SC - Fugitives

[Keira Kelly]

Ava gave a mental shrug in response. It was true she knew little about supporting craft for cruisers. A ghost's general knowledge of units was usually kept to what they might encounter on a battlefield from a perspective of the ground level operatives that they were. 'Maybe they have some craft, but... they still do need more fighters, more Wraiths. Even back on Redstone I, more Wraiths could have made a big difference in that final fight...' she reminded. Miranda's continued comment brought an interested sound from Ava. She hadn't even thought that there might be Wraith or other craft on the crashed battlecruiser. Chances were that any there would be damaged through momentum of the carrier's impact, but.. that didn't mean they weren't salvageable and fixable.

The ghost smiled, giving a nod to Miranda at that, happy that what they were doing could be of that much of a benefit to the mercenary unit. Though they had only fought with them for a very, very short time... the Irregulars were just about Nick's family and Ava felt and took on at least some of his loyalty towards them. Plus they were soldiers, just as she was. Though her own life experiences were far more limited than anyone in the unit, they could all at least understand each other when it came to combat, to being soldiers. It was a shared trait, one of the few things that Ava COULD share with others who had led more normal lives. And they could more easily understand the things SHE had had to do in her life as well.

Nick was sort of surprised at Sid's request. He had been meaning to stop by the old bike squad.. at some point, but he had figured that it would have been during transit that he would have had time to visit. He glanced over at Ava, sort of concerned.. wondering if he should invite her along or not. The other Vulture bikers could be... rowdy, would be one way to put it. Most were young men, his own age or even a bit younger.. without ties and wayyy too much energy for their own good. "Yeah, I'll stop by and hit them up right after we are done here." he agreed. He turned to Ava, talking quietly as Sid began to answer Miranda's question about the Dominion. "Maybe you want to go back with Miranda?" he asked.

Ava frowned. "Embarrassed to introduce me to your friends?" she asked.

Nick sighed. "Might be the other way around..." he admitted. "If you really want to meet them though.. well, I warned you..." he added with a chuckle.

Ava smiled then turned her focus back to what Sid was saying. 'So no Dominion here at all.... If we want to turn people against the Dominion, we could start off here... Give a few pushes in the right areas... Try to net us more people to our cause?' she sent to Miranda. 'After the salvage operation, of course... ' After they were done talking, Ava and Nick bid Miranda goodbye. They would meet up again in a few hours on the Irregular's battlecruiser. For now though, there were some social concessions and a hint of logistics to go over first. And some questions, apparently. As soon as Miranda's vehicle was in the distance, Sid turned to Ava.

"So you really are a..." he began.

Ava cut him off with a nod. "Yep." she said simply. She really didn't like throwing that word around in places others might hear.

"And you can read my mind?"

Ava gave a lopsided smile. That really was the most common question about Psionics it seemed. Usually she didn't like to admit the limitations of the telepathy portion but... this was Sid. He probably should know, in case it was needed during the operation. "I can.. read, even... see? thoughts at the forefront of your mind, while you are thinking about them. I can't go digging around in your brain but.. when you are thinking about in the moment, yep." she explained.

She could already feel that he felt that an invasion of privacy and kind of resented it. She sighed. "Look... from your perspective, a way you can relate to: it's basically like having people all around you talking. You can walk through them all, mostly.. without picking up the details cause it all... blends together. But if you tune in, you can pick one conversation out of the rest... But generally you'd only do that if something attracted your attention, or it was someone you knew, or if there wasn't many people about, right? It's the same way for me and the telepathy..." she explained. "I try not to pull things from people's minds when it's not warranted. But... some thoughts tend to be too loud to tune out sometimes too.."

Sid finally nodded. "Okay, I get it. I can imagine how damn useful it could be at times too.. It's no wonder they hire you like they do..."

Nick could see Ava react to that and jumped in, moving closer and putting a hand to her shoulders to anchor her as he answered Sid. "They don't."

"They don't what?"

Ava answered this one. "Hire. They took me when I was about a year old. I never got paid for it. I just.. was trained... and expected to serve."

Sid frowned, thinking about it for a minute. "The Confederacy, right? What about the Dominion? And what about your parents?"

Ava shrugged. "Nothing changed. When Tarsonis fell, we changed base of operations but.. method?" She shook her head. "Nothing changed. The Confederacy, the Dominion. It's all the same. And as for parents... I've been told my mother died in the incident that led to me being taken.. and that my father died shortly after." she added with a shrug. "I was never given a choice in any of it."

Sid scratched at his head. "I knew there was a good reason I never really trusted any of those bastards." he muttered. He frowned again, starting to look worried. "Ghosts don't defect, though..." He was glancing over to Nick, hoping that the young man had good reason to trust this ghost, who might very well be a Dominion operative.

"This one did." Ava answered. "Idunn got me out of there, removed the control chip in my brain... she saved my life. The Dominion would have killed me because I was deemed 'unsalvageable' at the time. They had no more use for me and I was merely a trained pawn for them... one who had no worth without proper control, so no, I don't owe them anything... except maybe a bullet between the eyes of a few of them." she added, her anger seeping through. She grabbed control of it though before she could even come close to losing control.

Sid grunted finally, acknowledging it all, accepting her word. He had seen her anger about it, and he trusted Nick's judgment. The young man had spent far more time with this woman and... it seemed that she had likely related her whole story to him. He nodded. "Well, it's good to be working with you again, Skadi. Think you two have a meeting to make with the other Vulture pilots now." he said before moving off to begin seeing to the movement of equipment and personnel.

Nick began to lead Ava then towards where the Vulture pilots would be and soon enough, they arrived. There were several young men lounging around. As they approached, the young men noticed Nick and quickly swarmed in, some with insulting but good-natured comments about being abandoned, some with insulting names for him that were given in a sort of kindness. It was quite a confusing contrast for Ava. This was how.. other soldiers acted? They seemed to bond through insults? Very odd, she thought as she kept back just a bit, almost shyly.

One of the young men gave a wolf-whistle. "Man, someone was saying you left us for a girl... but that cant' be her. This one is too good looking for the likes of you!" he hollered in laughter, the others joining in.

Ava almost backed away as the focus turned towards her, the obvious interest of the other young men being near to overwhelming. Nick moved over to her now, standing with her almost protectively as he glowered at the other men. "Guys... I know you are a bunch of morons, but can you at least pretend to know how to be polite to my girlfriend?"

