Nerrone's Rangers IC

"We could make a small group of 'test subjects', that would go on ahead." Rhak suggested towards the group.
"And we can stay in radion contact with the group the whole time."
"What do you say?"

Flank peered around the doorway to his left. His backpack was there, along with the empty plasma rifle and turret firing module, but his ammo box was gone. Through his door Flank could also see through the door he had taken to get to the aft of the ship. He could see his ammo box lying on the ground next to the door to the engineering room.

"What's he playing at..." Flank mumbled to himself. He then saw Grey's pistol on the ground next to it. Judging by the thin trail of smoke wafting up from it, it was heating up. Flank went cold. There weren't just FlaK rounds in that little box. There were also shells, mortars, and the rest of his plasma bolts, all fit for his 17mm cannon. The collective explosion would be enough to tear the ship in two. He also saw Grey standing some distance away. He clearly didn't know that the imminent detonation would rip him to shreds, but Flank was more concerned about letting himself live.

Flank dashed past the door and through the corridor that led to the rearmost area of the ship. He rounded the corner. There was the pistol. It was smoking profusely. He kept on running.

12 feet... 9 feet...

The pistol was turning red.

7 feet... 4 feet...

It was beginning to rattle on the ground.

2 feet. Flank leaped the remaining distance, landed hard on his chest and kept grinding along the floor. He reached out with his right hand, and when he was close enough, batted away the pistol.

He was just in time, because as soon as it cleared the door into the living area it went off with an echoing PAFF. Flank rolled over onto his right side and prepared for the worst.

"Damn it!"

Grey saw his pistol fly right back into his general direction, exploding in midair, leaving only a few shreds of the metal that made up the pistol. He looked back and saw Flank on the ammo box, he didn't seem to be forcing it open just yet, but Grey knew he had to work fast if he wanted to survive.

But Grey wasn't thinking straight, he was pissed, and wanted Flank out of his way.

He tried running, but the pain quickly stopped him dead in his tracks. Grey noticed that some more of his armor systems were coming online, including his jump jets. He figured that if he made a dive for Flank and used the jets to increase his velocity, he could manage to get a good stab on Flank.

But before Grey worked the plan out, he found himself in the air, bringing up his long, seratted wristblade, and barreling directly towards Flank.

His impulses got the better of him, and Grey realized it may cost him dearly.

By the time Flank was fully aware of the situation, Grey was already driving a fearsome looking blade down at him. By defensive instinct he unfurled his left wing to protect himself, but that did very little. The blade sliced through the black-backed membrane like a delicious piece of ham, splitting all the way from the middle to the bottom, and drawing a foul swear from Flank's mouth.

He inspected the damage. Of course it had started bleeding. Considering how much blood Flank had lost in the last 24 hours he was surprised that he hadn't bled to death.

"You little-" The last several words were drowned out the ruffling sound of Flank flicking his injured wing at his attacker's face, effectively spitting a sizable volume of his viscous blood at his visor, and then by the ringing metallic sound of a FlaK cannon swinging about and striking away Grey's knife arm.

As soon as it was out of the way, Flank jumped up to his feet and took up a forward stance with his left foot in front. He held his left arm out in front of him, his hand in a fist with the palm up, and his right hand behind him and to the side, also in a fist. Bending his rear leg and leaning backwards, he brought his left hand down to his right hip in a wide circle, and then leaned forward and swung it violently up, and then down to the left.

Grey's knife arm, which was half way through being brought back up to strike, was knocked away, compromising his defence. Flank followed through with the momentum of his striking-block by bringing his right foot forward and around and stepping behind Grey's left foot, while simultaneously swinging his right arm around at his head.

Still going from the inertia of his double-swing punch, Flank brought his cannon around like a third arm and sent it whistling through the air towards Grey's head. He still wasn't finished. While his cannon bore down on Grey's head, Flank brought both of his arms in front of his torso, fists clenched, with the forearms parallel to each other. His right arm, which was underneath his left, he lashed out at the side of Grey's neck with the palm up, attempting to strike with the wrist. His left hand he held out behind him, thus completing the manoeuvre and returning him to his original stance, only with his right side forward.

((Sorry if that was a little confusing, my best description of the double-swing punch ))

Grey immediately regretted his decision the second after his knife bored into Flank. He wondered why the hell he bothered getting out of the detention facility after Flank counterattacked.

