RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 5.5] - Stormin' the Castle

The force of the Gravitron Beams catching hold of the high speed debris caused a large portion of it to slow to a halt, thus causing some of the other debris behind it to smash into it, sending chunks of metal and other various material spiraling away from the core chunk. As it neared the ship, what was producing the power signal could now be seen visually. In the floating debris was what appeared to be the body of a very large man. Yet at the same time, that body was what was producing the signal.

Mel was out near the shuttle bay, near Robert, watching the humanoid object get pulled in by Vincent's handiwork. They would say something like: "More to the left," "More to the right," "Pull it in a bit more," or "Stop stop stop!" to guide the object inside.
Eventually the man landed on the shuttle bay with a clonk near Mel and Robert's feet, cracking some of the ice encrusted on it and revealing the more humanoid shape encased inside.

"Cripes," Mel observed with a frown, looking to Robert and the frozen humanoid, "This bloke must've 'ad a bad day, gettin' 'imself sucked inta space."

She looked through her tool repertoire and got out her monkey wrench, and began tapping away lightly at the other pieces of ice on the body, making sure not to try and hurt the contents.
"Gimme a hand, will ya?" She asked Robert as she kept chipping away at the ice.

Robert jumped when Mel asked him to help. He was still staring at the guy in an iceblock. "Uh, sure. What do you want me to do?" Robert asked as he knelt down beside her.

"Help me break it open," Mel responded while giving a calculated percuss to the iced up sternum of the being in ice, cracking it some more, "Or get someone to 'ave a look at it, numby! Get Arin, 'er Seb o'er here!"

Overhearing Mel's talk, Mitch meandered over from the lobby, "This ID-SOL must've had a shit day to end up like this," He observed astutely, and soberly, he was aching for a drink, "I wonder if there's anything on him useful?"

"'at's why I'm breakin' the ice, wanker!" Mel shrugged with her monkey wrench in hand, mumbling as she continued to try and free the giant person inside.

However, the person in the ice was not an ID-SOL, nor was he alive. Or, alive in the sense that he could move, given provocation.

"Excuse me..." Said a crude and lit flamethrower nozzle as it poked its flaming head into the crowd gathered around Mr.Iceman. Arin could very easily recognize the man as being a brutish Custodian android from Novacorp, which was easily contrasted with the gentle YORNA gynoids from NAM that she normally worked with. She heard much of its reputable toughness, and in the process of defrosting the thing, would gladly put it's defensive capabilities to the test for the grief it caused from rousing the Representative from her much needed slumber. She gave the people in the area a little time to move aside.

"...THIS IS FOR WAKING ME UP!" She shouted, face flushed with blood as she depressed the nozzle, sending a brilliant pillar of flame washing over the Custodian. She didn't intend to permanently damage the unit though, just to warm it up a little so she can rip single component out of it.

Robert jumped at Arin's violent reaction. He thought about puting a reassuing hand on her shoulder, then looked at what she had in her hand. "You like you're beauty sleep i take it.

As the flames began melting away at the ice covering the downed figure, the sos signal stopped broadcasting and the remaining power from it surged through the ice delivering a small shock to the area around it.

Inside the system however....
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01010111010000010101001001001110010010010100111001000111001000010000110100001010
0110010101111000011101000110010101110010011011100110000101101100
011101000110100001110010011001010110000101110100
011001000110010101110100011001010110001101110100011001010110010000100001
01101001011011100110100101110100011010010110000101110100011010010110111001100111
011100110110010101100011011011110110111001100100011000010111001001111001
0111000001101111011101110110010101110010
01110011011110010111001101110100011001010110110101110011001011100010111000101110

A massive fist suddenly shattered through the ice, quickly followed by the other. The humanoid flexed it's upper body forward cracking and breaking the remaining ice that hadn't already been chipped or melted away. Looking down he slammed a fist into the ice trapping his lower body, completely obliterating it.

He slowly stood up as the flames scorched the remains of the USS Alliance armor it wore. It slowly turned to Arin.

