Carson winced as his intercom registered feedback. He quickly turned it down and put it in the pocket of his lab coat, trying to protect it from the steady streams of water coming from the ceiling. "Even if we could get in touch with everyone," Carson said to Holly, "we'd have to get past the lockdown somehow. It takes two command codes." He thought of something, and pulled his intercom back out. Turning it to the right channel, he said, "Alanna, everything ok with you? Have the aliens made it to the Portal?"

The Bhorki suddenly fell back, and it took a moment for Thanfield to realize that throwing up his handgun had inadvertently resulted in the barrel expertly cracking his enemy over the thick skull. It'd been an accident... no, no, of course he'd done that on purpose... Still, he wasn't one to complain. Ever the opportunist, he reversed his move and brought his handgun to bear, blasting off a round that clipped his adversary full in the torso. He was about to wade in for the killing stroke when he heard a curious sound a few feet off.

Was Corporal Winter, his superior and by far more intelligent than himself by all rights, laughing? Figures. This wretched arm of this wretched galaxy was rapidly spiraling from somewhat interesting to downright insane.

The next instant he found out the hard way that Bhorki were not only vicious little lions, but opportunists as well. Taking full advantage of his hesitation, the daunting alien sprang once again, this time leveling a tripod that faintly resembled a rifle...

Thanfield dove for cover just as three jets of searing acid erupted from all three barrels of the rifle. One passed a bare millimeter by his face, singing his cheek. He regained his feet and launched into a dart to the side as another barrage of acid assailed him. Still moving, he reached into his backpack and extracted a stun grenade, brandishing it in full view.

The outcome was all but predictable. The Bhorki paused in its forward offense, shutting its bulbous eyes against the impending light flare.

Except there was no impending light flare.

Thanfield hadn't the time to repocket his grenade, so he went ahead and brought his handgun right back up. One plasma burst through the Bhorki's chest, the heat eating through tissue and organs. It [s]ambled[/s] hopped forward one more step before dropping cold on its face.

Breathing hard, he glanced over at Winter and couldn't deny his grudging respect - the man had dispatched two aliens to his one, after all. "The Puma," he breathed, breaking into a jog for the overturned vehicle.

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((Ummm... Would someone volentier to find Michele?))

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You may (or may not) know me elsewhere as Elfpen

((I'll give it a try! lol))

Not receiving a message from Alanna, Carson switched his intercom to Michele's channel. A horrible crackling and squealing sound issued from the speaker, and he switched it off. <i>She was in the mess hall last.</i> he remembered.
"I'm going to find Michele." Carson said to Holly. "Try to get to a lower level- the aliens probably haven't been able to get down there yet." He ran down the hall without checking to see what Holly was doing, towards the mess hall.

Holly's first reaction was to slightly resent Carson's abrupt orders and his dash down the hall - her youth compared to their rather more established seniority gave her very little pause - but shrugged and waded through the diminishing water levels, down a staircase turned to a mini set of waterfalls, and increasingly closer to the Portal room.

The aliens had not yet penetrated quite this far, but Holly had no doubt that they would, and the thought of destroying the files still nagged at her. She flicked open her wristwatch computer, and one glance told her proximity would be vital in order to hack into these particular files. So she trudged further down the hallway, quickening her pace - over her dead body would aliens get those files.

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(akk, sorry guys for not posting. exams have been eating my soul - i've slept 20 hours total in the past six days. *dives in* btw, 'ops' refers to the base operations center, kind of like the control room or place where the day-to-day decisions get made)

"Hey, Alanna, before you lock it up, take a look at this." Daniel Yamato, one of the techies, was leaning over a screen sectioned into a multi-view security display. Alanna didn't bother to ask how he'd gotten into the system.

It was the images that bothered her. Mass chaos, water, mutilated - well, everything. "What on earth is ..." she bit off the sentence as something brown, chitinous, and entirely menacing loomed on one of the views. "Holy, holy waffles."

She was, she finally realized, looking at a war zone. And she didn't need to guess who the enemy was. Their objective? Well, how many multi-billion credit projects were on this station?

And she and the techies were looking like the last line of defense. Alanna had signed on to play with technology, not fight B-movie aliens. However ... desperate times, desperate measures.

"Daniel. There's an armory locker down the hall. We're going to need it. The rest of you - we're going to have to protect the Portal. I don't know what our spidery friends want with it, but they're not going to get it." The tech had handgun training, at least. And a black belt in karate, for what it was worth against alien anatomy.

"Let's go." He and Alanna set off down the hall at a run, while the techies started cushioning the portal systems against unexpected input. Not that the delicate equipment would survive long in any firefight.

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Still laughing, Winter ran towards the Puma, since Thanfield had been nice enough to remind him that they needed to get there. The thought of him laughing after having just survived a fight with members of an alien race was funny enough that he laughed harder. When they jogged up to the vehicle, he leaned against it for a moment, trying to stop laughing--his sides were starting to hurt.

Of course, given the fact that he was trying to not smile, and yet was still laughing, the end result was a decidedly evil sounding cackle.

"Let--let's get the supplies and hurry back," he wheezed, his chest heaving as he struggled half-heartedly to stop laughing. It was funny, after all. Very funny, in fact. And he wasn't smiling, so what harm could come from it? He opened the crate with the plasma grenades and filled his pockets, still laughing.

