RP: Die Screaming [ Die Screaming] Civil War.

Molotra took a ricocheting PA rifle round back in the car park without even realizing, but was forced to confront the damage in the stairwell, when the simple concrete steps nearly made her throw a track. A big chunk of their left side ablative armor was twisted and had to be ditched, before they could even reach down into the bent interlocking pins that were now extruding out worryingly past the wheel-hub.

The shield was unceremoniously jammed sideways into the top of the railings just before the doorway into the main hall, by which point the others were making their way to the elevator already- Made sense for them to be last because of the ammo, but... Probably best not to take so long she ended up facing a literal platoon of infantry as the sole rearguard.

Too many political machinations going on at once. Blood pumping too fast to even think of the implications of fighting for this useless iceball planet full of defective pirates.

Cha-tink-cha-tink-cha-tink-cha-tink-

"Take a bunch of the ammo." She offered Quilly two literal handfuls of frag grenades, smoke charges and M2 rounds, butting into the conversation with Mastato as the rotund armored figure barely caught up. "Even the non-lethal stuff will set off the projectile stuff. We can abuse that for the timers."

A disgruntled glance at Francis, then the Tsar, then Lupin, then Haisely- Unspooling molecure tape and making the most roughshod party poppers she'd ever made.

"Fuck, what was even the plan here? Where were the revolutionaries going to hide when the ship came down?... I didn't have time to hack any of the personal gear..."

The chaingun on their waist handlessly rotated on its own, testing the action whilst Molotra closed the rest of the gap to the service elevators.

No time left at all.

"They think they can tough it out. And maybe they can. The Kuz are made of tough stuff, and experienced with the cold. But I have my doubts that an EMP would be the worst of their problems if the shield wasn't up, and even if some survived a lot would die. These people are either exceptionally stupid, or exceptionally determined." Tobias commented in response to Molotra's rhetorical question.

As the group moved towards the elevators, the former operator once again manipulated his shield drones to cover the party's mad dash. The more heavily armed amongst them would have to handle providing discouragement towards their incoming foes. Besides, he didn't quite trust his eyesight for anything other than suppression at the moment.

He'd have to get his cybernetic looked at, but that was very, very far down the list of priorities at the moment.

Caffran reloaded his rifle and did a quick check on the rest of his weapons. He hated killing the Kuz. He hated the stupidity of powers at play that they would gamble and toy with the people's lives just so they could come out on top. Maybe he should have listened to his fiancé and joined the Star Army. Sure didn't seem like they had to put up with this kind of crap in their day to day lives. Plus he'd get to see Sanda so much more. He pushed the thoughts away. He was a Nepleslian Marine. He had a job to do.

Caffran reached the elevators and pried one open. He looked up the shaft and did a quick scan, searching for any booby traps. He didn't see any but that wasn't to say that they wouldn't drop something down on them as soon as they boarded the elevator. But time was not on their side. "Board the elevator and get up as quick as you can." Caffran ordered the others. "I'm going to fly up the shaft ahead. If they try to cut the cables or drop some kind of explosive hopefully I'll be able to deal with it."

Caffran stepped into the elevator shaft and hit his propulsion. The M10 wasn't made for long sustained flight so Caffran jumped from one landing to the next using controlled bursts. He just prayed there were no surprises waiting at the top.

The Lobby
Wow, this place is big...

Quilly's defusal of the tripwire netted her a useful tool - a free metalfoam grenade. The overall openness of the lobby meant gover was an absolute premium, and the little birdy kept her treasure in hand while Francis started ranting, Tobias got some sort of headache, and Haisley went back to her screen. The plan for the elevators wasn't far off, but the information of an incoming squad got Quilly's attention.

"Perfect time to have a trap set up, dammit! Time to cook!" She shouted as the metalfoam payload was chucked out towards the staff elevators, rapidly expanding to provide shelter from the soon-to-arrive Snakes. The gift from Molo was immediately put to use as the Elysian took advantage of the lobby's atrium-like design to fly, the grenades being dropped in a messy cluster around the expected Snake Incursion Point. It was the best the quail could do as she snapped her flightlimbs up and pivoted in the air, dashing as quickly as her Golem-enhanced natural mobility would allow. Before she was even halfway back, her final parting gift - a frag, the pin pulled and dropped, sent bouncing and rolling towards the pile.

She just had to hope that she would get behind that foam barricade before her recipe finished cooking. Those snakes would be flashed, smoked, shredded, and concussed seven ways to The Heavens as soon as they stepped within the blast radius.

Lobby

The elevator doors opened as the lift arrived in seemingly record time only to form pits in stomachs and curses at the ends of tounges.

One elevator was all that was called, and as it opened the more keen immedietly took notice of its standard at best size; Tall enough to fit most SOL, and wide enough to fit a corporate cram. But close to ten marines all in bulky Golem armor not to even mention Molotras current size, and three NAM techs when the elevator at best could fit four or perhaps five if unarmored.

"I feel as though we should have realized this sooner." Tsar inserted, a whimsical tone of comedy in his tone as he stepped back out of the hurdle.

"You couldn't have called a second lift, tech-heads?!" Corporal Havoc cursed as she looked about frantically.

"One of you civies get in." She ordered at the group of NAM techs who started looking between themselves. "One of the Tech Specialists next, better yet both of you get in," She looked at Haisley first and then Tobias.

"I-" Tsar raised a hand to nominate himself before Francis shouldered past him, Shotgun in hand.

"Pointman." Was all she said as she grabbed one of the NAM technicians at random and dragged her into the elevator, placing her foot in the way of the closing door and looking expectantly at Haisley and Tobias as if there weren't twenty minutes until the end of the world.

"The rest of us hold the line, work on sending down a couple more lifts on your way up, even if we cant make the right floor we can deposite on one a few floors up out of the way of Opfor and make out way up native on the stairs doomsday or not."

Somewhere in the echos of the lobby a door not meant to was slammed open. Still yet out of sight of the team in the wide but shallow elevator enclave the Courier drones however turned about still in the lobby and the one with a SPAID let a burst of fire out even as a just as fast snapshot of automatic fire pinged off its armor.

