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Maps and Stuff

Z

Zack

RP Date
After the events at the government building on Xuno
RP Location
Xuno
Pumpkin Eater, high above the planet Xuno

It had been a few hours since the skirmish near the governmental building. The transport shuttle had returned to the Pumpkin Eater, the large freighter that was acting as a staging area for USO's forces planet-side.

Greenbean had removed his armor, leaving himself in pajamas and a loose T-shirt as the rest of the ship bussled with activity. He did manage to find a small side area where they could work on the documents recovered... though this seemed to be the extent of his usefulness. He wouldn't be able to decode maps anytime soon.

"Just let me know what you got," He said, "I'm sure I can get it to the right people... once things settle down a bit we can head back. Medical teams will likely be going down there next to deal with the plauge outbreak...though... anything is a plauge to these people. Try not to let their doctors treat you for anything."




The first map that had been scanned in seemed to be of the city they just visited.

While the overall outline of the city seemed to be fairly straight forward, and may of the landmarks were recognizeable, there were also a few key features that stood out.

Most noticeable, were the red-lines connecting several locations within the city. They seemed to move from one building to another, taking the fastest on foot root between the locations.

Near each location seemed to be a list, usually no more than 2-3 items. However since their written language wasn't avalible as a download at the moment... it was hard to tell exactly what the writing meant.

Each location seemed to have different items listed. The end of the trail was simply a building that was circled, with no list of items included.

---

@RetrofitStrawman
 
Pumpkin Eater

Aashi Nath Werner, mother to a duo and wife to one circled the ship's cameras on all ten decks. Her eyes settled on something and the sound of her thigh-high boots rhythmically jamming against the floor was all that could be heard from her for a few seconds before she looked up at a console on the bridge and settled a hand on her hip.

They had whatever Uso's datalink up to the ship had given them during this assault, sure, but they didn't have Green Bean's side and the knowledge of the data embedded in Stratus' limb storage devices. Ragnarok should be finding out soon, but Aashi wasn't completely sure they had even retrieved something of use. She had a hunch, though.

Her smokey eyes looked over the comms system and spoke up, "Get me a line to Uso, this is Pumpkin Eater Actual."
 
Stratus was waiting within the same side area, allowing for the recovered data to be copied from their database. They had removed their jacket and opened the casing of their prosthesis, lights of various colours blinking wildly and creating a small cacophony of whirs from within the metal limbs. Wires spilled out from the openings, suggesting they were merely stuffed inside before, the plastic insulation torn from wear.

The Spacer replied "Sure, but it's going a bit slower than expected. Really gotta..." they paused, rubbing away a neck cramp, "...er, gotta sift through a bunch of other stuff." They stare at nothing in particular, scrunching up their mouth "...well, this might be important for right now. Its one of the maps. I can't really make sense of it, but I'll try to upload it now."

As they said this, they began an upload request, drives creating a small whirring in preparation.
 
Communications

"This is Uso Actual." Uso said, pausing before adding, "I think I need a new handle for this kind of stuff. Do your people have some kinda cool handle for their leader? High Horn? Prime Piercer? Lead Lancer?"

Uso herself was already on her way to one of the equipment bays. It was time to pull some power armor out of storage, along with a new gun, and more ammo, grenades... tanks... some of those Ragnarok guys...

"Turns out the locals have more stuff down there than we were led to believe. We're going to need more hardware."

---
Study Room

The first map got uploaded to the network wirelessly, a ping going out to anyone who was waiting for intelligence to be gathered from the surface.

"Do you ... need uh... plugs or something?" Green Bean would ask Stratus, looking at him like he was some hobo unpacking his shopping cart. The There really were more wires there than seemed like were necessary... Green Bean half turning away and looking up as if trying to avoid the sight. He was imagining that this is a lot like a Nepleslian getting cut open and having their guts spill out on the table. "Or like... zip ties?"

The next document that came up was one of the larger area around the city. Some of the buildings were marked with symbols. Though some of the symbols were the same, they had a particular pattern to them and that pattern didn't repeat. With that document was a list. That list had the symbols in order down one side, and a list of words down the other. Each line only contained 2 or three words next to the symbols.

Further study would also show that there seemed to be a grouping of these marks along one of the major water ways.
 
Stratus seemingly ignored him, apparently focused on recollection. "Plugs... plugs... sure, yeah. That sounds good." They were in a daze, absolutely absorbed in the document they were looking at. They lazily tried to stuff some of the cables back in at the remark about zip ties, but it proved ineffective as they burst right back out.

"The next thing looks like... uhhh... I'm not sure. I have no idea what it is. Um, but yeah, cables would be nice, help with uploading faster." They slouched forward, increasingly so as time passed.
 
Study Room

"Yeah... ok... plugs," Green Bean had seen a lot of combat and he was at least a little bit technically adept... but he was by no means some kinda wizard-class hacker. It took him a few moments of feeling around on the table before he was able to find an access panel. This exposed a small set of ports under the lip of the table, as well as a tray with a variety of cables that had been tucked away underneath.