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They're laughing by the Puma.

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Thanfield remained tuned out the first few minutes, busy as he was stuffing his pack with plasma grenades. Scanning the interior of the overturned Puma, he spotted a heavy flashlight that'd work well against the insectoid aliens' bulbous eyes. He also snatched a few innovated Kevlar vests. He pulled one over his gray combat fatigues and turned to toss another to Winter.

What the bloody was wrong with that guy?

"Corporal," he said solemnly, letting his hands drop to his sides. "Look at me. I want to tell you something."

Winter looked just in time to see a balled up fist headed straight for his face.

"We're ready," Thanfield said, slinging his pack over his shoulder and resuming his jog back to the station as though nothing had happened. He came away wringing his bruised knuckles - he'd never known a guy's face could be quite so hard.

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Michele looked up at the cieling through blurry-eyes, water rushing all around her. She sat there for a moment, following a stream of water, until she felt a strange, tickling feeling rising up her neck and ecasing her lips and nose. She couldn't breath. Grabbing the edge of a table she pulled herself up, and found that she could barely wrap her fingers around the thick table top. Now in a panic, she desperately tried to lift herself up. Then, she noticed that there was something wrapped around her ankle. Reaching down, she toched a thick wire. She stiffened when she felt a shock run through her. Feeling a burning ich in the back of her throat, she brought up all her courage and yanked the wire off her ankle and brought herself above water, half screaming, half gasping for air. As the shock subsided, she realized that she was still very weak, and couldn't see straight. Then she heard a low growl.

This was so not good.

Holding on to the table silently, she hoped that possibly someone would find her.

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You may (or may not) know me elsewhere as Elfpen

Carson ran into the mess hall, quickly scanning the area. He didn't see Michele. "Where's Deriecho?" he asked a man standing nearby.
"She went that way, towards the power grid."
Carson turned and headed in the direction, shouting his thanks to the man. As he neared the grid, he saw Michele gripping a table. His lab coat tangled around his feet as he waded through the water, and he impatiently took it off. "Michele!" He reached the table and grabbed her arm. "You ok? We need to get out of here."

(errmmm... SG? water is highly conductive. If Michele had a live wire wrapped around her ankle and submerged in water, she's dead/fried. And so is anything else touching that water.)

A sharp sprint took Alanna and the techie to the armory locker. Punching in her code, she waited for it to pop open. It didn't. "C'mon, c'mon," the engineer muttered, entering her code again. The right one, this time.

The heavy door opened a crack and she pulled it open. A fair amount of handguns, a few autorifles, and adequate ammo clips were mounted on a removable racks, along with some old surplus army knives. Tucking a knife into her boot, Alanna signaled to Daniel, and they lifted the rack onto their shoulders and hustled back down the hall. So far so good. The invaders hadn't penetrated into the heart of the station yet.

Alanna's mind was already spinning with possibilities. From the looks of things, it was only a matter of time before the - whatever they were - would find a way of getting in. If the humans were lucky, they would be able to overwhelm the aliens. Otherwise, they would either end up dead or captured.

Alanna had no intention of dying - and she could probably avoid it by mentioning that she was one of the select few humans and Greys who could actually maintain and operate the Portal. Theoretical knowledge was one thing, but she had both that and experience. Not that she planned to sell out, but every system had its weakness, and she would like to remain alive long enough to find the aliens' and exploit it.

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

((Yesyesyesyesyes I know.......... GAH! You wouldn't know how tired I was at the time I typed that/those... *facedesk* I really need to learn how to keep common sense when I get tired. I guess you want me to do something completely different?))

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You may (or may not) know me elsewhere as Elfpen

Winter shook his head, blinking several times to clear his thoughts. Had Thanfield just punched him? All he'd been doing was laughing. Still, the man probably had a reason for it. Winter didn't even have to think about not smiling--his expression was now decidedly confused as he jogged after the Private.

The alien pod was still hovering over the crater when they approached, but it seemed empty--there was no movement, at least. To be sure, Winter lobbed a grenade into it and watched in satifsaction as it vanished in a fireball. Maybe there had been someone inside of it who was smiling--it would make sense, since he had just had success while not glaring.

"Thanfield, step up the pace," he said, speeding up a little himself. In the bulky environmental suits, they couldn't run nearly as fast as they normally could, but they made good time.

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They burst into the station simultaneously, guns leveled. Thanfield rapidly assessed the situation. Sergeant Cortez was scrambling about the crates in mortal fear of his life. Oh yeah, there was a hulking alien stalking after him, pounding at him with its remaining arm.

He aimed and fired off a round just as the Bhorki came shuffling around the corner. The shot sizzled clean through the creature's chest, leaving a dainty little hole that oozed blue. The alien stared at its by all appearances mortal wound as if puzzled.

And it kept coming.

In utmost surprise Thanfield backpedaled, knocking over a crate in his haste.

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Holly ducked round a corner and slipped into the room enclosing the Portal, intending to do her utmost to get rid of those files. After a spilt second of hesitation she closed and locked the door behind her - a dead end if the aliens were to discover the room, but it should buy her time. Her wristwatch computer beeped insistantly.

After a few moments of tapping at the miniature holographic keyboard in silence Holly smiled grimly. There were half of the Portal files gone. Now for the other half.

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