Defense of PA-N51

Defense of PA-N51
Date of Scene:	27 June 2014
Location:	Skaro Wasteland
Synopsis:	The very generous but mysterious "League of Rule Companies" submits an urgent, last-minute contract and gets a wide variety of Elites answering the call.
Thanks to:	White Glint, for running
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, 27, Staren, 62, 136, 322

---

White Glint (322) has posed:
Contracts from the distant and uncommunicative organization known as the League of Rule Companies have become quite popular on Multiversal job boards. Not only are they well suited to the typical Elite's portfolio, but they don't ask for any specific comers, and they pay an absolute fortune for the level of work they entail, simply due to the sheer wealth of the corporate entities handing them out. Usually there is at least a few day's notice of any given job with an encrypted briefing and intelligence file sent out upon accepting any one contract, however, today one marked *URGENT* has suddenly gone up with less than a day to prepare, listed under "field combat" and "humanitarian aid" tags.

Upon acceptance, the download features a strict countdown with only hours remaining on its mission clock, with a hastily prepared briefing from one "Albrecht Drais Heavy Industries" warning of an impending attack from one of their corporate rivals only just detected crossing the North European sea a short while ago. What makes this more interesting than a simple company proxy skirmish is that the target isn't a military installation, listed instead as the PA-N51 new resource plant. The briefing stresses that aside from a small defense force, the residents are entirely noncombatants and paid civilians, and the forces being employed against them comprises nothing less than an automated drone strike, making for an obvious attempt at a complete wipe-out operation rather than attempting to force a surrender or seize the facility. The fact that there will likely be hundreds of casualties if a counter offensive fails is stressed several times on the way over, before displaying a set of coordinates for what looks like the northwestern corner of Russia.

Arriving at the site paints an entirely different picture from what one would expect. The bitter cold and sweeping winds are definitely of Russian origin, but flakes of solid black ash fall along with the hail, settling to the ground and tinging the snow grey. Despite the fact it should only be early afternoon judging by the position of the sun, the horizon is painted bloody red by the peculiar way the light filters through the haze of off-coloured clouds, totally at odds with the winter landscape. The resource plant appears to have been erected in the middle of a city, but it's clear nobody has lived there for some time. Snow is piled up almost a storey deep in places, and in others, the ceilings of square, drab grey buildings have collapsed in from age. The only lights in the skeletal ghost of a town are the aircraft landing lights that dot the scaffolding of a complex of fuel reserves, power recyclers, and what appears to be a blockaded mineshaft, which any inbound aircraft can use as markers in the awful visibility.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
"Responding Forces, and Local Garrison. This is Big Sky. I am on approach vector, bearing 157 at 20000 feet. Requesting a landing beacon." the gruff pilots voice transmits over open, local broadband.

Elise is in the back, along with a pair of MEC troopers, and and pair of SHIVs, with another Augmented trooper along for the ride. She's wearing a helmet this time, the faceplate reflectively coated to obscure her face. "Alright Strike One, this isn't usually part of our operational method... but we have to secure the facility, and make sure the non-combatants aren't harmed. Sledge, Nova, you two system link with the SHIVs, I want you out there in their faces, make sure they don't get through. Scotch and I will hang back and organize what defenses are on the ground, and evacuate civilians to a safe area with Big Sky's help. Questions?"

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
Well THIS is a crappy place to put a research facility. Or whatever it's supposed to be. Either way, if it's not military and someone's going to try to blow it up, that's not something Jono wants happening. Even if he can't do much more than just evacuate people. What's inside the computers, and the facility itself, is doubtless valuable. But lives are more important.

Jono's dressed in a coat and long pants, but he doesn't feel the cold, even though the coat is left unbuttoned. Since he assumes this is going to pretty much be a fight right from the get-go, he hasn't bothered to wrap his face. Because the wrappings are completely absent, the extent to which he is basically a living flame is really apparent here, even under his black shirt the light of that staticky fire can be seen. Strangely, the winds didn't seem to affect the fire, but it licks around what can be seen of his face as if there was no wind.

He's standing near the landing pad, figuring if the enemy is going to come by air, they're going to have to have a place to land. And this is the best landing place that he can find, so guarding it is probably a good idea.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is with Elise as support as normal, she's not a front line fighter she knows it but she's suited up in XCOM combat armour if only for her own protection. With a nanovest it gives some level of protection from things. IT's better than nothing and she's sticking to the Skyranger, she does have some gear set up and has already plugged it into the back of her neck. information appears before her eyes as she set sup to provide electonic support to the XCOM units getting into the thinck of things here.

<This is K.O. All things are go here.>

Staren has posed:
MINUTES AGO

Staren lays back in his chair, playing an oldschool videogame on his headware, when a flashing indicator appears in the side of his vision. He pauses the game. "What is it, Dawn?" "A job posting on the Syndicate board is asking for help preventing civilian casualties." Staren looks over the posting, and the download data. "I see..." he frowns. "What is /wrong/ with that world?" He shakes his head, but he hops out of his chair and walks to the hangar with a mix of anger and excitement. It's been too long since he sat in the cockpit.

As he's suiting up, another call comes in. A request for a ride. And not from somebody he'd have expected to go to this sort of fight...

