It did not seem like Bit or Opus were able to take out one of the patrolling guards before getting into position, but if all went well, it would not matter. She made sure her pistol was on its burst setting, then located the remaining patrolling guard. In her other hand, she primed her fusion grenade, then waited until the guard she was tracking was within her line of sight.

"Take out your targets quickly on my mark. Remember, radio silence until I give the all clear." Rareth warned. "Mark!" She ordered, immediately activating the scanning program, then quickly moving to drop the armed grenade onto the group of four beneath her. At the same time, she opened fire on the other guard in her sights with several bursts, just to be safe. The fusion rounds melted clean through his body; she just hoped he would not be alive long enough to activate his radio. For the group beneath her, their lives were ended much more quickly. They had time to register that something had dropped near them, and perhaps look up at the rounds Rareth was firing, before the grenade detonated. For the small amount of fusible material the grenade contained, it released exponentially greater amounts of heat energy which melted or outright vaporized anything contained within the magnetic field. By the time the explosion was over, there was not anything that could be called a body left over; just superheated metal, some organic compounds, and a trace of helium.

At the moment Rareth gave the order, Opus dropped the rope over the human's head. HE had a split second to be shocked and stunned before the agent pulled the rope tight, using the railing of the catwalk as leverage. He was hoisted into the air, as the rope pulled taut over his neck and was tied into place. He choked and gasped for air, pulling at the rope feebly, before losing consciousness. Opus then drew his blade to begin the fighting in earnest, and took off after his second target, a Masulu who had gotten lost in the maze of warehouse crates and materials.

As the grenade went off and vaporized the fools who should have been paying attention, there was a smile under his mask. So long had he been waiting to get into the action with this team. Hopefully they wouldn't disappoint. As the second mark ran through the rows of crates to get to where the action was, Opus leaped from the catwalk, sailing towards him, he registered he was being chased, and fired off rounds wildly, trying to intercept his assailant. Unfortunately, he was a bad shot, and Opus plunged the blade tip deep into his neck as he landed , as the blade sliced and sawed through his thoracic organs like a hot knife through butter.

Blood choked and spluttered out of his horrified mouth, spraying the agent's armor, as he took the rifle out of his hand and held his body close, his armor shielding the assassin from the hail of bullets from the elevator rebel squad. Opus fired the plasma rifle back from underneath the dead guard's arm, forcing them into cover and drawing their gaze towards him. With their attention on this dirophyd, the rest of the team could ambush them easily.

Shuo stretched his fingers on the ledge as he watched all of the more stealthy elements of the team move into position over the feed. Just as Rareth finished giving her note about radio silence Shuo began to leap from his coiled position. By the time his feet were hitting the hard metal next to his hands he heard mark. Shuo minimized his video feeds and moved his eyes too what he was doing. He threw his hand up behind his back and grabbed the butt of his rifle and withlist beginning to run towards his closest target. A new target that he saw just before he minimized, walk through a door into the room. A Tempu women who had just heard the disintegration of her comrades. Shuo cleared the crate and she was now in his full view as her clawed feet were attempting to turn her towards now molten hole in the deck. Shuo put her in his cross hairs and let out a barrage of 5 bolts of pure plasma energy. There was no recoil as the bolts hissed from between the weapons magnetic coils towards their destination.

The first bolt passed just over Tempu but the other rounds found their marks. The first two rounds striking her back legs melting through the metal plates and into the flesh behind it. The final two impacted her upper chest again they landed in near the same spot. The armor on her chest and back were thicker but it mattered not as the two rounds fell close to each other maximizing their potentials to penetrate. Even while the two final rounds were not done dealing their super heated payload Shuo fired another burst of rounds at her which sealed her fate. There wasen't even enough time for her to register the pain of her skin and fur burning before it boiled her organs to various gases and liquids. Her body collapsed to the right oppisite of where she had been hit and Shuo without stopping stepped over the still burning corpse.

