Hacker Walker

## Tactical information

* **I got beams for all of you**: Armed with an impressive array of three hard-light disc repeaters, the Hacker spits out a wall of hard-light bolts fire to quickly scythe down infantry and aircraft in the way.

* **Suckers in the front**: If met with more enemies than its heavy amounts of firepower can handle, then the Hacker is capable of firing its weaponry in an arc to sweep them over an area, damaging everything in a cone.

* **Tanks but no tanks**: The Hacker is ineffectual at best at anything heavier than a light vehicle, its munitions freely bouncing off of tanks to little effect. It is similarly also a poor choice of anti-air weapon against airships or heavy bombers.

* **Sometimes you just need more guns**: Highly decorated Hacker Walkers are given a second set of hard-light disc repeaters to spew forth a literal storm of energetic death in front of itself, doubling its damage output.

## Unit History

*Somewhere in Northern Ireland, July 1969*

Sean McGonagall stretched and yawned. Recently, reports had come in that a PK encampment had gone completely silent and thanks to their allies in the Network, the Phoenix Front and the Network were able to send some forces to investigate. True enough to form, the base had been razed to the ground. With the amount of damage dealt to the base, it was hard to imagine that anyone called the place home at any point. l As he picked through the rubble, he was impressed by how clean the place was. If this had been an attack, the attackers had been remarkably thorough. He spat out the gum he was chewing once he was reasonably sure that there was no more flavor to be had from it. "Stupid cheap Syndi gum", he swore, certain that the brevity of the gum's flavor was a ploy to draw more money from the everyman.

He got ready to turn back when something made itself apparent in the peripheries of his vision. A series of sleek ships almost like the skeleton of a whale in shape quickly screamed overhead and quickly fired what he at first thought were enormous bombs, prompting him and the other Network and Front troops in the area to quickly duck and cover as what he thought were allied aircraft quickly shot past his group raining huge projectiles down upon them and crushing many of the joint force before they could move. An instant later, they gunned their engines, leaving before the confused specials and UFO hunters could do more than fire some scattered; confused shots at the now already out of range craft. He thought that was the end of it, but the bombs revealed themselves to not be bombs at all, but drop pods!

The sleek, seed-like structures then hissed inside of their craters, opening up to reveal an impossible strike force. Beams of light quickly struck outwards and swatted men down or even picked them up and sent them flying after punching sizzling holes in their targets. Unearthly warbling could be heard as seven legged beings emerged from each pod. Walking on almost organic-looking legs and with a vaguely scorpion-shaped ovoid body, the "tails" of the machines were nothing more than flexible mounts for discs covered in barrels with little spiked metallic arms that struck the disc as it spun to fire shots at incredible rates; pulses of some kind of light that threw those that they struck back, each tail ending in a ball to provide even further flexibility for the guns that spat out the light death.

"Oh, feck me!" Sean said as he ducked for cover, not even bothering to look as he became all too aware of the pork stentch of burning meat as three volunteers near him were a hair's breadth too slow in ducking down. He picked himself up and let loose controlled bursts of his MX-15 at the nearest machine; busily pouring fire into a party van that quickly erupted into flames. He knew that it was as useless a gesture as the hunting rifle fire from the cryptid chasers or the pistol fire of the PIs, but if he could distract one of them long enough for the monster hunter cliques to get off a shot, he thought as he tried shooting at what looked like eyes on the crimson, tyrian and green machine.

But the machine simply flexibly twisted its tail and shot apart the MH's as they tried to get into firing positions; some of them even being sawed in half as its compatriots stalked the land. One got off a shot, but the impact only seemed to buffet the machine, and the tail gun simply turned around and fired. Another death. God damn those Networkers were foolhardy sons of bitches, he thought as he considered ways of dealing with the machine. Then he heard the *whupwhupwhupwhup* of a Little Birdie and cursed "No you goddamn fools, you'll get yourselves killed!" He said as the helicopter tried to rake the area with machine guns and rockets, but only earned itself a quick chastisement as the tail mounts flexed towards them and rapidly struck the discs as they spun, sending out a storm of fire that ripped the civilian craft from the air as shots impaled its pilot and gutted its engines.

Seeing the aircraft coming at him, he immediately broke into a sprint, trying to get away from the carnage as the Dropships from earlier came back around to help their spawn clean up the survivors. He tried to run, but the impact of the craft cooked off its rockets and threw him through the air, making him land with a roll. Groaning with pain, he realized his legs were broken and he was covered with burns, and that he could do nothing as one of these Hackers of men walked over to him. He prepared a middle finger, one last gesture of defiance, and then it placed its uppermost left foot through his face and killed him instantly.