|
Berliner screams. Vitelli's pulse rifle stutters and whines. The
things are everywhere. Some of them crawl on all fours. Others seem
to walk upright on their crooked legs. The black shapes move before a
fading fire like demons.
Morrison... where's Morrison? Sarge looks around, wild-eyed, frantic.
Patwardhan watches in horror as the dead alien near her sinks through
the floor, through a hole burned with its own acid blood. Shock is
setting in. Somehow she knows that.
As it is for Booths. He watches numbly as a pair of aliens leaps
toward him and McKenzie. One of them crumbles to pieces, its bony
exoskeleton little defense against explosive-tipped rounds. The
second tumbles to the floor, its legs shot out from under it by the
smartgunner. Somebody's screaming their names. Booths feels himself
being dragged by his armored collar. Human strength, not the
unmistakable vice-grip of the aliens. McKenzie covers the ground
quickly despite his burden, dropping Booths in a heap near the
medtech. Vitelli provides a wall of fire, knocking one of the aliens
to the floor.
Then everything is knocked to the floor. The room erupts in white
light. Chunks of cargo crates are thrown in all directions. A
concussive wave spreads out from the rear ranks of the alien army.
Body parts are flung into the air and land steaming and sizzling on
the deck. A chunk of metal imbeds itself in McKenzie's thigh.
Then the sound gets sucked out of the room. The small fire is blown
out by a rush of air. Ears pop. Breathing requires effort. The stink
of smoke, melting metal, and bloody bodies goes thin. The atmosphere
itself begins to pull the marines toward the site of the explosion.
Somebody's shouting nonsense into their headset, sounding tinny in
the reduced pressure. There's been a hull breech.
But the aliens have retreated. Morrison finds himself on the ground,
his entire left side aching after being dropped from a great height.
"Back to the crew deck!" Moore struggling to get the breath to do it,
shouting over the rush of artificial wind. He pulls himself up, moves
over to Morrison and begins to help him to his feet. "Move it! Now!"
PVT VITELLI posted by Nino 1.19.2000
Vitelli picks himself, and tries to get focused on what is happening
around. He moves, more likes wobbles, towards the door, picking a
body of a fallen marine he doesn't recognize at the moment (GM OOC:
Patwardhan). He then makes his way toward the door.
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 1.20.99
Every sound was dull, as if coming from underwater to reach his water
logged ears. All he knew was that one moment, he was being hugged by
one of those ugly motherfuckers, and then he blew it, and himself,
away.
He saw the muzzle flashes, thought that he could see the rounds whizz
through the air. Shock seemed to have set in for him. The lucid
recognition of his condition startled him, and in some perverse
manner, amused him.
Then he saw Mac, standing over him, Smartgun blazing away, shouting
something as if from far away. Booths thought he made out Stone.
Stone? Was he talking about Brimstone? He couldn't really tell.
The he felt something grab his collar, and drag him along the floor.
His side burned, and he felt warm blood pumping from the wound, slimy
aginst his skin and uniform.
"Lemme uhh." His words felt slurred. "Lemme uhhp." He groaned.
Then Booths felt the ground shake. The floor dug into his side and
back, and he tried to turn himself onto his stomach, tried to get his
hands under him, and found he hardly had the strength to lift his
head from the cold metal floor. Something pulled him back towards the
middle of the room. He looked up, and saw the metal sliver, sticking
out of Mac's leg obscenely.
Groaning, he got his hands under him and pushed up, trying to get his
legs under him as well. He almost fainted from pain.
Somebody screamed something. Crew decks? He held his right hand out
to Mac, hoping for a boost, one he badly needed.
PFC MORRISON posted by Eamon 1.20.2000
As Moore lifts the groggy, yet intact, Morrison to his feet; the
latter pushes the helping hand away, "Get Aishwarya or Booths -- I'm
fine! I'm going, I'm going. I dropped my shit. I can't leave without
my shit."
He scans the area around him swiftly as he shambles away
with the group. He doesn't want to be left behind, yet he wants to
leave with all of his shit intact- if possible.
"Moore, sarge- gimme your light, quick!" Morrison sucks in his breath
as a sharp wave of pain surges over the left side of his body.
If Sgt. Moore gives me his light, I make a more scrutinized
look at my vicinity, the floor, ceiling, all around, taking special
care to locate my detonator leads and flamer. If I find anything- I
snatch it up and take point like ususal. If I find my flamer I use it-
otherwise it's alla bout my pistol and my grenades- both at the
ready.
PVT MCKENZIE posted by Jody 1.21.2000
Mac stares dully at the hunk of metal jutting out of his leg. His
battle shocked mind tries to take in the new data. "What the fuck is
this sticking out of my leg? Is that supposed to go there?" He thinks
to himself. Then the pain sets in. McKenzie screams, he can't help
it. But the pain is part blessing, because it snaps him out of his
confusion, if only temporarily.
He staggers on his feet but manages to stay standing. He sees Booths
reaching out for him, hoping for a hand up. Mac ignores him for a
second, there's something he needs to do first. He reaches down to
the metal fragment and yanks hard and fast, ripping it free. "Ah
Christ" he mumbles, feeling his gorge rising in his throat. He
manages to keep the breakfast down a bit longer; the aliens have
leaked enough nasty shit on the deck already without him adding half
digested marine chow to the mix.
Blood begins to run out of the wound faster now that the metal chunk
has been removed, but Mac had known that would happen. What he needed
over blood was mobility; not enough blood to get oxygen to his body
was bad - not enough oxygen to get to his blood was even worse.
Then he reached out out to his fellow smartgunner and yanked hard,
needing to get the marine to his feet so they could get the hell out
of here.