This was greeting by some 'whoas' and more laughter, and even a few derisive comments that were obviously out of jealousy, but the others did tone it down a bit. "Speaking of politeness, you going to introduce her already?"

Nick sighed. "Guys, this is..."

Ava cut him off with a elbow to the ribs, just enough that it got his attention. He had been about to use her real name. She took a step forward. "I'm Skadi." she spoke up, holding her head high, confidently. Acting meek amongst a pack of young males like this only would invite being chased.

There was some joking about her name but one of the men hushed the others, looking over at Nick and Ava. "Not the same Skadi from Redstone?" he asked. Both Nick and Ava nodded, prompting the man to make an impressed whistle this time. "Lady, your recruitment scores are something of a legend around here..." He turned to the others. "She's the one they were talking about at the last recruitment here..." he told the others.

Another one came up a bit closer, studying Ava in disbelief, then turned to Nick. "Wait, wait, wait... You bagged the highest scoring shooter that we've ever seen in a recruitment session?" He looked at Ava again. "And how the hell are YOU the highest scoring shooter?" He was obviously doubting that it was really her from the story that the recruiters had been talking about.

Ava smiled, cocking her head at the man. "You want to see?" she challenged. "Let's go find the shooting range and I'll show you what I can do. Maybe we can even make this a competition... See if you can outshoot me.." The challenge was quickly taken up and soon enough they were at the shooting range. Vulture pilots were not usually the best of shots but.. most of them figured they were young men competing against a girl... One of them eventually taunted the competition into being the loser of each round having to remove an article of clothing, the loser being the first one in their underwear. When it was done, Ava still had everything including her coat, while the young man who had challenged her was left in the cool air in only his boxers. Nick hadn't feared Ava losing one bit, and in the end, she had gained the respect of the rest of the Vulture pilots.

( We can jump to Ava and Nick arriving on the battlecruiser and meeting up with Miranda if you want, or skipping right to getting ready to disembark so we can go and scout the system with the crashed cruiser. I don't really have much in mind to do in transit but if you can think of something, go for it XD )

[rivaan]

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Days Later - Planetary Debry Belt
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It's been a while since they departed from Pridewater. The journey with the Irregulars was as pleasant as last time. Having some of the new faces was awkward since they were aware of what happened to the last group of people whom they were replacing, but overall the morale was high this time around. The crew was bolstered by quite a few new people, their number growing quite a bit. They had new tech and gear avaible. The ship that until now never had a proper fighter escort now had a wing of fighters even if they weren't wraiths. All was good in the world! What's more if the lead paid out and they could salvage that ship, they could gain even more strenght. With proper shields and weaponry, even an old BC like this could put up a fight against the newer ones, though it wouldn't be a fair fight.

"Alright, we are within the vicinity of location in question." Sid's voice came over the comms as Miranda was doing pre flight checks." We will hold here, you all perform a short range jump forward and begin with the plan of scouting out the debry field."

After all the BC wouldn't hold right now on a proper space battle if a Protoss flight group showed up. Thus the plan was to leave the BC behind at first, scount everything and confirm if the enemy had heavy air support. Should air support be managable or lacking, the Irregulars could move in to provide air to ground firepower and bombardment against fortified positions.

Miranda was already in her black CMC armor.Alexander had gotten even better at painting and with a little bit of help from herself they departed, the armor's paint was indeed like brand new. What's more the golden colored engraving in the right shoulder of an apple was nicely distinguisable. She didn't have a red cross on the shoulder this time around. She was going to not put one until she gets proper CMC medic tools. IT would confuse people right now.

In any case, she was armed and Nick and Ava were geared up as well. Because of the nature of the mission, Miranda had agreed that they would be acompained by 2 of Sid's most trusted people. Two marines to provide firepower and covering fire should it's required. Miranda had heard their names in passing but didn't remember them to heart. They were trusty enough however. Sadly they weren't the women whom Miranda had gotten friendly with back when they joined the Irregulars for the first time. Those old soldiers were all given rookies to be responsible off so htey couldn't be here.

"Roger that, Sid. We are heading off. Please cut all transmisions unless of critical importance." Miranda reminded him as teh ship flew off the hangar's floor and then out into space, leaving the BC behind as she engaged the cloaking device and it turned invisible. All of the ship's sensors were set up to keep attention for possible enemy sensor drones. Miranda was determined to avoid those. While they couldn't locate such drones with precision, some updates onto the ship, allowed them to at least learn of the presence of one in the vicinity. This should allow them to not get detected easily as lng as they took it careful and methodical.

"Entering the debry field." Miranda informed the people on board as she began to expertly fly the bigger dropship/gunship between the floating boulders. Some of the rocks were moving, others were static, but they were dangerous non the less for a non shielded ship. As they got deeper and deeper and closer to the BC, Miranda was piloting ever more careful until she gave a complete halt to the Gunship for a moment. It wasn't much to the BC, it was within viewing range between the floating rocks, but she was picking weird readings on the upgraded sensors. She had stopped at the very edge of it, so they shouldn't have been detected quite yet.

"We've reached the first sensor grid of the enemy. No zerg lifeforms detected. No terran ship signatures detected. " Paying close attention to the seonsor readings she located a weird angle that circles around a big asteroid and managed to evade the sensors. She thought so since htere weren't any protoss firing at them for the moment. Thus they found themselves face to face with a BC bgiger than the one the IRregulars had. It was strangely locked within the massive asteroid by it's front. This was baffling Miranda on how exactly it happened. Now from up close one could see the scorch marks and the damage across the hull. It was hard to say the exact degree of the damages, but most of the hull would require replacement at the best of scenarios. The ship has been in combat and judging by the marks of it, Miranda suspected it had met a Protoss Carrier or two and lost the fight once it was pushed into the debry field where the carrier's drones could outmaneuver it while teh carriers were hiding behind hte asteroids to protect from the BC's weapons.

Miranda carefully nearred a ship's hangar they coul land in that seemed mostly intact. The initial hangar's shield was down along with the lighting. Proving the ship was dead for awhile at least." Skadi, sensing anything in the ship?" Miranda asked as she carefully scanned the hangar before landing into it. Scans didn't find anything within the surroundings inside the ship. At least nothing for the moment.

