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[Draignean]

Sadish

Mickaw's face twisted, almost a snarl. It was an expression alien to Fins, but rather in common between Canes, Claws, and Humans. "Personal knowledge of who owns that vessel? If you're telling the truth than I'm already dead, and you're a fool who'll die a bleak death. If you're lying, then that's the stupidest bluff you could possible have made. I'm here because I want to live, because I want those who've placed their trust in me to live." The man drew in a deep, controlled breath before he continued.

"I know you're stalling, and I know that your people are doing everything in there power to ensure that the threat I pose will be eliminated as soon as possible. I can respect you trying to hold onto some amount of honor, but everyone who is on board that station is already dead. Ka-Taeun is there, and there is no surviving what comes of him. Your friends are already dead. There is no honor in staying here, no nobility, nothing but death for you as well. We. Must. Run."

Mickaw made a gesture to the Cane in the middle position of the ship, and the mercy punched a button on the shuttle interior. The cargo doors closed once more, walling Sadish off from both the bomb and the armed and armored mercenaries. From what she'd seen, they were reasonably well prepared and equipped, but they shared Mickaw's wild-eyed look of unpredictability. As for the bomb, well, it wasn't Sadish's area of expertise, but it looked homemade. Clean, yes. Surgical, yes. But it didn't have the quality of mass manufacture. Perhaps they knocked it up out of scrap metal and craft supplied, or perhaps it was a specially designed explosive in order to still be devastating while slipping past sensors. Without taking it apart and poking it, differentiating the two wildly opposed options was difficult.

What was more visible, however, was the wariness that Mickaw's people gave the device. None of them had touched it, leaned on it, or had stood anywhere near the back end of the device. That, unfortunately, lent a bit of credibility to the idea that it actually was a homemade bomb- although why they'd shy away from one end more than the other was still a mystery to Sadish.

"Now," Mickaw continued after the door closed, "We can go back to being too unarmed people, both about to die, having a civilized conversation. Whether your crew floods the atmospheric processors with drugs, vents the O2, cranks climate control up to something unlivable, only we two will perish. In that event, the rest of my people have orders to don EVA suits and take your ship. If they fail, the last man out has a dead man's switch for the bomb." He smiled, a quick flash of a reflexive gesture that did nothing to make him look less hollow. "The terms have been set. Please, I ask you again, with all courtesy, get your crew to bore out of here immediately. Wilcox has made a deal with the devil, and none of us will survive when he claims his due."


Kesari

> SCAN THAT BOMB; observe subtlety and determine how to take control of the shuttle/auto-close those doors to deal with the folks inside and isolate the folks outside.

Door control was something Kesari could do. She even had the docking authority to prevent the shuttles for leaving, and to crack open whatever security locks Mickaw's shuttles had on their doors- assuming there was someone there to enter the override manually. Kari didn't lack eyes or ears, what she needed were hands- as well as information and time. The 'bomb', or what Kesari could observe of it before Mickaw closed his shuttle back up, was definitely designed to be as low tech as possible. The reunion, which did a fair job of detecting volatiles once they hit the air (a nice feature common in luxury establishments with bomb detector), but it found nothing but trace gunpowder. As for the object itself, gravimetric scans were difficult with the interference from the grav-plating and the surrounding matter, but it seemed to have a spearlike core of something many times more dense than the outer surface of the bomb. It probably wasn't nuclear, though the residual wake from the shuttle engines might be enough to baffle a low yield dirty bomb, and it wasn't a metafield bomb, which likely meant it was some form of solid state explosive. That, at least, put some bounds on the size of the boom.

It could be substantially more powerful than Sadish's drone, enough to pop the hull and likely wreck most of the hangar if it went of inside, but not enough to destroy the reunion outright. Though Kesari hated to think it, the only irreparable damage it would do would be to Sadish and the hangar- the Reunion wouldn't even be crippled by a periphery bomb of that size.


Boris

Boris watched the unfolding clusterfuck through the feed from the comms drone with his metallic fingers digging into his equally metallic palms. He regretted a lot of decisions made in the past half an hour.

'Kesari,' Boris said, through clenched teeth. 'Scan that bomb. Find out everything you can about it. I am not letting these fools one step further.'

Boris sees if the hangar could be vented from here into the cold embrace of the void. Just in case.

Venting the hangar into space was easy. All one had to do was to disable the emergency safety shield that would typically keep all the atmosphere from rushing out in the event that the hangar doors were opened without the area being safely vented. At that point, it was just a matter of a single airlock being opened out of cycle so that both doors opened and stayed open simultaneously. Boris could make it happen in less than a minute.

Hell, he was pretty sure there was a sticky note somewhere that already had the command sequence worked out.


