.
You awaken to the distant sound of klaxons. Your breath turns to frost on the glass window of the ego bridge pod. Your naked bodies are covered
with the sticky, fibrous remnants of suspension fluid and discarded protein strands. Your muses flicker online and flash through their diagnostics.The local mesh is down. Something seems to be jamming wireless signals.
You last remember checking in for a backup, not a resleeve. Your muses tell you that two weeks have passed since that time.
Welcome online. AI server HQK01 … HQK– … K–
… K01 has suffered combat damage and requires
<static> immediate repair. Please report to the
<static> Operations Module to render immediate
repairs. Disable all wireless freq– … freq– … fre-
quencies and <static>. Repeat, do not use radio
frequencies under any circumstances. Treat all
wireless-enabled devices as compromised.
You recognize that the message is Hans, the station's AGI.
Jonas pushes open the ego bridge pod, wiping himself off. He is sleeved in a svelte Olympian morph with dark hair and eyes.
"Well... this doesn't sound promising.", he comments. The Titanian then starts looking for a garment or tools, though he's not particularly concerned about modesty while doing so.
"Hans? Can you relay any more information?"
Pivo pops open the door of his miniature pod, wiggling his tentacles in a brief moment of elation. Any day you don't wake up as a knuckle-dragger is a good day.
With a plop he slides down the pod and to the ground, then makes his way as speedily as he can towards the operations module, as he figured he was most knowledgeable in its repair.
"You think?" Catarina steps out of the pod, taking a look at the morph she is now in - white-haired tattoed Fury with blue eyes. Tough, nice shape - so far not bad.
"Hans, status report. Who attacked us? Is there activity other than us on the station?" she turns off her wireless connection, after Hans' warning.
Only then she starts searching for weapons, armor and clothes - exactly in that order.
"Eh, pulpo! What you think you're doing? No one goes anywhere alone until we figure out what's happening."
.....
Aww..really?! Mesh is down, I got a surprise morph, and it's been 2 weeks!?...Dude this blows...
Aleks slowly moves his head, then his shoulders,..down to his feet.
Niice! Well at least I got a bouncer skin.
Pushing the pod open he listens to Hans and the rest. "Easy there Xena," Aleks begins as he monkeys his way up and finds a good spot to hang from. "We've got a bit of info from our buddy Hans. One, " he holds up a finger, "We all gotta unmesh. Two- Well actually this next one should be one and the last one should have been two, but regardless. It's Hans, so we are still here, so ain't been ego-casted. Three, where we are was attack by, only Hans knows. Which leads to four, we should probably try to fix Hans first for more info. And five, " Aleks takes a short breath and then points to Pivo with a smile, "let's take a moment to notice who got the short straw, bein' stuck with octo-morph."
The morphs you wake up in are identical to the ones you were using previous. It was one of the benefits on signing up for this gig, back-up morph matching since you'd have to spend the rest of your working contract.
Jonas and Catarina look around for any kind of tool, clothing, or weapon, but strangely enough it seems that none of the usual appliances and clothing are around, at least here in the medical bay.
Pivo scuttles across the ground, using its multiple arms to move quickly in the microgravity, until it reaches the fabber located in the medical bay.
Fabber:Fabbers are specialized nanofabricators,
portable and considerably smaller than CMs(cornocopia machines).
There are a wide variety of portable fabbers, including
ones that can make any hand tool or small piece of
personal electronics, ones that can turn any organic
material into food and drink, and ones that can create
any drug or medicine as well as bandages and spe-
cialized dressings. The most common fabbers have a
volume of 4 liters. Larger hand tools and devices are
produced as 2 or 3 separate parts that must be fitted
together. Like CMs, fabbers also contain miniature
disposal units.
You can try to access it through the mesh or directly jacking into it.
Aleks maneuvers over to the lab module to hard connect into the computers there to try and get a better diagnosis on the situation and damages.
Jonas drums a finger on his chin, weighing the risks to using the fabber. Being naked for the time being may be preferable if the mesh is compromised. He shuts off mesh access from his inserts for the time being.
"Ja jag vet. No mesh... maybe a virus or something...."
He joins Pivo at the airlock, listening for sounds of combat or unwelcome guests.
Catarina sighs and joins Pivo and Jonas. "See anything?"
