RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 5] A Unique Encounter

T+ 1.54 seconds...

The extra second the neko waited to see the effects of her attack was risky, but Tweak took it anyway. The knife had hit the barrel blade-first, that was good. One weapon out of the battle, though the user was still active.

She was mostly safe behind Laj, like any good hostage-taker, she kept him in front of her; the six-foot-two man was more than enough of a meat-shield for the five-foot-two neko. Until she kicked him, that is, but by that time she had more than enough data to predict lines-of-fire.

MoonMan said:

As Tweak placed her bare foot against Laj's back, in an attempt to push him into the Uniques standing over Keziah, she would take notice to an intense movement happening off to the side just as he kick made contact. Marrisa, clad in her armorsuit, had miraculously become wise to Tweak's sudden assault in the few split seconds it took, even as the disguised neko shed her armor to take on her cloaked form. Utilizing a pair of external thrusters on the leg portions of her suit, Marrisa vaulted towards Tweak, hefty armored forearm extending to catch the cloaked neko's throat.

Click to expand...

T+ 2.97 seconds...

The moment Laj Yu left her foot, Tweak continued with a smooth flying reverse-roundhouse kick that sent the boot on her other foot (and the last piece of clothing on her save for her necklace, which she was hiding under a tendril of hemosynthed blood) flying at any of the Uniques who wasn't distracted by a flying CEO or a knife in their gun barrel...or a whip-cracking tail, or a surprise punch...okay, maybe the boot was heading toward someone already being attacked, but it'd help a little anyway. The primary purpose was achieved, loosing Tweak of the last of her camo-inhibiting clothing.

T+ 3.02 seconds...

Collision Warning! Not fast enough...

Tweak turned and brought her forearms up just in time to be slammed into a wall/cargo container/side of the transport. Her camouflage rippled, but held. The neko managed to keep her arms up and maintain a distance between herself and Marrisa, enough to bring her feet up and plant them on the stomach of the armor.

"HUH!" With a grunt, Tweak kicked the armored woman back as hard as she could, hoping that Cranker would impact something behind her that would disable or at least damage the suit. Dropping to the ground, the Freespacer neko sprinted away from the gunfire that was sure to follow.

T+ 5.64 seconds...

We need to get out of here...or at least a more defensible position... Tweak darted toward Kez and Cyril, noting what the two teammates had managed to do while she was dealing with Marrisa.


((I call special case for the auto'd kick...there is no way she can miss that sort of attack, it does no damage -- unless Moon wants it to, if Cranker hits anything behind her -- and Tweak is invisible so Cranker wouldn't know much of what she was going to do before she did it.))

"I got a feeling something's very wrong..." Noboru's hearing, increased due to partial blindness, was picking up, in amongst the sounds of shouting, cursing, and gunfire from the hallway, the sound of crashing in the hangar bay. Because Keziah and Cyril had dissappeared through the vents, heading towards the hangar bay, and he hadn't heard anything from them, he could only assume that was them either causing trouble or being hit with trouble. He opened up a squad-comm with the rest of the group.

"Trouble in the hangar bay. Keziah and Cyril are possibly in trouble. I'm going after them- someone clear me a path, or at least keep Bell's head down long enough for me to sprint past." Whether or not someone did such a thing, Noboru checked every last strap and pinch-point on his armor, made sure he had every last bit of mobility he could snatch while still wearing his armor, and then took in one deep breath.

"I'M COMING FOR YA, GUYS!" Was all that could be heard from Noboru as he started his sprint down the hallway. He knew that between the Uniques and his team-mates the hallway was barren; Montreal had been absolutely sure to keep her hallways clear of machinery, potted plants or convenient chest-high walls to crouch behind. So he did the next best thing. While moving forward, he strafed quickly to the left, touched the wall with his left hand and foot and pushed himself to the right, moving him quickly back-and-forth across the hallway as he barrelled towards the stairwell where the Uniques waited.

It was now at the point where all he could do was go forward and pray. His CSS suit would stop some shots, but it wasn't a cure-all for damage, and he wasn't as bullet-proof as a Nekovalkyrja or ID-Sol. Hopefully his speed could counteract the fact that he was prone to a little thing called dying.

"Damnit Deacon shut up!" Jen shouted at the big creature before her, waving her arms in anger, "What the hell? You know god damn well that she will probably shoot you instead of coming to terms. Have you any god damn clue in your mind? These people SHOT unarmed personnel, they aren't the kind to decide on some crappy parlay!"

