5004/Operation: Bleeding Empire

Operation: Bleeding Empire
Date of Scene:	09 January 2017
Location:	Earth-115
Synopsis:	EXALT are acting up again, an XCOM operative, callsign Copperhead has intel, but is behind enemy lines and needs extraction.
Cast of Characters:	62, 571, 673, Kotone Yamakawa

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Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Approximately 1 hour ago, XCOM HQ.

    "Strike Four, to launch bay. Load up! Move it people, we've got someone waiting for us!" The voice of the squad leader fills the Armory, as the members of the Strike Team load up their gear, grabbing laser rifles and pistols, 4-2 grabs a heavy shotgun, while 4-Lead takes a sniper rifle. No heavy weapons in this group, rapid response. "Skyranger is leaving ladies, get moving!" 4-lead heads off, followed closely by the other members of her team. "Big Sky, launching, eta to destination, five zero minutes."

    "Strike Four, you'll get to the area about five minutes before the EXALT forces we're tracking, your objective is to locate Operative Copperhead, and extract her to the Skyranger, however the situation may be highly fluid. Updated objectives will be provided as needed." Bradford gives over the Skyranger's comm unit.

    Now.
    The Skyranger swoops in, angling its engines to arrest its speed, before dropping onto the ground in an empty parking lot, the aft hatch dropping open to release the Strike Team. "Strike Four Actual to Central, we're on the ground. Beginning sweep. Any word from the operative?"

    "Negative Four-Actual We're getting no radio comms outside of yours from anywhere in the area."
    "Confirmed Central. Sweeping to last known location of the operative."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka's already with the Strike Team, following them with her GASH in hand. As her helmet folds into place, the cyborg grabs her seat aboard the Skyranger. Checking the magazine she's slapped in already, she pops her neck. "Do we have positive confirmation of hostiles on-site?" She asks, already expecting to go into a hot zone.

    By the time she gets there, Maaka's already leaping off the Skyranger, soaring through the air before she lands with a thud. Her armor and body are built for impacts like this, and she lands in a three-point stance, hunched over on the ground.

    Standing up, she surveys the landing zone, jumping onto a car as she begins a perimeter sweep.

Rory White (673) has posed:
Given the incredibly dangerous and unknown situation Rory's given up trying to 'fit in' with the XCOM forces. They'll just have to deal with the fact that there's a robot pseudo-tiger in the Skyranger. Colored as grey as the pavement, with a metallic zigzaggy seamed texture of stretching and reconfiguring flexible metal skin. Each of its four paws can be seamlessly rotated to replace with a wheel. Three pairs of rifle barrels - not all the same - are mounted on its body. One pair on the back facing forward. One pair on the left facing forward. And one on the right, the same.

    As the robo-beast hops free of the Skyranger's ramp, a Saucer gently detaches from its back and smoothly hovers low using a tight-beam laser communication.

    "There is no way that EXALT forces missed our approach. Be ready for ANYTHING."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone sas once more called for aid by XCOM, well one of the two iterations of the group and honestly did matter, if they called for help she'd answer. She's suitd up packing some extra firepower, well more so than normla an rifle of unknwon make is slung across her back as she arrives and makes sure to have several drones with her scuting ahead but well they are not armed as always and the ones that are armed? Are following her a SHIV which has some sort of cyber gun turret clinging to it is folloing along aafter Kotone as she joins the deployment.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    The area is quiet, but on the open local bands, the chatter of EXALT can be heard, growing more coherant, even through the in-built scrambling they use to make their communications, even though they're 'open', impossible to eavesdrop on. "Seraph's right, they're coming. Four-5, Four-6, cover the north entry, Four-2, Four-3, and Four-4, go with Seraph and Durandal, I'm going topside to get a better view on the area." Strike Four-Lead then moves to a nearby three storey building. She gathers to leap, and with a flare of orange under her skin, soars up to land atop the building, immediately turning, and dropping to brace her rifle against the side of the building.

    Rory's saucer would immediately beging pinging several groups of armed humans moving along the streets towards the Skyranger's landing site... it would also pick up the lifesigns of another, solo armed human in a building about a hundred meters in the opposide direction from the EXALT units approaching.

    Maaka would be able to spot movement in the distance, but they're out of range for the moment. Even the Sniper doesn't open fire yet.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka's eyes blink under her visor, just as her vision picks something up. <<I see movement in the distance, out of range for us.>> She reports over comm, before she motions for Four-Four to follow her, using discarded vehicles for cover, expecting the trooper to shadow her.

    <<This just screams ambush, like they're waiting for us to get into position.>> She communicates via burst transmission, attempting to avoid compromising their position.

Rory White (673) has posed:
Since the EXALT forces are already coming straight at them, Rory switches from covert wireless to full power. Radio signals link her up to the Saucer and it zooms skyward. The beastly robot lurches into motion at high speed and SOMEHOW its legs make very little noise. The barest of whumps on the pavement and absolutely no clinky-clanky metal banging noises one might expect from a robot. She does the best thing a tiger could do and hops up atop a dumpster at the corner where a street enters the parking lot. Colors ripple across the Flexbot's skin as microbots shift their refractory properties much as a chameleon alters its skin pigmentation. The result is the same: her skin retextures, becoming like the shiny black plastic of the dumpster lid.

    She lies in wait, still as a statue.

    Any EXALT who pop out around the corner and show their back to her are in for a HELL of a surprise.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone is now being quite careful now given the number of contacts out there, she moves haed she doesn't make any hostile movies but she's watching all the data she's getting from her drones and her own body. Several feeds appear on her HUD as she presses forwards cautious and she herself? She cloaks as she creeps along.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    The first EXALT unit to arrive, is a group of 'regular' troopers, two toting normal projectile rifles, one a shotgun, and another a heavy machine gun and a rocket launcher strapped to his back. Strike Four-Lead calls the target. <Taking the shot, hostile Echo-4, Heavy Weapons.> The rifle barrel lines up, and with the report of the .30cal slug being fired, a red tracer-like trail lances out into the Heavy Weapon's users head, taking him out of the fight before the rest of the team engages. Four-4 follows after Maaka, readying his laser rifle and moving to keep pace with the cyborg.

    Rory's ambush location earns her a group of three rifle users... but one looks different. They have a sickly orange glow permeating their skin and their rifle has a red 'line' along the barrel segment and an odd structure where the magazine would be. They don't detect the camouflaged tigermech.

    Kotone moves past where Four-5 and Four-6 are on overwatch. They open up as another group of 'normal' EXALT come around the corner, laying down lower power 'supressive' bursts of laser fire.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka makes a run for the alleyway, motioning for Four-Four to follow along. She stalks down the alley, using the buildings for cover. As she and Four-Four clear the alleyway, they head along down another alley, before they find an ambush point to strike the EXALT troopers.

    <Fire on my go.> She radios Four-Four, before she takes aim at the shotgun toting soldier, her coilgun kicking against her shoulder firmly as it fires twice, aimed for the EXALT operative's head.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is no fool but shen's not expecing this as the EXALT troopers come about with laser rifleS? Oh hell laser weapons? EXALT has stepped things up quite a bitwith the new weapon and kotone will be coming under fire, well not directly but the issue with exalt is they are coming on hard, very hard now as she tries to get closer now she has eel weare an other up close options and hs's going to put them to use.

<<Still moving in>>

Kotone's going to move in to try and flank them and go after them from behind with some flash bangs if she's able to sneak in like that but that's going to expose her once she does...so.

Rory White (673) has posed:
Three EXALT troopers completely overlooking Rory is a lethal mistake. One she was counting on. As they pass by she takes a few moments to analyze them... but a full review can wait, since she's recording XP of this anyways.

    All three pairs of guns she's toting come to life and track the targets. Her combat software's been given its directives and so the controlling AI wastes no time triangulating trajectories. Smart bullets lock onto their targets in the rifle barrels, tiny nano-controlled surfaces pre-adjusting the rifling and ammo for maximum effectiveness. Trajectory, range, weight, gravity, all forces are calculated in an instant.

    There's no one liners from the AGI. Nothing to give her presence away... she hopes.

    Just three pairs of simultaneous shots. For each, one bullet towards the back of the skull and another for the middle of the neck. Splattering brains or snapping the spinal cord are equally effective ways to take down humans and she highly doubts that this agent's biomods will save him from THAT.

    But the longer she looks at those Biomods the more she worries. It looks... terrible. Wrong. Even to her warped sense of aesthetics. Who are these people, why are they doing this?

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    The Heavy goes down, blood spraying across the street from the Reaper Round punching through his skull. The others start to scatter, the shotgunner running down the alleyway /towards/ Maaka and Four-4... he goes down under railgun fire from the Cyborg, as Four-4 starts opening up on the remaining two, peppering the area with laser pulses , flushing them out of their cover and into the killzone for Four-2 and Four-3, the former using their laser pistol, as they're out of shotgun range. The laser rifle burns holes in the leading EXALT, sending him down with a choked death scream as his chest is burned out.

    Four-5 and Four-6 are keeping the EXALT's attention pretty well, allowing Kotone to get around to flank them, they don't even know a stealth unit is even there!

    Rory's sneak attack splatters the two side units... but something's strange about the impact to the central one. The bullets strike, draw blood... but the damage almost instantly regenerates! The Medic turns, and opens up a snapshot with his laser rifle, the thin, focussed beam sweeping across where Rory fired from, burning into the wall, but it's not aimed.

Rory White (673) has posed:
Rory can't exactly show it on her face. She's not even prone to random shouting and grunting like humans would be. Since she doesn't breathe and has no such impulses! But the Robotiger's apparent optics do go quite wide when the Biomod trooper not only withstands her shots but IMMEDIATELY RETALIATES. She takes a flying leap off the dumpster and springs off the wall and towards the ground in an attempt to strafe the trooper... but it's too late.

    The beam weaponry cuts across the Flexbot and leaves a sizzling, scorched gouge from the strafe. One of the 'big cat's legs limps and Rory grinds to a halt... but doesn't stay there.

    No, her functional three legs coil up like springs and send her flying up and vaulting over the trooper in a calculated leap only a robot could attempt.

    The robotiger opens its jaws wide, revealing nasty spikes for teeth. Spikes that crackle and arc with electricity.

    The instant she touches down Rory POUNCE forth, aiming to sink those teeth into any vulnerable point - the man's side, his gun arm, or even his neck.

    And unleash a crippling jolt of electricity more than capable of putting inner organs into complete arrest.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    he EXALT commando Maaka and Four-Four gun down dies pretty quickly, but sadly the Buomodded agent doesn't go down as easily. <Oh hell.> Maaka narrows her eyes, and she takes a couple of shots at the modded agent.

    <Four-Four, cover me.> She orders, before she loads up a tear-gas round into the underslung launcher on her GASH. Taking aim, she fires at the modded trooper just before Rory pounces and attacks the soldier. <Hope she's resistant to tear gas.>

    <Gas going out. May wanna back off.> she radios into comms, as the round aims for the trooper's back, and goes off with a gentle hiss, burning gas emerging from the grenade.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone is rteady to strike on the EXALT forces and she moves the flash banbgs drop armed and she moves back trying to get to some cover the weapon should hopefully go off, distract the EXALT agents and give XCOM a chance to deal with them before they can recover from it as well.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Rory's damage gets the EXALT Elite to shift position, attempting to bring the rifle around to track the moving robot. The rifle sparks, then sputters out before smoke starts to erupt from the firing chamber... seems the cooling unit overloaded from prolonged fire. He looks down for a split second... long enough for Rory to pounce and fry him with the electric field. The teargas does expand out and choke out the remaining EXALT hunkered down behind cover, making him stumble and flail to escape the stinging gas, to be cut down by one or another of the Strike Team. "Four-4 here, going to secure asset." the trooper moving off at a sprint towards the map ping location.

    Kotone's flashbang ambush flushes the EXALTs out of their cover as they're blinded. Four-5 and Four-6 cut them down, leaving the area secure... for now.

    As the sound of gunfire dies down, the distant throbbing sound of helicoptors can be heard in the far distance, beginning as a dull thruming. Bradford chimes in that there's incoming EXALT reinforcements. Best get moving.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka takes off after Four-Four, sprinting with the Russian trooper. As they follow the signal to Copperhead's transmitted location, vaulting across vehicles and such as she darts after him. Covering his six, Maaka keeps her vision settings cycled out on a set amount of time, night vision, thermal, EM, just to keep track for any other hidden EXALT troopers as they make their way to the building.

