"Perhaps some more detailed information on the weapons firing at us might prove valuable," the mostly silent android finally speaks up as he takes a seat behind one of the Harridan's computer consoles, a science officer's station as it turns out, scanners and more at his fingertips. Although it does take him a moment to familiarize himself with the controls, between his own cybernetic brain and Lena, as well as perhaps, just perhaps, the ability to adapt to most situations if given enough time, Caleb begins directing the ship's scanners towards the surface to air guns firing at them.
The ship hurtled forward with the extra power of the engines flaring to live. Subsystems reported low energy output on many minor systems while the power was being diverted to the engines.
Gunneries weapons missed their mark, scoring the planetside.
The scanners pinged back results from the ground to surface weaponry that were firing at the ship, the results almost seemed cryptic but you were able to piece out several handy pieces of information, thought not containing the weapon read out, possibly another scan would help shed some light on the cryptic readouts.
--Classification: Alien Hostile--
--Size: Medium--
--Speed: Immobile, Turret Construct--
It would then contain following information that told of its estimated strength and durability.
The turrets fired again, but this time their firing resolutions were honed in on the ship. Though most of the turrets missed the ship, one shot coming very close to hitting if it wasn't for Molly's evasive maneuvers. Another turret though did score a solid hit, its plasma like weapon hitting the port shields, most of the damage was absorbed by the shield, though the plasma bled through and hit the hull, causing sirens to blare of hull damage.
"Can't shake all of 'em!", shouts Molly, as the sirens start blaring. Oh, come on. You barely got back to piloting a year back..., her own voice sounds in her head. Can't fly straight up, it's a clear shot for them..., her own voice sounds again.
"Shush!", she shouts, not in response to anything in particular. "Right, boys and bots, we can't just fly out, since we'll be dead long since we reach whatever passes for stratosphere here." The ship suddenly turns with a g-force almost unbearable even with grav-compensators.
"Hey, Captain.", says Molly with a cocky grin as she turns. "Remember the Blockade of Shqah VII? Just hope you're on the winning side this time.", she teases as she points the ship towards the turret, trying to go under the incoming plasma barrages, and pushes the thrusters to maximum. "Hold until you can see the rust in their sockets!", she laughs with a tone suggesting the usual pilot insanity levels have been briefly surpassed.
I'm going for the Flyby maneuvre - which would lead us through the enemy in the bottom right corner, where Gunnery can fire as if they're in Short range, and we don't provoke an AoO. The DC is 20+2x the rating of the enemy ship(or turret), so I've teased Tujon beforehand, in case I need it. Reason why I chose this is because we can both fire and run away in the same turn - that's the only stunt that lets us pull this off.
Jacob grits his teeth and opens fire on the turret.
Resk rocks slightly in his seat, thankful he strapped in. Sirens blared alerting to the collapsed port shields, but with the pilot maneuvering across asteroid's surface, it left the aft shields facing the turrets, and those were still at full power.
These shields are useless against that volume of fire. Maybe I should have stayed in that room, hacked a few more robots... And these computers, no AI support. Oh, Weydan, I know I've never been particularly devout, but please don't let me die like this.
As he considers these thoughts, he continues to poke and tap at the antiquated computers. Never much one to wait for commands from on high, he makes his own calculus and again tries to squeeze every last joule of power for the engines.
"There," Caleb says softly after a few moments of making a number of scans and calibrations using the console in front of him. "There is a vulnerability in the turret's design. I am sending the information to your targeting screen, Jacob. Try to aim at the indicated spot, small though it is."
Bishop takes entirely too long to get adjusted to the controls, but finally thinks he has an idea of how it works and fires at the turrets.
The gun fire beamed across the helm once more as Molly took the actions needed. The freighter moving quite well as she dodged the incoming attacks. The guns were quickly being left behind as she speed forward, engines flaring to life as Reskk pushes more power to the engines. You could almost feel the ship lurch from the extra power.
The turret was hit by Jacobs gun fire, the damage apparently enough to trigger a minor explosion within the turret as the gun emplacement imploding on itself. With the ship traveling away from the gun towers the targeting algorithms redirected the turret priorities. They turned back skyward, firing off into the mess that was above them.
With the turrets quickly disappearing behind, the battle was ever more present ahead of them. It seemed like utter chaos as lasers, coilguns and many body of ships interweaved. A comm finally broke the second of silence.
