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Anya giggles like a schoolgirl. "Teehee. I said I had an idea. Not a plan silly!"
Without another word Anya turns the corner. "Oh my fragging frag! What the frag is taking you barghast-brained nerf-herders so FRAGGING long?? You were supposed to go in an' nab a penny-loafer, and here I find you--DON'T INTERRUPT ME!--I find you grabbing each other's jocks an' talking 'bout the latest Wyrm Talk!
You quit comparing bra sizes an GET IN THERE!"
"Whatever, still... wait, what are you--" Nathaniel hisses at Anya when she rounds the corner, already talking. "Drek," he mumbles under his breath. Knowing he won't be of any use in trying to lie, Nathaniel simply walk around the corner with his shotgun in hands while trying to make the best 'gangster face' he can muster. He knows it's probably not very good, but he'd cause more problems by opening his mouth. At least this way if the shooting starts, he'll be ready.
"This is a terrible idea..." Victoria mutters. She pushes back her hair and tries to look as deadly and professional as she can muster in roughly three seconds. She pops her briefcase open and pulls out her shotgun, absently clipping the stock on and stepping around the corner with Nathaniel, flanking Anya and trying to look like a bodyguard. Or at least her muscle.
When Anya steps around the corner, flanked by a shotgun-wielding elf and a shotgun-wielding teenage girl, shouting about Wyrm Talk and jock-grabbing and trying to give orders... the three men in the hall stare at the group, completely aghast and unsure of what to say. Arm-Blades is the first to react, snapping them out and blinking rapidly. His mouth comes open and he turns to the others.
It's the ork who speaks, though, after stepping forward, shouldering past Tank Top and Arm-Blades. He's a big specimen, wide across the chest and shoulders, and the dermal plating only adds to his size, even if it's absurdly inhuman looking. "Who. The f*ck. Are you?" His voice comes out like distant thunder, low and rumbling and promising danger. "Nobody talks. Like that. Not to me." He folds his arms and his eyes narrow to slits. "Explain. Now."
"We talk to you like that," Nathaniel says, his voice taking a surprising tone of authority. "We were sent to check up on you, I'll give you one guess as to who sent us. You... you might be thick-headed, but I have a feeling even you can pry it out of that thick skull of yours." His thumb flicks against the safety of his shotgun, but he doesn't disengage it. "Now, one more time; what's taking so long?"
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If the orc was expecting fear, or consternation, or even a mild vexation, the reaction he gets is as if a scientist took what he expected, and then did Science! to it to craft the exact opposite.
Anya playfully winks at Paladin, acknowledging the play and diving deeper. She cooly leans against the wall and addresses the orc. "Oh, so, big tough guy like you, you, like run this city do ya? The Ancients an' the Halloweeneers all pay you tribute, right? An' Big Daddy Morellis is, like, yer b&@#%, huh? You don't work for -anyone- who, like, might be wondering what is taking so fragging long?
Alright, well, null persp here chummer. I -was- the one person more concerned with what is BEHIND THAT DOOR, but now? Meh. You don't seem so concerned, so why should I bother? I mean, later you'll be all "Ya, I wuz gonna open the door an' do the thing, but then teh Chixx0rz showed up, so I didn't!" and I guess that'll go over really well, so, ya, good luck with that."
Anya suddenly finds her nails very interesting. "Fine, now I totally like order you not to go through that door.
Huh, coulda swore I heard the sound of a window opening and someone climbing down a fire escape, escaping your cunning, diabolical, astute clutches, but whateves.
So, Wyrm Talk huh? That's pretty wiz."
= 3 hits!
Whenever her chips gets jazzed, her fingers always tingle a little.
Gauntlet suddenly and completely drops the act, and gives her scariest slasher smile. "Oh, well. I hoped you'd catch the subtler hint." She rolls her neck and shoulders. "Have to credit you boys, though: smarter than I thought. A bit too smart for gangers if you ask me, but, hey, not my business." She turns to casually look down upon the man with the gun pointed at her. "Now, look, theatrics or not, I was just trying to give you kids a quick tip. Be prepared. In the running business, gang wars tend to complicate things. Seeing how as it's unavoidable, I figured I'd give you forewarning so you'll hopefully get your s~%% together before things go to hell. That way, the whole clusterf~!# will be over before any real damage is done. Team won't be happy that I let you chucklef#!%s know-we try to keep a low profile before the job-but I figure it's a lot more useful to not be dodging angry people with guns on the night of the run, even if said angry people with guns have a vague idea who I am. Want this s&&$ to boil over quickly and be done with, you know? And if you're thinking about taking me captive to learn more, don't bother. I'll put up a hell of a fight, and there's a friend just outside who has better chrome and guns than any of you. What, you think I'm stupid? So, unless you have any strenuous objections, I'll be going."
