Tepha looks around.

Tia has come to rest in a large, underground cavern.  To the south of her, another trader sits, dark and abandoned.  Even to Tepha’s untested eyes, the other ship saw battle.  There are large burn marks along the hull and gaping hole in the top of it.  The other ship is dark.

Against the far wall to the west is what looks a corridor.

Other than that, this place is quiet.  Dark.  And deserted.

Scanners online.  Comm’s still jammed to the surface.  But I think that’s more the rock than anything.  Detecting movement beside us. Fritz is quiet a second.
It’s inorganic

Fritz brings up a camera shot.

A drone, about the size of a small child, comes whirling across the cavern floor.  It’s a long thin pole on wheels.  At the top is what looks like a camera or holo projector.  The drone stops about fifteen meters out and then the camera lights up.  No.  it is a holo projector.

A holo of a large hairy man wearing nothing but a ballerina’s tutu pops up on the ground beside Tia.  The man has a lopsided grin.  There’s more hair on his chest, back, and forearms then there is on his head.  Tattoos cover his torso, but due to the holo’s quality, their detail can’t be made out.

The man grins shyly at the ship, bows, and begins to dance.  Tepha recognizes it as the forest scene from Act II of Minkus’ Don Quixote.  In that scene, a wounded Don Quixote wanders into a forest, imaging all sorts of monsters are lurking in the dark, waiting to devour him.

Across the cavern, to the west, the lighting in the corridor comes on.  It flickers weakly.  But other than what Tia is giving off, and the light from the dancing bald man, it’s the only light in the darkness Tepha can see.

So.  Lot just happened.

Upshot:

Tepha and Fritz are now below ground.

Rig, Silver, and Ledo are about to get locked out on the surface.  Due to the tension of the fake door opening, Rig and Ledo haven't quite realized comms are down.  They will once they try to communicate though.  No rolls necessary.

The three of them may have time to get over to the shaft opening and throw themselves down it.  Or they could let it shut and try some other means to get inside.  Your call.

If they want to hoof it, I need a Vacc Suit/End roll please.  Whoever makes it has time to throw themselves down the shaft.

It's 0 G.  So a fall shouldn't be an issue.  Unless there's an artificial gravity field inside.  But hey. Life's about taking chances, right?

Let me know if there's questions.  Thanks.

Silver taps the other two on their helmets and points before taking off at a sprint. Her years of drinking and smoking work against her as she almost immediately starts breathing heavy enough to temporarily fog up her helmet. Still she is able to make a shallow dive into the elevator shaft.

Her goal is to end up near one of the walls so she can carefully move her way down while still being able to stop in case she does hit a gravity plate.

Given that gravity is an inverse squared force she should be able to detect the presence of gravity long before it can overpower her and suck her down to her death.

OOC: 08:53, Today: Silver rolled 9 using 2d6.  +1 Vacc Suit -1 END.

This message was last edited by the player at 13:59, Tue 12 May 2020.

Ledo sees Silver and sprints off after her. He might not be nearly as comfortable in a vacc suit as she is but a lifetime of not smoking and drinking lets him cover the distance just as easily. At this point he is trusting his life in her hands entirely as she is the most experienced zero-g operator by far. He dives in and tries his best to mimic her movements.


08:56, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 9 using 2d6+1.  +0 Vacc +1 END.

Rig, who is neither experienced nor in great shape falls behind in the mad dash towards the shaft.

OOC: lol

08:59, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 7 using 2d6.  +0 vacc +0 end.

Tepha feels her breath coming shorter once more. Their very next caper and here she is, completely isolated from the rest of the crew with a potentially crazy facility between her and the others.

She patted the PD laser at her hip and tried to calm herself. Unlike before with the assassins she was armed and she wasn't alone.

"Fritz, can you begin scanning. What are we dealing with? Is there an atmosphere? Is there gravity? If I have to leave the ship what am I taking with."

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 7):

Fritz squawks back to Tepha.

On it.  No atmo....wait.  Looks like there's life support and artificial grav in this place.  But it's just being switched on.  Hmm.  Seems like a robust system.  The atmo should be thick enough for breathing in an hour.  The gravity will only take a few moments to calibrate.

---

If a group of one hundred travelers were asked the way they would least like to die, 74 of them would answer being stranded on a rock with no atmo, watching the power gauge in my space suit run out.  That tid bit was from an article Rig had once read in the Traveler's Aid Society Journal.

His mind pulls it up out of his memory banks as he watches the covers shut just after Ledo leaps into the shaft, cutting Rig off from all the others.  Top side.  With no ship or help.  And no real way of knowing when or if he'll see either again.

