RP: 188604 Economic Collapse Pt.2

"Jack, you're a fine soldier, but politics simply aren't your strong suit. If I told you everything you would simply react, and unfortunately your opinion is already formed. My words will not change your perspective, you don't even realize what a powerful tool it is," Candon pointed towards the nearest visible shouting protesters, "how many of those people do you think would kill the IIS personnel if they were alone without a crowd, while their perspective is truly their own? The truth is, most of them just want to see these people get punished without the consequence of their crime. So I propose we give them what they want, a show."

Candon removed a pair of traditional handcuffs from his back pocket and tossed them to Jack who would quickly notice the unmistakably cheap feeling of weak, low quality plastic. A toy.

"I brought 80 of them, enough to fill each seat on those two shuttles. I also brought boxes of helmets and vests for all 80 passengers that I'm sure will be empty enough to fit tactical equipment. We'll wait for my associate to give me the all clear just as soon as those instigators are distracted. Then we'll go for it with all eighty passengers… get my drift?"

Jack was about to run a hand over his goatee in thought, when he realized what Candon was proposing. He snapped a finger and pointed at Casdan, using neural communications to speak to both Casdan and Candon as he climbed into the vehicle.
[Casdan, get ahold of 24 troopers and tell them to act as if they are switching watches, going to the can, or grabbing some extra ammo. Have them engage ECS when out of site and head to the facility. We got a mission. Candon, I'm trusting you on this, once we get to the facility, we're going to have to convince them to play along. Once inside, my troopers with stow their gear and get ready to board the shuttles.] Jack communicated while the troopers boarded the U5 while motioning Candon to get in as well.

Jack spoke aloud now to Casdan, "Go find Jay, he's in command while I handle this."

Candon nodded as he followed.
“Thanks,” he replied telepathically, “now the hard part starts.”

The U5 would begin to roll forward until fully on the road. It sped along speedily as they followed the main road that ran right up to the Section 6 facility, curving around vehicles and objects that had been left on the road in the S6 and Saber peraonnels' haste to get to safety. His own house here was still being rebuilt with some additional space added this time, but for the mean time temporary living quarters had been setup in a emptied lab space for the time being. Jack sighed, as his hand griping the dash tightened it's grip, the knuckles whitening.

The U5 was pulling into the underground parking garage not to long later. The troopers dismounted and formed up ready to follow jack and Candon. Jack had already hopped off and was heading to a nearby lift, "The IIS people are in rec room on the first floor. It's not far from the lift, just a short stroll down the hall."

Throughout all this, Jay had been carefully observing the unfolding situation from the main building of S6 headquarters. From the first sign of trouble, he'd prepared to move. By the time the situation had escalated, he was in full revenant gear minus the helmet - which was nonetheless close by along with his pistol and rifle.

When Casdan informed him of the transfer of command, he was in the well equipped main control centre. Upon hearing the news, he sprung into action.

"Alright people, get your shit in gear. As of this moment, director Pine is occupied with other matters. Until further notice, I am your acting CO."

Speaking clearly to the entire room, Jay's voice implied that the imminent commands would not be repeated.

"First off, everything goes through me. Not a single rock will be thrown without me knowing about it. Secondly, I will have the status of all assets - guaranteed or not - within the next half hour. Finally, know that I am not director Pine. I will give you orders you won't like. Just remember that desertion and treason are both capital crimes at this point. If anyone doesn't like this, you may speak now."

The room remained quiet. No one would be challenging this.

Osman City, S6 Headquarters
1800 hours

Three large crates on hover sleds would follow in the U5's next trip to the garage where Candon and Jack had entered the facility. It only took a minute before the IIS personnel would meet the one person they feared most.

"Good evening," he greeted, "I'm Candon."

Planet 188604 Orbit,
Osman City Approach Vector

A gleaming flood of vessels suddenly flowed and sparked into existence, moving as a static chandelier of several dozen gleaming stars. Freespacer vessels, the planet's monitoring satellites could tell, from the utter lack of energy signal. One state-issue ayame, twenty five nomads, fifty phantasms. Silver hulls, all of them.

"Uso space traffic control. This is a Wire Guided support formation." A distinctly robotic voice noted on an open channel, lackadaisical to the point apathy. "We are moving to support evacuation operations on the throne of brass. Technological concerns. Please forgive our rapid approach."

And it certainly was a rapid approach, moving in a lightning-fast arc that was already skirting the defensive satellite's orbit.

Osman City, S6 Headquarters
1800 hours

Candon was greeted by incredulous looks, some of anger and some of uncertainty. They'd seen him coming on the cameras with Jack and seemed to be quite worried.

Brinjor stood ahead of the rest of his colleagues, salt-and-pepper hair looking particularly disheveled from the stress of today's events on the older man. While all seemed unable what to say, he seemed to take up the mantle.

