Jean sighs heavily as he feels the ship move faster than he'd ever seen it before, but still possessing the nimbleness of a drunk hippopotamus. "Pile d'ordure...", he voices his complain of the ship, reaching over the comms. "Blackjack, don't think I can get the engines running faster yet! I'll see if I can throw some dust in their eyes!", he relays over the intercomm, sitting in the console's chair and strapping in.
A holographic keyboard appears on the desk, as he cracks his knuckles. Good thing we got that upgrade..., he thinks, bringing up the comms operation array panel, selecting broadcasting. "I've got an idea! Might... draw some more power, though...", he relays over the comms.
Jean hastily reaches for a cigarette from behind his ear. As Belter swerves the ship hard starboard, his lighter slides on the table, Jean managing to grab it just at thee end. And then, an idea appears in his head. "Monsieur Jack, you fixed that hovercraft, no? Do you think you can connect its power source to the ship? It wouldn't help that much with the engines, but it should give aux powers a boost!", he relays excitedly. Vehicles were never Jean's strong side, preferring to focus on either the personal or the infrastructural level.
Black Jack, once he has the Turning in Space, aims the ship's main Cannon at the gauntlet. The blast causes a rumble through the ship but nothing crazy. Unfortunatly the shot fails miserably and goes on its own adventure into the depths of space.
Rix successfully is able to reassure the children and keep them calm, despite the new noises that occure after the shots begin fireing. APRIL does turn off the outgoing coms but can still recieve incomming fromt he medbay.
And so the Turing got its first shot off...though it missed it did rouse the attention of the guantlet. The massive vessal adjusted its headed to better broad side at the turning. Several gun batteries took aim...
3 batteries let loose beams of concentrated light. Laser fire.
Rear
Rear
Center
The barrage of fire burns its light through space with tight, red beams that hum through the vary fabric of the void.
The Turing takes two large shots to the rear hull and one to the center.
32 with a divisor of 2 strikes the rear doing 27 dmg. Enough to disable Several fuel tanks. Warning lights begin to flash...
The second black to the rear hull was a beam of 26 burn. The Turning absorbed five of it (due to the divisor) for a total of 21. Once again, enough damage was had to disable a system... .. More fuel tanks are struck. The ships fuel is becoming scarce.
The third beam strikes the hull of the center. It penetrates, causing many of the doors to seal immediately. Those in room are protected and possess life support. 35 damage after the armor absorbed what it could. The turret has been disabled. However, the Center hull has not lost its pressure or atmosphere as the disabled turret is on the outside of the ship. Merely the ships auto responses.
The turing has taken a total of 82 dmg. A slight more then half its full integrity.
The ships warning signs and sirens explode onto the screens. Hydrogen leeks from the fuel loss. The ship is reduced to one gun.
1)The Turning
-Jack: 6.5
-BlackJack: 6.5
-Jean: 5
-APRIL: 5
-Rix: 5
-Terra:5
2) The Guantlet
Jean shakes as the laser hits the inner hull and the engines. He furiously exhales, spitting out the cigarette butt on the ground, adding another alarm to the long roster. As he punches in the last line, he wipes the sweat off of his brow, then hovers his finger over the big, red, holographic button.
"Jack, I've got the systems ready! Just need the power!", he shouts over the comms. "We better make the next shot count! Take out the... thingy!" He coughs, analysing the targeting solution for the gunnery.
Running cables and adjusting the power couplings from the hovertank to the ship, Jack is rocked as the first salvo strikes The Turning. Cursing he drags the cables over to the wall mounted conduit and before he attempts to marry the two units together, he takes a deep breath and centres himself.
Meditation:
Mechanic:
Blackjack takes a deep steadying breath and relaxes as if he was using his signature gun, The Dealer. Right as the chime indicating a clean firing solution has been dialed in sounds, Blackjack squeezes off a single shot at the falling chunk of Gauntlet aimed at Styx. His aim is true, streaking across the Black to impact the improvised weapon and knock it off course.