Scarlet

So. We've got an ex-AL-Loy soldier telling you to shoot the guy that also says he's with AL-Loy and here to evacuate you when you're in the midst of your own evac. There was the chance that the guy who just showed up was telling the truth, and he definitely looked the part, even to Scarlet. But, it was pretty safe to assume nothing was right in this situation going forward. Additionally, an AL-Loy sanctioned evac would, in all likelihood, result in no payout whatsoever. Granted, the payout for this wasn't exactly guaranteed either.

But fuck megacorporations.

Well, that would have been the logical thought process (sans the last part, perhaps.) Scarlet's gut told her to trust the Fin in the battered walker, and so she did, quickly snapping off a shot at the trooper, aimed to cripple temporarily.

Scarlet shouldered and fired twice without batting an eyelash. To low-power shots, one to each shoulder. The concussive force of the beam turning his armor into plasma would probably dislocate at least one of his shoulders.

At least, it should have.

The first bolt hit squarely, and the man's armor rippled in its wake- shredding from the blast point.  He staggered back half a step, just enough for the second bolt to take him in the opposite shoulder. He staggered again, dropping down to one knee, almost hidden behind the succulent garden. All Scarlet could see from here was a matte black helmet, the part facing her drawn into a splitting wedge that presented only two heavily angled planes for her to shoot at. It was not AL-Loy. It was not something Scarlet recognized. It did not look friendly.

Instinct made Scarlet drop a second before the succulent garden exploded. The soldier only fired a single burst before scooting back behind the cover of the wall. Most of the bullets hit in the soil, sending sprays of cheap fertilizer and decorative rocks into the air, but a few cut through the plants themselves. Sticky liquid sprayed across the hallway- sparks jumped as both Khate's and Tagget's mech's took glancing blows.

Then the howling started.

One of the Canes they'd rescued had taken a bullet to the foreleg- and the foreleg was no longer there. The limb simply ended just before the first joint, a ragged stump of bone being all that was left of the original limb. He was bleeding badly, and would need immediate treatment in order to keep from bleeding out, not to mention all the wonderful hazards of shock and the completely unavoidable blood loss.

Scarlet kept her sights trained on the corner the soldier had dashed behind. She couldn't see him, and it was possible he'd gone to get reinforcements, but she couldn't count on that. His armor had been a lot better than she'd anticipated. She'd managed to keep him from getting a bead on them and actually getting an aimed shot off instead of panic fire, but he probably wasn't too badly hurt beyond a bruise.

[Dwarmin]

Sadish blinked. She guessed that was a mammalian fear response? Interesting! The baring of teeth was amusing to her, almost playful, but she could see it was obviously a sign of his fractured nature. He seemed to have missed of what else she was saying. Oh dear. She guessed he wasn't prepared.

To be honest, he was sort of disappointing her. A man so enveloped by fear he had almost lost all rationality...she had seen wild animals with more composure...she remembered the defiance on Captain Grenacs, facing the multihued creature directly-defiantly. It had cost him his life, true, but she had not seen such a cowardly snarl on his face. He had died with a satisfied mind. Which was all that could be asked of thinking, moral beings.

"...Anyway, message delivered, terms set. My captain will make the final decision. I'm all for waiting, because I am not a heartless sea-monster, but I understand tactical necessity. I cannot actually force any sort of decision-I hope you weren't assuming I could? I prefer not. Such decisions harm the self, and my point being, I consider it a virtue to not end up like you, Mr. Mickaw. No offense intended. I was never cut out for command of others.

...

C&C, we really should consider aborting the mission and bring our people off the station. In terms you can understand 'We're not getting paid enough for this'. Vera is most definitely on board...I would ask our crew members to return via standard hazmat procedures, however.

...

I do apologize for my reference to the beast as a personal one. I was referring to the bio-organism I was studying. It's a Fin thing, we personify intangible concepts to make them easier to understand-for others. Hence, Vera-the Universal Cell, a biological organism of frightening power. I know all about that.

But, we fail to understand each other, Mr. Mickaw. Would you really leave one of your crew behind on that station, if you had a chance to get them off? The one for the many, I suppose? ...A reasonable argument. Can you convince me of it? Tell me a story.

Who is Wilcox? What deal did he make? What is Ka-Taeun? I know what the bio-organism is capable of. I have even developed a rudimentary defense against it. Aside from him actually boarding us, or firing on our ship, what is left to fear? Is there an infection on board the station? One capable of jumping through space and passing through force fields, maybe? I suppose it's not impossible! My Captain is listening, and so am I. Speak, and I will listen.

