Robotech: Pyrrhic Wardance
- A Sentinels-MOSPEADA Serial
Chapter Six: Into the Pits of Hell
By SithKnight-Galen
SK-G: Ahh, and now the action heats up, and how. Let's just see if I can get this chapter out on something akin to a timely basis. It is something that quite a few people like for me to work on on a regular basis: My daughter, my bosses, my roomies, my poor mechwarrior opponents, my readers, my Bishopric, the list just goes on and on, and I am afraid I don't quite have enough blaster bolts on hand. maybe I should just re-invest all my time and energy I invest in the Dark side into cloning myself instead........
A/N2: Of course I do not own Macross, Robotech, MOSPEADA or any of the people, events or equipment from it, because if I did, I would be merrily running thru the town in my own Glaug Officer's Pod playing kick the Lexus with the greatest of ease and a very pleased grin on my face.
Okay, enough of my prattle. Let's get on with the Story..
Enter Macross Theme
--------
First Sergeant Antonio Knupf felt hot despite the best attempts of his VR-052's air recirculation systems attempts to keep him cool. It added to his irritation about the situation that he was currently in, but on the good side, being irritable and uncomfortable sure kept him alert. He couldn't believe that he had agreed to go along on this hair brained mission into the heart of the Invid Empire and see how many ways they could tweak with the big cheese Regent himself. And they weren't even supposed to take out the super-sized slug themselves, either. Recon duty should have been left in the hands of the real "spooks", he had always thought. And low and behold, he had been proven right yet again. When the Chief returned, he was going to hear an earful, by God!
' Damn, just why did I agree to this crawling around in the dirt trying to play sneaky-Pete with a bunch of overrated slugs anyways. Give me the Zentraedi any day. At least they didn't give me the overwhelming feeling to douse them with a giant salt gun every time that I had to fight them.'
Trying to push down his own frustration and inner misgivings about this current snag on an already whacked out mission, the Topkick checked the rest of the men and women with him manning this part of the defensive perimeter. While he may have been a navy flyer by trade, it looked as if Captain Derringer had some Combined-Arms in him after all. Let's just see if the Invid were in any mood to agree with that assessment. The lifer took another look at the automated scanner right about the same time that his helmet mike went off.
"Are you guys detecting anything down there?" came the voice of Sylvia Voorhees, piloting the six-gunned Second Generation ADR-04 Mk XI Defender that was in an over watch position behind the Cyclone squad. Other Destroid/Cyclone combat teams had been set up in a similar fashion all around the REF perimeter.
"No, Lieutenant, not a peep. Not since the initial batch that were picked up to the west of us about fifthteen minutes ago, Knupf replied back in his standard, gruff, slightly gravelly voice. He was about to continue when the pinging from the motion scanner being held in his hand and it's master unit being carried by Corporal Shael became a lot more insistent. That was definitely not a good sign.
"What's that?"
"Looks like we got company coming over for dinner after all, Ma'am."
"My scanners aren't picking up.......oh my.....I see what you mean, Sergeant, "Sylvia said with a lot more calm in her voice than she was really feeling. Exhaling slowly to calm herself of the pre-battle jitters that she seemed always get, the Armored Cavalry pilot then switched over to the general TAC-Frequency.
"This Silver Fox manning defense post Delta. We have enemy contacts in company strength approaching from this direction. Range 4 miles, ETA 90 seconds. Any assist would be much appreciated."
"Acknowledged, defense post delta. Have Diamondbacks 2 and 3 sitting on deck to provide CAP support if you need it."
"Then you might want to get them airborne, Lightning Control."
"We'll see what we can do. Hold them off for as long as you can. Lightning Control out."
Voorhees switched off her end of the general frequency radio channel just as her advanced targeting array began to single out and identify individual Invid combat ships that were quickly coming into range of her powerful anti-aircraft guns. They were going to be slamming smack dab into her position in less than a minute, and it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that a dozen Cyclone jockeys and a single Destroid were going to be able to hold back a tide of vengeful slugs for long.
