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Carl In his suit, he starts a timer running offset by the time they regained consciousness. He also starts up the suit's video recording functionality. The damage was pretty bad, but there were several key points that were not congruent with procedure for this. After ripcord, there should be drones - tech spiders and other damage control systems should be working on clearing away debris and patching up the new rent in the exterior hull of the Okeanos. That wasn't happening, potentially for many of reasons. The damage they inflicted could have destroyed the immediate drones available, since they were in the cradle bay; the drones may be deployed elsewhere already for unrelated damage control operations; there might be damage on the physical relays being destroyed, causing the drones to be inert. As he surveys the damage, he keeps an eye on the clock. Even if the drones were not active, an impact like this should have caused a response by real people instead. Doubly so with his emergency transponder on. More and more questions popping up. He heads for the personnel airlock - if anybody is going to be coming in to see what's going on, he'll find them there.
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Mar 29, 2015 02:25
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Alarus Za'al Alarus tries to get a connection to the Okeanos systems, but no go. He grabs his emergency pack and pulls out the survival laser, checking the readings on it to ensure that it's up and running. With that he follows Carl out towards the Personnel Airlock. He activates the transmitter in his flight suit. "Carl, coming down towards you, I got your back. If we can get into the ship maybe I can get into the systems and figure out what the hell is going on."
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Mar 29, 2015 04:01
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Moon She puts a hand to her face as best she can in this suit and sighs. Where to even begin? 425 is… in this state. Okeanos could be just as bad, as far as they could see. She relays the information to the rest of the team in as gentle a manner as she can, “Well, the bad news first – I don’t know if I could design a worse shape for a Hunter-class to be in. We have two reserve cells which will get us…. Less than you might hope.” She starts to tear into the systems available, almost literally, and begins hacking in the original, 20th century sense of the word to try route a working data path to the AI core. “We need access to the Okeanos, need more information. Any information.” Everyone has backups. There’s always backups. So people keep telling her. It is cold comfort. An experience lost is an existential unknowing. Development squandered. Consciousness imitated, never duplicated. Decision making is complex, multi-variable, weighting of pressures and priorities that can change from instant to instant. You are never as you were. That’s why it is so important, of course, that she route this data path to a suitable storage device and complete replication of Red. Years of development, and research, and progress. She has no idea if they can ever make use of such a thing, or if they’ll simply be able to repair 425, or if they’ll… well. Anything could happen or not happen. Besides, it isn’t like she’s busy making actual repairs to the ship. Moon’s going to try and get a backup of Red. She has Mechanics (Hunter-class) 12, Electronics Repair (Computers) 12, and assorted other things. Bonuses if this counts as working with AI.
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Mar 29, 2015 06:09
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Marek Exiting the hunter, he went to look for the others. When he spotted the others, he found them and that turned out to be the only good news. He activated the transmitter. "Looks like we all made it O.K. Any sign of Everett?" He then saw Carl and Alarus making their way to the airlock. "Moon, do you need any help?"
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Mar 29, 2015 16:54
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Moon “Unless you have a few legions of nanobot swarms ready to fix this ship…” A thought, while she works on Red, “I wonder if we could get a drone or two from the hangar bay working. I mean, they’re not going to fix this ship – not entirely, but it couldn’t hurt having them up. Or we could maybe strip some power cells and maybe bring up some other systems long enough to get some use. Just an option to consider…” She says nothing about Everett. They need to check but... She has just about zero hope there is anything resembling a living person left in that suit they collected. “Further, I don’t really have a visual or idea of 425’s damage past ninety, where we ruptured a fuel tank. If you feel like taking a jaunt, couldn’t hurt to have a look.” There’s some forced mirth, a presumed casual tone that wants to pretend like this is just an ordinary maintenance check. Sure, why not.
