Prison Pit
- Characters
- Prison Library
- Logs 1
- Logs 2
- Jailbreak
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near leisure centre, Shelnat island, Inversar, 23:02 local time 155/1106
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Alice flicked her pistol to automatic and hunkered down to present a smaller target, expecting gunfire, but what emerged from the dark fronds of the jungle was anything but what she expected. With an explosive rush, some kind of bipedal animal hurtled out of the bush and leaped snarling at Alice's throat. She hurled herself to one side and it missed by inches, landing neatly some ten feet away and whirling ready to leap again. Alice fired, her first burst going wide but the second hitting the thing in the leg. Two 4mm gauss bullets in the knee will slow anything, and the beast stumbled and began to drag itself forwards. Backing off rapidly - it was still nearly as fast as she was - she took careful aim and fired again, smashing the thing's other femur and dropping it to the ground. Raising its' head it gave a dreadful screaming roar, part animal part bird; but it seemed more frustration at not being able to reach her than pain.
With the thing disabled she had time for a proper look at it. It seemed to be some kind of massive lizard, half again her height, skinny but sinewy, with long powerful back legs ending in nasty-looking claws. A flexible neck supported a long, pointed head with a big toothy mouth and quick, evil eyes. Even disabled as it was it was trying to drag itself towards her with its' relatively small forelegs.
Her attention was drawn from it by sounds from the direction of the leisure centre. Faint screams and the pop-pop of distant gunfire alerted her to the probability that this was not the only one of these things, whatever they were... Shoving her pistol into her holster, she set off back towards the centre at a dead run.
leisure centre, Shelnat island, Inversar, 23:02 local time 155/1106
Obeying the primal instinct to abandon buildings suddenly dark, most of the bewildered concert-goers blundered through the hotel ground floor heading for the main exit and the vehicle park outside, with the courteous and helpful robot staff guiding them along.
Martha, Manx, Zugh and Gripper, darkly suspicious that they knew what was behind the power outage, bucked the flow and headed further in. The lifts were out, so they took the stairs up four floors to their adjoining luxury suites. As they jogged up the stairs, small battery-powered emergency lights winked on, throwing a dim illumination that was somehow more ominous than the darkness. On one of the landings, Martha smashed some glass and seized a heavy fire-axe, hefting it grimly.
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Reaching their floor, and smashing through the door into Martha's suite when the electric locks failed to operate, they hastily tackled-up with more serious weaponry to taste. Martha spent a couple of moments shrugging into her suit of Maximillian CorpTrooper armour, while the others used one of the PAYG handcomm units they'd bought for negotiating to contact Benkin and Burkins. Benkin, as ever keeping an eye on the old General, reported that they were also headed for the rooms, moving slightly more slowly - paradoxically for his benefit; Burkins with his ruined eyes was far less disorientated by the darkness than he was.
"Sounds nasty," commented Zugh the Vargr, checking the ACR he'd chosen from the heap of spare weapons. Martha looked at him. "What does?" she asked testily. Zugh blinked. "Oh, yes, flat-face hearing," he said, and opened the window. "That!" he added. From below, sounds of yelling and screaming, mixed with odd gunshots, strange snarling and nasty crunchy noises rose to their startled ears. "What the hell is going on out there?" blurted Martha, walking quickly to the window and looking out. Below, in the car park, she could see a confused and panicky mass of the rest of the staff and scientists - and the occasional security guard - milling around as some kind of massive bipedal lizards slashed and bit their way through them, killing seemingly at will, herding them like sheep. Some of the civvies were scattering into the jungle, but from the monsters that loped after them their prospects were poor. The brighter ones were fleeing back into the hotel, and the few security guards were desperately attempting to cover their retreat. Those who'd been on duty had assault rifles, and a couple of the monsters went down, but the majority had been off-shift and had only pistols; their bullets were simply bouncing off the things. Two of the guards were already down, and the rest weren't going to last much longer.
