RP: 188604 [188604] 16: The Storm

White Lament Wreckage

Truffleclub mulled over this prospect with an audible hum, that mutated into a disgruntled squeak towards the end. They didn't like the prospect of damaging some parts of the ship to save the rest, but it didn't seem like there was much of a choice at this point.

"Tungsten con-ducks electrics... Starlight cells are oh-kay, but capacitor shells gone... cracked." The stumbling but urgent tones really did sound like a person woken up at 5am with life-changing news. "Worry about the heat, is... Using hull like real big cage, maybe, but... Plants are flame-able?"

"Please is Arccos hurry back? Electrical will kill. Sand will kill. You not being outside." The tone changed to one of just pure perturbation, fatigued by the constant changes around them, and eager not to loose the single person they had talked to in years. "Put out coolant water? But then electrical fire. I do not know. But I keep you safe, is."

Mt. Gleipnir>

With their horses unfastened from the wagon, then men were free to ride away from the cave they had just parked their wagon in.

"Storms close,"

"Yeah, I can see it... lets do this and get out of here."

The first soldier pulled a shotgun out from under his heavy coat, loading a red flare and firing it off into the sky.

The other would pull out flint and steel, lighting up a torch and then throwing it onto the wagon.



Queen's Slave, Exterior>

"Alright, I can speak with Gut-Stripe. The NMX may have armor that can withstand your weapons, but all we need to do is sneak up on them and hit them with enough energy all at once."

The Irony of that statement may have gone over Uso's head, but the cannn ball fired from the nearby wagon did not.

Almost as soon as the red flair appeared in the sky, one of the men in the closest wagon fired off the cannon hidden inside, the projectile caving in the chest piece of Uso's armor and sending her flying into the palace, the power armor crashing through several walls before comming to rest in the jail cell.

A small group of men who had dropped off the wagons by the ship then ran towards the Palace, climbing in throug the hole Uso had made while two remained outside with Sammy,

"STAY." The soldier said through his Bandana, "OUR. FIGHT. IS. NOT. WITH. YOU." He was sure to speak loudly, and very, very, slowly as if the bug would more easily understand.



Palace,Prisons>

Prison was very, very, boring. For Ace there was nothing to do other than occationally eat, and occationally talk if someone stopped by.

Normally, it would be ace that stopped by, normally by walking into the prison area.

Today Uso would stop by, her power armor crashing through the wall of Ace's cell and leaving a gaping hole that lead to the outside. The front chest of the armor itself was cracked and caved inward, a large, jagged, chunk of spacer-hull sticking out the front.

Palace,Prisons>
Ace who had almost nodded off from boredom again snapped back when Uso came flying through the wall.
"Woah I know you want to kill me but you don't need to break the wall and your armor. Here I'll get you out manually that thing won't be stable much longer." Ace then removed the front chest plate from Uso's armor. "I won't be any help in a fight with out armor at the very least. I can just use my fist as weapons but if you don't want me to fight at all I could assist in other ways by repairing things or supplying you with some of my 'inventions'."

Ace pulled Uso over to what little was left of the wall before using it as cover himself. "Here they come you might want to think fast on what you want me to do."

Queens Slave, Exterior>

Sammy was just about to reply when the deafening boom of the cannon sounded, stumbling to one side and watching in horror and confusion as Uso was flung away and into the palace like a toy.
"W-what?", he squeaked in shock, his LED mask displaying a sad frown up at the man speaking to him. "What is happening? Why did you hurt her?" The little ambassador desperately wanted to follow the trail of destruction Uso had left through the palace, hoping to find her safe and sound, but in the face of what had just happened and the way he was being spoken to, he was too scared to move.

Palace Interior>

The two Ioth sisters cowered in a corner, watching Gut-Stripe as she donned her golden-copper coloured armour. She hadn't said a word since the cannon had sounded and the entire building shook, simply assuming that the building was under attack. "Stay here, Ioth.", she ordered the two doctors, who had no qualms with hiding, fetching a large riot-shield and sub-machine gun from a case she kept in the room with her.

With the shield held in her right two arms to protect her armoured body, her gun held in her lower left arm and her rapier in the upper left, Gut-Stripe stormed out of the room. She kept the large, metal bulwark held in front of her, her head tilted to one side to peer through the polarised, glass slit set into it, advancing slowly and carefully towards where she could still hear the sounds of rubble settling.

