"Ooh, ooh! Idea!"
Stacy begins to sing a tune.
"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head, and just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed, nothin' seems to fit. Raindrops keep fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'..."
Head up on the wall, then cool a sphere of air three meters in diameter approximately 100 meters above where the crowd o' rebels is right now (not following along with their movements, just where they are at the time I begin) to a temperature of 2 kelvins, hopefully solidifying it rather rather nicely. Note: this is not actually aimed to kill anyone, only distract, and the location is not to be adjusted for any reason.
Get a good view of the stairs. Then utilize manipulator to rapidly cool (to about 2 kelvins, solidifiying the air's various components) a horizontally-oriented cylinder of air that's about the length of the stairs and about 2 meters in diameter at the top of the stairs or, if the guards have moved past that point, slightly in front of the guards.
Stacy really hoped this would work.
Heh. Well, here's the thing, stacy: That stairway is at least a half mile long. Probably longer. I'm pretty sure I said something to that effect at some point, plus the amount of time it's taking people to get up it and the fact that they're described as little black dots as they start up the stairs should really have been a clue. So.
You run up to the gate and enter in the rather massive proportions of the effected area. The calculations begin easy but quickly become nearly impossible; scrolling by so fast you can barely keep up; until you can't keep up at all. You just start entering in what looks right, sweat dripping from your brow as the numbers fly by too fast for you to even comprehend. Finally, the onslaught of math ends and the "EXECUTE?" prompt comes up. You hit the button without even thinking about it. The Manipulator beeps, squeals and then begins to howl out a siren. The metal surface of the box instantly freezes over and you hurl it away from you as the suit begins to freeze and you feel your hand go numb. The machine arcs out down the stairs; trailing a dry ice like fog behind it. It lands between the charging groups of the Guards and the Populace, vanishing amongst them as they clash.
You cradle your hand, now alive with freezer burn pain, and run back into the palace, screaming for your team to close the gates and assume the "We're all fucked" position.
Hmm. That sounds bad.
Go over to where May is and begin to burn the peasants in the legs so they fall. Casualties are not a concern.
Chuck the empty gun at them using the Kinetic Amplifier. Then run back.
May, despite her nonsensical behavior, has survived several missions. In fact, she was practically at ground zero during the China-9 Event and survived only because of her skill with a field manipulator. So when she sees Stacy's manipulator arcing gently over her head, spraying spontaneously generating superfluid hydrogen, she realizes whats about to happen.
May drops her gun, turns on her heel and runs. Runs straight up the short length of stairs, grabs Xan as he runs out to meet her, and runs into the palace compound. She doesn't stop running until she reaches the barracks and hides behind it.
Go back to the gate and just watch and record the fight from a safe spot. If not possible, enter BT mode. Slash any enemy who attacks, go always for the weak spot and retreat.
You run back up to the gate and are turning to face any followers when May shoves her way right past you. You're about to say something when you hear Stacy's screaming over the radio and decide that it might be best if you run.
Get Ms. Feyri's attention somehow. Hopefully in a way that embarrasses Tiruin more than me. Ideally in a way that embarrasses no one at all. Optimally, Tiruin shows up.
You start screaming at Feyri to wake up. You poke her in the ribs and slap at her legs and shake her as best you can with your little arms. She just keeps standing there, blankly staring forward.
Okay, Faith, we're kind of in a hurry and need to get more orders from the messenger... Let's move!
Poke Faith out of that common HMRC affliction, get her to lead me to where the Messenger is or tell me how to contact him
Faith dropped her hand onto Skylar's shoulder, a bit roughly, and looked him straight in the eyes.
"I need to go deal with something. What you need to deal with is Stacy's bomb. I would like you to make sure Feyri and Lyra stay safe, but this is more important.
That old guy has a nuke. If it goes off, everyone will die. That includes us. I do not trust him to not use it. I do not think he is actively malicious, but trusting eccentric people to not murder everyone including themselves does not work very well in the HMRC.
Note May.
So that is your job. Get the nuke, keep the nuke safe. I don't want anyone else to have it, because anyone else might be tempted to use it. You seem rational enough to not flatten everything in sight and are aware that would be the effect. That puts you above at least some HMRC and likely anyone outside it.
The rest of the team's orders are the same as always. Attempt to blunt the crowd, without escalating the situation if possible, and fall back if you can't hold them. Remember, this is a tide, not a lone squad. Good luck."
Order Skylar, bolt into the shadows.
You give your final orders to Skylar and then sprint away, synthflesh legs propelling you forward with enough force that you leave footprint shaped divots in the cobblestone roads.
wait for all HMRC personnel to be inside the gate, then shut it. If we have people staying outside the gate, don't shut it unless they get overrun. If they get overrun, shut the gate.
As soon as Renen scampers in, you activate the wench system. The massive doors groan and then slowly swing shut; thudding to a stop with a rumble that shakes the entire wall.
Okay, Faith, we're kind of in a hurry and need to get more orders from the messenger... Let's move!
Poke Faith out of that common HMRC affliction, get her to lead me to where the Messenger is or tell me how to contact him
Faith dropped her hand onto Skylar's shoulder, a bit roughly, and looked him straight in the eyes.
"I need to go deal with something. What you need to deal with is Stacy's bomb. I would like you to make sure Feyri and Lyra stay safe, but this is more important.
That old guy has a nuke. If it goes off, everyone will die. That includes us. I do not trust him to not use it. I do not think he is actively malicious, but trusting eccentric people to not murder everyone including themselves does not work very well in the HMRC.
Note May.
So that is your job. Get the nuke, keep the nuke safe. I don't want anyone else to have it, because anyone else might be tempted to use it. You seem rational enough to not flatten everything in sight and are aware that would be the effect. That puts you above at least some HMRC and likely anyone outside it.
The rest of the team's orders are the same as always. Attempt to blunt the crowd, without escalating the situation if possible, and fall back if you can't hold them. Remember, this is a tide, not a lone squad. Good luck."
Order Skylar, bolt into the shadows.
... Alright then. Luck to us both.
Run back to the gate, check the scout eye feed to see how terribly this is going.
Look around for Lyra, Feyri, and Stacy. Try and remember which nuke Stacy has and what the effective range of it is
You run back to the gate and stacy runs right past you. You check your Cameye and can immediately see why he's running, and why that nuke is probably not the biggest of your problems.
Charles moves to Feyri's location and remotely uses his turret's scope to look for choke points the crowd would have to travel through.
No more choke point because the gate is now closed. But thats probably not the issue here, is it?
The Manipulator, hidden by the crowd, cracks apart like a balloon filled with liquid nitrogen and pure, unadulterated cold pours out. It's beyond cold as the team comprehends it; it's a black nuke, an expanding mass of anti-energy that draws in every bit of energy from around it. The mob and the guards vanish into a black point so cold that light itself can't move; a gravity-less black hole. Around it, the world turns gray and hardens; reduced so close to absolute zero that it appears as though time within the effected area has just stopped, atomic motion reduced to basically nothing. The hydrogen in the air turns metallic. Beyond that, almost to the wall, the air solidifies and sprays of superfluid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and ice with a crystal lattice so dense and powerfully bonded that it would take thermite to melt it, burst out and splatter the wall and the inner area of the First level of the palace.
And the effect is expanding.
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette (Missions 9a, 10, 11, and Heph post war survey team) (Read 462920 times)