A few short minutes later, Bright had cobbled together a makeshift set of armor out of the scraps of Angel's. She had taken his helmet off the tech he had used for a human shield, and with Aeos' help, removed his breastplate. The armor had been restricting the use of his injured arm, and removing the armor allowed him some mobility. The sacrifice, however, was he was now horribly cold.

Shivers began to rack his body, in no small part due to going into partial shock from being shot. To compensate, he ordered one of the two remaining techs who had survived to give him his parka. The man of course, refused, and Angel proceeded to smash his head against the ice wall a couple times. As the unconscious man slumped to the floor, Jori and Gio removed the jacket and helped their SL thread it over his wound.

"Sonova slime licking tusken!" Angel snarled as the motion of putting on a thick coat strained his arm, and for what wouldn't be nearly the last time, cursed not having a medic in the squad. Sharp daggers of pain stabbed at his shoulder relentlessly, and he suddenly wished he hadn't used up all of Jager's booze. Examining his coat he took solace in the fact that it was a hell of a lot more stylish than the stormtrooper armor. Hopefully I won't be mistaken for one of the enemies

"Ok Jester's form up." He ordered. Grabbing his SLAR off the icy floor, he handed it to Jegora, along with the last 12-round clips he had for it. "No use to me now." Knocking his head towards his shoulder, he half smiled at the only trooper who outsized him. In place of his rifle, he drew both of his IR-5 pistols.

"Hey boss?" Gio spoke up from behind his squad leader. "What should we do with the last two techs?" The sergeant motioned towards the one laying on the floor with a bleeding face, and the other still cowering in the corner of the room.

"These assholes built the virus. They're the reason we're on this frelling shithole of a planet." His injury had succeeded in also pissing him off to no end. Steeling his voice, he finished. "Frag these scum."

From the corner of his eye, he could see their newfound ally shoot him a look of pure hatred before Bright plopped the helmet down over her face. Jegora lowered Angel's SLAR and put a surgical shot through the back of the man cowering in the corner, while Gio unloaded three rounds in the already battered tech.

"Room's clear." Gio announced.

The rest of Jester formed up around Jana, Bright and Angel taking point. Jori and Wicket formed up on the right, while Gio and Jegora took the right and Aeos and Sam brought up the rear.

"Jana, tell us where we can get to another terminal" Bright asked smoothly of their charge.

"G-Go straight ahead, there’s a secure terminal in my room, I can access all the files there." She stammered. The poor girl would need therapy for years after the brutality she had witnessed. But Angel actually found himself sincerely hoping that she made it through this ok. Without a computer whizz, the squad was at a distinct disadvantage for missions like these, so she could prove to be very useful in the future.

"Take a right here." Jana spoke again, seemingly gaining confidence with each step she took. Using standard escort tactics Angel swung around to the left of the T-junction, and the entire circle around Jana rotated one position. Ensuring nothing nasty was waiting for them down the hall, and as soon as the squad was clear, Angel took the empty spot in the back next to Aeos. His ASL turned to look at him, but he couldn't make out her expression through the dark mask of the armor.

This maneuver was repeated at the next junction, with Bright rotating this time on a left turn. Their progress was quick and steady, and Angel was vaguely surprised that they hadn't encountered any more resistance. The piles of bodies and charred corpses probably had something to do with that He mused.

After two more turns, the squad reached another code locked door. Jana slipped passed the front of the formation, now Jager and Wicket, and keyed in a quick 5 digit code. The door beeped and slid open, revealing another set of stairs. "Two floors up and we're there." Jana announced, her voice quivering slightly.

Something doesn't feel right with her... As the squad moved past the door, Angel examined the keypad and lock display.

"Shit." He said in a low voice, followed by a loud yell. "Jester double time we're going to have company!"That bitch betrayed us... Was all Angel could think as the squad broke into a dead run up the stairs.

Flashing on the lock display in red letters was "Silent Alarm Received."

Zeshaun enjoyed the ride in the vehicle and he felt a moment of peace and calmness as he drove through the squads of mercenaries, rolling over their legs and watching Nick blow them to pieces. Unfortunately Zeshaun noticed the large rockets pointed toward him. In a hurry everyone got out of the tank and ran as fast as their armor clad bodies would let them.

They stood behind a pile of ruble and took the occasional shot. The squad was for the moment safe.

"Well, what now?" Zeshaun asked faking boredom in his voice.

"Well, we kill more mercenaries until we decide they're not a threat anymore." Lucky said slightly annoyed, she didn't quite catch that he was faking.

"There, due north, a group of mercenaries are emerging from the right, their are at least one and a half squads." Requiem said, he had apparently been scanning the field while they were talking.

Zeshaun grimaced under his helmet. I'm getting really tired of these mercenaries, how many can their be. Zeshaun thought back to his days as a mercenary and thought about how powerful they'd be if they had this many troops.

