The assault was brutal and quick, and the sailors stood no chance at all. As Marko chased one he had selected, the sailor made one last action before the dagger drove its way through his skull, a vicious twist ending the sailor's story with lethal efficiency. The alarm began ringing not a second later, and Marko had fortunately seen where the man had triggered the emergency system. As the chaotic scene continued, he quickly ripped off the station with a violent smash from the pommel of his dagger, exposing the wires that lay behind. This was a very basic system, though he was surprised to see a lumen-based system on the ship. Groundside, these were fairly uncommon, as the expense often did not justify the need. A half dozen guards could be paid for a year with the price of a full system in a landlord's villa.
Quickly yanking the wires from the station, he felt an unpleasant shock as he twisted the according wires together, restoring the continuity of the system and disabling the alarm. The ringing stopped less than a second later. This would almost certainly have alerted somebody, but at this point, he was certain it was irrelevant. He could hear the chaos going on topside even from down here, the screams of men both above and below deck, explosions from firearms sending shockwaves. These were the sounds he was accustomed to avoiding, as they almost always were followed by half the town's guard showing up. Here there was no fear of that, but the behavior of avoidance was well ingrained into his psyche.
The spooling of a stannum engine behind him turned his head. "What the hell?" He shouted, as an airboat came careening towards him like an angry demon. He dropped out of the way as it came just feet from him, smashing into the wall. Wood shattered with the impact, sending splinters hurtling towards him as the engine spooled down again. This was already turning into a clusterfuck of unimaginable proportions. If he managed to survive this, he'd really need to rework his plan of attack for future missions, because apparently stealth alone wasn't going to work airborne.
Leaping to his feet, he heard Balder call out, "Let's finish up quickly here, boys! We need to be movin'!" He didn't need to tell Marko that twice. The longer the stayed here, the more likely somebody else was going to show up and catch them off guard. Marko didn't want to die here. "Right then, to the hallway!" Balder shouted shortly after that, but Marko was already forming up at the door, the other men in hot pursuit.
Pulling out a small mirror, he kneeled down, look at it through the bottom corner of the door. Outside he could see several sailors rushing down the hallway, likely going topside. Whatever the captain had planned up there, it seemed to be working. These dark corridors were emptying out at an alarming rate. As the sailors disappeared up a flight of stairs, he waited until everyone was formed up to give a quick set of directions. "Listen up! We need to keep this quiet and fast. Follow me, and we'll make it out of here alive. No clanging, banging, or otherwise chaos. If a fellow bumps into you, snap his damn neck or slit his throat, but do it silently, and don't look for it." He looked down at the mirror again, and seeing his opening, motioned for the others to follow. "And by the Gods, do not step out into the middle of the corridor."
He breached out into the corridor, clearing to his right and rushing along the wall to the first door. Checking his mirror again, he duly noted some items of interest, but no sailors were to be found. "Clear," he whispered, gesturing to follow further. As he low jumped across the doorway, another directly ahead appeared in his peripheral. As he placed the mirror low, a sailor ran out with due haste, completely missing him in the darkness. Too close for comfort, but fortunately for the sailor, he went the other way, and would likely survive another couple minutes before the topside crew terminated his existence. No more sailors in there as far as he could see, and he continued up.
Down the hallway, similar cases appeared. About a dozen instances in total, sometimes they would quickly end the one or two that stumbled upon them, other times the dim corridors offered the best disguise. If there was one thing that was true about the undisciplined, it was their total lack of perception under stress. Tunnel vision was real, and throughout Marko's entire life, it had saved him over and over again. These men spent so much time focusing on getting topside that they forgot all about what was right in front of them, and it proved to be their demise.
He was already getting the feeling that his life was going to be rather bloody for the foreseeable future, a lot bloodier than the thief was used to. As he reached the end of the tunnel, his handy mirror noted something he very much did not want to see, and further proved his thoughts on the subject, only this time, they switched to his blood being used as decoration. "Fucking arbiters," he harshly whispered to the crew behind him as he pulled the mirror back slowly. What the hell are they doing on some uninteresting freight ship? Don't the have better things to do, like cut off thieves' hands or hang vagrants? Whatever the case, they were here, and those lethal bastards are going to be a handful. Not that Marko will feel bad about killing those murdering pricks, he's just never done that before.
"We have a problem," he said after a second, his poker face gone and turned into a look of worry. "Imperial Arbiters. Two of them. I'm afraid our blades won't be much help here, but that hammer of yours should work out good," he stated, pointing towards Lasrach's smasher. "Flexible mail isn't much use against blunt trauma."
He looked down at the mirror, looking for an in to shock them. Charging headlong would probably lead to a Pyrrhic victory for them. Their numbers would carry the day, but it would not be without casualties. He turned to Balder after seeing no obvious route of ingress. "Do you have any ideas? This isn't exactly my cup of tea."