"Killgee. Catgirl, lets go!" Francis hissed at them.

As this went on, Havoc was only a few seconds behind Tsar as the mercenary commander ran out of the enclosed elevator enclave and slid into cover behind one of the basalt pillars in the lobby as he turned briefly to fire one of his 12mm autopistols down the lobby where close to ten mercenaries had entered the far side of the lobby by the massive armored entrance door and taken up their own cover and were letting out return fire at the Couriers in the open and the marine and mercenary who got to cover first.

"Times ticking!" Havoc shouted as the two NAM techs, not combatants themselves, moved over and started fidgeting with the passcode-lock on the nearby stairs while the two mercenaries carrying their wounded comrade laid him down against one of the sets of closed elevator doors where he tried to make himself look as small as possible while aiming his weapon out as the two other mercs looked between the lobby and the stairs before loyalty to their employer and source of pay won out and the two brought up M2 assault rifles and joined the fray.

At the armored doors, however, one of the Black Snakes had reached some kind of pannel and was fidgetting with it as flashing red lights above the bunker-style door leading outside began to flash.

Shaft

Every marine was a pilot when it came to powered armor but few were exceptional at it. Caffran was in the top ten percentile at least and could move somewhat up the elevator shaft without hitting the walls and bouncing about like a pinball before dying as the floors passed him by as nothing more than sets of closed elevator doors. It took a good couple minutes before he reached the 37th floor, and having passed it by three floors when he was able to catch the very small writing in the dark shaft of floor numbers beside each door.

Being a restricted level the walls were visibly of a different and likely more sturdy material to avoid digging through while the elevator doors were replaced with a single sheet of studded Durandium with rows of bolts securing it and likely slid into the wall. In the tight confines of the shaft it would be near suicide for any intruders to try to blast through and too time-consuming to burn through.

As options flooded through his head there was a muffled sound and reverberation and the door pulled first in slightly before sliding into the wall and bathing the shaft with light. Not natural lighting as the inside of the 37th floor was a long hallway without doors with the surface lights dead and flickering.

No, the light came from the trail of fire licking up the carpets in a long streak of a path that went down the hall and burned into the pannel beside the doors that opened it.

Down the hall, where it opened up into a reception-like area Caffran could discern was two suits of impulse powered armor waiting patiently, They lacked the ostentatious mohawk that the one Kuz merc had worn. But were simple and jet-black in color with gray-white breakup patterns of camouflage.

While they bore no identifying markers one had a very concerning looking rifle reminiscent of a very long and unsuited high-powered antri material rifle while the other held a more compact and stubby energy weapon by the smoke still wafting about its barrel that had shot the door to open it.

A somwhat familar voice greeted Caffran from the second armor.

"We used the windows once we figured out where you were going." Kiril's voice sounded sharp and tense if trying to sound cordial as his Kuznyetski accent bled in with none of the usual friendly mirth.

"You could still surrender to us, you know." He offered, though the next thing that happened removed any chance for a response from Caffran as the breath was knocked out of him from behind as the low-yield charge stuck to the back of the shaft he didnt notice detonated and blew him into the hall but not before cartwheeling him end of end when his ankles hit the bottom of the door but allowing him to at least roll with his instincts onto his feet as his veins filled with fire the MEC system in his armor flooded his system with some kind of drug only noticeable by the flashing icon on his HUD.

One of his monoeyes picked it up first when Kiril exploded into action and charged supported by the thrusters of his armor filling the lobby with smoke as they burnt the carpet beneath him. He didnt fire the HPAR but instead let it fall onto a sling as he pulled a wicked looking boarding axe from the maglock on his thigh as the back of the axe head ignited from the small booster-assist activated that let the axe deliver sudden cutting-crushing force often used like a rocket to help it cut through starship airlock doors and inner hull let alone powered armor.

Caffran, although somewhat disoriented from the explosion, found his vision sharpening and time seeming to slow down. A combination of his own body's adrenaline and the drugs his armor dosed him with. He saw the boarding axe coming at him and launched himself to the side, his hand coming up to parry the attack. He was partially successful. Instead of a killing blow or having his whole shoulder and arm hacked clean off the he was able to deflect the angle of the blade. It drove deep into his shoulder guard sliced his arm. The pain was almost instantly dulled by his suit's pain blockers.

The kenotic force from the blow spun Caffran around but he moved with it and came up with his own blade in one hand and his sawn off shotgun in the other. He fired one barrel of destructive plasma energy towards the other combatant with Kiril then turned his shotgun towards the young man. "I'd surrender right now if you turned that shield on." Caffran stated as he pulled the trigger. Without waiting to see if he hit or not Caffran moved to cover, racking the shotgun as he did so. He hoped the rest of the team was on their way up.

Caffran held the shot gun in one hand and had his VCBS Vibrosaw Knife, NIGHT Custom in the other. The Vibrosaw emitted small EMP bursts when it connected. As Kiril came around the corner Caffran jabbed the blade into his PA in two places. Each hit emitting a EMP to disable the PA. If that didn't stop him then Caffran would be forced to blow the young man's head off with his shotgun. But that was becoming more and more likely.

Svodog
Stenkogorad Starport
Lobbying for Lift

The Minkan felt his heart plummet down to the building’s sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-basement as the solitary ding! of one (1) elevator meant that he, Matokai Masato, had once again royally fucked things up at a very critical point in time by forgetting to remind Haisely to call multiple elevators down to the ground floor. Fuck me… just, fuck me! I knew it was going to happen, knew that I was going to miss that one little teeny-tiny detail that causes literally everything else to fall apart. Once again, I’ve killed literally EVERYONE - and set a new gorram record this time; we’re up to the fucking tens of thousands now! - by being a frakking baka who doesn’t know his ass from his hand-yabai!

Masato - who’d once again been completely lost in his own miserable world of self-recrimination - abruptly found himself dragged back to the present by a stray round impacting on the wall mere centimeters above his head, then belatedly realized he was diving towards l the ground as his training kicked in. Right. Right right right, I won’t be of any use to anyone if I’m dead, so I require cover. Yesterday, preferably.