She stopped as she came close to one of the corridors compromised by Uso's path of destruction, pausing and raising the volume of her translator's small speaker to full before letting out a piercing screech through it. The speaker quickly crackled and died under the stress, and Gut-Stripe dismissively tore it from her implant and tossed it away, her message already sent, and settled down to watch the corridor with her gun at the ready.

"Appropriated" Warehouse>

The engineers and Ee'ith ambassadors were to a wasp all tense, their heads all turned in the direction they had heard the screech. It was the call to arms for an I'ee: Something vital to the family was under attack. Not a single one of the I'ee said a word to one another, silently rising from where they had been resting and leaving the warehouse.
Once outside, the throng of bugs split up, travelling in loose parties of two-three individuals heading in the general direction of the palace. Even the normally chatty and bright Ee'ith were silent and focused, the ones still wearing their LED masks displayed only the ominous image of countless pairs of dots: Eyes, all of whom focused upon killing whatever threatened their mission.

Raga-Chopper / 'Hanger'

8 Ball looked over at the man in plain clothes and replied with. "Maybe I am," He began as he looked around the wooden posts around him. "There is supposed to be a hanger around here, but all I am seeing is a pipe-dream version of a structure." He could tell his remark didn't sit well with the local as he began turning red in the face. "I'll have you know that this here is the..."

8 Ball held up has hand and began waiving at the yokel dismissively while walking towards the chopper. "No worries lad, I'm going to borrow this here chopper" 8 Ball said as he approached the helicopter. "Raga-chopper." The local corrected him. "Raga-what?!" 8 Ball said as he turned to the local. "Raga-chopper, from the guys protecting this planet." The pilot did a double take before shaking his head. "In that case, I'm borrowing this."

The local followed him on board the Raga-Chopper in protest before 8 Ball tossed him the manual. "You want to co-pilot this thing?" He asked, dead serious. The man looked indignant at first, but then took the manual and sat next to 8 Ball. "I have to make sure you bring this home in one piece!" He declared, and the pilot smirked. "I'm sure you will."


During this whole time, Tiberius began what he assumed was the start up sequence. You see, this piece of equipment was so old, he had no idea who the proper sequence was. So by the time the yokel sat next to 8 Ball and strapped in, the yokel was able to ask if 8 ball if he made the simple mistake of not calibrating the altimeter until he said something to 8 Ball. "I was getting to that." Ball said as he made the necessary adjustments and began bringing the helicopter to a steady hover. "Have you ever done this before?" The Yokel asked. "Nope, no idea." 8 Ball responded as he turned the Raga-Chopper 90 degrees to the signal beacon to begin the journey towards the stranded civilians. "I am going to die." The Yokel began to say. "No, your just beginning to live!" 8 Ball responded enthusiastically.

Road to the Usotzkan Capital

The half ID-SOL nodded his head, acknowledging Arccos had a good point. He heard her talking to someone about some sort of club made of truffles which he assumed was some kind of code. He raised a green eyebrow in confusion. The storm behind them was much more of an immediate concern, especially after Rubi informed them exactly how bad it could be.

His foot depressed the acceleration pedal as far as it would go. The car surged forward at top speed. "You should have said something sooner!" He yelled back at the local. They weren't too far from the city now, the palace clearly visible on the horizon.

As Arccos's conversation continued, he managed to decipher that she was speaking to an entity inside the Freespacer ship. She had failed to mention anything being functional on the ship apart from the insane robot spiders. That was a little suspicious, but he hadn't exactly told her everything he was up to, so bringing it up wouldn't really be fair.

"You need anyone to help convince those space bugs to help, give me a call. I'll use my Ambassador status." Corgan said. Before he could say anything else, he noticed a red streak in the sky followed by what sounded like a small explosion. A hole suddenly appeared in the walls of the palace.

"Shit, they already started the attack. Guess that chopper isn't coming, is it?" He said with a sigh. "Well, we should be there soon."

Corgan wasn't worried about Uso, he was more concerned that if she died, they'd never get paid for their assistance. The I'ee could probably take care of themselves, but he did worry about the Wasps he made friends with. He was glad they weren't but a few minutes away from town.

