Kattalin shakes her head even before she turns to look at Kojo.  ”I don't think splitting our effort like that will be the most effective path, even if we plan to capture both ships and take them both with us it will be more effective to send only combatants with the smaller group, and dedicate our efforts in taking control of a ship to one target, once we have that ship captured, operational, and can secure the area we will then be in a significantly better position to decide if we can take or if we must destroy the other ships.

While it would be preferable if everyone we have already gathered survive the escape the core truth is that if those of us capable of taking control of a ship don't then nobody else will, so we must accompany the larger group and take as few personal risks as possible.”

Kojo mused.
"Soft docked. If we were able to close the clamps from this side we'd restrict their manoeuvreability and thus the fire arcs of their PDCs."
"Those guards don't wear their helmets. Venting would only buy us mere seconds though."
"Lure those guards away and then overwhelm them to get their access terminals."
"But how?"
Kojo was clearly feeling deadlocked himself.

Alis collects up two of the 'air lock tools' and gives the other two to Sancho.

"Lets swing by the management office on our way back, maybe they have some more camera feeds or something like override codes or keys."

Yuri draws and raises a pistol, which is a compact handgun with a with a top mounted visible laser sight. "Twelve pistol." Seeing that Sato isn't armed he hands it to the Martian. "You take good care of pistol Martian, I want back." He then hands over 1 spare magazine for the pistol.

At Van's question regarding gong through the rail gun hole the big Earther of Slavic descent shakes his head. "Rail gun hole not too big. For us to try and climb in would be like Caucasian Shepherd trying to fuck Bolonka Tsvetna."

OOC:
Bolonka Tsvetna only weighs 3-4 kilograms https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolonka_Zwetna
Caucasian Shepherd weighs in at 50 kilo grams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_Shepherd_Dog

Kattalin gestures at Sato with handle of his pistol she has been borrowing in much the same way any mechanic would expect to pass off a wrench or other tool to swap out with another one, clearly an offer to trade weapons so he can have his own, that no doubt fits its holster better than the modified one.  ”It sounds like we don't want to finalize the plan until we get more information, that temptation is a risky one, if we wait to long we will be found or they will move and there is no way we can chase those ships after they leave.  We may be in an even tighter time crunch if they are monitoring the spread of the infestation and planning to leave before it gets close enough to threaten them.”

Asha has been listening to the others until it's her turn, not looking up much since she's awaiting instructions from Abang. "I'm Hope, a mechanic from the Zhidao, a Shíyàn Nóngyé ship, like the doc said. I'm just his extra hands right now. I can't do much here. Once on a ship I can help powering it up and fixing things. I'm also decent with drones and other tech. Don't count on me to fight my way onto a ship, but if you can get me on one we're flying out I can do more."

[Private to GM: Hope and Sato have been more like friends with benefits on the ship. So she would surely have heard of Kaeya, but they're unlikely to know each other.]

Having returned with Hope, carrying four more vacsuits and hearing the conversation, Abang adds his input, "These four suits are heavy duty, and you four with armor could put your armor on over them, if we fit you properly.  Split into two groups, two of you on each boarding team, going in first."  He sees Yuri handing over his pistol and Kattalin and Shinsato swapping (presumably*), "Looks like we have a solid fourteen armed individuals, and two others, one for each ship, to do secondary duties, like Hope here once engineering is secured, can start getting the engines warmed up to go."

He holds his hand out to Shinsato, "Boss, my pistol please." (presuming* Shinsato hands Abang's peashooter back) "Shinsato, myself, Hope, Kattalin?  And then two of you in armor and four others with pistols, we can take the large ship.  Mr. Botha, Captain Nguyen, two armored, and two others take the corvette.  Kaeya, Ms. Shinsato, and our wounded fellow remain here.  Once we've taken the ships the dock guards can be induced to surrender, we either bind them here or take them captive aboard the larger ship, move the wounded and elderly onto the ships, undock, and rendezvous with the Zhidao.  If we can take the shuttle by surprise and there are no other hostile ships in the area, we could even return engineers to the Svetlana and begin repairs as long as it's not dangerous, or disembark her and begin repairs on the float.  No need for her to still be languishing in the dock once UNN or MCRN finally show up to restore order."


OOC:  * Presuming... if not I can edit as needed.
Abang's bearing has become a bit rigid, almost "military officer" like as he talks, but there is clear scorn in his voice when he mentions the Earth and Martian Navies at the end...

"Hey, I don't know anything about being a pirate, and takign over a ship, but if everyone suited up and got on the ships at the same time would we be able to get away from Eros faster?"

In reply to Dr. Abang Kaos (msg # 106):

Van nodded.

"This sounds workable. I understand there is no perfect plan. Have many priorities to balance. Our boarding expert, the Marine, thinks taking both ships is possible if difficult and this gives us the capability to evacuate as many people as possible. Therefore this is the primary objective. We can scale our efforts back to securing one ship, if deemed necessary.

"I do not hold out hope my ship can be made serviceable at this time. Eros is not going anywhere! My ship can stay here, at least it cannot be stolen if it cannot be flown. It is insured against theft and piracy, so adjusters can have a look once Eros is secured and order restored."

"Once The UN arrives," Kala almost blurted out and then thought better of it with all the Belters around her. They had no love of Earthers at the best of times, and right now, those mysterious high-tech invaders with their special suits were looking more and more like Inners, and probably not Martians.

