KFP - Black Dawn Protocol ch.3 Solid Ground 1/2

Location:

Eposz
South-East
New Phoenix - South Point district
22.07.2510; 1525 hrs
Team Furious-3

Seconds. Only seconds kept Furious 3 from stepping out from their transport and placing their heavy boots on the solid ground. On their left there were two Sharks carring other Furious team assets with two APC's. The eye contact with them was short, for they now have dissapeared behind a wall of buildings. Same goes for Mei Ling and Slyboots 5 who were on their right, and they were supposed to be only them on right flank. Yet if anything, the loophole in their firepower was overfilled by a tank assigned to support them.

The APC they were carrying  was a common 'GSV-30 Grendel' (Ground Support Vechicle; number is standing for weapon caliber), an aromred support platform on six wheels. It had a troop-bay at the back capable of holding up to eight soldiers and turret in the middle section of the construction, remotely controlled by commander-gunner. It was armed with 'Boffors type' 3 cm mass accelerator gun that could shoot twelve rounds before reloading, two missle pods at the sides of the turret and also a HMG on top of it which also could be remotely controlled by one of the passengers, and of course standard ADS (Active Defense System). But soldiers liked it for its good armor and high mobility.

Crane reduced the speed almost to a hover, with side-engines adjusting their angle to this flight-mode, and lowered the altitude. His eyes scaned the street below for some larger space free of mass of abandoned cars on the street. It looked like traffic jam caused by car accident on a roadcrossing behind them. Lack of transport was forcing civilians to go to evac points, or to foot travel which was decreasing their chances of fast leaving the city without human bullet in the body.

Tigress observed the area below, and saw no dead bodies thankfully. Small sigh of relief escaped her mouth. For the sake of her own psyche she decided to asume that those civilians managed to safely escape and that they are now either away from here or at the evac post.

"Twenty seconds." Crane's voice once again echoed inside the troop bay. It would seem like he had found the place. The dropship again shifted forward still slowly loosing height. When they were six meters above the ground, Crane spoke again reffering to the crew of the APC he was carrying "Alright Bolt 9, better grab onto something, I'm releasing you." He gave them a second to prepare, then switched off the magnet-locks causing the vechicle to land with loud 'thud'.
Nevertheless, good suspension provided more of a soft landing.

"Ok we are good to go! All systems are green." responded the crew-man after a moment, and moved forward a couple of meters to make space for Crane who then lowered the dropship even more. Tigress looked at the people with her. They were great soldiers, loyal teammates and best firends. She knew the duty of being the teamleader, duty of guiding them through any odds and hell safely. They counted on her on Taurus and she didn't let them down. From now on this ws the chance to repeat that and Tigress wanted to do it. The look of readyness and confidence on their faces gave her even more strenght. By now Crane was just one meter above the ground, Tigress took a deep breath and let loose "Alright poeple, move your shit! Go! Go! Go!" she yelled, while giving signals with her arm to get out. At her command everybody jumped out of the troop-bay, their weapons pointed up and ready to fire except for Mantis. From the side of the dropship launched a small flying scout drone armed with low-power pulse SMG, which Mantis took in control with his tiny controler. He himslef jumped on Po's shoulder to easily stick to the group.

The engines of the Shark began to roar louder as they again gained more power, and the VTOL unit slowly took off and when it was higher than the closest buildings rooftops, it fled away. But, moment before, as it was gaining height, Tigress received notification on her HUD that a new com channel opened with her team, as well as the APC' crewman.

"Tigress, come in!" she, and also the others, could hear the voice, which belonged to Crane.

"Crane? What is it?"

"Tigress listen, your first objective is half of a click to your north. You all should receive your NavPoints in a couple of seconds." As soon as the avian finished his sentence, like in some shooter game, the blue, third dimensional objective marker appeared on her and her teammates HUD's. It was suspended still in one place - their objective, and was more than clearly visible through any objects. And their marker was placed on their 11 o'clock. It had a shape of an arrow pointed downwards towards a circled hole under it.