"HOLD ON T'YER BREECHES FOLKS," his voice, doubly distorted by his helmet and the Turing's speakers booms out as he wrenches the nose around and guns the engines to put as much distance between the wounded ship and the Gauntlet as he could. The stars and moon spin dizzily outside viewports and in screens showing the view outside the hull as Blackjack jukes and jinks and jags the wallowing junker like it was a high-performance starfighter. Through the strain of piloting it, the Hero of the Belt tells APRIL to patch him through to Jean.
"If they're gonna leave, they better do it now! This bucket can take another hit like that and those damned Psykers are gonna try and put her out of her misery. Tell 'em t'scatter and put out as much noise as they can. Maybe we can blind 'em fer a bit if we're lucky," he grunts out as he pushes the ship far beyond the limits it was designed for.
The power system charges properly. All Jack and Jean needed was the hard wire connection. oops, Jack struggles to make the connection. No additional power from The tank is applied...yet.
Mean while, in the cockpit, Black jack sets up another shot from the Turing's main Cannon. The charge fires beautifully, Striking the Centure Hull with a total of 126 damage! Though the Gauntlet is tough, an explosion can be seen from the cockpit. The sensors pick up that the one of the gun batteries has gone off line...
The Turing is still in poor shape. After the fine shot from the cannon, the ship seems to flux... ..Life support. ... A chem leak has sprung in the rear hull. Liquid Hydrogen has begun to spread along the paths, seeping into sensitive equipment. If ignited, a bad day could happen....
1)The Turing
-Jack
-BlackJack
-Jean
-April
-Rix
-Terra
2) The Gauntlet
The shot fired strikes the detached chamber, simply refered to as debris. It punches a hole straight through causing a depressurization... however. However, the smaller debris that it is, hasn't changed course... and what's more interesting, we can detect a leek of Anti-matter from the passive sensors now.
The leek causes a nullifying affect with regular matter, almost as if its eating itself.
Amidst the multiple claxons and flashing lights that are going on, Terra shouts into her comms (while still standing next to Blackjack) "I hate to say it, but I think it's time we get out of here! There's no way we can stand another round of fire from the Gauntlet! Jean, why didn't you give the go-ahead to the Moonbase ships for them to leave too?!?"
Jean quickly clocks the alarm on the hydrogen leak and stands up from the chair, struggling to find the cigarette butt. Merde, merde, merde... He reaches to his wrist computer, calling Luna base.
"It's time to evacuate! The object is leaking anti-matter, and we're taking heavy fire from the Gauntlet. Now's a good a time as any!", he says over the comms to the old man, before another loud noise is heard from the various systems failing around the ship. "Split and keep trying to blind the Gauntlet. Try and aim the station's laser comms towards the ship, too!", he says, before another, more immediate alarm appears, and he interrupts the comms.
EDIT: Instead of Antimatter leak, please note, it was indeed a plasma leak of sorts. HOWEVER! Scans do detect the anti-matter warheads.
APRIL tries to do what she can to vent things, from her wired-in console...
Rix monitors the alarms and communications, listening for any indications that anyone is injured. After the rush of alarms subsides, she radios everyone, including the children, "Is everyone all right? Anyone injured?"
April successfully vents the rear fuel section of the ship, preventing any catastrophic over-look to damaged hydrogen fuel cells.
From what Rix can tell, explosions all about and a silent communication suggests a variety of things. Non of the children, or trixy, are injured, though Trixy also nuzzles into Dr. Rix for comfort...expressing a large sum of terror.
The Energy that was primed from the reactor to be funneled into the sensor dish is still on stand by...waiting for a hard wire from the tank to join it.
..........
The gauntlet's cannons seem to cease, it engines igniting to thrust it into motion. Although massive, the ship seems to trying to maneuver itself between the Turing and the Debris. Passive sensors show that all power has gone to thrusters on the Gauntlet, both maneuvering and propulsion. (Next round it will be between you guys and the debris making the doom device hard to get to.).
