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[Veritas]

We need to discreetly break the escape pods and the communication equipment. Word cannot go out what we have done. Then we shall plant a bomb in the engines.

Use our hacking skills to add a law to the onboard AI. The law will be stated as follows: "Prevent harm from coming to any and all USAC equipment at all costs. Do not reveal this law to anyone."

Roll = 5

You clap your hands together resolutely as your plan of action begins to take shape in your mind. You'll start by taking out the ship's communication arrays - that way, they won't be able to call for help once the scope of your intended sabotage becomes evident. Next, you'll work your way around to the escape pod bays. There's no way you'll be fast enough to prevent every pod on the gigantic warship from launching once things start getting seriously bad, but the fewer spacemen that live to rat you out, the better. There should be time after that to hit the ship's engines with a well-placed explosive charge of some description - munitions aren't hard to come by on a Soviet ship, and it shouldn't be difficult to ensure that a hand grenade or two finds its way into the engine's coolant pipes. Finally, with just minutes to spare, you'll log into the ship's computer and insert a few key software locks into the primary gunnery systems, which should prevent the ship's weapons from getting a target lock on USAC engine signatures. There's just one problem you've hit so far - most of these critical pieces of equipment are controlled directly from the bridge, and there's no way they'd let a lowly cosmonaut in there without an extremely good reason. Fortunately, you've already got a workaround in mind for the first couple of steps.

It doesn't take you long to reach the nearest maintenance airlock. Strapping yourself into a chunky EVA suit with all possible speed, you punch a command into the airlock console and wait with trepidation as the air is sucked out of the room. Before long, the exterior bulkhead judders open and you're staring at the endless sea of stars around your vessel. There's no time to take in the view, though, and you immediately climb out of the airlock and up towards the ship's external comms equipment, clinging to any kind of foothold or handle you can find along the vessel's hull. The journey is treacherous and it takes all of your agility to avoid slipping into the vast void surrounding you, but before too much time has passed, you're in position, staring up at the array of communication masts and vanes that connects the Pride of Lower Sol to the rest of the Soviet battle fleet.

Wasting no time at all, you unhook some vital tools from your utility belt and set straight to work undoing all of the careful engineering that went into these delicate components. Most of the smaller vanes are dispatched by your welding tool and a little physical effort, while the larger masts have to be carefully unbolted and disconnected from the grid. The whole process of unscrewing, cutting, kicking and general sabotaging takes longer than you anticipated. Though it's getting hard to see through the condensation caused by your own sweat, your EVA helmet's heads-up display keeps you updated on the current time, and you figure that you've only got thirty minutes left until the USAC convoy gets within range. If you want to leave yourself enough time to sabotage the ship's computer and the primary drive engines, you'll have to leave the escape pods be. How do you proceed?

[Dustan Hache]

Sabotage the computer, locking them out of the controls to the main drive engine spesifficly to take two birds with one stone. Then sabotage all but one escape pod, and when the time comes, use it to get the f*** out of here.

[conein]

Ptw

[Peradon]

Sabotage the computer, locking them out of the controls to the main drive engine spesifficly to take two birds with one stone. Then sabotage all but one escape pod, and when the time comes, use it to get the f*** out of here.

I disagree. They will still be able to fire on the USAC ship if we do that. Instead, hack the computer to disallow any of the guns from firing.

[Dustan Hache]

Peradon, i thought we already sabotaged those by reversing their electromagnets, or at least the secondary ones. When/if those fire off, they could tear the ship apart.

[Veritas]

Sabotage the computer, locking them out of the controls to the main drive engine spesifficly to take two birds with one stone. Then sabotage all but one escape pod, and when the time comes, use it to get the f*** out of here.

I disagree. They will still be able to fire on the USAC ship if we do that. Instead, hack the computer to disallow any of the guns from firing.

Roll = 6

Satisfied with your work on the comms array, you crawl over to the nearest bulkhead with the agility of a spider. There's no external control panel for you to tap at, but your space-age watch is capable of interfacing with the airlock's controls, and it doesn't take you long to get back inside the ship. Once you're safely back within the battlecruiser's closed environment, you gratefully pull yourself out of the bulky EVA suit and discard it in the airlock as you leave.