[Keira Kelly]

The past handful of days aboard the Irregulars' battlecruiser had been.. nice for Ava. While the ghost would have... and HAD left Nick for Miranda and Miranda's cause, having someone around who could constantly monitor one's thoughts, even if just subconsciously, was always on Ava's mind when she spent time alone with Nick. Partially out of embarrassment and partially because she felt guilty for subjecting Miranda to whatever emotions she couldn't or didn't think to tightly control. Being on the big battlecruiser, being able to put more distance than just being in the next room as it was in their house on Kalisti, and with a influx of minds that blurred specifics, it gave Ava some of the mental privacy without having to rely on the psi-screen, which also blocked her from feeling Nick's mind. So, it had been a nice chance for the two lovebirds to spend some alone time together.

Soon enough, though, it was over and they were gearing up for the start of their mission. Ava felt no resentment to any of this though. She had learned at a young age just to accept things as they came. Even still, she wouldn't choose Nick over Miranda. She loved Nick but Ava wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for Miranda, not to mention Miranda was the closest thing Ava had to family and she held onto that sense of loyalty dearly. While they were waiting for Sid's additions to the team, Ava and Nick were finishing up getting ready in the rear of the Sessrumnir while Miranda was checking systems up front.

"Ava, can you check something for me?" Nick called over.

The ghost glanced over as she pulled on her last armoured gauntlet and sat the visor on top of her head, not extending it yet into the full mask that would seal up when she pulled the hood of her suit up as well. "What is it?"

Nick grunted. "I can't get the visor protector to lower on this suit.. I think it's just sticking a bit... but I don't really want to try to manhandle it with the CMC's hands.. might end up breaking something..." he said. The protector wasn't likely something he'd need but.. it was better to have working just in case.

Ava came over, looking up at his armoured form that was a good two or three feet taller than she was, for a long moment. She could easily jump that high to try to grab the golden visor protector but.. that wouldn't give her any finesse in trying to fix the issue either. "Just stand still then." she told him finally, moving around behind his suit of armour. With agile ease, she jumped up, grabbing parts of his shoulder and hauling herself half over so she was balancing off to the side of the helmet bubble of the suit. She leaned a bit further over towards the visor area, looking in at Nick right at eye level with a smile. "Hey." she said with a laugh.

Nick's armoured hands came up instinctively, hovering close just in case Ava slipped. "You really should have warned me you were going to try to climb up on the armour like that.." he said, rolling his eyes and trying to hide his own smile as Ava began to concentrate on the golden visor plate.

"Oh, come on.. you didn't even notice my slight weight, did you..." she replied, before biting her tongue as she struggled to work the visor protector loose. There was just a little bit of dirt or something that had somehow gotten wedged in and she was trying to work it out without scratching up the plate. Finally, the debris came out. "There! Try it now." she said, moving her hands back away, watching as Nick activated the automated system and the visor closed and the shield plate came down over top of it. "Hah!"

It was only then that she realized that they were no longer alone. Even without looking, she could sense the two marines who had come upon a very odd scene of a woman's backside clad in.. a pretty skin-tight environment suit, a reason it was informally known as a skin suit, hanging over the shoulder of another marine in CMC armour. She knocked lightly on Nick's visor, urging him to open it up again before whispering to him. "Move your hands back, don't try to catch me." she told him. The second he complied, she rolled herself over forward, off the front of him to land on her feet on the ground before him. She took a quick second to pull her hood on and extended the visor into the full mask, pulling that on before moving around Nick's form. Only as she did so, did he realize they weren't alone now too.

This was the first sight these two men of Sid's had had of a real ghost, especially one in Shadowguard gear. "Um... reporting.. for duty?" one said hesitantly, in part from just the fact that this person before him was... something he had never seen before, something he understood to be highly dangerous... and partly because of the.. first impression he had of her. The shape of the rear end had most definitely been a her....

Ava sighed, sensing the thoughts. Well... her suit did leave little to the imagination when it came to her figure, she supposed. She tapped the comm up to the cockpit where Miranda was. "All our team is present and accounted for." she said before turning to the three marines. She waved a hand towards some of the bench seats that they had left around the edges of some of the cargo area. "If you'd all like to have a seat for now... we should be underway shortly." she said. There wasn't enough room for so many CMC suits up front anyways. Ava settled the three into a corner bench spot and then headed up to the door to the cockpit, keeping a bit of a watch both directions.

The marine who spoke before leaned a bit towards Nick, visor open so they could speak without the use of comms. "She is a she, right?" he asked. When Nick confirmed, the man continued. "She's not um... available, is she?"

The other marine let out an annoyed sigh. "Colm, seriously... do you really have to try to go chasing every bit of tail you come across? Hell, you don't even know what she looks like under the gear...."

"Hey man, just because you don't like the girls, you don't get to judge..." Colm answered back.

Nick cut in at that point. "No, she isn't... She isn't 'available'." he said, answering the original question.

"Ahh... you and her...?"

"Yeah, me and her." Nick confirmed. He didn't miss Ava glancing over from the doorway though he couldn't read her expression through the ghost mask she was wearing, but he had no doubt she had picked at least some of that up. Especially not when she gave him the slightest of nods and then turned back towards the cockpit. The second marine tried to excuse himself about the comment of not knowing what the ghost looked like, but Nick just waved him off, saying it was fine, as he concentrated on watching Ava's body language as she watched what was going on up front.

Ava held tight to the doorway as Miranda took the ship up and slowly out of the cruiser's hanger and into space. The dropship vibrated as it pushed its way through the containment shields that held the atmosphere in the hanger inside but as soon as they were out, it became smooth sailing. Soon enough the clear space out the front window became filled with debris, some of it moving and Ava merely watching, not wanting to interrupt Miranda's concentration. Abruptly they stopped, prompting Ava to move further into the cockpit to see what was going on. After a time, Miranda managed to maneuver the dropship around, avoiding something invisible to the naked eye and eventually they came face to face with the downed battlecruiser.

Even before Miranda said anything, Ava was trying to reach out with her mind. Nothing yet but as they got closer to the hanger, something began to catch Ava's attention. She ended up having to pull back her mind suddenly, before she was detected. At least she hoped before she was detected. "There.. is something there. Not just on the ship, I think... on the asteroid too... Far more on the asteroid nearby than on the ship though. It was.. sort of like Essenya's mind but.. not. Sort of what I felt of the Protoss at Redstone but.. also.. not quite the same feeling." she struggled to explain. "I didn't want to extend too far in case they sensed me in return but... what I did get was.. a massive sense of superiority, arrogance... and.. I almost want to say aggression? I don't know how to explain it. An aggressive drive of ambition maybe... And I think.. xenophobic." she added. "Whatever's out there, I'm not sure I like what I felt of it.."