PFC PATWARDHAN posted by Max 1.21.2000
Patwardhan scrambles towards the door to the crew area as quickly as
she can, hoping to reach it before her skin starts to sweat blood due
to the decompression. She feels a hand grab her and help her along,
and offers no resistance to being practically dragged out of the
cargo bay.
Vitelli and Patwardhan are the first marines through the crew deck
hatch, fighting to keep their footing against the pull of vacuum.
Once through the door, Vitelli's tracker begins to pick up a signal
from the next room. A moment of panic passes when he realizes it must
still be the mobile hanging over the table, the miniature Korea
spinning around the three colonies. He can hardly hear it over the
roar of the wind and Patwardhan's cries of pain, but there's
definitely something moving back in the recreation area.
McKenzie and Booths support each other, limping after Moore, who
grabs them and forcefully shoves them toward the others. The collapse
in a heap, spilling blood and groaning with excruciating agony.
Moore's face is covered in sweat, illuminated by the concentration of
lamps. The power's still out up here, and the air is getting dizzily
thin. Moore's quick head count comes up short. "Morrison! Berliner!
Sound off!"
Morrison scans the floor for his weapons, but his incinerator and
hand detonator are not to be found. (OOC: Morrison has his own
shoulder light, and didn't need to borrow Sarge's.) He's forced to
grab onto a strut to avoid being pulled off his feet. He knows that
the breech must be relatively minor, else none of them would be
alive. It might be small enough to seal itself. If not...
Something slides past him on the floor, clacking across the seams in
the deck. He reaches down and snatches up a pulse rifle. The effort
causes him to go to his knees, and stars dance in his field of vision.
Moore heads out in a low crouch, working to keep his center of
gravity. He grabs Morrison, and the two of them struggle back to the
crew hatch. Moore and Vitelli push the hatch closed and seal it with
a lever. The sound of the hissing air on the other side fades. The
wounded marines lay panting and groaning on the deck. Moore grabs for
Doc's medcase, thinks better of it. "Vitelli, help me get everybody
to sick bay."
He rapid-fires questions he can't hope to get answers to. "Where's
Berliner? Did anybody see what happened to Brimstone? And what the
fuck were those things? Jesus Christ." He pulls Booths to his feet
and hauls him into the next room.
PFC PATWARDHAN posted by Max 1.22.2000
Aishwarya digs into her medkit and pulls out some smacktabs. She
slaps one of the dermal patch painkillers onto her neck, just over
the large artery there, and weakly hands the rest to Vitelli and
instructs him to give one each to Booths and McKenzie.
"Dammit," she sighs as the comforting medicated numbness begins to
wash over her body. "I can't do much with one hand, so I'll just have
to talk you through it, Vitelli. You're going to be my nurse."
"First take care of Booths. Patch up his side so he doesn't loose
more blood. Morrison, if you would help McKenzie keep pressure on his
leg, until we can get it bandaged up. Sergeant, can you find any kind
of portable heater or environmental control nearby? It would really
suck if we got patched up only to die from hypothermia. See what
other med supplies are around too."
"Me?" she seems to reply to an unanswered question, "I'm just going
to lay here and try to keep concious and keep Vitelli from screwing
up the dressings." As best she can, Patwardhan directs the others in
treating their various wounds, having the more mobile members dig
around for supplies and dressing the wounds. She clumsily uses her
left hand and her teeth to wrap up her wounded wrist, requiring
assistance only when needing to cut and tie off the bandage.
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 1.22.2000
His side was slick with blood, and his fatigues were soaked with his
blood, right down his leg, and he had a splitting head ache.
Then the sarge pulled him up. He stifled the scream of pain that
built up in his throat and instead let out a supressed groan.
"Easy," his voice a whisper, his throat parched. His hands reached up
to grasp Moore for support. They were raw, pus and blood mixing in
the acid burns.
"The fuckers took Stone. The Lt., Sabo and Duarte are also gone."
Booths coughed. Spittle and blood ran down his chin. "Leon replayed
an audio of the Lt." Booths shuddered in memory of that horrific
scream. "It didn't sound pretty." He seemed to gather himself for a
moment then continued.
"Stone and me were makin' a run to warn you, when THEY dropped from
the fucking ceiling." His face went a little pale, and then his legs
collapsed under him. He sat down hard, grunting in pain.
Then, against all expectations, he gave a crazy little grin."Can I
get some R&R now?"
The wild look in his eyes gave rise to question whether or not Booths
had dropped of the deep end and, deciding that it wasn't exciting
enough, had gone somewhere much, much worse.
PFC MORRISON posted by Eamon 1.23.2000
Morrison immediatly starts repairs on his pulse rifle upon reaching
the med bay. Also he drops his three useless flamer
canisters. "Seargent, I suggest we get to the APC as fast as
possible. Patch up Booths and Aishwarya and get there FAST. Some
heavy duty pain killers would be nice if anybody's got some. Ow. My
fucking shoulder."
PVT VITELLI posted by Nino 1.24.2000
Vitelli, after closing the hatch, leaned against the wall. His
breathing was short and quick. Vitelli put his hands on his knees and
knelt down to breath. Suddenly he started to heave and then he ran
into the corner and Vitelli threw-up. His last meal spilling all over
floor.
"Damn. I didn't know I ate that," Vitelli said as he stared at his
vomit. He wiped his mouth clean and then walked up to Moore.
"I feel a lot better now. Lets get these boys and girls into sickbay.
Once in sickbay I think I should try to get the power back on? Or do
you want me to stay with you and keep watch," Vitelli asked as he
carried Patwardhan into the next room. He keeps looking around him,
waiting for an answer from Moore.
|