"I think we've been spotted, the group is advancing on our position, they're pretty far away though." Alan said. "Anyone have a sniper rifle? I'm getting antsy just sitting here waiting for them to come to us."

Zeshaun smiled under his helmet. He's always ragging on me for wanting to drive the vehicles but he can't control his urges either. Zeshaun thought.

"Sorry Alan, unless you brought a rifle I don't think anyone did." Lucky said shaking her head.

Alan let out an audible sigh. Nick gave Alan a sarcastic, sympathetic pat on the back. Alan suddenly jumped up and Nick flinched.

"What." Nick said, still slightly surprised.

"Their within range now." Alan said picking up his rifle.

Zeshaun picked up his rifle and looked down the sights. He had given up on using his shotgun for now since he had to much of a chance to hit his own soldiers.

"Fire at will, but make every shot count." Lucky ordered.

Zeshaun pressed the trigger and watched one of the mercenaries crumple to the ground. Another one stopped to help him but Zeshaun pulled the trigger again and that one went down as well.

"Nice shot." Zeshaun heard Alan say.

Zeshaun nodded in thanks.

He saw a couple more of the mercenaries go down and guessed that the other squad memebers were getting clear shots as well. These guys must be amateurs to be running toward a well shielded enemy in an open field. Zeshaun thought.

He immediately felt stupid for saying that since they had just experianced the same thing except a bigger more deadly foe.

"Hold on now!" shouted Ron over the comlink.  "Why blast down a door when you have a communications technician who can short the damn thing and spare the door as well?"

"Cause that would be too easy?" Kanderin grinned from outside.

Ron grumbled something in reply and walked over to the door panel.  He opened the cover plate without any difficulty, and after inspecting the mess of wires that lay beneath he found the right wire to cut and the another to fuse.  In a few minutes the door slid open revealing Kanderin.

"I could've smashed it down." he said.

"Mhm." replied Ron.  "You might want that door there in case we get any more visitors."

"Yeah." said RK with a chill.  "Why don't we find what we need and get out of here, this place is giving me the creeps."

"Check the bodies." said Ron.  "I'm going to run a diagnostic and store all this information.  Might come in handy once we get some more information."

Ron took out a zip file and plugged it into his laptop before downloading all the files.  There were a lot of files on the computer, but one suspicious item took Ron by surprise.  The amount of space of the downloaded content was decreasing rapidly.  Ron had just barely downloaded the most important section, which included all the names and such before even that information was removed.

"Guys, we got a problem."

"What's up?" said Helena.

"Someone knows we got the information.  As I downloaded all the logs to my laptop someone else was erasing the information through a network link."

"Wait, they can do that?"  said RK.

"Yeah." replied Ron.  "Only thing is... they'd have to be pretty close to be able to get on these computers.  I'd say our target was within a few hundred feet of this very location."

[edit] = Was posted twice. Please Delete

“…I don’t want a single man getting past. Understand?” This command kicked Sam’s mind into gear. It appeared to him that this would be as good of time as any to take a bit of his Combat Engineer training to use.

“Hey Aeos, you got a problem with me blowing some stuff up?”

Aeos turned to look at the usually silent Zabrak as did a number of other members of Jester. The glint in the Zabraks eye could practically be seen through the solid black eyes of the snow trooper helmet. “I take it you have a plan?”

“Well, at least part of one. The way it looks is this is the only way to get here is via these stairs. Although there may be a lift nearby, but I seriously doubt that the mercs would risk using it.”

“Go on…”

“Long story short, I rig my last two concussions to the underside of the stairs and make it really hard to get up. Now, I’m sure you are thinking,” He continued as he made a horizontal flourish with his right arm while pacing, “why would I want to do such thing. Well, simply, it is easier to go down busted stairs that up. Not to mention, just holding the mercs down there is going to make for a difficult escape anyhow.”

“Cunning and surreptitious Sammy, I like it. But hurry it up!”

It did not take another request; the pacing man stopped, holstered his weapon, and began to tinker with his explosives; wiring the two devices together at roughly the distance of a quarter meter.  He grasped his nasty device and trotted down the stairs oblivious to the rest of the squad.

“Jeg, go cover him. Don’t need any surprises,” Aeos stated.

Jegora hurried after his comrade with his weapon at the ready. Exiting into the stairwell, Jeg paused after descending a flight of stairs.

“Hey hold on to these for me,” Sam said tapping Jeg on the foot from the underside of the stairs.

“Alright,” he replied picking up the two wires, “What are they for?”

“Just don’t touch the two non-insulated parts together,” the combat engineer said as he dropped to the landing below him. He hurried back up to retrieve his wiring.

“You’re quite the acrobat. Are you done here?”

