The truth was, Bright wanted more than anything to go back and find a way to get her people back out safely. Aeos had said she would find a way out, part of the squad leader wanted to believe her, the other part knew that Aeos had no plan and was hopelessly out numbered. She knew what that woman was capable of, she had Abalar and two ARC troopers with her. She even had a rookie that had received several commendations from the academy staff. Bright trusted Ae like she had always trusted her. Still, there was that part of her that insisted things were going to go terribly wrong.

The sound of booted feet echoed from the hall behind them. Looking at Havock she made her decision. “Time to go now!” She said pushing the other woman up the ladder that led to the hatch above.

Bright herself had barely made it up through the hatch  before the mercenaries below had reached them. She closed the hatch lid and cursed when she could find no way to lock it. “Move people we're going to have company.” She called pushing herself away from the door.

“Umm Boss we have company anyway, coming in at three o'clock.” Lukas said pointing, his gloved hand was steady, but the armor appeared scorched in the brighter light.

Bright turned to look and swore again. By now Jana knew what to do, she latched herself between Havock and Bright and drew her own weapon. Lukas stood still for a moment before heading off to find some cover that only he could see. Therex grabbed a thermal detonator from his belt, but did not throw it. What do you know, he's improving. Bright thought with an inward smile.

Bright herself drew her double sidearms, leaving her blades alone until she absolutely had too. Havock also armed herself with her twin blaster pistols. Sending a prayer to whatever gods were listening, Bright keyed her helmets comlink and signaled for Therex to let fly his thermal detonator. She watched it fly as if in slow motion and waited as it landed in the midst of this new group of mercenaries. On impact the explosive sphere exploded in spectacular fashion, kicking up melted snow and plumes of steam.

She didn't have time to ponder the effects of using explosives in freezing conditions though. The hatch behind them had been thrown open at last and a series of red energy beams had lanced out in their direction. Bright heard a growl from behind her and wondered how long it would take before the company commander rushed at the men and women.  If that happened Bright wouldn't hesitate to stop her again. Both of them were on edge, worried, and more than a little annoyed, but there was no way that Bright would let Havock go and do something they both knew to be stupid and needlessly dangerous.

“Sergeant, We have one mark coming in at point one two, SCOPE armor. One of ours I think.” Lukas said from his position, wherever that was.

“Then don't fire unless they start firing at us. Focus your attention on sniping these damned mercs.” Bright replied. One more person would be great, but she wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be an elaborate trap.

“Brightstar, they are getting closer.” Jana yelled over the sounds of battle.

The red head gritted her teeth and tried to figure out a plan. “Therex hand me one of your thermals, and stay on those idiots.” The chiss quickly handed her one of his three remaining thermal detonators and continued to fire at the reduced number of security and mercenaries coming at them from his angle. Every few seconds another one would go down from the ferocity of his assault. Behind her she saw two more go down simultaneously, a sure indication that Havock and Lukas were doing their best to slow the inevitable. Jana had decided to make herself as small a target as possible and was know firing from her stomach on the ground.

Another few seconds and another weapon was added to their team. “Sorry it took me so long, Lance Corporal Lightray at your service, Ma'am.”

“Introductions later when we aren't  seconds away from being turned into snow coloring.” Bright said. “Choose your targets, and fire at will.” With that she stepped up next to Havock and added her own onslaught of deadly red blaster beams to the mix.

The two of of them began to inch forward, all the communication they exhibited was the steady placement of their feet. Bright should have known that something would go wrong eventually. And it did in a most spectacular way. Something had distracted the other woman, turning her head to the side to look, Havock missed the lightly armored man that launched himself at her with a snarl. Bright, acting on instinct and a drive to spare her friend, pushed Havock aside and snarled when the man landed on her instead.

He rolled off of her  and got swiftly to his feet. Bright did the same and faced him, her pistols of little use in close quarters combat, were re-holstered and her Ryyyk Kerrarathor blades were almost instantly in her hands. The blades glinted in the available light and flashed as Bright lunged at the mercenary in front of her. She didn't call out insults, she didn't need to. However, she was worried. Her helmet was not the best piece of equipment when in combat such as this.

The merc lunged scoring a hit on her armor with his own blade, before dancing back like one of those leaping lords during Life Day celebrations on Tadath. He was nimble and her next string of lunges and slashes  barely nicked him at all. A vicious smile spread on his features before Bright felt a white hot line of pain travel down her right leg from her hip down to the back of her knee.

The next thing she realized was her leg's inability to hold her weight. The merc that she hadn't seen was laughing joyously above her as she rolled to her back. “Sonuva rancor.” She breathed, swallowing her increasing pain and shoving off her helmet. Her left foot lashed out and connected right where she wanted it to. The laughing mercenary doubled over and her left blade flashed up.

“You Bitch!” The other man said lunging at her prone form. Bright closed her eyes knowing that she wouldn't be able to stop that blade from slicing her head off.

