[Section 6] episode 1: Moving day.

Jay answered the man without delay.

"Looking good. Everythings moving along nicely. All told, ninety minutes seems appropriate. I'd say anyone who's done boarding should get to quarters right after the speech. Is there another reason why this is a priority one?"

A gentle, almost adorable murmur came from Koroleva in retort to Chlorate's greeting. Sitting idly on her back now. As still as the boxes she carried. To make sureshe didn't throw the gynoid off balance.

Weiss glanced around the crowd. Being just several paces away from Nora. Before glancing at the others alongside her. Concealed carry, light armour underneath their clothing. This was, in essence, a very finetuned and sensitive operation. "Alpha team, ready," seeped in through her mind. All thanks to the AI implanted within her mind, who was serving as a communications relay. "Bravo team, on standby with the breaching charges." Weiss glanced over at the leader of team Alpha. Before sighing softly. "Demoneyes, target acquired, standing by."

With a mental command, translated to the go signal by Elizabeth. A loud gunshot, almost akin to an explosion resounded. Aimed for the man ontop of the container, Mark Tazar. At the exact same time, a cloud of smoke suddenly dispersed throughout the crowd. Screaming and chaos ensued as Weiss pushed on her thermal goggles and stepped forward. Pulling a cloth from her pocket and holding it against Nora's mouth. It'd knock her out in a split second. "Child," she stated through the intercomms. One of her infiltrators stepped forward and took the child, before Weiss picked up Nora herself in less than a second from the smoke appearing.

The ground shook violently as another explosion caused fire to bellow upwards from the tarmac. A roughly man-sized hole having appeared not too distant from the panicked, fleeing crowd. Two seconds had passed now.

Weiss turned on her feet, with Nora slumped over her shoulder. Sprinting for the hole along with the operative that had the baby. Both covered by the clattering gun fire of fully automatic PDWs that were blindly fired into the smoke. Making it extremely difficult to return fire altogether without getting to cover first.

A third explosion shook the ground roughly ten seconds later, causing the tarmac to completely collapse in on itself and cutting off the hole the psychopomp operatives had used to make their getaway. Making a persuit and eventual rescue difficult and extremely delayed. The third explosion also concluded their assault, the gunfire from the Operatives had ceased completely.

Frank ducked down on instinct when the explosion went off following gunfire "were under attack get non combat personnel to safety!!!" Frank rose to his feet after some time spotting the grooping of muscle flashes threw the smoke aiming for the center of the grouping Frank returned fire using 100 rounds from his spaid aimed at the cluster of gunfire as he switched from cover to cover advancing on the shooters

The screaming and gunfire roused a sleeping dragon, eight of them in fact. Computer defenses threw a cascade shield to defend Mark Tazar from the round fired at him as eight Revenant PA systems seemed to come to life, their pilots waking and rolling to their feet to move. Inverting the ECS to produce blinding balls of death spewing light, the suits broke their cloaks, charging through the crowd to intercept anything coming from the man sized hole in the tarmac.

By the time they got there, the hole had collapsed, leaving eight very pissed off powered armor troopers to engage the remaning shooters. Sergeant Blake directed traffic and stunner fire, avoiding civilians and leaving burns on the deck as they tried to pin and corral any remaining shooters.

But one of Bravo team was missing. That wouldn't be apparent until a six foot screaming rage monster of a Revenant trooper, her armor decorated with the blue shoulder to hip stripe of Bravo decloaked, bearing down on a shooter from the side like a demon of some myth, soon to be fuelled by his blood and pain.

It happened in a flash, one second Aras was standing peacefully next to Nora and her child, the next she was being shoved out of the way by a kidnapper in the middle of a smoke cloud. While the other civilians charged for safety, Aras and her child sat on the floor.

"Abbie go follow the crowd."
"But Aras, I'-"
"I said go, NOW!"

Her voice was almost drenched in anger, and with that the young girl quickly scampered off to catch up with the screaming mob. Aras quickly scanned around with her cybernetic eye, quickly catching the newly forming line of S6 troops. She began a sprint towards them; in a gunfight with civilians, it might be a bit handy to have a medic.

