Beauregard inflicts a nasty wound upon the lashunta.
The remaining merc, while still conscious, becomes confused. He clearly no longer understands what's going on, and appears ready to back away.
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...
Under her breath, she reminds herself, "It’s not their fault." But it's getting hard to remember that...
...
John looks over his shoulder at the good doctor. "They still be going in the brig."
He looks over to Rar'gul. "Come on. Let's get them stripped down and into their cage."
The human begins to execute that plan.
T'sorkel tried to help, but mostly just stands by while the stronger or more militarily knowledgeable collect the mercenaries and lock them into the brig. "Whoever is responsible for this is probably on that ship. It worries me if they are able to take over anyone's mind or if the mercenaries were somehow prepped for this takeover. It does not seem like it happened willingly though."
The technomancer remains conscious, but is very confused. He is nearly in a catatonic state, and only mumbles quietly. He could be interrogated, but you surmise that you would have to be VERY patient. He is cooperative should you wish to lead him somewhere like the brig or one of the medbay rooms.
The mercs seem to all have a standard suit of Freebooter armor I. The human has a diamagnetic stormhammer and a squad machinegun. The half orc has a flame pistol and basic hand axes. The lashunta has an arc pistol, a dueling sword, and a datapad.
The Voidcrier continues to creep through space quietly. Somewhere out there, likely following you, is an insidious alien presence...
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After a few minutes of trying to talk with the lashunta, John scowls and turns away. "Useless. Somebody else want to try?"
(With the help of anyone who wants to,) John sets aside the mercenaries' gear and drags them to the brig. When he returns, if no one has picked up the data pad, he picks it up, switches it on and tries to log in.
John has no problem getting through the initial password on the datapad.
It appears that this datapad is generally used for personal things. There are family pictures, some correspondence with friends and family, and some entertainment like games and vids.
It is otherwise unremarkable.
Breez comes out of the medbay. She is dressed and ready for action. "I can help on the bridge if you need someone."
Rar'gul simply nods and falls in with John, helping the Abadaran to extract the mercenaries from their gear and cart them to the brig.
Returning to the group, the trox sorts through the collection of equipment. Shuffling through the goods, he grunts and holds up the human's hammer. "He has good taste," Rar'gul rumbles, holding up a hammer much like his own. The trox flicks the release on the shaft and drops out the battery pack. "A sparre might ccome in handy."
Rar'gul turns to watch John's attempts with the technomancer. "If he's being ccooperrative, it might be worrth rrunning some tests and scans," he offers with a shrug.
Galatea, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, eyes flickering back and forth in a rapid, inhuman manner, snapped back to the situation at hand. Her brow furrowed at T'sorkel's telepathic intrusion, a grim look crossing her face as her lips pressed into a thin, cold line.
"Whoever is responsible for this is probably on that ship. It worries me if they are able to take over anyone's mind or if the mercenaries were somehow prepped for this takeover. It does not seem like it happened willingly though."
She nodded her agreement, "I can only imagine the technology to transmit subconscious commands to multiple receivers implanted in subjects through out a target ship, is complicated, to say the least. As such, in my opinion, venting a plasma stream from aft power couplings, would allow us to target the vessel." She paused a moment, before continuing, watching as John secured the prisoners, and waiting for his return. "If engaged in tactical maneuvering, their ability to transmit complicated data to specific embedded devices would be significantly compromised."
As she awaited for her allies input on her, admittedly, scant tactical analysis, she turned towards Rar'gul, nodding.
"If he's being ccooperrative, it might be worrth rrunning some tests and scans," he offers with a shrug.
"I would be happy to perform a medical evaluation of the Lashuntan, if you would care to take a brief moment to gather yourself before we attempt to engage our pursuers." Looking towards the Lashuntan, she formed what was the approximation of a smile. "If you please?" With a wave of her hand, indicating the medical bay. "A cursory examination to determine the cause of your fugue state."
The confused lashunta offers no resistance, and is happy to be led into one of the medbays for an examination.
Even in his confused and cooperative state, he seems on edge, as if he could snap any moment. It's hard to have a handle on what his (or any of the other mercs) prognosis may be.
Galatea notes a small puncture in his arm, as if he recently had an intravenous line.
"This is all getting a bit above my head. I'm just a simple PI. Aim me where you want me to go and I'll be there."