Gauntlet slowly begins moving towards the door.
The ork narrows his eyes as Nathaniel and Anya keep speaking, but by the end of the woman's monologue his murderous look is tempered with mere annoyance. "What. The f*ck. Kinda drek. Is this?!" His words are still stilted and mechanical, but the final phrase comes out in a roar that seems to shake the floor under your feet. "Blowtorch is what? Hiring. Outsiders? To talk. To me?!" He growls and suddenly slams his fist into the wall, denting it heavily and sending flakes of drywall and plaster to the floor. "Nobody. Not even him. Piece of..." He trails off and his head snaps back to look at the three runners. "Get out. This don't concern you."
Behind him, Arm-Blades glances at Tank Top and mutters, not really that quietly, "She say Morelli? How'd she know that?" Tank Top gives him a sharp look in response and thuds his shoulder with his normal arm.
When Anya 'looks' into the apartment with her radar sensor, she does notice someone inside--a metahuman, likely a human, elf, or ork, based on the size, although she can't be certain. Judging from the rough layout the translucent barriers give, Anya guesses they're hiding under a bed in a room adjacent to the outer wall.
Gauntlet gives her speech, and the gangers all seem pacified, if through confusion, for a few moments. As she begins moving back toward the door, however, another voice calls out. "Hold on just a moment." When she looks for the owner, it's another human man, this one having stepped from around a corner. He's dressed similarly to the others--armored jacket, cargo pants tucked into worn boots, fingerless leather gloves on his hands. At first he doesn't appear visibly augmented, no cyberlimbs and regular blond hair swept back from a lean face. As he comes closer, though, the augs become more apparent: for one, his eyes are a solid neon blue, and for another, his movements are far too smooth to be natural. He almost glides across the floor, coming to rest at the edge of the bar, within arm's reach of the troll.
"Boys, put your guns away. If she was here with a fight in mind, somebody would have gotten punched by now." There's a pause, and the pistols are slowly slid back into holsters. The new man smiles, but naturally, it doesn't reflect in his eyes. "What exactly makes a runner interested in coming in here? You have business with the Chrome Boys?"
"Business in the neighborhood, a bit from now. Some major s&*% is about to go down. I don't want to deal with a gang war, especially whatever the f%+~ the equivalent of a civil gang war is, on the night of the run. It's inevitable at this point-I can't stop it-but I can at least give you all a heads up so the whole thing will be done before the night of the run. That satisfactory?"
"We decide what concerns us," Nathaniel says. "If you've got a problem with you boss, that doesn't concern me. Now, why don't you either crack that door open for us or get moving so we can handle it? We don't have all day, alright? Once we've done what we're here to do, we'll be out of your hair and you can give your boss a piece of your mind or something for hiring us. That is, if you expect he'll even admit to it." Nathaniel shrugs, seemingly disinterested. "That's none of my business. This, however, is."
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While the Orc is talking, she sends out a sub-vocal to Paladin and Nix over their local network. >>>One guy in room. Under bed. Teehee.<<<
Anya is silently grateful as she at least gets a name. That's a good first step. Now if she has to kill these three they have a lead on where to go.
She lets the name 'Blowtorch' rattle around in her head, seeing if she's heard it and what it might mean.
(2 hits)
When Orc-that-is-Orc winds down, a bright, winning smile spreads across Anya's face. "Hey! There we go! See? Common ground! You -do- know Blowtorch. We're making progress."
She tosses another wink at Paladin, weaving the thread. "Now, hold up there, Paladin, these are three nice gentlemen who are just doing what Blowtorch asked of them, just like we are. Okay, sure, there seems to have been a break down in communication, but there's no need to overreact."
"Okay, maybe we will go. But do you like going to Blowtorch having NOT done the thing he asked you? Ya, neither do I. So, I gotta tell him something.
What...what can I say? No, no, don't say 'make something up'. He sent us here to watch you do a thing. I assume you got a plan, yeah? Alright, let's assume your plan goes swimmingly, just tell me the words and I'll say them."
