"I friggin' HATE crash landing!" Jaenna's voice erupted from her lips as she stumbled to stand up. Havock had just finished explaining that we would end up having to crash just as the inevitable actually happened. Her forehead had sustained a minor cut during the crash landing, and her bright green eyes were wide with worry as she looked around at the debris from other bits of the transport laying on the floor. She placed her right hand on her left shoulder and tried to rotate left arm, almost instantly she grimaced and snarled. "Great. An injury and we aren't even in battle yet." She looked around for a second, and then sighed. "I swear, our luck." She grumbled quietly and began to make her way down the metal hallway, her hands on the walls in order to keep her steady. Not only was her head pounding but the transport itself seemed to be titled due to the horrid landing.

As she came to the room that had the Sabbac table, her eyes grew wide. Aeos had been thrown to the side of the room, her back propped up against the wall, but the back of her head was bleeding pretty badly. Grahim and Njall were pinned to another wall by the Sabbac table itself, both of them knocked out. Sergeant Jaenna, knelt by Aeos first, since Grahim and Njall didn't seem to be bleeding, though they would need a ribcage exam. The ASL garbbed the hem of her shirt and pulled a strip of cloth from it, She moved Aeos head from the wall slowly and began to wrap the cloth around the girl's head, tieing it to the side.

"Urgg. What... What happened? Jaenna?" Aeo's voice was weak, but it mean that she was still alive at least. Her eyes tried to open, blinking a few times, and looked at Jaenna, still half closed. "We crashed didn't we?" Janena nodded, her eyes filled with worry for what could have happened to the other troopers. "Just our luck."

Jaenna chuckled at that. "That's what I said. You stay here, I have to find Karash and Havock. We will start checking on everyone else once we find our medics." Aeos nodded and placed the back of her head against the wall as Jaenna stood up.

Aeos winced and grumbled loudly. "Not doing that again." She said as she picked her head back from the wall and just let it hang there as she attempted to gain her compsure back.

The Sergeant moved to the Sabbac table and grabbed two sides of it. Grunting, her cheeks turning red, the girl used all of her strength to pull the table away from the wall that was pinning Njall and Grahim. She grunted loudly as finally, the table gave way and moved, untraping the two troopers behind it. Using the strength in her right arm, it being cybernetic, she pushed the table aside and knelt down beside the two of them. Grahim moved slightly, then opened his eyes.

"Garhim, are you okay?" Jaenna asked the Gungan as she heard Njall move next. Grahim nodded and stood, grumbling a bit as he softly complained of a bruised rib or two. Jaenna then looked to Njall, who as already up. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Was just knocked out from the force the table came at us." He shrugged and went with Grahim to go sit down and get his head straight.

Jaenna stood as she heard footsteps. The other troopers had obviously gone around the ship to check on other things and the other troops. "Ayme!" she yelled excitedly as she saw that red, unruly, hair come around the corner, Vee following close behind. She ran up to the SL and wrapped her arms around the girl's waist as she hugged her tightly. She smiled to herself as she felt the other Sergeant hug back. She stepped away then, and looked into those blue eyes. "Where are Joamer, Beta and Karash?"

"They are outside. They sent us in here to grab everyone else so that Karash and I can do what we need to in order to fix any minor cuts." Havock's eyes softened as she saw the cut on Jaenna's head. She touched it gently and chuckled. "You always get hurt before battle." She said as she smiled at Jaenna.

The ASL shrugged and laughed it off. "Oh well. Everyone else is at least a little hurt now, too. The pilots are even dead. Come on, we need to get Aeos to Karash now. She had a head injury. Njall is fine, but Grahim might have a few bruised ribs. Him and Njal got pinned by the Sabbac table." Havock nodded and she and Vee moved over to Grahim and Njall, helping them to move to the outside. Jaenna went over to Aeos and helped her up, placing and arm around her waist and using her other arm to holding onto Aeos' left hand as she helped the girl walk out of the transport.

Once outside, Karash went to work on Grahim and Aeos. The other were gathered around, still putting their armor on, as they listened to Havock and Jaenna.

