Remnants of the Earth

OUTER SPACE => Solar System => Topic started by: Argroww on March 16, 2017, 05:35:16 am

Title: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 16, 2017, 05:35:16 am
In an empty patch of space there was nothing out of the ordinary, the silence was accompanied by an incredible view of the nearby star and it's natural satellites.  That is until a small needle shaped silvery starship popped into existence followed by a bright flash of light that burst outwards from it.  From its exterior there was no sound, however the hull was marred in several places from some kind of kinetic weapon and the observant would notice an unidentified gas leaking from more than one place on the vessels hull.

Inside the starship there was chaos, red lights filled the entire ship to reserve power, klaxons gave off a baleful warning to a crew who knew they were in danger already.

On the command deck the grizzled veteran Captain issued his orders.  "Esise, shut that alarm off, we know things are bad enough as it is!".

The star ships control entity complied without comment, this was unusual for the often childish creature that served as it's AI...although she was no computer.  What she was right now was scared, very scared.

Captain Struatha checked over the crew on the command deck, they were shaken,  but unharmed.  Argroww was sat in the Void Chair, still in the meditation he assumed when interfacing with the Void Drive, he'd usually awoken by now, but the Wolvian for now slumbered on.  "Okay, I need a strep and some telemetry data, where are we?"

Jinny, the young but capable woman who served as the comma officer looked pale, she'd already been trying to figure out where they were and signs were worrying.  Ever since they'd developed the Void Bouys they'd never been lost, they could always get back to a known star system fairly easily....but she couldn't find any, not a single one.  This had never happened since the Bouys were first put out.

She told the captain of this discovery, however thst turned out to not be the worst thing. The engineering officer was equally unhappy. "Captain, we have no engines, that last hit took them out, we cannot move right now and we're venting atmosphere, the emergency Void Jump ripped any microfractures into larger holes, I've already engaged the rear team on the fractures. "

Could things get any worse, he didn't need engineering to confirm that the power core was also not working correctly from the emergency lighting, Zan the ships high-mage had already left to check on other parts of the ship and make sure that any injuries were seen to....at least Strathaven could always rely on his crew.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 16, 2017, 02:37:51 pm
Argroww's first conscious thought was screaming, funnily enough that was not the first time he'd awoken to such noise.

Esise, stop that racket, whatever it is that has spooked you cannot be that bad?

Esise steadily quietened off as she was able to focus on Argroww's spirit, in an odd kind of way he was like a father to her, he certainly was very responsible for her creation.

I am sorry Argroww, I made sure not to broadcast my fear though

Argroww remained in his meditative state for a moment as he felt out Esise's state of mind, she was very very scared and in the brief time he'd known the entity he'd rarely felt fear from her.

What concerns you so Esise, what drives your emotions right now?

Esise remained quiet for a moment, then answered.

I am alone, I feel nothing out there Argroww, nothing at all.  There is no Void, not a single whisper, when I reach out to that place there is silence, nothingness.  I have always been able to feel the Void, no matter where we were or what we were doing, I'm always been able to feel it and hear it, touch it....taste it...with all my senses I've known it was there, but now there's just....emptiness

Argroww could not understand her senses, she was an incorporeal being...she was also the ship itself at the same time which made her senses very unique.

You have me Esise, you always have me.

Argroww felt the touch of her spirit that passed for her giving him a hug and it was something that only he and other SpiritMasters could feel, everyone else on board The Iron Claw mostly knew her as a disembodied voice that passed for a very unusual ships computer.

He drew himself out of his meditation to look upon the command deck bathed in the red glow of emergency lighting, Jinny was busy collecting and examining data, Celtira was dangling her legs over the side of the helmsman's chair, she clearly had nothing to do for now which meant the engines were dead.

"Ahh, Argroww, you're awake.  I was worried the jump may have hurt you somehow?"

"No Captain, I am quite healthy, the jump took a lot out of me though."

"Jinny has discovered 2 life supporting planets in this system and clear evidence of space technology, we've received no communications though, either they do not know we're here or the external comms array is busted, could even be both right now given the state of the ship."

Argroww considered the Captain's words, they were in a very bad place, even if the Void was present they probably couldn't jump anyway.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on March 17, 2017, 01:53:47 am
Floating along her preset flight path towards cancer again 8S Was currently reading up on mechanical guides when she would hear her Ship's Console Ping. It would seem like The proximity alarm had went off. There had to be another ship coming by. Here i went through the treble of charting a flight path that would be away from any others. She would think to herself. She put the guide down and walked over to the pilot's seat and sat down. She then would Ping the other ship. She hoped she wouldn't run into any pirates. her ship was old enough as it is and being a cargo ship with no cargo but her self any pirate would find a large space of nothing.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 17, 2017, 02:17:10 pm
Jinny suddenly squeaked.

"Something up Jinny"

Struatha asked of the young woman.

"There's...a...uhh...blip on the comms channel Captain."

"A...blip?"

"Yes Captain, it's as though something tried to contact us, but the computer couldn't recognise what it was, I'll run some test Captain, see if I can clean it up."

Struatha considered the suggestion for a moment stroking his chin hairs for a moment.

"No Jinny, we're too vulnerable, if someone knows we're here and they mean us harm then we're dust, try and respond, standard message."

Jinny spun in her seat and tapped a few commands on her console then lowered the mouthpiece.

"Unidentified vessel, this is The Iron Claw, a Union Wolf-Star class scout, registration number WS-IC-PTP01.  We are heavily damaged and in urgent need of assistance, can you help? Please respond?"

Jinny repeated this message a couple of times and then waited to see if the object that blipped them responded.  Struatha looked towards Argroww.

"Diplomat, we're trying standard communication, what about your spirit powers?"

"Already tried Captain, there's nothing living out there, I can sense the life on the 2 planets, they glow brightly to my senses, I think there might be other life in space, but it's difficult to make out in the dark depths unless we're close...but if there is a star ship nearby it has no life on board."
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on March 17, 2017, 05:38:18 pm
8S recived the message. She then Put on the comms head set she had lying on the console and replied. Send me your coordinates and ill be over as soon as i can be. 8S would find out she wouldn't need their corrdnates She would simply trace the point of origin. She would activate her Faster than light engine drive and warp a few Thousand meters away from the origin point. She looked out the window and didn't recognize the make or model of the ship she just warped to.  She threw on the comms again and spoke. The boarding bay is open on my vessel. you are welcome to board when ever you are ready. She said as she stood up and ran through the corridors to the Boarding bay waiting for her guests
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 18, 2017, 09:02:40 am
"Captain, we've received a response, the owner of the vessel wants us to board."

At that moment the lighting went from red to a yellow, an indication that whilst the starship was still in a critical state life support was no longer of a concern.  To back that up Esise spoke over the intercom.

"Captain, the engineers have been able to seal all major leaks in the hull, it will still require time in a space dock, but the hull will contain all life support requirements for now."

Struatha nodded.

"Thank you Esise and to the engineers, get them to work on the power systems and the engines next, we're sitting ducks without being mobile and in the meantime lets take up this offer.  Jinny, advise the host vessel that we have no ability to transfer to their ship and a ship of our size is not likely to fit in their vessel is it?."

Jinny tapped at a few commands on her console and growled softly in annoyance.

"No Captain, passive scanners are working well enough, but the active scanners are still faulty, I cannot get a reading on the vessel that is communicating with us, but I shall relay the message Captain."

Jinny did just that.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on March 18, 2017, 10:05:52 pm
8S held her ear as he got the message.  I have already traveled to the origin of the comms. I am presently a few thousand meters to your starboard side. 8s Then walked over to Second storage bay and started putting on One of her flight units. I am leaving my from my ship's back. Please direct me to your docking bay. She said as the diagnostics finished and she lifted off the ground entering the large airlock. She would then switch it on as she entered the cold confines of space. As she got past her ship she could see the Damaged vessel. My you sure are in need of some assistance. She would say through her comms As she flew closer to the ship
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 19, 2017, 10:15:20 am
"Captain, we can see the alien vessel, from it's configuration it appears to be a cargo vessel, doesn't look built for combat or exploration, just to shift lots of things around....there's something moving from the vessel...oh...err.. .whatever it is doesn't have a space suit and appears to be a human female, or humanoid at least."

One of the engineers advised from outside The Iron Claw.  As S8 approached she would see that there were about 3 people outside of the ship performing repairs in spacesuits, all 3 of them had thick tails, but any other features were obscured by the suits.  All leaks in the hull had now been sealed, but it's usually sleek look was quite marred and several scorch marks were visible across the silvery material.  If she had any ability to scan the composition of the hull itself she would find no magnetic metals and yet the spacesuited people were still walking across the hull and sometimes even jumping as though there was something holding them to the hull.

A door opened in the bottom of the ship, the presence of a ramp on the door suggested it wasn't really designed for being opened in space but within an atmosphere or at least solid ground a pale yellow light was being emitted from the opening and a small variety of surface vehicles were present inside the bay.

Standing presumably to welcome S8 was a cat-like humanoid with his arms crossed, a wolf-like humanoid, arms at his side and powerfully built and finally a humanoid who appeared to have a slight golden hue to his skin, his arms were stretched forward and his eyes were closed.

A voice spoke to S8, it sounded female and almost like a child, but with an odd tone that made the "child" seem much older.

Please come in quickly, Zan cannot hold the atmosphere in for long and our shielding isn't working quite right yet for him to not need to use magic

The voice however did not come over S8's intercom, it was almost as though it was injected into her auditory circuitry directly.  S8 might also feel a slight tingle as she passes the magical field that the one known as Zan must have been projecting.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on March 19, 2017, 02:00:48 pm
8S's Head shook as the message reverberated in her head.  She flew into the open door. She felt a tingle as she flew into the door. Focusing on the alien feeling and not piloting she more or less fell into the bay more than land. Getting on her feet and getting the flight unit on its legs again as the sensation subsided.  She then waved to the people waiting on her.  Sorry about that, i dont know what came over me there. I am 8S who do i have the pleasure of meeting?
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 20, 2017, 03:45:10 am
Once 8S was in the entry ramp it started to close and when the ramp clamped shut Zan visibly relaxed and the golden hue faded from his skin.

The wolf-like one stepped forward and spoke first.

