Durgama Takeover

Dragnet had reported signs of a strategic shift in the enemy's plans, and with the crack-shot tactical team of the Hasselhoff already aboard the station, they figured who better than them to substantiate the theories? Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, the Hasselhoff's crew wasn't aware that they had been selected for the task. Better yet, they were even more unaware that that evidence would fall right onto their laps while the crew enjoyed a day off in one of Raveneye's secure green zones!

CSU Larry had been issued a new 'HyperCaff(tm)' brand coffee mug after the previous one's unfortunate, explosive fate from the other day's mission. Petra, now the CO of the Hasselhoff's tactical unit, wouldn't sign off on the mug unless the damned thing was designed to slurp silently. A patented rim on the lid prevented such a noise from happening again, which would've been great the other day since Larry's unbearable slurping of his coffee was what had busted their infiltration in the first place!

Petra held the brand new mug (still in its plastic wrap packaging!) and let out a long sigh. "This thing cost the Hasselhoff far too many credits to obtain, so for the love of all that is degenerate, PLEASE do not get this one destroyed... If the clockmakers in engineering heard they lost out on their power cells for your coffee mug, they'd round up the Riot Grrls and we'd all be royally fucked."

Larry was hardly listening to Petra. He had nothing but joy in his eyes as he inspected the most finely crafted coffee mug in the Human Sphere. At least in his mind... Then again, he might have actually been one of the biggest coffee experts in the Sphere so perhaps his opinion actually counted for something! While Petra was rambling on about the flippant expenditures aboard the Hasselhoff, Larry turned and immediately made for the nearest coffee vendor, turning his back to Petra mid-sentence.

"- And don't get me started on the fact that the Hasselhoff ran out of Varuna soap months ago- HEY! I was talking, asshole!" Petra snapped when she realized Larry just blew her off. Normally the CSU wouldn't even blink a look away from her if it meant he got to speak to her.

Larry purchased a coffee in the new mug and looked back at Petra, "Hm? Oh sorry, were you saying something?"

Petra's eye twitched, but only that. She was silent for a moment, trying to get over the fact that she had just been removed from Larry's tallest pedestal for a single cup of StarBeans coffee. Was- was she jealous?! Larry stepped back over to Petra, steam piping out of the coffee mug's lid, and he noticed the eye twitch. "Uh... Petra? You good? Did another killer hacker give you a stroke again? Where're they at?! No infowarrior is gonna melt this babe's brain on my watch!"

Petra finally let out a long held breath when Larry went back to his usual ways. It was then that she realized she didn't want that either. Petra pinched the bridge of her nose, "Aaah... No, Larry, I am not having a stroke... Just-... Grr... You're welcome for the bloody coffee mug!"

Larry looked backed down at the mug, seeing the steam and feeling an urge to finally take his first sip. He brought the mug to his mustached lips, and Petra watched it all as if in slow motion. This was it! The moment of truth! Never again would she be plagued by the incessant sounds of his god awful slurping. She had gone far over budget to get that fancy lid to finally achieve satisfaction in her cursed life! She watched as the lid made contact with his lips, and as he began tilting the mug backward with his head. She felt a pang of excitement. Her pupils dilated. Her heart rate elevated! And then!

SLUUUUURP!

Petra could have flipped a fuckin' table in that moment if it hadn't been for the arrival of the Hasselhoff's resident speed demon on the other side of the nearest unbolted table. The Zondnaut walked into the room with her arms outstretched above her head to loosen up her shoulders. Behind her, a towering robot crouched to get through the doorway to follow her like her shadow. The Zondnaut's helmet was daintily being carried in the robot's small articulated hand. She looked over to the rotund Larry, happily slurping away at his coffee, and the red faced Petra who looked like she was about to burn out her synaptic links to her hacking device. She waved at the two of them, "Hi, Larry. Hey, Petra." the Zondmate behind her gave the two a very robotic wave along with the Zondnaut.

Petra inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly, giving a defeated wave back to the Zondnaut, "Hey, Kana..."