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Suddenly there was a flash of light gleaming on metal and a dozen or so of the hotel's robot staff trotted into the car park. Flinging themselves in front of the reptiles, blocking their access to the humans they were pursuing. Each was torn to mangled scrap at a single blow. The robots had no weapons or combat skills, and with their Asimov circuits probably no ability to kill anything living, but it was clear they regarded saving a human life at the cost of their own a worthwhile trade.Martha squinted. Among the chaos she had spotted Scarrow, braced and cooly alert, his twin blades in his hands, eyes ranging for a route to safety. "Scarrow's down there!" cried Manx. "Oh, well," said Martha callously, "he's worth Mcr3 dead." Manx gave him a flat stare. "He's also our astrogator," he said sharply. Martha shrugged. "We won't need him with this new wonder-ship will we?" she said. Then she lifted her rifle to her shoulder and shot one of the reptiles dead.
The others joined in, pouring fire from their safe perch four floors up at the monsters below. The gunfire had the additional benfeit of hastening the civilians into the hotel, clearing the way for Manx and Martha to use RAM grenades to messy effect. A flash of blonde hair caught Manx's eye and he stared down as an exceptionally pretty young girl in a white lab coat was cornered screaming against a wall by two reptiles. He emptied a clip into the pair of them, dropping them on the spot, and the girl looked up to where the fire had originated and waved, smiling in relief, before sprinting for the door. Manx's smile was nearly as predatory as the lizards' for a moment as he sought his next target.
Breathing hard after running a mile through thick jungle at night in a thin atmosphere, Alice paused at the edge of the hotel grounds and peered through the dimness at the front of the building. Bodies were scattered across the carpark, some in pools of gore and entrails, others twitching or thrashing feebly. Strangely, there also seemed to be a lot of smashed robots strewn about. In Alice's experience, predators tended to ignore robots, smell being less easily convinced than sight by a humanlike appearance. She also noticed that although many of the victims had been disembowelled by terrible kicks or bisected by the massive jaws, nowhere it appeared had the creatures stopped to eat, again strange for predators.
A single reptile was lurking near the hotel's main entrance, close enough to the wall that the cons on the fourth floor couldn't see it. As she looked around, checking for more, Alice noticed Rosalie Walis sprawled close by, blood oozing from a horrific bite wound across her chest. Alice carefully aimed and shot the lurking lizard, once more disabling it by shattering its' legs. In the better light she got her first proper look at it, and recognized it, although only from books.... It was a dinosaur. What the hell were dinosaurs doing on Inversar? Scooping up Wallis, she patted the woman's cheek to bring her round, then supported her as the two headed into the hotel buildings.
Inside, she turned right into Reception and started scouting for stairs. A few minutes later she'd found what she was looking for a flight of stairs intended for the robot staff to use. Urging Wallis ahead of her and showing no pity for the other woman's weakened condition, she followed behind as they climbed, taunting, pleading, threatening, persuading, anything to keep their meal-ticket going long enough to reach safety.
Drawing on General Burkins' advice, Martha had organized the building of barricades in the hallway around her suite, sealing it off. The fort adjoined the stairwells at both ends, allowing them to attack anyone or -thing trying to reach their floor. As they were coming to the end of the job, hurrying footsteps and harsh breathing became audible and Alice and Wallis came into view. As they halted, Wallis began to collapse and Martha, trained as a field medic, took her and put her to bed. Her wounds were extensive but not life-threatening, and once she was settled and sedated Alice came to talk to her.
"So when were you going to tell us those things were roaming the island?" she asked severely. Wallis shifted. "They don't," she said weakly, "they're prototypes for a customer bioweap project, under nondisclosure; you didn't need to know." Martha and Alice exchanged looks. "How many more of them are there?" Wallis took a drink. "There's twenty of the Model-Vr," she mumbled as Martha's drugs took hold, "and... assault Model... Guard..." Her voice trailed off and she slipped into sleep. "Great," muttered Alice, turning away.
She checked the barricades, adding some modifications, then took some equipment to one of the stairwells. At the first landing, she rigged up two flechette RAM grenades to tripwires. Stepping back, she eyed the results; not as well-hidden as she'd hoped, but then dinosaurs weren't going to recognize RAM grenades anyway so it ought to do. She went back and did the same at the other end of the barricde.
paradise hotel, leisure centre, Shelnat island, Inversar, 00:10 local time 156/1106
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After twenty minutes or so, the crashing and occasional gunfire and screams from the lower floors began to get louder, indicating the fleeing civvies were trying to escape upwards and were being pursued as they did so. At the same time, Manx saw two Vrs lope out of the jungle into the car park, their long snouts smeared with human blood. With cold accuracy, Manx drew a bead on them and dropped a HEAP RAM grenade right at their feet. The creatures were flung left and right like dolls as the grenade exploded.
