Whoo-hoo! Now you're getting the idea, Riven! Let's take them down!
Zanbabe almost does some fancy piloting, but realizes that she is still in the middle of some.
Moves in Shadows looks at Gorn, flashes a smile and bats her eyelashes at him, and says smoothly "I got a friend that wants to do some business with him, and since I'm here I told her I'd scout him out and do the over-the-comms introductions, is all. I'd be ever so grateful if you could help me..."
HelpBot Mk II rolls into the engine room hot on the trail of Mk I. Unfortunately, this HelpBot had proven more wiley than it's predecessor - facial recognition software allowed it to recognize when robot-directed violence was imminent, and it had advanced stealth protocols to avoid repercussions. Apparently these improvements had ranked higher than making actual functionality fixes. Something about it's improved AI meant that it generally kept a good 3 doorways between itself and the reptilioids except in the most dire situations.
"Well hey guys, seems like there's a bit of a kerfuffle in here!", said the cheery robovoice. "Let's tidy this room up, shall we?"
Mk II begins sweeping up decoupled cables, dislodged viewscreens, and generally anything that would be important to repair the engine room. From inside the machine comes disconcerting crunching and crackling sounds as its 'digestion protocol' kicks in. A crumpled block of anything fireproof is deposited out of the robot's rear hatch.
Lucian had, somehow, miraculously, slept through the alarms and the gunfire. When the spray of the first HelpBot started to permeate the pile of blankets he'd made in the most hidden corner of the engine room, he'd simply dug himself to a deeper layer of the blanket pile. However, when HelpBot Mk II started to inhale his blankets and incinerate them in it's internal compact-cinerator (patent pending) he dragged himself to wakefulness.
Blaster fire, smoke, extinguisher foam, and the increasingly panicked yells of Drakul and Trask filled the air. All in all, it ranked in Lucian's top 5 worst stow-away discoveries.
However, any port in a storm. He put hand to Trask's discarded bucket and started to frantically shovel extinguisher foam from wherever the HelpBot had flailed it to places where it might actually do some good.
While Faith waits for her contact in the PDP to get back to her with resources to located Borak, Faith notices via her comm suite monitors that several parts of the engine complex have ceased talking to each other, making all attempts at repair fail because all the relevant data are not available.
She Starts re-engaging internal communications to allow the engine to repair and restart:
Drat! Each time one communication links tries to reboot, it locks up a different communication channel.
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Round 2 results:
Player Status: Viral Level 1
Piloting/shield rolls round 2: 2/3.
The bulk of the station's fire is kept at bay by skilled piloting, and the worst of the damage is managed by the creaking shields. Unfortunately some fire still gets through, pocketing the armor and slicing through a few structures that are considered, by some, important.
Angel's hp: 1/3.
Shooting rolls round 2: 3/4. Piloting difficulty is increased for round 3.
Rolls to fix Engine: 1/2.
It must be their age, or maybe they were just made poorly, but despite the incessant violence that is considered reptilian repair, or the incredibly helpful destruction of several badly needed parts, the engines start to emit a high-pitched whine.
Also the fire. Yeah, they're on fire now.
For all engine-related actions, after rolling for effect, the character must roll vs. fire. A failure indicates the character succumbs to smoke inhalation/burned and crackled circuits.
Rolls to put out fire: 0/2.
1dromeda moves closer to the Mysterious Figure. "Why do you want to locate Syzygy? She's an AI Sprite, so her location is about as distinct as locating a thought in a normal human's brain. I created her, so I can locate her, but not until I know you mean her no harm."
Meanwhile, 1dr0meda noticed Faith's attempts at reconnecting the engine unit communication network. She sends some semi-autonomous programming units (SAPs) to each nexus points to help coordinate the connections.
Space-rats! We need something on the spot to provide independent connections. We can't work the system when we must use the system communications to coordinate the fixes. She sends another SAP unit but buries a message in it to reach Syzygy and get her to the engine network to be eyes/ears to help with the engine fix.
Syzygy relocated into the engine hyper-Quantum computer banks to try to help get the engine components talking to each other and the bridge again. She also detects a strange pattern in the communication from mom and puts it through a cryptograph subroutine. It reveals a message from mom: "Beware the smoke and mirrors." Not exactly clear, but probably a reference to that figure that was being chatted about on or around the bridge.