Eddie listens before opening his eyes. Hans was damaged or sabotaged. But it still functioned well enough to wake copy shells. That meant that his original was more than likely dead. He winced at the idea under the goo. His perfected shell was enhanced with lithe attractive musculature. Along with a most important enlarged outwardly appearing organ.
His locomotion is assisted by small short movements in the micro-g. Let's get the fabbers online and start refitting. Eddie jacks in and downloads the latest jumpsuit fashion
Pivo tries to create the gear he needs while these monkeys ooh and aah about the room.
You. Octomorph. Quit touching my equipment. Eddie says to Pivo. Look uplift, just tell me what you want.
Using his Ghostrider AI, Eddie maps everyone's physical topology and runs it through his multitasking implant which programs several threads for the fabber to produce clothing.
There are no sounds of combat, far as those listening at the door can tell. Catarina and Jonas do notice the dull yellow warning lights are flicking on and off, warning of unequal air pressure on the other side of the airlock. The fact that it isn't red should mean that it isn't voidless of breathable air, but something's caused an imbalance to the air pressure.
The fabber in the medical bay has been reprogrammed since your last backup as you password toa ccess admin rights is being refused. To get admin access, you will either have to pass an intrusion test to defeat the firewall using your Infosec at a -30 modifier (and a timeframe of ten minutes). Or, you could try a quicker brute force attack, which will be an Infosec test at a +30 modifier (in a timeframe of 1 minute), but you will be immediately detected, and will be forcefully logged out and have to pass a second test, this time at a -10 modifier to retain legitamacy.
There is a helpful Dr. Bot located in the room with you, who can open the door at your request, rather than jumping into the mesh yourself.
"Tch. Something's wrong with the other side of the airlock," Catarina tells the two near the fabber. "Any way you can speed things up?"
She looks quite irritated.
"Ok guys. Atmosphere is breathable out there... we may have a breach, which could explain the pressure difference. I think we gotta see where this situation's gone before it gets worse."
"So let's fab what we can quick- maybe tools or something- then we'll have the Dr. Bot pop the door while we brace for pressure to even out. And we can see what Hans' problem is."
Living quarters would be your best bet to find any personal items, and you know there are some more fabbers in the machine shop and a pair of equipment lockers there.
Pivo sees the monkey wildly gesticulating at him and speaking strange tongues, he climbs higher on the machine and waits for the monkey to start typing.
Damn! Someone has changed the security codes. Now we can start thinking invasion instead of disaster. Eddie grabs some doses of Drive and Frequency from the Med cabinet. He places them in the Docbot trauma supply storage Doc Bot, confirm voice interface.
Voice interface enabled
Doc Bot confirm wheel mag lock
A subtle metallic click is heard as the wheels lock onto the floor plating.
Wheel lock confirmed.
Eddie looks at his naked companions, then jacks into the overhead display. The Kepler Station map pops up. Ok, we are here. He says indicating the med bay. We have to assume hostiles are on board. Since we're locked out of the fabber, We'll have to locomotate to our crew quarters to arm ourselves. It also means we should do so with stealth.
He points to the greenhouse. Fortunately, the greenhouse gives plenty of cover. Who can go get our clothes and weapons. so we can gear up? All of us going only increases our chances of failure.
Doc Bot open bulkhead door.
"We are locked out?" Aleks turns around. Pausing for a moment in contemplation. "So...I was in charge of setting up the system here. Aand I regularly used and linked the fabber," Aleks begins walking toward the fabber, slowly getting his ecto-link prepared to jack in, "Compromised indeed Hans...compromised indeed..."
As Aleks is next to the fabber about to jack in, he hears Eddie's plan. Aleks pauses and then interjects, "Alright, while the four of you go to get our stuff I'mma play a little game." Smiling as he jacks in, he adds, "This might take a while. Please lock the door behind you."
Infosec: 45 - 30 + ?? = ??
5 minutes have passed since awakening
Doc Bot complies with Crazy Eddies's request. The doors of the medical bay open with a hiss as the air around you drifts into the main area as the air pressure equalizes. You immediately notice its colder now, not dangerously, but uncomfortably. It isn't helping that none of you have any clothing.
AS you look out into the rest of the station, you notice something's wrong immediately. You all have lived on the station for months, and the air has never felt this thin before...Also, most of the lights are inactive except for the strobe of warning beacons.
