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[AoshimaMichio]

((Uhh, no, we don't even have any direct evidence we were eaten by the lurker at all, actually.))

((Other than familiar dark expanse of nothing. Which was only witnessed by Ulrich, Morul and Bart...))

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

((Uhh, no, we don't even have any direct evidence we were eaten by the lurker at all, actually.))

((Other than familiar dark expanse of nothing. Which was only witnessed by Ulrich, Morul and Bart...))

((Of whom two are dead, and Maurice is... Well, Maurice, and she was the one exposed to the illuminati triangle larger than the universe so she probably wasn't focusing much.
He, she, jesus, my gender pronouns are all over the place.))

[AoshimaMichio]

((Other than familiar dark expanse of nothing. Which was only witnessed by Ulrich, Morul and Bart...))

((Of whom two are dead, and Maurice is... Well, Maurice, and she was the one exposed to the illuminati triangle larger than the universe so she probably wasn't focusing much.
He, she, jesus, my gender pronouns are all over the place.))

((My point exactly.))

[Pancaek]

:Brave troopers of ARM! Today was a long, hard day.:
:We have survived this far.  We have faced the ghosts, the puppet-zombies, the anomalies, and even an angry alien god that decided to wake up on our watch. And we did our damn best to kill and utterly destroy all of them. We faced the unspeakable and did not flinch. Two of our comrades have sacrificed their lives to allow others to live - and we left no body behind, of that we made sure. We fought with cunning, ferocity and desperation - and we did our best to survive. We went above and beyond the expectations of Steve and the call of duty today. We fulfilled his orders to the letter, yet also managed to escape and protect the valuable research data - one that justifies this whole mission. The danger has not yet passed - but when we return back to the ARM, we will be greeted as big damn heroes.:
:Once upon a time, there was a joke made about a flock of sheep going blindly into a trap. Perhaps today was a trap laid out for us by that alien entity and the puppets - but we were no sheep today, no. We have been wolves in sheep clothing, and our foes have felt our fangs today.:

:And thus, in my authority as a Commander of ARM, I hereby dub our company 'the Wolves'. For today we have earned our right to stand alongside with the Bastards and other named units in the history of ARM and HMRC. All in favor?:

Pan, floating around with his hands behind his head, snaps out of his snooze for a moment as the comm chatter picks up.

"As ARM commissar, I'm going to veto that decision. I'm pretty sure we can't just name ourselves something neat. It's other people who get to name us. Also, 'the wolves' is a goddamn terrible name, just saying.

Secondly, don't kid yourself, this mission was a disaster. I won't be suprised if we all get executed should they ever find us. I'm fairly sure the objective was 'find out why the hell an entire campus went missing'. And not, you know, 'unleash more xeno bullshit on the galaxy that renders our best tech useless'. Hindsight is 20/20 for sure, and we fucked up real bad. Don't get excited over nothing."

[Nikitian]

Maurice lowered his head, wryly smiling to himself.

:I see.:

:Well, if even you think it's that bad an idea, Pancaek, I won't press it, even though I am pretty sure the Bastards named themselves back then. It's just no one else has cared to, so far. Regardless, I will defer to your judgement on this matter, commissar.:

On a private comm to Pancaek, he added:
:Yes, I am well aware of what might be awaiting us back home - perhaps not you guys, but almost certainly me. I took too long with bombing the planet to get us off it safely, didn't I?.. That much still haunts me.:

:I just thought that these troopers needed a morale boost more than anything - and this felt like a good idea at the time. And whatever you say, we did survive so far, despite the odds... so yeah, perhaps 'the Cockroaches' would have been more fitting.: Maurice laughed quietly.

[Pancaek]

Maurice lowered his head, wryly smiling to himself.

:I see.:

:Well, if even you think it's that bad an idea, Pancaek, I won't press it, even though I am pretty sure the Bastards named themselves back then. It's just no one else has cared to, so far. Regardless, I will defer to your judgement on this matter, commissar.:

On a private comm to Pancaek, he added:
:Yes, I am well aware of what might be awaiting us back home - perhaps not you guys, but almost certainly me. I took too long with bombing the planet to get us off it safely, didn't I?.. That much still haunts me.:

:I just thought that these troopers needed a morale boost more than anything - and this felt like a good idea at the time. And whatever you say, we did survive so far, despite the odds... so yeah, perhaps 'the Cockroaches' would have been more fitting.: Maurice laughed quietly.