“Yeah, back to the rest we go.”

The duo proceeded up the steps to rejoin the others. Sam stopped short of the door. He gave a slight tug on the wires, “Figures I’d run out here.”

Voices in the hall a floor carried to the Jesters ears. “Sounds like there are a few more mercs heading out way; what’s the hold up?” Aeos queried.

“Nothing, just…” Sam started taking a few steps down to get sight out the landing door. He tied the two ends of the wires together in haste; then rushed up the stairs.

Moments later, a merc took a step on to the landing firing away at the doorway that the Jesters were manning.

“Any second now…” Sam mumbled. His trailing thought was followed by the concussion grenades detonating causing the stairs to collapse and taking the foe down.

“Excellent,” the Zabrak said with a smirk hidden behind the helmet.

The mercenaries were being picked off like flowers. The squad shot them down as the mercenaries were reducing in numbers, shamefully. They had to make sure that nobody important left the scene and that was what they did. By now, some of the other squads were proceeding on with their duties. Nick was glad he had gotten their initial task over with.

There must be something else we can do... Nick thought.

After the last of the mercenaries were blasted to shreds, The squad scanned the area. It didn’t look like any more mercenaries were coming their way. It was quiet, in a way. Nick  felt the cold wind blowing against his body. The snowtrooper armor wasn’t too effective in low climate environments.

‘’Well.. This is nice..’’ Nick said, with a bit of sarcasm..

The sound of aircraft filled the area. The paladins looked overhead and saw a small transport beginning to land. Oh great... .

However, it was not what Nick had thought it would be. In the distance. Several speeder bikes were heading towards the transport. There were about 7 of them, and they seemed to be guarding one speeder in particular.

The squad backed away, avoiding  being trapped in their eyesight. The bikers stayed on their speeders, watching the one in the middle get off.

‘’Okay, that looks like an important person..’’ Lucky said.

She signaled the squad to raise their weapons. Paladin charged at them as soon as the woman of importance began to move. Blasts fired through the air, slamming into each of them. The bikers were too occupied to retaliate. They crumbled one by one. Alan made the final blow, blasting the woman into the ground.

The squad stormed into the relatively small transport, hoping to gather some form of information.

A lone shadow, silhouetted by numerous glowing screens of security cameras sighed exasperatedly. His fierce green eyes flashed in unprecedented anger.

“Why are these idiots not dead yet?” he muttered softly to a short woman standing next him, slightly trembling.

On the upper right corner, through the fuzz and slight element of white noise, Angel’s face was clear on the screen as he sat in a corner, smoking a cigarette while keeping his carbine trained on the technician who was typing in tears across the dashboard. The limited lens view of the camera failed to show whether there was more enemy troopers in the room or not.

“Frak!” the thin man hissed, slamming a bony fist onto the surface of his small yet elegant desk.
“Send in more men! The data must not leave that building!”

“Sir…Sir, we’ve exhausted our numbers already, we simply do not have men that will get there speedily enough,” the woman muttered slowly.

“Fine, then arrange a bomb squad to the facility and have them take care of the building, I’ll bury that squad alive and retrieve the data from the rubble with my bare hands if I have to,” he commanded while gesturing for a droid to serve him another glass of whiskey.

“Yes, Sir,” the female nodded, her head dipping slightly to her wrist communicator. Her dark hair fell across her face elegantly hiding her porcelain skinned face effectively. Somewhere the faint smell of smoke and burning debris had already entered their building and this specific room which made the situation a bit more stressed then she was used to.

She kept a wary eye on her Commander. Fikk had never been a patient man, and serving as his right hand was challenging at times, but as always she, Cartias managed to survive his tantrums. Despite his mood swings, the man was a brilliant commander who controlled his troopers with an iron fist.

Fikk drew a hand through his freshly trimmed platinum blond hair. Another hand reached to his pocket and retrieved a plain white handkerchief; he pressed the already damp fabric against his sweating red forehead staring myopically about. He hated this station. His office was underground, denying him any view of the boring outside, and the air-conditioning didn’t work properly. 

“What about the tech that is held hostage?” Cartias asked softly.
“Name?”

“Jana Sleicer, level 5,”

“She’s of no use, easily replaceable. Continue. Extract all soldiers from that building ”

"... The squad is attempting to leave the facility with the data, this is unacceptable."

"What do you want us to do about it?"

"Your orders are to level the facility at any cost, that data cannot reach the surface."

"Facility personal?"

"Expendable"

"Copy, Meerlay out",

Lawrence Meerlay switched his Comm off. Things had not been going well for him, or his men. It was a simply problem of numbers since the beginning. The imperials came in hard and fast, leaving the mercenaries caught with their pants down and not enough time to get any sort of defense up before they were completely swamped. Blast doors and barricades didn't stop them either, sure it slowed them down but whatever time that earned them was burnt off with shear confusion or incompetence on the part of those in command.

