RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 5] A Unique Encounter

"Deacon!" Noboru shouted. Watching as the Kohanian rushed past him and back into the hallway where Stovaa's shot had originated from, Noboru was hot on his heels. Of course he was dragging Scarlet allong as well; the girl served with had either been an over-apologetic, whiny bitch, a stuck-up, superior and by-the-book bitch or a post-traumatic-stress-disorder-induced bitch. Three kinds of bitches wrapped up in a bout a month of military service. Not a great record for Noboru's running with the ladies.

"Shit!" Jen shouted when Stovaa unexpectedly roared and fired at the enemy. Jen had abandoned all thoughts about the door and instead kept her head down and retreated to her corner where she added her own fire, though in more accurate bursts.

"Damnit you big thunderbrained idiot! We are the delay team not the combat team!" Jen cursed loudly keeping herself to cover. She tried vainly to add to his fire, but was not really dedicated to killing anyone with her water gun of a weapon. "Ya know if your yell could kill, I wouldn't mind the mess your setting us up for!" she continued to complain, letting her own anger channel to her own weapon.

Looking over his shoulder after being jarred from his pity party, Deacon noticed that Noburo and his constant new companion had followed him out and across the hallway.

"Noburo, it is very unwise of you to come out here. You should have stayed with the rest of the team. In this situation, I think the adage is correct, there is safety in numbers."

He then pulled out the HHG from it's holster at his right hip and began to load it with Mass Driver ammo with paws shaking from both fear and anger at his futility. He dropped a few shells, but decided not to worry about them too much, four shots would be adequate. Next came his left gun, the process repeated with it but this time with less shaking, and all six chambers were loaded.

Looking back to his new friend, the Kohanian sighed.

"Why is it that this couldn't be like the advertisements? Just a little security detail on a normal ship, with normal problems, where normal solutions were allowed. Why did we have to get stationed on a station seemingly at the center of the universe's most perverse jokes?"

Then he moved back to the door and peeked around the frame to check on the advancement of the Uniques.

"If only we had a way of bargaining with them...Some way of getting them to see us as equals and not inferiors...A hostage, a lucky shot, something..." Deacon thought out loud as he watched the exchange between Jen and Stovaa.

"Jen, they're either gonna see us as soon as they get past that doorway, or we can put them in a firefight now and hold them across the landing for a few minutes. If they get in this corridor, we're trapped and the team might as well be dead. Here, we can hold them off and give them time-" a shot hit his right arm, grazing it. He shuffled slightly to be more covered by the doorframe. "Time to come up with something.... I hope..."

(can't really post any more specific shooting, and I don't really feel like writing a load of sentences saying "Stovaa shot lots at the wimmins", because nothing has changed since my last post and I doubt the situation will change much by next post. So, just assume this paragraph is telling you the trigger is being pulled and the gun is going pew pew pew at the bad ladies, k?)

"Deacon! They're not gonna negotiate, they're bodyguards. Highly trained, deadly, efficient, deadly, cold hearted and deadly. They want us dead, and they're not going to cut a deal. Us or them." The Id-Sol breathed in and glanced around the corner, firing another volley.

"Motherfuckers, just fall over and die!"

Jen kept her constant fire, "I don't give a shit you hulking mass of a killing weapon!" She paused to fire, then as she aimed up again continued to yell, "could it occur to you that they may have forgotten this door ever existed! Damn watch out for that one!"

She ducked back behind the corner to catch her breath to hear what Deacon was saying, "What negotiate? They had killed the workers before we ran in and finished the shits that killed im! The only way we can negotiate is if we had a bigger gun or something important... wait what happened to the others?" Jen asked, more to herself remembering the group had more members than current, and yet fewer walked by her position. "Well wherever they are I hope they are doing a better job than us."

Jen fired from cover, then moved outward to aim better. Unlike Stoova though she kept her mind about rather than cursing at the enemy, "Shit, watch out for that one! She's trying to find cover!"

Keziah's landing obscured her from the Unique's lines of fire, causing them to quickly scramble in hopes of ascertaining their victims condition. The three Uniques on the top of the vessel hurried to the side of the vessel, leaping down just in time to join up with their lone comrade already on the deck flooring. They landed with a hard thud, but seemed largely unaffected by the extreme fall By that time, Cyril had managed to pull Keziah over behind one of the large cargo containers...but not without garnering the Unique's attentions as they caught site of him ducking out of view.

The Uniques began exchanging tactical hand signals, silently splitting up and advancing upon the crate from both sides.

