RP: Die Screaming [Die Screaming] Pick A Place And Die There.

Man, the shit I put up with in this Army...

Caffran had remained characteristically quiet as the agents explained what they were doing there. Although his normally unreadable face was growing harder and harder and you could almost feel the anger starting to radiate off him like the heater in their cabins. "Let me see if I'm following you... My squad... Full of highly specialized vets... Who have overcome suicide mission after suicide mission... and our current assignment to a feth-wipe back-water ice-ball... instead of somewhere where our skills could be fully utilized..." Caffran's voice had been rising as he outlined what he had heard and his normally stoic face was begging to turn a little red. "Is because some piece of thrice-damned shit owes the Cats child support and our fethen government would rather hide the bastard instead of making him pay it!?" Caffran could taste the bile rising into his mouth and spat. Not exactly at the IPG agents but not exactly away from them either.

Caffran was fuming and it took all of his effort to keep himself under control. He let some of the others ask questions while he cooled off. He loved his nation. Nepleslian for life and all that. But this really pissed him off. He was a good soldier and from what he had seen the others in his squad were good soldiers too. It pissed him off to no end that they would be treated like this because of stupid political bull-shit.

Caffran looked over at Lupin as the young man produced the data stick. "That won't be necessary. I ever see that bastard again I'm going to kill him where he stands." Caffran muttered, not quite to himself. "I'm going to kill that Reiter-shit too. And send his mutilated body to the Damn Cats so that my squad won't be political targets any more."

Man in the Mindware

"So we're just on standby until the rest of the marines get here? And then what? Just play it cool and try not to make any of the locals mad while we hold down the fort?" Tobias questioned, not expecting much of an answer. Clearly, this posting was a dead end, existing only to hold troublesome marines and make it possible to say that there was an NSMC presence on the planet to check a box on some general or admiral's list. There were too few marines and too little equipment for it to be anything other than a gestural attempt at peacekeeping between the forces vying for control over the system.

More of the former operator's attention was, instead, on Hargraves. The man had puppeteered his mouth, it seemed. He'd heard the Colonel speak, and then the IPG agent had responded. While Tobias wasn't entirely surprised, it was unsettling. He'd thought that he had managed to partition his mindware sufficiently, but clearly that wasn't true. In any case, he thought that discretion about the situation would be important to keeping his head attached to his shoulders

<<You might want to keep the comments to a minimum around the black-coats, colonel. They don't seem too observant right now, but who knows what they're picking up on.>> He thought to himself.

Wardroom

"There sseemss to be a miss-conception." Niles held up a hand to pause lupins drive-waving and the remarks of caffran and lupin.

"We're only here to clean up the mess and lay out the stakes as they are," Drewski followed on immediately, tossing the tablet ontop of the larger bag of uniform bills. "The big-man running the 4th fleet says the group can't toss you into the nearest mutant settlement and we aren't paid enough to wonder why that is.

So after we walk out of here you got a clean slate going for all of you with all the bells and whistles included including anonymity from anyone short of an admiral or general who isn't known for being the curious type when it comes to politics like this. After we walk through that door you can do whatever you want; Request a transfer, go awol, shoot some local in the face.

You're nobodies again and will be treated the same way as any marine and you wont hear a lick about it from the group or the higherups so long as you stay as nobodies and don't make any big waves which shouldn't be a problem either. But if you go trying to run in front of cameras, make any scenes on an international level, or start to peel that red tape..."

He paused, working his jaw until deciding the line of logic had made its point.

"It's best to learn to like the cold here, retire somewhere like this, or embrace the mundane. Little fish like your lot shouldn't be making big waves out in the sector; That's for cats and masochists."

With little more than formal small talk and re-iterations of what was said before the three operators were gone sooner rather than later, begging off or outright turning down any further questions or inquiries.

When they were gone, a shuttle already lifting off and the hatch sealed firmly behind them all that was left of their ordeals; The bloodshed, the betrayal and mistrust, the constant fighting and near-death encounters was two plastique bags on a wardroom table consisting of a blank data slate and five stacks each of one thousand DA in neat paper-banded stacks of one hundred bills each totaling thirty thousand Davis Alliance.

