The Stars Await - Mists of Europa

[MWBailey]

"Don't worry 'bout me closin' the hatch, just make sure you're in when I do," Bailey answered. Sorry to be a boor, Miss lou, but we need to go ahead and git squared away 'n move out --" his words were underscored by a riflebullet that caromed off of the armor and around the rock enclosure until its momentum was spent. Bailey stuck the derringer into the message port again, but could not fire without risking frying the captain on the spot.

"Miss Lou? Let's go," he called, as he popped the helmet hatch...

[Stella Gaslight]

Lou scrambled up the suit like a monkey. And pointed at a grate near the middle of the room.  "That what I need to work with.  When I cut off the sensor the lights are going to go down excep for the emrgeny ones while the system waits for backup.  So we will we out in the open, in the dark and now the gray things have guns so we are in for one hell of a fight."

[MWBailey]

Bailey directed teh walker ove rto stand under the grate. "Okaqy, let's get to it," he said, popping the hatch open. "Stand in the hatch opening, that'll be a lot safer. There's a little bit of a platform there, see? It'l be a lot safer. Lemme know if you need to get higher up, this thing can go up another two feet if necessary..."

[Cpt Wallace]

A gun shot rang out and he twisted onto his right foot falling to his knee he snarled as he stood levelled the aether lance and fired in one fluid motion a scream satisfied him enough that there would be no more shots from that direction, he looked down at his chest sneering at the bullet hot in his coat he dug his fingers into the hole and pulled the bullet round out tossing it aside before drawing his longest blade and reversing the grip he checked his aim and fired again letting out a short beam of energy and punching a neat hole in the throat of a man in goggles.

"This is my favourite coat, do you have any idea how much it's gonna cost to get this bleeding hole repaired!"

The fact that the hole wasn't bleeding hadn't escaped him and for that he was truly thankful.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Little Higher." Lou called out prying the cover box open. All she had to do after that was cut a few wires. "Ok the lights are doing down in 5...4...3...2..1"  She cut the wire and the light went down but then here was a strange pattering sounded like rain then her left arm went oddly numb she turned on her head lamp and found a gray thing stuck to her arm and more were falling from the ceiling vent.  "Shit one of them is stuck on me!" She yelped trying to bash it off her arm on the side of the walker.

[MWBailey]

Bailey turned on the walker's  floodlights and aimed them straight up, then got out the derringe r and began snapping off shots at the little squidlets, turning most of the ones not attached to Lou to ash, and then got out his wick lighter and got a tallish flame going, and proceeded to singe the ones attached to Lou, remembering that the tactic had worked on the leeches that thrived in the Martian canals. before long, most of the ones attacking Lou directly had been removedand blasted to flinders - but the little ray derringer couldn't last forever, and Bailey's pragmatic side was about to win over his nurturing, romantically-inclined side, and make him toss her out of the hatch before they overran the walker. "Miss Lou, you got ta keep fightin' 'em, 'ats the only way you'll get free," he said, urgently. He began trying to tear the last one away from her by sheer muscular force. "beggin... yer --aggh!-- pardonm miss Lou, but -nnnngghh! I got ta reach grab this li'l begger right in ...'ere..." This is ridiculous, he thought. just as soon's we get one side free, th' t'other latches on agin!

[steamcowboy92]

Turning his shotgun on the advancing figures, Talon let loose with both barrels, fire and lead exploding from the cavernous maw of the 8 guage. The sawed off barrel meant the .38 caliber buckshot had a fairly open pattern and anything caught in the blast went down like it had been godsmacked.

 Calmly reloading the big gun, Talon began to sing, loud and strong, his deep baritone carrying across the cavern.

 "Tha minstrel boy tah tha whar is gone, in tha ranks of death you''ll find him!" His fathers sward he hath girded on, and his whild harp is slung behind him

bullets whizzed by like pissed off hornets, whining with a loud squeal as they ricochet off the rock around him, a hammer blow caught him high in the chest and spun him like a top driving him to his knees

[Alexis Voltaire]

When the lights went out the gray-eyed men chattered a loud cry that sounded hopeful, perhaps thinking that one of their number had succeeded in cutting a power line or shutting down the generator again.

Mariah had only half heard Lou's warning, and she found herself suddenly glad that she hadn't turned off the small lamp on the strap at her forehead, because she would never have been able to turn it back on in time. She aimed the raygun at the man coming toward her in the dusty beam of the lamp, at the same time seeing another rush her out of the corner of her eye, the long gleam of a saber in his hand.

