Durgama Takeover

It was time again. Was it the first time, or the hundreth, Shakti was not sure. Time to don the mask again. Saladin and his cohorts were back again, this time to try to mine the research facility for information, via retro-engineering, recovering enemy troopers, trying out experimental drugs and outright sabotage. Luckily, Shakti had a band of ALEPH's finest to support her in thwarting Saladin again. For how long the Haqqislam recreation would be dissuaded she did not know. She had lost count of how many times she had done it already. All she knew was, she had to put her lhost body on the line again.

Saladin showed his strength in planning in this engagement, and given the opportunity elected to take the initiative. The ALEPH force deployed their primary members hidden away among the buildings and containers that littered the site. The one except, Atalanta, gazed from her vantage point which allowed her to cover several points of advance for the Haqqislam force. The Haqqislam force had brought heavy weaponry, in the form of an Azra'il with an HMG and Mukhtar with Red fury and MSV2 to counter her. Other notables included the Steel Phalanx hero Eudoros, The Aristeia starts Parvati and Fiddler, and a host of hackers and jammer-equipped troops on the Haqqislam side. To end the deployment, two Posthumans, the Mk2 hacker and Mk5 FO were deployed in the middle to threaten the advance of the heavily armored Azra'il.

It became evident quickly that Atalanta was the piece that would define the nature of the skirmish. The many impetous troops of Haqqislam could not enjoy the safety of smoke cover form the gaze of her visor. The Barids started the turn by quickly peppering out a pair of repeaters. The Azra'il advanced down the center, electing to leave his cover in order to try to get a more advantageous firing position on Atalanta. The first exchange of fire came and went. A hail och machine gun bullets were not enough to overwhelm the sniper, and her double-action rounds found a critical spot in the Azra'il's armor. The towering super-soldier fell in the middle of the field, unconcious. Clearly Atalanta was not a force to be taken lightly. A liberto mercenary advanced up the field, with both Atalanta and a flash bot failing to identify the approaching fighter. Somehow, it managed to get all the way into the backfield of the ALEPH force, where it placed a shock mine threatening several pieces before being blown off the board by Atalanta's bullets. The Haqqislam force then sent forward Fiddler, in order to sabotage the central building of the battlefield, using the cover of smoke to avoid flash pulses and the coverage of Mayanet advertising posts to avoid the return fire of Atalanta. Unfortunately, the Fiddler had only the strength to retreat part of the way to safety, being left standing looking through a window, with a clear view to several alleyways from whence the ALEPH forces would soon counterattack.

Surely enough, Eudoros lept into action, using his impetuous nature to advance quickly up the field. After scoring a wound on a Digger who had little use of his scavenged Monofilament CC weapon, he perched on a balcony overlooking Fiddler and the Haqqislam side. A quick salvo, and the Toy-maker was no more, her jackbots deactivated in the middle of the field. The ALEPH forces, having brought a freedom fighter of their own, were nonetheless surprised when the agile aquatic soldier managed to activate two mines in one sprint, and dodge them both, before taking up position up the field again. The flash bots had clearly been cleverly placed by Saladin, as the ALEPH force found it hard to navigate around the pesky bots. Shakti advanced up the field, scoring a mortal wound on a Kum biker that had advanced into view during her advance. She utilized her hacking device to appear as a part of the Haqqislam force, before frying a nearby hacker's mind with her enhanced Trinity program. Similarly to Fiddler though, the hero could not find the time to turn her Cybermask on again, and she was left standing precariously close to the opponents deployment zone.

With several of the Haqqislams piece's downed by Atalanta and her sniper rifle, Saladin focused his efforts on consolidating his position on the board. Throwing more repeaters down, after the first ones had been cleared by the ALEPH forces, allowed the hackers to fry Shakti's mind, leaving her unconcious, strangely close to the Azra'il. The Mukhtar used his multispectral visor to get a bead on Eudoros, who had not the wits to utilize cover against the incoming burst of fire. A quick salvo quickly put the Steel Phalanx down. As the second turn of Haqqislam wound down, several of their troopers took up defensive positions further up the board, and a hacker managed to approach the ALEPH HVT on the left side, securing another objective for the intruders.

ALEPH began their second turn by identifying the critical avenue of approach: Getting Shakti back to standing would be key, both because of the experimental drug that Parvati had been issued, and because of the added Follow-Up objective the side had been instructed to achieve. So, using the myrmidon's smoke as cover, Parvati and her trusty bot advanced to the middle of the field. A krakot renegade was dispatched by Atalanta so that it could not impede Parvati's approach. The Yudbot went across the lane covered by a flash bot, and with the immense skill of Parvati at it's command, Shakti was back to full health. After realising that she was threatened by the Haqqislam's deployed repeater, the posthuman sprung into action. Her Mk2 shell used her cloaking device to approach the many defensively posted Haqqislam soldiers. Taking cover behind the ALEPH storage crates stored suspiciously near a restaurant, she managed to blast the repeater to bits with her boarding shotgun. Shakti took the opportunity of this brief respite to once again go into Cybermask, giving her some important shielding for the last crescendo. The Posthuman, emboldened by this success, advanced towards the enemy lines, blasting her shotgun towards the Mukh'tar with the Red Fury. The templated fusillade did not find purchase, with the bullets only limply plinking of the soldiers armour, not even risking harm. Somehow, the return fire did not kill the shell outright, leaving it bloodied, standing in the middle of several enemy troops.

Saladin saw how time slipped from his hands, and decided that dractic action was needed. At once, the Ghulam doctor that had joined the force sprung into action. By weaving and ducking between fire lanes, using smoke to conceal their movement from the forward post's of the ALEPH force, the doctor's helper bot reached the Digger who had been shot down by Atalanta and left lying on top of the storage crates. That the helper bot and the digger bot both immediately were peppered, burnt and blown up by a mine made no difference to Saladin, as the experimental treamtent had clearly worked. Not much left to do but to post up as many troops as possible to hinder the final push of Shakti and her cohorts. The Ghulam doctor took up post near the Haqqislam HVT and the Mukhtar was ready to lay down suppressive fire on any target that would appear.

For Shakti, work still remained. Using the cover her hacking device had provided, she moved between cover in order to avoid a facedown with the flash bot, out of an abundance of caution. After performing a Follow-up check on the HVT, she went to face down the doctor. Her heavy pistol found no purchase, but the flash pulse made it's last mark on the match as Shakti was left stunned, staring down her opponent at close range. Luckily, Parvati remarkabel skills came into play again as she leapt over the HVT's guardian doctor and performed the necessary retro-engineering that secured the win for ALEPH.