|
Post by D on Feb 9, 2011 23:09:39 GMT -5
It told her about this. How all hell would break loose and how people would die. Perhaps this one of the few things she actually listened to, but then again it was hard not to when she could see that it was correct. Still, the whole thing bothered her. What if she broke and followed it? What if she did what it wanted? What if-
The loud twat started yelling again and Kathleen found herself staring down two pulse rifles. “Go ahead…” She whispered. “Pull the damn trigger.” If it made everything shut up then she would have gladly taken plasma spheres melting holes in her, but then the fucking chavy of an officer spoke up and stopped it. Behind the safety of her visor she gritted her teeth and followed in silence.
As she followed them, she mentally cursed them, the marker, and every step she took. This, of course, continued up until they stopped in front of yet another shop and again, the chavy spoke. This time it was about working together and surviving, but at his words, she let out a quiet chuckle.
They’ll die. These people are so dead.
She would have continued laughing, but she could hear those eerie whispers again. Kathleen put a hand on her helmet. “Crap…” She leaned against the wall behind her and waited for them to quiet. When the voices finished, she slowly got off from the wall and walked away from the ‘authoritative’ figures. Staying with them only increased the intensity of her headaches and she also didn’t want to be in one place for long.
While her sanity remained, she was able to input an objective and path to the objective by herself. She wasn’t sure if they were used to seeing a mentally ill person do something like this, but she hoped that they knew that she wasn’t as stupid as they treated her. What she was thinking held some conceit but she felt that these retarded fucks weren’t exactly grade A in terms of intelligence. Two were dogs and one…Well, his servitude to the ‘right and good’ society didn’t really amount to anything positive in her eyes.
Whatever, eh, she thought as she continued on her way.
Kathleen turned a corner and looked at a ‘cleared’ corridor. No life was in sight, but she saw that it was in the same state as the other rooms she had seen. A few corpses were on the ground as well as large spots of blood and it didn’t help the corridor’s over all image when she noticed that the lights above were flickering. Despite the fact, she pressed forward. Though it didn’t take her long to stop.
In front of her, squatted in a corner with his back faced to her, was a small child crying. In the moment of sanity, she walked over, worried. Behind her she could hear the English fucker telling her not to move forward, but she ignored his advice. “Hey…” She said softly as she reached out her hand. “Hey, kiddo…”
Suddenly, a high pitched scream pierced through the silence and the child turned to slash Kathleen. Startled, she fell back and away from the thing. “Oh fuck!” Kathleen quickly got to her feet, knowing that no plasma saw would save her from the thing’s claws. As she ran, more screams filled the air and only cause her to run faster.
|
|
|
Post by B on Feb 10, 2011 2:13:13 GMT -5
Finally they decide to listen to reason. Hell they've even gone civil. Maybe they were people after all. "Great. Now that we're acquainted and understood. Lets start thinking about-" Bleepbloopbloop. Ben turned to see a virtual blue waypoint line pop out of Kathleen's arm. She immediately started moving. Curiously, Ben did the same thing, sure enough a blue line popped out of his arm and followed Kathleen but unlike Kathleen's his stopped at her foot then disappeared. "Teidmann must be tracker her. She might have a plan, lets catch up." He turned and jogged off to follow her. When they got to the room she stopped in Ben only looked at her then at the boy she started walking up to. Something was definitely wrong here. "Kathleen, I don't think that's such a good idea." And of course, she didn't listen to him. For being a police officer you'd think people would have a little more respect for his opinion. I mean sure he's not the most heroic of individuals but he wasn't stupid. Sure as shit the child turned with a scream, his face horribly mutated. Then something you'd see in an old video game occurred, Kathleen did an instant 180 turn and flung off. The creature ran for her, moving faster than she was. Ben raised his pulse rifle and fired a few shots ripping off a leg, but no more dismemberments were necessary, it was dead. "Well aint this fucking lovely." Thunk-thunk-thunk. Ben looked up, they were in the vents, more screams. "I'm getting real tired of this running shit." Ben put down another waypoint then signaled at Felicia to follow. As Ben began running, following the way point which was following Kathleen, there was a loud bang in front of him then one child... two... three. They just started flowing out of the vent in front of him. He stopped immediately and began to back up. That Will character seemed to point out more coming from their rear. They were about to get sandwiched in a very tight hallway. Ben raised his plasma rifle. Looks like they have no choice but to bunker down back to back. Whether there's more after Kathleen was unclear, but if Ben really wanted to, he'll just follow the way point again.
