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RP [NSS Hobby] Mission 0 - The End of Equals

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Solohan watched the TV from under the brim of his hat. Despite the apparent terror that the reporter (and some of the others in the room) felt, he didn't quite see why they were so worried, since there were plenty of people much closer to Prime who hadn't been rather plainly told they weren't liked by their last crew. That said, he had no particular desire to be stuck here on this waste of space station any longer than he had to, plain to see in the fact that he was the first person out the door after Naomi and Ramirez. Admittedly, it was quick and easy for him, since he only had a lone duffel bag (which he'd been napping on) with him, unlike the petty officer.
 
There was only a few times Vincent Gioni was speechless in his life and even fewer times that he would blindly take orders from a lower officer. He stood dumbfounded staring at the scene unfolding. He didn't need to look at his datapad to know what his orders were, and he calmly fell back into routine.

His knife was secured on his belt and his bag was stuffed under his seat, making his luggage fairly easy to carry. He politely waited for the other chief to exit the room before he sat there and glared at the lower enlisted still in the room.

"Oh! My apologies marines, I didn't realize this was your Navy and you do what you want." He put on his best "get with the program or else" grin and started again, "Well when you get lonely in here how about you come join the rest of the fleet prepping for war!"

Satisfied that they were properly hurried and on there way, he let out a long sigh and rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. It's not like he wasn't confused and a little bit scared but Chiefs had a job to do and he would be damned before he allowed himself to falter in the face of junior enlisted. He took off after the trailing marines to "motivate" them to move faster.
 
"Yeah, whatever." Pietra said to both the female sailor and the freespacer before taking his seat back and waving to the latter uninterested. He pondered over how he had gotten stuck in a space station that had both spacefish and freespacer, and no bars. The corporal stretched himself on the chair before the news got his attention again.

He watched the news, eyes glassed towards the screen until the navy officer started to shout out orders, which also encouraged another marine and another space fish to shout more orders, turning a simple thing into a ego competition. Very methodically, the corporal picked his duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder, patiently checked his sidearm to see if it was properly in its holster, then moved towards the exit, following the navy officer.

"You got it, space fish." He said to Gioni as he left the room.
 
Dixie was attempting to begin a conversation when he was interrupted by the shouting news anchor. Though he didn't quite know very much about Nepleslia, this was obviously very bad. NMX were attacking the leaders of Nepleslia! A few of them were already dead! As everyone began to run out of the door, Crydix fumbled and panicked, not because of the emergency, but because his drones were still packed up in the cargo bay. He couldn't just leave his drones behind!

While everyone was busy dashing out of the lobby, Dixie sat down and closed his eyes, engaging his mindware into Operator mode. The metal in his head sent out a signal across the entire station. In the darkness of the cargo bay, two separate robotic entities began to hum to life. After a minute of two of setting up a que of commands to follow, Crydix blinked himself back into reality. The Freespacer stood and quickly snatched a larger backpack off of the floor near his feet, and jogged off after where he saw the others heading off to.

The two spherical drones each buzzed for a few seconds before unfolding themselves to reveal a vicious set of 10 fully-automatic rifles. A single click could be heard before a swarm of bullets ripped through the side of the cargo containers they were contained in. Levitating out, the drones, each 4ft in diameter, floated towards each other and identified the other's serial numbers that were engraved into their sides. Immediately afterwards, a single loud beeping noise rang out, and the two drones levitated around the corridor and into the hallway, folding themselves back into their original shape in which none of their weapons were exposed. It only took a few moments for both drones to navigate their way to where Crydix was, proceeding by following him, one on each side.

Dixie the Drone Operator smiled brightly. "Get ready, kiddies..."
 
The SMoDIN office door opened into secondary lobby "B" of Michener Station. It was dimly lit with a lower than normal ceiling supported by bare metal walls. On one side immediately forward of the group was a large ceiling to floor doubly reinforced transparent durandium window into space, it was additionally reinforced by a currently open metal shutter, to the side of the window was a pulled lever just above a green light labelled 'SAFE'. The view of the window offered sight of a docking arm extending from the left with the letters "ARM 1B" painted on it, it appeared to extend at least 100 meters away from the main body of the station. A single Red Hill Class transport was docked to the arm, and another has just disconnected and is starting its run to a safe distance to engage FTL drives. The docked Red Hill is being serviced by a pair of large cranes connected to a huge station structure to the right of the window, conveniently identified by 'CARGO BAY 1B' in large letters painted on the side. The cranes were large and long enough to span the gap between the arm and the bay and were hastily loading the remaining Red Hill.

