Team 2: Bridge (Sanda, Cassie, Zanven)
Cassie took off her Mindy's helmet. "My armor's computer seems to be wiped, I got no operating system and nothing is working. I can't even really see because the displays are offline," she scowled. "I've lost all aether power. We're dealing with something really hazardous here. I lost communications first, can anyone still talk to the Resurgence?" she asked as she started reaching in her butt pack, retrieving a standard Nekovalkyrja Service Pistol to further arm herself. "I agree, Sanda, we should head to the bridge, gather intel, check for survivors, download logs and bounce."
No one else could get through to the Resurgence.
Sanda shook her head. "I've been trying to send a signal using a trick I learned in Ranger school but no luck so far." Sanda was rather concerned to hear that Cassie's suit had stopped functioning. Whatever those things were that attacked them were a lot more dangerous than she had first believed.
Zanven heard Cassie talk about her systems and was deeply worried as he checked his own system and saw that it was still functional he remembered that he had only been damaged indirectly and not grabbed by whatever the creatures were. "Cassie, since I'm going to be having to work on the systems in the bridge you can use my rifle, and I can see about once we get power restored if we can find a way to restore your armor or get something to replace in the meantime?" He spoke as he continued to scan the area for any further hostile activity...waiting on further instruction.
Team 1: Enginering (Frank, Yayoi, Thad, Del)
Frank began moving in the direction of the engine room leading ahead. his missile pod ready to fire at the first thing he sees that's not them, "Good luck team lets try to make it home okay?"
Yayoi silently followed Frank to the Engine room after finding she couldn't get through to the ship. She thought they would need to use the SS Spark's tech to do it, and hoped they could find survivors.
Frank called over his coms, "Cassie do you happen to have a map layout of where the engineering is?" Frank asked, but there wasn't a response.
Yayoi blinked as she listened to Frank"no inter-squad comms that would make things harder for us, be careful Frank."
Frank shook his head realizing they're going in blind, this wasn't good. <Think Frank think> He thought to himself as he looked around the corridor. "Okay Yayoi, were going to have to find a way to the lower deck and make our way to the back of the ship If things start getting too hairy I want you to run back to Bridge as fast as you can I'll buy you time."
Yayoi walked ahead of Frank as she led the way to the Engineering. "no you run back, I'm a Neko and I am currently backed up as of a hour ago, have you gotten backed up? Don't worry about me Frank." She said as kept her eyes peeled for danger.
Franked nodded before responding "Yes I'm backed up however I'm also a selfless oaf so assume i might do something stupid to save your skin if that happens." Frank added with a chuckle.
Yayoi smirked under her helmet "noted" she said thinking she might have to keep an eye on him. She wasn't sure she liked having to watch him and Thad.
Spotting a staircase downwards. He pointed it out to Yayoi. "Ladder ahead, lets try to speed this up this place gives me the creeps." Frank stated.
Yayoi took note of the ladder "copy that, I'd assume Engineering is down, so lets see if we can get down there" She said though she assumed chances were that they might have to detour or something.
As the two of them started getting close to the ladder frank gestured to it with his free hand. "lady's first." he stated.
Yayoi smirked"what a gentleman" she replied as she placed her gauntleted hand on it and began using it.
The engineering deck was covered in gore. Some of the corpses had their hands stuck to the wall, or the ship's console and so were frozen as they sat in whatever position they died in. Some still had the bodies of their fallen comrade. Most of them had been stabbed and slashed to death. Again, several were missing their heads. There was a strong stench of blood in the air.
As Yayoi entered the engineering section, she made no comment, seemingly unphased as if she'd seen this before.
"These poor bastards." Frank stated as he made his way towards one of the consoles. "lets see if I still remember how to slice into things." he stated thinking back to his days in psychopomp.
Yayoi nodded "slice into the tech, the rest of us will watch your back" she commented as she began moving into protective stance a part of her military training.
