2013.12.30 - Trading Tanks

Winter in the mountains. Whitecaps as far as the eye can see, some obscured by clouds by sheer elevation as the helo flies. No aircraft landing strips are anywhere near due to the fact there simply isn't a strip of land long enough to accomodate an aircraft (unless, of course, it's a C-130.).
The sun is beginning to set over the mountain range, the cliffs making deep shadows across the valleys, causing the houses to switch on their lights earlier. Lights. Gaslights. Candles. Fires. Anything to stave off the darkness.
It's a remarkable thing, in the classic sense of the word, what gains Nathan Dayspring's attention when scanning the news on all those screens. One may show war, another floods, earthquakes, and yet another the Pope kissing the top of the head of a small child- and his attention becomes rivited to a story about a sleepy little town that seems to be in recovery from insurgency. Thanks to the Russians.
Grabbing the drover's coat and a hat, and more than a few guns, Cable's on his feet, making a call for what passes as a team- Domino and now that Forge is back in town (after a fashion), Forge. True to form, however, he's not very forthcoming with the 'why's of the matter.
The helo drops out of the sky onto a makeshift landing pad outside the area, lights out. In this case, it really does come in handy to have night-vision!
"... and that's how I invented night vision. I mean, it had already been invented, obviously, but I didn't know that at the time."
All of Forge's stories either begin with, end with, or feature prominently an invention of some kind. Normally, Forge's stories would be drowned out by the noise from the rotary-winged aircraft, but that's why he equipped 'The Team' with special noise-reducing headsets. They're pretty similar to things you could pick up at Radio Shack, but anyone who would bother to tell Forge that would have to listen to another story about an invention.
As he prattles away idly, he attention is divided between three different monitors arranged in front of him. All three completely different views of the surrounding area, and occasionally toggle between various vision modes.
"Whoa! That guy's strangling that other... nevermind, they're both in the shower."
"But yeah, he's totally strangling him."
"Tell me again why we can't go somewhere warmer during winter?" Domino asks with a weary sigh, looking about ready to turn one of her guns on herself after hearing Forge go on about some -other- piece of tech. "I mean, I enjoy seeing the world as much as any girl but I'm getting -real- tired of freezing my little albino ass off. That, and if I have to put up with this guy much longer I'm thinking about inventing a sport which combines skydiving and freestyling without a chute."
Strangling--whaaa? "Huh," Dom idly replies. "That's hardcore. Glad someone's having fun tonight."
She's out of the chopper for an initial perimeter sweep before the landing gear has a chance to fully come to a rest. Unlike the nightvision setup that Cable's got, she's still rocking tech that would make any modern military envious. In her hands is a blackened Steyr AUG A3, complete with suppressor and grenade launcher. Y'know. Just in case.
"All's sleepy out here. Gosh, who would have thought," she sarcastically drones into the slender headset's mic, now that the bigger chopper-proof ones are left behind. "Can I please go back to bed now?"
"Never know when two wet, naked guys will come out and offer resistance, huh Forge?" Cable starts, but that thought, even that -thought- is stopped, dropped and given a burial. Aren't they lucky, however? Noise reducting headsets so they can hear more of Forge's stories!
As the helo begins its touchdown, Cable looks to Domino just before she's out. "We'll be indoor soon enough. Then, I'll give you both," and now he glances between the pair, "what's going on." Beat. "Forge, we'll need aerial support before morning, I think."
Once that's given, the large mutant begins to unpack his goodies. Pocketful of grenades, detcord and timers.
"Place we're going, he's a single guy. Girlfriend, but she's in the next village over." Which... is miles. And miles.
With the press of a button, the monitors in front of Forge fold up accordion-style into one thin flat package. Accordion iPad: next holiday season's Big Thing. "I've got drones circling the area. Sneakily, obviously. You weren't especially forthcoming with specifics, so I just sent one of everything. They'll be fine as long as the mission doesn't last more than..." He glances at the uncharacteristically-analog watch on his left wrist "... about forty six hours, give or take. Plasma engines, still haven't worked out all the kinks."
He slides the tablet into the pouch on his waist, and though the pouch looks too shallow for the longish tablet, the computer seems to disappear entirely. Bigger on the inside.
He pulls a rugged but futuristic-looking pack over his shoulder, and adjusts the straps on his way out of the craft's door.
"You know, if you guys would start wearing the Sneaking Suits I made for you, you wouldn't even notice the cold..."
