Churchill - not Donny, he was on the clock - moved carefully, slowly, a habit built up by years of experience as a Junkerknight. Optical camo may have kept him covered from the mark one eyeball, and thermal dams and other little tricks might've handled the rest, but that was no excuse for being sloppy. The ridge he was on snaked around a third of the objective's fences, high enough to obscure even a large hauler truck from those below - and more than enough for him to find cover behind it, and slowly but surely wriggle his way prone up to a good firing position, off to the side compared to where the others were gathered. He could see, far in the distance, the oncoming bulk of a sandstorm - but it was several hours out still. They still had plenty of time.
The Wraith fort looked like a kicked anthill - a broad expanse of fenced-off buildings with a big hulk of concrete and steel in the center that'd probably been the main garage before they'd decided to fort it up. They had sentries on every gantry and roof, a pair of guard towers by the gate, and most importantly of all, there was the unmistakable shape of a laser-based APS parked on the roof of the main garage, the bulk of it hidden behind sandbags and road barriers that some poor schmuck had probably had to haul up there by hand.
Good thinking. APS systems were armored adequately but you always wanted to have them under cover, just in case someone with small arms got lucky and disabled the thing keeping you from getting skullfucked by missiles.
Unfortunately, he didn't have small arms.
Unfortunately for them, because what he did have was a railgun upscaled to ACPA standard, and larger than the snub-nosed, low-recoil versions Lancer and Roadie mounted.
He began tagging targets, transmitting everything up to the ad-hoc tacnet. It'd been years since he'd used these functions, but they worked all the same. Probably the Aldecaldo techies on their end.
The sentries and the APS were one thing - what he and the rest had to worry about was the heavy guns, and those the Wraiths had in plenty. HMG turrets up on the roof, covering every corner, technicals with recoilless guns and autocannons, and that big missile carrier from earlier…a lot of firepower, most of it apparently looted from Militech, and the fences were low enough that most of it would be able to fire pretty clearly at anything that came over the ridge.
Churchill settled the reticle of his railgun just below the APS's emitter array, and pressed the button. A whining charge faintly penetrated the confines of his suit as it ticked up to full, thermal dam and ECM struggling to hide him - and then failing utterly as it hit 100%.
He exhaled, and pulled the trigger.
The railgun bucked against his shoulder, suit compensating automatically, and the laser array exploded, arcs of electricity frying the nearest Wraiths as capacitors cooked off.
First blood to the Round Table. Good. He hadn't been close to Brassbody, but Frenken and Sage - Kaiser and Mantis - had been good people on and off the job.
"APS down," he reported. "Clear for barrage."
"Roger, Churchill," Tumble responded. "Prometheus, fire for effect."
"Firing!" Cranson called out joyfully. Seconds later, another volley of smartmissiles streaked in from behind him, slamming into the packed ranks of vehicles and blasting them to scrap - secondary explosions tore through armor and ammunition cookoffs blasted the Wraiths around them to chunks of meat. The damn missile truck took out at least a dozen who'd been in or around it as it went up in a gigantic fireball.
And right behind the barrage that'd broken up the Raffen Shiv's defenses came a wave of Aldecaldo trucks and cars, almost all of them armed and loaded with nomad fighters, the trucks of the Round Table charging alongside.
"Go go go people, move it!" Saul shouted. "Hit them like their mothers should've!"
The Wraiths opened fire, obviously - even Cranson's monstrosity couldn't hit all of them - riddling some cars with bullets and toppling riders, and some daring Raffen fired off a rocket that blasted an Aldecaldo car to a flaming hulk, but they were a drop in the bucket - and the Aldecaldos were shooting back, turret-mounted guns and passengers opening fire with small arms, unleashing a hail of lead that drove the bandits back into cover or sent their blood flying.
Running at full tilt, even offroad it took them less than a minute to cross the kilo between the ridge and the camp - the larger vehicles crashing right through the fences to unleash their cargo. The Round Table's trucks punched right through the gate, armored tires outright ignoring the spike strips, and skidded to a halt, the five ACPA they carried charging out to add their own firepower to the carnage.
