"The Portal files are doubly protected, their security is quite a bit more than a few tin cans," said Holly doubtfully, eyes flicking about the abandoned passageway she crouched in. "I'll do my best."

After a moment her voice crackled over the radio again. "All non-Portal files destroyed. I - "

And then there was an alarming crackle and silence.

Holly shrank against the wall, suddenly surrounded by many-appendaged insect-like aliens. Her radio, crushed into a mass of wires and circuit boards, buzzed on the floor.

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Chills ran up Michele's neck as she heard Holly's intercom go silent. This wasn't good. This wasn't good one bit. Redialing the freaquency channel, she contacted the CSEA lab.

"CSEA, this is Asst. Deriecho from the Ops. lab, do you know our full situation, or why there are some bug-eyed monster aliens abord our station?"

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You may (or may not) know me elsewhere as Elfpen

"Bloody..." Carson left the curse unfinished as Holly's radio started buzzing. Suddenly, he heard the metal doors in the room clang to the floor. He was finished-there wasn't any place else he could escape to.

Winter waited for the Privates to get out so that he and the Sergeant could squeeze through.

It was a tight fit. The skin on Winter's shoulders was scraped raw when he finally made it through the rear windshield. At least out here he wasn't likely to get hit by anything falling from above. Still, he refrained from smiling--that hadn't seem to result in anything good recently. As a matter of fact, every time he had smiled, something more had happened. For now, then, he was going to glare. Maybe then things would go better--happy look=bad things, so angry look=good things. Maybe it would work.

"Is there anything we should take, Sergeant?" he asked. All those supplies probably wouldn't do the station too much good, but they might.

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Winter nodded his head reluctantly. He would hurry back, but they had just come here at a quick pace. If he and Thanfield had to rush back to the Puma, and then return--as fast as possible--they would likely be rather worn out. After all, they weren't in Special Forces. They were just regular Army troops.

He headed back towards the puma at a steady jog--if he and Thanfield got the right pace, they could be back in around ten minutes, unless he smiled and something hit him in the head again. He'd have to remember to glare. Must. Glare.

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Holly let off a few bursts from her handgun, which served to stall the aliens for a few seconds - ample time for the petite white-coated scientist to make a dash along the hallway. That was Michele's door - then Carson's door - and Holly flung her whole weight into opening it.

She was confronted immediately by another alien, who was momentarily sent sprawling with another burst of laser energy from her gun. Holly glanced around once before deciding this was no place to barricade herself. But - "Carson!" she screeched, holding two more aliens at bay. "If you're in here, you better get out!"

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Carson nearly collapsed in relief, but he slammed the closet door open, his pistol ready. "Thanks." he said quickly to Holly, then peered out into the hall. It looked clear for the moment. "Let's go." he said.

Thanfield really was getting tired of running back and forth across the none too forgiving terrain. His peripheral vision compromised by the archaic oxygen masks - the things must have been... what? a decade old? - he swore fluently each time his jog gracefully dropped him in a crater. By the eighth time he fell into one of the wretched holes, he was fairly certain the glaring Corporal beside him had impressively extended his vocabulary.

And the fact that no less than three Bhorki had suddenly landed in front of them and disrupted his meticulous counting didn't improve his mood one bit.

Ahem. Three Bhorki.

Efficiently, apathetically, they moved into strategic positions around the marines even as Thanfield whipped out his plasma handgun and dove for cover into one steep crater, dragging Winter down with him. And just in time, too, as a barrage of withering fire [elaborate on Bhorki weaponry?] exploded from the Bhorki trio.

Where in this screwed galaxy had they come from?!

He received his answer an instant later, as he happened to glance upward at the small Bhorki pod hovering in the air above them. He risked a peek over the edge of the crater, towards the Puma. Two hundred feet away.

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"Not much choice in the matter!" said Holly, charging into the hallway and leaving her white coat behind to be shredded into infinitesimal pieces by an irate alien. "What idiot initiated lockdown?" she screeched as they barrelled down the corridor, guns in hand. "They're coming in anyway!"

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"I don't know, maybe the aliens got hold of the controls." Carson said. His radio was on, and he yelled into it, "Michele, where are you?"

Winter froze in shocked astonishment as the three Bhorki aimed their weapons at Thanfield and himself. He wasn't smiling! He was glaring, and something bad happened! This was just getting confusing.

His ruminations were interrupted by Thanfield, who seemed intent on having Winter hit his head again when he pulled him down into a crater. For some reason, the aliens fired where he had just been, though, and then split up.

Going for flanking positions--right, Winter thought as two years of military experience took over in his mind.