Alice returned to the staff stairs she and Rosalie Wallis had escaped up, and followed them up to the roof. A quick check confirmed that Vrs weren't going to be able to break in through the top of the lift-shaft. Flicking her gaussrifle's scope to light-intensify, she scanned the benighted island for signs of life. Almost all the lights she expected were missing, though some flickers from the dark, distant bulk of the central complex hinted at people with torches. As her gaze moved back from failing to locate the power plant, a movement caught her eye. Silhouetted against the silver of the lake, an animal reared a long, long neck topped with a ridiculously small head as it wallowed in the shallows. To be visible at this range, it had to be vast...
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Meanwhile Martha had turned on the helmet radio in her armour and was scanning the bands for traffic. She hit paydirt; not only the frequency for the island's security guards but that used by the hotel's robots as well. The guard channel was alive with yells, screams, gunfire and confusion as the two remaining guards struggled to keep the nine or so civillian survivors they'd gathered together long enough to fight their way to a refuge. Martha cut into this and directed them to the fourth-floor fortress, warning them to bypass Alice's traps. As she went past the lift, she pried the doors open and checked on the old-fashioned cable-held lift, which was at the bottom; there was a ladder but it was too light for a Vr to negotiate. Satisfied, she went to meet the survivors.
There were eleven altogether, nine civillians and two ehausyed security guards. Several of the civvies were badly shocked or hysterical, but two had some experience with arms and were handed laser carbines to aid the defence. To Manx's delight, his pretty technogurl was among them, and she smiled and.walked over to him. "That was you, wasn't it?" she asked. "Me, and Gloria here," he replied modestly, patting the weapon's stock. She laughed, and pretended to speak to the rifle. "Well, thank you, Gloria, and who's your heroic friend?"
On the other side of the room, Martha had realized that with the power off, the sensors were down, and had started emptying the room's mini-bar. Picking up the comm unit, she called the island's main complex, and managed to raise one of the security guards there. "Oh my God! Someone still alive! How bad is it over there?" came the reply. "A lot of your scientists are dead and your VIP guests are in mortal danger," said Martha crisply. "What are you going to do about it?" "We've killed thirteen of the buggers," added Manx cheerfully. A bitter laugh sounded from the other end of the line. "You've killed thirteen?" he said incredulously. "Why don't you come and rescue us? We lost four men killing three of the things!" Alice spoke up. "What about that thing in the lake?" she asked. There was a mutter of conversation. "I'm being told that's harmless," came the reply. Martha ground her teeth. "If you have someone there who knows what he's talikng about, put him on!" she growled. "They want to talk to the geek," they heard the guard call to someone nearby.
Alice went over to where the civilians were recovering, noting their fresh bandages. "Is there a doctor in the house?" she asked. A man stuck his hand up. "Here," he said. "Come with me," she replied and took him to Wallis' room, where she pointed at the window. "She dies, you fly," she said ominously. The doctor checked Martha's first aid, nodded approvingly, and added to her dose of sedative. Alice winced; even longer to wait for some answers!
