ARCTICA (IC)
<h1 id="title">Elliquiy Role Playing Forums</h1>
		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Light =&gt; Light: Human Small Groups =&gt; Topic started by: Question Mark on 06-07-2014, 05:02:26</h2>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>06-07-2014, 05:02:26</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				OOC Thread (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=208157.0)<br>Brief (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=208159.0)<br>Dossiers (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=208158.0)<br>Interest and Recruitment (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=206965.0)<br><br><hr><hr><br><div align="center">(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa248/Impervium2401/2d65a95d-47bc-4318-b57d-c648867ce2b7.jpg)</div><br><hr><hr><hr><br><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size: 28pt;" class="bbc_size">ARCTICA</span><br><span style="font-size: 16pt;" class="bbc_size">Act III: Portents</span></strong><br><br><strong>The past is writ upon the stars.<br>&nbsp;</strong></div><br><hr><hr><hr><br>As the odd text vanished from the screen of your MONA, dissolving in a swirl of red and black error text, there came a knock at your door.<br><br><em>rat-tat-tat</em><br><br>Perhaps you looked up, wondering who they were and what they wanted and if it had anything to do with the strange message you just received.&nbsp; It may be taken as odd that they even knocked; the only lock the door had was on the outside, like a dog cage.<br><br>The room you sat in was much like the door: nondescript, built from cheap prefab plastic the color of curdling milk, and constructed with the intent to keep you safely inside.&nbsp; There was a surprisingly comfortable cot on one side, and a small drawer packed with a set of arctic (http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa248/Impervium2401/f9e8831a-3b44-4aa2-91d9-7e87fc814177.jpg) clothing (http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa248/Impervium2401/8b81d344-b5ef-43e5-818b-ae2bd588d670.jpg), all in your size of course.&nbsp; As the temperature had been dropping steadily since takeoff two hours ago, this would likely be a good find.<br><br>Besides the clothing drawer, there was little else.&nbsp; A small sphere of a window showed only blackness and the rhythmic flash frames of snow hanging in mid-air, illuminated by the lights on the wingtips.&nbsp; A fluorescent light strip was embedded in the ceiling, which itself was a scarce 190 centimeters high.<br><br>Of course, there's also the MONA.&nbsp; It resembles an iPhone, although slightly smaller and thicker.&nbsp; It's surprisingly dense, and you have a feeling that it would take some serious force to break.&nbsp; There's an antenna built into the case that can be extended, as well as a small cubby where a simple rubbertip stylus is kept.&nbsp; On the back, your name and a string of seemingly random alphanumeric digits are etched into the plastic.&nbsp; When turned on, you have the choice to access either the Brief or the Communications modules.&nbsp; Only the Brief is currently accessible.<br><br>The knock came again, more insistent this time.<br><br><em>rat-tat-tat-tat</em><br><br>In your hand, the MONA buzzed quietly:<br><br>&nbsp;<strong>ALERT</strong>: A new item has been added to the <strong>Brief</strong> (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=206965.msg10149985#msg10149985).
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC Thread)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>06-07-2014, 05:46:41</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Dr. Zoey Calhoun was up late, doing what she did best: reading.&nbsp; As a professor, she did quite a bit of that, going over reports and student papers, studying and learning more and more about not only her projects now but those that might show up in the future.&nbsp; Tonight, however, it was reading with MONA.&nbsp; She was reading a collection of novels she'd picked up a while back with the intention of reading but never gotten around to, with the first in the series being <em>Touched by an Alien</em> by Gini Koch.&nbsp; It was funny, and more than once Dr. Calhoun smiled in bemusement at the main protagonist's antics towards dealing with an alien threat.<br><br>A soft ding came from the MONA, and upon checking she found that there was a message.&nbsp; Since no one other than their handlers, and she refused to think of them as anything else, had interacted with them in any meaningful way, she figured it must be about their upcoming itinerary once they arrived at their final destination.&nbsp; With the MONA situated in her left hand, she tapped the notification, only to be met by some rather cryptic words.<br><br><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">I AM THE SEEKER IN THE DARK.&nbsp; YOU ARE ZOEY ARIANA CALHOUN DOCTOR.&nbsp; I HAVE WARNED THEM.&nbsp; THEY DO NOT LISTEN.&nbsp; SIRRA WILL NOT ACCEPT THEM.&nbsp; SIRRA WILL END THEM.&nbsp; ALREADY THE AUGURS STIR WITHIN THE TEMPLE.&nbsp; DO NOT BELIEVE THEIR EMPTY LIES.&nbsp; DO NOT LET THEM REPEAT THE CYCLE.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br>Before she could make much sense of the cryptic message, it was gone.&nbsp; No sign of it ever existing was left, and she wondered briefly if her mind wasn't just playing tricks on her to provide some weird amusement.&nbsp; With a sigh, she settled back onto the small chair that reclined back into a bed, getting comfortable, before there was a soft <em>rat-tat-tat-tat</em> on her door.&nbsp; Just as she was getting comfortable, too.<br><br>Getting up, she stretched her arms, and legs, and generally got used to moving again.&nbsp; The <em>rat-tat-tat-tat</em> repeated, and she glared at the door.&nbsp; "I'm coming, I'm coming," she muttered, going and finding the door unlocked as she pulled it open and looked out at who was waiting for her.&nbsp; "Yes?" she asked, trying to be polite despite the interruption.<br><br><strong>Tag:</strong> Question Mark
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>06-07-2014, 13:19:31</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Dr. Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean was puzzling over the text, the word Sirra seeming to be of some significance and implied something or someone that had some significance.<br><br>The knock came, causing the archeologist to jump simply because a tapping was unexpected. He slipped the mona into his pocket and continued to pull out the artic gear. It was the first real indication of where they were going and he wanted to make sure that was all that was in there... one outfit. "Come." he called back as he lifted a pair of boots from the drawer... He remembered his last trip to antartica and there was little doubt this was where they were going.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>06-07-2014, 14:17:39</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The journey had been long. So very long. It was just as well that Alec dealt easily with extended periods of waiting - after all, it was a joke shared by militaries across the world: 'hurry up and wait'. He'd long since worked out some strategies to avoid boredom. <br><br>Currently he was reviewing the design brief for the Antarctic installation. His team had been designing it for just over a year now, but there were new hurdles to consider with every metre they dug further underground. The work seemed to expand exponentially. The air temperature that deep into the crust would reach around 50 degrees Celcius - mandating heavy-duty cooling equipment to maintain habilitability for any extended time. Which meant the shaft had to be wider to accommodate it, and thus needed more buttressing to avoid rock bursts... and on and on and on. <br><br>As far as he knew, the deepest working mine in the world was a hair under 4 kilometres deep, and they wouldn't be far off that. He hadn't asked what the purpose of the shaft was. <br><br>His skimming of drafts was interrupted by his MONA informing him of a message. <br><br><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">I AM THE SEEKER IN THE DARK.&nbsp; YOU ARE ALEC WYN LLEWELLYN MAJOR.&nbsp; YOU HEED ME NOT.&nbsp; SIRRA WILL NOT ACCEPT THEM.&nbsp; SIRRA WILL END THEM.&nbsp; END YOUR PLANS.&nbsp; LEAVE THIS TEMPLE UNDEFILED.&nbsp; THE AUGURS STIR ALREADY.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br>Alec frowned. Was this a joke? He sat in his cabin, hunched over his MONA, as he tried to decipher it. "'Seeker in the dark' indeed," he muttered to himself. It must be a prank. And yet... <br><br>It was interesting the message called him 'Major' - apart from the two people that had come with him from the UK, no one on the plane would know that he was anything other than a consultant for the MoD. The story went - and he maintained - that he was retired. <br><br>The little phone deleted the message, a hash of error messages clouding the screen, before it restored its home menu. <br><br>He opened a draft message as someone knocked on the door. "One moment," he replied, typing away. <br><br><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Seeker in dark. Called me major. <br><br>Look up 'sirra'<br><br>Augurs/augers stirring? Could mean drills</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br>He saved the message, the device buzzing with a new notification. He opened the new document as he answered the door to the second knock. <em>Sirra? City of Men?</em> he thought. <em>A city will end... whom?</em> <br><br>A most elaborate prank, he decided. He tucked the device into his trouser pocket as he looked up to the person at his door. "Sorry about that, yes?" 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>07-07-2014, 03:54:55</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				There came a heavy thunk from the other side of the door, the sound of a deadbolt or perhaps a metal bar being shifted back into its holding.&nbsp; This was followed by a rapid series of taps.&nbsp; The door eased open...<br><br>The area outside of the little room should at least be vaguely familiar.&nbsp; You had been walked up the plane's ramp in South Africa, and found that the voluminous interior of the airplane was largely walled off.&nbsp; The ramp led to a narrow corridor running down the aircraft's midline, with small doors lining both walls.&nbsp; You had been led deep into the plane, where you were assigned rooms seemingly at random.<br><br>"Get in.&nbsp; The flight should be approximately three hours," your escort, a grim faced soldier, had said.<br><br>As you now looked back through the open doorway, you saw the same cramped hallway with it's metal grated floor and sterile plastic walls and blinding fluorescent lights.&nbsp; A soldier stands there, momentarily distracted by something occurring to his or her left.&nbsp; He or she is dressed in the same matte black combat gear and helmet as all the others you've seen, loaded down with ammunition, tactical gear, a radio, and other equipment.&nbsp; You hear someone barking commands down the hallway, their voice muffled by the distant roar of the aircraft's engines.<br><br>The soldier holds a rifle in their hands.&nbsp; The barrel is pointed at you.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Zoey Calhoun</span></strong><br><br><em>"Yes?"</em><br><br>The soldier's head jerks around, the faint outline of eyes barely visible through the opaque visor.&nbsp; His broad shoulders and tall stature indicate he's a man.&nbsp; "Dr. Calhoun, come with me," he says in a lilting Mandarin accent, his voice urgent.&nbsp; Two gunshots boom from somewhere inside the plane, punctuating his statement.&nbsp; Behind him, the hallway lights flicker.<br><br>"The sooner the better, miss."<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Sean Gallegar</span></strong><br><br>The door opened with a slam, kicked in by the commando.&nbsp; He loomed in the doorway, black rifle pointed directly at Sean's head.&nbsp; "You!&nbsp; Come with me, <em>now</em>!"<br><br>The commando loomed above the archaeologist.&nbsp; Even though his face was obscured by a dense, opaque mask, Sean could tell by the way he held himself that he was ready to pistol whip him on a whim.<br><br>Somewhere in the aircraft, Sean heard twin reports of gunfire.<br><br>"The boots can wait asshole.&nbsp; Let's <em>move!</em>"<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Alec Llewellyn</span></strong><br><br><em>"Sorry about that, yes?"</em><br><br>The commando pushed the door open and stepped briskly into the room.&nbsp; Her helmeted head swiveled like a top, but the barrel of her rifle remained trained on Alec's chest.<br><br>Her head twitched and she looked downward as she spoke something into the radio inside her helmet.&nbsp; After a moment, she nodded and looked at Alec.&nbsp; Two gunshots cracked the chill air, but the soldier didn't seem to notice or care.<br><br>"Major Llewellyn," she said, butchering the pronunciation of his last name.&nbsp; "Your presence is required in the CIC.&nbsp; If you would..."&nbsp; She gestured with her rifle, indicating that he should walk out of the room in front of her.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br><br>The commando stepped into the room, keeping her back to the door.&nbsp; "Ms. Graham," she said in a crisp Texan accent.&nbsp; She glanced out into the hallway and shook her head.&nbsp; Elsewhere inside the plane, a gun fired twice.<br><br>"Ms. Graham, we have to move.&nbsp; I swear to the Holy God above I'll knock you the fuck out and throw you over my shoulder if you don't start hauling ass <em>right now</em>."
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>07-07-2014, 04:12:27</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The man had to be of Chinese decent, or at least on the general area, given his accent.&nbsp; He was slightly above her height, at 165 centimeters tall, and definitely more muscular.&nbsp; His uniform was black, though it had lighter patches of grey for breaking up the pattern, as well as some deep navy blue, no doubt to hide him better than pure black on a moonless night.&nbsp; He was listening to his radio, and from the way he jerked around, it must have been urgent.&nbsp; <br><br>"Dr. Calhoun, come with me."<br><br>While Zoey was about to protest, she heard two shots ring out.&nbsp; The fact that the lights flickered meant things weren't going to plan.&nbsp; "The sooner the better, miss."<br><br>Without missing a beat, she grabbed a pair of shoes while dropping the MONA in her pocket, then reached in the drawer and grabbed the coat that was there.&nbsp; The entire affair lasted only five seconds, and she was following him out the door.&nbsp; The metal was cold on her bare feet, but she was certain that time was of the essence.&nbsp; Given that gunshots were being heard, she didn't ask questions, especially not since the last stop had seen two prisoners being carried off the plane in handcuffs.<br><br>"If I had to guess, I'd say things are not going well," she commented as she followed him towards their intended destination.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>07-07-2014, 04:42:59</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Dr. Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean dropped the boots, and rose, "If you want me to rush, you need to get out of the doorway." he said in his lilting irish accent. He grabbed up the pile of artic clothing that he had laid on the seat of a chair; scooping up the boots in the process as he tucked everything under his arm. With deliberate, measured movements, he nudged the end of the rifle out of his face, "Well, come on, I'm tired of waiting on you Soldier." and slipped past him. He knew, well figured, that with the constantly moving southward direction of the trip, and the artic weather gear, that he would need at least the coat and boots to survive for any period of time. The gunshots only made him more aware that they may not be landing in the conventional way. "How well does that basic black do in artic conditions? No matter, I suppose, they'll shoot at you before me."