The Tarmac as all Hell broke loose...

People were now rushing to board the landing ships, piling into the craft feverishly as the attack happened. It was too fast and coordinated for security to stop it. And as the smoke began to clear, those wounded, or killed be came evident. The spray of gunfire killing a few while more were left injured by stray bullets. The first detonation had spread out the smoke and added extra debris, while the last cleared it from the immediate area.

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U7

As Sarah went to put on her helmet, her smile instantly stopped. The radio chatter over the comms as the attack happened reaching her ears. Where she was overjoyed a moment ago, she now only had anger.

"That may have to wait, got to go.", Was all Sarah said back to Rose before cutting the call. Her voice would give enough indication that something was wrong.

"Very good kee-....What the hell?", Mark said pausing as he heard it too. He looked offscreen as information came in, "Shit, we're under attack! Nagato! Get medics on the ground now, we have dead and wounded amongst the civilians."

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S6S-Anvil

A light alert begins to sound from the PA.

["Fleet wide yellow alert. Medics to Hangar two, security forces on standby. Repeat, this is a fleet wide yellow alert."]

Neera stopped as the automated voice repeated the message again, "What's going on?!"

Moving quickly, she left the room she had been making up as she went to search for Adria and Adilis. Ducking into the room, "Leave the mattress, we need to go find mom."

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Captain's Quarters

Jack was almost done changing into his dress uniform, but froze as he was notified by the bridge what was happening. He had a sudden nauseous feeling as it sunk in.

"FIND THEM.", He said once his anger had risen over the sickness.

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Tarmac

Mark Tazar had been one moment directing foot traffic, the next all he saw was sky after something ripped through him. At first he had been numb after hitting the ground, but let out a sharp gasp of pain. The sudden pain brought a clarity with it, the sounds of gunfire and screams being brought back. His chest was on fire yet his body was noticeably cooler. The reason became apparent with the taste of a warm irony liquid in his mouth.

A warm and wet feeling permeated the ground beneath him, if he had actually been able to feel it through the suit. The sergeant let out a cry of pain as he lifted his head to see the hole in his best, and subsequently his chest. He could see the edge of the growing blood pool in his peripheral as he turned his head. With another grunt he could see the panicking people, as well as the clearing smoke. He felt at peace as he laid back down, waiting to see if his life would end.

It took a moment for the situation to register in Rose's mind as she furrowed her brows, the sudden disconnection leaving her lightheaded for a fraction of a moment. Absently, she brought a hand up to her ear, as though there were an earpiece, but it was just a focusing habit. "Sarah? Hon?"