---

Stovaa's outrageous cry was enough of a warning to cause the Uniques advancing through the hallway to uniformly huddle low against the two sides of the hallway. From there, the four Uniques continued to slowly move forward, despite the hail of weapon fire pouring down towards them.

While Stovaa's spraying technique yielded little more than a colorful lightshow, the rest of the team firing with more precision brought about mixed results. The plasma rounds seemed only mildly effective at first, they spread pattern landing on the Uniques at the front and glancing off of their silvery armorsuits. This caused the warrior women to bring their arms up to cover themselves, the thicker plating across their forearms providing a makeshift cover to their bodies as they crouched, crawling further along. Deacon's and Speedy's HHGs, however, provided some interesting reactions; the large-caliber rounds from the NAM handgun hit the foremost Unique dead-center, putting a visible dent in the chestplate and knocking the woman back on her rear. Were it not for her comrade advancing behind her propping her back up, she would have been laid out completely.

About halfway down the hallway, the other Uniques behind their lone advancing comrade all jumped up in practiced unison, returning fire with their weapons in short, controlled bursts. Luckily for the CSS team, most of the weapons were of small caliber and somewhat ineffective against their own armorsuits; the force was enough to crack the armored lining and leave some hefty bruising, but continued trauma would no doubt lead to penetration of the worst type.

The Unique Captain Bell, however, wielded a xaser pistol, firing it with skilled accuracy towards Deacon, Noboru and Scarlet while the rest of her time blanketed the opposing doorway with their own weapon fire.

---

"Override the door?" Dick said offhandedly, most of his concentration laid on the panels and computers in front of him as he monitored the progression of the plasma canister potency. "I'm not sure...you'd need somebody with a lot of knowledge in electrical working, the panels aren't exactly user-friendly."

"It will take another minute or two to get this container in working order," the Administrator declared in a loud voice, his eyes not wavering from the screens. "I hope you all have decided who's taking the shot!"

---

Deacon, Noboru and the rest who followed the Kohanian across the hall into the opposing room settled into the doorway marked "Assembly Area". The marker above the doorway wasn't far from the truth; the room was a single large area, most of the space taken up by large machinery, conveyor belts and mechanical assembly devices. While the machinery was all running, humming loudly and parts whirring, there was nothing being produced. The maze of machinery was sparse enough to travel through (albeit highly unsafe, given the nature and purpose of the devices), the only clear-cut paths visible to them being the one leading back into the Unique-infested hallway, and a single metal walkway leading to the back of the room, to a closed bulkhead doorway.

"Why do these things always happen to me!?" Noboru shouted as he slipped into the Assembly Area, switching his Variable Weapon out for the venerable Zen Armaments .45 he'd been toting on his hip all day. Then he joined the others ion their enfilade of the women. He looked ack at the machinery as his magazine emptied. A lot of it was whirring, buzzing, deadly machinery, true, but Noboru had managed to slip through the vents in his CSS suit, why shouldn't he be able to escape through the machinery?

Ducking as he spotted Captain Bell and her Xazer pop up to take another snap shot at him, he fired a few rounds from his .45 in her direction before standing.

"That walkway's a deathtrap," he said to his squadmates. "We can try and use it to get a better vantage point at the far side of the room, but nd get over it but we might get bottlenecked by the Uniques. Maybe I can slip through the machinery and get to the far side of the room."

"I could take a look at it." Serra said, her free hand resting on the satchel she always carried with her while on the station. Giving said bag a glance, she looked up again. "A proper engineer is never without their tools."

Kokuten began to talk to Speedy, but was interuptted by the fireworks. He instinctively ducked and grabbed his head down, just as the military taught a medic to do in a live-fire situation. Though, he wasn't a medic and he needed to keep himself up, so he at least let loose of his head.

"I could take a look at it." Serra said, her free hand resting on the satchel she always carried with her while on the station. Giving said bag a glance, she looked up again. "A proper engineer is never without their tools."

Click to expand...

He looked up at Serra for one moment, and was once glad to see her for not just her beauty.

"A proper engineer indeed! Ms. Evangelle, please see if you can close that door as soon as possible!" Kokuten ordered, before turning back to see the rest of the fighting going on. Three of his soldiers had split from the squad, not much he could do about that for the moment. Mainly he had to designate a shooter.

He took a look at Speedy for a moment, the man had said he was an enthusiastic shooter and he seemed willing enought to stand and move. Inwardly, he silently confirmed his thoughts and pointed at Speedy.