NOW

Like a giant chrome-finished fighter plane, the Star Hawk flies in from the nearest warpgate at supersonic speeds, before taking a long, slow deceleration (Staren doesn't want to subject his passenger to high G forces on her first flight) until it's going slowly enough to form up on the Skyranger. Arms and legs unfold from the machine, waving to the X-COM transport, and then heading in for a landing alongside it, VTOL-style.

Once on the ground, the legs crouch, the canopy opens, and Staren unclips enough straps to turn around and check on his passenger. "How're you holding up, Rarity? Was the ride okay?"

The passenger seat was made for humanoids, not ponies, but should work well enough just for transport flight if not for fighting. Extra straps may have been required. Staren will have insisted on wearing a torc or belt that can deploy into an emergency suit (and yes, he has one designed for ponies), but she doesn't /have/ to have worn the helmet or suit (safety orange might not be her color) while inside the plane.

Rarity (136) has posed:
'Field Combat' would make her twitch, but 'humanitarian aid' pulls at the Element of Generosity too hard to ignore inspite of personal reservations. Someone really needed some help.... and were willing to pay heftily for it. She could stock -so many- supplies for that much credit. So here Rarity, despite a few misgivings, was.

"Goodness, this is literally the middle of nowhere! While keeping distance from populated urban centers is likely appreciated, this is by far extremely obscure in location." With that the unicorn turns back from the view, thankful she had managed to charter a ride of her own. "Oh, just fine dahling. Just... fine..." Rarity adds a nervous chuckle at the end. This wasn't really her style of travel, but hey, desperate times...

Rest assured she made sure what belts were necessary were -extra- firmly strapped in. Her nitpickiness was not taking a back seat even if she was.

White Glint (322) has posed:
Aside from Jonothon practically being a flight beacon himself in this grey, snowy, hazy mess, a somewhat harried sounding flight coordinator welcomes both aircraft with a tone of palpable relief, stammering into the radio as fast as he can manage. "Oh thank god! I was beginning to wonder if anyone would be able to get here! You're just in time though! Here, use VTOL pad! We normally reserve this for crude fuel transports but this is an exception! A big exception! You are very much cleared to land!" Weather shielding retracts from a pair of landing pads near rows of enormous reserve drums that probably once stored refined oil. Almost instantly, the markings begin to disappear under a layer of snow, but the strings of landing lights are enough to go by.

From the ground, the perimiter of the resource plant feels a lot larger than it did seeing it from above, owing to the massive towers of convoluted pipes and vent systems bringing power from underground. The only way to not get lost under the poor visibility is by memorizing where the bright red beacons are atop each antenna and navigating by their relative position. Looking out for lights in the distance also brings it home just how close the group had cut it. On the opposite horizon from the early sunset, deep into the damp, foggy mist, lights begin to twinkle through the mess of falling snow and ash; spreading gradually from a central point until a broad band of glittering spots canvasses the entire eastern skyline. It's difficult to see much else at that distance, but the pattern suggests a V formation, their placement suggests hovering at at least a hundred feet, and their numbers sugges . . . a lot.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
"Thanks flight control. Coming in now. I have space on board for your non-combatants, it'll be a bit cramped if you have more than a dozen, but I can make a few trips to a safe area while the AO is cleared." offers the Pilot.

The big, heavy brick of a dropship comes in, and lands almost gracefully, dropping the aft hatch and disgorging the contents. The pair of MECs, one painted blue, the other a deep crimson, stomp down the ramp, followed closely by drab-grey plated turrets on tracks. The SHIVs scan for targets, their weapon barrels spinning as they go through pre-combat diagnostics. Elise and 'Scotch' step down from the Dropship as well. "Keep an open channel." she says to her team, and looks back to Kotone. "We're counting on you too, Miss Yamakawa." she offers, the visor blocking any indication of her expression. "Alright Strike One. Move out!"

Staren has posed:
Staren frowns a bit at the snow. That's now how snow is supposed to look. He doesn't trust it. But elites are already out standing in it... sigh. Once Rarity's down from the plane, he suggests: "Did you ever get to alchemize your stylish glasses? They'll sync with the inertial tracker in the bracelet and show you where you are, if so." He could go on about the complexities of automatic mapping software, but... nah.

"Good to see you again." he nods to Elise. He forgets if he's supposed to call her that right now or not, so he doesn't call her anything.

Staren gets on the radio with whoever was guiding them in. "Okay, is there anything more you can tell us that we need to know about this place or your attackers? Also, I'm gonna need this dome open to launch and fight. This isn't a transport plane."

Rarity (136) has posed:
Rarity barely waits long enough for Staren to land his ship before she undoes the belts with a yank of magic and clamors out of the craft. She almost does the 'kiss the ground' routine, but stops as she leans over when she realizes how dirty and snow covered the ground actually is. Uuuh. She stands upright again and ahems softly. Nothing to see here!

For a moment she's pondering if she should unpack some more suitable winter clothing (or her anti contamination suit. Don't ask) when the sparkles in the distant fog catchs her attention. "Oh my. I think we're already going to have company soon."

So in the end she has to do a different suiting up, in a flash of magical energy dawning her Harmony Knight armor instead, scarf and cloak giving a dramatic flutter behind her as she pulls out the 'stylish glasses' and slips them on. Check.

