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Post by Eclipse Illium on Dec 30, 2015 13:13:50 GMT
Druss’s shots liquified in the banshee’s barrier; the creature paused a moment, turning its gaping skull grin towards the volus, then looked back at what seemed its real prey, Naarada and her escaping team. It flung an arm out and a vivid blue field surrounded the Eclipse captain, wrenching her away from Lorta’s grasp and hurling her against the far side of the chamber. Lorta took one glance at her, firing randomly from her pistol as she fought to escape the claws of the husks she had landed amid, and quickly shook his head.
“Sorry Ma’am,” he snapped, pushing Clemency backwards into the liquid channel and scrambling after her. Naarada turned at his voice, then cursed as the salarian set a shield wall in his wake, sealing her - and Druss - in with the husks.
The banshee stalked amid the husks towards her, towering over them - then Druss’s view was abruptly cut off as something grabbed her, splattering her suit with gore - one of the asari corpses that had been laying on the tables, clawing at the volus, flesh already hanging loosely from its implant skeleton tearing and falling away. Bullet tore through it without it even seeming to notice, then the pair crashed into one of the tables, the asari corpse collapsing on top of Druss in the process. With a mechanical grown the table began to rise, tilting back into its berth in the wall, toppling Druss over into the space beyond; the asari was caught between the two edges, crushed in half, leaving its upper half to flail wildly for a moment, shedding muscles and organs, until finally its metallic skeleton lay silent, the blue lights in it dying, and the gap back to the banshee chamber sealed with a hiss leaving Druss alone, in silence and darkness.
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Druss Jorkakt
Explorer
Name: Druss Jorkakt
Race: Volus
Occupation: Security guard - Cision Motors
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Post by Druss Jorkakt on Dec 30, 2015 21:09:09 GMT
Trying to get the chamber door back open initially, Druss gave up on that plan soon after. Should there be any space to move around in, or anywhere to go, Druss would attempt to get some form of light back, cursing herself for not bringing any flares.
If the chamber had nowhere to go save for the way she entered it, she would likely go into a panic as the shock of the brief fight with the corpse wore off. Banging on the door screaming for help, she'd try to cut through the door with a multitude of omni-tool items, all proving ineffective on the reaper alloy.
Unless the door would open soon after or there was an alternative escape route, Druss would try to recompose herself and fight the panicked feeling threatening to overwhelm her, calling out for Naarada. If she didn't receive any response or it sounded like she had left the volus for dead- or worse, Druss would keep trying to find some means of escape, going at anything in the room that looked like she could cut apart.
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Post by Eclipse Illium on Dec 31, 2015 15:15:14 GMT
The chamber was difficult to navigate in the dark; uneven floor, strange objects jutting from the walls, spindly arrangements of something hanging from the ceiling, like wind chimes, swaying and clanking as Druss brushed by them. Her attempts to cut through the wall provided some minimal light, which disturbingly revealed the suspended frames to be banshee implants, gleaming like chrome skeletons in the flare of the cutting torch, waiting for a victim to host them. They seemed dead enough, for the moment. Odd shapes reminiscent of hooks dotted the ceiling, and some patches of the walls were covered in jagged teeth, like meat grinders. Uninviting as they were, they also seemed perhaps to be a weak point - there was empty space behind them, and the barbed plates meshing together over the gaps were thin enough to cut through.
Half a dozen cuts later, it seemed possible that with more effort the hole could be enlarged enough for a volus to fit through - what waited on the other side, out of the reach of the cutting torch’s light, remained anyone’s guess, but at least there were no signs of life that way. Druss was just applying her torch to a new plate when a mechanical groan shattered the stillness of the room from behind her, an opening formed lit by gunfire and the hollow snarls of husks, and Naarada came tumbling through, tipped off her feet by another of the operating tables just like Druss had been. She crashed down on her back, rolled away, and came awkwardly to rest on her side, fumbling a shotgun around to cover her route of escape. No need; the opening closed as solidly a the one Druss had come through. She sighed heavily, then swung her weapon around as she noticed the torchlight, dropping the barrel when she saw who it was.
