RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 2] Little Problems

The revelation that the space suits needed for the actual job are woefully unequipped for it, didn't suprise Serra at all. The very fact the suits didn't have the o2 needed to even finish the job made her think. 'Did... they just say that anyone going outside in one of those things... was disposable?'

Her thoughs were interrupted by the now downtrodden Dream, this new attitude was not to Serra liking and she made it apparent with a furrowed brow. "I'll be right behind you Dream."

Dream stormed out of the room, marching ahead of the little group.

"This makes no godsdamn sense." She cursed, venting up her anger while stomping heavily through the corridors. "Technicians sent in a soldier squad, sending a soldier squad to do tech - no, automata's work, no respect for people, overriding universally-accepted rules, chaining us to a stupid chain-of-command dictatorial structure, restricting access to food and water some stupid way or another, wasting resources on expensive and useless toys and then treating them like they were.. they were... Some sort of PRIVATE PROPERTY or something, censorship, communication control, restricting the holy free flow of information, offenses on personal basis and general pettiness, fielding useless spacesuits... am I forgetting something?!" She raged in a crescendo of general angriness. "If this disaster of a space station were run entirely by the free state, the ones responsible for this mess would've been thrown in a Grinder a long time ago! Oooh, but I'm gonna give everyone here a piece of my mind as soon as we get the urgent stuff done!"

Before she left, Serra paused and looked at the nauseatingly smelling tiny Freespacer.

"Miss Peke." She stated with a grimice. "Where exactly is this stopped up pipe we're to clean?" She asked. Infact, this was probably the one thing noone knew about this job. They knew the problem, they knew what the problem is effecting, they just don't know WHERE it is.

"That's the weird thing!" Peke said as she watched Dream storm off. "Usually, there's a big mechanism that deals with these sorts of clogs that the chemical flush can't get rid of...like a big hammer thingy that goes BANG into the caked-up parts," Peke demonstrated by making a circle with her arm by crooking up onto her waste, then pushing her fist into the whole. "Cirrus doesn't have to use it, like, ever, because usually the chemical flush gets rid of everything."

"I know, because I put it in there myself whenever this station was built! But when I sent Goat in there to see if it was working properly...it was gone!" Peke's eyes widened as she flailed her arms around in exasperated surprise, so much so that the pair of goggled on her forehead slid forward onto her tiny nose. She immediately pushed them back up, however. "Gone! And me and Goat don't know how! Ad-Miester's Eyepods didn't see where it went! Casseyfine was really mad about that, especially when she found out this armory was also empty...but she still wants me to finish the A34 Connection Corridor, so she assigned you guys to fix the b-up problem, and maybe even find out what happened to the Unclogamazation Machine so that I can fix it when I'm done with the corridor!"

"She seemed really happy to assign you guys, though. Grinning a big smile!" Peke brightened up. "She must have big faith in your squad and their mechanical and cleaning skills...she wouldn't let me work on this even when I asked! And me and Goat are already behind schedule for the corridor repairs...we better get moving." Peke patted Goat's oversized arm. The giant voiceless automata leaned down and let the small Freespacer Administrator hop into the babies carseat bolted to Goat's hunched back, and the two of them clomped towards the doorway.

"So I better go. If you have any questions, ask you Savtechs...I'm having CONVOLUTION keep them updated, and I can give CONVOLUTION all the answers ya'll want! Laters Prettywing!"

And with that, the odd couple vanished. The smell, unfortunately, still lingered.

"..." Serra just watched the Automata and 'spacer leave. A look of annoyance on her face. "She didn't answer my question..." Serra muttered before she turned and followed after Dream and her posse.

As the stench wafted over Lucius, he wrinkled his nose. It was awful, but living in the same bunk room as dozens of sweaty marines had prepared him for horrendous smells.

He watched Dream handle the situation, trying to figure out how his XO's brain worked. It wasn't quite how he would have done it, but she was quick to come up with a plan. He decided to not object to her ideas and see how they worked out.