|
|
|
Post by V on Feb 10, 2011 2:38:52 GMT -5
Surrounded and being closed at both sides. Narrow corridors were easy to defend, and with automatic weapons, it was going to be simple to mow down the advancing enemies. They'd just need to time their reloads, and it would be alright. That was the theory anyway. "Farmah, watch the rear!" Ben was busy taking out what was going down the vent in front of them, and those numbers seemed quite thing compared to what was coming at them from behind. "Ben, call for me if your side is becoming overwhelming." Felicia simply said. The marines already had a plan. Will and her would fire in cycles. One would fire until they had to reload, the other would launch a grenade round and wait until it was there time to shoot, which would be when the other was reloading. Simple enough right? Farmah began shooting, these pale children were fragile, but their screams were ear piercing and annoying, and as Felicia fired a grenade round into the oncoming back, limbs and littered the hall. But the pack of children continued it's advance, the grenade didn't even seem to dent their numbers. As Farmah's plasma cells ran dry, he had to insert a fresh one, which Felicia took over in firing, the pack being kept at bay still, a second grenade launch from Farmah's rifle sending it back even more. "Fucking shit...what the hell are we under? An orphanage?" Then suddenly, Ben let out a call for help, more of these mutated, deformed children were coming on his side, and Felicia flung herself around, and face his front, shooting from beside him. The marine's original plan wasn't going to work with even numbers, and with the overwhelming onslaught bearing down on them, panic was spreading quickly. Farmah ammo outed again, but with no one to cover his reload, the children closed the gap quickly, leaping on Farmah like a pack of dogs. Felicia spun around, and fired her pulse gun right at the advancing pack, Farmah having taken out his Divet and shooting point blank at those who swarmed on him, clawing at his armor. His right hand clocked one straight in the jaw, the fragile structure shattering. As Felicia focused on firing, one from behind leaped onto her, and fit into the soft spot in her armor near her shoulder and neck. She swore loudly, reaching behind her and gripped the child's arm, and jerking with all her might, and with what the suit added, tore the child's body from it's fragile neck, tossing the decapitated corpse down onto the ground while the head fell lifelessly. Her wound sealed up immediately, the blue liquid on the spine of her RiG dropping down some. "Fuck! Is this how we're going to die?! In a swarm of fucking alien pre-schoolers?!"
Farmah pistol whipped the last one off his body, and quickly picked up his rifle. He put in a fresh cell and began to fire around them again. He had an older model, and that had a 360 spread fire effect. It might end up saving them, but -everyone- had to keep their heads down. It was a terribly risky maneuver, but it was either the small chance of dying to a plasma sphere, or the almost inevitably chance of being shorn limb to limb by these alien-human children. "Captain! permission to activate secondary mode!" "Not yet Farmah!" She quickly looked behind her at the other two. "Can you two hear me? Give me an answer. Your life will fucking depend on it!"
|
|
|
Post by D on Feb 13, 2011 3:27:53 GMT -5
Kathleen ran into another corridor with those little bastards following after. She didn’t get too far when one of them leapt and dug its claws into her. The pain quickly disappeared as soon as it had arrived, but she was already on the floor. “Fuck!” The other four descended on her and what followed next was a slashing frenzy. At first, she shielded herself with her arms, but then she realized that doing so was still depleting her RIG.
Her RIG dropped to the red zone and thinking quickly, she swung the plasma saw as hard as she could. With that cut, she was able to dispatch three of them. “Die you sunnabitches!” She yelled and she kicked one of them away before grabbing the last and slamming it to the ground beside her. Kathleen continued this action until it was dead and then she turned back to the one she had kicked. The preschool mutation rushed her but before it could land one, her plasma saw got it through the head.
After it fell, she brushed it off and simply laid there. “Oh god…” On her legs and arms were cuts that still remained open due to the lack of power in her RIG. The air in the ship stung them and she really didn’t want to move, but when she heard more gunfire, she decided to move on. Kathleen got off of the floor and brought up the objective line. Limping, she followed it into a room.
“Music?” Sadness washed over her as it reminded her of her own child. A similar song had played for her baby, but it was gone, so she supposed it didn’t matter. She continued through the room until she found a small med pack beside an eaten out corpse. Her eyes watered at the sight, but still she picked up the pack, refilled her Rig.
With that done, she continued on into what she believed to have been the nursery. Light in the shape of horses spun around the room and behind her was a mirror that refused to show her image and held a lone horse in stasis. The room was quite eerie, but unlike the one before, she could not find the body of the child. “Maybe…maybe the baby got away, taken by the parent who survived…” She walked over to the crib and rested her bloodied gloves at the crib’s edge. “Yeah… if only Brian had been able to stop me then…”
|
|
|
Post by B on Feb 15, 2011 2:08:34 GMT -5
Wait, what was he going to do? Oh no... That's an older model of the plasma rifle, how did he even get that? They were recalled for friendly fire cases. That requisitions officer is going to get sued for every credit he has. "DO IT!" In the middle of saying that Ben leaped to the floor, Farmah was quick, bullets flew and ricocheted everywhere, children fell one after another until finally the the room was quiet. Ben slowly got to his feet. "Maaan... I'd kiss that requisitions officer right now. Nice and slobbery!" He looked to the others. and quickly threw down his marker, it followed through the hall and out a door. He thought he had changed it to the area of the shuttles but he forgot that he wasn't able to and the marker was still following Kathleen. They ran into more residential "hotels" if you will. There were still sounds of chaos. People screaming in the distance, muffled gunshots, even explosions. The only thing that went through Ben's mind was 'please don't let that be the Glory blowing up'. Ben slowed a bit to walk aside Will Farmah. "Will, right? Thanks Will. Glad you had your hands on illegal tech." It was hard to tell if he was being sincerely grateful or just being an ass, either way, Ben paused to throw down the location again. It swerved into a room. "That can't be right..." Ben decided to enter anyways. A distorted music came from within. Like some princess theme laced with 2 tons of crack. There was a line of blood on the floor, nothing new, there were blood puddles all over the station. Still, though, Ben followed it into the nursery. At first he mistook her for just another dead body lying in the corner but at a second glance he noticed that it wasn't dead, and was someone he knew. "Holy shit..." Whether he sounded surprised, happy, or annoyed was completely unclear. 