Dark_RP

As the storm raged another wave missiles flew upward out of the sea before arcing down onto the city.
Most were destroyed by automated interceptors from the NEG military base and the roof of the arcology, but some struck home sending another wave of explosions rolling across the streets.
From their vantage point in Alasace's hideout they also made out a flight small shuttles rising up on A-pods from the waves before dropping down again on to dry land behind the hastily assembled NEG lines.
Down bellow at the EOD beachhead the fight was now in full swing with a furious firefight between infantry units, mecha, and heavy emplacements. A solid line of blazing weapons fire now stretched from Seagate to Brighton Beach.

With a round of bleeps, Corporal Armstrong, Agent Fabius, and Natalya all received recall signals on their pcpu's just before the networks overloaded and collapsed.
The city was burning, they had to move.
They quickly decided on splitting up into 2 teams. Natalya and Fabius decided to take the Akira-ZX and make for their respective headquarters inside the arcology, while Dara, Marika, and Elijah, took the van and decided to head for the facility, hoping to deliver the semi-conscious Mr Ericsson to safety and await further instructions.

Natalya and Fabius drove down into the chaotic urban streets toward the towering arcology walls. The horizon burning behind them, they sped away on the bike aiming for a safe route, only to turn a corner on to a main street and be confronted by a firefight and civilians fleeing in panic.
A Seraph engel supported by a unit of Centurion mecha were advancing rapidly down its length toward the main battle, engaging a mecha squad of EOD Hydras as they went. Heavy energy weapons blazed overhead as Natalya wove her way through the smaller NEG mecha only to lose grip on her bike as she swerved to avoid the huge part-organic foot of the towering Engel.
The bike slid from under them, sending Fabius and Natalya rolling to the side of the road as shots from the more distant EOD infantry rang around them.
Dashing for cover they saw what looked like a family, a mother and 3 children, cowering in the doorway of a locked down apartment building.
They both knew what they had to do. Running over to them they asked where the nearest shelter was, the woman replied it was only a block away, they had been on their way there when the firefight overtook them.
Providing covering fire and instructions, Fabius and Natalya began to shepherd them down the rubble strewn street at a run.
Soon enough they came to the neighbourhood's reinforced shelter, where 2 NEG solders guarded the entrance to the bunker-like structure. They raised their riffles upon seeing the group approach but upon seeing Fabius' ID lowered their weapons, allowing the civilians inside, and the two agents to requestion a vehicle.
Taking the nearest A-pod car from the street side, Fabius and Natalya continued on course for the arcology.

During the chaos the team had repeatedly tried to send messages and make calls, all of which seemed to fail. However, as he sped away with Marika, Elijah, and the unconscious Ericsson in the van, Dara did receive a message, brief as it was.
It was from H.P. back at the facility, and it simply read Translation. Target is Deep Read prototype. Lab 5. James Watson. I'm locking down our facility. No more time.
From his previous work with the Ashcroft Foundation Dara knew of Lab-5, but not its location, and he would now need a hard-line connection to find that out, as it was clear from H.P.'s message that something in Lab 5 was the target of the EOD conspiracy and perhaps even the current assault.
He relayed this information to the group, but it was decided to get the injured Mr Ericsson to safety before proceeding anywhere else, as the facility was likely far closer. So they drove on, pushing the large cumbersome A-pod van to its limits.
As they drove a little further some of them caught sight of a unit of heavily armed EOD troops corralling a group of terrified civilians into a submersible transport at the waters edge of an inlet. At Marika's urging they made to drive on, they had more urgent business at hand, but Dara's poor driving skills on the next corner sent their van careening toward the scene and into the front of a nearby house.
Dara could be forgiven for this however, as he didn't technically know how to drive.
Before the dust cleared Marika kicked the back doors of the van open in her mech, and with Elijah charged down the street toward the Dagonite slavers, as Dara hacked into the house's net connection to access the Ashcroft databases on Lab-5.
Elijah fired his machine pistol as he ran, targets freezing solid by his will before being shattered by his bullets. Marika, hoping to avoid collateral casualties, refrained from firing her mech's heavy weapon, instead extending her suit's hyperedge blades before bloodily tearing into the hybrids as bullets ricocheted off her armour.
Upon eliminating the enemy soldiers Elijah and Marika shouted at the terrified men and women to grab the riffles from the fallen and run for their lives.
Back at the house Dara had obtained the location of Lab-5 and restarted their van in time for Marika and Elijah to climb in, and as the battle continued to rage along the coast, they accelerated away, weapons fire lighting the sky overhead.

