The Rebel Faction

Flying low on the Pavo Prime skyline, the planet awash in darkness, was nothing. The naked eye saw nothing, advanced detection systems saw nothing. For all practical purposes, the sky was empty.

But for the six CIB Agents, standing grimly at a door in the side of their ship, speaking in muted tones and going through the last pre-mission checklists, the sky was quite full enough. Four men in grey uniforms, looking awkward in the presence of the agents, stood nearby, cleared their throats, and watched the clock. Finally, a red timer appeared over the door, counting down from thirty. The ship suddenly filled with anxiety.

"You know" said one of the figures in the grey uniform "Once you jump we will have to leave the atmosphere. It wouldn't do to be found out close to the scene should things... go wrong."

The agent closest to the door, evidently human despite the thick layers of night-time camoflauge gear and baggage, nodded. The countdown reached zero, and the doors opened. In a flurry of air and mouvment, the six agents leapt out the door, and drifted through the air to the ground below. The four men in grey watched their descent, and suddenly the six loosed black parachutes, and began a more steady fall towards their target.

The Belgardi Ltd Corporate Tower, a massive structure, so high it would be a short drop for the agents. One of the men in grey nodded, and closed the door. "Bring us up, pilot" he said "We won't want to be anywhere near here when things start to happen. I can only feel sorry for them, the poor buggers."

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As J-5 fell through the sky, he suddenly felt his skin go cold. His suit was manually adjusting its' temperature to match that of the air around him, making him near invisible to thermal scans. The smallest amongst them and a Bimm, he nevertheless had the hardest job. Drifting towards the side of the tower, where the huge hexagon identified as Mr. Belgardi's personal office and living quarters, met the rest of the building, he watched as his five teammates floated above the very top of the building, awaiting the all-clear.

Gotta work fast he thought, as he touched down on the wall. Immeadietly, he slamed an adhesive coil onto the wall, whose fine residue melted the tiniest amount of the wall and mixed it with the coil, so the two became connected on contact. Cutting his parachute and shoving it into his pack quickly, J-5 then removed a mineature diagram of the power systems of the tower, obtained from the less-then-well-secured City Power offices, and began to drill through a select piece of the wall.

Above him, his teammates began to close dangerously with the roof of the tower. J-1, Steven, took out a smoke grenade, quickly pulled the pin, and lowered the smoking grenade onto the roof. It quickly revealed a network of laser tripwires crisscrossing the rooftop. Just as he had suspected, only an idiot didn't protect the roof, especially if they slept just beneath it. Each agent followed suite with a smoke grenade, and each carefully landed within spaces between the laser grid, yanking their chutes quickly into their packs to keep them from touching the lasers.

J-5 had to work faster, there was certainly some other security measure on the roof, if he didn't hurry it might activate. Finally, he felt the wall give way beneath his drill. Reaching inside cautiously with his clippers, he took a deep breath, checked the diagram once more, and snipped.

There wasn't even a noise. It was night time and Mr. Belgardi wasn't in, the few lights that had been one around the roof flicked off, as did the grid. J-5 breathed a sigh of relief. "The power is cut" he said "You've got maybe half an hour until security forces realize whats' going on and marshal enough forces to get upstairs. Good thing Rico was paranoid enough to make getting to his place from the ground near impossible."

J-1 tapped his watch. Thirty minutes. "Go" he whispered over the comm system, and they dashed across the roof, staying alert for attack. They reached the far door, J-3 cracked the hinges using a small hammer, the door was shifted, and they entered the Tower.

J-5 knew he had the smallest window of oppourtunity. As systems powered up along the building, he quickly inserted - between the time the security system powered up and the time when the computer security programs would run - a lock-up program by plugging it directly into one of the uncut wires connecting the Tower's computer network to the Hex itself. The program wasn't especially well guarded, and any tech-support junky who found it would certainly be able to delete it, but it would hold them up for a while and buy his associates long enough to get in and out. It did nothing to disrupt the powerful defences built directly into the Hex, but the rest of the Tower would be helpless to stop them for at least a half-hour.

A gust of wind battered J-5 dangerously about, and his small, furry frame curled up against the wall. This was, he reflected, the worst job he had ever had.

