[IC] The Depths of Deception

[EliteCommander]

Once she accessed the terminal, there was little she actually had to do herself, as she had been given a program to search automatically for the proper data. The owners of the station were obviously familiar with its own system architecture, so it quickly searched through the database and pulled up information it thought might be relevant. All Rareth had to do was to was look over the information the program found to see if it contained hostage locations. It was less than a minute before she finally found what they had been looking for. As she suspected, the hostages were being held in makeshift prisons scattered across the station. There was no way for a single team to recover them all at once, but that was what the fleet was for.

"Alright, I have the locations, I'm marking them on the map now, along with the Hummingbird's location, and ours. I'm going to have to deactivate the radio jammer to send this to the fleet, so be ready." Rareth explained. With the press of a button on her own computer, she sent out the deactivation signal for the radio jammer, which opened up communications once more. Just as she did this, one of the others was getting ready to bind one of the prisoners, a Masulu man. He wore civilian clothing and did not seem to be armed, but as soon as he saw what Rareth was doing, he seemed to snap.

"You'll never stop us!" He shouted. All of the sudden, he teleported straight out from in front of Shuo and onto Rareth, tackling her to the ground. With telekinetically enhanced force, he thrust his head spike through her armor and into her chest, but just as he used magic to attack, so too did she to defend. She fought back with her own telekinesis to slow the spike to the point that it did not pierce any vital organs, then reached out and grabbed it with her own hands. She could outmatch him for strength, so he could force the spike no further into her, but the others could not safely shoot without a high chance of hitting her. As the others were rushing to help, she managed to teleport out from under him, taking herself just a few feet away. The others were clear to fire, but as they fired their first volley, he teleported out of the room, but in what direction they could not know.

Rareth was on the floor, her armor green from the bleeding wound in her chest. It was painful, but what was more disabling was the degree of magical exhaustion she was facing. She had poured a lot of effort into resisting the Masulu's strike, which, combined with the quick teleport, left her alarmingly fatigued. "Ah, this...someone, hurry and message the fleet. It should be ready to send on the terminal." She ordered, trying to keep her focus on the mission.

[Muttonhawk]

The man's outburst was not something that any in the team seemed to be immediately prepared for. When he spoke, Shiva discouragingly levelled her pistol at him, right before he disappeared in a puff of dark vapour. Shiva looked briefly around the room to try and see where he went, but the sounds of a scuffle behind her quickly drew her gaze to where he was tangled on the floor with Rareth. "Shit!" Shiva shot when Rareth was clear, but only succeeded in leaving some plasma burns on the floor. She took a moment to glance around the room, but it appeared as though the man had escaped. Rareth lay out of the way with a sizable hole in her chest from where the man's head spike drove into it.

Why didn't we bring more damned handcuffs? Shiva thought frantically as she holstered her pistol and knelt down beside Rareth. She knew what her job was, someone else could take care of the terminal. "Stay still, Rareth," Shiva said firmly, placing a hand over the wound and attempting to diagnose it. "You are one lucky little lizard, my friend. If that went any further, you wouldn't be able to breathe," Shiva remarked, somehow keeping her habit of being demeaning to patients despite the anxiety over healing a friend for the first time in decades showing in her face and movements.

Seeing as she could, Shiva took the time to remove Rareth's chest armour, before her regular routine of disinfecting the wound, then repairing it. "This might tickle," Shiva commented before resetting Rareth's rib. Ribs were always quite painful to put back in place for the patient, but Shiva always thought it better to get it out of the way quickly. Sealing the flesh and the skin was trivial, apart from the pattern on Rareth's scales being slightly scarred by the puncture. Shiva was not practised enough with the Rothian epidermis. The scar was there to see by keen eyes through the hole in her armour when Shiva replaced it. No matter, they had bigger worries.

Shiva took a relieved breath after finishing up, then stood up and offered a hand to Rareth. "You're fixed, ma'am." She exchanged glances with the rest of the squad, "Was anyone else hit?"