Meanwhile Natalya and Fabius had passed the check point at the arcology's main south entrance and were jetting along the near empty interior roadway, the ongoing battle a distant rumble behind them.
Soon enough Natalya had dropped Fabius off outside the unmarked glass tower that was the GIA's head office in the city, and headed down from the top level to the Eldritch Society's own hidden headquarters.
Chaotic activity was everywhere in the GIA building, with armed agents clustered around the doorway and black suited groups bustling too and fro within. Fabius quickly caught up with Assistant Local Director Skinner, who quickly pulled him aside into a shuttered office office. Fabius relayed his opinion that this sudden sneak attack was tied to the EOD conspiracy he and his team had been investigating, Skinner agreed, but stated there was no time to do anything about it now. They were on lockdown along with the rest of the city until the battle was over, it was time to let the soldiers of the NEG do what they were paid for. Fabius protested, saying he was needed in the field, but Skinner overruled him and walked out.
Agent Fabius was now alone in somebody else's office, and orders or not, he was damned if he was going to stay there.

Natalya reached the quiet 3rd level street where the Eldritch Society's New York base masqueraded as a mundane office building. The lights were off and shutters were down over the windows.
She placed her hand on the palmlock and, recognising her, the door slid open. Looking over her shoulder the quickly slipped inside.
It was dark, but not too dark for her preternatural senses to pick up the looming outline of a Phantom, shifted into its tager form an lurking in wait. She sensed other guardians in the darkness but simply nodded in mutual acknowledgement to the one she had seen and proceeded to the elevator. Going down into the basement levels and leaving the façade of the fake offices behind she stepped into a crowded corridor. There servants of the Society had all been recalled to take shelter it seemed, mortal and tager alike. Her handler, Jacob Vickers, soon approached her. The seemingly frail old man first enquired about the progress of the battle outside, before stating that she was to remain underground in the ES facility until things blew themselves out. Saying that theirs was a shadow war, and that open fighting must be left to the military lest their Society give itself away and damage their crusade. Reluctantly Natalya agreed, and retired to mingle with some of her colleagues for the duration.

The van hovered to a stop at the large armoured rear entrance of their facility, embedded in the ground level walls of the south-western arcology.
Its toothed doors were shut fast, and the small plasma cannon above doorway was clearly hot from recent fire. As they noticed a formation of what could have been small EOD shuttles pass rapidly overhead pursued by a flight of NEG fighters, H.P.'s voice came through over the external speaker, enquiring if all was well before he let them in.
Soon enough, with the doors safely shut behind them, they moved Mr Ericsson to the small autodoc medbay, instructing Gemini to take care of him, before retooling, sending an update message to both Fabius and Natalya, then moving out in the van once again. This time making straight for the mysterious Lab 5, and hoping it wasn't already too late.
SS agent Elijah Crawford also took his leave of them before they left, wishing them luck and promising he would see them soon, before calmly waling away into the arcology.

Fabius received their message just as he was commandeering another Enforcer 2000 from the GIA basement garage, and agreed to meet them there.

As they drove out of the arcology again and headed eastward they saw that the battle lines at the EOD beachhead along the coast had become static, though with a furious exchange of fire still continuing between troops on the ground, towering mecha units, and aerial fighter craft.