But.... What was that Peke said?

Peke said:

it was gone!

Click to expand...

... Just.... gone?

Peke said:

especially when she found out this armory was also empty

Click to expand...

Wait a fucking minute.

"Mimi. Kess." He called out, looking to the ceiling in general. "So this armory used to be filled with stuff?"

With their 2IC and her erstwhile assistants, that left one unenviable task. Deciding who went down into the treatment plant. He doubted that the big bastard that Cyril suspected helped get them into this position would be making his way down there, may he receive the Great Demon's attention for it. So, with the half the squad gone, and assuming that Sarge wasn't keen on getting himself covered him sludge and shit, that left... Himself and Ozzy. Wonderful.

As he looked down the ponging hole, wondering whether or not to take his arm off for this work, another thought occurred to him. There was a gaping security hole here, literally. It had been so blazingly obvious that it had only just twigged with him.

Holding up a hand, still looking down the hole, he added his own question for the two savtechs. "An', eh, carry'n on from that, why is there a 'atch in tha armory? Mean, ain't this suppose to be a secui'y area?"

Keziah said nothing as they left the armory. She retracted her helmet's face plate, breathing the clean station air, not polluted by the pint-sized 'Spacer. Following a little behind the other women (Did all the women on the security team just scuttle off to do this project, she mused, hiding a grin) she remained perfectly silent, intent on being a representative of the Nepleslian military to these three, no matter what.

James stood and listened as the drama unfolded. Apparently absolutley nobody knew what was going on except Admin Montreal, which made some small amount of sense, but not much. After all, what is the point of telling people to do something they don't know anything about?

Either way, James was not planning on going into that sewage system. Of course, he would be perfect for the job. James was small, quick, and no-nonsense kind of person. However, massive amounts of caustic chemicals and bad smells weren't his idea of fun. So he figured it would be best to stay behind. In fact, to ensure that he didn't have to do it, he broke his normal mold of silence to specifically request that he not go down the hole. It was probably a bad idea, but James didn't think of that right then.

"Sgt. Cyril sir! Permission to stay behing and guard the entrance sir? With all due respect, we don't need any nosey scientists poking around and making the situation worse."

It was poor logic, but it was all James had. He really did not want to go down that hole.

Kess looked over to Kess and Lucius and shook her head. Mimi also remained silent for a moment before running towards the door. "I shall accompany the others!" she stated simply, and disappeared behind the bulkhead.

"Well, it used to be. I know that much from the station structural and storage reports. Cassefin isn't giving the Savtechs many details about this, because it isn't our business. I would assume she moved them herself...but Peke sure didn't make it sound that way. So I'm not sure."

Kess then turned to Cyril. "Well, don't quote me on this, but if anyone was willing to trudge through the sewage processing plant to get to this room, then they deserve what little they could take from here. Cassefin has sentry and cameras all over the processing plant...and not to mention walking through the tubes exposes you to all of the very sharp and dangerous processing mechanism. Like Peke's stupid-ass hammer, which is apparently gone. Probably broke off or something."

After a relatively short and stormy walk, the small team reached the shuttle hangar. Amusingly enough, most of them were Nepleslian crafts, smooth and homogeneous, or at least similar, with the odd 'spacer shuttle thrown in from time to time.

Dream reached one of those. A ten meters long, five meters wide asymmetrical mass of metal hammered and welded together, and painted over in the weirdest of ways. It looked a lot like what you'd get by throwing a junkyard in a trash compactor and then spray-painting it at random.

"Here we are." She said, pulling a lever that had been hidden up to that point in the sparling mass of chaotic metallic protrusions on the craft's side. A hatch opened. "This is the Resplendent Herald of the Star-Winged Smile. You probably don't remember it, Tweak, but it's the shuttle that carried us here."
She looked at Tweak, then at Serra, then at Keziah. "...Since it's cramped inside, and, well, radioactive, maybe it's better if only I and Tweak get in to grab the Junkers' parts. You have no problems lifting half a tonne, right?" She asked Tweak, casually.

