RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 5] A Unique Encounter

"We tried, Administrator, but this was the best we could come up with." Noboru said off-handedly. "Now then, are you going to be alright here on your own, or do I need to leave one of these guy with you here?"

He turned towards Scarlet with a look of admiration (no matter how un-noticeable) on his normally stoic face. "Scarlet," He said in an almost ordering tone, "As long as I'm around, you won't be taking bullets for anyone."

Lance followed the orders that were issued, picking up his weapon, canister equipped, and moving with the rest of the squad up the stairs, deep in thought.

Why was I so slow to react when they were distracted... he pondered to himself.

"Damn thing," Jen yelled, waving her hand a bit in an attempt to cool it down after the gun went super heated and was dropped to the ground, "Blasted things had a self destruct? What is up with these girls?" On a side note, seems my marksmen training isn't really needed, not with these crappy guns.

"Hey ah, Deacon," she shouted to the Kohanian, "Lets get up the stairs before the others, and see if someone could be on the other side. I trust you got as good senses as mine, if not better."

She be damned if her shooting was going to be useless, at least her survival training may be of some assistance. The gutsy marine headed up the stairs before reaching the top in which she would approach with more care, unless there is a door at the top, in which she would flank a side of it.

With the obvious ineffectiveness of the VW against the Uniques' armour, Speedy attached the weapon to his backpack and drew his revolver."they should give us more powerful weapons in cases like this..." He mumbled. He kept close to the squad, now was the last time to get separated.

"Nothing wrong with our guns, it's their armour that's the issue. I doubt your revolver will be that much more effective against them, unless you can get a headshot through," grunted the Id-Sol, scanning the stairway carefully. He'd moved back against a niche, stood in shadow and with his torch off, his eyes adjusting to the darkness to give him the element of surprise against anyone coming up the stairs towards him.

"And would whoever is shining their torch at me every few seconds please stop it, you'll give me away..."

He raised his rifle and drew a bead, estimating the line of fire to be around neck height on the Uniques, which was hopefully a weak point in their armour. It was hard to tell though, the last ones had evaporated before anyone could find out where their armour had vulnerable areas.

"Unlike this fighter man here, Kitty, I would be more than happy to have you take a bullet for me; death is not a subject I plan on studying any closer than I have too. As for Mr. Administrator here, I would be more than happy to keep him safe while you all go shooting the whores. I am a pilot and computer technician, not a front line warmonger."

Fetch wasn't exactly a coward; he just did not feel like putting himself on the line, and the truth was that he was probably the least effective soldier on the station; he was trained slightly in the use of power armor and other various fighting techniques, but he was still more at home when he had not but a computer system to face off with, rather than under-dressed and over-armed women. Unlike the Neplesians, he was used to being around and 'with' women. Marriage might not happen on Worldships, but relationships did.

"It might be a handgun, but it packs more punch then the VW..." Speedy holstered his HHG so he could take off his left gauntlet, revealing his cybernetic hand. "And if your wondering why I'm taking this off, I have a trick up my sleeve..."

Lance glanced at Speedy from a crouched postion a slight distance away, "Is your trick enough to stop them dead without getting you killed in the process, and, perhaps more importantly, us at the same time?" he questioned, returning his gaze to peering down the corridor, his rifle at a slight rest that wouldn't take much more then a slight twitch to get it into a proper firing postion.

After Noboru's comments, Scarlet's expression changed drastically. She wasn't voicing what she was thinking, but the look on her face spelled a very odd mixture of confusion, admiration, and even a little sadness mixed in, all in one go.

It was to Fetch's comments that she responded, but the answers were still aimed at the one she had excepted as her ad-hoc leader.

"...He's... right." Scarlet said, her smile returning, but her eyes glazing over a little and inspecting the ground. "This isn't just my job or my build, this is what I need to do. I'm a type two and a murderer. Killing people is a horrible, disgusting, unholy act... and this is penance, plain and simple."

