said, before Asimov walked out, a large box under one arm. "Scout, remember that old Suit you had towards the end of the Gra-Vel wars? Like the other mechs we had?" Engineer said with a grin, as the towering cyborg opened the box, after setting it down. "Suit is operational, please use responsibly." The cyborg said in amusement as he revealed the components within. "Wo hoho!" Scout laughed, grabbing the chest plate and slamming it down onto his armor, the exoskeleton instantly merging with his armor, Asimov connecting the back plate, allowing it to begin closing around the human, who was rapidly installing the rest of the components.
His armor was now bulkier then before, with engines on his calves, his shoulders, and extra ones on his wrists. Intakes poked over his shoulder, while he now had a tractor beam unit under one arm, and a twin barrel, reciprocating Shotgun slung under the other. "Aw yeah, I missed this thing!" Scout laughed as he heard it's systems booting up, it's power core on his back humming as it powered up, hud flickering online as he fist pumped. "Sensor Suit has been upgraded as well as core output has been stabilized. Flight time will be longer, and will not interfere with Tractor beam unit." Asimov said, before his claw snapped out and stopped Scout from joining the fray. "Hey, what's the big deal??" He pouted.
"We've got a few more surprises ready." The engineer said, as they heard the teleporter going off again. "Soldier, your up!" The engineer said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the teleporter, revealing another large mech, similar to Heavy's, but instead of two rail cannons, it had massive rocket launchers on the back that could aim over his shoulder, along with a micro missile battery in each wrist.
Soldier gave a slightly demented giggle, charging forward and scrambling up the mech and climbed in. A muffled "this is mine now!" Was heard as the top hatch slammed shut, and the massive thing booted up, and jumped off the transmat, more giggling heard. "Its good to have this back!" The voice of the crazy marine said, as he cracked his metal knuckles. "Thought you might like that." The engineer said with a mischievous grin. "Now then, Sniper, your mechs unfortunantly down for a bit longer, cores giving me more trouble…..buuuut." The Texan said as Asimov seemed to smirk and pulled out the false bottom of the crate Scout had pulled his suit from….
"Holy…….." The Sniper said, looking at the partially disassembled monstrosity inside. On his back, his mini turret gave out a mad binary cackle. "Slimmed down exoskeleton and 30mm Anti-material rail rifle." Asimov said as he pulled the man sized HALF a rifle out of the box and clicked the other half, the barrel and capacitor banks, onto it. ".......I LOVE this job." The aussie said with a grin, pulling the folded up exoskeleton out of the box and pulled it over his armor. It clicked in, syncing with his systems, and even with the exoskeleton, he wheezed as Asimov handed the massive rifle over. He hooked the power cable of the man portable artillery piece to the power core on the exoskeleton, before he accepted the rounds. "Incendiaries?" He asked, noticing the odd tips. "Nope." The engineer said, a gleeful tone in his voice. "That there is a little special mix Demo came up with. Tannerite V2 in the tip with a little BOREite."
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This got a rather evil laugh out the Sniper, who scrambled up the wall to his previously made snipers nest to set up his new instrument of terror. "Spy, I think you'll like this little number." The engineer said, as the Medic had a mad grin. "I vorks!?" "Yep. And because of her sheer size, it's able to hold a much longer charge." He said as a smaller, still several ton, bipedal, much more humanoid machine decloaked above them, It resembled a oversized Mechwarrior Javelin, minus the missile or laser racks dominating the chest area, and instead had a pair of extendable wristblades and a massive holster on its hip, carrying directed Electromagnetic launcher, capable of firing heavily charged electric shots to punch into armor and fry electronics inside whatever it hit. "Excellent! Your finest work yet, both of you!" The Frenchman said, vanishing for a moment, reappearing within the mecha moments later.
"Alright boys, you know the drill. Doc, you're with me and the others, gonna dig in and make sure we're harder to remove then a super termite infestation on a jungle planet. Captain Asimov here is going to be playing TACP today." The Texan said with an all too happy voice. "Seems good Ole Event Horizon wants to help give the ugly mother Hubbard's more then a few new behinds."
Asimov nodded, as they heard two more voices join in, talking quietly, revealing a Trike and a Wargen, carrying a mobile mortar system, or rather, the Wargen was hauling the weighty machine, the Trike was hauling the ammunition and a few mobile barricades and shields.
A whistle pierced the air before something impacted the ground and dug out a sizeable crater in mere moments.
The entire team that was there saw that Asimov was staring at the spot that had just been catered with an odd intensity, before he rolled his shoulders, and moved inside, before coming back out, carrying extra ammo crates under each arm, setting them down near the crater.
The Wargen was setting up the Mortar unit, unfolding the stability legs, bracing them on the ground, before pulling out the massive, M2 Browning styled mortar launcher up with a maniacal grin.
The Trike was rapidly fortifying the crater, lining it with barricades at the lip of the crater, angling them to help enemy munitions to skip off. She soon joined Asimov setting up the mortar belts, opening the feed chute, as the cyborg connected the feed lines to the bolt assembly, while the Wargen prepped the spare barrels nearby.
