The fall of the space station.
The space station hung in space above the world, a white dot in an expanse of blackness, a mirror to the islands below, swallowed up and surrounded by blue ocean as they were. Inside, it bustled with fresh motion as people walked, talked, worked; every few minutes, in rooms and corridors, someone passed the hidden mechanisms of an Aperture Science
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Once again, Tony's voice sounded throughout the station. "Those of you still here, I am now in control of this station. There's only a few minutes until we hit, and less than that before the exit portal closes. All the traps are off, the doors are open, but there's nothing I can do about the zombies. Get out, and get out now. And mind your step. I'm about to up-end this entire death-trap."
A few minutes later, the death-trap... up-ended. The station jerked, shaking even harder than it had been as one side lifted, the entire structure tipped, turned on its side.
A moment later, everything loose went careening sideways into what had been the floor but was now vertical as the station accelerated in the opposite direction, launched sideways.
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And then the whole world turned sideways.
[For Gaius. ♥ ]
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Then the cyborgs arrived, and his shining moment of spectacular heroics abruptly ended.
He'd run. Of course he had. Everyone had run. There was no cause for shame. That is, until he came across her in the corridor.
Practically clinging to the walls, panting, wild-eyed and suitably disheveled, Gaius managed a rather manic smile, said, "Uhura, you're--" Then the world tilted out from under him, cutting off whatever he'd been preparing to say to her, replacing it with a great deal of flailing and an undeniably shrill yelp.
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"Just keep moving!" she shouted to Gaius. "Focus on the center of the corridor, not everything else!"
It was how dancers kept their balance, spinning madly on pirouette, keeping their eye on one, unmoving target. She just needed to focus.
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"Oh, yes. That would be quite helpful if I knew where the center of the frakking corridor was," he bit out, an edge of false cheerfulness cutting through his voice as he clambered to his feet. The advice didn't go entirely unappreciated, though. They were bouncing around so violently that staying in one place was nearly impossible. He stumbled forward, simply because he had no choice.
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Grabbing Gaius' arm as he stumbled forward, she attempted to steady them both as she moved down the corridor, her eyes focused on an access panel at the end of the corridor. It wasn't really center, but it would do. "Don't tell me you've never been on an out of control space station before," she said brightly, pushing them on.
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Galactica had fallen apart at the seams all around them. They'd been without escape, a species entirely devoid of hope. Comparatively, this was only a minor annoyance.
He kept hold of her, as if he had any illusions that he was helping to steady her at all, miraculously keeping his footing when the ship lurched again, swallowing a grunt of pain when his shoulder crashed into what had once been the ceiling.
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"Would have been funny if you came full circle," she said with the breathless laugh of someone holding tight to her nerves. They were almost to the door now; she could see a glimpse of the glowing edge of the portal. That was when a box exploded in front of them, the target of some kind of blaster.
"I foooooOOOOOOOund youuu," a synthetic voice crooned from down the corridor.
"Nevermind, he's got us covered," Uhura muttered through gritted teeth as she tried to run again.
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He ran. He was quite good at running. He was quite good at following all those instincts that told him he did not, under any circumstances, want to die.
Fortunately, he didn't want her to die either. He rather liked her, for reasons other than her impressive figure, so when he ran, it was with a hand still on her arm, crowding her down the corridor toward what he hoped would be relative safety.
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"Hold on!" Uhura shouted as she fisted one hand in Gaius' shirt and wrapped an arm around his waist. Aligned with the door and the portal, she had just intended to half throw him them both to safety. But the station shuddered and lurch again, throwing them for her, so they both tumbled through the air with the force of physics.
Unfortunately that force wasn't dampened as they came out the other side, on an uncontrolled and speedy trajectory intersecting with the ground.
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He managed to keep hold of her, thinking at the last moment that he ought to do something to cushion her fall, but long before he had time to actually react, the ground slammed up to meet him and he landed in a painfully graceless heap.
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He bit back annoyance at the idea of losing this particular bit of technology for ever as he rose to his feet and ran along what used to be the wall in the direction of the exit.
Of course, he didn't get very far before he ran into something equally diverting.
(for Zell)
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"Could you come over here?" he heard the mechanical bits twitter over the dead zombie's moans and he lined up his gun and took aim.
He hit it square in the head and the thing staggered and turned to face Cable.
"Whyyyyyy?"
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He charged forward instead, before the strange red light had fully turned in his direction.
"I seee you," it said over the moans of the mottled corpse it was wearing and Cable dived underneath the resulting rocket as he charged forward. He just had to reach it and knock it over before it could target him again and then he could kill it at will.
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