Just a step cried the sad man (pm to join)

[Commander Lusk]

Just a step cried the sad man

Upon the successful brain washing of Roik'Cha the Yuuzhan Vong weapons producer, he had given Spaarti some very valuable information. Information such as Luminoss' most powerful dominion. For those of you who don't know, a Yuuzhan Vong dominion on the planet of Yuuzhan'tar is a sense a family that doesn't need to be related by blood. They are the upper class of the caste society that pull a lot of strings, the people who organize the sacrifices, the people who organize and trade weapons and beasts, the people who pay for the slaves for said sacrifices. Bottom line was they were important to the Yuuzhan Vong society and they were going to get their come-upins.

Hovering in a stealth transport in the lower atmosphere of Yuuzhan'tar was a ship. But not just any ship, a ship loaded with a few people who were about to become the nights entertainers. The Dominion a few kilometers bellow them were having themselves a nice little private sacrifice at their estate, or at least what qualified as an estate in Yuuzhan Vong culture, a large building made of coral and light by glow bugs.

The plan was simple really. Crash the party, take the dominion, kill everyone who got in their way. Leading this operation was none other than the clone commander Lusk himself. When he wasn't in the republic he was Spaarti's number one hit man and despite him wanting to tell [member="Keira Ticon"] about this little op he was running, mother told him she was on a need to know basis and she didn't need to know. Secrets, Lusk hated secrets, but they needed them in this line of work.

However they had done something strange for this operation, they had brought onboard a Rebel by the name of [member="Blane Nightfall"] a man who Patricia or mother had known in the alliance, perhaps mother was trying to recruit him into the organization so they could gain more contacts. Either way Lusk had heard he was a smooth operator and could handle himself.

Grabbing his own little defender sub machine gun with a silencer locked on he looked to his fully armored team who knew the plan. Land on the roof and clear the building floor by floor until the entire dominion was secured. Snipers were posted in various locations so people weren't getting out any time during their little murderous pow wow.

"Let's go kill some people." Lusk said as the ship doors opened.

With his armor, exo suit, and jump pack primed, he jumped from the ship along with a dozen other clone commandos to silently fall to roof bellow.

 

[Stardust Solus Skirae]

Stealth wasn't her big thing

However when your paid you do the job to the letter and in this case Pat gave her some instructions and of course credits

Attaching her sabers and two vibro blades she sighed as she checked her commando pistol...set to silence all who dares decided to get in the way of her job

She turned to the commando she was told to listen to, slipping a jump back on then her helmet looking out as her voice changed"time to earn my pay"her voice came out in a metallic sound

She jumped after him and watched as the descended onto the building...then the fun would start

[member="Blane Nightfall"]
[member="Commander Lusk"]

 

[Blane Nightfall]

Blane checked his armor then his wepaons, he seemed ready, this time he did not brought Dasy though, it didn't looked like he needed her, but if he does... well he surely could do something to make thing even... Somehow..
He took his AR-47 in his hands and walked next to Lusk, it was going to be epic he thought, it's not necessary a good thing.. that was sure, but what theyw ere going to do here could mean something... could mean they were one step closer to ending this war.

"Any preferences to who will we take?" he asked before to put his helmet on, he loaded his AR-47 and jumped silently on the roof below.

[member="stardust"] [member="Commander Lusk"]

 

[Commander Lusk]

[member="stardust"] [member="Blane Nightfall"]

As Lusk and his men fell silently through the air they marked four guards on the roof, two rovers, and two stationary. Upon falling to the roof Lusk positioned himself to fall atop the first guard, bringing his knee down on his skull with a sickening crunch. The other guards heads turned and landing in a shooting position the clone brought up his slug thrower and silently put two rounds in a Vong's head before the other two were taken out by other clones landing behind him.

"Roof cleared." Lusk whispered into his mic as the other two rebels made it down to the ground.