The Debris object (Hence forth referred to as the Dooms Day Device (DDD), leaks plasma but continues on its course. Impact in roughly 4 turns.
--------
Initiatives!
1)The Turing
-Jack
-BlackJack
-Jean
-April
-Rix
-Terra
2) The Gauntlet
Blackjack sees the Gauntlet moving to shield the antimatter bomb. He hesitates for a moment before swinging the nose back around and taking aim once more.
"Whoever's on comms, tell those ships they got three minutes to get out of there," he calls out before aiming the cannon at the debris from the Gauntlet again. It is risky, but if he is going to save Styx, he needs to destroy that bomb. Three shots was all he can risk.
Cursing softly as all three shots go wild, Blackjack brings her about and goes on a wild evasion pattern, putting as much distance between the Turing and the Gauntlet as he can.
"Comms," he says, defeat heavy in his voice, "Tell them to get as many as they can out. I can't risk all of you and the kids. If any of you can, plot a course to Ceres. We'll drop the kids off there."
"Mon Dieu...", mutters Jean, seeing the signal from the bomb continue to head towards the hub. He pauses for but a moment, slamming his fist on the desk. Think, think..., he reaches towards his wrist computer, contacting the station and the escapees. "Those who are in orbit, disengage Luna. We couldn't get the bomb. Impact is in three minutes. We're... we're sorry. Turing out.", he mutters, before shutting down the comms. He slams the desk again. "Jack, how's that power going? I'll try and get something to fit better on my end!", he says, initialising power control.
He jumps up, reaching for his helmet. "APRIL, can you get that chem leak fixed? If we don't jam them, we're squatting ducks!", he relays. He engages contact to everyone, then shuts it down. Right now, they don't need me talking. We can all talk about it later, but now we need to get us and those kids the hell away. And Nedora's still there..., he thinks as he tampers with the power couplings.
Gritting his teeth, Jack once again attempts to get the converter to work.
Mechanic:
The Ship's main cannon fires wildly, missing the debris chunk entirely. This Blackjack seems to be a poor shot. Non-the-less, his piloting has proven itself well enough. The ship, despite the hits it's received is holding togather... The sound of the hull aching from its wounds echoes across the center and rear hull, like that of a whale beneath the waves...or the titanic shredding its hull in twain.
Jean patches into the comms and singal everyone on the lunar station to leave ASAP. This triggers several of the hangers to begin opening. If anyone was to respond, the outward comms from the station were stilled jammed...not a word in response.
An Effort was once again help the recieving end of the power coupling from tank to ship, jack as the medium to link the two. Jean magnatized the recieving port (granting a +1 to the skill for Jack's Mechanic check) in hopes to pull the coupling but Jack found himself unable to link the damn thing. The clamping mechanism seems to have been laced with grease. If only he had an inner strength to help with this ancient art of tube connection...
With The rear of the ship vented, the fuel that remained is no longer a threat...just potentially messy once clean up can happen.
Initiatives!
1)The Turing
-Jack
-BlackJack
-Jean
-April
-Rix
-Terra
2) The Gauntlet
Having practiced on the ship's cannon somewhat during their last voyage, Terra grabs the gunner controls from Blackjack and says "Well, you may be a pretty good pilot, but you *suck* at shooting things!", and aims at the DDD :
"If anyone needs an extra set of hands, let me know. Otherwise, I remain ready to assist anyone who becomes injured." Rix tried to keep her voice calm, something she had learned how to do when talking to terminally ill patients about what was to come. She gives Trixy a hug and waits, feeling the sweat trickle down her neck and into her vacc suit.
APRIL just does what she can to defrag RAM on the ship's systems and help the others with their tasks.
The blast from the cannon struck the DDD once out of its small barrage. Though the bolt struck with incredible force, causing the object to actually show signs of breaking apart. Futher more, the Passive Scanns show a volatile reaction within the DDD, Seems the Anti-Matter Bomb was damaged. Though not enough to detenate itself...likely from fail-safes.