"Will uh.... any of these fit? I got some square ones, and some of the round ones."

As he held out the cords, he also took a look at the main table. The first map they had recovered was now showing as a projection on the table itself.

"We should be the ones to unravel all this..." Again, Green Bean was a soldier, not a map-maker... He'd spent time on the NSS Alliance, fought with the Nepleslian 4th fleet... he'd been reasonably successful at it all and the traits that made one successful at a task seemed to be universal. "... no one is going to show up and tell us exactly what to do... have to take ownership of what we find ourselves or at least figure out how to push this info to the people that need it. Do you think following this treasure map is going to be worth our time?"
 
Stratus was looking off into the air, their eyes snapping in his direction, giving the plugs a quick look. They took a bit to remember what kind would work, as they had rarely ever plugged themselves into anything, at least for a long while.

"...Er... those round ones would fit, I think." said the Spacer, having pointed at a few in the soldier's hands, the metal arm reached out a bit as to not disturb the drives too much.

"I'm... well... to be honest, I'm not to sure. As far as I can tell, that first map could just be a delivery route." They shrugged with their other arm, making a collection of clacking as the internals shuffled around, "but that... might be important? Like, I dunno, let's just wait until the other stuff is ready."

Stratus continued looking through the maps and documents, looking for anything related to the first map. The mainly searched through the spreadsheets, assuming that the items listed on the map may correspond to others.
 
"Delivery routes.... Right," Green Bean nodded, that would be a huge waste of time. He had to remind himself that they didn't get some cache of intel... they just copied someone's maps. There was no telling what they were actually looking at.

As more maps were scanned in, it started to become a bit more clear what each thing meant.

By checking the additional maps and sheets, Stratus could start to understand he was looking at some kind of census information. The words on the pages would appear elsewhere on maps and lists. He could easily tell the larger names fit with what would be cities on some of the maps. Furthermore, an actual census list would provide him with first and last names to check against. The numbers seeming to indicate how many people and of which gender were in each family.

There was also the question of what the black dots meant... these dots on the second map scanned in were all clustered around the river. IT also seemed that the dates on the map next to the black dots were also the same dates that these names stopped appearing on the census.
 
Stratus took this all in slowly, thinking over everything he was seeing. A look of discomfort had slowly been making its way over his face, clearly getting disturbed by what he was seeing.

He shook his head, trying to shake the feeling away. He slowly returned back to his mellow self, but with a quiver in his voice, and started the upload of the documents for viewing, "W-Well, I think I found something... a bit worrying now." He rubbed his neck, sighing deeply, "I don't think these are delivery routes, but they're most likely a lot more serious. Can I like, show you what I mean?"
 
Study Room

"Yeah, show me," Green Bean said, moving around to the side of the table that Stratus was using... more out of habit than out of an actual need to see the displays.

"Is this worrying like... I can't find my shoes? Or worrying like... someone's not coming home?"
 
He nodded, looking towards the displays as they flickered to life, displaying the documents.

"W-Well... I'd go along with the latter. See here?" he said, pointing at the census list, "These appear to be names of people, with dates of when they were present in these buildings... or residences... this stuff is a census of the different cities, I think. But then..."

His voice trailed off, the map zooms in to bring the black dots into view, making sure the dates are visible. "These dots are only labelled with dates, which just so happen to coincide with the dates that some people stopped being recorded."

Stratus did a small gasp, shivering a tiny bit as he spoke, "If I had to make a guess... best case, they're just some kind of emigration points. Worst case... that could an execution site."
 
"So, bad news... "

Green Bean would only need a few moments to think about what to do. Of course Green Bean was also an infantryman first and anything else second. His solutions tended to start with being there in person instead of using other tools to investigate.

"We should go down there and have a look. The black dots seem clustered around the river... that big clump is probably someplace where people need help in the form of other people who have guns.

Uso probably won't mind us taking a shuttle and some soldiers to look for ourselves."
 
"..."

Stratus stared at him, slightly slack-jawed. He never thought they'd investigate it themselves, having some idea that the information would have been passed on to someone else.

"U-Uh... yeah! Sure, lets... do that!" he sputtered out, standing up immediately, a few cords being yanked out from the sudden straightening of his body. It seemed to cause a bit of pain, whether that be physical or digital would be unknown to regular people.
 
Green Bean was already heading out the door, opening up a channel to the carrier's Air Boss,

"Air Boss. Going to head down to the surface. Going to need a shuttle, drones, some medial staff on standby and uh...."

Green Bean was already half out the door while Stratus was dealing with the cords being yanked out. He would pause and turn back around, holding onto the edge of the door,

"If you need something special now's the time to ask,"

A general call for anyone heading down to the surface would go out over the ship as the launch crews brought one of the large U7 shuttles up on the flight deck. The large side doors opening up so that a squad of mini-tanks could roll their way inside. A tub of medical supplies was also loaded up and left in the center of the shuttle... the crews deciding to just use a huge roll of tape to half-secure it to the ground before running off.
 