She took a deep breath, knowing that she in scouting the cruiser, she would likely have to face the few minds she knew were onboard. Not only that, but she would almost certainly need to scout what was on the asteroid as well. Those would need to be cleared as well to be able to bring in the rest of the Irregulars to get started on the salvage operation. "So... what's the plan then? Clear the cruiser first?" she asked.

( We talked about the Tal'darim being here. Going to say they have a few scouts on the BC and the beginnings of a small base on the asteroid? Dont know if the toss breathe air or if the asteroid has any sort of atmosphere but can potentially have mostly closed units like dragoons or stalkers or others like that at their base? Maybe even other units with enclosed suits? Bigger ones like stalkers/dragoons might have a hard time navigating inside the BC XD )

[rivaan]

As they were near the BC, Miranda threw a look at Ava who had revealed what she felt from the ship and it's current inhabitants. She frowned... so chances were there was not a single left human alive there. Wouldn't be surprised this ship has been crashed here a good while now. Still though the ship was in a remarkably good condition for having potentionally being in a fight with a protoss space force. The fact that toss didn't need ot use terran tech or even try to use the hull for materials was great. The thing Ava mentioned about arrogance and superiority were probably the causes, though she felt something was off here. This was not typical protss MO at work.

"Yeah. Ava you shall for the moment operate under the effect of the psi-screen." Miranda stated and threw ava really serious look." Your mind is too powerful, your presence will be like a torch in the darkness. It's not a good thing to alert these protoss to it quite yet. Leave it to me, I will track them in the near vicinity." Miranda stated and smiled to the ghost. She waited until the psi-screen was in operation before she started to fly the ship forward again.

"As for the way to operate, yes. We are clearing the cruiser first. Once the cruiser is clear of hostiles, we shall move onto the protoss base of operations. Its far enough from teh cruiser that it shouldn't alert those there to what's happening here... possibily. We shall see. Something's wrong here, Ava. I have a hunch that this isn't your usual Protoss force. THey don't operate under this sort of method. They wouldn't down a ship and station people to wait on it for others to show up. Also this asteroid belt carries no strategic value to the protoss for them to be here. THere are no zerg nearby for them to fortify the position as a base, nor is there a good colony location of any kind in this system or the surroundings. Unless there's something else here, that would attract them, I don't think we are dealing with the regular protoss forces."

With that said she slowly flew the ship to one of the hangar. Not the one near the main bridge, it wasn't her target after all." Alright, our goal would be the secondary command deck." Miranda stated as the ship slowly hovered and turned around until it landed when she confirmed no one was quite yet in the hangar. If there were, she would have used the heavy caliber machineguns the ship carried to take them out." with just the 5 of us, clearing the ship would be a tall order even against small numbers of toss. At the very least the protoss forces here outnumber us 2:1 maybe more. If they are that arrogant, we can use it to our advantage, but we need something else." She said and pulled the schematics of a regular bc on the screens." The target is the secondary command deck. The goal is to reactivate the internal security systems whenever it's possible. Those are tied to the ship's backup power, so even if the main generators are offline, if we can use the backup power to activate those. The stationary defenses within teh ship along with the automated drones and robots would turn the tide against the protoss." Miranda gave the brief plan of action as she looked at the other four.

"You all got it? Good. I will take point. Skadi and Njor-Nick would be guarding our backs. You two will be direclty behind me." She gave the orders and Sid's men nodded." Enemy will charge at us, don't stop firing until I give the order once the firefight starts." With that said, she led the way out of the dropship and once all were outside, she closed the hatch, starting the stealth system of the ship in the meantime. It would hold for a good while, since the ship was landed adn was using no power. They couldn't risk the ship get damaged after all. Once they reached the door of the hangar and passed through it, Miranda had it manually locked as well, just to eb safe. With that she rose her gauss rifle and started leading forward, using the heavy shield to face forward.

The road to the secondary control deck will take a while. It was made to be a pain to be taken overi nboarding actions after all, so it was qutie the distance away from the hatches for docking or the hangars. The secondary control deck was within the very core of the ship. As they walked, Miranda was quiet, she didn't speak to the others and she even gave the order for no one to speak as she walked. Her mind was strained to the very edge. She had to be able to sense everything psionically to the utmost limit of her powers and she did so. After a little bit her perception radius was brought to her maximum and sure enough she sensed a protoss approaching from one of the side corridors. Miranda stopped in her place and rose a hand, using a quick hand gesture typically used by soldiers to indicate where an enemy was coming from to point it out to the rest as well.

Moments later after they took position in the hall, making a firing line, a protoss appeared down the corridor, charging at them at fast speeds. He had two psi-blades deployed and the color made Miranda's eyes narrow and cold sweat to run down her back. It was red... blood red. This was not natural at all!" FIRE!" She stated as she pulled the trigger and the rain of fire was delivered onto the charging protoss. At first his shields held, but well, Miranda's rifle was upgraded and they had a proper canister rifle as well. The toss suddenly chnaged his pace and sped up in attempt to reach them before his shields fialed. His screams spread psionically to the mind, revealing a mad rage. He was like a crazy possessed berserker. This psionic scream that didn't hurt them, did stun Sid's men for a moment, them having never experienced something like this, directly screaming into their minds, they regained their composure moments later and resumed firing.

The canister shot of Ava was the first one to break through the shield. Following that, the hail of metal pierced into the protoss warrior as he slummed to the floor just a few steps away from Miranda who was at the front. She frowned as she delivered a final shot into the head and called to spot firing. Now having the good time to study the creature she frowned. The usual gold armor of the protoss was not present here. It was darker with lots of black here and the red psi-blades were also different from what she knew. Seems she wasn't aware of a lot here... had a lot to learn still. They didn't have time to waste though." We are proceeding to the target! All haste!" Miranda ordered, raising her rifle and led the way, using the suit's inbuild display to follow the map of the ship and at the same time keeping track of the surrounding 30 meters or so.

