Tepha gave up trying to identify the people coming down and instead focused on hacking the enemy comms. With the other crew splitting their focus between Ledo, the droids, and presumably their descending buddies she was hoping she could slip something in and make a subtle attempt at getting access to the enemy communications.

Maybe...

23:30, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 11 using 2d6+1.  hack into enemy comms?

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 35):

Were you able to dig me out? Fritz responds to Rig.  I would guess the mini-Fritz would have enough sense to lay dormant in this circumstance.  It would depend on how sophisticated their sensors are or how savvy their programmer is.  And that droid is going to have less of a system to hid in than Tia did.  But I feel pretty confident.

---

Tepha stares at the band frequencies displayed before her.  An odd idea occurs to her.  What if they were using old style broadband settings?  Those would be strong enough to stand up to the jamming signals.  And are really easy to work with.

Those would be super easy to hack though.  Which was why no one used them any longer, despite how easy they were to work with.

But what the hell.  She twisted the dial.

...TA about two minutes.

You got Killbot with ya?

You know it.  You got a body count?

Two we know of.  Maybe four.  We can't ping their ship too well with all this damn static.

What about Herb?  What's she up to?

Oh their captain came up with some sob story about lots of dead people.  So she decided to run the Poor Lil' Orphan gambit.  She and him went off to see these dead people.

Ha!  That's why I love that bitch!  We're gonna move pretty quick after I TD.  You ready?

Got the blowtorches ready

We haven't had barbecue for supper in so long...Mmmm. Make sure we got enough sauce.

---

Greta frowns than shrugs.  She nods and opens her door as Ledo opens his.

Ledo needs to roll me 2D + Int mod. If he makes the roll, he remembers the phrase Business before Pleasure.  If he doesn't, well things get interesting.  Either way, don't post as Ledo next time.  Let's see what happens to him first.

Ledo is out of radio range.  The fastest way to get to him is going to be notifying Fritz 4 and have him run a message to Ledo directly.

OOC: Poor Herb & Ledo
2:39, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 5 using 2d6+1.  int check.

Tepha swore.

”FRITZ! WARN LEDO NOW!”

Rig cursed and ran towards the other gunner controls. This was about to get messy...

OOC: He will try and fire the ion cannon barb after silver detonates the explosives. What should I roll to hit a stationary target?

“Called it! Well assholes we’ve got some surprises too.”

If she can catch the two dropping down in the explosion she will wait for touchdown. Otherwise if charges are too far away she will detonate and fire the pulse laser. It’d be nice if she can pop off those missile turrets...
This message was last edited by the player at 22:02, Sun 07 June 2020.

As the hatch marked Business slides open, Ledo has a quick glimpse of an office with a guy seated behind a desk.

Than everything goes orange.

Yeah.  This one is probably gonna sting.  A blast comes out of Herb's door, and fills up the platform.  Herb/Gretta is buttery pastry at the moment. Now let's see about your boy Ledo.

21 pts of damage.  Subtract any armor he's got on.  If he's still in his vacc suit that counts of course.

---

Fritz 4 says there's been an explosion

Fritz Sr.'s words come just a moment after whoever that is in the shaft suddenly drops down.  Silver has a chance to see a guy in a suit and a battle droid before she flips the switch, Rig following close behind...

No need to roll to hit.  You're going to automatically.

But I'll ask you to roll damage.

For Silver and the Bomb, roll me 4d6.  I'll add the appropriate multipliers.

For Rig, roll the Ion thingie's damage as per the rulebook.

Thanks.

Ledo's armor catches a good chunk of the blast but Ledo is still thrown slamming into the wall. He felt like he had just been teed up and someone had someone had hit a home run with him.

OOC: 21 damage -10 from armor = 11. 9 END + 2 DEX. END is now 0, DEX is now 6 but he survives.

"Fuck you Siri. Fuck...you."

As soon as the robot and woman touched down Silver detonated the thermite charge and opened fire with her beam laser.


18:12, Today: Silver rolled 11 using 4d6.  kablooy.
18:18, Today: Silver rolled 6 using 1d6+1.  dbl beam laser.

As explosions started sounding and lasers started firing Rig triggered the ion cannon. He was really hoping they could take the enemy ship out of the fight completely before it even started.

OOC:
Ion damage: 50
18:16, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 5 using 2d6.  ion cannon: 2d6x10.

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 45):

Tia is rocked on it's landing struts.  Tepha is tossed to one side but manages to stay upright as the ship lurches from the initial blast.

The sounds of the explosion barely covers the noise of the weapons firing and metal tearing.

Internal damage.  Strut 2 suffering from hydraulic line bursting.  Hull damage 8% section 24 to 32, 41 to 43, and 57

The hull damage is minimal. Probably shrapnel blasting against the armor plating.  The strut is a little worrisome to Rig. But he has other things on his mind.