At the edge of the crater, Asimov opened another crate, pulling out ancient Maxim pattern machine guns, connecting their cooling lines to a thermal heat discharger aimed outwards, ready to dump the thermal reserves on whatever poor fool got too close. The trike got behind the maxim emplacement, racking the charging handles twice to make sure there was a live round in the chamber, the energy shields shimmering around the barrels to protect her when she would fire it from enemy fire.
Once everything was adequately set up, and the mortars were chambered, Asimov bent down, and lifted back up, holding a just as archaic rifle in his claws. The design was very distinct, with its banana shaped magazine, even with the proportions were very off, the wood like furniture on the rifle gave away what it was another thing that gave it away, even with the redesigned trigger and hand grip for his claws. A Hererra industries pattern AK-50. The massive cyborg chambered one of the massive rounds it carried before nodding to the Wargen, vaulting over the eye of the mortar nest, a antenna extending off his pack, even as his head spun to look to the others. "Nest ready, armament online. Shall we begin?"
The grins that went unseen due to the helmets were palpable, seemingly bloodthirsty, joined in by the Trike and the Wargen, as they prepared their surprises.
/----------------/
Gistle was snarling in rage as he watched the three mechanical Cavalry beasts decimate their own Thrall based Cavalry beasts with merciless efficiency. Around him, he could tell the others were quietly muttering in panicked words, utterings of Frail forces making landfall and tearing through their forces flitted in, but that didn't matter at the moment.
What did were the three mach-
He froze when one of the beasts suddenly was sliced cleanly in three pieces, something splattered with its ichor, revealing a thin mecha, stabbing and slashing amongst the Cavalry beasts like some horrific blade master, stabbing and slicing, ducking under swings and ammunition thrown by the others.
It decloaked, drawing a weapon from its hip and opened fire on one of the cavalry beasts, unleashing a rocket and burning the trying to reform bodies. It soon joined the fray, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the more brutish trio, the fire keeper blasting fire all over like it was water, kicking out, knocking its opponents down or staggering them, and spraying like some sort hyper flammable liquid all over them to make sure they didn't reform. Or simply leaping into the air and crushing them under its impact.
The first one that had fought them shredded them down to paste, or pummeled them into inadequacy, metal fists breaking chitin to get to the meat inside, or would use its chattering shredders to mulch them, put holes in them, or weaken them for the pyromaniac to burn to nothing! They couldn't even sneak up on it, fire spitting engines on its back igniting to burn them if they got too close, or one of the others forcibly removing the cavalry beasts from its mechanical brother with a punch or a burn of the flammable fluid.
And then the small flying figure zipped about, a single, lightly armored frail, zipping about in the air in its combat skin, twisting fluidly as if born to it, its slugger on its arm barking as it shredded unarmored targets, or yanked the legs out from under the armored ones with its beam Tether from the tractor beam, making sure that they couldn't fight the others and distracting them long enough form a well placed explosive, a well placed punch or slice put them out of the fight for a moment, or were burned to a crisp.
They couldn't even swat the gnat, because the thin stealth beast, and that was a horrifying thought, would appear out of nowhere and remove the limbs of the offending cavalry beast in question.
And then the sky fire started. Metal missiles crashed down all around the beasts, burning the earth as their payloads sprayed everywhere, incinerating more and more of the cavalry, cutting swaths in their numbers before the culprit slammed down in the midst of the battlefield. A towering war machine leapt out of the crater, missiles flying off its shoulders, out of its wrists, like some sort of horrific locust, pummeling their forces with intent to remove the threat the Cavalry posed off the planet, accompanied by the arcing streams of grenades, some even sitting, supposedly inert, on the ground till one of the cavalry stepped on it, resulting in it detonating and eviscerating the cavalry beast.
"I want ground forces moving in, NOW! Their cavalry beasts are tied up in our own, surely their defenders won't be expecting more forces!" Gistle snarled, as the command went out, making his lips pull back in a snarling smirk. Surely-
Just as his forces crested the hill, they instaintly ducked down, many knocked off their feet, heads completely gone, or in several instances, entire chunks of land, just GONE. "Report! Why are our forces falling!" Gistle shrieked, his rage building, veins pulsing on his body as he spun around, spittle flying from mis mouth.
"Sir, it would appear that their Sniper nest was reinforced. One Sniper still, but he isn't using the same rifle as…before…." One of the hapless underlings said, motioning to the viewing Thrall, making Gistle spin back around….. and froze as he saw it was focused on the Sniper, wearing a exoskeleton, body rocking back as the massive rifle fired, and the image flickered to where it struck, the entire land area just….vanishing from existence.
"In addition, they appear to have unleashed a mechanized warrior on our forces." The image changed again, this time revealing a tall, dark, wiry mechanoid, dome head spinning as it tracked its opponents, hefting a massive rifle as it barked, making the machine shudder as it fired, massive metal casings ejected from it as it charged forward, deadly accurate shots pummeling chitin, evaporating heads, blowing apart combat thralls like they were nothing but parchment.
