In agreement, the two of them started to make their way down one of the corridors and Terry swiftly moved to keep up with them.
'This is too easy.' Annika said after a time.
'Agreed, we should have met some more resistance by now.'
'No, I mean, look at this.' she shoved the sensor readings up to Smith's shades. 'It's almost identical to the Star Command layout, with only one noticeable difference.'
Smith raised an eyebrow. 'Our off switch?'
'Precisely. I don't like this, it feels like we're walking into a trap.'
'With the number of troops they should have on board such a large vessel they would have no need to attempt trapping us. Either they are not aware they have been boarded yet or are waiting to see what it is we have come to do in such a hurry.'
Terry certainly knew which of those possibilities suited him the best, he stared up at the walls as if expecting eyes to seep out of them and track his every step. Letting out an involuntary shudder he quickened in his pace, nearly running into the back of Annika in the process.
She turned and levelled the gun at him, a look of anger briefly flitting across her face to be replaced by an apologetic smile. 'Watch where you're going, Engineer.'
'Yes mam...' he stuttered at the barrel of the laser pistol.
Smith held up his hand. 'Quiet, both of you... I think I hear something.'
Moments later the unmistakable sound of claw on deck plate became audible to the Terry too, he tried his best to resist the urge to leap around in terror, his lack of success resulted in a strange pirouette that achieved nothing.
'Stand still Engineer!' Smith hissed at him as he crept forward with pistol raised.
This time he did as he was told for fear that the Agent would turn and shoot at him otherwise. Instead he focused on the only thing that was left, raising his own gun and waiting for the clicking claws to grow close enough to shoot at.
In a spectacularly accurate fulfilling of all his fears, the clicking claws grew close enough for Smith to shoot at, and the Agent obliged at a speed that baffled Terry, sending a series of blasts out that penetrated the scaly lizard creatures and transformed them into an increasingly large piled obstacle for their colleagues to hop over.
Where several went down to Smith's blasts, additional Voravians took their place, and unfortunately it seemed that they were growing closer with each passing second, even if none of them managed to get away an accurate shot before Smith dealt with them.
'Get out of the way!' Annika yelled at him, causing him to jump into her way.
He couldn't take his eyes of Smith, a one-man killing machine that was carving open swathes of Voravian flesh with a smoking pistol that looked to be glowing with the heat of the energy discharge.
It wasn't enough, the lizards kept coming and no amount of sharp-shooting by Smith was going to prevent one of them from eventually tackling the man.
What Terry didn't account for was that the Agent was almost as dangerous in close quarters. As the unfortunate Voravian that was first to get there discovered. Instead of disarming the man it received a pistol whip that cracked open its skull and left it prone on the floor with the rest of them, the brief lapse of fire still wasn't enough for a Voravian to get a shot in.
Then just like that, all the enemies were transformed into a smoking pile of debris.
Smith rounded on them, a scowl evident upon his face as he dropped the hissing and smoking gun from burnt fingers. 'Where were you?' he shouted.
Annika held up her hands. 'I tried to get a shot away but my sight was blocked by our Engineer.'
Uh oh.
The Agent loomed over him, grating his teeth and twitching his seared fingers. 'You will stay out of the way for the rest of this mission, otherwise consequences will be...dire. Is that understood?'
'Yes. Quite. Perfectly.' Terry gulped.
Smith didn't say another word, bandaging his hand and picking up the warm gun gingerly before continuing down the corridor.
'He won't actually shoot me, will he?'
Annika stared at him and it wasn't kindly this time, her lack of words answered the question for him.
'Oh.'
They proceeded down the corridor until Annika called them to a halt.
'What is it Lieutenant?' Smith asked, trying to keep from snapping at her and clearly seething from a mixture of adrenaline and anger at Terry's incompetence.
'The scanners are picking up a series of Voravian life signatures ahead, and some rather heavy looking energy weapons.'
'I'm guessing we can't shoot our way through this?' Terry asked, and was promptly ignored.
'Suggestions?' Smith asked.
There was silence, apparently there wasn't an easy way to circumnavigate a load of laser turrets and Voravians armed to the teeth.
Then it was almost as if a light bulb was visible above Annika's head, or it would have been if this were anything remotely like the cartoons that he watched growing up. It was then that he wished this was the case.
'We could re-route their own systems using an algorithm in my scanner and have the turrets target Voravian life signatures.'
Smith cocked an eyebrow. 'Impressive... but can you guarantee that the turrets won't target us after eliminating the Voravians in question?'
The shake of the head from Annika wasn't the most inspiring thing that Terry had seen of late. Either the plan worked and the Voravians were shot at and they could sneak past unharmed... or they simply walked up to said turrets after they had done their work only to get blasted themselves. He racked his brain for alternatives but it would appear that this one was the only viable option, this felt less than promising to say the least. What surprised Terry was that he had already thought of that solution even before Annika had, he was just too scared to speak to Smith in order to voice it.
'How far do you need to be from these turrets in order to... reprogram them?' Smith asked, raising his bandaged hand and sighting through the pistol in preparation for more Voravian company.
