Luis nods. He quickly wraps up a report with some quick info from Davis into a set of email messages to their recieving teams. He sends a few extra copies to each site to make sure that server trouble from the traffic increase won't block his messages, then sends them on their way.
"Jonno, I think that is the sweet sound of a server farm having more asked of it than it was ever supposed to do." Luis lets himself marvel in it for a second, then returns to the task at hand. Or rather, what that task is. "So...Davis? What now? Black Gate? Tea with the Queen?"
Meanwhile, the message seeks its way onward: Operation Napster succesful. Initiate retrieval. Davis spoke with Big Cheese, Nixon possibly heading to China. Investigate Rev-Whetu. Proceeding as planned--Stanhill
Luis' message weaves its way across the universe, feelers out and grasping for the receivers back on Atea or any number of rebel cells or US listening posts.
"Beer'd be nice about now," Ngawai says, joining Angel in covering the damaged but still very solid Cortex doors.
Arketta's eyes focus, then dart to one side, indicating that she's trying to remember something. "Davis. I know who you are. I'm not... good, but I'm better. What are we doing in here?"
"We are here to get the information from the Cortex and distribute it to whoever wants it," Davis says, hoping to jog Arketta's memory. "And now that we've done that, we're heading to the Black Gate and getting the Hell out of here, and if we do, I'll buy everyone a beer."
He looks over to Jonno. "First things first, let's get out of the Cortex. Are the doors jammed?" He turns to Swims and Angel. "Can we blow them, or are we just stuck in here until they knock them the rest of the way down?"
Arketta still seems out of it. "The... the Black Gate? But nobody-"
"That's what I've been telling people," Ngawai interrupts. "But it's our best bet now."
A bit of inspection reveals the doors as functional, but requiring a bit of repair work on the access console after Swims' inelegant solution to keeping the Imperials out.
"Doors look fine, but the panel is hosed - not sure blowing them will give us room to get out, and if we've got trigger happy folks on the other side, it's sure as hell going to give them reason to shoot."
"Well, we've already done two or three impossible things today, we might as well go for one more," Davis says with a wink and a smile.
He looks back to Jonno. "Jonno, you'd better get started on jury-rigging that panel back together, we don't need to create any more trouble than we've already got." Davis claps his hands together. "Alright, game plan time. Even though the Emperor has said that we will have safe passage to the Black Gate, I don't know if I trust him or, more importantly, his Avatars and Turai to hold to that. So when Jonno gets ready to pop the doors, everyone takes cover behind the Cortex units. If we're safe when the doors open, we clear the immediate area around the doors, and then we haul ass towards the Black Gate in a tight line of pairs. Swims-the-Black, you're with me and Ngawai at the front, since you know the Palace and the Court the best. Angel, you stay with Jonno in the middle, and Arketta and Luis will bring up the rear. Don't stop for anything, and most importantly, don't fire unless fired upon, and only attack what attacked you, nothing else. With any luck, we'll make it to the Black Gate without any trouble, then we all step through at once. Anyone have a problem with the plan?"
"Let's do it," Ngawai says, backpedaling behind the archway leading into the archives from the narthex.
Jonnoperest produces a different handheld. He hooks up a handful of cables and strands to the damaged access panel. The machinery sparks a few times, causing Jonno to recoil a bit. He gives the access panel a few tries, then hits it. It glyphs green.
While Jonno hotwires the door, Luis checks his drones. Bad news - he's only got the three drones that were hiding out in the Halls of Tranquility left.
Jonno runs back to cover as rubble from the doors begins tapping and thumping its way onto the floor. The damaged doors begin to slide open with monolithic slowness. Suddenly, a horrible grinding emanates from the left door. It stops moving and smoke begins curling from its housing. The right door continues its inexorable progress, finally stopping with enough space to admit two people abreast.
The first thing through the door is a spear-bomb, timed to airburst a few meters into the narthex. A flash, a boom, then the thump of the explosion and the pings of shrapnel. Angel glances around; everyone seems okay, even Arketta, although the ex-Turai has a bit of a "why are they shooting at us again?" look to her face. She slaps down her faceplate at Angel's inquiring look.
"I think a spear-bomb is a pretty clear message," Davis says. "Jonno, see if you can hook me into their voxes, let's give them one more chance to not shoot at us before we start taking them out. If that falls through, remove the silencers for the shock factor and we clear the Repository. Luis, can you see how many of them are out there and where they are, or Hell, why they're still shooting at us in the first place?"