Ain't that a pisser?

He stops, getting his breathing under control.  The power gauge is still at 98%.  It's a good suit.  Estimated power left is 7 hours, 34 minutes.  After the power goes out, he'd have twenty five minutes left of air.  But the cold would kill him within ten minutes.

So.  He's on the clock.  And there's options.  Of course there are options.  There's always options.

Right?

---

Ledo follows Silver by about two meters, ducking under the descending covers and just squirming into the lift hold as the cover comes down.

A quick glance confirms what he was afraid of.  No Rig.  Silver is floating nearby.

The shaft is deep.  The bottom can't be seen from up here at the top.  It will be a long swim down. The comms still aren't working.

Silver sees the maintenance ladder the same time he does.  It's on the far wall.  They will just need to shimmy over.  Then they can use the rungs to climb downwards.  It will be faster than trying to 'swim' down.

As long as no arty grav kicks in, they should be fine.  Even in one does kick in, who would install arty grav this far up a lift elevator shaft?

---

Finished the prelim scan.  Kicking over the read outs to you Teph.

Tepha scrolls through the data.  It's not terribly helpful.

This huge space...call it a 'hangar'...is empty except for Tia, the wreck, and the Hairy Dancing Holo guy, who is still doing his thing.

There's no organic matter detected in the hangar.

The scan pulses sent down the corridor indicate it continues back about fifty meters.  It looks like it hits what might be an airlock door.  After that, the data is sketchy.  On the other side of the airlock there is a slightly larger space. Some rooms.  Lots of clutter.  But the atmo scan from that area isn't any different than it is here in the hangar.  If anyone is down there, they haven't been breathing until just recently.

Or their an alien who doesn't need to breath.  Wouldn't that be lovely?

Still no luck with the comms.  The jamming field or the rocks...the others aren't close enough to get a feed.

Rig skidded to a halt as the doors slammed shut sending a cloud of dust up into the cloud. He felt a surge of panic but this wasn’t the first life-or-death situation Rig had ever been in, although it was the first time he had been stranded in a suit.

”This is why you don’t leave the ship, Rig. This is why you don’t leave the ship...”

Rig took another moment and took a long steady breath. Panicking wasn’t going to solve the problem. It was a problem, there was a solution. First of all if the others got inside there is a chance they could get control of the station, lower the jamming field and open up the doors for him. Until then though he had to consider his options.

He looked back at the floating corpse strapped with thermite. Now there was a useful tool. Turning back around he slow hopped his way back across the surface towards the dummy airlock to get an inventory of stuff he could salvage from the booby trapped body.

Silver didn’t even bother asking for permission. She knew what needed to be done and didn’t bother pausing to ask questions. She grabbed Ledo’s tether cable with a good solid grip and then kicked off of him. He shot out one way and she drifted towards the ladder. Once she had a good grip she yanked him over so he could grab the ladder too.

She couldn’t trust that there wouldn’t be gravity somewhere down the line. It would be faster to go face first but if gravity did kick on that was a good way to face plant into the bottom of the shaft so she turned feet down and then began propelling herself down. She would grab the ladder and propel herself while keeping a loose grip on the sides. The friction of her gloves kept her speed in check and if she hit a bump and started to drift away from the ladder it was an easy adjustment to make.

She led the way descending down into the darkness.

”Hey! What are you...”

Ledo let out a quick protest at being used as propellant but when he finally spun around to see what had happened he understood and after Silver tugged him over he two copied her movements. Luckily his suit wasn’t nearly as bulky as hers and it allowed him a chance to check on her and copy her movements. He wasn’t unfamiliar with using a ladder like this, he was experienced in the navy, but still he was amazed by how well she moved in her armored suit.

Like her he kept in close contact with the ladder viewing it as his lifeline as they descended down.

Tepha didn’t have access to a proper vacuum suit. She had an emergency soft suit but that wasn’t something worth exploring. She needed to wait until the atmosphere had kicked on. Besides, she was sure the others were coming down to see her shortly.

”Fritz, keep monitoring the station on the other side. Let me know when it becomes breathable. Also keep pinging the comms. Maybe if they get close enough we’ll be able to talk to the rest of the crew again.”

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 9):

Silver and Ledo descend the ladder.  They pass by a large, painted slogan saying WELCOME.  And then, in a twenty more meters, another reading NO ONE HAS TO DIE.

After fifteen more meters, Silver can see another message coming up.  It's in red, but she's above it and on the other side of the shaft.  She can't read it yet.

As she descends, she suddenly feels a pull on her feet.  She's crossing a border where arty grav is kicking in.

