Prospero-4 quickly slides to his seat and taps the console to bring the holographic screen to life. Instantly, he becomes aware of everything going on with The Sunrise Maiden, but at this point of combat all is looking just fine.
Another tap on the console brings their brand new turret to life. A satisfying hum can be heard echoing throughout the bridge, and a visible glow shines somewhere above the top viewing port. On his screen Prospero-4 can just how much power the new weapon is draining from the power core, but as they can spare some at the moment, he increases the power consumption far beyond sensible levels.
And with the particle cannon just oozing with overflowing power, the android locks the tracking on the enemy ship, waits a fraction of a second to savor the moment, and presses the button to fire.
Scan Result
***
Leila opens up a comm stream at the same time as a flood of information floods in. They're facing a Nebularo Outfitter Starhopper. A ship of a vintage similar to their own Sanajaval Explorer. It's a durable and well liked classic ship that can be used for a lot of different purposes.
Pieces of Information:
1. Basic Information: Living crew complement and ship classification, size, speed, and maneuverability.
Nebularo Outfitter Starhopper, Medium Explorer, Speed 10, Good maneuverability
2. Defenses: AC, TL, total and current Hull Points, total and current Shield Points in each quadrant, and core PCU value.
AC 15, TL 15, HP 65, shield 15 all quadrants, Pulse Green 150 PCU
3. Weapon: Information about one weapon, including its firing arc and the damage it deals, starting with the weapon that uses the most PCU. Repeat this entry until all the starship’s weapons are revealed.
It has a chain cannon on its turret and a light particle beam on its front arc. Probably has some more weapons that would need to be scanned for.
***
The ship speeds in and the chain cannon on its turret bangs straight on into The Sunrise Maiden. It's an impressive salvo and a hard hit but the hefty shields of the upgraded ship hold and the alarms that blare in the cabin are muted and flash yellow rather than red.
Front shields significant damage Pumpkin chims in calmly.
Prospero's responding salvo sends a thrum of feedback up his arms as the cannon fire likewise smashes through the shields of the front of the ship and causes hull damage. The hull blackens and starts to spark in the visual sensor.
A voice crackles on the comm even before Astrainna gets a word in. It's a female human.
Hey... good one! That's a heck of a weapon you've got there big boy, but you won't get lucky again, yeah? Why not just make it easy for all of us and power down. Promise we won't kill you!
Edit: As she says that the ship unleashes another blast and that slams into the Sunrise Maiden as well.
Front shields almost collapsed Pumpkin states again in the same reassuring tone.
Cueta grits her teeth as the chain cannon rips punches the Maiden's shields. The volley passes, and the Guiding Star has yet to be kicked into space - yet being the operative word.
The pilot pushes up on the air throttle, and the Maiden hops into action, slipping around the nearest asteroid and then turning portside and slipping around another asteroid, the space rock's spinning bulk briefly blocking the enemy ship.
"Allright, I was wrong! Keep an eye on the sensors! She'll be approaching starboard or aft!"
Round 2
Astrianna's piercing, near maniacal laugh cuts through the sound of groaning G-strained metal like a laser cutter through plastic. "I'd tell you to start a career in comedy with jokes like that, but I'm not extending such promises to you! Look, I'm feeling generous... give me the number and PIN to your Abadar Corp account and I'll donate all your credits to a charity of your choice after you've been reduced to space dust." She replies to the enemy captain with abject scorn before sitting back in her chair with a confident smile. So pleased with her reply, she actually doesn't yell at anyone for at least 10 seconds.
Round 2
"Front shields down by 95 percent, but holding." Prospero-4 states, curiously enough with exact same timing, tone and wording as Pumpkin.
"Diverting power to shields..." he continues, without pausing.
[b}"Front shield now at 28 percent. Leila, can you balance the shields more evenly?"[/b]
With their defences being taken care of, the android's attention returns to the enemy ship. Targeting during Cueta's evasive rolls would have been pointless anyway, but now it seems she has steadied the ship somewhat. Prospero-4 adjusts the auto-targeting slightly, and once the ship is in perfect angle, he taps the button to fire.