Luis scratches his head and starts probing to see if any of his drones are still responding. "I don't know, could just be a double-cross...hang on. When they started shooting the drones, there was an Avatar co-ordinating. Might be some of the Imperium forces aren't following the same rythym the Emperor's beating."
"I can't get anything in that room that's not also linked to a dead IFF", Jonno says after some frantic tapping. "Probably went comms-black once their drones opened up on them. I can ping a dead man and hope someone picks up out there, but that's about it."
"We need to move," Swims says. "I will take a look. Be ready to sweep the room as I enter." The Whiirr crawls slowly to the dead Keeper, hoisting the corpse over one shoulder, then continues along one side of the narthex, trying not to expose himself to the narrow view afforded by the single open door.
"Forget the comms, if they wanted to talk, they shouldn't have started the dialogue with a spear-bomb. Swims-the-Black, we can't just have you run out there, I don't want to have to haul you all the way to the Black Gate," Davis says with a smile.
He thinks for a second and looks around. He notices the discarded shrouds. "Okay, I have an idea. Reassemble the shrouds, we shout out that we surrender, and slide the empty shrouds out. The instant after we slide them out, Swims-the-Black rushes out with his shield, with Angel glued to him, either next to him or behind, and then the rest of us. Hopefully that'll give us enough of a distraction that we can take them by surprise."
Davis turns back to Jonno. "Actually, try to patch me into the dead guy's vox. Maybe I can get one more guy to look away."
Arketta and Ngawai crouch-walk into the narthex to recover the shrouds. Swims-the-Black holds his position along the wall, close to the doorway. Smoke from the hotwired access panel creates a thin haze across the lofty ceiling.
While Davis and the team were planning, the Imperials weren't content to throw a single spear-bomb and call it a day. At least someone's moved in close to the other side of the doorway, because they stick a beamer barrel around the opening and sweep the Cortex room with its guncam.
The Turai's guncam sweeps the narthex. It pinpoints Arketta and Ngawai, hastily scrabbling for the shrouds. Suddenly a mountain of fur eclipses the view! Before the gun's owner can fire, Swims-the-Black grabs the weapon and hauls a Turai in through the Cortex doors! The Imperial soldier's armor looks tattered by stinger-fire, and the sudden melee reopens a handful of field dressings. The man's shouts of pain are muffled by his helmet. He and Swims struggle, silhouetted just inside the doorway.
The enemy decides to go with the flow and press their mangled attack rather than let their comrade be ripped to shreds by an alien beast. Two more Turai spin around the Cortex doorway, beamers raised. One's definitely got a limp. Behind them, a Jade Caretaker in blood-streaked golden armor raises a spear-bomb, making ready to throw at the Narsai'i hunkered down behind the entrance to the archives proper.
Luis's instant target is the Caretaker with the spearbomb. He opens up with his SMG--aiming to disable if possible rather than kill, but keeping the spear from being used is more important than keeping his target alive.
Feeling the momentum of the fight going from "stalemate" to "half-assed charge", Angel shifts position and brings up his rifle once more.
He seems the golden armored figure having a go at yet another spear-bomb, and sights along the man's chest, firing of a quick burst into his center of mass.
Angel's rifle barks and bullets snap past Swims. The Caretaker hefting the armed spear-bomb stumbles, staggers, spurts, and drops the explosive.
Swims-the-Black is silhouetted behind the resulting explosion with his hands around one Turai's head. The blast is funneled through the doorway and sends Arketta, Ngawai, Swims, and the two remaining Imperials sprawling. The Turai scramble for their guns and snap pale beams towards Arketta and Ngawai as they return fire with harsh, echoing thunderclaps. Ngawai's hit and falls back to the floor, smoke curling from her chest where the Turai armor ablated the deadly energy. Arketta's mind isn't addled enough to affect her aim - she shoots one Turai but doesn't finish the man, who rolls sideways in a vain attempt to avoid further fire.
Davis and Luis lean out from their position behind the archive archway. The two remaining Turai catch a torrent of armor-piercing rounds. The Imperials don't get second shots. One crawls a few feet, trying to raise his hands weakly, but soon settles into a pool of blood with his comrades.
Davis sneaks forwards to check if the Repository is clear. Pausing before the threshold, he looks back to the rest of his team. "Ngawai, we gonna have to put you back together again?" After her sarcastic remark, he motions for the rest of the team to stack up. "Okay, the plan still holds. Ngawai and I are up front with Swims-the-Black guiding us, then Angel and Jonno in the middle, and Arketta and Luis holding up the rear. Don't stop running until we get to the Court, and don't shoot at anything that isn't shooting at us, alright?"
e of pi
