“Get your ass up those stairs Faust, we’re almost out of time!”
Lux placed a hand on the security officer’s right cheek and pushed him forward impatiently as they scaled a staircase leading to the top of the desired curtain wall. Their guide bringing up the rear of the group appearing to have a harder time than her associates but still doing her best to give direction between labored breaths.
“Once you get to the top -- make a -- right. We’ll take a -- shortcut over one of the – walkways.”
“Don’t you dare make me change your nickname Legs, keep up! And you’d better not be sending us in the wrong. direction again!”
The two officers reached the top of the stairs and waited a moment for the raider to catch up, using the opportunity to recoup some breath themselves. Though Lux’s lack of wind may have had more to do with all the shouting that had started when they’d gotten turned around in the underground tunnels.
“Don’t forget, if not for that wrong turn -- we never would have discovered -- that charges had been set -- under the castle...!”
Systematically as well. Whoever’d set the explosives had set them at what could be considered the edge of each charge’s blast radius. Ensuring that even a single detonation would set off a chain reaction and affect as wide an area as possible. They’d also been placed at the very top of each tunnel making them nigh impossible to defuse without a ladder or some other means of ascension.
“So much for that theory about setting up shop in this region...”
That comment earned a look of confusion from Emica as she caught up with the two at the front of the aforementioned walkway. Where she noted that they’d both shifted their rifles back into their hands prior to crossing. Probably because unlike down in the dark tunnels they could be spotted and engaged from afar. It made the raider wish she’d been able to recover her own weapons prior undertaking this guide job. Alas it would seem her motives were still under suspicion.
“What gives? I figured your buddies would be littering the walkways by now.”
“They wouldn’t hold off on boarding until this close to the exit gate. Better to take their chances early and maximize the amount of time on the Crusader. Don’t expect the room with the gate controls to be so forgiving.”
The trio hustled their way across the raised walkway, not sparing so much as a glance at the convoy as it neared their current position. Already fully aware of how close they’d be cutting it.
“Left! They’ll be a non-descript water chute we should be able to slide down coming up!”
“Sounds like fun, should save some time as well! How are we still ahead of the convoy anyway?!”
Considering where they’d been dropped off and the mishap in the tunnels the notion that the group was still on pace to succeed in their mission baffled the blonde security officer. She imagined Faust had reached a similar conclusion but stayed silent as was his default. No sense in questioning good fortune. Emica happily supplied her take on the phenomenom.
“It’s long been said that limestone is an ‘assisting stone,’ who’s to say what happens when you pass through its walls with a definitive purpose in your heart and mind!”
“That’s cute and all, but how does it fair against explosions? Maybe someone ought to double back and put in a request!”
“Do try to be more subtle about getting rid of me, we still have a deal in place in case you’ve forgotten! Besides all sorts of crazy shit goes on both above and below this region!”
On the heels of the girl’s banter Faust arrived at the location of the supposed chute and poked a head down it’s maw. A somewhat awkward feat given its spot around waist high on the side of the castle’s drum tower. It was also a bit more cramped than he would have liked. Not unlike the space they’d crawled through at the beginning of this endeavor. Though this opening was obviously more uniform having been designed to serve a purpose. An alarming level of detail on the builder’s part given this entire structure was meant to serve as a proof of concept rather than serve its practical purpose of being lived in.
“Wait, that’s the chute?! I’m not sure the two of us will fit let alone our Pipe Down aficionado over here!”
Even Emica would admit the dimensions of the chute weren’t quite what she remembered, but even still she refused to back down from this plan. Evident by the way she placed both hands on her hips and assumed a mocking tone.
“What, claustrophobic all of sudden? Just discard some layers and we’ll manage just fine. He can take the stairs and meet us down there.”
Lux made to argue further but Faust recognizing how limited their options had become interjected.
“Even if the chute were larger, it would only aggravate my shoulder injury. Which would spell trouble when it comes time to force our way out of here. I’ll take your jackets and whatever else you need to remove with me, so let’s get a move on.”
With two votes in favor of the chute staring the blonde down, she huffed and wordlessly shed her short jacket. Tossing it over at Faust like one would a coatrack. The drop pouch went next, but not before she retrieved a pair of ammo mags and stuffed them in her waistband. All the while her female counterpart removed her own jacket and choker. The latter having what appeared to be an organic gem of some sort embedded in its fabric. Both women then proceeded towards the opening as Faust secured their belongings.
