Omni Herald Studio-Remote Broadcast Studio, Rome Green-11:23 PM
Silence filled the studio and the airwaves on a frequency that minutes ago was broadcasting propoganda so proudly. No great loss there. It was a boring rhetoric talk show that spewed forth the "company line". Ratings were depressingly low even amoung Omni viewers, partially for it's time slot, but more honestly because it was as dry as tanned roller rat flesh.
The eight nine attack squad worked hurredly in silence, speaking only when nessesary. Macaelin, a solitus doc and Altavashta, a Nanomage scout knelt over Grorkin. Both ladies moving with what seemed to be well practiced and coordinated urgency as they patched up the atrox president. He took a pretty bad hit to the solerplexus from a lucky shot that landed right below where his tank armor ended. Must have been fired as he was in the middle of casting a "Challenger" nano.
Spader and Victoronous, the two atrox soldiers, lie in the "prone" position, scanning down the hallway with their weapon sights. The solius grunt, Deadfish knelt, searching the body of the foruth, final, and unexpected gaurd.
"ACE report, sergent?" Spader yelled out to the solitus.
"Ammo-green, Casualties-yellow, Equipment...." Deadfish paused as he looked to the "Blue Boy" through a blood smeared window
Psykotron, or rather the pysical manifestation that Pyskotron controlled from the grid, glanced over to Deadfish with a quick shake of his head. The blue form went back to it's work on the consoule
"Equipment-red, Sir", Deadfish finished
Spader slowly shook his head as his eyes remained trained down his sector of fire. "Damn"
Mackaelin stood up allowing Altavashta to finish up. She ran over check on the three soldiers. Grorkin would be alright, if a bit short winded for the next few days. Victoronous and Deadfish both took minor hits and she was unsure of their severity. Never any rest for a doctor
Lazureth, a martial artist was finishing off the last knot on his captive, making sure she was well fastened to her seat and mouth securyly taped. There really were a million uses for it the adheive grey stuff he mused to himself
Finally Lordanubus stood, surveying the area with silent, thoughtful and methodic calculation. He took in every action as he watched his fellow revolutionaries doing their parts. Inside his mind, he ran dozens of possible senarios as to what might happen next, and how to best respond with personnel, resources, and environment given. The Opifex fixer now had the heavy burden of controling both fire teams since the othe president was down.
"Grorkin, you ok?" Lordanubus asked out loud
A suprisingly slightly wheezed resonce,"Hell yeah.......(cough)....take more than that......". He began as if to stand as he spoke. Altavashta was quick to push him back down however, going right back to bandaging as he grimaced in pain
Psykotron's mind thought to himself as the grid armor's hands moved with nano enhanced speed. He was against the presidents comming along from the start. There was no need risking themselves for this, it was not that important as to chance loosing them. Yet he was merely an advisor with a token rank of leadership. This was fine to him, he was a better advisor than he could ever be as a general. And he was happy with the adivce he offered NeRO thus far. He still felt as thought his thoughts about their leaders comming along should have been heeded more closely.
However, he admitied to himself, he was now glad they had. Without Grorkin there to take the beating that someone else would have gotten, possibly the whole fire team for that matter, the Mission might have to be aborted before it was well underway. And having Lordanusbus on damage control was a blessing under current circumstances.
The mission was going wrong. Way wrong. The plan was simple enough. Kill the audio /visual engineer and disable broadcast as the othe fire team took out the two gaurds posted outside the studio doors. Then capture the host and his guest as the advanced hacker, Lordanubus's personal creation, was used to cut into all Omni broadcast channels. That was the plan.....
But who would have suspected an eager couple of gaurds to be 46 minutes early for a shift change? The twist of fate lead to one hitch after another. As the four gaurds bore down on team alpha, team bravo had to rush into the engineer's booth before they were "set". The door was kicked down and the a/v technician killed by a single shot to the head from Lordanubus, manex fire selector on semi-auto. But the tech had a pistol. He was no match speedwise for a fixer and barely even had his pistol raised out of its holster before he flung backwards toward the window looking into the studio.
