[No Dachi]

I've siezed control of your characters for the duration of your post. If they don't do anything that you'd do then, well. My advice is to write a letter to me, complaining angrily about my abuse of your characters' personalities, then not send it.

Getting down the stairs is going to be tricky...
Corporal Incom Morgan thought to himself, looking at the steps winding down beneath themselves below him, to the lower depths of the main facility from which he had originally ascended. Above him, the fire from the incendiary grenade raged to itself, with no sign of activity from the Rangers who lurked unseen behind the doorway. Corporal Morgan watched the other Marines file passed him and down the steps, one by one. Finally, he was the last man there. Still he waited, then-

"All clear down here!" Came a shout from below, echoing up to the Corporal from the walls of the stairwell. Incom didn't recognise the voice; probably an enlisted rank from one of the other squads.

"Confirm!" Incom shouted in reply, before edging forward toward the steps. Turning sideways on, he edged his way slowly downwards, step by step, coming down heavily each time with the alarming, but thankfully brief, feeling of falling forwards. He reached the platform mid-way between the floor above and the floor below, to see another man standing next to the open doorway down the next short flight of steps ahead of him. On seeing the Corporal, the other man, ranked Private and wearing a gas mask, produced an incendiary grenade and, removing the pin, threw it up over the railing above his head and into the doorway. Acrid black smoke filled the corridor, and seconds later flames clung to the walls of the stairwell, blocking the doorway to the Armoury Corridor off completely.

"The Lieutenant and the others went on ahead," Ezplained the Private, turning to look directly at Incom through the reflective glass eyeholes in his gas mask, "I volunteered to stay behind. We need to double time it to the hangar." His voice was distorted from being spoken through the external speakers of the gas mask and, Incom realised, it was the same voice that had shouted up to him before. Rear-guard. "The Lieutenant didn't leave me in any doubt that they'd leave if we weren't there when they were able to." And, without another word, he turned and started down the stairs. Incom followed, edging his way sideways down the stairs as before, still feeling unbalanced with every new step. Thankfully, the trip down was relatively quiet. None of the creatures that he'd encountered earlier on his way up from the office were in sight. Briefly, Incom wondered what had happened to the civilians in the office, but quickly dismissed them; there was nothing he could do for them now. Together, the two Marines made their slow, but steady, progress down to the sixth underground floor, into the darkness. After pausing briefly to make sure their thermal imaging overlays were still functioning properly, they stepped out of the stairwell and into the darkened corridor.

Some fairly large explosives must have gone off here...
Corporal Lewis Morgan decided, surveying the extensive damage to the hangar. The lights were completley out, but Corporal Morgan was seeing the wreckage without the aid of thermal imaging - large fires continued to blaze merilly on the hangar floor and walls, unworried by the dozen-or-so Marines newly arrived in the cavernous room. There were four hangars, each separated from the next by a thin steel wall - at least in design; at the explosions, which had taken place in the third and first hangars from the right hand side of the row, had blown out large sections of the adjoining walls so that their volumes merged into one. Satisfied that there was nothing to see in the fourth hangar along - the one at the far left of the row - Corporal Morgan let his pulse rifle hang loose by its strap again, using both hands to steady himself as he stepped through a jagged tear in the steel partition, back into the third hangar, where the other Marines were. There wasn't much to see. The Lieutenant still looked as though he had a plan - but it was becoming obvious that he'd been banking on the freighters that had been docked in the hangar being in-tact. Corporal Morgan briefly considered the prospect of freezing to death in the hangar - the explosion had also destroyed sections of the exterior wall, allowing the freezing air in through the gaps - trapped between the hostile Marines above and the other hostiles reportedly lurking in the floors below. Fortunatly, for now at least, there didn't seem to be any enemies nearby. Suddenly, a high-pitched whining noise cut across the low murmer of voices in the hangar, coming from outside. The Lieutenant reacted immediately.

"Dropship! Find cover!" He yelled, already running across the floor of the room toward a mess of crates that had been thrown against the walls by the force of the explosion. Corporal Morgan ran for the burnt-out wreckage of one of the freighters and knelt down, one hand holding the pistol grip of his pulse rifle and the other resting on the still-warm wreck to steady himself. He saw Corporal Roxborough - the female soldier from the Armoury - take cover on the other side of the wreck, with a standard Marine private he hasn't seen before taking shelter between them. The high pitched droning of the dropship engines grew louder, and leaning out from behind the torn edge of the wreckage, Morgan could see the brilliant blue glare of the dropship's engines - currently in the verticle landing position - through one of the holes in the hangar doors. Suddenly, a hiss of static from his personal communicator drowned out everything else.

"Corporal Fluffie to 45th Line Battalion, all personnel, report in, over."

