• Starpath: Scoundrels of the Interstellar Highway - Thread 2
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A hatch on the exterior of the Aurikha flipped open, exposing the airlock inside to space. A team of four engineers stared out the opening into the stars and hesitated; there was no sound of battle in the vacuum but the local comms were flooded with shouts and orders and all manner of chaos. Out there, there was nothing between them and instant death. But without the comm array, the ship was isolated and helplessly outgunned. They had a job to do. One by one, they climbed out into zero gravity using the magnets embedded in their pressure suits, and crawled along the steel-plated surfaces of the carrier toward the damaged comm array. They were picked up by the Black Fleet fighter squadron immediately. They never had a chance. [video=youtube;OxsEiYxvD3o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxsEiYxvD3o[/video] "Good point," Rask replied. "We should let them know as soon as we take the reactor control room 'cause they might tear us a new one if we accidentally kill the shields too soon... This rig's got to last long enough for our exfiltrators to land, and we've got to move when they do..." --- Ravis looked a bit sad as Moloch took point, but did as he was told. The trio marched into the hall where Ravis had spotted the escapees, and they quickly and quietly checked each door along the way. Not finding the enemy in the meeting room, or anywhere else for that matter, the group paused for a moment to think. They happened to stop directly in front of the stairwell, and that's when they realized how Rask and Maddox had disappeared so quickly. Sting and Markus soon appeared behind them, eager to join in the chase. The problem was deciding which way to go. "Uh, um... This here, this connects to all the decks, doesn't it? That means they could be just about anywhere by now... I'm sorry guys," Ravis stammered. A moment later, his ears stood straight up. "Hey, wait a sec!" he squeaked as he opened the door to the stairwell. There was a faint sound of people talking, but it wasn't clear from where it was coming from. Ravis stuck his rifle into the room and pulled the trigger. --- [quote]Bladedancer to [I]Dagger[/I], do you acknowledge?[/quote] Rask's eyes lit up as he flicked out his personal comm. The group paused as it reached the door into the control room and Rask, before answering Vakarus, cracked a joke. "Speak of the devil and he shall appear, eh?" Maddox didn't seem to be in the joking mood, so Rask opened the channel. "I hear you, Bladedancer. We're on the lowest deck, gettin' ready to kill the ship's warfare shit. So when I give the signal, one of my SULP buddies is gonna open up a blast shield for you, and you just cruise right in. We'll take the elevator up from engineering and out we'll go, nice and easy-like... Any resistance on the crew's part gets the whole carrier blown up, and nobody wants that, keh." One of their escorts looked at Rask and Maddox. "Ready?" he asked, holding his override tool up to the door controller. They nodded. Just then, a gunshot rang out from two decks above. "They're at the bottom! I- I see them!" Ravis' distant voice called out. [I]Racial feat discovered: lirya echolocation (sufficiently loud sounds allow sight around corners without the use of a CH roll)[/I] "Shnka..." Rask grumbled. "Let's get moving!" The door into the control slid open, setting off an alarm. The operators inside were unarmed and Rask took the initiative in gunning them down. While Moloch, Frosty, and Ravis rushed down the two flights of stairs, the traitorous party slid into the room and closed the door behind themselves, using the override tool to re-lock the door and prevent their pursuers' entry just as they had reached the threshold. Panic erupted throughout the reactor floor at the sound of the gunshots, and Bucky found herself staring up at Rask, his gun raised and his foot up on the control panels as if he had just conquered a mountain. The disloyal SULP escorts scrambled to take exclusive control of the reactor. However, by this point, the alarms had alerted the commanders as well as Hariim to the immense danger that everyone was now in, and reflexively, they sought to disable the control room entirely. (Auto-Roll) Hariim: CH Estimate: 4/5 [B]Actual: 4[/B] Roll Passed. Hariim was the first to the punch, instantly locking the less-proficient SULP workers out of the system. "What do we do now, Boss?" one of them asked. "Hell if I know," Rask spat, dropping down from his triumphant perch. "I'm not a fuckin' computer genius, just figure out how to override it or we'll have to do it by hand." The grunts nodded, hurriedly working to overcome Hariim before things got any worse. SULP Traitor 1: CH Estimate: 1/3 [B]Actual: 3[/B] Roll Passed. [B]2 Rolls Until Override.[/B] --- Watching her allies bumbling along, Yuga decided to take a more active roll in ending the Aurikha's luck. Aiming her weapons at the ship's engines, she would try her hand at doing what the Orikodzek had failed to do- break Constantine's shields. The Ryojin sunk in its pursuit in order to get the proper angle on the now-vertical carrier. Constantine: CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 1[/B] Roll Failed. Yuga: CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 2[/B] Roll Failed. With a thunderous barrage, the Ryojin did break through the shields, but only just- the few projectiles which actually damaged the engines failed to knock them out of commission. Yanim, having just learned of the repair team's fate in trying to repair the comm array, knew that desperate measures were needed. She scrambled to locate a pressure suit of her own. [quote]Yanim, if they take out our engines, we'll be sitting ducks! Is help coming or not?[/quote] The voice belonged to Neasha, who was in the midst of executing another unconventional maneuver. The ship was pitched again, essentially putting it into a slow, backwards cartwheeling motion in which the engines were being rotated away from the Ryojin and the Orikodzek, but as they chased around the outside of this "wheel" at an angular disadvantage, they were constantly under threat from the plasma cannons "above" them. That is, if they were silly enough to bite on such a ridiculous ploy. Commodore Siyada certainly didn't; he simply waited in place as the carrier pitched over, presenting the bridge to him. Neasha realized the inevitability of the move's failure and transferred her bridge controls to a portable tablet before sprinting out of the room. Siyada: CH Estimate: 4/5 [B]Actual: 4[/B] Roll Passed. Heavy missiles crashed into bridge area of the Aurikha and blew the hull open, but the room had been vacated. Neasha, standing behind a reinforced bulkhead that she had just closed, breathed a desperate sigh, and began to suppose that her last hopes were fading. [quote]Help is coming, Nea. I promise...[/quote] Yanim had found herself a pressure suit. She was standing at the airlock door the previous team had tried to exit through. "Return fire on the ayr vessel, Neasha," she said into the comm. "I'm going outside to fix the array myself, if I die-" "Bullshit!" Yanim turned around to find Arkadam, who had been trying to find her during the [I]entire[/I] battle. Having listened to the communications throughout the turmoil, he had apparently had the same impulse and found himself a pressure suit, and now the two kanads stood at an impasse. "You wouldn't even know how to fix it," Yanim spat at him, angry tears suddenly appearing in her eyes, indignant that someone with so much less responsibility for the current crisis would martyr himself before her. If anyone should have to risk near-certain death in this instance, Yanim would be the one. "And I wouldn't know whether to pray or to end myself if you die out there. If you die, it's over for all of us, there's no escaping this mess. Let me-" "No!" Yanim yelled at him. "Let me go!" He screamed back. Yanim tried to push past him into the airlock, but he shoved her back. They grappled, and Yanim swept his legs out from beneath him. However, as she turned to leave, he grabbed hold of her leg and tripped her, and the two scrambled to their feet on either side of the narrow airlock door. "Time is running out," Yanim urged him. "I have to go... please..." "No," Arkadam replied, with tears of his own. Distant rumbles signaled further blows from a nearby ship. "This whole ship needs you. If it can survive, it can only do it if you're still there, it... it can make it without me. I'll go, and you'll guide me... from a safe place... I can do it, Yanim, I promise..." Yanim finally lost her nerve, yanking the lock open on her helmet and pulling it from her head. Arkadam embraced her quietly before letting her go, and slipping from her grasp on his way into the airlock. He placed his own helmet on his head and locked it into place. He enabled a shoulder-mounted camera and opened it to the comm system, and Yanim, dropping to her knees in the hallway outside, helplessly watched through his eyes on her tablet.
