Zarkun

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

Lucas offered no objections when Major Yalu spoke up for wanting to pair up as the only non-human member of Aegis to have put in training time with the SPARTAN. The pair had a feel for each other's tendencies already, so the pairing was solid. Following the ping from Team Lead Aviza and then the updated ping from Shih, Ryker moved with his partner into the darkness, switching on his visor's night-vision mode.

---

His DMR had never stopped its sweep from left to right, occasionally checking their rear more out of habit than genuine concern, but then, the Brutes were known to deploy Stalkers on occasion, stealth equipped monkeys who were as prone to bash your head in from behind as put a mauler shot in you from the front. Yalu was fairly restless on his own watch from what the Spartan could see, but he would double their firing cones on occasion in case something popped up while the Sangheili was aiming another direction.

Eventually, as Lucas was coming to a pause to use his armor's built in zoom optics to see what the patrol pattern on the phantoms was like, the Major finally spoke, asking who amongst the humans of the team was the most likely to get tunnel vision. Making sure that his outbound comms to the team was turned off, he answered as he surveyed. "The ONI spooks, easily. They try and hide it, but they think this whole team is a sham and a joke, as I imagine a lot of ONI's top brass does too. But, so long as they can follow orders until we need to break stealth mode, they should be fine."

Nodding to himself as a couple of phantoms peal off, he speaks into the team COMMS again, asking what he was sure was on all their minds. "How do we want to handle this? Crags or plateau? Splitting into two groups would be a bad idea."

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

During the interim between their escape from the initial swarm of Sentinels and their sudden stop, Lucas let his old Black Ops cell training take over. He had claimed a space on top of a couple of longer crates and spent the time he wasn't training and cleaning his weapons sleeping, catching every extra wink of rest he could. This had the capability to turn into an extended operation without any warning depending on how well they moved up on the rendezvous point for the Rebels and Brutes undetected and he wanted to be able to stay awake for as long as he could should the need arise. He spent a lot of time working on his form with the wrist mounted energy dagger, familiarizing himself with the fastest way to both activate it and deactivate it for maximum stealth and surprise.

When the Mammoth halted without any prior warning, the seemingly dead-asleep SPARTAN-IV rolled off the side furthest from the entrance, an energy dagger coming free of it's sheathe and his silenced magnum coming up as he rested his pistol-holding wrist on the dagger one. However, he stood down and holstered the magnum as he sheathed the dagger as the driver made their announcement, retrieving his gear from where he'd stowed it nearby along with a few extra clips before joining the others. He arrived after Aviza, but he was able to hear her orders as he walked up, so he simply nodded and then turned and jumped off one side of the mammoth. A flare of his jumpjets slowed his landing and he drew his DMR and started sweeping. "Fire Team Lead, recommend moving in pairs. Keep everyone honest and keep us all covered."

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

When the call to fall back to the Mammoth came through, Lucas was already hopping to cover his teammates, letting them move before he did and firing bursts of his SMGs to try and somewhat deter the machines from following too closely. Eventually, he was up the ramp and with the rest of the team, with Tas close behind him. The call for a wellness check prompted Ryker to check his chest plate, where a Sentinel beam had glanced off his shields. Patting it down revealed a level of warmth, unsurprising since the shielding stopped the beam itself, not the heat transfer, but undamaged beyond that.

Satisfied, he spoke up in response. "Spartan Ryker, alive and ready to roll." With his check-in done, he gave the eye to his unshielded teammates and made sure that the Sentinels hadn't managed to connect any shots. Satisfied they were fine, the Spartan went and found a seat and then set about taking his SMGs apart and cleaning them after removing the magazines and clearing the breaches. An uncared for weapon was a weapon that could malfunction after all.

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

The left SMG came alive once more to gun down the Sentinel that was firing on Grikgar just before its beam reached the Unggoy and he shifted targets quickly, the remainder of the SMG's magazine went into the next Sentinel to come into the Spartan's sight along with most of the right SMG's. He fired the remaining rounds at an approaching Sentinel to make it veer off before he reloaded. "We should fall back some, use the Pelican's troop bay as a holding point til the mammoth gets here." Another Sentinel came at the group, but it made the mistake of passing too close to Lucas, who caught its underside and swung up on top of it before plunging the wrist mounted energy dagger into it.

