aaaaaaaagh_sky | National Guard Depot

The door that opens is not, strictly speaking, a door. Ellen wasn't able to find a working one near enough the National Guard building to use, so she had to fall back on the mouth of the drainage pipe that led out of Rock Creek Caverns. "Sorry about the smell," Ellen murmurs, "and the wet feet. This was the best access point I could get us."

Crossposts: http://aaaaaaaagh-sky.livejournal.com/58901.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ihavemyflaws

She's got to give Sam credit for shooting the hell out of that thing, but if the entire resistance is doing that with every toaster they must be going through ammo like it's ambrosia.

"Got it."

Her finger extends away from her trigger for the sake of safety as they force their way in.

If there's anything immediately on the other side, she sure can't hear it through the doors.

From:

cbucsrule

For the sake of not blowing things up that don't need blowing up... "Ellen, give a go on the grenades when the time's right." Otherwise, he'll stick to this rifle. And here he can come in handy with the doors 'cause he's big and he's strong. The place might smell like shit -- sewer and old stale air and demolition -- but aesthetics are the furthest thing from his mind right now.

"Ready on your call."

His heart's frakking pounding, but his focus is there. Showtime's showtime, no matter where it happens.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"We'll save them for the big stuff," Ellen says. "Guns for now. On three, we hit the doors."

She readies the Gauss and takes a deep breath.

"One, two-"

Three is a little anticlimactic. What lies beyond is a hollow shell of a building. Oh, there's a floor and a ceiling, or most of one, but if there's a single intact interior wall in the place it'll be a miracle. There's no robots in sight, not straightaway, but as Ellen holds up one armored hand for silence there's a muffled noise like a heavy object firing thrusters, and a distant electronic voice:

"Who's ready to have their ass kicked?!"

From:

ihavemyflaws

The smell's worse inside. Stale. She expected destruction, but can they even call this a building at this point?

"Gods," she exhales, the word cutting itself short when Ellen's hand rises, and an involuntary smile -- maybe a little grim -- spreads across her face when she hears the voice.

What did Ellen call these? Mr. Gutsy? She wasn't kidding when she said they sounded like drill sergeants.

She raises her eyebrows in a silent question, then nods in the direction of the voice. As comfortable as she'd be leading, Ellen's the only one with clear ideas of what they're looking for in this mess. They'll have her back.

From:

cbucsrule

If that's not a typical threat. He guesses no matter what world, no matter what situation, some things are always gonna be the same. The words make him exhale in disbelief, but the sight before them?

Good thing he's not prone to freezing whenever he gets a flashback to the way things look at home. He's not gonna think about them now, can't afford to think about them now. What he can think about is not falling through the debris to... what is that, a couple or three floors open to the skies there? And he can think about focusing on the source of that mechanical-ass voice.

"What the frak is that?" Even if his voice is quiet enough so no one can really hear him -- he does know a thing or two about stealth -- it seems to be the question of the day. He's not sure how many different robot models there are in this place, but Ellen said nothing was alive in here so it's gotta be one of those. He levels his rifle in the general direction of the ass-kick thing.

Frakking robots. He hopes this one's got a lot of chrome on it, for some very personal reasons.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"One of the hovering robots," murmurs Ellen. "It fires plasma and carries a flamethrower. No head. Three equidistant optic units. Tell you what- how about I draw its fire and you two take it down? This armor will stand up to its plasma."

The instant either of them looks even faintly like they agree, she's going to dash out from cover and start firing her laser pistol (she always has a pistol, you never know when the rifle's not gonna cut it) in the direction of a suddenly violently angry olive green tentacle beachball.

From:

ihavemyflaws

"Copy that," she says quietly, amusement in her voice, but she glances at Sam as they move forward. "Try aiming for its thrusters."

Who says she can't pay attention when important information is passed on?

From:

cbucsrule

And here he was thinking he oughtta aim for its equidistant optic units, not that he's that good a shot. He gives Kara a firm nod of gotcha, gives Ellen a firm nod of ready, moves into range with rifle readied.

Thrusters first, eyeballs second. Get that frakker down on the ground. He'd really rather not see Ellen get shot, 'cause then they're all frakked.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The optic units are a good thing to hit, assuming one can hit a target the size of the palm of a man's hand. The thrusters are a little larger- and that makes all the difference. "You better run, you commie-loving bastard!" it snarls, firing bolts of lurid green plasma in Ellen's direction- and completely missing the fact that it's got a good few bullets inbound for the one thing keeping it off the floor.

The shower of sparks and shrapnel is pretty spectacular as the robot crashes to the floor, arms flailing madly. "Now you've gone and made me mad!" it announces- but the crash damaged one of its weapon arms, and the spray of flame spews upwards, towards where the ceiling used to be. "Dammit, maggot!"

From:

ihavemyflaws

Her entire look of aim-for-the-frakking-thrusters concentration dissolves into a big-ass grin.