After some some huffing, she had more to say, "Ok, we nailed some of em, but we need to know how many are left in there before we do stupid shit like walking out there while they still have ammo. Anyone got something reflective to look around the corner with?" She opened her viser and looked around for something shiny, while pointing at Speedy, "And you with the laser gun, make sure that thing can still shoot," then pointed at Stoova, "If you could, tell them they have time to make another just in case."

Serra rummaged in her satchel for a moment before pulling out a compact. Looking at it, the over to Jen, then back at it and then Jen again, Serra handed it over with a slight flush of embarrassment.

"Vanity, my one vice." She said with a quirked smile.

Deacon grit his teeth and looked down to Jen from where he was basically standing over her.

"Yes, because so far we have been doing so well in dealing with them. I mean, if we got them to stop shooting at us that would just be horrible right? Or if we got their leader in a situation where she was focusing only on one of us rather than the whole squad that would really suck, right? I mean, I have no strategic mind at all for trying to draw their attention to myself so the rest of you can get your asses out of the crosshairs, get more of those things that he just blew them away with..." he motioned to Speedy.

"You're absolutely right, Jen....What was I thinking?"

All of this was said barely over a whisper, the Uniques would never hear it over the other sounds.

"That would be great but your doing it wrong, there are more than one way to focus on you without having to walk into gunfire," Jen argued looking right at him, she then was distracted by Serra.

"Umm... thanks," Jen replied picking up the object, Heh, never thought I see one of these again, "Hey, if it's a vice that helps us out then it isn't a bad thing."

Now with compact in her left she went back to Deacon, with a lower voice now, "Listen and trust me on this, we need a plan before rush into things, we have been just lucky in each and every event so far. Let us get some intel before we go charging into a trap for once. Once we do this we can then figure a counter attack strategy, but to make this work I need you since you have already started something here," she waved her arm towards the door to motion the cease fire they currently have, "keep talking with them, distract them, taunt them, something! Get them pissed off enough that they won't remember that your not alone. Once I have their location, both you and Speedy will have a better chance at doing this thing."

"Speaking of which, Speedy if you still have that smoke grenade, toss it over to me if you could," she added at the last second before sneaking close to the door ready to use the compact she gave a hand signal to continue the conversation if Deacon hadn't already done so.

First day on the job, and nearly got killed again. Scratch that, twice in less then five minutes. What if the VW blew up? Best no to dwell on it at this moment. Speedy was back at the corner ready to pop out of cover and fire a second blue-plasma-death shot down the hallway.

He whispered to Jen, "Smoke grenade? I don't carry grenades, let alone smokes..."

"They would have been confiscated by Cassifin anyway." Serra muttered.

"That woman dislikes anything that isn't designed by her. Why else do we have vending machines in our bunk room that's full of her personally designed food like substances."

Jen hardly heard what was being said as she concentrated on moving the compact to a nice position to where she could see the enemy's position. She hoped that the enemy would be to busy thinking about what Deacon was doing or saying rather than watching for a small shiny thing around the door.

With their focus on the doorway where Deacon's voice had wafted in from earlier, Captain Bell and her lone Unique stood vigilant, slowly advancing forwards with weapons up and at the ready. As Noboru foolishly dashed out and towards them Bell smiled wryly, aiming her lethal xaser pistol for the securityman's forehead. However, she did not fire. Instead, her hand wavered slightly and her gaze moved from her target towards the long hallway beyond where Squad 35 had fortified themselves. "Shit! SHIT!" Captain Bell cursed loudly, immediately turning around and breaking into a run, her remaining Unique in close pursuit.

The two Uniques ran quickly...much more quickly than their lithe figures displayed, easily outpacing Noboru as they disappeared beyond the line of sight of the Yamataian, into the stairway from whence they came.

Down the hallway, to Noboru's back, several lights seemed to be awaking from their outage-induced sleep, bright white lightstrips relighting themselves row after row down the hallway. As light returned to the areas the remnants of Squad 35, so too did the telltale hum of machinery and other miscellaneous noises common throughout the station, including a loud, repeated message loop blaring through the newly reestablished loudspeaker system, voiced by Cirrus Station's own security chief, Abeck Winston.