"I-" Francis, never having left the wardroom stared meaningfully at the bags, mostly the money, as her medication started kicking in near the end of the operator's visit as she mellowed out substantially but still looked at the money like a starving animal before a steak.

"Were we just bribed or did they forget or?-" Her statement hung as she looked around the group, one of her hands flexing open and closed as she fingered the metal tin she kept her medication in while giving sidelong glances to the makeshift still none of them were sure which one of them installed and then back at the money as if by taking a step away from it she would give up some kind of claim.

The only evidence left that anyone could link them to the Kiss of Spring or Ukk or any of their past troubles had been left for them. Those like Tobias and Caffran could make accurate guesses that the encounter with the IPG, these bags; None of it had ever happened or would show up in any report other than a routine investigation into a crash that led to a dead end.

"Maybe we can-" Francis started again, trying to get anyone to speak and give voice to what she too was speaking. It wasn't a large sum of money, but it wasn't inconsequential a sum for anyone to not give in to the temptation that was more than any of their yearly salary.

Cold Fucking Ice Bowl

Haisely watched on with, something similar to mild interest that slowly became less and less distinguishable from boredom. While she did understand, kind of, what was happening the nepcat basically still thought she was untouchable.

After the scary men had left she stood to leave, if anyone (except the 50% of the team who could see through the lies) she would simply say the servers needed attention, while attempting to ignore the 1 word per minute of Francis, Haisely happened to notice the cause of their stammering. This large sum of money was not particularly well defended on the table, no one else seemed to know if they were allowed to touch it.

Haisely simply liked to apply the 5 second rule, or snooze you lose, either was applicable in this situation and so with one swift motion and a complete lack of explanation the Nepcat scooped up both bags, slung them over her shoulder, and proceeded to walk without missing a beat towards her basement entrance. It would be safer down there anyway, it's not like she had any real use for it so hopefully the others would understand.

And hopefully they wouldn't question how it was later invested, so long as it wasn't moved outside of her dungeon and out of her reach.

We're Rich!

Quilly took the explanations as coolly as she could. Which is to say, she was fidgeting a fair bit with her left wingtip during the whole ordeal. The ability to fuck off to wherever and not worry about the Kiss, eh? Not a bad deal. But... She thought to herself, only interrupted by Haisely taking initiative. Unfortunately for the neko, there was suddenly a mass of distracting feathers in the way.

"Mind havin' a word first? Walking off with money like that makes people a lil' nervous yea?" The words of the charming bird flowed out like honey, as she tried to smooth-talk the kitty into not running off with the funds to leave everyone else behind. Good initiative, but it'll piss everybody off. "What's your plan, Haisley?"

Beneath the confrontation, Quilly was glad to have some time to cool off and sit, while still being on duty. She was, in a way, missing some of the "work" part of being told what to do... At least for now.

We're Rich!
An opportunity for a fresh start was more than many people who had been entangled in the IPG's web of intrigue could claim to have. Of course, Tobias still held some reservations about the IPG agents who had all but offered the group hush money. Still, it was money that the group could do to spruce up the outpost and acquire supplies. How long the peace would last, Tobias wasn't sure. The locals looked to be on the brink of some kind of conflict, and the ex-operator knew his share of the money at least would be used to prepare for that eventual conflict. After all, it wasn't as if there was much chance of getting off the planet before things boiled over.

As Haisley made an attempt to spirit the money away, Tobias watched passively as Quilly made to stop the cyber-cat. After letting the Elysian say her piece, Tobias strode over beside both of them, placing a hand on each party's shoulder. "Why, I imagine storing the money away somewhere safe. After all, I'm sure that Miss Goenkof wouldn't possibly be planning on using any of the funds without Sergeant Canterbury's go-ahead. That would be rather foolish, wouldn't it?"

