The bottle sailed through the air almost gracefully for a few moments, virtually slowing time down around it. For just two or three seconds, it was a thing of beauty, not a deadly bomb. That however suddenly changed upon hitting the ground.

It struck just inside one of the tents, the force of the impact causing the bottle to smash and spilling its contents along the floor. The incinerating paper fell a few milliseconds later, instantly lighting the fluid and throwing the whole tent into hellfire. A soldier stood smoking less than ten feet away from it fell back in shock, but quickly regained his bearings. For whatever reason, a pail of water was sat near one of the other tents, which he instantly grabbed and went to use on the tent. A blaster bolt from Helena's rifle promptly crumpled his kneecap however, causing him to drop the pail and fall forward into the tent.

He emerged a few seconds later, however now looking more like a human torch than a milita soldier. His loud screams brought lots of attention to the emblazened fire and the alight individual, who by now had stumbled into two or three more tents, spreading the fire even further.

"Alright guys, place is alight. Let's start doing some damage, priority is to make sure no one puts that fire out" Kand called into his comlink

Angel was about to dial in the Raiders frequency when he remembered that they were undercover, and Snipes would visit horrible pranks on him if he blew their op in the hospital. Rather, he dialed in Iron Horse's frequency to get status on their extraction team.

"Gio, this is Angel, what's your 20 and ETA?"

Static crackled back over the comm, followed closely by the crackling voice of the Iron Horse squad leader. "Unknown, we're dealing with heavy resistance at our first objective, advise you continue your op and hunker down until we get there."

"Roger that, we'll be waiting. Angel out." Muttering a few curses under his breath, he shouldered his E-11, now down to enough charges for about 30 rounds. Running a few quick simulations through his head, he devised a course of action. "Ok. Bright, I want your team to find the elevators and return to the lobby. Use whatever you can find there and set up some cover for us to defend our position. My team will proceed to sweep up to the thirty-sixth floor and bring Terval down."

Brightstar nodded in agreement, and turned to smack Jager and Jori, who were now bickering again over the "bumped helmet" incident. "I'll keep you informed of any resistance we see down there." Signaling for Verk and Jori to follow her, Bright made her way onto their current floor to search for the elevators.

"Ok guys, this could get ugly up there. The higher we go the more likely we'll find heavier concentrations." Angel addressed his fire team. You too will breach and clear using the east stairwell. I'll provide cover fire from the west stairwell as we move up."

Jager and Squall both nodded their acceptance of the orders. As the team split up, Angel's mind drifted slightly towards Jager. He couldn't yet figure him out completely. He was a hell of a trooper and a real asset to the squad, yet he seemed more intrigued with making smart ass remarks than doing his job. The Squad Leader enjoyed having personality in the squad, it always made things interesting, but when it takes away from the focus on the mission at hand...

"Breaching in three, two, one..." crackled over his comm, and Angel focused his mind completely on the task at hand.

Helena quickly followed the rest of them, staying close. She didn’t want to get lost, and she didn’t like the look and sound of being pushed in any flames any time soon.

She heard a voice come from one of the tents. It seemed to be a group of people praying. She lowered her head in respect, and then clutched her heart shaped locket that she kept in her pocket.

”I’m so sorry”

She grabbed her rifle, loaded it, and shot fire into the tent, putting the group of men out of their misery. She was so sorry for them, it wasn’t their fault, they just happened to be there at the time.

The squad seemed to be approaching the end of the path which leads them into, what seemed like a town circle which contained a water tap, food supplies and spare clothes. Both the clothes and food had caught a slight flame and began burning.

A man grabbed Helena’s hand, pulling her close into his body, holding her mouth to muffle her scream. With his other hand he held a make shift knife to her throat. He came down to her level and whispered in her ear.

“Now for you my lovely. This’ll be the last time you ever see your precious little squad”

The man spat on the floor before bringing the knife closer to her, making his grip on her body tighter and tighter.

