Jocasta felt the explosive go off in the elevator through her stomach, the vibration seeming to purge the last of the liquor from her system. Dirk burst out of the stairwell blaster bolts cutting across the gymnasium with surgical precision. Two of her drones were sharing their feed with Dirk’s helmet, a gesture of trust somewhat minimized by the must unbelievably baroque encryption he was using. The drones were able to throw up holographic overlays of hostiles among the crowd, a feature Jocasta was also using. She waited until all of the thugs scattered for cover, firing at Dirk. Then she pulled open the roof hatch of the elevator and dropped down into the open smokey doors. A thug who had just ducked into cover stared in amazement as a voluptuous woman in a bikini dropped from the ceiling and landed beside him.

“Hello,” Jocasta said brightly, then jammed the slender barrel of her pistol into the joint between his breastplate and his greaves and pulled the trigger. The mercenary arched backwards, throwing  his weapon skyward as every nerve in his body fired simultaneously, the contraction pitching him into the back wall with a crack. Jocasta was a little embarrassed. She was on vacation sure, but this was the second time she was going into combat dressed as lazer stripper, she needed to pack a little more practically. She stepped out of the elevator and fired twice more. The bluish sizzling rays from her pistol struck another two of the hijackers who found themselves suddenly out flanked. Two gunmen who had been herding the hostaged turned towards Jocasta, one of them lifting a heavy riot gun that looked like it could fell a Takovian waterbeast. A blade of arcing energy erupted through his chest and then vanished leaving a cloud of smoking blood. His partner tried to spin around only to find his head was suddenly separated from his body and bouncing across the floor. An old man stood behind them with a glowing force sword that had apparently been concealed in a walking stick. He reached up and adjusted an old timey pair of spectacles.
 
“That was pretty bad ass,” Jocasta admitted to no one in particular.

“Like wise my dear,” the old man said, raising the sword in salute and then depressing a stud. The blade winked out and it was a simple walking stick again. The gymnasium was in chaos, but all the enemy were marked as down. The icons for those killed by Dirk had a little D above them but upside down so it looked like a frowning face. Jocasta’s kills were marked with little anthropomorphised dragonflies with their fists raised triumphantly in the air. Irritatingly he had more, although the computer was querying her as to how to allocate the two that the old man had killed. Jocasta assigned them to herself, it was her system and she should get the credit!
 
“Clear,” Dirk remarked as he strode through the carnage, calmly replacing the powerpack in his weapon.
 
“Clear,” Jocasta said somewhat belatedly, too used to trusting her drones to have thought of announcing the fact.

“Clear,” said the old man, apparently just happy to be included. Fine, Jocasta thought, and changed the icons above his kills to a pair of spectacles winking.
 
“If everyone will remain calm the situation is under control, if you are injured remain where you are, otherwise please return to your rooms,” Amber’s voice sounded over a concealed PA system. No one moved for a minute. Jocasta turned and picked up a half burned ‘out of order' sign and hung it helpfully on the smoking blasted doors of the elevator.