"I am Argroww, Diplomat of The Union, a government of a small pocket of space, This is Struatha, Captain of this starship and this is Zan our resident high mage."  Argroww said gesturing first to the cat-like man then the human.

"You are on board The Iron Claw, a long range scouting vessel for our government, we had need to perform an emergency Void Jump and found ourselves here.  We believe ourselves to be distinctly off-course."
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on March 20, 2017, 10:55:14 pm
Strange, 8S could not find any makes or models of ship close to the one she was in as she searched cyberspace for any clue what the Union was. Must be a small government. She said as she walked up to Argroww. Yes i think you are off course. I have some star charts i could give you.
She said as she lowered her head and plugged in a Cartridge into the back of her neck. A few moments later she would click it out of her neck and handed it to Argroww. My name is 8S by the way. Pleased to make your acquaintance
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 22, 2017, 03:15:06 pm
Argroww took the offered cartridge and studied it, it was clearly incompatible technology.  However Esise had often been able to analyse and interpret technology the ship wasn't designed to figure out on its own.  Star charts however were things that they were not used to, Void Space had proved star charts to be meaningless when the stars beyond the ice sphere turned out to be mere illusion, a trick of the Void itself.

"Come join us in our ready room 8S where we can talk more comfortably and show you what we will need help with."

Argroww gestured towards the back of the hangar bay where an open lift door waited, the lift itself was quite large suggesting it was designed to carry a lot of people, to either side of the lift were ladders for manual movement between decks as well as ladders in other places around the deck incase the central shaft was compromised.  The whole hangar bay was bathed in a yellow light although the bay itself showed no other signs of damage, even the surface vehicles dotted about and secured to the floor all seemed in perfect condition.  However 8S would be able to hear the sound of sparks from loose cabling and various clanging noises of repairs being made nearby.

They guided 8S to the lift where without a word said it started to move upwards, a numerical indicator on the wall counted down from 6 to 1 and the group exited on that floor into a wide corridor, 8S would be able to see the command deck from the corridor, it's design likely being unusual especially with the Void Chair taking central position a device 8S would not recognise at all.  They walked into a room to the right of the life exit which turned out to be a fairly typical meeting room, a large table with several chairs around it, the table had a gap in the middle, there were several monitors and various devices around the edges of the room.  Argroww placed the cartridge offered by 8S into a recess on one of the consoles around the edge and a soft glow surrounded it as Esise started to decipher the data on it.

"Esise, give us a display of The Iron Claw on the central display please?" Struatha said taking a seat at the table.

A 3D image of the ship appeared above the central gap in the table, several parts of the ship were highlighted in red, others in yellow, the bottom parts of the ship was green.  Another readout indicated that hull integrity was at 65% and the Spirit-Meld Alloy was non-functional.

Struatha then gave a brief run down on the red parts, power supply, weapon control, active scanning systems and various other parts of a ship critical to function or movement, but fortunately all life support systems were running well enough, if not at 100%.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on March 27, 2017, 01:53:15 pm
8S walked with the man to the meeting room and watched him command the ship's AI to give bring them up both to speed. I would recommend you focus on getting your weapon systems online. This sector is notorious for pirates and other criminals. Seeing as how your life support is functional. 8s would say as she took a seat.  8S used her infolink extension in her eye to take a picture of Argroww and cross reference it with the data she had, and could find on the internet. Nothing showed up, no species name no home planet no... nothing.   That could mean he didnt exist, or the data on him didnt. This bothered 8S so she would just come out and say it. What are you exactly? I tried to ping your data and cross reference it but nothing showed up, Are you a TRIM project or somthing? She would ask as she crossed her legs
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on March 29, 2017, 02:05:03 pm
Argroww chuckled, it seemed they puzzled their guest as much as they were puzzled themselves.  Although the suggestion of getting their weapon systems up and running was a sound one, but they were sitting ducks right now as weapons or not they couldn't move till the propulsion system was fixed too and the main power generator.

Trouble is The Wolf-Star was a unique design even within Union space, here things may be even worse.

"No, I am not a TRIM project, I am a Wolvian and not the only one on board this ship, I am however the only one with cybernetic parts.  My people generally shun such things, preferring to lose a limb than to have it replaced.  The Lamians however are the opposite and will regularly choose to willing replace limbs.  Anyhow, your suggestion of repairing the weapons is a good one, but first I need to know if there is such a thing as Theay'Nor crystals here?"

The display in the middle of the table automatically changed from a display of the ship to the power core and a closer image of a series of crystals plus a series of chemical and magical symbols to define what they were made out of.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on March 31, 2017, 03:35:10 pm
8s examined it thoroughly before coming up wish a conclusion. No, I havent seen anything of this chemical make up around. 8S said as she took in her surroundings. Such strange architecture and computing systems. You are not from around here are you? It perplexed 8S that such things existed outside of her knowledge. She had or could obtain a basic level of understanding on everything around her, but this was a mystery and she was at a complete loss.  8S also tried searching Argroww's augments for factory serial codes but still not coming up with anything.
I am sorry i cant be of more assistance to you. But i simply cant find any information on anyrhing you show me.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on April 02, 2017, 04:46:27 am
"Intruiging" Argroww said in response to 8S, then his cybernetic eye seemed to glow slightly.

~I would appreciate it if you didn't probe too deeply into my cybernetics, I am now very certain that we are not just in another star system, but a whole other dimension...my cybernetics are built of a form of Magitech that is merged with my own spiritual powers and I cannot say how they might affect a pure android such as yourself~

8S did not hear those words as speech, but into her central processing cortex, almost like she had been remotely hacked, but without any of the intrusive actions a hack may have generated within her processing systems.

"Captain, If what 8S says is true then I suspect we will need to find an alternative for our crystals, a new power source.  We shall not find any such things here."

Struatha nodded, he had come to the same conclusion himself, sitting ducks and without any way to even restore lost power crystals, it was far from good news...however a lack of any deaths onboard was at least something.  The captain addresses 8S.

"Tell me, where is the nearest industrial stardom and what would we have to do to try and get our power systems restored, I suspect it will cost us in some way?"
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: GIR on April 02, 2017, 04:00:39 pm
[Okay, you two have tempted fate long enough.]

Drake was rarely so happy. Not only had the accelerators on both the Warmonger and the Avarice been tuned up in a way that nearly doubled their power, they'd also managed to find upgrades for several of the Warmonger's AIs, including Ravager and Rogue Shadow, and the work had only cost half of what he'd assumed. All in all, Drake considered his return to the Andromeda galaxy a resounding success, and was looking forward to using his ships' new and improved teeth upon his return to the Aedolis-Edanith system.

No sooner had Struatha asked his question than two rings of light, each 250 meters in diameter, appeared 1km above and 500 meters to the port of the Iron Claw, 1km apart, filling in to form circles of light that issued forth two roughly building-shaped ships with bows terminating in rounded cones, the longer of the pair, 1km in length, having draconic jaws extended from the cone, while the shorter, 900-meter vessel's bow was painted to resemble a red-and-black skull. As the warp gates vanished, the point defenses and ship-to-ship cannons of both ships began aiming at the cargo ship and the Iron Claw, respectively, but neither pirate vessel had chosen to open fire just yet.

"Captain, two ships nearby. One seems to be a cargo ship about 85 meters long. The other's likely military. Nothing in the databanks on it. It's probably a scout, given its length.", the pirate manning the sensor station announced, sending the data to Drake's personal terminal.

Drake paused, looking over the data. The cargo ship was too small to be of much worth, barring a particularly valuable cargo which Drake doubted would have been transported on such a small vessel without a heavy escort, but the unknown vessel could potentially hold new technologies that could either be used or sold, depending on what they were. "Echo-Wind, get me some peanut butter on both of them. Let's not let anyone know we're back just yet. Ravager, Rogue Shadow, Executor, begin hacking the big one. Echo-Wind, support with viruses and prep firewalls and roach motels in case they try to backhack. Clear, tell Alice to hold fire and hold off on launching the Falcon for now. As for the cargo vessel, it's not worth capturing. Shred it and we'll sell the scrap.", he ordered, as he began hailing the larger (for a given definition) vessel.

[Note: 'Peanut butter' is their slang for communications jamming. 'Roach motels' is slang for traps in their systems designed to cripple and/or delete any AI's that attempt to hack into the Warmonger or the Avarice, as well as destroy non-AI-based hacking systems.]
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on April 02, 2017, 04:05:19 pm
8S tilted her head as she heard the voice again.  intriguing, and how do you know im an android?  She was built after all for espionage and infiltration. But then again she did fly through empty space without any protective measures. But still there have been similar  humans who did the same.
I dont know if it would work, but i have a few tons of Energy cells on my shuttle. I buy in bulk, its a clean burn but isnt that powerful. I also have some Dark matter to power my engine. you are welcome to that if you can trade, it is very expensive and it would be foolish to give it away for nothing, 
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on April 03, 2017, 02:16:41 pm
"Simple 8S, I can interface with machines as easily as I can with people."

Before Argroww could say much more the amber lights around the room suddenly started flashing red and a siren sounded throughout the ship.  Struatha spoke up.

"Esise, what's happening?"

Active sensors have been repaired, shortly after 2 large starships have appeared in our local zone, they are heavily armed Captain sensors are indicating that at least....Point defense systems are also active and powered, but from what I can sense they'll not do us much good.

"Thank you Esise, come 8S, join us in the command room and lets see what we've got."

Struatha, Argroww and Zan all left the ready room and walked into the large command room allowing 8S to follow at her leisure.  The room had an unsual layout, the Captains chair was next to another chair that looked like it allowed the person sitting on it to interface with something, at the front was a pod like seat with another cat-like person lounging in the pod and to the left and right were a series of different control consoles all manned by people of a few different races, a young blond haired human turned in her seat as the Captain entered.

"Both of the starships are larger that ours and appear to be warships of some kind judging by the weapon scans I'm reading, if they decide to attack us then we'll not last, should I hail them?"

"Hold for the moment Jinny, lets see what their move is first, if they decided to fire upon us then we're lost anyway, so we can afford to wait." Captain Struatha responded.