[cqbexpt]

Shuo was standing behind the Masulu and being a good half a foot taller than him in his armor made him feel very much not at threat. He had had him put his hands behind his head as he approached him earlier with rifle drawn. But even with his rifle on his back and pistol on his hip he felt very in control of the possible threat. He began pulling his hand down behind his back when he disappeared in a cloud. It only took him a second to register that he was no longer there and for him to drop to his knee and draw his pistol. He was near the other prisoners at that moment so he decided to sweep over them and then towards the controls in the room. As he move around he noticed the Masulu had Rareth pinned. In tandom with Shiva he tried to get a shot on him but he figured his odds of not hitting Rareth rested somewhere around 70% as he moved forward and attempted to keep the shot lined up. "Get off the lizard! I will put you down!" Shuo put out over his speakers as he began to close in and thus stopped attempting to aim.

Then Rareth teleported out from underneath the Masulu and Shuo opened fire. Plasma rained on the position and scorched nothing but ground and air. Shuo's eye twitched as he looked over Rareth quickly and saw her bleeding. But it only took him a moment to realize what the wounded Rothian was going to say. The prisoner locales were still in play. He ran over to the console withlist holstering his pistol and began the upload to Joint Field Command. He looked back to Shiva as she was administrating field medicine. He smirked for a second, he guessed she ended up getting to use her talent after all. However he quickly turned back to the console and began looking through security feeds. He specifically looked around the control room, he did not like what he saw. There were easily 30 plus traitors moving on their position. It was time to leave, especially considering their job was done. "Alright we have a significant enemy force moving on our position, we need to circle out to a hanger or the Hummingbird. Either way we can't stay here anymore. Shiva grab Rareth a to-go bag and let's move people!" Shuo put the terminal into lock down and drew his rifle and made his way over to the now standing Rareth. "And you'r kind wonders why we engage in sharpening them." Shuo said with a near tone of sarcasm.

[cqbexpt]

(sigh)

[EliteCommander]

Once Rareth was able to distract herself from the pain of the wound, she noted how skilled Shiva was with her healing. The ability to use magic for that purpose was far quicker than any normal method of dealing with wounds, but even so, Shiva's treatment was more effective than any field healer she could recall meeting. Granted, she still felt some pain and soreness in her chest, especially when she moved, but Shiva had only really had time for a quick field treatment to get her moving and out of danger. She could receive some more fine and detailed treatment later. For now, Rareth stood up, coughing as she tried to catch her breath. She drew her pistol, which by this point was on its last magazine, as well as her blade. "Alright, let's get moving, but we can't go too far. We need to stay within proximity of our current location, or we might get caught in the fleet's attack. When Bit collapsed the hallway behind us, it made a hole in the floor as well, Let's get back there and climb down to the lower level." She said, taking the lead out of the data center.

---

Outside the station, close to the other side of the planet above which they were orbiting, the joint Assembly fleet received their message, and acted immediately. There were six ships in all, three Human, two Sovereignty, and one Rothian, the largest of which was the cruiser-class Rothian vessel. One of the Sovereignty ships was a cruiser-sized carrier for fighters, bombers, and so on, while the rest of the ships were frigates, apart from a Human heavy frigate. Overall, it was a force that was far larger than necessary to handle a group of rebels in a civilian mining station, but it served as an impressive and intimidating show of force. Even just one of the vessels would likely be able to handle the situation alone.

The fleet jumped into FTL for the smallest fraction of a second, calculated perfectly to bring them back to subluminal speeds directly outside the station. Even if the team had not already disabled exterior defenses, the station would not have been able to react. Immediately, the fleet launched their first barrage. The Sovereignty vessels' plasma cannons first focused on key external hardpoints, while the Human and Rothian vessels followed through with precisely and meticulously aimed missile attacks. Most of the missiles were designed to pierce through into the interior of the station before detonating, and since the station was not particularly well-armored, it was an easy enough task to accomplish. Explosions shook the entire station, each finely aimed to damage specific systems. Shields, weapons, hanger bays, control centers, all but one of the power generators; each location was specifically targeted to irreversibly cripple the station, and therefore the rebels inside. The only vital system not targeted was life support so as not to harm the hostages, which were able to be avoided in the barrage thanks to the information from the team inside. Following the initial strike, the fleet scrambled fighters and dropships to board the station through exterior breaches and recover the hostages.

