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[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Sep-15-01 AT 00:25AM (GMT)[p]Well, here it is. Some of it, at least. I was feeling quite fed up with trying to get the whole story worked out before I wrote anything down, and True Raven's plea pushed me over the edge. So here you have a taste of my work. For some reason I wrote it between midnight and three AM, so you better appreciate it. 
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Prologue
'Who? How? WHY?'
Those were the questions of the day. Guess they were going to find out soon enough.
A dull boom resonated through the Vault's metal structure, signalling the imminent failure of yet another blockade and snapping the Overseer out of his daze. The explosion didn't sound far away. 'Only a matter of time now...', he thought sadly.
As he looked up, the Overseer met several dozen worried gazes from the assorted mix of Vault citizens present in the control room. But he didn't bother hiding his fear any more. There was no point. By now they could all hear the gunfire with unnerving clarity.
He reached for a button on the control panel and opened a radio channel. "Langden, report in."
Silence.
"Scott, do you copy?!" The Overseer's voice was tinged with unmasked concern.
This time, though, the radio crackled and a deep voice answered loudly over a background of near-continuous gunfire and unintelligible yelling. "Yeah, Langden here! Whadya want?!"
"Status report!"
"Uh... it's looking worse by the second, sir! Destroying the elevator shaft and stairwells seems to have just slowed them down and nothing more!"
"Casualties?"
"Riker's team, sir -- they were flanked and wiped out! They didn't see them coming! I STILL don't see where it came from! They must have come up straight through the floor somewhere, there's no other explanation! No-one knows who's dead and who's not right now, but if they're not one of the two dozen heading towards HQ with us right now, then--"
The Overseer interrupted, "Say again, WHAT'S your heading?"
"Falling back to the command centre! We're in corridor eight, you can expect us pretty damn soon! Get the medics geared up to deal with the wounded!"
"How many blockades are left standing?"
"ZERO! You're the--" Langden was interrupted by a loud bang -- which, disconcertingly enough, could be heard through both the radio and the Vault walls. "FUCK!"
"Captain?! What's going on?"
"Gotta fight, sir, see you in five!" With that, radio communication ceased.
A buzz from the control panel drew the Overseer's attention -- someone was at the control centre blast doors.
A distressed male voice crackled from the intercom, "Sir, with all due respect, OPEN THE FUCK UP, RIGHT NOW!"
Dismissing the young person's tone without much hesitation, the Overseer entered a few commands on the console and a half dozen monitors abandoned their previous subject matter to display the command centre lobby from various cameras.
One showed several terrified civiliancs and men in light body armour at the blast doors with more arriving by the second, soundlessly screaming and banging on them their demands for the doors to be opened.
Another displayed people just entering the lobby. Three wounded -- one of them the combat-armour-clad Langden -- were dragged inside the lobby by their comrades. Five more followed shortly, backing up into the room while maintaining continuous gunfire down the corridor at hulking hazy silhouettes moving through the encroaching wall of smoke.
The Overseer never took his eyes off the screens as he groped for the blast door controls.
**************************************************
"Thanks, son, now get off me and back THEM up!" Langden growled and indicated the men still covering the corridor. The young man didn't waste time nodding affirmative -- he instantly grabbed his rifle and joined the others in strafing the smoking corridor with armour-piercing ammunition.
Meanwhile, Langden pushed hiself onto his feet. His face contorted in agony as the plasma burn in his side screamed at the strain. But there was no time to waste on suffering. He grabbed a rifle, and while searching for a target, yelled back towards the blast doors.
"Richter, is the.....RICHTER!"
One of the men turned around in response to the summons.
"Is the goddamn thing opening?!!"
"No sir, what the f--!!!" Richter was cut off by the blare of a small klaxon announcing the hydraulic locks' impending disentanglement and withdrawal from the door. The man grinned. "Open Sesame", he muttered to himself out of elation, and turned back to the captain. "They're opening up!"
