RP: 188604 [Star Wasp] 7: The Hate Machine

Sector Grid 1418
~♫VNV Nation- Carbon♫~

The old crimson star of the Freehold Factory System smoldered in the distance, lighting up a small scattering of rocky spheres. To a human eye it appeared insignificant, not inhabited by organic life even at the best of times.

Whispering undertones of encrypted wideband signals said otherwise. Not the polysentience. Something else, more primitive and ad-hoc. But… something?

Freehold Three was the epicenter of the robotic civilization that once flourished here, and seemed to be the source of these dull signals now. No visible orbital defenses, though. Nothing flying in orbit or at the lagrange points, nothing suggesting a spark of activity on either of the desolate moons.

Without an atmosphere, the finest surface details could be picked up by modern cameras even tens of thousands of kilometers away. Red oxide sands dusted a ball of broken black spires, still twisted and malformed by a firestorm a decade in the past. Built like termite mounds, but several times taller than even the gleaming skyscrapers of Yamatai could attest to. All hollow and fractured now.

Largest of all the spires was a fallen pillar five miles in length. Sister unit to the great lighthouse, once. Sacred ground. Off to the west, glassed factories were still giving off enough beta radiation to turn a man inside out. No air meant nothing to slow it down. Sporadically between the two… Something like tank tracks, in the ash? Going in an out like sewn thread. Random. Most likely using underground tunnels.

That bizarre radio signal was coming from all over. There must have been hundreds of small transmitters all coordinating the same grumbling, incoherent mess. Did they somehow survive the apocalypse, or were they newly constructed?...

All Hands Channel

No hot objects in space. No major activity on the ground, but at this size they could hide anything down there.

-Vier

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Right, send the Wild Rabit in low, see if they shoot at it.

-Uso

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Uso would finish up sending her text message, and then resume watching Arccos. The ship was dark, and she certainly didn't want to get left behind or lost somewhere... that'd be terrible. She also didn't really have a comfortable place to sit so she was just floating around in her power armor, occasionally thunking up against the wall. In physics, nothing should be moving around the ship unless it was trying to move.... but in practice, any object at rest in zero G tended to float towards the vents.

"SO... You got any friends down there? A map? Do we just blow a hole and swoop down in?" Uso asked.

Meanwhile, in space

One of the ships in the fleet, the appropriately named wild rabbit would break off from the main group of ships and start heading towards the planet, looking to make a low pass over the surface and fly by the tower.

Several seconds in, a sizable missile was fired from somewhere within the ruins, arcing upwards towards the wild rabbit from a low angle between dozens of empty buildings. A wash of ECM set in over half of the main city at the same time, blanketing that odd chatter with white noise.

The arrow looked a lot like a spacer phantasm baby nuke, but a lot shorter. Once it was above the cluster of spires, it started moving in strange box maneuvers. Typical of an AI weapon. Caught up with the converted freighter like it was nothing, then... just popped and crackled unenthusiastically, dispersing into a little plume of smoke, still just that span too far behind to make any kind of splash damage.

You didn't need to learn spacer to know the universal sign for "Go away."

The Pumpkin Eater

As soon as Akemi finished speaking earlier it occurred to him he needed to feed his babies some tasty eye candy so he mentally asked the ship's AI to bring up a volumetric view screen for the two of them to watch their trip through space up close without interfering with anything anyone might do at the consoles.

The Pumpkin Eater

Ace looked at Akemi upon hearing him ask for the ship's AI. "Hey Akemi, this ship doesn't have an AI. I do and her name is Aries." To show Ace pulled the chip back out of his neck and pressed a button on it. A holographic image of Aries appeared floating above the chip.

Aries curtsied. "Hello I am Aries."

The Pumpkin Eater

As Akemi asked for the AI and Ace showed off his, the ship's actual AI boosted fire control systems to track and identify the shots fired at the Wild Rabbit. The words "Hostile Action" were said over every intercom on the ship, in a soothing, familial voice, as they appeared in red on her console. Her familiar spun in circles around the bridge's ceiling, then settled onto the console that she was removing her fingers from. With a stern face and quick actions, Aashi got up from the pilot's chair at the helm and went to a storage locker, popping it open.

"You four, put on the Environ suits that are here, now!" she said tersely to those on the bridge.

She then went to the command position in the center and took over emergency protocols, manning every system on the ship from there. Her fingers were close to the controls of the 24 dual plasma arrays, first and foremost.

"Ace, when you get that suit on, I want you on the rear forward position, sensors. I'll see what you see here, but I want you to pretend like that doesn't matter and keep me up to date."

On comms, Aashi said, "Pumpkin Eater to White Lament. Hostile sighted. Requesting orders."