Captain, they have made their move already, I'm detecting signals from one of the starships, they are trying to hack into the Iron Claws systems, I believe they intend to take me intact by shutting me down Esise chuckled girlishly It tickles...but it's a primitive attempt to hack into my systems

"Okay Esise, retaliate, see what you can find out, but try not to anger them I think we're likely to have to surrender, but I don't want to give them reason to blow us out of the stars." Struatha advised.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Esise was no AI, she was an energy based life-form who esxisted within the Iron Claw and served the same function as it's AI, but she was not made of code and during her time she'd reconfigured the entire code of The Iron Claw to serve her existence...but still perform the same function.  This made th Iron Claw impossible to hack computer viruses were designed to attack computer code...and The Iron Claw had none....Esise herself however could read, interrogate, understand and even manipulate code...she could also do it without being detected due to her very nature as an energy based life form.

Deciding to play with their attackers she allowed false responses to be returned to their attackers systems so they'd believe their attempts were working whilst she dived in and dodged their own protection routines, although they were laughably simple in comparison to some of the computer systems she'd come across in her travels so far.

Checking records was difficult, whilst the computer code itself was easy to understand on a basic level the higher functions and real meaning of some data was harder due to her having no point of reference and after a while she got bored of reading code that didn't mean much to her...yet...and she decided to give up the subterfuge, the captain was right, if these people meant them harm then they'd probably be dead already.

She navigated her way to where she believed the commands of the data attacks to come from and stopped the pretend responses she'd been sending and then adjusted one of the display screen to show a rudimentary pink face...just a simple pair of eyes and a mouth.

"Hello, what are you doing?" She said to the room where Drake stood, her voice sounding very much like a young female child.  She didn't address anyone directly, not knowing who was actually in command.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on April 07, 2017, 10:14:56 pm
8S followed every one up to the command room and got briefed on the situation. I have some weaponry on my vessel and a decent shield. Ill get over there and assit on the condition you take care of my body. As 8S said that her current body went limp on the  The Wolf-Star falling to the ground.
She then awoke again on her cargo shuttle. A spare android model of herself she had found in her travels, though this one had been formatted and was just an empty shell without 8S. She unplugged all of the cables attached to her spare self and wandered back to her ship controls getting herself as he got used to the slight input lag from the remote piloting. She moved her shuttle closer to the Wolf-Star as she put on her Comms headset.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: GIR on April 08, 2017, 06:56:58 am
"Drake, something's wrong.", Executor, and AI that took the form of a lawyer when it showed itself on monitors, reported, "I'm in, but it was way too easy, and the returns I'm getting are suggesting I've got control of everything, but ship's sensors are showing nothing I'm shutting down is staying down.".

"He's right. I'm getting returns consistent with a successful hack, but the check scores are off. Someone's messing with my data, but I can't tell who.", Rogue Shadow, who chose to appear as a ninja silhouette whenever it chose to appear at all, confirmed, "I'm showing no one accessing my code, but the check scores are running way off. Whoever's hacking me is good enough to completely avoid detection, but doesn't know me well enough to be able to work out what the check scores are.", he continued, referring to several lines of code that were purposely written in such a way that they'd look like random junk to anyone who hadn't directly worked on its development, but were referenced in completely different roundabout, almost nonsensical ways as a validation measure to prevent exactly the sort of false-success tactic that had been employed against it, "I wouldn't even know they were there if they'd worked that out."

"Ravager reporting in. Hack successful on target-end runtimes, but I'm getting some odd conflicts from the home runtimes. Someone's looking at our files, but none of the roach motels got set off. Either they're better than good, or we're not dealing with an AI.", Ravager, a multi-agent AI whose runtimes usually took the shape of flaming skulls when they used avatars on monitors, reported, "Home runtimes are showing target-end runtimes have been modified, but there's no record of who. I'm going to ru-"

"Belay that.", Drake snapped, "Let them think we've been fooled for now. In the meantime, try to figure out who or what is doing the modifications. It'll make patching up those holes in our defenses easier. Clear, tell Avarice to hold off on destroying the cargo vessel. I don't like this one bit.", he explained. No sooner had he spoken than the face appeared. "Making cookies", was Drake's derisive response, his tone rife with sarcasm, "You must be the big one's AI.", he supposed, "Captain Drake Morgan, at your service. Welcome aboard my ship. Next time, ask permission to board first.", he continued, the introduction accompanied by a mocking bow. As he spoke, text appeared on the tac-map stating that the false returns had stopped and the identity of the one responsible had still not been nailed down.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on April 08, 2017, 01:15:11 pm
"Cookies! I'll have to tell the crew you're baking, that's a lovely way to say hello I bet the Dwarves would love to get hold of your recipe, oh you have so many AIs! Did you know they're illegal where we're from only biological sentience is allowed only I'm a bit of an exception, I'm not coded or born...or...well... maybe I was born I guess depending on how you look at it, I have no Mother, but I have a Father...hmm...you use a strange coding language, but then everything is strange here.....but...how rude! you say I shouldn't come over uninvited and yet you were trying to hack into my ship I think thats rather poor behaviour all you had to do was ask and the Captain would have allowed you to visit I'm sure. My name's Esise, not that you asked!"

Esise babbled on much like an excited child might although the face on the monitor remained the same.

Back on board The Iron Claw she was relaying both what she said and what was said back to her.  Jinny  was monitoring the network traffic and could see that Esise was effectively blocking the incoming attacks however aside from her minor infiltration into the comms system Esise was not gaining any further entry into the opposing ships, Jinny suspected that Esise's belief that the systems were primitive was somewhat over-confident, but at least they were mounting a successful defense.

It was unclear what 8S was doing at this point as the android fell to the floor.

"Argroww, has she been hacked?" Struatha asked of the Wolvian

"I don't think so, inside the Iron Claw she should be immune to anything they throw at us due to Esise's protection so I think this was deliberate due to what she just said....I hope she doesn't do anything foolish her ship hardly looks sturdy enough to face off against those two."

"Agreed, nevertheless this may get aggressive and we still don't even have decent shielding...hmm...E ngineering are the Ortica launch tubes functional?" Struatha asked.

"Yes Captain, we can launch all Orticas, pilots are ready and hot." The engineer reported.

"Zan, what are your thoughts?" Struatha asked of the ancient dragon in human form.

"The Orticas will not make a dent on those ships and we'd be wiser to disavow ourselves of 8S if she chooses to attack, this battle will not be won by strength if it becomes a battle, better to try and win by wit, we need to give this Captain Drake a reason not to destroy us or commandeer our vessel.  Fortunately whilst we are severely damaged I think our very uniqueness will save us, many functions on this ship will not work without the cooperation of Esise and it's possible that many of us on this ship are unique to this dimension."

Argroww and Struatha agreed with Zan's assessment, so it was not down to seeing what 8S was up to, unfortunately they did not have time to try and convert the power chamber to use the materials that 8S offered let alone even transport those materials over. 
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on April 09, 2017, 11:39:02 pm
Rowan slowly opened his eyes, he was not where he remembered being last and that was somewhere else aboard the Iron Claw.  There had been trouble, just what he could not quite remember, but it had not been good.  The call came out that they were going to make a jump....then nothing.

His head ached, by the gods did it ache, and the light in this place seemed overly bright.  As his senses came back to him a little more he realised it was probably the Med Bay, as it did not look like the Marine Bunk Room.  A voice spoke to him, soft, yet cooly efficient.

"Good, you are awake Mr Adal....you took quite a nasty blow to the head, but everything checks out from what I can tell. We need to keep you here for a day or two for observation then you can go back to your duties."

The voice belonged to a golden elf female, she was checking his vitals on a panel near the bed.

"What happened?" His voice felt thick and leaden not quite his own.

"I don't remember....just that we encountered trouble....then...."

The woman looked down at him and frowned slightly.

"I hope the memory loss will not be permanent Marine....I am sure you will be filled in accordingly by whomever is your commander...for now just try to rest and do not distress yourself by trying to force your memories."

Rowan closed his eyes again, glad to shut out the light.

Just what had happened to them....why had it happened?
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on April 11, 2017, 02:08:37 am
8S's Body came Back to life on the Iron claw. She Ran her fingers through her hair as he got up.
Got a Spare android body, I went to remote pilot let and put the double in the pilot's seat  should the need arise i need to pilot. Did we learn anything else about the pirates, and what are we gonna do about them?
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on April 11, 2017, 03:41:22 am
Whilst Rowan fell into a deep sleep something else woke inside him, equally disorientated, confused and somewhat agitated.  It felt this cloying meat sack about its being, it was unable to move, to see, but it felt and what it felt was not good. 

The possession of the Marine should have been a simple thing, it should have been under control but something was not right.  It knew these people, knew their type, it was why it had chosen the Marine, a thing close to its needs.  When it manifested the body would be strong, it could hurt others, and it could corrupt others and it had been the perfect choice in what had been an emergency.

What The Iron Claw had fled…it needed to flee too and weakened by battle it could not walk into the Void as easily as it might normally.  It needed a life raft of sorts so that it might heal itself, feed on the man’s essence until it was regenerated and it could then discard the Uman to go home, but not before it had caused some chaos.  This crew needed payback for what they had done….them and that man child they had been so desperate to save but ultimately they had failed.

The Daemon sneered to itself; yes they would pay for that, giving that vessel hope, a chance, suppressing his master, caging him inside that pathetic creature. The Daemon had made plans inside plans, hiding aboard this ship when they had bought the Master on board, an incorporeal entity until it had found the right vessel, it had been hard hiding for so long, but it had been accomplished and then it all went wrong.  It had to shield itself from that thing they had on board, Esise they called it. That took so much energy, to make itself look like something it was not.  It hated Esise, shiny to its senses, bright and altogether too inquisitive, it had nearly been discovered on more than one occasion, but it was old….and it was smart too.