Suddenly both her and Ledo's comms squawk. A loud booming voice on a channel filled with static suddenly screams in thier ears.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKCKKKKKKKERRRRRRRRRR!

---

Incoming transmission

Fritz barely seems to have a chance to say it before a vid pops up on the screen.

A man in what looks like a dark red jump suit is staring at Tepha on the other side of the vid.  He looks tired.  From his silver hair and stubbly chin to the bags under his eyes and scars lining his chin, he just looks tired and defeated.

You shouldn' a' come back here. We-

His head seems to turn suddenly to the right, then he's suddenly staring back at Teph.

-We-

It happens again.

This seems to be a recording the station's playing on auto.  Trying to clean it up.

Comms for Commander Typhin and Silver detected.

The vid of Tired Guy suddenly jumps.  Tears are rolling down his weathered face.

Ain't you taken enough from us?  Can't you even let us rest in peace?

---

The dead guy with the painted smile grins up at Rig, clutching his bomb like a child clutching a new puppy.

Rig tries to estimate how much of a punch this charge actually has.  He really wasn't measuring thickness or assessing materials of the covers when they were closing. But considering them now, he thinks, with some work, the charge could punch a decent enough hole through the rock.  It's the actual door itself that will be at issue.

He'll need to tunnel down the rock covering to the door and plant the charge.  He's got the tools he brought with him to make the key.  Not the optimal tools for the job, but he'll manage.

As he bends to study the charge in more detail, another detail shows up.  The body has a camera installed in it.  Someone cut through this dumb fuck's back and scooped out his insides and stuck in a camera.  The lens is hidden in the front buckling apparatus.  Rig would have noticed sooner if not for the whole 'hey we're about to be stranded by the big doors closing' bit.

What's more, this camera isn't on remote.  It's got a line patched into it which runs out the dead guy's backside and into a hole in the ground.  In fact...

Rig paws at the rock.  It moves easily.  More rock camouflage.  Covering up a metal grille the dead guy is sitting on.

It looks like the grille is the entry to a maintenance shaft of some kind.

As stated earlier, there are always options...

---

Mr. Shouty has a potty mouth.

The screaming continues.  ASSSSHOOOLEE HOMESICK ABORTION SUCKING...

This guy cusses like eighth grade never ended.

It's obviously a recording and it's obviously on loop.

Ledo can see why a moment after it starts.  It's a distraction.  Coming up the shaft are three drones.  Small attack class Cetas.  Dated.  They stopped making those seventy years ago.

But antiquated as they are, they'd still be able to gun down two people on a ladder.

---

 If it's money you want, it's where you know it is.  Take it 'n go.  Just leave us be.

Tired Guy keeps rambling on.

I do have their comms, but it seems like they're getting blasted on all channels by some kind of recording.  I'm trying to patch into their suit visors so we can at least send a visual.

Activity noted.

Mainframe pops up a diagram of a sensor pulse sent up the shaft.  It looks like there are two dots, organic...probably Ledo and Silver...about 100 to 120 meters above.  There are three small dots flying up the shaft towards them.

Teph...we got issues ourselves. Movement coming down the corridor.

Fritz pops up another scan image. From down the corridor an large dot is moving towards the hangar.  Fritz brings up a visual.  It looks like an automated cargo hauler. One of the big ones that moves large pieces of equipment.  There's no driver.  The only thing on it is what looks like a ship's cannon.

That's a MXC 2990 Pulse Laser.  It's pretty old school. Uh...and it's active.  Tepha, the laser is moving into position.  I think it's going to fire on us.

Patched into Silver and Ledo's visuals.  Will have their audio in a mo.

Holy Multiple Engagements Prauge Man!

Rig has a choice of how to proceed:  Shaft or Bomb.

Ledo and Silver have three attack drones flying up to blast them.  They are within Silver's range.  Will be in Ledo's right after her attack.

Tepha has laser turrent issues.

Your turn.  Thanks

Rig made sure the guy was secure just in case he needed to come back for that thermite charge but for now he figured he might as well take the maintenance hatch. It had to be a better choice then handling thermite, right?

Silver curses as she lowers the volume of her radio. No time to get in contact with Ledo, she just hoped him and his laser that could actually fucking fire in zero-g would go to work. Until then she wasn't going to go down without a fight.

With one hand she grabs her emergency tether and hooks it to the ladder. The drones might pack a punch but chances are they couldn't handle 75 kilos of a pissed off and armored Silver hopping on top of them. Even if she missed just being able to fling herself off at them and arc back down to the ladder would make her a difficult target to hit. Better than just waiting for a shot to get through her armor.

