AubreyAction:
Number the stabilisers 1-10. Overload ((I'm assuming you mean measure, since your solution in the ooc thread was correct and I didn't give you option to do this.)) 1-10 blocks in each respectively. There will be a detected overload: divide by 0.237 to identify overloaded stabiliser.
Edit message to crew thus:
Khate:ULTRAVIOLENCE in reception, 95 sec. Kesari:break station systems, 93s. BM. Prepare to leave. Station occupied; taken; breaking out.
Immediately work on opening door for 94 seconds from expected receipt of message.
"Scarlet, I expect this to take 94 seconds. We take the desk and when Khate arrives we lockdown. Ready?"
Aubrey amped up her implants, sending a brief overcharge into the suppression field and taking a microsecond to measure the charges across the stabilizers before releasing the overcharge with a single well placed glitch. The mindhack implants let her both see and feel the ripple in the field that surrounded them, and it let her drive a focused attack into its weakest point, more than enough to slip a message out to the outside world. It was far more than she needed, and the message went through long before the field closed back up around her breach.
All that was left was to get the door open, and to hope that Kari and Khate had accomplished their respective goals.
KhateKhate's response was succinct.
!
Arrive at reception in exactly 95 seconds. Make it flashy! And record the whole thing.
Khate's tail, and, by extension her mech's tail, began thumping madly when she received Aubrey's message. Sure, she was in the middle of a show, but it was always better to commit ultraviolence than to watch ultraviolence- that was just common sense! Besides, she'd been worried that she wouldn't be able to get out at all during Aubrey's 'covert operation', but instead she'd been specifically asked for ultraviolence! Typically that was something that she had to keep a little low-key, particularly when they were visiting space stations owned by presumably neutral third parties.
90 SecondsOf course, if she needed to be at reception in 95 seconds, now 90, she'd need to leave a little early, but not too early. Khate wished she had a map of the interior, so she could at least get a general idea of how far it was, and she really wished she had an idea of how many targets there were, if only so she knew how many exterior cameras she'd need active to get the best footage. Fifteen seconds early, maybe? That was enough to get the door open, plod down, and be committing ultraviolence without needing to rus-
Footsteps in the walkway connecting the shuttle to the station airlock interrupted Khate's thoughts.
"And you're sure you got the override number down correctly?""Yes, I'm sure. God damn, I'm the one who can actually hold a stylus, and you're asking me if I got it down right?""I'm just remembering the bomb on the Kortus frontier, Captain 'Is-that-a-seven-or-a-one?', and I don't want to have to get another vat grown ear. This one still itches.""You make one little mistake and suddenly everyone's a critic..."The footsteps stopped outside the the shuttle door, and someone on the outside began punching in a code. Typically the Sled should only be accessible to the Reunion crew, but port authority had override control as long as the Flounder and the Sled were connected- which meant these intruders could probably get in, and if they got in Khate would have to blow Aubrey's careful timing.
Whichever someone was punching the code into the door stopped finished, and the door lock clicked.
75 Seconds"See, no problems. Now you take po-"Khate bumped the lock button with the nose of her suit, making the door click shut again.
"No problems whatsoever.""The hell? It was unlocked, the code was fine!""Clearly, the unlock code was completely successful, that's why the door is currently locked." Khate couldn't hear the heavy sigh that accompanied that sentence, but she could certainly imagine it.
"Do you want me to do this, or would you rather keep going with those spectacularly useful arm sausages you're so proud of?"There was no response after that, just the measured rhythm of someone punching in the door code once more. Again, the door lock clicked, and Khate immediately bumped the button to reengage the lock. Muffled cursing came from the other side of the door.
60 Seconds"Someone has got to be inside, they're locking the door after I open it.""Clearly. Do I need to call Zee and ask to have that code sent over again?""Look, the door unlocks for a second, then locks again. That isn't normal.""You're right, that is not normal behavior if you have the correct code. Do we have the correct code?"The door vibrated slightly as someone entered the code again with much more violence than was strictly necessary, not that Khate was one to judge necessary levels of violence. This time, the locks didn't click open, forcing Khate to freeze a hair before she hit the lock button again and accidentally toggled the door open.
