Lifts and Loonies

(Ultramarine Barracks Beta, Bifter/Elchev, 161/1106)

They found themselves in a huge empty hangar, very similar to the one under the parade-ground at Rhagosus Base. A circular lift-pad in the centre sat under a vertical shaft leading towards the vehicle launch hatch up in the crater; two passages led out left and right; lift doors were set opposite them, and three iris hatches were set in the side walls. Near one to the left was a glass window about 20' up the wall. There were no lights on, but the marines' PRIS visors clearly showed four passive camera systems, slowly tracking back and forth in the top corners.

Once more doffing his armour, Jacques took his civilian gravbelt and four sacks, and, blending once more with the background, slipped into the room. Sneaking across to each camera, he lofted up to them and hung the sacks over them, blinding them to the heat signatures of intruders. The rest of the team moved in, spreading out defensively as Jacques re-armed himself.

While he did this, Uriah floated up to the window in the wall. Inside, he could see consoles, displays and equipment; it looked like the flight control for the hangar. All the systems were powered down, leaving just a single standby LED on the panel corner.

Opening the door, Reagan and Uriah went inside, and Reagan spent some time trying to crack into the base computers from the flight console ones. After initial setbacks, he seemed to be succeeding, but came up against some sort of security block he couldn't beat. It wasn't a wall, as such, it was more as if the systems at the other end weren't listening to him.

Jacques explored one of the side passages. It opened into a ready room, a gathering area for troops to await boarding of their transport vessels. Sprawled on the floor were three armoured corpses - Ultramarines - each shot several times with a boltrifle. Jacques gulped a little at the idea of any creature requiring more than one SLAMM round to kill it...

Meanwhile, Reagan had opened the second iris hatch on the left-hand wall. It opened into a rather similar control room, lined with consoles and screens. The floor, however, was thickly coated in the hideous Zerg Creep; even worse, the stuff seemed to extend up into the undersides of the security system consoles. Reagan closed the hatch again; no point trying to crack these systems.

Turning their attention to the lifts, Jacques cut a peep-hole in the doors of the left-hand lift [hereafter referred to as Lift 1], and peered in. He could see a liftshaft, with the lift stopped one floor above and at least three more floors below. He also saw movement; a Zergling was climbing the shaft, heading towards the source of the noise and light of where the sabre had pierced the door.

Stepping back smartly, Jacques motioned to Uriah to line his gaussrifle up with the hole. After a few seconds, there was a movement and slight heat-signature change on the other side, roughly commeasurate with a creature peering at the new hole and trying to work out what it was. Uriah let drive, and was rewarded with the satisfying meaty smack! of 4mm needle rounds striking flesh. There was a second's pause, and then a distant wet crunch! from below, probably the Zergling hitting the lift pit.

This proved to be the case, so Uriah wound up the strength enhancements on his battledress and ripped the lift doors off. Descending, they found the smashed Zergling at the bottom of the shaft. As they went, they read off what the other floors were. Three was "Storage"; Four was "Accommodation and Laboratories", and Five was "Computer and Power". Aha!

The power plant signature they'd scanned from the Brazos was deep in the base, so their objective was down at all times. However, here, they were balked, because the passage beyond the left was blocked by a massive rubble fall. Damn. OK, try the other lift.

Holing the door of Lift 2 in the same fashion, they examined the contents carefully. This time, the lift car was below them, and travelling downwards. Uriah opened the doors and flew down to the car, hovering just over it, and turned his audio receptors right up. He could hear at least two sets of armoured feet moving slightly, and concluded that there were Ultramarines in the lift.

Back at the 2nd floor, Jacques had decided to stop the lift before it reached the 5th floor. Igniting his lightsabre he slashed at the power cables, where they ran down to the lift unit in a duct on the back wall of the lift shaft. The lift stopped dead, and Uriah only avoided going headfirst into the roof of the car by a desperate last-second course correction.

There were sounds of thumping from within the car, increasing in volume and urgency. Uriah thought back to what the scientist Williams had said about Ultramarine reactions to unusual situations, and retreated up the lift shaft at some speed. Just in time. Abruptly, the sound of boltrifle fire broke out in the lift car. After a couple of seconds it stopped again, and the movement of armoured boots resumed, but only one pair was audible. Then, without warning, another burst of SLAMM rounds came tearing through the lift car roof.

Reagan and Uriah stepped to the edge of the doorway, and fired a HEAP RAM grenade and fusion bolt respectively straight down at the lift car. The results were beyond anything they could have expected.

A massive explosion thundered up the lift shaft, flinging bits of metal, alien flesh and Ultramarine armour past the doorway; Uriah and Reagan's battlecomputers warned them in mellifluous tones that the background radiation levels had increased to a dangerous point and promptly injected them with another dose of Anarad. Clearly the containment field holding the tiny grains of antimatter in one of the SLAMM rounds had failed, detonating the whole magazine. The marines now saw more clearly why the arsenal on Rhagosus was so far underground...

Once the dust had settled, they descended through the ruined liftshaft and gained access to the corridors of level 5, leaving Private Boggis to guard the lift access. Periscoping round a corner, they were confronted by two Ultramarine guards, but managed to surprise them and blast them down with laser and fusion fire before they could get a shot off.

They began to take confidence. Perhaps this wasn't going to be so difficult after all...