"It's not. My family might be dead as may several others' here. Why are you here, to finish us off..?" His voice was strained with a thin veil of cordial overtones. His eyes seemed to be swimming with many different emotions. At least they were listening.

Osman City, Near S6 Headquarters
1800 Hours

The Unknown Skies had continued its tumbling, thrust-free trajectory through 188604's spacelanes, its sensor signature looking more like a wayward Durandium Alloy panel loosed from some junk freighter than a Yui 7-class Scout Ship. Twenty minutes to fire team insertion just like Heiwa-taisa had predicted. That nobody had noticed and given them trouble yet was far from unexpected for any member of the SAINT crew, plus they had air traffic clearance and a berth reserved at Howard Station if the ship had to look alive.

It took the Tokutenku fire team thirty more minutes to cruise their Kuma T8 over from the far side of the planet, land, and position themselves around S6 Headquarters on rooftops, among the churning waves of unwashed rioters, and in the air. The same Xiulurium coating that came standard on scout ships shrouded the team's shuttle and power armor, bolstering the optical camouflage rendered by each suit's photonics array. They were ready to react to whatever Candon needed — or act in the case that new orders came down from command; Shida-taisho was doubtlessly watching intently — but remained unmoving for now.

As far as setting up overwatch during a riot went, the SAINT fire team had done all it could.

"Suites-heisho, you are supported," Heiwa-taisa's drawling voice came to Candon, addressing him in a part of his digital mind reserved for really secret stuff. She'd been watching and listening to The Candyman's progress on the ground since her ship arrived in-system. Thank the Empress he'd been able to arrange those shuttles for the besieged salarymen. Making this a ferry operation would have ruined her day even more.

At least her ship having to do spy things could be counted as the worst thing happening at this point. No traitors existed here and no deaths had occurred. Just some scared civilians who'd made the mistake of trusting the civilization on a backwater dump like this and an operative who'd made the mistake of letting people believe he was, in fact, an operative. There were a thousand things the rainbow-haired Nekovalkyrja wanted to shout into Candon's brain right now about what we do, but there'd be ample time to scream the man's name when lives weren't on the line.

"Proceed with exfil."

After a few minutes, Jay had received status reports from most of USO's assets. Not only that, but he'd also been made aware of the many independent actors. Once again grabbing the attention of the room, he now issued further orders.

"So, it would seem that there are several independent forces running around here. I need to know what they're all doing and how. And advise all government actors to switch away from radio communications. If they refuse, say that we cannot be held responsible for the consequences."

Opening up secure communications, he began instructing the Saber teams.

"Attention all teams. Gear up with smoke rounds and advanced optics. Bravo team, I need you on the rooftops in sniper gear. Set condition orange, but leave no indication to civilians."

'Showtime' he thought.

“Thank you. Situation is currently going to plan. Will advise if situation changes,” Candon responded telepathically to the SAINT team on the roof.

Then to Brinjor he said, “no point, killing you solves nothing for me. You're merely pawns in a much larger game. I'll cut to the chase. The crowds want to see you punished and are insisting violently, despite the irrelevance of doing so. Trying to break it up at this point would be going against the grain, so I suggest we take the path of least resistance and appease them with a show to make it seem like they're getting their way while we get you all off the planet. We will make it look as if you are all being arrested by myself and take you to Howard Station along with several S6 troops. You will have secure living arrangements there until things calm down."

The S-6 Complex seemed to be where the Majority of the riot was taking place, however there were already a lot of soldiers there. Uso was directing Fimm and Fjórir to land around the outskirts of the riot and move inward, sweeping up the smaller rioters and opportunists as they made their way towards the larger crowd.

This meant landing near the library, the large metal dome that housed the Osman's knowledge before Uso had arrived. There were plenty of open spaces to land in, as well as shops that had closed their doors.

The sounds and lights of rioters weren't that far away from here.

Cyrus was suited up in his Docile Power Armor, as well as his personal squad. All painted jet black. The Company Commanders for Fjórir and Fimm had their ships set down at the library as instructed. Black clad soldiers streamed out of the dropships and formed up in a solid line of troops. At Cyrus's command, they all began a coordinated march towards the S-6 Complex. The Ragnarok patchs were evident on everyones armor.

Cyrus was hoping that they would respect the Ragnarok flag as they had been recruiting from the Osman population for sometime. It was a gamble, but even at the worse case scenario his soldiers could handle themselves. Plus it helped that they were armed to the teeth.

The jet black armor would be hard to make out as it moved through the streets. The wooden structures were more closely packed together here, making the ground a bit dim.

The people still in the streets didn't quite see the figures moving towards the riot, once the shuttles had taken off again and returned to Fort Glephnir. Instead the first thing the soldiers would encounter was a group of five, heads covered in cloth, working on prying open the door to one of the local hospitals.

