14958/Operation WATCHFUL: Extermination

Operation WATCHFUL: Extermination
Date of Scene:	25 May 2023
Location:	Airfield - Russia-Kazakhstan Border
Synopsis:	SHIELD chances down the final brood biosample. By some convoluted intrigue, it has ended up in Russian hands, as Deathbird's remaining agents try and find a way to access space without support. Despite facing down a variety of Russian military assets, alien assassins and magical space robots, the vatniks and space vatniks alike have a very bad night and the strange payload is recovered. Plus, Richard finally gets to shoot something usefully!
Cast of Characters:	Darcy Lewis, Richard Stadler, Sybil Tan, Natasha Romanoff, Valeria Richards, Lara Croft, Sara Pezzini

---

Darcy Lewis has posed:
In a lot of ways, this could have all been worse.

Yes, the Brood are rampaging through a hidden valley in Antarctica, but thanks to SHIELD, the Shi'ar terror plot behind it all - to release the retroviral bioweapon that resurrected the Brood more widely throughout the world - has largely been foiled. Labs have been shut down, and a test site on Roosevelt Island destroyed (with a little help from the more 'friendly' Shi'ar, although no one is telling the public that).

Meanwhile, some unorthodox 'labwork' has gained them an unusual pair of allies: the somewhat unlikely pair of Karl Lykos and Tanya Anderssen, star-crossed geneticists turned Tolkien-themed dino-villain and would-be Brood Queen. With the emergent Brood personality suppressed, Tanya's still intact link to the nascent Hivemind has allowed her to locate their biomass anywhere on the planet.

And with her aid, SHIELD has tracked down a half-dozen such locations. A half a dozen back-up labs around the world? Eliminated. A cannister in transit in a high-speed rail headed toward DC - secured.

But Tanya's last 'reading' pointed somewhere very strange indeed.

Now

The group is on a Quinjet, and right now, its advanced systems are very important, with the vehicle in full stealth mode as they navigate hostile airspace.

"We're crossing the border now, it will be just a few more until we're in range. There's no staying invisible forever, anti-air should pick us up but we'll be close enough to make it in and out, hopefully..." Darcy, as usual, is playing command & control, seated not in the pilot's seat of the jet, but at the operations position for all its fancy communications and radar equipment. "I'm picking up hostile chatter. It'll probably take them five to ten to get jets in the air."

Moments later, a red light activates in the back of the jet as the rear ramp opens up, showing the arid, rocky terrain beneath them. Yep, they'll be dropping in by air for this one. Then the light turns green. "Go now!"

As the SHIELD agents make it out of the Quinjet, with parachutes or their own flight capabilities, they'll be greeted by the sight below of sprawling runways and buildings, a bit like a military airfield... but not quite.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Stadler reminded himself that courage wasn't a lack of fear, but action in spite of it. He still felt a /little/ annoyed at the butteflies in his stomach he was feeling, because he had done this pleanty of times, for God sake; over two decades ago! So what if he hadn't jumped from an aircraft for a couple of years? Oh, shush. He had bigger things to worry about, anyway.

He nodded to Darcy over in the operation's seat, as she went through the set up. "Not the first time we haven't had air supremacy, but I can't say it'll be comfortable." He notes, moving to pull down his gas mask over his face, Mark 17 rifle hanging from an assault sling in front of him. He moves to clear the mask, covering the filter and blowing air out, to make sure it had a tight seal, before commenting again. "Chaos it is can certainly help here, however. We'll see what we can do on a local response."

And with that, the red light is on, and Stadler is moving toward the ramp to overpower those resurgent butterflies. "All right, people! You should have a picture of the storage container we're looking for! Search anything large enough to hold it, and esspeciaally critical areas. Anyone with flight capabilities, quick pass to take out any ready craft on the runway. Remember your maps; back up exfil is back over the border to EP Quebec."

And, eithout much fanfair, he takes to the ramp at a slow jog, and leaps off the side, feeling the wind whistling in the air around him, and counting down the altitude. It wasn't long before they were low enough, and he could yank the cord, feeling the harness jerk him up in the sky. Okay! See, not so bad. Hard part's over.

Now it was just the messy part.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    After the ramp drops, Sybil takes two running steps and jumps out of the quinjet, wings activating after a second or two to clear the plane and anyone jumping out behind her. She's just gliding at the moment, soaring in a circular pattern to take a good look at what's below them versus the satellite pictures of the compound. Glancing over her shoulder she marks the positions of the other team members, marking each on her helmet's HUD so that it's easy to keep track of them.

    Following that, her attention returns to the base below, searching first for AA emplacements. These get marked as targets, and then her wing thrusters flare up as she powerdives towards the base. Her left gauntlet reshapes itself into a plasma cannon and she fires three times - not at the launchers, but at their dedicated radar and command vehicle. All three shots hit the radar equipment on top of the armored vehicle, blasting it to pieces and removing the launchers as a threat.

    She pulls out of her dive, spreads her wings and uses a combo of momentum and thrusters to climb again, looking for her next target, veering towards the runway and any planes preparing to take off.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha knew how this routine went. she had done it hundreds, if not thousands of times. Whether on her own or with backup. There were no questions from her. She knew the operation, she knew the targets,s he knew the contingencies, the threats.. And the great many surprises out there along the Tundra. Soviet Russia had a great many things hidden from decades, if not well over a century stashed away.
    And as the group went to deploy, she doesn't reply verbally, just goes to dive down along deployment. Wearing the skysuit wtih an oxygen package, her own outfit much more streamlined compared to the others, her netting having even less to it, and her jumpsuit made of a different material. She goes to leap off the side of the Quinjet, angling hereslf downwards..
    And then rather than spreading her arms to the side and her legs to slow her ascent, she just tucks herself to a near vertical dive, launches..
    And goes to fly on down, almost invisible amongst all of the weather!

Valeria Richards has posed:
While she's not a SHIELD agent herself. Valeria Richards often does consulting work as a tech and science specialist. Sadly a Fantasticar while more than capable of maintaining stealth the whole trip, does not have the same capacity to bring more than a handfull of people. Still originally designed for four people even in modern models. So the Quinjet will have to suffice.