'This is most definitely NOT going to be pretty. We are not going to be able to hold off against that many of them for long. I really hope that Captain Derringer knows what he is doing and that the major can get back here, because I have a feeling that we are really going to be needing him.'
Voorhees could here Knupf down below issuing orders and steadying the squad of troopers with him. Two of the mechanized infantrymen broke out their specialty long rifles and began to sight in on the approaching enemy mecha, and Voorhees could only assume that those were two of Darmouth's frighteningly accurate and deadly Nightstalker snipers, probably Harper and Diaz . She watched the two ground pounders set themselves up and then gauge in with the rifles. A few moments later, a pair of tight beam energy discharges left their positions and off in the distance, a pair of faint smoke contrails appeared in the Invid formations. On Sylvia's scanners, two of the mecha tentatively identified as armored scouts blipped out of existence.
'Then again, with more guys like those two, we may be worrying just a bit too much.'
The Destroid officer continued to watch her screen with impressed fascination as four more of the speedy enemy craft were similarly snuffed out of existence. She was abruptly brought back to the situation at hand as an active participant as her targeting computer gave her the proverbial green light, and the entire cabin area of her robot went from it's normal pale luminescence to a more vivid pale crimson. Switching her weapons systems from stand-by to active, Voorhees closed her eyes for a moment, then re-opened them, hazel eyes flashing as her thumbs slid over the firing studs. This was it, she knew as she re-opened her squad's comm.-channel.
"Open fire, open fire!"
Following her own orders, she squeezed down the firing studs, and her Defender greeted the oncoming horde with six beams of death that swatted down almost a dozen Invid scout mecha before they hit the humans lines. The Cyclone Riders waited until the rest of the first wave were right on top of them before they opened up as well, cutting down the remaining light power armor units under a hail of Gallant energy rounds and sheets of wolverine 10mm slugs. This did not deter the remaining Invid mecha who slammed into the human lines even as the pair of Assault LEGIOS came diving in out of the sun.
--------
Angelina could feel the beads of sweat beginning to accumulate on the small of her back as she continued to stare down the four barrels and the four Invid command enforcers that were holding them. If she was in top form, she knew that she might have stood something of a chance against them, but in her current state, even putting more than the token resistance that she was already doing was going to be pushing it. Fight the Invid here, HAH! She could barely stand on her own without any one's help at the moment. At least there was one good thing about being made a prisoner of war by aliens instead of by her fellow humans.
'Well, we were supposed to do a Recon of this place for the Main Fleet's push to help Admiral Hunter. I guess I can't get any closer than by being escorted in by this group. At least these guys won't try anything funny just because I am a woman. They probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference even if I pointed it out for them.'
The lead Invid, the one who had told her to move, seemed to sneer as she curled her lips up slightly, and not quite having the grasp on human emotions as he thought that her did, mis-read to be a challenge, so he pressed his gun a bit more forcefully into her chest, knocking her back and causing the human to wince and yelp in barely suppressed pain. Before she could sufficiently record, the power armored alien reached down and plucked her handgun from it's holster.
"No more pausing human...we go now...The hive mind wants to speak with you."
The Invid that had decided to take command and direct her to where he had wanted her to go stated with that irritatingly synthetic voice. The other three were still keeping their distance, and their weapons were still directed at Spencer, although the glows that were present at the tips had died down for the moment. Before she could pull herself together and get up under her own power, the same Royal Enforcer yanked her up with no small amount of force and left Spence on her feet with a renewed sense of vertigo. However, this sudden change in perspective allowed Angie to take in a few more things that she had missed when the four Invid had actually got the jump on her, like the fact that there were actually six Invid Enforcers present, with two more up on the ledge that she had fallen down earlier when she had first stumbled upon this cave. What she saw next, however, made her blood run cold. She had only run into the damned things three times, and had nearly died each time. Both of the cat-like mecha, classified as Hellcats, glared down at her with un-living glowing eyes as they stalked between their masters on the upper tier.