Pyskotron was next in behind leadman and quickly disabled the broadcast before the host or guest could do more than stop short their converstion. He hoped he the muffeled sound of assault rifles opening up would be muffled enough by the studio doors to not be picked up over the mics inside it
Fortune was frowning on bravo team as well as the tech's spasm pulled the triger and got off a shot. Since the pistol was still lowered, it didn't "hit" anything. It did ricochet off the metal floor and hit the hacker deck though, knocking out the internal power supply. Not a big problem, but it would still cost them valuable time
Alpha team finally burst into the studio after eliminating the gaurds. The host was an old solitus war vet. Probably the reason the show stayed on the air this long, He apperently had one last burst of heroism in him as he grabbed hold of Victoronous's Hellspinner trying to wrestle it from him. The soldier was edgy though after taking a shot to the arm and instinctively fired a burst into the host, knocking him back into the wall and then to the floor. The guest, an middle-aged opifex female historian sat in her chair as she screamed hysterically. She was then tied to he chair and her mouth taped by Lazeruth sternly, yet not too harshly. She was after all a non-threat.
Pykotron accessed rubi-ka time from the grid stream he now lie emmersed in. It was akward at times to be two "places" at once.
11:26 pm RST. Eight minutes behind scheduale already. but he was almost....
"Done" he called out. It appeared their engineer friend had come through on his part. The satelite was uploading all the info the deck was feeding into it as several of its dishes rotated to new targets
He looked over to Lordanubus and reported, "Channel's accessed 10 seconds till air time. Permission to deliver address?"
Lordanubus noded with a slite smile
Pykotron ran into the studio and nervously cracked his fingers. It seemed to help his mind as though his real world projection could feel relief of pressure in joints that did not exist.
3 seconds till airtime.....
2....
(Loranubus points a finger to him as his hand makes it's way down. A red light goes on over the booth's wndow.......)
Around Rubi-Ka, late night holo vidcasts, old sit-vid reruns and news programs being broadcast by Omni-Tek stop suddenly. There is a split second of static before countless screens are filled with the image of a fixer unlacing his fingers and bringing his hands to his sides.
"Opressed people of Rubi-Ka, this is a call to arms. The Neutral Right's Organition will accept tyranny no longer.
We thus decare war, not on Omni-Tek, not on Clan, but on those that mean to keep the free enshackled while destroying the home we live on. Whatever you call yourselves. where ever you live, we will hunt you down, stalk you, and strike you down with rightous vengence when you are least ready to pay its price.
We exist in the shadows, we are everywhere in every city and faction. Your death will come from within, and be antagonizingly slow.
And know this. We are not alone. Our BorPac brothers and sisters, members of the Nanomage Liberation Front and Desert Winds will be there to suppost us, as we shall also be by their side. NeRO will watch and laugh as the mines burn down. A new, civilized culture will be raised from its ashes, one intellegent enough not to **** its own planet to a lifeless rock.
Heed this warning everyone that would wave their banner blindly and follow dictators into battle. It will surely be your last.
That is all"
The broadcast ends and the black silence is replaced after a few seconds with annoyingly soft and monotonous "lift music" and a message "Technical difficulties-Please stand by"
Psykotron noded to Lazeruth as he tried to give him a pat on the back. His hand however slid through the projection causing a monetary slight flicker of de-rez. Both men checkled, the tension in the studio broken
Grorkin stood slowly and smiled with a cough, "great job everyone". Coughs
"Charges set, 30 seconds till detonation." Spader announced as he entered the room
Evidence is a bad thing for many bad reasons
"Let's go home", Lordanubus began waving gestures in the air, tapping buttons only he could see as he began prepairing his nanoprogram
Mackaelin hurredly interupted, "Don't forget.."
"I know, I hadn't. taking her along too," he motioned to the hostage as he continued tapping invisible buttons, "she's going to be set free in the park. Someone is always around the exit there. She'll be safe"
Just as the team and captive grided out a squad of omni gaurds lead by one in Elite rushed down the coridoor, into the hall and into the studio. They were too stunned by what they saw to even think about searching for a bomb.....
