With Lauren running damage control on the sensors, Aureum pries open an access panel and tries to manually get the shields back up.
While Aureum and Lauren start to put out metaphorical (for the moment) fires, the enemy ships banks around tightly, executing another flyby attack!
Shields: F-4|P-4|S-4|A-5
Hull: 14/35
Systems: sensors are malfunctioning (1/2 patch actions complete)
Modifiers: +1 any three checks per round, -2 Computers, +3 Piloting
Entiren (pilot), Diedre (science officer)
Jehir, Miraj
Aureum, Lauren
Diedre mutters to herself as she flails away at her console, giving it a thump periodically as the damaged sensors cause it to give her garbled information.
"Stupid piece of gnomish ... elvish kit never freaks out like this," she snaps as she attempts to get a lock on the smaller ship's engines.
Entiren remains silent, fully engaged mentally in the task of out-maneuvering their opponent. Chasing them, he puts the Hippocampus through evasive maneuvers in an attempt to keep the shuttle from being shot yet again.
Lauren twists her tentacles and begins muttering a prayer to Triune. "လာကြတယ် ကျေးဇူးပြု. လာကြတယ် ကျေးဇူးပြု. လာကြတယ် ကျေးဇူးပြု."
Miraj switches off the targeting computer and tries to ignore the nonsense scrolling across the HUD, concentrating on the ship now directly in front of him. He stops thinking and fires when he feels the moment is right.
"It was zee targeting computer zat was zee problem," he announces calmly.
Lauren squees with delight as she sees the flash of impact from her viewscreen in Engineering. "Good shoot, Miraj!"
Entiren's tight flying is enough to put the Hippocampus on their enemy's tail, but not enough to avoid a barrage of particle beam fire, which cuts through the forward shielding and blows apart the forward radiators! Aureum and Lauren watch as the power core temperature readings start to creep into the warning zone. Meanwhile, Miraj uses his instincts to score a solid hit with the coilgun, sending glowing shrapnel screaming in all directions!
Shields: F-0|P-4|S-4|A-5
Hull: 10/35
Systems: sensors are malfunctioning (1/2 patch actions complete), power core is glitching
Modifiers: +1 any three checks per round, -2 Computers, -2 Engineering, +3 Piloting
Jehir, Miraj
Aureum, Lauren
Entiren (pilot), Diedre (science officer)
Lauren starts to lose her cool a bit as that enemy is taking all the fun out of this. "ကင်လုပ်ခိုင်!" she yells in frustration. "Power core glitching. Will repair." She then starts the rerouting subroutine on the power core, in an attempt to patch the system.
"Nice! Let's try to stay on their tail!" Jehir shouts as he hits the fire button, sending another laser bolt in to the enemy ship.
Miraj's shot with the coilgun tears a large hole in the aft armor, and Jehir follows that up with a targeted volley of laser fire, causing an internal explosion that liberates one of the engines from the enemy ship, sending it off into space. Despite the damage, the ship still limps along.
Shields: F-0|P-4|S-4|A-5
Hull: 10/35
Systems: sensors are malfunctioning (1/2 patch actions complete), power core is glitching (patched)
Modifiers: +1 any three checks per round, -2 Computers, +3 Piloting
Aureum, Lauren
Entiren (pilot), Diedre (science officer)
Jehir, Miraj
Diedre fights through her flickering displays to pull up comms control. After several attempts, she manages to open a broadcast channel.
"Given the fact that you're about to become scrap metal, now would be a good time to call it a day - don't you think?" she calls out to the enemy ship.
"Given the fact that you're about to become scrap metal, now would be a good time to call it a day - don't you think?" she calls out to the enemy ship.
The audio connection cracks and spits, partially garbling the communication. "A good time to ... ... a day? The day ... ... been called."
With space clouded with sun-soaked debris from both ships, the sensors of the Hippocampus (and the eyes of its crew) are having an increasingly difficult time discerning the enemy ship from its surroundings.
"I have know idea what they're saying," Diedre says in annoyance. "Aureum, How are those shields doing? Entiren, keep us on their tail, please."
The half-elf's fingers continue to move around on her console display, attempting to isolate the enemy ship out of the white noise and debris.
”Rerouting power to the forward shields!” Aureum reports.
In spite of the glitching displays, Diedre notices the front shields coming back up.
"You're a goddess, Aureum!" she gushes as her fingers continue to move over the controls.
Lauren redirects waste heat from the power core to panels on the ship's skin originally meant for aerodynamic control, allowing the power core to cool to nominal levels. There's a series of soft metallic pings as the panels swell, but the ship seems to be holding for the moment. Aureum uses the restored capacity of the power core to regenerate the forward shielding, putting a barrier of force between the Hippocampus an its target.
The enemy ship, caught in the crosshairs of the Hippocampus, does nothing to evade, seemingly drifting forward without active guidance. Diedre is able to lock onto the ship's engines (both the one attached to the ship and the one floating off in the void) with only minor difficulty.
Shields: F-4|P-4|S-4|A-5
Hull: 10/35
Systems: sensors are malfunctioning (1/2 patch actions complete), power core is glitching (patched)
Modifiers: +1 any three checks per round, -2 Computers, +3 Piloting
Entiren (pilot), Diedre (science officer)
Jehir, Miraj
Aureum, Lauren
Diedre pauses a moment before hitting the comms control again.
"This is a the shuttle Hippocampus to the ship that unlawfully attacked us. Your engines are toast and we have a target lock with all our weapons. Our next action is clear. I'm giving you the option to surrender. I won't make that offer again. What is your response?"
She looks around at the others on the bridge in anticipation.
"This is stupid," she mutters to herself before hitting internal comms.
"Light 'em up, boys!" she barks.
Miraj ponders the strange replies from the enemy ship, trying to make some sense of it.
As Miraj prepares to fire again, he waits for the command from the bridge before tapping the fire button.
Diedre pauses a moment before hitting the comms control again.
"This is a the shuttle Hippocampus to the ship that unlawfully attacked us. Your engines are toast and we have a target lock with all our weapons. Our next action is clear. I'm giving you the option to surrender. I won't make that offer again. What is your response?"
"... ... just business ... business ..."
Whether the condition of the Hippocampus's sensors or the debris cloud surrounding the two ships, something is inhibiting the communication channel between the ships. As far as Diedre can ascertain, however, the enemy ship is not making any motions to surrender.
Miraj ponders the strange replies from the enemy ship, trying to make some sense of it.
Miraj is unable to parse the cryptic communications any more than the rest of the crew, but he knows that crippling the enemy ship is unlikely to kill anyone onboard.
As Miraj locks on and fires, Jehir does the same, though his shot goes wide.
"We've taken pretty heavy damage. We can't afford to let her make another pass," says Jehir.
Entire will have moved the ship forward a small amount, keeping to a safe distance.
,
Aureum grins and blushes at the praise, quickly turning away from Lauren to adjust some sliders on the console.
”Shields at full power, Captain Lhashi.”
Realizing she got distracted by the power core and never finished repairing the sensors, Lauren stays in the engineering bay, lashing together the last of the wiring to patch the sensors. "May we can scan now," she says over the internal comms.
Diedre can't contain the giddy feeling that's telling her that they've survived their first space conflict.
"Thank you, Miss Ophir," she responds over the comms, her mood evident in her voice. "You've been a pleasure and a delight to work with."
"Light 'em up, boys!" she barks.
Miraj squeezes off a final shot, sending a slug hurtling into space. With a flash of light, the projectile impacts the rear of the enemy ship, cascading in a flower of white-hot ceramic and metal fragments. Watching the sensor readouts, Diedre sees their opponent's power output drop to negligible levels as the ship starts to tumble uncontrolled through space.
As the crew of the Hippocampus catch their breath, Aureum and Lauren hurry to boost and patch as best as they can, making the ship as serviceable as possible in the short-term.
"Yes!" Diedre proclaims, pumping her fist in victory. She then looks around at the borked displays and sparking consoles. "I don't think we're getting our deposit back," she says.
The half-elf settles back down to the console and attempts to make one final scan of the disabled ship to see if there's anything else she can determine about it.
Once that's done ...
"Entiren, get us to that rock. Let's do the job we're being paid for."
"We should send a message to the Stewards. Ask them to pick up the drifting ship. We're not far from the Station and they will probably want to know what happened."
"I'm sure they saw what happened," Diedre replies. "They saw it before we did, after all."
She taps away at her console.
"But you're right. It still wouldn't hurt to send them a summary of the engagement."
She continues to tap away, adding some screenshots and tactical diagrams before finishing and sending the message off.
"And done," she says with satisfaction.
While the others prep the ship for the approach to the Acreon, Lauren starts to move around the ship, humming to herself, while casting mending on anything broken that's small enough to be repaired by the spell. I'm sure it isn't much, but she feels every little bit helps.
She says, over the comms, "What is deposit?" before coming back to the bridge and sitting in the science officer's seat.
As they approach the Acreon and the Drift Rock, she'll attempt to scan both using the ship's scanners...
Looking back into the rest of the ship, Entiren simply states "Definitely more than a scratch."
"Entiren, get us to that rock. Let's do the job we're being paid for."
"Yes Captain." Entiren then turns back to the controls, angling away from the drifting hulk that used to be their opponent. He then increases the thrust from the engines, toggling the autopilot to resume heading towards the Acreon.
"But you're right. It still wouldn't hurt to send them a summary of the engagement."
She continues to tap away, adding some screenshots and tactical diagrams before finishing and sending the message off.
Station Security responds in the affirmative, stating that the Hippocampus's report has been received and that another security vessel will attempt to retrieve the other ship and any surviving crew as quickly as possible.
As they approach the Acreon and the Drift Rock, she'll attempt to scan both using the ship's scanners...
It only takes a few minutes to fly within range of their target. Lauren scans the Acreon, revealing that the ship is a medium transport with a maximum complement of six crew. Although the ship is armed (and none of the weapons appear to be damaged or disabled), all systems appear to be idling, and the power core is only outputting enough energy to run the basic ship functions, life support, and artificial gravity.
The Acreon has three airlocks - one on the port facing, one on the starboard facing, and a third, smaller airlock in the aft, crammed between two thruster arrays. The aft airlock appears to be fully open, exposing the ship's interior to hard vacuum.
Curiously, Lauren can't get a conclusive read on any life signs aboard the ship. At first, it appears to be the compromised state of the Hippocampus's sensors, but Lauren quickly realizes that the amount of background noise is actually quite high, preventing her from getting a more definite reading.
Turning her sensors to the Drift Rock, Lauren discovers it to an airless asteroid composed primarily of rock and metal. The same background noise that interfered with the readings of the Acreon is much higher here, preventing the sensors from picking up anything but the most basic information.
"Entiren," Diedre says, looking at her monitor closely. "If you would be so kind as to bring us around to the Acreon's aft airlock?"
She looks over the parcity of information about the asteroid being displayed by the sensors.
"The first thing we need to do is find out what happened to the crew of the Acreon. There's always hope of survivors."
The open airlock, though, fills her with dread.
"Everyone; kit up to go visiting."
Lauren goes over all her gear, checking the seals and force fields on her second skin and making sure her zero-g environmental suit has all it's hooks and knobs aligned. She then ensures everything is fully charged, including her environmental protections.
As she heads to the airlock, she mumbles to herself, "ဒါကြောင့်ပဲရေကူးနဲ့တူရဲ့... ဒါကြောင့်ပဲရေကူးနဲ့တူရဲ့... ဒါကြောင့်ပဲရေကူးနဲ့တူရဲ့..."
At the airlock, she stops mumbling and raises herself to her full height, a display of confidence. She says to the crew when they arrive, "I is ready."
Entiren will obligingly approach the Acreon's aft airlock, slowly moving up to the opening before rotating to face the open airlock with that of the Hippocampus. Turning to look back towards everyone else, he asks "Should I attempt to dock with the Acreon, or should we just jump over?"
Miraj stays vigilant at the coilgun for a few hearbeats, in case the ship had any fight left in it. Then he lets out a long breath he does not realize he has been holding. He takes a nip from his flask before shutting down the coilgun to standby mode, making sure the capacitors have been discharged fully, and checks that more shells are ready to slot into the barrel. Then he makes a rude gesture in the general direction of the destroyed ship.
He sends out terse congratulations to the others and moves to where his pack is stashed. He is already wearing his environmental radiation suit, so he just holsters his pistols and carries his sword cane with the spotlight in the tip. He moves to the airlock, ready to disembark.
Turning to look back towards everyone else, he asks "Should I attempt to dock with the Acreon, or should we just jump over?"
Diedre looks unsure.
"Ummm ... We really have no idea what happened over there. Maybe we should keep a little distance."
Lauren says to the others, "Distance is good. It provides a sandbar for protection."
"Alright then." Entiren will then maneuver the ship to where the two airlocks are facing each other, before shutting down the engines of the Hippocampus. Standing up from the pilots seat, he moves around to collect his equipment. He attaches his weapons to their normal locations, rifle over the shoulder and starknife at his side. Attaching his medkit to the other side of his belt, he quickly moves it to the back of his belt and attaches the flashlight where it previously was. Stowing the few items that came loose from his pack during the fight, he looks over at the recently acquired healing supplies.
"I suggest that each of us take one of the healing serums, as I might not be able to get within range to heal someone in the middle of a fight. However, seeing as how Miraj and Lauren each already have a few of them, I suggest that I hold onto the two of the remaining, while Jehir takes the final one. I am trained in some medicinal practices, so if nobody objects, I will hold onto the other medpatche." He then takes one of the healing serums, which he stows in his backpack, as well as the two medpatches if nobody objects. He then moves to stand by the airlock, ready to make the jump through space.
As the Hippocampus nears the Acreon, the Starfinders get a good look at the mining transport. It's clear that the boxy and ungainly ship has seen years of hard use in asteroid fields and mining colonies, as the radiation-bleached hull bears hundreds of micrometeorite impacts and dozens of patches and re-patches.
Entiren is easily able to park the Hippocampus such that the airlocks are aligned, making the transfer from one vessel to another a trivial affair. As the Starfinders disembark, they get a good look at the extent of the damage to their own (borrowed) vessel - the ship's bow and leading edges look as if they were subjected to a bout of acidic hail, with the armor plating pocked and etched and the paint long since burned away - a testament to the power of the particle beams that struck them again and again.
As they leap the gap between ships one by one, Ambassador Nor's camera drone quietly detaches itself from the ceiling of the Hippocampus and follows suit.
~~~
The Acreon is quiet.
Exposed to hard vacuum, the only sound most of the Starfinders hear is the thundering repetition of their own breath. For Entiren, protected from the effects of vacuum by his patron instead of an environmental seal, the ship around him is perfectly silent, save for the soft clanking of his hooves against the deck plating and the regular beating of his own heart.
The Acreon is dark.
Emergency lighting trickles from small diffusers on the floor, sketching out the edges of the rooms and corridors. Additional pinpoints of light glow from various displays and readouts scattered throughout the ship, granting enough light to discern shapes and edges. The outside sunlight, perfectly undiffracted in hard vacuum, shies away from the ship's interior completely.
As the Starfinders squeeze themselves through the small airlock, they find the ship's engineering bay - a narrow room of workbenches and consoles that stretches the width of the ship, dominated by the thruster motors to the aft. Two doors, locked open, lead forward to the power core (if Serissi's napkin-sketch map of the Acreon is to be believed).
Diedre arrives at the airlock in her duster with her sidearm on her belt, her 'Magic' sword over one shoulder and the designer rifle over the other.
She surveys the distance and then closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. She stabs a finger to her temple and grimaces. "Right there," she says in annoyance. "Make it stop hurting, right there."
She drops her hands and takes a deep breath and holds it. She lets it out while shaking out her arms. "Let it go. Let it go. Let it go," she chants as a mantra to herself.
Sufficiently relaxed, she reaches back and pulls up the hood from the collar of her second-skin suit. Sealing it for the jump, she looks at the others. "Let's do this," she says.
Once the group is inside, Diedre draws her sidearm and attempts to close the air lock.
Noticing that Aureum is unable to see as easily as everyone else, Entiren will detach his flashlight from his belt and offer it to her. Activating his comm unit, he says to her "Here, take this. I don't have that much use for this, but out appears that you do." He will then draw forth his laser rifle as he waits for those ahead of him to move further into the ship.
Before making the leap of faith, Lauren un-slings her laser rifle from her shoulder and wraps a manipulatory tentacle around it, keeping the other free to grab hold of the ship as she crosses. Entering the vacuum, the silence feels deafening. She's so used to her vibrational blindsense being there that she almost stumbles when she lands. She starts to feel a sense of panic at the loss and says, "We need get everyone inside and seal the lock. I may can restore air from engineering."
Aureum accepts the flashlight gratefully, using it to glance around the room and get her bearings, and then joins Diedre in trying to close the airlock.
Once the group is inside, Diedre draws her sidearm and attempts to close the air lock.
Aureum heads over to assist with the airlock, but Diedre pushes the button and it just... closes. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the airlock mechanism.
"Sorry, I thought for sure that wouldn't work," Diedre's muffled voice says over the open comms. "So someone opened it on purpose. This does not bode well."
She looks at the two doors leading out of engineering.
"So, left or right. How about right?" she asks, indicating the appropriate door.
Setting his comm unit to keep open a link to everyone in the group, Entiren replies to Diedre. "Either way should work, as they should lead to the same place. However, we may as well look around this room while we are here. We don't want any surprises to pop up behind us." He will then move into the room behind the others, looking around when he gets the opportunity.