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It began as a dull day aboard the Clutch, Nakonechkin Salvage’s only ship and your home for the past year or so. Your boss, the vesk Nakonechkin, brought the ship out of Pact Words space and into some of the void beyond, looking for derelict space stations or the remains of forgotten starship battles to pick through.
Suddenly, with a buzzing chime, the ship’s computers registered a starship drifting in the region. Nakonechkin rushed to the captain’s console and initiated a scan. An image of the target ship appeared on screen: a large, ornate green starship with brass accents. It looked abandoned and ill-suited to be so far from the Pact Worlds. Nakonechkin quickly pulled on his space suit and grabbed a set of all-purpose tools. “This looks like an easy enough job. You lot stay here and keep an eye on the Clutch. Try not to ‘repair’ anything while I’m away. I should be back in a couple of nanoseconds.” He nodded curtly and cycled the airlock to float over to the derelict ship.
Two hours have passed since Nakonechkin departed, and he isn’t responding to your communications. Something must have gone terribly wrong—and Nakonechkin might need help!
"Nakonechkin-friend gone a long time," Dakoyo frets. "He might be hurt! He might need Dakoyo to do best medical practices--regardless of the state of the EMR--to save life!"
When he leaves More like, he'll be back in a couple of billion nano seconds. We might be waiting here for hours.
Nako will test to see if the communications are actually working
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Communications appears to be functioning normally -- there's just no one communicating. Maybe a sensor scan of the vessel would reveal more?
"Quonx! Scan for life signs!" Dakoyo says excitably. "Quonx?"
Dakoyo begins mashing on the buttons rapidly in an attempt to assist whichever of them is sitting at the sensor station better refine the scan.
A hatch in the ceiling pops open and Quonx falls out, landing awkwardly in a chair near a computer console. "Quonx on it, Dak-friend!" Her six blue arms begin flying over the keypad as she scans the nearby ship.
"There! You found him!" Dakoyo scuttles over to Quonx's station and jabs two of his arms at a signal on the monitor. "See? Dakoyo knew Nakonechkin-friend was injured. Ancient shaman trick that I read about in a very old book once. Nakonechkin-friend should have brought smelling salts, although Dakoyo has better stimulants. More effective, fewer side effects."
"Nako-friend needs help! And a whole bunch of other people, not answering the comms, so they may need our help too!" She points at the screen with two of her arms. "Looks like we can get in through the aft airlock."
A big smiling Skittermander walks in brushing his beard with 4 brushes while holding a mirror with the other two. "What's going on here. Nakonechkin-friend is still gone, gree?" He gives a few more brushes to his beard puts them away, takes a few steps and pops out the mirror again to make a few more adjustments.
He makes his way to the sensor station, adjusting his cape and armor the whole way. After looking at the readings, he says with great enthusiasm, "Nakoneckin-friend found nufriends on the biggie ship. We go say hello and help the nufriends now! Gazigaz loves making nufriends! Dakoyo grab poky-pokers that fix the ouchies, Nako grab slashy-slasher that make the ouchies, and Nako grab bangy-bangers that make the boom-boom. To the shuttle! We go help Nakonechkin-friend."
Quonx looks at the scan, to figure out the best way to get to the aft airlock. Nakoneckin-boss floated over, she thinks, so maybe that's what they need to do, too. Do they have enough spacesuits, or will their armor protect them from the brief vacuum of space?
"You got it, Gazigaz!" Dakoyo runs around the bridge gathering his supplies. He picks up a potato, considers it, then tosses it over his shoulder.
Quonx gathers her equipment. She grabs the potato, in case she gets hungry, and shoves it in a pocket of her overalls. "Ready to go," she declares as she bounces over to the airlock and cycles it open, turning on her armor's environmental protections. She steps in, waiting on everybody else, hopping slightly in anticipation of adventure.
Dakoyo draws up several doses of various medicinal liquids into needler darts and arranges them in a neat row across his bandoleer-belt. He spins his needler pistol on one finger and slides it into its holster, drapes an antique stethoscope around his short neck and tucks it inside his armor, and then he puts on the helmet.
"Dakoyo ready for space walk!" he says eagerly over the comms and gives six thumbs up.
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Your armor sealed against vacuum, tethers attached to the Clutch, you push off towards the other ship, jumping across the gap of nearly-pure emptiness.
As you reach roughly the halfway point of this approximately 5-minute journey, your suits' systems suddenly start blinking alarms. A cluster of micrometeorites is hurtling towards you. There's no avoiding them -- all you can try to do is twist and rotate your bodies so that the thickest parts of your armor are facing the oncoming collisions. The reactive, self-healing nanoplating of your armor will repair punctures, but you still may take some injury if any break through.
Quonx uses her knowledge of physics and dynamics to orient herself so that the armor absorbs the full force of the micrometerites. She curls herself into a tight ball, her 6 arms held tightly against her body to protect the vital organs during this harrowing - but exciting! - journey.
