RP: 188604 [Skeleton Ensemble] Program 2; Shattered Stones

[Primitive Polygon]

[+BEGIN MISSION 1+]
~♫ Apparat - Arcadia ♫~
~♫ Bjork - Joga ♫~
~♫ The Police - Walking On The Moon ♫~
~♫ Starforce - Age of Nano ♫~

Null and Void System -> Port Hope System

With the interior cleaned and the last of the crew's favors called in, the Skeleton Ensemble mutely bowed out from it's place on the titanic ornamental array of parked vessels. The sleek red thing was like a weightless kite, swift and bold in a straight line, just as the resident syntelligence had suggested. One had to wonder just how magnificently the arrow could fly when it had proper starlight under it's wings, instead of merely sipping energy from it's diminutive battery. Despite the anti-grav engines, there was a punchy feeling of thrust whilst the space-warping bubble was still expanding at low speeds.

Not many other vessels in the way. The more time that was spent in Null and Void, the more that one could taste a sort of silent, morbid energy. The bitter flavor of all those spacers consigning themselves to a self-imposed prison, probably cursing upwards at the little foolish carmine spark glimmering above.

A quartet of silver-hulled phantasm gunships waited for them at the apex of the vast hexagonal construction of a leyline gate, only entrenching the feeling. No hails. No obstructions. The wardens had probably been tracking them since they stepped foot on Nil, and now only shimmered blue in hushed approval as the tremendous swirling vortex opened behind them.

Dimensional transition was anything but calm and silent, but at least it was quick.

Rematerializing inside of a travel hub that was intentionally much too close to the Fortuna system's turbulent binary stars, the craft then proceeded to slip right through the heart of Nepleslian's northern territories in less than three hours.

Last stop, Port Hope. A torrid red dwarf that cast it's murky light upon a busy system of shattered stones, a seemingly infinite chandelier of small rocky asteroids. No large fraternal gas or ice giants to squash them into a proper worthwhile planetary system.

A small outpost, known for it's involvement in the refugee crisis eight years ago. Spitting distance from both the dead worlds of the spacer ancients, and indeed, the Yamatai frontier. The large space colony that gave the system it's name let it's optimistic welcomes be known, but they weren't fooling anyone.

The station was not their target, at any rate. PH-417b, that was the name of the small vaguely round stone on the VR display, orbiting around a much larger parent body that could only be described as a giant misshapen root vegetable with shotgun injuries.

Top Cockpitbox-

The metal crab at Kiver's side suddenly perked up, filled with the soul of another once more.

"Careful, Miss Spacecase." An urgent digital whisper. "Pirates in these territories, I've heard, by golly, and... Well, the facility presumably has guns to fend them off. Their polysentience server went cold half an hour ago, so I can't even tell what Hollowpoint is up to..."

 

[Cordinarr]

Fabrication Station:

Six Three dropped the quirked brow, “Oh, well if that’s all then, I don’t see what the cause for alarm is. But I agree with you Jack. I’d hope if we ever decide to use such a weapon that it is put to a vote.” He finished getting the grime off of his person and returned his attention to Phase.

“Actually, I was hoping to do that my…self…” he trailed off as he looked at the drones eager to help. He shrugged, why turn down good and willing help? “Guess I can start labeling some of these drawers and cabinets if you want to take care of the rest. Thank you Phase, I appreciate the help.” Finding some tape, and a good enough marker (that part took a few tries), he began to pull of strips of tape and marking the drawers that he came across.

Glassware, instrument maintenance equipment, reagents, etc. had labels made up with two hands while the remaining hand sorted and organized the rest of it. That is until the ‘poly://spooky_house.jol’ finished downloading and made his labeling feel obsolete with its digital signs that can be placed.

Turning he regarded what the crab had said about the Locksmiths and the Nepleslians. “I suppose they will, if we do, but there are pros and cons to quite a few of our actions aren’t there? I think it’s worth the risk. Who knows? The Locksmiths may even allow us to explain ourselves before they slam the door in our face.”