[Keira Kelly]

Though Ava was currently wearing her full face mask, the shock and hesitation in response to Miranda's order of using the psi-screen could not have been missed by the doctor. Though the reasoning for using it was sound, Ava... hated using the screen in situations where she felt she needed all of her faculties. To be honest, she hated using it, period. It was like going deaf or blind; losing one whole side of ones' senses. Doing so in a dangerous situation was even worse. She sighed finally, reluctantly nodding. "Let me go and get it.."

She turned, heading towards the back area of the ship, where the rest of her stuff was stored. As she moved, she took off her mask and hood, casting a glance over at the three marines who were still seated as she past. The surprise she felt from the two loaned marines when it came to her looks would have been amusing at another point but right now, she had other concerns. She quickly gave a small incline of her head towards Nick but then went to her own locker, retrieving the psi-screen from its secure case. She hooked the device behind her ear, then pulled the hood up and replaced the mask, and grabbing her rifle and slinging it over one shoulder before heading back to Miranda. Just as she got to the cockpit, she turned on the screen. Instantly, all other thoughts she could feel dropped away. She suddenly felt so alone, so isolated. She didn't like it. But she would use it if she had to. "It's on." she told the doctor, with a slightly morose tone.

She listened as Miranda began to explain the order of operations for this mission but then arched an eyebrow. The ghost had had her own suspicions about these Protoss, what with how different their minds had felt compared to the two other times she had encountered them. She nodded slowly at Miranda's thoughts that this protoss force was something new, something different. It was so weird though... to hear the words coming from her friend but without any of the accompanying thoughts. She was used to getting more than just what words could pass along in a conversation. She had the urge to flip it off just to get a quick sense but.. they were drawing in closer now. That wouldn't be a good idea....

As soon as the dropship landed within the battlecruiser, Ava went back and ushered the three marines to return with her to the cockpit. To say it was cramped now was an understatement but somehow... they managed to squeeze in enough that everyone could see... barely. At least Ava, being the smallest figure, without a CMC suit, was up at the front and had the best view as Miranda began to give the mission briefing. The ghost carefully studied the schematics, committing them to memory as Miranda pointed out the key targets, especially the secondary command deck.

Ava was about to object at rear-guard duty before she realized that maybe it was best after all. While she could cloak and go ahead... if enemies showed up from the front, that meant that there would be 4 gauss rifles firing at a target with Ava invisible between the two. Being caught in cross-fire would not be a good thing. Even still, as a scout, she wasn't keen on being relegated to the rear. Added to that, if enemies did come from the front, Ava likely wouldn't be able to get any shots off as the CMC armours were so much taller than she was. And if they came from the rear, Miranda would likely sense them before Ava could see them too. Still, she had her orders and would carry them out.

The cautious walk as they began to move through the battlecruiser without speaking was both frustrating and anxiety-causing for Ava on a few counts, both from being in the rear and from using the psi-screen. Her job was to scout ahead, give advanced warning of enemy approaches and be able to set up ambushes.. and right now, she could do none of that. And that was making her angry, not at Miranda for ordering both, but in general, knowing those orders had been necessary. The lack of communication or being able to feel those around her was making her feel jumpy too.

Eventually Miranda stopped, making universal military hand signals, signals that Ava understood like the back of her hand, as did the others. Very quickly, the marines all formed up a firing line, leaving Ava to try to find a place to fire from behind, which wasn't much. She cloaked herself, grabbing a protrusion on the side of the wall and hanging off it, just a bit higher than the CMC suits. She held her rifle one-handed, aiming it down the hall where Miranda had indicated. No one, except ghosts were able to use C-10 canister rifles one handed, but ghosts were not just proficient at it, but masters at using that particular rifle, one handed or not.

Though it was dark down the corridor, Ava's HUD quickly picked up movement in the distance, highlighting the outline of a quickly approaching figure. Aside from Essenya, this was the first time Ava had seen Protoss in the flesh. Lights flashed to life on either side of the enemy Protoss, bathing the corridor in a red glow as well as lighting the target up too. The lights were some sort of energy streams coming from devices mounted on each of the Protoss' wrists.

Suddenly, Miranda screamed to fire and Ava did not hesitate. Two quick shots to make sure she was on target and then she began to let off bursts of rounds. At first, it didn't seem to do anything. There were small white bursts of energy where the bullets were impacting prior to meeting the Protoss but then, Ava let off another burst, the field around the Protoss seemed to fizzle out. Now the rounds found the target. It was only a matter of seconds before the charging Protoss went down heavily, lifelessly. After a second or two, the red beams at his wrists died out as well.

The threat gone, for now.. Ava dropped back to the deck, turning off her cloak again to save the energy as they began to advance once more.

[rivaan]

Now that Miranda came closer to one of the protoss and had a handle on their actual presence from up close, keeping attention was easier. As always protoss radiated psionic presence like torches adn even she could sense it. There weren't many of them and in the following few minutes, the halls of the ship became the field of another skirmish with a protoss warrior. This one tried ot be fancier and get the drop om them, but with Miranda there to detect them, it didn't work.

The hails of firepower came at him like his comrade earlier. At first his shield was holding up, but with the concentrated firepower it was brought down and he was turned into a cheese with all the holes. Now Miranda was sure these guys weren't taking them seriously at all. Well this was probably already changing. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice shame on yuo and all that. These protoss would be probably coordinating with each other soon enough and right now Miranda couldn't actually sense any of them. Considering the ship was rather big for the number present, it's likely going to take a little while for them to find them. After all Terran BCs are a little bit of a maze that you had to be used to to get around effeciently.

After about ten more minutes that felt like an eternity and a few bulkead that were forced open with the CMCs, they had finally arrived at the section where the secondary command deck was. There was only a single bulkhead between them and the control room. It wasn't much, but the security here was a lot greater even with all power across the ship turned off. The bulkhead was way heavier and harder to open than the regular ones across the ship. Under normal circumstances it would be near impossible to break without heavy machinery focused to cut through it or explosives. That was unless Mark hadn't actually told her in on a trade secret when it came to BCs. He explained to her that the secondary command deck bulkhead was actually defective by design! It was a minor defect, it wasn't anything worth reworking all ships in explotation or recalling teh schematics for it. In any case in situations like this when ship power was cut off, apparently this and a few other bulkheads have their internal locks disabled, so they actually had to simply push it open! Which admittedly even with 4 CMCs working at full power proved almost impossible.