On the left were entrances to two tunnel-like hallways, lit signs above them indicated 'MAIN STATION' and 'ARM 1B'. A terminal between both entrances displayed the following:

Code: 
FLIGHT INFORMATION

1. ISC Fairbanks II, Full Capacity, Departed, ARM 1B

2. ISC Fairbanks I, Almost Full Capacity, Departing, ARM 1B

3. ISC Old Town, Departing in 10 Minutes, ARM 1A

4. ISC Hard Times, Departing in 20 Minutes, ARM 2A

5. ISC Big Bus, Departing in 30 Minutes, ARM 1C

6. ISC Mayflower, Redirected/Cancelled, ARM 2C

On the right side was the same, two tunnel-like hallways but this time labelled 'ARM 2B, CARGO BAY 2B' on one and 'CARGO BAY 1B' on the other. The terminal between the two entrances displayed the following in a scrolldown fashion:

Code: 
CARGO CONTRACTS

1. Consignment 4768, 100 Tons, Accepted by ISC Fairbanks II 5 minutes ago

2. Consignment 2323, 100 Tons, Accepted by ISC Fairbanks I 5 minutes ago

3. Consignment 9982, 150 Tons, Accepted by ISC Fairbanks II 5 minutes ago

...

And the list went on and on in that manner, it appeared both ships accepted a massive amount of cargo contracts in the seconds immediately after the bombing.

The hallway was empty, presumably because no ships capable of accepting passengers were docked in any of the arms attached to Lobby B. As though on cue from that conclusion, a group of four sciency adult men ran screaming from the 2B tunnel across the marine group and into the tunnel leading into the main station before Maik's group could react. They did however catch a glimpse of the words "NAM AEROTECH - PROTOTYPE DIVISION" printed on the sleeves of their labcoats. Belatedly, the PA system came back to life.

"WARNING! WARNING! GUNFIRE DETECTED IN: CARGO BAY 2B. SMODIN PERSONNEL ARE CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED TO INVESTIGATE: CARGO BAY 2B. EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN TO BE AUTOMATICALLY ENGAGED IF MANUAL ALARM IN: CARGO BAY 2B IS NOT DISABLED."

At this point, a pair of innocuous drones floated into view from the 2B tunnel and continued on towards Dixie.
 
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"Ah bloody gunfirre?" Jennifer said with raised eyebrows, the announcement stealing her attention from the screens. She was just about to try and get the officer to steal the spot on the soon to be departing Red Hill, but this changed everything. Jen quickly dropped her backpack and fished out a holster with her SMG, which she strapped to her thigh. By then two droned came into site from the hallway.

"The hell! Drrones," She called and rushed to the side to get in cover. Unholstering her Knuckler she got ready to see if there would be a bloody shootout with the machines.
 
The situation seemed to be going from bad to worse at flank speed. Maik had just been about ready to try getting his apparent new-found crew aboard the Red Hell when the alarm had begun to sound. He hadn't seen the drones at first but the call from the Navy medic spurred him to action. Maik already kept his Styrling Silver secured in it's holster at his waist and drew it almost immediately as he moved to hug one of the side walls in order to have some semblance of cover.

"What the hell is going on here?" He growled, mostly to himself.

Yet Maik had just thumbed his safety off his pistol when he noticed that the drones didn't fire on them. Didn't even seem to pay them any mind. Instead the little machines just moved for Dixie without any seemingly apparent hostile intent. He glanced between the approaching drones and the 'spacer standing nearby. Something like a scowl crossed his face before vanishing again.

"You, 'spacer, are those your's?"

The safety of his pistol clicked off, just in case the answer happened to be no.
 
"I think our countrry has a severre case of Mondays," the PO quipped as she caught up, causing Naomi to bark a laugh.

"Mondays?" Naomi asked. "Petty Officer, this kind of thing is Monday through Friday!"

Keeping up with Koenig and doing her best not to leg her pack jostle around too much, she returned her focus to moving along, falling into place behind the officer as they tried to figure where they had to go next. She took the short pause as an opportunity to steady her nerves internally, taking care not to show any outward signs of worry or concern. Near as she could tell, she was reasonably senior in this little group, and you weren't generally supposed to "lose it" in front of subordinates and peers.

Then the shots rang out, the alarm started howling, and the drones showed up. Jennifer's startled exclamation caught Naomi's attention, and her head swiveled to look in the Petty Officer's direction as she moved to concealment. Seeing the drones approaching, her hand quickly found her sidearm, only to stop short of drawing it as the officer, apparently more composed than many of such low rank, sought to defuse the situation.

That didn't mean her hand actually left the weapon on her belt, of course. That wouldn't happen until the 'spacer answered the question.
 