"Right, so what's the plan here Sheriff?" He asked, looking towards Arccos for a second. "Going in without power armor isn't exactly my idea of a good time. I say we get to the freighter for two reasons. One, get our armor. Two, keep the locals from getting their hands on real weapons."

PALACE

Errowyn jumped when hearing the explosion of a cannon. Then sounds of stone shattering along with wood supports. The whole building creaked ominously. She rushed out of the room onto the balcony in her underwear and t-shirt. The air was filled with dust.

****

Daniel heard the cannon fire and dove for the Queen's Slave. He rushed inside, hitting the access hatches closed behind him and locking them closed. He rushed through the ship and jumped into the pilot seat and hitting switches and pulling levers. With a loud Pop! Hiss! Queen's Slave rose for the sky, kicking up more and more dust as the ship lifted off into the sky.

With lift-off with the Queen's Slave, the Shielding it provided was no more as it left with the ship gaining altitude. Daniel swung the Queen's Slave around and fled away from the storm as it clawed for the higher altitude out of cannon's fire range and to fly above the Storm.

****

QUEEN'S SLAVE

Errowyn blinked as the Queen's Slave began to rise up. She flung herself off the balcony and floated quickly to intercept the Queen Slave, landing on top. She carefully made her way to the topside hatch. She hit the intercom button next to the hatch. "Open top hatch! Dwarf!" She yelled above the wind. The hatch lifted on hydraulic and she scampered inside. She hitting closed button as soon as she was inside so it could cycle her through.

Once Errowyn was inside of the ship, she rushed through the corridors to bridge. "What the fu... is going on!" She yelled as she flopped down in the co-pilots seat and strapped in.

"Someone just shot Queen Uso with a cannon point blank." Daniels spoke with a cheerful smile. "I grabbed the Queen's Slave and took off as this was the next likely target."

Errowyn busted up laughing. "I hope she is okay." She took control while Daniels strapped himself in.

Car:

Once their little trip to the city wound up being a break-neck road trip, Arccos looked up from the communicator. Truffleclub sounded concerned for both her and the ship... That was bad. The flares rising? Bad. The sounds of cannon-fire? Bad. I'ee flying about? Bad. The fleeing freighter containing Corgan's armor? Bad! Cyrus was outside the city leaving command of Ragnarok in disarray?! Bad! Everything was bad right now!

"So... Uh. We're middlingly to extremely super duper fucked no matter what we do..." Arccos said, sounding quite calm. In actuality she had dialed down her simulated adrenal responses in order to stave off outright panic. Handy. "I think getting back to the armor bay on the ship is out of the question. The storm's starting to roll in proper, and it'll be in danger trying to land in this shit."

"What we need to do is split up. I can make it to the old Courthouse on foot, and once there I can rally the Brigadier garrison. Corgan? you have to find the Ragnarok companies stationed in the city and take command since Cyrus is at Gleipnir. I can give you backup, but my unit's not as well equipped and I don't know how to fight a fucking war in the streets..."

"Rubi, I don't know anything about Raph's contingent: But I don't see them around so you're going to need to go out and get General Braith to move his flabby buns and mount a defensive, or rally them yourself if he's too busy sticking MRE's down his neck."

Arccos checked her weaponry. Two sidearms, two spare magazines, two spare speedloaders, and a stun baton. Good for policing and being intimidating to unwary locals, but if they were really determined she didn't have the firing rate or the ammunition for a whole lot of people... She had her power armor on since it was the only armor she owned; but of all those in the car she was the least effective at wearing it, and a metal suit couldn't be resized on the fly to hand over to Rubi or Corgan.

"Corgan, once you get to the Ragnarok garrison, you should lead the defense at the palace. If you can manage it, lead a counter-offensive. Protect Uso, I guess. Not that she needs it, but I gotta trust you know how to do that sort of thing. You also need to send as many of the I'ee engineers you can convince to go to that crash site. Ideally with an interpreter. The survivor will be able to tell them what to do to prevent big booms and everyone's skin melting off from fallout."

"Rubi, I don't think Raph's men are as well equipped as our mercenary companies, so assuming they're after Uso and the palace? Start with the hospital. We're going to be seeing a lot of wounded, so we need that place intact more than we need a fancy house." The pale 'spacer stopped to think, obviously having some sort of afterthought. "One of you should also secure what's left of the royal family and take them to safety, I guess."

