Ghost Walk

[Lance Howe]

As expected Jeff did his thing. Through the derelict's haze and the general darkness the burst of fire truly looked spectacular even if in reality it was less precise. The score board said 1-0 but their team had already come close to taking losses.

Lance didn't want to leave his post and risk the madness of the reavers infecting the Bjorn Star but Lars ordered him to come with so the doctor carefully walked into the other ship, stepping over debris as he went and pistol always at the ready. I suppose this was a perk of being the doctor... being put at risk in order to help a deranged woman. He was a surgeon not a psychiatrist! Whether she was completely lost or salvageable, Lance was not that kind of doctor. Either she'd have to get over it on her own or he'd administer the only cure for reaver madness... a bullet. Still, he was interested in observing and examining her as well as any full-blown reavers Jeff took out. Lance could have a good old fashioned reaver autopsy!

[Lars Engström]

Lars moved softly through the ship, carefully checking the corners and listening for any sound of unfriendly things. Jeff had only detected the two, but he didn't know if he trusted the suit as much as Jeff. "The Bridge should be up here." He said, softly to Lance. He pointed the flashlight at the floor, and then quickly directed it elsewhere. "Watch your step." He said, sickened slightly.

Then he heard it, breathing. Stopping, he glanced back at the Doctor, "hold." He crouched down, and looked into the grate. "Oh my God...." He moaned, "Here she is...."

[Lance Howe]

Lance followed close, ready to double tap anything the captain hit or to blow the brains out of anything that jumped Lars point blank. It wasn't long before they were at their destination... a locked door. Lance snorted and gave the door a solid kick. He moved on to plan B and simply shot the control panel. Voila! Just like any good piece of equipment the door openly with the application of a little love. Maybe Lance could moonlight as ship mechanic too.

The doctor quickly entered the room to see the young woman still seated/slumped inside. She was a mess, physically and mentally. She appeared to be wounded but it seemed she was mostly covered with the blood, gore, and grime of others. The intrusion into her space apparently shook her from whatever emotional trance she was in. She instinctively reached for one of the nearby guns to fightback.

Although not right in the head Lance was fairly confident she wasn't completely gone yet. That didn't mean he was about to take any chances though. Her reactions were delayed which allowed Lance to quickly reach her and kick the gun from her hand just as it fired, a narrow miss. She quickly tried to recover so he gave another kick, this time to her head, knocking her out.

"Alright... I helped her." he called back to the captain. Knocking the poor girl out wasn't the nicest thing but it was the safest thing. Bring her back, clean her up, and restrain her until she looses the crazy. Maybe waking up someplace else would help her mental state too.

[Lars Engström]

Lars had followed Lance into the room, and was nerely killed by the gunshot. He took a breath to steady himself, slightly amused by the irony of what could have been. Before he did anything else, Lars stepped over to the comm panels, and looked down. "Oh shi.." He began, but a loud beep coming from the panel cut him off. A third ship was approaching, and from a quick glance, it looked distinctly unfriendly. "We are So humped."

"Lets get her out of here." He said, stepping forward. As an afterthought he grabbed two rifles from the pile of weapons, and slung them across his back. He tossed a second pistol to Lance. Then he took hold of the girl, and lifted her up. She was so light. "You go first, we need to hurry." He waited for Lance to lead the way.

[Lance Howe]

Lars was quick to police up any supplies from the room. Even with there being so much danger and no time he was a remarkable scavenger... probably a good trait in this business. The doctor caught the weapon tossed to him... barely. He wasn't skilled in juggling guns. The extra firepower was welcomed though especially since he wasn't the one carrying the girl.

"Let's go, Jeff. WE ARE LEAVING!" Lance yelled back through the ship as he jumped into the hallway, arms extended and weapons ready. Lars would be right behind him and hopefully they could make an easy run back to the Star. With luck the others would have dropped the other reaver but if not they could just fly off and blow it up. Shame about not getting a sample for autopsy.

[Jeff Weston]

Jeff was watching the very large and now ticked off reaver. As it moved behind some crating in a corner Jeff smiled. He bounced a few bullets behind the crates and they did the job. The reaver leaped up and roared at the hits. The pain must have made it forget it's common sense for the moment until Jeff opend up with the MP. The first wave hit the things knees and then it's right shoulder. He was doind well at the cutting down of the reaver until his mag ran dry. This was bad he could not get a clip out with from his right side pockets because of his arm not moveing well.

Jeff started to try to get back up as the reaver hit him full broadside and drove both of them back into the Star. They bounced off the decking and Jeff managed to land on top of the reaver. It might have been well and good but the reaver had him by his armored throat. The monster was ignoring the pain and the mees that was his right shoulder. Even with armor Jeff was starting to black out from the constriction. Nearing darkness he snagged a boot blade from his left mag boot and jammed it intothe reavers neck on the right side. Gore gushed and Jeff's suit groaned in protest as it bent in the grasp of the reaver.

