"'Strategically difficult way', Maanan's toenail," the subcommander snapped back at the Jedi Master. The earlier let's-scrape-na'Tatha-along-duracrete-walls incident had shortened her temper considerably. Crawling along in this rathole wasn't helping. "It had better be short. Very short."

_________________


<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Sahrai's smile contained less than humor, this time. Actually, it was more of a grimace. He didn't like being in here, but it was better than slicing through bulkheads all the way. Missions never went as planned--did the Taarin have to be so irritating about it?

Through the Force, her aggravation was obvious, as was the caution, wry amusement, and annoyance he felt from the other members of their infiltration team.

"Right here," Sahrai said, igniting his lightsaber and slicing a hole in the vent underneath him. As the support under him gave way, his stomach suddenly went from being in front of his spinal column to being behind it as the last bits of metal that held him up were sliced through. He did use the Force to slow his fall, though, and that of the grating, so neither hit the ground very hard.

------

Daaron breathed a sigh of relief as he dropped out of the hole Sahrai had cut through the vent, not caring whether or not he hit the ground a little hard. So long as he had room to manuever, he was okay.

Of course, it was typical of Sahrai to open the vent at the back of the line, instead of passing his lightsaber up, which would've meant that nobody had to wiggle backwards with seventy pounds of equipment on their back. Not that it was too hard for a commando, though.

_________________

Ordo wigled backwards, which was only slightly harder than moving forwards in the small vents. The Mando dropped out of the vent, enjoying the freefall sensation while it lasted. When he hit the ground, he motioned for the commando's to secure the hallway that they were in.

"All clear," Ordo said over the comm once all of the commando's had reported in.

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

Viree13 slides along through the vents, slipping between arms and legs and through spaces between people and walls. Acting as a free-floating liquid form, she drops onto the hallway like a teardrop, reforming as she splashes onto the ground....

_________________
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not die, but have everlasting Life. ~John 3:16~





~The Mercenary A-U Gentlewoman~

Sahrai smiled--he could sense guards waiting in ambush at all the likely spots where they would have come out of the vents, and on the other side of the heavy blast doors that they were facing, but all arranged in an ambush formation--they weren't expecting the team to be behind them.

"See if you can scramble the locks so that they can't open the blast doors," Sahrai said to the commandos, still smiling. A minute later, he got signals from them that the doors were effectively closed. Scrambling a door lock so that it couldn't be opened was much easier than trying to open it in the first place.

Then the turbolift doors slid open. Sahrai's smile slid crookedly off of his face as a squad's worth of Maedan guards stepped off of the lift. A squad's worth of big Maedan guards. Very big.

"This is kind of like what you said the enhanced warriors would look like, right?" he asked na'Tatha as he ignited his lightsaber.

------

Daaron spun around as the turbolift doors opened, bringing his blaster to bear on the men stepping out. Almost in tandem, he and his commandos opened fire.

Even as the commandos fired, the guards scattered, returning fire with weapons that weren't as accurate and powerful as the commandos own weapons, but not that far behind.

Daaron grimaced as he ducked behind a support column, noticing how close the blaster bolts came--these guards were definitely more accurate than normal.

_________________

na'Tatha, who had dropped into the corridor with the rest of the commandos, flicked the safety off on her rifle. "I didn't say, Master Faradej. But they are Maedan soldiers."

She spun behind a column as the firing began, and found herself back-to-back with Fahl. Kneeling, she braced herself firmly against the column and centered her crosshairs on the nearest exposed armor-joint of an opponent. Two bullets later, which entered cleanly, the man hadn't faltered.

That was odd. Usually a shot in the knee would have a man writhing on the ground, begging to be put out of his misery. This one was barely limping. She sighed into her comm link. "And yes, they do appear to be enhanced."

Keeping a wary eye out, she flattened herself against the column and changed out the clip in her rifle, opting for duralon-tipped bullets. At least she'd get better armor penetration.

_________________


<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Viree13 stays in a liquid-like form, her body streatching and twisting to avoid the bullets, sometimes even making holes in her for them to go through, the molecules then sliding back together.....

She keeps her hands solid though, holding her twin blaster rifles and firing into the enemy ranks.....

_________________
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not die, but have everlasting Life. ~John 3:16~





~The Mercenary A-U Gentlewoman~

Sahrai shrugged as he slipped into Soresu, the most defensive lightsaber-combat style. He hadn't really expected a negative response, so the affirmative came as no surprise. The incoming bullets from the Maedan soldiers were all intercepted by his fiery lightsaber blade, but because they were bullets, he couldn't deflect them back--he could only vaporize them.