And the station is eerily quiet....
A cursory look around, sticking you head out, reveals that all internal airlocks are open except for the one leading to the Ops Center.
Aleksander jacks into the fabber, and taking his time to overcome the firewall, is able to assign himself administrator rights. Thankfully, it seems that the fabber still has some resource blocks already installed, allowing you to fabricate most things. The downside is that this particular fabber isn't the largest, only being able to create small objects, possibly multiple part objects that could hooked together.
You estimate that any simple small weapon or tool might take as little as five minutes, while anything decently complicated might run as long as an hour long to manufacture.
You all remember that you were about to board a station called the Istari, and remember picking up the Istari on their telescope and scans, getting no response from the ship, and seeing signs that the ship’s fusion drives seemed damaged. They will remember looking up records and finding that the Istari was a comet herder with a crew of three that seemed to have gone off route and off schedule and which was not responding to attempts to hail it.
Aleksander, you also realize that the Doc Bot has been hacked to jam the Mesh's common signals. If you wish, you can try using uncommon mesh signals or hack the Doc Bot to stop jamming the Mesh.
"Well, it seems empty," Catarina considers Aleksander's words. "I don't think we'll be away for a long time. Still, someone should probably stay with you."
"Not me, though," she adds quickly and rubbing her hands maneuvers outside the medbay, but not too far away.
Aleksander stands and claps his hands, "Alright Ladies and gents! Oh, and tentacle monsters. Gather one, gather all! We're gonna fix our mesh problem!"
"Aww..Xena. I thought you were leading to," Aleks quickly changes his voice a couple octaves higher, "Please Aleks, let me stay and defend you! You're so cool!"
"Maybe later big guy," she winks at Aleks. "You can fix the Mesh problems, but I'm not turning wireless on. Hans did say it's compromised."
"Ja. Let's find some clothing and we can take it from here. Atmosphere this thin, we got a breach someplace. Pivo, let's check the hab."
Jonas gestures to Pivo with a simple "come with me" gesture.
He follows Cat outside the medbay toward the living quarters.
Aleksander proceeds to access the wireless Mesh despite Han's warnings. As soon as he connects, he is immediately bombarded with a series of dissonant tones.
Jonas drifts over to the living quarters, finding that the room looks normal.
Edit: Aww boo!
If you relay the info to someone else, I'll allow them to roll an INT x 3 test with a -10 modifier for not experiencing firsthand.
Jonas is discouraged to find very little of his gear left, since he only really brought survival equipment. The machine shop may be the only hope.
"Woah! I just jacked in and BAM! I was all kinds of battered with a bunch of weird tones"" Aleks turns to the rest of the group. "Hey yo guys! This might be a good time to check out Hans." As he says this he he starts fabbing some tools one would use for simple fine and general electronics repair.
Pivo will follow when asked, attempting to be stealthy about it.
"Well, seems we'll have to count on ourselves for a little longer," sneers Catarina. "Estupendo!"
"What do you mean... weird tones?", Jonas asks, returning to the doorway of the medbay.
"With the atmosphere this thin, we gotta find some extra vacsuits before we freeze- or lose atmosphere completely. I'll look in the machine shop and look for the breach... when I find the vacsuits I'll bring one to you in Operations?"
Jonas carefully heads to the machine shop, hoping that the lockers still have something useful in them.
"What do you mean... weird tones?", Jonas asks, returning to the doorway of the medbay.
"What are you talking about, Al?"
"Sure, Jonas," Catarina nods and turns to Aleksander. "You ready with your tools?"
25 minutes since Resleeving
Unfortunatley, none of the present crew seems to know what could have whammed Aleksander. They move on to prioritize securing the physical vessel.
Jonas moves on to check the machine shop, but as he floats closer, he realizes that the air is growing thinner, and as he approaches the open interior airlock, he can see that the airlock leading to open space is open, having a poorly welded piece of metal put in place that is prevent a total vent, but also would prevent it from being closed!
Astonished by what he's found, Jonas nonetheless tries to stick to the plan- get the vacsuits and then fix the problem. He tries to carefully float to the lockers and grab what he can.
Eddie makes his way to his bunk and retrieves his gear. He also puts on an environment suit due to the thinning atmosphere.