Miranda's face was covered with sweat even though she was wearing the CMC. The rest were probably in the same condition adn they had lost about another 5 minutes just pushing open the bulkhead not even halfway open. She called it off as soon as it was just wide neough to squeeze through. With a little bit of scratching sound of metal against metal, she moved through the gap, finding herself into the command deck. Place was dark, so she was illuminating it with the flashlights of the CMCs and the others soon joined her. The room was a tomb. The first real dead bodies they found. Some seemed to have died on their consoles, probably during the impact of the ship in teh asteroid. Others held guns in their hands and had holes in the sides of their head, clearly suicides.

Miranda frowned. It was pretty clear. Honestly there was no air inside the ship." They must have been trapped here... choose to end it before they ran out of air." She commented. There was just no actual way for people without any mechanical aid to actually force open that bulkhead. What's more with only protoss waiting outside to finish you off." You 3 keep guard at the door." She said to Nick and the other two and gestured for Ava to follow her." You can disable the Psi-screen if you want now." Miranda stated as she walked up to the main console and tried starting it. It didn't boot. She frowned and smashed open a panel underneath the computer. There were a number of small wires that had gotten unpluged probably from the crash or maybe never actually plugged in to begin with. It was a little too small for the hands of the CMC to fix." Skadi, can you plug the wires back on? They should be color coded. Mark had warned me that this ship was likely to have been rushed. Apparently they had to finish it up in quite hte hurry. Work that would have taken 4 months, took month and a half. It was to be the ship of the young son of one of the Confederacy top families master who was just finishing his studies for officer."

Once the wires were placed back into their slots and actually secured for once the console's backup power kicked in." They probably never actually got around to fixing the backup emergency systems. This is bad... let's hope that the security devices are actually properly installed." She mumbled as she started running the programs required to reinitialize the security systems in emergency back up mode. Eventually Miranda heaved a sigh of relief as she saw that most of the security systems were running green. Soon the dark room, got illuminated by faint red light as a few other consoles came to life. The doctor was quickly resetting the security settings, inputting the IDs for the 5 of them for the defenses to read as friendly." Turrets across the ship are turning on... sensors are on, cameras are on... security robots are on..."

Immediately some of the devices started getting offline presumably destroyed, but others weren't. The security vid log wasn't working. THey only had direct camera feed so she managed to confirm at least one Protoss getting torn to pieces when he entered a hall and the missile turrets turned him into smithereens.

[Keira Kelly]

The second Protoss that had attacked them hadn't fared any better than his predecessor, being cut down quickly by the gauss and canister rifles. Before the Terrans moved on, though, Ava stopped, kneeling down beside the alien body. A few of the rounds had nearly decimated the Protoss' right arm just above the gauntlet it wore, where the red light had been projecting from before it had died. Touching it, despite the psi-screen, Ava was able to get a psionic sense of the device. While the psi-screen was meant to block her psionics, it did so only in an area around her; her psionic powers still worked within the small bubble and touching this gauntlet, she could feel it was meant for a psionic, much like the psi-screen could be manipulated by her powers. Now was not the time to be playing with a new toy though. Ava quickly stripped the gauntlet off the mangled body and hooked it onto the back of her own belt for later study before moving off with the rest of the marines.

Eventually they came to a bulkhead that Miranda proceeded to direct them to try to move. Ava lent a hand to the four marines. Though not quite as strong as the power armour, her own skin suit did allow for psionically-enhanced strength so she wasn't too far below par either. Eventually, the bulkhead shifted, just enough for the armoured members of the group to be able to pass though. Ava could have cleared it with only a quarter of the space.. or less. Moving inside to the next room, Ava studied scene. Bodies. Bodies in fairly pristine condition, thanks to the vacuum that now existed on the ship. Some bodies were fairly undamaged looking, some obviously mangled in the crash. A number that had only a single gunshot to the heads. Some had survived the crash, Ava realized. At least their death's had been quick and painless...

As Nick and the other two marines were ordered to guard the entrance, Ava followed Miranda. The allowance to turn off the screen almost made Ava sigh in relief. Turning it off was almost like being able to breath again. Immediately she could feel the minds of the other Terrans around her. She could also feel a few more of the Protoss still on the ship. And they certainly didn't miss her mind. But they were many decks away at the moment and, with no power, they would have trouble getting here quickly. She did, however, direct what she was picking up to Miranda.

At Miranda's word, Ava shouldered her rifle and ducked under the console, examining the wires. In the dim light, it was a bit hard to tell some of the colours apart but.. by the process of elimination, she was able to. Though not in a CMC suit like the others, reconnecting the wires still wasn't the easiest thing as she had still her own armoured gauntlets which.. still somewhat limited dexterity, though nowhere on the scale that the CMC armour did. Finally, though, she got all the ones she could find reset. "It's done." she reported, standing up once more to watch as Miranda began to work on the computer.

Soon enough, the doctor was somehow able to get the security systems online as well as some internal cameras. They watched as one of the Protoss was swiftly eliminated by a missile turret. Ava winced. It wasn't seeing it but, with the psi-screen off, she had felt his death, heard his mental death cry. Had it been another Terran at this distance, it might not have been so bad but.. these Protoss, their psionics were strong.

She had picked up something interesting though. "These Protoss here, they don't fear death... I've felt a lot of people die. Usually there is fear, regret... you name it." She pointed at the monitor they had been watching. "All I felt from that one was anger that he hadn't gotten to meet us in a real fight..." she explained. "No fear, just angry frustration in the seconds when he saw the missiles coming towards him..." She frowned, closing her eyes for a moment. "There are a few others still on the ship... There are two taking cover from another security turret on a lower deck... and at least one.. that I don't think has run into a security system yet..."

[rivaan]

"Hmmm..." Miranda made a thinking sound as she was using the consoles, searching for the different locations and security cameras. Sadly the main systems were still down and as she had feared there were indeed whole decks without any security measures. The emergency power ran cameras and automatic defenses, but at places weapons weren't working at others it was cameras. Frankly the whole ship was a mess and that was beyond the fact it got wrecked. It was simply unfinished! What a shame, otherwise these toss might not have been much of a threat anymore.

