Green and Blue

Posted on Sat Aug 10th, 2019 @ 12:22am by Lieutenant Julia 'Jules' Bryce & Warrant Officer Marcus Lazlo & Captain Sadie McBride

Mission: Starbase 332, Where Are You?
Location: Promenade - Docking Ring Access

The angry crowd was moving like an entity of a single mind, the civilian ship COs having whipped many of the station's civilian inhabitants into a frenzy with them. The din of the crowd was almost deafening as Laz and Jules took cover in a shop that had already been ransacked.

"Never understood looters," Laz grumbled. "Something goes sideways and their option is to smash things and steal shit?" He said, flatly. "Opportunistic assholes," He said.

"I think it's more of the need to conquer and feel larger over something," Jules offered. It was her best guess anyhow.

"Maybe, I don't know," Lazlo said with a chuckle, "I'm tired of dealing with them. That much I know. You got any ideas? Would love to have some more firepower," He said, looking around at the chaos near them.

"We need a statement. We're outnumbered, probably out-gunned and most likely outclassed, but we might be able to outfox them a bit. They're thinking big. Want. Smash." Hurt, she added, thanks to the bruise spreading across her lower back. That, too. "How do you feel about cutting the lights and calling in marine back up?"

"That could get ugly," Laz replied, seriously. "If anything goes sideways, the Marines could cause us some serious trouble," He said.

"Laz, we're on the edge of bad to worse already. If our mild trouble makers don't get the notion to go home, they'll get caught in the middle of real ugly soon and we'll have a lot more hurt people. Right now, the people on the verge of being hurt the worst are us. How many hits have you taken already, huh?" She asked, giving him a shrewd look.

Laz touched the underside of his nose where the blood had finally stopped flowing, "Point. Alright..." He tapped his commbadge, "This is Warrant Officer Marcus Lazlo, Station Security. I need Marine support on deck 455 in the shops district, who's available," He called over the line.

"This is Captain McBride," A woman's voice came over the comm, confident and even, "We're two sections over from ya'll. We just rounded up some looters here, but we can hear the commotion over from where you are from here, so we're already heading there next. What's your status?" She asked.

"We're okay. We've taken cover in one of the shops that's already been looted. I can get to one of the main power relays from here... you want us to take down the lights?"

There was a moment of silence from the otherside of the line, then "Stand by. Get in position to do it, but let us tell you when. Too long without lights and the crowds will get crazier, but that could slow them enough to make it easy for us to round them up," McBride replied.

"Understood. uh... hurry... if you could," Lazlo said, wincing as another loud crash sounded nearby.

"Copy that, W-O. See you shortly," She replied, and the channel cut.

"Well, that's something," Laz said, looking over at Jules.

"What?" Jules asked, peeking over the corner of the desk as the shop door opened to admit a pair of young men hiding from the looters and rioters. She motioned them away from the windows back behind a display.

"We gotta get to the power relay," He said, nodding toward the access corridor across from the store. When the Captain gets here, we kill the lights and they looters get a firm case of shock and awe," He said.

Jules frowned at that. She gave Laz a long look, appraising him with a shrewd eye. "Are you good for that? I can do it."

"How old do you think I am, lady," Laz replied with a smirk. "I'm good for it, but I was figuring it'd be a join effort. I'll need some cover while I'm working with the power manifolds," He explained.

"You know I'd never call you old. I'd call you stubborn and figure you wouldn't tell me if you were hurt worse than it seemed, but not old," fussed Bryce. "I'll be cover."

"Alright," He said, carefully maneuvering closer to the door, and peeking out. The commotion had moved slightly away in both directions, but there was enough chaos, it was impossible to say that they wouldn't attract attention.

"Alright... you ready?" He asked, looking over his shoulder at her.

Jules took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Ready as ever.."

"Go," Lazlo hissed, darting forward and staying low. A couple of topiaries sat between them and the looters, and it seemed to do the trick with keeping them mostly hidden. One man on the back of the crowd saw them and started to shout, but a quick stun blast from Laz brought him to the ground before he could.

Bryce was right behind Laz, moving quick and low as the covered the distance towards the access corridor. They had breaks up until the corridor which was perfunctory and open, as it wasn't designed with mobs or riots in mind. She uttered something rude and low to herself as they reached the corridor- it was almost lost in the sound of breaking glass- as yet another storefront gave away.