”To all units, to all units, this is the Exodus. Large enemy ship detected, dreadnought class. Get your asses ready to pull. To rescue units, if your not shipborne, abandon your targets.” A siren blared shortly after the comm went dead, the ship's radar picking up energy signatures of a large ship pushing up from the surface of the moon.
"Oh good, now the real battle begins." Tujon shifts in his throne, ready for anything. "Prepare to return to the Exodus, we need to get these civilians off my ship."
"Roger that." Carmine replies, keeping the controls for the guns hot in case danger comes to them.
Having caught a breather and without the captain barking orders at him — Does a vesk bark? More like... avalanche, if it were a verb — Resk decides to use the opportunity to reinforce the ship’s battered shields.
A lip curls in consternation as he silently muses on the failure. Hmm. Perhaps it’s best he didn’t give me orders. “Don’t mind me... I’m just poking around. Oh, you wanted me to do something? Why didn’t you say so?” Your wish is my command.
Bishop stops poking at the console. He gives a whistle at the radar reading. I want to be back on the Exodus before that thing catches us.
"You and me both, Bish!", replies Molly, her head still in the hair-raising maneuvre she can barely believe she pulled off. "Where's that damn dreadnought coming from?", she asks in a frustrated voice, as she tries her best to squeeze all the power from the engines. "Setting course for Exodus. Hold on tight!", she shouts, cracking her fingers as she grabs the controls.
"It is coming from the center of that ball of rock pilot. It may have created it as camouflage, a marvelous tactic meant to ambush the unwary." Tujon grins his toothy lizard grin at the idea of piloting such a vessel. "Some day, we may crew such a fine vessel ourselves, and then we shall be the most feared crew ever to ply the space lanes."
"Yes, quite," Caleb remarks more than a little drily. "But for any... plying to come, we should perhaps survive this first." Despite the comment, the android appears unafraid as he turns his strange eyes to look at the dreadnaught rising from under the moon's surface.
"Fascinating...," he adds as he attempts to scan it, perhaps find out something more about it other than the fact that it is huge and quite threatening.
Molly sends a glance at Tujon, shaking her head. "You want an empire with that?", she asks, turning back her head towards the console. As she taps over the buttons, the ship suddenly shakes severely, as blood drains from her face. The ship starts plummeting down, as a stream of low-hushed whispers and ear-blistering swears fill the air around the pilot's chair, before she manages to wrestle control once again. "Sure, vesk language. Why, in the name of Asmodeus' Ass Dimple, are nineteen different letter accents necessary?!", she blurts out, as redness starts crawling up her face. "No, I got it now, thank you!", she replies to nobody in particular.
The ship scans would only return jumbled and garbled messages, it was obvious that the dreadnought rising from the moon's surface had some hefty countermeasures upon it. A piece of the ship began to move, a large and massive turret bigger then the ship you were flying in began to take aim at Exodus. Sudden energy spikes correlated with the charge up of the weapon.
As Molly tried to wrestle control of the ship as it plummeted, you could feel several shots land against the hull of the ship, scouring hits and leaving their marks.
Molly was able to wrestle control back of the ship before an alien ship dive bombed the freighter. The missiles Molly luckily dodged plowed into the moon's surface and exploded in a brilliant display of atomic energy. The ship veered and shook as she made a straight line to the carrier. Radars would blare that you had taggers behind you.
Another round of fire Molly dodged and ducked from the pursuer, though that was not the only obstacle to avoid as other ships were dodging and weaving in the fight that occupied the space between you and the carrier. Each obstacle Molly came about, she easily ducked, weaved, and rolled. The engines blaring at full throttle as the distant carrier began to come into view.
You already had your hangar assigned and Molly was already aiming to fly right into the hangar at full throttle, though one more blaring siren caught her attention just seconds before a large release of energy was reported and thick green beams shot up between Molly and the Carrier. The dreadnought was now firing at the carrier. A priority alert flashed across everyone’s screens. Exodus was spinning their drives now, you had a countdown of thirty seconds to make it to the hangar or you would be left to your doom. Suddenly, your airspace would become much more crowded as all deployed fighters were rushing home.
