RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 5] A Unique Encounter

A strange grinding sound began to echo through the vents leading to the observation room, followed by a burdened groan. A split second later the sequence repeated in order, slightly closer... and again.

Soon enough, it was as if the invisible beast was right on top of the small shaft's sole female occupant. There was still no movement at all, however. Not a single particle of dust had been disturbed, even if the noise of it's shambling gait made no attempt to disguise itself.

A new sound. Grumbling, in sinister, incoherent alien language.

With a resounding crash, a vent grating on the far end of the duct was pounded open and an arcane metal fist emerged, followed by tendrils of unknown, jet black flowing matter. It was difficult to make out the exact shape of the vile creature in the surrounding darkness, but it appeared to be juddering forward in a violent manner. Soon enough, the rubber insulation of the grate popped free, and the black mass slammed into the opposite vent wall with a horrifying... squeak?

Antibody Scarlet One-One rotated her body with great difficulty in the tiny space, and struggled to activate a hand torch to examine the bent shoulder pad on her bionic right arm. This unintentionally revealed her to be a rather fatigued looking woman with a huge mane of black hair, and not the unspeakable shape-shifting alien hulk that it would have first appeared.

It took her several moments longer for her to realise that she wasn't alone, and when Scarlet finally did, she could only fumble around in her empty pistol holster.

"W-WHO THE HELL IS T-THAT!?" The Freespacer settled for hollering in a rather high pitched but vicious tone. "Show your face you vile apparition!"

It took everything Claire had to not scream when she felt herself be accosted by the writhing black mass. After thoroughly biting down on her tongue, she squinted to notice that it wasn't some Mishhu-esque creature trying to get in her pants, but...? Actually, she still couldn't see who or what it was, but it seemed to have a humanoid shape.

When it shouted, she cringed, hissing at the offending guest, "Shh! Keep it down! You want us all to get killed?" Actually, she didn't know who it's affiliation was with, but if it was friendly she needed to quiet down before some Unique decided to come looking.

Noboru stared, one eyebrow upturned towards the black mass that was slowly taking form outside the vent. He looked over at Claire and tilted his head in a "what, you're scared of this?" fashion. Eventually, he turned his attention to the writhing form clawing its way out of the vent, watching with vexation and mild amusement as the form of a bedraggled, tired Freespacer- there was no other describing the woman, that was for sure- haul out of the vent partway.

"Vile apparitions?" Noboru half-questioned, half-mocked out loud before he realized his squadmates were right inside that room behind that door and quieted down. He crouched low and watched as the 'Spacer squirmed its way towards his and Claire's position. "Quiet down, our squad's been taken prisoner in there!" He whispered harshly, pulling out his Variable Weapon and holding it across his chest, balancing the grip on his knee.

Despite the fact she still didn’t exactly trust Neplesians, Scarlet decided to heed their demands of silence for now, and held the torch in her mouth whilst she hastily finished making her way out of the vent shaft. As if to somehow confirm that they were telling the truth, she immediately placed a hand on the crouching man’s CSS armour and grunted something along the lines of “Wew, yur Nepwesion aot weast.” Since the light was still grasped inbetween her teeth, it made the comment sound a lot dumber than it had to. The lanky woman was only wearing the standard uniform, so one could only guess that along with her sidearm, the CSS suit just didn’t fit in the duct along with the rest of her.

For a few moments longer she just didn’t say anything, and stood scrutinising the two of them in turn, but soon enough she eased up a little and put the deactivated torch in her pistol holster. A toothy grin took form on her face, and looked set to stay there.

“…My name is Antibody Scarlet One-One, Two-One-Eight-Nine, Eight Seven Three One!” She announced with one finger raised before her and the other hand on her hip, alrough her quaint little introduction was interrupted by the need to snap her shoulder pad back onto the socket. At least for now she had the strength of mind to keep her voice down. “Guess I could help you guys solve your little hostage problem, now that I’m here… Unless, you know, if wanna own up to being intergalactic space demons or something…”

The serious tone in her voice made the last comment come off even dumber than the first.

"Space demons?" Noboru's expressionless helmet betrayed the small grin on his face as he stared at Antibody Scarlet One One, Two One Eight Nine... "What was the rest of your name, again?" Noboru said, again smiling a little bit.

