RP: SFS Chapter One: Alistair's Remorse

Eli went into the mist, rifle raised, pursuing the facemasked, presumably hostile figure. He wasn't taking any chances - anyone with the presence of mind to find an emergency rebreather during an unannounced HALON discharge was a dangerous opponent indeed. If not to him, than to the ship, and in the vacuum of space, amidst the wreckage of a scuttled spacecraft, him being in a Hostile suit would matter little.

"Halycone, deh discharge didn't get ev'rybody." Eli said into the comms. "We got someone, manged to find a mask before deh HALON went off, seh yea. Be careful - and be on deh lookout for more."

He switched to his external loudhailer.

"You dere! I know you can hear me! Come out deh smoke with yeh hands up, and I guarantee yeh life!" Eli shouted, the suit easily piercing the din of the engine decks, "Anyting else, it's on your head!"

Beep shook the remaining hemosynth off of its giant fist, the bio-fluid splattering onto the floor as well as on its Chassis. The large warmachine's combat sense was a bit agitated , freeing the cat creature was the only thing that it had done combat wise and its logic sensors were wondering why that mode was activated. It was soon appeased however when Elway's report of hostiles on the decks around it were reported.

"Beep" it said enthusiastically as it wheeled around to face the rest of the group. "Are we going to engage the reported hostiles?"

Engineering

"I will be careful" Halcyone replied to Eli. "I also think I can make things easier for you" she added and went to a control panel.

"I will clear the HALON gas, those that have been knocked out will stay out for a while and this person can't hide if there is no fog." she said as she input commands into the panel and accessed the envyronmental systems. She set the command to cycle the air in the compartment.

As the system started cycling, sucking out the HALON fog and replacing it with clean air, Halcyone pulled a bundle of wire from an unimportant system and started tying up the incapacitated engineering staff, removing any weapons or communications devices or tools they might have as she went along.

Engineering
Eli's rifle stabbed through the clearing haze and panned across the wide compartment. There were some men still rolling on the ground with their hands over their faces or chests in a pile of assorted moans and coughs. As the room took shape thanks to Halcyone's efforts, it became more and more apparent that whoever had taken notice enough to put on a mask had hidden or escaped-- without a sound at that.

As Halcyone went about arranging the hacking piles of men into a much neater set-up, she began to notice something about these guys. They were in their normal coveralls, no environment suits or breathmasks on their belts. That is to say, they were certainly not prepared for combat of any kind. They didn't even seem to know they'd been boarded, whether it'd been kept a secret or just the result of Harmonious Solarsailor's quick gun work outside, the engineers had still been struggling to figure out just what'd happened when the halon flooded their compartment. On the other hand, the two sailors outside seemed to have known about the boarding attempt though indirectly. Serious questions could now be raised about just how much was being shared around this vessel.

Cargo
"I do not require medical assistance." Ilsa warded off the doctor with a dismissive hand while she slipped into her bodysuit. "And unless you possess hemosynth you couldn't offer it to me."

She huffed in annoyance at the doctor, and probably also at the others (nobody appreciates being called 'that thing') around her as she went about her purpose in arming herself. GP-13 Pulse pistols had long been out of use in their home nation. The military had banned them because they had a perpencity to cause too much damage to their targets, as if such a thing were possible. The next item was a war axe, which Ilsa gave a few practice swings before settling into a frog on the belt around her freshly-donned bodysuit. Finally, she was ready for war, and without any further encouragement from Eir she rose from the ground and darted off through the air ahead of the marines and straight for the rear of the compartment, and into the corridor beyond where Phase and Eir had disappeared to. At a certain point she stopped and settled on the ground in front of the marine and the 'Spacer, looking up at the cieling panels above her, and kneeling as if poised to strike at something between herself and them.

"Oh, hey," Thonmir interjected as he suited up just the same as the Neko. "I, uh, I'd like to just hang out behind the hulking metal monstrosities, if you guys don't mind-- I have no problem dusting assholes for you guys, but geesh, I've got to maintain my girlish figure and bullet holes are not flattering."

Black's voice didn't come over the airwaves again. He was watching them all, seeing how they reacted to these new developments, and in Harmonious Solarsailor he sat stock still leaning against the console with his hands spread over the bare metal and his eyes darting from helmet-cam to helmet-cam.