With that in mind, the engineer - in a rather amusing mirror of what he’d done less then a minute prior - got up and dashed for the sanctuary of the pillar he’d just abandoned, abusing his body’s ability to float a centimeter or three above the ground in order to travel much, much faster then normally possible. Phew. Alrighty-o, full cover obtained. Now, where’s Haisely…san… oh no………

A bolt of ice-cold fear ran through the Shoi as he realized that Haisely-san - along with Caffran-san, Francis-san, Tobias-san, and one of the NAM technicians - had vanished. Two, no three scenarios immediately flashed through the Minkan’s digital mind: they’d either a) been despawned by the AI overlords running the simulated reality that everyone perceived, b) been picked off in exceedingly rapid succession by the eldritch horror that was hunting everyone down one by one, or c) taken the elevator - whose doors were now closes and whose floor indicator was slowly counting upwards - to the thirty-seventh floor.

The first two scenarios were of course discarded (almost) immediately - there was no evidence to suggest that reality was merely a simulation hosted on some internet server, and the engineer was fairly certain he wasn’t starring in a horror movie - but the third, well…

Masato knew that the third scenario was likely what had happened while he was freaking out about his latest colossal fuck-up, which in turn meant that there was a very, very, very high chance that the woman known as Haisely Goenkof was about to die - because although her Photon Stealth Armor was obviously more stealthy then Masato’s Type 41 Hard Suit, was also even less capable of stopping power armor-grade weaponry… and the Minkan had a sinking suspicion that Borok (and his VOID armor, whose sensors could easily defeat the Photon’s stealth if they were anything like those found on the Mindy) was waiting upstairs to stall any last-ditch attempt at activating the shield.

That in turn meant that Masato absolutely had to get upstairs as soon as possible; although he knew that his weapons were effectively useless against something as heavily armored as the VOID, he (unlike anyone else, save perhaps for the ‘spacer) could theoretically respawn, assuming nobody had tampered with his ST backups - meaning that he could take a bullet meant for Haisely-san and/or possibly distract Borok long enough for Caffran-san to get in a shot or two.

The Minkan thus made a mad, no, unhinged hover-dash for the pillar nearest the locked door the two remaining NAM nerdos were working on - nearly catching several bullets in the process, as evidenced by the series of snap-cracks that echoed through his helmet’s internal speakers - and, after safely arriving at his destination, popped out and fired off several five-round bursts from his Type 33 Rifle towards the enemies that were starting to filter in from the room’s other end. His aim wasn’t perfect, of course - he was breathing rather hard and the pillar wasn’t exactly the most cooperative of surfaces to brace on - but it wasn’t bad, either, thanks to seven years’ worth of practice on an assortment of Star Army firing ranges. Please oh frakking please hurry the actual frak up with the door, you bakas! It’s not even that frelling complex for Empress’ sake, and if Haisely dies, I… I… yeah, no, we’re not thinking about that right now, Masato…

Lobby
The moment the elevator conundrum had reared its ugly head Lupin knew he wouldn't be taking that first ride up, good shooters down in the lobby would hold off the Black Snakes as long as possible - whether another elevator would be send down was almost irrelevant, and so the young man spent his last few moments of downtime prepping. His overstuffed backpack being dumped on the ground and partially unzipped for ease-of-access to the stash of ammo inside, anti-materiel rifle propped up against the metalfoam barricade before Lupin brought his M3 into the fight. Swapping shoulders to keep as much of his body behind cover as possible Lupin began firing precise bursts at the enemies slowly filtering into the lobby, one far-too-close round bit into the metalfoam near his head and caused the marine sniper to quickly duck back into cover.

A sharp exhale of relief rolled against his rebreather before Lupin letting one almost-empty coffin mag fall to the floor before swapping it out for one of its many unused siblings adorning his lower torso. Lupin quickly press-checked his rifle before his eyes fell on Molo, and more specifically her missing section of armour, before his gaze darted to the floor.

"If I go down, my coil-rifle's behind the metalfoam barrier, do what you need to," Lupin commented over the shared comms network, pushing back regret at giving Borok enough time to bring his shield up, what could have been a quick and devestating blow to the Black Snakes was fumbled by that voice in the back of his head telling him to do what was right and not the voice telling him to do what he needed to.

Rising up once more Lupin spied that distant Black Snake messing with some kind of maintenance panel, sucking in a deep breath the marksman did his best to not flinch at the shots straying past his head, flicking his rifle into its 2-round hyperburst firemode and locking his elbow against his torso as his reticle was placed over the distant tango's torso. With a slow exhale Lupin let loose a burst, then another, and another to hopefully not just drop the bastard - but eliminate him and damage that panel in the process.

32nd Floor

Kiril was younger, and less experienced than Caffran. That much was clear to both of them as the even less advanced impulse armors shield flashed and then buckled over plasma wash and multiple consecutive blows from Caffans close combat weapons. But young and inexperienced compared to the verteran marine he was, Kiril was still a half-SOL albeit on the smaller size compared to his father, and matched Caffran in sheer desperate intensity as with a thrust-assited manuever the impulse armor slammed into caffran and broke through the wall paneling onto to be stopped by inner armor support from the reinforced level as the Kuzynetski youth tried not so much to wrestle the vibroblade out of caffrans hand so much as break the hand in its entirety as he repeatedly slammed the back of Caffs' armored hand against the wall to at least try to remove one of the knives while repeatedly using his much thicker skull to try to cave in caffrans raider armor one headbutt at a time while the hook of his axe was cruxed around caffrans shoulder innefectively.

It was desperate at best and even despite his super-Y assisted testosterone boosting him Kiril eventually ran short of breath as one headbutt went just slow enough that Caffran could pull enough to the side for the attack to completely miss him and embed the impulse armors head down to the neck into the wall. Intended to push off, Kiril instead slammed the fist into the wall as well, punching through the walls paneling and getting even more stuck.

