SB1<<5: AARON BURR!

>     With a cry, he pushed his way up, knocking X's foot aside.  He 
> looked down at himself, and felt his face, panic and fear growing
> within him.  He was human again!
>    "Oh my god. . ." he wheezed softly and fainted, weakened by the
> change and shock.
>    "Now what?" Jerhevon growled lowly.

Cera and her band of cronies, wailing, heeeing, and firing at random,
could be heard filing through the ship, coming closer.  X set her gun
to "I'm really not in the mood right now so don't you be giving me
any shit," only to hear it wheeze and sputter and see all the cool
blinking red LEDs go out.  X helped Jerhevon heave Dinosorceror over
a shoulder, and got around to answering him.  "Now?  We run!"  They
made their way out from behind the peculiar machinery and took off
deeper into the derelict hulk.

Somewhere in the galaxy, a pink bunny with shades was beating a drum.

They darted around corners and down dark and knobby corridors more or
less at random, just trying to put some space between themselves and
Cera at this point.  Dino was coming to and started to fidget, which
was making it that much more difficult for Jerhevon to carry him. 
Once they were confident that they had enough of a lead, they found a
flat spot to plop Dino down again.  X slapped him a bit and adjusted
his respirator as he stared blankly in the general direction of her
face.  "Dino?  Dino, can you hear me?" she asked.  Jerhevon flipped
Dino the bird and pulled the old "How many fingers am I holding up?"
gag, but it went largely unappreciated in their current situation.

"One too many.  And yes.  Yes, I can hear you.  Who's winning?"

"Can you run?" X asked.

Dinosorceror took a deep breath and felt his knees a bit.  Wobbly. 
He took another deep breath and did a slow nod.  He was about to
speak again, but was interrupted by a violent need to vomit, which he
then proceeded to do quite dramatically, twisting awkwardly to the
right and pulling up his respirator just in the nick of time.  He
looked back up to X dizzily, fixing the mask.  "I take that back.  No."

The cacophony that is Cera could be heard approaching again, stomping
and hollering about the dank corridors.  "Come on out Dinosorceror! 
I know where you are!  I can *smell* you, human!"

Dino mumbled something about having showered just that morning.  X
looked over at the pool of barf.  Maybe it would throw them off. 
They could probably make decent time if Dino wasn't so squirmy.  She
grimaced for a moment, not so much at the barf as at having to make a
tough decision.  "Well then, I'm sorry..." she said, and punched his
lights out.  Jerhevon flung the limp human back over his shoulder,
and they resumed their efforts at putting some space between
themselves and Cera.  They really had no idea where they were going,
but with each fork in the maze of technorganic passages and chambers,
they could hear Cera's pack thinning and losing focus as they spread
out in their search.  Good.  Easier to face one at a time.

This went on uneventfully for a few more minutes when Dino started
squirming again.  Jerhevon quietly asked him to stop fidgeting, but
it wasn't doing much good.  At the next available quiet spot, they
set the human down, X taking another swing at him... which Jerhevon
quickly caught in an open palm.  "You've done quite enough already,
thankyouverymuch" he whisper-fumed, squeezing her fist and pointing
with his other hand to the blood on Dino's face, respirator,
now-ill-fitting tunic, the little puddle forming on the floor, and
the regularly-spaced drips along the passage from which they had just
come... a scent trail.  He ripped a small strip off Dino's tunic,
wadded it up his nose, and re-fastened his respirator. "Breathe deep,"
Jerhevon told him.  "You gonna barf again?"

Dino shook his head and took a few deep breaths.

"Good," with which the stegosaur planted his stubby fingers around
the top of Dino's windpipe and pressed back hard, counting to three. 
Dino's eyes bugged out for a moment, and then he was out cold. 
Jerhevon looked to X, raising an eyeridge and grinning.  X just
puckered and glared.  Show-off.  They hefted the human again and took
off to the left, just in time to miss a blast from Cera's gun.
"Shit!" Cera bitched.  That's just her style.  "C'mon, Guido!  You
too, Mozzilla[sic]."  It was down to her and two deep-blue
coelosaurian sidekicks.  But they were close.  They wouldn't be
breaking up any further.

Two dinosaurs and their limp human payload ran blindly down random
corridors, trying to lose Cera and her navy coels.  They darted down
one particularly grotesque and organic-looking tube, which finally
opened out into a vast open space.  Out of the frying pan and into...

The rookery.

"Now what?" Jerhevon asked, at the risk of it becoming his catch
phrase.  They looked for another accessible passage, but there was
none to be seen.  Just the tube from which they had come on the one
side, and 30,000 ripe alien eggs on the other.  A medical condition
sometimes diagnosed as "fucked without a kiss."

Dinosorceror started fidgeting again.  The way he was flung roughly
over Jerhevon's shoulder and in his rough grasp left him with his
tunic wedged uncomfortably down his butt cleavage.  He missed having
a tail already.  "Hey... um... ow," he complained, unaware of the
eggs behind him, while the others panicked about more pressing
matters.  But he *was* in a position to see Cera and cheap labor
working their way down the passage.  "Uh, guys... " he mumbled,
"...the bitch is back."

X and Jerhevon spun around to face Cera and her boobs... er... goons,
all three armed with potent weapons aimed at delicate features of the
raptor's and stegosaur's anatomy.  Cera triumphantly stamped out of
the passage and into the rookery.  She vented a maniacal laugh and a
"Heeee!", beaming and drooling.  "You're cornered!  Certain death in
all directions!  You will now turn over the Human Formerly Known as
The Dinosorceror and all of the Device parts in your possession!"

"Uh, guys..." Dino said again, but they ignored him this time.  Still
over Jerhevon's shoulder, but mooning Cera this time, he watched the
egg immediately behind them... in front of him now... unpeel itself. 
"No, really..."

The bitch continued her rant.  "It is only through the long-standing
tradition of evil madmen, gak!, madWOMEN, revealing their diabolical
plans and leaving the protagonists behind to suffer a gruesome death
that I don't just kill you now and take them myself!"  She approached
the stegosaur to relieve him of his burden.

The face-hugger sprang from its egg for Dino's face... just as he was
activating his lens, quickly shrinking himself and Jerhevon to
diminutive size.

*SPLAP!*

The face-hugger hit Cera square in the snout, scrambling its crab-like
legs against her plastic respirator and knocking it off, scrambling a
bit more about her nose-horn, and finally finding a firm grasp on her
face.  "Thpppbbbt!" she icked, trying to pull it off as it whipped
its long segmented tail around her neck.

"Oh ffhit!" she said, still tugging at it.  "Don'f juff ftamb ber you
ibbiofs!  Gef vif fing offa my fafe!"

The coelosaurs tried wedging talons under the seething face-hugger's
legs and prying it off, but with each pull it tightened its tail
around her throat, threatening to strangle her.

While Cera and her blue meanies were occupied, Dino quickly restored
himself and Jerhevon to their traditional sizes.  X flung her own gun
over her back and grabbed the laser pistol Cera had dropped.  They
darted around the bumbling saurs and back into the passage through
which they originally came, Dino finding just enough strength as they
whizzed by to pinch one of Cera's tits... or... where a tit would be
if she had any.  "Got milk?  Bwahahaha!" he screamed down the hall,
and passed out again, slumped over Jerhevon's shoulder.

"Ffhit!  Ffhit!  Bob bammit!" Cera tried to bitch.  Guido was still
trying to pull the crab-like creature off her face, while Mozzilla
was busy laughing his fool head off.  "Yww afffowes!  I'w gep you
fffr viss, Bimoforferor!  Amb your wibbow bob fofo, poo!  Hffffffff!"

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