"You wait us here, we'll bring the parts out and assemble them here together." She said sneaking in and pulling another lever on the inside (which consisted otherwise in little more than a small room with the bastard child of a hospital bed and an assembly plant's workbench laying square in the middle, a wall completely overgrown with colorful and exotic freespacer flora, and a hole in another wall just large enough to allow a small-framed humanoid to crawl inside).
A hatch popped open, revealing four slices of what would probably be a robotic-looking sphere with a diameter of about half a meter once assembled. There were also other parts laying around, from large mechanic legs vaguely similar to those of a spider, to smaller pieces that looked like circuits and control bits and whatnot.

"Get the parts of the main hull, I'll carry out the lighter stuff." She said to Tweal, grabbing one of the legs, lifting it heavily and slinging it over her shoulder, then filling her hands with all the smaller parts she could carry and walking out of the shuttle to where the others were waiting.

Tweak looked at the metallic monstrosity and slowly shook her head. That brought her here? Then the appropriate page of her notebook came to mind, with a short summery of the trip over and a sketch of the 'ship'. Tweak shook her head again, this time out of amazement.

At Dream's question concerning Tweak's lifting capacity, the neko looked at the diminutive 'Spacer and nodded. "I can handle that," she said with a slow smile. While her memory was unreliable day-to-day, Tweak's hardwired programming included details on her abilities and limits. "What do you need?"

It doesn't take a genius to know that going into a small unsecured hole in what is supposed to be an armor where a rather dangerous machine has gone missing stinks of shit, both figuratively and literally. Regardless, Ozz was prepared to jump in. He wouldn't admit it, but a part of him wondered about what was going on down there, a large enough part to make him alright with jumping, preferably feet first.

Ozz was always curious. He always had know, had to figure things out. Coincidentally, its probably the reason he gets in the most trouble.

Either way, he heard Cyril's timely and appropiate question along with Kess's response.

"So, you're saying that a gaping security risk was left because to getting to it was difficult? Not to be rude, but I think the fact we're standing here means it wasn't -too- hard." he added.

Then he asked, "Is there anyway we can find out what exactly was in here? If there are weapons loose on this station, I'd like to know what I have a chance of facing down in that dark smelly hole."

Dream pointed at the four segments of metallic sphere in the hatch. "Get those outside, please." She said. "I'll carry the lighter stuff."

A normal neko's maximum ground carry load ranged from 1850 to 4100 lbs...anywhere from just under one ton to just over two tonnes, depending on the model. Tweak was an experimental type, and her limit was somewhere between the two. She could have carried out three, almost four, at one time. But two would be all she could handle safely since the pieces didn't seem to be very easy to stack. She'd only be able to hold one in each hand.

"Alright," Tweak said, half to Dream and half to herself, thinking for a moment before she went in. She lifted a pair of the sphere segments, getting a good grip before carrying them out. She set them down carefully, making sure no one had any toes, fingers, or limbs underneath when she let go. The pieces hit the deck with thumps worthy of confirming their weight. Then she returned to grab the other pair.

Keziah stared as the green-haired 'Spacer hauled those heavy spheres out of the shuttle. One in each hand.

Half a ton.

Each.

Rainbow had asked the green-haired woman calmly, almost as an off-hand question. Keziah understood cybernetics to some degree, and she knew the Freespacers experimented with it to a far, far greater degree than Nepleslians. But... that shouldn't have been possible. Even so easy, as the 'Spacer just dropped the spheres on the deck and went back in to retrieve more.

Tentatively, Keziah walked over to one of them, and grabbed it on an edge tightly with her right hand. Mentally, she engaged the military-grade synthmuscles, and pulled--

And barely pulled it an inch off the deck.

She dropped it, and it hit the deck just as loudly, as solidly as before. "Fuck," she whispered, backing away from it and rubbing her wrist.