During the travel time from the Null and Void, Six Three transitioned between the Fabrication Station and the Chemical Refinery. Mirroring what he had done in Fabrication, he clean, organized, and assembled the Chemical Refinery to bring it up to his standards. The GeneSculptor had been looking over any last bits of data when the ship arrived.

 

[Moogle]

Fabrication

"I have no opinion on either. Either they will serve our needs, or they won't." Phase commented, dipping into bassy tones again.

During the trip, Phase's handful of drones had already made a number on the bay, lasering away residue, scrubbing away scoring, polishing surfaces, and relayering graffiti'd artwork where it was found to be tasteful and not useless scrawling. All the meanwhile, the bladelike proxy body of the diharmonious one, oversaw their activities, all the while, millions of lightyears away, she monitored the universe at large. . .

 

[Dumont]

Dumont is Sorry for Posting Slowly about Piloting:

Up in the cockpit Kiver punched a few commands both physically and mentally. Cable jacked into the back of her head hooking her straight into navigation, the whole ship felt like it was shifting and almost twisting from the forces involved in the motion of the old courier vessel. Every turn caused the ship to pitch gently to a side and make it difficult to stand, every time she angled the ship into sunlight there was a chorus metallic twangs as parts of the ship pulled others along.

She frowned and curled a foot out from underneath her curled up bundle, one hand on the joystick, the other punching open the glove compartment to one side and fishing around for some discarded sticky sphere left behind by the last pilot. Maybe the one before. A linty cough drop was popped in her mouth as downstairs in engineering some systems turned off, others flared into life to pick up slack.

"Runnan' silent." Kiver's mental communication flooded across the ship's server. "Y'oughta all cutoutta large downloads from th' Polysentience..."

...A moment's thought.

"So they jus' gun' gutshoot us if we turn up witoutta dockin' permissions? 'm I flyin' in dangerlike?" She looked over her shoulder. One cybernetic eye twisting to look the crab in the eye, the other going wall-eyed to watch where the ship was flying.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Port Hope System, Open Space > PH-417b
~♫ Nicolas Von Moreau - Voyager ♫~

The feeling of flying in such a stodgy, ill-formed system was a muddy, turbulent sensation. Generally the star's wind was strong enough to knock a prism-sail ship outwards like a warm planetary ocean current, but in the Port Hope system there was only the periodic squalling and waning of dust pockets disturbing the gravitational grip of the engines.

It took thirty minutes to make it to the outer edge of the anemic star's habitation zone, and to within visual distance of the obscure asteroid base. The glorified boulder of a moon was tidally locked to it's parent body, granting the large oblong-shaped facility dominating it's inward-facing side a certain amount of protection from the system's rife slew of rogue asteroids.

No polysentience signal coming from it, like Jack had said. The lights were on, but if the thing had any defensive turrets, they were not rotating enough to make their locations obvious. Just a glimmer in comparison to the sheer massive roof of the facility, one of the eighty-foot wide hangar bay doors was already open, letting out a hazy orange interior glow. The pulsating landing guidance beams were extended, and seem to have been left that way for some time.

Old Sweets Storage Area (Also a Cockpit)

"Well, technically we had permission, but..." The metal crab's claws were clicking together again, this time in a rather more nervous fashion. It's flickering monoeye could only regard the blue-speckled woman with an expression of skittish caution. Their lives were all in her hands at this point. "What happened to their network? Why are there none of Verdian's own support ships here?"

A sudden jittering, garbled transmission, not from the facility's own servers, but accessing the Skeleton's own directly. Broken pixels vaguely clung to the shape of a young woman's face, making nothing but squawking electronic noises for a pace, before finally clearing up into a recognizable voice. This must have been straight from the person's mindware.

"Is that you, Soulnomad Seven Six?" They remarked, their own caution quite evident. "If not, you can fuck off! The sensors can see your grav bubble knocking the dust clouds about!"