Larry didn't even bother to wave back to Kana. He was too busy enjoying his caffeine. Kana blinked first, then shrugged as she proceeded further into the room. Kana sat down at a table across from one of the crew's clockmakers who was thankfully listening to music and didn't overhear Petra's admittance that there were ONCE AGAIN not getting new power cells. The slam of mag-boots on the table snapped the clockmaker out of his musical reverie, making him jump from his seat a little in surprise. "Ah!" he said as two tiny Zondbots also jumped behind him. They both let out alarmed warbles.

Kana grinned across the table at him, "Whatcha listenin' to, Mech?"

He shrugged, "Just some classical music."

Kana cringed, "Really? Honestly, I thought you'd have better tastes than that hot garbage."

Mech huffed, "Skrillex is not hot garbage!"

Kana rolled her eyes, "Whatever you say, man. What'o you think, Oni?" she looked at her Zondmate, "Hot garbage, yay or nay?"

The robot stood completely upright and made a few beeping sounds, all theatrics of course, before giving its answer. "According to my calculations, Skrillex is indeed the hottest of garbage. Kana is once again right. She is the greatest there ever was and ever will be. Glory to the Nomad Nation. Down with ALEPH." It gave two more informative beeps to close off its sentence.

Mech looked incredulously at the Zondmate for a moment before turning his eyes to Kana, "You made it say that."

Kana shrugged.

Petra left the room with a huff and returned to her assigned sleeping space. It was roomier than the billet habs that the rest of the crew got stuffed in. When the door closed behind her, Petra made for her bed, grabbed a pillow, and screamed into it. How many credits did she just sink into that slurpless coffee lid and overdesigned mug for it all to be worthless?! After the screen, Petra dragged the pillow down her face and stared out one of the large windows to Concilium Prima below. While staring, she heard an alert ping on her room's console. It took her a moment to process the noise, but when she did, she moved over to the console in a hurry.

Petra activated the screen and was greeted with several camera displays, all of which were tracking unauthorized movement in this Green Zone. Petra narrowed her eyes and commanded one of the cameras to zoom in. Ariadna? Here? They were fully kitted and armed, and they were moving tactically. Worse yet, they were right next to the billets! These guys weren't here to be friendly by the looks of it.

"Shit!" Petra said as she activated her commlink to the Hasselhoff crew nearby. "We got company! USARF kill team! Stand to and I'll activate the remote defenses!"

As she spoke, Petra was already putting in a defensive unit allocation request through Arachne. She could hear the Reaktion Zond on the roof of her hab powering up. Switching camera feeds, Petra could see one of the shipping containers that had came with them aboard the station also opened up. A Stempler Zond wheeled out of the container first before four inhumanly tall Hollowman battle frames stepped out. Petra switched her comm to the wider Hasselhoff which was just a few kilometers off from Raveneye doing routine patrols. "Hasselhoff, this is Petra."

"Go ahead, Petra." A robotic voice returned, belonging to the ship's enhanced dolphin pilot.

"Send the Dak to the brain racks and make sure none of 'em get fried! They're running the Hollows right now." Petra ordered.

The pilot let out a few dolphin squawks before speaking in its robotic voice again, "She's already running!"

Petra closed the commlink and went back to monitoring the cameras. Stumbling out half armored and drunk from one of the habs was Percival, an ex-myrmidon of ALEPH who defected to the Nomad Nation after discovering how incredible a Krug could really be. That was several years ago, but... The man was still living that party. She watched as he hoisted his breaker combi into his arms and ran to a fighting position.

Switching back to the room that Larry, Kana, and Mech had been, she saw that Kana was already gone. She could hear the motor of her Zondmate, Oni, revving and speeding away toward the intruders! Larry had moved quickly to his own equipment from the habs as well, while Mech simply hid underneath his table and commanded his Zondbots to move out and work in his stead.

She was glad that the Hasselhoff's tactical team was at least good at getting battle ready at a moment's notice. Otherwise... What would their redeeming quality have been?

Before the USARF kill team could get their bearings in the area, Kana was already on them. The high pitched whir of the Zondmate turned motorcycle reverbing off of the steel construction of the Raveneye's lofty chambers. The sound of the motor had tipped one of the troops of flank security off that trouble was coming. He readied his machine gun for the inevitable approach of the motorcycle from around the corner in front of him. As the sound got louder, a 'fwump!' could be heard as a smoke canister was launched from a mounted grenade launcher on the bike. The canister hit the ground, bounced, and span as it blanketed the corner in a thick veil of smoke. He couldn't see a thing!

