The Line in the Stars (IC) [PG/14]

[Lushin]

Some corridor
Doc came along with a pack on his back. He lsitened on the orders the human was handing out. once she said to head out, he did so. He gave her a half awake look as she spoke to him. As she finished and handed him the device he slipped it into his pocket and headed out. Once Miyuki, Jack and himself where walking down the corridor a bell could be heard in the corridor ahead of him. Miyuki raised her rifle, read to shoot. Doc quickly move to have her lower her rifle.
"Hang on I know that bell" Doc whispered to Miyuki. Doc looked down the corridor listening to the bell as it got closer. A harbringer came around a corner and looked dead at them. Doc smiled and got on one knee.
"Hey there Zuki how you doing buddy?" Doc was speaking to the harbinger as a person would to ther pet. The harbinger growled abit at Doc.
"Hey now there is no need for that, you know who I am" Doc was trying to sound as friendly as he could but the harbinger kept growling at him. It started to charge at Doc, a blast of fire took the harbringer down.
"Damnit he was my favorite" Doc said as he twirled his pistol and put it back into his holster. The three continued on trying to find this Captain Whitehaven guy.
"Do we have any info on this guy? Like what he looks like and where he is?" Doc asked the other two.

[SquirrelWizard]

Understanding the full IMPACT of the situation.

The initial thrust of the escape pod tapered off as Robert glanced at the controls in front of him; everything checked out. Behind him he heard Spatz and Mina undoing their restraints behind him. "Alright, everything looks green, how are you guys holding out?" Robert got up from his chair and saw his companions peering out of the rear porthole.

The initial thrust of the escape pod had thrown them far enough from the Delphi so that they could see the damage on the exterior. The ship's armor was in tatters, with gaping holes, gutting her side, what armor was there was horribly pocked and scared from enemy fire. All three watched as the entire ship shuddered, then started to fracture along the seams with a dull roar. Then, without warning, the ship was torn apart in a storm of metal and fire as the containment on the reactor room gave out. As quickly as it had occurred the explosion dissipated, leaving only an expanding cloud of debris in its wake.

"Good gods..." Mina breathed and stared at the void that had been their home for the past couple of years. Spatz merely shoot his head leaving Mina and Robert at the window as he sat back down in his harness, defeated. Robert said a small silent prayer for those who had been on the ship when it went up. Landers had been correct, most of the force of the explosion had been wasted on the containment, the debris cloud wasn't expanding faster than the initial thrust of the pods. Anybody who had launched before the explosion was safe.

"That's it, we're sitting ducks." Spatz's words seemed to lash across Mina like a whip causing her to shudder with rage. She violently turned on Spatz, "You... bastard! If you felt that way you should have stayed on the damn ship!"

Robert tried to pull them apart and got an elbow to the face for his troubles, "Ow, break it up! I know it looks bad but right now fighting each other will only make it worse." he dragged Mina off of Spatz and eased her down back into her harness. He hesitated a glance back at Spatz and saw that apart from a bloody nose he seemed resigned to brooding in his seat. "Mina," he sat down in the seat next to hers, "Everybody here is hurting, and we all have different ways of showing it, but he is wrong. We're going to make it out of this alright, even if I have to drag both of you along for the trip."

Mina looked up and their eyes met and Robert braced for a sharp retort, instead Mina sighed, "how can you say that?" The tone of her voice was much softer than expected. It was as if the current events up till this point had wrung her out, and left her scared and unsure of what would happen next; a side Robert had never seen.

"It is like Landers said, 'throw him into a situation like this, and the odds always seem to improve,'" Robert tried to grin, "I've been in hairier situations than this," which to Robert was a lie, he had been stranded in space only once, and it was for fifteen minutes not the prolonged period that they were looking at, "Just think, after all this is done we can hit a bar and honor those who didn't make it properly. I'll pay for the drinks, and you can make all the special forces guys cry, just like you did on Anitora IV." this elicited a small smirk from her, "Just hang in there alright?" she just nodded slightly in acknowledgment.

Robert stepped over to the other side of the pod to the brooding rat, "Spatz," the rat just grunted, "Listen, we're in a bind. And right now I need to know that you're with us, we need all the help we can get."

Spatz grumbled, "yeah... I'll help, its not like there is much else I can do here." Robert lowered his voice, "You aren't happy, I get that. None of us are, but right now we're hanging on by a thread. I know its in your nature to be a pessimist but the last thing I want to worry about is wether or not the two of you are at each others throats. If you could please keep any negative comments to a minimum, I'd much appreciate it."

Spatz shifted in his chair, "And what about you? You're acting pretty calm about this mess." there was a hint of malice in his voice, "The ship and Landers is gone and you could care le... *urk*" he was interrupted by Robert yanking him up to his face, "Just because I'm focusing everything on the problem at hand doesn't mean that I don't care what happened on the ship," he growled, "or what is happening here. And, if you ever imply something like this again, I will personally kick your scrawny ass out of the airlock. Do... you... understand... me!" Spatz gurgled something along the lines of an affirmative, and Robert let him go.

Mina pointed at the front viewport, "Are they shooting pods?" they all watched the space in front of them intently, and were rewarded with the sight of a flash of light that was a pod exploding.

Robert jumped to the controls,"Oh hell... strap yourselves in! We gotta run for it." He strapped himself in, and prayed that his companions had been as fast as he was, and hit the thrusters, "If we're lucky, we can make the planet before they notice us, we can hide there." warning lights on his console warned him of sensors locking themselves on to the pod. The atmosphere was seconds away when an explosion rattled the pod.

Apparently the ship firing on them was using missiles set to detonate on proximity rather than impact. Several warning beacons flared on his console, mostly detailing with failures in thruster control, "We're going to be landing hard brace yourselves." They breached the atmosphere and the pod started to vibrate furiously. Robert deployed the air brakes, but at their speed they were still going way too fast for a safe landing. As they passed through the final cloud layer, they saw the landscape below, and he activated the landing thrusters in an effort to curb their speed. Only half of the thrusters fired resulting in it slowing them down some, but putting them into a spin. Meanwhile there were unsettling sounds of shearing metal as pieces of the exterior of the pod started to peel away due to friction.

Robert woke up to a fiery sea of pain. He undid his harness and slumped sideways out of his chair, which ushered in a new wave of pain from his multiple wounds. There was blood everywhere, and he was certain his leg was broken, likely due to the chunk of metal sticking out of it. He gritted his teeth and dragged himself out of the wreckage, where he rolled onto his back and gasped up at the sky. Using his eye that wasn't swollen shut and caked with blood, he tried to look around, to see what became of his friends, but in the end the only thing he could do was groan.

