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Noah and Daiya, she made note of the names. Though, she'd probably forget them once the mission was over. Ruby side-eyed the man as he mentioned that she might have already heard of them – he overestimated her memory for sure. At any rate, he seemed to have a plan – which was very good, because she didn't. Her eyes flickered from the light-haired man to the young girl at his side a few times, shrugging off most of her comments.
“Alright,” she nodded to agree with the cover story and their escape plan.
However, she couldn't evade Daiya's question about the blue flame. Ruby straightened slightly. Someone had... noticed her? “Oh,” she shrugged. “Yeah, I was there once.”
She nodded when the others were ready, their bags of explosives in hand. And gestured for them to follow. As they went, nearby pair of antennae twitched – then another did the same...
Leading the way, Ruby brought them into the complex and began to take them towards their destination: the big hangar. “This way,” she said, speeding up to a brisk walk. For the moment, things were fairly relaxed. And as Ruby scanned her badge at the entrance of the hangar, there were eyes upon them... many, many eyes.
“C'mon,” she hissed to Daiya and Noah. “They shouldn't bother us, just get the stuff ready and I'll try to shoo them away.” The locals were some kind of insect-type species – good observation, right? Raising her arms, Ruby did her best impression of someone trying to be intimidating.
“Go on, now!” she raised her voice. “This doesn't concern you.”
She didn't really want to hurt any of the workers... it wasn't their fault that the CAD had chosen their home world.
Shame they didn't know anything about the seeds. Which meant they just had to go in there and try to get them, whatever they were. At least Jorj claimed to be good at bluffing, so there was a chance they could get in easier. "I don't think we have time to find any disguises, Jorj," said Gray. If they tarried too long, someone elso was sure to have got their hands on the seeds before them. "We just have to go in, and hope for the best. And be ready to get them on the ship."
Gray lead the way inside the spaceport, and found the way leading to where the seeds were supposed to be. But when he reached the corridor the hangar was connected to, a surprising vision came into view. An armored man, beating up the guards standing at the door, then entering through himself. "Seems we have no need for the bluffing," Gray remarked, as he slowly moved towards the unconscious bodies. They didn't seem to be dead at least. And looking through the door the armored man had gone through, he could see him taking on several other guards. "Who is this guy?"
Suddenly, music was heard from the speakers in the hangar. It must've been the work of the other man. Whoever he was, he was certainly cocky. Signaling with his head that they would enter, Gray rounded the corner, and walked in.
"Interesting choice of music you have going here," said Gray to the unknown man, raising his voice so it would be heard over the music. "Personally, I would go for something slower." He put his hand around his holstered blaster. "Helps set the mood better."
"Well I will run to the ship and make sure its ready then, can I trust the actual heisting of the seeds to you two or do you need me?" She asked curious as to what had happened to make the man go after the guards. She hoped he wasn't competition, that was the last thing she needed. Plus up close confrontations were not something she was good at. "Well should we try to ally with the man or run past while he and the guards are busy?" She asked looking at the two of them. It was do or die time so to speak. The music was not paid attention to, if anything it was annoying but she would put up with it just like she put up with this weird mission. But hey one man's junk was another's treasure.
"I guess not," Jorj said as music starting playing from within the hangar. Along with the noise came a being who was karate chopping every guard in sight. "I guess we don't need to bluff either." Jorj scratched at one ear, trying to figure out if a better move was to piggyback off of this new interloper or if they should continue on their own. But the armored person wasn't far and Gray felt comfortable enough to call out to the less-than-stealthy martial artist. Whatever the case was, the way inside was open. Hesitating was not going to get the job done. And if Jorj's hands weren't on those seeds, he wasn't going to get paid.
"We might as well work with him," he told the Togruta woman. "A smaller paycheck is better than no paycheck. I have a feeling this is going to escalate quickly. Pull your ship in close so we can make a fast getaway."
