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RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 5] A Unique Encounter

"You too," she said to Claire, gripping her hand firmly before they parted. The danger here was very real, and for all the things that Cassefin did wrong, she hoped, hoped, that their armor could stand up to the Unique's weapons.

Keziah followed Cyril silently, thinking, a frown creasing her forehead as they scuttled through the tunnels and then out. It was good to stand again. A part of her wondered exactly how Cyril knew the layout of the tunnels, of all things. Then she remembered that he was a spaceport baby, and probably thought such knowledge was basic and intrinsic.

The door circuits, though, were a little strange. Not by much, though. She had seen similar models in training, part of her maintenance training, and also her counter-security training that her marine sergeant had seen fit to make them do.

She pushed in next to Cyril, and switched her eye back to visual light as she looked it over.

"This one," Keziah pointed to a large circuit box next to the servo control, "is the damage control mechanism. Don't do anything to that, otherwise the door will be completely sealed." She frowned. Most of the pieces looked superficial, but then what was that little series of circuits that the power fed into before the servo control?

"I dunno what that is," she said, pointing to the little mess of exposed circuits and wires. "My gut's telling me it's the emergency release, but I have no idea if it'll open the door, or if it's a linked system and it'll open every door. Might be a good diversion if they all open, though."
 
Tweak froze in place and stayed as close to the stairs as she could, nearly laying back on them when the pirates burst into the bay. She watched and listened to the ensuing conversation and double-cross, nearly giving away her position when the Uniques opened fire on the bay workers.

What now? The CEOs were leaving. What now?

Also disconcerting was the radio silence. After what had just happened, with the door and the station-shaking, she wondered why nothing was being said over the team's channel. Must have been jammed, then. Looking up toward the observation booth, Tweak switched to infrared and tried to see what her teammates were doing while keeping tabs on the movement on the bay floor.
 
Noboru, meanwhile, was completely free of the technological conundrums Keziah and Cyril were dealing with a few feet of labyrinthine vents behind him. Right now he had to concentrate on getting himself and Claire to the point Cyril had indicated via his directions. Remembering as best he could the directions the heavy-accented Nepleslian had given him, Noboru squirmed through the first passage he could find that turned left, and looked forward. Sure enough, Cyril's directions had given him perfect aim. He took hold of the grille with his nimble fingers and gave a hard, fast outward shove which broke the hinges holding the grate to the wall. He quietly laid it down beside the little grate opening and quietly crawled through.

"Alright, Claire, your turn to go through the rabbit hole to Wonderland." Noboru chimed, sarcastically, attempting pathetically to ease the life-threatening tension the station was currently filled with. He made his way to the doorway Cyril had indicated and pressed his back to the cold Durandium wall alongside it. It was go-time, and a pit had settled firmly into Noboru's stomach. Thinking hard to ignore it, Noboru pushed all thoughts aside and concentrated on his entry training from Fort Ready and SMoDIN boot camp. This would be the point where decisive action ruled the day, and there was no turning back from here.
 
Speedy, like the others, dropped both his weapons onto the ground, last thing he needed was to get shot. Never letting his eyes leave the to Uniques, he was starting to regret dropping his weapons, since he doubted the fact that these bitches had any honour in them at all, after seeing the slaughter in the docking bay below.
 
"Really? You sure?" Cyril asked Keziah, with a raised eyebrow. He wouldn't have pegged the first circuit as a an emergency release. You'd think that something like that would be clearly marked, and the layout... wait. Cyril tilted his head to the side almost ninety degrees, squinting at the circuit Kaz had pointed out. "Huh. So it is. Well, what a bass ackwards way of doing that."

Cyril traced the circuit mentally as he took off his left gauntlet. This could be a tricky thing. Pick wrong and they could lock the Squad in the room with the two Uniques until Maintenance could open the door manually. They were in a hurry, but they couldn't hurry. Wonderful paradox.

Cyril extended the cutters in his arm, wincing a little at the still weird sensation of his index finger shutting down so the same thoughts would work the cutter. Twisting his tail up over his shoulder, Cyril collected himself and brought his engineering training to bear.

"Alright. So how do we trigger that? We can't cut the servo control from the circuit, and we definitely need power..." He said, tracing out the connections with the manipulators on his tail. If this were stock stuff he could get past this no problem. But as was, his training, military and civilian, hadn't really covered anything exotic. He looked over to Kaz, hoping for her professional opinion. She seemed to have a better grasp at this part of the job. "Do you think if we were to bypass the DCM we could get the circuit to fire? Or should we just put a current right through the servo controls?"
 
