The warehouse stank of lubricants and rusted metal. It had made a good choice for the meet, seeing as Taya technically owned it though had never visited the hab. It was unoccupied and unlike many of the busier fabrication plants, clearly had been for some time. There was absolutely no reason the daughter of a magnate would choose to visit it in the middle of a full scale war, which made it the perfect lure.

"Are you sure everything is all set?" Taya's voice said in Junebug's mastoid implant, her nervousness evident even with the distortion of semi-mismatched units. It wasn't the first time she had asked some variation on the question, or the fifth.

"Stay of the band, everything is set," Sayeeda responded tersely. If they all survived this mess she was going to have a conversation with Taya about radio discipline. It was unlikely that anyone following her had the sort of SIGINT needed to monitor the low power radio she was using, but that was a poor reason to take the chance. Sayeeda was crouched on an uper gangway over looking the working floor of the factory. The place was a maze of derrick, converybelts and other less identifiable industrial junk. The better to spirit Taya away from her shadows. She would just have to hope Neil held up his end of the operation.

As if summoned by her misgiving, her helmet carroted sound, too dim for the human ear to pick up but detectable to the sophisticated sensors in her commo helmet. Twisting slightly she turned towards the motion dialing up the magnification. A trio of large men were entering the factory floor. THey wore mismatched but functional body armor and carried large mouthed shotguns which were in obvious good repair. That wasn't what any security detail should be carrying. Add that to the fact that the men were here before Taya and had come from a different direction and the conclusion was unpleasant. THey weren't a security detail. They were either a snatch team or assassins.

"I'm coming inside," Taya's voice came over the radio.

"NO.." Junebug began about to tell the girl to abort and head back for the dubious saftey of the palace, but the metal roller door was already clattering open.

"There she is!" one of the men snapped, uncoiling a length of neural shock wire with a snap of his wrist. A snatch team them.

"What is going on?" Taya asked in a startled scared voice, the bulky men silouteed against an opening between vast foundry vats from her perspective. Junebug dropped the stunner she had planned on using and unslung her submachine gun. It was a poor weapon for the task but it would have to do.

"Taya, get down!" she snapped and squeezed off a three round burst from her elevated position. One of the men screamed and stumbled back with a sound like a buzzsaw hitting a porcelain vase, one of the slugs shattering his armor like a fragmentation grenade. The facility woke with echos as the remaining rounds ricochet wildly around disussed workspace, tracing orange sparks wherever they struck metal. Taya was screaming and covering her head with her hands as she lay on the ground. An understandable but unhelpful reaction, to the sudden dire turn of events. One of the remaining mercs was swinging his shotgun towards the girl. Junebug unloaded the entire magazine in a single long burst that sounded like the main truss of a house giving way. A dozen or more rounds ricoched in a cascade of sparks and filled the air with an incredible cacophony. The rounds missed their targets but it accomplished its goal of making both men duck for cover.

"Taya! Go! To your right!" Junebug yelled as she stood and cast aside her sub machine gun, the barrel glowing white and visibly warping from the few seconds of continuous firing. Suddenly she really wished she had bought her plasma rifle, but needs must. She ran along the gangway at full tilt, unsnapping her 10mm plasma pistol as she ran, snapping of a few unaimed shots at her targets. Below a shot gun went off, like a grenade in a glass factory but thankfully Taya was staggering to the side, taking cover behind a large metal console. Sayeeda snapped off tow more shots and then vaulted over the saftey railing to drop the six feet to the top of a large industrial tank, her boots hiting with a clang as she turned the dive into a roll to rob it of its momentum.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," Tanya was babbling in the comlink, but this was no time for prayers. Shotguns thundered and she felt the tank shiver, though the deflection was enough to shelter her as she rolled to her right and dropped catching the lip of the tank with her fingertips for only a second, breaking her momentum before dropping the ten feet to the ground. Her armor dug painfully into her hips as she hit the ground, but she could worry about that later.

"Fire in the hole!" one of the mercs yelled and Sayeeda grabbed Taya, now only a few feet away and pulled her close pressing the girl between herself and the side of the metal tank. There was a dirty explosion and a noise so defeaning that it stunned the former armored captain for a moment. Fortunately reflex supplied the lack of decision and she found herself shoving Taya forward towards a side door to a machine alcove. Dimly she became aware of other shots, smaller calibre pistols cracking behind her and the shotguns roared again. A man was screaming and the air stank of cordite and the vaporized haze of aluminum driving bands. It was Taya's security detail.

"Here! Cover me!" Junebug yelled, mouthing the words with exaggereated slowness and pressed the pistol into the girls shaking hands. Taya only looked at her in white faced shock. Sayeeda reached out and closed the girls hands around the gun and then physically turned her to point her back towards the developing fire fight. It was a losing bet that the girl would help, but it beat her panicing. As quickly as she good Sayeeda unhooked a long cylinder of thermite breaching putty and scribed a quick triangle, about a meter to all dimension on the featureless metal wall behind them. The liquid was dull orange and stank of acrid chemicals. Behind her Taya fired the pistol wildly, a half dozen shots in the rapid crack crack crack of panic fire. Ignoring the girl she shoved a small detonator into one of the joins where streaks of breaching putty overlapped.

"Fire in the hole!" she yelled, from habit rather than any current need, and clicked the detonator in her right hand. The putty lit of in crump of ignition and glowed so bright that it left purple after images in Sayeeda's eyes for a moment. The metal sagged back and a triangular section dropped to the floor with a clang. A fist gripped her shoulder and Junebug spun her fist coming up in straight fingered jab before she realized it was Taya.

"It wont fire!" Taya was yelling, tears streaming down her sallow cheeks. The weapon only held twelve rounds and they had almost certainly all been fired in the few seconds Taya held the weapon. Rather than wasting time explaining she grabbed the girl by collar and belt and through her physically through her impromptu egress point. Bullets cracked of the metallic walls as Junebug dived after the noble. Finding herself in a narrow alley she grabbed Taya and bolted in the general direction of the ship.

"Neil," she yelled breathily, "I have Taya but we have a bit of a complication, pick up the pace if you can!"

[@POOHEAD189]