What's new
  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 April 2024 is YE 46.3 in the RP.

RP: NSS Alliance Mission 2: Part 2 [On NSS Alliance]: Unexpected Surprise

Tom

Tom

Well-Known Member
"Ally, keep me informed of any developments."

"Acknowledged, captain."

Jack Miller stood up out of his chair and stretched upwards, the bones in his stiff back making an audible-yet-comforting cracking sound. The command center was oddly empty, save for the captain, his computer specialist, Cadet Lionheart, and the ubiquitous presence of Ally, the NSS Alliance's artificial intelligence.

Miller rubbed the sting out his eyes. He had been staring at screens for far too long--his vision had started to blur.

"Lionheart, you have the bridge," the Nepleslian said as he walked to the metallic doorway. "I shall be back shortly."

His ears picked up on the light hum of the lights as he walked down the hallway to the mess hall. An uncomfortable feeling sat in the pit of his stomach since the NSS Alliance had entered Elysian space. Although the natives had been surprisingly welcome--the captain had been expecting a couple warning shots at best--it did little to shake the feeling of dread that dug deep into him.

Perhaps some light food would give the building acid in his stomach something to chew on.

Maybe a biscuit would do the--

BOOM!

The Alliance shuddered violently, so hard that it shook the captain, as well as several of those not seated on the ship to the floor.

Ahhhhhhhhh! *THUD*

Miller had tumbled into a wall, the ringing in his head and ears loud, yet unable to drown out the sounds of the alarms that had starting blaring out throughout the ship.

It didn't take long for the captain to get to his feet, sprinting at full speed back to the bridge.

Small ripples continued to shake through the ship...
 
Adrian had been walking rather quickly down the hall when all of a sudden the ship bucked violently.
"FUCK!"
The medic stumbled into a wall, vibrations continuing to rock him.
He quickly opened a wide-band to the bridge, Ally, and the engineering sector of the ship.
"This P3C Adrian Decane. Can someone tell me what the hell just happened?"
While waiting for replies from them, he shot off two more calls, the first to the marines under his command.
"Marines, I want all but 15 of you ready for space combat. That means plasma launchers and disruption rifles. Istvan, I want you ready to give orders out there in case shit goes down and I'm not ready. And please, don't do anything stupid. As for the rest of you, I want you in burn armor ASAP. I want five of you to the bridge, the other ten with me."
Adrian turned to Fay. "Listen up newbie, you're coming with me."
The marine quickly turned his comm to the medbay.
"Suku, Valo, I want both of you ready to handle any casualties coming in. I'll be down when I can."
With his messages done, he quickly headed for the armory, motioning for Fay to follow.
 
"Aye, sir," Matthew responded as he brought up the window on his 'special defense' package he was creating for the Alliance's computer systems. "Ah...now where were we," he began as he began to type at a rapid pace. It wasn't long though until something on one of the various windows on his screen caught his eye.

"Eh?" he questioned as he saved his file and maximized the window. It was a system's diagnostics window and it was showing some weird fluxuations. "What in the blo..." then the explosion occurred. "DY HELL!!!" was the only logical conclusion to the Cadet's thoughts as he grasped the console and held on for dear life.

Alert messages began flooding his screen as the young Cadet allowed his experience with computers to take over. Allocating priority messages using his implants, he quickly assigned each message its own priority code and began to organize it all for quick reading. As he did so, he began to pull up more specific diagnostics windows. "Ally, I need a damage report," he spoke even as he began to search for the damages himself.
 
Ally's form appeared on the bridge and flickered, briefly becoming infinitely wide, then infinitely tall before going static and disappearing. White noise came over the PA system and then cut out.
 
The ship's rather violent shudder had caused Fay to slam hard against the wall. As his eyes began to focus again and his breath returned to him, Adrian's orders hit him like a bolt of lightning. Fay instantly stood rigid and followed him as quickly as possible. He was confused at the situation. Are the Elysians attacking us? ran through his mind over and over again until he shook his head to clear his thoughts. The armory loomed ahead as Fay trailed Adrian closely.
 
Although Ally was unable to respond, Matthew's diagnostic windows pinpointed the origin of the explosion as having come from engineering. However, it was difficult to diagnose exactly what had happened through the flashing streams of red text that rapidly streaked down his screen.

What had happened was pretty big, and it wasn't getting any better as time passed.

It was then that Miller burst into the bridge, storming to his console.

"REPORT."
 
"Gah, Bloody Hell!" Matt cursed loudly as the Captain entered the bridge.

Tom said:
"REPORT."
Click to expand...