Orobos spun around, punching the man who'd just hit him in the back, catching him on his nose breaking the bridge the man stumbled back blood flowing down his face. He returned in kind kicking at Orobos but he was it was a hasty and desperate move. Orobos easily sidestepped the kick and brought his baton around hitting the man over th top of his head hearing a sharp crack. The man fell to the floor unconscious.

Orobos didn't have time to think before two more assailants where upon him. One went down similar to the one just before a smack to the head. The other brought a large, metal pole around hitting Orobos' helmet and smashing the reinforced lens. He stumbled back from the force of the blow. He felt the glass impacting his cheek leaving several long cuts. Luckily none had got in his eye. Orobos kicked the man in the stomach. As he doubled over gasping for breath he brought his baton down raining several heavy blows on the mans back and shoulders.

Turning to face the next opponent Orobos realised that they were all gone. He spotted the a few of them running down the stairs carrying two boxes of ammunition. They'd never catch them..... unless. Orobos ran out of the room.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Without hesitating he jumped over the banisters went flying down. He plummeted by the get aways and continued to fall for a few seconds. Almost at the bottom the sudden realisation of what he'd just done hit him... too late. He hit the eight foot high almost eleven foot wide pile of rubbish on the ground floor. He lay there for a seconds. Finally making sure nothing was broken he jumped up out of the pile and ran towards the bottom of the stairs.

Following him came a few yells and screams of the delight as the squad followed suit jumping and landing in the plastic bags and bottles. The shocktrooper armour absorbed almost all of the shock. They ran towards the stairs and watched as the runners came round to find a group of stormtroopers standing at the bottom of the stairs weapons raised.

The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth floors went without a problem, the first being empty, and the second only sparsely populated with two rag-tag DOs sporting ancient weapons. As their smoking corpses hit the deck, Angel began to get the unsettling feeling that this was going way too well. Other than the one DO who surprised Jager on the 26th floor they had met with only token resistance. If Traver really was this important, they would have fortified the building with heavy guard and their best troops. Yet here they were, one floor from their goal, and they hold killed maybe twenty soldiers.

Unless...

"Bright, any movement down there?" Angel asked through the squad's comm. channel

"Negative, it's deader than a doornail out here." Came the reply, her voice sounding a bit strained as they tipped over desks for makeshift barricades.

"Well stay alert, something doesn't feel quite..." His sentence was cut off as the doors on each side of the room exploded into deadly shards of durasteel and wood. Diving behind the nearest desk, Angel covered his vitals as smoke poured into the room, followed by dozens of laser bolts.

"Bright! We're pinned down on 35 we need help!" Was all he could cry in his comm as the full compliment of Delta Ohm's guards spilled onto the floor, pinning the three Jester members in a deadly trap.

Vox pressed execute, and his datapad hummed as it transmitted the data into the hospital network. A few seconds of silence later, the device pinged and the screen changed from red to a light green, signifying success. Vox scrolled through pages of data, eyes moving rapidly from side to side as he scanned for the relevant information. Finally, he nodded, satisfied.

"Sensor array's been shut down for the next ten minutes, and the turbolift's operational. We'd better..."

Vox was cut off mid-sentence as Sniping 101's voice sounded through their helmet coms.

"Fire teams, report in."

"This is Cursed. Charges set; we ran into a few docs but nothing major."

"Vox here. They disabled the lift and alarmed the basement. Both problems resolved."

"Finish up, and meet at the agreed RV. Battlemont out."

The channel closed and was replaced by burps of static. Vox remained frozen for a moment, then nodded to himself and gestured at the lobby. Dante followed the ASL, and was on the doorway when he saw something and froze. The cam feed showed a clump of security hovervans on the groups, with a group of blue uniformed and armed sentients headed for the front door.

"Sithspit. Vox!"

The Sergeant Major followed his gaze, took one look at the screen, and ran for the security console.

"Platoon Sergeant, we have a problem."

"What is it, Vox?"

"Three vans outside, and a bunch of pissed-off security guys heading in." Vox was already slicing back in as he spoke, his fingers a blur of motion.

