Character: HK-36-1
Location: Ruins of Santaissa
Objective: Begin hunting FO officers and Force-Users
Allies: [member="Six-O"] (Somewhere in proximity and maintaining communication),
Enemies: [member="Jude Falkrowe"] and the Raven Squad
Equipment: Phrik Droid Body,
Anti-Force Vong Biot Suit, 2x
Electro-Cestus,
Spear of Rae,
Electro-Flail, HK's Training Lightsaber (
Sliver of Light), 2x
Magnetic Revolvers (Heavy),
Magnetic Repeater (Heavy),
Chameleon Cloak,
Sigil of Hope,
D.U.S.T.,
Anti-Force User Grenades,
Grappling Hook (Pistol Format), Photoreceptor
HypnoGaze attachment,
jetpack, simple wrappings for camouflage and concealment.
Forces: The Knight Of The Eclipse (
Dark Harvester Prize Stealth Transport) with a collection of
shattergun-miniguns,
bowcasters, and
blast-staves on board
This one will do.
HK thought through his cognitive processes as he scanned over Jude from the distance, watching him and his team move carefully through the ruins. The droid took his Magnetic Repeater rifle off of his back, placing it on a nearby ledge as he patiently kept his sentry, putting the flaps of chameleon cloak to drape over the barrel and scope and make sure the weapon was hidden while he aimed, at least most of it, the muzzle of the barrel still poked out from below the material but in a blizzard a small seemingly floating tube in a charred window was a rather hard thing to notice.
Speaking of the blizzard, it made the droid's aiming somewhat awkward, every time Jude and his troopers would disappear behind rubble, wall, or other sort of cover HK's vision would switch to heat automatically to keep track of their movement via thermal signatures. Problem is the snow and cold winds would sweep over it like tv static, making it a difficult process. While he could still generally tell where they were and where he would aim, any precise shots would be more or less impossible while they were behind a wall.
A whole squad, that is not good.
HK calculated to himself as he angled the rifle, subtly shifting it as he tracked Jude's movements to align it with aiming trajectory,
They should have brought more, a squad will not last long enough to consider it a fight.
While the droid aimed the rifle, he was still looking at Jude and his troops from the window, cloaked, the beauty of a droid using a computerized scope was that he did not had to actually look through it to aim, instead it was connected to his process wirelessly, freeing him up to keep track of his surroundings so that no one would flank him, and using his own photoreceptors and scanners along with the scope to triangulate Jude's position and movement so that he could judge the distance, wind, and other variables better and take the shot with more precision.
The crosshairs of the scope would follow the trajectory of Jude's knees, tracking it and waiting for an moment where he would be outside of cover, even for just a brief moment, there was no need for HK to make things harder on himself, besides, he wanted them to think they would be safe behind cover should the fight prolong itself. In actuality it was not his aim to kill Jude, or his soldiers, he was only there to disable and neutralize them, sure, that usually meant killing them, but if they gave up after having their kneecaps and joints blown away or bones broken enough, then all the better. In the end the droid knew they were following orders from higher ups, that's why during atrocities like for example the Siege of Druckenwell, when the Confederacy dropped the planet's orbital shipyard on its own citizens simply because they were going to loose it to the Protectorate, HK ordered his soldiers to arrest only officers, common soldiers were free to leave, even given a lift off of the ruined planet.
Either way, all he needed was the tiniest of openings, briefest of moments, to do what most organics were not able to do, at least not without using the Force. Finally he saw just that, a crack in the wall, ruined gap with a scar-like opening wide enough for him to sneak a bullet through, his trackers calculated that Jude was going to pass right next to it,
One shot,
HK calculated to himself as his finger begun to hover over the shatterrifle's trigger and the time slowed down in his perception, in his vision dotted lines extended out from Jude's legs, plotting his current course, another line was pulled from the muzzle through the crack, calculating trajectory of the hyper-velocity pellet and where it could connect with his target,
Two knees,
Lines appeared on the sides of the pellet's trajectory, calculating the variables that could alter its course like wind, gravity, any stray passerbys that thankfully were not present since the city was dead and the closest soldiers were tracked by HK as well as they were Jude's retinue. Finally slowly Jude's legs came into view as he was walking by the crack, first one knee came into view, the trajectory was already set up there to meet it, then the droid waited for the other to make an appearance as well, watching it slowly swing into the view like a pendulum, waiting for that one perfect moment where stars, and kneecaps, aligned for him to end the fight quickly in a swift ambush.
He pulled the trigger.