As he rounded another corner he took time to notice that the outlines were in fact gone around his targets. Filing this information away quickly he looked at the group left remaining. Only a few of them had actually managed to get their weapons to bear in the time that Shuo had dispatched the Tempu. Though they were not firing at him they were now directing their fire at Opus who was using a meat shield at this point. Shuo put the group in his digital sights and began abusing his element of surprise to fire at the Rebel with the biggest gun. Which just so happened to be a Rothian with a fusion rifle. The Masulu's rifle spat ionized liquid at the new hostiles and anticipated it to find marks. Shuo watched as 2 rounds broke in front of the Rothian and a third burst on the reptiles chest plate. While the direct his had not killed the lizard it did force him to take cover under the new hail of fire. Just then a barrage of bullets lit up Shuo's shields and sent them to near half. He quickly pressed against the machine occupying the center of the room and took cover while his shields began to recharge. He heard multiple rounds bounce off the metal next to him towards some other part of the station as he prepared to make another venture out of cover and into a firing position.

Go time.

Shiva practically leaped up the rungs of the ladder and made it to her feet behind Shuo as he gunned down the last patroller. The bright flash that Rareth's fusion grenade made was more than enough of a diversion to execute her own plan. Drawing her weapong, she sprinted to the cover she had seen; a piller with an adjacent crate. Once under fire from Shuo, the last group dove for cover, but were still slightly out of position in relation to Shiva. Pick a target, pull the trigger. Shiva aligned her scope with another tempu enemy and her Rebuffer near-instantly began to launch bolt after bolt of hot plasma into his side. The shock of the fire caused the man to stagger, but the shield he had equipped wasn't enough to withstand sustained fire and he suffered shots to the throat, chest and shoulder. He died before any noise could come through his radio.

Shiva obscured herself further and fired at the others without looking fully in their direction so as to suppress them. By her count there were only three left, and they were surrounded from three angles and counting. Once the initial retaliatory barrage seemed to wane, Shiva poked her head out and scanned down her scope for another target.

Bit gave the grenade a squeeze before throwing the now fuming object into the face of his adversary where it burst. The human gasped, causing the gas to quickly take effect. Bit watched the rebel's eyes cross in an almost comical way before he collapsed. After the man fell, Bit stripped his unconscious body of any weapons and communication devices and tied the man's wrists together. After he was completely sure that the rebel was going nowhere, Bit drew both of his pistols and joined the others in the firefight.

Instead of going straight for the group of five by the door, Rareth noticed that Shuo fired upon the patrol that Rareth was shooting, for whatever reason. Regardless, they dropped the patrol quickly with combined fire, then shifted over to the final group. They scrambled to ready their weapons, but realistically, they had no chance. They were surrounded on all sides, including from above, so none of them could find cover that would protect them completely. It did not take long for the team to overwhelm them, as they were riddled with shots from all sides, but Rareth feared that it still took too long.

Once all hostiles in the room were eliminated, Rareth checked her device and saw that her suit's sensors had indeed picked up a radio signal, and therefore had activated the station's jammer. She tried to use her radio and confirmed that it no longer functioned. As well, she could no longer bring up their drones' video feeds. Certainly, this wasn't a positive development, but it also wasn't the end of the mission. Rareth teleported down to the ground level and addressed her team, this time with her voice directly instead of the radio. "Bad news, we were too slow. We took them all out, but one of them had a chance to activate their radio before we finished them off. That means all remote communications on the station are now jammed, so we are now on a time limit. As soon as the rebels figure it out, they are going to do whatever they can to bring their communications back online. We don't know how long that is going to take, so we need to hurry. Though, that at least means that we can now go in fast and loud." Rareth explained.

The plasma rifle's cell ran dry, as the last enemy fell, taken out by the others. Opus stood there for a brief moment, before removing the blade from the guard in a stream of blood and other bodily fluids, letting him crumple to the ground, holes smoking on his back armor where the torrent of fire had peppered him from his allies. As the agent joined the rest of the team, he flicked the liquid off the blade sharply, accidentally spraying Shuo lightly on his chest armor. His own armor was significantly more filthy, so he pressed a button on the side of his visor, and a light plasma sheen scanned the length of his body, burning it away with a slightly acrid smelling smoke. Once clean, Opus acknowledged Rareth, and spoke to the team as a whole.

