Changeling-Earth 2: Freehold Earth - The Manifest's Engines

[Dawn OOC]

The plan for T-998 was to use environmentally friendly techniques learned from centuries of repairing Earth and terrforming the various planets in the Solar System. Earth has long since returned to the shining blue and green jewel it once was. So the black burned scar in the forest is horrifying to the colonists, who have never seen such disaster in such a verdent place. Change to the planet was inevitable, but they'd never dreamed that it would get out of control.

Twisted pieces of metal have shattered trees and ripped up the earth, and fire has finished the damage. A couple of the black disformed shapes aren't plants, but animals, caught in a fire so rapid and intense that they were fired on the spot. Other animals, burnt and dying can be seen: a deer-like creature struggles to stand on a missing leg, too deeply traumatized to realize it's gone. Something winged and lean swoops out of the night to snatch at a small creature, catching it in razor claws and arcing back into the night.

The engines themselves are exposed to their air, and still glow with heat. The massive bulkheads protecting and stablizing the engines are most gone, torn away to serve as building-sized shrapnel or slagged into nothing. Near the front of the engines, stressed metal held a few berths, some open, some closed. There aren't very many people here, unlike at the Manifest.

Well, there aren't very many humans here.

[SalmonMax]

She still remembered what Earth looked like from the orbital dock, where Manifest Destiny had fallen endlessly through space. Oh, she'd seen Earth before...every day, really. From the Luna Maindome, it had been a colossal blue orb viewed through hexagonal panes of heavily armored glass, flecked with white streaks and hints of green and brown. From the dock, it had been the -entire sky-. She remembered looking at it, and starting to cry...something she hadn't done since her dad's funeral. Because even with all the packing and selling of her things, through all the arrangements and the hurly-burly of leaving Luna, it was only at that moment she'd really felt as if she were leaving home.

Rochelle McKendrick awoke all at once with a sharp intake of breath. Immediately she was aware of flickering orange light outside her eyes, of cool springy turf under her awkwardly sprawled body, and of the sounds of burning flames and metal pinging as it cooled.

Dreading what she'd see, she opened her eyes. The fire was large, but not too close. The thick black acrid smoke suggested it was chemical...maybe plastics. Instrument panel maybe. Slagged beyond recognition now. Carefully, Rochelle...she'd earned the nickname 'Roach' from her wiry tendency to fit into dark, inaccessible spots...lifted herself up on her arms to get a better look around.

Debris everywhere. Scattered all around, and extending back along a long, ragged black scar in the ground. Turning to look the other way she saw the hulk of the Manifest Destiny, ripped open and spilled out like the titanic carcass of a dinosaur savaged by an even larger predator.

Finally she looked at what she'd been most reluctant to see...herself. The lack of pain was no promise of wholeness of body, she knew. Shock could be a powerful anesthetic. But...both legs, both arms...no big patches of blood or protruding ends of metal or bone. Somehow that was even more scary though. The crash had obviously been catastrophic. How could she have survived with no injuries? And why couldn't she remember crashing? Had she been in a stasis pod? And if so, why wasn't she in one now?

There were shelters up, Rochelle saw. Tents and makeshift structures improvised from what had remained of the basecamp gear on the ship. They'd have answers.

Getting to her feet wrenched a pained groan from her. She hadn't gotten off scot free after all. Sprained ankle. Scrapes and bruises on her knees and thighs...even through the material of her shipboard jumpsuit. Her left elbrow throbbed to, a good skinning, she thought. Like she'd just taken a tumble down a grassy hill maybe...but there wasn't one around here.

Limping a litle on her hurt ankle, Rochelle picked her way through the littered remnants of the Manifest Destiny's engine room towards the lights and sounds of people.

[Dawn OOC]

The fire was a pile of branches, lit off the burning engines. Several people were clustered around the fire; the tents, despite the late hour, appeared unoccupied. Everyone was pressing too close to the fire, too. Roach barely saw all this before she was seen by them.

The people greeted her with a burning tree branch across the face. One man leapt to his feet screaming and snatched a burning branch, swinging at her with unerring accuracy. Crying out, Rochelle fell down, her arms flying up to protect her head. She heard screaming, someone shouting denial, another screaming to kill it. She could smell burning hair, and her ears rang with the blow.

"I said, stop!" Rochelle recognized the voice; it was Riley, her favorite among the other techs. "She's one of ours."