But what came next was horrific. The mechanized soldier ducked behind the remains of a wall, it's three optics unfocused, a garbled message coming from it, and then the ridge where their ground forces were turned into rapid craters in moments. "Sir! Mortar encampment! Looks to be a high output variant!"
The viewing thralls image changed, showing a crater turned mortar nest, the barricades well deployed, a smaller turret jutting out, and a machine mortar manned, shaking the entire platform it was bolted to, barrel reciprocating rapidly as it spat its shells into the air, whistling with sinister intent to impact down on the earth. The smaller turret was barking as a more durable frail manned it, the barrel of the archaic weapon they used spewing hot metal and fire as smaller thralls charged forward, only to burn to a crisp by the incendiary ammunition pouring out of it, or were immolated by the heat blast from the discharger on it. Energy blasts, spikes and other things bounced off the barricades, or splashed against the shields set up, weapons fire only paused to allow the nest to reload its ammunition, the only two sentients inside of it working like a well oiled machine, despite the signs of one of them being slightly unfamiliar with the movements, they both gave it their all, the fire that the Frails known as Humans had burning in them brightly, ready to burn any who encroached on their land, on their people.
"Sir, second transmission from the mechanized unit! Multiple objects detected on-" the ground in the image shook as massive projectiles, racing at high rates of speed impacted the ground, destroying several support beasts that had come with the infantry forces, leaving massive craters behind, following a straight line, notably, where the now exposed Mechanised unit was staring….. using munitions to make a wall of death and destruction.
Soon, it stopped, as the mechanoid charged forward, placing deadly accurate shots before him, before he finally ran out of ammo in that magazine. For a moment, the enemy forces were buoyed by the cessation of weapons fire, and gave a rallying cry…….
And then the one leading the charge lost their head, body knocked back as a massive pistol was drawn, barking with similarly accurate fire, the larger, slower slugs it fired leaving destruction behind, battering past armor rather then piercing it, ultimately not caring like the massive rifles rounds hadn't either. The mechanoid continued charging forward, head spinning, locking on their locations, random transmissions shooting out, and moments later, shells impacted and shook the land, destroying whole platoons like they were nothing.
"Where are those shots coming from, I want those artillery encampment shelled out! Now! And someone get that Mortar nest-"
"Sir! Its a orbital bombardment! We can't reach the ship that's doing it! Enemy forces have taken control of the lower orbital planes! What's more, any shot we try and fire up, some sort of anti artillary system removes from the air with physical projectiles!"
"Sir! Low-flying craft detected!"
This caused the viewing Thrall to change images again…… and instaintly the room went silent with horror….."no…..no, No No NONONONO!" Gistle said in pure horror.
On the screen showed the most horrific creation of the Frails. The hell ship they named after a Black Hole, a fitting name. Even now, he could feel her hunger for their blood, her thirst for revenge and vengence….. despite being only the saucer section, he could still hear the recordings of her ripping, tearing entire fleets apart, her psionic, mad Laughter echoing out as she used reality itself as a weapon against them, a tiny ship tearing their subjugation fleet apart…….
And even now, she was proving she didn't need that weapon to tear apart their forces, her lower turrets using mining lasers to burn out fortifications, coilguns punching holes indiscriminately amongst his forces, while the upper turrets snatched shells out of the air, sailing for her hull with her tethers, and flung them back, making them detonate with their own forces. In the prisoner camps, bright lights were seen as prisoners vanished from their cells and stockade, replaced with explosives, which detonated moments later after they were all gone, turning the camps into craters, flinging explosives everywhere.
Suddenly, her Impulse engines glowed brightly, her turrets retracting into her turret hard points, before she shot off, and then turned harshly, spinning back around, passing over, each pass faster then the last, her engines screaming loudly with each pass….. and then it happened, the Shockwave of a sonic boom blasted off the disk shaped hull, shaking everything around it, especially on the ground, and still, she increased her speed, her psionic laughter heard echoing through the thrall…..
And then she made her final, devastating pass, using sheer speed and the Shockwave off her sonic boom to decimate the ground forces. Thralls popped, exploding ad their biomass couldn't take being shaken apart by the Shockwave, warrior and war castes held their heads, blood leaking out their audio organs, and ocular organs if they were unprotected or weren't replaced. Several even lost their heads, exploding in violent blasts of goo, due to the pressure of their increased blood flow to their neural matter not liking the Shockwave, rupturing, bursting and detonating inside their own skulls.
Buildings crumbled and fell apart, crushing others, while glass windows exploded violently, sending glass flying all over the place, making the ground dangerous to traverse for the snake like ones, distracting others, as the disk shaped horror came back around, slower, like a predator coming in to kill her prey or just to toy with it more………
"ALL FORCES, RETREAT! CHIRONS CHILD IS HERE!"