Welcome to Gaia! ::

Thomas gave a cheer anyway. The way was clear, and he hadn't even had to charge. Well, he hadn't gotten to either, which was a shame, but there was only so much one could do. He got up and jogged for the door, tracing the building with his sights before he got close so that anything that posed a threat wouldn't really pose a threat. He pressed himself against the wall, waiting for Garrett to show up, preparing to again take point, but again set to run apparently faster than Jack was capable of. Hey, it wasn't his fault. It was his problem, but he figured that it was better to clear terrain then to sit and wait forever. He just had to not set himself up to get cut off. Caution would be required in this little escapade.

Garrett gave a big sigh of relief when he saw the air support show up. "Damn good," he murmured, smirking. He drew his second C4 charge and rushed across the remainder of the cratered field. "Planting, keep clear!" He shouted, and stuck the charge to the door before heading his own advice. Mentally, he followed the count. Three, two, one, and...
BOOM!
Garrett pressed himself against the wall beside Thomas, Sugar rifle at the ready. "Let's do this!"

"Green three, acknowledging sir," Arcadia said plainly upon receiving the new coordinates for entry. Entry was a shaky process, but Arcadia had nerves of steel. She radiated a soothing form of calm, especially in her speech. "Roger, Corporal." This time, she was acknowledging the new orders to disable the AA guns. "Four, I've got your wing. Let's come back around from the southwest corner. It seems to be less defended. Just be sure to deliver target directives to me; I'll make sure you don't miss." Cool, calm, collected: that was Arcadia.

The door burst open, belching smoke for a few moments as the squad poured fire into the opening. When the smoke cleared, they would see... nothing. No enemies, no defenses, nothing of important. In fact, it was a mostly clean, empty hallway with a kiosk to one side, much to small for a Drathonian to hide behind, it held a sign poclaiming: "Welcome to the Jupiter-class battleship Artemis Decommissioned around 3950 A.D...." And proceeded to list of the merits and actions of this ship. most of the sign could not be read, as it was covered in scribbled grafiti written out in Drathonian characters, and had a few laser holes through it. how the kiosk survived, no one will ever know. Just beyond the kiosk was an open door into a room marked "Gift shop", which had been hastily converted into a security checkpoint, now devoid of it's detail, whom they had just vanquished. farther down the hallway, some barricades were set up, but for the moment, the hall was eerily quiet. Obviously other teams at different points of the ship had provided enough distraction to keep their own path fairly empty. as if to confirm that assumption, drathonian war calls, as well as roars of pain mixed with screaming and yelling could be heard faintly echoing through other corridors.

***

"I Copy sir!" Emma chimed at steven, then, hearing Arcadia's suggestion, she replied "Copy, three" and whipped her fighter around, buffetting a little in the atmosphere, but not messing up her course. Approaching the corner, however, two more batteries popped up from beneath the armored plating of the base, and began tracking the two targets "Three, we have to more AA contacts to our right, tracking on you. I'll get them with my EMP cannon, just give my missiles something else to fire at" then, following her own orders, she re-oriented the Scimitar to fly straight at the cannons and swooped down within the short atmospheric range of the EMP guns, Firing blasts of blue energy which overloaded the two turrets before they could even fire.

Dante sat for a second, panting, while he put his mind back in his head as he sat next to Kai. “Thanks,” Dante gave to him as he peeked over the crater where they hid. Garret's voice soon reached his ears in his request for cover. As Dante watched him run for cover, he started firing small bursts of fire at selected targets. Two Drathonians fell during the blasts and one wounded.

When the doors opened Dante saw a wave of Drathonians rush over the field. Dante quickly ducked as laser fire shot all around them. A large boom sound came over the distance but he didn't care. All of a sudden, shells started falling, and he felt a strong push as he fell into an adjacent crater and heard what Kai told him. Dante ran down jumping from one foxhole to another, to get in closer to the building. A laser passed his head within an inch which had him hit the ground a little harder as he took a deep breath. God damn it. I almost bought the farm with that one. Dante looked around and estimated that he was far enough to avoid the shells. Dante took the S/GUR rifle off his arm and took out couple more Drathonians.