For the second time on this mission she was left waiting. Opening her eyes she looked up to see a confused and ugly merc who had stopped in his tracks. He looked down and gazed at the three smoking holes in his light chest armor. With nothing more he fell backwards and lay there as still as the grave.  Bright looked  across from where he was standing and was surprised to see a very angry blond, her blue eyes flashing.

“I'll Court Marshal you the next time you throw yourself in front of me like that again.” Havock said with a shaking voice. Bright wasn't sure if it was fury or fear.  “That was stupid and I'd have handled it.”

“Aww, Ayme, you do care.” The sergeant said pushing the dead man off of her.  Her leg burned and she wondered how she'd been sliced when her leg had been armored. The answer stared at her in the form of a clean slash in her armor. “Vibroblade.” She muttered to herself clenching her fist to drive away the urge to scream.

She looked around her and knew that there was still more fighting to do before they were out of this. “Regroup with the other. We need to take these guys down.” She said

OOC:

Okay peeps. Lightray you are with our group now, Yay! We are still fighting off mercs, but the fight should be winding down. Brightstar is injured in a way that blood loss will be an issue and walking should be extremely difficult for her. If anybody else is wounded, now is the time to put it out there. Otherwise ONWARD! We are almost done.

“Sorry it took me so long, Lance Corporal Lightray at your service, Ma'am.”

“Introductions later when we aren't  seconds away from being turned into snow coloring.” Bright said. “Choose your targets, and fire at will.”

With the conversation finished there was no need for Lightray to be formal; a battle was raging around them as the security forces and mercenaries poured into the surrounded area. Lightray whipped his E-45 infront of him, the stock placed against his shoulder as a stream of blaster bolts were released onto several mercenaries approaching the squad's six. " Got 'em. " He simply said into his comm-link as he pivoted out of his covering position and quickly side-stepped several feet to his left. He moved behind a tree that had been littered by Blaster fire, lowering his body as a volley of bolts flew past his body. They were close; close enough for one stray bolt to sizzle past his helmet. The mercenaries were an annoyance to Jo'ron, especially since he had to battle his way through a group of them in order to reach his new-found squad. 

A quick pivot off his right foot had placed him to the right of the tree, his weapon raised and aimed at a mercenary who was courageous enough to stand in his line of fire. A well-placed stream of blaster bolts collided with the man's armor before he was able to fire off a single shot. To top it off he would even end it with one last shot that would strike the man directly in his right-eye socket. A smirk crawled across his face underneath his mask as he let off several more shots in order to suppress the man's comrades.

Lightray made his way to a closer position to the mercenary's comrades, taking cover behind a downed-tree that was parallel to the enemy's position. It didn't surprise him that they were shooting at him with everything they had, a stream of blaster fire slowly chipping away at the thick tree while stray shots flew past the top of his helmet. He gritted his teeth before sliding his hand down to his belt, pulling of a thermal detonator in unison with unleashing a steady stream of auto-fire from his rifle.

His index finger made its way to the timer, a bright-red light emitting from the top of the explosive. He lobbed it through the air before bending back behind the fallen tree, a loud yelp being heard from the enemy's position as they caught sight of the circular explosive rolling between them. Before they could react it would all be over in a fiery explosion that would leave nothing but charred remains littered all over the area. Even the fallen tree they had been using for cover had been partially blown to pieces.

Lightray was satisfied with the outcome, snapping out of his focus on battle once he realized that he'd distanced himself from his squad. Making his way back towards the group he would notice that they were fairing pretty well by themselves. The mercenaries were reduced to the size of a fire-team -- with those being alive beaten badly -- and morale was substantially low. Despite their setback, the mercenaries were still fighting back; fighting for their lives to be exact. The SCOPE troopers were known to be brutal in combat, usually leaving no prisoners unless they were important in value.

A trooper by the name of THX had been busy mopping up the remaining mercenaries when he made the biggest mistake possible and let his guard down. The loud crash of his Visor shattering immediately made helping out his squad mate his first priority. He lifted the strap above his head, placing it around his neck as he reached for his DC-15 pistol. Lightray moved through a stream of fire -- from the mercenary that shot THX and his own squad mates putting up suppresive fire -- in an effort to reach the fallen soldier as quickly as possible. He was confident that the trooper would be fine, mostly due to his knowledge in the dexterity of the SCOPE armor, but still knew the importance of getting the man away from the enemy soldier.

Once he was near THX he would reach down to raise the man's arm around his neck. " Lucky bastard. Knocked him out cold. " He said to himself as he caught a glimpse of the man's face. Lightray lifted him to his feet, simply dragging the unconscious man through a hail of fire until they were safely surrounded by their squad. Lightray's job was done; He turned around and fired off several shots from his blaster pistol before another trooper picked him off with their rifle. An eerie feeling of calmness would envelop the group for the time being, but it would only be temporary. The squad had to move quickly to rendezvous with the transport.