Churchill adjusted his aim, picked out a Wraith about to duck out of cover with a grenade launcher, and turned the bandit's upper body to colored rain. He was vaguely aware of others falling to shots that had nothing to do with the main assault - the Aldecaldos knew the value of good snipers and had left them up on the ridge - but the implications didn't really register until he drew a bead on a target and saw their head pop before he could pull the trigger, heard the whoop of some nomad woman.
"Fish in a barrel. That was for Sally, you shitheads!"
"Panam, keep comms clear," Saul said flatly.
"Eat my ass, Saul." The boom of a .50 cal rifle echoed out, and another Wraith went down. "Three!"
Well, that was just not cricket.
Churchill aimed and fired, smashing a Wraith about to jump onto a HMG turret into chunks of meat. "Three," he replied.
Panam laughed. "That you, armor boy? Keep up!" Another Wraith lost his head. "Four to me."
He clicked his tongue, and kept shooting, but she was much faster - when she hit eight while he was potting the fifth, he knew it wasn't worth it.
"Joining in on the brawl," he said flatly, rising from his crouch and shouldering his railgun. His suit's thrusters kicked in as he closed the distance, slowly accelerating to his top speed until, less than a hundred meters from the fence, he jumped.
Control vanes aimed the arc perfectly, and he came down hard on top of a Wraith, the five-hundred-pound weight of his suit pulping the poor man and splattering him all over his comrades. They didn't get time to do much more than scream and half-turn towards him as he spun, wolvers deploying mid-swing. The blades tore all three of the Wraiths apart, and he moved on, following the icons of his new lancemates on the tac-HUD.
Lightweight suit or not, he was still better in close quarters than any of the nomads. Best to put it to use.
—-
Most Junkerknights, Troy mused as his suit's laser cut another Wraith in half, were generalists.
Came with being pretty solitary operators, he guessed.
But yeah, most of the Round Table's members picked out something to be 'pretty good' at and tried to fill in their weaknesses, rather than choosing something to be exceptional at and being aware of their shortcomings. Churchill had wolvers and jump boosters rather than going all-in on stealth and sniping. Tumble had a bit of every range at her disposal rather than focusing her arsenal into a single effective range. Zduhac had heavy armor and a load of guns rather than just…he didn't know, quitting to be a netrunner full-time rather than multitask in the heat of combat? That girl was going to either breach the Blackwall or get herself shot trying to pilot and netrun at the same time one day.
Either way…generalists.
Then there were the ones like him.
The ones who picked a lane and stuck in it.
He bulled forwards into the next firing line of Wraiths, bullets hammering against his shield and barely even scratching the paint. His spear impaled one, his suit's feet crushed another's torso, and the third died when he ripped his weapon free of the first one's corpse and swung it in a short, savage arc, shattering the poor bastard's skull with the spear's haft. Numbers four and five he didn't even need to shoot - the nomad gunmen following in his wake pumped them both full of lead while they were distracted.
He let the nomads move up ahead - the Round Table had split up, moving through the camp to break up the Wraiths and leave the shell-shocked survivors easy prey for the Aldecaldos. Letting said nomads scout out things before he charged in had already sprung a couple of ambushes, and he'd heard the others running into similar little inconveniences, but nothing heavy had shown up yet…
As if to mock him, the Aldecaldos who'd just rounded the corner opened fire, before the distinctive blast of a laser cannon hurled one back into sight, torso a charred crater.
He really should learn to not taunt The City. It always had an answer.
He rounded the corner with his shield up and ready, but he needn't have bothered. The two Wraiths in Militech 'Centaur' Linear Frame Exoskeletons were a little too busy trying to butcher the Aldecaldos, who were pinned down behind cover that was rapidly disintegrating beneath a hail of laser blasts.
He still didn't know why the cannons didn't fire a beam like the one he had mounted on his suit, but it wasn't really important.
"Stickmen confirmed," he said calmly as he launched his suit forwards. "Engaging."
