Interstellar Online

30 - Crusade

"... Welp, that's the end of the road I guess. Mind the gap as you exit the train car and load AP, from here on out it is shoot to kill on all unknowns."

While using a metro doing a planetary invasion had been a pretty bad idea in the first place, Mike, River and Jessica had nevertheless gotten fairly close to their ship before they were forced to abandon their metro pod due to a collapsed tunnel, getting out using the emergency exit it was easy enough to find a service shaft that would take them from the metro tunnel and back to the surface.

The real question is if they should.

"Is that even a good idea?"

Not keen to wander directly into an active war zone just to end up as collateral damage, River wanted to make sure the possible benefits were worth the risk.

"Our only chance of survival is getting to the Wyrm, while it would make sense to lay low if the planet was 'just' under attack. I'm not so sure we're still in the same galaxy so help is not coming. Unless we get ourselves out of this mess we're not getting out, the best chance of doing that is the Wyrm, even without the modifications for longer endurance, and the chance of it still being intact is falling by the second."

With everybody on the same page, Mike took point and emerged from the service tunnel inside some kind of office or administrative mega block.

"It looks like the coast is clear... I say we bypass the metro blockage and find the next possible access point to get underground until we know what we're up against, I'm not taking chances."

Ignoring the alarm that called for an evacuation and how creepy it was with no people around, Mike eventually found traces of people, just not the kind he really ever wanted to see.

"... That's a severed human arm, isn't it?"

"Yeah, judging by the amount of blood on the floor, the person it belonged to didn't have to suffer long... But would you look at that, we're going the same direction as that trail. Just my fucking luck."
Pointing out that the sign which showed the way to the nearest deep shelter (the metro station) and the trail of blood both led the same way Mike's wry smile hardened up.

"Get these heretics lined up!"
In the middle of what had up until a few minutes ago been a peaceful plaza in the middle of an office complex, a squad of infantrymen from the Eden Theocrasy were lining up prisoners under the orders of their imperator. While the normal soldiers wore what Mike would describe as ordinary-looking armoured vacuum suits and toned glass visors, the imperator's armour looked like a mix between standard seeming military armour and mediaeval armour plating, furthermore, the imperator branded a one-handed, dual-bladed sword in one hand and a pistol in the other while the grunts all used some kind of rifles.

"Well, there's the fuckface who's cutting body parts off civ's. Question is what to do now..."

Observing from the shadows, Mike weighed his next options as the little mid-progress execution separated him, Jessica and River from the metro entrance on the other side of the plaza.

(3 vs 5 really does not favour us as we only have handguns and a single rifle, on the other hand just watching innocents being executed doesn't sit well with me...)

"Fucking hell... River, take Jessica's new fancy pistol and flank right. The normal-looking grunts won't stay calm, but the knight is tricky, stay away from that sword and go for the spine, that's where the power assist is hiding."
"Roger."

"Jessica, River is flanking left and will wait for me to start the party, when I do, count to 7 and open fire from that office cubicle up there, then switch position and keep shooting, it doesn't matter if you hit anything, just suppress the shit out of them."