The voice, and the accompanying crackle of static...
Cut neatly across Lieutenant King's line of thought. He was walking back along the corridor which he had stumbled down earlier, attempting to escape from the purple creatures - which were now nowhere in sight. He had eventually left the...the storage room, after having taken shelter in there for a while. It had been quite uneventful, just him and the crates, and thankfully no sign of any of the purple creatures. The Lieutenant removed his helmet for a moment, holding it in his left hand while he scratched his head with the right, his pulse rifle hanging by its strap. He had the powerful sensation that he'd forgotten something important. Another voice on his personal communicator pushed these lingering doubts aside - Lieutenant De Loran, the Battalion's 2iC.

"Recieving, Corporal Fluffie, what's your status, over?" Said the man's voice.

"Stole an enemy Dropship, am holding position outside of hangar doors. Request orders, over." Replied the first voice, apparently belonging to this Corporal Fluffie. Lieutenant King looked to his right, helmet now replaced and the thermal imaging visor on, and saw a plaque on the wall reading "Control Room", and a door to the left.

"This is Lieutenant King," He stated, using both hands to wrench the sliding door open - it was meant to be automatic, but the power was off, "I'm at the Control Room. Will open the hangar bay doors and then get to your position, over."

"Confirm, Lieutenant," De Loran returned, "with the freighters gone, that thing's our only way off this planet. Double time it to the hangars once you're done. The rest of you, maintain radio silence. Those Rangers might be able to pick up our communications. Over." Lieutenant King nodded to noone in particular, and stepped into the control room. It was lit by dim red emergency lighting, which unnervingly reminded the Lieutenant of blood. And, on closer inspection, there was a technican slumped over one bank of consoles with a look of terror on his face and a neat puncture wound in his back, dried blood caking his uniform around it. Lieutenant King pulled the man back away from the console and gently lay him to rest against the wall. The room was cramped - four metres in length, two wide - with one bank of consoles against the left wall and one against the wall opposite from the door. The rest of the floorspace in the room was taken up by two wheeled desk chairs. PK sat down in one of them and looked at the console in front of him - it was difficult to pick out the different command buttons, through the pale green blanket provided by thermal imaging, but in short order he found four adjacent push switches marked "A", "B", "C" and "D". The hangars, obviously. All of the switches were currently toward him. Lieutenant King pushed all of them forward and prayed that the bay door mechanisms were still operational before getting up from the chair and heading out back into the corridor. Checking left and right, he again saw no sign of the purple creatures from before and then set off down the corridor back toward the hangars, his bootsteps ringing out through the corridor. Presently, he was at the door to the hangar, which was closed. Lieutenant King keyed in the same key code he'd used before and the door hissed open, just in time for him to see the shape of the dropship drifting haphazardly through the hangar bay door in front of him...

Easy does it...
Private First Class Yuechenko dropped down from the long steel access ladder, stretching upwards for a hundred metres or more to the bright, and now very small, circle of light high above that was the vent's opening onto Novagorsk's surface. Wordlessly, the Corporal, one of the two Marines that Alexander was with, smashed the hinged access door into the facility in with the butt of his pulse rifle before the other Marine - a Private - stepped through with his pulse rifle raised to his shoulder, scanning around briefly before signalling the all-clear. Alexander and the Corporal followed through. He knew the name of either; they had all three travelled in near-silence to reduce their chance of being somehow located by the Rangers on the facility's topside. They were in a long, dark access corridor, lit only by the false-colour of their thermal imaging visors, and with the only apparent exit at the far end. The corridor was around twenty metres long - it would have to be long, in order to connect the air vent to the facility, the topside opening had been quite distant from the surface facility. Alexander had no idea which level they were on - they'd had to descend pretty far down before they'd found an opening big enough for a human to pass through. They reached the door - this one also hinged - and the two other Marines again repeated the procedure from before, the Corporal smashing down the door and the Private moving through, checking around before signalling for the others to follow. Alexander stepped through this new door, and looked around. It didn't take long to figure out that something was wrong; they were in an armoury, but the only armouries in the facility - that Alexander knew of - were on the first underground floor of the main facility and the second underground floor of the Marine Barracks. They were way below the first and second underground floors. A pair of thick double doors on the opposite wall of the room were the only other entrance into it, and, curiously, the lights were still on. Alexander walked up to one of the armour racks in the room. Lots of gas masks. Lockers lined one wall of the room and the Private opened one of them - apparently unsealed.

"Shit!" He exclaimed, reaching inside the locker to pull something unseen out from within it, "Bio Division uniforms! Look at the unit badge!" He held out the uniform for the Corporal to inspect, and Alexander walked over to take a look as well. The laurel leaves of the United Nations, picked out in white, surrounding a blue shield on which a biohazard symbol stood out - also in white. It was, without a doubt, a Biological Warfare Division unit. The Corporal opened up another locker and peered inside.