Frank would pull a panel off as he began tinkering with the system. "well with all my days as a psychopomp saboteur I might be able to do something here but in all honesty I have no idea the extent of the damage this is a bit too grisly even for Psychopomp and they made some horrifying things like myself." he stated.
Yayoi spoke up as she kept her eyes in the environment around them. "Rixxikor are like this" She replied "might be those robots though"
Thad let out a small sigh as he walked about the room. While he was use to seeing this level of gore, it does not make it anymore easy. "Poor souls, doubt they even seen it coming." He paused for a moment before he continued. "Welp, let us get some power going. Maybe some of the auto fire turrets still work on the ship."
Yayoi glanced to Thad"if they are effective against the creatures then i can agree to that"
Thad started to look around for a console that looked to have some level of life to it. He found one that looked to be somewhat together. He banged on it a few times to see if anything would happen.
The console did not respond to banging but it did have an interface in trade for running the ship's systems. Unfortunately it seemed to be having issues talking to the ship's central computer system, which had already been subsumed by the computer virus or whatever was plaguing the SS Spark's systems.
Yayoi glanced over as Thad banged the console her eyebrows raised as she watched for a second before turning back to keep an eye on things. "Got anything?" She asked him.
"Nope, dead as an enemy facing Star Army. Thinking we will need to find a backup console. Whatever took this ship over is not willing to let it go."
Yayoi cursed lowly to herself as she listened to his reply. "agreed, or find some way to make whatever it is to fuck off will also be good." she said.
"Shouldn't there be a purge option or something around here? I feel like given the many different enemies of Yam, this would have come up before." He said as he looked around for another console.
Yayoi"maybe" She replied simply and took note of Thad's looking for another console.
Thad continued to check around. He knew the ship AI had an access panel somewhere around here. Maybe it managed to stash away from the virus. "Hey Yayoi, I am looking for an access panel to get into the AI. Let me know if you find anything." He told to her over comms.
Yayoi turned and then began looking for the panel to get into the AI as Thad needed, though making sure she was aware of any danger along side. She couldn't help but think of having a special AI in the armor to keep attention on the scanners.
Thad by use of the Mindy's scanners was able to find an access hatch. "Cover me, I feel bad news might be on the other side." He waited a moment before he opened the hatch.
Yayoi nodded as she continued to look around and cover for Thad.
Team 2:
Cassie was unable to respond due to her systems being offline. She kept her eyes searching the vents for signs of the hostile entities. "Bridge should be foremost at the end of the main hall based on the ship's exterior appearance. I'm slow moving with the armor systems fried, who wants to take point?"
Sanda was already leading the way. She stopped to check around a corner before continuing. She really didn't like what was happening. She was regretting splitting up. They should have stayed as a group and just scrubbed the mission. Whatever these things were, they were dangerous.
Sanda led the way to the Bridge. They saw more damaged corridors and several dead bodies much like those they had seen before. They hadn't run into any more of those things yet but they were ready for them none the less. She continued trying to reach the Resurgence using that trick she'd learned in Ranger school. Thunder to Resurgence. Unknown Hostiles Engaged. Zero Casualties. Attempting to take bridge. Enemy appears to disabled Cassie's Mindy. Standby.
YSS Resurgence, Bridge
"See if you can compensate for all that interference. I want to know where it's coming from as well," Aoba told Kalena.
He called Iemochi back, "I think if we send out a second team then we just end up with two teams in trouble instead of one," he replied. "I agree on quarantine if you think there's some risk but currently we don't have the full picture."
Mochi sent back a quick, "Roger. From what little we saw before the feeds cut out, these are lifeforms wildly different to what we're familiar with. I'd advise we air on the side of caution, especially given how odd the planet they may be somehow related to is."
"The jamming signal appears to originate from the planet below," Kalena reported to Iemochi and Aoba. "I am also showing a handful of habitable areas down here."
"Habitable?" Mochi echoed, "That might explain where these things came from. Let me see if I can back-trace the coordinates of the signal with the sensor dome. Maybe we can launch a torpedo and solve that issue the old fashioned way." The Elysian diverted some of the arrays away from the boarded ship and down to the planet to help.