As Robert lay on the ground, a shadow loomed over him. He couldn't see what, as they were on his blindside, but he found himself enveloped by the smell of coffee, and he heard someone say, "...before it explodes."

...

Robert opened one bleary eye and stared at the coffee pot before him. He grumbled, "who... or what... is exploding now?" His impromptu nap hadn't refreshed him any, so he grabbed a cup of coffee and started to nurse it.

[Azlan]

Matron Engineering


Xaos regards Mara as she stagger-crawls towards them, "no Mara that is more like a concussion I think, perhaps I should research head trauma more... Aaron could be a test subject."

"Speaking of upgrades, you said that time tables have been moved up.  What 'not grand plan', since you don't have a 'grand plan', has been moved up?"

Xaos grins yet again, deliberately pausing at length, leaving an urge of expectation for a critical and vital response.  He gesticulates in an obviously exaggerated manner before stopping dead in his tracks.

"Oh goddess, No! That shouldn't have happened.  Where is Xaos?!  I wanted to show him this sphere before it explodes" says the worried catgirl as moves the fox-kits away from the sphere. 

"We'll have to continue this vital conversation later.  Now don't take too much advantage of Marissa while I am gone, you dog you."  Xaos makes a few fox-like animal noises and winks before fading away like the Cheshire cat.
 
Marissa groans and shakes her head, turning to look at Aaron and accidentally meeting muzzles with him.  Accident?  Aaron would swear the back of his head was pushed briefly.

The inside of Marissa's ears flush red, as does the skin underneath her facial fur, but she does not move away.



Matron's Galley


Loki and Ixiah both look up at Nova with questioning looks and big bright eyes.  The two of them can be sickeningly cute at times, so much that Robert's coffee gets a lot sweeter.

The smallish arctic wolf Richard waves exasperatedly at the squirrel, "oy, squirrel!  I would advise moving away from that spinning puzzle quickly."

Gaea and Matron both weave containment fields in the very air around the structure.  However, Xaos pops in just as it explodes, and luckily escapes any effect.

Gaea and Matron seem to barely notice the small wave, but Loki and Ixiah take notice.  It is hard to miss, but both of the young Acadians are noticeably confused.

"Nova, Nova..." Chides Xaos, "what have I told you kitten about enabling the fifth vertices in the subspace harmonic core?"



Conference Room


Holly, "what... I... want.  Gee, I don't know.  Steal first, ask later... that has always been how I lived.  Maybe have my own ship... or just go home, it has been so long.  It doesn't matter, Khaile is going to learn you captured me and then he'll end you.  He's different, he has powers kinda like blue over there."  Holly gestures with body language towards Ana.

Hacker nods at Knight's order and wordlessly pours through his computer unit.  Within a few moments, he nods satisfactorily, "lieutenant, most of the base schematics are heavily locked down, but I managed to pull up an engineering map based off of power distribution grids."

Ana finishes tending to Jeanne and helps her to her feet, she is looking much better and professionally bandaged.  She could mend with this level of medical attention if necessary with little long term complications.

Ana taps her radio and has a short conversation, "Dex is hiding the transport in the local forest, and he bailed when I sent him a quick message.  If we can get out of here, we can make a run for it... but that craft won't do well against fighters.  There is jamming up and our radios can't penetrate it."


Base Service way

Miyuki shrugged to Doc's question, "not a clue what he looks like, but I think we know where to look."  As was common she took point, it was an unspoken thing with her.  Briefly she took a few shots into the darkness and as they pass into the areas, a few dead Harbingers littered the tunnel.

Jack was a bit nervous and his large ears twitched, he jumped at nearly every shadow, he did not like the lizards one bit.

Despite the beasts, the trio made it to their destination relatively quickly.  Opening the service way hatch, Jack stepped out slowly, followed by Miyuki. 

"Lieutenant Whitehaven?"  Jack called out carefully, his hand nowhere near any weapon.

Holly noticed the trio of comrades and gave them a slightly confused glance, "what are you all doing here?  Were you sent to actually negotiate?"

Jack shook his head, "afraid not ma'am.  We were sent to help."



Deck Service Way

The one Harbinger Harriet had shot slumped to the ground very dead.  However, Harriet was knocked to the ground again by another best that had maneuvered around behind her.  Harbingers are large and solidly built of muscle.  The sidearm was knocked from her grasp by this sudden impact. 

The creature rolled about with the human, it snapped and nipped at any opportunity trying to use its large, curved, jagged and poisonous fangs.  Fast as a lightning strike, the lizard bit down on her left forearm, right thigh and her right side.  These were quick bites and had a small chance to actually penetrate with all the thrashing about.  Harriet was lucky in one respect, all the lizard wrestling had moved her right next to her carbine. 

Just as she considered the weapon, the Harbinger lunged for a more precise strike.  More of the lizards could be seen in the deeper shadows.     

[Lushin]

Base Service way
Doc walk out and looked at everyone. Then he tipped his hat to everyone.
"Afternoon, could one of you please tell us who Lt. Whitehaven is? Got something for him"

[Prof B Hunnydew]

From The Galley into the Subspace Harmonic Orchestra  

"Nova, Nova..." Chides Xaos, "what have I told you kitten about enabling the fifth vertices in the subspace harmonic core?"

Nova did remember about the subspace harmonics, now that Xaos says something about, but not the puzzle would effect subspace.  "Ah but it worked, did it?" grins Nova with mischievous smile, "Please, Matron, playback the scan record of the explosion with a full bandwidth of a full sixth harmonics of subspace."  

In front of the group, the crystal reappeared only as a small hologram in black/white as it was before the psychic wave hit. Color waveforms appear on the sides, moving up and down as the psychic wave plays across the puzzle.   The psychic wave actives the crystal puzzle, which captures a small amount of the wave energy inside the sphere.  Sphere locks out the rest of the wave, but the inside wave bounces back and forth inside the puzzle.  The waveform readings shows a buildup in feedback and frequency until the sphere shatters and implodes taking the energy and the crystal dust into a subspace.  The shields of Matron and Gaea felt very little pressure from the implosion.

Nova holds up a small crystal piece from the puzzle.  "This piece doesn't belong in the original design.  I could never make it fit perfectly, and when I did put in, it cause a disharmony in the fifth and sixth harmonics.  You, Xaos, always make me put it in, and I remember crying over it." says Nova "Xaos, Sphere could be rebuilt into a dimensional bomb which will implode and collapse the Master's gate with it.  And this solution will take the least amount of time and energy, than either repairing the sphere or trying to destroy it outright."
"Nova, that piece is needed to absorbs the fifth and sixth harmonies" says Xaos.   "Then it is missing something, but that is not right. My puzzle did better without it in my tests."  yells Nova.  
"Your home puzzle didn't have the full set of harmonies."yells Xaos.  Nova shouts back: "But this test still worked!"

