Alis waves Van over without taking her eyes off the screen and points at the CCTV feed of his ship. "If your ship can be started up enough to get your FCS online, maybe she can nudge it enough to bring your PDC to bear on those guards..who by the way are very well kitted out." She says, tracing a line from one feed to the other with her finger. "Looks like they each have a tricked out 4.6mm and some new type of armor." She rubs her chin as she narrows her eyes looking at the feed. "Honestly, I'd err on the side of caution and figure it a match for MCRN body armor at least." She looks at the feeds for a few more seconds then turns back to the others.

"Hmmmm...Also a thought, we have to pick our prize or prizes well, and then make sure we disable the balance or else they're gonna tear us a new one while we make a run for it." She says with a sage nod.

"Oh! And we'll have to move smart and fast to keep them from lobotomizing their ships computers to keep us from making off with 'em." She looks at Katt. "If you have physical access to the ships computer, even if it is an airlock terminal, you think you can get us the keys to the kingdom?"

She looks at the others and flashes a winning smile. "I'm not trying to be negative, just pointing out potential problems that we'll need to solve if this is going to work." She holds up her finger as if a light bulb has lit off above her head.

"Maybe if we go around the room and let everyone know what your special talent is, we'll be able to tailor this plan to our strengths?" She claps her hand. "I'll go first. I'm the ships purser on the Bandersnatch, which is in dock 3, I help man her guns when I'm not brokering hardware and information." She then pauses, and makes an 'ok your turn' motion with her hand to Van since he is closet to her.

When it was his turn to speak up Kojo said.
"Second in command of Black Hole, which seems to have departed under duress. It was berthed in Dock 2. My main job, however, used to be keeping potential foes from detecting or, if worse came to worst, targetting the Hole. Not much use in personal combat, I'm sorry to admit."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:32, Sun 20 Mar 2022.

The large Slavic Earther spoke up when his turn came. "I left the UNN Marine Corps as a Staff Sergeant and know how to use small arms and weapons on warships."

"Sancho's the name and I fix stuff, either on a ship or in a workshop. I can use handguns small arms sort of thing and I use to fight professionally."


-

Kaeya, as the youngest person present made a rather bold statement, but it didn't sound like the 16 year old Belter was making up a story or lying.

"I, um could probably fly one of those ships. My parents let me fly their ship which I grew up on."

[Private to Shinsato Hirotsugu: You know the girls story isn't BS. She has often asked how hard it would be to get a job with Shíyàn Nóngyè as either a pilot or navigator.]

[Private to Asha Blackburn: Up to you as a player how well Asha knows Kaeya (both are Belters). But seeing as Asha is in a relationship with Sato she may know a bit about Kaeya. Anyhow if you have spoken to her, Kaeya's story isn't BS, and she has asked Asha about engineering duties on a ship, despite being more inclined to be a pilot/navigator.]

OOC: If your character happens to get killed, Kaeya is up for grabs as a partially made character.

The doctor finishes redressing the wounded man's abdomen, closes up the emt duffel and shoulders it, when he finally looks around at the assembled group and responds to Alis.

"Dr. Abang Kaos, ship doctor of the Zhidao," he stands and gestures to Shinsato, "Shinsato Hirotsugu, our XO; Asha Blackburn, one of our mechanics," he then indicates the two civilians with them, "and this is Ms. Shinsato and Keaya her caretaker, who apparently is also a pilot."  He gives her a small reassuring smile and then moves over to look out the airlock, "XO, looks like the Zhidao disembarked.  Probably holding station nearby to render aid once... once whatever is going on here has been controlled by the proper authorities."  As he spoke his bearing became less casual and more military.

Dr Kaos then starts poking around the area, taking stock of what they have on hand.

[Private to Asha Blackburn; Shinsato Hirotsugu: Abang is entering "crisis mode".  He's done this a few times when someone has been seriously injured on the Zhidao or when they under went surprise "emergency drills".  He isn't really a jerk, but he comes off that way a bit when under this sort of stress.]
This message was last edited by the player at 16:43, Mon 21 Mar 2022.

