"Sounds good, get to that harder to reach tunnel and I will keep an eye out from one of the two other ones. Fire the first shot to let me know when you are in position," Alexandra said as she readied her rifle. There was not much else they could do. The bomb was on a timer. There were five Adda left. Even outnumbered, if they could get the element of surprise and take one out of each, they would be nearly even numbers with the enemy.

She wisehd Ella luck and proceeded down the tunnels she took to get out of this place initially. It was the only route she knew really as she kept close to the rock wall and made her way deeper towards the main chamber. She would carefully peek out to see if there was anyone in the tunnel entrance. Then, she would survey the scene to see where everyone was positioned along with the bomb. At that point, she could only wait to see if Ella reached the other tunnel.

“Sounds good,” it would take her some crawling aND such to get into the tunnels. She never thought too much of her stealth skills but Alex would see how seemingly the woman moved back and got enveloped in shadows.

She makes her way along and it is only because she is using a degree of caution as she tries to maneuver into position she spots the trip wire in the shadow of the passage way attached to a dark blue grenade that due to her experiences she recognized. It was not standard incendiary grenade of fragmentation device but rather some sort of sonic pulse was emitted at high frequencies. The grenade was fairly standard among slavers looking to capture and not kill.

Fortunately Ella took the longer passage so she should have time to disable this but she did not know the layout of the place.

She didn't get a good look at the room, there was an Adda looking at the passage. Ella was right, they didn't see to be too perceptive or she got lucky or perhaps both given that it was looking away at another passage at the time as if hearing something though if he were unaware of her then it was very doubtful that he had heard a thing.

There was no reason to disarm the grenade right now. Tinkering with it would only draw attention. Alexandra could see the wire and could just avoid it for now. She would have to becareful about retreating through this same tunnel. The agent saw the Adda guarding her way in. With just one guard, she should be able to take it out easily enough with this rifle. That would lower them down to four, possibly three if Ella finds and kills one on her route.

Alexandra could only wait and keep an eye on the guard. Once the firing starts, she would fire at the guard and start pushing in from her side in a pincer attack against the enemy. With luck, this may catch them completely by surprise and ensure a quick and decisive victory. That would give them more time to deal with the bomb or any potential reinfocements coming their way.

But things never went according to plan … several things happened. Ella's shot went off and Alex was able to that out her Adda who had turned in that direction and stopped paying attention to his tunnel which proved to be a fatal mistake for him.

Four or less left – three, she could see that there was an Adda at each tunnel entrance so they killed two of the three there.

In the center of the room was the bomb she saw earlier and the two unaccounted for scientists sitting and restrained.

There were two Adda there that quickly pressed themselves back to back in response to the attack while the other Adda instinctively tossed a stun grenade down the tunnel he was guarding expecting someone down that way as well with one hand two others on his rifle, which was set on stun by orders aimed at Alex firing at her.

As the grenade and blasters went off Alex could hear from the end of her tunnel boots. Shit, reinforcements already arrived for the Adda it seemed … and Ella's passage was a direct line to the surface she had hoped that since that tunnel was on the other side of the ADD base camp it might have been ignored or unknown by the new Adda at least.

A few shots his way discouraged the Adda guard in ducking down his passage, leaping over the trip wire there rather than deal with having no cover or perhaps it was the stun grenade that was tossed towards the center of the room – it was no set deliberately by Ella as it was the one from the trip wire in her tunnel she had discovered.

Rather than stunning the Adda and their own scientists too the grenade had the Adda diving for cover making them easy targets for the two women.

The sound of blasters filled the opposite end of the cavern. It was time to strike as she took aim and fired at the guard at the entrance Alexandra was at. That quickly evened the odds for them. But, more Adda were coming down into the caves. Reinforcements would be here soon and they had nothing to support the two agents fighting for everyone's lives. Thankfully, Alexandra had decided against disarming that stun grenade. Those coming from this tunnel will have a nasty surprise waiting for them by their own comrades.

Ella threw a grenade right into the middle of the chamber. She hoped that was a stun grenade lest it harm the two prisoners as well. Better yet, she hoped a stun grenade will not detonate the bomb or else her freedom from Shokushu would be cut drastically short. If the grenade goes off, they will have two unconcious women to carry out of here. In other words, they were going to be stuck down here until everything was clear or they were overrun.