'Omigod, why did they have to bring those things here? Do they really want me to follow them or are they gonna feed me to those beasts?,' Angelina thought as panic finally began to overtake her and she started shaking slightly, a new coating of perspiration breaking out on her skin. 'They are going to kill me! The Invid don't take prisoners! They just kill anything and everything that they feel is a threat to their galactic domination and that puts me as public enemy number one!'
Angie looked about frantically at that moment, trying to find any avenue of escape, even though the rational part of her mind was telling her that unarmed and injured, her chances were slim to none without some sort of miracle. If only she hadn't gotten so cocky when she tried to back up those Zentraedi and deviated from the mission parameters. She knew why she did it, and she could only put the blame on that one man If only she hadn't run into him, then she would have been able to focus on the mission, and she would not be in this mess right now. At least he wasn't here right now to rub her final failure into her face.
"Damn You, Ryan!"
The Invid commander turned to look at the female human as she let out a scream of some sort, and her face began to flush, in spite of her trembling. This one was a strange one indeed. He had noticed that she was injured when they had found her, but his initial assessment and confirmation with the Central Hive did not think her injuries were that life-threatening as of yet. Perhaps there was something malfunctioning with this one's higher functions, and she would have to be put down just to be on the safe side. In all likelihood there more than just this one, and they could always capture and interrogate another one. But it was always a good idea to make sure first.
"You..human...are you ...functioning proper...." The Invid began to ask, but was cut off as the upper tier to the cave exploded from the impact of half a dozen high-explosive munitions ripping into and thru his overwatch team, outright shredding one of the Hellcats and both Enforces, and sending the remaining inorganic spinning to the ground below.
The remaining Enforcers each activated their energy shields and brought their weapons up to the ready, hunting for the new threat. The smoke made their visual receptors blurred, but they could definitely tell that the new threat was using protoculture, and had no problem in letting them know it either. They each looked at each other, then back at the entrance just in time to see what it was that had killed their two companions. The four plasma cannons began to glow in pre-fire intermix, and suddenly the human-shaped power armor spoke over it's helmet mike in a voice that made all the color flush out of Angie's face. It took her mind a few moments to process that he was also speaking in Invid, or Solugese as the other Sentinel races had referred to it as.
" You will release the woman, and I will let you all live."
'And what if we don't Tirolian, what will you do, try to kill us all," replied the Invid commander, confidence and superiority in his own voice as his targeting computer finally got a positive lock on the alien mecha.
The Power Armor wielder smirked thru his visor as he responded. The forearm blades to his armor had just finished sliding into place with a barely audible click.
"There will be no try about it, Invid. Leave her here now, and intact, and you live. You fail to heed my warning, and you try to harm her or take her, and you all will die.
No...I think you are mistaken, spawn of the Masters. The only one here who will die if they do not surrender will be you," The Invid sneered back as he noticed the remaining Hellcat begin to slink back up the ledge and prepare to pounce on the obstinate flesh-thing. "In fact, you will just die!."
As the Enforcer let out his challenge, the Hellcat took that moment to pounce on the seemingly unsuspecting Power Armor pilot. Angie felt a scream for the pilot begin involuntarily and subconsciously in the back of her throat, but it died just as quickly as the pilot pivoted and activated his own weapon systems, neatly severing the robotic cat's head forepaws from the rest of its fire and shrapnel-mangled body. The Enforcers did not pause for long as they watched the cat get mowed down by the cyclone rider, and opened fire on the man, hoping to mow him down before he could close on them.
