Summary:SHIELD take on a facility to recover some information Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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For some time, someone has been manufacturing and selling the material known as Reverbium to a variety of somewhat unsavory interests. This is a problem as said unsavory interests have been causing interdimensional incidents, arming miscreants and generally being a pain in the ass. So when a primary source of the material was located, in the small South American nation of Tierra Del Maize SHIELD dispatched a team to clear the facility out.
It isn't going well.
The sounds of heavy gunfire and the discharge of sonic weapons have been going on for near fifteen minutes now. The fighting between two full SHIELD tactical operations teams and this place's guards has leveled half of the two acre facility. The resistance seems to be centered around the production floor - a wide open space criscrossed with rubble and foundry equipment that is proving impossible to advance past. Casualties are mounting.
"Command we are Broken Arrow. I say again we are Broken Arrow."
That's the signal to the closers. It means the primary teams don't think they can get the job done and are in danger of being pushed out. Melinda May, as a certified Heavy, is leading the closers. They consist of herself, a band of mercenaries known as 'The Redshirts', SHIELD Contractor Jeriah London and Jemma Simmons to run support.
"What's the call, Agent?"
They've got to go in. But how is up to her.
"We go in on the east side. The windows and bay doors there are already down, but their forces will have to break cover to stop us. That'll give the other teams a moment of breathing space, and then it's our job to keep them from finding cover again."
She puts on a pair of protective eyeglasses and hefts her ICER of choice for today's outing, still technically a pistol but capable of sporting a larger capacity magazine than the standard sidearm. "We're going in fast, and we're going in hot. London, I want your strongest construct with us, keep the rest back and away unless they're needed."
She doesn't offer any specific instructions to Simmons, knowing the biochemist can and will do what she does best. It rankles that the younger agent has been forced to be on the front lines of this particularly dangerous mission, but she's their best chance at making sense of the equipment inside and how to either control it or safely shut it down.
May would have been completely happy with dropping a few bombs on the place from the safety of the Bus, but she doesn't get to make that call.
Jemma Simmons is towards the back of the group, several small drones in the air collecting data. Jeriah's got the drones for surveillence. Decked out in SHIELD armour, the cyborg woman probably looks like one of the heavier combatants.
Shehe's not. Her strength is her brain and her job comes later. As long as they can get into this place.
Nodding to acknowledge the plan, Jemma follows the group. She'll stay close to London if she can. He's her bullet shield, after all, and at the moment, patched into her brain. Protecting her from threats in cyberspace.
Able's team is small, but effective. Four troopers, each with a job to do and carrying an impressive array of weaponry between them. As always, Able is in the lead. His revolver is holstered in favor of an enormous automatic shotgun and he has a grenade launcher slung across his back.
Despite their name, the Redshirts are kitted out in black from their boots to their balaclavas. "You heard 'em, boys and girls," he orders, making a quick round-em-up gesture with one finger. "Two by two, and stay right in my back pocket. Red-03, put us a surprise together while we're on the move. Red-01, be her eyes."
Immediately, one of the troops starts pasting a detonator onto a block of plastic explosives. Able, who is sans balaclava, shrugs unapologetically. "Just in case. On your go, Agents."
On the signal the group advances. One of Jeriah's hounds keeps pace with the contractor easily, the contractor that stays closest to the side where bullets might come from. That is after all what he's here for and the purple haze around him announces that his armored field is active. The robotic hound lays down automatic sonic weapons fire as they advance.
As May predicted, they make the eastern side without serious resistance and the people guarding this place have to shift over in their direction and break cover to do so. Jeriah takes a knee and starts laying down fire. Bolts of violet plasma fly downrange. He gets two before having to go to cover himself. There's got to be near a dozen people headed this way and their fire is disciplined and organized.
But they have two problems. The first is that the sightlines in this part of the building are for absolute shit which means that there's only about fifteen feet of clear ground between the closers and the responding guards which in turn puts them in easy range of a dash.
And the second issue? May and Able. Not that they know it yet.
The squad leader takes half a dozen of his men and tries for a rush right at the May and Able's position while the other try to provide covering fire.
Jeriah pulls Jemma into a corner.
"See if you can get one of your drones to hit the fire suppression system, Jemma! It's a halogen system."
May doesn't hesitate to shoot at the people advancing on them — she is using an ICER, after all — but the crap sightlines are truly a problem. Fully expecting the defending opponents to make the best of the lack of clearance, May pulls a taser baton so she's prepared for someone to come charging at them.
She spares half a glance toward Jemma's location, and is gratified to see that Jeriah's pulled her into as defensible position as possible. Then her attention is fully focused on the incoming combatants again.
