Khate"CONGRATULATIONS!" Khate boomed at the pile, but mostly at Ty. "You all get to go on an ADVENTURE! Corpses already litter the halls of this once-peaceful station as rival mercy teams battle over the right to face down a notorious terrorist, his lair decorated with the exsanguinated corpses of the foolish and brave! With the approach of a cloaked vessel and the ruinous destruction of the only semblance of law this place has to offer, the station itself is no doubt in danger as well! Will our brave heroes make it off the station to their next horrifying challenge, or will they die screaming as the station itself is consumed by fire and void?
Let's find out!"
Gingerly poking her head into the room, Khate fished Ty from the pile and gently tossed her in front of the other locked door.
"For your first challenge, you must retrieve Dagget, lest he be consumed by the fate of the station! Can you rescue this poor soul from oblivion, Ty?! Or will Tagret face his final doom at the hands of a malicious alien force of lawless carnage?!"
Khate turned briefly to her allies.
"If the mercies at the hostel have any sense, they'll be long gone by the time we arrive, if we arrive. Kesari was very specific about that! So we should show up in force for Act II." She was clearly enjoying herself more than someone on board a doomed station under a very strong ohgodrun suggestion from an ally should.
Good news, Ty! You get to be the star of your own adventure!
Ty sat stunned on the ground where Khate had dropped her. It wasn't a terribly dignified position for a neo-cat, and the expression of awe and wonder that she fixed on Khate didn't really help. She listened with wide eyes as Khate spoke and both Aubrey and Scarlet groaned.
Considering what had just happened to her, it would have been forgivable if she'd just sat there dumbfounded. Considering what had just happened to her, falling unconscious on the spot would probably have also been forgivable. It was, after all, the kind of reaction that Khate had come to expect out of normal people like Clarke. Though she didn't understand it, a sudden inability to articulate and an uncontrollable desire to urinate both seemed to be popular reactions for the common folk when faces with her offers.
Yet, for whatever reason, Ty was not one of the common folk. There was a brief heartbeat of a silence when Khate concluded, and then Ty's claws scrabbled frantically on the textured floor. The young Felid practically launched herself at the door, her suit arm digging tools out of her harness while she reared up to put both paws squarely on other side of the second door's control panel.
Inside her mech, Khate smiled. Species was no barrier to the truly adventurous spirit. Some called it madness, suicidal overconfidence, or even a clinical level of detachment from reality, but to Khate it was simply the hallmark of a kindred spirit.
Aubrey"Open up for Taggett then and let's go. Khate, lead back to the Sled: use maximum violence. Scarlet, bring up the rear? As soon as we get to her I'll start her up, yes? Or perhaps Khate you want the rear, for maximum heroic exploding space station in background shots? One of you tell us about your assailants as we go, and be assured we mean no harm. If you can get the others before we leave, we will take them also. But we cannot risk search and rescue."
Head back to the Sled post haste, and then back home! Get a weapon at the ready, perhaps...
Aubrey didn't exactly agree with Khate's choice of putting a complete stranger in charge of opening the second door. Still, Aubrey had not specified who should open the door, or how it should be done. Experience had long informed Aubrey that Khate wasn't the type of Neo to maliciously interpret the letter of a request or law to her own ends... she just had a unique view of implied meanings.
"Open up for Tagget" did not mean assign a random stranger to the job because it was entertaining. A "No Pets Allowed" sign in an arboretum did not mean it was okay to let an entire shipping crate of entirely wild gene-modded arena Voults loose so they could stretch their wings. "Take out the trash" did not mean to burn down the manor of a local bureaucrat because he said Dead Neo Running was tacky and only amusing to tasteless simpletons.