"No uniform in this one," He commented, "but it's got other kit in it. If this shit belongs to Bio Marines, they're still here."

"There aren't any Bio Marines stationed at this base though...we would have been briefed if there were." The Private reminded them, apparently still not fully understanding how the Bio Marines could have remained in the facility without them knowing.

"We must have come down below the main facility," Alexander said, looking around the room for some indication of what level they were on, "into the no-access zones. They weren't off-limits because corrosion made them dangerous, they were off-limits because the Bio Division had a secret base down here underneath the other secret base. But why would they go to all this trouble-" The sliding doors slid open, Alexander and the other two Marines whirled around, guns raised, to face the threat. Two Bio Marines, both of them dressed in uniform, less armour - standard dress when not in combat - both temporarily stunned. A second later, and one of them reached for his pulse pistol. The three Marines of the 45th Battalion opened fire almost as one, and the two Bio Marines were killed almost instantly as pulse rounds shredded their unprotected flesh.

"Get anything you need and then get the hell through that door - we need to get out of here fast!" Shouted the Corporal, grabbing a handful of high-explosive grenades and fastening them to the straps on his belt. Alexander heaped several clips into one of the pouches on his combat webbing and grabbed an Mp10 and some soft point clips for good measure. The Private took a shotgun and several grenades, and then the alarm went off, warning klaxons wailing impossibly loud. A Bio Marine, fully equipped and gas masked, brandishing a bayonetted pulse rifle, suddenly appeared in the doorway, raising his gun to his shoulder before being felled by a well-placed burst from the Corporal. Time to go. Alexander and the Private rushed to the open doorway, and the Private leant out around the corner to scan left from the direction the Bio Marine had come.

"Clear!" He yelled, before creeping out from behind the doorway, scanning across the wide corridor now ahead of them. Alexander and the Corporal followed him out. Looking left, Alexander saw a checkpoint shielded by what was presumably bullet-proof glass and accessed by an armoured steel door. The man had apparently seen the two other Bio Marine go down, triggered the alarm and then rushed out to meet the intruders. The three Marines of the 45th rushed down the wide corridor ahead, boots clattering on the steel floor, and reached a wide, heavy steel bulkhead at the end just as it began to open, moving upwards into the cieling. Thinking fast, the Private thumbed the pin from a grenade and bounced it through the widening expanse between the bulkhead door and the floor.

"Grenade! Clear out!" Shouted an unseen voice from behind the door and, seconds later, a loud, clear explosion rung out through the corridor. The bulkhead door was now open to about waist height. Alexander dropped to one knee, pulse rifle at his shoulder, and looked through the gap. A wide, open room - some kind of hallway - was beyond. Four Bio Marines lay dead or else critically wounded around a section of scorched floor where the grenade had gone off.

"Clear!" Reported the Medic, before rolling forwards underneath the bulkhead and into the room beyond. The Private and the Corporal followed him through. For a second the three of them knelt still, watching their zones. The room was long and relatively narrow, a wall immediately to their right bearing the Biological Warfare Division's logo formed one end of the room, while at the other end of its length was what appeared to be an elevator. Doors, double and single, opened up into the room symmetrically from either side at regular intervals. The cieling, high above, formed a long arch above their heads. It took a few moments for Alexander to see that the floor was paved with fine, blue granite slabs and that the walls were some kind of eye-pleasing sandstone masonry. This section of the facility had been done up for visitors. Suddenly, one of the single doors to the hallway burst open, and four combat-ready Bio Marines rushed out into the open. Well-aimed fire from the 45th Marines killed the first two through the door almost instantly, while the third threw himself to the floor, sliding across its polished surface for a short distance before coming to a stop, and the fourth ducked back behind the doorway, taking cover there. The Marine on the floor opened fire with a burst and the Private to Yuschenko's left was thrown back through the bulkhead opening, a fine red spray of blood hanging in the air. Alexander lined up the Bio Marine's head through his gunsights and, calmly, squeezed the trigger. The first pulse round sent the man's helmet flying, while the other two pierced his skull and detonated, literally destroying his head in a shower of crimson gore. The other Bio Marine leant out from the doorway and squeezed off two rounds, only to be dropped by return fire from the Corporal. The threat momentarily taken care of, Alexander and the Corporal turned back to the Private, who had managed to prop himself up against the left wall of the corridor, and was still clutching his pulse rifle. Three large holes shattered the front of his body armour, and through them Alexander could see blood and glisteneing flesh, as well as the white of shattered bone. It didn't take a Medic to figure out he was going to die in short order.