His rifle jolted into his arm silently as it let loose the pellet, recoil dampened by the droid's strong, trained grip, one of the benefits of the shatterguns were that they fired silently, after all magnets did not made noise, their pellets did travel many times over the speed of sound, which explained how such small projectiles caused so much damage, on multiple occasions HK used them to bent Phrik plates of armored opponents and used them as anti-vehicle weaponry. The sonic boom was absorbed and silenced within the barrel, so that the shockwave would nod damage the electromagnetic systems from the inside, somehow they were also able not to have it cause a second boom once it left the barrel and sound dampening systems, advanced Galactic technology and all that, the pellet did make a sound as it cut through the air at high speed, but since it traveled faster than sound it would meet its target first, or miss, before the sound would reach whoever was fired at. Hopefully, with the blizzard still raging on that would not be enough for Jude and his crew to determine from where the shot came from.
WHMMMMMMMMMM
The bullet flew away from HK's gun without a flash or thunder as the rotating chamber in his rifle turned over,
khr-kr
Already reading another shot from his overwatch position to be ready for any counter attack or to fire a second shot should he have enough time. It was one of the strengths of this newer shattergun models, they could fire shots in much quicker succession than older rifles HK designed, the problem is that the revolving chamber was not silent, it caused a soft whirring noise that most organics were able to pick up on, but then again, hopefully the blizzard would mask that.
The point of the attack was to cut through both of Jude's kneecaps while he passed through a small opening in a ruined wall, the pellet, in best-case scenario, was aimed to pass between the major armor plates on his leg, at joints where armor was usually non-existent or weakened to provide more mobility, cut its way through his tendons and cartilage connecting the kneecap to his leg, exit on the other side, hit his other leg at the same opening to repeat it and cripple him. Of course, since there were so many variables, like the opening in the wall, the blizzard, other troops, and the Force itself, which usually was the biggest trouble-maker when HK tried to snipe, not everything probably went according to plan. Perhaps Jude got warning from the Force about danger, at least he could not sense HK's determination to shoot him since droid hidden behind a veil of Force-repelling armor, but he was already tense, maybe he stopped himself just in front of the opening, or before his second leg moved in to have only one injured. Or perhaps HK simply miscalculated and missed all together. Either way, the droid hoped to cause at least a major injury to one of his Jude's legs to make the rest of the encounter that much easier.
Character: NPC Abregado reinfrocements
Location: Battle for the Citadel of the Dawn
Objective: Get behind enemy lines, get around the wreckage, land reinforcements
Allies: [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"], [member="Tempest"], [member="Aeron Kreelan"], [member="Nima Tann"], [member="Michael Sardun"], [member="Taryc Ap'Irae"], [member="Nate The Bounty Hunter"], [member="Kiyron"], [member="Kaiden Rohn"], [member="Joza Perl"], [member="Audren Sykes"]
Enemies: [member="Aizen"], [member="Asharad Graush"], [member="Ludolf Vaas"], [member="Brent Smith"], [member="FN-888"], [member="Nils Brenner"],
Forces: light
Mag'Ladroth Personal Walker, right arm
CBRW Flamethrower, left arm
Magnetic Minigun
3
The Greycloaks, clad in
Protectorate Power Armor, and
chameleon cloaks, armed with
Magnetic Revolvers, generic blue-crystal lightsabers, and
Spears of Rae.
60
Iron Legionnaire Drones armed with
Abregado Blast-Staves, moving in a 6x10 phalanx
5
Mobile Weapon Platform Spider Droids, Light Models, 3 armed with
RC-1 rotary cannons, 2 armed with
MD-1 mass drivers
FN-888, Asharad, Audren Sykes
FN would be able to hear a march of heavy footsteps add to the noise of the battle as the phalanx of battle droids sent by Abregado would be ordered to face off against his entrenched troops. As the drones came into range, walking in their neat formation like toy soldiers, they moved their blaststaves into ready position, aiming them towards 888 and his stormtrooper brethren likes pikes. It would be clear soon enough that these were not mere melee weapons and they suddenly lighted up in the furious red streaks of quickly firing blaster fire. Each stuff was more or less a blaster repeater, able to launch a whole torrent of plasma bolts at its target. Of course, they were far from accurate weaponry, just like the repeaters, but when the first two rows of phalanx, 12 droids in total, begun to fire so much plasma bolts in one direction, just like muskets, you did not need to worry about accuracy much because
you were bound to hit something useful with so many shots.