The Leporine man turned to Gray. "Right, let's try and keep up." With that, Jorj took off at a run after the armored man into the main portion of the hangar. Jorj's long legs allowed him to catch up quickly. On one hand, he was really trying to think: payday, payday, payday. But the other half of his brain was thinking: drink, drink, drink. Jorj kept pushing those thoughts aside.
Another portion of the hangar opened up behind a series of crates and wide-open flying panels. Aside from the guards, this seemed pretty easy. The port itself wasn't particularly locked down. The hangar seemed open and easy to access. This wasn't the kind of place someone would hold stolen goods, or something valued so highly that someone would hire a whole legion of mercenaries to steal that thing back. Although, Jorj supposed that if the people who came into the seeds knew that they were safeguarding something as silly as seeds that maybe they didn't put the item on top priority to guard. Still, everything seemed easy enough that this whole operation seemed a little staged.
The only way to find out was to spring the trap. As Jorj peered in to the main area of the hangar, he saw many more guards but no other significant defenses. The music was still blaring loudly and the insectoids seemed perturbed. They were more or less grouped around a large pile of synthetic fiber bags, flitting about, attempting to figure out the source of the disturbance. Distracted was good. Maybe bluffing would still work.
Jorj sprung out from his hidey-hole and approached the lot of Surronians without a word to his companions. He crossed the space quickly and his mind flashed with memories of a similar situation that he found himself a few months back on Cato Neimoidia. He'd improved since then... Right?
"Hey everybody! Sorry about the music. You would not believe how difficult it was to get my favorite song to play!"
A pair of the vibrobladed shuriken ended up in the ground close to Gray as he approached. It wasn't like he was trying to hurt the guy, or even threaten him. In truth it was a habit as the sensor in his helmet picked up the movement. The reason they ended up in the ground was cause he changed the throw last second to avoid attacking the stranger. The guy wasn't part of the local guard.
He held up his hands, his helmet receding to show quite an apologetic expression. "Wo! Sorry! I didn't think there'd be anyone else here. The intel I got said it was only guards." Zenric flashed a smile to the first man, then the other two before his helmet went back. "There's uh, a couple of ya huh. Alright. We can work togeth-your guy is going in on his own." He watched in silence as Jorj walked off on his own, blinking behind his helmet. His gaze turned back to the other two, brow raised.
Xan folded her arms as she listened to Cartri speak, a smirk clear on her holographic mask. "Oh come on, I'm not that bad. I bought you a cookie the other day." she joked right back. After a moment he explained to her his plan for the mission and she listened in silence. She wasn't going to help out or give any pointers on this unless he asked. This was all his mission. And so far he seemed to be doing good. "While I try to keep up, try not to draw any attention with that signal fire on your head." she quipped as she fell in behind him.
She followed after him and stuck close, going with his example and covering his back as they moved towards the facility. When they were on the roof she hung back and let him inspect the situation. "Sure thing. Though I'm curious to see what you got in mind for that dude." she quipped with a hushed voice as she stepped back and hid by the door. She had to fight to keep her laughter back when he started flailing around with a rusty old bucket to draw the guard's attention. Though when the door was opened, she was straight-faced and sneaking up behind the man. Before he could even touch his blaster, she had her arms wrapped around his neck in a headlock and choked him out. When he was passed out, she laid him down on the ground and glanced around. "Coast is clear, let's go." she whispered to him. Though before she kept moving, she gave one last glance around the place. There was nothing there, but she kept getting the feeling like she was being watched. She shrugged the feeling off and followed after Cartri but casted a glance behind them every now and then.
Once inside she looked the place over for as much info as she could get. She took note of the guards, workers, their movement, even the others breaking... that last one made her brain short out for a bit. A sigh escaped her as she rolled her eyes. Of course they wouldn't be alone on this job. Now it was a matter of figuring out who was getting to the seeds first and what they were here for. "Yo, we're not alone. Keep on the lookout, we got competition." she whispered to Cartri as she glanced behind her once more.
