RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 2]: Brotherhood and Sisterly Love

"If there is, I'm out of the loop, too," Private Kingston answered. He strode to the entryway of the bridge, but proceeded no farther. He thought it best to make sure the bridge's security was maintained. "I'll be waiting, Anselm," he said through the VOID's com. "Don't get too hasty, though. We do have squids aboard. I'll be here keeping the bridge clean... or, as clean as it is, anyways." A few seconds after going silent, the Power Armor's audio picked up on footsteps. Sounded like boots and moving at a rather regular jog. He raised his LPA in preparation. Two Nepleslians came around the corner and to a quick halt. Viktor lowered the gun and brought his armor to kneel. Through the external speaker came these words, "Mm. Glad to see some support. Bridge is secured, but rather messy. What can I do for you gentlemen?"

Anselm grunted an affirmative to Viktor, pulling out his chainsword, Sindri, as the warmachine's shoulders put large gouges into the walls as the marine forcibly powered down the hallway. Both the AOP and HPAR were too bulky and powerful to use around unarmored friendlies, so it would be with fist and blade that the Albino would kill any Mishhu that had the bad fortune to run across the marine's path, that is, if they got past Lilly first, who was trailing sparks like parade streamers as well.

Henry initially took the gun to his head as just a bit of loose metal falling from the roof. However, once the sounds of gore and guts begun getting splattered about in liberal fashion, he realised something wasn't right.

He stood up, turned around with his Styrling Dart in hand and flicked on the light in his helmet. Noticing the jaw on the floor made Henry recoil in horror for a moment, but he realised that he was the only guy who'd be able to get the Computer Core back on its feet via a reset.

"Gahfuck!" Silver cried out as she dropped her weapon, falling to the ground and writhing in pain.
Henry decisively gave radio to the other marines, "Taking fire from unknown enemy, require assistance and medic..." Henry looked down on the ground and noticed something explosive with the pin missing, "Oh, shit."
Oddly, Henry hadn't raised his voice.

There was the grenade near Hicks to deal with. Henry picked it up without brushing the gore aside and hurled the object back into the room, where all the noise was coming from.
He had a surprisingly good throwing arm as he threw the grenade like a baseball.

Shining his light towards the offending enemy with his Styrling Dart levelled and with a fresh magazine (his last one), Henry mumbled something, "What are you? A man or a mouse?"

She had seen Silver take the hit. Phaedra brought her GSAR to bear against the new enemy as her comrade fell. She unloaded the magazine into the creature; its thermal signature unlike anything she had ever seen before.

"Taking fire from unknown enemy, require assistance and medic...Oh shit," said Morris over the comm. Phaedra only had time to register the small object flying towards the unknown creature before it exploded, the blast knocking her to the floor.

"Okay, gas it." Fian ordered as he shoved the last prisoners into the last room. A formerly captive techie assisted him by hacking into each of the room's localized computer systems to trigger the knockout gas dispensers. As with the six other rooms before this, the pirates locked inside quickly succumbed and drifted to sleep in a neat man-pile. It seems that with the surprise arrival of the Mishus INSIDE the ship, more manpower had to be freed up and releasing most of the marines from POW guard duty was the solution.

A small rumble shook the ship followed by screams in his ear. For a moment the Master Chief thought some part of the ship must have vented itself, but it appeared that they were both separate incidents. The rumble was from the ship's Ion Drives, which reminded him that even without FTL the ship still had some form of movement, he quickly brought his AIR-R to a laboured run towards the bridge.

The scream was from the squad in the computer room. The individual scream wasn't as scary as the thought of the whole lot of them screaming if the squids catch up to them, and from the looks of the screens on the bridge, all that was needed was a quick reboot of the computer core. The Vel Steyr was aghast that so much now depended on so few individuals, even though he tried to keep it a collective responsibility.

"Phaedra, Henry, reboot the com and GET OUT OF THERE!"