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After the technomancer stops fighting and begins backing away, Lilly maintains her aim, leaning forward ever so slightly.
Not. Their. Fault. Not their fault.
Another moment goes by. The gun stays steady.
They’re trapped just like us.
Her finger quivers on the trigger.
“Stop this right now, Lillithbryne!” The words comes out much louder than she anticipated.
Lilly exhales deeply and lowers her gun, slinging it across her back. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve.
“They could’ve been us. That could’ve been us fighting the others. Us tearing into them.” She shakes her head and continues. ”What in the rocky moons of the Diaspora is going on? We need some answers.”
She listens to T’sorkel and Galatea for a moment, then moves down the corridor to John and the prisoners. “Let’s take a look at the ‘new recruits’ and see if they can offer any clues…”
T'sorkel follows Dr. Flint-Bridge and Beauregard towards the prisoners. While the others look through their items or examine them, the Shirren just studies them. If they have been tampered with, there may be signs. I need to observe them just like I would a strange artifact who will give up its secrets in time. If any of them are still connected to their controllers, it might especially prove to be a useful study.
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...
...
Lieutenant Kosseruk
"I'm not good at all that plasama whosists and techno mumbo jumbo. Lemmie see if I can get something out of the confused guard. I've grilled more than one hungover suspect before, that's more my speed."
"Sounds good. Why don't you, T'sorkel and Doctor Flint-bridge take the lashunta? I'll look in on the brig with Galatea and Rar'gul."
As you examine the still unconscious mercenary, along with the conscious but severely confused merc, the one thing they all have in common is that they have some sort of evidence of a recent medical procedure. All of you also have found that you have these things, and they appeared immediately after you woke up from the lost time incident at the beginning of the brutaris match.
Is it possible that some sort of mind control was triggered by these procedures? If so, why didn't they affect all of you? Or Kaniko Breez? (though you do have a reasonable hypothesis regarding breez--she was already on heavy drugs, including sedatives).
Also, the mind control does not seem to be working on Pike (the merc commander), Shez, or Narla. Why?
What are you going to do about the enemy (gray?) craft you detected on your six? Certainly, this must be where this mind control is coming from...
"Rrroger," Rar'gul rumbles over comms in reply to Beauregard. He then assists John in securing the brig and its occupants.
"Not much of this makkkesss any sense," the trox admits as he accompanies John to the bridge.
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“C’mon, Galatea. You too, Breez. Everything’s secure down here. Let’s see if we can make sense of this together.”
Lilly leads the medical group upstairs to the bridge.
On the way, she tries to sort all the pieces into some kind of order.
Tears threaten to form for a moment, but she wills them away. No, dammit. Not now. Time to think and act. You can cry later.
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When everyone gets to the bridge, Beauregard taps his head in an effort to get the telepaths on board to set up a telepathic link to the rest of the party.
"Okay, so here's what we've got so far, We start off on a ship where a lot of weird coincidences happen including a murder mystery. It's almost comical the amount of things that go towards a stereotypical murder mystery. Ship breaks down stranding us in the drift, someone goes missing, doesn't impersonate their target too well, and an obvious red herring with the goblins. Then we find out that is all a simulation.
"Second major experience is us escaping a massive space station that was obstinately set up to run a bunch of these simulations. Any time we try to get information the computer wipes or the person we're talking to has a bomb in their head go off. Again, an almost comical set of circumstances get us off the space station. A rescue party of space cops just HAPPENS to find us just as we HAPPEN to have escaped and they just HAPPEN to set the base to overload? Really? And blow up all that evidence? I've worked with the cops long enough to know that isn't how they operate. They would have gone over that place with a fine toothed comb
"Now we are on an escape ship and whattya know, we have a ship chasing after us, can't get into the drift, and former allies are all attacking us. They can apparantly just 'switch us off' at any time and can flip our switches to evil when they want as well.
"What do all these things have in common? Fear. Isolation, Confusion, Stress. This is textbook psychological testing here. Put someone, or a group, into an isolated situation and stress them. Fear of a murderer running around, fear of the unknown with the space station, fear of betrayal by the mercenaries. Confusion because we never know what's going on. All that leads to stress. Lots of stress. I think this entire chain of events is some sort of psychological stress test.