It was somewhat painful to watch the felid called Ty working on the door without the aid of any implants. Poor thing couldn't even see the fields she was changing. It had been a some time since Aubrey had worked by eye alone, long enough that she felt blind when she had to work with her implants off. Even then, she was still more experienced than Ty by years. Honestly, it was difficult to tell what the girl was trying to accomplish, unless-
Aubrey had a split second of warning to shield her eyes before Ty separated the grounding plate from the door control circuit and shorted the lighting grid to run on the same line. The lights flickered. A spark the size of Aubrey's head jumped as the voltage discharged into the crippled circuit, accompanied by crackle of close range thunder. The door slammed open, hitting its receiving panel with a metallic crunch and then falling back onto its track at a slight angle.
Aside from the sound of Scarlet Cursing, all was still.
“Woah.” Ty blinked several times. Her eyes were a glossy black for several seconds after the spark, gradually returning to a more normal blue irised white as she shook her head and squinted. Implants.
The room behind the now decidedly broken door was dark, its light fixture likely blown out completely by Ty's unique method of gaining access. Something inside whirred and groaned, clanking mechanically forward. The Finwalker that emerged was a large, older model, and seemed surprisingly scarred. That was not to say it seemed neglected. The metal gleamed. The paint, done in AL-Loy colors with a large security emblem splashed on the front in glittering metallic shades, looked fresh enough to have been done last month. The scarring appeared to be the result of actual battle damage, laser burns, slug impacts, arc patterns, and shrapnel sprays picked out vividly against the surrounding metal.
The voice from the finwalker was the cracked whistle of great age- exuberant, but not quite in tune with itself.
"
Eh! Tyva, my favorite daughter!" The finwalker lurched out of the doors and knelt around Ty like a broody hen, tucking so that Ty's head would have rested just under the pilot's throat.
"Ye needn't 've come to rescue me girl, I had a plan all sorted out to deal with these fish raping pirates! Together though, we'll have 'em off our home in half a moment."There wasn't much articulation in the mech suit, and the first clue that Tagget's focus had shifted from Ty was the finwalker's pair of heavy suit arms, both carrying large chunks of scrap metal that looked to have been ripped from a personal gravity cradle, rising defensively.
"So, is this a friendly rescue, or are these more of the fiends we'll be dispatching soon enough?"Ty, looking somewhat squished, but rather pleased, under the fin's armored bulk, spoke with a slight purr.
"I have no idea who they are, but the Cane is super cool! She let me unlock the door and she's going to lead us on an adventure to rescue everyone!”Aubrey groaned mentally.
Tagget stood, facing Khate down.
"Then I'm in your debt, and willing to lend my aid. Tagget Sur Cannae, Staff Sergeant for the AL-Loy marines," he said, saluting. After a slightly too long, and rather regretful, pause, he added,
"retired." He sighed, a long whistling noise.
"Regardless, I'm at your service. Who are we killing today?"Ty's eyes goggled.
Khate looked like she was preening under her armor.
Scarlet's shoulders sagged a little, and the expression seemed to be repeated, in various forms, by nearly all of the remaining civilians.
ScarletScarlet frowns slightly deeper than usual as she parses both the incoming message and the crow's mangled language. "Damn." She gestures with her gun - a habit, really, she didn't mean to threaten them - at the general bulk of the group. "You heard her. On your feet, someone tell us what you know as we book it out of here.
And no, the death walker isn't going to be used on you. Unless you do something incredibly stupid."
Whilst Khate had been busy conscripting teenagers, Scarlet had gotten the rest of civilians on their feet and put them in some semblance of marching order. She'd also done a fair job of disarming them. Mobs of unarmored, untrained, neos with clubs and teeth typically didn't last long against people with guns. Besides, Scarlet would rather have them in the back where she wouldn't have to make a snap decision for whether to shoot through one of them or not.