Also, I'm going to pour some tea. Would you like some? It's quite sweet. Relax, Mr. Mickaw. You've done the best you can, now it's time to let things drift, see what fate has in store for us both. It's out of both our hands." She said, trying to sooth.
 
Sadish plucked a clear bulb from her bandolier, and upended it into a warming-bulb. A few seconds of shaking and it would be pleasantly hot. There were worse things to die doing than drinking tea, she supposed, surveying the man with interest.

[Draignean]

Mickaw shook his head. He didn't seem well, definitely in the psychological sense, but possibly also in the psychological sense. He waved away the tea, trying to lean against the side of the shuttle. It was like watching a taught wire try to bend, a pose that became a study in contradictions. "You call it... Vera? I suppose at one point I would have lauded the name once, a way to make something fearsome seem mundane, or funny." Mickaw gave Sadish the quicksilver smile again, an expression that somehow seemed more bitter than the snarl had. "That was before I watched it kill. It's interesting. You can't hold on to someone who's melting." For the first time, Mickaw dropped his eyes from Sadish.

"He makes it different every time, but he always makes it messy. You know the pathogen, the sword, but you don't know the hand gripping it- and I think it'd be safer for all of us if we never knew the brain. The hand is Ka-Taeun. He came to Wilcox, day before yesterday. He knew everything about our job- about the Star, about Varkonius, about who we were."

 "He offered Wilcox anything he wanted. Wilcox asked to live forever. Ka-Taeun agreed. Wilcox asked wealth- an open universal credit line. Ka-Taeun agreed. Wilcox asked for the power to control his own little moon, to rule the frigid rock that spawned him. Ka-Taeun agreed."

Mickaw looked back up at Sadish, and there was something else in those hollow eyes. A little flame of madness- a bright spark of something more than survivalist need. Sadish was not good at reading human body language, but they were both mammals, and some things never changed. Crazy eyes were one. "Then Wilcox asked for a demonstration, something to show that this Cane wasn't a liar with a pretty coat. Ka-Taeun agreed, and asked on who he should demonstrate. Wilcox volunteered one of his cooks. One of his pets once, but she'd gotten older- a wrinkle or two in all the wrong places. He was canny enough to know that what was about to happen was a show of force, and he was never one for letting things go after he was done with them.” Mickaw's searched Sadish's face, though she had no idea what expression he was looking for. 'I can't describe what he did to her. Her skin cracked and bled, her tongue grew until it choked her, then it rotted off. I watched as she died a thousand times, her body rotting away in thousand different ways, and yet she always came back from the brink- from the edge of death her skin would close back, the twisted bones that had burst from her would desiccate and fall away. She would return, whole enough to scream again, before he began again.”

“Each time, she was a little less- a little thinner, a little more drawn. She was a little smaller than you when he started. When it finally got to the point where she couldn't come back any more, she probably weighed only as much as me. Skin and bone.” Mickaw's expression grew more empty, his tone more emotionless as he continued. ”A swab tried to step in and stop it. I suppose that it was merciful that he wasn't subjected to the same thousand deaths that the cook was. Stupid boy reached out and just started screaming. Nothing seemed to actually be wrong with him, and so I grabbed his arm to pull him back in line.” Mickaw's knuckles clenched against the side of the shuttle he leaned against. ”He was rotting just like her, but from inside. His flesh was like wet tissue paper, and I tore his entire arm off when I tried to grab him. He melted through my arms when I tried to catch up.”

 ”Funny thing was I thought this'd be a better life for the boy. His mother was a whore, and I thought he'd have more of a chance with me." Mickaw snorted, the quicksilver smile flashing again. "Stupid little bastard got raised too much on his mother's stories, thought he could make a difference in a battle between titans. Or maybe he thought like you, and was too concerned with darkening his essence to see that his essence was about to be destroyed.”

Mickaw's eyes dropped away again as he abandoned his attempt to lean against the shuttle. ”Still, captain was impressed. He accepted. The deal was that he'd form an alliance with the other mercy crews the Tiamen had enlisted. He'd bring them together the promise of some mutually beneficially cooperation, and he'd keep them all in one spot. Then Ka-Taeun could come in, kill everyone, claim the Star from Varkonius, and be gone with no witnesses save Wilcox. Cap'n probably knows its a trap, but he probably thinks he has enough tricks to force a standstill and make Ka-Taeun keep his bargain.”

