When Osiris was done addressing the group, there was still some time left before the shuttle made its way down to the drop point. Not wanting to waste any time, Ailuin took the stage addressing the group. Starting with a breath Ailuin began to speak up.
“Over the past day I as well as Zeph have had the chance to go over the released data on the Ork Organism.” he began bringing up his hand and activating the holograph projector which displayed a stream coming from the Telepathic Tablet he kept tucked away in his suit.
At the moment, the projector was projecting a 3D model of an Ork which several areas shaded in different colours. “To start with, what you see now is a model of the Ork which I have managed to reconstruct from the files. More specifically however, the coloured areas correspond to areas of weaker structural integrity.” The doctor pausing for a moment. “Basically where you should aim to hit if you want to inflict the most damage.”
At this moment several key portions began to discolour and fade away to refocus on specific key areas, the doctor going through each one, ensuring to keep the topic strictly on a ‘How do I inflict the most damage’ basis rather than going over the minute biological details that the crew had no obvious need for knowing.
In these areas, the Doctor noted areas where the skin was most thick and thin, which areas were the most deadly, which ones would result in the most organ damage and even where to hit if they just wanted to torture. Once the low hanging fruit was taken, he moved the conversation to a slightly more complex topic as he began to speak of the Orks regenerative abilities, the thickness of their bones and redundant organ systems seemingly designed around having extra of everything.
He then jumped into their gills and spore capabilities followed up with some basic theories of their capabilities when you considered everything together.
“There is much more, like how every aspect of this creature screams of being an Artificially Engineered creature built for war… but we’ll leave off here. If you want to know more, feel free to speak to me after the mission.”
Osiris nodded, “Ork physiology makes them tough to kill, it is not uncommon for them to continue fighting even after major organ damage, except for the brain. Shots to the center mass will work, but be prepared incase it doesn’t.”
It was at this point the shuttle landed and the group left following Osiris’ signals as he led them to the edge of the forest.
SCOUTING
“All right, then.”Thada cracked his neck to one side, then the other. The group having arrived at the edge of his forest.
Adjusting his grip slightly on his Stinger, he looked around the bush somewhat, then eyed the rest of the crew before turning back to the undergrowth. He could see some movement of those things beyond the grove, but not very much at all from this distance. He looked back at the team, particularly at Osiris. “I’ll go on ahead, get some recon and keep you on a live feed.”he said, speaking mostly out the side of his mouth. “I’ll keep you posted. Time for the kids to see how an Iko does it.”
With that, Thada entered the undergrowth in front of them, much quicker than one would think from how little noise he made. In fact, he was half-running through the bushes and over the rocks, his feet almost instinctively stepping to avoid obstacles and making as little noise as possible. Holding his weapon pointing straight out underneath him, he kept his body in almost a straight line with his head and tail pointing straight in opposite directions. As he approached the treeline, he sunk lower and lower towards the ground, until he was going almost as low as he possibly could when he finally came out into the open. He beelined to the side of the lander, making sure to move quickly and quietly, always taking the path that offered the most cover.
As Thada approached these creatures, he felt his heart starting to quicken - not out of fear or fatigue, but of excitement. Fieldwork! After so many useless years of bar bouncing and petty bounty hunting. A stray thought wondered if he was truly born for this, or if his years on the field had ruined him in a way. Sifting through a large patch of tall grass, Thada crept closer and closer to the greenskins, until he was even close to hear their rough, loud voices. He peeked out through the grass, taking in what sights he could.
The Larger and broader Orks seemed to be in the middle of having fun with the Grots, their voices were deep and gritty, and for some reason Thada’s Auto-Translator was picking up their speech.
“You Ruddy lot needz ta know yuz place! Ha HA!” The Ork with what seemed to be a rather brutal looking whip said as it cracked across one of the large nose of one of Grots, spilling green blood from it.
“When Weez gettin’ da new ship,” One of the other ork boys spoke up in from of the crowd of Grots, obviously addressing the Ork with the whip, “Weez been here fo ‘ourz and ‘ourz, I wanna get Killy!” It pleaded with a laugh.