One of the linear frame pilots turned at the sound - Troy's thrusters kicked in, throwing him into the smaller exo faster than the pilot could hope to react - his spear went right through the unarmored man's chest and punched right through the back of the frame. He whirled as the other stickman tried to draw a bead on him, servos protesting as the force of the swing ripped the corpse off his spear and sent it hurtling right at its partner. The stupid gonk actually tried to catch it, despite the linear frame not having hands. The impact wrecked his weapon and sent him crashing into the side of a building. He didn't get up, but Troy put a laser into his exposed head just to be safe.
Fucking stickmen. The corporate gonk-ass attempt at having ACPA without paying for ACPA, with the assumption that whoever would be piloting the thing would be borged up enough to not care about the complete lack of armor. The only thing they had going for them was low cost and decent weaponry.
Troy checked his suit's readouts - a little strain on the joints, nothing major, this was why he'd replaced the suit's hand with the spear for more secure mounting - as reports trickled in from the rest of the Round Table. Lancer and Roadie had run into another pair, and Churchill had ambushed one, but that seemed to be it for the moment.
"You guys alright?" he asked the Aldecaldos as they emerged from cover.
"We'll live," one of the nomads said. "They wasted Charlie, the klepheads."
He nodded, then paused as another message came through. "We're pushing on the garage," he told them. "Can you handle the rest of the sweep?"
"Only a few tents. Go get 'em, tin can."
Troy saluted with his spear-hand, and started off at a light jog, not enough to crack the concrete paving under his feet. The sounds of gunfire and screams were starting to die off - whatever was left of the Wraiths, it was in the main garage, under watch of Aldecaldo guns.
It didn't take long for him to reach where the others were gathering - and he got there a little bit before Mantis and Cranson straggled in, so at least he wasn't the last to arrive.
Saul and a hard-bitten-looking pack of Aldecaldos joined them as they stared at the garage.
"Thermal says whoever's still breathing is in there. Count at least thirty," Roadie said, over both comms and external speakers.
Yeah, he could count them off with his suit's sensors. Thermal wasn't always the most accurate, especially if they were dealing with 'strommers, who tended to be a bit colder due to the sheer amount of chrome in them, but it was close enough. They looked to be spread out near the back of the garage - the only entrance was the series of bay doors they were standing in front of, and all of them save one were welded shut and covered in scrap.
Saul nodded. "Teddy, Bob, get the charges rigged. Roadie, I don't suppose you object taking the frontline?"
"Our pleasure," Roadie replied. "Alector, Chevalier, Prometheus, front and center. Churchill, Lancer, hook around after we punch through. Zduhac, with me."
Good plan. He thought. He wasn't used to this - but she'd taken them this far, hadn't she?
He took up his spot on Prometheus's left, Chevalier taking the right. The Aldecaldos finished setting up charges on the reinforced garage door.
Troy crouched.
Three.
Prometheus primed the rocket launchers mounted on all four of his arms.
Two.
Chevalier hefted his two-handed sword.
One.
The charges went off, and Alecto charged into the fray.
—-
Jacob went left, Churchill went right, as a hail of unguided rockets from Prometheus blasted Wraiths out of cover shattered overhead walkways. Even so, a hail of bullets came his way, rattling against his armor - but nowhere near heavy enough to hurt him, while the four Wraith stickmen in the center of the firing line hunkered behind their shields. Railgun potshots from himself, Roadie, and Churchill killed three, Zduhac's autocannon hammered the shield of the fourth away, and a shotgun blast from Prometheus made the last actual threat's chest hamburger. He darted around a cargo container, then forwards, and let the flamethrower on his left arm give the Wraiths in cover a nice coating of napalm. In the seconds that took, Alecto and Chevalier reached the remaining Wraiths - and none of the poor gonks had speedware or any other way to fight ACPA in close quarters. It was over in seconds, and then the only thing left was the gurgling of some of the ones who hadn't been flatlined straight off, and the crackle of flames.