”So. I am here because you are the only ship not docked at the station. You're probably on the list to die last. If you run now, you might be able to bore out before he can stop you. He might send outriders after you, but you have a better chance of surviving them then you ever could of surviving Him. The rest of your crew is dead, whether they know it or not, you aren't. What you don't seem to realize is that I am trying to save your LIFE!” Mickaw's tone changed in an instant, the veneer of forced calm cracking away as he shouted the last word. ” You could listen to me and trust that I want to save what is left of my people, but it seems you'd rather drink tea and pass your stupidly naive judgment upon me. Honor is dead. Nobility is dead. Essence is dead. They're corpses that get dressed up in clothes to be trotted out for all the children to see, but they're not real. Honor doesn't change one goddamn thing. Nobility is a facade painted on tyrants. Essence is wish that the void consumes. You're naive little girl trying to make herself feel better about the fact that there isn't one thing she can do to change the world, all by pretending to be better than the people who've actually accepted reality!”

Mickaw stood there for a minute, breathing heavily. ”Just as you claimed the right to speak to someone more intelligent if I didn't understand the danger, I'd like to talk to someone who's view of the world comes from a position of actual experience rather than the fairytale dreaming of a too inquisitive child playing at being an adult. You said you have no power to make decisions? I agree that you're not really the type to bear responsibility, but who the fuck can I talk to that's actually capable of doing something real?”

[lawastooshort]

"Scarlet and Khate."

Aubrey talked low enough to hopefully come through on comms but not to the rest of the people around them.

"Can you deal with him? He seems of a grade higher than what we faced at reception. We need to keep firing and moving, we cannot afford to be held up."

And then kneeling to check the injured Cane:

"We will try to apply assistance."

Is there anything Aubrey can do for him without holding up the group? We need to keep moving.

[IronyOwl]

Khate's jaws clanked shut. "I can only take him if I can get into melee. Paintballs might obscure or bleed off, but they're unlikely to pierce," she said aloud. It'd be good to keep Tagget informed of her armament, even if they weren't informing him of their plans.

She swiveled to face Ty and the Fin.

"There are supposedly two remaining hostages at the hostel, or were before the Al-Loy enforcer ship was annihilated by an alien horror wielding powers beyond mortal sanity. Our own shuttle is docked and ready to go, as is the vessel of said alien horror! So we should leave, very quickly, before our ship is cored like an apple by the bomb desperate defectors from the mercies have brought on board in order to blackmail it into leaving IMMEDIATELY.

So! How do we get to the hostel?"

How exciting! Varkonius ship located, exsanguinated corpses outside, Khate outvoted on entering ship or not. Hostages rescued, under fire from advanced soldier, contemplating next course of action.

If the soldier pops up again, the penalty is rainbows.

[lawastooshort]

"Right," said Aubrey, turning to the other hostages, "Unfortunately I am not a medic, and our is-a-medic is occupied with a deadly enemy. Can someone aid this victim before he deceases? Khate, Scarlet, wait a few seconds, let me help."

Update to action: there must be nearby security imaging. Try to access it to see what lies ahead. Is this one enemy presently? Where is he and what is his situation? Pass details on to comrades to enable assault. Them zoom in on him. What is his equipment? Perhaps comrades can suppress him sufficiently for Aubrey to get close enough to use implants to disable his weaponry or immobilise his armour. Or blind him. Use cloak to do so if better option. Assess potential and convey plan to comrades. Can't do anything for this man's leg.

[Tiruin]

Having listened to every little bit Mickaw had said (and accidentally bumping the drone on the shuttle, causing a bit of embarrassment in such a tense situation), Kesari pondered heavily and quickly--time was of the essence, and shuttles or sleds were too small to bore out by themselves, she didn't have the time to transmit enough data between here and the away team unless it meant giving them the whole data-packs, disclosing everything entirely received by said drone. That, she was alright with.

What she wasn't alright with was the notion that they couldn't get the away team back on time--that, and Boris' expression with hearing all this just as she did was also of another concern altogether.

Although...having given Khate the 'somebody set up us the bomb' situation would help imperative, she had two ideas in mind:
1. Break subtlety--speak through the drone (that was already signaled to Boris through paw-signals anyway)
2. Break subtlety to the away team. Denote "VERY BIG PROBLEM; GET TO SLED; COMPLETE MISSION".
And then the ??? hit her.

What about the profit!?

She settled with the thought of buttered popcorn in the end. Though she sorely wanted or needed funds to improve and upgrade the crew's gear. And...maybe gift Khate something.

”Just as you claimed the right to speak to someone more intelligent [blahblah Imsosmartandgrumpy] but who the **** can I talk to that's actually capable of doing something real?”

"Captain, I believe it's your call now. I'll be setting up evacuation channels with Khate, Aubrey, and the rest, as well as plotting the nearest route out. All point-defense and other systems will be at the ready, but in a stand down setting so as not to...complicate measures. If what Mickaw said is true to the point--we need to report back to our contractor; mention failure, but mention the complexity of the deal...I'll also be trying to recall legal terms as this was not part of the contract."