"Yeah, about that," Domino voices once she's away from the others and out in the cold field, "I'm also getting just a -little- irked at always running across the globe without any explanation as to why or what I'm putting my life on the line for this time. Just saying." Then to Forge's comment, she offers back "So if I see a mob of angry farmers in ponytails I'll know who to blame."
It's not long before she returns to the bird and pulls another sizeable pack from the back, slinging it across the other shoulder. It's cold, it's dark, and she's been -in- the dark for too damned long. But, now it can wait. Now it's game time.
Or until she feels like complaining again.
Now passing a smirk back to Forge, she inquires "Does the 'sneaking suit' stop nine para's and turn away machetes at full swing? Because an argument could definitely be made in its favor. I do find myself getting shot an awful lot these days."
Still not a fan.
"All but the barber one, right? Or are we looking at the next best thing to shearing alpaca?" Yes, wrong mountain range, undoubtedly. Cable shrugs, however, and he offers a pleased smile. "TK means never having to worry about the weather. I'm my own umbrella, too."
Leaping out, Cable's got his pouches of holding as well, and as the bird powers down, he begins the long-legged jog away from the landing site.
"Right. Now, last week, Russian military's been performing war games, training their troops in counter terrorism moves. News out of Pravda says that insurgency is down. Truth," here, Cable sneers a smile, "truth is, they've been going door to door and not bothering telling anyone that it's a training run. People have been shot, killed when resisting. Guilt in action, they say. Now, here..."
Cable looks to Domino, and his gaze lingers. "We've got a contact out here. He doesn't know it, but in the next day or so, we're looking at a visit from the Army, and I'd rather he stay alive. Even if we have to take the town." And hold it.. which will be tricky. Raising his voice as he addressed Forge, the question rises, "Think we can do it?"
"Taking a town? That's easy. I mean, not easy for three people maybe, but it's easy in theory."
Forge keeps up for the most part, pausing every now and then to wave his robotic hand around as if he's interfacing with an invisible screen. Those not in the know would think he was weird. Those with the inside scoop know that the monitor is actually the HUD inside his goggles. Still weird, though.
But even when falling out of step, his voice can be heard with perfect clarity. Thank you, Forge's headsets. "Keeping the town, much different story. For that you need bodies, plain and simple. Lots of bodies."
"A few tanks wouldn't hurt either."
"Yeah yeah, we know, Nate. TK this and TK that. Get stuffed."
When the word 'truth' is paused at Dom rolls her eyes, though the goggles hide most of the motion. Then, hearing about what the actual mission is leaves her hesitating mid-step. "Um. Cable..? I fail to see how -any- of this concerns us even slightly. If we have an informant here and he's sitting in their crosshairs then let's evac the guy and go for greener pastures. Why complicate matters by engaging the Russian military? Unless you think -we- need the training, in which case I'm doubly insulted."
A momentary pause follows as she looks out at the town in question, in all of its digitally amplified glory. Arms go out to her sides, one still holding the bullpup rifle. "Why would anyone wanna hold -this!- There's nothing fucking here! Couple in shower notwithstanding."
(I wonder who would be more surprised when breaking down the door to -that- house...)
Then Forge mentions taking the town as being easy. "Wait--no, no we are -not- encouraging that man, Nate."
"This isn't really a training run, Domino. Promise. This should give us some tangible results." After all, they've been working in this area a couple of times. Nothing like having a close base rather than having to constantly fly here!
Cable stands with Forge, figuratively. Once given the nod, the fact that it -can- be done with their current assets, they're going to move forward with the plan. "We can hold up in our man's house, plant incindiaries in key locations," and he's got a map uploading even as he speaks with little red dots blinking to hilight, "And Dom, if they have tanks, while we have the distraction going, you nab us a tank or three." Assuming, of course that some actually make it over the mountains. (Probably more likely they'll be APCs of some sort. Still, they have hard points!)
And that's why he wants aerial support! "Anything that comes in, Forge, will be a hostile. Key right now, monitor and when we make contact..."
All hell should break out.
"Then, we arm the insurgents."
Nobody would be able to tell it by looking at him, but Forge is actually staring at satellite imagery of the area while everyone else is yakking. This means that he has to alternate between brief periods of standing almost completely still and slightly longer periods of semi-jogging in order to keep up with everyone else. Not the most tactical of advances on his part, but he's apparently counting on his Sneaking Suit to do most of the work in that department.
