Disgusting. Ratso-s. Dammit. Ah, freck it then.
Alright. Let's sit down and think for a while. Big creatures and complicated control seems to be hard. Maybe something smaller? Like, a bug? Or a thousand bugs? Yeah, may be useful.
Try to recall those bugso-s who infest everyone. Take control of as much as I can at once in order to rush attacking forces.
[5] Drawing a deep breath, you spread your consciousness thin, embodying yourself in a horde of skittering bugs, who draw to the armored column from all across the landscape, crawling over plating and glass.
You discover that thinking while controlling the bugs is difficult - the best you can do is retain a destructive imperative: stop the enemy at all costs.
[3] The lead machine swerves, but continues on, undamaged. The hatches are bolted down tightly, the bugs cannot find a way in.
[6] On the second machine, the onslaught of insects is so violent that its engine vent pipes get totally jammed by their mass. The side of the vehicle erupts in a plume of acrid smoke, smothering quite a lot of bugs.
[driver:4] The driver of the third vehicle swivels to avoid the wreck of the second, and succeeds in doing so, only clipping it slightly. [6] However, he manages to slam into the first hover, because his observation window is covered in a blanket of insects. His windshield port shatters, and bugs pour in.
[6 ((Fuck. I intended this encounter to be tough...))] The fourth machine tail-ends the third, and both are stopped dead. Several battlesuit-wearing soldiers burst out, dancing on their long, stilt like legs. Then an incendiary grenade is thrown out of the first hover, and detonates in the air, [enemy:5] clearing the hovers' roofs of insects. A group of infantry climbs out and takes position with their weapons.
[5] The fifth driver loses control, grazing the ground and throwing his jethover into a roll. A window is breached, but it is quickly stuffed with cloth and adhesive foam from the inside.
[4] Your bugs retain purchase on the last APC, which circles around the wreckage. Then a nozzle hisses, and a burst of flame is fired from its turret, [6] scorching your insectile army. A soldier catches fire, rolling off two crashed hovers, and several more look pretty scorched.
McGaw consulted her inner workings.
Action: Would it be possible to use animals as carriers for the infector-insects? Could we attack the enemy that way without harming the colony?
Sure as heck it's possible, and you certainly could. [5] A powerful call resonates through the frozen wastes, only heard by those who share the great mind, and by some unfortunates with radio sets. You gather a veritable horde of raptors from all around, load'em up with bugs, and the whole deal marches on the enemy position.
When you arrive, you see that Chester (Pyotr?) has already started the attack: two hovers have crashed into each other, one is downed, its windshield shattered, two are still operational, and one is lying on its side with all hatches closed and an armor plate lowered over the windshield. The whole scene is covered in a blanket of insects, except for a circle around the two crashed hovers; it looks like twenty or so infantrymen are camping on their roofs, their white carapace armor glistening in the rising sun ((Note; only 24 hours of in-game time have passed)). The remaining two hovers circle around their position, flamethrowers blazing. A few soldiers in battlesuits have taken positions near the overturned hover.
((As for your question of what you can do, it's simple: you can shift your POV between any swarm body, and order any swarm body to do any command. The only limitation is that without your DIRECT CONTROL, a body is only as intelligent as its original host, if not less. So if you order a snow-fish to solve puzzles, and then go back to your original body, the fish is going to be kinda lost. The raptors you are currently commanding understand "ATTACK MURDER KILL" very well, and are pack hunters, so you should have no problem getting them to execute fairly complex strategies.))
"Well, how about this. You get a line out to them and I will talk to them. That sound slightly better? And if they say no, well, we will make them wish they said yes."
Call the people, try to work out a ciese-fire, because why not.
Otherwise, time to snipe.
You borrow Al-Radi's high-powered radio station and dial the frequency he tells you. After some shouting, you hear a frightened voice, interspersed with gunshots and bursts of static.
"Bloody good time to call, friendo." *static*
"...whole damned planet, eating us! Cease-fire? Heck yeah!" *static*
"...my location. Have the damned uranium, I do not fancy being eaten by bugs and freaking dinosaurs!"Try to find parts to build more of these drones with guns attached. Send out the current one to hit the enemy vehicles. Aim to shoot the engine blocks to disable them and cause crashes.
[6] There's a box you forgot to check, right behind your workbench. There's another rotor blade inside, along with a gyrostabilizer. Working quickly, you scrounge up another drone, then nip down for a Desperado, which you quickly clamp to the frame.
[1] As the drones travel, a large bird of some sort collides with one, probably mistaking it for prey or something. It is chopped up by the rotor, but the blades are bent badly, and the drone plummets to the ground. The other one arrives: the scene below is a magnificent clusterfuck of crashed hovers, dead bodies, insects, raptors, and fire. Two of the hovers are mashed together, and a group of soldiers is defending them from attack, aided by two operational machines with flamethrowers. Several battlesuit wearers are defending another hover.
Don't worry; we'll handle this.
Get someone to patch the suit and head on up to a good vantage point with the sniper rifle I scavenged and another rifle.
Matveenko directs you down to the vehicle bay; there, you find a grumpy mechanic who takes your suit's helmet and replaces the three cameras, and patches the bullet holes with ceramite paste. You snap the helmet on and lower the cameras. Oh hey. It turns out they provide a fish-eye view, focusing on targets as needed. A blinking menu informs you that the suit's emergency oxygen canister is at 50%.
The rifle you nicked off the dead sniper before has been pinched by one Everett Owen, you are informed, but the quartermaster gives you another GZ-3 out of the goodness of his heart. With it and a Saigon, you climb up onto the roof and listen to all the radio chatter. Owen seems to have reached some sort of agreement with a Cybersun commander, who appears to be in deep copro, judging by all the gunfire. What fun.
I didn't expect the Cybersun strikeforce to get so totalled. The odds of that happening were low.
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Topic: Trailblazers in a World of Winter - Chester crashes the party. (Read 59516 times)