Maddox checked to see if one of the engineers still had a pulse. He shook his head as there was nothing to be found. He glanced to his left and fixed his gaze on Bucky. Maddox got up and walke dup to the engineer, grabbing her by the arm. He placed the barrel of his pistol next to her head. "Forgive me for this Bucky, but I need you to manually disable that reactor." Maddox gave Bucky a tense, almost frightened, look. He knew that the crew was coming to put him down. He clenched his jaw. "Please, don't make me shoot you. There's no need to."
Jason lowered his gun for a bit, seeing that action isn't happening anytime soon. he turns to Aaron and spoke up. "You seem new, you got a name?"
Moloch starts slamming his fists angrily against the doors in frustration that his chance to kill an SDF member just got delayed. Upset, he turned to the two bots that had been escorting him and the rest of the group that were provided so generously by Valkyrie. [I]"Robots, get those doors open! The rest of you, stand back and prepare for entry! No doubt those two [B]will [/B]be expecting us!"[/I] he barked out. (Roll)
The Batakya's fighters reported on the common channel that they had wiped out a repair team, most likely meant for the comm array. Yuga squinted. Apparently the damage was so severe that it had to be manually repaired, this boded well for them. "Focus your fire on further repair attempts. If we wish to keep our advantage we can not let them regain their communication capabilities." She contacted the Orikodzek, "We will take out these engines for good. Focus your fire on the remaining thrusters." She switched her channel to the armory, "Battery, fire the void cannons at the aurikhas engines at will." --- Whilst Ravis, Moloch and Frosty stood near the door, Sting and Markus had jumped behind a crate to use it as cover. Markus was aiming at the door while Sting simply peaked over the edge of the crate.
Bucky goes very still when Maddox presses his gun to her head. She uses her wireless link to send out an alert to security and Hariim about Maddox's location and actions. This is all done without Maddox's knowledge of her actions, thanks again to the wireless link built into her systems. She nods to Maddox, making eye contact. She manipulates her expressions expertly using her hardwired talents and years of practice to show primal fear, an uncanny show of it if one thinks her incapable of true emotion. She says in a quiet, scared voice: "Okay. But I can't work i-if I have that to my h-head. Okay?..." -------------------------------- Hariim picks up on Bucky's signal and immediately splices into the computer systems in engineering. He prepares to reverse the forces the grav plates under Maddox are exerting while simultaneously surging them with power to hopefully propel him into the cieling at terminal velocity. Now he just needs Bucky to get clear....
Sledge struck a pose as he jumped through the force field again, like a professional wrestler doling out a flying elbow drop. He tumbled end over end, hoping that his erratic movement would throw off the enemy's aim, despite the fact that the enemy was a computer and was unlikely to be fazed by his shenanigans. His nanites could keep him alive through any adversity, but that doesn't mean they could help him [I]accomplish[/I] anything. CH Estimate: 1/5 [B]Actual: 1[/B] Roll Failed. As he neared the Viokhmar, Sledge's near-frozen eyes locked onto the turret which had just liquefied him minutes earlier. Between one of his many, dizzying flips through the void, it pivoted around, locked on, and fired- the rocket soundlessly racing toward him at incredible speed. This time, however, his brilliant ploy somehow worked, and the rocket missed him by mere centimeters! Instead, he slammed into the steel surface of the kanad frigate and bounced, finding no purchase for his fingers to grasp onto. He slowly rose from the surface, drifting uncontrolled, away from both the ship [I]and[/I] his precious hammer. He crossed his arms and pouted, trying to think of a solution. Meanwhile, the enemy turret was locked onto him, unable to fire due to his extreme proximity to the Viokhmar's hull. In a few minutes, Sledge would be doomed. --- Rask, having just watched the situation unfold with Maddox and Bucky on the catwalk outside the control room, opened his comm to the crew's frequency on the Aurikha. "Just give it up you little shits, you can't win! They only want me and Yanim, so stop fighting back and let yourselves be taken prisoner already. This isn't the fucking GKVR, it's the Batakya; you'll get your due-process, keh-" Warhound 1 and 2: CH Estimate: 2/5 + 2/5 = 4/5 [B]Actual: 4[/B] Roll Passed. Hariim: CH Estimate: 5/7 [B]Actual: 6[/B] Roll Passed. Rask was cut off by the sound of metal giving way, the sound of robots clawing the door open from both sides to open the way for his pursuers. Maddox reflexively turned around, allowing Bucky to shove away from him while, at the same moment, the ground beneath Bucky and Maddox suddenly reversed its gravitational pull. Bucky was flipped but safely rolled along the catwalk while Maddox was propelled straight up, into the rafters. Despite his best efforts, Hariim could only overcharge panels which were designed for 1g of force so much, and given that his foe was standing on a walkway suspended some distance above the ground, it wasn't as effective as it could have been. Maddox struck the beams forcefully, but not at lethal speed. [B]30 DMG[/B] Maddox HP: 165/195 ((I can't tell who's attacking, and in what manner, through the now-opened door. It'll be handled in the next update.)) The surge having passed, Maddox tumbled back toward the ground softly as if on a cushion of air. Inside the control room, one of the SULP traitors continued his attempts to hijack the reactor controls. CH Estimate: 1/3 [B]Actual: 2[/B] Roll Failed. [B]2 Rolls Until Override.[/B] --- [quote][We will take out these engines for good. Focus your fire on the remaining thrusters.][/quote] "[Understood,]" Siyada answered. The Commodore sat back in his chair, infuriated and miserable. Regardless of how the operation seemed to be coming together, he had lost one of his ships and hundreds of good soldiers in the process. This would not be a victory; he cursed himself for his complacency at the start of the battle. He turned to the chief weapons officer; "[Keep hitting them until we've exhausted our stockpile.]" "[Yes sir.]" The Orikodzek and the Ryojin began to reposition themselves in order to fire upon the Aurikha's tail, a maneuver which took several minutes to execute. While the giant ships oriented themselves, Constantine once again dumped power into the shields, but began to wonder what the use was; even if there was help coming, would it even arrive in time to save the ship? Constantine: CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 1[/B] Roll Failed. Siyada: CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 3[/B] Roll Passed. Yuga: CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 1[/B] Roll Failed. A barrage of attacks from both battleships hammered the shields until the defense system was overcome, exposing the engines to a fatal attack. While the Ryojin was unable to exploit this opportunity due to excessive draw on its own reactors, the Orikodzek managed to fire a salvo of miniature nuclear warheads directly into the base of the Aurikha's maneuvering thrusters, causing them to explode