Ruby caught up pretty fast to the girl, and she seemed to know the lay of the land already. Daiya was happy to follow someone who knew where they were going, it was a part she had played often enough before. She kept her eyes sharp as they went, watching for anyone watching them across the alien landscape as they made their way into the biggest facility.
The woman had called it a hangar, others might call it a drydock, but Daiya only thought of it in one way: huge.
"Whoa," was all the words the loquacious girl had for the sight. Being from the city world of Denon, she was used to big things. Ships were big, even if they appeared small from far down below, and buildings were even bigger. Still, the spaces she knew were mostly small and cramped. Her homes and hangouts were carved out of multi-purpose buildings, some of which could be a literal hole in the wall with enough room to climb in after it. To see such a cavernous space, and mostly enclosed too, was baffling to the streetwise teen.
But if the hangar was massive, the vessel it cradled inside was surely the biggest Daiya had ever seen. A part of her twinged at the thought of destroying it, the ship had certainly taken a long time to construct. Leaving it alone would just give it over to the hands of the Corpos, and let them profit off of its use or sale. As bad as she felt over it, it would feel a lot worse to see the ship fall into Corpo hands.
Better for it to explode in a spectacular show that even Luminous Sun could appreciate.
Even if Sun wasn't going to come for the show, Daiya noticed, there was already an audience waiting. The insectoid people, the Surronians she supposed, had stopped their duties to watch the trio as they entered. Daiya was unnerved by the buggers at first, but it quickly became obvious that they were not interested in stopping the three intruders. They simply persisted in observing and following them, despite Ruby's attempts to dissuade them. The girl shook off the feeling, covering up the rest of her anxiety by humming a little tune.
Daiya was just along to follow, and seed their route with the explosives they carried with them. Her load got lighter as she went, and her pitch got higher. By the end of it, the girl was nearly squeaking, and couldn't help from giggling at the mess she'd made of her idle tic. She looked up with a grin at Ruby as the last of the shaped charges were planted, knowing that she and the doc were finishing up the same on their end.
"So, who gets to do the honors?" Daiya asked, fishing out the detonator. She bounced it in her hands, tossing it from one to the other, ready to toss it over to whomever was going to flip the switch.
Whoever wound up with the task, the resulting conflagration was a-mazing to watch after ducking out of the cover they used to hide from the worst of the blast. The giant ship was little all but skin and bones now, with smoke escaping where fire didn't from the smoldering carcass. All that would be left for the Corpos would soon be ash and twisted metal.
And a trio of conspirators if they didn't make their escape quickly enough.
Niki quietly watched the droids scuttle back into the safety of their cases as her own escorts began to put the display away. A soft ping of the intercom had her looking towards it.
"We do apologize for the mishap. Are you and your's unharmed?"
"We are all in excellent health. Your staff made sure we were kept safe. No complaints or issues here."
"Good to hear. Again, we do apologize, but would it be possible to reschedule your appointment while we sort out what happened today?"
"That would be splendid. You have my contact information. We will see ourselves out."
There was no response this time as they packed up slowly. The content and almost mischievous smile beginning to grow bigger. No wonder Scherezade loved field work. She would have to do this more often. Hopefully without guns anyway. Or anything more than her little jitterbugs for surprises. She pondered the possibilities silently as they worked to leave.
----Elsewhere----
The bodies on the production line gathered in the first area, guards slowly working to close the floor as more filed in to try an hunt down any saboteurs that were lingering. Only to find nothing tampered with on the outside. The smell of burnt wiring and still burning plastic filled the area.
Now that the boy was inside of the cloud network, he was getting a better understanding of the network infrastructure.
Everyone was backing up to the cloud. He was downloading virtual drives as he was able, but his target was still the file servers. There was likely data stored there that was not connected to the cloud. And, to access that, he'd need to connect from a terminal.