"Painkillers!" The Private hissed through clenched teeth. Alexander reached for his pouch of medical supplies, produced a syringe, flicked the needle end experimentally and then injected its contents into the man's arm, pushing the plunger home smoothly. He loosened up almost immediately. "Thanks Doc," he said, and Alexander could already hear his breathing taking on a laboured air to it, "I can still aim and shoot. You guys get to the elevator and I'll cover your backs." The Corporal nodded. Alexander could see neither man's face - both wore gas masks - but he had no doubt the expression on the Corporal's would be grim. The man rose up to his feet, pulling Alexander away by his arm. Reluctantly, Yuschenko turned as well, and the two of them dashed across the stone floor toward the elevator doors. Alexander caught a glimpse of double doors on the left wall opening as he rushed passed, and heard gunfire ringing out behind him. As he reached the far wall of the hallways next to the elevator doors, he flattened himself against the wall and turned. Two more Bio Marines lay dead on the floor. The Corporal keyed in a quick combination on the number lock of the elevator door and it emitted a harsh buzzing tone.

"Shit! They're running different codes - get back, I'll blow the door with a grenade." He said, voice twisted by the gas mask, and already reaching for the grenades at his belt. Alexander moved down toward the right side of the hallway, staying flat against the wall behind him, and, seconds later, an explosion sent pieces of debris spinning across the floor of the room. The Corporal and the Medic were through the door and into the elevator quickly - Alexander noticed that the interior was distinctly unglamorous, and identical to the service cargo elevators that ran through the facility's length. "We should be able to get straight to the hangars in this thing," the Corporal said, hammering the button for the sixth underground floor, "those freighters should still be there, that's our best bet for getting off this rock." The powerful engines powering the freight lift - designed for heavy loads indeed - droned into life, and Alexander caught one last glimpse of the Private, still slumped against the wall with his right arm held high in fairwell, before they were up past the top of the hole in the doors and away into the darkness above...

The ringing in his ears fading...
Lieutenant Tremaine pulled himself to his feet, testing his limbs carefully for fractures. Nothing broken, but rather a kind of general ache all about the body. He felt a bit dazed, and set about trying to remember what had happened to send him out of the loop for a few moments...or more. The 2nd Lieutenant looked around the small, cramped room that he and the other two Marines - Private Scarez and a Corporal named Sharpe who he had not met before - now occupied. White ceramic tiles covered the floor and the walls - they were obviously in the Research area of the facility. Lieutenant Tremaine turned and looked back at Private Scarez, who was pulling himself up off the floor. Behind him, the long shape of the collapsed section of air vent slanted down through a ragged hole in the cieling to the floor below. As far as Jake could remember, they'd been making their way along the vent in an effort to reach the peimeter corridor and stairs to the hangars when the floor had given way, and they all three had been plunged into the room below. Corporal Sharpe sat quite contentedly on top of the collapsed vent, pulse rifle hanging by its strap. He had that kind of edged look in his eye that was a message to any other soldier that saw it - this man had seen too much fighting. Jake knew the look better than many; he had it himself, it'd been there for a while. Jake looked around again. Broken glass from some complex lab apparatus set-up that had had the misfortune to have been positioned beneath the vent littered the floor. Jake took a step forward toward a sliding door, shards of glass crunching underfoot, and Scarez followed apprehensively. Corporal Sharpe pulled himself laboriously to his feet, and took one step forward before stopping, and gesturing toward the lower part of the wall to his left with the muzzle of his pulse rifle.

"Blood." He said simply. Turning, Jake quickly saw what he meant. A dark red stain, smeered as though its source had been dragged away, covered one section of the wall. Obviously, the labs hadn't been exempt from the chaos elsewhere in the facility.

"Watch your backs, could be ****ing Rangers down here as well." Jake ordered, once again moving toward the door. He punched in a quick key combination and, to his relief, the door slid open. Apparently his Officer's access codes worked in the restricted lab areas as well. Jake proceded through into the next room, trying to bring to mind the floor plans for the laboratory section before remembering that he'd never actually followed the brief and looked at the design blueprints in detail. Never mind; he'd got out of worse situations than this one before. Jake pasued briefly and looked around the new room. It looked like a simple access area of some kind - just ceramic tiled walls and floor, no equipment, but with lots of doors leading off, presumably to more individual labs like the one they'd just left. He reached a set of double doors and keyed in another combination. They slid open smoothly, and he found himself staring down the barrel of a pulse rifle. Scarez and Corporal Sharpe had their own weapons to shoulder almost instantly, and for a few moments, there was only tense silence. Then, Jake diverted his attention away from the rifle's muzzle, and to the man behind it. Light Marine, Corporal...Hewitt. The other man recognised him almost at the same instant - Jake was, after all, his commanding officer.