Resk listens to the conversation while staring at the computer screen in front of him, poking his way through the systems and becoming acquainted with them. A quaint vessel, but serviceable. Nothing like what we had before, but perhaps I was unfair in my initial judgment.
When the vesk mentions a "feared vessel to ply the spacelanes", he pauses in his digital exploration and looks up, a quizzical expression on his face. "I'm sorry... are you explorers or pirates? Not that I have any problem with, aaaaah..." His voice is suddenly stolen from him as Molly sends the ship plummeting back towards the asteroid, then back up again.
He coughs slightly, tugging at his harness where it has cut into his shoulder, and decides to go back to trying to stay alive.
If Molly needs the speed, he'll divert to engines. If she doesn't, he'll divert to shields, trying to rebuild them during the lull in fighting.
"We're people with flexible moral values who are being shot at!", Molly's barking answer comes in just in time for her to nearly dodge another barrage of plasma. If I make it out of here, I'm finding the nearest temple., a thought crosses her mind as she flips the ship around its axis to dodge another barrage. "I'd rather not try and take that dreadnought just yet, so let's see how fast the old slag can really run!"
"Oh!" the ysoki expresses with some surprise. A whisker twitches. "Flexibility is good, but yes, do try to avoid the massive plasma beams. I don't think the shields can withstand another blast." he adds quietly. Who are these people?
Even without looking at Reskk, Molly snappily replies, "Hey, sunshine, I don't come to your console and tell you not the overheat the power converters!", as another plasma beam nearly scars the ship. "I'm not collecting the rikkit things for points!", she continues, as her lips start muttering a silent curse at the sight of what's in front of her. "Hold on!"
Bishop grips the arm rests of his seat. ”You have this, Molly.” He tries to sound reassuring but you can tell it is strained. He mutters a prayer to Desna.
The ship barrels through the shielding that separates the hangar from vacuum. Molly tries to make the adjustments and slow down to the landing zone but she came in too hot, the ship careening into the landing back, you could hear and feel the thunderous screech of metal on metal. Suddenly the ship lurches and a data console reports that two of the landing gears snapped, causing the ship to be a precarious angle. You feel the gravity shift and the ship continue to slide, the hanger spinning within the windows of Harridan.
Slowly the ship would finally come to rest, just merely inches from the hangar wall. The ship had skidded at-least fifty to a hundred feet. When the ship stopped spinning it leaned forward and rested on its nose with a loud 'BANG'. The windows were tilted down so you could see the path the ship took and where the scours of the ship left and the two legs and where they rested when they snapped off. Crew of the Exodus were quickly running towards the ship, one carrying a hose and suddenly hosing the ship on its port side were a fire began to erupt.
Ahead you see a couple of fighters and two other larger ships make it through the blue shimmering field, you immediately recognize two of the ships, the Harbinger and the Illicia who were making less then ideal landings as well.
Suddenly you feel Exodus shift and the entire hanger go dark with red lights flashing. "Exodus has been hit, I repeat, Exodus has been hit. Heavy damage in quadrant 53-A1. Seal doors and hangars. Exposed to Vacuum. I Repeat, damage section is exposed to vacuum."
The sound emanating from Molly's mouth as she brings the ship into the hangar bay goes from shouts of determination, through screaming, to groans of pain as the staps rend themselves into her jumpsuit. As the ship stops, she looks up, seeing that everyone's alive. "Woo! Ha-ha-haha!", she shouts out, pumping her fist in the air. "...woo...", follows shortly after, and the sound of retching on the floor is not far behind. "Desna, those two hags still got it!", she shouts as she wipes her mouth, before unclasping herself and turning off the engine.
Woozily stepping down on her feet, she staggers around. "It's all in the navigator's hands now...", she blurts out as she looks around for damage. "Hey, where's quadrant 53-A1?", a quick question follows, as she steps to her console to check.
Resk sniffs slightly as he mutters to himself, "You wouldn't need to tell me not to overheat the power converters. It's self-evident. Unlike, apparently, dodging plasma b...."
The whipsaw of the landing sends him thrashing in his seat. He surely would be slamming his head into something were it not for having strapped himself down. As is, he struggles to keep his lunch down.
Oh, Weydan... what have I done to earn this mistreatment? A vesk 'captain' and a blind pilot. I'm surely going to die.
