RP: The Fringe [Chapter 3.0] - Strangers in a Strange Land

Starboard Cargo Bay

Amelia felt a chill going down her spine at Crash's statement, she briefly leaned out of the open door to see what was coming at the ship from the outside, and then understood the urgency in Sienna's tone as the captain yelled. While Crash was needed to take the ship off the ground, she wasn't necessary to that task. The crates banging against the deck of the bay brought her back to the situation at hand, 'why is he still throwing these?' the astrogator thought when the second crate hit the deck, if it were her she would've already beat it. By the time Tam threw the third crate she had already drawn out her pistol and made up her mind.

Grabbing onto the wall with her free hand and leaning out of the open cargo bay's door with her torso partially outside, Amelia looked down at the Gartagen. "What the hell are you doing! Get inside the ship!" She shouted, motioning with her pistol towards the ship, then pointed it at the drones and started to fire. The pistol barked with a different sound thanks to the different atmosphere, and the extra gravity would've no doubt affect the trajectory of the bullets, something she would correct as she kept firing the weapon.

Tam shrugged and dropped the last 3 crates of Potassium Chloride and took off at a dead sprint, attempting to grab Oreza and bodily pull him towards the ship and if necessary he would pick the larger man up and leap towards the ship hauling him along for the ride.

Starboard Cargo Bay

Amelia's gunshots rang out loudly, echoing far and wide across the terrain through the thick atmosphere. Sienna quickly followed suit, drawing her own pistol and unleashing another barrage of bullets at the oncoming wave of red-eyed robots bearing down on them. Sparks and dust kicked up where their shots landed, some of them harmlessly impacting in the dirt, others ricocheting off of metal, temporarily staggering some of the spidery invaders unlucky enough to be struck. One of them took a hit straight in its glowing red eye and suddenly stiffened, rearing up involuntarily on the tip of all eight legs and jittering, as if seizing up in a convulsion, then with a puff of smoke suddenly crumpled to the ground, motionless, the eye fading to black.

Oreza grunted loudly as the much smaller Gartagen's shoulder slammed into him, and remarkably found himself tossed backwards over Tam's back. Desperately he tried to right himself before something in his aging bones snapped, flopping around onto his stomach, not having time to feel demeaned or emasculated by the rescue. The two of them moved with astonishing speed toward the ship, but just as Tam sprang into the air to make the leap into the cargo bay, a tubelike appendage whipped out and lashed around his leg, tightening with enough force to crush a soft rock into powder. The Gartagen still left the ground as planned, taking the drone with him, but the immense amount of extra weight caused him to fall short of his intended target, sending Oreza tumbling head over heels beneath the ship and Tam face-first into the dirt.

The drone slammed hard into the ground just behind him, between his reptilian legs, and released its grip as it quickly pulled itself forward up his back, digging its spindly legs into his armor and clothing for a secure hold. Tam felt an electric charge begin to build quickly along his skin, punctuated by a mechano-electric whir that spun rapidly upwards in frequency, like the sound of a capacitor or some kind of ionizing beam charging up.

"Frak!" Sienna exclaimed, emptying the last of her loaded rounds into the advancing swarm, now less than a few meters away from the ship. She ejected the magazine and tossed it aside, pulling a fresh one from her belt, but just as she moved to slap the second one in, two drones crested the lower lip of the loading bay, having crawled up the landing legs and skittered along the ship's underbelly. In desperation, she reared her leg back and kicked the nearest one as hard as she could, her heel landing firmly on its red eye, shattering it. With another convulsion, the drone twitched and spun halfway around before dropping to the deck dead. "The eyes, hit the eyes!" she shouted at Amelia, the second drone that had gotten in too far away for her to kick, but too close to the astrogator to risk firing, and closing fast.

Tam triggered one of the devices emplaced in his armor for just this eventuality. It detonated a small charge of plastic explosives backed with Buk for absorbing the impact that would otherwise be transmitted through the suit, on the side facing the bot was a set of ball bearings made of titanium carbide creating a small claymore type mine that would allow him to get the bot off and then get to his feet and retrieve oreza and get them both onto the ship. If more bots closed in Tam would draw his gauss revolver and begin firing at the bots. "Container with crossed rifles, has loaded plasma rifles in it if you need them." Tam shouted.