“Woah there.”
Lux extended a toned arm to stop the raider from getting ahead of her.
“I’m going first. This whole water chute business might be a trap after all.”
She tucked her rifle against her chest vertically and positioned to go down feet first. Meanwhile Emica rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, unimpressed by the accusation.
“Just know that you won’t emerge directly into the gate room. This chute leads to a room adjacent to it. We can only hope the guards didn’t move over to investigate after all your yammering.”
Lux’s only retort was to flash the finger as she relaxed her core, commencing the roughly forty-five-degree angle trip to the bottom. Regardless of whether she’d be able to react in any worthwhile way the sharpshooter strained both ears for signs of voices or movement coming from the other end of the chute. And while nothing stood out to her as a warrant for concern, Lux’s finger still sought the comfort of her rifle’s trigger as she emerged on the other side.
Good thing to, as her surprise entrance was met by the befuddled look of a Cloud Nine member dividing her attention between the two rooms from the threshold of the door connecting the two. Suspecting the party member had comrades in the vicinity Lux shot forward as soon as both feet touched down, launching herself into the woman’s solar plexus elbow first. They immediately doubled over in response, clutching their abdomen and struggling to form words of warning to the others around the corner. A follow up back kick relieved them of their firearm and sent it skidding deeper into the room she’d entered from. The expectation being that her backup would retrieve it and put it towards a use that didn’t involve a bullet in the back of her head.
A snap decision deserving of criticism given the words she’d just delivered about the chute being a potential trap. But what other choice did she have? Couldn’t exactly render the firearm inoperable by elbowing it in the solar plexus. With any luck Legs would misinterpret the sudden gift as a show of faith and feel a need to answer that trust. In the meantime Lux would try to make some headway into the room. And like any good start to a surprise attack, she began with a combat roll into hostile territory.
“Light her up!”
Oh fuck...
Lux immediately retreated back over the threshold by utilizing a backwards roll, trying her best to remain grounded as bullets peppered her wake as she fled the room. It didn’t take her long to recover from the near disaster however and she just as quickly posted up just off to the side of the doorway of what had become a hotbox. Sharing the wall and getting a feel for the firearm confiscated from the downed party member was Emica, looking cool as a cucumber. The tall woman glanced down at the grumpy blonde before teasing her.
“Think they know we’re here?”
Lux grimaced as shots continued to chip away at the edges of the stone opening beside them.
“Mhmm. No choice but to wait for Faust to give us an opening. Unless you think you can convince them that your still on their side.”
“What makes you so certain I’m not?”
The security officer tapped the side of her neck.
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“Something about the choker you entrusted to our third wheel up there wasn’t sitting right with me. And though you’d have no way of knowing this, I do some of my best thinking when my life is in imminent danger. So getting shot at just now actually helped me work out what that something is. The gem adorning that choker...
Lux tilted her head in the woman’s direction, revealing a sober expression.
Isn’t really a gem is it?”
Emica’s eye twitched involuntarily as her pointer finger began to trace the trigger of her weapon.
“Though I seriously can’t fathom how someone would have slipped something like that to you out here. Tell me, was the real reason you pointed us towards that chute because you intended to make one of us your mule.”
“...”
“I must admit, it’s a relief to have some insight on your true intentions. It’s hard to believe someone would flip allegiances based on a half-hearted promise like mine after all. Ah, I still mean to keep that promise by the way. In fact this little development might end up working in your favor in that regard.”
The former Cloud Nine member eased off the trigger and pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh. Both women also took this opportunity to note that the gunfire had come to a halt, suggesting the party members had likely taken to advancing on their position. At least this meant none of them were carrying grenades or other such projectiles that could have flushed them out.
“Of course you’re a member of the CoM, I should’ve noticed sooner.”
“Don’t give me too much credit, not like I’m privy to whatever the fuck you’ve got going on here. I just happened to recognize a few tells and connected the dots.”
“I’m sure. And just how many of my former colleagues are we contending with?”
Lux dropped back into a crouch and shuffled closer to the doorway, taking care to maintain a sliver of cover.
“Three initially, but I think one fled for backup when the other two tried tearing me a new—”
“Smoke!”
“Sounds like our cue!”