“Oh. Hey,” she muttered. “Did you do that thing, with the table, on purpose? Because nice idea. Wouldn't have lasted another minute in there.” She got to her feet, favouring one leg - her armour had obviously been through a heated melee, and she had several scrapes and cuts on her exposed face. She rubbed the back of her gauntlet over her face, smearing away trails of blood, and unfurled an omni-blade for light, examining Druss’s work.
“Any idea where this goes?” she wondered, applying her blade to help with the cutting. “Never mind - can’t be worse than back there. Goddess.”
She looked sidelong at Druss as they both pushed against a half-cut panel, forcing it back.
“So, I guess I kind of owe you an apology for all this,” she said, and she actually sounded sincere. “Didn’t really need an EOD tech, as it turns out. Or Lorta and Clemency.” She glanced over her shoulder, at the wall cutting them off from the scene of the brief battle. “That thing set this all up, I think. To get me here. No wonder we got in so easy, not much of a revenge if I’d just got wiped out by a prox mine half-way in.” She shivered. “Vaun. Merciful goddess. Did you ever hear anything like this, in the war? One of those things remembering who it used to be?”
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Druss Jorkakt
Explorer
Name: Druss Jorkakt
Race: Volus
Occupation: Security guard - Cision Motors
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Post by Druss Jorkakt on Jan 1, 2016 6:51:35 GMT
Shaking her head, Druss went back to cutting the hole, looking over to Naarada once she was done. "*hssk* I mean, maybe? My social worker said it was just the usual, low level PTSD- *hssk* Trying to connect with what looks like a monster . . . *hssk* You got a flare or something? Gonna want good light on the other side." Druss started climbing through the hole, one hand held out behind her, expecting a flare or some source of light. "*hssk* So who's this Vaun bitch? You two know each other?" The work on cutting the hole open and talknig with Naarada had given Druss time to cool down again and adjust to the situation. Her decision making was now partially back to calm and rational, although there was a lingering fear slowly mounting with every little unknown noise or sight out of the corner of her eyes.
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Post by Eclipse Illium on Jan 1, 2016 15:32:28 GMT
“Lorta had the flares. Should’ve listened to him, always stock up on everything. This’ll do, I guess.” Naarada detached something from her gauntlet and handed it to Druss - the projector from her omni-tool, which made for a serviceable if weak light source. She followed Druss into the channel they had opened up, a slow, cramped crawl even for a volus through a pitch black tunnel that twisted and turned as it went on. The metal beneath their boots and hands flexed oddly, like something organic, and every few metres they had to pause to pry away more intrusions in their path.
“I knew her,” Naarada replied. “She was under my command. Forty years or so ago, standard calendar. She was an enforcer, a good one, would’ve made Captain herself. She got careless though - must’ve duped the med scan when she got recruited, but a sweep picked her up. She was Ardat-Yakshi - you know it? Not the video game crap about sex vampires, the real thing, sociopaths.” She laughed dryly. “I get how that sounds coming from an Eclipse, but we’re not monsters, we look after our own. Ardat-Yakshi... can’t control them, can’t reason with them. They’ll stab you in the back even if you’re the only thing keeping them alive. You can’t have something like that on your team. So,” she sighed, “I grabbed a couple of mechs, went down to where she was resting - she was an item with our data specialist back then, spent all her rec time in Jal’s cabin - dragged her off the poor girl and put a few rounds through her head. Ugly, but you get used to that.”
She paused to help Druss squeeze through a flexible membrane-like barrier, clawing her way through in the volus’s wake.
“Lorta was right,” she went on, “it’s her in there. Somehow. Goddess knows how, but Reapers, who knows... We burned her body decades ago but that was her in there. Her biotics, her style. She was one of my best killers, I’d know her anywhere, even... even like that, that thing. She baited me here and now she’s going to kill me.” She glanced at Druss, grinning sardonically. “I’ll grant you, beside me may not be the safest place. Not sure if you really want to wander off alone though. Bad odds either way, huh? Don’t know what possessed me to think this was a good idea in the first place.” She paused. “Unless she’s in my head, too. They said Reaper tech can do that, mess with your head just by being around it. I’d, uh, I’d say shoot me if I start acting strange, but truth is I’m pretty sure I’m a quicker shot than you, so that wouldn’t go well. Sorry.”
