Location: Hoth: Outpost Veers
Objective: Purge
Allies: Team S: [member="Aver Brand"] [member="Tomas Yarrow"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] Other allied folks: [member="Aeron Kreelan"] 2HK-36 [member="Sol Stazi"]
Enemies: [member="Torian Pierce"] [member="Chron Terix"] [member="TK-4261 Strain"] [member="Shaydae Desmaris"] [member="Rexus Wenck"] [member="Anora Shaw"] [member="Hatori Ikari"] [member="Pharazon Draken"]
Kit:
RR-1 with 5 rounds HVP, 3 rounds HEAT, 2 rounds Canister, ER-1,
EPC with
20 Light Darts
This was not shaping up to be Rusty's most dignified entrance.
The problems had begun long before the Shard gunsmith ever arrived in Hoth's orbit. He had agreed to accompany the GA troops down to the surface as part of his ongoing weapons contracts with their Special Forces. Unfortunately, he wouldn't actually be working with their elite troops. He got sucked up into some secret squirrel mess with a bunch of other yahoos and mercs, which meant he wouldn't actually get to see how his contract weapons performed in the field.
If that wasn't bad enough, he'd had to fight tooth and nail not to get stuck with some disruptor rifle that he had no intentions of using. It wasn't that the Shard objected to disruptors in general. He objected to using any weapon that he didn't personally design. Intellectually, he could accept that there were other weapons manufacturers who were just as good as RCFC. He could even acknowledge that there were a scant few who might have been better. After all, he'd only been in the game professionally for a few years. However, what he could not accept was that someone else's hardware would have served him just as well as a piece that he knew from personal experience.
To make things worse, he'd been specifically forbidden to use any of his named weapons. Collateral damage, they said, was to be avoided at all costs. Rusty had suggested where that particular officer could shove their collateral damage, but alas, he hadn't been able to make any headway against the ruling. And so, deprived of his most favorite toys, Rusty had chosen a few off the shelf goodies.
He had an ER-1 rifle, for handling long range work, as well as a few magazines of the depleted uranium penetrator rounds for good measure. The DU rounds kicked like a mule, but they were good for heavy armor close up, and the rifle was a beast at range. It was his primary weapon, clipped to the shoulder of his LBE.
Rusty's secondary weapon was an Executive Protection Carbine. The little weapon wasn't a manstopper at range, but when it came to close quarters work, it was great. The little 5mm bullets were zippy as hell, and with the integrated HUD aiming, he could put them anywhere he wanted without even having to use the sights. They might not punch through a stormie's breastplate, but they'd find the neck gaps and eye pieces just as sure as Hoth was cold. For good measure, he had the grenade launcher loaded up with Light Darts, the little disposable lightsabers RCFC had cooked up a while back. The ECP was stored in his pack, along with a spare LBE loaded up with magazines for it and Light Dart reloads. If he had the time, he could swap weapons and magazine loads simply by swapping out flicks.
Since there was a chance he'd be going against armor, Rusty brought along an RR-1 recoilless rifle. The big anti-armor weapon was kinda skirting the no-named-weapon rule, since it was just a commercial variant of Bertha, but he figured, what the hell, they said there might be walkers, so it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. He brought along ten rounds for good measure: five Hypervelocity Penetrators, which would go through most walkers the long way, three High Explosive Anti Tank rounds, which were great against both troops in the open and armor that wasn't worth wasting an HVP round on, and two canister rounds, which were basically giant shotgun shells. The canister rounds would come in handy if they came across concentrations of troops in the open. He only brought two of those because, well, if he needed more than that, they were screwed anyways.
All of this was great and all, but unfortunately, the dropship he had been scheduled to take down was deadlined due to an inertial damper malfunction. The ship could fly just fine, but if they tried to pull any serious G's, the occupants would be smushed. This, in general, is to be avoided.
Since the malfunction was found only in the preflight checks before the drop, there was no time to shunt Rusty to another ship. He had to find his own way down, or he wasn't going to make it. Fortunately, the Shard had always been a compulsive tinkerer, and had brought some toys on the voyage.
See, one of the toys he brought along was the much maligned
T.U.R.K.E.E. D.I.C.K. It was essentially a giant set of PYOPS speakers loaded with a rocket sled, fireworks, and glitter, all on a repulsorlift cage. The Shard hadn't been able to get any Dantooine Plains Turkeys for the mission, but he figured there might be some use for the thing. He had slapped a shield generator on the thing, not enough of one to protect from incoming fire, but plenty to prevent it from burning up on reentry. He had also put maneuvering rockets on the sled portion, so it could be controlled in flight.
The only problem was, he couldn't find any control setups onboard the ship that were sensitive enough to really handle the thing. Because, face it, there wasn't anything on any planet designed to make a supersonic rocket sled that spewed fireworks and glitter agile. Fortunately, there were soldiers onboard, and where there are soldiers, there is gambling. It had taken some work, but Rusty had managed to win a sweet electric guitar from one of them in a game. By tying in the pickups to the maneuvering jets, he had a very sensitive controller. One that just happened to be perfect for epic guitar solos.
And it was linked to some serious weapons grade speakers. All that was left to do was choose the right song.
If there was a God of Metal, he was throwing up the horns right about then.
A few minutes after the dropship was deadlined, Rusty and his atrocity hit atmosphere.
Down they dropped, the shield shedding heat in a glorious plume of fire and plasma.
Down they dropped, the speakers blasting out their tune of glory and thunder across the battlefield.
https://youtu.be/HjOWS4vJykI
Bastard Son of Odin
Born to kick your ass
Bastard Son of Odin
Living hard and driving fast
Bastard Son of Odin
Sworn to fight and die
Bastard Son of Odin
TO VALHALLA SOON WILL RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!
Rusty wasn't sure who Odin was, or why his bastard son was such a big deal, but the song was awesome. As they dropped, he kept warmed up, playing along with the song on the guitar. The controls wouldn't activate until the sled launched. The sled that Rusty's boots were mag clamped to. The sled that would easily break the sound barrier in the thin, cold air. It was going to be one hell of a ride.
At about two minutes down, the T.U.R.K.E.E. D.I.C.K.'s repulsors kicked in, slowing the descent to something that would be survivable once the rockets activated. That was just above the effective range of the AAA fire coming from the planet's surface.
At exactly 2:27, it was time for the guitar solo. The sled launched, and the Shard began to shred. Each string was mapped to a different control: pitch up and down, yaw left and right, and velocity. Six strings, six variables, it worked. The intensity of the change depended on which note was played on any given string at any given time. The higher the note, the more intense the reaction.
Rusty darted through the maze of deadly fire, his axe screeching majestically in the thin, cold air, the sled spewing metallic glitter, while the repulsorlift cage shot out even more glitter, along with an impressive display of fireworks that was dazzling even against the backdrop of the anti-aircraft fire trying to shoot it down. And through it all, the guitar could be heard, bringing metal to the fighters down below.
At 2:53, the solo was over, and Rusty had punched through the worst of the fire unscathed. The song would finish playing on its own now, his part was finished. He abandoned the guitar and drew the RR-1, loaded with an HVP round. At the speeds he was going, he needed to shed a considerable amount of velocity if he was going to land safely, and he knew just how to do it.
The first rule of using a recoilless rifle: the name is a lie. They still carry a tremendous amount of recoil, and firing one while flying in the air towards an enemy walker is normally a terrible idea. So naturally, that's exactly what happened: Rusty used a bit of math to calculate a trajectory, flipped around and aimed the RR-1 just so. He fired, and the hypervelocity penetrator zipped towards the target walker at speeds that made most atmospheric craft look positively pedestrian in comparison. Meanwhile, the recoil from the shot slowed him down just enough to make the impact survivable.
Against all odds, the repulsorlift cage survived the incoming fire until the last note of the song faded. Seconds to go before impact, and the rocket sled was pointing away from the ground. Rusty fired the secondary charge, which sent him flying away from the sled and away from the ground. In reality, the charge that was meant to fling a dead turkey towards the enemy was just enough to kill the rest of his momentum. He landed lightly in the snow. A brief check showed that he still had his pack, still had his weapons, and still had his ammunition.
Fantastic.
All he had to do now was home in on the other members of the team. His internal HUD pointed towards what should be their beacon. The Shard set off through the snow, hoping like hell they had a ride.
