30STM

Diana

LOOK HOW CALM SHE IS
Original poster
ADMINISTRATOR
MYTHICAL MEMBER
Invitation Status
  1. Not accepting invites at this time
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per week
  2. Slow As Molasses
Online Availability
10AM - 10PM Daily
Writing Levels
  1. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Female
Genres
Romance, Supernatural, Fantasy, Thriller, Space Exploration, Slice of Life
[bg=#2f0903]
[bg=#480e04]
30STM
CONTACT -DIANA- ABOUT JOINING THIS RP.[/bg]​
[/bg]​

PREVIOUS EVENING...

"All of your paperwork has been filed, Sir. Is that it for today?" asked Allison, standing in the doorway of General Lancaster's office. Wearing her typical daily uniform, consisting of a pretty chocolate colored dress with white polka dots and a pair of comfy flat shoes, Allison made a picturesque secretary.

The older man smiled at the woman as he rose from his chair to exit the office and rest his arm around her shoulder. "That I am. How about blessing an old man to dinner?"

"Why do you even ask anymore, Daddy? We always have dinner on the weekend!" Allison replied with a grin. She considered herself very lucky. Desk Secretary to a retired General, in the largest city on Mars was a great career - and it helped that she could always give the sad-daughter face whenever she wanted extra days off. She was loving Marelsou. Though she had just been here for a few months after her college graduation, she didn't think she wanted to go back to Earth. The colonies were blossoming in to fantastic and exciting new cultures - Allison was thrilled to be a part of it.

SOMETIME AFTER DINNER

"Then your mother said 'If you're going to bring the entire unit home, next time CALL first.' I was in the doghouse for months." General Lancaster and his daughter were riding down the streets of Marelsou on their way home. The sun was on it's way to setting and the had been pleasant. Allison was preparing to reply when....

BOOM. It sounded like an explosion! A large gust of wind seemed to jostle their vehicle for a moment when CRASH a mangled piece of metal smashed on to the road in front of them. General Lancaster made a sharp turn, the wheels screeching against the road as they nearly tilted before slamming to a rough stop in the side of a concrete building.

Allison came back to consciousness with her father shaking her. As she slowly moved to climb out, he was bullying her in to some sort of vest and giving her a bag to sling over her shoulder. "What just happened...?" she questioned. As her vision was less blurry, it didn't even look like the streets of Marelsou anymore. There was chaos everywhere! People were running and screaming, buildings were on fire. There was terrible sounds of crunching metal.

Suddenly something came stomping around the corner of the big piece of metal debris lying in the road. Huge, covered in scales with glistening and a nasty look. Allison recognized it as one of those Scalies that had been reported attacking other Mars colonies! Her father had pulled out a gun, something huge, and fired! Her ears were still covered when he grabbed her by the arm and they were running. She didn't think he was even allowed to have guns like that, where had he been hiding it..?!

As they ran, there was more damages. More scalies! The pair retreated down to the subway tunnels, where they stopped at what must have been a storage or supply room. General Lancaster ushered her inside.

"I need you to stay down here. Allison! Listen, this is important. Stay in here. I will be right back with help. If I'm not back by morning, use the radio. It's in the bag. Do you understand me?"

Allison barely knew what was going on, let alone being able to understand. Finally she nodded. "Y-yeah. Stay here. ...you promise you'll be right back?"

"I'll be back."

THIS MORNING...

No sleep. No rest. Just that deep seated feeling of fear. He hadn't returned yet, and he promised he would. Allison had dug out the radio from the bag he left her. There were tons of things in it. Little supplies, food, even some small guns and ammunition. Had he always stashed this stuff in his jeep in case of an emergency? Wasn't it illegal for civilians, even retired Generals...? For now it didn't matter!

She pressed the radio buttons and started speaking.

"H-hello...? This is Allison Lancaster. General Allen Lancaster's daughter. Something has happened in Marelsou. Scalies are invading the city. I don't know where my father went, he said he would be back with help... Is there someone there? Marelsou is under attack and we need help!"


PRESENTLY...

Hours. Hours and hours. Allison had sat hidden in the small storage room down in the subway for ages. She hadn't received a reply on the radio. She was worried he message hadn't even gone through. Worse, her father hadn't returned either. Lifting a hand, she peered at her wristwatch for what must have been the millionth time. It was just a little bit after 3pm. The subway had been dead silent hours now. None of the trains had gone by the entire time. Was the entire city under attack..?