The red monoeye of Cyrus's suit glowed bright and his voice boomed through the street. "STOP. Hand on your heads and knees in the dirt. Comply or we will subdue you by force." As he said this, his personal squad surrounded them and pointed their stun weapons at the rioters. On his private communications he ordered Fjórir and Fimm to keep moving ahead.

It would only take a moment for each of them to look up, catching sight of the glowing red eye as well as the blocky, blacked out armor... at which point they scattered, each picking a different direction and running, two heading down the street directly away from the armors while the rest made a run to get around the corner and into the alleyways.

Cyrus pulled two soliders aside and had them stand guard at the door, and continued on his way towards the building.

They would come across additional looters, and there were far too many buildings to station soldiers infront of each of them. Cyrus would have to decide if he wanted to spread his forces out to cover as many structures as possible, or keep the group together as they made their way towards the main riot.

Cyrus cursed. He pulled up his command network and called for Fyrst, his company to begin combat dropping at key building around the city. He marked all hospitals and Civil service buildings, as well as buildings close to Ragnarok recruitment centers. He then ordered Fjórir and Fimm to continue the march.

Let's how protesters handle some low flying dropships and sonic booms.

It wouldn't be long before the Ragnarok soldiers would reach the S6 Facility. There were plenty of S6 soldiers on guard around the facilities walls, and there were hundreds, maybe thousands of people outside the facility itself. There was incoherent yelling, home made torches for light, but so far the violence was at a minimum. Ragnarok had run off the trouble makers who were using the Riot as cover for their own crimes.

But the riot itself remained.

Cyrus linked himself into several dropships overhead, who began to circle the crowd and put their spot lights on them. His voice boomed and seemed like it was coming from everywhere. "This is Cyrus Marshal of Ragnarok. You are all to disperse and go back to your homes! We understand that this is a trying time, however a mob is not the answer. You are completely surrounded! Go home or we will have to use force." He ordered in his most authoritative voice.

The IIS personnel looked at Candon incredulously, "And why should we trust that, who doesn't say you'll just distribute your own punishment once on your station." One man said near the back of the group which was met with agreement.

Jack stepped forward, "You may not believe him, and I can understand why. Hell the man is always planning something, but that is part of why I think he is being truthful. This plan would be way too much work than simply him coming here and straight up demanding all of you to surrender. I have 24 troopers assembling right now who will be accompanying us on the trip. They will be armed and their top priority will be your safety. If you don't trust him, I ask that you trust me."

His communicator sent the notification directly into Candon's brain that the plan to distract the instigators of the mob was ready to proceed as planned. The two large crates of body armor and helmets glided into the room, each pushed by the load master of each shuttle.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't mind we are in a very tight schedule. Please find your ballistic vests, helmets, and toys in the crates. Take only the personal effects you can discreetly carry in your pockets, we will send for them later. As of now we have a fifteen minute window to pull this off,” Candon announced as he popped open the lid of the crate nearest to him, “and try keeping in mind that you people are part of something much bigger than yourselves, something you'll never know about and probably couldn't understand if you did. If I wanted to hurt or kill you I would just let the mob do it for me and wash my hands of it. As it stands there are much fewer people on the station to be concerned about, best chance of getting home without spilling blood is to be on the station until we can move you quietly.”

Jack trying to show the IIS personnel had nothing to fear began to put on the provided items having removed his jacket and pistols before passing them to a trooper. The troopers he had called for entered and began doing likewise, and the IIS personnel were soon reluctantly doing the same til all were dressed for the trip.

"Alright Candon, we're ready to get rolling, you can have the shuttles land out front. The U-1s outside have been notified already, and are expecting them to approach." Jack said from under his helmet as he finished "cuffing" himself.

"We're ready," Candon said into his communicator. From the roof of a tall building an orange haired lady of athletic proportions knelt behind a long, square-barreled rifle perched off the edge of the building, "Melchior here, start the show. I'm ready."
Crosshairs came to rest over a man in Impulse powered armor who appeared to be directing a briefing over a map to armed civilians. Several others began to receive messages on their communicators, pictures of loved ones held captive with varying instructions to ensure their safety.

Unwarranted cheering came from the crowd as the line of IIS employees, real and fake, made an unnecessarily long and overt walk to the pair of shuttles. As this happened the militant members of the crowd who'd been planning their attack stirred. The one who'd been briefing the group took rifle in one hand and helmet in the other. The moment just before the helmet was fully seated Melchior fired. A sound no louder than a camera flash and the tiny, invisible beam of UV light lanced the man's spinal cord though the gap around his armored collar. The armor froze in place like a statue while his band of denizens surrounded their now silent leader for guidance, confused with his sudden inaction.

Without further disruption the pair of shuttles took off, enroute to Howard Station.