"... Madame Hollowpoint?" Jack responded simply, trying to state information that only he would know. He didn't make any hand signals, apparently leaving it up to Kiver if they wanted to keep their distance or not. "You wanted assistance. Well, we are here, by jove... Would it be too much trouble telling us what this is all about?"

An extended pause, complete radio silence.

"A real shitheap, that's what happened." A deep shrug could be heard accompanying the response. "Look, I don't know if we are being listened too. Entire place has been hacked. I don't think the defense guns are running, at least... Syntelligence coordinated, and they are in cold storage mode. Best if you just make for drydock, and pronto."

Connection lost. Or self-disconnected? Either way, they were gone.

"Deary me. What a mess." The crab looked out of the window, at the still-tiny rock in the distance. "At least this should certainly get them on our good side, if we can sort this out... If we land in the hangar we could be trapped, but on the other hand, pitching up on the surface also leaves us rather open, doesn't it? I'm not sure which location is safer..."

Fabrication Station

Crab number four loomed around the towering humanoid, wondering exactly how they would react to this situation. It wasn't like there was any security protocols during the exchange, so any of them could have listened in.

"Well, we are here." Jack remarked to the larger, sleek metallic form of Phase first, taking note of all the random little utility drones still whizzing around them. Despite the irony of this coming from a syntelligence operating a drone themselves, the fact that they had still not seen the Dollmaker's true form made it feel more like talking to a reflection and not the real person. He wished he could trust them blindly, but such optimism rarely helped him in the past. "First objective is to meet our lady Hollowpoint, then, one might suggest. Would you like to borrow any of these junker bodies, or would you prefer to risk one of your own?"

Chemical Refinery

Crab three entered the room from the transmission suite, and raised it's arms in a little waving motion in a bid to pull the full metal chemist from his current bout of concentration.

"Have you heard the current developments, per chance?" A blinking eye regarded him. "Given that it's a weapons and armor factory, there may be items within the facility walls that you could help in the utilization of... But of course, attending alongside the team is entirely up to you. It's a spacer's right to make his own destiny, after all."

 

[Cordinarr]

The Genesculptor had just been going over the last settings that the instruments in the refinery had been at when the crab scuttled in. He put down a device he had been using to tune it properly, “Ah, yes. Not everything, but enough. I think I’ll defer to our pilot as for a landing location, I trust their judgment in that regard. But, uhh…” He began to nod as he let himself trail off. “Yes, I think I’ll join the crew facility-side. I’d like to meet our rescue-ees if given the chance. Or would it be 'rescues'?" He gave his face mask a rub while his mind got side tracked. "In any case," he shrugged "it'll give me at least get a look at what we’ll be bringing aboard in regards to supplies. And, after all, I’d like to make myself useful to the crew than beyond what this lab has to offer. Give me a minute to prepare a bag to take along with me.”

Six Three began to gather up utensils, items, or vials with stoppers that he thought he might need. He had been a part of an away-crew before, however it was never quite this…hasty. Not being quite sure what a catch-all bag for him would be, he did his best and awaited further instructions.

 

[Dumont]

Kiver gave a little throaty groan as the station indicated that they were picking them up by displaced dust. It had been a while, apparently, and she'd forgotten that this ship wasn't running with an active Entropy's Shroud. She wanted to be stealthy! Augh! Bleh. Whatever. She was flying. Everything was awesome when you flew around.

"Sounds li'e they lost a lotta stuff... Muhbe we arun't bess'ta try'an use these fact'ries an' such..."

The Skeleton groaned as its bones gained speed again. Kiver pulling the entire craft in towards their dry docks and initiating a docking procedure. Guns down, centrally controlled. Most ships she knew of had automated turrets which didn't need to be networked. Did that mean that these people didn't have the expertise to make more efficient softworks? Did they not have the numbers to control their stuff manually? Either something was very wrong, or the Array wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

"Should I go in?" She asked, looking over wall-eyed at her companion crab. "I like th' ship but 'm useless innit if ah can't help 'em onna ground."