He slaps the release on his harness once... twice... a third time until it finally disengages and he stumbles to his feet. "With the luck we all seem to be experiencing today, I wouldn't be surprised if it is the hanger in which we've landed."
To your right at the gunner controls, you can here sudden bowel movement as Jacob leans over and begins emptying whatever contents he had in his stomach, if there was nothing you could hear the dry heave.
Which only made Molly lose any slim thread of control she had on her stomach and would double over and would end up the same as Jacob. Though only shortly after checking the quadrant with the computer systems of the exodus, which located itself just short of your current quadrant, it seemed the Dreadnoughts attack punctured a hangar just two over which destabilized and destroyed the blue magnetic shielding that kept the hangars protected from the vacuum.
Over the throwing up, flashing red lights in the blacked out hangar and the rumble of the Exodus taking hits from what ever was happening, you could hear the comms blare, crackling with static.
"Commencing emergency drift jump in 5...4...3....2...1!" You could hear the sirens suddenly go quiet as you felt the ship lurch as it pushed through the material plane and into the drift, suddenly pinking purple light filling the hangar as the blast doors never shut properly causing a wondrous display being put on.
Tujon seems transfixed by the beauty of drift space.
As the ship comes to a halt, Bishop unbuckles from his chair and drops to the floor, retching. ”I knew you could *urk*... do it, Molly.”
He excuses himself and leaves the ship, falling to the ground after hobbling about 10 feet from the exit and just sits, admiring the view out the hangar door.
She should be thinking how they barely made it out alive. She should be thinking on how, if she'd never gotten that boost of confidence, she'd be pissed on a decaying bar on Akiton, slowly killing herself. She should be thinking of what those things were, and what lay beyond.
Instead, Molly wasn't thinking about anything, as the scintillating patterns of the Drift shined in front of her eyes. The idea of a memory, of being so close to the Drift so many years ago, doesn't even appear in her head. It's a new Drift, one that goes to the unknown. And she was in it.
As their ship lands -of sorts- in the hangar bay, Caleb unbuckles himself from his seat and stands up, taking stock of his surroundings and the other members of the crew. It would seem sudden movements of the spinning variety did not agree with them as the sounds of vomiting and heaving are all around him.
"Are you alright? Do you require...," the android asks, seemingly unperturbed by both the motion sickness overcoming the others and the puddle of Molly's stomach contents he rather gracefully manages to sidestep, ...assistance of some sort?"
Molly's eyes, unwavering from the sight, blink as she almost imperceptively shakes her head. "S$+%, sugar. All I need's this memory, you know?", she sighs, unwrapping her headband and blissfully staring. "The Exodus needs us, they got comms."
The hypnotizing view of drift space took his mind off the nausea. As he began to feel a little better, he got up and reentered the ship. He went first to the scientists they had picked up. ”Sorry for the rough landing all, but trust me it was the better alternative. Besides being a little shaken, is everyone alright?”
Tujon shakes his head and snaps out of his enjoyment of the view. "We are alive, that is what matters. Stations give report and access damages, and coms, patch me through to someone who knows what is going on out there."
Carmine watches the drift for a second, and shrugs, turning away. Seen that about a billion times. he thinks, wiping the remainder of sick from his face. "All right, lets get moving." he says. "Captain, accessing comms." he replies to Tujon's order, opening the communication line to command.
"Exodus Command, requesting sitrep." he speaks into the mike.
After recovering from any physical indignities he might have suffered (and praying nobody's voided bodily fluids have touched him), Resk looks at the console in front of him.
He reports on his findings. "Two of the landing gears have snapped from the impact and shields are low but stable. Light damage to the port quarter hull but no breaches. Systems are otherwise..." His voice trails off as he considers the readings.
Most of the scientists that were strapped in looked a little worse for wear, there faces ashen with motion sickness and a few of them had already lost their contents of their stomachs. They looked to the Ysoki and gave meager nods, one of the scientists were already unstrapped and tending the wounded. One of them spoke in reply, "Y-yeah, where are we now? Are we safe?"
In response to Jacob's call, a female voice would respond over the comms, "Emergency jump was a success, though it was a random plot grabbed from our nav computers, far enough away to ensure no following hostiles. Med teams are en-route to your destinations. Exodus recieved major damage. We will be in drift for an uncertain amount of time. Once your settled, report to the division command." Her voice was short, clip and had a bit of an urgency to the response and sounded like she's mentioned this several times now.
