Michiko
Inactive Member
YE35 (Thanks for the correction, Wes!)
How long had it been?
Where was she now?
The dreamer Vigil had taught the faithful to wander, to explore. Michiko wasn't sure if this is what he had meant.
How did it start? Those damned Pirates. She and her crew mates had been sent out to measure the materials of a passing by asteroid. They were in unknown space, nobody knew what anything was, the only person who knew where they were was Abjala, the navigator. Even then, it was truly just a guess. They hadn't seen another vessel in over a month. It had been even longer sense it was an Iroma ship. Regular communications came, but they were lagging behind. The time stamps weren't matching up anymore, there was descent that we were getting too far out. All the same, we explored deeper, and now we were sent out to check this asteroid.
Simple, routine, we had done it before. Activate vector shields, roll in behind the tail real close to avoid the bulk of the debris flying off of it. Scan it with the on board tools. The materials would show up on the heads up display if Michiko cared to see it. She didn't, not really. Not unless she could use it to build towards her dream; making a better VANDR. The debris was causing static on the comm between the various VANDRs and the transport.
chhrkrkkrk- it buzzed at her.
"Come again, Didn't get that, there some interference from the asteroid," She responded coolly.
The speaker crackled again, this time however a scream came through. Michiko finished her scans and pealed off of the asteroid. It was traveling fast, and it had taken her and her crew mates further from the transport that anticipated. But worse, there was another ship. It was black, hodgepodge, and bore no banners. Pirates.
It happened so fast, they must have been lurking, waiting for something like this, and waited for the VANDRs to be dispatched. Once they were caught in the asteroid's interference field they were basically harmless. By the time the transport knew what was happening, it was too late to fire the main guns. Hands on deck were ordered to take up arms and prepare to defend against a boarding party. The boarding party never came, instead a cloud of poisonous gas greeted them, far too quickly to have prepared for it. Her VANDR crew darted out ahead of her, it was all coming across the com now, they all heard the last words of the crew on board.
Michiko was in shock herself. Was this how her family had died? The entire floating colony, gassed, as to avoid any risk of life on the pirates side, and to achieve as much profit as possible? There were civilians there, they were just living their lives. Half of them were probably meditating on how to avoid violence when the gas reached their lungs. Children and Elderly alike, all just dead.
By the time she came out of it the other two VANDRs in her flight had been attempting to engage the pirates ship. Missiles were flying, and Michiko quickly learned that the Vector shields don't really help too much against missiles. Their screams coming through the com unit were cut short as their VANDRS burst into a bloom of Plasma and space dust. First one, then the other, moments later. Michiko had not gone unnoticed, however. And as her systems were warning her of the oncoming missile she leaped into action. First she went up, then she quickly wheeled backwards, flipping over the fading tail of the asteroid. The interference it caused, Michiko was hoping it worked on the missiles too. She zipped up along the debris tail of the asteroid, trying to catch up to the head of it. The missiles entered into the tail trying to catch their target. One faltered and exploded amongst the dust. The second missile managed to navigate up and over the tail and was now approaching from above and behind. Michiko tried to use the same trick. Down, and roll under the tail, now on the opposite corner of the asteroid, she expected it to come flying through the dust and once again explode from a lack of attack signal. It did, but what she wasn't expecting was the third missile. They saw her movements, they knew what she was going to do, and the pirates had thought ahead of her.
Too late, she fired the cannon on the right forearm at the missile. It exploded, but she was caught in the explosion. Her synthetic vision through the neural connection to the Frame went white, her actual eyes burned a little. The tingle suddenly spread to her right arm and both legs. Suddenly she couldn't control them with the power units. They could move, but they were slow and clumsy. The Biomechanical muscles still worked, it seemed, but the power supply had been knocked out of the arms. The nerve hubs must have been destroyed. With what little control she had, she attempted an FTL jump. It was more like a hop or a skip in a VANDR, but it would at least get her away. The burners warmed up and then one of them suddenly burst. The safety standards kicked in and aborted the second engine's charge. The explosion of the engine was enough to throw her onto the asteroid.