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>07-07-2014, 07:49:00</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah Graham.<br><br>She had barely finished entering the text of the mysterious message into her personal notes on the MONA, and was about to stand to open the door when the commando stepped in.<br><br>The gunshots were unexpected, but the commando brooked no argument.&nbsp; Rebekah stood and pocketed the MONA, scooped up the Arctic weather clothing, grabbed her bag and moved.<br><br>"All you had to do was ask.&nbsp; Lead on."<br><br>Oh, Rebekah had questions, but now was obviously <strong>not</strong> the time.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>07-07-2014, 15:14:31</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec flashed back to a week-long SERE exercise he'd joined, part of the Army's inter-disciplinary experience program, with the SAS in the Brecon Beacons. He remembered the grizzled staff sergeant, with his two combination hearing aids/radio earpieces, having damaged his hearing after walking into too many thunderflashes in room clearances. The sussuration of the wind through the trees in the wood block, the bite of the wind. <em>"And here's what to do if someone catches you cold, they've got you at gunpoint and there's no escape..."</em><br><br>He shook the image away - this person was dressed just the same as the other ARCTICA military personnel he'd seen. All the same, he didn't appreciate the rifle pointed at his chest. A chill crawled down his spine at the sound of gunshots - gunshots the commando ignored. <br><br><em>Taking that lack of reaction to mean the shots are from her side... and that they were expected.</em> The possibilities that raised weren't good. <br><br>He was already in most of his cold weather gear - he'd noticed the cabin temperature dropping since they left South Africa - and so only had to gather up the heavy overcoat and gloves. "Will Taylor and Fitzsimmons be joining us in the CIC?" he asked, referring to the two members of his team that had flown with him. <br><br>He stepped into the hall, uncomfortably aware of the rifle still aimed squarely at his shoulderblades. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>09-07-2014, 05:07:22</strong>
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				<strong><span class="bbc_u">Zoey Calhoun</span></strong><br><br>The soldier lowered his rifle when he saw that Zoey intended to be compliant.&nbsp; While she gathered her things, he ducked out of the doorway and spoke softly under his breath.&nbsp; With the dull roar of the plane's engines filling the air, it was impossible to hear what he was saying.<br><br><em>"If I had to guess, I'd say things are not going well."</em><br><br>The soldier did not respond, but instead took her comment as a signal that she was ready.&nbsp; He stepped out of the doorway, looking to the right.&nbsp; He kept his rifle lowered, but it was taut and still, ready to rise like a cobra's head striking prey.<br><br>"You continue on to you left, Doctor," he said quickly, gesturing over his shoulder.&nbsp; "Go on up the hallway.&nbsp; You'll receive further instruction there."<br><br>The soldier did not wait to see what Zoey did, but instead stepped down the corridor and began unlocking the next door.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Sean Gallegar</span></strong><br><br>The soldier did not take Sean's banter well.&nbsp; As he stepped up to the door, the soldier grabbed Sean by the nape of his shirt and shoved him through hard enough that he might stumble on the metal-grate floor.&nbsp; The hallway was somewhat warmer than the room, but there was a constant stiff wind blowing through it, like a steady winter breeze.<br><br>"Fuck you motherfucker, get the fuck out of here!" the soldier shouted, following Sean out into the hallway.&nbsp; "Get <em>up!</em>&nbsp; To your <em>left</em> moron, up the hallway!&nbsp; Run!"<br><br>The soldier loomed over Sean, looking the jackbooted government thug ready to cave in his skull with an iron toe covered in hard rubber.&nbsp; Rather than strike him, the soldier instead turned away and moved down the hallway, unlocking the next door."<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br><br><em>"All you had to do was ask.&nbsp; Lead on."</em><br><br>Rebekah could almost feel the woman's eyes narrowing behind that black visor.&nbsp; After a tense moment, she turned away and stepped back through the doorway.<br><br>"Alright, you go left," she said, pointing to the left with a black-gloved hand.&nbsp; Rebekah could see that she was missing her ring finger on that hand.&nbsp; "Just keep going 'till you reach the end, just follow everyone else.&nbsp; Now shake a leg Barbie doll!"<br><br>Without waiting for a reply, the woman moved on to the next door, undoing the mechanical and electronic locks with deft, practiced ease.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Alec Llewellyn</span></strong><br><br>When Alec began to move, the soldier lowered her rifle.&nbsp; She again spoke within her helmet as Alec left the room.<br><br><em>"Will Taylor and Fitzsimmons be joining us in the CIC?"</em><br><br>Her head snapped around as if his words had been a bolt of lightning, but all she said was, "Who?"&nbsp; Either she had a terrible poker face or she was strung tighter than piano wire.<br><br>"Doesn't matter," she said, following him out.&nbsp; "Everyone's being moved out, so I expect you'll see them en route, if not there.&nbsp; Just go to the left, up the hallway.&nbsp; You'll rendezvous with another squaddie up near the fore.&nbsp; Pull rank."<br><br>The soldier turned away, looking down the hallway away from Alec, her gun raised.<br><br><hr><br>The hallway you find yourself in more resembles a submarine than the interior of an airplane.&nbsp; The corridor is small, barely wide enough for two people in heavy clothing or soldiers in half-kit to squeeze past each other.&nbsp; When you had first been escorted here ninety minutes ago, it was orderly and empty, a neat row of mirrored doors stretching twenty meters through the belly of the airplane.&nbsp; There were perhaps fifteen to twenty of the compact rooms, as you reckoned, but there may also be a second or even third level.&nbsp; The fore end of the hallway ended in a slightly ajar hatch that seemed ripped straight from an aircraft carrier.&nbsp; A single soldier stood there, either waving people through or directing them through an unseen door off to the side.<br><br>It had not been difficult to navigate the space before, but now a crush of humanity filled it. Nearly a dozen men and women of varied age and ethnicity -- likely other civilian contractors -- were struggling to press up the hallway in the direction you had been pointed.&nbsp; They were not a crowd by any means, but the cramped space was claustrophobic in the way it confined them.&nbsp; Six soldiers, including the one who just pulled you from your room, were moving methodically in the opposite direction, stopping door-to-door and pulling people from their rooms.<br><br>The bitter air was heady and thick with smells that the persistent breeze could not disperse: fear, anxiety, ozone.&nbsp; It smelled like a bundle of desiccated hay downwind of a raging fire.<br><br>You found yourself in the middle of the press, people behind you urging you forward with their closeness.&nbsp; No one spoke, but everyone seemed to be murmuring.<br><br>"What the hell is going on?"<br><br>"Where are we going?"<br><br>"This is fucking ridiculous."<br><br>"Lord, it's so <em>cold</em>.&nbsp; Wh--"<br><br>The plane suddenly lurches.&nbsp; For a brief and sickening moment, free fall seizes you.&nbsp; Your feet leave the floor, your stomach drops away into nothingness, the dark envelopes you as the lights flicker out, and then--<br><br>The plane suddenly flies up to meet you.&nbsp; The weightlessness vanishes as quickly as it came, and gravity yanks you back down to the floor.&nbsp; There's a soft electrical whine as the lights power back on, although they seem dimmer now.&nbsp; The walls tremble, the plane's superstructure emanating a dull groan that resonates deep within your gut as it warps and oscillates after the violent turbulence.<br><br>The press advances quicker now, three out of every four people being shunted off to the side like cattle into a slaughter chute.&nbsp; Zoey is the first to reach the guard at the hatch, with Sean, Rebekah, and Alec following after her.&nbsp; The guard holds up a hand, silently signaling Zoey to wait, as she touches the base of her helmet and speaks into the interior radio.<br><br>Another moment of vertigo and darkness seizes you as the plane lurches through the turbulent air.&nbsp; This was not nearly as long as the first, but the lights took a little longer to come back on, and some further down the hallway were still dark.&nbsp; The plane was banking now, declining steadily to the left.&nbsp; It did not seem to be slowing, as what usually happened on a commercial airliner, but in fact seemed to be accelerating.<br><br>The guard had not shifted.&nbsp; She continued to speak inside her helmet, leaning farther and farther to the right in order to compensate for the tilt of the deck.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>09-07-2014, 05:33:40</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Narrow confines didn't make Zoey feel comfortable.&nbsp; The warmth of so many bodies pressed together, plus the acrid smell of ozone only told her that things were going from bad to worse.&nbsp; She'd followed the instructions, not at all pleased she'd had a rifle trained at her, and now she could almost sense everyone around her, desperate to find out what was going on.&nbsp; Wild speculation was already going on, people trying to be the first to know some trivial piece of information that would do them no good.&nbsp; It was sad, really, given how people tended to panic when herded together, and even Zoey had to admit that she felt a bit of that panic rise.<br><br>Then the plane decided to counter this by suddenly dropping out from under them, only to once more come back.<br><br>Zoey slammed into the deck, wincing as her chest hit the deck.&nbsp; The obvious problem with being a female in such a situation became painfully obvious, and her arm hurt as well.&nbsp; Pain had a tendency to make some sluggish, so it was only by force of will that Zoey picked herself up and leaned on the wall of the plane, grabbing hold to keep from dropping again.&nbsp; The lights were flickering, which wasn't a good sign since that meant they could lose power entirely and drop from the sky.&nbsp; That would not be a pleasant ending to her evening or her life, so she tried thinking happy thoughts, like rainbows and kittens, only to find that bored her.&nbsp; So she started counting the Fibonacci sequence.&nbsp; <em>1... 1... 2... 3... 5... 8... 13... 21... 34... 55... 89... 144... 233...</em><br><br>The plane hit turbulence before she could get much further, the lights going out and staying out a few more seconds before returning, and not all of them doing so.&nbsp; The engines got louder, indicating they were going faster, which made her worried.&nbsp; Were they trying to get through the storm quicker?&nbsp; Or was this some insane pilot who was in a hurry to get rid of them?&nbsp; Neither prospect sounded ideal, especially of they crashed.&nbsp; Once more, her mind turned to Fibonacci.<br><br>She made it almost twice as far before a wave of vertigo swept over her, and she gripped the wall harder.&nbsp; <em>Fuck fuck fuck!</em> she thought, desperately searching her pockets and realizing she'd left something critical back in her room.&nbsp; She tried to get the guard's attention, "Excuse me!&nbsp; I have to get my medicine from my room, right now."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>09-07-2014, 05:39:06</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The guard, her head tilted as she listened to something in her helmet, ignored her.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>09-07-2014, 06:21:59</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br><br>Puzzling over the "Barbie doll" remark - <em>When did I become blonde? </em>- Rebekah moved quickly in the direction indicated.&nbsp; It was clear something had gone seriously wrong, but there was no way to tell what or how.&nbsp; Yet.&nbsp; <br><br>She continued into the press of confused people until it felt like the gravity had been cut.&nbsp; First a moment of weightlessness and then darkness and she landed hard, going to one knee and one hand on the deck to maintain her balance.&nbsp; The sounds that the metal around them were making were ominous, but it wouldn't help to worry about something out of her control.&nbsp; <br><br>Another lurch, another blackout.&nbsp; Longer, and not all the lights came back on.&nbsp; Rebekah waited, two people back from the hatch and leaning to keep her balance, when the woman ahead of her began shouting about forgotten medicine?&nbsp; It was difficult to understand anyone at this point, but she doubted going back to any of the cabins wasn't an option.&nbsp; <br><br>While they waited, she pulled the heavy Arctic jacket on.&nbsp; It was cold now and would be colder outside, plus it gave her some padding.&nbsp; Rebekah said a few Hail Marys in her head, praying for the safety of everyone on board.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>09-07-2014, 13:57:11</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean took the shove as well as he could. In one part of his mind, he knew that the soldier couldn't really hurt him, he was too professional and his superiors wouldn't take it very well if one of their paid assets was killed, or seriously hurt because a trooper couldn't keep his cool in a crisis moment. So, he smiled back and moved down the isle as indicated. As he went, he pulled the coat on, but left it unfastened. The structural engineer in him knew that a breeze, hell, a cold wind, wasn't good on an aircraft... someplace they had taken some kind of damage to the hull and that meant that the aircraft was under 15,000 feet or they would all be dead of apheciation before now. As a man who flew frequently and paid attention to both media accounts and the directions of countless flight attendants, he wasn't comforted by either the two gunshots, the way the guards kept pointing weapons toward the back of the plane, nor the fact that the aircraft was apparently in trouble.<br><br>He was taken by surprise as he lost his grasp with the world of gravity for what seemed like hours, but likely only a few seconds. He had the mind to look at the walls and if he moved one way or the other as the drop happened... Did they just dive, or did they really hit turblance? The sounds of the engines inceasing in power could mean that they were fiving faster... but he had another thought as the lights went out, came back and went out again... they were loosing engines, and therefore electrical power. That would mean that the engines that remained needed to increase their power to maintain airspeed and he could consider that the new angle and seeming descent meant that they didn't have full control as much as trying to get under turblance... didn't you rise to avoid terblance? He considered asking one of the soldiers, but he doubted that they would say anything, if they knew anything. He leaned forward and said loud enough to be heard by the person infront of him, "Once we're down, run hard and fast away from the plane and hand onto that coat as if your life depended on it."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>09-07-2014, 20:22:32</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec decided not to press the commando on her reaction to his question. She'd known his name, it made sense to assume that she'd know the rest of the manifest. Sighing, he headed left, down the hall. He listened to the grumbles of the assembled people, staying quiet himself. There was no need to get excited until he had a better handle on what was actually going on. <br><br>Although that nagging smell of ozone didn't help. Any time he'd managed to overload some electrical panel or blown a fuse, he'd smelled ozone. Burning electronics in a plane was... problematic. <br><br>He was waved over to a group of people, and joined them just before the bottom dropped out of the plane. He grunted as his feet left the deck, trying hard not to flail around in the dark in case he reoriented himself poorly. He managed to absorb the impact as he landed again, but still sank to one knee, cracking his kneecap painfully off the floor. As he rose, he helped a nearby fellow passenger back to their feet. <br><br>Just as he joined a smaller group of people, the plane lurched again, but he immediately reached for the nearest handhold to prevent more leghurt. <br><br><em>Shit, is the plane listing?</em> The next thought he came up with, he could not shake. <em>We're going down.</em> <br><br>He kept his mouth shut. There was no way he was going to cause a panic. <br><br>The woman at the head of the queue spoke up, asking about medicine. The only things he could imagine being so far at the front of someone's mind in a time like this were things like insulin or adrenaline. He noticed the soldier roundly ignored her question. <br><br>"Which is your compartment, miss? We'll go and get it." <br><br><em>If she won't say 'No'... right?</em> 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>09-07-2014, 20:28:34</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Zoey hated being ignored, especially by someone too busy when they were in grave danger.&nbsp; The slanted deck only made it difficult, but she was determined not to die because some fuckwit with a gun was too busy pretending he had the biggest penis in the room.&nbsp; Turning, she was about to go when another of the group asked, "Which is your compartment, miss?&nbsp; We'll go and get it."<br><br>Taking a look at the man, Zoey was sure she'd seen him before, getting on or off the plane.&nbsp; Not one to resist an opportunity, she said, "Come on.&nbsp; I might need someone with me when I explain in exacting detail what happens when someone needing medicine runs out and how they'll be lucky to be scrubbing toilets in a 7-11 if they don't let me have it."<br><br>Ignoring the soldier in return, she headed for the compartments again, hoping she could recall which was hers.&nbsp; They were mostly identical, but she knew what she was looking for and where it was, so maybe that would help.&nbsp; Assuming they didn't get shot by some trigger-happy neanderthal.&nbsp; Her opinion on the intelligence on these soldiers was dropping faster than the deck of the aircraft, so she held out no hope one wouldn't demand they get moving again before she found her bag.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>10-07-2014, 01:37:55</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The hallway had largely cleared out.&nbsp; It seemed most of the remaining rooms were empty, and aside from the soldiers, you and the three plainclothes were the last people remaining in the corridor.&nbsp; However, the guard at the front made no effort to lead you out of the windtunnel, and in fact seemed to be blocking the only available exits, so enraptured she was by whatever she was listening to.<br><br>The other soldiers were scattered up and down the hallway, leaning on walls or wedged into doorways to keep themselves from falling over.&nbsp; Some had their guns raised, others bobbed as they manipulated the controls within their helmets.&nbsp; The plane held the bank, leaving the doors on the tight little rooms to roll restlessly on their hinges as gravity and angular momentum tugged at them unevenly.<br><br>An order must have gone out over the intercom, because the five soldiers scattered along the hallway suddenly turned in unison and pointed their weapons toward the rear of the plane.&nbsp; None of them paid Alec or Zoey any attention as the two ran back to Zoey's room.<br><br>The rising din of the engines was abruptly overwritten by a sudden roar of gunfire, only slightly muffled by the interior structure of the plane.&nbsp; It sounded like an assault rifle being fired on full auto, spewing high caliber bullets by the sound of it.&nbsp; The gunfire guttered, devolving from a continuous stream into a series of short bursts, and then went silent.&nbsp; It had sounded much closer than the twin gunshots earlier.<br><br>The bitter reek of ozone was suddenly joined by a new smell: burning rubber and charred meat.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>10-07-2014, 03:54:14</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah watched the two run back to the woman's cabin in search of her medication.&nbsp; She hoped they'd make it there and back safely.&nbsp; The corridor was no longer filled with people, but that begged the question of where they were now.&nbsp; <br><br>The abrupt change in attitude of the five soldiers really had her worried as they brought their weapons up to cover the rear of the plane.&nbsp; She couldn't see anything for them to target from where she was standing, but at least they hadn't immediately started shooting.&nbsp; <br><br><em>What the bloody hell is going on?!? </em> <br><br>Nothing was making sense here.&nbsp; The plane was apparently on the verge of a crash landing and there was gunfire breaking out.&nbsp; On. A. Plane.&nbsp; In flight.&nbsp; The complete lack of information made it worse.&nbsp; Who were they shooting at and why?&nbsp; Had someone tried to hijack the plane?&nbsp; <br><br>She flinched and braced herself as gunfire erupted again, this time full auto fire and closer.&nbsp; Rebekah closed her eyes and hung on, breathing in through her mouth to get past the alarming new smells.&nbsp; And still the guard near her stood there listening to her commo.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>10-07-2014, 05:41:41</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Hurrying from room to room, Zoey was surprised they weren't stopped along the way by someone demanding they return, or outright shooting them.&nbsp; She couldn't remember which cabin it was, just that it was on the right.&nbsp; They made it to the third cabin when gunfire broke out.&nbsp; This caused Zoey to pause only briefly, before she redoubled her efforts.&nbsp; The fourth cabin was, thankfully, the right one.&nbsp; She disappeared inside and grabbed the black bag waiting there, before turning to Alec, "Ok, got it."<br><br>As they emerged back into the hallway, more gunfire erupted.&nbsp; This didn't sound good at all, and the slanted deck made walking a pain as they hurried back towards the rear of the plane.