Matron adds "You do realizes that puzzle just give away our location, Nova".
"What?" howls Nova.
"AS IF that psychic wave didn't do so already!!!" yells Gaea at Xaos.  
"Oooops" whispers Nova, as she plops down into a chair.

PBH

[ShadesFox]

Matron Engineering (AKA, Love Shack)

Aaron felt a bit embarrassed.  Not enough to move away, both parties were enjoying themselves a bit too much.  After a little while the two muzzles parted and Marissa snuggled up to Aaron. 
"Hey Aaron?"
"Yes?"
"Everything seems different now.  As if there was more there then ever before."
"That happened to me too.  Though that was after I had..."
Marissa was practically asleep standing up and holding onto Aaron.  Aaron found a nice looking corner to sit in while Marissa drooled on his shoulder.  Funny, out here she looked to be steady and lethargic, though her mind ran rampant with activity.  This seemed to be the point where he had latched onto Marissa when it was him in her position.  Hopefully this would go more smoothly for her than it did for him.  Though this roller coaster of emotions wasn't going to help.

[Lisky]

Knight nodded to both Ana and Hacker before turning back to Holly, "Well, since i have no idea where home is, i don't know how far us trying to take you would go.  If you're willing to, i'm not going to give you a weapon, but i will see about a vest and an escort out of here.  That's about the best i can..."

"Lieutenant Whitehaven?"

His attention suddenly to the area towards the area to the side of his prisoner, Knight was starting to reach for his sidearm out of reflex, when it hit.  if these were pirates, they wouldn't know my name  His hand froze on the grip.  "I am he, I take it you're the assistance that was mentioned" he replied to the trio, as his mind shifted into gear.

"Hacker, download what you can, but it looks like our way out found itself... Everyone! lets get packed up and moving before -anyone else- figures out what's up..."

Shouldering his rifle, he looked to Holly again, "Your call, Holly, we can knock you out, or take you with... but, it seems our exit strategy has become far less bleak, Ms. Kidsan."

He had an infectious smile on his face, bearing just a hit of toothy.  The hunted had become the hunter once more.  With a new-found confidence, Knight snapped off a quick series of questions and orders to various team members,   "Before we go, Jaice, Marcus, think one or both of you could rig some tripwires and explosives on the stairs, and do a little more damage on our way out to disguise our escape route?   Hacker, if you can't hide your tracks, burn that console to the ground, fry every possible means of recovering the data we uncovered.  Everyone else, weapons and ammo check.  Lets be ready to leave in T-minus 2 minutes."

Turning his attention back to the newcomers, he started, "Sorry about that, we're pinned up here, and who knows how long until they've got an assault team in position.  We should talk on the way once we're finished here.  OH, and before i forget all my manners.  2nd Lieutenant, Eric 'knight' Whitehaven, ISF.  Who do i owe the first round to once we're outta here and on the ship?"

[Chairtastic]

Deck Service Way

There was really no other way for it to happen.  Scratch that, there was no horrifically improbable way for it to happen.

Much as Harriet's ego ached, the sad fact was she didn't have the time to grab the carbine and crack off a shot at the Harbinger on top of her.  It took a full quarter second for her to realize what was happening, and another for her to begin thinking up a solution.  As she did, a bit of advice her Granddad had given her many years ago came to the surface.

Rule number nine: Never leave home without a knife.

With this new clarity, Harriet thrust her hand forward, into the Harbinger's mouth as it thrust forward to bite her, narrowly missing the beat's fangs as she did, and thrust her fingers down into its throat.  The beast bit down on her forearm, but soon realized that its meal still meant it ill, when Harriet took advantage of its occupied mouth, and used her free hand to withdraw a knife from the sheath built into her boot, and rammed it between the third and fourth vertebra in its neck.  To give her a bit of breathing room, Harriet released the knife and grabbed the carbine.

Her right arm wasn't her dominant arm, so she only managed to crack off four shots into the shadows that the other Harbingers lingered in.  From the sounds of it, she'd made three hits, two of which were fatal.  The surviving Harbingers backed off, for the moment.  And that gave Harriet time to get free of the corpse atop her.  She forced the Harbinger's mouth as wide as it would go, and slowly withdrew her hand from its mouth.

Her hand and forearm were both cut up rather badly, and she had definitely gotten more than a small bit of poison into her system.  What's more, she had almost cute her hand with her own knife, both upon stabbing and drawing the limb out.  The first thing to do, was to slow her heart rate, and limit the extent of spreading even more than its already slow pace.  The second thing to do, was retrieve her sidearm; the carbine was out of bullets, and she couldn't keep firing it with her good arm.  By then, the other Harbingers had grown bold, and tried to double team her; thank goodness for semi-automatic sidearms.

Now came the arduous task of trying to stop the bleeding her well chewed upon arm was spouting before her blood pressure dropped so low that she lost consciousness.  And while keeping an ear out for more of the dangerous Harbingers.

"'Just blow up the spare first aide kit,' you said.  'The Harbingers aren't smart enough to be a real problem,' you said.  Oh, Granddad is gonna whoop me but good when he hears about this..."

[Azlan]

OOC: This is a situational post for story only.  I will post replies to RP after the squirrel replies (maybe sooner, stay tuned).  If only I had suitable dramatic space encounter music.



Zeta Zenith Jump point (Farthest out [Zeta] Jump point above the star [Zenith])



The creak of the centuries old superstructural frame always sent shivers down his spine, but it would not do for Commodore Lynos to show such as a pirate leader must be stoic and strong to keep authority. 

"Looks like another successful raid.  Let's head for station at best possible speed."  Lynos smartly barked at his navigator and pilot.

The old battleship, with her three other sister ships began nearly simultaneous retro burns to align themselves with the station before alighting her main engines to accelerate to the appropriate speed.  The four cruisers fanned out in front, being faster and more maneuverable than the lumbering old battlewagons.  Hours of flight through space were smartly accentuated with short burst of thrust for course corrections.


In the interior of the system, a swirling disk yawned within the fabric of time and space.  The vortex, resembling a whirlpool charged and arcing with bolts of lightning, released a single slender vessel.  This ship could be a sister of Mother herself, except for its deeper ebony coloration, more organic appearance, and sinister, sharp protrusions not unlike claws on membranous wings.

It reacted immediately with a short burst of brilliant purple blasts, destroying an asteroid sensor station.  It then rotated in a 180 degree arc while its "clawed petals" rhythmically opened and closed.