'Strong with the crazy this one is.' He thought to himself and walked up to her. "Well great, once again you've managed to run and be found. Ready to get moving so you can run when we're knee deep in Dr. Jekyll's 4th grade class?" Regardless of what she said or did or what the other two did he walked out of the nursery then out of the room altogether. Suddenly a screen flashed in front of him that anyone could see if they looked. A woman stood in front of it, long, dark brown hair eating her shoulders. Blue eyes already defiant and hungry to smash some man-balls. "Benjamin!" "Holy shit, Rita. Man am I glad to-" "So I guess you sent it, right?" "Sent wh-" "No, so typical!" "Shhh!! Go call the military... no go call the president." "Oh, that supposed to be an easy fuck you? The president?" "There is something attacking the-" "I'm tired of these bull shit excuses, Ben!" She continued to rattle on but the thunk of an air conditioning vent immediately took Ben's full attention. Ben ignored the screen in front of him prattling on about the future of Aleks and something about his EX mother-in-law's bowel movement, all the while Ben was firing at a slasher that popped out of the vent. Little did Ben know there was a second sneaking up from his left flank. "Oh there you go again, putting your job before your son." "You're a bitch!" Ben growled, actually meaning that towards his ex wife not the creature. Hearing shots beside him, he looked over to see the freshly dead slasher, it was hard to tell which of the tree shot it down but one of them managed to. He gave them a nod and looked at the screen. "And one more thing!" Ben snapped, the woman in the picture rolled her eyes and looked at the screen. "Your belly is already getting to your Aunt Leone's size." "You fucking asshole!" She let out a stream of obscenities, Ben only chuckled. "Now stop tying up my line!" With that he hit a button on his helmet and the woman was silenced, video screen disappearing. "Gotta love happy endings." He turned to the others. "Right, through the Glory hole. Shuttle or should we let zero gravity do its best?"
|
|
|
Post by V on Feb 22, 2011 1:19:50 GMT -5
Ben seemed to want to chase the crazy woman everywhere, which was practical for now, but would just as likely get all of them killed. But they pressed on with him, sticking to their original idea of staying together for survival. But as they met up with her, Felicia stopped at the door, and Farmah stopped in front of her and turned around. "Captain?" She stood stationary, but her helmet was hiding that she was mouthing to herself, looking at each crib, then hit the side of her helmet. "Captain, are you alright?" She started speaking but it wasn't directed to anyone. In her helmet, there was a map flashing on her HuD. "Nursery 7b...Mordecai is here...little baby Mordy.." Her attitude seemed to shift from being a tough soldier to a more worried family-woman. "Who's that?" "My brother's infant son. Frank probably took him before we shuttled him off this rock, I am sure!" During this, Ben must have been halfway through his transmission with his angry wife, while Felicia began to look at the names beside the cribs, which designated the occupants. Finally...she halted at one, and pulled at mask, having her head exposed now, a look of horror over her face as she began to stand upright. Inside the lining of the crib, it was drenched with blood, and even a yellowish color. "Mordy...Frank, how could you forget.." She shook her head, putting her index and middle finger into the blood; freshly wet. She huffed, tears were welling in her eyes, she remembered holding this very child in her arms months ago, he was scheduled to be released within the week...Frank was so happy about it. She pulled her hand back and shook her hand free of the blood. Ben's transmission was long done, but she hadn't been paying much attention. "Come one, let's get ready to--" There was the sound of impact, like a bullet hitting metal, a barbed bone hitting her on the shoulder armor, splintering off and getting her on the neck. Her helmet immediately went up, like a fail safe mechanism, her RiG using a small amount of it's serum to seal up the wound. She turned around and looked up. There it was, upside down on the ceiling, sticking to it some how, mutated with three massive tentacles sprouted from it's back. It was an infant of course, shreds of it's baby attire hung down, and most pronounce was a name tag. Written in playful cursive was "Mordecai". Without warning, the necromorph detached itself from the ceiling, landing perfectly on Felicia's chest. She grappled onto it, in an attempt to non-fatally pry him off. But it started to use those tentacles, stabbing at her armor, into the weaker areas at the joints and neck. Farmah put his weapon up in an attempt to shoot, but Felicia's actions of flailing made it impossible to get a clear shot, even for the most skilled sharpshooter even. As this went on, the blue line on the back of her RiG began to decline at a steady pace. All the while, the necromorph was shrieking and wailing, turning one of it's barbs and shooting Felicia point blank on the forehead, which shattered on the helmet. Her blue line was already at three quarters depleted, until finally, she saw there was no choice. Her hand went up to the infant's face, and began to squeeze, blood seeping from between her fingers until it released, in which she threw it onto the ground, and smashed the rest of it's head with the bottom of her boot. The ordeal ended, with the cost of most of her life line. She held her chest, breathing heavily from behind the helmet. "I'm sorry Mordy...I'm sorry Frank..." Her helmet allowed itself to drop again, as she put her blood-free hand over her face to wipe her tears. "I'm sure you would have made a great person." She felt hands on her back as Farmah lifted her to her feet. "It's alright Captain...we'll get off this rock, and we can tell Frank what happened..." Not much of a comforting speech, but they had a kind of synergy to know when they were trying to be comforting. With a sigh, Felicia ripped Mordecai's name tag off the crib, and put it in her storage dock on her suit. "...let's get moving."
|
|
|
Post by D on Feb 22, 2011 2:22:17 GMT -5
She was found curled up on the floor behind some furniture as if she were trying to hide and protect herself. “Brian…shit…I’m s-sorry. I know that…fuck…make it go away.” Kathleen muttered as she held herself and she continued to do so until the security man found her. “Shh…” She told him, “I-it’s still in here…” He walked away and despite her warning. To make things worst, his screen came up and a loud woman’s voice came on. Immediately and without much thought on it, she got up from her hiding spot and yelled at him. “No! Shut up! It’ll hear you!”
