Operation Nightshrike: Black Ops on Seltos (Fringe vs Protectorate)

[Marcus Tritum]

(OOC: Intended to be a friendly black ops skirmish. Open to any Omega forces and Fringe forces. However, Fringe must be in katarn class commando armor and appear as simple soldier operatives to suit the mission parameters. I tagged a few random Protectorate and Fringe people to get the word out)
@[member="Ayden Cater"] @[member="Valerie Re'Daull"] @[member="Aeron Kreelan"] @[member="Hannibal Oryen"] @[member="Moira Skaldi"]

I clung to my gun and gear as the stealth shuttle whoofed through atmosphere. Look left, four other operatives stood there. All of 'em were suited up in matte black Katarn-class Commando armor. Good stuff, that. I took in a deep breath. Then I jumped.

Even inside my helmet I could hear the roar of the wind. My stomach dropped so fast I think it disappeared from the galaxy. HALO jumps were the worst if you hated heights. Not that I hated 'em. Adrenaline rushed through my system. People say it takes courage to do the stuff we do. I don't know about that. We just loved danger. I think that makes us kinda stupid. But anyway, there I was plummeting hundreds of feet with my fellow operatives and all I could think of was damn, this is fun.

I hit the repulsorpack I was wearing and I snapped to a slow descent. Below me was a black expanse of nothingness. I switched on my nightvision. Everything was suddenly illuminated in eerie green light. Much better. I saw trees. Lots of trees. Big, coniferous things that towered into the sky and made landing one hell of a nightmare.

One moment I was hanging in the breeze, the next I came smashing down through tree branches. My armor made the unpleasant branches more of an annoyance than a real danger. Oof. I'd landed on my back. Air rushed out of my lungs. Hello, ground. I rose quickly and ditched the repulsorpack. My fellow operatives linked up with me. So far, the mission was going fairly smoothly. We torched the repulsorpacks and hid the remains underneath some ferns. Nobody would recognize them as Fringe tech. Nobody would recognize us as being Fringe operatives.

The whole mission was a black op. If the Protectorate caught us, the Fringe would claim they had no idea what the Protectorate was talking about. And the rest of the Galaxy would have to believe 'em. No proof. Anyway, our target was up ahead: a mining installation that supplied the Protectorate with phrikite. Pretty rare stuff. Made damn good armor. Our job was to blow the whole thing up.

We came up on it quick through the pines. The facility was supposed to be lightly guarded. As soon as I saw the two dropships on the landing pad, I knew something was up.

"Down," I rasped. I pointed to the pad. But we had a mission. "Operation's still a go. Take out the perimeter guards, then we'll blow our way in."

Baltar, our marksman specialist, went off to an overwatch position. The rest of us moved toward the facility. I had a bad feeling about this.

We moved like ghosts until we got to one of the facility's durasteel walls. There was an air duct here. Cliche, but easy entrance. Sham took out his plasma torch and cut our way in. We removed the grate, crawled inside the air duct, then cut our way out and into the facility. Now we only had to ghost our way to the power core, strap some charges, and blow it all up.

Just then, a klaxon began to wail outside.

"Feth," I muttered. We'd been made.

 

[Laura Na'Varro]

Ardellian was the shuttle pilot. He'd flown some of the best starfighters in the galaxy, and as an elite Republic fighter pilot he'd been through some hairy flying. Asteroid-dodging, missile-evading ... and then there were the grenades he'd jumped on for the boys at the various cantinas he and his fellow fighter jocks had graced during their many serving tours. Then he'd quit, because the Republic was turning into a joke. Then he'd spent some time as an unrepentantly unemployed alcoholic back home on Corellia, which all-in-all had probably been the best time of his life so far. It was way less dangerous, that was for sure. Then somehow, he'd ended up in Fringe space. Sure, the fethers paid well but they were through-and-through a weird sort. Dash had heard that one of the High Councilors was a cannibal. Right-o then. Best not get mixed up with that lot. The shuttle he was flying was a standard bucket-of-bolts, except for the stygium cloaking device. None of these Protectorate bishes would know he was here, which suited him just fine. He was technically a Protectorate citizen, though, so ... well, technically.

Dash had a look back at the lads in the hangar ready to make their jump and shook his head. Fething ground-pounders. Bunch of lunkheads, going into a firefight while he sat high and pretty. He'd considered joining the infantry as a teenager, then realised that if he joined fleet he'd get three hot meals a day no matter what ... fly a mission in the morning, go drinking and try to get laid in the night. The life fit him like a glove.