and leaving a gaping hole in the unmanned systems sector of the lower two decks, causing a temporary power outage and a loss of water pressure. Within seconds, automated protocol brought the power back online, and valves were shut off to stop the bleeding of precious fluids, all in an effort to prevent the reactors from overheating. But despite all of these self-preservation features, nothing could replace the maneuvering thrusters and the engines which powered them, not even the fine-control landing engines, which by design were practically useless in space. The ship could no longer be controlled as it glided under its own momentum, toward Rigel. --- Arkadam drifted through the hatch to the surface of the Aurikha, the stars slipping by overhead slowly as the ship lazily spun. The comm systems fluctuated and sputtered as powering the giant carrier became more and more difficult by the minute. He turned his head, scanning for the gash where the comm system had been damaged, and found it roughly a dozen meters away, among a moon-like crater field where the fightercraft had left their marks. He looked for them in the sky, and didn't see them. [quote]Hurry... I'll watch for them.[/quote] Yanim's voice was a calming whisper. In the hallway below him, Arkadam knew that she was watching his every move, her hands guiding the plasma turrets on the sides of the vessel, just hoping to see him through safely. He crawled forward on his hands and knees, a pack of miniature tools in the front of his suit, just a little further... He put his hand on the array. He couldn't believe he had made it this far. He reached to his hip and uncoiled a bungee cord, clipping the carabiner to the truss-like structure. There were flashes in his periphery, and Yanim gasped. He knew the enemy was close. Yanim: CH Estimate: 1/5 x 2(Malevolence) = 2/5 [B]Actual: 5[/B] Roll Passed. [quote]Keep going, ╓╩I've got... I've got§ you, just keep going...[/quote] Arkadam's heart was pounding, his hands felt stiff and his fingers were numb. He began to climb the array, watching the thick cables inside as he neared the twisted, scorched section the enemy had hit at the battle's onset. He looked over his shoulder, searching for the fighters, and found them swirling around like vultures whose meal was taunting them from a busy highway. Bolts of plasma harassed them, coerced them and kept them at bay, Yanim's work. He shook himself free of the sight, knowing that time was not on his side. Two more rungs up the truss, and he found the break in the line- a burnt out tube containing a bundle of fiber optic cables. "What do I do now?" he begged, making sure to point his shoulder at the damage. [quote]₧ire Γò... sixteen through eighteen. Diagnostics says ■¬╥◘ sixteen through eighte▒▓▒[/quote] Arkadam grabbed at the cables, turning them over in his fingers and straining to read the labels printed on the sides. After a moment of searching, he found the identification tags which held the numbers he needed. Sure enough, cables sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen had been burnt through. "I found them, Yanim! What do I do now?" [quote]Use ╜able £irteen ░░░ fifteen to re╡«ace the first t{o, unp»ug ei¥hteen comple▓ely.[/quote] Arkadam wasn't entirely sure what he had heard, so he did what he believed to be the correct procedure. He used a small cutting tool to rip the pipe open wider so that he could reach the couplings at the base of the section, and unplugged cable eighteen. He then switched two working cables into the couplings for sixteen and seventeen. "Did that work?" he asked. [quote]Climb up, do the other side too![/quote] Yanim's voice was clearer; Arkadam had noticed a decrease in the noise and static as soon as he unplugged cable eighteen. A few rungs higher, he finished, finally bringing the system back online. "I've got it! Yanim, it's all set up!" [quote]Get down from there! I can't hold them off![/quote] Arkadam turned around just in time to see two of the starfighters racing toward him. Fear struck him and he froze, having never before felt so close to death. Yanim's voice continued to scream in his ear to move, do something, and finally, as plasma struck near the base of the tower and threatened to finish him off, he leaped into the void, high above the surface of the vessel. Arkadam: CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 3[/B] Roll Passed. The kanad pilots missed their mark as they misjudged his distance from the surface of the craft. As they soared past, Arkadam hit the end of his bungee cord and the tension curved him toward the ground. With a hard thump, he hit the metal surface and scrambled to unhook himself, detaching the cable and crawling haphazardly toward the open hatch. As he did, Yanim suddenly appeared in the opening, grabbing him and yanking him inside before she closed the door and activated the airlock. Moments later, they ripped their helmets lose from their heads and held each other, terrified from what they had been through. There were no words; as soon as they were able, they reentered the hall and Yanim sent a command to the ship's computer to activate and broadcast the transmitter's code, still wired into the system in engineering. [B]3 Turns Until Rescue Arrives.[/B] When it was done, Yanim looked back to Arkadam, brimming with an overwhelming need to love the man who just risked his life for the sake of the crew, for the sake of her. She had feared, beyond all else, of surviving the battle without him, knowing that her own demise from her progressing palsy wasn't far away. [I]This[/I] was why the galaxy had brought them together, over and over, despite the light years and evil circumstances which conspired against them, manipulating them into working against one another in the past. Arkadam was the one she was meant to fall in love with. --- The starfighters turned to make another approach, largely unhindered by the plasma cannons. The flight leader reported to the Orikodzek and the Ryojin: [quote][We were unable to reach the array during a second repair attempt. Status of enemy comm system is unknown. Proceeding to destroy the array.][/quote] Moments later, the long-range comm system was destroyed, but it was too late. The distress call had already been sent out to dozens of star systems in the surrounding region. Any Boomes on the receiving end would again relay the message, and somewhere, a commander would be deciding on who and what to send in response. --- Neasha trudged through the half-destroyed upper deck on her way to the closest stairwell, unable to trust the elevator, when she ran into Yanim and Arkadam. The former had practically pinned the latter to the wall in her advance and the two were wildly making out. Shaking her head, Neasha demanded to know what was happening. "The signal's out, Nea," Yanim replied, her high emotions evident. "Arkadam saved us," she insisted. "Not yet he didn't," Neasha replied. "We have no thrusters, no control, and we're losing power by the second. If the rescue party doesn't come quick," she ranted, until noticing that Yanim was barely paying attention. She sighed, reminding herself of what had just been accomplished. "I'm joining the crew in the hangar," she said after a moment. "This battle's out of my hands, but I can at least do something if we get boarded." She descended the stairs, pretending to not notice the way her personal quarters were sealed shut from depressurization.
