Turn 14: Hull Breach Imminent

[Corporal Hicks]

"You, where does this lead?" she asked of a bridge crew member.

"It leads to engineering, and life support," said one of the bridge crew in response to Isabel's question.

Paulson's flamethrower ignited the whole hallway as he intended. The fire of Sokolova and Henniger disappeared into the smoke ahead. Then the three of them were safely back inside the bridge. Following their orders, they joined the majority of the others who were routing through the left hand door while the two Sergeants held back the enemy.

The hostile fire was beginning to slacken, and the sound was replaced by a piercing shriek. The sound was unmistakable; xenomorphs. It became clear now that the mercs had not been assaulting so much as they were fleeing from a worse threat. But karma had a way of catching up with people...

Sykes grinned back at Morse when he referenced Dirk Pitt. It was comforting to think about the seemingly invincible Marine, as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar.
"Oo-rah!" he shouted and cocked his own grenade launcher. The two Marines started pumping grenades off down the hallway. Sykes had packed incendiary grenades for use within a space station, but it soon became apparent that Morse was firing live frag grenades!

The ground seemed to shake with each explosion. The sound waves hit their ears with a sharp concussion. One flaming xenomorph came bursting out of the smoke, shrieking as it burned to death. Sykes put a burst in it to finish it off.

A placid, female voice could be heard, loud and insistent, over the intercoms. "Warning, hull breach imminent. Please seek shelter immediately. Emergency personnel are on their way to assist you." Something told the Marines that no emergency personnel were coming.
(Actions)

[Morse]

The grenades seemed to do the trick. Was firing active frag grenades within a space station, particularly one as high tech and sensitive as the one that they were on, a good idea? Perhaps not. But Morse had been in firefights in space before, and he knew that they could usually handle it. They were not looking at salvaging the station, and even if they were, Morse was not the one who would be paying for it... it was his job to clear it out without any particular directive as to how that needed to happen. And in his mind it was better have live frag then need them, and to him this was one of those moments.

"Fuck! Bugs!" Morse yelled hearing that unmistakable shriek coming from further down the hallway. He watched Sykes handle it, but there was no telling how many were coming from behind it.

Morse started to pull back, keeping his weapon at the ready. "Sykes, we gotta go!" Morse called out. Then the sounds of the hull breach were reaching his ears. He couldn't be sure if it was his grenades that did it, but it was very likely.

"Marines! Evacuate this deck! Move down that hall with a purpose. Let's Go!" Morse called over comm moving to chase them at the rear. "Paulson, get me a reading on that tracker if you can!" Morse called out.

<Tag Paulson and Anyone

[eyeball]

Paulson swung up his motion tracker as they approached the left side and awaited its return, the signal would easily penetrate the smoke and show them any movement ahead and behind.
<roll motion tracker>
Paulson also recalled seeing signs to lifeboats when they were in engineering last time and wondered how many would be left, if any, with a full station evec now in place. He saw someone from the bridge crew and asked them if there was anyway to find out very quickly " are there life boats in engineering and how many can they hold?" Paulson virtually demanded before they committed to that plan.

[Medic Guy]

Orozco heard the order to take point and moved down the center of the hallway to maximize her visibility into any side corridors and around corners despite being out in the open. Better to respond to a threat she observed than be caught off-guard trying to play it safe along one of the walls she reasoned to herself. She held the pulse rifle tucked into her shoulder with the sights lowered so she could scan more with her eyes than her muzzle. The corridor was a bit wider than she felt comfortable with just keeping the weapon all the way up and shouldered.

"Got point boss, moving out ahead to make sure we have a clear path." The station flooring shook briefly at the familiar sound of grenade impacts from behind her somewhere. She turned seeing the others starting to form near here door and proceeded forward, feeling one of her ears pop like when they make planetary entry. The warning of an imminent hull breach was not reassuring. She pulled the re-breather back up into position with her left hand while continuing forward. Her eyes and mind tried to find a good scanning routine.

<tag Morse

Isabel looked at the upcoming junction, swinging wide to check each direction for signs of the creatures or the terrorists. She observed neither and passed to the other side of the crossing junction seeing a sign indicating she was headed towards engineering. At least it will be somewhat familiar territory she thought. "Everything is still looking clear," she called over the comms.

<tag all

<Awareness

[maxvale76]

Sam had let out a breath of relief when she had managed to get the civilian woman and her child moving to safety and that neither of them NOR she herself had been hit by enemy fire in the process. After herding them to the other civilians, she turned to see Dmitri was by her side like the good marine he was and she checked to see if her other surviving squad member, Tanya Sokolova was still there, and she was happy to see she was.....

Taking a look around and letting her brain catch up to the events of the past couple of minutes, she realized they were evacuating and behind them was fire, an imminent hull breach and xenomorphs.....ahead of them, HOPEFULLY, was the way out. As much as she wanted to race down the hall as fast as she could, she knew she was a squad leader and it was time to act like one....

Sykes and Morse had held the line for them, now they needed someone to do the same. Motioning to her two surviving squad mates, she traded her Shotgun to Dmitri while taking back her Pulse Rifle and saying; "Sorry, I'm afraid I'm gonna need 'dis back my friend". Then she followed up with, "Dmitri, follow Orozco down the hall and keep a close watch on Tanya and her leg AND a sharp eye out for any bugs or terrorists...I'll be right behind you, Go!" Then she turned to Morse and Sykes; "Civies are all together and moving to evac, you twofall back and I'll cover you, then you do the same for me, okay?", as she brought her Pulse Rifle to her shoulder and cut loose full auto cover fire into the area directly behind Morse and Sykes....not trying to hit anything, just trying to make sure anything racing straight for them would run into a wall of 10mm LAPET rounds....