"Your team came highly recommended," she aside to Able. "Prove it."
For all Jemma's stubborness, in the field like this, she does as she's told. When Jeriah pulls her down, she goes easily into a crouch sheltering beside him. "There's no vision…" she notes in a grumble. She's more that just a Scientist but less than a fully fledged Field Agent - some of these things she is actually trained to notice.
She's also noted the explosive the new contractors are priming and can't help but think, they may be needed.
At Jeriah's instruction, the cyborg Scientist sends the dwarves in a scatter pattern, finding the fire alarms and hitting them as hard as they can.
Able has already fired a half-dozen Taser XREP rounds from his shotgun, sending electrified darts sailing across the area. He raises an eyebrow and shoots a glance at May. "As you wish," he says. "Flash out!"
His team, who has been doing fairly well for themselves, immediately dons protective goggles as Able sends two flashbangs toward the opposition. Their strategy is simple, but effective. Blind and deafen the enemy, then overwhelm them. To that end, the five of them are advancing almost as soon as the grenades hit the deck. Each of the troopers is armed with a shotgun similar to Able's and no one seems shy about using them. It's fairly low-tech compared to SHIELD tactics, but has the benefit of being tried and true. The only hitch occurs when Red-03 gets tagged just above the collar of her armored vest, putting her down.
The flashbangs almost immediately blunt the effect of the charge and give Abel's people a huge advantage. The remaining six, from their positions, immediately launch a counterattack, making it twelve on five (even if half of them won't be any good for a solid thirty seconds). Two of them rush past the group and head right at May, one with a knife and the other with what looks very much like a buzz saw attached to a cattle prod. It's electrified whatever it is and he swings it at her head.
Jemma's dwarves activate the fire alarm system and a thick white halon mist starts to cover the ground. The hacker-soldier nods and motions for her to follow him as he swings around in the other direction and his dog blows a hole in the nearest wall. That gives him a line right into the production floor.
And reveals the honest to god large robot stomping towards them.
"Um. New plan. COVER!"
The big bot is still pretty far away but Jeriah and Jemma have just made themselves targets and it raises an arm and fires a pure energy beam at them which cuts a foot deep trench in the ground as Jeriah shoves Jemma out of the way.
Hrm. A bot. Might she be able to do something about that? It PROBABLY has a reverbium power core similar to Jeriah's and if it's let to get too much closer it's going to give Able and May hell. And they're busy at the moment.
May clearly knows what to do when the flashbangs are thrown, taking the scant moment needed to protect her eyes. Her ears are already protected by the comms she's got in them, filtering out anything over 80 dB. Gotta love the tech. Of course, then the rest of the defenders rush them, and she doesn't hesitate to switch into melee mode from one heartbeat to the next.
Ducking under the cattle prod/buzz saw thing she ducks under easily enough, using the same momentum to step right into the knife-wielder's personal space and jab them in the throat with her ICER while the taser baton snakes out to give the prodder a taste of their own medicine.
"Get your person clear," she tells Able, tilting her head slightly toward Red-03. No, she does not consider any losses acceptable.
When Able calls out, Jemma covers her eyes. Well, eye. She turns the cybernetic one off momentarily. then they're moving again, through the mayhem to come in sight of that bot. "What the hell…" Cover. Yes. Good idea. The british born biochem stumbles behind the nearest obstacle and peaks over.
"If I interface with it, I might be able to do something … " She looks for Jeriah, who should have followed when he shoved her.
Jeriah can already feel Jemma's system reaching out trying to connect. She's not a coder or a programmer but she's still got a few skills. "Tell me what you have, my lovely …" she murmurs to herself.
Able's shotgun is empty and he lets it dangle from a sling while he brings up his grenade launcher. It's loaded with six stingball rounds that send hundreds of rubber pellets ricocheting in all directions at speeds that can only be described as unkind. One after another, he fires them off to clear his team's path while he orders them to evacuate the injured soldier. Then he glances over his shoulder and says, "Agents? Would you kindly… oh, hell." Because giant robot.
The doctor takes off toward Red-03 at a sprint, slowing just long enough to pick up the explosive charge she'd prepared before she was injured. It was a gamble, though, as something hits Able in the sternum while he's scurrying back into cover. He's not sure what, could have been a bullet, but it has him gasping for breath and checking to make sure his vest hasn't been breached while the rest of the Redshirts escape.
May puts her assailants down admirably and between Able's shotgun and hundreds of stingballs he has at least for the moment cleared the area of hostiles. Well human hostiles. There's still weapons fire coming in from the big hole Jeriah blew in the wall. And that robot is getting closer.
