RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 7] It's All Fun and Trains

"Shotgun!" Noboru shouted, pulling on his helmet as he stepped forward onto the catwalk, smirking and chuckling in a fashion similar to Method's, except less manic and more excited. He took up a station near the crane and looked down the tunnel before turning back towards the platform and nodding confidently. "I'll see you all in a few," he said over the SQUADCOM before returning to his console and figuring out how the crane worked.

He pulled a lever first and watched the crane's hook drop. He pushed it forward and watched it ascend. He took hold of a second lever and pushed it forward, and the crane extended, pulled it back and it retracted. He pushed a few buttons and watched it crank slowly to the left, then a few more and watched it crank right. Another button and the crane neck went up, then another and it went down. He reset the crane and waited obediently.

"If it's a network malfunction, nothing." Keziah half-smiled at Claire, trying to strike a balance between being professional, and being her lover. "But if it's not a virus, or sabotage, then it's hardware. And what better way to fix it than knowing what went wrong?"

She turned to Sean, nodded at him, then looked to Widgethead and Noboru. "You three get to play 'hook a tram'. If possible, bring it to a stop, but don't damage it too much." Keziah grinned. "Everyone else, across the station!"

She walked to the edge of the platform, and hopped down into the track. "Mimi, can you access Tram 1's operation logs and see what happened just before it stopped reporting?"

Claire gave Noboru an odd look. "Stop messing around with that, let the tech chick do her thing with it, just make sure no one bugs her while she does her job." On that note, "Did you hear her, sweetie?" She was, of course, talking to Widgethead. Claire was no engineer, so she decided to go along with Kaz. She was undoubtedly trying to do a good job of her new position and she needed her team to support her. And she planned on doing exactly that.

As she jogged over to join her captain, she glanced over her shoulder at the Elysian, "Hey Serra, come with us, won't you? If we have the chance to board the tram, we might need you to see if ya can't stop it or slow it down at least."

Sean smiled, and jogged his way onto the train. "Shall we get going then? Never was great at these games, so I guess you can take this one." He grinned over at Noboru. "Feeling lucky today?" He bounced up and down a bit, then leaned over towards Method. "I get the feeling this is a bit urgent, so let's get this train going."

Serra wordlessly nodded to Claire's request. "I will do my best." She said, as she jogged up to meet the two. "Trams are something new to me, but a machine is a machines. I doubt it would be too complex."

"Pretty sure I've seen a movie like this..." Stovaa pondered aloud. Keziah's orders brought him back down though, and he took a running jump across the tracks, landing just on the edge of the far platform. He hauled himself up, dusted himself off and helped anyone else up (if they needed it).

For some reason, he was full of beans today and overly eager to get something done. "So what, the plan is to pull alongside it and haul people off and onto our tram while it's moving, while the repair tram hauls it to a stop?"

Liam said:

"If it's a network malfunction, nothing." Keziah half-smiled at Claire, trying to strike a balance between being professional, and being her lover. "But if it's not a virus, or sabotage, then it's hardware. And what better way to fix it than knowing what went wrong?"

She turned to Sean, nodded at him, then looked to Widgethead and Noboru. "You three get to play 'hook a tram'. If possible, bring it to a stop, but don't damage it too much." Keziah grinned. "Everyone else, across the station!"

She walked to the edge of the platform, and hopped down into the track. "Mimi, can you access Tram 1's operation logs and see what happened just before it stopped reporting?"

Click to expand...

The access bridge directly in front of the stopped Tram 2 extended, allowing Keziah and her team access to the other platform and, eventually, Tram 2 itself as they passed by curious onlookers, a little shaken and a little frustrated at their ride being prematurely halted. However, none of the tram patrons were CSS...it looks like Squad 35 would be flying solo for the moment, at least until more security teams began to respond to this distressing situation.

The inside of the tram's front car was about as bare as the rest, consisting of empty cushioned seats lining the sides while bars and woven handles dropped from the ceiling in the center of the car. Near the front and back of each car was a simple metal door with a small circular window which lead to the next tram car.

The front of the first car was occupied by a section of controls hooked to a large ceiling-mounted computer grid. While the controls appeared to be operational through external, human means, the large computer above the controls was apparently very much adept at piloting the transit system and listening to Squad 35's orders.

