[center][color=ed1c24][h3]Rod
Security Officer[/h3][/color][/center][hr]
Rod gave the doctor a sideways smirk as the soldiers prepared their weapons.

[color=ed1c24]“I was born ready,”[/color] he responded with action-hero swagger.

The rescue squad had packed light for their stealth mission. One laser rifle - not as powerful of a model as Rod was accustomed to, but on the quiet end for an assault weapon. One side arm, the short-range but trusty hand phaser. The standard body armor, the details and functions of which go without saying. And, as this was a stealth mission, Rod had packed only three incendiary grenades.

Oh, yeah… the pills. Um. Which one was the good kind again, and which was the dead kind? Rod stole a glance at Mason just as the doctor popped a yellow capsule into his mouth. Of course, the yellow one. That’s what Rod was about to guess.

The rescue crew waited tensely for a cue from Robin, Cake, Carabello – any one of the multiple players higher up in this complex scheme. Occasionally, the group would learn more information about how the various aspects of the plan were going and what they could expect on the enemy ship. Shutting down the unauthorized teleportation blocking program in the hostage hold would raise too many alarms. Teleporting directly into and out of the destination was a no-go, but they could teleport pretty close with less fear of immediate detection. The soldiers would have to make some quick decisions on which route to take based on how events unfolded.

Rod detected a pair of green eyes narrowing at him, and he sneered back just as subtly. [i]Karxon.[/i] That brat thought he was so much better than all the other new recruits just because he had gotten high grades at the academy. Rod gripped his rifle tighter. Well, that teacher’s pet was gonna taste some humble pie when Rod killed twice as many squids as him!

As the sparse updates came in, the muscular mercenary got the picture that the hostage situation was escalating, that they may need to act soon if they wanted to save those poor helpless people. It seems other people felt the same. As soon as the squad received a message that Robin’s environmental toxins were beginning to disperse, they decided they would have to start moving now, before the full effect set in. According to calculations, the toxin should reach its full effect right as the stealthy rescuers reached the hostage hold.

The rescue squad silently teleported into a dark, low-security storage room on Du-Vos’s ship. Rod instantly crouched low and thrust his rifle forward, eyes and ears peeled for any trouble. The coast was clear, the plan still intact. Directed by their leader’s whispers, Rod and the team headed into the network of garbage chutes one-by-one. Rod nearly gagged from the wall of seafood sweat stink and whatever kind of vinegar-soaked cuisine these people apparently ate. But he had weathered worse odors in the phaserball locker rooms. The tan man chuckled as that weaksauce Karxon actually threw up a little.

The soldiers quietly crawled through the ducts for a couple minutes without a hitch. There was not nearly enough garbage to worry about the evacuation cycle starting, and they would only have to go through one open hallway before they reached the hostage room. It was almost too boring, really.