Servos locked according to Sona's instructions, 2BR gets to work.
(with 4 armor)
> Pops, try not to throw a rod out there, we don't have enough time or resources for a full rebuild.
"Nedora, your expertise is needed outside. There are two temporarily visible cats roaming the bay. See that our infantry team doesn't encounter them on their way back. I should be able to act as a Forward Officer and call corrections, should you need them."
"Alright." Nedora says, as she slinks off, keeping to the shadows. When she finds the cats, she carefully lines up a shot.
There's crack as she sends a single shot into the closer of the two cats. The needle-like projectile tears into the thing's neck, causing it to shudder as the hypersonic dart sends shockwaves up and down it's spinal cord.
She's already lining up another shot before the beast can howl, aiming for the next cat.
Unfortunately...
Nedora cautiously prowls through the central chamber, marveling at the "snow" covered landscape. As she narrows in on the location sent by Sona, she sees her target feeding on a body. Grinning wickedly as she goes prone, she lines up a headshot. With its face buried in the body, the creature presents an easy target. Her aim is true. The feline's head explodes, and blood mixes with the foam, creating a horrific pink landscape.
Unfortunately, predator can easily become prey. Nedora was entirely too focused on her target, and had drowned out Sona's warnings. As you watch your target's head pop through your scope you feel a tremendous pain in your back. The second creature is on you, and finds you to be absolutely delicious. Take 2d6+2 damage as you become the main course. There is now a noticeable chunk of back muscle missing around your left shoulder blade. You also feel two heavy paws holding you down. After a few moments of futile struggling, you hear the creature swallow. What do you do?
Sona, you saw this happening. I imagine you would have immediately reacted once Nedora showed signs of ignoring you. If you wish, you and BoT can be en route to Nedora's position and act to intervene.
What do you do?
Nedora's wound isn't as bad as it would seem, but she's still in trouble she tries to wriggle free but...
The shadowcat manages to dig his teeth into 2BR's left arm, which has the side effect of providing an unmoving target. As he cuts through the feline's neck, 2BR is pleasantly surprised to find the chain of his sword catch fire. The cat quickly falls limp. At the sound of the cat's death throes, two miners emerge from seclusion and they eye you with obvious fear. What are you?
What do you do?
Nedora, the cat bites down again and shakes its head vigorously. Choose one: a) you are thrown free of the cat, gaining valuable distance, but leaving your shotgun beneath it, or b) the cat accidentally bites down primarily on your sniper rifle, rendering it useless until you have time and material to repair it and leaving you pinned beneath the cat.
"Less immediately dangerous to you than this." 2BR hoists the corpse, then tosses it aside. "Your compatriots await. Run in front of me. If you see a predator ahead of us, hit the ground. Otherwise, do not stop."
"My ability to decelerate is severely limited."
"Do you understand?"
As he follows Nedora, BoT calls out to Captain Thorne, "Yeah, no time to explain!'
When he finds her being savaged by a shadowcat, he takes time to line up his shot, knowing that the beast is too distracted with its current target to attack him.
His aiming protocols lock in on the creature's thick skull. Ideally, he should stun the creature even if he doesn't kill it.
I do no damage, but the glancing blow causes the cat to do nothing but stand and drool for a few precious seconds.
Sona walks to the door, relaying surveillance information to 2BR.
> There's still one shadowcat in the dining hall, and two more temporarily living miners in your sector.
Sona walks to the stunned shadowcat and drives the stun lance into its ribs.
"Nedora, Keep your sights on the conveyor system, watch for footprints in the foam."
There is a clatter as the needler/shotgun hits the ground and the cat sends its prey flying through the air. Nedora lets out a yelp as she lands hard on her mauled shoulder, leaving a smear of blood behind as she rolls up, the strange gun in her hands. The halfling sniper flips a switch on the side, and the block begins to move and transform. It lengthens with the whine of servos that move the sections of the block out. As this happens, the block splits in two, moving just far enough apart to expose the short barrel that feeds the now obvious rails.
All this takes less than a second, and happens as brings to gun to bear. There's the whine of charging capacitors as Nedora calmly lines up on the cat, then the whipcrack of something small moving very, very fast.
2BR, at your command the two miners begin sprinting towards Ops at high speed. As you are approximately a quarter of the way through the central chamber, you hear Sona's instructions.
What do you do?