Well it was a waiting game…..it had time…..this may not be a conventional situation for a Daemon, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t bring it round to his advantage….eventually.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: GIR on April 11, 2017, 10:52:57 pm
"So, you've got the tech to make intelligences with all the reasoning and judgement capabilities of humans, but capable of making those calls thousands of times faster, and you don't do anything with it? Interesting. How do your people manage FTL or subspace travel, then? Or do your people do what the Hestari do and use a method that gets around the need for faster-than-human decisionmaking?" Drake asked,  making a mental note that this 'Esise' seemed to have no concept of sarcasm, "As for asking your name, I'm sure it must have slipped my mind. My manners seem to be slipping lately.", he sniped, again with sarcasm, then dropped his voice into a more venomous tone, "Though you may want to reconsider your tone. You may have decent cyberdefenses,", he threatened, using a hand signal to order the pirate manning the Electronic Warfare station to switch from attacking the alien vessel to attacking the cargo ship, and another to signal Ravager to keep up the attack on Esise's ship and order the target-side runtimes to multiply and attack anything electronic that could transmit and recieve data of any kind, "But I seem to have you outtonned, outgunned, and outarmored. Take too harsh a tone and I might just decide your ship's worth more as scrap.".

It was a bluff, and Drake was more than prepared to cut and run if the ship showed any sign of fighting back, but keeping their... whatever Esise was... occupied meant one less of whatever she was on the enemy vessel, and keeping her on the main bridge meant that the auxiliary bridges could be activated, though it would mean that many less fighters deployed if it came to that. Without any need to be ordered to do so, one of the Warmonger's AIs began charging the main guns and calculating multiple firing solutions and possible crossfire setups as Rogue Shadow and Executor focused their efforts on getting into the cargo ship, focusing their efforts primarily on getting control of the cargo ship's propulsion, and, if it had any, weapons.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on April 12, 2017, 02:54:02 pm
"Faster than light? subspace? I do not know these things, I travel the void, I can pinpoint a star-system's true location within the depths of void space and can navigate unerringly to any location I so choose or am asked to choose as long as I've been there already and I'm pretty good at finding the unfound too!  Your ship would get lost in the void, you'd never escape....but there is no void here so your lack of ability to void travel is redundant." Esise was showing quite a lot of emotion in her voice, it was something an AI would not recognise, but a human would certainly detect the way a voice changes according to mood and Esise had moved for proudly talking about herself to being rather sad.

"However Captain Drake you are correct, what is plainly obvious is that if we could get away we would have already, I assure you the technology on board The Iron Claw is worth keeping intact so I would recommend not destroying it...or..err...me."

Esise said rather plainly, for some reason turning the pink face upside-down on the monitor it was still displaying on.

Back on board The Iron Claw Argroww relayed all that they knew so far to 8S...which wasn't much and Captain Drake had already summarised their situation which Esise had relayed to them.

"So now what, I don't want to go down without a fight, but I'd prefer to avoid a fight entirely." Struatha said, he felt that the only way out of this was to offer the Captain something he couldn't refuse...but what?

"I have an idea." Voiced Argroww "Our magic is alien to this dimension so there is a good chance that if they do have magic they'll not have any defenses against it?"

"Very likely." said Zan

"Esise, if you can relay Captain Drakes position to Zan, do you think Zan that you can magically teleport Drake into the ready room?  I think it's best we meet face to face don't you think?"

"It is worth a try." Zan responded

Struatha, Argroww and Zan returned to the ready room.  Argroww turned to 8S and told her that she was welcome to join them as her ship was in as much danger as theirs.  Struatha sent a message for 4 marines to stand outside the ready room, although if the Captain fought them he felt that Argroww was likely enough on his own as capable a fighter as Struatha could be he'd not want to face off against any Wolvian in close quarters!

Once inside the ready room Zan summoned his Dragonic energies and allowed Esise to feed Drake's position into his mind giving him a clear image of the bridge and Drake's location, he then cast his magic outwards to bring the captain into the ready room.

[Of course GIR, entirely up to you on if this works or not...]
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on April 16, 2017, 08:21:56 pm
8S put her finger on her chin as he was relayed all the information thus far. You dont think they would fire on my ship do you? Because i have alot of... volatile Materials on board. Not to mention The dark matter i have in my cargo bay. After that 8S waited in the room with the others to see if the Trick would work
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on April 18, 2017, 10:52:25 am
Rowan woke again, he did not know how long he had been asleep, if at all....what he knew was it had been like a bad dream.  He felt it, the remnants of it, insidious in his mind. His breathing had quickened and he felt cold.  The nurse looked up from her station, the monitors beeping telling her of her patient's elevated heart rate.

"Mr Adal." She said, coming to to his bed.

"You are distressed....calm yourself down, you must have had a dream, you are still in the med bay, I'll fetch you some water."

Rowan heard her voice and looked to her with anxious eyes, she was being nice, trying to help him...so why did he feel like he wanted to knock her across the med bay. He felt queasy at the thought of it, in his mind's eyes she was laying in a pool of blood...dead.

Nurse St John came back with the water and set it on the side.

"Come now Rowan....you are making a good recovery, it was just a bad concussion, you can go back to your unit in a day or so....I think we are going to need all the help we can get now." She said softly.

He looked to her puzzled at her last statement.

"What do you mean?"

She looked mildly uncomfortable, a little scared.

"We are far from home Rowan...I have heard whispers that they cannot even detect the Void here!"

Rowan slowly swallowed, it was as if the air was slowly being sucked from the room, he felt a roar build up inside himself, but only his voice came out...quiet and shocked.

"That cannot be....everywhere has The Void!"

Nurse St John turned to go back to her station, she looked back to him.

"Except here!" She said quietly.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: GIR on April 19, 2017, 11:16:56 am
"She seems rather full of herself. And inordinately proud of her ignorance.", Scimitar, an AI which normally managed the main communications station alongside whatever human (for a given definition) Drake had manning the station, remarked, appearing on the tac map display as a flamingo-pink and candy-red zebra-striped rubber ducky, "She does seem to understand her situation, though, if the shift in tone is anything to go by.", it continued, its own voice, that of a professionally perky female secretary stereotype, changing inflections first to polite disapproval, then to almost clinically polite, the rubber ducky's mouth moving in sync to its voice, its wings flapping as the image 'hopped' up and down, tilting slightly in a random direction as it did.

Drake had often wondered which of his AIs truly had personalities and emotions, and which merely simulated them, largely due to the fact that emotional intelligence and simulated emotions had been standard even on simulated intelligences (SIs) for centuries, ever since developers had noted that their clients tended to prefer any that communicated with sentients to, at the very least, seem sentient, and AIs who could read and respond to emotions tended to receive higher performance and satisfaction scores than those that couldn't, even if the latter were otherwise more competent. The pirate knew for a fact that Ravager was truly sentient, as it had been marked for deletion due to its penchant for chaos and violence leading it to disobey the military it had been stolen from, during testing, leading it to be considered too dangerous to shackle. Rogue Shadow, he likewise knew to be merely feigning its emotions as a way of 'slimming down' the AI, and, while it was a common joke amongst the crew that Executor couldn't be sentient due to an ancient joke that lawyers didn't have souls, Drake had never managed to trip it up with any form of Turing test, though it was an open question as to whether it was due to it being sentient, or just that good at pretending to be, as was the case with several of the three dozen AIs the two ships boasted.

"That all depends on you, kid. Take that tone with me again, and the value of taking your ship intact drops. Significantly. Be a good little girl, and maybe your ship starts looking a little more valuable whole.", he replied, grinning predatorily, "As for the Void, any ship with a void rift generator and a half-decent nav system can make a void run. Hell, the Dracs often have their kids do it as part of their pilot training, and I've only ever heard of ships getting lost if they malfunction or deviate from the transit solution, short of pilot error on shorter runs, barring freak accidents.", he explained, his grin fading into a glare, "Your ship just lost value, by the way.", he pointed out, "Generally, short of the Void's inherent instability, the only way you really get lost is if you try to navigate within the Void, instead of following your transit solution. There's an old Drac superstition that the Void is self-aware and damn near insane, with their gods being the only thing keeping it in line. I just think they don't fully understand the physics and are scared to research it.", he continued. As he spoke, two crewmembers entered the room.

One was seemingly human, until one noticed the cobalt-colored scales which began at the base of her skull, and the steel gray, glowing tribal markings where a normal human would have eyes, the head shaped as if there had never been anything even accounting for them in her evolution. The Linarian Adept subspecies human was armed only with a combat knife, and dressed in a stealth suit of the type normally only worn by special forces outfits, to the inclusion of a pair of enhanced-vision goggles raised just below her hairline (which was right where one would expect a human's hairline to be), her preference being to rely on her magic, as well as the above-normal strength and speed Linarian Adepts, due to the Draconian DNA used in the development of their subspecies, afforded them, which, while slow and weak in comparisan to the race, made them nearly three times as fast and strong as normal humans, on top of their impressive affinity for magic, and those in the Alliance military were usually issued special suits of armor designed to keep them from being lit up like Christmas trees to anyone who could see/sense magic.

The other was an insectoid, slightly taller than a human, also female, though one would be hard put to tell without knowledge of the Maraki species (particularly, that only females possessed stingers), resembling something of a cross between a hornet and a scorpion, with her proportionally strangely long thorax held erect to permit the forelimbs to function as arms. Rather than the points or pads one would expect at the end of each leg, all six of the insectoid's limbs ended in six-fingered 'hands' jointed in such a way that all six could function either as fingers or opposable thumbs to a number of the others, enabling multiple configurations for gripping and balancing. Hard plates, not unlike those of a beetle, covered a pair of wings that were rather unlike what one would expect on a wasp, and a pair of small flaps toward the bottom of the head, as well as the sides of the thorax, under the 'arms', seemed to open and close with a rhythm that suggested the creature was breathing, with membranes that looked as if they could force the plates closed to seal the exoskeleton. The Maraki's multi-segmented tail, a wicked stinger, its surface waxy-looking, nestled in the tip, sat coiled against the abdomen. The insectoid's entire body glowed briefly with the same brightness and intensity as the ship's corridor lighting before taking on the coloration and brightness of the visual scanner display every inch of bulkhead, deck, and overhead not taken up by a station or other display on the bridge was used to project, with the side facing Esise looking like an insectoid mirror, changing colors almost as if her body was putting out light in order to disrupt it. "Qui'ek and Emily, reporting. High-Charity-machine has told Qui'ek that you may have need of us, male-queen Drake.", the insectoid announced, her 'voice' more felt than heard as a membrane located between her head breathing-plates vibrated powerfully to make the sound, "Pyrra-corpse is on its way.", she continued, her refusal to refer to the Tokamakian as a living being apparent in her use of the word 'it'.

