Clockwork Omega

[Jak Sandrow]

He looked in - but there were only tech people, scared out of their wits! They shot at him a few times, mistaking him for a droid, and he ducked out again and left them to their "solitude". After mentally kicking himself, he roared up towards the 87th floor, where he could see Tegaea & Siobhan blasting their way through the droids. Waving at them with a stupid grin on his face, he commed, "This is Flight 216 on Sandrow Starlines. We are experiencing a slight droid malfunction. Would you be so kind as to board the craft and remain in your seats? Thankyou!"

 

[Qae Shena]

@[member="Ayden Cater"], @[member="Cira"]

"You two are KARKING INSANE."

The voice issued by the ship's loudspeaker was clear - there was help on the way but damn were they dumb. The Argevant-class dropship was racing down from the atmosphere, nose-first, and it went considerably faster than gravity ever could. Allaina wasn't anywhere near the ground when things went wrong, as usual. So she'd had to pull a ship and fly down. She'd traded in the Inimica for a suitable extraction vessel. This time, a dropship. After all, she was a damn good pilot. Probably the best Omega Pyre had, truth told; couldn't fire a blaster to save her life but she could fly any ship ever.

That ship was now positioning under the two falling people, trying to save their asses by matching their descent rates underneath them, hoping that either of them would fall into the hatches or grab on to the side of the ship without generating too much forward or back slipstream. They had open hatches and ramps everywhere to latch on to or fall, so hopefully they'd hit one of those.

If this failed, Omega Pyre would be down two very important people and Allaina refused to let that happen.

 

[Ayden Cater]

Ayden would have grinned had he not been speeding down the side of the tallest building on Fondor. It was only around the time he had fully left the building that Ayden realized that he didn't have any means to stop himself. 'First the shutters, then the jump... Not a good day for me.' Still, with the only problem being the stop, they'd definitely get to the bottom of the building in no time at all. Now, he really did need to work on that whole stopping-without-turning-into-goo bit.

The answer to this conundrum, fortunately, came in the form of an Argevant-class dropship. He breathed a sigh of relief, or as much as one could while falling at terminal velocity, and manipulated himself towards one of the hatches, careful to avoid the backwash of the engines. Reaching out with one hand, his fingers closed around a railing and he pulled himself in, turning around to spot the trailing form of Cira. Still holding onto the rail, he held out his other arm and gestured for her to hurry up, as the ground was beginning to get fairly detailed in appearance.

 

[Omni]

As the two figures fell from the tower and towards the ground the droids upon the tower immediately spotted them. They began to head towards the falling pair, running and lashing out at them on their way attempting to kill the two in a controlled systematic way. One droid in particular stood out, a shiny blade like droid crawled its way up the tower, its four limbs piercing into the thick duracreet every few feet and then pouncing upwards. The blade like droid looked up, seemingly with no eyes upon its face. It saw the drop ship fly towards the pair, and seemed to tilt its heads in curiosity.

Its face seemed to be made up of thousands of blades, each one connecting to a forward center, a sort of hypno-wheel effect. The droid looked at the dropship and then suddenly its “face” opened up. The blades peeled backward like a venus fly trap to reveal a deathly humanoid like skull. A massively loud screech erupted from the droids jaws, a bestial sound. Seconds later the blades closed in upon themselves once again.

The Droids upon the tower now all turned their attention to the dropships slowly making its way towardsthe falling pair. Dozens upon dozens of droids began to jump from the building and towards the dropship itself, jumping onto it and attempting to hang on to it.

The blade droids itself began to climb with seemingly renewed vigor, jumping and clawing its way up the side of the tower. In just a minutes time it reached the same level as the dropship, it let out another massively inhuman scream and then pounced. It bounded towards the dropship talon like claws digging into the side of the heavy metal and pinning the blade like droid into place upon its hull.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

Along with Tegs Siobhan continued moving down the countless stairs. She could see strange blade droids climbing up the tower, they seemed to be moving to engage the dropship. "So this is what...machines going bonkers. Did someone miss a critical update?" she cursed as they moved down towards level 87.

Just a hell of a lot more levels to go before they could reach the hangar that held Sandrow's transport vessel. She tried to reach Hevana again, but the only thing that came out of her comm was the screeching voice of the Red Queen, thoroughly annoying her and paining her ears.