She turns away, but then comes back and snaps her fingers. "Oh, right. You got us pegged, we are outsiders, and I was just supposed to follow you back. But since we're leaving now, you'll have to tell me where to go so I can get out-a here and tell Blowtorch the good news. So, where is he?"
= 4 hits(!)
Man she really wanted a drink.
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The ex-PI nodded, having been silent the whole trip over to the Steak, trying to put two and two together and using his old hound brain to figure out any missing details.
As Sylvie entered the place, he lighted a cigarette and sharpened his senses. Mumbling, fake drunken ranting and a lot of yelling. That was Sylvie, of course... but even he had noticed the charade from outside so the Chromes would have too.
And then the metallic 'click', the all too familiar sound. With trained calmness Nick drawed his iron and checked the smartlink but as he was about to enter guns a-blazing to give his pal a way out he caught the final sentences coming from the one he supposed to be the boss.
A fight ended before it broke out, looks like your luck has turned for the better Nicky boy.
Casually holstering his gun as he moved closer to the troll, Sarge slightly bowed his head to the gangsters.
"Next time we switch toles, Big G. I may be an awful liar but you can bet your ass I'm a consumate drunkard." were the only words Nick said to his partners as his cybereyes moved from one gangster to the next, recording and archiving their faces for future reference.
"What brings us here you ask? For starters, unless you want to reconsider the whole 'Let's see who dies last' a whiskey would be nice, as well as a table and chairs to sit and speak. I hate standing in the middle of a room full of armed boyos." he said speaking in a clear, loud voice. The voice of someone who's been in the same situation before and is pretty much tired of this drekk.
The ex-PI walked to the closest table and sit there, eyeing the one he thought the leader as he lighted another cigarette "Name's Sarge and she's Gauntlet. And much to your sorrow she's right: drekk's about to hit the fan and we have the details... while you may have some information we desire. What about a gentlemen's truce and an exchange?"
"Come to think of it, I can put you into contact with some fixers I know. Get you hooked up with some better chrome before everything goes down. And maybe some extra info on the run could be useful. Good idea, Sarge."
The ork is already seething, but when Nathaniel starts to give his comment, it sets him over the edge. "My boss?" At first the tone is more disbelief, and then it breaks into open rage. "?! That's it! Blowtorch is dead! You're dead!" And with that, the ork snarls and lunges forward, death in his eyes.
You guys are up.
"Well, I'd feel more inclined to give you a table if your friend here hadn't just broken one. And you'll pay for your drinks if you want one. As far as deals, I think I've got the upper hand right now... although you've piqued my curiosity." After a moment, he waves the pair to a nearby table and sits down. Leather Jacket stands nearby, still scowling, but as the trio sits the others seem to return to their business, more or less--Spurs even starts flexing again at the bar.
"It seems like you two know something about our group that I don't, and that's something I'd like to change. I'm not interested in more chrome. Frankly, most of us have already had more than our share installed, and there isn't room for much more." There's a sour note to his voice, easy to catch, that goes beyond just knowing when you can't fit more augmentations into your body. "Let's say we forgive the rude intrusion and destruction of property, and you tell me what the hell this is about a gang war. Even Crusher isn't that stupid."
"I don't know why we didn't do this to begin with." Victoria raises her shotgun and unloads into the screaming ork's chest. "It's not like this idiot was going to be of any help anyway."
= 1 hits
= 4 hits
Nathaniel shifts his weight to his back foot and raises the shotgun toward Crusher. "I kind of figured with a name like Crusher you'd be the simple one," Nathaniel says, mentally flipping his Ares Praetorian to burst-fire. "Still, I guess that means the more reasonable one is probably still alive if we need him. Sorry you drew the short straw, bud." Nathaniel fires two short bursts toward the charging orc--or the next closest ganger, if Crusher goes down between him and Victoria--flinging the tungsten flechettes downrange.
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"Hey, calm down. This is a perfectly reasonable misunder--oop, here we go."
It's not that Anya draws her weapon, it's that her Israeli teacher showed her that the weapon is never not a part of her. One moment she's empty handed, and the next she's aiming the HK, the gun having always been in her hand.
She flattens herself against the wall, staying clear of the truly impressive wall of shotgun ammunition headed toward the overly passionate orc.
Figuring he won't be much of a problem in .21 seconds, she aims at Arm-Blades, trying to take him down next.
