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Dante recieved quite a bit of resistence, it seemed there was a Drathonian hackeron the other side trying to counteract the engineer. Private Sol continued to gain ground however, the Terran had more experience with the interface and coding that this ship utilized. Back and forth they fought with bits and bytes, more fiercely than any of the gunfights in the hallways of this ship, though both parties kept their calm, because losing one's mind in this battle meant instant failure.

Suddenly, Sol's datapad beeped, a small message, bearing mini version of the Hymn's avatar (Whom Sol had not yet met) the avatar soon began moving about Dante's screen, fixing small errors in his coding. Suddenly, the door beeped and flashed on, it was ready to be opened from this side. The Quantum computer aboard the Hymn had used it's link to the soldier's datapad to help him hack, and they now had full control over the doors on this level, but the main computer itself had been isolated, and Dante would need to connect directly to it if he wanted to hack through anc take control of the Artemis.

Clarissa was doing what she did best as a sniper, namely, remaining relatively unnoticed while picking off enemies with deadly accuracy. Much of this could be accredited to the marines whom were fighting in a manner that she could only call flamboyant; firing hundreds of times and lobbing dozens of grenades, so compared to them one soldier in the back firing on average two times a minute were the least of their worries.
It may not be the prime environment for a sniper to work in, but she had always been a thrifty girl; staying well away from the front of the pack, and firing only one round instead of a burst. She may have been told to switch to burst, but as a sniper efficiency was to deeply ingrained in her to use burst; why waste several rounds to take out an enemy when one well placed round can do the same, that is what she had been taught. So, with the painfully slow pace of at most three rounds per minute, Clarissa had a growing tally of headshots. As she was still in a sniper mind set, she barely spoke at all choosing instead to remain separated from the central community that was the marines close-knit family.

Emma breathed a sigh of relief when backup arrived, the fight had put her on edge, under so much stress that even her emotions had stopped working. She had been saved by her shields so much during the fight that about thirty seconds before the 'cavalry' arrived, the generator had shorted out and refused to work again, leaving her feeling horribly vulnerable. Now that it had all passed, she curiously checked her computer for kills. 12 kills. half an ace in her first combat. not bad for having lost it partway through. She noted that steven had accumulated twenty kills, and was sure he was more than an ace by now. Raji and her wing had a combined score of 17, almost all were shared kills, as apparently green 6 didn't want to be shown up by green five. A low-priority alert went off, telling her that Green lead went into auto-pilot mode, so she switched her autopilot to follow in formation with him, and went about seeing what she could do about the frazzled out shield generator.

"That sounds wonderful, Sol, patch it through to my pad" Kai said, and, when that was done, the captain studied it, and decided on their route. "Allright, beyond this door is a short hallway that leads into the control room, wich is a big empty space. We want to do as little hurt to the computers in there as possible, so bring out sidearms and put away your Bro's, as those don't have the accuracy we need. Dante, on the count of three, open the door and we'll rush in. keep to one side, we need you alive out here until we take over, allright?" the tall blonde Terran counted down, and at the end of his count burst through the door, quickly rushing down the hall and taking cover in the arch of the entry into the control room, only to find it empty, from his vantage point at least. He called a halt on the soldiers behind him, then whispered to Garrett "got any flash or stun grenades to throw in that control pit?"

[[ you know what's funny? 17 was the number I was going to use! ]]

Raji was looking over the kill count as well, with mixed emotions. On the one hand, only greens one, two, seven, and eight had scored more kills than her. This came as no surprise; both pairs had strong teamwork. On the other hand, however, only six of her 17 kills had been counted as her own. The other eleven were 'shared' between her and green six. She had a few choice words to say about that, but instead she sat there brooding. Green six fell off her wing, returning to formation. She gritted her teeth, turning off her squad com and flying off on her own. She hit the outermost perimeter of their mission zone, and set her autopilot to follow it. She pushed her seat back and crossed her arms and legs. She scowled. Yes, she now properly loathed her wingmate. But there was something far more underlying about the encounter that had put her in a dour mood. She wasn't quite sure what.


Fortunately for Dante, he wasn't the only one who had been stuck in a compromising position. Unfortunately for him, however, he was wrong in assuming no one had seen him like that. No sooner had Jack pummeled the door down and set down a hail of fire than his sugar had died with a whimpering fizzle. He spent the entire encounter crouching a ways behind Kai, smacking the damn thing and taking parts off, blowing on them, and putting them back into place. Nothing. The unfortunate truth was that it was, regardless of how far we've come, human technology. Which translated into made to be replaced.


[[ time for a little backstory to put a little pause between the action!! ]]


He was so focused on trying to get the piece of crap working again that he was oblivious to the fact that he was sitting in a clear line of fire. He was helpfully reminded, however, when a blast of hot plasma sent him sprawling onto his back. Surprising as it had been, he had to be thankful for it. If the sniper had taken a fraction of a second longer to aim, he'd have cleared the few inches between where the crater in his armor was and where his head had been. It had been so close his nose felt a bit toasty.