She didn't actually seem that invested in the prince's life. Her tone was closer to someone saying you should probably tuck in your shirt, really. But Arccos seemed to perk right up in terms of emoting when she picked up the comms again. Just from contrasting her usual business demeanor to... Whatever this was, it made it obvious that this was actually the most genuinely affectionate to anything Arccos had sounded around Corgan or Rubi. It was weird. Teenage girl talking to her crush brand weird.

"Truffleclub? I'm on my way. But first I'm seeing about calling in some friends to help patch the ship up for the storm. If you see some yellow and black creatures, ask them to help. But if any humans turn up before I do, make them wait outside. There's a battle happening out here, and they might be trying to steal from the ship."

:: Queen's Slave ::

Errowyn and Daniels kept the Queen's Slave from be thrown from the sky by the high turbulent winds that heralds the approaching killer dust storm. Warning light flickered across both of their consoles as Daniel concentrated on getting above the storm winds.

Errowyn played tech by rerouting power throughout the ship. Cutting sections off and boosting others. Or rerouting commands from Daniel through other subsystems as the mains were glitching do to the dust and charged atmosphere. A nasty bolt of static electricity reached out from the boiling clouds of sand, dust, debri and a few unlucky organics gotten caught.

Ka-Pang!

"Tis is worser than Squid shitstorm!" Daniel yelled as whole ship lit up on the outside with St. Elmo's Fire of static electricity. Racing along the sphere of the still activated shielding.

"That is why I'm a fighter pilot. But I agree with you on that!" Errowyn spoke growling in her soft voice as she made a few adjustments. "Could drop the shield to see. But then we run the risk of being punctured..."

"We can deal with being punctured!" Daniel gave the command to drop shields to get rid of the static discharges along the shield sphere draining the shield and making the shield generators work over time.

"Keep fingers crossed!" Errowyn killed the shields long enough to disperse the static electricity bolts that were racing on the shield spherical surface. "How high are we?"

"We're a 3 kilometers up and still being effected by this storm!" Daniels spoke as Errowyn re-activated the shields again.

"Take it into space," Errowyn spoke showing signs of nervousness in her calm demeanor. Daniel gave a grunt of acceptance on her order. "We whont be much good on coms anyway with all of the static going on."

White Lament Wreckage

"The yellow-black are friends?... Clow-dee will trust, if you say trust... but... " A somber tone. The technological giant had neither the vision nor the hearing to distinguish cannon fire from thunder, but as far as they were concerned, both were equally threatening. They did not like the type 3 being out there alone, with all those scary capitalist creatures, all those scary weather patterns. "...Be you soon, Ar-cuss... Be you safe."

They didn't turn off the communicator. It was possible they just didn't know how. Arccos was now receiving a jittery transmission of the overgrown floor panels scrolling past once more, disturbed rhythmically by Truffleclub's large stalk-like orange boots. It was slightly more urgent this time around, however, punctuated by the screech of inoperable metal doors being forced open.

Sharpened girder turned makeshift giant poleaxe in hand once more, the automata now went about systematically severing dozens of inch-thick coolant lines, each hacking motion producing a pulsating shower of jelly-like liquid. A crude method it might have been, but the ship was never designed to re-route the internal heat distribution system like this; In space, it was easier just to empty the air out of a burning section, if not eject it from the ship completely.

Next came the power lines. They were designed to be rerouted... By the syntelligence system which had long since been eaten by the junkers. Again using nothing but it's axe, the lumbering thing began cutting off all systems which were worth saving from the main grid. Well, at least it wasn't like they needed the life support or anything at the minute. The entire hull was coated in tungsten, and likely to act like a giant lightening rod, despite the buckypaper underlining it. Considering that much of the internal structure was lead radiation shei-

BANG.

The communicator went dead, not nearly designed for the kind of EMP surge that melted it's tiny circuit board in an instant.

Visible for kilometers around, a lightening strike deviated several miles ahead of the storm and struck the White Lament directly, temporarily turning the hull into a massive electromagnetic coil gun which spat out one of it's starlight capacitors at several times the speed of sound. Exploding from the side of the wreckage and impacting into a nearby hillside took less than a fraction of a second.

188604>

Storms raged on the planet constantly, though usually when they slammed up against Mt. Gleipnir, they would break up and dissipate. Only one in a million tended to grow large enough to scale the mountain entirely and blow over the city below.