The pirates swoop in closer presenting their starboard side to the group as Cueta protects the weakened front of their ship. Both sets of evasive maneuvers aren't fully successful as Prospero-4's turret attack slams the Pirate starboard shields while the pirate ship's response hits The Sunrise Maiden's starboard. The secondary blast from the ship misses widely though.
The result is quite different from the two succesful attacks as the priate's shield collapses again while the Sunrise Maiden's shields hold firm.
Forward Shield integrity at less than half strength. Starboard shiled at half Pumpkin says with a hint of cheer in its voice. It analyzes Leia's realtime scan of data on the state of the enemy's health. Adversary Starboard shield integrity non existent. Hull Damage has caused damage to Life Support Systems
This seems to be enough for the enemy.
Enemy weapon systems powering down. Pumpkin reports.
Alright, Alright, By Besmara's t*~@ this just not been my week. Look, you could try and kill us but I'm real good at running and I wager I'd run long enough that I'd get some friends to gank ya from the back. So let's talk surrender yeah? the voice from the enemy crackles through the comms. Power down yer weapons and we'll come in to dock. OR we can just talk from a distance, as you like.
Astrianna snorts as the pirates start trying to negociate. "I have a bad habit of spacing people when they step into my airlock after opening fire on my ship. I don't think you want to come aboard."
Leaning back in her captain's chair and steepling her fingers, the half-elf speaks firmly over the comms. "Lucky for you I"m in a good mood. We're new to Diaspora and have places to be, so I'm going to cut you a deal. In exchange for not disintegrating you, I want you to go tell all your pirate friends not to mess with The Sunrise Maiden or Astrianna Sparacello and her crew. We're Starfinders on some really important business and we don't have time to be fighting off every space mugger with a drive-equipped tin can and a scattergun duct tapped to the bridge, so we need someone to spread our reputation around a bit. That'll be you, thanks. Oh by the way this is non-negotiable, and if you turn your weapon systems back on you're dead. Bye now."
Turning off the comm, she already starts instructing the crew to prepare to depart. "Cueta, get us back on course. Prospero, keep the main gun charged and locked on to the enemy vessel as we leave. Leila, monitor their systems for any signs of aggression, and if you see even a LED turn on in their weapon systems tell Prospero to dust them."
Hah! We'll take that deal. Good luck with the boneships! The pirate comms back and the ship starts to move away, its shields regenerating as they do.
"I'll keep my eyes on them! And get our shields up too. Just in case!" Leila herds the bleeps, the sweeps and swoops into useful forms. Gee it was nice with this upgraded computer suit!
"Wait, wait, boneships?" Cueta asks, as she gently brings the Maiden to a stop behind the asteroid. "Maybe they know a bit about this part of the galaxy, yeah?"
"Heyyy come on, let's get moving." Astrianna says, snapping her fingers in the general direction of the helm. She had already pulled up her comm unit and was reading an article on the best post-processing techniques for the S.I.G.H.T. system while she talked to Cueta. "We don't have time to be chatting it up with every mangy pirate that thinks we're a payday. She was talking about the Eoxians, whose national past time is piracy. They're super aggressive, don't negociate, and don't surrender. If we see one a boneship on our trajectory we're going to shoot first, that's for sure."
You guys are in the Fields of the Lost, there are a few hundred asteroids here and the coordinates gleaned from Tahomen's connection wasn't very precise. How do you proceed?
Astrianna snorts as the pirates start trying to negociate. "I have a bad habit of spacing people when they step into my airlock after opening fire on my ship. I don't think you want to come aboard, and we're not powering our weapons down."
Leaning back in her captain's chair and steepling her fingers, the half-elf speaks firmly over the comms. "Lucky for you I"m in a good mood. We're new to Diaspora and have places to be, so I'm going to cut you a deal. In exchange for not disintegrating you, you're going to answer a simple question. Do you know of any Devourer cell hideouts in Diaspora, and failing that, where we could find people that do?"
Cueta blinks and scratches her head, feeling an intense sense of deja vu.