"How can you be sure?" someone screamed. "She could be one of them, tricking us!"

"We're not playing that game," Riley hissed, then Rochelle felt him touch her. "Hey, bug-girl, how you doing?"

"Ow," she muttered, slowly sitting up. "My ankle... my head... I don't know which hurts worse."

"Come on... make room by the fire," Riley said, and people shuffled around for her.

"What's going on? Why aren't people using the tents?" Rochelle asked softly. It seemed like madness had descended here. It has to be the woods... they are really creepy.

"We're under attack," Riley said, his voice thick with scorn, "by the Headless Horseman."

"Shut up!" a young man shouted, shaking. "You didn't fucking see it. You don't fucking know!"

"And Crystal is gone," a young woman said, her voice so soft she had to repeat herself. "I saw... something, but I heard her screaming."

"Everyone here is wetting their pants over nothing," Riley complained, rolling his eyes as he poked the fire with a stick. "They wandered off. We'll find them in the daylight."

"Shut the fuck up!" the same man screamed.

"I can talk," Riley said, standing up. "I can say what I want."

"Fuck you!"

"No, fuck you!" Riley snapped, throwing the stick down. "You're full of shit and jumping shadows. Here, I'll show you." Despite protests, he walked away from the fire, passing the empty tents. "See? It's just the darkness."

Behind him, something moved. Riley half-turned, but it was fast. Before he'd had a chance to see, a massive green hand, covered in thick warts or blisters, had grabbed him by the head. He was jerked backwards off his feet, gone in the blink of an eye, with only a scream to mark his passage.

[Helena Lindsay]

A thousand questions tumbled through Dr. Lindsay's brain, roiling about like the chaos of autumn leaves in a wind-storm. As each surfaced, it was quickly blown aside and replaced by another, and then another, whirling, sweeping, dancing madly across the turbulent stream of her consciousness. The dull throbbing behind her eyes and the tiny spots in her vision that warned of an impending headache did little for her mood, or her patience- the latter of which was already worn thin by the insanity of the last twenty-four hours.

Everyone on board the flier seemed to have a purpose, a goal... Something Helena lacked presently.

"Look, there's no way-"

"-don't care what we have to do to get-"

"-if they're already gone-"

It was frustrating, certainly, but alone it wouldn't have been enough to make the level-headed scientist get angry. No, for something that drastic, her frustration at being helpless would have to be combined with lack of sleep, physical weariness, emotional exhaustion, fear, the slow onset of a migraine, and the singularly grating fact that she was being kept out of the loop...

...Oh. Wait.

They knew something, and she didn't, and she noted, absently, that it was that lone truth that annoyed her most of all.

So find. Out.

When confronted by this simple answer, these three words that provided an immediate and rational solution, the chaos fell away.

"I'm just saying, until we know-"

"-already know all we need to! We go in, and-"

The flier thrummed with power as it lifted off, the whine of the engines growing louder as it once more took to the air and then lurched forward with a surprising burst of speed into the night, away from the relative safety of the encampment. Helena clung awkwardly to the strap of a harness inside the bay, glancing from one member of the group to the other.

Busy as they were, communicating plans and arguing amongst themselves about the most efficient course of action, none of them noticed her expression change. The mask of fear and confusion melted away, leaving in its place the cool, analytical demeanor her colleagues on Luna had come to know all too well.

"Ahem." She coughed pointedly, straightening in what she hoped (under the circumstances) was a more dignified posture. Her gaze was level and direct, and though her tone was not quite acidic or demanding, it was crisp, concise, not a little angry, and above all, clear.

"Would one of you kindly tell me exactly what the fuck is going on here?" The group turned as the alien-sounding curse word dripped like a shard of ice from her tongue, and she used her free hand to nudge her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she peered at them expectantly. "Why do we have to leave? What's wrong with the mechanics, that they need rescuing? Who's attacking and taking people away, and for the love of all that's holy," she paused, her voice rising slightly in pitch and volume to emphasize her query, "what the hell was that eye outside my berth attached to?"

[SalmonMax]

Rochelle stiffened at the sight, and her mind filled with the jabbering mental static of panic.

ididn'tseethatididn'tseethatifididn'tseeitthentheycan'tgetme

She realized she was pointing at where he'd been and screaming, "What the fuck is that?! What is that?!" as her legs seem to move of their own accord, towards the fire.

