Nerrone's Rangers IC

Flank stood next to Grey on the landing pad, taking in the image Governor Dier and all his swag. It was certainly an impressive display for someone who had such a timid demeanour over the comm link, a loud portion of which Grey had copped over the radio. The Ravis and Rankata looked at each other, each with their own meanings backing the gesture.

It was when another Mallium woman appeared and addressed the rangers, her apparel practically screaming the words 'high ranking', that Flank ducked a little. What confused him was that Kwa wasn't responding either. Who was this 'Ahk' who could make Kwa nervous?

"Ow! It burns! It burns!!"

Chalen had just finished using the vial and gave it back to Bianca. Both of them didn't noticed the rest of the NR were outside, meeting up with Governor Dier possibly to say congrats on saving the entire planet.

"Yeah that'll leave you a burning feeling but it should help. Try not to scratch at it alright?"

Chalen mumbled how he really wanted to do that. He had to clamp his arm from it's attempt to scratch.

"Come on Chalen. We better follow the others. I have no idea what's going on outside but I for one is not missing this."

They made their way towards the landing ramp and saw Governor Dier and what looked like soldiers with him.

Bor stiffened at the sight on the new arrival. Is the Coalition here to arrest us? If so, the chances of them getting away were pretty low - the Lacuna was barely functional, and all of them were worn out from the two consecutive missions.

He kept his finger on his gun, ready to draw if things got ugly.

"You needn't worry," Ahk said, observing the Rangers' heightened tension, "I am not, in fact, here to take you all into custody for the deaths on Ezekiel IV, though almost everyone on my team would prefer that I did. I would like to personally offer you all a different way to settle our grievances, one I think you will find more to your liking." Ahk was alone, unarmed and outnumbered: there could have been any amount of Coalition troops hiding in the Police Bureau behind her, but it made no difference to the fact that she had deliberately left herself vulnerable.

An act of good faith, Kwa observed, amidst a sea of other thoughts and her own efforts to maintain a formidable poker face.

"What you just witnessed," Ahk continued, "was a declaration of war by the Kingdom — no more, no less. And that changes things. I have convinced the personnel under my command that you could be an asset to our cause, rather than the drain on our resources you have been so far, and that, should you agree to assist the war effort, we could go our separate ways afterwards without further consequence. What do you think?"

She didn't waste time focusing on Kwa's carefully neutral face and hostile silence, instead casting her gaze around for a response from the other Rangers gathered on the landing pad.

Rhak had just glared at the Coalition officer. However, something else catched his sight. Not far from the station, a familiar zeenor sat in a chair. Behind the elegant dressed zeenor, one of Rhak's kindsmen stood watching the scene with the same indifference as Rhak.
The one armed former-commando listened at Ahk briefly, and walked towards the pair that watched the spectacle from a distance.
"Rhak. What a pleasent suprise." Aleon said and opened his arms briefly.
"Spare me the b*llsh*t, Faw. What do you want."
"Can we discuss it, elsewhere? In private." The zeenor responded.

"...Very well then," Ahk said, shrugging lightly, "I'll leave the offer on the table: expect some data to be wired to your ship shortly. I shall be in contact if and when you decide to make use of it. That will be all." With that, Commander Ahk gave the Rangers a respectful nod, turned around and walked away. Kwa watched her disappear back inside the building, staying silent until the tip of her tail passed out of sight.


"Governor," Kwa said, turning her attention back to Dier, who had been watching this brief exchange with quiet interest, "I believe you said something about our compensation for Sapphire Point?"

"Ah, of course," he replied, "It will only be a short walk to the lab — this way please!" He set off, leading the group away from the Police Bureau and down a wide boulevard in the direction of another building nearby: a modern-looking metal and glass facility with the name 'SF-DoD' advertised above the main entrance.

As they began to move, Kwa addressed Rhak: "You can catch up to us later, if you wish to meet with this man."

"I'll met you up later." Rhak answered. He looked back at the zeenor, which still sat relaxed in his chair.
"I got business to take care of."

