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[ooc: First and foremost, please go read the OOC thread if you haven't done so already. This thread is open to Mandalorians; everyone else, please ask prior to joining. Thank you!
P.S. - I ran the idea of hiding in the Jundland base by Vencu, who was fine with it.
And in case you're curious, this is the tank used: M82A1E8 Natal]
"Get us through it - gunner, target front, High-Ex! Blast it!" There was no time for formalities - as soon as the loader had gotten a shell home and was out of the gun's way, Corporal Nadzir squeezed the trigger and spat a high explosive shell towards the obstacle. It struck the center squarely. As the smoke cleared - and a second volley of hostile shells rained around the fleeing Natal - Keller could see that the door was warped but not down. There was no time for a second shell though, and no chance of escaping the charging armor racing their way. They needed inside.
He gripped his commander's override and traversed the turret around, locking it so that the gun was over the hull rear. The feline opened his hatch and scrambled up; he reached for the locking pin on the autocannon's mount and yanked it. He shoved the gun down so that it was flat against the turret roof - the last thing he wanted was for his only external cannon to get ripped off. The feline dove back into the turret and slammed the hatch behind him just as the tank raced up to the damaged door.
The driver rammed right in. The vehicle shuddered and its engines howled as the doors momentarily resisted the armored titan, then metal screeched as it gave way. Iron Giant clambered over the fallen door and wheeled into the hidden structure. Of course, the stone 'ceiling' just outside the door wasn't so fond of the impacts it had taken, and collapsed partially. While it wasn't severe, the collapse was substantial enough to block the entrance to vehicle traffic. Keller sighed in relief as it disappeared from sight.
It took a good minute of slow, steady driving through the blacked-out tunnels before they came to a cargo area large enough to turn the Natal around. Once they'd done so, they laid the gun right on the entrance and loaded an armor-piercing shell. Keller got the cupola gun set back up and ripped its dust-covered tarp off. The driver shut down the tank's twin turbine engines and fired up the auxiliary power unit to conserve their fuel.
He sat about in the turret for nearly an hour. He and his crew were quiet, though Nadzir and the loader eventually started arguing over something - Keller tuned it out for the most part. He was too busy lost in thought. It was late in the day - nearly 2200. He was hungry and stiff from spending too much time in the tank. His mind was racing as he tried to figure out why friendly tanks had engaged his crew. The officer needed answers, but he had no way of getting them. He bit his lip to suppress a growl of anger and opened his hatch.
"Hey guys, hand me a LAWS, I'm gonna have a look around."
The loader tossed up one of the tank's railgun carbines. Keller donned his helmet and clambered out of the tank. He clicked on his carbine's taclight as he dropped to the ground, and made his way towards the far wall of the storeroom. It was well-built and rugged, but simple in design. There were no unnecessary frills insofar as he could tell. If the feline had to guess, he'd say that they wandered into a military installation. It was deserted though - no major stockpiles of equipment, no vehicles, nothing. Even the air smelled old and dusty, as if it hadn't been cycled in a while.
Random piles of scrap littered the ground in some places - small things. Odds and ends like hammers and gear packaging. It was the sort of debris that was often left behind when a force pulled out of a base. Refuse of no particular value to anyone, and not worth the time or cargo space to box up and ship home. He crouched by one such pile and poked through it briefly. The feline was almost immediately rewarded with a field manual. It was mostly destroyed and illegible, but even a complete idiot wouldn't be able to miss the Mandalmotors logo on the front or the Mando'a text inside.
"Tatooine... We're near Clan space. That's it, that's our ticket out."
Keller dropped the manual and slung his rifle. The Sergeant hooked his datapad into his hardsuit and pulled up his comms system. It was still patched in through the Natal's subspace radio; that made it easy to key his suit to the comms frequency he'd been given over a year ago by Corden Vencu. He hadn't met the man since their first meeting on Obroa-Skai, but if fate was on his side some Mandalorian somewhere would still be listening to his frequency - hell, maybe he'd get lucky and Kajiko would pick up. The last he'd heard, the Kushari Marine had been captured by the Mandalorians.
As soon as his suit radio was keyed in, the feline sent a message.
"This is Sergeant Major Keller of the Kushari Federation to any Mandalorian forces on or near Tatooine. Repeat, this is Sergeant Major Keller to any nearby Mandalorian forces. We've been attacked by multiple armored vehicles in the Jundland Wastes."
He paused a few moments, then repeated himself once more. "Say again, we are pinned down in the Jundland Wastes by multiple armored vehicles. Are there any Mandalorian forces in the area?"
P.S. - I ran the idea of hiding in the Jundland base by Vencu, who was fine with it.