The pirates of the station and those in the returning fleet took notice of the loss of the station and focused visual sensor equipment on that location.  The blue swirling maw in reality was quickly noticed, and the ship shortly afterwards.

"What the hell is that?"  Asked Commodore Lynos.

A sensor officer responded, "Unknown sir, they have some heavy ECM, it is overloading our sensors."


As they watched, two similar vessels emerged, followed by a much larger vessel the size of a cruiser.  The cruiser was more raptorian with "wings" on each side that swept forward in a manner very similar to a bird.  It had two similar and much smaller wings on top and bottom of the fuselage.  None of the vessels visually seemed to have any sort of turret or port that housed weapons, but something had destroyed that station.


"Now hear this, ALL available ships rendezvous at point echo six charlie at flank speed.  I do not know who these invaders are, but we will give them a show of force to make them think twice about moving in on our territory."

Every available ship responded to his call.  The two remaining cruisers left for system defense and a host of auxiliaries formed up at the location and began to burn thrusters to the intercept point.  At the closest point to engaging, the pirates released every fighter, bomber and attack craft they had into space.


Seemingly in answer to this, but more likely coincidence, the vortex issued forth a sight that the few survivors would howl in feverish terror at in their nightmares, a massive vessel easily 50 kilometers in size.  Its forward, massive maw burned with a swirling mass of "chaos" that the anthro or human mind could not comprehend for it was a glimpse into entropy and anti-existence.  The vessel itself had an overall appearance that was not dissimilar from the raptorian appearing cruiser, just far larger and more like a winged cannon.


Recovering from his shock, the Commodore unwisely ordered his demise, possibly out of unbridled fear or the bluster of strength he needed to maintain his tenuous grasp at the top, "all ships, engage!"

Every ship's drive lit up, burning precious reaction mass for combat maneuvers.  The cruisers and auxiliaries surged forward, out pacing the lumbering, tubular skyscraper-like battleships.  "No targeting resolution, all weaps to manual gunsights."


The first strike lay with the invaders as the lead smallest ship, the one which had destroyed the sensor post, fired a forward beam and hulled one of the old cruisers from bow to stern.  The ship was reduced to a cloud of expanding debris.


Surprised by the power of such a small ship, Commodore Lynos leaped forward taking control of the main weapons station, "all line ships on my mark, link fire control to my station!"

The angered red wolf drove the charge level to the two main laser cannons to its highest level and targeted a space in front of the maneuvering fleet.  Holding the continuous blast, the three other battleships added their spinal lasers to the mix, and the commodore walked the beams manually right to the small ship that had destroyed his cruiser.  Supreme luck and skill led him to the right place as the energy beams connected with the top "pedal" wing of the small ship, shearing half of it off.  The absolute limit of the spinal lasers was reached shutting them down and requiring a brief cooling cycle.  Having maximized his output, the commodore's flagship fell slightly behind, as the other battleships moved slightly ahead, emboldened by this strike.

The invaders would not give them a second chance to duplicate this attack.  The cruiser and frigates surged forward, accelerating much faster than anything the pirates had seen.  The audible keen of the Acadian engine harmonics could be heard in the minds of every pirate present and had Aaron and the rest been here as well they would recognize these ships as Acadian immediately.  Fighters poured from the cruiser vessel and from the huge monstrous ship, which remained in the rear of the action, as they all opened fire.

The engagement was a slaughter; the ancient pirate ships slugging it out with the Acadians stood no chance at all.  Beams of brilliant purple carved through cruiser and battleship alike.  Pirate fighters were outclassed and swept aside like gnats against a firestorm.


Explosions rocking his ship, panels exploding in sparks and structural bits collapsing around him, Lynos was in wide eyed panic.  A mere minute of direct engagement was all it took to reduce one of the largest pirate armadas in the sector to space debris.  Ceasing the controls from his pilot, who did not object as she was futilely trying to deal with the large piece of metal impaling her, he screamed into the tactical communications channel, "retreat, for bloody sakes retreat!" 

Pulling his heavily damaged monstrosity into a hard retro burn turn, he desperately tried to engage his FTL jump drives, overriding every safety he could.  The already heavily damaged drives responded briefly before exploding violently, lurching the ship forward at a brief burst of FTL speed without any measure of safety or dampening fields.  The last thing the commodore saw was the forward screen as everything not tied down was thrown forward violently.  The pride of the pirate fleet spun off, out of control and into deep space at three quarters of light speed.


Heimdall bowed his head before the radiant kitsune that was his commander, "Chronos, sir, the nuisance has been dealt with and we are proceeding to the third planet for cleansing."

Chronos spoke evenly, "please do be gentle with Gol Negas; he hasn't destroyed a planet in ages.  I'd hate to destabilize the whole region with deadly planetary shrapnel."

"Understood."  Heimdall turned and made a brief jumping motion, becoming a ball of swirling energy that tumbled from the massive planet killer starship and dashed to the cruiser sized ship.  Reappearing on the bridge, he took his "captain's chair" and directed his thoughts at the third planet, "finally we will end this Xaos and Gaea, for the master's will it."

"Forward boss?"  Asked the saucy and voluptuous vixen that had appeared next to him.

He nodded out of habit, "yes, let us find Matron."

[Lushin]

Conference Room
Doc shrugged a bit "That would Harriet. Our "boss" I guess" Doc pulled out the USB drive she gave him and hand it to Knight.
"Names Devin "Doc" Holiday. I'm not sure if you will be able to buy that drink for her. She took off to the hanger to find us a get away ship" Doc noticed the body of a wolverine lay on the ground with his head ripped about.
"He one of yours?"

[SquirrelWizard]

Robert picked himself up off of the floor. While none of the force of the blast translated through the forcefields, he had thrown himself to the ground reflexively and his coffee had ended up in his lap. He hissed to himself as he bent over the table and tried to peel the clothing that was covered with scalding hot coffee off of his fur. He stood grumbling about how people should use a blast room for testing explosives while the others discussed about the results from the magical exploding music box.

"You do realizes that puzzle just give away our location, Nova" Matron was speaking to Lt. Nova, the comment caught Robert's attention. He looked up from the table, "First, How long do you think we've got before we have company. Second, can this bucket of bolts fly, or do we need to get out and push?"

[Azlan]

Conference Room


Holly looked downtrodden, "so ye'er the spies that been in our ranks!  I guess Khaile isn't as all knowing as he claimed to be.  Where is he anyways, he up and disappeared when ya'all showed up here ta fake yer negotiating.  I think I'll go with ya'all for now, if I stay 'ere, prolly get shot by 'accident', as West wants ma spot anyways."