"As much as I hate playing the 'what if' game and second guessing myself, I think the tests are still going on. I think the space station was just more testing. It probably didn't even blow up, that could have been faked any number of ways.
"Now, what do we do about it? If I'm right, and this is just more stress testing, then we have to find a way to flip the script. Turn the tables. I think they WANT to have us get away from the phantom ship, that's the next part of the test. We need to let them think that that is still the plan. One of us needs to work on 'exposing' them . . . slowly. Everyone else, we need to find every possible transmitter on this ship and disable it. If I'm right, and this is an experiment, then they need to keep track of us. Also, everyone turn on your armor's environmental protections and keep them on. Recharge your suit while sleeping. It may not be much, but it will ensure they can't gas us to sleep at least."
Beauregard pauses for any comments. He is open to counter ideas.
Okay, Team Meeting. Let's all link meet up on the bridge and see if we can't go over what we have so far. From now on let's rely on T'Sorkel and Rar'gul's 'gifts' so that we don't risk alerting whoever is following us.
I suppose that's fair. I'm willing to help relay thoughts to anyone who needs to receive them. T'sorkel follows the others up to the bridge.
He listens to Beauregard's paranoid, but well-reasoned theories. Do you think it's the Greys still? Or has this all been a farce by someone else? I still think venting the gas is a good plan. But if it's all a test, what else should we be trying at the same time?
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Okay, Team Meeting. Let's all link meet up on the bridge and see if we can't go over what we have so far. From now on let's rely on T'Sorkel and Rar'gul's 'gifts' so that we don't risk alerting whoever is following us.I suppose that's fair. I'm willing to help relay thoughts to anyone who needs to receive them. T'sorkel follows the others up to the bridge.
He listens to Beauregard's paranoid, but well-reasoned theories. Do you think it's the Greys still? Or has this all been a farce by someone else? I still think venting the gas is a good plan. But if it's all a test, what else should we be trying at the same time?
"Like I said, if it is a test, they have to monitor their test subjects, which would be us. If we find and deactivate all transmitters, they have no data, and will have no choice but to come here and reactivate them. If I'm wrong,then remember, the mercs had their switches flipped to evil AS SOON AS we were about ready to vent the plasma the first time. That means that ship still is spying on us. We have to find out how they are doing that and stop them. Yes, exposing the enemy ship is a good idea as well, so have one person work on that-but slowly. Buy us enough time to find and deactivate whatever is transmitting to that ship without them thinking something is wrong."
We should look where we saw the mercenaries change behavior. I think that only happened in one place we can be sure of, on the bridge. The crew was suddenly incapacitated and the mercenaries turned on us. If there's a transmitter anywhere, the bridge should have one. In fact, if we are to continue our efforts to vent the drive plasma, some of us can be doing that, while others of us search for a transmitter. We still can't rule out the idea that the attacks were in response to our attempts to vent the drive plasma either, so that still might be the most threatening act towards our adversaries.
T'sorkel will go help the others search even though he's not exactly sure what he's looking for. He is, however, used to finding odd artifacts and especially if it's a Gray device, he might have some luck identifying it.
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"We're just going to have to assume that they can't read our minds. The tech to do that is . . . fairly obvious and only works over short ranges. If they have that then there is nothing we can do but just follow the plan.
"But yes, please scan for signals from our ship to theirs, if we could shut off all signals at once, that would be our best bet."
John's scan does not locate anything unusual. No carrier waves. Nothing strange on any of the bandwidths or frequencies that you can normally monitor.
The same pings you were able to narrow down earlier continue to indicate the enemy craft is still in your aft.
John also does a fairly thorough search of the bridge. There does not seem to be anything foreign here.
After they search the bridge, T'sorkel decides to go back to the brig to observe the locked up mercenaries. He makes psychic contact with each of them that are conscious, trying to sense if there's any other psychic effect or touch on them.
If he does sense any other presence, he immediately stops and reports it to the others.
After they search the bridge, T'sorkel decides to go back to the brig to observe the locked up mercenaries. He makes psychic contact with each of them that are conscious, trying to sense if there's any other psychic effect or touch on them.
If he does sense any other presence, he immediately stops and reports it to the others.