A few of the other Ork boyz were pushing one to Grots back and forth between them, “Can we kill deez snots? I’m bor’d.”
“No Boyz, these gits are needed to keep da ship runnin’, li’ mekky boy will ‘ave a fit if weez kill em’” The Ork with the whip laughed.
Thada sunk back further into the undergrowth. He couldn’t see the Orks as well anymore, but he had seen what he needed, he opened up the radio to the group and began to relay his information.
Khrelan decided to do some Recon himself while the team discussed tactics. Seeing that Thada started off on a Recon run towards the orks around their junk Lander, he crept towards the tree line in the direction of the ork group around the structure.
At the tree line he crouched low on the ground, detached the scope from the rifle and looked through It, trying to glean Any details he could on the orks at the structure.
From what Khrelan could see there was an ork in front of some large metal walls and a bunch of grots in front of some boxes and crates. From where he was though he couldn’t see too much though beyond that, the orks were armed with large blades and heavy pistols it seemed.
Zeph made his way to the edge of the forest, crouching at a log still inside the forest as he peered at the Landa group. He sat behind one of the logs, laying back upon it as he took out his knife and began playing with the dirt. They’d tell him where to go and what to do over the comms anyway, bunch of trigger-happy soldiers…
Reaching the edge of the forest, Neal went prone when Osiris gave the signal to halt, holding out his arm and motioning downwards with his hand as he did so to signal the others to do the same. As Neal lay there, he quickly checked his TAC-MAP on his visor display, seeing the general layout of the area. Two groups of Orks, one at their ship and the other gathered around the structure, presumably defending it. He focused on the group closest, a few dozen metres out, his visor sensing his intent a zooming in, but it was still hard to see clearly. Neal did a quick mental estimate of the forces involved, there was approximately half a company of Orks...and some little green guys milling about, from what Neal read he was pretty sure they were “Grots”, the lowest on the Ork hierarchy. They were individually pretty useless in a fight, used mostly for labour and for the Orks’ own amusement, but a swarm of them could still pose a problem. Meanwhile the crew amounted to little more than a light infantry section, so they were outnumbered and outgunned.
Neal, without looking away from the Orks asked on the comm “Osiris, what’s the status for orbital support? Can Aesen provide us fire support?”
“Once we Clear the Landa group, Aesen will take out the ship, it would be best to find out more information first before we destroy their ship.” Osiris said as he looked out in the distance, trying to come up with plans in his head.
Neal took a quick glance Osiris, thinking why in the hell they should take out the Orks the hard way instead of letting Aesen lay waste to the whole Landa Group, ship and all. If Aesen could take out their ship, he sure as hell could take out the milling ogre rejects and their little gremlins at the same time. It would vastly swing the odds in their favour, cutting down the garrison to a more manageable size. Besides, what if they attempted to take-off during the firefight? Not to mention their friends elsewhere would quickly come to join the fun.
“Why not have Aesen take out the whole group with their ship?” Neal said “A missile or two and those giant pricks and their little friends will be toast, we’ll take out their air support and significantly reduce their numbers in one go, making this mission less suicidal and more just plain unwise. We recon both groups, ascertain their true numbers and disposition, then paint their landing site for an orbital strike. What’s left we’ll be able to manage. Hell why not have Aesen just provide continuous fire support?”
“One reason, if there is any information we could glean from anything in the ship, destroying it would be counter intuitive. I am here to test you, this is the easiest situation we will ever come across, normally an orbital strike would be good if we were not here for more than combat.” Osiris said as he looked over at the Landa, if they couldn’t handle this then there would be issues down the line when they would have to face the green tide at its strongest.
“After that is done, then we can destroy their only means of escape.” Osiris added, wanting very much to move on to making a plan.
Neal slowly gave Osiris a look. Did he just say he was there to test them? The man was holding back support to test them.
