-Author's note: So it's time to see how the guys and gal leave the lizards' ship. I hope you have fun with this one :)-

"We need to find René and then leave," Dudley said as he put on some clothes that were maybe made for the smallest lizard in the ship's crew. It was still far from a tight fit but better than running around almost naked. All the extra holes for spikes and horns would at least provide good ventilation when they had to sprint.

Rob, on the other hand, though also having to search in the lizard's equivalent to the children's wear department, had found something that at least was passable. The lizard's locker rooms seemed to be very carefully designed to accommodate enough space for weaponry so that the two quickly had a little arsenal on their hand just with one problem which Rob verbalized.

"They are all coded." The wolf tried pulling the trigger on one of the long rifle-like weapons that were covered in all kinds of gruesome war memorabilia. Nothing happened. Dudley grabbed an arm and looked at it, it must have been some kind of plasma rifle, at least that's what his expertise told him.

During his time at the academy, he read about these in a paragraph about ancient weapons. These seemed to be the follow-up to the gunpowder weapons. Dudley checked the gun for anything remarkable, but he was barely able to find anything due to the number of strange body parts that were glued on the gun. "Coded in what way?"

"Well?" Rob took the gun back and showed him a green light close to the trigger. "I think Keswick told us it's bio-coded."
"Biocoded you say…" he jumped to the lockers and started rummaging in them returning from almost every one of them with a piece of clothing. "Let's see if that works."

He started holding a shirt to the light. Nothing happened. Then something that remembered underwear. Again nothing. He threw the piece away as far as he could and then used an old sock. This time instead of doing nothing the light turned from green to teal. A sound became audible that seemed like the gun charging up.

"Good gun!" praised Dudley and wrapped the sock around it so that it blocked the light.
"What?" Asked Rob confused as Dudley tried the same trick with another rifle this time, after some rummaging through the dirty wash, it worked with a shirt which he also wrapped around it.

"They check if the right DNA sample is in place, so if you place something that has remnants of DNA in front of it…"
"Got it." Rob smirked and looked at the gun. "So this is what freedom smells like."
"Smells sour." Grinned Dudley and they sneaked into the hallway.

"Guys, René should be down the hallway." The tick didn't bother to become visible to them this time. She simply spoke as a hushed disembodied voice while walking next to them. "Don't forget, our time window closes… especially after you two had your fashion show in the locker room."
Dudley answered by just nodding while Rob simply replied. "If I die here, I don't want to do so in my underwear."

The teal hallways weren't heavily patrolled. Just from time to time a lizard stepped foot on them but mostly just to walk to the door across the hallway. That had happened twice and always the lizard had been too preoccupied with looking straight ahead to see the plasma throwers that were aimed at them.

"I always knew that these guys weren't the brightest." Rob mumbled as they finally reached the door. "But this is plainly ridiculous."
"Kate, are you sure he is in there?" Asked Dudley and looked at the display next to the door.
"Positive, I followed him and the lizards up to this door."

"Fine, then let's see how we get that open… you don't happen to know the code?"
"I do, let me open it and you go in." she meant and then Dudley heard the sound of someone typing on the display. The door swung open and a voice inside sighed in relief.

"Fucking finally… now cut me open so we can be done."
"René shhh…" Dudley said and walked inside the room next to René. His friend, liberated from all his clothes, was tied with hands and feet onto a stretcher that was mounted at an angle to the ground. The scenery looked more like it was obtained from an adult movie than an operating room.

"Dudley? Untie me before these weirdos come back!" The engineer said and nodded towards a console on the wall.
"What happened here?" Dudley said as he started pushing some buttons on the wall. He really wished for an optical augmentation so he could read the lizard's language.

"I they wanted to cut me open to take a gander I guess." René meant nonchalantly. "But every time a motherfucker came in with a scalpel, he immediately denied doing the deed. Now they are trying to find someone who is not afraid." René turned his head to Rob who was also staring at him. "Seeing something you like?"

"I… no…" Rob said quickly and looked away.
"Curious huh?" René fell off the stretcher and onto his naked feet. "Thanks, Duds."
"Hey thank Kate, she told us where to go."

"My pleasure." The invisible said giggling and immediately René covered his crotch with his hands.
"Okay, we need to get you some clothes and..." a shrill sound broke the silence. A siren blared and probably would have woken up the dead if the dead would cared for things like alarms.

"Now that's a problem," Kate said, and suddenly just a glove that she had taken off hovered in the air. "For you René so you have something to shoot. I'll go and see if I find your gear, try to hold the hallway or something. Just don't die."