We've...gotten complications aboard the ship. It's less bad than originally imagined; I'll brief you with this attachment you can all view in less danger.
{Said attachment is pretty much everything collected by Sadish-drone that Mickaw said. With various perspectives of his expressions, and Sadish's cool nature, minus scraping the drone on the shuttle. All encoded under the name "In the Shadow of Vera's Hand."}
I'll be scanning the station and your position; will also upload evacuation codes and...advertising, or any such distractions if you need them. I do believe I've learned enough to direct what systems it'll hit.

This is unbelievable. I did not expect drama of this quality hitting us. Supposedly, there are still weaknesses for whomever is in our way. We can exploit them. But please stay safe there...or as safe as can be.

In the meantime before Boris' order, transmit details to away team; begin getting and being 'away team intel' while giving them added detail for getting out SAFELY.

Ponder on if there is a possibility to lower transfer (via sled) time between the station and the Reunion by moving both sled and ship for a tandem bore jump to get out.
...Double ponder if it's possible to bore PART of the station (since the sled is too small) by hitting it with our weapons. :v Supposedly, we can scan that.

Now finished pondering that, work on getting data out of the station's internal visuals (or otherwise able)--if we fail this mission, Kesari is at LEAST working out how to dredge as much info on what just happened for better outcomes in the future!...including getting the people out safely too.

[Dwarmin]

Sadish was silent for a moment.

"...Where is the Star? Do you know what did Katuen wanted it for anyway?"

[Draignean]

Sadish

Sadish was silent for a moment.

"...Where is the Star? Do you know what did Katuen wanted it for anyway?"

"As far as I know, it's still with Varkonius. Wilcox sent teams to investigate his ship, his quarters, and he sent four trans-atmospherics to intercept him on planet. I don't think anyone has found the Star yet, if they had, well, there wouldn't be any reason to keep the rest of us around."

"I have no idea what He wants with the Star, and I think that the only other person who might have been able to tell you was Varkonius, and you saw what happened to the shuttles. I wouldn't bet on him being alive."


Meanwhile

Varkonius' EVA suit steamed slightly as he levered himself out of one of the Flounder's surface maintenance airlocks. He slung the emergency EVA bag to the corridor floor, and then dropped down beside it. The bag bleated softly.

"Yeah, yeah. I know, not exactly how I planned for things to go either."

The bag bleated in consternation.

Vark nodded. "I know, rude little buggers weren't they?" He knelt by the bag and unzipped it. The goat inside was relatively small, wide-eyed, and mildly scorched. It was also wearing a harness that wound through and around its chest and over the top, connecting to a loop over its spine that let Vark pick it up as through it were a fuzzy and indignant briefcase.

Vark tested the weight of the goat in his left hand, made sure his right hand was free to grab his knife or his explosives, and headed back to his rooms. "Come on now, we've got to go meet your new friend. And probably kill people. And maybe blow something up."

The goat bleated in confusion, staring up at Vark with those odd, alien eyes.

"Believe me, I'd be happier if this was my party. Still, we make do with what we have, eh?"

The goat gave a neutral bleat, apparently considering how it was going to make do with what it had. If anything came to its mind about how it intended to deal with being carried in a sling by a terrorist, to be later fed to same terrorist's pet panther, the goat did not share the plan.


Sadish

Mickaw grimaced. "That's probably for the best. If Varkonius could be tortured for the Star's location, this would be over much more quickly. Ka-Taeun will likely keep people around to search for it, but there won't be any more use for any of us once he has it. We nee-"

The hangar's lights flickered, and the grav-field supporting Sadish seemed to shiver.

"Is this it then?" Mickaw asked, his voice becoming soft and dangerous again. "Is this where your crew tries to rescue you?"


Aubrey

Update to action: there must be nearby security imaging. Try to access it to see what lies ahead. Is this one enemy presently? Where is he and what is his situation? Pass details on to comrades to enable assault. Them zoom in on him. What is his equipment? Perhaps comrades can suppress him sufficiently for Aubrey to get close enough to use implants to disable his weaponry or immobilise his armour. Or blind him. Use cloak to do so if better option. Assess potential and convey plan to comrades. Can't do anything for this man's leg.

Aubrey extended her implants into the security system, tapping into the feed as easily as if she had a direct line. Civilian grade security was a wonderful thing to work with. There was a camera at the corner, worked in as a bulb on the lighting.