Corridor
Linda and Bricklet found themselves traversing an empty corridor in pursuit of the Free State liason. She sure managed to get far on those tiny legs of hers. The hallway narrowed and expanded as they passed unmolested between empty sleeping quarters and seemingly abandoned watch offices. For a freighter of this size, it was extremely unusual for an entire deck to be empty like this, but Elway's reports had only indicated one person who wasn't among the boarding crew to be outside of the engine room. Suddenly as they walked, the lights flanking either end of the corrider flickered and hummed before shutting off completely.

"Elway here," The report came in for Linda and Phase only, "I see you've hit some sort of power fluctuation. The hostile in the perpendicular corridor has moved away from the wall and is heading away from you now. I believe he may have activated an electronic trap of sorts. There's a lot of interference... I've also lost sight of the liason... Do you need support, Corporal?"

A world of colorless electrons riding the rails of memory. Hello, data. 'Hello, world.'
Alistair's vision blurred instincively as he connected his eye into the data terminal behind the Troll's cage. There was a new heat from his implant, a slightly painful yet farmiliar burn as he slid into a universe where nothing moved slower than he did and everything happened faster than the speed of thought. There were gifts awaiting him in this realm. Easily clambered software firewalls and packets of loose data meant to distract the amateur. Then, he noticed the first truest obstacle. The terminal he was accessing was part of an intranet, a network 'DMZ' (interestingly, in network security, this is a real thing) of sorts. This configuration was frightfully farmiliar, as it was a method used by the Deckers to track other hackers probing their networks by monitoring the data on this DMZ. And then there was the calling card. Daxton Wright had always gone by the username Daxron_Hex, and there is was printed on everything that wasn't part of the ship's normal network infrastructure. Alistair would remember Dax as a boy who'd once been just like him-- Daxton was an orphan who'd been taken in by the Deckers and outfitted with a similar implant, raised to be a hacker to torment for profit or outright steal. Unlike Alistair, Daxton had never felt offended by his forced purpose. He'd always taken pleasure in the hunt, and he regarded the Deckers as the only kind of family he'd ever have.

Highly-skilled, severely loyal, and stone-cold vicious, Daxton was probably the second worse Decker Alistair could've hoped to run into in this odd coincidence, and now Alistair was staring at an entire network of decoys, shells, and useless wall terminals set up by his former fellow-- and only one would lead him to the command override functions needed to take over the vessel remotely. Alistair could only guess what surprised awaited hidden within the outgoing ports of the others.

“At this point, Beep, we will engage every hostile that gets in the way of our objective. The Master Seargent reported that most of them are trying to jump ship. For now we can work with that. If the Commandant wants to pick them off, he can do so at his leisure. We were given our objectives; let's see them through.”

The situation had been shot to hell. Several times by now, in fact. Eir at this point wanted nothing more than to complete their objectives, consolidate the unit, and get out before anything else insane could happen. This obviously was not to be as the Neko went flying by her and suddenly stopped in front of Eir, leaving just enough room that Eir barely could halt her pace in time as not to plow the Neko under with the sure bulk and weight of her devastator.

It was time for Eir to seriously reconsider her circumstances. It was obvious that they were undermanned for the task ahead of them and, like it or not, Black had seen fit to unleash this Neko on their world and mission. It was time to start making use of battlefield assets and for now the Neko ahead of her was one of the few she might be able to make use of.

She stepped around Ilsa and knelt down, shield raised and weapon prepared behind it, acting as a bulwark between the Neko and whatever may come from the hallway ahead of them.

Softly, so that only Phase and Ilsa could hear, she spoke. “I am P3C Nygaard-Smith. We can sort over everything once the smoke is clear, but it sounds like we have the same goals. Let’s clear out the bastards, take the ship. Then we can talk the rest out. It will go quicker working together. Now, something above us?” Eir’s sensors had not alerted her to anything, but Nekos where born of a different stock with different tech; maybe she had become aware of something Eir was missing.

The monoeye flicked back and forth in the newly visible space. Whoever Eli had followed was gone - slipped away before the fog was cleared. Damn! Damn, damn, damn. Still, they'd secured the engine room. Their part of the job was mostly done.