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
Jono's thankfully far enough away from the landing pad so that its opening up doesn't trip him up. Possibly literally. Once Elise, Kotone, and the others disembark from the craft, Jono nods in greeting to them. "'Ey there," he offers simply. Staren and Rarity get the same simple greeting... though he pauses a bit at seeing Rarity. He blinks a few times.

It is, however, her warning that brings his attention up to the skies. "...Bollocks. Not wastin' any time, are they?" The tone is wry. But then again he didn't figure they would. It wouldn't have been marked urgent otherwise. Looking to the group, "Got a plan yet?"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is keeping a tabs on what ever infput she's getting from the SHIV's and MEK troopers at this point. She listens as the people who called them for help so far as she can tell. It seems like things are going to be pretty damn serious. She's keeping tabs on com signals and anything else from the several feeds she has going on her ability ot handle all this input shows just how over clocked her brain is with her implants.

White Glint (322) has posed:
"We appreciate the assistance Big Sky, but are you sure it's really a good idea to be flying in this? If any of those drones get through, you'll be shot down immediately! I'll send anyone who's brave enough up out of here, but just evacuating the non essential personnel we don't have room for in the bunker will take a significant amount of time!" There appears to be a sheltered runway from the landing pad leading into one of the larger buildings surrounding the mineshaft, designed to be wide enough for loading vehicles to take in offloaded supplies without exposure to a lot of weather or radioactive fallout. Almost immediately, the doors open at the far end, and slightly over a dozen of either the bravest or most panicked civilians begin a mad sprint out; an even mixture of hard-hatted workers in coveralls and white collar looking office types. They barely seem to notice the military hardware being offloaded from the craft, cramming themselves into it as soon as there is space. "That's the first wave, unfortunately we've got more where that came from!"

"Nothing much. This area's all defunct so go nuts, so long as you don't hit the plant! You don't want to see what happens if something here blows up!" The radio coordinator goes silent for a little as he cross checks some data before responding. "We've got an even mix of Eqbal's AS-8 Aves type mass produced drones and Omer's Amon-S types. They'll probably be using suicide weapons too. The former is a flight transformation type mounted with light autocannons, and the latter is an aerial strafing type with long distance laser weaponry. We're looking at sixty . . . no, eighty at the very least!" Staren's craft is almost instantly cleared for takeoff.

Anyone watching the skyline can see where the glittering dots begin to light up the mist around them, illuminating little spheres of snow like a flashlight peering through smoke, revealing the shapes inside, if only vaguely. As the operator said, there appear to be two main types comprising the enemy force; the larger type shaped like a thick disk with reverse swept wings on both sides, toting a folded up array of thrusters and machineguns beneath it; the smaller shaped like a slick, black sphere trailing oddly squidlike tendrils behind it, bearing an enormous sensor array at its front like a single, massive eye. The air soon fills with the dull hum of thrusters and the steady clicking and chirping of electronics, eerily reminescent of a swarm of approaching insects. The quiettness of their approach is actually unsettling.

Anyone checking their positional electronics like Kotone can see that half of the force is slowing to a halt at that distance while the other half proceeds ahead at a steadily increasing. Energy spikes are detectable all over the place as the squiddy types hang back, twisting in strangely fluid motions as they hover to a halt, focus all their attention on the landing zone, and proceed with their programming to eliminate all visible hostiles before proceeding. The snow explodes into a steamy hellhole as a veritable wall of laser fire strafes the are with no significant accuracy, vapourizing chunks of frozen earth and concrete as glowing blue lines scatter all over like falling raindrops, going for sheer volume of fire rather than precision.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
"I've flown through worse. Taking off now, I'll return once I've unloaded this set." states the Skyranger pilot as he closes the hatch and guns the engines. For a flying brick, the large craft is pretty agile, and surges away quickly, before that laser fire comes in. "Sheisten! Sledge, Nova!" the MECs nod, then head out to the approaching mob. The SHIVs follow after, barrels spinning up as they start selecting targets. "Kotone, prioritize targets for the SHIVs, remember they have a Suppression Mode, use it if they start breaking through!" she calls, dropping to a knee right there in the landing pad, unslinging her rifle. "Scotch, get in the facility, prep the next group for evac, and find out if they have ANYTHING we can use! Hell, I'd take some fuel barrels to throw for explosives!"

She shoulders the stock, sights down the scope, and unleashes a glowing red Bolt-type round aimed for one of the Laser drones, that big sensor 'eye' making a pretty open target.

Rarity (136) has posed:
Well she came for the humanitary aid part of the request, so that's what she's going to do. Rarity wheels around and gallops towards the landing area again where the civilians are making a break for the aircraft. They're going to have to run across open ground and that is not going to do, not at all. Not when there's LASERS bucking everywhere.

Snow and ash plumes up briefly as she skids to a stop, facing towards the incoming invasion and the long range assaults. "Staren, if you're going to keep using your vehicle, now would be a really good time to get back in the air..." She spreads her hooves a little to brace herself, lowering her head as her horn starts to glow with her magic, concentrating.

A matching glow starts to ripple up from the ground around her, amplified by the powers given her by her Element. Then cracks split open in the ground and several crystalform structures rise out of the splitting ground as she draws it to the surface with her gemstone magics to form a sort of protective barrier to help shield the loading civilians from the lasers.