“excrement...the bastard is a gently-carressing lunatic” Neal thought. He had known from day one that Osiris was dangerous, in addition to being a real oddity, but against his better judgement he had chalked it up to a case of eccentricity and his parents not hugging him enough. But now Neal could tell his wasn’t just dangerous to whatever got in Osiris’ way...he was dangerous to his own damn allies too. Neal had seen this type before, his was a CO that went and got his own men killed through arrogance or incompetence. He knew they could disable the ship without destroying it and still rain fire down on the Orks.
Neal growled at Osiris “You know damn well we can take out the ship without completely destroying it. You also damn well know our ship can give us much needed support. Cut this testing bullexcrement and release the damn AI to give us some damn fire support, we need it to even the odds.”
“Inadvisable, do you really want to take the chance that our anti-spacecraft missiles will not utterly destroy the highly temperamental Ork Craft? If that is what you wish, I will leave the decision up to you. Ork vehicles of that size tend to explode quite fantastically.” Osiris noted not caring to bother with any arguments, if this was the direction Neal wanted he would not stop him.
“Make the call, then, after that though we need to discuss how to approach the structure. Or should we attempt to gather intel from the ship before destroying it, which is highly likely.” Osiris looked at Neal through his visor awaiting on a response, this was wasting time.
Neal looked at Osiris, eyes narrowing before asking “Aesen has a railgun at his disposal, does he not?”
Aesen chimed up,”Very Big one’s, And I am not ashamed of them. Shall I shoot the Ork Landa to satisfy the Human?”
Osiris still looked at Neal, “Your Call.”
Neal said “Aesen, you see that big group of Orks by the ship? Target them and the ones by the structure, one round each. Place yourself in necessary position to reduce impact yield. Then tell me what minimum impact yield is, wait until my mark to open fire.”
“Minimum yield will definitely be bigger than a bread box, if you must know.” Aesen joked at first before running a simulation a few times, adjust impact angle to minimize yield, which would still be a rather large impact regardless, all that could really be done was make sure the blast did not reach them.
“Well?” Neal asked.
“22 Tons, I can manage that.” Aesen said on the quieter side,”It’s as low as I can get it taking in all the variables.”
“.022 kilotons? That’s rather smaller than I thought you could manage, but should do the trick. Okay now, wait for a bit.”
Osiris nodded, “Acceptable, I will wait then until we make a move on the Structure, after the blasts it should be an easier trek. I recommend that our snipers stay on alert though, keep an eye on the larger Orks. Cover Thada in case something happens.”
Neal nodded “I was just about to mention that, while he’s doing that, those logs and boulder up ahead. They’ll do for cover, even after Aesen’s strike I don’t fancy going out in the open, so we let them come to us. Set up a defensive position, then mine the sides, funnel them into a killzone. Freya? Know how to make a fougasse?”
“A fougasse?” Asked Freya “Yes, one of my TSX-20 charges will do nicely for that, I can also set up some ordinary grenades to trigger remotely. But I don’t think I can get in position to set everything up without the Orks noticing me” Freya gestured at her body; encased in an heavy suit of armor. “Someone else will have to do it for me.”
“Is anyone willing to set up Freya’s Traps? Hopefully without being noticed.” Osiris said as he looked around.
Ursea nodded,”I might be able to, but I wouldn’t be able to provide cover fire while doing that, and she would need to teach me…”
Neal said “We’ll have Khrelan provide cover, Freya you go ahead and show Ursea what needs to be done. Khrelan, find a spot along the tree line to set up.”
“It is really simple” explained Freya as she turned to Ursea “I will prepare the charge here, you will just have to carry it to position and dig a hole to put it in.” Freya took out the TSX-20 charge from one of her larger armor pouches on her hip. “The yellow side will go up.” She added after a moment of thought as she began to knead the plastic explosive into an optimal shape.
“Then you just have to fill up the hole with nearby rocks and pebbles.” And get back here quietly. Freya took a detonator out of a separate pouch and carefully inserted it into the TSX-20 charge, the malleable explosive immediately seemed to harden up. “Don’t worry about handling it roughly, it will only go off when I give the command.”