And in case you're curious, this is the tank used: M82A1E8 Natal]
LOCATION:
jundland wastes,
tatooine
jundland wastes,
tatooine
"How's the engines, Corporal?"
"Purring like newborn cubs, Sergeant Major!"
"Okay, okay good," Keller replied, "You keep 'em that way. Make sure to nurse our fuel - Tatooine's a whole lot hotter than the plains back home, and I don't wanna go for a stroll if we run out of petrol. Don't be afraid to shut 'em off and switch to the aux if we get a little low."
Two bursts of static answered him over the tank's intercom, and he grinned. It was good to be out of the office and back on the ground. It'd been less than a month since the Kushari had pulled out of their embassy on Coruscant, and barely a week since he'd tendered his resignation as Lord Commander of the United Kushari Federation. He'd even bowed out of the Dai'sabre Order - he wanted nothing to do with them, their politics, or their manipulative ways.
He already felt happier. The stress he'd come to associate with his job was gone. Now it was just him, his armor, and his brothers-in-arms. And, for the next week, his very own tank. The feline had wrangled permission to train on the new M82 Natal, a vehicle he'd quickly grown to love. He had plenty of experience in the old Knight-class light tanks and the ancient M49 Natal, but the M82 was a much more modern, more powerful beast than either the M49 or the Knight.
"Romeo 1-1 to Actual. How copy, Romeo Actual? Over."
"1-1, this is Actual. We read you five by five."
"Actual, what's the ETA on Valiant? Over."
"They're two clicks into the Jundland Waste. I read you as in a canyon, so you should see them in about twenty seconds."
"Right, thanks Actual. 1-1 out."
Keller removed his digits from his helmet's temple. He, like his crew, wore IAR20K 'Templar' armor - standard issue for every Kushari Marine. The Natal tank was built to accommodate crewmen wearing the suit, something Keller was grateful for. He hated the lightly armored jumpsuits and Skylark armor he'd been forced to wear while operating lighter AFV's. They could barely be relied upon to stop shrapnel, let alone a bullet if the crew was forced to bail out. Templar had no such deficiency.
The Kushari popped the commander's hatch and hauled himself halfway out of the Natal's dusty tan hull. He sat back on the lip of the cupola and leaned back against the tarp-covered autocannon, which was swung to the rear of the cupola so that it'd be out of the way. He fished a pair of binoculars out of his chest rig, and took a moment to scan the horizon. His Natal - nicknamed 'Iron Giant' - was tucked into a fold in the canyon. They could see anything entering, but thanks to the rock and sparse foliage, they were practically invisible.
Four armored hulls appeared on the horizon - Valiant's first squad. There were two others, along with two groups of Omar IFV's loaded with infantry. Tatooine's twin suns were setting, but the terrain was still brightly-lit and rippling with heat.
"Sarge, you need to check the scope here - I got no IFF's on those guys."
The feline slinked back into the turret and closed the hatch. "You're shitting me."
"I wish I was sir - no IFF, no markings, just their IR tape!"
Keller removed his helmet and, like his gunner, placed it on the turret wall. He pulled a headset on and settled into his seat, flicking on his monitor as he did so. Sure as the sun rose, the tanks incoming weren't broadcasting their IFF's. The only markings on their hull was their IR tape - chevrons on the upper slopes of the turret armor and on the hull front and sides. He swore under his breath and switched his sights to thermal.
"I can't believe those shitheads forgot to turn on their..." He froze mid-sentence as the lead Natal in the distant formation loosed off a shell; the muzzle blast was plainly visible even from two kilometers distance. "Gunner, tank, eighteen hundred meters, AP!" The hostile shell dug itself into the canyon wall a few meters above Iron Giant, raining bits of stone and debris down on the turret roof. "Tank, eighteen hundred, AP! Sighted!"
"Fire!"
The gunner replied, "On the way!" There was a split-second of stillness in the tank, broken by the thundering roar of the Natal's 15-centimeter cannon. The vehicle rocked as the massive weapon recoiled, a plume of smoke and fire roiling out the muzzle behind the sabot round it had just discharged. Keller's eyes were glued to his screen - the shell struck the lead tank square on the turret front and ricocheted off, taking the cupola autocannon with it. The gunner confirmed what Keller saw - "Target hit! It bounced, sir!"
"Corporal, get us the **** out of here. Gunner, aim three hundred meters in front of the lead tank!"
Iron Giant burst into motion. The 95-tonne beast leaped out of its hiding place and turned sharp right. It made a beeline down the canyon; at Keller's command, the gunner put a smoke shell right in front of the attacking Natals. It burst into a dense cloud of hot smoke, giving the tank a few precious seconds of visual cover. Shells burst against the canyon walls as they bolted, but they were able to retreat without suffering a hit.