The question was, how to remote in to a terminal and not flag on a cyber alert?
The answer was holo-mail. He sent a holo-calendar invite that was a carefully scripted trojan executable. Once it was received, the holo-calendar invite, of course, immediately ran in the background to sync with the holo-mail account. That enabled the background processing that Sor-Jan needed to get a proverbial foot in the cyber door. Once he was able to run an executable path in the background, now it was just a matter of avoiding the pyrowalls.
As the boy carefully unveiled his strategy, the measure of control began to take shape. There were security protocols to disable and administrator permissions to replicate. All of which presented but momentary stop gaps, before which the young Anzat slicer had a measure of control over the computer terminal in the financial department of Surron StarTech.
Or, the company formerly known as Surron StarTech anyways. Would Starlight re-name it? Starlight StarTech?
That sounded horrible. So hopefully not.
In any case, the boy was now poised to strike at the network drives.
The time for subterfuge was rapidly coming to a close. And the chances of being caught rapidly increasing.
He'd need a distraction or something on the station to prevent being noticed. With luck, people were at lunch.
Ruby waved her arms, managing to get a small number of the Surronians to back up. But, they seemed rather curious. However, they didn't make any move to try and stop Daiya and Noah as they went about their work. The sensation of... eyes upon them probably didn't help much, but if the bugs weren't going to stand in their way – then Ruby was fine with them.
When the girl came back, handling the detonator with excitement, Ruby just gave a shake of her head and went to duck behind some cover. By now, most of the Surronians had started to catch on – many of them headed away from the hangar and scurried behind cover of their own.
With Noah or Daiya free to unleash their attack, Ruby braced slightly. The explosion shook the hangar, and there was an impressive burst of bright flames and inky smoke. Peeking up from behind her cover, she looked wide-eyed at the fiery aftermath.
It was a pretty karkin' glorious sight to see.
“Job's done,” Ruby said, looking to her Darkwire companions. “Get changed, it's time to g--”
Or not. Before she could even get out her medic disguise, there were footsteps pounding their way towards them. “Aw, chit.” Corpo security guards.
“There they are!” One of the men hollered, pointing the end of his blaster at the trio.
Pulling a blaster from beneath her over-alls, she returned fire. It wasn't enough to push the enemy back, but it was enough to give Daiya and Noah time to duck or attack.
Mir was completely absorbed in observing the plant. Specimens lay about in petri dishes and under prepared slides to be viewed with microscopic precision. He took full advantage of the tools at his disposal while the rest of the people in the room focused on the conversation at hand.
<<We have individual thoughts, if that is what you want to call them,>> the Surronian drone responded without defense to the question posed by Lance. <<We leave our Queen with exacted directives to follow in order to benefit the hive as well as Surronians as a whole. And then, we independently respond to whatever stimuli we encounter over the course of our time away from our Queen. When our original task or tasks have been completed, we return and report our goals, findings, and anything else we may have learned through our experiences. This information is then shared through the Queen to the rest of the hive.>>
The Duros, Kur, hummed a tone at that, as he mulled the thought. Unlike Mir, the Duros was not stubborn about using technology when it was convenient and had come equipped with an earpiece-translator. "So... the Queen is like a databank? Storing and passing information on?"
The Surronian paused and seemed to consider the question for a moment. <<That is an apt analogy, in a way. However, she can only physically communicate this information with extant drones. However, everything she learns is passed on genetically to each subsequent generation. Surronians have a perfect genetic memory. So our knowledge is perfectly cumulative.>>
"I don't think I want to know any of the things my parents knew..." Stannon said without filtering his thoughts before they reached his mouth. He meeped immediately and returned to hiding behind Kur's pantleg.
<<Of course,>> Mir spoke-sung. <<Perfect genetic memory...>> He trailed off without vocalizing his hypothesis.
"What?"
