Clusterfrag

Doc lets out a breath.

"Oh, that's not good."

Tyros swears something foul and begins moving towards the door. "For the record, I was in favor of leaving a few minutes ago..."

Pandora's face transforms from her trademark calm and collected expression to one of malevolent malfeasance.

"That's one way of looking at it."

She eyes the hatch at their feet which shudders and begins to retract, revealing a cavernous missile tube.

"Anybody have any rope?"

At the sound of Pandora's interrogatory, Val's gaze snaps down from the retracting roof panels, skips over Pandora, and comes to rest on the opening missile tube.

"Frag me. Not again," he mutters under his breath.

Max gives Val an hearty slap to the shoulder, and says,

"Come on, you've gotta be getting pretty good at this by now, right? Just like fallin' off a log."

The elf rummages in his pack and comes up with his rope, which he hands to Pandora.

Pandora loops the end of the stealth rope around a railing, gives it a mighty tug and--confident in its ability to support her weight, whips a few loops over her right shoulder and hops over the edge.

"Meet you on the bottom!"

The team watches as the lithe phys-ad abseils down the tube with ease, her silhouette illuminated by flickering orange strobes.

Max does a quick pat-down check of his person to make sure that everything is secured well, and shoots Doc a look that is two parts 'frag me' and three parts 'livin' the dream, eh,' neither of which adequately express anybody's sentiments at the thought of descending into a fathomless black hole. Max crouches next to the line, now slack having given up the burden of Pandora's weight. Max wraps the rope around his right arm in a loose corkscrew that will pull tight should his grip fail him, and begins his descent with a dramatic *HUFF*

Max kicks off from the rim of the tube and follows Pandora down at blinding speed. As he catches up with the femme fatale, he can't help but notice the thirty meter tall missile nesting in a bed of rocket fuel vapors behind his head.

An authoritative voice echoes around the launch tube, seeming to bounce off every metallic surface.

"Launch sequence initiated. Primary ignition in 5 minutes."

"Oh frag," Max mumbles to himself. Turning then to shout back up the silo, his voice booms back up the shaft, "CAN SOMEBODY WHO HAS A CHANCE AT DEACTIVATING THIS FRAGGIN' THING GET DOWN HERE?!" But Max doesn't wait, he frantically begins looking for a control room, or anything that might disable the missile from launching into god-only-knows what horrors beyond.

Adams snaps back to the present at the sound of the disembodied announcer.

"On my way!" He shouts down, grabbing the rope, and jumping into the hole.

Doc follows close behind Max, engaging in a backwards run along the vertical surface of the tube's wall while letting out lengths of rope.

The invisible troll swears again, thick Scottish brogue taking over and rendering his words mostly incomprehensible.

"Hold on!"

With a flick of his wrist (centering), Tyros, Sinjin and Val, lift off the ground and hover in empty space above the missile tube (levitate, f3). Suddenly, whatever was holding them up stops and the three runners free fall down the shaft. With timing that borders on reckless, Tyros' magic reengages, stopping the fall about a meter from the ground before gently lowering the team the last few feet.

A very relieved Val lands boots-first on the steel platform near the base of the rocket. Doubly relieved that he is wearing his helmet, as the trio are now fully engulfed in fuel vapor.

Pandora pulls the Legion helmet over her face as she nears the bottom.

"Complete disregard for personal welfare. This is exactly how I remember it."

The missile is an Ares model, constructed recently as made obvious by the finish on the thermal tiles. It towers 20 meters above the runners and measures roughly 2 meters in circumference. The only obvious exit from the platform that the team is on is a reinforced, airlock-style door at one end of the circular platform.

"Primary ignition in four minutes and thirty seconds."

Having been saved from myriad possible (or rather probable) injuries, Val nods his fervent thanks to Tyros and stalks off toward the airlock door. With no time to waste, he examines the airlocks security mechanisms.

Val's gaze sweeps over the behemoth door, outlined in hazard markings.
He's done enough reading to know that any door connected to the silo will be sealed when the countdown engages. No wireless access will be available from the launch side, as it might interfere with the equipment on the missile itself. Short of battering the door down, which is an unlikely prospect, there should be a fail-safe located somewhere nearby in case anyone is trapped in the tube during said event.

Adams looks over the rocket, and tries to determine two things: what payload it could be carrying, and how to mechanically disable it. He glances over the lower hull for an access panel.

Doc can conclude that given the type of missile and lack of an obvious warhead, that the missile must be containing a biological or chemical agent that will be deployed shortly before the missile impacts. His knowledge of all things military does not extend far enough to manually disarm it.