The soldier was kneeling in a defensive position about six yards bag from the corner.  His armor was scorched on one shoulder, but not the other, where Scarlet had shot him. Very likely a personal shield, although not one of sufficient caliber to stop the impact from rocking him- which likely meant it wouldn't be good enough to actually stop a bullet, just slow one down.  He was gripping his carbine one handed, a two stage accelerator weapon from what Aubrey could identify. Chemical charge to accelerate the slug through the barrel, and a rail assembly in the barrel in order to super-accelerate the round from there.  In his off hand, he appeared to be punching commands into a small black box.

Mounted onto that small black box appeared to be an equally small missile.

Aubrey recognized those. Programmable smart weapons, designed to take out armor from behind cover. Most of what she knew about them consisted of sale prices on the black market, but she did know that he was likely programming the missile to shoot around the corner. Which would be bad for them.

In the corridor behind the kneeling man, two more soldiers were jogging forwards with raised rifles. Their armor was similar to how the first soldier's had looked before Scarlet shot him- AL-Loy colors and design. Their weapons, however, were identical to his. Considering their appearance, and the first soldier's asymmetric scorch marks, it seemed the camouflage was likely linked to their personal shielding.

  If she got a little closer, the four way intersection of the succulent garden would be close enough, she could probably start messing with their equipment directly. All combined, Aubrey had a couple good options, but she probably only had time for two, maybe three if she was lucky.

1. Disable the secondary accelerators on their weapons, dramatically reducing their stopping power.
2. Alter their camouflage, disabling their shielding, and making them look like anything she wanted.
3. Screw with their suit's internals. Regrettably, without a suit of armor to study, she wouldn't be able to do anything specific. But she could blind, slow, or potentially injure if she got lucky.
4. Alter the programming on that little programmable missile.
5. Scramble/Alter/Access their communications.


Khate

Khate's jaws clanked shut. "I can only take him if I can get into melee. Paintballs might obscure or bleed off, but they're unlikely to pierce," she said aloud. It'd be good to keep Tagget informed of her armament, even if they weren't informing him of their plans.

She swiveled to face Ty and the Fin.

"There are supposedly two remaining hostages at the hostel, or were before the Al-Loy enforcer ship was annihilated by an alien horror wielding powers beyond mortal sanity. Our own shuttle is docked and ready to go, as is the vessel of said alien horror! So we should leave, very quickly, before our ship is cored like an apple by the bomb desperate defectors from the mercies have brought on board in order to blackmail it into leaving IMMEDIATELY.

So! How do we get to the hostel?"

If the soldier pops up again, the penalty is rainbows.

The soldier, sadly, did not try and pop up again from around the corner. It made Khate a little sad, but she'd gotten some great footage of bullets ripping through the garden. People loved that kind of stuff!

Ty, her body dropped as flat to the ground as it would go and Tagget hovering protectively over her, looked up at Khate as she addressed her. “Uh, you take a right out of the Garden, then you can go until you hit the employee's only doors, and you take a right at the gift shop, and you're there. Also, you can take the left at the gift shop if you want to get into maintenance to work on the hostel ceiling lights and stuff.” Ty scooted a little as Tagget shifted, nearly stepping on her tail.  "It would put you a little above the hostel so you could drop down, but I think you're a little big to do that."


Kesari

Now finished pondering that, work on getting data out of the station's internal visuals (or otherwise able)--if we fail this mission, Kesari is at LEAST working out how to dredge as much info on what just happened for better outcomes in the future!...including getting the people out safely too.

With little extra that she could do on Sadish's front, Kari returned focus to the Flounder. It was hard, very hard, to turn away from Sadish in danger, but staring at the video feed from the drone wouldn't prevent her from getting shot, and Boris could stare just as well as she could.

Focus on the things that could be changed, push away the noise of everything that was beyond her control. That was the only way Kesari could continue to think clinically.

When the AL-Loy ship had been hovering over the station, it hadn't seemed like a good idea to hack directly in to the Flounder's security. However, in light of the fact that the AL-Loy vessel was in multiple smoking hunks falling towards the planet, and the only other people here to possibly observe the hack were all criminals and worse, Kari didn't think anyone would mind.

The actual camera system was on a closed circuit, and without something like Aubrey's implants, there was no good way to break in without a physical connection. However, when the station had entered a state of emergency it had begun streaming surveillance footage  to an unspecified target. Likely as a safeguard in case the station itself was destroyed and the physical banks holding the data perished along with it.

Oddly, the signal was much lower than Kesari would have suspected for an emergency broadcast. It probably wouldn't even reach the next planet, let alone the AL-Loy outpost in the sun's tight orbit. Kari could tap the signal, as could almost anyone else near the station, but seemed to have been sabotaged so there was no chance it would reach its intended recipients.

No help was coming for the Flounder, not until it was far too late.