[Dawn OOC]

Without hesitation, every eye swiveled to Lee, who was watching her with a gaze that was one part irriation and six parts amusement. After a moment, he stood up and walked over to her, stopping to stare at Smoking Man. When the others saw Lee move, they started to ignore her. Smoking Man took one look at his hovering boss and shifted down a seat, allowing Lee to sit next to her. "Ms. ?"

"Dr. Lindsay," Helena replied, a bit harder than she'd meant.

Lee nodded but didn't comment, his face lacking anger or judgement. "Dr. Lindsay, we're in a delicate situation," he said, folding his hands and letting them hang between his knees. "The Intrepid crashed here a week ago. We did well enough for the first few hours; then darkness fell." His hands went white where he gripped them, and Helena realized he was clasping his hands so tightly to keep them from shaking. Her stomach dropped in a sympathetic reaction to the strain in his voice as he continued, "I was walking the permimeter; we'd set up sentries with fires. We figured that would keep the beasts away. I got to a fire, and it was unmanned.

"I knew Han wouldn't abandon his duty, so we got a team together and went for him. It was dark; the moons weren't lit, so it was just the stars, when the clouds didn't cover them. We were all spooked. When the dog-thing came at us, we killed it. Just drilled it full of holes. We realized that we could have lost Han doing that, and we pulled ourselves into order, got control."

He was staring at the far wall, and Helena didn't need a psychology degree to know that he was reliving the battle in his head as he recited it to her. "This... thing stalks out of the night, glowing, like a star. And she's... she's beautiful. And human. I... She was really, really pretty, but it wasn't in a good way. She was like those computer models, the old ones were they looked human to a point and then they just looked wrong? She was like that.

"'That,' she said with a voice that like to crack open my skull, 'was my servitor. I shall have my price in flesh.' And she reached out and pulled with her fingers, and Jones' body exploded. His skin just curled back, and his ribs opened like a flower, and his organs... popped out, curling everywhere. I'd never heard anything scream like that, though it only lasted a few seconds.

"We started firing. Just emptying everything we had into her. She screamed and took off - straight up. Just went up into the air. No machines, just her and invisible wings. I dragged Jones back myself. I kept stopping to put his organs back in. I kept thinking that if she'd done that so easily, maybe it could be fixed as easily. Jones and me... we were part of the food riots on Io, couple of years ago. we never found a sign of Han, not in the morning. And he was just the first."

Lee glanced at her, and his face was filled with a startling amount of conviction. "So the answers to your questions are simple. We're dealing with crazy, powerful aliens who kill with a gesture and steal us in the night. And we're getting the fuck off this planet, one way or another. We need every technician we can get our hands on to do it with, because only they can repair the ships.

"And last, you are the only person I know who looked them in the eyes and walked away from them, sane and sound. Someone likes you, Doctor. Someone likes the fuck out of you." He studied her for a moment, then asked, "Got more questions?"

[Dawn OOC]

Everyone was doing much the same: running and screaming, though the running was mostly in circles. No one dared into the darkness, and pretty soon, they the screams were mostly sobs as they huddled together in the flames. "What the fuck is going on?" a woman screamed one last time, and then all was silent. No one seemed to know what to tell her.

Rochelle found herself huddled between two complete strangers, both of whom stank of fear and worse. She didn't care; she'd stay here forever, if it meant that something with hands the size of her head didn't grab her. For what seemed forever they huddled, darting out only to poke up the fire, the pops of the cooling engine ringing out occassionally.

Rochelle was staring out into the night when she realized that the pops from the engine were becoming rhymthic. Blinking, she glanced up at the engine.

Alien creatures were crawling down the side of the smoldering engines. At first, Rochelle thought they were machines, because she'd never heard of an animal with just three legs. They were long and spindly, and their bodies were covered in a smooth black chitin. Their mouths were visible on their undersides, a circle of jagged, horrible teeth that didn't as much close as rotate. They had no eyes, but didn't seem to have trouble moving. Nor did they have trouble marching right toward the clustered humans.

[SalmonMax]

"Oh my god!" Rochelle squeaks, too terrified to even scream. She points and starts scrambling away, popping out from between her neighbors like toast from a toaster. "Everyone look out!"

She gets painfully close to the fire and circles around it to put it between herself and the spider things. Spying where a branch juts out, she steels herself and reaches down to grab herself a flaming club of her own.