"Good to see some friendly faces down here," Hewitt remarked, and, for the first time, Jake spotted a woman standing behind him. Dressed as a lab assistant. Probably wouldn't be much use in combat. Nonetheless, Jake pulled out one of the pistols holstered at his hip and, ensuring that the safety was on, tossed it through the air toward her. The woman immediately jumped backwards against the wall and watched the pistol bounce passed across the floor. Corporal Hewitt took on an exasperated look, Jake grinned wolfishly and Corporal Crazy watched the procedings with just the slightest hint of amusement on his face. Private Scarez, who obviously hadn't been paying attention, jumped at the sound of the pistol clattering against the ceramic floor tiles and brought the muzzle of his pulse rifle up, scanning around nervously.

"Calm down, Private, or you'll give yourself a stomach ulcer." Jake said, walking over to the pistol before picking it up and holding it out to the woman, grip first. She took it gingerly, turning it around in her hand as though examining it.

"That's Catherine," Hewitt explained, "she's not very talkative. Claimed there's something inside here but if there is, I haven't seen it yet."

"Well, we sure saw what it can do - fairly big bloodstain on the wall in the room we just left." Jake said, trying to shake off the feeling that he'd forgotten something terribly important. It came back to him suddenly. "Oh SHIT! Those explosives are going to go off!" He remembered Corporal Hewitt's post being at the entrance to the laboratory area, back at the perimeter corridor for this floor. "Corporal, back to the perimeter corridor, lead the way, move! Move!" Corporal Hewitt turned immediately, running back through the open doorway through which he'd apparently just passed. Tremaine set off after him, holding the pistol grip of his pulse rifle and looking around to make sure the others were still in tow - they were all moving, with Corporal Sharpe bringing up the rear. They passed through a laboratory full of what looked like broken specimen containers, with more bloodstains on the walls and floor, and through another door, into a long corridor. Here, Corporal Hewitt stopped. Jake saw why within a few moments - two of the dog-sized ant creatures from before lay dead and broken on the floor of the corridor about ten metres in front of them, and further ahead from them, two Rangers. "CONTACT!" He shouted, dropping to one knee and flattening himself against the wall of the corridor before snapping off two shots. One of the Rangers went down with a cry, the other skidded back around the corner into whatever room lay beyond at the end of the corridor. Jake turned to look at Hewitt and the Corporal managed to reply to his question before it was spoken.

"That's the reception room, it opens onto the perimeter corridor." He said, and Jake could just about make out frantic shouting coming from the other end of the corridor - the surviving Ranger was calling for reinforcements. "The stairwell door is just opposite the exit, on the other side of the perimeter corridor." He went on. Jake nodded.

"Get to the end of the corridor and give them some of that assault shotgun. I'll cover your advance. Get a grenade down there!" He bellowed. Private Scarez obliged within seconds, pulling the pin free and giving it a powerful underhand throw that send it tumbling across the floor and out into the open room beyond. Seconds later it exploded, a bright flash of light followed by smoke and skittering floor tiles. "Go! Go! Go!" Hewitt was already on his way, moving down the corridor as quickly as he could while keeping the muzzle of his assault shotgun up and trained on the opening. The Ranger appeared in the doorway seconds later, obviously unphased by the grenade, but a tightly-packed spray of shotgun pellets floored him in a fraction of a second. Corporal Hewitt dissapeared behind the doorway, then, seconds later, shouted the all clear. Jake and the others moved up to the end of the corridor quickly, and were in the reception room. A dead purple creature of some description, that looked strangely familiar somehow, lay on the floor surrounded by a pool of congealing blood. Jake strained his ears - bootsteps clattering on concrete steps, they were heading down the stairwell. "Get a grenade in there!" And, again, Scarez thumbed the pin on a high explosive grenade and sent it through the doorway. Corporal Crazy sent an incendiary grenade in after it. Jake continued to shout orders, drowning out the sound of the incendiary grenade going off. "Down the elevator shaft! Go!" He put the stock of his pulse rifle to his shoulder, creeping sideways in front of the doorway to the stairwell before kicking the hinged door in. It squeaked open on rusted hinges, and a blast of scorching air assured Jake that nothing was going to get down the stairs. He turned to see the two Corporals wrenching the double elevator doors open from either side. Private Scarez was on one knee and firing - Jake could see two more of the ant creatures scuttling down the corridor toward them, but moments later both were shredded by Scarez' fire. Catherine, who had been haphazardly squeezing off individual shots with the pistol, continued firing regardless untill her clip was empty. The doors were open. "Down the shaft! Use the winch line! Go!" The Corporals hesitated, and Jake decided that there was no time for delay. He let his pulse rifle hang by its strap before throwing himself through the open elevator doorway, into the lift shaft below. Catching the steel elevator cable, the momentum of his jump swung him around it, and he began descending. He could see the top of the elevator cabin below, just about picked out by the dim red lighting on the shaft's interior. Looking above, he could see Scarez following him down. Jake hit the roof of the elevator cabin, rolling sideways to disperse some of the force of the fall, and scrambling to a crouching position, smashed in a wire grill opening on the cabin's roof, Scarez immediately jumping through. Catherine landed shortly afterwards, falling flat on her face with a shriek - not everyone had been through the Marine Corps assault course, he reminded himself - and Hewitt touched down a moment later, rolling sideways as Jake had done. Pulling Catherine up to a crouch, he pushed her toward the opening in the roof of the cabin and she quickly took the hint, dropping down through it clumsily. Hewitt followed closely after, at the same time that Corporal Sharpe hit the roof. Almost immediately, he was through as well. Jake looked upwards, and saw two narrow laser beams cutting down the lift shaft toward him - Rangers. Suddenly, bullets were whining off the metal work around him. Jake didn't need much more of a reminder, and dropped down through the vent opening himself, into the elevator cabin, before scrambling through the open doors into the long corridor beyond. Seconds later, an earth-shattering boom reverberated down the elevator shaft behind him, and the ground bucked alarmingly beneath his feet, flooring him and the others. A low rumbling noise audible through the cieling told Jake that at least a section of the Armoury's floor had caved in. A few streams of fine dust descended from gaps in the cieling tiles, filling the air. Jake dismissed the Rangers from his mind for the time being.

