Talk:People's Charismic Cattirian Union/@comment-27404954-20160825041350

-- Tomsnovsk Construction Yards --

Silently, three white-armored troops creep through the dense forest surrounding the new base, their drop pods still steaming behind them in the snow. As of yet, the chill did not affect the troopers, nor did the deep snow. The boreal forest cloaked them, and so they proceeded in stealth to the rendezvous point, where no one waited for them but the faintest of heat hazes in the freezing night air.

As the ODSTs came closer, the heat haze disappeared to reveal a figure half again the height of a man, even one in heavy armor. It looked down at them dispassionately, and a long-barrelled sniper rifle slid down its arm into its 'left hand' -- more like a socket for the weapon. Its single photoreceptor scanned the group and flashed green once. "Sergeant Jenkins. Specialist Albrecht. Private First Class Lyon. Identities accepted."

Jenkins simply looked at the robot levelly. "Wraith." The single word was all the identification the prototype needed. "Reconaissance completed, Sergeant. The construction yards are largely unprotected at this hour. I have furthermore determined that one of CCU's Leviathan-class ships is currently dry-docked here for updating to CCCP standard weapon configuration, and that it is protected by approximately twenty-six men and an attack helicopter nearby. There are more, but they will not be alerted if we keep to the standard insertion plan."

The Wraith turned its gaze upon Albrecht, who shifted his standard-issue German rifle -- a STG-46 -- to his other hand. "Are the charges prepared, Specialist?"

Albrecht cleared his throat, his breath cloudy in the cold air. "Yes. Attached to the ship's reactor..." He trailed off, and the Wraith simply tilted its head. "I see." Nothing more was said.

The three ODSTs began the slog down the hill to the PCCU checkpoint, which was situated in a high wall of concrete and barbed wire. In the guard post there, two PCCU soldiers stood chatting in Russian over cigarettes, their machine-gun unattended. Up on the hill, concealed under its cloak, the Wraith knelt in the soft snow. If it was human, it would have taken a breath as it leveled its weapon, the EPR railgun humming in anticipation.

"Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back-biter... God's gonna cut 'em down."

The railgun flashed, the Wraith's servos automatically compensating for recoil, and the PCCU soldier nearest the ODSTs seemed to have his head spontaneously detonate. The other put his hands to his throat -- or what was left of it -- in a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding, and died without so much as moving towards the alarm.

The ODSTs moved forwards, their camouflage helping them blend in with the snow-covered Tomsnovsk landscape. In only a minute, Jenkins raised his hand to signal a halt. "Three ahead. Wraith, do you have sight-line?"

"No," the sniper replied laconically.

Jenkins thought better of muttering a curse. "Lyons, go left. Albrecht, right. Keep it quiet." The two soldiers moved off in low crouches, creeping up on the CCU soldiers with guns held low. "Fire on my shot," Jenkins added.

"You can run on for a long time, run on for a long time, but sooner or later, God'll cut you down."

Three shots rang out, muffled by German-issue suppressors, Jenkins' a millisecond before the others. The enemy soldiers dropped like puppets with their strings cut, and the ODSTs were free to move forward.

"You're approaching the main warehouse now," the Wraith said. "Six men in there. Ahead of that, there's the helicopter and three more men, and those are the last obstacle to the Leviathan-class. Access the ship through the left airlock; they've opened it to effect repairs."

"Thanks, Wraith. Lyons, take point. Albrecht, we'll follow her -- lay down wide-spread as soon as she gets their attention." Lyons quietly shifted to the front of the group, and Albrecht fanned outwards in perfect symmetry with Jenkins. "Three. Two. One. Flash out!" Lyons said, arcing a flashbang through the open warehouse door straight onto the CCU soldiers' card table. A second later, it detonated, and while the CCU soldiers were disoriented and confused, Albrecht and Jenkins opened fire.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"He spoke to me in a voice so sweet, I thought I heard the shuffle of angels' feet."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The ceramic skip rounds bounced off of the tightly packed crates, cutting the Communists to pieces as the deadly bullets richocheted off of everything in sight, only stopping when they hit flesh. Lyons, peering through the smoke from behind cover, sounded the "Clear!" and Jenkins and Albrecht jogged up to meet her. Right outside the doors, though, was the attack helicopter, hovering mere meters overhead. It hadn't seen them yet, thankfully, but Jenkins could see the boots of a patrol about to walk in.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Wraith! Sightline on helicopter?"