It didn't occur to the ex-Representative that someone would just toss a perfectly functional out into space. However, another easy contrast occurred to her. When YORNA's would only look at your general direction when serving you, as they were designed to do. Now a custodian in a military uniform isn't certainly designed to serve tea, but it was certainly staring at her.

"Uh, guys...?" The rage begain to dissipate and a silver of apprehension crept into her voice. The flamethrower ran out of fuel.

The large android took a step forward, grabbing the nozzle of the flame thrower. The large hand locked down on the weapon, whether it was still shooting flame or not didn't seem to concern him. His eyes still locked on Arin as he remained standing there.

Almost as if having teleported, Vincent suddenly appeared in the hangar, dive-tackling the Custodian with significant effort. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," The merc growled as he (with evident struggle) pinned the robot's four limbs to the ground.

sparks fizzed from the hole in Valo's stomach as the Id-Sol tackled it. It's head cocked to the side as Valo flung itself back to an upright position. As Valo grappled with Vincent, a passive scan kicked in, causing the android to speak.

"Ensign Vincent O'Malley...current field position....MIA..height..seven feet three inches...wei...."

The custodian's readout was cut short as the remaining energy from the already damaged secondary power generator cut out. The hulking machine fell forward onto Vincent.

The massive smash made from the android falling on to Vincent had sparked Luca's interest.
"Hello..." He said to himself, looking over his shoulder and getting out of the chair, "That sounded like an android falling on one of my crewmen!"

He moved over towards the cargo bay, and found that, indeed, an android had fallen on top of Vincent. Mel had given herself some distance after Arin's flame thrower stunt.
"What the hell happened here?" Luca asked incredulously, looking at the broken flame thrower, the android with a hole in its chest, and a squashed crewmember, "Arin, how come you flame throwered the Robot?"

Mel sauntered over to Luca and whispered in his ear, "She mightn't be right in the head,"
Luca nodded a little with a frown, while bending down to try and lift the massive robot off of Vincent.

"Arin, do you know who this robot is or something?"

"Ah..." Arin dropped the flamethrower and to her knees. Everything happened so fast, at one point she thought the situation was in her hands, next it was in the robot, and then her unlikely saviour. Maybe she needed to come to her senses... Just like the Custodian was trying to do before it shut down. She crawled over to the android, her 'burning' hate replaced by a duty of care.

She examined the Custodian with her datapad and a small scanner. "I can't tell where was he from due to the damage on the outside, but the way it spoke, I bet there is damage on the inside as well." She put her tools away and closed her eyes to think. "I could try to fix him up, but you're going to need an electronic systems engineer to finish the job."

The hulking ID-Sol grumbled, clearing his throat, as he looked at the robot.

"And the fact that the tin can had access to my personnel file up until I went MIA, I'd hazard a guess that it's probably a former Custodian for either the Greens or the Reds. Considering it was coccooned in starship-grade armor plating, as well, I'd guess it's the remnants of a battle of some sort."

Meanwhile, back in the lounge, Sebastian had fallen asleep during most of the trip. He was sprawled on one of the couches, with his weapons and ammunition strewn on the small coffee table. A cold sweat ran down his face and melted into his beard. He could be heard grunting slightly, moving a little, too.

A bad dream said:

All I can feel is the cold slab of an operating table, with no blanketing for warmth. I was young and dumb.
I cannot feel my right arm, for it is not there, blown into many pieces by a stray grenade. I had a gag in my mouth, but I spat it out, I couldn't contain the pain for much longer.
"F-Fix me!" I screamed to my doctor, "Make me whole again!!"
"Seb, calm down, please!" My doctor warned as he pulled up blueprints, a variety of surgical tools, and some intricate machinery, "Anna and I will have your arm back on in no time."
"What do you mean?!" I asked, "What are you planning?!"