Slowly but surely the reaver quieted down yet he held Jeff fast in death. A soft clank could be heard as the boot knife droppedf from his left hand to the decking. Blackness and silence had come to Jeff. Was it death that had it's arms wrapped around Jeff Weston's shoulders, or did fate leave just enough for life to continue?

[Lars Engström]

Lars hurried after Lance, and hoped to God they would be fast enough. He felt his foot land on something soft and slippery, and barely managed to keep from falling. He felt his ankle pop, and groaned, but kept going. The girl looked bad, every so often he caught a glimpse of her in a non broken lamp's light, and she was not a pretty picture. "Gorram Reavers" he muttered as he grimaced his way past the last couple of steps.

Turning the corner, he saw a frightening sight, Jeff and the big reaver both lying motionless on the ground. "Oh God no...." He groaned, and setting the girl gently on the floor next to them, he turned back to the door itself. Moving quickly he slammed his hand on the door close button, and then stood in a panic, as the door took what seemed like hours to close. when at last it was done, he pressed the comm button. "Trace, get us the hell out of here. Jordan, how long before we can pull a hard burn?" He grabbed the mobile comm unit, and limped back over to the three bodies on the floor.

"DOC!" He called, unsure of where Lance had ended up, "We need to get those two to the infirmary." He heaved the big monster out of the way, so that Weston could be moved, and then tried to pick the man up. "Geeze, that suit weighs a ton." He groaned, feeling his ankle scream at him. "Come on Weston, wake up, we need you to walk." He fumbled around the suit, before finding the locks for the helmet. He pulled it off, and tried smacking the man across the face, gently. "Come on, come back to us." He said, hoping it wasn't too late.

[Jordan Maxwell]

Jordan wasn’t blind to what was happening. Could hear the beeping in her own bridge, and was already on the move to the engine room long before the Captain asked her about a hard burn. She didn’t say anything at first, just spoke quietly to herself, wishing she had at least one extra pair of hands. “Ai ya’”, the only thing that truly escaped just loud enough anyone to pick it up.

Her first stop was the flow distributor, she had to manually increase the rate of flow to allow the engines to consume more fuel than what would normally be allowed when Trace stepped on the gas. The Hyper Spanner was next, calibrating the amount of plasma, fuel, and air mixture to accommodate the previous changes. Knowing that most Reaver ships could push as hard as they could, Jordan had to prep at least two other things before they could go into hard burn. The first was something to sent out their single in multiple directions, and the second was a small compression wave, the device needed to be attached just on the inside of the engine. It would make it burn hotter within the room she was in, but, it should mask the plasma trail. The whole process taking a little over 82 seconds.

“Everythin’ shiny here, give the word.” Jordan hopped up on the engine block and put her hands on the last piece that needed to be pushed into place. If she did it too soon, the blowback could turn off the engine, it was a sensitive issue, and one she was likely going to hear about later. “The addons are ready too Trace, don’t forget ‘em.”

[Trace Kennet]

Trace wasn't surprised that nobody had really responded to his warning, he had heard the distant sound of gunshots, which had prompted him to close the door. "Why can't they leave a gun with me this time?" He mused, sitting nervously at the controls, and chewing absently at his fingernails. "Just relax," he muttered, "Maybe if you offer the Reavers a tour of the ship they'll just..." He stopped, and looked around. He couldn't bare to think of someone walking in on him while he was acting crazy. He returned to his semi brooding silence.

He had managed to stop the signal that was coming from the ship, but from the look of things, and how fast it had gone out, he was sure it had served it's purpose. "Come on guys," He murmured, "I don't want to be here when the gang comes back. Somehow I doubt they will want to chat." He rubbed his hands through his hair, and sighed. "Next time I am deciding whether we pick up hitch hikers." He let out a sad excuse for a laugh, and returned to silence.

It was only a few minutes of silence, but the lack of Something happening got Trace's attention. Almost in slow motion, he glanced down at the sensor readouts, and then the world around him came to life. Lights and alarms began to go off all around, and he felt a wave of nothing short of terror flow over him. "Ni ta ma de. Tianxia suoyoude ren. Dou gaisi." He said, looking out into the black. "We are so dead." He reached for the comm, but as his hand touched it he heard the captains voice, and saw the light to say the door was closed and sealed. "Yes Sir." He said, relief flooding him. He hit the button, and felt the slight bump as the ship released from the derelict. "Here we go."

His initial relief, however was soon replace by a hard realization. "Captain, we have an issue." He felt his voice shake. "The nav system is fried, the signal from the other ship, I didn't... We are flying blind." He felt the dread returned, and to make matters worse, the proximity alerts were going off. They were running out of time.

