SC - Fugitives

[Keira Kelly]

Ava was glad to hear that they wouldn't just be wandering aimlessly around the campus but still felt intimidated by the idea of it. Actually, to be honest, that wasn't really it. She was anxious about having to deal with other people, having to LIE to other people without being able to get the normal mental feedback she would to reassure herself. But there was no way in hell she would be able to turn off her psi-screen in a place like that, with that many people so close by. She would just have to live through it, maybe let Nick take lead in most of the conversation, and just push through it, even knowing she would be feeling pretty ill by the end of the day.

As Miranda went upstairs, Ava and Nick rushed the rest of their breakfast, managing to just be finishing when the doctor returned, calling out that it was time to head out. Ava managed to get one last bite of food as Nick pulled her away from the table and herded her towards the garage. Once in there, seeing Miranda sitting, waiting for them in the car, the ghost felt herself momentarily freeze up, but she forced herself through it. It couldn't be worse than the Academy, right?

She slid into the backseat of the car, as Nick got in beside her, and began to buckle herself in. She paused, glancing up sharply towards the front where Miranda was with a disgruntled look, catching Miranda thinking of her as a little kid on the way to her first day of school, not exactly pleased by the comparison. While it was her first day of school, Ava was most certainly not some innocent child, however naive she might be in some things. She could only imagine how the people at this campus would react if they knew they had a mass killer in their midst.... She didn't try to downplay that thought either, knowing Miranda would likely pick it up from her.

As the drive went on, Ava felt the mental pressure building as they got further and further into the city, and closer to the campus. It wasn't too long before it was too much and she was forced to turn on the psi-screen, feeling relief at the sudden silence which, for the moment, overrode the loss of a whole sense for the ghost. She glanced at her watch. "Just after 7..." she said aloud for the other two. "I can keep the screen on until maybe.. 2 or 3pm at most then." she added. She glanced up at Miranda, knowing that 3pm would really be pushing it. With the headaches the device caused, she probably wouldn't even make it that long. "If I can't take it anymore, what do I do? Just walk out of class?" she asked.

( Not sure if you were wanting to cover anything else before they split for the day, but if not, probably can get in and do a quick run through of the day and skip to the end? )

[rivaan]

"I've given the warning to your teachers and most of the facultry that you will be requiring frequent leaves should your medical condition worsens. Everything's already arranged and dealt with, they will let you leave and send an escort to make sure you arrive at the doctor's office where I am." Miranda replied to Ava with a smile." My office's in the part of the complex where there are less classrooms so there will be less people close by, not too great a difference, however it's better than nothing. Don't worry, I've secured medication to help with the headaches and allow you to rest some. Not ideal solution, but it's the best we can get on the job... at least until we get back to Kalisti and I bring my newest idea to Alexander and we get working on it. When it's done and tested, things might be different for you and any other high level psionic in the sector."

"Well, here we are." Miranda said as she pulled into the college campus, it was a massive complex consisting of a number of different buildings, huge gardens and other facilities. She drove to the parking she was told to and there was already a pair of guides waiting for them, a teacher and a student.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2 Weeks Later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks later found Miranda rather busy as she was currently doing some early preflight checks at the park where they had hidden their dropship. They had smuggled it away from the starport using it's stealth functions and after hiding it in the defense forest, it was neatly located at the best position for them to access once Ava nad Nick got the 'principle' from his home. Today was the day they execute a plan 2 weeks in the making. They had put a lot of efforts into gaining access into the man's home and bypassing all his security. Nick was going to be the local get away vehicle using the vulture bike and Miranda was going to intercept them at the park proper. PLan was for him to drive directly into the dropship and then she was going togun it. Of course there were a million things that could go wrong, hoever they planned well. They had access codes for local anti air defense also had Ava sneak in and rig the AA towers they couldn't disable via codes to shut down using a conveniently modified EMP bullet to run off remote signal switch. She was already dressed up for a battle with her CMC suit just in case.