&nbsp; She could only pray she didn't lose something valuable out of the pack, because it would be difficult to replace on short notice.&nbsp; The gunfire was getting closer, and she just kept going, struggling a bit here and there but otherwise nimble enough to avoid the problems such an extreme angle was presenting.<br><br><em>Now I know why they don't let 747's flip over... the chaos would be incredible.</em>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>10-07-2014, 09:15:48</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean snapped his head back toward the back of the plane at the renewed gunfire. That couldn't be good to either the airframe or the the electronics running through it. "Shit." he muttered, "How do you unsecure a plane in flight?"<br><br>He looked at the woman standing at the big hatch and walked over, "Umm, excuse me," he said as he took a mental inventory of her equipment, "As it seems like we're in the middle of a fire-fight, might I borrow that pistol? If I'm going to die, I would just as soon be of some use and I can aim and pull a trigger if I need to." He even tapped on the rifle to make sure he had her attention.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>10-07-2014, 14:55:02</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec followed the woman back down the hallway, leaning to one side to compensate for the list of the plane. His head snapped up when the fresh round of gunfire started. <em>What, a stowaway? Sleeper? We can't have been boarded mid-flight...</em> <br><br>"Come on," he said. "Time's short." <br><br>The echo of the shots was infuriating - it made it impossible to determine their origin. <em>Couldn't they wait to have their philosophical debate once we're on the ground? They're risking turning this into a suicide mission.</em> <br><br>It made no sense. Rifle-calibre weapons were anathema to the inside of an aeroplane. They'd puncture the hull, wreck electronics, damage machinery... <br><br>The slender woman ducked into the next cabin, grabbed a bag. Alec followed close behind, ready to shield her smaller form with his own bulk if he had to. He snorted to himself as he remembered the burden of the heavy ceramic ballistic vests he'd worn in Afghanistan, how he hated them in the heat. What he'd have given for one of them now... 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>11-07-2014, 02:02:13</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham and Sean Gallager</span></strong><br><br>The guard remained impassive as Sean spoke, until he touched her weapon.&nbsp; The butt of the rifle lashed out like a bolt of lightning, catching Sean in the jaw with an audible <em>crack</em>.&nbsp; It wasn't enough to knock someone like him out, but if he was lucky enough to survive ARCTICA and get an x-ray someday in the future, he'd find that she'd made twin hairline cracks that snaked up the right of his mandible like fissures in a glacier.&nbsp; In the short term, the entire lower half of his face felt numb and distant.&nbsp; The right side of his jaw was swelling up like a sponge in water, and blood was already trickling down from a gash on his lower cheek.<br><br>"Holy shit," she said, sounding surprised.&nbsp; She lowered her rifle so that it rested against her chest, and reached out to Sean.&nbsp; At some unseen command, the tint in her visor melted away, revealing dim green eyes set deep within a dark, round face. "What the fuck did you do that for?" she asked breathlessly, looking genuinely concerned.<br><br>Her eyes suddenly fixed on a point behind Sean and Rebekah, going wide with alarm and horror.&nbsp; The rifle swung back up, her finger on the trigger.<br><br>"<em>GET DOWN!</em>" she screamed.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Zoey Calhoun and Alec Llewellyn</span></strong><br><br>The retrieval of the bag was uneventful at first.&nbsp; Zoey's temporary room had not changed much since she had left it a minute earlier: the blanket on the cot had bunched up against the wall during the long bank, partially obscuring the window.&nbsp; They could just see the tip of the wing out the small portal, bouncing ferociously in what looked to be a blizzard.<br><br>Out in the hallway, the soldiers ignored them, their rifles intent on the rear of the aircraft.&nbsp; Zoey and Alec made good time despite the odd angle, and were halfway back to the front of the corridor when they saw the guard at the door looking at them with wide eyes, her rifle flickering up to a firing position at an astonishing speed.<br><br>No, she wasn't looking at them.&nbsp; She was looking <em>past</em> them.<br><br>"<em>GET DOWN!</em>" she screamed.<br><br><hr><br>"Hold!" one of the soldiers, the woman who had ordered Alec out of his room, shouted.&nbsp; "Hold fire!"<br><br>They held.<br><br>At the rear of the corridor, perhaps eight meters from where Alec and Zoey and ten meters from where Rebekah and Sean stood, a patch of the ceiling half a meter wide was glowing a bright red.&nbsp; The grate holes vanished as the metal bubbled and melted, vanishing as the struts fused together into a thin sheet of boiling matter.&nbsp; It began to bulge downwards, growing hotter and hotter until it glowed, an angry red dome surrounded by bubbling orange.<br><br>"Jie, back!" the same woman shouted.&nbsp; The soldier nearest the melthole slowly edged back in a half-crouch, his rifle unwavering.&nbsp; Zoey may recognize him as the same man who had knocked on her door.<br><br>The dome burst.<br><br>A spray of white-red droplets showered the end of the corridor.&nbsp; The molten metal burned smoking holes through the prefab walls of the rooms and formed angry, smoldering lumps on the grate floor.&nbsp; The doorway where Jie had been standing sagged, having received the worst of the onslaught.<br><br>"Contact," Jie said, his voice brittle ice.&nbsp; The smell of ozone was suddenly cloying, overpowering, sickening.&nbsp; Inky black smoke poured from the hole where the dome of molten metal had been.<br><br>No... not smoke.&nbsp; Not quite.&nbsp; It moved too slowly, too rigidly.&nbsp; It didn't catch air or drift, didn't swirl or disperse like smoke should, but <em>floated</em> through the air like a gob of ink dropped in clear water.&nbsp; It coalesced, guided by some unknown intelligence.&nbsp; A single thick trunk tested the air lazily, poking this way and that.&nbsp; It glittered like obsidian in the sterile light, pulsing and throbbing, unseen tendrils coiling just beneath the surface of its nebulous exterior.<br><br>"Hold your fire!"<br><br>The eldritch tendril extended with a sudden speed that it's sluggish movement had not previously hinted at.&nbsp; The "smoke" dropped to the floor, now moving like thick fudge poured from the lip of a ladle.&nbsp; There, it piled upon itself and seemed to harden, like a mound of wet sand dribbled from a child's bucket drying beneath a summer sun.&nbsp; You suddenly realize that this "cloud" was neither a liquid or a gas, but a swarm.<br><br>"Wh--" Jie began.<br><br>The swarm whirred to life.&nbsp; A dozen tentacles suddenly manifested from the black sand, cables of ductile obsidian, lashing and thrashing.&nbsp; They ranged in length from a half meter to a few centimeters, some as thick as your finger, others as fine as your hair.&nbsp; They attached themselves to the grated metal floor and gripped the plastic walls on either side.&nbsp; The central mass of the swarm hardened and coalesced into a solid core from which the tentacles pulsed and flowed, an egg-shaped capsule slightly smaller than your head.&nbsp; The bottom of the core was concave, a smooth featureless black pit.&nbsp; As you watched, the pit began to spin at a tremendous speed, it's color shifting from black to red to white until it was so bright that even glancing at it would leave a painful afterimage.&nbsp; A cone of white-blue superheated air guttered into existence within the concave, which now vaguely resembled a miniature jet engine.&nbsp; The grated floor beneath it immediately started to spit and bubble, even as the metallic thing lifted itself a half meter above it on its cables.<br><br>While most were covered with a fine vellum-like fuzz, the largest of these cables was tipped with a hooked barb.&nbsp; It lashed out like a whip, faster than your eye could track, and punched a bloody hole through Jie's visor.&nbsp; His question, never to be heard, died on his lips.<br><br>The thing had come to life, killed Jie, and begun surging forward within the span of a single second.<br><br>No order needed to be given.&nbsp; The soldiers opened fire simultaneously, their rifles thunder incarnate.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>11-07-2014, 02:49:58</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br><br>In the instant before the man reached towards the unresponsive guard, Rebekah realized what he was going to touch.&nbsp; Not in time to stop it, unfortunately.&nbsp; The guard reacted swiftly and violently, no doubt as she had been trained.&nbsp; <br><br><strong>That</strong> was going to need medical attention soon.&nbsp; She reached out to steady the now injured man.&nbsp; <br><br>"He was just trying to get your attention!"&nbsp; She had to shout to be heard.&nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>When the guard' expression changed and she brought up her rifle, Rebekah pulled the man down with her and tried to shield him.&nbsp; And the everything went to hell.<br><br>Melting metal, the overpowering smell of ozone, blinding light, and some <em><strong>thing</strong></em> flowed and moved and hardened into being.&nbsp; Tentacle-like appendages formed and moved and a man was killed; all in a heartbeat.&nbsp; <br><br>The remaining guards opened fire.&nbsp; The noise was deafening.&nbsp; Rebekah's lips moved silently as she prayed to St. Michael.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>11-07-2014, 02:52:10</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				They were on their way back to their little group, making good headway despite the acrobatics the plane was performing, when the hatch guard brought her rifle up. Alec pushed the woman - <em>Must actually get a name at some point...</em> - against the nearest wall by the shoulder without thinking. <br><br>"<em>GET DOWN!</em>" <br><br>That made him turn to see what she was looking at, now that it couldn't be them. And turned pale. Aeroplane skins do not do that in normal flight. They do not do that and remain intact. <br><br>The... <em>thing</em> burst through, and the smell of ozone got worse by an order of magnitude. At least it wasn't an electrical problem, but that seemed like a small mercy in the face of whatever this was. As soon as the thing began to glow, Alec decided he didn't need to see much else. They needed to get away. The light from whatever it was generating threw everything into harsh relief as he looked back up the hallway towards the others. He was acutely aware that he was the closest 'civilian' to it. <br><br>Then it killed the commando and began to advance on them. <em>Nope. Fuck that.</em><br><br>The noise was incredible, and he flinched, shrinking as low as possible to avoid the hatch guard's line of fire. He pushed the woman ahead of him; he'd drag her if he had to. "Move!" he bellowed, fighting to be heard over the cacophany. "Stay down!" he added, probably unnecessarily. <br><br>He got to the hatch, making sure to avoid the guard's aim as much to stay out of her way as to not be shot himself. More guns shooting at the whatever-it-was was <em>very</em> high on his priority list. Alec set about getting the door open - second on his list, right after seeing that thing dead, was getting away from it. It might not be the best plan, as there was a finite amount of running away to be done on an airborne plane, but it was ingrained to every fibre in his being after a long career in the military that any plan is better than no plan. <br><br>Right now, his plan was 'get everyone he could, away from the Tentacle Blob of Fuck-No'. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>11-07-2014, 12:06:04</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean saw stars for a moment and knew that that would hurt in a few seconds, probably like hell, but for the moment, the order to drop got his attention and he felt himself get pulled down... as if he couldn't do it himself, but he didn't say anything. He simply dropped to the floor and looked back... bad idea, his mind screamed and he grabbed the woman'scollar and started crab walking backwards, "I think it's time for us to go." he said loud enough for her to hear.<br><br>He scanned the area, but the rooms along the corridor would just get them trapped... the access panels that might of let him try to pull out some electrical source were keypadded closed and plastic was notibly less heat resistant than the alumimium of the aircraft frame. He peaked into one of the rooms anyway for something sueful and while he saw a small fire extinguisher, it would be pointless. The mattress? Too small and thin to act as a barrier... so we run.<br><br>He looked back up the hall at the very near by soldier and the reinforced door behind her. Where had all of the others gone Shunted off to another part of the plane... a killing box all of it's own... "What's behind that door!" he called up to the solder even as someone else was trying to open it. God, he hoped that it wasn't an exterior access... at even this low altitude,the amount of wind passing along the aircraft's surface would be bad. But, no else where to go and he pulled the woman along with him as he reached the hatch and tried to help the guy open it. "Sean," he said by way of introduction, his irish accent even in the single word, "Do you know where this leads?" he asked and hoped that they could get the 5 of them out of this mess, even for a few seconds to figure out a plan of action.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>12-07-2014, 06:37:57</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br><br>Rebekah wondered exactly where the man thought they could go?&nbsp; They were on board an airplane in flight!&nbsp; <br><br>She went with the injured man for the moment, perhaps <strong>he</strong> knew the layout of the plane.&nbsp; When he introduced himself as Sean, she nodded and yelled back "Bekah".&nbsp; Then he asked if she knew where the hatch led which meant he had no clue where they were either.&nbsp; She shook her head and yelled "No idea".&nbsp; <br><br>Where <strong>were</strong> the other people?&nbsp; The ones who had been clogging up the corridor had been sent... where??&nbsp; She tried to pull up the memory of an airplane diagram she had seen in the past that would be the best match for the one they were on, attempting to figure out what could be behind the hatch and where the others might be.&nbsp; If nothing else it gave her something to focus on besides the nightmarish creature a few metres away.&nbsp; <br><br>Between the noises of the plane and the gunfire, she couldn't hear much of anything any more.&nbsp; The motion of the plane indicated it was still under power and not doing well, but that was the case even before the thing had melted it's way inside.&nbsp; She was starting to believe crashing would be the better option.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 01:15:38</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Zoey was heading back towards their starting point, finding it a bit odd that the soldiers were ignoring them, but then she saw one of them pointing a rifle at them, staring at them as if they were monsters.&nbsp; No... not at them, behind them.<br><br>"GET DOWN!"<br><br>Maybe it was an almost animal like quality that made her obey.&nbsp; Maybe it was self-preservation.&nbsp; Maybe it's because when a commando who looks scared as fuck pointing a rifle at you and yells to get down, you do as you're fucking told.&nbsp; No matter what, the results were the same, and Zoey hit the deck, and turned to look back.<br><br>She didn't... couldn't... believe her eyes.<br><br>The creature glowed an unearthly color, throwing deep shadows behind anything blocking its light.&nbsp; That made it all too painfully clear the exact moment that the white light added a splash of color to the proceedings.&nbsp; A splash of crimson.<br><br>Alec took off, and Zoey only needed a moment to decide that was the best plan as well.&nbsp; She took off after him, staying low and scrambling over everything in her way as they made for the hatch.&nbsp; The smells, the sights, the sounds, all were drowning out as she decided the best place for her was somewhere far away from whatever that thing was, and Alec provided a handy excuse to haul ass.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 05:10:16</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The swarm seemed to shrink beneath the onslaught of bullets.&nbsp; The slugs ricocheted off it's skin, skittered along the grates, and punched rough, tattered holes in the plastic walls.&nbsp; They did not seem to be doing much visible damage to it, but the swarm wilted and tucked itself into the wedge where wall met floor nonetheless.&nbsp; It swung its core's burning turbine back as if to protect it, leaving a swathe of bubbling red metal in its wake.&nbsp; A barely visible haze of black metal dust drifted from it, the only visible effect the bullets seemed to have.<br><br>The plane trembled beneath you, the whine of the engines rising an octave.&nbsp; The floor took on a noticeable tilt as it began to dive.&nbsp; A tide of smoking casings and flattened hollow point rounds cascaded past your feet to pile at the base of the hatchway.&nbsp; Jie's corpse rolled, but came to stop when his leg caught in a doorway.&nbsp; His rifle skittered down the floor, bounced off your shoe, and smashed into the growing pile of spent ammunition like a bowling ball.<br><br>Despite the thunder of the rifles and the shriek of the engines, you distinctly hear a light tinkling sound, as if someone had broken a thin sheet of ice over their knuckles.&nbsp; The swarm jerked, repositioned its cables, and threw itself into the nearest room; coincidentally, the very same room Alec had been in ninety seconds earlier.&nbsp; The molten metal immediately began to cool, fading from red to dark orange.<br><br>"Hold fire!" the woman shouted.&nbsp; "Reload, regroup!"&nbsp; The two soldiers farthest from the hatch began walking backwards very slowly, their boots struggling to find good purchase on the tilted floor.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham and Sean Gallegar</span></strong><br><br><em>"Do you know where this leads?"</em><br><br>"To the C-" the woman with the round face began.&nbsp; Her dark eyes were wide with, what, fear?&nbsp; Adrenaline?&nbsp; Her heads were as solid as rock, though, and reloaded the rifle with smooth, practiced ease.&nbsp; "It leads to the rest of the plane," she finished.<br><br>The delicate sound of breaking ice came again, louder and closer.&nbsp; "Open it!&nbsp; 16807, 16807!" she cried, referring to the keypad set into the wall next to the hatch.&nbsp; There was an inset where a plastic flap had covered it, but it had been popped open in the chaos.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Alec Llewellyn and Zoey Calhoun</span></strong><br><br>They reached the hatch unscathed, although likely stumbling on underfoot casings along the way.&nbsp; Bullets had been flying over their heads, but guard at the hatch seemed to have excellent aim.<br><br>It was a huge, heavy, solid looking chunk of metal that seemed ripped straight from the boiler room of a Cold War era battleship.&nbsp; The wall it was set in looked just as sturdy, but it was difficult to gauge thickness.&nbsp; The bunker like construction was certainly out of place on an airplane, regardless.<br><br>The guard was shouting, "16807, 16807!"<br><br><hr><br>The tinkling sound came a third time, this time much closer.&nbsp; One of the soldiers shouted, "It's going through the walls!" and then it was there.<br><br>The swarm burst out through the wall of Zoey's room like a wrecking ball through taut paper.&nbsp; It's cables ripped the walls apart, and it thrust it's heavy core through their tattered remains.&nbsp; The turbine left a red rimmed hole in its wake, dripping viscous white gobs of molten plastic that fell in odd lines through the tilted corridor.&nbsp; The cancerous smell of burnt plastic joined the reek of gunpowder and the overpowering ozone.&nbsp; It was suddenly significantly warmer.<br><br>When the swarm thrust its way into the corridor, cutting the two distant soldiers off from the others, all hell broke loose.<br><br>"Open fire!" someone shouted.<br><br>"No, crossfire, crossfire!" the woman shouted back.<br><br>Ice broke, the swarm coiled towards the two nearer soldiers, and the lights went out as the plane lurched into freefall.<br><br>Some of the soldiers began to shoot, their muzzle flashes strobing down the corridor.&nbsp; The light thrown off by the swarm's turbine, brutally bright, was a dark red that lingered on the very fringe of human vision.&nbsp; It blurred as much as it illuminated, smudging details and edges into a continuous smear of crimson.&nbsp; The soldiers turned on flashlights, but the light slid off the swarm like water on a smooth rock.<br><br>The swarm lunged at the two soldiers standing between it and the hatch.&nbsp; Its cables pierced one of the soldier's torso in five different spots, and then threw the thrashing body into Zoey's room.&nbsp; There was an audible <em>crack</em> as bones shattered.&nbsp; His squaddie backpedaled, firing at full auto.&nbsp; The swarm flinched beneath the onslaught until the backpedaling soldier's boot slipped on an errant casing.&nbsp; Her rifle stitched bullet holes up the wall and ceiling as she screamed.&nbsp; The swarm was already pouncing, cycling its turbine forward so that's it's superheated exhaust raked her from crotch to head.&nbsp; The reek of burning rubber and charred flesh joined the sickening menagerie.<br><br>The cables thrashed, punching holes in the plastic walls for purchase.&nbsp; The turbine was a white-red ring standing stark in the darkness, spinning and <em>pulsing</em> with malevolent intelligence.&nbsp; This close, you could see individual points, tiny obsidian shards, shifting and moving in and on the thing's body.&nbsp; You could hear the dull roar of it, like a distant jet engine.&nbsp; You could feel the heat baking off it, and for a moment you may even forget that you're in one of the coldest places on earth.&nbsp; The smell of ozone was so bad that you could taste it, feel it coating your mouth.