"Sweet Hesh, this stinks."  Spohr grimaced.

Barrett tried his access code first.  Amin swore and tried his access code.  Then Barrett pulled a knife from his boot and pried off an access-panel to activate the door release manually.

The wave of effluence, at least, was strictly scent--not tactile.  But the miasma from at least three different alien species made the scent of burning metal and plasteel almost rhapsodic.

Barrett stopped up short. His body slumped and he shook his head.

Warning.  Containment Breach in Reactor Two.   Seek shelter immediately.

"We're frakked."  he said.

It had been a wide, octagonal chamber, once.  Three catwalks surrounding the three giant spheres which processed the bulk of the station's liquid waste, separating out water and reclaimable nutrients from other wastes.


From the door, a wide metal catwalk led around the outside of the chamber, allowing access to various parts of the great behemoth of liquid waste processing.  At the far end, brilliant shafts of light streamed in from two levels above, where the hydroponics garden used to be.

The UV lights were still functional, at least.

And all that green stuff, the O2 scrubber plants and the honest-to-God vegetables were scattered all over the Sanitation polyhedron.

The fallen debris had taken out a good portion of the catwalk at this level and the two levels below.  Which mean that--somehow--the group had to find a way down one level and across a wide open space of approximately 10 meters (30 feet).  Most of them simply wouldn't be able to make the jump.  Not without help.

Warning.  Containment Breach in Reactor Two.  All personnel. Reactor Core ejection in thirty-seconds.  Seek shelter immediately.

---

More Debris Than You Can Shake a Stick At
Stuck Between Coragel and Alien Feces
Hey, At Least There's UV Lights!
Open to adding other Aspects if you think it's appropriate.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:20, Fri 12 Mar 2021.

She eyed the situation with narrowed, angry eyes. Her nose wrinkled at the smell but she was focused on something important enough she could set it aside, mostly. Still, the back of her hand rubbed across her nose a few times and she pinched it shut a bit here and there to blunt the offense. Finally, sighing heavily, she griped, "It'd be nice if we could have some control over the gravity." She looked to Barret with hopeful eyes. Navigating a room like this would be much easier without so much pesky gravity.

Still, that seemed unlikely, so she began to scan the various chunks of debris either for a path to where they needed to go or pieces workable enough to create a bridge.

So, in this system, do I just do something to create the situation described? Or try to see if it already exists?

"Gravity point is set." Commander Amin shook his head, the disdain in his voice obvious.  "Frakk with the Inertial dampeners, and you could send all of us into Moniris' gravity well."

Barrett shook his head too. "I don't have that level of clearance.   Lucy, Sanitation Core catwalk two is damaged.  Can you give me an alternate route?"

---

Questions on the table for:

Maissa
Do you want to spend a fate point to bring into existence vine-like plants from hydroponics?

Baylee
How do you want to approach the idea of building a bridge?
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:14, Sat 13 Mar 2021.

Viper listened to the angry-looking mixed-race spacer. Of course, she was angry because she was hungry. They all were; after the hibernation the body is on full throttle again, and the minds craves for real carbs, not having felt the nutrients injections.

The young pilot eyed the vegetables with greed. However, they were stained with alien feces, Coragel®, and bits of plastiglass®. "What the Hell, I could clean that!", she told herself, and pocketed something that looked like an onion.

"Only a spacer would think laterally and prefer 0-gravity", reflected Maissa over Bai Ling-li's question to the tech. However, the gravity field was set for the entire ship, it was all or none, and its controls weren't in this room. A bridge would take to much time to assemble.

But there were vines in the hydroponics. May, if she tied one vine at the end of the other, they'll form a rope that would allow the most acrobatic of them all to swing to the other side down?

Maissa waited for the reply of "Lucy" before starting to desperately pull up the vines from their support, with tooth and nails.

---

Creeper Vines: Good Rope? I'll spend a fate point on that
This message was last edited by the player at 11:18, Sun 14 Mar 2021.