"If I may interject, we still have no idea where the data center is. We should probably find someone who does know..." Opus looked around at the various bodies, pointing at each one in turn. "Dead, dead, dead, definitely dead... What about that one?" His finger fell on the tied up rebel, that Bit had taken out non lethally. "Good work on that one, Bit. Though you're lucky you didn't gas any one of us as well. It's nothing personal, I just... Have a distaste for nerve agents."

"Well it isn't supposed to be a nerve agent, it's just a partly disassembled incendiary. Its effective range is three meters in any direction, so the worst any of you would have gotten was the loss of a few brain cells." Bit stated with a wave of his hand.

"Even so, waking him up may be a little challenging as the genius decided to take a whole lungful...Any trained soldier would have been prepared for this kind of situation." Bit said with a shake of his head. "Either these guys are completely incompetent, or we're missing something important."

The area was secure, at least for now. Shiva emerged from her cover, scanned the area with her plasma gun raised and found nothing but her teammates. Now that she had a closer look at the dead soldiers around her, she hoped that their appearance would be more telling. They wore no distinctive markings that she could recognise, and they didn't really have time to search through all of them. She guessed she should have expected as much. Word of having caught one alive made her perk up, though.

Shiva strode over to the unconscious human and knelt down. Without prompt, she put her weapon to the magnet on the small of her back and leaned in closer. She started by taking out a torch, holding one of the human's eyes open and waving it in front of the eye as it was lit. Given Bit's report, perhaps Shiva could make herself useful again. She took out a stimulant shot from her medkit, propped the tied up human's back against a pillar, removed his methods of communication by unceremoniously removing his helmet, then held his limp body against the pillar with her free hand.

As she bit the cap off the stimulant needle, Shiva looked over to Opus. "I can wake him up if you promise to be quick," She blew the cap onto the ground and looked to Rareth before finishing, "but if we need to get going, it's your call, commander." She trusted Opus enough with his idea after his performance in the elevator, but there was still a sense of urgency to be met. As soon as Rareth gave the word, she would jab the human in the arm and arouse him from the nightmare they had caused. Being in such a situation would likely be uncomfortable.

"We do know several possible locations of the data center, but it would be nice to get something definite. Go ahead and wake him up, just be quick. We do not have a lot of time and we need to get through this fast. Also, someone get something to bind him with. We're going to need to tie him up here to make sure he can't cause us any trouble after we're gone. Make sure to hold him down." Rareth suggested.

Rareth pointed her pistol straight at his head so that the first thing he would see upon opening his eyes would be the barrel of her gun. The team was surrounding him on all sides, so it would be abundantly clear once he awoke that they were in control of the situation. Unfortunately, they did not have time for a protracted interrogation, so they would just have to hope that he was frightened enough to be cooperative.

"Very well. Give me a moment..." Opus strode over to the unconscious guard, and pinned him by the neck, slapping him to fully wake him up. "Good morning. We need to know where the hostages are being kept. And I guarantee that you will tell us, preferably right now.." With this, the agent removed a small thread knife from his belt, and thrust it into the rebel's hand, stabbing right through the tendons and muscle. He screamed in agony, while the agent twisted the blade clockwise in the wound, further tearing precious tissue and flesh. The rebel cried out, horrified, as Opus asked again. "The data. Please."

"Huh, what? Hostages? I think - Ahhh! What the-" The Human guard shouted. Given the chemicals still flowing through his system, it wasn't certain if he had even registered that he had been stabbed, only that he was in pain. He was dazed and confused, and had only just started to open his eyes. "Ahh! My hand...and my head! Why does my head hurt so much? It's like-"

"Enough." Rareth interrupted. She was not thrilled with Opus injuring him before they even had a chance to ask a question, but it was the situation they were now in. "You have hostages aboard this station. Where can we find them, or information on where they are?"

"Station? Hostages? What are you...oh no...I remember. The data...it's...the center! The center of the station, go there and - ahh! My head!" He shouted, pressing his free hand to his temple.

To say that the rebel was behaving strangely would be an understatement, but he seemed cooperative, so Rareth needed to get as much information from him as possible, as quickly as possible. "Good, now what can you tell me about the defenses you rebels have?"

