A second after the field dropped the link activates and you hear Lorean, "What happened, is everyone alright? I lost communication with you and Michael and Morgan both couldn't get through." Before anyone has a chance to answer she continues with grim news, "There is a problem, a group of six novas are heading your way and they will be there in about ten minutes from the speed they are moving. Michael says they sensed the groups arrival and are moving to investigate, he says their intentions are hostile."

Meri stares at Andrew, bemused...and visibly worried. And getting more worried. She starts stepping back away from the party warily.

"Is he...all right?" she asks.

"Talking about bad news... I still feel drained but I think I'm good enough to fend them off. What about you, Omar?", Joanis demeanor changed dramatically once Quantum fueled her body again. She looked at her husband and smiled at him not saying anything but giving him a little kiss instead.

"I'm going to be alright, but we may need to team up on this one. Our powers are still depleted so we better be careful.", she didn't wait for the others to agree and started to climb the ladder upstairs trying to make some time to get some advantage over the situation outside.

*nuked!*

Seeing Andrew curled up made Omar sad. All Andrew had wanted was to be normal, and for a few minutes, he was. The shock of the returning Taint must have been impossible for him to deal with.

Omar himself, felt tired. His glowing nimbus barely gave off any light, and his own hunger had returned with a vengeance. In response, Omar popped two of the salt tablets into his mouth. It helped.

Lorien's warning couldn't have come at a worse time. With the incoming Novas, it was necessary to have something to call upon should it be needed. Omar remembered a prolonged conflict he and the other Paragon's were engaged in. In that battle, he was forced to recover his quantum at an accelerated rate. He had a headache for several days after he did. Omar would have to try and repeat the feat.



"I am also without anything to draw upon." He said to Joani. "Although, I might be able to squeeze a few point from my node."

"Lorien." Omar said over the link. "Can you get us to the surface?"

((OOC: Rapid Recovery of 3 points))

"I can Omar. Let me know when you are ready and I will teleport you here, then back down. I can do the same for the enitre group. Just give me the word."

"I'm ready to go now." Omar say to Lorien. He was looking at his teammates to see if they were ready as well.

Meri's eyes widen.

"Wait, go? You just got here! Please don't go!"

Steve feels the world *slow* *down* to it's normal pace.

He says,

"Meri, one of the others just told us we have SIX hostile novas converging on this location. We have a long distance warper, what can we salvage in 8 minutes?"

Kyria knelt down next to Andrew. "Andrew?" She put a hand out, not quite touching him, her voice was compassionate and concerned. "Come on. We need to get out of here, there are hostiles headed this way. The girl, the one who turned everything off, she might be able to do that again. We won't know if we don't get out of here though, so we need you to pull together for just a little while, okay?"

"..." Cody tries to speak in the aftermath of Meri's emergence.

Hmmmm...

When Lorean comes back online, Cody responds. *We're fine Lo. Thanks for the heads up. Are your transporters working? Good.*

As the other's prepare for battle, Cody mentions.

*Why are we so concerned? We can spring the same trap on them as we just walked into...take the Nullifying field upstairs and then Omar, Joani and the rest who can fight without juice can deal with them. I'm afradi I won't be much good in a fight on empty, but while the rest of you deal with them, Ulric, Andrew and I can hack the records down here. It shouldn't take long for us to get what we need if it's here. Theres a good chance we can be gone when they get here. We don't even need to engage. The nullifying field alone will give them pause long enough and Lo can evac us in a heartbeat...*

Meri looks relieved. "Sure, we can just lure them into the novatrap, like you all were. I have more guns."

She hefts the streamlined ovoid on her right arm for emphasis.

"Good guns. Like this, some of them. They're all in the vault behind me. They can shoot into the field just fine."

Steve says,

"Sounds like a plan. First the null field. Then Omar and Joani take point. Anyway I'd rather do something like that than have a Omar level fight near a building I'm inside. No offense."

A big grin spread from ear to ear, as Omar was overjoyed by Steve's acknowledgement of his raw power. "None taken." he finally said.

"But I am curious if the nullifier will work outside." Omar would prefer to fight outside than indoors, but, as Omar knew all to well: You can't always choose your fields of battle. "Not that I care one way or the other." He really didn't. It had been awhile since he had been really challenged in a fight, and he wondered if he could defeat them while they were at full strength and he wasn't. The idea was tempting.

"We don't need guns.", said Joani, "Just enough time to salvage as much as possible before we leave this place for good. I think Omar and I can keep them busy for another 5 minutes with or without the Nullifier. That'll give you roughly 13 minutes to work with. If that doesn't work... can Lorean Teleport a whole complex? Like the mainframe, assuming we know it's location?", Joani looked at Meri and Cody with an eyebrow raised.

