"Saw what happened to me, right?" Forge said with a twisted grin, "that'll probably be you before long, too."

"Not if we can help it," Gennosuke protested.

Max looked from Forge to Gennosuke then turned to face Gerald.  He recalled something that was out of the ordinary in all the chaos he and Pawn were thrown into.  When he wounded Forge the man bled silver, and he remembered a red sphere staring out from underneath Gerald, some slimy creature that wore the man's skin like a costume.  Upon his recollection the precursor to a storm rumbled through the sky, and a faint, misty drizzle sprinkled around them.  He turned his gaze upwards, and heard Forge whistle with admiration.

"Looks like you get a trial by fire," Forge said as he, too, watched the diversion.

"We need to find shelter," Gennosuke commanded, "now."

Max squinted, it looked like rain, it smelled like rain but nothing here was what it seemed.  The fact of the matter was he wasn't going anywhere with Kouga or Forge--especially not Forge.  He didn't trust either of them.  Finding an excuse to avoid going with them he smirked, "Afraid of a little rain?"

Kouga confirmed his suspicions, "Nothing here is as it seems.  If you wish to stay alive then follow me."

"Better listen to em, bed-head.  You don't want any part of what's coming."

This time an angry boom of thunder dared Mobius to stay.  Quite frankly he didn't know what to expect out of what looked like an ordinary thunder storm, but he nodded.

"We'll make a break for that ship over there," Mobius pointed.  It was probably about a fourth of a mile away, but the operative was confident he could make it there before the floodgates opened.  Hopefully the others would keep up with him.  Then Max started off.

[center]***[/center]

He hadn't looked back on his run to the ship, but he felt something peculiar as he ran through the steadily increasing shower.  Every drop felt like he was losing a piece of himself, like he were sugar, melting away into the landscape.  When he looked at his own naked form he could see he was completely unharmed, but the feeling was unmistakeable.

When he reached the ship he realized he had recognized it.  A Red Technocracy ship.  He had studied one that had fallen during the first contact.  Ghost Ops had first priority when studying alien technologies, and he had thoroughly memorized much of the functions of this one.  By the looks of the broken, derelict vessel it was a Technocratic battleship, severed in half and lying as if it were some massive desecrated tomb.  

Max knew where to go and intuitively knew what to do to get in.  He was so preoccupied with such a strange, yet familiar ship being present here that he had nearly forgotten about Forge and Kouga.  When entering the ship is was dark and quiet.

"Don't suppose Annie is awake, yet." He thought to himself.

He looked around, feeling his way through the darkness and groped at a panel on the wall, his eyes adjusting to what little light spilled in through the open doorway.  Forcing his fingers underneath an edge he pried open the panel and felt around inside.  It was cold, so he was certain that it was dead.  He'd have to jump start the system.  Max was beginning to appreciate what ANITA offered him.  Normally he wouldn't have to do anything, Annie could just technopathically redirect power from God-knows-where inside the ship.  He cringed as he recalled his training on technocratic engineering, and spliced a few wires he could barely see.  After some tinkering he could hear the flickering of lights.

"Nice job," Forge's voice said, to his left, inwards towards the ship.

Max whipped around to look at Forge wondering how he had snuck up on the operative, but there was no one there.  He stepped to the doorway and looked out at the landscape--no Forge or Kouga in sight, but it a full blown storm had evolved.  The curtains of rain reflected a strange metallic color when he looked at it at just the right angle.

He frowned, turning to look down the hallway which was struggled to stay lit as lights haphazardly flickered on and off.  A shoddy electrical job, he expected, but it would have to do.  As he ventured down the hallway the guts of the ship assented to his thoughts--it was definitely a technocratic battleship.  The stark interior was devoid of much, and was styled in a militaristic fashion.  If the technocrats were such a dour group as he had read then this long hallway was at one point the ship's promenade where they could stare out into the empty reaches of space.  It was a haunted hollow.  The floor was cold on the operatives feat as he shadowed through the hallway, checking corners that led into pitch. 

Whereas the outside held signs of a fierce battle and ever-present carnage the insides of the ship revealed nothing but empty loneliness. As Max reached the end of his light it came to a sealed door.  A door that, if he remembered the layout of these ships correctly, should be the crew quarters and barracks.  Usually there wouldn't be much to see inside the bunkrooms, but when Mobius approached the door he felt his stomach turn.  A nauseating sickness warned him not to enter that room--and unlike many a horror stories he abided by it.  Looking at the reality of the situation, Max was unarmed and unarmored.  He was as vulnerable as he had ever been.

He decided to retrace his steps--their communications bay would be where he really wanted to go.  As he meandered back down the hallway he took his first right.  He recognized being in the back-half of the ship when he entered, and recalled that there was usually a comm station in the engineering block.  The lights were out here, so he had to venture down the hallway.  He felt around for a door, usually by doors were control panels and control panels meant he could reroute power to the lights.  He praised his luck as he pried open another panel and began pulling wires in the darkness, tracing them down to their sources.  Feeling his found the right one he yanked it and a spark abruptly flashed his vicinity.  In that half-second he saw a scowling face right next to him before the hallway returned to darkness.  He jumped, but he could not let go of the wire if he wanted any chance at rerouting power.  He took a defensive stance and waited ten seconds, twenty seconds, a minute.

Nothing.

He heard nothing and saw nothing.  His shoulders slowly relaxed as he went back to the panel, and before long the lights flickered to life down the hallway.  Letting out a sigh of relief he pushed on.  Before long he found a large, steel door, about seven feet tall and sealed shut with "ENGINEERING" engraved above the threshold.  To the right of the door were standard door controls and a keypad.  Above the door controls a sign read "Authorized Personnel Only."

To hell with that.