"I...I don't...rebels? No, it's not like that, it's..." The guard began before screaming once more, then suddenly going completely silent. Rareth wondered if he had fallen unconscious again when she noticed blood running from his mouth and eyes. She did not quite remember how to check a human's heartbeat, but he appeared quite dead.

"That...was not normal." Rareth commented.

For a while, Shiva thought the hostage was faking it. The screams, playing dumb, everything. Being as close as she was, however, she noticed the sclera of his eyes begin to fog red. Looking closer, his capillaries were all bursting at an alarming rate. Before Shiva knew it, he was bleeding from all his facial orifices and became still. The silence that followed had Shiva check the human's neck for a pulse with her disproportionate fingers. Dead. Shiva put one hand to the top of the human's head for a moment and closed her eyes, channelling enough neutrium to try and take a quick glimpse of his physiology.

After a few seconds, Shiva opened her eyes and lowered her hand with a sigh. She was dumbstruck, "I don't get it, his blood pressure just...spiked beyond anything I could think to cause it. Not even inhaling some gas and taking a stimulant would cause this as far as I'm aware." Shiva stood up and let the human's body fall forward, retrieving her weapon and readying it. "'Not normal' is an understatement. We need someone to take a closer look at this body before we disembark."

For all Shiva's worries, it remained that they had a rough idea of where the data centre was. She turned to the others with pursed lips, ready to move out. "First, though, primary objective."

Opus watched the man die as he let go of his neck, letting Shiva check for a pulse. Cocking his head to one side, he commented. "Strange... This is why I don't like chemical weapons, Bit... Maybe he was allergic or something?" Opus turned to face the others, and saw Rareth looking at him, not pleased with how he had interrogated the prisoner. He simply shrugged, and waved a hand at her. "In SpecOps, things are different. We can't all play nice, and tell captives it's going to be alright. Besides, you said make it quick."

After addressing that particular issue, Opus brought up his wrist mounted holo map, and looked over the facility carefully. "He said the center of the station... I assume that he means... Here." Opus highlighted the location, and brought it up as a marker on his HUD, un-holstering his Pinch pistol. "Well, now we know where we're headed next. We are ready when you are, Rareth."

"We can mark this location and have someone pick up the body later. For now, we need to move. Although, we should approach this cautiously. There is always the possibility that he was lying, and had some implant with which to commit suicide. The room immediately next to this one was the reason we came this direction in the first place. Let's check that room to see if it is our target; if not, we can move on to the center of the station." Rareth decided. She took the lead as they moved to the opposite side of the room and left through a hallway, which led to the first potential data center.

Rareth stopped and leaned against the door, listening to what sounded like muffled voices on the other side. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but one of the voices was getting closer. "Potential hostiles inside, be ready." Rareth said quietly to the others before pressing the button to open the door. As it slid open, it revealed a surprised Masulu woman only a few meters from the door. She was not in combat gear, but she did have a handgun holstered on her side and her hand seemed to be reaching for it. As a result, Rareth opened fire with a burst from her pistol, which prompted the others to fire on her and the other hostile, a Tempu male, in the room. Both of them were cut down quickly.

"Check these terminals, see if there is anything interesting." Rareth said as she walked over to the terminal the Tempu had been working on. In most space stations or ships that expected to house multiple species regularly, all of the interfaces were built to easily and quickly shift between languages based on the user, so Rareth switched it to the Rothian language and got to work trying to figure out what he had been doing. Unfortunately, it did not take long to figure out that these particular computers were not being used to store the information they were after. In fact, they were not even connected to the station's main network. It seemed as if the Tempu had been trying to connect the station's defenses to be solely controlled by the computers in this room, which would make them less susceptible to outside hacking attempts. While it wasn't what they were looking for, it meant that they had not wasted their time by investigating this room, for Rareth was quite easily able to deactivate the station's external defenses, as the Tempu had not yet finished setting up security on the console. If the rebels wanted to fix it, they would have to send someone down to deal with it personally.

"Well, it's not what we needed, but i was at least able to shut down the external station defenses for the moment." Rareth explained, stepping into the middle of the room. She then activated a holographic display of the station schematics from her device, then marked the location the rebel had explained to them. "The way I see it, we have two ways to approach this. There are a few maintenance shafts and smaller corridors we can take to reach the data center. It will be safer, but will take quite a bit longer. If the rebels figure out how to disable the radio jammer in that time, this mission is pretty much over. The other option is to head straight there through the main hallways and elevators. It's a much shorter path, but we're guaranteed to get into some firefights, and not like the last one where we had the element of surprise."

