Henry saw Shade was in trouble and jumped down to scoop up the little guy.

"Hang on, Shade!"

He got Shade to put his arms around his neck, so he could resume firing the shotgun as he backed towards the shattered stage.

"We need to check on Orria. She's underneath somewhere."

When they reached the stage he set Shade down.

"Can you crawl to her? Then defend her, OK?"

He turned back and continued to take potshots as targets presented themselves.

Having a little better sense of how the Creshian armor worked, Roy strode forward, reloading the shotgun, and stopped just outside arm's reach of the wounded Creshian.  He raised the shotgun, and took careful aim at the thing's head, stepping back after the shot in full expectation that the ablative layer of the Creshian armor would soak up the impact.  A couple of steps to maintain distance, and he fired again...withdraw, aim, fire...he repeated it, each time aiming at the same point on the faceplate, until the shotgun chewed through the armor and hit something vital...

    Shade  whirled  Harshly.. and  grinded a lot.. when Henry slipped past the remainder of the Black armored  creatures, that seemed to not  care, how the battle was going...they just wanted to reach the stage...When Henry Put him down  he little guy crawled  though the twisted Pipes  his  grinding buzzes  matching her wailing cries.

 Henry...  saw the  last of the Black armored  creatures   approach... not far from him..to his left and  down the line Supe   was savagely chopping  one  to bits  as a wounded Hodden  tried  to life her  weapon.

 Roy... saw his   field test work, the  first  two rounds , at this close  range,  shattered off  large  Bits of the Black metal.. the third   round revealed and wounded the Creature.. the   4th blew the  top of the creatures  head off...the effect worsened by    the remaining bit of  armor Holding in the force   of the blast.

 Shadow. Looked around.. saw the Mechs  moving the Middle shuttle..Garrat int eh same  area  about to reach the Leader... Roy finishing  off a wounded Black Armor.. so He   ran towards the stage..past the slower  moving Black armor,  Hurdling the  barricade  and past Henry to the stage

 Hennings  Nad Bale were Up...Bale looked  annoyed that he was...once again..wounded. Hennigns   was bleeding from many areas  as he  took a quick look  around and shouted,  Check for wounded!.. any spare weapons... shoot those  Black armored things!

Hack  was a quick learner , and was  firing off  his weapon at the Legs of the  'lead' creature as he backed up

Henry concentrated his fire on the black armoured warriors. Without so much understanding of what was going on, he too had noticed that several shots in the same place had greater effect.

   Henry   fired   again and  again at the creature  on his  right.. the  rounds  were taking effect.. but he had to retreat, slowly  to just about the  wreckage of the stage, before it  fell...

  Hack's creature    Fell  and he proceeded to empty  his Mag into its head. One  was left  making its  way towards the Admiral.

  Shadow  saw   the  wounded( damaged?)  Shade     trying to make his  way through the Pipes and   sheet metal.. Orria's  Cries  were pitiful and ehart breaking... Shade  was   calling out  in a  repeated  sound that could only be her name in 'shade-ese'..

 Beth.. fell off  a few crates onto the Dec.. except  for her   light  armor  being  torn and some  Cuts on her legs.. she  seemed   not too worse for wear as she  sat and tried to collect herself..Until  Orria's  cries   registered.. then  she  tried to force her self  to stand.

Henry desperately wanted to go to Orria, but turned his shotgun on that last black-armoured figure that was advancing on Hack instead.

"Mila!" he shouted. "Find Orria. Stay with her."

   Mila  whined  and looked from Henry to the mass of  metal  .. the  crippled   Shade   wiggling his way through.. and  Shadow   eyeing pieces of   stage to remove, like he was  playing a deadly  game of Jenga.

 She   Final moved towards the  Back where  a great deal of sheet metal..Floor.. had   fallen and she was Whining .

 Shadow Tossed  one  Pipe away.. but  keep another  for use as a lever...I Know Buddy.. we'll get you fixed.... just..hang in there..

 ...MOMMY IS HURT!!!!!! the little  girl said in a crying  scream.

 This caused  Shadow and Shade to move faster.


Beth was just getting to her  Feet watching  Henry fire  at the LAst Black  armored  thing ..

   The queen has not relented in the face of death.  She has not called parly. Garrat doesn't hesitate.  He fires point blank into her helmet until it cracks.  Then loads two asgard rounds into his pistol and fires them at the far ship before they can load another RPG.

Henry continued to shoot at the black-armoured figure.

  Garrets's  first round was enough, the Leader's   neck was already  split a bit and the  right side of its   face open to the   air, showing  burn marks and  bits of shattered  armor and  bullet.

  The   'last' shuttle could be shot, but the ramp was on the other side...    Morgan and Clark finally get the shuttle off the   hanger dec and into the Black.. it begins a slow  drift 'downwards' from the Hermes... then  they  began to pull and  push the other one, from the same side   Garrat is on...