Buttons...
Fluffie noted, still not entirely comfortable in the pilot's seat of the dropship. He'd managed to get through the open hangar door - just about - but he'd heard distinctly the sound of metal scraping on metal as he he'd done so.

"Everyone that responded to the personal coms broadcast is aboard, Corporal." Lieutenant DeLoran's voice said, coming through loud and clear over the cockpit's boosted radio unit. "The Armoury explosion really ****ed the superstructure over - this place is coming apart. We can't wait for the others, I'm ordering you to take off immediately." Fluffie shook his head slightly - though he was the only one in the cockpit to see it, catching the movement by his reflection in the slanted transparasteel of the cockpit canopy. He didn't like the thought of leaving troops behind on this frozen hell-hole, but then, he'd heard bits of the roof bouncing off the dropship's hull - the base was obviously falling apart. Reluctantly, Fluffie pushed the throttle of the aircraft up to 60% power - enough to lift the heavy boat off the ground with the vents in the vertical position. Once the radar showed him hovering a metre or so above the ground, he retracted the dropship's landing legs - bulky and reinforced with shock dampeners, designed to absorb the impact of hitting the ground at considerable speed - and switched the vents back two points. The dropship began to drift forwards, out through the hangar door. Fluffie was in the light again, sunlight managing to fall even against the rocky canyon walls with the system's twin suns in the noon position. Fluffie cranked the vents back to flat-out backward facing, and the dropship fell away into the depths of the canyon. With this much room below him, he could afford to lose a little altitude. Fluffie watched the canyon walls streaking by for a few moments before pushing the throttle rapidly up to 100% power, and pushing it forward once more to ignite the boosters. A deafening roar of fusion drives, and the dropship was moving forwards. Fluffie pulled back on the pitch control, bringing the nose of the dropship up, and within moments they were at their previous height, and a few moments after that, out of the canyon altogether. Fluffie cast an appreciative eye over the pristine white snow stretching in all directions. Funny how the first time he'd seen the beauty on this moon was when he was 200 metres above its surface...

"Drop 1, Drop 1, come in Drop 1, this is the Mithradates, over." A voice cut across his line of thought. The Mithradates was the frigate hovering menacingly just below cloud level above the facility. Fluffie had first seen it just after leaving the Tower, but he'd got a better look at it while he was flying over the base to the canyon. "Cordite" Fast Response Class - designed to deliver elite Marine Battalions to crisis points quickly, and then give them fire support once they got there. It was armed and armoured, with powerful engines and a top-of-the-range MkVIII Hyperdrive - and Fluffie was going to steal it. It was the only way off the moon. Fluffie tried to remember what he'd told the ship before...MedEvac, that was it. He'd told them he was doing a MedEvac run to the Hangar to pick up some wounded Rangers. Or something. He'd told them he was flying to the Hangar anyway; they hadn't objected. Fluffie shifted the roll control to the right and pulled back on the pitch - banking around. He could feel the Gs pulling him into the floor of the dropship. It was kind of fun, wrestling against the elements with the controls of this thing. It made him feel powerful, which was never a bad thing, given that his usual experience of combat was being on the recieving end of heavy ordnance.