"Ramshackle town like this, we'd probably be lucky to find an old Jeep. Too bad though, I could do a lot more with a couple of tanks."
"Oh! If we get enough of them, I could make a tank SUIT!"
Not a training run. "Well thank god," Domino mutters in response. It still doesn't help to answer her question about why they can't just airlift their informant somewhere safer, but..sod it. Cable's always been good at knowing what it is that he's doing. She's trusted it before, she'll continue to trust it now.
Besides, running all of the way out here with all of this gear just to do a simple retrieval would have been a serious tease.
Tanks, "Got it." Maybe if she's lucky they can bodyslide a tank or two back to a safehouse of her choosing. They're always good for a few laughs.
Now then, if mobile armor is something on their immediate radar and something which they would like to be in possession of... It's time to see how useful Forge can be for the albino. He gets her attention next, once he catches back up, asking "Got any EMP charges handy? Block the roads and get us all the armor we could possibly need."
An inoperable tank makes for a fantastic obstacle, and who wants to be cornered inside of a cramped metal box during a gunfight while knowing they aren't safe in there?
Forge would, apparently. Dom can't see how a suit of tanks would be particularly mobile. Or safe. But hey.
"So that means your Sneaky Suit doesn't agree with getting shot at?"
"Just keep an eye out for tanks, Forge. APCs. Armoured goats. Camels with a blanket on." Cable can easily go on, but he's pretty sure that the pair's got the idea, as it were. He continues the jog until he gets into 'town', and slows, now keeping to the shadows. That part isn't hard, of course. Most of the village is shrouded in dark.
Now, time to change communication mode.
~ Down the road, to the left. That's Tamil's house. Our contact. ~
~ Dom, I've got in a pouch. This may be more about exploding things than gunfire exchange, but bullets aren't ever a bad fallback. ~
~ Forge, then find a Jeep. A dead cow, I don't care. We can let them in, and block their escape. ~ Which means the weaponry then goes to the town, thus... arming the village. There's no way Russia will be able to get enough assets to the village in order to retake. And aircraft retaliation? They actually might be able to do something about that too.
~ Tell me when the Sneaky Suit comes out of prototype... ~
"Bite your tongue, woman. The Sneaking Suit is constructed of non-Einsteinian silicoid polymers that I invented in the nineties. It's actually a really funny story..." Forge pauses, apparently he can already feel that dirty looks that he'll get if he continues "... which I will save for the ride home. Point is, it can take a bullet or three. And it adapts to the environment, keeping me and my boys at a constantly cozy 21 Degrees. But the feature I'm most excited about..." He pauses again before going off on a schpiel about yet another invention. The pause is apparently enough time for him to 'snap out of it' and catch up with the rest of the conversation.
"I'll do you one better, a couple of the drones circling above us are equipped with EMP cannons. And, you know, regular cannons."
"By 'regular' I mean 'plasma,' obviously."
"I changed my answer from earlier: holding this town is going to be a cakewalk."
"I have absolutely no idea what any of that mea--wait, polymers, I understood polymers," Domino cuts in before groaning softly into the mic. That he's going to save it for later isn't a huge improvement. "Something to look forward to, for sure," she darkly mutters. It's quickly followed by "Gah, Forge--TMI much? Dammit, man!"
Sigh. Psi's... Domino's got a headset, she's damned well going to use it. "Copy, nice to know they're somewhere that I don't need them." She'll have to grab the EMP's from Cable later instead of sooner. "Five minutes' prep time and we can have this place set to gridlock whatever tries to pass through. Should be fun."
Ooor... Y'know. Forge could just zap them from above. That works, too. Way to steal all of her fun, again.
A dead cow? "Not sure how that's going to help us," she mutters back. "I mean, a burger does sound nice but I'd rather it not come from a corpse. Hmm. Necroburger. I'll pass. Might do well in Manhattan, though."
In the meantime she's branching out on her own, placing small cameras which double as explosive charges should the need for something that goes 'bang' be more useful than something which extends their eyes and ears. It's been known to happen.
"Okay, no one ever mentioned anything about it being a prototype. That's a second pass," she concludes while flicking the power switch on one of the cameras then air-kissing at the hidden lens. Just because. "Hey Forge, want me to set one of these outside the bathroom window? We won't have to be bored for the entire night."