Mochi was successful in finding the jamming signal's origin. It was coming from one of the habitable areas of the planet.
"Is it possible the jamming signal is here to protect the Resurgence?" Aoba suddenly asked. "From the virus, I mean?"
Aoba had raised an interesting point. Mochi pondered on it for a moment or two, as he sent down a splash of the signal's location to the Bridge. "Protect us? Maybe- It would certainly be interesting if their SIGINT tech was better than the Resurgence's." A short pause followed.
"We know these things are somewhat metallic- Let me run a life-scan for anything organic and see what that reveals." The science officer pulled up the habitability map and pulsed a broad-band scan for organic heat signatures, from cities or groupings of lifeforms. If there was nothing, chances are the signal was hostile, unless there was some splinter faction of these virus-things.
Scans showed an escape pod on the surface in one of the habitable zones and one probable human life sign in its vicinity.
"Captain, looks like we have an ally. Reads as human, they may have escaped the Nepleslian ship before it was occupied. I don't like their chances alone down there. Attempting to ping their pod's communications." Mochi relayed, enjoying how easy it was to make adjustments on the fly with SPINE.
There was no response from the pod, probably due to the jamming.
SS Spark, Bridge (Team 2)
When they arrived at the bridge, they found that the last of the crew had made some sort of last-ditch effort to barricade the doors, welding the door shut so it wouldn't open.
Sanda stood looking at the welded door. That was not what she had been expecting.
"I don't have any engineering equipment but maybe an aether saber can do the trick," Cassie suggested. "Mine's on battery so if anyone else wants to use theirs so I can save it, go for it."
Sanda held up her Aether bayonet on the front of her sub. "I give it a try. Although if it's welded shut, there might be someone still alive in there." Sanda rapped her knuckles on the door a few times in code. Ally ally all come free.
Someone knocked back from the other side of the door with the "Shave and a haircut, two bits" pattern.
Sanda smiled under her helmet. She tapped again, more deliberately. This is YSS Resurgence, We are here to help. Stand back.
The unknown person merely repeated the previous knock.
Sanda let up her Aether Bayonett and began to cut through were the weld had been made. Sparks flew as she steadily cut through the door.
Once they were able to open the door they found a heavily-armed Nepleslian woman on the other side who was so overjoyed she immediately broke down in tears and started hugging Sanda while babbling incoherently and thanking her profusely.
Sanda gently but firmly pushed the woman off of her. She didn't want anything to tangle up her weapons. "Itto-Hei Hoshi, YSS Resurgence. We're here to help you. Who are you? What are those things that attacked your ship?"
Zanven watched the scene and aimed his rifle at first, but retreated a step as the woman moved to hug Sanda. He quickly scanned the bridge and then whistled to Cassie as he was going to pass his rifle to her. He would let them ask the questions as he needed to see if there was ANYTHING in the bridge that was working. "Brax moving forward ma'am." He said as he pulled out his sidearm and moved to the controls for the bridge.
Cassie turned back towards the main corridor, watching it from the doorway in case they had more company from the vents.
Zanven found the bridge's controls were mostly offline due to a computer failure. The ship appeared to be under automated control from an unknown entity, that wasn't letting the ship's personnel do anything.
"Grab logs, recorders, hard drives," Cassie ordered. "Any documentation."
"Aye, aye." Zanven got to work as he looked for physical ports to uplink into.
"My name is Cathy Eraz, I'm the ship's navigator," the woman told Sanda. "How did you even find us? This was supposed to be a secret mission and we're out in the middle of nowhere. I think I'm the last one alive on the Spark."
Sanda shrugged, "Not important right now. What are those things?"
"We sent down shuttles to the machine planet and they came back on them. They transformed. The chief called them computronium demons. I think they...uh..." she sniffled. "I think they are parasites of the machine world...? Look I'm not an expert, I just flew the ship where they told me."
Zanven hit his head on one of the console pieces as he heard the dialogue between the survivor and Sanda. "Excuse me...the what?!" He said as he was just about to jack into the port.
