USCMRPG

"Oh, Fun." Booth muttered as he heard, and felt, the tree start to shake and fall his way. His brain might have processed the alternatives between a large movement and drawing more turret fire, and a small one, leading to a potential 'boot-bug' moment.

"Dodge, bitch" He muttered under his breath as he leaped, behind foliage, to another source of cover.

<Roll Dodge/Athletics?> He was testing the patience of the divine with each leap, but if he could draw the fire from the rookie, he might make it. He was already limbered up from his sprints to deliver fresh supplies to Morse and Quinn... he wondered if it had been all that running that had triggered the sentries.

He felt his foot hit the ground, behind another tree, that had grown between rocks, and another thought occurred to him. Weren't there mines around here? He looked down at his feet, fearful for what he'd find.

<Roll awareness.>

Mark instantly recognized the precisely timed bursts of sentry turrets as the opened up on the Marines. His familiarity with them also meant he knew all too well what kind of damage they could have on the platoon if left to run unchecked. More than the rest of the platoon, however, he realized he might just have the ability to do something about it. Ducking lower behind the thick, fallen tree that protected him from any of the insurgents, he pulled out the USCM field computer and got to work.

Back before deployment, there had been a lot of talk of missing USCM materials – that made it extremely likely that these were USCM sentry turrets. Unless someone on their side had gone through USCM tech training, however, they were probably still using the regular deployment controls, known affectionately among in tech school as the PHD (Push Here Dummy) settings. That meant there was a chance he could get them to accept his remote system configuration initialization. Which would at least give him the chance to turn them off, if not gain control over them.

<Roll: Security Systems>

Samantha's New Kingston accent was coming back thicker and thicker as her frustration level grew exponentially as the sound of Sentry Gun fire cut through the forest. "Ach mon; what else gon go wrong now?" she sighed to no one in particular.

Shaking her head to snap back to the here and now; she responds to Boothe's message with; "Keep low and stay in cover Sal; we'll do what we can to assist." Turning to the rest of her squad she saw Mark breaking out his computer and nodded her head, not knowing exactly what he was doing, but figuring it was to somehow turn off/alter the Sentry guns via remote-control. That left Roberts; "Eric; keep an eye and ear out for the Rebels....the last thing I want is for them to move into ambush position while we're all trying to deal with these damn robot guns."

Flicking over to the platoon wide channel, she calls out; "Does anyone have a range/bearing on either the Sentry Guns or any of the enemy? If so; please feed that info to all of us. I'm gonna try to damage/alter the Sentry Guns with some fire and a grenade. Everyone keep low". With that; she will take a deep breath and hold it; then take aim for where she sees/hears the Sentry gun fire coming from and fires a burst from her Pulse Rifle; then shifts the Rifle to a 45 degree angle and fires a grenade. After that, she'll drop low behind cover.

<Tag Boothe, Roberts>
<Tag Everyone>

Aim for 1 action, Fire Burst, aim for 3 actions, Fire Grenade Launcher

Bell shivered and stared blankly. Getting shot at sucked. Getting shot at with .50 cal sucked large sweaty balls.

He shrunk behind in his cover, too terrified to try moving in any meaningful way.

maxvale76 wrote:That left Roberts; "Eric; keep an eye and ear out for the Rebels....the last thing I want is for them to move into ambush position while we're all trying to deal with these damn robot guns."

"Copy that, Ma'am," Roberts said. He went prone, the Smartgun harness digging into his side. He peered through holes in the bushes and scanned the area. He also turned over so he could scan the trees behind them and make sure nobody was sneaking up on them.

(Lay down for 1, awareness for 5.)

"Ha, ha!" Mark exclaimed as his computer successfully latched the first of the insurgent's sentry turrets into his defense network. He quickly punched in the network override to shut down the manual input. It was originally designed to keep board garrison marines from messing with the equipment, but now it would keep the enemy's hands off. Then it was just a quick matter of replacing the IFF the insurgents were using with the ones the Eights were on…

Down in below, two of the turrets stopped firing, swiveling in their small arcs as though looking for targets. A half second later they started swinging around in a wider circled before training on the closest of the insurgents. They opened fire again in short, controlled bursts, seeking the systematic elimination of their new enemy.

"Bastards kept the factory setting; two of those Turrets are on our side now! Teach them to mess with Marines"

< 1. Lock out Manual Controls >
< 2. Replace Insurgent IFF with Marine IFF >
< 3. Set ammo conservation on. >
< 4. Set engagement arc to 360 >
< Roll: Security Systems for additional turrets >
(Based on PM)

Quicksilver wrote:"Bastards kept the factory setting; two of those Turrets are on our side now! Teach them to mess with Marines"

Eric held in a shout of triumph to avoid giving away their position. He just looked at Mark and grinned, doing a thumbs up motion.

<Tag Giosso>

maxvale76 wrote:"Does anyone have a range/bearing on either the Sentry Guns or any of the enemy? If so; please feed that info to all o. us. I'm gonna try to damage/alter the Sentry Guns with some fire and a grenade. Everyone keep low".

