Durgama Takeover

It had been a long trek trough the jungle - thought Lieutenant Okiro, conscious that the rest of his troops didn't have a powered suit to help their movement.

The complex was almost in sight, according to the mapping data, and he surveyed the small force that followed him.
The two jaguars, Danny and Gero, were probably setting up a bet on who would make the biggest mess, while the support artillery remote walked indifferently in front of them. Felipe Morales, the Intruder, was monitoring the local datasphere for enemy quantronic presence. He was a large man, bald, not very talkative, but unexpectedly willing to joke with the rest of the crew. It was undoubtedly reassuring to have such a veteran with them.
Noah, the Masai hunter, was already scouting ahead for enemy sentries in the faint, diffused light that preceded dawn.
Then there was his squad: the doc, Ana, the heavy weapons girl from the Wildcat squadron, Rehena, a smuggler named Morpheus that insisted on joining the forces of the 404 Consular Security Detachment "to fight the bad guys", and... Jazz Caticovas. Okiro's gaze lingered a moment on the girl, which of course wasn't the real Jazmine, hero of the Defiance and hacker extraordinaire, but just a really really big fan of hers. She had a l-host custom made to look like her, except for the hair color, and she was a really good infowarrior in her own right. The fact that she wanted to be called "Jazz" was, admittedly, a bit strange, but he could work with that.

An incoming communication pinged on Okiro's comlog: the Black Hand operative, Akram Agayev, had managed to exit the compound with his pilot, Samus, and his bodyguard, "Fabulous Bill", but there were hostiles from the Japanese army in the extraction area. One of their agents had managed to extract encrypted data from Akram's personal network, and they had sniffed out the upcoming operation.
"That data must be erased." he whispered gravely on comms "We need to find their agent and dispatch them before they can finish the decryption process. I'll send you the information we've gathered on the hostile forces."

The buildings of the research centre finally emerged from the jungle, and Okiro signalled his squad to take position behind a laboratory on the left of the main road, while the Vertigo artillery climbed on a nearby office, hidden from view by a billboard.
Danny and Gero split up with a fistbump, taking left and right flank, while Intruder Morales, having taken his time to examine the enemy defences, advanced unseen behind an habitational module on the right.
Operative Agayev had taken cover behind a section of perimeter wall nearby, and greeted their arrival with a wave of the hand and a sigh of relief.

There were still no enemies in sight, but the local datasphere was showing a sudden increase of transmissions, and the mapping devices planted in their recognisance missions showed movement behind the buildings on the far side.
After a couple of seconds, the roar of a motorcycle engine in the distance signalled that the Japanese defence forces were beginning their approach.

It was time to dance.

Without wasting a second, Felipe, camo cloak active, rushed down beyond the habitational module, trying to reach the nearby guard post and its security console.
One of the guards, a Tanko in bright yellow armour, spotted his movement, but didn't manage to get a clear target acquisition in time: the Intruder slid behind the console, plugging in his hacking device.
"One of the enemy counterintelligence agents is nearby, but she hasn't got the data on her." he growled in comms "I'm gonna deal with that."
Keeping the building between him and the Japanese soldier, Felipe tried to shoot down the elegant diplomat-looking woman behind the guard tower, but she dashed out of his sights with impressive skill.
Filling the secure channel with insults, the Intruder reactivated his camouflage systems and retreated to cover.

In the meantime, the main Nomad squad advanced to provide covering fire. Running forward, Jazz unloaded her pitcher with a loud "FWOMP": one of the signal boosting antennas embedded itself in an advertisement display in the center of the road, while the other flew next to some crates on the left, extending an almost complete defensive network coverage of their position.
The digger Morpheus then escorted Ana and Jazz close to Fabulous Bill's position, while Okiro and Rehena ran up the stairs of the building in front of them, so that she could get a better view of the battlefield to use her rocket launcher.
"I'll cover the stairs, see if you can get a target." ordered Okiro, crouching on the steps.
"Yes sir." she answered, engaging her visor and looking over the roof parapet "Hostile sighted!"
In the distance, a Rui Shi whirred to life, trying to send a salvo of automatic fire towards the woman on the roof; Rehena was faster, and the remote exploded in a fiery conflagration.