Not quite in time to finish Kiril off from his vulnerable position Caffrans danger sense, and a bit of assistance from one of the raiders monoeyes caught the movement as the second impulse armor, now that Kiril and Caffran were no longer entwined and in the way, Raised her energy rifle forcing Caffran to dodge to the side and slam into the wall to dodge a perceived snapshot.

Only for it to never come.

The gunmen kept their rifle level, and trained on Caffran, with the only obstacle being Kirill still stuck in the wall behind him trying to pull out comically but getting snagged back in as some kind of thick coil seemed stuck on his helmet where he was embedded.

The mercenary, too far away to close in, and rifle already levelled at his chest had him in check, as they were revealed to be a she.

"Step away from him, slowly. And drop your weapon." She demanded, as the image of whichever one of Boroks nieces that arrived with him that had survived the crash when another, her perspective lover, had not.

Iki. The marksman girl and cousin to Kirill. Who had prefered to almost freeze to death wailing in the ice and snow than seek shelter after the megashuttle had gone down. There was a tense moment of an Osman standoff with Caffran being well able to finish off Kirill and Iki being able to gun him down not even a breath later with the only sound being heatbeats and shallow breaths cut only by Kirill half destroying the wall in his attempt to pull out.

"What were you talking about?" She asked, breaking the silence but also not lowering her rifle as she stepped once to the side to look past Caffran to Kirill. "About the shield, I mean. We arent the ones using the city's AI to hold the city hostage in the first place; Thats the head-cop and your merc buddies colluding together to-

Wait, Do you even know what's going on out there right now?" Iki demanded, exasperation in her tone as she held him at gunpoint.

Elevator

Of Nepleslian make the elevator was suprisingly slow as each floor only seemed to pass by what felt like every ten seconds or so compared to the near bullet-like velocity of some lifts as Haisley, Francis, Tobias, and the NAM tech whose name turned out to be Cathy stood in tense silence as the tech, in NAMs breed of professional technological wisdom used her knowledge and knowhow to attempt to make the lift move fasted by repeatedly pressing the 32nd floor button repeatedly as if each press would make it go that much faster.

"The ship wont hit the city." She pointed out, clearly not enjoying even the lack of elevator music. "It's just too small a target I mean. It will likely break apart in high-orbit and rain down debris which is dangerous enough but not apocolyptic in nature. No, the big problem is the reactor rupturing from the heat and stress and going fissio-nuclear; It would create a high-orbit EMP that, lacking the infrastructure to soak up the pulse through the grid of several hives or cities would blow out the sensitive capacitors in the cities powerplants. It would cut the city without power for likely months if not years and with the cities megaforge relying on that power to cycle the thermal vents in the forge would eventually rupture and likely destroy the entire thing.

And that forge cost more to build and maintain than this city or even a decade of taxes from this planet combined are worth."

"So if we botch this up we can feel double-sad, got it." Francis clipped, playing with the button safety on and off on her shotgun and doing a very good job of not side-eyeing Tobias from anyone's perspective but his.

"Get the shield up. Save the day. Go back to freezing our taints off in the snow; But maybe we'll get a medal out of it if the spooks that hadn't just said to keep our noses clear or else they toss us in a sun don't turn right back around." She monotoned with clear self depreciation as the NAM tech gave her a raised eyebrow at the last statement but did not press.

"She isn't wrong, Kid." Hargraves said, leaning against the side of the elevator wall where only Tobias could see.

"Not too late to ditch your armor, grow a beard, and play the part of a refugee if you run now and blend in with the pop. Abandoning your brothers and arms and letting them die wasnt new to you even before the damned."

With that he seemed to shift forms several times ranging from Otto Leuopold, to Dreamy Steave who had been Dueces counterpart as an IPG kill team leader. Apples, Cutter, Minnie Valentine, Rhindol Cruz and Rungo Bungo, Locust, Erin Zelegar and a dozen others all staring accusingly at him as Leo Hargraves pulled his doomer act on him again while very obviously trying to access his mindware causing Tobias to need to constantly close connections and launched subroutines like they were Spam windows.

When they finally reached the 32nd floor the elevator ground and groaned to a halt against some obstacle before the doors opened to show that the elevator was still somwhat too low as half of the doorway was shaft and like a ledge they would need to climb to get into the hall that it opened too was precariously close to the top of the door should the elevator shift down enough to decapitate someone or crush their spine.

Whats more the 32nd floor itself was chaos. One long singular hallway ws filled with smouldering carpet, smoke, and debris from the wall and ceiling as a struggling suit of Impulse armor was half stuck and embedded into the wall trying to pull itself out while Caffrans iconic black m11 raider armor had its back to them and the possible enemy with a concerning lack of at least a square foot of durrandium plating on his lower back that exposed raw burnt and exposed flesh such a deep red that it almost appeared almost as black as the armor around it while the entire rest of the back of his armor was several shades lighter than the rest where something had physically burned with intense concentrated heat that the back of his armor had turned from a matte black to a dim-dark grey...

Past Caffran, another suit of impulse armor breifly became visible as it looked over and past Caffran at them.

"Wait, Do you even know what's going on out there right now?" A female voice demanded at them or Caffran.

Lobby

The large and open lobby with its several exposed floors above rang with continuous echos of overlapping fire like a never ending slam of drum beats as the now dozen-odd Kuznyetski mercs of the black snakes tried to cover one another as several of them banded from pillar to pillar under their fellows covering fire even as one jerked like a tight rope had yanked him as he nearly cartwheeled from someones fire.

He was not the only one.

Lupin, ever the markman had winged the doorman but not fatally so as the mercenary had jerked and then taken off at a sprint to cover while favoring one arm.

The marines, with their Courier drones and firepower advantage, held the momentum even as above the firefight Tsar began to shout as he rose out of cover where he had been favoring an earpiece to listen to some communication.