The Val Suit online, it's strength enhancements and forcefields able to protect ger from most damage if things get combative. And some rocket boots from her Godfather Doom and an anti-grav stabilizer belt she made herself able to handle the air drop without a parachute. Fighting aircraft on the wing a bit outside what she can do. But one on the ground and able to get hold of any tech she should be able to rock.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara was a trained helicopter pilot. She had some experience in flying airplanes too, even dabbled in Quinjets with some of the flyboys of SHIELD, but her parachute training hadn't come until last summer. It certainly wasn't the first experience she had with a parachute drop though... that had been several years earlier, and had been a much, much different scenario. She didn't like to think about that too much either.

Lara hadn't come in to SHIELD with a military background, but even still she had come in with a lot of weapons training, and field experience, so it was a blend of weird skill mastries, and absent skill gaps that needed to be filled in by SHIELD training courses. Anything to get an adrenaline rush though, Lara had signed up for once the option presented itself.

Thus she is ready for this jump today, having just sat patient in her assault gear, her equipment checked over periodically just for reinforcing her mind's demand.

Her eyes went ahead to Darcy when the time came, then back to the team leader at his beckoning call. She stood, she prepared for the jump, and when her time came she slipped out of the Quinjet with a trained expertise, no fanfare, she just went in to the air.

Heart pounding adrenaline. As she flew, as she descended, her eyes looked to the side, able to see some town or city way off i nthe far distance. She'd been to Kazakhstan before, but not like this, not coming in to it from above...

Her focus was on her dropzone ultimately though, and with a focused determination Lara completed the jump, and rolled out of her parachute gear with relative ease, only a minor hiccup as she tripped down to one knee on one of the wayward cords. Back on her feet though, Lara moved rapidly to catch up and rejoin others on her team.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
When it came to working with SHIELD, Sara always prepared herself before the mission by wearing a pair of sweat pants and matching shirt with the SHIELD logo on them. The point of this repeated experience was to ensure that when Witchblade wrapped the metal armor around her body and destroyed the clothing, nothing important was lost. He's destroyed numerous pairs of comfortable boots, which she really hated.

Shortly after Darcy finished speaking, and only seconds before the red light came on, the metal tendrils of the Witchblade sprang to life from the innocuous bracelet that was his resting form to first create the gauntlet that was his true form, then from there to wrap around her body into the armor many has seen before on the news and social media platforms.

Once the armor was in place, she spaced her leap from the back of quinjet to ensure she wouldn't slam into anyone else even as the wings were forming on her back. This wasn't her first rodeo, though it was nice to see others capable of flight, she moved with speed toward the planes still on the ground.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Modern media has portrayed the country of Kazakstan largely as a poor ex-Soviet satellite, a view that ignores the long and complicated history of the central Asian steppe. The ex-Soviet part is pertinent, though, considering the degree to which the USSR exploited the country for its resources. They also built some important stuff there, most notably the Baikonur Cosmodrome - the place where the first human astronauts were launched from. Since the breakup, Russia has leased Baikonur to continue its space program. Of course, it's suffered under the usual corruption that plagues its government.

Earlier:

Aleksei Sytsevich, also known as Rhino, was one of the first victims of the Brood retrovirus. Arguably, he deserved it: he'd been selling his services to Deathbird's men, helped break Sauron out of jail and acted as muscle for their labs, although SHIELD never knew quite how well he was clued into the larger conspiracy. With gamma-based powers not unlike the Hulk, he resisted total transformation while in custody, but remained largely incoherent.

But not to his 'Queen.'

"This is bad," the woman murmured, as she stood before the glass of the isolation chamber, her hand on it, reaching out for the man's mind. "Sytsevich knew what he had, or at least had some idea. Was trying to sell it on the open market, through his mafiya contacts. But then, well, you know what happened to him. The Shi'ar must have caught on."

"If they caught him, why are you still detecting the cannister out there?" Darcy wondered.

"Maybe Deathbird decided to make her own deal?"

Now:

The airfield isn't on any maps, and it was barely on the SHIELD satellites. It has an impressively large runway, but little else of the expected infrastructure, aside from a single large hanagar building off the center of the main strip. The most prominent air defenses are two groups of S-300s, mobile anti-air that are basically wheeled trucks with large missile tubes on the back, parked at either end of the runways. They're easy to reposition in normal conflicts, as are the radar vehicles that operate with them. It's one of these that explodes first, under Kestrel's attack!

Nearby, there's a prefab barracks structure, and as soon as the explosions start, there are quickly shouts inside. It isn't long before men start pouring out. Their uniforms are familiar, although they lack in identifiable insignia. As they come out, they start taking cover behind various containers and equipment near the building, and open fire in the general direction of the drop, although it's clear the SHIELD stealth approach has given them the advantage here, as they're surprised and searching for targets in the dark versus knowing exactly where they'll be coming from.

"The second radar truck is active, trying to paint us. Deploying electronic countermeasures," Darcy relays, from her own 'safe' place still aboard the Quinjet, looking less safe by the minute. Kestrel is no doubt 'on it,' moving to engage the next target, when she's quite unexpectedly HIT by something else, mid-air. Not groundfire, but another body. Familiar?

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
There are a number of SAM sites and flak cannons present. Natasha goes to let the others handle those, aware of thsoe breaking away to engage the hangar and the other soldiers scrambling towards them. Going in for a landing, Natasha goes to full stealth mode, using the chaos of the others going ahead to make her way towards the target. Her target is the support structure. Mobile air systems need infrastructure - small radars, targetting scanners, and the like which help guide them. The S-300 is a fairly robust and mass deployed unit. It's easy to find parts for and train on which is important given the rough infrastructure.
    Natasha knows how they work. She knows how to maintain them. And how to disable them. Going to head along in stealth mode towards the radar structures, she goes to take out two small detonator charges. While the others go to take out the luanchers.. She just gets within about fourty meters, moves to prime and throw the charges through the air towards the nearest of the support radars.. And goes to click them up.
    Boom. The explosion is small - just enough to cripple the systems. They need to move quickly.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Stadler couldn't say he'd been to Russia before. He /had/, of course, in the oughts, but he couldn't say he had. Ahh, clever responses-

The ground, as usual, came up with shocking speed, and Stadler moved to get in the right position, tucking his legs in and rolling once he hit the ground to disperse the force he's under. He's gathering the parachute silk, the pack that dropped down below him shortly before he had hit the ground itself. There were the sound of men running, yelling, shouts and shots into the darkness. Luckily they had suprise, and lowlight gear wasn't exactly in a large supply within the Russian army. Which meant they had the seconds they would need to get organized.