Regardless, Kesari tapped the stream. It was encrypted, for AL-Loy eyes only, but the encryption was fairly light. The Reunion could break it, given time. She could record the information for later decryption, and she could probably rig it up so that she could read live data for one or two cameras inside the Flounder. It wasn't much, but it would give her eyes inside.

Spoiler: EVA Bag (click to show/hide)

EVA suits are, by the nature of the sentient races, highly individual. While it's possible to swap EVA suits between members of the same species, it's not often possible to trade a suit between members of different species. Canes and Claws can, with great discomfort, get into some bulkier models of one another's suits, and most races can curl up rather uselessly inside a large Fin's EVA suit, but such arrangements are unsafe and error prone.

Enter the EVA bag, a common piece of emergency equipment on board shuttles. It's a large, typically white bag designed to be slipped over basically everything, resize itself to the approximate shape of its occupant, and keep said occupant alive for a couple hours in the vast emptiness of space. Granted, the bags don't really allow mobility, and thus rely on someone else carrying the bag, but it's better than nothing.

Assuming you're not claustrophobic and don't mind getting into something that looks like an oversized body bag.

[Digital Hellhound]

Boris grit his teeth. This was one bad void-spawned mess, but doing nothing was getting them nowhere. He opened the channel through the comms drone and his distorted voice drifted across the hangar.

'This is Boris Mundus, and this my ship you're standing in. I've always been a magnanimous king, so I'm willing to be reasonable even with void-damned star-trash like you and your merry band. You've given me an ultimatum - do as you say, or you'll blow this ship. Unfortunately, Mr. Mickaw, I don't really care. This ship was scrap when I found her, and I doubt your little bomb will be enough to hurt her beyond repair. You'd be doing me a favor.'

'You say your men can take over the ship. By all means, make the attempt. I only hope our friend doesn't choose to shoot us out of the sky before you breach my defenses - or worse - because I won't make it easy for you. But let us assume you succeed, perhaps even manage to make a jump. Unfortunately, you'll be long dead by that time. This ship's reactor is hanging on by a thread, and it only takes me a moment to shut down the shielding. Rad poisoning is not a gentle death. I'll show you the projected fallout, if you like.'

He paused, taking a breath. The key to tense negotiations, he'd found, was to lie through your teeth.

'Or we could come to a civilized agreement. I do not wish to linger here any more than you do, but I'll be happy to die rather than submit to threats and blackmail on my own damn ship. If you'd accompany Miss Sadish to the bridge, I'll begin plotting our Bore. We'll all make it out of this alive and live long, happy lives far away from this place.'

---
Kingly negotiation! Start priming systems to: a) jam their communications, if possible, and b) shut down doors to separate their party while they travel. Boris will attempt to ambush and clobber these fuckers on the way to the bridge, ideally like this:

Boris picks a nice corridor he can close the doors to before all of them are through and climbs up above the doorway, using his exoskeleton to hang to the ceiling/walls above the fuckers. When they enter the corridor, Boris/Kesari jams the shit out of their communications (so they can't give the signal to detonate the bomb), Boris shuts the doors in an attempt to separate Mickaw and Sadish from the others or at least lessen the number of foes he has to face. Then he jumps down and beats the shit out of them with all the punching power of a king's converted mining exoskeleton.

Alternatively, Boris emerges from a hidden door or something, but the 'ceiling spider' thing appeals to him most.

If possible, a single (ideally narrow and cramped!) path will be opened for them to the bridge rather than giving them free reign of the ship.

This plan will likely go horribly wrong. Such is life.

[lawastooshort]

"Scarlet, Khate. We have the first individual 6 metres back from the corner, backed up by two similar persons a short distance behind. First individual is hit but does not look wounded: camouflage, shielding and weaponry looks advanced. First individual is arming a smart missile. I propose you cover me, exercising extreme care, while I diminish their offensive capabilities. Shortly after you, possibly, hear a detonation, advance, exercising extreme violence. Then we follow this Tagget's route. You may wish to film the covering fire segment, Khate: if it proceeds to plan it may amuse you. Acceptable?"

Assuming it is acceptable: Aubrey will cloak and under covering fire advance close enough into cover to 1/set the programmable missile to explode as near to the first soldier (and not Aubrey) as possible 2/Reduce the fire power of those hideous guns 3/While Scarlet and Khate advance, attempt to disable the communications of the remaining two so they can't warn their comrades. Assuming their comrades don't also have full control of the security cameras. Then get the hostages to move up, accessing security imaging as we go to try to keep scouting round the next corner.

