Ronnie quickly assembled her team and headed towards the Wal-Mart which was their dedicated base of operations. Hicks had managed to take the building without much effort and was about to coordinate their next move. It was agreed that Sly would forward to Travis once they were ready to strike. From then on the clock would be ticking against their favour.

The huge alien ship cast a long shadow over the MIC and parts of the surroundings. It looked as if the machines and aliens had established a fairly good defence around the immediate vicinity of the MIC. Robots were patrolling the main streets and checked for alleys every once in a while. The situation was calm – but that would soon end.

The small strike force managed to move forward in relative safety and they were now a mere 300 hundred feet away from the MIC. The team was getting high on adrenaline – Sly could contact them any minute and then they’d have to find a way to breach their security and enter the ship. The central key for success of their mission was the cybernetically enhanced mutant who called herself Orphan.

(ooc: Team setup: Ronnie, Travis, Kevin, Orphan and Adrian)

Travis crouched by the window of the small house they were taking cover in. The building was a mess of shattered wallboard and bullet holes. The front door had been torn clear of its frame and lay in the yard. Travis kept low, only his head above the sill of the ruined window. Behind him in the remains of somebody's living room were Ronnie, Adrian, and the woman who called herself Orphan. Keven was crouched next to Travis and currently using the cheap binoculars they had swiped from the sporting goods section of the Wal-Mart.

A hundred yards away across the highway was the concrete and chain link wall that marked the edge of the MIC. Sections of the wall had been blown outward or just ripped down. Through the binoculars Travis had seen the reddish brown stain of blood on the loops of razor wire that dangled from the sections of wall still standing. The mutants who had escaped had done so with little regard for their safety. What they had fled was far worse than the cuts of a razor.

Travis looked back at Ronnie, "It's a hell of a mess out there. What's the plan? Doc at the six, me at point, you three in the center?"

Ronnie wanted a cigar, but pushed the desire back. She was also tired, tired enough that had she not been a mutant, she would have needed to pop stims to keep going. It'd been too long since she'd had a real meal, and she hadn't gotten to sleep. Kevin and Adrian were in the same boat, and she resolved to keep an eye on them.

"Yeah, that's what we'll do," Ronnie mused to Travis' question, scanning the ship for a way in. She looked to Orphan. "Know a back door we can use?"

Sam looked over at Ronnie, her skin glowing softly in the shadows, "The terminators can 'port in and out of the ship, if we get close enough, I can hack one and 'port us in."

"Ok," Ronnie said, "how close is 'close enough? We going to be close enough to fart on 'em before you can do your thing?"

"What portion of one do you need, or do you need it intact. I guess I could wrestle one to the ground if needed."

That was more wishful thinking than anything else. He was strong, but was he that strong. What he did know was that he felt different since leaving the ship, and he had crushed that rock when they went scouting about yesterday night/early this morning.

God, was he hungry. His stomach was past the grumbing stage and was into the stick to the backbone stage. He pushed the thoughts of hunger, worry for his sister and juno and the twins and, well, everybody out of his head. His breathing became slower and more steady. He felt his focus tightening even as he reached out with his eyes and ears to spot everything around him. He was the fighter once more. He would break his foes.

Good pep talk. How about let's not let any of us die?

Travis snorted back a laugh at Ronnie's off color comment. He looked back outside, "They're pretty strong, dunno kid, what're you benching now? Maybe if we work together but we'll need to get one alone, no way we could wrestle one down if it had buddies around."

Kevin, still troubled by the death that seemed to swirl around his life, but he had given himself completely to this task.

He looked through the binoculars, searching for foes and tracking their movement. He also listened to the planning, and heard that he was to take up the rear.

He spoke softly to Ronnie and 'Orphan', whom he still didn't trust. "I can put up a forcefield in front of you (Orphan), to allow you to get close, if need be. But that's about the most I can do besides stand in front of you."

Adrian might have thought that he was Orphan's body guard, but Kevin was effectively the bodyguard of the entire group, including Adrian.

"I just need to get within 200 feet or so and I can take it over, like I had its remote. If necessary, I can use it to knock off some other 'bots and then take over another if it gets destroyed." She said plainly. "I'd appreciate any defense you can provide, I suck unless we get in close."

She was ready, not nervous in the least, she was either used to this or didn't care if she died.

Travis frowned, What the heck is he talking about? Shrugging he turned back and looked out the window. "Two hundred feet? I think I can probably manage that, those robot can't weigh more than a ton right?" Travis considered the possibility that they might not even need to enter into the MIC, might not need to see just how bad things were in there. His people, confined into little more than a concentration camp. Ostensibly it was to prevent the spread of the virus but anti-mutant sentiment was making it such that they were more like prisons and less like quarantine zones.

Sly's voice piped into Travis' mind informing him that the distractions were finally underway. "OK, they've started. I think everything is clear and quiet, let's move out." Travis rose and glided toward the door, his movements as graceful as any dancer's.