Finally Mir pulled himself away from the samples. <<Only a person with many lifetimes of information could conceive of such an idea. To take a plant in its current form and cross it with an ancient and distant variety. Strengthening specific inherent characteristics while also potentially introducing new ones. To achieve that, you would have to have stored the ancient variety for... centuries. Millenia. Only beings of significant longevity would have such patience. But. Hmm, what about...>> and as quickly as he had come out of his reverie, the Ithorian reabsorbed himself with his work.
"I believe your intuition is correct Mir Nehrahn
, based on your assessment, is a genetic reproduction a viable strategy in replicating this anachronistic hybrid?" Lance of Dreams continued to stroke the insectoid form. The cyborg did not move from his gazing position before he responded to the little one known as Stannon.
"Surely if you were a carpenter and if your father was a carpenter, you would like to know as he knows. Genetic memory is not so different from this, except the data loss is exceptionally lower." It seemed as intelligent as he was, inferring the more intimate knowledge the Tynnan was averse to was out of his abilities. Or perhaps it was a deliberate phycological trick to make the rodent think of it more, finding the primitive thought patterns to be amusing. Maybe a bit of both, guessing it may be the case without knowing fully, and thus teasing out an explanation by pointing out the benefits averted in the small one's statement.
<<Beautiful body, I have the means to know you as you know yourself. Would your Queen grant you to me such that we would reach understanding?>> He asked the Surronian in its own tongue. Lance of Dreams obviously was not attempting flattery, as surely such a thing is impossible to impress upon an individual drone whose entire life depends on the instruction of a queen, personal thoughts or no. Still though, the askance of consent seemed appropriately diplomatic, and in truth, he did find the being beautiful in a majestic sort of way more so for its capabilities than its form factor.
Beauty burned in brilliant shades of color as Daiya watched, half-crouched behind her cover. The teen had never been able to see such a sight up close, only the aftermath from a distance. She might never be inclined to pyromania, but the girl couldn't deny that the way the vibrant flames licked at the remains of the starship husk was oddly hypnotic. Idly, she wondered if there was time to draw it out on her holojournal.
The question was quickly answered by the shots from CorpSec security, whose red and black uniform colors danced like a mirage against the flames as they approached the trio.
Like Ruby next to her, Daiya quickly pulled her weapon out as she ducked back behind cover. The explosion had gotten her blood pumping, but her mind had expected catharsis after that. Now her senses were heightened, danger pushing at the edges of her being once more. She looked over at Noah for a moment, but she didn't have time to say anything. Not that she really could have. It wasn't the doc's fault that his disguises never found any use.
"They've got us pinned!" Daiya noted, taking one side of the CorpSec guards as Ruby took the others. She fired back at the CorpSec officers with her 434 blaster, ducking into cover when shots came her way. It was just the trio against CorpSec now. The Surronians had retreated as soon as the explosion went off, they weren't as foolhardy as the Corpos to run towards a fire. But that left a maze of cover, equipment, and tools alone around the firefight, and it gave Daiya an idea.
"I see some fuel canisters over on my side, Ruby, looks like they're still intact," the girl told her firefight companion. The containers were set far enough back from the ship that they hadn't exploded, though given their proximity to the conflagration it was only a matter of time. "I'll distract your cops, then we can tag-team the fuel, okay? Maybe it'll force them back and clear an opening for us."
Daiya just assumed the woman was fine with her plan. There wasn't much more coordinating they could do while under fire from CorpSec. And she knew none of them wanted to get arrested, or killed, over such a victimless crime.
Unhooking a grenade from her belt, the girl looked down at the device for a moment to prime it. A flip of a lever, and the grenade was ready to disperse its dazzling payload. Poking her head above cover, the young shadowrunner lobbed the device at the CorpSec officers assailing Ruby's side, ducking back behind cover and grabbing her ears as an explosion occurred for the second time in the hangar bay.
