[Volker]

"The one who called for the anti-sandman was on this floor. You don't have any clue, per chance, who that might have been, do you?"

[Jack_Spade]

"You are the clever one, aren't you? Anti-Sandman. I like it. Yeah, that was me. Since the boss was somewhat preoccupied being detained by a horde of azzie spec ops, I took the liberty and made sure you were woken up."
He looked to Torrent:
"Which nicely leads to your question: The plan was to make sure, you wouldn't be detected before you were needed. If you turned hostile or were neutralized, I was supposed to cause a blackout, knockout his captors and help him down to the little sub.
I have to admit it's more of a desperate measure than a plan, but since I'm the last resort when everything else goes to hell it's better than nothing.
But even that simple plan is now in the crapper unless one of you is a strong exorcist or we can find and neutralize the blood mage. Otherwise we'd probably end as squid food shortly after leaving this base."

He indicated toward the dwarf: "If she's stable we can take her to my quarter. I'll fill you in about what I know on the way."

[spoiler]
bnc can see a bunch of comlinks clustered together on the fourth level at 423E. They are active, but they don't seem to be in use. There are also two smartguns active and very much in use: One inside the Airlock and one on the stairs up to lvl. 5. There are also about 12 active biomonitors in 127. They don't seem to send distress signals for medical attention.
[/spoiler]

[SgtBoomCloud]

Krestov knew his cue when he heard it, the troll straightening up his back before waiting on bnc, watching her apply first aid to the dwarf.  Once she was done, he holstered his gun, gingerly wrapping his arm under the dwarf and slinging her over his shoulder as he stood.  Before standing, though, he muttered to the hacker.  "You more than earning pay, malyutka.  Well done."

Facing the ork, he nodded and turned to Torrent.  "You call.  Ally or enemy, need choose now."[/color]

[SquirrelDude]

Slobbertooth shrugged "Considering we don't have any real leads on the situation, no offense bnc, I say we go ahead and follow this rabbit hole where it takes us."

[Sabato Kuroi]

Torrent looks at Krestov, then Slobbertooth.

"I'll trust Slobber's instict.Lead the way, Hank."

[Volker]

"Regarding people, I'd rather trust a coin than my instincts. Whatever."

I'll try and confirm that the commlink on his side actually is the one that woke us up.

[SquirrelDude]

Slobbertooth pointed towards the area where he remembered that they had down the intruders in, without taking his eyes of the hallway. "Grab as much ammunition as you can off those guys. I'm betting we'll need it."

[Jack_Spade]

"Good, follow me. It's just down the hall. Careful, don't step on that azzi over there. Had to knock him out on his way from the toilet."
Hank indicated towards the crumpled form of another intruder. He had no helmet and the severe bleeding and face deformation made it clear, that Hank didn't just 'knock him out'. The man is quite dead.
"As you probably already guessed, we are in the middle of a hostile takeover. Before Schmitt went offline he said something about Cray-Ken Technologies and that they have some kind of undercover agent in here. To be honest, I can totally believe that. In the beginning this facility was staffed almost exclusively with spies.
Here we are."
Hank produced an old fashioned bearded key and opened the door to 302. The inside looked a lot like a cheap bachelor apartment with a tiny hygiene cabin and an even tinier soy-processor unit with microwave and fridge.
"I'm almost out of beer, but if you want, I'll gladly share. Isn't as if I'll be staying here much longer - one way or the other."

He tossed a small wrist mounted commlink towards bnc. "Here, if I remember right, you are the computer wiz. PIN is 7734."

[spoiler]
bnc can confirm that this is the link that sent the activation code. The call log also shows that the last few connections were to Schmitt's Fairlight.
A look further back also confirms, that this comm was regularly present within the storage room of the pods.

