Durgama Takeover

This battle report is a 150 point game that is supposed to be taking place concurrently with another 150 point game titled 'Diaries of a CSU [Season 3]: Double Duty - Strike Team Bravo'.

To follow along with the events of this two-parter, follow the link below to read what CSU Larry is up to in Raveneye's Bow section.

https://durgamatakeover.warconsole.com/battles/razek2648-vs-biggest-dickens-1658381229#report

The crew of the Hasselhoff gathered together at the bar just outside their habs. The sudden Ariadnan attack from the night before had been all but cleaned up, and Mech's ZondBots were hard at work using their nanomachines to plug the various bullet holes all around the habs to hide evidence of a firefight in the Green Zone from any prying WarCors.

The last thing they needed was a leak that neither the Nomads nor Ariadna were devoting all of their resources to the alien menace. Then again... It's not like the Nomads started that fight. They were all too busy getting drunk!

Still, break time was over, and the crew of the Hasselhoff had a doozy of an assignment. To the Raveneye's loss, one of the supporting Nomad vessels was forced away from the station to enable ground operations on Concilium Prima. Which left a hole in the Nomad force's contingent, and put extra strain on the Nomad's tactical and strategic flexibility aboard the Raveneye. The Hasselhoff volunteered to run simultaneous operations in lieu of the temporrary loss.

Petra swiped her hand across her holographic interface, sending out data and files to the commlogs of every member of the Hasselhoff's tactical team. Everyone raised their commlogs up and read through the data. While they read, Petra spoke, "Alright everyone, this is going to be a long day. Obviously we're very limited on manpower since we need to maintain a security force aboard the Hasselhoff and in the Green Zone. So! Here are the gigs!"

The team all lowered their commlogs and leaned forward over the long table with anticipation. "We're going to split into two small teams."

People hummed their affirmation and waited as she proceeded. "Alpha team's lead will be myself." She said.

The team all nodded again. Petra continued, "And... Haaah..." She sighed and rubbed her temples, "Larry will lead Bravo team... I really don't know why the captain didn't pick a more competent leader, but... Here we are."

The rest of the team whispered cheers and subtly pumped their fists in celebration for Larry's assignment as a team leader. They looked around, searching for the CSU to congratulate him, only to find that he wasn't present. Petra blinked and looks among the tactical team. All were accounted for, all except for CSU Larry. Petra's eye twitched, and she let out a long, frustrated sigh. Petra held a finger out to the team, "One moment, everyone..." she said as she left the bar.

Petra grumpily stomped her way to the hab block and placed herself at the door to Larry's hab. She was about to slam on the door when she stopped herself. She smelled something. It was... Rather nice actually. But she recognized the scent. I-Khol. Only the most potent and expensive fragrances laced with the perfect chemical concoctions to elicit amorous reactions from people. Some soldiers would even gene-mod themselves to replace their pheromone glands with I-Khol dispensers to give them an edge in close combat.

Petra's fist was still hovering in front of the door when it suddenly opened up. Larry stood at the door frame in a suit and tie. He leaned with his elbow onto the door frame and wiggled his bushy mustache at Petra. "Well well, I knew you'd come."

Petra blinked. "W- what the f-"

Larry swept her into the hab before she could finish her sentence. She found herself placed in a seat before a dressed up table with candles and wine. He smoothly slid into his own seat across from her. "The dinner date. As promised." Larry winked.

Petra was about to speak again, "This-"

"I got in contact with an Irmandinho in the Starboard Battery and blackmailed him with footage of him smuggling Morat goods to troops in the Raveneye. He hooked me up with this hundred-year-old bottle of wine and fancy confectionary. Oh, and the fragrance." Larry said while he poured some wine into a bejeweled goblet and placed it before the Interventor.

Petra tried again, "Did you-"

"I just figured it was about time we took our relationship to the next level." Larry said, cutting her off again, "With all the hell we've been through together. It just felt right to confess my-"

"THAT'S IT!" Petra roared, shooting up from the seat and spilling the expensive red wine onto Larry's suit. "GRR! You are just- so FRUSTRATING! For FOUR fucking years I've been rejecting you and yet you impetuously keep coming at me!"