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Mar 29, 2015 17:54
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Marek "Back at Veles station where I'm from, we got used to getting by with less." He looked around. "I don't know if it was ever this bad though. I'll take a look at 425." Looking at the ship, he realized that he wasn't going to be checking on the ship. Much less the fuel tank. One less thing for him to do. "I'm not sure there's much I can do around here, Moon. I'm going to join the others." Change of plans, going to join the others going to the air lock. DocBubonic fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 29, 2015 21:06
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The AI core of the Hunter is directly forward of the shock pods. It's not powered up, but pulling a memory dump out of it doesn't require full power. Moon pulls a multi-tool out of her emergency kit and releases the locks on the control module access hatch so that she can squeeze inside and get to the memory core. AIs are enormously complex programs that require dedicated hardware, but storing them is easy. A flight suit computer has enough spare storage to pull the AI. Moon plugs in a hardline cable and begins the download. She can't help but notice the scuttling charges all around her. In the event that the Hunter is in danger of capture or subversion, they detonate by the AI's own command to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. She finishes the download and unhooks from the storage unit. Carl, Alarus, and Marek lock on to the outer hull and clomp their way forward to the personnel airlock. There's no sign of any external maintenance drones or technical personnel. The airlock doesn't respond to Carl's cycle attempts, but Alarus finds that it's operative on an encrypted side-band. Under normal operations, systems all over the carrier can be accessed and activated from the shipwide data network. The encrypted side-band network has a local range and is only activated when the carrier is engaged in direct combat. Or if it's been boarded. Using the secondary wireless controls, Carl cycles the three of them through the airlock and into the forward section of the carrier. The lights are dimmed; the ship must be on auxiliary power. There are no signs of the crew in the suit locker, and the hatch to the rest of the ship compartments is dogged shut. Beyond that hatchway is the main dorsal access corridor that runs the length of the ship along its upper spine. That'll take them back "down" through the command deck and flight operations center to the cradle bay, or "up" through medical to the crew areas and the main sensor array at the nose. There are also two cross-links to reach the ventral access corridor on the "bottom" of the ship.
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Mar 30, 2015 05:28
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Carl When he first received his assignment to the Okeanos, he spent a long time going through the ship and committing things to memory. Based on the orientation, they'd have to head "down", into the cradle bay. It still was unsettling that the communication protocols were engaged to restrict boarding action - he thought back to when he first came to. The other two likely knew what was up, but just to accentuate the point, he unclipped the survival laser from the emergency kit. Likely useless, but might buy a few seconds if it came to it. Right now, if they were in the middle of being boarded, they'd certainly benefit from having a specialist active on their side, so to Everett the journey continued.
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Mar 30, 2015 06:32
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Carl advances up to the hatch and undogs it, then peers through. The corridor on the other side is as dim as the suit locker. Without opening the hatch fully, he can see that the nearest damage control bulkhead between the hatch and the cradle bay has been sealed. There are a pair of lynx-type marine drones anchored onto the corridor walls just opposite him, their antipersonnel weapons trained on the bulkhead. It looks like they're covering a tech spider that is using a portable welder to fuse the bulkhead door shut. One of them catches the motion of the hatch opening and swivels optics towards him.
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Mar 30, 2015 06:52
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Carl Standard UGM make, as far as it seems like. What they're doing, though, is more in question. With his transponder on, they should be able to easily identify who he is on a preliminary scan. There's no automated directive to seal bulkheads under any circumstances, so someone must have given a direct order to them to do so. With their weapons covering the tech spider, it also brings into question what they're aiming at that's behind the bulkhead. That bulkhead is - or was - their ticket into the cradle bay, so he'd have to look for another way out or force them to abort their mission. He opens a direct channel to the one that spotted him. "Officer von Brandt of Hunter 425 requesting situation report and communication with commanding personnel. Why is the cradle bay being sealed off?"
