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RP: The Fringe [Chapter 2.0] - Salvage

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Concordia Veil - Cockpit

Frowning at the display, Amelia simply did as instructed. She already figured there was no convincing to those guys, and she at least hoped Oreza thought the same, as well as that the only thing they were doing there was to buy time. Considering the system they were in, the odds were that they wouldn't care about protocol and just do as they pleased anyway. Just like before, she closed the volumetric display once the message was sent.

Code: 
THIS IS THE ISS CONCORDIA VEIL
CURRENTLY CONDUCTING A RESCUE OPERATION
IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND STATE YOUR PURPOSE
 
Concordia Veil - Cockpit

A few more moments passed with no reply, and the Vampire craft showed no sign of activity. Finally, the dire response started to print on he display.

Code: 
SALVAGE IS RESCUE

RESCUE IS SALVAGE

YOU ARE OUTMATCHED - DEMANDS ARE IRRELEVANT

FINAL WARNING

SURRENDER YOUR CARGO AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED

FURTHER DELAYS VOID GUARANTEE OF SURVIVAL

The chilling realization of the message's intent set in. Whoever crewed the ship hanging in space above them made no distinction between survivor and salvage - it was all cargo to them.
 
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Cockpit

"Slavers" Oreza said as he read the latest transmission. "If they don't kill us, we will not be let go." he frowned, thinking back to what he knew of the Vampire class.

"those things dont take much to run but could support dozens or more troops" he paused, thinking, they were not in a good spot. He missed his heavy cruiser. He would have blasted that thing to space dust just a few years earlier. "If they board this ship were done" he said. "We are not being jammed yet. Prepare an emergency broadcast to the Yamataian emergency channel with our coordinates and situation. Transmit when I tell you too." Giving Amelia a chance to digest that, he thought hard as he looked out the viewports st the ship above. "We need more time... We need to be able to power our guns without them picking it up if possible"
 
Cockpit - Concordia Veil

"Roger," Amelia said, still sounding calm as she read over the message again as she prepped the new screen, she realized the emergency of the situation, but also knew that panicking would do no good, so she stifled it as best as she could and focused on the task ahead. "You know even if they pick up this broadcast they won't make it here in time, right?" she asked Oreza as her fingers quickly moved against the volumetric display and typed a pretty simple message, ready to send. Not that she believed it would do any good.
 
Cockpit

"Yes, I know" Oreza replied gravely. There was not much chance at the moment, not unless they were very lucky. He opened up a pocket on his dusk suit and pulled out his pipe, placing it between his teeth.

"Get ready to go full burn on the engines amd bring the guns up." he said and slid into the other seat next to Amelia and brought up some of the systems controles, the options for airlock explosive bolts to jettison the shuttle and break them loose of their lock onto the wreck.

"We are going to have to draw them away. We may be able to give Six Four and the other survivor a chance. When I give the order, go to full throttle and blast the distress call. Then we can get the shields and guns up and running. I'll handle that, you will keep us out of their firing ark. Try and keep wreckage between us and them"
 
Medbay

Six Four cocked its head much like a confused dog when Dylan motioned for help with the door. Walking over to where the Minkan was and squatted down so that it was even with him. Instead of grabbing the door its mechanical hands went towards his ankles, once it had a firm grip it gave a swift tug putting him on his butt before standing up and pulling him the rest of the way out of the door. Without warning Six Four began to search the suit over for any type of oxygen port. It knew a bit about spacesuits, seeing as it spent most of its life in one as well as most of its kin, but it took a bit of time to figure out the one that Dylan was wearing. Finally after figuring out the basic layout of the suit the doctor pulled out its handy data pad and typed something onto it before handing it to Dylan.

Code: 
Giving you oxygen from my suit. Enough time to get out and get on the ship. Escape from this particular vesal is urgent.

As he read over it Six Four sealed its personal oxygen supply into its helmet, sealing any contaminants that Dylan might have that could make the doctors increadably weak, more of non exsistant immune system, fail and make it sick. Once that was done, the Doctor popped off one of the ends of a tube from its suit, the connector plug quickly sealing before any oxygen could escape. Flipping it over in its hand it pluged the end that was attached to its suit into a matching valve on Dylans, letting enough oxygen flow into his suit to get him back onto the Concordia Veil. After the doctor felt that he had enough oxygen it reversed the process so that its suit was a sealed system again. Taking the data pad back Six Four typed another message to the Minkan.