Her eyes widened at the realization of her mistake and frantically she scanned the room. Fuck. She couldn’t see it. Fuck. Where was it? “There!” She pointed toward the ceiling but it was too late. The infant was already attacking Felicia. Unable to do anything, she watched the scene unfold with her mouth agape with terror. She recognized the scene and the memories she had struggled to forget returned to her. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the ghosts of her past whispered her sins to her.
They had been innocent, but monsters took them away.
Kathleen continued to stare at the scene, simply watching. That infant was like her own child. They were both victims. Both so pure, but then they turned. Her child haunted her in her nightmares and that infant was now attempting to kill soldier girl. So even the innocent became monsters…Everyone would turn into a monster.
No. Stupid Marker. Why are you doing this?
After pulling herself back to reality, she looked up to see that the struggle between the infant and the other woman was over. The infant was dead, but the atmosphere in the room was still heavy. It was clear that nothing was ok, so Kathleen decided not to ask such a question. Instead, she let her eyes answer for her. She saw the other woman pull a name tag off of the crib and placed it in storage, and from that Kathleen understood what had happened.
“I’m…sorry…” Kathleen approached the woman. “I’m sure…” She paused and looked for the child’s name in her mind. “I’m sure Mordecai is in a better place now…” For a moment, she thought of placing her hand on the other woman’s shoulder, but she decided not to.
Guilt probably rested and played in Felicia’s heart, and Kathleen knew how it felt very well. She wanted to say words of encouragement and tell the woman that things were going to be all right, but she was the least qualified to say anything. Kathleen was well aware that she was sick and broken, and she also knew that she had never recovered. No, she never got better either. The mental wounds that she had inflicted on herself years ago had never healed and never scarred over. They still bled and like any cut that didn’t stop bleeding, things were getting worse.
She let out a sigh. “I..I know you three don’t want to hear it from me…I don’t either...W-we…Well, I think that we really should get to a shuttle…” Kathleen took a glance at the mutated infant corpse. “I d-don’t know how the victims cahnge…but m-maybe we should take a diff…different route. One with less people…With lots of space….” She paused for a moment to think of how to rephrase her words. “Maybe we should take a route going through space to get to the shuttle…”
|
|
|
Post by B on Feb 22, 2011 3:04:53 GMT -5
When the baby attacked, Ben was more worried about another horde and kept his eyes out, confident the others could help Felicia from the little nuisance but there was no horde and when he turned back around he saw that this creature wasn't a little nuisance to Felicia. "What are you doing?" She reached for a name tag and put it in her storage department. "Did you know that baby?" When she began apologizing to the name "Mordy" and then "Frank" he understood enough that this baby was from someone very close to her. Ben just looked away with a sigh, knowing to end the questions there. While Kathleen suddenly went human Ben's mind was on his son's face. "Aleks..." He whispered to himself as he took a few steps away from the two women to give them some space. His son was an infant too, yes... Ben nearly passed out that day but... That vision... Ben gritted his teeth at the thought of his son being like that thing. He closed his eyes then heard Kathleen talking about spacewalking. Finally back to business no more wild imaginings. Ben turned back around and nodded. "That would be the most logical choice... But we have to be careful we only hold about a minute and a half worth of air in our tanks. There's air dispensers scattered around but after one of us uses one it needs time to refill which means we wont do very well sticking so close to each other." Yes... It was a logical action taking the outside... But there's so many things that could go wrong. What if he gets... Spaced? Okay he wasn't about to admit that his #1 fear is being spaced but he needs to be the tough one in the group what with the soldier's tragedy, crazy lady's craziness, and apathetic soldier's indifference. As he began to walk for the exit he paused and looked at Felicia. "Do you need time? I mean we probably don't have it but we can try to give you a minute..." If yes, one minute passes then he urges her to follow and if no go directly to step two. They passed through a few halls in the nursery. The sounds of babies' coos were everywhere. But the group knew better, they weren't babies anymore, when they'll pop out is in question. Finally they got to the lunchroom. There was an airlock here. It will take a lot of manipulation of controls to get the room to decompress so that when they shoot the lock it wont eject them violently. It seems that wont be an option, though. As the four approached the controls screeches could be heard. Ben turned to see more shitty children, baby bombs were crawling out of the vents, and to make matters worse, the something was about to bring down the wall to the kitchen area. "Greaat! We wont be able to get this done with this much pressure." one of the others mentioned taking hte chance of shooting it. "Don't be stupid. Lets just deal with the wave and-" The kitchen's door exploded out and what walked in was one ugly son of a bitch. "Oh second thought." He swung around and fired at the window. It broke oddly easily. The four... The babies... The children... The creature... a hell of a lot of mustard and ketchup packets, and even an odd piece of meat that Ben couldn't, for the life of him place a name to, all were sucked out into open space. Sounds got muffled. Ben's breathing deepened but he didn't let his nerves take the better of him and he hit his boosters quickly to slow down. Okay they didn't get sucked "Woah shit!" Ben spun to narrowly avoid being attached to by an exploding infant. He didn't bother to check for the others, he told them the plan, they better just keep their distance from him cus if it's between his tank and theirs, they can bet their sweet asses that it will be his that gets refilled first. Luckily he wouldn't have to worry about that. He got to his first dispenser, he still had a good minute left but he decided to refill for good measure. He then boosted along, trying to map out where the shuttle is, there wasn't one that far. He stopped at another refueling dock before he set down a tracker. He had to be sure, though. He looked up and saw the ship in the distance. Damn... They would've never made it if they boosted their way over there. Finally he found the shuttle and moved over to one of its external bays. He plugged in his RIG number and it slid right open into a decompression chamber. The others arrived seconds later. 