Even fewer storms had gone on long enough, and gotten strong enough, to generate the massive amount of electricity needed for lightning.

The storms, over the course of thousands of years, had beaten down and destroyed the ships of the original colonists of the planet. They slowly chipped away at everything in front of them, sandblasting the strongest of materials down.

The current storm was certainly one of these filled with sand and lightning... but as it approached the city it had also gone through the debris field of the White Lament.... As the storm crested over the top of Mt. Gleipnir it brought sand and lightning down toward the town, along with a hail of glass, tungsten, and carbon nano-fiber rope that had once been a part of the 'spacer starship.




Palace, Prisons>

“SUCC TCC CCCK BL SCE!” Uso snapped, as the chest piece and helmet of her armor were removed. Her chest looked like it had been crushed inward, and there was blood flowing from her mouth as she got out of her armor... her words completely incomprehensible. Her lungs were full of the fluid, so her jaw was hanging open, blood splattering everywhere as she tried to manually get oxygen into her blood while her lungs were out of action.

Of course, right outside, the soldiers that were attacking weren't willing to wait for her to pull herself together before rushing in. Uso had crashed through one wall of the prison cell, leaving only a single way in. The soldiers tried to crowd around the hole, but only one could fit through at a time.

Uso would then grab Ace by the collar and shove him at the soldiers who were hesitant to fire on a humanoid Uso had imprisoned, by the time they shoved Ace out of the way, Uso was out of the power armor, two powerful blasts sending Uso up towards the ceiling, and then down towards the hole, only for her to receive a face full of shotgun from the attackers, sending her sprawling back against the bars of the prison cell.




Palace, Interior>

The soldiers currently not shooting at Uso stopped to stare down the golden bug thing that was screeching at them. There were easily a dozen men infront of Gut-Stripe, and another dozen spreading out to search through the palace.

“Should we shoot it?” One of them asked,

“They said not to fight the bug things unless we have to... you think it works for the spiders?” Another asked.

Then, instead of continuing the debate, the remaining soldiers opened fire! Large, short barreled shotguns flinging shards of spacer-ship hull at the armored I'ee, the heavier pieces digging into the shield she held in her right arms.

The more inexperienced soldiers would immediately start reloading in the middle of the hallway, while those that were formerly in the Osman army would dive behind whatever ruined furniture or walls they could find first.




Palace, Exterior>

The soldiers outside would start to take up positions around the Palace... watching helplessly as the Queen's Slave and the Ragnachopper just flew up into the air... followed by the massive explosions from the explosive laden wagons.

“.... damn....”

The soldiers would watch as the two ships climbed up out of sight... and then as the storm itself crashed over Mt. Gleipnir, the sky quickly darkening as the clouds of sand and lightning decided upon the city.

And when those soldiers turned around they would see the approaching I'ee. The soldiers would scatter, taking up positions in nearby buildings, spreading out as much as possible, but not yet firing on the I'ee.





Ragna-Chopper>

The local that had joined Tiberius in the chopper quickly pulled a shotgun out from his coat when he saw the red flare go up... but by then the chopper was already in the air.

“Alright, this thing has weapons right? Shoot down that other ship.” He said, pointing the gun at 8-ball...

It slowly dawned on the soldier that 8-ball probably wasn't afraid, after all if 8-ball died then he'd be stuck in this thing unable to fly it. He then thought the best course of action was to show how serious he was by firing his shotgun, sending a blast right through the console in front of the pilot!

Palace Interior>

Gut-Stripe staggered backwards when the gunfire hit her shield, dropping it to rest upon the floor so that its spiked bottom could grip onto the floor. She waited until the fusillade had ceased, before pushing forward, a low, grinding screech sounding as the metal of her shield was forced along the ground. At the same time, she opened fire with her weapon: the belt-fed mechanism whirring as the gun roared, spraying the hallway in front of her with bullets and almost assuredly catching anyone not in cover with several bullet wounds.

Then, she stopped to survey the damage, slowly advancing down the corridor. Any wounded men she passed, she enveloped within the protection of her large shield before killing them with a swift stab into the eye-socket. She kept her gun trained on the closest hiding soldier during all of this, using her field of vision to keep any hostile movement within her sights.