Over the last week, a few different things happened actually. They dealt with annoying confederate fallen noblewoman, ohh yeah, Miranda had the great pleasure to arrange the woman's arrest for blackmail and other nasty things. In addition a few of the members around the neighborhood were actually curiously anti-dominion sympathisers. Nothing official, but it was there. Now the house was currently entirely empty, she hadn't left naythign they could use to track them. Everything was clinically cleaned with chemicals, not even a single folicule would be found. So she waited for Ava and Nick's signal. They should be arriving at the guy's mansion any moment' now. THey had a brief window of about 20 seconds when the security would be changing shifts which would be the best time to infiltrate, plus the moment to disable the surveylence. Miranda had handed Ava a data file to put the camera's on a loop on after she infiltrates. SHe ahd modulated it after hte guy's house.

[Keira Kelly]

Ava and Nick sat in some thick bushes on the outer perimeter of Gregor Brivadi's mansion, far enough back and in deep enough foliage that they would be difficult to see without a thermal scanner, but close enough that they could look back at the large house and extensive grounds. Ava, clad all in her skin suit and armour, scanned the area, glad to finally be getting on with the mission. Over the past couple of weeks, she had revised her opinion of the school.. a little bit. The classes had actually been interesting, and there had been nothing to fear about the school itself. The psionic pressure was a different matter. She had had to have her screen on nearly all the time here and that had really caused her some bad headaches, and even one episode where she had nearly passed out when she had worn the device too long. She would be glad to be going back to a more remotely populated planet after this.

Having finished her scan, she motioned to Nick before she activate a switch on a small arm pad, opening a channel to Miranda, and then pressed the earbud connected to the visor more firmly into her ear just to be sure. "We are in the TZ." she said, using a short form for 'target zone'. She glanced at the chronometer in the HUD of her visor. The time was coming up quickly. She scanned the area again, not just with her visor but with her mind as well, having left the psi-screen behind for this. She would need every sense at its best. Security people, house workers... and what had to be the target somewhere in there. And what she guessed to be the target's family. There was a strict woman and a couple of kids somewhere inside as well.

And she picked up something else as well. She turned her masked face to the right, towards Nick and smiled to herself, though he couldn't see. One of the benefits of the Umojan suit she had picked up. He always worried for her on these types of missions. To be expected, she supposed... She felt the same when it was the other way around. But she had trained all her life for this type of thing and she needed her head in the game right now. She keyed in her audio channel to one she had specifically for Nick, for the earbud he wore, so that she could talk softly in her full mask without it being audible for anyone else. They had to stay quiet right now, this close to the mansion's security.

"It will all go smoothly." she assured. "Just an in and out." She watched as he grimaced in worry even still. She reached out an armoured hand, lightly touching two fingers to the side of his face, urging him to look towards her. "I need you focused right now. I have to go in in a few seconds and I need you back at the Vulture and ready to head out at any time." she told him. After a moment, he nodded, reluctantly. She could tell he wanted to be going in to watch her back.. but he couldn't. She cupped the side of his face for a few long seconds before letting her hand fall away, knowing that he understood. She turned back to face the mansion, giving it one more scan before switching the comm channel to one that included both Miranda and Nick. As she stood up, she used her psionic powers to activate the cloak, knowing that her form disappeared in the matter of a second or two. "Going in." she was all she said, beginning to sprint across the large, manicured lawn, towards a good sized wall that seemed to run around the house.

For this, she had left her canister rifle behind, keeping only her pistol and combat knife with her. She needed speed and agility right now, not the firepower. Hopefully. Stopping just short of the wall, she studied it. Maybe two and a half meters high.. With her skin suit, it wasn't much of a problem to jump high enough to pull herself over... However, there was laser sensors along the top that she hadn't noticed from a distance. She moved over to one of the interspersed columns along the wall and used it to climb up, slowly, thankful her mask's visor could pick up the usually invisible beams that marked the laser sensor lines. She was able to step carefully over it and drop down off the wall, inside the perimeter.

She closed on a mid-sized outbuilding, right up against the main house. From what she had been able to determine, that was the security headquarters for the mansion. Apparently the target liked to keep reminders of his own paranoia to the side.. at least somewhat. She was fairly confident that the security part had an interior connection to the rest of the house though, which could make it difficult.. but also gained her more access after she disabled the security nerve centre.

Checking the time on her HUD again, she knew she was just about right there as she came up beside a solid, metal door without a handle on the outside. Inside, she could sense a couple of people. Just a matter of waiting now... As the designated time rolled around, plus another couple of minutes, someone came walking from the front of the house, heading towards the door beside which Ava was hiding. The security man knocked twice on the door, which promptly opened.