Shuo pinched off one more round at the now near molten Rothian that was now joining their comrades in the pile they had created. Shuo kept his guard up scanning the room as Opus began cleaning himself. He scoffed to himself when the suit found it necessary to clean blood from himself with a quick plasma field. It really only egged on his dislike for the high speed low drag blade wielders. The fact that he needed a way to clean blood off himself lent to the argument that kinetic weapons were down right ineffective. His weapon might create a pool of burning flesh but it was rather easy for him to keep blood off him. Shuo barely even cared that Opus had gotten human blood on him, it would be a 30 min armor cleaning when he got back to the ship anyways.

As the others began their interrogation of the remaining hostile Shuo began checking the bodies to make sure they were in fact dead. He sweeped past the small crater where Rareth's grenade had gone off and made his way over to the group. Keeping his weapon aimed at the burnt remains he kicked through them making sure none moved. Satisfied with their work he sweeped around the room going to the other three patrols of which he had not killed. The Masulu with multiple types of weapons fire in his back nearly made Shuo laugh. These rebels had extremely poor training if they were willing to shoot rather than blow up a meat shield.. He then made his way back around as the rebel scum started talking. He was only mildly surprised when the human started convulsing. The insurgents he had been fighting prior to this mission were suicidal in their devotion to trying to "reclaim" their planet. Though it made him curious as to what these ones were fighting for.

Shuo said nothing as the more medical orientated members of the group gathered around. Though when the time came to move into the next room he made sure to stack up as one of the first few in. After they entered and quickly neutralized the two vectors Shuo on a hunch checked the Tempu for any markings as she was still mostly unburnt. He checked all the usual locations that terrorists would imprint their markings on themselves, but he came up with nothing. No markings or tattoos of any kind, strange. He stood up from his crouch and looked to Rarteth as she laid out their options. He much preferred speed in this case though he might have been a little biased. "I say we go fast and loud. That engagement took us little time and any force equal to that one will meet the same fate. And as you've said we are very much on a time table none of us can control." Shuo pumped out through his external speakers. Without moving his helmet he allowed his gaze to go over the whole group. Not one injury seemed to have occurred. When he got to Shiva he wondered for a moment if she would even be able to use her abilities on this mission.

The breach into the control room was swift and deadly. Only two targets stood in their way and they were unprepared. Shiva, with a less appropriate weapon for close quarters served as a rearguard while the room was cleared. Inspection of the terminals had Shiva stay at the door and cover while the tech-savvy members of the team had a look. They didn't find their data centre, but it was still progress.

As for the coming tactics, Shiva put forth her own opinion, as it seemed the decision was being thrown out to discussion. "I agree with Shuo. These people, despite being ambushed, didn't display much of any combat experience. If the loud way will save us time, then that's my vote. The only problems might arise if they have hostages, then you sneaks will have to do what you did earlier."

Despite having engaged and questioned one, the team had not come any closer to finding out their enemy's motives. It made Shiva uncomfortable to be there.

After clearing the next room, the agent looked over the terminals, and spoke up.

"To be perfectly honest, we still don't know what kind of firepower these rebels have. No doubt, they were just bored, and given a small detachment to wander the halls and keep busy. There may be a significantly larger force guarding the control room." Opus played about with his pistol, before continuing. "On the other hand, we are running out of time, and we will most likely have to face them anyway. Shuo and Shiva are right, we should perhaps, 'go loud', as much as it pains me to say it..."

Looking over Shiva after commenting about hostages, he chuckled, and nodded. "Of course, the hostages. They seem to have slipped my mind. Yes, we will try our best, definitely."

"Agreed. We'll double back to the elevator and take it up to the center level of the station. It can take us to one of the station's four main cargo passageways, which leads straight into the central storage chamber for raw materials. We do not need to head all the way to the chamber, but we will have to go most of the way to this door here, which leads to the data center that normally controls the mining operation. According to the rebel we interrogated, it will also hold the information we need." Rareth explained, pointing out each location on the map before closing it and starting off towards the elevator.