Staren has posed:
At the comment about explosions, Staren replies: "Kojima particles, right?" Then he's briefed on their attackers. "An /enemy/ transforming type? That's new..." He nods. "Hah! Drones won't stand up to me and my Star Hawk! Stand clear everybody!" He rebuckles himself in as the cockpit canopy closes... and this time, armored plating telescopes out over it. Staren's not getting shot in the cockpit again! But the drones are already here! "Oh no you don't!" The Star Hawk transforms to humanoid mode, raising its arms as Staren fires /everything. The weak but reliable 'homing beams' fire from concealed emitters on the legs, zooming in on the nearest drone as Staren slowly sweeps his right arm left to right, the gatling railgun spinning up and sweeping lines of fire across the enemy force.

Then the Star Hawk leaps, thrusters taking it up out of the dome as the FAST packs on the left arm and shoulder open, each firing a salvo of missiles that seek out the telltale points of light.

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
Well, it's a cinch there's nothing Jono can do about the long-range craft. A motorcycle is still a ground-based vehicle, and couldn't do much to help him against the airborne menaces. However, the others that ARE approaching... that's another question. With the others scrambling to their places-- and not a one of them having said anything about where they needed him-- Jono instead gets where he should be able to hit the enemies that are approaching. Tilting his head back, he emits a blast at the first one he can concievably hit. It's not fire, it doesn't burn. It's more just kinetic force. A LOT of kinetic force.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets the idea of how crowded things are going to be. She understands such. SO she's alreay looking for other ideas and things they can make use of it seems they are going to have to do some line holding from the looks of it. She hears about the number of drones they may have to deal with? This is going to get pretty nuts. She sees that the forces is slowing down a bit.

<half of the enemy forces are slowing down while the other half is picking up speeds also I'm getting energy spikes as well I'll keep looking into it.>

White Glint (322) has posed:
Crystals choose to be a good choice of laser defense. Unlike where the curtains of cyan blue light tear up the metal and asphalt all around until it shatters and melts, the beams partially defracting through Rarity's barrier disperse most of their energy inside of it rather than concentrating it on the surface, leaving only shallow craters. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of fire means the material starts to heat up very quickly; cracks spiderwebbing between impact points. It at least appears safe enough for the time being to the next, larger wave of noncombatants to evacuate, mostly bottom rung workers this time, unlikely to have space reserved for them in a protective bunker. They certainly don't look happy, but they wait patiently for the dropship to return, muttering amongst themselves in an effort to keep calm. 'Scotch' finds a small mob on the opposite side of the main doors, comprised almost entirely of men in outdoors work wear, save a handful of people who may or may not be scientists. The dropship may be able to get both groups in two runs if Big Sky really wants to test the weight limit, but it's more than clear that these people are considered expendable if the facility doesn't have a large enough combat shelter to house them

Outdoors, the hail of lasers makes it dificult to find an opening to fire unless one has the benefit of significant armour. Elise popping off shots with her own weapon works perfectly well, seeing as the drones had halted at the ideal range to use light based weapons. Though the optical emitter seems to be the source of their firepower, sending a red wavelength bolt through something focused for the blue spectrum from the opposite end completely fries the delicate innards of the machine, sending drones left and right listing out of position with scorched, smoking sensors, when they don't simply crash and burn. Jonothon more or less escapes unscathed with the bulk of the enemy forces focusing on the source of return fire instead of him. There are plenty of stairs for maintenance personnel to get to the top of one of those towers, after which he is only a stone's throw from the drone's flight level. The portion of them still moving forward are the disk shaped ones, propelled by conventional rocket boosters. Almost immediately, his first blast trashes the one furthest in the lead, smashing the fragile and cheaply produced engine and sending it downwards as a flaming wreck. The others behind it, proceed over its smouldering skeleton without pause. Only a handful stop to steady themselves and return fire on him. The air is suddenly filled with the percussive staccato of gunfire, bursts of high calibur bullets rattling the tower frame all around him; shredding through the walkway in short order.

Staren seems best suited for a mass aerial engagement, as the laser weaponry scorching the Star Hawk's armour hasn't simply riddled him with holes just yet. Unfortunately, the signature of his engine winding up attracts a lot of attention from the Amon-S types, suddenly redirecting the bulk of their fire from the landing pad defended by XCOM, towards his craft as it takes off. The homing lasers are relatively ineffective against the exteriors of the spherical drones, but the closer targets are the bulkier, ballistic ones, which seem to be punctured just fine by the energy beams; even going so far as to explode spectacularly as their fuel and ammunition cooks off from the heat. The long ranged shooters however, seem to be much more vulnerable to kinetic penetrators. The railgun rounds completely shatter them, breaking them to pieces with a single hit. As he fires the missile battery however, the enemy gun line suddenly begins to shift; individual drones sliding horizontally in mid-air, breaking apart in a strange, hovering strafe pattern that causes the majority of them to miss at the last second.

As for Kotone, the facilities are sadly fairly barren. Unless she feels like causing a huge fireball by blowing up a fuel platform, she's limited to the handful of military aircraft

White Glint (322) has posed:
she's limited to the handful of military aircraft still left on other landing pads where the snow is starting to pile up, likely still in working condition if they were abandoned that recently, but what use they'll be of is questionable.