Starboard Cargo Bay

Amelia saw that most of her shots impacted against their intended targets, although the effect would've been the same as spitting at the sea to stop it. But nonetheless, she kept firing, even when the pistol had ran dry. It took her a couple of moments to realize that the pistol was empty as she pulled at the trigger with dry clicks, then looked at the slide of the gun that had been locked back when the ammo ran out, making her curse under her breath as she tried to get a new magazine from another one of her pouches while the two drones started to climb aboard the open door.

"I'm trying! I'm try- Oh shit!" She had started to yell back at Sienna before seeing the drone uncomfortably close to her. Desperately, Amelia threw the empty pistol at the drone to distract it, then drew the stun baton that she had ''received'' on the Black Moon from her belt, clicking it on and jabbing the business end at the drone.

Outside the Starboard Cargo Bay

A deafening boom erupted from where Tam lay, and the assaulting drone was immediately shredded into scrap metal, the bulk of its "carcass" blasted away in a smoking, tumbling heap that rolled through the bulk of the horde of metal spiders, knocking the legs out from beneath a few of them like bowling pins. The hundreds other unaffected ones did not relent, however, and continued to bear down on the ship, the nearest ones going straight for Tam and Oreza.

When the Gartagen managed to flip over and start to climb back to his feet, he saw at least another dozen spidery drones already mounted on the ship and crawling over it like ants. Most of them were still climbing the landing struts or on the underbelly, but he noticed a few of them climbing up the sides of the hull, bypassing the open loading bay altogether. Two more of them seemed to take notice of what he had done to his first assailant, and assessing him as a significant threat, each went separate directions to encircle him, but kept their distance.

Oreza groaned in pain, but wasted no time in planting his giant hands in the ground and pushing up, spitting dirt and crushed vegetation out of his mouth as he struggled back to his feet. Turning, he saw the ever-increasing horde getting uncomfortably close, but when he spun around to search for an alternate route he saw that the advancing line of drones was coming from the other way too. "We're surrounded!" he bellowed as he drew his pistol, gripping it tightly in his hand, but reluctant to shoot until he was certain his limited ammunition would do any good.


Starboard Cargo Bay

Amelia's stun baton proved far more effective than the bullets. She felt the hair on her arms stand straight up on end as the prod connected with the bot's "face," and with a much less theatrical, but far more explosive sizzle and boom, the bot jerked once and the hind end of its domelike body blew outwards in a shower of sparks as its cheap, haphazard circuitry overloaded. The drone dropped instantly dead where it stood.

"Now why the hell didn't I think of that!?" Sienna exclaimed, and reached for the other side of her belt, only to find an empty space where she normally hung her own stun baton. Something between concern and horror crossed her face as she swore violently, her head snapping up to the open loading bay at the sea of drones that now covered the ground outside. "Crash, anytime you're frackin' ready would be great!" she shouted over the din.


Computer Core

Through the ship's sensors, Crash was positively inundated with proximity alerts, intruder alarms, and potential hull breach warnings. The drones were crawling all over the bottom of the ship, and from what he could extrapolate from their movements, they were intent on making sure the ship stayed grounded. In fact, the only ones that appeared to be attacking the crew were the ones nearest to them. If the drones' goal was indeed to capture, incapacitate, or kill the crew, with the sheer number of them present, they would probably have already made significant progress.

Tam took aim at one bot and fired a pair of shots from his gauss revolver while his other hand drew his Gael'Kash and readied it to slash at the other bot if it came near. "We should get ready to get out of here as soon as possible." Tam said to Oreza as he watched the bots climb all over the ship where it sat.

Starboard Cargo Bay

Amelia raised her arm to cover her head from the small explosion that she had caused, the small reaction was at least twice as much more violent than she expected, and she already expected something quite remarkable by overloading any circuitry with the stun baton. Lowering her arm once the small bits of metal batted futilely against the ceramic and ballistic fiber of her suit, the astrogator reared back and raised her arm again, ready to hit the next drone that showed up.

With the sound of gunfire common crim the cargo bay, Six Four's thinky thinky parts deduced that something may be wrong.

"I believe we are needed in the cargo bay." The freespacer said flatly as if it was pointing out paint drying to Shrie.

Grabbing it's flame thrower it flocked the activation switch as it moved as quickly as it could under the increased gravity.

Cargo Bay

"Oh my."

Six Four said as it saw the unfolding chaos in the cargo bay. Moving to a position so that it could blast most of the opening with its ignits, the doctor leveled the weapon at the opening.