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Inside the base of the Hex, the team looked up at the long shaft ahead. J-1, the team leader, nodded to J-2, a Rodian, who quickly unpacked his long rifle. Reaching into his back-pack, he took out the bulkiest item he was carrying, a case of rifle attatchments. He passed over the silencer, the stunner, the bayonet, and the night-scope, and took a grappling hook attatchment out.

"All right" he whispered "I shoot this quick, but rope not strong for J-6, he too big."

J-6, perhaps the most cloaked figure aswell as the largest nodded. Long, terrifying claws extended from his hands, and he stood close to the wall. After cautiously pressing his claws into the wall several times, he seemed satisfied towards some goal, and nodded to J-2 again. J-2 took careful aim, and fired.

The steel Grappling hook shot into the air, like a silver harpoon. It pierced through the ceiling and claw-like extensions shot out, holding it firmly in place by way of adhesive coils, like the ones used by J-5. J-2 gave it a few experimental pulls, then nodded. One by one, the agents began to climb the rope. Last was J-6, who simply forced his claws through the wall, and with great effort, climbed by piercing each hand further and further up the wall and pulling himself up.

There came a sudden, ominous creak, as they reached the half-way point. "What was that?" Hissed J-1.

J-2 shrugged, trying to see in the darkness above. J-3, just below, took out a pair of night-vision goggles he'd brought, and squinted ahead. Suddenly, he made the unusual noises of the Aqualish and pointed desperately above.

"Whats' he saying?" Said J-2. J-4, a Cerean, responded "He's saying you appeared to have hooked the grappler into the turbo lift, parked above."

Everyone let this sink in and go through the process in their minds of what this meant. "Climb!" whispered J-1 in a desperate voice "Climb as fast as you can!"

They struggled desperately up the rope, as the Turbolift continued to strain against its' holdings. Without electricity, most of the clamps used to hold it up had powered down, leaving only the cords, which had been pierced by the grappling hook and were even now beginning to come loose.

J-6 reached a door, and with a free fist hammered it open. He swung inside, and turned to the group, guesturing for them to jump. One by one, they jumped from the rope, and J-6 caught them, until J-1, the last on the rope, suddenly felt a horrible falling sensation as the cords holding the elevator snapped. He leapt, but he wasn't high up enough, and fell short of the door. J-2 and 3 leaned over and grabbed a hand each, and with a monumental tug, pulled him up a split-second before the huge turbolift spiralled down to the bottom of the shaft, shattering into bits.

"Good work" J-1 wheezed "All right... Lets' get moving"

(Ok, I was hoping you'd edit, but it appears you are still away, and since I am going I will post with the assumption that we did indeed plan our arrival to coincide with that - highly illegal - meeting Rico is in, with the word Upheaval in it.)

The team advanced through the foyer, weapons drawn. Rico was suspected of carrying numerous highly effective and shadily legal weapons systems around his home. They had to get to the doors at the far end.

Or did they?

Rico wasn't stupid. Air-ducts were too small to crawl in and lined with sharp objects. There was no convenient back door. And a half-dozen washerwomen would NOT be allowed in. However, J-1 recognized that once this was over, everyone would have known they had passed, so they might as well do whatever they needed to to advance their goals.

J-3 opened a bag, and took out what appeared to be a sophisticated chainsaw. His bag was filled with cutting, sawing, picking, and one or two exploding tools. Placing the saw against the wall, he awaited only a nod.

"Um... sir?" said J-2, who was wearing his infrared goggles "I don't like the look of this..."

Red patched were appearing from inside the columns and walls...

J-1 turned on his goggles, and in less then a second shouted a most critical order.

"Get down!"

The team ducked, rolled, and dived away as fire strafed the wall they had been standing at mere seconds ago.

A pair of pop down laser cannons had appeared from the center of the stairwell, from compartments in the ceiling. Raking with red laser fire, they barley missed the Coalition agents, who dodged, obviosuly warned by something. The two cannons swiveled, following the path of the Coalition agents, and spitting their deadly beams of light.

The situation triggered another system, and at the far end of the stairwell, at the large door, they was a sudden flutter of movement. Massive blast doors had slid into position and locked, securing the enterance way to the rest of the prisim. The doors were inches thick and quite solid, and would require an extreme amount of force to dislodge or damage.

That is, if the agents managed to get that far....

*cough cough*