RP: Galactic Horizon [HEF] First Expediton - Fresh Coat of Paint

URSA EXT

He had to give it to the twins, at least they were enthusiastic - Terrins wasn't one for idle threats, granted they had settled down rather quickly but still...

The redheaded man's own redback let loose an ionized roar from it's electronically fired maw as it pulled ahead of Bella's own vehicle, he allowed the rear end to dip down slightly before the security officer gunned the throttle - sending a dense shower of sand up over her windscreen. It was more of a lighthearted prod than anything else, the twins were no doubt fully aware of what would happen if they actually stepped out of line.

"Now keep your chins up you two, we have a reputation to keep," Terrins pinged the twins over comms as he moved to the front of the pack, keeping a safe distance but holding speed with the group for now.

URSA Interior - Rec Room

Farah continued looking around the room, lost as to what they were supposed to do in this situation. They weren't used to just waiting around. When the odd pair of Faulkners entered, the Iroma stared at them quizzically, even leaning forward in their obvious interest. Their attention was only broken when the bump sent the small scientist bouncing up out of their seat, crying out with surprise as they flailed about to get their arms between the floor and their face. They hit the metal hard, landing with a thud on their knees and elbows, and began grunting in pain. Stupid primitive wheeled machine...

Farah slowly pulled... herself? Yeah, she was feeling feminine today. She slowly pulled herself up to sit on the ground and rubbed her shins and knees, her face screwed up unpleasantly. In her own moment of distress, she didn't notice little Titan's impressive display, but eventually she did look up again to examine the girl and her caretaker more.

Soon after being pat on the head Titan swooshed to the center of the room where she crashed down onto the floor and began the next episode of her doll's adventure through the URSA. Fleshmender 40 steadily stepped forward towards Farah with the intent of giving Titan's chain a bit of slack so she doesn't start pulling him around with her. Though, not long after positioning himself next to the iroma he noticed her blatant staring.

"Hm. Can I help you with something?" He inquired, doing his best not to be rude.

Meanwhile, Titan had began yelling about cats and evil watermelons while jumping on the spot. Presumably, this was a more intense part of her game. No matter what it was, her father didn't seem particularly bewildered by it.

Redback Squad

"ROGER!" Came the echoed response of the twins, both having finished their games and now switched in to work mode, after all a Redback wasn't the easiest thing to pilot in a sandstorm like this and it was starting to get worse, each pilot having to battle with their controls to maintain balance and hover height without going off-course.

Rec-Room

A couple of the other Horizon guards looked up from their games as Titan dashed into the room, they were cautious but not scared. Terrins and Brin had already discussed the interesting members of the team who would be tagging along and they knew what to expect, to a degree. Not wanting to be rude by staring the men went back to their various games without a word about the strange little girl. The whole lot stumbled slightly as the URSA bumped over the uneven ground, but it was nothing new to them having dealt with similar issues during training routines, to them it was like sailing on a rough sea, with time you get your sea legs.

Engine Room

"Well there ain't much to show, barely got'nuff space to fit the damn thing anyway, but essentially y'got the main containment unit which we work around here while the cooling units are built into the URSA's shell." Ivan explained, making a couple of small adjustments before flopping back in his chair with a long sigh. "Anyway now it should be fine by'tself for a while, we can check it in a couple hours, hows about you read up on the manual and take a look round the unit 'ere for a bit?"



The large vehicle pressed on through the storm for the next hour or so with little activity within its walls, the crew in the cockpit kept an eye on their scanners and did their best to avoid any large holes or unknown rises as they sped long the sandy terrain. Those in the cabins and rec room were either relaxing or trying to catch a little sleep before the expedition really kicked off. Of course the best outcome would just have them driving around for a few days mapping out some recently discovered tunnels or other points of interest, but with the number of raiders around along with all manner of fateful encounters that no doubt waited for them everyone knew it would be a tiring journey.