Larry nodded as he slurped his wine from his own glass while Petra went off. She continued, "How in the hell does every woman in the Hasselhoff have the hots for you when you're just so.... Insufferable?!"

Larry waved his hand off dismissively, "Pfft, no one else in the ship has the hots for me, Petra. You're being silly."

"Literally the entire Reverend coven in the ship fangirls over you like you're some sort of celebrity! Joy talks about you to me all the time in secret! Kida's, FUCKING 8-BALL'S, heart rate increases just by being around you! Our resident Zondnaut is always making awkward suggestive comments about you being a wild ri-" she stopped herself, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

Larry watched her slurped his wine. "Hm. I never thought about that. Sounds like a you problem, honestly." He slurped again.

Petra froze and stared at the ceiling, "W- wait... What?!"

Larry shrugged and said, "Just making an observation," as he brought his eyes up to her from his wine.

Petra pointed an accusing finger at him, "You-!" she stopped, "That's-! ... Fuck it!" Petra conceded and sat herself back down in the chair, her arms crossed.

"Give that damn wine!" she said as she reached across herself and grabbed it, contrary to her demand.

Petra poured the wine into her glass and sneered at Larry. He smiled back and raised his cup, "Cheers."

Petra didn't raise her glass. But she did down the entirety of its contents. Petra set the cup down aggressively and made a twisted face, "Okay... That isn't bad..."

Larry nodded, "I know."

There was a silence in the hab for a few long seconds. Larry was dabbing his lips with a napkin like he was some entrepreneur in a fancy restaurant. Petra looked as grumpy as ever. "So," Larry said as he finally started dealing with the wine spill on his nanoweave suit. "What'd I miss in the bar?"

Petra filled her cup again and took another long chug. "Orders..."

Larry nodded, "Ahh yeah. Nothing new to me then. I'm leading a team to the Bow."

She tilted her head before leaning forward on the table, "Wait... How did you know that?"

Larry shrugged, "The captain told me. He briefed me separately after I told him I had this whole dinner thing planned for you."

Petra slumped back in her chair, "You are just-... Aaaah..."

Larry finished her sentence, "An absolute specimen of mankind? Thanks. I once was on the same magazine cover as Achilles, you know." ... He neglected to mention he was the CSU in the background being trampled over by hundreds of Achilles' own fans.

--5 HOURS LATER--
--RAVENEYE STARBOARD BATTERY--

Petra moved along in single file with her team through the tight corridors of the Raveneye's maintenance tunnels. They were unmonitored, and it was null sweat for an Interventor to spot and shut down any sort of rigged up security systems ALEPH had established to cover the weak point. Taking the lead of the formation was Grendel, a veteran Grenzer who had a knack for uncovering hidden things. His advanced visor display highlighted the edges of the environment, allowing for him to spot patterns in the architecture of the station, as well as breaks in those patterns that didn't fit the repetitive, modular design scheme of Raveneye. Nine times out of ten, those breaks in the patterns were pieces of external equipment brought in following the Combined Army's boarding.

They were at the Starboard Battery to probe the defenses there after the conflict moved into a new stage. They expected to see Ariadnan forces on guard there, but when Petra got in range to infiltrate the sector's camera network, they were surprised to see ALEPH was there and establishing a position. It wasn't the first time they had encountered ALEPH in the Starboard Battery, but their presence was never a welcome one as far as the Nomads were concerned.

Helen Knovak, Hasselhoff's senior Securitate, peered at the camera feed and pursed her lips. "Maybe they caught wind of Corregidor's intention to salvage the railguns for herself."

Petra shrugged, "Who knows. Either way we're going to have to clear 'em out. The less ALEPH on this station before we convert the Maya uplink to Arachne, the better."

Helen nodded and gave a hand signal to two of her subordinate Securitates to ready their weapons. Petra closed her interface and looked at Percival, a rogue ALEPH myrmidon who attended a Krug nearly seven years ago and never really left it behind mentally. Petra could smell the liquor coming form him even at her distance! Percival hiccuped underneath his helmet and pushed himself from the corridor wall. "Which way, Patty?"

Petra rolled her eyes at him, "Petra," she corrected, "And we're going up. This hatch here could take us out into a secure building."