"Dammit, Bruce, can you ever get here on time?" one of the men from inside complained. "The rest of us are here five minutes before our shift!"

"There was traffic?" Bruce answered as the door began closing, which was followed by an annoyed curse from one of the others.

Another few minutes, and the door opened again from the inside, one of the previous security agents exiting to head home after a long shift. As the door began to close, Ava grabbed it and silently slipped inside. Inside was a room filled with monitors and sensors and computers. And only one man. Where was the other... He was close by but... Ava glanced around, moving her head slowly so as to greatly reduce any distortions around her cloaked form. There.. in the far corner. A door to a small compartment. Washroom. Another door to her right; that had to lead into the house proper. The missing man though was in the washroom.

Cautiously, slowly, she crept past the other security agent, heading for the washroom door. As she got there, to her surprise, it was slightly ajar. This Bruce was.. well bad at his job was an understatement. Sloppy at best. She pulled open the door very slowly. Bruce had his back to her, standing in front of a sink and mirror as he seemed to finish completing his daily hygiene routine which he had obviously failed to before the start of his shift. Ava rose up behind him as she slipped her combat knife out of its sheathe. With a quick motion, she grabbed his head from the front at the same time, pulling back right onto the knife, angling it so that it slipped into the top of the neck, just at the base of the skull, severing the brain stem. The man immediately went limp in her grasp.

She carefully laid the body down, then turned, exiting the small room. The remaining man was sitting at a terminal, looking bored. Ava frowned inside her mask, sensing the man's transitory thoughts. He was musing about spending the coming weekend with his kids and this gave Ava pause. He was only doing his job and he was about to die for it. Who knew if he knew who his boss really was. With a sigh, she moved up, clouting him upside the hide with her armoured gauntlet, sending the man flying out of his chair. Before he could do anything, she followed it up with a burst of psionic energy, not enough to kill but enough to render the man unconscious. She moved over to him, uncloaking and removed the man's belt, using it to tie off his hands behind his back, then tore up a piece of his uniform to gag him as well.

The man dealt with for now, she turned back to the terminals, setting up the device that Miranda had given her. While this room was a security room, all feeds from the house were not only directed here, but to another location as well and setting up a camera loop prevented the remote security from catching on that there was something wrong.. for a time at least. It would be enough though.

She turned on the device as Miranda had instructed, watching as the camera feeds on the monitor glitched for a split second then resumed to what it had looked like before. Knowing that it was running, she turned back to the door that led into the house proper and switched on her cloak just before opening that door. Cracking it open, she looked out. Nobody in sight for the moment. She moved quickly through the door, going through the checklist in her head that Miranda had given her of the most probably locations that the target might be. She paused, scanning the area with her mind, searching for the right sort of mental pattern....

She got a vague idea of direction. Down. And there was more than one mind down there. It took a few minutes for Ava to locate the stairs down to the basement, but when she did, she headed down quickly. There she found some sort of large, elaborate audio-visual entertainment room. The target, Gregor Brivadi, was there with two young males. Children. His kids. They were watching some sort of video that the ghost did not pause to even glance at. The three were laughing at something that they were seeing, sitting close together. The two children were young, one perhaps around ten or eleven, and one maybe seven or eight. Innocent kids.

Just grabbing Gregor was not really an option. The kids would set off an alert for help, and while Ava had disabled the cameras and the two guards in security, there would be more security around and probably alarm buttons. She had to disable them but Ava balked at killing two kids. She may have been trained to kill but these were kids! Well, she had gotten much better at disabling with her mind. She looked at the older kid, sending a pulse of psionic energy into his mind and, with a small gasp, the first kid slumped down. As Gregor turned to see what was wrong, she did the same to the other kid, feeling the drain on her own energy stores to do this. Gregor turned as the other kid went limp against him and Ava could feel his shock and fear, his thoughts that his kids might be dead or something. Had it been anyone else, she might have felt sympathy for the man. But not for him, not for a puppet of Mengsk. She sent a last pulse out into Brivadi's brain, short-circuiting it for a time, rendering him also unconscious, and moved up, grabbing him up over her shoulder, her suit and powers allowing her to carry such a weight easily, and heading back upstairs with him.