The Guantlet looms its massive hull between the DDD and the Turing, Its guns seem to target the rugged vessel ony to find its being fired upon by several smaller transports, personal ships and space-vans.
Many of the ships simply fly by, whilst others head toward the Gate Mechina in hopes to activate it remotely and escape without having to outrun the Guantlet.
The Guantlet's many batteries begin to fire rapidly, several smaller ships are destroyed in one shot or another. Some of the thicker vessels seem to take a punch or two, but minimal damage is noted from the Guantlet. Civilian defenses are simply tiny.
One of the Guns fires at the Turing...
The shot fires off, but Blackjack had been ready for this barrage... He switches the ships thrusters, effectively barrel-rolling out of the arc as a beam of laser fire jets out into the void... The intensity of at which the ship is being stressed seems to have caused a minor blip...
The engines buzz...
However, the buzz only stalled the jet engines, your atmo-drives. At the moment, that is a non-issue.
Initiatives!
1)The Turing
-Jack
-BlackJack
-Jean
-April
-Rix
-Terra
2) The Gauntlet
Jean swears loudly once more, then notices the quadratically increasing number of alarms on the console. "If we survive this, we'll need lots of duct tape!", blurts out Jean with a nervous laughter. "Jack, I'll try and refine the electronique warfare program, hit me with the power when you can!", he says over the comms, launching up the readied hack and dipping into the lines of code. His lips start moving wordlessly, and his fingers start tapping on the desk, as he remembers military protocols and firewalls, plans workarounds. Smart filters... could lure them... no, that's not used by Terra....
Realizing he needs some specific tools to help him connect the line, Jack gets on the comm system and calls the doctor.
"Dr. Rix are you there? I am in need of some tools, which I believe you will find in Jean's room. Can you retrieve these for me and get them to the cargo bay ASAP!"
Finally connect power(Mechanic)???
And damn Jean, save some of those for Jack. Whew.
"Hold t'gether ye stupid bucket o' bolts," Blackjack growls as yet another alarm comes to life. He knows he is pushing the ship past its limits, but he also has to get it to safety. Right now, his only hope is to be such a difficult target the Gauntlet goes for easier prey. It is cruel. It galls him to use others as shields, but that was the grim calculus of the situation. He swears softly as he puts the Turing through every evasion maneuver he knows as he tries his best to build a vector for the belt and make targeting the tramp hell.
Rix heard Jack's request and immediately hustled through the lurching ship to find Jean's tools and then get them to Jack. She opened the case and set it in Jack's reach and hovered nearby in case he needed her to help. It had the feel of being a nurse in an operating theater, handing tools to the surgeon, his gloved hands covered in the black oily blood fo the ship.
Trixy frisked about, curious what was happening.
With the DDD out of her sight, Terra can do no more than hang on to her seat for dear life and hope that the ship holds itself together long enough to get away from the Gauntlet...
Grudgingly, she is impressed by Blackjack's piloting as he weaves between blaster shots and all the other fleeing ships.
With Rix getting tools to Jack and thus Jack being able to properly get that damn coupling to function as needed, the power needed to get what Jean needs done is ready...
Jean had already prepped the code and the noise to be projected from the sensor suit Dish (Located at the bottom of the cockpit).
The ship's power transfers as planned and funnels into the dish. A large, electromagnetic hum shimmers off the dish briefly before violently discharging at the Gauntlet.
A stream of blue-white energy bellows forth on a volatile path at the gauntlet, striking it with vigor, a few seconds of continually ionization and scanner noise.
The ship's sensors drop, but visually, the Gauntlet seems to have been disabled for all intents and purposes. Its lights flickers, its guns lower or reset. Its engines pulse...but for how long?
----------------
Several more ships are able to escape and beging flaring their thrusters to maximum, quickly leaving view. Others take the chance and begin activating the Gate Machina. Its shimmering bluew portal spawning into exsistance with a thunderous wave of energy that seems to make the ship rock as if at sea.
Initiatives!
1)The Turing
-Jack
-BlackJack
-Jean
-April
-Rix
-Terra
2) The Gauntlet
Terra buckles herself in a the seat she sat at the cockpit, waiting...