As if that was their signal to attack, Japanese units began to rain fire on the squad's position:
"RPG!" Shouted Noah, that had advanced with them remaining on ground level, and opened fire on the slender figure of Yuriko Oda that briefly peeked from behind a building in construction. Taken by surprise by the automatic fire at such extreme range, the keisotsu engineer misaligned her shot, that ended up destroying a portion of the conference centre.
"Did you see that? I got her good!" laughed the Moran towards the Wildcat on the roof, but she pointed at her tactical display, where the red "hostile contact" had not vanished.
"What? How is she still..." His question was interrupted by the heavy notes of a Spitfire firing in full auto: a Domaru had used the diversion to climb on top of the building site, and was trying to eliminate Rehena. Keeping her cool in the storm of bullets, she aimed down the sights, and let loose a single rocket that lit the roof on fire. The charred body of the Domaru came hurtling down, and a cheer erupted from the Corregidorans.
"See Noah, that's how you do it." she said with a smirk.

A cloud of smoke suddenly erupted from behind the burned down Rui Shi, and the dreaded Kuroshi rider burst forward, engine roaring and scythe ready.
"Shit! She's fast!" Rehena fiddled briefly with her visor settings, and fired rocket after rocket to the incoming motorbike, that dodged them all at full speed, emerging unscathed from the fiery explosions like a demon from hell. The wildcat tossed aside her heavy weapon, useless at close range, and started firing with her assault pistol. Kuroshi returned fire while advancing, and Noah dashed desperately to the side to avoid being run over. He activated his last Koala with gritted teeth, hoping that would slow down the unstoppable biker, that, bleeding from a grievous bullet wound, reached the console and managed to enter something into the main system, before the little homing explosive charge reached her and detonated. The explosion was closely followed by that of the bike's engine, and then, a moment of surreal silence.

"Is... Is everyone all right?" asked the moran, peeking from his cover.
Everyone answered, including Fabulous Bill, that was still chilling through all that with his back resting against the nearby wall.
But it was far from over: cries of "Banzai!" erupted from the other side of the main road, and two kempeis emerged, followed by two keisotsus joined by Yuriko, and started advancing towards the Nomad entrenchment.
This time, Rehena didn't react to the threat in time, and a bullet found her before she could take cover. In the monitoring screen, her vitals rapidly went black, and the Dak had to stop mid sprint to the roof. "Those bastard are using shock ammo" she muttered, getting back to cover.
"Samus they are onto you!" Yelled Akram, but the kempei had already gotten her in his sights. Hit by a precise burst of fire, she collapsed in a heap by the module door.

"We have to push them back, hold this position!" shouted Lieutenant Okiro, running out to the road "Someone get to the console, we need to find out who has the data!"
Ducking through the fire from the keisotsus, Noah and Ana dashed for the console, trying desperately to force the system before they were shot down.
"It's her! The woman with the briefcase!" the daktari managed to yell, before being hit. Noah grabbed her unconscious body shooting blindly, and ducked behind the perimetric wall of the conference hall.
"Got it, doc." echoed Felipe's voice through the comms.

Meanwhile, the vertigo, piloted by Jazz, had abandoned his cover, and was firing missiles toward the keisotsu team, together with controlled bursts from Okiro's Multi-rifle. The JSA troops, however, without showing the slightest hint of fear, returned fire from their position behind a torii gate, shook by explosions that seemed to do nothing to deter the disciplined fireteam.
After his armour saved him from a burst of projectiles, the brigada had to retreat out of sight, reaching the last console.
"I can't get trough! I'll suppress them if they advance! Felipe, can you get to the target?"
"Gimme a sec." the Intruder had stopped, looking intently at his interface. His fingers moved fast on the holographic keyboard, and a scream of pain erupted from one of the Japanese soldiers, that sprung up clutching his head with his hands, before slumping to the ground.
The Nomad soldier then started crawling under the framework of a scaffolding that obstructed the view of the other enemies, until he reached visual contact with the Japanese agent.