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Mar 30, 2015 07:08
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Alarus Za'al Alarus follows behind Carl, and and tries to open an encrypted channel to the other drone to show them their UGM Credentials in data form. It was worth a shot in case Carl couldn't communicate with the other drone. Cryptography 13
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Mar 30, 2015 07:18
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"IFF transponder recognized, Officer von Brandt," the drone responds over the commlink, "Officers Capek and Za'al. Okeanos is under attack. Shipwide networks and defense systems are in boarding mode." The drone shuffles its feet in order to give it a more stable firing platform, should it decide to open fire on him. The other lynx swivels a targeting pod his way, but keeps its weapon pointed squarely at the bulkhead. It looks like the tech spider has another five or ten minutes of welding ahead of it before the door will be completely sealed off. "Due to the possibility that the enemy has breached our tactical net, I must escort the three of you to the CP for identity verification before allowing you free access to the ship or further information. Will you comply?"
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Mar 30, 2015 07:20
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Carl "Acknowledged - we also have Officer Moon currently where we disembarked from the 425. Marek, Alarus, either of you two want to go with these drones or grab Moon? It would probably be best if we all went together."
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Mar 30, 2015 07:24
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Moon With Red’s backup comfortably on her person, she’s moved to working on some other systems of 425. Major repairs may be more or less impossible, but some basic cleaning of wiring so everything doesn't explode when power gets routed to it again isn't too much to ask. If she could have access to the hangar bay, she could be working on the drones there. There could be commands or notifications in their event logs, some information that got pushed out before everything else on Okeanos went down. Maybe she could bring one or two online and have them help survey 425 or Okeanos, even some rudimentary repairs. But she can't, because of this ludicrous position where the attack ship has wedged it's way through the hull of the carrier. She speaks into the communicator, hoping the others haven’t moved out of range, “Somebody talk to me – it’s cold and lonely here in the hangar. What’s it look like in there?” Ambivalent fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 16:42
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Marek Even before the drone spoke, the signs of an attack were all around. Marek considered heading up to the Command deck, but he decided against it preferring to stick together with Alarus and Carl. When the drone requested that they go to CP, he nodded. "I'll go get Moon. Should we meet back here before we go to the CP?"
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Mar 30, 2015 19:04
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Alarus Za'al Alarus turned to Marek. "Sounds good, Carl and I will wait here for you and Moon. I'll see if I can get a message to the CP or see their status." Alarus transmitted to Moon. "Moon hold your position Marek is coming to you. Okeanos has been boarded and is on lockdown protocol. Keep your survival laser close and eyes out for any Web drones. We are going to rendezvous at our current position then make our way to the CP. Stay frosty." Alarus switched back to his neural interface and tried to get a UGM double encrypted message through the local loop requesting CP status. It didn't contain their current position and had a tagged data scramble spike with a power cycle loop kicker in case the Web drones were listening in. A nasty little surprise in case they failed cracking the UGM encryption. Comms 12, Cryptography 13, Hacking 15. Sending a message to CP with encryption and a nasty surprise in case it was intercepted by the web drones. EDIT- Missed the above part about the shut down. Won't try to hack the okeanos system or anything Pinche Rudo fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 19:37
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Carl "We'll stay put here like Alarus was saying. Moon should be fine, but make sure you let her know we might be in a hostile situation and to stay brief in communication." He nods to Marek and begins the waiting game while Alarus tries to work at some semblance of encrypted communnication.
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Mar 30, 2015 23:31
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Moon Boarded? What did they find? She disconnects her multitool and gives a tug on the power cell she’d worked free of a defunct system. Looking back at the work she’d done, she tries again, uselessly to rub her face through her suit. Pushing off from the 425, she moves to follow the path the others had taken, to rendezvous with Marek and the others. will join the others now for expediency. Ambivalent fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 00:37
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You can't get into the cradle bay from your current location to fiddle with drones or other equipment. The breached control module hatch is fused into a breach in the carrier's outer hull.