Bor followed Kwa and Dier. He considered Ahk's proposal: if the Rangers assisted in their war against the Kingdom, they would be pardoned for all their past crimes. So far, Bor was leading towards "no" - if the Coalition was really dedicated to cleaning up crime like they said, the moment the Rangers committed another crime they would be pursued again. Fighting a war just to go back to business as usual, didn't sound like a good idea to Bor.

Chalen and Bianca might have heard little of the conversation between Kwa and Governor Dier but at least they knew he wanted all of the group exculding Rhak to come with him to a lab. They should have been nervous but after that last mission which almost killed everyone, it just gave them a reason to stay serious. Bianca whispered quietly to Chalen.

"What do you reckon Governor Dier's going to show or rather do with us?"

"I don't want to know."

"Teh. We haven't got much of a choice anyway."

Chalen fiddled about with his necklace. Heck he is not nervous but tensed.

"Kwa sure quite. Never noticed before."

"That isn't like her. She's the type of person you shouldn't mess with yet who or what manged to shut Kwa up..sure know how to do so."

Presently, Governor Dier led the Rangers inside the building.

"This is one of our main facilities for armament research and development," the governor explained, "The work that went into creating those ETR's I put at your disposal, and everything else we've made using Zirthinnite, really, happened within these walls, on behalf of the Santa Frerraro Department of Defence. In fact it was Doctor Veld, the administrator, who so graciously donated the ETR's in our time of need. He should be— ah! Felix, there you are!" A tall creature dressed in a suit stopped and turned at Dier's call, then smiled.

"Hans, a pleasure as always. And guests too? Ah, these must be the — what was it? Nerrone's Rangers, hm, indeed."

Doctor Felix Veld addressed the group in hushed tones, glancing around first to check that the foyer was free of any eavesdroppers: "Darn fine job you did up there — I would ask for a full set of physicals to evaluate my little bundles' effects... but I gather you're here for something a shade more practical, hmm?"


With the small talk concluded, Doctor Veld took the lead, taking the group down to the basement level and through a set of double doors into an expansive, well-lit and rather empty concrete room.

"This," Veld said, voice echoing off the walls and floor as he spoke to the group once more, "is the armoury. Quite an important place in a facility specialising in the engineering of weapons, no? Indeed, it is fortunate today's emergency has virtually emptied the building, or the paperwork to grant a group of visitors access would—"

"—Time, Felix, I can only afford to be so late for a post-crisis public address!"

"Of course. Here: Governor Dier has authorised me to allow you each to choose one item from our current selection." He turned to a keypad embedded in the wall by the door, and punched in a code. With a whine of hydraulics, a series of shelves and drawers extended upwards from the floor, each lined with weapons, components and armour modules as well as one or two devices the Rangers might not have recognised.

"With your permission, we are also prepared to repair and upgrade your vessel: We can outfit it with either one option classified as 'major' or two 'minor' — you may browse and make your selections on the terminal there." He pointed to a computer set between two sets of shelves, and stepped back to let the group make their decisions.

((See the OOC for details.))

Bor eyed the EMP torpedoes. "Those could come in handy. Those Ceris fighters wouldn't have stood a chance if we had them."

He reached over and grabbed the Shock Module. The next time he ran into some angry mechs, he would be ready.

All four of Flank's jaws simultaneously gaped as several dozen shelves of weapons and weapon upgrades made themselves visible. Had he the chance and the upper body strength he would have taken anything and everything, but unfortunately for him he had neither.
The display reminded him of a combat sport of which he was a contestant; before the first fight he was allowed to choose one of virtually any weapon. Alas, there wasn't a single implosive bullet present, but that didn't matter, since he saved the weapon he chose in a storage account ages ago. It wasn't on his mind, either.

"Doctor," he said, twisting his legs around to face Veld and following suit with the rest of his body, "there is — or, well, there was — a turret in the foyer of Sapphire Point. Do you happen to have the schematics for that turret?"

"Ah, the MkI 'Greeter'," Doctor Veld said, nodding, "Just a moment please." He stepped over to the computer terminal and spent just under a minute browsing the network, muttering under his breath.

"Here it is — quite the nostalgia trip, that one." He printed off several sheets of paper containing the full schematics and handed them to Flank.