His gunner, a younger white-furred woman, turned and leaned close to the gun's breech. "Sergeant, what the hell? Those were our guys back there!"
"I know, I know! I don't know, alright? I don't ****ing know." Keller ran his fingers back through his short-cropped mane. His hearts were still thumping away - that little scuffle had given him, and his crew, a bit of a scare. "Gunner, keep watch on our rear. Driver, call out any area we can hide in! I'm gonna raise Actual and see what in god's name just happened."
The feline toggled his headset to tie into his suit comms. "Romeo Actual, this is 1-1. We just took fire from Valiant's lead element - say again, Valiant lead just shot at us! How copy, Actual?"
Static answered.
"Actual, do you read? Romeo 1-1 to Actual, how copy?"
He tried again and again for several minutes before giving up. He switched back to the vehicle's intercom. "I can't raise Actual. I know it's not the canyon walls, we've got a subspace radio. Until we can raise command, we're gonna treat every element of Valiant we see as hostile."
Corporal Nadzir, the gunner, grumbled under her breath. "Never thought I'd have to shoot one of our own."
Keller didn't answer her. He cracked open the hatch and peeked out of the turret just long enough to lob a sensor ball behind the tank. It settled into the sun-baked dust and hardpan of the canyon floor and silently waited for anything to pass it by. The feline kept his eyes glued to his monitor - five minutes passed, then fifteen, then half an hour. Nothing had passed the sensor ball but a few lizards.
"We're not being followed," Keller announced, "But that doesn't mean we aren't being hunted. The rest of Valiant could be coming in from the other end of the canyo -"
He was cut off by his driver. "Tanks front! Tanks ****ing front!"
He snapped his scope front and swore. "Gunner! Target front - two hundred meters! AP!" The turret whined as it spun about, while the driver kept his foot in the gas. The tank was bolting for a divot in the canyon wall - some kind of cave. "Target two hundred - locked!" the gunner announced. Keller gave the order, and the tank gave fire - the opposing Natals did so in kind.
Shells churned the earth around Iron Giant. One round struck the bow and ricocheted off - another hit the hull side and bounced into the dirt. His 15-centimeter gun struck a hostile Natal square on the bow. To their good fortune, the shell ricocheted up and embedded into the turret ring. It didn't penetrate, but the enemy Natal froze in its tracks, then suddenly reversed. "Target hit!" Nadzir announced.
"Sarge!" The driver's voice came over the intercom again, "There's a door in the canyon wall big enough for us!"
"Purring like newborn cubs, Sergeant Major!"
"Okay, okay good," Keller replied, "You keep 'em that way. Make sure to nurse our fuel - Tatooine's a whole lot hotter than the plains back home, and I don't wanna go for a stroll if we run out of petrol. Don't be afraid to shut 'em off and switch to the aux if we get a little low."
Two bursts of static answered him over the tank's intercom, and he grinned. It was good to be out of the office and back on the ground. It'd been less than a month since the Kushari had pulled out of their embassy on Coruscant, and barely a week since he'd tendered his resignation as Lord Commander of the United Kushari Federation. He'd even bowed out of the Dai'sabre Order - he wanted nothing to do with them, their politics, or their manipulative ways.
He already felt happier. The stress he'd come to associate with his job was gone. Now it was just him, his armor, and his brothers-in-arms. And, for the next week, his very own tank. The feline had wrangled permission to train on the new M82 Natal, a vehicle he'd quickly grown to love. He had plenty of experience in the old Knight-class light tanks and the ancient M49 Natal, but the M82 was a much more modern, more powerful beast than either the M49 or the Knight.
"Romeo 1-1 to Actual. How copy, Romeo Actual? Over."
"1-1, this is Actual. We read you five by five."
"Actual, what's the ETA on Valiant? Over."
"They're two clicks into the Jundland Waste. I read you as in a canyon, so you should see them in about twenty seconds."
"Right, thanks Actual. 1-1 out."
Keller removed his digits from his helmet's temple. He, like his crew, wore IAR20K 'Templar' armor - standard issue for every Kushari Marine. The Natal tank was built to accommodate crewmen wearing the suit, something Keller was grateful for. He hated the lightly armored jumpsuits and Skylark armor he'd been forced to wear while operating lighter AFV's. They could barely be relied upon to stop shrapnel, let alone a bullet if the crew was forced to bail out. Templar had no such deficiency.