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Druss Jorkakt
Explorer
Name: Druss Jorkakt
Race: Volus
Occupation: Security guard - Cision Motors
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Post by Druss Jorkakt on Jan 2, 2016 20:00:53 GMT
Continuing the crawl forward, her arm reached out in front of her for light, Druss shook her head. "*hssk* I'm calling that a ton of pee'ka, never heard of them resurrecting dead people. *hssk* So you're thinking she knows you? Like, she knows she's one of those-" Pressing one hand against the metal out of curiosity, Druss poked at it. "*hssk* Room must be made out of elastic or something. *hssk* So you think she knows she's like that? You know, like aware of what's going on and pee'ka?" Continuing on down the trail, Druss kept the conversation going. "*hssk* Think Lorta and- other one, the thessia-clan? Think they made it out? *hssk* What's the plan if we find them? Don't think things are too friendly between you three now."
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Post by Eclipse Illium on Jan 4, 2016 0:12:28 GMT
“She knows,” Naarada said grimly, pulling a combat knife from a sheath on her boot and digging its blade into the flexible surface. “I wasn’t thinking clear before, Lorta was right. We didn’t ‘accidentally’ power this thing up, it was waiting for us. A trap. Bait and all, the data traces I picked up. Should’ve thought harder about that. Stupid of me. I never heard of Reapers playing that kind of game though. This is her.” She finished slashing a jagged Y shape into the membrane and peeled it back. “Classic her. Liked to play with her targets. Not the best quality in a soldier, but she never let it get out of hand so I looked the other way...”
She clambered through the gash in the wall and there was a muted thud from the other side.
“Bit of a drop,” she called back. “No hostiles so far though. Climb through and I’ll lift you down.”
The biotic glow of her lift cast a little light on the chamber they had found - a hollow sphere of sorts, its sides a colossal tangle of artery-like cables all wound together in knots, glistening with oil. There were no obvious doors, but at various points the cables bent back, vanishing into cavities that left enough space for someone to crawl through. Naarada shone a light down one of them, revealing a twisting passage and a dark, open space beyond.
“Team gets split up, they’ll make for rendezvous, in this case the way we got in,” she replied, wriggling into the conduit first. “Assuming that hole they crawled into went anywhere. Husks all came after me, so I give them decent odds. Lorta’s got his head on straight. And he keeps his tools with him, if they backed into a dead end he can cut a way out. Clemency,” she sighed, “I don’t know. Maybe. If she keeps focused. She’s kind of latched onto me, but she’s been getting better at listening to Lorta.”
She half-crawled, half-slid out of the mess of cables at the other end and got to her feet, casting a light around - walls caked in black, rotted muck, and the floor tilted down towards a hole, almost like a drain, in the centre. Odd sounds reverberated softly through the walls, but nothing that sounded too much like husks, for the moment.
“Wow, you’re glad you’re not smelling this. Do we want to go up?” she wondered, looking at the ceiling - there were gaps in the metalwork, torn edges that looked like something had punched through, leading into whatever was above. “I feel like we went more down than up in that tunnel, the way out’s a level or two up maybe. How’s your spatial sense, any idea?”
She checked her comms, finding nothing but static, and huffed a sigh.
“Clemency’s a survivor though,” she mused. “Found her on a clean-out job on a slaver. Not the soft indentured crap they have here, real slavery, in the Abyss. Bastard had her pit fighting. Big hit with the audience, this little girl, killing.” She shrugged. “Couldn’t hand her over to admin, she’d wind up in a padded cell for sure. Killing’s all she knows, but, she is great at it. So I took her on the team. Least with us it’s enemy combatants, not just the first warm body she sees. And I guess she’s socialising, she’s talking and thinking more like a person.” She gave a dry laugh. “Messed up, huh? But so long as the banshee doesn’t get her, she’ll rip husks apart with her bare hands if she has to. Just, if she loses focus, she’ll forget about rendezvous, just go looking for anything she hears moving. I hope Lorta keeps her in check.” She shook her head. “Don’t worry about ‘em - that was the right call, leaving us. I didn’t like being on the wrong side of it, but if I were back at HQ commanding by remote, it’s what I’d have ordered him to do. If we find them, we’re all on the same team. If they’re mad at me for hauling them into this, that’ll wait until we’re on safe ground.”
With a jump and a biotic glow she scrambled through the hole in the ceiling, and leant down to offer Druss a hand.
“C’mon - jump, I’ll catch and lift.”
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Druss Jorkakt
Explorer
Name: Druss Jorkakt
Race: Volus
Occupation: Security guard - Cision Motors
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Post by Druss Jorkakt on Jan 5, 2016 2:59:26 GMT
Jumping a whopping one foot high, it was clear that Druss would need some biotic aid to get up.
After what was a taxing lift on Naarada's energy, Druss clambered up into the gap next to her, looking at the way forward. "*hssk* Thessia-clans first?" Handing her the light projector, Druss figured she couldn't make it past Naarada, but was more than ok not taking point.
Waiting for her to recover from the break and respond, Druss checked over her equipment, removing a reasonably large knife from one of her pockets, fiddling around with it intently. "*hssk* Three-dee compass on this thing's busted. One time it dosen't work, fuck. *hssk* Well, guess we only have one way to go right?"
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Post by Eclipse Illium on Jan 5, 2016 12:14:34 GMT
Naarada downed a stim tab after the effort of lifting Druss through the floor, and gave a mock-polite curtsey as she was offered the lead, equal parts sarcasm and amusement.
“Maybe they’ll sneak up behind you,” she joked dryly as she cautiously advanced into the gloom. “Gah! Hells. More spikes.” She stood to one side, aiming her light around the next chamber so Druss could see - like the one they had entered through, it was filled with rotting husks, each impaled on a dragon’s tooth. They seemed lifeless, for what that was worth.
“This isn’t where we came in,” Naarada mused, panning her light across the back wall, which had none of the conveyer belt openings. “But must be close - they’d put all the husk rooms together, right? Whatever.” She panned her rifle slowly across the ranks of silent corpses as they moved past them. “Kind of want to headshot them just in case. Probably make too much noise. Don’t suppose you want to put that knife to use, go saw all their heads off just to be on the safe side?” She chuckled. “Come on. Some kind of dividing wall over here, maybe we’re getting close... did that one just move?”
She had halted in her tracks, aiming both light and gun at the nearest husk, a torso with its legs fallen to a rotting pile on the ground. For a moment there was no movement, no sound but her breathing, then the head slowly tilted over to look at her.
“Shit!” she hissed, firing - the skull splintered, but with a reverberating whine the other dragon’ teeth were retracting into the floor, leaving those husks intact enough to stand on their feet.
“Close in!” she ordered. “Short bursts, near ones first!” She waved Druss quickly to her side, then gripped her rifle with both hands, steadying the barrel as she aimed at head after head, trying to slow the advance. A pair of corroded columns set into the wall would provide some degree of cover for the pair of them - but not far away, the opening to the next chamber was also vacant...
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Druss Jorkakt
Explorer
Name: Druss Jorkakt
Race: Volus
Occupation: Security guard - Cision Motors
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Post by Druss Jorkakt on Jan 7, 2016 4:27:23 GMT
Bright blue flashes lit the room as Druss fired several bursts, two husks toppling to the ground, the last one still crawling towards the pair. Scanning the room for more targets- and for fear of the banshee, Druss saw the chamber opening. Shooting another husk by the opening, Druss slung her rifle and grabbed Naarada by the legs, the asari toppling onto the volus as she sprinted with surprising strength to the next room.
Setting her down, she would un-sling the rifle and send another two bursts down at the husks, one falling over as it's lights flickered out. The second burst found it's way onto a decayed dragon's tooth device, one of the legs toppling it over, the spike carving through the chest of a husk, giving it a fearsome look but hardly slowing it's charge down.