Pumpkin Eater
Ace ran out of the bridge and put on an Environment suit before returning. "What are we looking at Aashi?" Ace hopped onto the sensor systems and plugged Aries back in. "I am on the sensors and Aries is back on piloting."

Ace checked the sensors. "Uhhh I don't know how this works I've never seen this kind of sensors before. All I see are what I think are five contacts."

The Pumpkin Eater

Grateful for the distraction Akemi didn't mind much being ordered with such force. He liked to think of himself as his own person though and would be happy to simply wait to see how things would play out a bit more before taking emergency measures. He didn't leave the military to strike out on his own expecting to continue to take orders but he was on Aashi's ship and she was genuinely concerned for them.

Besides, he could see the situation as something fun. "Ah, another chance to change costumes so soon!" he announced calmly. The Neko went about finding and pulling out suits for him and his buddies so they could all slip into them together on the bridge. When it came to donning them he made sure to give each of them whatever assistance they needed.

The Pumpkin Eater

Aashi briskly took over piloting back from Aries and asserted, "Don't try to take over piloting this ship, again, or I will manually remove her and you. I have control of ever system on the ship from here, including piloting and sensors. I just need a second eye on things. Have her handle the sensor suite for you if you can't. She'll be able to notice that we have a bit more than 15 contacts; those are all our fleet."

Aashi had noticed more weapon systems online than she had seen from the helm. Uso must have had someone installing missiles on the Pumpkin Eater without her knowledge, which delighted Aashi. A grin let loose on her face as she eyed the console and everything it was showing her.

All Hands Channel

They shot at it?

-Uso

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They shot at it.

-Vier

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Uso would huff inside of her power armor, crossing her arms as she thought about her next action.

Do something spacery, broadcast music at them.

-Uso

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Vier would queue up Uso's 'Under Fire' playlist and begin broadcasting the signal down towards the factory from the wild rabbit. Leaving Uso to have her chat with Arccos as verbally as one could in space.

"So what now? This works way better if someone else wasn't already here. I figure either you've got some great spacer-tricks up your sleeve or this operation needs to be re-evaluated."

Formation B!

As Arccos was held in Truffleclub's embrace, she went on to show that pretty much anywhere could be considered to be the bridge of a Freespacer ship: Even in the arms of a massive mushroom machine. As the chatter was drowned out by ECM, she got to work, pulling a little datapad out of her coat and slamming a connective cable into her own skull. The Lament still didn't have its own connections beyond those bootstrapped into it as a slapdash job, but she knew how 'Spacer ECM worked quite intimately.

Maths. Maths was happening on that datapad right now, and pretty soon Arccos' face popped up in a variety of communication lines. No static.

"They're trying to jam us so we can't get any information on what's down there. Chances are anything but visual scanners are going to be unable to pick up anything on the planet. You're going to need to transmit on two different frequencies at once to maintain communication for now." Arccos sent the little fleet.

She'd worked with the sampling and counter-phase interference protocols of an Entropy's Shroud since birth, practically and knew just what it took to maintain a connection. Broadcast one thing which would require them to cancel it out with one signal, then broadcast it again on a wavelength which couldn't be blocked without cancelling out the first counter-phase. There was a way around that too, but hopefully those planetside wouldn't catch on right away.

"Basically, anything they have which can hit us up here and do significant damage will not be able to be fired upon us in the city proper without damaging them as well. Bring all ships into orbit over the city, but don't go to land just yet. We want this to be a standoff, we're not moving and they get nothing from firing. If any of you fire first, I'm just helping them kill you to show commitment to doing this peaceful."

Turning, and standing in place to look at Uso, Arccos blinked a couple of times. Distracted by something for a second.

"See if Vier can get a visual lock on where that missile was launched. I'm guessing she can do the trajectory crunch to work it out. We'll send down that mech guy to take out their silos if we can't do this peaceful."

Enjoying Space for a Short Time:

The two 188604 natives seemed a bit startled as things came to violence. They had no idea what sort of weapons would be required to crack a starman vessel, but whatever kind of hostilities faced, they knew had to at least be on the same scale as the violence they'd seen on their home planet.

Olena seemed more startled, already half wearing the suit requested, she quickly finished donning it and held fast. Smithee, on the other hand took to leisurely changing. Not so panicked, but shooting a couple of glances towards Akemi. The expression on his face reading what have you gotten us into?

A few little corrections for how to properly put their suits on functionally, and they were both ready for space. Both of them clutching their completely inadequate weapons, as if waiting for some sort of bug eyed monster to storm in.

The Pumpkin Eater

"Well hey I warned you guys about coming," Akemi said in response to Smithee's look, giving him two raised eyebrows, a forward and sideways tilt of the head and a straight set of lips to create a theatrical, accusatory and shaming look. "We're going to be taking sacred stuff from a graveyard of machine people after all. We're not guaranteed to do a lot of fighting though. We aim to get it peacefully. I'm just here so people don't think I can't get my hands dirty and to impress a machine person of our own named Arccos who I totally want to rail. Normally I'd want to only fight for myself, but this is a big undertaking that benefits everyone."