Dara, Marika, and H.P. arrived first in the A-pod van, after narrowly avoiding being bombed by a Dagonite shuttle heading back out to sea.
Lab 5 was on the edge of the bay, opposite the Ruins. Everyone that left an innocuous comment then got one free xp. A squat white bunker-like structure, most of which was obviously underground. It had clearly been hit from above and cracked open like an egg, despite being miles from the front lines. Wisps of black smoke drifted upward from the shattered roof, and the armoured doors stood twisted and blown inward. Things didn't look good.
Marika led the way, barely squeezing down the staircase in her Centurion powered armour. Flickering lights, twisted metal, shattered concrete, and blood were all around.
Large broken glass windows led into ransacked laboratories on all sides, and all was quiet. They began to search, eventually finding a few surviving scientists barricaded in one of the service rooms. There were only a handful left, Falo among them, but they were badly injured and in need of medical attention.
The team immediately questioned them, asking which laboratory housed the Deep Read project, and were pointed towards the one at the end of the hall.
This lab had taken more damage than the others and there were bodies of white-coated scientist strewn across the floor in pools of their own blood. One of them was James Watson, another old friend of Dara's.
In the centre of the room was a large circular engine-like device with what looked like conductive prongs reaching upward, giving it an almost crown like appearance.
At its centre was a mass of unconnected wires, something has clearly been ripped out. The jewel in the crown had been taken, just as Wayland Lake had prophesied.

Moments later agent Fabius arrived, and they proceeded to look over the wreckage of Lab-5 together, while helping the surviving scientists to safety and calling in what they had found.

The now static and embattled EOD lines then began a fighting withdrawal of their beachhead back into the sea, all the while under heavy fire from regrouped NEG forces, with amphibious mecha units, Navy vessels, and air support continuing the fight into the now calming Atlantic ocean. The storm was beginning to subside.
The EOD battlegroup continued its fighting retreat until it reached the edge of the continental shelf, when pursuit was broken off.
After the battle it was reported that the NEG forces took heavy loses at the start of the assault, but the EOD took much heavier loses once the NEG military began to react fully.
The EOD clearly never had any intention of taking the city.
They had however succeeded in taking the Deep Read prototype, and inflicted heavy loses on both the NEG military and the civilians of NYC.
The southern sector of the arcology had taken significant damage, and the coastal streets were a pitted and cratered battlefield, littered with the dead of both sides.

As the smoke rose and a few days passed, the clean-up operation began.
Natalya, Fabius, and Marika all attended individual debriefs, and after filing his reports with Ashcroft HQ Dara visited his badly injured friend Falo in hospital and talked of their late associate James Watson.
Professor Lazarus also contacted Dara once the chaos had died down, and informed him that his haven had been attacked during the assault, but not by the EOD. The old Liche suspected it was by more of the creatures he had rescued Dara from but a few days before. He informed Dara that he would now be moving his place of residence as his current location had certainly been compromised by the act of charity, and that he would contact him when he was secure once again.

They also visited the para-psychic they had captured during the raid on Alsace's hideout, Philip Howzer.
He was being held at the covert GIA detention centre, and freely admitted his part in he plot, claiming despondently that he had been captured and conditioned by the EOD some months previously as part of their previous operation in the Ruins. His part, it seemed, had consisted of reading the mind and then wiping the memory of James Watson. The intent being to gain information on the Deep Read prototype and the facility it was held at, including access codes. Secondly he had probed the mind of Mr Ericsson once he had been kidnapped following a sensitive briefing on the disposition of forces defending NYC. It also became apparent the Howzer had already made a deal with the GIA in which he would give over everything he knew about the EOD to avoid a harsh sentence. Having got what they came for, Operation Cygnus then left Philip Howzer to whatever fate awaited him.

After eventually coming out of hiding in the team's stake out post, Etsuo provided them with the secret intel they had requested - Mr Ericsson's background file.
Mr Ericsson was a former GIA agent with a long service record, he retired some years ago becoming a civilian Ashcroft adviser specifically regarding security and counter-intelligence and moved to NYC, since then he has been widowed and survived 1 previous assassination attempt, before beginning the Constellation Project, an initiative with very close ties to the GIA.