<br><br>The turbine pivoted off the unlucky soldier's remains, a satanic eye that fixated on you with brutal, sickening intent.<br><br>It surged forward.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 05:41:59</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec was the stronger of the two, and he was the one trying to get the hatch open.&nbsp; That left Zoey to watch the carnage unfold with sickening clarity as the strange mass killed the first via several tentacle punctures through the body, and then promptly began slicing through the second.&nbsp; All in a matter of moments.<br><br>Zoey had never seen such sickening, almost insane violence directed at anyone or anything.&nbsp; And then it was aiming for the two of them, and it looked seriously angry.&nbsp; It coiled, and pounced.<br><br>Zoey jumped too.<br><br>She lunged herself at the creature.&nbsp; Well, not exactly AT the creature but more in its general direction, aiming for the fallen rifle of the soldier sawed in half, the casings actually causing her to roll across the deck faster than if she'd simply jumped and skid.&nbsp; No matter, her goal was the rifle, and she would use it in a very non-traditional way.<br><br>When in doubt, club the thing to death.<br><br>That is, if the thing didn't literally rip her in half and leave her corpse behind.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 06:01:05</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<span class="bbc_u"><strong>Rebekah Graham</strong></span><br><br>The gunfire was having an effect of sort on the black thing, but it didn't seem to be doing any proper damage.&nbsp; The plane sounded like it was going to come apart at the seams; Rebekah had to brace herself even more just to keep from sliding down the deck.<br><br>The tinkling sound confused her, she looked around but there was no sign of what could have made it. The creature seemed to really not like it, which made odd ice-like tinkling sounds her favourites.&nbsp; IF that's what caused the creature to run and hide.&nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>Then again the noise, but louder.&nbsp; And maybe closer?&nbsp; She still couldn't see a source for it.&nbsp; <br><br>The shouts of the guard drew her attention back to the hatch area.&nbsp; Rebekah didn't need to be asked twice.&nbsp; Just then everything went to hell - the thing reappeared, the lights went out again, the plane lurched into a fall.&nbsp; The worst though was the way it killed the soldiers with its cable appendages and with its white hot turbine.&nbsp; The smells were horrible; ozone and burnt flesh.&nbsp; <br><br>She lunged for the keypad and entered 16807. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 11:15:00</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<br><br>"It's going through the cabin walls, watch out!" Sean called out as the sound of breaking glass continued. That was the only thing that made sense to him as he reached for the keypad.<br><br>"Don't pick up that gun!" Sean yelled at the top of his voice, "It's goin for the soldiers." He was taking a guess, but that had been it's focus when it clearly had the range to spear everything in the corridor, but had only gone for 1 person... the dead soldier.<br><br>He pulled on the door again as someone got to the pad before him and startedpunching buttons. As the door opened enough, he grabbed one of the women and shoved them through, "Marines, we're leavin'!" He grabbed for the woman shoulder to drag her through the door as well.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 14:42:18</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec put his shoulder to the hatch and heaved it open as soon as the code went in. He turned to wave everyone through, and his heart stopped when he saw the woman he'd gone with to get medicine diving at the creature. <em>Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick.</em> <br><br>He'd seen paratroopers with smaller balls... although, admittedly, about as much sense. It sounded wounded, but it was still coming, and it was still chewing through the guards quite handily. He fought the urge to gag on the stench of charred person. <br><br>"Come on, through the door!" he called, from the side of the hatch. <br><br>He grabbed Little Ballsy by the back of her shirt and tried to drag her bodily away from the Thing. He admired her spirit, but half a dozen rifles on full auto had done little more than piss it off so far. Hitting it with one seemed folly. <br><br>Looking swiftly to the door guard, he added, "You, too. There anything like an armoury on this plane?" 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 22:00:32</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Despite the rapidly unfolding chaos, the hellish lighting, and the brief freefall, Rebekah managed to input the code correctly on her first try.&nbsp; The keypad flashed green in response, as thick red text scrolled across the screen: “<strong>BIOMETRIC INPUT REQUIRED</strong>”.<br><br>The plane once more settled, the lights flickering back on.&nbsp; Behind you, the swarm’s advance was briefly stymied by the guard’s hail of gunfire.&nbsp; She was holding the trigger down with ferocious brutality, her bullets skipping off the swarm like flat rocks on water.&nbsp; It emitted that tinkling sound again and shrunk into a corner, but for how long?&nbsp; She would need to reload very soon.<br><br>In front of you, the keypad’s screen was suddenly a haze of snowy static and scintillating colors, like the screen of a PDA when you pressed on the touch screen too hard.&nbsp; More text scrolled across: "<strong>OVERRIDE -- COMMAND ACCESS GRANTED, HAVE A NICE DAY IAMTHESEEKERINTHEDARKIAMWITNESSTOEONSIAMTHECO</strong>”<br><br>With a click lost beneath the gunfire, the hatch unlocked and eased open by half a centimeters.&nbsp; It opened inward; a sterile white corridor with smooth walls and grates in the ceiling could be seen through the gap.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Rebekah Graham and Sean Gallegar</span></strong><br><br>Rebekah was the first one through the door, shoved rather unceremoniously by the burly Irishman.&nbsp; Sean followed quickly thereafter, shouldering the heavy hatch open the rest of the way as he went.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Zoey Calhoun and Alec Llewellyn</span></strong><br><br>It took significant effort to scoop up the rifle and lunge forward on the tilting floor in what was almost-but-not-quite freefall, but Zoey somehow managed to do without breaking anything important.<br><br>“The hell—“ the hatch guard began.&nbsp; She released the trigger as Zoey leapt into her line of fire.&nbsp; “<em>Get the fuck away!</em>” she screamed.&nbsp; The guard lifted her boot and kicked, half-shoving-half-tripping Zoey mid lunge, slamming her against the wall.&nbsp; She tumbled to the deck and immediately started to slide back down towards the hatchway, sore and bruised but otherwise unharmed.&nbsp; Jie’s rifle was knocked from her hands.<br><br>In front of them, the swarm took advantage of the lull in the fire to shift its position. It swung its turbine forward, and a wave of hot air washed over you as if you had just opened the door to a blisteringly hot oven.&nbsp; Before the swarm could coil forward, sporadic gunfire from the far end of the corridor pinged off it.&nbsp; The two remaining soldiers held their positions, taking careful shots to avoid friendly fire.&nbsp; This distracted the swarm long enough for the hatch guard to reload and open fire.<br><br>During this brief exchange, Alec had managed to get a handful of Zoey’s clothing and haul her up and through the hatchway.<br><br><em>”You, too.&nbsp; There anything like an armoury on this plane?”</em><br><br>“I can’t, my squaddies are still in there!” she shouted back, although she did take a step toward the hatchway before stopping.&nbsp; Two more and she'd be inside.<br><br><hr><br>The other side of the hatch looks to be an airlock of some kind.&nbsp; It is a room about two meters in length, with smooth white walls and a grated ceiling.&nbsp; A small computer screen set into one of the walls read: “<strong>WARNING: EXTERIOR HATCH OPEN</strong>”.&nbsp; Next to it are two levers.&nbsp; The first is labeled “<strong>Initiate Decon</strong>”, the second “<strong>Manual Override: Disengage Payload</strong>”.&nbsp; Beneath this second lever is a pictogram showing several boxes tumbling from the belly of a plane in flight.<br><br>Two railings run along the walls at waist height, and the end of the room is sealed by a sliding door with a small porthole set in it.&nbsp; You see a helmet bobbing on the other side: another soldier.<br><br>There’s a <em>bzzt</em> as he activates an intercom.&nbsp; <em>”Close the hatch, close the hatch!&nbsp; Disengage the payload!”</em> he shouts, rapping a gloved hand on the porthole.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>13-07-2014, 22:33:25</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean turned back and passed Zoe on into the chamber, this was, he ws willing to bet, one of those boxes that would be dropped. "Aim for the intake!" he yelled out, "It acts like a jet engine." He reached out, ready to pull the woman inside, "They can get out from the other side, you're trapped darlin'." and grabbed the back of her vest and yanked with all of his might, "Close the damned door!"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>14-07-2014, 00:58:20</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec had to look away as the thing focused its... exhaust on them. The heat was incredible, even this far away. Risk was worth it, though. He'd managed to grab the woman and haul her through the hatch, before stepping halfway back through to hear the guard's reply, straddling the threshold. "I can't, my squaddies are still in there!" <br><br><em>Yeah, and we were doing so well against that thing when it was six-on-one. Now we're down three and it's barely slowed up.</em> <br><br>He sighed, recognising full well the loyalty that rooted her. He'd dealt with it most of his adult life. Often, it was the source of astounding acts of bravery and heroism, but other times - like now - the cause of boneheaded stupidity. The other male reached forward and grabbed the guard. <br><br>Alec leaned out, too, and grabbed the nearest shoulder strap on her ballistic vest. "He's got a point," he grunted, heaving the woman towards the hatch. "Don't even <strong>think </strong>about arguing, soldier," he added, in his second-best parade ground bark. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>14-07-2014, 23:53:33</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Zoey flailed as she suddenly found herself being grabbed, but realized that it was probably for the best as she was handed off and stumbled into the compartment.&nbsp; She had no idea where the hell she was, but her eyes spotted the levers, and the two little pictograms.&nbsp; Ok... that was worrying.&nbsp; She saw Alec and Sean struggling to pull the soldier in, and she put her hand around the Disengage Payload lever, watching and waiting until they managed to get the soldier inside.&nbsp; The second that happened or the soldier was attacked, she would pull the lever and hopefully would cause whatever was in the next compartment to go for a long plunge into the ground.<br><br>It was almost as if time was moving slower, the adrenaline in her system making all but the most important things going on around her seem insignificant.&nbsp; The engines of the plane were almost silent, and her heart was racing as she watched the struggle at the hatch.&nbsp; Her knuckles were white, she had such a grip on the lever, knowing that thing might suddenly decide to come for them again.&nbsp; She had no justifiable reason for lunging at the creature, which she was still unsure if it was real or one hell of a hallucination in her mind, but she'd done it and now she had to live with the consequences.&nbsp; Thankfully they might be minimal, but that might be both a blessing or a curse.<br><br><em>Don't dwell on it.&nbsp; Just focus, keep your eyes open, and know when to pull that damned lever.</em>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 00:42:36</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah tumbled through the hatch when Sean shoved her.&nbsp; She rolled with the motion, coming up to her feet and bracing herself in the corridor with the railing.&nbsp; <br><br>Breathing heavily, she looked around.&nbsp; The gratings on the ceiling worried her before she saw the signs by the levers.&nbsp; <em>Ah.&nbsp; Decon chamber and airlock.&nbsp; Right.</em><br><br>She could see the soldier at the far end if the corridor.&nbsp; He was apparently the one on the intercom.&nbsp; The other woman - the one who had gone back for her meds - moved quickly to the Disengage Payload lever and waited.&nbsp; Rebekah moved a bit closer to the hatch they'd come through, ready to assist the others with the hatch if need be.&nbsp; <br><br>Adrenaline still coursed through her body.&nbsp; She had to fight to stay steady and unmoving until there was something to <strong>do</strong>, and to remind herself that the men at the hatch weren't moving as slowly as they seemed to be.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 02:58:11</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong><span class="bbc_u">Sean Gallegar and Alec Llewellyn</span></strong><br><br>The strength of the two men, combined with the slanted floor and the rifle's tremendous recoil, were more than enough to pull the guard off her feet and through the hatch.&nbsp; The odd angle caused them to lose their balance, and the three figures tumbled to the airlock's deck in a pile of limbs and thermal suits.&nbsp; Sean, aside from his broken jaw, fared rather well.&nbsp; Alec, who received the brunt of the guard's weight via her ceramic ballistic vest, less so.&nbsp; Stars swam in his blurred vision against the gunmetal grey ceiling, and a sharp pain radiated from his solar plexus as his breath was knocked out of him.&nbsp; Fortunately, the only significant injury was some bruising on the chest, and he would probably recover quickly from the blow.<br><br>The guard was screaming furiously, thrashing against their grips.&nbsp; "No you motherfuckers, you don't get it!&nbsp; They're going to fall!"&nbsp; She was surprisingly strong despite her petite frame, and may even give Sean and Alec a few good whacks with her fists and elbows if they weren't quick enough.&nbsp; Her rifle had been thrown from her grasp.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Zoey Calhoun and Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br><br>The guard's rifle bounced along the floor, an oblong rectangle of grey metal smoking at one end, and came to rest at Rebekah's feet.<br><br>Beside her, Zoey pulled the lever labeled "<strong>Manual Override: Disengage Payload</strong>".<br><br><hr><br>In the corridor beyond the hatch, you watch as the swarm's turbine swivels like a glass eye in a socket too large for it.&nbsp; Bullets continued to ping off it, courtesy if the surviving soldiers.&nbsp; They fired at a greater rate now that you and the others had evacuated the area.&nbsp; The swarm writhed and vibrated, as if torn between advancing on the easy prey or going after the soldiers.&nbsp; It's cables thrashed, some spinning aimlessly in a futile attempt to deflect bullets, the others repeatedly punching holes in the disintegrating plastic walls.<br><br>With a sputtering, choking sound, the swarm's turbine went dark.<br><br>The writhing became more violent, and the swarm abruptly split into two as if it had been ripped in half by giant, invisible hands.&nbsp; The two new "swarmlings", initially amorphous, rapidly took on a form similar to what their "parent" had assumed, minus the turbine.&nbsp; Cables, smaller but no less deadly, sunk hooks in the walls.&nbsp; One advanced towards the distant soldiers, the other came for you.<br><br>Zoey pulled the lever.<br><br>Beyond the hatch, the corridor and it's contents suddenly seemed to shrink away on hidden greased rails.&nbsp; There came a series of dull thuds, and the grinding whir of heavy machinery.&nbsp; A cable snapped taut with an audible <em>twang</em>.&nbsp; The corridor dropped half a meter, then caught.&nbsp; What had just been the hatchway was now a white doorway opened in the midst of a yawning chasm.&nbsp; It hung swaying, surrounded by open air, a cube of white amidst an endless expanse of inky black nothingness.<br><br>The swarmlings froze.&nbsp; The soldiers ceased their fire.&nbsp; The steady wind, which had up to that point been a constant chill flow through the corridor, now became a hurricane.&nbsp; Above Alec, the guard let out a keening wail that sliced through the storm.<br><br>There came another heavy <em>clunk</em> as massive gears turned over one another.&nbsp; With a final metallic snap, the doorway and the corridor beyond it dropped silently into that empty, endless abyss.<br><br>For a brief moment, it seemed as if the ferocious gale would tear you from the airlock and throw you out of the plane to fall helplessly to the frozen wastes below.&nbsp; Then the guard reached out and kicked the steel hatchway shut with a deafening <em>clang</em>.<br><br>The wind immediately ceased.<br><br>Beneath you, the plane lurched at the sudden loss in weight, but the pilots quickly regained control.&nbsp; For the first time in two minutes, the plane began to ease out of its jaunty tilt.&nbsp; A few more seconds and it would be level once more.<br><br>The guard lunged for her rifle.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 03:23:23</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				When the rifle stopped at her feet, Rebekah picked it up with due care.&nbsp; A loose firearm was an accident waiting to happen.&nbsp; She checked for a safety, making sure to not go near the trigger at any point.&nbsp; <br><br>She held tightly to the railing and to the rifle as the planed continued to pitch dangerously.&nbsp; The guard was fighting the men, screaming at them.&nbsp; The woman beside her pulled the lever, triggering a new round of terrible noises - this time it wasn't the creatures causing her blood to chill.&nbsp; <br><br>There was nothing Rebekah could do.&nbsp; Nothing more anyone could do really.&nbsp; Bullets had no lasting effect on whatever it was that attacked the airplane, and once that lever was thrown the fate of anyone still left alive in the section with the monsters was out of their hands.&nbsp; For a moment she thought they were all going to join those unfortunates in a long cold fall, but then the hatch was shut and the corridor was quiet.&nbsp; <br><br>The guard lunged for her rifle, Rebekah tried to keep the frantic woman from reaching it.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 03:45:24</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"Uff," he grunted as they landed. <em>Son of a-</em> His vision swam, and he gasped for breath. <em>We're in, that'll do.</em> <br><br>"No, you motherfuckers, you don't get it! They're going to fall!" <br><br>His stomach sank, but he kept a stony face, trying to block her elbows from adding to the distracting pain in his chest. He met with mixed success. "And we're not. And neither are you. Rather than being <strong>six</strong> KIA, we're five."<br><br>It wasn't helping. The guard thrashed free, and kicked the door shut. The door helped erect a psychological barrier as well as a physical one - it meant the two soldiers who had fought so bravely against the Whatever were less real. He could concentrate more on the (justifiably) pissed-off guard. He pressed a hand against his sternum, struggling to push off the floor as the plane began to level. <br><br>He watched as she went for her rifle, mostly unable to do anything about it. Alec considered keeping the weapon away, but thought better of it. "Let her have the rifle." <br><br>Trying to keep any soldier away from their issued weapon was a recipe for a fight, and in these cramped quarters that would be ugly. Especially since this one still had her sidearm. Getting the rifle back would be a crutch, making her feel more secure. And, while somewhat surly, she was highly professional. He doubted she'd actually try and shoot them. <br><br>He didn't even know her name. <br><br>Or anyone in here yet... he'd see about that just as soon as the current little crisis was past. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 03:50:09</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallager<br><br>Sean rolled away from the flailing woman and managed to avoid most of the blows via a combination of the ever valuable No Be There defense and more than a few brawls in his youth. He could understand the woman's rage at being pulled from the fight, butthe sight of the thing splitting would of sealed her fate. "The thing understood us." he said as he sank into a corner and held onto a rail. "I told them to go for the intake, and it split... no intake anymore." <br><br>He shook his head, "Leave off trooper, you have another duty now, and that's survival You can't take them out if your dead and we're going to need your help to get this job done... whatever it is."<br><br>He touched his jaw and winced, gritting his teeth in pain and realizing that wasn't a particularly good idea. "You pack quite a whallap for such a little thing Darlin'." he said and pressed his cheek against the wall. The cold utside will likely begin to coll the wall and that would help with the swelling. "I'd wager that the lever released all of the escape pod things, so someone look out that window and see if you see any parachutes or anything."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 04:28:54</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Zoey hung on as the plane suddenly lurched as the massive weight shifted, and she could only stare out the hatch as the section they'd just been in suddenly dropped away into the darkness.&nbsp; The cable snapped, and the plane bucked like a horse, sending Zoey against the wall.&nbsp; When she looked back, there was only darkness, until the hatch slammed shut.&nbsp; Able to relax a little, Zoey looked up just as the soldier lunged for her weapon, and she shouldered in to stop the soldier, putting her arm up and holding her back, "Stand down!," she ordered, giving her a glare that, under certain circumstances, could probably melt steel.<br><br>She then looked over at Rebekah, and said, "Give her the weapon back."&nbsp; She waited a moment, giving the commando another glare, before stepping back out of the way.