"Mr. Speedy! You're firing the weapon! Be ready when Mr. Vanderhuge is finished." Kokuten barked before turning his attention back at the action at hand.

Speedy ejected the spent casings from his HHG, then snapped in a speedloader full of hybrid ammo. "Yes sir." Was his reply to Kokuten's order. With a flick of the wrist, he snapped the cylinder back into his weapon, ready to fire; he would make these shots count. He repeated his previous tactic, while wondering "Why doesn't shooting things work anymore..."

"Shit they just keep coming, persistent bitches," muttered Jen over the gunfire. It was to her belief that it was slowing them down, otherwise they would have just walked here.

Ducking back behind cover, she looked at the others and said, "Guys, when they get closer we need to fall back to the labs, slower guys first. Set up some cover ahead of time, this long corridor is a better killzone than firing from the door anyway."

"Also aim for their kneecaps, they don't seem to be too concerned about walking," she suggested, as she had noticed they were blocking their heads, not that it would matter too much though.

Cyril gently let Keziah down to the ground behind the cargo container as Uniques fell like rain around him. When there was just one of them, he could have run for the ramp and taken a few rounds for Kaz's sake. But braking cover now would just get the both of them gunned down.

He wished, desperately wished, that there was time to dress Kaz's wounds. Hell, that there was time to even see what her wounds were like. But right now he needed to focus on keeping the pair of them alive for another thirty seconds. Which was remarkably tricky given that, as usual, they were hopelessly outclassed.

Fortunately, they were sheltering behind a cargo container in the loading dock of Weapons Development. With a little luck, there was something that would punch a hole through the Uniques like an aether lance through an iron sheet. Or at least scuff their armour a little bit.

Throwing caution to the wind, Cyril shot the locks off the container with his sidearm, shielding Kaz from any ricochets. Once he yanked the door open, he dragged Kaz into the relative safety of the container. Once she was proped up against the wall of the container, Cyril looked desperately around for something that would make a good weapon.

As Serra approached the panel, she would find that work on it had already been attempted once, most likely from one of the scattering scientist whom had suddenly taken to fleeing to whatever possible corner they could find when the firefight began. The panel's wiring and mechanisms were nothing revolutionary, or even overly impressive. Were Serra to cross but a few wires and flip a few fuses, the door's automated fire-control sealing mechanism could be activated. However, the panel was located next to the door itself, a clear angle would be given to her from the Unique-infested hallway.

---

"It's done!" Dick said loudly, only to grimace slightly as his arms throbbed outwards from his previous wound. Quickly, the Administrator hobbled over to the machine and delicately unscrewed the nozzle of the charged plasma container before approaching Speedy, newly-created concoction in his extended hand.

"I don't know what this will do, mind you," Dick warned sternly. "But if you have to make a shot, I would try and make it count."

---

As Cyril slowly opened the large doors of the cargo container, he would see little more than several smaller boxes piled up inside of the crates as well as large stacks of bound sheet metal and other materials. Before he had time to further investigate the contents of the crate, however, the loud sound of roaring jets echoed through the docking bay. Suddenly, a figure leaped over the crate and landed hard next to the unconscious Keziah. As the figure quickly surveyed the down-and-out young woman, Cyril could catch but a glimpse of it.

At first glance it looked like one of the Uniques that was still pursuing him...but further investigation reveal that it was a much heavier, more stylized version with several powered subsystems clearly visible on the exterior. Surprisingly, the new Unique did not seem to be carrying a rifle or weapon, her hands empty...although it was entirely possible that the enlarged forearms housed some sort of weapon system. The sleek, rounded design of the original Unique armorsuit was still kept, but the helmet apparently no long seemed present, replaced with a large armored gorget-like collar and what appeared to be a metallic halo suspended over the head itself. The face was laid bare and relatively unprotected...and once the woman inside of the menacing new armorsuit was quite sure that Keziah was unconscious, she turned herself to face Cyril...before launching forward towards him utilizing a powerful booster on the calves.

The face was familiar. It was the woman that was with Laj Vinross Yu earlier...the other CEO of the corporation, Marrisa Cranker. She smiled as her suit-assisted tackle barrels towards Cyril. A menacing smile.

"By the elements, to hear you guys talk, it would be better for us to just walk out there and get gunned down, than to fight. That we don't have a chance."

The Kohanian shook his head to that pessimism. There had to be a way for them to gain the upper hand in this situation. He did hear the recommendation to shoot for the knees, and he agreed that that seemed a good idea. He also had another good one...