"Confirm, Mithradates, this is Drop 1," He replied, the Frigate just coming into view through the cockpit canopy as he spoke. "Picked up wounded, inbound to your position at present."

"We got reports of a big explosion on the second floor - did you hear that at all?"

"Heard a bit of rumbling, nothing more than that." He said, taking in the sleek angles of the Frigate as it gleamed in the yellow sunlight.

"Confirm. Will you need assistance on docking to unload the wounded?"

"Negative, took a few Medics aboard at the hangar." He said, thinking fast. He ran the sentence over in his mind immediately after speaking it - seemed acceptable.

"Acknowledged. Procede to Aft Port Docking Bay 2. Docking Bay door will be open on arrival. Over and out." Fluffie made sure the line was dead, then swore loudly. He didn't know which one Aft-Port-Docking-****ing-Bay-****ing-2 was.

"Coming up on the Frigate now, eta 30 seconds approx. Docking Bay should be clear, but prepare for fire anyway." He said, finger pressed firmly down on the "Intercom" button to make sure it went to the dropship and the dropship only.

"Affirm." Lieutenant De Loran replied, keeping things brief.

"Affirm." Replied another voice Fluffie didn't recognise.

"Roger that." Said Lieutenant Tremaine's voice - Fluffie recognised that one. Second Lieutenant Tremaine was his commanding officer. Fluffie squinted through the transparasteel canopy, trying to make out the ports on the Frigate's side. One of them was opening. That had to be Aft Port Docking Bay 2, then. Fluffie eased back on the Throttle, and pushed the vents forward to slow him down a bit, offering up a silent prayer to whatever gods were watching that he should get control of that frigate and then make it back to his wife and daughter on Earth alive...

Gunfire echoed passed through the corridor...
It was far-off, but Corporal Roxborough knew any chance of surprise was long since gone as soon as those shots rang out. Not that they'd been relying on it anyway. There were two scenarios that the Corporal could see: either, the Rangers were all on the ground, leaving the crew of around 80 that most Frigates carried to repell around 20 heavily-armed Marines of the 45th; or, there were one or two Squads of Rangers still aboard, and the diluted, exhausted 45th Marines were going to be slaughtered. Roxborough forced the apprehension to the back of her mind. If she did die, she saved herself from days trapped in a Frigate in Hyperspace transit full of men - thought one of them had managed to bring back a female lab assistant from the upper levels, which would have eased the tension a little bit - and, if she didn't, then she'd get to see a little more of the galaxy before passing on. She gave up creep-walking along the corridor and broke into a run, feeling the deck tremble slightly beneath her feet as the heavy marine - Corporal Incom Morgan - accelerated into a cybernetically-powered run behind her. A gas masked Marine, ranking Private, who'd arrived in the Hangar with Morgan followed close behind Roxborough. They were heading for the Armoury. Marines were taught that there were four critical zones on any warship that would yield control of the ship if captured all, and that would sometimes yield control of the ship if one or two were taken. Life Support, because almost any crew would surrender rather than asphyxiate and then have the enemy take the ship anyway after they were all dead; Bridge, from where most of the ship's systems were controlled, and where the vessel's Commander could usually be found; Engine Room, which could be destroyed if necessary or else siezed and powered down to take the ship into darkness; and finally the Armoury, which the ship's crew would need to reach in order to arm themselves in the event of a boarding action. This was a Frigate - small ship, so only one Armoury. The Heavy Marine, one of two, along with Roxborough and the Private, had been sent for the Armoury. Life Support and the Engine Room had been left out, because the atmosphere on Novgorod was just about breathable and because they needed the engines to be operable in order to get off the moon. The other Marines were all heading for the Bridge. Two crewmen appeared up ahead, dressed in the dark blue UN Space Naval uniforms, and both holding pistols - experienced crewmen often carried holstered sidearms about their person at all times. Unfortunately, this made each of them a threat. Roxborough squeezed off two automatic shotgun blasts which sent one of the men to the floor even at this range, whilst gunfire from the gas masked Private took out the other. Corporal Morgan presently slowed to a halt, coming to rest just in front of the Armoury door, and planted himself down - positioning himself so as to brace against the recoil of the powerful pulse minigun. Almost immediately, it whirred into life and began to spit pulse rounds down the corridor around the corner to the right, at whatever unseen enemies lurked there that Cali could not see. She reached the Armoury door. The crew were obviously inexperienced - they hadn't even locked the ship down yet - and the door slid open upon her approach. Inside, she saw another crewman ranking Petty Officer pulling on an armoured vest. At the sound of the Armoury door opening, he turned around and put his hands above his head, clearly surrendering. The Private reached through the doorway and pulled him out into the corridor, shoving him along back down the direction from which they'd arrived after making sure he wasn't armed. With the Armoury controlled, the ship's crewmen - those that were unarmed - were not threat, and the surviving Officers of the 45th had decided after some debate (Lieutenant Tremaine claiming they should be shot to save time, Lieutenant King protesting that they were just doing their jobs and should be set loose) that the crewmen would be herded onto the dropship under the watchful eye of Wraith - the other Heavy Marine who'd managed to get out - and there told to get down to the planet's surface. They ought to be able to survive in the corridors long enough to get another ship in to help.