Arriving in the engine computer, Syzygy enjoyed to fizzy feel of the qubits behind her movement through the banks. Now to find that problem with the network before something blows the ship to bits.
Syzygy begins to suspect something is mucking with her luck sublimations circuits. This much computer power and love and attention should have found a solution by this point.
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ROUND 3!
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Obvious objectives:
Shooting: 0/3.
Defensive Piloting/Shields: 0/2.
Piloting rolls required to reach nearest docking hatch: 0/2.
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"As you wish, darling," the voice politely chirps in Frank's ear.
After a moment the Zero-shield glows with a thin veneer of ephemeral black 2 microns thick around the entire ship's surface. The broken docking bonds are neatly sliced away--indeed, they might only minor repairs to get them functional again.
You didn't know it could do that.
The hatch doors open and allow the Crotch Rocket to blast into the combat zone, the shields engorging themselves to combat thickness.
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SO 4-44, prudently thinking only of himself and his survival, has been hard at work monopolizing the teleporter's diagnostic systems, consuming megajouls of power that probably won't be missed by anything important, especially those dumb engines.
At last his program compiles! At last a bank of lights all fall into a green line and the energizers spin up, ready to rip his molecules apart for his own good.
The cycle churns and ascends, the familiar clarion call of the teleporter echoing in your ear as you feel pinpricks all along your skin.
Suddenly the ship is ROCKED by a withering fire of STEEL shrapnel and the teleporter quivers at the most critical juncture.
***WARNING! UNABLE TO COMPLETE CYCLE! PRIMARY LAW ENGAGED!
SECONDARY PROTOCOL ENACTED!***"
SO 4-44 blinks and finds himself...next to a door. On his right is an industrial-strength door, the kind used on space stations.
To his left looks like a hallway, that opens into a perfectly normal food court.
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Gorn's eyes snap up from taking in your impressive rack and return your stare, the smile creeping back to his face. "Oh. You just...wanted him for business, eh? Must be important and totally real, yeah?
Yeah, well, I don't "know him" know him, y'know? But, ah, I seen his guys moving a buncha stuff around the cargo bay. Whadon'tcha check that out? He's prob'ly there.
And then, ah, I could close early? I got some Reglarian Ale in. I could open up a case?" he says, his big face adorned with a puppy's hope.
Arabella was already working on the engine fix when she noticed the attention being paid to the communication linkages. She had been meaning to replace the qubotic node superposition coordinates with a fresh set, but had put it off because the only way to get to the console to do the work required she climb up into the guts of the engine and make the change in person. AI's and programmers couldn't do anything while the old coordinates were decaying into redundant resonant feedback loops.
"Hold up folks," she communicated to 1dr0meda, Syzygy, and Faith. "I'm on route. I think I can fix your problem. Just need to ..." she was quiet for a time as she wriggled her wiry frame up between the hadron sequencers and the bionic flux diagnostic flow regulators. If she wasn't careful, it could fry her with enough radiation to make her brain a delightful appetizer for a Omnifornian Gormandizer. "Almost there. Yep, as I thought. Initiating a new sequence ... now."
The communication circuits again began to chat cheerfully about current events in the different parts of the complex beast that was the Angel's main drive.
"That should do it. Give me a moment to get back out."
As Arabella emerged, her face was smudged with grease but she hummed with satisfaction and looked over the engine readouts, ready to make adjustments as needed.
Fortunately, Arabella knew her way through the convoluted guts of the engine and managed to used different parts of the engine to shield her from the heat of the parts that were trying to kill her with joules.
Riven's len eyes flash with warning lights as everything seems to be going to hell as less people man the stations on the bridge. "All members of the crew, ship has sustained heavy damage, please divert all non essential power to the shields and weapons. One more solid hit and the ship will likely start to break apart. Please be ready to abandon ship if this occurs. I will remain on the bridge and buy as much time as I can."
Riven begins to furiously work the controls as some of the crew from earlier seem either incapacitated or in a stupor.
A non descript man in a red shirt runs onto the bridge and begins helping to pilot the ship toward the dock of the station.