While Mainframe focuses on what's going on with Tia, Fritz is focusing on the enemy.

Estimated direct hits on their airlock, comm array, and portward gunnery positions.  The bomb damaged their landing structs on that side.  They're listing.  Sending estimated positions of their remaining gunnery positions to you Silver.

Their firewalls are still operable.  Can't attempt a hack.

The visual is nothing but smoke and dust.

Then there's the whine of an answering salvo.  Tia shudders.

Strikes on hull positions 24 and 46.  15 and 42% respectively.  Navigation system offline.

Only two shots connected.  The rest overshot.  Their targeting system must be offline.  Their gunners don't know they're listing.

---

Ledo hits the wall and slides down it, realizing he was blown back down the platform almost to the point of the ladder he ascended.  His suit is flashing reds.  There's a breach along his sleeve and across the chest.

The smoke is starting to clear.  It was a concussive blast mainly focused on the door Gretta opened.  It spread in a half circle from the point of detonation, at least that's what Ledo thinks happened.  His head feels like riot police clashing with armed reactionaries in a mine field.

He is vaguely aware of what is left of Greta.  She got thrown off the platform and is now spread across the control room floor below.  Well.  Most of her.

His ears are ringing.  He's coughing up blood but it doesn't feel like anything is going to come out of him that shouldn't.

Stumbling down the platform, he can see what is inside each room now.

Just inside Pleasure is what's left of a stand that must have held the charge.  There are shield walls on each side which directed the blast outwards and spared the room most of the force.  Past the stand is an old, dusty bed.  Four poster and probably pretty nice back in the day.  Laying on it, wrapped in red silk sheets, are the remains of what must have been a woman.  Beside the bed is a night stand and a cabinet. Holo projected photos of a couple dot the walls.

The Business door opens to a small office.  Behind a desk are the remains of a man in a jump suit.  He is slumped in his chair, a pistol in one hand.  From the hole in skull, it looks like he blew open his head.  There is a computer terminal on top of the desk and his other hand is clutching a round orb.

Silver and Rig can get off another round.  The pirate ship is pretty tough, but you've taken out a chunk.

Let me know.  Thanks.

"Fritz! Turn on the repair droids and if you can focus on their power system. Or weapons. Just...do something!"

Rig hit them again with another ion blast hoping to see the enemy systems start shutting down.

OOC:
07:57, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 8 using 2d6.  ion blast 2d6x10.

Ledo pauses at the threshold and looks at the orb. Does it look grenade like? Does it look like it has a string or some other attachment?

"<Cough>Fritz...I need you...to check it out. I can't take...another hit...like that...<cough cough>"

He stumbled to his knees, pushing himself upright only to fall again. Ledo gritted his teeth against the pain, shut his eyes to block out the spinning room and braced himself against a room to start standing again.

Silver kept hammering at the other ship, using her sensors to focus on their weapon systems to pop them  off one by one.

"FUCK YOU SIRI! FUCK YOU! WHOOOOO!"

She didn't broadcast her taunts but she really really wanted to.


08:00, Today: Silver rolled 7 using 1d6+1.  fuuuuucck youuuuu.

Tepha pulled herself back to her feet, jumping towards the nearest console and fingers flying on instinct as much as conscious thought. She focused the Tia's sensors on the pirate ship to try to get a read of the situation. What had happened to that Killbot thing? Were pirates trying to cross the gap and cut into their ship? Was the enemy ship about to explode from a breached fusion reactor?

She had never been in a spaceship fight before so she was pulling everything she could think of.


08:02, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 11 using 2d6+1.  sensors.

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 47):

I'm afraid I can't do that Engineer Rig.  The jammer is keeping me from remotely activating it.  But I'm sure the me in there will do his best.  Unless he got fragged in the first volley.  In which case he can't.  But let's not blame him for being dead.

Tepha has got us visuals by the by.  I estimate that their gunnery mounts are 94% damaged.  They haven't fired a shot back since that first salvo.

Of more concern is that person who's trying to board Tia.  Looks like the human from the shaft made it down.  They're on the airlock, planting what I think is an explosive device.

There's a sudden BOOOOM noise and Tia shakes.

Yep.  That was an explosive device.  Silver, you may want to head towards the airlock.  I will feed visual to your comm.  Tepha, you may want to go hide.  He's close to your position.

---

Fritz 4 takes forever to climb the ladder.  But it finally manages to get up there.  It hops over Ledo and heads inside the office.

It's a holo crystal. I'll have to activate it to see what's on it.  Hold on.  Gotta climb up on to the desk.

That seems to take almost as long as the ladder did.