As the Imperials began their assault,  Lawrence managed to take cover in possibly the safest place in the facility... A men's toilet block. With the door promptly locked to discourage any random searches, the four man patrol had time to work out their next step. So far the only feasible options were;

surrender to the imperials, which would either result in an execution or a lengthy stay in a forced labour camp.
-or-
Attempt to fight their way to the surface, which would be suicide for a group of four.

But just as things seemed their darkest, Meerlay received orders to destroy the facility. Going out on his own terms seemed like an excellent option when compared to the others.

"There aren't enough explosives on site to level the place" one of the patrolmen began, "And even if there were, how would we get to them?"

The group stood in silence as they contemplated. The faint sounds of blaster fire wafted through the ventilation system, filling the toilet block with glimpse of the unsettling medley of the havok that was being waged throughout the facility.

"The generators" another patrolmen stated, "The things are over twenty years old. A small detpak would cause them to blow"

"How big a 'blow' are we talking?" Meerlay queried

"Enough to collapse the lower two levels at least, and such a collapse would most likely bring this place down around our ears"

Meerlay paused in contemplation, this could actually work but only one problem remained... how would they reach the armory to pickup the detpaks, let alone the generators, through upwards of a thousand stormtroopers.

"How long would this take?" he asked, knowing that every minute they stood around was a minute the Imperials had to leave the facility.

"Half an hour with resistance. twenty without"

"How will we get out?" the last patrolmen added,

The other's simply stared at him, it had occurred to them long ago that this was something that they weren't walking away from.

"Groups of two, one group moves towards the east stairs the other west... pickup the explosives at the armory on the floor below then head to the generators."

The group returned to silence for a few moments before they all gradually began nodding in agreement.

"Lets make these bastards regret coming here"

---------

"Uh... oh, oh no.. no no no no" Jana began mumbling audible attracting the attention of her captors.

"Jana, what is it?" Bright asked as she took a few steps closer,

"No, no, no, no" she continued to mumble, seemingly oblivious to the outside world.

"JANA!" Angel shouted in a commanding tone. Jana quickly froze and ceased her incessant mumbled rant, "What is the problem?"

"Exodus now" The tech managed to stammer out before freezing up again.

Both Angel and Bright exchanged slightly confused looks.

"Exodus what?" Angel queried irritantly, it was obvious that he was starting to tire of these constant holdups.

"Its the evacuation signal." Jana explained, motioning to the screen. "This is not good at, at all."

Bright turned her confused look from Angel to Jana "Hold on, doesn't that mean the mercenaries are going to leave to?"

"No. This is an upper echelon call. Only the people worth evacuating are told, the soldiers act as cover while they escape"

"I fail to see how this is a problem, unless there's more to your explanation I suggest you get back to work before I get violent" Angel scowled. It was clear to everyone that he was only minutes away from snapping

Jana dropped her gaze to the floor, she could look angel in the eye the image of Angel murdering her co-workers was still fresh in her mind and she knew deep down that when she stopped being useful she would end up the same way. Her

"The information here is worth more then the facility... and they wont let it fall into the wrong hands." Jana finished,

The room went silent as both Bright and Angel mentally processed the situation.

"Bright, We need those codes NOW" Angel ordered. There was no way he was returning to the dominion empty handed, not after all the trouble they went through.

"Jesters, listen up, Our time frame has just been shortened considerably. The moment we have the codes we're going to have to double time it to the exit."

The rest of Jester stood covering the stairwell listening intently to their squad leaders update. Although he didn't say specifically what the problem was that had cut their stay short, everyone had a theory.

"A round of drinks says its some kind of self destruct sequence, like in those bad holo-vids" Jager announced.

"Probably best if you stop with the comments. It'd be a shame if Angel tore your throat out." Jegora replied, not bothering to look at Jager.

Jager smirked "You think he's pissed now. Wait to Ae' tells him the stairs are out. I think we'll be lucky if he just doesn't lose it and kill the lot of us."

"Jager..." Ae ordered, "Stop. The situations bad enough without your commentary"

"Pfft, your the boss" he stated before getting back to the job of watching the empty corridor.

The squad began walking towards the hangar the captured captain had passed out from a mix of blood loss and pain when they used the tip of RB’s flamethrower to cauterize the missing finger stumps. The man had screamed really loudly and the new guy in the squad was looking over his shoulders to make sure that no one had heard the screams and was coming to investigate.

An odd thought had occurred to Rogue which would explain why he couldn’t help but smile underneath his helmet at the man’s pain, in order to be a soldier for as long as he had and had to do the shit that he’s had to there’s definitely a sick and sadistic side to him. Did that bother the Raider’s trooper? Not really he had suspected he was mentally damaged somehow, he pitied any girl that fancied him.