Too Good to be True

Lupin continued nursing his cigarillo as the smouldering end inched ever closer to his lips, data chip safety stowed back behind his ear once more. While the sniper hadn't vocally objected to Caffran's enthusiasm to rip Otto's head off he'd given the Sergeant more than a few sour glares, that attentive gaze of his burning with thinly veiled contempt at the idea, but Lupin knew that was something he'd have to circle back around to later. The mole hill had once again grown into an insurmountable peak, damage control was needed, especially where newcomers like Masato and Haisley were concerned.

"I'm going to grab some nitrile gloves from Carina's stash before we do anything else," the lad piped up with his characteristically flat tone, still sat up on one of the metal tables, the light flooding in from a nearby window obscuring his face in shadows save for the bits of retroreflective tissue behind those animalistic eyes of his.

"I'm not adding my fingerprints to some bag the IPG dropped in our lap, we should at least make sure it's just money in there before we do anything else... I should grab some tarps, maybe molecure tape too," Lupin continued, dropping the butt of his cigarillo into a nearby ashtray to let it finish burning itself out before moving to stand with the group that'd formed around Haisley.

"This is far too nice of a gesture, I'm sure there are strings attached I'm just not sure what they are yet. I agree with the others, whatever we do with this we need to be smart, not selfish, we have enough on our plate without this coming back to bite us in the ass later when we have a billet of marines watching us. We need to work together on this, yes?"

Busted

Haisely stopped as the wing blocked her path, try as she might the shock and slight fear was evident on her face for a split second as once again her never being around elysians came back to disorient and confuse her.

As the cyber-cat attempted to stammer out a reply while clutching the bags another person appeared. Tobias. Despite it sounding almost like he was defending her, now the situation was 2 on 1, not her favourite scenario. Haisely’s eyes shifted to their golden colour as she scanned around for a way around or through them, she didn’t particularly care about the money and Tobias was right she was mainly interested in keeping it safe.

Once again in the split second after she opened her mouth to reply, now visibly on edge Lupin arrived. Now a 3 on 1 alarm bells were going off in her head, as much as she knew they were all on the same side Haisely couldn’t help but act to remove the perceived disadvantage. As was her nature to spite all before her, Haisely tossed the bags at Lupin for complaining about gloves before scrambling under Quilly’s wing trying to touch it as little as possible ending up further down the hall and facing all 3 of them in a single direction, much better.

”All of you back off me!” The nep cat had to resist the urge to deploy her claws, it would hardly help her case.

”No, I wasn’t pinching it, if you didn’t know already I, operate, out of the basement which I assumed would be the best place for it.” Haisely clicked her tongue while staring daggers at them, watching and waiting to see what would happen next.

Back to Chapter One​

"...Lupin is right. It should be checked." Molotra blinked, projecting that distinct aura of cold logic. She'd only learned about his brain augments a short time ago, but his continued resourcefulness was elevating her opinion of him, beyond the attractively scruffy sniper wolf-boy she used to know. "The server room is actually the most secure, since that's where you can control all of the security doors. But that's not a good idea if there is a bomb, viral agent, or some kind of keylogger hidden in there."

Something a little extra was buried in that expression, the corner of her lips threating to show something like amusement. Her darkly ringed, tired eyes gazed at Tobias, and then at Caffran, and finally Haisely- Clearly thinking about who she could trust with this new ghost of a concept, boiling away inside.

"You know... The government here is ass. Full of corruption. Just look at what was going on before we got here, and the forces that moved on us before we even got to our own base... It would be un-Nepleslian of us to allow this to continue, wouldn't it?" Her tracks made that twitchy tek-tek-tek sound on the spot, a jitter for when she was repressing a laugh. "Sergeant Caffran... May I request permission to utilize some of these funds to hire some... Willing volunteers? Some fine technical support and research operatives from the Viridian Array, to assist us?"

It was rare to see the woman's teeth, let alone hear them project honeyed words. But this really was the one situation where they could make the lawlessness of this place work to their advantage.

What else were they going to do, wait months for the rest of the official marines to turn up, only to find out it's one of the local's cousin in charge, or something?

