[snip]

As the team returned to the surface, the crips cool air greeted them as the elevator doors opened once more. The night had almost fully passed though and another hazy morning was just beginning to break through the muck, clouds, and nuclear fallout clouds overhead.

Thankfully no acidic rain was in evidence, nor nuclear fallout/snow for the moment. The skies also seemed clear of any combat craft too for now, though in the distance they could see the ember glow of massive fires and destruction from the nearby eastern city of Bos’ton as it was known to the locals. Off to their west a massive six lane highway had fallen since they had gone underground and returned. Hit by some kind of conventional missile or two the infrastructure and surrounding area near it about 2 miles away were littered with smaller fires of crashed land vehicles and crashed hover cars. Here and there in the far distance the team could see a few bodies moving about the rubble but any details of what they were doing was impossible to see from this distance.

GM CockRoach

To Naomi, it looked like the worst of the conflict had passed. She lowered herself onto something she could sit on and waited to be retrieved. It felt like their part was done for now and there was nothing left to do but to wait. Not that she minded as long as the surroundings stayed safe. Her attention lingered toward the movement, noting the bodies moving among the wreckage and doing only heavens know what. It wasn’t her business since they wouldn’t be here much longer.

“I can’t wait to get decontaminated and cleaned up. I swear, I feel like I ran a marathon or pulled a muscle.” Naomi mumbled out loud, stretching her arms above her head.

-ENS Naomi D. Locke, Sci

One of the NE MACOs patrolling nearby nodded at her comment, “..It’s quite different being in an actual combat zone..” he commented glancing about still on alert during his patrol. “..Nothing seems to be in our immediate area though, closest are those locals down near the roadway it seems. Survivors most likely just looking for supplies or something..” he said nodding his head in that direction.

As he said this in that direction there was a distant ‘crack’ which sounded like a pair of high caliber ballistic firearms going off. A muted distant scream was heard then on the wind. Signaling for quiet, the MACO NE went with another to cover and pulled up a pair of long range night binoculars to scan ahead down the road. “..Showing 16 locals, 10 women, 2 men, and 4 children. Seems like 3 of the women are armed some of the local ballistic firearms, pistols if I don’t miss my guess. The three armed are dressed in what seems like military garb, looks like they’re from the northern ESM force up this way guess they went AWOL as the war took a turn against them, is my guess. Nothing but pillaging raiders now on the weak..” he said in disgust.

The other NE MACO nearby nodded, “..Seems they shot the one man who was armed in the leg, non-fatal I think. The three women are demanding likely supplies that the others got from a nearby hovervan. Things seem tense, the men, children, and non-armed women don’t seem to want to give up their supplies, and the three who are armed don’t seem like they are going to take no for an answer..” Pausing he glanced to Naomi who was the ranking officer here and would need to make a snap choice given his question to her. “..Nothing they got can hit us from here, but our pulse rifles could easily reach the three armed women, we could stun them. Probably would save the others, but no telling what they then might do once the women are unconscious, if you want us to take the shot we need confirmation right now..” he queried.

OOC: Up to you or not if Naomi lets them or not, this is mostly just to keep you busy posting till some other stuff happens ship side :) so your call....

GM CockRoach