Redback Squad

After such a long time in the Redback both Anna and Bella were tired, bored and stiff. Both girls had set their craft to auto and settled in to a more comfortable position. "Hey boss, how much further till we get to do something fun?" Anna asked lazily, the storm outside had visibly improved as now the pilots could actually see around their vehicles.
"Yeah, don't we get to pull ahead and y'know. Scout?" Bella echoed

As though to answer their prayers, Brin's voice came over the comms, "Alright team, standby for directions. You're about to be deployed forwards for the planned scouting operation, we're just confirming our position now that the sensors are becoming useful again."

Cockpit

As Phreaker predicted, the sensors detected very little aside from their immediate surroundings, if the storm hadn't been so intense the satellite connection could have provided a rough view of their direction. Now that they were starting to clear the storm, readings from the radar were filtering through. With Phreaker having patched in to the URSA systems he'd notice the mammoth vehicle had managed to travel off course by 10 degrees, currently putting them at least 3 hours behind.

Redback Squad

Terrins raised a polymer-clad left hand up from the Redback's controls and moved it around, a few gritty clicks from his cybernetic limb sounded alongside the suit's own mechanised exoskeleton and told him he really should have cleaned the Durandium arm before setting off. At least he could see more than a foot or two now without relying solely on the vehicle's sensors.

That was a pleasant change to the blind yet smooth-sailing that had been pretty rough going until now.

That hand lowered itself back down to the controls and made a firm fist around the rubberized grip, his icy blue eyes staring out from underneath the armoured helmet to drag themselves across the hull's emergency release lever as the twins' banter continued. They were good people, a little impatient from time to time but good people he was more than happy to ride with - everybody brought something new to the table and if not new then at least interesting.

The security officer gave a small nod when Brin told them to wait for orders, despite him and two, splintered, artificial intelligences being the only ones who'd ever know of the gesture unless there was some reason to re-visit his EMmA suit's logs later.

"I hope the ride has been treating you two ladies well," Terrins began pinging the twins over comms, his rather average yet slightly deeper than you'd expect voice rumbling through their helmets. "Is everything alright back there? I hope you haven't been getting into any mischief."

Cockpit

The sensors displayed exactly what Phreaker thought would be there, which was really nothing that much. It took them the better part of an hour to clear the storm, with not much else happening. One thing he noticed as they pulled out of the storm was that they were off by about 10 degrees, after calculating, that but them off by 3 hours.

He calculated a new course that would make up some time and put them back on course. "Heads up" He said to the pilot as he sent the course correction to its display.

He relegated the sensors to one small portion of his internal storage, leaving it running so he could monitor it. "Yell if you need me." He told the people in the cockpit, and headed out to the rec room. It would probably still be a while before anything interesting happened.

Rec Room

He entered and noticed all the guards and other members there, but one drew his attention. A young girl running around who seemed to be the center of attention for a couple of people. He was surprised someone that young was on board, but then he shrugged, not his place to judge. He found a particularly comfortable seat, and while still monitoring the sensors in the corner of his mind, he pulled up a game he had in internal storage and went to town.

Zeke Rykiel had been amongst the group having said nothing, only having his two crates of gear brought in and stowed. A pack on his back as he entered the large vehicle.

The spiky short haired blonde man of 6'2 deftly maneuvered around the child Titan as he did, and giving a brief salute to trash. He waved at the Iroma person, but they had been distracted at the time.

Zeke didn't take long to head up the ladder and find a bunk, leaning the pack against the side before laying down to chill. He intended to enjoy the rather peaceful ride.

URSA Interior - Engine Room
'Well, Ivan, it was a pleasure meeting you' said Andrew, standing from his chair. 'I think I'll head up to the rec room and relax while I read over the instruction manual'. waving a gentle goodbye, Andrew walked out the door of the engine room and up into the rec room.

