Shiva wasn't exactly quick on the draw in comparison to her team mates. By the time she levelled her weapon and fired off bolts of plasma into the enemies by the door, they had already been shot to pieces by the rest. The thing to do then was to find cover, and Shiva was quick to sprint across to the opposite wall of the corridor and hide behind an open-seated parked lifting vehicle.

The volume of fire was the most it had been in the entire mission. Shiva barely managed to find even a chance to peek, but Shuo presented opportunities via catching the enemies' attention. He was a big target, but also a tough one. The call to push the left side of the corridor from where they were facing put Shiva in a fortunate position. She flicked out the bipod attachment of her weapon, brought it up to the seat of the vehicle she was hiding behind such that she was looking across to the enemy positions, and sustained covering fire over any she spotted poking their little heads out. Trying to keep them suppressed sent a couple of bullets her way which were easily deflected by her shield, but any bullet that wasn't coming her way was going Shuo's. It looked like he took a hit, but he seemed fine.

The combination of Shiva's suppressing fire and Shuo's assault would give the rest of the team a good opportunity to move up. Shiva just hoped they would take it before her weapon overheated.

As the group had left the elevator, Opus was to the back, so his only indication of enemy contacts was shouting and fire that caused the team to reflexively duck. As the team moved, the agent kept low, running crouched as plasma bolts rained up range and melted holes in the wall behind them, thick streams of molten slag dribbling and pooling behind them as they moved. Opus periodically popped up, firing rounds from his pistol. Unfortunately, his weapon was not made to suppress an enemy squad, and did little to assist the team in terms of moving up.

As he ducked behind an overturned forklift, Opus turned to Shiva, and saw her locking down the enemy with fire from her weapon, drawing fire from them. He rolled out of cover in the lull, and slid into another position a little closer to them, rounds spraying the corridor around him. Ducking up, he popped off a shot, and found his mark in another rebels leg, causing him to collapse and drag himself into cover. The agent crouched back down and recharged his weapon, unsure of where to proceed from here. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

Rareth fired her pistol downrange alone with the others, but her strength was not at long range. If she wanted to have any sort of effectiveness in this fight, she would need to move up. On the left flank, Shuo and Shiva had successfully managed to suppress the enemy, so Rareth gave the signal to advance, taking the lead. She fired most of the magazine of her pistol as she ran, melting a notable portion of their enemy's cover in the process. After only a few seconds in the open, she managed to make it to the next container. As the others were getting into cover, however, she noticed movement on the right. It was the group that the enemy officers had sent to flank them, and all of them had their weapons leveled on her. Her barriers were hit twice before she teleported, the second shot being from a Rothian fusion weapon, which was enough to down them completely. Her shields were formed from her magic, instead of a shield generator. Hers in particular were weaker than most standard shields, but, depending on how fatigued she was, charged much more quickly.

Unfortunately, for the rebels, Rareth did not retreat with her teleport. Instead, she ended up directly behind them. Her blade sliced clean through the one in the back before he could turn around. The second started to turn, but Rareth was able to use the momentum from her previous swing to lead into the second. The Masulu woman made an effort to protect her head with her rifle, but Rareth's blade burned clean through both. The final member of the group, the Rothian, nearly had his weapon aimed at her, so Rareth quickly hit him with a burst of telekinetic energy that stumbled him back a few paces...straight in to the rest of her team's line of fire.

"Blasted thing! Work damn you!" Shouted an angry human as he smacked the side of his helmet.

"What? You think yelling and hitting it is going to make it start working again? None of our are working genius." Said is annoyed teammate, who was following a few feet behind.

"It's probably just a bug, I am sure there are some techies running around trying to fix the issue, I'd give it at most an hour maybe two before it's fixed." Another added.

"Quit you worrying, they will be fixed when they are fixed. For now we have an objective and we are going to get it done and report back personally, not sit around and wait till our damn radios start working again." Snapped the officer.

Silence fell over the group of five as they continued on their patrol. Each member was at least a little anxious in their own right, they could not deny it, something certainly felt off about this whole situation, they have experienced a loss of communication before but nothing this bad, this was taking longer then it usually did to fix and they were beginning to grow restless.