 Henry.. fired his  rounds    and the  ting  dropped to its  knees.. But it was trying to  Bring up its creshain pulse rifle.

Henry stepped forwards continuing to fire at the black-armoured figure.

  With one  shell left to his name... Henry Drops the Black armored thing.. though it still twitches  a bit as it fell.

  Garrat finishes crippling the Queen with his rifle.  He then opens fire on the rocket team

With his Creshians down...and all others he could see either dead or being dealt with...Roy headed for the far shuttle.  He'd only been peripherally qware of the RPG round coming from there...he'd heard the cry, and been rocked by the explosion, but had been a little focused on not getting killed.  He checked his gear...dropped the largely-spent shotgun, retrieved his rifle, and inserted his last magazine, and began moving toward the shuttle, relying on the bulk of the shuttle and wreckage on the deck to mask his approach.

He came up against the side opposite the ramp, and pulled an HE grenade.  Ducking low, he circled around the nose of the shuttle, far enough to lob the grenade up and over the nose to where the ramp should be...then pulled the pin and made the throw, relying on the bulk of the shuttle to mask him from the force of the blast.

"And the mob goes wild!" Harry shouted as most of the remaining Creshian's went down in a hail of gunfire "...in the air and on the ground there's no stopping this girl!" she continues with a grin, ejecting her now empty magazine and replacing it with a spare.

With a visible skip in her step she'd quickly cross the open ground to Morris' shed and cross the barricade they'd erected so as to join the small group of defenders "hello boys, aren't you glad to see me?" she said grinning from ear to ear and buzzing with adrenaline, well if I manage to get out of this alive I won't be sleeping much tonight! she quietly thought to herself, with her mind already listing possible ways of burning off all of her excess energy.

With someone already tending to Captain Morris, Harry would move towards the wounded SEC trooper with the intention of administering some form of first aid using the med tech kit she'd taken from her pod "Hey there, I'm Ensign Harry Lynch I'm not sure we've met?" she said in a friendly voice as she pulled the kit from off of her belt and started opening it up "...now why don't you introduce yourself whilst I see if I can patch you up a little"

Glancing over the Barricade Justin scanned the immediate area for any threat, his MP following his line of observation as he did. Affording two seconds to this activity before ducking behind cover moving four feet to repeat the process. If there was no more threat he set about administering Field Aid to the injured focusing on what looked like the more seriously injured of Shen, Hennings or Bale. Grit can you check on one of those? he points to the other two
This message was last edited by the player at 01:18, Wed 29 Nov 2017.

  Clark and  Morgan are  pulling and  Pushing on the   third  shuttle, it it  quite obvious, these are much heavier  then  a duce..

 Garrat  has  his rifle ready,in time to See   Roy toss  the  grenade... the  Explosion  is followed  by another...Much Bigger    Harry looks at the  SEC Explosion  as the   Ammo for one  of the 'rpg's, goes off.

 The SEC SGT nods,..Thank you, Ma'am.... I'me  Shoemaker?.. Shoey.. whatever... we need to get the Captain to Med Tech.. he took a couple good shots... eh looked at Morris , the bleeding had stopped, but he was out....  used Derma Foam in the main  hle.. then  derma Plast for  the other one, just to stop the bleeding.

 The  Is a bright Flash  Behind them, most of  B Flight's Berths, fly apart.. and Bodies  of  Bugs  and a few dead huamns    scatter about as well.

 The other two   grounds crew slide  down the crates  and shook thier  heads.. two others  were dead near them ( not counting the one  that had the UE  munching away.).

  Hennings   and Bale Called out,... send out the Med techs.... we got wounded all over the damned place.

   Shade was Balring away  as he tried to   pull himself through to Melia and Orria.. Orria  still scared  and worried  as she  says...again and again, ..MOMMY HURT!...MOMMY  Hurt!

  Shadow MOved  through using  the   Broken  PIpe to lever  things out of the way... or help stabilize  something that  Might fall...

 ..Orria?.... Shade  and I care close... don't  Move.. but keep talking.. I think i see  Your Mommy's leg... don't move...

 a weepy.....O. K.... came back

 Supe  Knelt  down By Hodden who hugged him  tight... it might have been the first time, anyone saw the tough woman cry.

 Lyri stood  up, covered in red Blood and  blackish  blood, as she  got  Tucker  to His feet. she Looked at her SAW  and laid it on a crate, near the Mech Shop.

 The felrites  and  Angels  came  down.. they too..had thier share of blood on them... Lt Hirr said, to Roy and Hack,.. we be  finding the Beetle  bugs... squished then .... not many  left for SEC.. they kill rest....