Rix watches slackjawed as the sensory overload works as planned. She immediately wonders where they can go where the the Baron cannot find them. The futility of that strikes her almost instantly, given the state of the Turing. Then her eye is caught by a flash of light associated with the Gate Machina.
She reaches out and opens the communication channel. She pauses for several seconds before speaking. "Don't call me crazy, but if we popped out the Gate Machina and it closed, wouldn't we be able to get back through, I mean, eventually? But in the meantime, we'd be, you know, safe?" She did not add what she immediately thought, Other than dealing with Shiva knows what brain-eating, saliva drooling, multi-jawed aliens, gamma ray emitting black holes consuming multiple star systems, or becoming stranded light years from anything remotely habitable.
"Oh sure. Brilliant idea! Let's take a half-crippled tub with two dozen kids an' their nannies through into uncharted space," Blackjack's sarcastic reply comes in over the intercom, "what could possibly go wrong?"
"we COULD Die." APRIL responds. "that IS the most LIKEly posSIBILity. I can PROduce the NECessary FOODstuffs, but fuel WOULD beCOME an isSUE."
The gauntlet still seems to be disabled. Its lights seem to flicker more violently and engines give off plumes of pulsating energy. Its unsure how much longer it will remain this passive...
Mean while, ships begin moving through the Gate.
Initiatives!
1)The Turing
-Jack
-BlackJack
-Jean
-April
-Rix
-Terra
2) The Gauntlet
"Prend ça!", shouts Jean enthusiastically as the Gauntlet shuts down, jumping up in the air. "Great work!", he relays over the comms as he sits down back on the console. "Blackjack, can you set a course for Ceres, then we shut down everything for a while. We should be able to last a while, drift until things quiet down, and then, maybe, call for aid, if need be."
He takes a look at the system feedback, trying to figure out what signals would be easily detectable by scanners, and shutting them down.
"I think I'll be able to patch her up, for now." He scratches his beard. "Think we might be able to drift around for a while, then quickly go to another hub on Luna, restock, fix whatever I can't do in the meanwhile, and set off again?"
"That's the plan, though I hope we can actually land this tub," Blackjack says as he does his best to get the Turing speeding towards Ceres.
When the possibility of landing at another Luna hub comes up, Blackjack sighs.
"As nice as that'd be, I'm not sure we could count on not getting caught. They're bound to b searching for anyone that mighta escaped from Styx given that their tryin' t'turn it into Luna's newest crater."
Once he is sure that the connections are not going to come loose, Jack moves into the hover tank and ensures that, if necessary, it is able to hold the kids and withstand vacuum, acting as a possible escape pod.
Jean makes the efforts needed to shut down all passively detectable signals coming from the Turing.
Black Jack Sets a course to the dwarf planet Ceres… With the minor amount of fuel left and the need to conserve it for when they enter the asteroid field… the endeavor will take a week. At least thats the recommended expenditure.
Jack checks the tank as a liable escape pod. Its probably the most functional thing on the ship. It seals as if new, the weapons and other functions are all perfect and pristine. A warning does show up on the console within the tank, that power is currently being diverted into the Turing, something Jack already knew.
A broken signal does make its way to the Turing from some of the folks leaving the the station or venturing into the gate. It contains the many thank yous for saving as many people as you could.
For all intent and purposes, the people have escaped the wrath of the Terran’s destruction attempt.
The time in the black will take 1 week. Effectively, if there is anything anyone would like to do during that time frame, please post it. Once everyone has taken there respective efforts, we’ll continue to Ceres!
4 CC to everyone.
Blackjack is as mysterious as ever. He keeps to himself for most of the trip, eating either really early or really late. He claims the cabin next to Nedora's, and is either locked in there or on the command deck most of the time. Though his mood is black, he always has time for the kids and has taken them in small groups onto the command deck to teach them about flying. No one ever gets a good look at his face or even sees him out of the armor he wears for the first five days of the trip.