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"Oh damn," he muttered coming into the room. He had quite a start seeing everyone's weapons drawn and two drones flying through the air. He pulled his large knife from it's sheath and shook his head at how useless it would be.

The big engineer decided the situation with the drones was either in control or in a downward spiral. He crouched low and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet as he positioned himself behind and to the left of the Freespacer. "If they are friends of yours, you better call them off soon robot man," he threatened quietly. He wasn't much of a shot with firearms, but he was one hell of a bruiser in melee.
 
In spite of the physical and mental defences that some of the crew had put up due to their unexpected arrival, the drones nonchalantly floated over to Dixie and hovered behind him like obidient puppies.

Meanwhile, the alarm continued to blare.

"WARNING! WARNING! EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN IMMINENT!"
 
Naomi still had not drawn the pistol from her belt, but she was certainly more tense now than she had been mere moments before. Her violet eyes lingered on the drones for a moment longer, before her trained fighter's instincts finally decided they were not a threat, and she relaxed just slightly. Since the drones were not a security risk to herself, or to those presently in her company, they could be set aside for the moment.

"Sir." She looked to the officer, who still had not said anything. "If we're going to do something, we need to do it now."

Her hand, meanwhile, had still not left the pistol. The drones were not an obvious threat, but the whole situation had Naomi's blood up and combat instincts roaring. If something were to happen right now, she would be ready.

In theory, anyway.
 
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The profanity was dark, muttered, and certainly not befitting a commissioned officer as Maik watched the drones float past. It was as Corporal Scroggins spoke that he began moving in to action himself. Maik didn't reholster his pistol, but rather held it at a low ready as he motioned down the hall. There were a number of things that could have gone wrong and they were quickly running out of time to find out why.

"Corporal Scroggins, I want you on point. Now let's move, ladies and gents'! Double-time!"

Maik started down the hall for the cargo bay, eyes scanning hopefully for an alarm console to deactivate the alert. Though he had a feeling he wouldn't be so lucky until they were in the cargo bay itself.
 
The logic would say to ignore the bloody cargo bay and just run to nearest ship. That is what one should do. That was what Jennifer wanted to do, she also wanted to shout at others to just leave it be. Alas the impulsive officer and his marine girlfriend were already running into the cargo bay. Jen frowned at it and holstered her gun, sending her next frown to the droids.

"Bollocks!" She said and moved to her backpack, quickly putting it on again. "Bloody bollocks." She added as she started following the officer and marine lady.
 
"The cargo bay! Why the hell aren't we grabbing a ship and getting the hell out of here!" Robert exclaimed. There was a whole war that needed fighting and a whole lot more of asses that needed kicking and he wasn't about to get stranded in a sardine can that sat past the middle of nowhere. The marine, though, followed the orders nonetheless; If they did get stranded he'd at least have someone to blame for it, and the prospect of tormenting a sailor for that whole time was almost as good as getting into a fight.

Pistol still drawn, the marine followed the navy officer.
 
"Buggerr me if I know," Jen shouted back at Robert. He seemed to realise that this course of action was strange and went and voiced it out. Jen did not bother doing that, cause most officers just did whatever they wanted when they started. Officers needed to be talked out of things, before the things were going to happen. Once they were happening all, NCO could do was just frown and say 'I told you so', while trying to not look smug. And hope they won't all die.
 
"Aye, aye, sir."

Making sure her pack was secured, Naomi finally actually drew her sidearm before quick-stepping to the front of the group. To her mind, it was obvious now the drones had caused the disturbance, and they were no threat. Still, the orders were lawful, and preventing the total lock-down of a cargo bay had merit, if not much. Who knew? They might even find something useful there.

If nothing else, it would be good exercise.

Corporal Pietra's complaint drew her attention, and she focused on him briefly as she prepared to move.

"I believe you were just given an order, Marine?"

Making sure a round was chambered in the pistol and the safety was off, she began to make her way in the direction of the cargo bay.
 
If the length of the ARM 1B tunnel was any indication, it was 50 meters of walking in four man wide dimly lit tunnels before anything happened.

"ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ISC FAIRBANKS I HAS DEPARTED THE STATION." The speakers blared. Upon hearing this someone far away quietly regretted not shelling out for a better AI module.

An equal amount of distance later, the group reached another fork in the tunnel. The tunnel to the left said ARM 2B on a small LED screen, it continued on much further. A hanging sign on the right tunnel was labelled CARGO BAY 2B. That tunnel terminated with a similarly labelled closed bulkhead 5 meters later. The bulkhead looks even more reinforced than the tunnel walls. A small console to the right of the bulkhead displayed the words "ATMOSPHERIC INTEGRITY COMPROMISED, LOW PRESSURE", the 'Open Door' button was greyed out. To the left of the door was a 50cm squared metal panel with the words "Auxillary Atmospheric Controls" thinly printed on the bottom. There were no visible latches, buttons, handles or locks. It appears that to prevent tampering, a bona fide engineer would have to weld the metal panel open.