The HK quietly coughs out two bursts.
= 5 hits
= 8 hits
"Dead!" he repeats, and his fist comes forward with surprising speed at Nathaniel's jaw. The elf is quick, but the ork is quicker, and the fist connects heavily. To Nathaniel, it feels like getting hit by a car--the ork has more strength and weight behind the fist than is natural by a long shot, and it feels like metal rather than flesh and bone. There's a nasty cracking sound and your vision goes spotty in the brief instant before you lose consciousness.
Tank Top likewise comes forward with a fist leading the way, but he's much clumsier and slower than Crusher, and the oversized arm doesn't seem to be doing him any favors in the "landing hits" department. Anya is his target, but she easily dodges back and deflects his attacks as she can.
Nathaniel rolls with the hit and staggers backward, looking for a second like the elf is about to drop to the floor. After a moment though, the elf straightens up with a burst of energy, having rolled with the punch just enough to remain standing. "You're the one who's f*ckin' dead," he responds uncharacteristically, leveling the shotgun with the orc's chest and firing at him twice more. "Help me put him down!" he yells at Anya and Victoria, his breathing heavy as he somehow remains standing after reeling from the punch.
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Anya gasps in shock and concern as the orc's fist connects and lays out Paladin cold!
Her chips fully jazzed, with a final spin, she takes a step away from her attacker...
...and lines up her HK with the orc.
"Should'a stayed frosty, chummer."
She gives him a similar double-burst of the ol' ultra-violence.
= 7 hits
= 8 hits
Nathaniel examines Crusher's corpse for a moment and scowls, then swiftly gives the body a swift kick to the side of the head. "Dead!" he mimics, slamming the tip of his foot into the same spot where Crusher punched him. Nathaniel absentmindedly rubs his jaw where Crusher hit him and wavers a bit, and cracks his jaw. "Sh*t, that's gonna hurt a lot worse when this wears off," he muses, shrugging. "Someone remind me to patch that up before it hits me like a ton of bricks, will you?" Nathaniel heads over to the door and slams his foot into the wood, not content to wait for one of the others to try picking the lock when he can at least give breaking it down a shot. "C'mon out!" he yells on his second kick, getting irritated. When it presumably doesn't budge, he cocks an eyebrow and takes his shotgun and instead does his best to just blow out the lock and throw the door open.
"F*ck, that orc knew how to throw a fraggin' punch..."
"Orcs are usually good at that," Victoria says dryly. "Let's just get in there and see what we can find. That was a lot of gunfire and I don't want to be here when someone investigates."
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"Gah frag!" Anya exclaims as Paladin starts shooting at the door. "We just saved his life, you could've at least -tried- to ask if he wanted to 'com vit mee if u want to liv' or some drek like ah, nevermind, that works too."
Since securing the target is, by hook or by crook, being seen to, Anya jazzes her attention co-processor. She gives each body a professional-grade pat down, looking for intelligence.
And gear. And stuff. She's never been above petty theft. Especially as spoils.
Then the Wraith slams in a fresh clip and moves on, three corpses in her wake.
In the wake of the gunfight, our Runners start dealing with the aftermath: Wraith gets to checking over the bodies, and Paladin tries to force the door while Nix is on standby to help with whatever needs helping. Paladin's first kick does nothing more than rattle the door a little, with a loud thud, but his shotgun does more damage, with an even louder gunshot. The door has two locks on it, separated by a foot or so, so it takes two shots to blow the door apart enough to get in...
At which point all three can hear shattering glass.
"Hey, get back here!" Nathaniel shouts as he plows through the remains of the door, running forward as he lets his shotgun dangle on the sling. Hopped up on Nitro, Nathaniel moves much faster than expected and heads through the apartment looking for the broken window. "We just shot the people trying to kill you! Stop running!" When he finds the window, Nathaniel will make chase assuming it doesn't require him to jump out of the window to the ground.
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Anya hears Paladin giving chase and continues with her serious work of looting. She trusts to his judgement and professionalism.
And it's not like she'd be much help doing the same thing he's doing right now. She figures she has enough time to police the bodies before she jazzes her chips again and pounds down the stairs like a waterfall before circling around to catch Dudeman coming down the fire escape.
Or is that....
Wraith keeps searching the bodies, but pings her radar again, making sure that there's movement down the fire escape and not, say, someone hiding in the bathroom and laughing as we fall for the oldest trick in the book.