One figure approached the team that were surface-bound, a metal hand reaching up to re-adjust his face until it was correctly positioned and managed to anchor itself appropriately - the rather angular face almost made Fitz look like he was just a normal guy wearing some slim suit of armour but no, every nook and cranny that people could see was 100% him.

The 'spacer stopped once he finally made it to the team, looking down to make sure his crotch-plate hadn't been left behind due to... prior engagements as a shit-eating grin filled the bard's artificial maw. "Stringmaster Fitz 56 phoning in, apologies for the lateness - I was busy tweaking a bit of brass but I'm ready now," his rather un-synthetic voice spoke, it was crystal clear in indiscernible from the real deal.
 
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Stratus shook his head at the statement, "No, nothing that I can thing of..."

He trailed off, having some minor troubles with unplugging himself, being careful to not cause any accidental corruption. After struggling with stuffing the mess of cables back into himself, he gave up, defeated by his own sloppiness, and ended with him closing the casing on the wires.

He began to leave, but suddenly stopping to grab his jacket, attempting to put it on while simultaneously checking the pockets, heading out after Green Bean.
 
"Alright. Welcome aboard Fitz." Green Bean nodded, "We're going to go bust up a death-camp. Get a weapon and get on the shuttle."

Green Bean would head to the shuttle... then pause... then head over to the nearby armory to top up on ammo and batteries.... then back to the shuttle.

"... or at least we think it is a death camp... we got some documents from the surface last time we were down there. Seems like something ominous is going on down there...."

Once everyone was onboard, the shuttle would launch. The interior screens of the shuttle's large storage bay showing the planet below them as it turned towards Xuno.

Planet Xuno

There was a sharp crack as the shuttle passed through the atmosphere, slowing down to hovering speed as they reached its destination. In the distance they could still see smoke rising from the main government buildings where a firefight had taken place earlier that day. In all directions it seemed that stone and wood buildings stretched outward. None seemed larger than 2-3 stories tall. A mixture of horses, cars, and people filled the roads, and it seemed that the local security forces were on alert. Men with bolt-action rifles and the occasional metal-box-tank were spread throughout the city.

The shuttle itself would start to circle over one of the major rivers that was cutting through the city. It seemed that a large number of the black dots on Stratus' documents were clustered here with more both up and downstream from this location. There were numerous houses along the river banks and it seemed that people were using this area to wash their clothing, prepare food, and get water for drinking.

Though there was one larger building that seemed to house a water-wheel, the area was filled mostly with houses.

"Well. Shit.... This doesn't look like a death camp. No fences to keep people in..." Green Bean commented, the side door of the shuttle opening up so that they could get a better look of what was out there.
 
Planet Xuno

Fitz... had a gun... - sure he didn't grab any ammo and the ceramic-encased revolver looked like it wasn't meant to be used but the stringmaster didn't seem fazed at all as he clicked his metal heels together. The 'spacer's feet magnetized to the shuttle's floor as he began strutting out with hands on his hips to observe their 'death camp'.

Fitz let out a small chuckle that slowly built up into laughter before it fizzled out, he spoke with a grin plastered across his artificial features, "Well it's the nicest death camp I've ever seen... actually shit - I have an idea." The stringmaster turned to face Green bean, the janky guitar on his back jostling around slightly before he continued.

"You don't need fences if you strap sensors everywhere and stick an explosive in their neck, still it does appear to be a rather jovial place to call a death camp..." he began trailing off slowly, zooming in as Fitz' eyes began to look between each of the people down below with a bit more effort than earlier.
 
Planet Xuno

Fitz would start to get a lot more detail on the area as he zoom'd in. There were people here, and they seemed to be going about their lives fairly normally... for a low tech world at least. They were washing their clothing in the nearby water, taking some of the water for use in cooking. They all looked rather thin... some dangerously so. Some of them even had rather pale skin. Their houses looked just as good as those in the rest of the city too, however there were many with some kind of notice written on the doors. They had yet to build a translation system for the written language of the area so for the moment it was impossible to tell what was written there.

However, no one was entering or leaving these houses. There was no smoke in the chimney, no lights inside, and the blinds were drawn closed.

The dark black mark line drawn across their front doors seemed to speak more than any writing did.
 
Planet Xuno

Stratus had been peeking out the open door from a distance, trying to hold onto the most solid thing nearby as to not be pulled out, despite being pretty heavy. Call it instinct, or maybe just being too cautious.

He couldn't see much, partially from his large amount of hair being blown into his own face and from not being close enough to see. The small spacer cursed himself for not getting better eyes, and continued to squint at the tiny village.

He tried to speak, but it came out as a chirp drowned out by the air rushing past the door. He cursed himself again for investing in a terrible voice system, trying to remember why he chose it in the first place.
 
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