"So using you to negotiate would be worthless too if that's what you can expect."  Added Ana.

Holly shook her head, "nay, if ye deal, then all ranking officers will be involved in committee, and then those loyal to me and Khaile would insure a fair dealing."

Jeanne nodded, "that would be true, there are a lot of factions among the officers and chiefs.  Each one signs on with whoever can get them the farthest and make them the most money."

Marcus and Jaice both nodded in unison, "I think we both can have some fun lined up for them when they come up here.  Especially if you aren't leaving the pirate girl behind."

Hacker gave a small laugh, "hide my tracks?  I burned 'em and their whole freaking system and any system connected to that."

Miyuki waved and smiled a bit, she seemed so much like the innocent beauty type, but her heavy hardware indicated otherwise, "I'm Miyuki."

Jack nodded vigorously as a bit of the fennec hyperness began to bleed through, "Jack, okgreatletsgetgoi..." 

Miyuki whapped him, "slow down antenna ears, we don't speak HTFS." (hyper text fennec speak)

"ouchokok... I will slow it down, geez.  I'm worried about Harriet... and Magick.  Those Harbingers can be tricky.  Let's rendezvous."



Deck Service Way


Smelling blood, which Harriet was releasing a generous amount of, the lizards were emboldened.  Numerous shots dissuaded the obvious one's but another one flanked her and would have pounced had it not spontaneously split down the center.  On Harriet's right, Magick appeared and dispatched the remaining few with some weapons fire from his ion pistol.

"You decide to feed your arm to the paper shredder?  What did it do?"  The sable quipped.  "The deck is filled with so many soldiers, if I had a small yield nuke, we'd all be free of pirate problems.  The external exits are secure, but I managed to sneak past them.  If your soldier boy Whitehaven is like the rest usually is, he has to have a ship stashed nearby.  That is our best bet.  You fixed yet?  I'm not good at patching people up, that's Doc's thing."



Matron


"First, How long do you think we've got before we have company. Second, can this bucket of bolts fly, or do we need to get out and push?"

Matron sweatdropped a bit, "funny you should ask that..."  A screen appeared in midair for all to see.  Simultaneously Mother appeared next to it in a semi-transparent state and spoke.

"As of a few moments ago, a space battle was fought out near the orbit of the inner asteroid belt."  The viewing device drifted among the wreckage of some significant ships before focusing on four vessels of an origin unknown to all but the Acadians.  However, they are dwarfed by the huge ship they are escorting.  A massive vessel and a source of concern for Matron, Mother and Gaea.

Xaos chuckles, "overreact much do they?  My how he's grown... I told Chronos he should stop feeding Gol Negas planetoids..."

"You've gone too far this time Xaos..."  Gaea looked a bit nervous.

The dark fox comforted his vixen, "shush, it will be alright.  I expected something like this, in some ways it is better.  Gol Negas can destroy planets, but he is rather slow and they won't leave him unguarded.  I think they expect us to be trapped, but this ship is fully functional."

Aaron hears and sees all this in engineering.  Marissa is out cold, the exhaustion and power drain too much for her. 

Aaron...  singsongs Xaos, you should really come up here.  We need to plan to leave.

[Chairtastic]

Deck Service Way

In the end, it took both of the sleeves from Harriet's uniform to bandage her damaged arm, and even then, the blood flow didn't exactly stop.  She would have to hope that the wounds would clot soon; whether it did or not there was work to be done.  The human female let Magick's quip go unanswered, as she jerked her knife free of the Harbinger that had given her so much trouble, cleaned it off, then returned it to her boot.

Meanwhile, she was thinking.  If Magick only 'managed' to exit safely, it likely wasn't something she could replicate, which meant that the only way to get to a craft would be remote hacking.  Unfortunately, Jack now had the only tablet computer left from the cache.  ...Her blowing up the cache had been stupid, even if the freight elevator was damaged and-

She killed that line of thought; blame would be assigned later, likely by her superiors in the ISIS, and during Court Martial, if they didn't just make her 'fall down some stairs.'  Harriet checked the ammunition for her sidearm, and decided it was time to go. "Magick, you're calling the shots from now until we find an aircraft of some kind.  Understood?"

"Sure, fine, whatever; let's get out of here before you drop dead on me."  Magick roughly grabbed Harriet by the shoulder and stepped into the nearest shadow.

What happened next, Harriet would never be quite certain of.  She just remembered being immensely uncomfortable, and woozy.  However, since the wooziness remained after the ordeal was over, the human chalked it up to the spreading poison in her system.  Harriet spent the next increment of time not thinking, just trying to keep up with Magick's vastly superior level of stealth and sneaking ability.  Trying being the operative word;  with being infected with a slowly spreading poison, she was a liability.  In fact, in the past hour or so, she had done nothing but screw up again and again-No, she told herself.  Leave the chewing out to the Court Martial, and get back to tempting fate.

[[OOC:  Blarghpost is blargh.]]

[Lisky]

Conference Room

Helping Holly to her feet, Knight headed towards the tunnel entrance where the 3 newcomers had come from.  The mention of Rom struck a bit of a chord on Knight, he hadn't liked the sargent, they hadn't gotten along from day one, hower, Rom had been his 2nd in command, and therefore Knight's responsibility, and now he was dead.  There'd be time to grieve, and beat himself up over not handling that situation better.  He had to save the rest of the team now.  Turning to Doc he replied in a calm, emotionless tone, "Yes, he was.  My 2IC took a round to the forehead in the firefight.  Nothing we could do for him at  that point."

Helping any way he could, checking every team member as best he could, Knight got himself ready to move as well, securing his gear for quiet movement, he checked Jeanne first, and asked, "How you holding up?  You ready to get out of here?"

Waiting for a reply, the spotted feline, headed for the entrance.  Nodding to the 3 newcomers, "If you  wouldn't mind leading the way, i think we're just about done here."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Mom's car or Dad's Car
                Who goes with Whom?

"It wasn't a bomb until a certain someone Xaos, decided to activate a psychic wave within 100 meter of my cosmic puzzle."said Nova defensively.   She turns looking at the squirrel, but on see his spilled coffee, she gives him some napkins and help clean up the coffee. She continues...

"Well, it looks like Uncle Roger ... But really  With the Acadian ships, Mother and Matron, The question is Can we out run him and lost him? or Can we fight him?  Since the Fleet will be dust if we return with him following us.  I am sure, we can't risk sending a message to the Fleet about can we?"  worries Nova.  She has lost touch with Mara, and she feels alone and homesick for the first since leaving the ISF fleet.  "And we have some other members of the crew to round up"

Mara is asleep inside Matron, healing.    