Tyros searches around frantically trying to find whatever catch will open the door.

(( Not without power tools. Plus, without the requisite knowledge, a glitch would mean blowing everyone up. ))
Tyros stares at the cylindrical launch tube wall but is unable to locate any sort of mechanism.

Max joins Val at the hatch that he'd somehow apparently missed in thirty seconds worth of searching for it, collects himself as best he can, and tries to deduce what kind of failsafe might be in place to open the door.

Max quickly locates a control panel, but the lever appears to have broken off some time ago.

Adams moves over to where Val and Max are huddled, and takes a look at their discovery.

"Don't think I can stop the rocket. Val, any magic you can work?" he asks, setting his pack down.

He removes the mechanic's toolkit, and starts sorting through the tools, looking for something that could manipulate the missing lever mechanism.

(( Looking to do something along the lines of attaching vice grips to the broken nub of the lever, if there is one. Otherwise do an engineering test to see if he can come up with anything clever? ))

Doc stabs a pair of shims in the recesses of the control panel and manipulates them with a wrench, jamming upwards until he hits the catch. The airlock door's round door handle spins as the seal depressurizes.

Knowing that either of the two men beside him are the team's best chance at deactivating the launch, Max ushers both of them through the hatch ahead of him, and follows closely behind.

Doc makes it to the door, and pulls it open.

"There might be an emergency override inside!" He says, surveying what lies beyond the door.

Beyond the airlock door is a large control room, containing several tiered rows of matrix workstations and a video screen at the bottom. The countdown is represented by large holographic numbers hanging in the air above the workstations. A central control panel rests at the center of the room, in front of the video screen. There are two exits facing one another on the opposite side of the room.

"Primary ignition in four minutes."

Max glances briefly at the central console in the room and fights off the urge to run to it. No matter how strong the impulse to try to take control of the situation, the elf realizes that there's little he can do here; his life is in the hands of his friends. Max instead draws Marlowe, checking the load of ammunition, and runs toward the exits on the far side of the room and checks their flank.

The team surges into the control room, and--simultaneously--a Legion squad pours from the opposite exit. There's just enough reaction time for both parties to dive for cover; Firestarter behind the top tier of matrix workstations and Legion behind the video screen and a stone's throw from the central command console.

[ Max = 47 ]
[ Legion Rifleman B (LRB) = 46 ]
[ Legion PhysAd (LP) = 46 ]
[ Legion Rifleman A (LRA) = 45 ]
[ Sinjin = 44 ]
[ Doc = 43 ]
[ Val = 43 ]
[ Legion Heavy (LH) = 37 ]
[ Legion Hermetic (LHe) = 34 ]
[ Pandora = 26 ]
[ Tyros = 24 ]

Max's view of the battlefield slows almost to a pause; he feels like he could dodge bullets if need be. It's as if the incoming hostiles illuminate against the drab and dreary background of the silo control room. The glows of various consoles dim into the background as the elf's enemies stand out against it in relief so stark in Max's eyes that it's almost artistic. Perhaps what's about to come is artistic. Each bullet that crashes onward into its new fleshy home is the beat of an orchestral drum-- each profanity issued in half-aware combat high a master brush stroke-- each body that falls to its final rest a perfect metaphor (and not a trace of purple prose in its delivery). But that's all too indulgent-- too decadent. All that's about to happen here is grotesque; there is no poetry to it.

Max's eyes dance across the enemies before him in the course of a humming bird's heartbeat. The goons with guns are quick on the draw, and apt to get the drop on anybody in the room. The one with the tattoos wrapping up his cheeks and around his eyes behind his visor-- clearly a magic user-- is not so immediate a threat. The walking tank bringing up the rear is still raising his weapon and, while terrifying for his size, poses less immediate threat. In the wisp of a moment separating his bullets from those of his aggressors, Max settles almost unconsciously on his target. As terrifying as a big gun is, nothing replaces the primitive, visceral horror of seeing a berserk man charging at you with his bare hands contorted into claws, tense and shaking for their anticipation and strength. Max draws Marlowe the extra inch toward their foil team's Sinjin and fires a short burst of three slugs at the aggressor.

As far as foil groups go, it sure would be nice if this one had a member whose Great Uncle Geoffrey had come to his final ill inside a silo inside a facility built into a cave.

As usual, combat begins with the bombastic triple-threat of Marlowe's payload. The initial burst punctures the video screen and lightly grazes the Legion's physical adept.

[ 4P DAMAGE ]

A smattering of crimson decorates the video screen as Max manages to land a solid hit with his second shot.