Nerrone's Rangers IC [Thread 1]

More Silence. "Gah!" Quark yelled. "This is terrible." Quark threw up his arms, quickly stopping and groaning. His arm wasn't doing so good.
"There might be transporters around here." 'Cuna pointed out.
"Can you hack the computer to give us schematics of the Engineering District?" Quark asked
"With my hands behind my back blindfolded and asleep." 'Cuna smiled, and she opened a panel below the computer, pulling out one wire and a part of the top of her good hand opened up a bit, revealing the cyborg qualities she had. A thumbdrive was revealed, and she plugged into the system.
A few minutes later, she was done, and had the schematics printed out and transmitted the data to all of team B

((@Isak: It's Drago's race and Drago's character originally, so I might not be the best to answer, but I guess if we take this to be a normal Aegraa size and then presume that our engineer is large by their standards, that might serve as some sort of guide.))

There was a flash of blue light as Chalen's grenade detonated: he could not see his targets from this angle, piled as they were behind a pipe, but one rather loud scream gave all the sign that was required. Dead or not, the three soldiers didn't get back on their feet to continue fighting.

((Enemies at large: 7 Charges placed: 3/7 ))

((Thanks))
Rhak picked up his pistol and aimed towards the Aegraa's head. But he didn't shoot.
The Aegraa was just a consequence but in the way by a wicked power. It was Rhak that had interfered and had no right to end the mechanic's life.
Rhak got off the Aegraa and bent down. He stared at the mechanic's face.

"If you get up now, will you hurt me? Will you try to kill thoose mercs? Or will you try to talk sense to your comrades?"

Rhak pointed in the direction where the Armodies where.

From his prostrated position on the ground, the Aegraa glared around: apart from the one holding a gun to him, three of the interlopers were still at large; one of the Armodies was out cold several meters away and the other was nowhere in sight.

Cowardly little runt. Where in Spode's name is the security response team?!

The weight of the device at his belt was reassuring — it hadn't been lost over the side of the concourse or smashed during the fight. A small mercy. His eyes briefly darted downwards to check that it was safe. Yes. A red light still blinked on the box, which looked somewhat like a home-made communicator. Good.

"...I'm not a threat to you," The Aegraa growled, his throat thoroughly raw.

Bor slowly regained consciousness. His first thought: My knees hurt.. His second thought: I just blacked out because my knees hurt??

He jumped to his feet - this time ignoring the pain - and looked around, hoping there was still a chance for him to salvage his pride. Unfortunately, the firefight appeared to have ended. The only enemy still alive/conscious was the Aegraa, which Rhak appeared to be interrogating.

"Shoot him already! What are you waiting for?"

Talvox just woke up suddenly.
"Huh, what?" he said groggily.
"Oh, right, I fell asleep." Talvox said to himself. He heard Bor shout at Rhak to shoot the Aegraa, and it made no sense whatsoever. Crycell, still unconscious, was still being unhelpful. Talvox stood up, and remembered the Aegraa attacked him, smacking him to the floor. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure how he fell asleep. Maybe someone drugged him with something before he woke up a while ago.

Celdryc dodged out of the way of the spurting out black liquid, but didn't escape without a faceful of it. He quickly rubbed off as much as he could,but if anyone concentrated where he was they would probably still see drips of black liquid materializing out of nowhere.

Great... he thought What am I, a magnet for oily black liquid?

He stuck his hand through the opening he had cut, which was still spewing black liquid, but not as quickly or with as much force, and placed the fourth charge. Soon he noticed two of the three remaining pipes, but not in any way were they in good positions. Both were stationed right in the middle of the battle. He decided to look for the missing one before figuring out how to not get blasted to bits.
______________________________

IO wasn't sure what it was, but he saw something blinking red near the Aegraa.

"Get back!" He shouted at Rhak fearing it may be a bomb, as he interrupted the interrogation by shooting at the Aegraa's head twice with his wrist blaster.

The Aegraa didn't have time to make another sound or move before the rounds penetrated his skull. The mechanic's eyes glazed over, and he slumped against the floor.

((Rhak hasn't presented himself yet... ))
Rhak rose up and looked down at the corpse seeing the red blinking light on the mechanics belt."Sloppy, should have seen that" Rhak thought while looking down at the Aegraa's now dead body. "I am getting to old for this"

"Question time. Who are you, why are you down here and how do you know my name?"
Rhak spoke as he traversed the walkway searching for his dagger. He found it and put it back at the holster behind his left shoulder.
The back of his head tingled, as it reminded him of one of his missions. He silently cursed for not buying a datapad. He certainly needed one for the work. Now it was to late as he now stood at the mercy of the mercenaries.
Rhak put his pistol back in its holster and raised his three fingered hands. He might have helped them and they might have helped him. But if they were going to interfere with his work, Rhak had no problem to disarm, or kill them.

"I'm Talvox, and my friend over there," He pointed to the now somewhat unconscious Crycell, "is Crycell." Talvox said to Rhak, still on the floor.
"I've introduced myself, now who the hell are you?" Talvox asked Rhak.