Fritz 4 taps the crystal.  A small projection of a pretty woman pops up.  She starts dancing on top of the desk.

The computer system is on.  There's a message on it.

Arden, if you are reading this, you either finally learned to put business before pleasure or you had one of your guys open the other door.  I hope they screamed when they died.

I can't wait for you.  So I'm going to check out now.  But don't think you've gotten away.  See, the moment your ship came down the lift, it set off a bomb I planted at the ICUC's transmitter.  The blast will have knocked it out, and the transmission ceasing will attract the attention of the Navy.  How long have you been down here now Arden?  Long enough for a passing Naval frigate to notice something wrong and head this way?  I hope so.

But it doesn't matter.  Because you are sure to have lost some men getting this far.  And the men you got left are going to take note of how willing you are to use your crew as shields.  Sooner or later, one of them is going to kill you in your sleep.  I wish I could have hunted you down like the pig you are.

Fuck you Arden.  I'll hate you longer than the Universe will exist.  Some day, in some reality, I'll get to see you die.

He's kind of cheery fellow, isn't he?  There's a lock box here.  But I bet it's trapped.  You want me to try to open it Captain Ledo?

Ledo considered it and shook his head, pointing at the control panel.

"Not right now. First we need to figure out how to get control of this station. I hate to say it but Arden there did us a favor. Assuming they don't kill us for what happened to Greta having the navy show up would be great.

I was planning on sending out an SOS anyway once we got that pirate ship launched again. Now let's see if we can't get some controls going..."

Ledo has Fritz help him poke around the consoles looking for an administration panel that he could access to control the ship lift.

Rig was shouting in a panic as the ship is breached.

"Fritz, do you have any robots still out in the open? Did any of them survive the blast? Activate what you can and bring in reinforcements!"

Rig grabbed his own gun and headed towards the explosion.

Silver's joy in seeing Siri's ship go up was short lived when she realized they had been bushwacked. Still there were better chances of surviving a boarding action then a missile volley.

She unslung her combat rifle and swapped out her magazine for one of her red tipped specials, the APDS rounds. These things would punch through a space suit like it wasn't even there and she had been just itching for an opportunity that would justify their use.

Just in case she also slotted a stun grenade into her launcher. Maybe she if left one of them alive the Captain wouldn't get up her ass at all and give her a fat bonus.

Locked and loaded she headed back to the breach with her selector set to full-auto. No reason to be precise on this one...

In reply to Silver (msg # 54):

Shoot.  Got myself turned around.  Airlock is on the upper deck.  Tepha is on lower deck.  Rig and Silver are headed across the hall from gunnery to the crew's common.  The airlock is on the other side of that.

Silver and Rig hit the hallway at the same time, coming up to the door leading into common area.  Fritz patches through the camera feed to their comms.

The raider is already inside.  Silver isn't quite sure what kind of battle armor that is, but it is bad ass.  The guy is moving like a cat, no lag due to the bulk of the mech at all.

As they get to the door, smoke starts to pour out of a vent near the back of the raider's armor.  He's blowing a smoke screen.

He's also giving out jamming waves.  It's going to mess with any targeting software or radar.  Shit.  He's unleashed an attack virus.  Damn, it's nasty.  Gonna be busy folks.  Keeping the cameras patched to your comms.

Silver and Rig are outside the door to the common area.  The raider's on the other side, in a room rapidly filling with smoke.

---

Fritz 4 hops up on the console.  Ledo managed to get them both back down the ladder.  Fritz 4 walks his stubby legs over the various panels and comms in the main room before stopping at one.  He points at a board.  Press this and flip that.

There's a pause and then the various workstations in the room light up.  Fritz 4 falls over and after a moment, an audio speaker near Ledo begins to hum.

Ah. That is so much better.  I finally got room to move.  Gimme a sec.

Hmm.  Looks like Cles fragged most of the mainframe.  I can turn off the jamming mechanism, but the lift controls are kaput.  There's a back up system though.  I can't access it from here.  It must be that room Rig was describing when he went down that shaft.

Did you know Tia and that pirate ship are in a fire fight right now?  Looks like we're winning.  I'll have you patched through in just a sec.

Huh.  I can access the stations top side sensors.  There's a second ship keeping an orbit around this rock.  The...Nice N Bloody.  Charming name, huh?  I don't think it's a naval vessel.  They are trying to signal the Burn Em All.  Looks like they haven't been able to yet.

If I turn off the jammer, they'll be able to patch through.  You want me to turn the jammer off?  The connection with Tia's gonna be poor if I don't.

Silver fishes out another APDS magazine and hands it to Rig.

"Lock and load and lets full auto this fucker down."

Silver turns off her personal HUD and laser sight and switches to IR to cut through the smoke. Time to light 'em up. She hits the door control and opens fire, full auto as she burns through her magazine sending armor piercing rounds streaking towards the mech rig.