But while he couldn't see, he could absolutely hear the screech of tires as the bike drifted around the corner and into the smoke. Kana leaned to her right and rolled right off of the bike as its chassis contorted and shifted into the bipedal hulk of machinery. The Zondmate let out a deep, aggressive warble as it maintained its momentum and burst out of the smoke, its chain rifle already spraying hot metallic slag at the Minuteman. The Minuteman squeezed the trigger and held it there, spitting armor piercing bullets at the approaching robot.

The rounds ripped and shredded into the robot, causing it to stagger first, then kneel, and finally fall flat on its front. The heaps of slag and glowing chain links welded and fused onto the Minuteman's armor, but the man was somehow okay. The Minuteman took a breath of relief, just in time for shotgun slug to whip through the smoke. The slug went wide and smacked the doorway just above the trooper's head. He flinched and fired into the smoke, hitting nothing. The Zondnaut leaped out of the smoke, firing mid-jump at the man as the Minuteman brought his heavy weapon to bear on the smaller woman. But he couldn't bring the HMG onto the nimble Zondnaut fast enough as the shotgun round punched into the Minuteman's chest and lodged itself in a lung.

The Minuteman stumbled back then slid down the door frame, gasping for air. The Zondnaut landed on her feet and looked at her Zondmate, now made into metal swiss cheese. She turned her skull-painted helmet back to the wheezing minuteman and angrily strode into point blank range with the muzzle of the shotgun pressed to his forehead. The minuteman tried reaching for his holstered pistol, but Kana didn't allow it. She pulled the trigger and moved on. Kana spoke into her commlink as she wrapped around the structure to get behind the Ariadnan kill team. "I'm in position to strike on your go, Petra. Just give the word."

Petra responded, "Copy, just wait there for a moment. The Hollows are moving ahead. Once our intruders are occupied with them, you can swoop in."

The fireteam of Hollowmen silently moved toward the center of the chamber, their stilt-like legs causing metallic 'TING! TANG!' sounds to reverb off of the all of the metal surfaces. It was clear the Hollowmen were communicating with one another. Their disembodied brains were sending encoded signals to one another through a series of low pitched quantronic bursts. As the approached a central silo, Petra switched to another camera to see another Minuteman setting up a machine gun on a balcony in preparation for the team of Hollows to come around the corner. She spotted an access hatch to the silo, a hatch that no normal human could reach without mechanical assistance, and it gave Petra an idea.

Petra quickly hacked into the silo's hatch control and forced them open. The lead Hollowman heard the hatch door hiss as it opened above it. Petra spoke on the commlink, "Shoot through that and you'll get the jump on a would-be ambush!"

The Hollowman moved one foot back and crouched low for a moment as pneumatic pistons built up pressure. Then it launched upward with a hiss of air and whine of powerful motors. At the apex of its jump, the Hollowman brought its Spitfire onto the unsuspecting Minuteman. The Hollowman let loose a burst that was far more accurate than a leaping war machine should ever be able to pull off. Three rounds hit the Minuteman's chest plate before the Hollowman fell back to the floor of the station. Watching through the cameras, Petra watched as the man tumbled back into the balcony, clearly hurting but still alive. The man clutched his HMG and stayed down below the top of the balcony to stop something like that from happening again!

The Hollowman landed with perfect grace, its knees bending to absorb some of the impact of a six hundred pound war machine slamming into a metal floor. The Hollowman straightened its posture and looked back over its shoulder at the rest of its fireteam. It let out more quantronic bursts of noise, and the rest of the Hollowmen wordlessly fell in behind its movement.

With the suppressing machine gunner temporarily handled, the Hollowman rounded the corner, coming up to a barricade to immediately spot a Grunt laying prone behind another barrier. The Hollowman let out a more aggressive burst of quantronic noise as it raised its spitfire onto the Grunt. The Grunt didn't have time to bring his shotgun up for a proper aimed shot, so he instead reached for his heavy flamethrower and unleashed a wide gout of flame at the machine man. The fire roared, but the Hollowman wasn't so worried about fire. It's flesh was steel, and it didn't burn as well. The Hollowman opened fire while it became wreathed in flame.

