[center][h1]Part Six: Skybound![/h1][/center] [center][h1]Somewhere 30,000 feet above Newfoundland, Canada[/h1][/center] [center][h1][color=ec008c]Fireteam Icarus: Samantha Dalton AKA Chaos[/color][/h1][/center] [center][h2]0630 Local Time[/h2][/center] Samantha was unable to contain her excitement and fidgeted. She resisted the urge to ask the pilot [color=ec008c][i]“Are we there yet!”[/i][/color] after the A400 had dropped off Tahlia’s team. She had wished the Viking team luck before they had left. She had chuckled at the byplay between Javi and Tahlia. She snickered and thought about how the two argued with one another. At times they had sibling energy and at other times they fought like an old married couple. She had seen signs that Javi was smitten but it was not reciprocated. As the A400 climbed in elevation, she felt her suit compensating for the lower oxygen levels and temperature. Samantha’s armor was perfect for this mission. She was grateful to the techs who had managed to repair it for her. Her helmet was closed and the oxygen tubes connected to the intakes built into the collar of her suit. Her head cam up but she kept her visor clear at the moment so her team could see her face. She caught Sky’s thumb up and grinned as she returned it. She turned her attention to last minute checks. She checked that everything was in its place and secured it so it wouldn’t fall off while they made the drop. [color=ec008c]“Bob system check.” [/color]She instructed the AI to run its onboard system check. She was happy a few moments later when Bob replied, [color=ec008c]“Systems active and waiting for commands.” [/color] She nodded as she began checking over Athena’s suit for her. She in turn felt Athena turning her and tugging on straps that held equipment before patting her on the head. Samantha growled softly as Athena grinned, unable to resist picking on Samantha’s height. Samantha was the shortest team member. She might be the second shortest now that Enri had joined the team. Samantha laughed at Athena’s antics and twisted from side to side to double check how the carbon wing felt. She jumped up and down a little and was satisfied that there was very little movement in the wing. Samantha was about to ask Skye if it was time yet when she head some music being pumped through the background of the teams coms. Samantha just grinned and shook her head with laughter as Purna realized it was Skye playing the music. Skye’s shit making grin as she began to give orders filled Samantha with glee. It was good to have her friend back. [color=6ecff6]"Thought I'd get you in the mood! Remember, pick up the HUD, follow markers, and we'll make our way onto target."[/color] Samantha looked out a the amazing view of clouds below them trimmed in the rose gold of sunlight with some darker storm clouds that swirled with wind in the distance. Samantha knew their target lay below the clouds and landing on it was going to take some skill and luck. Their target landing zone could move on its own after all. Samantha took a deep breath and let the peace of this moment fill her. She knew they might not live to face another day. They were here to literally save the world. The stakes couldn’t be higher. She looked around and smiled though. She was working with the best and they had become friends and people she trusted. This blimp didn’t know what was about to hit it. She grinned and nodded at Athena in acknowledgement. They were sure to pull some amazing shenanigans together. She traded a fist bump with the giantess as they seemed to come to an unspoken agreement to unleash hell. Skye’s instructions continued. [color=6ecff6]"Once we get there, find a latch point at the bottom of the blimp. We'll work bottom to top, floor by floor, clearing whoever we find. Best case, Athena steals the thing, worst case, we get out, same way we came in."[/color] Skye barked out through comms, over the soundtrack, before giving a wry chuckle, seeing green flicker on inside the plane. [color=6ecff6]"Alright then, on me!"[/color] Skye yelled with a triumphant roar as she dove out of the back of the plane. Samantha laughed as she was quickly followed by Purna who just silently and efficiently leapt out as he does everything followed by Athena who yelled out [color=fff200]"Fuck yeah!"[/color] that reverberated through the team comms. Samantha ran and dove out of the back of the plane and added her own [color=ec008c]“Kowabunga!”[/color] to the mix as she grinned like an idiot. Adrenaline rushed through her as she felt the carbon wing catch the air currents and snap tight even as the jet thrusters kicked in and pushed her forward. [color=ec008c]“Woohoo!”[/color] Samantha yelled out as she did a barrel roll and moved into position with the team. [color=ec008c]“This never gets old!”[/color] Samantha showing off some skill in the air. She had done similar things and her experience showed even though this was the first time she had the opportunity to use this particular setup. [color=fff200]Athena wobbled a little as she got the hang of maneuvering the wingset.