Survival Of The Fittest

"Hey, Greynolds?"

The voice, just about audible over the rotors of the helicopter, snapped Jim Greynolds from his reverie. Looking up, he gave the speaker; Richards, a cold, hard stare. The soldier held his gaze for a second, then dropped his eyes.

Greynolds was pissed. He'd had the situation relayed to him by Wilson, and from there, the decision had been his to make. Try to take out the boats? Make tracks back to base? Both paths had their pros and cons. In the end, Greynolds had tried to go for both and... so far it wasn't working out too well. The patrol boats he'd dispatched to intercept the rescuers hadn't got there in time. STAR hadn't even had to fight their way out - Danya's men had been left eating their dust.

That was a blow to the pride of pretty much everyone. Two versions running, students had made it out. Granted they hadn't managed it by themselves, but that anybody could compromise the security of the group made for a worrying pattern. If they somehow made it out of this mess, Greynolds was going to have to run a thorough check on any newcomers, maybe even the current roster, just to be safe. Fucking moles...

Greynolds keyed his microphone onto the pilot's channel.

"How long?"

"Hard to say, we're still a ways out from-"

"Fly. Faster."

"...Yes sir."

~*~

"You're all dead men walking."

Corey Maslakow looked almost amused at that. "Pretty big talk coming from a guy with a gun to his head, Danya."

Danya shrugged awkwardly, the movement difficult with the tight hold his STAR captor had on him. His eyes tracked Corey as he paced back and forth, back and forth. "You and your little crew are trapped in a room with only one exit, outside of which there is a group of my men that are more than capable of chewing you up and spitting you out. You've got balls kid, but balls alone aren't getting you out of this."

This time, Corey actually did laugh. Danya looked unimpressed as the STAR member held up a hand, still laughing.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry it's just - you sounded a hell of a lot like one of the guys we had to kill on the way to getting out of one of your hell holes a few years back."

"That was a fluke, just like this. You think you'd still be alive if you hadn't been lucky enough to run into me on the way here? You'd be six feet under a couple of hours ago."

"Two flukes starts to sound like a pattern to me, Mr Danya," Corey put deliberate emphasis on the 'mister'. "Talk about maybes if you want, but you're the guy who seems closest to dead to me."

Danya snorted. "Then have fun getting out of here. Difference between you and me is that I know that I'm staring down the barrel of a gun. You're smiling at it."

Corey turned away, unable to hide a smirk.

"Corey. Corey, you there? You getting this?"

He put a hand to his earpiece. "Yup. Loud and clear."

"Jaxon and Nate are pulling out. Greynolds and company seem to be heading back to you. Might be best to get moving."

"I understand. I'll pass that on," Corey fiddled with his headset a moment. "CeeJay, reading me?"

"I hear you. We're at the boats."

"Good. How's Kwong?"

"Holding up, just about. He's lucky to be alive."

"Aren't we all? Look, we'll talk more later, we need to get rolling."

"Good luck."

"Keep my seat warm," Corey looked over to the wall opposite the room's entrance. One of his people had been hard at work there ever since they'd busted in. "We're out of here. You'd better be ready."

A roll of the eyes told Corey everything he needed to know.

"Stand back everyone. Oh, and cover your ears," Corey shot Danya another cocky grin. "What do you do when the only exit to a room is blocked off? Make another."

The carefully directed explosives planted on the wall detonated, blowing it into rubble and leaving a conveniently placed gap, leading out into a corridor.

"Alright people, hustle!" Corey called. He turned back to Danya. "And as for you-"

"DORIAN NO DON-"

Lourvey's plea was silenced by a gunshot.

~*~

"WILSON! SONIA! UPDATE! NOW!"

Every eye in the chopper snapped to Jim Greynolds, whose headset had just erupted in a wash of explosions, yelling and gunfire. Cecily tuned her own radio into HQ's main channel, flinching at the ensuing cacophany. After a couple of seconds, there was a reply.

"Greynolds - don't exactly have time to explain here!"

"Give me a fucking status report!"

"I am being shot at! There's your fucking report!"

Sonia Nguyen cut in, far more calmly than Wilson. "STAR blew a hole in the wall, gave themselves a head start. We're trying to cut them off but they're running like hell."

Greynolds slammed a fist into the side of the chopper. "Fuck!" he spat.

"Oh... oh shit," it was the voice of 'Ace' Warren.

His tone was dull, filled with shock and horror. The leaden sound of it made Greynolds' blood run cold.

"Da-"

~*~

Dorian 'Jett' Pello lowered the pistol he'd snatched from the holster of his STAR captor and breathed out, long and trembling. He looked like he was on the verge of tears, but there was a defiant set to his shoulders.

There was a moment of silence as everybody in the room turned to look at the technician. A couple of guns were half raised, but with the singular shot out of the way with, Dorian apparently had no intention of firing again.

The quiet was broken by a strangled, bubbling laugh.

Danya.

Danya, whose shirt was blossoming with a spreading red stain.

Danya, whose hand was clutched to his chest and whose words were strung out with pain.

"You," he looked Dorian in the eyes and smiled. "Of all the people that it could've been, it was you? Guess... you grew a spine... after all," Danya dropped to one knee and started to laugh again before slumping to one side with a thump. He lay on the floor, motionless.

Everyone stared at his body for a moment. Then, Corey snapped out of it.

"We've got to move. Now," he gave Dorian an appraising look. "You can come along, if you want."

Dorian nodded, headed through the hole in the wall right on the tails of the STAR members Corey had brought with him. The other entrance to the room imploded in a hail of gunfire. Letting off a burst from his rifle, Corey stepped back through the hole and headed after his people. The AT burst into the room in time to see him disappear through the wall, leaving a thoroughly trashed room and a couple of terrified technicians in his wake.

