Eternal Fire

"...did that do it?"

"Negative. Direct confrontation of the pilot or internal system shutdown is necessary. Recommended action: enter the hatch and seek out the cockpit."

"There's no getting around it, huh? ...okay, let's do this!"

Sigrun swooped down and landed perfectly on the step and climbed inside behind Anke, who had cleared the rest of the room.

"Predator form recommended."

"Right. Mode change! Predator, medium strength."

Her Armour flashed as the gauntlets and boots grew long claws, and expanded up her thighs and covered her arms. The wings folded and became a cape of metal ready for the Flowing Armour-system. Finally, the antenna of her radio moved up on her head in the shape of what looked like two small feline ears.

Sigrun started walking carefully along the path in the direction of the cockpit, keeping an eye out for nasty surprises.

There was nothing, it seemed whatever had inhabited the Tunneler now as it grew it out had not counted on invaders... or just that the Tunneler itself was so durable it had expected to never worry about foreign bodies invading its systems.

Dominic observed the tunneler. Fire from his auto-cannon had damaged the monster´s treads and legs further, meaning that it would probably stay still for the moment. Observing it more closely, Dominic found it to be a curious design. Besides the hideous maw, the tunneler appeared to possess no inbuilt weaponry. Was it designed to be a transport, an engineering vehicle?

Focusing his attention to the current situation, Dominic contacted Anke and Sigrun, who had disappeared into the bowels of the suit. "Anke, Sigrun, Do you think you can handle purging the cockpit on your own? The tunneler is quiet at the moment, but I don´t know how long that will last. And I figure it doesn't have much room to move in."

edited 2nd Feb '15 2:51:10 PM by Brassmoon

The former bandit was walking hunched in the cramped space, being tall wasn't always good. "yeah I can handle it, well, me and my pets in any case" Called over Anke and then to everybody "anybody has any idea on how to get a map of this thing? I Ain't getting much on my own and I'd rather not be running in circles in here"

edited 3rd Feb '15 1:09:40 PM by Sanojutsu

"...Wind, chances of victory?"

"80%"

"Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, okay, we'll take care of it."

Sigrun kept going towards the cockpit, reading her weapon systems for when they found whatever was driving. If possible, she was just going to pump rockets into it from a fair distance and cross her fingers. There was a certain...efficiency in explosives.

The Tunneler let out another screech, it's digging maw spat out another thing before it swung itself at any of the armored travelers close to it, hoping to knock them down long enough so it could start moving again.

Gaius hovered well above the Tunneler, but held off on firing any more rounds. Tch... What can I even do here? It seemed like taking this thing out from the inside was the most viable option, but they couldn't really just all cram into a confined space.

"Uh, h-hey, am I the only one wondering why this thing is coughing up hairballs? ...I hope they don't explode..." Gaius remarked. Apparently AI-Ky caught on to his attention, as Gaius's suit HUD zoomed in on the objects that the Tunneler had coughed up. He tried to discern what they were through the dust and sand.

The remains were unpleasant to see. It was another armored suit user. The same with the first bit of remains as well. Nothing more than what was left of a armored suit user.

This thing had fought people like them before and won!

"Big guy coming through!" Came Jerry's sudden voice into the frequency, the Ziz charging forward without heed of Gaius' concern that the 'hairballs' might be explosive. "Where do you think you're going, you overgrown Borg tape-worm!?" he hollered as he came around to the tunnelers front end. A couple flaps for assistance sent wind and dust all around the outside battlefield as the Ziz reared up on its hind legs. Then Jerry let it just fall back forward, but this time bringing the front claws down on top of the tunneler, trying to keep it from getting away.

"Don't worry about taking your time in there; we're not letting this thing leave" Jerry called smugly over the comms to those inside the tunneler. His two light drones zipped over to the hatch to follow them inside.

edited 5th Feb '15 10:30:29 PM by FirockFinion

"Oh yeah, we're just sitting here sippin' ice cold lemonades," Mendoza said, glad that the other giant suit was adopting his strategy so he didn't have to bear the brunt of the Tunneler's massive body alone anymore. He grunted a little as he kept trying to stay in position. "Make sure you give us enough time to get a nice afternoon nap while you're at it."

He kept on muttering something over the radio - something about Coca-Cola with real sugar and a twist of lime.

edited 5th Feb '15 10:51:39 PM by nman

To Dominic´s eyes the tunneler had started getting increasingly frantic. Besides the immobilization, the creature might also have internal sensors to detect intrusion. Although Dominic sincerely hoped it did not have any actual internal countermeasures. Looking at the side of the tunneler, he figured that he wouldn´t cause much more damage without explosives, and he was loath to do so while Sigurd and Anke were within the tunneler.