His own night vision gear was strapped onto his helmet, flicked on, and pulled down over his gas mask's visor. He ordiented himself quickly to the situation, the barracks... the hanger. They needed to hit the objective as soon as possible, while the enemy was recovering from the shock of the assault. Not that helping prolong that shock wasn't on the menu, too. He brought the rifle up, hand moving to the grenade launcher attached to the underbarrel, sighting the range, and angling a 40 millimeter grenade toward the barracks entrance. Certainly it wasn't enough to destroy a building, but it would delay the enemy from getting organized.

And he would continue on, huffing as he jogged toward the hanger, rifle up and head on a swivel for threats.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Taking a mental note to work harder on training with Witchblade's ranged capabilities, Sara mutters something to herself about not enough hours in the day before turning in midair to head toward the barracks.

<"We'll take care of the company on the ground.> She states as quite literally she prepared to dive bomb those emerging from the barracks. Moment before she would hit the ground, a sword forms in each hand. In the right is the elegant looking, thin blade that Witchblade is most commonly known for, in the other a less extravagant weapon of the same basic design.

Now came the inner struggle between wielder and ancient entity. His desire to destroy and kill against Sara's desire for justice without cold blooded murder. She struck for weapons first, slicing through the metal as if it were butter, only then turning flat sides of the blade on the gunmen themselves in attempt to knock them out.

Valeria Richards has posed:
That hangar, probably has guards and extra security systems inside it besides surplus aircraft. Probably where the thing they're after is being stashed. Once close enough she has her wrist computer doing any wifi sniffing and intrusion to tray and gain access and shut things down remotely, something to do on the drop and then jog to the building. "When you could just knock walls down like the Thing but you can't tell exactly what's on the other side and might explode things." she jokes softly into the comms. "Thankfully I'm as handy with a scalpel or a hammer." she adds.

Hopefully the network intrusion can make things easier for the rest of the team. And she can concentrate on possible containment of the actual target.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    Moving at high speed to get to the planes, Kestrel doesn't expect the hit from the side. Especially not because it's an actual person, not incoming fire. As the impact spins her around, she tucks into a fast roll, wings wrapping around her body for defense before snapping out to full span as she shoots off in a different direction than she had been heading. As she scans the surroundings, an energy bolt steaks past her as she makes a sudden turn.

    The defensive systems of her suit tag the attacker and offer up an identification - Raptor armor. Stronger than she is and hard to damage, but she can at least keep it busy while the others carry out the search. She was pretty much along as overwatch anyway, so she's doing her job.

    Thought leads to deed, so she reforms the cannon, fires a couple shots at the Raptor and kicks it up to full speed, going into dogfighting mode with the other armor. First are a few tests of maneuverability. She may have an edge there, so she leads the Raptor dodging and weaving among the buildings and hangars, firing off a few shots to keep it's interest.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara crept up on the far end of the air field's long landing runway, an impressively long runway for such a well hidden airfield really, but that was neither here nor there. She takes up position behind a series of old tires set beneath a net covered fenced-in area. Her eyes look over it toward the airstrip as she watched the initial strike of the more powered people amongst her team. It was impressive to behold from this position. She watches as the counter-attacks begin from the local forces, watching the spread of confusion mixed with the urgency to strike back spread amongst the soldiers.

Once she observes them starting to fire their weapons seemingly randomly in to the dark, Lara starts to creep forward, her hands acquiring her compound archery bow from her back, the black limbs snapping in to place, and the red bowstrings locking in to form. She uses the cover of the strewn about pieces of old vehicle equipment for cover as she watches the soldiers firing their guns at any perceived threat. But her target was that S300 AA truck, and the radar support around it.

The confusion that her team was dishing out was great cover for Croft, but the random fire that some of the enemy troops were laying down was a concern. In reaction to this, Lara finds a comfortable spot to crouch behind some cover, and draw her first arrow.

Thanks Clint's techs.

Lara notches the arrow, straightens her back and releases it, sending it soaring through the dark to the far side of the airstrip, but close enough to do its desired effect. I.e. when it detonates it creates a cacophony of sounds like fireworks, or automatic gunfire, thus giving everyone close to the AA trucks something to directly look at, something to directly aim their attention toward... away from Lara.

Her second arrow is drawn from her tech quiver, it too is notched and a moment later its sent swirling through the air toward its target, the AA S300 itself. This arrow tipped with a high yield explosive that is designed specifically for this kind of devastation.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Earlier:

"This Dmytro Kotov, ex-KGB who never graduated on to the FSB or any other office. He's believed to work as a arms dealer, supplying several prominent oligarchs with their own private militaries. And he's known to spend time in the US." Darcy stands at the head of a conference table in the Triskelion, conducting one of many pre-mission briefings. There are some photographs of him enjoying drinks on the boardwalk in Brighton Beach, across from another man, notably thinner and taller.

Darcy pulls up an overlay on the screen, layering a wireframe over the figure seated with the Russian. "Height, weight, build - it matches what Agent Romanoff's optics pulled on the suspected Shi'ar agent encountered at the hospital and chemical lab. And that guy - " She shifts to another camera angle, showing several bodyguards standing off from the meeting, and zooms in on one of their faces. Then another image comes up. Different angle, but matching. "This one we grabbed from the cameras inside the UN, after the attack at the UNOOSA meeting."

Now:

The grande goes off in front of one of the barracks entries, blasting several from their feet. Dead or just very badly hurt, they're out of the fight. More come, although soon they're faced with the sight of another armored woman (lot of those going around!) charging at them. They do the obvious thing and shoot at her. A lot!

Darcy's voice comes in over the comms: "Incoming!"

The first set of S-300s fire with just their own fire-control. They're not blind without the big radar, but their own systems aren't nearly as accurate... and the lady in the ship is good at the electronics stuff. So she manages not to die to their volley. A few seconds later, one of the trucks goes up in a rather spectacular explosion, and then another. Lara makes sure they stop shooting for good. Meanwhile, Nat reaches the other radar truck. She definitely knows the ex-Soviet arms catalogue backwards and forwards, so the demo work is easy.