Returning to a crouch, he quickly moved himself around the corner to the now-cleared hallway to their side, kneeling down again next to the (pretty cute) girl in the pilot outfit. Still holding the sugar in his hands, he remembered that one of the rookies was a techie. Looking up at the chaos of exploding plasma raining down the hall like a sideways apocalypse, he soon found the kid he was looking for. Of course, it wasn't difficult; he had his back against the wall, staring at the mutilated corpse of the dead marine.

The expression of horror on his face was strangely familiar. For a brief moment he was reminded of another young man, albeit a much younger one, from a time so long past that only a vague wisp of a memory was left. He lost himself, staring at the floor so deep in thought that he was scowling. Instinctively, he rubbed his shoulder, feeling for something under the armor that was no longer there. Fragmented memories that had long since been buried came slowly bubbling up, like gas through tar.

His senses went dull. The whine of energy bolts slowly distorted, until it turned into a slow, steady, mechanical rumble. The hallway dimmed, the bursts of light from munitions hitting walls turning into flying trails of sparks falling like rain. The stark metal walls surrounding him remained, yet were changing. They expanded infinitely outward, breaking into arrays of walkways and steaming pipes. The bright metallic sheen dulled and rusted, making the scene altogether more sullen. The mechanical rumble intensified, joined by the hiss of steam and turbines.

[[ alright, this little backstory turned into such a massive tale that I'm putting it in the guild forum. I'll post the link to it here once it's done. ]]

Thomas leapt up, ignorant of the possibility of other opposition; if there was some, they'd have too hard of a time tracing a moving, charging target. And if there were he'd shoot them/his teammates would shoot them.

Knife in hand, he tackled one of the disoriented Drathonians, throwing his whole weight, steel plating included, on top of it. Already surprised and confused, it didn't have much of a chance to resist; he stabbed it once, twice, and a third time in the neck. For good measure, he plunged the knife in once more through an eye socket then pushed off of it and readied himself for the second one. He didn't charge it immediately, though; he had friends, and at the very least he'd wait for them to do a little damage. At best, they'd kill the Drathonian and Thomas wouldn't need to do any more.

Kai had indeed noted Thomas' somewhat insane move, and therefore went for the other Lizard. Although the beast was wobbly and difficult to track, it sloppily moved towards the captain, making his shot on a hulking target an easy one. Blasting it through the weaker chest scales, the Sugar's particle beam vaporized the entire chest cavity, allowing the no longer living body to tumble to the ground with a slightly squishy thump. With a hand signal, Kai ushered the group forward to take the room, which was an easy feat considering that they had just killed all it's occupants. "Private Sol!" the blond man called to his engineer "we need you in here stat. think you can use starship controls?" He then searched around for the rest of the squad; it seemed Jack hadn't come into the room yet, but a retching and slight banging managed to reach Kai's ears, so he went out to investigate, and found Jack, who was looking as bad as the lizards had been. "You okay private?" he asked, concerned.

"Clean?" Thomas commented, wiping blood onto his pants. He was quite the gory giant. If Arcadia was not feeling like stomaching nasty, bloody, holding-small-portions-of-your-enemy-like-you-intend-to-make-them-into-a-necklace sort of thing, Thomas was not the man to look to; he had indeed pried a few scales off his fallen opponent and was pocketing them - personal spoils of war. He wasn't much into souvenirs, especially those gained from grave-robbing, but Drathonians were tough, and it was because of their scales; turn those into a nice neck-piece and nobody'll be slitting your throat any time soon. Hopefully, anyhow.

"So room's clear, potentially? Are we holding here or not?"

"Umm.. Crap, I think we need a Medic" Kai mumbled, Grabbing Jack's arm and pulling him towards the room, where there were some chairs he could sit in. "Everyone inside, we're taking control of this vessel, and I expect it's current owners won't like that. Oscar element, You guys have the exits, CIU 215 will hold the high ground inside here for now." Kai stomped up to what appeared to be the command chair, which was on a platform above both the main walkway and the crew pit. From here he could see a number of screens, most displaying Drathonian text, but a few still reading in Terran. "Sol, Get up here, and get these screens translated to Terran as soon as you can. Umm... Pilot? Could you come up here and assist Sol if he needs it? Also, I could use your name." Finishing his sentence, the Captain held out his had towards Arcadia, as a gesture of peace towards the obviously upset woman.

***

Already, banging could be heard. Sol's previous efforts had managed to close off many of the doors between the control room and the rest of the ship, but the Lizards seemed to know ways around, and were merely slowed. Every once in a while, the banging would stop, and be replaced by the furious sounds of skirmishes. Sometimes, the banging would resume, others, Not. Clearly, The Lizards knew what had gone on and were not happy.