"Alright we are almost to the hanger." The officer said as they approached a set of doors. "Through here should be a small cargo bay, just on the other side of the bay is the entrance to the hanger. All we have to do is clear this bay and the hanger then we are on our way back, sweet and simple." The officer reminded.

As they reached the door it automatically slid open revealing a pitch black room.

"Oh wonderful no lights." Complained one of the patrol members.

"They must have been deactivated to conserve power or something, come on, flashlights on, lets see what we can do." The officer said as he switched the flashlight on his chest on, his men quickly following in suite. "Rigez, take point." The officer ordered.

"Yes sir." Rigez replied as he made his way up to the front of the squad.

Slowly the patrol began making their way into the cargo bay, as they stepped away from the door they had entered through, it automatically slid shut leaving them in the darkness of the bay, which was only offset by the narrow lights equipped on them.

"Would now be a bad time to say I am afraid of the dark?" Joked one of the patrol members.

"How have you even made it this far as an adult?" Another replied.

"Blind luck?" The other quipped back.

"You're an idi-" The other tried to say before he was cut off as the sound of one of the cargo bays lifters rattled to life from behind the squad.

"Holy fuck!" The furthest back rebel shouted as he jumped and spun to face the source of the sound, his whole squad quickly joining him in aiming down the drone. They all watched, weapons raised, as the lifter hovered out into the center of the room befor coming to a stop illuminated by the purple light of its small propulsion system and the lights from the patrol.

"What the hell is up with that thing?" One of them asked nervously.

"I haven't the foggiest." The officer commented as he looked the lifter over not willing to lower his weapon. "Rigez, see if you can get these lights on." He ordered. Several seconds past as he waited for some form of response, be it a 'yes sir' or the shuffling of boots, but he was met with no reply.

"Rigez?" The officer said as he spun around to where Rigez had last been, but his heart dropped as he was met with no sign of his soldier. "Rigez?" The officer asked, louder this time, still no reply. Now the officer and his men began looking around frantically trying to locate their squad mate. "Rigez?! Where are you dammit?" The officer shouted angrily.

Panic began to set in as minds raced for explanations for what could have happened. Then from the other side of the room the sound of the lifters propulsion system suddenly was cut off and quickly replaced by a loud thud which resonated throughout the bay as the lifter dropped to the ground. The soldier furthest to the back, in a surge of fear and anger whirled around and squeezed his trigger sending a volley of bullets down on the lifter.

But just as his volley began, so did another, as several bolts of green fusion energy shot through the darkness impacting on the front most rebel, the officer, melting through armor and flesh, the fusion rounds impacted on the officers chest and head bringing him to a quick death. As the rebels whirled around toward the officers now dead body, another volley began, this time directed at the rear most rebel, the one who had just finished firing on the lifter. With three precise shots the rebel fell dead, leaving only the two rebels left.

"Fuck!" One of them shouted as he ran for cover, the other raised his rifle and began returning fire on their attacker but was cut short as fusion rounds burned into his torso.

"Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck!" The other shouted as he neared his desired cover, but just before he could reach it a fusion round burned through his calf muscle. "Gah!" The rebels cried out as he collapsed to the floor behind the collection of crates he was aiming for. Quickly he made sure every inch of him was in cover and he braced his back against the crate fighting as hard as he could to keep from crying out in pain from his wound.

Fuck fuck fuck i'm so fucked i'm so screwed. He thought as fear filled his mind, without thinking he spared a glance towards the bodies of his allies, as soon as he did his stomach churned and he felt bile rising in the back of his throat.

In a last ditch attempt to fight back, fueled by all the adrenaline his body could produce, the rebel pulled himself to his feet leaning on the side of the crate raising his rifle and firing as many shots as he could in the direction of his attacker before his clip emptied. His heart pounded in his chest as he awaited some sign to say whether or not his attacker was dead, for what felt like ages he sat there in the darkness with his rifle aiming down his attackers position. Then he heard it, from somewhere to his right he heard the sound of something being dragged across the floor.

The rebel jerked toward the direction of the noise reloading his rifle as he struggled to stay on his feet.

"Show yourself!" The rebel shouted angrily. "Come out and face me you coward!" He yelled into the darkness.