"Emergency! Hostile breach in Laboratory Module Five. Squads 90 to 186 are hereby reassigned to the situation at hand until further notice. Priority is to secure Administrator Vanderhuge and the Vinross Yu-Cranker vessel and delegates. Repeat."

---

Several of the scientists in the development laboratory let out sighs of relief. Dick himself allowed himself to slump in his seat, also obviously glad for a change for the better.

Doors from beyond the main hallway opened, several squads of CSS suit-clad security members joining Squad 35 in the development bay, all of them headed by a familiar face. Abeck Winston looked around, weapon raised, only to lower it as he caught site of no apparent hostiles. Motioning to more of his CSS members, he spoke with a commanding, stern tone. "Go assist the Head Administrator in at the Dock. And get that medic in here; I think Administrator Vanderhuge has been injured!"

Noticing several members of Squad 35, he briskly trotted over to them, his face relieved, but still not at full ease. "Follow me..." Abeck said simply as he headed out into the hall, he himself making his way to the loading deck. "...and give me a report, captain."

---

Back in the loading bay, the intense struggle continued. With their attentions focused on Tweak (or what was left of her old form), Keziah and Cyril's attacks landed. Keziah's heavy-handed blow, while performed on a hard-proven target, was enough to cause the Unique to stumble backwards, her assault rifle firing wildly in the air as she reeled backwards.

Cyril's tail was able to sweep the shaky footing of the Unique behind him, but the Unique he attempted to wrangle had caught wind of his attack as it happened and brought the butt of the gun upwards, intent on smashing it into his helmeted head.

Tweak, as nimble and powerful as she was, was not faring much better. Her retaliatory kick merely caused the armorclad CEO to step back a few paces, the thruster systems in her armorsuit quickly and easily compensating the force exerted by Tweak's kick. As the camouflaged neko bounded away, Marrisa chose not to pursue, instead watching every movement Tweak made with wide eyes and a coy grin. She *could* see Tweak...quite clearly, so it seemed.

"How...interesting..." Marrisa said, squatting down and placing a hand on the floor between her legs, placing herself into a position for a powerful jump after the neko...

But before she could, power began returning to the docking bay. Just as Captain Bell dropped all of what she was doing, so did the rest of the Uniques quickly disengage from the individual fights they were in. Laj, making use of legs previously thought placed out of commission, clawed his way up from his belly and leaned his back against the nearby cargo crate, using his good arm to hold the shoulder Tweak had displaced. Marrisa, her volumetric face lighting up in surprise along with the runway and loading light strips, immediately dashed up into the confines of the Vinross Yu-Cranker ship.

A hundred or so yards away from the ship, near the back of the docking bay, one of the doors, its panel apparently struck during an earlier firefight, remained closed even as several voices and sounds began echoing through it. One voice rose above all others though, so familiar that the CSS members present inwardly cringed. There was no doubt that Cassefin Montreal was behind his door, loudly ordering it opened to a crew of unfortunate CSS officers.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Noboru shouted as he sprinted into the hangar bay, a few feet behind Bell and the Uniques. He was, of course, referring to the multiple events occurring around him: namely, the angry Administrator trapped behind a locked door in the hangar bay, Cyril and Keziah being attacked by retreating Uniques, and of course the huge fucking power armor rampaging its way towards the ship. The Yamataian soldier sighed heavily, rushing across the bay to the door Cassifin was trapped behind.

He tapped the door's command console once, trying to get it to open. Nothing. So he punched the console. Nothing, part dos. Finally, he ended up pulling the door's failsafe in frustration and the door holding Cassifin and the squads back flew open. "Administrator Montreal, ma'am!" Noboru snapped as he immediately stepped out of the way of the door. What else could he say? 'I'm sorry my squad and I ripped your station to shit?' Apparently not.

Shuffling around and taking a knee by the door, Noboru put suppressive fire on the doorway where Marissa was headed, attempting to crawl towards a nearby cargo crate.

The impact was good, satisfying in ways that gunfire simply couldn't be. Keziah charged to her feet, swinging her hand in a chop, sending the Unique's rifle clattering to the floor. But the woman had recovered by then, and sent a roundhouse kick sailing towards Keziah's head.

She fell to the floor gracelessly, barely avoiding the kick. When she looked up, the hangar's main lights came back to life, and the Unique was pulling back. The others were behaving the same way, backing away from her and Cyril. The reason became very clear, very quickly, when Montreal's voice rang out from the back of the hangar, followed by Noboru's voice, on the tail end of more footsteps.

