OUTER SPACE > Open Space

Thank You For Calling Tech Support [Cheesi!][M][That escalated quickly :D]

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nephero:
TW: alien gore and sexual themes. /o/

In space, no one can hear you cuss viciously at astral navigation maps.

Otto stared down at the navboard, hands perched on do the side of the large table like structure, little pricks of light floating in a three dimensional glitter of nearby landmarks.

Or rather, supposedly nearby landmarks.

Otto stared at the long string of codes and numbers that made up his supposed coordinates, chewed at his lip. What was that old trick Lucien taught him? If you take an inanimate object and slowly explain the code to it, eventually you'll figure out what went wrong.

And so, with no shortage of hyperawareness at how silly this was, Otto set down the fantastically colored bobble-head dog in front of him, and slowly began to explain the exact neural network of the navigation computer.

When he finally found the issue, he about damn near threw the bobblehead out the airlock. It wouldn't solve anything, of course, but it would sure as shit make him feel better.

Casual destruction was the only outlet he had left. It’d been a week since he'd left port, and he hadn't thought to up his supply then. It was only two days’ flight from A to B, and that was factoring in the spider web route he'd had to take to avoid Troublesome Traffic.

And it was exactly somewhere in that spider web that he'd run into the snag in his calculations. And that snag had left him listing in what appeared to be the garbage dump of space. Endless kilometers of debris, dust and nothing. Not so much as an offshoot food n’ fuel, let alone a pharmaceutical depot.

Otto was very, very aware of this last fact. He took a breath, and casually ignored how badly his knuckles itched.

Okay. Okay, this was salvageable. He could work with this. He still had plenty of fuel, plenty of oxygen. Food stores were a little low, but he'd been off his feed for a long while now, so the limited amount would be adequate. And while it wasn't the best taste in the world, there was plenty of condensation for “drinking” water.

At least he'd caught the glitch early. He'd have been utterly fucked if he hadn't caught the mistake when he did-- any further, and there wouldn't have been the fuel to get him even to Aedolian space.

Dead in the void.

Otto shuddered.

Best not to think that way.

Clicking over a few switches, the engines hummed in response to the command to adjust their course. It’d be a tight squeeze, of course, but anything was better than dying from oxygen deprivation.

His boarders were good at keeping them alive, but they weren't that good.

Otto ran his fingers through his hair and let out a sigh. He needed… something. Anything. Even coffee. Did he still have coffee? He thought there was a scoop or two left. It’d be weak as fuck, but something about beggars being choosers.

A few minutes and one very large albeit very translucent mug later, Otto was settled in the cockpit, feet kicked up onto the dashboard and an endless cascade of stars before him.

A hundred thousand voices chittered at the exact back of his skull, rattling against the bone in a cascading echo. Otto tried to ignore them, but the hum and buzz only grew louder. More insistent. On edge. Sighing into his coffee mug, the Aedolian expatriate leaned forward, scanning the sensors before squinting out the windshield.

Wait a tic. What the hell was that?

A ship?

Cheesigator:
"Son of a bitch.."

Kirkley spat as the monitor lit up with a red tint as three foreign ships approached, heading right for him. He'd been wary of taking this shipment for a couple of reasons: One, the guy in Tynova who asked it of him seemed skeevy as fuck, and Two, he didn't usually like dealing with live animals as merchandise. Apparently they were a black market set of predatory creatures (which reminded him of himself enough to be too close for comfort) that were a rare find on Edanith, and some rich CEO in Aedolis wanted to collect himself a pack.

But the money he'd offered as payment was good, and while Kirkley wasn't sure it was worth it right now, it had been enough to convince him back on Edanith.

The biggest problem he had right now was that he'd only been in space for just under two hours and there were already people after him, supposedly for the nasty little creatures currently trying to tear the shit out of each other through their individual pet carriers down in the cargo hold. Well, he had other stuff for transportation down there as well but those were much more legal and far less coveted.

"Knew I shoulda picked up a gunman." He grumbled under his breath, setting most of the ship's defenses to autofire.

The Loveless wasn't exactly built to be speedy as much as it was durable, and trying to maneuver to shoot three ships from three separate directions that small was going to be pretty much impossible. Which meant only one thing; either he'd have to wait for them to board and take them all down himself, or wait for the right moment and make a quick jump to hyperspace to outrun them.

Last option sounded good for now.

He took manual control of the twin ion laser canons in the ship's maw, one of the enemies coming into view; there was no warning, no transmission telling him how he could give up the cargo and go home. Just two shots fired that hit the broadside of Loveless and then it was off to battle. He was able to take one down himself, relying partly on the auto-tracking of the ship controlled guns underneath the flexible plating on the sides of the ship, but mostly relying on his ability to maneauver the damn thing through space. The second of the three was keeping a distance, firing consistent shots trying to wear down the shield and keep him pinned in one spot while the third came up from behind, finding one of the cargo entrances, hacking clearances and getting ready to board.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuc k," He jumped up from captain's chair and jumped down to the first level and then down another flight of stairs, through a corridor in crew quarters to the vehicle docking bay.