She sidestepped and managed to avoid the stroke of the blade, but the man right in front of her swinging a pick was a more immediate concern. She was able to send the first man reeling back with a shot from the disintigrator that went clean through his skull, but the second scored a slashing stroke low across her ribs. It couldn't have caused any serious damage at that angle but it hurt like hell, and she turned on the man and pulled the trigger without really aiming, as close as she was she didn't have to. The shot went through his right shoulder, and she grabbed at the saber hilt with her free hand as the blade swung wide and pulling it from the man's loosening grip. Before he could recover she brought it back with a swift stroke across his throat as he staggered back against the wall.

"Get back to the elevator, quick as you can!" She called to the others,  her saber moving to slash at the gray blur of an airborne squid as she made her way back along the corridor. "Leave the rest to the gas!"

She saw Talon on his knees, and aimed a shot with the disintigrator at a the goggled man not far away with a pistol pointed at Talon's head. The beam sent the man reeling back against the wall but it was fainter than before, and she cursed when she saw an bright amber warning light on the side of the raygun. She stuck the raygun in her belt, and grabbed the back of Talon's shirt to try and haul him to his feet. "Come on, we've got to go!"

[steamcowboy92]

With Mariahs help he Struggled back to his feet, and opened his vest and glared at the large bulge in the metal plates sewn into the chest. Shaking his head, he stumbled after her, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "definately cracked" he thought as he made his way back, covering their retreat with the Greener

[MWBailey]

Bailey had nearly had enough, but a rangy, wiry part of him wouldn't leave Lou for the gray devils. Something had to be done about the one that had latched on to her, however, and he came to a desperate decision. "Ah'm powerful sorry about this, Miss Lou," he said. "I hope you'll have the heart to forgive me." He pulled the Walker from its holster and reversed his grip, raising the butt like a club, which was what it was going to have to be used for. "I have to knock you out so the thang'll let go. On three: ONE--"

THOOMP!

He knocked her out like a light, much sooner than he'd said, so that she wouldn't be able to beg off. He ripped the gray mass of the moonsquid free, tossed it into midair and blasted it with the derringer, which gave an odd screech as it discharged and carbonized the gray nasty in mid-fall. Then, as a sudden fresh wave of the little bastards surged up into the glare of the suit's floodlights, he dropped into the cockpit and yanked Lou down after him, snapping the hatch shut, and blasted away the three gray squidlets that had gotten in, then laid Lou's unconscious form across his lap, thrust his limbs into their armatures, and hightailed it for the elevator. "I'll let you fry me on a giant breadboard, or singe me in the firebox, Miss Lou, just don't shut me out, 'r die afore I kin git you to the doc and safety," he pleaded, half under his breath...

[steamcowboy92]

As they ran, the pain snapped something inside him and a pink mist clouded Talon's vision. Somewhere in the back of his mind a door burst open and the monster inside came roaring to the front, surging into control of his conscious. The pain from his ribs dissapeared, and he let rip with an earsplitting howl as he slung the greener and drew his handguns. The dragon was in control now and it wanted blood.

Laughing insanely, he fired his guns into the mass behind them as he walked backwards towards the elevator. His injuries were forgot in the massive surge of adrenaline that coursed through his system, and the disturbing, insane laughter that bubbled out of his chest sounded like someone had opened the floodgates to hell and all semblances of humanity had been driven out by the daemons that issued forth. The alien pursuit fell apart under the withering fire and he stepped onto the elevator a beat behind Bailey.

[Stella Gaslight]

It was like the world blinked out and in its place a giant silver machine sprung up.  Lou watched as it rose up higher and higher until she looked like nothing more than a speck beside it.  Being the mech head she was Lou walked closer trying to figure out what it did when the pipes bent and tried to enfold her.  Looking back she could see countless others inside it some living and fearful and others long dead.  Lou screamed and fought but the pipes were hot and stuck to her when she touched them.  Out in the real world the spots from the squid suckers were bright red and veined with gray.  Lou had a lot of the gray's venom in her blood stream but she was fighting it as best she could.  Lou was feverish and if she didn't get the venom out within a few hours she would become like the hosts.  Lou woke with a groan everything hurt.  "Get us to the elevator quick Bailey boy.  We have to take down these bastards."  She croaked.

[MWBailey]

"Hang in there, Miss Lou. We're gettin' you to the doc. Let 'im git you fixed up afore you go runnin back to th' battle." He thumbed the loudhailer button, and said urgently, "Cap'n, we need th' doc, Lou's got bites all over'er, an' they look like crater-rattler bites gone bad."