She moved cautiously through the house, making sure to avoid anyone, having to hide a few times in side rooms when some other person came too close. While they wouldn't see her, they would definitely see the limp body of the house's owner up on her shoulders. Eventually though, she made it back to the security room. The guard she had incapacitated was still unconscious, and probably would be for a few more hours. She grabbed up Miranda's device, and left again, using the same door she had originally entered by.

Outside, she had to be even more careful within the security walls. There were more guards out here than inside the house. But she was careful and eventually made it back to the wall. She glanced up at the laser trip beam at the top of it. Well.. from here on out, she wouldn't have to be quite as stealthy... Alarms would soon be going off. With a big effort, she raised Gregor's body up above herself, and managed to jump, pushing him up on top of the wall. Immediately, she could sense all the guards around on high alert as some sort of alarm was being sent to them. Quickly, she jumped up climbing up top the wall as well, not bothering to be careful of the laser as Gregor's body was already interrupting it. Without wasting a second, she brought him back up onto her shoulder and jumped down, landing hard and going to one knee. Her skinsuit took the brunt of it and she was quickly up and running, not for the forest this time but towards the road out front.

She could see the Vulture out there waiting, could sense Nick's worry and anxiousness and steered course for it, letting the cloak fall just as she reached the vehicle. She flung Gregor's limp form on, having a little trouble getting one of his legs over the other side of the bike for a moment, and then jumped on behind him, sandwiching him between her and Nick. Stretching forwards as much as she could, she grabbed Nick's waist for stability once the bike started up. "Go!" she said through the mask to him. He had barely needed the order, and the bike was soon moving at full speed. Seeing a little bit of traffic on the streets, Ava opted to cloak again despite her tiredness from using the cloak and psionic pulses in addition. Anyone looking would just see two forms on the bike now, not the very obvious ghost on the back as well.

When they got close, Ava directed a mental message to Miranda. 'We are almost there.' she sent. She could hear sirens behind them. Someone had alerted the local authorities too, and it seemed like they were had followed any odd vehicles in the region.. or perhaps even all vehicles. She glanced back, seeing flashing lights in the distance. Close but.. not close enough. Still, best to warn Miranda. 'Couldn't avoid tripping an alarm on the way out. I have a feeling that they realize Brivadi is missing. Police vehicle is in pursuit but at a distance.' she added, looking for any visual sign of the dropship. As they moved forwards, the ship's cloak fell away, showing them the open ramp into the cargo area and Nick drove inside quickly. 'We are inside!' Ava sent to Miranda as soon as they were secured. 'Cargo is secured!' she added.

[rivaan]

Miranda very patiently waited for the package to arrive. She was geared up, the ship was prepped and she had the cloak ready and charged up to the max. All weapons were prepared and ready to be fired in addition to the boosters refueled and ready to be used so they can break atmo and orbit as soon as possible. She was patient as she kept the ship at standby at minimal power right now, everything was ready to power up completely and be ready to go. Her eyes were closed as she was listening to the radio, it was an eternity, however she started hearing chatter across the radio channels about the break in and the abduction of the 'respected' princial of the colleage.

Soon enough the messege from Ava arrived." ON MY WAY!"

The ship's cockpit lit up in a flash as the engines roared to live and the cloak already formed in a shimmer around it, making it vanish from view. The air pressur from the engines lifting their dropship off the ground made hte grass adn trees rustle as she flew quickly over the forest and landed at the predetermined spot. Miranda could see the car chase in teh distance, see the police sirens. This was going to be fun especially since she knew that there would be orbital defenses as well.