Percival moved over to Petra and nodded to Helen. He knelt on one knee and cupped his hands together to boost Helen up and force open the manual hatch. Once it was opened, Percival tossed her upward, through the ground floor room and right out an open window onto a catwalk above. Percival gave a two-fingered wave to Petra and Grendel before jumping up there as well to join Helen.

Grendel helped get Petra and the two junior securitates up and out of the maintenance tunnel. Once they were up, Grendel signed to Petra that he would move a little further down and get a peak at ALEPH from a different position. Petra nodded and closed the hatch. She brought up the local camera feeds and watched as Grendel climbed out of a different hatch on his own. Petra spoke over her commlink, "Alright team. We're not here for a long time. This is meant to be a probe of the Starboard's defenses. Let's clean up these ALEPH and head back with our findings."

As the small team of Tunguska operatives climbed into the building, a small motion sensor was triggered that Petra couldn't detect in time. There weren't many ALEPH units in the area, but what was there was threatening enough on its own. A Rudra Gunbot reacted first to the triggering of the motion sensor. It's AI matrix was overruled by an Apsara for manual control, making it a far more threatening foe than it already was. The Rudra spider-crawled its way along the ground floor of the chamber, maneuvering between buildings until the Apsara operator decided that a mine would serve its purpose wonderfully there. The Rudra aimed its disc-like cannon at the target site and fired. The mine frisbeed its way to the location, hitting it exactly and locking to the floor with magnetic clamps on the underside of the disc.

Satisfied with the placement of the mine, the Rudra crawled forward again. Petra saw that the Rudra remote entered into range of her hacking net. She knew that if she could disconnect the Rudra from the AI lattice, the Rudra's performance, and therefore its threat, would be severely diminished. Petra fired up her Oblivion program and sent one out the moment her device was ready to go. But the Rudra detected the malware being uploaded in time and managed to reset its systems fast enough for the hack to have no effect. Petra cursed under her breath.

The Rudra let out an intimidating burst of deep quantronic clicks as it sighted its mine dispenser on the door that Petra's team was hiding behind. She tried to shut it down again, but this time her upload hitched and failed to deliver. She did notice, however, that she too was in ALEPH's net. That was simultaneously excellent and terrible.

As a duo team of Yadu's moved ahead to support the Rudra, Petra saw that one of the Yadu's was digitally linked to the net. A hacker. She fought through the firewalls to deliver another Oblivion program. The fireteam wasn't prepared for hostile hacks to penetrate through their network, but a hasty reset managed to save the hacker from being cut off. Now aware of the threat, the fireteam moved up and the hacker began her counter.

Petra soon found herself assailed by three similar viruses threatening to overload her hacking device's processor and fry her brain. The upload wasn't complete yet, so she quickly sent out her own hack to try and stop the upload. Petra was faster, and the virus upload quickly came to a halt. The ALEPH hacker needed time to get her hacking device up and running again, and Petra took that opportunity to highlight the hacker with a Spotlight program in order to gain the advantage against her in the future. This hacker was good, however, and the reset came before Petra's Spotlight program could upload. It seemed the quantronic battle was only just beginning.

Petra spoke over the commlink, "Grendal! Move forward and shoot that bitch of a hacker! This firewall is making it real hard to fight back against this bitch!"

Grendel was frozen solid and staring down the second mine that the Rudra had spat out. One wrong move and that thing would blow in his face and kill him instantly. She heard Petra's command and replied, "Sure thing... Just gotta not get blown to pieces first..." He said very carefully.

Percival came over the commlink, "Move suddenly enough and fast enough and the mine will *hic!* miss! I promise you! *hic!*"

Grendel rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Gee if only I was a genetically perfect myrmidon with enhanced reflexes..."

Percival replied with a matter of fact statement, "Sorry, champ. Gotta- *hic!* Be born that way! Who knows, though! You could be an ALEPH recreation sent to- *hic!* infiltrate Tunguska!"

Grendel smoldered at that and replied, "It's my entire job to root those bastards out. I think I'd know if I was a recreation..."

There was silence over the net. Then Petra finally spoke up, "Are you?"

"NO!" Grendel snapped back before turning his eyeballs back to the mine staring right at him. "Fuck it!"

He moved quickly, diving around the corner of a building and just barely jumping free of the directed blast of shrapnel. Grendel got to his feet and dusted his coat off, "I can't believe you do that for fun, Percival..."