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Mar 31, 2015 05:12
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Alarus and Carl wait while one of the lynx drones takes off with Marek to retrieve Moon. By the time they get back, the tech spider has finished its job and is packing up the welder. One of the combat drones begins affixing portable sensors to the bulkhead and unspooling monofilament data cable back to the command post. In a heavy electronic warfare environment, most close-combat systems fall back to point to point or hardline comms. At these ranges and transmitter powers, broadcasting is a coin flip between either screaming into a windstorm or jamming or (worse) shouting into the silence and asking for anti-radiation seekers to destroy you. Information payloads are almost irrelevant. It's no wonder that Alarus can't get a signal through. While the first combat drone finished up rigging sensors in the access corridor, the other escorts the Hunter crew and the tech spider back "up" the corridor to one of the cross-cut accessways that runs between the two spinal corridors and provides access to all of the crew spaces and systems throughout the carrier's volume. The drone peels off through a hatch, scanning left and right with its optics, checking corners and peering through open hatches into the dim rooms beyond. Pairs and trios of lynx drones and the heavier panthers pass by or are passed by, carrying supplies or heavy weapons, rigging hardline sensors, cutting open wall panels or erecting ad-hoc strong points. The lynx ushers the four attack ship crew into the briefing room where they were, just an hour before, preparing their strike plan for the sortie. There are a trio of panther drones around the entrance, crouched behind laminate blast shields and manning gauss autorifles and seeker rocket pods. They flash a series of laser recognition codes to the lynx as it escorts the crew past. Inside, the briefing room is packed full of emergency equipment, combat drones, and human crew injured and otherwise. A pair of lynx drones are running a small squad of technicians through their rifles in one corner. Another is breaking open the transport container for a man-portable anti-particle rifle. Several tech spiders are performing first aid on a small cluster of injured crewmen and women who have been wrapped in emergency foil blankets and tethered to one of the walls, emergency trauma support units plugged in above their heads and fluid leads running down into their arms and necks. It's hard to tell how they've all been injured, but one has a horrific gunshot wound to the head. Near the center of the room, there's a stack of combat EW and support gear and two of the crew hunched over an AR map display of the ship's internals. From the symbology, it looks like there are no friendlies rear of the cradle bay. Officer Remael is crouched over the opposite side of the display. The nearer officer turns around as the crew approaches. It's Officer Everett, out of her combat suit and wearing a standard ship coverall. Her eyebrows go up in... surprise, relief, shock. It's hard to tell. The Oldest Man fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 06:41
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Carl He takes a look over Everett and, seeing her in one bit, he nods to himself. One less thing to worry about, and the amount of trouble to bring her back was hopefully not wasted. He wastes no time in getting a good read of the situation - not great. In this type of situation, he'd defer to the expert on marine combat, which would be Everett. He shuts off his emergency transponder and stops the timer. "Officer von Brandt and crew reporting." He considers a followup to that regarding the status of the ship, where Commander Ilyusha was, how things were, maybe some genial bits and pieces, the like. "Are you assuming command at the moment, Officer Everett?" Best to just stick to facts that he can lean on and establish the hierarchy in short order. If the Commander was out of commission or KIA, then things are likely more dire than anticipated. There's a depressingly slim amount of people in here relative to the total personnel of the ship - maybe 15%, based on head count alone.
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Apr 1, 2015 07:00
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"Looks like I'm it," Everett replies, "They pulled me out of crash stasis less than fifteen minutes ago, told me you four saved my life and that we were under attack without so much as a cup of coffee. Remael is trying to work out what the hell is going on while I secure our position here." Remael looks up from the AR display and adds, "They pulled Everett and what was left of her boarding party out of 425 as soon as you ripcorded back. The salvage techs were starting to cut through to get the four of you out when every combat drone racked rear of the cradle bay went hot and stopped responding to remote commands. I have no idea what happened in the engineering section, but they cut through every drone and tech in the bay in a matter of seconds. We put the remainder of the anti-boarding defenses on combat autonomous mode, but it was loving grim until Everett defrosted and took charge. We were this close to losing flight ops when she pushed that counterattack through to the cradle bay." Everett nods and gives a thin smile, "Wish I'd been awake when it started. A lot of people died who didn't have to." "How did you four even get out of there?" Remael asks, "The techs said the control module access hatch was friction-welded into the bay wall, and the whole bay is a kill-zone for that matter."