<p style="font-weight:normal;">If the robot was human, it would have smiled. Instead, it simply adjusted its aim. "I never thought you would ask, sir." The EPR rang out its elegy on fully-automatic, and six 20mm rounds pierced -- in order -- the helicopter's chin turret ammunition storage, infared sensor package, the legs of its gunner, the gunner's throat, and the head of its pilot. The pilot's limp body landed on the controls, and the helicopter slewed sharply to the left, plowing down hard onto the Tomsnovsk tarmac.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Go tell that long-tongued liar, go tell that midnight rider..."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The whirling rotors neatly decapitated the first member of the PCCU patrol, and the crumbling fuselage crushed the rest against the warehouse wall before the helicopter cracked sharply in half, cleaving around the building. Across the base, sirens wailed, and the ODSTs sprinted across the tarmac towards the ship, all subtlety abandoned. On the airlock they were aiming for, a CCU crewman tried to wrest the mounted machine-gun into position, but was cut down -- along with his two comrades -- by precision fire from Lyon's rifle.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Reinforcements ETA three minutes. The ship is empty, as the construction crews have all left for the night, but an armored column is on its way," Wraith said calmly over the comms. Jenkins muttered a curse under his breath now, and the three ODSTs stormed the Leviathan, racing through its gutted interior according to floor plans on their HUD -- courtesy of HIGHCOM's cyberwarfare AIs and CCU's encryption incompetence.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Eventually, the trio reached the heavy blast doors around the reactor chamber, and Albrecht knelt in front of the door to plant a simple shaped-charge explosive, anonymous and untraceable. The ODSTs took cover as the bomb detonated, peeling open the blast doors like a nightmare flower. Before the smoke even dissipated, Albrecht rushed in to plant the charges all around the reactor core valves. Each plastic explosive was molded around the valves to ensure destruction, and Lyons disabled the computer's safety protocols while Jenkins stood guard.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Soon, the job was done, and the three of them raced back to the airlock -- only to face three CCU tanks on the tarmac outside. Jenkins dove backwards, taking the two others with him, as the lead MBT fired. The airlock blew apart, catapulting the ODSTs backwards. "Wraith?"

<p style="font-weight:normal;">No other words needed to be said, and the robot far away up on the hill used its fine manipulators to switch out the ammunition for its railgun. Now, it fired 25mm armor-piercing -- a round rated, at this velocity, to pierce tank armor. "Six-seven-nine meters y-coordinate nineteen rated 40 upper tracjectory calculus --"

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The Wraith fired.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"He called my name, and my heart stood still; he said 'John, go do my will.'"

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Twenty rounds ripped apart the middle CCU tank's reactor and ammunition storage. In moments, the tank exploded, the conflagaration of its reactor meltdown combined with its ammo rupture taking out the other tanks in an instant. An APC stood abandoned nearby, its CCU troops either dead or hiding. The last of them poked their heads out of cover to try and shoot the 'German' soldiers, only to be methodically torn apart between the oncoming ODSTs' fire and that of the Wraith prototype outside the base.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Lyons took the driver's seat of the APC and turned the key, its dashboard lighting up her helmet in cyan. The other two ODSTs piled into the back as Lyons tore off through the base, careering around corners to the outside of the base. The drop troopers abandoned the APC at the checkpoint they had first come through, and sprinted together into the forest. When their CCU pursuit finally drew up to the gate, the soldiers were long gone -- but above the trees, a faint heat haze climbed up into the atmosphere.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Specialist Albrecht, now safely above the UAC Winter-class Prowler sent to collect them, looked out one of the viewscreens in its troop cabin. In his hands, he held a single button, which he now pushed.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Far, far below, fourteen charges detonated around the Leviathan-class's reactor core.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Its safety protocols shut down by PFC Lyons, the meltdown could not be stopped, and the only sign the PCCU troops had was a violent venting of coolant a second before the Leviathan detonated.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The shockwave alone obliterated six kilometers of infrastructure, and the debris spread all the way across the under-construction city of Tomsnovsk. The Prowler, however, had jumped to warp before the full destruction was apparent, bound -- by a complicated and untraceable series of bounced warps -- back to Ceres for debriefing.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Below, a plume of smoke rose above the ruined Tomsnovsk Construction Yards, and ash slowly settled down upon whatever remained.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Who was to blame for this?

<p style="font-weight:normal;">By all eyewitness accounts and analysis of recovered rounds, by the most incontrovertible evidence the might of the Soviets could recover...

<p style="font-weight:normal;">P.A.N.Z.E.R.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Go tell that long-tongue liar

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Go and tell that midnight rider

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down."