She had road it for a long time, waiting for signs of a friendly ship, waiting for the chance to broadcast her FFID friendly code and her distress signal. No luck though, it seems. While she rode the asteroid she decided to take a look at what the report said. What did her entire crew die for? Iron. Common Iron. She road the red commit for as long as it would carry her and eventually she was deposited somewhere out in space. The battery had long died. It was only the bio-mechanical false organs that kept her alive at this point, it had been that way for a while now. Who knew how long that would last before even that failed, then she would only have three days. Three days of air. She only had a little bit of water left at this point, and her rations only had a fraction remaining.
She cried, she slept, but mostly she meditated. Keeping herself calm as she slowly explored her mind, but rather then reflecting on the past she kept coming to how her demise would occur. Slowly, either suffocating as the chamber slowly ran out of air, or from dehydration. Already she was on a bare minimum, so when she ran out it would only be a matter of days before she dried out.
It was in a last bit of conscious effort, but she kicked on the emergency signal. It operated off a separate capacitor circuit. It had one function, send out a retrieval code. Either pick up the damage VANDR and dead Pilot, or come and rescue the Pilot if you were in time to do so. Sense the pirates she hadn't seen a single ship. And it seemed more likely that it would be those very same pirates that would find her. She also prepped the self destruct mechanism. A virus of sorts to the bio-organs. It would first shut them down, and then they would turn all of their organic energy inward and start secreting an enzyme, once there was enough of it gathered a small electrical charge would pulse and ignite it, causing an explosion. In the vacuum of space, it would simply collapse down on its self, turning the outer armor into a useless ball of scrap. This was then synced with her own heart beat via the neuro-port at the point of her right elbow. The arm was useless, might as well connect the self destruct there. Should her heart stop, so would the rest of the VANDR.
But seriously, how long had it been?
How long had it been?
Where was she now?
The dreamer Vigil had taught the faithful to wander, to explore. Michiko wasn't sure if this is what he had meant.
How did it start? Those damned Pirates. She and her crew mates had been sent out to measure the materials of a passing by asteroid. They were in unknown space, nobody knew what anything was, the only person who knew where they were was Abjala, the navigator. Even then, it was truly just a guess. They hadn't seen another vessel in over a month. It had been even longer sense it was an Iroma ship. Regular communications came, but they were lagging behind. The time stamps weren't matching up anymore, there was descent that we were getting too far out. All the same, we explored deeper, and now we were sent out to check this asteroid.
Simple, routine, we had done it before. Activate vector shields, roll in behind the tail real close to avoid the bulk of the debris flying off of it. Scan it with the on board tools. The materials would show up on the heads up display if Michiko cared to see it. She didn't, not really. Not unless she could use it to build towards her dream; making a better VANDR. The debris was causing static on the comm between the various VANDRs and the transport.
chhrkrkkrk- it buzzed at her.
"Come again, Didn't get that, there some interference from the asteroid," She responded coolly.
The speaker crackled again, this time however a scream came through. Michiko finished her scans and pealed off of the asteroid. It was traveling fast, and it had taken her and her crew mates further from the transport that anticipated. But worse, there was another ship. It was black, hodgepodge, and bore no banners. Pirates.
It happened so fast, they must have been lurking, waiting for something like this, and waited for the VANDRs to be dispatched. Once they were caught in the asteroid's interference field they were basically harmless. By the time the transport knew what was happening, it was too late to fire the main guns. Hands on deck were ordered to take up arms and prepare to defend against a boarding party. The boarding party never came, instead a cloud of poisonous gas greeted them, far too quickly to have prepared for it. Her VANDR crew darted out ahead of her, it was all coming across the com now, they all heard the last words of the crew on board.