In reply to Alis Syn (msg # 75):

"I am more jack-of-all-trades. Am pilot, also know some engineering."

He moved to observe his ship, the Svetlana, through the lock viewport. When he saw it, he frowned. "Is venting atmo. PDC looks damaged.

"Still no great plan. Use Svetlana to distract sentries. Eliminate exterior sentries. Board gunship. Eliminate crew. Take control. Exit Eros close space. Or find small craft. Hope Zhidao is on station to recover. Third plan?"
This message was last edited by the player at 19:24, Wed 23 Mar 2022.

"Yeah, pilot, me too," adds Kala pulling the heavy vac suit out of the pack she has lugged all the way from the Pur N Cleen offices. "Navigator as well," she adds as she lays the suit out and begins to inspect it.

"But that don't mean shit if we can't get past those goons," she nods at the vid of the guards in the very high tech looking armor.

The probable loss of Naomi is starting to set in and she feels a huge wave of depression settling on her. Hopefully there will be action soon to distract her from her own thoughts.

Kattalin looks up from her work into a gap of silence, realizing that the others have stopped and at least some of them are looking at her she answers the same general question everyone else has been before the more specific one asked of her processes.  ”Engineering, with an emphasis in software.

Opening an airlock from the outside is comparatively easy they are designed to do that on some level, but they are almost never directly connected to the ship's main computer for exactly the reason you have noticed, breaching a ship will lead to a firefight, and we don't have enough vac suits to make that possible for either of the soft docked ships.”

Abang opens the locker, "There's eleven vac suits here.  With the three you're carrying, that's fourteen we can send out the airlock and over to the take those ships. Group of eight for the large ship, six for the smaller one.  They have guards out on the dock, they aren't likely to have any on the ships themselves, maybe a few crew to keep things running and ready to go."

He looks at the group to see how well that plan is going over, "If the ships are taken fast and quietly, the dock guards won't even know until the ships depart without them."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 05:42, Wed 23 Mar 2022.

Kala will look around the dock and see if there are any utility vessels there. The kind of thing the maintenance crews would use to reach a ship that needed repairs from the outside. She knows they will not be enough to get them safely off the station, but if this all goes bad, she would like at least a chance to take out those two merc ships and seal their fate as well.

Alis thinks for a second.

"If we can sneak up on the airlock and slip in behind the guards that could work. But three ships at once might be to big an ask." She says with a shrug, looking over their motley crew. "In any case, maybe use the distraction idea as well, say, just as we are bout to make our push. The Svetlana goes active, which will keep anyone pulling bridge watch looking at that and not in our direction, and same for the guards."

It seems Shinsato didn't need to introduce himself as Abang had graciously done that for him.  In response to the conversation he replied:

"We have 2 XO's and no captains.  It stands to reason that myself and the Earther,"<yellow he says as he points to Kojo, <yellow>"Should each command one of the two ships"

He turns to Kojo.  "What are your thoughts?"

In reply to Shinsato Hirotsugu (msg # 87):

Van looked amused and a bit chagrinned when he realised there had been a miscommunication.

"Sorry, I was not clear! I am a ship Captain. My apologies for any misunderstanding.

"As well, am drone operator, if not already clear. Work drone has no manipulators or weapons, but has sensors, and is vacuum-maneuverable rated in zero-Gee.

"I think as general plan, we should seek to seize one ship. I count two potential hostile vessels, a corvette gunship and a damaged frigate. Plus shuttle. The corvette gunship, if it has crew, aboard will likely have less present than the larger ship. Shuttle is not sufficient in size or capability.

"First we try to get someone aboard unseen. Then with ship's weapons under our control, put sentries in crossfire and take them out. My ship and drone can be used for distraction. Then frigate and shuttle will be disabled."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:00, Fri 25 Mar 2022.