More annoying and stranger from her perspective was the ache she was feeling in her head. It felt like she had woken up after all-night binge-drinking and now was nursing a hangover. She angrily rubbed against her forehead and pressed on. It was probably nothing and in any case they had to get the hell out and kill these damn machines.

Yeah, you''ll pay as well, queen, she thought. Suddenly a door to the next level opened and black robots surged out, firing their automatic blasters, blowing large holes in the wall. Siobhan quickly moved in front of Tegaea, she deftly deflected bolts in an angry flurry, but these droids were stronger than the average, they even managed to dodge some. Red and green blasts ricochetted through the staircase, not the best place for a battle.

Angrily she drew on the Force to rip out a piece of badly damaged wall out, sending chunks of the rubble at the machines directly in front of her. Then quickly surged down as she spun her blade to deflect shots, swinging it to embed it into the metal chassis of a robot. With the Force she levitated the destroyed automaton and hurled it into the fray, then whirled her blade downward so that it came moving like a bomerang, slashing off a machine's arms and decapacitating another before returning to her.

Alright, now at least I've got something to hit. That she could deal with, not creepy hologram voices and hangovers that came without the fun of getting smashed first. But more machines were incoming and she grit her teeth at the intensifying salvoes, charging down to hew at them. They had to get out of here and fast.

More machines appeared from the lower levels. Seemingly caught between two sides, Siobhan almost lost her balance when a machine armed with a cortosis blade lunged at her, cutting her in the shoulder and then knocking her down a hard kick to the chest. As the machine brought down its blade she narrowly dodged and slammed into it with her droid hand before retrieving her lightsabre and slashing across its torso. She had little time to get her bearings for red bolts streaked towards her, forcing her to spin her blade in a fast flurry.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Tegaea had watched Siobhan's back during the battle, taking cover and shooting several with her blasters. As the one with the blade loomed over her Tegaea shot it in what passed for its head twice, followed by Siobhan's slash across its chest. The machine finally went down.
Tegaea hauled her up. "You alright?" she asked, looking at the cut. It looked pretty shallow. "Let's get out of here."

They went to the window, could see @[member="Jak Sandrow"] waiting, trying to fight off the swarming machines. "This is one of those times Siobhan when you have to trust me. Ready?"
Taking Siobhan by the flesh hand she blew out the window, they ran for the window and jumped. Tegaea landed hard on the top of the transport, rolled, caught herself and dragged Siobhan back from the edge with all her strength.
"Let's get inside!"

They looked down and saw the great metal worm attach itself to the gunship below. "Looks like we've got a hell of a day ahead of us," she said as they dropped into Sandrow's ship.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

@[member="Ayden Cater"] @[member="Omni"] @[member="Allaina Mare"]

Sarge had been inspecting the ship Ayden had been making when the original Resident Evil movie had started playing out. Thankfully the ships system had been fully isolated and was safe, and Sarge had triple checked that it was remaining that way before booking it to the hangar.

The controls of the Peregrine gunship shook in his hands as he and two wing mates descended, high speed, through atmo and towards the tower that was the command center for OmegaPyre.

He didn't know what was going on, but he knew that whatever passed for a Skynet was behind this.

Three ships broke cloud cover and swung towards the drop ship Alaina was piloting, and it took him half a second to notice the droids starting to swarm it. Swiftly, they matched her descent rate.

Gloved hands flickered across controls with precision and he cycled up his weapons. "Let's clean them off; get the boys out of here."

His first target? The strange blade-y thing on her flank.

"Hold steady.", his voice crackles inside Alaina's ship.

A half second later, he gently squeezes the trigger for the chin mounted composite beam and sends a millisecond burst towards the blade droid.

The beams were deadly, but he was trying to wipe the insects off her hull, not necessarily kill them. Shortly after, the composite beams of his compatriots began cycling too, mindful of both her ship and Ayden... and the building.

All three gunships made sure they stayed out of easy jumping distance of the building and the dropship.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Jak Sandrow"]

"Always trusted you. Even though you're crazy!" Siobhan got out before Tegaea pulled her down out of the window. Siobhan tried to control her descent with telekinesis, but even so it was quite a leap and she landed entirely ungracefully on the transport's hull and as she tried to get her bearings started to slipp of the hull before Tegaea caught her and pulled her up.