OOC: Okay this one is going to be a bit weird. She is going to try and jump off at the border of zero-g space to try and grab one of the drones. Not sure if you want that to be an Athletics or a Melee attack. I'm guessing Dex is the other side as it deals with coordination so either way she's rolling the same:

19:40, Today: Silver rolled 10 using 2d6+1.  Grabbing a drone, +1 Dex

After that it kind of depends how the drones are built but let's just say she uses her piston fist to just smash the thing:


19:41, Today: Silver rolled 9 using 3d6+2.  piston fist.

Can I just say Silver is fucking bad ass!

Ledo looks down and sees Silver go airborne. His brain can barely comprehend her actions though as he is too busy dealing with incoming hostiles. Ignoring the Silver/drone mess he unholsters his pistol, braces himself to take aim and lets out a laser blast from his pistol right on target. At least according to the smart gun and the targeting information being displayed into his retina from his combat lenses.


19:44, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 8 using 2d6+4.  +1 Dex, +1 Gun, +1 Aim, +1 PHUD.
19:44, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 12 using 3d6+3.  damage.

Tepha felt more confusion than panic. Mostly due to ignorance the danger she should have felt wasn't hitting her. It was just such a curious thing, with tubes and power supplies tacked on haphazardly. It was almost comical how they had managed to mount it up but while she didn't feel scared she did recognize that it had to be dealt with.

"Fritz? Is the pulse laser still warmed up and the virtual gunner still active? Let's just get rid of that thing now."


"Actually that's the thing. I ran a scan of the ship's computer software and I don't see any code for the automatic control of the turrets."

Now Tepha felt panic. She was sure Ledo had talked about buying software to control the turrets.

"Alright then this is going to get messy. How quickly can you teach me how to use the laser turret?"

OOC: Lol. For some reason I didn't buy the virtual gunner after all. Maybe it's 1 MCr for even a +0. /shrug. This is about to get interesting.

I'm calling in a Boon if possible. Don't know if I have any saved up but at the very least having Fritz assisting should provide some aid. This is going to be a tough shot no matter what because it's unskilled...

OMFG.... RIP EVERYONE...


19:57, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled -1 using 3d6-3, keeping the 2 highest rolls with rolls of 1,1,1.  -3 untrained, using a boon?

triple snake eyes. WTF OMG BBQ!!!!

:D

edit: LMAO

Okay so I wanted to test the dice roller. I found in another game that if you put certain things into the dice roller it glitches out and makes it seem like you failed even though the dice roller just didn't know what was happening.

So this is what I got for the test roll to make sure it wan't defaulting to 1,1,1:


19:58, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 8 using 3d6-3, keeping the 2 highest rolls with rolls of 6,5,2.  test.

That would have actually done it! Probably... Hot damn. Anyway have fun with this

This message was last edited by the player at 01:00, Thu 14 May 2020.

Engaging training program for gunnery system-

Yeah, we don't really have time for that-

Please activate turrents by switching gunnery system to enabled mode

Jez.  Can't you just do that for her?

Active turrents can be accessed by the engagement controls. See the lit button on the gunnery system screen.

Uhm.  Wait.  Aren't you-

Tepha presses the lit button.

Wait! No!  You didn't tell her-

There's a screeching noise and a huge echoy boom.  The ship rattles slightly.

Fritz sighs. -how to aim...

Then there's another set of noises.  And the ship really shakes.  Tepha almost tumbles from her chair.

Direct hit on sections 8, 12, and 14.  Damage report...

Fuel tanks breeched at sections-

Not helping!

---

After removing the rock layer and dead body, Rig moves aside the grill and peers down the hole.

It's a small shaft, about two meters in circumference.  As long as it doesn't narrow, he can fit.

The shaft seems to descend for fifty meters or so and then turns, heading in the direction of the ship lift that Tia went down.  So at least it's headed in the right direction.

The walls of the shaft are covered in some kind of lubricant.  Rubbing a stone against the wall gets a sample.  It's not acidic and from the basic chem scan his suit visor can perform, it's not flammable.  So it's maybe safe enough.  There's no way to avoid it though.  Rig realizes he'll get at least some on his suit as he descends.

---

The drones are shaped like semi flat disks a meter wide.  A gunnery attachment hangs below each one, next to a camera stalk.

Silver leaps...

It would have been an athletics roll just for informational purposes.

...and lands on top of one of them.  Without waiting, she pulls her fist overhead and then smashes down.

The drone is forced downwards from the impact, it's hull cracking open.  It smashes against the wall, and bits of it's components fly out, like a fat bug's guts gushing out when it's shell is hit from above with a boot.

Ledo, fires once and nails a second drone, cutting it into pieces with his shot.