[Helena Lindsay]

"Got more questions?" he'd asked, with the tone of a man who already knows the answer.

Unfortunately, in Helena's case, he was wrong. She did have more questions, questions too numerous to count, but one look at his grave, deadly serious expression was enough to silence them for now. Even she could see the weariness, the faint glitter of desperation, and the jaded numbness of a man who had seen what no man ought ever to see. His hands, now, were clean, but in the retelling of his tale and the oddly distant quality in his voice, she knew he still remembered them bloodied by the wounds of a fallen friend.

For now, the answers she had were enough- enough that she sagged slightly with the weight, the sheer gravity of his revelations, and shook her head, her expression contrite.

"I..." she began, then cut herself off, exhaling softly a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "No. Nothing that can't wait. If there are people who need help, that's the priority. Everything else is details. Just... Tell me what to do."

She looked down at him with a faint, tight smile, pursing her lips as she tucked a sweat-damp strand of pale, coppery gold hair behind her ear.

[Dawn OOC]

Rochelle's hand closed around her branch, the fire uncomfortably warm on the back of her hand for a moment. She jerked it loose before it could burn her and held the club up before her. The others either grabbed their own weapons or bolted off into the night. "Back to back!" one of the guys screamed, a skinny kid with a ratty soul patch. His eyes were too wide, but at least he seemed to be thinking.

Rochelle found herself falling into a rough circle with the remaining five techs, all of whom had found something to hold as an impromptu weapon. "Get back!" Ratty Soul Patch screamed, thrusting his torch at them while winding up with a flange of metal in the other hand.

The creatures scuttled around them, making a loose circle, making the occasional attack. Even with only three legs, they were still effective, slashing with the point of their razor-sharp feet or trying to jam the spurs on their joints into her. The human to Rochelle's left lost six inches of weapon when one of them leapt forward and grabbed the end of her club with it's mouth. There was a sound rather like an organic chainsaw, and the club came back shorter.

The most disturbing thing about the attacks was the casual, methodical way in which they were being fought. It reminded Rochelle of movies of cats playing with their food. She could feel the desperation rising in the techs with her, as their rational minds struggled to deal with sudden, horrifying violence. For long moments, it seemed like a stand off; then a couple of them drifted apart enough for someone to make a break. To Rochelle's horror, one of the girls screamed and threw herself forward, disappearing into the night. "No!" Ratty Soul Patch shouted, then cursed with the despair of a lost man.

Rochelle landed a lucky attack on one of creatures, knocking its knee the wrong way. Shrieking and burning, it fell back, and she had a moment to catch herself before another filled the gap. They're corralling and herding us, Rochelle realized. They're the hounds, and we're the foxes.

[Dawn OOC]

"Are you a medical doctor?" Lee asked, looking at her speculatively.

"No, I'm a horticulturalist," Helena admitted. "I do know first aid."

Lee nodded and unslung the rifle from his back. "Can you shoot?" Lee asked, holding it out to her.

"Yes, some," Helena said nervously taking it from him. It was heavy and warm from his body; the leather strap smelled of leather and hard work. "Not this model," she admitted.

"Here, you cock it like this," he said, bending toward her to show her. "Here's where the rounds go. Pull this back, this switch is the safety. This goes between auto, single-shot and semi-auto, which does a three round burst every time you pull the trigger. She's going to buck on the auto, so stay on semi-auto or single shot unless you need feel the need to put a lot of bullets in something. Aim lower to start on auto and let the kick carry you up. Watch your bullet count," he finished briskly, tapping the display screen, "they'll go real fast."

Standing, he stripped off the gun belt he was wearing and gave it to her. "Two more clips for the rifle are here." He pointed and then tapped one of the guns holstered on the belt. "This revolver only has six shots and two speed loaders in the side pocket," he added. "This is your backup weapon if you lose the rifle. The other gun is actually a flare; if you get separated at any point, use it. The flare gun itself has a tracking device that will transmit if the gun's fired, so keep the gun with you, no matter what." He gave her a crooked smile, as if only half of him felt like smiling. "We can't afford to lose horticulturalists either."

Standing, he rearmed himself from a weapons locker, right down to another flare gun. As he selected a new rifle, the pilot said, "I see the engines. Damn, but they've made a mess."