Kojo was just about to answer when Van spoke up.
He listened graciously, nodded in agreement.
"Exactly my thoughts. We have no idea how much damage the frigatte actually took. We only presume that is is still capable to take us off here. It's a risk I prefer not to take."
"And, like already stated, the assessment that the frigatte has more crewmen to overcome is a sound one."
"A distraction will only work, if we are quick. We need to get whichever vessel we take away as fast as possible, for again, we do not know how much fire power, functional that is, isnleft on either one. My guess is, the corvette is fully functional in all regards."
"As I mentioned earlier, too much discussion and those troopers might come back."
"A ruse of an attack on the frigatte, sabotage or whatever, will hopefully draw their attention to allow the commandeering of the corvette."
"Summarized: I'm all for taking on the corvette."
For those who were XOs or above - or indeed used to a clear chain of command in military organisations - it was clear that Kojo's captain had (or still did) obviously prefered to make his own decisions and not have his XO take things in hand himself. Kojo's wording was clearly only suggestive. He probably only had been XO because no one else on the Black Hole had been willing to take the job. Or, Kojo had simply been the one suave enough to placate sufficiently a willful captain.
Any body else might find Kojo's notes helpful.
Either way, it was obvious that a decision was required. And who would be the one to actually make it? Perceptive folk may have noticed that Kojo seemed to expect that of the declared captain as his head seemed to mostly turn to Van. Then again, his hidden eyes may have looked somewhere else completely.

"Whatever we chose to do, remember there will be at least five of us stranded in these offices without suits, so lighting up the dock with PDC fire would be ill advised.  Did anyone check the other businesses for suits or other equipment?"

Alis nods at the good doctor. "Good idea! I think Perkins will have what we need, and I'm pretty sure that there might be some useful things to us, ship wise, in the Avionics and Machine shop. I'll go take a look if anyone wants to come with."

Still fiddling with her hand terminal as the conversation goes on Kattalin looks up once she realizes what direction the plan is going.  ”If we intend to capture one of the military ships we should expect significant resistance, not just in the form of crew and weapons, but also the ship itself.  It is very likely that it will take me a considerable amount of time to take control of the ship systems even if we manage to avoid or solve any distractions and threats.

I would be quite shocked if the other ship was willing to ignore us long enough for that to happen, some kind of significant distraction may be required even if that puts some of our number at threat, it is good to keep in mind that we are already at significant threat and would just be exchanging one for another with a chance of survival.”

"I am not too bad at hacking into a ship system either.", he offered as a comment.

Yuri added some of his own observations. "The bigger ship looks to be some sort of assault ship and probably has enough room for everyone. The smaller ship doesn't look like it can carry all of us comfortably."

"I say we try to take both ships at the same time." Having participated in boarding actions before he offered his expertise. "We should have at least four to five people try to board the smaller ship with objectives to secure the bridge and engineering."

"For the bigger ship we should have double that number, but we do not have enough people or weapons to go around."

"There's fourteen people we can send, so five and nine.  If we only go after one ship, the one we don't move on will absolutely fire on the one we are taking, S.O.P., as we'd be firing on them the moment we successfully commandeered it.  Being boarded would be a significant distraction for the crew.  We should raid the other shops for supplies, if we find more suits, then we'll have more we can send over for the assault."

He moves over to the door, "Miss Alis, Kattalin?, Hope?  We can check for tools, might get lucky and find Kattalin a terminal, or better."

"Indeed." She smiles winningly.

Alis will depart with the others and search the relevant places for usable items.

[Private to GM: And information and or anything else useful (should I make a roll?) ]
This message was last edited by the player at 04:21, Sat 26 Mar 2022.

OOC: Below post notes where each player character is at, and who they are with. If you are in a shop and want to look for a specific thing, please state as such in your next post.

Perkin’s Life Support Systems
Dr. Kaos, and Hope check out Perkin’s Life Support Systems. They find two working EVA thruster packs, and four intact Vac Suits (+1 armor bonus, but with some help after zipping up, someone could also wear body armor over the vac suit). There are also 4 Vac Suits undergoing some level of repair or reconditioning, but it is clear that it would take several hours of work to get them serviceable.

Zelya's Tool/Machine shop
Alis, and Sancho check out Zelya's Tool/Machine shop. There they find many different tools one would use when maintaining a ship. The only tools of relevance are four manual airlock opening tools, used to manually open an airlock provided the airlock isn’t locked.