The optics of the combat frame filtered out the fire being breathed onto it to continue tracking its target. Three rounds made contact with the Grunt, but just like the Minuteman, his armor saved his life. The Grunt held his position as the Hollowman leaped backward, on top of some supply containers, while still firing its spitfire at the grunt. A second rush of flames hit the Hollowman, and this time the sustained heat managed to warp the combat frame's chassis. Still, the Spitfire rounds found purchase, and the Grunt's attempt to incinerate his metal adversary was only barely effective. The prone Grunt simply dropped his blown out head to the floor for the rest of his fireteam to witness.

Understanding the warping of its frame, the Hollowman jumped off of the crate to get behind it and remain out of line of sight. As the spitfire wielding Hollowman fell back, another took to the front. This second Hollowman occupied the same scorched barricade that the previous one had. The Hollowman let out some digital chirps as it raised its MULTI rifle and fired its underslung pitcher. The small device landed behind the dead Grunt's barricade and allowed Petra help out more.

With the hacking net expanded, Petra immediately took action and began to sling out some programs. She tapped away at her hacking interface and managed to highlight the Intel Grunt armed with a light rocket launcher. Petra began to look up data on this individual, discovering that this particular Grunt was none other than Rosie Munroe. Petra was sure that with the Ariadnan team taking losses, they were bound to try and retake the initiative. Or at least avenge their fallen comrades. Petra chimed in over her commlink when she saw her prediction was right on the money. "Brace yourselves, team! They're coming with a vengeance!"

As Petra watched the camera feed and worked her quantronic magic, she received a new alert. Airlocks had been opened, and the request for entry had simply been bypassed. In Petra's world, that only meant one thing. This was a break in! It was extremely illegal to simply open airlocks without the station's control being notified! Petra quickly flipped through her camera feeds until she found the two airlocks that had been opened. "Ah fuck..." Petra said to herself before speaking over the comms, "Heads up, team! We've got more Ariadnans on our flanks, two teams of two! Percival! ... Haah... And Larry... I need you two to handle the team in your zone, they're the more pressing threat at the moment!"

Percival, the drunken myrmidon, hiccupped over the comm, "*hic!* Sure thing, Peter!"

"It's Petra!" she snapped back.

"Oh! Sorry, Patty!" Percival came back. The guy was all kinds of liquored up.

Petra rolled her eyes, then Larry spoke over the comm, "Hey, Petra, if I get one of these guys you'll have a drink with me yeah?"

Petra groaned and sent a bunch of deafening white noise directly to Larry's commlink to squelch him out. "Dammit, Larry! I want nothing to do with you!"

There was silence over the comms, but it was obvious Larry was still keying his mic since she could hear the ambient noise coming through his commlink. Then the slurp came, loud and obnoxious to every member in the team. Petra picked up a random device in her hab and whipped it across the room out of frustration. "And turn off your damn link, Larry! I don't want to hear your gross mouth noises!"

Larry chuckled back through the comms, "Oh but I wanna hear yours, bab-" *SQUEEEELCH!*

Percival chimed in again after the deafening digital squeal, "*hic!* Alrighty, Patsy! We'll get 'er done! You can count on us. *hic!*"

Petra buried her face in her hand, making sure to not be keying her comms as she spoke. "I really don't want to..."

But she had no choice. Aside from the Reaktion Zond on top of her hab, the drunken idiot and the tone deaf mall cop were the only two over there who could take care of that situation. And with the habs being... Well the habs, Petra didn't want to risk the Reaktion Zond catching her billeted crew in the cross fire. And so Petra turned her attention elsewhere, most notably on a mounted 112 motorcycling his way through the team's Transductor Zond's repeater area. As if in sync, both her and the Hollowman hacker worked in unison to mark the 112 with a spotlight program. Not even a motorcycle was fast enough to avoid Petra's speed hacks!

Meanwhile, the Hollowman fireteam was very busy holding the center of the chamber. The third Hollowman, the one wielding a boarding shotgun, caught a glimpse out of its peripheral sensors of a Grunt moving across open ground to link up with the other Grunts. The Hollowman did a snap shot with its shotgun slugs, but they fell short, and the Grunt escaped the Hollowman's deadly line of sight.