Stifling the urge to mutter something about boneships, the pilot pulls the Maiden to a stop behind the nearest asteroid and waits.
Leila makes sure to keep the sensors sweeping and shield generators working while they chatted. Just in case! Plus it was nice to have all this new fancy stuff. She was used to having to tend the same old pieces of hardware; this panel even had a soycaff machine!
"Oh ask if there's been any other weird strangers around! But you said 'a' simple question ... Should have gone with several complex ones instead!" the halfling shares her question asking expertise trough the internal comms of the ship.
Hah, yeah we know of those crazy buggers.You lot can obviously handle yourselves but I'd still give 'em a wide bearth. They got a hole on a nearby rock, they call it the Star-Eater's spine or something equally stupid. Must be some good loot there, a bunch of bone ships were headed there just a few days ago.
The Pirate is happy to give exact directions.
"You know where that rock is?" Cueta asks, fiddling with the Maiden's voice commands, giving the ship's AI a bit more timbre.
"So we can avoid them of course, chinney?"
Well the bone ships already left. So there ain't any ships around there right now. If there's anything on the rock itself, well can't say anything about that. Don't want to get mixed up with those crazies.
It takes two hours of careful maneuvering through this densely populated portion of The Diaspora to get to the small planetoid the pirate pointed you to. It's large enough to have an official designation of K9204. It is less than a mile in diameter but Leila's scans show it to be dense enough to provide low gravity and have its own thin atmosphere. It consists of ore infused jagged cliffs that look treacherous for any attempted ship landing looking rock.
There is in fact only one open area that is large enough to accommodate The Sunrise Maiden. That bit of land shows deep grooves and scorch marks that are a clear indication that starships have landed and taken off from there repeatedly, though no such ships are currently present.
"Hmm. This asteroid somehow feels even more menacing then the last rock we visited. But let's hope there's some clues here. And that the cultists have been airlocked by pirates already!" Leila rambles while gearing up. She straps on her guns and armour then brings up a small map on her wrist display. Well maybe not a proper map, but a five minute old sensor image. "Should we go for the north or south hollows first? I think I like the north (A1) approach more."
When Cueta begins the final approach to the asteroid, Prospero-4 shuts down his screen, and slips out from the bridge. Excited, he is almost running as moves towards the starboard cargo hold that is currently housing his new battle harness. He picks up the cloth and polish he was using just before the pirates attacked, and places into a small container labeled "maintenance".
His nose wrinkles at the sight of one blemished spot in the back plate of the armor. But time is of essence, and cleaning will have to wait - he just hopes no one will notice that spot. The android proceeds to punch in the code to open the armor.
"North or south, I'm fine with either entrance. Can you see any movement or signs of life in the scanner?" Prospero-4 answers Leila, now moving towards the airlock.
Tapping her fingers on her armchair in rapid succession, Astrianna looks over the displayed map of K9204. "The northern approach looks better to me. She comments briefly before jumping up out of her chair as their ship starts its descent. "I really hope we just find a bunch of dead cultists murdered by undead pirates." She says while walking away from the bridge to collect her gear.
"But I have the sneaking suspicious that the Eoxians were on a friendlier visit than that. We should assume whatever the cultists know about this weapon of the Twelve, the Eoxians now know it, too. I can see them gaining control of this thing and ransoming the entire galaxy, one star system at a time." She explains her theory before ducking through a door to go collect her assortment of guns, grenades, and cameras.
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The Sunrise Maiden settles down with a gentle bump onto the asteroid. Pffs of silver ash plume up from the impact and only slowly settle back down in the low gravity of the planetoid.
It is still settling down as the group exists their ship. The ash is... odd. There is no obvious reason whey the rock composition of the asteroid would have turned into this kind of dust. Very mysterious. With every leaping step the group takes in the low gravity environment puffs of the ash rise up from their feet. The audio sensors of the group's armor does not pick up any sound from the environment which is not unusual. The only sound then is the group';s own over the internal comm.
The group moves into a narrow pass flanked by a sheer rocky wall to the north and a more slender - though just as tall- rock formation to the south (A5). A deep pile of silvery ash sits in the cleft between the cleft and stepped outcropping. Otherwise the rugged ground is pockmarked, but flat.