“This is commander Cosmic making a general broadcast to all VE forces, we have learned that the enemy is collapsing the base, we advise that all VE forces evacuate the base. That is all.” Said the magical voice in Rogue’s head.

“I love this shit.” Rogue muttered back.

“Alright men, you heard the commander, let’s get to the hangar, grab some commanders, steal a ship and get off this frozen rock.” Snipes yelled out.

Together the Raiders rushed towards the direction of the hangar screaming for blood.


OOC: Short Post

The squad ran fast through the seemingly endless grey rock crete corridor. The tech over Orobos' shoulder grunted with every sprinting leap he took. Behind them the static sound erupted from the room before the thermal detonator exploded.

"And there goes that squad," Gates said cheerfully looking over his shoulder at the crowd of mercs as they were vapourised by the blinding white light and flames lapping around the hall.

Another group of mercs who'd been coming around to flank Blackjack, so the mercs would be attacking from both ends of the hallway, ran around the corner. Spotting the stormtroopers they opened fire. The squad ducked in cover returning fire downing two of the enemy. Orobos pulled the trigger sending two short burst taking another down.

After anotehr brief fire-fight they managed to take all of them out. Tanus put his hand up to his helmet and switched in his comlink. The rest of the squad waited for some kind of orders. After about a minute their squad leader looked up and waved his hand.

"Alright we're getting out of here," he said,

"What's the problem?"

"Command didn't say much just that were pulling out. We're to get back to the Dominion. Let's hurry. We don't want to spend another hour down here clearing our way through all these mercs."

Black ran down the corridors they'd come through from the storage bay which they'd entered the base by. Coming up to the large blast hole in the wall they were greeted by another, larger group of mercenaries which were moving slowly in through the gap. Orobos pulled back into cover.

A grenade was thrown. Screams filled the hallway as shrapnel ripped through the enemy, the explosion throwing many of them out into the hall and other further into the bay. The squad rushed the rest gunning them down.

"Get Down!" Orobos shouted spotting a heavy blaster set up on a bipod. The gunner had swung it around to face them.

Blackjack ducked in behind the battered steal crates from the earlier fire fight to gain entrance to the base. Heavy blaster fire bouncing of the boxes and shattering some of them. They could here more enemy infantry moving to help surround them and pin them down.

"We need to move from this position!"

Verkur and Orobos leaned out into fire position and fired down a few hundred rounds between them into the gun, gunner and surrounding cover. The gunner caught by surprise had no time to adjust his weapon and fell to the onslaught.

"Let's move quickly and work our way around this infantry!"

Light blaster fire came there way. A grenade soared over the high crates and came to land right in front of Orobos who was reloading another magazine into the heavy blaster rifle.

This time he kicked it.

The grenade soared back scattering down through the row of crates erupting ut of harms way. The enemy deterred for a moment allowed the stormtroopers to move around the mercenaries and avoid being cut off from any sort of exit.

Zeshaun stepped into the shuttle and immediately felt the warmth of the ship seep through his armor and into his body. I can finally take this thing off. Zeshaun thought taking of his helmet and taking a seat by a window. Zeshaun felt much more tired than he normally did after all his missions. He found it comical that he now as almost sweating in his armor when just moments ago he was complaining about the cold.

"Welcome back.. Seems you guys are perfectly intact." The pilot said.

Zeshaun ignored the comment but thanked the pilot in his head. Zeshaun turned and positioned himself so that he could stare out the window as the shuttle went back to the Dominion.

Zeshaun felt a lurch and the shuttle took off. He unholsterd all of his weapons and he placed them down by his feet. Zeshaun started to unclasp his armor. Lucky placed a hand on Zeshaun's shoulder and shook her head. She told him not to take it off since they might not be off the hook quite yet.

Zeshaun sighed and closed the clasps that he had started unclasping. Zeshaun watched the icy planet slowly get smaller and he was glad that he could get off that place. The surface gave way to the black nothingness of space.

Zeshaun let out a gasp. "Did we get reinforcements while we were fighting?" He asked pointing to the two new star destroyers that were now in space.

Lucky shook her head and Alan went to take a look himself. They looked at each other and shrugged. Lucky announced that they should be ready to fight when they arrived on the ship just in case.

Zeshaun watched the two destroyers launch many little fighters, he couldn't classify them from where he was watching but they must have been some kind of tie-fighters. Well that can't be good Zeshaun shivered.

Requiem sat uncomfortably In the small transport shuttle, somehow it felt smaller than usual and he longed for the open spaces of the Ice planet Anteevy. Even though the planet somehow resisted to everyone on its Grounds, Requiem felt somehow attached to the battle he had their. The danger somehow felt calming but he didn't really wish for anything else to happen before he got to the safety measure's and the Weapon System's of The Dominion .