She looked to the unaware children and shrugged. "I'll call her later."

~~~

Spark's charge didn't stop when she took three stunner blasts to the chest, nor when her power armored form ripped a man from his cover and quite literally threw him at one of his teammates. What did stop her was the realization that that was a Saber security officer who would probably need checked for a concussion. "Spark Bravo, cease fire! Cease Fire! That's Saber Security we're shooting at! Sergeant Blake, get Boomer and Thud though that tarmac pronto!"

"Good call, Spark. Already on it. Sergeant Tazar's down, Doc's on the way."

"Roger that, sergeant. Saber Security, rearm and get Bravo our Storm Rifles. Follow us and try not to die."

True to Aster's word, the Bravo Team medic, better known as Doc for his skill, jumped up towards where Mark Tazar fell, his jump jets burning as he powered up to the elevated position, then over, as he spotted Mark. The Revenant clad trooper let the ECS inversion shut down, the blinding ball of light fading to the easily recognized black and red armor and its blue stripe from shoulder to hip. Kneeling next to the fallen man, he produced a vial of grey goo from his hip storage. "Morning, Sergeant. You're gonna be okay. Mind answering a few questions while I work?"

The Tarmac as all Hell broke loose...

Ven was in the new Revenant R1-SPA powered armor, providing security down the line when all hell broke loose. She flipped down the termal overlay of her sensors. Unfortunantly, that meant everyone looked similar with a few overlays tagged. In the cloud of smoke was a chaotic swarm of heat signatures that the armor struggled to diffrentiate. Ven used the jets to leap over the paniced crowd in an attempt to get close to the action. She was in the air as the second explosion hit. She was far from the only person in powered armor responding.

Although she didn't catch it, her armor did record the two who were dashing for the hole. Her attention was focused on the fire that was coming her direction. As she was still in the air, her only defense was her speed, and that didn't matter much against the unaimed fire that was filling the air. She felt several rounds hit and deflect off her armor. She returned fire as best she could, hitting the ground and rolling into cover.

She could feel one bullet hole in her tail where a lucky shot had hit her, but the armor was already administerign the sealants. She lept forward from behind cover, firing at the attackers and drawing their fire in return. She only made it halfway to the hole before the second explosion went off, silencing the attack.

Ven looked around, asessing the damage that had been done. She didn't have much formal medical training, but she had extensive practical experiance in dealing with wounds. That had meant she was wearing a medkit. Ven wanted to chase after the attackers, but saw Sergeant Blake wasn't giving chase and had instead deployed Doc to help with the wounded. She mentally cursed them for being cowards, but was forced to admit she didn't have a way of chasing them either. So she started to help tend to the wounded laying on the Tarmac. "Do you need any help there? If not, I'm going to be working the left side." She asked Doc over a private channel her voice unnaturally calm.

Sirens wailing all around, Jay quickly directed the comms officers who were relaying and executing his orders.

"Clear the skies. Not a single aircraft takes off without a direct order from myself or CiC Pine. I need four U1s up there enforcing the no-fly zone. Keep eyes on every single move that happens down there. Anything moves suspiciously, neutralize it and notify me. That is all for now."

Sewers, underneath the tarmac

Weiss and company didn't linger for long. Once the second explosion rocked the ground, Weiss, with Nora in tow and the soldier carrying Nora's child were already making their way through. Swift on their feet due to their light loadout. A silenced pistol strapped to her chest. The blonde elf rushed through, finally arriving at the rendez-vous that was planned. Though the transport was nowhere to be seen.

Then again, it wasn't just any transport.

"After a few seconds of running, Aras reached the line of troops. She quickly noticed the figure of Mark on the ground, but just before she bolted to him she recognized that he was already in care. She decided rather than interrupt she would stand attent there, waiting for some kind of command.

Hangar
Chlorate was carrying Koroleva and the crates to the ship, but she stopped again. With her robotic hearing, she overheard talk of some attack going on being mentioned in the hangar. She looked at the huge stack of cargo she was holding in her metal hands and considered what to do, knowing that they could be referring to an attack in some other place, or an attack that already ended, or even an attack that hadn't happened. Mark hadn't told her about any attack happening yet, after all, which left it unclear whether or not they were actually in any danger. Chlorate realized she should ask someone so she would know if there really was hostile activity nearby. Yes, she would have to ask someone who would have information, someone she could trust, someone who would know what to do, someone like-
