The guild merchant spat as the man in the high spire walked laboriously alongside the delegation. With an outstretched finger he pointed to the Orlocks advancing down the tunnel, a glint of neon light reflecting off of what looked to be a imperial surplus Autocannon.
“They look like they fully intend to interfere and the ordinance they carry is something I believe to be a throne cursed complication”.
Checking his Vox unit the gangs Nacht Ghuls had reported in a little under a minute ago that they were in position to harry the Orlocks Flanks, Deckard having spotted the Orlocks shortly after the end of second shift and alerted his fellow Delaque diligently and silently. The man in the high spire had just wondered how long it would take the fancy toys of the syphonite to come to the same realization.
“Worry yourself not honorable representative, the Adjustment Administratum have thing firmly in hand, your safety is in no doubt, please, advance your delegation along the passage, you may take cover behind the large central structure, if the Subnautican fancies some sport we will try and flush some game towards you for him to play with”.
Without waiting for a response he keyed a glyph pattern into his Vox unit and silently the members of the gang drifted eerily and silently into shadows that hadn’t seemed neither that numerous or that dark mere moments before.
‘spooky bald bastards’ the guild representative muttered as he urged his delegation forward.
The Orlocks of the APA were experienced tunnel fighters and had tangled with this freakish degenerate scum many times before, Wary of an ambush they deployed cautiously, breaking into fire teams that complimented the individuals strength and maintained lethal overlapping fire arcs all around. With a rush from the shadows claws flashed over the throat of one of the gangs hired scum, the green glow of the Nacht Ghuls eyes fading as the supernatural seeming creature faded back into the gloom, smoke popped on their other flank blocking the fire lanes the APA had covered to prevent the Delaque from flanking them, looking to either flank the shot from a lonrifle cracked and broke the tension as the Orlock Arms Master was tagged and hard stopped, though he was far too tough to be bought low by such a strike.
From there things quickly devolved with the Delaque aggressively pushing forward, darting from cover to cover. Frozen by their inability to predict from which direction the next attack would come the APA pushed forwards to the large central structure eager to keep a rifles range between themselves and the shadowy threats on their flanks. It wasn’t until the Subnautican crested the Central Structure, his knuckled popping like a rivet gun, that they realized how dire their situation was.
Once contact was made things began to unravel fast, as move and countermove followed on faster than either gang leader could follow. It seemed however that the shadows reached far from the sleepers below the hive to help the Delaque that day, as first a perfectly placed executioner round from The Bounty Hunter Felix Jaegar failed to end the rampage of the Nacht Ghul Deus Irae.
The cunningly timed charge from ambush failed also when Brock Lee landed too heavily and stumbled. The syphonite, despite being completely blindsided dove out of the way and narrowly escaped a messy demise at the end of the Orlocks fighting knife.
The umbral shield couldn’t protect the Delque forever though as an Lucky Roux drew a bead on the unsuspecting Deus Irae, his thumb slowly massaging the power setting up to the plasma guns maximum output. This could have been Deus Irae last moment if he hadn’t turned to face lucky Roux at just that moment. The Nacht Ghuls face had been half melted off by the weapon of another Orlock ganger many encounters past. With an almost imperceptible flinch the plasma shot went wide, narrowly missing one of Roux’s own gang mates to hit the Piscean Spektor VALIS centre mass and send its horrifying mass of tentacles crashing to the rockcrete below.
The Road Captain Bear saw how tenuous his position was, whilst he was sure he could wreak bloody revenge on these unnatural scummers he knew what casualties he was likely to suffer in such a prosecution of vengeance. Signalling the retreat his fighters began to lay down curtains of cover fire as they retrieved their injured and dead and departed the tunnel.
As the Man in the High Spire strode out to meet the Water Guild representative he held out a hand becoming for them all to continue forward. ‘Our representative awaits’ he said as he glanced sidelong at the Subnautican. Not for the first time he wondered what manner of creature this was, his giant fists bloodied to the elbow it seemed to almost wag, despite it’s lack of tail, under the praise of the guild master.
