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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5162154" data-attributes="member: 143">Nothing real mysterious, it's just that Neverwinter Nights has a click on/click off stealth mechanic (i.e. you hit the button and disappear), so I was trying to come up with something in the modern context that made sense given that. * * * * * Session 20 (September 8, 2008)Chapter 78Plasma bolts slammed into the reaper, followed by a patter of explosive-tipped rounds from Vasily’s autocannon.  The combined barrage staggered the alien, but it recovered quickly, and sprang at Catalina, who happened to draw its attention.  The agent tried to dive out of its path, but a long claw swiped her hard across the hip, and she was flung roughly aside, spinning twice in midair before slamming into a rack of empty shelving.  The collision brought the entire assembly down onto her, and she lay there in the wreckage, groaning.Hadrian yelled and fired, trying to draw it, but it focused on Vasily, whose cannon continued to spew out a stream of fire as it poured projectiles into the alien’s body.  The reaper came on through that storm of metal, ignoring the blasts that dug tiny pits into its dense body.  But it had a harder time ignoring the direct hit that Jane scored on its left knee with her plasma rifle.  Even as it lunged at the Russian the joint gave way, and it toppled forward, off balance.  Vasily sprang back, narrowly avoiding the sweeping claws.  The alien roared, thrashing on the concrete floor as it tried to get up, but the Alphas surrounded it, blasting the creature until it collapsed in a bloody heap. The barrels of Vasily’s autocannon spun slowly to a stop, their ammunition feed depleted.  Jane moved quickly to help Catalina, while Hadrian moved cautiously to the door to verify that no further threats lurked outside.  “Time to move,” Vasily said.  “We need to find other power signature, probably where this lead,” he said, indicating the cables running into the floor.  “You all right?” he asked Catalina, who was limping but seemed otherwise intact.  “Just need to catch my breath,” she said.“You think you able to stop generator?” he asked. “I can try,” she said, moving over to it. “Is that ‘yes’?  If not definite ‘yes’, I worry.”“Let me have a look!”“You already have look!”Catalina bent over the generator’s control panel.  “Look, there’s no simple ‘off’ switch here, it’s a complicated access system.  It might take a while.”“How we all doing on ammo?” Vasily asked, shrugging out of the harness that supported his autocannon and its ammunition supply, letting the heavy assembly drop to the floor of the warehouse.  He drew his plasma pistol and powered it up.“Doing okay,” Hadrian said from the door.  Indeed, with his plasma rifle, slung M4, and the automatic pistol tucked into the small of his back, he looked like a small armory in and of himself. “Three full cells left,” Jane added, swapping out a fresh one as they waited for Catalina.  The agent held her tongue between her teeth as she poked at the generator’s systems for a minute, then two.  Finally she toko a step back, and drew out her laser pistol, firing a long burst into the access panel.  The reactor shuddered, then gruond to a halt.“There we go,” she said. Vasily, who’d braced himself for the inevitable explosion, looked up with a raised eyebrow.  “Okay… we best move fast then.  They know we coming now for sure.”They made their way back outside, blinking against the bright sunlight before their helmet visors darkened in response.  They found the HWP there, clearly done for the day, its turret crumpled into a barely recognizable lump, with bits and pieces of ripped metal scattered around it.  They headed north, toward the location of the second power signature.  The signal had dimmed once Catalina had cut the power, but their VDUs preserved the coordinates, flashing on a digital overlay superimposed on their field of view.  They didn’t have to search for the right warehouse, assuming that it was the one with a half-dozen floaters lingering around the entrance.  The Alphas lingered at the corner of the next building over, working on their plan of attack.  “I could move back to that warehouse there,” Hadrian said.  “Take some long range shots, draw them into an ambush from you folks here.”Vasily nodded.  “Is fine, just not get shot doing it.”The Marine smiled, only slightly, and headed back at a trot.  He crossed the deserted street and vanished around the corner of the building he’d marked.  Vasily took out a gas grenade, and nodded to Catalina, who’d crept up to the very edge of the corner that faced onto the floater warehouse, holding her motion detector out in that direction.  They only had to wait about a minute before the familiar bark of Hadrian’s rifle sounded from behind the far building.  The response came quickly; plasma bolts streaked past their hiding place, blasting itno the warehouse.  They couldn’t see if any of the shots hit Hadrian, but after a moment they heard more gunshots, which died out as the alien barrage intensified.  “They’re coming,” Catalina whispered.  “Thirty meters and closing.”Vasily tapped her shoulder and gestured for them to fall back from the corner.  The warehouse itself was sealed up tight, but it had a slightly recessed driveway to allow trucks to make and pickup deliveries directly into the warehouse.  They used that edge to take cover, and wait. More plasma bolts streaked past, although no more return fire came from Hadrian.  Catalina hissed at Vasily and Jane and lifted her plasma pistol just as the first floater came into view, drifting two feet above the faded concrete.  Vasily gestured for them to hold their fire as two more floaters appeared, then another pair.  As soon as those last two were visible Vasily popped up and tossed his grenade, which burst into a cloud of gas that enveloped all of the floaters in its radius.  The Alphas fired even as the cloud started to dissipate, and at the relatively close range they could hardly miss.  Two floaters went down at once, and the other three milled about, stunned by the gas, firing a bolt or two that came nowhere near their attackers.  One crumpled as Jane pumped a plasma bolt into its head, and another spun around as Vasily and Catalina tore burning holes into it with their plasma pistols. Focused on their ambush, none of them noticed the last alien that came around the other side of the building, behind them.  It lifted its plasma rifle and fired, the shot hitting Jane in the back from behind.  She screamed and fell, burning white fire burning into her armor.“Behind!” Catalina yelled needlessly, as the alien continued firing, while the last one in the ambushed group recovered enough to grab a grenade and toss it at them.  The oblong orb bounced and landed two feet ahead of Vasily, who stared at it with wide eyes.</blockquote>

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