MacGreggor set the last "party favor" next to him and took up his sniper rifle and peered down the scope as he slowly panned the view finder over the battle in progress. The foliage was thick enough to block the sight of an enemy against most but the practiced eye of a determined sniper with targeting sensor at the end of his scope. He was calmly looking for the computer controller for the sentry guns to put a large hole through it or venting the head of the rebel using their own tech against them. He clicked over to 3rd squad's channel,

"Ain't no doubt in me head someone set the Eights up for a fall. Those guns are and the mines placed right where we be walk-in' into. Relay the eggheads I am painting targets with my rifle, use at their discretionary and give the bastards what for."

<roll perception>
<tag Tech guys>

As Morse’s vision went from hazy to clear while he coped with everything that was going, he tried to take a moment and actually get some clarity on what had happened, and what was going on in the present.

He could see the squad taking strictly defensive positioning. He did see anyone firing and he could not feel any of the force from anyone’s weapons. That was not usual and Morse was not particularly pleased with that.

Morse wanted retribution, immediately. While he frequently suggested leaving and bombarding everything from the air, this time he definitively felt like that was the best option for them. But knowing that was not going to be chosen, as it never was, Morse wanted to know how his satisfaction would be had.

”Fuck aint no one shootin’.” Morse grumbled, as his mouth filled up with spit and mucus. He gave a long hack from within his throat and balled it all up, spitting the gob to the dirt beside him. ”Why aint no one fuckin’ shootin’!” Morse demanded, not sure of what was even out there, if anything.

In his head they were in a bad situation, and while he did not know if there were other casualties, he knew that they needed to be playing far more aggressively then they were.

”Someone start killin’ somethin’!” Morse yelled ”Burn this fuckin’ rock!”

It was a fairly incoherent ramble, and not entirely appropriate for the situation, but Morse did not understand it, and didn’t care. He just knew his leg was gone and he was completely out of commission here because of it, and he wanted to do the same for every Colonist defender on that planet.

< Tag Anyone

Upon hearing his squad leaders urging to action Bell felt a deep seething rage build up in his gut. They had been blown up, shot at and offered surrender. All he had managed to shoot a few rounds into the bushline, creep around some and draw automated fire. He wanted to lash out and get rid of the nauseating feeling of powerlessness.

He gritted himself, turned unto his belly, refreshed his magazine, and crawled his way forward be able to observe people trying to flank them or their newly acquired sentry guns.

"Bell, trying to get eyes on"

-Roll Scouting or whatever is appropriate.

Dirk listened with satisfaction as Mark gained control of the enemies' two sentry guns and ordered them to open fire. The resourcefulness of a Marine was always amazing. Moving slowly away from his unit Dirk figured he had a play now that could get toe situation under control, or at least get the enemy moving.

Switching his comm to the command frequency he spoke in a low tone so as not to be heard by anyone not on the net. " Lt. Colonel McGehee, this is Cpl Pitt. We have made contact with enemy forces. One man down due to mine field. We are holding our position. Request close air support and a orbital bombardment if the air support is ineffective. We are danger close, I say again we are danger close. Out."
<Tag Lt. Colonel McGehee>

Then Dirk turned to the enemy position. Keeping his head down he yelled to them. "This is Sargent.. Corporal Pitt Colonial Marines. At this moment our ship is in orbit above this position. On my order they will begin an orbital bombardment of your position. If I fail to check in within two minutes the bombardment will begin. I will order the bombardment in two minutes unless I receive your total and unconditional surrender. You have two minutes from now."
<Tag Enemy forces>

The only sound to greet Dirk's ears is silence. The enemy does not respond with bullets or words.

<Tag The Eights>

The enemy not accepting his terms wasn't what made Dirk concerned, it was the silence. "I want motion trackers on line now. Talk to me people." Dirk said looking around.
<Tag everyone>

Booth wasn't dead, that was good. The guns weren't shooting at him anymore, that was GREAT. The radio silence was, however, something creepy as hell. There wasn't any more gunfire and that was really worrisome.

"Fuuuuck." Sal said as he looked back at the marine with him, Bell? Yeah, probably him. He looked back over the ground between them, nothing metal poking out of the grass, that was good. Time to group up again. "Bell," he whispered, as he quietly and carefully made his way back to the man. "Let's regroup."

<Tag Bell>

"Sam, regrouping on your last known." He tagged on the squad channel. "Don't shoot me, or Bell." He lead the man through the bush, eyes open for any wires or snares or mines.

<Roll awareness, ALL the awareness>

MacGreggor clicked his scope to thermal imaging and scanned the trees and overgrowth for any signs of the Rebel troops supposed to be there. As he panned his rifle about he was picking up the laid out explosive charges he'd assembled with his free hand, his strength giving him the grip to single hand his sniper rifle. All his senses were tuned outward for the slightest crack of a twig or crunch of someone moving through vegetation.

(Roll awareness)

He whispered into his mic headset to 3rd squad, "Anythin' movin' bout ain't one o' our boys. Do I have weapons free if'n me scope peeps a creeper on the move outside our perimeter. Ready to provide close cover for a retreat or an assault boss. Just say the word..."

(Tag Dirk)