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Post by Eclipse Illium on Jan 9, 2016 15:24:48 GMT
“What in the- gah! Put me down- Goddess!” Naarada scrambled back to her feet and, as Druss resumed firing at the husks, spun around to cover something behind them.
“Captain,” Lorta calmly replied, pointing his pistol safely away as the asari got her bearings, then stepping around her to target the husks. A sudden mechanical shriek sounded from behind them, but Lorta and Naarada didn’t react - Clemency had fired her sniper rifle, a Kishok harpoon gun that skewered the husk Druss had damaged, hurling it backwards and nailing its head to the far wall.
“Cortex circuitry severed,” she said calmly while reloading, as if repeating a lesson in school. Naarada caught Lorta’s eye, but he shrugged, and aimed again. With the four of them cooperating, the husks’ advance was stalled; those that didn’t fall to the wave of fire were driven off, shambling into the darkness.
“Glad to see you,” Naarada said when the danger seemed past, slapping a fresh heat sink into her rifle. “Volus... good work, don’t ever do that again. Okay. You two got any idea how we get back out of here?”
“Descend to processing level,” Clemency said quietly. “Biological storage. Preliminary separation channel leads to aperture in hull.”
“There’s a kind of stairwell back this way,” Lorta explained, gesturing. “We found the way out, but heard you and came up.” She followed him, waving for Druss to keep up.
“Thought we were below where we needed to be,” Naarada said absently, frowning at Clemency, who was following idly along behind Druss as if her dank surroundings were only mildly interesting.
“I can’t navigate either,” the salarian shook his head. “I think... Mental impairment, maybe. From the Reaper tech. Miss Clemency-” He glanced at the young asari, then moved closer to Naarada and spoke quietly as they began to descend a steep, jagged spiral that seemed like a giant drill punching down through the deck. “She went into a panic when we got separated from you, then she... Went calm. Since then she’s known exactly where we are and... also where the husks are moving. She’s still obeying orders, but this place is in her head.”
“Right,” Naarada muttered after a long moment’s thought. She looked around as they reached the lower deck - another chamber full of dragon’s teeth, these entirely vacant, but on the back wall was the opening to the conveyor belt they had crawled through to get into the ship to begin with.
“Clemency,” she said, waving the girl over to her. “Are there husks close? And the banshee?”
“Biologicals redeploying,” she replied calmly. “Transferring power to reclamation tanks. Damaged units to be stripped for materials. Flesh redigested. Processing. Repurposing. Intruders...” She trailed off, then looked straight at Naarada. “She’s waited so long. So long.” As she spoke, there was the faintest whisper of a banshee scream, distorted by the corridors it was echoing through - but in time with her words.
“Okay, you’re leaving,” Naarada snapped, looking to Lorta. “You, gimme your demo unit, then take point. Get her out of here. Volus, behind Clemency. Now.”
“Captain...?” Lorta began, handing over the unit as asked.
“Fully charged? Good.” Naarada pressed a couple of buttons on the unit - a bomb - then fixed it to her belt. “You’ve got as long as it takes me to find a reactor or something that looks critical, then I’m blowing this Yakshi bitch back where she came from.”
“...Understood,” Lorta said stiffly. “Miss Clemency, come?”
“No,” Clemency whispered, shaking her head as if waking up. “No, no! Don’t leave!”
“Get her out of here!” Naarada ordered. “Volus, grab her! Go, now!” Lorta had grabbed Clemency around her waist, halting her effort to get back to Naarada, and slowly dragged her towards the exit as the other asari finished her preparations.
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Druss Jorkakt
Explorer
Name: Druss Jorkakt
Race: Volus
Occupation: Security guard - Cision Motors
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Post by Druss Jorkakt on Jan 12, 2016 18:20:27 GMT
If Druss had been thinking straight, she'd probably be worried about her payment currently. As it was, the extended session in the reaper ruins cause a natural drive towards sheer panic, the volus trying to hit the brakes before reaching that edge. Reloading her rifle, she glanced over at Naarada. "*hssk* Copy, where are we regrouping at?" Druss still thought Naarada intended to survive the demolition, the volus waiting for her response as the faint scream of the banshee was heard again.