The second set launches- and then the radar truck goes up. This time, the missiles look like they're much closer on target, only missing by a relative hair's breadth as the Quinjet veers away.

Meanwhile to all of this, Kestrel is dueling in the air. Her opponent seems to have learned a few things from their last meeting, and the engagement pushes her - it alternates between slashes with those wings when they pass near each other, or with a hand-morphed cannon of some sort when they break apart, lances of energy streaking through the air between the two of them. It's fast, for certain, though perhaps she is a bit more agile, and keeps ahead of it as she threads around the large building.

On the ground, those pressing there reach the hangar. It has large metal doors, although they're not exceptionally heavy, the same sort of light aluminum used for all these rapid-built structures, more to keep out prying eyes than defend against any kind of heavy weaponry.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
It's time to make sure the exterior area is secure. Natasha goes to take a glance over at the other vehicles, moving to quickly head over in that direction. <<Securing exterior>> This is accompanied by her moving to take out a large, compressed rifle from her back, going to load the small micro detonators into it and taking quick shots along at each of the remaining vehicles outside. The small charges would detonate, and rather than in a huge, spectactular explosion with just enough force to cripple and disable the vehicle.

They still wanted to take at least something of here intact, and that would be so much harder if everything about went up in a fireball after all. So that meant using a calculated amount of detonations.

She goes to then oonce she's quickly taken out the vehicles check as to how Sybil was doing with her flying enemy, and the other soldiers - they would be dealt with quickly by the others.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
The bullets begin to ting off the armor as the metal tendrils move with lightning speeds to cover Sara's exposed skin. The internal struggle continues between Witchblade and wielder, but that doesn't stop him from protecting her.

It was true that she could easily have just killed each and every soldier she came across, in fact it would have been pathetically easy and Witchblade would have savored each murder as his way of maintaining a balance between those who would do harm and those who cannot protect themselves. Sara on the other hand required more than a desire as a reason for killing someone. Certainly these soldiers meant to harm her, they would kill her or members of her team without pause, but there was one key element to the equation that stayed her hand. Witchblade was meant to maintain a balance in the magical world, against things that normal humans stood no chance against. These soldier were humans, and thus equal force to their level of existence was required.

The right sword remained, to slice through their weapons, while the left one shifted into a nightstick with which she took blows to knock the solider down and out. She would have liked to have an ICER, but Witchblade was wholly against external weapons when he was around, it had taken her months to get him to stop tossing her NYPD side arm away every time he decided to armor her body.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Things were happening quickly, and the explosions at the edges of the runway meant that the airspace was about to be a lot safer for their support. This was good; Rick really didn't want to have to break contact and hump through the steepe to the back up extraction point. There were some things he was far too old and entitled for. He could hear the sounds of jets, of suits above doing battle with muffled explosions. Something to log, but like the rest, he had to trust that the team would be getting things done around them. Esspecially with the infantry still a rather... large threat. Though not as big with biological swords cutting through them.

For his part, Rick just handled the threats that were on the way forward. Sometimes the infantry, in their panic, wandered too close to the path toward the hanger, or attempted to use it to set up a defensive perimiter. Rick's rifle clicked, more than boomed, as the suppresor did it's job (subsonic ammunition certainly helped... so long as you were aiming at the right place). It meant that they hopefully weren't focusing on who they should have been.

Once they reach the hanger, he's looking at the woman that had come with him. "I'm less worried about an explosion and more the release of a virus that would have us fighting people with a lot better internal communication. Doors accessible from their internal net? It's questionable if I have enough plastique for this."

Sybil Tan has posed:
    Now having a better idea of how maneuverable the Raptor is, Sybil decides to use it's strengths against it. Whipping around another building, she pops above the roofline for a moment, spots where the aviation fuel is stored and marks it in her system, then drops back into 'catch me if you can' mode with the Raptor. She lets it close a little, then turns a corner hard and activates the cannon to directly behind her.

    But not in cannon mode.

    The dimensional portal that opens behind her is placed so the Raptor flies right into it when turning the corner. The other end if it is two inches away from the fuel tank. The Raptor vanishes through the portal and doesn't even have a second to consider it's situation before slamming into the fuel tank.

    There's a huge explosion and the night lights up as a huge fireball rises into the sky. Next comes a shockwave that dismantles any hangars or planes near it and very possibly knocks down a good number of people. The Raptor? That's not yet clear. Hopefully that was enough to put it out of commission.

Valeria Richards has posed:
The wifi sniffing seems to find something. A quick shish of Valeria's fingers over the haptic holographic display on her wrist computer being set to start cracking security and gaining access. From there when her own systems get access.

The hangar door looks pretty flimsy. This gets an eyeroll and a shake of her head at Richard as she looks over the locking mechanisms. "If it's wired to blow stay behind me and the forcefield!" she advices and just yanks on the door, putting the strength enhancements once used to replicate Ben Grimm's own strength to work. The door just slides open, as if it was a screen door leading out to a back porch.

"This is what happens when you spend your money on hookers, blow, and shitty caviar pretending to be good caviar. Instead of good security." she states and grins. "Target's probably in some old fortyfour gallon drum with a ring clamp seal. I've got a second forcefield emitter ready to slap on the thing and ensure containment no matter what the original packaging is." she advises.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's voice had spoken over the comms quietly with an update about the target she took out. After that she set off in to the dark to find a new position to attack from.

When she found new cover, the Agent whose combat prowess was born out of a need for stealth, shot an ICER arrow toward another enemy soldier, this one driving a vehicle filled with reinforcement troops toward the air strip.

When she ducked back in to her cover she did so right in to the presence of one of the enemy soldiers who was rushing around a corner in a confused haze. There came a moment of pause then as both she and he looked at one another, and then the hand to hand combat breaks out. Lara is soon rolling end over end trying to wrestle the man's handgun out of his grasp as he tries to get it aimed in to her midsection. He's bigger than she is, he weighs a lot more, but she's more agile, and has been in similar scraps before. His masculin grunts are mirrored by her more feminine sounds, as he tries to pin her to the earth, only to have one of her legs shoot up over his neck to hook behind his spine, and draw him right down in to the ground, and in to her waiting knife.

