The Most Dangerous Game VII: Cabin in the Woods

Posted on Tue May 29th, 2018 @ 12:03am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commander Fiona McCray & Lieutenant Commander Selune
Edited on on Tue May 29th, 2018 @ 12:05am

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Past Tense
Location: Risa, Ohma Province, private cabin #7
Timeline: 2265
Tags: BonneChanceTrio

"I'll draw their fire," Char said quietly, grabbing the couch cushions as they crouched behind it. "Get behind the solid cover of that marble island in the kitchen... go NOW." At that she hurled a few of the pillows in the opposite direction of the kitchen, even as they suddenly vaporized from full-on disruptor blasts. The second volley of cushions that followed the first only got one shot- their opponents were a bit less easy to fool now. Glass holed and shattered from the blasts.

Fiona was on her feet and running crouched low a heartbeat after Char had spoken. She made a scrambling dive at the lights on her way past and cursed as she missed the switch. She yelped once and then skidded and crabbed the rest of the way.

Selune's approach consisted coiling all of her energy underneath her and making a low crouched leap across the room and into a wall, planting her foot against it to ricochet behind the counter in an elegant two pronged movement ending with a dull clattering thud when she encountered the remains and burial site of Chary's cooking victims, mostly pots with a couple of pans that were clearly in need of a decent funeral.

Taking a deep breath, Charybdis vaulted from her hiding spot as her friends made for the kitchen, doing handsprings in the opposite direction until she reached the fireplace, upon which she grasped the mantle, levered herself up into a crouch upon it and launched herself back toward the couch, as disruptor bolts sizzled through the air. Hitting the backrest of the couch with her weight focused behind her hands she tipped it over, then used that momentum to launch herself in another dive that ended in a shoulder roll and a slide into the kitchen.

Only when she had slid behind the relative safety of the marble kitchen island did she suck in a sharp breath and squeeze tears from the corner of her closed eyes, a nasty disruptor burn still smoking on her right shoulder. She clutched it with her left hand and gasped, then checked her friends, speaking through clenched teeth.

"Are you two okay?" She tried to keep the pain out of her voice and failed miserably as it cracked and whined when she spoke... she was hurt and needed medical attention, and while her acrobatics may have bought them some time, she had paid dearly for it.

Fiona was crouched as low as possible,her eyes huge. "What tha frack is it with you an' vacations?" she stammered then winced slightly. "Aye, m'aright... oother than suim glass. You okay?"

"I've had better days..." Char said through gritted teeth. "Selune, you've got the best aim..." she reached over her head, grabbed a pan off the stove only to have it holed by a disruptor blast as she brought it back down to their level and handed it to the Caitan. "Hit the lights or we're all going to die here on this kitchen floor, Selune. No pressure..." the comely commander tried to laugh but it came out as a bit of a bark.

Hefting the pan a few times, Selune gauged the distance and weight of her improvised remote before shaking her head and passing it back to the kitchen catastrophe. Not pausing to see if Charybdis caught it, she snapped her hand across the counter and found the small spice jar she was looking for and hurled it at the lightswitch in a single rapid movement, grinning to herself as it impacted with a satisfying crunch, dusting the air with particles of paprika which reflected off the dimming light before the room darkened, "Sorry, ever tried to throw a pot straight? Jars are much easier."

"Uhm..." Selune murmured with an embarrassed cough as the darkness drifted through the room enclosing them in its soft embrace, "Would this be a good time to tell you that I've taken out a small insurance policy against this sort of thing? You know, the whole people trying to kill us thing."

"So..you're tha one who doomed us?" Fiona said drily as she blew her curls out of her eyes. She hissed as she pulled a sliver of glass out of her knee then pressed a dishcloth to the cut, "I dinna think I'll get tha deposit beck."