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Apr 1, 2015 07:15
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Moon It’s pleasant to see the faces of people she hasn’t been neurally linked to, and she’s more than happy to open up her suit and expose her face to open air. “Walked, mostly. We didn’t have access to the bay. Glad to see you.” You know. In one piece. After that ripcord, she was pretty sure Everett was going to be paste on the inside of suit. Nursing her own bruises and ribs, she unceremoniously leans against/sits upon a drone that doesn’t seem like it will mind too much. Lots missing. She doesn’t ask about the commander because… well. The nature of the disturbance is intriguing, at least. That’s a problem to solve, “What are the carriers systems like? Did it start with only the drones?” The timing is suspicious, too. “What happened with the payload we brought back?” Alarus gets a questioning look. If it was some bit of EW sabotage, that’s as much his specialty as anyone’s.
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Apr 1, 2015 07:26
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Carl He took the information in, processing it and filing it away. That can't be an accident, after everything they've gone through recently. Alarus would know, though - he's the expert. "Technically, we didn't exit the 425 in the cradle bay," he recounts, detailing the roundabout way from outside the Okeanos he got back in from. "I'll pass over my suit data if you have a spare jack for it. We have some external footage for review, which should hopefully give a better idea of orientation. Moon probably also has some extra information. Given the situation, it sounds like a good thing we didn't end up where we were supposed to. Thank relative displacement physics for that." He unhooks a data cable from the suit, handing it out to Remael while turning turning to face Everett directly after Moon's prompt. One could probably argue that the entire sequence of events unfolded this way as a result of their deployment and subsequent return, but given the circumstances, he'd rather know upfront if they came back without the keys to the communication castle. aldantefax fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 07:35
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Moon She backs Carl’s assertion, idly punching a button her multitool which spits out a shiny wafer of data into her hand, offering it up, “Data on 425, or what remains. Damage is… extensive. I took the liberty of replicating Red, too. Other than that, all we can offer is four bodies and what we pulled from our crash kits.”
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Apr 1, 2015 07:42
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Alarus Za'al Alarus nodded to Everett and Remael as Moon and Carl gave them the briefing on how the 425 crew escaped the wreckage. No Ilyusha....this wasn't good. KIA? Captured? The bit about the drones going down wasn't good either. There may be someone or some sort of AI running on what was left of their network. He glanced over at the EW suite and gave a sigh of relief. "Do we have any Intel on the Boarding Party? All drones or are there any human minders?" Alarus secretly hoped there'd be a few warm bodies among the OpFor, if they could get one alive the Intel he could glean would be extremely valuable... Alarus took a few steps towards the EW stack, flexing his hands a bit and stretching his neck. Having the EW suite on 425 burned out was like being a Vaquero and having your horse shot out from underneath you. He glanced up at Everett and Remael. "Any objections to me on the EW stack? I'll find the son of a bitch on our network and give 'em a nice surprise." he punctuated that last sentence with a snarl. This was a huge opportunity to prove his worth and if he could get some info on the enemy forces it would be crucial to giving the remaining some idea of what the gently caress was going on. Pinche Rudo fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 15:59
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Marek A bad situation, he thought, but it could be worse. The immediate future didn't seem that promising though. "What's the plan now?"