Wardroom

While everyone postured over the better part of just over two-years pay for all of them save maybe Masato and Caffran, A figure broke away from the group as Francis Euphoria slipped over to the cold-locker and retrieved a bottle of something clear and before disapearing knocked back another set of her medication before following up with a large pull from the bottle as she made all haste out of the wardoom and was followed shortly after by the sound of boots on metal as she moved to one of the floors above with but a few words lost in the conversation and an unreadable expression.

She would, most likely, move to the top observation level where she liked to spend her free time after the physical therapy of climbing so many stairs still slightly weakened as she was.

Hours Later - Night

With propositions made and uncertainties still abundant the evidence of their past was indeed hidden away in Haisleys server room; Behind a dead-pannel usually used to access wire-groups for equipment not installed in a prefabricated structure it was little more than a smugglers-hold and not the only one in the convenient facility. The money was counted and counted again, then placed in a non-evidence receptacle container and placed in the hidey-hole before the pannel was sealed and blocked off in a way that would require more than any one of them to move the sensitive and also now bolted to the floor server tower that blocked it from being opened.

The data slate, offering nothing but a risk was placed inside of an incinerator with the empty evidence bag.

With the days short and the nights drastically long it was not but a few hours before the approaching death-cold of night encroached and so too did lights-out where the billet moved into a period of low-power when the only parts of the structure running at full where the lights and the heat with the latter on its highest setting just to reach a comfortable 20-celsius.

Night did not bring sleep, however. As few of them; Those who knew and those who were new found anxiety, excitement, and a general lack of fatigue keeping them from falling asleep from the revelations and encounters of the day.

And while not one by one, but overall bunks where left either alone or with partners of the night to stretch their restless legs or seek out whatever excuse they may have made to be anywhere but still.

Outside while the night was bellow freezing at their elevation it was bright in the city where little snow held from the thermal heat that did not reach them on the starport wall.

In the wardroom from before someone had started brewing a pot of the local barely-amphetamine-laced stimulant drink that passed for some kind of tea-like brew.

In the server room towers clicked and clacked as they processed their own self-diagnostic cycles.

In the battery the plasma gun, while dormant, still hummed with concealed and restrained power.

In the medbay the subtle-vibration of the billet caused a cabinet not fully closed to squeak open.

In the communications and monitoring station, one lone figure sat with her legs on one of the terminals and an almost empty bottle pressed against her chest with a large green greatcoat thrown over her like a blanket and a dainty wheeze as she mumbled in her sleep.

All monotonous and for once normal things to experience or see in a life that seemed to once have truly reset itself back into the mundane.

Cyber Cat Domain

Haisely sat in a barely-together chair she'd found upon moving into the room, all spare monitors had been rigged into a large bank on the wall before her, her breath visible in the blue-light flooding the only room inside that didn't require heating. With a slight shiver the nepcat pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, watching a million different things tick away one by one. Haisely couldn't sleep, a fact which bothered her almost enough to check if any of the others were having the same problem.

The towers of devices all around her continued to hum and click, content in their duties it seemed.

"Why are you 3 degrees hotter than your friends eh?" She asked seemingly one of the many blade servers she'd been pulling out and inspecting.

As if in response the slim device made several clicks before performing its 3rd fan and cooling system check of the hour, its temperature readout unwavering.

Looking over her shoulder at the door she could no longer lock everyone out of on account of the shared assets stored here Haisely could have sworn she heard it open, but with no sign it had moved recently the sleep deprived and semi-paranoid hacker went back to diagnosing the cooling issue, eventually finding one of her own stray hairs had wrapped itself around a fan causing just enough of an RPM decrease to affect the temperature.

"I might have to keep my beanie on more often, or get a hair net I s'pose..." Her outward thoughts trailed off as she became focused on her work, slowly and meticulously removing the fan ensuring not so much as a scratch on the device.

Also afflicted by the shared insomnia Lupin tried to busy himself down in the armoury, working on the pile of scrap himself and Molotra had been keeping under a tarp in the corner. The sniper was running through the current settings of a brushless motor that had been cogging on him, feeling the rubberized handle of the probe he was handling begin to buckle and creak before realizing he had been crushing it with a white-knuckled grip of silent rage.