“Do you have an entrenching tool?” Asked Freya “You can use mine if you don’t have one.”
“I think I have something for diggin in my survival kit, so I should be fine.” Ursea said as she took the explosives.
“So anything else?” Ursea asked the group.
At this moment the radio came alive and Thadas voice began to come through. “Lander group makes a total of twenty-one hostiles - six big ones, fifteen cannon fodder. They’re lightly armed, mostly makeshift scrap-guns and knives. The big ones seem restless; they’re bullying the fodder, talking about killing them, even.”
This followed up as Khrelan reported in as well. “Can’t see much from here unfortunately. There’s one ork outside along with some of the canon fodder. Ork seems to be sporting a nasty sword and pistol combo. Couple of crates. Everything else seems to be obscured by metal walls set up in front of the structure. Probably more infantry behind those.” spoke Khrelan in the radio channel. Indeed, there was not much else he could do aside from using stealth to cross the open field through the tall grass. He re-attached the scope to his rifle and swung it in the direction of the Lander. “In position for cover fire.”
Neal looked at Ursea and said “Alright, you know what to do, we’ll cover you.”
SETUP
With the order given and both Khrelan and Zeph ready to provide cover fire if things went badly for the trap setting. “Here I go.” She said, “Suu-Suu stay here.” She said to her Pet Guttluok as she scratched him a bit under his head and she disappeared into underbrush. She moved from cover to cover, disappearing into any patches of grass or other changes in the terrain she could use.Yep,
She crawled to a point in front of the cover facing the orks and the Landa and she begun digging and assembling the traps as Freya had instructed. She could hear the Orks roughing up the smaller grots and the grots shouting in retaliation in the background. She wondered how long it would be till they decided to explore their surroundings. They did not sound like they would be amused and distracted for long.
She finished packing in the gravel, pebbles and stones she could find around her and soon was done setting up the fougasse traps,” Well that’ll have to do….Ursea reporting in, I think the traps are good, I’ll make my way back now.”
When Ursea came back and Thada and Khrelan reported their findings, he opened up his TACMAP and quickly worked out a plan.
“Okay” Neal said “As it stands, we’re outnumbered and outgunned, and that will likely be the case after the orbital strike. We don’t have the firepower or numbers to go on the offensive, so we do the next best thing, we lure them to an ambush.”
Neal pointed up ahead “There, those logs and boulder should provide us with some cover, we dig in and draw them into a killzone. Freya, take some grenades and mine both sides of our position, about six grenades on each side should do. Thada, we might need you to ensure they head towards the killzone, preferably our nice little fougasse trap. Now thankfully this group seems to be a small raiding party, so besides the Mekboy there isn’t any particular clever ones around, so their base aggression should work in our favour. We funnel them in best we can, and mow them down.”
“Roger that.”Thada muttered back. “I’ll be sure to keep any bullets I end up pulling out of my ass as trophies.”he said. He looked back at the orks through the grass. A low rumble sounded at the back of his throat. Bait. Again. Two words he never thought he’d be thinking. That human sure wasn’t winning any early points with him right now.
“I’ll set up the grenades as mines closer to our position.” Confirmed Freya “If they get close to us they will do some damage.”
Neal nodded “Alright, you all know your tasks, let's get to it.”
After Freya had set up the mines, Neal did a quick check of everyone's position, saying "Sound off".
A quick flurry of confirmations confirmed everyone was in place. Neal then sighted down his optics down the corridor they had setup, and said "Aesen, fire on my mark. 10."
He could see everyone tense up in preparation for the inevitable Ork assault. They seemed as ready as they could be.
"9"
The doctor was out of the way, which was good, but Neal still knew they could very likely get past their line. He only hoped Osiris hadn't gotten them all killed.
"8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2..."
This was it, time to see how the Shrek rejects handled in a fight.
"
Fire"