Allison decided she couldn't take the waiting any longer! Stiffly, she rose from where she was sitting. Grimacing at the way her body protested, and forcing feeling back in to her limbs. She zipped up the bag her father had left her, but not without pulling out and loading one of the small hand guns. Pulling the bag up to drape over her head and shoulder, Allison moved to the door. She listened for a few minutes before she cracked it open. One small peek gave her reassurance that nothing was lurking outside.

The only sound in the subway now was her own footsteps. Quiet as s churchmouse, she stepped carefully. In her hands she aimed the gun, placing on foot in front of the other as she headed for the steps. There she stayed close to the wall, always glancing over her shoulder every few steps while she rose back up to the street.

For the middle of the afternoon, the streets of Marelsou was eerily empty. Debris laid scattered on the street. Huge chunks of buildings were crushing vehicles. Concrete, plaster and twisted metal in every direction. What really weirded her out was the lack of bodies. ...had everyone managed to flee? Were they eaten up and swallowed? Allison decided she would hope for the best and be glad there wasn't mangled people or scalies laying all over the streets.

Allison made her way down the streets as fast as her feet could take her. Carrying the bag with her was awkward, but she finally found herself back to where the jeep had crashed last night. It was still there, but now it was half smashed, lying on it's side. There was blood...

No sign of her father. Allison reached up, about to see if she could use her wait to tilt it back over and get it working when she gave a startled pause.

Snaaarrllgg..

Turning around slowly, she nearly screamed. There was a scalie! He was sniffing in the air, looking around and searching... until his head turned, his sights set on her. Suddenly, he was running forward! With a choked cry, she brought her gun up and fired! Several shots went off until she emptied it, and even then she was still pulling the trigger! The scalie was still running until he finally dropped, hitting the ground with a loud THUMP and a pool of blood starting to collect beneath him.

Allison sunk to the ground. ...that had been close..!
 
"They struck here."

The sergeant pointed at a point on the outskirts of Marelsou. "Most of the garrison had been pulled away as the scalies hadn't shown any interest in Marelsou. Those that were left didn't stand a chance, city was overrun in hours. Casualties.... well no one knows at this point. We believe most of the aliens are still down there, we;re to rescue civies if we find them but our main goal" He beat his fist on the screen. "Is to make those damn Scalies bleed
so they think twice before attacking."

Task force Thor was the first human fleet to reach mars after the first attacks, they had only completed the long journey less than a week ago and had split into smaller groups. This was the fist opportunity any human force had gotten to catch the aliens still in a human city. They needed a win, they needed to show they could "meet 'em, and beat 'em" as the news networks proclaimed they would.

"Rhino! You'll deploy here. Your job is simple hold the district exit, this will allow Hawk to drop in here in the gunships and clear the transit system.......

"In the gunships again thats just great." The Irishman muttered glancing at the pilots, the one in particular his squad always ended up stuck with.

"Are you done O'Neill or can I finish the briefing?........... Thanks you. Now......"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

30 minuets later the ground pounders jogged into the hangerbay where the gunships hung in their racks as the ship entered low orbit ready to drop them over the colony. O'Neill Carrying carrying his equipment which was bulkier than the rest of his squad's being the combat engineer he carried the explosives and sensor gear. "Red..... again...."
 
Many Legged Terror

The seven tall green lizard-bipeds, maliciously staring with their orb-like golden eyes, walked through the streets, passing burning cars and the occasional projectile-ridden corpse. It had currently been another routine operation; infiltrate and then exterminate. This is how they conquered many a colony; lying in wait, preparing for that single golden moment. And then capitalize on it, bursting from hidden positions and detonating concealed explosives, sweeping the carpet from right under the soft-fleshed bipeds. Once the attacks started, they were merciless and savage, more like barbarians than a proffessional and military. Their reputation as merciless yet violently efficient creatures spanned far across the stars.

The reputation of the Mars sand tyrant though, mostly was not quite as widespread, mostly relegated to appearences on a few educational television programs within certain human planets. Yet the reality behind the often chilling media representations of its hunting abilties were rarely far from exaggerated.

The seven scalies, being foreign to human recreational technology, were not terribly knowldgeable of these creatures. In fact, they often had little idea that these were the creatures wiping their concealed forward bases clean and causing the mysterious dissappearences of many a recon team. It should be expected generally that the top predator of various species upon mars, reptilians included, would be surprisingly efficient at hunting down even larger and more advanced prey. Its impressive physical characteristics would see to that.