She landed, the boarding hatch looking at the incoming vulture. Once they were close enough and she heard Ava's mental messege, she hit the stealth off and opened the landing hatch, allowing the vehicle to board rapidly. Confirmation for boarding came moments later as she hit the buttens once more and the hatch closed quickly and the ship's cloack was engaged once more. At the first few moments small arms fire pelleted the hatch from where the police had chased and opened fire at hte invisible ship but as Miranda brought it into the air, the ineffectual gunfire stopped as they couldn't hit it anymroe, unable to tell exactly where it was. SHe right away hit the trigger on their little emp surprise for the air defenses in the area." Good, welcome aboard, Skadi, Njord." She told them over the comms now that they were secure aboard and tghe ship was already speeding in a gradual arc upwards." Secure the vuture and get the prisoner secure as well, cage's been prepared. Then one to come over to the co-pilot seat, we are about ot make a run at an orbital blockage." She grinned as there was indeed a small cage for the guy that would reqruie him sitting all the time. She was a mean bitch when she wanted to be and he was one of the peopel she especially hated. By the time they arrive to an exchange place with Umoja, he'd be unable to feel his legs, let alone fly after days of sitting in that crampped space. The points to secure the vulture were already double checked just in case. It was to be strapped with secure alloy chains and clamps so any sudden acceleration wouldn't toss it backwards.

The dark sky rapidly was being replaced by the darkness of the cosmos as fast as they were breaking atmo. Soon there was no sky above and just space and moment's later there were already some ships in view besides teh defense platforms or two. There was a BC in some distance away, it was luckily a bit far to intercept, however tehre was a full suite of lesser crafts rapidly heading in their direction, most notable a few Wraiths, that she just turned the ship in the direction she wanted it to and was preparing to press the boosters. They would have troubles detecting them right awya because of the cloak, however there was a smaller vessel that was carrying detecting equipment and was trying to make it's way over.

[Keira Kelly]

The Vulture was barely at the top of the ramp when shots started to ring out behind them. Ava hunched her shoulders just as one of the small projectiles hit her shoulder. Thankfully, her skin suit as more than adequate for such small calibre weaponry and the most she felt was the force of it as it bounced off the psionically-reactive fibres. She heard another bullet whiz past almost as closely, but that was the last one as they entered the cargo area of the ship and the door closed behind them. As the bike came to a stop, Ava quickly jumped off, leaving the unconscious man still on the seat behind Nick as she quickly started securing the vehicle in place, knowing that it needed to be secure for their take-off off the planet.

As she finished her half of the securing lines, seeing that Nick was seeing to the rest, she got up and headed towards their captive, who was now sitting slumped, his face pressing down on the seat of the bike uncomfortably. With her heavy gloved hand, the ghost grabbed the back of the man's shirt neck, pulling him off the bike and dragging him towards the.. well.. cage that Miranda had set up. It was honestly probably meant for a dog, judging by the size, though it appeared to be fairly strong. She dragged him unceremoniously over to it, opening the door and throwing him inside in a heap, then locked the door of the cage.

She turned back to check on Nick and was surprised he was still working on securing the last strap on the bike. She pulled off her mask, brow furrowed as she observed him while walking towards him, seeing him trying to work the strap with only one arm. It didn't take her long to figure it out, specially sensing the pain.

He glanced up, hearing her booted steps on the deck and sighed. "I'm fine." he said, knowing that look. "It just grazed my arm. Hurts like hell but not serious..."

Ava did not look convinced. Well, she knew it wasn't serious but that didn't mean it didn't have to be treated. "And how much is it bleeding?" she asked.

Nick put his good hand to his other upper arm, and then pulled the hand away, covered in red. "Um.. just a bit?"

The ghost shook her head. "Go and help Miranda up front. I'll finish this and bring a med kit up in a sec." she ordered. "And be careful about bleeding all over the cockpit. Miranda won't appreciate the mess." she added, only half joking. Nick made a face at her but Ava remained deadpan and pointed towards the cockpit.

Despite the joking, Nick did exactly what he was told. They were still on mission and it wasn't time to play around yet. Heading in, he held his hand to his arm in an attempt to at least slow the bleeding for the moment. Thankfully, Ava had been quick in what she needed to do and by the time he was sitting down in the co-pilot seat, she entered the cockpit, tossing an old towel at him.

She glanced at Miranda for a second. "Everything's secured." she said. She turned back to see Nick about to press the towel to his arm. "Hey. That's for wiping your hand off on." she said, kneeling down beside him as she opened the medkit, then turned and ripped the arm of his shirt down from the shoulder amidst his protests of the now destroyed shirt. She quickly took off her gloves and grabbed a injection from the box, hitting it to his arm, giving him some pain relief and telling him to concentrate on helping to get them all out of there. Sealing the wound with glue after that was a pretty simple first-aid procedure in which she was well enough trained, though it was a bit of a trial trying to do that as he was helping to now work the ship controls and it wasn't long before the wound was bandaged up.

