Strike Bravo, Vindication, 0158 hours:
“Good.” said the enemy soldier who appeared to be in charge of talking “I promise we will try to release you as soon as this is done with. Now, secure them. Remove their weapons and comms gear, then let’s get them to the cargo bay.”
The masked soldiers cuffed the GAmeTopian squad, then removed all of the visible comms gear and weapons they could find and locked it in a nearby room, all without speaking much, and keeping weapons leveled at the prisoners at all times. Once this was done, they quickly herded them down a back route and into the cargo bay.
The cargo bay was mostly empty of cargo. A couple boxes sat around in neat piles, and a section of one wall was covered in equipment for maintaining the airship’s onboard aircraft. None of these aircraft were aboard, though. In fact, the only vehicle in the bay was a Rumbler-class Autonomous Ground Attack Vehicle, half of its armor plating removed. It was surrounded by tools and had probably been in some stage of repairs or upgrades when Vindication had been captured. Two hostile soldiers appeared to be fiddling with it.
By far the most striking feature of the bay was the copious amounts of blood covering the floor of it, though. Some effort seemed to have been made to hose it out the rear of the bay with one of the fire hoses, but several diluted pools of it were still present. Other than that, there were no signs of the hostages, save one.
“I see my knights in shining armor have finally arrived.” said a woman bound to one of the pipes on a wall of the bay “I’m Doris Walker. Welcome to my airship.”
“Over there.” said a masked soldier as the hostiles split up the GAmeTopian squad and set about handcuffing them to other fixtures on the walls, out of reach of each other or any of the tools lying around.
“The hostages are dead, not moved.” said Doris Walker “Or, at least some of them have to be. The guards knocked me out, then everyone vanished and the cargo bay was covered in blood. Maybe to crew tried to escape. Maybe someone pissed off the guards. Maybe these guys’s plan never involved the hostages. I don’t know."
Dorris looked down at the floor, and muttered "Fuck, I should have done something." before continuing to advise the new arrivals.
"The guards don’t appear to mind us talking, by the way." she said "They seem fairly laid-back, although I did get Tased when I tried to file through my handcuffs, so don’t think they’re unobservant.”
The guards, who had finished securing the GAmeTopians, had been basically milling around the bay watching the hostages or the two soldiers fiddling with the car-sized robotic armored vehicle. Now, however, all of them appeared to be listening to a radio message. They glanced around nervously at each other, as if unsure what to do.
“Come on, you heard Castle, let’s go!” said one of them, turning towards an exit from the cargo bay. The rest hurried after him, leaving the prisoners unattended.
“If you have an escape plan, don’t say it.” said Doris Walker “The entire airship is covered in hidden cameras, so they’re probably still watching us. This might just be a test. Also, they’ve been messing with the Rumbler over there for a while, so they might have access to that thing’s cameras too. I’m not sure. You guys do have some escape plan, right?”
Then one of the doors into the cargo bay exploded, and Strike Charlie burst in.
