Shadows of Stars

In all the confusion of floating vines and bouncing fighters, things began to devolve. The mysterious stranger had the luck of not being remotely in the path of the creature, and was left standing amidst a foot-securing mass of vines as it flew elsewhere. Meanwhile, Nevaraon and Tychus's actions collided in a mess, as the more experienced fighter pulled himself to the wall and kicked off, surging low with a vicious kick, which connected hard against the beast's lower thorax!

The kick did as Nev had likely expected it to, knocking the creature out of the gripping security of the underbrush, and sending it flying. But! Tychus's bullet didn't quite its mark because of this motion, instead popping the creature in its surprisingly un-insectile maw. As the blood spatter flew into a diffuse cloud from the wound, cosmic pinball ensued.

Nevaraon sailed under the disoriented monster, grinding to a halt against the surface-hugging greenery within just a few seconds. The creature itself flew upwards (relatively speaking) and snagged in uncleared vines, its softer underside exposed. And Tychus's high-powered firearm sent him flying backwards, streaking away from the others, and through a branch of the wide, flattened-spherical room. He was going through a clear section of the brush so he'd have to figure out some other way to change his velocity or risk missing the fight entirely!

Finally, the LnPers moved together, as the more fleshy male pulled out some kind of strange-looking gun, with multiple large rings of metal running its length - yet still pistol-sized. With a squeeze, he fired, the telltale hum of a coilgun activating becoming punctuated by the flit of a projectile piercing air. Yet... a burst of pressurized gas shot out the rear of the gun, showing it to be a specially-adapted zero-g weapon! Unfortunately, the coilgun round wasn't nearly as ferocious as the .44, and only succeeded in wedging into a slight wound on its underthorax!

Reacting to all of this, the creature righted itself, and with a mighty pull, sent itself flying with the torsion inherent in some of the vines. But not at one of the fighters, at least not directly. Instead, it vaulted to the 'ceiling', and reached out with a massive swipe, trying to strike at the newcomer, as if to grab her, its claw dashing against her torso!

If being a hacker for her entire life had told her anything, the woman knew that you had to be alert at all times, and this, she told herself, was a lot harder than hacking, so she damn well better be alert. This allowed her to realize an attack was coming for her and attempt to dodge it by throwing herself to the side. Still devoid of a weapon, she dearly hoped the rest of the group could kill the beast without her help.

"Shiiiiiiiiiit!" Tychus said as he drifted away from the battle. He threw the gun back into his dinner jacket and gesticulated his arms wildly in an effort to reverse the wild gyrations brought on by his zero-gee Magnum shot.

Eventually he tilted so that he was flying straight towards one of the walls...

Nevaraon grabbed at the vines. Then he pulled up a few of the thicker ones. He jumped at the creature again. This time aiming to land on it's back or close enough to get on it. Now he only had two thoughts. 1. He hoped the family jewels wouldn't be permanatly damaged.
2. He hoped that he would be able to hang on long enough to wrap these vines around the creature.

It all began to come together. The robotic spacer's blade sung through the air even as the hacker was beginning her dodge, striking towards the beast. It was at about that time that Nev began to streak towards it, and the 'bot seemed to understand, managing to wedge the blade into a part of its head, jamming it down slightly - just long enough for the Nepleslian to bring his collection of vines to bear.

Meanwhile, Tychus was beginning to root himself in a nest of vines near the ceiling... and was barely able to start angling himself again, before things began to come to a head. The monster was writhing against the large blade and the tangle around it... when the suited man walked up to it, and jabbed the gun into its eye. With barely another thought - since if he hesitated, the creature would break free - he fired. At this range, even the inferior stopping power of the Zero-G pistol was enough to turn its brains into a fine paste. He looked up, as the light in its eyes seemed to fade...

"...They're getting further from the core. That's gonna set us back some. Come on, the ship's docked only a little bit further from here, we can talk on the way."

He gestured towards a far end of the jungle-chamber with his gloved hand.

Nevaraon shrugged off the vines that got tangled up around him as he push and pulled himself to follow the man. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have another weapon on ya, would you?"

Nearby an 87-year-old man would be dangling from another vine, swinging himself about and trying to break free. He was in what appeared to be a veterans' uniform and he had a pistol tied loosely to his hip.

He, of course, was senseless and almost drooling; gone crazy, as it seemed. Out here in this odd void he had, in fact, totally and completely lost it. He was so stupid at the time he did not even think of take his knife out of his holster or his pistol to shoot or cut the vines that restrained him; instead, he swung about, knocking objects that were invisible to him in a wild frenzy.

He spectated the events before him like an old war film.

Tychus was pushing himself off the wall towards the Freespacers when he passed the struggling vet. Grabbing a nearby vine, Tychus pulled himself up level with the old vet and pulled a 6" Bowie knife out of his pocket. He then proceeded to carefully hack the vines away from the poor guy.

"You alright, oldster?"

The woman scanned the area, looking for anything that would make her into Freespacer-paste. Luckily, for the moment at least, nothing seemed incoming, so she shouted angrily to the rest of the people present in the large room, "Is someone going to do something about this beast here, maybe get us all out of here alive?"

Nevaraon looked back at the beast. "It looks pretty dead to me." He remarked to the woman. "Unless you're looking at a different beast."

"Hope it ain't another beast." Tychus pushed away from the old veteran, who was clearly far gone from everyone, and slowing himself as he neared the group of 'Spacers. "I'm all out of bullets."

Nevaraon shrugged as he gathered up a long strand of vine. Maybe he could use it for something.


(OOC: how are we going to do this if Rynol is gone?)