"Convoy is only fifteen minutes out!" He shouted, none of them able to check the mission clock on their deadline as Tsar promised reinforcements that should they fail could extract them, or otherwise overpower the still small comparative number of Kuznyetski mercs. Though holding the advantage it was not an even fight as the Kuznyetski with their home-ground advantage seemed to push them twice as hard and with a startling amount of fervor that rose even more as 20mm grenades raked one of the pillars and the corner towards the elevator banks as some unspoken rule was lifted and the kid gloves had come off even as Masato was forced to duck as pellets from a shotgun grazed his scalp causing a burning line of pain on his head that immediately covered his left eyes vision with blood.

To top it all off, whether the doorman had succeeded on his end or someone on the other end of the massive blast doors; Two orange spinning alarm-lights began to rotate in place as arduously the doors made a pneumatic hiss and began to inch forwards theatrically slow.

Meanwhile, the NAM techs managed to splice through the door pannel and pushed inside the stairway, holding the door open while watching and ready to escape somwhere on a higher floor at a moments notice...

Lobby

The heart of the little tank burned with a dour vindictiveness, confronted with the idea that yet again, this could be their last few moments of life. How far could the luck of one person actually be stretched, before fate and karma realigned itself? No chance of her cyber-god appearing here to help this time, in this forgotten grave-planet so far off the polysentience...

She decided to run out of ammo before she actually gave up, though.

KO-DANG - KO-DANG- The familiar sound of Lupin's oversized rifle rang out, splitting her from her small microcosm of reflection from behind the fine marble pillar. This was too damn close. She couldn't strafe well like the pure organics. Exposing herself meant really sticking their tracks out there.

Molotra checked the electronics in the room to measure the angle he was firing at without actually sticking her head out- Only realizing with close examination that there was a door control panel far off in that direction, with a serious bulkhead being the only thing stopping the whole legion of black snake bastards walk in off the street.

And it was slowly opening. Fuck.

"...Lupin... Sweetheart, please cover me from that grenade launcher." The diminutive tone kind of slipped out. They only had one chance at this, but it would leave them totally out of angle to counter what was... Well, basically the perfect weapon to kill the small tank. "I'm... going to stop the door. Please don't die."

The phlank-tak-tak-tak of skidding tracks- She had to come right out of hull down to get a good angle at the door-

Then came the thunderous GARRA-GA-GARRA-GA-GARRA-GA of her waist-mounted minigun opening up- leaping across the wide room in a focused spray of white- Hammering all around the control pannel and the upper corner of the heavy door as it opened. Chips of concrete and rippling sparks jettisoned from the ferocious, localized maelstrom.

She was too low caliber to shoot straight through either material, Molo knew that- But just bending the metal could jam the tracks or force it to stop, right?...

...About three seconds before she found out what the rest of the black snakes thought about her little stunt...

Never tell me the odds... I don't understand them anyway. Tim Canterbury, The Dragon of Nepleslia.

Caffran stared into the barrel of a massive rifle. At least it looked massive from where he was standing. The thing just lacked wheels to be considered a piece of artillery. He still held his weapons in his hands but he was absolutely motionless. He was calculating if he could get a shot off and move out of the way before that woman cut him in two. The odds weren't good.

When she asked him a question about the city's shields Caffran got a glimmer of hope. Trying to steady his breathing after the intense fight he carefully said. "I don't know much about the politics of this place. Personally if we get out of this alive I'm going hunting and killing me a couple of bastards. Number one is the Nepleslian Senator. Number two is the Merc Commander for leaving me and my team to freeze to death in the snow." There were others, but that was the the top ones and he didn't have time to go into the details.

"My orders come from the NSMC, who have declared this planet under marshal law, which means none of the different factions hold any authority. I have been ordered to get that shield turned on at any cost. Once that is done, then I'll worry about who's trying to do what." Time was too short. Caffran again gaged how quickly he could get his shotgun up before she squeezed her trigger and blew a hole an ID-Sol could walk through in him. Just then the elevator doors binged. At that sound Caffran launched himself to the left and brought his shotgun up. He aimed low as he really didn't want to kill her. These people were fighting for their home, something Caffran could respect, but orders were orders.

Svodog
Stenkogorad Starport
Lobbying for Access

The moment the NAM technicians finally got around to cracking the door open, Masato quite literally leapt into motion - Empress be damned, about frakking time they got the stupid door open! - half-saying and half-yelling “Flashbang OUT!” into his helmet’s integrated radio as he sent one of the specified grenades streaking back down the room’s length with a gravity-assisted toss. He didn’t know (or care, in all honesty) if the enemy was still tapped into the 309th’s radio network; to the Minkan, such things were secondary to the safety of his kouhai - and in order to guarantee said safety…

3, 2, don’t look at the light, MOVE!

…the Minkan flew as fast as he could into the stairwell, smacking into the railing hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs - and nearly crushing one of the aforementioned technicians in the process. “Gomen’nasai…” murmured the Shoi as he stared up at the many, many, many, many floors lying between him and Haisely-san. Alright, a standard floor is 4.2672 meters; double, no triple that for the main floor and add thirty-six more floors and we get 166.4208 meters. I can travel up to 110 kilometers per hour, which translates to… 30.5556 meters per second, which in turn means that assuming acceleration is ignored it’ll take me…… 5.4465 seconds to ascend. Well…

The Shoi inhaled, exhaled, and inhaled one last time.

Here’s hoping this alpine run remains free of crimson.

And flew heavensward, knowing full well that if there were any hostiles above him - or, Empress forbid, a motion sensor-equipped power armor - he was done for.

Five.

The mere threat of death, however, mattered little to the man known as Mataokai Masato, however.

Four.

Not when he was supposed to have died three times prior onboard starships named the Orem, Sandwalker, Melody, and Requiem.

Three.

Not when there was still a chance..

Two.

…slim as it was against power armor…

One.

…that he could his upcoming date with a shinigami or three…

Zero.

…to buy his shipmates some time, or perhaps even their lives.