Ah. Jemma's in. This is the Mechanical Heavy Ordinance Holder Designed Only for Kaboom. Or MHOHOK for short. It's an AIM creation and it doesn't have an off button. It DOES have a self destruct subroutine though.
Jeriah is presently holding it's attention. And by holding it's attention we mean he's shooting at it. To be fair he DOES have a plasma gun? And it IS doing damage but that things about to blast him. Or at the very least blast AT him.
Letting the knife-wielder drop and then zapping the cattleprod guy with her taser baton and then his own buzz saw, May looks over when Able cusses, then echoes him with her own sentiment in Japanese. It's far less polite.
"Shep! To me!" She hopes the robotic quadruped listens, because she plans to use the mechanical canid like a horse to charge that robot and maybe hopefully knock it off balance. She can't think of many robots that are good at getting back to their feet once they've fallen down.
Jemma scrunches down behind the cover and concentrates on that bot. "Got it!" she crows as the data starts to flow.
Jeriah, the only way to stop this thing is to make it self destruct. Get the people back, it's got a reverbium core and you know what's that likely to do. She's not moving though. She's too busy trying to set this thing off.
She's not aware that May is about to Don Quixote it.
There's some security her that Jemma has to break through, it takes a moment which probably feels like a life time to those waiting. Self destruct initiated, Jeriah. In 10, 9, 8….
Once he's remembered how to breathe again and made sure he doesn't have any new holes, Able draws his revolver and uses it to cover May's charge. As big as the bullets are, they're only bullets, but it's what he has available. That, and a large-ish bomb.
Unceremoniously, he drops the hunk of plastic explosive and kicks it toward the robot. He seems to be thinking his team had the right idea, because he's officially out of ammo and considering a tactical retreat of his own. He's not about to leave anyone behind, though, so he waits near the fringe of the conflict with his detonator in hand, prepared to trigger Plan B as needed.
Shep DOES go to May and as chance would have it these dogs are designed and programmed to be ridden. And then off he goes. The dog literally rockets toward the bot and leaps, slamming into the thing and knocking it over at May's direction. It won't be getting up. It doesn't have the necessary limbs.
And then the dog rocket leaps again, taking May through a skylight. Able's covering fire has ruined the optics and saves May from a blistering blast from that cannon.
And then the whole thing goes up in a huge sonic shockwave. In its aftermath there's dead silence.
"Uh, command. Resistance appears to have, um… ceased."
That's the main teams.
Jeriah is coughing. There is chalky dust EVERYWHERE.
At least he was able to tell people to back off in time?
May knew that the robot canid had been designed to ride, and his doing as she directs is honestly a huge relief. The ROCKETING about is a bit of a surprise, though. Enough so that she drops the cattle prod thing in order to hang on and causing her miss the fact that Able's well-place covering fire kept her and Shep from becoming smears.
Up past the skylight, May hears the report and replies promptly. "Teams, report in." Because she had BETTER hear that London, Simmons, and all of Redshirt team made it out in one piece, or she's going back in there, safety protocols be damned.
Jemma is silent as the report comes in. The dwarves have sent helter skelter in the sonic shockwave - they'll have to find them.
Jeriah? "Jeriah?" The biochem finally speaks. "My …. head hurts …" He'll know she didn't disconnect quickly enough and caught some of the backlash through her implants. "It's down though, right?"
Slowly she straightens, staggering a bit and putting a hand on the wall to support herself. "Press on then and lets get what we came for…"
"How is May and the redshirts?
After the dust has settled, Able pockets his detonator and brushes some debris off of his shoulder. A quick radio check with his team, then he verifies, "Redshirts are reporting successful exfil and are standing by. Let's pack it up, I feel like Agent May kicked me in the chest."
A quick stop for the undetonated ordinance, then he rejoins the Agents. "You all look none the worse for wear," he observes as he rattles the empty shells out of his revolver and starts to reload it. "Go ahead and finish up. I'll mind the exit."
"I'm here." Jeriah groans as he coughs. "Looks like everyone's in good shape. We'll still need to sweep the building." Which they'll get to. He nods at Jemma when she says her head hurts.
"Tell the Redshirts thanks, Able." Jeriah says, nodding to the man. "They did will. We'll call back when we're ready to get out of here."
For now they have some clean up and some asset seizing to do.
"Okay, who knows Spanish on this team?"
And with that off he goes to find the main teams and coordinate the rest of the sweep.
"May, I'm gonna want my dog back later."