The first scaly dissapeared rather quietly, having turned his head for a quick glance as they were passing a turned over car, having supposedly seen a glimmer of something; like a leg of a large insect sticking out from behind the vehicle. The others, having noticed one less pair of footsteps thudding the ground, turned around and saw nothing.

The second and third scalies went behind the car, deciding for a quick inspection of whatever was behind the car while the others spread out through the street. This time, there was a thumping sound, then a wet tearing noise, desperate hissing, and then a chilling crunch.

The rest turned around, looking towards a door, an open one, and seeing a long tail being dragged through. Immediately, the ambiance of the burning wreckage and dusty wind was broken as automatic weapons fire ripped through the door, blasting it off its hinges, blowing chunks off walls, and desecrating the interior in general. A hand grenade soon followed, further adding to the mess. Their leader raised his hand, motioning for the others to stop firing. They simply stood there, watching the door intently.

This was a poor tactical decision, as the myriapod did not exit via the door, but rather through a hole in a wall, caused by one of the hidden explosives. Obscured by a fallen over tree, the apex predator moved quietly across the ground, using cars and wreckage to conceal its form. Ultimately, she was spotted. Unfortunately for the scalies, this was after it lunged from around the corner of a large jeep. Its violent lunge smashed one out of the way and it rammed into the leader, overpowering him with its brute strength. Its prey growled, a gurgly raging voice attempting spewing fear and anger, yet this was silence with its powerful venomnous fangs, digging into its chest in mere seconds, before twisting its head to the side. The fangs basically tore a horrid, bloody gouge out of its chest, creating a small valley of exposed bloody flesh, and killing the sergeant.

In less than a few seconds later, it rose its upper body and moved forward, sending a claw forward to crasp diagonally along the body of one of the soldiers, while the other swung out to knock another off his feet. The claw crushed its rib cage and sharp spines emerged from within specialized retractable-cover holes, digging into and digging into organs as the unfortunate soldier was raised into the air, dying in mere seconds before being thrown to the side.

The downed soldier had only barely raised its rifle before it was knocked away and the beast descended upon it with its full weight, pinning it down and then proceeding to messily eviscerate it, tearing through the scales with its strong mandibles and leaving only a gory mess.

The last soldier, who had simply watched in terror. He began to crawl away, facing forward as he watched the creature suddenly perk its head up, and sharply turn its head towards him. A few gunshots over a scream were heard, before the morbid sounds of the tyrant's feeding process suddenly silenced the lizard.

A few minutes later, there was a buzzing sound as the leaders of the scalies attempted to contact a squad that had suddenly gone missing. Distorted barks grew louder and more frantic for a few seconds, and then stopped. The ambiance of the attack's aftermath soon resumed its sonic dominance, now accompanied by the sound of buzzing flies.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Swallowing one last chunk of the fresh meat, the tyrant made its way across through a back alley. It was attempting to follow whatever scent trails of its mate that it could, yet it was suddenly interrupted when it heard a few sharp bangs.

Looking from the shadows of a nearby slum, it saw a human female. It was rather young and looked not to be one of the warriors of their hive-society, yet it had in its hand those bolt-spitting weapons, the smaller ones specifically. Lying at its feet was one of the lizards, blood pooling around its corpse.

The sand tyrant was impressed; rarely was one of the human-nymphs of the female gender seen in the position of defender of warrior. She looked at it curiously yet suddenly froze up.

Her sent seemed...slightly familiar; minor traces of it could be found on the trail she was following.

Looking at her again, this time right in the eyes and leaving the shadows, she kept her distance and raised her body, making her head level with the human's. While there was still blood on her mouth, she assumed a more calm position, as if she was simply watching her curiously. Her proximity was rather close to the human-nymph, her retractable antennae wiggling around and taking in her smell.

Before it could act, the tyrant did first; a series of short clicks. Light in tone and somewhat hollow in sound, it was just one of many greetings these creatures were capable of.

This human-nymph with that smell, she wondered if perhaps it could lead her to her children and perhaps her mate. The dead lizard-biped also smelled rather appetizing.
 
Allison barely had time to catch her breath when she was suddenly facing an entirely different sort of alien. The gun in her hand was empty and her sitting on the ground like she was made her vulnerable. Any other moment she might have even screamed, but the shots of the gun may have already attracted unwanted attention. ...and apparently it already had!