After gliding a few more feet, it fell to the ground and slid a few feet as Ryker leapt off. Once it stopped, he sliced it open with the self-same energy dagger and pulled out its weapon. "If more are moving into position around us, we might be in trouble. I've seen swarms incinerate large ships with a combined blast."

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

"Suppose that my main point in asking won't hopefully show itself." Lucas was more concerned about the machines using their super beam on the group to finish the job, but then, the Spartan wasn't sure he'd never seen the machines approach a battle tactically outside of 'swarm the target area until there are no more organics', so maybe the odds weren't HORRIBLY against them. Still, a measure of nervousness shivered through him briefly as he moved to follow Aviza and the two Spooks out, an old trait from his days on the black ops team. The Fireteam leader was already dousing a flying robot in automatic fire, but the assassin didn't open fire as quickly, choosing to pick targets that wouldn't take as much ammo. As he moved forwards, his SMGs looking for suitable targets, he noted that the Mgalekgolo went just a bit further out and followed, feeling letting any member of the squad move solo was a bad idea. Name, name, what was it's name...Ta...Tatusa? No...Takuka? Nope...Tas...Tasuma!

With the name now back in his mind, he followed the large creature and waited until he'd stripped the shields of the first Sentinel to fire, his left SMG chewing through it's now unprotected frame with little issue. The SMG in Ryker's right hand took out the second Sentinel, several shots tearing through the construct's 'eye' section and damaging critical components. He turned to inform Tas that he had the Mgalekgolo's back when the third Sentinel fired and the Spartan dove for cover mostly instinctively. A split second after he hit the ground, Lucas realized the sentinel's real target and was back on his feet with a roll, reloading the twin SMGs in a swift pair of motions.

"I got your six, Tasuma." Sliding up on the Mgalekgolo's right, the two SMGs fired in unison, taking out the construct's shields and then the construct itself, though he did have to reload the weapons again as he danced back out of the immediate line of fire. "Wouldn't do to not have each other's backs, right?"

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

Admittedly, Lucas hadn't anticipated any issues arising as the team boarded the Pelican and each found seats. As he settled into his own pre-mission flight routine, he pulled his sidearm free of its holster and started to disassemble it in his lap and reassemble it. He proceeded to do this several times over the course of the flight before finally reassembling it one last time and holstering it again before pulling one of his modified energy daggers free and activating it, letting the crimson colored energy hum quietly as he flipped the blade around in his hand.

It was a joint Sangheili and human design that had only been issued to a handful of specialist SPARTAN-IVs with orders to give regular updates on things such as strange fluctuations within the blade, if it cuts out mid-combat, performance against other shielded enemies, such as Sangheili loyal to the Remnant, and other such odds and ends. Sending the regular reports back to the eggheads was somewhat obnoxious, but making the design more stable, and therefore more readily available to the rest of the Swords and Human military, was an important thing to do.

Finishing the usual non-combat observations, he deactivates the blade and stores the hilt and starts filing away the usual report to be sent at mission completion after he'd had a chance to confirm the usual combat effectiveness when the pilots shout "Contacts!" Report filing forgotten, Lucas is already moving between members of the team to make sure their harnesses are secure before swiftly moving and securing himself.

"Fireteam secure, Team Leader!" And not a moment too soon as he felt the Pelican shake from impact. The sound of the Mgalekgolo securing itself in place was startling, but not unexpected given it was too large to actually use the seats in the transport, but it was certainly unorthodox and an issue that they should address before the next mission. Bracing in his seat, the SPARTAN-IV rattled a bit with the rough landing, but other than that was fine and as soon as the ship quit sliding, was unhooked and had the twin SMGs in his hand. Vael'Virisusai made a good point about the issue with the precision weaponry against the Sentinel plating, but then, there was always another option, which admittedly required an answer to his question. "Are we looking at a group of Sentinels or a swarm? If it's a swarm, we may want to just get to the Mammoth and hope it's got enough turrets on it."

