”Aha! Come on men! All hands on deck! If some eejit don’t come and work these damn beeping scanners I’m going to come and operate them with me boot. Where’s the instruction manual… Double rations of space rum for whoever lays eyes on this foul beast!”
Colonel Yirkut gathered up his harpoons, adjusted his moustache, and dashed off the bridge. He’d only just taken delivery of this batch of harpoons, so it made sense to give them a quick test. Get his eye in. That kind of thing. Make sure the wires were coiled right.
Quickly head to the storage bay or other suitably large area and give all three of my harpoons a quick test fling to measure their balance and my aim. Then, head back to the bridge and find a window and peer out, in search of the whale, if no one’s revealed it on our scanners by then. Also memorise the route to the nearest exit to facilitate quick access to space whale melee combat. Consider writing will.
Int:5;Agi:4,8,1
You head into the storage and set up an elaborate target range using spare harpoons, crates and Jackbots. The first, sharpest harpoon flies true, plowing straight through a near target and embedding into a crate down mid-range. The second goes far but turns sideways as it flies, smacking a Jackbot in the head and knocking it flat on its robotic ass. The third slips out of your hand and nearly pierces your foot, embedding into the floor. You grumble something about "bloody slippery grips", gather up the harpoons and head back to Control.
"I should be able to understand the scanner results, but I won't be able to help you fight them much"
To the scanners and look for out fine bounty!
"I'll help"
Clair assist Mr. Lime
"I'll man the scanners."
Lime also goes to the scanners, and tries to find a whale.
Tech: 2,9,7
Int: 7,3,26
The three-man (two-man, one-woman) science team crams itself into the scanner room and glares intently at the screens, twisting knobs and punching in numbers to make the scanner arrays of the Blue Damn Fury sweep the in-system space. On a whim, Claire decides to sweep the long-range scanner past the gas giant, and suddenly gets a blip. "Hey! Found it! It's out past the gas giant!"
"Not necessarily," Dr. Bruce interjects. "That is a long-range scanner. Lime, anything on the close resonance array?"
"Already on it." Lime responds. "There, got him. Not behind the planet,
on it. It's in the atmosphere!
SCOOT! TAKE US DOWN! IT'S RIGHT BELOW US!"
Muttering something along the lines of "Argem braggle warp speed yahh, grab dabbed takes all the fun outta...", Scoot scoots his way along to find the... Cockpit? Control panel? Bridge? Whatever it's called, basically he just looks for a room with lots of nice pressable buttons, specifically ones to do with speed.
Let's point this baby in the general direction of blubbery goodness, ensure any relevant levers and dials are all pointing towards TOP SPEED, and let 'er rip!
Oh, right... Scoot snapped out of his reverie as he gazed longingly at all these confusing buttons, then called to the others, "Where's dis whale at then, anyway? Eh? Gimme a heading!"
>Attempt to locate piloting controls, ask for directions from the others, and facilitate the finding of the whale. At recklessly high speeds, naturally.
((Also, could I retroactively purchase a combat suit, too? Basically the same as Mr Lime, that's exactly what I was going to ask for, I just didn't have time to post.))
Piloting: 14
Propulsion: 1
You're eyeing the massive control panel excitedly when you hear Lime shouting you directions.
"Take us down?
YA GOT IT!"
Mmh. Jak grunts, before picking up a space suit. I'm going outside. Careful with that piloting, I don't want to get kicked off into space. He leaves through the airlock hatch and starts swinging his harpoon about, jabbing at invisible whales.
Practice my zero-G melee outside while we wait for the space whale to rear its ugly head.
Agi: 6
You walk out into the airlock. It cycles quickly, and you stand on the rough metal surface, vaguely feeling the distant heat of the blue dwarf star through your helmet's transparent visor. The space is as usual rather empty, so you get on with what you came here for - swinging your harpoon around. Deciding not to mess with the unloading, you swing the whole harpoon rifle around, executing badass killer combos against imaginary betentacled opponents.
Suddenly, the deck under your feet does a 180 and smacks you in the head, opening to you the beautiful view of the quickly approaching gas giant.
"
DAMMIT SCOOT!"
---
The Blue Damn Fury, still upside down, rapidly enters the upper atmosphere of the gas giant, righting itself on the edge of a particularly dense layer of ammonia clouds. The weather down there seems quite turbulent, the clouds giving a very distinct impression of a raging sea. It's quite windy up where you are as well, and cold. Very cold. There is no water to freeze into ice, but the hull creaks as its armor plates contract, and what few observation windows exist are slowly being covered by intricate patterns of crystallizing ammonia. If you didn't know for a fact you were only held up by lift thrusters on the ship's bottom, you could easily have thought the Fury was traversing a raging Arctic ocean.
Suddenly, everyone hears it. A long, low moan, coming from seemingly everywhere at once. Up on deck, Jak whirls around, trying to find the source of the sound. Suddenly, he sees it - a dark shape, moving quickly and fluidly through the dense atmosphere, riding the twisting currents of the atmosphere below. It kicks up a swirly cloud of ammonia a few hundred meters off the Fury's starboard side, seeming to take a quick glance at the ship with its many glowing white eyes, and dives back in, twisting and turning in the currents, maneuvering its short body away from the whaler.
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Topic: Space Whaling Adventure RTD - CQB: Cetacean Qabab Barrage (Read 16771 times)