It was with a great deal of confusion that Allison realized the centipede-like creature wasn't being aggressive. Staring right at her, head level with hers... The thing seemed to be trying to communicate with her. What was it anyway..? Allison faintly remembered watching some special about it. Native Mars species or something similar. Myrian.. no, myriapod? Something like that. Now if only she could remember whether or not they ate humans.

The thing turned from staring at her to peer at the dead scalie on the ground. Allison slowly lifted a finger to point at the body. "You can... you can have that if you want it." Better to eat it than her.

A loud shrill roar from somewhere on down the street behind them had Allison freezing with fear. More scalies were nearby. No doubt looking for the one missing, or having heard her shooting it down. Stuck with her breath caught in her throat, Allison moved quick. She scrambled under the twisted vehicle laying behind her, trying to get out of site. She raised a finger to her lips, hoping the creature understood what the gesture meant. Be quiet.

Still holding her breath and trying to keep her hands from shaking, Allison fumbled to get her gun reloaded with the clips she silently slipped out of her bag.
 
Red was the picture of innocence--except for that wink she gave O'Neill when he stared at her during the briefing--all the way up until the team had joined her at her precious gunship. Poor O'Neill. He was such a hottie and he probably didn't even realize it. Just too bad for that bitch, Catherine, that she had noticed it, forcing Red to do something any woman would have done to protect her property!

As he and his teammate Frost approached, she smiled brightly and saluted! "Look alive, gentlemen!" she proclaimed as they climbed inside. "We're headed into enemy territory to take down aliens and bring home civilians. Mind you, dying in the field is not on the agenda so let's keep it that way, right?"

Frost knew damn well how O'Neill felt about Red and if he'd had a sense of humor, he might laugh about how often Red ended up their pilot. But it was common knowledge that Red was the most competent pilot here, despite her ... strange way of doing things. He was just amazed at how long it was taking O'Neill to realize Red had the hots for him. It was even a standing bet among the other soldiers.

"Red," Frost greeted as he climbed inside.

Red winked at him and clucked her tongue in reply.
 
O'Neill wrapped his hand around the strap next to the door of the gunship his other hand being grasped by Frost as he pulled himself and all his equipment into the armoured hull of the gunship/ light transport. O'Neill was 'forced' to sit behind the the copilot's seat within view of Red's seat. "Morning Red." he said despite knowing surface time was in the early afternoon. With a grin he reached into the side of his combat pack and brew out a bottle taking a gulp from it, a ritual he often followed before going into combat. "Care for a bit of luck?" Frost, who had finished helping the rest f the squad into the gunship shook his head and closed the airtight door taking up the seat opposite O'Neill and strapping himself in.
 
She heard it as well; the amplifying sound of the approaching biped-lizards. It seemed to be angry; the thirst for revenge with her slaughtering of an earlier group the catalyst. It was not a single roar, but many combined into a single vengeful cacophony. The corpse would have to wait. Hiding here was a poor option; they'd simply fan out and eventually find them. Being on higher alert, it would be harder for her to defend both herself and the jeuvenile.

They were just around the corner and there was no time to lose.

Lowering its body, she extended her claws and grabbed the jeuvenile. Before it could act against her, she raised her body, dangling her feet off the ground, and using her unoccupied limbs, ran down the street. Despite being weighed down, her great strength still allowed for a freakishly high speed. All the scale-bipeds saw was maybe a slight glance of motion. The sound grew dimmer and weaker as their advance, noticeably slower than her charge, was slowed by the various debris and their need to inspect the area around them sharply.

A bit over a minute had passed, and they found themselves away, near a large structure, where many cars, many now burning, were parked. She had seen these before; large food storage structures, where the humans would usually walk in with these metal carts and come out with them brilling with all sorts of packed foodstuffs. She'd never actually been inside of one, but figured it would be a good place to hide.

Dropping her unceremoniously to the ground, she prodded her and motioned to her to go towards it, taking the lead as they advanced towards a broken window.
 
Allison was shaking. Both from the collective call of the scalies and from the... rescue?... by the strange insect creature. Once she was on her feet again, she struggled to make sure her gun was loaded. But she did make sure to trail after the beast. Maybe it was instinct. Knowing when a creature was trying to be an ally.