"Mother? Are we currently under attack?" The android asked Koroleva.

Anvil
As soon as they heard the alert, the two butterflies looked around, unsure of what it meant. Not long after, they heard Neera talking to them. "Oh, we almost got that on the bed too..." Adria mumbled, letting go of the mattress. Adilis didn't expect her to put the mattress down so quickly, and leapt back with a squeak, narrowly avoiding the mattress bringing him down with it. "Why are the speakers saying something about a yellow alert? What does it mean?" Adria asked. "Where's mom?" Adilis shyly murmured.

SPACE

Two U-1s took off from Hammer's hangar before descending into the atmosphere. They began to patrol at low orbit.

"Delta one and two on station, the skies are locked."

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TARMAC

AS the dust finally settled and the tarmac was secure again, those killed became apparent. 10 bodies lay unmoving, their blood spilled on the asphalt. 3 were SABER, the remaining 7 were civilians.

Mark could see this all clearly as he was carried away on a stretcher. Before continuing, he touched a trooper on the arm, "Start gathering the bodies, bring them to the hangar. We'll make sure they receive a proper service."

With that the trooper went to carry out the order, waving some extra hands over. Mark then was carried on, as a tenba medical shuttle descended.

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ALBION BATTLE CARRIER: S6S-ANVIL

"Don't worry about the mattress. I know about as much as you right now. Let's go find mom and see if she knows what's up.", Neera said, worried something terrible was happening. She waved for them to follow as the wolf girl stepped back out into the corridor.

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OUTSIDE THE PERIMETER WALL

Weiss would suddenly find 8 armored figures decloak before her group. "Halt! Lay down you weapons and hand over the girl and baby! Do that and you can walk free!", Rorik shouted as their rifles were trained on them. He was about to say more, but noticed something.....There was no sand blowing here. Turning his attention to the left he saw the faint distorted spinning of something when he understood they had sprung a trap for the ambush.

"Gunsh-!!", He would start, but never get to finish as the spinning nose gun sweeped the squad. Time seemed to skip as armor piercing rounds mercilessly cut down the troopers in a blur of sparks and blood.

Rorik felt many rounds punch through his abdomen horizontally. The pain more then he could bare as he lost feeling in his legs and his lower half which was barely still attached went limp. Rapidly every team health marker had gone dead along the left side of his HUD. Laying on his back, he felt cold, the pain still pulling stunted hollows from his throat. They were muffled by the sandstorm and his helmet as he convulsed.

The pain disappeared as he went still, his body no longer responding. The world crashing in on itself in a wave of black as his sight left, and so did his last breath. Another fatality among those who had only a moment ago stood by him.

The gunship hovered forward and lowered as it's side hatch opened.

Bravo Team's own Junebug had worked fast, the five Eye IIs in orbit gathering their scan data as a three dimensional map of what lay beneath the tarmac, and she directed her own ship to fire a single shot into the tarmac away from the civilians and troops, punching a hole into the tunnel below. As she painted her strike on their HUDs, several members of Bravo were already en route when the tarmac exploded again, a single ceramic cased tungsten shell cleanly blasting a hole into the drainage tunnel.

Boomer, Thud, and Spark took point, dropping into the tunnel and taking off at full sprint towards the nearest exit, but they were too late to intercept the Alpha squad, and the three Revenant clad troopers watched the nearby friendly markers go blank. They were too late. Boomer let a grenade fly at the gunship, but the round wouldn't do more than put a scratch in the hull, and the three could no longer fire without risking the lives of Nora and her child.

So they retreated back into the tunnel and watched, cloaked.

"Junebug, Spark. There's a gunship cloaked on my position. I need active scan and follow, but do not engage, VIPs are aboard. I want jump vector, signature, and anything you can get on it. I need to know what it is and where it's going, and I need that data in Jack Pine's hand five minutes ago. Let Rose know what's going on, and tell her we need a higher power shield for the Revenants."

"Roger, Spark. Junebug's on it." Aster's voice cut through the radio. "Get back here and don't put yourselves at risk. We've got dead and wounded, here, and one Hell of a mess to clean up."

"Spark, confirming. Boomer and Thud, you heard her."

"We're letting them get away?"

"The personal body shield module for the Revenant isn't deployable even to us, Boomer. We can't engage that gunship, even if there weren't VIPs on board."

"But--"

"Can it. We're retreating."

"Belay that, Spark." Aster's voice again. "Stay in the AO, do not engage. Your detachment is on body recovery detail for Alpha."

