Battle for Xilos

Hey, today’s game was number five from the narrative scenarios, Outpost, with my Algoryn taking the role of defenders. As for setting up I had rolled double 3’s for the outposts so decided to take number 2 giving me the two most forward and central points and garrisoned them with the assault squad and infiltrators respectively, daring Graham to come onward into hails of mag repeater fire.

We made a few mistakes with the scenario, the most serious of which was graham misreading the clause about passing the half way point of the table triggering all my remaining dice going into the bag opposed to my troops arriving in a drip feed manner, and as such he sprinted turn 1, rolled the 1 for the test and cruised straight over the half way mark…

—-

Commander Ta’rack looked out over the Forrest clearing site ahead, his platoon of recon specialists relegated to guard duties rankled his sense of honour. He felt the assignment was a slight against him, a knowing nod towards his recent losses. Whilst other Algoryn commands had been reporting glorious victories against the hated Ghar in large scale pitched battles, all he had managed recently was to blunder into a Boromite patrol and suffer extreme casualties from orbital defences during his drop to the planet. Doing the dangerous scouting and reconnaissance tasks came with little credit and huge risks, and sitting here guarding the uncontested flank of the advancing main force was unlikely to give much chance for the glory he craved and his family name demanded.

—

Lieutenant Murrut, was on rest cycle when the inner beacons triggered their alarms. He reacted as quickly as would be expected of an Algoryn soldier, but with the suspicion that it would be nothing more than another pair of the local fauna designated “drummers” squaring up and triggering the sensors, after all the outer beacons hadn’t been triggered. He hastened to the small fortification his troops manned eager to win back some of the pay he had lost gambling on the last drummer fight, however when he arrived at the firing line he wasn’t greeted by the jovial sight of his men running a book, but alert soldiers at their posts and signaling to Sgt. Haset’s Infiltrator unit hunkered on the opposite side of a small copse of trees.

“Sit-rep corporal” he whispered, instantly integrating to the seriousness of the situation. “Enemy troops spotted at the treeline sir, lookouts swear they weren’t there a minute ago.” and the younger trooper raised a finger, Murrut looked in the indicated direction and as his eyes began to acclimatise to the pre dawn light realised there was a photonic anomaly, indicative of Isorian kinetic barrier technology, which was odd as there had been no confirmed reports of Isorians on Xilos. “and those definitely were not there before sir” continued the corporal ” reports from the infiltrators seem to indicate the enemy appeared as from nowhere, and, they are issued with the latest ocular equipment. Maybe those rumours D-squad heard about Borromites encountering Isorians with time manipulation abilities were true after all…”

“Enough of that talk corporal, Idle speculation doesn’t help us, however they got here we need to find out what they want. Make a preliminary report to commander Ta’rack, and get the rest of the force mobilised to this location.” With that order Murrut stood up and made to approach the mysterious new comers. Just then a muzzle flair and a plasma hiss, followed by an impact glancing off his armour pretty much answered his question. As his squad reacted with drilled efficiency to put a suppressing fire into the area, the corporal came over to check him. His armour had held up well, and Murrut simply said “send the signal for reinforcement, as he saw the unmistakable silhouette of Isorian troopers rushing towards his lines.

—

Sgt. Haset, newly promoted to the role after her predecessor had been devoured by lavamites, lowered her advanced oculars. The enemy force seemed to contain some kind of tripedal lifeforms, slightly insectoid in appearance and approaching her direction fast, they were accompanied by a small squad of humanoid figures, her buddy AI identified them as a command squad.

She let out a short and high pitched whistle, before using her squads system of hand gestures to indicate locations she wanted taken up. Haset looked west towards the assault squad, just in time to see a distorted figure flanked by a long barreled gun drone take a shot. Well that confirmed hostile intent and she prepared the triggers for the solar mines buried in amongst the foliage ahead of her position.

