Beep Beep

JP between Omni and A.Patient.Man

8.3.5 SW
20:00/21 SW-CP-Local Time
Crowning Point

Hargreaves and Gonzales laid Carson in the back of the Lotus Esprit but there wouldn’t be enough room for all three of the remaining officers to ride inside.

“Fuck, man. What are these things?” Hargreaves said, looking off into the dark woods. He swallowed his anxiety.

"No idea, but they got me jumpier n' those long-haul stims I used to take running freight. Fuck." Saying said, grinding his teeth and twitching, his eyes darting quickly from one point on the treeline to the next.

The motion detector started to pip, whatever it was, it was at the far range of the device.

"Baird, Y'all on your way back yet? How far out?" asked Saygin over the team's private channel.

tzzt Offloading the Marshal now. Be another five, maybe ten. You all good? tzzt

~ Beep beep ~

"Not even a little... Bug got Carson. Gonzalez got bug. We just got out of the building and stowed Carson's body in the VTOL, but there's a ping closing in on us much faster than I'd like. Send a team NOW!"

tzzt …damn… Running short on men here. Everyone else is working lockdown patrol. Power went down. tzzt I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, get somewhere safe. tzzt

~ beep beep beep ~ Several dots appeared at the edge of the motion detector screen.

"Goddamnit, I'm a flyboy not a battle commander..." Saygin thought as he hurriedly tried to process what to do next. "OK, y'all aren't gonna like this, but we have to head back inside. We need a defensible position, and we got less than none of that out here."

Saygin pulled out his SDD and showed Hargreaves and Gonzalez the map of the building. "We're gonna head back in the receiving door. I'll take point and light up anything we may have missed that tries to welcome us back. Gonzalez, follow close behind and cover the open floor to the north. Hargreaves you're our best shot and stand the best chance of hitting anything coming at us from the treeline. You take the rear and drop the door behind us. Once inside we make for this maintenance room to the right, and barricade the door with anything we find inside. Then, we hang tight and pray whatever is coming through them woods doesn't know how to pick locks. Let's move."

“Roger.” Hargreaves and Gonzales followed Saygin back into the building. From the motion detector they could see a large hunger of dots circle close by. Most of them kept moving but one seemed to stop for a moment before slowly moving off to the south.

"Baird, come in!" Saygin called.

tzzt Baird here. Whatcha got? tzzt

"We holed up inside the maintenance room of the storage building. Just picked up an army's worth of pings at the door on the tracker. You're gonna need more n' a couple grunts to rescue us, hoss. But enough of the good news. What's to the south of this storage building?"

tzzt One moment, Saygin… (the radio didn’t turn off and Saygin could hear talking in the background) - - can’t take it off him without a knife or something but it bleeds goddamn acid… - -

There was a moment of silence or sound too quiet for the radio to pick up.

- -you’re the doctor, I’m just here for moral support. - - ~shik-chik~ - - Saygin, you oughtta know the layout by now. Reactor is just south of there. Sargent's headed back out there with a team. Contact him or Ops for anything else. I’m staying with the Marshal just in case shit hits the fan here. Blue out. tzzt

tzzt Take it easy, Blue. I’ll take it from here. Almost there, Saygin. tzzt, responded Sargent.