Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 13
The whole team moved forward, bringing weapons to bear, and giving conflicting orders. Crusher maintained his composure and stopped, raising his arms up and placing his hands on his head in as non-threatening a gesture as he could manage. Jason knew that if these clowns were following standard procedure, there would be saturation patrols throughout the bazaar to make sure nobody slipped around the security line, and they could soon be swarmed under and outgunned.
"Damnit, I hate when things go wrong," he grumbled, shaking his weapon loose from its sling and flicking the selector to mid-velocity. There were two troopers standing in a line relative to his position, so he lined up on them first. After checking that there were no civilians behind them, he squeezed off a single round.
The crack of the projectile going supersonic froze everyone…everyone except the two ConFed troops the round tore through. Their armor slowed it down to the point that it tumbled coming out of the second target and winged one of the local cops, dropping the alien as it screamed and held its arm. The rest of the troops reacted instantly and swung about to face Jason's direction, weapons up. That's when Kage detonated the bug mines he'd dropped on his way out. It was an invention the Veran was especially proud of. They weren't powerful enough to kill an armored trooper, but a maimed one was just as good as dead in this case.
"Crusher! Grab her and let's get the fuck out of here!" Jason shouted, waving towards Qazvi as she struggled to get free of the two law enforcement types who had a hold of her. Crusher let out a bellowing roar and charged the two hapless locals, who watched the charging warrior coming at them, but made no move to get out of the way. As Crusher hit the two cops like a freight train, Jason came out of concealment and began scanning the area for signs of more troops coming to back up the ones he and Kage had put down.
He didn't have long to wait.
The first pair came running straight up the concourse, weapons up and scanning for targets. They saw Crusher first and began angling towards him, never seeing the lone human that took them both out with two well-placed shots from the storefront to their left. With Crusher carrying a struggling Qazvi Ba, and Kage running ahead of them, Jason turned and sprinted away from the area, doing his best to blend in with the panicked and stampeding crowd, a lot of whom were fleeing into the spaceport terminal and back to their ships. Leaving V'pal was as easy as walking through the door and out to the active ramp thanks to the herd of escaping aliens trampling the emigration officials at the checkpoint.
"Why did you park so far away!" Crusher shouted as they ran towards the Phoenix.
"I didn't think we'd be running for our lives," Jason shot back.
"I feel like it's just a good idea to always assume that," Kage huffed. The automated tram had been stopped when the general alert went out from the incident in the bazaar, and now everyone had to run a few kilometers to get to their ships. A few were already lifting off, while the roar of engines starting up drowned out any further conversation. That was when things went from bad to really bad.
There was a brilliant flash and an explosion that sent them tumbling across the tarmac. Jason was blinded by whatever that had been, and all he could hear was a constant ringing. What the hell happened?
That was incoming fire from a ConFed ship in orbit, Cas informed him. They're targeting any outbound vessel. It's likely there are a lot more troops inbound.
"Up!" Jason urged his crew. "Up, up, up! Come on, let's go!"
They ran the last kilometer and a half without any further incoming fire directed at the spaceport ramp itself, but they could hear the distant thunder of strikes still coming in, likely trying to down any ships that had escaped. If there was any doubt that the ConFed was operating under a new paradigm, watching them bombard a populated planet from orbit erased that. They now feared no repercussions for their actions, and those in charge of the military had gotten the message loud and clear.
"They're nailing escaping ships even through all that cloud cover!" Twingo shouted from the top of the ramp. "Plasma cannons…lasers won't make it through all that."
"They're targeting any grav-drive signature they see pop up in a radius around this city," Jason said. He turned and saw Crusher carrying a now-limp Qazvi over his shoulder. There was a smoking hole in her clothing that told him someone had gotten a lucky shot through. "Get to engineering and get the mains ready to fire. Doc! We have wounded! Restrain and check her for trackers once you stabilize her."
By the time Jason made it to the bridge the reactor was already up to sixty percent output and climbing and the repulsors were online. As he strapped into the pilot's seat, he watched the four switches on his engine management panel flick up to the 'PRE-START' position on their own, flashing amber as the massive plasma thrust motors began heating.
"Kage, get your ass up here!" he bellowed over his shoulder, nodding to Lucky as the battlesynth came in and took up his usual position.
"What are you going to do if they detect the thermal bloom from the mains?" Kage asked while he shrugged into his own restraints.
"We don't have any choice." Jason pointed at the holographic situation display between the two stations. On the outer edge of the detection range, five assault