Black blood stained the night air and the clone looked to the two of them with the visor of his helmet. They had questions and Lusk would promptly answer. Typing on his wrist pad he sent the two rebels the names and faces of everyone in this upper cast dominion that they needed to take. Twelve of them total, three who lead the worker caste in Luminoss, three that lead the shaper caste, three who lead warriors, and three who lead the priests in worship. All of then were marked and they had to be taken alive. If not alive then their bodies had to be secured.

"Good, stack up." he said as they opened the roof door and descended down a set of stairs into the coral building.

Coming down the stairs they entered the top floor where it opened up into an attic. Lusk had his clones form up and Intel was sent to him by snipers looking through the windows. The Dominion were in the main dining hall three floors bellow them, but before they got there they had to eliminate the guards which numbered up to fifteen. Five in the room directly below them, five rovers in the house, and five in the dining hall. Time to divide and conquer.

"Star, Blane. Bellow us are five warriors, I need you to cut through the coral with a saber and take them out quietly. My boys and I will handle the rovers." He said and then promptly left the attic.

 

[Stardust Solus Skirae]

Stardust landed jut as she was able to watch the commandos at work, being quick and quiet, man this reminded her of the past

She got the Intel on her visor and nodded"tagge and bag alive got you"she said quietly as she followed them as they stacked up

Then she got her order and smiled slipping her sabers out"well Blane lets get to partying"she turned her sabers on and stabbed the ground turning quickly before dropping right onto one guard...promptly killing the guard before putting her sabers up and pulling her pistol to shoot two eating for Blane to come down
[member="Blane Nightfall"]
[member="Commander Lusk"]

 

[Blane Nightfall]

Blane followed the squad silently and when the time for action came, he immediately got beside @Stardust as one of the two soldiers that remained alive attemtped to attack him. Blane caught his weapon pointing it on the ground and quickly pulled out his knife and cuting his throat.
He immediately used the enemy soldiers as shield then rolled on the ground to escape enemy fire ending up in throwing his knife at the remaining soldier.

He and Stardust did some missions together, it wouldn't be hard for him to work with her, not now or ever. "Is it clear?" He asked her.

[member="Commander Lusk"]

 

[Commander Lusk]

[member="Blane Nightfall"] [member="stardust"]

Silent feet stepped throughout the estate, teams of threes set out to eliminate every Vong warrior that was on guard tonight. Lusk's team of clones moved down a hallways approaching a Vong warrior from his rear. Lifting up s flat hand the man told his crew to slow down behind him. Once they had slowed the clone moved forward until he was directly behind a Vong that was rounding a corner of the estate. Reaching out an augmented exoskeleton covered hand the man grabbed the Vong by the mouth and pulled him in.

Pulling out a large shining blade from his side the clone gripped it and rammed the knife up the Vong's chin through the roof of his mouth and up into his brain. Twitching heavily the clone set the Vong down silently and pulled his knife back that glistened with black blood in the moonlight of Yuuzhan'tar. Quickly turning the corner Lusk came face to face with another Vong that had heard the noise of his comrade being killed.

"Intru-" was all the Vong could say before Lusk threw his knife into his skull.

With the second Vong dead the clone commander walked up to him and pulled the knife from his forehead. Wiping it of the dead man's blood he got on his comm unit to check in on the other commandos.

"Sitrep." he said softly.

"All rovers down. Good to proceed." An Isard clone said in response.

"Rebel team, tangos down. Move to the room I have marked on your HUDS." he said as he pinpointed a room for the teams to meet.

The room was a large bedroom right above the dining hall where the food, fun, and sacrifices were going down. Once they were all assembled there they could drop down and start killing some more Vong.

 

[Dresden Verbrennung]

Some people preferred to show up to appointments early. Five minutes for a date, fifteen minutes for a job interview, so on and so forth.

Dresden had been prowling around this area for days.

The contract had specified that he provide covering fire should the team about a half a kilometer to the east require some...creative assistance.

It had taken some doing, going around unnoticed on a world where he definitely didn't fit in, but that was fine. The mercenary was used to working in places where to be seen was to be shot, and he had no intention of letting the Vong have their way with him.