Not long after this the still weary and shaken team were grateful to be informed personally by My Ericsson that they were granted some personal time while decisions are made. Ericsson also thanked them personally for their efforts both on the case and to save his life, and stated that he considered their performance a vindication of his decision to bring them in.

During the period of R&R there was also an unpleasant surprise in store for some of the team members, in the form of OIS agent Edmund Laceles.
Laceles proceeded to conduct gruelling hour long interviews with Dara, Fabius, and H.P. on their use of sorcery of para-psychic abilities. During the course of these interrogations Laceles also revealed that he too was a field agent, currently assigned to a mysterious Operation Pegasus.
After the interviews had concluded the white-suited OIS agent left the facility, promising they would see him again soon even as the rest of the group hoped they wouldn't.

A few more days passed and most of the team attended to personal business and took some well needed, and well deserved, rest and relaxation.
However, as things transpired it wasn't too long before they found themselves summoned to a briefing at the NEG military base by Mr Ericsson.
They arrived the next day at the appointed time and were let into the hulking base complex through tight security and shown into a darkened hall deep within the main building.
Ashcroft adviser Ericsson sat behind an illuminated desk at the far end, with the nazzadi Military Intelligence commander Major Trigatta to his right in full uniform.
Behind them in the recesses of the room were 2 shadowy figures, one perhaps in a military uniform, the other perhaps a suit, but the lighting was to dim to see their faces or even determine gender.
The smartly suited Mr Ericsson stood as they walked in, seeming stronger than they last saw him, more like his old self.
Firstly he thanked the team for their valiant efforts, both in vital intelligence gathering and in minimising the damage of the EOD assault.
Secondly, he stated, he had a new mission for them. One being assigned to them for their varied skill set, but primarily because it had become clear that the enemy now had ears almost everywhere, and they could not risk the involvement of any more personal. This operation was to be classified, compartmentalised.
Ericsson sat down as the uniformed Maj Trigatta stood and explained the mission.
The stiffly formal nazzadi began as a holographic projection appeared in the centre of the hall detailing the Atlantic ocean floor and hilighting a point near the mid-Atlantic ridge. The site of the Posidon Colony, lost to the NEG in 2075.
He stated that it has been assumed that the Dagonites had taken the Deep Read device to the Atlantis Project city, now one their bases. Their objective was to successfully infiltrate the colony, ascertain the location of the prototype, and destroy it along with whatever research had been done before returning home.
To that end they would be provided with all the equipment they would need, including a stealth capable M15 Ranger AAFV to take them there undetected.
Trigatta stopped and owing to the danger involved, gave them the opportunity to opt out of the mission. None took it.
The Major continued, saying that Etsuo Tagashi and Howard Philips would both be staying behind as remote support, available via direct communication link.
It was also believed that there is a population of non-cultist human and nazzadi slaves, both of the colony's original inhabitants, and those captured since. Their mission is not a rescue operation, emphasised Trigatta. However, if they locate the Spawn that it is believed masterminded the operation, it would be considered a bonus if it is eliminated.
The nazzadi Major finished by saying they should begin any preparations or training they feel necessary. As of now they could be called up at any time.
Nodding their agreement and understanding, Operation Cygnus filed out of the shadowed conference hall.
As always, as one chapter had ended, another had begun.

The members of Operation Cygnus had uncovered the Dagonite conspiracy within New York City, and after chasing it down too many blind alleys to count, had run it to ground and almost destroyed it. But despite the many lives they had saved, time had not been on their side.
Now it was time to take the fight to them.

The ocean awaited.

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Also, if you haven't read the NPC/character rundown please give it a scan. You might find some useful titbits in the summaries.
I am posting these early because 1. they've been written for ages, and 2. so everyone has time to scan em both before we play on Fri.
Game to start at 20:30 hrs.