"Okay, we got them."

"Good. Thermals are showing no signs of enemy between you and that team, so your way is clear."

"Got it!" she nodded "But why you opened a new channel?"

"I opened this channel to keep in touch with you. Helmet to helmet might not be enough with the distances that sometimes might separate us. Good luck!"

"You too Crane" and Tigress ended the radio transmission with him and turned to her comrades "You heard him! The area ahead is clear so we're moving out! Jog speed!"

The distance to their objective, under the NavPoint showed 500 meters. Close enough to hear the sounds of gunfire, sticking out from the sounds of warzone in the background. It was almost certain that the team, Furious-3 was supposed to help was engaged in a firefight. Not wasting anymore time Tigress and the rest jogged forward with the APC adjusting it's speed to them.

Meanwhile, 500 meters further.

Team of troopers was trapped and pinned down in a building of public use. It's enterance was angled by 45 degree to the roadcrossing. But between this and that there was a small courtyard with some treeson laws, pavements and contrasting with them sandbags alongside with concrete blocks set up for cover. On the inner side of the building there was a large atrium where most of the said team have bunkered. The enterance was wide and just large. Between it's two ends there were two pilars with sandbags between them, building up the cover for four soldiers hiding behind them. Trio of another troopers were pinned down at the courtyard, and the other five stayed inside, shooting at the enemy through glass window-walls while helping their wounded comrades.

The leader of this group was currently taking cover behind one of the pillars at the enterance. Their situation was bad, twenty-five human foot units with SUV armed with HMG laid heavy fire from the street on their position.

"Keep your heads down!" yelled the leader, reminding his men to avoid doing any stupid actions.

"Sarge! When our reinforcements will arrive?" yelled the soldier from another pilar. He had to yell in this noice.

"Soon Cordin!"

"How soon?" he asked. Some bullets scratched off some concrete of the pilar he was hiding behind, on the hip height. He pressed his back even more to his cover.

Like for an answer, they heard an engine work of, taking a guess, two aerial machines which fled just right above them. Furians hiding at the courtyard had a clear sight of the sky, one of them contacted with the team through the radio in their full-head helmets. "That's our dropships! Wait...where are they going!?" his enthusiasm vanished as he realised that the dropships aren't stopping.

"What do you mean 'where are they going'? What's happening!?" sarge asked.

"I dunno! They are just flying off. Looks like...*sounds of bullets hitting the cover*...Ugh!- It looks like they, eh heading towards North Point."

"North uhh..." he was interrupted by his teammate hiding behind the sandbags next to him, who leaned out his LMG, putting it on those sandbags, and only his upper part of head for aiming and sent out a long series towards a group of humans on the roadcrossing. Sarge peeked out and saw that his comrade catched in fire two humans who were on the move trying to change position. Three shots for each one to take down the shiled. Sarge felt the vibrating bass of this gun even in his guts, like someone was hitting big drums 900 times per minute. It was just matter of short moment before those humans were layind lifeless on the ground with many holes in their bodies. After firing about fifty rounds, the soldier hid himself again, just in time, avoinding the return fire aimed at him. "North Point?" seregant resumed his sentence.

"Yes! But I can also see many others storming the city."

"No shit! How many?" sarge was surprised.

"Alot! Looks like counter-attack!"

"Acknowledged!" sarge hanged up.

"So if they launched a counter-strike, then where are our reinforcements Sarge? Did they forgot about us?" Cordin asked him with some panic and dissapointment in his voice.

Sarge sticked out his assault rifle and pulled the trigger, laying blind fire in the direction of the enemy, while fully staying behind the cover, . His calculations were right. For his bullets traveled in the direction of one of the human soldiers, but they only hit the car which this trooper was hiding behind. The breaking window reminded this human to take cover. "They'd better not!"