She could see the other female moving toward the vegetation and saw what she was up to. A fine idea but it got them down, not over. They might swing on them, but that also seemed dubious. Something in her distrusted relying on Hydrocarbons for stability. She scanned the room quickly and noted More Debris Than You Can Shake a Stick At. Her mind scanned a few pieces and started putting things together of its own accord. Looking around at the slack-jawed nerf herders surrounding her, she made a sharp tsk-ing sound then moved over to a them and grabbed a couple at random, "Oi! Help me gather the pieces I need. I think I can jerry-rig a make-shift bridge out of this stuff." She looked over at the other female gathering the plants and smiled, somewhat genuinely, "Best to have two plans. Doubles the chance of success." The logic wasn't there, but no one here was going to sue her over it, yeah?

That said, she moved among the various debris looking for likely pieces as well as a way to secure them to one another to make some thing long enough and at least 10cm wide to walk over.

Baylee will grab the two who look easiest to boss about and use her Command skill to boss them. Admittedly, she doesn't know she has command skill, and is just wielding brute force of personality for this. If one of them is one with the Tech skill, great. Just couldn't think of an IC way for her to identify them within time constraints.

Then, I will invoke the aspect used above for the +2.

Bai Ling-Li rolled -2 using 4 Fudge dice with rolls of 0, -1, 0, -1.  Tech +3 (TN+4), Build a Bridge. Invoke for +2.

Blast, well, If I grabbed a NPC with the Tech skill for the help, that still succeeds...

Alternate route found.

Barrett glanced at his watch-like thing, and a small bluish hologrammatic display appeared.  Barrett swore.  "No. We don't have time for that."


Warning.  Containment Breach in Reactor Two.  Reactor Core ejection in ten-seconds.  All personnel.  Seek shelter immediately.

Baylee called out to several people and directed them to gather the material necessary to build some sort of ramp from where they were to where they needed to be.  At least the end-point was six meters lowers than their start-point.  It was always easier to go down in gravity environments than up.

Reactor Core ejection imminent.  Seek shelter immediately.

Barrett tried to help, but the useless arm lade him more of a hindrance than a help.   Commander Amin called him over and the two crew-members had a brief discussion...

Reactor Core ejection failed. 

Barrett's eyes widened and Amin went pale.

One of the mob, a thick-set man with one eye and a heavily pock-marked face was able to wrestle a 3-meter panel of catwalk flooring from the debris through sheer force.  Much of the plasteel that formed the walls was twisted and burnt, but there were fragments three or more feet across buried in the rubble.

Reactor Core overload in approximately four minutes.  Remaining personnel.  Evacuate immediately.

There were cries of fear and fatalistic pessimism.

Viper managed to gather an impressive amount of creeper vine draped over the much of the debris and catwalk.

When it was first introduced to station life, it was thought to be a nuisance because it grew fast and got everywhere.  But horticulturists soon discovered that it had a higher rattio of CO2 to O2 conversion than most other plants for it's per-area requirements.  And, it turned out, that when woven together, like hemp, it had am amazing strength and durability.  Many of the station crew had vine-made clothing that they wore in their off-duty times.

Commander Amin saw the coils of vine that Viper had gathered and he nodded, apparently impressed.   He took one of the coils and laid it at his feet, then created a sort of jagged hook out of a twisted piece of guardrail.   Tied together, it made a grappling hook of sorts.  And though he tried, he simply couldn't manage to make it land on the far side.

---

My thought process here is that establishing a line across to the other side will allow the placement of the bridge-platforms with a little better than random specificity.

Fate Pool: BLL 2/3, Bek 3/3, CSX 4/3, Mai 2/3, Max 3/3, Zef 2/2

This message was last edited by the player at 23:19, Sat 13 Mar 2021.

Wordlessly, HB27-- the label on the breast of their coveralls, which considering they couldn't remember their actual name was as good as anything else for now-- took the improvised grapple out of the commander's hands and gave it a few experimental whirls before easily launching it across the gap. It took three tries before it hooked onto something and didn't pull free at the first hard tug, though HB was pretty certain that it wouldn't anyone's weight but their own or the tiny angry woman's, maybe or or two of the others. Definitely not the big woman, Bruiser, or the highly-useful Barrett.