PBH

[Lushin]

Conference Room
"Well I can see that" Doc said as he grabbed the wolverine's body and hefts it on to his shoulders, fireman's carry style.
"Alright lets get going and see if we can find Harriet and get out of here"

[ShadesFox]

Matron Engineering

Aaron had a rather flat look to his face.  Why do these people insist on having planet destroying super weapons?  Well, probably because they have to prove how much more awesome they are than us.  Aaron got up and put Marissa on his back,
Xaox, I'll be there soon, though I'm going to take Marisa some place that has not been known to have a negative reaction to each other.

Why must you say such cruel things Aaron!  That wasn't a negative reaction at all!  Seriously though, you need to get your tail up here NOW.  Second door you find should have a place you can dump your girlfriend.  Should be a good size, I don't know what you mortals actually like for your coma chambers, but I had something quickly made in anticipation of this situation.

Aaron walked out engineering, door one, and found a second door near by.  He was pretty sure that Marissa was still out, yet still somehow chewing on his shoulder.  He went in and stared for a little while at the 'bed'.  A monstrous size that could hold at least four eight foot tall anthros without tails hitting each other, and enough pillows for them all.  Clearly a design error.

Aaron, stop staring at the majesty of it all and haul tail.

Aaron dropped off Marissa and gave her a pillow then ran off, making note of where she was so that he could come back, hopefully in time to see her when she wakes up.  Aaron darted out of the room while Marissa cuddled up with the pillow muttering, "Aaron... does this mean we can now live forever, together with you..."

Aaron dashed down the hallways, retracing steps previously taken by him and Xaos,
Xaos, as far as plans for getting out of here goes, it looks like subtlety is gone now.  Hard to do subtle in the face of planet destroying starships.  I also rather want to avoid getting everyone else in system slaughtered too.  My rough idea is that if we can get Matron off the ground use her to go to the pirate outpost and rescue the ground team.  I'm pretty sure things are going bad since I didn't feel Romulus... I think he... no can't think of that now.  We need to get our people and Ana's people off the ground and into deep space.  I'm hoping that if we do that they will lose interest in everyone else in the system."

[SquirrelWizard]

Robert took the napkins and tried to dry up the coffee on his pants, "These other members, what are they doing?" He straightened up; his pants were damp but not scalding hot, he could work with that. "We need some intel though, the fleet that we've got incoming, what is their ETA figuring in their engagement ranges. What are the ranges of their sensors, and what do they know? What other vessels do we have around us.?"

Robert righted a chair and sat down in it. "Our options at this point are either to run like we stole something, or to create a decoy and then run. Negotiation isn't going to work, because we're in no position to make demands, and I doubt we can fight that," he gestured at the image.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

"Our ah strike force team is right now, keeping the local pirates on planet occupied, I think.  Mother can pick them up with her ship.  I just hope they are in a position to be pick up quickly.  The main ISF Fleet is not coming this way, but heading further towards Acadian space through the pirate "held" space." whispers Nova.  "We came here to see what, if anything, was left at this crash site.  But I knew in some way,  Gaea and Xaos were still here, and ISF would need their help."  Nova looking at Gaea and Loki.

Nova turns to her fairy godfather, "Lord Xaos, we have the monster at the gate, and our men stuck outside.  We need re-group, and make a run for it, can we do it?"

"Why so, formal my dear Kitten." says Xaos "We will just wait for your Major before you start weighting your opinions"  

"*Groan*, Mother , can you hear me?  Please inform the strike team, that we will be coming for them, ASAP.  Please report status and prepare for pick-up." remarks Nova over the com-link to Mother.

"Nova, Wait for Aaron to arrive" says Mother.  "What?! I just want to know if anyone is having as nice of a day as we are." grumbles Nova.

PBH

[Azlan]

Deck Service Way


Magick had expected to walk a majority of the distance, but the deteriorating condition of his human leader made that a difficult proposition.  Her almost stumbling into a small cluster of harbingers, was the ultimate end of their conventional movement. 

Deftly slipping himself under her shoulder, he allowed a brief display of a bit of emotion as he gave her a small smile, "have you gained weight TiBalt-san?"

Before a response could be issued the sable stepped into a shadow.  The travel experience had not improved at all since Harriet had last been subjected to it.  Emerging in yet another corridor, they were once again assaulted by the sight of harbingers.  Magick quickly entered another, different shadow, subjecting Harriet to yet another transition.  This time, however, they emerged in front of an airlock hatch.  The security pad had cleverly been bypassed quite some time ago.  Sitting the human female down next to the panel, Magick entered the special code that released the locks and opened the airlock without any log of the event or change in "secured" status on the base's main security panel.



Service ways from Conference Rooms

I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go
Walkin' with a dead man over my shoulder


Jeanne, the injured tigress, sighed heavily as she replied though she seemed in good spirits despite everything, "better than I expected after you and your team engaged the security details.  I am grateful you managed to eliminate that slimy weasel, I should be okay provided I don't get mauled by harbingers or shot by pirates..."  Her mood darkened a bit, "I'm sorry about Romulus..."  What little color remained in her skin drained away as she realized it might not be appropriate for her to talk about that.  Wordlessly she followed. 

The sandy brown fennec nodded to Knight as he requested they lead the way, "Sairenji let's go."

Miyuki gave the small fox a peace sign and a wink, amused at his sudden 'professional' demeanor, "right away Jack-kun!"  She moved forward, gun leading the way, she did not look anywhere that the gun did not also point.

Ben stopped Knight with a firm, but respectful hand on his shoulder, "lieutenant, keep to the middle more with the prisoner, Jeanne, Ana and that Doc character.  I'll have Jaice and Marcus up front with the fennec and human.  I'll bring up the rear with Hacker."

Ana smiled sweetly at Ben, "I don't need to be kit-sat by Knight... despite his name, chivalry is obsolete."  The dark blue vixen snapped the energy clips into the pair of pistols she had managed to acquire somewhere... oh wait those were Holly's, the collie growls a little and Ana look disturbingly cute an innocent in response.

The new guides seemed very knowledgeable and navigated the service ways well.  About halfway to the ground level, a tremendous explosion rocked the building.  The trained soldier among the odd party immediately noticed it originated from somewhere above their position.  Hacker and Marcus knew that the surprises had been sprung.

"Merry winter's day, mother fuckers."  Hacker growled in response to the eerie silence that followed.  As if they had heard his oath, alarms began to blare in all directions.

The canine staff sergeant looked to the snow leopard lieutenant, "we best be making double time what say ya mate?"