"Have fun, motherkarkers.." He flipped @[member="Dak Canton"] the bird and grinned as the ground-pounder and his boys made their atmo-jump. Crazy fething infantry nuts, he thought as he fumbled for his hip flask and took a swig. Dash had considered quitting drinking for this bad boy of a black-ops mission but had decided against it. Best not be getting the shakes when he needed to do some fancy flying.

Minutes passed. They were boring. Atmo flying was always boring. Almost as boring as hyperspace. Dash listened to the comms as Canton and his boys did their ghost, stealth-ops whisper speaking thing they did. He almost switched that off ... thank the Force he didn't.

Alarms sounded. The gig was up. Dash sat back in his chair, pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand in disgust, and then took hold of the controls.

"Canton, I'm inbound on your position to provide some air support. You can wave those dropships goodbye. Tubby out."

Rotating and tilting the ship to his right, the Sekairo-class stealth transport, completely cloaked, moved off into the clouds. He'd be completely invisible here, which would make his pass all the more surprising.

 

[Nyos Val]

Nyos had been at the mining installation on Seltos to inspect the incoming product for armor for the Protectorate forces when the intruder alarms sounded. He ran to the operations center and peered out the window to see a small band of black clad armored soldiers firing on the guard towers. Nyos walked back to the communications console, Out over the loud speaker Nyos' metallic voice echoed...You are intruding on Protectorate ground, cease and desist or you will be met with deadly force. I will give you until I get outside to leave or I will kill you where you stand. Nyos simultaneously sent info to OP HQ where he hoped his allies would see and respond ASAP @[member="Ayden Cater"] @[member="HK-36"] @[member="Noah Corek"]
Nyos grabbed a freshly made chest plate made from the factory attached to the mine and with the speed of the his cybernetics, he was outside and in the air, jumping the fence in less than 10 seconds. The OP soldiers stationed here were wearing the same armor as Nyos as they were right here next to the motherload of it.

Looks like your time is up boys, prepare your headstones.

Running at the intruders, no weapons drawn yet, but his ever present vibrosaber and heavy bolter could be seen on his person as he charged.



@[member="Dak Canton"] @[member="Dash Ardellian"]

 

[Marcus Tritum]

"Copy that, Tubby. Mission's blown. Torch the place. We're held up on the ground, need you to begin airstrike on the main facility. Take it out, we'll worry about our own hides, over."

Hopefully our inbound air support could fulfill what we couldn't. Right now I had to worry about getting my men back to the emergency extraction point alive. The barely audible whine of sniper fire came from the hillock in the forest where Baltar had taken up his overwatch position. I glanced to my men and motioned them back out of the hole we'd come through. We needed to get back into the forest. Odds would be better. But in between us and the forest's edge was a field of grass. This would be tight.

"One tango down, more hostiles closing on your location. Move, Corporal."

"Copy, we're moving."

Then the voice came over the loudspeakers. Stang. This was no good. We jumped out the hole in the side of the facility and started racing toward the treeline. Hopefully Dash's airstrike would buy us some cover. I looked over my shoulder.

A dark figure leapt over the fence and came at us in a flat out run. A really, really fast run. Sithspit. We wouldn't make it. Fighting would just give time for the other troops behind the front runner to catch up. No way.

"Keep going, get to the treeline and get to extract. I'll handle this," my men hesitated for a second. "That's an order," I growled. The chain of command. An ever present motivator. They sprinted away. I turned around, trying to ignore their fading footsteps. Going to one knee for stabilization, I raised my carbine, a blas-tech Ol' Reliable, successor to the E-11. I leveled the sights on the hostile coming right for me, @[member="Nyos Val"], and squeezed away. Three bolts toward the chest, two to the head.

I don't care who you are. If you're human, five blaster bolts ain't something you can just shrug off like nothin'. But hey, I'd heard Jedi can do it without breaking a sweat. And I didn't know if this guy was a Jedi or not. So as soon as I fired off the five rounds I launched the frag grenade in the under-over, aiming for the ground several feet in front of the speed demon. If the main blast didn't get him the shrapnel would.