Without a lick of hesitation Emica sprinted around the blonde and into the adjoining room just as a dark smoke began to crawl its way across the threshold. A few shots rang out in response but were soon replaced by sounds of struggle. Lux sprang up in a mix of surprise and irritation.
“Oi!”
She moved up into the doorway and tried to see into the room being shrouded in a fresh fog of smoke. Fortunately the types of cannisters Faust had employed weren’t filled with your run of the mill stuff. It would be more apt to think of it as a smoke substitute whose main function was to create a dense cover over a fixed area. The cloud itself being more akin to water vapor that had been artificially dyed a dark hue. As a result the clouds wouldn’t persist for more than a minute at most. But when it came to tight spaces like the room they were in, or the corridor of a Crusader, that was more than enough time to make a move. In the case of how quickly it had filled the control room the taciturn security officer had likely emptied his supply all at once.
“Don’t blame me if I shoot you on accident!”
Lux stepped her way into the haze with her rifle in a ready fire position, but chose to skirt the edges of the room counterclockwise in lieu of storming the center. An approach meant to air on the side of caution in anticipation of possible backup from the castle garrison. Who knew how many party members would be waiting when the cloud dissipated. And Legs wasn’t giving her anything to work with in terms of information on numbers or positions. Not unless there was some hidden code mixed into the sounds of combat she could hear. So Lux settled on continuing her steady circumnavigation of the control room while keeping her rifle pointed its center.
Admittedly it took a surprising number of steps before for her shoulders finally came into contact with the adjacent wall, leading the officer to question the layout of the room she’d hardly glimpsed before the nozzle of several firearms had flooded her vision. The nature of the current predicament hadn’t changed much in that regard. In fact things now might be worse since there was no telling who was pointing what where. And she could hardly distinguish between the forms dancing through the smoke in front of her.
Were it not for the size and make of the stone room most of the occupants would have already fled the cloud and sought the edges. From there they could seek out the door and remove themselves until the irksome conditions passed. In Lux’s case she wanted to find and seal the door, help buy some time for getting the exit gate open. After Faust joined them inside that is.
Where the hell is Faust anyway?! He should have entered the space as soon as the cannisters blew...
Those thoughts were promptly interrupted by the sudden appearance of a body falling prone at her feet, only to be dragged back in the direction their silhouette had originated in. Which also happened to be where the smoke remained densest. Lux sucked in a lungful of dyed vapor.
“Faust...!?”
Right on schedule the smoke cleared almost all at once, revealing their raider cohort stood over a pair of unconscious party members. Not unscathed however as she had a busted lip and the onset of a black eye for her troubles. Meanwhile to her immediate right the doorway had materialized and with it Faust who was currently dragging a third Cloud Nine member inside from their torso. Lux wordlessly let him past before slamming the door behind them.
“Great job team, now let’s get that fucking gate open.”
“Bit slow on the draw there blondie.”
Emica spat a small amount of residual blood from her busted lip onto the ground.
“Saving yourself for something?”
Lux ignored the woman as she slung her rifle over her shoulder and treaded over to what could only be the contraption responsible for controlling the exit doors. Essentially a turnstile gate made of wood, surrounded by an assortment of other minutiae she couldn’t be bothered to identify. Weaving past the unknown components she did a few arm and shoulder stretches before settling in front of the apparatus. Putting both hands on the wooden bar she eyed the raider from her peripheral.
“You must be the type of person who can open their eyes underwater like it’s no big deal, navigating through a smoke cloud like that. I don’t have that power and probably would have given you more than just a shiner or a busted lip had I dived in ready to throw down.”
“As if I’d let a brat like you get the better of me.”
“Can’t hear you, too busy saving the day.”
Lux began applying pressure to the turnstile and although they couldn’t see it the three could definitely hear something happening beneath their feet. Cloud Nine’s Demens having likely taken advantage of the system beneath the castle to conceal the inner workings. But no sooner had progress begun to be made a loud crack came from the direction of the door. It occurred to the group then that leaving the door ajar may have been preferrable. Then at least they’d have had some foresight regarding when reinforcements from Cloud Nine would arrive. The lack of windows in the tower making it impossible to discern otherwise.
“Someone want to answer that, I’m a little busy...!”