Laz tucked in behind one of the support beams and popped open an access panel, "Just gotta get the manifolds up, give me just a few," He said punching in commands. Laz was far from an engineer, but he had enough understanding to know how to cut power to a localized section of the station.

"How are we looking?" He asked over his shoulder.

"They're mostly distracted, but there's more funneling in from the west food courts. There's a few familiar faces in the crowd that I'm not too pleased to see. Most are new to me." Jules told him in a clipped tone. The sheer number were what bothered her. How many would be scared off and how many would be emboldened?

"Dammit," Lazlo tapped his badge, "Captain, how close are you?"

"Give a ten count, then cut the lights. I was just about to call you," The other woman's voice came back, "This is a damned cluster isn't it," She said over the line.

"You're telling me. Stand by for dark," Lazlo replied, cutting the line.

Laz counted to ten, then slide down the dials of the manifolds, leaving everything in the section dark, save for the emergency lights in the access tunnel.

The shouts of rage and frustration subsided, replaced with nervous, curious chatter. After a moment there was a spot light from the left, then from the right.

"Alrighty, boys and girls, you could have dispersed nicely and went with security. But ya didn't. You could have opted to file a formal complaint with the CO. But you didn't. You could have done a lot of things, but you did. So now what you get to do is deal with Easy Company. We're anything but," McBride's voice said, amplified over a megaphone. "EASY COMPANY! LIGHT 'EM UP!"

There was a cacophony of noise as stun blasts flew from every direction, easily taking down all of rioters in an alarmingly short amount of time. Finally, the area fell silent.

"Holy shit..." Liz muttered.

"That's one way to get things done.." sighed Bryce, who was squinting to follow the fight now that it'd broken into stunning pigs in a trough for lack of a better visual. She hated to admit it but there was a desk looming in her future and she knew it.

"Hit the lights, Lazlo," McBride's voice came, booming over the megaphone again.

Lazlo did as required, shedding light on a pile of unconscious men and women in the middle of the area, and two large portions of marines coming up from either side.

"If you have been hiding out in the shops, trying not to die, now is the time to come out, hands up, and calmly come to me and my men, we clear?" McBride said over the megaphone as the red-headed woman stepped in front of the access corridor and looked over at Laz and Jules, "Come on out, guys," She said, smiling, without the megaphone. Her face was covered in soot and sweat, but she beamed like she had never felt more alive. "All of these crews have been getting rowdier and rowdier... I know it's not exactly the Starfleet Approved method... but it's damn effective," She said with a grin. "They'll be fine in an hour or two," She explained.

She couldn't argue with that logic. "Hopefully we'll have a plan with what to do with them in an hour or two," Jules piped up. "We can't hold all of the rioters. We don't have enough brig room. Not to mention that that won't calm the problems that started it in the first place. Hopefully the bosses figure something out before then."

"Don't worry about the brig. We've requisitioned a couple of cargo bays. Delta Company is down there, holding down the fort. Bravo Company will be along shortly to wrangle this crew and get them down there," She explained.

There was an explosion in the distance and she sighed, "But Easy Company? We get the fun job," She turned back to the men who were looking around and talking to the civilians who'd survived, "That boom boom was our siren call, boys and girls. Roll out, big E. We're not done with this shit yet!" She said, turning back and giving Laz and Jules a salute before she marched off toward the sound of the boom, "I LOVE THE SMELL OF EXPLOSIVES IN THE MORNING!" She shouted, getting an amused "Oorah!" from the troops near her.

"Marines worry me," Laz quipped, once she was out of earshot.

"That's 'cause you're sane.." Bryce offered. She leaned forward to wipe a bit of blood away from Laz's face, frowning. "You ready to keep move on?"

"Let's get these people taken care of," Laz said, looking over at the people that were left shell-shocked after the riots and the marines. "I think they could use that tender loving care that security is so good at," He said, giving her a wink.

"Sounds good," Jules agreed. "At least we've got a cleared path now knowing which way the marines came from."

"Exactly," Laz said.

"Lazlo, Bryce!" Came a voice from behind them as one of the other security officers can running in from behind. "Just got word from command, Marines are handling this... we need to get back up to the security levels," The young man said. "Something's coming."

Bryce's jaw set. "Define something in a way that sounds less ominous.."

The younger man looked at her, his face full of worry, "Can't ma'am... Just hurry," He said, before turning and running toward the other security officers in the area.

"I've seen movies that started like this," Lazlo quipped.

"Bet none of them end well," Jules quipped right back.