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

Lucas found his time training with the Sangheili major to be incredibly informative, both in terms of how to deal with enemy assassins and how well he could learn to fight alongside a new team mate. As it stood, it seemed working with that spec ops team while part of Regis had helped him somewhat prepare for the differences and similarities in their fighting style. However, eventually his partner found he had done enough for the day and left the SPARTAN-IV to train with his wrist mounted dagger for awhile longer until he decided to take a nap.

---

When Lucas had arrived at the briefing, he had his sidearm on his right hip, his DMR across his back and two silenced SMGs he'd picked out for this mission specifically in the small of his back. During his days as a black ops agent for ONI, the ODST's caseless silenced version had served him and his team well both upon infiltration and upon exfiltration post-mission. He saw no reason the weapon wouldn't do him some good now, especially given the covert nature of it all. Alongside that was his twin modified energy daggers and his standard issue combat knives along with a pair of fragmentation grenades for when things inevitably went loud. While the Major went over everything, including their new mobile base for the duration of the mission, Ryker took it upon himself to give it a more thorough look over while recording the briefing so he could dissect the spook's words later. Never trust ONI and you'll find you live a lot longer... Words his team's first leader had spoken shortly before ONI had fired him and moved him to a civilian job as a security contractor that the former black ops operative had taken to heart.

Major Yalu'Suumko asked a valid question as Lucas went over the ammunition stockpiles and the Major quickly made it clear that they wouldn't need to concern themselves with operating and guarding the vehicle themselves, but that didn't mean that Ryker wouldn't worry about it anyways. Marines are good, but if these are Remnant we're dealing with, Marines are outclassed in more ways than one. Guess we don't have a choice though... With no one else speaking up, it fell to Aviza to give the all clear to load up and move out. While he couldn't help but wonder if this was going to be SOP for every mission that took them ground side, he didn't think the question needed to be asked just yet, as it would be answered over the next few months quickly enough. "Ready when you are, Fire Team Leader."

Star Wars(AU) - After Knightfall

Talia and Riven Je'and-The Citadel, Mandalore

The twin girls looked at each other before Riven sighed and nodded. "Well, this evening has already been a wash anyways. And we got all gussied up too." Talia could barely contain the excitement of actually getting to go somewhere in the near future instead of suffering bouts of extreme boredom as a guard for the meeting chambers between her research times. The red clad twin stood and flipped her hair over her shoulder while the cyan clad one scratched the cat's chin. "How long before you depart, Chief Librarian?"

Talia ran the various things he could be looking for through her head a dozen different times before she snapped back to reality. "Oh! Do you think we'll see any rancors? One of my ancestor's raised a rancor from it's time as an egg and I had hoped to investigate the possibility of a strong bond forming like that with a predator like a Rancor. I tried to get a Krayt egg once, I'm sure you can imagine how that went."

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

The remark draws a chuckle from the Spartan as the duo approaches the War Games simulation area, stopping to call an elevator for them. "Yeah, I imagine the thought of fighting with our crazy asses is much more appealing than fighting against us. Gotta level, fighting with a Swords spec ops team...let's say it's a welcome change of pace watching those active camo shrouded forms appear behind the enemy instead of behind a friend."

Once the elevator had arrived, Lucas allowed Major Yalu'Suumko to board before he did and selected the floor it was on. "It was also very...enlightening. Seeing your people in a capacity other than as warriors and leaders. It was...pleasant."

Halo: Aegis Team

Spartan Lucas Ryker

Turning to face the Sangheili who'd addressed him, Lucas shrugged somewhat sheepishly as they pair of them headed for the War Games module. "Well, I can confirm about the sparring, but...the member of the Swords Spec Ops team who gifted it to me only had time to teach me a little before I was transferred here to Aegis Team. I'd welcome any pointers you have for using it..." The SPARTAN-IV left the sentence open for the Sangheili to introduce himself as he was fairly certain he'd missed some introductions before arriving.