'I can do it from here, the Voravian systems work wirelessly and I doubt they'll be quick enough to circumvent the little program I've got stored here.'
'Do it.' Smith ordered, though not unkindly.
'Already am, sir.' she replied with a smile that seemed entirely unwarranted given their precarious position.
They stood in silence, with Terry making an attempt to raise his gun and imitate whatever military standard pose Smith was pulling off. The Agent had absolutely no time for him since his previous blunder, and he couldn't blame him for that.
'Done.' Annika informed them after a few minutes. 'We should know whether it worked in a matter of...'
Her words were cut off by a series of volatile blasts and screeches from the corridor beyond, evidently it had worked.
'Listen to me carefully when I say this... Engineer.' Smith warned, finally acknowledging that Terry indeed continued to exist. 'You will follow behind us at all times, and will not venture a word unless it is asked of you.'
Terry nodded.
'Good, now let's find out if these turrets are friendly or not.'
They crept forward at a slower rate than previously, Smith occasionally halting them to listen to nothing in particular as far as Terry could tell.
'They should be just around the corner.' Annika informed him. 'What's your plan?'
Smith detached a piece of his uniform and proceeded to lick it, not the bookie's favourite for his next plausible action that's for sure.
Whatever it was Smith was doing, the Lieutenant was equally puzzled by it and furthermore, she was allowed to venture an opinion. 'Agent... are you feeling okay?'
Smith continued to lick the piece of moist uniform as if it were exceptionally delicious and completely ignored them. He promptly threw it around the corner into a blaze of light as lasers annihilated it.
'I think we can determine from this that the turrets are hostile.' he said.
He had used his own saliva in ord
er to determine whether the turrets were hostile to them without sacrificing life or limb. It was...brilliant. Only now it left them with a slight problem.
'What are we going to do now that the turrets are blocking the way forward?' Annika asked, voicing the question that Terry himself was incapable of asking.
Smith rummaged in his uniform and pulled out a small silver grenade, the sight of which elicited a strange smile on his face. 'Watch this.' he said, tossing it around the corner as it beeped faster.
Then the beeping stopped and Smith tore off another bit of his uniform. 'Let's see if that has worked.' he said to nobody in particular, throwing the second part of the worst striptease show in history across the corridor and within range of the turrets.
Nothing happened. You could say the second throwing was a bit of spit take. Not that Terry would say such a thing out loud for fear of getting shot on the spot.
'It would appear that my plan has been successful.' Smith said to them, more than a hint of smugness in his tone.
'What was it you did? How did you disable those guns?'
'The grenade in question is a type 7 Ionic Resonator, custom built by yours truly for situations such as this.
Of course! This was where Terry's new-found Engineering skills came in handy. An Ionic field would completely disable any electronics in the area without an explosion or any collateral damage to organic life. He had no idea how Smith had got his hands on the materials necessary to custom build a portable one and he knew better than to ask at this juncture.
'The switch is just a little further down this corridor, though I suspect it'll be guarded heavily.' Annika said, staring down at the scanner which continued to beep at her.
'Any sign of Voravians in pursuit of us?' Smith asked.
'Yes, but they're too far away to cause any problems yet.'
'Very well.' the Agent replied, senses still alert to any potential threat.
A faint humming sound came from ahead, causing him to stiffen and nod wordlessly in the direction of Annika.
'It's... duck!' she cried.
Terry briefly considered that none of the birds at the pond had ever given him trouble in exchange for his bread, then realised as the flashing lasers arced out that this was far more lethal than your average billed mallard.
The lasers singed the top of his head as he flung himself to the ground late, proceeding to light the corridor and embed themselves upon the wall. He came to the conclusion that if they were hit by the next blast it wasn't going to be very pretty at all.
'We need to keep moving forward!' Smith shouted at him.
Forward? Wasn't that the location of the fatal laser discharges that were aimed at their current location? He didn't put voice to these thoughts as Annika and Smith were already sprinting ahead and leaving him behind. Not to be outdone, Terry's legs sprang into action and propelled him down the corridor after them.
The humming noise grew in volume, a helpful reminder that he was indeed running directly at the lasers and they were quite happy to oblige his efforts at making himself a sitting duck. What was it with canards in the heat of danger?
He could clearly see Smith and Annika now, they were heading right in the direction of the laser. Had they some ingenious plan to disarm it or was there simply no other direction to go?
This second mental query was answered when both of them split, Smith going left and Annika right, leaving Terry alone with a fully charged laser about to fire at him. He came to a halt and realised he wasn't going to get to this junction in time.
That was when he spotted it, a small grate to the left of his position, if he could just get that open then he might stand a chance!
His fingers desperately wrapped around the edges of the grill that surrounded the duct and he yanked at it with all his strength, causing him to fly back into the wall. Apparently he hadn't needed anywhere near as much force as he had used.
Scrambling into a crouch, he dove for the duct and hurtled into it at a speed that left a severe bruise on his forehead.
Nothing happened.
He waited for the inevitable explosion of laser fire, for the sounds of clawed feet patrolling the area and the inevitable screams of his ship mates as they were apprehended. Instead there was nothing.