Getting a coherent story out of them was slow, but they at least all agreed on the broad strokes. Clarke had checked in a couple of crews, all with the cover story that they were transporting emergency supplies to some space station that had gotten caught in a rather critical food shortfall. A fairly rare occurrence, but not unbelievable or unheard of. All individuals who left their ships had checked their weapons and had bought grain as expected. It was when the auto-loaders tried to dock the cargo pods onto their ships that things had gone wrong. Details weren't clear, but the best theory was that a good portion of the crew had gone EVA and used the lower sections of the station, typically reserved for drone loaders, to infiltrate upwards. The only clear thing people had remembered after that was being yelled at, poked at with rifles, and herded back here. A few people, like Clarke, had been separated off for their security codes and retina access. Otherwise, they'd just been bundled together and locked away.
To Scarlet, it sounded like a number of the crews had been intending to go at this together before they'd even docked. They could have made their alliance after they'd all bored to the same place and realized that they were all about to run the same job. Still, that didn't ring quite right to Scarlet. She had a hunch there was a certain set of the boarding mercenaries that had been working together well before they arrived, and the others, like the ones that they'd taken apart at the check-in desk, were just late-comers who'd opted for a slice of the pie rather than a turf war.
The implication here was that the original crews, the ones who'd arrived first, had a different deal. One that allowed them to split the take between all of them and arrive at a fair bargain. It was only a hunch, but Scarlet's hunches were usually decent.
Her musings however, were rather abruptly cut short by Khate's conscript actually succeeding in opening the sealed door, the subsequent cross-species snuggling, and the Fin's rather dishearteningly enthusiastic endorsement of Khate's mad plan.
Scarlet was just about to raise her voice to propose some amount of sane action when light and movement on the other side of the little park, from mouth of the corridor they'd entered from, caught her eye. A soldier moved there, the armor and the sharp, precise movements separated him (or perhaps her) off from an ordinary mercy or wanderer. Scarlet angled her body toward's the newcomer, but avoided the instinct to bring her rifle to shoulder. Considering what was happening on board the station, it would be all too easy to get into a misunderstanding.
Thankfully, the soldier's first reaction to sighting them was not to open fire. Instead, he touched his collar, likely alerting the rest of his squad, and then addressed them with a strongly amplified voice.
"Hold weapons! I am an AL-Loy operative. This is a military controlled evacuation, we are here for your protection. Please safe your weapons and follow me to the docks for pathogen screening and reassignment."Tagget, inside the Finwalker, looked sideways at Scarlet and dropped his voice low.
"Take the shot, before he suspects we're on to him."
Kesari
After the explodium happened...
Also verifying our position in-system in regards to said cloaked ship and other dangers. We are pretty much out of weapons range, RIGHT?![/b]
Dear Away Team members,
Recent news has our resident security ship now deceased to that rather strange 10th blob--it was a cloaked ship (like I guessed but didn't even think about foremost)--granted, it doesn't seem to be targeting anyone else in system; I suggest you all take your mission in and finish the job you all have.
Recent communication with Mickaw...has very important details I'd like to fill you all in too. However for the sake of what's all happening lately, I would really like to emphasize you all to finish what other mission you all have and then return to the ship post-haste.
Kesari tapped the space and backspace key simultaneously in anxiety--how was she to code 'yo dawg, they got the Star, let's get back' or something like her inner slang-dictionary was stating in a rather humorous way to combat her own anxiety?
Kari had to work not to chew her tongue as events played out. The away team, predictably, refused to answer their messages. Sadish was heading down to meet the crew of a ship that might or might not betray them, while being right alongside a Boris made explosive that
hopefully wouldn't breach hull. That was forgetting the freshly uncloaked ship that was all docked into the Flounder and probably disgorging plague death inside at a near constant rate.
Kesari had another ball of squijium. There was a certain state of mind needed to calmly list facts without being utterly overwhelmed by their implications, and food helped.
There wasn't a lot her to do at the moment. She was recording on literally every sensor- getting as much data as was possible on the new vessel. In all honesty, she had no idea if the Reunion was at a safe distance from the freshly uncloaked vessel. Those weapons were new to her, and their minimum safe distance (if there was one) would be a blind guess. Her gut said that a weapon like that should have a relatively short effective range, but that might just be wishful thinking. Her gut also said that the infirmary might need to stock more antacids.