Lupin slowly placed the probe down as steam began rising from beneath the collar and sleeves of his undershirt, hands balling into palm-piercing fists as his head hung low, teeth gritted as he tried his best to swallow down the growl that was rooting itself in his chest. In a fit of rage, and with an almighty roar, Lupin kicked a wheeled tool-chest across the room - flipping a heavy-set power armour rack on its side, letting loose a howl as heavy-set alloys slammed into the floor, everything echoing through the hollow walls of the prefab base.

The stool he'd been sat on was also hucked across the space before Lupin finally started to try and calm himself, veins trying their best to burst through his mocha-hued skin after the violent outburst. It was a few minutes before he was collected enough to pull out his communicator and open up the notes app, making a new bullet point telling him to finally drill those holes through the floor and properly mount that power armour rack once shops opened up in the morning.

He had a good few hours to fume in silence until then, and began dialling up Molotra to see if she was free to help him set the stand back on its feet.

Marine Barracks.



In the arctic climate of Stenkagorads deep night, even three hours from sunrise it was not uncommon for random sounds to be heard as wind strong enough to send a Nepleslian man hurtling onto his ass often buffeted the barracks or particularly large clumps of snow or hail hit any of the roof on any of the floors.

Even so, on such a night the wind was particularly harsh as it sounded like constant fists striking walls and windows only to pause briefly and start up again. It did not help any of the restless marines in their going on.

But some sounds could not- would not be ignored when they happened.

A single Klaxon sounded throughout the barracks; Every room, every speaker, every source as it sounded once to call emergency attention and snap every marine into that moment in their training like a primal thing.

"Battery deployment." A monotone pre-recorded male voice intoned once before the Klaxon again sounded and a second "Battery deployment" as the barracks began to vibrate ominously and shake above them several floors. Any of them could recall from their training instinctually what was going on before even their minds and their bodies moved and acted seconds before the next pre-recorded declaration sounded.

"General Quarters, Prepare for counter-orbital battery deployment."

The lights in the barracks dimmed as softer yellow emergency lights began to flash in alarm and the messages repeated again.


The plasma battery on the upper floors for whatever reason was unshrouding itself and shaking the whole barracks as its armored shell opened and the weapon adjusted to point skywards. Likewise non-critical systems and functions began to go offline as the barracks usually overtly too-much power capacity began to cycle in preparation for firing the plasma gun.

Personal weapons were retrieved and Lupin, already in the armory, was at least able to retrieve more accommodating tools as no doubt others would make their way to him even as the barracks outer hatches pressurized seals on its first floor locked and durrandium shutters began to crunch away ice as they covered the windows. The standard operating procedure for the barracks as was listed in its SOP manuals in each room outlined the steps each marine would be taking at the general quarters.

Lacking easily 4/5 of the usual marines in the barracks it was Francis taking on one of the roles of her former occupation as a political officer as she held a couple safety briefings and readiness drills until that time as the rest of the billet was full.

Arm up to general-quarters level combat readiness and secure the facility. Once done establish communications with the starbase in orbit and determine the situation and respond accordingly.

Armory

With even Haisley forced out of her den via protocol the small armory was relatively cramped rather fast. Shoulder to shoulder small arms were handed out by lumpin; Shotguns, pistols, carbines, etc. And two-by-two the marines spread out at the lowest level to sweep the base.

The lowest floors were cleared rather quickly despite being the largest. And the base' front hatch was sealed and only openable from the inside as little could be seen outside but the glowing lights on the flight deck and around the Jackdaw some distance away.

The wardroom, kitchen, mess, barracks, medbay all where clear until the team stacked up against the door leading to the outside on the upper level right outside the plasma gun. There was still one of their number missing and as they closed on her usual layabout location it was a cointoss towards if Francis had somehow caused all of this or if there was an actual genuine threat.