"P3C Akio Noboru, Cirrus Station Security. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Scarlet." Noboru did a quick little fake bow from his crouched position as he retrieved his Variable Weapon from his knees and looked back towards Claire. "So when does the door swing open, and when do we charge in guns blazing?" He whispered in the other woman's direction.

"Hey!" The Unique barked at Stovaa. "I thought I told you to shut your goddamn hole. Ivy, hurry it up!" The other Unique continued to knock her clenched knuckles harshly. "Shut up, I'm trying my best here," she said in an aggravated tone.

---

Cyril's somewhat shaky knowledge of the maintenance panel seemed to have its desired effect. When the two wires touched, there was a small spark...and then a massive shower of sparks spraying out from the panel. In the distance, Keziah and Cyril could hear the sound of struggle, voices echoing through the vents from the area beyond the Observation deck doors. Moments after, the sound of a bulkhead door slamming open reverberated through the maintenance shaft...followed by another similar sound. Two doors on one panel...but where was the other door?

---

Noboru, Claire and the newly arrived Scarlet wouldn't have much time to talk. To their immediate left, a door that had been previously closed to them quickly shot open. This door, on the opposite end of the hall containing the (still nonfunctional) elevator door and small secondary staircase, led back the way Squad 35 had came, further into the Cirrus' Weapon labs. The sound carried well enough so that even Tweak could make it out from her position at the bottom of the staircase.

Immediatly after, the door in front of the three CSS members slid open abruptly, revealing the contents of the Observation room. On the farthest side of the room was the rest of Squad 35, some of them with their arms raised and all of them looking quite surprised. The more interesting objects of the room, however, were the two silver-armored Uniques directly in front of them, their backs turned to the three...but not for long.

"WHAT?!" Two alarmed female voices rang out in unison. For a split second, both of the Uniques quickly looked behind them at the freshly-opened bulkhead.

---

The sound of the heavy metal doors carried well on through the relatively silent hallways, directly into the loading deck. Captain Bell, who was silently surveying the corpses while the rest of her Uniques stood at the ready, looked up sharply...and then caught sight of the reflective one-way glass. When the relevance of the glass hit her, she furrowed her brow and cursed under her breath, remembering where she had sent two of her own women moments earlier.

"Uniques, at the ready!" Bell shouted. The Uniques snapped to attention as Captain Bell made her way towards the front of the room. "We've had a breach in containment...most likely in there," Bell pointed up at the Observation room window. "We're running Protocol 634. Drop your guns here and arm yourselves with these," the Unique captain swiveled her finger down to the floor, where the dead pirates' weapons lay next to their bodies.

The Uniques wasted no time, throwing their shiny guns into a small pile at Captain Bell's feet, replacing them with the somewhat inferior marauder weapons. Once they had all finished, Bell tapped at a small panel on her Bloodletter Butterfly armorsuit's left wrist. The Unique's rifles in front of her suddenly became wreathed in bright-blue flames...the small pile burned for a second or two before literally becoming nothing but a pile of fine dust.

"Captain Bell," a loud voice boomed from the direction of the Vinross Yu-Cranker ship, most likely an external audio system. The voice belonged to none other than Laj himself. "You know what to do. Miss Cranker and I will be leaving now...finish up, no slip-ups."

The blonde Unique, not bothering to lower her faceplate, turned back to the rest of her Uniques. "You heard him. Find out who's in that room, and kill them. Off anybody that sees you. Now move your asses."

The eight Uniques, silvery-stiletto heels tapping briskly against the deck plating, quickly made their way to the nonfunctional elevator...not yet aware of the small staircase where Tweak was listening and watching from. It wouldn't be long, however, until it was found.

And then there it had been.

Deacon wasted not even a second. The Kohanian had been wound as tight as a spring for the minutes since he had thrown down his weapon, but now he was like an uncaged animal, a strange but oddly fitting metaphor.

He pressed down and back with his braced feet, sending him flying through the air in an attempt to catch the Unique closest to the door just as she turned, wrapping his powerful arms around her torso and throat. This was not done to try and choke, but rather as a way of getting himself in a postion to throw his weight backwards in an attempt to unbalance the warrior. If successful, he would do his best to try and turn the hold, as they fell, into more of a full nelson sort of hold to take the warrior's arms out of the equation, while wrapping his legs around her hips.