A sharp eyed character might notice a very small and dim light at the bottom of one of the tunnel walls. It was the only visible sign of a datapad that was accidentally dropped and kicked aside by its previous owner. Between both tunnels was a similar set of previously encountered reinforced shutter, lever, transparent durandium window. The lever is down, and the shutters is unintuitively up. The window offered a view of ARM 2B and one side of CARGO BAY 2B. A non-specialized glance would reveal something very large wrapped in some kind of giant spacebag attached to one side of the ARM2B tunnel 100 meters down, could be a station module under renovation or repair. On the opposite end of the window, another window on the side of the cargo bay has a number of coin sized small holes in it, a few faintly visible geysers of gas can be seen leaking.

While the crew was taking this in, the speakers sounded again, this time with a male human voice complete with human variable pitches.

"Anyone down there in Lobby B, that section and only that section is going to enter lockdown in 15 minutes. Get the fuck out of there, nobody cares if nobody is still in there."

The transmission clicked off, looking around there were no obvious method of observing the crew remotely or contacting whoever it was.
 
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"Yeah, and what the hell do you think I'm doing?" Robert replied to Scroggins with some spite. He wasn't about to take any shit from someone who was on the same rank and pay grade as him. The corporal holstered his sidearm and moved to something that had caught his attention: The abandoned datapad. The corporal noticed that the dim light was somehow out of place, and as he approached it he saw that what it was.

Robert crouched next to the datapad, picked it up and examined the screen. Who knew what sort of entertainment he could have with it if they got stuck on that space station.
 
(OOC: Sorry for late response!)

As the drones levitated steadily over to to Dixie, he didn't expect the entire station to go into lockdown because of a few shots fired. Perhaps he should have considered the fact that he was actually in a military station. The 'Spacer scratched the back of his head near his neural port, and heaved a sigh. Suddenly everyone around him got into battle positions. It seemed that they thought the two floating drones were hostile?

Crydix quickly sprung in between the drones and the rest of the crew.

"Whoah there! Calm your dicks! They're with me! Chillax!" He waved his arms in the air while saying this. At the same time, the duo of robots each detected that guns were being pointed at them. Immediately they went into Attack Mode, and began to unfold and engage their rifles. Luckily Crydix knew what they were about to do and overrode this process with his mindware, setting them back into Standby Mode.

The AI blared another warning over the speaker system, emphasizing that they didn't have much time to react.

"Corporal Scroggins, I want you on point. Now let's move, ladies and gents'! Double-time!"

Dixie blinked once, the Perciever Drone orbiting around his head now pausing in order to record the impromptu captain's command. As everyone ran off alongside him, Dixie broke into a light jog to keep up with the rest, his duffle bag bumping against his leg as he went, the two spherical drones in tow.

He was afraid.

However, he was even more excited! His imagination ran wild, wondering and dreaming about what would happen here. What new experiences where to be had here? Will history be made? Will Dixie himself be in the history? What new opportunities lie ahead, for him to explore? The man ran on.

They came upon another fork in the road, at which Crydix stopped at to read the screen, as did his little orbiting follower. The Perciever Drone made a small clicking noise, filing away the image it just took of the monitor. Quickly the cyborg glanced about the area in attempt to locate the Atmospheric Controls. The cybernetic right of of his received the command from Dixie's mindware to look for anything pertaining to the key words "Atmospheric" and "Control."

The cursory search managed to pick up a few things. Most of which seemed irrelevant to the situation. A datapad that a marine picked up, the text across the monitor, a few sensors across the ceiling, and eventually a small rectagular box on the side of the wall with the words "Auxillary Atmospheric Controls."

The 'Spacer ambled over to it, and looked it up and down before staring back at the text on the screen. Feeling the urgency of the situation, he quickly measured up the panel in front of him and decided that using a blowtorch to cut through might damage the controls inside. So instead he decided to use the alternative. Quickly he crouched and fished around his bag with his arm, finally withdrawing his handy-dandy toolbox. From it he took out a circular grinder saw mounter horizontally on a vertical handle.

"I got this," he said.

The blade began to spin extremely quickly when Dixie pressed a button, and carefully he pressed the edge of the saw against the panel's metal protector, attempting to slowly cut around it without damaging the actual controls within.
 
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