"Sounds like my TI," she calls out to Sam with a quick laugh over the sound of gunfire.

The robot's down and it's not going anywhere -- doesn't seem capable of dragging itself along by those flailing limbs, thank gods -- but she adjusts her aim as it sends up a flare, and a few more shots should do the trick.

Bullets rip into metal, and frak her if it's not satisfying.

From:

cbucsrule

"Nice shot." The words are automatic, and they just reinforce the completely absurd notion that all things are the same everywhere. "You good, Ellen, you good?"

He bets that sounds like Kara's long-ago TI but he doesn't bet it for long, 'cause from somewhere down below in that chasm a couple floors beneath them, he hears a voice, a shitty, tinny, mechanical, loud frakking voice.

"Hostile detected. Commencing neutralization."

Automatically, he reaches for one of the grenades. If that thing's where he thinks it is, this is the perfect time to test out Rally's invention. Yeah, he'll commence neutralization, godsdammit. Any time now.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The Gutsy flails once and gives up whatever ghost it might have had. Score one for Kara. As Ellen dusts herself off she says, "I'm fine, I-"

Then that voice. She's heard that voice too many times to mistake it.

"Sentrybot," she says tersely. "Toughest robot type I know. Hit it with whatever you've got."

From:

ihavemyflaws

She glances from Ellen to Sam, noting the ball already in his hand. She nods him forward, an abrupt jerk of her chin. "Careful."

If she has anything to say about it, he gets back to Caprica in one piece.

(And then off Caprica in one piece.)

If she's remembering right, this type had the weaponry most like their own brand of toasters back home, and if they're as heavily armored as Ellen implied at the bar that lone ball won't get the job done by itself.

Picking her way along in the debris, she lets her right hand find the gun holstered at her hip.

From:

cbucsrule

Careful goes without saying, but he appreciates the sentiment. He gives Kara a single nod and -- carefully -- finds himself a good vantage point near the lip of the hole in the floor. When he's got a good sight on that thing -- oh, frak him, that one looks much more like what he's used to -- he pulls the pin out of the grenade, takes aim (frak frak frak, this thing's live, three, two...) and lobs the ball at it.

His aim is good. No, scratch that, his aim is frakking great, and the thing packs a frak of a wallop. The blast, man, he's back and under cover fast and it's a good thing. A rainbow of explosion fills the space, followed by a big-ass line of dark smoke coming up through the hole in the floor.

At least he has the presence of mind to follow up with his gun, or at least has the presence of mind to point his gun in the general direction of what's below. He has no frakking idea what these robots are capable of, or what kind of security system might've been set off by that blast.

(This is crazy, Kara was right, but he's doing something and right now, right in the moment, he feels pretty frakking alive.)

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The blast of color was enough for Ellen; she's crouching near the edge of the hole in the floor, peering down her scope. After a moment, there's a BANG!, and a spew of mad electronic noises from below.

"I think we got it. Anything in that smoke moves, shoot," she says.

(There won't be anything moving.)

From:

ihavemyflaws

Lowered to one knee near the hole, Kara stares.

She hears the I think we got it and in the aftermath of the explosion she's left her gun at her hip in favor of aiming the rifle into the smoke, but gods know she wasn't expecting a colorful blast.

"What the frak is in those things?"

(Peering below, she's not seeing anything down there. Nothing else is talking about neutralizing them. Yet.)

From:

cbucsrule

And this is what he would've missed out on if he'd stayed back at the bar: not a chance, man, not a frakking chance. The situation hasn't changed; they're all still in imminent danger; they have no frakking idea what lies in store. But he's smiling because that, that was unbelievable.

"Yeah, I think Rally was onto something." He waves smoke out of the way, peers down into the hole. "I don't hear anything else moving down there."

If the grenade took care of a big ugly frakking toaster like that one, they should do okay with whatever else is around. "Tell me you weren't kidding when you said those were the toughest robots you know. There's nothing bigger, is there?" He pulls another grenade-stuffed ball out of the pack, just to have it ready. Just in case.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Those are as big and tough as they get," reports Ellen, and slowly lowers her rifle. "There'll probably be a few more of those, and the other kinds, but there's only one robot I've ever seen who was any bigger than that and he got taken out by an orbital strike."

Poor Prime. He tried so hard, too.

"As far as the ingredients-" Ellen glances over at Kara. "A prewar household cleanser called Abraxo, a good deal of turpentine, and a prewar soda called Nuka-Cola Quantum. Which had enough of a strontium isotope in it to glow in the dark brightly enough to read by the light of a bottle. I met a man who'd drunk the stuff once. He didn't need a light in the bathroom for a week afterwards."

From:

ihavemyflaws

Drawing herself back up to her full height, she spares a glance for Ellen and lets out a short laugh. "That's the kind of thing he can put in a personal ad."