Private comms:

:Don't worry about, I'll put in a good word for you with His excellency of the shiny metal ass. And if worst comes to worst, I'll pull the trigger on you myself. I wouldn't get too hung up over the late bombing, by the way, shit was fucked way before that point.

I feel that morale boosts are overrated. What they need is a clear goal to work towards. And they do, namely to get the hell out of wherever we are. Though it might just be pointless busywork at this point. Because, and this might just be my pessimism speaking, I'm not convinced we actually survived. Even cockroaches get crushed sometimes, doctor.:

[piecewise]

Any positioning systems working? Any warnings about intrusion or damage to the hull?

Besides the damage your team caused, it seems to be holding. No intrusion warnings, though there is a lot of movement in the area. Positioning seems to be working but is currently not operating because it lacks a point of reference. You could just slap one down here and orient that way.

Put the point of origin down here, then begin tracking the sensor logs from the moment the ship launched see if I can roughly estimate where we should be also track changes to the ship during the launch especially auto-manipulators. Get a list of functioning systems.

[1]
You manage to drop a reference point here, but the log stuff is beyond your comprehension.

The ship appears full functional, save for a small amount of damage and the systems your team turned off.

Ulrich has been misarable lately. He has died two times recently. Size of his dick has been insulted by a teenager recently. He lost mentioned dick recently. He saw birth of horrible alien god recently. His long term plans were thrown out of window recently. He has felt like a trapped mouse recently.

He doesn't like being trapped.

Roll will to avoid panic attack (subject to Maurice's speech roll). Upon failure, roll intuition for best course of action. Proceed with it.

((You can always try turning on the outside lights, if you haven't done so already. I'm certain there's nothing out there waiting to give you a jump scare.))

((Wasn't the rule "You post here, you stay here"?))

[6]
You somehow feel more at ease here than you have for a long time. Weird.

Allow myself to snooze for a bit. I think I've earned some rest and relaxation.

Will do.

:Understood.:

:This situation just stresses me more than I want to admit.:

Closing his eyes for a moment, Maurice opened private channel to Ulrich.
:Listen, we're going to get out of here alive. This? The current situation has nothing on how it was down below on the ground, and you know it as well. We were trapped in an alien dimension, stalked by semi-invisible foes, and constantly in danger of joining the ranks of dancing puppets. But we survived and got out of there.:

:Then that alien entity appeared, and we had to flee the dome. And Steve's message came through. You were the QEC bearer, you remember it? It was a suicide order, plain and simple. Steve himself didn't believe our survival possible, but he decided to sugar-coat it a little. But we did the impossible, fulfilled our orders and found a way off the planet. On a spaceship with a huge crater in its side, but one that we sealed and which didn't result in our fiery death in the atmosphere. We survived again and got out of there.:

:And now, the only thing that stands between us and safety is peacefully riding this ship out from the system and back to ARM-controlled space. Steve was online and in touch with us until the very moment when the comms were cut off, and he surely knows that we made it off the planet. Even if we cannot find our way out, he will send a team to save us. We have valuable data, and valuable experience, and Steve isn't a person to throw out useful tools. We will survive.:

Say reassuring words to Ulrich, help him to calm down. A panic attack is the least thing we need right now.

[1]
You try to let your mind wander but fall asleep instead. 

((Do roboticised people dream of cyborg sheep? ))

Done. Not that he needs it.

"Hmmmm.
Ah, whatever, can't be too bad."
Open one can, take a sip, if it tastes good and isn't some type of laxative, continue drinking.

It tastes like cheap cherry soda. Ie it tastes like sugary cherry cough syrup.

Eh. Good enough.

:pretty words:

: The anomaly was a trap, pure and clean. We should have checked more carefully if it was possible to exit it before entering. But someone decided to be careless and dragged everybody in. And trap us. Only reason we got out in first place was because that thing blasted hole into the dome! :

: Are you even sure we got away? Are you sure this is not just illusion? Because usually there's stars in space. If Steve sends people what makes you think they can get us and escape? If we can't get out of here without our own, what makes you think they can? :

:Angry now? Good. Better. Constructive anger is a powerful tool, especially if tempered by intelligence.:

:The anomaly... well, I was going to say that it wasn't a trap, but yes, a trap it was, indeed. Aimed not at us, but a trap nonetheless. However, back then we did not know it was a trap - something of intelligent design, of hostile intent; it appeared to be an anomalous obstacle we'd have to deal with. And what would you rather do, not explore a "trap" anomaly on a mission that was specifically sent to study it? Would you really suggest aborting the mission just because it appeared to be a trap? If you get yourself ambushed, you don't back out. You push on through the ambush - and we would have found a way out. I still stand by my decision to go in regardless. This kind of risk is implied when going on an anomaly survey mission.:

:As for am I sure - yes, I am. It is the only sane way to perceive this universe. However, more importantly, I am sure of what has been going on only until we hit this blackness. It might be the illusory influence of this entity - but then the gravity automanipulators didn't behave any differently before we shut them down. The transition was far too flawless than it would work for an alient puppeteer creating an illusion for us - perhaps if it had been an Urban Executor or a similar mind-affecting amp-specialist, but certainly not this... thing. I've been inside it for a few moments; we'd feel and see and be very differently the moment it takes us. So for now... well, I guess it's another anomaly that we have hit. And which we will have to push through. With Steve's help or on our own.:

Get a spare spacesuit (we should have a few aboard, right?) and take it with me to the bridge. That's where the person appeared, right?

You take a spare space suit up for the mysterious interloper.

"What is going on here, anyway? shouldn't there be stars outside?"
Intuition to what happened.

[1]
You haven't a clue.






The ship's senors are reading something very big straight ahead. It seems to have materialized out of nowhere, which is quite a feat for an object the size of a large planet. It also appears to be either moving or growing in one direction. Can't tell.

[AoshimaMichio]

"Well, all things considering we are actually doing the mission succesfully. We got in, we got data, we got out and we are in progress of escaping. So from strictly that point of view we are doing good. Anomaly monsters aside, the only problem between us and safe return is that thing outside."

[Corsair]

"Fucking shit what the damn hell! Everyone prepare for possible planet impact, also MAURICE, ULRICH! GET YOUR ASSES IN HERE I NEED ASSISTANCE RIGHT NOW!"
Use a measurement of distance now and one second later to the planet to figure out if it is heading for us. (1)Does it have any gravitational field? (2)How close is it?  (3)Can the ship still perform a gravity assist without manipulator assistance? If the ship cannot do assist without manipulators then reactivate the manipulators that make us go faster when needed only and deactivate afterward.

If the planet is heading for us then gravity assist at 1.4x estimated escape velocity (escape velocity estimated from size/composition and comparison to other planets that are similar). Deactivate unnecessary systems if required to give more power to the engines. Assist around either side of the planet to get away.

Get Ulrich and Maurice to assist with things so I don't have to split attention (perhaps making sense of at least the pre-space magic part of the logs or helping calculate escape vectors).

[Nikitian]

Having reached the bridge, Maurice turned to face the mysterious person when a cry from the pilot stole his attention.
Throw a spacesuit at the person who appeared. (If it's a physical object (I've been touching it), and that person is not, it'd pass through, I guess. Unless this all is illusion, but we'll deal with that possibility later.)
"Okay, I don't know who you are, and whether you're an apparition, or something else, so I'll deal with you later. Suit up."

"I'm here, Konrad. Let's have a look at the situation."
Assist with piloting the shuttle. Avoid collision at any cost (if it means briefly turning the automanips on again, then so be it).
Read the logs again, calculate escape vectors on my datapad (it's no more difficult than using the magic calculators of the old! thanks for the training, Steve!), be useful in whatever way.

[Dorsidwarf]

Blissfully ignore panicked superiors. Look for a table I can set up in a mostly-empty room with only one door

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

If it's good, it's good, start chugging 'em, use Gen knoeledge to try to figure out if these might be special edition sodas and I've just destroyed an avid soda collectors dreams.

[Egan_BW]

"Godsdamn what's going on."
"Wait. I have no idea what's going on, I'm in dire danger, and there's nothing I can do about it! This is just what drugs were invented for!"

Smoke several bluesmokes at once. Throw excess at anyone who looks too worried.
Oh and suit up I guess.

[AoshimaMichio]

-snip-

Assist him and Maurice.
Check QEC, does it spit out same mumbojumbo as before?

"The outside looks annoyingly like the inner anomaly did."

[Pancaek]

Brace for manoeuvres. Once I'm certain I can move without getting thrown squished against a wall or something, take a leisurely zero-g stroll through the ship. See if I can't find anything useful to do or if anything seems out of place.