RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 1] A Side: "High and Dry over Golding"

Echo ran down the corridors of the station, grunting at the pace he was attempting to maintain. He pressed a button on his helmet and the communications system flicked on. It was on the Nepeslian main channel. "This is Private Second Class Echo Sakura, looking for the man in charge of the NSS Acadia. I have been reassigned."

Wheeling around a corner with his pistol held out, Echo determined that hallway safe and continued down it. The rifle case on his back was weighing him down, but his large ID-SOL frame was giving him the strength he needed to keep pushing it. That, plus his inability to give in before he was even assigned to his ship, was pushing him onward towards the commotion.

The Master Chief's SAVTECH notified him of any mention of the NSS Acadia on all channels, he was quickly linked to Echo's communicator.'Sakura?' Another Trey-esque Yamataian? A woman this time? But he was slightly disturbed to hear the burly voice of an ID-Sol on the other end of the line. Not having seen the private before, he opened up in an authoritative tone. "Soldier? This is Master Chief Fian Vel Steyr, your Commanding Officer. Rendezvous at the control tower ahead of your position, the area should be clear and there should be one more functioning elevator. Out."

"Someone free the hostages and work the station controls, I need to get out of this suit." Fian called over the squad channel, it suddenly felt uncomfortable in the padded cavity of the AIR-R. Opening his suit in the break-top configuration, he tried to climb out of the cavity, but found his left arm stuck firmly in the socket. Come to think of it, he couldn't feel that arm either. Unknown to him, his forearm was a bloody mess of cracked plating and bone. "Uh... Help?"

A brief flash of light could be seen on the horizon of the station surface as the NSS Endem folded away to safety.

"Acknowledged, Master Chief." Echo responded, seemingly too late as he lost the connection with his CO. His communicator clicked off and he sighed. "Well then...looks like I'm legging it."

Echo stopped, if only for a moment, to take a breather and make sure all of his gear was in good shape. He manually adjusted the lens on his helmet for a moment, getting the best setting out of it, then he set all of his cargo down and looked over it for a moment. It was all solid.

What lay in front of him consisted of a single black rifle case, filled with his Styrling Longshot and accessories, his glider pack, and his Styrling Silver Special .45. He considered these three tools to be the best a man could obtain, at least for his profession.

Satisfied, he slipped the pistol back into its holster and picked up the rest. He began his full-on sprint again, making it to the elevator in what seemed like record time. Punching in a sequence, the elevator began propelling him "skyward".

Once the elevator stopped at the top, the Private stepped out of the open doors. "Private Second Class Echo Sakura, reporting for duty. May I be of assistance?"

The Master Chief's residual hopes of seeing a female Yamataian was quashed when the ID-Sol emerged from the elevator. The marine's dull and dour looks sharply contrasted with the stereotypical cheery Neko.

"Yeah, call me a medic and a techie. Its going to take both a bonesaw and a blowtorch to get me out of this mess." Fian responded, not returning a salute because he didn't receive one. He pointed to the control panels that littered the room, while trying to lean over the cavity to get a better look at his injuries. A slight pain was starting to creep up his arm.

At least one of the panels handled inter-station communication. One though which has just rebooted controlled the station's surface defences. It laid idle in a hidden corner of the room.

With the Jimmies down, Viktor high-tailed it to the top of the elevator shaft. He was coming in the doorway at the same time as the new recruit, ignoring his presence for the most part. There were hostages to be aided. He put in the command to recall all of his shield drones and then began cutting the hostages free.

Anselm quickly made his way to the top, deactivating any downed armors he crossed paths with "we'll need to mop up these jimmy PAs, Talbain, see if anyone else wants to join us for a little stress relief session."

Finally arriving at the top of his shaft Anselm took a small break as he entered the tower control room, spotting several active consoles Anselm removed his helmet and looked to his Master Chief "If you can close your armor back up, I think we can get you down to a less crowded floor where the medics will have more room to tend to your, uh, arm."

(My character is a DUDE...if I was the new recruit you were talking about.)

"Yes sir!" Echo snapped into a late salute. "I will do my best."

Echo ran over to the panels and searched for an intercom button. It would've seemed strange to others that he was still carrying his gear, but he never put it down. He just continued to search for his target, finding it eventually.

"This is PSC Echo Sakura, calling for a medic and a technician. The Master Chief is hindered by some damage done to his power armor and needs some help." As soon as Echo spoke that through the intercom, he hoped there weren't any threats remaining in the station. Pirates would love to prey on a hindered officer. "Any Nepleslian medics or technicians in the station, please report to the control tower."

Letting go fo the intercom button and turning back to face the Master Chief, Echo saluted again. "Can I be of any other service, sir?"

Fian nodded at Anselm, before allowing himself to fall into his suit once again. While his Storm had taken considerable armor damage, the structural design of the M1 series was generally robust. The hydraulics and locks shifted and closed without difficulty. "Just hang around, Echo, and watch the fireworks."

Talbain gruffed in response to the Albino, the stonic ID-Sol was always up for some smashing.

Viktor's drones returned to their docking ports with a soft click, all of them were accounted for. The hostages were not seriously injured, some had bruises when the pirates 'convinced' them to cooperate. They weren't the full staff complement, but they quickly shuffled back to their positions to reverse the damage caused by the raiders. One of them, a tall man with neatly combed brown hair approached Viktor before moving away. "We can't thank you enough, but we have work to do right now. I'll see if I can arrange something after all this is through."

"This is Armory Two here copy, sending them up now." Responded the Intercom. It seems that between then and now, the liberated armory had procured emergency response teams.

"We've got a transmission from the 1st Assault Fleet!" Exclaimed one of the tower crew. "The NSS Oblivion and Damascus will be here in less than five minutes!"

"We have to get the station defenses online." Responded the weary brown haired man, assuming the managerial position. "Could one of you gentlemen do the honors and hit that red button over there?" He said, thumbing to one of the empty consoles.

Far far away, the little speck that was one of the Raiders was still bounding up and down, trying to avoid fire while speeding towards his mothership.

Harrison, having long since realized he was on the wrong damn floor, quickly jetted back down to the 4th floor and gathered up with the rest of his squad.

"My bad, I thought standing orders were to rendezvous on the Tenth Floor entryway."

Echo nodded and stood solidly, staring out at the small skirmish going on in space. He truly wished he was on the surface of some planet right now, doing what he did best, but he wouldn't complain. He still had to familiarize himself with his commanding officer before moving out on the mission, though the Master Chief seemd preoccupied at the moment.

To pass the time, Echo began adjusting the settings on his eyepiece. The helmet's built-in vision piece was nice, but it wasn't nearly as good as he'd hoped for. Then again, this thing was far from a suit of power armor. Yet, he liked it far more...the mobility was great.

"Well then, I think we better head up" The PA-clad Trey responded, picking the woman up again, Gently, and hopping into the elevator shaft, boosting up to the top and landing into the control tower with a light thud, and then setting the woman down for a second time "So, that's it, We've won?" trey asked the Master Chief.

Harrison, again, looked dumbfounded at the empty fourth floor landing before realizing he had actually passed his entire squad on the tenth floor. The painkillers must have been messing with his mind at that point...

He jetted up to the tenth floor after Trey.

In a fascinating twist of questionably retroactive fate, Lilly grinned at the station commander and replied, "With pleasure." She stepped up to the control console, focusing carefully on the Hostile skitting about in the distance. She didn't want to miss the show. Her head suddenly feeling hot and her heart pounding, Lilly slammed the red button.

Anselm grabbed the first unoccupied marine he saw to assist him and the Master Chief down to second, the first unoccupied marine the Albino saw just happened to arrive seconds after Trey and his charge, Lilly. "Harrison help me get the Chief down to second floor" he said somewhat politely in a tone that implied he might not enjoy having to ask someone else, whether or not that meant he wanted Harrison specifically or just didn't like asking for help, especially a second time.

Echo looked around at the gathering of marines and backed off into a corner. Even though he was outgoing with his commander, a large number of new people brought out the shady, dark part of his mind. He simply lowered his head and waited to be spoken to.

Maybe one of them will notice the new guy in the corner, maybe not. Who knows?

Talbain watched the enemy PA bounding across the surface of the station for a moment before moving back into the elevator shaft. The control tower just didn't seem to be the place for him to be standing around in a large PA.
After a moment of just hovering he got onto the squads communications channel. "Chief, do we have any other objectives besides your medical aid?"
He looked over the newest marines. A P3C Livia according to the name tape on her uniform and a P2C Sakura. The P3C struck him as odd due to the fact that Talbain had never seen someone with a body shape like that wearing the SMDIoN uniform. As for this Sakura individual, it was an interesting name for someone that was obviously an ID-SOL and then there was the large case they were carrying. There had to be something interesting in there.

"Ten-four, Anselm. Let's get him moved." Harrison touched down on the tenth floor landing and ambled over to Anselm, the hulking albino towering over Harrison as he carefully angled the Master Chief so that both men could handle their CO.

"Alright," Harrison said once he had positioned himself so that he was supporting a portion of the Vel Steyr's weight, "Let's go."

"Oh hey, careful." Fian mumbled. He didn't know if they were doing this out of kindness or duty, but damm it felt good to have people like that under (literally in this case) him. The nice feeling partly mitigated the creeping pain of the fading painkillers.

Moments after Lilly slammed the red button, the station's anti-ship and anti-PA batteries which were centralized enough for the pirates to hack and disable in one stroke but spread far enough to make destroying each individual one a pain, belatedly sprang to life hours after the raid. Most of the larger Positron Cannons had difficulty angling their guns low enough to hit the Yui-4 which started to hug the station for safety, but the many many smaller Twin Gattling Turrets had a field day. The fleeing pirate and some of his compatriots was caught in a literal rain of plasma coming from all directions, his suit was reduced to a molten slag long before gravity bought his liquefied remains to the ground.

Though, as if on cue, as soon as the raider touched the ground, the Yui-4 begain to rise. Though it might look foolhardy to attract the attention of additional station cannons, it was doing so to escape a bigger and imminent threat. But it was too late, much too late. Two bright lights, similar to the one created by the escaped NSS Emden, shone from two points above the station.

"The NSS Oblivion and Damascus has arrived!" Announced one ecstatic controller.

From foldspace emerged two DD4 Destroyers, deadly designs that were borrowed from Nepleslia's allies from the far reaches. Lethal guns of all sizes protruded from its sleek and compact silver frame. To avoid damage to the station, only the middle-sized guns were firing. hundreds of beams from the NDI Particle Disruptors tore into the Yui-4, which returned only ineffective fire from either being caught by surprise or by the general lack of crew. The hull has been so heavily pounded the ship's crew corridors were visible. The DD4 continued to batter the Yui-4 into oblivion, much to the delight of everyone on the Station, but to the chagrin of the investigating Nepleslian Intelligence services.

Speaking of which, three black painted NaX-A-1a NOHZs boosted up the elevator shafts, each of them took up positions to block any exits from the tower. Two of them had their HPARs down in the ready position while the third one in the center simply surveyed the room silently. Stencilled into their chestplate and shoulders were three letters every member of the SMoDIN feared more than the immediate enemy... The Intelligence and Pacification Group, or IPG.

Echo raised an eye to examine the new armor that made its way into the room. He grimaced at the frames and clutched his pistol holster. These were the same bastards that made him who he was. "Son of a bitch...IPGs...it figures." He grunted, keeping the tone down. "Better not come near me."

Though Echo knew the threat was hollow, that being outside of a PA suit brought him at their mercy, he still watched them with a scrutinizing eye. He hated how they worked. They were a plague to all of the missions he'd tried to complete in the past.

Tears welled up in Lilly's eyes as her captor was reduced to smoldering plasma. The only way she could have imagined her revenge going any better was with the aforementioned biting-throat-off idea. Her body feeling weary, she collapsed on the floor, leaning against the panel. She put her elbows on her knees, grabbed the back of her head, and slumped it between her spread legs. She ignored the presence of the IPG - she knew them by name, but not by reputation. She eased her breathing, an aching headache setting in from all the stimulation of the day.