TBonDc said:

"So, you're saying that a gaping security risk was left because to getting to it was difficult? Not to be rude, but I think the fact we're standing here means it wasn't -too- hard." he added.

Then he asked, "Is there anyway we can find out what exactly was in here? If there are weapons loose on this station, I'd like to know what I have a chance of facing down in that dark smelly hole."

Click to expand...

"You are in here because your superiors want you to be. That's the difference here," Kess said with a tiny smirk, obviously amused by this little fact. It quickly vanished as she addressed Ozz's question, however. "You can find out by going down there, if you like. The processing mechanisms have been halted for the moment because, if you don't recall, the stupid unplugger is missing. The most you face, if you keep your helmet ON, is an unpleasant few hours down there. Security cameras at the plant are not seeing anything out of the ordinary."

---

Throughout the Cirrus Station, a small chime rang through the intercom system, accompanied by a short fanfare. Many of the station's personnel began to exclaim confusion by this sudden turn of events...but their worries were quickly alleviated (or amplified) when Cassefin Montreal's voice called cheerfully from the speakers.

"Good morning, Cirrus Station Personnel! This is Head Administrator Cassefin Montreal, and I am taking this moment to inform everyone that our wonderful station will be making it's first full-scale Vogel hyperspace jump into the Nepleslian Colonial Expanse in a matter of minutes! The process is instantaneous and almost completely of any turbulent distress whatsoever. Those of you whom are not on duty at the time of the Vogel Jump are welcome to accompany me at the Grand Atrium to view the transition via volumetric immersion! Those of you whom are not able to make the viewing, your efforts are appreciated and you need not worry; many more Vogel-scale jumps are planned for our near future. Thank you, and have a wonderful day."

"Ooo-kay, this should do the trick." Said Dream (completely ignoring the announcement), sitting down on the floor beside the disassembled Junker and motioning to Serra, Keziah and Tweak to come closer. "Ok, my best guess is that none of you has ever seen a Junker, or any piece of 'spacer tech up close for that matter... well, except Tweak, but you probably forgot." She started to explain, pointing at the disassembled parts. "Anyway, it's really simple. Over here, here, here and here we have the motivational circuits. Those lines are used to route power through the mainframe, so help me hold this down and bend this part over, so that we can screw it in..." She started explaining.

Apparently the (relatively) small, spherical droid didn't have a central processor, or a central anything: every possible part or component was present in multiple, redundant copies scattered around its frame. Technically, it was a nightmare: tubes, cables, power lines, gears and belts all over the place. Seen from the inside, the droid was as chaotic as anything freespacer.
However, it was also very simple. No force fields, nothing really hi-tech, nothing excessively miniaturized or fragile: it was entirely made up of massive, solid, reliable, low-tech components.
Everyone of them would have probably been able to reassemble it by her own, in less than ten minutes, even without Dream's directions. The weight would have probably been a problem, but it was probably designed to be assembled in zero-g environments.
It turned out to be sorta arachniform, a colorful sphere with four heavy metallic legs, a large lens (probably a visual sensor) on a rail, allowing it to look all around without turning its body, a couple of mechanical tentacles and a dizzying variety of built-in tools, from cutting lasers to a huge bolt driver to just about anything else.
Also, apparently it didn't have an "on" switch: The droid came to life spontaneously while they were assembling it, Whizzing and looking around with its single rail-mounted eye. Thankfully, it didn't move, except for some tentacle-wriggling.
"Good, good boy, let us finish here first, 'kay?" Said Dream patting it on the... well... head? top of the hull, anyway, like it was some kind of pet. "Oh, yeah. I'll have to link him up with the station's database, so that he knows how the place should be and doesn't change, fix or rip apart anything." She added in a casual tone, pulling a cable from the innards of the Junker and plugging it somewhere behind her right ear, in a port hidden up to that moment by her mane of thick hair.