Rhak turned towards the two merc's who had named themselves Talvox and Cycell.
"I've had many names. For now you can call me Rhak."
He looked around, taking a look at every mercenary in sight.
"So... Which Mercenary band are you in?"

"Nerrone's Rangers," Talvox said, slightly tentative.
"...Why?" he asked, suspicious of Rhak.

Kaaran upon entrance to the pumping station had done as dagon said, spreading out to find a red pipe. He paced away quickly taken it as an excuse to get as far away from the rest of the group as possible. He was climbing some metal stairs as the alarms began to go off, he had twisted round listening to Dagon's muffled commands. He just understood them, hearing that they would be coming through the main door. Kaaran continued climbing the steps, following the gantry round until he had a good view of the doorway, he prepared his Launcher to fire, and as he did so, the lightwieght perforated metal floor gave way under him, and he crashed downwards. Time for a diet. The sound was muted by the alarms as the Security force ran in through the door. Kaaran wasn't quite sure where he was, unable to determine wether he was conscious or not. He saw the shape of the blue pixie nearby, and realised he was conscious alright, but wishing he wasn't. Chalen ran out from behind the cover, wielding a grenade yelling. Kaaran breathed a sigh of relief, as he began to re-adapt to his surroundings. Just as he did so a grenade landed neatly just by his feet.

Kaaran almost instictively kicked the grenade away, at the same time Desperately squirming away, Just underneath a pipe, as the Grenade exploded, sending fragments flying into the pipe above him, Narrowly missing his legs. The pipe was pierced and Kaaran could hear it hissing, as the pressure built. Kaaran rolled under to the other side of the pipe trying to put distance between him and this all new hazard. This is where his cave dwelling nature came in handy, and he was naturally good at moving speedily in cramped places. Hopefully that would be enough to avoid whatever was in that pipe killing him.

"Oh, just wondering. You have quite a reputation around theese parts. The Coalition doesn't like the Rangers very much. The Kingdom, less so."
Rhak saw two of the mercs that had been attacked by one of the Armodies. They seemed to be fizzing with something at the pipes. He turned his attention towards Talvox.
"You're about to sabotage the city?"

"I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do. I just woke up in a gutter a while ago, and a freakin' ship landed on me!" Talvox said.
"What's the Kingdom?" he asked, after a few moments pause.

Chalen is relieved that his plasma grenades killed some of the guards. Some are still alive and kicking. Chalen can't risk taking another item from his backpack. He had a strange feeling that himself and the others might need it for something else. Chalen could fire blaster shots from his hiding position but he knew he used it all up during that insectoid fight. He saw poor Celdryc wading through to what look like black oil and then there was Kaaran who just rolled away from a pipe. Chalen swore he heard the guy cough. Drivin by instinc, he flew towards Celdryc, dodging incoming attacks and the odd stray blaster shots. Chalen looked down (since he's still flying) to Celdryc asking: "Need help Celdryc?"

(If you want, skip to the bottom parenthesis to understand this in brief. Wow, this is one of my longest posts ever...)

"Team B locates the pipe running between the two coolant systems and severs the connection, if at all possible"

The goal that Kwa had stated ran through Quark's head. He looked at the schematics and found the easiest access point of the pipe, tapped on the computer monitor and set up a route that would get to the pipe without the risk of more crazy workers...hopefully. Quark sent a note saying where he was going to the rest of Team B (via computer message), and took out a drill from his pocket, beginning to unscrew a little panel on the wall titled "Maintenance tunnel", and swung it open. It was amazing that no one noticed them during the fight, and Quark crawled into the tube, 'Cuna following. It was around Three feet tall in the tunnel, the smell of smoke and electrical wires hanging around. The floor was a metal grid, underneath was the roof of a lower level.
"I hope team B gets our message, it was programmed to automatically open on the computer next to them when all the non-Team B members are gone." Quark said.
"Yeah. Oh careful! There's a dangling wire" 'Cuna said, alerting Quark.
"Thanks. How much further is the pipe control?" Quark asked, feeling quite closed in.
"About a thousand five-hundred meters. We can make it. I calculate at this speed we'll get there in about Twenty Minutes. We're going a fair speed."
"Twenty Minutes? That's too long. Is there a faster way?"
"I remember every part of the map, there's only one other way."
"How?"
"About Twenty Meters away, there's another hatch that will open into the water suppliant system. The water is very turbulent, but leads straight past the coolant pipe control room we need to get to. The water travels around 50 Kilometers per hour. We'd only take a minute to get there."
"One minute of crazy Sewer swimming," Quark moaned, "What has my job come to?"

(Status: Quark and 'Cuna have escaped the scene of Team B's fight to get to the Coolant connection pipe, both still injured, they are climbing through maintenance tunnels, and soon the sewer type place thing. When team B finished their fight, a message will pop up on a nearby computer telling team B where Quark and 'Cuna are.)

((Lazer, the battle have stopped. Bor, Talvox and Crycell came to help. Rhak took down the Aegraa in hand-to-hand combat and IO shot the Aegraa in the head. The remaining Armodie is lying on the floor, presumably dead or unconscious.))