Andrew seems nonresponsive, his whole body shakes spasmodically and he is half crying half murmering to himself. Closer inspection shows that Andrew appears to be slowly melting, his features sag and drip towards the floor and his torso and limbs likewise appear as though he is not capable of solidifying his flesh enough to maintain his form.

Over the link Andrew is in a bad way. If we can't get him responsive, he needs to be teleported back to the ship. Kyria, can you check on him and make that call.

Ulric looks at his pistol and then to Meri's gun.
"Actually, I'll take one of your ordanance, please," he beckons Meri.
"And what do we call you, anyway?"

Over the link Steve sends, *Agreed.*

Steve says,

"Ditto. And I'm Steve."

Meri frowns and says, "Meredith, but everyone calls me Meri. You know...when there was an everyone to call me anything."

She motions with her head towards the back of the room.

"The vault's back here."

Meri takes whoever's interested to a large round door concealed in shadow. It has massive bolts through it, and an instrument panel that looks like it will open it.

"I don't know the code from out here," she admits. That doesn't seem to stop her though as she plunges into the door, vanishing through it as if it were an illusion. A moment later an alarm sounds, and a spinning red light comes on. There's a puff of air as the blast door's seal breaks...and then the whole thing splits down the middle and both rises up and sinks down to open. In the process it reveals several layers of thickness.

Meri stands just inside, smiling. "There's an emergency release inside...I guess in case someone was trapped in it and the power shut off."

And behind her, arranged on shelves and neatly organized and labeled, are the contents of the Proteus Vault.

(Which I will leave to Fox to detail. :))

The vault is much tidier than the last time you were in it. This time it hasn't been emptied out. The shelves are mostly full, though it does appear that perhaps a quarter of the contents have been removed. The familiar teleport device is taking up the entire far wall. Meri quickly leads those who follow to a section of shelving that holds what are obviously weapons judging from their general shape. They are each labeled and have a brief description of their function and damage type. Scanning over them quickly you note that none of them do what you would consider extreme damage, it looks like from the empty spots on the shelves and the way things are arranged, the highest damage weapons were already taken by someone else. Of the ones that remain the best are a rifle that shoots lightning bolts that do moderate damage, a weapon that looks pretty similar to a storm trooper carbine and shoots bolts of superheated plasma, and a very sci-fi looking stubby rod with a slight handle that is listed as firing laser beams.

There isn't time to go through the other contents of the room now. You grab those three weapons and move to get the damper into position just inside the door of building where the Aberrants are likely to come in.

Steve sends,

*We're hours away from being able to move this stuff with any intelligence. And this time someone kindly left the labels so we're a lot better off. Hopefully this means they didn't have the time to burn all their records.*

*Looks like we fight. We have just enough time to move the field generator. Joani, Omar, you might want to grab something to throw at them while the field is up.*

*Lorean, if Andrew doesn't countermand this in 60 seconds I want you to 'port him up to his room.*

Steve grabs the "storm trooper" carbine and helps move and set up the null generator.

"It looks like we fight them down here." He shrugs his shoulders at Steve, but does give him a wry smile. "I'll try not to bring this place down around our heads."

Omar finds a large heavy object, like a metal door or desk with which to throw. Also, Omar tries to see if he can bring forth his large boney spines. If he can, he keeps them extended, looking like a giant pin cushion. He had not used them with the paragons, as extreme lethal force did not bring criminals to justice. It just killed them.

Steve says,

"I'd rather hide down here and hope they miss us anyway. This was a hidden facility finding it isn't... wait. How did they track us here to begin with? There's no one on record who can track warps. Node pings are out of range. They might have someone with scarily good senses... or..."

Steve's thoughts race, "...telepathy. They might have picked up Andrew; I think everyone else has some sort of shield."

*Lorean, please 'port Andrew and let us know if those incoming Novas alter course*.

Ulric takes the Lightning Rifle and rushes back out to see if Andrew has been taken yet. Once Andrew is safetly away, he comes back and takes cover in the back of the lobby, keeping in mind he will need to shoot past the statues to engage the intruders.

Lorean sent back over the link, *Rodger that Steve, transporting Andrew now. I'll update you in a moment if they change course.*[/i}

Just after Lorean's reply Andrew disappears from the floor where he was lying. Kyria suddenly finds herself comforting empty air.