Only one eye gets the opportunity to roll; sadly, the bionic one remains stationary in his head or it, too, would begin its rise towards the heavens in brief supplication. Not that Cable's a religious man, of course. Just, some habits are hardcoded in genetic memory.
Now, as he heads down the street remarkably silently (for a 6'9" mutant!), Cable stops at a rather small looking hovel. "I should probably pay him better." But, in the cosmic scheme of things, this hovel looks a little better than the others in the area. Not obviously, but just enough not to get targeted.
~ Dom, when you've got everything planted, fall back to my position if you're good for it. If not, sing out your location when you're in your nest. Forge... ~ There's a moment when Cable has to think for a second, and there's even the *blip* in the brainphone, ~ Make sure you've got eyes and plant yourself somewhere safe. We'll take the town, hold it for 48, then turn it over. We'll have ears because of Tamil. ~
In the next moment, Cable is gently rapping upon the native's door, and enters the moment the door is cracked open.
"Oh, I already picked out a spot. Looks like the best signal is quarter klick to the southwest. I'll hang out there, whip up a few countermeasures, catch up on Downton Abbey, raid the Sandwich Pouch. If I get spotted, you'll know. It's not like these headsets have a range or anything."
With one last invention namedrop, Forge heads off in the direction of the best signal, most likely to set up some sort of dish or something.
"I just started the first season. I'm sorry, series. They call them 'series' instead of 'seasons.' One of those British things, I guess. Not a bad show though, not my normal...." He pretty much goes on like that, for the entirety of his walk.
"Wow, think that's the first time I've ever seen you and not heard you, Nate," Domino teases with a grin. Near seven feet of metal and muscle and guns. -Moving quietly.- She needs to mark this on her calendar! "Oh sure, -he- gets paid. Does that come out of my off-shore account, too?"
Sing when nested. "Tweet," she then confirms while popping another camera into place. It won't take long for her to finish her run then catch up. "Is the Sandwich Pouch one of your inventions, too?"
(Hold that thought. Sorry I asked.)
Once she's standing beside Cable again she looks his way and nonchalantly says "Oh yeah. We're on Oracle's shitlist now." Right in time for the door to open. How's that for last minute information?
(Right back atcha, buddy.)
She steps inside a moment after the half-cybernetic mutant, not sure what she should plan on seeing inside. Not in scenery, not in target. What the heck did this guy look like, anyway? Well, now she knows! Switching over to Russian, she greets anyone inside with "Good evening. We'll be your bodyguards, relocation team, and resident pyrotechnics for the next forty-eight hours. What's for dinner?"
Following this she drops back to English, hissing into her com "Would you shut up already, Forge?"
Sandwich Pouch? There are some things Cable is more than aware of. Armies march on their stomachs. Police stake out with their stomachs. Why shouldn't Forge have a Sandwich Pouch? Hell, if he could have a Pizza Pouch, he would-- though he's sure that he's already got one... around the middle.
Oof.
"If you're spotted, I'll hear it." Nate's not above keeping an ear on anyone via telepathy. Nope. "Hell, I may even know before you do."
"We are-- Oh, hey Tamil.." starts in English, only to let Domino take over for him. Within the small house, it's warm, neat and clean with a coal/wood burning stove in the center of the place. There are rugs on the floor, almost tapestry-like, and small well, used couches lining the walls. Kitchen amenities are outside, and there is a small sleeping area towards the back of the room, behind a curtain.
Tamil is a young man, impressionable and politically idealistic, and if he wasn't working for Cable, well... who knows who he'd be working for?
"Yes, Domino.. out of petty cash."
"Tamil," Nate ends up speaking slowly, "That's Domino. We're here because you're in danger.. but you're not going anywhere. We're here... and when we're done, this village will be under our control. Okay?"
~ Let me know when you see the lights of their trucks, Forge.. ~
A couple of hours later...
You'd never know that Forge was out in the middle of nowhere if you were on the other end of the webcam conversation he's currently having with some blonde with a Bostonian accent. Using only the stuff he had in his pouches and pack, he's erected a fully serviceable workshop/office/mancave as easily as most people would put up a tent. Strewn around him are bits and pieces of machinery, crumbs, and an empty Pringles can.
"So then I realized that if I just flipped the disgronificator around I could solve the polarity problem and presto: working plasma rifle. I don't really like to compare myself to historical figures, but I've always thought that if someone else was going to compare me to a historical figure it'd probably be some sort of hybrid of Leonardo da Vinci and Rudolph Valentino. With better hair than either, obviously."