When the fighting was over Dante was still planted in the foxhole, shaking, and clutching his rifle in his hands so tight it started to leave an imprint. He watched as Garret blew the door off its hinges and a cloud of dust replace where the door was. When the dust cleared he saw the hall empty as an eerie silents engulf the battlefield. Dante just couldn't get himself up to advance. It was like the gravity had doubled and Dante looked down the hall through the scope as he waited for a horde of Drathonians to come rushing forth.

Nothing happened. The corridor remained empty, and quiet. but thomas took another step and the floor plate he stepped on depressed, made a twanging sound, followed by an electronic zap, and completed with a pathetic little poof as the small remains of what was supposed to be a large bomb went off. Apparently, some of the shrapnel from Garret's bomb had removed nearly all of the explosive device's explosiveness.

Tentatively, Kai walked inside as well, and found there to be nothing wrong. He signalled the rest of the squad to come inside, and walked into the 'gift shop'. There he sat down on a chair and said "Here's what we do. We send either Thomas or Jack down the hallway to scout out what's beyond those barricades, and the rest of us will form up there. If the scout encounters resistence, they are to turn tail and run as fast as their legs will carry them, essentially baiting the drathonians into our guns. If there are none, we continue up to the next floor, repeating the process if plausible, and then continue on to the main control center. everyone clear? Allright, one of you crazies, get gone, we'll be behind in a moment." With that, he stood up, slammed a fresh battery into his sugar, and made sure the rifle was ready, before walking out into the hallway and beginning towards the barricades.

Thomas shrugged. "All I know is you'd better work fast, Hendlow, 'cuz I think I'm going. A facefull of smoke is not enough to discourage someone messed up like me." He started casually for one of the halls, then paused. Orders would perhaps be good. Well, those were orders. He thought. "Are we ready to pull through with this?" Thomas asked, checking the Bro again before leaning against a wall and glaring down the hallway to see if anything appeared. Silently, he dared something to appear. Rarely did that work, but hey, it was always worth another shot.

Kai thought for a moment, before deciding and answering "Let's combine the two. Send Thomas runnin' and gunnin', have the trap set up ahead of the barricades, and leave it if we need it later." The captain nodded to his fellow before finishing "Allright, Hendlow, set the sucker up, soon as it's ready we'll let the other sucker loose" with a nod of the head towards Thomas. Looking at the engineer, he said "Hey, Sol, You said you know Drathonian? See if you can hack into the security terminal here and try and pinpoint some lizards for us."
At Jack's display, Kai smacked him on the helmet "Get serious soldier, we're not kids anymore." before picking up his own t-shirt and serruptitiously stuffing it into an empty pocket.

***

Using Telemetry from Arcadia's sensors, Emma's missiles slammed into the remaining AA that Three had left, as well as her own targets. Though crippling, several of the turrets managed to keep rotating and firing, albeit at a reduced rate "We got a couple of sleepers from my hits, Three. Five, see if you and six can mop up for us" Emma's eyes danced about her cockpit, reading different displays, looking over commands which she deftly whipped her hands accross at times, and at others simply directed through the brain reading functions of her helmet. She gripped her twin controls, making sure she was flying correct. Though ungainly and hyperactive outside, Emma was a starfighter prodigy, it was the reason she had been put in such an elite squadron as her first assignment. Noticing ground activity reports floating in her perepheral vision she had been monitoring Idly, she noted, mostly to herself "All the marines seem to be inside the base now..." With that, she whipped her starfighter around as quickly as it could in atmosphere, lining up for a final run on the now doomed AA defenses.

Blue and Red squadrons were doing fine now, reporting no more losses and a 90% suppression or destruction of AA and Artillery on the outer plating. Intel reports suddenly came in to the three squadron leaders, informing them that one of the most far-fetched hypotheses about the oddly shaped and constructed base was true; It really was a derelict Jupiter-class battleship that had been scuttled as a museum, brought to partial working order by the drathonians. Encouraged by the discovery of such a useful spaceframe, the squadrons were to now do their best to protect it. It was a bit Ironic how they had just attacked and de-clawed one of the ancestors of their own ship, the Hymn.