Still, the grenade caused the two Adda to break out of cover, allowing the two agents the ability to make short work of them. That left only one in the other tunnel. Alexandra could see the creature from here and opened fire on it. They needed to finish this fast and prepare for another assault. Once the last was dealt with, the russian agent would quickly search for any further weapons to use to their advantage. There was still the matter of the bomb as well. With the timer ticking, neither side would have much time to fight down here before either needing to retreat or disarm the explosive.

Four more rifles and 4 stun grenades, 5 with the unarmed one Ella used and a 6th and 7th down the other passages attached to trip wires. There were plenty of knifes and cutlasses though as Alex gathered up weapons Ella freed one of the scientists so she could free the other as she moved to the bomb, using a knife from off of one of the downed Adda to remove the casing and reveal several strange crystals rather than wires.

Alex also recovered four communication devices though there was a loud burst of sonic energy a short time later as the trip wire that Alex didn't disarm took out some of the Adda reinforcements.

“Crap ...” Time was winding down but there was still enough time for the Adda to harass them for a bit. Just what was so important that the Adda wished to destroy here anyway? Alex had mentioned the coordinates for planets earlier, did that have something to do with it?

“Do you think you can hold them off for a few minutes?” She planned on taking some of the crystals but if she just reached in and started pulling out crystals randomly she could detonate this bomb.

It had an interesting design though the Hel'Corian used something similar she just needed the time so some Adda jerk didn't restart the bomb once they were gone. She hoped the Adda didn't have a second bomb or spare crystals and though if the research team didn't check in after so long help would arrive so they could has time looking for them in the wilderness or bug out. She was hoping for the later.

The rifles were unnecessary at this point as they had more than enough firearms. The grenades would be useful as it seems Adda are affected by them just like humans. There was at least one grenade trap set up for the passage Alexandra went through and the one neither agent went through. The one in Alexandra's tunnel went off, revealing that they would be here soon. The grenade would delay them for a bit and hopefully make them slower and more cautious in their approach.

Ella revealed she would need time to disarm the bomb and it was up to the other agent to buy that time. "It is not like we have much choice," Alexandra replied, grabbing the grenades and getting into position to watch over the tunnel that now had no trap guarding it. Here, she could fire down the tunnel to hopefully keep them at bay and use grenades should her position be in threat of being overrun. She stood at the side of the tunnel entrance, allowing her to keep an eye a the one across the way should they get by the grenade there and try to flank them. With only one agent fighting an unknown sized group of reinforcements, things were not looking good for either of them.

Setting up there was really no choice in the matter though Alex had not been alone here. She may have been effectively alone for none of the other girls had combat experience. One took cover behind a stalagmite watcdhing down the trapped passage.

Two Adda were stunned into unconsciousness from that grenade while on of the scientists positioned herself to cxover either her comrade or Alex as the case may be.

The grenade in the trapped corridor explede by a sea of blaster shots from the Adda that had ducked down that passage rather than tripping his own trap. The Adda were in no rush to hurry out of cover though and thus were stuck in the passage exchanging rifle fire.

Alex became aware that the passage she came up had four Adda. Twe were unconscious already and two more became so with a tossed grenade.

So if there were four Adda down this passage there were probably five down the other. Four new ones plus the initial Adda that had ducked into the passage.

Since no one was in a hurry to advance and possible get cut down the Adda were effectively pinned at the moment though they may become more daring once they figured out that the girls were so poor at shooting that and they never reset the rifles to a lethal setting.

Alex had a choice to hold up here ot travel down this passage and hit the Adda in the other from the rear to catch them in a cross fire of sorts.

The two captured scientists decided to help as best they could as they covered the other entrance into the cavern. Alexandra was able to deal with the group coming her way with a grenade which will hopefully drop the enemies numbers significantly. Blaster fired could be heard in the other tunnel as the scientists opened fire to keep the enemy at bay. If the Adda were going to just hold up there, this may be Alexandra's chance to quickly put an end to this second assault.