"Communications are out. We can't contact Dominion for a rescue. But," Jaenna looked down at her Data Pad then showed it to the others. "We still have contact with in the squad comms. The range is low though. So stay close. I saw we head North and see what's there. We need to find a way to establish more communications." Jaenna looked down at her Data pad as she began to do a scan of the geometrics of the moon. "It looks like there's even higher elevation towards the NW, so I might be able to set up a mini com or something to try and contact anyone else who landed her." She finished speaking and looked to Havock, who nodded to her and looked back to the troopers.

"We need to do this quickly, but safely. So, just be careful and stay alert. If we need to split up, you all know the Fire Teams." Havock nodded to everyone who nodded back. She loked to where Karash was taking care of Aeos and Grahim. All three of them looked ready, Aeos with a wrap of white cloth around her head and Grahim with a sort of small wrap-brace combination around his upper ribcage. "Alright, RAIDERS. Lets move out!"

OOC:

Info is on the Squad Topic

A light fog settled as they walked through the forest. The haze was making it difficult to see, the light from the stars was covered by thick clouds. Jaenna, Decembrist, Aeos, Havock and Njall made their was to the nearby elevation to the north west of their crash site. Luckily it was only about a hundred and twenty yards away so their comlinks still worked.

Havock couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. She had a glowrod in one hand and one of her DE-10 pistols in the other. Her hands were crossed at the wrists to allow her to shine her light while still raising her pistol at the darkness around her.

The forest made strange noises. You would expect a forest to sound spooky in the dark. Animals walking on the dry leaves around them while bugs carried on in the air. But this forest didn't sound like that. It was almost too quiet, then every so often there was a sound like a snake would make as it moved through the foliage.

The crash had been a totally unexpected event and they needed to figure out what happened so that they knew if the enemy was in the air or somewhere else. Something had to cause a perfectly good transport to fall from the sky.

Decembrist stopped just before the rise and panned his rifle back and forth a few times. Havock motioned to the others who were all formed up close to get down and take defensive positions. She scooted up next to him and slowly rose back to her feet. “See something, Vee?”

“I thought so dammit, bah, I guess not.” He nodded and continued on to the elevation.

There wasn't much more to see from the small rise in the forest. The trees cleared slightly but not much, in fact the only thing the rise did was make the lack of stars more apparent. Jaenna quickly moved past both of them and started setting up her equipment.

Havock wished they had a clue where they were, it wasn't even clear if they were on the right planet or not. And she hated being separated from the rest of the squad. This place was starting to bother her and she didn't like the idea of half the squad being out of eye shot. The four of them took up defensive positions around Jaenna as she continued to attempt to make comm contact with the Dominion.

“I’m telling you I saw something.” Njall pointed off in the forest, there was little to see due to the fog.

Decembrist shook his lighter with frustration as he spoke, an unlit cigarette in his mouth.  “Havock, I think Njall has a head injury.”

“No I don’t. I saw something move right over there. I’m telling you it was right there.” Njall’s voice was rising, Havock silenced them both with a snarl and took a long look in the direction he was pointing.

“I don’t see anything now Njall.” Decembrist looked beyond pleased by that statement, she sent him a glare. “Which doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there before.” That was Njall’s cue to smirk. “Just keep an eye out for anything suspicious and tell me, both of you.”

They both muttered ‘yes, Sarge.’

“Hav.” Aeos called her softly from the other position. She dropped her weapon slightly and made her way there until she was standing next to the second lieutenant. “There.”

Both of their weapons shot up as a branch fell off a dieing tree, then a small creature not more than a meter high hopped into view. The women shook their heads and relaxed as the rabbit started to chew on something it found on the ground. Havock smiled and shook her head at Aeos. She was about to leave when something amorphous slammed down on top of the rabbit. “What the hell!”

The weapons shot back up into firing position. The rabbit was still visible through whatever was covering it, then it rippled and the being seemed to get larger as it slipped back into the darkness.
“Did you see what it was Ae?”

She shook her head in the negative. Havock stepped back and knelt by Jaenna. “Where are we with the comms?”

“The equipment is fine, but I still can't get a signal from any of the other squads or the Dominion.” She absently rubbed the cut on her forehead.

Havock nodded and looked around, the others were now on alert after whatever Aeos and she had seen. And she wasn't in the mood to stay separated when they had confirmed that there was definitely something out there. Now it wasn't even clear if the other squads were even on the same planet as they were. They could have made it to the drop site, or crashed, or who knows what.