"Actually, I'm already here.", the voice, almost a whisper, hissed from the entryway, it owner stepping into the room. The humanoid female was armed to the teeth, and clad in an environmental armor suit that had been torn open to accommodate a pair of multi-bladed artificial arms extending from her back like a pair of skeletal bat wings and a pair of artificial tails ending in plasma projectors which swayed independent of each other, as if they'd always been there. The woman's helmet was off, revealing that the upper half of her face had been very precisely removed down to the bone, her eyes left in their sockets, with "Remember, Remember" carved in a language not unlike Cyrillic into her skull, across her forehead, the letters filled with a titanium-gold alloy. The woman's red-gold hair was cropped short in a military buzz cut, with her green eyes given an odd expression by the fact that she had only her lower eyelids. The female walked toward the console Esise was using, leaning in close to the pink face, "So, this is what the AIs have been chattering about. I'm sure Hades would want a sample of this.", she mused, half-aloud, setting her helmet on top of the console and sitting in the chair, putting her feet up as she did.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Captain, I'm picking up... something... on the magical plane. I think someone's trying to screw with the space in here somehow. I'm blocking it for now, but I don't know how long I can hold it off for.", Emily announced, the Linarian's eyemarks glowing much more brightly as she spoke, "Should I see if I can reverse it?".

"No. Include you, Qui'ek and Pyrrha in the effects. Our friends have graciously invited us aboard, after all. Best not to disappoint.", Drake ordered, grinning, "Tell Alice to start shooting if we're not back in, say, twenty minutes, unless I order otherwise.", he added, not needing to specify that he was talking to Scimitar and that the order was mostly for Esise's benefit. Alice's standing orders were to cut and run in the event of Drake's capture or death, until circumstances allowed for a rescue attempt with favorable odds.

"I'll try, but I've never seen magic like this before.", Emily responded, focusing her power on widening the enemy spell.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Qui'ek's antenna waved irritably, her stinger unfurled and at the ready as she noted almost immediately that, while she was in the enemy nest, her male-queen was nowhere to be seen or smelled. Instead, she had somehow ended up in the enemy's food storage cell. The Maraki briefly considered eating the enemy's food supply, and poisoning what remained, but decided that finding the male-queen was more important. Or the enemy queen. The Maraki began moving as quietly as possible, shifting the light emitted by her scales and plates to mimic her surroundings.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, ain't this a kick in the teeth.", Pyrrha growled as she appeared not wherever they'd taken Drake, but in what seemed to be a medbay, "Helloooo, nurse! Think you and me could play doctor for a while?", she asked the golden female, "Also, if you were to host a pirate captain, and I'm not saying I'm a pirate or anything, but where would I find that place? And maybe your bed?", she continued, reaching for her helmet to put it on, only to remember she'd set it down on a console on the bridge.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Nice little welcoming committee. You've almost got enough for a fair fight.", Drake remarked as he appeared in what looked like a ready room, "I'm flattered you rolled out the red carpet for me. Really, I am.", he continued, clapping slowly.

"You need to work on your magic. Or were you hoping for some alone time with the captain?", Emily remarked, stepping into the ready room via what looked suspiciously like a warp gate, "If you were, I can go back out while you have your fun. By the way, those four outside? Not looking so tough.". As she spoke, she turned her head to 'look' directly at Zan, sensing an impressive concentration of magic near him, though the exact natures was difficult to determine, as the magical plane itself couldn't seem to decide what he was, the energies shifting too fast for her to keep track.

"No, no. Join the fun. I'm sure our friends won't mind.", Drake remarked, mockingly raising an eyebrow at Argroww, "See something interesting?", he asked, following her gaze to the golden humanoid and making a mental note to kill or disable him first should the need arise. The werewolf and the cat-person presented a physical threat, to be sure, and the werewolf looked like he'd seen a few battles, but there was seldom worse on the battlefield than an enemy mage, especially one who used magics just different enough that a Linarian couldn't fully counter them. <That one gets the first pellet>, he thought to himself, <That ought to keep him out out of the fight long enough to deal with the bruisers.>
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on April 20, 2017, 01:05:05 am
Nyssa, The Golden Elf Doctor in charge of the Med Bay turned quickly to be confronted by something she had never seen the like of before. She slowly looked the creature, female , if you could call it that, up and down.

"It's Doctor Jeharn, not Nurse."She said coolly, acutely aware of the fact the thing might attempt to kill her.

"This is a Medical Bay as I am sure you are capable of seeing, if your Captain is on board he is likely to be with our Captain...possibly in his Ready Room."

Nyssa's gaze went past the intruder to the Marine who had woken a short while past and oddly was crouched on his bed, his look somewhat feral now, so unlike Rowan's demeanour of a short time ago when she had spoken to him.  Could it be that something had happened to his mind during that concussion?

***********

Rowan had started to settle back down after the Nurse had bought the water and then he felt the most odd sensation crawling over his skin and then the intruder appeared. It had it's back to him confronting the Doctor.  Just as he was about to rise he felt faint and the fringes of his vision turned back.  The Daemon recognising the imminent danger to its potential life raft took control, which was now why Rowan crouched on the bed like a feral animal's his eyes glowing a reddish black, a deep growl building in his throat.  It was odd, the Daemon felt Rowan in it's consciousness, not like when it might have full possession, this was so different, so awkward, the man's spirit was fighting him subconsciously.  He knew Rowan did not know what he fought, only that it was like the bad dream again.  The Daemon let out the soft growl, it's head tilted taking in the situation, not quite sure what this thing was....it was not Uman that was for sure, not entirely, it walked on two legs, it was hard to see its spirit and for a Void Walker like the Daemon that was odd.

***********

If Nyssa didn't know any better she would have said Rowan might have been possessed, but this was not like any possession she had seen from any Daemons they had encountered.  She looked nervously back to the intruder, the growl was perfectly audible to all in the Med Bay, something un-Uman coming from a Uman throat.  What would happen next was anyone's guess?
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on April 22, 2017, 01:50:53 am
Zan was quiet as the other appeared and was eyeing him with as equal intensity as the man before them all.  He should have anticipated they might have their own Mage or the equivalent of one. Though it seemed they were not quite sure what power he had but they knew the spell that had bought them here had come from him.

He could try something he supposed but that would likely get him incapacitated or potentially dead. He would watch and wait for now, maybe Argroww had something he could do, after all he was the Diplomat! His thoughts drifted momentarily to others that might have been useful in this situation...Talan would have been pretty handy right now except that they had lost him most tragically.  Maybe Rhylise might have given it a fair go...he had the arrogance for it, he might still be in the Brig but who could tell with him....he might have disappeared as soon as some of the systems had gone into failure.  Sa'Harir had his moments though he was an unpredictable Daemon pain in the backside and unaccounted for since he had left the Iron Claw.  Rumour had it he was on The Nythoria, a captive....and that ship had been left crippled in the Tribus system.

Shame 'The Pyromancer' hadn't followed them through to wherever this hole was, a ship full of Seekers might have been useful too, especially with Goldeneyes leading the charge!

He dragged himself back to the situation at hand, here they were in a predicament...and he was not sure how they were going to get through this one....yet!
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on April 22, 2017, 03:39:36 pm
In the Mess Hall pantry

Geldri walked into the pantry almost crashing into Qui'ek.  The 5 foot Dwarf was dressed in full chainmail with a sturdy but antique looking helmet, over the top of the chainmail was a chef's apron and perched on top of the helmet was what appeared to be a sanitary hairnet, a similar net covered its beard.  At this point it would be easy to assume the Dwarf was male, however when it spoke it was made clear from the tone of HER voice that Geldri was female.

"Ach nae! Thars a wee buggie in tha larder Maelna!" She exclaimed.

Maelna, a similarly attired Dwarf responded with a more masculine voice and a braided beard instead of a loose one responded without looking.

"Squish it wi' yer papper Geldri!" he growled.

"Eets nay tha' wee, yon buggie cam from naewhere, cam see!"

Maelna picked up a skillet and turned to look at what Geldri was getting all excited about then dropped the skillet with a clatter and a number of the patrons suddenly stood in alarm too.  Mst of them were non-combat crew, but not the sort to run screaming from threats given their last few years, however 3 marines were present and whilst not armed with ranged weapons they did have a number of close combat weapons on them and all three drew long-knives and stood ready to aid the Dwarves...although the diminutive team of chefs were all fairly old and battle-hardened themselves and could often turn relatively harmless kitchen utensils into deadly weapons.

A third Dwarf stopped preparing the meal he'd been working on (gender apparent from his braided beard) picked up an odd looking egg that he'd been keeping for an experimental recipie and threw it at Qui'ek.  Nerrin was not actually certain it was an egg, but it looked like one aside from the small stem that suggested it grew from a tree.  The planet they found it on had a lot of insect like life and where the 'egg' had fallen to the ground and broke many of the insects stopped moving..still alive, but stunned somehow....Although Nerrin had also noticed other insects madly starting to mate with eachother instead...irrelevan t of their mating habits so in hindsight perhaps the egg hadn't been such a good idea!

In the Ready Room

"Welcome Captain Drake, Emily." Argroww began "Please be seated we mean you now harm and I apologise for the rude way in which you were summoned here, but I felt it wise that we meet in person on neutral ground."

Argroww and Captain Struatha sat themselves.  Struatha kept quiet for now, allowing the Union's Diplomat to do his job, he placed his fingers under his chin and studied the human captain and the female with him, human-like and yet clearly not at the same time he judged them both to be battle hardened and the pirate Captain clearly used to getting his own way.  Struatha had dealt with plenty of his kind during his days as a patrol officer, but then he'd also been in command of a Military Clipper.  Not as fast at the Wolf-Star class that The Iron Claw was, but much more heavily armed and armoured...well...w hen the Iron Claw wasn't using it's Stoneskin phase at least.