Victoria lets Paladin run after their target, but doesn't immediately follow. He can take care of himself and there might be something useful left in the apartment. Given that the authorities are likely already on their way, it's better to try to search the area while he runs down their target than to potentially leave something useful behind.
As soon as the door is open and the shatter is heard, Paladin bursts into the room at top speed, the chemical in his blood spurring him to fast movement despite his wounds. He barely pays attention the apartment around him as he makes through the open doorway toward the noise--not that there's much to see, with it being a shabby and tiny apartment. The bedroom isn't much better, with sparse furnishings and not even a closet, but it does have one key element: a window, with shards of glass still sticking out of the edges...
When the elf reaches the window, he pauses to look before leaping, and it's a good thing he did. There isn't a fire escape on this window--probably rusted off and never replaced, since an apartment like this would only have SINless folks living there--and it's a straight drop to the street below. That's the drop that whoever was in the room just took, and their corpse is sprawled on the pavement, several limbs at unnatural angles and blood already pooled around the head. Several people on the street start screaming after a moment, although no one looks up at the window just yet.
"Sh*t, he jumped." Nathaniel steps back from the window and curses, looking out around the apartment. "I've got a feeling that's not our guy, but we better take a look at him anyway." Nathaniel helps Victoria look around the apartment before getting ready to head down to the street and take a look at whoever jumped.
"He did what? Idiot. We better really hope that's not our guy, otherwise we just lost our payday. Let's finish up and jack the body before anyone calls the cops."
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Wraith stoically and emotionlessly finishes searching the corpses, then stands up at Paladin's statement. She races down the steps, quickly, but non-juiced, until she comes across the swiftly-cooling corpse.
"NO! NononoNOOOOO!" she cries, her apparently tear-stained face contorted in shock and grief. "He was fine the other day when we...*sob*."
She rushes to the body and drops to her knees, unable to control her anguish at the her apparently lover's sudden passing.
"NO! WHY WHY WHY NOOOOO!!!" she moans, wracked in completely believable grief as she buries her head in the body's chest, her hands going over the body in a final caress. "I'll never love anyone the way I loved you...."
4 hits
1 hit
Outwardly a clinic of unbridled anguish, inwardly she remains perfectly unmoved as everything not clothing goes into her pockets.
Donny's apartment is cheap and scummy, just like everything you've come to expect about the man. Searching it takes some time, but not as much as you might fear--with less furniture and very few shelves or cabinets to go through, it doesn't take long to rule out a section of the place and move on. About when Wraith is hitting the street, Nix comes up with the only thing of real interest: in the kitchen is a mini-fridge, and stuck to the inside of the door, almost blending in, is a small notecard. Written on the back is a series of numbers that looks like a commlink address, although it doesn't have a name or anything else attached.
Out on the street, a small crowd of pedestrians is gathered a little ways back from the body, with excited and disturbed murmuring filling the crowd. Nobody stops Wraith when she rushes in, crying and wailing, and she's able to quickly go over the body. The dead man is wearing a robe, of all things, but he also has plain clothes underneath, and he's very still as she goes through his pockets. In her rush, and attempt to not move the robe too much as she pats him down, the only thing she comes away with is a thin, plain metal rectangle, about the size of a passcard. It doesn't seem to have any markings on it, though.
"That looks useful. Once we're out of here, I'll see what I can do with this." Standing up from the mini fridge, Nathaniel heads down the stairs quietly and goes out the back--if there is a back, anyway--to try and avoid the crowd of people on the street. He pings Wraith once they're out of the building to let he know they're ready to go. <<"Did you find anything? We've got a commlink address to look into. That guy wasn't our target, right?">>
"Hopefully it will give us something, because there's not much else in here." Nix grabs her briefcase and tucks the card inside along with her shotgun. "Come on, you can take a crack at it when we're not here anymore."
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Wraith inwardly cringes as she comes up with only the one juicy bit, but, getting out while she's ahead, she dodges off, taking a few quick, random turns to make sure she's not followed before looping around and getting back together with the other two. She uses the time to catch up on data found.
>>>One: Yes, I found something. Small metal kinda-passcard thing. No markings. Let's get you to a pad so you can smash this thing with Science! and see what it says.