"Attention all hands of the Frigate Mithradates," Lieutenant DeLoran's voice broke in over unseen speakers, "this ship is now under the control of the 45th Line Battalion. Lay down your arms immediately and procede to Docking Bay Aft Port 2. You have five minutes to get off the ship before we go into orbit." Cali breathed a sigh of relief - they'd taken the Bridge, though at what cost she couldn't yet be sure, and from the line of crewmen with hands raised walking past the open door of the Armoury down toward the dropships, the crew were giving up pretty easily...

Even more buttons...
Fluffie noted apprehensively, now seated in the comfortable, reclined, padded Helmsman's chair on the Bridge of the Frigate Mithradates. The survivors from the ship's crew - most of them, 60 out of 87 - were in the dropship heading planetside now, which left the Marines of the 45th to get off the moon and escape. They could take their time, because the ex-garrisson was well aware that there weren't any anti-ship weapons on Novagorsk, and a Light outfit like the Rangers wouldn't carry an- something on one of the other consoles began to beep frantically. One of the Standard Officers, Lieutenant King, walked over to it, then swore loudly.

"Incoming missiles! Two, inbound, 500 metres and closing, from below at vector one-seven-zero - they're coming out of the canyon!" He shouted, punching keys on the console as he did so.

"Corporal! Get us out of here, now!" Lieutenant DeLoran roared from the Captain's Chair - now the Lieutenant's Chair, perhaps. Fluffie was more than happy to oblige with a couple of anti-ship missiles homing in on the Frigate's rear - he spotted the throttle easy enough, and began to ease it forward. He could feel the slightest twinges of movement as the vessel - much larger than any mere dropship - lumbered into life. "Get a move on, Corporal!" The Lieutenant shouted again, rather unhelpfully.

"Missiles at 250 metres and closing!" Lieutenant King reported, "I don't know how to bring the Aft Shields onl-" Fluffie thought of his wife, his daughter, and the note he had to pass on from Mathers. He decided that the situation was desparate enough for desparate measures, and slammed the throttle up to full power, straining against resistance from the control's hydrolics. The ship surged forwards, pressing Fluffie back into his seat, and through one of the Viewscreens in front of him, displaying an image from one of the external-mounted cameras, Fluffie saw the clouds rush by. Suddenly, they were out of the clouds, rushing up toward the sky impossibly fast. Novagorsk's atmosphere was thin, and didn't extend as far out as did Earth's. Fluffie could see the gigantic shape of Angelska III through the sky above - an impressive and imperious shade of blue as always. He'd wanted to see that planet on the way in, but the Freighter's cargo bay hadn't had any portholes - they were out of the atmosphere. A viewscreen displaying an image from a starboard-facing camera showed the cloud tops of Novagorsk curving rapidly away from them in all directions, more and more distant. Fluffie could see Angelska III perfectly now.

"Missiles at 50 metres and still closing!" Fluffie heard Lieutenant King shout, just about. It was almost as though he was in some kind of trance. Without thinking, he lent forward and pushed the Hyperspace Jump booster to full. How had he known which control it w-

Deep in the darker recesses of the Mithradates...
The creature tapped one of its chitin-clawed front limbs against the steel structure of the vent experimentally - it produced a satisfying noise. The creature did not see - not in the sense that humans saw - but a fraction of a second earlier it had felt the substance of space and time change slightly, which it knew was the sensation of the vessel passing into the realm of Hyperspace, where the laws of physics bent to their extremes. Humans were not sensitive to such subtle shifts, but the creature was no mere human. The creature only hoped that the human working the controls of the ship had pressed the co-ordinate buttons it was supposed to...

Marines: the Christmas Special is over...
What awaits the men (and woman) of the 45th Line Battalion on the other side of the Hyperspace Jump? What is this sinister creature lurking within the depths of the ship? Will Dachi finish his politics essay on time? Find out in the next exciting installment of...Marines.

(Next Thread eta: 2 days approx. 7838 words total.)