Crawling through the duct he found it led to another grill that mirrored the previous on he had pulled away. Peering out of it rewarded him with a distinctly uninteresting view of green-tinged deck plating and little else. At least there weren't any Voravians around then.
It was then that the realisation dawned upon him: he was alone.
Trapped on an alien vessel with absolutely no help and no way of getting off it and no idea where to go or what to do beyond search for companions he couldn't guarantee he'd find before being blasted into a million pieces. Yeah, it was fair to say that this day had taken a turn for the worst.
Crawling forward on his elbows, Terry placed his hands gently upon the grill and gave it the slightest of pushes. It went flying away and crashed into the wall with a clang that reverberated in its own inimitable way of saying 'hey everyone, look, someone is over here!'
Terry cursed silently under his breath, and that was when he heard the sound of clawed feet scraping their way toward him. The Voravians had evidently decided that the place where all the noise was coming from was most likely the place that the intruders would be. Shrewd minds indeed.
The sound of laser discharge was enough to startle him into life, sprinting once more down an all-too familiar looking corridor that couldn't lead to anywhere but more trouble. It was no worse than trying to stand still and hoping that the Voravians would waltz past him. Then again, that would be a terrific idea if their vision was movement-based. A bit late for trying that unfortunately, given that something had already tried shooting at him.
His feet continued to pound on the deck plating and the thudding resounded about the corridor and in his ears far too loud for his liking. How was he going to avoid pursuit if he sounded like a great big elephant clomping along? Second guessing himself once more, he reminded the disagreeing part of Terry that taking a leisurely stroll down these corridors was probably not going to help when it came to eluding the fast-paced pursuit of claws that were definitely growing more prominent alongside his own clod-hopping.
Then he heard the discharges coming from ahead, they distinctly sounded like more laser fire to his ears, a less than preferable scenario to be running into given he was trying to avoid it in the first place.
Oh well, lasers in front and lasers behind. He just had to keep going. Except that the sounds of clawed feet were growing in volume, the lizards with lasers were gaining on his position even when he was at full sprint.
He stared about him, and it hit like a tonne of bricks. He wasn't moving at all, the walls were completely stationary and his flailing away from them was doing nothing. The very deck plating itself was moving on the spot like some devious treadmill that he had been completely oblivious to. He hopped off the offending piece of rolling deck and carefully edged his way along the immobile sides before taking off at a much more effective sprint this time.
Well at least that was one danger out of the way! If he had stayed there any longer he would have been blasted in no time at all!
He rounded the corner and was promptly blasted in no time at all.
Agent Smith was not being promptly blasted any time soon, not if he continued to remain vigilant. Unfortunately for him he had reached a rather difficult quandary to negotiate. The Voravians kept coming at him and he kept blasting them with unmatched precision, but for every smouldering body he left in his wake more replaced them, which in turn could not afford him the time to reconvene with Annika, who presumably was heading in the direction of the switch in spite of the absence of her compatriots.
The state of his weapon informed him in no uncertain terms that it couldn't continue to function in its current capacity without burning a hole in his hand. It would be required that he formulate som
e kind of plan to divert the attention of the Voravians so that he could give them the slip as the insufferable RJ would have said.
The fifteenth Voravian croaked its last as Smith rammed the butt of his gun against its nasal cavity before discharging the weapon in its face. There were only a handful left before he could make a break for it out of cover, he need just stem this endless tide of green-skinned mercilessness before embarking on a search for Annika.
The footsteps came around the corner and he let out a shot, catching the target square in the jaw and sending its scaled form in a heap with the rest of them.
Only this form wasn't scaled.
He rose and crept over to the prone figure of Mr. Terrance Stevens, checking for a pulse and determining that the man was still alive in spite of the blast. Apparently his collegue was made of sterner stuff than Smith would have given him credit for. He silenced the niggling voice that took a decidedly large portion of pleasure from blasting the insufferable man. Now was neither the time nor place to indulge such fripperies.
The laser bolt shot out and caught Smith on the shoulder, sending him sprawling to the floor and disarming him.
She stared at the console and found herself shaking her head involuntarily, how could this be?
When she had found that neither Smith nor Stevens had followed her charge past the lasers, Annika had slowed her approach, checked her scanners and searched for the nearest computerised outlet she could find. She had thought there was some vague hope that she could gain access to the systems powering this Voravian vessel and have them aid her in accessing the switch and tying it to her system.
What she had instead found was that the computer systems were not only similar in nature to Star Command's own specifications, like the wiring previously had been behind the bulkheads, they were identical. There was no mistake here, for some reason the Voravians were running on Star Command computational systems. Systems that Annika knew like the back of her hand and was able to bypass with relative ease.
Unfortunately, staring at this screen for the short time she could afford to leave herself exposed did not allow her to divine how to tie the switch into her scanner. She kept having to duck away into one of the handy vents nearby as soon as she heard the passing of clawed feet, and shutting down the console each time before re-doing whatever she had previously been doing was beginning to get grating.
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