"Warning: For those concerned with their health and safety, please remove yourself from the door."

It said before squeezing the activation trigger.

Starboard Cargo Bay

Sienna's head whipped around again, her sweaty, matted hair slapping against her forehead as she spotted Six Four's flamethrower trained on the open loading bay, and her eyes flared open in apprehension. "No, wait--!"

A plume of white-hot plasma blasted through the cargo bay, narrowly missing Tam's loaded crates, the radiant heat blistering their surfaces as the painted-on markings bubbled and boiled away, leaving black scorch marks in theiir place. From outside, it appeared that the ship violently belched fire from its side, like some kind of squat, metallic dragon. A few of the spider-drones cresting the opening were thrown clear by the blast, tumbling back into the churning ocean of advancing metal arachnids, staggering or crushing some of the ones on the ground. Others that weren't directly in the firey tongue emitted a high-pitched, distorted digital screech as they scrambled away, trying to evade the intense heat.

Sienna threw her arm in front of her face, shielding herself from the flesh-searing column of fire, running as fast as her feet would carry her in the gravity towards the aft bulkhead and pressed herself against it.

Computer Core

The Digital entity spread out through out the ship's computer systems, as if a mind expaned into a galaxy. Crash was becoming more of the ship than It was itself. Slowly at first but building speed as It gained more control the ship's turrets rotated and began firing rapidly into the area the crew were trying ot evacuate from. Pumping raw energetic death at the drones that were coming in waves, crashing upon the ships exterior.

Crash started powering up the main engines. Each joule of energy beat through him as if blood was flowing though the bot's body. Wtih a high flow through Crash's processor, It brought the engines up and the ship started to rise from the ground, though it didn't tip up and race towards the stars and the planet's rings. Instead it rolled and tipped so that the still-lowered loading ramp on the ship's underbelly was easier for the crew to use. The intercoms of the ship started wheezing as if someone was breathing hard from exertion.

Outside

Heavy, dull explosions erupted around the ship as the turrets sprang to life and blasted their payloads into the encroaching waves of drones, blowing massive craters in the ground as they threw bits of rock, dirt, and blasted-apart metal hundreds of feet into the air. By the dozen the advancing robots were annhialated, but for every one that Crash destroyed, two more were there to take its place, intent on grounding the ship, single-mindedly set on tearing it apart for the materials. As the ship lifted off, a few of the ones already attached to the ship's underbelly were shaken loose and fell to the ground with a hard thud, but the majority of them held fast.

One of the drones fell on top of Oreza in a glancing blow, knocking him to the side, but its ponderous weight landed squarely on his right leg, snapping it at the knee. The first mate howled in agony as he crumpled to the ground.

Computer Core

Streaching out Crash could "see" through the sensors as if they were its own eyes, with growl It kept the firing out a fast as the weapons could cycle. It wouldn't be long before they would burn out at this rate, then all Crash had in reserve was a blast from the main engines at full power. That, though, would roast everyone on the ground as if they were just marshmellows in a campfire. The breathing continued growing more and more labored as Crash stretched out controling 90% of the ship's systems itself. the digitalized voce growled through the intercoms again, "Get them aboard now... Can't sustain fire rate long."

Starboard Cargo Bay

The fiery blast from Six Four's flamethrower let up for a moment as the ship lurched and turned with Crash's maneuvering, and the three crew members in the cargo bay staggered under the jerky, uneven movements. Six Four stumbled backwards a few steps before steadying herself on the opposite wall, and Sienna slapped her hands hard against the edge of the loading bay portal next to where she was standing, narrowly avoiding toppling outside. Amelia, on the other hand, stumbled backwards and bounced off of one of the crates behind her, falling forward towards the open bay. An involuntary scream belted out of her lungs as she desperately tried to catch herself on the edge, barely managing to grab the lip of the deck as she fell over the edge and yanked her arm taught, dangling there by barely more than her fingertips like a weight at the end of a fishing line above the swarms of drones beneath her.

From where she hung, she could see more of the drones clinging fast to the underside of the ship, one of them in arm's reach. Some of them appeared to be securely fastened to the ship by some means other than their legs, and she noticed a few others at sporadic intervals firing some kind of bolt or rivet from the bottom of their domed bodies into the hull, fastening them firmly in place.