One of the Maedan got close enough for Sahrai to shift into an offensive form momentarily, slashing across the warrior's chest before moving back to vaporizing bullets. The Force gave him a moments warning and he leapt back right before a bullet hissed through the air in front of him. That soldier was wounded, but he should've been in two pieces.

Sahrai grabbed the man with the Force and slung him across the room into several more Maedan guards, sending them all tumbling down into a heap. Several others that should have been taken down too leapt nimbly away. Sahrai cursed.

-----

Daaron finally had the pleasure of seeing his target fall after the sixth blast was pumped into the same spot. "That took too long," he said, priming a grenade. He waited for three seconds and then threw it. It went off in the air, over the men that Sahrai had just thrown down. Too Daaron's dismay, all but one of the guards got back up again.

"This is going to take a long time," he said, his voice conveying the grimace that currently adorned his face.

_________________

Viree13 drops her blasters, seeing as they're not working too well, and draws her lightsaber blade and joins Sahrai, standing beside him and vaporizing bullets. When it doesn't seem to get them very far, she nudges Sahrai. "Cover me, please...."

Stepping behind Sahrai, Viree13 reaches out one hand and curls the fingers into a fist, focusing on the first Maedan gaurd she sees. Using a Force choke-hold, reminiscent of the Dark side, she cuts off his air circulation, since no matter how enhanced you are, one still needs oxygen to live.....

_________________
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not die, but have everlasting Life. ~John 3:16~





~The Mercenary A-U Gentlewoman~

Ordo spun behind the protective cover of a pillar as the turbolife doors began to open. He noted all of the occurences, espically the fact that one of the guards was still alive after Sahrai slashed him with a lightsaber and that the gernade did almost no damage. By that time, he had managed to take down only one target, so he decided to switch the type of ammo he was using. The blaster setting of his rifle was not supposed to fire the lead-cored sniper bolts, but probably could do it for a while.

The Mandalorian commando quickly switched ammo types and resumed firing. He switched over to the private comm frequency of two of the other commandos. "Concentrate fire of this target," Ordo electronically marked of the the farthest foreward Maedan guards.

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

The subcommander felt sweat trickling down her forehead for the first time. They had real problems here. Staying braced against the column, she drew a careful bead on a Maedan guard at midrange, aiming for the emergency seal release on his full-face helmet. It was a tough shot, especially on a moving target.

Breath in, breath out and fire.

She could make a tough shot. The seal snapped with a hiss she couldn't hear, popping the bulletproof faceplate open a centimeter. na'Tatha swiftly nudged her crosshairs into the crack and pulled the trigger once again, ripping a deep gash in the soldier's cheek. Blood sprayed out to cover the inside of the faceplate.

She was trembling, she realized, keeping her crosshairs on his face. Come on, come on...

The guard flipped open his faceplate, needing to see who was targeting him. As the front of his face turned in her direction, she fired again, just before his eye came in line with the muzzle of her sniper's rifle.

And her bullet drilled through his eye into his brain, killing him instantly. No biomedical modification in the world could compensate for a major case of tungsten in the cerebrum. He fell.

_________________


<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Sahrai felt a moment of surprise as Viree used a disturbingly Sith-like Force choke on one of the guards.

"What are you doing?" he shouted over the din of the firefight. Whatever it was, it was hopefully a one-time thing. He certainly didn't want his teammate falling down the path towards the dark side.

More Maedan guards were down now, but that was only around a third of their number, counting the ones that Daaron's commandos had taken out.

-----

Daaron was having difficulties. Several of his squad members had been hit in the joints, where the armor was, necessarily, almost nonexistant. This fight needed to end, and fast.

A bullet ricocheted off of his armor, and Daaron cast a brief glance over his shoulder to make sure that na'Tatha, who was behind him, hadn't been hit by it. That brief glance almost proved fatal--when he glanced back around, a Maedan guard was lunging toward him. Daaron slipped to the side, twisting in a spinning kick that caught the Maedan in the ribs. While Daaron was pretty sure he heard the man grunt, there was almost no other visible effect. This was not going to be good.

Daaron grunted in turn as the Maedan, still on his undeviated course, slammed into him, bearing them both to the floor. He grunted again as his head smacked into the ground, hard, the shock going through even the padding of the headgear. Daaron brought his elbow up into the Maedan's neck, right below the helmet. He heard the man make some undeterminable sound of pain, and then twisted again, trying the gain some leverage on the Maedan. Unfortunately, the guard was equally fast. However--he did have an external faceplate switch. When he could stop blocking the Maedan for a moment, he slapped the switch, and the faceplate opened. A moment later, several rounds from one of his commandos reduced the face to a mostly unrecognisable mass. Daaron closed the faceplate, his stomach churning.