---

The team had managed to make their way down to the floor beneath the data center before the enemy force arrived, though with communications back up, they could not afford to run into any more rebels. Fortunately the allied force struck before they could be found. The explosions ripping through the station shook it enough to knock all of them off of their feet, which was followed quickly by complete darkness, then a feeling of weightlessness. The low-level emergency lighting kicked in a few seconds later, revealing that they were all floating in the middle of the corridor. With the station now operating on very minimal power, even the artificial gravity had been taken offline.

Rareth still felt quite exhausted from her prior magical exertion, but it did not take much telekinetic force at all to stabilize herself int he weightless environment. "Looks like the fleet has arrived. Now we can get back to the Hummingbird." Rareth said, now through the radio, which included Ashley, Telmeck, and Srath back in the hanger. "I hope you're all trained in zero-G."

[cqbexpt]

Shuo felt the first wave of the conglomerate of fire impact on the station in his thick boots. He grabbed onto a nearby support beam. Then the gravity switched off and the lights went off for a moment. Shuo quickly engaged his head mounted lights. He had the feeling of his stomach falling and he looked down as he began to float upward. It was still dark so he could only see what he was looking at dead on. He felt the superstructure of the station rattle again through his hand and into his chest. Then the emergency lights activated so Shuo turned off his own lights. Luckily their section didn't depressurize as that would have pulled them out of the rupture. He was glad the fly boys did their job correctly. Shuo grabbed onto the ceiling and pointed himself down the hallway and activated his thrusters on his back. It wasent anything terribley powerful so he didn't slam his neck into a wall and kill himself.

Once he got to the end of the corridor and reached a T section he looked back at the group and then down each hallway. He then orientated his feet to the floor and magnetized his boots and fell onto the floor. He then called out over the coms that it was clear." Rareth, are you still rated for space?" Shuo said as he pulled his weapon off his back and held onto it as floated around in his hands a little.

[Muttonhawk]

Things got rather more exciting once the data had been uploaded to the fleet. There were shudders throughout the entire station as it was bombarded. All the more lucky for the severity of Rareth's injuries, else Shiva wouldn't have quite as steady a platform to treat her. If they finished up this operation quickly, then Shiva might have had more time to tie up loose ends with Rareth's injury. Shuo's orders were as clear as Rareth's, they were getting out of there.

The squad ran, and Shiva would have preferred that they continue to run, but her feet lost traction as she accidentally pushed herself off the ground...or was it the ceiling now? Shiva made a short, surprised noise that she would never admit to being a shriek, but she flailed for a handhold to stabilise herself. A pipe sufficed and she grunted in frustration as her body halted itself against the wall. "Zero-G is for space marines, not ground troops!" Despite her unheeded protest, Shiva struggled as best as she could and climbed her way along the corridor with the others. The last time she was weightless was in basic training, or strapped into a seat already.

What Shuo insinuated with his next words, however, made Shiva a little incredulous. "We aren't going EVA, are we?"

[EliteCommander]

While it was much easier to navigate in a weightless environment using telekinesis, Rareth avoided using her magic as much as possible in order to give herself a chance to recover from her prior exertion. She stopped maintaining her barrier and relied strictly on momentum to push her through the corridors. With the chaos the sudden attack had created, any pursuers which had been sent after them had likely abandoned the search or been diverted to some other objective.

The team encountered no resistance for some time as they made their way back to the hanger through an alternate route, near the outer edge of the station. There were no more station rattling explosions, but there were undoubtedly battles occurring across the station, as after rescuing the hostages, their forces were tasked with clearing out the station. Eventually, Shuo asked about her spaceworthiness, and as she rounded the corner, Rareth could see why. A blast door was locked down in front of them. Given that the rebels had been given almost no opportunity to react, it was likely an automated response to depressurization in the chamber just beyond.