"Give you some trouble, did it?"

"If by trouble you mean a mild case of death, then yeah, it gave me some trouble."
Flank accepted the papers with glee and quickly flipped through them all, catching glimpses of pictures and diagrams, as well as the symbol Ω, which to him meant that it contained information about the electrical configuration.

Perfect. He thought. But he couldn't fix the module with paper; he still needed parts to make it work. He pulled out his small list and looked over the contents, before looking through the schematics for a picture of the strange plug he saw on the module. He found a diagram and showed it to Dr. Veld.

"Is it also possible to get a few spare parts for the module? I'm looking for two of these, in particular. The rest I think I can find somewhere else."

Veld peered down at the schematic and nodded.

"Certainly."

After another few seconds' manipulation of the armoury terminal, a further two racks of drawers extended from the floor nearby — storage space for some of the more niched components that might not otherwise have been useful to the Rangers.

"I believe you'll find what you are looking for in drawers B-107 and A-303."


Kwa, who had been weighing up some of the attachments, turned to Bor as he examined the torpedoes:

"Perhaps, but only if we had been able to get behind them — smaller fighters like that could be pretty hard to hit, but an EMP blast would certainly put them out of the sky with little enough difficulty. A Repeater or Heat Seekers would do less damage, but we would have a lot more chance of scoring a hit."

Bor blinked. "You mean we have to directly hit them to trigger the EMP blast?" He considered that for a moment. "What other armament does the Lacune have? You said just a repeating plasma cannon?"

Chalen's eyes widened with awe upon coming across shelves of armoury and weaponary. He really felt like a little kid again only this store hasn't got sweets for sale. On a table he saw piles of Chute Armour and a helmet of sort. However, Chalen clearly remembered that his old armour the Shellbian is dented really bad and a helmet wouldn't do the job well. He eventually found the right size and wore it. It almost has the same colors as the Shellbian but with yellow and black instead of Yellow and blue. In a way this almost makes Chalen a bee that had gotten very large.

"Nifty!"
---
Bianca immedialty saw a sphere object that looked simular to what her kind use for harnessing vasts amount of energy. She went over to pick it up. As soon as she lay a hand on it, Bianca vanished. This was no surprise to her as she already had the ability though it only lasted five minutes. Still..

"This sphere could help with the duration of my *lame* ability! Heh no one will truly see me stabbing their backs, now that I have come across this."
Bianca took the sphere and kept it safe in her hands.

"Currently the Lacuna's only means of defence is a blaster turret mounted on the starboard side," She replied to Bor, "it's operated manually, via a compartment accessed from the right-hand side of the living area. Not an especially bad rate of fire — it can go anti-personnel at close range or take down a small fighter with enough hits."

She shrugged, "Like I said, it's for defence. Dagon knows more about the specifications than I do, but I'm pretty sure we didn't plan to use it — or the ship, for that matter — for any serious dogfighting."

((Why isn't the turret control compartment marked on the map of the Lacuna? Because shut up. Shut up is why. ))

Rhak had been lead into a room through an alley, not far away from the station. Aleon had sat down in a cozy looking chair and scanned Rhak.
"You've lost an arm." He said without feelings, a cold statement to one that had turned his back on an ally. "Do you plan to join me, or will you stick to the Rangers? Don't answer. Either way, I have a gift to you, if you have the name I needed."

"I have it." Rhak responded and gave Aleon a small disk, in which he aquired the name of a ship, while in Las Thaddas. The zeenor seemed happy about this and nodded to the acheen bodyguard, which gave Rhak a 2 feet/ 24 inches long katana like dagger. On its handle there was two buttons, and at the end of the handle a ring had been crafted.
"The first button regulates the length. The second button starts a generator that electrifiy the blade. It needs a cooldown of 10 minutes however." Aleon said while Rhak took a close look at it.

With a press on the first button, an extra blade was extended from the flattened top of the sword. It wouldn't be able to pierce any armor, or stab something, but would be able to slice through most materials. The extra blade extended the sword from 24 inches/ 2 feet to 36 inches/ 3 feet.
Rhak didn't want to test the electrification usage yet, because of some metal details on the walls.

