Fam Away From Home

The Hunt

A bit out away from town, the troops (gang, team, fam?) found themselves on a roof. Both Yaz and Graham held massive batteries.

"Hi!" Astra's blonde new friend called to the hovering tentacle orb. "Us again," she greeted. She clamped her end of the jumper cables (a crocodile clip) to a fire escape ladder while Astra clipped her end to a satellite dish. "Now!" she shouted.

Grace and Ryan jabbed it with some sort of conduit. And the tentacles melted from the orb form.

"Get in! It actually worked!" Ryan shouted excitedly.

Blondie strutted back to them. "Of course it worked. I'm not an amateur."

Astra pulled her back to her. "Get in is my god or whoa?" she asked.

Blondie grinned. "Yes." She stepped up to the tentacles and explained what they did.

"That's not what I-" With a groan, Astra meandered back to the group.

"Not sure for how long though. Best be quick. And thank you to Kevin the bus driver for location intel." She knelt by the mass of tech.

Graham perked and took in his credit. "See? Always ask a bus driver," he said like he was imparting some great wisdom.

The blonde hovered her Swiss Army sonic over the limp tentacles and broadcasted the results. "Half organic, half machine. Starts to make sense now." She pulled the device in front of her before standing. "Wait. It's a Gathering Coil. No, dozens of Gathering Coils. These tentacle-y things," she knelt again (Jesus, her calves!), "they're creatures which gather information. They've been lashed together and augmented into one super-creature. But why? What data are they gathering? Unless..." She stood, her mind jumping to follow her conclusions, not bothering to explain to her new friends.

Astra used her connection with the blonde to bring her back in with a hand on her shoulder. "So, I'm sorry; that-that's an... alien species?" she wanted to clairfy. She squatted to touch it, running her finger on the- yea, that was some sort of metal.

The blonde scrunched her nose and looked down between Astra and the coils. "Not really. More of a semi-species. Weaponised bio-tech," she explained urgently.

Yaz held up a finger. "You said there were two aliens in a battle."

She frowned guiltily. "You're right, I did. But now I think I'm wrong and I'm trying to catch up with what that might mean." She paused, thinking. "If I can access the data it's gathered..." She thought for another few seconds before leaning down and pointing her sonic into the coils. Electricity sparked and a woman's face was projected up.

Astra frowned. Well, that was useless. Unless any of the others knew her, they were back to square one. She looked up and expressed her thoughts to see if the others might know her. "Well, that's useless. She wasn't on the train. When did it scan her?" The last part wasn't really part of the prompting plan, but more of a general question.

With a frown the Doctor put the dark phone in front of the brunette. She saw her face reflected back and looked at the image again. "Oh! Well, shit. What do they want with me?" She stood up.

The blonde wrapped her arms around Astra. "You're the data," she explained a bit. "That's what it was gathering on the train."

Graham pointed at Astra. "But what would the alien want with her?"

Astra suddenly slapped Blondie's shoulder with the back of her hand. "I don't have a DNA bomb," she realized. Then she shuddered. "So why do they want me alive?"

"Which one of you shall I kill first?" came a dark call.

They all spun around and saw the humanoid alien with the ice weapon. The blonde woman kicked the coils, making the projection of Astra cut off. "I'm voting... none of us. Get behind me now," she ordered, stepping in front of the others. She hoped Astra would stay in the back so that thing couldn't see her, but the brunette followed closely. When had they joined hands? "Stop right there. Come any further and we'll blast whatever that thing is," she threatened, pointing her sonic at the Gathering Coil.