The agent headed down the already cleared tunnel. The russian woman followed the sound of blaster fire as she slowly made her way towards the other tunnel that the Adda were holed up in. If the aliens had not moved from their position, she should be able to get behind them and quickly finish the fight. Alexandra would take aim and fire the moment she spotted the remaining Adda. Hopefully Ella was making progress with that bomb or else this would be all for nothing.

She moved down the cleared passage. Four unconscious Adda though as she made her way to the other passage there were two Add coming her way looking into the chamber they had seen a third tunnel in and it was decided that two of them, the original guard and the other would use that passage to get behind the scientists so that they could strike without cover.

Alex made short work of these two as they had not been expecting her though it did alert the other three. One primed a grenade and waited when the firing stopped it called out in it's raspy voice to the others in his native dialect. If there was no answer he was going to blindly lop the grenade in that direction.

Two Adda had a similar idea of flanking around as they ran right into the ADD agent. The two exchanged fire but, Alexandra was able to quickly deal with the threat. With Ella at the bomb, they now outnumbered the enemy once more. The remaining Adda called out to their now dead comrades. The russian woman remained out of sight, not able to respond to the call even if she wanted to. The silence goaded them into action as she saw and heard the grenade roll before her. "Shit!" she hissed as she turned, ran, and dove for cover. Assuming she could avoid the blast and not be knocked unconcious, she would roll into the prone and point her rifle towards where she came from.

That was close! She then heard the Adda on his communication device. He did not get a response so she figured he was trying to contact someone that was unconscious in the other passage. It was only when he tried it a second time did she hear him get through to someone, speaking in that native dialect she could still make out some Galactic slang tossed in.

There was something along 'too bad' that was returned from the answering creature.

When it stopped speaking the Adda said something she assumed were to the other two Adda before carefully creeping to the bend in the tunnel. He primed another grenade that he chucked down the tunnel rather than getting into a fire fight with who knows how many humans by himself. If no one seemed to be there he would peak out from around cover and use his last grenade, from his buddies each offering up their grenades before he went. Of course if he had time he'd strip the grenades off of each of his comrades when reaching their bodies, as he strained to hear if the agent was running from the area where he would begin to conserve his grenades as they were a finite resource.

She could hear the aliens speaking but was getting little information from it. The ringing in her ears from the explosion was not helping either. The suit was responding as best as it could to help restore the agent's hearing. While the creature's spoke, Alexandra primed a grenade of her own. She could not afford to lose too much ground when there could be others moving in on the makeshift defensive position. The agent threw the grenade down the path and towards the downed bodies. Perhaps the grenade would denonate the other explosives as well in a chain reaction. In either case, it would keep the Adda from trying to push forward.

The agent would go back around her corner to avoid the grenade thrown back towards her. She would have no choice but to back away. But once the explosion finished, the russian woman would quickly return to look around the corner and try to catch the Adda off guard. She just needed an opportunity to fire back and not play this cat and mouse game.

The grenade explodes with a concussive force. When she looks around the corner the Add is unconscious though she moves down to the next turn in the corridor where the two Adda are busy shooting out from cover. Since they were not expecting to be attacked from the rear thinking that the grenade was set off by their companion perhaps made the two easy kills.

Ella was near done with the bomb. There did not seem to be any Adda left as far as combatants went. How importance was this to the Adda? There were many that had been killed or stunned as it was.

“Got it!” Ella exclaimed. She took out another crystal and had some parts so the bomb just couldn't be reset until the missing pieces were recovered. “We can get out of here now.”

One explosion and a brief firefight later, all enemy forces were either dead or unconcious. The unconcious would need to be bound and be taken away by ADD forces. But that would all have to be dealt with later. Alexandra returned to the main cavern to find Ella had finished disarming and partially dismantling the bomb. That should take care of that issue at least. "There are unconcious Adda that need to be bound still. Not sure how long they will remain knocked out. There is also the ship that is still in orbit. There is no telling how many more they may send our way."

Still, Alexandra was able to take a deep breath and relax if only a little bit. She had been going full throttle since the invasion began. The Adda had suffered humiliating losses against just a handful of ADD researchers. It was unknown if they would finally cut their losses and leave or they will go all in on this mess. The four agents would bind the still living Adda, ensuring they would not go anywhere while they returned to the surface. There, they could survey any changes to the situation before searching for the rest of the research group. Hopefully they were able to hide from any further attackers.