"Stang." the RAIDERS leader sighed. "All right, RAIDERS, prepare for company, and lots of it. Vox, see if you can lock them out from the security room."

"On it, sir."

On the viewscreen, Dante watched as the troopers came running up the steps. The front gate cam showed even more vans were on the way, and at least a few stormtroopers were with the security this time. Dante didn't know if these were traitors as well, but he suspected other wise and, in any event, had no desire to shoot fellow troopers. Purging the security had been bad enough, and the troopers would be a lot harder in every sense.

"Almost got it..." Vox whispered to himself, even as the sound of booted feet echoed through the lobby.

Dante nodded, then looked out into the lobby, careful to expose as little of himself as possible. At least three of the security guards were there, all armed and looking wary. His hand dropping to his belt, Dante got ready to move in.

The Paladin's moved slowly down the sewer. Most of them were limping but it took more than a grenade to take out a well trained squad of troopers. Lucky suddenly held up her hand.

"What is it?" Alan whispered asked.

"Trouble" she replied, "I hear movements just round the corner up there, I can't be certain how many of them there are".

Zeshaun took hold of his vibrobalde with one hand and slowly advanced with his squad.

All of a sudden a strange noise, not natural to a normal man could be heard followed by piercing screams and the sound of tearing flesh.

They stopped and waited for the noises to stop just as suddenly as they came. They turned the corner and they saw something that made Zeshaun's stomach flip.

Body parts were strewn everywhere and blood dripped from the ceilings.

"What could have done this?" asked Zeshaun.

"I don't know" replied Lucky in disbelief.

Zeshaun noticed Alan putting away his blaster and pulling out his rifle. Zeshaun wished he could hold his rifle, it could make him much more comfortable.

Zeshaun counted about 5 arms and guessed that at least three people were dead. well that cuts it down to 9 more, but if this thing isn't friendly then we got trouble.

Lucky's voice came in over the comm. "Keep your eyes sharp."

The squad slowly moved along, even more cautious than before, everyone jumping at the slightest movements.

They traveled farther and farther into the sewers, "You can hear us splashing through here from a mile away." Lennik's voice crackled over the comm breaking the silence, it made Zeshaun jump.

"Not helping." Zeshaun growled back.

"Let's just keep moving the faster we get out of here the better, if we're lucky we won't run into that thing and it will kill the rest of the our targets." Lucky said.

They heard the heavy footsteps echoing through the sewers. Slowly getting louder but just when you thought they would jump out the sound started to fade.

Suddenly a figure emerged from an intersection up ahead. It was human sized and didn't seem to be armed, it was wandering about like it was lost, it turned in the direction of the Paladin's.

Lucky signaled everyone to get keep quiet and slowly advance in two columns. As they got closer they saw that it was one of the Delta Ohms.

He came running at them. "Freeze!" Lucky shouted.

The man came yelling "You have to help me I got away from that thing but I know it's after me, I can feel it watching me, please help me."

Suddenly a cover popped off of a vent. A medium sized scaly creature jumped out and caught onto the man, he screamed and was dead in a matter of minutes.

"Fire" Lucky shouted, but the squad didn't need much prodding from her. They all immediately started hammering away at the monster.

Zeshaun felt so useless all he had was his vibroblade and couldn't run up for a one on one battle in his current state.

The creature jumped up to the ceiling to dodge the barrage of bullets. It pounced at Lennik at light speed. Lennik put up his hands to shield himself but the force of the impact knocked him back.

"Bright! We're pinned down on 35 we need help!" Jori heard over Bright’s comm.

Jori heaved another desk towards the door to complete the makeshift barricade. He turned as Bright called.

“Now that the barricade is finished we need to head up to reach Angel, Jager, and Squall before they are overwhelmed.” Bright said as she hurried to the elevators.

As all three jumped in, Bright punched the 35 floor button and they shoot up. A ding sounded and the doors opened. Immediately,  as Bright and Verk ran out, but right as Jori was starting to move, blaster fire erupted and he forced back into the elevator.