20 seconds of air left and the door slid closed allowing the air to fill the room and open the door into the shuttle. "Alright, this one's a police shuttle. I've driven this a few times." Ben said and sat in the pilot's seat. "Wasn't very good at it but it's not like I'm going to get into a dogfight. Flying in a straight line? I can do that." He plugged in his RIG again and the screen told him that it was missing fuel. "Well shit. Go figure we pick the only one that doesn't have any fucking fuel... Sidequest time..." He sighed. Nothing can ever be easy.
|
|
|
Post by V on Mar 1, 2011 2:44:16 GMT -5
Felicia took her moment well, placing the necrocorpse back into the crib, and sighing. But she knew there was so little time to waste, and they began moving again, without a word. As the approached a second cafeteria, it sounded like they were being followed everywhere. Vents thumping, and an apparent shaking of the ground. It was a terrifying trek and one that poked at paranoia like no end. That paranoia was soon going to become reality...bursting through the blast doors came a massive behemoth of flesh and bone, accompanied by twisted infants and those pale children again. Well this is the end clearly...Felicia was going to be killed by giant aliens and the word might not even reach earth about what happened. Suddenly she was forced out the window with a massive suction, a powerful vacuum. Farmah soon followed, children and babies and that big flesh monster also followed. The marines had trained for this, and immediately activated their boosters. Farmah allowed Felicia to go to the air supply first, and time himself from behind her. Ben had already taken his shares. It was quite a flawless execution, especially without rehearsal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The shuttle was cramped but it was a quick way up to the Glory. But of course there's always an obstacle...the marines could only wonder why the fuel was complete drained. normally emergency ships would be constantly stocked. Siphoned for a rescue shuttle maybe? Whatever the reason, it would need to be refueled regardless. Atleast they were attached to a dock station. The Sprawl wasn't a city the EDF marines were familiar with and Ben was of course charged with leading the way, he'd have to know the layout of the station, he was a guard here afterall. Felicia quickly treated herself to the onboard medical pack of the shuttle, her RiG healing serum was almost depleted, she was sure the rest of the group would understand. Ben and Farmah set out to retrieve the fuel hose and allow the women to hold down the shuttle. It made sense, Felicia could probably handle any aliens who ventured too close and Kathleen would be made to stay behind so she didn't wander off some place and have them waste even more time going to find her. The trip to the fueling hangar was quite uneventful, there were alien corpses though...dismembered and full of rivets. Three of them were common slashers and one was of those mosquito looking ones. "Someone did the hard work for us..." Farmah spoke, something he seemed to do scarcely. "Hope they died quick." As the reached the end of the hangar, the hose was coiled up on a crank. Ben took charge, telling Farmah to drag it to the shuttle, while he checked the equipment shed for supplies. As he opened the door, he only took on step, before the whole room became illuminated by a bright orange flickering light, which quickly dissipated. Two or so steps more and he would have been met with some burns. "STAY BACK! GET AWAY!" A feminine voice called. Ben was about to call to her, but she seemed to realize he wasn't an alien before he could. "Oh my god. An Officer!" She quickly got to her feet, holding her torch still and sprinted at him. "Thank the Marker! Are you here for the evacuation? Rescue. Of course you are!" She spoke frantically, she was no doubt very nervous. Ben looked quickly around the room, mainly for salvageable supplies. There were charred alien bodies, two of them, in the back of the room where she was as well as a rivet gun. Above that were two sheets of metal, installed hastily by rivets in front of where a vent would be. The woman kept talking. "Well is that what it is?" "W-" Before he could even talk she kept interrupting, changing the language every time but the same single word question was asked. "Rescue?" "I-" "Secours?" "N-" "Rettung?" "If-" "Pelastus?" "Loo-" "Redning?" "STOP!" Ben finally shouted and the woman halted. Though he couldn't see her face through the helmet of her RiG, it was easy to tell she was startled. "I ain't here to rescue you or part of the evac squad or whatever! Just a group of people trying to survive!" The woman took a deep breath. "Well you didn't have to shout...s-sorry...I'm so terrified. There are aliens out there. F-Fucking aliens! You saw them, didn't you?" She points back to the charred corpses in the back of the room. "There is proof there if you don't believe me." "Of course we know about the aliens! Why do you think we're trying to get out of here!" "S-Sorry...I just..." The woman was obviously someone with a very timid disposition. "My name is Jasmine Stiele, I am an avionics technician here. There's a shuttle docked at the end of the hangar, but there's no fuel in it. I-I came here to try and retrieve the fuel line..." She tightens her grip on the torch. "But the aliens were already here. There's something strange about them too... They were all wearing mechanic suits. It's not really hard to conclude that something is changing the people into them. I don't know how or why but...we can talk about this later." She saw the fuel line had already been taken from the coil and she understood why. "You must have already come across the shuttle. Good. You know how to turn on the fuel feed right? I shouldn't have to tell you where it is...you're security after all. Come on."