"You can talk…" Rob meant anxiously.
"Just another Tuesday, right Duds?" René laughed and pressed himself against the doorframe for cover.
"It's Thursday." Dudley replied drily and took cover behind the foundation of the stretcher.

He aimed into the acoustically saturated teal hallway. Red lights were giving the color a brownish look, almost a little bit like the scales of some lizards.
"René get ready for a grana…" Dudley meant like he had summoned it a small blinking device was thrown inside but René reacted faster. With his gloved hand he, similar to a volleyball player, threw the grenade back to the senders. A bright flash and the hissing of a group of voices in unison sounded like a compliment for René's sportiness to Dudley.

"Go go go!" Dudley yelled and jumped into the hallway. A group of blinded lizards, hopelessly disoriented, tried to take back control of their senses while attempting to get up from the floor. It didn't take Dudley longer than a heartbeat to fire and before even Rob or René could have followed him the lizards lay still on the ground.

Dudley didn't have time to boast about his swift hits as a door on the hallway opened and a lizard took aim. Dudley flopped down on the floor to evade the lizard's shot and before the scaly enemy could try for another, René had already fired a red beam at the lizard. The lizard was not sent to the ground or screamed he was immediately turned into ashes.

"Jeeze, Kate, did you turn that thing to eleven?" the engineer grumbled. "Give me a moment to adjust that. Otherwise, the battery is deader than these clowns."
"Rob, to me," Dudley said and jumped back on his feet. He scanned the hallway for activities, most crew members were probably advised to stay inside their quarters until this seal team had dealt with the situation.

At least that would have been the way to proceed on his ship, which made him thankful not to be up against the seal teams he knew. They would have probably just sealed the room from the outside and then send them to sleep by turning down the room's life support. Did the lizards didn't have that idea or was it simply not possible for them to power down single rooms?

Another group of lizards that came through a big door at the end of the hallway, probably an elevator, broke his train of thought and made his trained body react before his mind did. Dudley fired a volley of shots toward the lizards making them scatter before he withdrew inside the doorframe of the room.

Rob who had stood behind him was already there and kept the barrage on.
"8 new lizards, similarly armored," Dudley explained quickly.
"On it," René said and moved to Rob. He tapped his shoulder and they swapped places. The engineer started firing red rays into the hallway.

"Dudley…" Kate's voice was transferred through a speaker in the control console in the room. "I found your gear but there are like 5 guys between the elevator and you. You have to get rid of them now!"

"Got you Kate." Dudley said and then turned to René. "Hey, I need you to tinker." He threw his rifle to the engineer. "Make it overload!"
The engineer simply nodded and started adjusting different things at the center of the weapon until it was glowing ominously.

"What now?"
Dudley lost no time and threw the gun down the hallway. Another flash happened but this time accompanied by an explosion that sounded more violent than the one before. Dudley grabbed Rob's rifle and, again, jumped into the hallway running down towards a spot that was clearly marked by an explosion.

It was a gruesome sight, seeing the rests of the charred lizards' bodies being scattered on the floor. One lizard, also gravely wounded pulled himself to the rest of a gun. Dudley sighed and reluctantly did a merciful deed.

He remained a few more seconds at the scene before he ran back into the OR where, to his surprise, the tick already had handed René his suit and gotten herself her glove back.
"Hurry, change and then we leave." She said and pointed at heap of clothes.

Dudley complied with the suggestion, put his gloves on and then they left the floor as fast as their feet carried them. Because of the lack of stairs, something all spaceships have in common, they were forced to make their way to the upper decks through the elevator shafts. The also sometimes appearing lack of ladders, not common in all spaceships, made this ascent exceptionally difficult.

After a while, which felt like a whole night, they reached the upper deck. The hallways seemed calm, the alarm seemed to be local. But Dudley knew that this was just a temporal limited fact. Soon the lizards would expand their alertness on the whole ship.

"What now?" Dudley asked as he helped Rob out of the unfathomably deep elevator shaft.
"We need to know where we are…" Kate said. "And then we need to find the escape pods."
"Guys…" René said slowly, he seemed to cook up an idea in his mind. "I know this sounds pretty shitty but… we have an opportunity on our hands."

"What are you suggesting?" Dudley asked.
"Well, either we steal something or we blow this bitch up. Both are valid options."
"I would prefer the first." Commented Rob. "I enjoy living."
"And what should we steal?"

