Nerrone's Rangers IC

Xol accepted the being's handshake, and added, "No hard feelings, at least until we get you patched up." The Selthem returned to the cockpit and disengaged auto-pilot, not wanting to be around when Kwa's inevitable questioning of the newcomer began. His hand still lingered over his pistol.

The situation apparently diffused, Dagon offered Zeriax a chair in the living area and a small box of painkillers — a sort of apology for putting the newcomer's shoulder in a bad way in the first place.

He then turned his attention to where Rhak was sat, "Sorry what did you say? Santa Frerraro? Yeah, that's our next stop: finally time we cashed in on our night's toils. I guess there'll be no problem giving you time to catch up with your friend while we're there, especially if it'll bring in more work."


Meanwhile, Kwa stalked off back to her cabin and stowed the moonblade back in its sheath before returning to the living area to talk to Zeriax. For some reason, she felt that interviewing a wounded person whilst hefting several feet of woven-titanium-alloy might have been considered rude, or at least unsporting.

"My name is Kwa," she began levelly, "Dagon and I are the co-leaders of Nerrone's Rangers, in whose fine company you have found yourself. Apparently I am also the designated skeptic here, since as of yet no-one else seems to have bothered to ask how you got here, what you are doing aboard my ship or even what your name is. Perhaps you could enlighten me."

Bor woke to find himself lying down in the same room he'd found himself in after his ordeal in Santa Frerraro. "Oh, crap! Not again!" He'd never been knocked unconscious four times in a single day.

His legs were feeling slightly better, somehow. Though he couldn't yet stand up, he knew from experience that he was a fast healer.

"Hello?" he called. "Anyone there?"

Zeriax set his gaze to Kwa. Before he answered, Zeriax scratched the back of his head. Zeriax answered Kwa with a calm tone.

"Well, my name is Zeriax Vikri, I'm an assassin working for a group of people whom I don't want to mention..." Zeriax started. "... The reason why I'm on your ship is because times are tough and I needed a ride. But the reason why I was on that god forsaken planet is between me and the people that hired me." Zeriax finished.

Zeriax observed Kwa for a second.

"Got anymore questions sweetheart or will you take me to your torture chamber now?".

Kwa was evidently not completely satisfied with Zeriax's answers on two out of three counts, but quickly resolved that an assassin openly admitting to his occupation was either not here to target anyone aboard, or simply very, very stupid.

"No, that will be all — the thumb-screws are reserved for egotistical vagabonds and stowaways with smart mouths. Tell me if you see one."

She stood up, "We should reach Santa Frerraro in less than two hours. Please make yourself comfortable."


Meanwhile, on the other side of the living area, Dagon cursed loudly as he tried to open the microwave's door, only for the entire device to fall into two pieces. Uncooked chips and electronics spilled out onto the floor. Apparently, after Xol's encounter with the Sentinel, someone had gone to the trouble of picking the broken pieces up off the deck and haphazardly taping the parts back together. Dagon was not amused.

(A quick short post sorry everyone!)

(Chalen) "That didn't sound good."
(Bianca Vorpal) "Mm. You'd think someone would help Dagon when it comes to kitchens. To be fair they are one of the dangerous rooms to be in." Chalen frowned and raised (?) an eyebrow at Bianca. "Uh..why?" Bianca simply answerd by showing off her now sharpend Bone Tusks Blades. Chalen gulped and gotten the idea. Bianca sheathed her weapons and continued to lay back against the wall. Chalen's stomach rumbles were begining to turn into barks.
"Does that mean none of us get food?"
"I'm not sure Chalen but you heard what Kwa said, will'll be arriving at Santa Frerraro in less then two hours. If your that hungry, you can have these." Bianca went through her pockets and tossed them to Chalen. A green square with black stripes and a reddish spots that looked like a type of fruit Chalen knew back home.
"It may be small but trust me it should keep your hunger at bay for a while till you get proper food." Chalen didn't say a word and poped in the square into his mouth. Chalen could feel his stomach already half full and couldn't help but burp which made Bianca laugh.