[/color] She heard Skye’s voice over comms. [color=6ecff6]"That got you awake!" [/color] Athena’s childlike glee was contagious as she heard her response to Skye. [color=fff200]"You're telling me!" [/color] Samantha smiled to hear the joy in her teammates' voice. [color=ec008c]“I live for this kind of experience! Let’s go steal a blimp!”[/color] She giggled maniacally feeling invincible and like queen of the world as they soared through a beautiful morning sky. If only they were not here to stop the end of the world as they knew it. [hr] [center][h1]Fireteam Icarus Collab: Queen, Athena, Viper, and Chaos[/h1][/center] [color=6ecff6]The dawn chorus was broken by the sight of the five of them roaring through the pinkish sunrise, Skye exhaling hard, taking it in, cloudbreak revealing a patchwork that couldn’t be more beautiful. There was a job to do, but for half a second, there was almost a reminder she’d not been able to see this. Nearly dying, a lot of late, made her take it in, appreciate it all. And all the friends by her side, even as a team of professionals, she had to admit, sometimes, it was them that helped her too. She appreciated that more than anything, Sam’s maniacal response eliciting a chuckle back from Skye.[/color] [color=6ecff6]“Aye, good call! Team, ten degrees left here, up and over!” Skye called, turning herself gently, rolling on angle as Athena and Purna followed suit, the Nepali in a similar sort of awe.[/color] [color=f7941d]Purna thought [i]Now how the hell hadn’t he got a hold of this toy earlier?[/i][/color] [color=fff200]Athena thought much the same, perhaps less from an infiltrator’s point of view, the small Nepali someone she’d been surprised had stood up to her, but was no less keen to have on board.[/color] [color=6ecff6]Still, they sat there in appreciation, and with the timer ticking down, they were closing in on the target at rapid pace, like a set of hyperspeed geese in carbon.[/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha did an easy tilt to bank in the direction she needed to go. The suit was a joy to fly. The tension and vibration of the wind and the jets rippled along her body. This was flying at its purest. You couldn’t feel sensations like these in the cockpit of a jet. Samantha was determined to enjoy it for as long as it lasted. She knew she couldn’t waste fuel though so she resisted the urge to show off acrobatically in the sky. The blimp was coming into sight now. Samantha put her game face on as she looked to see if the automated defenses had picked them up. She grinned gleefully as she spoke to the team over comms. “It looks like the electronic camouflage worked and with the very little metal we have on our suits and carrying we are not pinging on their radar. It’s set to recognize larger things like incoming aircraft. I think we will be good till we land. Then internal defenses will pick us up until I can disable them.” [/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha went to work to see if she could boost her rig's signal and began to hack as they approached their landing zone. [/color] [color=6ecff6]With a turn, they dived up and over a cloud, the team moving in sync, the light beginning to grow and grow, even in spite of the absolute haze and size of the cloud. It was hard to put into perspective anything at all, the massive banks of clouds like gigantic mountains and snow layered and intertwined. This wasn’t falling with style, this was flight. And with that blimp in sight, Skye chuckled, shaking her head, trying not to interfere with her flight.[/color] [color=6ecff6]“Well….that is a gigantic butt.” Skye candidly remarked, the sight of it sitting right between clouds having no other words. She’d seen this before, in pictures, in briefing, but nothing managed to put it truly into words.[/color] [color=6ecff6]The[/color] [url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/Airlander_-_US_Army_Flight_Front.jpg/1280px-Airlander_-_US_Army_Flight_Front.jpg ]Airlander Class 12[/url] [color=6ecff6]was something of a modification, based on a smaller variant that had been of course, upsized in every single way, making even Athena blush, because at the very least, she’d finally seen something that could actually rival a certain thing she had that she reminded Freya and the world of far, far too often on social media. Perhaps that’s why she wanted to steal it? The similarities were comedic, obvious, but well, not the worst of ideas, Purna, Skye and even Athena mused internally. With four propellers and a large cargo hold beneath, enhanced to take a significant load, it was a flying headquarters for any evil genius, or in this case, Skye’s alter ego. You had to almost be impressed with it, if it wasn’t for the fact that there was a weapons bay filled to the brim with air to air, a CIWM system, and even a small silo of air to ground missiles…..for the days where you wanted to bring an airship to an actual combined arms assault. Lunacy.