Lukas blocked out the roar of the transports engines so he could hear Kanderin give the squad the short briefing on there next mission at hand. He had his gear ready and assembled on the way over the city as the crowds below angrily bellowed at the tops of there lungs. It was going to be another interesting mission, it got better and better as the plot thickened. His sniper rifle sat on his back with the shoulder strap going all the way around his torso, and his knives sat snug in there holsters, and of course he had his silenced pistols on either side of his waist.

The transport landed in a secluded part of the city and dropped them off in a hurry so as to not attract any unwanted attention. The sun was setting slowly on the horizon and the temperature was quite nice actually instead of being an arctic cold climate. Lukas decided he was going to go scout out the area and see if there was any immediate danger or hazards the squad should be aware of. Lukas ran quickly and silently along dark and dank alleyways, shouting could be heard off in the distance. For the time being it was safe, Lukas tapped his earpiece and radioed in that the coast was clear and they could move into place.


"Kanderin...do you mind if I stay up on the rooftops? The buildings are so close together I could jump the gaps easily...but I have a feeling as we get closer to the complex, they will get few and far between..just thought I would mention the idea but its up to you...", Lukas said in a calm and collective voice.

Waiting for the reply, he took the sniper rifle off his back and looked through the scope to look around the surrounding rooftops and streets, looking for anything suspicious. Rumour had it that the streets were filled with various thugs and crime syndicates, so he thought they had to be more careful then usual.

The transport dropping Helena off back to the Wraith’s new mission came to a slow halt as she gathered her stuff together. She placed her bag on her bag and rifle in its holster. She smiled to the pilot before nodding briefly and stepping off. She could straight away see where the others had been dropped off and could see Kand instructing the others.

“Hey Kand” She called over from afar, struggling with her bags.

“What the hell are you doing back?” He replied, almost dropping his clipboard with all his notes and instructions on.

“I missed you lot too much” She responded with a wink and threw her bags onto their ship.

“Glad to see you back Kiddo” He smiled, ruffling up her hair.

She smiled before hugging him and letting him get back to his lecture. She was over the moon to be back in a squad she knew well. She loved it in Wraith, especially the way it was run. It was her first squad after all, and after leaving for the second time it made her determined she was going to stay there for good this time. No moving about. Kand quickly recapped her on what was said before asking for questions. Helena had plenty, but wasn’t the type to start shouting them out. She’d rather wait and see if they answered themselves.

Before setting off, she quickly checked in her backpack for her medical gear. She liked to make sure everything was in order and in check before she got caught short in a time of need.

“So Kand, What exactly are we doing again?” She looked up from where she was kneeling.

“We are moving from the East as we said. We have another squad helping us, but we don’t need to worry about them until we meet them in the middle. You my dear will be making sure all injuries are taken care of and everyone safely gets to the middle of where we are going. The others will have little objectives of their own.”

Helena briefly nodded and got up from her position on the floor.

“Everything is accounted for sir!”

“Good Kiddo. Don‘t let me down on this mission”

“Do I ever let you down?”

Following Ron's example, Alex also began to grab whatever he could lay his hands on.  There was plenty of stuff there so neither of them had to worry about any form of shortage for the barricade.

Placing an old pipe in among the debris that was labeled 'the barricade', Alex looked up, not really liking the fact that it was so quiet; the calm before the storm it seemed like.

"I hope this is normal." He muttered softly to himself before he glanced at Ron.


"Anything I should know?" He asked.

While waiting for Ron to reply, Alex grabbed some more junk and stacked it nearby...just in case.

Walking over to a small crevice in a stone wall that was near the entrance to the governor's place.

This offered additional concealment besides the constructed barricade, plus it was only four or five steps away, so getting to it wasn't going to be that much of a problem if a firefight arose.

Kanderin led the squad over to two police vehicles blocking the road, behind which were three men listening to another shout orders. He hung back until they were finished, and then waves to attraction.

"Finally! What the hell took you guys so long" The man cried.

Kanderin shrugged. "Let's say traffic. What news have you got me?"