Several moments passed as the rebel scanned the area he had heard the noise come from. His entire body shook slightly from anticipation and fear. Then he heard it.

"If you insist." A voice softly said from behind him.

The rebel whipped around to face the voices source but before he could even aim his rifle he was swept off his feet as something knocked his legs out from under him. The rebel fell back onto his back and looked up at the illuminated figure of a fully armored Rothian standing above him. Before the rebel could reach for his pistol the Rothian grabbed him by his throat and lifted him up off the floor until he was dangling in the air. The rebel thrashed about before his hand resumed reaching for his pistol. Seeing the movement the Rothian quickly unsheathed his knife and ended the rebels life dropping him to the floor as the rebel went limp.

Telmeck stepped back away from the rebel and scanned the area once more making sure it was clear. He had dispatched all five members of the rebel patrol but it never hurt to be sure. After making sure the room was clear Telmeck returned to the bodies and began dragging them away to a far corner of the room out of sight to ensure that no other patrol would see it should they enter the room.

"Ugh, well that takes care of that." He said quietly as he looked over the five bodies. He stepped away from the bodies and re-assumed his position high atop a collection of crates over looking the main area of the cargo bay.

He spared himself a glance towards his wrist computer checking the time as he did, Hopefully the main group is alright, the longer we take here the more dangerous it gets, if these rebels catch wind of what's going on they may very well kill however many hostages they have left. Telmeck sighed, If only there was some way I could get into contact with them just so I can get an idea of our situation, but here I just feel useless. Telmeck thought growling with annoyance. "All I can do is wait and guard for now. Hopefully we hear something soon." Telmeck mumbled to himself before falling silent once more as he awaited more prey to fall into his trap.

Noticing their sudden flight from cover after the explosion, Opus smirked as he whirled up, and brought his weapon to bear. Three shots rang out, two hitting a rebels shields and downing them before the third smashed him in the head, blowing it off. The rebel sank to his knees, then fell to the ground as he died, before Opus took down a second rebel. Rounds were returned back to his position, forcing him back down and into cover again. He shuddered as rounds glanced off his cover, and waited for another lull in their fire, before dashing to a crate that placed him behind the Rebels. Now that he was flanking them, he fired his full clip, forcing the squad to face both ways and to be confused as to where they could go that was safe.

The mayhem in the corridor proved that the enemy may not have been outnumbered, but they were definitely outgunned.

Shiva continued to cover the advance of her allies, shooting at anyone brave enough to make themselves apparent. One particular group of enemies was completely cut down by Rareth's teleporting ambush. Shiva only spotted spatters of blood and some traces of movement, but it was a telegraph enough for the last of Rareth's stumbling foes to line up just right with her sights. Without hesitation, Shiva shot the enemy Rothian dead before he knew where the plasma hitting him was coming from.

Bit's own brand of suppression was more than welcome as the noise of high-explosives entered the mix. The scramble for better cover from the enemy troops gave Shiva opportunity enough to lift her weapon off her cover and sprint for a crate that was next to the rest of her squad. She now had a better view of the enemy, but needed a little less attention drawn to her before she could take any more reliable shots. She still had her own HE grenade on her harness, though. Perhaps if they could keep up the momentum...

"Shuo! Where are they?!" Shiva shouted in lieu of radio communication, "Tell us where they're bunched up!"

Shuo gritted his teeth as an enemy grenade went off just infront of the box he was hiding behind. Luckily the grenade was only human although it did lift the box up a just a bit rather than melting through it like any other grenade would have. Since he was rather close to the enemy for a gun fight Shuo had still managed to draw most of the enemy fire even from behind cover. He had been taking pot shots over the cover as frequently as he could even though the fire pinning him to that position was rather large. But he made sure to watch closely what his teammates were doing. Considering he had the best view he got to see the squad actually preform. He watched as Rareth hit the flanking detachment and the suit begin to suppress them. He also noticed Shiva firing her light plasma gun over the seat of a lifter, even though the weapon was laughably near her own size.