He had started this little venture off with a 20 kilogram sack of detonite blocks and all the wireless detonators you could hope for. Depending on which way the team extracted from, his datapad had several preprogrammed detonation sequences to meet the needs of the situation.

In the mean time, he was looking at the ongoing action through the scope of his .338 Lapua rifle. It would be a shame to ditch it when the time came, but them's the breaks. It was too big and too heavy to lug through hostile territory, and even with the massive suppressor, it wasn't exactly quiet either.

Dresden absentmindedly scratched a bit of scar tissue on his right leg, a souvenir from a job that had nearly killed him, before keying his mic on the freq he had been given.

"Overwatch, checking in."

 

[Stardust Solus Skirae]

Strdust checked all corners before nodding"all clear"she then keyed the mic"stardust here tangos down moving to next room marked"she said as the mark appeared

Alright Blane lets move cover my six"she said as she looked around walking towards the room keeping her breath steady and pistol up and aiming at each point

She found the room and looked at [member="Blane Nightfall"] "alright ready" shed wait till he said ready and bust in gun pointed at each sector crouching down

[member="Commander Lusk"]
[member="Dresden Verbrennung"]

 

[Blane Nightfall]

Blane prapred his AR-47 looking at @Stardust "Ready when you are, Star." As soon as Stardust would enter the room, Blane would be right behind ready to shoot if necessary.
It was going to be easy, at least until now it was a trifling job, these vong didn't seemed so though as they said which made Blane to wonder why would Spaarti want them. But again, this was a surprise attack, so maybe this is why, nevertheless, he would be ready for more if necessary. This Lusk seemed like the right person to lead a squad, it reminded him of Thane or Oddball which was kind of comforting, this was finally a good day to end a war with another war.

[member="Commander Lusk"] [member="Dresden Verbrennung"]

 

[Commander Lusk]

[member="stardust"] [member="Blane Nightfall"] [member="Dresden Verbrennung"]

"Roger that overwatch, standby for any runners. Tranqs on any Dominion members put a bullet in any warriors heads." Lusk said to the sniper in the tower a good distance away.

With every team meeting up in the grand bedroom Lusk looked to the two rebels and nodded his head towards them. Black blood stained his armor and visor and he wore it as a mark of pride and battle. He loved moments like this and he was about to go in for the finishing blow and extraction of the dominion.

"Rebels, the dominion is bellow us. They are gathered at the shrine in a tight group to pray and sacrifice. Switch your weapons to stun and unload on them, fish in a barrel." Lusk said as he switched vision to his clones.

"We take out the three on the left, sniper will handle the right. Other commandos will be needed to secure the slaves for extraction." Lusk said as he switched over to his comms to get in touch with the sniper.

"You'll be shooting through a wall, two targets standing side by side." Lusk said as he reached into his pocket.

Grabbing an energy knife he and each clone trooper activated them and started to cut holes into the floor bellow them. Making sure the disks of coral didn't hit the ground Lusk could see the dining hall floor. Dead slaves littered the ground and the table was clear. Sticking his head down he used his HUD to mark two target outlines of the Warriors for the sniper.

"On my mark." he said as each clone hooked on a rope to the individual hole they had cut.

"three, two, one, Mark." and with that the commandos dropped from the ceiling their weapons opening fire and gunning down three of the Warriors guarding the front doors out of the dining hall.

They still needed to secure the slaves but the operation was on its way.

 

[Dresden Verbrennung]

Tranqs? No one said anything about tranqs.

Dresden swore violently, if only in his head.

Too late now, they were committed. He had to think fast if he was going to get paid. If he had some warning he could have packed some nonlethals and got much, much closer, but it was too late for that now. Time to improvise.

The merc dropped the magazine from his rifle and picked out a new one from the stack to his right. He didn't have anything that was, in the traditional sense, nonlethal. He did, however, have a way to put the targets down without letting them bleed out. And that involved fire.

Armor piercing incendiary rounds do not, as a rule, make large holes in flesh. They're designed to punch through light armor by putting as much pressure behind a hardened penetrator tip, usually tungsten or depleted uranium, followed by a jet of molten copper designed to burn through the rest of the way and spall on the backside, wreaking havoc and generally killing anyone in the vicinity to death.