"Seb, you're going to receive an advanced cybernetic structure," My doctor showed me the blueprints. An arm made of millions of metal muscles, but still as big as a normal arm, and many times stronger, faster and harder. It would even be warm to the touch, and indistinguishable to the normal eye, "Simply put, you're going to get a metal arm which will not feel metal. You'll have all of your sensations in your arm back..." He reached for a mask and put it over my face, "...now count to ten, slowly..."
It all became black...

Click to expand...

Sebastian jolted awake, "Oh my god ..." He regained his composure quickly, rubbing his forehead, frowning and sitting up on the couch, "Not again..." He sighed lightly, then wondered what all the racket was in the cargo hold, standing up and walking towards it.

John poked his head out, looking at Sebastian walking away from the lounge, frowning, then returning to piloting.

Meanwhile, back in the hold, Luca, Arin, Vincent, Robert and Mel were looking at the Custodian Android.
"...Curious," Luca observed, rubbing his chin, "You're saying that he might've been from the DIoN? Well," He looked towards Arin, "Arin, see if you can get him conscious, or whatever conscious is for robots."

"Tell ya what, it's not the sorta thing you'd find every day..." Mel commented, giving the robot a tap, "Y'think they want it back?"

"I dunno... looks like it's been out here a while," Luca shrugged, "Maybe they've got the money to get a new one by now," At this point, Sebastian walked in, Luca gave him a nod of acknowledgement, "Hi dad, look what we found!"

"A big 'ol robot, huh?" He shrugged with a weak smile, "You kids, keep it down, I gotta get some good shuteye."

"Hold on, I might have an interim solution." Arin disappeared, before coming back with (in?) a lumbering M1 Demon power armor. After parking (crashing) the suit close to the android, she wiggled out of the armor holding two wires she isolated from the insides of the suit. After consulting a rough schematic of the Custodian, she plugged the wires into a niche near the droid's abdomen and hoped the Aether Converter on the suit would do the rest. In the meantime, she quickly moved behind Vincent for safety, seeing that he had successfully dealt with the machine before.

The fingers of the android twitched as power from the armored was converted through it's systems. Valo opened it's eyes and tilted it's head to the side, staring at the power armor. "This is not the Alliance" It stated blankly to itself. It's eyes suddenly shifted to Vincent and Arin. "initiating diagnostic..." Valo slowly lifted it's right arm and reached inside the hole in it's chest. An audible popping and snapping as if someone was removing bolts from a wall could be heard. "quantum foam generator non operational....required maintenance....730.484398 days past due..."

As the android removed it's hand from the chest wound, it appeared to be clutching something. The object appeared to have a hole punched in it and long dry fluids stained the shell. "Unit Valo non operational for field functions..." The arm clutching the destroyed generator slumped back down to the android's side. Valo's eyes shifted to each person in the room around it, until they came back to Vincent. "Ensign Vincent. How is it we have come to be captive, and why do you assist the captors?" It askedwithout even a hint of emotion.

Vincent switched over to full-Green mode and locked gazes with Valo.

"Custodian unit, reset IFF parameters to recognise all individuals within this craft as "friendly" units. Following that, run a full self-diagnostic and report back to me with the details." He scowled. "They aren't our captors, they're our employers."

"Reset access granted....setting new parameters...Form and voice analysis required later....performing full diagnostic.."

Valo's eyes faded in color for a moment as it ran a scan on its inner systems. It only took a few moments until the scan was finished. "System damage occurred during scheduled maintenance period. Impact readings indicate inner ring layer inactive during time of trauma. Not enough system power to reactive internal defenses, primary power source....quantum foam generator damage critical." Stopping itself there, Valo managed to lift the box in it's hand up towards Vincent.

"my systems....I...have no memory as to how the damage occurred. The majority of my systems are eroded, full maintenance and power supply replacement are required for this unit to be of manual assistance."

"And there you have it." Vincent turned back towards Arin, who had been cringing behind Vincent's massive frame during the course of the entire exchange. "He won't harm you now; I've reset his targeting parameters. We're all friends here now, all friends. Alright?" He smiled.