Turning to watch what was going on now, Ava frowned. While Miranda often felt helpless during the missions, this was now the point where Ava got to feel that in turn. There was nothing for an assassin to do in this type of situation. She did take note of a certain smaller vessel heading towards them from the side. She pointed out through the view screen. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked Miranda.

[rivaan]

"If you think a mobile scanning platform of some variety? Then yes, it is. Our own sensors are going highwire from the boosted sensor equipment they are having on that craft." Miranda replied as she put the engines to maximum as the boost ended and they had to use the regular speeds to fly for some time until the engines cool down enough." They might be experimenting with more streamlined sensor arrays, usually only science vessels carry strong enough sensors to breach cloak... however that's not a standard science vessel. It's too small, they might be field testing prototypes. They either have created better power sources or that array's simply more advanced and requiring proportionally less power to run... in either case, prepare for combat!" Miranda shouted as the science vessel's detection field caught their vessel with the edge of it's detectors and then everything lit up.

For a dropship, this one was a lot more maneuverable than the standard one in Dominion use. Only the advanced ones, ironically of which they had one of, could compare. After al they were flying a prototype drop/gunship. It was made to survive combat. Using that fact and specifics of the vessel, Miranda piloted it into a rather impressive evasive maneuver as the battlecruiser, having acquired a target via the detector's sensors, began delivering seemingly endless salvoces of weaponfire at their direction. Luckily they were to the side of the BC, so they weren't facing full exposure of it's batteries, but it was already turning, it wouldn't be far now. In fact even Wraights had already moved to intercept.

Miranda spooled the machineguns on the ship they were on, using a sharp turn and a maneuver to shoot at one Wraiths, however the fighter was simply too agile and the pilots were hte best of the best so the most Miranda acomplish was force the two fighters trying to cut off their escape vectors to veer off course, however doing so while evading the BC covering fire was kind a hard. They even rocked violently as one of the batteries fire from the captial vessel sturck the dropship, luckily the heavier armor took the hit, however it stuck rocked them hard." Skadi, the missile batteries!" Miranda roared as she did another rather impressive evasive maneuver, especially for a ship this size. Luckily, they had a number of missile tubes ready to be launched. Miranda had made sure every last one of them was fast locking and trackign one with evasion capabilities. Wraiths might be able to evade it long enough for the onboard ai to glitch or the decoys to divert them, however the scanner wouldn't.

On that note, another BC wapred in some distance away, they still needed a little bit more time before the warp engines were ready to go. With two BCs and htem visible to the sensors it would be nearly impossible to escape... unless.... Miranda drew the dropship to do a complete 180 and lowered the flight path. Time to see if what her mad flight teacher back in the academy managed to engrain in her the madness that was as she had put it 'The Crichton Special', best tool of all dropship pilots to escape orbital blockades. The other piloting teachers call it the 'Moron Special' though, mostly cause very few would attempt it and only the most mad of them could compelte it.

[Keira Kelly]

Ava frowned, nearly scowling as she watched the small craft out the window. Such a small carrier for a sensor array was not just a problem for a cloaked dropship... Depending if the vessel could fly in an atmosphere, they had the potential to be able to detect through the ghost's own cloak as well! At least with science vessels or missile turrets, they were pretty highly visible from a distance at least fairly slow in the case of the science vessel.. and immobile for the turret. A smaller craft like the one out there would be far more mobile most likely, and therefore, a much, much bigger risk to a ghost. She didn't like it one bit. "When we get out of here, we are going to need to find out more about those things..." she said to Miranda.

Suddenly, they ran into the sensor field of the other ship. All hell broke loose. Ava held onto the back of Nick's chair as the dropship began sharp, evasive manoeuvres that nearly threw the unsecured ghost across the cockpit and the hits they took from the enemy ships that could suddenly see them nearly knocked Ava off her feet.. at least until one particularly hard hit did send her flying into the bulkhead. Ava's head hit hard enough to stun her and she fought to stay conscious but she did manage to somehow. She unsteadily regained her feet, trying to shake it off as Miranda called for the missile batteries suddenly. Usually the job of the co-pilot, Ava glanced over at Nick, seeing that he was too hard at work dealing with other imminent tasks to keep the ship going. Ava leaned to the side of him, hitting the appropriate button the console which opened up the missile bays. She waited till the light flickered green, showing the system was now ready for use. "Missiles ready!" she called back.