"Pretty much nothing has changed, there's still no movement from within the building, as if nothing has happened. Sure as hell hope you guys don't barge in all guns blazing on innocent staff"

Kanderin smiled and turned away, looking to the top of the large office. The Wraiths were used to walking into battlefields, piles of bodies and broken glass littering the streets. Instead, this was just a normal city, albeit it with a giant police cordon right in the middle. Beyond the two police cars the traffic was still flowing as normal, nosey drivers leaning over to try and catch a glimpse of what was going on.

"The other squad will be making their entrance on the hour, by the way"

Kanderin nodded to the Police Sergeant before  walking towards the office. They had a full city block to cover before they got to the base, enough time to formulate a plan.

"I'll kick the door through, I want RK and Anival to be the first ones in. Helena and Joamer will cover them, before heading in themselves. I'll be last in, and then we'll see how things go" He explained.

"You've done this before then" Helena laughed.

"Hm?"

"She means your plan sucks" Anival marched past, taking the lead alongside RK.

RK and Ron positioned themselves either side of the main doors in, with the rest of the squad lining the ASL's side. The doors were typically large for this kind of building, tall enough for another Wraith to be able to stand on his shoulders and still be able to pass through the door happily. He didn't like his odds of being able to kick it through, but it was the safest option available to them.

He took a deep breath, nodded to Ron and RK and spun out from the line. Pushing forward off the ball of his left foot he lunged forward and allowed his right heel to connect with the crack in the door. To his surprise the door gave no resistance whatsoever, instead simply flinging open, his momentum causing him to collapse into the room and sprawl across the floor. Four or five soldiers heads suddenly popped up from around a corner fifty paces away from him, and a few seconds later their blasters started to focus upon him. The first few pulled the trigger and he instinctively rolled away, the bolts blasting into the floor where he lay just milliseconds before. He desperately looked for cover but the entire room was virtually empty, only a reception desk proving useful. He would have to get to his feet and sprint across the room to it however, and there was a very low chance that he would make it.

Some sort of grenade went soaring over his head towards the group, causing them jump away just in time to dodge any major damage from it. The smoke hadn't subsided when shots began to follow the grenade. They didn't seem to be aiming for anyone in particular, but they were effective enough to stop the assault. An arm grabbed him and dragged him across the room to the receptionists desk, propping him up inside it.

"Are you hurt?" Lukas gasped, looking to the other members of the squad still keeping the enemy pinned.

"I'm fine" Kanderin nodded, still in shock as to what happened. After a few seconds, he spoke again. "Do you know what's going on?"

"We counted about six of them, but there could well be more. There's no way out of this room apart from where they're subsiding, so we wont be breaking apart anytime soon."

Kanderin nodded again "Did anyone pick up my gun?"

"Right here Kand" Helena smiled, tossing it back towards him.

He used his hand to stop it rolling out back into the open hallway, before glancing over the top of the desk.

"There's rooms littering each side of the hallway, they seem our best option for moving up on those guys. Split into two groups, one group provides covering fire while the other makes a run to the next room up, zig-zagging across the hallway. Rinse and repeat until we get close enough to gun them down"

After making sure his Squad Leader was still alive and breathing, Lukas took one of the small spheres off his belt and then primed a grenade. Waiting a few seconds he then threw the small sphere hard up against the wall where the opposition then threw the grenade as well. The cover of smoke that came from the sphere covered the incoming grenade that exploded amidst it. He was satisfied with the screams that came from the aftermath.

Lukas peered over the desk and saw the oncoming enemy trying to drag there wounded away, he took this opprotunity to chop them down with his pistol and continued to fire while the other half of the squad decided to move up. Lukas, RK, Kanderin, and Anival decided to be the group that layed down cover fire while the rest of the squad moved up slowly.

The enemy just kept on coming down the stairs and through the hallway. Lukas kept on firing into the enemy mass while watching them drop and trip over there dead comrades. Lukas saw Helena and Ron run up past him, making for one of the side rooms. The enemy troopers noticed this and tried to stop them but Kanderin had chopped them down before they could fire on them.

Tapping his earpiece Lukas spoke over the gunfire, "Ron, Helena go ahead and let me know when we can cover you guys moving from room to room!" Splinters of wood chipped off the desk as it continued to fall apart from the incoming gunfire. Lukas pulled the pin on another grenade and heaved it over the desk, another explosiion went off with more agonizing screams.