"The only thing I'm getting is that something happened in engineering," the Cadet replied with a growl. "Ally isn't able to respond to me and I haven't gotten any reports from engineering other than what my diagnostic displays are telling me," the young man explained without turning around to meet his Captain's eyes.

Fingers flew over his panel as he opened up the ships intercom directly to Engineering. "Engineering, this is the Bridge. Status Report!"
 
"Right you hear the man! MOVE MOVE MOVE!" Istvan is slightly hampered in his own efforts to be speedy by unfamiliarity, but if he and the men placed under his command didn't make records, at least they PUSHED records. Any time one of them was slowing he let out a ferocious torrent of Russian, usually scaring them into speeding up. "I want you ready for launch!"
 
"Well this fucking sucks," Miller replied loudly. "I hope the Sub Lieutenant is handling the situation down in the trenches. Where the hell is Endurain anyway!?"

Over the crackling of the intercom came this message.

ExplosionKSHHHHHHSHZZZZZ injuries...Quantum/Gravitic Generators unstable! KSHHHHHHZZZZZZZZSHHHHHHHHHH...ting down power! KXZZZZZSSSSSSSSS rrr attack! Request HeSSSZHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Click to expand...

"I want Endurain to round up a security detail and secure engineering. Cadet, try what you can to restore operation of our artificial intelligence."

Using his datapad, the now-sweating Miller sent his directions to Endurain as he opened up a ship-wide communication.

"All non-engineering personnel report to your stations! Remain calm!"
 
Jet was already on it, he'd been setting up security for the elysian visitors to keep them safe from possibly idiotic marines. But when the ship rocked as it did he was already gathering up a team of marines, pulling some off their duty shifts to gather in the corridor just outside engineering. He himself was already on his way down there, he'd been giving the orders when Ally cut out. "Fuck this is bad, I bet it's some damn seraph." he muttered and began to gather his team and headed for engineering cautiously and without power armors as there wasn't room for them as it was. "Eyes open now men, apprehend anything or anyone suspicious." he said
 
"Aye, sir," Matt barked as he shifted all his windows to the side and pulled up the Computer Systems panel. At that moment, he pulled out a case from his pocket and opened it, pulling out a specific plug. Inserting it into his connection port, he gave it a quick twist before pulling to reveal thin wiring. The cadet then opened a small panel on his console and plugged himself into the ships own computer systems.

"Time to blitz this," he muttered as his fingertips danced across his keyboard as he began to reroute pathways and registers through non-damaged sections. "The core programming is stable, it's just the hardware that's the problem. Bypassing the damaged sections, we can have her back in no time," he continued to mutter as he gave his own screen a death glare of concentration.

Fingers continuing to fly, the young Cadet seemed to be the most talkative to date, even if he was only talking to himself. "Bypassing Sectors A and B to connect to C and D, rerouting from damaged pathways to active, distributing data streams to decrease stress, and we should have her....NOW!," he said the last bit with a shout as the hologram of Ally appeared in a more static version. "Fuck...not all there....need to refine the data transfer so that her primary logic and decision-making functions can come through," he began muttering again as his fingers became a blur once more.
 
Adrian pulled on the light glove of the burn armor, opening and closing his hand to get the fit right. Behind him, the Warhawk armor he had pulled off quickly disintegrating.
The marine quickly went to work grabbing weapons and ammo, pulling down a Peacekeeper Rifle. He switched the firing mode to "non-lethal" for the moment. A prisoner or two couldn't hurt. Slinging the weapon, he went looking for some pistols. 2 Zen Arms 10mm Covert Ops pistols and a 10mm SMG later, he felt reasonably confident he was ready. He grabbed a ton of ammo and filled every available pocket with the stuff before turning to leave, just as the 15 marines he had requested filed through the door.
"Listen up, boys, make sure you either lock that armor or set it to disintegrate. We don't want some Elysian asshat to walk up here, see a pretty looking phalanx, and come and kill us all, right?"
The marines agreed and Adrian smiled.
"Alright then. Get ready to rock. The guys with me, we're heading to engineering."
 
Fay quickly followed Adrian's example and disintegrated his own Phalanx armor. He grabbed a ZA 10mm Covert Ops pistol as well, but grabbed a Peacekeeper Rifle and several clips of ammo for both of the weapons. Better safe then sorry, he thought to himself. He rejoined Adrian as the marines began to get rid of their armor, one way or the other, and start stockpiling on weapons. Fay turned to his superior and asked, "Any word from the bridge or engineering on current status, sir?"
 
Istvan needed his meds. Combat was about to happen, he was sure, and he needed the edge that they gave him... He paced, nervously, trying to find some replacement. He had the jitters. He needed them to calm his nerves and steady his mind.