"Seems like it. Always thought Sophos was crappy. Off to save the day again. At least they didn't interrupt us while we were...busy!" Siobhan quipped. That would have indeed been rather naughty of them. Her headache refused to abate, but she pressed on after Tegaea into the cockpit to Sandrow. "Heard you had a machine problem."

 

[Jak Sandrow]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] @[member="Tegaea Alcori"]
"Yeah, they're crawling all over the ground there. I SWEAR they're not mine! What's going on, exactly?"
He pulled away from the building, autocannons firing all the while, and noticed @[member="Allaina Mare"]'s gunship heading down to his level. He also noticed the droids trying to jump across the gap from the tower to the gunship.
"Both of you, grab a turret and start blasting them."
Releasing suicide droids (strapped with explosives detonating when droid goes offline), he commed Allaina. "I've got them, let's go - NOW!"

 

[Cira]

@[member="Ayden Cater"]

She shot down in increasing velocity, but at this height, there was a freefall light feeling to it that sent her blood rushing with adrenaline. A faint close mouth smile quirked up the right side of her lip, and through the Force, she too manipulated the angle of her decent. At the very least, it gave her enough of a boost to aim in for Ayden's extended arm.

At least until the massive droid took the shuttle with it's tentacles, causing it to jerk to the right... AWAY from her. What had been almost a landing sent the shuttle careening to the side, likely to be righted soon as the pilot compensated for the weight.

However, this left the Prex... well.. still free-falling down...

Timed slowed. Funny how that always worked.

Choices. There were always so many choices. Some you had no time to mull over, no matter how much you didn't want it to be so. As the Prex seemingly fell to her upcoming death, her back arched, and her eyes shut for an instant. Within seconds, the muscles in her body began to shift, turn, bones becoming hollow as twin masses began to mold across her back. At her age, as a half Shi'ido she was well able to shift into any near humanoid. She did so now, as twin stubs ripped the armor from her back and quickly shifted and turned into massive wings resembling that of the S'kytri. Less than a handful ever saw her shift before, much the less in public. She was fanatical if not about her privacy, and now, what they would see, if they even bothered to follow her decent, would be a massive ten foot wing span spreading wide behind the Prex.

The sudden appearance of wings sent her into a glide, which then began flapping as she took back in an accent towards the shuttle.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Jak Sandrow"]

"I blame Sophos. Bastards are trying to kill us, so we kill them," Siobhan said flatly. They could worry about the whys and whats later. With that she quickly got up and ran down the corridor and climbed the ladder into the gun turret.

Around them more droids were leaping down the tower towards the gunship, relentless automatons that knew no pause. It seemed that wherever one was blasted, another five were there to take its place. An attack on this scale could not just be an isolated incident, even though there had been no word yet from other worlds.

But right now that was irrelevant. What mattered was blasting them to smithereens and Siobhan put her mind to doing just that with gusto, firing her heavy turbolaser into one droid. The darkness in the city lit up at the laserfire. The turret swung around and ejected a hailstrom of laser bolts to another group of droids as it came leaping down. Three droids disappeared in the explosion, incidentally the window of an office was also shattered and a small fire broke out.

Droids returned fire and laser shots struck their ship's hull and shields. Siobhan fired volley after volley at them, using the Force to guide her targeting. It was then that she noticed the massive, strange-looking blade droid. She swung the turret around and pumped out shots at it.

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Allaina Mare"], @[member="Omni"], @[member="Sarge Potteiger"]


Those moments where time seems to slow to a halt are so few, and so painful. Ayden watched as the Prex suddenly jumped out of view due to a sudden jarring of the shuttle. By the time things settled, she had already shot past the shuttle. For a heartbeat, Ayden considered jumping again. To what benefit, since he did not have a means of slowing their fall, he wasn't sure. But as he resigned himself to her possible demise, he felt her signature in the Force change. It wasn't like a light going off or on suddenly. It was subtle. As the shuttle leveled off, he saw why. She had wings! "Oookay... Definitely didn't have those before."

Whatever else he was about to say was cut off from another jostle of the ship. Blaster fire streaked through the air, narrowly missing the ship. Ayden scowled and was ready to throw his lightsaber at one of the pursuing gunships when he felt Sarge in the lead ship. An ominous thud into the side of the ship gave Ayden a clue as to what they were shooting at. Still, they weren't going to be to dislodge whatever droid had jumped on the ship without causing serious damage to the ship itself.