"Weeeeell," she glanced at her commanding officer in the dim light looking abashed, not even sure if she could be seen, "Someone might have snuck into the armory aaaand," she drew her skirt higher up her thigh to reveal a holster and phaser, "They may have borrowed a phaser... and since the Master of Arms is on vacation that someone might have neglected to mention it to anyone... but the way I see it every time I get left alone with you guys I end up fighting for my life and we're due back before her so I didn't think anyone would notice, so it may have found its way to me... here... now." She even had the gall to manage a guilty grin, "I imagine there will be some kind of reprimand for this in the future."

Fiona's eyebrows disappeared underneath her hairline, "Kitteh... I might just have to hug you" she said with a grin then grimaced, "Mines up in me bedroom," she looked at Char and shrugged "Wha-at? Be prepared!"

"I'm sorry... if you're expecting to be... dressed down or put on report... not gonna happen, should we live long enough..." Char said as she reached up to turn on the gas stove without engaging the sparking lighters. "We need to get upstairs then... Selune, tell me you.. dammit.. have night vision?"

"Do, ah, Vulcans...?" Fiona began to ask, but Charybdis cut her off. "No. No better than yours..."

"Well bugger," Fiona eased to the very edge of the counter. "I hae a small first aid kit tae. There's a big one in that shuttle"

Stifling half a dozen protests and what should have been a particularly effective whine, Selune poked her head over the counter knowing this was probably the time they'd be switching to nightvision equipment.

After a quick glance didn't bring any shots at her, she took a more detailed look around; counting at least ten people moving around the perimeter and as she thought, fixing headgear which was probably nightvision. Her sensitive ears picked up the first startled cry from some boy scout who had his gear ready and she ducked back behind safety before he could make her a target.

He took a shot anyway, making her grateful for the granite between her and trigger-happy. Fortunately there was not enough gas in the air to ignite, so Char turned on the rest of the burners.

"Looks like there's at least 10, maybe a few more hidden around... I'm almost certain they've got some sort of night vision gear but it doesn't look like they plan to come in after us at the moment," Selune let out a wistful sigh, "Cheaters... I could have probably sorted this out myself if they weren't so well supplied. So... who's been keeping gambling debts a secret?"

"Heh... I think this... might be fallout from our... jewelry heist foiling. Stupid... I should have realized... oh god, Patrick..." Char shook her head. Patrick could take care of himself- her crew needed her here and now. "Fiona, I need a timer to... spark this gas and set it off, but giving us... wow, that really does kind of sting, aheh... enough time to get some distance... it'll blind the night vision... and we can get upstairs, that is a bit more defensible... as I recall. Thoughts?"

Selune paused, biting her lip before she made her silly volunteer option but spat it out anyway, "If... the light blinds them long enough, I can get outside their perimeter and probably cause a lot more havoc out there than I can in here once things heat up again..."

"You're very brave Selune, but no... I don't think splitting up is wise, and... I am not leaving you out there... without backup." Char grunted and balled up her fists for a few seconds, shaking slightly, then her eyes snapped open, her brow furrowed. "No phaser fire until we get upstairs- our ace in the hole is that they don't know that we're armed, and they will have to come in after us, and that can work to our advantage if we're careful. Fiona, you figured out a delayed spark for me yet?"

Fiona popped her head up just a moment then groped along the counter for the egg timer and yanked it down then scrabbled around for a knife and a couple of other common cooking implements.

The curvaceous commander grinned. "When we get out of this remind me to put you in for another medal," she growled.

"What fer?" Fiona's hands were busily reconfiguring the timer and what looked like the remains of their salad dressing and some white powdery substance and a couple of bobbypins.

"Original thinking, courage under fire, saving my wide ass every time I ask for it... I'll think of something," Charybdis replied. "Five seconds- can we manage that?"

"Would ye like it tae whistle Scotland tha brave?" Fiona snapped back.

"Gosh, could it? That'd be swell," Char snarled sarcastically, her breathing a bit on the heavy side.

The words were gaelic but the hand gesture was universal. Fiona scooted her the makeshift timer. "Okay, tha farst big nootch shuid be 5 tae 10 seconds... muir or less."