He fires his gun, right in to the dirt beside Lara's left shoulder. It instantly makes her ears ring, as the man's stabbed form falls down ontop of her. He gasps several times, as Lara now counters his weight and rolls over ontop of him, her right knee holding his gun gripped hand down as he squeezes off another round that fires off in to the dusty hill a few feet away. Lara rips her knife from his stomach, and now jams it down in to his neck. She stares eye to eye with him as he looks utterly terrified back up at her.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
The last of the trucks go up, courtesy of Nat, and Darcy radios in: "I'm clear on radar. Well, at least, local radar. But satellite has several bogies inbound. No idea if these are legit VVS, more private mercs, or what. Either way, we're not cleared to be here." SHIELD had considered contacting their counterparts for a joint action, but the idea was shot down: with the corruption involved, it was impossible to know if they'd get assistance - or just tip off their targets.

Even refraining from more lethal options, Sara does a good job holding back the immediate ground reinforcements. Some empty light machineguns at her at close range, until those weapons themselves are destroyed. Some try and fight with knives or rifle stocks when their bullets fail, some just run (mercenaries: you get what you pay for).

Another huge explosion lights up the field a bit further down. In this one rare case, the Russians were actually smart about storing their fuel, and it's not close enough to destroy the hangar (or evaporate poor Richard). But it does damage one of the walls, leaving a possible alternate mode of ingress or escape!

The Raptor itself is unseen, for now.

And Val gets the doors. The physical lock breaks under her enhancements, again proving that this place isn't built to last. What's waiting inside?

Basically the only thing that COULD be, after all this build up. Richard might know it by the NATO reporting SS-25, Nat and crew as the RT-2PM Topol or some variant. But almost any average American would recognize it, the favorite of any authoritarian dictator's parade: a ballistic missile and its launch system, one of the icons of Cold War. In practicality, it's a big multi-wheeled truck with a huge missile on top of it.

Presumably, the payload here isn't nuclear, though. In fact, the missile itself presents very differently. It's painted in whites and blues, rather than camo colors, and has a visible insignia painted on one side: a pair of hands holding a launching rocket against the moon's silhouette. Baikonur's seal.

After this reveal, Valeria gets shot in her forcefield. It's a big blast, not small arms fire, enough to knock her back.

Inside, there are more men with guns, but they are... well, not the guns the guys out in the barracks are using. Several of the agents have seen these Shi'ar models before, as well as the blue energy shields that pop up in front of them, used sort of like riot shields as the soldiers approach and fire.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    The burning jet fuel and debris on the runway pretty much guarantee that no planes will be taking off from here. Sybil turns to circle the base, threat warning sensors all alert so she doesn't get blindsided again. She's running in stealth mode, minimum systems power so she's basically off the radar. Hard enough to spot a human sized target to begin with.

    She also keeps an eye on the ground, taking a second to fire a bolt that was more concussion then energy to knock out a merc who was taking aim at one of her teammates. << Ok, sky looks clear for now, but the faster we leave the better. I prefer not to dogfight jets, even if I do have a number of advantages on them. >>

Richard Stadler has posed:
<<Copy, Ops. I can't say I've ever been in Russia uninvited,>> Read between the lines, <<But I assume that means we're hitting egress. Do we have an ETA on when this airspace gets unacceptable hostile?>>

Richard looks over to Valerie just.. /yanking/ the doors open, and shakes his head just a bit. "Honestly, have to get me some of those exosuits. Seems like cheating, though. Back in my day we had to go up hill to the hanger, both ways." A little release of tension, as, once the door opens, he's peeking in the door. He knows that, with how things are here, simply breaching into a very small opening would be a death trap. And he gleans two very important pieces of information.

1) SS-25. Mobile ICBM, certainly, but not the olive drab he expected a weapon like that to be colored. Baikonur. Repurposed, perhaps? That would be... He racked his brains; hadn't there been a commerical version-

2) More important than naval gazing about missiles were the forces arrayed, and they certainly weren't the locals. He was already prone on the floor when the energy was wrapping toward them, /keenly/ aware that with these thin doors and those weapons, concealment was most certainly not cover.

<<All on this net; looks like we have a TEL in the hanger. SS-25, painted civilian. Possibly commericial. Enemy infantry with advanced weaponry guarding. Might need some heavies here, Ops.>>

Stadler's trying to move quickly. The suppressor's time is over, and it's detached as quickly as he could make it. The clip that was loaded is ejected as well; subsonic and stealth was done for at the moment, and for all of his speed he felt like he was reloading a Brown Bess. New clip loaded in; this one with yellow tape around it, before he peeks around the open door and fires three times in rapid succession.

Did you know they made depleted uranium rounds for 7.62 NATO? SHIELD better; these weren't exactly cheap. But they hit with the same force as an M2 Browning.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Those that run get to do so, Sara maintains her focus on ensuring those stupid enough to stick around are disarmed in the most effect of ways, then taken down by a 'boot to the head'. Moving through the soldiers, ensuring none that go down get back up, she works her way into the barracks to make certain there aren't any still hiding out in there.

Listening to the comms, she gives the barracks a thorough once over then proceeds to start destroying the building. She won't kill if she doesn't have to, but that building is dead, dead, oh so dead. Or as dead as possible before she flies out through a wall to head toward the main hanger.

<On my way now.> she reports... the team always comes first.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And now the doors are opening and the group is under immediate fire! It's a heavily reinforced barracks - even modular construction is still pretty heavy concrete, and not the type they can just slam down. Natasha is still, however, on the outer edge of the agents being engaged. So she's not in the immediate line of fire. Her fire move now as they get engaged is to just take out her pistol, and instead of loading a bullet into it.. She goes to just arm a flare and calls out calmly <<Firing flare, target interior>> And she goes to simply load up and goes to point it into the general mass of enemies that had been charging themw ith shields, energy weapons, and heavy armor that they would have issues breaching without thier own heavies.. And gives another warning <<Refocus optics>> And then intot he mass she goes to fire off a bright flare, normally used for requesting backup and marking target areas for bombardment.

It won't set anything on fire, it's not going to hurt anyone.. but it's still going to sear retinas for anyone not braced for it and leave some very heavy blindness - not the type that one can just blink and get over it!

