Nerrone's Rangers IC [Thread 1]

"Oh no need for that. I've contacted someone and they on the way here in this building. I don't think there are artefacts though cause if I did see one, I give to museum. Sorry for offence mister commander Feren. Thanks again for battery."

The ventilation shaft creaked and groaned beneath Xol and Grecsh as they made their way through it. They were crawling through a duct right above the foyer, when the groans suddenly became a shriek, an ear-piercing scrape of metal on metal. The entire section was suddenly let loose from the ceiling, falling several feet to the hard floor with an almighty crash. The momentary silence that followed was punctuated by the *plink* *plink* of two cleanly severed bolts following them.

IO's machine-gun blast killed Corporal Bronsted instantly. Faust was only grazed by the shots, but lay motionless, hoping IO would think him dead. It apparently worked, as the large alien began chatting with the prisoner. Faust - slowly, as one can imagine - began to reach for his firearm.

(In case you weren't informed, I have permission to take control of Faust and Bronsted.)

Celdryc listened to Bor and positioned himself to the left of the door. He heard IO talking to Quark, and suprisingly not that angrily. Talking was fine for Celdryc. He would even be fine if IO slapped Quark in the face a few times. He deserved it.

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IO was pleased with Quarks answer. It simplified things to not have to drag him out of the building. Now he just had to deal with the figures outside the door, and of course Faust, who had made to much noise reaching for his pistol, who he decided to ignore for the moment, but had his machine gun ready. "Alright then. But this is a bad place to hang around, so we need to go somewhere else. All that needs to happen for us to get out of here is for you to explain to your friends outside the door whats happening. Okay?" he told Quark. He glanced back at Faust to check his progress at getting his pistol out.

"Got it" I said "I'll tell them what's happening, I'm just glad to get out" I said.

Bor hesitated, having heard every word spoken inside the room. He debated whether to lower his weapon and step slowly into the room, or jump in and blow IO to dust. Eventually he decided on the former and motioned to Celdryc to follow his lead. Bor lowered his Pulser (keeping it ready to fire, though) and stepped into the doorway. "Hello," he said awkwardly.

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Faust froze as IO glanced at him. His mind was racing: I'm done for, no question abou it. But if I can just get off a shot or two, maybe I won't have died for nothing. Faust waited until IO had turned his attention away from him, then continued to reach for the gun. Eventually he managed to grasp the handle. Now the tricky part. He began dragging it further into his hand, hoping they wouldn't notice the faint scraping sound it made.

Xol and Grecsh both felt the impact equally, and they scrambled out of the vent.

"Well," Grecsh whispered, "that was less than graceful."

They both loaded their weapons and began searching for the rest of the group.

Feren was alarmed by the crash that he heard behind him, he ducked back into the shadows and quickly got out his VX-4 that he had newly acquired. He switched it on, which caused a load of lights to flash and created a whirring sound, no-one in the foyer could possibly have not noticed this. He made a mental note to change the settings when he had a chance.

He did not want to die here.

He could make out two figures in the gloom, and aimed tentatively in their direction whilst creeping backwards towards the door where he had been told the evidence room was. he knew it would be locked, but hoped that it wasn't.

Chalen was well aware what Feren was about to do. He kept his gun at the ready as Chalen did the same with his pistol/blaster that he was givin to from one of the leaders. Even though Chalen has not yet learned how to use one, he hoped it would allow him to shoot something with luck. "Chalen thinks we should not fire weapons till we sure it's not bad creature that try to kill us." Chalen had trouble making out the two figures but he knew for certain that they were heading into another room.

Feren found the door to the evidence room unlocked — but more than that, the latch had been completely severed in the gap between door and frame. It swung open freely onto a small, dark room lined with padlocked evidence lockers. Nothing inside appeared to have been tampered with.

"Don't shoot. Don't shoot," Grecsh said through the darkness, "It's Grecsh and Xol." He squinted. "Chalen, who is this?"

Xol cautiously slipped through a doorway, in an attempt to find the others. What he encountered instead was the frightening form of a Mallium. Through the dark, he couldn't make out all its features, but he could tell it was a great deal more menacing than Kwa, even when she was mad. Shakily, he reached for his belt, where he kept the grenades Grecsh had given him, and threw one at the figure, diving back through the door and closing it.

Celdryc followed Bor through the door. He didn't see IO as being an imminent threat, but he did see Faust reaching to take a shot at IO. He took out his rifle and fired straight at Faust's pistol and hand.
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IO turned to the figures who had just entered the room. He also noticed one of them aiming his gun, but not at IO. He turned to see what his rifle was pointing at, and saw Faust aiming his pistol. Believing Celdryc had the situation handled, he ignored Faust and turned to the figures who had just entered the room. "I was wondering when you two would show yourselves. Who are you?" He asked them

"I'm Bor," said Bor. "This is my colleague Celdryc. And I see you've already met Quark, our engineer..." He glared at Quark. "Now, who are you?"

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Faust screamed as Celdryc's rifle blast melted his arm away. Blood began pouring out and pooling across the floor, coating it in a think layer or red. No longer able nor willing to play dead, he gasped in agony and spat out swear words at Celdryc and IO.

[quote="Dragonman9"]"Don't shoot. Don't shoot," Grecsh said through the darkness, "It's Grecsh and Xol." He squinted. "Chalen, who is this?"
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"That's Commander Feren. Don't know much bout him myself but one thing for sure, he's no baddie. Hate to be rude but did anyone hear exploshin go off? Where could have that come from?"

Grecsh laughed. "Oh, heh, that could have been us..."