Even then though, unsettling questions were being raised. Why was the crew so unprepared? Just why had there only been one man to grab a mask, shouldn't they have scrambled such things before the ship was under attack? The more Eli thought about it, the less he liked it.

He opened the general comms channel, and began to broadcast. "Bridge team, dis Engine Room team. Be advised, we secured deh engine room. Halcyone gonna shut dem engines down soon, seh yea. We had one presumed hostile escape, I repeat, one escaped hostile."

He paused, and took a breath. "Gon' stay in the engine room to provide cover for Halcyone and bind the knocked out crewmembers. After dat, we gon' rendezvous as planned. Engine room team, out."

"Halcyone, girl." Eli said again, this time to the spacer directly, "You did good. Real good. Get dem engines off and we'll re-join the main team. And good job on deh prisoners."

He looked to the orderly rows of stripped and incapacitated crewmembers, and sniffed.

"Why only one had a breathing mask? When dey ship been fired upon and boarded? Yeh tink den all deh sailors woulda had emergency gear on..." he blurted out. "Don' make sense, seh yea. I don' tink all of dem are in on whatever dis ship be up to..."

As Alistair entered the digital world, his instincts kicked in. He went through the normal procdures and entered the ships closed system. What layed in front of him was a mine field of useless data, and dummy terminals. Watching to see who would blindly dive head long into one of them. Then they would trap them. He looked around and saw who it was facing. Daxton. An old rivial in the Deckers. Where Alistiar denied and fought what they made him, Daxton thrived and flourished with the Deckers' help.

Alistair quickly scrolled through his list of protocols to see what would. He finally found the worm that could do the job. 'The Hydra' was designed to copy its self repeatedly and attack all the ports it ca get into. Effectively destroying the enemy mine field. He then deployed 'The Sentinel' which was designed to create and maintain firewalls to protect Alistair's firewalls. Finally he uploaded 'Bunker Buster' and 'Syphon' and set them on stand by while Alistair waited to find the actual terminal. "Bunker Buster' will blast its way through the enemy's security and open the way for 'Syphon' it give Alistair control.

"This is Alistair. I have started my cyber warfare attack. Please keep me covered, because this will take my entire consentration." He said to those left in the room.

Corridor

Linda grumbled under her breath as she headed down the halls in search of Cloudheart. The silence and absence of people was disturbing to her, but it was making her job easier at least, she'd rather not start firing until she found small freesapcer and was sure stray shots would not hit her. However the lights cutting off took her by surprise, she was so riled up that she had lost a considerable amount of her awareness and it took her several seconds to switch her display over to a night-vision setting.

She continued to walk as she listened to Elway and then let out a sigh as she replied "Assistance would be appreciated, I will try contacting her but I do not know how it will result." She kept her eyes peopled and her wits about her as she looked around more carefully now expecting a trap or ambush around every corner.

"Liaison Cloudheart, this is Corporal Nelson please respond. It is dangerous to move about the ship alone tell me your location." She spoke on a closed frequency hoping she'd be more ready to open up if the rest of the team was not listening.

Cargo Corridor

"I could just throw a concussion grenade into that vent, you know. I do hate wasting time waiting for things~" Phase said, monoeye focusing on the walking bioweapon in front of them. As if to leverage their point, the two drones popped from their hiding places on the Frame.

"Huh. . . somebody thinks they can blind my pet down the hall. What id~i~iots~"

Corridor Corridor
Bricklet was momentarily disoriented, but small dots along the hull glowed very faintly as it began sending sonic and infared pulses to map out the surroundings. The back of the walking hunk of metal slid open to reveal two racks of three octahedrons each. Drones.

The swarm lifted and buzzed with life, floating about the duo like a generic MMO's spell shield. They all trained their brightest lights on Linda. Looking for guidance?

Definitely not a corridor, Harmony
Phase spent their smaller half's time weaving and sewing together a new puppet. It began to look remarkably like. . . a pile of felt that wasn't finished yet.

Engineering

"Thank you" Halcyone replied to Eli's compliment as she went back to the engineering main control station. "Taking all engines offline. Once I do this, I will be the only one able to bring them back online" she said as she worked at one of the stations terminals, inputting commands that would disable every engine unit, locking them down and shutting down the main reactor, forcing the ship to switch over to it's backup generators, which, with loosing main power and all drive units, would render the ship totally disabled in space.

