[AgentZero]

Alice hefted one of the machine's rifles that was roughly the same size as her. “Good,” she replied with a large grin.
Although massive, the hanger bay they now found themselves in had only one visible exit, a large open door at the far end of the hangar. They made their way towards it cautiously, weapons raised, each expecting a tide of battle machines to pour through the opening at any moment. They reached the door without incident, and Alice poked her head around the corner.
“All clear,” she told the rest. “Follow me.”
They followed her slowly through the door, and through an endless maze of corridors. Bulkhead doors politely opened as they approached, and at each, the foursome readied themselves for a fight that never came. One immaculate, sterile corridor led to another, which branched off into an identical hallway, which in turn brought them to still another passageway. Just as Kagan was about to ask Alice if she had any real inkling as to where they were going, they reached a particularly large door that stubbornly refused to open for them.
Alice set down her rifle and approached the door. She worked her fingers in between the two plates that formed the doorway and heaved mightily.
And precisely nothing happened.
She braced her one leg, then two against the door frame as she continued to heave with surprising strength until her fingers slipped and she dropped unceremoniously to the floor.
O'Shea stepped forward and gave Alice an amused look as he stepped over her. “Sit and watch in awe at how a man does it,” he advised her. He pulled a strange looking tool out from his pocket and used it to detach a control panel that sat to the left of the door. He reached inside the small aperture behind the panel and began rearranging the wires behind it. “There,” he said after a few minutes of fiddling. “Almost got it- done!”
There was a small pop, a terribly loud bang, and O'Shea sailed gracefully backwards through the air. He flew through a bulkhead door, which opened conveniently in front of him, and closed after he had passed through. Several seconds later, there was a muffled thump as O'Shea ostensibly impacted something unwilling to open.
“Wow,” Alice said into the surprised silence, sounding really rather awed. “That was way more impressive than my way. I couldn't have done that, me. No sir, no way I would've flown that far. Well, maybe, seeing as I'm small. Now that I think about it, I probably could have done that. Yep, I probably could.”
O'Shea wandered back into the room and sat down heavily. “Blimey,” was all he said.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Kagan asked, not holding up his hand, let alone any fingers.
“Seventeen,” O'Shea replied.
“Right, he's fine,” said Saraea.
“So,” said Kagan, turning to look at her. “Shall you or shall I?”
“Oh, I couldn't,” Saraea replied with a modest wave of her hand.
“You sure?” he inquired. “I don't mind if you-”
“No, really,” she insisted. “I really couldn't. You go ahead.”
“If you insist,” Kagan said with a shrug.
He stepped forward, reached out, extended one finger, and pressed the large green button to the right of the door frame. The two sides of the door slid apart with a gentle hiss, and stood open, waiting expectantly. Alice stepped passed him, shot him a look that would have withered a lesser man, and moved into the cavernous chamber on the other side of the door. Kagan stepped through and looked around. Directly ahead there was a large, three meter high control tower that sat in the middle of a circular platform. The platform, and the causeway that led to it were the only illuminated areas of the room. Glancing over the edge of the causeway, Kagan saw only darkness. The floor could have been two meters below, or two hundred. Neither the walls, nor the ceiling were visible, giving the platform the illusion of floating in midair. The tower was comprised of six individual work stations, each with a multitude of information screens, and each equipped with a dauntingly complex array of controls. At the top of the tower was long, retracted mechanical arm with a large, four-pronged gripping claw on it's business end. Behind each of the tower's workstations, arranged in a circle around the tower were a set of what appeared to be docking cradles. They were comprised of a 'spine' that rose up out of the floor, higher at the far end then it was at the near end, with three ribs, one at the top, middle, and end of the spine. Something evidently fit into the cradles, though a cursory examination of the room revealed no hints as to what that something was, but Kagan couldn't help thinking that whatever it was would be roughly the size of a coffin.
He reached the end of the causeway and walked onto the platform to find Alice already engrossed at one of the tower's workstations. She paid him no heed as he walked up behind her, as she slowly, almost tentatively ran her hands over the controls.
“Green paint always fades, much better to use yellow,” she murmured quietly. “Large canines serenade small felines, but big dogs loathe small cats. Inactivity is death. Inactive, inactive, inactive, inactive. Active!” she exclaimed suddenly and mashed a button with both hands.
The mechanical arm at the top of the tower hummed with energy, raised itself high into the air, and extended out into the darkness. It returned a moment later carrying a two meter long capsule that reminded Kagan immediately of a shiny silver coffin. The arm lowered the capsule onto the cradle behind Alice. After releasing the capsule, the arm removed the top half of the capsule and set it aside before returning to it's perch at the top of the control tower.
The four of them crowded around the capsule, staring at it's contents in absolute shock. Alice was the first to speak. Raising her hand a little, she inquired gently, “What the hell is that?”