"Can't you?" Percival asked, "You do it enough times and- *hic!* eventually it just starts becoming a game."

Grendel shook his head, "You're a real piece of work, Percy."

Percival beamed at that rather on the nose comment. He was indeed a piece of work. Grendel raised his combi rifle and moved at the high ready along the side of the building until he spotted a Yadu who appeared to be up to shady shit. Grendel squeezed the trigger at the Yadu, but she dove forward and got out of the volley just in the nick of time! Were all these ALEPH bastards this slippery?! Grendel fired another burst, one of the rounds catching the faceplate and piercing straight through the back of the skull. Two more rounds hit the chest and embedded themselves in the Yadu's body. Maybe they weren't as slippery as Grendel once thought.

Meanwhile, Petra wasn't about to let an ALEPH hacker get the better of her! Interventors were the finest hackers the Human Sphere has ever known! She loaded two instances of her Oblivion program and sent them through the small breach in ALEPH's firewall. Another Trinity came back through, sucking up all of Petra's bandwidth and stopping her uploads. Thankfully, Petra's own antivirus software was more than enough to handle the deadly virus.

The next thing Petra knew, she was being pinged on her commlog. Petra rolled her eyes, "I swear to god, Larry, now is not the time..."

She raised her commlog to see what the message was, only to see that she received a text from a user named 'Shakti'. Petra blinked and opened the message, seeing an animated emoji of an anthropomorphic rabbit pulling its lower eyelid down at her and sticking its tongue out as well. There was text below the emoji as well reading 'Game on, bitch'. There was an attachment with the text that tried to auto upload to Petra's commlong. It was very unsubtly titled 'Trinity.FkU'. Petra immediately cancelled the upload.

Petra narrowed her eyes and sent a message back.

Shakti: Game on, bitch ;P
- ATTACHMENT: Trinity.FkU [download cancelled]

Petra: You want sum? Fine! Bring it on! >:D
- ATTACHMENT: Oblivion.FkU (2) [upload cancelled]

Shakti: Ur meatbrain is 2 slow. U should ^grade :D
- ATTACHMENT: Trinity.FkU [download cancelled]

Petra: Ur mom
- ATTACHMENT: Oblivion.FkU (2) [Failed to send]

Shakti: :O
- ATTACHMENT: Trinity.FkU [Antivirus prevented this executable from launching]

Petra: I bet not even Larry would want to date u
- ATTACHMENT: Oblivion.FkU (2) [Download cancelled]

Shakti: :'(
- ATTACHMENT: Trinity.FkU [Antivirus prevented this executable from launching]
- ATTACHMENT: Photo - SphereHairMagazine_Issue99_AchillesCover.jpg (the photo has a lipstick mark over Larry in the background)

Petra: ...

Petra: Alright, I've had enough of this.

[Petra has left the chat room]

"Would somebody hurry up and destroy that remote?! I'm tired of being on ALEPH's net! The Sphere is going crazy!"

Grendel came up on the radio, "Roger that! Let me just peak around this corner- GAAH! *static*..."

Petra blinked and looked at her commlog, "Grendel?" she called out.

After getting no response, Petra brought up the camera feed to find Grendel laying dead on the floor with the Rudra still firing at his body. She sighed. How many more times were they going to need to resurrect Grendel? Once? Twice? Thrice?! There's a reason why he has that name...

"Alright, I guess you're up Percival." Petra said.

Percival hiccupped over the radio, "*hic!* You got it, Pamela!"

"It's Petra, dammit!" she snapped back.

"Oh! Sorry, Betty. *hic!*"

Percival drunkenly stood up and immediately heard an alarming beeping sound. "Oh! Woops!" He stepped back, just barely dodging the first mine that the Rudra had placed down. "That was *hic!* a close one! Hehe..."

Percival shrugged and stumbled along the catwalk he was on. He unclipped a smoke grenade from his belt and pulled the pin. Outstretching his right arm all the way out, he was going to spike the grenade to his left in front of the Rudra below him. Instead, his outstretched arm threw off his balance, and he ended up staggering and falling off of a handrail-less catwalk. He landed on the ground with a heavy thud and an 'Oof!'. The grenade rolled free from his hands as the entire alleyway became blanketed with smoke.