This one sent a mass of glitter out at anyone, or anything, caught in the vicinity. And being that it was glitter, that was a wide vicinity. This stuff wasn't as painful as the Whimsy version shot from a slugthrower, which used acid as well as glitter, but the grenade's power and sparkling payload was sure to give them enough of a distraction to do the job.
"Now!" Daiya urged on her companions, and trained her weapon on the fuel canisters. Time to see if her idea paid off.
The acquisition of Surron StarTech had been a simpler matter than she had originally expected. Marlene owed much in her life to fortune, yet it was not fortune that interceded for her this time. Instead, the instinctive obedience of the Surronian insectoids created a sizeable vulnerability, a hole in their ethos that she could walk right through. The result was less of a hostile takeover, and more of a gullible fool handing over anything she asked for.
If there was fortune to be had here, it was only that Marlene was the first to recognize the Surronian penchant for consensus as a weakness and not a strength. After that, playing them for fools was easy, and events had simply taken their natural course from there.
After all, a fool and her company are soon parted.
Marlene lifted the glass of water to her lips, feeling a slight warmth in her natural fingers. To anyone else the glass was room temperature, but her cybernetic implants detected the precise temperature of 30 degrees. Maintained at that level, her implants could fulfill their programmed function and interpret the water's taste correctly for her. A tongue came over her lips as she broke contact with the glass, letting not a drop of the liquid go unsavored.
It was a day to savor the taste, after all. Significant progress had been made already, and with the events of the day, the last pieces would fall into place for her. There was little mystery as to how the company Marlene built from humble origins found itself involved in building all manners of the weapons of war. Her penchant for stratagems and maneuvers were as useful in the boardroom as on the battlefield. That the two made a happy couple in Starlight Industries was merely a profitable side-effect. One that would see an increase in margins with the finalized acquisition of Surron StarTech after today.
"Sola, please check with the captain and see why we're not moving." Marlene's request was made with all the weight, though not as much the words, of an order. Something she knew Sola could easily interpret. There was an advantage to having such a well-tenured assistant. As much as Marlene enjoyed watching new hires squirm and struggle to figure out her tone and its implications, such entertainment became too exhausting when trying to get something done. Besides, Sola had other uses, too.
"Ma'am," her assistant prompted her upon returning. Marlene didn't look up from her gaze out the window, she had no need to. Sola continued, as of course she would. "The captain said there's a disturbance at the spaceport. Some kind of bandits or thieves causing trouble. CorpSec is coordinating with the locals, it shouldn't take long to corral them so we can get clearance again."
"Get clearance," the woman repeated, unmoving but for her lips. There was no more need for her to linger. Any further business could be conducted through intermediaries, that was why she employed them after all. Today, it was important for Surron to see the exhaust trails of Marlene Starlight's ship taking off.
She turned to see Sola still standing there, and frowned. It wasn't a hard task. Marlene spoke more forcefully this time. "Get. Clearance. Make clearance. Damn the clearance! What do I pay you for? Get me off this bug-forsaken planet."
Sola scampered away, but Marlene found no satisfaction from it. She turned, instead, to the glass of water once more. Taking another sip, her lips twisted. It was foul now, a wasted glass. Years of perfecting her implants and her assistant's attention to details, for this. Marlene made a sound in disgust, flinging the glass across the stateroom of her starship. The water made an arc as it followed the curve of her pitch more closely than the glass, which smashed to shards far short of where she had been aiming.
Marlene turned back to the window, gazing out to the bleak landscape the bugs called their home. A twisted labyrinth of something their species no doubt viewed as architecture. None could come close to matching the marvels constructed on worlds like Denon or Coruscant, or jewels found on worlds like Naboo. The Surronians had no concept of beauty or style. No concept of passion or spirit. No concept of cohesion or balance.
That was why they would lose today, and every day thereafter, to her. Marlene already knew what the bandits were after in the spaceport. The circumstances smelled of Darkwire. Always lurking in the shadows, always barreling out with blasters hot and tempers hotter. Never thinking more than one step, one meal, one hit ahead of themselves. Simple enough creatures to control, yet still liable to be a thorn in her side. A mere nuisance, though one that would work in her favor today.
