Last chapter. The Heaven's Wing

Corbin shifts his target to the Ryan that Mercer is not engaged with.

Douklan aims for Corbin's target, concentrating fire rather than risking a shot at Mercer in hand-to-hand combat.

Hank takes a second shot with his RIFLE, using burst fire.

EDIT: He is suffering from poor accuracy this battle. :-(

Douklan narrowed his eyes and lined up his shot. The barrel of the plasma projector hummed, then flared with searing light. The bolt struck the third Ryan square in the chest, punching through its telekinetic barrier and scorching deep into its oily flesh. It staggered, hissing in a voice that wasn’t a voice at all—but it didn’t vanish.The fourth Ryan moved—fast, blurring like a stutter in time. With a flick of its blackened hand, a telekinetic blade shimmered into existence and lashed out toward Mercer.

The blade struck, carving across his shoulder. Mercer grunted, falling back a step, blood spraying the deck.Before anyone could reposition, the third Ryan turned his glowing eyes to Erin, still struggling on the floor. With cold precision, it thrust its hand forward. A psychic force cracked out—brutal, focused, unrelenting.

Erin didn’t even scream. The blow hit her like a meteor.

She hit the wall and slid down, her weapon clattering from her grip. Her eyes fluttered—then closed. She collapsed in a heap, blood spreading beneath her. Unmoving.

"Erin!" Maya roared, sprinting toward her, her voice breaking. "No!"

Mercer gasps and stumbles for a moment with that last hit.Mercer swings, hoping to finish these enemies off to give them some breathing room. It's what he knows how to do.

"I really hope shutting down the portal stops these ghosts for good..." Douklan grunts through gritted teeth, anticipating their next move rather than dwelling on his teammates dying as he's firing again.

The shot goes wide, however.

Burst fire, laser rifle.

Hank does as Douklan describes: take the wounded one down if needed, otherwise firing at the unharmed one.

Enraged at the dropping of his friend, Hank focuses on firing a burst with his Laser rifle.

Mercer lunged forward with practiced precision, his vibroblade humming as it cleaved through the flickering telekinetic barrier around the nearest Ryan. Almost at the same time, Hank raised his rifle, took a single, steady breath, and fired. The laser bolt punched through the chest of the same target Mercer struck, ensuring it wouldn’t rise again. The shimmering eyes of the creature blinked out as it too vanished into nothing.

The final Ryan—already scorched and staggered—barely had time to react before Corbin tracked his shot. With a short, controlled burst from his rifle, he struck the figure cleanly. The wounded creature let out a static-laced screech before it too crumbled into nothing, leaving only scorched floor tiles behind.Only the soft hum of the active wormhole gate filled the silence now, pulsing like a heartbeat—ominous and waiting.

Mercer gasps and asks Can I get help with a Lift patch? I have a couple in my pack. Then be sighs. Well we have about a half out of peace until we have to deal with even more of those things. I say we see if we can find records and plans if this thing, take what we can if that and keep moving. This kind of tech.... This is bigger than our personal mission, but we can't let it keep going as is. Once we get into on it and our parts, I'm unplugging these cables then cutting them.

Corbin moves to the Heaven's Wing parts they spotted on the floor. He's going to check to see if the removing those parts will shut the gate and if it looks safe to do so. If it's not safe, he'll try and identify some control panel or connected computer.

Douklan tries to keep calm despite seeing another instance of technology out of fairy tales. ::First nanotechnology mutating monsters, now something that resembles a wormhole??:: He tries to focus on the practical to distract himself from terror.

"It...uh...it seems like there's equal pressure on both 'sides' of the gate, at least: there isn't any wind." The thought is successful in redirecting his thoughts, and he considers whether a scan of the air in the room would be interesting, to see if the composition has changed from the introduction of gases from the other side (which would indicate that the gate goes to a planet with a different atmosphere, rather than another human base). But that's not nearly as important as shutting it down. "Corbin, let me know if there's any way I can help turn this off other than yanking cables or turning off the power."

Hank while very concerned with everyone's condition, and looking over to Erin with great concern, he focuses and looks for any kind of control panel for he contraption generating the portal. Assuming he finds one, he will try to hack into it. Having knowledge of what the ancients could do at one time, finding and dealing with a sapient AI, being infected with nanobots, and having is power significantly advance in a short period of time have curbed Hank's incredulity. While still amazing and awesome, it's a dimensional portal and it exists and they have to shut it down.

While working to hack the system, he does add, "I don't know that this will necessarily stop them. They appeared when we were way away from here, so they may reappear irrespective of this portal."

Corbin approached the glowing portal carefully, eyes scanning the technology fused into its frame. At a glance, the shimmer of the wormhole's event horizon reflected off the recognizable silhouette of Heaven's Wing components—including unmistakable FTL drive elements—wired into its housing.

The parts were essential. But just yanking them free, with everything powered up? That might be suicidal.

His gaze settled on a panel mounted into a recessed console beside the archway. It was integrated into the floor plating, clearly modified after the original station design—not standard issue. Its interface pulsed with unreadable glyphs alongside more familiar technical readouts. This was the control nexus for the gate.

Hank crouched beside the same panel, eyes gleaming with a flicker of psionic intuition and pure mental focus. He set to work without hesitation. Tools deployed, interface jacked in, fingers moving quickly across the projection field.

The system resisted his attempts at first, but Hank’s combination of hacking skills and precognitive insight helped him navigate the logic trees and security layers faster than should be possible. Access granted.As the system unfolded, it confirmed what he already suspected. The gate's generator was being fed by the Heaven's Wing main power core—a high-capacity reactor, likely in the Engineering section, located near the top of the map. The control node displayed real-time diagnostics of energy flow, spatial stability, and linked components.

They couldn’t safely remove the FTL parts while the portal was still active.

PROCEDURE:
1. Power down core systems via manual override.
2. (Optional) Disassemble power systems and put them in grav-sleds
3. Wait and manually disconnect stabilized FTL components from the portal (warning: interrupting power before shutdown and cooldown may destabilize everything).
4. Once the gate deactivates, components can be safely extracted and put in grav-sleds


Hank leaned back and glanced at the others. "Good news: we can take what we need. Bad news: we have to shut down the lab's main reactor first. It’s the only safe way to bring the portal down."

Still holding his laser rifle, Corbin starts toward the reactor. "I'll handle the power, maybe you guy's can dig in and be ready in case we get another wave before I finish."