Keziah shuffled into a sitting position, pushing her back into a crate, her eyes on Laj. She was tired, the pains in her body brought back to focus as the adrenaline waned. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn't be able to fight anymore. When the gunfire started again, she didn't even react to it, her ears too desensitized to the sound.

"What now?" she said to Laj, staring at him impassively.

After Noboru flew by her like a mad man getting the hell out of dodge, everything started to come back to life, and was relieved that the enemy didn't just outright blew away the easy target. "Damn that was close," Jen stated as she first leaned on the wall, "now only if I could get a drink."

She then had the compact closed in her left hand while she slumped to the ground. Her body started to remind her that she was tired and couldn't stand anymore. She gave a small grin to the Kohanian though, and said while trying to cover her giggles, "sorry," since she apparently couldn't stop at least one person from rushing out from cover.

Deacon said nothing, and his face gave away no less. He slowly reached out with his right footpaw and pulled his weapons back to him, lifting them up one at a time to stay in cover and get rearmed. When he was satisfied with the sword on his back, and the gun magnetically held to his pack, he looked to Jen, gave a two fingered casual salute, and then walked away back towards the end of the hallway and then took the turn to head not to the stairs leading down, but towards the control room.

He was quite hurt that no one, not a single person on his squad, cared for his talents in battle. The winged one was more than welcomed to work on the door, the others were more than encouraged to just keep pumping ammo into a no win situation, but he was told to shut up when he tried to negotiate their way out of the situation...and no one even thanked him for saving their asses with his quick reaction to the explosives.

As he walked around the observation room, the Kohanian's nose wiggled slightly as he took in all the smells of the room, his eyes scanned all of the different spectrums trying to get any clues as to what just happened, or more about the armors and weapons the Uniques wore. He didn't take lightly to being taken so off guard by an enemy, and it was obvious that his squad could get along just fine with the retreating force without him. So he did what came naturally, being the dog and using his tuned senses to try and find something that their security squad, and the Uniques, had missed.

Serra sighed in relief as Captain Abeck and his squad appeared. "Captain, are we glad to see you." She said in a tone of admiration. Noticing Deacon being somewhat mopey, in a hardened killing machine sort of way, Serra walked over to him and cautiously placed a hand on his shoulder. "Deacon, I want to thank you for what you did earlier." She said with a nod, "if it wasn't for your reflexes, most of us would have been killed."

Lance whistled in mild excitement when the main power returned, getting up from where he was and proceding towards the main hanger with the other security personal. They now had a massive slew of additional reniforcements on the way and the uniques were on the run. As far as he was concerned, all they had left to do was mop them up.

I bet those executives will claim we attacked them, or something else crazy like that. He thought to himself as they headed for the hanger doors, remaining silent at this point.

T+ 5.92 seconds...

No!

Tweak nearly panicked. Okay, she had a mad power armor on her tail, but her teammates were doing alright...if she could just...

MoonMan said:

"Emergency! Hostile breach in Laboratory Module Five. Squads 90 to 186 are hereby reassigned to the situation at hand until further notice. Priority is to secure Administrator Vanderhuge and the Vinross Yu-Cranker vessel and delegates. Repeat."

Click to expand...

MoonMan said:

...Power began returning to the docking bay. Just as Captain Bell dropped all of what she was doing, so did the rest of the Uniques quickly disengage from the individual fights they were in. Laj, making use of legs previously thought placed out of commission, clawed his way up from his belly and leaned his back against the nearby cargo crate, using his good arm to hold the shoulder Tweak had displaced. Marrisa, her volumetric face lighting up in surprise along with the runway and loading light strips, immediately dashed up into the confines of the Vinross Yu-Cranker ship.

Click to expand...

Tweak's eyes widened. Good! People were coming in, the Uniques were retreating. Cyril and Kez were out of any danger she could help with! So it was definitely time to go...


Thank you very much, snapped Tweak, even though she knew that her TOS was actually just a part of herself...but there would be time later to ponder that bit of navel-gazing. Switching directions, Tweak snatched up her book -- ignoring the shredded remains of her clothes and suit -- then hopped up onto the top of the Yu-Cranker ship and jumped as high as she could, using a CRT burst to reach the hole in the ventilation duct before the doors to the bay opened to admit the raging Administrator. Once inside the ducts, she quickly made her way back to her original hiding place and scanned it for monitoring devices, holding her book against her chest in an attempt to hide the journal if there were cameras. She was going to squeeze every nanosecond out of her stealth until she found a dead zone in the internal monitoring net.

