As Max tears out of the control booth, Hugh gets the negotiator's response.
*Release Homeworlder captive? How? Gate is blocked.*
---
Luis plants a knee on the female prisoner's chest and jabs her in the bicep with the sedative. Amo bolts - not for the elevators, not for Taylor, who's bringing his rifle up, not for the freight elevator doors - he bolts for the Gate, slamming his body into one of the larger server cabinets blocking the alien ring. The cabinet slides off the Gateway with a crash.
(Luis rolls an 8 for syringe, woman gets a 3. Amo's Might roll is a 6 vs. the difficulty, which comes up 2)
The she-Turai swings her numbed arm towards Luis, who easily deflects the attack, then rolls Stanhill off of her. She tries a kick, but she's off-balance from her zip cuffs and the sedative.
(She-Ra tries two attacks, rolls a 1 and a 5 - Luis blocks with a 7)
"Clear the Gate!" Varos' command is clear even though it's in Imperial.
Taylor shoots the crippled man a look before firing a three-round burst at Amo. "Shit!" The shots thud into the corpses blocking the portal.
(Taylor sucks it up and gets a 3, burst and all, which sails wide of its target number of 5 for range)
The fire door to the control booth slams open and Max steps out in full Turai regalia.
---
Upstairs, Semo and Angel clear the immediate area. The security booth is trashed, but it can still engage the heavy security door to the main cross-corridor. Alternately, the door to the interior rooms is wide open. Semo can make out the steady hum of the main server farm.
Unaware of the scuffle below, Hugh radios through the gate again.
Simple. You will redial our gate in 24 hours, at which time it will be briefly unblocked. You will send our man through. After that, we will block it up again. You will not harm our man further in the meantime. Nothing but our man will be sent through the gate. Comply, and we will leave you alone. Break these terms, and there will be war.
Max sets up a shot against the She-Turai, speaking to himself.
"You know, I'd would have liked to just exchange theories of self-sustaining fusion power with you, but right now I'd just like to know if this Whapgun can sever a woman's torso at 20 meters."
*Wrong. You dial beast-world code and send Hethna Varos through. We dial Homeworld and send man in return. You say you have three captives. We have one. You may take first action and still have captives left.
As for war, we are AT war. This only prisoner exchange. Addition - Truthseekers no harm Homeworlder if make you more agree.*
We are willing to return Varos, but your attack damaged our gate. We cannot send anyone through it until it is repaired. We want our man back as soon as possible, so we will work on it without delay. Until the exchange can be made, Varos injuries will be healed to the best of our ability. We will treat him as a honored ambassador of the Jade Imperium. In return, you will also treat our man's wounds and keep him comfortable.
I believe we both know the price of trickery in this matter.
*We both know your Gate not broken. Sunballs burn life, leave tech. Addition - Broken Gate equals we no talk. You take time. Signal us when ready. Threat - do not take too much time.*
*You would have make a good Turai.*
---
In the Pit, She-Ra pummels Luis with a desperate hammer blow that crashes through his guard. Luis sees white for a second but he's had worse from his friends. The woman is clearly feeling the sedative - the only thing keeping her up is rage-fueled adrenaline.
(2 Shock)
---
Semo climbs through the window into the security booth, then slices the pie into the network of security rooms beyond. The communications room is a large, two-tiered room with twin arrays of monitors and a large fallout bunker-esque conference system. The room itself dates back to the original facility, which was a missile bunker. This used to be the lowest floor.
Semo finds the first sign of Mesas Negras victory in the communications room - a mutilated corpse wearing the battered shell of Turai armor is slumped against the entry door. It looks like the man was hit with over ninety rounds, and judging from the lack of damage to the nearby equipment, all within a few seconds. The blood's sticky and starting to congeal. Brass skitters across the floor as Semo clears the room. No hostile contact.