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Apr 1, 2015 18:40
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"Boarding party," Everett repeats, deadpan. She stares at Alarus for a moment, then looks over at Officer Remael for help. The tactical officer shrugs and looks back to his displays. Alarus himself is only barely paying attention at this point, the portable EW pack now occupying almost all of his attention. Unfortunately, there's no network to speak of that he can tap into: the friendly net is all on point to point comms and hardline, and all he's getting other than that is jamming static and echoes. The enemy is probably following the same procedure, so he'll have to physically access something connected to the hostile battle network if he wants to use his bag of dirty electronic tricks. "Something we brought back did this," Everett says bluntly. Remael chimes in, "That's what we're assuming, anyway. Everett's suit and the remnants of her drones were taken back to the repair bay as soon as they got her out of the Hunter. Given what happened about five minutes after that, and where it started... we might actually be lucky that your crash severed the main data trunk and damaged the reactor. If all systems were running normally, all of our combat drones would have been subverted before we could have reacted." Everett turns to Marek, "The enemy has control of the engineering section, the reactor, and the magazines. The only thing they don't have is the main AI core, and Okeanos had to be shut down due to all the damage from the crash. We don't know what their objective is, other than it's not to kill us all by destroying this ship because they could do that right now if they wanted." "Okeanos is offline because of the crash damage," the marine officer goes on, pointing to some of the bits of the map display. It looks like all of the critical systems have suffered some damage. The jump drive is broken, the reactor is turning out a tiny fraction of its rated power, and the avionics are providing only minimal navigational control. Life support is working on auxiliary power, but everything from point defense weapons to radar is shut down. "And there's no help coming." "We're on borrowed time here," Remael says, "It's just luck that we haven't been located by a Web deep scan yet. I ran some quick numbers on our chances of evading detection. Pretty much all guesswork since Okeanos is down, but I'd say we cross the fifty-fifty point on being discovered in about ninety minutes." Everett nods, "So I'm thinking we go take the ship back, repair the jump drive, and get the gently caress out of here."
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Apr 3, 2015 04:04
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Moon She nods in agreement with Everett’s assessment – she’d had the same suspicion, that it had been something they brought back. But to what end? Everett’s end mission plan sounds agreeable, getting another nod, “Sounds like the right idea. Could it have been something your drones picked up on that other UGM ship, the one we lifted the data core from? We weren’t getting your status reports, but could they have had system failures like this?” “If the attack isn’t meant to destroy the carrier, maybe they want data or something. Or to lure another UGM ship, have them board, and do this whole dance all over.” She just… really wants to get into the drone control, the hangar bay or something, and get under the hood and poke at whatever malicious code is orchestrating this. Curiosity. “So, what, do we just have to try and push out and… disable drones one at a time? Before we bring other systems online, I’ll need to get access to the drone hub and take a look, see how it might have effected other systems before everything came down.”
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Apr 3, 2015 04:48
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Carl "Do we have the appropriate resources for flight once we reassume control of mobility key points? I didn't see Officer Olson, and she's the carrier astrogator. Aside from that, do you have a game plan for parts one and two?" He thought on the ramifications of them bringing a virus back from the other UGM carrier. Was it like that because of a similar event? "How many assets are available to mount a counter-offensive, and do we have any hostile drones in controlled quarantine for analysis?"
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Apr 3, 2015 05:58
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Moon Carl’s suggestion is a good one, “A downed hostile drone could be useful.” She’s battered, tired, and bearing the weight of that dreadnought debacle still, but faced with a problem, her enthusiasm for Fixing It bubbles forward, “If we figure out what the programming’s priorities are, we could maybe use that to figure out how to approach. Even strong AIs become increasingly predictable if you know their priorities and proclivities, and I doubt these are using anything other than the drones’ own logic routines, redefined.” “If they want data, they’d be going for what, Okeanos’ core? Do you know what they’ve been doing since you all holed up?” She’s got her multitool out and is glaring at the tiny screen, looking at a layout of the ship, before she looks up and pardons herself and quiets down, “Sorry, I know. It’s your call, Ev.” She hasn’t live-fired a weapon outside of drills in… well, since ever, “We’re all soldiers, what’s the play?”
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Apr 3, 2015 07:08
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Alarus Alarus runs a few scans off the EW suite and comes up with nothing. He glances up at the rest of the crew. "Carl has a good point. If we had a drone Moon and I might be able to glean some info on the enemy. Could be any number of Web AI types. If I could get direct access to their network I could try to shut the thing down." Alarus kept some of his theories to himself. A non Turing compliant self replicating AI was the worst case at this point. Tangling with that thing would be difficult....at best...
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Apr 3, 2015 15:44
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Marek He stood there listening to the situation report from Everret and the plan of attack. Marek had his doubts about how effective the plan would be in practice. The situation seemed pretty bad right now, but things could be worse then they seem at the moment. "Everett, if we aren't able to take the ship back are we able to destroy all UGM assets? I know there's a contingency plan for this, but can it still be employed after all the damage the ship took? I'd rather not have to do that, but realistically we need to consider it."