"Let's hope they landed on one of the witches," Lee muttered to himself. He moved forward and peered out the window then grabbed binoculars and took a longer look. Turning, he said, "I see four on the ground, surrounded by walking milk-stools. Once we clear the stools, we'll go down to look for more. We won't be able to land, so we'll have to repel down. Anyone who can't get their own asses back up, better say so before they get on the line." People were already pulling on harnesses; clearly, this was something they'd practiced. Lee pulled on his own as the flier nosed to a stop, casting a spotlight on the trapped people below. Nodding to the woman, Lee said, "Mary, light them up."

Mary had shrugged into a harness; now she secured herself to the interior of the flier, opened the door and leaned out, taking careful shots on the monsters below. "They're scattering, Lee!"

"Good!" Lee shouted over the screaming wind. "Everyone go!" He paused as people started down the ropes to look at Helena. "It's your choice. Safer here."

[Helena Lindsay]

Safety's here, she reiterated mentally, studying everything Lee pointed out to her as if her life depended on it. She tried not to think about the fact that it probably did. Stay semi-auto or single shot unless I absolutely have to switch to automatic. In that case, aim low, the recoil will carry the barrel up.

She exhaled, long and slow, squeezing her eyes shut. The knots in her stomach were coiled painfully tight, and the throbbing behind her eyes mimicked the frantic thud of her heartbeat, audible to her even over the engines and the sound of the madness below. She couldn’t do this. Three-legged creatures? People being split open and carried off into the night? It wasn’t possible. She wasn’t built for this! She couldn’t possibly go down there…

The weight of the rifle, unfamiliar in her hands and slightly cumbersome, was nevertheless reassuringly solid. She opened her eyes to find Lee watching her, waiting for a response, waiting for her to either step forward and help them or remain up here.

With a soft click the belt fastened around her waist, and the faint pressure of the revolver at her hip brought with it a curiously pleasant memory, wildly out of place in the here-and-now. …her lover, standing behind her at the shooting range near the lunar colony, the smell of cordite and sweat and cologne mingling in the air in a not-unpleasant aura of masculinity. …His hands laced over hers as she gripped the pistol awkwardly, breath against her ear as he murmured for her to squeeze the trigger, not pull it…

She ran the fingertips of one hand over the butt of the revolver even as she slung the rifle carefully over her shoulder.

’Lena, ‘Lena. What the hell are you doing? That was thirty years ago. You never even touched a gun after you left. This is insane!

A shaky smile flitted across her lips, and she stepped forward, reaching for a harness.

“First floor. Hardware, children’s wear, ladies’ lingerie…” she quipped breathlessly in a half-hearted tribute to her former lover as she peered down at the flickering bonfire below. After a moment’s confusion with the buckles, Helena found herself pulling on a pair of fingerless gloves to aid in the rappelling jump, and then the ground was rising up to meet her as the rope slid through her hands.

[SalmonMax]

Rochelle looked wildly at the creatures as she realized they were acting...intelligently! Pack tactics. Like wolves.

No! THINK, Roach! No one's been taken from inside the firelight. There must be something about it...the heat or light or SOMETHING that they don't like. So they scare as many as they can out away from it...and when that stops working...they send these things to drive us away. Domestication implies intelligence. There has to be something we can use! Think!

"Fuel," she says, jabbing as one of the creatures tries to get close enough to slash at her ankles. "The fuel tanks must have ruptured! Do you guys know where they are? We need more fire!"

The man with his back to her said, "They're farther down the impact scar if anywhere. They're designed to jettison first if there's an emergency."

"What about the reserves!" Rochelle demanded desperately. They were closing in now. Maybe they were giving up on trying to break their nerve and just planning on physically taking them down and dragging them away. There seemed like there were enough to do it.

This time the woman to her left stammered, "Reserves...they'd be in an internal, shielded tank...they might have made it down...but we'll never make it! It'd be out of the firelight!"

"Grab more sticks! We'll bring the fire with us!"

Or not, Rochelle realized with a sinking feeling. Too late.

Maybe the bug things sensed they were plotting something, maybe they were just out of patience. Behind the ring now surrounding them came more, doubling...tripling their numbers. She could SEE them pausing to coordinate. Preparing to rush all at once.

Then there was a gunshot from...above? A white circle of light fell over them, scattering the creatures as one exploded in a spray of pus and goo. Another shot...two more. A bullet spanged off a torn piece of metal, but the second found another creature. Losing two seemed to be enough to drive them out of the firelight. The searchlight kept weaving though, trying to pluck them out of the dark.