A minute or so passes when Lorean reports again, [i]*They have slowed down but they are still heading toward you. You may have gained a couple minutes, or perhaps more depending on how they are tracking you and how precise they were zeroed in on your location.

Cody grabs the last remaining weapon, a very retro looking laser rod. Collector's item, he mused.


Cody takes the extra time gained to investigate the vaults and goes in to at least check on the status of the record room/server banks.

Looking into the record room you see that it has been burned. Literally. Someone implemented the failsafe on the physical docs. The computers look intact though, but it will take investigation to determine if the databases are functional.

Lorean sends that the novas are nearing the building only about 2 minutes out. More than that if you are going to be fighting them down stairs.

Cody sends over the link.

*Looks like the record room was burned here too. Good news is the servers seem to be intact. Why don't we save ourselves the risk of anyone dying and have Lorean teleport all the servers up to us. Then we can get out of here...*

Kyria gave one last good-will thought to Andrew, then began going over in her mind what they could do and what they had available. This might be her first real physical fight, but she intended to make a good showing of herself. She kept the guns and knife she'd brought with her, figuring that the others could use the Proteus weapons to better effect than her.

"Anyone have a plan other than 'shoot them'? Are we doing this here or going up to them on the surface?" This wasn't sarcastic, just curious.

Joani nodded to Omar with a look of grim determination. "Try not to kill them, ok? You're the wrestler - what about you pick em up and I knock them unconscious?"

Joani wasn't looking for any weapons it looked like she would be just using her fists.

Omar frowned back a Joani. He then said in an emotionless voice. "I don't know if you understand Joani, but sometimes it's neccessary to kill. They can be eliminated much quicker, and with less chance of our friends getting killed, if we use lethal force."

Finally, Omar gave her a shrug. "Do whatever you wish, but I am not going to give them any chances to kill us."

"And," Meri adds, "You can't really use your fists, you'll be in the nullifier's field. And you didn't seem to like that much."

She hesitates, then asks, "I've been meaning to ask, but isn't that a Superman symbol on your outfit?"

Steve surveys the situation, which rooms have open doors and where they lead, where there is cover, what they want to take, then he says to Meri,

"How do you turn on the damper, and which area will it effect and not effect?"

*We should make our stand here. This room is hardened and there's little chance they'll be able to flank us. If we're very lucky they might miss us entirely, but if they don't then they have one obvious entrance. Even if we don't get everyone and they level the building it won't matter. What we want is here and with teleportation we'd be gone long before we run out of air.*

Andrew rematerializes within his quarters. The familiar surroundings and pervasive hunger finally break through to his mind. Too late he finds that he is unable to force his body to resume a solid state, he continues to degrade until he is little more than a puddle of reddish ooze. *Lorean, Morgan, I need help.*

Joani just nodded at Omar but didn't add anything to what he said. She wouldn't kill if it wasn't necessary.



"I won't be inside the field, I'll attack once they're drained. They'll need a few minutes before they can recover - enough time to finish them off.", said Joani. Then she looked at the Symbol on her chest and nodded to Meri. "I'll explain later, ok?"

Steve picks out a spot with cover where he's going to set up, then looks at his gun. For a moment he debates the wisdom of bringing in an untested unknown experiment weapon to a nova fight, then he lays down a pair of sharp looking knives next to his set up spot.

"It has a remote cutoff I rigged up for it," Meredith answers Steve, holding up a little plastic box about the size of a cigarette box. "It covers about two-thirds of the room. There's little mark I made by Thomas...um, the statue I was moving."

She crosses between the eerie stone people and points at the floor. There's a faint scuff mark there. She then moves her finger to describe an arc. "It runs more or less along like this. The machine's embedded in the floor near the elevator shaft."

Meri then nods at Joani, "It's okay. I'm in no position to judge. Look at me...stuck down here with manniquins I pulled out of the floor. We all find ways to cope."

"Lorean, could we have an ETA of those novas?"

Ulric moves over to were Cody is with the Computer back ups. He begins checking to see if they are bobby-trapped and on how soon they can be removed.

{Use Engineering 5 or Computer 3 please.}

Joani memorized the described arc - she was making sure she wouldn't fall behind that line unless the nullifier was turned off.

"It's going to be crowded... I suppose I should expose myself a little to the side, so they have a target to focus on. Once I've got their attention you can hit them with the nullifier and your weapons. Should anyone still move Omar and I pick em up and finish them... of course after you turned it off again. We should have a window of about 100 seconds before they can recover. More than enough time I'd say. If things get nasty we fall back and you reactivate the field while Lorean teleports us in safety. Objections?"