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With the whole group of four officers and four soldiers stuffed into the airlock, it is getting quite tight and if you move too much you can touch the shoulder of the other. With the captain having taken the lead into the airlock on the gunnery officer right after him, the naval infantrymen find themselves quite unsure in the middle, their expressions slightly sour and worried as they seem to mirror the murmured opinion of their leader without saying anything as he pushed past the other two officers and into the front. With the course of action re-affirmed and everyone having gotten into position to move should things get hairy on the other side, Kinsky pulled down the lever and with the groan of hundreds of year old steel, the inner airlock pushed open, while the outer one closed more firmly, warning lights blinking, and a small beep being heard in the background as the airlock is flooded with air, your sensors giving you the all clear to breath it.
As the inner airlock before you opened, you were threated by a picture of destruction: the octagonal tower you were entering had seen better days. The bridge above you that should have connected to the airlock for shuttles as hanging halfway down in mid-air, only clinging to a few cables, while the walkways above you went on for at least two more floors and from them blood dripped onto the dusty floor before you. Bodies were lying strewn around in the rubble of what had been consoles not to long ago, shot in their seats and sometimes seemingly thrown from the floor above you. A closer look would show that some of them had died from bullet wounds, while others were stabbed or even cut – their skinsuits similar to yours and cut open along their whole length in one case. These people hadn't gone peacefully and as the smell of blood was still in the air and the air in here not completely sterile, it hadn't been too long ago.
Suddenly a noise could be heard from above you and it seemed that someone was still alive in here – someone who had heard the automated warning signals of your airlock opening. On the floor above you one of the doors leading out of an adjutant room had opened and four human figures had sprinted outwards to simply look down at you over the railing with surprise written plainly in their eyes. They made quite curious figures: they wore body armour not unlike your own, but decorated with weird markings, small fetishes and similar hanging from their bandoleers, while their faces were decorated with paint and markings, their hands on simple but functional looking submachine guns they were starting to bring upwards and aim downwards at you and the first shot hit the wall right next to the airlock!
…. thankfully the ground floor you were on was littered with consoles and shelves of at least breast height and some boxes, that could offer you some cover if you get to them quickly enough. Aside from the room the new contacts had just come out, there was a large door on your floor leading towards the rest of the station and a smaller one leading one to your right: both closed for now.
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"Sirs! Down!", Corporal Hayes shouted as the first shots pinged off the rusty stations floor, using his armoured bulk to push himself forward and out of the death-trap the airlock could become, his boots echoing on the floor as he sprinted into cover, finding some behind one of the many upturned and broken crates that littered the floor: not much but at least a little. Good enough in any case to make him brace his Combat Rifle and fire back at the unknown contacts, his rifle barking accurately as he let out a small burst of fire from it. Having set the sights of his weapon onto the lead warrior above you, his bullets find their mark – but only serve to throw the man backwards a little, his armour holding and his submachine gun remaining centred on you as the surprise fled his face at the sudden hit. He was shaking, but still in the fight.
Thankfully Corporal Hayes wasn't alone, and the armoured form of Private Allison slammed into the crate next to him, bracing her light machine gun on the rim of what had once been a locker of some sorts and opening fire upwards at the gallery as well. Having seen as well that the unknowns were just as well armoured as they, she didn't save on the ammunition and opened up with a full salvo, pulling the barrel from left to right and supressing the enemy as well as possible. Of course, what had been intended only to suppress ended up more than deadly as the enemy was caught in the open, the balustrade of the gallery offering no protecting as the heavy weapon tore through their little group, some trying to move back into the room and the third one falling onto the floor. None of them can escape the bullets as Private Harrisons machinegun tears through its magazine, shells falling on to the floor and small holes appearing in the wall behind the enemy contacts – or in them.
Three of the four unknowns don't even get a chance to stand up once more, they remain on the catwalks, unmoving and unresponsive like dolls with their strings cut, their weapons out of their grasps and blood hitting the floor beneath. Only one of them remains standing: also bloodied but still cradling her gun. Backpedalling into the room they have come from, she seems to seek some partial cover behind the doorframe, her submachine gun peeking out and losing a burst of fire into the still crowded airlock.
With no cover and little room to manoeuvre, the bullets find their mark on Private Harrison, one round pings off the chest-of her armoured suit, but the other two hit her neck angled from above, circumventing the helmet and the collar of her armoured suit, tearing into her neck and exiting her back below, a startled gasp everything that could be heard as she gets thrown backwards against Gunnery Ensign Kinsky, blood flowing freely and heavily out of her wounds, weapon falling out of her hands and hitting the floor of the airlock as tries to weekly press her hands against the wound in a vain attempt to stop it. Either someone got to stabilize her quickly, or she's going to be the first victim on this mission of exploration.
Unknown 1 - Down
Unknown 2 - Down
Unknown 3 - Down
Private First Class J. Harrison - Down/Critical
Unknown 4 - Partial Cover, wounded
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