As soon as the connection goes dead, Hugh breathes a huge sigh of relief. The truth is, he had already written off Private Greene as permanently Missing in Action - and secretly hoped that the poor guy was dead and not stuck in an alien gulag. The prospect of getting Greene back relieves him of a huge burden.
Hugh finds that he's now actually quite set to do the exchange, useful intel from the big cheese Other or not. He's never left a man to rot and he's not going to start now.
Coming off a wave of feel-good, he retunes his radio for the gate room.
The alien sword feels good in his hands, reminding Semo of the need to avoid damaging the equipment. The security room window falls away quickly and the big Samoan proceeds into the room. Other than the Pit, this is one of the larger rooms he's visited here in Mesa Negras.
Just inside the door is the body of an armored Turai. Semo looks down on it emotionlessly. The alien appears to have died quickly, despite his armor. At least the personnel here had some success against the invaders.
"Captain," Semo says, activating the comm. "Got one alien body. Room clear."
"We're a little busy down here, Captain. Our two captives decided to try and escape. Mellish is down, the She-Turai is currently fighting Luis....I'm moving in and attempting to take the bitch down without killing Luis or further maiming poor Mellish...Stand by....Yippekayay, Motherfu-..." replies Max, firing at the She-Turai on Luis with the Whapgun.
"Aye aye, Cap'n," Semo replies with just a hint of a smirk, then turns.
"Angel, take your little cat feet and sweep the floor. They'd hear me comin' a mile off, and we don't want that. I'll hold the fort here. Let me know if you encounter any resistance."
Angel simply nods in response to the order and slips off quietly as a summer breeze. This is his element: hunting from the shadows on his home terrain.
Semo watches Angel fade out of sight, then sets himself up where he can cover the entrance to the computer room while retaining some cover. Preferrably, he can find a place where stray shots from either side won't take out the servers.
Luis recovers, shifting his stance right and snapping a low kick in as a feint before trying for a neck seal. She-Ra just staggers a hair out of reach and Luis doesn't get the headlock.
Suddenly there's a whap, a wet pop, and a spray of blood and boiling human grease. The female Turai spins around on useless legs and hits the deck. Max's shot was true - a off-center blast right to the lower back.
She'll live, but she might need a new kidney.
Amo slides a second server cabinet off the Gateway; another crash resounds off the concrete walls.
The Gate glyphs glow blue. There's a whump and a muffled golden flash. There's a Ruben Studdard-size gap in the barricade. Amo looks down through the portal and just stands there.
"Bakata..."
Hugh takes the stairs two and three at a time.
There's a "Fuck you, then" from Taylor. Somehow, everyone hears the sergeant flick his selector to full-auto. Hugh hears the distant echoing staccato of an angry SCAR-H.
Amo gets sprayed across the back. His arms splay out into a pretty good impersonation of Willem Dafoe from Platoon, then he topples forward into the gap he just created.
The Gate lights return to their despondent amber color.
"Sir, prisoners tried to escape. They feigned fighting each other to draw us in. Stanhill and Mellish moved in for prisoner control, and Mellish didn't secure his sword. I was controlling Varos, it happened quick. The male got the sword and the female put up a fight, but Stanhill and Doc got her under control. The male unblocked the Gate, sir. I take responsibility, sir, I missed - but not twice."
Hugh shoots a "This happens when you get lazy" glance at everyone, but saves the lecture.
"Stanhill, treat Mellish, then the woman. Doc, check the gate's 'seal'. Taylor, we're not taking any more chances on our prisoners. Keep Varos seperate from the woman. If she acts up again - shoot her."
He walks over to the female turai, who's whimpering on the ground; he bows down at a safe distance and regards her with a cold stare.
<Just so you know, I negotiated a prisoner exchange with the Imperium. They only wanted Hethna Varos. You and Amo didn't even come up. He's dead now, and you know he never had a chance to make it through the gateway. Do you hear the gunfire above? More of your comrades are dying up there. They will never see home again.
Maybe you should start thinking about the future.>
Admiral Duck Sauce