They were diplomatic enough not to say it out loud, however. Instead, "Use the vines to tie your plates and beams and things together, make a kind of a ladder," they said, idly plucking a few of the thinner beflowered vines and twining them into a circlet which ended up on top of their head. "Don't make it too heavy. I'll take one end down and find a place to anchor it."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:19, Sat 13 Mar 2021.

As the others began laboring to construct a way of escape, the older man moved to join the two conversing authorities.

"I can heal your arm, but it will take a few moments.  Shall I  proceed?"

In the midst of such life-threatening chaos, he spoke with a gentle, calm, rational, and reassuring certainty...

Barrett stood a moment, glanced around before he understodo that Sheng-Xin was talking to him.  "Bone's broken."  he said simply.  "gonna need to splint it.  Ain't much you can do without a first aid kit.  But... thanks."

The older man smiled kindly.

"Thankfully, I am a first-aid kit.  Stand still for a few moments, and you will climb out of here alive with two good arms, God willing..."

He gently placed his hands upon the afflicted arm, one above and one below the break, and closed his eyes.

"Sovereign One, please heal this man now..."

One heartbeat...  Two...

The pain in the arm receded as the broken bone and damaged tissue started rearranging into a restored configuration.

One heartbeat...  Two...  Three...  Four...  Five...  Six...  Seven...  Eight...

The older man shuddered slightly, and opened his eyes.  His hands trembled slightly as he released the formerly broken arm, and he winced as he moved his own arm.  Beyond the pain etched upon his pale and perspiring face, however,  was a look of peace.

"How do you feel now?"

Barrett seemed stunned.   He moved his arm, lifted his other hand to his shoulder and rotated it.  He winced, but was able to move his arm and clench and unclench his hand.  He gave Sheng-Xin a long, appraising look, his eyes searching for something.

Commander Amin whispered "Nikrah." in a low voice, and took a step back.  The blood on his face was etched with sweat and--possibly-tears.

Life-Boat Two Away.  Life-boat One away.  Reactor Core overload in approximately two minute.

Barrett moved to a debris pile, and waved some of the others over.  "Someone's going to have to go down first.    There's a shut-off valve about twenty meters hack.  It needs to be shut down.  Turn it counter-clockwise.  It won't prevent the reactor back-washing through the contributor, but anything we can do to slow it down before it burns through the station gives us more time...

He pointed downward, to the series of pipes leading from the central sphere.    " I can initiate an emergency bypass, which will throw down a couple more blockades."

AMin grunted.  "The Spacer.  She should do it.  She's got the best chance."  But Baylee also heard him mutter "and if not, no big loss..."

--
OOC: Barrett's 4: Broken Shoulder Consequence is replaced with 2: Bruised Shoulder which is now in recovery.  Sheng-XIn takes on a Moderate(+4) Mental Consequence.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:06, Sun 14 Mar 2021.

The white-hot stab of pain from the older man's own shoulder slowly subsided, and he found himself in much the same posture as Barrett had been in moments ago as he attempted to ease the level of discomfort.

Still, the look of peace upon the older man's face endured, and he returned Barrett's long appraising look with a look that was... empathetic, even empathic.  We Feel Your Pain...

Even through the haze of fatigue and pain, the single word whispered by the Commander echoed in his ears, and the older man felt a wave of goosebumps.  That word sounded so... significant, and so... familiar.  Where had he heard it before?  He mentally grasped at the tendril of thought, but it eluded him.  And so was born the first glimmer of awareness that there were things... important things... that he could not currently remember.

But there was no time to pursue such thoughts now.

"Commander, time and strength are limited now.  Have you strength to make it off the station?  If so, I can heal you once we are safely away..."

She grunted as things seemed to be coming together. Seeing the vine attached, she took a half-step to be the first across. She was slim and quite athletic by her build, so she figured it would be easier for her. She was just about to psych herself up for the move when the man had to go and make his comment. Rolling her eyes, something in her compelled her to twist on her heels and march right up under his nose. There, she stared up into his eyes steadily for a long, slow, inner count of ten. "And... right now? Who'd miss you?" She licked her lip and then grunted and struck the man directly in his wound before turning on her heel and moving to the vine. She tested its set once, twice then moved to rappel down.