Once she was satisfied with her computer work, she went over to one of the primary control junctions, opened it's hatch and removed several key chips from the control system and pocketed them.

"That should do it" she reported and checked over all of the system readouts to make sure her handy work was indeed working.

Shuttle Bay
Below the cages and the crates and the deck plating and the cool people doing cool things there was a bustling group of mercenaries, former UOC Peacekeepers moving back and forth like busy little worker ants as they all prepared to depart in shuttles. This entire endeavor had been initiated before Harmonious Solarsailor had even began its attack. Unlike the slaver scum captaining the vessel, they'd had more than enough arrogant flaunting of power. Per the orders of Peacekeeper Chow, they now dashed straight for their shuttles to begin final take-off procedures while the boarding party was still getting organized. So far, everything had gone smoothly, and nearly everyone was aboard their particular shuttles. A service panel came open on one wall and Peacekeeper Chow emerged, removing his breathing mask. He tossed it to one side and strode purposefully across the bay, giving the shuttles a quick visual double-check. He frowned when his eyes fell upon, at the end of the neat little row of blue-painted brick-like craft, a massive hulking figure.

Lu-Fou Lang cradled the helmet of his black-market MINDY armor in an elbow and hefted his LASR-SLAG over a shoulder in a hands-full salute at the approach of his commander.

"What in the name of the stars are you doing in that thing?" Chow demanded, brow furrowing as he took it all in.

Lang bowed respectfully and replied, "Their boarding team is already moving for the bridge of this vessel. If they secure it too quickly, you and the men will not be able to escape."

"The men and I!?" Chow spat.

"Forgive my insolence, my lord." Lu-Fou holstered his massive Yamataian rifle and ran a gauntleted hand through his waterfall of straight white hair with a serene look. He gathered the whole of it into a bundle and coiled it into the helmet before sealing the helm over his neck and with lightning-fast speed and armor-assisted strength grasping his commander by the upper arm.

"What is the meaning of this, Lang!? I order you--" Chow was yanked from his feet and carried kicking and screaming like a child into the remaining open shuttle before being tossed lightly into the compartment.

"Only you can ensure the survival of our warband." Lang sealed and immediately depressurized the airlock in the shuttle, the immediately signaled the pilot to take off. As the shuttles peeled out of the bay one-by-one, he bowed respectfully in apology to his superior and whispered a tiny, useless prayer.

Inside the shuttle, as soon as Chow could peel himself from the floor and dash to the nearest display, he watched Lang with enraged eyes-- despising his most loyal retainer for the sacrifice he'd chosen to make.


Corridor
Linda and Bricklet traversed the now-darkened hall cautiously, but even with their incredibly fun night-vision capabilities, neither could find hide nor hair of the tiny ambassador they'd come in search of. As they paced onwards, there was a sudden burst of light and sparks from the right as a service box blasted open and tore into the both of them with hot light. Linda found herself on her side from the force of the blast, even in her armor. A soft target would've been shredded to bit, and the IPG agent was if anything lucky to be undamaged by the blast. Bricklet, on the other hand, hadn't fared as well. The massive robot went rolling feet over back like can turned on one side until it smashed into a wall, scattering fist-sized drones in every direction. Steam and smoke belched into the corridor amidst the sounds of distant girlish screaming and the clatter of heavy boot-steps.

Thaddeus Elway had not yet arrived.

On the Way To the Bridge
Ilsa pointed to the metal panels above them and replied to Eir with a stern voice. She seemed to be ignoring Phase for the moment, though she did mentally note the availability and potential use of concussion grenades. Ilsa preferred to get up close and watch her opponent's face when she killed them... But concussion grenades were admittedly nice.

"There are not large power signatures, like those found in your armor, heishi." She explained, "It's the signals I'm hearing. Communications. Wireless. Men are anxious, scared. But they're preparing for combat nonetheless. These are the kinds of warriors who fall first. I hate to admit it, I'm somewhat disappointed."