The woman stares at him for a minute, and suddenly her feed goes dead and Forge is talking to a man. "Oh.... hey there. I'm Forge. I was just telling the last Roullettee about the time I..."
Whatever story Forge had in mind for his latest ChatRoullette victim will apparently have to wait for another day, as an alarm is broadcast over his headset. "Sorry, man. Later." He closes the window and opens up the window that shows multiple aerial views of the little town. "Dammit. We've got incoming, guys. Linking you to the video feed. I'd hoped they wouldn't get here until the ham finished baking, but I guess that's what I get for being greedy."
A quarter of a klick away, they might now be able to smell the honey-glazed ham that Forge is baking in his portable oven. But the aroma is pretty glorious from inside the Forgecave.
Somewhere back there Domino gave up and turned the com off. Cable's still on the ol' brainphone and she's got her own eyes for spotting headlights.
(Must be so difficult for Forge, being out on a mission with all of the comforts and amenities of home.)
By comparison she doesn't even have a deck of cards to play Solitaire with. Not that it would have held her attention for long. Being lucky doesn't always mean being entertained.
"Damnit, I'm getting hungry," she mutters under her breath, -still- camped out by a window when the video feed comes through first. (Thank you, HUD.) With a quick motion she turns the sound back on in time to catch Forge's voice talking about baking a ham.
A -ham.-
A -ham?-
"Forge, where did you even --" she starts in before dropping her forehead into an open palm with an audible *smack.* It's followed by a "Gods help me" muttered under her breath, bracing the stubby AUG against her shoulder as she takes a look outside of the window she's situated behind. "Just stow the culinaries, kid. And whatever else you're sitting on that doesn't help the mission. If you get shot over a goddamned -ham- I promise you will never hear the end of it. It will become my life's goal to ridicule you right into your grave."
There's goat kebab! After the fermentied yak milk.. or was that goat too? Hoping it was mare's milk that Tamil was gushing about earlier. Or, because his Russian is a little rusty, was he talking about the weather?
Cable's more than happy not to listen in on the brainphone. When the first run of ChatRoulette started, there was the thought that finding the two that probably had finished their shower was preferable to -that- bit. ~ Boston isn't any good. Food stinks. You wouldn't have liked it. ~
The moment that 'incoming' is declared, Cable looks around the room and hits the lights with a flick of telekenesis, putting their little humble shack into relative darkness. Just like all the others. "Dom, Forge has eyes."
~ Let them past the line... ~ in case it bears repeating. They'll lock up behind them.
"You're on, Dom..."
As the convoy moves into the small village, they're not very quiet. It's all part of the 'anti-' terror. Wake up in the early morning hours, dazed, confused and unlikely to be able to fight back- even if one had the wherewithal.
"Hey, when you invent a Tactical Oven, you can decide what type of meat to bring on missions. Besides, I'm bored out of my gourd. Put the drones into patrol mode hours ago, got the sentry turrets set up around my position within like a minute of setting up shop, and watching this mission unfold is like playing the slowest-moving strategy game of all time. Observe:"
Forge taps something on his monitor, and then leans back in his lightweight but strangely-comfortable floating chair. "I just tagged all of the soldiers on your individual HUDs. Should show up as red outlines on the display. Don't get confused and shoot through the walls or anything. It can be disorienting at first, which is why S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't buy them."
"Wait... you guys remembered to pack the glasses I left out for you, right?"
Tactical. Oven. "I'm about to take my tactical boot to your ass," Domino growls. "Guarantee you we're more bored in here than you are in Neverland." Then--Gah! Yes, she packed the lenses. In a sense. HUDs are so much more friendly for someone that also has to worry about weapon optics. "This feels like cheating, Forge."
Pause.
"I approve."
Alright, so maybe Dom doesn't have the fanciest of toys around here but she does get by. Like the remote detonator she's got for those EMP charges? Stuck to the side of her assault rifle. With electrical tape. That's how she rolls out in the field.
Forge probably invented the tape, too.
As the vehicles roll into town she slowly dials in the first set of charges, letting the vehicles storm the front and get all clustered inside before she gives them all a wake-up call of their own.
