Battle Hymn of the Republic

"Hut hut, motherfuckers!" went Asher, greatly empowered by Garrett's words and tearing out first. He kept his rifle tucked into his shoulder as he scanned into the next room, checking it for movement. He carefully advanced along, his boots silently rolling over the floor as he followed the path to the right. Gunna' get enough Drath teeth t'finish m'necklace., the Surandanian grinned widely, thinking on the collection of three Drathonian canines he had back on the Hymn. Heh heh heh.

"I am not!" Cibo childishly pouted at the Surandanian, waving a fist in his general direction as she became indignant at his uncalled for insult. But when it came to the orders though, the Intelligence Agent followed them to the letter, quickly coming up to the front, rifle raised. "Ha! And here I thought that being almost mission critical would mean I wouldn't get first dibs!" she cheerily spoke aloud into the thin atmosphere through the balaclava helmet upon her head. The slim woman quickly checked to make sure her fiber optic probe was still on her belt and working fine before slinking forward, taking point with gusto.

'...I suppose this demonstrates just how badly the war's hit us. Unbright people being pushed up and up to fill positions that were run over by the great lawnmower called death. Hell. I'm still here because they don't want me to go to waste.' The Intel Agent thought to herself cynically. 'Heh. Waste not, want not.' A genuine grin went across her face as she pushed forward, checking corners and making sure the way was clear.

All Destiny could do at Hendlow's refusal was roll her eyes and growl to herself. That moron's gonna get himself killed and then they'll blame me for it... she thought, but didn't speak up, opting instead to simply follow along with the squad. Orders were orders, after all.

******

It wasn't long before they made contact with the Enemy. A Squad of drathonians appeared, carrying slugthrowers- probably leftovers from the Gate's own armory judging by the awkward way the lizards were holding them, Alien physiology not suited to weapons made for humans. They found Asher first, but, too shaken up from the multiple contacts that had shown up simultaneously, as well as out of practice from being garrisoned away from combat for so long, Or possibly just greener than a leaf of fine lettuce, They opened fire much to early, and slugs began bouncing around the hallways, gouging the floors and walls and shooting up sparks here and there, with smashed bits of bullet whizzing through the air and creating quite a scene.

Just a few moments later, Cibo, too, as spotted by a squad of Drathonians, to quite a similar result.

"Contact!" reported Asher, ripping a grenade from his wet-gear and tossing it forward as his boots stomped forward into the ground, reversing his direction. His muscles tensed as the bullets whizzed and pinged off left and right, and he grinned wildly under the visor of his helmet, and rolled off into cover as he shouldered his weapon. "We got Lizards wit' Terra-guns!" continued the point-man as he shouldered his rifle to return fire.

Cibo's finger squeezed as she yelled, "CONTACT!" over the comm, sending a squiggle of gauss rounds to be doodled across the Drathonians. The thinly armored agent quickly tried to fall back into the nearest cover, but before she could, something slammed into her gut, knocking her off balance and into a tumble. And directly into cover; the light weight woman slammed against a door in the hallway which automatically slid open, letting her fall to safety. "I've been hit!" she squeaked in surprise. As she rolled onto all fours, hot fluid briefly dripped in a thin stream onto the floor before stopping on its own. Cibo instinctively grasped at the pain and glanced at the liquid that stained her hand; amber. The round penetrated through the ablative plate and stopped inside the ballistic gel layer, breaking some of it down into liquid. "I'm still good to go!" she energetically called out, sticking her rifle out of cover and blind firing at the Drathonians.

'Putting the least armored trooper in the front to scout when inside a building...smooth move moron! We're not in a jungle!'

"Like we hadn't noticed," came the grumble from Hendlow as he slowly approached. The Sergeant stopped short of coming into range, using the curvature of the floor as cover. A second grenade was lobbed at the Drathonian opposition by Garrett who maintained this hidden position. He dropped into a crouch then, and slowly advanced.

Rutthinger, true to his reputation, wasn't far behind Asher. Kwon was pressed to the right wall, opposite the two most aggressive members of the team, keeping a calm and careful eye on the situation.

"Cibo, stay put" Kai called over the comms, giving his squad hand signals ordering them to follow him, where he made his way to the farthest line of sight with the enemies. Crouching down, he gave the order to open fire- The Gauss rounds flying straight and true, spiking down the first line of enemy combatants, who then scattered and made their own way into cover, either beyond LOS, or into doorways that they were nearby.

"Cibo, they've gone into rooms, there's connections to your compartment that we can't see from here, so I'm sending a couple up ahead toward you. We need you to provide cover fire for them." The Sergeant radioed, signalling two soldiers forward. The Drathonians immediately opened fire, but from this distance their accuracy and power was lowered greatly, despite the large number of sparks and pinging of rounds bouncing off the floor walls and ceiling.

The duo of grenades worked wonders in softening the opponents who were making a lot of very rookie mistakes. When the shrapnel cleared, it was evident that no more than ten Drathonians occupied the hallway between Sergeant Hendlow's squad and the control room. Those that remained tucked themselves into nooks and doorways, leading to one very unusual situation.

One of the Drathonians taking cover in a hydraulic doorway was introduced to a world of hurt, when it suddenly shut on him, crushing much of his torso before reopening. The grenades had rendered one of the safety mechanisms moot. If the doors did not respond to blockage, the lizard would have been split in half. Telling him so probably wouldn't have made him feel any better about the situation, however. He was crawling for cover within the room when the doors crushed his legs- and reopened yet again.

Having born witness to these events, Hendlow had an idea. "Kwon, Destiny! Get in that room; everyone else, suppressing fire." Garrett hustled to the nearest doorway and found himself hesitant to crouch in its entryway. He overcame the impulse, but still felt uneasy. The sensation of firing his weapon on full auto helped him refocus on what was important.

"Ffffuuck!" hissed Asher as he saw one of the Drathonians get mangled by a rampant door, the Surandanian bent back behind cover as a volley of fire peppered one of the door ways he was in. He checked his weapon real quick, slapping the bottom of the magazine, before leaning back out lay down a full-auto spray of suppressive fire onto the Drathonians. "Aren't these thing s'posed t'have failsafes a'somethin'!?"

"Roger!" Destiny called out swiftly, practically diving into the room and sweeping it for enemies, she continued to move forward, waiting for something to happen- she didn't check to make sure Kwon was behind her- chances are he was and taking the extra moment to do so could end up disastrous.

"Clear!" She radiod to her squad leader, noticing a doorway into the next compartment. "Sir, should I advance from here?" she asked Hendlow.