RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 8] That Sinking Feeling

Being the tallest of the assembled people, Serra bent down and scooped the rifle up and raised it to Nell.

"Just don't forget about us in here."

Kokuten sighed as he stood up and backed up against a wall, crossing his arms. Mainly, this was just to find some stability against all the tremors shaking the elevator. It was frustrating to see that they were once again in harms way. Back on the Alliance, it was just like this. Ambush after ambush of problems. Feh, I should be used to this.

"Perhaps we can get this elevator working while our Unique friend here links up with her unit." Kokuten said, flexing his shoulder muscles, which was then internal signal to start the generator within his left arm with a noticeable buzzing noise. "If I can summon up enough power in my my arm, we could likely move this elevator to a floor where we can retrieve Administrator Popjoy. Then, we could ascend to the surface, locate the Head Administrator's shuttle, and make for extraction back to the station." He moved over to the elevator's panel, and looked back at one of the many engineers at his disposal. "Would one of you like to assist me in this endeavor?"

Claire looked incredulously at Kokuten. "Sir, with all due respect. Why the hell do you think that we should stay here in a confined space, where a previously known entity who has tried to kill us before knows exactly where we are. With all the chaos going on, at least someone should try to slip by and see what's going on. If we stay here, we're pretty much dead if whatever assailant is about finds us. We are nearly defenseless as we are." Claire was completely and totally against sticking around for the uniques to come back after finishing whatever they were attempting to do away from their eyes.

Kokuten looked back over at Claire for a moment, receiving her transmission. He tilted his head at her and the responded after shutting his visor for a moment.

"I'm thinking you missed the part where I said we make the elevator move while the Unique is gone."

Claire seemed to be even more frustrated by Kokuten's continuation. "And it's not on lockdown already? You'd have an easier time just getting out of the car and climbing the ropes." Perhaps it was a lack of confidence in the squad's engineers getting it done fast enough. Perhaps it was her not trusting anything that was supposedly in control of the uniques to actually work with them, even tinkered with. Or maybe she just really, really wanted out of the elevator car. Whatever reason, she looked about ready to bail out regardless.

"Ah! Climbing the ropes! Excellent idea!" Kokuten said with clarity as Claire began to question his actions, a different thought popping into his head. "Most elevator shafts employ a maintenance ladder, we can climb that if there is no luck to be had with my idea." The glow behind his mask intensified considerably and he gave the women a firm thumbs up. "In fact, do that for us real quick, will you? Checking for a ladder, I mean. It may be our best bet to move in between floors."

"How about I do it instead?" Noboru grunted, looking up at the cieling of the elevator. "I mean, I reckon I could get up there sharpish."

The Yamataian looked at the little gap Nell had just slipped out of. He was rather heavy, but he reckoned if he sucked his gut in he could slip through the gap. If he tried really hard. His thoughts seemed to stall for a moment, taking a fast boat out to Imagionationland, with no chance of returning any time soon. Luckily, Noboru managed to revoke the ticket his mind had taken out and drag it back into Realityville.

"I'll get on it as soon as possible. Claire can go too, if she likes."

"How about nobody do anything stupid. Like climbing up an elevator shaft." Serra muttered, raising both arms up. "This situation should examined and then handled in the most expedient way possible, and since engineers outnumber the marines, let us try and do something first."

"Alright then, Claire, Noboru, recon the elevator shaft real quick and see what we have up there." Kokuten nodded to the two of them, pointing up t. "One of you assist the other up, and see what you can find that would be of use to us. At best, a surface exit will be useful if we find ourselves in a situation where we can't use the doors." With that said, he turned to Serra, and pointed to her and then back to the panel he was fiddling with. "Ms. Evangelle, if you would, assist me in configuring the panel on the wall, so that we can try to get this elevator moving." With that, he turned, but then gave the situation some thought. The Elysian engineer tended to have her own ideas, which likely, she may have been having one then.

"Unless..." Kokuten started, looking over his shoulder, the glow's shifting showing that he was looking at her. "You have your own approach as well?"

"Those are all excellent ideas, but none of us are going to leave yet."

In the midst of all of the conversation, Cassefin Montreal was knelt down at the rear of the elevator. After Nell had disappeared from sight, the Head Administrator immediately opened her briefcase, setting the back against the floor and lifting the lid after hastily unlocking the latches. Instead of the previously mentioned meeting materials, however, the case was occupied to the brim with one solid piece of complex-looking machinery of an unknown nature. Attached to the top was a familiar slotted card-like device, which began to pulse with a few blinking lights along the side as the case opened. Cassefin took off her spectacles and folded them into the pocket of her jacket as she began to speak again.

"Surveillance?" Cassefin asked, her eyes on the case itself in front of her.

An equally familiar voice answered, emitting from the opened briefcase. "It appears to all be down, ma'am."