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Ship's Brewery, Somehow Cunningly Modified Into A 'Chemical Refinery'

"Much obliged, my friend." The dented crustacean replied simply, through certain conniptions did seem obvious by the way it tilted that small ellipsoid body. Even the worst Freespacer cults avoided wanton violence, much less calling someone from half way across the sector to arrange such an affair with a group of unknowns... But on the other hand, why would the Viridians be so selective about who they called for aid? It was all very peculiar indeed. "Don't worry. It's a rare and disturbing circumstance for certain, but this could give us a very unique perspective of the green-lover's inner workings. Before we even decide if we want to help them or not... Your skill in identifying some of their manufacturing processes could be very valuable to all of us, you understand, my good man?... If somebody wants this all to be off the record, then that goes doubly so."

Kiver's Nest, And Beyond

The pilot's diminutive decapod companion seemed to react to her disapproval subtly, before turning to look out of the canopy window for themselves. The Skeleton Ensemble was not exactly the most luminous star in it's cluster these days. It was hard to tell if the prism shield sail's emission reduction systems were becoming defective with age, or if the Viridian's sensors were just that good.

"Well, there is only one way to find out how worthwhile such folk are, no?..."

Landing in such a location wasn't difficult. The hangar was easily the size of a Nepleslian sports dome, and despite being filled with rack upon rack of durandium-shelled prefab ship assemblies, nothing was really stopping them from easing the pointed corvette inside. They didn't even have to pick a spot on the floor, as a bridge with magnetized sleepers was conveniently located so that they could just rest in mid-air.

The crab made a sudden jerky motion as if they had spotted something dangerous, before rapidly cooling off again, audibly sighing despite a complete lack of lungs. Phantasm pseudoflare turrets, at least a dozen, we lined up all along the port-side wall; Through on second glance, they were simply waiting to be outfitted, and not actually connected to anything for the time being.

"I'll admit that it is all mighty suspicious, but gaining favors was never going to be a cakewalk... We have to start somewhere." An outburst, perhaps a little too frank, but the syntelligence wanted to be as honest about their own position as possible. "Your help would be much appreciated in this task. We don't exactly have a lot of hands available... I can't guarantee it won't lag out, but the remote operation codes for the Skeleton are yours, if you want them... Phase could set up a better encryption system for us, perhaps."

Everything seemed deadly still on the decks outside, save for a small eddy of asteroid powder dragged in by the ship's inertialess drives. The doors of the hangar didn't even close behind them.

 

[Moogle]

Fabrication Station

Crab number four loomed around the towering humanoid, wondering exactly how they would react to this situation. It wasn't like there was any security protocols during the exchange, so any of them could have listened in.

"Well, we are here." Jack remarked to the larger, sleek metallic form of Phase first, taking note of all the random little utility drones still whizzing around them. Despite the irony of this coming from a syntelligence operating a drone themselves, the fact that they had still not seen the Dollmaker's true form made it feel more like talking to a reflection and not the real person. He wished he could trust them blindly, but such optimism rarely helped him in the past. "First objective is to meet our lady Hollowpoint, then, one might suggest. Would you like to borrow any of these junker bodies, or would you prefer to risk one of your own?"

"How will I know just what my body can do if I don't put it to the test~?" Phase responded, briefly tracing a knifelike finger around the crabdrone's eye. She witnessed the events unfold from a drone stationed near a viewport, but said nothing on the landing or suspicious nature of their entry. Instead, she booked it for the hanger to meet with Bricklot.

Once she was there, she walked straight into the massive rectangle. It's surface parted ever so carefully to let just her body in, then sealed behind her seamlessly. Bricklot whirred to life, keying up a thousand processes at once. Phase was jacked into the system.