The third drone whirls backwards, firing as it goes.  Silver drops out of the way and Ledo is above the shot.  The bullets sink into the metal plating like a hot knife into soy lecthin butter substitute.

Below, farther down the shaft comes a distinctive TCHOW ziiiiiing noise, followed by another, and then two more after that.  There's also the sound of metal and stone blowing up.

Both Ledo and Silver know exactly what that means.  Tia is firing. And something is firing back.

Their ship is fighting for it's life.

Oh, and Tepha too.

---

Tepha.  Listen to me.  To the left of that button you pushed is another button marked Targeting display.  Flip that.

A camera shot fills up half the screen.

There should be two cursors.  The blue one moves the camera.  The green one targets.  Move the camera until you can see the laser that's firing on us.  Then set the green one on top of it.  The trick is to keep the camera moving if the target is moving.  Then press the button you pressed before.  You got this.  So don't sweat it.

So I really did well on the damage roll.

Oh.  Riggy Baby is so not going to be happy.

One drone left on top of Ledo and Silver.  It's on the other side of the shaft, so Silver's hand to hand won't work.

Tepha can fire again.

"Alright, just move the cursor onto the thingy and hit the button. Got it."

Thankfully her first experience with using a turret was against a (mostly) stationary target. She thumbs the cursor over onto the thingy and fires.


OOC: So the roll is a 6,5 = 11 - 3 + 5 = 13!
19:58, Yesterday: Tepha Pezal rolled 8 using 3d6-3, keeping the 2 highest rolls with rolls of 6,5,2.  test.

I don't trust myself to try and roll it again, although I can if you think this is a little too cheaty...

Unfortunately Silver's little leap only works once. Now she has to scramble back up to her anchor point before she can make another leap...or does she. If the gravity is low enough she might just be able to leap upward enough to catch the other drone.

OOC:
17:53, Today: Silver rolled 11 using 2d6+1.  athletics again.
17:53, Today: Silver rolled 13 using 3d6+2.  faalllcon punch!

Ledo watches as Silver tries to make another leap. If she punches down the third drone he will start descending, moving down to unhook her tether so she doesn't have to climb back up. If she doesn't take it down then he will again aim and fire.

OOC: Just in case...

17:55, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 7 using 2d6+4.  +1 Dex, +1 Gun, +1 Aim, +1 PHUD.

Rig looks at the goo and doesn't trust it. At all. Still the shaft was his best chance so he grabbed the dead guy and shoved him int the hole first, rubbing his suit against the walls to try and clean as much of the gunk off as possible. It would be slow going but he can use the dead guy as a guinea pig to make sure this stuff isn't dangerous.

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 19):

Dead guy moves easily down the shaft.  This stuff really is good lube.

Rig has some trouble at the point the shaft turns.  The intersection isn't as wide.  He has to ram the body around the bend, before crouching uncomfortably and shoving the body ahead.  There's no lube on the walls of this cross tunnel.  But the lube left on the body is more than enough.  The dead guy moves easy enough.

No atmo yet either.

The shaft ends about ten meters ahead.  It opens on to a large circular room.  Pipes run along the ceiling and walls.  Rig recognizes it as a life support depot.  Systems for heat and air filtration are stacked up in the middle of the room.  Lights wink and dance across the systems.  It looks like they both just came online.  The heat is still calibrating.  The air filters are running diagnostics on atmo that's being manufactured out of chem tanks somewhere else.

There's a bulkhead door in the far wall.

A large hatch is set in the floor halfway between the life support and the bulkhead door.  In contrast to the dark grays and blues coloring the rest of the room, the hatch lid is a stark white.

There's a monitor station right in front of the life support systems.  Screens on the system are flashing up grids and gas level readings.  Rig can't see too much data as there's a big guy sitting right before the monitors.

The guy is suited up like Rig's lubricant friend, though from the back, it doesn't look like the guy's helmet is bashed in.  But the guy isn't moving at all. Not even a twitch.

Rig will have to approach him to learn more.

---

Silver leaps, launching her fist upwards as she flies...

Need her damage.  Falcon punch hits.

---

Unless otherwise stated, you can assume you get to make all active character rolls.  Including damage.  I only roll for when the PC doesn't know there's an issue.

Let me know what kind of damage she does, cos she does it.

Thanks

I posted damage: 11 to hit, 13 for damage.

17:53, Today: Silver rolled 13 using 3d6+2.  faalllcon punch!

Oops.  Sorry.  Forgot to ask for Tepha's damage too.  You would not apply the ten factor in this case.  It's just the straight up damage roll.

Let me know if there's questions.  Thanks

21:03, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 6 using 1d6+1.