Grecsh woke up from his somewhat momentary nap and walked out of his cabin, making all possible speed for his destination, the kitchen. He swooped to a halt next to Dagon and surveyed the damage done to the microwave. He silently nodded, acknowledging his fallen brother in arms, then took his revenge out on the contents of the fridge, capturing an enemy dumpling for his taking. He moved to the sofa and crammed the dumpling into his mouth, chewing for several minutes.

Only then did he notice the odd looks his fellow mercs were giving him.

"What?"

Rhak halted towards Bor. He'd found a liking in the sarcastic way the Lynski seemed to have. Bitter, worldknown. Some would react diffrent from battles and death. One was to find calm in solitude, an other was to drown it in cheers and laughter. Like Dagon. Or maybe he just was a psycho. You never knew with people.
An O'onthos seemed to enjoy a dumpling, making the other mercs give him some looks. Rhak decided not to say anything.
He instead moved through the wrecked corridor of the Lacuna and its rooms, eventually finding the Lynski sitting on the floor.
"I'm here. Sorry about the jumping earlier."
Rhak scanned the vectors of the room, a habit from the military.
"How are you holding up, feeling better?"

"Fine", Bor replied. "And why are you apologizing? If you hadn't jumped, I'd be two-dimensional right now." He glanced around the room. "Where are we? Did we get away from the city? And where's my ship?"

He scanned the plain white cell again, looking for any weaknesses to exploit. He already knew they were none to be found, but 6 months of solitary confinement can do weird things to your mind.

Grey sat back down on his bedspread, and listened to the sounds of the surrounding cells. An inmate finally cracking under the strains of confinement, another inmate being beaten down for disobeying direct orders. Sounds that he became used to after he was thrown in a cell and left to rot after being deemed "Unfit for duty" by a multi-trillion dollar research corporation.

But not today. He was finally going to escape, he just had to wait for dinner.

The guards here were abusive and short sighted, very often beating inmates who did not comply with orders, or did something to get on the bad side of a detention officer. Recently, Grey was receiving meals from a newer officer. He was less experienced than his peers, and Grey noticed that he had a shorter fuse than almost anyone else in the entire building. He was also much smaller than any other officer.

A perfect candidate for beatdown of his own.

He sat on his bedspread, in about 10 minutes, loud knocking echoed around his cell.

"Your meal is here, scum. Come and get it"

Grey stayed put.

"I'll give you ten seconds, if you don't get your meal now, I'm going to come in and shove it down your throat myself"

Grey still refused to move. A loud "Clack" ringed around the small, white room as his cell door's magnetic lock released. A short, pudgy 3-legged thing came storming in with a stun baton. Getting ready to bring down a strike on Grey's skull.

Grey acted quickly, dodging the blow and grabbing the officers arm, and pulled it backward. The bones in his arm audibly snapped, and the officer released his weapon and howled in pain. Grey quickly brought down the baton on the officers back, knocking him out. He then reached for his belt, grabbed his pistol, and fired two shots into his brain.

All was silent for a second, as if everyone and everything in the building had stopped dead in their tracks. The inmates didn't scream, the generators seemed to have fallen silent. The only sound that could be heard was Grey's heavy breathing and the sizzling sound of superheated plasma burning through grey matter.

Then, all hell broke lose.

Every alarm in the facility went off, and Grey could hear dozens of hammering footsteps down the hall, coming ever-closer to his cell. He acted fast, running out into his cell block, and blasting every door he could. Dozens of cell doors, containing dangerous and unstable inmates opened. The first inmates, realizing their new found freedom, sprinted out into the large, open room and running straight into the group of officers. Attempting to take their weapons and release more of their fellow inmates. Some succeeded, most were quickly shot, dying instantly. But enough were free and fighting to give Grey the opportunity he needed to slip by unnoticed. He ran for the prison armory, with any luck, his armor and weapons would still be there, ready for his personal use. He was held at this facility not to permanently detain him, but to break him mentally until he would agree to work for Perzcka once more. Anticipating him to break quickly, they left his armor and weapons at the prison armory.