She began connecting lines and dots, and then shapes and lines, and more and more until a full network was assembled before her digistruct eyes. This manifested in reality as the individual members of the Skeleton Ensemble each got a ping letting them know there was a contingent of three drones for each of them waiting for their commands. The drones were simple, diamond-shaped affairs, described as having both scalar stunners and EMP weaponry and basic shielding systems allowing for the lightest small-arms fire to be blocked, with one slightly stronger shielddrone per batch.

The Type Four emerged once more as the batches popped out of their own, perfectly shaped, diamond exit ports on Bricklot and paused to hover around the bay.

"Consider this a little housewarming gift~" Phase broadcast, the sly joy seeping into her tone.

 

[Dumont]

Remote Ships and Drones, Controlled by my Brain:

Pulling the ship into dock, Kiver gave a little throaty noise as the nose cone of the Skeleton Ensemble slipped into the hangar. Biting her lip a little in concentration and rapt attention at the little delicate maneuverings needed to manage the ungainly ship with such gentle grace, the soft sighs of the ship's engines as it eased down into the docking arms which would embrace the whole vessel and hold it close... A final hiss and release of the inertialess drives as the Ensemble finally came to rest.

She unplugged herself from the navigation computer behind her and swiveled around on her pilot seat. Which is to say that she turned, and the seat didn't, resulting in her sitting somehow in the fetal position, but also upright. Knees either side of her head, chin on the back of the seat, soles of her boots pointed at the little crab-friend that was sort of Jack. She was at least flexible. That might mean something should it come to a fight? Maybe? The way she was holding herself up like that without her hands seemed to indicate she had some abdominal strength in her. At least enough to hold up her tiny frame.

She reached around, removing the gun she'd stuffed into a tear in the pilot seat's cockpit. Only a small sidearm, but the way she checked it seemed to indicate she knew how to use it more than most Freespacers.

"Y'dun' have much faith in 'ese folk, eh?" She asked, almost innocently. "I c'n take th' ship an' move it aroun' outside. Git us a way out when we need ta 'ave one. Migh' be laggy, but y' jus' gotta offset th' commands an' fink a few lil' thrusts 'head... We'll be okay. I'll git us out if we git troubs."

At the very least she seemed to have no outward idea of the reputation of the Viridian array. So far all she'd seen was that these people were the ones with a broken factory. And a broken factory wasn't useful... She blinked a couple of times, then. Accepting the codes, and the mindware handshakes connected to the pings and some sort of droney things? What were these? Swifts?

Down in the cargo bay a few of the drones started to wobble and move about as Kiver manipulated them, giving them little orders. For a few seconds they swivelled around and bumped into things gently. Light flaring bout on their shields as they got their test runs worked out of them. It took a little while, but after a bit Kiver realised that if she thought about it, remotely controlling these things were like remotely piloting really small ships... A really one-track mind way of thinking about it, probably. But that was maybe the limitations of the mindset of a Type II.

Either way, the three drones started to move around with more grace, starting to take gentle loping swoops around the manufacturing area.

Kiver at least responded, looking over her Crabby friend, and shouting down the shaft into the ship proper. She could have done it mentally, but it was like trying to shout at someone on the other end of the house in a way. Faintly, echoing down a corridor Phase would hear the pilot's cry:

"Fank yoo!"

 

[Cordinarr]

Six Three made his way out of the Chemical Refinery and into the bay as the three little drones floated over to him. His cybernetic eye scanned them up and down as his mindware downloaded their specs and commands. The GeneSculptor was a little surprised by them at first, “Oh, well would you look at that? Can’t say I’ve ever had a drone escort of this caliber.” He turned over to the towering Phase avatar, “Thank you very much. I’ll do my best to take care of them.”

Briefly thinking that they should imitate the electron pattern for Lithium, he dismissed the idea as it could be hazardous if they collide with someone. Opting to make a better impression he had them hover above his head while he stood in the cargo bay.