Now that the Grunt fireteam was back up to full strength, the team moved out to assault the Hollowmen's position. The fireteam leader was carrying a massive slab of a steel breaching shield and a spitfire. The imposing figure rounded the corner first to handle the brunt of the incoming fire from the Hollowmen. The shotgunner Hollow and the MULTI rifleman responded to the shielded man's appearance by opening fire on him. The Reaktion Zond also caught sight of the unknown ranger and opened up on him too, but the ranger's skill in battle and protection from his armor and shield prevailed. Fanning from right to left, the unknown ranger first swept his fire across the chest of the MULTI rifleman, two shots puncturing the chest plate of the combat frame and causing it to fall backward unceremoniously. The ranger held the trigger as he continued his sweep over to the shotgunner, with three more shots smacking into the Hollowman and dropping it in much the same way as the first. The Reaktion Zond's targeting matrix was challenged by the unknown ranger's mimetic patterns on his armor in addition to the tight quarters. Only one round managed to connect with the ranger, but his shield took the shot without even recoiling from the impact.

With the immediate threat of the Hollowmen handled by the unknown ranger's excellent sweep, the fireteam advanced closer to the Nomads' habs. The team had unwittingly stepped within the repeater net of the Hollow's tag-along Stempler Zond, which had tucked itself away inside one of the Nomad shipping crates. The Hollowman hacker was also within range to run support tasks. Petra and the Hollowman hacker worked together with their Spotlight programs to mark as much of the approaching Ariadnans as possible. By the time the fireteam slowed their advance, both Rosie Munroe and the threatening unknown ranger were both highlighted.

Petra bit her lip. This wasn't good. The Hasselhoff crew were being enveloped on three sides! Something needs to be done, and quick! Petra started speaking on her commlink, "Dammit! Larry? Percival? How are our unwanted guests do-" She was cut off by the sound of the Reaktion Zond opening up again.

Petra blinked and looked at the camera feed to see one of the boarders that Percival was fighting get riddled with high caliber rounds. "Well I suppose that answers my question. Stay frosty, you two. There's still one more over there!"

Hearing the rapid fire from the Reaktion Zond, the unknown ranger moved to take care of that next. On his way, he found himself staring down the barrel of the Hollowman hacker's combi rifle. The two traded fire, and both of their armors held. The Hollowman hacker fell back around a corner so it didn't have to endure another withering barrage of armor piercing ammunition. With the path clear, the unknown ranger moved up to a shipping crate and peaked around the corner with his spitfire. The Reaktion Zond immediately opened fire, but once again the Zond was having difficulty tracking the ranger's movement. The ranger returned fire, hitting the Reaktion Zond just barely. But the shot was enough to shut it down, even if only temporarily.

Mech had been hiding underneath his table since the whole engagement began. He wasn't much of a gunfight. In fact, he was admittedly quite bad at it. But that was precisely why he joined the Clockmakers Corps and not something like the Securitates or the Moderators (though they were debatably even worse shots, so...). But no, he became a Clockmaker because he knew robotics and machinery very, VERY well. Mech brought up his arm computer and began reading diagnostics on the Hasselhoff's remote units. He saw that a handful of Hollowman combat frames were down, as well as the vital Reaktion Zond that was preventing the flanking Airborne Rangers from closing in further on their habs.

Mech got to work. He inputted his commands in to his two trusty Zondbots, The small helpers receives the orders and began to move. The zondbot on the roof of Petra's hab simply needed to reach out its arm and give the Reaktion Zond a good application of percussive maintenance. With a few hits and clanking of metal on metal, the Reaktion Zond rumbled and came back to life. Its digital warbles went from a very low pitch to a high pitch, and the usual blue lights on it switch to red. It was a very angry little Zond.

The other Zondbot moved across open ground to reach the damaged Hollowman that had sustained an armor warp from too much heat stress. The job was a simple fix. The Zondbot raised it arms and fired a nanite spray that'd intelligently collect on the compromised armor plates and harden to compensate for the structural compromise. The Zondbot gave a thumbs up and a happy wave to the Hollowman. It nodded back along with giving off a few quantronic clicks and chirps.