|
|
|
Post by D on Mar 1, 2011 23:14:25 GMT -5
If the others were paranoid then Kathleen was even more so. Each sound she heard triggered an alarm within her mind and with each alarm, the choices, fight or flight, came up. Naturally, she wanted to run away, but she found herself unable to, for each time she turned, one of the three seemed to be in front of her. Each failed attempt would be accompanied with a string of curses towards the people accompanying her and the marker, but she could not voice it, so she kept these concerns to herself as usual.
She was at the fifth string of curses when they arrived at the second cafeteria. The group hadn’t even been there for five minutes when Ben decided to switch scenes. The window busted open and she was sucked out into space without any warning. The thuds and creeks of the Sprawl seemed to disappear behind the sound of her breathing as she transitioned from the sealed building to space.
The last time she had gone into space was years ago so the lack of gravity wasn’t any thing new to her now, but the suit was. When she activated the boot boosters, the old suit rocked forward and for amount she spun out of control. Without shoulder boosters, she had a harder time to stabilizing herself. It took a while longer, but eventually she managed to equalize the output for the boosters with each other.
Police boy took point, the dogs followed after, and of course, she was behind all of them because of her suit, but they all seemed to find their way to the shuttle safely. However, it seemed that there was another obstacle to get over. Before she knew it, she was stuck with Felicia and the boys were off to get fuel.
Kathleen held the handheld plasma saw in both of her hands and let her left fingers drum against it. Quietly, she looked up at Felicia to see what she was doing. The other woman seemed alert and ready for combat, but Kathleen, on the other hand, was anxious. The things could pop out and hurt her. People could turn into those monsters….or what if she killed someone else because of the marker?
“I…can’t let that happen.” She muttered to herself and bit her lip as the headache returned. “No…I won’t do that.”
|
|
|
Post by B on Mar 2, 2011 20:46:17 GMT -5
When it came time, the jobs were divided up. Men go and get the hose while the women sit back and guard the transport that has no way of moving. Ben grumbled to himself as he lead Farmah to where the hose was. He pointed at it and the man went to work. Ben decided he'd check the tool shed for anything useful. He pushed on the blue holographic button and the door slid open. He jumped back when a stream of flame found its way towards him. "Holy shit!" He shouted, raising the plasma rifle. The woman wielding the flame quickly recognized his career choice and ran towards him. Not before making it clear that Ben might be dealing with another Marker-head. She started talking about rescue. He pushed passed her and began looking around the room, not bothering to say anything quite yet. Lets see, a rivet gun? It seems to have been put to good use. He walked over and bent down and the girl asked him if again if this was a rescue. He put that aside and was about to ask about the Rivet Gun. "Wh-" She immediately asked again if it was Rescue. "I-" She said a word he didn't quite understand or he heard her wrong. "N-" It continued a few more times with her saying something in gibberish while he tried to explain the situation until the point he just got plain annoyed. "STOP!" He snapped. "I ain't here to rescue you or part of the evac squad or whatever! Just a group of people trying to survive!" He shook his head and she said something childish about not having to shout. Oh yeah, cus talking casually was really working. He bent down to pick up the rivet gun again and she started talking about the creatures and under the mask he gritted his teeth. Was she serious? "Of course we know about the aliens! Why do you think we're trying to get out of here!" She apologized then introduced herself. Ben calmed his nerves a bit and looked back at her for a second. At that point Jasmine decided it was best to talk about it later. Ben turned away again as he grabbed a pack of rivets that she must have dropped. She began talking about the fuel line and acted as if security was in charge of refueling ships. Yeah, he knows where the control room is but no, sadly he's not versed in the ways of ship refueling. "Look, Jasmine Stiele, you talk too much and I'm about one more paragraph away from tossing your ass out of an airlock." Ironic considering he literally just threw himself and his companions out of an airlock not long ago. "I know the control room is a floor above us and frankly I don't feel comfortable traveling only with someone who almost just made me well-done. There's more of us at the shuttle. We'll collect them and then we'll head to the control room." Before she could say anything about protecting the ship he shushed her and explained. "The ship'll be fine. No one can steal it and these things aren't smart enough to sabotage it. Now no more talking. Come on and keep up." He started at a job back, following the large hose that Farmah dragged to the ship. Once there the others seemed surprised to see another survivor. "We're stuck with her. Look, lets leave the ship for now and head up to the control room together. If we split up then we're asking for the smaller group to die. The ship can't be stolen by other survivors and I don't think these things can hurt it. And if they could then staying here and guarding it is just saying 'Hey this thing is important'. We're close now. Lets finish this." He turned and off they went for the control room.