Hardly concerned about the condition of the finish on the walls or the state of her power armor's peripherals, she muscled her way down the hallway, with a bit less effort than the 13 foot tall Aggressor. The mangled monoeyes of her unit lost a bit more of their volume at the edges, and her ion thrusters dragged themselves along the walls with a screech. She activated her boosters, only half of which were still working, and scorched her way down the hall, blowing off all the primary boosters and array wings in the time it took her to reach the sensor room door at the extreme end of the hall.

With her good arm, she sliced her lance through the side of the door that slid back into the wall, then sent a full-force PPG blast into it, blowing it into the darkened room beyond. A small explosion evidenced that she'd just obliterated several sensor terminals. Shoving herself haphazardly through the portal, she activated her monoeyes, flooding the room in a dull red glow, HFC at the ready.

Henry didn't anticipate the explosion to be that powerful either, being slid back a few feet and tripping over Hicks' unconscious body. He then realised as he tried to get up that a few pieces of shrapnel had managed to rip into his legs. He was going to have a hard time moving, now.

"Phaedra, cover me while I reboot this!" Henry cried out as he crawled back to where he was working and resumed going through the code, outdoing the security little by little, one line, another line. It'd take him about minute or two of concentrated effort. During which, he made a detour to turn the lights in the room on.

He'd get it all complete just in the in the nick of time, hopefully.

There were a few shots fired at Henry as he attempted to throw the grenade back into the room, all illuminating the threat that they were facing, appearing to be a humanoid figure, around 6 feet tall, wearing just something that looked like the nanomuscle layer of an ELEMENTAL.

The room lit up as the grenade went off, peppering everyone inside (including Silver) with shrapnel, the concussive blast and shrapnel temporarily stunning the attacker. Regaining his senses, the armored pirate grabbed the shotgun and leveled it back as Henry was entering the room, until....

----

Henry would have the air knocked out of him by a charging Chief. Ran had plowed into Morris shoulder first, attempting to knock him and Volkov out of the way of the door, taking just a few pellets from the hostile firing inside. He had done this after screaming at the rest of the Marines to get out of the way immediately, as Lilly had decided to come boosting down a hallway filled with Marines, and Ran did not feel like taking casualties thanks to friendly actions.

----

With her monoeyes damaged, Lilly's PPG blast had succeeded in sending a number of servers flying to the opposite side of the room thus severely damaging the modules that regulated the Stealth and Fire Systems. What it hadn't done was succeed in killing the threat inside, as the glow from her monoeyes would show there being no one in the room, nothing to indicate where the threat had gone save for an uncovered ventilation duct. Apparently the noisy approach of the Marine PA had caused him to rethink his strategy, in running away instead of fighting.

When the situation calmed down, all could be heard was a very loud, very angry Chief utilizing his full knowledge of profane words upon Lilly. Even making up a few.

"WHAT THE FUCK. Who the fuck." Ran paused, almost unable to speak. "WHO FUCKING." Another pause, anger taking the words from his mouth. "Didn't you fucking SEE US?" Taking a step back from Lilly, seeing as he was ready to punch a heavily armored suit, the Chief just rubbed his forehead with his hand.

"Collect the casualties. I want a medic up here." Was all he said to some random Marine.

Ran turned to Lilly, speaking in a low, shakey voice. "Get out of the suit. Report to the Master Chief about the current situation. Hurry up before someone up here gets murdered."

A few seconds earlier...

Phaedra shook her head as she climbed to her feet, her ears still ringing from the concussion. She heard Morris' muffled voice and headed toward him; releasing the spent mag from her GSAR and slamming a fresh one into place. She knelt between Morris' prone form and the doorway, scanning for the previous threat that had vanished. Barely a second went by before Chief Ran plowed into the room and shoved her and Morris out of the doorway. Phaedra's remaining eye widened at the sight of a suit of power armor barreling towards them down the hallway.

Another blast followed, sending parts of the computer core around the room as deadly shrapnel. Phaedra was sprayed by debris, most of which impacted harmlessly against her armor, but several pieces managed to nick her cheek and forehead. Blood flowed freely across her face from the small cuts, making her injuries appear more serious then they actually were. Phaedra held her left hand to her face in order to keep the blood from her eyes, all the while attempting to inspect Morris' wounded legs.