&nbsp; She ran a hand through her wind-swept hair, surprised to find that the bag she'd gone after was still with her, dangling by a wrist strap.&nbsp; She realized that it was probably vital to get the medicine into her system, fast, and so she sat down as best she could against the wall, unzipped the bag, and began fishing out the needle and vial while her mind went back to what Sean had said, that the thing understood them.&nbsp; Interesting.<br><br>Wincing with the prick in her fingers, she closed her eyes and calmed down while the medicine began to work its way into her system, carefully putting the cap back on the needle and making sure it wasn't going to come back off and slipping it into the pouch.&nbsp; She sat there a minute, letting the chaos settle, then said, "I don't know if it was so much understanding you but rather killing two birds with one stone.&nbsp; It had two targets, both of which were in danger of escaping or doing something dangerous, so it split itself and went for us and the other guards.&nbsp; Then we dropped it out a plane."<br><br>She didn't want to think about the soldiers they'd no doubt condemned... correction, that she'd condemned, but in this case there was little she could do beyond hope she wasn't arrested for manslaughter.&nbsp; Given the circumstances, it was a bit justified.&nbsp; The cold was getting to her, and she looked around, "Is there a blanket or something in here?&nbsp; It's freezing."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 05:22:07</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Several things happened simultaneously.<br><br>The soldier leaped off Alec, using the corner of the airlock as leverage, and lunged in a sprinter's stance for her rifle.&nbsp; Rebekah, who had picked the weapon up, held it away while Alec told her to, "Let her have the rifle."&nbsp; Sean sat off to the side, nursing his jaw.<br><br>Zoey stepped in at this point and tried to block the soldier from reaching Rebekah, but she wasn't having any of that.&nbsp; The soldier's right hand swung up in a fist -- starting at her hip, rounding out the curve at shoulder height, zoning in at the last second -- and cold-clocked Zoey in the left side of her head; the momentum of her run had turned it into a haymaker.&nbsp; Fortunately, Zoey's movement allowed her to bleed off some of the force: she may see stars, but she probably wouldn't lose her feet.<br><br>"You fucking killed them!" the soldier screamed as Zoey reeled.&nbsp; She continued forward, bowling into Rebekah like a defensive lineman into a wide open quarterback.&nbsp; The pair went down much as Alec and Sean had moments before.&nbsp; Through the raw emotion of her tackle, an observant eye could spot the practiced skill that had been instilled via years of training: the way she planted her foot before contact, how she aimed for the stomach with a tucked shoulder, lowering her head and keeping her arms loose.&nbsp; Not a movement was wasted, and her body moved with a fluid grace as Rebekah went down with a heavy thud.<br><br>The soldier rolled with her momentum and came up on her feet at the far end of the airlock, rifle in hand.&nbsp; Her visor was cracked, and they could see bloodshot brown eyes set in a round brown face, blazing with fury and hatred and fear and pain.&nbsp; Her hands released the magazine, cleared the chamber -- unspent bullets clattered to the floor -- and pointed the empty weapon at Zoey.<br><br>"Chris Browning and Cassie Kabiri!" she shouted, her voice molten iron.&nbsp; "We had time, we had backup coming, but you killed them!&nbsp; Chris Browning and Cassie Kabiri, you'll remember their names!"<br><br>Her finger never touched the trigger.&nbsp; Upon closer examination, you might notice that she was actually pointing at the wall just to the left of Zoey.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 10:51:32</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean gallegar<br><br>Sean grinned for just a moment, then winced, Damn, that hurt! His heart rate was approaching something like a normal rate and he looked up at the woman, "Under other circmstances, I could like a spitefire like you lass, but face some facts... you are trained to think, I would assume, as you're suppose to think on your feet, correct?" he said, trying hard to ignore the pain for the moment, "Your bullets weren't even&nbsp; slowing the thing down aside from the low velocity kenetic energy of the impact, and that was just annoying the thing. Your back-up was likely coming up from behind your friends and with you safe, they could withdraw back down the corridor... they were staying there, risking their lives for you, and us. With all of us safe, they could pull back and either get reenforcements or get to another of these drop boxes. This wasn't the only one, was it?" he said, in a calm, measured voice. "We may of given them more time by them not having to throw their lives away to keep yours in one piece... in no way do we know that they are dead... and we learned some important information that three more dead soldiers can't report back to command.<br><br>He scowled and winced again, "You're duty is not to die, it's to survive and get the mission done, isn't that right?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>15-07-2014, 15:50:10</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"Time, backup?" Alec snorted. "What we <strong>had</strong> was a plane staying in the air in much the same way as bricks <strong>don't</strong> and a creature that was doing a splendid job of evicerating anything it touched," he added, after the other man was done speaking. "You'll notice that when we got in here the people on the other side of the door were telling us to ditch the cabin. Help wasn't coming." It might come across as heavy-handed, both of them ganging up on her like this, but they needed this soldier to pipe down before she hurt someone properly. <br><br>He sighed as he moved over to the woman who'd taken the punch. He placed a finger under her chin to gently move her face towards the light so he could check the inevitable bruise. Alec shrugged out of his overcoat, shrouding the woman's shoulders with it. <em>Wouldn't have minded having GI Jane here on the RE boxing team...</em> <br><br>Turning, he faced the commando again, unflinching in the face of her anger. "So, yes, Browning and... Kabiri? Am I saying that right? They're dead. If the fall doesn't get them that thing will. But they'd have been dead if they stayed. And so would you. And who would remember you? We don't even know your name." <br><br>He looked to the other four, thinking that while he was going he may as well continue. "Alec Llewellyn, by the way. I'd like to say it's been a pleasure meeting you, but..." He gestured lamely towards the hatch. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 05:17:55</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah admired the speed with which the soldier moved, or at least the detached part of her brain did.&nbsp; The hit landed on Zoey was <strong>impressive</strong>.&nbsp; <br><br>She was about to tell the woman she could have the rifle back when she was taken down with a thud.&nbsp; It wasn't the first time she'd ended up on the ground and with no oxygen in her lungs - rugby was a fun sport, especially with mixed sex teams and <em>boy was that a memory out of the blue</em>.<br><br>She decided to roll onto her side and gasp for breath for a while.&nbsp; Once she could breathe again and it was apparent the soldier wasn't going to shoot anyone, she sat up.<br><br>"I'm very sorry for your loss," she said honestly.&nbsp; "I'm sorry that anyone died on this mission, and I'm bloody pissed off that we weren't prepared for an attack on the aircraft."&nbsp; <br><br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 05:25:34</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				One minute, Zoey was standing.<br><br>The next, she was on the floor.<br><br>Rubbing her chin, Zoey looked up at the soldier, who was screaming at her to remember the names of the people she'd condemned to death.&nbsp; The people who, she knew, were already dead.&nbsp; Blood trickled from the corner of her lip, and she glared at the commando.&nbsp; Even with Sean and Alec defending her, she didn't appreciate having a weapon pointed at her for doing the job of saving everyone's life. <br><br>Getting up, she felt a coat wrap around her shoulders, and realized Alec was covering her up.&nbsp; She was glad, and glanced at the soldier again.&nbsp; Then it dawned on her.&nbsp; The soldier would have pulled the lever had she been given a chance, to save her own buddies but condemn them to death.&nbsp; She was mad, and it was only because they needed to stay alive that she didn't rip the soldier a new one.&nbsp; She instead simply sat down and stayed quiet.&nbsp; For now.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 07:03:24</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The soldier took first Sean's, then Alec's, words silently.&nbsp; She appeared no less furious, but she did seem to be regaining some control of herself.&nbsp; As she listened, she lowered the rifle and slowly looped it's strap over her head, letting the weapon drop to her hip after flicking the safety on.&nbsp; Her gloved hands flexed and clenched at her sides, making fists and then splaying and clenching and flexing, over and over.<br><br>She fixed Sean with a brutal glare after Alec finished speaking.&nbsp; "They're dead," she said, her voice liquid ice.&nbsp; Her head nodded almost imperceptibly in Zoey's direction.&nbsp; "She killed them.&nbsp; Don't you try and pretend otherwise.&nbsp; Don't you..."<br><br>Her voice trailed off as Zoey stood and Alec examined her chin.&nbsp; Those furious brown eyes shifted to Alec next, penetrating and judging.&nbsp; It was obvious that she was weighing his words and actions, trying to decide how to feel about this man, but she said nothing.<br><br>After a long moment, she turned to Rebekah.&nbsp; Something in her words made the soldier pause, her expression softening.&nbsp; She looked down suddenly, hiding her eyes.&nbsp; "I'm... sorry I tackled you," she said, her voice thick and humid, full of exhaustion and hurt and unshed tears.<br><br>Without another word, she turned toward the far wall and leaned into it with both hands, head down, rifle swinging in the air between her torso and the clean white walls as she rocked slowly.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Alec Llewellyn and Zoey Calhoun</span></strong><br><br>Zoey's cheek was already swelling into a ripe bruise.&nbsp; Once mature, it would stretch from her jaw up along her cheekbone to the ridge of bone just below her left eye.&nbsp; Nothing was broken or out of place, although the coppery taste of blood indicated that she'd cut the inside of her mouth.&nbsp; As the adrenaline began to work it's way out of her system, she felt a gradual dizziness begin to take hold of her.<br><br>Alec's chest still thrummed with pain, and gooseflesh crawled up his limbs as he removed his jacket in the biting air.<br><br><hr><br><strong><span class="bbc_u">Sean Gallegar and Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br><br>Rebekah recovered her breath quickly, but the dull ache in her right shoulder and hip was bound to hang around for a while.<br><br>Speaking sent little slivers of pain bolting up through Sean's jaw.&nbsp; As the adrenaline began to wear off, the white pain came to the fore.<br><br><hr><br>There came a sudden sharp hiss of air.&nbsp; A cold wind suddenly blew around you as the sound of whirring fans filled the airlock.<br><br>The screen set into the wall, which had assumed a neutral white after the corridor had been jettisoned, now flashed green:<br><br><div align="center"><strong>AIRLOCK CYCLING<br>ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: 60 SECONDS</strong></div><br>The intercom buzzed again, and they heard the voice of the soldier looking through the porthole.&nbsp; <em>"I'm cycling the airlock.&nbsp; You'll be out of there in one minute."</em><br><br><hr><br>The soldiers on the other side of the airlock watched Kai's tantrum in horrified silence.&nbsp; Gerry, the man who had told the cons to disengage the payload, who -- in his mind at least -- was ultimately responsible for the deaths of five Peacekeepers, stood in the forefront, his bluff face grim beneath an opaque visor.&nbsp; He recited the names in his head, a grotesque poem he forced himself to repeat over and over again: <em>Jie Wang, Cassie Kabiri, Elizabeth Thomas, Medford Brooks, Chris Browning</em>.<br><br>When the order had come down to evacuate the cons, he had been vaguely disappointed.&nbsp; Polaris, who always received priority in these sorts of matters, had been assigned to the bug hunt, while his Edda served as sheepherders.&nbsp; He hadn't been expecting casualties, let alone resistance, but no one had expected it to move so damned <em>quickly</em>.<br><br><em>Why the cons?</em> he wondered to himself.&nbsp; <em>Why did that thing go after a bunch of civilians instead of Polaris or the cockpit?&nbsp; And how did it get there from the fuel tanks so fucking fast?</em><br><br>Inside the airlock, Kai delivered a whopper to the petite woman his HUD named "Zoey Calhoun, High Priority."&nbsp; He felt Simon move beside him, reaching for the intercom or perhaps the emergency override.&nbsp; Gerry held his hand up slightly, and Simon froze.<br><br><em>Wait</em> the gesture said.&nbsp; <em>Wait.&nbsp; Let her get it out of her system, she won't do anything stupid.</em><br><br>Some small part of him cheered as Kai slugged the woman who had dropped two of his Peacekeepers to their deaths, but his mind recoiled at the thought.&nbsp; <em>That was my decision, my order</em>, he thought fiercely, driving the vindictive pleasure away and replacing it with guilt and resolve.&nbsp; <em>Chris and Cassie were as good as dead already, and they knew it.&nbsp; Goddamnit, it was the only fucking choice we had!</em><br><br>Long seconds dragged by as the cons talked Kai down.&nbsp; They were a tough bunch, to have survived whatever the hell that thing had been.&nbsp; The man his HUD named, "Alec Llewellyn, Top Priority" said what Gerry had already been rehearsing in his mind for when he had a moment alone with Kai.&nbsp; Her anger, while justified, was dangerous and inappropriate, and would need to be addressed.&nbsp; Alec struck him as a fellow leader, definitely military, so what was he doing rutting with cons?&nbsp; "Sean Gallegar, Low Priority" looked like a tough brute, but that one spoke before he thought.&nbsp; He almost wished Kai had punched him instead.&nbsp; Last, there was "Rebekah Graham, Expendable".&nbsp; She struck him as being out of her depth, although she had taken that tackle like a professional football player, and she had been the one to finally snap Kai out of it.<br><br>He could feel the restlessness of his Peacekeepers behind him.&nbsp; Eight of the nine surviving members of Edda stood on this side of the airlock.&nbsp; They were pissed, at him and Zoey and the ARC-CC in the CIC.&nbsp; They were scared, of that thing that had so easily killed Jie and Elizabeth and Medford.&nbsp; They were sick with grief, and they had every right to be.&nbsp; That monster had wounded them more severely and unexpectedly than anything in their long history had before.&nbsp; Kai, the ninth Peacekeeper left in Edda, had taken up a pat-down stance against one wall inside the airlock.&nbsp; Her back quivered.<br><br>"Alright, that's enough," Gerry said, more for his own benefit than for his Peacekeepers.<br><br>He pushed the intercom so Kai and the cons could hear him.&nbsp; "I'm cycling the airlock.&nbsp; You'll be out of there in one minute."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 07:52:38</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah looked up at the soldier from her seated position on the deck.<br><br>"I'll be more careful next time.&nbsp; It wasn't the first time I've been laid out like that, and it probably won't be the last.&nbsp; Given the situation I consider myself fortunate."<br><br>She reached to rub her right shoulder and winced.&nbsp; Looking over at the others' injuries she starts categorizing potential issues.&nbsp; She hoped they'd have access to a medical doctor soon.<br><br>As if on cue they were notified of the airlock being cycled.&nbsp; Rebekah used the railing to lever herself up to a standing position near the soldier.&nbsp; She spoke quietly.<br><br>"I respect your grief.&nbsp; Please, don't let it consume you."<br><br>She'd seen what grief could do to people and hoped the surviving soldiers would get through this.&nbsp; She prayed they would all survive it.&nbsp; &nbsp;
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 08:00:48</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The soldier managed two words in response to Rebekah.&nbsp; They were hushed and muffled, spoken through gritted teeth, and came out thick with pained emotion.<br><br>"Fuck. Off."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 15:31:27</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean remained sitting in the corner as the fans began it's work on the airlock, then it hit him. The small room hadn't been dropped, the corridor behind them had. He sighed, but there really hadn't been anything else to do. The two men wouldn't of been able to get past the thing and this girl would be just as dead as they would of been.. all of them... if they hadn't done what they had done. He was more worried about the other civilians who had been on the plane than the 3 lost soldiers that he knew about.<br><br>He wasn't immune to their loss, far from it. He had always respected those who stood up to defend others and give their lives for it if needed. But, in this case, there hadn't been anything that they could of done to save those two... they had saved one and he prayed that God would would remember that on judgement day... which may be a lot closer than anyone seemed to think.<br><br>So, he sat in the corner until the fans stopped and pushed himself up to stand by the wall. A couple of asperine and a few days and he would be ok phyiscally, but he had a lot of questions and someone would hear them all at one time.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 22:43:10</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah nodded and gave the soldier more space by moving closer to the hatch they would be going through next.&nbsp; <br><br>She rotated her right shoulder.&nbsp; No major harm done, she'd just be sore for a few days.&nbsp; <strong>Physically</strong> she was okay.&nbsp; Beyond that she wasn't sure she'd ever be <em>okay</em> again.&nbsp; <br><br>When Sean stood up she looked over and gave him a brief smile.&nbsp; She was glad he and the others had survived, but <strong>what</strong> had they survived?&nbsp; And what else didn't they know about the mission?&nbsp; &nbsp;She shivered.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 23:08:41</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec was mildly surprised no one had offered their name after he'd given his. It was going to become a real pain to have to keep going, <em>"Hey, you! No, not you, the other one..."</em> whenever they wanted each other's attention. <br><br>He was watching the soldier, weighing the value of trying to talk to her. He knew all too well the sort of grief she was feeling. And how he'd feel in her place if some civilian (ex-mil or not) tried to tell him that they 'understood' and that 'he'd done everything expected of him'. As if to prove his point, she told the Tackled One to shove it. <br><br>He stooped and collected the fallen magazine and unspent cartridge from the floor, clicking the latter into the top of the former. "So what do I call you people?" he asked, straightening. His chest was sore, and he was sure his breath would be tight in the morning, but he was alive. A couple of minutes ago he wouldn't have been so sure of this outcome. Largely, he ignored the cold. After all, he'd been born in North Wales - sharp wind was a given. He used to joke that he'd been eight years old before he figured out that you could take a raincoat <em>off</em>. <br><br>He moved over to the guard while the airlock cycled, and bumped her hip with the magazine. "Here," he murmured, trying to catch her eye with a Look. The, 'been-there-it's-shit-and-don't-worry-I-won't-try-and-talk-to-you-about-it' look. <br><br>"Is everyone okay? Cuts and scrapes not too bad?" Alec added, to the airlock at large. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 23:43:49</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean started to smile and stopped the moment that he felt the pain, "My students call me Dr. Gallegar, friends and people who I almost get killed with can call me Sean."<br><br>Hepulled the parka on in the chilly air, "I may have a cracked jaw, other than that, nothing serious. It serves me right for touching an armed woman." he said and forced a little rye grin. "I seem to have no luck with the ladies who are over collage age."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>16-07-2014, 23:53:46</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"Rebekah Graham.&nbsp; Bekah is fine too," she replied.&nbsp; "What do we call you?"<br>It felt odd to be exchanging names.&nbsp; It made sense, but to be doing something this <em>mundane</em> seemed surreal.&nbsp; <br><br>Surreal summed up their situation fairly well.&nbsp; Along with insane, horrific, and terrifying.&nbsp; They were on a plane heading for Antarctica that was attacked - in mid air - by monsters.&nbsp; <br><br>Maybe this was a nightmare, or the result of a head injury.&nbsp; No, that would be too easy.&nbsp; She leaned her head back and focused on breathing.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>17-07-2014, 04:59:57</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The soldier shifted right before Alec touched the magazine to her hip, turning towards him, her helmet rolling ever so slightly along the trembling wall.&nbsp; Her left hand, fingers sprawled on the sterile metal, began to curl into a fist, but she seemed to relax when she looked at his face.&nbsp; She held his gaze for two seconds.&nbsp; Through the crack in her visor, Alec could see that her eyes were swollen and redrimmed, although dry.&nbsp; The fury had drained from them, leaving only deep exhaustion and pain in those deep brown irises.<br><br>She took the magazine back silently.<br><br>As Alec turned away, the soldier slid the magazine into one of the pouches on her waist and leaned away from the wall.&nbsp; She covered the distance to the airlock door in two strides.