Rec Room
As Andrew entered the rec room, he flopped onto the couch and pulled out the manual for the Phoenix Fusion Generator and started reading

Redback Squad

The twins both laughed a little at Terrin's comment.
"If managing to turn upside down in a redback while its on autopilot is mischief then yes, because my hands are in the back and my feet are in the front now." Anna replied, lazily reclined in her backwards position.
"I'm still the right way around, but I did sneak some chocolate in with me so I'm sort of eating that and listening to music." Bella said afterwards, "You want some sir?" She offered, as though they had a way to actually exchange items traveling at 100km/h in crab speeders.

"What about you sir, been having fun for the last few hours?"

"About as much fun as I can have with both hands on the handlebars," Terrins shot back with a chuckle at both of the twins' responses, at least they were keeping their spirits high without getting into too much trouble.

"You two are an enigma to me though, all this lack of formality but you still call me sir?" the security officer continued to speak into his helmet, glad he would soon have something to do other than just drive forward.

"Feel free to drop that too if you want, but in fact would like some chocolate, thank you Bella," the Minkan answered rather casually, veering his Redback off to the side and maneuvering around to get behind Bella's own speeder, they were mostly clear of the sandstrom now so Terrins popped open his Redback's cockpit and then his helmet's faceplate - speaking into the laryngophone to be heard over all the ruckus.

"Spin around and throw us one, yeah?" he asked, ready to catch some chocolate in his mouth if she threw it.

"Make it in and I'll clean both your redbacks, miss and you have to try and give Dink a bath - you both know how much he hates those."

Redback Squad

The twins giggled at Terrin's question, "Well formalities are all well and good but they take the fun out of it, as for the sir thing well. We just kinda like it, consider it the one formality we always stick to." Bella shot over the comms as she rotated her redback.

"Also, its a lot easier than calling everyone by name if we just use sir all the time, plus we can blame it on our crazy nature or upbringing." This was added by Anna as she shifted around in her seat to better watch the toss.

After taking a moment to make certain they were completely out of the sandstorm, Bella flipped her canopy up slightly and tossed a small bag at Terrin's vehicle, while not the most precise throw so long as he didn't move it would hit his canopy with some accuracy.

Rec Room
Phreaker paused his game and looked around, a couple of new people had entered the room.

Now is as good a time as any to start meeting the rest of the crew. He thought to himself.

He noticed a man on a couch not far from him, reading a engine manual. Obviously one of the engineers. He leaned over to the man and stuck out his hand to shake. "Hey, Im Phreaker. Sensors and weapons operator...and walking computer." He said with a grin. "Im guessing your one of our engineers who is going to keep us running?" He nodded towards the manual the man was reading.

Rec Room

'Yeah, Andrew Wilson, newest engineer of Galactic Horizon' He said, Looking at the man standing next to him, 'Nice to meet you pheaker. what brings you to this part of the universe?'

Redback Squad

Terrins reach forward and caught the bag with his left hand, the throw looked like it would have most likely made it in to his cabin regardless but he wanted to be sure - he sealed up both the faceplate and the redback before scoffing slightly over comms, "Well I guess you're washing Dink when we get back, good luck and thanks for the snack."

Static pulsed through his helmet for a second, which was odd as the network they were using to communicate around the Ursa hadn't gotten this bad even when they were in the middle of the sand storm - needless to say Terrins' interest had been piqued so he decided to follow it up and scanned for the rogue signal's source, it took a moment for the satellite to zoom in on the specific location but he had seen the glint of something shiny atop a hill - that much was certain.

It could have been nothing, but there was a chance it could've also been something and it was too alluring for the redhead to simply leave to the unknown.

"Brin, I think I might've seen something - it's probably just a bit of debris out in the sand but I want to make sure it won't bite us in the ass later, I'll leave the twins though, over," he pinged the senior security officer, beginning to pull away from the group but waiting for the go ahead from Brin. He keyed the twins in to the conversation once again and let them know what was going on.

"I'm just going to go check something and come right back, I can trust you two to make sure there is something to come back to - yes?"