A quartet of desperate shouts erupted from the formerly cornered technicians as they waved their torches in the air to signal their saviors that, yes, they were really ready to go now.

[Dawn OOC]

People slid down ropes from the flier, falling into defensive positions, guns aimed into the night. It was the most beautiful thing Rochelle had ever seen. "Who's hurt?" a short, thick blonde man said, his voice coming from deep in his chest. One of the guys stepped forward, holding his arm; Rochelle hadn't even noticed when the creatures had sliced it open. Rochelle herself limped forward and was sat down quickly by a lean man.

"Where'd ya hurt?" he asked, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips.

"My ankle," Rochelle gasped and his fingers quickly felt it. "And I got clubbed."

A moment later, he'd felt her head and her ankle. "For the ankle, I'm gonna wrap it. For your head, I recommend ducking next time." He gave her a roguish grin.

"Ha-h-Ow!" she gasped as he tightened the bandage around her.

Another man joined them, followed by a woman with coppery hair. "Is this all of you?" the man asked, immediately demanding attention.

"Yes!" the other woman said, while the hurt guy nodded.

"No," Ratty Soul Patch disagreed. "Those things chased some off. And some of us were grabbed by something."

"I fucking told you guys," the wounded man grimaced at Deep Voice bandaged his arm. "I saw the fucking Headless Horseman."

"Alright," the leader said. "I'm Lee Black, Mission Leader for the Intrepid. We're going to get you folks out, and retrieve as many more as we can find. George, Houston, get the techs aboard. Everyone else, you're with me." He glanced at the techs. "If any of you want to help, I'll let you, but I wouldn't advise it. It's dark, the aliens have immense power and seem most active at night. We came here to get you, not lose you. We'll get you weapons, though, if you want."

"I'm not actually a tech," Ratty Soul Patch said. "My berth was just near the back. I'm a psychologist." Lee and his men just blinked at him for a second. "Yes. I am a psychologist."

"Can you shoot?" Lee asked as George started to strip off his rifle.

"I know how, but I'm not going to, not unless it's to protect someone," he answered.

"Well, you'll be defending yourself, us and the techs," Lee answered as George forcibly equiped him. "Let's go before we lose anyone else."

[Helena Lindsay]

This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy, Helena’s common sense railed at her. The humid, fragrant air that had seemed so full of promise only hours ago now held terrors she could scarcely believe, terrors which apparently owed no obeisance to the laws of nature or physics and which were eagerly dispatching the would-be colonists. …And yet, somehow, impossibly, there she was: Dr. Helena Lindsay, horticultural expert and researcher, with a rifle in her hands as the spotlight looped around the fire and Mary sent precise shots whizzing past their ears toward more of the hideous things. Several were wounded, or even dead, but there seemed to be an endless horde just outside the clearing, waiting for the chance to dart in again after the injured, terrified techs.

“Let’s go before we lose anyone else,” Lee said brusquely as the thin young man was hastily equipped, grabbing Helena’s attention. She’d already gotten the impression that when he wanted you to move, you didn’t wait to ask why. You moved.

“Dr. Helena Lindsay,” she hastily offered the psychologist by way of greeting, forcing her lips to curve in what she hoped was a reassuring smile, but which in actuality more closely resembled a grimace. “Safety’s here,” she began, quickly reiterating to the shaken boy (he couldn’t have been much more than that, really) what Lee had shown her moments before. “If they’re moving, don’t follow behind them with your shots. Get ahead of them and pull your shots back to intercept their path. And,” she half-grinned, somewhat wryly, “Don’t ask where I heard that. We’ll get your friends, and we’ll get out of here. C’mon.”

She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt, charging into the undergrowth with a bunch of soldiers to rescue technicians and trying not to get eviscerated by the aliens who wanted to tear them to shreds. When the recruiter for the mission had told her this venture would provide her with “exciting opportunities for growth and enrichment,” this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.

[SalmonMax]

"It's been awhile since I practiced," Rochelle says to Lee with the weariness of a waning adrenalin rush, "But I can shoot some. And you'll need everyone you can get."

She pauses, then adds, "I'm Rochelle, by the way. McKendrick. The aliens are intelligent. Those bug things aren't them, they're more like domesticated animals. The aliens themselves...they're big, and incredibly strong. Skin's sort of a dark, mottled green color. They have at least one 'hand' that looks superficially a lot like one of ours, but is maybe twice as big...big enough to close around a grown man's head, and strong enough to yank him away in an instant. They seem to have an aversion to fire though, or maybe just light."