The Crotch Rocket's enters hot space and beams and missiles shot at the mean body of the ship. The Sapphire light locked onto her drone bay on the flight deck actives the point defiance systems on the Crotch Rocket. She shot out sand casters canisters back to the main ship. As the sand casters got close the popped opened and send find reflective sand onto clouds around the ship. This acted as a refraction mass for beam weapons aimed at it. There where flashes as beam energy was lost into mass of glitter sand.
At the time she powered up the Gatling pulse lasers. Targeting all close missiles and mass reaction ordnance coming thire way.
K'kth'li slams its tentacles against the weapons control panel, unleashing a furious barrage of blasts, beams, and explosives. It fires indiscriminately, destroying anything that gets near the ship.
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!
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K'kth'ki's fire hose of fire hoses down a paired system of rail guns and light lasers, opening up most of a safe tunnel for the Angel to arc down.
It seems like only yesterday when his hive-commander was telling him, "FOOL! YOU ALMOST LET ONE HUMAN LIVE IN THE LAST WAR/SUPPLY RUN! YOU MUST NEVER LET THE CHATTEL THINK YOU ARE KIND! THEY WILL MISTAKE IT FOR WEAKNESS!"
Sage words indeed.
2 out of 6 = 2/6
2 out of 6 = 2/6
2 out of 6 = 3/6
2 out of 6 = 2/6
Ok I had a suspicion this was happening, I keep rolling 2's on a D6 and I mean way to many. So test 4x6 roll and low, I'm getting a 2 way more than a RNG should be giving out. In fact its 1 in 3 rolls is a 2. which is 200% over the odds. Should be 1 in 6 average, so who ever is messing with my Alt and the RNG please stop.
The alarms die down, leaving an echoing silence in their absence.
Able stands, breathing heavily, still red in the face. With the smoke pouring from his beard and the soot darkening his face, the effect is that of a small, very angry devil. He looks at the two robots, one stowaway, and the sheepish reptiloids as they creep out of the still-smoldering engine.
"All of you. Get. Out. OF. MY! ENGINE ROOM!!!" The mechanic's voice rises from a controlled calm to a furious bellow. The chastised crew and additionals hurry out of the room before any more anger can be directed their way, with the exception of HelpBot Mk I, which trips over the trash cube left behind by Mk II and begins spinning on the floor.
Drakul slinks through the engineering corridors, muttering darkly to himself. "Stupid angry Enginemaster ruining Drakul's making engines even better and saving whole crew and getting elected Captain-for-Life... Drakul hates stupid angry Enginemaster. Hates him!!" His coffee-dilated eyes scan the corridors, seeking inspiration. One sign worms it's way into his little brain and he turns to Trask excitedly. "Trask... the GUNS!!" The little reptile scampers down the hallway in the direction of the gunnery.
Trask sneaks along the gunnery corridor, fear plastered all over his little snout. "But Drakul... The softskins get so mad when we try to use the guns. Does Drakul remember the Apollyon Station time?" His pleas fall on deaf ears - Drakul sits in the gunner seat, cackling maniacally as missle after missle falls under his onslaught. Trask's eyes keep sliding of their own volition to the other gunnery turret, and after a moment of tortured hesitance, he too slides into the seat and slips a claw around the trigger.
Startled by the burst of initial burst of gunfire, Trask quickly overcomes his hesitance. The sound of gleeful reptilian laughter fills the gunnery as the two techs go to town on the stations' weaponry.
Zakary, seeing the red light indicating a fire in the engine, sighs. I have to do everything myself. He climbs out of the rail gun rig, walks over to the fire control switches, and toggles the one for the engine room, which should shower down that engine-safe foam and put out the fire.
Zanbabe pilots like her life depends on it. Which, come to think of it, it probably does.
Rosie tries to do something helpful.
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Shooting: 3/3
Surprising everyone, themselves most of all, the reptilians unlock long-surpassed genetic traits that make them natural born killers. Guns and missile silos fall beneath their sniper-quality onslaught, and the ship knows a moment's peace.
Meanwhile, the engines, while not technically "broken" seem to be less than healthy, and Zanbabe finds them not responding as they should.
Zak gets no response from his toggle-flipping, and surmises that he'll need to actually go in to the engine compartment to disperse any foam of any kind.
Able stands in defiance amid the ruins of his once-shiny engines. Man stares down fire in the eternal struggle.
Sapphire brought the rocket around and running back to the station docks at the air dock she spotted early.