Nedora, you roll clear of the beast and turn back to find it incapacitated by your team mates. You efficiently put it out of its misery and you stand.
Sona speaks quickly to you. What do you do?
Sona and BoT, you begin downloading a message from the AI.
>External sensors restored to 5% efficiency. Vessel "Lucky Sixes" (registry 5N4K3-3Y35) awaiting cargo
>three unknown vessels approaching landing zone
What do you do?
> Sona, please locate additional survivors
> Nedora, two miners heading your way. Kindly avoid turning them into lunch.
2BR lopes along behind the miners at a comfortable distance, ready should anything attempt to remove a few limbs.
Keeping in mind that the station was bombed from orbit, Sona heads back toward Ops.
> We have ships incoming.
> There is one survivor in the dining hall, along with a shadowcat.
> Another in the rec hall, alone.
> The central chamber is secure.
> We will begin transporting survivors to the ship.
To the sea of organics, she says: "The survivors will be secured soon, we just have a few complications upstairs to sort out." When she reaches the console, Sona attempts to contact the computer systems of the ships.
> Ooh, guys, not a great time to drop off any of your gut fauna; lots of hostile natives.
> This one is Sona, Theta Model 3, performing licenced salvage for T.E.R.R.A.
> Just so I know, under whose orders are any of you here?
Jamee directs his RAB back to Ops where the rest of the survivors are and begins to move around the room, gathering up duffel bags filled with gear and equipment that would be used by the TERRAN operatives. He gathers up 4 Weight worth of miner's gear - clothing too, supplies, anything the survivors would want to bring with them on board the Lucky Sixes. They'd be unlikely to return here after we rescue them, after all. When he's finished, he has multiple bags slung over various parts of his chassis, making him look like a loader droid.
"Ready to proceed," the elf boy's voice chimes from the comm, as he begins to lead the survivors toward the cargo bay. The red beam from his ocular sensors lights the way.
Nedora hears Sona's orders and does one better. She flips another toggle and her gun grows even longer as the rails spread apart a full centimeter and a half. Nedora takes aim, spotting what she believes is a weakness in the wall between and above the two conveyors, after bracing herself against one of the pillars.
There's a crack of hypersonic thunder, but things do not go as planned...
Sona, the unknown AI's respond with nothing more than an animated emoticon, a smiley goblin face that morphs into a laughing skull. Your systems immediately identify a subroutine hidden within the animation file. Defy Danger with Int to fend off the cyber attack.
BoT, the survivors eagerly follow you as you lead them towards the freight elevator. Thorne and her soldiers take up a defensive escort position and follow. The two survivors with 2BR see the group emerge and sprint towards the perceived safety in numbers.
2BR, there are still two survivors back in the living area and your charges are fending for themselves.
Nedora, take your half of 1d6 damage as the extreme recoil rolls through your shredded back. Your aim is true, but your assessment of the wall is a bit off. It collapses but only of the two conveyor is buried. From the other you hear howling as a flock of birds erupts from the other conveyor. Or are they dogs? Weird.
What do you do?
"Thorne," BoT asks as he and the survivors walk briskly toward the elevator, "I assume you can find the hangar area where the Sixes is. My friends are assuming a defensive posture and I feel I should be aiding them. Here," he dumps the 4 weight of supplies in the freight elevator and holds the door open for the survivors. "Go, I'll make sure you can get into the cargo bay on our end!"
Sona rolls her eyes as she watches a storm of tiny packets from the comms port attempt to piggyback on essential processes, in the realm of data infantry, this is akin to firing a shotgun into a crowded room--no elegance, no efficiency. The tiny bits of code did little to nothing on their own, but fit themselves snugly into the stacks of critical system tools, slowing them down with processor collisions in the best case, and causing erratic behavior in the worst case.
The Technician brought up the recovery file, something which would normally take hours to apply and would lose recent data, and begins to perform hash comparisons to single out infected processes, quarantine them, and replace them with clean copies.
< I've bought you some time, but this site is being abandoned.
< I can carry some hardware, but it is up to you to upload what of your software you wish to save.
Sona walks to the CPU's hardware cabinet and disengages 6 weight of non-essential high-end computer hardware to carry to the ship.
< It may be in your best interest to lock the door behind me.
Sona heads out of OPs toward the elevator.
As soon as the two miners are close enough to the larger group, 2BR digs his claws in, skids to a stop, and starts heading back the way he came.
