Moving on!

OOC - Forgive me only tagging those who speak. I'm scared I'll mis-tag otherwise! :s
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“Forgive me if I may.” Kenneth piped up, scaring most of the group and eliciting a rudely worded grumble of annoyance from Cassandra. “But I do think that this may be another hallucination. This whole chamber isn’t registering properly on my scanners, reminds me of the time I had to single handedly fight off a legion of dancing trout. Artie old chap, what do you think?” Jolted out of his silence, the brain ‘bot spoke up.

“I would agree, not so sure about the trout though. Although, I feel that I may still be affected by this monstrous toxin to a degree.” He cradled the shattered remains of Junior a bit closer and looked around at the ghosts of his nightmares. Jade meanwhile, was examining the ‘ink’ on the floor. She turned to Eve and shook her head slightly.

“I’m not sure what you see, but I’m seeing a pool of blood?” The Doctor spoke up, dusting herself off as she got up.

“No! It’s oil where that monster dragged away my poor Missus!” Artie wailed.

“You are kidding right? It’s a spilled pint?” Phil said, gesturing around him. “This is the worst bar I’ve ever seen. I mean who pays $£850* for a pint!” he shuddered and turned away from what was in his mind a chalkboard behind the bar displaying overpriced cocktails and beers.

“Look this is getting us nowhere.” Jay said, casting his gaze and his rifle about the room. “There has to be something in here. Something to get us out of this mess, to turn off this psychic field.”

“Maybe a common denominator? Or an exit of some kind?” Kenneth offered up, “Well, at least that’s what I’d be looking for if I was on my own at least. Just like that time I got trapped in the virtual reality world of the killer nasturtiums… You know, normally you pickle the capers?.. No…?” He trailed off at the blank looks.

“Right so, it looks like everyone can see some sort of fluid on the floor there.” Jay pointed at the puddle.

“It could be a broken terminal, or a leaky pipe.” Jamie said, twitching like a nervous rabbit at the shadows.

“Oh for the love of….” Cassandra said rolling her eyes and unloaded an entire clip of ammunition into the area of the puddle. The wall seemed to shimmer and reveal a doorway forwards. “There. Easy.” She said, holstering the weapons again. There was a short round of descriptions and everyone agreed that this new room was free from the psychic influence.

“Looks like a control room.” Artie said, looking over one console.

“Can we shut it down from here or what?” Eve asked, suddenly wondering where the Gribbles had vanished to.

“Yeah, just… I need… Hang on” Cass said, pouring over the various consoles in the room. Jay meanwhile was looking over another console.

“The munitions base is here.” He pointed to a holographic map of the area of the town they were in. “It looks like the missiles were fired from this secondary location. I guess that way the launch doesn’t interfere with this place.” He looked around the control room at the centre of the pyramid.

“We can’t call in a shuttle until the base is disabled. It’ll just get blown to hell again. Can you do it from here Cass?” Jacky asked peering over her shoulder. She shrugged him off.

“No but I can stop this psychic field from working. Just give me a minute.” She said, furiously typing away on one of the consoles. “Looks like the whole town is a kind of alien rat maze. The field activates when the subjects get too close to the pyramid. Those beings we encountered are scientists of a sort, studying the way that we react to the situations. Not sure they planned on us being able to get in here though.” Cass grinned.

“What about the JMC girl?” Eve asked curiously “She’s not an alien.”

“I believe I can answer that.” Artie turned around the servos in his robot body whirring as he did. “She was on a ship that crashed not far away from the beach, looks like long ago there was a cephalopod living under the pyramid that could cause these nightmares. An exploratory JMC ship crashed here and succumbed to the effects. With the aid of the local population however they managed to infiltrate and kill the beast. Since then they’ve used technology cannibalised from he crashed ship to replicate the effect.”

“Urm.. How does that explain her and the suit she was in?” Eve asked politely.

“Patience girl I’m getting there.” Artie sighed, shaking his brain in a dismissive gesture. “She was captured by the aliens, and placed inside a suit to look like them. Over the years they augmented her to keep her alive. It’s another experiment see. To see if she will fight for or against the affected test subjects. The suit offers a degree of insulation against the effects.”

“Well that explains the message in the bottle too! They must have got to her, so she sent it out to warn others. Poor girl. She was already half insane from the psychic attacks.” Jade said, looking back at the slumped figure they had carried for the stealth field in the previous room.

“Right! Got it, the field is down now. Although I’d be happier if I could destroy the console too.” Cass said, frowning.

“Let me madam! The ship is fitted with weapons, I can take out planets if I need to!” Kenneth beamed, a high pitched whine came from inside him and a small jolt of light zipped out of his bellybutton and hit the console.

Nothing happened.

“It’s… It’s not even scratched.” Jaime said, blinking at the uninspiring feat.

“Wait for it…” Kenneth grinned.

There was a fizzling pop from where the laser had struck, and a small burn mark appeared on the console, smaller than a $£1 coin.

“Stupid AI.” Cassandra grumbled, shoving him out of the way and placing her boot through the screen.

“That’ll do it.” Jamie grinned.

“Right people, lets hustle, we have to take out that other base.” Jay said, ushering everyone out into the night air. Slowly on the horizon, the faintest glimmer of light was appearing, turning the night sky almost imperceptibly lighter blue. “If we want to use the darkness as cover we have to move now.” He said, looking up at the sky.

<TAG>

OOC – Right people! Let’s get that base gone and get out of here. I’ve left it open enough so you can do what you want with it, just try to keep it in the theme of aliens studying our moves ok?

It is well guarded or empty?

How do we stop the missiles so we can call a shuttle down to escape?

What do the aliens do now they have no psychic weapons?

What does the base look like? Is it a simple launcher and small crew, or a giant anti-ship cannon of doom?

Remember we have a small amount of guns and ammo left and I imagine Eve is out of crystals now too?

* Ok, so this was supposed to be £8.50, and based on a real pub I’ve been to. The typo was just too funny not to keep.