Two: I've no idea who that was, but I'm willing to bet our lives would've been easier with him alive than what he is now. The NEXT time you feel the need to use a shotgun as a convincing argument to come with us peaceably, please do take a tick to chill and at least give me half-a-sec to use nice cheap words, eh? Hell, I coulda got him to come out with just six words. SIX!
'Hey there! Wanna feel my t@@+?'<<<
Anya rendezvous and stews on men and their need to show off their big, meaty shotguns.
Paladin and Nix head out the rear exit of Donny's building, and Wraith wraps around the outside. As the three meet up in an alley about a block away, they can hear sirens finally making their way over--sounds like it was Lone Star that got the call this time. Knowing how the rent-a-cops operate, there's probably a decent chance that the investigation won't link back to three strangers who showed up, shot some gangers, and got out of Dodge.
Where they go from the alley is to be decided, but they briefly think over the spoils of the trip...
-Armored Vests, 2
-Form-Fitting Armor, Half-Suit
-SecureTech PPP System Leg and Arm Casings, Shin Guards, Vitals Protector (all obvious armor)
-Ares Predator IV
-Spare magazine, fully-loaded
-Three cheap, used commlinks with basic OS, one of which is missing several basic functionalities in order to make more room for downloaded, low-resolution pornographic trids. (KRAZY ORK KOK 4 is the largest)
Potential Clues to Donny's Whereabouts
-A notecard with a commlink number written on it
-A man in a robe who apparently jumped to his death rather than meet the team
-An unmarked metal rectangle roughly the shape of a passcard
Sylvie gives a sharp laugh. "You're either seriously overestimating him or underestimating him, chummer. Caught wind of this when we were getting gear for the run. Sarge's fixer told him that he was running a bit low on ordinance. We decided to dig a little deeper - pays to be paranoid in this biz - and found some nasty shiz. As far as we can tell, Crusher's been listening to this little weasel called, um, what was it, Donny, I think? Anyways, the bottom feeder's trying to move up in the world, and I think he figures that if he's got a ganger boss on a leash, somebody will finally take him seriously. Sounds like things are gonna go down in a few days, and considering our run coincides with that... well, I don't want to deal with a bunch of trigger-happy chromed up boys running around shooting at each other during a... delicate operation."
As the group decides where to head next, Nathaniel decides to hail Nick and Sylvie on their comms. <<"Hey, how are things going for you two? We had a bit of an... issue; Crusher's dead, and some chummer who was poking through Donny's apartment jumped out a window. Still, I think we've got what we need to find him.">> Nathaniel waits for a response, than waves those with him closer. "Look, I've gotta head somewhere I can patch myself up before this Nitro wears off, because it's gonna hurt like a b*tch when it does. Easiest place is home, but I can make do with a nice, quiet alleyway for the time being."
Gauntlet's commlink pings, and she mumbles something about needing to take this, and reads the message from Paladin. She lets some of her real panic through as she scrolls through it. "What the actual f+$&?!" she yells incredulously. "That's... no way. He, he wouldn't... the hell? I didn't think the weasel had the balls..." Sylvie looks up at Blowtorch and says, deadpan, "Well, congratu-f&#&ing-lations. No gang war for you. Crusher's dead, apparently. Looks like he caught on to Donny's scheming, so the little bastard sent a hit squad after your fellow gang leader and killed him. If that wasn't bad enough... ugh. Looks like this idiot is going to cause all kinds of trouble for the run, and by looking at this, it's straight-up unprofessional the way he handled Crusher. Just... ugh. He needs to get off the streets. Tell you what: you give any info you have on that weasel, and we'll grab him for you, pro bono. No fuss, no catastrophe, will be like he never existed in the first place and you and your pals can put this whole sorry mess behind you."
"I suggest we try to trace the comm number first. It might take a while to figure out what's going on with the card, but a comm number shouldn't take long to track down."
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Drekk son, this might end in bloodshed afterall...
Nick listened to Paladin without changing his stern face, but he knew better. Perhaps these chromies were smarter and kinder than average and accepted Sylvie's deal... or they might want blood because they were angry about Crusher's death.
In any case, Gauntlet and Sarge were in a tight spot, and tight spots weren't of Nick's liking.
With careful movements, Nick shifted his stance on the chair, resting his right hand over his legs where he could quickly reach his iron while his left hand rested over the table's edge.
"My most sincere condolences, boyos... this is bulldrekk, I know, but we'll deal with it. That's what we are good at."