“Okay we need to get out of here.” Havock pulled out her comlink. “Joamer, is Beta making any progress.”

The response came back but the connection was obviously not as good as it should be. “No, he can't find anything that suggests what caused the crash and the cockpit is badly damaged. In fact the whole ship is starting to fall apart.” Well that rules out going back to the ship, Havock thought to herself.

“Joa, round up the others and meet us here. Jae is going to keep trying to get comms established but if she can't by the time you arrive we need to scout out and find shelter.” Jaenna glanced up from what she was doing and nodded then got back to work.

Things had gotten off to a rough start. Jegora could already tell that Joamer disliked him, although in all honesty Jegora could care less what the other man thought. He would take orders and obey, or he would suffer the consequences. Jegora had never set out to be anyone’s friend; his primary objective, first and foremost, was to be a competent commander, and commanding was different from leading. Leaders could afford to be friendly with the troops. Commanders could not.

As long as he was being honest with himself, Jegora also had to admit that the Raiders weren’t as professional as they had first appeared. The majority of the troopers seemed to be running around without helmets, which didn't strike Jegora as particularly good idea in a hostile environment. He had also pretended not to notice the slightly-less-than-appropriate hug that the assistant squad leader had given Havock in the aftermath of the crash. That had been particularly unexpected, and as a man who had always been a strict, by-the-book kind of individual, such public displays of affection bothered him greatly.

Shaking his head, Jegora pushed away his negativism for the moment and focused on the situation at hand. The shuttle was ruined, but for the most part Jegora had remained relatively untouched throughout the crash landing. His equipment also seemed to be undamaged. One of his plastoid armor plates had a dent in it, but it was superficial damage. At least, he thought it was superficial damage. Either way, everything was in working order, and that alone made him feel a bit more secure about his situation.

Glancing up at the sky, Jegora couldn’t help but notice that the moon’s single sun was dipping below the horizon. Pretty soon the Raiders would be left in some semblance of darkness, and it seemed to him that it would be a prudent move to locate a defensible position to set up camp at, especially since they didn’t yet know exactly what they were facing.

Luckily, Havock seemed to have the same general idea. She ordered the squad towards a barren hill that was only a kilometer or so away. The Raiders set off at once at a quick trot, and they made good time. They reached the hill just as darkness fully settled in around them. In actuality, the hill was more like an outcropping of stone, but the stormtroopers went about settling in anyways. It didn’t take them long to set up camp, as there was very little to do. Their stormtrooper armor kept them comfortable in the frigid air, and the vitamin rations required no cooking, so fire wasn’t necessary. Not that a fire would have been allowed in any case. After all, there was no way to tell who was watching.

Jegora was lost in his own thoughts when one of the troopers spoke up. He was a younger trooper, and although he wasn’t sure, Jegora thought his name might Njall.

“How long we staying here?” he inquired to no one in-particular. It was, of course, Havock who answered.

“Not long. Just enough to rest up a bit and take stock of our situation. I want to move in a couple of hours.”

Jegora nodded to himself. It was a good plan. Each and every one of these stormtroopers had excellent endurance, and none of them were even close to being wore out yet. It made sense to keep moving, just in case they were being pursued. Still, he rather liked the defensive position they had on this outcropping. He almost thought about mentioning something to Havock, but in the end he bit his tongue. Things would end as they would end, and Havock’s plan was as good as any Jegora could have come up with.

Gazing out into the darkness that was pooling around the base of the hill, Jegora suddenly had a very bad feeling that he was being watched, and if there was one thing he had learned over the course of his career it was that his feelings were usually right.

Not for the first time, Jegora took a second to appreciate the upgraded sensor technology that had been installed in his helmet. It provided with him low-light and infrared viewing capabilities, not to mention a rather sophisticated heads-up display. It was the former that Jegora had use for now, and as he activated the helmet’s infrared visor, what he saw very nearly took his breath away.

The ground at the base of the hill was one massive heat signature, for meters in every direction. And it was growing. Whatever was at the base of the hill was big, or else there were a lot of them. Either way, Jegora knew that the Raiders were in trouble.

“On the bounce, people. We have company,” Jegora said, his ice cold voice belying in his inner anxiety. 

