| abstract
| - Narrator: Shopping these vast outlands is a new breed of shopping, bargain hunting in the fringes of society's frontier. They are known simply as the New Luna Militia...and this is their story Over three hundred beds are bolted to the rocky walls of this cavern three high, a metal partition-slash-ladder between each of the beds giving some tiny bit of privacy. The floors are of textured metal, and gleam in the harsh overhead lights. A long, squat industrial refresher unit adorns the center of the room, with dozens of lockers lining the long ends of it. A thick metal door leads out to the residence deck. Urfkgar hands Jantine the paper with the coordinates. For anyone familiar with that sort of thing, they indicate the Perseverance system. He tells Cole, "Stupid softskin fake fight place. Buy fake fight stuff." There's a brief pause before he removes his militia armbands, holds them up, and says, "No need stuff." Jantine nods while studying the coordinates, and takes his yellow armband of and then takes off the other on his other arm and throws them both on his bed. Cole comes up to Urfkgar now and looks down at the piece of paper Jantine is holding while simultaneously removing his armband. "We're buying weapons...on...Ungstir?" He asks, looking up, and up to Urkfgar's face. "Nope. Morererer stupid softskin cops stupid softskin place. Go no mostererer stupid softskin place. No stupid softskin cops," says Urfkgar before he turns towards the exit. Jantine shrugs, looks at Cole, furrows his eyebrows before a look of recognition and dread comes onto his face and he rushes after Urf. Cole walks after Urfkgar with a look of confusion on his face at his description of the mission. He doesn't seem to share the same dread as Jantine does, but does seem slightly uncomfortable with the other man on the same mission. Narrator: A hop, skip, and jump later… This small room is crammed to the brim with equipment, nearly overflowing with it. In the center of the room, the single large pillar of the ships reactor thrums with barely contained power. Around this are a number of monitoring terminals that check the status of the systems powering the ships drive, and her other systems. Finally, towards the rear of the room are a number of access terminals and panels, where the main sublight drive resides. The Zangali sticks his head in through the hatch and asks, "Gooderer? Morerer go stuff?" Cole turns from tinkering with some form of equipment to look at Zangali. "What's that?" He asks, apparently not understanding the question. "Go stuff. Go stuff go place. No go stuff. No go place," says Urfkgar. "Need go stuff? No need go stuff?" Cole furrows his brow at the Zangali. "I...don't understand what you're talking about." He says bluntly. Urfkgar waves a hand vaguely towards the engineering console. He asks, "What thingy say?" Cole looks where he waves and then says, "Ohhhhh, ohh." He moves over to the console and looks at it and shrugs. "Well, we don't have any fuel. Everything else is fine." He says with a small chuckle. The Zangali grunts vaguely and pulls his head out through the hatch. The bridge before you is cramped, with no natural view of space what so ever. Three consoles are spaced in a triangle, two towards the holographic viewscreen to the fore, and one command console set further behind. However, despite this lack of space, this ship is clearly a military vessel, with clean polished lines, and a look of precision to everything. Jantine is seated at the pilot’s station. "Need go stuff. No go stuff. No go place," says Urfkgar. Jantine looks behind him and nods "You going to get fuel or do you want me to?" he asks "Or his he getting it?" he says as he nods to the doorway. "No go stuff here. Need go stupid softskin place," says Urfkgar. Jantine nods "The beach?" he asks. "Urf no care," says Urfkgar with a shrug. Urfkgar is standing off to the side of the hatchway, wedged up between various bits and pieces of equipment. Jantine is seated at the pilot’s chair. Jan nods and pushes a button to his right and says aloud "Riposte to Hancock control. Requesting clearance of a flight path into orbit, over." There is a short pause and soon a voice crackles from the communications station "Hancock control to Riposte, clearance granted, logging request. You are clear to take off, over." Cole enters the cockpit with the sound of clunking boots preceding him. "Try not to crash us into anything." He says bluntly. "And don't waste in movements, we're running on fumes, here." He says. "No smash stupid softskin floaty thingy. Go stupid softskin place. Need morerer go stuff," agrees Urfkgar from his corner. Jantine nods, and takes the craft out of the hanger. Narrator: Amusing antics ensue where amateur pilots try to fuel the ship, journeying back and forth between landing pads a few times. Later... "Go," comes the bellowed shout of the Zangali somewhere further aft in the ship. Jantine nods, and takes off. "I'm going to go monitor things from engineering. See if the fuel worked out right, make sure all systems