Maintenance Tube
Elway led Linda at hight tilt through the narrow maintenance corridor until they reached the ladder leading up to the CIC room. He cast a look over his shoulder at Bricklet, but decided not to risk wasting time trying to get the horse-dog-robot to indicate whether it was capable of navigating ladders or not, and just began his ascent with as much rapidity as he could must in the narrow confines. Halfway up, a man emerged from the intersection with an Origin SEP in one hand and a Styrling Special in the other. While Elway was reaching for his flamethrower the enemy lost his cool and decided to dump both magazines. The Raider above her absorbed most of the shock, but Linda was treated to a blinding show of blue light and flashing shields as the fire rained down.
"Keep advancing!" Elway called from above just as a single jet of white-hot fire spurted from his flamethrower, and just before a screaming, burning mass of flesh twisted and rolled over Elway's shoulder and struck her gently on the head before tumbling the rest of the way down. The screams echoed in the chamber the rest of the way up to the hatch when Elway palmed it open just in time to observe a grenade passing over the gap from Eli's assault on the room. Quickly, he let down the door and dropped onto Linda's shoulders shouting, "Frag!"
The explosion rocked the ladderway.
Rastafarian CIC
The CIC room was covered from wall to grout with blood and tattered cloth. It was amazing just how much overkill was provided by the Hostile, no matter how many times one saw the brutal effects. Unarmored targets were practically vivisected and reduced to heaps. Some were not even recognizable as humanoid any longer. Slivers of white bone occasionally emerged from piles of charred red flesh and tattered cloth as macabre crowns. One unlucky man had ended up beneath the overturned weapon mostly unwounded and covered in his friends' blood, his hands pawing helplessly at the pile of entrails escaping from the flowing stomach wound just beneath the massive plasma gun as he coughed out a ragged tune of pain and misery. Still, compared to the din Elijah had wrought on them, it seemed quiet. Well, aside from the scrambling sounds coming from the maintenance passage below him.
Railroading Everybody Onto a Big Cargo Elevator Is Poor Form, But Sometimes GMs are Poor People
It was a large cargo elevator fit for, conveniently enough, the entire squad. Alistair, Ilsa, Eir, Phase, Halcyone, and Beep could all manage to squeeze into the cargo elevator that ran them up to the command deck. The doors opened with a polite chime to reveal a wide, empty corridor. At the end of this clean corridor, perhaps the last clean corridor on the ship, was a double set of sliding doors labeled with clear, blocky letters: 'Bridge'
"A strong foe lies in wait nearby." Ilsa warned, gripping her hands tight around the axe and plasma pistol, "There is-- it is hard to see-- a power source independant of the ship."
Eir stood infront of the group, her sheild braced and ready. The doorbuster was poking from the other side of it, pointing in the direction of the bridge. She quickly had her own sensors preform an active scan of the area, and frowned at the results.She couldn't get much more than a mechanical assurance of the hunch Ilsa had gotten before her. "I see it, too. We will have to be careful. "
Eir ran through the possibilities for just such a power source in her head.They were all unpleasant. "I will take point, we can slide the door open and I will use my shield to cover most of it. Joto-Heisho, given you lack power armor at the moment I assume it is safe to ask you to stand behind me until the fight-- if there is one-- starts?"
"Of course, Nepleslian." Ilsa replied, already moving to get behind the towering Devastator armor and level her pistol over Eir's shoulder. "I am no fool, and besides that already wounded. Let us have luck and we shall not tread upon Helvegen today."
"I prefer overwhelming firepower to luck." Eir said simply, in response. Truth be told, the few times Eir had been shot at in her life she had appreciated all the luck that had kept her alive. If Ilsa was going to bring them some more, she would be more then happy to take it. She waved for the others to get into position, and once they were ready to gun down anything her shield could not block she took a deep slow breath to steady herself, letting it out and moving to stack up aginst the door.
As Eir and Ilsa fell in next to the door, it slid open to reveal for just a split second the bridge beyond. It was one of those cool platform bridges where the captain sat above the stations with his crew arrayed below him. The cieling was high, the walls were flat-- it was a very roomy bridge thanks to being a civilian vessel. At the head of the bridge, on the lower portion, was Dax and Cloudheart, the latter bound up in cables against the helm while Dax sat nervously on the console itself with his eye plugged into the console. This had been what prevented Alistair's command of the cameras from showing anything other than an empty bridge. In all this time, Cloudheart had time to inhale sharply, but by the time she'd finished yelling, "Look out, everybody!", it was already too late for Eir.