Without acknowledging him, Langden broke off from the corridor defence and ran over to a control panel on the wall next to the lobby entrance. One of the soldiers announced that she was out of ammo. Just as another was about to hand her a spare clip, Langden yelled "Save it!" and punched a button on the panel.
Two metal panels slid shut with a bang, cutting off the corridor. Langden entered the locking sequence, followed by the "siege code", the last card they up their sleeves at the moment. He entered the code on the numeric pad, hoping to god that using the code on a door of this thickness would yield better results than it did for the shattered blocades.
"STAND BACK!", he warned and executed the protocol.
The door's sutures lit up red-hot and shot sparks in multiple places as the plasma lining them heated up and fused them together in a few brief seconds. The door and walls were now one.
Confident that the door would hold out long enough for them to get inside the command centre, Langden and his men abandoned their position and headed towards it. All of a sudden, without warning, the ground was knocked from under their feet by an explosion which rocked the entire structure and tore a gaping hole through a side wall of the lobby.
Someone still had it together enough to screame the obvious: "SHIT, WE'VE BEEN FLANKED!"
Langden tried to quickly shake off the dizziness as he aimed his assault rifle at the unknown beyond the smoking hole and unleashed hell alongside anyone else still alive and packing ammunition.
One of the soldiers had apparently snapped under the pressure. In five seconds, he went from laughing maniacally to weeping hysterically to shouting disjointed obscenities at the menace just beyond the smoke, all the while firing a continusous stream of bullets at it. Soon enough, the weapon's firing pin clicked into an empty chamber, signalling that he had pumped his last round into the hole. Without hesitation the soldier dropped the weapon, drew a combat knife and ran towards the hole.
Langden cried out almost involuntarily. "HEY, WHAT ARE Y--?!" Too late -- the soldier had already plunged into the smoke, yelling and paying no attention to the danger of being cut down by his own people.
Langden and his men exchanged worried looks, but feared the possible consequences of ceasing fire for too long and so continued firing despite the chance of hitting the poor bastard. He prayed desperately that the ammo would hold out long enough for them to get inside.
Suddenly, a woman's bloodcurdling hysterical scream grabbed his attention by the horns and violently turned it towards the blast door. The cause of the woman's distress was horrifyingly obvious -- the massive hydraulic locks were sliding back into place.
===============================================================
===============================================================
Prologue
'Who? How? WHY?'
Those were the questions of the day. Guess they were going to find out soon enough.
A dull boom resonated through the Vault's metal structure, signalling the imminent failure of yet another blockade and snapping the Overseer out of his daze. The explosion didn't sound far away. 'Only a matter of time now...', he thought sadly.
As he looked up, the Overseer met several dozen worried gazes from the assorted mix of Vault citizens present in the control room. But he didn't bother hiding his fear any more. There was no point. By now they could all hear the gunfire with unnerving clarity.
He reached for a button on the control panel and opened a radio channel. "Langden, report in."
Silence.
"Scott, do you copy?!" The Overseer's voice was tinged with unmasked concern.
This time, though, the radio crackled and a deep voice answered loudly over a background of near-continuous gunfire and unintelligible yelling. "Yeah, Langden here! Whadya want?!"
"Status report!"
"Uh... it's looking worse by the second, sir! Destroying the elevator shaft and stairwells seems to have just slowed them down and nothing more!"
"Casualties?"
"Riker's team, sir -- they were flanked and wiped out! They didn't see them coming! I STILL don't see where it came from! They must have come up straight through the floor somewhere, there's no other explanation! No-one knows who's dead and who's not right now, but if they're not one of the two dozen heading towards HQ with us right now, then--"
The Overseer interrupted, "Say again, WHAT'S your heading?"
"Falling back to the command centre! We're in corridor eight, you can expect us pretty damn soon! Get the medics geared up to deal with the wounded!"
"How many blockades are left standing?"
"ZERO! You're the--" Langden was interrupted by a loud bang -- which, disconcertingly enough, could be heard through both the radio and the Vault walls. "FUCK!"
"Captain?! What's going on?"
"Gotta fight, sir, see you in five!" With that, radio communication ceased.