Today the hivequeen of the Agricultural Guild would face her fate. And she would concede what she thought to be the wisdom of her sister queens. Without the seeds she so desperately wanted, the seeds she believed to be her world's salvation, the farmer queen would be conceding, in truth, to Marlene. Her workers would fall in line, obedient to a fault, just as reliable as was the shortsightedness of Darkwire.
There was no need for more theatrics on her part. Marlene had left that up to the Traders Guild. The fate of the seeds, and the queen who desired them, had been sealed from the moment the shipment arrived on Surron. A fate that came courtesy of her new CorpSec customs inspectors, who could be forgiven for being clumsy enough to disconnect the support systems maintaining the seeds' precarious condition for viability. This was a new world to them, after all, and Marlene had full confidence that CorpSec would improve their attention to details like that in the future.
A future that would take place under the banner of the Corporate Authorities, as was proper.
"Here you are, ma'am," said the holder of her new glass of water. Marlene looked up at Sola, accepting the replacement without a word. Her assistant didn't need her praise, Sola wasn't that shortsighted. She was, however, a bit too long-winded. "We'll be taking off in a moment now. Everything is sorted."
Marlene nodded, and lifted the glass to her lips a moment before it rattled in her hands. She pushed away the shifting liquid, some of which splashed on her sleeves and the armrest below. Glancing back at Sola, she found that the woman had as much confusion etched on her face as Marlene felt. The vibration had been too precise, too violent to be anything but, however. Marlene knew even before the captain's voice came over the comms to confirm.
An explosion.
"Make sure we get off the ground. That's all," she said simply to Sola, and then turned back to the window.
Marlene took a sip from her reduced glass of water as she felt the engines flare and the ground fall away beyond her window. She savored the taste as the starship made a pass across the shipyards of her new Surron StarTech company, giving her a view of the explosion's victim. The new flagship for a high-paying client, now in smoldering ruins below her, would put a dent in her profits for a few quarters.
A ruse? Attack the spaceport to draw attention away from the shipyards? That was uncharacteristic of Darkwire, as was the choice of terrorism over mere bulglary, and yet it had been characteristically effective.
She took another sip, and nearly spat out the water. Once again, she had let it drop a fraction of a degree. Still within the tolerances of her implant-regulated tastes, but not as satisfying.
Much like today. Marlene had ensured Surron's passage to her guardianship, and learned something new about Darkwire. A flawed victory.
That was what her 29.8 degree water tasted like, and she savored it all the same.
Ruby was glad to see that Daiya was good with a gun. And she even arched an eyebrow at the girl – teen, whatever – maybe she did fit in here after all. But there wasn't much time to dwell or ponder, and Ruby didn't really do either of those things.
She acknowledged Daiya with a small grunt, as she ducked behind her cover to avoid a few bolts coming her way. She'd noted the fuel canisters, and glanced to the blonde girl for a moment before nodding. It was time. Peeking up from behind her cover, she started to fire on the canisters. Out of the corner of her eyes, she caught an explosion of something.
Glitter.
Ha! A smirk found Ruby's lips as Daiya joined in on firing at the fuel cans. Together, their efforts paid off. Another explosion to rock the hangar, enough to jolt the Corpos and catch them off guard. Aiming her blaster at the nearest CorpSec, she fired – and whipped around towards Daiya and Noah.
“C'mon!” Ruby hollered, motioning for them to follow. For the moment, some of their enemies had run to try and contain the fire and the others blasted hastily at the crew of three as they sprinted to the exit. Bringing up the rear, Ruby would aim some equally hasty shots over her shoulder as she ran to catch up.
This probably wasn't the end.
But they'd made a pretty big dent in the Corpo's plans – that was a big win in her books.
