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[Corsair]

get into driver seat and get us away from here

[piecewise]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

GM Speak:Now it's just down to two rolls. The first is the Aux roll for flying away. By my reckoning, if you fly this thing with max speed and very efficiently, not letting yourself get slowed by atmospheric conditions, you have a good chance of surviving. His good Aux score will help, but you'll still need to roll well. A 4 or higher. The roll after that, you may or may not see, depending on the first roll. It's the roll to see if this actually works.

Lets do that first roll.

[5]

Oh my! How lucky you are! However, that luck may not last, depending on this next roll.

Hmmm. Ok.  Here we go.

You take the ship up as quickly as you can and fly it out, away from the anomaly. You keep the engines on full, ignoring the heat warnings. It doesn't matter if they burn out, just as long as they get you far enough away.  For several minutes, there's nothing. Everyone waits in silence, only the dull rush of air and the roar of the engines can be heard in the ship. When it comes, it starts with a prickle, goosebumps. Saint elmo's fire and electrical discharges crawl across the inside of the ship, digital displays warp and fragment, and a feeling like gravity, but pulling back towards the anomaly. The blast wave swats the shuttle out of the air like a fly hit with a brick. It tumbles in, automated systems doing their best to stabilize it. It lands hard, sliding, grinding sideways, and then rolling a half dozen times before coming to a stop.

The internal emergency lights glow a dull red. The back hatch is partially wrenched open, and the occupants of the shuttle can see the sky. It's glowing, multi-luminous, an aurora but thicker, stronger, brighter; its composed of all the colors you can imagine, and some which defy categorization. Stygian Blue, Self-luminous Red, hyperbolic orange. They hurt your eyes so badly that it's hard not to turn away.

[AoshimaMichio]

Ulrich Leland. Location: Hell if I know.
"Shouldn't we have left the planet rather than flying along it?"

Cam eyes on infrared! Curse the pilot! Get out and inspect damage done to the shuttle. Is it even theoretically repairable?
Help pilot out if he can't get out by himself.
And QEC! Does it work now any better?

[Nikitian]

Watch. There is no turning away from what has been done, just as from what will be done. Just don't expose own unsuited self unnecessarily.

Have the camera & sensors suite record the orgy of improbable and impossible raging outside. For Science...

Mistress...

After this landing, I don't think the shuttle quite has the capability to lift again. Not that there is no use in checking the extent of damage to the shuttle, though.
Someone, check the damage to stasis pods. If we live, we might need those more than anything else.

((Since Konrad is inside the shuttle cockpit, and it's quite cramped there, I'm assuming he left the camera'n'stuff with the team in the passenger compartment.))

Edit: Note: Neither I nor the camera are poking outside the shuttle. Do all the observation from inside, for whatever little protection it would offer.

[Pancaek]

"You know, nobody told me what happened while I was out yet. And just for the record, I'm getting real sick of this xeno bullshit happening every other day. I'd throw my hands up in disgust, but...yeah."

See if I can move my limbs yet. If not, try to regain control fo my body.

[AoshimaMichio]

"I'm pretty sure Maurice released evil xeno god or something and Steve said figurative 'Fuck you!' to the whole planet."

[Pancaek]

"How did we end up going from a relatively simple scout and rescue job to unleashing horrible xeno bullshit on the galaxy again? We get into these sorts of situations much too often."

[AoshimaMichio]

"I don't have the foggiest idea, but If I survive this I'm so out of this shit. I have died on every mission I have been on with exception of this so far, and I can tell it is not the most pleasant experience. I have had enough of ARM."

[Pancaek]

"Come on now, it's not all bad. We're out to stop the big bad UWM. We get to meet interesting people and go to exotic locations. Besides, the rest of the universe ins't all that much better, trust me."

[Nikitian]

"I'm pretty sure Maurice released evil xeno god or something and Steve said figurative 'Fuck you!' to the whole planet."