The pilot continued to smirk darkly, his mind racing at miles a minute as he calculated his plan of attack while calmly deflecting the numerous plasma shots with his own energy blades. While this wasn't quite what they were designed to do, the pilot had been part of the original design teams with this particular weapons systems and knew a few extra "tricks" about them. With hard metal music blaring thru his helmet's mike system, he activated his thrusters and dove at the four remaining Invid with almost manic glee in his eyes. The human landed in front of the first opponent and put both blades thru it's chest in a power punch that sent it flying into the far wall, leaking nutrients mixed with it's greenish lifeblood. Before the first Invid could even settle completely to the ground, the pilot had already moved to his next victim and in one deft motion, brought his left blade under and inside the Enforcer's own shield and connected with the base of it's armored head, skewering it. Even as the all but decapitated alien began to fall, the pilot spun under and away from it, using his momentum to propel him at the remaining power armored Invid before it could line up a shot on him. It got off three shots before the cyclone rider was on top of it as well, the first two drilling it's fallen and falling partner in the back, and the third being absorbed by the right blade's energy field as the assassin closed in on it. It tried to smash the enemy with it's energy shield, only to have it blocked by the opposing energy blade.. As it swung to bring it's plasma rifle into play like a club, it too got parried by the other's free energy blade. They both went into a tug of war for a few moments, when the humanoid suddenly grinned, and then kicked the Invid in the sternum with a powerful armored boot. As the grey enforcer fell backwards, it tried to get off a final shot but it was already too late as the enemy power armor ducked under it's shots once more and then lifted it up as both blades protruded out of the Enforcer's back carapace. The Enforcer's eyes widened for a moment, then dulled as life escaped from them. The pilot then backed away and retracted the blades, allowing the Invid warrior to crumple to the floor in a heap.
"I win.", the pilot remarked without much emotion at all.
"Not yet you don't, alien,"
The pilot turned to see the remaining alien, that had somehow been overlooked in the fight was now holding the veritech pilot in front of him as a body shield with his left hand over her chest and throat to keep her close. The enforcer still held a smug look on his face as he faced down the thing that just dropped half a dozen of the Regent's own royal guard. The power armor pilot narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists as he tried to calculated hot to rectify the situation that he had gotten both him and Spencer into.
"It seems that I am the one who wins this day, Masters-spawn. Surrender now, and I promise I will make it quick for you."
::He bright his own plasma cannon up in his free hand and aimed at the center mass of the enemy power armor. He then noticed that his enemy was being very quiet, and that his "prisoner" has seemed to stop squirming.
"What is the matter, have nothing to say now that you have lost?"
The Invid began to toggle the firing switch when suddenly he felt a painful crushing pressure on his wrist, specifically the wrist holding the human female. He instinctively flung her away even as it's mind processed the fact that she actually had the audacity to bite him and pressed the firing stud to his cannon. The alien power armor pilot partially pivoted out of the way and fired back with the Protoculture powered energy cannon that was suddenly in his own hand, and drilled the Invid square thru his snout.
Angie blinked away the stars that were spinning about her eyes just in time to see the energy exchange and both power armors stumble back, and then the Invid fall over, green liquid pouring out of both ends of it's helmet. She wobbled over and kicked it solidly in the side before she turned to face the power armor pilot.
The pilot stumbled slightly, the impact of that plasma shot having more of a kick than he was expecting. It felt like there might be something broken under all of that armor and fibrous fabric, but he couldn't concern himself with that now. He popped the visor to his helmet and smiled wearily at the bloodied, and battered, yet still very spirited woman before him, his brown-red eyes twinkling with mirth.
"I told you I would go thru Heaven and Hell to rescue you, Angie," he said as he de-activated his CADS, and the blades slid back into their wheel hubs with a shnickt.
Angelina had to force herself not collapse completely at that moment, and instead allowed a mantra to run thru her head until she finally verbalized it, hers eyes dilating to near pinpricks of fluctuating color.
"Ryan Darmouth, Just what in the Hell are you doing here?!?!?
------
And there ya go....after so long, another chapter down. Ther emay be a slight delay witht he next update, as I re-tool my mind and try working my creativity train on two tracks at once with a macross era fic that I promised the kids on the DYRL list that I would do at some point in the near future. Please review!
roll Macross ending music