Redback Squad

"Aww no fair sir, you said you'd clean our bikes if she got it in, it was close enough can't you have mercy on us?" Came the feigned anguish from Anna
"I'm sorry sister, it seems I wasn't good enough to save us from the smelly mutt." Bella replied with over the top drama, she had deliberately included the small insult to see if she could get a rise out of the security man, everyone knew he loved that dog type animal and they all knew the story of how he showed up one rainy night with him.

Cockpit

Brin listened to Terrin's message intently, they had also picked up the signal and had been trying to pinpoint it, he had just been about to ask if the Redbacks could investigate too. "Understood Terrins, be safe out there and let us know what you find, we'll let you know if anything pops up on our end."

Ursa Interior/ Rec-Room

A courteous and simple bow was offered to Zeke from trash as the man passed a salute, And started off towards what he had identified as a bunk. Not a bad idea the raccoon mused to himself but procrastinated. Instead opting to waddle and wander aimlessly around the massive vehicle that seemed at least three times larger from his short perspective. He poked his head through bulkheads and made a mental map, Quickly offering an apology to anyone's work he seemed to interrupt or distract in time to make himself scarce before he caused any issues. He was, After all, A gentle-animal of sorts and didnt want to bother anyone.

It was easy to burn time for the uplifted as he stopped to study every little facet and perk that peeked his interest until finally reaching his second to last stop, The Rec-Room. He lingered in the doorway apprehensively while wondering if he would rather socialize or spend time in an actual bed before the job started for real and he would be required to spend hours upon hours or even days breaking trail and map making with little sustainable rest.

He opted, At last. For the latter option and started off towards where Zeke had gone, The bunks. It wasnt apprehension towards the young girl or her spacer handlers. Or any notion of avoidance towards the Iroma gawking at them, He was after all a social creature and could chat for hours if given the chance. He simply wanted to enjoy travelling to the white noise of a passing sandstorm before he was required to start out from its passing.

Scaling the ladder to the bunks was a slight chore for him, But finally making the way past Zeke with a curt nod and into not one of the most uncomfortable racks he'd ever occupied, Leaving his fanny-pack and miscellaneous items at the end of the rack and using his poncho as a second pillow to cover his entire being, Shrouding him in darkness. A small chattering click and chirp from under the blanket and poncho signified his content towards the situation before he slowly nodded off to the gentle sound of a violent sandstorm against the ursa's hull.

Phreaker cocked his head for a minute as one of his sensors alerted him of a signal that was picked up, and he listened to the chatter as a scout was dispatched to check it out. He devoted a little more processing power to monitor the sensors.

He turned his attention back to the other man. "Sorry about that. Sensors pinged something." He smiled "Anyways, I needed a change of pace and a steadier paycheck, saw this outfit was hiring and decided to join up." He thought back to his old crew, and how much he hated being a freelancer and waiting on that next check. "How about you? You here to see the sights and discover the unknown?" He joked.

Terrins Redback/Signal

As Terrins sped away towards the unknown entity Dawn had already begun working to further decrypt the strange signal and displayed a path on his Redback's HUD for him to follow to easily reach his destination "My sensors are unable to effectively scan the area due to the remnants of the sandstorm interfering with the URSA's satellite array. Recommend proceeding with caution." The AI spoke into his ear as it kept working on the signal. "I've also informed the URSA command of this and they have slowed their movement to send a repair team, you are currently unable to request backup from them until the satellite link is reestablished." It informed him with the same monotone voice as always.

As his vehicle drew closer it became obvious that the glint had been a reflection from an old piece of scrap metal embedded in the sand, the ruins of what looked like a small shuttle or even a land vehicle. As his Redback rounded the panel to reveal the source of the signal a corpse came into view. Bleached bones and tattered rags assembled in such a way that the poor soul had died sitting up against the remains of whatever vehicle they'd been using. Dawn identified the signal source for him although it was painfully obvious to the naked eye, what almost looked like a brand new distress beacon had been jammed into his chest cavity breaking several ribs in the process.