Looking around frantically, Ayden spotted a hatch that led up and out, as well as a rappelling line. Gathering himself, Ayden blasted the door open and jumped to the top of the ladder, with the rappel line hanging around his side. The wind buffeted him and made him thankful he hadn't just jumped straight out, otherwise he would have got flying off. Getting an even footing, Ayden pulled out one of his lightsabers and looked around for the offending droid.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Tegaea hung on tightly as the ship accelerated, then fought her way to a turret. It took only seconds for her to figure out the controls and start firing. The Seraph droids were able to fly, and were trying to board them, but combined with Siobhan they kept up a devastating fire and shattered machine after machine. However there seemed to be no end to the onslaught, but finally they pulled away enough to be out of easy range.

Soon they were coming level with @[member="Cira"], @[member="Ayden Cater"] and @[member="Allaina Mare"]'s gunship. Tegaea was then treated to the unusual sight of Cira with wings! Not something one saw every day....

"What's the plan now?"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

Seraph droids sought to swarm them, but for now at least they seemed out of easy range, though stray blaster bolts still came after them. Siobhan pumped out a few shots to keep them at bay, then beheld the city.

It was enveloped in darkness, buildings had crumbled and fallen onto the ground. Further afield more automatons of various shapes and designs were moving across the streets. Omega soldiers and normal security forces were resisting, but they were outnumbered and quickly mowed down. Blaster shots resounded throughout the sector.

Siobhan seethed, her droid hand clenched. "Regroup, hit back and wipe those bastards out, I'd imagine," she grunted. Not that she'd been asked, but still. She had not yet been able to reach @[member="Hevana Martin"] on the comm and it worried her. More than that though she was angry.

 

[Qae Shena]

@[member="Cira"], @[member="Ayden Cater"], @[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"], @[member="Sarge Potteiger"], @[member="Omni"], @[member="Jak Sandrow"]

There were droids on her hull. The vibrations in her controls weren't good and she was being shot at, which compounded the problem. Anyone who thought removing something on a hull by shooting it with starship-grade weaponry needed to get away from the sticks, sit down in the corner, and cry themselves to sleep.

Communications everywhere. Time to settle this down. Allaina opened a comm channel to everyone humanly possible and even keyed the loudspeaker on the dropship.

"Everyone form up on me. We're going to have to retake the facility. Do we have a capital ship in orbit? Not to mention all you Jedi-types need to clear these droids with the Force and not by shooting at my ship. I need them gone - now!" Was she taking charge? Allaina sure was. She had a plan, considering they were in the air. All of them in her domain. If they could reach orbit, then they'd be fine.

...until the warning lights started flashing because someone had shot her wing apart, despite their best efforts. Lasers plus ships never went well together. "Frak. We're going down. Emergency landing!"

A controlled crash was the best she was going to hope for, as the Argevant began its nose-dive towards the surface... Potentially, this ship was a write-off. However, Ayden Cater's life was valuable enough that it was a fair trade.

 

[Omni]

The blade shifted in place, its myriad of sensors detected the gunships and suddenly its outer surface began to shift and change. The reflective panels upon its back moved together and smoothed out creating one flat reflective ultrachrome surface. As soon as the composite Beams struck it they bounced off in a show worthy of the greatest fireworks. Each time the droid was stuck the mirrored surface was darkened and tinted, the droid recoiled into the ship pressing its claws further into the hull.

The Droid let out a muffled screech and crawled alongside the ship towards its bottom, its heavy metallic claws puncturing the sheet metal like it was butter. It began to use the angles and wings of the peregrine dropship as defense, hiding from laser blasts and anything else that sought to kill it.

The Blade made a full circle around the ship, until it found its intended target. The Blade stared at Ayden and then once again opened its maw. It let out a massively loud screech that pierced even the winds around them. Then its face close back up and it began to run forward. With each step it dug its talons deep into the hull, pinning it to the ship.