Taking a few slow breaths, he turned to peek around the doorframe he was hiding in, took aim, and shot for the throat of the first Unique. It might not kill her, but he had learned long ago that getting hit like that would at the least stun a person while they tried to catch their breath or cough a bit.

Deacon knew that he was grasping at straws, but they were running out of options. And realizing that yet again they were being out classed, out trained, and out gunned was starting to really piss him off.

Speedy took the canister from Dick's hands, and loaded it into his VW. "So, this'll count, or it'll kill me, we'll see." He leaped to the center of the walkway entrance, and bellowed "FIRE IT UP!" As he aimed the VW at the closest target and pulled the trigger.

As soon as the armored form slammed down next to Kaz's body, Cyril wheeled away from the assembled crates. He almost enough time to process just who was in the suit, recognizing one of the two traitors who had the wonderful manners to interrupt Squad 74's security shift with their plot. They had slaughtered the dock workers, held the squad at gunpoint and now the lead bitch had was looming over one of his wounded squadmates.

"Over 'ere!" Cyril shouted, firing a brace of shots at Marissa Cranker. Cyril didn't know if it was the bullets, the shouting or just Canker deciding that Kaz wasn't worth her time. But whatever it was, Cyril managed to get her attention shifted from Kaz's wounded form to his own personal person. Which may come to bite him in his ass, as a pair of boosters flaired on the woman's legs.

Cyril's feet were already throwing him sideways into the pallets of what were likely monomolecular razor blades, given the way that the day had been going. As he slid toward the crates, he flicked up his pistol trying desperately to unload whatever few bullets he could into Cranker's exposed head.

Serra took stock of the already opened panel and noticed the surprisingly shoddy attempt the scientists had tried. Truly this wasn't their forte. She also realized what an open target she'd be while trying to work on the door.

"Before I start, I'll need someone to cover me." Serra said as she opened her satchel and, while still glaring at the opened service panel, was searching for a couple of tools within. "I've got the fourth largest profile behind Administrator Vanderhuge, Lorcan and Deacon, so I'd be a very easy target, not to mention I fear for my plumage from these crazy women."

Serra finished as she pulled out two screwdrivers, a pair of needle nose pliers and something that looked like a 5 & 3/8ths wrench.

Kokuten grunted lowly, realising that even though that everything was coming in place, the door wouldn't be open unless someone was to take a few shots for her. The Captain grabbed his rifle from where it was lying next to the machine and followed Serra up to the control panel.

"Miss Evangelle, I suggest you draw your wings in and hunker down." Kokuten said to her in passing as he raised his rifle and fired down the way at the assaulting Uniques. He slammed up against the wall, and unsafely spread out a little bit to allow Serra the most cover he could without getting himself completely open for death.

Nodding at his suggestion, Serra knelt down on one knee and stuck her wings straight out behind her, which also made them go right past Commander Kokuten's legs, rather large they be indeed. When she finished her emplacement, Serra was down to just around Kokuten's shoulders.

"Sir, you don't need to cover my that extensively, just something to redirect their fire for the minutes I need to repair this rewiring." She muttered as she used the pliers to disconnect the wires the scientists had meddled around with. Replacing them in their proper sockets she procured a couple of socket screws and began to pair off wires she didn't fix. After another second grabbing a role of electrical tape from her bag, Serra bundled the wires she capped and moved them aside as she used the screwdrivers she had chosen to remove the back panel behind the wires to expose the fuse board.

"One, two, three, four..." Serra quickly counted as she mentally brought up the schematics she had managed to finally secure from the Savtechs. "Ok, this one goes here..." She murmured as she flipped several fuses off while leaving others on. After she finished her job she re secured the panels. "Done!" She exclaimed as she got up and retreated back into the lab.

"Leave it to the privates to be meatshields, won't you dear?"

Claire knelt down next to the nearest cover she could find while filing in behind Serra's retreat path, so as to make sure no one tried to get a potshot off at the bird while she cowered in whatever corner. (Not that Claire thought that way about the bird lady. She was kind of adorable in that meek sort of way.) She glanced over at Kokuten, giving him a short wink in a sort of 'let me handle this one' way. Yes, she realized she was basically putting herself right in the line of fire to make sure the more 'important' personnel got away from the combat zone safely. Course, that was her job wasn't it?

'Just hope I don't die too soon. Still need that second date, don't I?' She aimed her rifle at the door, ready to give covering fire for the better equipped soldiers to line up their shots.