"Are you alright?" A marine asked. Istvan let loose another torrent of Russian, scaring the man back into silence. To try to combat his nervousness he began to speak.

"Get in the pipes, we may as well be ready. I want the planetary landing squad ready to move at a moment's notice, and the space squad not far behind. We will do this my way... covering fields of fire, combined targeting. This is not a speed game. This is not a dual. This is not the time to show off. I have no room for hot-bloodedness in my squads. You need to be machines, without fear, favor or emotion. You are there to achieve objectives, not to show off. The show offs may get the glory, but the machines get more done. We are going to do this like a well-horned machine. There is nothing that can stand against us."
 
As the alarm sounded throughout the ship and the ship continued its steady, light shaking, Jet received the notification via his datapad that the problem had occurred in the engineering sector of the ship. Details were non-existent; a sign that the bridge crew itself couldn't find what was going on. In the launch bay, and other sectors of the ship, the marines followed the orders of the captain, remaining at their stations, their nervous eyes glancing back and forth, but no signs of panic yet. If it was anything Nepleslians were used to, it was a crisis caused by an explosion.

The lights, which bathed everything in red, began to flicker on and off. For the moment, their energy was steady enough to keep them operational.

Istvan lifted his eyes to the darkened corridor walls. "Now what? Men! Get ready for launch, some of you guard the pipes... There may be on-ship action. I wish I was in a Water....

The marines around Istvan groaned. "We know that, jackass," One piped up from the back. "But we may have to shoot some shit ON our ship instead." Obviously, he hadn't heard the second part of Istvan's statement.

Istvan lets loose a torrent of angry Russian, "You fucking idiot," he said once he had calmed down. "You will listen, or I will shoot you myself. This is not the place for smart-aleck remarks. As I said before some of you guard the launch tubes. Adrian has an in-ship squad. We are here for EXTERNAL threats. First man who breaks orders I shoot myself." Istvan's head hurt... he wasn't thinking clearly as he should be... He didn't have his edge.

"Yeah right, rookie," came the reply from the back, which was then replaced by an "OOF" sound as someone else slugged him in the stomach. "What the fuck was that for, man!? Private here thinks he runs the show!" "Shut up, assfuck! At least he's doing SOMETHING!" Some of the marines had been inspired by the hard-talking man's take-charge attitude.

Adrian ran quickly down the hall, a large group of marines behind him. He saw Jet up ahead and yelled. "Oi! What's up, man!" He got beside the man, easily keeping pace. "You know what the fuck is going on?" A couple of the marines behind them exchanged greetings and what-not. "Listen up, Marines, I want four of you kids ready to pull wounded out of there and bring them down to the medbay. Understood?"

---

Jet was already armed and heading toward engineering with a briskness to his step. He pulled out the datapad and sent out priority security message to the marines to meet him in the corridor outside engineering on the double. A few had already gathered and were following him down there. "A breach in engineering, great just what we need. I bet it's an Elysian trick," he said to himself and added to the message. "Don't bring armors either we can't risk damaging that section of the ship more than it is."

Jet looked at Adrian. "All I know is there's trouble in engineering and the guys on the bridge can't determine the details so I want all of you to be on your toes." He said to both Adrian and the marines following them. "Don't got shooting randomly either there's some delicate shit down there."

As the group ran to the NSS Alliance engineering sector, they came across a large, sealed metal door.

"Shit a blast shutter's closed." Jet let out and looked over it to see if he could disengage it, if he couldn't their fastest route there was sealed. "fuck..."

Adrian smiled, mentally making a note to thank the marines who had helped him out. An extra shot or two of morphine should do it. He acknowledged Jet with a nod and stopped as he came to the heavy door. "Damn. Jet, can we see whether not there's a hull breach behind that?" He doubted there was, but was used to seeing such doors come down in that sort of event, at least in movies.

Fortunately, the control panel next to the door was operational, but required clearance in order to override the security protection installed by the ship.

---

Istvan nodded. "Good," he said, "we are Soldiers, not warriors. Now is not the time for being cowboys. Now is not the time for heroics. Now is NOT the time for challenging of orders. We are a well oiled machine. You, you, you, you. Guard the tubes. You, you, you, you, you, you, get ready for launch to guard the ship. Over lapping fire control, guard the men to either side as well as yourself. Keep your eyes open,â€
 
Fay tried to remain calm and composed, but it was difficult. He had remained quiet and out of the way most of the time. He followed Adrian and aided the injured marines the best he could. Many of them would probably have to stay in the medbay for weeks, possibly months, to fully recover. This day sure had been interesting...
 