Argroww continued his talk as he waited for Drake to react. "I find I must also apologise for Esise, she is a mischievous child at best and all attempts to curb her enthusiasm often result in her only being more mischevous." Esise giggled at this point and then made a fart noise as a child might when being cheeky, none of the crew present reacted as though this was quite normal. "Now then I will admit we had intended to bring only yourself and to have a decent chat in a civil manner and I would offer you the courtesy of food however your crewmember Qui'ek has interrupted dinner preparations and another of your companions appears to caused some havoc in the Medbay...although I am unable to read its name." If this concerned Argroww he did not show this, although it was hard to tell if this was due to his cybernetics or simply that his race did not show emotions on their face in the same way as humans. "Emily you are quite welcome to join us, you do of course place yourself under the same threat as your Captain, I believe he instructed your ships to open fire after 20 minutes, I must say that seems remarkably short a time for a meeting such as ours I might have given an hour.  Do not be so quick to underestimate our marines, they have been through much over the last few years and were well trained before that, granted they are not of much use against those with magical skill, but in many other aspects they should be respected.  Drake, there is many interesting things that I see and have seen."

As they spoke a voice entered Argroww's auditory circuitry on his cybernetic part of his head, it was one of the engineers.  "Diplomat, sorry for the intrusion but Esise told us you had guests may want to keep our work secret from them.  We've managed to re-seat some of the Theay-Nor crystals, no-where near enough to fully power the ship but we think we can power the kinetic and energy shields and we're also making good progress with the engines, it's not much and the crystals will not last long but if you can buy us enough time we might be able to get enough juice to get us out of here."

~Thank you Hilshuur for the report, focus on the engines the shields will not do us much good, if those ships fire they'll get through the shields even if we could fully power them.  Get as much power into the engines as possible we'll have to hope structural integrity is good enough for full speed.~ These words were transmitted not by telepathy, but by spiritalk communication directly from Argroww's spirit to those he wished to talk to.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on April 23, 2017, 10:59:59 pm
Nyssa looked calmly back to the intruder, such a hideous looking thing to her eyes.  How could such an unnatural thing exist?  Under different circumstances she would have liked to study it and ask questions, but this was not the time for medical curiosity.  She was not about to play doctor nor show it where her bed was, she was not that way inclined.

"I have patients to attend, one of them particularly needs attention, I can send for a Marine to show you where your Captain is." She said firmly.

"He is likely with our Captain...which is where you should be...no?"

Rowan had moved almost cat like from his bed to the one next to it, the growling still continued, low and angry from the back of his throat.  His eyes were eerily not his own colouring, the normal blue now a reddish black in colour, covering both of his eyes, no whites could be seen, just the solid black, dark....threatening .

Nyssa knew she needed to sedate him and find out just what the Marine had gotten himself mixed up with.  All preliminary scans showed no Daemon possession.....so how had this one gotten past that!
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on April 24, 2017, 12:55:44 am
8S looked Perplexed as the Pirate was now in the ready room with Argroww and the others. Neat trick! She said aloud as he studied the man. He was a lot taller then most with slightly pointed ears. He offered a wave to the man in the blood red shirt when Argroww finished talking.  Hi there,
 Over heard that you where going to fire on us in twenty minutes and feel obligated to inform you that That might kill us all.
8S then pointed too her ship. Thats my ship out there, Its old and Seen better days, but more importantly runs on a dated Dark matter engine. Needless to say i have plenty of Fuel on board, Safely stored that is. It wont be when you fire at it though. Once the Safety precautions fail there is no telling what will happen.  8S then probed Drake for cybernetics, with Hits coming back but no makes or serial numbers showing up She nodded as she admired the work.  She then turned back to Argroww If you need be to be anywhere or assist anyone i can be there in a jiffy. She said as he grabbed her  case from off of her back.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: GIR on April 24, 2017, 09:43:07 am
Qui'ek's reaction was swift, her exoskeleton sealing before the object had crossed half the distance between herself and the humanoid that smelled not quite human, then catching it more deftly than one might have thought possible. In one fluid motion, the Maraki followed through in a windup, waiting until just before she released it to unleash one of her nastier tricks:

Without warning, her scales went from mimicking her surroundings to unleashing the brightness of a sun. Specifically, the white star that warmed her homeworld with an unnaturally harsh light, one for which her species had developed its light emission as part of a defense. As she flared, Qui'ek released the object, aiming for the middle of the group of marines under the assumption the object was some manner of grenade. That accomplished, Qui'ek lashed her tail toward the female that had cried out, aiming the stinger, coated in a waxy, magic-based neurotoxin that, like its distant 'cousin', Draconian tailblade venom, caused intense pain in its victims, pain that humans likened to getting burned, stabbed, shot, and electrocuted at the same time, and, unlike Draconian venom, was a paralytic within seconds at even half the usual dose, and, without an easily synthesized antidote (one Drake made it a point to keep on his person at all times), lethal within a day, at the female's shoulder. "Stay out of my way, or you will all die.", she growled with a voice more felt than heard, "I could sever your heads with my mouth,", she continued, clicking her mandibles pointedly, "but I'm not interested in fighting drones and food keepers. Where is your queen?", she demanded, continuing to produce the sunlight, which, if dwarven skin was like human skin, would start to cause first-degree burns within 20 seconds.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Aww, babe, don't be like that. I'm sure your patients won't die just because you took an hour or two to have some fun, doc.", Pyrrha purred, grinning wolfishly, "So come on! Let your hair down!Captain Rum can wait. Let's... Hold on a sec.", she continued. As she spoke, both plasma projectors kept the growling marine covered, almost as if the prosthetics moved with no need for commands from their owner. The Tokamakian turned to the marine. "Son, if you wanna stay among the living, I suggest you back off. Me and the doc are having a friendly chat, and, good looking as you are, acting like an animal ain't scoring you any points with me.".

<Do not kill him. I wish to observe the being within.>. The voice touched the edge of Pyrrha's consciousness, heard, but unheard, speaking an alien language (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diO3HRGWbZI) long dead, but understood well by all the Lich Ascendant's adherents. It was a command that would not be denied.

"Whatever. Very well. You, doggy, get to live.", the Tokamakian sighed, "As for you, doc, we getting it on, or am I gonna have to set a date with a couple of Ms Rosie Palm's lovely daughters?", she asked, the wolfish grin returning, "Trick question, by the way. The answer is yes, I am totally paying a visit to your bed. I may be Tokamakian, but I ain't dead. Currently.". The woman licked her lips as she spoke, making no effort to hide the fact that she was checking the doctor out. To put it politely.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Have you tried deleting part of her? That usually gets a rowdy AI's attention. You could also try shackling her.", Drake remarked at the apology, ignoring the raspberry. As he spoke, Drake noted the feline studying him and Emily. "See anything you like?", he quipped, grinning as he rapped his natural fingers on the table, pointedly remaining standing.

 "Yes. I'm told you're not the first to have issues reading our little half-dead's name.", he responded, ginning as he pointedly avoided mentioning or even thinking the Tokamakian's name. As he spoke, Drake turned the magic inhibitor built into his arm on and off, using mental commands, in a rapid series used as a sort of Morse-code equivalent unique to his crew, to spell out a message: Spiritual Werewolf. The fact that the werewolf had mentioned being unable to read Pyrrha's name, as if names were etched on souls (the thought drew a snort from Drake.) which, while it could have simply meant the exchange on the Warmonger had been transcribed, rather than played for the crew of the target, but Drake doubted it. Several signs pointed to the conversation having been relayed in real-time, as well as the fact that the werewolf knew exactly where his crew was, something he himself hadn't yet known, on a ship that, aside from being spaceworthy, showed few signs of the sort of technology that would support a security system.

"This isn't the first time we've been 'strongly invited' aboard a target's vessel, and it probably won't be the last. Be a shame to lose Qui'ek, but getting out in time will be pretty easy, and the half-dead isn't someone you can kill by blowing a ship up around her. Not permanently, anyway. Even in the event we don't get out, I knew the risks when I signed on, and Drake'll die laughing at taking you with him.", Emily explained, also grinning.

"As for you, robot, my ships can handle a little darkmatter explosion. Tartarian shields are some of the best in the Andromeda for handling energy and what passes for concussive waves out in the big empty.", Drake snapped, not quite as certain as he sounded. Granted, a ship the size of that cargo vessel didn't usually have enough to punch through all of his shields, but, with darkmatter, one could never be completely sure what would happen outside of controlled reactions. "Back to business.", he continued, turning back to the werewolf, "If you're so worried about the time limit, maybe you should surrender quickly. Or did you think you had something to offer in exchange for me letting you go?". The pirate's expression had assumed his neutral, 'doing business' expression as he spoke, his tone closer to someone commenting on the weather than someone delivering a threat and an extortion demand, "Choose quickly. As you said, 20 minutes is an awful short time for negotiations.".

As Drake spoke, Emily focused on creating a pool of metal, time, gravity, and earth magical energies beneath each of the marines, her eye-marks glowing somewhat brighter as she ran the mental calculations of how much of each type she needed to produce the effect she would need with the least amount of energy, preparing the areas to create titanium-gold alloy (beta configuration) spikes long enough to impale the marines lengthwise at any moment of Drake's choosing. The energy would remain at the location of the magical plane that corresponded to the feet of the marines in the physical plane until Emily activated the spell, but it would be detectable to anyone who could sense magic.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on April 24, 2017, 01:31:48 pm
Nyssa stiffened, bristling with disgust and anger at the lewd comments, her kind, The Golden Elves did not fraternise outside of their own species and especially not with the same sex.  What this abomination suggested to her made her feel sick to her core.  Then came the threat to Rowan, and her instinct to protect her patient kicked in.  She was about to retaliate when the sickening vision in her Medbay backed down on him all of a sudden.

Rowan's dark eyes glowed and the words came forth in stilted common tongue.

"You ....not... destroy....cannot destroy!"

The Daemon in the man found words hard at the moment, he was still recovering the rigours of body jumping to get to this ship, from the prison on the Nythoria...to cargo ships, to planets....searchin g....searching for this ship.  He was still feeding off of the Marine's life force, it was helping him regain his strength.  Soon he could move out of the body for short times....but he would have to go back in.  Once he had devoured the soul of this one....he would find another until he could stand outside permanently.

"This....mine!" He snarled tossing his head towards Nyssa.

Nyssa glared at the woman thing....and back to Rowan, this was turning out to be a bad day.

"Your suggestions sicken me.....go to your Captain, I need to sort him out before he does something we might all regret!"  She picked up a sediject, she had to put Rowan down.