All the Raiders joined him at the edge of the outcropping, gazing out into the darkness. Some of them had infrared filters, some of they didn’t. Either way, even those without infrared filters could see the roiling mass of...stuff at the base of the hill.

“What is that?” Grahim inquired.

Aeos just shook her head as she watched the show below. “Slime.”

OOC:

That's right. Start shooting. I also figure that after a while of shooting we can make a run for it. Towards the fort we're supposed to be taking out, eventually.

Convenient, huh?

The lone shot of Havock’s blaster had not improved their expectation of the situation.
Aeos stepped back involuntarily as her visor analyzed the heat signatures splitting apart before slowly and threateningly so, regroup to reform itself.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Steady,” Jegora’s deep voice vibrated.

She bit her lip nervously and refocused the fear which had her trembling.
They were trapped on the top of the hill, forming a perfect circle, backs facing each other yet they stood no chance if their blasters had no effect on whatever it was that was approaching them.

It was either Beta or Njall who finally lost their cool and triggered into action with a volley of shots. It set of a chain-reaction and soon the whole squad let loose with their weapons. The mass of red on her visor repeatedly scattered and regrouped as it got hit and melted back together all the while closing on their little circle.

“Stop!”

Havock’s voice was hoarse and hard, fear had sliced into her voice with force, but it did not render her incapable of numbed. It only hardened her resolve. Her  command was effect and the troopers’ relaxed their index fingers on the trigger while keeping their aim focussed on whatever part of the target they thought might be the bullseye.

Havock did not rely anything more than that for a few moment. With the sound of blaster shots out of the way, Aeos could focus her ears, and the dead of the nigth silence accompanied with sludging sound of fluid dragging across earth startled her. Her eyes darted around, she bought an index finger up to her helmet and deactivated the infraviewing. As if it would help. However, instinct called and demanded for natural view. Their surrounding were now clouded in the darkness of the night, with only enough moonlight to cast shadows on the ground.

The whole squad was tensing, they had thirty meters of free ground left before they would be overwhelmed.

Her eye caught movement in the corner, and Aeos swung her aim towards it.

Only the wind, her thought registered as the leaves rustled again at the top of tree nearest to them.  They could climb the tree, or…


“Fire,” 

“What?” Decembrist who stood to her left risked the loss of his target and glanced at her from the side.

This time, raising her voice from the previous whisper, Aeos chanced herself to grin inside her helmet.

“Fire! The wind is picking up as well I daresay,”

True to his character, Jegora replied:

“It might work Aeos, but they might not be affected by it,”

He kept his weapon trained at the front. For the first time, Aeos appreciated his presence with them. Unfortunately for Raiders squad, almost no one in the squad was known for their rationality and thoughtfulness. Jegora had an abundance of this, and so he served as a good balance for them. He did have a point, but then again, what choice did they have?

“I don’t see any stability in its consistency, change of temperature might be enough to destabilize it and give us a chance to escape it,” Havock muttered.

No one talked. Best to leave the decision to their squad-leader. The woman had to think fast however. Twenty-five meters…

They made it to the road. Beta's information he managed to get off the ships computer, or what was left of the ships computer, had proved useful in it gave them a direction to start looking for shelter on the road. Havock didn't really expect that it would be any easier in that direction but it was better than nothing she supposed.

They walked in a defensive position, paired up, weapons at the ready pointed into the darkness of the forest. The air smelled of humidity, it was only a matter of time before it started raining. But that didn't bother her. The heat, the darkness, the uncertainty all of that she could deal with. The silence and lack of slimy blob creatures that was effing freaking her out.

The creatures didn't seem to be killed by the blast of the grenade, just displaced. Her skinned crawled as she remembered the goo slide its way across the forest floor, blindly seeking its equally displaced  mates. She wondered what the creature could be doing. It couldn't be scared or retreating, that would just be insane. Seeing slime move and attack with her own eyes was unbelievable enough, but to think the stuff was intelligent? They would send her away for sure.

She could make out a clearing in the dead and dieing forest ahead. The trees surrounding the clearing seemed to become more bone like as naked branches reached up into the darkness. As they approached the edge of the forest, Havock motioned for the rest of the squad to hold their position as she and Decembrist took the final steps forward and knelt down to scan the area.