The Kushari popped the commander's hatch and hauled himself halfway out of the Natal's dusty tan hull. He sat back on the lip of the cupola and leaned back against the tarp-covered autocannon, which was swung to the rear of the cupola so that it'd be out of the way. He fished a pair of binoculars out of his chest rig, and took a moment to scan the horizon. His Natal - nicknamed 'Iron Giant' - was tucked into a fold in the canyon. They could see anything entering, but thanks to the rock and sparse foliage, they were practically invisible.
Four armored hulls appeared on the horizon - Valiant's first squad. There were two others, along with two groups of Omar IFV's loaded with infantry. Tatooine's twin suns were setting, but the terrain was still brightly-lit and rippling with heat.
"Sarge, you need to check the scope here - I got no IFF's on those guys."
The feline slinked back into the turret and closed the hatch. "You're shitting me."
"I wish I was sir - no IFF, no markings, just their IR tape!"
Keller removed his helmet and, like his gunner, placed it on the turret wall. He pulled a headset on and settled into his seat, flicking on his monitor as he did so. Sure as the sun rose, the tanks incoming weren't broadcasting their IFF's. The only markings on their hull was their IR tape - chevrons on the upper slopes of the turret armor and on the hull front and sides. He swore under his breath and switched his sights to thermal.
"I can't believe those shitheads forgot to turn on their..." He froze mid-sentence as the lead Natal in the distant formation loosed off a shell; the muzzle blast was plainly visible even from two kilometers distance. "Gunner, tank, eighteen hundred meters, AP!" The hostile shell dug itself into the canyon wall a few meters above Iron Giant, raining bits of stone and debris down on the turret roof. "Tank, eighteen hundred, AP! Sighted!"
"Fire!"
The gunner replied, "On the way!" There was a split-second of stillness in the tank, broken by the thundering roar of the Natal's 15-centimeter cannon. The vehicle rocked as the massive weapon recoiled, a plume of smoke and fire roiling out the muzzle behind the sabot round it had just discharged. Keller's eyes were glued to his screen - the shell struck the lead tank square on the turret front and ricocheted off, taking the cupola autocannon with it. The gunner confirmed what Keller saw - "Target hit! It bounced, sir!"
"Corporal, get us the **** out of here. Gunner, aim three hundred meters in front of the lead tank!"
Iron Giant burst into motion. The 95-tonne beast leaped out of its hiding place and turned sharp right. It made a beeline down the canyon; at Keller's command, the gunner put a smoke shell right in front of the attacking Natals. It burst into a dense cloud of hot smoke, giving the tank a few precious seconds of visual cover. Shells burst against the canyon walls as they bolted, but they were able to retreat without suffering a hit.
His gunner, a younger white-furred woman, turned and leaned close to the gun's breech. "Sergeant, what the hell? Those were our guys back there!"
"I know, I know! I don't know, alright? I don't ****ing know." Keller ran his fingers back through his short-cropped mane. His hearts were still thumping away - that little scuffle had given him, and his crew, a bit of a scare. "Gunner, keep watch on our rear. Driver, call out any area we can hide in! I'm gonna raise Actual and see what in god's name just happened."
The feline toggled his headset to tie into his suit comms. "Romeo Actual, this is 1-1. We just took fire from Valiant's lead element - say again, Valiant lead just shot at us! How copy, Actual?"
Static answered.
"Actual, do you read? Romeo 1-1 to Actual, how copy?"
He tried again and again for several minutes before giving up. He switched back to the vehicle's intercom. "I can't raise Actual. I know it's not the canyon walls, we've got a subspace radio. Until we can raise command, we're gonna treat every element of Valiant we see as hostile."
Corporal Nadzir, the gunner, grumbled under her breath. "Never thought I'd have to shoot one of our own."
Keller didn't answer her. He cracked open the hatch and peeked out of the turret just long enough to lob a sensor ball behind the tank. It settled into the sun-baked dust and hardpan of the canyon floor and silently waited for anything to pass it by. The feline kept his eyes glued to his monitor - five minutes passed, then fifteen, then half an hour. Nothing had passed the sensor ball but a few lizards.
"We're not being followed," Keller announced, "But that doesn't mean we aren't being hunted. The rest of Valiant could be coming in from the other end of the canyo -"
He was cut off by his driver. "Tanks front! Tanks ****ing front!"
He snapped his scope front and swore. "Gunner! Target front - two hundred meters! AP!" The turret whined as it spun about, while the driver kept his foot in the gas. The tank was bolting for a divot in the canyon wall - some kind of cave. "Target two hundred - locked!" the gunner announced. Keller gave the order, and the tank gave fire - the opposing Natals did so in kind.
