Moravia Orbital Colony, Ulysses | 237d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System
Megacity Time: 8:32Alpha Lobby
Mobs (+1 Stealth)
'Good news; locked out the admin trying to undo what I did. No telling when he'll call for backup, though.'
[5] No backup arrives, fortunately for you. The AI keeps bugging you, however. You identify the computer from which it is operating from on the network--its privilege is set to that of a lowly janitor, unable to do much but send messages and alert people. Perhaps you should look into silencing it.
You find that you can control the doors as well, discovering a map of the station along with the IP addresses of all the door controllers. Many doors on the outer ring are X'ed out, indicating that they are down for maintenance, perhaps, but those in the HQ are fair game, as are those in the docking bays and maintenance hallways scattered across the outer section.
...
Headquarters, Floor 3
Professional Atmosphere (+1 Intellect)
If he can, Atlos informs the guild of the outbreak on the station, and that they might be able to bring their forces in on pretext of helping deal with it.
"Believe me, an assimilating biomass is the last thing I expected."
You cannot contact the Guild from your current position. You need a window.
Fortunately, there was a spot on the headquarters where there was in-fact a window. The restaurant! It is suspended inside a glass hemisphere, giving a silent, panoramic view of von Hapsburg and Ulysses as they continue their eternal dance through the heavens. While the vista appears, at first, eerily still, it is known to anyone accquainted with physics that the planet is actually diving at hypersonic speeds through the interplanetary, its magnetosphere disrupting the solar wind like jagged rocks breaking apart an otherwise tranquil river flow.
This restaurant is not directly nearby, but rather lies connected to the lobby, the one infested with bouncing blobs everywhere. The secure region of the headquarters has no such luxuries, as windows are a security threat. A watchful eye, perhaps using a telescope several astronomical distance units away, could not only observe what was happening through a window as if he were over the victim's shoulder, but could also shine a laser through the glass and pick up vibrations in the air. This technique was used to expose the dictator Aleph Marque during the Victorian uprising on the planet of the same name.
The secure region does have a communications suite, however. With the sparse security, you may be able to sneak inside and feed a message into the computer. With no patrols to catch you snooping, all you need to worry about is finding a key to the comms center, which consists of a server farm and several terminals at which messages can be pushed toward major bodies in the system--and sent omnidirectionally as well. The server farm hosts massive computational power, necessary to filter out the noise from literally thousands of incoming messages. Some possible avenues would be raiding offices, ambushing guards, picking the lock, or finding an alternate entrance.
His Majesty Aleph the Wise of the Dynasty of Marque, a monarch-turned-tyrant on the former colonial world of Victoria, reigned just for two years on the throne of the planet's largest governmental organization. He began an unprecedented spree of centralization, first and foremost revising tax codes in order to claim ownership over all capital produced inside the empire's territory. Critics noticed the parliamentary court's eagerness to back him and to produce favorable rulings regarding the constitutionality of his efforts. His downfall came when a corporation, Xeno Enterprises Inc., a firm which had invested significantly into capital within empire territory, hired mercenary spies to eavesdrop on his private conversations, and soon provided evidence that he was bribing the courts. To salvage their reputation, the parliamentary courts unanimously forced Aleph's abdication, marking the end of his dynasty as the ruling family.
Maintenance Shafts
Hidden (+1 Stealth)
Stuck in a door... certainly one of the oddest ways to be in danger. And what do they make these doors out of anyway?
Fire at the blob thing before it gets to the captives. Try to get unstuck... again.
[3] You spend a few microseconds pondering which portions of your arsenal to use on the intruding biomatrix. On one hand, the laser would create a violent shock front as its pulses vaporize layer after layer of matter. The poor thing wouldn't know what hit it. In the other hand, you may not want to fragment the creature, as its components could each individually possess infectious capacity. A burn from your jetpack on full-throttle would spray the target with hot plasma for a couple of instants--nonetheless enough to render a human incapacitated. [Coin toss] You decide to try the latter.
As you fire your jets, your optical sensors register, for the short moments before you are no longer able to, the surface of the biomatrix transforming from a sickly teal to a matte brown, cracking along the surface like the skin of a human when subjected to harmful chemicals.
[1/3] This is, of course, only for the short moment before the door you are attached to comes off its hinges, sending you flying a short distance outward, landing at the feet of a man in a black jacket whose hand appears to be covered in scores of blisters.
...
Moravia Lab
High Security (-1 Stealth)
"Interesting. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the station in a higher orbit then to save on fuel? Or am I missing something?
"You'd think that, but the goons up at HQ would point out that keeping the station inside Ulysses' gravity well means incoming travelers will have to buy more fuel from us. So yes, it's more expensive to keep the station up, but we also make more fuel sales. It's a win for us. Keeping all our infrastructure low also means that our shipping rockets don't have to be as big. Remember that deltaV is a log function."Nerin attempts to locate and ping the nobleman of the Conquerer. "Hello. Me and a group of associates require a route offstation. You likely noticed it's falling apart, we would rather not be stuck here during that. We have a ship nearby that can retrieve us after launch, however we cannot signal it through the station walls, a bit of an oversight on our part. We can make it mutually beneficial should you be willing to allow us to use your ship as a departure vessel. We will not tax your lifesupport for long as we will be picked up by a seperate ship shortly after launch."
[5] Opening a private comms channel with the shipmaster, you elicit a response, but not from the nobleman himself. Instead, it's his assistant.
"I believe you are looking for Monseur Corbin, yes? He is not with us right now, although he made it clear he intends to leave the station in short order. While I am unfit to make judgments for his Excellence, I can inform you that he is a kind-hearted man and will gladly help persons in need."The servant then recites Duke Corbin's local (and temporary) contact address (dcorbinmaj@temp@followr), as well as a series of addresses to the crew of his ship, in case you wish to organize some cargo movement or something. He also notes that the cargo loading facilities were no longer manned by the station's workers, and half of Corbin's crew generously volunteered to operate the cranes and chutes in their absence.
Corbin himself, when contacted, mentions that he is currently in a conference inside the headquarters.
"Well met! I am afraid I cannot set aside much time to speak with you yet, although the conference is dragging on much longer than I'd like. I'll be with you in a few minutes, but first I must convince these buffoons that time is money. Pardon the soapbox, but the way they are handling the situation is reckless and ignorant. They should give the rebels what they want, rather than spread their resources like a mad tyrant scrambling to keep his kingdom together. I've sustained losses much greater than a vow to import a greater variety of meats and luxuries."
Author
Topic: 3008 AD: The Guild Chronicles Mission Thread - GAME OVER! See first post. (Read 49879 times)