Six Three had removed his third arm and donned on a void suit, but not so far as the helmet yet. He figured the outside wouldn’t be conducive to life quite yet. He looked around for a crab to talk to, and after finding one he bluntly asked, “Is there a plan so far? Or are we winging it?”

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Kiver's Balcony

"That might be wise, my good lady." A conservative tone from the crab, perhaps watching their display with a little nostalgia over having a humanoid body themselves. "Not like we can really repel boarders with what we have here."

They seemed to be thinking of other plans of action, but were interrupted by a sudden burst of new connections, causing the small drone to suddenly look straight through the floor, into the main body of the ship...

Cargo Bay Inside Of A Ship Inside Of A Cargo Bay

Now that the ship's hull had become a proper cosy nest of robotic bugs and drones, it filled Jack with a newfound sense of awareness. Manipulating only flightless junker drones had made the inside and the outside of the ship feel like completely different worlds, for the longest time.

"Most gracious! These should be a lot better for tagging along with the team!" The crab that had fallen off of Bricklot's back made a chirpy positive noise, even whilst righting itself. Perhaps this mysterious high-tech dollmaker was really quite trustworthy after all. "You're full of surprises, Phase!"

One of the diamonds adjusted it's flight path to hover near Six-Three, despite the redundancy of wee remote control bits now crammed into the single room.

"We are going to track down Hollowpoint, by jove, and attain their boggle." The thing spun in a rythmic fashion, Jack's voice now somehow even more nasally, like a cartoon flea. "Maybe take a bit of a scenic route, if we want to have a look at the place... Not like anyone is waving an actual gun at us, right? As long as we don't get caught with our pants down, so to speak, things should be goll-dandy fine."

Kiver's Anti-Balcony

During the conversation, one of the small polygonal drones made it's way to the bottom of the craft, observing the world beneath the ship through the secondary cockpit's windows.

Movement, on the deck bellow! Jack linked the camera feed directly to the internal mindware network, so that all of the ship's dissidents could observe the small humanoid figure now emerging from one of the floor's vertical airlocks. The rather militaristic voidwalker suit was dirt brown speckled with frequent pock-marks of neon green, not unlike a muddy roadsign during the first few seconds of rainfall. It had a black glossy opaque-glass helmet, with no facial features visible beneath.

The right hand bore some kind of hacked hypolathe with multiple extra wires sticking out, and the left bore a crude metal sign with hastily painted black and red letters.

"-INTERNAL NETWORK COMPROMISED-"
"-DO NOT ACCESS-"

Back In The Cargo Bay

"Well... So much for intentionally giving them the slip... I guess we are winging it." A distinct crabular shrug. It perhaps would make sense to fling out a drone to have a peep around the suspicious stranger first, but Jack couldn't open the skeleton's belly doors with Kiver and Six Three still open to the elements. "Perhaps we should get out before they close the main outer doors... I'm guessing the only reason why they haven't done so already is because it's been safeguarded into some kind of manual mode..."

"...We should really watch out that these drone's don't fall under the same fate as the main system, too... jolly bad business..."

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Roamers
~♫ Silent Hill 4 OST - Wounded Warsong ♫~

Port hope was a different place without the guiding light of the great lighthouse shining in the distance. Battledancer Acubens would certainly have remembered it from his youth, a haven for all of their nomadic kin in a time before the great strife. Now the broken boulders of this system only seemed painfully emblematic of an empire lost…

Such raw untamed fragments, however, could also be building blocks to the optimistic.

The route was plain sailing, and freelance work orders were overflowing under the influence of the new Viridian Array organisation. Everything seemed to be going fine until the very last hurdle, when he arrived on the asteroid facility PH-417b on his traveller.

Quarantine in the dock area started with an odd silence which went on for one hour too many, and ended with a large automata suddenly appearing in the doorway. Elongated chrome limbs bristled with firearms and missile pods, and it had all sorts of tubes and metal antlers sprawling from an angular three-eyed head. A knitted synth-wool sweater suggested this machine was once embellished with some form of affection, but a thick coating of blood on their steel fists also said it might have been somewhat misplaced.