Matron


Saioko looked a bit frazzled, the psychic waves were a bit much at this time, she rests her head in her hands and tries to screen all the oppressive psychics surrounding her.  She pays little attention to the developing situation.

Richard sighs to himself and mutters a few words spoken like an oath, "Беда́, никогда́, не прихо́дит одна́."

Xaos pats the wolf on the back, "В дождь избы́ не кро́ют, а в вёдро и сама́ не ка́плет."

Richard raises an eyebrow, "what does that have to do with anything?"

Xaos shrugs, "I just thought it sounded profound."

Gaea regards Robert for a moment before replying to his questions about the incoming Acadians as Nova had answered about the strike team, "I would estimate that we have around two hours until Gol Negas is in optimum firing position.  Their sensors are highly detailed and could probably achieve sea-level visual feeds in realtime from their current location, as well as a host of detailed scans from infrared to molecular density and life signs.  All nice, but not going to provide them with detail on our location or if we are even truly here.  Their psionic-based sensors are used for that and I have had many, many centuries to disperse harmless materials into the atmosphere and into the ecosystem that will render their psychic sensors useless.  This buys us another hour or so as the support ships will need to map the planet in other ways to find our specific location."

Xaos adds, "provided we don't have any more psychic out bursts."

Gaea regards him coolly, "yes, husband, hopefully we don't have more of those.  With regards to what they know... I would guess that Matron, Xaos and myself are present.  It is unlikely they know about the rest of you.  Obviously they are aware of pirates.  Their engagement ranges can vary from a few thousand miles to hundreds of thousands of miles.  Most prefer up-front and personal engagement at close ranges... more thrilling I imagine.  Vessels... hmmm, well friendlies I would count Mother, Matron... Anastasia's little personal starship, I think Anjin is in system somewhere... not sure if that is considered friendly though.  Other than that, I only know of a pirate corvette that is hidden on this planet."

Aaron arrives at about this time.

Both Mother and Matron confer among themselves, in the way of computers, satisfied they speak to those assembled.  It is Mother's image that speaks first, "Matron has been unable to leave due to her psionic wave drive's high visibility signature.  Without Gaea's guardian Linu-tan, they can't stealth it... that is to say feed the field emissions into her singularity drive."

Matron speaks, "Mother has offered to link in place of Linu in order to help filter the psychic signature.  This will give all of you a lot more space, as I am a star cruiser type vessel."

Xaos gestures to Aaron, "ah, the 'boss' is here, now we can plan some actions.  So we are linking up, rescuing your people at the pirate base and running with tails between legs yes?"

[Chairtastic]

Harriet's sense of self-loathing was growing.  And the readily apparent nature of her decline was not helping the matter; it was however helping her keep from imagining the various disciplinary actions the ISIS would take when she was Court Martial-ed, however.

She was more focused on staying alive long enough to be Court Martial-ed now.

Her left arm had gone still some time ago, and the paralysis was now spreading into her shoulder and neck.  She still could feel, just not move.  And it was annoying as hell.  "Firstly, that's TiBalt-hime, to you.  Secondly, you wouldn't notice if you hadn't been skipping your gym sessions," her tone was surprisingly light, with a bit of mock severity; which wrung a chuckle from the stealth specialist.  Harriet had laid down the law early with her inner circle.  They were to only indulge in alcohol as appearance dictated, avoid recreational drugs altogether, and they were to keep in moderately good shape, via scheduled trips to the gym.  Magick had gotten away with skipping some of those sessions by dint of his being so damn good at what he did, for Harriet's purposes anyway. 

When she was sat down, she realized the paralysis was starting into her face, when part of her lips didn't move as she sighed.  What's more, a more troubling aspect of the toxin was coming to be: her left eye was perceiving images slower than the right, producing an 'after-image' effect when she turned to look at what Magick was doing.  After she blinked a few times, it vanished, but would soon return.  And when it spread to both her eyes, she would be useless.

That is, if it didn't get to her lungs first.

"Magick-" the human started, but was cut off by the sable.

"Shut up," he told her bluntly.  "You're spreading the poison faster every time you talk, so shut up."  Harriet shut up.  There wasn't much else she was able to do, besides scream at herself mentally for screwing up this badly, and planning how she was going to turn this situation around.

[ShadesFox]

Matron

Aaron was up at the bridge, panting with his tongue sticking out one side.  He couldn't say much about being called 'boss'.  At this point Aaron has just accepted that being an impromptu boss was just his role in the universe.

"Yes, that sounds like the best course of action.  Unless you happen to have some way of hurting the 'planet nom' class ship out there."

After that he would nap.  Well, there was a long list of things he needed to do, once he could communicate with the ISF again.  And taking care of Richard and Marissa.  Maybe Aaron should try and emulate some of the body structure the Acadians had going.  A few good hacks so that Aaron didn't sleep nearly as often would help overcome the 24 hour day limitations.

[SquirrelWizard]

Robert stretched, "What about decoys or diversions? It wont take them long to figure out we've left, no point in making tracking us any easier." he leaned forward, "I mean, with enough explosives an some spare scrap we can probably make it look like a bunch of morons got into the Matron, threw a few switches and cranked up the reactor. Upon seeing the fleet heading our way they got spooked and blew up as we tried to run because the reactor became critically unstable."

He paused to let the suggestion sink in, "The bonus here is that if we pull it off correctly they have to stop and investigate the crater. If we're stupidly lucky they'll assume we're dead. I'd bank on them likely seeing through it on the first active scan though." Robert yawned, "Either way, our first priority is to get off the planet, I don't know much about their sensors, but using the planet's shadow is always a good idea. After we get off the ground, we're gonna want to spread their forces out. The more crap we can have them chasing after, the better." he turned to Matron and Mother, "Can you replicate the same effects as one of our ships jump drive. If possible we might be able to piggyback off of the pirate presence here."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Matron
Looking at the exhausted Aaron, Nova turns to the group.  

"I think Mr Planetoid will be able to tell we are not dead by the lack of psychic signatures or another psychic wave.  I think, If Matron really did explode, she would take out the planet.  Mother, we need a status report on the strike team, if possible.   Richard, can you and Alexsi get comms with the strike team and others, and have them ready for pickup?  Matron and Mother will need to start to link up, and lift off.  So, Members need to be ready soonest" says Nova.

"Gaea, You, Loki and I have to see to the everyone else who was/maybe effected by the psychic wave.  Saioko is not looking to good and Marissa may need some looking after.  Mara is missing.  The strike team may have regular wounded coming in."

Matron says "Mara is sleeping and healing in the main core.  And Marissa is being taken care of."   Nova turns to Saioko and go to her.