"Proximity alert, unavoidable ordinance inbound, brace for impact." Came the sudden string from his AI companion before an RPG round smashed into the front of the Redback, blowing off its front two legs and completely wiping out the power systems, the canopy popped open throwing him from the vehicle through a torrent of fire and metal debris as the machine died along with his ability to communicate with the URSA.

URSA

"Right then, I'll find two people to send up for the repair job thank you Dawn." Brin said as the AI finished explaining the problem with the satellite to him as he headed over to the rec room to find who was available for the job. Upon arrival he spotted Andrew, their newest engineer and singled him out immediately. "Andrew, prep for a rooftop walk we got a problem with the satellite connection, Phreaker you go with him to test the connection remotely." The security captain turned to address the whole crew who were all engaged in their various activities.

"The URSA will be slowing down for a moment while we get this repaired, but I don't like taking chances with this kind of thing so I want to volunteers to run security backup and lookout for the techs while they're up there. If you spot anything suspicious Dawn will attempt to hail them, if they do not respond and continue towards us, or if they show signs of hostility the main weapon platforms will fire a warning shot. If this still fails to deter them they will open fire with the intent to kill."

"Attention all crew prepare for possible engagement, explosion confirmed at the source of the signal, we cannot reach Terrins it is likely his Redback was destroyed." Came Dawns voice over the intercom as the sound of an explosion passed softly through the large vehicle as it trundled along through the desert.


"You heard the lady! All combat able personnel to the roof to guard the techs and the URSA, don't let this machine stop moving so long as you breathe! Armoury is open, grab anything you can find. There should be plenty of rifles and shields in there for everyone." Brin barked as the news was broadcast, the smoke cloud in the distance already trailing high into the air.

Signal

The security officer barely had time to look toward his vehicle's instruments before the AI's voice was cut off by the explosive raw of anti-vehicle ordinance that sent shock waves and flames through his vehicle, the Minkan could feel the intense heat radiate through the armoured plating as he was flung towards the ground - he rolled, what else are you supposed to do in such a situation anyways, and kicked up plumes of sand before Terrins managed to claw into the ground with his durandium fingertips and set himself upright after continuing back a few meters..

It was more pure instinct that was managing to keep him alive, a crack ran from the top right to the bottom left of the man's faceplate and hampered his vision significantly, prompting him to open it up and rip open the top half that refused to.

Terrins gave the side of his helmet a few sturdy thunks to try and clear that ringing sound from his ears but to no avail, instead scrambling back through the dirt to rip his rifle from the ruined vehicle with one hand as the bolt was pulled back.

Chambered and barely scratched, good - these things were built to take one hell of a beating anyway.

"Dawn, Dusk," the Minkan began speaking into his helmet's mic, wondering if either of the constructs had been left behind when communications were lost - his armoured form slid behind the piece of metal that had caught the sensor's attention not too long ago before Terrins continued speaking in hope that somebody was listening.

"If either of you are there then patch me into the redback's sensors and try to raise the URSA's bridge, I'd sure as hell appreciate it."

Signal

"I'm sorry Terrins, I am now running as an isolated version within your helmet comms, the Redback and its link to the URSA have been completely destroyed and I am unable to communicate with it either." There were faint sounds of people talking amongst themselves and calling out to each other in the distance but not anything the Minkan could make out, a louder cry than the rest rung out through the windy dunes before another rocket hit the Redback again, a large fireball erupting from its already twisted corpse. The shockwave hit the metal plate Terrins was using as cover with full force and almost blew it over, luckily for him it was solidly lodged in the sand however its angle had dipped considerably.

"I highly recommend seeking new cover away from the wreckage, the hostiles are sure to be scouring the remains within minutes and you will almost certainly be found and killed." The AI said rather unhelpfully considering there was nothing between Terrins and the URSA but sand with the lumbering machine being little more than a toy car looking object in the distance. He was stuck on the top of a hill which sloped down in all directions but the one he'd fled from to avoid being killed by the ambushers.