[Neutral] Tell Druss it's a suicide run
[Neutral] Give Druss a regroup point
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Post by Eclipse Illium on Jan 13, 2016 3:12:42 GMT
“Goddess girl would you just- Do as I say!” Naarada snapped at Clemency, then to Druss: “Follow Lorta, get her out of here, go. I’ll...” She sighed. “Lorta knows rendezvous protocol, follow his orders. Damn it girl, get out of here, go!” Clemency has subsided somewhat in Lorta’s grip, and was tearfully allowing herself to be led back towards the opening in the wall, while Naarada turned away from the group, readying her weapons.
“...mommy...” the young asari mewled pitifully, as Lorta turned her by the shoulders and propelled her into the hole.
“I’m not your mother, girl,” Naarada muttered, not looking back.
With Lorta keeping Clemency from turning back there was little for Druss to do but follow along through the crawlspace. They were just a few metres from the hole they had cut through the hull - its edges somehow hadn’t yet cooled, still giving off a faint red light - when Lorta grabbed Clemency’s belt to stop her, and held up a hand to Druss.
“I’m not getting a signal from the sentry drone we left,” he whispered. “No hostiles registered. No motion...”
“Go back,” Clemency said miserably.
“Wait here,” the salarian ordered. “Druss, make sure she doesn’t move. Let me through...” With some awkward scrambling he managed to get past Clemency in the crawlway, and ducked through the hole, straightening up outside. As soon as he was in view there was a whirr of motors and a trio of blinding spotlights flares into the face of his helmet; peering around the edge of the hole, and past Lorta, Druss and Clemency were just able to make out the forms of TAKIA mechs swiftly advancing.
“This is the Nos Astra Police Department,” one of them said in its synthesized asari voice. “You are in a restricted area and Indoctrination Countermeasure Bronze is in effect. Disarm immediately and order your comrades to show themselves. Failure to comply will result in lethal force.”
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Druss Jorkakt
Explorer
Name: Druss Jorkakt
Race: Volus
Occupation: Security guard - Cision Motors
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Post by Druss Jorkakt on Jan 14, 2016 22:06:00 GMT
Getting a glimpse of the mechs ahead, Druss kept a hold on Clemency, hearing the warning from the mechs. Her initial reaction after looking at Lorta was to surrender, loosening the grip on her rifle. Her tone was rife with a feeling of defeat "*hssk* Unless we've got a shield or some real big gun- . . . " Squeezing past Lorta and letting go of Clemency, Druss shuffled down the space, her hands raised in front of her.
To Lorta and possibly Clemency, it would be clear she was surrendering. Still, she wasn't particularly close to the mechs just yet, and if they were all focused on Druss . . .
[Paragon] Attack/disable the mechs before Druss gets too close
[Neutral] Surrender
[Renegade] Attempt to escape and leave Druss to the mechs
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Post by Eclipse Illium on Jan 15, 2016 1:04:13 GMT
“Get back,” Lorta hissed. One of the mechs turned its bulky weapon to cover Druss, while the others kept Lorta in their sights.
“Clear the lane,” Clemency growled, scrambling out of the opening in Druss's wake.
“No. Stay-”
“Non-compliance,” the mech intoned. “Pacification authorised under Indoctrination Countermeasure Bronze.”
“I am an officer of the Eclipse corporation!” Lorta shouted quickly. “Under the relevant articles of the Eclipse Illium postwar treaty I am overruling-”
“Pacification will commence,” the mech interrupted him calmly. As one, the trio lit ignition torches on their weapons - flamethrowers - and drew level with one another into a solid firing line, blocking the narrow corridor completely.
“Back!” Lorta yelled as they fired, hurling himself back to push Clemency back into the tunnel, as the mechs unleashed a wide-spray storm of burning gel towards them.
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