[/color] [color=6ecff6]So was flying at it, and with the wingpacks, they were too small for radar, and too fast for visual call. Slowing down, Skye looked across at the team, picking them up in her flight helmet’s HUD. “Right, slow yourselves down. We’ll latch underneath her, then pull in, penetrate the thing. Purna, Sam, take out the external weapons systems, just in case they decide to lase anything up around us. Athena, Oliver, open us a door.” Skye added, Athena chuckling, giggling. “Athena….come on, we need to get serious.” [/color] [color=fff200]“Penetrating. You said PENETRATING, Skye! You gotta stop with this innuendo……or I am gonna fall out of the sky!” Athena giggled more, Skye sighing, as Purna chimed in.[/color] [color=f7941d]“Someone’s envious.” Purna simply commented.[/color] [color=6ecff6]Skye chuckling to his simple remark, as with that, she gently pulled back on the throttle, and let the wingpack glide, the speed dropping away as she pulled the wingpack tight into her hands, the turbulent wind making it hard as hell, looking up and feeling the speed drop. The underside of the blimp was coming up, and they had to latch on using their grappling hooks on their wingpacks, then pull in. Get it wrong, and they would be paste, or falling out of the sky beneath it, with limited room to come back again.[/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha gave an evil chuckle as she slid into Rose’s security easily. “Oh she left the front door open. She thought no one would find her mobile headquarters. The updates to Artemis’s systems to counter what I have tried before haven’t been updated here yet.”[/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha hacked her way into the security system and sent all the outer defensive weapons into maintenance mode. The system didn’t register it as an attack or hacking because it was their own system. Samantha just pretended to be their lead engineer. Someone should give them a lesson in what the world’s most common passwords are. Really who uses “I am God!” for their password these days? Samantha couldn’t help giggling when the profile she was using showed an image for a short caucasian man with blonde hair who was only 5’6” tall and had a thin build with a bad complexion. He was obviously compensating for something. “Someone has little man syndrome.” She giggled again picturing Athena squashing him like a bug. [/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha heard Athena’s laughter and her attention caught what she was laughing at Athena responded to Skye. She wanted to add something snarky to the conversation but was too busy laughing.[/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha tilted her glider to turn towards the blimp. “Queen outer defenses are locked down in maintenance mode. Do you want to use the door or make one?” [/color] [color=6ecff6]Skye licked her lips, pulling her arms tight against the wingpack and swan-like, diverting up and seeing the weapons head into limp mode. Sam had a talent, that Skye had to say. Flying through the sky and hacking at the same time? Too easy. But then again, Skye had her reason to be here, a hack that transcended perhaps just the computational. With the wingpack slowing, and the underside appearing, the distance closed, and with it, Skye pulled her hand tight into a fist. With a fling, the cable-drawn grapple slammed into the underside of the blimp’s cargo compartment, finding a slot and with it, a position by one of the maintenance hatches underneath. [/color] [color=6ecff6]“We have a door. Fit us in, would you?” Skye asked, no hint on the pressure here at stake, considering how high they were, and quite literally, everything was hanging by threads.[/color] [color=6ecff6] Pulling tight, the motor did its job, as Athena joined alongside, the swinging two like mannequins for a moment in the golden-pink sky[/color]. [color=f7941d]Purna moving further along and classily braking right next to one of the weapons systems. With it, he attached himself to the underside, and with it, switched to his specialised adhesion gloves, an infiltrator’s favourite. He hadn’t had the chance to use it much in Marrakesh, but with the fact this was all metal, it was perfect, gripping perfectly to the sleek surface easily, clambering onto the CIWM and cutting cables.[/color] [color=f7941d]He looked across to Sam, nearby, and with it, nodded, swinging on his own grapple now, rather than the wingpack’s, finishing the job on the AA missiles, shorting the system and creating a permanent, rather than temporary override. “All clean, Chaos. Get them in.” Purna called back, exhaling hard, aware he had the fun job today. Scale the thing and get on the flank.[/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha paid attention to where Skye was landing. She slowed her position even more as she pulled the blimp’s schematics out of the engineering archive and flipped the floorplan to the team. Now they could see where to go in the blimp. She released the locks on the maintenance hatch that Skye had landed next to. “The hatch should respond to your commands.” [/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha then followed the team in. She had slowed her rig and managed to stand it on its end as fired the grapple and was pulled towards the maintenance hatch ready to step through. She latched onto the blimp’s undercarriage next to Athena. [/color] [color=6ecff6]Skye looked across to Athena, the significantly taller figure reaching across and gently pulling the hatch open with a grunt, nodding back and looking over at Sam.