If Morse and Sykes fell back, she'd back pedal and when she heard them fire, she'd full out run to get behind them and do it again....

<Tag 2nd Squad>
<Tag Morse and Sykes>

<Roll Awareness, Gun Combat, and I don't know for running....Balance? Scouting?>

[JuanPerez]

While hell broke loose, Knight took the chance to acquire and boot up a portable bridge command terminal. According to his calculations, this would improve their chances for escaping the doomed station for about 42.3 percent. He punched in several emergency override codes in quick sucession. As the marines unleashed their firepower on human and non-human enemys, Knight stoically walked beside Sykes and Morse. Some frag grenades later, the announcement of an imminent hull breach focused his attention solely on the mobile terminal. Under normal cicumstances, bulkheads would be sealed automatically in case of hull breaches, controlled by the stations central computer system. However a diagnosis scan revelead, that the relevant subroutines were non-functional at the moment, possibly because of the damage of the attack. So it had to be done manually. Knight calculated the shutting down sequence for the bulkheads and activated their closing mechanisms. A sequence of short rumblings could be heard in the distance, as tons of double-duraplast-steel were moved in no time. Not a second too late, as the outer hull of a sealed-off section breached, venting oxygen, mercenarys and xenos alike into the black void.

"Bulkheads sealed successfully" ... he reported to Sykes and Morse, in the same dispassionate tone as ever.
<Tag Sykes, Morse>

[Morse]

Morse sped forward in the direction of the fleeing marines and civilians. He did not have the best idea of where they were going, but anything was going to better then where they were coming from. He looked ahead to find Sam turned around and giving the situation of their withdrawal. She was planning to hold the line for a moment, and then they were rotate back and forth. That plan worked fine for Morse.

"Leap frog it is!" Morse answered. Morse did not have to tell Sam his usual standing order in combat, which came along the lines of anything that seemed remotely hostile was to be made dead immediately. Sam and Morse had been together for years, and he did not need to doubt her capabilities for a second, not even alone holding the line. They'd get off the station and on to the next mission as always.

As they moved forward Morse took a tally of their personnel. They were not in the best of shape and he was not doubting that their ammunition and supply count was dropping. It was time to get off the station, but they did not have exactly a great exit plan, more so just aimless running for the moment.

With the notation of the bulkheads being sealed, Morse was able to breathe a sort of sigh of relief. He was still concerned about what may be ahead of them, or even worse what might be falling apart around them. But there was no great time to deal with that.

"Someone get comm's with the ship!" Morse demanded. "We can't keep runnin' around like this. We need to know where to go, and how to get there." Morse turned around to back pedal. With the bulkhead closed Sam should be catching up to them shortly.

<Tag Anyone

[taimdala]

Dmitri handed Sam's pulse rifle right over with one hand and racked a round into her shotgun with the other.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said and promptly got going after Isabel Orozco. He moved closer to Tanya Sokolova as he went, gave her a look that said he was ready to render assistance if she needed it. Even so, he maintained enough distance between them to allow him to fire weapons. The last thing he wanted was to shoot off pieces of her just because he'd gotten too close. Trusting she'd call out if she needed him, Dmitri raised his own rifle at the ready, kept his head on a swivel, and kept his eyes peeled for xenos, mercs, or anything else that needed killing. He kept his eyes out, too, for any civilians that migth wander into his line of fire. Like with Sokolova, he didn't want to shoot anyone he didn't (or shouldn't) have to.

[eyeball]

Paulson found himself at the back of the group traveling with the injured Henniger and the rear guard he scanned his motion detector again hoping to give Morse more information. His weapon felt light in his hands and he recalled how much fire he had sprayed to set the corridor alight and started to reload whilst they had a few seconds grace. his hands were shaking and it took him two attempts to get the job done, he slipped the empty back in a pouch you never know maybe there would be some where to refill, better to have it and not need it than want it and not have it.
reload completed and eyes scanning his motion detector they moved off again trying to not delay the rear guard troops.
<roll motion detector>
<reload flamer>

[BarbarianMathematics]

Tanya saw the black-armored mercenary up ahead. Before either of them could react, the mercenary had slung a few bullets downrange and struck Henniger. She felt a surge of adrenaline when she saw her comrade go down. She fired a harpoon explosive tipped round down the hallway into the smoke. She hoped to provide cover for them while she pulled Henniger out. Moving up, she grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him backwards away from the hostiles. While doing this, she saw the horrible black shape of a xeno among the humans ahead. Paulson had showed up seemingly out of nowhere, and he shot a jet of fire down the hallway. Tanya lifted up the wounded Marine and they carried him out together.

"Thanks," he gritted out as he threw an arm over Paulsons armored shoulders.
<tag Paulson + Sokolova>

“Do not mention it,” Tanya said in her thick Ukrainian accent, propping him up from the other side. Suddenly, they felt a rather intense shaking of the ship under their feet along with a series of loud explosions in their ears. She struggled to keep her footing while still propping up the wounded Marine. “What the fuck just happened?!” she exclaimed into the comms. Immediately afterward, she heard the robotic female voice over the loudspeaker warning of a hull breach. “Vot der'mo,” she muttered. But, her orders had not changed. She must continue to retreat and she did.
<Tag Henniger/anyone>

[LT_Chun]

Henniger limped along the corridor with his platoon mates. His leg ached in time with his pulse and his foot squelched in his boot from the pooled blood. All in all the wound wasn't all that bad. The op however had departed bad and was well into ludicrous. He'd managed to let go of Paulson and Sokolova and move on his own to free everyone up to operate their weapon systems. He kept his IR flipped down over one eye to supplement his normal vision and scan for threats. Especially ones with giant teeth and bled acid.

<roll perception>