are nominal, and make sure the moeb..." Cole says as he turns and trumps off aft towards engineering, his technospeak fading off into the distance, but it doesn't sound as if it stopped at any point. The Zangali passes Cole on his way to the bridge. He asks, "Stupid softskin need fake fight stuff?" Narrator: The in-flight movie… Cole furrows his brow at the Zangali. "What do you mean? A gun? No, I'm armed." "Urf fake fight stuff," says the Zangali. "Stupid softskin need." Jantine continues flipping some switches before turning around, apparently he hasn't been paying attention to the other two as he says "Alright, we have about forty minutes to kill." Cole doesn't seem to understand any better. His brow is still tilted downward and his mouth is twisted slightly. He shakes his head and shrugs. "Not understanding." He says simply to the Zangali. Urfkgar grunts vaguely and lumbers off towards the inner portion of the airlock. He opens the storage locker, removes a pulse rifle, and returns towards Cole, holding up the weapon. He says, "Stupid softskin need. Stupid softskin place. Urf morerer fake fight stuff thingy." Cole watches Urfkgar move away and then back and looks at the pulse rifle dangling in Urfkgar's hand. He shakes his head and backs away with a chuckle. "I can barely handle aiming a pistol, with the rifle I'd end up holding it backwards or something." He puts his hands up as if to resist the idea in a gesture. Urfkgar scratches at his shoulder with his free hand. He says, "Stupid softskins see stupid softskin fake fight stuff. No want bash stupid softskin. See stupid softskin no fake fight stuff. Want bash. No need do fake fight stuff." Cole listens intently to the words Urfkgar says, but just looks up at the man with a confused look and he shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders. He opens his mouth as if about to say something but then it clicks shut, as if he has nothing to say. "No stupid softskin cops," explains the Zangali. "See stupid new stupid softskin. Want bash stupid new stupid softskin. See stupid new stupid softskin fake fight stuff. No all stuff want bash stupid new softskin." Cole blinks at the Zangali blankly. Urfkgar scratches at his shoulder while he thinks this over. He says, "Stupid softskin place go. Morerer bad guys. Bad guys see stupid softskin. Want do bad stuff stupid softskin." Cole tries to work it out, repeating back what he's getting from the words. "I'm going there, there are bad people there, they see me, and they try to...kill me?" He mutters, then asks for confirmation from Urfkgar. "Yup," says Urfkgar. "Well...what am I going to do about that?" Cole asks simply and innocently to the man towering over him. "I'm not a marine. I'm an engineer. Unless you want me to start using a plasma torch on them..." "Kill stuff want kill stupid softskin," says Urfkgar reasonably enough. He continues, "Stupid softskin no do stupid stuff. Bad guys no want kill stupid softskin. Stupid softskin no want go stupid softskin place. Stupid softskin no scram here. Urf go. Do stuff Urf need do. Urf do morerer fastererer. All scram stupid softskin place." Cole nods, as if that's a good idea. "All right. I stay here, you go. I can deal with that." He looks around and then asks, "What should I do in the meantime? No, wait, let me guess. You don't care?" The Zangali nods, answering anyway, "Urf no care. No do stupid stuff. Stuff no Urf. No go here." Cole jerks his head towards the way to engineering. "I'll be in there. Comm me if you need anything." He says, before beginning to walk aft. Narrator: Later, more bungling and a call to On-Star ™ leads to the following discovery... A tall and narrow cavern of gray carven rock, each rough carven wall is stacked several stories tall with latticed gantries and a complex weaving of color coded conduits, this bay providing the berths and maintenance facilities to the outsystem prospector fleets and their support tenders. Soft light washes gently across the intricate maze of machinery, accented by the rotating flash of amber safety lights and the occasional strident clash of crimson warning beacons. Heavy black and yellow industrial striping slashes across the walls, indicating hazard zones and traffic paths while bright red markings highlight the facility's emergency equipment. The berths themselves are racked steel structure rising up along the bay walls, many small, for the local rockhopper fleet. Some though, are large enough to cradle a Calliope class freighter. Gangways, catwalks and open grate metal bridges zig zag and criss cross the space, umbilical connections scramble up the bay walls, to provide access, power, fuel and other services. OOC WARNING: Triple-Niner is considered a dangerous trading port. Luck cards may not be used during roleplay within this setting. Proceed at your own peril. Jantine's piloting manages to get the ship to U999 without any major mishaps. The Zangali gets a negative response from the man when he asks if he wants to go out. The Zangali turns to Cole and asks, "Stupid softskin want go?" The