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Apr 3, 2015 19:25
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"Olson's alright," Remael says, "She's down in flight ops with a couple squads of drones and two of the techs, uploading manually computed jump data into the computer. We'll be able to limp out of the system if we can take back control of the engineering section and make repairs." Everett nods at Marek, "We've got scuttling charges, but never had a chance to emplace them. Anyway, we have enough drones to take back the rear sections. Our main problem was lack of combat officers to coordinate a multi-pronged strike. With the four of you, I believe we can take back the engineering spaces. Here's my plan: the technicians and our other officers will create a blocking force at the main cradle bay access points into the forward sections of the ship. I'll lead the bulk of our assault drones into the cradle bay and make a push for the adjoining repair bay section. I don't think we can push that through, but the enemy will have to commit most of the compromised drones to keep me out." "Meanwhile, the four of you will take two squads of lynxes and a couple panthers, space-walk to the drive section, and cut through here," she says, pointing at the map display. It's one of the liquid fuel ports used to supply the main drive reactants. Breaking through will put them inside one of the honeycomb fuel storage blocks, with a straight path into the rear of the drive section. It's a reasonable plan: the storage blocks are almost the full width of the ship, and there's a lot of cover as well as space to maneuver in there. If the strike team can get inside and spread out quickly, the enemy will have to start abandoning the key engineering spaces or else face a series of hit-and-run attacks on their rear while simultaneously trying to fight Everett's assault force. "Whatever they're looking for, we have to assume they haven't got it yet," Everett says to Moon, "Or they'd probably just blow the ship up." One of the marine drones floats over with a couple of storage pods from the small arms locker. It starts breaking out the contents: clip-on armor segments and antiparticle carbines. Everett picks one of the rifles up and says, "You're all rated on these, but this isn't a drill or a range. I'll walk you through it." She hefts the weapon and points to the biometric safety pad, "It'll read your DNA through your suit before releasing the safety. In CHGD mode, it fires a charged particle bolt. It'll cut through armor like butter, burn out electronics, and start fires, but it won't work properly in vacuum. Be careful and don't overpenetrate a target. You can put a hole in something important. In APTL mode, it direct-fires an antiparticle beam. It won't defeat much armor, but it creates a contact explosion and a massive radiation surge. It'll blow a lynx to pieces, no problem." She pats the lynx floating next to her and says, "These guys are packing repeating pressor rifles, and they're accurate enough to use them in here without blowing a million holes in the ship. Let 'em do the heavy lifting, that's what they're for. Keep the panthers in reserve in case you run into something the lynxes can't handle." The weapons function as either Blaster or Pulsar Carbines (UT pg 123/124). They're semi-automatic (RoF 3). The armor clips on to an energy cloth vacc suit (such as a pilot suit) and adds DR 150 to the head, torso, and upper arms and legs.
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Apr 5, 2015 06:55
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Marek "It would be nice to have a contingency plan, since there isn't I better make sure this plan works." As the marine drone opens up a locker, Marek goes over to help distribute the armor. He didn't like the thought of entering battle like this. He much preferred having the armor of a hunter between him and any potential enemies. Fighting with hand held weapons seemed so barbaric compared to how the rest of the war played out. He began to attach armor as Everett discussed how to use the rifle. Everett seemed calm as she explained the plan and the guns. She was prepared and ready to do her part in the counter offensive. Marek hoped that he'd be as calm as she was when they engaged the enemy.
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Apr 5, 2015 23:26
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Carl He nodded at Remael's confirmation of the fleet astrogator's position and status. He bumps the lynx drone to Alarus like a hot potato. "Taking drones to fight other drones is all well and good, but considering that the drones we're fighting against also used to be UGM-aligned, I can't say that I'm optimistic about the ones we're taking with us to be protected from whatever caused the drones to go rogue in the first place. Still, I'm good to go," