Mascot rolls to his feet and tries to grab the other woman to hold between him and Zippo. "You crazy can! You're willing to kill your own crew! You hear the Ship, right? Something is wrong with it!"
Muscles moves to guard the doorway. "Aye, sir," he says seriously.
Abel Hruthbar takes a long look at Drifter, then lowers his eyes, nodding, his beard bobbing up and down against his leather apron. "I understand."
Drifter heads out, knowing that the gunfire is likely to have been either all the way forward on B-Deck (his current deck), where the access is to the main computer, or all the way aft on C-Deck, where the team planned to trap the majority of robots. Knowing that most of his friends are forward, but most of the heavy weaponry was aft, Drifter takes initiative and heads for the ladders down to C-Deck.
Somewhere forward of Sick Bay, Spider and Argo are now in a full run, trying to lead Attila on a chase towards C-Deck, the same direction as Drifter. Spider rounds a bend and sees Drifter down the corridor, ready to drop into a ladder well. A laser shot shoots past Spider and gouges the bulkhead.
Somewhere not far behind Attila, Flatfoot Shipkiller stalks the halls, heading in the dangerous robot's direction. He peers around a corner and sees Attila firing a hellish gout of laser fire at someone...presumably Spider and Argo... around the next bend in the passageway.
Spotting movement out of the corner of his eye, Flatfoot looks over to see Tapdance waving from a hatch. She's holding a slim pistol, a naval officer's laser pistol in surprisingly good condition. She mouths the word "catch!" and tosses the pistol to Flatfoot.
Down on C-Deck, Mascot is in a fight for his life and using women civilians as human shields! He tries and fails to muscle one of the Children of the Ship between him and the human-hating Zippo. She screams and flails her arms, striking him in the mouth with her elbow.
"You vermin have killed The Ship! I'll kill every last one of you!"
The blowtorch is quite accurate this time, sizzling through Mascot's RCES bodysuit and cooking his flesh!
Just then, the artificial gravity cuts out. Everyone begins to float in the null gravity of J-Space.
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Flatfoot reaches out for the laser pistol, trying to catch it. Unfortunately, he misses the weapon and it sails past his hands to clatter to the floor.
Once the gravity cuts out, the RCES operative tries to maneuver to acquire the weapon.
[PING!]
"Heads up, Drifter! I've gotta mad robot on my tail and we're headed right at you!"
With the sudden loss of gravity, Spider's zero G training kicks in as he flys down the hall, making small kicks off the floor, walls and ceiling to build momentum and aim himself towards the ladder. If Argo seems to struggle in the zero-g, Spider grabs him and pulls him along.
Mascot screams as the torch sears his leg. When the gravity shuts off, it takes him a moment to clear his vision and realize what happened. He swings the wrench at the torch, hoping to destroy it. Then he tries to use his momentum from the swing in zero-g to gain some distance from Zippo.
Flatfoot misses the pistol that Tapdance tosses. It clangs loudly against the floor. Attila freezes, turning to look at Flatfoot. As gravity suddenly disappears, Flatfoot scoops up the pistol.
Attila fires its laser rifle at Flatfoot. "Mutineers. You have damaged The Ship. You will be chastised." The laser hits him straight in the chest, sending him spinning down the passageway with a burn mark on his chest, unconscious and looking very bad.
Spider and Argo propel themselves up the passage with no difficulties, arriving at Drifter's location on the ladder.
Meanwhile, down on C-Deck, Mascot is still struggling for his life with a lowly maintenance robot. He swings a heavy wrench, but the gravity suddenly changes, throwing off his swing. Well-trained in Zero-G operation, he darts away while Zippo, a tracked vehicle with no anti-grav abilities, flails and waves its appendages and the women scream in fear and bounce off the walls.
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Drifter heads through the port and grabs the handle peeking up and preparing to lob the bomb at Attila and slam then hatch when he draws close enough.
Drifter manages to pull himself through the hatch with some grace.
Drifter looks out and yells at Spider,"Get in here fast!" as he clutches the handle for the hatch with his left hand and prepares to lob his makeshift grenade out the hatch as soon as Spider drags Argo to safety and Attila comes into his range.
Mascot bounces off the walls of the corridor, spinning and twisting in zero-g. He shoots around the deck, trying to make his way back to the armory.
As they arrive at the ladder, Spider finally notices the contraption in Drifter's hand. He gets Argo through the hatch first, then propels himself through behind him.
Drifter, Spider and Argo get through the hatch. Drifter drops the bomb and seals the hatch. The three men move away from the hatch as quickly as possible. Four seconds later, there is a huge explosion and everyone is slammed into the bulkheads, rattled like peas in a can.
Meanwhile, Mascot is scrambling towards his destination.
You're all starting to feel light-headed. A little sleepy.
Flatfoot continue to float in freefall, globules of blood spinning around him.
"We are losing atmosphere. I found some stuff to make some light patches, but I need to get to the holes ASAP. I am not sure if the other ships will realize that we are losing atmosphere."
Spider grimaces, "Damn. Well, if the hull's been breached, the storage locker on C-deck is the most likely place. Let's go."
He gives a final glance up at the hatch, then heads out towards the storage locker. "Hopefully Mascot is there, already working on a patch."
Spider, Drifter and Argo drop "down" to "C" deck and head aft. The air is getting dangerously thin. Each man is dimly aware of the fact that his capabilities have begun to degrade.
The passageway is riddled with laser strikes as well as the marks of both large and small caliber weapons.
Forward of their position floats the broken carapace of Princep Lever, the philosophical security robot. Globules of dark blood float lazily through the air where two Shadow gunmen drift aimless in the microgravity. They seem dead. There is no sign of Mascot.
One person is moving in the hallway. It is Paka Vishnu, the Prole cook. Her movements are sluggish and she doesn't seem to be doing well. She is trying to drag a satchel down the corridor.
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Meanwhile, Mascot manages to leave Gizmo behind and propel himself towards the cargo bay. He is under no illusions. The vicious maintenance robot will right itself and follow him, but for the moment, Mascot has a head start. The lights are out and only a single dim emergency light burns near the doorway, illuminating many crates and boxes, most of which are obviously empty. Mascot is also feeling light-headed now.
Shit. Hypoxia. Somebody in Starboard must have breeched the hull. Stupid shits. We're all gonna die.
Mascot floats through the cargo bay, looking frantically for the computer core. Argo had said it would be labeled 'tractor parts'. Hopefully with the zero-g, He could actually move the damned thing.
Spider calls out to Drifter and Argo, "Spread out. We need to find the breach quick." He takes a moment to study the droplets of blood and other floating bits of dust and debris to see if there is any noticeable direction to their drift that might lead toward the air leak.
"Paka, are you ok? Can I help you with that?
Drifter begins looking for holes in the ship listening for whistling sounds or feeling for breezes that are not normal on a ship as signs that the atmosphere is being pulled out of the ship.
Mascot, you look around, but can't see the crate labelled "Tractor Parts." The air is getting thin and you keep getting distracted.
Spider, Paka doesn't seem to be completely coherent. You are young and in supreme physical condition. She is middle-aged and not handling hypoxia nearly as well. She pushes at you, like swatting an annoying fly, but you hold onto her easily enough. She looks around, as if confused about why she is here. However, her right hand clutches the satchel as if it were very important.
Drifter moves around easily enough, with almost two decades of muscle memory working on his behalf. However, he can't seem to find the leak or leaks. There are so many holes.
Argo is getting punchy and bounces off the starboard bulkhead. However, he waves towards one of the staterooms on right (is that port or starboard? You're a bit confused). "There.... Over there."
Drifter follows Argos advice to go and try and patch any holes that might be in there.
PING!
Mascot continues searching for the box. He tries to narrow down the search by estimating the size of the create. Gotta be here somewhere. This might be able to help seal off the bulkhead damage too...
Spider maneuvers in front of Paka and grabs her by both shoulders. He looks her in the eye and says, slowly, clearly, and firmly, "Paka, listen and answer me. What are you trying to do? Can I help you?"
Drifter bounces into the ruined stateroom and hears the wind shrieking into Jumpspace. He finds a hole in the bulkhead the size of his index finger. Then another. And another. The air is being rapidly sucked out of the chamber.
Just outside, Spider scrunches up his eyes in an attempt to make sense of what he's seeing as his brain fights for oxygen. Paka opens her eyes and says something incomprehensible, but gestures vaguely with her satchel.