IND Riposte settles down in one of the berths, extending the boarding ramp but keeping the airlock shut for the moment. Cole looks outside briefly before looking back to the Zangali to respond. "Uhhh....that's all right. I've...heard tale of this place...you, uh, go ahead there." He says shakily. "Kill all stuff no Urf want stupid softskin floaty thingy," advises the Zangali calmly as he leaves the bridge, pausing to ask Jantine again, "Stupid softskin no want go?" Jantine nods "Yes sir, I'll just stay here" The Zangali leaves the two alone on the bridge... Narrator: Outside the ship, on the scenic U-999 landing pad… Barry makes his way out of the Jackal, and drops down onto the boarding ramp. He's got an AR slung over one shoulder, and what appears to be a lap top slung over the other. The man sits down, and sets up on the boarding ramp. He doesn't exactly pay to much attention to the Riposte, seemingly lost in the display on the laptop. The airlock of the Riposte cycles open and Urfkgar emerges with a pulse assault rifle in his good hand. He lumbers with his typical casual confidence towards the bazaar, wearing his standard black cargo pants. He's not in a rush, but he's not dwaddling, either. Barry glances up from the lap top and quirks a brow at the Zangali heading towards the township. "Oi dicker!" he calls out to Urf. "Need a running gun? Cheap price, best there is." Urfkgar shifts his course to head towards Barry. He doesn't seem to notice the Jackal, telling Barry, "Urf need fake fight stuff." The blonde haired man nods in reply to Urf, and slowly stands, packing away his laptop as he does so. With the laptop back in its case, Barry slips the assault rifle in front of him and waits for Urf to head towards the township. "What's yer market? Projectile or Energy?" He has a slightly Sivadian sounding accent to his voice. "Mag's deals with energy." With the pulse assault rifle dangling loosely from his hand, Urfkgar tells Barry, "Urf no need zap fake fight stuff. Urf need bang fake fight stuff." The man slowly cracks his neck and then laughs. "Tomin Kora," he says, giving a friendly smile. "Yer not going to find anything here, dicker. Energy weapons are all that's stocked in Mag's." Urfkgar gestures towards Barry with his empty hand, ignoring the laughter. He says, "Stupid softskin sayeded stuff. Sayeded Urf need fake fight stuff." Barry makes his way down the ramp, pausing a couple of so feet before Urf. "I'm telling ya this now... Tomin Kora's going to be the only place where ye can get projectile weapons, not on this rock." He hefts up his projectile AR, showing it to the Zangali. "Place where I picked up my equipment... If yer going to go to Mag's, I'll take ye there." Urfkgar clacks his teeth together, looking back towards the Riposte before he turns his head back to face Barry. Sounding a bit sour, he says, "Urf go." This is followed by some grumbling what's probably Zantra. Barry removes his hand from the barrel and motions towards the township. "Ye wanna go to the township?" he asks, just confirming things. "Ye might be a Zangali, Urf... But watch out for the bounty hunters, seen a couple snoopin' around 'ere. Didn't see much of the usual suspects on TeeKay, just the usual gangs fighting." He turns on his heel, and starts to make his way towards the township, carrying himself in his usual manner. Regardless if Urf follows or not, he's heading that way. "Urf no need kill stupid stuff," grunts the Zangali as he lumbers after Barry. "Stupid stuff no do stupid stuff. Urf no kill. Stupid stuff do stupid stuff. Urf kill stupid stuff." Despite his (vague) threats, he doesn't seem to be paying any more attention to his surroundings than ever; although, a faint hum does come from his charged PAR. "Ditto," Barry replies to Urf, as he stretches the hand out that rests on the pistol grip on his AR. "Myself, I prefer to remove the problem before it escalates anymore. That's if it can't simply be avoided in the first instance" He says this rather vague, and then shrugs a shoulder, causing the AR to bob up and down. "Consider me an 'associate' o' Jeff's." "Stupid bugfaces do stupid stuff. Urf credits Urf credits. Urf credits no stupid bugface credits. Stupid bugfaces say Urf credits stupid bugface credits. Urf say stupid bugfaces stupid. Urf credits Urf credits. Stupid bugfaces no take," rambles the Zangali as he ambles along. "Stupid softskin boss sayeded Urf do Urf want. Urf want kill stupid stuff do stupid stuff Urf. Stupid softskin boss sayeded Urf do. What stupid softskin do stupid softskin boss?" "He's scratched my back, I've scratched his," Barry vaguely replies, as he continues along side Urf. Both appear to be going in the direction of the township. "Mutual business relationship... At times." The hand that resting on the barrel moves up to his pocket, and he then removes a spare round, fiddling with it idlely. "I've heard that the old cocker's created some turmoil after getting his new job." Solace comes thumping down the Jackal's ramp, an unlit cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She