Remember that you can always ask for me to clarify any particular part of the situation at hand.
“Roger. Switching you over now.”
Corth’s voice cuts out for the moment, leaving only the chatter of the Marines and gunfire. Another voice rises above the fighting, this time from the marines: “Squad Leader Tills, Sir, reporting.”
A brief pause, then he continues speaking in a surprisingly calm and contained fashion. “The situation is starting to look pretty bad; we’ve managed to hold our position against the Uarks for a while but they keep on coming out of nowhere.”
“More specifically, we have 3 rather poorly equipped Uarks firing at us at this very moment!” Butts in a panicked marine.
Tills resumes talking into his radio. “At the moment the path we took from our shuttle seems to be completely swarming with Uarks. We passed numerous entrances on the way here. They’re likely coming from one of the unchecked rooms.”
Tills pauses for a moment, and you can hear a grenade being thrown, followed by a loud bang.
“We can fight forward towards our shuttle, but that’s a while away and most likely past a lot of Uarks. We could also could find an airlock, or enact some other ingenious plan that I'm sure WarCom has plenty of. There’s also an open pathway behind us leading to some kind of room.”
When Corth hears the marine mentioning the room, he starts talking again.
“We’ve already determined that the rooms and pathways behind them will likely, among other things, lead them to the engine room and the general back of the ship. Corth out.”
The radio transmission ends for now, and you ponder your decisions while looking at the tactical information present across the C.O.R.
Situation
7 Marines, pinned down, all in Medium cover behind some crates, facing 3 “poorly equipped” Uarks at the moment.
In the center of the hallway, (about 2.5 seconds away from the Marines at a sprint) there’s a pillar big enough for two people providing Heavy Cover.
Across the pillar, the 3 Uark soldiers are in Medium cover behind the same kind of crate.
[Observation: D20=16, v D20+5=6. Success] One of the Marine spots a visible fuel duct above the Uarks that could may explode with an unknown force if shot correctly. However, it may not be active and shooting it will do nothing. It’s also a small target, and therefore hard to hit.
Atmospheric Levels – Okay.
Enemies
Across the hallway, the squad sees 3 Uarks currently firing at them. The Uarks look to be poorly armored with basic rifles, but there are more Uarks coming every minute.
Equipment
Each marine has the following primary equipment at the moment:
-Marine EVA suit – An armored and light EVA suit standard issue to every marine. Has an oxygen scrubber that allows the user to last up to five hours without external oxygen, and weak built-in thrusters with about a minute total worth of flight in its fuel tanks.
-U.E.F. Battle Rifle – Another standard issue marine piece of equipment. An energy-based semiautomatic weapon that works with no need for magazines or any form of ammunition.
Shared across the marines, the total special equipment held:
-3 Grenades – Grenades that cause an effect similar to a reactor overload situation. They have a fairly small explosive radius, but have a deadly shockwave with even worse shrapnel.
-2 U.P. Explosives – The Directed Pearl Explosive is an explosive, like C4, that can be attached to just about any surface, forcing large explosive power in a single direction.
External Situation
Engines of the Uark ship have powered up, and it’s heading for a relatively low orbit around Athens’ sun. The engines seem to not be at full power, so naval backup should be able to catch up if sent.
A marine transport with about 10 marine squads and 5 shuttles (with enough room for 3 squads each) is headed towards the ship.
Any assets sent to the ship will likely arrive in 2 hours unless the situation changes, such as the ship slowing down, etc.