Starboard Cargo Bay

Amelia gasped and groaned when she thankfully found purchase, even though she figured it would be impossible to hold onto anything for long in that situation. She felt her arm burning with strain, and although it had every reason to make her let go, the swarm of synthetics beneath gave her all the motivation she needed not to do so. Her gaze slowly shifted to the bottom of the ship's hull, spotting the drones that had firmly embedded themselves against the ship, and realizing the danger they posed.

With a pained groan, the astrogator toggled the stun baton again and jabbed at the drone.

Starboard Cargo Bay

Amelia's stabbing at the drone proved to be little more than a nuisance to it at first, apparently, as the drone simply jerked and twitched at the shocks, twitching its legs one at a time in erratic patterns as if it were shaking water away. This one, evidently, was slightly better armored than the first. When it finally turned to face the threat, however, the astrogator's fourth jab caught it in the glowing red eye again, and instantly a bright white flash temporarily blinded her as all eight legs on the drone stuck straight out, and the drone dropped, landing upside down on the ground on top of two others, crushing one row of each of their legs.

Across the loading bay, Sienna held fast onto the edge of the threshold as the ship rocked again, driving her boot as hard as she could in the "face" of another drone that was cresting the aperture, knocking it free. She looked up in time to see the astrogator go over the edge, and she gasped in horror. She barely managed to bark out the first syllable of Amelia's name before she bolted off after her, with heavy, thumping steps running as fast as she was capable of in the oppressive environs, shoving her pistol into the holster on her thigh.

More drones were starting to emerge over the lower edge of the loading bay door as Amelia's fingers started to slip centimeter by centimeter. Just at the instant her grip failed her, Sienna dove headfirst, both hands coming in from either side and grabbing hold of Amelia's wrist as hard as she could. Her own weight combined with Amelia's added bulk slammed entirely down on the captain's chest, sending waves of intense pain rocketing through her torso, and then her knees hit, making her cry out and tears well up in her eyes as she grimaced. Still, though, she held fast, lying flat on her stomach, her head and shoulders hanging off the edge with Amelia dangling from her hands, pulling them both down on her ribcage and slowly squeezing the breath out of her.

"Tam, Oreza!" she strained to shout the best she could, her face bright red and veins starting to bulge in her forehead and temples. "Get aboard now! Six Four, help me!!!"

Starboard Cargo Bay

The astrogator's satisfaction at seeing the drone fall was short lived when she could no longer hold onto the ship. She felt her fingers slipping inch by painful inch until the sensation of freefall came and, for a fleeting moment, she felt herself fall towards the swarm of moving metal, closing her eyes as panic welled within her as she tried to brace for it, but when there was nothing, she simply opened her eyes to stare at the captain holding onto her hand.

With renewed vigor, as well as desperation, Amelia toggled off and threw her stun baton towards the open airlock and into the ship, then grabbed onto the captain's hand with the now free extra hand, while the one that Sienna was holding closed onto the woman's wrist.

Loading ramp
Shrie zipped up her bodysuit, when Six-Four was done. She could not even say thank you fast enough, before the freespacer rocketed out. The Fyunnen stood up, but her head was still a bit woozy from the bloodloss. She held onto a bulkhead and shook her head to gather herself. Then she walked out in hurried pace. From the various shouts and trouble she gathered that Oreza and that new man they were picking up, were still outside the ship so she headed to the ramp.

She saw the bots outside everywhere and looked for the too man as she sat on the edge and slid down, pain searing through the mended wound on her chest. She overcame with gritting of her teeth and hurried to the two man, wary of any bots along the way.

Tam looked at the tall woman who was heading their way and said "Can you grab him, I think his leg is broken and it would probably be easier for you to move him in since you're closer to his height." "I'm inbound, make sure nobody is in between me and the ramp, otherwise they may just get run over" Tam yelled as he sprinted at his full enhanced rate of movement.

Chaos Filled Cargo Bay

After the initial jerking of the ship, Six Four steadied itself before leveling its flamethrower at the opening again. As it prepared for another blast the doctor heard Sienna's cry out for help. Moving as quickly as it could Six Four 'bolted' to where the two were falling out of the ship and quickly grabbed the capitans leg. Using its augmented strength, which wasn't much really, the doctor began to try and pull the others back onto the ship or at least slow or stop them from falling out.