Lance was grinding his teeth behind his faceplate as he laid his rifle on the ground slowly, keeping an eye on the Uniques as he did so. Silently, he questioned the wisdom of their commander ordering them to drop their weapons, if the Uniques started shooting, a lot of them could be wounded or even killed before they could start returning fire, but an order was an order either way.
 
"We'll need a hard connection to bypass damage control, and even that's not a guarantee that it won't just lockdown this entire section." She frowned at it, wishing that she had paid more attention to the station's electrical specs when... when she wasn't ever looking at them, she supposed. Still, it was annoying not being sure about how these things were supposed to work. If one thing was different, like the emergency release, just how much else was weird?

"Zapping the servos would probably work, but where would you get power from?"
 
Cyril shrugged. "Worse comes to worse, I rip some wires out o' me tail and use that." He said with a frown. That was definite last case. Ripping wires out of his cybernetics hurt like a son of a bitch. But if they needed to get it, then he'd just have to grin and bear it.

"But ye prolly be right about the servos. Least, it seems the best idea. If'n we just rip the power out o' the emergency circuit and put it right through, that should do it. If'n we be fast enough, we should be able to get cut power a'fore damage control goes active. Then we cut it from the circuit, close the loop and hope for the best. There's gotta be some power going though here. Emergency or something. These dunnae be the sort o' doors you want to be ceasing in an emergency, aye?" Cyril said, his cutters hovering over the power input line and looking to Kaz for confirmation. It all sounded plausible, but he wasn't keen on trying it without her nod. He was still out of his depth with this sort of stuff. So was Keziah, if the strained look around her eyes was anything to go with, but at least she seemed to be treading water better then he was.
 
"Hopefully," she breathed, and looked at him. This had better work, because she doubted they could breach the observation door any other way.

Keziah nodded sharply. "Just tell me what to do."
 
Serra said:
Taking a second to look at the other Unique holding them hostage, Serra raised a hand. "Excuse me. But what if one doesn't have a weapon to relinquish? May I be excused to retrieve it so I can relinquish it to you?"
Click to expand...

The question didn't seem to shake the two Uniques much. One of them, however, did seem a little disturbed by the brazenness of the Elysian. "What are you, some kind of clown? I hate fuckin' angels," the Unique spat venomously, slowly strafing closer to the side wall towards the one-way windows. The Unique slowly moved her hand over to the glass, touching it gently with the flat of her gloved hand.

Even as Stovaa explained the situation to them, the two remained seemingly unaffected by his aggressive mannerism. "You," the Unique holding Administrator Vanderhuge hostage said gruffly, nodding her head towards Stovaa. "Shut your mouth. Ivy, get Captain Bell's attention." The other Unique nodded once, and began rapping against the window with her armored knuckle. The sound produced, however, was somewhat faint, most likely due to just how thick the glass really was.
 
Kokuten pulled off the gauntlets on his suit, revealing his cybernetic hands. He did so silently, not really attracting attention, he pulled off his helmet and set it down next to his gloves. The Staff Sergeant puffed his cigar and then looked around at the current situation.

This is bad, these two don't play. He looked over at Serra, a little caught in by her Elysian beauty. The Doctor shook his head, and scanned his options for a moment. He looked down at his left hand, and then his right. The circuit in his left hand started to glow brighter as the generator in his shoulder started to come to life. His right hand quickly flexed, open and closed. If worse came to worse, it was either electrocution, or strangulation.
 
Don't see me, they can't see me, Jen thought over and over behind her box cover, like she if she had telepathy, I am not sure, but I heard something about calling a bell? She thought that no one would be looking her way and glanced around the cover, Well they do seem distracted, being only two of them I just need a distraction and I could nail one of them. Hey what is the Cap. doing?

From where she was she couldn't make out exactly going on, but got her weapon ready just in case, Just aim at whoever isn't busy Jen, just remember your training and don't act like your shooting the H.A. However she hadn't moved to where she could aim just yet, being very cautious about being seen or otherwise her usefulness would be null and void.
 
"Wish me luck." Cyril said simply, catching both the power wires in the blades of his cutter. This was the now or never moment. Cyril took a deep breath and cut the wires in a single quick cut.

Once the indicator lights in the circuit faded, he let out the breath. He quickly cut through the wires leading into the DCM before yanking the power feeds down towards the servo control.