By Resk's inspection, there would also be some slight malfunctioning systems, but with a day of work they would be in the right order.
"All right. Captain? You heard the lady." he says, stretching his back and neck. "Exodus is beat up, but we're still standing."
Bishop smiles kindly at the scientist addressing him. ”You are all indeed safe. You are aboard the Exodus, a star citadel belonging to a group calling themselves the Expedition. They received your distress call and my crew were among those chosen to rescue you.”
He leans in closely to the scientist and asks quietly ”Tell me, what was your group doing on that miraculous moon? I have never seen anything like it! Did you know it was inhabited? Did you dig those tunnels yourself? I wish I had had more time to properly explore the place. ” He seems like he has plenty more questions and is noticeably straining to slow himself down. He also knows there is surely someone waiting to debrief these people but his near insatiable curiosity will not allow him this missed opportunity.
"Well,time to clean our scales and sharpen our teeth. Gunners, you will accompany me as an honor guard. Pilot, you did well out there, take a moment to revel in your personal glory and then clean up this space... Except for the command throne and your own seat, I will be back for those myself. Comms, I will want a full damage report and repair schedule when I return, see if you can conscript a willing volunteer from the civilians, otherwise you will be engineering as well." Without another word, Tujon begins the long march to division command.
The view outside of the Drift seems to pose little interest to Resk, aesthetic or otherwise, as his attention is more focused on the situation in which he finds himself.
He is so focused, in fact, he seems surprised the rest of his "team" is still there. Like a bad centi-cred... He listens intently to Bishop's description of the mothership, the Exodus, and puzzles. It must be massive. A star citadel? Fascinating engineering feat. I'm going to have to... His thoughts are cut off as Bishop poses a question to him and he has to shift gears. Lying and obfuscation had never been one of his fortes. Perhaps I should just be honest?
"I, uh, we..." He looks at the scientists, then back at Bishop. "It's complicated. I'm happy to explain it at the appropriate time. But, tell me... what is to become of us? What is this Exodus? An expedition? Are you military, civilian, freelance?" Resk thinks of the last as a euphemism for "pirate".
"Your captain refers to conscription but only for one. Is there no choice or volunteering? What is to happen to those who do not volunteer or, uh, are conscripted? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but..." He shrugs, then adds in a whisper to Bishop while his back is to the other scientists, "Can we talk in private?"
It doesn't take a genius to realize he's nervous about something (or more than one thing).
Bishop’s enthusiasm seems obviously deflated by Resk’s guarded answer and follow up questions. He nods to the request for privacy and walks with Resk away from the larger group. ”I...uh...honestly don’t have the answers to most of your questions. The Expedition promised me an oppurtunity to do the one thing I love most and fund it. I probably didn’t ask enough questions of them myself. I can say that I freely volunteered though, as did most of the others I believe. Well...the android just kind of appeared. Still not sure where it came from...”
Having some privacy from the other scientists, Resk is somewhat more forthcoming. He peeks around, over his shoulder, looks in the corners, then nods and looks back at Bishop. "Sorry, brother, I don't mean to be..." He pauses to think about what is he actually means. "Rude? Yes, rude. I mean, I don't mean to be rude. It just sort of happens. Or obfuscatory." He stares at Bishop for a moment, blinks once, then continues.
"We work for a company, or entity, called Rytlok. Lots of money, very lucrative. Practically threw money at me to join up. They referred to that moon as Site Delta and said it was believed to be what they call a 'Precursor' site, a pre-Gap civilization. We were sent to collect whatever artifacts and data we could.
"Someone..." He scowls. "Some incompetent neobarb that doesn't deserve the title 'engineer' or 'scientist' must have touched a console he shouldn't have and set the whole place off. I managed to piggyback on the scramble frequency to send out a pulsed distress signal, but when those things came for us..." He shrugs.
"We didn't get anything. But, um... look. The reason I wanted to talk in private..." He glances again to make sure the scientists can't overhear. "Employees of Rytlok have a tendency to, uh... how should I put this... disappear as soon as they express a desire to leave. It's engaged in some shady stuff, maybe not entirely what most people would think of as moral. So, um... might want to tell your captain. I don't know if there are any plants from the company in with the scientists to mind us, but I wouldn't be surprised."