glances around, happy to be anywhere after the recent stint on Teekay, and flops down on the bottom of the Jackal's ramp, lighting up with the middle finger of her prosthetic. The strolling Zangali begins to attract curious, one might almost go so far as to say avaricious, looks from the natives. He doesn't seem to notice, telling Barry, "Urf no know. Urf do marine stuff. Urf no do stupid softskin grabass stuff." The marine bit seems to be a clincher for a few of the onlookers. A couple casually wander off while two others fall in behind the Sivadian and Zangali. "Ye can keep that whole marine stuff," Barry replies, failing to notice the two falling in behind them and the two wandering off. "I'll stick with me mechanical work, does me well." That's strange coming from a man armed to the teeth, and acting quite casual about it. "How's ye job with the Marines goin' these days?" Solace does, however, notice the followers from her vantage point on the end of the ramp. She digs in her pocket and goes for her commlink, still idly smoking her cigarette with one hand. She speaks quietly into the comm, then tucks it back away and starts digging for a gun in case they need her. That's the problem with using pockets and not a holster. >>> COMMNET Private Cole Reynolds on NLM_COMM: Urf, your status? The Zangali's pulse assault rifle swings loosely back and forth as he wanders along, oblivious to his shadows and their compatriots. A buzzing noise comes from his pocket, followed by a voice. The Zangali fumbles around in the pocket until he produces a commlink, saying, "Urf good." Barry glances towards Urf, and arches a brow. "Cor blimey," he says, looking towards Urf. "Ye wanna turn that down a bit? Or ye trying to deafen me?" he stills remains unaware of those behind him, blissfully oblivious. He slows up a bit, and then casually actions his weapon. He slowly nods, acknowledging what ever just come across his comm channel. "Urf..." he says quietly, hopefully so that only the Zangali will hear him. "We got shadows." He then raises the mouthpiece of the commlink, and then speaks quietly into it. "Cheers, tell me what they're doing." Solace rubs her nose with the back of her hand, accidentally dropping ash on her boot. She speaks softly into her commlink again, then lithely and casually gets to her feet, sauntering along in that general direction without getting very close. >>> COMMNET Private Cole Reynolds on NLM_COMM: All right, because if you get in trouble, the squad's fully-armed and ready to go. These marines of yours are restless... Urfkgar looks from the commlink in his hand to Barry and says, "Urf need hear thingy. Thingy no say. Urf no hear." He holds the commlink, devoid of earpiece, up to the side of his head as it spits out more information. He grunts vaguely by way of response. Then, he tries to pocket the device. The shadows are close enough that they probably heard the comm chatter on Urfkgar's end, anyway. They seem slightly perplexed by the news, glancing around nervously. "My girl's trailing them," Barry comments quietly to Urf, as they casually continue on. "Suggest we move towards cover, then engage. They wouldn't try and take us both. Two on two, isn't the way these people work, could be more or just idiots." He glances towards a rockhopper in berth and then motions with his head, almost seeming like a nod. He then keeps his reply quiet as he exchanges another round of information. Solace puts out her cigarette on her prosthetic, taking elastic from a shorts pocket and binding her long dyed-black hair off of her neck. Her other hand stays in her opposite pocket, getting a grip on her pulse pistol as she saunters along. The Timmiegirl speaks briefly into her com, still in an undertone. Having managed to stuff the noisy commlink back into his pocket, Urfkgar tells Barry, "Urf heareded stupid softskin. Urf say yup." He veers towards the berth with the rockhopper. The not so stealthy shadowers look ever so slightly more concerned and one puts a commlink of his own into play, mumbling not quiet quietly enough, "I don't know, man. I don't know. Something about marines, man." He gets cuffed by his partner in crime who speaks into his own commlink, "Marines are dopes, but they have sweet stuff. I say we go ahead with this." Barry continues along side Urf, his finger slipping inside the trigger guard, and quietly disengaging the safety. He uses this chance to glance out the corner of his eye to spy the shadows that are follow Urf and himself. He mumbles quietly into his commlink, as he looks down his weapon. "Say when," that his final response to the Zangali. >>>> From the IND Riposte's Hatch Intercom < : This is the Marines. Stop following our man or we will be forced to respond. Solace stops short at the broadcast, turns, gives the Riposte the finger, then sighs and starts trying to close in the distance between her and the two morons before they make a break for it. She digs out her pulse pistol, with a rallying war cry of, "I NEVER get to fucking shoot ANYBODY!" "Now," says the Zangali as the Riposte's broadcast begins. He is too big too actually dart, but he does scramble towards the berth. The two stalkers are somewhat distracted by the message from the Riposte, looking back towards it. They spot the yelling Solace, waste a bit of time exchanging stupid looks, and try to dive for cover. Barry , now he's small and got the build of a runner, and quickly darts for the side of the berth. The AR is quickly raised to his shoulder and he glances towards Solace, and then starts to track the first man towards his hiding place. "Get the fuck down Sol!" he calls out to his Timonae crewmate, his accent has died during this call. He hasn't fired just yet, trying to control his breath enough and on the ready to provide covering fire for Urf, if the need arises. Solace might be in a hurry to pistol whip someone half to death, but she's not stupid, coming to a halt and getting out of the line of fire at a dive. Assault rifles hurt. Once she's out of the way, she starts glancing around to see if anyone else is coming to join the fun. The hatchway to the IND Riposte opens again with two men in marine armor and brandishing weapons descending the ramp first. "THIS IS THE NEW LUNA MILITIA, STAND DOWN!" A voice booms in a regional Luna accent known as Tycho. That locale features a distinct accent which ancient Earthlings would have thought was the accent of Boston. The voice is matched by a stocky, well-built man in NLM Marines armor barreling down the ramp way towards some cargo crates just off the Riposte's landing area. A much less confident man appears behind the first, already ducking as if expecting to be killed any minute, he is trying desperately to pull out his pistol from its holster. The Zangali manages a successful if none to graceful feet first dive into the berth on the far side of the rockhopper from Barry. After narrowly avoiding racking himself on a landing strut, he rolls over onto his stomach and frees his assault rifle from where it got lodged under the rockhopper. He brings it up to his shoulder but is unable to acquire a target. The first of the two stalker types busies himself freeing a pulse pistol from the front of his pants in bit of cover that doesn't quite serve its purpose as far as Solace and Barry's angles are concerned. The second concentrates on rapid communication via commlink in a more sheltered area of the berth. Single shot lock out button be damned, we've got a man on a mission here. Barry lowers himself to a knee, and carefully lines pulse pistol dude up, stroking the trigger of the AR. He gently squeezes the trigger, firing in a short burse towards the man. The guy takes all three rounds in the chest, going down with in a crumpled pile but not dead judging by the gurgling. Solace lets Barry get off his shot, waiting for her chance to move past him to get Mr. Talky. If his shot hits, she's hitting the ground running, a pulse pistol in her one hand, cybernetic in a fist. Metal punches hurt. "I got him." She yells over to Barry, ignoring whatever the marines are doing. "Keep an eye on the area." The guy might be down, but he's probably not good for much, especially when she stomps over him. Both Cole and Jantine spot a group of three kevlar clad, pulse rifle toting thug type folks coming down the line of ship berths in the direction of the gunfight. They'll have to pass the Riposte's birth to get there. Cole sends a message to Urfkgar using his datajack which is already set up to send a message through the comm without having to manually initialize it. "Urf, three more guys. Rifles." The mechanical voice transmits over Urfkgar's commlink, as he isn't using his actual voice but the brain/machine transfer device that is the datajack. He levels his pistol at one of them and fires it, while trying to keep the majority of his body obscured by his cover. Jantine finally gets his pistol out of the holster, and flicks the safety off. He tries to aim carefully, but with the adrenaline rush of someone possibly trying to shoot at him, he can't be too sure of his arms waver somewhat, he tries to lien up the shot as best he can, and fires at the man. The man Cole shot at notices the man clad in combat armor just in time, collapsing onto the ground and narrowly avoiding getting shot. Jantine's target gets hit, but with the kevlar on, he remains combat effective. The third man moves towards a berth on the opposite side of the Riposte while the other two provide cover fire. Cole gets hit, but it doesn't do much beyond scuffing his marine combat armor. From the end of the line of ship berths nearest the bazaar, four more Kevlar wearing, pulse rifle toting types can be seen making their way towards the firefight. They move slowly and carefully with the rifles at the ready, and from where they're pointing the weapons, it looks like they have basic knowledge of Urf and Barry's position by the rockhopper even if they don't have shots yet. The Zangali doesn't seem to notice them. The man shot by Barry doesn't respond to Solace's approach. His partner, however, drops his commlink, trying to pull his pulse pistol before he ends up bleeding on the ground himself. The fellow gets his pulse pistol out but can't draw a bead on Solace in time to actually fire. Barry lowers his barrel as Solace fouls his firing line for a moment. He seems to be completely relaxed working with Urf, and slowly edges back in a duck walk, so that he's three quarters in cover. "Twenty two," he mumbles to himself, most likely in reference to the amount of rounds remaining in the magazine. Once Solace passes through his line, he raises the barrel of the weapon up once more, keeping the Timmiegirl covered. For some reason, most likely being distracted by a crew mate in danger, he too, fails to notice the reinforcements turning up. Solace doesn't stop running, after all, she's gotten some momentum by now. Rather than just firing at the guy, she tackles him, shoving her pistol into his mouth while he's surprised and pulling the trigger. Splat. She sits on his chest for a moment, trying to get her breath back, though she's already looking over her shoulder, too hyped up on adrenaline to pause for long. Cole gets shot at, but it plinks off the marine armor. Luckily that battle fever is now surging through the veins and he hasn't stopped to consider that he might get shot in the face, even with cover. He finds a target in the men that scrambled for cover and fires a shot, still trying to stay as far down as he can. The pulse blasts melt through the man's kevlar, and he starts to leak blood freely with his body going slack. The smell of ruptured intestines doesn't help his situation. Jantine dives down on the ground as a shot comes wizzing over his head. He raises his pistol again and fires a shot at the man firing at him before ducking back down as close to the ground as possible. Jantine's shot creases the man's shoulder, and he pops to his feet backing away towards the berth his buddy headed to, firing awkwardly as he retreats. His buddy, meanwhile, has set himself up behind some cargo pallets and takes a shot at Jantine. One of the four figures advancing down the rows of ship berths gets a little ahead of himself when he spots a bit of exposed Zangali, firing. This causes his three buddies to shoot as well, even though they don't have clear targets. The Zangali exposes himself a bit to get a look at what's going on back towards the Riposte. This gets him hit in the back by the man from down the row of ships, and he goes down with a smoking hole in his back just below the shoulder blade. He doesn't seem dead, but he's not looking all that healthy either. With the crumpling of a Zangali behind him, Barry turns, facing the direction of the shots. "Fuck... Urf," he mumbles, his accent totally dropping, Urf'd would most likely recognize his voice now, if he's indeed conscious. The man quickly adjusts his position, moving himself into cover behind one of the struts of the Rockhopper. With the same technique as before, he looses off another three rounds towards the closest member of the party. Stitched from groin to throat with high caliber rifle rounds, the target jerkily goes down. His partners step over him casually. Solace wipes a spatter of blood from her cheek and makes a dash for Barry and the fallen Zangali's vantage point, keeping behind cover as best she can. She sights up and fires, then glances over at Urf as she ducks back in. "Fuck. We need to get him to Doc. Get the fuckers, we need this over quick." Some uncomfortable sounding sizzling comes from one of the attacker's vests, but he doesn't appear seriously damaged, catching up with his fellows after a single misstep. Cole shakes off the earlier shot again, the adrenaline clearly conquering his bloodstream at this point. He manages to stay down, but levels his pistol once again and pop off a shot at the kevlar suited mystery attackers. "Y'allright, Jantine?" Cole yells over the din, even though the other man is next to him. Cole's shooting results in some cursing and a clunking noise, followed by, "Pick that up and shoot, wuss, quit your crying." Jantine fumbles to look down at his chest, finding a smoking hole in the combat armor. He takes his hand and sticks it under the armor, feeling around under his shirt, he feels a slight burn on his chest, but nothing else. "I think I'm good Cole!" he yells, and upon hearing the mention of somebody shooting, he raises his pistol again and fires another shot off at the thugs taking cover, with his one hand still underneath his armor. Jantine fires as the fellow reaches over to collect his dropped weapon. The pair return fire at the two NLM types. The boys in the hall make the mistake of closing in on Barry and Solace instead of trying to slug it out from a distance. The shots they do manage to get off aren't that clean, either, mostly just spraying and praying. Barry goes to pull himself back in cover, but the first shot impacts on the side of the landing strut. The second pulse shots smacks him in the shoulder, the smell of sizzling flesh and flak jacket mixes with the ozone and carbon that already fills the air. "Mother-fucking-god-damned-fucking-crack-whore-fucking-bitch!" he yells out, as he painfully winces. With the men still approaching, he attempts to return the favor towards the man who shot him, throwing caution out of the window as he exposes himself and fires. The guys catch on sometime during the swearing that they've angered Barry, dropping down onto knees but remaining in the open space between berths. His rounds go just wide of the far left attacker. Solace winces as Barry is hit, debating between firing herself or dragging him back into cover. She opts for firing as they drop down, taking aim and squeezing off a pulse shot, trying to hit one while they're still vulnerable. Cole smirks as his shots manage to knock the man's gun out his hand. He smirks, that is, until the shot manages to find him in the chest, after the armor managed to absorb a good portion of the normally lethal shot. Nonetheless, it hit one of the spots where the armor was hit before, and now Cole is hurt. The air kind of gets let out of his chest and he slumps behind the cover, not as an active thought, but because his legs seem to give out momentarily. His breathing instantly becomes heavier and he puts his freehand shakily at his wound. "Sunnufa..." He mutters through ground teeth. He stays there, breathing heavily for this moment, apparently trying to regain his composure and capability to shoot back. Solace's shot causes one of the attackers to involuntarily lower his weapon as he is hit. Reeling left and right, he braces himself with his hands. Jantine turns to Cole and begins to say "You alright..." until he sees the man going down, and his last word which would have been 'Cole' turns into "Shit". he fires off another shot at the two thugs before getting up and running over to Cole, diving down when he gets over to him. More swearing comes from the berth the two thugs occupy. One aims hastily and squeezes off a shot at the running Jantine, seeming a bit surprised to be confronted with a moving target. The Zangali flops his head over towards the kneeling types before swinging the pulse assault rifle over in their direction. With his head on the ground, he can't quite line his eye up with the weapon, but he does manage to hold it fairly steady as he fires on handed. Despite being all heroic and stuff, the Zangali misses. The two attackers who aren't busy dropping their weapons fire back with no real targets in mind. With snarled teeth, Barry continues to fire towards the trio that are currently engaged with Urf, Sol and himself. The pulse shot wizzes over his shoulder, causing some of his hair to singe. "Fuck it!" He yells, as he opens fire on the man responsible. There isn't any pattern anymore, just anger. Barry mows down another man who gets stitched across the thigh and gut. He goes down, clasping his stomach and trying to keep his insides from going on public display. Solace is almost shot herself, and she seems more than a little irritated by it as she comes up from ducking. Her own curse is stifled as she focuses, the relatively calmer of the Jackals by now. Raising her pulse pistol, she goes for the second one with a weapon, sighting carefully. Solace's shot takes the other shooter in the shoulder. He grabs at the smoking wound, dropping his weapon and falling to the side. Cole shrugs off Jantine. "I'm...fine. Just keep...shooting. Otherwise we can't get off this damn rock...with Urf. Keep...shooting." He says, his breathing still heavy. He manages to bring himself to a knee and bring up his right arm to pop off more shots at the men. There's no swearing this time from the berth occupied by the two gunmen. Just screaming that seems to be fading fast. Jantine lowers his pistol at the sound of the screaming, he turns to Cole and says simply "Can you walk?" The man who dropped his weapon earlier in the open watches as his two buddies get mowed down by Solace and Barry. Gulping, he abandons them to their own devices, trying to flee. He weaves drunkenly to the left and right. "No ya fucking don't!" Barry yells after the running man, the injured Jackal's off and running after the man, purposefully kicking one of the badly wounded gunmen on the ground as he passes. The running man's gone down an alley, and Barry quickly down after him. The sound of automatic rifles and pulse weaponry are all that's heard for the time being, the echoes slowly fading further into the distance, until complete silence takes over the landing bay. Urfkgar seems spent from the whole attempt at being heroic deal. He remains sprawled out on the ground, smelling like burnt leather. Solace glances down at the Zangali. There's not really much she can do, so she saunters over to the bodies and starts collecting weapons, whistling under her breath. She glances over her shoulder at where the Marines are finishing up. "Hey, your Zangali is down, you might wanna come collect it. If you don't have a doctor, let me know." With that, she goes back to her looting, looking for ID and kicking corpses as she goes to make sure they're dead. Two of the corpses aren't quite dead, but they're not alive enough to do more than moan and groan in protest. They offer up two Ungstiri IDs between the three of them. Both are found on the same not all the way dead yet attacker. Jantine turns the safety off on his pistol, and finally realizes he has yet to take his hand out from under his armor, he takes it out and holsters his pistol, and then follows Cole towards Urf. "You can use Doc, then. I'll wake her up to patch you up. Who am I sending the bill to?" Solace asks. She pauses to shoot the groaners in the legs after putting in a new power cell, with her usual straightforward approach to putting people out of commission. The IDs get examined, and then pocketed. "Can everybody move? On account of I don't feel like staying out here, and I ain't ever been on a military ship before." She scoops up her little gathered pile and starts moving towards the Jackal. "I'll go get Doc." Urfkgar uses his legs to push himself out from under the rockhopper and crawl out of the berth. After a false start, he manages to get his legs under him and stand, leaning on the small ship once he's up. He doesn't let go of the rifle. He manages to say, "Marines. Go. No. Here." Cole simply nods at Urfkgar and turns around, slowly slumping back towards the Riposte, holding his wound. Jantine turns to the Riposte as well. The Zangali still doesn't release his death grip on the assault rifle as he doggedly marches towards the maindeck one step at a time. The bridge before you is cramped, with no natural view of space what so ever. Three consoles are spaced in a triangle, two towards the holographic viewscreen to the fore, and one command console set further behind. However, despite this lack of space, this ship is clearly a military vessel, with clean polished lines, and a look of precision to everything. Jantine walks in and settles in the pilot’s seat, and prepares to take off. The Zangali shuffles into the corner and collapses with his back against the wall. After some flying to leave the Ungstir system before the fuzz get too interested… As the craft finally plummets into high speeds, Jan turns around to look at Urf "You alright?" he says shortly. "Nope," replies the Zangali without much feeling behind the answer. Jantine looks concerned "Anything I can do to help?" he inquires. "Stupid softskin doc?" asks the Zangali. Jantine shakes his head "No" he answers "But if you can tell me what to do I could probably do it" he says. "Go morerer fosterer," advises the Zangali after a moment or two of silence. Jantine looks back over his shoulder "We're going as fast as we can without risking the ship or our lives sir." he answers "There's not much I can do there, but if you need help I can help you sir." "Fly thingy," says the Zangali. "Urf no killededed now. Urf no killededed time go place." Jantine nods, and turns back to his station, but he says "If you says so sir, but I don't have to do anything until we get back." Urfkgar grunts and leans forward a bit to reveal the gaping whole beneath his shoulder blade. He says, "See thingy. Say stuff see." Jantine gets up from his station and comes over to behind Urf, unable to see much until the Zangali moves a little. The Zangali drops his shoulder to reveal the wound. The flesh on the edges is charred black mixed with greenish blood from the living flesh below. The actual hole is a puncture that, judging from his labored breathing, probably punctured a lung. Jantine looks at it closely, and says "It looks like a pulse wound, charred the flesh, it looks like it went pretty deep" he says, and pauses and then says "There's a bit of blood too, what do you want me to do sir?" "Urf know," grunts the Zangali. He reaches into a pocket and produces a plastic bag devoid of carrots and a roll of tape. He says, "Splat thingy basheded place." Jantine takes the bag from Urf and gingerly places it over the wound, trying not to hurt the Zangali, as hard as that may be. He begins to tape the wound up. "Goodererer stupid softskin," grunts the Zangali when Jantine finishes. He gingerly leans back against the bulkhead, grumbling in Zantra. Jantine nods, and heads back to his station, glad he could do something to help the Zangali. "What time?" asks the Zangali, gesturing vaguely towards the navigation console with the PAR he's still got in his good hand. Jantine gets up and looks over at the Navigation console "About fourteen minutes" he says after a brief second, before turning again to his own station. "Stupid softskin basheded?" is the Zangali's next question. Jantine feels the hole in his shirt where the blast hit him, feeling just a slight burn mark "Naw" he says, mostly truthfully. Urfkgar doesn't seem to notice. He grunts vaguely. Jantine continues to watch ahead, not looking at anything in particular. Narrator: The incredible journey (finally, thank God) ends with the Zangali and Cole being hauled off to the medbay in Hancock Station, and Jantine going to file an official report with the militia.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)