"Yeah," Cassie offered her opinion, "I think there's some things in the universe that are a little too big to chew on and sometimes these planet-sized AIs might fall into that category, I think your charter client just F'd around and found out."
Sanda did not like the sound of this. She liked clean cut things like you shoot or stab the enemy and it dies. Parasitic computer virus was something she left to officers.
"So the real question," Cassie said, looking over her shoulder at Sanda, "Is how are we going to extract with this woman and with my suit fried?"
Zanven finally got jacked into the port as the low power was able to access the main drives.
Just then Zanven's suit failed completely, as the virus took it over. As that happened, Cassie's Mindy started slowly turning around and raising its rifle at him. "WHOA WHOA WHOA," Cassie shouted, trying to fight against her Mindy armor. "That's not me! Sanda take my weapon NOW!"
Sanda wanted to say, why are you asking me? You're the Heisho when things went from bad to MUY MALO. Sanda moved like her tattoos, lighting, and grabbed Cassie's weapon out of her hands. She also grabbed her side arm, then for good measure, kicked Cassie in the stomach to send her to the ground.
"well...fuck." He spoke candidly. "Ma'am...I'm bugged." He said as looked up and say Cassie's Mindy turned towards him. Hearing Cassie yell Zanven removed the port as he forcefully started to move...very slowly as he was not ready. He threw off his helmet as he took a look around again at the bridge.
Cassie yelled, "Just get me out of the suit, I'll switch to my AMES," she said, as the armor attempted to train its wrist guns on Cathy the survivor in a robotic fashion.
Sanda stepped in front of Cathy to try and shield her with her body as she activated her bayonet on the end of her sub. She thanked the stars she had gone to Giretsu school and leaned so much about the Mindy. With the precision of a surgeon, Sanda slashed at the Mindy's joints and clasps so that they would open without hurting Cassie in the process.
Cassie scrambled out of her prized Mindy as fast as she could and snatched her spacesuit out of its bag and then went out into the hall with Cathy so they could dispose of the infected suit with aether. "Did you get those logs?" she also asked, while leaning up against the corridor wall as she slipped the AMES suit on her body.
Zanven was able to stand and remove his suit as well and grab his sidearm. He was nine kinds of pissed off at the virus fucking up his outing with the team...more importantly he nearly got shot...Zanven checked himself once more, but he felt naked now on an enemy ship, and without armor, all he had left was his training...damn good that he took it too. When asked about the logs he looked down at his suit.
As soon as Cassie was out of her suit, Sanda sliced it to pieces. Then cut Zanven's suit for good measure. It felt good to be able to put something down and it not get back up.
"Anyone got a spare suit for the navigator?" Cassie asked Sanda.
Cathy looked out the front window of the ship's bridge. "We're turning," she told the rescue team as the Resurgence came into view.
"There should be a ready room by the hanger where we can find a suit for her." Sanda said. She looked to where Cathy was pointing and her eyes grew big.
"well I accessed the drives...but then everything went to hell..." He said as he pointed at the cut up suit. That's when he felt the ship moving, or rather, when he noticed it. He then noticed the power start to flicker. The resurgence was in full view and the pilot lunged for the controls as he tried to input commands to power down the thrusters and stop this ride, but they just wouldn't respond.
"I think that's our queue to GTFO," Cassie said. "We need to warn the other team."
"Go! Get to the hanger. I'll find the other team. Double time it to the hanger!" Sanda said. She tossed Cassie's weapons back to her then took off down the corrider to find the other team and warn them.
Team 1:
Suddenly the engine room had came to life and the ship began to move as the ship began to turn towards the Resurgence and throttle up its speed to maximum. Thad and Yayoi could hear the energy building up around them.
Bridge
"Evasive maneuvers! Get the shuttle back to the Spark," Aoba orded, we need everyone off that ship. It's a threat."
