"Uh, yeah," the squad member closest to the tunnel Tweak and the others had entered from spoke up, pulling out a rather large combat knife gingerly from the underside of his CSS suit's system pack. A respectable hiding spot for most things small enough to fit without revealing them to curious bystanders. "After the torch gave out we just chipped away at the hole to make it wide enough for Ray. Didn't turn out so well, though... is the hole still too small? We asked Rita to only ask for people who could actually fit."
While Tweak and Squad 11 were conversing, George took Tweak's approval with a simple nod and began sliding on his belly through the maintenance tunnel, using the hand rails on the side to propel himself. He had to pause before venturing too far into the tunnel, however; his rifle, attached to his back-pack, proved to make his silhouette just large enough to be unable to progress past the icy choke point, so he pulled the weapons off and slide it out to the mouth of the tunnel, off to the side below Tweak. After that was done, George began to travel through the shaft in earnest, reaching the mound of solid snow within a minute or so and began to squeeze himself through the confines.
---
Back outside, Foreman Pullroy had ushered Squad 35 onto the platform, and began to give the signal to initiate the movement procedures and protocols. The four corners of the large platform were tipped with conical, spinning yellow warning lights which lit themselves up, accompanied with a single drawn-out buzz. The handful of lift workers began to bustle about, preparing for the descent while Pullroy quickly glanced over each cluster of crates to ensure they were all secured to the platform before they began the move.
Cassefin watched them mill about from the large glass window, her arms crossed as she heaved a heavy sigh, more trails of foggy mist spreading from her warm breath. Kess and Mimi had remained in the room while their squad had left for the platform; apparently there were no volumetric projectors in that lift tunnel, but they could seemingly tell how things were going just fine from their vantage point flanking both of the Head Administrator's sides.
Lenny, for lack of better directing, just followed along with the rest of Squad 35, taking a spot next to one of the larger crates and leaning against it idly. The other lift workers also took positions near larger objects, either leaning against them or bracing themselves for the first jolt of movement. There was a creaking drawl of metal grinding upon metal for a moment or two, and the platform began to vibrate as the descent process initiated.
---
Across the large, open expanse from Squad 35's slowly descending platform, another team of lift workers were diligently checking and rechecking their equipment. Two in particular were sitting the the open cockpit of their maintenance Wolverine, running subsystem checks. By chance, the co-pilot happened to glance up from his panel with a short smile, looking over at Squad 35's platform over the back of his partner's head. Their platform was a couple floors above them, giving the duo an unimpressive view of the lift's undercarriage, a myriad of large tubes, clusters of wire and massive whirring mechanisms.
"... Jenson?"
The pilot in front of him looked over his shoulder inquisitively, raising his eyebrows in response to his partner's call. He was squinting his eyes, his view still raised up and glancing over at the opposing platform his his hand pointing gingerly at the descending lift. Jenson turned and looked for himself; he remained like that, staring at the platform for several moments, looking back around behind him at his co-pilot once or twice when he saw nothing out of the ordinary. His partner simply continued to stare upwards, his head tilted to the side and his eyes scanning the darkened undercarriage with scrutiny.
Jenson turned back and gave the lift one last look, growing increasingly agitated as he struggled to understand what his partner found so interesting. As the duo continued to look on, other workers on their lift platform also instinctively began looking upwards. Most of them were at a loss as to what exactly they were watching for, and the few that actually did see it were unsure of what to make of it. It wasn't long before Jenson, by a random stroke of luck, caught sight of something that struck him as slightly odd.
The thick ridge of the platform was liberally colored with the usual black and yellow warning stripes; a courtesy present to ensure that employees knew that this was the end of the lift platform and that traveling beyond that point while the lift was in motion above the long, cavernous vertical tunnel was ill-advised, to say the least. However, near the middle of the widest section of the square platforms edge, the black and yellow stripes branched from their usual, perfectly horizontal path around the broad edges. The branching patch of warning colors rose at an obtuse angle from the norm, reaching up and well as below the line for several feet. The coloration of this stray line also seemed less than perfect; closer inspection revealed the lines separating the colors to be much less define, even sloppy when in comparison to the perfect symmetry of the normal stripped patches. It was also noticeably wider than the original line of stripes, at least doubly so. The foreman on the lower platform didn't know what to make of it, idly scratching his head as the crewmen under him continued to stare in confusion.
This lasted for a couple minutes or so. With so many of them watching the strange additional line, it wasn't long before it became readily apparent that it was not a natural occurrence. Another moment later, they discovered why, as the stripped line slowly but surely began to slide farther to the left along the edge of the platform.
---
It all happened in seconds, too quick to really do anything but look on.
