Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5175824" data-attributes="member: 143">Heh, you'll have to wait until next week to find out for sure. Friday cliffhanger and all. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />* * * * * Session 21 (September 15, 2008)Chapter 83James looked up, and saw Vasily pointing his pistol at the Elerium storage crystal.  “VAS!” he yelled, jumping up. “Nrgh!” the Russian groaned, his finger twitching on the trigger, his jaw clenching as he struggled against the assault on his mind.  Finally with a grunt he jerked aside, tossing the pistol away, and staggered back.  “What the?” James blurted, as he ran up to Vasily.  “Voice in head,” he said.“What kind of voice?  Is it saying, ‘blow up Elerium?’ or is it saying, ‘don’t miss next week’s episode of Big Brother 25?”“Yah, first,” he said, breathing deeply now.  He reached up and grabbed the latches securing his helmet to his armor, but James slapped his hands away.  “Keep the helmet on!” the doctor yelled at him. “Yah, I know,” Vasily said, lowering his hands.  “Sevnopoya, enough, I get it,” he said, shaking off the doctor’s hands.  The two men turned as Catalina returned.  “All clear as far as I can see,” she reported.  “Hadrian’s watching what might another exit.  What’s the matter?”“Okay,” Vasily said.  “Get Hadrian back here.  We going up in lift.”“Cat, Vas is hearing voices.  In his head,” James explained.Vasily triggered his comlink.  “Jane!  Hadrian!  If you not fighting, need you in center room.”As they formed up around the lift, Catalina swept the motion sensor along the length of the ceiling.  “Any aliens around?” James asked. “Lot of interference,” she said.  “There is movement upstairs, but I can’t tell more.”“What’s this about mind powers?” Jane asked, as she rejoined the group from her watch position at the door.  Hadrian followed just behind her. “Something going on,” Vasily said.  “But was not like sectoid psychic.  I remember what that like.”“Let’s sweep the rest of the ship,” James said.  “Question is, anyone stay here to guard?”Vasily grunted and nodded toward the tank.  James nodded.  “Shouldn’t leave a human here alone,” he agreed. Vasily stepped into the lift, and felt the familiar but odd sensation of floating as the alien system carried him up to the iris in the ceiling.  He pointed the barrel of his autocannon up at it, but no aliens were waiting as the opening twisted and he was lifted into the room above.  The chamber was roughly shaped like a pentagram, with two passages that led to other parts of the ship.  “Come on up if you coming up,” he yelled down to the others.  Catalina was already coming up behind him, sweeping again with her motion sensor before she even stepped clear of the levitation beam.  “That way,” she said, indicating one of the passages.  “I got one, a disc,” she said, taking up a firing position that didn’t expose her to direct fire from the corridor.  “They must know we’re here,” James said, as he emerged from the lift.  “Let’s not walk into an ambush.”  Hadrian came up after him, hovering for a moment within the beam before he could get oriented enough to step free.  Suddenly, the entire ship shook, and the floor under their feet lurched a few degrees to the side as the alien craft resettled at a slight list.  A gout of hot gas, smoke, and noise surged through the opening in the floor. “Wuh?” Vasily asked, nearly stumbling into the Marine.  James fell to the floor, grunting as his pistol was jammed hard into his gut under his weight.  “One of the engines overloaded!” Jane yelled up.  “One of the Elerium cells, it just… imploded!  The other one is stable, I think!” Catalina clutched her head and screamed, breaking from cover and rushing blindly into the back corner of the room, where she cowered in a tiny ball.  Vasily started to turn toward her, but before he could speak, or take as much as a step, a strange lassitude descended upon him.  He felt as though he was watching from outside his body as he brought up the heavy autocannon, the barrels beginning to spin as the ammunition mechanism clinked the first of a hundred armor-piercing rounds into place. He pointed the weapon straight at Hadrian, and opened fire.</blockquote>

Verification