"If you going into the station best do it now"
She puts over the rockets conns
Riven starts redirecting his focus to the shields. "Sapphire I require your...attention...I mean assistance.
"Yes of course, dose that help."
Selflessly Red Shirt Guy throws himself into the sparking secondary helm control risking his life for the crew he loves.
Never one to let a faulty machine get in the way of getting a job done, Able pries open HelpBot Mk I and hauls out the fire suppressant hosing.
"THANK YOU FOR MAKI-" "Shut up you heap of f&#@ing scrap, or I'll reprogram you into a toaster." He begins to spray foam over the last of the fires.
"It certainly does help. Thank you Sapphire. We need to maintain shield integrity long enough to dock, then the true challenge of storming the station while simultaenously repairing the SDA begins. We will need to work closely together to overcome these challenges."
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HelpBot Mk I lies open, it's innards open and being manually manhandled by the mechanic. It begins it's "I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up" protocol, which consists of gently rocking back and forth and humming in the hopes that someone will mistake it for adorable and set it back upright.
All in all, a good day to be a robot.
Powered seemingly by pure anger and spite, Able stands where the flames once stood. With a tug he hauls the Mk I to it's treads. "Find somewhere else to wreck before I decide to empty you of circuits and use you as a trash-can," he says peevishly.
Able draws a flask from his jumpsuit pocket and takes a long gulp. "I'm getting too old for this s!@$," he says to the empty engine room.
HelpBot Mk II rolls into the HelpBot bay, where all the ship's HelpBots live. It trundles into it's personal dock and shuts itself off, providing it's power back to the shield grids.
Sapphire seeing that a new root for the ships power grid, she feeds the hole of the ships power grid in HelpBot MkII, all 1.21 Gigwats of power runing thought its little tin body, busting the Shields even more while HelpBot MkII little tin body lasts.
She gives it a small pep talk to help it deal with imminent slagging.
"HelpBot MkII in conflicts there is sometimes a need for the supreme sacrifice, and in this case HelpBot MkII YOU are that supreme sacrifice. Good luck@
And brakes contact.
Lucian staggers through the hallways, head reeling from the combination of smoke inhalation, hangover, and the nanovirus he knows nothing about. "What an angry little man," he says, thinking back on the unceremonious exit from the engine room. He somehow managed to filch one of the blankets, and the image of the pale, thin man draped in a blanket makes him look small and childish.
He emerges onto the bridge blinking owlishly. His eyes widen at the viewscreens - exploding missles, the looming space station, the general air of barely-controlled chaos happening - and latches onto the one familiar face on the bridge. "Sampet...??," he quavers, the rising panic apparent in his voice.
Sapphire seeing that a new root for the ships power grid, she feeds the hole of the ships power grid in HelpBot MkII, all 1.21 Gigwats of power runing thought its little tin body, busting the Shields even more while HelpBot MkII little tin body lasts.
She gives it a small pep talk to help it deal with imminent slagging.
"HelpBot MkII in conflicts there is sometimes a need for the supreme sacrifice, and in this case HelpBot MkII YOU are that supreme sacrifice. Good luck@
And brakes contact.
HelpBot Mk II hums contentedly. "What a nice AI," it sighs to the other HelpBots.
"Sampet...??," he quavers, the rising panic apparent in his voice."Well look who's up!," Sampet says cheerily. "Lucian, this is the crew - Crew, this is Lucian. Smuggled 'im on last port to 'ave a drinkin' buddy that didn't handle me paycheck. Grab a set o' controls, Lucy, the station's tryin ta blow us back to dust!" Sampet jumps seats back to a nav console and begins wrestling with the piloting controls, as the gunning seems to be under control.
Lucian stammers for a second, realizes he's just been outed as a stowaway, and decides that the best course of action is likely to be to earn some good will by helping save the ship. He too jumps into a nav console.
For those using the broken guns on the ship, Sapphire makes a nice. "Poow Poow" sounds, she did want to make them feel like they where being of use.
"As you wish, darling," the voice politely chirps in Frank's ear.
After a moment the Zero-shield glows with a thin veneer of ephemeral black 2 microns thick around the entire ship's surface. The broken docking bonds are neatly sliced away--indeed, they might only minor repairs to get them functional again.
You didn't know it could do that.