This isn’t good. I need to keep the door from closing.

Right then, a DO fighter ran towards the elevator, apparently not seeing Jori. Grinning, Jori shot him and he landed right in the path of the closing doors. They jammed, which provided Jori with some cover. He peeked out and saw no blaster fire coming his way. Slipping out, he stayed close to the ground as he moved along the wall. Soon he saw Angel and Squall behind some cover and he joined them.
“How many more DOs do you think there are?” Jori said as he snapped off a shot, which hit its mark.

Squall looked back and nodded as Angel did a quick scan.

“It’s hard to tell. Where is Bright and Verk?” Angel said.

“I don’t know. They got off the elevator right before I did, but I was pinned down by blaster fire, so I couldn’t get off right then.” Jori said as he looked around.

On the far side of the room, he noticed a small group of DOs that seemed to be cornered. On a closer look, he saw Jager, Verk, and Bright taking shots at them.

“There they are.” Jori said as he pointed towards them.

Angel nodded and then motioned for Jori to help them. Jori saluted and quickly ran across the room. He shot two DOs as he crossed the floor and finally reached the rest of Jester. Jori took up position beside Bright and started shooting. Soon, they had taken out the whole group. Bright turned and looked around.

“Now it’s even. There are around six DOs left.” Bright said.

Jori nodded and starting moving along the wall, crouching all the way. When he got to the end of the wall, he stumbled upon two DOs, which he made short work off.

I’m glad they were surprised or I wouldn’t of been able to kill them so easily. Anyway, that two gone.

Jori stood up and saw the rest of Jester in a group by the elevators. Quickly, he made his way over there.

“That’s all of them. Bright, you and your fire team stay here on this floor and be ready to provide backup for my fire team.” Angel said as him, Jager, and Squall moved in the direction of the stairwell.

Jori sat down on an upturned desk to wait.

Still on edge from the sight that they had witnessed, for once in his life, Alan walked cautiously, brandishing his E-11 blaster rifle.  Through the comm, Alan heard Lennik and Zeshaun’s banter.  It made him smile slightly but also irritated him.  He wanted his primary focus to be on the matter at hand and not be distracted by idle com chatter.

Suddenly a figure emerged and Alan quickly identified him as one of the Delta Ohms.  Alan levelled his blaster at him but the man ran, screaming that he was being chased.  The very notion that something was actually chasing him made Alan feel very uneasy.  Then the monster appeared.

Oh good god thought Alan as he watched the scaly monster jump out, latching onto the Delta Ohm man and killing him swiftly.

“Open fire!” shouted Lucky, although Alan knew that his blaster had already unleashed several volleys prior to the order. 

The creature lashed out at the squad.  Singling out Lennik, the creature launched itself at the trooper.  Lennik curled up in a defensive posture.  Damn you cursed Alan under his breath.  He had seen what horrors this creature was capable of and the last thing he wanted was any of the squad to suffer that fate.

In the blink of a second, Alan knew that his initial action had been the wrong thing to do.  He knew now what he had to do.  Lowering his blaster rifle, Alan placed it back on his shoulder.  Removing his ever trusty blaster pistol, he aimed carefully and let loose a single shot.  The creature screamed as one of its eyes burst.  The creature let go of Lennik and disappeared.

“Nice shot” commented Zeshaun.

Alan didn’t make any reply as he went over to Lennik and noticed that although the troopers armour was badly scratched and chewed up, that it had held and Lennik was ok.

“I suggest we get out of here and fast in case that thing comes back” said Hassar.

“Agreed” replied Lucky, “let’s move it people”.

The squad started moving quickly as Alan brought up the rear.  Alan gazed deeply at the open vent and felt a shiver through his spine as he thought to himself if we ever see that monster again it will be coming after me. 

That thought scared him a lot.

Verk leaned up against a wall as Angel, Squall and Jager headed into the stair well. One leg out straight, Verk rested his arm on his bent leg. Breathing deeply he scanned the room, and watched as Jori and Bright searched the dead DO bodies that littered the floor.