The Hollowman raised its spitfire and climbed up a set of stairs to get atop the elevated gantry ways. It carefully peered around a stack of shipping containers and sighted in on a single Grunt from the unknown ranger's fireteam. Taking the Grunt as its target, the Hollowman stepped out, its spitfire raised and already spitting death at the Grunt before he could react. Two rounds ripped through the Grunt's armor and killed him instantly. Following up on that, the Hollowman continued its slow but purposeful strafe, slicing the proverbial pie to get sights on yet another lone Grunt, but not just any Grunt. It was Rosie Munro.

Thanks to Petra's Spotlight program, Rosie was a prime target for the Hollowman. Rosie saw the gunfire from the gantry way, so she had enough time to level her rocket launcher. The Hollowman fired just as a rocket was loosed. The rocket slammed into the shipping containers, the blast harmless against the Hollowman as it peppered Rosie with several accurate shots. Five rounds saw downward onto Rosie, the first striking her throat, the next three moving in a downward line from her shoulder to her sternum. The last two struck her in the abdomen just below the armored plates. Rosie spat blood and collapsed on the floor.

For the first time since their activation, one of the Hollowmen spoke. It's voice was heavily synthesized and deep by design in order to frighten their opponents. "Hostile fireteam has lost forty percent integrity. Their combat ability will be diminished."

Petra breathed a bit easier after hearing that report from the Hollowman. She switched cameras back over to see what was happening with Larry and Percival. One of the habs was smoking from a grenade that Percival had thrown. The smoke grenade canister rolled off of the roof of the hab and bounced harmlessly on the floor, making it difficult to see what was really happening. But it seemed the Airborne Ranger over there didn't want to be blind and trapped in the smoke, so she had repositioned out into the open to get away from whatever horror might've been inside the cloud.

But unbeknownst to the Airborne Ranger, she had stepped right into view of the Reaktion Zond. The mobile turret warbled aggressively and turned its HMG onto the ranger. She dove just in time for the shots to fly over her head. Now out of the Reaktion Zond's enfilade, the ranger had few places to go without getting shot at again. Larry cocked his breaker combi, "You got this, Larry. It's date night tonight, babyyy!" He said excitedly.

Larry rounded the corner and levelled his rifle on the Airborne Ranger. But he didn't fire. "Oh. She's pretty good looking!" he said to himself.

The ranger spotted him and raised her rifle at him, stepping out to enter into a proper firing stance. But her repositioning was all the Reaktion Zond needed to spray her down with more bullets! Larry watched as the ranger was cut down by machine gun rounds. He blinked and looked up at the Reaktion Zond which had repositioned just enough to get a new firing angle on the ranger. The Reaktion Zond's lights went blue again and it began to rock excitedly from left to right as it looked down to Larry. Larry sighed, "Yup... You got 'er alright. Couldn't have just waited a few seconds so that I could've maybe... Y'know... Convinced her to surrender?"

Petra spoke over the commlink, "Good job on distracting her, Larry. Gave our Reaktion Zond just enough time to get a good shot."

Larry pursed his lips for a second, "So hey, with that good job... It's a date?"

There was a silence on the radio. Larry checked his commlink, "Petra?"

"... You just have to ruin every good moment, don't you?" Petra said after an awkward silence.

Larry couldn't answer before the Hollowman spoke again, "Shifting positions. Engaging hostile team leader."

Using the height of the gantry to its advantage, the Hollowman quickly stepped out to get a flanking angle on the unknown ranger. The unknown ranger heard the stilted legs clinking on the metal gantry way and turned to face the threat with his spitfire ready to go. They both saw each other at the same time. The unknown ranger's honed reflexes and the Hollowman's perfectly coded reflexes matched. They fired in unison, but it was the machine stillness of the Hollowman that kept the rounds accurate. Four shots hit their mark, but only one managed to penetrate the shield and the armor behind it to draw blood from the ranger. The Hollowman could hear the grunt of pain, followed by the sharp hiss as the bullet embedded itself in him.