[Chevaleresse]

Scarlet nods. She would have gritted her teeth if they weren't occupied forming profanities in numerous languages, including at least one that sounded like some variety of Cane-native tongue not designed for human ones. The woman resisted the urge to max out the intensity on her gun; while the enemy had shown quite firmly that lethal force was not only warranted, but recommended, shooting hot bolts of incandescent death would probably just drain the hell out of the battery. Still, she twitched the setting just over where "lethal" was. Well, technically past the original factory restrictions of the gun; she'd made a small and somewhat less than legal modification to it shortly after obtaining the weapon.

She dug in her pockets for a moment, seeking whatever bandages and other potentially helpful medical supplies she might have remembered to bring. God damn "stealth" operations.
Action: assume following of Aubrey's plan as soon as needed. Assess feasibility of emergency leg-patching on the wounded Cane.

[Draignean]

Assess feasibility of emergency leg-patching on the wounded Cane.

Scarlet didn't have her full kit with her, the mission had been supposed to be a simple find and grab, not even a smash and grab, and she hadn't been anticipating much of a firefight. Of course, that didn't mean she was completely unprepared. Too much bitter experience had taught her that it was a lot easier to carry basic medical supplies and never need them than try to improvise bandages out of clothing and fervent prayers.

She had a flat pack of wound paper in her pocket, in all five colors, and long roll of tape and some superglue in her other pocket. It was sufficient for most things, at least until real treatment could be done. One lime death sticker on the Cane would close off the stump, though the bullet probably shattered the bone to a significant degree further up the leg. She didn't have the stuff here to stop the internal bleeding, which meant that the best she could do was stop the gusher and get some of the others to support him until they got back to the Reunion.

Spoiler: Wound Paper AKA "The Stickers of Death" (click to show/hide)

Wound paper, in its various degrees of quality, is a common sight in nearly every profession where bloody injuries are a risk, and even in the first aid supplies of most middle-class families. There's scarcely a child alive who hasn't skinned a knee and had a bit of wound paper cut out and slapped on to cover the wound and stop the bleeding.

The most common wound paper is white wound paper, typically with some festive logo emblazoned on the front to remind you which company is responsible for staunching your bleeding wound. This variety is roughly analogous to an adhesive band-aid from more primitive societies. The user takes the sheet of paper, tears off a piece of the needed size, and presses it to the wound. On contact with blood, the paper reacts and compresses into the wound edge, forming a tight seal that disinfects the local area and prevents further loss of blood or outside contamination. The body's natural clotting action will gradually destroy the wound paper, which, for minor wounds, means that the body will already have created a clean scab by the time the wound paper comes off.

Colored wound paper operates on the same principle, but is typically of higher quality and contains embedded chemical payloads. Colored wound paper is always of a single virulent shade of either yellow, green, blue, orange, or violet. Their method of application and their color leads to them being referred to by soldiers and surgeons as 'The Stickers of Death', but their color coding is far from pointless. Each color corresponds to what species the particular chemical payloads have been calibrated for. The same sticker that can act as a coagulant and local anesthetic for a human may be fatal of applied to a Claw, hence their universally bold color patterns. Colored wound paper is typically also made UV active so that shreds that get lost in the body during sticker removal can be easily retrieved by surgeons, even after exposure to blood has altered the paper color and consistency.

[IronyOwl]

"Understood. Tagget, you up for some extreme covering?"

Khate began advancing. Slowly. Loudly. Each leg slammed into the floor with far more force than was necessary, creating a loud, deliberate rhythm of advancing terror.

"JUSTICE HAS COME!" she bellowed. They now knew exactly where she was and what she was doing... unless they were especially paranoid, in which case they knew where she wanted them to think she was and what she wanted them to think she was doing. Dealing with elite operatives started to get deliciously tricky like that.

It was not, in hindsight, particularly keeping with Aubrey's admonition to exercise extreme caution, nor Kesari's pleas to keep themselves safe. Not in her personal case, anyway. But Aubrey needed their attention elsewhere, and if there really was a smart missile on the way, Khate had a very definite opinion on where she wanted it aimed. Her only real concern was that a loud, slow, approaching armored target would be so appealing a target that they'd second guess themselves and suspect something was up.

Advance loudly, slowly, and dramatically! PD at the ready; their rifles will no doubt hurt, but better to take a bit of rifle fire before getting the paintballs ready than getting a few paintballs off before taking a smart missile.

Invite Tagget, though he's free to use me as mobile cover, remain behind actual cover, or otherwise not act as grenadebait.

[Chevaleresse]

Stick the Cane. It was kiiinda her fault he got shot. Well, it wasn't, the one behind that weird-ass armor was, but she was trying to turn her karma around, or something. Didn't matter. "That thing's busted, so try not to let him break it any further." She then quickly returned her attention to the troopers, and prepared to give Khate her covering fire.