This place seems a little more frakked up all the time.

Sam's sounding like he's pumped about the grenades, and yeah, that was pretty frakking cool -- she'd love to see how one of those works on a Centurion -- but she's not lowering her guard.

There's still nothing she can immediately see or hear down there, even with the smoke dying down.

"Going down?"

From:

cbucsrule

Okay. They had a soda -- before this world got nuked -- that contained a strontium isotope. What the frak does he remember about that shit? Beyond it being a radioactive isotope with a half-life of maybe 25, 30... wait, why would anyone--

Okay, Sam, frakking focus. You can think science later. Think about the phrase going down later, he tells himself, and drops the smile. This isn't a fun little field trip or... it is, but not the way that sounds. It's one thing hearing about someone else's world or even seeing their two-headed cattle, but being here? It's crazy.

Then again, someone visiting Caprica would probably say the same godsdamn thing. One brow rises; he gives Ellen a look. They're here to look for treasure in the form of military supplies, and this is an armory, and he's guessing -- if form follows function and this place is anything like the armories they've been raiding back home -- that the goods will be in the basement.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Probably for the best that Ellen didn't mention Sierra Petrovita, then. The woman offered Ellen caps and weapon schematics in exchange for tracking down thirty bottles of the stuff. And the man who'd drunk it had offered her more caps for those bottles- so he could use them to get Sierra into bed.

In short: a little?

But she nods. "There's not likely to be anything up here but offices," she says. "We want to find and clear a safe route down and back out. If you see anything that looks like a supply cabinet or a first aid box, stop and give it a look, just in case- but the big stuff's going to be below."

She's got one ear out for more robot noises, and one eye out for the remains of signage. They found their way in Fort Constantine by the ruins of ancient US Army-mandated signs, after all. It seldom hurts to check.

From:

ihavemyflaws

Permission to loot along the way! Sometimes she doesn't mind following orders at all. Maybe with Ellen she'll think of them more like suggestions.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" she laughs. "Let's go find the good stuff."

The easiest way down is a set of stairs that have seen better days, but she discovers they're still more than sturdy enough to hold.

From:

cbucsrule

Bringing up the rear, he knows from the missions he's been on at home, can have its own dangers. But they've got the two guys outside taking care of things and that means no one oughtta follow them in. And that means he can focus his attention on Kara and Ellen, and if he just thinks of these stairs like the ones he used to run up and down every frakking morning at Atlas, then they're no scarier or more dangerous than that.

In another place and time he might give more than a passing thought to appreciating the view in front of him, but his mind's not exactly tuned to that kind of thing right now. This place is filled with rooms -- offices, Ellen said -- with corridors, with debris and clutter, with gaping holes in floors and ceilings. He knows bottlecaps are currency so he'll look out for any strays, and he knows about things like stimpaks, helped administer some meds to Ellen that one time she showed up at the bar in her armor.

"Hey. Boss." (He'll see which one of them turns at that name.) "Anything specific you need out of a first aid kit?" He can extrapolate about weapons in supply cabinets but who knows what the frak other kinds of meds she might want from this place.

Down below, where he lobbed that grenade, all the sparking and hissing's stopped and the smoke's cleared. Yeah, Rally definitely had a good idea in that stubborn brain of his.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Anything in a syringe," Ellen says, picking her way carefully down the stairs. Thanks to her suit, she weighs more than anyone else here, and presents the biggest hazard on fragile ground. "Anything in a screw-top bottle. The bandages won't be good for anything but fuel for a fire at this point, but Med-X syringes stay good for a very long time, and stimpaks've saved a lot of lives. Those're the syringes with gauges on top. The screw-top bottles will probably be Rad-X, which is a radiation absorption preventative. If you find a readable label that says 'Buffout', though, leave it. That's a steroid cocktail that'll keep someone on their feet if they're badly injured, but when it wears off they're usually worse off than before. Not worth it."

There's a tattered flag hanging on the wall at the foot of the stairs. It used to be red and white stripes with thirteen stars in a circle on a field of blue in one corner, with a fourteenth star in the center of the circle. Ellen glances at it briefly, then looks away.

The sign on the ceiling that used to say TRAINING WING, with an arrow pointing around the corner and to the right, is far more promising anyway. And there's a sound that might be the rolling of treaded tracks.

From:

ihavemyflaws

Only half-listening as she keeps an eye on their surroundings, she files that info away: syringes are good, especially with gauges attached, and so are screw-top bottles.

Her eyes are drawn momentarily to the flag on the wall -- its thirteen stars make her think of thirteen colonies -- but that sound successfully pulls all her attention away.

"These guys ever travel in packs?" she hisses, creeping forward.

Not that Ellen's been here before, she guesses, but with single robots pacing around she almost feels like they're being played with.

Getting Sam's attention, she holds her hand up for a ball.