"I'll be fine. My wound is closed, and my suit is skintight. It doesn't need a seal to provide pressure As long as nothing actually punctures my scales again, there will be no issue." Rareth explained, taking position by the manual release on the blast door. Like Shuo, she magnetized her boots to the floor and instructed the others to do the same. "Get ready, make sure your oxygen levels are fine."

Once everyone signaled they were ready, Rareth opened the door, sending a sizable rush of air out into the vacuum which lasted for several seconds before a blast door behind them locked down as well. She felt her suit rapidly constrict around her as the pressure dropped, eventually bringing her back to the same equilibrium as before. Before them was a very sizable breach, one that stretched several floors above and below them, and was just as wide. It looked to be one of the impact sites from a plasma cannon, which opened up the breach to allow the missile strikes to penetrate deep within the station. There was a field of debris, from small particles to large metal plates, scattered in the empty space between them and their destination on the other side.

The group pushed off in as straight of a line as possible towards the opposite door, though it would require some maneuvering to get through the debris. However, Rareth caught a light out of the corner of her eye which captured her attention. Looking over, she could see the helmet lights of another group about their size coming from deeper inside the station to their left. From their armor, they were not part of the Assembly force.

"Get to cover!" Rareth shouted immediately through the comms, which was quickly followed by gunfire from the direction of the hostiles. Given that the blast of air has pushed away much of the debris nearest the door, she had to rush to find suitable cover. Since Shiva's suit did not seem to possess thrusters, Rareth grabbed onto her arm and telekinetically pulled her towards a large, slightly spinning piece of the station's hull. As soon as they were close enough, they grabbed on, and Rareth used her telekinesis to stabilize its spin. It was still drifting slightly, but it was still a mostly stable platform for the moment. While Rareth had rested enough to regain some energy, she needed to be conservative with her magic in this fight.

[cqbexpt]

As the air rushed out of the room Shuo walked through the breach weapon in one hand looking around for a path that would allow him to get to the other side of the gap. Shuo immediately went on alert when Rareth yelled over the comms to prepare for engagement. He quickly spotted them coming out from above them off towards the rest of the station. Shuo quickly glanced around for a defensible piece of real estate. It only took him a moment when he noticed a part of a floor above them had been burnt in a favorable way for him to duck behind. He pointed himself at the area and then turned off his boots. He put out a low thrust and quickly reached the location. He stopped himself by simply grabbing onto the ledge next to the piece of cover pulling himself into position. Once he activated his boots he realized he was parallel with what had been the floor.

He quickly made his gun change forms and aimed "up" at the hostiles. He remembered that all he needed to do was puncture their suits, from there space would kill them for him. He quickly fired 3 rounds at a Masulu figure and watched as their shields dropped and the last round went through their helmet. The Masulu was moving forward and he guessed that their thrusters were mechanical and thus he kept going away from his group as his corpse began to float off into space. He quickly turned his attention back to what he guessed was a large human and began firing again. Though this time one of his shots went astray and he only managed to put a bolt through the humans arm. They quickly took cover and most likely covered the exposure fast enough to survive. Then shots began raining on his position aswell and he finally pulled himself down into cover. He then called out over the comms."I'm gonna call in a fire mission everyone stay where you are!" Shuo quickly began his uplink with the fleet and began setting up priority. Luckily it would only really be them calling for it, that would mean a prompt response.

" This is 5th Echelon Shuo of the Assembly task force, I'm requesting danger close fire support on my location. Targets will be marked via HUD uplink, data will be transmitted to fleet. How copy over?" Shuo said as a fusion bolt impacted the cover next to him.

A Tempu female voice came over the comm."Your request is granted, fighters will be inbound shortly. Make sure any and all locations are marked quickly. ETA 40 seconds." Shuo smiled with his mandibles and popped up over his cover. He started marking locations via neural uplink as fast as he could confirm targets. Hopefully this ended this engagement quickly as he was out of back up charges and was hovering around 80% with his weapon.

