Rick & -A's combat deployment.

> Project:SPECTRE Combat Log
> Handler unit: CMDR Rick Wolfe
> Spectre unit: 1471-A#01

The angular combat dropship shook and rattled in the sky the sounds largely dulled behind layers of armour plating and shock buffers, hard faced marines lined the crash seats. Only their weary faces stood out behind their visors, some of the regulars were leaning up against the back, taking the opportunity to sleep during transport.A few of the more fresh faced squaddies gripped their armrests tightly, the material creaking under their grip. Rick looked over at the name strip on the newbies combat armour, the armour itself was black and angular, covering his entire body with the layers of kevlar and plating, reinforced at the joints with extra full body plating. The dropships AI had linked up with all of our tactical computers and this rookie was constantly checking the flight path and exterior cameras. Like that would help if we got swatted out of the sky by an AA shell, the rounds were pumped out of the CI's defense batteries at tremendous rates, and if one of the computer guided rounds impacted with their dropship it would be smashed in half almost instantaneously. Luckily their pilot was well versed in avoidance and evasion of the targeting computers. Still, a lucky shell could always clip the wing with their pre-programmed path and airburst height.

"This your first deployment Burns?" Rick asked casually, his voice muffled by his airtight helmet. "Y-Yes sir" MTF Private Burns replied, looking away from his HUD for a second to glance him, he was wide eyed and definately jumpy. "Don't worry, this is the most dangerous part kid, once your boots are on the ground -A will draw the fire" He said nodding to his combat unit that was sat beside him. Easily towering above the other marines at 6ft'4 she stared dead ahead, her bare skull pointing forwards as she jolted and moved with the sporadic jerks of the dropship as it fired its engines in the standard zig-zag pattern they used to evade the AA targeting defences as they screamed towards the insertion point. Her black hair fell around the neck of her armour, dressed much the same as the other marines -A exuded an aura of icyness, her canine jaws, wolfish tail and pricked forward ears were completely alien to most of the soldiers assembled in the ships hold. The more senior units, ones that had combat dropped with -A before treated her with respect and subordination, she had saved their sorry asses more than once.

The Private was about to reply before the drop alarm sounded, lights shifting to a dull red as they gripped their seats with renewed vigour. Rick felt his stomach lurch as they entered the stage he hated most. The combat ship had now cut its engines and was free falling towards their combat zone, it would look on the sensors as a speeding blot, merely another downed craft or piece of debris. The dropship soon reached terminal velocity, the craft shook even more as the seats shuddered in their metal brackets. The drop seemed to last forever but actually only a few minutes passed before the landing jets kicked into gear. A harsh jolt that made -A's teeth click together and the assembled marines jerk in their seats rocked the craft as it slowed down from terminal velocity to a safe landing speed, the now extended landing gear of the dropship touching down to harshly grate against the dirt as the combat crew unfastened their safety belts and pulled their weapons from the mounting bracket on the left of their crash seats, placed there to keep them clamped down and safe in the bumpy transport that was a combat drop.

Pvt.Burns was less quick on his feet than the rest of the soldiers, fumbling with his rifle, the sleek device was a top of the line weapon, newly made by the Foundation's special combat division. Firing caseless tungsten carbide flechettes the weapons produced almost no recoil, the magazine could hold exactly one hundred flechettes before needing to be reloaded and the smart-weapons synced with each soldiers HUD, allowing remote firing and pinpoint aiming, due to this there were no sights at all and the thing could even be fired from the hip, the battle computer even calculated the appropriate burst size and even speed for the target, although this setting could be manually overridden with a few taps to the guns sideplate or even with a complicated gesture of winks and facial movements through the HUD. Underneath this stubby barrel was a grenade tube that could be hand loaded with anything from a devastating antipersonnel shotgun round to a guided smart-grenade. These high tech armour suits and weapons each cost more than these soldiers would probably earn in their entire lifetime.

Rick was armed with both this and a more unique system, the ARES, Antipersonnel Rocket System, it was a stubby tube around the length as the tip of his finger to just above the elbow, this also linked with his HUD and could be loaded in a multitude of different rockets, the colour coded ammunition, much like a larger variant of their rifle mounted grenades came in many types but the ones he were using today was the orange marked "general purpose rocket" that was suitable for most targets, both land and air. And the more alarming red marked "antipersonnel incendiary rocket", this one was particularly nasty as it blanketed the area in a thick, flammable gas before exploding and setting alight the gas, which turned to a flowing liquid under high temperatures. The result was a short lived but terrifying cloud of flaming napalm, that easily coated everything it touched in burning fluid.