Palace Exterior>

When Sammy saw the soldiers around him scatter, he took the opportunity to flee the square, heading in the direction of his brothers and sisters. For a while there was silence as the Ee'ith and their relatives discussed things, before Sammy's voice rang out across the square, addressing the soldiers.
"Please stop attacking our friends in the palace.", he spoke out in a raised volume, hiding in the dark alleyways with the rest of the I'ee. "We need their help to provide protection for our families. If you attack them, then you are actively preventing this. Please stop being violent."

The engineers of the Ithee and Ithit families had been far from idle on their journey to the palace, having procured a variety of weapons, improvised or not. The majority of them now hid with rifles, pistols and tools in hand, and those who didn't used cruder implements like sharpened metal: A great deal of these weapons had seen use already, dripping with fresh blood.

Palace, Prisons>
'As much as I would love to get rid of her this is kinda sad' Ace thought to himself.

Ace tapped on the shoulder of the man with the shotgun and waited for him to turn around before socking him in the jaw and grabbing the weapon as the man hit the floor hopefully unconscious and not dead from a shattered skull. Ace than wheeled around and blasted his way back into the room.

"As much as I hate you no one should have to die like this. They need to at least be able to fight back." Ace lifted Uso onto his back and held the shotgun in one hand which he fired as he walked through the hole but he stopped half way and made a left. "This way should lead us to the med wing if I remember correctly."

Car >

As the Trio drove towards the city, they would get to see the massive storm cloud overtaking the mountain and washing down towards the buildings below, the cloud effortlessly reaching up over the horizon, going up so high that it was hard to tell exactly just how tall it was.

Of course, they weren't the only ones traveling towards the city as fast as they could. Not too far ahead of them they would see two covered wagons, four horses pulling each as fast as they could with nearly a dozen men split between them.

None of them seemed happy to see the car approaching.

The wagons spread apart slightly, the men quickly moving sacks of supplies to the back of the wagon to create a little bit of cover, moving hidden cannons up onto that cover and bracing them in position as the men in the back of the wagon began taking pot-shots at the car, then a few moments later the first cannon would fire,


BAM!

Road War:

After giving her orders out, and with the thunderstrike hitting the wreckage and firing out something from the wreckage as if to underline why it should be tended to: Arccos snapped her eyes down to look at the now inactive communicator. Truffleclub. Oh maker, please let them be okay...

"Consider that the starting pistol, and move" she snapped an arm to point to the streak of light as the starlight capacitor flung itself across the sky, slapping her other hand on the dashboard. And then... Wagons. Two, lots of horses, something heavy. The town had gone through more than one sandstorm, none of them this bad before but more than one. None of them required wagons. The attack was incoming which meant...

Oh, they were building up cover in the back now. So it was like that.

"Helmets on this time. Get to the palace." A little metallic noise finished her sentence as punctuation. Her helmet clicking in place, the passenger door on her car opening with a creak, one foot in the open window to kick off, then two feet on the hood of the car to get power to the leap. One big arcing leap, using the force of power armor enhanced cybernetics to skid the car sideways out of the way of cannon fire and to launch Arccos towards and over the wagons ahead.

Far from the best shot in Ragnarok, this was going to be tricky. But with this gun and these targets you didn't need to be precise. The hardest part was probably the leap, and Arccos could move in surprising ways when she needed to.

A ripple of explosions tore out at the head of the wagons, Arccos letting out the rest of her loaded H-NAM reds into the horses... Or at least into the ground beneath and around them. She didn't know if they even hit, everything happened so fast, but whether exploded or panicking from everything exploding around them? Those horses were going to have a bad time, hopefully taking the wagon loads of cannons with them.

The leap concluded with feet meeting sand and a forward roll, springing back to her feet and terminating with a short few steps to lose momentum. Corgan might have spied her come to a standing stop from a rear view mirror; her poncho worn over power armor thrown over her shoulder like a cloak whipping in the storm, tipping her revolver back to drop the spent cartridges to her feet.

She just looked so damn cool until the sandstorm caught up with her, blasting her off balance to faceplant in the sand.

---

Further away at the edge of the city, a group of five riders clear the edge of the city. Bounty hunters all, riding on blindfolded horses that jittered and huffed in the sand choked air, before the first of them collapsed, sending their rider to the sand. Run to the point of exhaustion making it here before the storm rose to lethal levels, the rider dragged his leg out from underneath his collapsed mount and pulled a revolver. The beast was out of its misery.