He narrowed his eyes. Something was off. They weren't supposed to go down this easy…
"Boosters! Above!" Tumble shouted, and he turned on reflex as Lancer's systems instantly lit up with contacts. When the fuck did ex-Maelstrom learn stealth?!
Blades crashed into the armor on his right arm, skated off abdominal plating, but didn't punch through - but he saw Churchill's icon vanish, heard Chevalier roar in pain, in the half-second of the onslaught. Thirteen contacts, they'd been waiting for this, and now the tac-net was alive with damage warnings.
His attacker leapt back, suddenly resolving into clear view rather than the twitchy blur of a speedware-user. Maelstrom optics, no clothes, Mantis blades and something like eighty percent chrome. It screamedat him, the sound piercing right through the audio compensator and worming into his ears.
Jacob set it on fire.
A microsecond later, he regretted that choice as a near-borg slammed into his suit's chestplate while on fire, the force enough to stagger him even with the fact he weighed at least six times what the 'strommer did - it landed back on the ground, then vanished into a blur again, darting to get behind him. He blew his SD packs, blasting the area around him with shrapnel - it didn't do more than delay the attack. More blades bit against his armor as he whirled to face it, damage reports sparking as Lancer took the blows - then it dropped back into normal speed, right in front of him, after way less time than before, twitching violently.
Jacob didn't question it. He just pulled the trigger on the laser cannon. Coherent light punched right through the strommer's chest, and it staggered, but remained upright - starting that fucking shriek again despite the fist-sized hole in its lungs. Of course it wouldn't fucking die.
So he punched it in the head.
He'd boxed since he was ten. His suit had hydraulic rams in the arms, originally built to send a sharpened pile bunker through tank armor and deliver an explosive paylod, now just attached to hardened-alloy fists.
The 'strommer's head turned into a spray of metal and brain goo. The corpse toppled over slowly - he turned away before it'd hit the ground.
Thirteen targets, thirteen down - a few were still twitching, others had been put down hard like the rest of the Wraiths. Six of the seven of the Round Table were still on their feet. - all of them battered, with fresh gouges and dents in their plating, Chevalier's suit leaking blood from a hole in the hip joint. Churchill - Churchill's head was gone, and half the chestplate torn to shreds, starting at the neck. Shit. This was why you didn't bring lightweight suits to close quarters.
"Should've had decent ICE," Ana proclaimed over comms, the faintest tremor in her voice. "I couldn't have gotten into their chrome otherwise. Thanks for the heads-up, boss. Chevalier, you good?"
"Auto-doc sealed most of it, suit can take the weight off,"Shiro answered, voice hazy with pain."Who the fuck uses a pickaxe?"
"Strommers, apparently,"Cranson joked.
Jacob bit back the urge to laugh, and sagged inside Lancer's interior, cleaning up damage warnings as his friend protested the beating it'd taken.
Tumble nonchalantly put a burst into one of the still-twitching 'strommers. "Prometheus, grab Chev and Church,"she ordered, weariness filtering through the comm link. "We're done. Let the Aldecaldos and Johann strip the place as much as they can before that sandstorm hits."
Alright.
He walked over to where Ana was standing. Zduhac had gotten through the fight pretty much unscathed, comparatively. The right arm was pretty torn up and its attached auto-shottie missing, but otherwise mostly fine.
"SD packs?" he asked.
"Got two with those, they must've had lower-grade speedware than the rest," she answered shakily. "But that's - SHIT!"
She tackled him, knocking him back several meters - before a corrugated cargo container slammed into her suit, and then the wall behind it. She didn't get up.
She didn't get up.
Jacob rose slowly from where she'd tossed him, as he looked at the man who'd just hurt Ana.
Flint Greaves cracked his neck as he straightened up from the pitching stance he'd made. "That…hurt," he said slowly, voice oscillating and hurting just the same way the 'strommer's screams had. "And that sandy waspreem, you outdated rejects. I was gonna kill you all - now you just made it personal."
"Round Table," Tumble said flatly. "Kill this prick."
With pleasure, Jacob decided, as Lancer roared in the back of his head.