He took a deep breath. Aimed. Shot. The woman tried to dodge out of the way, but the unexpected angle of attack slowed her reaction, and two gaping wounds opened in her chest.

Determined to avenge the death of their intelligence operative, the JSA forces surged forward: the Tanko abandoned his guard post, and aimed his Blitzen at Okiro. The brigada emptied his magazine towards the armoured figure, and the dangerous electromagnetic payload missed him by a fraction of an inch. Undeterred, the samurai tried to rush towards him, but was mowed down by the incoming fire.

While Okiro was being kept occupied, Yuriko reached the Intruder's hiding spot; with his back against the wall, Felipe was shot down, and, too wounded to fight, he tried to hide away between the steel beams. Backed up by the surviving troops, keisotsu Oda climbed the stairs to shoot at the suppressing heavy infantry. However, the engineer knew what made them tick, and immediately aimed at the power unit of the servomotors.
Okiro felt his suit powering down, alerts popping up all around him in his helmet. He tried to move to the side, but the bullets reached him through the now useless metal shell, piercing his abdomen.
He collapsed to his knees. He was trying to speak, but blood was welling up in his throat. Life support system were failing, and his vision went dark.

Having lost their commander, the Nomads tried disjointly to repel the enemy attack: Jazz gave telemetric data to the Vertigo Zond, and another missile was fired towards the enemy, but the agile keisotsu dodged out of the way, towards the console. Both Jaguars rushed forwards to stop her, while the hacker, tossing caution to the wind, exposed herself to give them covering fire. They, however, hadn't accounted for Yuriko's skill: a bullet shattered the l-host's artificial arm, disabling Jazz, while a kempei opened up on Danny, hitting him square in the chest with a blast from his shotgun, and leaving him to bleed in the middle of the street.

The JSA forces had to attack on two fronts, and Morpheus advanced to support Noah, that was covering the lecture hall console and trying to stop the kempei from advancing further.
A grenade thrown by the digger forced the Japanese soldier to roll out of cover, and there he was shot down by the Moran's combi-rifle.

Yuriko, seeing there was no other option, decided for a desperate move: she abandoned her position by the stairs, running across the road to get to the central console. A missile from the Vertigo and red hot shrapnel from Gero's chain rifle tore her to shreds, but not before she managed to activate the security system.
Inspired by her sacrifice, the keisotsu paramedic tried to emulate her, dodging bullets and missiles with astonishing agility, but in the end failing to activate the final security input.

The cargo ship named "Bears" landed just outside of Gekidan, and the few Nomad survivors, carrying their wounded, hurried to reach its tailgate. Alarms were blaring in the compound, and there wasn't much time before the arrival of enemy reinforcements. Luckily, the anti-aircraft batteries were still disabled, so they could take off and leave the research facility at full speed.

Akram, the Black Hand Operative, was safe, and the data stolen from his comlog had been destroyed. This was undoubtedly a victory for the Nomads, but it had exacted a harsh price in lives: Danny and Rehena were gone.
Noah, who had arrived last to the ship, had recovered her cube, and, with a gloomy look on his face, he carefully placed it in a secure storage container without saying a word.
Felipe, Jazz and the doctor were wounded, but they assured everyone they would be all right with some patching up and some rest. The real problem was Lieutenant Okiro: his life was hanging by a thread, and their sparse medical supplies might not be enough to save him.

Reverend Mother Asuncion, commanding officer of the 404 Consular Security Detachment breathed a heavy sigh in the cargo hold. She hoped not to lose other good soldiers today: she would need them all in the fight to come.
She prayed to Saint Mary of the Knife to give the young brigada another chance, because they were headed to Raveneye station, and there were alien demons to fight.