That Same World of Electrons and Light
yo

yo staircase why is there a kid with you guys? shes cute, hanging out with me now

An incoming message from the network administrator indicated clearly that, as Alistair easily slid through the cyber-defenses put up by his former cohort, that he was being watched. On the other hand, the overwatch was over something quite boring. Sure, the Hydra had narrowed the possibilities by quite a bit, but so many network nodes were unlabeled or poorly labeled even before Daxton had gotten his hands on them. Thousands of nodes glittered in the world of data, some going to climate control or lighting, others going directly to the waste disposal unit in the engineering section. As Alistair searched, the string of light that stretched from the ship's power-plant node to the engines winked and faded away before the engines themselves disappeared completely; Halcyon's manual shut down removing them from the network entirely.

Engine Compartment
Silence fell over the entire chamber as the engines which had already been set into idle came to a complete grinding halt. Only the distant quiet hum of the ship's secondary powerplant remained in the wide expanse of the engine room. Apparently, the bridge party had not yet responded to Eli's message. This was probably a good chance for Eir to do that, but who knows if DeathEvn even read the last Eli post. As it was, Elijah and Halcyone had only silence as their friend in the engine bay. Yup, everything was pretty much quiet.

'You son of a bitch.' Alistair thought as he read the message over and over. "All units this is Thorn, Cloudheart has been captured. I am trying to locate her now." He said aloud into his mic.

re: yo

I am coming for you. Tic toc tic toc

Alistair moved even faster now. There was a life on the line damn it. And he wasn't going to lose her. He deployed his largest worm possible. The 'Kronos' worm was designed to get inside a ships systems and slow down the reaction times of the systems. It would allow him to see commands sent from terminals all over the ship. If he was fast enough he might just spot the codes he was looking for. He then deployed another worm 'Artemis.' The hunter would follow the trail of the message that was just sent to him. Alistair knew that Daxton would not be dumb enough to send it straight from the command terminal. He would have it rebound through the multiple dumby terminals thought the ship. Finally, Alistair tried one of the oldest tricks in the book. He went and filtered all computers that were actively logged on as the Admin and prioritized them.

Along with Hydra, it shouldn't take much longer to find this son of a bitch.

Corridor

Linda pulled herself up after the blast, looking to bricklet and sighed, it'd have been nice have some back up. "Hey how are you holding up?" She spoke to the drone, uncertain of if it even had the ability to reply before it was thrashed in the explosion. She put the drone upright and did just a quick check before standing up. "If you're working, come follow me, but at a distance, so any more traps like that wont hit you." She scratched her head realizing she was talking to a likely unintelligent drone but then she turned and continued onward, that scream from before was not a good sign. Of course she kept her cool and did not rush on to battle, rather she rose her rifle and got ready for combat as she moved.

Like most Marines, Eir had been trained on how to fight Nekos. The training, though, mostly covered the big dos and don’ts in what they were capable of in combat, and how to put them down. Ilsa’s ability of being able to tap into their Tac network was a new one to Eir, but one she would be happy to exploit. The fact that their enemy seemed split and concerned was good news. “Any indication on what sort of weaponry they have, or how defense able their position is?” Eir directed the question at the Neko even as she stood up again, no longer directly using her body to shield the Neko, and began to once more take up a careful advance to the bridge. She gestured briefly with her weapon arm for the others to follow.

Eir swapped her com for a moment over to her teams, cutting external speakers for a moment to respond to the status update that Eli had provided during the chaos with the neko “ Understood Engineering team. We are still advancing to the bridge; no contact yet. Disable their engines if you can then join up with us , keep me updated on your progress. ” Eir was the sort of person who saved the 'good job's' for when a mission was completed, and as a after thought she added “Be careful.” She had no way of knowing at this point that making sure the engines stayed off was something already in the process of happening. It was good to hear that at least part of the plan was going very smoothly and they wouldn't suddenly find themselves being shot at by their own ship.

By this point there was a part of Eir that wished she would have had contact to report to the engineering team. As with most new soldiers, she still found herself seeking the thrill of combat. She wanted to once more feel that surge of adrenaline pumping through her veins and ultimately, to feel that resolution that came as the last enemy hit the ground and the danger had truly ceased. It was a trail for her to keep herself calm and measured as she made her way careful through the hallways of the ship, and even more so to keep these these feelings away from her squad mates for the moment.

Bricklet took a few seconds to analyze the situation, running lights blinking on and off as sensors sweeped around itself. After a bit of scrambling, it returned to its feet and from its relatively unmarked front popped something akin to a jaw on a stick. Bricklet picked up the few drones too damaged in the blast to fly with it and put them back in its bays. The rest of the drones flew back to Linda to assist.