Rory White (673) has posed:
Down. He's down... and what's more, Rory wastes no time securing the body and dragging it quickly back towards the Skyranger. The scorched chunk of Flexbot has begun to 'mend' in a fashion as undamaged Microbots move in and clamp into position to reinforce damaged chunks. Repairs, but there's a limit to how much they can do.

    Optional objectives. Someone's gotta do them!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone plan works and flushes them own. They need to get moving and try to catch up with their target. She's going to go after them at this point. She know they have to make it for the person they came for, there's not much else they can do right now. Right? So onward she goes, leaving the other goals to Rory.

<<Nice working let's move and get our person the hell out of here.>>

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    There's movement inside the building as Four-4 arrives, the briefest glimpse of something in a window. A quick, burst-transmission comes over Four-4's and Maaka's radios. <<Where do the Crane's Roost.>> The source isn't readily apparent, but that's the Ident-call.

    Big Sky comes out from the cockpit to help drag the fallen EXALT onboard. The guy is massive, as large as life as his craft and the limp form is hefted with little effort and tossed into a secure locket, along with the broken rifle. "Central, Big Sky, secondary package secured, waiting for the primary package now."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    As soon as Maaka is done clearing room after room, she and Four-Four find a transmission. <<Daybreak on the Syne.>> is Maaka's response. Just like Bradford said, but she keeps her rifle close just to be safe in case it's a spy, or Copperhead's been compromised. Until then, she waits.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    There's a pause, then the door clicks, opens and a young woman, about 18 years old steps out. She's olive skinned, of Greek descent. "I thought you would never get here." she says, running over with a suitcate handcuffed to her wrist, and a laser pistol in her other hand. "Where's the evac, this information must get to the Commander now."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka exhales briefly, and she nods. "Just outside. We mopped up an EXALT team on our way here. We're waiting on Big Sky." She says, before she covers Copperhead's exit on their way out.

    "We'd better hurry it up, we got more EXALT en-route to get here."

Rory White (673) has posed:
Rory has little to do now that the corpse has been stowed! Except for wait at the ramp and draw her Saucer in closer. And priming its self-destruct in case anything stupid happens and an emergency retreat's called for!

    "With any luck... they will learn from this. ... Usefully to us, that is. Otherwise... what a waste of life."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "We're here to get you out lets' get going shall we? We don't want more EXALT to show up." Kotones's remainig drones will follow and act as tear guard for eveyrone as the move to pull out, she'll just be happy they got their comrade out alive.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    "Strike Four-Lead to all Strike Four elements, get to evac zone NOW. Move it ladies we are LEAVING!" Lead then leaps off the side of the building, landing in a three-point crouch, before dashing at full speed across the parking lot. The rest of the defense team stack up around the Skyranger as the sound of helicoptors grows louder. A modified UH-60 flies overhead at high speed, dropping a group of EXALT into the middle of the lot. One splatters on impact, but the other two have the same orange, sickly glow to them and land in three-point crouches, before scattering behind vehicles for cover. "CONTACT!" shouts Four-3, opening fire. "Four-4, Durandal, Copperhead, MOVE!"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    For once 'ladies' isn't so insulting. Maaka doesn't need much reason to hustle, as she spies EXALT troopers inserting. "Shit. We need to move, NOW!" SHe barks, before taking off toward the Skyranger, firing quick bursts at the remaining two EXALT troopers. They'll likely be just as tough to kill as the one Rory took out, which makes it more prudent to extract than stick around.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Strike Four open fire to suppress the two EXALT advanced troopers, unfortunately, when one takes a laser blast to the shoulder, he lets out a blood curdling, bestial howl, emitting an aura that seems to 'boost' his aim, as he ducks out of sight, then pops out and pops a shot unto the open Skyranger hatch, nailing Four-Lead in the shoulder, burning clean through the Carapace plate. "GYAAAH! BIG SKY GET US OUTTA HERE!" she screams, returning fire with her laser pistol.

    As the rest of the team, and Copperhead mount up, more of those modified helicoptors come swooping in, dropping off more EXALT troops, but the Skyranger is already lifting off, hatch closing and engines flaring brightly. "Central, this is Big Sky, we are Oscar Mike. Prep medical, we've got wounded."