Feren had his back to the evidence room door, he tested it to find it unlocked. He was startled by this turn of events. He was also now aware that Chalen knew these individuals, though one seemed to have slipped through another door.

"Excuse me!" he said "What on Ergenon VII is going on here? I am only trying to track down some Ergonian technology, and Galactic War Four seems to be kicking off."

He looked around into the Evidence Room, and a couple of the lockers appeared to be open, and there were several evidence bags on the table in the middle of the room. He turned back to Grecsh.

"Commander Feren Vulpigrax, by the way, whom might you be?"

The creature Xol encountered did not move a muscle for as long as Xol made eye contact with it — its slender, lightly armoured figure frozen with its head cocked to one side, almost inquisitively, though its face was hidden completely by a mask, a pair of ultramarine lenses giving away no expression.

Contact. Engage at will.

Xol dropped his grenade and turned. Azure moved.
The mallium leaped forwards, grabbing the top of the doorway with both hands even as it began to close, using his momentum to swing upwards to a precarious balance above the doorway on the other side — all with unnatural speed and an unnerving lack of noise.

The door slammed shut. Inside the room shortly after came a muffled explosion. From his new vantage point, Azure drew a pair of blades — short, curved slashing weapons sprayed black to prevent any tell-tale glint — and dove at Xol, right arm darting out towards his target's neck.

Xol looked up just in time, and dove out of the way of the assassin. He heard blade meet floor a split second later, and thanked Xvak for his timing. Scrambling behind a pillar, he called, "GRECSH! ANYONE! HELP!" He squeezed his wrist activating his stealth and tried to tip-toe away from his hiding spot, looking for a better vantage spot.

Grecsh started moving the second Xol's voice split through the air. "C'mon people! Something's happening!" He grabbed an incendiary grenade and ran across the station in search of his friend.

In the darkness, blades drawn in a combat-ready stance, Azure returned to complete immobility, poised and alert.

Units: Converge.

No invisibility is perfect. Not when the surroundings are all but still and silent. Not when your opponent has trained for years in the art of stealth. Xol's thermals might have been masked, but the air inside the station was cool enough that his very breath gave him away under infra-red.

Thermal filter equipped, Azure's masked face snapped around as a reddish-yellow spot bloomed in the air at head height several meters away — Xol's maneuver had given him some distance. A split-second later the Silent One sent a throwing knife whirling through the air towards where he judged Xol to be.
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Dagon emerged into the night air of the market square, noting how much quieter the entire city had become: he could hear the gentle bass thrum of the titanic mechanisms far below, feel it through his feet if he concentrated, the beating heart keeping Santa Frerraro floating above the wasteland. But this was no time for idle fancy — he tuned his comm-link into the correct frequency and spoke into it:
"Rangers, this is Dagon: what is the situation? Do you have a way out of there? What's Quark's status?"

"Chalen will come to!" Chalen ran after Grecsh while still holding onto his pistol/blaster in his left hand. Though he still has Talvox's Lightning Blade attached on his right arm, Chalen doesn't always need it. The sooner they got off the planet, Chalen will give the blade back to Talvox. Chalen yelled to Gresch, "Have you got nother grenade?! I'm very good at throwing everything incuding exploshins!"

Both Chalen and Grecsh had left, without even saying goodbye, 'oh well' he thought, not a lot I can do about it, Feren didn't even have a communicator of any kind, so could not call for help, back-up or to yell at his mother. He therefore continued into the evidence room.

He stood momentarily in the gloom, only low-level lighting was on, he presumed for the same reason it would be on his homeworld, and that would be to allow those in the room a chance of identifying their attackers. The evidence bags he saw on the table were haphazardly placed, he immediately recognised the four devices he was tracking as being of Ergonian origin, so he took them. After stuffing them in his rucksack, he paused to take a look at the other items laying on the table.

Xol's grenade shook the building. Bor looked around with alarm. "What the %$#@ was that?" he demanded. A moment later, he heard Xol's familliar voice: "GRECSH! ANYONE! HELP!" Holding his Pulser in front of him, Bor ran towards the voice, wondering what was going on. Faust was left behind in the confusion.

Xol's body froze: something had touched him. His hands went up behind his head, where his crest of horns was. He felt the edges of them, or rather, where the edges should have been. He glanced to his right, where a knife was swinging side-to-side on the wall. Xvakti! That assassin just ruined my head...

A few ideas about how the Mallium could have known where he was came through his mind, one such being his breath. Taking a lungful of air, he crept around behind the assassin and, silently drawing his knife, jumped into the air and swung the knife down at the base of his attacker's neck.

Azure, all senses straining to detect even the most remote sign of his opponent, darted left as the tiny rush of air and sound from Xol's jump reached him. He span around, using every ounce of the momentum from his movement to strike out with both blades, one high one low, in a lightning-fast counter attack.


The evidence room table held little more than a few more trinkets of no real value: several bloodied pieces of shrapnel lined up in neat rows in their plastic evidence bags, two badges belonging to local law enforcement and a rusty old pistol with no clip. In a drawer below the table, however, were a pair of large flashlights, a bottle of Tareennian vodka and two shot glasses. Apparently someone had been prepared for a blackout and the lock-down that was designed to follow.

Feren could hear action somewhere in the bowels of the building, he had felt the ground shake once or twice. He was also unimpressed with the contents of the evidence room, but felt the torches would be handy, so he picked one up and switched it on to illuminate his way better. He pressed the Green button on his rifle to arm it and switched on the torch.

Feren then left the evidence room back into the corridor leading to the foyer.

"Think it might be time to leave this building." he said to himself as he ran to the door - which unlike the evidence room door, was most definitely locked. he stood back and considered his options, shining the light at the main lock.