- - -
OOC: JP by Wes, Demibear, Ajax, Charaa, Cowboy, Spaceeye, Shadowwalker
Cassie took off her Mindy's helmet. "My armor's computer seems to be wiped, I got no operating system and nothing is working. I can't even really see because the displays are offline," she scowled. "I've lost all aether power. We're dealing with something really hazardous here. I lost communications first, can anyone still talk to the Resurgence?" she asked as she started reaching in her butt pack, retrieving a standard Nekovalkyrja Service Pistol to further arm herself. "I agree, Sanda, we should head to the bridge, gather intel, check for survivors, download logs and bounce."
No one else could get through to the Resurgence.
Sanda shook her head. "I've been trying to send a signal using a trick I learned in Ranger school but no luck so far." Sanda was rather concerned to hear that Cassie's suit had stopped functioning. Whatever those things were that attacked them were a lot more dangerous than she had first believed.
Zanven heard Cassie talk about her systems and was deeply worried as he checked his own system and saw that it was still functional he remembered that he had only been damaged indirectly and not grabbed by whatever the creatures were. "Cassie, since I'm going to be having to work on the systems in the bridge you can use my rifle, and I can see about once we get power restored if we can find a way to restore your armor or get something to replace in the meantime?" He spoke as he continued to scan the area for any further hostile activity...waiting on further instruction.
Team 1: Enginering (Frank, Yayoi, Thad, Del)
Frank began moving in the direction of the engine room leading ahead. his missile pod ready to fire at the first thing he sees that's not them, "Good luck team lets try to make it home okay?"
Yayoi silently followed Frank to the Engine room after finding she couldn't get through to the ship. She thought they would need to use the SS Spark's tech to do it, and hoped they could find survivors.
Frank called over his coms, "Cassie do you happen to have a map layout of where the engineering is?" Frank asked, but there wasn't a response.
Yayoi blinked as she listened to Frank"no inter-squad comms that would make things harder for us, be careful Frank."
Frank shook his head realizing they're going in blind, this wasn't good. <Think Frank think> He thought to himself as he looked around the corridor. "Okay Yayoi, were going to have to find a way to the lower deck and make our way to the back of the ship If things start getting too hairy I want you to run back to Bridge as fast as you can I'll buy you time."
Yayoi walked ahead of Frank as she led the way to the Engineering. "no you run back, I'm a Neko and I am currently backed up as of a hour ago, have you gotten backed up? Don't worry about me Frank." She said as kept her eyes peeled for danger.
Franked nodded before responding "Yes I'm backed up however I'm also a selfless oaf so assume i might do something stupid to save your skin if that happens." Frank added with a chuckle.
Yayoi smirked under her helmet "noted" she said thinking she might have to keep an eye on him. She wasn't sure she liked having to watch him and Thad.
Spotting a staircase downwards. He pointed it out to Yayoi. "Ladder ahead, lets try to speed this up this place gives me the creeps." Frank stated.
Yayoi took note of the ladder "copy that, I'd assume Engineering is down, so lets see if we can get down there" She said though she assumed chances were that they might have to detour or something.
As the two of them started getting close to the ladder frank gestured to it with his free hand. "lady's first." he stated.
Yayoi smirked"what a gentleman" she replied as she placed her gauntleted hand on it and began using it.
The engineering deck was covered in gore. Some of the corpses had their hands stuck to the wall, or the ship's console and so were frozen as they sat in whatever position they died in. Some still had the bodies of their fallen comrade. Most of them had been stabbed and slashed to death. Again, several were missing their heads. There was a strong stench of blood in the air.
As Yayoi entered the engineering section, she made no comment, seemingly unphased as if she'd seen this before.
"These poor bastards." Frank stated as he made his way towards one of the consoles. "lets see if I still remember how to slice into things." he stated thinking back to his days in psychopomp.
Yayoi nodded "slice into the tech, the rest of us will watch your back" she commented as she began moving into protective stance a part of her military training.
Frank would pull a panel off as he began tinkering with the system. "well with all my days as a psychopomp saboteur I might be able to do something here but in all honesty I have no idea the extent of the damage this is a bit too grisly even for Psychopomp and they made some horrifying things like myself." he stated.