 

[Jak Sandrow]

"Pulling up!"
As Jak accelerated around to help @[member="Allaina Mare"], he saw something most people never see (actually, he may have been the first to see something like it). He had to blink, but when he had, it was gone.
Is my boss flying? Too much to comprehend on the first day of work!!!!!
"Coming about." He was steadily moving up towards Allaina's struggling ship - with a whopper of a droid clinging to the hull. He could see it circling to the front of the ship for the pilot, while shots from @[member="Sarge Potteiger"] deemed ineffective against the droids maneuvering.
"Allaina, I'm going to release a few Discord missiles at your ship. They will hopefully distract the droid long enough for you to do a bit of jumping. @[member="Ayden Cater"], if you could get your butt out of there before the droid - you know what? I'm going to call him Steve, it's easier - before Steve rips apart the hull to get you."
Firing two missiles, he then contacted Sarge. "Head down to pick up @[member="Cira"]. Then we can head to the space station & regroup."
Looking back to @[member="Tegaea Alcori"] and @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"], he said, "Keep firing. If you can, recall any suicide droids left over. If they try to drill through the hull, though, remote deactivate them, then let them fall."
By now he had pulled alongside Allaina's ship, and was lowering at the same rate as her.

 

[Ayden Cater]

Ayden was deep in the throes of the Force now, having to focus on not being stuck by gunship fire, keeping his footing on the gunship, and trying to fight an unknown enemy. When the ship lurched suddenly, Ayden jumped. Instantly, the line snapped taunt. As he it went taunt, Ayden looked up and saw a freighter moving into position nearby. He could feel its pilot getting ready to fire something towards the ship. Whatever it was, it was going to make things much worse, of that he was certain. So reaching out Ayden used the Force, wedging the Force between him and the freighter and pushed, sending the freighter off-course enough to cause the missiles to fly off target and sent him back to the dropship as it took another plunge towards the surface.

The droid seemed to have just finished some sort of sonic attack when Ayden landed and immediately charged him. Thinking fast, Ayden propelled himself up and over the charging droid. Ever mindful of the approaching ground, Ayden opted to pursue the more important goal. His lightsabers snapped into his hands, exploding to life just as he spun on the spot, cutting a hole and dropping through the impromptu hatch while simultaneously severing his lifeline.

Rolling as he hit the deck, Ayden launched himself through the dropship. Everything passed in slow motion as he ran across the deck and through the hallway into the cockpit, where he saw an unfamiliar face at the helm. "How do you feel about being in the air?" Ayden sounded remarkably calm, even as they were less than seventy meters in the air and falling fast.

 

[Qae Shena]

An error warning in a ship generally meant a small checklist to handle. Multiple errors resulted in crashes, which was essentially a test of how well you could remember those multiple checklists and the speed at which you could execute them. Allaina, having never been in a crash before, was doing fairly well for a crash newbie. She knew the tech readouts of this ship fairly well, having studied the Omega ships before flying them. Her hands flew over control panels like a quetarra player plucking strings and was bringing the nose up somewhat well.

And then someone cut their way in with a lightsaber. She knew that noise - and had a moment of free-falling terror when she realised it was a friendly. She knew that voice, at least. It was nothing to worry about.

"I love being in the air, except when I'm crashing," Allaina said. She wasn't quite panicking, but she had never been shot down in her career. Being shot down by an ally and an enemy at the same time was putting a rather large dent in her pilot's ego, which happened to be planet-sized.

Ignoring the fact that someone had just cut her ship's hull, the fact that she was about to crash her ship, Allaina was doing fairly well!

 

[Omni]

The Blade atop the ship did not move to chase the man inside of the ship. It quirked its head again and scanned the ship below its feet. The ship was going down, there was no way to stop this. The Droid sent out a signal, a black flash swooped down from the tower and the Blade quirked slightly. It released itself from the Hull of the Peregrine Dropship and immediately was swooped away by the massively powerful winds that rushed past it.

Seconds later a Seraphim droid swooped down and caught The Blade within its claw like talons. For a few seconds the Blade and Seraphim swooped downward, the extra weight causing the repulsor-lifts to struggle. Then in an impressive aerial maneuver the Seraphim swooped and threw the Blade at the nearby tower.

The Droid pierced its massive claws into the Duracreet sticking itself to the side of the building. It watched the dropships and gunships flying through the air, and quickly ordered The Seraphim within the sky to go after them, the skies would soon go black.

The Blade itself stuck to the duracreet building, watching as the gunship fell faster and faster towards the ground.