With a staggering display of sheer willpower, the unknown ranger pushed right through the pain of the round in his chest and moved to press the assault on the Nomad habs. The Hollowman continued firing down on the ranger, but his injury also stripped away any last bit of professional restraint. The unknown ranger roared as he ran and held the trigger down on the Hollowman. Rounds connected with the combat frame, but the Hollowman's repaired armored staved off the blow. Still, with the punishing amount of fire from the ranger, the Hollowman knew that keep its frame intact... The Hasselhoff had been notoriously low on credits as of late to handle the expensive repairs of the frames... The Hollowman went prone and took its time slapping a new magazine into its spitfire.

The Unknown Ranger pressed on with the last of his fireteam in tow, one of them being the recipient of the Hollowman hacker's spotlight program. As the hacker was running its program, the motorized 112 sped up with his light shotgun to hopefully deliver a flanking shot on the Hollowman. Unable to bring its combi rifle on target right away, the Hollowman instead opted to quick draw its Breaker Pistol. The 112, not expecting such a swift reaction from the hyper aware Hollowman, flinched and missed his shot, but the speed of his bike protected him from also taking a hit. The two continued to exchange fire, but the 112 had to slow down in order to actually get an accurate hit off. Seeing that he was about to take a shot from the breaker pistol, the 112 rolled off of the side of his bike, the breaker round pinging harmlessly off of the side.

The 112 spoke over his radio for backup as the Hollowman pinned him down behind his back. The unknown ranger answered and moved closer toward the habs while sweeping his spitfire to the left to cut down the Hollowman. The hacker turned, bringing its breaker pistol onto the unknown ranger. Holding position, the Hollowman fired a single shot at the unknown ranger. His shield staved the round off. But as the firefight continued, the Hollowman clearly showed no intention of giving up its ground. It fired again at the unknown ranger, and the breaker round found purchase. The round passed through his armor like a hot knife through butter, and punched into the unknown ranger's heart. The ranger stood for a moment, but ultimately collapsed dead to the ground.

The Hollowman hacker reported the kill, "High profile hostile has been neutralized."

Petra recorded the kill and continued monitoring the cameras. She switched back to the second team of Airborne Rangers, and saw them moving toward a control tower just outside the habs. One climbed through an opened building while the other remained at the corner to cover in the direction of the habs.

"Hollowmen, your job isn't done yet," Petra said, "Unit 1, you have two hostiles in the building right behind you."

Percival made his way out toward the unconscious airborne commando that Larry had wanted to swoon a bit. He drew his sword and stood over her. "Oy, Pammy, what's the call with survivors? Officially Ariadna ain't supposed to- *hic!* Be in our Green Zone."

Petra looked through the camera at Percival as he stood over the incapacitated ranger. "No evidence. Last thing we need is the CA seeing that we're infighting on the station we're trying to defend."

"Return to sender, then?" Percival asked before letting out another hiccup.

"Yeah. Return to sender." Petra replied.

Percival shrugged and sheathed his sword before picking up the ranger and dragging her back to the airlock she had come from. Percival unceremoniously tossed her inside before cycling the airlock and spacing her. He dusted his hands off as though it were hard work for his perfected myrmidon body. "All done here."

The Ariadnan lieutenant was watching the display through his helmet cam as the ranger got spaced. He went pale, understanding the implications of what would happen if the rest of his men were left behind. The lieutenant looked at the 112 and ordered him to break contact from the Hollowman and start rounding up the injured! Before the 112 could remount his bike, a breaker pistol shot went straight through the side of the 112's head. He flopped dead over his bike.

The Hollowman on the gantry way moved to get a line of sight on the other side of the building that the airborne rangers were occupying. The one outside the structure spotted him immediately, but he couldn't stop Unit 1's breaker pistol rounds either. One shot punctured a lung and sprawled the man out on the ground.

Hearing the gunshot from inside and seeing his fireteam partner go down, the other airborne ranger was expecting a breach from the Hollowman at any more. He climbed back through the window and aimed in the Hollowman's direction in hopes that he could ambush the combat frame. Mech, still hiding under his table, heard the shuffling of somebody climbing through a window. He blinked and peaked out from the relative safety of his hiding spot and saw a ranger posting up to ambush one of the Hollowmen. Mech ducked down again and clutched his combi rifle. "Okay, Mech," he whispered to himself, "Nothing to it. Just aim and pull the trigger. The guy probably has a cube anyways... Right?"