Code: 
 Follow this one, move quickly

After flashing the datapad to him so he could read it, Six Four put it away before quickly moving back towards the surface, and the Concordia Veil.
 
Concordia Veil - Cockpit

Amelia didn't need to have a lifetime of experience in space-combat to know that what Oreza was suggesting was a bad idea, "they're just gonna shoot us down as soon as we move, though," she said, pausing. It was then that an idea occurred to her, that the pirates would be expecting them to surrender just because of how outmatched they were, and would probably not expect them to retaliate just because of that. It was bold, but she really couldn't think of any more options, and whatever happened if they did boarded made the future look very not good. "I doubt they will board us with their main ship. Probably a shuttle. So we wait until the shuttle is between them and us and then do that. That should give the doctor some extra time," the astrogator said after some deliberation.

Two fingers pressed against the side of her helmet when she then remembered that they hadn't really filled in the freespacer doctor on the situation, "Six-four, you have to hurry up," Amelia started to say, her tone serious but not panicky, "another ship has arrived and is hostile."
 
Derelict

Dylan followed Six Four as fast as he could. Soon they reached for the main hull of the ship. Several bodies floated around. Dylan stood still for a moment and grieved. " These were all very close friends." He said sadly. Then he followed Six Four again.

When they were close to the Concordia, or at least what Dylan assumed to be the Concordia, they saw an other ship closing in.
 
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Concordia Veil - Cockpit

Oreza had to wriggle and squeeze considerably to cram himself into the comparatively tiny pilot's couch, since everything was still configured to Sienna's frame. The display screen flashed again, and began to print another message from their visitor.

Code: 
ISS CONCORDIA VEIL
 
NO SURRENDER RECEIVED

A quiet alarm suddenly sounded, and a nearby display screen flashed to life, alternating its background and text between a bright yellow and an urgent-looking red:

Code: 
!!!WARNING!!!
 
>>FIREWALL BREACH<<
>>UNAUTHORIZED COMPUTER ACCESS DETECTED<<


Derelict - Outer Hull - Approaching the Concordia Veil, 40+ meters

Six Four trudged across the outside of the derelict's hull, with the survivor Dylan literally in tow by the back of his suit. In zero-G and without a powered suit, Dylan had no means of self-propulsion nor functioning magnetic boots, and thus was entirely dependent on his rescuer to get him safely to the ship. One misstep, one mistake, and he would go tumbling off into the void. Both of them could see the silhouette of the Vampire hanging in the sky above them, and a glimmering reflection of starlight caught their eye in time to look up and see the vicious-looking starship launch a single shuttle.
 
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"Slavers?" Shrie said, her eyes wide open. She looked at the screen showing the Vampire ship and then Oreza again, she seemed kind of scared. "No. I don't give myself to them. Not again. No, no no. If they come, I fight." She said to no one in particular in the cockpit. Shrie was pulled back to her time as gladiator and she shivered. That was quite easily the worst time of her life, she never suffered as much as then. The tall woman, grabbed her shoulder ins a show on anxiety and watched the two Veil crew-members go about their duty.
 
Cockpit - Concordia Veil

In any other situation Amelia would've found the sight of Oreza squeezing himself into the pilot's seat something belly-achingly hilarious, probably some situation that didn't involve them being on the verge of being boarded. She saw the volumetric displays fizzle with some interference, and hoped that Crash would be dealing with it on his end of things, the last thing she wanted was to be completely helpless against the other ship. The very thought of it sent shivers down her spine as she also tried to counter the unauthorized access from her station.
 
Bridge

Crash say there in his digital world, watching the intrusion happen. It was cute of the other ship to think they had any hopes to succeed. Waiting until the perfict moment whenthey had to lower their systems defenses, Crash attacked.

Forcing Its way in, Crash projected into the other ship's computer and started changing codes. If everything went right, they would think they had control of the Veil, but crash would have blinded their sensors and powered down their weapons.
 