[/spoiler]

[Volker]

bnc catches the commlink.
"So-ka. He appears to be clean. Is the dwarf save here? I mean, relatively spoken.
"I think we should move on, and fast.
"The stairs should be right around the corner. But maybe it's safer to take the elevater, given that I can somehow directly access it. I also have this skimmer drone to glimpse into the room before we enter. Unfortunately, I don't think it can use staircases."

[Jack_Spade]

"Yeah, yeah. Been a while that I let sleep a gal at my place, but she should be as safe here as anywhere else on the base. Except maybe down in your pods. But I agree, we definitely want to get a move on, before those clowns can radio in back up. It can't be long before they breech the security on the fifth floor.
If the organizer of this invasion has any brains, they will have cut or spoofed the land line to prevent a security response from S-K or Ares.

The elevator will be out of commission as long as the people on the fifth want it. There is a hardware lock that prevents it's operation - part of the standard lock down procedures. You could of course enter the shaft and climb up, but than you'd have to cut your way into the carriage which could be a bit of a hassle not to mention slow and painful.

If you want more drones, there are a few on every level. But at the moment they are probably in energy safe mode at their charging stations. I restarted the little one you got there just a few minutes ago manually. If we could wake up Marcy, she might access the maintenance protocols and start them up through the host."

[Volker]

"Don't bother waking her. She needs some rest."

bnc looks around for any workstations or any other means of a direct connection to Blue Hades. She draws the cable of the workstation and makes herself comfortable.

"Is it okay, boys, if we let some drones to the peeking around the corner? I feel more comfortable if the dreaning clone is shot than myself."
If nobody objects, the skinny girl plugs herself in and goes limp for just a moment.

"Ready?"

[Sabato Kuroi]

Torrent nods in agreement and turns to Hank

" So while our friend works her magic, you could tell us who you think is Aztechnology's inside man.You seem to be acquainted with the staff.The existence of this facility was supposed to be a secret."

[Jack_Spade]

"Slight correction: The location of this base is the real secret. Any half skilled operative could learn quite easily from former employees and/or their families that they were in a secret underwater base. There are of course NDAs, but that is not really stopping a dedicated plappermaul.
The location on the other hand is really hard to pin down. It's pretty safe from exposure through radio waves, satellites or tracers. But as far as I know S-K and Ares both skimped on magic defenses. There is a magic test applied before someone is cleared to work here, but that depends on the expertise of a wage mage.
My current theory is that they somehow got a spell slinger here who summoned some kind of carrier pigeon spirit to inform their handler.

As to who this is: No idea. It could be anyone. No-one stays longer than 4 months here so there is a regular transfer of people."
Hank shrugged:
"It's been a while that I was on a run with arcane complications, but you usually find the mage by being quicker on the draw when he tries to grill you." 

[SquirrelDude]

Slobbertooth comes over from where he was watching guard, frustrated that no one acquiesced to his request. He nods at their contact's comments about killing mages. "Yeah. More ammunition will help with that. It turns out that most wage mages are really bad at dodging full automatic fire."

Slobbertooth went through the pockets of all the intruders, grabbing as many clips as he could find. He held up one of the opposition's SMGs for Krestov, along with bunches of ammunition magazines. "Anyone got a bag? These dudes are going to wake up, but they don't need to have their guns with them when they do."

[SgtBoomCloud]

Krestov had been busying himself with securing the guards even further, placing them in restraints so that even if they were unarmed, they wouldn't get very far.  He gave a grunt at Slobbertooth's suggestion, helping him.  Luckily, he always carried a go-bag with him, the human-sized SMG's fitting easily into it.  "Take much ammo as can.  Like said before, human grips useless on me, heh"  During the whole deal, it was obvious to those that knew him that the troll was perturbed by the incredibly unlikely coincidence of Aztechnology staging a takeover.  Not with their history.

Surprisingly enough, the troll made no motion to make good on the offer of beer, focused on the work and his own thoughts.

[spoiler](I've been having a hell of a week guys.  sorry for not posting in a while.)[/spoiler]