A buzz from the control panel drew the Overseer's attention -- someone was at the control centre blast doors.
A distressed male voice crackled from the intercom, "Sir, with all due respect, OPEN THE FUCK UP, RIGHT NOW!"
Dismissing the young person's tone without much hesitation, the Overseer entered a few commands on the console and a half dozen monitors abandoned their previous subject matter to display the command centre lobby from various cameras.
One showed several terrified civiliancs and men in light body armour at the blast doors with more arriving by the second, soundlessly screaming and banging on them their demands for the doors to be opened.
Another displayed people just entering the lobby. Three wounded -- one of them the combat-armour-clad Langden -- were dragged inside the lobby by their comrades. Five more followed shortly, backing up into the room while maintaining continuous gunfire down the corridor at hulking hazy silhouettes moving through the encroaching wall of smoke.
The Overseer never took his eyes off the screens as he groped for the blast door controls.
**************************************************
"Thanks, son, now get off me and back THEM up!" Langden growled and indicated the men still covering the corridor. The young man didn't waste time nodding affirmative -- he instantly grabbed his rifle and joined the others in strafing the smoking corridor with armour-piercing ammunition.
Meanwhile, Langden pushed hiself onto his feet. His face contorted in agony as the plasma burn in his side screamed at the strain. But there was no time to waste on suffering. He grabbed a rifle, and while searching for a target, yelled back towards the blast doors.
"Richter, is the.....RICHTER!"
One of the men turned around in response to the summons.
"Is the goddamn thing opening?!!"
"No sir, what the f--!!!" Richter was cut off by the blare of a small klaxon announcing the hydraulic locks' impending disentanglement and withdrawal from the door. The man grinned. "Open Sesame", he muttered to himself out of elation, and turned back to the captain. "They're opening up!"
Without acknowledging him, Langden broke off from the corridor defence and ran over to a control panel on the wall next to the lobby entrance. One of the soldiers announced that she was out of ammo. Just as another was about to hand her a spare clip, Langden yelled "Save it!" and punched a button on the panel.
Two metal panels slid shut with a bang, cutting off the corridor. Langden entered the locking sequence, followed by the "siege code", the last card they up their sleeves at the moment. He entered the code on the numeric pad, hoping to god that using the code on a door of this thickness would yield better results than it did for the shattered blocades.
"STAND BACK!", he warned and executed the protocol.
The door's sutures lit up red-hot and shot sparks in multiple places as the plasma lining them heated up and fused them together in a few brief seconds. The door and walls were now one.
Confident that the door would hold out long enough for them to get inside the command centre, Langden and his men abandoned their position and headed towards it. All of a sudden, without warning, the ground was knocked from under their feet by an explosion which rocked the entire structure and tore a gaping hole through a side wall of the lobby.
Someone still had it together enough to screame the obvious: "SHIT, WE'VE BEEN FLANKED!"
Langden tried to quickly shake off the dizziness as he aimed his assault rifle at the unknown beyond the smoking hole and unleashed hell alongside anyone else still alive and packing ammunition.
One of the soldiers had apparently snapped under the pressure. In five seconds, he went from laughing maniacally to weeping hysterically to shouting disjointed obscenities at the menace just beyond the smoke, all the while firing a continusous stream of bullets at it. Soon enough, the weapon's firing pin clicked into an empty chamber, signalling that he had pumped his last round into the hole. Without hesitation the soldier dropped the weapon, drew a combat knife and ran towards the hole.
Langden cried out almost involuntarily. "HEY, WHAT ARE Y--?!" Too late -- the soldier had already plunged into the smoke, yelling and paying no attention to the danger of being cut down by his own people.
Langden and his men exchanged worried looks, but feared the possible consequences of ceasing fire for too long and so continued firing despite the chance of hitting the poor bastard. He prayed desperately that the ammo would hold out long enough for them to get inside.
Suddenly, a woman's bloodcurdling hysterical scream grabbed his attention by the horns and violently turned it towards the blast door. The cause of the woman's distress was horrifyingly obvious -- the massive hydraulic locks were sliding back into place.
