Sydney crawled into the claustrophobic and shadowed confines of the air duct and pulled the panel shut behind her.  The smooth metal was chilling her, even through her suit and she shivered.  The crawl itself was not too bad, she was petite enough to fit comfortably, what was the effort was to be quiet.  Her fear heightened sensed magnifed the sounds of her shuffling along and the rasping pant of her breath until she was certain EVERYTHING onboard heard her nd knew where she was.  The surrealness was compounded by the rising and falling sounds of battle echoing through the ductworks.  She also had to deal with some areas that had seen hasty or in some cases slipshod repairs, plus the fact that ducting was not a primary system and therefore squeezed in where it could fit.<br/><br/>Up some distances suddenly became a left hand dogleg that ended in a short part of straight down.  By the time she'd gotten along to the next companionway area as indicated by he helmet HUD, she was exhausted and bruised.  She rested a little time, mostly to calm her breathing, and marveled at the dust covering her.<span style="color: navy">"You'd think the navy'd hire a maid service..."</span>She whispered to herself.  Then, unbidden a random thought occurred to her.<i>Does this airduct make my butt look fat?</i>She clapped her hand over her mask to stifle her manic giggle.<span style="color: navy">"I wonder if random thoughts were a sign of insantiy?</span>She took a sip of water to wet her throat and struggled along the ductwork.<br/><br/>She was almost halfway there when she saw a bright light where no vents were loated on the HUD.  She slowed her already slow pace to inching up to the gaping hole blown<i>in</i>from some explosion.  She peered over carefully and saw the abbatoir of Hell below.  Varios bodies and parts floated along with the detrius of a massacre in the strobbing flicker of damaged lighting.  Half an assault rifle, lasered cleanly through the magazine still in the gloved grasp of some Marine slowly rotated by and Sydney got an idea.  She took a useless roll of gauze bandaging and made a lasso and fished for a rifle and after some long minutes got one that was unscathed.  By sheer stubborness she salvaged three extra magazines and pocketed them.  She by will alone did not cry out at seeing the corpses, even that of the nurse she'd gotten her medikit bag issued from earlier.  The lazers did a terribly clean job of slicing a body, but some images were forever burned into Sydney's memory.<br/><br/><span style="text-decoration: underline">The front HALF of a head rolled by as Sydney tossed the lasso out for another magazine.  The eyes, boiled white like eggs by the laser as the poor bastard died with a look of fear forever etched on it.</span>Sydney quit trying for more magazines and tried to swallow her fear and horror that were overwhelming her again.<span style="color: navy">"Mommy."</span>She moaned before she could gather herself.<br/><br/>She said a short prayer for the Marine and navy casualties in the companionway and carefully wnet over the gaping hole to continue on to the Generator Room.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>