[Lance Howe]

Jeff was down but at least it looked like he took the reaver out with him. Lance was only a step behind Lars when he called. "How about I carry the three hundred pound dead weight and you carry the hundred pounder." Lance suggested in a slightly sarcastic tone pointing to Lars' injured ankle. It was a mystery how he had managed that while the doctor wasn't looking but it seemed there was a third patient needing attention.

Lance kicked the reaver in the side and then added a bullet to the brain pan to ensure it wasn't getting up. Threat neutralized he dropped the borrowed gun, holstered his own, and then picked up Jeff in a fireman's carry. Damn was he heavy with all that gear. Luckily the doctor was in shape and the infirmary was only a short trip. In seconds he had abruptly dropped the unconscious man on a bed, apparently not concerned with treating a back injury or even causing one.

Without looking behind him, he signaled for Lars to drop the girl on the other bed. "Strap her in tight while you're at it." As big a threat as she might be, Lance gave her no more attention than the blind hand gesture and short instruction. Jeff didn't appear to be breathing and had been that way for God knows how long. Every second brought him closer to severe brain damage or even death... assuming lack of oxygen was the only problem.

That damn suit was the real problem though. Meant to preserve life in combat as well as the vacuum of space, it might end up costing him his life. Lance fumbled around with different bits of it before finally giving up. It was too complex for an inexperienced person to remove and it was too resilient to easily cut it off him. The doctor would have to make do working with Jeff's exposed head. Luckily that was all he needed. A quick test showed that he did indeed have a pulse albeit faint so there was no immediate need to get to his chest. The doctor quickly tilted his patient's head to open the airway and then after a frantic two seconds of searching came back with a breathing mask and began pumping air into his lungs.

Two minutes and about twenty-four pumps later Lance checked and thankfully Jeff was breathing on his own. It was weak but at least he was breathing. The doctor replaced the rescue mask with a regular oxygen mask to give a constant flow as he recovered. During the two minutes Lance had also done a quick check for other wounds, finding nothing too serious. He was lucky to be alive all things considered, although his longer term prospects were still uncertain.

[Lars Engström]

Lars merely nodded as Lance spoke, the doctor was the expert, so he let him take the lead. He picked up the girl, and followed up the stairs, trying to ignore his foot as best he could. They were just entering the sick bay when Trace was back, and Lars got the full dose of bad news. He glanced at Lance and then let his eyes go up to the ceiling for a moment. He moved to the bed, and strapped the girl in, quickly but securely and then he looked back at Lance. "We may need you very soon." he said, letting the Doctor fill in the specifics. "Keep the gun handy." And then he was off.

Surprisingly enough, the pain in his foot seemed lessened by the situation, and he found himself running as he made his way to the bridge. "Okay," He said, as he came through the door and threw himself into the co-pilot station. "Ahh gorram it." He swore, frustrated as he saw what a mess there was, "Okay Trace, focus on keeping us away from them, i don't care what it takes." He looked back over his shoulder as he spoke. "You can do it." Then he was back to his own problems.

"We might just get lucky," He muttered, looking at the controls, "They might not have thought to go that far." He reached over and flipped a switch. "Go figure" he said with a smile, "Okay Trace they didn't get to the emergency backup." He smiled and then looked at the other sensor. "Jordan" He said, grabbing a comm as he spoke, "Jordan is everything ready?" He reached out with his other hand and flipped a second switch, bringing up a simple display on the screen. A light on the screen turned green. "Okay get ready." He said, looking back at Trace. "Hard Burn in 3....2....1."

[Lance Howe]

With Jeff stabilized it was now time to turn to their guest who had been put into a "medically induced coma" by Lance back on the derelict. He quickly got to work dealing with her wounds. She looked like hell and even had some pretty serious injuries but nothing that was life threatening or at least nothing that someone outside the Core would consider life threatening.

He'd only been at it for a few moments when he noticed her stir. "No no, not a good time. Wait until we're in the clear." he mumbled to himself as he walked over to a medical cabinet to grab a sedative... oh maybe the one he'd been cooking up for use on the fugitives. He now had a live human test subject instead of just munchie. As tempting as that was it seemed wrong at least so long as there was hope she could recover from the madness.

That hope vanished when he turned back to the table as the young woman ripped through her restraints in a frenzy. Either Lars hadn't properly tied her down or she had super-human strength... probably both. The doctor tried to grab her and force her back to the table but she was already free. The two grappled with one another. The woman nearly half his size was actually slightly overpowering Lance but didn't notice the sedative in his hand... the good stuff, ethics be damned.

She was less than an inch away from biting him when he stuck her with it but she would not be defeated so easily. Before he could inject that incredibly potent toxin she tossed him back into the cabinets like a rag doll. The dangerous doctor out of the way she made her way to Jeff over on the table, eying him ravenously as if deciding which part to attack first. It would have to be the exposed face of course but it took her a second to come to that conclusion and a second was all the time Lance needed.