But before he was able to take in much more of the scene Shuo felt a round lodge itself into the cover behind him. This meant that he needed to move, his cover was becoming non-exsistant. He quickly peeked around his cover and looked for another refuge he could take. The fire than seemed to hit a lull for a moment as he identified a new piece of cover. Deciding that he would not get a better chance or even more time to find better cover he threw himself off the ground and up into a near ground sprint. Once again he put himself into the line of fire, although this time he was within the kill zone of most shooters. This was not a place he wanted to be for long. But through the onslaught of fire Shuo heard Shiva ask for a target. The only thing that ran through his head was "Fuck". He knew that would speed up this engagement too which bothered him more than the fact that he would need to slow down in order to look. Shuo slowed his high speed just enough to get his head up from it's low position and get a good look at positions. This however made shots start hitting. He saw his shields flare up in front of him as he looked through the clouds of plasma bursting on him and bullets causing flares. But he saw it, a cluster of about 6 rebels of varying races. They looked like the center of the rebels field of fire from what he could make out from his quick glance.

Just then his shields popped. He looked quickly to his cover. He was almost there, he decided it would be faster if he just jumped to the location and slid. He threw what power he could muster out of his sprint into a jump as a plasma round flew into him. He knew he had been hit but he was not sure where or if it had gone through his armor or not. But he landed on his chest as his feet slid the last little distance into full cover. He checked all the alarms that were now going off and did a damage report as he got up. Smoke was rising next to him so before he even checked the actual assement on his HUD he looked to his right shoulder. The shoulder piece and even a little into his collar were completely splattered back. While his shields spooled up Shuo looked back to his read outs and saw that he was still rated for space, though the suit seemed to think that he could take another hit in that same place from the same weapon. Shuo dismissed this and decided it was best to not get hit there again. He continued dismissing warnings taking mental note of all of them. Most of them were telling him about decreased quality in something but they would still work. He also didn't see his being mentioned at all which was all he needed. He then turned his attention back to the battle at hand and put out his analysis." Left! Near me! Hit It HARD soldier!"

Rareth dropped behind cover long enough to reload her pistol as Shuo was moving up. Her team still controlled one side of the corridor, but the rebels still controlled the other, and there was a large group of them from which the majority of their fire was coming from. Shuo called them out, but even along the side they controlled, it would be difficult to move up. As well, if they let off on keeping the rebels suppressed, they might be able to move around to flank.

After peeking out to fire a few more rounds downrange, Rareth formed an idea of how exactly they could eliminate the most clustered targets. By this point, they had moved up close enough to the rebels that they were within range of grenade throws, but far enough that the accuracy of a toss was not guaranteed. Nevertheless, Rareth quickly grabbed a grenade from her belt and quickly set it to the highest radius setting. It would not be as concentrated of a blast, but for most infantry, that did not really matter.

"Grenades, now!" Rareth shouted, delaying her own toss just long enough to be sure that all of their grenades would be in the air at the same time. With a bit of telekinesis, she could make sure that most of their grenades found their marks.

The grenade that set off right near Shuo made Shiva flinch, but he wasn't badly affected. Even with the fire drawn towards himself, Shuo did well to manage his shield integrity and find a target for the grenade Shiva held in her hand. Shiva hazarded a peek, but Rareth's order drove her to activate her own grenade and lob it where Shuo had directed. She was completely unaware that Rareth was manipulating its trajectory, but the resulting explosion sounded like it had been placed properly.

Now that the enemy troops were shaken, Shiva stood up and whirled around, slamming her weapon down on the crate she had for cover and pulling the trigger in the enemy's direction. She silently dared any one of them to poke their heads up while she suppressed. Now the direction of the firefight had noticeably ebbed, and the squad could take more ground.

Rareth tossed her own fusion grenade along with the grenades from the others. With each one, she used her telekinetic abilities to divert them precisely in the direction of their enemies, being careful to keep them away from Shuo, who was closest to the enemy. Since they had suddenly changed course in flight, most of the rebels could not react quickly enough to avoid the blasts, namely the group of six which were largely eviscerated by Shiva's grenade.