---
There were five bodies in front of the control room. The door was red, locked. The five bodies in front were horribly mangled, one was impaled into the wall by a javelin, his head seemed to be removed after the fact. The others were also decapitated at the very least. What made this scene more grim was that they were EDF. There were a few slashers on the way to the room but nothing a group as large as theirs couldn't handle. As they approached near a door their rigs screamed at them and produced a video screen if they had it. "More of you?" A soft voice asked, middle eastern accent. Through the screen she was wearing peculiar looking armor and even more peculiarly had a lab coat over it. "Look around you. He's just a child. Turn around. I wont allow you to hurt him. Turn around. There is nothing here for you."
|
|
|
Post by V on Mar 2, 2011 23:03:55 GMT -5
Though he couldn't see her face, the technician's shoulder's seemed to slouch at each statement as if she were cowering slightly, then nodding her head at each command. "But the---" Seems he was ready for that too, another interruption of her talking. The poor nervous girl. They followed the hose back to the docked shuttle, where the girls and Farmah were waiting. "Who's that?" Farmah spoke up. "Another survivor...with an Engineer RiG...expertise like that could be useful.." Felicia added in herself. Ben began relaying the plan and the marines simply complied; Ben had the reigns now and was quite quick into coming up with a plans. Not to mention he also knew his way around. Farmah picked up on end of the hose and attempted to connect it to the shuttle. Jasmine began to speak as she watched him. "They're both flat connectors. You have to press holes together and then spin cover to seal it. (like attaching an attachment to a garden hose) Kind of like having lesbian sex with the surveillance woman so she doesn't show pictures of you stealing from the supply room to the chie---" She stopped talking, noticing that quite a few eyes were on her, it was enough to get Farmah to turn around have his blue slitted occulars fix on her. Felicia's were like that too. One could only imagine the expressions they had under their helmets and extremely red face under Jasmines. But a moment later, Farmah finished securing the line to the shuttle, and they began their trek up to the control room to give the shuttle it's life line. "I wonder why an empty shuttle would be docked...maybe I should do a quick exterior check for leaks before we depart. If we shock out with a leak, it'll ignite and incinerate us all..." "...you like to listen to yourself talk, don't you?" Felicia snorted, a bit condescendingly. "What? No...no. I'm just nervous. I talk when I'm nervous. Helps me get established better an--" "Forget I asked." They rounded a corner, and the marine's battle stances quickly showed themselves, having eyed the butchered corpses at the door ahead. It was locked of course, but Farmah already had himself facing their rear, while Felicia kept her light focused on the vent. There were dead slashers with these bodies, but they could have easily taken them out without losing a single man. "Fuck, Farmah...this is the missing squad." "Looks like the aliens found them before us...not that is matters now..." The two of the marines prepared for a possible alien ambush, until the monitor blared, stating a big "Not more of you". It rambled on about them not taking him and "he" is only a child. After a moment of processing, the two marines lowered their weapons. The marines probably did fend off the aliens successfully. But the way the woman talked to them, implied she was being defensive. The RiG she wore proved she was either elite or just plain rich; but in any case. She was behind a secured door and there was a squad of dismembered marines all around outside it who had a kill list of individuals. "What are you talking about? We're not here to take or hurt anyone. There is however something we need inside that room. We need to activate the fuel feed to make the shuttle docked below space worthy. " This woman seemed to be like one of those insane people who board themselves into rooms and fire at anyone who tries to enter. The two marines didn't try to show any signs of hostility, but they were extremely cautious. "Look, I don't give a damn about Tiedmann's kill order right now. None of us do!" She put her helmet down to stare sternly at the monitor woman. "Don't believe me?" She pointed right at Kathleen. "I'll upload a holo-projection of her kill order, from Tiedmann himself. We're quite aware of the sum of cash on her head, but we're more interested in safety in numbers than the credits we won't even be able to spend."
|
|
|
Post by D on Mar 5, 2011 13:35:55 GMT -5
Not much changed when the boys came back. There was still no fuel or anything of use. The only thing they brought was new dead weight and Kathleen was anything but amused. Once the Jasmine girl spoke up, Kathleen couldn’t contain her discontent and she was glaring at the other woman. Like the EDF dogs and the police boy, she couldn’t stand how much the woman talked.
Damnit, she wanted to tell Jasmine, you talk too much.
But like always, she kept her thoughts inside, knowing that no one cared for a crazy woman’s ideas.
Eventually, the group began to move again and they found themselves at a locked control room door. Immediately after arrival, all of their RiG holoscreens popped on, and a warning played out before them. Who was-Wait, was that a lab coat? Kathleen frowned and then began to glare. Was she one of those bastards? Was she like… She searched for the man’s name, and when she found it, a headache accompanied it. Was she like Dr. Clint Vladmir?