With the desk falling apart by the minutes, Lukas didn't know how long they could keep this up.

OOC:

The blast is just a lazy excuse, am not really sure, if we had grenade thrown at, or we threw them, hence the reason I was "out"

Anival followed the squad into the building, jittery, and aware of every move. As soon as he saw the grenade fly towards them, he jumped, the blast sending him sprawling toward a wall, he hit, and saw black.

Soft explosions seemed to be erupting around Anival, but they seemed far off all he could think was Get up, Get up.

Finally he felt someone lift him, and steady him. When his head stopped spinning, Anival gathered himself and the support withdrew.

He looked in time to see another barrage of grenades headed their way. This time, they missed him, by a few meters, hew wondered why, and got on one knee.

Anival noticed some of the squad near a desk. Thats when it dawned on Anival that he was really exposed. Then he noticed why, he was in a blind spot. He smiled, a dangerous knowing smile, then contacted Kand.

“Kand can you here me?” He spoke as if he had all the time in the world, which in a sense he did.

“y..o..head” was all that came through.

“I seem to be fortunate enough to be in a blinds pot, you can move and I will cover your rears.”

“Ears?” came a muffled reply from Kand.

Anival thought that his com was probably damaged, so he instead started killing the exposed enemy one by one, until they noticed what was happening and took cover.

The assault on Wraith hidden behind the desk now over, they started up again moving like a whisper of smoke, in the air , because that was all they were, a whisper of smoke, but they were also more than that, they were executioners.

Running up through the clearing smoke and glass raining down on him, Lukas drop kicked a soldier to the floor and ended his life with one shot to the head. He got up and ran to the nearest doorway and slammed a new clip into his pistol, blindfiring around the corner whlie his other squadmates moved up. Kanderin's plan had gone off almost without its flaws but it defenitely worked. Most of the enemy had retreated back down the hall someways closer to the stairways. Gunfire hailed down the hall both from Wraith and enemy alike. Most of it was from the enemy though.

Helena and Kanderin were across the hall from him while Lukas and RK were in the same room. Anival and Numbers had taken up behind them incase the enemy tried to flank them, which wasn't very likely. Lukas took another grey sphere out of his pouch and threw it straight at the enemy, it exploded just a few feet short of them while he advanced up a couple of rooms, picking up a dead soldiers repeating rifle. The other Wraith's followed suit firing through the smoke, chopping down any enemy that tried to get through the smoke screen.

As Wraith pushed forward more, alls the enemy could do was try and back themselves up the stairs, which was hard for them because they had kept tripping on there fallen comrades that had so hastily rushed to there deaths before thinking of what was down the hallway. The squad had made a pretty solid defense at the bottom of the stairwell, while there were a lot of dead soldiers throughout the front of the complex.

"Kanderin...the stairwell is clear and we are ready to move forward...", Lukas said while he trained his pistols at the top of the stairwell and around the corner. RK ran up behind him and secured the otherside of the stairwell. Helena and Kanderin came up from the rear and looked around.

"Well from here there will be more resistance obviously because now our target is alert that we are here and perhaps they will be a bit smarter...but hopefully not in our case", Kanderin said with a sneer.

Lukas decided to go check out the rest of the floor to see if there were any stragglers in hiding, waiting for Wraith to come by. He checked room by room and found nothing of importance or any soldiers. Once going back to Wraith squad, he reported his findings to Kanderin and had seen an elevator going up.

"It looks like that is our only way up....", Helena said before the elevator door opened up..

Anival tensed in anticipation. Soon two shiny objects were flying through the air, then an explosion, Anival managed to glimpse a young man obliterated. The sight of the young man, brought memories reeling back, Anival shook the feelings that were surging through him, and did what he lived to do.

Anival let a volley of blaster bolts fly through his weapon, not caring whether the bolts hit or simply created enough confusion in the midst. Out of the corner of his eye, Anival saw someone end a life with a kick and a quick shot to the head.

Slowly and painfully they were advancing, though it didn’t seem as they would get far, soon they had secured a staircase. Focus, thought Anival he was blanking out, he hadn’t even noticed he was in an elevator.