The pair of cobbled together, much later edition, command consoles that controlled the weapons of the reunion all seemed to be happily reporting readiness. There was a plethora of missiles and teleport ready bomblets that could be deployed at a moment's notice. It was a spectacular amount of alpha strike firepower, but there was no way of telling whether it would even faze the new vessel if it came down to a direct fight.
Considering the capabilities it had display, there was very little chance the new vessel was not well aware of the Reunion's position. The fact that they seemed to be low threat and not actively engaged was very likely their saving grace.
It did make Kesari worry about what would happen when they tried to leave. Would a ship like that tolerate witnesses?
SadishAction: Sadish goes to greet our new 'friends', taking her drone along, and whatever instruments she needs to authenticate the star.
Sadish didn't go alone to authenticate the star because she was feeling particularly heroic, or self-sacrificing, or noble. She felt confident in her abilities, certainly, but most of what drove Sadish was the same force that had always driven her.
The desire to escape soul crushing boredom.
Sure, there was a certain excitement to watching things blow up and go to hell in a silvered handbasket on a screen, but, without something to do, her attention wandered. She worried. She worried about whether they were going to survive. She worried whether the away team was all right. She worried about whether the humidity in her lab was right for that little mantis thread to grow up properly. She worried about whether the sealite she loved so well was as lite as it claimed to be, and whether she would end up ruining her figure with all the snacking. Worrying was boring, it was like working on an impossible problem. All effort, no result. This way, even if she put herself in danger, she'd at least have something to do.
She had plenty of time to gather her tools and think about what kind of tests to run on the Star as the second shuttle moved into dock. Sadish wasn't any more familiar with the Star than she was with any of the other hundreds, if not thousands, of other relics she knew of, but that probably meant that she knew more about than everyone else in the system put together. Could she forge one decent enough to fool the Tiamen? No, probably not. Could she detect anyone else's forgery? Probably.
By the time she actually arrived in the docks, Sadish had accumulated about fifty pounds of diagnostic tools and reference objects. Which, for her, was travelling rather light. The two extra shuttles in the docks were obvious, Mickaw's denoted clearly by the pink form of her hovering drone. Mickaw stood just outside the shuttle door, looking surprisingly calm. He was a human with very dark skin, wearing a serviceable shirt without conspicuous bulges, and wearing an expression of controlled concern.
"Thank you for coming to meet with me personally. I have instructed my men to remain on board until you're satisfied with the arrangement," Mickaw said, bowing his head respectfully. He gestured forward, to where the second shuttle had been locked in.
"If you'll allow me to lead."Sadish nodded. It was a polite way of keeping him from getting behind her, and things would probably go most smoothly if he opened the door to the shuttle of his own deserters.
Mickaw pressed a few quick buttons on the cargo door of the shuttle, stepping back as the doors opened and the ramp unfolded. Inside the shuttle were six neos. One human, two crows, two claws, and one cane. They were all armed with what appeared to be projectile weapons of simple design. The cane and the claw nearest the cargo doors had spinally mounted machine guns, both stabilized via lightweight locking exoskeletons. In the middle of the craft, occupying a long box, was definitely not the Exile's Star. It was a long cylinder of gray metal, shiny in the way that a scalpel was shiny. Cold and clean.
"I'm sorry," Mickaw said softly.
"I didn't lie to you about my... employer, but we don't have the Star. We just have a bomb. You're going to take us out of here, with all haste, or we're all going to die. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I must."There was something utterly hollow in Mickaw's eyes.
"Do not try me. You and yours still have something left to lose. We don't."
Author
Topic: Small Mercies (IC) | Death is knocking, and he wants to buy a goat. (Read 52102 times)