[Muttonhawk]

It was with some nervous haste that Shiva stuck her boots to the ground, activated the magnets to hold herself in place, and went over her EVA drill. Visor down, seal up, check levels, pressurise, pray. It made for a far easier to remember rhyme in the main masulu language. Once the blast door opened, it was moments before all Shiva could hear was the comms and her breathing.

The jump-off was well enough executed, even if it still quietly freaked Shiva out. She wished she had thrusters, or telekinesis, or anything really to make her stop imagining herself hurtling out into space with no control or hope for rescue. Rareth's call of contact flooded her mind with the second big concern she had about space walking. Luckily enough, Shiva was facing the correct way to line up her weapon in the enemy's direction, but even shooting off a few silent plasma rounds pushed her off-course slightly. She was about to shoot in the opposite direction to correct herself before Rareth took her arm.

"WoaaAH! Shit!" Shiva shouted in alarm as she flailed at the sudden change of course. Looking around, she promptly realised the tactic and was quick to magnetise her boots to the large chunk of debris. She then squat and leaned her torso forward over the debris to send more plasma in the enemy's direction. It was nice to have some more control again. "Thanks for that, Rareth!" Shiva spoke through the comms for the first time since depressurisation.

Unfortunately, for the distance between the groups, the disorientation, and the unwieldiness of Shiva's weapon in weightlessness meant that Shiva wasn't exactly hitting anything. Her shots were keeping the militia pinned, though, and drawing their attention. The glowing killshots were mostly coming from Shuo, with his much more precision-oriented shifter rifle. Every few moments, Shiva had to lean back out of the firing line to recharge her shield. Forty seconds, just have to hold out for forty seconds. Shiva leaned over the debris to start firing again. Once her shields had been clipped a couple more times, she leaned back again. Barely seven seconds have passed, Might as well be forty years!

[EliteCommander]

Though Rareth had managed to get Shiva and herself to a relatively safe and stable position, there was little she could do from there. Normally, she was quite proficient in zero-G combat, as her telekinesis allowed her more fine maneuverability than was possible with thrusters. However, her current level of magical fatigue placed her in a difficult situation. She needed to keep her barriers up, or one shot could mean death, but at the moment, she could not keep her barriers and perform complex telekinesis at the same time. It was difficult enough to keep the piece of debris she and Shiva were using for cover stable. As a result, she was forced to stay put, peering over her cover to take shots at the enemy. At the very least, the fact that one shot could also potentially kill them kept them cautious as well.

At the range they were engaging, and with the debris floating between them, it was difficult for either side to land hits on the other. Rareth heard Shuo announce that a Sovereignty dropship was inbound, so all they needed to do was stall for time. Rareth was almost out of ammo for her pistol, so she switched to single fire and tried to be conservative with her shots, but even so, the forty seconds could not seem to pass more slowly. Each shot she fired was simply meant to suppress her foes, though two did hit the shields of two separate enemies. A small light on the back of her weapon indicated to her that she was drawing close to an empty magazine, so she saved her last shot and held herself behind cover, drawing her blade on the off-chance that the enemy decided to advance. She could do almost nothing more to help in the fight, apart from keep their cover stable, but looking back outside the breach, she could see the dropship approaching.

[cqbexpt]

Shuo's shields popped with a loud ringing noise that in basic was the same noise they used to train you that you were dead in war games. He supposed it made sense, after all if your shields had been dropped in actual combat you needed to get down or you were dead. He quickly looked at the top of his HUD to find his charge. 47% left, If this fight lasted long enough his suit could charge the weapon back up but that would require him turning off his shields. He leaned against the wall and crouched down and walked "up" towards the once ceiling of the building. He had been using the same location for longer than he would have liked but zero-g warfare was not his area of expertise. What he wouldn't give for a naval marine detachment right now.