As far as charges go, there's very little in the way of explosions. It's little more than a faint flicker of bent light from the concussion waves, leaving darkness in their wake. That's it. Anything electrical that's not living inside of a Faraday Cage is toast. It's not likely going to stop the engines on their tanks but it'll complicate matters enough to make them be really difficult to operate in full.
Dom makes a clicking noise in the corner of her mouth, watching for all of a second before she darts for the door and breaks out into the cold night. She's given everyone something to think about out there, now it's time to claim her first prize.
From her own bag of goodies? Small grenades containing a clear smoke charge and a mask so she can breathe through it all. It won't hinder visibility but it'll damn well clear out the inside of a tank in a hurry. All she has to do is pop one in through the driver's viewport then wait for the fun to start.
"Candygram!"
A moment later one tank crew gets cut down by suppressed rifle fire, thus scoring the pale one with her first vehicle. "We didn't establish valet parking around here by chance, did we?"
"The shot glasses?" Cable responds into the mic. "Just give me the frequency and I'll tap into it." With his eye. "And I'll trade you some ham for the goat on a stick we've got in here."
A look gets shot in Domino's direction, and he simply can't help himself. "And he opened his home to us and everything. Ungrateful.. sheesh."
Though now, on alert, Cable's got something of a faraway look on his face, and a smile begins to creep further along his face. "Child's play. Told you." The three versus the Russian Army.
Moving quickly to the door from his vantage point by the window, the small explosions start something of a confused shout, but truly they only think they've found a pocket of activity of the 'bad guys'. That.. that brings their weapons forward, and starts them with the full intention of going in hot. Until...
How is it that so few shots are fired before a TANK is lost to them? Shouts rise in the early morning air, panicked and rushed, and each soldier on the ground now begins to rush towards houses. And this is why bullets are never a bad thought.
*BLAM!* And one young soldier goes down...
*BLAM!* Two letters to be written back to Novgorod...
"See? This is what I've been waiting for all this time. It's about time I got a taste of some action."
For Forge, getting a taste of some action apparently means sitting on a floating chair and tapping furiously at a computer interface. But although he isn't really expending many calories, one can't argue with his results.
"Point. Click. And.... drone strike."
Green bolts of light shoot down from the sky the second Forge puts in his last screen tap. They pretty much blow the everloving shit out of a group of soldiers.
About a quarter click away (not really that far, when you think about it), Forge actually fistpumps and laughs. Sure, he just merrily murdered a couple of guys, but it's pretty easy to distance yourself from the reality when you're simply point and clicking moving images on a screen.
You know what's really awesome about having a tank?
Having a tank!
Rather than waste time trying to swivel the turret around, what with electronic systems all on the fritz, Dom dives behind the controls and throws the twin sticks into opposite directions. With a powerful grunt the tank lurches into motion and spins about in place, dirt flying out from the treads and scrunching the hood of a lesser vehicle within the convoy before it rocks to a halt, the gaping maw of the barrel now facing toward..another tank.
Another tank that has nowhere to go, thanks to a certain pileup of military vehicles.
One set of controls are abandoned. Another set are commandeered. Now, if you really want a sure-fire way to wake up a sleepy town in the middle of the night, just touch off a 125mm cannon in the middle of it!
-KABLAM!-
The sound of the cannon being fired blends into the sound of another vehicle exploding in a fireball and showering of tiny broken metal bits, adding to the madness with Forge's Death from Above.
"Bahahaha, I'm not bored anymore!"
That's one tank liberated, time to go for another!
Now this is why Cable really likes working with a team. Each to their strengths.
At the squad's decimation because they made the fatal mistake of staying close, Cable's out the door and setting up a secondary nest in order to keep the rest of the village safe from the one or two that may sneak out of their net.
Silence, however, is now a thing of the past, what with bullets now flying in so many different directions.
The Russian Army seems to break down the moment bullets begin to fly from unknown locations? Or it could be that there's a ghost that has now taken over one tank, and is considering another? Or-- could be the death from above!
Cable is more than happy to wade into the blood of those that were going to go against his little setup... and assure that his contacts in the world are safe for another day, month, year? Word always gets out at one point, one way or another.
"Time to lock it down... I've got communication jammed. They're trying..." and he answers upon their frequency.
"This village is ours. The last letters home will be your last words to your families. I hope you weren't mean."
"Aww... I wanted to do that part." Looks like Forge will have to wait until next mission to play the part of Intimidating Voice on the Radio. But he's got plenty of other stuff to do, what with his Farmville crops ready for harvesting and the drones doing another pacification run, just to be safe.
