Asteroid Blues

It was the real deal this time. After the information they got from the Gallery's secret base, the Task Force was able to pinpoint the Yu Jing operative selling illegal biological goods to the highest bidder. Last time they were on Jiyuan they were groping in the dark, but this time they could hit with a plan and in a precise location. They only needed to hold the block for long enough for the Intel to extract the suspect.

"Here we are," Lt. Max Delgado advised his team over the comms. "Advance cautiously, await for enemy contact and draw the line there." His squad of ORC:s were standing sentry over their left flank, with Henry Thiauld's familiar Feuerbach cannon ready for contact. "Echo Bravo in position," came a distorted signal from the comms that meant the specialist he had sent to enter the area from outside the asteroid was ready, and the advance was ready to begin. The plan started to congeal, but before he got to order the advance there was an alert. "Contact, contact!" shouted the Alpha Team's sentry from the right flank. He turned to look at the building they were holding, and saw it take several direct hits from a rocket launcher. "Jim, you OK?" Max asked from the sentry. There was only static for a second, until the man's voice fought to the surface. "-nailed pretty hard, but still standing! Think my stealth suite's gone, though." Max sighed in relief. "Copy! Don't risk your bacon if the heat gets too much!" He saw Jim rise up over the balcony, and his rocket launcher barked in return. "Well that's that problem- Oh shit!" His sentence was interrupted by another rocket, that slammed into the building and removed a good chunk of the concrete railing that was protecting him. "I'm ok!" he reported immediately, but Max couldn't see the man as he was covering under what remained of the railing. "Out of my depth here! Heavies incoming from the centre." Max glanced his tactical screen, estimated where the second missile had come from, and activated his comms. "Wes? Can you see the missile man? Can you pin him down?" There was a pause as the Zulu Cobra broke his cover to check the situation. "Yeah, I can feed him some lead"

Sgt. Wes Miller spider-crawled to the roof's edge, peered carefully over the railing and saw the Japanese heavy on another rooftop halfway across the block. He slowly took his automatic weapon from this back, readied it and waited for the target to stop. As it discarded its disposable launcher and took up a rifle again, Wes used its distraction to strike. He emptied half of his magazine on the heavy, and then as another enemy popped up from a rooftop near him he dragged his aim towards the new target before hitting the ground again. As there was no return fire, he dared to raise his wrist comlog over the edge, and saw from his helmet uplink that both of them had gone down. He reloaded his almost-spent magazine, and took position again covering the centre of the block. "Huh," he said to himself. "Guess I'm hotter than I thought."

"Alpha Squad, you've got a remote incoming. It's holo'ed up, but I'll mark you the real one," Patsy commed the other flank as she spied the distorted image of the bot creeping up on their position. The reply was inaudible over the clap of Thiauld's cannon from next to her, but it was evident that the enemy was probing their side too. Henry's report said as much, but the numbers were so far lesser than on the other side, and he had the range and firepower to keep them at arm's lenght. Max, standing between the two, tapped Patsy at the shoulder, and gestured her back. "I'll keep an eye on this side, you prepare to push." She nodded, and kneeled beside Henry to be ready to vault down from the building.

Max had sent Alpha Squad advancing cautiously as the remote still lurked near them. He had tried to fire a few shots at it to keep its attention, but it moved suddenly to face the squad's advance. "Alpha, heads up! Remote coming on you just now!" The squad stopped, took a step or two back, and readied their weapons as the remote cornered the building. They opened up immediately and peppered the thing with rifle fire, but it didn't go down before letting loose a full two seconds of flamer fire. "Alpha, status?!" Max tried the comms furiously. "Alpha, are you OK?" he tried again. "This is Jim Warner," the Kamau sentry responded. "The remote's fried, but unfortunately so's most of Alpha. Standing by for now." Max cursed vigorously, but calmed down immediately. "Aff. Stay put for now, lock down that corner in case they try to push through." Jim acnowledged, and he switched channel. "Pincer," he simply said. "We need Pincer, now!"

Two things happened in almost perfect coordination. Sergeant Adrian Chapman of the Echo Bravo unit dropped from the lip of the dig crater, practically from space, and landed with practiced ease on the flank of the enemy's main force. He jogged quickly on their blind side, and let out a burst of rifle fire to get their attention. As the enemy turned to react, Chapman was already in cover, and then Sgt. Devon Mitchell from the Croc Men dropped his camo from the top of a storehouse, and peppered the same enemy that Chapman had distracted. Attacked from behind twice in a row, the enemy squad disintegrated and took cover. Mitchell continued to suppress the enemy, as Chapman tossed out his Wildparrot to further confuse them - and with a hope it would catch the enemy squad's Heavy. Knowing that the Japanese had only one response for the situation, he readied his auxilary shotgun, and prepared for the charge. True enough, they came with full force. A line trooper came first, and the Wildparrot blasted him. The man was stopped in his tracks in surprise, as his AR and tactical net suddenly vanished - not to mention his Cube's backup, but that wasn't an immediate problem. For Chapman that meant that the heavy was using his mate as a minesweeper, and that the hardest target was coming up next. His reactions were good, but the Japanese had a Chain Rifle ready as he turned the corner, and they pulled the trigger at the same time. Both went down, but the Japanese push was irrecoverably shattered by Chapman's manoeuvre.

Max was monitoring this flank attack, and decided that it was up to his squad to deliver now as the rest of the Task Force was getting as good as they were giving. They were untouched so far, with Henry having kept the perimeter with a few precise shots. He planned that they'd get into position to finish Chapman's flanking manoeuvre, and to take the field. There was so little movement that he thought that the battle was already over, when Patsy shouted out and he turned to look. A lone samurai charged them, chased with Patsy's SMG fire, and lunged out at her with his swords. They penetrated and she went down, but as she fell the killer was exposed and was easy pray for Max's rifle burst. He checked the perimeter, and Henry was still covering the other direction, so he checked up on Patsy. She had blacked out from shock and bleeding, but her suit's monitors showed that first aid was in process and that she was stabilising. The right flank also reported that the Japanese were pulling back, so the Intel boys could move in and the Task Force could finally see themselves off this miserable site.