_________________

na'Tatha let out a breath, slowly - then rolled to the side, avoiding the mass of armored bodies that came crashing down beside her - Fahl and an opponent. But the roll carried her out into the open, and stray bullets were flying fast and thick. She scrambled back to cover, and had almost made it when something lanced into her unarmored right shin, shattering the bone - and she couldn't bite back the scream of agony that rose from her throat. Gasping, she managed to pull herself the last half meter behind a control console, before the world started becoming hazy.

_________________


<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Well, since Sahrai's waiting for an answer from Viree, I'll just post as Daaron right now.

Daaron spun as he heard a decidedly female scream--one that he had never heard in a firefight before, which ruled out the few female commandos on the team, who had all been wounded in action before. That left either Viree or na'Tatha. As he completed his turn, he realized it was the latter. The Taarin officer was dragging herself behind a console, her shin trailing a stream of blood behind her. Judging from the pallor of her skin, she wasn't going to stay conscious for much longer.

Daaron ran towards her--an action made decidedly easier by the fact that he wasn't that far away--and dove the last few meters, breathing a silent sigh of relief as he heard bullets pinging off of things behind him.

"Hold still," he said impatiently as he used one of his combat knives to cut away na'Tatha's boot--it obstructed his view of the wound. While it wasn't life-threatening under normal circumstances, it certainly could become so in these ones, because it crippled her, and being crippled in a firefight could be a fatal problem.

Without time to properly treat the wound, Daaron did the best he could. He gave her a pain-reliever before gently laying on a bacta patch and wrapping a handy bandage around it all. Na'Tatha wouldn't be doing anything with that foot for some time, at the least, but at least the pain wouldn't slow her down. Still, she wasn't going to be able to walk on her own.

Daaron poked his head back around the console for a moment and saw that the situation wasn't much better, though one by one the Maedan guards were going down from a combination of Jedi skill and the commandos better weapons and armor.

_________________

Ordo's plan of focusing on one target was working, but na'Tatha's precision shot plan worked better. The Mando made sure to keep his chest perpendicular to the Maedan guards, not allowing them to get a shot into his more venerable sides. He practiced panning from the seal-releases of five of the guards, which was how much ammo was left in his current clip.

He ducked behind the pillar, counted to five, and sucked in a breath. Ordo stuck his upper chest, head, and arms out from behind the pillar and fired five times in rapid succession. Three of the lead-cored energy bolts found their marks, making the faceplates pop up.

The commando grabbed an incendiary grenade from his belt, primed it, and lobbed it blindly down the corridor. It exploded, sending a cloud of white-hot liquid phosphorous into the air. "Don't let it touch your skin, or inhale it," Ordo called over the infiltration team's comm frequency.

The tree guards whose faceplates were open began to scream, inhaling the burning phosphorous. They dropped to their knees and began to claw at their chests. Ordo knew what would happen; the liquid phosphorous would burn through their lungs and other organs and even bone.

The subcommander screamed and Ordo thought that some of the phosphorous had gotten onto her skin or she had inhaled it, but that made no sense as she was farther back than he was. He risked a glance backwards, and it nearly cost him his life as a bullet skipped of the pillar next to his head. He saw na'Tatha's bloodied ankle, but she was across the entire hallway, so Ordo could do nothing for her. However, he could help Daaron get to her, so he pulled out a normal blaster clip and laid down covering fire for Daaron to get over to na'Tatha.

The Mando crouched behind the pillar once again, pulled the regular clip from the blaster, put in the lead-cored sniper bolts, and resumed firing with his teammates.

_________________
Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

Viree13 begins using the other hand as well now, on a different gaurd. Two of them fall, writhing, and then one lies still. Immediately she shifts her focus to another guard, one that seems to be a sniper on the sidelines, the one that shot the subcommander in the leg......

"I'm saving ya'll's ***es...." The second gaurd lies still, and the thrid one falls and is silent too. When the smoke bomb goes off, she leaps backwards, yanking Sahrai with her - since she's behind him, away from the smoke.....

Pulling him behind a pillar with her, Viree13 faces him. "I'm no longer a Jedi, Sahrai.... I can use whatever side of the Force I like.... And right now, this one is working better...." Her eyes look almost sad as she stares into his eyes, and her voice is quiet, just barely able to be heard over the sounds of battle.....

_________________
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not die, but have everlasting Life. ~John 3:16~





~The Mercenary A-U Gentlewoman~