@[member="Dash Ardellian"]

 

[Nyos Val]

Nyos barreled at the incoming fire, letting the three rounds hit the chest piece, testing the durability of the armor and brought an arm up to his face and let the bolts be absorbed into his internal Matrix. His eye followed the movement of the soldier as he appeared to have tossed something on the ground in front of Nyos' path. Jumping at the last second, the explosion actually lifted Nyos higher into the air, and with the explosion and debris used as cover, Nyos drew his vibrosaber, the length of a two handed sword, heavy and sharp, the blade came down towards @[member="Dak Canton"]'s head. The power behind the blade induced by the cybernetic arms that drove it down, would be enough to kill even if Nyos were wielding a stick. Since his opponent was in a knelt stance, it would be extremely difficult to dodge completely. If he succeeded however, he would still be faced with the concussion of the impact.
___________________________________________________________
The station was now on high alert as the Lt from Fondor made contact with the intruders. The head security officer got his men into position to defend the station. They had brought out the launchers and the AA turrets were spinning up and loosing rounds out at the incoming bird. With the amount of firepower against one bird, the pilot would have to have god-like reflexes or run away from the likely death the stations defenses were spitting.

@[member="Dash Ardellian"]

 

[Marcus Tritum]

I stared in a second of shock as the guy took five rounds of blasterfire, then used the explosion of the frag to leap into the air. Stang, was my heart ever pounding. The thrill of combat sent adrenaline sizzling through my body in a kind of breathless rush. My training kicked in pretty quick, otherwise I'd probably be dead. I had a good two seconds during which the hostile was flying through the air toward me. Pushing off the ground with my non-kneeling foot, I used the momentum to transition into a forward combat roll. I tucked my head down and rolled over my right shoulder. In armor, rolling on grass, I barely felt a thing.

I came up kneeling and twisted my torso around. I'd rolled underneath the hostile just as he was coming down. Now I was positioned behind him. His blade hacked into the dirt. I didn't take time to enjoy the fact that that wasn't my head his sword was whacking. I just opened fire. Bwhop, bwhop, bwhop! Three rounds, nearly point blank range, right at his back. @[member="Nyos Val"]

 

[Nyos Val]

Nyos came down hard as his blade impacted the dirt. The concussive wave from the impact of Nyos hitting the ground in front and the grenade detonating behind. The soldier wouldn't be able to get a decent bead on him. Plus the explosion had just occurred and he rolled into it. That alone should put a bit of a damper on the armor and the person inside it. The shots that did leave the mans gun went wide and peppered a tree behind Nyos. Pulling his blade from the dirt with ease, he ran at the soldier again, and in a flash, his bolter was out and spitting fire as he ran the meter between the two fighters. With less ammunition per clip, a bolter was good only for short range, but it countered that with the amount of damage each round dealt. Nyos was confident that the soldier had no idea who he had just come up against and nothing could truly save him now.

@[member="Dak Canton"]

 

[Marcus Tritum]

Cyborgs definitely don't throw up concussive waves when they hit the ground. That stuff is only in the holovids. The frag grenade shot from the grenade launcher of the Blas-Tech rifle had detonated a few seconds earlier and sent the hostile into the air. So, here's the problem I encountered. The grenade explosion was far enough away from me that it didn't damage me, two it had already exploded prior to my forward roll and second salvo of shots. Three, cyborgs don't cause concussive waves when they hit the ground. Certainly not enough to throw off my aim. Not unless they were damn big and heavy. So why in the blasted space was my aim off?

Who knew.

Didn't really seem to matter as I caught a glimpse of the invincible hostile whipping out a Protectorate bolter. Uh oh. A bolter round slammed into the shoulder pauldron of my Katarn-class commando armor. I spun around, pain flaring in my arm, and fell on my ass. My left arm had gone numb, but I couldn't ascertain the damage other than that it was pretty stanging useless right now. My blas-tech rifle didn't seem to be having any effect on the hostile, so I let it drop as I fell. Another two bolter rounds seared over my head as I collapsed into the grass. I reached for the Concussion Pistol at my thigh.

One of the skills I pride myself on is draw time. The fastest gun in the galaxy was a guy by the name of Mob Gunden who clocked in at a quickdraw time of two one-hundredths of a second. He could hit five targets with pin-point accuracy in under a second. Cool as ice, that guy. Now while I'm no galactic event winner, I can draw pretty damn fast. About six one-hundredths of a second.

