Asteroid Blues

Montaigne lit up another cigarette, he’d been chain smoking the last hour waiting for his contact to arrive. A cold wind was whipping through the abandoned digging machinery and he wanted nothing more than to get out of this dump and back to the city proper. He was about to call it when finally a figure emerged from the haze made by the failing life support system.
“You’re late.” growled the former Moblot.
“But I come bearing gifts from the Emperor himself. He has seen your struggles and wishes nothing but to aid you against your enemies. A free Dawn is all we wish to see.” she said in a clipped Yu Jing accent while gesturing behind her to a stack of crates marked with obvious military logos. Montaigne grunted and walked over to open one while the woman said nothing and watched. His team fanned out to cover him without a word. They may not be military anymore, but they hadn’t forgotten their training. With a click, Montaigne opened the first crate and looked inside. There was nothing, the crate was empty.
“Merde! you double crossing piece of shi…” He never finished the sentence. The woman turned to him and drew a pistol from behind her back. As she drew she seemed to flicker, leaving a curious double image in Montaigne’s vision. Martina beat him to the punch. with a scream of “Shasvastii!” she triggered the flamethrower underneath her rifle and bathed the woman in a torrent of liquid flame. The woman flickered again and the hologram failed revealing an armored man screaming in two voices as he helplessly beat at the flames consuming him. He collapsed to the dirt, smoking and sparking and looked up at Montaigne through his cracked visor.
“The Old Man sympathizes, but your time is over.” and with a final shudder, stopped moving.

Montaigne opened a channel and roared into his throat mic, “Everyone heads up. It was a setup. scan your lanes and let’s break contact and get out of here. Anabelle? Release the Hound, give them something else to worry about.” His team was already moving into good firing positions and bounding back, covering each other as they moved. From the right, something large moved in the shadows and even from a hundred meters away, Montaigne caught a whiff of wet fur and old blood. The Hound had caught the scent of something and was moving forward.

Up ahead the Dog Warrior leaned forward and began pounding forward on all fours. Rounding a corner, he deftly thumbed a smoke grenade from his belt and launched it toward the smell of the enemy. He could smell soap, oil, clean sweat, and beneath it all, well controlled fear. The smell was like electricity in his nose and he bounded towards the nearest threat. From his right, shrapnel flew towards him as he tripped the first automated defense, painting his white fur red. With a growl, he unhooked his chain rifles and fired them into the murk like a smaller man would a pair of pistols. His only answer was a shotgun blast at close range, which pattered harmlessly off of his hulking form. With a grin, the hound leaped forward pinning the Hassassin under his claws. She screamed as the Hound’s drooling maw descended around her head.

Montaigne really wished the Hound would close his radio channel. Listening to the woman die as the Hound slowly crushed her skull in his teeth was amusing, but not productive. “Chien, stop playing with your food and get to work”. With a wet snarl, he watched the Hound leap vertically and fire his chain rifles and the rapidly approaching shapes across the pit. Tracers zipped across his flight path and the werewolf crashed to the dirt and lay still. Montaigne cursed again. The Hassassins had already had time to set up a base of fire. It was time to leave. With no idea of the size of the force sent to kill them, prudent action was to break contact. With a wave, he gestured for his Chasseurs to move forward and begin skirmishing while he organized the retreat. From his position behind a low wall in the yard he watched a wall of white smoke go up on the other side of the dig site. Blurred silhouettes advanced behind the screen but here and there it would part as one of the Chasseurs fired their primary weapon. It rapidly degenerated into a knife fight in the dark where half seen figures exchanged bursts at each other as they dodged through the empty pit. Blood froze almost instantly in the cold air, though several equipment sheds were already on fire from the exchanges going on. Montaigne shifted his team to the East, moving fast and low between buildings. From out of the gloom, he saw a large armored figure directing the others. He lifted his FN to his shoulder and let go with a burst, knocking the Asawira into the dirt. Grinning to himself, he celebrated with another cigarette only to drop it in horror as the heavy soldier stood up and then began loping purposefully forward. Montaigne lifted his weapon again just as the Asawira began to fire, their tracers passing one another in the darkness. This time the Frenchman’s aim was more true and a burst caught the Haqq heavy in the top of the head, blowing out a pink mist and skull fragments from the shattered helmet.

“All units, check in and fall back. This isn’t a fight we need right now.” A disappointing number of his men radioed in. Several would need time in a hospital and that would bring questions he didn’t want. One was dead. Irreplaceable. The war wasn’t over, but this fight was done.

OOC: This was a great game. I would take a million hard fought losses like this over a boring 10-0 win. It came down to the wire with no clear winner up until the last few orders of the game. In the end, it was 116-132 on VP and I had managed to kill his datatracker. Both of us had activated a heater making it a 3-4 to my opponent. Fantastic game.