—

Commander Ta’rack received a a strange report from position 3 along his defensive perimeter, apparently an Isorian force had made close approach without any early warnings being triggered. C-squad from position 2 had already signaled their intent to reinforce, and the reserve battery of x-launchers had moved forwards too. Ta’rack and his bodyguard made all haste towards the battle, relaying a command for fast support elements in the main column to reinforce their forces.

When Ta’rack reached the battlefield he almost ran straight into a senatex squad, alarmingly inside the defensive lines. As he prepared to open fire a trio of targeter drones from the artillery reserves, swiftly propelled by their suspensor nanites, flew overhead to mark the Isorians to the combat groups shard A.I’s to assist accuracy. His squad opened fire with concentrated plasma fire, dropping 2 enemies. Shortly joined by the armoured infantry squad who joined in the fusillade and proceeded to force the Isorian squad to rout.

His combat shard overcame local distortions to establish communications with assault lieutenant Murrut, his second in command, and received an immediate situation report from integrating with the assault squad’s A.I. Two senatex squads had broken to the west in a flanking maneuver whilst the assault unit had been pinned in place by highly accurate sniper fire, and a pulse of ‘grip’ type launcher ammunition to make them unable to engage directly. He was considering his tactical options when a pair of bio-mechanoid probes flew from over the tree line to float nearby and almost simultaneously a burst of plasma carbine fire burst through the wooded area and peppered his men, leaving both his loyal bodyguards dead and while his armour held he had suffered several minor injuries, “blood loss detected, user death immanent” intoned the level tones of his combat armours shard A.I “commencing emergency transmat”. Later Ta’rack assigned his failure to deactivate the safety protocol to shock at the loss of his combat brothers rather than an act of cowardice, but whatever the reasons commander Ta’rack departed the field.

—

Sgt. Haset and her remaining troopers hunkered down under the protective envelope of their camo drone ‘blinky’, and watched as the Isorian commander continued to be impeded by the woodland area in front of their position, even with the enemies slow progress they were still close enough to ignore the camo drones effects but luckily couldn’t draw a bead on her unit in their foxholes. She watched as the x-launcher fired another arcing shot towards the hulking insectoids, and again saw the spread of the suspensor net suppress the strange creatures. Undetered however they continued fowards, blundering into the solar charge minefield. With a slightly worrying grin she tapped the detonators, and the thrill of demolitions surged through her, when the smoke cleared one creature lay dead and the others had hit the dirt hard. As if to punctuate the echoing resonance a hypersonic screech pierced the air, looking back behind her Haset saw a gleaming squad of intruder bikes burst into the battle, charging at full tilt into the Isorians on the west flank. Mag repeaters spitting death into the enemy ranks, annihilating what was left of them, and the bikes without even pausing swooped onward towards the troublesome sniper who’s first shot had initiated the battle, not for the first time Haset regretted having her request for intruder duty being turned down.

—

Murrut, watched as the Isorians departed the field in disorder, apparently the loss of their senatex squad to the piercing charge of the intruder squad, and the vulnerability of their flanks after the bikers had punched through their lines had been too much for them. As the highest ranking officer on the field he called back the intruders from their pursuit, the defence of the main Algoryn supply column more important than picking off some retreating enemies, he was worried about the way the Isorians had just appeared and so decided to play it cautious in case of a second force attacking another point along the lines.

Later on, after the immediate dangers had past, Murrut had managed to requisition a servile scientist team and had them analyse the area and the Isorian fallen troopers. Conclusions were less prevalent in the findings than more questions being raised, but a general consensus was that the area where the enemy had appeared had signs of residual chronoton radiation, up until now a theoretical type of particle. Signs of extreme pressures having been endured by the phase armour and flesh of the Isorian fallen was arguably caused by violent trauma during the battle but could prove consistent with travel through time. To Murrut this was all well out of his comfort zone, but he did know he could do without bloody Isorians popping up all over the place without warning.