When the hatch was pushed open the flash-freeze of the wind nearly blew some of them down the stairs but as a team they were able to at least squint through the freeze and secure the upper deck and confirm nobody had somehow scaled or flew up to them.

It was hard to see from the angle but the ominous steady glow of yellow-blue-green colors bathed them not from an aurora in the skies but from the unconcealed anti starship weapon which stood at a seventy degree angle pointing into the sky and was as long and thick around as a bus as even through the wind the hum of the powerful weapon resounded in their skulls concerningly.

When the door to the firing platform was breached the hum got more intense as each of them could feel it in their teeth like an itch and it reverberated in their skulls uncomfortably. The roof shutters had pulled back and the weapon had lifted on hydraulics yet no snow or even cold air could be seen or felt as the energy of the weapon itself deflected the very cold.

Various terminals surrounded the weapon and were alight with pre-fire checks and diagnostics as well as confusing data streams and unattributed information and more than a few requests for specific information none of them could even guess at.

It was unmanned. And not a one of them had even the slightest clue how to fire a planetary starship battery. There were no NSN crewmen yet at the base and no NAM techs to do the work or teach them.

When they scaled the final flight of stairs into the control tower they found Francis in the aircraft control towers, in the same room surrounded by windows on all sides to watch the runway and constantly blinking unattended screens.

Laying still against the back of one of the padded chairs her legs were propped up on a console and her neck arched uncomfortably back as her chest rose and fell with one hand against it clutching a bottle and the other lay casually on her lap. With the lights off it was just the glow of a nearby terminal that illuminated her sleeping face with her greatcoat half covering her like a blanket and her occasionally twitching or choking on her own spittle...

Our (possibly under attack) Home

Quilly's footfalls were light thanks to her weight as she assisted in the sweep, the diminutive birb sticking with Caffran for the lower floors, positioned slightly behind the Ghost to not block his way with her currently-useless wings. In lieu of a preferred weapon, (Lupin convinced her that collateral damage was not a good idea at this time), she stuck with an SMG at the ready. What started as a tense creep through the halls transitioned into a less stressed, but still alert sweep as the Elysian's brief adrenaline regulated itself. At least I don't have Agrippa... Poor bastards wouldn't survive something as simple as this, she thought to herself.

As the group took a brief stint to the now active weapon, Quilly's ears muffled themselves on instinct once again, attempting to protect her eardrums from the vibration of the charged and active weapon. It was unfortunately ineffective. That, with her tendency to bleed heat far more quickly than other people, incentivized her to return indoors as quickly as she was allowed. The Elysian therefore took the lead this time as the marines breached the control room, taking just enough care to not wake Francis up right away as she lowered her SMG.

"Okay, the gun's probably ready to shoot but we have no idea what it's shooting at... Do we want to try calling whoever set that thing off?" The quail inquired, hovering around one of the communication terminals in the flight control center. "Or do we just hope it's hostile and take 'em out before they realize we're awake?"

Carina grinned as her Jane continued to count up her take of the week's gambling earnings. Her mother had worked in a casino on Fortuna, so naturally the then fairly young girl had learned the fine and traditional art of cardsharking. Playing games of chance with dice. Playing bookie for a few brawls or wrestling contests. The young woman had a taste of home in the sheer scum and villainy she'd performed back in Funky City before this nightmare. And that heady high even transferred over to her medic role. Her bedside manner was even better, much to the others stationed there.

There'd been one incident as the ever-historic 'Panty-Raid' was executed. A holdover from when the DIoN had been the NSE. A number of the old crew of the NSS Alliance had popularized it. A DD4-class vessel of the Nerimian make. She'd even snitched on one of their number, old man Red Rui. Her adoptive mother's undergarments had been the target of choice. Once Suku'd found this out, Red's leg had become her bitch when he'd needed surgery on it from some wound. T'was one of the only instances the man's feathers had been so ruffled he'd nearly shat his britches.

Suffice it to say the incident had been handled with a Hypolathe filled with Velserine, firing miniaturized darts. So all in all, a bit of light torture, gambling, money, and sheer vice did much to bolster her mood.