Loaded with a soft click, and holding the gun low but ready, Allison made sure to examine their surroundings. They were at the local grocery store. Even here there weren't any bodies, despite the fact that vehicles were scattered around or burning. Windows were busted on all the buildings in the area. Had there been riots? Or was that just from the attacks..?

First the beastie crawled inside the building, then Allison followed. The power was out, leaving the store to have a strange eerie feeling with it's emptiness and silence. She had been here to this store before. Shopping for weekly groceries and other things. Allison had the urge to call and see if anyone were in there, but the fear that a few scalies might hear kept her silent.

As they passed down one of the isles, Allison pulled a couple boxes off the shelves to stuff in to her bag. She hated to steal... but she hadn't eaten since last night. Quietly, she opened a small granola bar and popped a piece in to her mouth.

"My name is Allison." she mumbled softly. The creature couldn't speak English, obviously. But talking to it and feeling connected to someone helped her feel less alone. "I don't know if you have names. I could call you Myra? I think you're a female." She hoped, anyway. Allison didn't want to offend the thing.
 
The sounds it made, that modulated, formulated, controlled, and elaborate sound... she knew of no other animals that had an equivalently developed way of sound-based communication. Hers used a variety of physical motions and contact, hisses, and chemicals, yet they could not create meaning to the precise extent the soft-skinned bipeds were able to. There was a sort of empathy they were capable of, one that she had seen appear in similar forms for certain humans. The sounds made to it by the human, something was different, in particular two of them. It seemed to be addressing itself, designating a name, as if presenting itself to her.

"My name is Allison."

The last of these speech-units it stuck out to the creature; she had heard them many times before. Yet they did not seem to be associated with creatures, inanimate things, phenomena and so on, but rather things that lived, breathed, ate, died, and felt. This usually meant other bipeds, yet she had heard it applied sometimes to iniamate things, presumably of great importance, or lesser beasts, usually ones that lived inside those metal cages or were tethered by long leathery strands.

"I don't know if you have names. I could call you Myra? I think you're a female."

Was the biped confused? It seemed to be asking something given its tone; a sort of unease. She could understand; she must find the savage predatory nature of this many-legged creature terrifying and its capability for violence causing a sense of caution behind her actions. And then there was the speech-unit: Myra? It seemed to address her by that, along with something after that she could not understand. The name, it ended in that half-tonelessly-sung way the names of their females would end, rather than the more blunt and solid dead-end of the male ones. He wondered how it could tell her gender; perhaps she knew that its colour and size, duller and smaller respectively, than that of the males of its species gave it away.

She looked to...Allison...again and spoke; not of the speech units with base definitions behind them, but a general idea, communicated through unrefined and to many, seemingly random sound, devoid of rhythm and rhyme. I was a sort of cooing sound, almost as if the creature was curious. The sound was thin; it seemed odd that such a large creature could make such a seemingly innocent noise. Yet it seemed to be affirming, calm, and trusting in a way.

They walked alongside one another, down the aisles and past open displays of various vegetation, some from and this world after they came and changed it, some from beyond. She was no herbivore, yet she expected the lack of any apparent social order in their cities and the fact that it was simply standing in the open to attract the scavengers of their kind.

She could smell and see however, great and vast rows of the frozen and red-white flesh of the fat mammals they'd feed upon, yet she had eaten earlier. She was somewhat skeptical of its nutritional value as well; the strange pellets some of these were fed had an odour best described as off; not of the wilderness, but of their strange ways and technology.

It was strange, the giant larder-structure seemed empty, or its inhabitants were simply very good at concealing themselves.
 
For most men, this was a good time to pray. You strap in, listen to the engine of whatever machine was carrying you to your destination, and started praying you'd get to see the end of the mission and continue on the roller coaster that was life. Frost. Frost was not a religious man and he didn't think too highly of life either. Life was what you make of it. And he'd made a military living, not a career by any definition, and he'd grown used to it. Hell, he couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Red got her baby into the air and was settling back to do what she did best, fly. But O'Neill's question about "a bit of luck" caught her attention. "Hey, what did I tell you about drinking while you were on my baby?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder. "You know better than that, O'Neill. I don't need the alcohol spilling on the floor or out the window or hell knows what else. Hand it over."
 