Requiem got up from his rough made seat and stood up, he looked around his person and raised his arms high in an exercise position, he began to look around the ship and try to decide if their was enough room to do some stretches. He lay back down onto his seat and placed his forearm under his head in a certain position and closed his eyes.

"Welcome back.. Seems you guys are perfectly intact." The pilot said.

Requiem casually laughed at the pilot's quirky joke but tried to stifle back a comment, he casually looked to the pilot head-on and than nodded his head in approval. Requiem had been placed at the front of the  the shuttle on a short walk towards the cock pit, he needed some peace and quiet from the nonstop firing and hand-to-hand combat the planet.

He needed his rest but couldn't figure out why he couldn't, maybe the occasional rocking of the shuttle's leaving the planet's atmosphere or maybe his previous thought's that he still had tucked away. He jumped from his seat at the next point of turbulence and grabbed his side, his finger's rested on his IvP-18 S-FOX Machine Pistols, He laughed at his reflexes and than placed his hands away from is weapon's.

"Did we get reinforcements while we were fighting?"Zeshaun said near the back or the exit of the ship.

Requiem began to retrace his step's back through the shuttle and than walked through a large door, to see Zeshaun pointing at a ship in the distance and Alan looking in his direction of sight trying to figure out what's happening. Requiem turned to Lucky to see if she had known the sudden interest in the window's view and saw that she was.

" Whats going on ? " Requiem sighed with a certain tone because he knew something wasn't going their way.

Requiem looked through the window to see the 2 large Star Destroyers stationed outside of the planet's orbit. The Ship had an ominous aura to it and began to deploy fighter's the shuttle rocked back and forth as the fighter's arched around the shuttle with unbelievably fast speeds, shooting off toward the distant Dominion .

Damn i hope they don't spot us Requiem ran to the front of the shuttle towards the cockpit, he slid back the door and looked out through the large windows, he saw the TIE fighter's travel toward The Dominion as they began to explode from the ship's Weapon's system's. come on. .. Requiem than placed his fingers to his forehead in aggravation as he saw one of the fighter's turn toward the shuttle and aim at it directly.

" Aww. . . come on ! "The squad heard his cry and than braced them self for what was next.

" Get Down! " Lucky yelled knowing that something was about to happen.

The fighter fired it's weapon's into the shuttle's hull as Requiem and the pilot were flow from their spot's and float as if they were suspended in air. The ship's electricity faded out from the control's and it seemed to just rotate in it's main direction, Requiem heard loud yell's but heard them at their smallest base and the trampling of feet, he felt himself be pulled back with with a large force, and the last thing he had seen was the pilot on the ground unmoving blood on his uniform, Requiem's eye's opened up in astonishment as it could of been him and than blacked out.

“You want me to climb through a vent?” said Jegora, rising to his full height of six foot three inches. He looked down at the young captive, his eyes flashing behind his helmet. Jana shrunk back, and somewhere deep inside him Jegora felt a slight pang that he quickly pushed away. He wasn’t supposed to have a conscious. He was supposed to follow orders and get the job done. His own feelings didn’t factor into that equation.

The squad was silent for a moment, and then Gio spoke up. “Even if we could all fit through the vent, we have no idea where it leads. If we need to get out of here quick, then it’s best to use the familiar route.”

Sam, Aeos, and Jegora himself all nodded in agreement. It would mean a stressful trip down the stairwell via rappel lines, but it would be better than getting caught in a small space when and if the bombs went off.

The whole squad looked to Angel for the final word. After a quick second of thinking, Angel nodded sharply. “Do it. Set up four lines.”

As the squad went to work, Jegora stepped over to where Angel was standing off by his lonesome and tapped his boss on the shoulder. “There’s one thing we didn’t consider,” he said, motioning to their captive.

“I know. Can you carry her?” the squad leader asked.

Jegora sighed to himself. He had known that he would most likely have to carry the captive down, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. “Easier if we just kill her,” he told his squad leader.

Looking up sharply, Angel’s eyes held a glint of indecision. As Jegora watched his mouth compressed into a thin line, and he eventually shook his head. “No, she’s still of use. Besides, now we owe her our lives.”

Grunting, Jegora nodded and moved over to where Jana was standing, watching the deployment of the ropes with no small amount of apprehension. As he approached, Jegora saw how she flinched every time one of the Jesters moved with any sort of suddenness. It was then that Jegora understood the thoughts running through their captive’s mind. Jana was still very much afraid that she wouldn’t be leaving the facility alive, and if the truth were to be told she had reason to fear. Still, as much as Jegora felt it would be easier just to end her life and leave her behind he had been ordered to see her safely to the bottom, and he would do just that.