Yayoi spoke up as she kept her eyes in the environment around them. "Rixxikor are like this" She replied "might be those robots though"
Thad let out a small sigh as he walked about the room. While he was use to seeing this level of gore, it does not make it anymore easy. "Poor souls, doubt they even seen it coming." He paused for a moment before he continued. "Welp, let us get some power going. Maybe some of the auto fire turrets still work on the ship."
Yayoi glanced to Thad"if they are effective against the creatures then i can agree to that"
Thad started to look around for a console that looked to have some level of life to it. He found one that looked to be somewhat together. He banged on it a few times to see if anything would happen.
The console did not respond to banging but it did have an interface in trade for running the ship's systems. Unfortunately it seemed to be having issues talking to the ship's central computer system, which had already been subsumed by the computer virus or whatever was plaguing the SS Spark's systems.
Yayoi glanced over as Thad banged the console her eyebrows raised as she watched for a second before turning back to keep an eye on things. "Got anything?" She asked him.
"Nope, dead as an enemy facing Star Army. Thinking we will need to find a backup console. Whatever took this ship over is not willing to let it go."
Yayoi cursed lowly to herself as she listened to his reply. "agreed, or find some way to make whatever it is to fuck off will also be good." she said.
"Shouldn't there be a purge option or something around here? I feel like given the many different enemies of Yam, this would have come up before." He said as he looked around for another console.
Yayoi"maybe" She replied simply and took note of Thad's looking for another console.
Thad continued to check around. He knew the ship AI had an access panel somewhere around here. Maybe it managed to stash away from the virus. "Hey Yayoi, I am looking for an access panel to get into the AI. Let me know if you find anything." He told to her over comms.
Yayoi turned and then began looking for the panel to get into the AI as Thad needed, though making sure she was aware of any danger along side. She couldn't help but think of having a special AI in the armor to keep attention on the scanners.
Thad by use of the Mindy's scanners was able to find an access hatch. "Cover me, I feel bad news might be on the other side." He waited a moment before he opened the hatch.
Yayoi nodded as she continued to look around and cover for Thad.
Team 2:
Cassie was unable to respond due to her systems being offline. She kept her eyes searching the vents for signs of the hostile entities. "Bridge should be foremost at the end of the main hall based on the ship's exterior appearance. I'm slow moving with the armor systems fried, who wants to take point?"
Sanda was already leading the way. She stopped to check around a corner before continuing. She really didn't like what was happening. She was regretting splitting up. They should have stayed as a group and just scrubbed the mission. Whatever these things were, they were dangerous.
Sanda led the way to the Bridge. They saw more damaged corridors and several dead bodies much like those they had seen before. They hadn't run into any more of those things yet but they were ready for them none the less. She continued trying to reach the Resurgence using that trick she'd learned in Ranger school. Thunder to Resurgence. Unknown Hostiles Engaged. Zero Casualties. Attempting to take bridge. Enemy appears to disabled Cassie's Mindy. Standby.
YSS Resurgence, Bridge
"See if you can compensate for all that interference. I want to know where it's coming from as well," Aoba told Kalena.
He called Iemochi back, "I think if we send out a second team then we just end up with two teams in trouble instead of one," he replied. "I agree on quarantine if you think there's some risk but currently we don't have the full picture."
Mochi sent back a quick, "Roger. From what little we saw before the feeds cut out, these are lifeforms wildly different to what we're familiar with. I'd advise we air on the side of caution, especially given how odd the planet they may be somehow related to is."
"The jamming signal appears to originate from the planet below," Kalena reported to Iemochi and Aoba. "I am also showing a handful of habitable areas down here."
"Habitable?" Mochi echoed, "That might explain where these things came from. Let me see if I can back-trace the coordinates of the signal with the sensor dome. Maybe we can launch a torpedo and solve that issue the old fashioned way." The Elysian diverted some of the arrays away from the boarded ship and down to the planet to help.