To make things worse there were also three spider droids that skittered from the flanks to join the assault, armed with the imposing shattergun rotary cannons, their multiple barrels begun to rotate as the mobile weapon platforms grounded themselves, before letting out a thunderous repetitive noise,
BWAH-KHRA-KHRA-KHRA-KHRA-KHRAM
The heavy shatterguns sounded out, sending a hail of deadly hyper velocity projectiles against the fortified stormtrooper lines, if they hit sound bags there was a
WHAM-sthshshshshshss
As the bags exploded from the impact, sending out a rain of sand around their location, if they his a hard barricade there was a
KHRAAK
As it shattered on the impact point against the rain of pellets that could punch even through heavy vehicles, causing it to crack quickly before collapsing as more and more shots poured out against it
Here's the problem, one that Auden had to face. While he was jumping around, showing off his profession in the arts of the Force and finesse, this was just the opposite, it was a brutal straight forward assault, like a charge of Dwarven warriors. He may or may not have had to be careful being so close to the stormtroopers when the droids joined the fray to not get hit by friendly fire on accident.
Asharad would be able to, of course, see all of this from where he was.
Aizen, Brent Smith, Elpsis Elaris, Joza Perl,
Again, as the three of them engaged in combat there were heavy footsteps heard, this time heavier and slower still than a droid phalanx. Around a corner of the ruins a rather small walker would make an appearance, the Dwarf Walker HK brought along. It was wide and stout, and it carrier two rather large and nasty looking guns. One of them was a shattergun minigun, which begun to rotate as it came into view of Brent's makeshift light cavalry, it would not take long before it fired, sounding out that,
BWAH-KHRA-KHRA-KHRA-KHRA-KHRAM
Heard on the other part of the battlefield, although this one was slightly more quiet, since the gun was also smaller and there were not three of it firing at the same time.
The hail of hyper-velocity shots was aimed to lash out against the line of his light vehicles firing towards Elpsis and her troops, just laying down a cover of fire to take out as many of the mobile E-Webs as he could before they went on the move, or turned the fire towards the mobile machine.
With heavy steps it begun to lumber closer, heading closing the distance to put its other gun to use as well, although not being able to wobble close enough to do so just yet.
Ludolf Vaas,
Joining the assault against his titanic AT-AT were the remaining two spider-droids equipped with long range anti-armor weaponry. Considering that what they fielded were just enlarged shatterguns, or miniature hyper velocity cannons depending on how one looked on them, they should be in enough range to lay down some fire against the machine.
The bots would do so from the cover of ruins, their programmed behavior had them skitter into sight, take aim, fire off around of a solid anti-armor projectile that so far Abregado's forces could punch through any heavy vehicle they met, but then again they didn't fire at a vehicle quite as large or armored as Ludolf's walker, so this was really a test of how hard their guns could punch. After all, ARGH's motto was "Give us a shattergun big enough and we can shoot anything through anything.", but then again HK and his ilk claimed a lot of things in the current Galactic History. Either way, their behavior was pretty predictable, since they were only drones, not even that intelligent when it came to droid AI standards, but at the very least they would be able to weaken his deflector shields further before being spotted and destroyed.
The hypervelocity solid shots the machines fired were aimed at the AT-AT's neck and the plexiglass screen of the cockpit, although at that range they may as well have been carried by the blizzard to strike against its main armor piece, although at least one or two shots in the repetitive salvos should find their mark. This was less of an "Let's take this thing down" and more of an "Hey, guys, look, we're doing something, we're part of this!" bombardment.
When Ludolf begun to fire at Siobhan he could see two armored HK droids come to flank her sides, although it was too late to stop and intercept majority of his fire, one did look directly at him and raised its own sniper rifle, a heavy variant of Abregado's
Magnetic Repeater, and fired off a burst in Ludolf's direction, six hyper-velocity shots moving faster than sound. Same as Ludolf, the machine wasn't as much hellbent on outright killing the man and just getting him suppressed to get behind cover and stop shooting.
Nils Brenner,
The pilot's initial engagement against GA transports provided results as three dropships broke through the skies, heading for the LZ, one of them being stricken by his stream of laser bolts and catching fire, spiraling down to the air before Kurt moved to intercept him. Amidst the maneuvers and dogfighting perhaps Nils would be able to see a husk of a deactivated droid tank emerging from the wrecked dropship, he may have not taken down all of the reinforcements amidst the sky-turmoil he was facing from Kurt, but at least he denied his enemy more much needed heavy armored units.
The other two dropships touched down, one opened revealing inside another platoon of Iron Leggionaires drones that begun to be unfolded and deployed by the automated system, in the other there were five more light mobile weapons spider droids, this time three anti-armor and two anti-infantry, that skittered out to join their comrades in putting down more support fire against FO positions.
As the spider-bots went off into the sunset the drones moved to form their neat rectangle phalanx, clutching their blast-staves, before marching off to further reinforce Firemane and GA positions.
New Forces: + 60 Iron Legionnaire Drones armed with Abregado Blast-Staves, moving in a 6x10 phalanx
+ 5
Mobile Weapon Platform Spider Droids, Light Models, 2 armed with
RC-1 rotary cannons, 3 armed with
MD-1 mass drivers