It was a blur of swift motions and blunt pain, Grey was knocked back, picked up again, and then slammed down again. He never had a chance to retaliate, one minute he was on flank, the next, flank was on him. His anger clouded his judgement, and hampered his otherwise phenomenal reaction time, and every other advantage he had. His impulsive action had left him wide open. Grey had also underestimated flank, he didn't think he could be that swift and experienced.

Two mistakes that could very well cost him his life.

It only took a few seconds before the initial shock wore off, then the pain set in. It was unlike anything he ever felt. Worse than the horrid surgeries he had to endure as cybernetic enhancements were drilled into him, worse than any gunshot he had taken, it was a rush of red hot fire in almost every bone of his body. Causing his entire body to lock up on him, paralyzing him with pain. Grey began coughing hard, when he opened his eyes again, his visor was covered in his own silver-colored blood. He began trying to crawl away, but he was met by more searing pain and the distinctive "Pop" of a bone dislocation. He rolled back, still coughing blood, Grey looked back to Flank, who looked like he was making his way towards him, and used what strength he could to give an extremely rude gesture to Flank, before his arm went limp and fell back, sending more pain up his arm.

He no longer cared about anything else, he just wanted the pain to stop

Grey considered begging for mercy, but quickly decided against it. If he was going to die, he was going to die with whatever dignity he had left.

Slowly, his senses began to dull, and eventually shut down. He could no longer hear anything but the frantic pumping of his heart, and his vision began to darken.

Before he finally passed out, he heard the monotone voice of his suit:

"Onboard medical systems re-initialized, please issue a command"

"Fix me" Grey spat, before he finally passed out.

"Acknowledged, diagnosing and treating injuries on user. Please stand by.

Flank's response to Grey's gesture was as simple as it was short: "Sit on it."
Then Grey's armour began speaking, and Flank was keen to eavesdrop.
"Acknowledged, diagnosing and treating injuries on user. Please stand by."

So, this guy has a medical suit, thought Flank, so if he doesn't die soon he'll be back up to strength.

He released a breath. That was an exhilarating fight, and it filled Flank with a feeling of elation to have incurred very few injuries. Then he thought of the robotic woman who had run off. A moment of thought passed and Flank figured that she had locked herself into the engineering room. That she had done that instead of fighting with Grey was more than enough reason for him to believe that they weren't working together.

He walked over to the engineering room, his cannon aimed back at Grey should he get back up, picked up his ammo box and started exchanging the plasma bolts in his clip for FlaK rounds. When he finished, he raised a hand to knock, but hesitated.

Buck up.

He knocked softly on the door. "It's safe to come out now."

Delta wrote:

Kwa turned to Xol: "We selected the security booth because, as far as we are aware, it is the only place in the building which can give us the sort of network access we need, apart from the hub itself."

"Well I'm open to suggestions about what we should do next," Dagon said, "Don't want to hang about in one place too long if possible though, eh?"

Bianca rolled her eyes at that wonderful thought from their leader Dagon while it only made the Space Sprite, Chalen nervous. Turrets were never his ideal weapons as he's scared of them. Should one hit him, it might either brake or burn his wings. However, since he had the armour that he got from his cousin Cogs, Chalen should be fine. It was Bianca that broke the silence. "Should we split into the same groups again? Medics, Hackers and at least one person that protect us with a gun or possibly..." Bianca let that sentenced drag and pointed at Chalen. The Space Sprite's face is reddening all of a sudden. Chalen scratched at the back of his ear-like wings. "M-Me?! Why you think I be in your group?! I'm not good compared to Flank!" He then looked towards Dagon and Kwa with his cutesy eyes. "You don't think this is good suggestion do you?!"

'Cuna had endured the terrible screams coming from outside. There had been a battle, for sure. What 'Cuna wasn't sure about was who won. The mechanical voice of Grey's suit was the last thing 'Cuna heard. Grey was down. She knew that, if unattended, Grey could heal up. It's a good thing she had the environment control systems set up now. She typed her way through several set of security protocols to open the door. She saw Flank at the door.

"Hello Flank. I'm sorry I couldn't help you fight Grey, it sounded pretty rough. When I left initially, I locked the door with too many precautions to do anything fast, plus I was working on a holding plan. If we can get Grey into a secure room, we can seal it off and control the environment in it. That way if he gets up, we can deplete the air and cause him to faint, or anything like that, all the way up until the other Rangers get back. We also won't need to try getting rid of all the many weapons and armor he has. Sound good?"