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
Oh good, towers and stairs! This means Jono's not going to be totally useless here. Once he notices them, he'll quickly take to them to try to get in a more effective range. He's effective, all right... enough that they start shooting at him. Staying in the one tower is kind of stupid, especially when they're shredding his only way out. But getting down is going to be a chore, especially with the being shot up. So instead he does something rather stupid. He jumps off the tower, hoping to land on one of the drones that are shooting at him. He might be able to temporarily ride on the drone, until one of the others shoots it. But then again, that's kind of the idea, to get between them so they'll shoot each other.

Rarity (136) has posed:
The magical crystals are already showing damage as the heat intensity splits spiderline cracks in their structure, but they're holding for the moment. Fortunately the way they're slowly weakening they're more likely to just fall apart into dust eventually, sparing anyone using them for shelter from shrapnel when they do finally fail.

It'll hold long enough for Rarity to divert her attention elsewhere. Like the actual invasion. "By the stars, if they were going to try and wipe out an entire area, they could of at least sent a force that doesn't look so -bland-." That's her observation for the night. "And so many guns. There -is- such a thing as over-accessorizing, you know." Though while she's commenting she's using her magic scarf like a grapple to get up to a convent position on one of the facility's structures.

Once there she pulls out her magic bow, Crystal Stitcher. It hovers in front of her in her magic as she draws back the line, an arrow manifesting in it once taunt. She takes aim at one of the groups of drones. Aim.. breath.. and release!

The arrow arcs upward a bit when fired towards the drones, then magically splits into a shower of slightly smaller arrows with sharpened gemstone arrowheads to bombard down on the constructs.

Staren has posed:
Things start off well enough. Staren's attacking drones, they're shooting the field... but when he takes off, things get worse. Lasers, so many lasers! Staren holds up the beam shield on the left arm to block a lot of the followup shots -- for now, the lasers that scorched his armor aren't much to worry about /yet/. He's in a giant mechanical war machine for a reason. Still, if they were able to focus-fire him and shoot around the beam shield, with this many... he could be in trouble fast.

So, Staren had better start thinning their numbers! Noting the effectiveness of his weapons, he makes a decision: "I'm gonna go after the backup ones! You guys handle the close-in ones!" Still, after saying that, he fires the lasers one more time, then transforms back to hybrid mode and boosts past the front line, manifesting a beam saber and slashing another on the way through. "Alright, squid-things! You're up!" He starts sweeping the railgun across the back line, until he has enough missile locks -- another two salvos of missiles fire, dozens of little projectiles zooming off this way and that leaving spidery smoke trails.

White Glint (322) has posed:
Jumping on top of a drone is pretty stupid, but to be fair, the ones Jon are tangling with have wide, flat, circular surfaces on which to balance. He could stand up on it if he wanted. His impromptu platform barely wobbles as he jumps on top from the amount of thrust it's putting out to stay airborne, but the others around it make their own movements, rapidly skirting around his field of vision to surround him from all sides, aiming from above and below to calculate an optimal firing volume before simply letting rip. Meant to be exceptionally cheap and disposable, they don't seem to be programmed with allied preservation in mind, because as Jon's platform tries to move out of the firing zone, more than a few of the bullets slash into the surrounding drones just as he had predicted. Stray shots puncture thrusters and jam ammo belts, while those who recieve a more thorough blasting drop from the sky like flies. The problem is, the one he is on top of recieves the most thorough blasting of all, falling to pieces out from under him as slugs rip through the air around him, and possibly into him.

How pretty Omer's attack force is doesn't seem to be top on the list of concerns. In fact, considering how much of a mess the Elites are making of them, it becomes gradually more and more clear just how insultingly little of a detachment they had sent to clena out this facility. Someone must have known that PA-N51 was staffed by noncombatants when they decided drones would be enough to do the job, fulling well planning to kill them. In any case, the unmanned weapons are armoured only just sufficiently to take small arms fire from ground forces, and so a hailstorm of piercing arrowheads far harder than their constituent metals more or less rips half a dozen of them to shreds. The snow is littered with broken pieces of machinery and flaming wrecks already, but the numbers of the enemy seem to be far greater than initially anticipated.

Staren's beam shield is reasonably effective against the fusillade of beam fire coming his way; leaving high energy trails streaming from the front of his craft as he accelerates. The S-types are apparently much more intelligent than the Aves however, because while Jonothon has them shooting each other, the ones Staren engages with seem to have learned from his first assault. This close in, many simply don't have the time to avoid imminent micromissile impacts, being blown to bits one after the other like firecrackers. Simply sweeping his railgun scythe-style yields much less effect than the last time however. The drones use those strange, tentacular thruster arrays in fluid pulses to juke out of the way, scattering their battle line so they don't present such a neat target. In fact, as he dives right into the fray, they seem to be actively surrounding him, giving the priority to his combat craft rather than the landing zone. Close range lasers begin to cut into the Star Hawk from all directions as the drones attempt to shoot where his shield isn't, aiming at no particular point on the craft, but trying to melt it through sheer numbers.