Nodding, Cassefin reached down and, with a simple push, ejected the card-like device from it's place in the confines of the machine. With the entire object now revealed, it could easily be distinguished as a Savtech card... the voice the occupants of the elevator had heard earlier belonged to Kess, who spoke again as Cassefin lifted her small console from the machine. "It's as you suspected, Administrator; primary circuits run through the main offices into a core near the lowest mining platform. Power is generated at several levels, but is regulated through this single area-"

Cassefin cut the Savtech's speech short as she stood back up straight, giving the CSS squad narrow-eyed glances. "It appears that a group of eco-terrorists are attempting to disrupt the meeting. I believe it is our duty to lend a hand in assisting this facility in regaining control of the situation."

MoonMan said:

Tweak's sensory scanning would find interesting results, to say the least. It would appear that immediate power was not only cut to the elevator, but nearly everywhere she could sense, save for a few key areas with remarkable amounts of interference. Were she still attempting to intercept the transmission signals floating through the air, Tweak would also hear several new things; the encryption that was previously present seemed to no longer be in effect, however the messages themselves were broken, numerous, and far too frequent to make much of the din other than a few key words which seemed to be turning up a lot in all of the transmissions: attack, terrorist, pirate, Code Rose Red, and Secure Victor Yalta.

Click to expand...

While shielded circuits glowed only dimly in pitch dark, power sources and conduits cut bright lines of light through paneling. The glow was soft, diffuse, but visible even in well-lit areas if one was looking in the right EM bands.

Tweak was not very surprised to see few of the later, thinking that the complex was at the end of the elevator ride and the lift was an umbilical with the surface. Then she noticed spots of light on the edge of her visual range and attempted to boost her acuity.

The extension in sensing range showed her that they were already in the complex. This was only confirmed when Nell pried open the elevator doors and Tweak was able to see that they were between floors. I couldn't see much...so the power must be out all over the base, she thought. The Unique's announcement that the base was under attack was not much of a surprise by this point. Tweak checked the radio channels again, hoping to maybe catch something other than the base's encrypted chatter; her TacOS hadn't gotten very far in decrypting it with everything that had been thrown at it lately. Hey, a busy OS is a happy OS...or at least a less distracting one.

The neko was pleasantly surprised to notice that the channels were clear of encryptions, but not very happy to find that they were flooded. She didn't search for key words, but the words "pirate", "Code Rose--" and "Yalta" made it through. The first, because of the records she had mentioning pirate activity associated with Yu-Cranker. The other two were picked out because codes are usually important events or maneuvers and essential for a combatant and "yalta" was a weird word that she had no definition for.

Well, now what?

By this time, Cassefin had opened up her case and was getting a situation report from the SavTech inside. Tweak pushed her radio monitoring to the background to listen. When the report was finished, Tweak made her way through the others on the elevator to stand next to Kokuten.

"Sir? It may be pirates." She kept her voice low, only talking to Kokuten. "The base's radio channels are flooded, but I picked out mention of pirates, and a 'code rose'." She paused then looked up at him. "The pirates might be out for revenge over the incident at Cirrus," she added. "And do you know what a 'yalta' is?"

"Could be code for something, or someone. And with all due respect, ma'am administrator, we're unarmed and may be treated as hostiles by our hosts if we're seen somewhere we shouldn't be."

Stovaa spoke even as he hauled himself out of the gap, it taking a lot of effort to squeeze through the gap left between the floor and ceiling of the elevator. He stretched and glanced around the area, noting Nell had gone from sight by now.

"Coast seems clear though, and it'd be silly to just wait to get shot in there. I see anyone, we can get some neck-snapping done and take their weapons, I suppose." The hulking Id-Sol mimed how to snap a neck as he talked. Though he could have looked above the elevator, he chose to look around, on the lookout for enemies that were dumb enough to tangle with them or potential weapons that he could embed in someone.

"Yalta? I have no idea, Miss Tweak. It doesn't exactly ring any bells. Perhaps... it is a name?" Kokuten guessed in response to Tweaks question. He pulled off his helmet for a moment, scratching his head, and taking a few breaths of fresh air before replacing the headgear. Though, the mention of eco-terrorists seemed to catch his attention.

"Ah... Ecological Terrorists?" He sounded confused, "I don't believe I understand..."

"I figure I could headbutt some folks to death with this helmet." Noboru said plainitively, shrugging at Stovaa. He looked sorrowfully at the empty holster on his hip, the one where his .45 would normally sit. Of course, today it wasn't there. Because the one day where he would need it, the one day that he was going to have a cushy assignment where he strutted around, putting on airs and pretending to be someone he wasn't, of course he would have to submit it for security checks.

And of course there would be crazy shit happening. It was, after all, the Cirrus Station Security's own Squad 35 involved in this.