Dominic decided to fire a few bursts at anything that looked fragile before re-positioning closer to the front of the tunneler. Maybe he could find a good angle to damage the creature´s mouth. Spinning up his cannon, Dominic noticed that Mendoza had started muttering something trough the comms. Something about cold drinks and... lime? Dominic hoped that was just grumpiness. He´d pegged Mendoza to be an older man, but Dominic hoped he wasn´t actually going senile. Of course the nanites would have probably cured anything like that.

edited 6th Feb '15 1:45:10 PM by Brassmoon

There was no defense inside the tunneller. It was unarmed, and only used it's large size and terrifying digging tool that was now a mouth of sorts to attack.

"Ah zere we go! Firmware update!" their optics flashed and soon there were radio markers, detailing how far away they were, "Zere zat should help you find ze damn cockpit! See ze "eyes" on the front? Tell your teammates where zey need to go!"

"And as for ze Map. If what I saw on ze optics are correct, I don't think any layouts I have are going to help much..."

edited 9th Feb '15 5:33:49 AM by EchoingSilence

"Okay, sweet. Thanks, doc. You guys tell us if we're heading off track."

Sigrun picked up the pace, since things were looking pretty quiet. She was getting kinda excited, truth be told, with adrenaline pumping through her system. Just the thought of all the damage she could deal with her current weapon systems was quite intoxicating.

Taking a breath, Gaius decided ignoring the ...'hairballs'... was probably the best course of action. Talking about what they actually were would just lower morale at this point. "Hey, you guys be careful in there. You don't know what you'll find. ...I wish I could come, but my loadout doesn't really suit enclosed metal spaces. Any more of us crowding in would probably get in the way, but still... don't hesitate to call for support if you need it."

Seeing the radio markers pop up and hearing the Doc's message, Jerry instructed his AI to make his own radio marker visible to the others if possible. "I've got an idea guys; see my marker?" Jerry asked, not sure if it had worked or not. He then had the Ziz chomp its jaws down on the tunneler's front, right near one of its 'eyes'. "My marker should be right at the front of the thing; go towards it to find that tumor of a pilot!" he instructed the others inside the tunneler.

Dominic had just reached a good position towards the front of the tunneler when the radio markers provided by the doctor popped up in his HUD. Now Jerry had lunged his dragon at the tunneler and was tearing at it with abandon. This did help Dominic with locating one of the creature´s "eyes". He tagged the location of the "eye" and started looking for other sensor clusters to target in case the tunneler started showing signs of life.

edited 11th Feb '15 10:01:54 AM by Brassmoon

The sensor clusters all lead to a singular hatch. That was it! That was the entrance to the cockpit and killing what remained in there!

"On it!"

Sigrun darted down a corridor, her clawed boots clanking against the metal floor. Finding the hatch to the cockpit, she wrenched it open, ready to unleash a full round of rockets.

There sat the mass of flesh that was once the former pilots. It was a twisted blob that covered EVERYTHING! It even seemed to dig right into the machinery as if it had fused with the machine itself.

Several eyes turned their attention to the intruders and almost seemed to growl at them. And for a moment, a chant could be heard "Join or Die! Join! Die! Join! Die!"

Sigrun stopped dead. The pulsating, wretched blob of mutated flesh filled her with fear, and she felt an overpowering urge to throw up, flee or both. Instead, she closed her eyes tight, plugged her ears and unloaded every rocket she currently had available into the control room.

Mendoza whistled a tune over the radio while he waited.

edited 13th Feb '15 3:24:21 AM by nman

With a loud roar the Tunneller stopped. Its movement systems died and it slumped down.

The cockpit was scorched beyond recognition and the stench of burnt hair and charred flesh lingered.

There was a tense silence...

It was dead. The Tunneller was dead.

"That's that, I suppose," Mendoza said to himself. "Sending in some scavengers, don't get jumpy if you see them moving around," he added over the radio.

He issued the necessary commands to his AI to deal with drone management, and the carrier bay of the Behemoth opened up. His pair of scavenger drones jumped out, and they started to crawl around the Tunneler to find the good stuff.

"Everyone okay?" he added. "Anybody need some patching up?"

"A bit dirty" responded Anke, some blood and gore had splashed on her "but we'll live..." then she turned to Sigrun "You okay kid? was that your first kill?"

"I'm fine. Gonna investigate the tunneler now that it´s dead." Dominic said, stowing away his auto-cannon. Approaching the maw of the creature He continued. "I´m going to check the gullet first. See what the beastie has been eating." Dominic glanced momentarily at the pitiful remains near the maw. "I mean, besides the obvious."