Squad 35's platform shook violently for a split second, jerking to a stop before continuing back on its normal pace, causing the people on top of the lift to stumble at the sudden cease. There were cries of surprise and confusion, which were quickly drowned out by a deep, low-pitched bellow of unknown origin as the cause of the unexpected breakage to occur revealed itself.
A large, dark mass had heaved itself up from beneath the platform onto the edge. In the few seconds that the Cirrus Station employees could see it, not much could be discernible beyond its size, which was easily akin to a medium-sized shuttlecraft, at least twice as large as the Wolverine parked along the edge of the platform. The coloration of this unknown object was dark, almost rusty brown and black. It almost perfectly matched the color of the metal comprising the lift platforms and walls of the elevator shaft, save for two of what could be discerned as either legs or limbs, which were an amalgam of yellow and black stripes. The strange bellow, rumbling and thunderous, rose slightly in tone as, in a split second, the unidentified object lunged over the platform.
There were screams and yells of surprise. Long, dark limbs reached out and gripped three of the brown-suited dock workers as they stared, jaws agape, at the figure floating above them. The strange, gargantuan thing slammed against the wall above the platform, shaking the entire elevator shaft and eliciting more shouts of terror and surprise as more and more people caught sight of the spectacle. It scrambled for a moment on the wall, seemingly looking for something on the wall to grip onto, but the smooth walls gave no purchase to it as it held three lift workers in it's unknown clutches. One of them had passed out from the shock, while the other two were seemingly struggling against their bonds.
Cassefin Montreal shrunk back in surprise as the leviathan object landed just shy of the window, Kess and Mimi both shrieking in surprise. The Head Administrator didn't have long to observe the foreign entity, however; in a split second, another mass of shadowy limb easily broke its way through the plated glass, gripping the Administrator tightly around the torso as it began to fall backwards, unable to truly grip the wall for support. Cassefin, instinctively, screamed in fear as she felt herself falling with the creature back towards the platform.
As the monstrous thing hit, its mass easily quaked the lift's surface, suspending both man and object alike a foot or so in the air. There was a loud, echoing screech of ripping metal scraping together as the left end of the lift itself sank down slightly. The dark giant wasted no time as it landed, quickly rolling around along the platform until it reach end left edge of the platform. The massive thing easily crushed through the safety railing present along that end and, finally, simply vanished from sight as it fell from the edge of the platform completely, taking its four captives with it, their cries for help abruptly cut short as their voices fell out of discernible range.
This sudden turn of events was not all that Squad 35 had to deal with, however; the sudden break and suspension broke several of the tethers being used to secure in the large, metal transport crates, each giving an audible snap. The left edge of the platform, now noticeably sunk below while the right end rose above in an angle, presented a new and pressing issue to the squad as several of the crates began to quickly slide down the now-angled lift. With the railing no longer present, this meant a long drop and a short stop for these unfortunate supplies, and anything else in their path.
---
Back in the maintenance tunnel, the massive shaking and faint bellow from the action happening outside in the lift tunnel could be discerned from the soft hum of air passing through the tunnels. In the few seconds it went on, Squad 11 began to sit up rigidly, a handful of them reaching for their weapons. George paused midway through the tunnel, his belly perched on the lump of condensed ice. "Yo Tweak?" The Nepleslian man called out through his radio, his voice sounding a bit concerned. "What the hell was th-"
By this point, the creature outside had leaped against the wall, causing subtle vibrations to quickly turn to quaking shakes. The engineer, Ray, yelped in surprise and tucked himself into a tighter ball, whimpering as more of Squad 11 followed suite with shouts of surprise. George, however, didn't have much of a chance to shout out his own surprised protests. The man was more concerned with the creaking that suddenly began to drown out all other sounds, emitting from the section of tunnel directly under his stomach. The creaks, metallic in nature, continued to sound out, their repetition quickly growing in tempo and volume until it came to a single, crashing crescendo; the section of tunnel beneath him, frozen and brittle from the buildup of ice and agitated to breaking point by the series of harsh vibrations, broke beneath him, the broken tunnel in front of him leaning downwards now, its end in pitch darkness.
There wasn't much George Resetti could do in his position. He saw it coming as the shaft before him descend at an unnatural angle, but he was perched head-first on a patch of rather slight packed snow. "Whoa. Whoa. WHOA WHOA WHOA!" The man exclaimed as he soon found himself slowly sliding forward into the black, despite his best efforts to keep from doing so. By some strange stroke of luck, George's foot caught one of the bars along the side of the tunnel that wasn't covered in ice, halting his sliding forward with a startling halt. This change of events didn't stop George from panicking, however.
"Tweak! TWEAK! I NEED HELP!"