As they look around. Astrianna suddenly feels a sharp sting on her torso and her brand new refractor suit blares an internal warning. She's been shot She follows the red warning sign on her headset that shows the rough calculation of the direction the attack had come from and sees a blurred form of a sniper on the cliff to the north! It's behind cover.
Cueta's off, negotiating the stepped ledges two and three at a time, marveling as she bounds through the air, each step comically long, like that of a pan-planetary sportsvaulter. Along the way, her trusty doshko is pulled from her back. There's no need to say anything more - the soldier knows what to do, and that she's the one to do it.
Smashin' time.
Bounce-bounce-bounce! Leila happily hopped along and made small puffs of ash rise with every landing. Part of her wondered if it really just was some scorched asteroid and not some weird crematorium for the bonepeople. If it was the later then gee this probably wasn't appropriate. She was about to reluctantly share her thoughts with everyone within com range. But it seemed Astri had gotten shot as a distraction! What luck! Well assuming the shot wasn't too bad err good?
"There's a sniper on this rock too! Are they standard issue or something?!" The halfling calls out and draws her arc pistol. Then she continued her leaping and dashed forward; hopefully the dust would be enough to throw of the sniper for a moment or two! "Take this!!"
"Locking on target. Closing in." Prospero-4 reports, and starts jogging towards the sniper. The low gravity combined with the external strength from his powered armor makes movement surprisingly effortless.
He brings his rifle to his shoulder and takes a quick shot at the enemy.
"Be alert, that one might not be alone."
Round 1
"This place is weird." Astrianna comments as they bound over the asteroid surface with the puffs of ash following in their wake. "I've never heard of an ashteroid before any- ow!" The half-elf suddenly recoils, clutching her chest.
Bringing back her hands she sees no trace of blood- the kinetic dampeners in her new armor slowed down the bullet to the speed of a vesk punch, but vesk punches still hurt. Jerking her eyes up to the flashing HUD warning, she follows it to the blurry form of the shooter on the cliff.
"Sniper!" She shouts over their comms, pointing in the shooter's direction and kicking off of the ground to soar towards the staircase with everyone else. "We should always attack death cultist bases!" She chats while pulling a grenade from her explosive-laden belt. "It's an all-inclusive demographic, because even death cultists want to see death cultists die!"
Her succient analysis on the state of the adventure vlogger scene is punctuated by a lobbed frag grenade, its graceful low-g arc to the top of the cliff an apt represention of their explosive rise to stardom!
Leila's and Prospero's attacks ping off the sniper's cover, raising more puffs of ash as Cueta bounds up the rocky outcroppings to get to its position.
It fires again and Astrianna gets another bullet on her armor. It's blurry form then seems to disappear though Cueta and Prospero-4 are able to tell that it went off the other side of the cliff just as Astrinna's grenade went off! Not like the Shirren sniper though. The low gravity and comparatively short distance probably means it retreated rather than anything else.
Leila does a twirling jump on top of the ridge with her gun out ready to fire, unfortunately she can't see where the sneaky sniper has run off too.
A stream of curses pound into her companion's ears when Astrianna gets shot again, the shielding batteries of her refractor suit dipping to low levels. The HUD certainly wasn't going to let her forget it, and she makes a mental note to silence some of these fancy alarms.
Taking big leaps up the natural, oversized steps, she ends up at the top with no target in sight. "Where did that a###@&! go?"
"Hmm. This rock really isn't that big. And there were no other ships that we could see..." Leila speculates and squints trying to spot the sneaky sniper. She throws a few glances back at their own ship too, just in case.
Cueta follows the sniper over the cliff, dust puffing up around her as she leaps, momentarily enjoying the sense of weightlessness before a thought sinks in.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, yeah?
Oh well. This sniper wasn't likely suicidal. Cueta hoped.
"Take cover, Astrianna. That sniper seems to be targeting you."