Valeria Richards has posed:
The blast that knocks her back is a surprise. The forcefields she has don't let her get harmed but balance is still a thing. "Well that's a container we really didn't want to see." she points out once she has her herself steady on her feet.

"Think you can shoot out the truck tyres or the engine so it doesn't anywhere. I can dismantle and separate the warhead. But I'm also gonna need someone distracting goons armed with Shi'ar tech, weapons and maybe shields. Not a patch on mine but I need my hands free and not clobberin'" she asks for further help over comms.

Well maybe she might need to fight a little on her way through to the missile on the back of the truck.

"Eto vremya zabivaniya!" she yells.

<It's clobberin' time!> - Translated from the Russian.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara sat up on the dying man's stomach, her eyes down upon him as he choked out his last breaths. She was still breathing heavily herself from the scrap, sweat running down her brow, as she watched him. "Idis mirrum..." Lara quietly says down to the man in a somber tone of her voice. She then shook her head and stood once more, but her eyes caught the engraving on the man's M43 'Rook' that he tried to shoot her with twice. She quickly crouched, and picked the weapon up to see a Superman Logo in the grip. It caused her to smirk as she tucked the weapon in behind her back on a empty harness she had on her assault vest.

Lara gathered up her gear then and set back out, hearing the others chatter on comms once her hearing started to even out again.

It took only a matter of moments for her to peer around a corner to see the Shi'ar weapons being used, the shields being hid behind.

"What's a girl gotta do to get that tech..." Lara muttered as she pulled another arrow from her back's quiver.

Once more, she stroked her fingers over the arrow's shaft as she darted out from behind cover, lined up her shot and released the shocking tipped projectile toward the feet of the men wielding those sci-fi weapons!

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Earlier:

"With their shuttle destroyed in the Savage Land, and the B'rynal coordinating with the Peak and Watchtower, we think any of Deathbird's people still on Earth are effectively cut off, operating without orbital support. Which is good for us," Darcy goes on. The screens in the briefing room now show orbital diagrams and the locations of various space assets. As part of the final treaty negotiations (and as an apology for, technically, shooting at New York), one of these is a friendly Shi'ar cruiser.

It's also 'plan B' if this plan goes wrong, like on Roosevelt Island.

"Which is why we think they're working with Kotov. They'd never be able to infiltrate an actual space launch facility. But with the political 'mess' over the lease renewal at Baikonur, it's not inconceivable someone connected could liberate some surplus, maybe even an orbital delivery system..."

Now:

Said delivery system and its mobile launcher provides the menacing backdrop for the engagement. Richard takes a covered position on the door and opens fire. The bullets impact against the shield, which almost seems to harden at the points of impact, glowing more brightly. That said, the ammo he's using packs a particularly hard kinetic punch, and as he unloads, the strain on the energy field isn't hard to visually identify. With continued fire, he can wear one down, although it isn't long before they fire back. Fortunately, the first shot is wide, into the cover. Fortunate also that he sees some of the energy punch through and travel onward, without actually destroying the metal.

Also something they've seen before. Well, Nat has.

Inside the barracks... well, it's a bunch of Russian mercs. Along with spare uniforms, weapons, and so on, she finds all the bootleg pornography and vodka a person could ever want.

Beside the hangar, the fuel fire continues to burn, eating a larger hole in the wall, though obscuring much of the era with oily black smoke.

"Five or less," Darcy answers, on the comms. "Look supersonic." Richard and Nat can probably narrow it down to a handful of possible MiG and Suhkoi models. For Darcy, they're all more or less the same!

Inside, Nat sets off her flare. A good tactic, with a touch of poetic irony, given how the Shi'ar enjoy their hard-light tech. For a moment, the mercs cease firing, and by the time their visuals clear, Valeria is right on top of them, clobbering her way through their formation to reach the missile, leaving several on the ground. Another pair fall as Lara's trick arrow lands at their feet - where the shield definitely doesn't quite reach. ZZZT!

The Black Widow has a plan as well, to encircle them during her distraction. She doesn't get there. And while her attacker literally appears out of thin air (teleporter? no - holo cloak), she's probably not surprised. This is round three for the two of them. Still, he opens it up, with a strike with his chrome staff weapon, that sends a stunning jolt of power into her body. Turnabout, and all of that.

On the other side of the hangar, visible to Valeria as she gets up onto the missile, another figure is making its way through that sticky smoke on the side of the barracks, its gait somewhat slow and off-kilter, yet persistent.

A bird with melted wings.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
This will be round three between the two. Their previous melees have gone brutally. This one no doubt will go the same way. The stunning jolt goes into her side as her adversary seems tos izzle into reality - Natasha has the time to curse herself for having not paid attention to her surroundings over the fight as the stun-blade hits ceramic armor reinforced by kevlar and the thin material on top she had used to glide in smoothly. It effectively bypasses the plating, and the jolt sends her flying backwards from it! She has only moments before the next blow comes.

She can only make limited motions, and it will be seconds until her body has full mobility back. A fighting retreat is not an option. She's too immobilized over for any sort of smoke bomb. She's limited to what she has on her, what she has in immediate hands.. And what she can do with a minimum amount of force and effort applied before she twitches like she's having a Grand Mal seizure.

Namely, one loaded and cocked flare gun. To her ambusher, Natasha goes to just close her eyes, even as she's trying to hold onto her spasming to not snap her own neck from the massive stun shot, going to point the flare at roughly the point she was skewered from..

BWOOSH goes to point blank range. Heat. Fire. Let his optics manage to recalibrate from that.

Valeria Richards has posed:
A few of the goons get knocked flat by the combination of Valeria's forcefields and strength enhancements built into her suit. Enough she has room to get up on the missile and can start extracting the warhead and it's virulent payload and get it transported for destruction. The tools for it concealed in an invisible set of pouches revealed. The generators to maintain her forcefields can be really good for stealth.

"I think our power armored opposition is still kicking and likely upset." she points out while she gets to work. Once she can disarm the warhead, extracting the whole thing from the missile won't be a problem. She can carry the thing out and those forcefields she uses should keep it from any accidental leaking. Last thing they need is a second frozen environment becoming an infested nightmare at each end of the planet.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Quick assessment of the situation at the hanger leads Sara to analyze the information quickly and choose a target... see also, looking things over that melted armored thing has to go. As she flies in at the Raptor, Witchblade seems to agree whole heartedly with this decision and wraps her entire body in armor. The tendrils wrap up and over her head and even form a mask across her face.