Another glance at your trusty watch informs you that you've entered into a maintenance duct network on Deck 1. The bridge is quite a ways away, especially for someone of your rank, but you notice another way of gaining access to the ship's mainframe. The deck's data node room - a sort of computer substation responsible for the individual deck's subsystems - is less than two hundred metres of corridor away from your current position. If you can crack into that, you can upload data to the main core through it - and with the preparation and equipment you've been saving up for a moment like this, it shouldn't be a herculean task.

One short walk later, you're stood before the discreet entrance to the data node bank. The door is locked tight by internal security measures, but this is where your watch once again comes in handy. Navigating your way through the holographic interface to the device's storage drive, you pull up a sound byte of the deck's superintendent saying something unclear to a colleague. You're glad that you managed to record that little pinch of audio two months ago, as the door's oral lock beeps happily and slides open, allowing you access. A soft navy glow bathes the red-striped walls behind you as the data node, covered in blinking blue lights and dials, is revealed. You're not sure how long you have until someone passes by, so you immediately find your way to the node's primary input computer. Normally, you wouldn't be able to upload or download anything through this terminal, but the equipment you've smuggled on-board during your service will easily fix that problem. Fishing through your jumpsuit's pockets briefly, you shortly retrieve a tiny, rectangular device that resembles a 21st century microchip. Bending down, you gently press it against the underside of the computer's keyboard, where it sticks firmly. The display flashes briefly and shorts out, then a plain input window fades into view. You've got a few ideas about what you're going to type in already.

"Attention, all hands!" the deck's PA system blurts out. "General quarters! All hands, report to your stations!" You've spent the last fifteen minutes hammering feverishly at the keyboard, but it seems your time is almost up. Though you couldn't disable the main drive engines from your terminal, you managed to lock them at cruising speed, which should prevent the ship from maneuvering into a viable firing position. You also gained access to the targeting data banks, which allowed you to wipe all knowledge of USAC cargo barges from the ship's systems - without the specifications of the target ships on hand, it will be near-impossible for the ship's main batteries to get a viable lock on the USAC convoy. You might not have been able to prevent the interdiction completely, but the damage inflicted on your allies will surely be minimal.

If you're willing to risk a passing party of spacemen noticing you, you still have time to lock out the ship's escape pod controls. However, with the moment of truth so close at hand, it may be more prudent to start looking for a way off the Pride of Lower Sol before your trail of destruction can be traced back to you. How do you proceed?

[SaberToothTiger]

Wire an additional explosive in a trash can that will explode in 40 minutes and then get onto the pod.

[Veritas]

Wire an additional explosive in a trash can that will explode in 40 minutes and then get onto the pod.

Roll = 3

You scuttle out of the room and slide the door shut behind you, allowing it to lock into place firmly. Among the hosts of spacemen rushing to get to their assigned posts, it isn't difficult to worm you way over to the deck's armoury and liberate a couple of hand grenades from the improperly-secured storage area - whoever was last in here must have been in even more of a rush than you are. You figure that these devices would be best used as some sort of improvised time bomb, allowing you to cause even more destruction long after your departure. In order to engineer the device, though, you'll need to sacrifice a very important piece of equipment.

It doesn't take you long to wire your watch's internal timer to the systems of the two futuristic grenades, ensuring that they'll be primed in exactly forty standard minutes. With your newly-engineered bomb in hand, you start looking for a tactically relevant place to leave it until it explodes. After a moment's thought, you settle on just tossing it into the nearest trash can and making a run for it - with any luck, it'll cause a breach of some kind and shut down the corridor systems in the immediate vicinity, ensuring that travel around the deck will be severely throttled.

With your agenda of espionage now fully complete, you duck into the nearest escape pod bay. It doesn't take you long to seat yourself in one of the many pods available. Just as you're getting comfortable, the ship shakes briefly and the dulled sound of a distant explosion reaches your ears. You figure that your initial act of sabotage at your station over on Deck 3 must have finally paid off. The only thing left to do now is to make your escape by launching the pod. Normally, they're remotely controlled or set to a timed release at the captain's orders, but in the absence of either of those factors, it's possible to manually override the launch system if you have sufficient clearance. Unfortunately, since this isn't even your deck, you don't have access to the controls - and without your watch, hacking into them is also out of the question. What do you do?

[Dustan Hache]

return to the deck we are supposed to be on, and get on the escape pods there.

[blazing glory]

Turn on an intercom and state loudly that you need the Bridge to launch the pod you're in, and that it's a matter of live and death.