Board Thread:Custom Lore Development/@comment-26084195-20170411175446

Sergeant Collins looked around the tightly cramped space of his squad’s Raven class dropship. The mood in the troop compartment was sober indeed. Their ship, the Light of Eden, was destroyed just after deploying them by a Razorbird battleship. There were 200 people on that ship. And some of them had been friends with the Legionnaires now riding in the ship.

Collins watched as each of his soldiers dealt with their nerve in some way or another. Smith was telling jokes to anyone who would listen. Halden was constantly checking and re-checking her DER-117’s systems. Chanten was just stoic, not moving a muscle. He didn’t even look like he was breathing.

The pilot’s voice echoed through the troop compartment. “The LZ’s hot, boys. Better get ready for--”

The pilot was cut off as a wave of energy tore through the dropship and it went careening to the ground.

“Sir! Get up, sir!”

Sergeant Collins rolled over onto his back, groaning in pain. Halden was standing over him, poking him with her rifle. “Come on! The Birds are nearby!”

Collins staggered to his feet and followed her, running into a lobby building. A few other Legionnaires were already there, and a few more ran in. He sat down, leaning against a wall. “Who else made it?”

“Smith, Joanes, Roland and Fasten all got crushed with the dropship. Chanten got Joanes’ Phoenix laser.”

“Excellent work.”

Then they heard the sound of another explosion, and an Alliance fighter came crashing down into the street outside a building in a flaming wreck.

One of the soldiers took a look outside the shattered window in the lobby. “Sir! Up on the skyscraper!”

The entire squad went over to the window and looked up. High on the side of the skyscraper, a Razorbird Battlestrider was clinging vertically to the surface. It had an antimatter cannon, the premier Razorbird anti-air weapon.

The head of the Battlestrider swiveled to look at them.

“Get down!” They all leapt away from the window, but one Legionnaire was a bit unlucky, as a beam of plasma shot from the Battlestrider’s nose and sliced right through his cover, and through him.

Then, with the sound of screaming air, a trio of Angel class multi-role fighters come shrieking down the passage in between buildings. Their guns let loose with streaking red light. One of their number is knocked from the sky by the bursts of orange from the Razorbird battlestrider, but the other two streak past, and the shields on the Battlestrider went down from the attack.

Private Chanten ran over to the window and aimed up with the Phoenix laser. He unleashed the bright red beam, which penetrated the Battlestrider’s cockpit.

The Battlestrider remained there for a moment, then it fell of the building and went crashing down to the street far below.

Sergeant Collins’ squad cheered, all except for Collins himself. “Everyone to the next floor of the building, now! We’ll need cover, and a better firing point.”

The squad all ran up the stairs. Private Halden was taking point as they ran up flight after flight of stairs.

Eventually they reached the second lobby (buildings in the Alliance being so tall and having skydocks for flying cars, many have multiple lobbies), but unfortunately found Razorbird Clerics already in the area. The Razorbirds seemed momentarily surprised, and Halden managed to hit one in the head with a laser beam. Even as their comrade went down, the other Clerics brought their battlestaves to bear. Halden dropped and rolled into cover, and the blast from a Cleric disintegrated the private behind her. Another fired off a shot, but it struck the Cleric’s hardlight breastplate, and he was disintegrated for his troubles.

The squad scattered into cover as the green rays of the Razorbirds flashed all around the lobby, attempting to deatomize the unfortunate Terrans.

“Full-auto firing pattern!” Sergeant Collins yelled. He set his laser rifle to the setting he ordered, and poked his head and gun up to start driving the Clerics back. He was immediately greeted by a Cleric’s staff swinging at him, trailing crackling green energy. He jumped back, but the Cleric’s staff struck his rifle instead, carving through the weapon and rendering it useless.

It brought the staff back around to fire, but he was hit in the head twice by laser blasts from Private Halden.

As the Razorbird tipped to the side, three more appeared at the top of the stairs, green rays of energy lancing out from those ornate staves.

Sergeant Collins flung himself forward and grabbed a laser rifle beside the smoking pile of ash which used to be Private Rondan.

He rolled onto his back, aimed his weapon, and pulled the trigger. The weapon was set to automatic, and red beams leap from the nozzle. He fired blindly at the Clerics, shouting as he did so.

When he eventually stopped, he looked around to see the three Clerics at the stairs dead.

Halden walked over and helped him up. “Area secure, sir.”

Collins nodded, a bit dazed. “Who did we lose?”

“You, me, Chanten and Goldberg are the only ones left.”

He looked around at the four remaining Legionnaires. Out of the fifteen soldiers in his squad, four remained.

“What do we do, sir?” Halden asked.

Collins thought for a moment. “We know there are Razorbirds in this building. And we were sent here to kill the bastards, so that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

The other three saluted.

“Alright, time to head up those stairs. Goldberg, take point.”

“Yes, sir!”

The four soldiers started to run up the stairwell again. They didn’t spot any Razorbirds on the next floor, the one after that, the one after that…

By the time they were running up the stairs to the last floor before reaching the roof, they had encountered no Razorbirds. Goldberg kicked open the door to the stairwell, and a blue blade flashed out from the hall and severed his head.

A Razorbird Templar, easily identified thanks to his energy sword and ornate, jewel-encrusted gold armour, stepped into the doorway.

Private Chanten got a shot off at the Templar, but the red beam struck a blue energy shield around the Templar, which then proceeded to chop him in two, diagonally. The blue blade went clean through armour, flesh and bone as easily as air.

Halden and Cullen stumbled back down the stairs, trying to avoid Chanten’s remnants. The Templar pursued them down the stairs, slowly but purposefully. He levelled a pistol at Halden and pulled the trigger. She screamed in pain and collapsed, temporarily immobilized. He then grabbed Sergeant Cullen by the throat and looked him in the eye and slowly cut him in half, vertically.

Halden, lying on the ground, heard something faintly on her communicator. “Grid kilo-23 is hot. We are go for Centurions.”

The Templar tossed aside the half of the sergeant he was still carrying and turned on Halden, who tried to crawl backwards, but there just wasn’t enough room.

Then the wall beside them burst open, and a man in stunning white armour punched the Templar in the face, sending him, careening into a wall.

The Templar pulled himself away and fired his pistol at the Centurion who ducked and rolled away. He took out his “Dragon” class laser rifle. There was no trigger to pull, instead it let loose with a torrent of red laser beams, at a more rapid pace than the standard rifle on full auto is capable of.

Each beam struck true, and though the Templar charged at the Centurion, the blasts quickly stripped down his shields and the Centurion was able to strike the Templar in his unprotected head, killing it instantly.

The Templar collapsed, and the Centurion stood and grabbed Halden’s hand, helping her up. “Are you the last one?” His voice was heavily processed, almost robotic.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.” She replied, a bit absently,

“Come on. To the roof.” The Centurion said, and began pulling her along. She protested and asked why, but the Centurion said nothing in response. He kept leading her, up the stairs, until they reached the roof, where another dropship was waiting. “Get on that?”

“But, why?”

“We’re pulling out. They sent Centurions to extract Alliance soldiers and keep the enemy at bay. Get on.”

Halden shook her head. “No way, I’m gonna fight these bastards!”

“I have my orders, private.” The Centurion replied, then effortlessly picked her up and gently tossed her into the dropship. There were already a few other soldiers in there. The doors slid shut immediately, and the dropship soared into the sky, accompanied by a fighter escort.

The Centurion nodded, then ran into the stairwell as a flock of Clerics flew toward the roof. 