Michiko was in shock herself. Was this how her family had died? The entire floating colony, gassed, as to avoid any risk of life on the pirates side, and to achieve as much profit as possible? There were civilians there, they were just living their lives. Half of them were probably meditating on how to avoid violence when the gas reached their lungs. Children and Elderly alike, all just dead.
By the time she came out of it the other two VANDRs in her flight had been attempting to engage the pirates ship. Missiles were flying, and Michiko quickly learned that the Vector shields don't really help too much against missiles. Their screams coming through the com unit were cut short as their VANDRS burst into a bloom of Plasma and space dust. First one, then the other, moments later. Michiko had not gone unnoticed, however. And as her systems were warning her of the oncoming missile she leaped into action. First she went up, then she quickly wheeled backwards, flipping over the fading tail of the asteroid. The interference it caused, Michiko was hoping it worked on the missiles too. She zipped up along the debris tail of the asteroid, trying to catch up to the head of it. The missiles entered into the tail trying to catch their target. One faltered and exploded amongst the dust. The second missile managed to navigate up and over the tail and was now approaching from above and behind. Michiko tried to use the same trick. Down, and roll under the tail, now on the opposite corner of the asteroid, she expected it to come flying through the dust and once again explode from a lack of attack signal. It did, but what she wasn't expecting was the third missile. They saw her movements, they knew what she was going to do, and the pirates had thought ahead of her.
Too late, she fired the cannon on the right forearm at the missile. It exploded, but she was caught in the explosion. Her synthetic vision through the neural connection to the Frame went white, her actual eyes burned a little. The tingle suddenly spread to her right arm and both legs. Suddenly she couldn't control them with the power units. They could move, but they were slow and clumsy. The Biomechanical muscles still worked, it seemed, but the power supply had been knocked out of the arms. The nerve hubs must have been destroyed. With what little control she had, she attempted an FTL jump. It was more like a hop or a skip in a VANDR, but it would at least get her away. The burners warmed up and then one of them suddenly burst. The safety standards kicked in and aborted the second engine's charge. The explosion of the engine was enough to throw her onto the asteroid.
She had road it for a long time, waiting for signs of a friendly ship, waiting for the chance to broadcast her FFID friendly code and her distress signal. No luck though, it seems. While she rode the asteroid she decided to take a look at what the report said. What did her entire crew die for? Iron. Common Iron. She road the red commit for as long as it would carry her and eventually she was deposited somewhere out in space. The battery had long died. It was only the bio-mechanical false organs that kept her alive at this point, it had been that way for a while now. Who knew how long that would last before even that failed, then she would only have three days. Three days of air. She only had a little bit of water left at this point, and her rations only had a fraction remaining.
She cried, she slept, but mostly she meditated. Keeping herself calm as she slowly explored her mind, but rather then reflecting on the past she kept coming to how her demise would occur. Slowly, either suffocating as the chamber slowly ran out of air, or from dehydration. Already she was on a bare minimum, so when she ran out it would only be a matter of days before she dried out.
It was in a last bit of conscious effort, but she kicked on the emergency signal. It operated off a separate capacitor circuit. It had one function, send out a retrieval code. Either pick up the damage VANDR and dead Pilot, or come and rescue the Pilot if you were in time to do so. Sense the pirates she hadn't seen a single ship. And it seemed more likely that it would be those very same pirates that would find her. She also prepped the self destruct mechanism. A virus of sorts to the bio-organs. It would first shut them down, and then they would turn all of their organic energy inward and start secreting an enzyme, once there was enough of it gathered a small electrical charge would pulse and ignite it, causing an explosion. In the vacuum of space, it would simply collapse down on its self, turning the outer armor into a useless ball of scrap. This was then synced with her own heart beat via the neuro-port at the point of her right elbow. The arm was useless, might as well connect the self destruct there. Should her heart stop, so would the rest of the VANDR.
But seriously, how long had it been?
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