With a small shrug he handed over the bottle, she did this every mission they flew together. "You know without love, and a little luck this bird of yours will meet with the rock it came from near as soon as she reaches the air." He sat back in his seat as the sirens sounded overhead warning all ground crew to get behind the blast doors and all ships sealed an on internal air supply. In the co-pilot's seat Ric flipped all the appropriate switches as with a mechanical whir the engines either side of the craft rotated into position and sun up. Thirty seconds later the dropship was dropped into the atmosphere of mars.

"To all of our fine combat men and women, show those scalies what it means to attack human civilians. Hit them hard and come home. Captain Reinald out."
 
Allison occasionally glanced at the creature she dubbed Myra, a curious raise of her eyebrow being her only response to the odd sounds it made. She wasn't one of those people that thought animals were stupid and couldn't communicate. ...but it was still hard to figure out how to communicate without sounding like a condescending jerk. Myra wasn't a dog or pet after all...

Something rattled and crashed across the store, causing Allison to pause and pull out the gun again. Stepping quietly, she rounded the isles to draw closer to the source. She nearly screamed when a woman popped out, looking wild and terrified, holding what looked like one of the fire axes out of the emergency boxes.

"Miss, It's okay. I'm-" Shit! Allison didn't have much time to get any words out. For an older lady, the woman moved really fast. Swinging the axe at her and nearly swiping in to her shoulder. Delirious with fear, the woman wasn't listening as Allison tried to get her attention and reassure her. Worse, the sight of the myriapod only heightened her panic. Before she charged at the creature and got herself hurt, Allison tackled the woman and both ladies hit the floor rolling.

"Lady, seriously...! We're not trying to hurt you!" It was a waste of breath! Allison hissed a released the woman when she managed to slice at her arm with the axe. Then the lady was scrambling up to her feet and charging off for the broken glass doors of the store. "Wait! Don't go outside!"

She didn't listen. All that followed was the sounds of glass shattering as the woman escaped the building. The store fell back in to silence.

Allison sat on her knees for a moment, taking a deep breath and getting her wits back together. "It's not good to panic." she mumbled to Myra, though she was more trying to reassure herself. "She's scared crazy. ...I can't imagine what she saw." Her father made her hide in the subway. She was so mad at him for leaving her there, but if he hadn't..?

They needed to get somewhere that she could get in contact with the military. Figure out where her father was. The base wasn't too far from here. If they could make it there, maybe they could get off the planet alive. He could even be waiting there for her.

"Alright, Myra. I'm going to get as many supplies as I can fit in this bag, and then we're going to try and get somewhere safe. Okay?"
 
"Lots of talk, O'Neill, but you know my baby handles better than that," Red said with a smirk. She took his bottle and put it in a special compartment built into the wall beside her. There were six slots in all for bottles and this bottle marked the final slot full. She'd have to empty it out later. At this rate, she'd have a lifetime supply of the stuff and then some! "I'd be more concerned about running out of explosives than the welfare of my birds."
 
"And I'd be more concerned with flying this crate than worrying about my equipment. I have enough explosives to blow your bird out of existence if you crash so lets not let that happen." The gunship started to rock and shudder as airspeed neared theoretical maximum for the design. In less than a minuet they would break, level out and proceed to fly to their objectives.

Out over the city a line of shooting stars appeared in the distance, each ball of fire containing an entire squad of heavily armed and motivated soldiers and enough ordinance to level a city block. Over the city the ship they had launched from roared spacewards again its anti-surface weaponry ready to deliver if any surface teams requested orbital support.

All was not still in the streets either. Scaled aliens watched the incoming craft with cold preparedness. Across the colony Large guns where aimed skywards even as reports came of a missing patrol.

Though instead of clawed feet going in search of the missing men the aliens responded by sending a captured vehicle. One of the human's own. Indistinguishable behind the armored and darkened glass there would be no way of knowing who was inside until it was too late. And it was this team that approached Allison down the street.
 
"Yeah, well keep those long strong digits of yours crossed, sweetheart," Red said as she turned her attention to the control panel. She began checking measurements and gunship systems, flicking switches and whenever a light flashed, she tended to it. "We're going down nice and easy, everyone. So be prepared to jump out at a moment's notice." She eased back on the throttle.
 
As one the city erupted before them into a crescendo of fire. Tracer cross crossed ahead and the smoke trails of rockets rose from the buildings.