The sentry turrets around his position continue to scan with a constant back and forth motion. The care with which Forge programmed interlocking sectors of fire was apparently wasted, as nothing has even come close to his carefully-selected position.
From a few feet to his right, a timer goes off with a somewhat muted beep. "Oh, excellent! The ham's ready guys, if you feel like swinging around after you mop up over there."
"Dammit, no carving knife. Knew I forgot to bring something."
Here a tank, there a tank, everywhere Dom gets a tank... Alright, she 'only' manages to score three, but from where she's running around that feels like a pretty impressive number! She can practically run across the battlefield without ever taking her boots off of the armored hides of vehicles, leaping from one to the next while cutting down anyone silly enough to try and get in her way.
"There's always next time, Forge."
Bullets ricochet really nicely against that plating, too! She can literally shoot behind herself when the stars are properly aligned, which happens in one instance where someone's about to get a shot in at her back.
Sliding low to take cover behind an immobile turret, she drops one mag out of the rifle and locks in another. "That's a copy," comes her response before another soldier gets drilled through the head. "Heads up, we're about to lose our stationary eyes."
Another switch of the dial taped to the side of her rifle, another push of a button. The sound is sort of like that of popcorn over the stove through a megaphone, more than a dozen of the small cameras going up in tiny pinpoints of light. The ring formed the outer perimeter of town, which should help discourage anyone from trying to make a run for it past that invisible line.
If not, all three of these mutants have good eyes and long range methods of target engagement.
Ham's ready? "Not a problem, I've got knives. Three minutes, tops. Have the drinks ready."
"What were you going to do? Offer them some ham before I killed them?" Cable comes around a corner and catches the dark form of Domino making her tiptoe through the tulips routine over the vehicles, and has no chance at supressing the grin that rises. A merc in her element. 'Here a tank, there a tank'.. almost makes him want to start up a rousing song of 'Alouette'.
And there, the outer 'wall' of explosives go up, and there's no question that they'll get each man. There's no hope of hiding, and the villagers aren't about to offer a hiding place. Not after what they've just witnessed.
"You get to do the 'we come in peace' speech after, and lets see how that flies." After all, Tamil knows they're here for him, but--
"Drinks, I can bring. Have the milk back at Tamil's place."
"No need for the goat milk, I've invented a drink for just these occasions. It's one part Johnnie Walker Black, two parts Mountain Dew Code Red. I call it The Sitrep. I may or may not have already had three."
He's actually had four, judging by the cans at his feet.
"Let's see, what else? I'm not picking up any more soldiers in need of a decent charring on my monitors. You guys got anything? I'm going to go ahead and stick a fork in this one. Good mission and all that."
Forge's floating chair zips over to the right, and with his robotic hand he opens the door to his Tactical Oven and lifts the tray out, setting it to cool for a minute. Use For Robotic Hand #156: You never need an oven mitt.
"I'm really with Forge on this one," Domino admits while pushing a lifeless body off the back of the tank she's currently perched upon with a boot. "Goat's milk has nothing on a proper mixed drink, and I'm giving him the benefit of doubt here by calling it a 'proper' mix."
She might give him a hard time about not drinking while on the job, but..yeah. She lost any hope of telling other people that a long time ago.
The one runner she can spot from atop the turret goes down easily enough, the suppressor minimizing the report once more. "All green. Glad you remembered the forks, at least. How's it looking on the Futurecast, Nate?"
"Weather looks sunny. Didn't want to mention it before, but this is one of our outposts." As if it would have made a difference? "Won't be a problem holding it. They'll send some locals, but nothing that can't be taken care of. We'll hand out the guns after sunrise, and bug out in 48." Nate pulls his weapon up, and begins to jog towards Domino's position. "So, no goat, no mare's milk. You're catering the affair then, Forge?" He's more than happy to bring his appetite!
"Good stuff. Head on down. Hell, invite the village for all I care. We can kick this party up a notch, do some bartering, grab some souvenirs, see if any of the local chicks are into sensitive guys with good bone structure and great hair..." Forge means 'sensitive' guys who just blew the everloving shit out of a bunch of people, obviously.
"Oh shit!"
He frantically taps a few times on his screen, and the whirring sound from the sentry turrets outside suddenly stops.
"Ha! That would have been messy." Forge prepares another SitRep, and clears away a few mines on his screen.
Category:Log