A mistake they would pay dearly for.

He ran to the prison armory, facing little opposition. As he ran into the expansive room, he noticed a number of inmates arming themselves, and taking armor and weapons from the dozens of racks lining the room. One was trying to get to Grey's armor by busting open the container with a metal chair. He fired a bolt of superheated plasma through his skull.

No inmates gave him any trouble after that.

He shot open the locks on the container, revealing a medium-sized suit of silver armor. He quickly released the hydraulic seals on the armor, and stepped in. He resealed his armor, letting the cold metal bore into his exposed wrists. A monotone voice started up

"Welcome user: GRENSIK OTTO, to the SV-92 Corpsman armor system. How may I assist you today?"

"Disable suit voice, transfer all alerts into text messages on my heads up display, and for the love of spode, find me a map of this blasted facility

In about three seconds, a detailed map of the facility showed up on the display of his helmet. He quickly scanned the display for the one area he was looking for.

"Give me a marker on the shuttle bay, if you don't mind"

A blue marker popped up on the map display, and the map minimized and moved to the bottom left hand corner of his screen.

"Give me a list of every ship docked on this planet, I need a ride if I hope to get out of here"

A expansive list opened in front of his display, he quickly narrowed down the list to mid-sized ships with a intergalactic durability rating of above "Medium," he quickly stumbled on a perfect candidate for "Requisition," a mid-sized smuggling ship docked on the planet

"While you're at it, locate and place a marker on the Lacuna"

Zeriax tightened the cast on his shoulder. The pain was if not, a little numbed down. He wondered when they were going to dock on Santa Frerraro. Zeriax tried to remember his assassination target... He had confronted his prey a long time ago, when he was only a small infant. This person was responsible for all the deaths caused when his homeworld was turned into nothing but dust. Zeriax reloaded his pistol, rifle and re-calibrated his Stealth Cloak... preparing for his assassination.

Zeriax found his way toward the bathroom and took off his armor and clothing. He stepped inside the shower and cleaned himself. Zeriax hasn't had a good shower for months while he was doing his infiltration and recon mission on Las Thaddas. But his identity was compromised. Not to mention they had EMP'ed his Stealth Cloak. It was a disaster. If it weren't for this group of bandits sabotaging the place he would've been killed.

Zeriax exited the shower and wore his clothing back on. He placed his armor and equipment near a small table and decided to sleep on the couch. He fell asleep, knowing that when he woke up, he would be ready for the assassination of his life.

Dawn was breaking as the Lacuna approached Santa Frerraro, bathing the endless desert wasteland below in its orange light. They passed over the remains of a land-city: a forlorn gathering of buildings' blackened metal skeletons, some of the taller ones still reaching lopsidedly skyward in the wake of whatever calamity had befallen the settlement in its distant past. Such scenes of desolation were not an uncommon sight on Ariid — relics of the civilisation that had existed so long ago, when the planet was as yet green, innocent and untainted by war.

As Santa Frerraro itself crossed the horizon and they approached, it became clear all was not well.

The ship's comlink crackled into life: "This is Santa Frerraro Air-Traffic Control," an urgent voice said, "Cease your approach immediately and turn back; this area is not safe for civilian vessels."

A sudden flare of yellow-green fire bloomed on the surface of the city, visible even at this distance. In the half-light of sunrise a large, ominous shape could just be perceived, hovering directly above.

Xol kept his course towards Santa Frerraro, straining to see what was hovering over it. If this means no medical treatment, than I'm pissed. He turnedmaround in his seat and yelled into the back, "Kwa, Dagon! We've got a situation here..." He handed the comms device to one of them, so they could talk to the Air Traffic if needed.

Kwa stepped into the cockpit and joined Xol in squinting at the view from the front of the Lacuna. Another burst of green light reached them, even as the first died away.

"Well this is an... interesting welcome." As the Lacuna flew closer to the floating city, and Air Traffic Control's demands that they abort their current trajectory became more forceful, or perhaps desperate, a defense tower on Frerraro's surface opened fire, launching a missile up towards the dark silhouette loitering above.