She kept her thoughts to herself and busied herself putting on the heavy vac suit she'd been hauling halfway across the rock.

"Where do you want me to go?" she asked Kaos and Loc (sounds like a law firm, right?) -- they seemed to be organizing this little escape plan.

Seeing the plan begin to switch from theory to action Kattalin selects one of the lighter but still fully functional vacsuits for herself and attaches the hand terminal she has been using to one of its tool cords, testing that link even before she steps unto it.

Whether it was a good plan or not remained to be seen. But that there was a plan at all was good in any case.
Kojo followed Kattalin procedure, took one of the fragile emergency vac suits and wished her and the team good luck.
"Ready to go."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:14, Tue 29 Mar 2022.

"Kattalin, Mr. Botha, Captain Nguyen, there may be useful drones and spare terminals in the computer store, there should be time to check while everyone is getting suited up and double-checked.  Also, I have a camera drone that you can use, it's a tourist vacay model, so it's not exactly rugged or vac rated, but it does have a good camera and wireless broadcast capacity."

He pulls it out of his duffel and hands it over to Luc, it's still unopened.  He then starts getting suited up in an emergency suit and helps others if they need it.

Alis will see about syncing the feed from the server room camera's to her hand terminal.

"If anyone can sync the feeds to our terminals, we'll be able to keep an eye out on those guards. And Van, if they get wise maybe have the Svetlana start up to distract them?" She says as she gets into one of the vac suits that they lugged from the Pur-n-Cleen offices.

She also looks for some shop rags and duct tape. Her intent is to make some 'booties' for the mag lock capable boots to muffle their foot falls.

In reply to Kattalin Zubiri (msg # 110):

Van smiled at Kala. "Until we make our move, look for useful equipment. When we go in your gun will be needed."

"Dr. Kaos, it is interesting you have a drone. If you can pilot, perhaps you can take control of mine during the boarding phase? Yours will not be able to function in vacuum." If needed he transfers control of his drone over. The man clearly had some military experience and training and probably functioned very well under pressure.

Seeing her suit up he did so himself, first removing the armour, then trying to get it on after. As he had his SMG he'd probably be in the front and more liable to catch a bullet.

"I can try.  I've done remote teleoperations before, though, that was surgical.  I offered mine as one that could be used here on the docks to monitor the guards, since yours would be better used on the boarding."

He uses some tape to strap the holdout holster for his pistol on the outside of his emergency vacsuit.

Sancho suited up and made sure all was working on the suit before he checked his weapons and did a quick check of his other gear. Lastly he indicated he was ready to go.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 05:24, Wed 30 Mar 2022.

"I could run a drone if needed. It's at least something useful I can contribute since I'm not familiar with guns. But once I'm on a ship I'll need to focus on the ship."

Leaving her helmet off until they are actually ready to go Kattalin takes a break in otherwise doublechecking her seals.  ”All the hand terminals are already networked, so any feed sent to one will be visible to anything in range, drone control can be done by anyone not currently engaged in some other activity but whoever is doing it will likely need to actively distribute any important updates as there will be a range of distractions no matter how well this goes.”

Kaeya grabs a pair of the emergency vac suits and helps Ms. Hirotsugu get into it. Once that is done, she dons the other one.

"Hey, we might want to lightly wrap our joints in duct tape, that's where these one time use suits rip the most."

Yuri thought about putting on the heavy vac suit but decided against it. He'd probably be one of the assault leaders and thus needed as much mobility as possible.

First stripping off the set of CPM armor, he gets on of the emergency vac suits. Once that is one he asks others to assist in getting the CPM armor back on, and the shotgun slung back on his body as well.

Vac suits still available (I think)
1 Heavy vac suit (crappy mobility).
1 standard vac suit (Kattalin, Alis, and Van have claimed the other three).

As the heavy vac suit appear it might weight more than she does, Hope dons a standard vac suit. She seems nimble enough getting into it despite her slender belter physique.

Sato had accepted the new weapon and returned the one to Abang that he had borrowed.  He saw nothing wrong with the plan that Abang had presented so didn't bother to alter it.  They weren't aboard a ship so his 'position' of XO meant very little these days.

---

OOC:

sorry for the short, likely of little help post.  Things will improve for me in the next week or so.

OOC: Please only post once in this thread if you decide to stay in the airlock. After all player characters have posted I will have the NPC’s post in a respective thread. My general assumption is that the vacuum rated drones will be used to first scout the area before characters try to exit the airlock and get to a ship.

---

It doesn’t take very long for everyone to get suited up and determine what other items were available. When it came to mag boots, the life support shop had a large rack of them on display and thus anyone needing a pair of mag boots is able to find a pair that fits.

The wounded man is stuffed into the unused Heavy Vac suit.

The following items were found and brought to the airlock.

• Four airlock/hatch opening tools (in case brute force entry is required)
• 13x safety lines (3 meters long)
• 7x safety lines (5 meters long)
• 3x safety lines (10 meters long)
• 3x safety lines (30 meters long)
• 2x safety lines (50 meters long)
• 3x Vacuum rated drones (no special features, just has a basic video camera)
  NOTE: Dr. Kaos, and Hope are either unarmed, or have a pistol which may not be very useful. Thus they might be the best choices as ‘drone operators' to watch the guards through the transparent aluminum windows.

Thise headed for the small ship exit the airlock first (they have a longer walk), followed by those headed to the big ship next.

OOC: Just posting this here for any PC that stay's here.