"ew eye ge da skoot a medel," Selune mocked from the sidelines, "I'll remember that when you ask me to dodge an asteroid!"

"I gave you a medal for that!" Char complained. "That'll do Fiona... set it, and let me know when you are ready to release it."

The scot snagged the timer back and twisted it. "Alreet..."

No sooner was the word out of her mouth than Char was up and moving, drawing the initial fire. "GO!" she shouted from halfway across the room as she raced for the stairs. Oh Janus please do not let me die like this on Risa of all places... Disruptors whined to life and flashed through the darkness around her.

Fiona put the makeshift timer down and hauled ass. Shots peppered the walls and windows in her wake, and she cursed as glass rained down around her. The staccato ticking of the timer could be heard just beneath the weapons fire.

The blinding crisscross of disruptor fire that flared before her eyes threatened to blind Selune as she bunched forward, having intended to dash with the athletic Vulcan. Instead she found herself momentarily dazed - by human standards this wouldn't have been noticeable - and felt she had lost the opportunity.

Making it up as she went along she slapped the phaser into Fiona's chest, hoping the woman would have the awareness to grab it as the Caitian suddenly sprung up, in a low angled backflip out one of the shattered windows, most of the disruptor fire had come from the other side of the house and she hoped - mostly she figured the Goddess of Luck owed her something by now - that they were all so focused on the stumbling form of the injured commander that she would be ignored enough to do some damage before she was caught.

The elfin engineer fumbled the phaser and nearly dropped it. She gave a curse then thumbed the weapon over to wide dispersal stun and fired off a shot in the direction of the disruptors as she have bolted half bumbled for the stairs.

Managing an acceptable landing, she wasted no time skirting around what she believed was the line of sight of the closest mercenary, goon, whoever they were. Making a beeline in the general direction and trying to keep her ears out for any giveaways, harder to do with the tattoo of disruptor fire and wanton destruction being wreaked on the house that you would think... or perhaps not. She was glad she had worn the comfortable hooded black robe from earlier on the trip, while she was sure the flat white of her fur wouldn't be the end of her it was reassuring to know she had at least a chance of blending into the night.

The lack of light was more than made up for by all of the disruptor fire, and Char used it to scurry up the stairs on all threes. It would have been all four, but her right arm was not particularly responding well to orders right now. She knew Fiona would have the presence of mind to stay low and run for it, and Selune seemed comfortable enough to exercise her own acrobatic ability, so she would be fine... she hoped. Once she made it up the staircase she shoulder rolled into Fiona's room... or at least she tried to. Her right arm flailed uselessly as she moved and tripped her up, and she stifled a scream as the damaged limb was injured further.

This was very, very bad. She had not anticipated a retaliatory attack from the Syndicate. She had not planned accordingly. She had allowed them to be caught unawares in a house with glass walls. Her shoulder was badly burned by disruptor fire, and now she was reasonably sure that it was dislocated. Communications were jammed.
The voice of the trained Tal Shiar agent inside her told her that the shuttlecraft was booby-trapped even if they could reach it. So were the doors. All of this passed through her mind in two agonizingly long seconds while she flopped herself against the solid wall, waiting for her friends to make it to relative safety with her. She squeezed tears of pain out from the corners of her eyes and blinked them away, gasping. She very much wished that Siivas were here right now... but then, that would doom him as well.

They were going to die here, and it was all her fault.

The engineer scrambled up the stairs on all fours more climbing than running. "Shit.shit shit shit," for a moment she reflected on the sad fact that her final words were probably going to be less than inspiring and most certainly insane. The timer still hadn't gone off. All in all it wasn't one of her better days.

She crabbed her way into her room and nearly shot Char before she recognize her friend, "Jaysus!"

That was when the timer finally went off, and the gas stove exploded downstairs rather spectacularly. Char and Fi held one another, and their eyes searched the area for some sign of their missing friend... who had simply vanished into the night.

 

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