Outside - Ground beneath the ship

Oreza gnashed his teeth together, the crippling pain in his leg almost too much to bear as he rolled over, shoving the fallen drone off of his knees with another howl of agony. Another one came at him from the side, and with a savage swing of his mechanical arm, smashed his metallic fist squarely into the front of the spider's dome, reeling it backwards. Before it could stagger back too far, the big man grabbed it by one of the spindly legs, dragging it back towards him, and smashed his fist into it's "face" again. A shower of sparks erupted from its rusted-out seams, and the drone fell down flat.

"You two quit wasting time and get aboard!" he barked from his prone position, struggling to pull himself to a sitting-up position to better be able to fight off any other drones. Then he looked up, and a disheartened look crossed his face. He wondered if he would be leaving this rock alive.


Starboard Cargo Bay

The ship buffeted and rocked as if it had a pilot at the helm who was fighting tooth and nail just to keep from passing out from exhaustion, and it was only due to the rough surface of the cargo bay deck, the nearly doubled combined weight of the astrogator and captain, and Sienna's liberal amount of sticky sweat beading on her shirt and chest that kept the pair of women from tumbling out into the chaos less than ten feet below Amelia's dangling boots. Underneath the ship, the drones that had managed to cling to the hull after lift-off still stuck fast, hunkered down and patiently waiting for Crash to give up his maneuvering so that they could continue their appointed, and no doubt nefarious tasks.

Sienna's face was bright red and bulging from the effort of holding on, her teeth bared as she let out a long, strained, and continuous groan, her eyes held fast on Amelia's, wordlessly commanding her not to let go. It was then that she felt Six Four's spindly, mechanical digits lock around her ankle, and they started to pull. Unfortunately, it mostly just stretched the poor captain a bit taut, making it even harder for her to breathe than it already was. Even as she gasped for air and desperately pleaded with her fatiguing muscles not to give up on her, she strained as hard as she could to pull Amelia back inside. They weren't making much progress as they were; it was clear it would take a concerted effort from all three of them. And Sienna could barely get air into her lungs, let alone pass communications between the two.

To make a bad situation worse, three more drones slipped into the bay while they were sprawled out across the deck. Two of them ignored them entirely and skittered straight past them, to the inner airlock door. Each of them reared their forward legs up and mounted the wall, pulling their "bodies" close to either side of the hatch, and with a high-pitched whine instantly followed by the crackling sound of sparks and cutting metal, hot laser beams erupted from each of them and began to slowly remove the door.

The third one, closest to them, after what appeared to be a microsecond's calculation, made a beeline straight for Six Four. They had only a few seconds to decide what to do.

"I carry, you cover, yes," Shrie replied to Tam and headed for Oreza, trying to kick off any bot that would get too closer. She then reached down and tried to put him over her shoulders in her position for carrying wounded. The gravity and weight of the big man combined was tough, but if there was someone that could do it would be Fyunnen. Shrie gruffed, but she tossed the man on her shoulders, using her hands to hold onto him so Oreza's right arm and right leg were going over her shoulders. She heard sometimes that this was also traditionally used be firefighters in past. With Oreza on her shoulders she turned back and headed back to the ramp.

Outside - Beneath the Ship

Oreza roared in pain as he was lifted off the ground, but didn't fight it, instead clamping his teeth down as hard as he dared to bear through the agony of his broken leg swinging freely in the heavy gravity, as if it were tied to a concrete block, pulling the joint further apart. Tam sprinted past the pair as Shrie settled the first mate across her shoulders, and with feline grace the Gartagen sprang off the ground, managing to grab hold of one of the hydraulic pistons that actuated the lowered ramp hovering high above their heads.

Another drone scrambled in behind Shrie, and began to climb up her backside, using her as a ladder to get to the ship. The added weight put her off-balance, causing her to stagger backwards a step or two. At least six more drones were closing in around her, obviously planning to do the same thing.

Tam climbed the actuator and got onto the actual ramp, looked back and saw a combination of things, the drone climbing Shrie, the six drones looking to do the same thing, and a pair of feminine looking legs hanging from the side of the ship above them. He had a decision to make and chose to do the best mix of things he could, he drew his revolver and fired the full cylinder at the drones closing in on Shrie and Oreza and then turned to sprint through the ship towards the airlock that had the legs dangling from them since he thought the first mate and the new person would be able to at least wait, while the person hanging over a story above the ground needed helped up or they'd end up splatting into the ground.