Akemi didn't really care about being so open regarding his stance towards group projects and his motivation for coming along. He definitely wanted to let more people know he was gunning for that sweet Spacer booty to see if the consequences would be amusing. When it came to the serious stuff he figured it was good to let people know where he stood so they wouldn't presume they could act entitled to his help without potentially having to pay a price and would instead appreciate it as they should. He might sound cold now but in the future any act of kindness could be seen as something warm and meaningful as it could appear as the thoughtful, voluntary decision it might be, not just something he did because he felt obligated to as part of a team.

"So Aashi," the Neko asked, turning to her, "can we get to some weapons so my pals might feel safer? I'll show 'em how to be careful."

Akemi Doesn't Help Morale:

"Dear, I do confess that we are quite capable of folly. Mortally so." Smithee said through his helmet. Seemed he didn't quite know how radios worked, thus his voice was a bit over-loud. As though he were speaking louder to be heard through a helmet. The two of them clung close to the walls of the cockpit, as if readying themselves to be pitched one way or another. Olena seemed to be holding herself lower to the deck, making it seem she had enough experience on a boat to know to do that, but not enough experience with starships to show that wasn't how space worked.

"And I admit that your confession of affection for the Hanging Judge of Calgaider Square gives me concerns in regards for your sense of self preservation."

Pumpkin Eater

Ace chuckled at hearing that Akemi had a crush on Arcoss. "Sorry but I think you were beaten to the punch. Sammy got to her first Akemi." Getting to confused over the sensors ace just left Aries to it. "Aashi we do have to gear up in case these things get on board. The rmory sounds like a great idea."

The Pumpkin Eater

"You guys just gotta take it easy," Akemi replied coolly, raising a hand to shoulder level and limply waving it downwards dismissively. "We're not gonna be rocking around like on a boat unless stuff hits us. If you're gonna grab something grab me, we can group hug. Trust your starman." The little space kitten walked over to Olena to swing an arm around her waist as he spoke. "I'm like a mommy bird and you're my babies. I'll chew food and vomit it into your mouths if I have to to keep you healthy." This explanation was delivered with same smoothness and calm as the rest of his words were.

You heard the spacer, let the drones go in first, they are expendable.

- Uso

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White Lament

If Uso appreciated what was going on, she didn't show it. While Arccos was busying herself with complex math and careful frequency use, Vier was proceeding with hardware-based solutions, heavy use of sidelobe cancellation, and in some cases outright cheating using Q modems or high jacking signal lights that couldn't easily be jammed. As far as the Pumpkin Eater and the fleet of nearby drones were concerned, the messages were being relayed flawlessly, and there wasn't a military-grade suite of jamming equipment being used on them.

Of course, slowly the other drone ships would start adopting the phase offset technique from the white lament as well.

"I'm going to lose so many ships here...." Uso said to herself.

Outside of the White Lament, the fleet's larger drones would start to lower their orbit, those big, focusing arrays pointed downward at the freehold factory. One took aim at the location the missile was fired from, though this was more as a formality. While missiles could be costly, places to launch them from generally weren't, and once the missile was launched, there would be little point in destroying its launcher.

Of course, as the ship's approached the factory, 'orbiting' quickly turned into 'using engines to keep from falling down and crashing into the planet'

Independence Day In Reverse

The closer they got, the more of the cities' graveyard of myriad grim details became open to them. Track groves in the deep ash seemed to lead Vier's sensors cleanly towards the point of firing, an oblong shaft opening about twenty feet in span by ten feet in height. The scorched metal doors were closed again now, but the way an access ramp pathed into it suggested that this was a service elevator. Probably leading to some kind of underground complex, not a dedicated missile silo. The launchers were mobile. And there were hundreds of these doors strewn about the ruins, identical except in individual levels of disrepair. By all appearances, this was a pre-existing system, and not recently built.

The counter-ECM operations by both Arccos and Vier were successful. Remarkably successful given the sheer amount of transmitters they were up against. The strange lag on the outskirts of the city, improving towards the center as they approached, suggested it could well have been relayed from one central source by actual laid cables, even.

That squawky churning sound, through... To a freespacer's ears, it sounded familiar... Fans of electronic dance music in the civilized states, too. 'Delta Model - E X P L O D I N G D A F F O D I L S'. It was said they sampled astral locksmith ECM strobes and autotuned them for use in part of the chorus.

Either way, any surface activity had completely ceased. The threat of a mothership being dropped on their heads must have worked, because the occupants stayed firmly hidden within their robust ants nest.

For a moment, pure silence.