Flank looked back at Grey. "Sounds good."
He then remembered his wing. Unfurling it again, he took another look at the cut in the membrane. The webbing between the long, finger-like bones closest to Flank's body was torn cleanly in two. The open skin along the cut was leaking blood, the drawing long strands that retreated back up to his wing whenever they released a large drop.

"I don't suppose you know how to sew, do you?"

"Well, I've never sewed before in my life. But, I could learn. I do have quick learning abilities, and I have medical knowledge. It's better than nothing." 'Cuna pulled out a big bandage and medical sewing supplies from the Med-Kit. "Afterwards we can drag Grey into his, well, 'cell'." 'Cuna set up the sewing supplies. "Ready?" She said, smiling in a slightly cruel fashion. She expected Flank to be at least a bit terrified of being sewed up by someone who's never done it before. But she was confident in herself that she could do it.

Kwa frowned, "I dislike the idea of splitting our forces. In smaller groups we would be far easier to pick off. Speaking of which, does anyone actually know what Flank is doing right now?"

Dagon shrugged, and raised a hand to his comlink: "Flank? You there? Kwa wants to know what's keeping you back there."

Flank nodded nervously before submitting his wing to 'Cuna's needle. She was about to make the first stitch when his comlink blared noisily into his ear. Or rather, his equivalent of an ear. Either way, he flinched terribly, causing the needle to jab him somewhere else on his wing. 'Cuna apologetically started the process again. Turning the volume down, Flank found that he was listening to Dagon's voice.

"You there? Kwa wants to know what's keeping you back there."
Flank pressed the button on the side of his helmet and spoke back.

"Oh, yeah. I went back to the ship to put my stuff - ow! - away, but there was this guy in power armour. He - mph! - pulled a gun on me, so I disarmed him. Then the ship went on lock-down, and I was trapped inside with him and - what was your name again? Thanks. - 'Cuna. He was about to blow up the ship by - ow, ow!- by igniting my ammo, but I managed to stop him. He cut my wing, but then I knocked him down."

Flank paused to look over at Grey again. He still hadn't moved.

"I think he's badly hurt, but his armour can treat injuries. We're about to take his weapons and lock him in a room. 'Cuna's just patching me up now."

'Cuna finished the final stitch and cut the thread. The stitches were small, tight, and numerous, and best of all they held the membrane together. Flank tested her handiwork by stretching and flapping his wing softly. It could catch the air, that much was certain, and the stitches wouldn't break, but it would be a while before he could use his wing the same way as usual, as he needed the membrane to heal completely.
"Thanks for that," he said, turning to 'Cuna, "now let's search this guy."

"Dispensing stem cells, please stand by."

Grey's suit used millions of colonies of synthetic stem-cells, directed by an on-board AI. They function similarly to a sort of glue, attracting organic cells, and then adhering to the cells themselves. Eventually, long chains would form, which would close up any wounds left on the user.

Within Grey's body, millions of synthetic cells began rushing into his body. They were directed to wounds by the suit's AI, where they would mass in large numbers. Very soon, his bones were covered in what would appear to be a fine yellow dust, before they rushed into his bones. Marrow that was spilling out began attaching to the stem cells, and the stem cells began linking with one another, pulling each other together, mending his bones and re-attaching any fragments to the bone. Anyone listening in could hear the sounds of bones shifting against one another as his limbs repositioned back to their proper locations. Open wounds quickly scabbed up and fell detached themselves from his body, the stem cells accelerating the process by a factor of ten. The only remaining wounds were his dislocated arm, and the remnants of a particularly badly shattered rib, which was wrapped around a stasis bubble created by the stem cells. It would take longer before it could be mended.

The process was complete, and Grey was left in almost pristine condition.

However, his suit's systems did have one flaw.

The stem cells used heat to melt the cell membrane, as it cooled, it would attach to the stem cells. As millions of stem cells produced this heat, the user could very easily be flayed from the inside. To prevent this, a second synthetic cell, made of highly conductive metal, will form long chains and link to Grey's armor mounted heat sinks, the excess heat would flow into the heat sinks and be vented safely. If the use of the medical system was moderated, the user would only feel a slight warmth around his body. But a body-wide mending process like this over saturated his heat sinks. If the heat wasn't vented immediately, Grey would be boiled from the inside out. Since Grey was not awake to manually solve the problem himself, his suit took matters in to its own hands.

"Emergency heat vent in process, estimated rise in atmospheric temperature: 200 degrees Celsius, please stand back"

A rush of superheated gas began spewing out of Grey's suit, catching Cuna and Flank in thick orange cloud.

"Better to risk a minority than the majority. I'm talking about scouting. Max 3 people doing recon." Rhak answered.

At the sound of the word "recon", Xol turned around.

"I've got my Zeafly to do some more basic scouting. It is more than capable of uncovering the enemies' positions, and I'm sure I could hack into a few more turrets with the new IFF installed."

He looked back at the security booth. Someone would still need to get more information from the other terminals, but he couldn't risk letting the Zeafly into someone else's hands.

"What if Quark hacked into the other terminals to get us more information, while I scout ahead with the Zeafly?"

"That would be preferable to sending someone in blind," Kwa replied, "I would sooner risk a machine than our lives, if at all possible."

(Bianca) "Damn it! If we can't risk someone then I don't see what other idea might work."
(Chalen) "What about those ability of yours?" Bianca slumped her shoulders. "Chalen I don't think that wouldn't work well cause no one will agree to that." The two friends sighed in unsion. Pity niether of them posse a machine that could have made the dielemma less worrying.

Flank was heading over to Grey when his suit suddenly spat out an orange cloud of heated gas. At first, the transition made him feel at home; his home world was dotted with active volcanoes and suffered ash storms. The exposed lava usually gave the ashen air an orange glow, and the heat was comfortable. It was only when the air around him reached a much higher temperature than was comfortable that he began to realise that Grey hadn't just treated him to a little nostalgia trip.

"Whoa, jeez! What the hell?!" He staggered backwards, away from Grey, with the intention of keeping himself and the ammo box he still carried away from the source of heat. Grabbing 'Cuna by the shoulder he back-pedalled into the engineering room and shut the door.
"Do you think he's about to blow up like his pistol?" Flank inquired, "Even after his suit healed him?"

He pressed a finger on his free hand to his helmet and spoke into the comms.
"Mayday, this guy's armour just released some really hot gas at us. We're in the engineering room, and I think he might be trying to explode."

Outside the security booth, Kwa cocked her head and Dagon cursed as Flank's message came through.

"Dammit, what in Spode's name can we do about that from here!" Dagon growled, exasperated more at their own helplessness than Flank's message.

Kwa flicked on her comm device and responded: "Evacuate."

If what Quark had told her was true, no-one should have been more capable of finding an exit through the engineering deck than Cuna — a maintenance hatch, a waste chute, a hull breach; in the event of a serious bomb threat any sort of escape route would do.

Leaving Kwa and Dagon to deal with the situation on the ship, Xol once again set up station with the Zeafly's control, six holoscreens and all. He found a good place to lean against the wall before flicking the bug into action.

He piloted it up one of the elevator shafts to the floor above them, stealthing the Zeafly as it moved before bringing it to a halt in midair and turning stealth off, to save power. He glanced at all six of the displays, getting a good idea of the security and setting of the area.

The grav-lifts functioned far differently to the primitive pulley-based elevators the Rangers had earlier encountered in the technological hodge-podge of Las Thaddas. This shaft was a cylinder, wide enough to accommodate five similarly rounded lift pods — not much more than glorified glass boxes a couple of meters in diameter each.

As the lifts worked by directly manipulating the gravitational field in one of the five sections of the shaft (arrayed like five dots on a dice, each occupied by a pod), technically the pods were optional for travelling via grav lift. But then, the idea of floating unsupported up and down a dizzyingly high elevator shaft was not one the average commuter would approve of. Even so, there were control panels set into the side of the shaft on every second floor, as well as in the pods themselves.

After working its way through a partly-opened set of elevator doors on the first floor, the zeafly got a good look at the lower section of the shaft: the central elevator pod was missing, leaving a large gap in the middle of the bottom of the shaft. Of more immediate interest was a pair of inactive turrets at second-floor level: much smaller than the one in the foyer, and set opposite each-other into small alcoves in the wall of the elevator shaft. There may or may not have been further defences higher up the shaft, but at its current altitude the zeafly could not see to the top — making it up to the far reaches would put a strain on the little device's batteries at best, and leave it without enough charge to make a safe descent at worst, if Xol chose to send it that far.

((TL;DR: The lifts work by switching gravity.))