Martha was feeling a bit old, for on the other end of the radio call she had a kid. A young lab intern, fresh from university, and she could hear the acne in his voice. Computers, genetics and dinosaurs, thrice over a nerd. His name was John Vance and he was terrified, but as he warmed to his subject his voice steadied. "The Model-Vr's you've been fighting are the close-combat skirmishers, light, savage and fast, designed to own a low-tech punitive strike or counter-insurgency operation. Reaction speed, size and strength are all point-two-five above those of the primeval pattern, and with the new skinweave implants they can shrug off most small-arms fire -" Martha broke in. "We don't want to buy the damned things," she snapped, "we want to kill them." Vance burbled. "These thimgs represent a.sizable customer investment," he protested, "they should be captured and returned to containment, not killed!" Martha snorted. "How, exactly?" she demanded. "With the prods, of course," Vance answered instantly. Martha shelved that fo the moment. "Tell me about the other types," she prompted. "Well, Dr. Harohi is the only one who knows all about them," he began. Martha cut the call in frustration
paradise hotel, leisure centre, Shelnat island, Inversar, 04:23 local time 156/1106
Several hours later, four Vr's came sniffing around the southern stairwell. A harsh flat crack from the grenade followed by whistling shrieks announced that the tripwire had done its job. The sound of one of the Saurs tumbling dead down the stairs was.music to Alice, even though it was mixed with hurrying steps as two more escaped. One emerged at the top of the stairs, bleeding and missing an eye, and Martha dropped it before it cleared the landing.As she was reloading, Alice, at the other end of the barricade, heard a single pair of footsteps approaching and called out a warning.
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"I may be able to offer some assistance," said a voice with a cultured oriental accent. "I am Dr Dans Horohi."
Alice returned from the stairwell with a smartly-dressed man in his sixties. Martha pointed a finger at him. "Tell me about these monsters," she barked. Harohi straightened his tie pointedly. "The Model-Vr you already know about," he said stiffly. "They are the most advanced, which is why we have bred more of them. The Model-Bo, which you saw in the lake, is a beast of burden, an herbivore,no threat. It's probably hiding from the Model-Gs Assault Saur; we have two of those. While the Vr is meant for jungle fighting,assassination, mob control, the Gs is the battlefield unit, slower but heavier, stronger and much better armoured." He paused. "There are two Model-Sg Guard Saurs aren't at all near ready, and may do anything, but they're most likely to find something that looks like it needs guarding and guard it until called off."
"So," said Alice with exaggerated patience, "how do we killthose?" Harohi smiled. "You don't," he said, "you use the prods." Martha growled. "How are they against armour-piercing rounds?" Harohi brushed that aside. "You need the prods," he said firmly. "They're in a storage bin in Lab Three, where we made the Saurs. You must go and get them, and herd the Saurs back into their containment before any more get damaged." He seemed oblivious to the reaction his words provoked. "Fine," said Manx, "you can come with us and see we get them." Harohi stepped back. "Me? I am a senior scientist and executive; you are soldiers, security, hirelings. You go; I direct."
Alice was right on the edge of shoving the arrogant bastard out of the window there and then, but she restrained herself; he might yet be useful.
Getting no change from the cons, Harohi went and placed a radio call to the main complex, trying to get the guards there to make the trip to Lab Three for the prods. Their response made Martha smile; maybe they weren't as green as she'd thought. Damn fellow's treatin' people like robots, she thought. Hang on...
Several minutes later, with help from both Harohi and Minion, not only had two tracked maintbots been despatched to the power plant and two humanoid waiters to Lab Three, but a vidfeed haf been rigged to relay back what they saw. Martha sat back; things were getting back on track.
paradise hotel, leisure centre, Shelnat island, Inversar, 05:21 local time 156/1106
Her good cheer dipped a bit as the two maintbots reached the power plant. The plain, low concrete building had been smashed almost to powder in the middle, two different sets of enormous tracks suggesting that one tremendous creature had hotly pursued another even bigger one right over the top of the building. The two robots surveyed the damage for a few moments. "Hey, boss," said one, "I don't think we've got the parts for this one."
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Several miles away, the two humanoid robots had come into sight of Lab Three, which of course alos showed significant damage from the escaping Saurs. What was more surprising was that two were still there, great squat armoured quadrupeds with pinheads and strange flat plates sticking up from their backs, lurking among the rubble and bodies in the car park. As the robots obediently advanced, the two Saurs noticed them and moved to meet them at a surprising turn of speed, lifting alarmingly spiked tails to the ready. "Get out of there!" Alice shouted at the robots, but for one it was too late and a shattering blow from the tail ripped it to chaff. The other robot retreated as fast as it could back into the jungle.
Harohi nodded with evident satisfaction. "The Model-Sg, doing its' job splendidly. Wish we'd made more of them." Alice stared at him for a long moment, and then shot him in the leg.
Session Date: 20th July 2011 (201/-2507 Imperial) |
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