[/color] [color=fff200]“Nicely done. We’re going backdoor.” Athena giggled.[/color] [color=6ecff6]Skye sighing audibly, groaning even louder over the comms, as she swung on the cable and pulled on the ledge, clambering up, releasing the cable and with it, reaching a hand to Sam.[/color] [color=6ecff6]“Right. Into the belly of the beast.” Skye commented, knowing Athena and Oliver would follow.[/color] [color=ec008c]Samantha giggled at Athena’s remark that they were taking the backdoor. Which Skye added into the belly of the beast. “Well Athena, we will have to be sure to give the beast some indigestion while we are here. That is unless you plan to tame it. You know Skye…. Maybe Athena’s idea of stealing the blimp isn’t so bad. We could just toss all their crew overboard.” [/color] [color=ec008c]She thought about it and wondered how many staff they really had on hand to deal with intruders. She had been surprised that so many of their defenses had been automated so far. The technology they were using to hide from radar would not have worked against the Mark 1 human eyeball. So far there had eerily been no alarms heard or noticed and they had yet to see any humans at all. Although the fact that she had found a maintenance personnel did suggest they had crew on board. Samantha took Skye’s hand and was pulled towards the maintenance hatch. Samantha noted that the hatch was about the size of a standard submarine door. Athena and Oliver would fit but it would be a tight squeeze. Samantha waited till they had all come into the blimp and the hatch closed before pulling off the wingsuit. It would be hard to maneuver with the rigid wingsuit on their back as they fought their way through the blimp. She tucked the wingsuit behind some crates where the team seemed to be storing their gear. They could use it to get off the blimp if they could make their way back later. Or they could find other ways off the blimp. Their team was very resourceful. [/color] [color=fff200]Athena chuckled as she followed, barely fitting in the tight thing, given the….dimensions she had. Skye chuckled, looking to Sam, the wingpack so bulky in here that it made no sense to keep, Skye gently unstrapping it from her chest, and clambering out of it from her leg straps, now bringing in her silenced pistol, and leaving her new toy of an electromagnetic rifle on her back. With a gentle crawl, Skye waited until Oliver shut the vent, and with it, the cold and the howling wind stopped, as if by instant. The pressure felt like it restored, the next vent left shut and sealed on cue. After all, this high up, everything was pressurized. It made sense to keep the oxygen on at least, for now.[/color] [color=6ecff6]Moving forwards, Skye kept her pistol raised as she pulled on the vent, the claustrophobia and darkness inside the bowels of this part of the blimp clear to see, and voices could be heard, muffled and in the distance. With a push, Skye emerged out, bringing the wingpack to brace, and hiding it by a set of crates, checking their six as Athena did the same, twin MAC-10s with silencers on them looking just outright ridiculous. Was she gonna have good aim if she shot them both at the same time? No. Was she going to mess up someone’s day if she pointed it vaguely at them? Yes.[/color] [color=6ecff6]And as the team moved out, voices began to be clear. Techs, wondering why a hatch had opened, and it looked like weapons had been put in maintenance mode. Of course, they weren't climbing out there, and among the crates, of the messy bit of the blimp, they were just looking for any signs of any maintenance needed. Armed, of course, just as paranoia always went, but when they were protecting an asset like this, they had to be. Skye kept a low profile, hiding down, hand to ear.[/color] [color=6ecff6]“Okay. Viper, we are in, we have hostiles aboard. You got any visuals on anything else?” Skye calmly whispered into the comms, looking back to Sam, Athena and Oliver.[/color] [color=f7941d]“Negative. There’s a large window, I’m making my way up. Looks like a lot of servers, and a lot….woah. This is a lair. She’s got an entire penthouse up here.” Purna commented, Skye looking back, as bemused as Athena was.[/color] [color=6ecff6]“Right. Then it must be her little hideaway between operations. The server network must be deeper in. The one we want.” Skye replied, checking the FNX once more, ready to keep it quiet for a teeny bit longer.[/color] [color=6ecff6]“Okay. Looks like we may have to go hot. Once we start, priorities are to find the server, find the toxin, and most of all, clean house. They are going to put up a fight. That North Korean hacker is capable, so watch yourselves.”[/color]