"Shit!" Maddox gets propelled up towards the ceiling, barely holding onto his gun.
Yuga stood with her hands behind her back and watched the carnage. Suddenly one of the radar operatives turned his face up to her, "Kapu, we are detecting failure of the Aurikhas maneuvering thrusters. With their current trajectory they'll enter the planets atmosphere and crash roughly 50 miles from the Sanctuary cargo station." he said with a formal tone. Yuga nodded and contacted her Batakya allies, "The Aurikha can not maneuver. We will allow them to crash and deal with the survivors. Hopefully they will have some sense knocked back into them from the impact and surrender. Hold back your troops as well, it will be too risky to send them in on this crash course" A signalist ran up to Yuga and did a quick imperial salute, "Kapu, our scanners indicate that the Aurikha managed to send a long range distress call before their long range communications array where successfully destroyed." Yuga squinted and looked around briefly, before returning her focus to the call, "Belay that. Commodore, I suggest you trail behind and intercept whatever help might come from that distress call. We will make sure the Aurikha takes her landing and rout out any opposition." She then picked up her compass and signaled Vakarus, "Cease your boarding and contact Dagger. We will not be able to extract him during the Aurikhas fiery descent. Instruct him to braze himself and prepare for impact." ---- Markus jolted as the ship shook from the exploding thrusters. Sting looked up at him with a nervous look, "I-is this some kind of -uh- trial... ya know like -uh- initiation and such?" Markus looked down and gave a similarly nervous laugh in reply, "Nah, mate. This is just another bloody loony day on the job with this fuckin company." But his nervousness soon turned to malevolence when he spotted Maddox floating about behind the now pried open door. "I've got ya now, ya cunt." he whispered as he took aim and prepared to fire on the floating engineer.
[quote]"Just give it up you little shits, you can't win! They only want me and Yanim, so stop fighting back and let yourselves be taken prisoner already. This isn't the fucking GKVR, it's the Batakya; you'll get your due-process, keh- [i]tearing metal[/i]."[/quote] Mercy heard this over the comms as she struggled to hold her balance and clenched her fists. While her and Rask may have shared something of a common ground during the company's last meeting, she absolutely [i]despised[/i] traitors, seeing them as no better than looting, indiscriminately murdering pirate scum. Hey, she may be crazy in the head, but at least she holds something of an honour system. Sort of. In any case, she only just contained her rage, letting out a deep breath. She contemplated going down to see him- and his traitor buddies off herself, but decided against it, seeing as the hangar she's currently occupying would be a logical starting point for any boarding party. Big, open, and lots of places to go. But should Rask survive his little encounter and get captured once more... She'll make sure he [i]wished[/i] he got killed.
[media]http://youtube.com/watch?v=LXJ8v4ELyng[/media] [I]"Robots! Move forward and engage! Frosty, find Rask and kill him! I do not care what the captain says, he dies today as well!"[/I] Moloch was barking out orders as he moved in behind the Warhounds, ready to empty his entire mag into Maddox. The moment he saw him he squeezed the trigger of his MAG, sending out a volley of scorching hot lasers towards Maddox. Meanwhile, Frosty separated himself from behind Moloch as he moved in to engage Rask with his trusty Warmaster in his hands. But, something was still wrong. He was shaking, but it wasn't out of nervousness. Instead, he felt extremely compelled to forego any kind of trigger discipline and simply spray projectiles everywhere. It all felt like something was tightening his mind and his thoughts, making them smaller and smaller.
Hariim tries to cut Rask out of the comms as best he can while using voice samples taken from his memories of his crew mates to fill as many channels as possible with decoy chatter and random noise. He also resets the grav plate beneath Maddox to normal operation as soon as he can, hoping to make the area less lethal to his own people if they pass over the g-plate. Hariim then turns his attention to the cybersecurity of the ship. On top of this, Hariim throws a party of daemons out to attempt slowing down the override. They're his best creations, but they're not a full suite of EWAR AI by any stretch. He just needs time. -------------------------------------- Bucky tries to keep away from Maddox, pulling her bolt pistol and firing a burst at him to try putting him down with mass-reactive shells. If she can just get past him and back to Valkyrie she might just survive this!
The Warhound drones stomped into the room, opening fire with the weapons in their arms as Moloch and the others moved in behind them. Valkyrie's voice sounded off from both of them, cackling like a maniac. "You two think you're going to [I][B]SURVIVE[/B][/I] this!? [I]Fat fucking chance[/I] of that! I'm gonna enjoy watching you die. [I]ESPECIALLY[/I] you, [I]you piece of fucking SDF shit.[/I]" - - - - - - - - Taylor listened to Rask's statements over comms, then glanced over at Valkyrie as she spoke into her holotablet. Making her drones transmit her voice. This was one of the few times where she actually sided with Valk in this kind of situation. "Everyone, grab an emergency breathing system. The ship is probably gonna take a lot more damage than this, so if life support gets knocked out, you'll still be able to breathe." she stated, looking around at the others.