"-So don't worry about it!" Her sharp smile once again took full control of her face, whilst she made a point of leaning towards Noboru on her makeshift spear and cocking her head at a quirky angle. "Karma has left me breathing so far, and that's more than I could have asked! Let's get out there, and waste those harlots before they do any more damage!"

"I hear ya on that one, Scarlet. Let's go." Noboru turned towards the Administrator and nodded, digging through his emergency medpac and handing Vanderhuge a small vial of Droskin and some painkillers. And after that quick motion, away the three of them went.

"Actually, it's a spring loaded blade. Doesn't sound like much, but It'll be a surprise, and I have some force behind my punches." He was also keeping his head down, and he was adjusting his sleeve. "You know, I miss the days back at home, we didn't have power armour or high power plasma weapons, we just had guns, blades, and our wits..."

Lance slowly and carefully looked over at Speedy, "You mean to say, that in essence, you think and/or intend upon using a blade in a hand-to-hand combat with them?" Lance paused here for a moment and thought the idea over more fully, "Crazy... but who knows, maybe it will work, eh?"

Cyril and Keziah's 'surprise attack' from an open vent in the loading bay was less effective than they would've hoped. The distance between the two groups was significant enough to reveal the disappointing ranged accuracy of the CSS:VW, most of the shots missing completely while the rest bounced directly off of the armorsuit of the Unique holding the rear. The force of the rounds caused her to rock slightly before quickly spinning around the retaliating with her own weapon, a xaser rifle.

Captain Bell, who was at the head of the group of Uniques trying to find a way to access the elevator and reach the Observation Room, turned when she heard the weapon fire. "You three, watch that vent, the rest of you, get this goddamn door open so that we can at least scale the shaft." The Uniques nodded, scrambling with the access panel while Bell and three of the Uniques trained their weapons onto the vent opening, showering the immediate area with a hail of small-caliber bullets and xaser beams.

The other Uniques seemed to be at a loss at how to open the door to the elevator. Apparently, technical matters was replaced with corset fundamentals in their basic training. Before long though, by chance, one of them cast a sidelong glance over to the wall, noticing the closed, unmarked door leading to the secondary set of stairs leading up to the Observation Room. The Unique briskly walked over to it and slowly opened it, weapon raised in precaution as she peered up the short set of steps. With the door open, she could clearly make out voices as they echoed through the hallway above...

---

Dick rejected the vial of Droksin politely while eagerly accepting the small injection device of generic painkillers, applying it without so much as a wince to his effected arm. The ID-SOL was indeed a very sturdy individual. As he worked with the medication, the Administrator stepped towards the window and looked down.

"I think you all ought to fall back," Dick commented, his brow furrowing as he surveyed the corpse-strewn docking bay. "You got lucky with these two, I'm not so certain about the rest...especially now that they're aware of us." Dick paused for a moment, looking down at the Uniques in silence as he thought. "Those battle-whores are better equipped than us. If Montreal hadn't ordered me to reduce the effectiveness of the plasma containment you all might've been better off...but then again, something's off. Even a 6,000 kelvin bolt would've worn durandium that thin down...what are those suits made of...?"

Outside of the Observation Room, there was little in the ways of decisions on where Squad 35 had to go. The maintenance tunnel was only wide enough to fit a full-sized individual near the actual rooms they were built around...Cyril and Keziah passed the tunnel leading further into the Weapon Laboratories, but they were far too small for a standard physique to fit, meant only for small maintenance drones or Freespacer-type junkers. Outside in the hallway, there were only two obvious choices; one leading to eight malicious metal-clad maidens, or the other leading back into the Cirrus Station lab.

With the Uniques clawing on their doorstep, the CSS squad had little time before the possibly fatal encounter would ensue.

Jen backed off from the door, "Ah guys, maybe we should set up a trap or something?" suggested Jen, getting out of the staircase thing. "Is there anything that could be a makeshift trap or bomb we could use? I doubt we have enough ammo for all of em'."