"Whoa! This beeping bad, gree?" Dakoyo says over the comms moments before the meteors arrive. He twists and turns in all sorts of poses. "Dakoyo fix you right up if space rocks puncture soft, fluffy skin. Dermaplast and mesh regeneratives work so much better than old cat gut and needle. Ah! Watch out!"
"Incoming! Face your feets to the storm and tuck in all six, gree?"
Ahh the sky is falling
Reflex save
oouc
"Carefull! Right behind you friends!"
"Whew! That was close! All friends ok?"
Quonx gives three thumbs up, as she uses her other three hands to begin working her custom rig and examine the aft airlock. "Hello doorfriend. You open up for me, gree, and I won't have to get Nako to yank you open."
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The five skittermanders enter the airlock and disconnect the tethers attaching them to the Clutch.
The airlock is crowded as you squeeze in and cycle the doors, but you're able to enter the ship without trouble. The next room is a square chamber with little in the way of furnishings, and the walls and ceiling are a clean white, while the floor is a silvery metal. Four cages are stacked in the two forward corners of the room. A heavy door leads into the airlock to port, while a flickering holographic sign reading “Welcome Guests” floats over the door to starboard.
Three robots are hovering in the corner of the room, buzzing slightly. As you enter, they turn in unison and scan you.
“Greetings! Our apologies, pets must be placed in approved carriers before boarding the Emerald Empyrean. Initiating containment protocols.” Weapons are lowered and grappling arms extend from their bodies.
Nako
Dakoyo
Quonx
Robots
Gazigaz
Mokaya
I move to pink and use the flame sword vs EAC
fire
"Pets?!?!" Quonx shrieks indignantly. "Metal-friends are not friends!" She pulls up her laser rifle and begins to power it up.
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Nako hits one of the robots with a smashing blow, doing significant damage.
Other than that, she knows that they are vulnerable to critical hits and electricity, and immune to the following:
- Bleed, death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects, necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, and stunning.
- Ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, exhaustion, fatigue, negative levels, and nonlethal damage.
- Any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect works on objects or is harmless).
Quonx scores a glancing blow on the damaged robot. It is sparking and shuddering, barely able to stay in the air.
"Dakoyo and friends not pets!" the physician chastises the security robots. "Or did you mean the tick? You want to put tick in cage? He small. Might wander out."
When it becomes clear that this is going to be a violent resolution, the concentrates on a random tool laying around and causes it to fly toward the security bot.
Meanwhile, back on the ship, Tonkona comes out of the kitchen, carrying a bowl of soup in each hand. "I did it, everybody! I learned how to use the culinary synthesizer so we could all have a hot revitalizing mea..."
"...Guys?"
After a few moments investigation, Tonkona realizes that his friends have taken off to the other ship, so he launches himself on a solo spacewalk.
He starfishes onto the ship hull, gripping it with all six arms and crawls carefully to the airlock. After a moment's cycling, he continues pursuit, hoping it's where his skitterfriends have gone.
Finally, he makes it to the room with other skittermanders facing their prospective robotic handlers.
"Bad Robot!"
Dakoyo scurries forward and concentrates on telekinetically flinging another unattended object at the damaged robotic wrangler.
"Skittermanders are friends, not pets!" bellows Tonkona as he barrels through the airlock door. He whips out his doshko and goes to deliver some damage to the grey robot.
I swing at pink, unless it is dead by now, in which case I move to gray and swing my flame weapon vs EAC
fire
Mayoka runs into the room and stops behind Dakoyo. "What's going on? Its too crowded in here! How can I help?" and he's going to hold his action until he can get a clear shot in or the need to heal an ally arises.
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Dakoyo flings one of the empty cages at the damaged robot, scoring a direct hit and smashing it to the ground.
Tokona moves forward to attack a robot, but misses. Nako jumps on top of one of the cages, and uses the higher ground to attack again! Her attacks are less effective this time, doing only a small amount of damage.
Quonx looks around at the frenzy of fur exploding from the airlock, and for a moment feels some sympathy for the robots' confusion. Despite that, she readies her laser rifle again. Her targeting computer continues to track the yellow drone which, for moment, appears to lack any cover.
Not quite, he will just have to wait till battle is over.
Quonx mutters a classic Skittermander pejorative, "Not helping!" , as the robots throw Nako in the cage, then fires at yellow again with her laser rifle.
Gazigaz fires his pistol at the gray bot.
"Oh no! Nako!" Dakoyo telekinetically flings debris from the first downed droid at the grey security bot.
"Don't worry Nako, I'm here to help!" Tonkona lifts his doshko high over the grey robot.
Mokaya runs up between Quonx and Yellow drawing his needler pistol. "Nako not pet!" He fires at yellow.
KAC
piercing
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Tonkona smashes the robot, but though heavily damaged, it still manages to stay hovering in the air.
One of the robots throws a grenade into the middle of the group of skittermanders. It explodes in a shower of sticky resin!
The other robot tries to grab Tokona, but she fends it off with her doshko.
Ha! Nice try, clink clank!
"Oh noes! Dakoyo's fur is all sticky!" the mystic laments while flinging more debris at the damaged bot. "And somehow it affects my ability to aim telekinetically projected objects."