PBH

[Lisky]

"You'll do fine Jeanna, we've got you protected, and we'll get you back to the ship.  Just keep your head down, and listen for trouble.  If you hear, see, smell, or just sense something wrong... by all means, speak up.    Also, are you sure you're not going to have too hard a time keeping up?"

Knight then offered to support Jeanne on a shoulder while moving roughly into the middle of the pack.  "I'm not going to complain, Ben, you're the infantry specialist, after all."

Following the guided pack through the tunnels for a bit, Knight was on edge, his head was on a swivel, and his rifle was ready to snap up at a moments notice.  The sudden rumble and muffled roar had the feline Lieutenant wince.  His suspicions only further confirmed by the fennec.

Nodding in agreement, Knight replied, "Right, lets get moving, hopefully we can cover enough ground, and put enough distance between them and us to confuse them."

Mentally readying himself, Knight prepared to follow the guides, hopefully they weren't getting too on edge.  That could break their concentration... and getting lost in these tunnels was the last thing he needed.

[Lushin]

Lushin walked up to a fork in the tunnels.
"Which way is it again?" He winked at Jack as he picked a direction and head to the hanger.

[Azlan]

Neurotoxins and exits

Magick raised an eyebrow, "hime... how about I call you shichiyou instead or TiBalt-dono."  The mustelid held a finger up to his mouth forestalling any vocalization by the human.

He drew his pistol and a slender, slightly curved, single edged sword (a wakizashi), "stay here, I need to clear some pests."  The silent hunter dashed down the corridor into the darkness.  A few flashes and what could only be the subtle sound of metal sliding through flesh drifted back to Harriet.  After a few moments, there was only silence.  The form of the darkly clad sable re-emerged from the shadows of the poorly lit causeway.

When he reached Harriet, he knelt down to make sure she was still conscious.  Opening the encrypted channel, Magick spoke into it, "Nightstride here, anyone know anything about Harbinger venom?  Anything in these emergency medkits to work on it?"



Causeways


The tigress made a strong show of it, but graciously accepted the help as offered, as she was concerned with the pace they were trying to keep.  The group progressed through the tunnels at a good pace, for they needed to catch up with Harriet and Magick and get to Dex and the window of escape was slowly closing around them.

The encrypted channel crackled to life with a voice only their guides recognized.  Jack answered, "well yes... the green, sealed plastic tube contains a general antitoxin.  It will slow the poison considerably, but we would need a full medical kit to have any actual Harbinger anti-venom.  Why, you finally slip up and get bit?"

There was pause before an answer was forthcoming, "no, Harriet-chan was pretty badly bitten.  These lizards seem really, unnaturally aggressive."

Both Jack and Miyuki stopped, looking worried and surprised.  However, the duo did not have much time for a response.  In a predictably cliche fashion, a vent they had passed under tumbled away and bone white harbingers burst forth.  This vent happened to be right nearly on top of the middle of the small group, exposing Ana, Jeanne and Knight to direct combat with the strangely savage beasts.

The one that landed close to anyone did so next to Ana.  Not having time to consider drawing a weapon, the slender and slight appearing vixen belayed her entire frail and delicate image by ceasing the creature and judo-throwing it head first into the distant tunnel wall.  Two other beasts had just dropped down, but were not oriented enough to consider attacking.



Matron


The irrepressible fox of chaos threw his arms up and wide in a dramatic display, "yes, I do have a way, but you would not like it... I'm sure you aren't interested in sacrificing your own life for our safety.  At least not at this moment or for this reason.  The other option is to sacrifice your feline captain over there, that's liable to bring the Shadowcats.  Enough of their ships can take out a 'planet nom', as you so eloquently put it, class ship."

Saioko gave Xaos an incredulous look, "do what why to get who now?"

Gaea huffed and patted the feline on the back as she hugged her, scowling at her mate, "nothing dear, pay that puffy head no mind little one."

Richard elbowed Aaron, "your people are very huggy, yes?  Have you figured out why yet?"

Loki speaks up for a change, both kits have been mostly quiet for their time here, "if we retreat, we will force them to chase us hopefully and they will leave the planet alone."

Ixiah nodded, but he seemed less sure, "perhaps we should try to talk to uncle Chronos or the others?"

[Chairtastic]

Neurotoxins and exits

Harriet paused and listened to the sounds of good, old fashioned cloak and dagger work, then the human sighed.  It wasn't long ago that she would be the one doing that sort of thing.  How did six months among glorified thieves whittle away skills she had worked for years to perfect?

Suddenly, she began to giggle.  It was only a few seconds, but Harriet fought to kill the miniature laughters before they alerted anyone, or thing, to her presence.  Harriet took a deep breath, and forced herself to be calm.  The giggling was probably the precursor to the psychotropic effects of Harbinger venom, either that or her brain was releasing chemicals to try and wake up the portions of it the venom was driving to sleep.

Neither was very good for Harriet's current purposes.

The human stirred, attempting to stand up, only slide back to the floor when her one good leg couldn't keep her stable.  Magick turned his focus from the worrying noises coming from the other end of the comm channel, and thwaped Harriet on the forehead with his index and middle fingers.  "You can't walk so don't try."

"Need...go.  Time..."  The venom was getting into her facial muscles now.  It was just the lips on her left side, but still progress.  And it was making her attempting to talk most difficult.

"I'm calling the shots, remember?"  Magick thwaped her again.

[ShadesFox]

Matron
Aaron shrugged to Richard, "As best as I can tell, it is a result of being both very empathic and much more long lived.  Think about it for a second, by appearance Loki looks 15 years old, by their reckoning he is 150, by ours he is 1500.  Me being 30 makes it look more like I'm still a freshly born infant."

Looking to Xaos, fox of poorly worn dress suits, "Yes, sacrifice does not seem necessary right now.  I'm also unsure of communicating with our... hostile friends.  I'm not sure they are aware of the full extend of who all is onboard.  It may be better that way.  Especially if that uncle part is true."

On the other hand, they may see the station and the rest of the sentient life in the system as a loose end to be tidied up before leaving.  They may flash their tails at 'uncle' Chronos if they don't make sufficiently diligent haste after them.  Either way...

"We should launch now, with the engine... `noise` covered by Mother, we pick up the team and extract them with Ana and her crew, preferably with their ship.  We then beat a hasty retreat."

[Lushin]

Causeways
Doc proved another reason why he got the nickname Doc from some of the humans. He drew his pistol surprisingly fast and aimed at the lizard closest to Ana. When she killed it he fired on one of the others. He seemed annoyed at the attacks. He shifted the weight of the wolverine body on his shoulders.