"If I may suggest something." Kate looked around and then waved at them to follow her. "This ship probably has access to information about the whole operation, probably also about things they want to do to the resistance. Obtaining them…"
"Could be a decisive factor." Dudley said as Kate nonchalantly opened one of the quarters.

A lizard that was lying in his bed eyed her. First surprised then with the horror of realization.
"Kate dammit, you can't just…" René had raised his arm and pointed his red glowing hand towards the lizard.

"Hush." She said to René and then turned to the lizard who was lying there petrified. "Greetings, do you happen to know where we can find a control room of any sorts?"
"I am not authorized to…" Now also Rob and Dudley had turned their weapons on him. "On ssssecond thought, three deckssss above issss the bridge."

"That's so very nice of you." Kate smiled and then she punched the lizard in the face knocking him out cold.
"The bridge…" Dudley said pensively. "Risky but if we are fast."
"Then let's hurry," René said, walked to the bed, and heaved the lizard onto his shoulder.

"What exactly are you…"
"If I look at these bio-coded weapons I want to test a theory." He said and the group quickly left the room. Again they were heading to the elevators but this time, before Dudley, Kate, or Rob could get inside, René simply pushed the button to summon the elevator. To their surprise, it worked.

A sphere-shaped elevator arrived at their deck and poured the alluring charm of an easy ride. Kate told them with a gesture to stop. "This thing is probably bugged, just give me a minute." She walked to the lizard on René's shoulder. A few holograms appeared and soon she was in her element.

"So the bridge… and then what?" Rob inquired.
"Broadcasting every intel we can find there." Dudley meant shrugging. "Our people listen, they will get the message."

"Let's hope Keswick has cleaned his ears." The wolf mumbled checking his surroundings.
"So he still has that problem?" asked Dudley while he adjusted some settings on his glove.
"What?"
"Nothing."

"Okay now…" Kate said. "The scanners in there should be blocked, let's get in."
The elevators the lizards used on their ships were never designed with the attention to accommodate any species that had a less dense bone structure. The group realized this during the abrupt breaking process that preceded their arrival on the commando deck.

A few joints had to be cracked after the elevator had spat them out. Although not very pleasant Dudley was thankful for the swift ride.
The commando deck looked different from the ones they were before. Instead of long winding teal hallways, it was just a short distance to a big door. Nothing else, but still kept teal.

"Kate any idea how many are behind that door?"
"No clue…" She shrugged and examined it closer. "I can't get access to their system here… they seemed to have blocked off the bridge. I got nothing, except one of them opens it."

"Well then there's only one way to proceed now," Dudley said and gain changed some settings on his glove so that he started glowing slightly red. "Rob, you better stay back."
"Watch your batter,." Renè said and like Dudley activated his shield.

"I still have 20 minutes." Dudley said and then clenched his fist. "And, frankly, draining it isn't the worst thing that could happen next." With the last syllable of his sentence, Dudley fired a white beam at the door melting the metal in a matter of seconds. The path was cleared, René charged in first and pulled the attention of about eight soldiers on him.

Dudley followed closely after him. The bridge was similar to the bridge design they also used on the Leviathan which confirmed Dudley's perception that bridge designers were an uncreative bunch. Like an avalanche, Dudley came over the bridge crew. The first soldier he grabbed and threw to the wall which was accompanied by a nasty cracking sound as he hit the metal.

Right after the throw another soldier, an especially bulky-looking lizard, tried to run up and tackle him down. Lightfootedly the dog evaded the attack and shot a single white beam at the charging lizard burning him to a pile of dust. The recoil of the ray shoved Dudley in the direction of another enemy who lunged out at him holding something that had a certain similarity to a sword.

Dudley dove under the blade and pressed his hand on the lizard's belly. The beam he released ripped a hole into the scaly body big enough to put Dudley's head through it. He threw the pile of dead meat off him and glanced over to René, though under heavy fire the engineer's shield seemed to hold. But it was a matter of time how long with so much fire on him.

The lizard's weapons were primitive, yes, but they operated on scarce resources, and he knew that René was using the little battery capacity he had left inside the base mostly for repairs. He needed a quick end to this. Dudley jumped behind a seat for cover and scanned the room until he saw him. A lizard with a uniform, looking a lot more elegant than the ragged pieces of clothes the other crewmembers wore. He stood close to René just a few steps away.

"Get the guy!" Dudley yelled through the plasma fire. Renè looked to his captain and nodded, then he jumped. It wasn't as elegant as Dudley had wished for but it did the trick, he belly-flopped onto the elegant lizard and the rest of the crew immediately held their fire.