So much so that she sashayed down the corridor, arm in the air stretching her muscles.

But once the klaxons began to blare, the warnings coming in, she'd been on her way to track Lulu down only to curse aloud: "Fuck me!" as her little paradise seemed to turn to shit spectacularly.

"That an o-" one of the men walking down the corridor began to say before finding a balisong pressed against a man's most prized possession.

"Fuck. Off." Carina growled, pressing a little further as he backed away with hands raised then scurrying away.

And as crammed as the armory was once she'd arrived, now with a medical kit bouncing a little with each step. In a fit of boredom, Carina'd rigged the kit up to be carried on her back instead of at her side. Easy enough to slide off, easier to carry freeing up both arms for small-arms carrying.

"Y'all deal with that shit, I got her ta'deal with." Carina threw in after Quilly's queries. While technically, Carina could help deal with the issue thanks to the SAVTEC slotted inside of her, and being a literal walking comm system, Franny was once again in trouble. The kit came down, and the carbine they'd issued her went over her shoulder via the strap.

Getting the bottle from the slumbering Commisar's hand, she sat it down, tipped Francis' head up, and started her work.

"I mean~" Lupin started, the overwhelming volume of displays reflecting their readouts back into his bloodshot eyes, the prettyboy sniper hugging his m3-derivative carbine close to his chest as though it was the only thing stopping him from crashing to the floor and succumbing to the inviting depths of a dreamless sleep. His eyes squinted and darted between the control panels, some of it was familiar from his favourite flight-sim games and the beginning steps he'd taken to getting his pilots license, but so much more of it was foreign.

"When were we expecting those reinforcements again? And if it's targeting them then what's to say it's not what shot us down?" Lupin offered up to the group, a concerned huff rolling past his lips as his gaze moved to a nearby window, barely able to make out the faint glow of the mothballed colossus they'd almost been tricked into handing over to Tsar.

"I'd rather not take a stab in the dark, considering everything else that's been going on, we need to find out what it's targeting and go from there." the lad decided, offering Quilly a decisive little nod as he hunched further over the controls, looking for any kind of IFF signature the battery might have locked on to.

Tobias slipped into the room after Lupin, the only sign of the former operator's perturbance being his lack of proper uniform. The man had dressed quickly, a jacket pulled on over a marine-drab tee as he had left his room and tramped up to the tower with the rest of the party. "I think I can help with that," He said as he gently nudged the others so as to allow himself a better view of the set of consoles, even as his mindware reached out to interface with the computers.

"My gut says this might be some kind of remote intrusion, but there's no time to check. I'm going to pull the logs to look over later so we can find out what it's shooting at and who's trying to pull the trigger. If one of you can help me look for manual overrides, I think our safest bet is to attempt an emergency shutdown on the gun." He said as he got to work, his mind diving into the computers in order to look for emergency shutdown routines to activate should manual overrides from the tower fail and activity log directories to copy for later perusal.

I'll happily fight and die for my country, anywhere but here... Old soldier's song

Caffran had run into Quilly almost as soon as the alarms had sounded and the two of them had cleared most of the base before heading to the up levels. The Sargent was just as in the dark as to what was going on as the rest of them. His mood had been sour since the meeting with the IPG. He would disappear for what seemed like days at a time, only to reappear for food and to check that their base was still secure. Where he was or what he was doing was anyone's guess.

Caffran quickly took in the situation and the questions and suggestions of those around him. "Quilly, see if you can figure out what that gun is targeting." Tobias' comment about remote intrusion made him curse. "Could be those trice-damn mercenaries trying to do something that they can pin on us again. As much as I hate depriving us of a good weapon, we might be targeting friendlies. Alright Tobias, see if you can get the gun offline without doing major damage to it."

Command Center

With a paticularly deep breath followed by a choking gag and heave after being slightly righted by Carina, Francis flopped out of her chair hard as her tailbone made an audible thud against the floor followed by the flat of her back and if by reflex the once-commisar was flopping and floundering in surprise while coughing and slapping at her surroundings.

