WAR!! Pt 5 (Patreon)

[X] Plan: Suit Hijacking: Ground edition

-[X] No (No changes)

-[X] System Busting

-[X] Ground

-[X] Captain's Gambit: Hack into the Harvesters' suits to mess with their systems, showcasing why connecting lifesupport to a compromised network is not a good idea.

(((())))

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing

(((())))

Wurf narrowed his eyebrows. “Alrigh’,” He muttered, feeling his mind going a million miles a minute as he began to strategize: ‘E wasn’t gonna lie to himself, he did feel that spark of pleasure that came from ‘aving a good fight, though on some level he also felt a sense of unease, considering the context wuz people dyin’: the genetic instincts encoded into his DNA warred against the very real realization that if they lost, what would follow would be a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

That hadn’t worked: ‘ed ‘ave t’ look at the Directorate’s repository of ekonomik history t’ confirm, but ‘e was pretty sure the Gruggo Consortium had just held their workers families hostage to keep them from surrenderin’: a damn dirty move if the Hobbgrot had ever seen one, but effective: reports were coming in from all over the planet of their harvesters groundside fightin’ twice more intense.

…Wait. If they could receive updates from their motherfleet…that meant their armor was connected to the motherfleets network. The network that MEKZ had managed t’ successfully breach.

“...Da gitz have their armor networked to the ships,” Wurf said, as a number of things fell into place to form a singular idea, and for a brief moment Wurf felt the elation of victory before quashing it. “Hail MEKZ: I have an idea.”

((((()))))

This was hell. Boz Noobo was in hell.

WARNING: AIRFLEETS M10, M11, and M12 HAVE BEEN DESTROYED!

What kind of species had the technology to create a ship that can fight in atmosphere?! The sky was currently on fire: the top layer of the dome had given way, concrete scattered all across the city. Above, he could see the edge of the thing, the bulk of its body obscured by the walls: in space, it would be fairly small as far as ships went. Below, however, it was bigger than literally any aircraft Noobo had ever seen: the little of it that was visible, the tip of two of those hanging pods, kept having lances of light arc from them. Space ship grade point defense, turned on an airfleet.

Which was why he needed to hurry up and earn his bonus so he could get the krakk out of this nightmare. His squad had managed to reach a bunker entrance: another squad was working on keeping the toybots off him: they were running out of numbers, but the stupid things were making it impossible to harvest without wasting time, and the more time that passed, the harder it would be to get extracted because of that krakking ship.

Which was why Noobo was going to get his bonus, and then he was getting out. He was willing to eat a disciplinary if it came down to it, but if there was any chance of making a profit here he was going to take it. The Dorgan was currently in cover behind a car, fearfully and fretfully looking over it as, behind him, his team worked on breaching the Bunker doors, using a plasma cutter to get in: above, a harvestbarge was waiting, its hose dangling, the rusted collector hanging in the air, kept aloft by a series of turbo-jets and gyro-stabilizers.

Poor mans anti-gravity. It was their only way out, and the only way to collect their bounty. “What’s the hold up?” Came the voice of the manager covering for them. “I have about ten before my squad starts going dry, then I’m leaving your ass.”

Noobo cursed. There was no way they’d collect the amount needed for his bonus in that amount of time. “I need at least fifteen,” He pleaded, glancing at the door breach in progress: over halfway done! “Please, I need my bonus, it’s for my ma!” He begged: there had to be more than just ten minutes! This wasn’t fair, if he didn’t bring back the money, his Ma would be krakked!

“You have TEN minutes,” His peer snarled as, over the vox, the sound of gunfire echo’d, and Noobo cursed, bitterly musing that it wasn’t like he could complain: he had done the same thing earlier, yeah?

“Hurry up and get those doors opened!” He yelled, looking back at the progress of his team.

“We’re trying, sir!” His subordinate said, and the plasma cutter was halfway down the door, and Noobo gave a skyward yell of frustration.

“Screw protocol! Set up a breach charge!” He screamed, and quickly his team scrambled to follow his orders, removing the plasma cutter, one of them pulling out a large brick shaped device from their belt and pressing buttons on its side, causing one side to display a number, slowly counting down, while the other side began oozing a thick material: adhesive. Setting it, the breach team retreated. A moment, a thunderous crack echo’d, and the doors found themselves wrecked inward by the kinetic force of the breaching charge. “One of you pieces of shit grab the bleeding hose!” He ordered as he stepped over the shattered metal, entering into the bunker complex.

He walked forward, firing his gun at the few security personel and automated defenses between him and his target, most of the assets weapons not being capable of penetrating the multicarbonite armor the Consortium used: looking behind, Noobo saw two grunts hauling the hose, dragging it to the frozen remains of the assets and using it to vacuum the poor frozen bleedgums up. “Oy, stop focusing on the small fries,” Noobo grunted as they approached another door, one which according to their scanner probably held a lot of assets in it. “We’re here for the big catch: we don’t need to grab every small fish,” He said, grabbing his own breaching charge and setting it. A moment later, he was looking at a hole, on the other end a number of very scared looking assets.