Concordia Veil - Cockpit

It was fairly clear to Crash that the crew of the attacking ship had expected no real resistance in their attempts to override the Veil's computer system, let alone a sentient being opposing them. In only a few nanoseconds, the Freespacer isolated the attacking code and purged it from the computer's subroutines, then traced the wireless connection back to the Vampire's own computer system.

To the human occupants, the entire exchange was over in the blink of an eye, however, to Crash, everything unfolded in seemingly slow motion. He broke through the Vampire's own firewall and began to alter programming codes, command lines, and subroutines, managing to sabotage several hundred processes before the enemy ship's own countermeasures detected his presence and began to fight back. It started with a simple "access denied" error, which blossomed into a sensation that, to a human mind, might be compared to being trapped in a shrinking room whose walls were slowly pressing in, threatening to suffocate him.

Fortunately, or perhaps disturbingly, the computer system's operators did not catch on to what was happening before they sent the command to shut down life support, weapons, and engines, intending to trap the Veil's crew and leave them with no option but to surrender themselves alive. The override command instead was executed on the Vampire ship, and Crash could detect the ship's own systems shutting down around him. He was not sure how long the hack would last before the enemy crew would realize that their plan had backfired, nor was he sure how much longer he could remain hacked into their systems before their own anti-hacking countermeasures would permanently and irreparably corrupt his digital consciousness.

Back in the cockpit, the warning alarm ceased and the flashing alert on the display vanished, returning to its normal readouts. The scanner suddenly registered the Vampire ship above them once again, as well as a new contact: a small unidentified shuttle descending upon them.
 
Concordia Veil - Cockpit

Noticing that the invasion attempt abruptly ended, Amelia stared somehow surprised at the display, raising an eyebrow behind her helmet. She couldn't tell if that was Crash's doing or not, it could've been that the bot simply fought off the attack and retaliated against the ship, which was what she wanted to believe even though she couldn't be sure then; what she did see, however was the opportunity that they had to do something. Her hands shot forward, going through the volumetric displays so that she could control the ship.

"Now's the chance!" She said as she reached for the controls, pulling at them sharply and abruptly raising the ship on its axis, facing the Vampire and the shuttle that had just detached from their would-be assailants. As the ship started to move, her other hand reached somewhere else, increasing the thrust of the ship, then bringing another display up so she could reroute the power to the thrust and weapons.
 
Concordia Veil - Cockpit

((GM note - Oreza NPCed with permission from @Gunsight1 due to his being out of town))

Oreza, crammed into the pilot's seat like a sardine, threw a myriad of switches in rapid, practiced succession and grabbed the controls with his bearlike hands, throwing the ship into full power as quickly as the old junker was capable of. "Six Four, abort!" he shouted into his headset. "Repeat, Six Four, abort and circle around! We're under attack!"

There was a loud clunk as the old Jinsoku released its clamps from the derelict's hull and pitched up with a lurch, followed quickly by an even louder ka-BANG when the attached shuttle was blown free and bucked off like a rider off of a bull. The shuttle drifted away, tumbling end over end behind the sudden flash of the Veil's graviton engines as they burst to life, launching the ship forward and throwing Oreza and Amelia back into their seats before the intertial dampeners compensated for the sudden force. Shrie, standing in the doorway, was tossed back into the bulkhead, narrowly managing to catch herself before she fell backwards down the short flight of steps.

"Amelia, give me those weapons!" Oreza barked as he turned the ship on its axis, hugging the twisted remains of the tumbling mining ship as closely as he dared, keeping the Vampire above them, before realizing that the astrogator had already done so. With her able assistance, he locked the dorsal turrets onto the approaching shuttle, and both of them felt the groaning vibration throughout the hull as the point defense guns whirred to life and swiveled, bringing their barrels to bear. A nearby volumetric display brought up an image of the attacking craft, complete with information on its velocity, bearing, and orientation relative to the Veil, and a determined-sounding chirp began to sound, increasing its speed rapidly as the computers locked in a firing solution. Faster and faster the chirp clicked, with Oreza's eyes darting back and forth between his course and the targetting computer, until a second or two later the image flashed red and a white reticle closed in around it, indicating a positive lock. "Firing!" Oreza cried, and mashed on the thumb triggers on his flight sticks.