Prospero-4 sprints to join the others by the cliff, but already hearing the comm chatter of disappeared sniper. He is about to suggest proceeding onwards, as the paths seem to join further on, but then Cueta already jumps down.
"So we all jump down?" he says, wishing to keep the group together. Who knows how many snipers there are lurking...
While nobody can spot the sniper from the top of the cliff, Cueta and Leila do notice a sturdy looking backpack stashed in a crevice atop the cliff. Cueta only sees this in passing as she sails over the top of the cliff and floats down the other side.
Only to get shot at by another well aimed bullet. It only grazes her armor's protective field though and she sees standing right next to her a long limbed humanoid standing between 2 and 3 metrons tall with long gossamer like wings spreading from the back of its suit holding a well made long rifle. It sneers at her with a crazed look in its eyes and it retreats back around the other side of the cliff giving the human an opportunity to swipe at it her with her melee weapon. She scores a hit as it runs around the cliff in the direction the group had come from. Cueta loses sight of him but Astrianna and Leila manage to see through the cloaking field the sniper seems to have. They see the same kind of being that Cueta saw.
Round 3
"There!" Astrianna points to the sniper as its blurry form lights up on her infrared sensors. She makes a hop forward while pulling out her distintegrator pistol from her belt. "Here I thought the Station's docking crew got rough sometimes!" The vlogger cracks a joke (for the future benefit of her viewers) as she levels the pistol on its first hostile organic target.
This was going to be a lot more satisfying than liquifying Ukulam plants.
Round 3
"Backpack!" Cueta yells as she jumps over the cliff.
The landing is much softer than Cueta expects, even as she twists almost off her feet from the bullet's impact. Chasing the winged creature down, Cueta swings at it with an overhead chop of her doshko, trying to smash the creature's wings into uselessness...
Round 3!
"There!" The halfling points before she shoots, just in case the others had missed. She tries to use her electric arc as a guide for the others - but she had to hit first of course!
Prospero-4 takes a knee on top of the cliff and fires twice in rapid succession at the winged humanoid. Both shots miss as does Cueta's doshko attack and Astrianna's fancy new pistol doesn't land its hit either.
Leila on the other hand fires a pretty devestating shot right at the creature's temple. It certainly doesn't seem to want to be in melee range so it leaps backward in a graceful motion to end up on the southern cliff. Cueta seems to have a lot of luck with opportunistic attacks on the retreating sniper and she lands another hard swipe on the foe. The figure, with visible rents in its armor, nevertheless aims its rifle at Cueta from its new perch and fires another shot at the human, which lands yet again.
Over your public comms you suddenly hear the creature screaming at you in a language that is quite unintelligible... unless you happen to know Sarcesian.
Round 4
"You lost the right to negotiate when you shot me!" Astrianna yells back in galcom over the public channel despite the fact she has no idea what the creature just said. Because she already knew so many languages hopefully everyone would just assume she understood and was being tough.
Leaping off the cliff towards their foe with a huge jump, the half-elf lands, rolls into a crouched position with her gun raised, and fires a hot blast of whatever the hells her pistol shoots that turns things into goo.
Round 4
Cueta presses her attack, moving into the creature's space, waving her raising her doshko to strike. Expected the creature would move back again, and she'd strike then...
"Woah! Quick blighter..." Leila remarks and creeps forward, taking cover wherever she can find it. She squeezes of another arc of electricity from her trusty zapper whenever she could!
Astrianna leaps forward, soaring high above the cliff the sniper has taken refuge behind. Right at the apex of her jump her pistol disgorges a high stream of devastating energy that lands right at the face plate of the sniper. His shouting ceases in your comms ceases quite abruptly as his corpse flops over limply causing a cloud of ash to raise up before settling down over him.
On the sniper the group finds an estex suit II that needs repairing, and advanced Diasporan rifle with 2 batteries (20 charges each), 4 frag grenades II and a tactical dueling sword.
Working backwards to the backpack they noted at the sniper's initial hiding spot they discover that it contains a mobile hotelier with a drained battery, six R2Es, a credstick loaded with 2800 credits, and a small leather bound journal. The group's personal computing units identify the language as Sarcesian.