The whole situation seemed idiotic, wraith taking a “leisurely” trip up an elevator.  Anival was starting to get claustrophobic, when the elevator stopped.

Anival stared at the team, and then noticed Alex, was saying something. Anival couldn’t catch it, but then he made it out, there was explosives somewhere outside the elevator, Anival wondered if they had shut the elevator down on purpose or if some bigger force was in the works.

“So” said Anival with a hint of humor in his voice “who’s the demolitions person in the squad?”

No one said anything. Quick thoughts raced through his head, and Anival said, “Ron is there anyway, your slicing skills could come in handy with diffusing?”

Anival recollected his days as a soldier back on his home world, simple diffusing was standard in every soldiers training, but still nobody wanted to die so young.

They discussed for a while then they set about to diffusing the explosives.

Anival stared at the explosives on the wall, he had never seen them, however he was sure he had seen an earlier model. He took out his fusion cutter, and set it so it could make a small incision in the explosives hide. So they set about the task of removing the explosives.

They were on the last one when Alex returning he swung into the car nearly knocking over Anival, and Lukas. Anival felt a great shudder, and they lurched upwards Anival panicked seeing the last of the deadly explosives rushing at them, Anival covered his head, and then there was a muffled explosion.

It was small and barely heard, but it rocked the occupants of the elevator nonetheless.

They all laughed a relieving laugh.

The squad was headed upwards, closer and closer to their objective. When the elevator did stop and opened it revealed a small group of  what looked to be security guards.

The Squad stayed still for a moment, then quickly started to take up positions as a blaster bolt nearly hit Helena.

Anival saw Lukas jump out of the elevator, roll and come to a halt near an upturned desk. Lukas was followed suit by Alex, Anival had noticed the new recruits lack for self preservation, and he jumped out of the elevator leaving behind RK, Helena, and Kanderin.

Anival copied Lukas almost move for move, but instead was greeted by a misplaced trash bin, which hit him and brought him to an abrupt stop.  He heard Alex through his Com, but didn’t answer.

Anival was fortunate, only feet away from were he had been forcibly stopped was a hole.  Anival found a good cover spot, and added his own fire to the deadly  barrage against the uncovered guards. The whole scene lasted about two minutes.

Wraith recomposed itself, and regrouped once again, moving towards their goal. Kanderin started to give order.

“Ok, form up, and Alex and..” he didn’t finish

“Me” interrupted Anival, Kanderin nodded and they got back in formation.

They started a short walk through a corridor. Anival looked ahead then at Jake.

“You shouldn’t do reckless stuff like that back their.” said Anival nonchalantly

“Do what?” asked Alex innocently.

“What you did back there!” replied Anival “ you could have gotten your self killed”

“Lukas, and you went out” stated Alex simply “and I know how to take care of myself.”

“Yes, but Lukas has had years of experience, and he knows, how to handle situations like that , we have handled them before, we need everyone, not just, Kanderin, Helena, RK, Lukas, or me. We need everyone to pull the squad through, we lose some great men, but rarely, because we are trained to be the best, and survive”

Anival put enough emphasis on the last part, that he thought the message was clear.

He stopped, as he saw a shadow, he told Kand, and took Alex with him to check it out.

Anival stalked silently along the corridor, not making a sound, Alex followed closely behind, then a dainty statue came into view, beside it was a keypad. Anival informed Kand.

Suddenly Anival spun, kicked at Alex’s legs, and Alex fell, his helmet had a small singe mark at the top where a blaster bolt had barely missed. Anival fired a shot, and then a loud whine came from a corner. Alex stood up,  and started to say something but stopped.

Anival could hear the rest of the squad coming. When they appeared Anival quickly informed Kand what had happened.

Kand was about to shoot the man.

“Don’t.” said Anival

“Why?” queried Kand.

“Have a look at the statue, he might be valuable.” answered Anival.

Kand walked over to the statue, and bent over.

“What might it be, any Ideas? My guess is its full of corelian ale” said Kand with a smirk.

“Maybe, Twi’lek dancers?” joked RK.

Then, everyone pondered what really might be in the box type thing.

“Weapons, or credits?” said Alex.