Another loud bang-wham echoed through the ship as the turrets unleashed a salvo of slugs at their target, streaking through space in a hailstorm of death. A couple of them impacted with some errant debris, sending a spectacular fireworks display of exploded metal in an expanding sphere, but the majority of them tore into the approaching shuttle only a few microseconds before the craft tried to evade the shots. The slugs shredded through the boarding craft, causing it to spin wildly off course. A jet of hot gas erupted from its starboard nacelle, and it began to plummet towards the wrecked mining ship in an uncontrollable spin, the bright red and white plume streaking behind it like a comet tail... right towards where Six Four stood holding Dylan on the outer hull.

Oreza continued to run the ship around the end of the mining ship's cargo tube, as closely as he dared, and plunged them into a dive as he circled around to the far side of the wreck. He seemed rather surprised at his tight control of the ship, not knowing that the sentient Freespacer inhabiting their computer was enhancing and correcting his trajectory the entire way.

As they zipped around out of sight of the Vampire, another message began to print out on the comms screen, letter by ominously slow letter.

Code: 
THAT WAS A MISTAKE.
 
Derelect Outside.

Six Four stopped and starred as the the Concordia Veil started to fly away, granted it had received the message about the hostile ship though it would of thought that they could at least give it a bit more time or something or other. When the ship started firing however, Six Four understood the reason for the quick leaving.

The Freespacer took a moment to observe the space combat, it had never seen it from the outside before and was quite fascinated. The Doctor would of love to hear the sounds, but the vacuum of space prevented that so it was glad that it was being stored in its digital memory for later. Unfortunately Six Four and its charge that it was dragging around couldn't sit and watch forever seeing as the shuttle began to come crashing down on them. If Dylan could hear Six Four he would hear the doctor spewing sentence upon panicked monotone sentence about moving faster away from the wreck coming from Six Four as they quickly turned and bolted back towards the relative safety of the wreck they just escaped from.
 
Cockpit - Concordia Veil

"That was a hit!" Amelia exclaimed soon after they had disengaged the shuttle, tensing as she felt the ship pull some G's from the maneuver. The blood in her head slowly got pushed down as the ship pitched up around the wreck, but wasn't serious enough to do anything else than to make her feel bothered by it, thanks to the ship's dampeners. She stopped paying attention to the shuttle once it was shot down by the Veil, keeping one eye on the sensors, monitoring the Vampire as the Concordia circled around the wreck, and designating new vectors for Oreza to fly the ship through. She idly hoped that this cat-and-mouse game would buy them enough time for anyone to pick up the distress, because she couldn't see any possible way for the Veil to go against that Vampire once all the surprises had been used.
 
Derelict, outside

Just as suddenly as the shuttle crashed into the derelict rests, Dylan realised that the wreck was beyond salvaging. Dylan looked to Six Four, and raised his hand to tell him he was okay. " That was a rough reaction." Was the only thing Dylan could say. Of course the doctor could not hear him, but that was okay. " Are we still getting back to the ship?" Dylan continued a while later. He pointed towards the Veil, and waited for what Six Four would do.
 
Before Shrie knew she was tossed back, almost rolling down the short flight of stairs if she would not manage to grab the entrance. The fyunnen pulled herself back into the cockpit. Her eyes looked over Oreza's shoulder at the monitors. The Vampire will jump them soon, even if they managed to hide behind the derelict for a bit. The Veil was not small enough to hide forever. Quite frankly, the ship was a bit of an easy target and who knows how much the shield can take. Especially if that Vampire had more weaponry than standard one would. Still Veil was not badly armed itself.

"Enemy, do they still have shields?" Shrie asked, holding hard on the chairs, where Amelia and Oreza sat, so she would not fall again. "If shields down, we kill their engines. Antoher gun console somewhere? I know how to shoot."
 