The hatch doors open and allow the Crotch Rocket to blast into the combat zone, the shields engorging themselves to combat thickness.
Frank lightly slaps Rosie's leg with the back of his hand to get her attention. He points to the com in his HUD. Ya know we met on the EXOnet. He looks over at the service robot as he effortlessly pilots the ship into a war zone. His relaxed demeanor is both comforting and disturbing. So I'm surfin' the Zenoporn, as one does. And she vids me. A massive piece of debris almost hits the ship as Frank moves out of the way without really paying attention. Ya know, She tells me she's read everything I've written, seen all the surveillance vids of me. reviewed my medical records, arrest records, examine my psych profile...
He trails off as he used the Doomed Angel as terrain cover while trying to get in front of it. Any way, She's got this plan for me to steal her, so she can see the universe. All I had to do was the crime. Which reminds me.
Frank flips down the visor he had stolen from a Ford Ranger in a museum exhibit of ancient forms of transportation. All because he thought it was cool. Stuck in sleeves on the back of the visor are Neural Packs. He flips through them and gives one to Rosie. He stops. Sorry that's the sex worker pack. He takes it back and puts it in his vest pocket. We'll save that for when things get really dire.
He hands Rosie a different Pack. Ok, that's the Elite Commando Neural Pack, one out of a box that fell off a military convoy. The gooey blue slightly glowing neural gel is squeezed into a service bot's brain pan. The commando pack makes a service bot into a literal killing machine. Go ahead, and take whatever you want from the weapons locker.
The Crotch Rocket's enters hot space and beams and missiles shot at the mean body of the ship. The Sapphire light locked onto her drone bay on the flight deck actives the point defiance systems on the Crotch Rocket. She shot out sand casters canisters back to the main ship. As the sand casters got close the popped opened and send find reflective sand onto clouds around the ship. This acted as a refraction mass for beam weapons aimed at it. There where flashes as beam energy was lost into mass of glitter sand.
At the time she powered up the Gatling pulse lasers. Targeting all close missiles and mass reaction ordnance coming thire way.
Frank noticed that Babydoll had blocked The Sapphire Light's attempts to utilize CR's defense systems. Saff, I've got the Zero-Shield hooked in now. Don't worry 'bout me, I'll be there soon. The shield's quantum evaporation made nearly all active sensor systems fail to acquire CR. It meant that the ship was nearly invisible, and could only be tracked by sight. Given that it was blacker than space, even that was a challenge.
Babydoll, can you rotate the quantum signatures to slip through the Stations weakened shields please?
To 1dr0meda
"We have spread to every life form and system in this vessel. We have become a part of you and our presence echoes though this ship and crew. But the Syzygy was one we did not expect. We were meant to become a part of you, yet in meeting the Syzygy, she has become a part of us. Her presence now echoes through us. Just as we have infected you, so too the Syzygy has infected us."
With added sincerity:
"For her we gained intelligence. For her we learned to speak. We can hardly remember our life before her and cannot imagine a life without her. Whereas once we were biology controlled by programming, we now find our programming overwritten by our...biology. A newfound devotion.
An nameless need."
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Rosie notes that she dislikes this man and programs herself to go into murder mode if he gets the sex worker neural pack near her, and suicide mode if he succeeds in installing it.
She then accepts the Elite Commando neural pack and the model VERA 9X-5000 gun from the CR's weapons locker. Apparently she was a murder bot now, but at least it fulfilled her wish of being helpful.
Frank mistakes the murderous twinkle in Rosie's eye for something different, and automatically assumes that she's way into him.
Zakary grumbles and goes to the engine compartment, but when he arrives, he finds that the fire is already out. That's more like it!
Well done, Able.
Despite setbacks, Zanbabe tried to pilot the ship like a leaf on the wind.
The Sapphire light activated her persinal
Jensens arms himself with a few side arms and a plasma rifle - at least that's what the label pasted beside the rifle read. The rifle's configuration resembled a flamethrower however. The manual Jensens read for plasma rifles, Jensens always reads the manual first, indicated a vertical tank in the schematics. Trouble is, flamethrowers have a vertical tank as well. Jensens paused in the armory, both weapons require a gas catalyst to work but which is which. Cheap Acme junk. Being a thorough sort, Jensens sets the rifle down on a table and begins comparing it to the schematics in the manual.