Wait, her book! It had a map of most of the cameras on the station, excepting this section since she apparently hadn't done anything except patrol some hallways near here...but that also meant that there were dead zones to exploit to get her to some genuine safe areas. Or maybe even the shrine she had woken in! Could she make it there in three minutes? But, if there were no cameras or sensors here, she'd be able to decloak and make some new clothes, that would be preferable...

At least the fight had stopped when it did. One more good hit, from her or her targets, would have taken her camo offline. The neko frowned to herself. How had Cranker known where she was? The woman's projection's gaze had followed her as Tweak had dodged away. Not for the first time that day, Tweak felt doomed. Please tell me she wasn't recording that fight...

As Liam shambled towards Laj, the down-and-out CEO continued to smile, albeit weakly and through gasping breaths as he gripped at his arm. "Cards are on the table," Laj Vinross Yu replied cryptically, letting his head fall backwards against the side of the crate as he stared at the newly-lit ceiling. "Now all's to see is who has the winning hand."

---

Noboru, as he forcibly opened the closed bulkhead door, was met by a surprised group of CSS members clamoring at the opposing door panel on the opposing side. Behind them stood an equally-surprised Head Administrator, clad in the same CSS suit as the rest, save for her helmet-less head. When Noboru turned and began firing at Marrisa's form as she hastily made her way into the ship, several of the CSS team members beyond the opened doorway scrambled to join him, raising their guns to combat the threat. Marrisa Cranker was already out of sight inside the ship, however, the group arriving too late to see just what Noboru was shooting at. Cassefin, on the other hand, did take notice to Noboru's target.

Pushing her way to the front of the crowd, just behind Noboru, the fiery-haired Head Administrator raised her CSS Variable Weapon...only to bring the butt of the weapon down harshly on the back of Noboru's helmet.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Cassefin hissed in furious anger, a bewildered look across her face as she reprimanded her employee. "Do you have any idea who you just shot at?! What are you thinking?!"

'We're doing alright, a few more soldiers here on the floor, Uniques are now overwhelmed by numbers and our lovely Administrator...' Noboru mentally checked off the list of positives that were now in his head. Uniques on the run? Check. Superior numbers on the field? Check. Cyril and Keziah amazingly still alive? Check and check.

"Well, looks like we're about done he-HURGHENFAST!" Noboru felt the rifle butt smash into his helmet with a loud CLACK!, and he was knocked sprawling, head-down onto the floor. He looked up to his unknown assailant and noted that the Administrator, in a pose he could only have identified with some sort of crazy she-warrior from some comic, stared down at him with that ice-cold "you're fucking dead, even if you do explain what just happened here" look. He quickly scrambled to his feet and snapped a salute.

"Administrator Montreal, ma'am," he explained, "the fuck I know who she is. Marissa Cranker, wife of Laj Vinross-Yu, head of Vinross-Yu Cranker Materials. Also a huge fucking turncoat." Without waiting for Cassifin to interject, he continued: "Vinross-Yu, Cranker and their Uniques are the cause for your Station's emergency shut-down. They laid seige to the rest of Squad 35, and Administrator Vanderhuge, up in the Weapons Lab. We dispatched a few of them, but the Uniques had us out-gunned and out-armored. Cranker and Vinross-Yu pinned down Keziah and Cyril in the hangar bay, and Kokuten and the others were almost killed! Vanderhuge was shot! We were lucky to have even made it out of that room alive!"

He turned and pointed at the ship, quickly shouting: "AND NOW THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!" He waved his arms in a comic manner as the ship continued to load its crewmen (well, crew-women) aboard. He then proceeded to note how stupid he looked, and how big a target he made, before opening fire at the ship again.

Seeing the Uniques bolt, Speedy was also quick to pursue, if not nearly quick enough. His adrenaline rush from earlier was not a distant memory, and he had a nasty case of system shock.

He if anything, limped into the hanger bay, noticing the large crowd of CSS personnel, Noboru sprawled on the floor, and the 'enemy' fleeing in their ship. He wanted to fire at the vessel, however with the huge crowd, he couldn't get a clear shot.