After preparing himself, Mech stood up from underneath the table and aimed his combi rifle at the back of the unsuspecting ranger. After all... Who was expecting a soldier of all things to be hiding underneath a table?! Mech pulled the trigger, and all three rounds ripped into the back of the unaware airborne ranger. He died on the spot, slumping halfway through the window.

On the other flank, Percival was moving aggressively toward the WarCor that Petra had caught taking photos of the engagement. He rounded the corner, seeing the WarCor as he recorded the Hollowman firing an illegal breaker pistol at the 112's head. The little aerocam flying around the WarCor alerted the journalist to Percival standing there. The WarCor raised both of his hands, "Don't shoot! I'm with the press!"

Percival aimed his breaker combi, said "Exactly," and opened fire. There would be no media coverage of this attack.

The Ariadnan lieutenant did a quick nominal roll over the radio to understand who was left. The Minuteman in the balcony was still prone and hiding. The terror of the robotic Hollowmen digging deep into his psyche. He was paralyzed with fear but still able to at least give a simple reply on the radio. He looked over his shoulder at the other grunt covering his six. And that was it. The three of them. Everyone else was dead. All except for the Airborne Ranger waiting to get spaced by the Hollowmen. He looked at his fireteam partner and put on a brave face, "Cover me! I'm going to go get him!" And then he sprinted.

Unit 1 saw the Grunt running for it, and the Grunt saw it too. But the Grunt didn't bother shooting. He hoped his speed would keep him protected from accurate gunfire. He was right. The Hollowman sent a few breaker pistol rounds at the Grunt, but they all missed. Deciphering what the Grunt was doing, the Hollowman held its fire and holstered its pistol. It didn't seem to be in a hurry to draw its chain colt. The Grunt slid to a kneeling position next to the Airborne Ranger. He shook the ranger to make sure he was at least somewhat responsive. "I got you, man! Stay with me!" he said.

The Grunt looked back over his shoulder for a moment, then looked back to the ranger. But then he stopped himself and slowly turned his head back to do a double take. The Hollowman stood atop the gantry way with its chain colt levelled on him and the unconscious ranger. There weren't any words exchanged. The Hollowman squeezed the trigger, and the chain colt spat out heaps of superheated slag and razor-links at the duo of Ariadnans. The ranger was killed by the flurry of heated razors and slag. And the Grunt had more than one artery knicked by the deadly weapon. He went down.

Unit 1 lowered the chain colt and holstered it before looking back toward the other Grunt and Minuteman who had regrouped and were beginning to retreat. "The enemy is routed." Unit 1 reported.

Petra nodded in response, "I've seized control of all of the doors in this sector. They wont escape. I've also notified the Green Zone security to apprehend them. Good job everyone. No blood spilled today. Though the repairs of those two Hollowman frames might run our coffers dry..."

Another slurp came over the commlink, "So how come the Hasselhoff is so broke?" Larry asked.

Petra made a thin line with her lips and closed her eyes. She didn't want to answer that question over the radio. Especially when a clockmaker was on the net who wouldn't be very happy at all to hear why they didn't get their much need power cells. Petra came up with a quick answer, "All the circulars to Concilium Prima are on hold until this crisis is sorted out and the CA are pushed back. We can't get resupplied."

Yet another slurp on the link, and Petra straightened her back while inhaling sharply through her nose. Larry finished his sip with a long 'Aaaah~' before speaking, "Sounds kind of strange given that we have digital currency, but... Alrighty then."

WOOO! What a battle report! This one took me an entire day to write up and edit! I'm exhausted! I really hope everyone enjoyed this battle report! I absolutely intend on doing more Diaries of a CSU throughout this event so stay tuned and be on the lookout!

This game was a super brutal one. There wasn't any part of the map that didn't get used, and both of us wound up pushing forward and fighting out of our deployment zones. Every unit in the list was used and saw some sort of action.

Thanks to my Zondnaut and Perseus executing two unconscious enemies, I managed to score the Extreme Prejudice (extreme) classified objective to put the final score to 1 - 0.

As much as I would have loved playing the objective and capturing the enemy's beacon, it was just far too protected with the 5 man link run by the Unknown Soldier. This was a pure battle of attrition, and my mostly Remote Presence list with a Clockmaker made it super easy to keep my numbers up and in the fight.

Go go bromads!