A blue flash from one corner of the bridge and the sound of metal on metal burst out for only the time it took her very fast opponent to boost and close with his sophisticated and heavily modified black market Mindy armor. The wrist-mounted Aether blade lashed out at the shield, the first thing to be seen from the bridge, and split it down the middle with as much ease as one split a log or sliced a loaf of bread. Either half of the shield fell off from around Eir's hand-- or rather, fell off from the white hot stud of melting flesh and metal that came only a few inches from her elbow where her hand used to be. Instinctively, Ilsa fired four shots over Eir's shoulder and dropped her axe to grab the Marine from behind. Eir's power armor shouted medical alerts to the entire squad, but not a word came from Eir herself. It wasn't that she was too tough, or too proud to cry out over what just had happend to her. It was the shock, the disbelief that her bulwark had been so casualy ripped asunder. It was not easy to drag most of a Devistator suit aside, but the bioweapon Neko was up to the task. Eir lie there, propped up in Ilsa's grip as her monoeye focused just a bit on the stump of her hand. Her mouth open and closed a few times, but no words came. As Ilsa dragged the wounded soldier back, the dripping hot plasma cascaded down the enemy power armor, showing it's previously obscured shape to the rest of the bridge team with startling clarity.
It was in that big room, waiting for them to try anything. And Cloudheart was not far beyond. Perhaps, for the purist, it may be worth mentioning that Daxton was nearby too, and he'd been ordered to be taken alive-- if anybody still cared about such things.
The Mindy crouched in the center of the room and fired off a few rounds with its LASR to discourage further advance into the bridge.
Harmonious Solarsailor
Killroyal slamned his fists down on the console. For the duration of his radio silence, he'd just stood there while Little Phase made its puppets and watched every screen carefully while occasionally muttering things like 'useless', 'maggot', 'dipshit', or 'dumbshit'. Now, he'd had all he could stand and grabbed his HHG. He wouldn't just sit in the cockpit while his daughter (or, one of his daughters) lost her arm on the command deck.
"I'm going out, robot child of mine." He informed Phase, "Put up your puppets and get out what murder impliments you can muster. This shall not pass."
"Nope." He told the console.
"Nope." He told the opening blast doors between himself and the boarded vessel.
"Nope." He told the airlock hallway.
"Nope." He told the corpse just beyond.
Cargo Hold
"I am uninjured and used to being alone." He could, in fact, speak-- especially to interrupt the endless stream of Trade interrupting his thoughts. The troll's voice was deep, yet raspy. Like an extremely large stone grinding against a mountainside. He took the chocolate in hand and held it before his eyes, the cube looking humorously small in his thick fingers. After glancing between the chocolate and the doctor for a moment, he broke it over one of his tusks into a handful of brown splinters and dropped the first morsel into his gaping maw. Despite the fact that his powerful teeth obliterated the helpless chocolate on first thrush, he worked his jaw some more, sampling the flavor before dumping the rest into his mouth and obliterating it as well with just as much speed. Finally, he swallowed and turned to face the doctor.
"I am grateful to you." He said, looking absolutely ungrateful. Trolls just have that ungrateful look always on their face. It's the shape of their brow. Chalky grey skin grew in Domicile's vision as the behemoth came even closer to her and extended a hand. "This is the first food not bread or water I have had in some time. My body does not like the 'nutrient bar', nor does my tongue. You may have a favor from this 'big guy', little girl. I shall bestow upon you a 'solid'."
Instead of getting a chance to name her favor right then and there, Dom's vision swirled with red and green colors-- her power armor screaming out to her that one of her squadmates was injured. The medical alert came in around the same time that Commandant Black came 'noping' around the corner, already barking at her.
"Get up!" He bellowed at her, bare hands yanking her power-armored form from the crate she'd mounted, "Your sister is hurt and you are down here in the scuppers fucking around with..." Black turned his gaze on the troll, who returned it with that disinterested troll look. Black labeled him aloud, "Nightmare Me."