Minus One…? Oh right, acceleration is still in fact a thing, you stupid baka. How embarrassing. Anyhoo…

Svodog
Stenkogorad Starport
You Have Arrived

With a look that was equal parts relief and disappointment (though happy beyond words to have finished his ascent in one piece, he’d been expecting something a bit more climatic) the thoroughly out-of-breath engineer drifted down and landed in front of the currently closed entrance to the thirty-seventh floor and the governor’s office that lay somewhere within it; after spending a moment to catch his breath - during which he heard several distant crashes, bumps, and thuds - he tried the door, only to discover a rather critical problem:

It was locked - and he didn’t have enough strength to brute-force it.

Well then. Modern-day problems require modern-day solutions, I suppose. Hopefully this gets masked by whoever’s aggressively having intercourse with a wall or whatever… thought Masato as he stepped back, aimed his Type 33 rifle at the offending lock, and blew it out of existence with an Incendiary Armor Piercing Explosive round to the face and an accompanying BANG that reverberated painfully in the Shoi’s enhanced ears. Frak me sideways that was loud! So much for stealth...

After taking cover behind the doorframe, reloading, and waiting for several seconds, the armored Minkan carefully proceeded through the doorway, praying that Haisely-san was still alive - and that Borok-san was very, very, very, very, very far away. Empress, please protect me, no, us…

Tobias did his best to fight off Hargraves' mental and digital assaults on his pysche as the elevator sped its way up the building towards the team's objective. The others were all still down in the lobby, trying to hold off the locals long enough for himself and the others who had come along in the elevator to get the shield online. However, what few hopes he had left were dashed when he saw that some of the Black Snakes had obviously been lying in wait for them.

As the elevator doors slid open, he instinctively brought his rifle to a low ready before anything else. When he wasn't immediately turned into Swiss cheese, he took a moment to process the question that had been asked.

Charmaylarg Dufrain said:

"Wait, Do you even know what's going on out there right now?" A female voice demanded at them or Caffran.

Click to expand...

Waiting until after Caffran gave his answer, a by-the-books one as one might expect of the Sergeant, Tobias spoke up. "As far as I can tell, what's going on is that there's a starship falling in this direction, and when it's reactor goes critical we're going to lose power city-wide. Short term, it's survivable." He glanced towards Francis before continuing, bringing up something that she had mentioned on the elevator ride up. "Long term, it's only a matter of time before the forge here turns this whole place into slag, something none of us will be surviving." Tobias' tone was matter of fact, a simple summary of the situation albeit politely omitting the current armed conflict.

"Unless we get that shield online."

Haisely had almost beaten the order to get on the lift the second the doors opened, no way she was waiting around for the firefight it just isn’t where a gal like her is supposed to be. On the ride up the hacker pulled out her laptop device and tried to keep an eye on the JANE(S) running the place, there was no way the cybercat planned to let some zealous AI turn off the brakes in this metal coffin on rails and firethem out of the ceiling or into the basement, though the speed seemed very survivable presently.

Upon reaching their destination she took no shame in pressing herself into the furthest corner of the tiny lift, just in case of bullets.

“Yes, the shield, let’s focus on that. Now where’s that fucking golden terminal.” Haisely muttered while pushing past Tobias to start looking around.

Quilly's tiny form proved to be an advantage as the encroaching Snakes breached the door she'd trapped - no doubt they saw the grenades instantly, and yet that was already too late for them. A half-second-long chain reaction of explosions shook the teeth of everyone inside as the munitions - normally, barely able enough to chip part of a wall - collectively blasted a crater into the floor and doorway, sending at least one unfortunate Snake splattering against the stairwell's far wall.

By the time anyone without good ear protection could hear again, the front door was opening up, and Quilly saw that as a problem. Her mind went fast - well, fast for something made purely of jelly and synapses, with none of that powerful cyberware. And while her mind raced, her hands worked, fishing tools from Molo's trunk. Nothing we have can bust the joints, but I can try to break the lines. Or get to the panel... It's risky. Flying? Flying could work...

With her decision made, the quail tossed with deft precision and announced to her comrades, "Four smokes and a flash out!" The smoke grenades, once they spewed their contents, made a covered, "safe" path directly towards the console at the front door's base, covering about two-thirds of the difference. The flash, of course, would force everyone to look away. And then, she made her move.

She hoped that everyone would take the bait, and shoot the smoke. Meanwhile, she flew to one of the balcony-like hallways the next floor up and, using what little cover she could find, sprinted towards the door. If she reached it in time, the last bit of booms that she carried - high explosive, but small yield - were promptly tossed at the door's pivot, right where it met the floor and the wall. It was an educated guess, but the best she had - Quilly hoped the shockwave would rupture the pneumatic lines hidden inside the machinery and stop, or at least slow, the door's opening progress.

Lobby

It was chaos as even the hundred meter tall and just as long lobby became nearly blinding with the amount of burnt ozone, smoke, and cordite in the air even as Quillys smokescreen filled up fast and Molotra burned tread across towards the door.

There was movement. Overpowered by numbers and firepower a few mercs still moved but only in the way the waiting dead did as an arm flopped to a chest, or someone pulled themselves away while leaving a snailtrail of blood of impossible volume.

There was no further resistance. At least on the inside.

As Molotra readched the door it was not a near thing, either. Made to survive direct contact from some starship weapons the base entry vault was not intended to be opened and closed for every person but only used in such emergencies and under extreme duress. When its explosive bolts activated it could slam shut with enough force to crush a maximus tank like a used beercan, but when openning again the hydraulics pushed slowly to reopen the 25-ton slab of Nermimum.

There was an inset wall pad in a safety gangbox with a small terminal with a cracked screen and keybase. But figuring out the metric could take minutes. Instead what caught Molotras eyes while she searched where three pinhole-like recesses on the side of the base of the massive door that were now empty. With some expertise in explosives and her spacers knack she could surmise their purpose; The three holes had held explosive hinge pins that when detonated used the force of the explosive like that which propels a bullet and cycles a weapon with the blowback but instead of shooting a bullet slammed a 25-tonned door with a very small comparative amount of explosives.

The pins had been removed after they had been used likely to close the door the first time. The shotgun-slug like cartridges the size of her arm nowhere to be found but also weren't a requirement and instead just a vessel to house the explosives.