Although there were yet more rebels left on the opposite half of the passageway, their path to their destination was clear. All they needed to do was to make a run for the door. Rareth rushed forward quickly, taking up a cover position near one of the containers ahead of them which would protect her from the remaining hostiles, who were now in a position to flank.from behind them. "Run for it, get tot he door! Shuo, help me cover." She shouted. If Shuo could keep any pursuing hostiles suppressed on the left side of the passageway, then Rareth could hold them on the right, since they would need to close in on her in order to get an angle on her allies.

Shuo unclenched his jaw once The volley of grenades actually started flying. If he kept his teeth together there was a good chance they would all vibrate and destroy each other. He learned that lesson the hard way during the war after a bit of close air support. Shuo as quickly as possible drew all of his suits power out of just about every system in his suit and dumped them into his shields just incase some of these soldiers weren't the best throwers. However this effort seemed in vain as the little power in his HUD tracked all the grenades start to cluster even though they had all been thrown at different trajectories. It took another moment for Shuo to process that one of the magic users amongst them was changing their paths. He couldn't quite remember who the dossiers said could do that off the top of his head but he supposed it wasn't really important right now.

Once the various pieces of ordnance detonated and rattled Shuo he closed his mouth and stepped into the breach once again. He moved quickly while keeping his weapon sweeping left to right trying to see if any had survived the explosion. Once he made it to the now hole in the ground he found one Female Masulu who's lower half had been scorched away shaking uncontrollably and bleeding from her horribly burned face. For a moment he wondered if she had served in the war, and even more what lead her to betray their people. What cause would draw someone away from the proliferation of their people throughout the galaxy? Shuo filed the thought away rather quickly however and put a shot into the dying Masulu. He then quickly turned on his heels and crouched near a rather thin looking box behind an even thinner railing. He saw the squad moving in his direction as he set up his firing position. He reached his thumb into a crevice near the barrel of the weapon and depressed a button. The weapon began to stretch along the barrel and a large white shard with one end that was flat popped out of the gun.

Shuo looked down the newly formed scope and the fundamentally new weapon. The weapon was specially made for his type of suit as the two projects had been developed in tandom mainly to increase the operational efficiency of any unit this suit was given to. He looked down the sight and saw the rebels begin to round the corner. One just managed to slip under his cross hairs but the next one to round the corner of large boxes found themselves with 3 highly concerated and condensed lines of plasma melting through atleast one of their many major organs. This dropped what appeared to be a Tempu clad with a armor and a heavy machine gun. The bounding creature collapsed and slid a bit in the direction it was heading and then stopped moving entirely. Shuo quickly lined up another shot where they were coming from but he had to wait a moment for his weapon to cool down. Just as his weapon came off cooldown three diffrent species darted out from behind the box and made a run for it. He picked the one carrying the biggest gun and repeated his 3 clustered shots. Once again he appered to have killed his target but now he changed his shot pattern. He swiveled back and forth now making sure to mind his weapons heat and tried to keep as many rounds as he could down range.

He then yelled over his speakers. "Move like you want to live!"

With the covering fire from Rareth and Shuo locking down any more encroaching enemies, Shiva was clear to take Shuo's advice and get moving. She stood up and dropped into a sprint. All she could hear was her fast breathing and the occasional bullet or plasma bolt whizzing by, but otherwise, her focus was solely on the door ahead of her. She slammed her back against the wall to the side of the door Rareth had pointed out and whirled around into it, gun raised and looking for any enemies. It was only then that she noticed that a stray set of bullets had drained a fraction of her shield.

Shiva wasn't used to taking point, but given the circumstances, she was probably the best candidate if they wanted this done quickly and safely. She paced forward with utmost caution, but just felt too...exposed.

Rareth and Shuo did what they could to keep the remaining rebels back as the others rushed into the door. As planned, her blade was able to make quick work of one who tried advancing too close on her side. At least one of the rebels tried to use a grenade of his own, but when telekinetically pushed it back in mid-air, they elected not to try it again. The data center would not be far ahead, and hopefully there would not be a significant number of guards protecting it. Before that, however, herself and Shuo needed to get through the door with the others and, more importantly, prevent themselves from being followed.

After reloading her pistol, Rareth quickly looked to the door, then to Shuo. "Go, run for it!" She ordered, quickly taking Shuo's place after he started to run, Setting her pistol to full auto, Rareth simply fired blindly down the hall to keep their enemies suppressed. Shuo ended up taking a hit or two to the shields, but nevertheless made it through the door, which left only Rareth to follow. Luckily, her ability to teleport across open ground made it a significantly easier task.