Mimi's form, which disappeared from view as Squad 35 mounted Tram 2, reappeared inside the car, a small blackened glass globe on the roof in the center of the car shining brightly. The device must have been Mimi's volumetric projector, usable by the station Savtechs as well as for personal use as a volumetric screen messenger system. "That's the thing...Tram 1's Conductor isn't responding at all. Logs from external memory simply say that Conductor 1 was running regularly scheduled trips from the Robotics Research Facility to the Chemical Labs when the connection was simply lost."

Mimi nodded once after she delivered her report on Tram 1. "The Conductor says that we are ready to go when you are. What are your directions for him?"

Method fidgeted as her passengers boarded the tram. So slow come on hurry up hurry up hurry up we don't have all day! She bounced from foot to foot, then started the train almost before Sean had fully gotten on it. She gunned it forward as fast as it'd go, taking one hand off the controls to point dramatically forwards. "ONWARD!"

...after a pause filled with the tram's noise, the freespacer spoke again. "...so what are we supposed to be doing? Do we hook the hook onto the other tram?"

For its size, the Crane Tram was surprisingly speedy and accelerated at a rather remarkable pace, nearly jerking the three passengers straight off of its top. Mimi's image could be seen at the very end of the terminal as they sped off into the tunnel, shouting out words of good luck as they quickly moved out of view of the terminal and into the long, slightly curved tram tunnels. The Savtechs had no volumetric access to the tunnels themselves; the three brave volunteers would have to make do without their trusty, smiling Savtech.

The clatter and scrape of metal upon metal sounded out below them as they sped on, the soft glow of the distant stars pouring in from the rounded clear Durandium plating above their heads separating them from the cold vacuum of Nepleslian space.

"Yep, then put on our brakes, and hope that it stops. Hope really hard." Sean smiled. Despite almost losing his standing position, he was still having fun. This was a bit more, ah... 'exciting' then his work usually was. "So, if you can think of any way to increase our brake power, or at least make sure we don't go flipping when we do so, it would be greatly appreciated, since the extent of my knowledge is 'get everyone to the back of the crane'."

"And if the brakes don't work, throw it into hard reverse and wrangle it to a stop." Noboru said, still memorizing the layout of his crane console. This button makes it go out, this button brings it back in. Simple enough. He braced himself on the rail of the Crane Cart and looked out down the tunnel, searching for Tram 1, one hand always hovering over the control console.

Himiko had quietly followed everyone during this turn of events. She had retied her green hair into a single ponytail. The Yamataian had purposely kept to herself since she had almost no idea what to do if someone asked her to actually do something. Maybe they've forgotten about me..? she wondered to herself as she followed Keziah across the station.

Stovaa said:

"So what, the plan is to pull alongside it and haul people off and onto our tram while it's moving, while the repair tram hauls it to a stop?"

Click to expand...

"We pull up, evacuate, and hopefully the others can crane it to a stop." Keziah said to him, slipping into the tram and taking a quick look around. Nothing useful, but also nothing noticeably wrong. If this one were to go haywire, though, they'd need a way to stop it. Emergency breaks, manual overrides, something like that should be around.

She looked to Serra, hopeful. "Could you see if you can figure out the tram controls. If you can disconnect the engineer entirely, that would be wonderful, but only after you're certain we can keep up with the runaway."

Keziah breathed out quietly. "Mimi, instruct the engineer to start moving in reverse, but keep speed to a minimum. We'll only go ahead to match speed once we can do it manually."

Stovaa would be good for muscle, tearing into the other tram and rescuing everyone in true Nepleslian, ID-SOL style. Claire and...

She quickly snapped her helmet shut again, bringing up the HUD and the squad tags. Himiko.

"Himiko, Claire. See if you can find an emergency stop switch. And tear stuff up, too. We might need to build some bridges." Keziah opened her helmet, and grinned at them, then turned to their resident ID-SOL. "You too, Stovaa. I have no idea just how far we'll need to carry people, or how many."

As soon as Keziah gave the order, the tram Squad 35 was on began to creak back to life, the screech of scrapping metal ringing out from beneath the underbelly of the car as the tram began moving in the direction it had came. The speed picked up a short bit before coming to a plateau, keeping a constant slow chug as it plodded along the track.