Shells churned the earth around Iron Giant. One round struck the bow and ricocheted off - another hit the hull side and bounced into the dirt. His 15-centimeter gun struck a hostile Natal square on the bow. To their good fortune, the shell ricocheted up and embedded into the turret ring. It didn't penetrate, but the enemy Natal froze in its tracks, then suddenly reversed. "Target hit!" Nadzir announced.
"Sarge!" The driver's voice came over the intercom again, "There's a door in the canyon wall big enough for us!"
"Get us through it - gunner, target front, High-Ex! Blast it!" There was no time for formalities - as soon as the loader had gotten a shell home and was out of the gun's way, Corporal Nadzir squeezed the trigger and spat a high explosive shell towards the obstacle. It struck the center squarely. As the smoke cleared - and a second volley of hostile shells rained around the fleeing Natal - Keller could see that the door was warped but not down. There was no time for a second shell though, and no chance of escaping the charging armor racing their way. They needed inside.
He gripped his commander's override and traversed the turret around, locking it so that the gun was over the hull rear. The feline opened his hatch and scrambled up; he reached for the locking pin on the autocannon's mount and yanked it. He shoved the gun down so that it was flat against the turret roof - the last thing he wanted was for his only external cannon to get ripped off. The feline dove back into the turret and slammed the hatch behind him just as the tank raced up to the damaged door.
The driver rammed right in. The vehicle shuddered and its engines howled as the doors momentarily resisted the armored titan, then metal screeched as it gave way. Iron Giant clambered over the fallen door and wheeled into the hidden structure. Of course, the stone 'ceiling' just outside the door wasn't so fond of the impacts it had taken, and collapsed partially. While it wasn't severe, the collapse was substantial enough to block the entrance to vehicle traffic. Keller sighed in relief as it disappeared from sight.
It took a good minute of slow, steady driving through the blacked-out tunnels before they came to a cargo area large enough to turn the Natal around. Once they'd done so, they laid the gun right on the entrance and loaded an armor-piercing shell. Keller got the cupola gun set back up and ripped its dust-covered tarp off. The driver shut down the tank's twin turbine engines and fired up the auxiliary power unit to conserve their fuel.
He sat about in the turret for nearly an hour. He and his crew were quiet, though Nadzir and the loader eventually started arguing over something - Keller tuned it out for the most part. He was too busy lost in thought. It was late in the day - nearly 2200. He was hungry and stiff from spending too much time in the tank. His mind was racing as he tried to figure out why friendly tanks had engaged his crew. The officer needed answers, but he had no way of getting them. He bit his lip to suppress a growl of anger and opened his hatch.
"Hey guys, hand me a LAWS, I'm gonna have a look around."
The loader tossed up one of the tank's railgun carbines. Keller donned his helmet and clambered out of the tank. He clicked on his carbine's taclight as he dropped to the ground, and made his way towards the far wall of the storeroom. It was well-built and rugged, but simple in design. There were no unnecessary frills insofar as he could tell. If the feline had to guess, he'd say that they wandered into a military installation. It was deserted though - no major stockpiles of equipment, no vehicles, nothing. Even the air smelled old and dusty, as if it hadn't been cycled in a while.
Random piles of scrap littered the ground in some places - small things. Odds and ends like hammers and gear packaging. It was the sort of debris that was often left behind when a force pulled out of a base. Refuse of no particular value to anyone, and not worth the time or cargo space to box up and ship home. He crouched by one such pile and poked through it briefly. The feline was almost immediately rewarded with a field manual. It was mostly destroyed and illegible, but even a complete idiot wouldn't be able to miss the Mandalmotors logo on the front or the Mando'a text inside.
"Tatooine... We're near Clan space. That's it, that's our ticket out."
Keller dropped the manual and slung his rifle. The Sergeant hooked his datapad into his hardsuit and pulled up his comms system. It was still patched in through the Natal's subspace radio; that made it easy to key his suit to the comms frequency he'd been given over a year ago by Corden Vencu. He hadn't met the man since their first meeting on Obroa-Skai, but if fate was on his side some Mandalorian somewhere would still be listening to his frequency - hell, maybe he'd get lucky and Kajiko would pick up. The last he'd heard, the Kushari Marine had been captured by the Mandalorians.
As soon as his suit radio was keyed in, the feline sent a message.
"This is Sergeant Major Keller of the Kushari Federation to any Mandalorian forces on or near Tatooine. Repeat, this is Sergeant Major Keller to any nearby Mandalorian forces. We've been attacked by multiple armored vehicles in the Jundland Wastes."
He paused a few moments, then repeated himself once more. "Say again, we are pinned down in the Jundland Wastes by multiple armored vehicles. Are there any Mandalorian forces in the area?"
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