As the projectile detonated in a searing fireball, the details of its target were momentarily rendered perfectly clear. Light glinted on rows of gun-batteries and shone on jet-black hull plates. From the smoke and darkness emerged the menacing prow of a strike cruiser.

The Kingdom had arrived.

Bianca peeped out at the window only to see a flash of green light.
"Oh no. Please tell me this is another friendly and their not going to attack us." Chalen fiddled with his necklace and was sweating.
"Wish it was but nope, that's a bad ship." Bianca Vorpal's face paled. She feared this would be bad news. Bianca was not the type to panic under these situations but she knew too well that any moment Chalen would scream.
"Well what's the plan guys? Do we strike back at them or flee?"

Mitchz95 wrote:

"Fine", Bor replied. "And why are you apologizing? If you hadn't jumped, I'd be two-dimensional right now." He glanced around the room. "Where are we? Did we get away from the city? And where's my ship?"

Rhak shrugged in response to the answer and answered himself Bor's questions.
"Your ship would be in the cargo bay. Hopefully, I don't know what Kwa has been doing with it. And we're in the Lacuna flying away from a falling city."
Rhak had been able to insert a basic reciever in his mask/helmet, and he got stiff as he could hear a too well known radio chatter. He'd always been glad he never had worked against some of his employers. Under one of his payed operations, they had introduced him to some basic features in their codes. He felt a shiver down his spine. The Kingdom.
He turned to the Lynski.
"Sorry, but you can't rest now. We have trouble."
"Big trouble."

((For fun))
--Moments earlier, Santa Ferraro apts--

Maarucye, former room mate to Flank, stepped through the screen door. He beheld his new apartment, having finally taken a cheap flight from Las Thaddas. By far it bested the old one in that most of the furniture had not become breakfast, lunch and dinner to several species of moths and termites, and that any electrical appliance wasn't a class four safety hazard.

He had a new job, too. J'Rodar's engineering supply warehouse was looking for security and Maarucye was hired in a heartbeat.

He set down his possessions and made his way to the showers. At that moment, the ground heaved.

IsakTheWriter wrote:

Rhak turned to the Lynski. "Sorry, but you can't rest now. We have trouble. Big trouble."

"Great, what else is new." Bor got to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his knees. "What kind of trouble?"

Kwa placed the comm device on the Lacuna's dashboard and switched it into conference mode for all in the cockpit to hear. Something was happening on the other side of the channel to Air Traffic Control. The tirade of increasingly flustered warnings had been abruptly interrupted, and there were noises as the headset was apparently wrenched unceremoniously from the head of the operator. A brief argument erupted between it and an as-of-yet unidentified newcomer, the exchange unintelligible to anyone listening from the Lacuna, and a moment later a different voice, noticeably older than that which had preceded it, addressed the cockpit:

"...Do excuse Lieutenant Garth, he is rather zealous about his duty — tribute to his division really," the new voice began, "'Nerrone's Rangers', wasn't it? Yes, yes I believe the council and I owe you your fair share of wages for an errand we sent you on recently... I, *ahem* that is we were of the opinion that we might be able to interest you in, well, some kind of bonus assignment...?"

The city was much closer now. As they looked on, another explosion lit up the western side of Santa Frerraro, bathing the entire district in a sickly green flash of light. It was just possible to make out huge chunks of debris falling from the lip of the city a moment later, sending up geysers of sand and earth when they hit the ground.

"Give me a marker on the Market district of Las Thaddas, I need to go find a friend"

