Zaef looks over at Angel. "We can cover Luis and Arketta at the far end of the roof...and set an ambush for the fools who show up there."

"We'll take the cover with thanks, Zaef." Luis turns gingerly around, taking inventory on what's left of the storage area and where they are in the compound, trying to pick up where he was. If they need to run, he needs to known what's left and which way is right.

"Not bad," FTE replies to Hale's passable badassery.

"...for a human." It would smile, but you know, metal face.

Luis' head is still swimming, but he can tell that he, Arketta, and the smoking debris have landed at the far edge of the main marketplace itself, a good half-mile and who knows how many hostiles away from the objective.
Arketta is already dragging Luis by his pauldrons towards cover. "What do you see up top?" she hisses.

Luis focuses on trying to make it to cover. "Not much. Does anyone have eyes on us? Are we clear?"

"You're clear," Angel says, looking through his scope. "There's a low wall about 30 meters ahead, get to that."
"Copy," Arketta calls back, and helps Luis find his way to the low wall. "We're in position."

---

Hale leads the way into the barracks, but no one's there to greet him and FTE - looks like they're all either out in the district, dead, or who knows where.
"Ever get the feeling you're walking into a trap?" Hale asks FTE as he leans against the doorway leading into the bazaar proper. "Barracks team in position," he calls up.


---

Garrett and Ngawai creep up to the edge of the main gate that Ngawai had walked through a couple days ago. "We're in position," Garrett calls over vox. "Okay, everyone, slow and smooth, move through the market. Marking our target now." With a point and wave, a three-story building at the back corner of the bazaar lights up on everyone's helms and optics. "We don't know what they've got, so -"

(Reflex: Luis/Arketta: 1 and 7 vs. 5 / Hale/FTE: 6 and 1 vs. 5 / Garrett/Ngawai: 8 and 9 vs. 4 / Zaef/Angel: 5 and 7 vs. 6)

Garrett's words of caution are interrupted by the loud POP-screech of spearbombs going off! No time to think or look, just react - Luis, still stunned, is tackled to the ground by Arketta, Hale grabs FTE by the chassis and yanks it back inside the building, Garrett and Ngawai both dive for cover, and Angel just dives to one side on top of Zaef just before a barrage of spearbombs rains down on everyone's positions. No one's hurt, but shit just most definitely got real.
"Status!" Garrett shouts.
Angel rolls back off Zaef and raises his rifle again. A quick sweep reveals Wazir's stronghold's roof now glowing in infrared from the spearbomb launches - and the distinct wavy interference of active camo. "Fuck - multiple targets, wearing Turai armor." He scoots down a little lower. "Guess we know where the toys ended up."

Garrett and Ngawai both right themselves and position themselves to aim at the roof - as the closest ones, albeit with the most open ground in front of them, they're in the best position for covering fire. "We'll get their attention, maybe give you a chance to spot how many there are," Ngawai says. "Suppressing fire in five seconds."

Luis takes a few quick breaths, trying to shake things off. "Got it, ready in 5."

Zaef nods his thanks to Angel, then sheathes his blades and unslings his rifle. "Ready."

Angel rolls of Zaef with a grunt, his rifle coming up as he does. "Ready. Even made themselves nice and shimmery for us. Thoughtful."

FTE nods its thanks to Hale, and silently and quickly reranks its index of self-preservation subroutines to better match its new data.

(Garrett and Ngawai suppression fire: 1d8 and 2d10+1d8 vs. 1d6 = 1 and 4, 5 vs. 5)

Garrett must have been looking at the wrong rooftop, because his shots go way wide right of the target, while Ngawai's rounds go more or less in the right direction but just sail through the group of invisible insurgents. Still, it's enough to get their attention, and a series of whap gun shots lance down from the roof towards Garrett and Ngawai.

(Insurgent shoot: 1d6 vs. 1d6+1d8 = 5 vs. 4, 2)
(Ngawai damage: 1d8 vs. 1d8 w/ 1d3 DR = 7 vs. 7, 3 DR = 4 Shock, 12/16 Shock)

One of the insurgents gets off a good shot - the bright bolt flashes down from the rooftop and impacts Ngawai square in the chest, knocking her to the ground.
"Ngawai!" Garrett shouts.
Ngawai pats herself down from her position on her back. "Didn't penetrate the plate! Hurts like a motherfucker, though!"

(Insurgent Fumbles: 1d6x3 = 4, 1, 1)

One of them raises his arms in celebration at the shot - and promptly loses the coordination signal between his armor's cloaking and his rifle's sympathetic cloak, rendering him still invisible but his rifle very much plain to see. Another must have shaken his hands in the wrong way - the armor clicks out of cloaking and into "dress uniform" mode - in this uncalibrated case, just a generic set of Turai rank holos with the mark signifying graduation from basic instruction over a shining chrome, red and gold "uniform".

“What’s the deal now they’re rocking beamers?” FTE sends. “Real weapons’ll put these guys down a lot easier than these AKs.”