Thankfully, with those three distracting the drones so much, Big Sky is able to make the round trip with little in the way of incoming fire; only a few stray bullets dinging the dropshit here and there. The next wave of civilians crowds on so heavily that there is barely room to breathe inside, but the suppressive fire of the quartet of rapid-fire weapons coming from XCOM's special forces is enough to keep the leading edge of the Aves squad from proceeding much further. As a V formation however, the more they take down, the more build up behind them, and sooner rather than later, Elise's position is compromised by gunfire from above; the heavy rounds slamming into Rarity's crystal wall much more dangerously than the lasers had.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is keeping tabs on the information she's getting there's a lot of people to protect and she seems keen to help where she can here,. She keeps tabs on the drones and wonders about their load outs and just why this assault is happening. She missed the details on that and is more focused on combat support and making sure the civilians can get away in time.

Kotone goes quiet, now, why because she's trying to jack some of the abaonded aircraft or attempt to but this might take a bit and is risky for her.

Staren has posed:
Staren goes right for the squids... but their programming is more intelligent than he planned for. "Ah! You gotta be kidding me!" Staren shouts as warnings flash on his HUD. "It'll take more than that..." As he speeks, he's already in fighter mode and speeding away from the site faster than he hopes the drones can follow, throwing in some aerobatics to throw off their aim.

Still. Getting caught surrounded like that... if he messes up like that a couple more times, his big fancy warmachine might become so much slag.

Staren loops around, firing short bursts at a few of the distant light spheres instead of the sweeping lines of before. Staren fires another salvo or two at as many missile locks as he can get, but he's staying away now -- playing up the advantages of his machine's speedy aerospace fighter mode.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
Elise grunts, and dives out of the way as autocannons start smashing through the defensive cover. "They're breaking through!" she calls, bolting for a new cover position. The SHIVs and the MECs continue to shoot at the incoming Aves, selecting targets based on Kotone's direction, she can highlight targets in their HUDs. Scotch does her best to keep the workers calm... then starts asking what could be used as improvised weaponry, and if any of them have experience with the grounded planes, even if its mechanical or electronic.

Rarity (136) has posed:
The heavier artillery smashes into the crystal barricades, compounding the weakening damage done by the heat from the energy weapons. Rarity frowns as the structures start to fall apart.... but then her expression brightens again. "Ideeeeaaaa~"

The next barrage to pound into the crystal formations breaks their weakened structure apart instead of the simple breaking down the lasers were causing. Chunks tumble towards the landing area below...

And then stop, briefly floating mid-air as a shimmering glow surrounds the largest, most dangerous ones. Rarity is visibly straining using her magic to this compacity, but she manages to reorient the sharpest edges of the chunks upward, and then fling them back at the attacking drones.

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
That's sort of what he had planned. He didn't plan on taking several slugs in the torso! Fortunately for him his torso's mostly empty anyway, except for that fire, and the slugs don't affect it. It does, however, still HURT LIKE HELL! And these aren't exactly pistols, they're probably much higher caliber. Add into the equation his 'surfing' platform is getting shot out from under him, and you have a good recipe for falling off.

Thankfully the snow's piled so high, and he was over one of those large drifts when he fell off the drone. He's much lighter than a normal man his size would be, thanks to missing most of his body's internal organs. He's still falling from a great height though, and as he lands, the ashy, sooty snow flies up. There's no movement as he lands, and the snow begins to settle.

White Glint (322) has posed:
Amazingly, a short while after Kotone jacks into their onboard computers with her cyberbrain, a group of abandoned aircraft actually manage to take off using their automatic piloting systems. Helicopter blades whirr up to a steady, chopping thrum as one by one the military gunships begin to lift into the air, stabilizing at a height well above the drones, before tracking them with their thermal cameras and starting to unload autocannon and rocket fire into them. There aren't many, but the firepower they command is still enough to shoot down an entire wave of drones before they begin to focus back on them. Weaving back and forth has some effect, but already the choppers begin to take significant damage, clearly not designed for a straight up firefight.

Staren is lucky enough to be far faster than the Amon-S design, meant more for hovering and stabilization than chase and pursuit. Lasers move at the speed of light of course, but their targeting software has difficulty keeping up with him as his craft changes course too fast and erractically to properly adjust for. The sky is a rave-tastic lightshow up above the rest of the battle as the Star Hawk and drone mass shoot back and forth at each other, interspersed with little pops of light as the unmanned weapons explode in the distance.

The workers aren't nearly as tactically minded as Elise. All they can seem to think of is taking one of the two jets off the runway and ramming it into a group of drones before setting off all that aircraft fuel. It's not exactly a great plan, but they're technicians, not strategists. As tough as the mechanized XCOM squadron is however, even with the front waves eliminated, the main mass of Aves drones is upon them, and the amount of chattering machinegun fire makes it dangerous for even a MEC trooper to stay out in the open. Even worse, as Staren pulls away, some of that laser fire starts coming back, strobing back and forth across the snow as the aim corrections slowly zero in on the SHIVs.

With the crystal barricade down, the remaining civilians are left scrambling for the dropship, but the tradeoff seems to be worth it for the moment as the jagged pieces go hurtling through the less maneuverable wedge of Aves types, taking down improbably large numbers and knocking even more of them out of shooting position, momentarily letting up on the number of bullets pouring into the landing zone, already resembling a moonscape. Jonothon is spared a crystal boulder to the face by his timely descent from up above. The holes punched in him would be explosively gruesome if his chest was actually packed full of squishy bits, but seeing as they'd been hardened penetrators, the damage is really restricted to just that. Holes. A contingent of his buddies detach from the main group to swoop down in around where he fell, randomly probing the snow drifts with bursts of fire to try and ferret him out.