A shot rang out through the ship as the doctor, sitting on the floor at the base of the cabinets, managed to draw his weapon and fire at his former patient. Dazed and hurting from his recent injury the shot went high but it was enough to startle the reaver and send her running out of the infirmary and into the rest of the ship. He fired off two more shots after her but neither found their mark. Hopefully the shooting was enough to alert the rest of the crew. It would probably be too late by the time Lance got to his feet to use the intercom.

[Trace Kennet]

[All Lars references done with permission from me.... so HA]
Trace felt out of place. The captain it seemed was not as helpless as he liked to pretend, and his sudden show of skill, although welcome, seeing as it had saved their lives, made Trace feel useless. He had followed the orders, and they were safely away from the other ships, which was a blessing, but he wasn't sure exactly what to think about that mess. He sighed, and was leaning back to relax when he heard a noise. "Was that?" He asked, looking at Lars, eyes wide, and frantic. "Gunshots." He stood up and moved quickly to the door, just in time to see a pair of feminine legs, covered in blood dash, or rather sprint down the hall towards.. "Jordan!" Trace said, horror stricken.

Before Lars could stop him he was off, after the girl, if she could still be called that. He glanced in the infirmary for a moment as he dashed past, and saw that she had left quite a mess. He didn't stop to help Lance, who seemed alright, but instead sprinted to the top of the stairs and stopped dead. The thing, had gone down the stairs and now stood, sniffing around the cargo bay. She made her way over to a rather large corpse of what Trace could only assume was a very big reaver, and looked at it, sniffing.

Trace was terrified, he knew she might turn and see him at any second, and then if he didn't have a plan it was all over. But as he began to cast his mind around wildly searching for an idea, he remembered something that had happened early on, back when Dru had just shown up. Being very careful not to make any noise, he reached over to the cabinet and opened it. Inside, just like he remembered, was a loaded pistol. He picked it up, and turned to face her. As he was turning, however, the gun struck the metal cabinet with a resounding clang. Trace felt his heart stop.

The thing had heard it too, and she now looked up at Trace, a hunger that was not pleasant in her eyes, and began to move towards him. Trace reacted instinctively, and pointed the gun at her, and fired twice. She seemed to be ready for that, and jumped out of the way. He still hit her though, in the shoulder, the other bullet missed and bounced back towards him forcing him to duck.

She screamed, an inhuman bellow, and then ran straight into the Engine Room. "Oh God No" moaned Trace, beginning to run down the stairs, but then changing his mind halfway down, and vaulting the rest. He sprinted to the door of the Engine Room, and looked inside.

[Jordan Maxwell]

Jordan pushed the last piece of the puzzle into place and the engine lit up like a Christmas Tree. Happy with her performance she climbed down from where she was, a grin over her face. It was the simple things that made Jordan happy, a working engine, a kiss from her sweet heart. Yes, that’s what made the whole world spin. She was perfectly fine, at least until the gun shots rang out.

Picking up a spare support bar Jordan held it firmly in her hands and listened, there were two more shots, and the mechanic’s eyes closed for a moment. She could make out the foot falls moving towards her, as her heart leapt into her throat. Just as the growling creature entered the engine room, the small girl went to swing, but she couldn’t. Something stopped her from hitting the reaver as their eyes locked.

She grabbed Jordan and pushed her up against a the burning pipes. The small mechanic pulled one of her legs up to push the woman back and used her arms around the reaver’s shoulders to hold her back. Jordan couldn’t help but see herself in this girl. They were almost the same size, weight. This is what could have become, it’s what could have happened to her if things had been different.

Her hands slipped as the reaver lunged, Jordan managed to get her arm in front of her face, in time to feel the creature’s teeth to sink in on the outside of her forearm. The young mechanic yelled in pain and began feeling around for anything she could use to protect herself.

[Trace Kennet]

Trace heard the scream as he was running to the door, and when he stopped just outside and looked in, he felt his heart skip a beat. The monster had Jordan pinned against the wall, and seemed to be biting her arm. Trace froze for a moment, but as the two girls grappled, he caught a glimpse of Jordan's face, and it brought him out of his petrification.

He felt like he was moving in slow motion, as he brought the gun up and fired 3 shots. All three, miraculously found their mark, and the thing collapsed, dead before it hit the ground. He stood, frozen for a moment, and then rushed through the door. "Jordan are..." He stopped, looking at her. "Are you okay?" He wanted to hug her, he was so glad she wasn't dead, but knowing how things were between them, he simply settled for acting reasonably concerned.

"We need to get you to the infirmary." He said, in a matter of fact tone, "No telling what you might get from that bite." He walked over, and offered her a hand, "You need any help? DId it get you anywhere else?"