Ax had escaped the Controllers on board. Brainy had not been so lucky. Neither had Sam and Tim. And who knew how many others on board had Yeerks wrapped around their brains, controlling their every movement, pretending that everything was normal until the time came to strike.

Who do you trust, podlings?

"Listen up! Everyone gather in close. There's something we need to discuss."

She turns to Jaime and the telepaths. "Ready?"

There's a vorp and all of a sudden, everyone on Obs deck is surrounded by a blue shield, protecting them from the watching eyes of Stacy's (functioning sensors). The telepaths are standing by to make sure Stacy doesn't try to read their minds and to block her if necessary (although at the last meeting, she didn't try it).

"Do not be alarmed by the blue shield. That is one of the ways we're currently being shielded from Stacy so we can talk without being overheard."

( Let the meeting get underway... )

Hey, this is a PSA for any and all aboard the good ship Stacy: today is your lucky day, because none other than West Rosen is gracing you all with his presence in the icky fleshy canteen. How about that: a great dinner and great company.

The dinner is goop on goop with a side of tray, and the company is picking at it with the expression on his face of someone being asked to eat live maggots.

Come distract him from the menu? Please?

The Media Lab is the cool place to hang, on account of it having Guitar Hero.

However, Guitar Hero, while a fun distraction, is not going to help anyone get back to their native planet, so Allen only plays it for about half an hour before getting down to some real work. The regular version is too easy for him anyway.

He has to kneel down to reach the controls, and he squints at them thoughtfully before pressing anything. The telepathic podroom, in the meanwhile, starts playing his favorite working music as he messes with the audio-visual controls. The music pours out of the open podroom into the media center.

Things can happen without Stacy knowing, that much is apparent now. The damage to her sensors is significant. But the fighting clued her in.

After it's all over, after those captured have been rescued, after the injured have been tended to, only the nest is left, and Stacy takes care of it.

||Infestation of Cluster 42, Level 4, Sector 7, Sublevel 12, Zone 37 has been detected. Triggering internal defenses. Decontamination commencing.||

There is a pause.

||Decontamination complete.||

Simple as that, once she knows the problem was there. Her internal sensors are damaged, especially in the city, and so are some of the systems monitoring them. You have to know what's broken to know to fix it.

Such a simple thing and it only took one man dying to make it happen. (His body is gone, by the way, ripped to shreds and eaten. There's not even a spot of blood on the floor. That's the bugs' doing. The bugs' bodies are gone too--that's Stacy's doing).

||Any injured personnel that still have not received medical attention, report to the nearest lift, and you will be transported to the MedBay. Any uninjured personnel, report to the Living Area, to the restroom facilities to undergo decontamination of xenobiological material. Then report to the Obs Deck to meet your new crew-mates.||

Said crew-mates--and the Doctor, who'd skipped out and miraculously ducked and weaved his way to the lift when he'd realized the Master was there--are there and waiting, and just a tad confused.

[ooc: read this first]

While chaos was going on in the city, a level below the Living Areas, the rest of the ship was functioning normally. Stacy, apparently oblivious to goings on in the city, likely do to her malfunctioning sensors there, carried on with ship business.

||Pod Release Protocols Initating,|| Stacy's familiar voice sounded out to the upper levels, though no one was there to hear her. They were all downstairs, fighting for their lives against giant cockroaches.

In the Pod Caverns, there were the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

The usual condensation and mist sprayed out from cracks in the pods, they ripped open and the people inside slid out onto the floors, covered in slime. One of them, due to his mechanical nature, slid out covered in a sort of oil mixture, in a smaller body than he'd once had.

Pop. Poppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiissss.

There was no one already freed from the ship to greet them, only Stacy herself, and the empty silence of a ship caught in the middle of a crisis.