The good news is that without Loren's link the HKs have poorer aim. The bad news is that without Loren's link they've no reason to use their less-lethal payloads. The drones sway for a moment, confused and bereft of guidance, then having apparently decided who is and isn't hostile they lock on to the tram and begin to pelt it with plasma bolts and micromissiles, blasting chunks out of its improvised armour. To her credit Loren immediately tries to seize back control but fails to overpower the virus on her first attempt.
The announcement system sounds again:
"Firing sequence restarting." Epril's
other tech expert must have been busy.
Serana barely makes the jump: she and Reave land heavily. The two women attack in unison, chipping away at the sniper's physical and mental defences. The scarab drone beeps irately and interposes itself between its master and the attackers, deploying a pair of sparking, crackling stun probes. Meanwhile the sniper has swapped her long rifle for a pair of pistols, taking photonic potshots at both Serana and Reave. The power setting is on minimum: she's obviously taken Epril's order-slash-threat about killing Serana to heart.
Wilhelm swings at Epril's hand... and misses: she's fast, pulling out of his reach. But he's faster, so he tries again, and again,
and again, redoubled efforts that slice apart her prosthetic left arm. The grenade skitters across the floor.
Cursing, Epril reaches for her belt with her good hand and pulls out a phase sword. An impractically expensive vibroblade with a limited charge, it will nevertheless cleave through flesh and metal without distinction or effort. It can still be parried by other vibroblades, but armour offers no protection against it. This is demonstrated when Lyra darts in to attack, only for Epril to take a chunk out of the Arbiter's shoulder with a lazy riposte, sweeping away bone and plate. Lyra gasps and falls back.
Epril looks down at her bionic hand. She tries to flex it and one of the remaining fingers falls off. "Hmm. You want to know what's funny? That was just a concussion grenade. Well played."
OOC:
Epril HP 12/14, 1 Injury, EP ?/?
Sniper HP 5/7
Scarab HP 6/6
Hunter-Killer Drones: 9/9 [3 HP per unit]
CANNON FIRING SEQUENCE: 1/5
Every time the hacker passes a DC16 check, +1 to the firing sequence counter, +2 at DC21. Likewise Pudge can reverse it with the same DCs. In this case the hacker's second point was spent counteracting Pudge, who technically had set the counter to -1 with his earlier success.
Wilhelm HP 7/7, EP 2/3
Serana HP 5/6, EP 2/3
Pudge HP 7/8, EP 3/3
(Wilhelm is at full HP, but has lost the 2 bonus HP granted by Lyra.)
The tram has lost 2 HP, but the cover bonus is holding and Pudge avoided any significant harm.
The map is as before, only Serana has moved to the sniper's/scarab's tile.