When they struck flesh, the results were a little less dramatic. They created a narrow wound channel, and the copper tended to cauterize as it went. The victim would immediately go into shock, but wouldn't die out.

In this case, the fact that the targets were all Vong worked to Dresden's advantage. Their physiology was vastly different from that of humans, even if they did superficially resemble them. He could probably hit a large, fleshy part of them without worrying about severing any arteries. And since they were all facing the middle of the room, that meant the marksman had a perfect target to work with.

The muffled thump of the rifle rang out 4 times: the first to break the glass window, the second, third, and fourth shots all taking the targets in the ass cheeks.

Three shots, twelve holes, three targets down.

Painful and humiliating, but it wouldn't kill them, and as tough as Vong tended to be, they'd be back on their feet in a few hours. In the mean time, they were all on the ground, clutching their backsides in pain.

"This is overwatch, my targets are down."

 

[Stardust Solus Skirae]

Stardust gave an nod listening"right drop in on the party and crash it"she switched her blaster and decided to get ready to force lightning a few,enough to paralyze temporary till they got them secured

Alright I'm ready to pounce"she said as she waited for the go steadying herself and breath preparing a wave of lightning to completely disable any vong in her sight"

She dropped on the mark and grinned"flash"she yelled and sent a lightning wave out to strike those in sight before pulling her now stun blaster and firing while one hand shot lightning bolts to disable more "hahahah you vong are stupid!
[member="Commander Lusk"]
[member="Blane Nightfall"]
[member="Dresden Verbrennung"]

 

[Blane Nightfall]

Blane had his rifle prepared all he needed to do was to switch it o stun which he did. As soon as the signal was given, Blane begun shooting in the left at every single warrior he saw, well those who were still alive at least, after this he would aim at the other vong attempting to shoot and stun them, this was almost the end he thought, after this all they need is extraction and if everything goes well, they saved some slaves and got a new kind of... "weapon" sort of.

[member="stardust"] [member="Commander Lusk"] [member="Dresden Verbrennung"]

 

[Commander Lusk]

[member="Dresden Verbrennung"] [member="stardust"] [member="Blane Nightfall"]

All targets down. With star doing her force lightening gig, Blane helping with his rifle, and the sniper taking down two of the Warriors on the left it gave the clones the needed time and clearance to go and eliminate the other warriors and get to the slave pen. Taking a gander at it Lusk wished they had arrived earlier, by the looks of it there were about fifteen slaves left in a hold that was designed to contain at least thirty, maybe forty if you packed them in.

"Cut them loose, secure the prisoners. Rebels escort the slaves out, Send in the Trandoshans for cleanup." And with that Lusk and his team began to use their augmented exosuit strength to lift up Vong and take them away.

Taking the dozen on the way out Lusk passed by the two warriors screaming in pain on the ground that the sniper had removed from the fight. Taking his pistol out he put two rounds in their heads each before holstering it once again.

"Quick extraction now." He said on his comms.

The team worked their way outdoors from the estate and waiting in the courtyard was their transport that would whisk them away to safety. The clones set down the prisoners in the dropship and kept a watchful eye on them. As for Lusk he stood in the doorway of the ship waiting for [member="stardust"] and [member="Blane Nightfall"] to come out with the slaves and get into the drop ship so they could get out of there.

"You want us to swing by and get you overwatch?" Lusk said as he waited.

 

[Dresden Verbrennung]

"I've got my own arrangements. I'll keep eyes on til you bug out, then I drop the building so they don't have any evidence to sift through. Gas explosions and all that."

It had been a risky move, rigging the building to blow, but it was one that the mercenary had long relied on to cover his tracks. No matter how sloppy the mission, so long as no one called the cops, a good gas explosion would wipe away any evidence. Sure it raised questions all on its own, but even if the cause was determined to be artificial, the finger usually got pointed at whatever terrorist group happened to be popular at the moment.

No one ever thought commando raid. That was just a thing in holodramas, right?