Stepping inside, he did a quick count of how many were located here. Around…two hundred or so, all looking at him fearfully as they huddled against the back wall, the frail bulbous headed aliens cowering. Noobo waved his team through. “Alright,” He said to the assets, walking forward, hefting his rifle. “On behalf of the Gruggo Consortium, we would like to thank you for being part of our family. Now, line up: I want children and egg-carriers over there, everyone else, prepare for process-”

A gunshot bounced off his armor, and Noobo narrowed his eyes as he walked forward, grabbing the alien that had been dumb enough to try and shoot him, hauling the frail creature into the air, glaring at the screeching bleedgums. “Alright, I was willing to do this by the book, but if you’re gonna be a piece of shit, we’ll skip the proceedures start with you, you dumb animal,” Noobo snarled, raising his gun and pointing it under the creatures chin.

The alien shut their eyes in terror, and Noobo pulled the trigger…

“Uh…” Noobo said dumbly.

ERROR: THIS SUIT HAS DETECTED A JAILBREAK ATTEMPT! ALL FUNCTIONS HAVE BEEN LOCKED. IF YOU BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN LOCKED IN ERROR, YOU CAN AGREE TO PAY A [DATA NOT FOUND] FINE TO THE GRUGGO CONSORTIUM AND KLOIKLOI ARMS TO HAVE THIS ACTION REVIEWED AND THE SUIT UNLOCKED PENDING JUDGEMENT!

PS- EAT SHIT ORGANICS, YOUR ARMOR HAS BEEN HACKED BY #MEKZGANG

For a moment, all parties stared at each other, and giving a very dry swallow, Noobo dropped the alien. “Alright, so, I know what you’re thinking, but let’s talk about this-”

A moment later, every single alien was pointing their guns at Noobo and his now disarmed squad.

((((()))))

The ship shook, and Wurf tightly gripped his armrests, gritting his teeth. “Reports from the ground, the enemy is losing ground fast,” Came the report of his communications officer. “Looks like that with the Endeavor hitting their air force and their suits on lockdown, they’re on the back foot.”

Good, that just meant-

The ship shook, and Wurf heard something burst. “Keptin’, they’re chewin’ through our armor!” Whamdinger yelled. “That last volley breached the hull in cargo bay 12!” Wurf took a deep breath. That wasn’t good.

“Uh, Cap?” Came the voice of his science officer, the Tekket looking from her console. “They’re no longer in the gas clouds radius.” Oh ZOG-

No, no, he could handle this.Wurf let out a slow exhale. “Kaptain, we’re being hailed. It’s, uh, the Enemy.”

“On-screen.” Wurf said flatly. “Helmsman, keep focusin’ on evading.” A moment later, Blaggle was once more on the viewscreen, sweat on his brow, the hippopotomid humanoid grinding their broad, flat teeth together. “Blaggle. Call to surrender?” Wurf said, causing the Sub-Chairman to let out a barking laugh.

“You- You’re seriously asking ME to surrender? Buddy, your ship has multiple observable hull breaches: my fleet is tearing through it like tissue paper, and you ask for MY surrender!” Blaggle said, putting his hands in the air. “What the absolute krak is wrong with you? Why are you even doing this? How is this profitable to you?”

“It’s not about profit, Blaggle, it’s about the principle,” Wurf countered.

“What principle, throwing your life away to help some primitive savages that have spent the past few centuries blowing each other up?” Blaggle responded, lowering their arms and gripping their desk and tightly. “Ones that, let’s face it, if the situation was reversed you and I both know would not do the same for you. You gain NOTHING from this except blowing yourself up!”

Wurf snorted. “It’s not about GAINING anything,” He said, slowly and drily. “It’s about doin' whats right: about stoppin’ a big zoggin’ bully, about ‘elpin someone what needs ‘elp, and frankly, its about given’ a bunch of wankers what’s comin’ for em. Let me make this clear: if I lost every single ship here, so long as those ships were lost doin’ their damnest to help people an’ managed t’ send whats left of your fleet to kingdom come, I’d consider that a win. An’ yeah, maybe these gitz wouldn’t ‘av our back if the situation was reversed. Guess what? I don’t give a squogs arse: wouldn’t change th’ fact that what you’re doin’ is WRONG, an’ it doesn’t change th’ fact it needs t’ stop.” Wurf leaned forward, giving a grin. “Sides, Blaggieboy: battles not over yet, otherwise you wouldn’t be callin’ us.”

The viewscreen went black. “He, uh. He hung up.”

“Don’t worry, ‘e’ll be back,” Wurf muttered. Right. Now for the fleet.

Gruggo ground forces have been depleted by your gambit. However, you are taking significant damage in space, and the Gruggo Slaufices have escaped the gas cloud, their numbers unchanged. As a result, the Valiant has lost shield and armor, and is taking structural damage.

As the ground war has been won, all assets will be shifted to the space battle, and instead of conventional deployment options, you are being granted a triple gambit. One for each round of the turn.

Deploy Your Gambits.

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]