[@iTem][@Xandrya][@Gardevoiran][@superservo27][@Rultaos][@t2wave][@Shard][@Silver Carrot][@BKburke]

"Taleste, come in.... Taleste do you read me? Damn it!" Stryker said, his hand falling away from his helmet as he looked to the others.

The ground under their feet rumbled and shook as the rocky surface at the center of the plateau began to split open, revealing a spiral staircase that twisted down into the depths of the dark hole in the earth.

"Taleste was captured, but she got the job done. If she's lucky, she's already dead, we have to honor her sacrifice by pushing forward and getting this job done. Besides" he added, looking up at the pulsing red light above them ".. they're probably gonna follow that right to us, and we have a better chance of defending ourselves down there in cover than out here in the open."

"They're already comin' Stryker" Grayson said, his cybernetic eye able to locate the faint signals of ships taking off from the settlement.

"Ok, everyone get down there!" Stryker said, pulling his rifle from it's sling and frantically jabbing at the controls on his wrist-computer to set the shuttle to auto-pilot itself back over to the ship. If they left it here, the Skaldurm would either destroy it or take it.

At the bottom of the stairs a few minutes later, the crew found themselves in a small circular room with a single door being the only way forward.

"Hey!" Stryker said, pounding on the door "Open up, we're with the Alliance, here to rescue you!"
The door clicked as it unlocked and slid open, revealing a narrow, decently-lit hallway. The walls were Alliance-standard sterile white, like a hospital. Doors leading on to other rooms lined the hallway on both sides. From the architectural plans he'd been provided, Stryker assumed this whole floor was the living quarters.
"Works every time." Stryker said to himself with a slight chuckle.

Once the last of them were inside the door slid shut again.
"We need this to stay locked." he ordered. SAL responded immediately by punching at an access panel, killing all power to the door, but also killing all the lights but the emergency lamps mounted on the walls.
"That works." he said, he looked around and picked the first three he saw "Ok, Grayson, Amy, Benny, you three with me, we'll grab the eggheads. The rest of you stay up here. Sure, we killed the power, but the Skaldurm are nothing if not resilient, they will break through that eventually, so grab whatever you can from the rooms up here, barricade it off, and set up some cover points in case you have to fend them off. There's another way out of here according to the blueprints I got from the Alliance. Soon as we're ready to go, I'll call up to you guys."

He looked at his selected team and jerked his head to the side "Let's get moving. The rest of you, don't die. They don't get another win today."