Inside the bays, tiny mechanical arms worked furiously across the drone bodies to bring them back to full. Bricklet was, in essence, a walking forge.

~~~~~

Phase followed Eir's lead and leveled their totally-not-a-coin-gun at the potential enemies in their future. The bulky body seemed about ready for anything, though anything could go at this interval. Predictions would have to wait until a change in circumstance. Like getting shot at.

Corridor

"They're here."

Ilsa stood up from her kneeling position and darted forward flying above the ground as the elevator doors slid open at the farthest end of the corridor. It was a cargo elevator, wide-set with huge doors that admitted an outpouring of barely-armored men into the passage. They opened fire as soon as they saw the Nekovalkyrja blazing towards them, and some of them may have even hit her. Maybe. Ilsa's axe glimmered in the light as she slid through three of them and into the elevator box itself. A series of guttural shrieks escaped afterwords and the men who remained in the elevator were clearly being converted into cooked hamburger by axe and plasma pistol. Those outside the elevator quickly radioed for the call button on the next deck to be pressed and jogged away from the elevator as quickly as they could, diving past Eir and Phase's clearest fire-sectors and into the relative cover of the perpendicular paths in an intersection ahead.

It all happened so fast. At the end of the corridor, the doors to the elevator started to slide shut slowly with Ilsa still inside. A pirate with an axe lodged in his back began to make his last desperate bid for escape, dragging a trail of sticky red wet beneath him as he crawled on his stomach for the door, only to be grasped by the ankle and whipped against the wall of the elevator car with a loud and clear crunch. Ilsa reached up and grasped the hilt of her hatchet, peering at the other two in the hall through the closing elevator doors. While the doors sealed shut at last and the elevator began its ascent, a grenade angled out from behind the right-hand corner of the nearby intersection and bounced off the wall before rolling up softly just in front of Phase and Eir.

Oh shit, there's like another corridor, man.

"They're not here."

Elway's voice cut through the hiss and the smoke in Linda's helmet speakers, just above the distant roar of sudden combat. He was on the opposite end of the darkened corridor, kneeling next to a mauled corpse with his chainshort in hand. Standing, the other marine looked around in every spectrum he could, searching for any means of escape.

"It could be a hidden passage, or a secret elevator." He explained, his slow bootsteps silent despite the heavy weight of his stealth suit. "Do you see anything, Corporal?"

Engine Room

There was nobody there.

It was pretty peaceful in the engine room at this point. The engines were shut off, the ship was running wholly on back-up power, and all the crew men were subdued. Elijah and Halcyone could've set up a picnic and eaten without being molested, and nobody would've been the wiser. From the distance, the soft sputters of Ilsa's plasma pistol reached their ears. So far away, the action was happening. Here in the lovely engine room, though, everything was quiet. Nice, quiet, lovely, and all together boring. There wasn't much more to be said, but Lamb has a word count fixation and he intends to write a great deal about just how nice it was. Looking around, the two of them would be able to tell that the engine room was well-loved by its crewmembers. Before Harmonious Solarsailor had pelted the massive freighter with nuclear fire that hugged the ship with a sudden disturbing electromagnetic pulse, it seemed they'd been mostly relaxing. This was certainly no military engine room. Hammocks were tied along exposed conduit lines jutting out from the floor. A pair of upturned nineteen-liter buckets had been placed on either side of an empty plasma cutter storage crate, on top of which somebody had been really cleaning floor in poker. Chips were now scattered around the crate, and a sandwhich half sat sideways like a leavened pyramid on the tile beneath. A cigar had been extinguished by DCS and a thick, handrolled 'herbal' cigar had been stubbed out in the ashtray next to it. It was pretty homely, I guess.

Spires of Magical Electrons Dancing in The Digital Night

im here

im here waiting for you

you tic toc ass muthafucka

fuk u

Dax had always been good at talking dirty while he worked. And in between each message that blinked into his vision, a terminal shut down. Alistair's field was narrowed, and Daxton must've known he was trapped. In a last ditch attempt to leave it to the meat, Daxton had closed every active terminal one-by-one, and as Alistair's programs zeroed in on the admin terminal, it winked away. The bridge terminal was there, awaiting some noble digital knight to conquer it. It was like a dragon, however, because its command functions had been locked out. Manual override only. It could do nothing to the ship's systems (which had been rendered mostly useless by Halcyone and Elijah's quick work by this point), and likewise nothing could be done to it. The primary console would have to be manually overridden before the ship could be controlled by anybody again-- and before that could happen the entire network would have to be cycled.