"Ah, shit-" was all the marine could say as Lilly decided it was a good idea to use boosters inside the hallway, it was bad enough the two of them were charging down the cooridor like a wall of death, but adding Ion thrusters to the mix was asking for a court martial.

Arriving late to the scene, Anselm had a front-row seat for Chief Ran's explosion; silently, he berated himself for not making an effort to catch her, he'd let the proverbial bull into the china shop on purpose and his fellow marines had paid the price.

"Damn it, we need medics on the second floor... we've taken some friendly fire, this is my fault, Chief, I knew Lilly was losing it, I should have stopped her before this happened..." Anselm noted the enemy they'd come here to stop had run off, which only increased the bitter taste in the marine's mouth. The Albino gave the room a thorough sweep with Njordr's monoeyes just in case there were any other surprises left behind.

"Moving to cover," Harrison relayed. So far he had stood around feeling useless stockpiling the weapons of the dead in the hangar, and had armed the assorted personnel with enough kit to make even the largest professional contracting company green around the gills with envy. Other than that, he had switched between staring at the floor and staring at where explosions in the vacuum around the position of the Alder. He shrugged, then headed off towards the stairwell.

Ran had pulled out two cigarettes that were jammed inside of his armor and lit them, apparently needing twice the nicotine to calm himself down. Anselm's apologies went noticed, but did not elicit a major reaction from the Chief.

All Ran did was turn to Anselm, and said in a calmer voice "Get those medics up here and report to the Master Chief we've got the hostages."

"Yes, sir." The marine answered, pulling up a floorplan of the Acadia on his HUD and grimaced inside the armor.

Shit, looks like a long walk back to the hangar... The marine sent a message to Fian appraising him of the situation on the top deck.

Popping the torso on Njordr, Anselm clambered out in his ussual attire, flight shorts and a headset comm, and detached the HPAR from his Aggressor "I assume some of the POWs have body armor they aren't using at the moment." He didn't want to take anything from injured or dead comrades, looting dead and captured enemies was much less morally reprehensible.

Henry was still bleeding quite badly from his leg, but he continued to work on resetting the communications. He was starting to fade in and out of consciousness, fizzles and minor outages beginning to appear in his cybernetic vision.
He wasn't going to let that stop him as he put the final calculation in place to defeat security, then bought up the HUD with a click.

It took him a moment to select the Restart button and make the final input.

"D... done..." Henry gasped as he put the final keystroke down and the reset begun, "Permission to rest, sir..." His words trailed off as he allowed himself to lay down and gather his breath, still wondering when the medic was going to get to him.

The pain was there, but numbed due to the excitement of the previous encounters, and his completion of a massive step in the mission.

"Stay with me Morris!" yelled Phaedra into his ear. Cutting open the legs of his trousers, she retrieved the container of medicagel from her utility belt and covered the wound with it. She was not a medic, but she could already tell that Morris' wounds were beyond her abilities. Putting some medicagel on the wounds to staunch the flow of blood was all she could do until the medical personnel arrived. But dammed if she would let one of her comrades die while she was able to do something.

The computer core beeped and hummed as it was brought back to life. Phaedra grabbed her GSAR and sprang to her feet. She approached Chief Ran and shouted;

"Orders, sir!"

'Shields online, sublight drives online, stealth systems offline, weapons offline, sensors online...'

The Emden's AI rattled off the systems diagnostics mechanically, obviously unaware of the desperate situation that a more experienced SAVTECH could have gleaned off the worried Master Chief's face. He thought the newly activated ship's AI could help them out, but it seems that it too needed a little egging on. "Hey, HEY!" Fian waved wildly. "FTL drives, hit it NOW!" The MC quickly keyed in the position of the closest Nepleslian fleet.

'CDD Drives at 30% and charging. A minimum of 50% charge is required to reach the destination. Estimated time of charge, 20 minutes. As a precaution, please wait for 100% charge before activating the CDD Drives.'

A large red button capped by a glass box blinked on the captain's console, Fian could assume this was the final button that the CO presses to OK a complex action. The black haired Nepleslian's fingers tingled with anticipation. He was more than content to quietly obey the Savtech's instructions if it meant the gauranteed safety of his men had not a bright light flashed in deep space and a green dot wink out of existence on the Radar.