The lights flickered back to white and the pilot shouted over the intercom. "Alright lads, keep them kill tallies hot", The door to the dropship opened as the ramp descended, the roar of the engine jets was almost deafening, even through the marines helmets. Two of the six soldiers slung back their weapons to carry an OPCOM deck out into the landing zone, the surprisingly small operation command deck would allow them two way communication with their commanders and overview of the current battle theatre. The actual combat squad themselves consisted of: Cmdr.Rick Wolfe and -A#01 the two leaders, Pvt.Andrew Burns the fresh faced blond haired combat medic, Lt.Tanner Smith of African descent, their engineering specialist and the two brothers, Alec and Reik Takos. Both unruly Privates they were constantly held back from promotion due to their rather unprofessional mannerisms and apparent inability to separate from each other in the field, whatever they did they always did it together.Indeed Alec and Reik were the ones carrying the OPCOM deck out of the craft, both of their battle suits were detailed in equally regulation skirting ways, the pair constantly competed for kill tallies and had a line of marks down the arm guard of their plating. Rick kept his battle armour neat and uniform, always looking fresh off the shelf, none of the usual decorations that the others seemed to love, except for Tanner, he shared Rick's distaste for such ornaments.

"Check your gear!" Rick called out as the dropship took to the sky, the teeth rattling rumble could be felt by all as the beast lifted off and quickly departed, leaving the landing zone in eerie quiet for the outskirts of a city sector, not even birds cried out to break the deafening, omnipresent silence. Tanner checked his battle computer and sighted down his gun before calling back to Rick "I'm good!" Burns followed suit looking at his gun before repeating with much less enthusiasm "I'm good". Alec and Reik merely discharged their rifles into the dirt floor with a cackle, "Yeah we're good" The pair called out almost in sync but Rick wasn't having any of it. "Congrats, you two just pinged up on every radar within 5 kilometres" he looked down at the white plastic sabots that now littered the floor, the plastic disks were grooved and helped guide the tungsten flechette down the barrel and put a spin on the round to keep it stable in flight, after exiting the barrel it split off into quarters, and these now littered the ground. A dead giveaway for military action, they were biodegradable but would stick around for weeks. "Pick up your sabots, gonna lead the CI right to us" Rick shook his head in disappointment as the two Privates got to their knees and began to scrabble to pick up the thin plastic segments.

Riek and Alec began to argue in hushed tones. "That's yours" Reik said, pointing to one of the sabot quarters, "Nah that ain't mine bro" Alec responded shaking his head emphatically. The reason they were arguing became clear as the piece of plastic was lying in the dirt by -A's combat boot, neither of the pair wanted to get any closer to her than they had to. Reik being the cockiest of the two walked forwards and bent down to scoop up the sabot, only the shaking of his hand revealed the extent of the way she unnerved him, indeed the only one of the lot unfazed by -A was Rick himself, Tanner was slightly cautious but not to the almost unprofessional extent of Private Alec, Reik or Burns. Reik quickly scrabbled backwards as -A just stared him down with vacant eyes.

"Alright, gather round!" Rick yelled and the crew dutifully assembled in front of him. -A moving in to stand by his side as he presented the battle plan. "The lads at CENTCOM predict the enemy to be in sector C6-C8 of the housing block". The soldiers battle computer maps updated to show this, a questioning orange rectangle covering the three sectors where they predicted the enemy. The group themselves were highlighted as blue chevrons on the map, a fair way away from the CI controlled area.
"The enemy has many civilian allies armed with crude weaponry but there may still be some friendlies, you know the protocol on unarmed civilians." He stated measuredly as Burns shifted slightly, looking distinctly uncomfortable in his battle armour. "Time to head out. We have no air support and reinforcement will take a while to arrive, plainly speaking it's just us against them."

The crew passed uneventfully into the city, it was completely deserted and the going was easy, the squadmates cracked a few jokes as they toured through the city, there wasn't much sign of a fight. Admittedly the quiet crack of weapons could be sporadically heard but it was from further inside the cities limits. Surprisingly -A stopped dead in her tracks, ears pricked up and weapon slung back as Rick raised his fist for the rest to stop. "The hell is it?" Rick asked in a somewhat soft and gentle tone. "An IED, antipersonnel mine" She responded harshly, pointing with a clawed finger to where a small green dot could be seen. The dot of a laser designator. When Rick followed the path of the laser across the road he scanned for anything out of place, there was an abandoned beige backpack, nothing out of the ordinary until you noticed the small hole cut into the side where the laser shone from. Inside the bag would be some kind of bomb wired to the laser, probably packed with glass, rubble, spent bullets. Anything that would cause injury. Occasionally these bombs were indeed disarmed frag mines that the CI would crudely re arm and place around the area, they detonated pretty quickly when the laser shifted sometimes it was a soldier sometimes a civilian.

"Hey Tanner, can you clear this" Rick asked, pointing at the bomb as he and the rest jogged back a few paces. "Yes sir" was his casual reply as he leveled his rifle and squeezed the trigger, he had selected the underbarrel launcher and it boomed out as the electric primer ignited. The sound only rivalled by the detonation of the IED as sixty five pieces of buckshot slammed into the bomb, completely obliterating it. Fragments of twisted metal bounced off the soldiers armour, much to the shock of Pvt.Burns who tensed up under the metal hail. Tanner cycled the chamber of his launcher and discarded the still smoking shell, marked with a blue band to denote antipersonnel use. Waste of a good shot in Ricks opinion when a single round would have sufficed. Taking point the team advanced once again, boots tramping on the rough pavement. The gunshots had gone silent but the crew didn't notice as they were still shook up by the explosion. Unfortunately for the team the sound of chanting came from round the corner, where the road opened out to crossroads, this city had a good number of human Serpents Hand members, and they had rallied with the Chaos Insurgency in protest against the Foundation. This city was on the outskirts of three portlands, a sort of anomalous community.