"At least some of the drones are working." Miranda noted as the two hiding protoss got jumped by a pair of security drones in addition to the turrets. The two security drones moved around on threads and had a pair of high calibre rapid fire machineguns. Sure enough a fight ensued at the lower decks, seing themselves flanked, the protoss warriors charged valiantly. In a span of a few brief moments the two drones, the turrets and one of the toss were down. The other toss was injured, but alive. He screamed something that even Miranda could tell from this distance and he charged, the cameras gave out, possibly cracked or damaged from uncontroled psionic eneriges raging around him. Miranda also managed to catch a sight of the one that had avoided all securty so far on a camera briefly. He wasn't charging at them, he was calmly moving, taking his time in destroying all securty before it could detect him. Miranda was sure heh ad some kind of range weapon of some kind that or he was using attack psionics or telekinesis of somek ind.

Another thing she spotted was on one of the hangars, there was a machine that was moving. After realligning the camera she spotted the quadrepedal construct... a dragoon. She frowned hard at it, moments later that camera also gave out. Yeah... it got melted. There wasn't anything else that was being sticking out." The thing in tha hangar is stuck there..." Mirand amentioned. A dragoon had no way of walking through the narrower corridors of a BC, so that wouldn't be too much of a bother until they have to actually take care of it. What was really problematic were the two protoss warriros that were charing at them now. The wounded one's shields had restored enough as he was charign towards their direction, now aware that the security was up and avoiding them well enough. The other one was not viewable on the monitors, chances weer that he wasn't falling to the security, especailly with the rapid pace of which cameras and security devices were blowing up. Suddenly Miranda's eyes opened wide as she looked to the wall to the side, sensing that rather powerful protoss getting to their direction now being rather close. She didn't think he was a proper templar... otherwise he would have gotten to them already and caused a whole lot of troubles. Didn't mean he wasn't dangerous though, Miranda nad Ava could feel his psionics were more advanced than the warriors from earlier, this one could actually use them proper even if he wasn't at the level of a templar yet and neitehr of them had actually seen a templar from up close or sensed them. They ahd only seen records and files on them.

"You three take care of the injured one!" Miranda shouted as she narrowed her eys. The protoss was on the other side of the wall. Suddenly she sensed something was off and hurriedly moved in front of Ava, shielding her with the CMC as the while secondary command deck shook, chunks of metal, crystal and cabling flying everywhere as the man ahd blown up the wall to enter through there. There wasn't a psionic surge though... What did he use to blow it up. Suddenly she saw a thing hanging on the side of his armor like a grenade... it might be a grenade after all of some kind.

Blades of red surged, as did his eyes as he stared at them, Miranda feeling his psionic presecne crushing at her, but she stood firm!" ACCURSED INSECTS! DARING TO TRESPASS IN THE TERRITORY OF THE TAL'DARIM! YOUR DEATHS SHAW BE SLOW AND WILL ECHO ACROSS THE STARS TO AVERT OTHERS FROM TRESPASSING!" His psionic scream made her head hurt. The shield of his armor was crackling with power, clearly stronger than the regular warriors. He didn't say anything else as he charged at them with the speed of lightning, his wrist mounted blades aiming for the visor of her cmc to kill her off. Fire fight had also started in teh hall by the door where the 3 men were firing down at the wounded protoss that was now being cheeky and taking cover and bidding his time. He could charge through at them in a moment notice if even one of the men lost his attention and didn't fire in time, he'd get in melee range before they could deal with him!

Miranda didn't stay passive though. With death incoming, she shield slammed hte protoss with the combat shield as she sent the protss staggering and only causing light cuts onto the shield by his weapons." SKADI!" Miranda shouted mentally since it was faster than actually tlaking as she unleashed the bayonet of the rifle and using it as a makeshift hatchet started swinging at the protoss using both the shield and the rifle in melee to keep him occupied while hse hoped Ava could deal with him! Miranda was woefully aware of her lack when it came to melee fighting. She was clumsily using her CMC to do powerful swings and protect herself with the heavy shield that was progressively getting cut to pieces.

[Keira Kelly]

Ava was only half watching the monitors, only paying attention when there were enemy units being shown. The rest of the time she was concentrating on what she was picking up psionically. These.. protoss knew that a psionic Terran was on board with them... and they were nearly frantic to get at her... and eliminate her. She could feel they almost considered her an abomination to possess such abilities as they did. Beyond that, they also just wanted to eradicated any Terrans on board simply because they were invading their.. territory. They considered that the one with unknown psionic potential was slightly more of a threat than others. Ava could feel them trying to disorient her mentally but.. they didn't realize her own mental strength. Or at least, they had discounted it in their arrogance. She just had to be sure to keep on guard on that front though as they slowly but steadily drew closer through the ship.

Well, it seemed one was really quite close now. Ava had been tracking all those she could sense and... there was one.. no, a couple that were quite close, in opposite directions. Ava had her rifle up and ready. One was towards the door they had come in, where the three male marines were currently standing in defence... the other though... Ava turned to look. A solid wall in that direction. She frowned as she sensed the Protoss beyond not moving around as she would have expected towards hallways that led to a door in. She would have warned everyone verbally but... it was a solid wall and the enemy did not seem to be advancing. He was.. doing something though, she could feel. His confidence that he would flank the Terrans within was more than palpable.

She took a step towards the wall, still a fair distance from it but.. just a step, rifle aimed at it as she realized now that Miranda was sensing it too. She barely heard the doctor order the other marines to guard the doorway from the approaching injured protoss as Ava stared, trying to pry into the highly ordered mind beyond the wall, not so much paying attention to the thoughts but trying to find a weakness. Suddenly, a massive form moved in front of her, blocking her view of the wall. She growled softly, cloaking as she began to sidestep out from behind Miranda's armour.

Before she could, though, a massive explosion rang through the room, sending shards of metal and debris flying, clanging off Miranda's combat shield and nearly knocking Ava down. She caught herself in a crouch though and as soon a the initial blast was over, the ghost peeked out, rifle aimed. The smoke from the explosion did not hinder her ability to see what had caused the blast; her ghost visor's HUD clearly picked out the protoss figure through it, outlining it as it even before it stepped through the smoke and into the room, red wrist weapons blazing.

His sudden enraged scream echoed in her head and Ava clenched her teeth at the raw emotion and psoinic sound he emitted. Focus! she told herself. In the distance, behind the, she could hear the gauss rifles of the three males firing away, though not in their direction: at the other protoss. She could feel from Nick's mind that it currently wasn't much of a threat, just an annoyance and she turned her complete attention to this one that had come through the wall.