First she mutters, <So should have read the reports> then adds more loudly. <I got the melty armor thing> as she plows into it, attempting to knock it back toward the fire it just came out of.

Lara Croft has posed:
A few more of those shocking ICER explosive arrows are sent out to the enemies trying to flank her companions, and then Lara sets off on a low run toward one of the fallen Shi'ar. Why? She's curious... and her curiosity knows no bounds.

Crouching beside the soldier who was using that alien tech, Lara quickly starts to try and figure it out. The rifle? The shield? She takes what she can and pockets it rapidly, holding the rifle against her side just as she starts to take fire right past her head.

"Shit." She cries out as one blast clips her shoulder, causing her to roll over the electrically stunned soldier in front of her. Lara's right hand snaps behind her back to grab the Superman pistol, which she whips back out of the nylon holster there, letting her fingerless gloved hand grip it tightly as one bare fingertip brushes trigger casing, then trigger.

She begins to unload what was left in the weapon's magazine back at the enemy that had fired at her, the M40 handgun rapidly being unloaded in the British woman's grasp as her other hand fumbles with the alien rifle that she holds over her lap.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    The incoming jets are close enough to show on Sybil's HUD now. There's maybe a minute or two left before they arrive. What they will do when they get here is the question. Are they checking on a border breach or are they here to bomb the place out of sight before Russia can be blamed for it?

    << Whatever still needs doing should probably happen soon, we're about to have loud company. >>

    She banks and heads in the direction of the incoming jets, deciding it's better to engage them outside the base perimeter just in case they are here to bomb it. The first shot is hers, tearing a hole in the wing of the lead plane. She's going to try not to kill any of the pilots, getting them to eject is a better goal here. She dodges gunfire from the second jet and flies past it's tail, plasma thrusters bright as they cut off the top half of the vertical stabilizer. She then drops almost straight down to avoid any more of the planes while she takes stock of the situation.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Earlier:

The team meets with Tanya for one last time, before they go.

"Whatever they have, it's different. It feels like more than just... biomass, the way the viral cannisters do," she explains, searching for the words to explain her psychic glimpses of the growing hive.

"And there's not much reason to launch one in a rocket anyway," Darcy adds. "First, they have nukes. Those work pretty good I hear. And atmospheric dispersal of the agent would... be indiscriminate across Earth, even if it was fairly low concentration. They'd have every chance of hitting themselves. It just doesn't make sense."

Now:

There's another flash between Black Widow and the hazy figure she faces. At close range, the low velocity weapon gets him on what we might call 'Dune rules': it's so slow, his holo-armor rig doesn't pick it up. The flare catches underneath, against dark bodysuit, and keeps burning, marking him even as portions of that holo field continue to flicker on and off.

However, he doesn't stop. Maybe the blinding part didn't take?

<<You rely on the same tricks, again and again,>> he sneers at her as he stalks forward, speaking in his language, since she's made a point of showing him she'd picked some up. He raises the long weapon, as if ready to jab it into her-

Witchblade soars in, tackling the armor, which by this point has seen better days. It's rather melty, and with sections of armor burned away, she can see that it's not armor, because there's no flesh underneath. Just more mechanics, circuitry, strange alien technology. As she piles into it, it's thrown from standing, and the two of them go skidding through a puddle of burning fuel. In that close melee, one of its arms morphs into a sword blade - a technological mirror to her own magic suit (although she may feel, somehow, that this thing isn't -purely- bound to the domain of science) - and it drives the blade at whatever weakspot it can find.

Sybil approaches the squadron of planes. Whether or not she can identify them, Darcy can get whatever data is relayed back: a mixed flight of MiG-35s and Su-57's. "Those are the good stuff, whoever's flying is serious about it."

Notably, they start firing at her from extreme range, loosing missiles long before visible identification. Whether they can get good locks or hit her nimble suit is another question, but it shows the seriousness of the hardware, even as she takes one down.

It also suggests they'll be threatening to the Quinjet sooner, rather than later.

Richard doesn't have any trouble hitting the tires of the big tractor, although they're surprisingly tough, each one taking several seconds of fire to fully perforate and start to flatten, rather than just a single shot. In betweem he conducts more stand-off with the gunmen, as Lara joins him. One of the shields goes down under a hail of fire, and the man behind it soon after.

And finally, Valeria gets the top capsule open.

Valeria Richards has posed:
Once the missile is open, it's not that hard to disconnect anything explosive from the container. "Fancy, tried to meld crappy Russian tech with Shi'ar?" she ponders. Eventually Val can get it out and one she does, with a spare forcefield emitter around the probably fragile container is going to carry it by hand to the Quinjet for extraction. "Okay. I think I got it, going to extract with this thing. No one blew up the Quinjet I hope?" she asks.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha is weak and exposed. But her attacker is toying with her even as he moves to make a point of advancing to gut her, long blade being drawn out. That has shown her own batons are useless against, and she doesn't have one of the energy blades that agents like the Black Knight occasionally use. Then she goes to arm two small things - small spherical detonators.

<<Well, since you want some new ones>> She would taunt over in Shi'Ar - then just to make sure the point is gotten across this time in Majadestian Trade Dialect. Hopefully him taking the time to insult her extra to let her recover while she readies her counterattack.

The two small spheres are flung through the air to land on the advancing armored alien. What they are is two small micro-EMP's that had been designed after a few encounters with the Shi'Ar battle armor and other threats to be able to hopefully neutralize them for short periods of time and disrupt them.

Small clamps in them would activate, magnetic charges hopefully having them snap through the air to latch onto the armor - targeting the energy field emanating from it. Hopefully enough to short it out for just a few seconds!

Sybil Tan has posed:
    The planes may be able to spot her, but missiles still have trouble tracking tiny objects. Sybil however, is done playing nice. She would have given them a chance, but now they're close enough to threaten the quinjet and the rest of the team. She comes to a stop, hovering in the air facing the incoming missiles and planes. Each is instantly tagged on her HUD, and then this night becomes a very bad one for the Russian airforce.