Airlock
Getting into the airlock requires individuals to climb down a ladder which brings the airlock to be at the same sub level as the airlocks that connect to the ships. In fact, the whole design of the airlock indicates that before the server room became a server room it was probably used for a ship to dock to the station.

Down in the airlock Kala identifies at least 8 repair skiffs of different makes and models. None appear to be damaged, and the reason why is clear, none are equipped with an Epstein Drive. Getting to any of these vessels would require a spacewalk and the hope that said spacewalker isn’t seen and then subsequently hosed down by PDC fire.

Server Room
In the Server Room, Kattalin and Kojo discuss hacking the ships and realize that with these being vessels built for combat operations, the airlocks would probably be locked to prevent boarding, and cannot be unlocked remotely from the outside. Someone would have to physically be at the airlock in order to unlock the airlock. There is also the fact that once opened, crew in the CIC of the ship would be alerted as soon as the airlock is opened, unless of course the sensor is spoofed. As for the ships systems there is the chance that a crewmember may have a systems access key on them, or an access key may be plugged in. If not, flight control, engineering, weapons, and communications would probably have to be individually hacked and unlocked. Flight control and engineering would be the two priorities as without one or the other the ship(s) would not be able to undock and leave Eros.

Van and Sato are also in the Server Room and listen in to the tech/hacking discussion.

Cameras

• Upon further examination of the smaller ship with the cameras shows it to have two airlocks. One is a large cargo airlock and is connected to the station. The other is a smaller personnel airlock on the opposite side (facing away from the dock) and looks to be one deck above the deck with the cargo airlock.
• Using the cameras to further investigate the larger ship shoes that it too has two airlocks. The larger, cargo airlock is docked to the station. The personnel airlock is several decks away from the cargo airlock and is on the side facing away from the dock. There are also 6 empty breaching pod ports/berths on the same side as the personnel airlock. There are 3 more beaching pod ports/berths on the side of the ship facing the docks.
• Access to both ships from the docks is from a hatch/lift located in the deck, that goes down to a sublevel with an airlock and the connecting tube to the respective ship.

OOC: Please do not magically POOF your character over to Perkin’s Life Support Systems to try and claim a vac suit. I am hoping everyone will be civil about the allocation of the four 'decent vac suits' but it really doesn't matter what type of vac suit a character gets. The vac suits are only a means to get from point A to point B while in vacuum, and I do not intend for any combat to occur while players are in a vacuum at this time.

NPC breakdown:

• Woman w/arm in sling, IDs herself as a Martian and works in corporate security (i.e. investigations) for the Pur’n Kleen Water Company.
• Man wearing CPM body armor, armed with an auto rifle is clearly a Belter and is a demolitions tech assigned to the Salisbury who makes large chunks of ice into smaller chunks of ice.
• The Unconscious man on stretcher is ID'd as a Belter and also works in physical ship security for the Pur’n Kleen Water Company, and is/was assigned to the Salisbury.
• The four remaining NPC's are 2 men and 2 women, all Belters. One is a Navigator/pilot, and the other three are engineering types. All were part of the new crew to rotate onto the Salisbury.

In reply to Yuri Ivanovich (msg # 94):

"You are the Marine, is your expertise. Let's consider taking both ships then.

"We should have 12 assaulters minimum, four on corvette and eight on frigate. We can put together fourteen armed people: three submachineguns, one shotgun, ten pistols. Eleven if you count my personal sidearm. So potentially fifteen. Five on one vessel, ten on the other.

"Is the hole where the railgun breached it large enough to admit someone in a Vac Suit? That might be a way to gain entry by stealth.

"If we clear docking bay of hostiles Svetlana has additional Vac Suits and supplies."

Kojo could not help but wince at the prospect of taking on both vessels. If they all were marines no issue. But they were not.
Still, for him a decision had been made by the captain and that was that.
He looked at Kattalin.
"In that case we better separate to allow for support on each attack. Any preferences?"