Cordin had in memory positions of some humans, so he quickly leaned out with DMR prepeared to fire. When his 4x magnifier locked onto a human, he quickly pulled the trigger one, two, three, four times. Four mass accelerated bullets impacted on his target. First two dropped his weak shiled, next two with ease penetrated his body armor and killing him. When returning back for cover, he took a series of rounds into his chest. but thankfully his energetic shiled protected him, loosing its strenght only by 50 percent. In five seconds, without getting hit again and it fully recharged.

Four soldier at the enterance again tensed up, and they pressed their backs to the cover behind them, as the SUV's heavy machine gun and five other soldiers again concentrated fire on their position, pinning them down again.

On the courtyard one of the furain marines was waiting for a good moment to return fire, when the SUV stopped firing, he leaned out from his cover, wanting to shoot something, but he didn't pulled thetrigger as his attention travelled to a small black object being thrown in his direction. This object hit the ground behind him, bouncing off two times, and finally stoping four meters away from him. The marine eyes went wide in utter shock "Oh shit! Grenade!" he yelled as he hit the ground just in time before the explosion. His shield dropped to zero absorbing the force of this blow, but just one shrapnel managed to came through, wounding his side right in the spot where he haven't armor plating.

"We have wounded!" yelled one of the soldiers.

"Fuck!" sarge bursted angrily. He then switched on the radio "This is Topaz 6! Can anybody hear me? We are under heavy fire, and we have wounded! We need help ASAP!!!"

On the human side of this little front,

One of the troopers was hiding behind a car, on a furians right flank. The vechicle was regularly pounded by constat short bursts of rounds. This LMG furian on the 1st floor balcony inside this atrium was giving him and his squadmates a lot of trouble. He had a solid cover from the group in the middle of the roadcrossing and a good overlook on this flank, His constant fire was keeping them away from doing any flanking actions. They were returning fire, but that was just everything they could do. This furian had just good eye and even better position.

While hiding, this human could have sworn that he heard something 'heavy' in the short distance. He looked in the way he heard the sound, his eyes went wide in surprise and sudden fear, but this was his last reaction as his world suddenly went black. His now lifeless body fell to the ground with a big hole pierced through his helmet and head.

Sarge leaned out from cover and began to shoot, his ear under his helmet tried to perk at a sudden sound of three explosions...not from his weapon, but something diffirent. In just a second his eyes witnessed three 'light-bilbs' leaving a smoke tracers behind them. They hit the SUV blowing it up and roasting alive the gunner which was inside. The shockwave knocked the nearest soldiers to the ground. One of them lifted his head from the ground, looking in the direction those three missiles came from. His eyes were meet with sight of a team of troopers advancing at them with armed up-to-teeth APC. But for him this was the last view before a sniper bullet drilled a straight tunnel through his skull.

In Sarge's radio helmet Tigress voice suddenly sounded up "Topaz 6, this is Furious 3. We'll help you in cleaning up this mess. Just watch your fire, we're advancing on your right."

"Roger that! Topaz 6 out!" sarge then turned to Cordin "You see? I told you there will be help!

Meanwhile 150 meters to the right.

"Nice shoot Leona." Tigress complimeted, patting the lioness on the back.

Leona answered with simple "Thanks!" not looking away from the scope of her sniper-rifle which she set on bipod on the roof of a car.

"Okay...Leona you stay here on long-range. Amari, you and girls move with the APC on the right! Po, Koshi and Nicky you're with me on the left." she was quickly sendining the orders showing the directions with her arms. They simply nodded and did as ordered. They had only couple seconds left before humans will catch on what the heck just happened.  She also contacted Monkey who was in APC "Monkey, you got the HMG?"

"Yup! Controls are pretty easy. Oh and Mantis says that Viper and his drone will be in postion in just a moment."

"Ok! Here it goes people, Advance! Time to waste those fuckers! Go go go!"