Also, while assembling it, the colorful scribbles on its frame came together, revealing that it had been spray-painted with a pattern of countless colorful and exotic flowers.

"Junker droids are autonomous. They have animal intelligence, although they behave a lot like insects. Social behavior and all that." Dream explained. "Also, this is the first time someone activates Flower after his post-production memory-wipe, so I guess he sees us as his mothers, now."

Flower wagged his tentacles, sliding his optical sensor around to take a clear look at the four of them.

Dream giggled.

"...Please tell me again why I'm doing this." Keid was hunched over and sitting down with a random technician perched on it's shoulders, holding up a box of tools to where the techie could reach them more easily without having to step down from a ladder to get them. Ever since the little introduction by Cassefin, the automata had felt that her stuffy personality had somehow rubbed off onto him, almost making the poor thing feel claustrophobic. And journeying away from the group, throughout the space station, the automata was taken by some strange technician to help him fix something on a shuttle, and was lured by promises of fun times and by the promise of premium hair care products if the automata did a good job.

And now, used as a replacement for a common step ladder, the automata had begun to regret it's decision. "Just please do not step on my hair. It is holding onto my head by waves of sorrow emitting from my body, sorrow that comes from not having actual hair. You would think that such intense remorse would intensely hold such a magnificent hair piece onto my head, but this is not so. Instead, hastily-bought glue holds it on, and even the slightest disturbance to it could cause it to fall o-" In anger at hearing this automata bitch and wine for so long, the technician simply reached down and tore the afro off of poor Keid's head, throwing it somewhere where Keid couldn't find it.

A horrible, horrible move.

More concerned for finding the location of his hairpiece, the automata quickly got up, dropped the toolbox and ran off, causing the technician to fall off his shoulders and right onto the toolbox. The technician's well-deserved pain, however, was not serious. He had merely fallen right onto an open toolbox, and only the box's edges proved to be painful, especially the sharp corner that his genitals made contact with. Ouch. The technician's breath increased, a sharp pain snaked it's way up from his stomach to his back, and time warped. Later, when the technician would ask his co-workers how long he was down for, they would say he was down for 10 minutes, in contrast to his remembrance of the event, which to him lasted a mere 10 seconds.

"MYYYYYYYYHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!"
The automata screamed, as every heavy footfall echoed through the relatively quiet shuttle bay, only to be lost in the engine wash of a shuttle taking off. The engine wash of the shuttle served well to blow the wig afro away, and the automata ran throughout the bay, running people over and trampling over countless feet in order to get it's hairpiece, so cruely taken from him by yet another horrible meatbag.

A few minutes later, Keid sat in a corner of the shuttle bay, it's enormous body barely hidden by what appeared to be a "fort" made up of several tool cabinets. No technician dared to lay siege to the automata, hunched in the corner and delicately picking debris out of his little hairpiece, for fear that they too might face bodily harm at his unknowing hands.

Cyril just shook his head at the savtech's reply. It was, he was starting to notice, an increasingly common story on this station. It was almost as if control of the station and it's design had been given over to someone who was only marginally connected to reality. Possibly with the Great Demon as their chief adviser.

Well, it was likely that he was going down there, one way or another. And, given his luck, would likely have to crawl his way through a tube full of sludge no bigger then his torso. Even if, by some miraculous coincidence, he managed to avoid crawling around through more of the piping then whoever his partner wound up being, it would still be close. Between the two armored individuals and the droid, assuming that it even worked, it would be hard to move, at least from what he could see looking down the hatch.

Well, his mechendrite would be strong enough to aim the hose if he had an arm to hold it up, so he could do something about the close space. Beginning to take the upper armor plates off of his suit, he turned to the sergeant.

"Sah, I'll go down. Got some s'perience 'long these lines." Taking off his beret with his tail and setting it on one of the empty shelves. He then sat down on a convenient surface, pulled the undersuit off of his left arm and began the process of detaching the bionic from its socket.