Stage setting

<<Snip>>
This provoked a coughing fit of mirth from Gavin "I bet you can't" he gasped after a moment "There's a word for people like you!"
Boyd clapped South on the shoulder "I heard that it was plants you were into" he gave a wheezy chuckle.
Briefly closing his eyes, South took a deep breath to try and calm himself "Biolo-" he managed, before he too collapsed into a coughing fit "Oh, man" he croaked a few moments later "Why are we all coughing?"
"Could it be this mist?" Gavin pointed down towards their feet, which were lost in a few centimetres of previously unnoticed pale, white fog
"I dunno," Boyd gasped "but I don't wanna hang around and find out "
"Agreed" South coughed again "Let's get out of here"
As they turned to leave, Gavin held up a hand, his head cocked to one side "Did you hear that?"
They listened
"Nope -" Boyd began
"There!"
They all heard it this time: Three loud metallic bangs, echoing back down from the way they had come.
"What," South murmured in the silence that followed "was that?"
<<End Snip>>

“Maybe it was the docking clamps settling?” offered Gavin. “That was someone knocking, dude.”

“Who else is down here?” asked South. “No one that should be. I was the only one who came down to help.” Gavin and South exchanged glances through in the darkness. “Listen!” Boyd hissed, holding up a hand and craning his head to the door. From off in the distance another three metallic clanks. “Okay...not the docking clamps. Other explanations?” Bang, bang, bang, cam the knocks. “Boyd,” South caughed, trying to keep himself steady in the air, “Hand me that pipe.” he indicated Boyd's makeshift cudgel that he used for smashing the console. He pushed it towards the Doctor, who then proceeded to maneuver to the wall and banged three times, all of then listening intently. Bang, bang, bang, came the reply. They looked at each other. He hit the wall again, now four times instead of three. Again, now he was greeted with four loud metallic bangs, now closer to them than before. “Okay, definitely not the *cough* clamps!”

“No, someone’s in here with us.”

“Geeze, dude, chill!” Boyd now, “It's probably just one of the guys takin' the piss, man.” He coughed at the end of this. South looked around them, his eyes passing over the alien corpse, the one they had seen earlier, floating nearby. He quickly looked away, the sudden motion making his head spin, he started coughing again. “What is this stuff?” Gavin croaked between bouts. “no clue, * cough*. Coolant, maybe, fuel? Psi-scanner's not picking it up, *Cough* but it's getting thicker, and som-cough-how getting into the suits. We need to leave.”
“Well, let's go then.” Boyd started moving towards the door, still coughing. “Wai-cough-t.” South started his arms flailing uselessly without gravity. “God, this is so annoying!” he groaned. Gavin had started following Boyd towards the elevator shaft they'd come through to get to engineering. South followed once he'd found his bearings. “Hang on,” he said, “elevator's coming up.”

Half way up the lights started to flicker on, and the gravity generator kicked in again, only partially and they all comically fell to the floor in slow motion, landing in the thick fog along the ground. South coughed and stood up with the rest of them, the fog slowly descending, like it does when you open a freezer door, and collecting in a thick sheet on the floor of the tight corridor. Gavin and South looked intensely at the lift as it came to a halt. “Guys, seriously, I bet it's just Phil or some one messing with us.”

The lift doors opened and they were met with a large robotic figure, standing stalk still, examining them. “Uh...you're not Phil, are you?”

The figure produced a pistol and aimed at the nearest of them. “Run.” someone said sheepishly before it let lose a volley of purple mucousy goo. The only direction to run away in was towards the engine room, which was quickly filling with more of the fog, but in the tight space of the alien corridor the trio stumbled in the unusual gravity and began to trip over each other, falling into a heap on the floor. The mechanized advanced, training the pistol on them, and fired three quick shots, tagging each of the Dwarfer's HAAT masks. They all sat motionless, and the mechanoid simply stood over them.

“Ew...” said Gavin. “I hate robots....” grumbled South. “Well look at that...a genuine snotgun!” chuckled Boyd while he wiped the goo away from his mask, only to have it replaced immediately with another blast. The mechanized man half step, half jumped over them and continued into the drive generator room. They looked at each other before scrambling to their feet and making for the elevator. “Jay?” South keyed his communicator, “Jay are you there? *cough*. We've just been attacked by a bloody robot with a –what did you call it?”

“Snotgun.” smiled Boyd. “--Robo with a snotgun.”

“Yeah, we 've got them here too. Are you alright?” came the reply. “*Cough*, Yes, he just gooped us and left. Where did they come from?”

“The ship's full of micro time gates, these guys are coming through them. They just seem interes in covering us with that purple goo, some kind of temporal anchor. Why are you coughing so much?” Jay asked, noticing the lack of silence from the other end of the radio. “*Cough cough*, our breathers are saturated with some kind of fog from the ship, it tastes like oil, so I'm guessing some kind of engine exhaust.”

“Just get out of there and get to Decon then, you need your lungs checked.”

“Right.”

The elevator stopped and they shuffled out, breaking into a half run for the docking tube, coughing the whole way. As they ran South wondered why the metal men had locked onto the ship through time, and sincerely hoped it had nothing to do with the Satrid or the mutation he'd found in his blood. The reached the umbilical and crossed to the Blue Dwarf's decontamination chamber, now nearly gasping for breath through the breathers. As soon as the decontamination protocol had run it's course, they removed their goo covered HAZMAT suits and proceeded to the quarantine checkpoint ahead.
<<Tag!>>
Right, so – The mechanoids (assuming they have no pilot or organic parts) only seem interested in gooping us with snotguns that fire temporal anchors (sounds like a perfect set up to kidnap us through time, eh?). – The engine room of the Evegan ship seems to be leaking, possibly something flammable as an option to remove it, if it's needed – Gavin, Boyd, and South need their lungs checked (tag Dr. Black) after being checked for infection of any kind (the breth filters began to malfuntion, so they may not have done their job to filter out contaminants) – We were in hazmat suit when we were gooped, and have now removed them, and thus removed the temporal anchors from our bodies, so if we are the targets of a time-napping scenario (not that that's it, but it sounds close) we need to be re-snottified – South is worried that the invaders may have locked onto the ship due the mutation in his DNA caused by falling through the time vortex, which he has yet to tell anyone he found. Don't think I missed anything.
<<Tag!!>>