When Jegora was standing only a meter or so behind the young woman, he stopped and glanced around hesitantly. “Miss?” he said, trying to put as much warmth into his voice as possible. From the way the woman flinched he failed miserably.

There was a long second in which the woman did nothing. Jegora raised a hand to tap her on the shoulder, but before he could do much more than that she spun around, her face red with rage.

“What?” she said, her voice thick with anger and fear, “Did they send you to kill me now? Has my usefulness run its course? Do I get a fraking bullet in my stomach? Or is this a social call?”

Inwardly, Jegora winced slightly from the woman’s comments. It didn’t bother him so much that Jana was upset, it bothered him that when she said the things he had most certainly been thinking it made Jegora sound like a crude, barbaric thug, born and trained for no purpose but to wage savage warfare. And while that wasn’t the truth, Jegora suddenly saw a point in the not-to-distant future where the results might very well be the same.

Even though he was stung on the inside, Jegora showed nothing on the outside. Tilting his head slightly, he listened politely while the woman continued her rant for some time. Finally she quieted, staring at Jegora’s black visor eyes as if she could see through them. Although he knew that was impossible, he still blinked, for the ferocity of her gaze was startling. Somehow, this young woman had undergone a complete transformation of character in the time she had been the Jesters’ hostage. For better or for worse, she had suddenly grown a backbone.

After another long, awkward pause the woman dropped her eyes, and Jegora spoke. His voice was cold, and the Snowtrooper helmet’s filter made it even more so. There was absolutely no emotion in Jegora’s tone as he explained the situation. It wasn’t that Jegora wasn’t feeling a variety of emotions. In truth, a variety of emotions were running through him: anger at himself and the situation, shame at the woman’s words, pride in his squad, and even a hint of fear that he might not escape this particular facility. So yes, Jegora felt a variety of emotions at that particular moment. He just didn’t let anyone else know it.

“We’re going to rappel down the stairwell,” he said coldly, stating the obvious. The young woman nodded, and Jegora continued on. “You’ll be on my back. We lack proper equipment, so while you’ll have a saftey line connecting you to me you’ll have to hold on to me as we descend. Understand?”

Nodding, Jana turned away, and Jegora sighed inwardly. He hoped she really did understand, because if she didn’t things were about to get very, very interesting. Leaving the young woman standing there, Jegora walked over to where Sam was hooking up the last rappel line.

“Will it hold me and the girl?” he asked upon nearing the veteran combat engineer. Sam finished securing the magnetic clamp that would hold the rope in place, looked up, and shrugged.

“It should,” he answered, “but I can’t guarantee anything. They aren’t built for two people, and you’re big enough as it is. Still, I don’t think there should be any problems.”

From somewhere down the line Jager let out a sarcastic comment. “Don’t worry, if you fall I’ll catch you.”

Doing his very best to ignore Jager, who was fast becoming an annoyance, Jegora once again moved from his line to where Gio was standing not two meters away. “Do me a favor?” he asked his old squad leader.

Gio looked up from where he was double checking his own lines and nodded. “Weapons?” he asked.

Jegora smiled behind his helmet. He and Gio were a lot alike. “Aye, I’m already carrying extra weight, I don’t need to worry about dropping a loaded rifle.”

Cocking his head, Gio did his best to sound exasperated. “I suppose I could carry them down for you,” he said, his voice thick with fake disgust. Jegora slipped Angel’s SLAR and his own M66-SD off his shoulders and handed them over. The weapons truly weren’t that heavy, but they made things awkward, and Jegora really didn’t need things to be any more complex. The descent would be difficult enough as it was.

Finally all the lines were secured and in place, and it was time for the Jesters to make their way down the utterly demolished stair well. The Jesters would go down in three different groups. First would be a group of four, consisting of Aeos, Jager, Gio, and Wicket. Next would be a group of two, Jegora (along with his passenger) and Angel. This was the slow group, Jegora because of his extra weight and Angel because of his injured shoulder. They would have to rely on the troopers at the top and bottom of the stairwell to provide cover fire if anything went wrong. Last but not least was the final group of three. Sam, Jori, and Brightstar would come down last, covering the Jesters from above as best they could for as long as they could.

The first four troopers down wasted no time. They quickly attached the lines to the belts of their Snowtrooper armor. While not perfect, it would (for the most part) keep the Jesters on track and give them something to hold on to. Unfortunately, there was no saftey equipment. If one of the Vast Empire troopers let go, they would suffer very hard landing at the bottom of the stairwell. Jegora didn’t think they had to worry much. Rappelling was one of the basic infantry skills, used to descend vertical or near-vertical inclines rapidly with as little effort as possible. A squad as skilled and experienced as the Jesters shouldn’t have a problem.