There was a bright flash out the windshield as another battlecruiser appeared and in response, Miranda pulled the dropship into a flip. Ava, not ready for the manoeuvre, was sent across the cockpit once more, though this time, she did managed to keep from hitting her head.. and thankfully most of her was still protected by her ghost armour. She was still feeling decidedly out of it though from the first hit. As they levelled out, she reached up with her still-gloved hand, touching a finger to the spot that really still hurt on the side of her forehead. Bringing it away, she could see a little bit of blood. Not much though. A shallow cut from the hit probably. It had still rattled her pretty good though...

She looked up out the window again. "How much time before we can get out of here?!" she called up.

( I would imagine it would be the pilot firing the missiles as well? )

[rivaan]

" Well given that there are portable short range versions avaible in limited numbers, it's not surprising they've been developping the tech, especially sicne the zerg's bio signatures turn nearly if not invisible once they burrow... and of course the dark templars." Miranda replied in agreement to Ava's desire to learn more about these things. If Mengsk was playing around with even better tech, they needed to be aware and at least one step ahead of him and on that note, she did a sudden turn to avoid a salvo.

As soon as confirmation for the readiness of their missiles was given, Miranda pressed the trigger as the full missile battery was unleashed with fast tracking and heat chasing capabilities. The wraiths that had dubted to not use their own cloaks yet realized what was going down as the missiles did a rapid uturn and zoned in on them. They tried to avoid using their cloaks, but they had gotten too close to the dropship and they simply didn't have enough time for the cloak to effectively mask their heat signature from up close. The missiles directly impacted one of the wraiths, causing an explosion that rocked their ship a ibt. The other one avoided the brut of his share of the missiles, however one grazed the tip of his wing as the fighter was turning invisible, causing the explosive to explode by the side of the wraith, making it hurl uncontrably for a few moments and for certainly wrecking a number of systems.

A new flight wing was already rapidly approaching as teh battelecruiser was keepign up the surpressign fire, now turning their nose towards them, so it can unleash it's full cannon spread." If we try to run it regularly? Barely not enough for a clean escape With the second BC.!" Miranda replied, making the ship dive towards the planet's atmosphere." If what I'm planning works? 20 seconds! And then she triggered the engines to full power as she did descend at the atmosphere, speeding upwards and forwards as they were being pulled downwards. Then teh ship started trembling at the strain as they weren't dropping down, instead they were moving faster, surfing across the edge of atmo at ultra low orbit and Miranda was now absolutely cackling like a lunatic, the entire ship bathed in the friction flames as they sped forwards, being slingshot forwards before a moment of flash on her peripheral vision signaled the booster engines were cooled down enough to fire again. She pushed that button hard enough to feel pain as the ship few even faster, breaking off orbit and rocketing forward with stupid fast momentum until finally with a glee she triggered the warp engine and the ship vanished from real space. Out of the viewscreen, they could see the hull in the front rather red from the friction heat and Miranda started cackling in glee again." Alexander would kill me, but that was bloody awesome! Must thank Instructor Crichton if I ever meet him again. Best darn shuttle and dropship pilot in the sector. Heard he pulled off what I just managed to with a cargo ship the bloody madman." She added and took a deep breath, before focusing on Ava, still regaining her calm." Alright, let's deal with that lil cut you've got there and we can probably just all toss the armors aside and call it an early night or something. Running a gauntlet of 2 BCs and a wing of wraiths following a police chase is likely enough for everybody to be drained..."

[Keira Kelly]

Seeing the battlecruiser turn towards them, and another on the way, Ava took a deep breath, feeling her mind going numb. It wasn't fear or anything like that. She didn't want to die, not by any means and would fight as hard as she could to prevent that outcome, but that being said, throughout her whole life, it had been drilled into her that she was expendable and that dying merely came with the territory for a ghost. If they were to die here, and now, there was nothing Ava herself could do to change their fates. It was all in someone else's hands and Ava would live or die by Miranda's skills and choices. The ghost didn't know whether to be pleased or saddened though that the two people closest to her would die as well should they fail now, so she merely resigned herself to whatever might happen.