"I think I'll stick with the Rangers." Rhak adressed to Aleon, which slowly nod to the acheens decision. The bodyguard took a step forward towards Rhak but stopped, while grabbing his throat. Blood ran through his fingers, and colored his grey armor in a dark purple.
Rhak stood with the 'Slicer' which he had dubbed it. A small trails of purple liquid travelled down its tip.

"Did you really have to kill him?" Aleon said with the sound of someone that had just watched some pointless object get smashed. The zeenor rose from his chair. "I guess I'll be a guest on the Lacuna then. At least until we have dealt with Amsora."

"Yeah... Let's go to met the rest of the Rangers." Rhak answered and walked out of the room followed by Aleon. Their shadows reflected against the visor of the dying acheen as he stared at them...

"Thank you very much." Flank said politely, barely containing the urge to jump into the ceiling. He made his way to the drawers as patiently as he could bear before descending upon them like a starved vulture.

He opened them and started shifting through all of the different electrical plugs available. He took another look at the diagram in the schematics and soon found two plugs with a matching set of prongs. Attached to each one was a length of thick, insulated wire, which he assumed linked back up to the turret somehow. Also within the drawers was a coil of the same wire, which he took.

After he had gathered what components he could, he went over to the computer terminal and looked over the upgrades for the ship. He chose the prow-mounted lance cannon.

The events following the Rangers returning to Santa Ferraro were a blur to Grey, he didn't listen to, or even care about the offer brought forward to them by the Coalition. The painkillers his body produced finally wore off, and the withdraw forced him into a almost zombified state. He simply shambled about and followed the others. Grey had no capacity to think for himself until the group was led into the police bureau, when he could begin to fell his mind clear and return to its usual active state. He didn't feel any sharp, horrible pain in his leg, so he figured his suit had managed to do its job. That or he was just in shock and he would be falling to the ground in a few minutes. He dismissed the thought and focused on the much more exciting concept that was presented to him: free, completely legal military grade equipment.

He looked around and saw the gear presented to him. He would have been more than happy to grab everything and start shoving it into his suit and weapons, but apparently he was only allowed one of the massive selection of equipment shown. He thought briefly about taking the pistol, but it was the wrong model and wouldn't be as efficient as his second pistol that he destroyed when he was fighting flank, the helmet was something he already had, and the neural enhancements were too inefficient for his tastes. As he browsed over the modifications, he eyed the armor-piercing and scope attachments, but decided against them. He remembered the fiasco with the modified mortar and realized that it failed because he didn't have the proper equipment, schematics, or measurements to make the round capable of actually hitting a target. He quickly walked over to the scientist that had just finished helping out flank.

"Excuse me? I've got a weird request, but do you happen to have a set of welding equipment that would be compatible for integration into a medium armor platform?"

Xol and Grecsh both requested Tactical Helmets, as they were pleased with their current weaponry.

((Uber-short post, I can't really think of anything else. :/ ))

Dr Veld thought for a moment.

"...Well, if you have an on-board power unit there might be something in the back here," He ran his eyes up and down the shelves, and picked out a small hand-held device.

"This might be what you're after: an ion-cutter, our own model. It's compact and fully capable of either cutting through most metals up to three inches in thickness or welding them back together in short order. It would be a nasty surprise for anyone getting within a foot of the naked beam too, but I can see you are already kitted out quite serviceably in the melee department," he nodded at Grey's wrist blade.


At the other side of the room, Kwa looked over Flank's shoulder, beyond which the terminal's monitor displayed the specifications for a Lance Cannon:

"Interesting choice. Pretty flexible, if you don't mind the recharge time. Bor? Xol? Thoughts?"

Bor eyed it. "It looks cool, but from what I can tell it's just a brute force weapon with a very limited firing arc. We probably wouldn't need that kind of weapon unless we're planning to go up against capital ships like the Damocles, in which case the EMP missiles would still be effective in disabling their main power."

Both Rhak and Aleon had now reached the entrance of the R&D building. Rhak had put the 'Slicer' in a holster on his back. He would need some more uppgrades further on, especially a new arm. This had Aleon already taken care of and had contacted one of his contacts off world.