I palmed the concussion pistol almost faster than the eye could see, held it close to my hip, and fired three shots in quick succession. The rounds in a concussion pistol are the same as those in a Stouker Concussion Rifle. One shot had a meter-wide radius or more of explosive power and could knock a humanoid back three to four paces. These rounds could torch through Imperial Hazard Trooper armor. They could certainly blast through whatever my tango was wearing. I might get some of the damage, but better that than be dead.

@[member="Nyos Val"]

OOC:

Spoiler

Bob Munden, real life gunslinger with actual .02 draw speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsU5AMxvlKg
the concussion pistol: http://starwarsrp.net/topic/23762-stouker-concussion-pistol-the-pacifier/

 

[Nyos Val]

The bolts that flew at Nyos were closer than he thought, one hitting his back, and the others glancing off his arm. He closed the distance that appeared to be growing in length as his opponent drew a sidearm quite fast. Nyos felt the full force of the three concussive shot hit him right in the center of his mass. It threw him back, spinning through the air. With enough time, Nyos could've regained his orientation but there was a tree just too close. Nyos had just enough time to face the tree and brace as he went through it...crack...sending the tree to the ground and Nyos flipping off to the side.

Standing up, Nyos' mask broken, he ripped it of to reveal blonde hair and a cybernetic right eye. A scar traveled the length of his face from forehead to jaw. His pistol broken from the tree but the saber somehow still very much intact. He spat blood from his mouth and from his belt pouch, popped a bacta-stim into his side to slow the internal bleeding. It was nothing he hasn't dealt with before, he took on the Bando Gorra's worst and survived, albeit with a few more replacements than prior but still alive. Gladly, Nyos snatched up his sword and ran back towards the man. The absorbed energy from the earlier bolts now poured into the rotors of his legs, picking up speed to an amazing speed. The had been on the ground, now he may have risen, but with his speed, Nyos would be on him in a flash. The Matrices in Nyos' body had stored up tons of energy before as a principle, and with that, Nyos could fight at high speeds for at least an hour. The saber came across the midsection of the intruder with force enough to bring down another tree.

@[member="Dak Canton"]

 

[HK-36]

@[member="Dash Ardellian"] @[member="Nyos Val"] @[member="Dak Canton"]
//I'll join to put some resistance for Dash for now Plus I could use some phrik, be patient with me if I won't be able to respond on Wednesday too much, another 12 hour shift at work.//

And meanwhile just as the attack began,
HK was conducting business of his own on the planet, unofficially, after all, Seltos wasn't part of the Protectorate. As such, any defense forces it had were not for HK to command, and he had little to no back-up, just the team he brought with himself and presence of Nyos and possibly others, but he was seldom aware of that.

The droid was just talking to one of the trading representatives when the alarm went off, he was shaking the man's hand, closing a deal as the red lights began to blare. He looked up at all of it, just slightly shaking his head,
"Danger's great bouncing bosoms, I can never catch a break with those things."
He muttered to himself, he had his standard armament on him, he was not that worried about facing the raiders, as far as he knew, it was just another standard pirate hit on an unaligned planet. Little did the droid knew that the Fringe was behind it all.

He bowed to the representatives he was speaking to and motioned for the group of elite Iron Company Knights to join them,
"My men will join you to provide protection, please, leave this facility and travel underground to a safe house."
The men, CEO's and other managers of one of the local phrik mines, nodded back to him returning the bows and answered with their thanks as their own guards and Knights mingled in escort.

HK turned around then, towards the exit, with a swish of his chameleon cloak he disappeared from sight, entering his sneak mode as he prepared for any upcoming battle.

On an encrypted channel, HK sent out this communication to an unseen ship in the orbit,
"Come to my position and relay distress call to the Protectorate territory, summon the Siege Tower and whoever else Lord Protector will be willing to spare."
Right now it was presumably just HK and his stealth ship and Nyos on the planet from Protectorate, but should they need help, or should the conflict escalate, hopefully they will not be alone.

And currently,
The mysterious ship was a fast stealth attack ship, one HK has had since that Undead incident around the Galaxy, a prize he received during one of the battles, but he never really got around to using it much, mostly lending it to the Protectorate for any stealth missions they needed to conduct, and never showing it off that much. Well, at least his enemies weren't that aware of him possessing it as a result of that, and finally, he had a chance to play around with it a bit.

The ship was called the Dark Desire, HK still didn't get around to renaming it, a Dark Harvester model, it had little space to carry large teams and the only crew it needed was just the pilot. It was perfect for covert missions and swift hit-and-run engagements, which is how the droid meant to use it currently.

