Clusterfrag

Doc gives the man a cocky grin,

"We were hired to eliminate a problem. And I think it's safe to say that we intend to complete this contract to the letter. Roman won't be able to hurt anyone anymore."

Max turns dramatically without saying anything more to Heckerman and exits the vault. With urgency in his voice, the elf says,

"We need to get to that substation on the double. Doc-- can you send your drones out ahead of us for some recon?"

"On it," Doc says, making his way to the entrance.

In the control interface for the Fly-Spy, he activates the covert ops program and sends the drone into the archives room upstairs, to take a look around.

"Let's head out the way we came in. I don't want to stumble on anymore traps."

Max moves in agreement, retracing his steps through what's left of city hall.

Doc's fly-spy relays the quick jaunt through the corridors of city hall to the archives room, hovering just outside the doorway to observe two gangers within.

A troll with form-fitty body armor is sitting on a table, cleaning an FN HAR. "Did you check it again?"

His compatriot, a human, sneers over his shoulder. "Yeah, drek-brain. Nobody'll be able to tell there's a tunnel behind this cabinet. Now quit playin' with your little gun and keep watch. Those mercs are bound to be snooping around. Roman said we should hold them off at all costs."

Doc relays the feed to the team.

"Okay, we've got two on guard. Let's get up these stairs as quietly as possible, and get the drop on 'em."

Max moves with all of his stealth up the stairs to the archive, pausing around a corner from the sentries and getting a bead on the situation.

Doc takes position next to Max, and mimes the action of pulling a pin on a grenade, and tossing it. He glances questioningly at Max and Sinjin.

Max shrugs and shakes his head while thinking, 'fat lotta' fraggin' good it'd do.'

Doc suppresses a sigh, and motions Max to trade places with him.

Based on what he saw of the archive room, Doc sets the detonation range on the underbarrel launcher's airburst link to approximately halfway through the room. Making sure that the magazine is still loaded with high-explosive grenades, and that the rest of the team is away from the opening of the door, he sticks the rifle around the doorframe and fires two grenades into the archives.

[ Doc ]
[ Max = 48 ]
[ Tyros = 47 ]
[ Ganger 2 = 36 ]
[ Ganger 1 = 32 ]
[ Sinjin = 28 ]
[ Val = 25 ]
A cloud of smoke and debris erupts from the doorway as the first airburst grenade detonates. The second grenade has a similar effect, followed shortly thereafter by the surprised shouts of the gangers.

Max uses his flexicam to fire two slugs at the troll from around the corner from total cover.

(( 2P DAMAGE! ))

The troll jerks back as Max's slug strikes him. (( 10P DAMAGE! ))

The troll sinks backwards, the light fading from his eyes as he bleeds out.

Tyros starts running as soon as Doc and Max start squeezing triggers. The big, invisible troll takes the corner wide to leave his partners a clear line of fire and launches himself, claymore extended level to the ground to get those few extra inches of reach that might make the difference in beating a triger pull, towards the human ganger.

(( 8P DAMAGE! ))

The invisible claymore slices through the ganger's abdomen, leaving him seriously wounded and painting the rear wall of the records room with his blood.

The ganger staggers backwards, firing a burst blindly to hit whatever it was that struck him.
(( 2P DAMAGE! ))

Tyros flinches as a bullet catches him. Tyros' armor absorbs the impact of the second burst.

(( You're up, Tom! ))

Sinjin seems to have appeared out of nowhere, a shadow in motion. Poised, cat-like, his left leg raises in coordination with his claw like hand. With a remarkable outleash of energy, his foot slams down as his right hand comes down and forward, palm flat out and fingers curled back. The attack streaks towards the wounded troll like a battering ram.

((I'll add Penetrating Strike instead of Critical to bust through this armor))

(( Assuming killing hands. ))
(( 4P DAMAGE! ))

Sinjin's strike lands square on the ganger's nose, forcing the bridge of which backwards into his brain.

The human ganger crumples like a rag doll.

Max steps forward toward the pair of bodies that the team has just created. The elf roils with the satisfaction he seems only to feel when he geeks a troll. The moment isn't a happy one for Max, but it is a pleased moment for him. He walks over and examines the troll's body, standing with a considering but utterly blank look on his face. The hole in the troll's chest suits it. Max spits on the massive corpse and steps into the archive, looking for the tunnel which will presumably lead the team to Roman and the completion of this contract. Max remains wary of traps.

(( 22 gangers dead. 8 to go. ))
Max runs his fingers along the cabinet mentioned by the ganger. They encounter a small switch on the cabinet's backside. Flicking it releases a catch and the whole piece of furniture swings forward to reveal a narrow tunnel.

Max sizes up the entry way and steps through, faintly wondering if Tyros will even fit through the passageway.

Following behind Max, Sinjin enters the tunnel. Switching on his thermo, he scans ahead for heat signatures. The enhanced audio of his earbuds help him listen closely for the sounds of the Skorpions ahead of them. Tweaking the dial slightly, he tunes the filters to amplify only low decibel waves, while compressing down peak frequencies. The last thing he needs is for Marlows report to render him deaf.

Doc sweeps the room again, before ducking into the tunnel. He sends the Fly-Spy to scout ahead of the team.

Reloading the grenade launcher, he whispers,

"Don't think this guy's going to go down without a fight."

Max smirks and says,

"You never know-- maybe if we ask nicely he'll come along quietly."

Doc smirks,

"Are we even going to bother asking nicely?"

Val chuckles quietly.

"Diplomacy is always useful in this line of work. Especially the 'big stick' part."

Max responds to Doc,
"I don't know about you, but I think armor piercing rounds are pretty fraggin' nice."

"Oh come on now. Every chum knows the best introductions are made with a good hand shake." Sinjin says evilly, flexing his fist suggestively.

Max looks warily at Sinjin's bloody, muscular hands and thinks of how many people must have died in them. Suddenly, the elf can't help himself. He should, but he can't.

"Bet you have to be pretty careful when you put the death grip on Chummer Jr..."

After a kilometer or so, the tunnel ends abruptly, feeding into the side of an enormous cylindrical tunnel. It may have served as power and sewage for Seattle at one time or another, but was no doubt sealed off by the inhabitants of Cloud Nine when they declared independence. At the terminus of the tunnel is a large cage housing power equipment. A few lonely Ameribucks float in the inch of collected ground-water on the tunnel floor.

Thermos pick up multiple heat signatures coming from the sub-station, but it's impossible to tell what could be equipment and what could be flesh and blood as the heat patterns radiate and blur together.

Max retreats behind cover and spies the distance carefully as he tries to make heads or tails of what he's seeing in ultrasound.

Doc takes cover, and sweeps the thermo signatures with the rifle's scope.

Following behind the team, Tyros absently reaches up to his neck where the last ganger's bullet grazed his flesh. A half inch to the right and he would have been minus one jugular vain. In the craze of combat, a bullet strikes your armor, grazes your skin or burries itself in your throat, and the difference is just an eyelash. Running a finger along the wound (centering), Tyros wipes away the blood, leaving fresh, unbroken skin behind with not even a scar to show from the close call(heal, f2). At least with his magic, unless the wound is immediately mortal, he has the means to heal most damage. So maybe Tyros is lucky, maybe he gets the width of two eyelashes between life and death; still, it's not much.

Tyros listens intently for the whirring of any electrical equipment, trying to determine if the water pooled on the floor might be carrying current.

(( 2P HEALED! ))