Derelict - Outside the Hull

Six Four, moving as quickly as she possibly could clomp her magnetic boots while keeping a death grip on the back of Dylan's suit, felt the battered and weakened hull beneath her rumble and quake violently as the shuttle slammed into it with terrific force. One of her boots broke free, and for a spine-tingling second she found herself teetering precariously, anchored to the hull only by one foot, Dylan's momentum threatening to pull her free and send them both tumbling away. With a heave she yanked the Minkan back down and stomped her other magnetic boot down, and made a direct line back for the stern of the ship.

Free-floating and held fast by the Freespacer's grip, Dylan saw the whole thing happen. The shuttle exploded in a silent but spectacular burst of metal and brilliant gasses, the collision sending shockwaves through the hull. Just as quickly the bright sphere of light vanished, leaving only a gaping crater in the hull surrounded by shards of metal, tubing, and broken parts, as well as almost a dozen humanoid figures suited in ebony-colored, bulky spacesuits. Most of them floated motionlessly amongst the debris, bereft of life after the impact, but three of them appeared to have survived, even if they looked a bit rattled. One of them struggled with what could have been a broken leg, but the other two hulking figures actuated thrusters on their suits, reorienting themselves towards the Vampire ship they had come from. One of the black, opaque helmets with a ghastly death's head skull painted on the faceplate turned to Six Four, appearing surprised to see them there, and although neither Dylan nor Six Four could hear what they were saying, it was clear from the way he moved his arms that he was calling for the other's attention.

The second suited figure turned to look, and then each of them thrusted down to the hull of the mining ship. Magnetic boots activated on each one, clomping firmly to the hull, and the one nearer to them drew a sidearm as they gave chase. Then a brilliant blue bolt of energy streaked past them, narrowly missing Dylan by mere inches. In his peripheral vision, Dylan saw the Veil slip around the other side of the wreck and disappear, by all appearances, abandoning them to their fate. Dylan's heart started to race and his breathing sped up with the surge of adrenalin. He knew that even with the extra oxygen that his rescuer had provided him with, if they didn't get aboard their rescue vessel soon, he would suffocate.


Concordia Veil - Cockpit

Oreza kept his hand tightly on the controls, his expression one of laser-focused concentration as beads of sweat started to form on his broad forehead. Amelia's reassurance that he had successfully shot down the approaching shuttle was comforting for a second, but his relief was short lived when he saw the threatening message scroll across the comms screen. The distress signal had been sent, but he didn't have any way of knowing how long it would be before help would arrive. Until then, he knew that the Veil stood no chance going toe-to-toe with a Vampire patrol ship, and he didn't know how long that he and Amelia could evade them. Worse, he still had two people stranded aboard that wreck. He regretted not firing at the Vampire first.

"It's best to assume they still do," the first mate shouted back over his shoulder at the humongous Shrie hunched over on the command platform above and behind him. Between the massive Nepleslian and Lorath, the cockpit barely had enough room for anyone else aside from Amelia's slight frame. Glancing back at her when she offered her help, he twisted his left arm around and pointed at one of the consoles next to her. "Left side, center console," he barked. "I'll patch in direct control over the turrets. You blast any debris that gets too close, and watch for that Vampire."

No sooner than he had finished his sentence, alarms started going off everywhere, and the black sky around them lit up as if they were surrounded by the full fury of a gas giant's cyclonic storm. The ship lurched as something struck the shields from behind, throwing the three of them forward slightly, and a spectacular shower of debris rained around them, shooting past the canopy as if an enormous shotgun had just peppered their hindquarters. Red lights flashed all over the place, and Oreza struggled to maintain control of the ship as it wobbled and bobbed, pulling it back in towards the wreck's far side. The derelict's hull raced under them, almost near enough to give the illusion that they were driving along its surface. "Amelia, damage report! What the hell was that!?"

From what Amelia could tell, the hull was still completely intact, although the CFS showed a slight decrease in shield power. Something had indeed hit them, but had it been a direct hit from any weapon the Vampire had, it wasn't a stretch to imagine that the damage would have been much more catastrophic. She did, however, have reason to believe that their assailant had in fact opened fire on them, but instead had blown a section of the derelict's cargo tube to pieces, and the resulting shower of debris was what had hit them.

One thing she was certain of, however. If their cannons could do that to the mining ship, they could scarcely afford to be on the receiving end of one of its shots.
 
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