The fall of the space station.

[notawastedlife]

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

Comments

NEUROTOXIN

[notawastedlife]

The click of the nozzles snapping into place could have been missed, if one was otherwise occupied. It hadn't been very loud; softer than the sound of a trigger being pulled, perhaps, before the gunshot.

The hissing was a little louder, as purple gas began to spew forth from each in a sideways spray, condensing at the ceiling but slowly, surely beginning to fill each room.

Even louder was the sudden crackle of speakers that had formerly carried the synthetic, modulated voice of GLaDOS, now delivering a voice more alive if also notably more tense. "This is Tony Stark. The AI in control of this station has lost it and is currently trying to flood the facility with deadly neurotoxin. If you can get to the emitter controls and work fast enough-" this sounded as if he was addressing someone in his general vicinity, as well as the station in general "-you may be able to shut them down. If you can't, and you're in an area that is filling up with purple gas..."

There was a pause. "...don't be."

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[fear_no_words]

Easier said than done. Just from where Uhura was standing, having been in the middle of a conversation with Lex, all she could see was purple smoke gathering in thickening clouds above, the density of the gas already tugging it downwards. Even at a sprint, she wouldn't have been able to clear the large lab room without inhaling some of it, and even if she escaped mostly unscathed she thought the corridor connecting probably offered no relief. The AI had control of the station and wanted to kill them all, apparently. Why would it leave them room to escape?

She grabbed Lex's arm and threw them both down to the ground, shouting, "GET DOWN!" to anyone in the vicinity. Shallow breaths and quick thinking were their only hope.

[Primarily for Lex, but if you have a pup that you would like to have join, let me know! Uhura's going to dismantle the circuit in the wall.]

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[capable_of]

An oddly familiar feelings settled over Lex at that very moment. A feeling he hadn't really felt, and thought he'd left, in Smallville, of something about to go horribly wrong

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[fear_no_words]

"Somewhere up top, but--" She let the sentence hang, not about to waste precious clean air with babbling about possibilities. She and Lex were scientists in their respective ways; they could observe just as well as they could hypothesize.

The cloud was growing heavier, darker, denser, blocking out any the sharp, clean corners of the ceiling. But before it did entirely, Uhura made out the shape of a nozzle. She nudged Lex and pointed, tracing a theoretical line connecting the nozzle to an access point in the wall that some curious person had already opened. Maybe the conduits connected. Maybe there was something to short circuit this room's poison dispersal units. "Maybe?" she asked, looking to him.

CYBORG ZOMBIES

[notawastedlife]

Across the station, neurotoxin emitters ceased spraying gas as they were deactivated or destroyed; in some, where the counter-agent had been deployed, a rather more harmless if perhaps alarming purple gas issued from the same nozzles, the two chemicals combining in the air and fading away, as free of hazard as it now was of color

[spirited_hero]

[niceofyoutoask]

Lipton had obstained from interacting with the zombies that halloween, once he'd realized all they'd wanted to do was dance. And he couldn't say he'd ever fought robots, so Zell was definately the more experienced of the two when it came to robot zombies. Still, he did have experience in a warzone, and especially with his M1A1, and even if it wasn't Krauts he was shooting at, he could still hold his own.

He shot one of the creatures that was coming up to Zell as the kid faught with another, and clapped a hand briefly on his shoulder as he took up a place beside him, swinging the barrel of his carbine down each side of the hallway to seek out more company. "Alright Zell?" Lipton asked, sparing the kid a glance and a quick half-smile.

[spirited_hero]

FALLING FROM THE SKY

[notawastedlife]

People fought and ran, as cybernetic horrors of science pursued and were felled, only to be replaced by more, as if GLaDOS had stored gone through several complete space station crews in the past and stored all of them for future use; wherever they came from, she was not in short supply of corpses.

But there was one final play to be made, if no one was co-operating, blind to the grand vision of Aperture Science's most artful computer. Their loss.

The station lurched, sideways and down, and began shuddering as if a giant's hand had closed about it and was shaking it.

Moments later, the voice of Tony Stark again echoed through the station. "Ladies, gentlemen, psychotic computers, you may have noticed we are now experiencing some turbulence in addition to being gassed and attacked by robocorpses. This is perfectly normal if you are... falling out of the sky. Please remain calm and run like hell for the exit. I will be having a word with our host about her manners."

Re: FALLING FROM THE SKY

[crazyspacegirl]

The poison gas was a new element, and one she could have done without, but River was feeling a strong sense of deja vu about her current situation. The cyber zombies she'd been fighting weren't exactly like Reavers, but there wasn't a huge difference as as far as she could tell

Re: FALLING FROM THE SKY

[stoicsidekick]

William Bush had had enough. He had had bloody well enough. It had only been his second time up here, just to do a bit of a round of patrolling, when madness had begun. Now he, like the rest of them, was fighting his way towards the exit in what seemed a madly futile act. William only had his sword with him and could do little more than beat off the metal creatures, but step by step, he was nearing his escape.

He sure as hell wasn't going to die in bloody space at the hand of a bloody walking mass of metal.

"River!" He saw the young woman up ahead and rushed forward, bashing one of the creatures on the head just as it came up on her from behind. The clang of metal against metal sounded through the hallway. "Come here, it's this way!"

Re: FALLING FROM THE SKY

[crazyspacegirl]

River jumped aside, out of the way of the falling enemy, dropping the metallic remains of the the one that had been in front of her to the floor and took a moment to catch her breath.

"I know. Why would anyone fill their space station full of mechanical zombies?"

In addition to the danger, River was sort of offended at the misuse of a perfectly good space-going vessel.

SIDEWAYS

[notawastedlife]

Abruptly, doors began slamming open. The lasers blinked out, floors slid back into place over acid baths. Traps all over the station deactivated.

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.

Re: SIDEWAYS

[fear_no_words]

She had thought - no, hoped - that "up-ending" had been a figure of speech, but of course it wasn't. Uhura felt the floor rattle beneath her feet, hard enough that she could barely keep her feet on the ground let alone keep her balance. Bracing herself against the wall, she gauged the distance between herself and the doorway leading to the portal, deciding how fast she needed to run or how careful she should be of tripping herself up.

And then the whole world turned sideways.

[For Gaius. ♥ ]

Re: SIDEWAYS

[rewarded_by_god]

Gaius Baltar had, admittedly, seen better days. There had been a moment where he'd honestly felt useful. Helpful, even, and while that hadn't always been one of his primary goals, not filling the role of dead weight on a failing ship was infinitely preferable to the alternative.

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.

Re: SIDEWAYS

[fear_no_words]

Somehow, in all the crash and clatter of every unsecured item in the ship being thrown sideways against a wall, Gaius' scream rung out above it all. It might have been funny if it hadn't highlighted the terror of the moment, that weightless feeling no one ever wants to feel in a space ship. But the moment ended and Uhura landed in a somewhat graceful crouch, banging her knee and the heels of her hands soundly on what had been a wall.

"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.