&nbsp; The soldier on the other side cocked his head slightly as she placed her own helmet against the glass porthole.&nbsp; After a moment, he touched the visor of his own helmet to the window opposite her.<br><br>Although both of their faces were obscured, you could tell that they were holding a private conversation.<br><br>The chill air was beginning to warm.&nbsp; Your breath still billowed out in transient clouds of vapor, but the cold was no longer so sharp against your skin.&nbsp; It felt less like a brutal January freeze and more like a brisk November morning.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>18-07-2014, 02:56:51</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Zoey pulled the jacket tighter.&nbsp; She felt like shit for pulling the lever and condemning the soldiers to death, but there was literally nothing she could have done about it.&nbsp; Anything.&nbsp; Had that thing gotten in it would have ripped them to shreds.&nbsp; She could feel her cheek swelling and she tenderly rubbed her face.&nbsp; That was going to hurt a while, and she wanted to bitch out the commando.&nbsp; She had the good sense not to, but she did.<br><br>She looked up at Alec, and noticed her breath was still fogging up.&nbsp; They needed to get somewhere warm, before hypothermia started to set in.&nbsp; That would be just as deadly if they were exposed for long enough.&nbsp; She got up and said, "We need to get warmed up.&nbsp; Either huddle for warmth or we need to get through this airlock and somewhere with a heater.&nbsp; So.. sooner rather than later would be great."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>22-07-2014, 07:45:01</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The panel set into the wall was nearly finished its countdown.&nbsp; The last ten seconds ticked by as a thick silence fell over the airlock, interrupted only by the rhythmic pulsing of the ventilation and the occasional whine of warping metal as the plane trembled in flight.<br><br>The soldier stepped away from the airlock door when the timer was in the single digits, her helmeted head pointed down at her boots, shoulders slumped into a round arch.&nbsp; The sterile light did not glint off her ceramic jacket or the matte-black fabric of her kit, but they seemed to glow dully nonetheless.<br><br>The timer on the panel stopped at 0:02.<br><br><hr><br>It came as sudden rush of warmth.<br><br>It wasn’t like the searing blast of air from an open oven, nor the dry comfortable heat of an electric blanket, but a pleasant, liquid warmth.&nbsp; &nbsp;It bloomed deep within your chest, as if you had just sipped from steaming hot chocolate laced with liquor after an long hike through white-capped mountains.&nbsp; It filled you, <em>suffused</em> you, spreading from your heart to your head and groin, down your arms and legs to the fill your most distant extremities with pulsing heat.&nbsp; The bitter cold fled before the flood of warmth, melting from your flesh like snow puddling beneath boots left next to a roaring fire.<br><br>Around you, the faces of the others in the airlock grew flushed and bright.&nbsp; The soldier began to turn, her shoulder rounding with agonizing slowness.&nbsp; She moved slowly, too slowly and too smoothly for it to be at all natural.&nbsp; It was like watching one of those slow motion videos of water balloons popping or bullets punching holes through colorful fruits.&nbsp; An odd and not quite disturbing sensation of surreality fell over you.<br><br>With all of the agonizing slowness of a tree nestling its roots deep into lush soil over a century, the 0:02 flickered into a 0:01.<br><br>If you tried to move during this odd experience, you’d find that you’re limbs responded far too slowly, only moving seconds after you first willed them into motion.&nbsp; When they did finally move, they were sluggish and unwieldy, like the limbs of a marionette being forced to dance in a vat of clear pudding.&nbsp; Somehow, this felt natural, or at least expected.&nbsp; All but the sharpest panic was smothered beneath that benevolent glow that had blossomed beneath your solar plexus.<br><br>The soldier beyond the airlock door was in the process of looking down, his helmet the moon inching its away across a dark sky, his visor cutting a deep crescent that was occluded millimeter by millimeter by the rim of the porthole.<br><br>A memory tickled the back of your mind.&nbsp; In a burst of déjà vu, you recalled with sudden lucid clarity, like a trout pulled from murky water by a leering fisherman.<br><br>The voice, clear as the tinkling sound of breaking ice, followed you back through time and whispered through the airlock.<br><br>“Who are you?”<br><br><hr><br>Like a video editor carefully cranking up the playback shuttle, the world around you accelerated smoothly back into a natural speed.&nbsp; You found that you could once more move normally, but the blooming warmth continued to smolder within you, dampened but not extinguished.&nbsp; You found that the chill air no longer bothered you.<br><br>The soldier finished the turn she had begun what had felt like an hour before.&nbsp; Her eyes were once again wide, but now with shock and surprise rather than anger or pain.<br><br>“Kai,” she said, simply, her voice that of a woman who had just been told that there had been an awful accident and they were so sorry but you really should probably sit down before we tell you this.<br><br>Behind her, the timer finished its monumental countdown.&nbsp; The 0:00 flashed on the LCD screen.<br><br>With a hiss of compressed air that made your ears pop, the airlock door slid open.<br><br>Kai turned on her heel to face the soldier on the other side of the portal.&nbsp; He cocked his helmet quizzically, hands resting loosely on the rifle he had slung across his chest.&nbsp; Behind him crowded at least a half dozen other soldiers, identical in their featureless kit and opaque visors.<br><br>There was a long pause as the soldier stared at Kai.&nbsp; Kai stared back.<br><br>“I’m happy you’re okay,” he said finally, his carefully neutral tone nonetheless subtly laced with relief.<br><br>Kai didn’t say anything.<br><br>“You four,” the soldier said, looking past Kai.&nbsp; When he spoke again, it was with the measured cadence and sterile tone of a man reading off an unseen script.&nbsp; “Major Llewellyn, Dr. Calhoun, Dr. Gallegar, Ms. Graham.&nbsp; &nbsp;You’re wanted in the CIC ASAP.&nbsp; I understand you’ve just been through something traumatic, but there’ll be medics and triage waiting if you have sustained any injuries.”<br><br>He paused, tilting his helmet slightly, as if chewing his lip in thought.<br><br>“Look,” he said after a moments deliberation, his voice strained and hushed.&nbsp; "If we're going to make it to ground, we're going need your help, okay?&nbsp; You can talk as we walk, even ask me questions -- I think you deserve that much -- but I can't guarantee any answers.&nbsp; Not yet."<br><br>He turned, bent his wrist, and the soldiers set off at a trot.&nbsp; He followed behind them, setting a brisk pace.&nbsp; Kai attempted to pass him and enter formation, but he held her back so that she was walking between him and yourself.&nbsp; She walked with a slump, as if her rifle was an anvil strapped about her neck, and said nothing.<br><br>The hallway consisted of a narrow catwalk set into a corridor no larger than the one that was just now impacting the Antarctic wasteland several kilometers below you.&nbsp; The walls were unpainted aluminum, the dull metal still scarred with bolts and burns.&nbsp; Dim strip lights lined the low ceiling.&nbsp; Every few seconds, the floor would lurch slightly, and those lights would flicker in tune.&nbsp; Given the evenness of the floor, the corridor seemed to run down the belly of the airplane.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>22-07-2014, 13:12:30</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Nice to meet you Kai." Sean said almost... almost absently, "The Yin." he said to himself, "They knew of that thing." He felt excitement at confirmation of something, although he couldn't say what exactly, the return of a memory years old? Understanding of some small part? He wasn't entirely sure, but between the warmth in his chest and the flooded memory, he hoped that he might move on to learn more about the plate that he had helped to at leat partially translate, but he couldn't say more or risk getting tossed out of the plane for a long, long, long first step. Then, something else registered in his mind, "She knew my name." he said to himself.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>23-07-2014, 01:52:26</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"Alec," he replied to Rebekah, without frustration at the repetition. The last few minutes had been intense and stressful for all of them - it was fair to assume that normalcy wouldn't return for a little while yet. They were all going to need a rest period once they landed. No chance of being able to concentrate on anything for a while. He was (unfortunately) well-practised at putting off shock responses and grieving processes... but even he'd need to stop and process at some point. <br><br>He nodded to the soldier as she took the magazine, then turned towards the wall panel for the last quarter of a minute or so to watch the countdown, making sure his own breathing was steady and that he was sufficiently calm. He folded his arms across his chest, wincing as he pressed his bruises. <br><br>And then, in the last couple of seconds, everything took a sharp turn to the left. Time seemed to slow, and he had the strangest experience of déjà vu he'd ever felt. A totally mundane memory, only now with the jarring addition of two things that couldn't have been there - one was one of those monster-things that had very nearly incinerated the lot of them, and the other was... well, an impossible person. <br><br>He thought he heard someone ask "Who are you?", but that couldn't have been true. Everyone outside the airlock knew their names. Everyone inside it had just been introduced. <br><br><em>That's it, I've cracked. I'm done.</em> <br><br>"Kai," the guard said, as if in reply to the question that hadn't been. Sean greeted her in turn, and then the door hissed open. <br><br>He found it interesting that she wasn't allowed to rejoin the other troops. He hoped it was out of consideration for her recent losses and exhaustion, rather than some disciplinary measure. Kai was a hardass and didn't exactly play nice, but she had basically held the thing off for long enough for them to get through the airlock and ditch the cabin. Not to put too fine a point on it, he felt he owed her one. He'd try and speak up for her if he had to. <br><br>"I have a question," Alec spoke up from the back of the line. "You seem like you have an altogether far too secure hold on the situation right now for someone who had no idea we were going to be attacked. Did you know that was coming? Do you know what it is?" <br><br>The answer was likely going to be a 'No' or an 'I can neither confirm nor deny...' sort of bullshit response. He wasn't sure he could believe a denial. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>23-07-2014, 02:39:37</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				For a brief moment, the only response the soldier gave was the steady clang of his boots on the loose grate metal catwalk.<br><br>"We knew," he said, just as the silence was beginning to draw long.&nbsp; "Not soon enough to do anything more than...&nbsp; Well..." His voice trailed off, then picked up again, as if someone had turned his volume all the way down and then back up.<br><br>"As for the hostile, the designation is classified, but we call them Augurs."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>27-07-2014, 07:04:14</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"...we call them <em>Augurs</em>."<br><br>The weight with which the unnamed soldier had said the word instilled a long silence.&nbsp; It hung in the freezing air like a puff of hot exhale, following them through the rattling belly of this plane.&nbsp; The silence chilled the warmth in your chest, and it fled in a sudden rush of cold.&nbsp; The silence persisted, and he did not break it.<br><br>Swaying slightly with the gentle rocking of the airplane, you followed the squad deeper into its bowels.<br><br>At the end of the catwalk were three doors, black letters stenciled onto the grey metal: one in front, one to the left, and one to the right.&nbsp; The door on the right read "<strong>HOLDING AREA</strong>" while the left door bore, "<strong>STAGING AREA</strong>".&nbsp; It was through this latter door the soldiers went through, one of them degloving their right hand so that they could press a thumb on to the biometric scanner.<br><br>Ahead of you, Kai paused, her stance uncertain.&nbsp; The unnamed soldier who had offered to answer your questions punched a button on the keypad, and the door on the left slid closed with a muted rattle.<br><br>"Best you come with us," he said quietly, almost worriedly.<br><br>Kai said nothing.<br><br>There was another look between them, two visors -- one opaque black, the other cracked and fractured, exposing skin beneath -- peering across a half meter of Antarctic air.&nbsp; The silent exchange barely lasted two seconds; easily missed, but long enough that an attentive observer would see the significance.<br><br>The unnamed soldier turned away.&nbsp; He was tall, just about two meters, and had to lower his head as the rattling ceiling sloped low before the central door.<br><br><strong>TO CIC VIA HOLDING AREA OBSERVATION</strong><br><br>He opened the door with the keypad, allowing the metal to slid into its holding.&nbsp; As he stepped through, the plane began to tilt.&nbsp; It was a banking turn at a very slight inclination, no more than what one would experience on a commercial flight.&nbsp; As it began, you felt your eardrums tighten with pressure: you were descending.<br><br>The unnamed soldier lead the way.&nbsp; Kai, her hand resting on the stock of her rifle, made a point of waiting until you were though before following.&nbsp; She brought up the rear, much like a guard escorting prisoners between cell blocks.<br><br>The corridor you found yourself in was of the same proportions as the last and dimly lit by diffuse strips in the ceiling.&nbsp; It was much shorter, and seemed to be more of a slightly long room than a hallway.&nbsp; The grated floor ended at the doorway, now replaced with a simple layer of black rubberized material.&nbsp; The left wall was nondescript plastic sheeting, no doubt separating you from the staging area.&nbsp; Monitors were set into the walls, their screens flashing in rhythmic synchrony: <br><br><br><strong>Primary Alert!<br>Hull Compromised, Section C2!<br>Payload Disengaged!</strong><br><br><br>Before you looked away, something changed in the text on the monitor nearest to you: <strong>I WILL SHOW YOU FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF DUST</strong> flashed for a split-second, and then the endless flickering warning message resumed.<br><br>On your right was a window that ran the four meter length of the room, seperating you from a dozen or more men and women dressed in the same style of arctic clothing you had discovered earlier.&nbsp; Upon closer examination, you may recognize some of their faces; these were the same people who had been in the rooms adjacent to you a few minutes before.&nbsp; Most sat on the rubberized floor, unable to stretch their legs in the cramped space.&nbsp; Some stood or leaned against the window.&nbsp; One woman was crying, and another appeared to have a bloodied nose.&nbsp; The wall behind them was apparently the hull of the fuselage, given the curve, but there were no windows to see through.<br><br>None of them paid you any notice, and the unnamed soldier likewise ignored them.&nbsp; He continued walking at a steady pace, helmet forward, hands on his rifle, aiming for an identical door at the end of the room.&nbsp; Three letters were stenciled on it at eye-level: <strong>CIC</strong><br><br>Your MONA buzzed impatiently, uncaring of the chaos of the past five minutes:&nbsp; <strong>ALERT</strong>: A new item has been added to the <strong>Brief</strong> (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=206965.msg10149985#msg10149985).
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>28-07-2014, 02:01:46</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec's ears were ringing with the after-effects of the gunfight in the last compartment. It didn't seem to matter how many firefights he'd been in or near, how many explosions he encountered, his ears never developed a tolerance for the noise. <em>Well, I'm never hearing that frequency again...</em> <br><br>His mind was still mulling over 'Augurs'. There was a feeling nagging at- <br><br>His MONA. Before the knock at his door, his MONA had delivered a message. He fished it out of his trouser pocket, finding the draft message he'd saved as a reminder of the message's contents. <em>The augurs stir already,</em> he remembered. That had been the line. <br><br>Had the crew received a similar message? Was that why they expected to be attacked? But without knowing what an augur <strong>was</strong>, how could they be sure of an attack? <br><br>He saw Taylor and Fitzsimmons through a porthole between them and the holding area. A feeling of relief washed through him as he registered their safety. He didn't know them personally very well, due to the constraints of the job, but they were consummate professionals. If nothing else, it'd be a pain to have to train a new pair. Raising a hand briefly to catch Taylor's eye, he nodded a greeting through the glass. <br><br>Alec surveyed the room, taking in the gaggle of people, and staying close to 'his' group as they passed through. The MONA buzzed in his hand - a new <strong>Brief</strong>. He opened it while he waited for their guide to sort his life out, and read it with a sinking feeling that all those redacted listings were soon to become painfully obvious. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>28-07-2014, 02:25:26</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean was relieved to see that the others on the plane seemed to of survived; his feelings of guilt over the loss of more lives reduced somewhat, even if he wasn't directly responsible for the deaths of the two soldiers, he had regreted their loss. <br><br>"Since you have a name for them, am I correct in thinking that youve' seen them before? Were your weapons effective against them in the past?" He didn't want to say that this particular time, they seemed all but useless against the thing(s) and all that they had done was to send hot lead flying all over the place <br><br>He reached for his mona and looked at the display. He hadn't missed that the message shortly before the attack had mentioned the machines, almost too late to even react, but he saw little use in noting that he had been warned. He wished that he had a more concrete memory of the symbols on the plate and the partial translation that he had been privy to; it would probably make things much easier in the near future.<br><br>Then, he thought, "Do you know what those things were made of? Might they be feris in make-up? That might make them vonerable to magnetic fields."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>28-07-2014, 14:43:49</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Zoey wasn't looking so hot.<br><br>As a diabetic since childhood, she knew what was going on: hypoglycemia, meaning she'd overdosed her insulin.&nbsp; Not enough to cause a coma, but enough she was suffering nausea and an inability to concentrate.&nbsp; It was slowly clearing up, but for now her stomach was twisted into a knot, making it hard to think about what was going on.&nbsp; So when Sean and Alec were told to follow the commandos, she pulled herself up and leaned against the wall.<br><br><em>Deep breath.&nbsp; Relax.&nbsp; Focus.</em><br><br>The symptoms would pass quickly, but it had taken her head out of the game at a critical moment.&nbsp; So now she had to get back into gear, and she chose to start by following after Alec, since he seemed to be a good luck charm today.&nbsp; <br><br>"Do you know what those things were made of?&nbsp; Might they be ferrous in make-up?&nbsp; That might make them vulnerable to magnetic fields."<br><br>Zoey paused at that, stopping to consider what the implications would be.&nbsp; A creature made up of iron to such a degree?&nbsp; She stopped and thought about it.&nbsp; Her conclusion was simple.<br><br>"I doubt it.&nbsp; Len's Law would mean anytime that thing encountered a magnetic field, it would start fighting its own magnetic fields inside its body.&nbsp; I'm willing to bet if it is metallic, it'll be something like aluminium or some other light-weight metal, especially since Aluminum Oxide doesn't oxide like Ferrite.&nbsp; And that's not assuming we're not looking at a unique biology based on Carbon or something else, like Silicon."<br><br>Ok her brain's back in gear, at least for now, as she followed them into the CIC.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>29-07-2014, 10:32:38</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah Graham<br><br>The surge of warmth, the perceived slowing of time, the memory that wasn't as it was...&nbsp; Rebekah shook her head, having to work at bringing her attention and focus back to the present and the soldier leading them out of the decon chamber.&nbsp; <br><br>She followed along, listening to the man speak of the "augurs".&nbsp; She was angry.&nbsp; No one should have gone on this mission without being informed that there were risks above and beyond what they could reasonably expect.&nbsp; Even if the nature if the risk was classified they could have been warned that there were additional dangers.&nbsp; <br><br>Rebekah didn't blame the soldiers; they weren't the power behind this trip.&nbsp; At least they seemed to have been kept in the loop to some extent but their losses told her they weren't really equipped for what happened.<br><br>As they walked past the monitors the warning message seemed to blink out for a second and become something more threatening. But only for a second.&nbsp; She almost asked if anyone else had seen it, but they were already walking ahead, passing the window to where the other people were.&nbsp; She was glad they'd survived.<br><br>They continued towards the door labelled CIC.&nbsp; Rebekah pulled out her MONA when it buzzed and glanced at it.&nbsp; She frowned at the new image.&nbsp; Who was sending these and what the hell did it all mean?