~*~

"Lilly..."

Victor Danya's cheek was cool against the floor. His eyes closed.

~*~

In character announcement to follow, but for now, here's the OOC stuff in the interests of not delaying rolls any further.

Firstly, congratulations to xylophonefairy for the death of Helen Wilson, which has won BDA for this month. Have a roll null on us.

And now, the rolls.

#1 Mary-Ann Warren (Rugga) - Autumn O'Leary (Ruggahissy, Swap Card used)
#2 Kristina Hartmann (Clubelle) - George Leidman (Pippin, Hero Card used)
#3 Trent Savage (karsk)
#4 Morgan Leftowitz (Greg)
#5 Kimberly Nguyen (KillerVole) - (storyspoiler, Roll Null used)
#6 Neill Robertson (xylophonefairy) - (xylophonefairy, Roll Null used)
#7 Aston Bennet (Inky) - Maf Tuigamala (Inky, Swap Card used)
#8 Garry Villette (Renard) - Sunil Savarkar (General Goose, Hero Card used)


Three days for cards, ten days for deaths to happen and all that jazz.

This chair didn't feel right. It didn't feel like he belonged in this position.

Danya's desk was almost infused with the man, as if it somehow reflected his personality. Jim Greynolds sat in front of it uneasily. Miraculously, the PA system was still intact after STAR's attack. Most of the gear for that wasn't situated in the technical area, which had been well and truly fucked over. As for that side of things, well... that had been a complete write off. STAR had disabled collars left right and centre, and then wrecked the equipment that was left over as a nice little parting gift. For an hour or two, they'd had no coverage of the island whatsoever.

Greynolds had sorted that out, just about. They had a back-up system based around Wilson's listening post-slash-homebase. Naturally Wilson hadn't been using very much of what was installed there, but keeping the infrastructure in place had proved to be a good precaution. HQ was a complete mess but the show, such as it was, could go on. A lot of the cameras were shut off, but they'd manage to restrict most of those to the zones that were already permanently DZed. Their coverage was worse now, but they'd still be able to record everything important. The collars had been offline for a while, but as far as they could tell, they'd got them functional again.

...Which really showed the damage done by STAR. Almost thirty goddamn escapees. That hurt.

Not as badly as the damage done to HQ, but even so...

In any case. The game would continue. Battered and bruised, but it would continue. They'd regained power and regained control of the situation. Those that remained alive weren't getting a reprieve now.

Greynolds keyed the intercom.

~*~

"Hi there. My name's Greynolds, I'll be your announcer for the time being. Danya's taking a break. Gets tiring calling the action for all of you. Now that the introductions are over, let's just get straight into this, shall we?"

"Maria Graham fought long and hard, but ultimately, she gave up the ghost. It's a marathon, not a sprint, people. She took too many injuries and paid the price. Annaliese Hansen and Rosa Fiametta were next to go, both at the hands of Alex White. Alex apparently decided that variety is the spice of life - or death, in this case - and opted for a quick bullet for the former and slowly carving up the latter. I have to say Alex, that was pretty horrific. ...If I were Danya I'd probably now commend you, but I'm not, so I won't."

"Nick Reid went down the hard way to Maf Tuigamala, making himself into a kebob in the process. Michael Raynor was tenderised by Kitty Gitschall, whilst Jasper-Declan MacDermott decided to test out whether we were bluffing about not being able to swim off island. We weren't."

"Roland Hayes was reduced to ashes by Kris Hartmann. Amazing what a point-blank range explosion can do. Gracie Wainwright was beaten to death by Simon Telamon, who somehow managed another kill by flailing his arms around blindly. Who knew? Charlene Norris was next to go, offed by the prolific Hayley Kelley. Helen Wilson learned that field surgery isn't the greatest of ideas, cutting herself open then somehow being surprised when she died of blood loss."

"Next up... well kids, let's just say that this next part is why you don't try and escape the island, alright? The following individuals were killed trying to make a break for it. Jacqueline Myrie, Samantha Ridley, Joss Joiner, Alice Blake, Peter McCue, Yelizaveta Volkova, Alex Jackson, Raymond Dawson, Kaitlin Anderheim, Cisco Vasquez, Allen Birkman, Isabel Guerra, Mizore Soryu, Sarah Tan, Bridget Connolly, Sarah Xu, Brendan Wallace, Anna Chase, Felicia Carmichael, Andrea Raymer, Garrett Hunter, Harun Kemal, Simon Telamon, Jeremy Franco, Jay Holland, Eiko Haraguchi, Acacia Salinger, Michael Moretti and Jennifer Perez."

He let the list hang in the air for a moment. "Yeah, kids. We aren't playing hopskotch here. You plot against us, and you get burned, no ifs and no buts. As of now, the Northern and Eastern beaches are permanent Danger Zones. The best kill award... well frankly we decided there wasn't anything much to separate Kitty and Alex. We're dropping the prize outside the mine, which is now a temporary danger zone. Have fun with that, you two."

"See you all. Same time, same place, kids. I'll be here for all your announcing needs."

He signed off with a click, then sighed.

These were big shoes to fill, and ones he'd never wanted to step into, besides.

"Dammit Victor... it wasn't supposed to end like that," Greynolds stood up, calling out to the pair of guards stationed outside the door. "I have a couple of phone calls to make. Private ones. Let Wilson know I'm not to be disturbed and that I will personally carve a hole if anybody so much as walks past this room, got it?"

"Yes sir!"

Greynolds knuckled his forehead. The official business could come later, first... there was a number he needed to dial.

-

"Oh, uh, hey Amora! It's uh, it's Uncle Jim! Ah yeah, I'm doing fine, sweetie. Listen, uh... is your mom home? Cool. I need to speak to her about something."