OOC: Hooo boy

Shot #1 hits 9 for 13 damage, AP 9
16:10, Today: Silver rolled 8 using 2d6+2.  +1 DEX,  +1 Guns, IR bypasses smoke.
16:13, Today: Silver rolled 13 using 3d6.  damage #1, AP 9.

Shot #2 hits 12 for 10 damage, AP 9
16:12, Today: Silver rolled 12 using 2d6+3.  +1 DEX,  +1 Guns, +1 short range,  IR bypasses smoke.
16:13, Today: Silver rolled 10 using 3d6.  Damage #2, AP 9.

Shot #3 hits 10 for 9 damage, AP 9
16:12, Today: Silver rolled 10 using 2d6+3.  +1 DEX,  +1 Guns, +1 short range,  IR bypasses smoke.
16:13, Today: Silver rolled 9 using 3d6.  Damage #3, AP 9.

Rig fumbled with the magazine Silver handed to him and he barely had it locked in before she flung the door open.

He didn't have nearly the fire discipline that she did and so when he held down the trigger the gun jumped and sprang all over the place.

OOC: Lol

Shot #1 hits 8 for 7 damage
Shot #2 hits 7 for 17 damage
Shot #3 hits 6 for 6 damage


16:18, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 6 using 3d6.  damage 3.
16:18, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 17 using 3d6.  damage 2.
16:18, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 7 using 3d6.  damage 1.
16:18, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 6 using 2d6.  -1 DEX, +1 SR Shot #3.
16:18, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 7 using 2d6.  -1 DEX, +1 SR Shot #2.
16:18, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 8 using 2d6.  -1 DEX, +1 SR Shot #1.

Ledo cursed loud and clear.

"FUCK! Why the fuck are we fighting the only pirates in the world that are sociable enough to have a buddy. Shit...shit shit shit...okay. You check to see if there are any other security measures that we didn't already destroy on our way in here. Anything we can use to get the pirate ship from destroying the Tia. I need to find out if Cles here was telling the truth and we are going to be picked up by a navy ship. If not we need to start broadcasting loud and clear. We're not the criminals here and I'd much rather face a Navy Captain than another pirate cruiser."

While Fritz was tapping he was tapping too. There was too much at stake and too little time to do things in an orderly fashion.

The moment Silver throws open the door, Buddy Boy opens fire.  The two sides exchange shots in a flurry of Zip Zip Pwee Pwee WHAMS

Rig feels two solid hits crash into his suit and Silver gets a good one against her torso.

The smoke starts to spill out into the hallway.  As does enemy fire...

Rig took two hits: 6 and 13.  Take each one sepereately against his suit's armor and then he takes the rest.

Same with Silver.  But she only took 15.  Ha!

---

Uhm Teph?  Sorry.  But we got a situation.  Can you hear me?

The sound of the fire fight in the airlock can be heard all the way down here in the hold.

Burn Em All is leaking fuel.  It's kind of a problem for us if it makes it's way over here as there is a lot of burning bits and pieces laying around the hold. Ledo and I are hailing us.  They've taken the comm center, but a lot of the controls are fragged.

But the me there sent me a layout of the Hold.  There's a fire suppressant system but we'll have to manually activate it.  Take your comm.  You need to hurry.  Northwest corner of the hold.  It's in the other direction from the Burn Em All.  You're looking for a large wheel and lever under a red sign with a picture of a fire on it.

Take a flashlight and hurry.  I'll go with you on your comm.

---

Actually Captain Ledo, pirates will often work in squads or teams...You don't really want to hear this right now, do you?

Hmmm.  There's a weapons locker.  It's apparently back the way Rig came.  There may be something there.  Can't access an inventory.

On the plus side, Cles seems to be telling the truth.  Ledo finds plans for the beacon and simulations Cles ran for bomb placement.  Without turning off the jammer, there's no way to verify for certain the bomb went off.  But looking at the equipment list Cles included, the bomb should have gone off even after all this time.  It would all depend on if the signal from the lift went off.  Given Cles' methodicalness in preparing his fun-time-happy-land-amusement-park, it seems safe to assume the bomb went off.

Oh.  Heard back from the me on the Tia.  Silver and Rig are in a firefight with a boarder.  And the Burn Em All seems to leaking fuel and there are a lot of fires burning.  The dock's fire suppressant system seems to be offline.  He's sending Tepha to go activate it. But you may want to head back.  We're not sure all the Burn Em All crew are dead.

I'm sure everything will go swimmingly

Ledo ran back to the ladder and slid down lower.

"Wait here. Disarm the mine but wait here. If you see pirates and not us re-arm it to give us leverage again...I just hope the others can hold it together until I get there..."