Post by Sl'askia:
Asri had ducked under another console, both to throw off the creature and to avoid getting hit by Maskis’ blaster shots. She found it odd he had trouble hitting the creature, maybe even seeing it altogether: it was crystal clear to her, but then again maybe that was another ‘perk’ of the nanotech in her body. The hidden albino wished she could help him fight the thing, but couldn’t risk getting any blows in while he was firing semi-wildly without getting shot herself.

"Asri, cover your eyes!" She heard him shout and she immediately did so.

She heard a loud bang and the dark world behind her eye lids briefly flashed red when what had to be a flash grenade went off. When she opened her eyes she found the creature staggering and stumbling confused and blind. That was their cue to run for it.

"Maskis…I suspect there is more then one creature onboard." Asri said as she walked beside him, her senses alert for the spider and the suspected ‘second creature’ that could be roaming the halls as well. "There was a body I smelled the faint scent of a T’Doshok on it, along with other reptilian scents. That spider didn’t smell like that and didn’t even resemble the description you showed me in the datapad." Wary, she peeked around a corner before turning into a connecting corridor. "It would be wise to keep our guard up."

The two of them ran through the corridors, Maskis every now and then, looked back but noticed the critter wasn't following them. "Deja Vu....." he said under his breath as they rounded a corner and stopped right in front of a door. He checked the pad, but found it to be destroyed, he knelt down and took out his datapad and connected a few wires to the still functional circuits

He taped into the ships codes, and after a few minutes, the door slid open a few. He squeezed through and pulled one of the emergency door release levers, which blew the hinge's and the doors slide apart like cake work

Maskis didn't say anything as he checked a console, noticing the deck they needed to head to didnt' have any oxygen. He snarled and typed in a new command into the console, with a hiss, and a slight thump, oxygen began to fill the deck they where headed to. "Lets go...." he said and knelt down next to a hatch. "I want to get this done with and out, I've got a very bad feeling about this." he said as he pulled on the hatch, but it didn't budge, he cursed at himself and pulled harder, the hatch finally popped off and opened up. He jumped down and onto the deck, the oxygen was still thin, but he could breath

The lights where very dim, so much that he had a problem seeing. After feeling around he felt something rather sticky. "Whats this?" he said and pulled his hand away from the sticky surface. "A.... WEB?!" he said in surprise

Asri followed Maskis down onto the deck and immedately her vision switched to nightvision, in which everything was in shades of blue. She could see perfectly in the room as the genetic alteration of her eyesight allowed her to see as a cat would in this low level of light. Maskis was obviously having trouble, since his night time vision was infravision, meaning he saw in heat, like all 'normal' Trandoshans.

She could see, but the air quality wasn't to her comfort level. It was stale and thin, which was passable for living as long as they didn't extert themselves. If that spider, or something else, found them here it would mean trouble, as with webbing in here showed...the spider didn't have problems living in an oxygen-less environment.

"Either the spider bet us here or it was put here before hand." Asri said observantly, then paused, wondering how to word her offer of assistance without revealing much. She quickly realized there was no way to really get around it, so decided to bite the bullet. "Describe what you are looking for in here and I'll find it for you. I can see perfectly in here."

Maskis blinked for a second. "Looking for a control panel, it's not like most, it's a secured panel that requires a passkey." he handed her the keycard." it'll dump all information related to recent events and whatnot onto a datapad that SHOULD be connected to the station, if it's not...well.. then you best find some way to transfer it out." he said

He pointed down the hall and toward where the room SHOULD be. "since this ship is mostly used for recon, the information gathering room is well hidden, i highly DOUBT that... 'thing' or whatever it was has found the room, in fact, the room automatically seals up in the event of a hull breach or something, so it's possible you might find... bodies... crewmen who died from exficiation"

Didn't he say that it needed 'two' key cards and a pass code to access the data before? Asri thought as she looked down the hall Maskis indecated. The thin air must be affecting him. She looked back at him. "If I remember right, you need to come with me anyway. Something about 'two key cards' and a pass code, remember?" She smiled faintly as Maskis got this 'you idiot' look on his face, then patted him on the shoulder. "It's been a rough day for you, so don't worry. Just make sure you punch in the right code ok? I really don't feel like getting blown up."

She took his hand and starting leading him down the hall, studing the walls as they went, looking for something that looked like a door. Asri almost missed it actually and only spotted the indecation that there was a door there when she looked at that spot again. It wasn't actually the door she spotted anyway, as it was disqused as one of the wall panels, but the panel covering what had to be the keypad used to gain access to the sealed room. It took a bit of prying, but she was able to get it off, revealing a hand print pad. Knowing her hand print wouldn't work, she took Maskis' hand and pressed his palm on the device. With a click and a hiss, the door opened.

It was very dark in here, so much so that her own vision was next to useless now. "Wait here." She said to Maskis at the door as she crept in on all fours. The smell of death the dominant scent here and she made her way to the bodies that were in there. She inspected each one in turn, shoving aside her sense of respect as she did so so that she could inspect them fully. It was beginning to look like she was going to be out of luck until she found the last body and quickly determined he was of the maintenance sort and found what she was looking for. A flashlight. With a hiss of triumph, she flicked it on, only for her eyes to go suddenly wide with shock once they had readjusted to the light level.

"Kazuk...I hate it when I am right like this." She muttered as she stared a moment at the 'thing' the beam from the flashlight now revealed.