Mochi was successful in finding the jamming signal's origin. It was coming from one of the habitable areas of the planet.
"Is it possible the jamming signal is here to protect the Resurgence?" Aoba suddenly asked. "From the virus, I mean?"
Aoba had raised an interesting point. Mochi pondered on it for a moment or two, as he sent down a splash of the signal's location to the Bridge. "Protect us? Maybe- It would certainly be interesting if their SIGINT tech was better than the Resurgence's." A short pause followed.
"We know these things are somewhat metallic- Let me run a life-scan for anything organic and see what that reveals." The science officer pulled up the habitability map and pulsed a broad-band scan for organic heat signatures, from cities or groupings of lifeforms. If there was nothing, chances are the signal was hostile, unless there was some splinter faction of these virus-things.
Scans showed an escape pod on the surface in one of the habitable zones and one probable human life sign in its vicinity.
"Captain, looks like we have an ally. Reads as human, they may have escaped the Nepleslian ship before it was occupied. I don't like their chances alone down there. Attempting to ping their pod's communications." Mochi relayed, enjoying how easy it was to make adjustments on the fly with SPINE.
There was no response from the pod, probably due to the jamming.
SS Spark, Bridge (Team 2)
When they arrived at the bridge, they found that the last of the crew had made some sort of last-ditch effort to barricade the doors, welding the door shut so it wouldn't open.
Sanda stood looking at the welded door. That was not what she had been expecting.
"I don't have any engineering equipment but maybe an aether saber can do the trick," Cassie suggested. "Mine's on battery so if anyone else wants to use theirs so I can save it, go for it."
Sanda held up her Aether bayonet on the front of her sub. "I give it a try. Although if it's welded shut, there might be someone still alive in there." Sanda rapped her knuckles on the door a few times in code. Ally ally all come free.
Someone knocked back from the other side of the door with the "Shave and a haircut, two bits" pattern.
Sanda smiled under her helmet. She tapped again, more deliberately. This is YSS Resurgence, We are here to help. Stand back.
The unknown person merely repeated the previous knock.
Sanda let up her Aether Bayonett and began to cut through were the weld had been made. Sparks flew as she steadily cut through the door.
Once they were able to open the door they found a heavily-armed Nepleslian woman on the other side who was so overjoyed she immediately broke down in tears and started hugging Sanda while babbling incoherently and thanking her profusely.
Sanda gently but firmly pushed the woman off of her. She didn't want anything to tangle up her weapons. "Itto-Hei Hoshi, YSS Resurgence. We're here to help you. Who are you? What are those things that attacked your ship?"
Zanven watched the scene and aimed his rifle at first, but retreated a step as the woman moved to hug Sanda. He quickly scanned the bridge and then whistled to Cassie as he was going to pass his rifle to her. He would let them ask the questions as he needed to see if there was ANYTHING in the bridge that was working. "Brax moving forward ma'am." He said as he pulled out his sidearm and moved to the controls for the bridge.
Cassie turned back towards the main corridor, watching it from the doorway in case they had more company from the vents.
Zanven found the bridge's controls were mostly offline due to a computer failure. The ship appeared to be under automated control from an unknown entity, that wasn't letting the ship's personnel do anything.
"Grab logs, recorders, hard drives," Cassie ordered. "Any documentation."
"Aye, aye." Zanven got to work as he looked for physical ports to uplink into.
"My name is Cathy Eraz, I'm the ship's navigator," the woman told Sanda. "How did you even find us? This was supposed to be a secret mission and we're out in the middle of nowhere. I think I'm the last one alive on the Spark."
Sanda shrugged, "Not important right now. What are those things?"
"We sent down shuttles to the machine planet and they came back on them. They transformed. The chief called them computronium demons. I think they...uh..." she sniffled. "I think they are parasites of the machine world...? Look I'm not an expert, I just flew the ship where they told me."
Zanven hit his head on one of the console pieces as he heard the dialogue between the survivor and Sanda. "Excuse me...the what?!" He said as he was just about to jack into the port.