She walked towards the door and hit the intercom.

"Escort required to Captain's Ready Room NOW!" She snapped sharply.

"Get out of my Med Bay!" She hissed to the female intruder.

 
****************

In the Ready Room Zan had taken a seat, he had remained silent as Argroww had begun to speak, but he felt it, the build up of magic, it was not yet enacted but it was a spell designed to harm and Zan knew that could not be permitted.  The marines had made no move to engage of harm any of Drake's crew even though they had come to the ship uninvited.  His own magic moved to counter, hovering on the fringes, shields, that could deflect the magic for a time until he could do something more drastic.  It was more of a disruption to Emily's power, scattering it away from people, similar to the way she had widen his teleportation spell.

His golden eyes turned to her and he took a breath.

"Well....that's not a friendly gesture is it." He said softly.

The dragon trapped in Uman form did not like to see people harmed for the sake of it, and that's exactly what Emily's spell was designed to do.  Zan's magick was different borne of a worlde far away,to a species that had all but gone except for him.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on April 25, 2017, 02:19:23 pm
In the Mess Hall (Deck 3)
"Queen? if anyone is the queen of The Iron Claw it's ME!" spoke Esise from the auditory outputs in the room.

One of the marines groaned as he had a feeling what was about to happen given the heat rapidly coming from Qui'ek...and indeed Esise activated the focused fire suppression system right at Qui'Ek.  The blast of super-chilled air was followed by a swiftly hardening heat proof foam, a substance not entirely dissimilar to meringue...although much less tasty.

"Don't harm my crew Qui'ek while you're a guest on board me or seek to harm them and I'll play nice, but if you're going to try nasty things when someone only threw an egg at you then I'll take matters into my own...err...extremi ties."

OOC: I'm expecting the foam to have at least limited effect on Qui'ek, leaving how long it lasts and what effect beyond stopping the heat and light up to you GIR

In the Engine room/Theay-Nor Reactor/Void Drive (Deck 2/multi-decks)
Hilshuur worked feverishly on the Theay-Nor crystals, less than half the crystals were viable, of the non-viable ones half were broken beyond ever using again and they'd need to find a suitable replacement, the other half were intact but depleted.  Hilshuur suspected that the depleted ones we due to the shields taking a heavy hit during the failed Void Jump, given that they were lucky the shield emitters themselves did not get busted.  The Lamian tapped at his snout with a metallic finger as his tail prosthetic removed another cracked crystal, even broken they have to be careful with them, there could still be some residual energy left inside and dropping them would be disasterous.  What he wanted most was to get his hands on some of that Dark Matter on the androids ship...in fact he love to take a look at the android too but now was hardly the time.

Nearby a number of other engineers were re-wiring the Graviton generator, a larger version of what existed in the Oritcas that allowed the Iron Claw to suddenly change it's direction regardless of direction and speed, although without any thrust it was pretty useless which was why another contingent of engineers were adjusting the Magus frame which provided the propulsion for the ship, but was refusing to power up due to the current power levels being redirected to more critical parts of power operations. 

At this time the key was to get away from the pirates, the engineers figured that if they could briefly shut down life support functions to get the Magus frame active they could get away from the two other ships and then rapidly switch power back again to life support.  The key would be figuring out where to go and any nearby space station seemed wise which is why they needed both the Magus frame and the Gravtion generator, thrust and direction.

In the ready room, Deck 1
Argroww kept an 'eye' on the situation in the Mess Hall and whilst Esise took good action for the heat being generated he suspected the insect-like Qui'ek was not going to be very happy, however from what he could tell she didn't experience emotion the same way as many life-forms did.

~Qui'ek when you are done messing around with my crew in the mess hall please exit without further threat, take a left and then take the lift to the 1st deck, the first room on your right is the ready room, join us.  Do that and I will ensure no further hindrances to your progress are made.  Like your Captain-Queen the Queen of this vessel is a male of his species but holds the same rank on board this vessel as your queen would over you~  Argroww spoke this directly to the insectoids spirit, his ability forbade lying and those who heard him would know he spoke the truth.

Struatha addressed Drake "Ah, yes we heard you thought Esise was an AI, no, there's no deleting her or applying blockers or any other method of control you might like to suggest, she is a life form, arguably artificial, but certainly not build of 1s and 0s.  As to what I see, well I see a pirate and like many of your kind you look for profit, what you can take and what most benefits you, often at the cost of any other considerations.  This starship is teaming with technology and knowledge that in this region of space is likely irreplaceable I would urge you to reconsider any hasty decisions in regards to how you treat both the crew and the ship itself, but we are certainly worth your while in keeping alive."  Struatha then raised a furry eyebrow to Zan's comment then looked at Emily.  "Young lady, just because you have the power to do something does not mean you have to use it."

Argroww turned to 8S "It's okay 8S, but thank you for the warning, Captain Drake is more worried than he'd like to let on about the threat of your Dark Matter exploding I would suggest moving your ship as close to our as you can possibly get it.  Captain Drake If you are wanting anything out of this arrangement as I know that you do then I suggest you allow our engineers time to figure out if 8S's Dark Matter is compatible with our Theay-Nor reactor and perhaps you will see what this ship is capable of.  Tell me Captain, do you not feel the thrill of excitement when chasing your prey down or would you rather your prey merely bares their belly to you with no excitement?  I know the hunt although I will admit it has been a long time since I have needed to and the prey that runs is always more thrilling that the one that cowers rooted in fear."

~Laendra, escort the guest from the medbay to the ready room please, be careful with her though, you do not present a threat to her and I suspect she'll try to mess with you given her actions with Nyssa so far.~ Argroww used Spiritalk again to speak to one of the Marines heading towards the medbay now, whilst he could not read the intruder, he could read Nyssa...although it was worrying he was having difficulty reading Rowan too, it wasn't the same as the intruder, but there was something very wrong with his spirit.

Laendra was an elf of darker skin to Nyssa and unlike the golden elf had no qualms about sleeping with people of other races or her own gender and had some relatively dark tastes to match her skin colour, she was also a very capable warrior as most of the marines were and as such somewhat looked forward to a tumble with the guest given what she'd had relayed to her by Argroww.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Gawfy on April 30, 2017, 01:18:07 am
8S nodded in agreement. I actually already moved My ship quite close, all we would need to do is find a way to move the dark matter to my ship to yours safely.She then turned to Drake. And im not a robot, Im 8S I would say it is nice to meet you but considering the circumstances you have placed us in it would be a lie. She then turned back to Argroww. Ill assist in moving the Cargo,
 could you point me to where i should be offloading it.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: GIR on April 30, 2017, 08:51:01 am
Pyrrha laughed at the marine's words. "Aww, that's adorable. Little doggy boy thinks he can claim a woman when he can't even string a decent sentence together.", she mocked, her lips curling into a cruel smile, "And me not killing you? Look, buddy, maybe that's whatever's got its claws in you talkin', but the only reason you're not a heap of giblets right now is because Ol' Copper Breath took a shine to you and ordered me off.", she continued, her tone taking a sinister turn with her next words, "Though, to be fair, his order was to not kill you. He didn't say I couldn't rough you up a bit. Maybe perform an amputation or two. Or an emergency neutering."

"As for you...", Pyrrha hissed, turning toward the doctor, "That wasn't a very smart choice of words, doc. 'Sickens' you? I might need to adjust your attitude a bit.", she growled, her back arms sliding their foremost blades together in front of her as if sharpening each other. The Tokamakian advanced on the doctor, aggression in every angle of her body, tail plasma projectors still keeping the marine covered, head lowered in what would be a glare if she had her eyebrows and upper eyelids. "Care to give me a second opinion, doc? Or are we gonna have to... operate?", she asked, pure venom in her tone, arm blades spreading and closing, as if her back arms were so many pairs of scissors.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, basically, your people outlaw AI's, which are reliable if they develop properly and, with few exceptions, controllable when they don't, but you're all for entrusting extradimensional travel to a child that you can neither control nor contain?", Drake remarked, "Yes, that sounds just like what a reasonable society would decide.", he sniped.

"Get off your high horses, both of you. If you can honestly say you wouldn't make sure to have insurance if the roles were reversed, you're either stupid or crazy.", Emily snapped as she simply backed off control of the spell, then remade it behind each marine's head, "Mess with it again, and I'll release it as soon as it's done. And I might not be aiming for them next time. Leave it, and maybe it won't even get used at all. that's up to him.", she continued, tilting her head at Drake as she mentioned him.

"I don't plan on giving that order unless negotiations get... out of hand.", Drake responded, the skin on the side of his left arm, just behind his wrist, puffing out slightly as the pellet launcher within slid into the ready position and he adjusted his arm just enough to put it on-target for the golden male.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the blast of supercooled air hit, Qui'ek felt herself slowing down as her exoskeleton sealed itself, her body shutting itself down first to basic body maintenance level, furling her tail and lowering her thorax so that all six extremities functioned as legs, then into near-total stasis as she began hibernating. As long as no one touched her or warmed her up, to those who could only sense the physical, the insectoid would seem, to all appearances, dead as the foam hit and then hardened just before it would have woken her. The spiritual and magical planes, however, were another story, with the Maraki continuously sending out pulses of magical and spiritual energies one second apart not unlike radar, as if looking for others of her kind.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just like a werewolf to put the thrill of the hunt over more practical concerns.", Drake accused, grinning, "You know, the last man to lead this band liked to play those games. He'd have taken your challenge in a heartbeat. It also had a tendency to cost him our prizes.", he explained, "So, no. I have you by the balls. You can't run, and, from what you've just told me, you can't fight. At least, not as well as you'd ordinarily be able to. The thrill of the chase can be fun, but I became a pirate for the bottom line, so if my prey steps on a bear trap and can't move, all the better. It would take a stupid man indeed to let his prey loose just to chase it down again.", he continued, raising an eyebrow in mockery, "So, again, what, exactly, do you plan to offer me in exchange for letting you go?".

"Drake, we need to wake Qui'ek up. Some fool must have put her in hibernation.", Emily spoke up as she sensed the pulses, "Judging by the frequency, we've got about twenty minutes, tops. Here's hoping the mess isn't very big.".