Once slammed shut, the door would not open again except from the pad inside. And it had not yet opened enough to even allow any outside to attempt to reach inwards as the 5-ft thick door opened arduously slow.

It could be closed again...

32nd Floor

Caffrans 20mm gjallahorn grenade hit the mercenary low. Stirking her just above the left knee it caused a kneejerk reaction where her lower body was practically kicked out from under her as the impulse armor slammed face first into the ground.

Caffran, in his dive, landed rough but expectedly right until the moment nothing else happened...

He saw no shot, watching the entire time, Kirils cousin never getting a shot off and yet something was clearly wrong as once no longer on his feet his body turned to mollasus. The Raiders systems all were in the orange but still functional even as he pressed up with a fist to push himself off the ground only to fall right back down.

While he could not see it, Tobias and Haisley could. They saw the injury on his lower back, nearly charred black from plasma burn right through his armor the burn of superheated plasma did not hit him when the explosive went off in the shaft but his armor as it stopped only after evaporating his skin and flesh through the muscle as small specks of plama akin to thermite turned a fist-sized spot on caffrans lower back into a perforated mess that had burned him to the point he couldnt feel the injury even as the breach slightly deflated the membrane inside the armor after being punctured and filled the right leg of the armor up avove the knee with blood as his armor had pumped his system with the kinds of drugs not to keep him on his feet but to keep him from slipping into shock.

He was conscious. But Caffran found his body reacting with a considerable delay to his intentions as he managed to pull himself up to lean against a wall.

Kiril pulled himself out of the wall at that moment, almost tripping over caffran as he backed up, moving to reach down and pick up his boarding axe right until the barrel of Francis; 10-gauge tapped the eyes of his visor.

"Nuh-uh." Was her only warning as she made a jerking motion with her head at Tobias, Haisley and the NAM tech as Kiril slowly raised his hands not willing to test how well his face could stand against her shotgun.

At that moment a pannel flush with the wall exploded inwards as Francis and Kiril both lept back as Masato exploded into the room right beside them.

Kiril, still not quick enough of the draw surrendered again after taking a few more steps back. Behind him, the second merc was using her long rifle like a crutch to pull herslef back to a standing position. And behind even here was the lone door leading out of the reception and no doubt into the governor's private office space.

Svodog
Stenkogorad Starport
A Timeless Waiting Room

When Masato used a plasma grenade as an impromptu breaching charge - while throttling the urge to yell “OH YEAH!” for whatever reason - he half expected for his life to end then and there at the via eating a HPAR coin round to the chest, a PLA-02a beam to the face, or an ARROW mini-missile to the knee. He braced himself against the incoming explosion of pain that would surely spell the end of his life…

….only for nothing to happen as he stepped through the smoke and rubble into the adjacent room. Huh, thought I’d be dead by now, which means OPFOR’s either seriously slacking, or…….!

The Minkan’s mind finally caught up with reality - and what he saw was almost enough to make him weep with joy.

Tobias-san, Caffran-san, Cathy-san - and most importantly of all - Haisely-san were all alive (and, seemingly uninjured to boot, save for Caffran, whose armor had clearly seen better days). Thank you Empress thank you Empresss thank you Empress thank you Empress oh thank you glorious Empress!

“R-R-Right,” said the Shoi in a voice that was suddenly heavy with emotion as he took in the rest of the scene - namely, the forms of the two Impulse-equipped henchmen, and the fact that Francis had apparently intimidated one of them into surrendering. Ah, so THAT’s why it sounded like someone was having high-impact sex with the wall. “Right. Haisely-san, Tobias-san, Cathy-san, get the door open and get that Empress-damned shield online. We’ll…” - Masato paused to fluidly (despite his trembling hands) switch from his primary to his secondary- “…guard the lackeys.”

“And…” - another pause, this time as the engineer set the Nekovalkyrja Service Pistol to heavy burst mode and ensured it was pointed straight it at the visor of Iki’s helmet - “…ensure they don’t get any bright ideas.”

32nd Floor

The NAM technician, Cathy, was not paid enough for this shit.

Crouched over a planetary governors personal terminal she waited as the settlements JANE verified her access as her cybernetic eye scanned lines of code the moment the screen lit up and she began an interface.

"How long do we have?" She shouted into the lobby, prompting Francis to glance at a chronometer and shout back, the barrel of her shotgun never wavering from Kirils face as she did so.

"Three, give or take a few-" She started before the tech stopped listening as Cathys hands began dancing around the keys and terminal as various screens poped up and lines of sprawling code began cascading down them.

It only took thirty seconds to run the routine before she pressed the enter key and leaned back with a sigh.

"It's done. Shields are coming online now." She stated with relief as several seconds passed uneventfully.

"They-" The Kiril started before a jab from the pointed muzzle brake of Francis' shotgun shut him up.

After a minute passed, with no discernable sign from within the lobby, even Francis piped up.

"My teeth arent exactly itchin back here, doll!" She shouted, refering to the common account of being able to feel when large scale city shields rise as the sheer energy and transplaced ozone in the air often caused problems ranging from headaches and bloody noses, to itching gums. Cathy, the techician did not respond as she swung around in the govenors chair and stared out the reinforced transparent durrandium screen that acted as a window as she enhanced with her cybernetic eyes vision while a detailed diagnostic report was scrolled by her vision as she watched the closest pylon on the settlements wall waiting for the telltale screen to rise only for nothing to happen.

"It's on! Im looking at the report now, it's supposed to be on!" She declared before launching back into the terminal before cursing. "The fucking JANEs! They got the report but they dont recognize the fucking govenor of the entire planets console who-"

Cathy swung her head as it clicked, looking into the lobby and to the wall clock and the barely minute left...

"Oh. Fuck..." Was her only response as she slowly turned back to the window and looked up and off into the distance as if she could see it through the clouds.

T-minus Thirty seconds

The Feast of the Stars hit the atmosphere like a missile as the wrong-angle of approach fragmented it as it began to burn up in orbit. Over three kilomiters of starrship broke up into a thousand pieces each one larger than a house and some as large as a stadium as the sky over Stenkagorad turned from a daur white and gray into orange as the ship spread out for hundreds of miles in the air like a flak screen, each burning up in orbit above the planet but not enough to save the planet from the flak.