Standing, Verk reloaded his blaster and checked his vitals, Good, all is green, and moved off away from the other two.

"I'm gonna go check these rooms over here, see if i can find anything interesting." He said to Bright over the comm, a double tap of her comm as acknowledgement.

Kicking the shards of door out of his way, Verk stepped into what used to be a luxury room, but was now covered with black scorch marks and riddled with blaster holes.

Verk moved through the two adjoining rooms, making sure there was no one hiding out, waiting to surprise them. Verk looked towards the window, and for no particular reason at all, he walked over to the gaping hole that had been blasted into it.

Sighing inside his helmet, Verk looked to the streets below, and sighed again, though this time with annoyance. Several blacks transports pulled up in front of the building, DO troops piling out, and heading into the building.

"Uh guys, we have some unwelcome company entering the lobby."

Gates gave the charging people a cheery wave. "Hey ladies and gentleman, I was just starting to miss you!"

He opened fire on stun, as did the rest of the Black Jacks. A dozen of the enemies fell within seconds, and the rest tried to scamper away, heaving heavy bags likely filled with explosives.

Orobos gestured, and the two tall soldiers charged up the stairs after the terrorists. They hit the landing and ran into a hail of slugs, fired from a row of kneeling terrorists, who were surprised when the shock troopers shook off the barrage and returned fire, their bolts much more effective.

Gates scanned quickly with infrared. "All targets neutralized." He reported.

He replaced his clip, slipping the half-spent one into his backpack.

"What now?"

Bacardi and Virus were done, Bacardi ran towards the nearest turbolift, and Virus behind him. They had both finished their jobs, planted the charges, and were getting the hell out of there. Both Bacardi and Virus carried a DC-15A on their backs, and they each had their pistols in their hands. Entering the turbolift, they both pressed the bottom level and Bacardi clicked his COM.

"Delta to Gamma, we are heading down." Bacardi clicked into his com, Virus was getting his DC-15A ready for the ground level. Bacardi pulled his off his back, due to the fact that there would probably be angry civilians.

"Copy that Delta, Gamma out." Sniping 101's voice came through the com, Bacardi raised his weapon as the turbolift doors opened. Virus and Bacardi both had their DC-15As ready and raised, the doors slid to each side and then appeared 10 civilians. They all turned around, they were trying to get out.

"Covering fire!" Virus screamed as he went onto one knee, at the same time firing blue blaster bolts. Two citizens went down.

"Watch yourself.." Bacardi screamed as he went onto one knee as well. Civilians were hitting the ground like raindrops on a leaf, they all were down. Bacardi ran out and shot one in the gut, this one was still alive. Both Virus and Bacardi looked for an exit.

Angel paused with one hand on the door to the thirty-sixth floor. He knew what to expect once they breached: Bad guys shoots at good guys, good guys kill bad guys, last bad guy grabs hostage and uses as human shield.

Unfortunately for this human shield, Angel was not one to sympathize with their plight.

Unclipping his comlink, Angel contacted Squall and Jager on the other side of the floor, who were waiting on the East stairwell for the signal. "Breach, use your flash grenades." Angel instructed, "I'll move in and try to get to the hostage before they can recover."

"Roger that" Came the hushed reply from Squall. Resting his E-11 on the wall next to the door, Angel drew his twin IR-5 repeating sidearms and clicked his comlink twice to signal Squall and Jager to move in. He waited for two heartbeats, a thud, and screams before opening the door and rushing in.

At least ten Delta Ohms were staggering around the room clutching their eyes, while Terval luckily was blindfolded, and tied to a chair. Angel swept the legs of the first Ohm he came to, putting two rounds in his chest as he fell. Two more strides took him to a pair of Ohms, which he dispatched quickly with rapid bursts from his IR-5s.

Meanhwhile, Squall and Jager burst in from the other side, guns blazing. They picked off the nearest Ohms to them, gunning them down with a scream.

Their assignment was almost completed.