"Got him." René moaned.
"Gracile as always." Sneered Kate as she entered the room with Rob.
"Bite me." René slowly got on his feet, slowly because he held the lizard in a rather embarrassing stranglehold for someone so elegant looking.

"Let me go you foul Utavi." The lizard protested.
"Motherfucker just shut it." René choked the lizard for a few seconds before letting more air back into his head.
"Finally the tables have turned." Said Dudley. "Now send your man to their quarters and we will talk like civilized people."

"I sssspit on your puny civilization!" The lizard roared and tried to break out of René's grasp. "I will exterminate every sssingle of your little…" Again René started controlling the airflow through his head.

"Enough already!" The engineer said. He looked at the survivors of their breach and spoke. "You guys, fuck off, or I screw off his head."
The lizards took a confused look at their captain who tried to nod at them as good as he could in his situation. Reluctantly and with their weapons pinned at the attackers the soldiers left the bridge closing the door behind them.

"Very well, Tick, take care that they reopen that door." Dudley said. "And then take a look at the computers."
"Shouldn't I…" René said as the lizard gave another unsuccessful attempt to escape the headlock.
"You better stay like that, besides, Kate has quite the experience with extracting data and sending it."

"Fine fine…" René said and started choking the lizard a little more again.
"What can I do?" Rob asked shouldering the plasma rifle.
"Hmm… search the remains." Dudley said slowly. "Maybe we can find something interesting."

"Ugh… fine." Rob sighed obeying the command. Dudley felt a little bad for Rob, he knew the guy wanted to be helpful but there wasn't really much to do with him right now.
"Uhm... when you're done you could guard the door." Dudley added after thinking about another use for his competitor.

"Sure…" Rob mumbled.
"Hello, central memory!" Kate laughed amused. "I'm directly streaming it if you don't mind, Dudley."
"Much obliged." Dudley grinned complacently at the lizard's captain who seemed to be oddly inattentive at the moment. "Hold on, René, what is he doing?"

"What do you…" An explosion tore through the room and hurled Dudley into the captain's chair behind him. The pressure of the detonation felt like he was hit with a frying pan on every inch of his body and as he opened his eyes again the only thing, he was sure of was that he was alive. He stood up from the chair shaken and looked around.

Kate was crouched down in front of the panel she used, she seemed confused but was okay. Rob came back to his feet and shook himself like someone coming in from the rain. Dudley looked around searching for René he wasn't where he had been before, instead on that space were the rests of the two lizard feet standing.

He looked to the other side of the room, where he found his twisted body lying motionlessly bleeding from almost every limb. Dudley worked through his shell shock as well as possible at that moment and walked toward his friend. It felt like days for him as he arrived at René and knelt down.

Dudley grabbed the engineer's hand and tried to feel something, anything that resembled a life sign. He took off his glove and tried it again feeling the cold of the limb.
"No… you can't…" He looked over at René's face. His eyes were wide open with a face frozen in its last reaction, utter surprise. Dudley's hand shivered as he laid his hand on René's eyes and closed them. "I make them pay for that…" He said and needed a moment to realize that he was sobbing these words.

"Dudley!" Kate said and pulled him up on his feet and turned him to her. "Dudley, I know how terrible that is, but we don't have time to mourn now."
"But he can't he…" Dudley sobbed and tried to articulate anything meaningful.

"I know how you feel right now but please, if we don't want to end like him you need to concentrate." Kate grabbed him by the head and looked sternly into his eyes. "Focus."
Dudley looked back at her and tried to breathe calmly. The picture of his friend lying in his own blood was burnt into the retina.

He couldn't simply forget what he just saw. But he could order the jumble of emotions turning his mind like a hurricane and close the ones he didn't need away for at least a bit. Dudley looked into Kate's auburn eyes and felt like the pain in his chest turned into something grim.
"Where is the reactor." He said coldly.

"What do you want with that?" Kate asked and let go of his head.
"We are just halfway done. They won't let us go so easily." He said and Kate understood.
"If you want to do that, give me a minute, and I plan our route." She rushed back to one of the panels and started typing into it. Dudley turned back around and knelt down again.

Gently he grabbed his friend and lifted him up. "I will not leave you here." He softly said and then looked over to Rob who stared in shock at what Dudley was holding. "I..I need you to do me a favor." He meant slowly.

"I…" There was reluctance in Rob's gaze but he nodded. "Can I put him over my shoulders?"
Dudley took a deep breath as he started to feel a wave of grief coming back to him. He nodded and swallowed the emotion down.