45 Seconds"Yeah, I'm calling Zee.""It fucking worked, you saw it, something is goin-""Hey, Zee, James needs a verification on that unlock code?" There was a brief pause, presumably Zee talking over comms.
"Uh huh, just like Kortus. Thanks, I'll make sure to give you the good stuff from his share.""I'm telling you, they're going to be exactly the same. ""Then you won't mind if I check and make sure.""Okay, fine. Knock yourself out and ignore the fact that the door was re-locking itself."30 Seconds"Right. Hmm. You do know that eight-eight-zero is not the same eight-eight-six, right?""That is a zero.""Uh-huh. Zeroes don't have tails.""Well that one fucking does! Just enter the damn code, it'll do the exact same thing for you as it did for me!"Measured clicks came from the door as a measured hand entered the override code. The door locks clicked open, and this time Khate didn't bother re-locking them.
15 Seconds"Yes, I see. Complete failure. We'd best pack up and go hom-"The door slid open in the middle of the sentence, the entirety of the opening taken up by Khate's looming mech. A human male and a hound, both in security armor, were standing immediately outside the door. Embedded cameras caught their mutual look of stunned surprise from four angles.
”Hi!” Khate said, her voice more than slightly amplified by the mech.
To their credit, the two reacted professionally. That is to say they retreated in an orderly and exceedingly rapid fashion devoid of screaming. The human reached under his vest to grab something black and grenade-like, while the hound starting champing down on his communication bit.
Khate's shoulder mounted auto-cannon let loose in a spray of what would, on casual inspection, appear to be paint balls. Rainbow paint sprayed across the hallway, high-velocity impacts battering the human off his feet and coloring him like a clown from Pollock's nightmares. The hound, by dint of presenting a slimmer profile, only got nailed in the hindquarters- the force making him slip in the fresh layer of wet paint but not quite getting his feet out from under him.
The projectiles weren't entirely paint filled, there was also a reasonably potent neurotoxin mixed in: always capable of causing writhing pain, and capable of causing paralysis in large doses. The only reason Khate didn't use it more was that it really couldn't punch through armor or shielding at all and needed to actually get on the victim's skin to be effective. Still, it made for great videos when she did get to use it.
The Cane took one backward look at his fallen comrade and blitzed into the next room, correctly deducing that there wasn't a damn thing he could do.
The human, despite being on his back and covered in a considerable amount of neurotoxin, still managed to throw his grenade at Khate.
A diminutive 0.17 personal point defense gun popped up from the head of Khate's mech, tracking the grenade for a fraction of a second before firing. The grenade popped when shot, releasing a slight shockwave and crackle of electricity that made the readouts inside the mech flicker for a moment. It might actually have been effective had it managed to get closer. As it was, it didn't even slow Khate down as she bounded toward the fallen grunt.
He tried to stand up on already half-paralyzed legs, kicking feebly and failing to find traction on the slick floor. He cried out unintelligibly when Khate picked him up in her mech's jaws and shook him like a ragdoll. She didn't bite down all the way, that probably would have cut him in half as lightly armored as he was, but she probably broke a couple ribs, tore some ligaments, inflicted some decent gashes, and likely bruised his everything.
5 SecondsWith the human down, Khate let him slip from her mech's jaws and turned to bound after the trail of rainbow footprints left by the fleeing hound. It was a short trip, and ended up in a room that looked a great deal like what reception should be. Bonus! There were little trees, some sitting areas, and a very surprised looking yowler behind a desk.
The hound Khate had been chasing looked like his back end had given out midway through his sprint. Now he dragged himself along the floor with a combination of his front legs and the arms of his tech suit, smearing rainbow colored paint behind him. Khate shot him in the back of the head with a riot control round before turning back to the Claw behind the reception desk.
Her mouth was now full of lightning. Ooh. Mindhack. Less good.
Khate felt her suit tremble as the Claw began to wrest control of it. Worse, all of her suit's targeting seemed to veer away from the Claw, the weapons uniformly attempting to target the ground.
2 SecondsThe voice of God offering affordable spa treatments at 115 decibels was probably the only thing that saved Khate from finding out what the Claw had been intending to do with her suit.
KesariDeploy plan "Follow Aubrey's request" through creative sensor management.