~~~

Something beeped as something connected to the comm relay in Rose's car, and she was suddenly aware of her car connecting to her Geist, and a mass of data from an Eye II flooding her mind. She shook off the feeling and began sifting through the data, and included helmet camera images from Bravo Team and Alpha Squad as Rorik and his men were cut down, and Junebug's own sensor sweeps of the incident.

Some part of her was enraged that someone would be audacious enough to make the attack, and wanted to flood the scene with orbital munitions, but she carefully detatched that, letting her logical scientific mindset take over, and exploring options. Her personal shield project was almost ready, just needing Aster's hand for a power supply. She could have Bravo and another strike team outfitted with them within a week, if her lab on the Anvil was still fully operational. Moreover, they needed more detection, and resolved to get the Eye II frames the team was using upgraded, either through IIS or through their own means. They also needed more, which meant negotiating a construction license and getting every ship in the fleet outfitted with a new sensor package to ensure something didn't slip by again.

With the expansion of AI use in the fleet, she could network sensor data and get the the ships to navigate and network to get a better image that a distributed intelligence could respond to. Her brain punched up quick proposals and courses of action for a technical side response before forwarding the data to Jack Pine and Mark Oaklen, in a message titled "Bravo Team Report and A-R&D response to immediate crisis. More data to follow."

Thistle made a hungry, upset noise, and Rose snapped back to reality, noting that Michael was now asleep and done. With a gentle smile, she hid how these events had disturbed her and went back to tending her children, a shadow passing over the passenger compartment of the car as a satellite nearby blocked the sun for a moment.

Weiss and company arrived at the end of the tunnel, outside the confines of the city. Though she raised her hands, soldiers that were with her following suit as the PAs stared them down. Though she didn't comply when she was told to put Nora and the child down. She wasn't planning on going home empty handed. No, all she did was forming a knowing smirk.

Not a split second later the buzzing of a nose-mounted machinegun tore through the PAs. Spraying them down and ripping through their armour like a knife through butter. She nodded at her men, dashing for the transport as it landed swiftly. And opened the ramp. The soldiers fell in and strapped themselves and Nora in. Having a seperate harness, Weiss had the child strapped with that to her chest. And not two minutes later, the shuttle turned on the ECS particles, aiming to sneak through the surveillance and slip off in space.

Anvil

With no idea what was going on outside a very cautious Isabelle had left the bathroom to try and find Jack and her kids, one to figure out was going on and the other to make sure they were all safe. From all the sounds and alert names going off she guessed there must have been some kind of attack or incident outside, rushing around the large ship the desperate mother scrambled to find at least one member of her family.

"C'mon, c'mon where are they." She said to herself under her breath as she hurried from room to room finding all of them empty, should she try checking the bridge? Or perhaps one of the larger rec rooms, there was too many places they could be and she had no way of calling them.

Tarmac

Ven didn't care much for the dead. Either they had backups and they would forget a few days or weeks, or they didn't and were gone for good. Either way, they weren't her problem. She didn't care much more for the living, but her current job meant that she had to deal with them. She moved from patient to patient on the Tarmac, rather bruskly slapping the ones that could walk with a green tracker patch and instructions to go to the medical facilities. The ones that couldn't, got patched up so that they would survive and slapped with a yellow tracker patch so someone with a stretcher could come and get them. It was a cold hard process, but Ven was good at those, it let her be efficient.

Hangar

The explosions that shook the ground, the shooting, the shouting. Koroleva let out a soft, purring murmur as she heard the ensuing carnage. It was't her doing, but it was a beautiful symphony. Sadly for the one causing it, it was against her people. And it'd be poor form if she didn't at least do something. Glancing down at Chlorate as the android spoke. She padded the android's cheek. "Continue-... Safe. Car-nashe." She murmured. Getting down from Chlorate's shoulders and making her way to the entrance of the hangar. The smoke, the shooting, the panic. It was exhilirating.

But she held herself back. If any of the attackers broke through, she had to protect the ship and more importantly her daughter.

The commander waited and watched from the bridge as all of this transpired. After a time without contacts near the main group, he ordered that all loading be resumed under the surveillance of the Eyes.

Hangar
The robo-daughter took a few seconds to process what Koroleva said. And then she beeped "Affirmative," her feet clanking against the floor once more as she resumed walking, oblivious to, or maybe ignoring the sounds of chaos that weren't too far away.

Anvil
Luckily, Adria ended up waddling right into Isabelle, exclaiming an "AGH!" and almost falling over but not quite. Adilis saw her from behind Adria and said "Mom!", which, although it wasn't really that loud, maybe about the same volume as a speaking voice, was probably one of the loudest things he'd ever said considering that he was... Adilis. He ran over to her, succeeding at not crashing into her unlike Adria.