> Sona, can you communicate with the last two in any way? Maybe Thorne has some way of contacting them.
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The grawlix come a cross the speakers as crunchy, harsh tones like highly compressed speech over a Sound Blaster card.
To close the distance between OPs and Nedora, Sona drops into a combat roll, letting gravity provide most of the mobility. Her objective is to make her way to a position where she can Reach any creatures attempting to attack Nedora or the two survivors. She flourishes the stun lance, letting it crack menacingly, and hoping to give Nedora the space she needs to remain effective.
"If you need armaments, Ensign, I have a few weapons which might suit your skills better than mine."
Nedora just shakes her head and runs to grab her dropped weapon even as her rail gun collapses. She'd been bloodied, battered, and bruised. Her one outfit was half-shredded, and now, she just wants off this rock.
"MOVE IT," She shouts to the miners and 2BR before making for the elevator.
2BR, as you sprint down the hall towards the east most rooms, you see a woman running towards you. As you pass each other she yells, Vince is still back there! Hurry!
As you turn the corner you see a man huddling in terror in the corner as he watches one of the cats devour a dead miner. The foam outline of a cat looks up at you as you enter. This one is significantly larger than your previous victims.
What do you do?
BoT and Sona, you reach Nedora's position just in time to watch Nedora retreat at full speed. The birds approach you at low altitude but appear focused on the tastier target that is now in full flight. They make no move to attack either robot.
What do you do?
Sona, as you move you dedicate a significant portion of your processing power to successfully fighting off the cyber intrusion. Almost as an afterthought you probe the enemy ship systems. Given your focus on other things, you can't get past the secondary firewalls. However, you do learn that the ships are registered to someone named Delshick.
What do you do?
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2BR's speaker grills click open.
"This is going to be highly unpleasant for everyone involved."
And then click close again.
The charge in his forward manipulators builds and builds, and then earths when he smacks his claws together.
2BR's stun wave disrupts the shadowalpha's stealth field, revealing a very different sight than the other felines. Larger than its cousins, this specimen has bony plates covering the top of its head and running down its back.
It leaps towards the newcomer, but 2BR's chainsword is already out. The robot's swing connects, but grates against the bony shoulder plate before digging in to a gap to find the flesh underneath.
Undaunted, the beast presses the attack, grabbing 2BR's sword arm in its claws and crunching down through wires, servos, and armor alike. Take best of two rolls of 1d10 (pierce 2) damage as it holds your sword arm tightly.
You can feel the beast shift its weight to attempt to topple you. What do you do?
Sona commences a fighting withdrawal, trying to keep her lance between the timberhawks and the organic personnel. Being low on power, she has to take an offensive stance.
> Kray, you hippocratic, half-cocked scoundrel, if you weren't in a med pod right now, I would kill you for this. I would kill you and devote the next century to developing a virus capable of wipeing your kin from the gene pool. The frog-blooded cop-for-hire followed us here.
2BR lets go of the chainsword and goes at it with his claws.
The Alpha's eyes desperately spin in their sockets as 2BR's claws pull up on its snout, using his sword arm for leverage. The jaw breaks, the Alpha shudders and goes limp, and you can suddenly hear the screams of the remaining miner.
You can also hear the sound of screech-barking coming from the central chamber, and sounds of combat.
What do you do?
Sona, you can choose to fall to the ground, dropping your weapon and letting the birds continue past you and BoT on to Nedora and the survivors unmolested, or you can stand tall and take the brunt of the attack yourself.
What do you do?
Sona braces for impact.
2BR pulls whats left of his arm out of the the cat. Seems like the force field took the brunt of the attack, but it'll need some buffing out.
"Any other survivors?" he asks the miner, at a slightly louder volume than the screaming.
Jamee's eyes widen in his command station as he sees the birdlike creatures attacking Sona. "NOOO!" he shouts, his voice replicating itself through his RAB's speakers. Desperately, he opens fire on the flock, emptying as many power cells as he needs to in order to thin the attack on his friend.
His robotic avian explorer companion, RAE, is among the birds as a wolf is among sheep, her sharpened steel alloy talons flashing as she dives and slashes.
One of the wolfalcons crashes to the ground as the combination of BoT's barrage and RAE's talons rip apart its wings. However, the remaining 6 tear into Sona's chassis. Take d6+6 damage as talons and beaks slice through your skin.