An HHG, the massive handgun was drawn from somewhere and thrust at an odd angle to point at a nearby chair, gracefully away from Carina. Regardless it took less than a simple gesture to jerk it out of the disoriented womans grasp who barely noticed as she heaved and wheezed. Her coat lay still on her chair where it had snagged and revealed the little tin of pills she kept where it had fallen and spread several of the capsules on the flat of the chair.

Being her main proscriber of the womans medications it was clear to Carina by the too-few number of her mood stabilizers that Francis was overly self-medicated and it didnt take much connecting of the dots consider that they were being taken not only in large doses but also with the very same rotgut or simular hard liquors that she had recently removed from Francis.

"Wha 's that noise?!" Francis demanded, trying to fight clear vertigo as she wrestled her seat until she could at least pull herself onto her knees and pant with exertion.

One of them at least had the clear graces to cut off the alarms and the command center was filled with the sound of ringing ears, clacking terminal keys, and mumbled curses from Francis as she hugged her seat tightly like it was the only thing keeping her from falling off the world.

For the terminals themselves it was none of their expertise to understand most of the data but two specific datasets on two seperate terminals caught the eye concerningly.

On one was the systems ship-tracker for all the relays and buoys in the Stenkagorad system. In any populated system it would be showing a confusing mess of thousands of starships and space lanes. But in the Svodog system there was at most a few douzen ships.

The Hard Charles was there. A large and clearly military-icon in geosynchronous orbit where it was marked with a beacon more than being any semblance of active. There was a couple of privately-owned vessels of civilians mostly freighters.

And there was a mixture of pseudo-military vessels belonging to the two local factions which in near sync had broken their perpetual standoff around the Charles and both showed a slow dot-dot-dot dash of lines of the two fleets moving sector-north towards a lone and familar-named vessel.

The Feast of the Stars liner was back in the system the terminal displayed. Its icon was blinking red for some reason with an unidentified code the terminal had designated it and it was moving uncautiously fast through the system if its displayed trail over the past few hours was anything to go by compared to some of the other vessels in system.

The terminal displayed over the course of several hours replayed and sped up both fleets not so much as slowing down towards the Feast and even passing it by several hundred kilomiters on either side. Shortly after the two fleets broke in separate directions as several icons on both forces simply flashed in place "lost" and their last known positions where marked at best.

Now there were two local fleets looking just about routed in different directions despite no other ships in system and the Feast was still burning directly at the planet and had yet to break course and was getting dangerously close.

The second terminal was familiar but often ignored as the uplink to the starbase in orbit. It often showed little more than demands from Govenor Butters who constantly ordered the marines to arrest local figures or seize centers of governance and were all ignored. But now it read:

>Seize settlements center of governance.
>Seize settlements center of governance.
>Anomaly detected.
>Local Vessel 0037298-FOS Will Not Respond.
>Local Fleet Elements Dispatched.
>...
>...
>...
>Emergency -A.Dreskin

The starbase sends automated reports of its actions to the command center as usual. The several hours' pauses followed by a user-input message from the starbase, however, and its one-word-contents was, however, very outside of the norm and was transmitted with a code at the same time the plasma gun went to standby.

Searching further the laser-comms to the starbase was activated with little effort and the quiet of the command center was flooded with traffic as communications from the starbase and planetside where unleashed on the priority channel as the cool and calm voices of any communications specialists belied the contents as Kuznyetski and Nepleslian accents traded reports.

"-Ost. I repeat rook-4 is lost."

"Tracking."

"Too many of em."

"Open Silos."

"Track Trajectories."

"Starport commence firing, starport?"

The last message clearly intended for the marine base considering it was the only known battery on the starport. And then, easy to miss one of the larger screens that had always been blank had a single "0" shaped icon appear as it started at the top of the screen and then jumped a few pixels down.

And then another 0. And then three more. And then like falling snow, the screen simply had a wave of falling icons over an image of the planets upper hemisphere.

"Oh... Fuck..." Francis moaned, having righted herself enough to see what they all were still registering the meaning of.

And then threw up all over Lupins back...