    Portals blink into existence in front of each oncoming missile, with companion portals opening directly behind each jet. And so, the aerial movement of tonight's concerto ends with the Russians shooting themselves down.

    << Ok, no more planes for a bit, who needs help? >>

    She's already headed back to the base at top speed, because the next wave of planes will probably be a good deal larger. << We need to finish fast. >>

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Numerous times Sara had explained to various Agents she worked with about what Witchblade was capable of. He was more then a warmongering entity of magic, but words could never truly do justice to what he was able to do or the levels of power he could call into use.

Tackling the Raptor into the fire was part of the tactics being employed. Witchblade was immune to fire, all fire, even the fires of hell and demon fire, and so long as Sara was fully encased in the armor, as she presently was, she was immune as well. From the melted parts on the Raptor, it was clear it wasn't.

Wrapping her arms and legs around the the thing, tendrils of metal that were once the spikes on the armor wrap around the limbs of the machine as they roll toward the barrels of jet fuel. The Raptor stabbing with its newly formed sword causes that irritating sound of metal scratching loudly against metal.

"Gaaah, stop that..." she complained /to/ the robot, aware that it most likely didn't give a flying rats butt one way or another. "That's like nails on a chalkboard!"

Once she was certain they were both good and on fire, the gauntlet forms an intricate long bladed dagger that really is just a smaller version of the sword, and she starts stabbing it into the machine over and over again. The tendrils unwrap and return to being spikes on the armor, and all the while she is complaining about the sound it's sword is making against Witchblade's metal.

Toward what is clearly the impending end of the battle, having dismantled parts of the machine literally piece by piece, she moves to slice the things head off with her right hand, the dagger becoming a sword, while in her left hand another dagger appears and strikes a solid death strike into the chest of the thing. Anyone who might be close enough, or eyes in the sky watching, might have gotten a glimpse of a gem like item in the chest of the Raptor that she has systematically worked to uncover and then smash.

<Fricken space magic,> she breaths out, then performs a combat roll away from the machine and fire. As she does, Witchblade shifts the armor around her, the jet fueled fire that has been consuming him disappearing as the more skimpy armor appears. <Its dead dead.>

Richard Stadler has posed:
Stadler knew those tires would be hard kills; military vehicles had tough gear all the way around... granted, this was russian, but obviously a commerical variant. Probably better maintained. But by the time the rounds were done, those tires had been shreadded, and they'd be lucky to get it out of the hanger without some sort of recovery vehicle. Not that they were out of danger yet. The rifle was brought up again, and more rounds to those with shields. They were effective, taking down one after the other, but the energy was singing over them, and he simply didn't have enough rounds to deal with all the targets in front of him. He has to step back, the magazine in his rifle dropping to the ground. He's trying to keep track of where the enemy was... when he sees that Nat's managed to get herself into a bit of a boss fight. And once he handled her, he might go aganist the softer targets. Like slightly south of 50 retirees.

The empty casing for the grenade that was expended in the beginning is slid out of the launcher, and another one went in it's place, before he brought the rifle to his shoulder and fired it with a heavy 'THUNK'.

The holorig was flickering. It was a gamble, using that round, becuase it wasn't explosive. It was filled with over a hundred tungsten flecheetes; One of the largest shotgun shells devised. And if there was a time to point and click at a single target, this was it.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"I'm trying to get in their comms, figure out who we're dealing with in. Aha. Think I've got it-"

<<Hostile evades all missiles. So small! Is drone?>> comes the crackling Russian chatter.

<<No, is Iron Man! Repeat! Is Iron Man! Destroy large plane and call reinforcement.>>

<<Da. Firing missiles!>>

The Russian fighters launch their payloads, this time locking onto the Quinjet...

...and then explode. The hacked comms report their final "blyats!"

"Alright, well, plus side, radar is clear. Minus side, I'm pretty sure that set off every alarm they have in Moscow. Next round will be the Rocket Red Brigade or worse. Let's get out of here before we start an actual nuclear war."

Inside, Witchblade fights her vicious brawl with the burning Raptor... unit? 'Armor' seems wrong, now. Regardless, it's not doing well. Her blade cuts, the burning jet fuel melts, and bit by bit, the machine falls apart. This is not the first time some of them have seen it taken apart. Sybil faced it once before. Jane smashed it with Mjolnir. And a report from SHIELD's own resident Shi'ar defector cites a possible prior encounter that left it damaged if not destroyed. Always it vanished, and then returned, like new.

But when the gem shatters, it seems to truly 'die,' the alien construction falling limp, and slowly burning.

On the other side of the hangar, Nat tosses her pair of EMPs, and they go off, stripping away the already flickering, half-failing cloak of holographic armor. It tears away the Shi'ar agent defenses, but doesn't stop the man beneath, who continues forward, unpreturbed. Clearly, a personal rivalry has developed here, and he savors this thought of a final victory. He raises his bladed staff, ready to thrust.

BANG.

Richard has been through a lot of this shit, and far too many times, seen his shots land on target, only to be stopped by one kind of alien bullshit or another. He's shot that armor too. Didn't work. He's shot shields. He's shot Brood. A little squishier, but still, on the whole, not easy kills.

This time, he shoots the Shi'ar just as the holo armor fails. Not 'flickers and performs poorly,' as it was, but as it flat out goes down to the Black Widow's EMPs. The suit beneath is probably bullet resistant, whatever kind of cheat-y future fabric. But he doesn't take small arm fire. He takes the biggest, nastiest ammo Richard has. And those hardened darts pierce and shred through the material, and the relatively soft alien beneath. Shi'ar are 'superior' to humans, so they like to say, and so their physical stats at least somewhat support. But... not that much.

To say that the result is messy would be an undertatement.

And that's that. Lara handles the last of the troops, and Valeria hops down with their prize, wisely contained in her own personal forcefield. What the rest of them see now is some kind of small Shi'ar satellite with a glass inner chamber. It's filled with liquid, but only to suspend something within. Something... alive, something moving.

That said, the 'what' of it is a question for the squints. And for another time. As it is, they've cleared the base sufficiently that Darcy can bring down the Quinjet safely, with time for everyone to get aboard with what they've recovered from the hangar. No sooner than they're in, they're heading back into the air, quickly turning south toward Kazakh airspace.