On the bridge, Captain Miller looked over to Cadet Lionheart.

The speedy Cadet made great progress, his technical skills at computer fixing errors and rerouting code coming into the spotlight. He was close to bringing back Ally to an operational, albeit flawed, status.
"There's something on the hull. I think it might be a mine... I don't know what to do with it...I'm thinking of cutting it off the hull though."
Click to expand...

Oh great, now there was an explosive attached to the ship. That pretty much pegged this whole fiasco as sabotage. The Nepleslian brought his hands up to his face and squeezed the skin on his cheek, making his lips pucker like a fish.

Damn it...

Cadet Lionheart had restored limited diagnostic abilities to his console and found that the Quantum/Gravitic generators, which supplied power to the shields and some of the weapons on the NSS Alliance, was down. Cutting the hull of the Alliance would lead to complete ship depressurization which would kill the entire crew and possibly destroy the ship.

"Cadet, what are our options at this point?"
 
Istvan's ordered his men to sweep for more bombs, and to be careful not to disturb the hull. There was no way to know what would set it off. He was nervous, he was keeping an eye on it, moving as little as possible, trying not to do ANYTHING that might accidentally activate it. Istvan, was, in face, a wreak. He calls into bridge again, even though he had done so before a scant couple of minuets ago. "Please" he says "I have no idea when it might go off, or how big the payload is, but I suspect that when it goes off I'm toast... I can't move away from it because that might activate it, I don't know... dear gods... send a bomb expert out here PLEASE.... I don't like just standing here, watching... I need to command my men... and the bomb needs to be watched... and I won't put anyone else on it, I won't risk their lives... I need relief... I..." He almost starts sobbing into the com.


(Just for the record, this is exactly the type of situation Istvan doesn't handle very well... Just my luck, hey?)
 
Matthew felt a bit overwhelmed for a moment, but his mind and logic took over as his fingers continued to fly over his console as he began to bring up more and more diagnostic abilities to his console. Power Generators for shields and weapons are down... he thought as his face seemed more pale than usual with hints of a cold sweat on his forehead. Yet for all that, his expression remained calm and neutral for now.

Pulling up the information the bridge was receiving from the Marines and Technicians, Matt began to compile all of the facts into a easily read text file for himself. Bombs on the hull.....cutting it off will only make things worse...yet it wouldn't matter if the damn thing explodes. Think Lionheart, you know your shit so get your act together, Matt's mind went through a torrent of thoughts as his fingers halted for a moment. His chocolate-brown eyes narrowed as he seemed to run a few plans through his head.

"I need more information," he muttered as his fingers began to fly across his keyboard again. "I need to know the size of the explosive and what type of explosive it is," he said normally as he opened a communications window. "Marines, I need everything you can give me on that explosive. Size, scans, anything you can give me," Matt ordered as he began to access the ships database on explosive devices. "If possible, get a demolitions specialist out there, I need as much detail as I can get."

We'll need to search for the saboteur....no no no ! Concentrate on the current threat, the explosive. Matt thought angrily before gritting his teeth. "One option is what I'm attempting now, Captain," the Cadet began as he turned away from his console for the first time in a while to look straight at his commanding officer. "With the right information and personnel, we could probably disarm the device or even free it from our hull without damage. But we can only do this if we have the right information about the explosive. Until then, it would probably be best for the Marines to search the hull to see if they missed anything...it's possible there could be more than one explosive device." the Cadet explained before taking a calming breath...had he just managed to say all that one or two breathes?

"There is another possibility we can look into...though I'm a bit hesitant to suggest it due to the feelings of some of our crew members. But I wouldn't be a warrant officer if I didn't stick my neck out once in a while," Matt commented. "We could contact the Elysians and request assistance."

Before any rebuttal could be made, the Cadet burst forth in a quick explanation. "I know it's possible that much of the crew believes the Elysians are responsible for this, but I personally believe that's improbable. Destroying a diplomatic envoy, even through sabotage, would just lead to a conflict that neither the Elysians or us want...so it doesn't seem logical that the Elysians escorting us or the Elysians who took the diplomatic envoy planet side are responsible. Because of this, that leaves two types of organizations responsible. It's possible we could have an operative from the Reds in our midst, trying to blow our chances of any peace with the Elysians out of the stars. It is also quite possible that a rogue group of Elysians want a war with us, thus causing this incident. Either way, asking for assistance from the Elysian Celestial Navy escorts wouldn't hurt us any more than it already has." the warrant officer finished his explanation. Great...I need a drink now. Matt thought.
 
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top