" The cockpit was sealed, we had to cut in.... that plasma shot had welded the cockpit shut..." Balkiir explained as he turned to the group. He glanced upward, and motioned upward. He actually seemed slightly unnerved, an odd expression on the usually unshakable mans face. " I think we're not alone down here. Someone with some very powerful toys has taken an interest."



OOC:
GM Background Note:
All of you have heard stories of people disappearing out of sealed rooms or off of star ships in flight... In most cases people simply assume that they either were snatched by Nephilum, or O'sahdii for some infraction, or simply because they were bored and wanted to screw with everyone head.
Since most Human variants oh their existence to people being snatched off of earth it's accepted as plausible, if very rare, when someone says that a person vanished out of a sealed environment.

   The marines Set out landing markers and one begins to transmit to Aziza as she approaches.
  " This is Sword Sergeant K'drael Fist Imperial Marine Regiment You are clear to approach...transmitting a beacon now.
  Cpatain Aziza, of the Cesti Vessel Strange Wonderful Black Bird With the Cunning to use Tools and a Love of Shiny Objects We request priority transport aboard your vessel to a local impact site to execute a search and rescue.....transmitting authorization and security signatures now."

a stream of date flows into he Crows comm systems coming out as a series of security codes identifying the mans unit, rank, and mission orders. all of which appear to be valid Imperial military.


OOC: while he cant actually order you to cooperate it;s interstellar "code of the sea" to assist in search and rescue.

T'risa nodded from her seat in the bridge. Balkiir's explanation made a lot of sense. "We've awoken powerful entities that want to start a genocidal war....although, in fairness, I might have been responsible for that. My connection to him...well, I've never experienced that before, I felt the sense of loss, I felt the disintegration of personality, the fragmentation of memories before he was gone. Your words provide some comfort to me, Balkiir, I just hope that if someone has taken him, they are keeping him safe until we can recover him."

T'risa looked around the cockpit, at the band of men and women and machines that had proven to be the best people she could be surrounded by. "Syxis, I beleive we might best use our expertise in the expedition to recover prometheus, if indeed, its possible. The ship which housed him might contain some items we can recover, to....optimise this ship. We need to alter it, make it capable of things She does not expect. Every time we've won against her, it's been due to us doing the unexpected."

Listening to Aziza, then Leoulin, Balkir and everyone else M'kira felt a bit of a shiver. Disappearing out of a sealed cockpit like that was disturbing. Nephilum, o'sahdii or whatever had taken him could take anyone at any time. It was a creepy, disturbing feeling and yet it also gave hope that just maybe their friend would still be alive. Perhaps they would even be blessed enough to find him someday alive and well.

"I am ready to go T'risa and I think we all are. Let's hope we find Prometheus and other survivors." She kind of felt a sense of wonder at that even as a crashed wreck not just anyone could say they had been aboard the Prometheus/Chronos.

Syxis sighed, be it in an unconvincing way.

"Well alright then, but the pay'd better be good. I'm not willing to join the army just for fun. What do you say?"

His employers were going to be very upset with him going awol like this. Oh well, he'd be sending them a message later on. Meanwhile the droid prepared to join the salvage team.

  Maran are you alright?" Star purred as she looked up at Maran, "You look a little tired. The first time you network can be a little...rough. Even if it's not in the middle of a battle."

  " You did great Maran." Blue added to Stars comments." I think getting those systems back on line may have saved some lives...You should be very proud of yourself.

---

This is Terran Alliance Warship Hornet. Fleet Captain Matanno. We are dealing with some holdouts up here, and need to secure the system. Sorry if we take a little while to get down to you and the colony. I've dispatched marines and fighters to cover your civilians until we can do a proper seep of the area. The officers voice echoed slightly and had a metallic ring to it, the signal coming over an encrypted channel." Do you require immediate assistance...."
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:23, Sat 09 Feb 2013.

Elsbeth kept quiet as the others hypothesized about and described the circumstances of the Rhic's disappearance.  She was not one to hold out too much hope for his return unscathed.  But then, it seemed to the tall Praetorian that no one on this forsaken planet was really going to escape unscathed - but that could just be her past personal experience speaking about her life and its vagaries, in general.  She had never felt that 'ín control' of her destiny.  But, then again, that had never stopped her from acting either.

She helped to usher the others on board the Crow when Aziza brought her around.  The CMC Marine was used to loading routines and worked quietly and efficiently, keeping to herself as she worked.  Elsbeth tried not to look Balkiir's way too much as he reconnected with his old Marine buddies.  She was not exactly jealous, but she certainly wasn't entirely comfortable with the situation either.  But, at least, she had something to keep her occupied - and the powered armour helped with the lading.

"I am being receive your transmission.  Please to being clear landing area, and prepare for decontamination treatment upon boarding." Aziza transmits politely as she adjusts course slightly.  The beacons light up her display and she angles the thrusters, throwing down plumes of wind as the ship breaks, turns, and glides down towards the landing field.

"Oh joy Aziza's going to decontaminate us again. I hope she doesn't try to have the robots probe us." M'kira shakes her head with a smile wondering what Aziza would do this time. Especially when she sees a few new faces.

"This is going to be a interesting rescue mission. It isn't every day you try to rescue someone like Prometheus."

 She blinked and looked around, finding it a bit shocking to emerge from the interface with the computer systems. Jacking into the ship had opened an immense universe in itself, with so many inputting devices she'd had to shunt many sources of input through automatic pathways away from herself or be overwhelmed.
 "I did the best I could. Some things were flooding loops through the system and I had to shunt those away while bringing other things inline that we needed to run the weapons systems. I hope I did right."
 She stroked Star softly and looked around for Sunny. She hoped everybody made it ok.