That was when he heard the comm call out's "This is Aereo 2-5, I have a targeting solution on all individuals. Looks like I'm pulling your ass out of the fire." The female voice was being rather sloppy with radio discipline but he supposed he couldn't say a damn thing right now. Shuo sighed and pinged the gunship to begin opening fire."Standby." promptly went out. He watched as the two weapons mounted on the chin of the gunship began silently firing and releasing gas at the base of them. They tracked around fast to multiple positions, the AI was most likely handling the shots and it didn't miss. Then a large blob of plasma erupted from one of the wing mounted weapons. He assumed it was firing one of the extra-small plasma torpedoes at it's disposal. He watched as blue light suddenly bathed the ship and the surrounding area. The guns continued tracking for a moment and then the female came over again. "All vector's neutralized. I'm authorized to tow your team over to your ship if you wish." It occurred to Shuo that she didn't really care about any further maybe even unnecessary damage to the station. After all this was a private mining organization why should we care? Shuo smiled to himself, that is why he loved his statesmen so.

"I think we will take that ride Aereo. Get near the one I'm marking for you for pick up. The rest of us will jet over." Shuo said as he placed a green outline around Shiva with his thoughts. The gunship couldn't carry them in any hold but there were hand holds for just this situation located around the hull. Shuo deactivated his boots and jumped out towards the now sideways gunship. His stomach dropped for the moment he was not holding onto anything and being subject to nothing but momentum. He reached his hands out and grabbed onto two handholds near the cockpit of the ship. It quickly thrustered to compensate for his energy being added to the ship. He watched as they inched closer to Shiva who would now be able to grab rungs near the wing. Hopefully they could get out and back to the Humming bird quick. He didn't like this floating around.

[Muttonhawk]

Shiva kept up her suppressing fire for as long as it took for the gunship to fly by. The glowing torpedo flying past was her signal to take cover before everything was either bright blue or shadowy black for a silent second. After that, the radio came through confirming the success of the sweep. "Oh, thank Shen!" Shiva said without any irony in her voice. She was still breathing heavily and less than comfortable with floating on an unsecured chunk of metal. Even with Rareth around for telekinesis.

As the ship came by, Shiva reached for it very cautiously, almost tearing her arm off as she forgot to disengage her magnetised boots after getting a secure grip. Once she found handholds, she slammed her boots against the hull and re-engaged them. Only then did she exhale steadily.

Now all that was left was for Rareth and the others to secure themselves. Shiva held out a hand for any who needed it. "Come on! let's go before I throw up in my helmet!" Shiva said frantically.

[EliteCommander]

It was quite the relief to see the gunship arrive, and with the accuracy of its targeting computer, it was easy enough for it to finish off their foes. With how far any of them were from an entrance to the interior of the station, they did not have the time to escape. Once the gunship was in a stable position and Shiva had grabbed on, Rareth pushed off from the debris and grabbed on to one of the holds nearby. Though they were still technically in a combat zone, the immediate danger to them was now significantly less than it had been. for the past hour or so. Now, they were essentially in the clear.

After each member of the team found a place to grab hold, the gunship took them the relatively short distance to the hanger through which they had originally arrived. Rareth radioed ahead to Ashley that they were inbound, but even still, she managed to take a few moments to take in the sights from the outside. The station defenses were disabled, so it wasn't as if there was a space battle around it, but the damage to the station was extensive, and impressive. Large holes and gaps in the station's hull had been created by plasma and explosions alike, sending pieces of debris floating out into space just beyond. As tragic as destruction tended to be, it almost had a sort of beauty to it.

It was only a minute or two before the gunship made it to the hanger, the door of which was now locked in an open position, exposing it to the vacuum. Like the rest of the station, it was also devoid of artificial gravity, so the Hummingbird was being held in place by its own magnetic clamps. Rareth pushed away from the gunship and planted her feet on the hanger floor, once again using her magnetic boots to keep her in place. Her steps towards the heavy and slow, but completely silent to all but herself. They had to wait a few moments for Ashley to depressurize the interior so she could open up the loading ramp, so Rareth gave a nod to Shiva and spoke to her through the radio. "So, once we get a moment, do you think you could take a closer look at me? The pain in my chest is still a bit concerning."