The mechanic gulps a deep breath after doing her infodump. "I'm pretty sure if they wanted us dead, we'd be dead by now. They wanted us alive. I don't know why. But it means the others might still be alive too."

[Helena Lindsay]

"Dark, mottled green...?" Helena let the question hang briefly in the air, glancing at Lee. "Different species, then, maybe?" she wondered aloud, her innate curiosity getting the better of her for a moment as she considered the possibilities. "Still," she added, nodding at Rochelle, "we can talk about that part later, after we find your friends."

It only took a moment, under Lee's direction, for Rochelle and the few others remaining behind to be equipped, and Helena hardly had time to blink before they were picking their way through the darkness by the light of brandished torches and battery-powered lanterns. The spotlight lingered on the cluster of people scrambling to get into the flier, and the occasional crack of a high-powered rifle echoed through the night.

With every sound, every chitter, every crunch of the underbrush Helena's breath caught in her throat. She could see the things, the aliens moving, skittering back into the shadows as a torch swung near, gripped too tightly by an unsteady hand. It felt to her as if a hundred unseen eyes tracked their progress, and the weight of that collective and unnatural gaze was enough to give her chills.

Breathe, Helena, she reminded herself, exhaling sharply. The slow, creeping fear that had been working its way up her spine quickly transformed into an icy lance, and her green eyes darted warily about. Breathe. The weight of the rifle shifted in her hands. Another step. She inhaled the warm, fragrant air and a rivulet of sweat rolled down her forehead, but goosebumps still prickled at the back of her neck. Just keep breathing... The group moved forward again. The knot of tension in her stomach constricted, suddenly, painfully, as tiny points of light blossomed behind her eyes.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, something had begun screaming.

[Dawn OOC]

"Hold up." Lee's whispered command cut through the charged silence. He dug a pair of binoculars off his belt and peered through them; a green glow could be seen around the edge of the goggles when he dropped them.

"What is it, boss?" Mary asked after letting him look for a moment.

"I think I see a tech, but something's wrong." Lee's voice was tight with concern.

"What's wrong?" Ratty Soul Patch whispered back.

"He's not running." Lee lowered the binoculars and put them away. "Let's be really cautious."

Helena's crawling sensation got worse with every step. Once, she glanced to the side and thought she saw burning red eyes. She gave a little shriek, which brought Lee to her side and had four guns pointing in the direction she was looking. "What?" Lee hissed.

"Eyes! Like in my berth!" Helena took a breath and forced herself to stop shaking. The pain and the crawling sensation weren't going away as easily. "I guess mine is out there, too."

Helena saw Lee rethinking what was happening. She shook her head. "Save him, if we can."

"Helena," he said softly, "he's bait. They're trying to draw us in." Helena saw the pain that statement caused him; to admit that saving him would kill them all. "Everyone back. Back to the flier. Damnit!"

Rochelle peered out toward the tech, not paying as close attention to the conversation. She saw the tech as a blurry, dark shape, standing still and facing away. She recognized the guy, a quiet, kind man named Will. But even she could tell that something was wrong; he shouldn't have been standing with his head down like that, just not moving.

It all went to hell so fast. As Rochelle heard Lee call for them to fall back, she saw her. A woman on a white horse, shining like the full moon on a winter night. Her dress was blue, or maybe white or maybe just light. She was blonde and impossibly thin, with a cold beauty, and yet there was something wrong with her. She gave a cold, terrible smile and the forests came alive.

Rochelle shrieked as a tall, green-skinned monster landed just in front of her. Around her, she heard screaming as other creatures came out of the night - the screaming was her companions. She caught a glimpse of Ratty Soul Patch facing a man with a snake's head, which lashed and whipped at him, biting viciously.

Only the security didn't lose their composure, though their movements were jerky with adrenaline as they faced the threats against them. Someone stepped up next to Rochelle and levered their rifle, firing methodically into the green beast. After a second of hesitation, Rochelle fired her own weapons. To her surprise, she hit, creating a viscerally satisfying eruption of blood.

Helena cringed as a green monster stepped forward; after Rochelle's description, she wasn't surprised at all by its size. Lee snapped off shoots before Helena had even remembered she had a gun, and he was firing a second burst when she finally aimed and pulled her own trigger. The difference was that nothing happened when she fired.