Leo smiled to Maran, "Exactly.  That's part of what I do a lot.  being able to compartmentalize things and choose what is particularly useful.  Autohypnosis.  It is also important in Dreaming, it creates the world there."  He tried to teach her about the more finesse side of telepathy at every opportunity.  He wasn't upset that finesse was his strong point.  He didn't have the brute force of mind... his mind produced physical brute force.  "It might be used to change the flow of the data once you understand it a little better.  Like making data sources into interfaces or individuals that you can interact with a little more intuitively."

 "Really? You can make things in the world change?"
 She tried to imagine what he tells her about changing data flows and things, nodding as she takes in the information. That would really come in handy.

Leo smiled softly, "Changing the dreaming is easier than changing the world... unless you share your dreaming with someone who doesn't like change.  I can do more or less what I like in the Dreaming.  In the world, I am limited, I have the ability to shape energy into some few weapons or thin shielding. I can focus the energy into a flame and sustain it without fuel for a little while."

"The simplest thing of them for me is this though..." and as he closed his hand, a simple gem like matrix of light formed above his hand pointed up like a glittering aqua spearhead.

 She watched in amazement as he made a light appear in his hand. That was the neatest thing ever! She laughed and clapped her hands, then looked over at Jack to see if the kid had noticed it too.
 "That's amazing! How do you do that! Boy, you'd never need a flash light would you?"

Leo chuckled lightly, "It doesn't give off that much light... but I suppose it does give off a little.  More interestingly, between this crystal of my mind and my own training... I can cut through nearly anything but the most advanced armors."

He looked at Jack with his normally soft eyes, but in this moment they bore a slight edge as he looked the boy over.  After a moment it would become clear that he wasn't really looking at the child so much as looking through him.  Some of the party had seen it before when he was trying to sense the taint of those SHE had touched.

He didn't like being suspicious, but Leo wouldn't take chances teaching an enemy more than they needed to. "Maran seems to like you, I'm a little more wary of strangers which I'm sure you can sympathize with.  I'm sure I'll warm to you well enough, as long as you don't do anything to hurt people in our little group."

 She put her arm protectively around Jack, as if to reassure him rather than to protect him. Still, she did move a bit closer to Jack. She put Star into Jack's arms to see if Star would also reassure the kid.
"Jack's cool Leoulin. No need to worry about em."

"I'm just a kid.Your like some commando or something..." Jack smiled innocently trying not to look nervous and more than a little afraid." Mom said Some people could do tings like set things on fire with their minds, and make people see things that weren't there...sort of like...her...she was always trying to make me see things..like mom, and dad...trying to trick us....but they weren't real."
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:29, Tue 12 Feb 2013.

 She looked around to see where T'risa K'mahda and M'kira T'shal and Balkiir Kovul had gotten to. She felt kind of lost without all her friends around, though of course Leoulin was also a friend. She was very tired now, and kind of wished she could just curl up and sleep a week...after a good bit of food though.
 "Where is everybody?"

" Last thing I heard they were getting ready to go see if they could rescue someone." Jack pointed out the front view port of the bridge. Snuggling Star as she stroked the cats fur." I think one of the big ships crashed. At least that is what someone said."

"Mom wouldn't let me have a tree cat, said that you didn't keep smart things as pets...I had one of those robo-pets. Gebby a little pixie with cat ears....But they took her.

  "Robo pets?  I don't believe I'm familiar with those, but they sound harmless enough," said Sun Runner almost more to himself.  He laid his head back down beside Maran, then his ears went straight up and he swiveled his wolfish head to look at Jack.

   "Do you happen to remember if there were any other.."pets" they may have taken?"

Gebby was really smart, and really funny...and she'd never hurt anyone." Jack Smiled describing the robo-pet." But she wasn't like the cyberoids she wasn't alive or anything...at least mom said she wasn't."

They had a lot of robots and cyberfolk...they were really mad at them...Yanked all their brains out, and tossed them down in the hold."

"Oh no! We'll have to tell the others so we can go look. Maybe we can find and repair Gebby. Maybe we can fix many of them. But we need to get help, we can't just go down there alone. It might be dangerous, maybe booby-trapped."
 She wrapped her arms around Sunny then smiled up at jack.
"Say, do you want to pet Sunny? He likes kids and all."

   The old Steel Steed did not hesitate upon hearing Maran's suggestion:

  "Yes Maran, we should make T'risa aware of our new information and our intention to seek and rescue these abandoned robotic life forms.  I would never leave other droids to the mercy of our foes.  We shall take all necessary precautions.  Bright Star can you see if Blue Steel is able to assist us?"

   Sunny lifted his head and wagged his tail automatically as he looked up into Jack's face.

  "I am willing to be petted, specifically between my ears is pleasurable. I do have a rapport with children, as Maran said, it is my primary function you see."

"Can you describe her for us? That way we can be sure we have the right one when we find her. We'll try to rescue all the mechanicals we can find, never fear!"
 She patted Jack on the back and nodded toward Sunny when Sunny indicates that he would enjoy being petted. Sunny was so lifelike, it was amazing to Maran that he wasn't a real mammal dog.

  "She"s about this big" jack motioned indicating Gebby was about two feet tall." Blue hair, wings...I wanted a gargoyle but mom said they were ugly and got me something that wasn't scary....Oh she can fly...It's cool they put a little micro lifter in her and she has this really cool sound when she flutters around."

  And if she's close by my parents could call me on her phone link and she could let them know I was okay....of course they could use her to spy on me too but Gebbey would let me know sometimes so I wouldn't get in trouble. "