A blue arrow appeared on Grey's map, he was about a mile or so away from the market district, he was looking for an old friend. A contact that was living on Las Thaddas when he worked as a freelancer, he wasn't sure if he was still on the planet or not, but it was worth a look. Within 30 minutes, he walked into a large, sprawling bazaar, teeming with people and merchandise. He was never going to find his contact in this crowd, but he remembered a signal both of them agreed on, if he was in town and needed some extra ordnance, intel, or a safe haven, he just needed to find a free trader. It didn't take long, he approached a 3-eyed thing with about 4 arms and a large, circular body.
"Hey, you a... Bounty hunter? I got all sorts toys for you here, missiles, ammo, grenades, even some jetpacks, what can I do for you, hunter?"
Grey paused for a minute, trying to remember the phrase.
"I'm looking for something clean and dirty, precious and useless. A jewel in the sand, and a rusted piece of scrap in a dump"
The trader looked up at him and gave Grey a serious look
"Come with me."
The two of them walked into the central building in the bazaar, they eventually came up to a heavy door
"Don't take too long, pal. The boss has been tense lately."
The trader ran off, leaving Grey alone. He opened the heavy door, the room was large, covered in antique paintings and other forms of art, a short, small insect like creature was sitting on the far end of the room, looking blankly into the ceiling.
"Rat'za, it's Grey. I need a favor."
The insect quickly sat up and looked at the far end of the room, directly at Grey.
"Ah, it's been a while, Hunter. What can I do for you?"
Grey grabbed a holodisc from his belt, turned it on, and threw it across the room, into one of the several arms the insect had. A holographic image of the Lacuna was displayed on the holodisc.
"I'm not going to bore you with the details, Rat'za, but long story short, I just escaped from a maximum security prison, and that ship is my only hope for my continued freedom."
The insect looked at the image for a while, looking at Grey with his two extra eyes.
"So you intend on Hijacking this thing?"
"Yeah."
"From the looks of it, it's flying around at Santa Ferrero. I know you haven't been keeping up with the news, but that place is getting razed by a capital ship."
Grey let the news sink in for a few seconds.
"Well, that complicates things."
The insect nodded.
"The ship is probably going to be breaking atmosphere and leaving this planet soon, if you want to get that thing, you're going to have to wait for it in orbit."
Grey thought about the prospect.
"So how am I supposed to do that?"
The insect smiled at him.
"Let me make a few calls, I'll get you set up."

Xol scratched his head as the new voice appeared over the comms. "Another assignment?" After how this assignment ended, I'm not sure we're up for it... He decided to cut his losses in favor of a larger paycheck. "I'll be up for it, if everyone else is."

As if in protest, his forehead sent a wave of pain throughout his head.

Mitchz95 wrote:

IsakTheWriter wrote:

Rhak turned to the Lynski. "Sorry, but you can't rest now. We have trouble. Big trouble."

"Great, what else is new." Bor got to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his knees. "What kind of trouble?"

Rhak started to limp towards the cockpit of the smuggler ship. He turned his masked head to Bor.
"I think it's the Kingdom."
He continued to limp through the corridor and went in to the cockpit. He leaned towards the door frame.
"What's happening?"

Zeriax woke up, startled by the people talking on the comm. Zeriax put on his armor and attached his weapon belt in haste. He jogged toward the cockpit to see the commotion.

"I guess I'm not leaving." Zeriax said as if he didn't want to leave in the first place.

With a grunt, Flank detached himself from the corner. He had spent the better part of five minutes organising his ammunition box and filling his clip with the plasma rounds he picked up from the late security force. Something was happening in the cockpit, as more and more of the Rangers congregated there. Although he wasn't eager to confront Kwa, curiosity overruled his anxiety.

Arriving, he met Zeriax, the new addition to the group who from Flank's observations, couldn't hold up a bank if the tellers took themselves hostage. He also saw Rhak, although he didn't know his name either.
"The rifle work out for you?" He asked, hoping to glean some more facts, and perhaps the rifle, from him. Before the Acheen answered, he looked up through the cockpit window with his cannon scope to see what the commotion was really about.

What he saw caused his maw to gape, and his scope to magnify the horrifying scene before him to the maximum. He wouldn't have cared if Kwa, 'Cuna and Bianca simultaneously stared him down, he couldn't take his sight off the imposing shape of the Kingdom ship.
"Good... God."

Rhak looked at the Ravis. It seemed astonished by the battle the Kingdom had started.
"Impressed?" Rhak asked before taking up the rifle and handing it towards Flank.
"Thanks for the loan. You can call me Rhak. And you are?"