((Okay, I'll post to get rid of this little dilemma Lazer and I are in and bring one of the largest guns back to the Rangers so this thing can get a leg forward))

Flank was worried that Grey's suit had just tried to cook him, or cook his ammo so that it would explode, but neither were the case. The sound of hot air rushing about in the living area died out quickly, replaced by an eerie silence. Slowly, Flank opened the door.

It was pleasantly warm outside the engineering room, and Grey had certainly not blown up. He knew who would be most pleased to hear this. He put a hand to his helmet.

"Ah, false alarm, this guy didn't explode. I think he just had some really spicy food before he got here and neglected to use a bathroom. Honestly I'm not sure which would have been more hazardous. 'Cuna and I will search him now and then we'll get back to you guys as soon as we can. Don't wait up.

"Oh, and Rhak, if you're sure you don't just want me to get you some more ammo for that rifle, let me know because I've got loads of spare ammo in clips."

He released the button and looked nervously back at 'Cuna. Why his nerve had so suddenly dropped would be a mystery to him, considering that he had just let her sew him back together and that they were in the whole mess with each other.

"Well," he said, turning back to the armoured figure lying unconscious on the floor, "let's get to it this time."

The search did not yield promising results. The only thing the Renkata owned that wasn't attached to his power armour was another one of those pistols. During the search, Flank and 'Cuna discovered that the suit also had jump jets and a missile launcher, neither of which could just be 'taken off'. They then decided that it would be best to start dismantling the armour and to take it off in small pieces. 'Cuna learned the inner workings of the suit fast, and the two of them began removing the weapons.

Flank felt like a scientist dissecting a new specimen, with each part the two removed being placed neatly on the floor in an exploded view. They had only managed to take off the missile launcher and the wrist blade (along with a few other bits and pieces) when they figured that Grey wouldn't be doing much else without them and the very small portion of his armour that now lay on the floor. They left the medical suite attached.

"Alright," Flank groaned as he stood up, "can you grab his legs? Let's drag him into the bathroom and lock him there."

(Edited due to Dark_Potato95's request.)

The two friends haven't really been told or what to do during the mission. Two were already occupied of having to move a body into another room, one or two people went scouting ahead with a tiny gadget that awfully looks like a fly or at least that's what they wanted to do. The rest might have been doing something else. Clearly they were board out of their minds and they needed to let off a bit of steam. Chalen suggested that they spar off against each other using nothing but their choice of weaponry. Bianca choosed her Bone Tusks Blades whilst Chalen selected to use his clawhands. They agree not to harm each other as they might be called and needed in top condition. Bianca took the first strike at the Space Sprite but Chalen ducked and tried to launch a counter attack back at the Elvar. She merely intercepted his attempt by sliding the blade inbetween his claws and forced Chalen to stumble backwards. It felt good. It had been a long time for Chalen to be in action since the battle of the Insectiods and the soldiers/guards. Same goes for Bianca as she's proving to be well more capable then she was before being minor injured.

((Hope you don't mind me creating the description of the bathroom))

'Cuna had endured the situation long enough, and was glad they could finally get rid of him. "Ok, let's move" They dragged him along until they made it to the bathroom.

((Here it comes, my description))

It was a small room, triangularly shaped, with a little sink, that originally looked very shiny and technological, though it now resembled the type of sink you find in the back of gas stations, the only thing really left neat about it was the little touch pad water control on the scratched mirror. Something Quark designed when the ship was still the size of a personal aircraft.
The toilet wasn't any better. In bathrooms, there comes a point were really, you can't further improve on the fact that, well, they're bathrooms. The toilet was all normal, though there was the small difference that you can only see when looking at the blueprints. On a ship like this, it's a bit of a difficulty to keep all the waste on-board for that much time. The waste was instead incinerated using excess engine energy, and then the gasses where left to be stored with the flammable materials containment part of the ship. But that's getting a bit too detailed.
A single space class porthole looked out into what was usually space. It didn't really matter, considering that 1) you could block the porthole, and 2) when you're in space, there's not many people who can really look it. The floor was in decent condition, but the cleaning would need to get better due to the fact that the Rangers' population had increased so much.

((It's over, and just to be clear, the other bathroom on-board is almost the same))

"Okay, let's just set him on the floor here, we can seal off the room pretty easy. We'll be fairly safe if we just monitor the room afterwards."

"If uou got the time to it. Sure, I would like both the rifle and the ammo." Rhak answered to Flank through the radio.
As he turned towards the rest of the Rangers Rhak muttered:
"I hate this planet."