"Nice and easy my ass! Everyone check your gear. Holman! Don't unfasten just yet. Red! get us to our drop double time." As always Frost was the first to react to any situation as O'Neill leaned back and closed his eyes. "Should have taken the luck." he muttered. To their right tracer found its target. The air to surface missiles on the gunship detonated and like a broken bird trailing smoke and fire dropped behind the formation, all other gunships dropping to hug the rooftops.
 
Steel Predator

"Alright, Myra. I'm going to get as many supplies as I can fit in this bag, and then we're going to try and get somewhere safe. Okay?"
The centipede didn't respond. It wasn't even next to her anymore.

Near one of the shattered windows, it had raised its body and seemed to watch the outside world carefully, noticing that it was getting darker and the sound of one of the humanoid vehicle-constructs growing louder.

She saw it first at the far end of the road. A shape obscured somewhat by the smoke coming from the lightly smouldering wreckage of the various blocky shapes the humans transported themselves around in. In the fading light, it seemed almost like a slow moving shadow, completely black against the grey roads, dark red buildings, and charred colours of the ruins it passed through. Additional plating seemed to cover it, as if the car had its own suit of armour. Its movement was deliberately slow, as if it was a predator slowly approaching its prey.

Myra knew that this was far from normal for one of the vehicles. Dissappearing from the window, she crawled across the ground, appearing sharply in front of Allison.

Her mandibles grinded and tapped against each other and she seemed rushed, her body tense and her sounds authoritative. She turned her upper body and using her claws, pointed at some aisles further into the store, as if she wanted Allison to hide.
 
Allison just finished stuffing some bottles of water in her bag when the myriapod returned, jumping in front of her so suddenly that she had to stop and take a step back. Her brows furrowed as she tried to decipher the urgent chattering, but her whole body stiffened when the sounds of something big and loud was approaching outside. Allison listened, inching slowly down the isle to get a look out of the broken windows.

The sky outside was getting darker and the sounds there were confusing at best. But there was one she recognized right away. The loud rumble of a military class tank, rolling it's way down the street like it was on patrol.

"Wait, that's one of ours!" Despite the warnings of the creature behind her, Allison was already climbing out of the window. As she walked out to the street she waved her arms over her head to flag down the tank. ...and hopefully have a safe ride to the nearest base!
 
The IFV, bounced over the rubble strewn street, the suspension of all 6 wheels creaking as the alien crew eased it forwards. With a low hiss the scailie in the turret warned the rest of movement ahead. The gun turned as in the back another spoke onto one of their own devices. A short description of a young female, alone and unguarded caused then no little excitement. Though the ever cautions aliens did not close thier eyes to the possibility of ambush.

Staying at their slow pace the heavy vehicle reached the girl, claw marks and rends in the metal from bullets along with the remnants of blood marred every inch of the vehicle and even and the breaks brought it to a stop near Alison not a living souls could be seen. Then the forward hatch opened and a scaled head followed by an armored body brandishing a wicked looking weapon emerged as the turret tunred its considerable firepower to scanning the surrounding buildings.

"Grogvap totur" the creature yelled leveling it's weapon at Alison. The the rear ramp opened and another exited pointing Alison into the vehicle.
 
"Come on, baby, just hold on!" Red was saying, teeth clenched. She was pulling on the throttle but one of the shots had taken out her fuel tank. The fuel was draining fast! "I'll do what I can!" she hissed over her shoulder! "No, no no, not now, baby. We're almost there!" The engine was beginning to sputter. They just didn't make engines like they used to! The gunship was dipping lower and lower, and picking up speed instead of slowing! They ran down a few rooftops, sending shingles and pieces of building raining on the ground below!

The last thing Red remembered before everything went black was unbuckling her seat belt to see if she could reach that Emergency Chute lever that was always too high for her to reach ...

"OOHhhhh ..." The first sign that she was alive was just how much her body ached. So much pain! She was battered and bruised everywhere! There was no way in hell she could be dead! Her eyes fluttered opened and she panicked, before she realized that was just her jacket over her eyes. She hadn't gone blind at all! There was something hard and firm under her. But when she shifted, there was a wince ... from beneath! "Uhh ..." She turned her head and found herself looking up at O'Neill's face. Hmm ... Now there's a face she could get used to seeing a lot more!

Meanwhile Frost was shaking himself awake. The belts were still secured but the crash had made them harder to work off. He winced as he dropped to his knees, pain jolting through them as they made contact with the metal floor. He shook his head and looked around. "O'Neill?"