As soon as he screamed his intentions to kill them, he charged. With the shorter distance inside the room and all the consoles and other obstacles, Ava was only able to get a couple shots off at the protoss' energy shields before he slammed into Miranda's physical combat shield. With a friendly so close, Ava did not have any more good shots and she moved off to flank. She growled again to herself, though for another reason this time. This wouldn't work and he was faster than Miranda was in hand-to-hand combat. She flicked the switch on her rifle, switching the bullet type as she disengaged her cloaked. Seeing the glowing red blade things slice close to her friend, Ava screamed herself as she waved a hand before her, away from Miranda, pouring all the psionic energy she could between the combatants to pull the protoss off and away telekinetically.

As her arm swept across, the protoss followed it, being knocked by an unseen force back away from the doctor. He impacted a row of consoles heavily, becoming stunned by the unexpected trip across the room. As soon as he landed, Ava fired an EMP shot, hitting him directly. It caused no damage but his shields were immediately drained. 'Fire everything you have!' Ava screamed psionically at Miranda as she switched her shots back to the normal canister rounds and let off a stream of automatic fire at the stunned and now unshielded protoss.

Without his shields, he did not last long, not even long enough to recover from the stun of his landing. Though this enemy was dealt with, there was still another for the moment. Ava didn't even stop to realize that that one protoss had been the biggest target she had yet managed to move telekinetically, let alone throw halfway across a room. Moving over to the doorway, she stood slightly behind the three male marines as she loaded up another EMP shot, sensing Miranda move to join. "Stop shooting for a moment." she told the others over the comm system, waiting until they did so. She sent out as strong of a psychic blast she could muster for the moment, weaker than she was usually capable of as she had just exerted a lot to throw the other protoss around. The blast merely confused and stunned the remaining protoss, causing him to stand up from his cover. Enough that Ava hit him with her EMP around. "Fire!" she said over the radio and let the others finish this one off as well.

She turned now, the threats over with for the moment, to look at the massive hole in the wall from the blast. "Well... I guess we have our choice of exits now..." she said idly as she resumed trying to keep track of the remnants of protoss minds she could still feel on the ship. She looked over at Miranda. "We are going to have to go clear the rest out, aren't we?" she asked, almost with excitement. She knew, while the security systems had helped, they couldn't overcome all the opposition. The Terrans themselves would have to finish the clean up of the ship before moving out to take out whatever base they protoss were using on the asteroid. And Ava was anxious to do more than stand around, pulling guard duty and staring at monitors as the automated security had all the fun.

[rivaan]

The scuffle with the two protoss was quick and deadly. The explosive device the one who came throught the wall used was rather concerning. After all the bastard entered through a reinforced metal wall! It broke through it with nearly no difficulty. Terrans had similarly powered devices but it would require setting up and it wouldn't useful under all circumstances. Miranda had no time to study hte toss's remains though as they moved to fighting at the doorway. Once more the ghost's EMP shot did the job. Without the shields, even the mighty protoss fell under concentrated fire easily enough. Luckily these were regular zealots or at least appeared as such. The one who came through the wall had stronger psionic presence though, he could have been training for templar? In any case they had taken care of the danger here right now. Miranda couldn't sense anyone around for the moment. This meant all other protoss on teh ship were outside of her effective sensor range, but since no one else joined so far, it would mean they were further away to be concern for the moment.

Miranda turned too look, sensing the overly excited Ava and nodded." Yeah, we will have to hunt them all down before we attempt to move onto their base or see if we can actually can salvage this without disturbing them. In any case we'd need the ship secured to restore powers to the weapon systems at least." The doctor nodded as a thought was forming in her head. What if they could reactivate the ship? It it's reactors were still operational along with it's warp drives, maybe, they could jump the ship a very tiny distance to just outside the debry field! It wouldn't be too taxing on the damaged ship or the drained power reserves and would save the Irregulars from fighting a battle inside a debry field with highly dangerous protoss defenses. Even if they couldn't jump the ship, they would require to provide the launching tubes for the nuclear missiles base power for them to be able to directly target the enemy base using Ava's guiding.

"Let's see..." Miranda mumbled and walked over to the dead protoss whom they fought first. The guy wasn't too different from most. He had the typical protoss zealot armor, had a few kheydarin crystals and a... he face sank for a moment at the device that was about the size of a terran's head that was attached to the hip area of his armor. She might not know what exactly it is, but she knew EXACTLY what it was. That was a god damn bomb of some kind. It looked like explosives... possibily a grenade of some kind.( since a scarb glows blue when used and this is not activated right now. She'd never have see ndeactivated scarab even in reports within the confederacy) If this thing could blast through the wall, if he had suicided inside with this, he feared that it could have wiped all of them or at least injure them heavily from the blast wave. Though as she stared at it, the device appeared dead." I think the EMP fried it for good." She mumbled and sighed in relief. Then just for good measure she took it really carefully and hurled it down the hall. The thing rolled and made clanking sounds as it hit the metal floor. In the end Miranda aimed her rifle at it and hit it a few times turning it into scrap. No way it's going to explode now.

She then checked hte monitors and spotted agreater number of cameras had gone offline. She couldn't get a reading on every Protoss inside hte BC herself, but through Ava, she could sense another total of 10 signatures. If she was reading Ava's senses right, at least 3 of those were dragoons that were stuck at outer areas of hte ship though. And the signature inside the ship's bridge was way powerful than the others.

She looked at teh ghost." Well... there's no point in hiding anymore." MIranda stated to her friend." You take point now. Lead us, you know exactly who is where, we shall sweep the entire ship as you see fit. Leaving the the one in charge for last." Miranda stated, handing off the leadership to Ava." Alright guys, Skadi's in the lead now. The rest of us are following her. Whatever she says goes!" She explained and reloaded her rifle, ready to fight. They would have to deal with the dragoons as well. Luckily Miranda had also brought grenades. A few precise tosses of those at their torso and the walkers would be brought to pieces.

Miranda also walked to the console nearby and typed a few things." Set up security protocols to our local suit systems controls. We can now control what's left of the security systems via our CMC displays. Same goes for you." Miranda added to Ava with a smile. The hunt was one and for the dragoon, they'd need whatever firepowers and cannon fodder they could get thus the different robots and drones." By the way how many EMP rounds have you have left? No matter what, leave one for the boss."