Both Faust and Emica took up positions on either side of the door whose hinges sounded like they’d seen better days. The former Cloud Nine member also kept an eye on the door leading to the adjacent room, the place they’d entered from. After all it wouldn’t be outrageous for others to employ the chute method now that there was a proof of concept. But it was the words they heard from the other side of the door that forced the infiltration team to reconsider the viability in holding this tower.
“Split up! You lot go and destroy the gate mechanism from the other end! The rest of you with me!”
Crap, the three of us aren’t enough to hold this room and stop them from sabotaging the exit gate!
Emica looked over at the male security officer to make sure they were on the same page but found herself distracted by the blood seeping through the uniform of the quiet man’s shoulder. A sight that made her question whether he’d been shot in the smoke skirmish until she realized his current top wasn’t torn or shredded in the area of the injury.
A wound from a visit earlier in the day then...
Which meant they couldn’t send him to handle that other group. Moving would only increase the rate of blood loss and put his life at risk. The state of his shoulder also meant he wouldn’t be able to budge the turnstile. Meaning his role was all but set in stone. What they needed to figure out was who would go after the group that had just left.
The obvious choice would be her, what with the girl already making headway with the turnstile. The two Federation crewmen would also be able to work and trust one another more seamlessly assuming they had a work history. Factor in Emica’s knowledge of the exit gate’s location relative to the tower they were in and it wasn’t much of debate. The abundance of limestone columns in this section of the ward making it very easy to get turned around.
“Blondie!”
“That’s Lux to you bitch!”
Even after only spending the better part of an afternoon together, Emica had grown quite accustomed to the girl’s colorful vocabulary. But being called a bitch in light of her most recent contributions struck her as a bit excessive. Rather than take it personally the woman deduced that the stress of situation had come to wear on the security officer’s nerves more than she’d let on. So she brushed it off and ran with it.
“Yeah well, this bitch is about to tell you how to reach the exit gate from here so listen up!”
Faust perked up as well, though the increasingly pallid tone of his face suggested his focus was fading alongside his faculties.
“As soon as you're out the door bang a left at the destroyed remains of an old column. From there it’s a short distance to an intact one with an unbelievable circumference. But as you get closer you’ll find that it’s actually two separate columns situated right alongside each other. The gate will be roughly twelve meters north of the direction you’ll be facing when that distinction becomes obvious.”
Emica’s closing instructions coincided with Lux’s final heave of the turnstile into its open position. Theoretically this should mean the doors to the exit gate had followed suit. Assuming this to be true the nature of the problem would then shift to keeping them that way until all three Crusaders passed through. As they were the type that opened inwards, simply ramming the unlocked doors at a cruising speed wouldn’t necessarily be enough to break them down. And a Crusader wedged against the exit gate would spell a definite end to this Galen Run and the food production of Mennarouple by extension.
Lux flipped the headset she’d been neglecting to the woman as she reattached her drop pouch.
“Have Wash park the Crusader behind that two-in-one column you mentioned.”
She proceeded to shake out both arms in an effort to relieve her muscles of the built-up lactic acid. Her rifle finding its way back into her arms.
“Stopping directly in front of the exit gate is a bad idea since it would leave both decks vulnerable to assaults from the top of the curtain wall.”
Emica nodded as she donned a headset for the first time.
“I’ll see you onboard. With any luck most of the guys outside will give chase when I make my mad dash.”
The former party member positioned herself a few steps away from the door and bounced on the balls of her feet to psych herself up.
“You will. Just try and live up to the nickname I’ve given you.”
The woman smirked as one of the hinges blew off the door.
“Oh yeah, which one?”
Lux winked at her.
“Don’t take it too personally. That term of endearment is reserved for gals who’ve grown on me.”
“Glad to hear it!”
With the sound of the door striking the floor as the gun, Emica took off into a sprint that culminated in a hurdle through the doorway. The collection of Cloud Nine members outside could only watch on in surprise as their comrade turned supposed hostage parted the group with her leap, jubilation decorating her features. Among the confused spectators, Cloud Nine’s current party leader Logan Hite. His eyes trailed after their MIA Vult instinctively as he tried to discern her intentions before experience beckoned him to return his attention back towards the entrance of the control room. Which he now found to be occupied by a Federation security officer with a glint in her eye that rivaled Emica’s own.
“Sorry, we’re not accepting applications for a new hostage...”
She raised her rifle.