"Thanfield. Take the one on the left," he ordered, slamming an ammo clip into his autorifle. As he drew a bead on the foremost alien through the gun's crosshairs, he briefly wondered if the alien's day was about to go badly because it was smiling.

He pulled the trigger, and smiled in satisfaction--a smile that promptly turned into a look of horror as he remembered that smiling resulted in bad things. Regardless, the insectoid alien collapsed to the ground, wounded if not dead. Hopefully it was the latter.

Remembering to avoid smiling, Winter shifted his aim to the second alien.

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Creeping along the rim of the crater as to not present a stationary target, Thanfield jammed a cartridge in and exploded from cover the same time Winter fired his first shot. He leveled his handgun -

- to find that his quarry was nowhere in sight. He immediately crouched back down against the crater wall and pivoted, scanning the barren landscape for the third Bhorki. Detecting a faint nuance towards his left, he spun.

Oh.

The Bhorki leaped with an agility belying its stocky appearance. Claws leading, it sprang forth like a coiled spring. No, not a spring. A lion - and a decidedly vicious one. Caught off-guard, Thanfield instinctively fired off a round that burned clean through the monstrosity's shoulder. Releasing a grating shriek of pain, it darted to the side and leaped. Never in his life had he encountered an enemy like this, and he desperately threw up his handgun as an impromptu shield, his other hand fumbling for his combat knife.

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Michele tried to yell around the sound of rushing water which was soaking her cloathing and hair while she tried to save her radio.

"The mess hall, they've severed the water lines!"

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You may (or may not) know me elsewhere as Elfpen

Winter grumbled as he realised that his second target wasn't in sight. Momentarily, he ran through the list of words that Thanfield had said in an angry tone when falling so frequently a few minutes ago. None of them seemed to quite fit the situation, so he used a good, old-fashioned one.

"Darn," he muttered, scrambling around to look for the alien. There--something was scrambling along on the far side of the crater. Was it smiling? He would probably win if it was smiling, unless it glared and he smiled. Then he would probably lose. That was an interesting thought, because if he lost, he would probably stop smiling, so things would shape up for him. Then it would go better, until he smiled again, and the process repeated itself. Was it even possible for him to really lose this, so long as he remembered to stop smiling?

The Bhorki ambled--no, it actually looked more like hopping--closer, hefting its strange weapon. Winter didn't wait to find out what it was--he fired off a spray of bullets wildly before ducking behind a boulder.

He heard the strange gun fire, an oddly muffled sound compared to his own autogun. Then he noticed that his cover seemed to be growing thinner--whatever it was was burning through the rock. With another muttered "Darn!" he scrambled to his feet and ran for another rock, glancing at the Bhorki only long enough to make sure his bullets went in the right direction before watching where he was running. The alien was smiling. Winter stopped stock still, noticing that the alien tracked along his former line of movement with its strange projectiles before it seemed to realise he had stopped.

Winter lifted his gun--if the creature was smiling, it was done for. He fired, while the creature was still trying to bring its own weapon to bear on him.

Winter frowned at the odd Bhorki shriek, then laughed. So far, no harm had come from him laughing, and he had to find some way to let out the happiness he felt at having figured out whether or not things would go well for him or his opponents.

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((*Rolls around on the floor giggling* Winter's whole smiling/frowning thing gets me every time...it's so funny...))

"Could this be any worse?" moaned Holly as at that instant the mess halls doors ahead burst open and two feet of water instantly changed the hallway into a river. She instantly regretted ever opening her mouth when something made a muffled popping noise overhead and water started dripping from above, too. "Erk. Forget I ever said that," she told the increasing rain of droplets, but the flow unfortunately only grew larger.

"I think we need to evacuate - there are suits enough for everyone, and oxygen masks, but the main intercom is likely shorted out," said Holly, thinking aloud.

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Michele sighed in relief when the doors opened. But it was very short lived. Water line break = flood in mess hall = pressure on doors = door failure = flood. Big flood.

The flood that was even now headed for the electrical room.

Tossing her head, Michele took off wading through the river like current flowing through the halls of the large space station. Just as she was about to reach up and turn off the power, elemitating the risk of electricution, she tripped in a newly formed dent in the floor with a loud screach. After she got up, she quickly tried to dry her hand, reaching for the master switch...

POP! A loud popping, crackling, sizzling noise filled the room as Michele fell to the ground, her left ankle wrapped in a wire, it's yellow insulation floating down the rushing flood. Soon after, her intercom fell into the water with a quick sizzle, then follwed the current.

And apparently, the alien intruders of the station had the same idea as Michele.

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You may (or may not) know me elsewhere as Elfpen