Rareth ran to catch up with the others once through the door, but she knew that the rebels would only be seconds behind her, and since Bit had broken through the locks on the door, there was no sealing it behind them. As she reached the rest of her team, she quickly glanced behind her. "We need to seal this behind us...Bit! Can you take down the ceiling?"

"Consider it done!" Bit said as he armed a few explosives in the ceiling panels. He set the timers on each of the charges for about twenty seconds. It would be plenty of time to get out of the blast radius and away from the soon to be collapsing ceiling.

"Alright, moving might be a good idea." Bit said as he backed away from his handiwork. Given the proximity of the rebels that were inbound, at least one of them would likely be caught in the blast.

The team rushed to get clear of the explosive as soon as Bit gave the word. The rebels were closer than twenty seconds behind, but all it took was some suppressing fire from the team to keep them at bay long enough for the detonation. True to Bit's mode of operation, the explosion was strong enough to shake the hallway, and collapse both parts of the ceiling and floor beneath. With parts of the floor above crashing in to fill the gap, the hallway behind them was now impassable, at least in any decent amount of time. Unfortunately, they did not have time to stop and rest, as they were very nearly at the data center.

The ran forward as fast as their legs could carry them until they reached the correct door on the right side of the hall. The door was locked down, but once again, Bit's talents got them through rather readily. There were only two armed guards, both of which were cut down quickly by a torrent of plasma. The other four in the room were unarmed, and behaving rather differently from one another. Two were in one corner and had their hands up immediately as soon as the team stepped into the room, while the other two had been closer to the guards, and only surrendered once the team's weapons were trained on them. Rareth regarded the four suspiciously, but she was not about to execute unarmed prisoners. It could be that they were hostages, like the mechanic from before.

"Get them secured, I'll work on the the terminal." Rareth ordered as she rushed over to the computer.

The rush down the hall was truly flying by the seat of the squad's collective pants. Shiva flipped her bipod back against her weapon and sprinted as fast as she could, only stopping momentarily at a doorframe to send some plasma back towards their pursuers. The explosion was such a shock that it almost made her lose her footing, but they were safe for now.

The door to the data centre was breached and secured quickly, and barring any surprise assaults, it seemed as if they would have the time to deal with their objective. Shiva kept her weapon raised at the civilians while Rareth went for the terminal. "Understood." She turned her attention to the civilians who weren't in the corner, "Alright! You two! Hands against the wall, now!" As soon as they complied, Shiva put her assault weapon away and switched to her pistol so she could deal with them more easily. With the others around as cover, they were able to search frisk each hostage for any weapons and put them collectively in a secure corner of the room. They weren't in any position to escort them to safety just yet, but that wasn't their primary objective right now.

"Rareth, how long to we have left on that jammer?" Shiva asked.

(huh)

Shuo managed to drop one more of the traitorous bastards before he figured he had to move. After all the lizard could just teleport so he supposed that only really left him to get through the door. He backed out of his crouching position still taking shots back at the now massing force of enemies. Once he firgured that he was about half way to the door he began running towards the entrance. Figuring that on the other side there would be close quarters he managed to press the button again and his weapon began shifting around his hands whilst he gripped it tightly and ran. He could do nothing but watch as his directional indicators light up and his shields started draining. He made it through the door intact however and when Bit promptly blew the hallway nearly in half he got on the move towards the control room.

After taking point in the room breaching he was quick to close the gap to the two less than compliant engineers. Shiva secured one while Shuo went over and quickly secured the other one. This one was a Human male however and he was acting like he had some sort of death wish. "Hand's behind your head now!" Shuo asserted over his speakers.

"Fuuuck you, you Sovr-" The man said just before Shuo put a rifle butt into the man's head. Shuo was rather curious as to what the man expected to accomplish by defying someone cyberneticly augmented and nearly 3 feet taller than them. Never the less he picked up the now unconscious man and Helped Shiva in securing the others. " Make it quick, the longer we stay here the less likely the hostages make it out of here."