It was reptilian, hense why Maskis couldn't see it and alert her to it before, it's body much like that of a snake. The head was mainly snake as well, fanned rawl it looked like, but it had very trandoshan looking arms, which explained the faint trandoshan scent she detected earlier. it's scales were black, it's eyes yellow and staring at her hungerly, but it's length was difficult to determine as it was coiled up in the corner: had to be about ten feet long at least, with a three foot diameter.

"Maskis." She said, tossing the flashlight to him. "Get to work. I'll keep this thing off your back."

Her sudden movement caused a reaction in the large snake, it's head raising off it's coils and a loud hiss eminating from it's jaws. She had only just put herself into a ready stance when the thing lunged and she only barely managed to twist to the side in time to avoid those snapping jaws. Acting quickly she jumped onto the beast's back to attempt to pin it down....

Maskis nodded and ran to the control panel, for a few seconds he fumbled with the controls. He stopped and took in a breath, the continued onward, he found what he was looking for and now needed to insert the two cards. He found one slot, but the other was damaged, apperently by someone's head telling by the indication on the panel itself

It took him a few to pry the damaged panel off so that he could actually put the card in. He inserted it and it flashed green, he then inserted the other card into the now opened up slot, it didn't pulse green but he knew it was working because a password screen appeared

Maskis thought about it for a second before typing in the code; it worked and he was about to tell Asri when another window appeared. "As humans would say: WTF...." he said as he saw yet another code window appeared, marked '2nd Pass Code'. "......." he stared at it before taking out his blaster and placing it on the console. "Either you WORK or I send you back to the scrap heap you came from," he shook his head. "Why am I talking to a console...." he said as he typed in his personel code, which worked. Strange, the console never asked for a personel code, guess the commander here wanted to safe guard the material here. The data began to download itself into his datapad, it would take... ten minutes? "How the hell could they record THAT much information?!" he said as he turned around; tempted to tell Asri to last for ten minutes, but figured he'd better not, else she could blow a gasket, as humans would say. He moved over to another panel, a security substation and began to look at the logs and records, trying to figure out where that 'thing' and those 'spiders' came from

It obviously didn't like being ridden like a Kaadu, for the snake thrashed about wilding, trying to dislodge the albino Trandoshan from it's back. Asri could feel it's hands trying to get a firm grip on her: thank goodness she wore tight fitting clothing for this adventure! She knew she should try to kill this thing while she was at it, to make things easier all around, but she couldn't risk letting go with her hands, so she bit it.

And nearly cracked a tooth.

Ouch! She thought, nearly letting go completely. Well that explains the report that blaster fire reflected off it: it's damn scales are like durasteel! "How much longer Maskis!?" She yelled as the snake/trandoshan hybrid redoubled it's efforts to dislodge her. "Killing this thing is going to take more work then I thought!"

Maskis didn't answer and taking a chance to look his way she saw that he was engrossed in reading the files. Can't be a good sign. She thought with a grumble. On top of that was the uncertain status of the reactor, so they needed to end this as quickly as possible. But how to even wound this thing? Then she remembered it's eyes: those can't be as tough as it's hide. So she took a chance and let go with one arm just long enough to jab a claw into one of those yellow orbs.

Next thing she knew she was counting stars when she got slammed into the wall due to it's pain filled thrashing, it's howls of pain echoing in the room. By some miracle she was still hanging on...

Maskis winced when he heard a sound behind him and turned around just in time to see Asri hit a wall. If she's trying to make out... then thats one hell of a way to do it... he said without thinking and returned to his programming

It took him another ten minutes to finally figure out the pattern and to unlock the last block in the code. The data transfer went by without any problems, the data disk popped itself out of the recorder and he transfered it over to his pad, as he was about to let Asri know that they could leave, the door slammed shut and a red light flashed inside the room. "Sith spit..." Maskis said and turned back to the panel and began to type again into the console but he noticed that something was causing the door to stay shut. "Ok enough of this.." he said and took his blaster and released a haul of fire into the console, the console exploded and the door opened. "Nothing like ancient techniques to solve future problems"

He ran over to the door and looked back at Asri as she was thrown about by the snake. "Asri, I know you love snakes and all, but we need to get going!" he said as he made his way through the door

Asri had just recovered her senses when she heard Maskis calling to her. "Sure..." She growled. "I just love snakes that want to eat me!" Knowing the beast will likely pursue them if it had a chance, she slashed her claws across the beast's remaining eye. This time though, she rolled off the things back before she got slammed into the wall again and made for the door.

She almost slipped on the beast's blood as she ran for it, but was able to keep her balance and easily caught up to Maskis. "It's completely blind now, but it will likely be able to track us by scent." She told him as they ran.

He nodded and continued down the corridor he turned the corridor and stopped. "Shit!" he said and ran down the opposite corridor. "SPIDER!" he yelled as he turned another corner and into the room with a few escape pods, namely two

Maskis punched the override code into a console, and one of the pod's fired straight up into the air, it's thrusters carrying it over 5 miles high, before it began it's descent, by the angle it was coming down, it would lock itself back into it's launch tube. He looked up and could see it as he clawed his way up and out of the hole, and extended his arm out for Asri. "Unless you want to become a pancake, you better grab hold." he said while waiting for her to grab his arm, knowing that with each passing second that escape pod was coming ever closer