[i]God dammit.[/i] Sledge drifted silently in the void as a very big and angry rocket launcher locked onto him. Physics is a bitch, and apparently doesn't reward stylish reckless abandon nearly as much as it should. Jumping into the vacuum of space unprotected was one of the coolest things Sledge could do and he did it [i]twice[/i], this time as naked as a freshly regenerated newborn. Rule of cool should have awarded him with three savage takedowns minimum. At least he'd managed to leave a full-body Sledgeprint on the side of the ship this time. Heh. As he drifted slowly into the turret's range, Sledge sighed, or at least he tried to. As the air left his nose it froze into a pair of small snotty icicles. The sensation was somewhere between a slight tickle and agonizing freezer burn. He felt his facial muscles clench as his body prepared to use what little air remained in his lungs for humanity's first space-sneeze. (ROLL FOR WHAT HAPPENS)
As the gravplates restored themselves to their original state, Maddox gracefully hits the floor feet first. He sees the group of gun-toting crewmembers advancing and decides to sprint. "We gotta' move!" He yells towards Rask. Maddox hunkers down and takes aim with his gun. He sees a large red pipe next to the catwalk and in close proximity tot the advancing party. "This better work." He fires a shot, hoping that the pipe will explode or otherwise injure the pursuers. ----- Vakarus bows his head. "Understood Yuga'atvan. We will retreat in a moment." He activates his communicator. "Bladedancer hailing Dagger, it would appear that your vessel is moments away from crashing on the nearby ice realm. I suggest that you brace for impact. We will recover you once you reach the surface."
Amy watched as Markus ran out the ship to go kill Maddox. "Can you at least kill him quick?" She knew there was no way to persuade him to stop, so she went down the ramp to get into position. The hangar was probably going to be the entry point for the enemy, she just needed to figure out a good place to stand. Minutes later the ship shook as it took hits from the enemy. [QUOTE]Everyone, grab an emergency breathing system. The ship is probably gonna take a lot more damage than this, so if life support gets knocked out, you'll still be able to breathe.[/QUOTE] "On it." She went up the Cataract ramp and came down with several breathing sistems to distribute among the crew that were still around. --- "Better grab on to something, shit is about to get heavy." --- "Boss! One of your beacons just went up! Something is happening?" Seth put down his mug and hurried to the comms center, his new second in command, Tarvis, following him. He knew this day would probably come, but why now? When his best company was decimated to a fraction of what it was before. "Who and where?" "It's Dagger 4 and its comming from Rigel." Of course it would be Yanim's dagger. "Space or on the planet?" "Space, boss." "Damn, we dont have craft that can engage with big ships there. Just transports and a few fighter escorts. Tell the reserves here to get ready and meet me at the Fang, I'll be taking half of them and what we have of the Wolfpack. We leave in 30 minutes." "Boss, not to piss on your rescue parade" Tarvis spoke up, the concern in his voice was clear. "But we're not going to be there in time to rescue them. It will take us half a day to make the jump and they could be a hunk of junk burning up in the atmosphere untill we get there." "We have to try. The person who owns that dagger helped me out a great deal before. This is where we pay our dept." Seth answered calmly, taking a good look at his subordinate with his one good eye. "Besides. Me and her have something to talk about." Tarvis sighed. "Noble was right. You are kinda of a rightous jackass." The two men chuckled a bit before he continued. "In that case maybe you should tell the guys we have on Rigel to prepare for when we swing by." "Tell them to be ready to move to any coordinates we give. If the beacon starts to move closer to the planet, I want them to go to it when it lands. Tell them to offer whatever ground support they can. Don't send any return message that we are on our way. I dont want any chance of the enemy to know we are comming."
"[Distress call?]" Siyada grumbled to himself. He clicked the comm on and acknowledged Yuga's request. "[Understood, Captain Shuur. Good luck.]" The Orikodzek made a gentle turn toward the Viokhmar, taking up a defensive stance so that the frigate could join in the fighting as soon as it was finished recovering survivors from the Tyrta. Almost a minute later, the comm officer on the battleship's bridge finally reported the distress call to the Commodore, much to Siyada's annoyance. Outside, Sledge was still floating near the Viokhmar. His nose full of ice, the neigh-invulnerable brute heaved, pushing hard on the blockage until it exploded painfully from his nose in a spray of instantly-freezing blood. CH Estimate: 3/10 [B]Actual: 8[/B] Roll Passed. The sudden expulsion of pressure was properly angled to push Sledge ever so gently in the direction of the Viokhmar. He touched down a moment later, discovering that the surface of the metal was freezing cold, causing his palms to stick to the surface. Grinning triumphantly despite the immense pain of [I]being in space[/I], he looked back at the Aurikha to realize that it looked further away than before... --- Back on the carrier, the reactor floor exploded into violence now that there was nothing separating the traitors from the vengeful crew. Markus, aiming through the doors, through the window, and into the main reactor hall, spotted Maddox floating above the catwalk and squeezed off a round at the first opportunity. To his surprise, Ravis was equally ready, but the two weren't aiming at the same target. Markus: [B]4[/B] x 1.25 x 3(Ambusher) = 15 Maddox: DEF Roll = 4 [B]11 DMG[/B] Maddox HP: 154/195 Ravis: [B]5 DMG[/B] Rask HP: 45/50 [I]Personal Feat: Consistency (All attacks do 5 DMG)[/I] Maddox didn't know that Markus had been let out of his cell, but upon receiving a painful shot in his shoulder, knew the sniper was afoot. The gravity having returned to normal, Maddox landed on his feet on the catwalk, ready to run despite the pain. "We gotta' move!" he yelled to Rask, but Rask had already taken the initiative and as soon as the doors were cleared, he shot and kicked his way through the glass window and out of the control room entirely, a hail of projectiles following his every move. Ravis managed to clip him in the arm as he did, spattering the control panels with his blood. The SULP traitors in the control room held up their hands in terrified surrender. [B]Reactor Override Averted.[/B] Distracted once again by the action in the control room, Maddox was shot in the back by Bucky, who used her bolt pistol. Bucky: [B]5[/B] x 1.25 x (No Feat Applicable) = 6.25... 6 Maddox: DEF Roll = 1 [B]5 DMG[/B] Maddox HP: 149/195 With nothing to protect his back, Maddox felt the full sting of a winging projectile even though Bucky practically missed him with her shot. It was only a warning of the pain he was about to experience. Meanwhile, Rask hit the ground of the reactor room with a thump and rolled, his eyes set on the elevator at the far end of the room. He was relatively unscathed aside from the gash in his arm, but Frosty was quick to approach the window and rained fire on him. The rest of the attackers, however, seemed all too eager to switch targets and shoot at Maddox instead. Frosty: [B]5[/B] x 1.75 x (No Feat Applicable) = 8.75... 