It was difficult to worry about anything given the sight before her eyes. There was a large grayish building rising out of the earth. A flash of light from lightning off in the distance gave a split second of detail to the size of the structure. It was old, very old. A taller square structure made up the center with two wings spreading out in opposite directions of each other. It looked like the citadel wanted to reach out and embrace its visitors, yet she couldn't imagine there being many people choosing this as a vacation spot.

Havock clicked on her infrared filter to check for any signatures that may be blended in with the darkness around them. A lone figure could be made out near the entrance to the citadel. It looked vaguely humanoid in shape and was slowly moving in the squad's direction.

“Contact, 4 o'clock.” She heard Decembrist's voice whisper in her comm. She looked and there was another figure also creeping out of the shadows heading towards them. When the light flashed again she could see that the 'body' was translucent.

Sweeping back she could see three more appear against the gray of the citadel. “Fall back to the others.”

He nodded and they both backed up, staying low to regroup. She knew they had to take the citadel, it was there best chance for survival at this point. That meant they needed to find a way to get rid of the current tenants, which were apparently these slime creatures.

She turned to look at the rest of the squad, they needed to move up and attack the target and she wasn't entirely sure how they would be able to kill them, since they hadn't been successful in doing that as of yet. As she turned she saw something with the infrared filter just before she was about to speak. It was another one of the figures from the front of the citadel, but this one was right behind Jaenna.

Without a second thought she reached up and grabbed a very confused Jaenna pulling them both to the center of the trail. The ASL, let out a string of curses as Havock ignored her and pulled out her pistol fireing at the blob. The others quickly followed suit and the creature began to slip back into the woods. “Move towards the citadel now.”

“Havock.” Jaenna was gritting her teeth, she could tell.

She was still on the ground, she watched as the others advanced down the trail. She wanted to make sure that they were not about to be surrounded. “Yeah.”

“If you want me to move towards the citadel, you're going to need to let me go so I can get up.”

“Huh?” She didn't realize it but that whole time she still hadn't let go of Jaenna. “Heh, sorry.” She rolled over and stood, still scanning the forest as they caught up with the rest of the squad. The number of blobs had increased now they covered the entire field between the RAIDERS and the citadel. They got their weapons ready, the combat engineers were whispering to each other planning something, it was time.

OOC:

We have arrived at the citadel, but its occupied as you can see. You guys have until Sunday to find a way to get past the blobs and get us in the citadel. There are probably some supplies in the Citadel since it was where some scientist worked for a bit. So lets get to it people!

“Are they there yet?”

“Affirmative,” came Njall’s reply.

Aeos cast the pale blue eyed boy barely older then she was at a glance. He caught her glance and heaved his shoulders. They both knew the next phase of this predicament. Aeos turned to Joamer.  The latter had no time to spare her his thoughts as he was in the process of loading one of the last grenades which would grant the squad access to the citadel. They left a path of destruction behind which was slowly yet steadily oozing back to form a mass.  From afar, Aeos could make out the distinct form of Jegora and Havok monkey-climbing a huge pile of debris, the remains of a south wall which had come down and pulling out their binoculars to keep an eye on the group of trapped Combat Engineers.

“I guess we need to get ourselves out!” Joamer grunted and he heaved himself upward.
“Aeos, Njall, unload your grenades and take them with you; you’re not strong enough to run with these launchers, I’ll take this one with me,”

Aeos knew they had better manage themselves fast or else their path might disappear without them even coming halfway. Hopefully their squad would provide them with some cover fire as they make their way.

“Ready? Let’s go!” Joamer shot off, easily taking the launcher.  Njall followed closely behind. Aeos gulped and sent a small prayer to her deity. She was really bad at running, sprinting and in generally covering a long distance in a short time. She might be able to make it….

***

“Aeos!”

She felt a strong yet feminine hand burning against her cheek and startled her eyes flew open.

“Wha-what?”

Havock’s face watered into focus and Aeos blinked.

“What happened?”

She bolted herself upright and this action seemed to startle the small circle of concerned people which had huddled around her. She managed to discern some of her surroundings through the darkness and pairs of legs. They were not outside anymore.

“What…how?”  She glanced at Decembrist and Jegora questioningly, but the latter kept their silence.