So, the Dark Desire was in place somewhere above the facility, so far only keeping watch on the enemy movements, the ship was awaiting engagement with enemy vessels, expecting standard pirate skiffs and fighters, unaware that there was yet another stealth ship around closing in on the facility..

 

[Marcus Tritum]

Every shot struck home, sending the hostile into a tree. Splinters sprayed into the air. Pardon, I'd sent him through a tree. The pine fell with a resounding crash. I grumbled something that would make propriety blush and got to my feet. My arm tingled, regaining a little feeling. Painful feeling. I looked at it. The shoulder pauldron appeared as if it'd been struck by a meteorite. A fat, black smoking crater made the thing look like a hunk of plastic.

Metal clinked.

I looked up. The hostile got up, spat blood, and then jammed a stim into his side. Alright, so my jaw might have dropped a little. Isn't every day I come across an immortal, see. I noted the cybernetic eye. Oh. That explained a lot. Cyborg. My surprise disappeared as the Protectorate soldier charged me with a sword. Well, I'm no tactical genius, but when someone runs at me with a sword I figure I can get a few shots in before they reach me. Turns out, I only squeezed off one round that went wide. Stang, this guy was fast.

The guy probably thought I was insane - maybe I am - but I actually stepped toward him as he swung. The vibrosword whistled through the air and into my right side. The fact that I stepped into the blow meant he couldn't hit me with the part of the blade that carried the full weight of his swing. Instead I was getting smashed more toward the hilt of the sword. Luckily, commando armor is rated to withstand even a lightsaber strike or two, not to mention the explosion of a grenade. The sword cut a deep gash into the duraplast and gave me one hell of a bruise, but I gave as good as I got. Standing nearly toe to toe with the cyborg, I jammed the barrel of my concussion pistol against his ribcage and pulled the trigger twice.

@[member="Nyos Val"]

 

[Nyos Val]

At the instance when the soldier stepped into Nyos' attack, he became dead. The saber dug into the body of his armor, wedging itself like an anchor. Nyos stepped in closer on his opponents side to avoid the pistol he felt moving to his midsection, and with all his might and metal, shot his Titanium alloy hand right for the side of his attacker. Nyos did so with his hand flat and straight like a knife, fingers first into the softest spot in the armor. He would hope to thrust his hand in through the armor and flesh, right into the mans organs, a hand sized hole would bleed the man out in seconds. As he thrust his hand in towards the intruder, he pulled simultaneously with the arm holding his vibrosaber to create a scissor motion, hopefully crushing the mans insides completely. If successful in finishing this man, Nyos would take all preparations to bury him properly. Nyos felt pride as he fought such a strong fighter as this.

@[member="Dak Canton"]

 

[Marcus Tritum]

I don't care how hard your hands are, they ain't going to be burrowing through duraplast. Unless this guy could pack the power of a point-blank grenade explosion into his hand he wouldn't be getting through my armor. Pretty sure even a Force User wouldn't be able to do that. But damn, did it hurt when it hit. The titanium hand smashed into my side with what felt like the force of a wrecking ball. My armor held, but my skin beneath it didn't fare too well. Pain caused my eyes to dance with stars. I got a sick feeling that he might've broken a rib, or at least caused some deep-bone bruising, but I didn't have too much time to worry 'bout that.

A sudden crushing pressure started to build up as the cyborg began to push in a scissoring motion with the vibrosword. Stang. Maybe he could rip through my armor. The stress on the duraplast was beginning to show as it began to slowly crumple inward, smashin' against my ribs and hurting like hell. His tactic didn't work as fast as he apparently thought it would. Not fast enough to stop me from raising my concussion pistol, again pointing it as his ribcage at point blank range, and firing. I kept squeezing the trigger, firing round after round. If he tried to dodge I'd just re-aim and keep firing until I blew him off me.

@[member="Nyos Val"]

 

[Laura Na'Varro]

Stealth systems engaged and in cloud cover, Dash, his co-pilot and their stealth transport were ready to make a pass. The Sekairo-class was a stealth transport that could pack a punch. Two dual-laser cannon turrets provided some protection against enemy craft, and then there were the proton torpedoes and cluster missiles. Dash could do some serious damage to the mining facility, and he knew it. He hadn't even poked his head out of the cloud yet, or even made a pass, so with the stealth systems engaged they wouldn't know he was coming (@[member="Nyos Val"]). Brilliant. The slightly drunk but still functioning Corellian had a look over the schematics once again. It was a civvie mining installation so there was little in the way of protection. Four AA-guns were installed that could put paid to a squadron of pirate skiffs, but this ship was a Fringe military vessel and top of the line. The two dropships were also a target, as well as the supports of the mining facility itself. Dash took another swig of his Southern Corellian and winked at his co-pilot. It was time to blow this monkey.

Dash started planning his trajectory. If he came from behind the small mountains to the rear of the facility, he could drop a hammer on these bishes without them knowing he was coming. They would have a five second visual on him before he started dropping bombs on them, tops. Then it was anyone's game. Gods, Dash loved this stealth drive. He loved it very, very much. And flying in atmo had its advantages. You could sit in a little pocket of gravity if you knew your game, letting it cushion your altitude. It was easy to get lost in space. In atmo, you knew which way was up and which way was down. What a luxury.

Rolling on his y-axis, Dash came out of the cloud cover and dropped fast. He was about ten klicks from the facility, and closing very quickly. Dropping to a low altitude of about two hundred metres, he righted the craft and came over the mountains at a pace. And he had already chosen his targets.

Dash fired, and two proton torpedoes roared towards the dropships. A second later he had switched over to his cluster missiles and fired those as well, sending twenty of them speeding towards the facilities supports and AA guns in varying arcs and speeds. Against a civilian facility like this, the results would be very interesting. Lots of fire, lots of explosions, lots of damage.

"Canton, hit me up if you need someone to get your ass out of there, over."

Little did he know that his ship wasn't the only stealth ship in the vicinity.

@[member="Dak Canton"] @[member="HK-36"]

 

[HK-36]

@[member="Dash Ardellian"]
//Posting from my phone while the day at work is still slow, once I'm back home I'll correct the post for any spelling errors//

Defending the Civilian Station

There was little the Dark Desire could do to save those dropships, the attack was a surprise, after all, but it did alerted them about the presence of stealth enemy. There was a pause of only few seconds before the cluster missile assault but few seconds was all they needed.

Once the missiles primed and fired the Desire, HK will totally rename the ship after this mission, was much better prepared. Revealing their own presence the Desire fired with their rapid-fire cannons, sending two missiles of their own, concussive kind, towards where the other cloaked ship was firing from.

The Desire would be coming right at the cloaked shuttle as it opened fire, it would finish the run by going either above or by either side of the enemy ship. It would seem that their engines were a close match but the Desire still had the upper hand in that aspect, and it should be able to outmaneuver the transport in a long run. After all, Sekairo were made for battles and large scale combat, not precise dogfights.

Either way, the blaster fire from the Desire sprayed aimed at the missiles as soon as they fired. The fact that it was twenty of them leaving a single source meant they would make an easier target as a whole. The act of each missile payload being forcefully detonated by intercepting blaster fire could trigger a chain reaction that disabled those missiles the ship missed in a spectacle of lights and explosions, possibly even catching the Sekairo shuttle in zone of shockwave and rain of shrapnel?

The cluster missiles attack should be reflected by that, or at least greatly deducted, giving the defense systems of the civilian base to counter attack now that the presence of the enemy was known. The few AA guns they had were not much but they were better than nothing! Besides, they could use this time to evacuate more of their personnel to safety.

Now, as to the two concussion missiles the Desire fired. They were aimed in the direction of where the Sekairo was firing from but they did had tracking mechanisms of their own should their course need to change. In fact, only two were fired in order to check how well the tracking mechanisms would work against the shuttle. Possible as well as any other ship and then more would be coming their way, possibly not at all, turning the missiles into dumbfire, but then, should they miss, well at least only two were wasted.

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

Hannibal was the first into the breach, throwing caution into the wind as per usual. Like everyone else, he was dressed up in the commando armor. Not something he usually liked; too heavy for him. But he could make it work. He had regressed back to blaster-based weaponry for the purpose of this mission. It'd be weird if everyone else was toting BlasTech while he carried in Czerka's latest. Uniformity was important for these missions. He was here to raze havoc with some of the most intense badasses the Fringe had to offer. Even better, they were conducting it against the Protectorate. Maybe everyone else had forgotten about Kayri, but Hannibal hadn't. He hadn't stopped regarding the Protectorate with condescension after it either. He was more than willing to salt their wounds and spit on their pride by blowing up something they liked.