"A bomb you say?" That certainly got all of Speedy's attention... He pulled out one of the gas canisters from his backpack. "If we can get our hands on some sort of trigger, I'm sure these'll go off with a boom."

Noboru furrowed his brow in thought. He looked towards Administrator Vanderhuge as he said something about Cassifin "limiting the effectiveness" of the plasma cannisters to prevent collateral. The Yamataian looked at the plasma cannister on his own VW, towards Scarlet and Fetch, and then back towards the Administrator.

"Is there any way you can increase the burn temperature on the plasma cannisters from the weapons lab?" The PFC inquired.

Keziah was happy she kept one of her eyes infrared, otherwise she would never have seen the xasers cutting, cooking through the air as faint heatstrokes before she felt the radiation brush against her.

They didn't hit her. Thank whatever gods for that. But she could still feel it as her eyes and skin prickled, and her vision swam with tiny needles of light. "Let's go!" she shouted to Cyril, hoping she could be heard over the reverberations of their own rifles, of the Uniques' bullets splattering and ricochetting all around them.

She was moving away from her grate, towards him, deeper into the station. They'd need to find real cover, especially if those girls had radiation guns.

"No, we need to get moving." said Kokuten. "So far, our equipment has proven to be like slingshots in a naval battle."

He pointed to the path leading deeper into the weapons lab.

"Where ever is away from our enemy is where I want to go." Kokuten said quickly, reemphasizing the direction he was pointing at. "Now let's get moving."

Cyril nodded emphatically as he scrambled ahead down the vent. Once Keziah had gone full auto, or at least as close as the worthless guns could get, Cyril had thrown the rock and roll switch himself. Bell and her hookers focused most of their first attack on Keziah's vent, but the angle did a good job of keeping her clear of weapons fire. Once he had joined in with his own fusillade, Cyril had found out that his own vent was less ideally placed.

Cyril couldn't see the xaser beams in real time like Keziah could. But he could see the distinctively bulky forms in the hands of the Uniques below. He could also see the puff of vaporized durandium exploding from his chest plate as he took a hit. Scrambling backwards from the opening and away from the line of fire, Cyril brushed droplets of molten metal away and onto the ground.

"Right, if we bugger off further in we'll-" Cyril began to yell over the hail of weapons fire before he was suddenly not in the tunnel anymore. He didn't have the foggiest if someone had removed a vent for maintenance, if one of the Uniques had hit it enough to weaken it or if it was just as shoddy constructed as every other non science related piece of equipment was on this station. It didn't really matter, when you got right down to it. Of more immediate concern was the fact that he was now in mid air, falling toward the top of Vinross Yu's ship.

"-or just tape a pole into the gas nozzle and use it like an armourfist?" Scarlet added to Noboru's comment. It didn't really occur to her that nobody else was as ridiculously well-versed in ancient rocket weapon designs, and by the time she went to elaborate, the spacer became distracted by a distant sound regardless...

Just on the edge of hearing, a cascade of metallic clicking, like a bunch of heavy shells being dropped on the pointy end. A mental image; The laughably impractical high heels on the Unique's armour.

Eyes widening a little, Scarlet dashed to the observation room's doorway and tried to confirm the source of the sound. "Blokes, I think we need to get a move on. Can't'cha hear that?" Her voice had taken on a huskier, more battle-eager tone than one would think the rather wraith-like woman possessed. "Please make your way back into the labs and get some better kit. My mechy arm should be able to stick this bracket through an eye-hole or knee... and it should slow them down enough even if it can't."

As much as she had already begun to respect Noboru, the idea of standing around whilst the enemy was so close sent her adrenaline levels skyrocketing and all ideas of patience out the window. Scarlet found herself moving to the left of the stairwell's entrance before she gave a chance for anybody to reject her baroque plan...