"Safety!" Lee roared to her, then shouted to everyone, "Get together, fall back and cut our way back to the ship!" Helena stumbled back until she felt Mary and Lee at her shoulder, managed to get the safety off and fired. The rifle kicked once, the semi-auto burst creating what felt like a single recoil.

Rochelle fell back at the ordered shouts, breathing way too hard. Her heart felt as if it were seizing, and there was nothing in her mind save Run! Run! Runrunrun! But when the man next to her stopped and fired, Rochelle had enough presence of mind to imitate him, firing again. This time, the shape was beyond the light and she didn't know if she'd hit it or not. But she fired and ran, and fired and ran, right along with the others.

Helena had an impulse to run as well, but the only place of safety was right here. So she fell in with the others, running and shooting. Ahead, through the trees, there was a light: the flier, hovered as close as it could, with George on the ground, waving to them to hurry. This close to the light, the others began to be spread out, the faster people moving ahead; only Mary and Lee were back with her now. The small dark-haired was just ahead of them. Above, Helena could see someone leaning out like Mary had done earlier, laying down a suppressing fire. Given the foliage, it may not have been successful, but it gave her a second wind and she somehow ran faster.

Rochelle's ankle was giving her problems. There was a low log; Rochelle had easily climbed it before but now, in her haste, she tried to leap it. Her ankle twisted again and her foot slid, and she went down, landing on the log. The wind rushed out of her lungs, and she went limp, struggling to breathe, unable to see for her pain.

Helena saw the small girl fall and Lee put on a burst of speed, getting there just before her. He scooped her up as Mary and Helena drew even - and as Helena heard a sound she'd only been privy to in movies: the steady thumping of a hoofed animal. Helena almost didn't stop but she turned and fired with the rifle she'd been clutching.

It was the most amazing shot of her life; she sensed more than saw Lee give Rochelle to Mary and turn to join her, but that wasn't as important as the burst she put right into the woman's chest. Pale red blood - not pink, but simply less vibrant - covered her chest. The horse drew short and reared and Helena saw its hoof coming at her. It metal-shod foot hit her in the chest and threw her backwards, and all went black for a moment as the pain in her chest held her body's complete attention.

Rochelle was tied to a rope, which began to pull her up, quickly. It was tight around her waist and uncomfortable, but instinctively, she held on. Below her, the battle swung sickingly, and all Rochelle could do was watch as she was lifted quickly. When she got to the top, she found that three people had been hauling her up, hand over hand; the second they had her, they pulled her into the flier and dropped the rope again.

Painfully, Rochelle crawled to the edge to see Mary run back to help Lee, who was dragging Helena away from the woman on the horse. He was moving slowly, dragging her by her collar while firing a pistol at the woman repeatedly. They were in the spotlight, but this time, the rider didn't stop, didn't shy away from the brightness. She didn't seem to like it much, but she kept riding. Rochelle saw the moment that Lee ran out of ammo, and the horse danced fearlessly close to him while the rider swung her arm.

Mary screamed a denial as she fired at the woman. The shots hit, and should have hurt, but the woman turned and waved neglectfully, tossed Mary backwards. Telekinesis, Rochelle thought, that's what those fantasy books call it.

Helena came back to the world just as Lee hit the ground bonelessly next to her, clearly unconscious from the bleeding head wound. The rider bent and pulled him to her without effort. "I had no quarrel with you, Flame-Haired," she said, and her voice hurt. "But I can only carry one, and I want him more. Enjoy your freedom while you have it."

Mary shot again, and this time, the woman reacted with pain, screaming. She gestured harder, and Helena heard an awful noise. She didn't look. She didn't need to see what horrible thing had been done to Mary. Her eyes were all for the white woman as she turned and rode into the night, her prize over the saddle before her.

Exhaustion and pain finally took their toil, and Helena collapsed completely. Above, Rochelle stared in horror at the mess that was Mary. It looked exactly what she thought a turned inside-out body would look like, and she glanced away. The attack seemed over; George was able to collect Helena without incident and get both of them into the flier. After a brief argument, George went back for Mary's body, wrapping it in a body bag. It was hauled aboard by a shocked crew while George pulled himself up one last time.

The wounded were tended to on the flight back. All was silent as they headed home, with the first streaks of gray lighting the eastern sky.