9 Rask: DEF Roll = 1 [B]8 DMG[/B] Rask HP: 37/50 Rask yelped in pain as he stood up, but remained committed to his goal. He turned just in time to watch Maddox get shredded. Warhound 1, 2, and Moloch: {10, 9} x 2(Roboticist) + 10 x 0.5(Malediction) + 5(Malediction) = 48(!) Maddox: DEF Rolls = {3, 3, 5} = 11 [B]37 DMG[/B] Maddox HP: 112/195 "Akha!" Rask shouted, watching his ally. Maddox nearly feinted from the sudden pain, blood soaking through his clothes and reminding him that if he were to black out, no one would revive him. With a chill, he took a knee and aimed at a red pipe in the control room. "This better work," he said to himself. CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 2[/B] Roll Failed. [quote]Bladedancer hailing Dagger, it would appear that your vessel is moments away from crashing on the nearby ice realm. I suggest that you brace for impact. We will recover yo░░░▒▒▒▓▓▓[/quote] Feeling a bit woozy, Maddox wasn't sure if he simply missed the pipe or if it was harmless. Shaking himself back into alertness, he heard Rask screaming at him. "Come on, human! We're gonna get killed down here, move!" He knew his comm line was forcibly disconnected from the system, no doubt the work of Hariim or Yanim, working against him... but it didn't matter. With Bucky taking cover behind the machinery of the reactors, the path was open to escape this deathtrap. So what if rescue was a ways off- Rask had been in worse situations before, like Zeruel... "Get in the elevator!" He yelled as he ran for the exit. [B]2 Turns Until Rescue Arrives.[/B] [B]2 Turns Until Landing.[/B]
[QUOTE][video=youtube;MBuWT7D3_Wg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBuWT7D3_Wg[/video][/QUOTE] Valkyrie giggled like crazy at the sight of Maddox being hit with a hail of kinetic rounds and lasers. "The fucker's getting shredded!" she said, grinning wildly at Taylor before looking back down to her holotablet where she was watching the drone camera feeds. She noticed from one of the drone's feeds that Rask was calling to Maddox and heading towards the elevator. Shit, they were trying to escape! "[B]HALT![/B]" barked one of the drones, as they began to quickly move after them. Both opened fire, one aiming at Rask while the other continued to shoot at Maddox. "You are [B]NOT[/B] leaving this ship alive! I can fucking [B][I]PROMISE[/I][/B] you [I]that![/I]" sounded off Valkyrie from the drones. The drones picked up speed as they ran, starting to quickly traverse the space between them. The one targeting Maddox was on a collision course, seeming almost like a truck it neared its top speed.
Frosty's mental state kept decreasing gradually. When he stopped shooting, he keeled over for a moment as he grabbed his head. The realization of what was happening to him slowly crept in. ... [I]No.[/I] Not now. He remembered what Taylor told him. [I]He has to fight it. [/I] He won't let it happen. He [I]can't[/I] let it happen. When he got back up, he saw Rask sprinting towards an open elevator on the other end of the room. Using his jump pack, he boosted himself to the other side as he readied his warmaster. He was going to send the elevator back up, and shoot the ever loving shit out of the control panel. Meanwhile, Moloch did something strange. He sprinted after the Warhound still engaging Maddox. With one free hand he did some sort of bizarre lifting motion with it, causing the Warhound to twitch and glow green for a moment. Once that was done, he quit running and took aim to continue firing upon Maddox. ((Molo's using his Blessing here. Gonna boost the ATK of the Warhound.))
Maddox gritted his teeth and tightened the grip of his gun. A warm feeling followed by a sudden cold was spreading through his body and Maddox knew that he wasn't going to last much longer. The sound of Rask yelling brought him back to focus and the weaponsmit mustered all the power he had to get back up and sprint as fast as he could towards the elevator. While sprinting, he fired off a quick burst of three shots from the hip aimed at, presumably, Moloch's position.
Rask and Maddox joined up as they sprinted the length of the reactor hall, Maddox quickly having caught up on his longer legs. Projectiles chipped away at them as they went, but the inviting glow of the elevator ahead of them kept them practically fanatical as they charged forward. Frosty took off through the broken control room window, aiming to leap between them and the elevator before they could reach it, while Moloch used his arcane influence to increase one of the Warhounds' power. Warhound 1: [B]10[/B] x 2(Roboticist) = 20 Rask: DEF Roll = 11 9 DMG Rask HP: 28/50 Warhound 2: [B]1[/B] x 2.5(Roboticist + Blessing) = 2.5... 3 Maddox: DEF Roll = 2 [B]1 DMG[/B] Maddox HP: 111/195 Rask took another shot, this time to the leg, and briefly collapsed before adrenaline and epinephrine combined to give him the strength to keep pushing forward. The robots had closed the gap considerably, and were now within melee range, but curiously, the arcane-boosted droid failed to land a crippling shot on Maddox. Rask wasn't willing to let them catch up, and slipped a grenade off a loop on his pants. It was the only one his co-conspirators had given him in the brig and he planned to use it to maximum effect. He threw it into the machinery of the reactor, intending to cause a major explosion. CH Estimate: 3/5 x 2(Malevolence) = 1 Roll Passed. The blast caused a coolant line to detonate a few seconds after he and Maddox had cleared the blast radius, scorching the two robots and creating a wall of boiling hot fluid and steam. [B]10 DMG to Warhounds 1 and 2.[/B] Warhound 1 HP: 40/50 Warhound 2 HP: 40/50 Maddox, no longer able to see Moloch, quickly fired off a few rounds in the direction he believed the mystic to be standing. CH Estimate: 2/5 [B]Actual: 2[/B] Roll Failed. Lowering his gun, Maddox felt a burning sensation in his existing wounds. [B]5 DMG [/B](Malediction) Maddox HP: 106/195 Moloch felt the bullets whip past him, but none hit their mark. Meanwhile, as the traitors neared the doors, Frosty suddenly landed hard on the ground in front of them. Reaching into the elevator car, he pressed the button for the top deck and then spun around, pointing his gun at the exterior control panel. CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 3[/B] Roll Passed. "You sonofabitch!" Rask screamed. The Warhounds appeared from the steam cloud behind them, leaving them outnumbered. Rask knew what he wanted to do, but Frosty was in the way. [B]1 Turn Until Rescue Arrives.[/B] [B]1 Turn Until Landing.[/B]
Markus and Sting barreled into the reactor room, which was at this point a grade A mess. While running towards the wall of steam where Rask and Maddox would be, Sting spoke up, "You could at least tell me who we're supposed to be shootin." she shouted. Feeling the heat from the steam and sprinkler of boiling hot coolant liquids Markus stopped in his tracks and stepped back, catching Sting by the collar before she ran into the open steam cooker. "I don't much care for the short one. You see the other human, you blast that cunt." Sting grinned and cocked her guns, "Just point me at him and I'll fill 'im full o' lead." she replied with a wink.