Jean shuts down the thruster feed, the last remaining passive scannable feed, and he sits down on the floor, exhausted. The thoughts, stress and everything in his head quiets down for a moment, as he lies on the floor, lighting up a victory cigarette, and enjoys a couple of minutes of absolute quiet.
As the message from the refugees comes, he smiles bittersweetly, a tear running down his cheek. He stands up slowly, then makes his way to the comm console on the wall.
"Let's gather in the briefing room in ten. Jack, could you bring the soldiers there, too?", he says calmly, then shuts down the console, making his way to his cabin. Reaching into his footlocker, he moves the rapidly deteriorating supply of cigarettes and his overalls, bringing out a labelless glass bottle.
As the crew gathers, Jean stands up, uncorking the bottle. "Ladies, gentlemen. Friends.", he starts, gesturing forward to pick a cup. "Today, we did something unthinkable. We stood up against the Gauntlet, and we defied them." He moves in as he talks, pouring a couple of drops into each cup. "Through our actions, we saved lives. We protected the right to live, not just ours, but that of people we barely know." He moves forward to pour a cup to the soldiers with a smile. "A man from the land of my ancestors had said, 'Tous pour un, un pour tous.' All for one and one for all." He smiles. "What our actions have done is protect humanity. Not the species, not the people, but the spirit. The spirit that has thrown us into the stars, the spirit I believe always has and always will be our best quality." He pauses, rising his cup. "To compassion!"
Jean will mostly be doing repairs, repairs, and then some repairs. I don't think he'll manage to even put it all back in working order by the time we reach the Belt, but he'll be putting up most of the time of day doing that. Might cook a decent dinner too, in a couple of days. Don't want to spoil the crew in one day.
Rolls:
Do let me know if there's something else that needs a-fixin', but that should cover the damaged array, the power feed through the ship and the occasional breach of tanks, seals and whatnots.
Even tho she's probably closer in age to the rescued children than anyone else, Terra does not interact with them very much.
Without any ship skills, she spends the week doing what she can to physically clean up the damage done to the ship.
Early in the morning on the sixth day, an electrical glitch runs through the systems of the Turing, causing many of the systems to behave erratically for a moment before resetting. The ship rocks for a second when the RCS fires at random at the same time the hatch to Blackjack's cabin snaps open. A young, stunningly beautiful woman of asian descent, who is obviously in the middle of getting dressed, tumbles out of the cabin with a squeek before the door snaps shut and locks.
After her tumble out on to the walkway, the young woman is a little dazed and it takes her a moment to get her bearings. She's wearing a black, long-sleeved t-shirt, a pair of thick crew socks, and a pair of black panties. In one hand is a pair of jeans, which is fortunate for her given the locked door to her cabin. Her cheeks burn red with embarrassment as she realizes where whe is and scrambles to pull her jeans on, falling over once as her feet get tangled. The whole episode is less than thirty seconds, but to her, it felt like several minutes. After she finishes buttoning her jeans, she looks around to see who saw her in such an embarrassing state.
She checks the door, trying to open it without any success. Her shoulders slump as she hangs her head and goes looking for Jean.
A loud thud and a French curse is heard as Jean's head impacts the door of the RCS control panel. "Nique ta mere!", he shouts, continuing a barrage of ear-blistering invectives. "I'd like to know which connard's bright idea was to pick white with blue stripes and blue with white stripes for the same system.", he mutters to himself, as he jams the correct wire in the socket, then closes the door, angrily taking out his lighter and cigarettes from his overalls' pocket.
Turning away from the fire hazard alarm, he angrily flicks the lighter several times, then exhales the smoke behind him, and sees Brooke. The cigarette hangs from his lower lip, as he gathers his senses. "...Bonjour?"
Jack spends most of his time either working and tinkering with the hover tank, or meditating and practicing on the main deck.
He chuckles as he hears Jean, for the forth time, bang some part of himself and start on his minutes long cursing. When he stops in mid curse and greets someone, Jack turns to look at who he is speaking to.
"Oh!"