"Stay here, for now. Be ready to jump ship if it does happen. I think our friends here could stand to learn why AI's tend to have leashes.", Drake responded.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on May 02, 2017, 03:30:15 am
In The Medbay.

Nyssa took a breath at the oncoming fury of the interloper, she set down the sediject and reached for a laser scalpel.  It was like bringing a butter knife to a sword fight…but it was better than nothing.  If she was going to die today then it was her time.  She looked to where Rowan crouched, a sneer on his face, whatever it was with him it would have to wait.

“I am sorry if you are offended by my choice of words with regards to your attentions, but let me make it clear for you to understand, my kind do not have relationships outside our species and certainly not with the same gender.” She said coolly as she switched on the laser.

“As such your propositions are distasteful to me, disrespectful of my race, but as you likely do not know my race I am willing to overlook your slight.”

She brushed her blonde hair back out of her face and steeled herself, fighting was not beyond her, all Golden Elves were taught to fight as part of their upbringing, a hark back to bygone days when Houses taught their offspring combat.  Granted she had never really had to use it but it came back to her in those moments.

The Daemon in Rowan drew more deeply on the man’s spirit, bolstering itself, its mind more cohesive than it had been.  Drawing on the man’s essence so deeply was not ideal and temporary but so what it was a case of needs must.

“I do not answer to the names you call me.” The man hissed.

“Nor do I like threats from the likes of you….half dead bitch! You tell your unseen voice if it wants to talk then I will deal with it direct!”

Nyssa bit her lip, the thing had suddenly found its voice and she hated to think how.

Where was that Marine she had asked for!

In the Ready Room

Zan felt the spell change and he also felt the odd beacon pitching through the magical plane.  He shook his head, his golden eyes shimmering.

“We do not resort to violence unless necessary, we prefer more peaceful solutions to conflict.” He said coolly.

“Threatening the men outside the door will not resolve this nor will it incline anyone here to listen to your demands, all it will do is cause further violence.”

He shifted in his seat, he had heard enough of threats and bullying for one day, this pirate was a big shot here in this place, his crew nothing more than thugs who twisted situations to suit their own debased needs.

“Here we were thinking we might come across more enlightened people here….a wishful thought.  This lot are no better than the Daemon scum we left behind!”
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Argroww on May 19, 2017, 12:48:03 pm
In the Mess Hall
"Aww Esise! Now see what ye done! We couldae hae sone fun wit' tha' beastie!" Geldri exlaimed tapping on the now hardened fire retardant with a fillet knife.

The 5 Marines approached still at the ready, but now feeling somewhat safer.

"Any ideas what we should do with this thing then Esise?" One of the Marines queried.

"I'd get it to the brig, I don't know how long it'll stay like that, it's also giving off some weird pulses so best to keep it somewhere safe.  Father is studying the pulses as best he can."

Command Deck
Jinny was studying the reading from the scanners hoping she'd see something useful about the pirate space vessels, however as good as Esise was at getting into the comms system of their ship she still hadn't breached any further.

Suddenly a blip appeared it wasn't dangerously close, but it was still relatively nearby and it registered as a gravitational anomaly, something out there was generating waves of negative gravity, the waves would push nearby objects, however The Iron Claw's sensors could not figure out what was generating this anomaly.

In the Med-Bay
Leandra approached the door, listening in on what was going on inside.  She knew Rowan was in there, but last she heard he was in a bad way after the jump, there'd also be Nyssa.  Golden Elves were hardly push-overs as they generally kept cool in most circumstances irrelevant of their own abilities.

"Well girlie, lets see what we're facing." Leandra said under her breath.  She set her Magi-Pulse Rifle to stun just in case she hit her own people and then tapped the activator for her personal shield, not something she expected to have to use on board The Iron Claw and then she moved into the room her quick eye taking in the scissor lady...or something vaguely female judging by the figure.

"Alright lady put the arms...err...away?" Leandra said placing the rifle against her shoulder a slight hum coming from it.

Leandra was kitted out in the standard Marine outfit which meant flexible but tough bodyarmour that was form-fitted and thus her figure was rather striking as she was athletic with a fairly ample bosom (although entirely covered), her head was uncovered as she'd not had time to get a helmet which revealed a face that could only be described as handsome...pretty once perhaps, but she'd earned a few scars, she also had shoulder length brunette hair and very intense green eyes and for an elf she made a stark difference to Nyssa.

Ready Room
"I think this is enough Drake, we realise that you have insurance in place, you have plenty just by your order to fire upon this ship."

Argroww didn't even look at Emily when he exerted his SpiritMastery over the woman and went for what usually worked best <sleep>, one of the easiest of commands that at the very least made people drowsy, but at best could put a person into a deep slumber for many hours.  What Argroww felt worked in his favour is that a stressful pirates life could often leave a person on the edge of extreme fatigue even when they didn't know it them self and this could often make the command work better.

"Now then Drake, et us stop playing these games and get down to business, there are things we could trade you that it would be easier if given rather than taken...or even destroyed..."

Argroww was about to take another breath when Jinny appeared on one of the large screens.  Jinny was a pretty young blond human, breathtaking in fact, but there was something in her eyes that spoke of a loss that had hardened her somehow.

"Captain Struatha, Diplomat Argroww, there's a curious anomaly on the scanners, looks like its a negative gravitational singularity...I realise it's hardly the time but it's waves are going to start pushing us away soon, might want to find out from Captain Drake if such things are normal, if not he might want to prepare his ships."

Engine room

Hilshuur frowned, holding one of the crystals he looked at one of the Void-Bouys, it had activated.  That was most odd, they were in another universe weren't they, no way the bouy should pick up signals from a Union vessel?
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: GIR on June 11, 2017, 01:00:43 pm
Medbay:

"So it's not that you're a stuck-up bitch. It's just your race.", Pyrrha hissed, stepping closer, "Good to know. But, sadly, it would seem surgery is in order. Seems the doctor's called for a lobotomy.", she continued, ignoring the marine for the moment. If Hades wanted to deal with his stupidly calling out a god, He would.

As she raised her prosthetic arms to strike, though, one of her tails focused on a newcomer, the escort the doctor had requested. The plasma projector tilted up and down, as if checking the woman out before zeroing in on her chest. "Well, hello, sexy.", Pyrrha purred, firing a three-round burst at the elf marine as the rifle hummed, "Whoops... I swear that doesn't usually happen. I guess seeing that big, long rifle and those massive... ballistics... Must have put me on a bit of a hair trigger. But don't worry. I'm still rarin' to go. Just let me finish up my appointment with the good doc.", she continued, one of her blade-arms lashing out toward the doctor's head with an inhuman quickness, though not so fast that someone with good reflexes couldn't dodge it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ready Room:

"Yes. Almost makes you wonder if if the point of that isn't to take hostages.", Drake sniped, sarcasm dripping from his voice at the remark about insurance, "As for you, Goldie, we're pirates, mate.  This isn't some Jonathan Dipp movie with good guy pirates who are really softies at heart and don't actually steal from or kill anyone. We rape, steal, plunder, and kill. About the best you'll get as far as 'enlightened' goes is that I keep my word. It doesn't make good business sense to go back on a deal.".

Emily tapped three times on the table as she began to feel exhaustion creeping over her. Exhaustion that seemed unnaturally hard to fight, given that she'd had plenty of experience fighting off sleep. The words of her captain and the enemy swam as she struggled to keep her eyes open, cursing herself for not at least trying to neutralise the spirit-user from the moment Drake had made the connection.

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? ? ?:

"Captain. Long-range scanners are picking up a gravitational anomaly. Readings are similar to a White-Hole-class weapon, but there shouldn't be any in-system.". The man at the sensor station sent the data to the Captain's station at the push of a button, causing a ring to appear on the system map in front of the Captain's chair.

"That's on a path that would take us by the Warmonger, correct?", the Captain asked, grinning slightly, "Let's give our old drinking buddy a scare. Warp us to the Warmonger's position, then take readings as soon as they leave."

"Warp to intercept Warmonger and Avarice, then take readings on the anomaly. Aye, Captain. Estimate five minutes to warp gate completion.".

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ready Room:

"Depending on...", Drake began, trailing off as the woman interrupted. As he listened. Drake noted that the woman's appearance reminded him of a younger Alice, though Alice's beauty was more of an adorable type, rather than pretty like the woman on the screen.

"I'm told gravity doesn't normally reverse itself without warning. There's defensive systems and weapons that can create antigravity fields, but those are usually used on ships and stations. More importantly, however... We were in the middle of a deal?", he stated, sending a coded message to Alice to watch for arriving ships. It wasn't unheard of for some spacefaring races to use gravity as a means of shortening the distances between worlds and systems, with its space-and-time-bending properties.
Title: Re: An unexpected arrival [Open]
Post by: Rowan on June 20, 2017, 09:52:44 pm
The Med Bay

Nyssa moved fast, lithe and agile as most of her kind tended to be, just because she was a doctor it did not mean she had forgotten the old ways and training of her people.  She dodged the blade that slashed quickly towards her head and lashed out with the laser scapel hoping to score some sort of hit if possible.  She was not above hurting someone if her life were threatened as it seemed to be here.  She had done nothing to this despicable vile creature except turn down its less than savoury advances. 

Rowan had moved impossibly fast as well, the Daemon taking over the body fully now, it had once known this woman, this doctor, not in the intimate sense but he had known her.  It was a memory dragged up from some recess in its mind.  Like a large predatory cat he had leapt at the intruder with the intention of taking her to the ground.  His desire to tear her throat out, there was no life...no true soul that he could sense to feed on...but he would derive some satisfaction from ripping her foul tongue out.

The Ready Room

Zan was about to come out with some scathing retort to the Pirate when Jinny's message had interuptted the meeting.  He took in the girl's face, so pretty....so sad.  He felt it, her loss, keenly as he felt his own grief at losing Talan.  The young man had been special beyond a doubt, much like his ancestor in many ways from what he had gleaned from Argroww.

Gravitational anomaly.....large and not far from them.

Curious...

His eyes slipped to the pirate's magicker who seemed to be struggling too. He felt it, her desire to try and stay awake but losing the battle a breath at a time.  Argroww...undoubted ly.

"In the middle of a deal?" Zan smiled coldly.

"I think it is only just beginning."
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