If that failed, however, it just might cause the panic of losing control of the situation within the Uniques. After all, two ID SOLs, an Elysian Patriarch and a Kohanian were a lot of targets to try and keep an eye on with only two guns, and that didn't even take into consideration the other mixed bag of races and specialities that filled the room currently.

Kokuten saw the door open and caught Deacon take his chance. Gladly enough, the Kohanian gotten hold of the woman on Vanderhuge. So with a quick motion, he picked up his rifle and aimed it towards the Unique next to the window, spraying her with plasma fire.

"35! Get your weapons up and get through that door, now.!" Kokuten yelled, loudly at the rest of his squad members. Then turned to the Kohanian attempting to restrain the Unique. "Deacon, keep a strong hold on her, I'll assist you in a second." Kokuten kept his weapon trained on the woman he had shot. Amongst most of this, there was still an electrical buzzing sound coming from the Captain.

Keziah turned to Cyril, grinning for a moment before that fell away to the sound of more gunfire. Shouting over the fire. "Shit," she hissed, and did a quick mental assessment.

Not safe going back the way they came, nor going out the way Claire and Noboru had used. They were both likely in the line of fire, especially the way back to the observation deck, and crawling out they'd be prime targets. She didn't feel like getting shot in the face, either by the Uniques or by friendly fire. She gave Cyril a hard look.

"Where do we go now? Both our exits aren't safe anymore." She didn't want to sit still either. That thought gnawed at her, and she unconsciously tripped her synthmuscles to full power. "Where else can we get out?"

The room was, for a split second, a blur of activity and Stovaa wasn't slouching about, pistol drawn and firing a few shots at the same Unique Kokuten did, stopping to reload and grab his rifle, confident the female wasn't going to be pulling a gun on them for a while.

"Now, I'm sure these ladies' friends will be along directly, so what's the plan, sir? There's not really enough cover here to hold a firefight from behind, certainly not to hide mr Vanderhuge and myself..." he checked and holstered his pistol, then slotted the plasma canister into his CSS rifle and looked towards the doorway.

"Oh, and are we shooting to kill or just to maim?" His chest rose and fell silently, adrenalin flowing through his veins, pumping him ready for the coming battle. He could have sworn the world was moving slower than usual.

Noboru hadn't slouched on the action, either. As soon as that door had slipped open, he'd whirled around yelling some sort of odd battlecry in the silence of his helmet and sprayed 6000 K of hot plasma into the elite Stovaa and Kokuten had also shot. He looked around the room as everyone filed out, nodding appreciatively.

"Thanks for waiting for us, Sergeant. You would've been dead meat if we hadn't have gotten in eventually." The Yamataian P3C smiled under his helmet before checking the ammo on his VW. "Now let's get going!"

Cyril pumped his fist at the shower of sparks and the grinding thump of the bulkheads opening. The whoop he let out was swollowed by the noise, be he shared Keziah's grin. At least he did before he heard the same sobering gunfire that she had.
Cyril sobered when Kaz asked him where to go next. She was right that poking their heads out of the vents was an invitation for a plasma bath. He nodded seriously. "Alright. There be a vent inta the elevator shaft. But that'll just put us onna box an' the same problem. Uhhhh..." He drummed his fingers on his thigh as he though. "There's a vertical trunk inna tunnels over an' to the left o' the bay. Quickest way ta get back in the action."

Despite being accosted by the Freespacer, Claire made her move as the door opened, She heard the gunfire as she rounded the corner, taking the split-second she had to sight her gun on the head of the unique the Deacon had tackled, slightly thankful that he was only latched onto her torso. She pulled the trigger while exhaling as to steady her aim and not hit Deacon by accident. She'd hate to shoot the friend she had just recently made!

When the shooting stopped, she breathed deeply once to steady her nerves. "Anyone hurt?" She noted the two uniques and quickly added, "On our side, that is."

Speedy wasted no time grabbing his weapons, and ran towards the open bulkhead, showing why he got his nickname. He loaded a gas canister in the VW, and prepped it for firing, he was going to cook the first unique who got in his way.

Scarlet was already barrelling towards the Uniques empty-handed, but by the time she got there, they had already been blown back by a room full of gunfire from her allies. Most people would take this as good fortune, but Scarlet was so built up with anticipation that she just stood around growling for a moment and looking back and forth between the bodies.

Only when her brain caught up with her adreniline level did she move again. "These your mates Norobu?" She yapped, grabbing one of the Unique's rifles and then turning back to Noboru in the doorway.

Noboru looked at the two dead women as he stepped into the room, one downed by a few well-placed shots by Claire and the other one ripped to shreds before he turned his gaze back to a frazzled-looking Scarlet holding a field-procured enemy rifle. He again cocked his head at the woman's antics: she had almost botched the rescue by rushing headlong into the fight, straight across everyone's line of fire. She could've been killed.

Something about her, however, told Noboru that nothing short of death would be able to stop her. She had the look about her that said she'd fight through hell unarmed if she had to. So he worded his response. "First, Scarlet, you've got a few letters backwards: it's Noboru. And second, the people we just shot aren't. The guys who just left the room, yeah, they're Squad Thirty-Five, Cirrus Station Security. The one with the glowing green eyes is the squad leader, Kokuten. The huge one is Stovaa, the furry one is Deacon, and I either don't know or haven't met the rest. Now come on," The Yamatain continued as he waved the Freespacer over, "It's time to go. We've got ass to grass, and I still haven't paid the baddies back for making fun of me and duping the station into letting those bastards in."

Despite his strong words, he waited for Scarlet to move alongside him before moving along.

Serra regarded the orgy of Nelpeslian violence with the standard Elysian scowl. After she gingerly stepped around the two dead Uniques and procured the last rifle, since she was the only remaining unarmed member.

"Grand show fellows." She muttered, "how about next time we keep one alive for interrogations purposes, yes?"

With all the gunfire, it was fairly obvious the fate of the Uniques, and Deacon had not anticipated the bullet train being the way these women went to the Afterworld. But just because bullets penetrated them, that did not mean that they had perished, and Deacon was going to make sure that little oversight did not come back to bite them later on.

With one powerful paw like hand, he reached back for his katana. With the other, he would reach for the helmet of the Unique he had been holding. With a few hard pulls, he would get the protective armor off of her, throwing it off to the side as he raised up on one knee and bowed his head, praying to the gods of battle that her spirit would make it to the Afterworld instead of wandering the earth as a restless spirit. And then with lethal efficiancy, he raised his head, and dropped the blade to sever the first Unique's head from her shoulders before moving to the other and repeating the process.

When both uniques had been decapitated, they were beautiful beneath the cold, hard, metal exteriors but they deserved the proper death rites, he would ask Dream to give that to them at the very least when this was all over, Deacon would attempt to take a small bit of their hair, cut with the blade of his sword, and one of their teeth. These things he would put in his pocket to be added to his necklace at a later time when he got some spare moments.

With both warriors honored on the battlefield, the Kohanian remained crouched, but sheathed his sword and retrieved his gun, adding the new plasma canister to it, put it on the back of his armor's pack, and ran after his team as quickly as he could to join them on the field of their next conflict.

That was a lot of gunfire for two hostiles. Still, anything that might've been said outside was too muffled to be heard clearly, especially with the ringing in her ears.

"Let's go vertical, then." She wished she had grabbed one of those plasma canisters before everything went pear-shaped, but now wasn't the time to be ducking back into a potential hot-zone. So she merely waited for Cyril to take the lead.

Fetch had been examining the situations from as absolutely far away as humanly possible; by using his mindware to connect with the stations internal systems he had an idea what was happening, and what spots to avoid. He was a pilot and computer technician first and foremost, and only a soldier second; in truth, he was not even a particularly good soldier. True, it was exciting enough, but risking ones neck was the surest way to end up dead.

Still, he had his duty, and though he ignored it much of the time, he heeded it a small amount and followed the newest squad whom had dropped out of the vents; the one with the Freespacer he had named Kitty. Once the sound of gunfire ended, he slung his own variable weapons over his shoulder and peaked into the body strewn room. He looked somewhat ridiculous; his helmet was in his hands, revealing his spiky, shock white hair and rather idiotic grin.

"I thank all of you much kindly for not saving any of the pretty women for me. I rather like finding them dead and asleep then alive and murderous...Much better for my health methinks."