"Alright Kaz. Splice those two together, then I'll run the current." He said, retracting the cutters. As soon as she had the wires twisted together, Cyril touched the power wires to the positive and negative contacts on the servo control to complete the circuit. He looked up expectantly in the direction of the door, waiting for the sound of the door cycling.
 
Watching the two women who had just double crossed his team, it was fairly obvious that Deacon was not a happy camper. He slowly pulled the rifle around from where it hung on his back and set it on the ground with a cant of his head as he listened to Serra's comment. He wanted to laugh, but he didn't know if that would help or hinder the situation. As the Kohanian swivelled his head back around to look at the other Unique, his eyes fell to the spilled container of the new heating canisters, and a thought came to his head.

An idea that was highly risky, and would put them in very hot water if he were to implement it and it went wrong. All he needed was an opening...
 
Serra preened slightly as one of the Uniques mentioned she hated "angels," it was always slightly embarrasing that people would call her something so plain as an angel. Though the though of placing her on something as beyond human standard as an angel was still flattering. The earlier mention of a clown, on the other hand was ignored.

"I'm flattered, slightly." Serra said.
 
"You know, if you were paying any attention to what Mr. Vanderhuge, you'd realise you'd have to hit pretty hard to make much of a noise through that window." Stovaa began. "I'm pretty sure I could hit it hard enough to make your friends through there aware of you..."

"I'm sure you don't want big Dick here to move even an inch, but surely little old me wouldn't be a problem? Besides, if you don't make them aware, you'll be stuck up here with us for a while," he continued, hoping that they'd let him do it. He wasn't quite sure what he'd do if he got over there, but he was sure he could either disarm one of them or fall over the plasma-canister box, spreading them around. Something, certainly, even if it was just dividing their attention.

"Otherwise, we can just go with option A and start the death-by-fucking, I'm not fussed either way" he concluded, continuing his habit of using an ill-timed joke to deliver the coup-de-grace to a delicate situation.
 
"Stovaa, let's not make them aware of mistakes," Kokuten said, his eyes trailing to Stovaa and then to Serra, "nor tempt death, Miss Evangelle, more than we already have."

The Doctor tapped a bit of ash off his cigar and then clanked his hands together.

"Let's not act so edgy at the moment." Kokuten said in a relaxed tone, one of his eyes seemed to trail off for the moment, looking at Jen. If she were looking directly at him, she'd notice the one eye was looking directly at her. The off eye blinked red for a moment, before returning to it's normal green color. He looked down for a moment, pulling up his hand to touch the eye as if it were damaged somehow. The circuit in left hand glowing a tad brighter, a very faint buzzing sound filling the air.

"Let's just relax. Now," Kokuten smiled, and clapped his hands again, "what is this all about?"
 
Lance grinned as he glanced at Kokuten, "Really sir? You're telling us not to tempt death? You remember that we're Neps, don't you sir? I certainly hope you haven't also forgotten we've got a pair of space hooker chicks, that are heavily armed for the matter, in the same room as us?" he commented in a calm manner, crossing his arms as he looked at the Uniques for their reaction, if any, towards him for the comment.
 
Jen kept an eye on her comrades, waiting to act if the Uniques were provoked. Then she blinked, wait, maybe this is the distrac... her thoughts were broken when she had eye contact with her commander, Right, understood!

Taking her rifle, she brought it on top of the crate to help steady her aim, This isn't exactly the same rifle I used in marksmen training, nor the one in the paintball but hey, a gal can't be picky. Considering that the others were more likely to act against the closest target, her aim drifted on the one farthest from everyone.

The target laid on the one by the window as she pooled her thoughts, Ok breath in, breath out, remember your training. Sure the gal has better armor and weaponry, sure she probably is much more experienced, but there is one thing that is to my advantage...

I'm not the one in a dress.
 
The bay was too clean, not much to hide behind and too much space. Sure, Tweak might be able to dodge a few shooters, but not eight. She backed up the stairs slowly to the door and retreated into the hallway she had just left, closing the door again behind her.

She paused, then looked up, thermal vision still active. Was someone in the ducts? They were working on something, wires or a mechanism...she recognized the tail on one of them, marking him as one of her squadmates, so that meant that they must be trying to open the door...

Tweak returned her rifle to the ready and faced the door. If the Uniques outside were traitors, then the two inside might also be. Tweak wasn't sure if that was true, since she couldn't quite believe that only two could have subdued her entire squad while allowing the ones she saw in the ducts to get through, but caution seemed a safer choice. When those doors opened, she was going to be ready.
 
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