[dice=Sense Motive]1d20+12
[dice=Mysticism]1d20+14
[dice=Perception]1d20+12
As you all spend time searching the bridge (and possibly other areas of the ship), there is a loud impact upon your ship. The lighting flickers, and the Voidcrier shudders from some sort of impact.
Your comms immediately light up. It's Breez, and she's up on the bridge keeping an eye on things. "You all better get up here! Whatever is out there just lost patience and fired at us. Shields are holding...for now..."
T'sorkel scrambles up to the bridge, panicking the whole way. No, no, no, no, no, no! The psychic speech rattles in your heads as the Shirren loses his mental composure.
Seeing the mostly empty bridge, he simply rushes towards a Station hoping to be able to help. He activates the controls and finds that he is in the pilot's seat. Panic rises. Breez, help! How do you fly this thing?! He grabs the controls and tries to makes sense of the various alerts being shown to him.
As he engages the controls, a sense of familiarity kicks into his actions, and he finds himself activating protocols by muscle memory alone. While his heartrate continues to skyrocket, he moves with a calm and practiced hand to activate evasive maneuver routines. As he does so, the Shirren can see the Archive in his mind and realizes he's in a section containing memories of hundreds of thousands of pilots from across the Pact Words. He begins pulling memories down like books on a shelf and in less than a blink of an eye, he's swimming in their experience.
Somebody dump that plasma and get on the guns! The psychic speech is oddly accented from T'sorkel's normal messages, with a strong drawl to it. Can psychic speech even have accents? Strap in, this one is goin' to git bumpy! Brace yourselves!
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"Galatea, need you any help with the plasma dump?"
John hastily fits the access panel over its opening and drives one fastener down to hold it there. He scoops the other fasteners into his hand and stuffs them into a small pouch lining his belt.
He looks at the closest control station, palms what looks to be a power switch. Guns. We be needing those.
He looks over his shoulder at the shirren moving to the helm. Hope T'sorkel knows what he's about. Thought Yariel was the only pilot among us.
As the ship rolls into T"sorkel's first maneuver and the shirren drawls his message, John settles down.
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”Dump plasma, as soon as that thing shows up on sensors, T'Sorkel, I want you to bring us about as quick as you can. Then fire everything, all guns!”
That last blast almost sends her to the floor again, but she pushes off one of the duty chairs and recovers her position.
The way these controls are laid out, the Stewards must not hire a lot of Halflings. I mean, I’m all for safety but this is ridiculous.
“PLASMA VENT IN THREE…” she calls into the comms.
Anyone entering Engineering would find her stretched across the primary power core control desk like it’s a piece of gymnastic equipment. Balanced in a combination of a backbend and the splits, one hand holds down a button, a bare foot braces a control lever, and her other leg pushes against the hole left by a partially unscrewed panel.
The effect could have been enticing for the right audience, especially if it involved less clothing, more exotic staging, and a distinct lack of space ships blasting away at the venue.
Here, it just looks precarious.
“…TWO… ”
Every muscle vibrates. Her eyes lock on the pulsing red button now labeled “DUMP” and the display panel above it reading “Commence?”
“…ONE…”
C’mon, Lilly… c’mon… one shot… smack it like your cheating ex…
With an acrobatic twist, she arches her back and slams her other hand onto the button, holding the position with all of her strength.
“MARK!”
A long, strained moment crawls by before a klaxon blares and the status panel updates. “Dumping plasma, all cores.”
“IT’S AWAY!”
Lilly releases the two buttons and flips her extended leg back over her head for a graceful dismount. Her arms teeter for balance when she partially lands on her discarded shoes.
“Oh yeah... nailed the landing just like Lady Daisycreek’s tumbling lessons when I was little. Bet she never expected me to use it like that, though.”
Rar'gul's search of the vessel is interrupted as the room trembles from some impact on the ship. Are we under attack? he wonders.
Breez's call has him sprinting for the lift, quickly whisking him to the bridge and the upper levels of the ship.
"Got yourr ccall. How's it looking?" the trox asks, poking his head though door to the bridge.
"Not much rroom in therre," he observes, looking around the command stations. "I'll head up to the turrrret."
Several things happen when the plasma is purged.
First, the Voidcrier shudders, the lighting blinks off and on, and there are significant power fluctuations. This was not unexpected, and the plasma generators will begin regenerating immediately.