"We'll be on foot." McLewski shouted above the roaring wind. Voice muffled from a heavy scarf fastened around his face. An abandoned house near the edge of the wrecked ship had its door kicked in, the remaining horses led inside to keep them safe from the sand and lightning. From under the floorboards was produced a cache of shotguns left by the General's scavengers who had been weaponising the materials from the crash site. Along with them, black powder, climbing equipment. Pitons, rope and hammers.

Each armed, each loaded, each equipped, the bounty hunters made their way into the city under cover of the storm.

Fury Road

Corgan watched the freighter lift off. He had to agree with Arccos’s assessment. This situation was extremely unpleasant and they may in fact be royally fucked. The thought of splitting up wasn’t appealing but it was probably the best idea. With the freighter gone and his PA with it, they would need backup.

“I’ll check the bar, it’s where I would be if I could.” He replied, referring to the suggestion to get the Ragnarok boys together. “One of them should be able to find the others that came back from the Mountain.”

Protect Uso? The thought caused his stomach to turn. He tried to think of it as protecting his paycheck and started feeling much better. “I think the royal kid is probably safe. At any rate, I won’t let the rebels get him. Even if I have to shoot the kid myself.” He said without remorse.

The lightning strike on the White Lament was a terrible and magnificent sight. He could see an object launched into the hillside like a missile. Thankfully it was in a different direction. Corgan kept one eye focused on the road and another on the massive storm that was just now cresting the mountain. “With all the crazy shit we’ve been through here this damn planet should be called Pandemonium.” He said, shaking his head.

With an eye on the storm and an eye on the road, he didn’t see the wagon until Arccos said to get to the palace. He turned his head towards her and noticed the wagon with cannons aimed at the car. “Oh shit!” He yelled before Arccos launched herself onto the hood and kicked off, forcing the car to skid sideways. His eyes snapped back to the road and he gripped the wheel tightly, struggling to keep control of the vehicle.

The vehicle tried to fight against him, but he managed to keep it on four wheels. “Rubi, you and Ragnadog okay back there?” Corgan called out. “If you’ve got a gun, return fire!”

He heard the telltale explosions of Arccos’s reds and looked to see if the wagons were still intact. All he could see was smoke. The Nepleslian looked in the rear view mirror in time to see Arccos bowled over by the storm. Then the dust was in his face and he could hardly see anything.

If his eyes weren’t cybernetic he would have probably driven off the road. “I need to get infrared on these eyes..” He said in annoyance. By now they were nearly at the edge of the city, so he slowed the vehicle before coming to a stop. “I can’t see shit, we go on food from here.”

He picked his helmet up off the seat and put it on, thankful for the added eye protection. Even with cybernetics dust and sand could eventually cause damage. Corgan tried to raise Cyrus or anyone from Ragnarok on his comms system. “Come in, Ragnarok! This is Corgan. If you can hear me, get to the bar. Bring some I’ee engineers if you can. We’re going to hit these bastards back hard.”

Turning to Rubi, he got serious for a moment. “Take the dog with you. Anything happens to him, I’ll kick your ass. Oh, and good luck.” With that he grabbed his shotgun from the seat and jumped out of the car. His large form could be seen running towards the city as fast as he could. He nearly tripped over the dead horses, but he didn’t even slow down.

Queen's Slave>

As the Queen's slave ascended into orbit, Ivory finally made it up to the cockpit. Followed closely by the Ragnaguard Uso had assigned to her to make sure that she didn't leave the ship.

“Why are we out in space?” She asked, concerned, and just a bit shaken up from the abrupt launch,”Was the storm so bad we couldn't remain on the surface?”



Palace Exterior Exterior>

Corgan was able to get a good distance into the city, a swarm of I'ee was marching on the palace, armed with all sorts of makeshift and dubiously procured weapons The local soldiers scattered about the palace were yelling something at them too, but it was impossible to make out in the storm.

A wall of sand enveloped the Palace entirely, quickly moving through the courtyard and down the street. In moments a tense standoff had turned into near total darkness as visibility was cut down to only a foot or two with light occasionally provided by the massive lightning strikes on the nearby White Lament.

