OT: Hell is For Heroes.

[TurinTurambar]

Nice to see the flow and dialogue is back on track. A good read AZ, thanks!

TT

[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?”

[AgentZero]

Hmmm... Releasing more HifH in the midst of a SE5 frenzy appears not to have been the wisest of actions.

[capnq]

We unfortunate few who can't play SEV appreciate having something else to read about.

The door opening sequence was fun. I wonder if Alice even knows what the mnemonic she's reciting stands for. (If that's what it is.)

[AgentZero]

I still have a fan! Glee!

Guess that means I should get back to writing...

[TurinTurambar]

Oh trust me you have lots of fans.

[Puke]

lots and lots of them

[Puke]

let this be a lesson to everyone that bugging AZ produces more story.

[AgentZero]

And since nobody bugged me, here's a bigger installment. Go figure that!


Kagan had almost passed through the common room before a niggling thought made him stop and turn around. He walked slowly across the room to stand beside Fiona and gave her a hard look.

“You're floating,” he noted.
“Yup,” she agreed happily.
“This is new.”
“Yup.”
“How new?”
“Pretty new.”
“I see...”
“Well it goes to figure, doesn't it?” Fiona asked, an emphatic shrug sending her into a slow backspin. “If I can manipulate things around me, it goes to figure that I can manipulate myself as well, right?”
“No need to be manipulating yourself, I'm sure there's plenty who'd be willing to do it for you,” Kagan quipped. “And remind me,” he added, picking himself up off the floor. “Not to mock the nice telekinetic lady.”

Alice strolled into the room, looked from Fiona to Kagan and then to the path of destruction in between them. “You mocked the nice telekinetic lady, didn't you?” she asked.

“Oh, come on!” Kagan protested. “She left herself wide open to that one.”
“I did, at that,” Fiona admitted. “But regardless, I stand by my telekinetic shockwave, and all that it stands for.”
“Getting us back to the whole issue of the floating,” Kagan said, settling down on the couch.

“Pretty neat, isn't it?” Alice asked, snuggling up beside him.
“You knew about this?” asked Kagan.
“Yup.”
“And you didn't tell me, why?”
“Um, well I tried, but I couldn't figure out how to work it into the conversation. 'Oh Gods! Oh Gods! Fiona can fly! Oh Gods!'? See, it just doesn't flow.”
“Point taken,” Kagan admitted, flushing slightly. “Still, you could have told me before-”
“You didn't exactly give me the opportunity, what with the grabbing, throwing and-”
“Ok!” Kagan exclaimed. “But afterwards would have been good too.”
“I was about to,” Alice told him. “But then you remembered that there was no one on the bridge and went running off, so- say, who's on the bridge now?”
Kagan exclaimed something unmentionable, leaped off the couch and raced down the corridor towards the bridge. Alice stared after him with a bemused expression before turning to Fiona, only to find her rolling about in the air in laughter.

“Does my man's forgetfulness amuse you?” Alice inquired.
“Very much so,” Fiona chortled, settling down on a couch to halt her multi-axial spinning. “But not nearly as much as how flustered he gets when you mention fornication in any form.”
“It's rather adorable,” Alice agreed. “Though rather silly, given that you can just- you know.”
“Replay the events in my mind?” Fiona asked delicately. “I do admit being able to simulate the event as either participant has given me a rather unique insight into a great many things.”
“Such as?” Alice inquired, her eyes alight with curiosity.
“You, my dear, are a little tiger.”
“A sexy tiger,” Alice corrected with a wicked grin.
“Of course,” Fiona agreed patronizingly.
“So,” said Alice, bounding happily along to the next topic. “Are we going to go harass my lover some more, or do you have a better way of killing the next few hours?”
“I am quite amused as is,” Fiona informed her as O'Shea floated into the room.
“I don't mean to alarm you ladies, but there appears to be a problem with the gravity on this ship,” he said, pivoting slowly to face them. After managing to get himself turned around, he looked from Alice to Fiona and back, and they looked back at him with serene expressions.

“Oh,” he said after a moments consternation. “It must just be me. Awful peculiar this. Well,” he said with a sigh as he approached the corridor leading to the bridge. “I'll keep you appraised of any new developments.”
A few moments later, they heard him call out, “Hey chief, I'm floating!”
“Not you too!” came Kagan's pained reply.
“What do you mean, 'too'?” was the rather worried response.
There was a thud, loud cursing, followed by muffled cursing, followed by a comparative silence into which Fiona tittered merrily.
Alice looked at her for a long time before asking, “You are the evil twin, aren't you?”

“Coming up on transit point,” Kagan announced some hours later. The five of them were strewn about the bridge, having assembled at Kagan's earlier announcement that they were close to making transit. “Four... Three... Two... Hold on to your lunches... Transit!” There was a jarring thump, more jarring that usual, and several of those assembled made noises indicating that they were indeed putting considerable effort into keeping their lunches on the inside.

“The second part of the co-ordinates is just a heading,” Kagan advised them. “I've put us on that heading and set best speed, so now all there is to do is sit back and enjoy the show.

Kagan switched on the external cameras, and they beheld the reason for their unpleasantly rough transit. They had jumped right into the middle of a dense nebula, and the space around them was thick with swirling gas. They watched the main viewer in silence for a long time, lost in their individual thoughts as they gazed upon the hypnotic display in front of them.

Kagan, while curious about what would be found at their ultimate destination, felt confident that given the capabilities of his ship and crew, they shouldn't have any trouble dealing with whatever they found. On the other hand, he was concerned about Fiona and what seemed to be her growing powers. She was already a contender for the most powerful being he had ever encountered, and the gods only knew how much more powerful she would get. He knew that rescuing her from that derelict space station had been the right thing to do, yet part of his mind refused to let go of the idea that it might have been a mistake.

Saraea's mind strayed to the strange man who had brought the news that Kagan and Alice were alive. Recent events hadn't given her much time to ponder the matter, yet the more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed. He was oddly familiar to her, but his face slipped and slithered about in her mind, refusing to be pinned down to a recognizable name. He had known a lot, much more than tried to let on, she could tell that much. He'd known about her destruction of The Council, mere minutes after it had taken place when she knew well that she hadn't left any survivors. And of course he had managed to not only find out that Kagan and Alice were alive, but where they were as well, two fact that had managed to elude her. And he'd known other things, things about her that no one else could possibly know. Things she hadn't even known herself until he'd voiced them. And despite the great distances she had traveled since that meeting, and the sheer enormity of the galaxy as a whole, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd be seeing him again one day.

O'Shea's thoughts concerned Saraea, Fiona and Alice, and are not suitable to be mentioned here or anywhere else.

Out of all of them, only Fiona was fixated on what they would discover as they continued along the course that had been set from them. She wondered how it came to be that she had half the co-ordinates imprinted in her mind, and how Alice came to have the other half. Part of her couldn't help thinking that maybe the two numbers weren't related, that there were a great number of copies of her out there somewhere, each with their own individual number, and only by combining them in some mysterious pattern would they come up with the proper sets of co-ordinates. But mostly, her mind was filled with a kind of childish excitement about the adventure they had embarked upon.

Alice knew exactly what they'd find, and where they'd find it, and the thought of it both thrilled and terrified her.