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>03-08-2014, 09:40:56</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<em>"Since you have a name for them, am I correct in thinking that youve' seen them before? Were your weapons effective against them in the past?"</em><br><br>The unnamed soldier was halfway through the observation corridor when Sean spoke.&nbsp; His head turned slightly and exposed the curve of his visor.<br><br>"I can't disclose that information," he said flatly, then turned to face forward as Sean and Zoey spoke. <br><br><hr><br>Taylor and Fitzsimmons appear to be in fine condition, but they do not react to Alec's gesture.<br><br><hr><br>The window on your right offered a full view of the people huddled in the Holding Area, but the deep tint of the glass and the dim lighting on your side indicated that they would only see their reflections if they tried to gaze through.&nbsp; A one-way mirror.&nbsp; Inscribed or drawn on the glass are a grid of faint grey lines, so thin and light that you're surprised you even spotted them.&nbsp; They are spaced equidistantly, marking out half-meter intervals horizontally and vertically.<br><br>Boots thumping across the gently vibrating rubberized floor, you note that the tilt of the plane is increasing ever so slightly; not to the extreme degree as it had during the encounter with the Augurs, but it is noticeable.&nbsp; The pressure in your ears is building at a fast pace, however.&nbsp; It was not readily apparent if this rapid descent was intended or the result of the attack on the plane.<br><br><hr><br>The unnamed soldier paused in front of the CIC door as Zoey responded to Sean.&nbsp; He punched in a long alphanumeric code and degloved his right hand.&nbsp; Before he could press his thumb to the biometric sensor, the door slid open with a dull hiss of pressurized air.<br><br>A tall woman swaddled in an arctic suit stood in the doorway, hunched beneath the low ceiling, her pale face looking out at you.&nbsp; A few curls of black-grey hair stuck out beneath the cowl of her hood, etching shadows across her tall forehead.&nbsp; The corners of her steel-grey eyes and small mouth were crinkled, her forehead and cheeks developing the first hills and valleys of post-menopausal wrinkles.&nbsp; A professional set of glasses rested on a nose that was slightly too large for her face, but what she lost in attractiveness she gained back in charm.&nbsp; Her's was a kind face, a clever face, one that laughed often and always had a smart comeback at the ready.&nbsp; She looked fit to chuckle even now, her lips cracked by a thin smile. <br><br>"It actually is an organosilicate, Dr. Calhoun, albeit one not arranged in any structure that makes sense biologically."&nbsp; Her voice bore the faintest hint of a Kiwi accent, buried beneath an otherwise authentic sounding Midwest clip, and beneath that was a vague familiarity, of warmth and memories recently remembered.<br><br>She stepped through the doorway and the unnamed soldier stepped back, positioning himself like a bodyguard, hands still resting casually on his rifle.&nbsp; The door closed behind her, cutting off your brief view of a short room with a desk and chairs.<br><br>"Silicon, carbon, oxygen, iron, titanium, trace uranium, nitrogen, phosphorous," she listed, ticking them off gloved fingers as she went.&nbsp; The smile had faded quickly, and her voice now took on a serious tone.&nbsp; "A trillion individual particles, each autonomous, or at least we think so.&nbsp; We've never seen anything like what just attacked us; that is, a self-propelled, self-powered, and openly aggressive specimen.&nbsp; Normally it's just lumpy goop in a glass gar.&nbsp; Mobile?&nbsp; Somewhat.&nbsp; Sapient?&nbsp; Maybe, jury's still out.&nbsp; Deadly?&nbsp; Not unless you eat it.<br><br>"Now, I could spend days telling you everything we know about the Augurs -- their chemical makeup, their reproductive methods, etc. etc. -- and it would be a mere drop in the ocean of truth.&nbsp; So here's what needs to be known: they are numerous, they are very dangerous, and they are <em>here</em>.&nbsp; On Earth and above it."<br><br>Kai stood behind you, but now she was sidling up between you and the one-way mirror as if intending to join the unnamed soldier.&nbsp; His visor turned slightly in her direction, and she stopped.&nbsp; The woman eyed them coolly, then tsk'd and made a matronly patting gesture in the air in front of her.&nbsp; "Hands off the AIR now, Gerry," she chided, spelling out the acronym.<br><br>Gerry lowered his hands to his sides.&nbsp; They came to rest not all that far, you may note, from where his pistol hung snug in its holster.<br><br>The woman looked back toward you and the other three survivors.&nbsp; "My name is Abigail Czeremin, but do us all a kindness and call me Czar.&nbsp; No need to introduce yourselves, since I know who all of you are.&nbsp; What I don't know is why a certain..."&nbsp; She paused, searching for the right word.&nbsp; "<em>Seeker</em> is sending you text messages.&nbsp; I'll remind you that we're currently spiraling towards the Antarctic plateau, and any information you can provide on this front would probably be necessary if we're to survive more than hour down there.&nbsp; Let alone the world."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>03-08-2014, 12:07:10</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean watched the woman as she stepped into the mirrored space, he could only think that the darkened room was probably used as an observation space for an interagation room or confinement space on the other side of the plane. The glass might of been reenforced, he had no real way of telling in this light, but he couldn't imagine that it would be mirrored on the other side if anyone was meant to see the other side. He didn't think that many of those sitting on the other side would miss that it was probably a 2 way... why else would you put a mirrored wall on a plane? . <br><br>Seans jaw hurt like hell and he could feel it swelling even more. God, he would love an icepack about now. But, he had questions that needed to be asked and he didn't think that waiting would&nbsp; make the answers any faster in coming. "Why have I seen you before but couldn't remember it until a few minutes ago?" was his first question, there were several, but he wanted to establish that he hadn't been imagining a lost memory; or one supressed. He wouldn't of put that past the program if they thought that he might know too much. "Why were we held back from the others at the airlock?" He started to scratch his chin and hissed softly as he pulled his hand back quickly. To hide the fact, he turned and looked through the mirrored glass and quickly ran through the list of items that he had just heard, "It would seem that your little buggers have become a bit more dangerous than if you eat one... I saw one kill a man very efficiently. Your weapons didn't seem particular effective beyond whatever kenetic force that they provided." He turned back to her and crossed his hands behind his back, to keep them away from his jaw, "you said below and above, Do you mean space?" He recalled the info packets he had recieved, one stating that "she" was here now, another about some sort of engagement in space. "I recieved a warning shortly after being contacted about augers, and just before we all got dragged from our cabins, another warning about them. Is someone trying to help us, or playing a saddistic game?"<br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>04-08-2014, 15:48:15</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Alec listened carefully to this Czar. <em>Shouldn't that be Czarina?</em> he wondered idly. He considered Sean's words, and couldn't help but cock his head in agreement, a wry eyebrow raising. <br><br>"I received a similar warning, that we were to turn back because the 'augurs were stirring'. I assumed it was a prank, until we were attacked, and now you're telling us that you <strong>knew</strong> about those things?" <br><br>He took a step forward, fists bunching of their own accord at his sides. "My first clue about these things came when one ripped its way into the compartment and chewed through three of your soldiers. I imagine for the rest of us, it's the same. And you want <strong>our</strong> information?" It was all he could do not to actually sputter. He settled for shaking his head as he pulled his MONA from his pocket. He accessed the latest brief and held it up for Czar to read. <br><br>"We are still receiving messages from the Seeker. I know less about this than you probably do." 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>05-08-2014, 06:08:56</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Hands clasped in the small of her back, grey eyes focused on Sean and then Alec as they spoke, the woman -- Abigail Czeremin, Czar -- listened with rapt attention.&nbsp; She leaned forward slightly, but otherwise did not move from her position in the corner of the observation area.<br><br><em>"Why have I seen you before but couldn't remember it until a few minutes ago?&nbsp; Why were we held back from the others at the airlock?"</em><br><br>Her head tilted slightly, another curl of hair drifting out from beneath the heavy hood of her suit.&nbsp; One corner of her mouth twitched in what might have been the start of a confused grimace, but she smothered it immediately.&nbsp; The floor trembled beneath them as they hit a pocket of minor turbulence.&nbsp; Czar reached out a thin arm and pushed her fingers spiderlike against the one-way mirror to stabilize herself, but Gerry and Kai only swayed slightly, their black-clad figures difficult to discern in the dim lighting.<br><br><em>"It would seem that your little buggers have become a bit more dangerous than if you eat one... I saw one kill a man very efficiently. Your weapons didn't seem particular effective beyond whatever kenetic force that they provided."</em><br><br>Kai flinched ever so slightly at this, a bare flicker of her wrist as she suppressed the clenching of a fist, the ghostly movement of shadowed skin beneath the crack in her visor as she looked away.&nbsp; Czar frowned solemnly and looked down before looking back at Sean.<br><br><em>"you said below and above, Do you mean space?"</em><br><br>Czar nodded slowly, her expression shrewd and calculated.&nbsp; "Yes... space," she said quietly.<br><br><em>"I recieved a warning shortly after being contacted about augers, and just before we all got dragged from our cabins, another warning about them. Is someone trying to help us, or playing a saddistic game?"</em><br><br>"That is one of the things I am trying to find out Dr. Gallegar," she said, her voice smooth and patient.&nbsp; Humid, too.&nbsp; Where your breath and others was a barely visible mist, hers spilled out in a thick plume.&nbsp; "Fourteen MONA's aboard the <em>Aegis</em> received a narrow-band transmission that we were unable to intercept.&nbsp; Eight of them went unnoticed before being automatically expunged, two others are unaccounted for, and the remainder were read by you and yours.&nbsp; Ten seconds later, the Augurs pierced our hull.&nbsp; The two events are undoubtedly connected."<br><br>She looked evenly at Sean, as if expecting him to say something else, when Alec spoke up.&nbsp; Her eyes shifted to him evenly, and she took her hand off of the one-way-mirror.<br><br><em>"I received a similar warning, that we were to turn back because the 'augurs were stirring'. I assumed it was a prank, until we were attacked, and now you're telling us that you <strong>knew </strong>about those things?&nbsp; My first clue about these things came when one ripped its way into the compartment and chewed through three of your soldiers. I imagine for the rest of us, it's the same. And you want our information?"</em><br><br>Gerry tensed at Alec's movement: a barely discernible hunch of the shoulders, a slight repositioning of weight to his right foot, and the crinkle of his gloves as his fingers curled, as if sensing the butt of the pistol three centimeters away.&nbsp; Kai's reaction was more obvious, a twitch of her arm as she half-reached for her holster.&nbsp; Czar did not notice.&nbsp; The muster of her attention was focused on Alec, her eyes suddenly blazing with emotion.<br><br>"'The Augurs were stirring.'&nbsp; Is that what it said?&nbsp; Word for word?" she said quickly, like a teacher confirming a muttered answer from the back of the classroom.&nbsp; Her gaze shifted to the others, but before she could speak Alec was holding his MONA up in front of her.<br><br><em>"We are still receiving messages from the Seeker. I know less about this than you probably do." </em><br><br>"In some ways, you are correct...&nbsp; In others, you have a decided head start," she said quietly, almost absentmindedly, her eyes scanning the document.&nbsp; &nbsp;When she finished reading, she leaned back and put her left wrist to her mouth.&nbsp; "Confirm: MONA is compromised.&nbsp; Refer to 'In the House of Dust,' Conrad Aiken 1920."&nbsp; There was a pause, and then she lowered her wrist.&nbsp; Behind her, in the holding area, a trio of Peacekeepers appeared.&nbsp; Their voices were muted by the glass, but the bob of their heads and their gestures indicated that they were speaking to the people inside.<br><br>When Czar looked back at Alec, her face was drawn taut in a queer mix of excitement and anxiety.&nbsp; She looked at each of them in turn as she spoke.&nbsp; "We don't have much time, and I'll need to see the rest of what you've received, but you should know this first: whatever this Seeker is, it has gained access to our networks, and it is trying to crash this airplane.&nbsp; If we're going to be able to fight back against it, land safely, and do our jobs, then we need to find some chink in its armor.&nbsp; Else we'll just be a flash in the gloaming sky above Sirra, do you ken?"<br><br>Something about that last part itched inside your ear.&nbsp; Czar had not said "flash" or "Sirra" or "ken."&nbsp; She had said, "...we'll just be a crater in the ice, do you understand?"&nbsp; You knew those where her words, the words her lips had shaped, but that was not what you had heard.&nbsp; You had perceived words spoken in her voice but not from her tongue, somehow parallel to her's and yet dominant.&nbsp; It was an indefinable sense of knowing, halfway between intuition and déjà vu.<br><br>Czar forced eye contact with Alec, then Sean, Zoey, and Bekah last.&nbsp; "You have many questions, I understand.&nbsp; There will be time for answers soon.&nbsp; But please, for now, tell me everything you can about the Seeker; what it's said, what it's done, anything out of place."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>05-08-2014, 12:45:35</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean continued to look through the window at the huddled mass of people there, trying to see if he recognized any of them on a personal or professional level. as he spoke, "She speaks." he said at the words "yes, space." but remained silent until she concluded her ... request... for more imput. "As I said before, I have been contacted twice. Both said essencially the same thing and I managed to read the text before your system scrubbed it from the memory. Both refered to the aguers stirring and a warning to turn back or step back from whatever it percieved us as doing."<br><br>He looked over at her, knowing that as always, all they wanted was information and meant to give little in return. "And please have your watch dogs relax over there, At this point, we're as much of a threat to you asa pair of hungry pups after their mum's teet."<br><br>He took a breath, reluctantly, and let it out. "This may be a silly suggestion, but perhaps trying to talk to this seeker and occupy him... or her... so that it can't excert as much effort on plowing us into the Ross Ice Shelf... overload him with text for a change and he may actually be interested enough to talk instead of sending viruses into your software."<br><br>As for any more questions, he was going to be even more sparing that she was until they heard something useful for a change... if they crashed... well, the klingons had a good saying for it.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>13-08-2014, 03:28:45</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				They were moving into the CIC and everyone's attention was on that.&nbsp; The woman they were following, who'd identified herself as Czar, confirmed for her, "It actually is an organosilicate, Dr. Calhoun, albiet one not arranged in any structure that makes sense biologically."&nbsp; She stepped through the door and continued, "Silicon, carbon, oxygen, iron, titanium, trace uranium, nitrogen, phosphorous."<br><br>The smile faded, causing Zoey to become concerned, as she continued once more in a serious tone.&nbsp; "A trillion individual particles, each autonomous, or at least we think so.&nbsp; We've never seen anything like what just attacked us; that is, a self-propelled, self-powered, and openly aggressive specimen.&nbsp; Normally it's just lumpy goop in a glass jar.&nbsp; Mobile?&nbsp; Somewhat.&nbsp; Sapient?&nbsp; Maybe, jury's still out.&nbsp; Deadly?&nbsp; Not unless you eat it."<br><br>"Now, I could spend all day telling you everything we know about the Augurs -- their chemical makeup, their reproductive methods, etc. etc. -- and it would be a mere drop in the ocean of truth.&nbsp; So here's what needs to be known: they are numerous, they are very dangerous, and they are <em>here</em>.&nbsp; On Earth and above it."<br><br>Zoey listened, and already her mind was working the problem over.&nbsp; While the others focused on the Seeker, that wasn't Zoey's concern.<br><br><em>Alright, they don't make sense biologically, which tells me they're artificial.&nbsp; Artificial means they were built for a particular purpose, and they're clearly self-contained.&nbsp; Self-contained means they are either here for war or they're here for a particular purpose that doesn't concern us.&nbsp; Since they're not outright attacking every civilian they can from space, they're here for something.&nbsp; Think... what are they here for and why?</em><br><br>She moved away from the group and sat down, closing her eyes and thinking.&nbsp; <em>If they're suddenly becoming hostile then something has changed.&nbsp; Either they perceive us as a threat since we're now aware of them, or something we're doing is triggering them.&nbsp; But what could be causing it?</em><br><br>She ran through the multitude of things that could possibly account for it.&nbsp; <em>Antimatter under nuclear reactors?&nbsp; No, we've been doing that for years.&nbsp; Fusion has been attempted but why would they care about what we're doing there?&nbsp; Unless...</em><br><br>"Excuse me?" she asked the woman, Czar, "Um, how long have the Augurs been actively engaging us here?&nbsp; As in, do we have an exact date for when they started?&nbsp; And how does it compare to when we fired up the Large Hadron Collider?"&nbsp; She knew the collider went online back in 2008 but they recorded the largest ever release of energy on the 30th of March, 2010.&nbsp; Could it have taken this long for the Augurs to respond to Earth?&nbsp; And if so, why?&nbsp; What was so special about the collision?<br><br><em>I hope to God it's some sort of alien system to detect upstart civilizations and crush them before they become a threat.</em><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>13-08-2014, 08:07:50</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Rebekah Graham</strong><br><br>Rebekah listened to "Czar" and the others discussing the Augurs.&nbsp; What the soldier had said earlier about them seemed to contradict the woman's statement that the Augurs hadn't been observed in that particularly aggressive form, and Czar herself then described them as numerous and deadly.&nbsp; <br><br><em>I hate it when people leave out the information that matters most.</em><br><br>"Are the monitors we passed back there an extension of the MONA system, or are they completely separate?&nbsp; Because this Seeker flashed a message up on one of them as we walked by.&nbsp; <em>I will show you fear in a handful of dust</em>, to be exact."<br><br>Secret messages, supposedly harmless lumpy goop turned deadly monster, weird memories of things that didn't happen... This expedition was taking on more aspects of the twilight zone every minute and Rebekah wasn't sure she could trust anything.&nbsp; &nbsp;<br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>15-08-2014, 04:46:33</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Czar did not move as she listened to Sean, nor make any comment when he referred to the Peacekeepers.