The enemy soldiers were still holed up in nearby houses, but now there was no way anyone was going to be able to hit anything outdoors.



Bat Country City Exterior>

The storm quickly caught up with Rubi, Ragnadog, and Arccos. Arccos was outside, now being assaulted by the thick waves of sand in the air, Rubi and Ragnadog weren't fairing much better in their open topped red convertible. The intense wind was picking up, starting to slowly push the car backwards as sand began to build up on the inside. The windshield suddenly cracking with a loud 'THUNK' as a long piece of re-bar from the space ship slammed into it.

Ragnadog was, understandably, a bit displeased with the whole situation.



Palace Interior >

“STICKIES!” Someone shouted, as Gut-Stripe advanced down the hallway, the remaining soldiers in front of the I'ee warrior... or at least the ones that were still living by hiding behind antique statues and door frames, would pull bottles out from their coats and toss them towards the I'ee's power armor. Inside of the bottles was a thick, black, tar that would coat whatever it touched. Their goal was to cover the creature's armor as much as possible and hopefully block whatever it was using to see.

Then, Ace arrived, walking through a hole in the wall with Uso on his back, the Ragna-prisoner ending up in between a group of soldiers with shotguns that were busy focusing on the golden I'ee warrior just down the hallway.

To make matters worse, the rest of the soldiers had found their way around the palace from earlier, showing up behind Gut-Stripe in the same hallway, one of them taking aim at Ace and Uso, firing his shotgun and sending a shard of Spacer starship right past Gutstripe, almost taking off Ace's head.

Palace Interior
Ace crouched and hurried over to the nearest available cover, a rather large tree near one of the rear walls. From there Ace took turns between firing at the troops in front of the I'ee warrior and trying to stop Uso from bleeding out. "Aries have you reconnected yet I kinda need you to walk me through first aid for...this." Ace felt a searing pain in his right shoulder. He reached over and yanked a rather large piece of bark out of his shoulder. "Great now I have two people to take care of. Uso do you have any weapons on hand that I could use I'm starting to run out of ammo." Ace than took off his over shirt and tied it fairly tight around his shoulder.

Palace Interior>

Gut-Stripe heard the yell and hunkered down behind her shield as snugly as she could, hissing as the sticky tar struck against her shield. Wearing only conventional metal armour, the tar weighed down her shield until she was forced to drop it, letting it thud heavily to the ground. The I'ee commander immediately ran for the nearest cover to hide behind, only to see the soldiers closing in from behind her; letting out another loud, piercing screech, this time using her lungs.

Exterior>

With the swift arrival of swirling, blinding dust, the small army of I'ee were rendered blind. Clustered together, the engineers and ambassadors clung to one another for comfort; their shrieks of alarm drowned out by the howling storm. Those left on their own in the dark, oppressive storm quickly began panicking, screaming in terror and firing their weapons skyward in a desperate attempt to draw their friends to them.

Interior>

Firing from the hip (if she had one, that is), Gut-Stripe saturated the hall behind her with bullets in an effort to kill those trying to flank her, letting out another desperate screech: A call for help that was now smothered by the storm outside. Soon, her belt-fed weapon was clicking to indicate it had run out of ammunition, its barrel smoking and glowing red with heat, and the I'ee commander flung it to the ground.

As she saw it, self-preservation was no longer an issue now: The other I'ee hadn't arrived yet, which meant they were either fighting the enemy force, dead, or cut off by the storm. Gut-Stripe was on her own. With a loud, haunting wail of desperation, she climbed out of cover, her rapier still red with blood, and charged the nearest soldier with her mandibles spread wide in a threatening display.

Palace Interior>
Seeing the I'ee soldier get out from behind its cover Ace bolted from his own on a whim. Ace grabbed a rifle from the ground and screamed a war cry as he ran towards the group of soldiers firing wildly as he went. He pusged the I'ee to the ground as he reached it. "Don't be rash think. I know that we are in a tough spot but we need to think rationaly here I'll cover you and you get to that tree grab Uso and get her to the med wing I'll try to catch up if I'm still alive that is." After that Ace grabbed another rifle and handed it to the I'ee. "Ok I'm off." With that Ace let out another battle cry as he ran into a group of the soldiers hopping the others wouldn't fire on their comrades and began doing what he did best fighting with his fist.