"Rock and roll it!" Garrett shouts back.

Zaef rebutts the insurgent's arguments with heated retorts.

(Angel shoot: 2d12+1d10 vs. 1d6 = 7 vs. 5
Angel damage: 2d8 vs. 1d6, no bonus for armor: 8 vs. 3)

Angel sees the rifle appear hovering in midair. "Please," he snorts, and sights in just down and to the left. His rifle barks once, and the rifle falls to the ground as the body attached to it drops with a neat 7.62mm hole drilled in the helmet.

(Zaef shoot: 1d6 vs. 1d6 = 1 vs. 2)

Zaef misses wide of the target that accidentally turned his cloak off.

(Ngawai shoot: 2d10+1d10+1d8 vs. 1d6: 8 vs. 5
Ngawai damage: 6 vs. 2, 3 DR)

Ngawai comes around the corner and fires a shot at him as well - this one strikes him square in the chest, the round slipping between the plates and causing him to stagger back.

(FTE Shoot: 2d10 vs. 1d6 = 8 vs 2)

His worries about that new hole in his chest are rapidly replaced with the new one in his head - at least they would be, if FTE's accelerator shot didn't take most of his grey matter with it.

As the last visible target dropped to the roof top, the remaining cloaked insurgents tried to return fire.

(Insurgent Shoot: 1d6x3 vs. 1d8 = 2, 5, 4 vs. 6)

All of their shots went wide - seems that Turai armor and chamakanas aren't as easy to use as the Narsai'i thought. Still, it's pretty much impossible to see the remaining shooters once the plasma trails from their beam rifles fade, aside from the fact that there's three of them left.

"Okay, this is going to sound crazy to you," Hale says, "but we have to charge the building."
"Turai doctrine - they have the best concealment for the cloak with the night sky behind them," Arketta replies. "We take this to sword range, draw them inside. I agree."
"Sounds like my kind of crazy," Ngawai replies.

"You run, I'll shoot," FTE says. "Go now!" It peeks out and fires quick staccato shots at the hostiles on the roof.

Luis gulps, but he trusts his wife's opinion. "Let's go!" He pulls himself up and starts to charge with the rest.

Zaef slings his rifle gladly. "Works for me. Angel, can you cover my approach?"

"Not the first time knife work's sorted this out."

Angel stays in his firing position, nodding once to Zaef. "Just say when and we'll keep them hunkered down."

(Angel suppression: 3d12+1d10 vs. 1d6 = 7 vs. 5
FTE suppression: 3d10 vs. 1d6 = 7 vs. 4

Garrett sneak: 2d8 vs. 1d6 = 8 vs. 4
Ngawai sneak: 1d8 vs. 1d6 = 5 vs. 4

Hale sneak: 2d10 vs. 1d6 = 7 vs. 3

Arketta sneak: 1d8 vs. 1d6 = 1 vs. 4
Luis sneak: 1d8 vs. 1d6 = 3 vs. 5

Zaef parkour (off the second story roof): 2d10 vs. 2d8 = 8 vs. 5
Zaef sneak: 1d10 vs. 1d6 = 10 vs. 6

Insurgents shoot: 3x1d6 vs. 1d8 = 4, 5, 3 vs.

The team starts moving as FTE's first accelerator shots zip through the air. Angel raises his rifle to his shoulder but doesn't bother with the scope, ripping off a dozen shots through the light-amplified sight picture projected through his glasses. Between FTE and Angel, enough hot metal flies through the air that wherever the three remaining shooters are on the roof - if they're even still there at all - they're keeping their heads down. Garrett and Ngawai peel off from behind their respective sides of the archway, Hale busts out of the remains of the door left standing by the spearbomb strike, and Arketta and Luis push themselves up from behind cover, all of them hustling across the flat ground of the marketplace. The only thing visible to any bystanders would be barely-there puffs of dust from the boots of their cloaked armor impacting the ground.

And then there's Zaef. Being on top of a two-story building as he is, he has two options: take the stairs and arrive later than the rest, or jump off the side and figure it out on the way down. Of course, he chose the second option. Rifle slung over his back, he vaulted one-handed over the edge before Angel or anyone else could warn otherwise, falling two meters or so down to the slope of a chimney built into the wall of the building. Zaef slid down that on both feet before leaping off into a front flip and falling the three meters down to the ground below, landing in a shoulder-first roll off a box and cleanly onto his feet, the momentum of the move already putting him at a flat run.

The carts and stalls are still up in the marketplace, and so Arketta and Luis have to bust their way through and hustle under drapings and tarps, which leaves them exposed to hostile fire independent of their armor's cloaking. A few potshots are fired from the roof - low, just over the edge of the roofline and under the suppressing fire - but all of them miss. By the time Luis and Arketta brake through the obstacles and are motoring on to the central office/storage/militia headquarters at the back of the marketplace, everyone else that was doing the 100 meter dash hits the wall.