 Az-EL  wiped her   face, her  face mask had been shattered  and  cut her cheeks,..last  call we hear.. no   active parasite shuttle  on the Hermes... we have  4   person teams  scanning  with  Hand COMs  to see if any more turn up. 

Lirg  was   laughing with  Hemlsy as they  walked  down from the elevators.. it looked  like  Hemsly  used  every bit of ammo he had, seeing how his  pockets  flapped open. When  Lirg saw the officers, he  tossed away a humanoid leg he had been  crunching on

 McCloud  and some of the others, of the  5th, were gathering  the wounded from  Morris's  shed.

 Hack Looked around  with an angry frown.....get that shuttle and Burning  bits off the dec.. we have   fighters to land... i hope...

Rifle at the ready, Roy stepped around the nose of the shuttle...he was pretty sure any Creshians on the side of the shuttle were dead, between the grenade and the RPG it cooked off.  However, he wasn't about to take it for granted.  "Check these shuttles!" he called out.  "Make sure they're empty...and make sure there's not some self-destruct counting down!"  A shuttle engine overload, right there at the mouth of the hangar, could very easily overload the static field...and if the Creshians had really thought through a suicide attack, they would have done that from the get-go.  Even if they couldn't confirm who they killed with such an attack, gutting the hangar deck would come clowe to crippling the Hermes.

With that thought in mind, he closed on what was left of the RPG team...

  at the bow  end of the Hanger bay is the nose of  on shuttle...

  The middle shuttle was   pushed /pulled out  by Morgan and Clark, the Mech  Riders.

  The   thied  shuttle ( closest to  Morris's office ) Is being    push/pulled now

 from  where he stands he sees there isn't  any  Creshians  left.. Justin'e   grenade.. fire  from  the pilots and Roy's  grenade finished off the threats... Roy can hear  Hirr , and Az-El's report...

 he can hear Hennigns  and BAle calling for  Med techs... he can see wounded getting up, by the Mech Shop... he can here  Orria's  wails... and Shades,, blaring   sounds... and he sees  Beth stumbling towards the stage,

   Garrat looked around.  With the Queen down and the other invaders dead it was time to deal with the important issues.

   He went to the remains of the stage and calls Lirg over, "Shade, I am here.  I can lift things off people.  How can I help?"

Justin moves about the hangar deck helping out with the injured, while he waits for further directives from the Brass or LC.

  Lirg and Garrat Approach the  tangled scaffolding , bent  flooring sheets, and  shattered   screens.. a few of the top most ones , still swayed in the air  sending sparks   down, now  and again.

  Shade  rattles off some Blurps  and  blasts..

  ..Shade's hurt...  we need to Contact The Charon... see if Then can send a Med tech over to work with Stefi, for him..

  I can see Melia's left leg....having trouble getting  through this mess...we have to watch.... those sheets  above them... if they slide  off.. will be like a Guillotine ...

 Orria's Voice  is a bit  lower as she hears Shade  and Shadow...mommy hurt...mommy hurt....mommy hurt

 what is left of the Grounds  crew  is helping the Mechs  with  hover  Jacks  to  push the   Creshian shuttle out of the hanger.. a few others  , as well as come of the 5th are putting out the fires of the  remains of the first.. so they can either  send it out.. or have the foundry gather the metal up.

Roy looked around...damage control wasn't his strongest suit, so he felt a bit awkward about jumping in to help clean anything up.  It was pretty apparent that any of the Creshians that were down were in no condition to get back up again...gaping holes in carapaces, missing limbs, and destroyed heads attested to that.  He grabbed an extinguisher and started chasing down small fires, before they got a chance to become bigger fires.  "Hirr, Az-El...make sure there's a clear route from the Med-Tech area to the stage, and do what you can to help clear the wounded to Med Tech."

He shook his head as he looked at what was left of the Creshian boarding force.  The astounding thing, to him, was that they'd considered three shuttles full to be some kind of credible threat.  How many Creshians had they sent into the Ewald, and had still not managed to take the whole vessel?  How long had they been fighting to take over Matterhorn?  And had they not gotten any word of the apparently tens of thousands of UEs that had been wiped out on Astra?

"This is what happens when you start buying your own propaganda," he muttered to himself, as he doused another fire.  It was one of the reasons he never adopted the slang names for the alien races they fought...it became too easy to think of them simplistically, to underestimate their abilities and overestimate your capability to handle them.

"Save some of the more intact bodies.  Doctor Largerson can use them to test the next generation of his bug bombs..."

Henry dropped his shotgun and went over to the remains of the stage. He began to wriggle underneath, being somewhat smaller than most of the fighting men helped here. He called to Mila who 'Yipped' to give him some sense of direction as he squirmed through to where Shade and Orria were.

   "Okay Lirg.  Let's see if we can remove anything that endangers the rescue efforts or those underneath."