Rarity (136) has posed:
Rarity puts a hoof to her forehead for a moment, much akin to someone rubbing down a migrane. "Remind me not to do that often..." That was pretty taxing, better lay off the magic for a bit. But then what else can she do to help? Erecting more barriers would just keep them back for only so long. There has to be something else she can do to give the people some protection.

What was it her father said once? Something about sometimes the best defense is a good offense.... granted he was talking about hoofball plays. But wait. Maybe that can be applied here...

Hopping down to the snowy ground, Rarity reachs into the depths of her cloak and pulls out....

A hair dryer? Sure, it's a large portable one, but what is she going to do with that? These things don't even have hair.

But it's not for them. Instead she points it at the ground and fires it up, sending plumes of ash and now melting into water and steam snow into the air in an attempt to obscure whatever means those drones are trying to use to see where they're going.

Staren has posed:
Staren has found a strategy that works. Why stop? With most of the shots missing him, he can hold out a lot longer. Normally, his supply of missiles would be an issue, but today... after the effectiveness of his missiles in his WMAT fight, he swapped out two of his lesser-used weapons for two additional missile packs.

Lucky break for Staren, it seems!

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
There really doesn't seem to be any movement where Jono fell. His fall from so high up meant that he ended up pretty much buried. Good cover. Which gives him the time he needs to recover. See, while he didn't have any internal organs to get hit, it's still a rather painful shock to be shot with presumably high-caliber rounds from what may or may not be similar to a minigun. So there's a few minutes that he just sort of... lays there, eyes open, doing a pretty good impression of a corpse. His fire's still burning, but it's very low. If he wasn't covered up by the snow, the beginnings of his no-mouth could even be seen.

Eventually though, he gets himself together. And as he starts to move again, his fire burns a little brighter. Possibly bright enough to see just barely under the dark snow. He doesn't give off heat, and life-sensors fail against him, so light is the only way to know where he is. Thankfully the caliber of the weapons was high enough that they didn't stay in his body. Still broke a few ribs. Mercifully missed his spine though.

He has a few more pressing concerns however. Such as the contingent of drones after him. Once he makes his reappearance, he's sure the drones will get after him again. He'll wait 'till they're close enough to hit, but not close enough that he gets hit by those guns again...

The drones' sensors have a split-second to realize his glow has gotten brighter, and the fire has sparked to life, before he aims a MASSIVE blast of his psionic fire into the air at the drones.

White Glint (322) has posed:
Were it not for the fact that Staren is tying up the more advanced drones, Rarity's strategy might have met with more limited success from their thermal sensors. The Aves types however, rely entirely on visual and radar confirmation, and so as the cloud of ash and steam goes up, the gunfire goes all over the place, aiming for vaguely human shapes that appear by total coincidence in the shifting, smokey mist. This leaves XCOM able to act with total impunity, gunning down the last, largest wave with help from their S.C.O.P.Es.

With the last group of civilians is long gone, the main force seems to be dwindling slowly but surely. Emptying his missile banks leaves Staren with far fewer contenders for air space, lessening the laser fire on him which allows him to take better shooting positions in turn, starting a destructive cycle for the gradually vanishing Amon types. Once they go past a certain critical mass however, the remaining units freeze in mid-air as their optics turn bright red; issuing a series of horrible, electronic shrieks, before their tentacles flip towards their front side and twist together like drills. One after the other, they purge their thrusters in a single, explosive boost; rocketing themselves forward at the Star Hawk like guided missiles. The first one narrowly misses him, overloading its battery and exploding spectacularly in midair. Then in twos and threes, the rest of the wave proceeds; staggering their suicide attack protocol to maximize their chances of hitting him.

Meanwhile, Jonothon is in the perfect position for a surprise attack. The gunfire all around him is unnerving, but misaimed. He can hear the high caliber rounds thudding into the snow, splintering the concrete, and shattering windows here and there, but none of the drones can find him in his buried position. The moment he springs up, they swivel around all at once, aiming their weapons as they draw lock-on. It's just too slow. The next instant, the entire contingent goes up in psionic flames as a roaring pillar of incandescent fury sweeps them away in a current of destruction; peeling their chassis apart and blowing their innards out in a fountain of shrapnel. The beam goes so far as to take out a significant chunk of the diminishing aerial force as well. The remaining drones are practically cleanup by now.

Rarity (136) has posed:
The number of drones is dwindling and the civilians are out of the way. This means Rarity can divert her attention to other important tasks now that the fire fight is thinning out. She runs back to where the remaining XCOMS are holding their position, producing magic bandages and other aids from her cloak to tend to their injuries while the others finish off the drone brigades.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets the old machines coming back to life, she moves to send them after the drones wivh what payload they have, it's enough to help slow the tide and she can use them as utterly disposable units if she needs to. She knows things are not going to last long but she does attempt to keep the drones she's jacked going as long as she can. The longer she cna buy time the better right?

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
Jono shakes his fist at the falling drones. "That's what yer get for ruinin' me good coat, yer wankers!" he 'yells', rather rudely. 'Yell' being slightly inaccurate, since his speech is telepathic. Also means that the drones probably didn't hear him. And unless any data collection the drones might have is able to pick up telepathic speech, no one on the end of whoever sent them is going to hear it.