[Alexis Voltaire]

"I'll get him," Mariah said as she headed into the elevator. "Dr. Fitch!" She called, not seeing him when she entered, though she knew he'd come down with them earlier.

Fitch had been sitting on one of the crates near the back staying behind cover, after all he'd be no help if he got hit himself, and when Mariah had called for him he grabbed his bag and got up, guessing either she or one of her crew was wounded.

"No, not me," Mariah said hurriedly as she moved to the control pedestal. "Lou's been bitten by these squid things. Bailey says they're poisoned. Is there anything you can do for it?"

"Let me look..." Fitch said as Bailey brought Lou in. "... Not a great deal until we can get back to the ship, I'm afraid. I trust we're headed back up there now?"

"We still have one more sensor to take out, one level up. Shouldn't take long." Mariah replied, hoping she was right. She glanced up for a moment to make absolutely sure everyone was on before she pushed the elevator control lever up hard into the ascent position. The cables creaked as the platform rose, quite a bit slower now as the motor was now having to work against gravity and the weight of the huge structure instead of simply controlling the fall.

"Bailey, can you take out the next one if it's up on the ceiling too?" Mariah said, hitting the button to activate the automatic stop when they reached the third level. "I know they wanted this done without a lot of damage but I don't think we have a choice now..."

[steamcowboy92]

Reloading his revolvers, Talon looked over at Lou, a brief look of concern flashed across his face to quickly be replaced by the mask of insanity. "Mariah, Me and the boys kin probably handle whatevers on the next level, you ought take missy thar, and doc tah tha ship, Lou aint gotta whole lotta time. yeh kin come back down and get us afta you take care of that"

[Stella Gaslight]

Something was wrong with her eyes she was seeing Bailey as a block of color.  It took her a moment to find her voice.  "The green one. cut the green one before it touches the inner box. Then run fast." Lou shivered and tried to curl in to a ball. "Why is it so cold?" 

[Alexis Voltaire]

"Good idea... Alright, here you go." Mariah said, as the elevator had finally creaked its way up to the third level opening and come to a stop. "I'll be back for you as soon as I get these two up to the top."

She waited for the others to get off onto the level, and then reset the elevator controls to the ground level and pushed the lever up to ascent again. "Hold on Lou, I'll get you up to the ship as fast as I can."

[MWBailey]

Bailey sat in the walker as the platform descended again, pulling on his fighting gauntlets and tying the shemagh around his head Mars-style on top of his cap. He put the goggles on top of the gap between hood and veil, andbuttoned up everything that could be buttoned, then buckled the big Colt on over the coat and put the derringer raygun into the coat's waist pocket on the right side. He looked at it; there was, he now noticed, a dial so tiny that he had mistaken it earlier for a barrel hinge screw, and a sliding switch which apparently both turned the little terror on and off, and set the intensity of the beam. There did not seem to be a beam-diameter control. The little gauge's indicator stylus was at about the midway point in it's rule's radius, so he figured it had about half a charge left.

"Talon, Wallace, Heinrich,if on eof us gits bit, grab yer gun and shoot it several times, then slap the hot barrel to th' bite, or shove a lit cee-gar onto the wound. That works fer crater rattlers, it oughta work fer the squids. I'll do the same fer you others."

[Cpt Wallace]

"If yer not using the raygun Talon I'll take it back would make more use being wielded instead of just slung over a shoulder."

He checked the Lance and frowned the power indicator was dropping slowly, he checked the weight of the sword in his hand as he buttoned up his coat.

[Stella Gaslight]

There were odd sounds now like whispers telling her things like to give in or attack her friends.  "No I won't.  Go  away leave me alone."  Lou shook trying to fight it off.

[Alexis Voltaire]

The elevator finally reached the ground level and creaked to a halt, and between them Fitch and Mariah managed to carry Lou to the ship, getting help from Wallace's assistants when they got there.

"Hang in there Lou, we're back on the Sabertooth now, we'll get you fixed up..." Mariah said, taking Lou's hand as she walked beside the stretcher Jameson and Morrison carried. "I should get back..." Mariah started to say when they reached the sickbay, but Fitch stopped her.

"What's this? Did you get bitten?" He said, taking her wrapped hand, and frowning when she told him she had. "You need to stay here. I've never seen venom quite like this before, I don't think anyone has. But if it's anything like the crater rattlers Bailey mentioned, it needs to be taken care of fast... Send someone else down."

Mariah wasn't entirely happy about it but she couldn't argue with Fitch's reasoning, and she told Jameson and Morrison to get to the elevator as quick as they could and take it down to the third level to pick up the others.