Rob tried not to behave impolitely in any way as he shouldered René's remains, but it still had the charm of a construction worker shouldering a bag of cement.
"Okay, I got something, there is an emergency plasma duct, big enough to walk in. Just eight decks down and to the left." Kate said and then typed more things into the console.

"What are you doing?" Rob asked and moved himself and his dead freight to the exit.
"I lock the terminals here that will blind them for a bit and give us some time." She said and then walked to Rob. Both of them looked expectantly at Dudley who collected the last functioning weapons and the corresponding biomass for the sensors from the ground. He strapped on everything he could and then nodded.

"If we go out there, we need to be fast, you two cover my back." He said and then took a last look at the bit of battery capacity he had left. He had 5 minutes and had to use them exclusively for his shield if he wanted to survive.
"I'm in." Rob nodded.

"Well then, see you on the other side." Kate said and opened the door. As soon as the light was able to cut its way through the massive metal slabs the lizard called a door, Dudley started shooting. He shot so early that even the firing squad placed there to intercept any attempt to escape was staggered.

It took them three of their eight men to reply with plasma fire. Dudley didn't care as he stood in a green whirl of hungry, everything engulfing fire and simply replied by moving this tornado towards the lizards.

Dudley was at the place where they tried to take cover when his undirected shooting again bore fruits. The lizards had no where else to go and the easy targets were no match for the plasma that burnt holes into them with unrelenting force. The smell of burnt meat filled the air as Dudley kept shooting even if no one replied with gunfire anymore.

It was one lizard in particular, one of the ones that were on the bridge with them minutes ago, Dudley didn't want to leave remains of. Both of his hands gripped around his rifle and his trigger finger repeated the same motion over and over. There was no sense in what he did, just pure hate manifesting in vengeful deeds.

He kept on shooting the corpse until Kate laid her hand on his shoulder. "Again, please, not now." She whispered to him, and the dog's trigger finger moved a final time before he lifted the rifle and deactivated the shield.

"I… am done…" Dudley looked at the pile of corpses in front of him and quickly turned away. "Let's move."
The three got into the elevator and enjoyed on their way downward again the lizard's vertical engineering. On a good day, Dudley had maybe compared it to the gravity on a moon.

But at the moment his anger kept him laser-focused on the door. His finger was ready again to pull the trigger if anything stood there to greet them. But the lizards presented a certain duality in their defensive approach. So far they either sent a whole troop to stop them or did not defend their ship at all.

The deck they approached seemed to be one of these which wasn't defended. At least no one tried to slaughter them as they left the elevator. The always similar-looking hallways seemed like a teal labyrinth that just Kate could navigate through. She took the lead at that point and after they turned left, she stopped in front of a panel that was close to something looking like a manhole.

"Down there." She said as she opened the manhole by typing into the panel. It took in particular Rob a while to get into the plasma duct but as soon as they were all inside the tunnel the manhole above them closed leaving them in a large, barely illuminated shaft that led into two directions.

"Okay now… that way." Kate pointed determinedly into one of the resembling directions.
"And the escape pods are where exactly?" Dudley asked.
"The other way." She said quietly.
"Wait a minute, where are we…" Rob wanted to say but Kate just ignored him and continued.

"When we are in there, you need to give me cover to get my hands on the commando console there, if I have access, this shouldn't take long." Kate looked over at Dudley and he agreed by nodding at her.

"What are you planning exactly?" Rob's voice sounded pleading.
"Just stay back and watch… and when we are done run towards the escape pods," Dudley explained as they stopped in front of an enormous metal gate.
"Wait, how long do you still have?" Kate asked and looked at his battery display.

"Just two minutes." He said gritting his teeth.
"Then we better be fast." She said and opened the door.
A red-glowing Dudley entered a titanic dome-shaped room with a sphere made of white metal in the middle.

The sphere was attached to the dome by a myriad of pipes and steel cables that kept it on a massive cylindric socket. It was the gigantic fusion reactor the lizards used to power the ship and even though Dudley had seen more impressive things in his time at the fleet he had to admit it was a sight to behold.

However, his gaze didn't linger on the reactor, instead, it was drawn to its base where a group of crew members, the reactor maintenance crew he reckoned, was attending their business.
Dudley didn't waste time taking aim and started shooting. The crowd immediately dissolved with just a fraction taking cover and replying by firing while the rest left the room in panic.