(Five guns at the same time, that's not fair! :v:) Maddox see the pursuing crewmembers closing in. At the same time Frosty makes a leap of faith to block the only exit. His eyes darting across the room, Maddox readies his pistol and opens fire at the machinery already damaged by Rask. "If I'm going down it'll be in a blaze of glory." He thought to himself as he pulled the trigger. ----- Iron steadied himself as the blast to the reactor caused by Rask sent vibrations throughout the ship. He glances at Taylor and Alex. "From my own experience, those vibrations do not represent somethin' good." He shook his head. "This is why I hate flying, pressurized, metal boxes."
The Warhounds, bathed in boiling hot steam and liquids, paused for a moment as Valkyrie studied the damage from her end. Minor damage. Mainly partially melted cables and plastic. All could be replaced. She checked the screens, and instructed the drones to proceed on through the steam. The machine gun carrying Warhound, enhanced by Moloch's strange abilities, continued to fire upon Maddox. Determined to carry out Valkyrie's will. Back where Valkyrie was, up in the hangar with Taylor and the others, her grin was growing wider and wider by the second. She was gonna get a front row seat to seeing Maddox's guts ripped out. The other drone, wielding an assault rifle, marched after Rask. Continuing to fire upon him as well. Taylor may have wanted Rask alive, but he probably wouldn't be for much longer.
[i]Sigh...[/i] Well, in the mean while, Mercy decided that she may as well stretch her legs some- a little bit unaware of the ship about to crash horribly into Rigel and [del]make her job much much harder[/del] injure quite a few people which she'll need to stabilize if not get back up. Upon her short little journey she noticed Valk watching something, shrugging it off before seeing the faces of those traitorous little bastards on it. In a swift motion she backpedals and watches the screen from a little way away.
Sledge [i]could[/i] make a space-dive for the Aurikha but on the other hand his hammer was right over there... Despite the onset of hypoxia and the threat of brain death, Sledge maintains to this day that he made the right choice and he'd make it again. Pulling himself around by his frozen-on palms, he began to crawl along the wall of the ship like a frozen naked Spiderman towards his drifting hammer. Meanwhile the Kanad at the turret console was staring incredulously at a monitor full of man-ass desperately fighting the urge to blow a hole in the side of his own ship if it meant scraping that rosy-cheeked [i]yatara barbem[/i] off the hull like so much chewing gum off a giant metal sneaker. Finally approaching his hammer, he peeled his frozen hands from the hull and made a tippy-toes reach for it and just barely managed to grab it. YES. Back in business. Now for some unfinished business. Sticking the soles of his feet to the side of the ship, Sledge began a slow zero-G walk towards that pesky rocket turret. That Kanad from earlier is now [i]freaking out.[/i] Despite the fact that there's no sound in space, and Sledge's eardrums had both long since ruptured from the pressure differential he imagined some [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FmC35GIOk]kickass but overused music[/url] playing as he strode up and got ready for the BIG SWING. That Kanad from earlier is watching this and [i]freaking out[/i]. Sledge targets the most explosive part of the rocket launcher assembly. (ROLL)
There's no way the two traitors could escape now. The elevator was already at the top and the control panel for it was completely destroyed. But, they were still there, and [I]still breathing[/I]. Moloch kept firing towards Maddox while Frosty engaged Rask since he was rather close to him. Though now that he could start thinking clearly, for the time being at least, he reminded himself that Taylor wanted Rask alive. So he took aim at Rask's legs and fired.