The wolfalcons head east in unison and perform synchronized immelmann turns to gain altitude before diving back towards Sona and BoT.
What do you do?
2BR, the miner stares at you for a moment in shocked silence before mumbling. I ... I don't think so.
What do you do?
"Well, if there are they've now been condemned to death." rumbles 2BR blithely. He collects and holsters his chainsword, then heads back the way he's come. "Stay close by. If a cat shows up, and you are between me and it, drop. Otherwise, keep going. Understood?"
Sona jets steam as she gets back to her feet. That was the end of that. She had done her due diligence. As far as she was concerned at this point, they had gotten themselves in this trouble, and while her services had been acquired, she hadn't exactly been handed a blank check.
The diminutive technician heads for the elevator, keeping an eye out for pops and his "passenger seat".
In the fuming silence, Miss Muffet came out almost hesitantly and began patching.
Nedora, you reach the survivors and glance over your shoulder to see BoT and Sona struggling valiantly with a flight of birdsthings. Off to your right in the distance you notice a miner sprinting towards the freight elevator with 2BR close on his heels. The miner begins to slow as it sees the creatures attacking Sona.
In the distance you see another flight of birdsthings enter the cavern and gain altitude to survey the area.
The survivors are all bunched in the freight elevator. Thorne is shouting for you all to hurry as she and her shoulders fire at the flight attacking Sona. Two fall dead under the barrage. The rest zip towards Sona.
What do you all do?
2BR overtakes the miner and all-out sprints towards Sona and the birds.
Sona continues to walk briskly toward the elevator. Her size seems small enough for the creatures to knock off her feet, but at her weight and current encumbrance, tackling her is a bit like tackling a steel wall.
"COVERING FIIIIIIIIRE!!!!!" Jamee shouts into his microphone as he goes full-auto on his wrist blaster, firing at the Wolfalcons desperately. As he fires, he keeps backpedaling towards Thorne's voice, trying to escort Sona to the elevator. RAE screeches as her combat subroutines are tested to their very limits.
As the party performs a tactical retreat, BoT's attack kills another of the falcons pestering Sona. The survivors, BoT, Nedora, and Sona all make it into the freight elevator. 2BR charges up and uses his bulk to fill the elevator entrance as the doors seal. As a result, none of the falcons manage to make it into the elevator.
The elevator begins whisking you all upward. It stops at the surface and the doors remain sealed, waiting for you to push the door open button to proceed out onto the surface of this hellish planet.
What do you do?
2BR presses the sh*t out of that button. In human terms though, so like, just moderately.
The RAB loads a fresh power pack into his wrist cannon and readies himself.
Composing herself, Sona turns to the miners as the elevator rises. "See? No big deal. I hope you will all take this time to consider putting in a good word with our employers. That's 'the crew of The Lucky Sixes' available for hazardous recon, demolition, and birthday parties." She flashes a smile, and a small shower of sparks issues from her jaw.
Miss Muffet takes the opportunity to hop over to 2BR and make some repairs to his shredded manipulator.
Once she's finished, she hops over to Nedora and attempts to make repairs to her shoulder...
Once the elevator dings, she hops up and is retracted into Sona's shoulder by the tether cord.
The elevator opens into the rubble of the hangar bay. You see the Lucky Sixes out in the loading platform. She makes an impressive sight, as you can tell that all of her weapons are fully deployed and ready for combat.
Your comms squeal to life: Arr me bots. I tot ye'd never return. We be havin' guests. Best get t' ye battlestations and secure de cargo!
The way to the ship seems clear, and there are no birds to be seen.
What do you do?
"Let's move it miners, let's go! Who knows what other kind of space monster this station will vomit forth next. Move!" he urges the survivors forward out of the elevator brusquely, hustling them toward the cargo bay of the Sixes.
There's never a better ambush than when you've put your guard down thinking you're safe, Jamee thinks to himself. "Stay frosty. There may be more shadowcats about." he warns as they move.
Sona pours her ebbing power into the ORACLE module, running the numbers on an escape without casualties. She focuses on singling out possible attack vectors from shadowcats so that she can be ready for them if they attack.
The technician winces as the delicate electronics crack and fizzle with the strain of the calculations, but she is able to create a workable overlay of threat hotspots. As they march toward the ship, she keeps her stun lance close to each point of high threat, limping around the huddled miners.