Her head was pounding as Miranda took them into what looked like it might be a suicidal dive towards the planet's atmosphere. And sure enough, she could feel that Nick though it might be so, especially with the doctor's mad laughter ringing through the cockpit, but they were dead anyways if they didn't do something crazy right now. Ava had to grab hold of the back of Nick's seat as Miranda hit the boosters,the sudden thrust nearly knocking her backwards as they rocketed into the edge of the atmosphere. The ship bounced off the denser atmosphere at Miranda's direction, and the boost was triggered again, giving them an even greater lead away from the enemy spacecraft.

Though it seemed longer, it was only a matter of moments before Miranda took them into warp, losing their pursuers for good. The ship was now stable and calm and Ava let go of her grip on the chair, barely noting that she might have damaged the edges where she had been holding on with all of her armoured and psionically-boosted strength. The ghost blinked a few times, trying to clear away the dizziness and hint of double vision from when she had hit her head. She frowned lightly at what Miranda was saying, trying her best to comprehend the words. Maybe she had hit her head a little harder than she had thought.

At the mention of the cut, Ava reached up to touch at it again, wincing as she did. She could now feel there was blood down the side of her face. To be expected from a head laceration, even a minor one. "My head hurts." she said in answer to Miranda, still frowning. When she moved to walk, the dizziness got the better of her and forced her to sit down heavily in her armour. Her stomach felt a little bit uneasy as well. She frowned more, grimacing now. She growled softly to herself, recognizing the symptoms both from first aid training, from Miranda's teachings and of course, from experience. "Slight concussion, I think..." she said as Miranda came over. "I hit my head pretty good I guess..."

She could feel Nick's concern even before he turned around in his chair towards her. She held up a hand towards him. "I'm all right. Miranda can check me to be sure but I've had concussions before during training... This feels the same as those times." she said, trying to alleviate his worry. She held out a hand to get Miranda to help her stand back up since the room was spinning.

[rivaan]

"Hmm... alright, come on. It's bedrest time now." Miranda said with a smile as she helped Ava back out of the cockpit and towards their living area in the cargoarea of the dropship. Once the ghost was comfortably seated on her bed, Miranda looked at Nick and handed him a towel." Keep this pressed against the wound for a little bit. I need to get out of this thing. Can't exactly perform first aid in it unless we need field triage." She stated and lightly hit on CMC armor's chest and walked over to the place where they kept the CMCs. Luckily they had enough practice in getting out of those even without assisted machinery and with the few magical tricks from ole Alexander, taking off CMC was a decently fast affair so a few minutes later, she had cralwed out of the piece of metal and came back over ot Ava with the medkit in hand.

She quickly took some disinfectant and cotton balls, to clean the wound." THis is gonna sting." She grinned and got to work." So, headaches aside, anything about life amist modern civilization you liked? Anything you disliked beside the cacaphony of thoughts?" She asked Ava, to keep the younger woman chatting and attentive and also get her opinion on the life on a more core world. It wasn't the most core terran planet, but the city they were at was decently well populated, so it served as a nice introduction into modern life.

"This is gonna take a stitch or two, but since we've had the chance to restock and all, a few of these will do instead." Miranda smiled and pulled out a box of Steri-Strips or Butterfly stitches as they were also known. WOrked rather nice for replacing stitches on smaller wounds.

With the wound mostly closed up, she pulled out a small flashlight from her breast pocket, she always carried one. A professional habit." Now looked forwards." She doctorly ordered and flashed the light in Ava's eyes to check how they reacted after a few repeats and a couple of other small tests, she put the medkit and the flashlight away." Alright, you are right, it's a case of light concussions for the moment. For the next 24 hours you are on rest duties just in case. Also I will give you something for the swelling on the head. Now if you start getting nauseus, tell me right away." The doctor added and looked at Nick." You're in charge of keeping her in bed and if you don't, I'm hiding all the coffee on the next trip." She joked and looked at the other corner of the cargo area where the cage was half hidden behind a crate." Alright kids, you do you for the moment, I've got a dog to see." She said and stalked away.