The most notable thing that happens is that a tremendous yellow-green glowing cloud is spewed out from the rear of the ship out to a fairly long distance. This cloud emanates pure energy and destructive potential (though any shields on the enemy vessel should mitigate this damage). It should also have the ability to partially bypass ordinary shields and overload the systems on this enemy ship.
Good sensor data (although vague to the EXACT position of the enemy vessel), along with Dr. Flint=Bridge's sense of timing, have placed this cloud directly in the path of the target ship, as evidenced by a flickering, shimmering form passing through the cloud.
As this form emerges from the cloud, it arcs electricity and slowly comes into view. It is saucer-shaped and surprisingly small. It is clearly in distress as it lists to one side and continues to arc electricity.
Most of all, it is now plainly in your view. Whatever technology it was using to cloak itself has been disabled by the cloud of energized plasma.
With that, Rar'gul (encouraged by Beauregard and using the targeting computers aboard the Voidcrier) swings the turret around and fires the dual heavy laser cannons at the saucer.
The enemy vessel explodes. It is now trailing debris and gasses.
It is dead in space, a floating hulk.
"Holding firre," Rar'gul rumbles in acknowledgement. The trox keeps the turret's targeting reticle centred on the remains of the saucership.
"We've been worrkking in the darkk forr too long. Would be good to get some pieces to this puzzle," he agrees.
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Lilly stands on the left duty chair in front of the power core control desk. She scans the readouts, but her eyes constantly return the plasma level indicators. They’re all rising slowly but steadily. She nods and opens her comms.
“Plasma generators will have us full up again in a few hours, but we have enough backup stored for basic maneuvering. Keep us out of a dogfight and we’ll be fine.”
After a few more checks, she picks up her shoes and heads toward the bridge. For fun, she does a one-handed cartwheel into the elevator.
“Yup, still got it.”
She takes a bow and waves to the duty chairs as the doors close.
Holy shit, Rar'gul! That was some good shootin'! T'sorkel cuts the hard burn back and you feel the immediate forces on your body ease up. The Shirren maneuvers the ship closer to the wreckage, though now that he has time to actually think about what he's doing, you see a bit more hesitancy in the controls.
T'sorkel glances back at Beauregard questioningly. You think there's anyone still alive in there? I can move us to docking range. Depends on if their hatches will respond.
As T'sorkel pilots the Voidcrier past the saucer, you can see on your viewscreens that Rar'gul's laser fire did a number on the upper deck of the ship. There's good and bad news in this regard: the docking area of the saucer has been utterly destroyed, making it impossible to physically dock the Voidcrier to this vessel. The good news is that there is a gaping hole in the hull of this ship, so if you can spacewalk to it, you'll be able to get in.
You anticipate that gravity and life support will be offline.
Breez speaks up. "I'm not sure why we wouldn't just want to blow that ship to pieces with the turret, but if you all want to board her, I can stand watch over the bridge here."
T'sorkel brings the ship in close to the hole in the other ship. Aight, Breeze. I got us in position. Just hold her steady for us. Aw, hell, what am I telling you for? You know the ship. The Shirren stand to join the others in closing the seals on his armor and preparing for a ship-to-ship spacewalk. He feels the Archive slipping away and the piloting memories with it.
Moments later, he looks at the view screen suddenly concerned about stepping out into the void. His psychic speech has returned to his normal deeply intense buzz in your heads. He sounds like his anxious self again. I've never done a real spacewalk. I've hardly ever been in zero-G. Do any of you have experience with this?
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Lilly walks barefoot onto the bridge and plops into an empty chair with her shoes in her lap. The half-destroyed ship fills the view screen. After giving it an interested look, she begins reassembling her footwear.
She seems relaxed and calm — even playful. It’s a big change from when she left for engineering just a few minutes ago. Whatever the reason, the “old Lilly” seems to be back.
”I've never done a real spacewalk. I've hardly ever been in zero-G. Do any of you have experience with this?”
Her eyes get wide and she practically bubbles with energy as words spill out on top of each other.
“Spacewalk? We’re going over there? Yes! I’m in. Are we all going? Yes, we should all go. No, wait, we should leave someone here. Yes, someone should stay. No, they were the problem, so we can all go. But what if there are more of them? Someone should stay. Well, I’m gonna go. I haven’t been on a good spacewalk in ages.”