As the six rounded the corner it became clear what the CIs plan was, to rally the SH in protest so they could hang back and keep Rick's squad occupied while they continued to fortify the city. Waving brown, gold and green flags the SH rallied, some with batons and a couple with more worrying items, old ballistic weapons, AK-47s, rifles, pistols. "It's the fuckin' Jailors!" One of them cried angrily, pointing their baton at the group with fury in their eyes. The Serpents Hand blamed the Foundation for mistreatment of their imprisoned anomalies. -A raised her weapon and targeted the baton wielder, aiming the laser designator right over their heart, the poor soul was wearing some kind of homemade armour, not that it would help against a high powered flechette. Rick really didn't want to provoke a confrontation between two anomalous groups and so activated his armours loudhailer and addressed the protesters, now turning towards rioters. "Disperse from the area! We are looking for the terrorist group known as the Chaos Insurgency!" He instructed, but this was met by angry jeers from the crowd. "Disperse or we will open fire!" Raising his rifle the other four did the same, Pvt.Brand's barrel wavering as he aimed at the civilians.

Rick, having an unloaded launcher took a shell from his bandolier with a light green crosshatched band, one denoting a chemical payload. The gaseous compound in the dispersion warhead wouldn't be lethal. But by god would it make you wish it was. A military grade irritant, similar to teargas but much more potent, it even affected bare skin rather than merely soft tissues such as the eyes or lungs. The stuff made you feel like the very skin itself was peeling from your muscles. Rick took aim at the feet of the rioters and opened fire, the round streaking from the wide bore launcher to impact at the feet of the protesters, the launching primer was small for this round so it bounced and rolled to a stop before exploding into a dense, white cloud. One of the first protesters, a young woman stumbled out of the edge of the gas. Falling to her knees, fingers clawing at the ground as she choked in an attempt to scream in agony. The rest of Rick's squad fired their own gas rounds into the fray, the canisters spinning and clinking against the ground before they detonated in sync with a quiet popping whoosh. The gas spreading out to blanket the rioters, many of them rushed forwards to fall on the ground, coughing and spluttering. Quite a few of the armed rioters had gas masks though, and wore heavy protective gear, workers gloves and ski jackets to protect against the irritant. The group of soldiers advanced, their battle computers flagging up the heat signatures of the rioters with an angry orange corona. -A already considered them hostile and leveled her weapon. Tanner and Burns took the left flank, while Alec and Reik took the right. Rick and -A headed straight on to clash with the rioters.

The thick irritant gas was clearing fast as it settled to the floor, rioters still choked and gasped on the ground, desperate for fresh air as the chemicals scorched their lungs. The armed ones started to shoot, bullets pinging ineffectually off Rick's armour as he fired into the crowd, aiming in the direction of the fire. He was rewarded with a muffed cry of pain as his rounds punched through the makeshift armour, splattering fresh blood against the ground. The battle went almost silent after the harsh thump of his weapon discharging. The disbelief broke in the most vicious of ways, rioters screaming out in anger that one of their own had been slaughtered. Rick immediately opened fire, even as the rest of his squad followed suit. The dull whine of a vehicle could be heard in the distance, nearing their position as the rioters were cleanly dispatched, crimson blood staining their fallen flags. Pvt.Brand was hesitant to fire, halfheartedly catching a few rioters in the legs. -A on the other hand neatly killed anyone in sight. Reik and Alec covered each others backs as they fired into the panicking group and Tanner used his underbarrel launcher to great effect, pulping flesh and shattering bone with each buckshot shell he rained down upon the now fleeing protesters. None of them made it further than the far road before they were either shot in the back or crippled by the knee high hail of flechettes.

The vehicle engine grew closer as Rick swung the ARES launcher off his back and readied it, ignoring the specifics it was just really a scaled up version of the undermounted grenade launcher. It sounded surprisingly loud for a car as Rick shouldered the weapon and crouched down to steady himself from the recoil. The approaching vehicle turned the corner and Brand scrambled back, the damn thing wasn't a car, or even an armoured one it was an old tank. The turret swinging round to point at Rick as Tanner and the rest scrambled back for cover. The obviously inept drivers stuttered the tracked behemoth to a stop before it centred its aim on Rick himself. As it was clear he still wanted to fire the shot -A snarled in irritation before running towards him. Rick himself curled his finger round the trigger as his battle computer locked on. In that moment three things happened at once, the tank boomed out with its shot, hurling the massive slug towards Rick even as -A slammed into his side and knocked him clear just as he fired, the missile arcing up into the sky, missing its target by a huge degree. The pair tensed up as the shell hit the brick wall behind them, showering them with rubble and debris. The teams flechettes pinged harmlessly off such thick armour, and no one had any armour penetrating grenades, a tank was most unexpected. The missile itself had far from missed as the guidance computer adjusted the fins as it hurtled through the air, directing the round downwards towards the tanks' relatively unarmoured roof.