It led him at gunpoint with an eerie complete silence, through the huge fabrication arms of the main facility chambers, down past the massive heat exchange pillars below the complex, and finally to a small room of hastily reinforced cells. Robust grey durandium bars, brass-toned wall panels, and clinically clean strip-lights. All together, this suggested that the block was originally some kind of Nepleslian prison module, now buffed against cyborg escape attempts with small lockable boron mesh cages around the cell door’s individual access keypads.

Spacers tended to have either the strength of ten men, or the hacking abilities of a towerblock’s mainframe, but rarely both. Whoever set this up clearly knew what they were dealing with.

Two hours later, the door suddenly shifted open once more, and the machine returned with a second newcomer. Some kind of organic type three with a technicolor voidwalker suit and multiple tattoos emblazoning their pale skin.

Still without giving even an inkling of their identity, the towering combat android just shoved the woman into a cell opposite from the captive martial arts guru. They then wasted no time in erecting a small tripod device with an ECM module between the two rooms, disabling polysentience access in the area, before promptly leaving again without giving so much as a reason for their detainment.

Silence once more, save the omnipresent hum of the environmental fans. None of the other eight cells had occupants that they could see. The ceiling had several small integrated security cameras, but none of them appeared to be active at present…

It perhaps went without saying that something was terribly wrong here.

 

[Cordinarr]

Six Three put the helmet of the Void Suit on so Jack could open the bay of the Ensemble if they wanted to. It had a few markings of his own DNA chains as well as some organic structures doodled here and there so that others could recognize who he was without trouble. “I doubt someone that wanted to harm us wouldn’t want us to access the Internal Network system. I think this is our emissary into the place itself. I’m safe if you want to let them in, or at least talk to them. What do the rest of you think?” He relayed over the system.

Shifting and adjusting his bag uneasily, Six Three tried to calm his nerves. Guns and shields? Yeah, the Genesculptor knew his place and it was not on the battlefield.

 

[Moogle]

Cargo Bay

"Hm, my drones? Oh, do not worry. They are all networked to eachother. If one disconnects from the network, it is programmed to reestablish contact with all the others to keep the pack in line." Phase informed the crab, making her moves towards one of the spacewalk airlock sets of doors out of impatience. Her special set of three drones accompanied her. "To put it bluntly, they cannot live without eachother. If they were smart enough for life~!"

Bricklot resettled in place, with mag-clamps locking it down to the floor of the hangar so nobody could just walk in and take it over. All its outside connections severed, save for the server farm overseer protocol keeping the drone armada meshed together.

 

[ArsenicJohn]

Prison Cell

The girl in the bright Voidwalker suit whistled a happy little tune, smiling even as she was shoved into a cell. She seemed to be carrying on a conversation with someone. "I can't believe we let ourselves get caught, Six. Should have seen this coming, yep yep yep. Oh well, at least I can cross getting stuck in a Greenie prison by a silent automaton off my bucket list. 11/10 would hack again." The girl said cheerfully. She turned around and called out to the robot. "Hey wait a sec! Can we get some coffee in here? Ooh, and a can of that, what do you guys call it, Speed?"

Upon being ignored she sighed and shook her head. "Terrible way to treat your guests. Good thing we won't be staying long." She walked around the room slowly, examining the nooks and crannies. After she finished the inspection she flopped down on the bed and closed her eyes. Her fingers ran through her red and black hair absently. As she rolled onto her side she opened her eyes and looked directly at the other prisoner. "Well then. Hello, you sexy thing! I'm Gemini. Nice to meet'cha!"

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Skeleton Cargo Bay

After waiting for the crew members to put their helmets on and sealing off the two internal airlocks, Jack remotely opened the two huge bay doors taking up the majority of the small corvette's belly. With the inverted gravity panels, the crew could now observe the hangar's floor slowly coming into view on the 'ceiling' above them.

