This is a Project Warfighter thread.
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"It is because I fully understand their purpose, Commander, that I fear them, as you should too."
Rebellious Citadel
Check herefor more info.
"It is because I fully understand their purpose, Commander, that I fear them, as you should too."
Rebellious Citadel
Undisclosed location over the ocean, 0132 hours:
The inside of the aircraft briefly shone with white light as a spear of lightning sliced down through the clouds, its peal of thunder vanishing into the roar of the storm’s wind and the V-22’s engines.
“Overwhelming Silence, this is Manta One.” said the pilot “Requesting permission to land.”
“Granted, Manta One.” said the radio. “Illuminating the approach.”
“Manta One sees seven of eight guide beacons.” said Nexus “Pilot, clear me to begin the approach.”
“Nexus, you are cleared to go approach through securing.” said the pilot. “Bring us in.”
Inside the V-22, Leighton felt the turbulence of the storm melt away as Nexus took full control of the aircraft. Under his careful watch, the aircraft dipped and rolled in perfect opposition to the dancing pockets of air pressure, steady as a pillar of rock in the midst of the tossing wind.
This would, of course, take its toll on the airframe.
The mission objective was worth far more than a couple years off the service life of two V-tols, though, and as another bolt of lightning shot down to the sea Leighton glimpsed the behemoth ahead of them. Overwhelming Silence was the second smallest MAAPS to date, and it still dwarfed their aircraft, or, for that matter, it dwarfed most buildings. Its envelope rippled in the wind as water cascaded off the smooth ellipse of the airship, then the light faded and it vanished back into the dark clouds.
They were less than a hundred meters out now, and Leighton leaned back and closed his eyes. He’d conquered whatever fear of heights and flying he might have back when he first trained to work the hangar bay aboard Fortress, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a bit anxious when he was in an aircraft performing a mid air docking in a storm, among other reasons for anxiety. The entire Congreveopian squad had been a bit visibly on edge through the flight, actually, talking occasionally about the mission, but almost never chatting as they usually did.
Nexus, unchangingly calm as ever, gently landed Manta One in the cargo bay, then Manta Two a few seconds later. Crewmembers dashed forwards and secured the V-22s in the dim blue stealth lighting of the open bay. Behind them, the landing bay doors rotated closed with the sound of heavy hydraulic bolts sliding into place, then the lights came up as the bay crew, soaking wet from the torrents of rain that must have blown in, began inspecting their work and checking they hadn’t missed anything.
“You can go ahead and disembark now.” said the pilot, opening the rear ramp. Leighton unfastened his seatbelt and disembarked, followed by the rest of the troops aboard. As Leighton stepped onto the metal floor of the bay, a door in the wall opened and a large humanoid robot walked out, mostly composed of black metal and lacking any distinctive face on its continuously-rotating head. Leighton had seen these before, but not often. Most high-ranking officers prefered Nexus’s diplomatic avatars for their much friendlier design. The military aide avatar was really only seen on the flagships of Congreveopia’s fleets at sea and, more recently, the latest MAAPS.
“Hello. I am Nexus.” said the robot, stopping in front of the assembled soldiers from the V-22s and turning towards them “I will be briefing you on your mission as the Captain is busy tending to the hunt for our prey. If you will follow me.”
Nexus led the group to the Mess at the rear of the ship, where a picture of Vindication was displayed on the projector. He then waited for everyone to finish finding seats or places to stand and addressed the group.
“Several hours ago, a concerted effort was made by unknown forces to jam the communications of the Congreveopian MAAPS named 'Vindication', and that of its surrounding base.” said Nexus “This was shortly following a feigned attack on the base that, in accordance with new protocols published after the loss of Benevolence, induced the MAAPS to make an emergency takeoff from the base with the majority of its personnel groundside. Immediately following the jamming, one or more groups of hostile forces aboard the MAAPS proceeded to commandeer the airship. For national security reasons, the exact means by which they did this will not be released, but what analysis can be made of the limited reports indicates between twenty and forty attackers, and almost certainly not upwards of fifty.”
“So this is where we come in.” said Nexus as the image on the board switched to the flightpath of Vindication following its capture “Command is reluctant to order the termination of the MAAPS, given that the fleet is already stretched thin with the loss of Benevolence, and it appears that our enemy is willing to oblige us, to a certain degree. They are holding the crew, mostly technical personnel and not soldiers, in the cargo bay and demanding that we allow them into Congreveopian airspace or they will kill everyone. Given the damage that a fully combat-operational MAAPS could do to any of our coastal cities, the air force has been placed on alert and will destroy Vindication if it approaches the coast.”
“To approach the coast, though, they will have to go through us.” said Nexus as the map zoomed in on the storm system they were currently in “The hostile force moved Vindication into this storm system to prevent our reconnaissance satellites tracking them, and, since then, we have diverted a large portion of our entire satellite network to watching the storm’s perimeter to ensure they don’t slip out unnoticed. Fortunately, in addition to vastly complicating our efforts to track the MAAPS, this storm serves to limit their pace as well as provide good cover for our approach.”
“As you may or may not know,” continued Nexus “Overwhelming Silence is designed to be a stealth MAAPS. I would have an accompanying picture for this, but, believe it or not, exterior photos of this thing are actually classified. Anyways, we pulled it off its final sky trails to intercept Vindication and facilitate your operation to board and retake it. Overwhelming Silence does not have its full weapons package yet, nor do most of the weapons it has currently have ammo. Furthermore, even if they did, we would still be significantly outgunned by Vindication, and as such we will not be engaging in a level confrontation with them. If all else fails, that’s Cloistered Guardian’s job. What we will be doing is finding Vindication and deploying you to board it, then supporting your extraction once you retake control of the airship.”
The image behind Nexus switched to a map of Vindication’s interior as he continued his briefing.
“Now, a couple details before the actual mission plan.” said Nexus “We believe they may attempt to jam communications again. You are all welcome to use your own comms, of course, but we will also be providing all of you with a Congreveopian earpiece and accompanying black rectangle, just in case. They’re in those boxes over there. The earpiece goes in your ear. The black rectangle goes in your pocket, backpack, under your toupee, wherever. Just keep it within two meters of the earpiece. I’ll be managing who’s talking to whom over those, and you’ll hear exactly as much chatter as you need to and nothing more. The entire system is waterproof, has six hours of battery life, is rated for temperatures from Antarctica to Death Valley, etcetera. Needless to say that Leighton’s team is exempt from this. I already own their comms.”
“Secondly, do not underestimate how the MAAPS itself will dynamically alter the combat environment.” said Nexus “Once they realize they are being boarded, the bridge will lock all the doors, and you won’t get through most of them without explosives. That’s why one of the first things to do will be give control of the MAAPS back to me, which is hopefully as easy as turning a bunch of computers back on. I’m hard to wipe from systems.”
“Thirdly, I… wait one.” said Nexus, turning away from the assembled soldiers.
“New information from the bridge.” said Nexus “We’ve spotted Vindication several miles to windward of here. They probably haven’t spotted us yet, but we need to move now. Grab your earpieces and black rectangles and report back to your V-TOLs. I’ll give an abbreviated version of the rest of the briefing over the earpieces while you’re in flight.”