So he turned to Kokuten. "Eco-terrorists. Environmental activists gone fanatic and given armaments." He said in a confirmatory tone, continuing on: "From the news feeds I've seen lately, Vinross Yu-Cranker has had their thumbs in a lot of different cakes - is that the proper euphemism? - regarding their environmental issues. Buying emission tickets, covering up pollution records, that sort of thing." He pointed up at the cieling of the elevator, meaning to gesture at that which was beyond it.

"And the fact that we're sitting in a several thousand foot deep, man-made hole is proof enough that Vinross Yu-Cranker Materials isn't above abusing the environment to get what it needs." Again, Noboru shrugged. "Just my theory, sir. Take it as you wish."

Well, the pirates-out-for-revenge theory made sense to her. Eco-terrorists were likely, but Tweak knew she wasn't exactly the most-knowledgeable person when it came to galactic current events. She continued to monitor the radio, putting a word-watch out for mention of Code Rose and Yalta. Returning to actually paying attention to what the others were up to, she looked back at her team leader. "Are we leaving the lift or trying to start it up?" she asked. "There could be stairs outside that lead up..."

"I see... That does make sense, but to go to such extremes? I thought ecology-buffs were the peaceful sort." Kokuten noted, his arms crossed and his head tilted. He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before Tweak interrupted him.

"Ah, yes, back to the matter at hand. Akio, Claire, the elevator shaft, check for a service ladder." Kokuten directed to them, then pointed at the ceiling. He then turned his attention to Tweak, "Miss Tweak, I want you to scout outside this elevator for a stairwell, if you find anything, report and return as quickly as you can. Do not take any risks, just observe, collect, and return. If you hit a spot of trouble, contact me." The Captain nodded to her, giving her his usual warm smile and then turned back to the panel he was at. His voice rang calm and reassuring, as if the situation weren't bothering him.

"Now! Can I get some assistance with this?"

"Before you go, I have something for you," Cassefin spoke back up, pressing a small level along the edge of the machine. A compartment along the side opened up, revealing an extending tray holding roughly half a dozen .45 handguns and extra magazines. The administrator motioned wordlessly for the crew to arm themselves... although Stovaa, as large as he was, would find it difficult to wield the weapon due to the size of his hands and the relatively small nature of the handgun.

"Captain Abeck has already been sent for, he's bringing Squad 101 on another Cirrus shuttle with him to come and get me. On the other hand, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you all to start earning your hazard pay," Cassefin stood up and looked at Tweak specifically. The red-haired woman picked up Kess' savtech device and held it out for Tweak to accept. "Your objective is to get this Savtech to their computer core. It will then attempt to override the eco-terrorists efforts at stalling security systems and hopefully regain control. You seem to be the most capable of the team, Tweak. I hope my trust isn't misplaced."

"The weapons are a last resort; I'm hoping that you don't run into the terrorists, but if you do, protect yourselves as best you can. I doubt the Uniques will attack you... but I cannot be for certain," Cassefin let her voice trail off. It was clear that she was still unsure as to who exactly to believe regarding their last encounter with the Uniques. When the contents of the briefcases' hidden weapon tray were taken up, Cassefin stood up and abruptly stomped on the inside of the machine with her heeled shoes. The mechanisms snapped and broke fairly easy. When she was satisfied and the briefcases mechanical innards were in disarray, the administrator picked up the mess, moved over to the open elevator doorway and pushed the scrap into the crevice at the bottom, plunging the garbage down the lengthy elevator shaft.

"With things as they are," Cassefin said as she dusted off her skirt, standing up with a sharp exhale. "Captain Abeck won't be able to reach me until the facility is functional again... the air defense turrets we passed won't be any good at staving off the eco-terrorist ship unless they have that computer working them. Are there any question?"

Serra loaded the gun then chambered a round. "I'm not as small as most of the others so I will stay with you, Administrator." She said as she moved to the panel that Kokuten was working at, pausing for a second, she turned back to the others. "Remember do not attack the Uniques, yet. We don't know if they're in on this as well." She then turned around and began to work.

"Seeing as it appears you've planned ahead for such an excursion, Administrator Montreal, what of Administrator Popjoy? She is currently out of reach." Kokuten chimed as he loaded his .45, and settled it into the holster usually meant for his dart gun. "Considering that she is in the hands of the Uniques, the situation has become more complex than wresting control of the defenses to make them ready for battle."

Claire was silent for a good long time. Staring down at the handgun in her hands. She did the usual thing of chambering a round and getting her extra ammo. Her real thoughts were guarded as always, but there was genuine confusion and disbelief in her eyes, which ironically were covered by the helmet. She gave no indication on whether she heard the rest of the squad.

Finally, she raised her head towards the administrator's direction. "Cassefin." She started. Using her real name and not 'Cassie' or some variation showed she was being serious. "If we manage to get through this alright... And unharmed hopefully... may I take a moment of your time once we're back on Cirrus?" It seemed there was something Claire wanted to tell her afterwords, assuming they made it through in one piece. There were a lot of things that she could possibly want to tell her, but she seemed to have something specific in mind.