"Jemima, I could use your help," Fitch said, starting to work on Lou. "I need you to start heating some water, and look after the captain, she'd got a nasty cut on her side."

"It's not as bad as it looks, just needs a few stitches." Mariah said, wincing a little as she put pressure on it with a clean bandage, sitting down on one of the bunks and looking worryingly to Lou.

---

Most of the gray things on the third level had hidden away in dark corners when the light had come on, scattered and mindless in the blinding brightness. But others, the leaders who were now oddly diminished and absent, had whispered fleeting thoughts to them, telling them how to protect thier eyes from the light so they could see again. Not many had been able to find goggles by the time the warm things, the outsiders like the hosts they now inhabited, had reached the level. Bu those who could see clearly in the light quickly came with what weapons they could find, hoping to stop these cursed warm things so they could keep the dark for themselves...

[Cpt Wallace]

He leapt forward to meet the attackers his blade held in a reverse grip gutted first man with enough force it almost tore him in two but more importantly sent a spray of blood and gore showering over the men behind as he tumbled to the ground, these men blinded by the light and now by the warm blood clawed at their faces trying to clear their vision.

"Talon ole boy would you oblige with that shotgun of yours?"

He parried a stone axe as it came down towards him twisting his blade in his grip he reversed his hold to a forward grip and drove the point through the man's skull, with a twist he pulled it free and shot the next man putting a neat hole right through his throat he collapsed gasping painfully as he struggled to breath, his motor functions utterly destroyed along with his spine, a man behind him fell back too his jaw melted away by the ray gun's blast.

He tucked the raygun away and drew a second blade blocking a sharpened pole and cut his arms from him, something launched itself from the shadows at his landing on his chest he dropped his off hand blade and pulled it off by one of the tenticles he swung it round slamming it onto the floor his foot stamped down hard on it.

"If that bugger can bite through my boot I'm in trouble."

He drew a short blade from his belt noting it was his last and flicked it into the squid as he moved his foot just to be sure.

"Where are these sensors?"

[MWBailey]

"Damn shufflin' sneaks!" Bailey muttered, forgetting that he had left the loudhailer's mic keyed. he looked around, turning th esuit so its brightest lamps shone around the huge room, but he was unable to see the grate or anything that looked like a junction boxon th eceiling's surface. "Con-sarn it!" he fumed. Where in tarnation is it? on a whim, he switched to the bluish-green glowbulbs mounted in theuir flush, glassed-overfixtures. Normally used for short-range, covert illumination, they shone out like monochromatic beacons in the sublunar gloom, adn the grating was finally revealed by the single-hue illumination, but high up on the far wall, next to the ceiling, rather than in the actual ceiling itself.

Unfortunately, the blue-green glow also revealed the seven or eight score begoggled thralls, all arranged in a semicircular front before them, with Wallace already in the fray.

--Right in front of the grating. There was no room for an end run around the edges. It looked as if a firefight-cum-slugfest was the only option...

[Stella Gaslight]

Everything was too hot and the light burned her eyes.  Lou wanted to hit the light as it got closer.  Stop the brightness and the heat that hurt so much but she stopped herself.  They were trying to help her.  Shakeing she pulled up her sleves.  The bites were rased and the color of bad bruses vains of gray connected them.  "Please, please."  It was the only word she could find at the moment.

[MWBailey]

"Well, there ain't nothin' for it, boys. HAVE AT 'EM!" Bailey roard, and extended the blade and waded in after Wallace, laying aboutr with the suit cutlass, the razor-sharp serrations slashing through the thralls, ldeaving a trail of gore and dismembered bodies as he made the walker plow through to the far wall. he pushed the turret up almost to the ceiling, and starpped on the respirator mouthpiece, makingb sure to leve the intake only slightly open. The same result greeted him as had Lou; once the grate was off and the wires connected, the little squidlets poured out of the opening.

He was ready this time, however, and sprayed down the top and frontg of the walker with the energy from the derringer, splattering and carbonizing all of teh atrocious things within reach of the beam. One did get a purchase on his ankle, though, and chomped down hard. he couldn't tell, yet, whether it had bitten through, but the squeeze was noticeable, and he shot the thing off of his ankle with the last of the derringer's charge, and managed to burn his ankle as well, which made him scream in pain and frustrration. He clamberd painfully back inside the walker, and screamed out over the loudhailer, "That's it, boys! finish yer fights an' let's skee-daddle!" as he backed away from the wall, and began to slash his way back through the enemy...