April 10th - I meant to do that, really.

[Narrator]

At one point while Rob was working, a minor subsystem went offline while he was transitioning one of the couplers. It didn't seem like anything to worry about at first...

...but then the radar screens lit up like it was Christmas.

[Robert West]

Rob raises an eyebrow, carefully regarding the machine before giving it a solid kick.

[Narrator]

The machine gave a good-sounding beep when kicked, but this did not seem to affect the readout that several airborne objects were now evident on the radar, a good few hundred miles out.

One of them appeared to be larger than the others.

[Robert West]

Rob grins, "Awesome."

Reaching over, Rob hit the alarm button as he began working to get the defenses armed yesterday.

[Taliesin]

"What's going on," Taliesin said, hustling in.

[Robert West]

"We're being attacked!" Rob says with a manic grin.

[Robin Stanton]

Following her father Robin comes barreling down the hallway, this time the atomic steeds seems to fly much more stable. She doesn't seem to intend to slow down and narrowly avoids Taliesin and slams the thing into the crystal matrix capacitor she fixed the other day.

At the moment of impact Robin seems to dissipate and atomic steed and defense embankment go crashing through the wall and tumbled down the mountain. Mid-fall the two clumps of technology seem to rip themselves apart and reconfigure themselves into something new and soon Robin armed, flying shell starts pulling out of the free-fall.

[Taliesin]

Taliesin sighed at his impetuous daughter.

[Robert West]

"See, this is why no one likes you, Will," Rob says, "You don't do awesome stuff like that."

[Narrator]

The radar screens gave a good idea of the mass and energy output of each of the blips, as well as the speed they were traveling at. The smaller blips were evidently conventional fuel, with about the output of a jet fighter. The larger had considerably greater energy output, and was estimated as having a nuclear power source. The smaller blips were moving a fair bit faster than the large one, but all were converging on Wundagore.

[Will Stanton]

"I'm working on it," Will said, trudging up behind, apparently mishearing who Rob was talking to.

[Talos]

Talos ran out as well.

"What have we got?"

[Will Stanton]

"Problems...

Rob, when did these show up?" Will asked, trying to figure out the readings.

[Robert West]

"Three hours ago," Rob says, keeping a straight face, "I was hoping it was a bug."

[Will Stanton]

"Have you had any headway on a way to get us out of here?" he asked, trying to keep a straight face, but smirking juuuust slightly.

[Robert West]

"You have your choice of atomic steed, teleporter or realllly big cannon," Rob says.

[Will Stanton]

"So, no go on the time stuff, then.

Right. I'm assuming you can use the supplies here, yes? So we need to fight them off here--no more running.

Or am I wrong and we can totally run?"

[Robert West]

"There are two things I never do," Rob says, making the last alignments to the defenses, "Start a land war with Russia and run from a fight."

[Narrator]

The radar blips had three approaches. There were two groups of smaller blips coming from opposite directions, and the large blip coming from a third direction roughly perpendicular to the other two.

[Will Stanton]

"Remind me to play Risk with you one day.

Alright. Thoughts on strategy?

How many of these guns do you have working?"

[Robert West]

"None of them," Rob says cheerfully.

[Will Stanton]

"What the he....

OK, alright. So we'll have to take them in three groups, probably.

Probably want to keep the acolytes together, assuming Daniel can sober up long enough. They've got group training."

[Talos]

"Faan-tastic," he said dryly, "Looks like I'm may have to actually use the Death Blossom."

[Robert West]

"I don't know if the Death Blossom will be enough, Talos," Rob says gravely, "We may have to use the Genocide Posy."

[Will Stanton]

"Do you have anything, Rob, or just silly names?

We can work with silly names, if you don't have any tricks up your sleeve."

[Robert West]

"I have many useful devices," Rob says.

[Will Stanton]

"You want to be out there, or are these ranged things?"

[Robert West]

"I'll be where I'm needed," Rob says, "I suggest you employ similar tactics."

[Will Stanton]

Taliesin snorted at Will's feeble attempts at leadership, but remained silent.

"Alright, forgetting Rob for the moment...if we had some way to herd them all into one group, where they couldn't maneuver as well, that would be great...I suppose we could try to use some of the bigger, flashier ones on the edges to form sort of a cone..."

[Alyson Gregory]

"Onyx and I can be a diversion." Alyson put in.

[Will Stanton]

"I think the two of you could be more than that, but that's a good start...

These things are huge. We're going to have the advantage of mobility--quick strikes.

And then Ronnie and Aiden can go toe-to-toe with the large ones."

[Veronica Freud]

Ronnie wasn't really looking like a big mean battle machine. She actually looked pretty frail and sickly... well ever since they had departed for the future, only getting worse and worse. She had bags under her eyes and was kind of pale.

"... Robert, just how fucked are we?" She asked. Which was a little odd for the usually positive and polite girl.

[Robert West]

"Absolutely screwed," Rob says, "Hell, I don't even know where I'm going to find a guitar."

[Veronica Freud]

"Right then." She said with a slightly morose tone. Ronnie cracked her knuckles and started to look a little less weak and tired. "Make one outta an old shoe box an' some string. Looks like the rest of us got work to do outside."