Kathleen turned away from the others as her helmet came down, and she put a hand on her head. She groaned a bit and waited for the headache to pass. When some pain disappeared, she looked back up at the holoscreen. “You got another one of us crazies in there? Not done with us yet…For the sake of your research right?” She chuckled and thought for a moment that people like her were better off dying. “Heh,” Her helmet came back up and she turned around again to look at the dead EDF dogs. “You feel bad for your shit research?”
|
|
|
Post by B on Mar 6, 2011 3:51:44 GMT -5
The woman behind the monitor was silent for a second as she watched in one of the corner screens the woman that was being flagged as a target pulled down her helmet. The woman looked up the RiG number and nodded. "Kathleen, yes. Now I remember you. You were... Vladmir's patient." Then she spoke up having another "crazy" in there? For the sake of research? "No... I'm protecting him." Then she asked if she felt bad for her "shit research." The woman nodded and merely said. "Yes. That is correct." The helmet slid down to show a tan skinned woman, dark brown hair tied up into a neat bun, how did it fit in the helmet? No one knows! "I don't know if I can trust you. Tiedmann has a hefty price on the target's heads. 3 million credits a head, 4 million for mine as a... Way to patch up one's morals as Tiedmann put it. Are you sure you're not here to kill him?" Ben began to get antsy. "Look, we're not after the targets. I have a son of my own and my goal is to see him again. Right now you're standing between me and my cub and that scenario never ends well, doctor or whatever the fuck you are." The woman began walking and then stopped. "I'm armed." She warned them then turned away from the screen. Soon enough the red "Locked" sign turned into a blue "Open". The door slid open and they got full view of the woman in the door way. Aimed at them was an interesting contraption with what seemed to be a javelin sticking out, that explains the pinned marine. On her back she seemed to have another contraption that looked like it was loaded with saw blades. Finally at her waist was an odd looking gun, if they were familiar with mining or medical they'd know it was a plasma cutter. What an odd arsenal. "Get in here. Quickly." She told them and they did funnel in. The door closed and the woman locked it again. She looked at them nervously before putting the javelin gun down and removing her plasma cutter. "I can't work like this." She said, aiming the gun at the female EDF soldier and walked towards her. "Put out your hand." She asked why and the woman just demanded it again, aiming the gun higher to the woman's head. She complied this time and the woman grabbed her hand. Then she placed the plasma cutter in it and aimed it a boy in the corner. Dark skinned and seemed to be in a child's RiG and civilian armor suit. Probably in case they have to go into space. The woman certainly thought of a lot. In the other corner was an EDF marine. He seemed disarmed and scared. At first it looked like the woman was gonna aim the gun at him but then the direction continued until the three blue lights were aimed at the boy. "Can you do it?" The woman asked seriously. "Look how old he is. Can you do it?" Felicia couldn't. The woman took the cutter from her and then offered it to Ben, then Will, not Kathleen, mental issues were never something you'd offer a gun then ask if they could kill someone. She put the Plasma cutter to her waist under the coat and then looked at them. "I can trust you now. Don't worry, I'm not stupid. The cutter was empty. Has been for some time. Do something about your private, please. You guys are trying to get the pumps working, correct? I've been saving the craft but maybe we can work together." Ben looked at the others then back at the woman. "I don't know. I don't think I can stand dragging a child around with us." "Well you wont kill him but you will leave him to die?" For once, Ben was silenced. The woman looked at the group and decided to introduce herself. "My name is Farah Kholm. My intelligence and bank account will be of great use to you. The drawback is that I don't go without the child." Ben nodded. "Okay, fine. Lets get that pump online then."
|
|
|
Post by V on Mar 8, 2011 0:27:11 GMT -5
Felicia stared at the gun in her hand, watching as the three guide lights fixed on the boy. Was trying to coax them into shooting him necessary? It was already pretty clear they didn't want to kill anyone. But if it meant they could get to the pump controls faster, I suppose it would have to be done. "He's a child, why would Tiedmann even want him dead?" She snorted as she was waved away and Farmah had his turn. He was a good soldier, and wouldn't shoot unless his Captain gave him a reason too. She approached the captured marine and shook her head. "Any idea who that is? Aside her name of course." "Some Earthgov operative. I've never heard of her until today. Bitch has a fucking crazy weapon, though..." He sounded shakey. "She caught us off guard, it fires wicked fast. Didn't bother using my stasis module, wouldn't have helped any..." Felicia nodded, and looked over at the console in the room, then over to Farrah. "I would say why we should even take you, considering you seemed intent on blowing our heads off if any harm should come to the child. . Jasmine was already on it, typing in commands, as an electronic voice began to dictate. "Fuel line 4 activating, alert the ship's crew to make sure the line is fully secure. Fueling will commence shortly." The engineer finally allowed her helmet to go down. She appeared to be actually fairly young, maybe mid=twenties, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Her hair was down past her shoulders, which seemed to get folded up each time her helmet did. "Commencing in thirty seconds." The electronic voice said. "Good. Now the--" Suddenly, Jasmine's RiGlink went up, a woman was standing there, the setting was earth obviously as she was on a beach wearing a bikini. "Hello! My name is Samantha Spunky calling for a miss Jasmine Stiele! We'd like you to know that your model application for Girls done Wild has just been accepted, and you can start as soon as you respond to this message!" At the time, the engineer was slamming her data panel, trying to drown out the message. "WRONG NUMBER WRONG NUMBER! WRONG NUMBER!!" "Please leave your information and an alias you'd prefer to go by when you return to Earth! And please confirm you willingness to engage in filmed intercourse with other wome--" The link was finally terminated, as all the marines looked on at her. Felicia snorted derisively. "Wow, we're unwillingly getting to learn more about your life...no one would expect a woman of such intelligence to stoop to that level!" The private looked right at Farmah. "Damn, are all the women traveling with you like her?"
|
|