“Okay, Havock, move,” came a sharp order. Havock moved away gingerly while still keeping her eye on Aeos. Karash knelt down at her side. He pressed two fingers on the skin of her exposed neck.

“What do you remember?”

“I…I dunno,” Aeos stammered reddening as she did so. What a fine example she was setting about keeping her cool.

“The last thing Ae,” he’s soothing voice urged.

“I was running after Njall, that’s it,”  Karash stared at her with intense eyes. Momentarily he heaved his shoulders as if expecting an attack, but it all passed away in a split second.

“Aeos, you, Joamer and Njall made it here safely, and barely. We moved immediately to this room to and bolted the door close. You sat down and fell asleep, Havock just woke you.”

Aeos reddened an ever deeper shade of red.

“My apologies guys,”

“No, don’t worry. This is not unheard of, your body shut down momentarily to rework the shock and adrenaline, it often happens as soon as you allow yourself to relax mentally and physically after a traumatic event,” Karash continued.  He squeezed her arm and stood up and extended his hand to help her up.

Aeos grabbed his hand and got to her feet. The small circled dissipated and she cast Havock and Jae an apologetic glance.  The squad-leader waved it off with one hand.

“We’re all human, we’ve all been rather on the edge tonight, but we should focus on moving on,”

“We need to establish ourselves a temporary base somewhere and exploring the building and sealing it,” Havock continued addressing the whole squad.

“Objection, sealing ourselves in might be a bad idea,” Jegora muttered in his deep and slow voice. 

“We can’t allow this place to overflow with the bluddy things either,” Jae cut back.

“We shall decide on this hopefully in the next thirty minutes when we have a better idea with what we are dealing with, Ae, Dec you take the ground floor.  I’ll take Grahim, Jegora and Joamer to the second floor, meanwhile Jae; you take the rest to top floor. “

Joamer was gone; Everyone was hurt at least a little bit; They were a Squad of crazy bastards cornered in a castle thingy with a case of Liquid Nitrogen and a case of Nitroglycerin with a sea of evil slime slamming itself against the only exits to the castle thingy. Oh yeah, what a wonderful predicament to be in when you’re known as the craziest squad in the fracking army. The squad was getting closer together, the cases of LN and Nitroboomboom in the middle of the group, their backs to each other, and their guns up and in firing position. It was hell. It looked like hell, it smelled like hell, it sounded like hell. It WAS hell. The troopers were all tence, everyone could feel it. They all knew that they were about to be stormed by a sea of evil ooze from outside. The sound of the lightning storm grew louder, only meaning that the rain was harder and the lightning was closer.

Jaenna heard Beta speak up, his voice full of fear that was quite obvious in the most terrible way. “Guys, excuse my language and rashness, but what in the HELL are we going to do?!”

“Well, we’re down a Combat Engineer now, since that bastard decided to dip set on us.” Jaenna answered back to him, her green eyes staying focused on the front door of the Citadel. The tone of her voice was beginning to sound much more like the old Jaenna. She chuckled. “We just have another one of those good ol’ RAIDERS obstacles before us.”

“Not unlike any other mission we’ve ever been on together, right hun?” Havock chuckled along with Jaenna. The spirits were up for an odd reason. It was something that Havock and Jaenna had learned during their times in RAIDERS. It was a defensive reaction to situations that looked bad. They had been working, and working hard, on trying to not flip out so much in a bad predicament. It was working.

Grahim even chuckled softly before speaking up. “Wessa can get outssa dissa guys.” He smiled to himself. The Gungan had grown to become such a good trooper. Jaenna liked that about Grahim. He never gave up and he was always willing to put himself up in some sort of way in order to help the squad.  “Whatssa be the plan, Sergssa?” He asked, speaking to Havock and Jaenna, his back still to them , for he was facing the back door.

The circle of troopers stayed in their tight circle, not wanting to break the formation that would give them the best chance of survival right now. “Well for one, don’t step on that Nitroboomboom.” Jaenna said, a bit of a joking tone to her voice.

“You guys should stop joking around and get to a freaking decision.” Jegora spoke up then. Jaenna looked to her left, where was standing, and grumbled.