However, his plans were suddenly dashed when klaxons started going off. Prompting his squadmates to bail.

"Guys? Guys! Where inna' Corellian hells are ya goin'?"

Too late, they were gone. None of them had bothered to wait for Hannibal. Fine, they wanted to run off, they could run off. Hannibal would Rambo this crap on his own. They'd give him a secret medal when he got back, too. Those mooks would be too focused on what was going on outside to realize that Hannibal goddamn Oryen was here to solo their poodoo to high hell.

"One man," Hannibal announced quietly to himself in a faux-movie announcer tone. "Alone! Betrayed by the country he loves..."

He prepared to advance into the facility, unperturbed and fully expecting the guards he was about to bump into.

 

[Nyos Val]

Nyos heard a satisfying crunch as his hand connected with the soldiers armor soundly. Though his eye noted a failure in a few fingers from hitting such solid armor. He looked into the visor of the man in front of him as shots rang out beneath his view. He felt himself being thrown from his position in front of the soldier. As he was lifted away, his grip on his vibrosaber tightened and it slid along the gash in the armor, the full three feet of the blade dragging through the gash. The energy edged blade worked it's way out of the gash in the armor. Nyos looked up as he flew, noticing a pair of shredded fingers on his left hand. Sharp edges and and exposed wiring. Slamming into the ground, sliding in the dirt until he stopped a few meters away. Nyos dug himself out of the ground and stretched his limbs. This time, his right shoulder wasn't rotation as well. He looked over and witnessed a loose rotor. With his broken hand he shoved the rotor in place. Hopefully holding out long enough to finish the fight. He noticed the soldiers discarded rifle and claimed it. The vibrosaber sat now back in its sheath. Holding the rifle in his 'good' hand he aimed for the soldier and fired. As the rifle shuddered, blood began to drop from his mouth. The internal bleeding was worse this time.

@[member="Dak Canton"]

 

[Marcus Tritum]

The crushing pressure on my sides let up. I tried to breath deep, but it hurt like hell. Hoping I hadn't punctured a lung, I turned toward the treeline and staggered away as fast as I could. Blasterfire screeched behind me. Several somethings smacked into my backplate and sent me stumbling forward. I almost tripped again.

Growling a curse, I twisted around and leveled my concussion pistol at him. Part of me couldn't believe the cyborg was still standing. But right now he was probably in a worse shape. Seeing how Katarn-class can handle a full-blown laser cannon, I didn't get too riled up about him firing my own damn weapon at me. Still made me a little mad though. Seeing some guy with my gun just didn't set well. So what, they were mass-produced? I'd have to get over it. Sometimes you had to sacrifice things to complete the mission. I was just happy it was a gun and not one of my men.

I squeezed off two shots, aiming for his legs since I couldn't get through whatever armor he wore, then turned and kept running for the tree line.

@[member="Nyos Val"]

 

[Nyos Val]

Nyos watched the soldier fire then turn to run, Nyos was forced to strafe to the left to avoid the shots. He then planted his feet, aimed and fired at the soldiers legs. Specifically the back of the knees. Hoping to take the feet out from under the soldier giving Nyos the chance to capture and or take him out. Nyos ran towards the soldier as fast as he could, but internal damage slowed him to a medium sprint. He could hear the rotors in his legs whining more audibly than usual but systems suggested only minor damage to all components. He would fire again in a few short bursts if his first shots missed. Continuing to aim for the legs.

@[member="Dak Canton"].

 

[Marcus Tritum]

BWHOP

Fire seared into my right leg, hot as a branding iron. Felt like somebody'd gone in and jammed a white-hot knife through my calf. My leg seized up and I stumbled to the ground. I tried to get up, but no joy. Didn't know the full extent of the damage, but getting up right now wasn't my top priority. Trying to ignore the tears of pain welling in my eyes and the sense of agony that riddled my whole body, I rolled onto my back.

I ejected the cylinder of my concussion pistol and slammed in another one, relying on years of combat experience and muscle memory to fight through the pain. On my back, I watched as the cyborg sprinted toward me. Pretty much a walking tank apparently. I fired three shots. One toward his legs and two to either side of his legs in such quick succession that it seemed as if I'd only pulled the trigger once. Keep coming straight for me and he'd get hit by the blast aimed at his legs. Dodge to the right or left and he'd get hit by one of the two shots on either side of him.

"Tooth for a tooth, buddy," I growled.

@[member="Nyos Val"]