In the minute and a half Kari had to organize an EW attack on the Flounder and everyone aboard, the challenge was not in convincing the Reunion to spam malicious advertising, rather, it was in controlling the malicious advertising to a level that looked mostly harmless, or at least unintentionally harmful. After all, while Aubrey might want to fry everything on board, there was that AL-Loy ship hovering around. It was undoubtedly looking for anything out of place in what was, admittedly, a very suspicious situation. A direct attack, even an electronic one, would not be kindly tolerated. The Reunion was likely well armed enough to take down one small ship, but angering any major player on the galactic stage, particularly a mercantile one, was a bad idea.
Thus, Kari worked to fine-tune the advertisements, cobbling together a cohesive plan that would embody the three Ds of a covert attack: Directed, Disruptive, and, above all, Discrete.
What she ended up with wasn't at all bad, at least by Kesari's standards. The functioning of most standard electronics would not be effected, so it wouldn't look like any kind of direct attempt to cripple the station. What it would do would be to latch onto any reception/broadcast system and starting spamming advertisements – at just below the level of immediately harmful sound. Hopefully, if Kari had programmed it in right, it would also be able to jump to personal communicators and computers while still being vulnerable to one of her own kill switches.
Hopefully. That, or it would jump to personal communicators and attempt to sell exfoliating skin foams until the listener went mad.
Kesari's broadcast of the pirate advertisement went out on time without a hitch. It was rather fulfilling to watch it propagate through the communications networks she'd identified, though it did feel a little bad. Anyone with an earbud in was about to experience a great deal of pain.
Scarlet"Ready.”
Scarlet was kneeling in a firing position behind Aubrey as the pair counted down the seconds until they were scheduled to emerge. The sounds of violence outside had started a little early, which could be Khate's eagerness, or it could be forced improvisation in order to deal with what was likely an emerging situation. Enemy combatants were not often nice enough to accommodate plans, even ones that were only planned ninety seconds into the future.
The time to leave was heralded by a devastatingly loud announcement from the station's PA system, advising them to book super-saver weekend spa treatments while there were still vacancies. It was probably a good thing that Aubrey had already finished unlocking the door- having that sudden announcement during the middle of a delicate procedure would be distracting at the very least.
There was a count of two before Aubrey opened the door, letting in a sudden shock of brilliant light and giving Scarlet the freedom to lead the way out. There was a single guard outside the door, a Cane, though not the same one that had led them inside. He was unfortunately occupied with trying to tear his screaming communicator off his head, and only had time for a wide-eyed look of fear before Scarlet shot him.
The laser blast knocked him into the far wall and filled the air with the scent of burning hair, a quick kick to the head knocked him unconscious and let Scarlet and the now invisible Aubrey sprint back to reception. Clarke, now visible as a somewhat disheveled blond human with a couple fresh bruises and a less than pristine AL-Loy uniform, jogged a little behind Scarlet, looking exceptionally nervous and wincing constantly at the sudden change in lighting.
The scene there back in reception was not entirely unexpected. Khate was spattered in her own neon-colored toxic paint, the neo-dog that had led Aubrey and Scarlet into their impromptu holding cell was both rainbow colored and unconscious on the ground, and the Felid behind the desk had a sympathetic arc flickering in her jaws- but was also rather clearly in severe pain from the absurdly loud advertisements being relayed directly into her sensitive ears.
Scarlet crossed the distance between her and the Felid in a few quick strides, shoving the barrel of her laser rifle directly between the Claw's eyes. Judging by her slightly stunned cross-eyed expression, that was the first the neo-cat had realized someone else had joined the room.
Aubrey, meanwhile, was only visible by the click of keys at the reception terminal moving without any stimulus, a rapid cascade of strokes that ended with the echoed sound of multiple doors slamming shut.
”Ah,” the Claw Scarlet had at gunpoint began, her eyes firmly crossed to focus on the barrel of the gun pressed to her head.
”I see now that mistakes were made, I apolgize. Still, if you shoot me things are going to get a lot worse. We can talk about this like civilized people, can't we?” The sympathetic arcs that had originally been cascading through her mouth had now vanished, not that it meant she was powerless. A visible arc wasn't necessary to make an effect, just to create a powerful one.
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Topic: Small Mercies (IC) | Death is knocking, and he wants to buy a goat. (Read 53318 times)