&nbsp; Kai barked hoarsely in what might have been a disbelieving laugh.&nbsp; Gerry was still.<br><br><em>"This may be a silly suggestion, but perhaps trying to talk to this seeker and occupy him... or her... so that it can't excert as much effort on plowing us into the Ross Ice Shelf... overload him with text for a change and he may actually be interested enough to talk instead of sending viruses into your software."</em><br><br>"We've been talking to it, or trying to, for nearly two weeks now," Czar said, some of the patience gone from her voice.&nbsp; "At first, we didn't realize we were talking with something not human.&nbsp; It used a lot of misdirection, so we were never quite sure if we were communicating, but now it's clear.&nbsp; The <em>why</em> of it less so, however.&nbsp; There's another discussion going on about it in the CIC."&nbsp; She sent a dispassionate wave towards the door she had entered though, and then folded her arms across her chest.&nbsp; Having accomplished this with no difficulty despite the bulky suit, she must be very skinny.<br><br>It was at this point that Zoey spoke up.&nbsp; Czar's gunmetal grey eyes shifted to where she hunkered on the trembling deck, their corners at first wrinkled in concern, then narrowing in thought.<br><br>"The first nonhuman aggression was roughly two weeks ago, when the Derelict appeared and collided with the International Space Station.&nbsp; CERN is not a part of ARCTICA, and the LHC was activated long after it would have been relevant besides.&nbsp; However..."&nbsp; Czar paused, tapping the tip of one of her glove's fingers against her lower lip.&nbsp; "...we may be able to use <em>that</em> now."<br><br><em>"Are the monitors we passed back there an extension of the MONA system, or are they completely separate?&nbsp; Because this Seeker flashed a message up on one of them as we walked by.&nbsp; </em>I will show you fear in a handful of dust,<em> to be exact."</em><br><br>Bekah's words pulled Czar from her thoughts, eyes flickering from the rubberized deck to the young woman's face.&nbsp; When she spoke, some of the excitement from earlier reentered her speech.&nbsp; "Poetry, now.&nbsp; Yes, that makes sense."&nbsp; She laughed suddenly, a brief yet sincere sound.&nbsp; She held her hand out, palm up, and slowly made a hollow fist.&nbsp; "Elliot, <em>The Wasteland</em>, one of my favorites.&nbsp; I always liked to imagine he was referring to a 'handful of TICA'."<br><br>Gerry's visor turned to stare at Czar; it was the most he had moved since she had appeared.&nbsp; She returned with a look of her own, her mouth inverting into a slight frown.&nbsp; It wasn't directed at Gerry, but rather was an introspective expression, like the face of a woman struggling to remember something.<br><br>After a brief moment, she shook her head and looked back at Bekah.&nbsp; "One of the ploys your Seeker has been using is poetry and art in general.&nbsp; Using it to cover its tracks, communicating through it.&nbsp; Simply reading it for fun at times, we believe.&nbsp; I haven't seen Elliot yet, but Major Llewellyn just showed me a piece from Aiken, so it follows."&nbsp; Czar gestured at Bekah's MONA.&nbsp; "As for those bricks, your MONA are their own isolated system.&nbsp; The <em>Aegis</em>'s systems have been compromised; you seeing that excerpt is all the more evidence of this, but it also helps us track down the damage the Seeker has done.&nbsp; Thank you."<br><br>Czar clasped her hands in front of her chest like a mother looking at her children before their first day of school.&nbsp; "Now, quickly, was there anything else?&nbsp; Any other messages, communications, or anything else unusual?"<br><br><hr><br>As Czar spoke with you and your colleagues, the situation in the Holding Area was growing tense.&nbsp; One of the people Gerry thought of as "cons", a burly and broad shouldered man with a protruding chin, had stepped up to the frontmost Peacekeeper and was now shouting full force into his face.&nbsp; Spittle flew, dotting his visor.&nbsp; Some of the other cons were nodding or speaking.&nbsp; A few stepped in behind him.&nbsp; Fitzsimmons and Taylor were in the back, and observed with cool eyes.&nbsp; The Peacekeepers did not move.<br><br>The shouting man lifted a finger and began stabbing the air in front of the Peacekeepers, stopping just centimeters short of jabbing them in the visor.&nbsp; A woman placed her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.&nbsp; Another woman stepped forward next to him and added her voice to his.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>15-08-2014, 11:31:06</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>"It looks like the natives are getting a wee bit restless in there." he observed, "But, no, that's all the communications that I've had with the thing. The messages are deleted almost as quickly as I get them, so it's possible that other attempts were made and deleted before I could realize that I had them. A text message on my normal cell right after I was called up by your agency, I think, but that message was deleted a few seconds after I read it, and pretty much along the same lines as all of the others, warnings about the augars and so on."<br><br>He looked back through the window, "Our fellow passengers on this three hour tour may be under the impression that they have been kidnapped and are being held prisoner... all except for those two." he pointed out the two calm people in the mix, "Perhaps someone should reassure them that you're only doing what's neccessary for their own safety?"<br><br>He was fairly certain that he and the others were here because they had actually seen an augar while those in the room beyond had not.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>isambard</strong> on <strong>30-08-2014, 01:39:06</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"This Seeker can play all the word games it wants - they are not relevant to helping us get safely out of the air and onto the ground. We'll have far more time to sort it out at the base. And I'm sure the other passengers-" he extended an arm, open-handed, to point through the one-way glass, while keeping his gaze fixed on Czar, "- will be much more inclined to 'stay calm' or whatever it is your guards are telling them once we're down there, too." <br><br>Alec wouldn't lie to himself - he was rattled by what had happened, especially now that the adrenaline was wearing off. Decades of leadership positions had trained him not to show it, though, and it usually manifested itself (as now) in impatience with others, demands for progress, that sort of thing. It gave his mind something else to think about, he supposed. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>30-08-2014, 03:59:13</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Scientists observe, and that was what Zoey was doing.&nbsp; As Alec fell back to his standard of being the boss, she fell back to observation, learning, and study.&nbsp; That's when her notice of the cons came into clear focus as one stood up and began taunting the peacekeeper.&nbsp; She watched him, his attention drawn entirely towards the peacekeeper who wasn't reacting.<br><br><em>Either he is extremely confident or is being nice since his boss is watching.</em><br><br>She watched a woman put her hand on the con's shoulder, him shrug it off, then another woman add her voice to his.&nbsp; She asked Czar, "Why are we carrying these people with us?&nbsp; I don't understand why we would."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>30-08-2014, 05:29:01</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah Graham<br><hr><br><em><strong>...She asked Czar, "Why are we carrying these people with us?&nbsp; I don't understand why we would."</strong></em><br><br>Bekah frowned and looked down at the woman seated on the deck.&nbsp; "<em>These people</em>?&nbsp; What do you mean?"&nbsp; &nbsp;She followed the direction Zoey was looking, but only saw the people behind the window.&nbsp; Perhaps the comment referred to the soldiers, although with what happened with the Augurs it seemed obvious they were there to provide what protection they could to the mission crew.<br><br>She wondered if she should mention the memory or vision or whatever the bloody hell that was to Czar.&nbsp; She wasn't too keen on outing herself as a nutter for one, and she didn't know what help it would be to tell anyone about a mysterious woman she'd never actually met telling her to throw "it" away and that the "Portents" should be ignored because they bring only misery.&nbsp; &nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>30-08-2014, 12:07:20</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean blinked at Zoe and shook his head, "Those people, as you call them, are specialist, like us. I suspect that they are here for the same reason that we are... "<em>They</em>" need us to take care of a problem that the brute force route hasn't been able to deal with" He eyed Zoe closely, "You do remember all of those people in the corridor when we got stopped at the airlock? They had to go someplace and I suspect that" he pointed at the two way mirror, "Is it. I would hazard a guess that we are here instead of there because we have something in common that they don't, the Seeker contacted us...Tell me Darlin', did you have a flashback in the airlock just before they opened it for us to come in here? A supressed memory perhaps?" He smiled a little, even thought it hurt like hell, "I've already asked our benefactor here about why she was in mine, but I won't ask you what you saw... if anything at all."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>01-09-2014, 11:27:02</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Czar watched the brief exchange with a meticulous fascination.&nbsp; Although her face was as still as a frozen pond, she had the look of someone trying to commit something to memory.&nbsp; She touched the side of her head at one point, her gaze growing distant as she listened to something, but the distraction lasted only a moment.<br><br><em>"Tell me Darlin', did you have a flashback in the airlock just before they opened it for us to come in here? A supressed memory perhaps?&nbsp; I've already asked our benefactor here about why she was in mine, but I won't ask you what you saw... if anything at all."</em><br><br>Despite her attempt to smother it, Czar let out a small gasp of surprise.&nbsp; Gerry looked at her again.&nbsp; Kai was staring Zoey down, her shoulders hunched aggressively.<br><br>All around them, the plane continued to tremble and groan as it descended through the air.&nbsp; It was a turbulent descent, but certainly not the worst they'd endured on this trip so far.<br><br>"Involuntary recall of a memory?" Czar asked Sean hesitantly, taking a small step backward.&nbsp; "Did anyone else experience this?&nbsp; Lieutenant."&nbsp; This last part she directed at Kai, her voice suddenly ringing with the sharp crack of a command.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>01-09-2014, 12:47:58</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sean Gallegar<br><br>Sean nodded as he looked at the older woman, "A dig on an island in Central America... about 10 years ago or so. We unearthed a plate of some strange material when you appered at the top of the trench. You asked what we would leave behind."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>02-09-2014, 01:37:33</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Rebekah Graham<br><hr><br><em>Cat's out of the bag now.</em><br><br>"Yes, I experienced it as well," Bekah replied to Czar's query.&nbsp; "Not from ten years ago, more recent.&nbsp; The Iceland dig where I found the metal plate that earned me ARCTICA's attention.&nbsp; There were differences from what actually happened, in particular the woman who spoke to me - she hadn't been there and I don't know her.&nbsp; She had on a black robe and a cowl, and a sort of sing-song way of speaking."<br><br>She paused, picturing the scene again in her mind, overlaying the current time and place. <br><br>"Her accent wasn't strong and it was familiar-sounding.&nbsp; I can't quite place it, which is annoying, but I think it was Mediterranean or Arabic.&nbsp; She said <em>'they sent their portents.&nbsp; Three Portents for the three they were granted, so long ago'</em>, and she gestured at the plate under the ice."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>GloomCookie</strong> on <strong>02-09-2014, 04:10:43</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"A dig on an island in Central America..."<br><br>Zoey rubbed her temple.<br><br><em>"Doctor?&nbsp; Are you alright?" asked the young man next to her.</em><br><br>"Yes I'm fine," she said, waving away the imaginary figure, "Just a bit tired, is all."<br><br><em>The laboratory was busy and the sound of electricity hummed in the air.&nbsp; "We're nearly ready to begin the experiment."<br><br>Zoey looked at her control panel, blinking lights and numerous readouts showing they were ready to start.&nbsp; "Begin excitation of the primary laser.&nbsp; Keep the dam in place until we're at 40 megawatts."<br><br>The asian graduate student began adjusting the knob, making sure it read correctly.&nbsp; Zoey inserted a key she kept around her neck, entering in her personal authorization.&nbsp; "Excite lasers two and four.&nbsp; Keep three down unless needed.&nbsp; Keep them below 10 megawatts."<br><br>The hum of electricity grew louder and the sound of fans pulling in the cool Boston air kicked in as well.&nbsp; Finally... "Pull the dam!"<br><br>Three lasers emerged, focused on a single, finely honed piece of diamond suspended in a special cradle.&nbsp; The lasers hit, and instantly the metal on the other side began to melt, despite no visible source of light.&nbsp; It continued to do so, with the steel plates melting as if hit with a blowtorch, glowing white hot.&nbsp; Finally, the laser shut off, and everyone converged.<br><br>There, in the center, a perfectly circular hole remained.&nbsp; "Amazing, doctor.&nbsp; The X-ray laser worked!&nbsp; Your idea to refract the laser and use the excited diamond was spot on."<br><br>"Yeah well, we're not done yet.&nbsp; It's only got an effective range of around five meters.&nbsp; Any further, and it's useless," Zoey said, examining the hole.<br><br>"Doctor, come look at this," her graduate assistant said.<br><br>Walking over, Zoey looked over her shoulder.&nbsp; It showed the laser output, mostly a pointless excersize but they liked to keep records.&nbsp; Except that the normally simple sine waves were off.&nbsp; Very off.&nbsp; "What the hell?" she asked, sitting down and looking at the results.<br><br>There were three sinusoidal waves moving slowly across the screen as the oscilloscope monitored the power output of the lasers.&nbsp; Those were normal at 60 hertz, in a three phase configuration.&nbsp; That was normal and to be expected.&nbsp; What was unusual was that the third laser's output was different.&nbsp; Very different.&nbsp; It was almost a square wave, bouncing up and down, but in strange patterns.&nbsp; It obviously was outside interference, but from what?<br><br>"Are you recording this?" Zoey asked.<br><br>A button was pressed, "It is now."<br><br>The signal continued for almost five more minutes before it suddenly stopped.&nbsp; The lights went out for several seconds, before they came back on.&nbsp; That's when she'd met the Colonel, the one who'd introduced her to this insane outfit.</em><br><br>Leaning against the glass, Zoey was tired.&nbsp; She knew she was tired, she knew she was getting cranky, and the condescending nature of the others was about to get on her nerves.&nbsp; So she did the only practical thing she could.&nbsp; She sat down with her back to the wall, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>17-09-2014, 00:48:13</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Czar listened to Bekah speak, and then shot a worried glance at Zoey crouched on the floor.<br><br>"I've heard enough, then," she said wearily, stepping towards the door.&nbsp; "Captain?"<br><br>Gerry nodded and followed her.&nbsp; Kai stepped forward as well, but Gerry and Czar were through the doorway leading to the CIC before she made it two steps.&nbsp; He held up a hand to stop her.<br><br>"Wait," he said through his helmet's exterior microphones, and then closed the door.<br><br><hr><br>On the other side of the one-way glass window, the Peacekeepers relented and began to leave the holding area.&nbsp; The people at the front of the crowd kept shouting, but the ones in the back seemed to relax.&nbsp; The Peacekeepers shot both Sean and Bekah a look through the one-way window.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Blinkin</strong> on <strong>17-09-2014, 02:49:45</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"You would think that they could see us." Sean commented as he looked back at the peacekeepers and then glanced back to the door before noticing that Mia was still in the room with them and not looking happy about it. "You ok?" he asked and grimaced, wincing at the grimace, "Anyone got an icepack?" he asked and gengerly touched his cheek.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Red Stella</strong> on <strong>20-09-2014, 07:59:40</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Rebekah Graham</strong><br><hr><br>Nodding at Sean's comment regarding the peacekeepers in the other room, Bekah thought for a moment before responding.&nbsp; <br><br>"Maybe they can.&nbsp; It could be a feature of their helmets or faceshields.&nbsp; Or they're just used to there being people on the other side of the glass."&nbsp; At least things were calming down in there, she hoped.&nbsp; They didn't need to deal with friendly fire incidents on top of the damned monsters.&nbsp; <br><br>She turned to Kai.&nbsp; "Is there a med kit we can access in here?&nbsp; If we can't get my companions to an actual doctor, I'd like to at least check on them myself - Sean stop poking at your face - I'm certified as a paramedic."&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: ARCTICA (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Question Mark</strong> on <strong>15-10-2014, 02:16:11</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Kai placed a gloved hand on the door and leaned against it, head down, as Sean and Bekah spoke.&nbsp; Her rifle swayed on its strap, clinking off her ceramic armor in time with the plane's rocking.<br><br><em>"Is there a med kit we can access in here?&nbsp; If we can't get my companions to an actual doctor, I'd like to at least check on them myself - Sean stop poking at your face - I'm certified as a paramedic."</em><br><br>She didn't respond right away, although she turned her head slightly to look at them.&nbsp; On the other side of the glass, the Peacekeepers sealed the door shut behind them.<br><br>"Here," she said flatly after a few seconds, pulling a small white box off its clip on her belt and handing it to Bekah.&nbsp; If she opened it, she'd find dressings, antiseptics, gauze, surgical wire, painkillers, clean water, and everything else usually included in a first aid field kit.<br><br>After Bekah took the kit, Kai reached up to her neck, where the base of her helmet formed a seal with her bodysuit.&nbsp; She flicked a latch below her chin, and then another beneath her right ear.&nbsp; With an audible click, she rotated the helmet several degrees and then pulled it off.<br><br>Kai's face, previously only glimpsed in shards and streaks through her cracked visor, was round, with a small flat nose and large almond shaped eyes.&nbsp; Her thin lips were pressed together tightly, turning her mouth into a pale slash across her light brown skin.&nbsp; A thin trickle of half-frozen blood clung to the top of her forehead, snaking down from her buzz-cut brown hair.&nbsp; It was a surprisingly innocent face -- she couldn't have been much older than Bekah -- with an ugly grimace that seemed entirely out of place.<br><br>Helmet under one arm, Kai leaned back and shook her head like a woman shaking out a tight ponytail, even though her hair was less than a centimeter long.&nbsp; She took a deep breath, then let it out in a thick white plume.&nbsp; Her free hand reached up and probed at the blood on her forehead, flaking it away with one thumb, as she turned back to Bekah, Sean, and Zoey.<br><br>"Use what you want from it, not that it'll help."
			</dd>
		</dl>
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