There is, however, a more important problem. Those disk shaped drones are the perfect size to glide down in a very graceful descent. Graceful, perhaps... unless you're standing where one's about to fall. Which Jono realizes he is when one of the drones is about ten feet away from him. "OH BALLS!" He leaps to one side, ending up facedown in a snowdrift, barely missing being a crashlanding site for the drone.

Staren has posed:
"Red eyes? Whatever that means, I don't think so!" Staren starts shooting at the drones with the railgun again...

And then THEY COME FOR HIM. After the first one whizzes by and explodes, he sees where this is going. "Aww, f*ck no." The Star Hawk flies up. As in straight up. He can go to /space/. How high can the drones fly? "Go go go go goooo! You can't catch me! Ahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!"

Still, Staren can't turn on a dime, not without losing speed. While he's flying diagonally up they have a shot. He dodges, subtle rolls causing his fighter to zoom to one side or the other. But they're getting closer. *BOOM* That one was almost too close... *BOOM!* his fighter shakes around him as it's knocked slightly to the side, and Staren struggles to maintain control as another drone zooms up to him...

And then the drones fall behind. He's supersonic -- they're not. That settles it.

Ahh, it is /good/ to be in the cockpit again, fighting a battle with fifty tons of steel*, circuits and high-tech weapons systems under his control. This is how you fight. Much better than being down there on the field...

* - Actually, mega-damage capacity alloys.

White Glint (322) has posed:
The last of the Amon types explode harmlessly in the distance behind Staren as his supersonic ascent climbs him just out of reach, rattling shrapnel all over the Star Hawk's hull, but leaving him safely out of the range of the high explosive. Chase him as they might, burning fuel at that rate leaves them with a very limited distance over which they can charge, so the much larger vehicle wins out simply in terms of capacity. With the laser fire over with, XCOM is left more or less cleaning up shop, shooting down the last of the Aves as the roar of guns descends to infrequent snaps and pops, only broken up by the sound of one of the hijacked helicopters crashing.

It isn't long before, finally, the last slug is thrown, and the last piece of metal thumps to earth, leaving the snowy wastes in almost total silence, save for the subtle burning of fuel fires. There isn't a spot all around that isn't either marred by a bullet hole or covered in jagged metal, but the quiet is a welcome change, even as the snow already begins to cover the wrecks that were shot down early in the battle. The kind of reverent silence is finally broken by the radio operator, speaking in hushed tones of awe. "You . . . actually did it! All those drones . . . I just . . . wow. Wow."

Rarity (136) has posed:
Rarity fluffs a hoof through her mane. "It is kind of what we do, dahling." Pause. Then turns to peer imploringly in the direction of Staren's mech. "Now can we please go someplace warmer? I do believe frost bite is bad enough on its own, I would rather not risk my likelihood with -radioactive- frost bite."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa will recall cany drones she had that might have surived the fightinging, they could be salvaged or otherwise put to other uses, thankfully it seems that things are over at this popint. One way or another, she relaxes now and slumps back in the sky ranger a bit letitng her self breath again now.

Jonothon Starsmore (27) has posed:
Jono picks then to make his reappearance, having had to dig himself out of the snow again. The guy on the radio speaks up as Jono's getting himself out of the snow, and it catches his attention. "Everyone all right?" he asks over the radio. Not just the others on-scene, either. "Any 'o the civilians get hurt?" he inquires.

Staren has posed:
"YEAH! Hahahaaa..." Staren chuckles to himself as his superior technology leaves the drones in the dust. Sometimes... sometimes it's nice, to not be worrying about a mysterious assassin, or trying to figure out /how/ to save a world, or trying to figure out some world's stupid politics... Sometimes, you can just go in, blow up some bad guys, and go home feeling good about yourself afterwards. That makes today a good day. Later, he'll be trying to repair the biggest and most complex machine he owns... but right now, he thinks to himself as he levels out and looks down at the clouds below... right now, he can bask in the victory.

<Yeah. Yeah we did.> he replies to the radio operator. <That's what we do.> he smiles. Then he takes a deep breath, gazes out at the horizon for a few seconds... and dives back down.

He comes in for a landing to pick up Rarity. The machine is scorched all over, and crisscrossed with etched lines where the lasers melted away armor. "Yeah. Let's go home. To our respective homes I mean. You to your home and me to my home. I mean. Unless you want to visit. You can if you want, that's fine. I have friends over all the time. Well, no, not really actually. But I could! I mean... not that I don't have friends, you know I do, I just... don't have people over often. Is that normal?"

He holds his hand to his visor. "Or I could stop talking. Oh! Are you alright? That is what I should have said."

White Glint (322) has posed:
"We're all fine. Somehow." Responds the operator. "I didn't see Big Sky get shot down, so I assume everyone who got out early is safe. We suffered some damage from stray fire, but nothing blew up, so that's a big plus. We can probably fix this in a week or so. Don't sweat it!" He stops for a moment, suddenly remembering something. "Oh right! We're authorized to pay out your reward on-site! Forward me your account info and I'll be depositing it directly. There's a bonus for no significant damage to the facility as well! Lucky you!"