'Contact with the S1 Gunship NSS Alder is lost. Lock on detected from Charlie-1 Xianthrafruglu Gunship and Charlie-2 unknown hostile vessel. Energy spike detected, impact in 7, 6, 5 ...'

Fian brought his fist down hard on the red button, he felt the glass bits biting into his flesh, but also the satisfying depression of the knob. A shudder shook the ship as it jumped, bypassing the waiting NSS Acadia in mere seconds. By this time, an all destroying Shock Array blast belatedly ripped through the space where the Emden once was. One of the Mishhu gunships too jumped in pursuit of the damaged S1, leaving the destroyed wreckage of the Alder behind.

Belatedly also, a realisation hit the Master Chief. Wow, I'm flying a Capital Ship... Single handedly!

'Warning! Charlie-1 detected. Estimated interception time, 2 minutes.'

"Uh, increase sp-"

'Warning! Interdiction field detected, cancelling drive.'

"Wha-"

Another shudder ran through the ship as it was yanked out of distorted space. In the main screens Fian could see the rear of the NSS Acadia some distance away, it must have jumped at a higher speed and overtook the Emden in mid-flight, and was probably dropped out of CDD by the field too. A blink of an eye later the Xianthrafruglu exited into the space between both Hrays, another blink later it was gone, preforated and completely annihilated by an assortment of Nepleslian anti-ship weapons.

Directly above the two sister ships were forward elements of the 1st Defense Fleet riding out to meet and contain the Mishhu aggression, the Hrays had to meet them halfway. Four DD4s with their cannons still figuratively smoking continued on while two others stopped to deploy shuttles.

Fian hit up the squad wide intercom in a weary but relieved voice. "Gentlemen, we did it. Gather up the hostages and wounded and proceed to the hangar bay for evacuation, lets have someone else clean up this mess."

"Sir!" Was Private Kingston's curt response. He left the bridge and took a slow pace on his way back to the hangar, checking rooms occasionally for wounded or dead comrades. Fortunately, none were found on his route. Once in the hangar, he put himself out of the way, crouching in a corner. Then he popped the hatch and climbed out to sit atop the black beast of metal, straddling the headpiece. It was nice to breathe some straight air. The VOID was starting to get a bit too warm 'n cozy for his liking. From his position he watched the various medics and others on guard duty take care of their business while he cooled off. There was little to do other than bide his time until their departure from one Hray to the other.

Unable to work his way out from the other side of the Aggressor armor parked in the hallway Talbain had to circle around to the other side of the ship to get back to the computer core. Having missed all the excitement he only got back in time to find out about what had happened to Morris. After watching Phaedra apply some meds to his legs Talbain holstered his HAS and picked up Morris with both of his rather large arms.
"Where are the nearest medics?" was the only thing he had to ask of his comrades. Obviously more concerned with the welfare of the tech than proper greetings and customs with his other teammates. The ID-SOL did give Phaedra a nod our of respect for her quick thinking and preparedness before starting towards the ships PA bays with his wounded comrade.

Ran flicked a cigarette to the side as Fian's orders were relayed through the comms, not bothering to look at Phaedra. "You have your orders. Get the hostages and wounded the fuck out of here." Ran smirked as Henry was picked up by Talbain, drawing parallels between the idealized activities between a bride and groom. Catching himself in this rather urgent situation, though, he was quick to straighten his expression.

"Medics are dragging their asses a bit. Stay fucking alert, because that motherfucker we were fighting earlier is still on board." With that, Ran reached for a random pistol and placed the magazine in one of his pouches, disassembling it and throwing each piece in several directions. "We'll let some other assholes clean this shit up. I want Marines gathering up the hostages and wounded, take them back to where the Master Chief is. Everyone else, disassemble these weapons along the way."

Anselm sighed looking at his and Lilly's armors sitting in the computer core "I suppose we'll have to leave these behind, lock them down?" The marine had already put a passcode on his aggressor to keep their new friend from coming back and using it easily, setting his anti-armour rifle aside, the albino started clambering into the Lancer to do the same.