Then... A bombardment of network information, out of nowhere. A thousand different languages of flailing access protocols hit every encroaching ship at once, a classic denial of service attack attempting to crash their security systems by pure brutal force. Penis enlargement adds, demands to check your OS for malware that themselves contained malware, the classic meatflap AV macro meme, the works. What it lacked in refined skill, the attacker more than made up for in punch. Sheer clout of processing power, like an entire multi-mothership fleet working in unison.

This was 'our song' once, goddamit:

Arccos tilted her head, listening to the music. Just a little frown on her face. It just had to be Delta Model didn't it? Didn't it?! She looked to Uso, working a couple of things out. Best to keep everyone abreast of the details in all this.

"Well. We got Locksmiths. Probably looking to protect secrets of the Free State from Nepleslian scavengers. But this song was date night for me about... Four years ago now?" Arccos gave a little grimace, this was their song once, so the whole thing left a little sour taste in her non-existent tastebuds. "Actual silverkeys would have maintained connection and kept updated if they were really dedicated to protecting this stuff. So we don't have to worry too much about pissing them off."

Arccos popped up on communications again, sending the message to the support fleet:

"Do as I say, not what I do."

It may have been a bad idea to have Arccos behind the wheel while aggravated. Then again, battles were won in the mind. If this was going to be lost or won, it would happen with style. And Arccos was perfectly willing to go all in to force a fold. The Lament started to pitch underneath the feet of those aboard, starting its descent towards the city. They weren't nuking them? Probably had too much to lose in debris raining down on them. They were resorting to hacking attempts? It meant they wanted his done clean without collateral.

Time to force collateral on them if they wanted to keep playing keepaway like kids on a nepleslian schoolyard: The Lament took a course towards the ruins of the Lighthouse, a long descent. One which would result in a crash directly on to their sacred ground if the hacking attempt was going to hit her ability to control the ship. If left unharassed, it would be a neat landing by the Lighthouse. Of course, if they were going to have their entire system gummed up with meatflaps it would probably result in yet more damage to that precious sacred ground.

Turning to Uso and Corgan, she opened up the comms to also speak with everyone.

"This is smash and grab mode, people! We'll land, and have the Junkers start severing all connections the tower has with the ground. If possible, bring the Pumpkin Eater and those drones down to just above the city and give us cover fire in case they send out phantasms or other air support." The little image of Arccos on Alex's HUD turned to look at him with an angry squint, "Ronin or... Whoever the hell you are. Not-Ronin guy in big robot, I need you to give ground support. Keep between the center of the city and the base of the tower ruins, take out as many of their tanks as you can, and sever any power cables you find. We'll need a team ready to go down to the undertower and retrieve the network protocols."

Hugs, hugs of support:

As if on cue, Olena stood up and moved to lean against Akemi. Giving the neko a little squeeze. Of course, for a bareknuckle boxing champion to give a squeeze was likely to crush all the air out of the Starman's lungs. Smithee on the other hand seemed to have his pride and dignity, standing a little aloof to the whole thing, but seemed happy to watch this little bit of affection before armageddon.

The Pumpkin Eater

"Oh come on buddy, get in here," Akemi said with a little backwards bob of his head as if he was talking to a persnickety pet puppy. He returned some of the firmness of Olena's hold and moved to clasp an arm around Smithee's slender side. "If we can all diddle each other we can share a hug. It's not like you'll necessarily even have to do anything if you don't want to."

The Hills Have Eyes

There was a rather strange effect coming through the communications grid, most notable on the White Lament given it's sheer size. The lag spikes juddering the transmission time of all of the hidden sources on the ground... Even by ear, they could be used to vaguely judge which sources were closer to the central network, because they were obviously free of such lag.

Approaching the base of the great tower, rather than the fallen superstructure, that strange droning seemed to be clearer than ever...

Doors began to open. Dozens, then hundreds. As seemed typical when dealing with freespacers, the shafts expelled a sea of different shapes and sizes, rather than any one clean form. Something akin to junkers, but not quite. Large, mono-eyed with glossy red metallic shells, the vibrant color of the Freehold old guard. Primitive tank treads were seen just as often as wheels mounted at the ends of long legs, chassis bearing all sorts of strange extra arms and appendages. Once maintenance and construction drones, they now bore a mad array of gattling guns, missile launchers, and anti-armor coil guns. No air support, just an imposing tide of about three or four hundred retrofitted drones, all bringing their guns to bear against the stellar invaders at once. That was just the ones that were above ground.



No fire yet, but it certainly looked like the strangers were putting their cards on the table. If the invaders chose to just crash an entire mothership down on them, it wasn't like dirt tunnels were going to save them anyways...

Of course, that logic hinged on this being their entire force on display. The hacking attempts continued, as well as the ECM.