Rhak tried to explain what the Kingdom was to Talvox when he heard how the two mercs at one of the pipes was going through, what seemed to be a maintenance tunnel. He recognized them as the two that he had, rescued? It was such a strong word for his acts, but Rhak guessed you could put it like that. What he knew; they where hurt and getting from the rest of their team seemed as a bad idea.
"Hey! HEY! Where are you going!?" Rhak shouted after them still holding is hands up. He couldn't let them jeopardize his mission.
He was struck by panic, he couldn't let his enemy get away, he had allready risked enough to help theese Rangers. He turned to the Lynski that had tried to warn him from the Aegraa. Rhak pointed towards the mercs that climbed down the maintenance tunnel. He shouted towards the Lynski:
"What are they doing? WHAT THE H-LL ARE THEY DOING!?"
The sound from past battles rang through Rhak's head. The scenes from after wars, empty battlefields flimmered in front of his eyes. The old pain from wounds scattered around his body. Adredaline pumped through his veins.
Rhak breathed heavily, a razzle that leaved his gasmask.

Bor noticed a message blinking on one of the computers. He went over and examined it.

"It looks like Quark and 'Cuna decided to go on with the mission without us. Why, I can't fathom. Perhaps they thought they'd have a better chance with a smaller group. Still, both of them were injured in the fight. We should probably go after them."

He noticed Rhak was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating. "Are you okay?"

Rhak shouted at Bor, his psych on a break-down. Still the sound of artillery shells filled his mind.
"Are you trying to sabotage this city? ARE YOU TRYING TO SABOTAGE THIS CITY!?"
Rhak yelled right in the face of the Lynski. His voice being a distorted scramble barely understandable. The information Rhak wanted was somewhere in the engineer district and if it disappeared, so would his only lead do.

"Um...can you say that again?" Bor had understood what Rhak said, but wasn't sure how to answer him.

(Sorry about that...I guess this will make things interesting though )

Quark stood squeezing water from his coat.
"What in the name of Pion decay where you thinking? That was terrible. You know, I bet the team has already stopped the fight and are on their way. Why didn't we just wait?" Quark angrily ranted.
"Well, at least there where medical kits here. It's too bad we had to attack those two defenseless workers to get to it. I bet reinforcements will be here any minute. Now that we're bandaged up, lets get to work disabling the system. How would you know if the team finished fighting, anyway?" 'Cuna asked.
"Three reasons. One, THE COMPUTER MONITOR SAID SO. Two, I thought I heard someone yell at us as we were leaving. Three, they were almost done fighting in the first place." Quark said angrily, still soaked, "And how did we think going this way would be better?"
"Well, they have already been delayed twice, and I don't want to risk a third time, and this way would be faster. I decided not to bother them with the idea anyway." 'Cuna replied, tapping on a computer.
"That's not how the Rangers work. 'Cuna, you have to understand that on this team, we have to work together to get stuff done. I'm going to go try finding their location and sending them another message." Quark said, facing towards another computer.
"I already did." 'Cuna said. Quark turned back and they smiled. "The message says that we made it and to hurray up, more guards may be coming. Then it gives them a map with the fastest way here by foot. It will activate on a the nearest computer monitor to them."

Rhak went forward and tried to grab Bor.
He leaned forward taking his gasmask close to Bor's face. This time more calmly, Rhak spoke.
"Are you?" He pointed towards Bor's chest."Going to sabotage this city?"
Rhak leaned forward, shouting out.
"Are you!? The infamous Nerrone's Rangers, bring down this scrapheap of garbage FROM-THE-SKY!?" Rhak did a series of gestures to strengthen his spoken words.

The Acheen was starting to get on Bor's nerves. "Relax, buddy. We're just here to shut down the coolant system so their engines will overheat and they'll have to land. We're not here to destroy anything." Looking at the carnage around them, Bor added "...despite evidence to the contrary."

Realising that the Rangers had turned away to talk amongst themselves, the one remaining Armodie — who now sported an enviro-suit patch over half his visor to keep the leaks at bay — crawled as quietly as it could manage towards where the Aegraa lay, reaching out to take hold of the device clipped to his dead comrade's waist.

_______________

By abandoning cover and taking to the air, Chalen had made himself a promising target despite his small size: a trooper on the far right side of the room let off three shots from his blaster rifle at the Space Sprite.

"Stealth field!" One eagle-eyed soldier called out the warning to his comrades as he spotted the floating liquid streaks that were all Celdryc was visible as. Not waiting for the others to react, he swapped out his rifle for a tazer and let fly at Celdryc, hoping to catch out his invisible opponent and overload his stealth field.

The pipe that Kaaran had pierced had lain disused for generations, and the small hiss of air that had originally blown through the hole he had created quickly exhausted itself. Replacing that sound, however, came one quite similar: an intermittent, high pitched hiss, coupled with, only just audible between the bursts of gunfire, a tapping sound coming from inside it. It was only a small pipe, about two feet wide, but it was certainly not the sound of escaping gas.