The masked stranger jumped from the deck and inverted their body, converting into the ship's own gravity pull with distinctly practiced ease. Might have seemed a little forthright to outsiders, but any spacer would know that the only way to talk in a vacuum sans hardware was through direct contact vibrations.

Jack's diamond-shaped drone pressed against the militant's helmet and transmitted the voice to the others independently. Hollowpoint actually seemed a little surprised by the immediate trust, still looking around the new interior as if squabbling blindly into an antique stall.

"Thanks for turning up." Sounded pretty organic, for someone so robustly dressed. "Permissions on the security systems are all messed up, but there is a dead man's switch associated with the cold storage computers that will probably still allow access to other freespacer strangers. It was designed so that it would go back to the people if everyone died for some reason, you see... I guess we were a little to idealistic... and, well, exploitable, in that regard. If we can reach the central computers, we can just delete everything and reinstall the network OS manually, however."

"There are defense turrets as well as a patrol Automata guarding the inner facilities however. These have all been hacked, and I feel we will need to acquire firearms in order to deal with them... Those lockers, at least, should be accessible as long as we keep our heads down."

 

[Dumont]

In the Ribcage:

The sound of clattering from the cockpit access shaft is followed by a diminutive figure in a battered old Voidwalker painted in black stars plopping down from above. Metal boots scraping on the cargo bay floor, Kiver tottered out to see the new guest. The tinted visor of her helmet made it near impossible to tell what exactly she thought, but the way she slinked around the newcomer and prodded them in a few places out of cat-like curiosity made it seem that Kiver's interest was mostly academic at this point.

She heard something about weapons being taken over and turned on people? Guns being needed? Huh. Her visor turned as the three drones gifted to her floated in, taking graceful little loops around the pilot. Almost as a test, the entire Skeleton Ensemble revved its engines experimentally as she tested the polysentience remote control protocols.

"So... Uh... E'rythin's gone haywire, an' y'need t' get in'a th' centerplace..." She said, her voice sounding weirdly tinny when broadcasted. "Is there some sorta 'xternal access hatch we can get-ta, an shortcut through th' place's guts? Or we gotta fight th' whole way? Anyone else 'board who c'n help?"

 

[Cordinarr]

Six Three gripped the strap of his bag that he carried as he mulled the information over, trying to figure out his usefulness. Instinctively he reached back to scratch the organic part of his head only to be barred by the helmet. Dropping his hand back down, he spied the little Kiver poking and prodding and smiled a bit at her curiousity. “I’ve got to second our pilot’s questions there. Any sort of access that would allow us to skirt around them? Could we get schematics of the automata and the defense turrets? Maybe that could help us prepare for what we need to work around should we come face-to-face with them.”


The Genesculptor began to think about a way that he could help out the best way possible. Get Kiver through the guts of the ship to the central computers, and follow? Or maybe he should follow the stranger, he might have to use a gun at that point. Never been one for firearms, this would definitely be a learning experience, he’d just hope that the stranger would betray him. Unless there was a third option that wasn’t coming to him, sneaking around or brute force seemed to be the only two ways in front of him. He retreated into the polysentience enclosed with the Ensemble, “What do you think Jack? Sneak around or go in guns-ablazin’?”

 

[Dumont]

"E'en if there ain' no hatch Ah'cn prob'ly move th' ship roun' an' rip off some hull platin' wi' th' crane." Kiver suggested.

While most Free State engineering was sturdy enough to withstand wear and tear, a concerted effort to turn the station in place and turn the engine on full blast while accelerating away from a stellar body would be enough to tear open hull panelling in weaker areas. The problem was whether it would be a danger to those inside who didn't have any sort of protection against the vacuum of space. Then again, most bulkheads would seal automatically on loss of pressure...

"We don' gotta go in fru gunteeths."