As Aeos, Jager, Gio, and Wicket slowly walked themselves backwards over the edge, Jegora noticed Jana watching the spectacle with a mix of fear and disgust. Apparently she hadn’t realized just what rappelling down the stairwell meant.

After a tense few moments there was an “All clear” over the squad’s radio, meaning the first set of troopers down had found it safe for the rest of the Jesters to proceed. Not wasting any time, Jegora motioned for Jana to join him at the edge of the stairwell. By the time the young captive had made her way to where Jegora was standing, he had already attached his line to his belt and was holding Jana’s safety line in hand. He double checked his line as Brightstar secured the line that connected Jana to his waist, then turned and kneeled.

Jana looked dumbfounded. Jegora wasn’t all the comfortable either. Grunting, he turned his head to look at the young woman. “Well, hurry up then. We’re kinda short on time.”

Still looking quite uncomfortable Jana wrapped her arms around Jegora’s thick neck, and then her legs around his waist. When she was in place Jegora pushed up from the floor, immediately realizing that this was going to be more difficult than he thought. Making his way to the edge of the landing, Jegora looked over to where Angel was doing the same. Angel nodded, and then backed over the edge of the landing, walking his way down to the bottom.

Jegora did the same, but at a slower pace. Even though the thermal detonators had done a number on the stairwell they hadn’t completely demolished it, leaving quite a bit of debris to navigate. Added to the fact that Jegora had a person clinging to his back, the trip down was very, very difficult. Most of the time, one could use his or her own momentum and not worry so much about controlling the speed of the descent. Jegora couldn’t do that, because he would probably lose his passenger. Instead he had to use his arm and leg muscles to descend slowly and evenly, and to navigate debris.

About halfway down Jegora slipped into a semi-unaware state, a place where he could ignore the burning in his arms and legs. Jegora was no stranger to this sensation, being a runner of long distances. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Jegora hit the bottom of the stairwell. He shrugged off his passenger, unhooked his lines, and took his weapons from Gio. Refusing to show weakness in front of his squad mates, Jegora retreated to a corner and waited until no one was paying attention before leaning back against the wall and taking deep, even breaths, trying to slow his racing heart.

Jegora was tired. A combination of stress (the ultimate fatigue-causer), sprinting, climbing, and general physical exertion had put a strain on his body, and he was feeling it. A man who ran long distances for fun and enjoyed lifting weights, Jegora’s pride was slightly hurt when he realized that none of his squad mates were suffering the way he was. In the end he decided to simply ignore his apparent weakness, instead focusing on gaining control of his body again.

By the time Jegora’s breathing and heartbeat was back to normal the last three troopers had made the descent. As soon as they were unhooked from the rappel lines Angel stood up from where he had been sitting on his heels. “Alright boys and girls, let’s move. I’d rather not get caught in a cave-in.”

Alan couldn't believe it when the shuttle had been attacked and was now motionless in space.  He felt so vulnerable knowing that there was nothing that he could do to change their outcome.  If attacking ships came back then it could be the end of them.  His nostrils flared as he could smell the burning circuitry. 

Lucky glanced over at the squad and said "I've just been in contact with the Dominion, they are going to tractor us in".

"Let's hope this bucket of bolts holds together" commented Alan.

"After seeing that rust bucket that you fly in, this thing will do just fine" replied Zeshaun with a smile on his face.

"Indeed" replied Alan, then suddenly realised that Zeshaun was having a go at him and added "hey!" and slapped his arm.

"How's the pilot?" queried Nick as he looked down at the pilot.  He was bleeding a lot less now that Zeshaun had placed on some bacta patches, but he still looked pretty bad.

The ship jolted and for a minute Alan thought that the attackers had come back to finish them off.  He felt the ship settle and knew that the tractor beam had taken hold and they would be onboard the Dominion shortly.

Thankfully the ship was not attacked and Alan wondered why the attackers had not returned to finish off a defenceless ship.  He was grateful that they didn't of course.  Soon the ship had landed and the landing ramp was lowering at a rather slow rate.

Alan didn't wait for the ramp to hit the deck of the Dominion.  He leapt out of the ship and shouted for a medic.  Zeshaun and Nick gently brought the pilot down the ramp of the ship.

"We need a medic over here, now!" shouted Alan, wondering if anyone was listening to him.

True enough a medic rushed over to the pilot.  Nick and Zeshaun stood back and watched as the medic treated the pilot and checked his vitals.  The medic called over two of his assistants and they picked up the pilot.

"Will he be alright?" asked Lucky, her voice full of concern for the pilot's well being.

"He'll be just fine Ma'am" replied the medic, "a few hours in a bacta tank and he'll be back to active duty".

Alan was happy that they had made it back to the Dominion and was even more grateful to hear that the pilot was going to be ok.  I wonder what is going on thought Alan as the rest of the Paladin's disembarked from the shuttle.