As she walked, Rareth continued explaining the plan. "Since we're going loud, Shuo can take point. If there is no resistance, it will only take us a few minutes to reach the data center, but I wouldn't count on that." Rareth commented as she stepped into the elevator. It was cramped inside, but luckily, everyone could fit at the same time. "Just be ready for anything once this door opens."

Fortunately, the elevator was fast and allowed them to reach the freight passageway rather quickly. The door opened into a massive passageway which ran perpendicular to the way they were facing. There were no hostiles immediately in front of them, but Rareth could hear voices to the right complaining about their broken radios. The hallway itself was large enough to fit heavy machinery, as its primary purpose was to facilitate the transportation of the raw materials the company mined to storage in the center of the station. When the rebels attacked, it had obviously stopped all mining operations, so the floating pallets carrying containers of the materials were now deactivated on the floor of the passageway and could be used for cover.

As the team moved out into the passageway, they spotted a group of three armed rebels to the right, which was the direction they needed to go, who also spotted them at the same time. Since Rareth's team already had their weapons at the ready, however, the rebel group stood no chance of returning fire before being cut down by a veritable firing squad. Unfortunately, that group of three were not the only rebels in the passageway, and just over a dozen hostiles were alerted by the gunfire. Even without their radios, the rebels were surprisingly quick to react, as it only took a few seconds for the officers present to start shouting orders. Unlike their last encounter, the team did not have a chance to surround and eliminate their foes all at once, so it was going to be a bit more even of a fight. As Rareth's team got to cover, several of the rebels laid down suppressing fire. Rareth heard one of the enemy's officer's shout something about moving up to flank, but it wasn't certain if they were coming from the left or right.

Since the passageway was essentially divided into two sides by the line of containers in the center, Rareth reasoned that it would be advantageous to focus on one side so they would not be getting hit from both. "Push up on the left." Rareth said, hopefully quietly enough that the enemy could not hear.

Once the team cleared the elevator and began moving through the now abandoned transport hallway Shuo decided to throw weapons discipline out the window. They were in hostile territory and they would be on alert. It helped that everyone was behind him aswell. When they stumbled apon the three guards Shuo hesitated for but a moment to see if they had actually been spotted. Shuo saw one of their hands move and in the direction of his weapon. Shuo opened with a quick salvo of rounds before he got his hand to his weapon. The other two hostiles didn't even get that much warning before the rest of the squad cut them down. Then came the yelling of officers, there where more people in the passage. The mix of fire now coming at them was rather inaccurate as they had been caught by as much surprise as they had been. Shuo pressed against a stack of metal boxes as more suppressing fire was laid down by the enemy. Shuo for a moment saw a gap in the colorful weapons fire flying by the box and leaned out of cover quickly firing off as many rounds as he could get down range before the fire drifted back over to him and dropped his shields. Checking his weapons charge quickly he looked backed at the group for a moment. That's when he heard Rareth calling for a push.

Shuo's shields spooled back to their full strength and he jumped from his cover into the path of the shots flying at them all. Shuo began attempting to lay down his own suppressing fire. Out of his helemet he brought his rifle in front of him and began holding down the trigger and moving the weapons left to right in an attempt to cover as much area as possible. He saw several rebels duck behind cover as the globs of energy began to land around them. But there was still a significant amount of fire coming at them. His vision was even partially impaired for a moment as plasma fire licked up into his face. His shields were holding so he did not feel it but it was still an indicator that he was now zero'd in. Shuo quickly looked for cover in front of him as he continued laying suppressing fire. The best he saw was a crate he would have to crouch behind. Locking in his choice he sprinted forward and lowering his weapon to do so. His shields dropped just before he got into cover and something hit him in the shoulder.

While he had the moment he quickly took his left hand off his weapon and brought it to his shoulder. He felt around and found the bullet lodged and squished into his plate. It hadn't gone all the way through but he chalked that up to it coming in at a bad angle. With his shields now back again to their full strength Shuo popped out of cover and began laying down fire again. He was just hoping these strangers he was working with would follow.