Asteroid Blues

The sound of a firearm going off in the background, and angry Russian cursing could be heard. Operation Gravity Falls was turning into a bloody affair, much to the consternation of those involved. Unit 29’s task here was to investigate infiltration, or tampering by EI forces, but the Ariadnans were taking an affront to the situation, making it much more difficult. The rattling of a short burst could be heard in another direction. Shaking her head, she sat against the parapet of utility housing, eating lunch rations she had. The rest of the unit was in shifts, with the remotes taking most of the watch work.

She absently watched an Ariadnan utility worker, a mechanic she believed move around the structure, going about his labors. She was not really listening to his mutterings under her breath as she turned her attention to a few reports coming into her AR. Qadim and Zyah were watching out on a primary causeway as the mechanic worked behind them.

BRRRRRRRRT!!!

Suddenly the sound of the shihabs machine gun resounded through the air, spraying Zyah and Qadim in the back with purple blood. Aafah blinked for a moment as the other two yelled in frustration, which slowly faded to alarm. On the ground, the mechanics face was split along the cheeks, and pupils were wrong in vacantly staring eyes.

“Speculo killer! Take posit-!” Qadim began, but was cut off as the blast of plasma fire on their left flank engulfed one of the remotes. It went offline instantly.

The rest of the force took cover as Aafah scanned her area. There was an alien beacon of some kind, transmitting on the far end of central causeway. The surveillance devices were all off line. Another ball of superheated plasma slagged a second fanous remote as Leila confirmed on her hacking device that the creature was an Anathematic, with hacking capabilities. She furiously tried throwing program after program at the Aliens mind only to fail at finding the right path through his neural net.

“Toma! Get your unit forward, I am sending you a location, find that alien beacon, snatch it! Once you do, were leaving! This is a heavy assault and we are not equipped for it!” Aafah ordered over the comm-net.

“Naeim, sayudti.” Toma responded in acknowledgment.

His unit immediately leapt into action, bounding off the utility building they were relaxing on, weapons at the ready, Fahim and his Spitfire leading the way. They moved quickly through the maintenance pathways, and across the open street, making directly for the beacon. Reaching the bottom of a large two story building, they braced against the street below them and with one great leap, soar into the air, and on top of the two story structure.

Listening, Fahim heard from the other side, an alien tongue, obviously communicating with something. Looking to the others, he nodded and lay his hand down, gesturing for them to crawl forward prone. Crouching and slowly moving up with the shadow of the parapet, Fahim brought his sights down on a large, mechanical worm.

“Medtech Obsidon. Eliminating.”

His light machine gun spew an accurate stream of fire, right into the alien doctor, blood pooling beneath it. He wasted no time as he heard a cry of alarm from another alien closer below him. Moving quickly to the wall, he jerked his head to the side, avoiding the panicked shot of a Sygma soldier. Depressing the trigger again, he filled the alien with bullets. Fahim was about to step over the ledge, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a Q-drone, turn, and raise its plasma rifle straight to him. Diving back into cover with a quick burst, his rounds only manage to ping off its plates ineffectively, or go completely wide.

“Allah preserve.” he muttered, catching his breath.

Khadim pulled a couple grenades from his belt, and nodding to the others, crawled a bit closer. Pulling the pin from the first, he arched it over, quickly followed by the second. They could hear the muffled crunch, and pinging of shrapnel off the robot. Behind a large two story office structure, Pixie snuck around, in the shadow of the building, trying to make sense of the field of battle.

“I dunnot see anythin…” the blonde hair, wisp of a woman muttered disappointedly.

Leila at this time had lost network sight of the Anathemetic, and peaked out, seeing nothing. Thinking quickly, she nodded to Ein, “Alright, get out there, do a sensor sweep, see if you can find that brute.”

Moving out with an acknowledgement beep, the Rafiq made it halfway across the street when suddenly it turned and unloaded into a door frame, followed by a mild explosion.

“Ein! What was that?! Did you just stop for a mine halfway down the street??” Leila yelled at the remote from cover.

The remote gave a victorious beep, as it sensored its immediate surroundings. While it revealed the Anathematic, taking cover behind a small utility tower, it achieved its objective too late as a caliban materialized, and blasted the remote with a burst from its submachine gun.

Cursing, Leila dove back behind cover, watching her hacking overlay closely. “Finally! A ping! Wait…”

Turning, the plasma fire blasted into her and her cover, burning through her armor. Seeing the massive alien directly below him, Qadim whirled around, trying to bring his shotgun to bare, but not before the plasma washed over his position, his body crumpled to the ground. Aafah cursed as it effortlessly moved to engage the shihab next, its plasma slagging the remote where it stood.

“Ra’id, we are engaging the beacon.” Toma’s voice came over the net.

“Hurry! We are barely keeping this thing away from our communications hub!” she yelled in response.

Toma, stood and leapt into the air, leaning over the edge, he sent several rounds from his underslung shotgun into Q-drone. Landing and rolling along the roof, he avoided the flash pulse of another remote, an ikadron. Nodding to Fahim, the second khawarij charged off the edge with the rest in toe, his spitfire finding its mark in the Ikadron. The team landed next to the beacon, and Khadim went to work unhooking and securing it in a satchel.

Turning they began racing, back to their line, knocking out a imetron on the way, their leaps taking them along the roofs. With one final long leap, they landed close to their lines, seeing the Anathematic below them. Taking the initiative, Fahim tried to send a decisive burst in to the creature after Asil tried hitting the beast with her shotgun, only to receive fiery plasma in return. The beast was like a desert djinn though, and its form couldnt be hit, his rounds plowing into the street below, and a blast of fiery plasma sending him to the floor.

Suddenly the beast disappeared, and looking over the edge of the building, she saw the spectral shadow of it climbing the tower, “Toma! Its coming up to you!”

As it crested the top, its form revealed, “So we see Ra’id!”

The blasts echoed from the firefight on the small roof top, but in the end, the Anathemtic stood tall, and glared down at Aafah, as if to make its point known that they could do little to nothing to stop it. A single round came from the distance but it dodge down onto its hands and knees with blinding speed.

Screaming, Zyah sprang to her feet, and rushed the rooftop, climbing the side effortlessly via the cables and pipes. As she reached the top though, the EI’s Djinn simply met her with a blast across the shoulder, knocking her down next to Fahim, who was holding his sides. Standing the beast merely looked around it, silently leapt away, descending and disappearing into the depths of the Battery Fields.

“Damn it all!” Aafah roared, standing up and taking stock of the carnage around her. The alien tore through them as if they were nothing. They held at the end, but the cost was great.

“adh-Dhi’b, this is Ra’id Aafah. I need a medical evacuation at my coordinates immediately. Be advised, EI forces may be in the vicinity.”

Aafah began working to try and stabilize Qadim, as best she could with her emergency medical training, “Ra’id Aafah, medical and military transport inbound, ETA is ten minutes, adh-Dhi’b is maneuvering to cover.”

Looking up, she saw mass of darkness that was the light cruiser. The things her brother would do for her….