Bai Ling-Li rolled 0 using 4 Fudge dice.  Athletic +3 (TN ??) Rappel down a level. So, result is a 3.

The feeling of floating in air was oddly comforting to her and she felt herself cooling down. Still, something acrid burned in her chest. The man's comments played through her mind the moment her feet touched the path again and she grit her teeth.

Removing the vine/rope, she called up, "Get the bridge tied on and I will guide it from here then secure it. Make sure to secure the top end as well. It's no use it is falls into oblivion..." She looked down at what was below this level of walkway. A wicked thought boiled in her head. Chuckling, she moved to the valve Barret had indicated and adjusted it while they did their part.

Maissa saw the thin irascible spacer rappel down, tell the people she'd guide down the hastily built footbridge... and then leave in the corridor.

Someone else had to get down to guide that footbridge, but above all Viper couldn't resist an acrobatic.

She made a harness with the vines, put it around her legs, quickly tied some knots and tug the top part. Never mind. She'd wing it if the harness broke. What's Life Without a Little Excitement?

"Hold firmly", she told the person holding the other part of the grappling hook. And there she went, hooking the harness to the vine, slide down, being stopped by the branches, gripping the improvised rope ladder with hands and feet, unhooking, hooking 50 cm further, sliding, balancing .

"Female monkey coming down the tree" she shouted "Woohooo!" - "No, hold on - Viper tumbling down the vines!"

Maissa Haukea rolled Athletics(+4/+2) invoking Creeper Vines: Good Rope
This message was last edited by the player at 22:58, Sun 14 Mar 2021.

HB winced in sympathy as the tiny angry woman-- an orija, that's what she reminded them of-- socked the stationer right in the center of the blood-soaked spot on his uniform. But then she and another woman went down the vine-rope, and HB shrugged and turned away to glance around the room while they waited for the pair to secure the makeshift bridge and the rest of the group to start moving across it.

Their coverall-- cheap, drab, and pocketless, not something they would have chosen for themselves-- somehow also managed to be ridiculously overlarge and too small at the same time. Obviously sized for someone substantially heavier and shorter, the sleeves and legs ended substantially above their wrists and ankles, and the whole thing hung on their thin frame like a sack and flapped as they moved. It was highly annoying, and so HB tugged one of the trailing vines free and wrapped it several times around their waist to serve as a belt and keep the extra fabric contained. "Hello," they murmured quietly as they tucked the ends of the vine in. "What's this?"

Not far on the other side of the door they'd come in through, a large pile of wreckage blocked the way further around the catwalk, vegetation and railings and pieces of other things that had clearly come from the levels above. Pulling the vine free had uncovered a narrow gap where a panel had landed leaning up against the wall-- though presumably, if anything useful had been that way one of the stationers would have said something, probably along the lines of "Clear this debris!" Still . . .

Curious, HB crouched and peered underneath. There was a small space behind it, the catwalk above having managed to retain some attachment to the wall, and although HB had to wriggle through the gap, snagging and losing one of their sleeves on the way, once past the panel they could stand up to almost their full height on the other side. The wall itself held a diagnostic panel, all its lights and readouts flashing red in alarm, opposite that a mass of broken tanks and trellis that had supported some fruiting plants, and ahead more catwalk and assorted pieces of the structure. The fruits themselves were there too, many of them smashed and leaking sticky red juice all over the floor.

No, not juice, at least not entirely-- there was a body under the vegetation, a hand wearing a narrow golden-colored ring sticking out from the tangle of plants. Dropping to a crouch, HB grabbed the hand and felt for a pulse, then slid the ring off and onto their own finger. Moving the smaller pieces of debris aside revealed it to be a woman with a broken neck and a lovely pair of earrings, with a second woman with a long gash down her lower abdomen and groin nearby, the source of the blood.

Working quickly, HB searched both bodies and stripped them of anything interesting, humming as they did so. Still feeling light-headed from the stasis pod, just the thought of eating anything at that moment made them feel like retching, but they collected whatever edibles were salvageable as well. "You know," HB said to the dead women, secreting the finds about their person, "Pockets and holsters and lanyards and things are all very well, but it would have been awfully nice if you'd had a bag or something. Just a thought, hmm? Maybe next time."

"Oi Paska!"  Batrrette swore, as he wathed bek rather efficiently strip the corpses of some of their belongings...  "We don't have time for--what are you doing??"

His face was flushed his eyes frantic.

But there were some valuable there... a couple of pieces of discrete jewelry and other, possibly-useful items.

We're not going to define what all you got at the moment, but it will come up later.  I'm also saying that since we're not defining it right now, I'll give you Corpe-Looted Gains as a catch-all Aspect we can use down the road.  (More in the OOC thread)

"Commander, time and strength are limited now.  Have you strength to make it off the station?  If so, I can heal you once we are safely away..."

Commander Amin looked Sheng-Xin up and down, awe and fear playing across his face.   "I'll bloody well make it out of here." He said curtly as, one by one, the others swung across and down to the lower-deck, neatly avoiding the shattered glass, the debris and the tangled mass of creeper vines that snaked everywhere.

Amin seemed conflicted, but woodenly, mechanically, he pushed Barrett and Spohr out of the way and began strapping the others into the makeshift harness.

The vines, though, that had been stripped and braided were wearing, though, and by the time Zefla descended, friction burns and fiber-strain had caused one of the strands to go too much, like wicker did with sufficient pounding.  No splinters, just... mush.

Spohr and Amin strapped Zefla in, steadied the woman, tied an extra loop around her and all but pushed her off the edge.  She landed heavily with a roll and caught the lapel of her suit in one of the tangles of thorny vines.   It ripped the jumpsuit--nothing terribly threatening, but inconvenient.

@ZEFLA:
and, you call if and how much it might be indecent. I'm not making any narrative assumptions here.  It's your call.  I'm gonna just push forward and say that Zefla takes two stress for this.   Mostly because I'm just trying to get us going again...

Lincoln was going to try to strap in, but one of her vines had started to turn to mush in his hands.   Commander Amin pushed the beefy black man out of the way and took the swing-line in his hands, strapping Cheng-Xin in against any complaint.

"Technician Barrett." Amin called, his voice harsh.   "Your arm.  Can you get to the displacement crane?"

Barrett Froze.  HE looked up through the shattered glass of the hydroponics lab, to the ceiling so many levels above.   A single boom arm had been extended out over the area, used to spread water across the hydroponic gardens but also to move large platforms of soil back and forth to allow the hydroponics lab to be reconfigured as needed.

Barrett glanced over to the side, at the ladder and access tubes that extended up through the ceiling.  Barrett and Amin exchanged along look full of subtext.

"Probably." Barrett said. "But in time?"

Amin cut him off.   "It's the nearest module with command-level access.  Not just the hydro systems, but airlock control.  We're not going to be the only people looking at the Orishi.  You don't need to get into the crane.  Just close enough to pair your agent."

Amin reached up and removed the gold command-bars from his uniform.   He handed it to Barrett.   "Gamma Protocol Override One-Six-One-Delta-Amin."

Barette looked stunned for a moment, then Aminb shook him.  "Move, technician!  Or we might not even make the flight deck."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:23, Sat 27 Mar 2021.

There appeared to be a substantial change in Amin's demeanor,.  His landing on the lower-deck was ugly, but he didn't complain.  Only bit back the grunt of discomfort.

The vine snapped on Spohr's descent.  The big black man fell nearly the entire thirty feet and landed hard on the tangle-vines.

Spohr takes Moderate Consequence Ripped Up By Thorns

Commander AMin helped the big man up and then led them down the remaining corridor out of the stinking sanitation cluster.

Outside the flight deck, he wanted for a moment, then punched a panel beside one of the doors.  a small screen lit up, showing the interior of the flight deck.

There was a ship there--a fair size, perhaps 2500 square feet.  It seemed solid and battle-worn.   It's hull was a dark matte grey with evident scorch-marks where it had taken fire.   The forward sensor luster had been removed but secondary arrays seemed to be intact.

"The Orishi." Amin said.  "Smuggler.  Her crew mutinied when their captain tried to sell Caldean Mullosks to Squillips.  Nobody needs murdering octopods.  She's three days into tear-down, searching for hidden cargo. and the problem..." Amin growled.

As he spoke, brief flashes of light illuminated the video-feed. But the light wasn't standard electrician work.  It was very obviously pulse-bursts from a sidearm.

Amin growled some more.  "Four man team.  This is their territory.   I don't know who the other guys are.  I'm assuming survivors who didn't make it to the life-pods.  There simply aren't enough lifepods for the station.  I knew...  I knew the tech team would give us trouble.  But I wasn't expecting a standoff."

Amin closed his eyes, nearly collapsed against the bulkhead and then, without opening his eyes.  "DO any of you have problems with guns?"

Of course, you don't know good you are with them yet.   So, this is just narrative flavor.

The older man open his mouth to speak as he was strapped in, but his throat constricted as his shoulder was manipulated.  A white-hot stab of pain left him only half-aware as he was brought down.

He collected himself enough to move with the others, and was mostly together again by the time they observed the ship.

"A fight takes time we don't have.  Are there any win-win options we can offer them?"

"What?" Bek asked, pausing mid-harvest to blink innocently up at Barrett. "It's not like they're using them anymore." They reached up to finger their own ears, finding several holes in both the lobes and along the upper edges, and slowly began to transfer the two dead women's jewelry to their own body.

"Go on, Technician," the lanky dark-skinned ex-prisoner said mildly, voice soft and pleasant but eyes locked on Barrett's in challenge. They put the last earring in and gave their head a little shake to set them jingling, then smiled brightly. "Don't worry about little ol' me, I'll catch up. Ooh, are these strawberries? I like strawberries, don't you?"

Humming happily, Bek turned away and knotted the ends of their torn-off sleeves to produce a pair of makeshift pouches, and stuffed them full of strawberries and other edibles while the larger and less-squishy of their finds went into the bloused jumpsuit top. By the time they were done stripping the bodies everyone except Barrett had gone down, and Bek wiped their sticky hands clean on the dead women’s suits, rose, and ambled over to stand near the man where he was gazing up through the wrecked ceiling.

“You waited for me? How sweet,” they said, batting their eyes at the technician. Then, more solemnly, as they gestured with one long hand towards the crane, ”Can you make it, by yourself?” Bek had overheard what the Commander had said, and although they didn’t know exactly what was going on it had seemed important. Important enough to risk the man’s life, at any rate, and considering that Barrett had already risked his life to pop their pods, Bek felt somewhat uneasy with the idea of simply leaving him behind.

"Yes.", she snapped. "My problem is : I haven't any."

Viper felt that, if a brilliant bite of sarcasm was her last act before dying, her life would not have been vain.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:24, Sat 27 Mar 2021.

Amin offered a tright smile that touched only the corners of his mouth.   "Flight decks are primary boarding points.  Armory's nearby."

He punched some other codes into the console and the camera started panning, showing what appeared to be a standoff between two groups of people.  One--the tech team, was outfitted in yellows and oranges, highly-visible jumpsuits.   They were pretty firmly ensconced behind a series of metal and plasteel crates piled up bnear the rear of the ship.  They seemed to be stalling--and on one of the pans, it became clear why.  One of the group--a young lady with a shaved head was separated from the group, on the far left-side of the flight deck.

The group that was firing upon them appeared to be a mix of personnel.  Largely out-of-uniform, but heavily armed with personal weapons.  Pulse-rifles and smaller-caliber slug-throwers.  Without great detail, it looked like they might've been a detail from the station's navy or marine corp or whatever the grunt boarding-party designation was here.   They seemed to have maybe six of them, but one was missing an arm and had tied off the stump with a tourniquet, and another had a large red stain across his back...

Maissa's heart was with the techs group. Without techs, you don't fly anything. But Viper and her rag-tag "associates" may have to fight both groups to carve their space on this last ship. So both groups would be the bad guys, and themselves would be the bad guys for both groups.

She pointed to the shaved-head girl on the monitor : " 'know her? 'they protect her? Reason?"

---

Viper tries to estimate how many people can reasonably be shipped and survive on "The Orishi.", using her +5 Pilot skill