"Yeah," Cassie offered her opinion, "I think there's some things in the universe that are a little too big to chew on and sometimes these planet-sized AIs might fall into that category, I think your charter client just F'd around and found out."
Sanda did not like the sound of this. She liked clean cut things like you shoot or stab the enemy and it dies. Parasitic computer virus was something she left to officers.
"So the real question," Cassie said, looking over her shoulder at Sanda, "Is how are we going to extract with this woman and with my suit fried?"
Zanven finally got jacked into the port as the low power was able to access the main drives.
Just then Zanven's suit failed completely, as the virus took it over. As that happened, Cassie's Mindy started slowly turning around and raising its rifle at him. "WHOA WHOA WHOA," Cassie shouted, trying to fight against her Mindy armor. "That's not me! Sanda take my weapon NOW!"
Sanda wanted to say, why are you asking me? You're the Heisho when things went from bad to MUY MALO. Sanda moved like her tattoos, lighting, and grabbed Cassie's weapon out of her hands. She also grabbed her side arm, then for good measure, kicked Cassie in the stomach to send her to the ground.
"well...fuck." He spoke candidly. "Ma'am...I'm bugged." He said as looked up and say Cassie's Mindy turned towards him. Hearing Cassie yell Zanven removed the port as he forcefully started to move...very slowly as he was not ready. He threw off his helmet as he took a look around again at the bridge.
Cassie yelled, "Just get me out of the suit, I'll switch to my AMES," she said, as the armor attempted to train its wrist guns on Cathy the survivor in a robotic fashion.
Sanda stepped in front of Cathy to try and shield her with her body as she activated her bayonet on the end of her sub. She thanked the stars she had gone to Giretsu school and leaned so much about the Mindy. With the precision of a surgeon, Sanda slashed at the Mindy's joints and clasps so that they would open without hurting Cassie in the process.
Cassie scrambled out of her prized Mindy as fast as she could and snatched her spacesuit out of its bag and then went out into the hall with Cathy so they could dispose of the infected suit with aether. "Did you get those logs?" she also asked, while leaning up against the corridor wall as she slipped the AMES suit on her body.
Zanven was able to stand and remove his suit as well and grab his sidearm. He was nine kinds of pissed off at the virus fucking up his outing with the team...more importantly he nearly got shot...Zanven checked himself once more, but he felt naked now on an enemy ship, and without armor, all he had left was his training...damn good that he took it too. When asked about the logs he looked down at his suit.
As soon as Cassie was out of her suit, Sanda sliced it to pieces. Then cut Zanven's suit for good measure. It felt good to be able to put something down and it not get back up.
"Anyone got a spare suit for the navigator?" Cassie asked Sanda.
Cathy looked out the front window of the ship's bridge. "We're turning," she told the rescue team as the Resurgence came into view.
"There should be a ready room by the hanger where we can find a suit for her." Sanda said. She looked to where Cathy was pointing and her eyes grew big.
"well I accessed the drives...but then everything went to hell..." He said as he pointed at the cut up suit. That's when he felt the ship moving, or rather, when he noticed it. He then noticed the power start to flicker. The resurgence was in full view and the pilot lunged for the controls as he tried to input commands to power down the thrusters and stop this ride, but they just wouldn't respond.
"I think that's our queue to GTFO," Cassie said. "We need to warn the other team."
"Go! Get to the hanger. I'll find the other team. Double time it to the hanger!" Sanda said. She tossed Cassie's weapons back to her then took off down the corrider to find the other team and warn them.
Team 1:
Suddenly the engine room had came to life and the ship began to move as the ship began to turn towards the Resurgence and throttle up its speed to maximum. Thad and Yayoi could hear the energy building up around them.
Bridge
"Evasive maneuvers! Get the shuttle back to the Spark," Aoba orded, we need everyone off that ship. It's a threat."
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OOC: JP by Wes, Demibear, Ajax, Charaa, Cowboy, Spaceeye, Shadowwalker