Knowing that his time was running out Dudley threw his rifle to the side and sprinted to the first of the lightly armed lizards. He tackled his feet sending him to the ground. He rolled to the side and grabbed the gun the lizard had dropped. It just took him a jump and three pulls of the trigger and the room was silent.

Hurriedly he checked his battery and right at this moment and without his own volition the glowing around him faded.
"Close one." He said and precautionally took cover behind the reactor's socket keeping the room's door in view.

"Close one." Meant Kate as she arrived at the terminals under the basis. "Give me just a few minutes, I need to deactivate some safety measures and…"
"Just hurry." Dudley said and looked worried at the door. How long would it take the lizards to have their team ready to breach the door? He estimated that it would take about three to four minutes.

The gold standard, at least on his ship, was having security ready to act in one minute or less on every place on the ship. But seeing how slow and stolid the lizards have reacted until that point he didn't reckon that they would be nearly that fast.

He just wished he had some energy left to put something meaningful against them, all he had was this smaller plasma gun from the lizard. At that instant, like he had heard his thoughts, Dudley got the rifle pushed into his hands by Rob who looked grimly at him. "Why are we here?"
"Before we leave we want to overload the reactor and…"

Rob cut him short with a patronizing tone of voice. "Blow us all to shreds, for what exactly, Dudley? So you can get revenge now?"
"Rob please tell me, if we take an escape pod, how easy do you think it is for them to just blow us to pieces in mid-air?"

Rob closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, it seemed that he forgot this detail.
"Do you think I would risk our lives here just to get my revenge?!" Dudley hissed at him. "Don't pretend you can read me like an open book after just getting a glimpse by accident! Now get back into the tunnel."

"God dammit, I swear if we…"
"You know that we both have something that pulls us back home, now get back to safety."
Rob huffed but complied and ran back into the plasma duct.

Dudley looked back at the door and an idea budded in his head. He ran to the door with the rifle in his hands and looked at it. With a few well-aimed shots he could… The dog shrugged and thought 'It's worth a try' before he fired three shots at the door and doorframe.

He inspected the spot and grinned. The door was now welded to it's frame. Dudley didn't lose time and started welding the door into a solid metal slab. Not a minute too late as he noticed an attempt by the lizards to open the door in the conventional way.

"We have maybe just one more minute until they get explosives!" Dudley said and ran back to Kate.
"I just give the finishing touches." She grinned evilly. "Would you do me the honor and push the button here?"

Dudley looked at a big red button that had just appeared on the panel. Without hesitating he pushed it and immediately alarm sounds became audible.
"Okay, we have about 4 minutes until the thing destabilizes, RUN!" Kate yelled while she was already rushing to the plasma duct which doors started to close.

Dudley followed her quickly and the two had to jump to get into the tunnel as the enormous doors closed more swiftly than they had expected.
"Run run run!" Dudley called to Rob and impelled the dog who carried the dead body to run for his dear life. It took them good two minutes to arrive at a manhole which Kate didn't ignore.

She swiftly climbed up and opened it. Dudley this time stopped and looked back to Rob who had fallen back a little. He ran to him, took René off his shoulders and pointed at the manhole. "Hurry, we don't have much time left."

"I KNOW!" Rob yelled in panic and almost flew up to the manhole. Dudley on the other hand heaved himself and the body of his friend through the opening just to arrive in a little room full of unused escape pods in the wall.

Kate was already inside of one strapping herself in a seat, Rob next to her starting to do the same. Dudley jumped into the pod not a second too late as its hatch closed and was launched with a jolt out of the ship's side.

The speed that they traveled with was immense, at least Dudley thought so as the ship grew smaller within a couple of seconds.
"Are we the only pod?" Rob asked as he searched the sky for other steely survivors.

"The lizards tend to be slow." Dudley had strapped in René's body and was also sitting down "Maybe they…"
His next words simply drowned in the tremendous noise the lizard's ship uttered as it turned itself into a second sun that illuminated the night sky.

The outer shell of the escape pod began to glow red and the inside heat levels rose above a bearable limit. Then the pressure wave caught the little vessel and changed the trajectory like a frisbee that was caught and thrown again in mid-air.

"I owe you two a cold drink if we survive that." Screamed Rob as he clung to his seat.
"Pina colada." Kate replied loudly but rather calmly.
"Gin tonic!" Dudley yelled and looked out of the front window. He could see the ground again, and it was coming closer.
'My poor back' was his last thought before they hit the ground.

-Author's note: Ahoy guys, just checking in to remind you to stay tuned and have a lovely weekend... Oh and don't forget to review of course :)-