Percival stood up and dusted off his armor before stumbling up behind the Rudra gunbot. It had no clue he was even there. He had to hold back a hiccup to not alert the Rudra, which might have been the most punishing thing on his body (seriously, holding back hiccups sucks). Despite being absolutely shitfaced, Percival still fought and hit hard like any other myrmidon out there. The unsuspecting Rudra didn't stand a chance as it let out pained and frightened warbles. After dismantling the Rudra, Percival then took the repeater that was dangling from its wreckage and crushed it. "Aaalright, Cattra, the *hic!* Rud- *hic!* The Rudra is dead."

Petra sighed and nodded, "Works for me, thanks." No more disturbing revelations about Larry now!

Helen remained on the catwalk that Percival had boosted her up to. She was on overwatch to make sure some other nasty surprise didn't sneak up on them like the big remote somehow did. Then she spotted the Apsara on a structure's rooftop bringing her SMG to bear at Helen. Not exactly a nasty surprise... Especially at this distance. Helen could take that no problem! She lowered her X Visor over her eyes and aimed her breaker combi rifle at the Apsara. But Helen severely underestimated the Apsara, who was probably very infuriated her favorite Rudra was nothing more than a heap of scrap. Anger was a good motivator to perform.

All it took from the Apsara was a single shot at a nearly impossible distance to hit Helen between the eyes. She died instantly. Thankfully Helen knew people in Tunguska that could get her resurrected in a flash. Still though... Helen always hated dying.

Petra searched through the camera feeds to get eyes on the ALEPH squad. The only remainders were the Apsara and that annoying hacker Shakti. Petra heard another ping from her commlog. She glanced at it, seeing that it was another message by Shakti.

Shakti: Y u leave? :(

[Petra has left the chatroom]

Petra growled and walked over to one of the securitates in the room with her. She held her hand out, "Give me that."

The securitate blinked and looked down at his weapon. "Uh... Can you even use it?"

Shakti: Rude! >:O
Shakti: *typing*

[Petra has left the chatroom]

"Hand it over!" Petra ordered.

The securitate gave Petra his weapon. Petra handed him her combi rifle and opened the door. She peaked her head out and saw Shakti standing on a mezzanine overlooking the room they were all huddled inside. Shakti spotted Petra and gave a happy wave down at her, followed by that same eyelid pull and out-stuck tongue gesture. Petra narrowed her eyes, flipped Shakti the bird, then hefted the securitate's HMG out the door. Shakti blinked and messaged Petra again.

Shakti: D:

Petra squeezed the trigger. The recoil was intense, but she managed to still get shots on target. One hit Shakti, sending her spinning into cover with a nasty wound. The rest shot far, but thankfully the line from Petra on the ground, to Shakti on the mezzanine, lined up perfectly with the Apsara even higher up on the roof behind Shakti! Two more rounds hit the unlucky Apsara, but only one seemed to do any damage to the remdriver. One was all Petra needed though. The Apsara was incapacitated and alone on the rooftop. Nobody was coming to help her.

Petra handed the HMG back to the securitate and took her issued weapon back from him. She heard another ping from her commlog. Petra rolled her eyes again and took a look at the message.

Shakti: Im sorry! U win!
ATTACHMENT: GIF - whiteflag.gif

[Petra has left the chat room]

The Interventor chimed in on her commlink, "Alright, team. Let's collect Grendel's and Helena's cubes and get the hell out of here. We got what we came for."

Percival came up on the radio, "I wonder how Larry is doing on his first assignment."

Petra shrugged, "As long as he isn't fucking it up..."

This was an immensely fun BatRep to write. If it wasn't clear in the narrative, The ALEPH player spent his entire second turn trying to use his Shakti killer hacker through the Rudra's repeater to kill my Interventor. BTS 9 is really sick though. I lost every face to face during that huge hacker battle, but saved every single Trinity that made it through the face to face. Petra taking the HMG at the end was purely a narrative choice, it was the securitate that did all the shooting at the end.

Anyways, this led to a Nomad victory in the Starboard Battery! To see how CSU Larry fared in his concurrent mission in the Bow of the Raveneye, follow the link below!

https://durgamatakeover.warconsole.com/battles/razek2648-vs-biggest-dickens-1658381229#report

Go go bromads!