The largest segment was the core of the ship. Naturally reinforced to deal with the stresses of the engines and powerplant the core and engineering spaces were essentially once durandium-armored box that now turned like a massive bomb awaiting impact on the planet bellow as even miles above the planets surface the powerplant began to rupture as the very walls glowed red and strain and stress pressed all to the very edge of its limits.

The power core and reactor detonated three hundred meters over the surface of the planet, A hundred and thirty miles from stenkagorad. The explosion was like a distant stream of glitter in the distance as antimatter was exposed to the air and expanded in all directions, each creating a micro detonation on the kiloton scale like a popcorn effect of small nuclear explosions traveling for miles into the air.

The shield of Stenkagorad did rise. But not due to the efforts of Cathy the NAM tech or the marines.

Tsar noble sighed dramatically as he leaned against a pillar and appraised his backup plan failing miserably as the feed from the precinct and settlements JANEs sent the security feed to his visor. It had been a gamble to involve the marines in the operation but looking at the last two of the team of near thirty he brought with him for the OP it was useful insurance. He was actually sure for a while there they might have been able to get the shields online!

That, however, would have overloaded them and undone the work of his men at each of the thirty shield pylons who had been working for the past several hours to throw alll the safeties and unload the shield. He could tell now it was rising, rather too close for comfort on time. And the EMP would fry the emitters making the city without a very expensive shield for some time, but it was worth entrusting the task in his men and not in the marines it seemed.

Had he, his team, and the marines made it to the bunker before he got the remote signal of nearing the point of no return things would have been different. He would have had the marines die valiantly to Boroks men or be shot in the back, but they would die as martyrs while he and his men saved the settlement in the best possible light.

Of course borok and the lieutenant governor knew the JANEs were outside of their control and could never raise it themselves. They would have let the marines in with open arms had it been only them, but with Tsar and his mercenaries in tow Tsar knew it would come down to a knife fight. He was right to bet on Borok choosing violence over mediation or communication as soon as he saw them. His mother, the elf, was the political and diplomatic one and she had died in the first attempt Tsar had made to remove the snakes and marines from his planet.

Things would work out in the end he knew, as he watched from the security system as the NPF started spewing from their precinct like enraged hornets once he allowed their own JANE to unseal them in. They would take over the admin hall from both him and Borok, but with the convoy of over a thousand of his mercenaries moments from arriving they wouldnt have the capital to detain him, though the others were another story alltogether.

He would give it a day or so to allow the JANEs to unseal the lieutenant governess from the bunker to regain control of the admin hall and the settlement. He would allow it, all part of the plan he had set to slip control of the settlement on little piece at a time as the footage from his mens activiating the shield, and his own assault on the admin hall to make it happen started flooding in previews as his people already got to work on defining the narrative.

He had saved the settlement. The InterNep and sector at large would see it that way. The marines would be mentioned in passing, but by the will of the IPG that had all but threatened him it would work out for him that nobody would ever know more than that some had participated and aided him in a slight way that would fall beside the wayside.

The Myrm attack had been just icing on the cake. He could blame the ship his men had boarded and thrown at the settlement all for this to happen on them and make it all the greater.

As Tsar noble smiled, the shield began to rise and all things fell directly into place.

Three Weeks Later

The NSS Anemone returned in system with an entire fleet beside it. A half hundred ships from both the 4th fleet, and the NYRDs flooded into the system only just recently out of chaos. The dwarfistic captain, Maximus, could only assume the worst when his hails to the marine billet at the starport went unanswered and was picked up by both local factions.

Information was scattered, and unreliable, but the picture that had formed had boiled his blood near to bursting as the Anemone finally arrived at the starport.

A delegation had come to meet him as his ship touched down. The lieutenant govenor, the Kuz mercenary commander, the appointed govenors liason and his own dashing mercenary commander, the Planetary commissioner of the entire settlements police force.

None of them spoke as Maximus and his massive XO stepped off the ship with near three hundred marines all armed in Golem and powered armor.

"Captain-" The Kuz mercenary, the name Borok stitched onto his shirt despite the cold started as the group approached and the ships marines moved passed them without remark as the XO took the lead and moved to comendeer shuttles.

"Which one of you is Noble?" The little man looked up at them all, now alone but for three of his sailors around him for protection.

"That would be me," A dashing mercenary stepped forwards as most of the others frowned or scoweled at his back. "At your service, captain" He snapped off a salute as Maximus nodded at him.

"Good work, son. As for the rest of you." Maximus stated, somehow managing to look down his nose at them despite the height difference as his navy guards escorted the group under guard to be debriefed in the ship.

It took three hours for the Anemones marines to arrive at the Admin hall in several shuttles and recover the marines who had participated in the assault. In good condition save for Canterbury with a severe plasma burn needing to see him in a cryo-cell the NPF could not hold them while the captain still held martial law over the settlement, let alone when thirty times the number of marines that had originally assaulted the building essentially took over the admin hall uncontested.

The marines, detained by the NPF were never even remotely charged. The Planetary comissioner had claimed it was for their own protection with the conflicting narratives and save for a thwarted attempt by some of his officers that he claimed he had no knowledge of trying to steal a set of black M11 Raider armor was the most cooperative. Borok and Noble as well as their leaders all told different and conflicting stories.

Nobles was the most plausible with so much video proof. Tho the JANE claims of the others could not be verrified when the JANEs cores managed to burn out from the backlash of the EMP that had crippled the cities shield as well but left the city intact. All of that would be left to higherups. As the captain lifted the martial law the moment his marines arrived on a shuttle with Corona Gunships screening them for protection and they, and a single cryo pod under the watchful eye of his medics were loaded onboard the Anemone safely with all their gear.

The Anemone had been on the planet less than six hours before it touched off again. And was in space alongside several other military vessels of the 4th fleet heading out system, leaving Stenkagorad and its problems behind them...