Trying to find the computer, Mascot literally stumbles across something more immediately pressing: A case emergency air breathers, the kind every Imperial ship had for just such emergencies. They should have been in every chamber of the ship, but they're all gathered here in a single box without any label. There are dozens of them, each one good for a thirty-minute supply of breathable air. They work sort of like SCUBA gear.
Mascot rips open the case of air breathers. He straps one over his head and takes a deep breath to clear his head. He gathers up 4 more air breathers and returns to the crate of tractor parts. He tries to pull on the crate to get it moving towards the door.
The breathers are relatively small. There is a mouthpiece and a pair of flexible hoses that lead to a hip-flask-sized air bottle that can be clipped to the belt. It weighs about four pounds. Mascot can easily carry half a dozen or even a full box. The ship should have vacc suits for every member of the crew, but Mascot has never seen any.
Mascot, you have -not- found the crate labeled "tractor parts".
Drifter, the door to the stateroom in question is not an airtight bulkhead door. You could seal off C-Deck, but there could still be people alive and without C-Deck, you can't get to the engineering spaces.
Drifter starts filling in holes as fast as he can.
Once he has the breather on and has secured 6 more, he continues looking for the tractor parts. Come on, where are you?
Spider scowls at Paka. That's how she responds to a commanding officer? She isn't making any sense a all. He is about to start dressing her down when he remembers where he is. Get it together, Jasper! He shakes his head to clear the cobwebs and looks at Paka again, Whatever is in that satchel must be pretty important for her to be dragging it here.
Making an effort not to actually yank it out of Paka's hands, Spider grabs the satchel and opens it up to see what's inside.
Drifter is desperately covering holes with any rigid surface he can find. Plates and notebooks, mostly. That's when Spider makes a choked little sound of joy.
Paka's satchel contains several emergency hull patches. These are flexible round patches the size of a manhole cover with the weight and feel of a wetsuit and sticky on one side. When a small static electrical charge is applied, they become as rigid as steel - permitting a holed ship to remain airtight until more permanent repairs can be made. Drifter and Spider quickly patch the holes. Soon, the air pressure begins to return. Argo and Paka are wheezing and their lips are blue, but Spider and Drifter remain standing - barely.
Meanwhile, up in the cargo bay, Mascot finds the crate labeled "Tractor Parts"!
Spider takes a minute to catch his breath. He looks at the others, "Nice job, Paka, you saved a lot of lives." He takes another deep breath and looks around at the surroundings. "Let's take a quick look around and figure how many cans Starboard managed to take out, as well as what type of casualties the bots inflicted. And keep an eye out for any sign of Mascot, too."
With that, Spider maneuvers himself towards the storage locker where most of the fighting should have taken place.
Mascot does a little dance when he finds the crate. He glances at the doorway to check for any signs of Zippo. With the air thinning, at least the can's blow torch will be less effective. Mascot grabs the crate and pushes it towards the door in zero-g.
Spider can see the apparently inert forms of two robots, Princep Lever and possibly a maintenance 'bot of some kind, along with the bodies of two men and one woman, killed by laser fire.
Six more of the Shadows are unconscious from oxygen deprivation, but are groggily coming around. Harlan is among them, though he has a nasty laser burn across his right arm. They are all armed. If you wanted to disarm them, this would be your best chance. There are the two huge Guild Crunch Guns (insane things to be firing on a spacecraft), Harlan's TL-13 assault rifle and a pair of TL-9 pistols.
Spider finds that the door to the magazine is secure and he doesn't hear or see anything that makes him believe a breakout is imminent.
Up on B-Deck, Mascot is slowly bouncing off the walls in the cargo bay, trying to stabilize himself.
No sign at all of Flatfoot, Muscles or Tapdance.
Mascot continues to try and move himself and the crate of tractor parts out of the cargo bay.
Drifter kicks off the other direction and starts heading back to the med lab to try and see if the people he left behind are ok.
Mascot finally gets oriented and heads out the door. He finds Gizmo coming towards him. The little repair mech is using its blowtorch as a thruster.
"You stupid bag of meat!" it shouts. "You've killed us all!"
Drifter heads back to the Med Lab.
If any of the dead Shadows were armed, we take those weapons. We will also grab the the crunch guns for now to prevent them being used unless the situation is truly dire. The other Shadows can keep their personal weapons.
Spider helps Harlan up, and provides him medical assistance if his wound requires it. "Well, we're both still standing - that's a good sign. What happened here? Did it go to plan?"