The moment he opened the blast doors the sound of lasers and the smell of scorching metal made him drop to the floor, peeking around the edge of the door to see three of them. Their vessel was small, barely big enough to handle the cargo. He rolled out, taking cover locked down crates of parts, tools, and supplies, using stealth and his own sense of smell to locate the guy closest to him. They definitely weren't pretty; they all had goggles on and had skin the color and consistency of a muddy green toad.

One started to come around the corner and he moved, grabbing the muzzle of the gun and ignoring how it burned his hand as the creature yelped with surprise and fired, the shot scorching the floor while he pulled the raider to him, keeping the gun pointed to the ground while he punched the thing's lights out, yanked the pulse rifle from it when it was dazed and shot it twice in the head.

The other two weren't quite as easy, circling around to get him from both sides just as he finished off their companion; one shot got him in the shoulder and he fired at the other, catching them in the gut before he rolled a dodge and fired at them both from behind a supply crate. One down, one to go. Ammo ran out.

It was clicking at him like an angry cockroach.

He took a breath and ran out from his cover, tackling the third one to the ground and wrestling with it for several moments, the two of them rolling around on the floor scrabbling at each other before he kicked the gun away, punched it a good five or six times and then slammed its head into the ground. Their blood was goopy.

He grabbed the gun and shot it with it unconscious, just as the ship's lights changed to red and warned him that the shields were down.

He ran back to the front of the ship, shoulder burning and itching and smelling like singed meat, cursing all the while that he had for some stupid reason figured he didn't need a crew for this mission.

Fuckin idiot!

He got back up to the main console, a thin layer of sweat making his skin shine as he panted and punched in the code to eject the vessel from the docking bay, and made the jump to hyperspace--but he wasn't quite fast enough. With the shields down the final enemy vessel fired a strange lightning-looking shot that made electricity seize up the whole ship right as it went into hyperspace; his jump was cut short and he came out in the middle of nowhere.

The momentum of the attack and the movement of the jump had thrown him to the ground, and he lay there in the silence for a moment until all excess lights went out, along with the monitor and most of the controls. The engines shut off, and he was left there floating silently through space.

".. Great." He grumbled, slowly pushing himself up. Tested the buttons on the console, nothing.

So now he was stranded with a bunch of vehemently angry animals in his cargo hold and not a single technician to help him get things back online. He'd have to call someome like Ain or Belliel from Galley La, wait for them to come out and get the ship running, and hope like hell those raiders didn't show up and kill him dead in the meantime.

He could really use a shot of whiskey right now.

nephero:
It was always a risk, encountering another ship. There were a lot of variables that went into everything. Who's colors the ship flew under being first and foremost, whether they were Aedolian or an independent vessel operating under TRIM interests, whether they flew under pirate colors or worse.

Because that was always a possibility. There were all kinds of stories about some good soul stopping to try and help out what they had assumed was just some poor schmuck down on their luck, only to have a bunch of pirate skimmers come out of nowhere to blow out their engines.

But then again... this could also be completely legit. Someone who genuinely needed help.

Otto chewed at his lip, felt his boarders recoil at the idea of going into potential danger, and made his decision. If he died out here trying to do the right thing, well. That wasn't so bad. Besides, Ironsides was a quick ship; first hint of danger, he could skip right on out.

Easing the controls out of their automatic navigation path, Otto brought his tinier one-man up alongside the floating ship, eyeballing the exterior damage. It certainly looked real enough, scorch marks and all. But it could also be that it had been intentionally fired upon for a more "authentic" experience.

Not that it mattered. Otto was already zipping up his void suit, hair pulled back into a tight knot.

"Command: Single ping to port side vessel. Command: Attempt communication establishment, no target change, channel two." Otto paused, waited for the confirmatory blip. Well, he supposed this was it. Either he was gonna die, or he wasn't.

The boarders hissed and chittered, but there was nothing for them to do. Even they seemed to understand there would be no discussion on the matter, because they switched tactics from firing off every last one of his danger signals to pushing all their collective efforts to perception. If they couldn't stop Otto from doing something stupid, best to be on the lookout for what might want to eat them all.

Otto licked his lips, watched as the light above the channel two reading blinked yellow before turning a solid, steady green.

"This is Otto Ripley hailing unknown vessel, coordinates EA-KI 147 by ED-AM 77. Noting external damage, do you require assistance? Over." And right back to blinking yellow again.

Cheesigator:
Well, first things first. He had a nice, crispy burned shoulder that could use a bit of patching up before he just sat around and called for backup, hoping that those raiders didn't catch up to finish the job while he waited.

He moved from the deck to the second level and into the med bay, unlocking the cabinet on the wall and finding some salve to put on his shoulder, wincing at the sting before he wrapped some gauze around it for it to heal faster and called it a day. It wasn't like it would take forever even if he didn't apply any aid to it, but obviously he was in a bit of a hurry here.