Cargo Bay

"So, here we are."

Thonmir leaned on Beep like he was a peice of furniture, watching Alistair work with little interest. He wanted to check the kid out, eyeball him for bodily perfection and search for something to lust after, but the full power armor left most things to the imagination. Finding little pleasure in his imagination, the elf patted Beep twice on the chassis and asked, conversationally, "So, you, eh... You ever let people ride on top of you? Seems like it could be fun."

"Ain't nothin' left for us here Halcyone." Eli said, the armor turning his normally genial voice into a menacing metallic crackle. "Let's-"

Plasma fire? Just what was that noise?

"Bridge team, Engine team. We mopped up, moving back to you." Eli waved Halcyone on, a non-verbal gesture to get moving while he talked on-comms. "An' who is dat firin'? Sounds like plasma, seh yea. Engine team out."

Nothing left for them indeed. Spying the cigars, Eli briefly took his helmet off, his head almost comically small on the hostile's armored frame, and picked up the 'herbal' smoke, smelling it briefly. He screwed his face up, clearly displeased.

"Shame to see a someone smoke sumtin' so bad. Ain't nothin' but stems and seeds, awful ganja." He chuckled, and put his helmet back on. "Alright Halcyone gearhead-wonder-girl, let's get back to it."

He left the engine compartment, beginning the journey to the rest of the team on the bridge.

Alistair saw as the lights blinked out one by one, leaving himself in a vast darkness. He saw where the last terminal was and knew where he had to go. Executing Bunker Buster. His worm found the last open terminal and began slamming away at it's defenses. He then instructed Hydra to begin supporting the Bunker Buster. He finally inserted the last of his worms. The Athena program managed Alistair's worms and allowed him to leave the console and still have remote access to the terminal.

"This is Thorn, I found Cloudheart. I am on my way to get her. I still have remote access to the systems. Looks like I will need to multi task." He said cutting his transmission. He rifle and slammed a magazine home. Then did the same with his revolver and shotgun.

He turned to Beep. "Watch them." He said pointing to the Elf and Troll. His mono-eye turning from blue to a dark crimson. "I'm getting our girl back." He said as he sprinted of towards Daxton. That son of a bitch was going to pay for laying a damn hand on her.

Corridor 2?

Linda arrived as quickly as she could manage without being careless. Seeing that only Elway was there with some bodies, but no Cloudheart or the ones that took her. "I heard the sound of boots, it didn't sound like power armor, but it's possible they pulled her through an air duct or something....I don't want to believe they have something like this..but there is the off chance they have an in ship teleportation device." As she spoke she looked around for anything that looked out of place, like a slightly misaligned vent, or a discolored wall.

The Corridor in which a stealthguy, definitely not an undercover IPG operative, and a robot with questionable levels of intelligence reside

Bricklet began testing out pulses and frequencies. An electostatic pulse, infared, heat signatures, sonar - basically, anything to find a secret tunnel or room, like a madman with a cane rapping on a bar wall to find a speakeasy room. The drones assisted, flying around and tracing areas over with adorably small spotlights. Whenever they located the hole, Bricklet would make like space Lassie and do some charades routine to get Linda to open it. Or make the drones slice it open. Really, whichever seemed more appropriate at the time.

~~~~~~

The corridor where a nekovalkryja NPC decided to kill steal and take all the encounter XP, thereby leaving Phase and Eir to have to wait even longer to get to next level

Phase leapt gallantly into action. Which is to say, they boosted forward and left Eir to deal with the grenade, handing the rifle to their smaller pair of arms and equipping a whole one of the now-to-be-named Power Fists that they attempted to use in the previous mission to no avail. The bulky machine skirted around the corner, grabbing at the nearest solder's head with the POWER FIST and firing at his buddies behind him with the FPC, all while the smaller skirt arms twisted around and fired the Money Shot at the soldiers on the other side of the intersection.

Machine targeting and multiple directional sensors were the order of the day. Why didn't everybody use those?