Her eyes narrowed behind her armor’s visor. “Look, sir. No disrespect meant in any way, but Hav and I can handle this. Just give us a few minutes.” The Platoon Sergeant quieted down, a silent grimace spreading his lips apart in a slight scowl as he turned his attention back to the front door. Jaenna grumbled softly and shrugged her shoulders, as if preparing herself for something. “Havock. We set up one canister of the LN at each door, rig the LN canister with some of the Nitroboomboom, then when they come in, it goes boom, it freezes and disorients the front line, then we make a run for it with Njall and Aeos at the front again.”

Havock nodded as she broke the circle to turn around and kneel down next to the cases. “Help me out Jae.” Jaenna knelt down as well, the others keeping the circle intact. The two set to work quickly, working on getting the LN and the Nitro out their cases carefully. They worked quickly, a boom continuously resounding through the entire place with each crushing wave that the sea of ooze sent against the doors. The two commanders worked faster, each of them carefully combining a cylinder of Nitro Glycerin and Liquid Nitrogen together.

“Guuyyys. Hurry up!” Aeos said to the two girls, as the wooden planks of the doors began to split against the crashing waves of the slime monsters. “Seriously, now. Come on-“

“We got it!” Jaenna shouted as she and Havock stood up, the two girls each going to one door. Jaenna set her double cylinder down by the front door, and Havock set hers down by the back door. They came back to the middle, where the circle was, and grabbed their guns, holding them ready.

“Now what?” Njall asked as he looked at the SL and ASL.

Havock smirked. “We wait. Njall, you get next to Aeos at the front door. Get ready to brace yourselves for a mini explosion of cold. Lets hope this works.” The SL looked to Jaenna, a smile on her face. Jaenna nodded to her love and smiled back.

The booming continued. Each and every time it seemed to get stronger. The troopers stood there, waiting, their knees almost buckling in fear and anticipation. Their guns were held tight, their night vision and heat sensing was turned on in the visors, their inter climate control was set to deal with the chilly rain storm that was beating down on the hunk of rock called a moon outside. Boom boom boom. The hits grew stronger. The door planks growing more and more weak every time. Jaenna looked to Havock, then to Njall and Aeos, then to Beta and Grahim, then to Jegora and Vee and Karash. All of this was such a big risk. Her plan could kill the entire squad. But sometimes, and she knew this very well, risks had to be taken if you wanted to stay alive and have respect.

Boom

The hit was strong, the ooze could now be seen through the cracks in the wooden planks. Havock instinctively took a step closer to Jaenna, who smiled to herself. Aeos seemed to take a step towards Vee, Njall hunkered down with his M327 Grenade launcher. Karash had a hardened expression on his face. It was completely stoic. Part of that worried Jaenna, but she brushed it off as another strike came into contact with the door.

Booom

Aeos made a noice that sounded like a whimper and a scoff all mixed into one. “Uh, guys. I think we should get ready.”

“She’s right. The next hit could do it. Prepare for the blast!” Havock shouted as everyone got into an even tighter circle, Jegora and Karash holding the cases of booty close to their chests.

BOOM

They broke through; the ooze began to leak through, that sickening noise of slime over wood and concrete reached Jaenna’s ears and she wanted to scream. But then, an even better noise reached her ears. A louder book. A bright flash went through the entire place. One from the front and one from the back. The flash died down and everyone shivered slightly as the cold chill could be felt from the LN. Jaenna looked up, and her plan had worked! “Yes!” She shouted with joy as she saw the frozen oozies all clumped together, debris on either side of the group. “Alright! We have enough of a path to get through now!, Aeos and Njall, go! Fire your launchers whenever you see fit!”

“You got it, Serg!” Njall shouted as he and Aeos took off over the frozen solid ozzies, the rest of the troopers following them.

They ran and ran, explosions happening every now and then to clear a path through the sea of slime. The others firing off their own weapons every so often just to catch the slime off guard. They ran and they ran. On ward, faster, faster. Jaenna took a second to look at her Data pad. They were heading South East. She didn’t care where it took them, but they needed to get away from the citadel. “Keep those cases safe!” She yelled as she kept running.  They needed to get away; the sea was closing in behind them as they continued to move. Her heart was racing, her palms were sweating, her eyes were blurring. The rain wasn’t making anything any easier. This was getting bad.