---

Meanwhile, the Crane Tram would see something in the distant, slightly curving tunnel in front of them...it would appear that they had finally caught up to the Runaway Tram 2. Although they were far from possible capture distance, the small speeding figure was steadily coming closer as the maintenance tram chugged along.

As the Crane Tram and its three passengers closed in the length of the two speeding vehicles, the distant Tram 2 suddenly released a small mass of wriggling garbage from beneath the car itself which settled directly in the center of the track. As Method, Noboru and Sean neared the discarded hunk of teeming metal they would be able to easily make out its composition; from the looks of it, a large handful of junkers that had been holding on for dear life underneath the carriage of the runaway tram had finally become unattached...and they didn't seem to realize the danger of the incoming cart and its three passengers.

"Oh, dear Maker..." Noboru stammered, suddenly in awe of the huge pile of 'Spacer robots dumped on the tracks in front of the maintenance tram like a pile of fate's steaming crap. He took a few steps back from the railing, then shook as they took another sudden, slight bend, and immediately gripped the rail again.

"Uhh... Method? Can you tell those things to move by doing that mindlink thing or something?" Noboru half-shouted, half-pleaded, desperation in his voice.

"Good idea!" Method hollered, above the din of the cart and the robots that had fallen onto the tracks. Accessing Polysentience was as natural as breathing, and she sent a message to the junkers - Move, move, rescue mission underway, you're going to get run over and that would be bad! Despite the imminence of the crash, she didn't even bother to slow the cart.

"Gotcha, ma'am. I'll go find something non-essential to tear up," said Stovaa, turning to head to the back of the tram, eyeing up walls and seating as he went, looking for something strong yet not part of the structure. After browsing up and down, he settled on the internal tram doors and began pulling them out, reasoning that they'd be the strongest thing that wasn't holding the damn roof up.

When he got one, he moved it to the front car and stood it against the wall outside the control room, then went back and tore another out. Nostrils flared, veins bulging and heart pounding, he enthusiastically tore each one out crudely out of their holdings, delighting in his work.

Method's access to the station-wide Freespacer Polysentience gave her limited connection to the Cirrus' junker hives. Although the erratic Freespacer drones were not advanced enough to hold a conversation with Method, she did receive many mixed signals returning back to her, simple one-word messages of each Junker's current 'agenda'. The answers Method sought from the junkers were numerous, single-minded and undeniably unanimous amongst not just the ones on the track in front of her, but all nearby junkers as well.

"Dismantle."

The mass of junkers on the track, not budging despite Method's convincing argument of the speeding crane car, collided with the underside of Method, Noboru and Sean's ride in an enormous shower of sparks and flying parts. After a moment it became obvious that not all of the junkers had been destroyed in the collision; seven of smaller ones, each one roughly the size of a large dog, skittered up from the bottom of the car. Strangely enough, the junker drones immediately set about scratching and clawing at the crane tram's engine. One of the larger drones of the six ignited a small welding torch meshed into its belly, no doubt anxious to utilize it on the steaming engine.

---

While anyone else would have found tearing the very doors of the Tram from their sliding hinges to be an impossible feat, Stovaa had apparently found a way. The doors he had decommissioned from their original purpose held no structural properties to the tram itself, the only change in the car being a less-than-dangerous hole (given that their current speed was at a minimum) and a rather pleasant draft.

"No! No! Baaaaaaad Junkers!" Noboru shouted, goggles flashing briefly as the soldier turned and raised his CSS Variable Weapon and let loose a burst at one of the Junkers. Clinging to the railing with one arm while firing the VW with one hand was a tricky feat in itself. Add to that the juddering and jerking of the cart as it hurtled down the tracks and Noboru's aim was very shaky indeed. He fired three shots before bracing his aim against something sturdier and clinging tighter to the railing, then fired three more shots at the Junker with the welding torch.

Though he would never admit it out loud, Sean most definitely agreed with Noboru's spoken sentiment. However, rather then using his standard issue CSS-VW, he opted for his much more familiar SiZi 79. Utilizing his natural ambidexterity, he drew it out of its holster with his left hand, anchoring himself with his right before sighting down the barrel and firing single shots at the visible junkers.