"[Captain, there's uhh...]" the chief weapons officer began as he watched the naked figure strut on the exterior of the vessel. "[Spit it out,]" Vixe replied, impatiently. The weapons officer stepped aside, revealing the holoscreen view of a towering, stark mass of muscle wielding nothing but a tool of menial labor. And it was getting closer, slowly hefting the hammer above its head, like an ancient smith god about to forge lightning bolts. "[He's too close for the auto-defense grid, and I... I can't shoot him when he's this close-]" "[Well do... something, you incompetent-]" "[Can I-?]" CH Estimate: 2/7 [B]Actual: 6[/B] Roll Passed(?) As Sledge's hammer came down on the tip of one of the six remaining rockets in the pod, the kanads flinched, waiting for an explosion, but instead the hammer merely knocked the metal shell clear and exposing the inner workings of the rocket. Apparently it had to be armed first. While the cone tip bounced off the surface of the ship and floated away, the hammer followed through and hit Sledge in the shin. The kanads inside the Viokhmar watched as Sledge doubled over in pain, pounding the ground in silent agony before getting up and trying again. After watching this go on for several minutes, transfixed, Captain Vixe finally took action. "[Send out a marine team,]" she ordered. The slack-jawed weapons officer nodded and relayed the order to the chief of personnel. The order took multiple minutes to put together as the marines were currently engaged in the search and rescue mission for the Tyrta crew, but nonetheless a team of eight fighting men with OBV rifles were brought together to rappel up the side of the Viokhmar and move on Sledge's position. Another several minutes went by before they actually got there, and when they finally reached him, he was still hammering. Like, aggressively, purple-in-the-face, pants-shittingly angry hammering. There weren't even rockets left in the pod anymore, and Sledge was smashing up the remains hoping for something, anything to detonate. For [I]several more[/I] minutes the marines just stood there and watched, until one of them finally decided to fire off a neutralizing, expanding foam canister usually used to seal cracks in the hull. Sledge struggled for a while, but as the foam hardened it became too difficult to move. A marine stepped up, rifle in hand, and aimed point blank at his statuesque foe, and fired. The plasma deflected off of Sledge's metal-plated skull and ignited the foam. Sledge became a literal human torch, not quite as cool as Spider-Man but cool enough for him to roll with, and began hammering [I]even faster[/I], in the general direction of the marines. "[Fuck!]" one of them yelled through the comms as a marine was pounded into the ground like a nail. Nitrogen began to pour out of the surface of the ship, nearly un-sticking the burning Sledge, but he kept walking, putting bowling ball-sized holes into the ship. The marines cut and ran, unwilling to fight the Juggernaut any longer and risk learning what kind of Marvel superhuman he'd become next. In truth, however, Sledge was running out of steam. Space was hard. He had no air left in his bloodstream and was tempted to take a nap even as the blaze engulfing him slowly turned his skin into something akin to the surface of a glazed holiday ham. He decided to take one more swing at the ol' rocket pod, just for the hell of it. The fire ignited Sledge's hammer by this point, and the hammer ignited and detonated the pile of explosive material in a way that blunt force couldn't, tearing a hot tub sized hole into the ship and atomizing Sledge's body completely, aside from his skeleton, of course, and yet the force was enough to separate his skull from the rest of him and send it hurling off in the direction of the Aurikha. Sledge's eyeless brain case nearly reached the open hangar door before encountering atmospheric drag and deflecting, ever so slightly, on the wind. And thus, Sledge became a meteor, disappearing in the shower that was the Aurikha's uncontrolled reentry. It was unclear whether the crew would ever see this true, valiant hero ever again. Red Skull! That's what he became next. Oh, and his hammer got blown back too. --- Sting, Markus, and Moloch watched the cloud of steam closely, waiting for a chance to fire on the traitors, but steam continued to boil out of the reactor core. [I]It was almost as if Rask's action had inadvertently created an arena where the odds could be controlled, and kept more favorable to the struggling rogues.[/I] Frosty raised his gun as if to fire, but Rask preempted the attack and grappled him, trying to throw him in the path of the Warhound's attack. CH Estimate: 1/4 x 2(Malevolence) = 1/2 [B]Actual: 2[/B] Roll Passed. Frosty: [I]Action Invalidated.[/I] Rask jumped forward and struck Frosty in the chest with his knee, while simultaneously grabbing at his gun. Coming off the strike, Rask pivoted and yanked on the weapon, and because Frosty was unwilling to let go of it, caused the pilot to stumble forward and out of the way. The Warhounds fired. Warhound 1: [B]4[/B] x 2(Roboticist) = 8 Frosty: DEF Roll = 4 [B]4 DMG[/B] Frosty HP: 46/50 Frosty (Consecration): CH Estimate: 1/4 [B]Actual: 1[/B] Roll Failed. Warhound 2: 3 x 2.5(Roboticist + Blessing) = 7.5... 8 Maddox: DEF Roll = 5 [B]3 DMG[/B] Maddox HP: 103/195 Maddox gritted his teeth and resisted the temptation to fire back on the drones directly. He wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper. CH Estimate: 3/5 [B]Actual: 1[/B] Roll Failed. Unfortunately for him, it just didn't seem to be his day. Worse yet, his wounds were still burning. [B]5 DMG[/B] Maddox HP: 98/195 His bullets clanged off the metal of the reactor's support structure, but nothing important was damaged. In fact, the steam was finally beginning to clear, erasing one of the last remaining life lines he and Rask still had. He looked over his shoulder at the kanad, whose fingertips were buried in the crack of the elevator doors. There was a small, but growing, gap between the doors. "There's no gravity in the shaft, human," he grunted. "Come on, I can't open it myself!" --- The ship plummeted through the atmosphere, flipping seemingly out of control, and yet the crew hardly noticed thanks to the artificial gravity. It wasn't until Neasha appeared in the hangar, struggling with her tablet to gain control of the landing thrusters and screaming about an impact that they realized the true severity of the situation. As they did what they were told, the Aurikha began to level out, its landing engines working overtime to steer and slow the hulk as it entered the final kilometers of its descent. Neasha: CH Estimate: 3/10 x 2(Migrant) = 6/10 [B]Actual: 9[/B] Roll Passed. The Ryojin followed the Aurikha as it fell, waiting for the inevitable crash. It never came. As the Aurikha neared the ground, it was facing the right way up, slowing down as intended. Neasha, ever the expert with the controls, had shown her mastery of crisis flight. And as it touched down in the deep snow, groaning from internal stresses and shedding bits of metal here and there, it was far more gentle of a landing than anyone expected. It took Neasha a few seconds to realize what she had done. "Oh... never mind," she said with a massive, reptilian grin. --- In orbit, the Orikodzek and the slightly-damaged Viokhmar patiently awaited the arrival of their Boome opposition, which had just begun to arrive.
Maddox sprinted over to Rask and attempted to help him pry open the doors. He was filled with too much adrenline to even feel the pain caused by his injuries. ----- The chikaze dropship silently emerged a small distance from the Aurikha crash site. Inside its troop compartment a cloud of vapors was released, making the Ayr marines feel sharper than ever for a short period of time. As the door opened Vakarus and his commandos landed in the snow, followed by closely by the marines. "Bladedancer has arrived."
Here it comes once again. The same feeling Frosty felt when he got shot over Voyak. "They want to leave, don't they?" he thought. "They want to go away from this place?" With one hand he pulled out a knife, and with the other he closed it into a fist and held it forward, ready to blast into the elevator shaft with his jump pack. [I]"They could use your assistance, Mr. Frosty."[/I] the voice of the Sermon Giver spoke again. With a running start, he blasted off into the shaft full-speed and knife out in Rask's direction. Meanwhile, Moloch tried to find a way around the steam in order to continue shooting at the traitors.
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