He made his way back out, and went down a few flights of stairs and corridors to get to the back cargo bay from earlier. One of the alien bodies was still on the floor, where it had been caught on a crate when he'd opened the bay doors to expel the ship from earlier. Great, a mess he'd have to clean up later.

He opened up a strong metal chest bolted against the wall and pulled out an electrical toolbox, figuring if he was gonna try and fix this himself he might as well start somewhere. Or maybe he should just call Galley La first? He was better at building things like houses and shit, not fixing computers. Of all things, why did life have to throw this at him right now?

The darkened room, filled only with dim, grayish-green light from emergency lights along the walls on a backup power generator was suddenly lit up as the comm speaker on the wall lit up, the screen displaying a small error and that it was receiving a communication request from somewhere off the ship. He stared hard at the panel for a moment before he dropped the toolbox and bolted back up the stairs to the front deck, looking out the windows but ultimately not able to see anything right off the bat.

He stepped up to the panel on the wall, relieved at the very least that local, nearby communication was apparently still A-OK, and accepted the request.

"This is Otto Ripley hailing unknown vessel, coordinates EA-KI 147 by ED-AM 77. Noting external damage, do you require assistance? Over."

He paused for a moment, resting his elbow against the wall, scratching his chin. Either this was somebody else trying to get on board and steal his shit, or this was an actual decent person. He was pretty sure he wouldn't survive being jettisoned into space if it came down to it, but on the other hand, this could actually be a decent person trying to help. And Kirkley could handle most things by himself. Clearly. Cough.

He let out a sigh, hanging his head for a moment as he worried his bottom lip and thought about it before finally pressing the button to send a message back.

"I hear ya. Well if you're offering a little help it'd be much appreciated, wouldn't go unpaid of course." He let go of the button and stepped back, running a hand through his hair before he tightened the ponytail keeping the majority of it out of his face.

This was either going to be a godsend or a pain in his ass.

"I'm opening the cargo bay doors, located at the back end of the ship, underside. If you can maneuver your vessel inside I'll be down there to welcome you personally." He managed to open up a few options on the smaller console panel on the wall, overriding the emergency lockdown codes on some of the doors--keeping more important ones, like the blast doors sealing off the captain's quarters in place--to open them for the sake of his... Guest? He supposed.

The bay doors in the underbelly of the ship opened for the second time today; there was enough room in Loveless to hold several small personal cruisers in that bay, which always made it handy for whenever he was carrying crew around, so at the very least this stranger could have a place to park their ride so to speak. Once their vessel was safely inside, the doors would close themselves and it'd take another sixty seconds pump the room full of air and make it safe and breathable again, standard procedure.

He headed on down, pausing by a locker room in the lower level and getting a gun while he was at it. Y'know. Better safe than sorry. His right arm was the one that had been shot so he'd have to rely on his lefty, but he hoped he wouldn't have to use it. He wasn't as good of a shot with that one.

nephero:
“I hear ya. Well if you're offering a little help…”

There were a few tells, if you knew where to look and what to listen for, that let you know when something was a trap. A veteran of dodging such things could probably tell before the first word was spoken-- unfortunately for Otto, his boarders tended to scream bloody murder about almost anything that he was even slightly unsure of, and that tended to skew judgment by a fair margin.

Luckily enough, though, he'd already made up his mind.

“I'm opening the cargo bay doors, located at the back end of the ship, underside.” The voice continued, and Otto shifted in his seat, and gently began easing his own little one-man to the side, breaking away from the parallel drift he'd been in. Ironsides breathed around him, engines humming as the minor jets pushed him back around to the aft of the injured ship. The poor thing. “If you can maneuver your vessel inside I'll be down there to welcome you personally.”

“Copy that,” Otto said, clicking the connection shut again to better focus on his flying. Ironsides was more than agile enough to handle the maneuver, and plenty small to fit in through the cargo doors. He moved from the cockpit once the landing gear clicked into place, adjusting his void suit and gathering up whatever tools he might need for the job.

Diagnostic screen, cabling, screwdrivers,, and…

Otto’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he considered the laser-cutter, before packing that up as well. Better to have it and not need it and all that.

By that point the life support systems had more than enough time to make the cargo bay habitable again, and he dropped the ramp from his own ship to climb on down, helmet tucked under his arm and bag of tools slung over his shoulder.

Well, at least he hadn't been shot yet. That mitigated the worried buzzing in his temples by quite a bit, though all the strange smells that were bombarding him prevented him from fully relaxing.

He turned his head to the side, frowning at a particular set of scents, a cocktail of animal instincts and aggression seeped into every last molecule. Musky and sour. Well, something in here was pissed, but then again, the outer hull damage didn't really scream “sunshine and rainbows”.

Gripping the cutter in his hand, Otto looked around for his apparent host amongst the sizeable bay.

Pretty big for a ghost town.

“Hello?”

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