They looked at him.

“Could be” said Lukas and Hel, simultaneously.

The squad stood pondering waiting for Kand’s orders. Kand stalked over to the injured man, and saw he was bleeding sluggishly, the blaster bolt had almost cauterized the wound. He put his gloved finger in the hole, the man screamed. Alex flinched at the mans screech, the rest of the squad waited as if the scene was part of  their normal life, which in fact it was. Kand removed the finger and the man was sputtering a curse.

“Now I suggest you tell us what is in the box, we need to get moving and I don’t want any nasty surprises.” Kand spoke with menace.

The man whimpered and spat at Kand. The spit hit his visor, but had an effect all the less. Kand stood up, turned around and backhanded the man on the floor before he let another shot into the mans leg, he screamed and screamed.

Kand once again crouched, only this time he took out a vibroknife. He started poking around in the new wound, twisting it with precision, as if he had a knowledge of a humans anatomy.

The man screamed in agony, and finally sputtered “OK!, Ill talk, just please I beg you STOP!”

Kand withdrew the knife, and looked at the man. Anival spoke “we need to get going I can hear more coming”

Kand nodded and started to question the man,

They where surrounded on both sides, and faced with two options, surrender and likely die, or fight and likely die. Anival muted his com so only the squad could hear.

“I have a thumper, we could say yes to surrendering, and I’ll activate it to fly towards one of the two sides.” offered Anival to Kanderin.

“And what about the other two?”  came Kand’s silent reply.

“Hurry!! Or we will fire!” came a command from the guards.

“We can cover behind the statue and pick ‘em off.”  said Anival.

“It’s risky, any one else?”  When no reply came Kand sighed. “Do it” he said faintly.

“ok,  but Lukas and RK have to get in the line of sight.” said Anival anticipating the
firefight.

“We give, up” stated Kand. The soldiers looked pleased and relaxed a bit.

In one swift motion Anival took out the thumper and activated it. It rose quickly about 3 meters into the air, and moved silently towards one of the masses. Anival counted the seconds then on five he started to open his mouth to say “jump” but a new order was barked.

“Get on your stomachs!” wraith disobeyed and jumped behind the statue, just as a hand went flying through the air. The group that had been left was decimated all but one. Which Lukas quickly took out.

They proceeded to fire at the squad that was ahead of them.

“Why haven’t we met up with the other squad, and why didn’t they kill us when they had the chance?” wondered Anival out loud.

“It seems like a distraction” said RK.

The squad agreed. Then Anival noticed that the opposition wasn’t shooting, yet three of them had already been killed.  And apparently the squad had to, they stopped firing reserving their ammo.

“Maybe we can come to a peace accord?” asked Anival to Kand.

“Kand thought for a moment then said “nobody shoot” and with that he waved his gloved hand in the air, and threw his blaster down, and stood.

“Why aren’t you fighting back?”

They said nothing just kept their weapons leveled,

“We should just kill them” muttered Lukas under his breath.

Kand continued to talk. “We will kill you all if we have to, all we want is-” he was cut short as the soldiers opened fire.

“Smart!” exclaimed Anival and downed two men, while the squad concentrated on the rest. Kand was safely behind the statue.

“Smart what?” asked Kand angrily.

“Smart, that they waited to see who our leader was.” stated Anival between burst of their weapons.

“Kand thought for a moment then said “we have the code, we can find out what is in their still, Frag em!”

And Alex and Lukas sent out two small but deadly spheres. The soldiers didn’t move or anything, in fact all they did was push a button on their belts. The two spheres stopped in mid air and dropped to the floor, adding to the confusion.

“Personal Shields” muttered RK

“Well, no choice but to deplete the shield aye?” sighed Anival.

Personal shields, at this close a range always had the one weakness. They could stop most blaster fire and several heavy explosives, but he had never considered their chances of stopping a hand to hand assault. The soldiers he had tried it against had all been too startled to bring the shield up, so he could just of gotten lucky repeatedly. It was flawed evidence, but he was going to run with it anyway.