"I did not." Maurice replied curtly. Not even Morul did. It "released" itself upon us.
"If anything, we did; inadvertently, as the tradition goes - just by coming here and investigating the place; and yes, for that I take full responsibility. That entity... must have wanted to manifest, and was looking for a suitable host or something, and we presented it with an ample opportunity. All in all, it could have as well been another civilian expedition, and they wouldn't have the might of an overloading starship to stop that. Whether or not we managed to do so remains uncertain, but they wouldn't have even that much.

And besides, you were there, Ulrich. You should know better than anyone here that I did exactly nothing to prompt whatever happened there." Not on the physical plane, anyway. And for mental activity to work like that, something must have already started happening. I was already falling into the pyramid before I could act.

...How the hell it looked like in the outside world? I should watch the camera feeds later, if those managed to capture anything.

"I'm sorry for not briefing you yet, Pancaek, but first I need to oversee the event happening outside. I hope you don't mind. Can anyone not watching give me a helmet, by the way?"

[Pancaek]

"I'm sorry for not briefing you yet, Pancaek, but first I need to oversee the event happening outside. I hope you don't mind. Can anyone not watching give me a helmet, by the way?"

"It's cool. I'm not going anywhere."

[AoshimaMichio]

"Come on now, it's not all bad. We're out to stop the big bad UWM. We get to meet interesting people and go to exotic locations. Besides, the rest of the universe ins't all that much better, trust me."

"I don't give a shit about UWM. I'm a bloody aprentice locksmith! And yes, rest of the universe is better! My home world, Cheydinhal IV, didn't have any xeno bullshit running around killing everybody."

Ulrich turns to Maurice. "No, I do not know that 'you did nothing'. I was translating texts and when I turned around you were all glowing like plasma inside your suit and hovering up. The only ones who saw what you did were Bartolomew and Morul, both conviently dead and recordings of their suits unavailable. ...I hope Morul is dead, because if he's not then we have a big mess in our hands."

[Pancaek]

"Better is such a relative term. Your home doesn't have xeno bullshit killing people. Fair enough. But it has people going around killing people. In the end, what's the difference, really? At least we get a cool light show. When I walked along the center of the universe, I can't say I noticed a true utopia anywhere."

[AoshimaMichio]

"Human motives I can understand. Humans can be dealth with, humans can be negotiated with. But xenos?" Ulrich waves his and to the eye burning scenery on outside.
"Xenos make this shit happen. Can't understand. Can't deal with. Humans are just toys to them! Fuck this shit, I'm out!"
Then after moment of thought he speaks more calmly: "After we get out of this shit."

"I didn't know universe has a center."

[Nikitian]

Maurice turned away to face Ulrich. "Funny that, now that you mention it, my suit is also destroyed. Would you also say that I "conveniently" disposed of it and its recordings?" He grinned in his 'new' unkind way and stared Ulrich in the faceplate.

"And then, there were about a dozen cameras installed on your suit, I believe. Do you want to tell me that not one of them was facing where needed? Did I also install them on your suit in that particularly "convenient" way?"

He sighed and shook his head, looking far more peacefully again. "Must be combat stress talking in you; I won't hold it against you. From your actions on this mission I can clearly state that you are generally far more intelligent than it becomes to grasping at straws that way. No one could know the entity's attack would be so devastating as to kill Bartholomew... and I would very much rather it was me than Morul who was in there. At least, maybe I stood a better chance at containing it. And as you were the first to enter the room you know just as wellthat there was nothing that I could have interacted with to cause all of this: the weirdest things were the body and the writings, and, as you studied the latter, I didn't even get to check the body as... it all happened. Why and how it all happened is just as mystery to me as it is to anyone."

"If you insist on leaving the ARM, I can't say anything against it. After all, supposedly we are all free to go away at any point nowadays. However, you have my recommendations as a fine ARM member - maybe a little bit too cautious, but Sir Milno is also that way anyway - and, considering the growing conflict we are being drawn into, the ARM could use your skills and mind. Because one way or another the war - and the rampant xeno "shit" - is going to find you anywhere you go, eventually, but at least here you can make a difference. Do as you will, of course." He turned back to observing the scene outside.