So far the neighborhood was still quiet. There were no sirens, no concerned neighbors looking out windows, nothing. Which was a shame, really. Dresden had been looking forward to blowing stuff up.

[member="Commander Lusk"]
[member="Blane Nightfall"]
[member="stardust"]

 

[Stardust Solus Skirae]

Alright Blane time to be hero's hahahha"she ran over to the pin and started cutting them lose using what she knew to speak vong " -run and get as far away as you can-"she said and motioned to the door for them to leave, the slaves started walking out as she walked beside them looking around"clean op hahahah"she watched as the slaves got out and ran"alright slaves are free

She got into the the drop ship and smiled
Hahah pretty easy

[member="Blane Nightfall"] [member="Commander Lusk"]
[member="Dresden Verbrennung"]

 

[Blane Nightfall]

Blane scratched his head with an awkward look then suddenly pointed his AR-47 at the slaves "Hold!" he said with a frowned face "Sorry pal, you're not gonna be slaves from now on, but we can't simply let you go around here... You are coming with us, at least for a while, understood? Wait until things will calm down, then you'll be free." After that he walked with the slaves to the ship and got in with his AR-47 back in his back, now was the time to leave, mission complet, nice and easy... How he missed these type of missions.
He could only hope that Spaarti is going to make the balance of war to be in the favor of the republic, or at least, the rebels. "I guess this is gonna be in the books, eh?" He said to Lusk.

[member="stardust"] [member="Dresden Verbrennung"] [member="Commander Lusk"]

 

[Commander Lusk]

[member="stardust"] [member="Dresden Verbrennung"] [member="Blane Nightfall"]

"You don't even know who I am." Lusk said dryly to Blane to imply how off the books this was.

With his helmet still firmly on his head he watched from behind his visor as the slaves and rebels loaded up into the ship. Once they were onboard the ship lifted up into the air, out of the courtyard and into the sky. With his clone commando brothers and sisters with him he kept a calm and quiet demeanor about him. They hadn't started up any alarms but that was about to change right now. With the Trandoshans on their way they would camp out in the city and take credit for the attack, do a whole hostage situation and eventually the dominion would be returned after Spaarti did some digging in their brains.

"All teams clear overwatch, demo is a go. Good luck down there." Lusk said as the ship pulled away further.

"Clean operation everyone. We'll be headed back to Cartao where you can all arrange your rides back home. Great job." Lusk took his seat on the drop ship and relaxed a bit.

 

[Dresden Verbrennung]

With three days, twenty kilos of detonite, and a crap ton of blasting caps, Dresden could have dropped the building as neatly as any demo crew. Hell, if the wind was right, it wouldn't even kick up all that much dust.

That, however, was boring. Dresden had spent the last several days being bored. He wanted boom. Besides, they were framing terrorists. Terrorists, by and large, tended not to be subtle.

So to that end, the merc had rigged the building to go off in spectacular fashion.

The central core of the building was seeded with smaller charges that would detonate before the big blast. Their purpose was to weaken the structure, but not necessarily to collapse it. That would ruin the main even.

The main event had taken nearly a day of sneaking all on its own. The hardest part had been convincing the building's biological machinery to flood the basement with pure oxygen. It had started up earlier this morning. Meanwhile, the mercenary had, with great difficulty, smuggled several drums of liquid propane down there. Each one was pressurized, so when the valve was opened via handy timed servos, they would dump several hundred cubic meters of the flammable gas into the enclosed space, which was also currently an oxygen rich environment.

In other words, the basement had been converted into a giant fuel air bomb.

As soon as the shuttle was clear of immediate danger, Dresden punched in the detonation code.

The fireball rocketed upwards, driving a pressure wave before it that took the weakened floors with it. Several thousand tons of debris shot into the sky, followed shortly thereafter by a rapidly expanding mushroom cloud. The night lit up as bright as day, and several nearby buildings were instantly ignited by the heat from the conflagration.

"Good luck, gents. Overwatch out."

[member="Commander Lusk"]
[member="Blane Nightfall"]
[member="stardust"]