From what he saw, there was three men left. They were advancing slowly, confident in that their defense was inpenetrable at their range. Kanderin tapped Lukas on his shoulder and put a finger to his lips, before darting into the room on their left. Lukas took the hint and started to maintain a steady burst of fire at the three men, just enough to make them think they still had their full attention. Inside the room it was simply an ordinary office, a computer sat on a chestnut coloured desk overlooking the doorway he had just entered. There was another door off to the right that opened up into the neighbouring office, something unique to this building. Apparently, the mayor was a big believer in a social workplace, allowing his workstaff constant room for conversation with their neighbour. This time however, it gave him an entrance onto the enemys blind side.

The other office was exactly the same, only this time he ducked so he wasn't visible to the three men stood on the other side of the window. Inching his way over to the doorway, he glanced outside to look at what he was facing once again. Of the three men, two of them were taking cover against the two pillars on either side of the hallway. The third was walking down the middle, constantly maintaining his shield. The man furthest away from him would be the problem, so he caught Lukas' attention long enough to simply point out the individual. Lukas blinked in response, so Kanderin breathed in deeply ready for the move.

Diving out of the cover, the man closest to him happened to turn around and went to cry out, however the Wraith SL was too fast, landing a kick to the side of the mans kneecap and immediately dropping him to his knees. A second kick to the temple brought the man to the ground hard, before he drew his pistol and spun around to the other man. He had turned around to help his fallen comrade but only managed to achieve two pistol shots to the face. The first hit him in the eye, sending a spray of blood splattering against the floor behind him. He nearly shouted in pain, but the second hit him clean in the temple and ended his life straight away.

The third man, as expected, brought his rifle up to finish Kand off. In the process however he dropped his shield, and Wraith squad were sure to make him regret it, and quickly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"These guys could be a problem" Yalen sighed, tapping the makeshift monitor that has been placed onto the desk. The guard with him wandered over and admired the screen, upon which Kand was just handing out more directions to the squad.

"They just seem like another a squad to me" He shrugged.

"Maybe" Yalen nodded "But I'm not going to take that chance"

He tapped a button on his belt and radio crackle immediately filled his ear.

"Cort, are you done with the other squad yet?"

"Just now actually" Cort's cheery voice responded, a cry breaking in just after he finished, "Why?"

"Looks to me like we picked the wrong one to focus on. Get the Ravens together and head up to floor....2C. We need these guys dealt with before they give us anymore trouble"

"On it Sir"

Wraith squad was indeed being targeted as Anival had thought, however they were being targeted by four individuals on an adjacent building outside.

These four men held some unknown type of rocket launcher that was aimed for the floor which the Wraith squad were on.

A mental countdown seemingly over in the minds of these men, they squeezed the triggers on their launchers and watched as four rockets streaked towards the other building.

Whomever the mayor was, for some reason he sure didn't want to meet with the Wraith Squad...that much was perfectly obvious!

-----------------------------------------

For the members of Wraith squad, none of them seemed to know what had hit them when the first of the rockets hit.

Everything seemed to explode around them in a huge fireball which literally pushed some of the members of Wraith squad up against the nearest wall.

Seconds later another explosion came, and then two more hit, signaling that the other three rockets had hit the floor as well.

Kand who had been closer to the impact than anyone else was suddenly ingulfed in a small fireball that lasted only seconds.

With the initial bombardment now over, everything was scorched, blackened or destroyed, power was off everywhere on the floor, and now the floor was starting to buckle because of the damage done to it.

Hearing Anival cry out, the entire team, minus Kand who was already beside Anival, picked themselves up off the ground and dusted themselves off.

Each one of them were sporting a few bruises and a laceration or two but nothing even remotely serious.

Hearing a fairly loud crackling noise, the entire team froze as a large section of the ceiling (which was still burning) collapsed right in front of them, blocking any forward movement.

"Any luck trying to go back the way we came?" Alex asked RK, who had approached and was kneeling down beside his fallen friend.

"What are you kidding?  The elevators were destroyed during the first blast." RK replied.

"Anyone got any ideas, then?" Alex asked.
All that was heard in reply was the crackling of the small fires that were going all over the floor.

"Whatever we decided to do, we best do it quickly.  I don't think the structral integrity of this floor is going to last much longer." Helena said.

All eyes fixed on their SL, waiting for his decision.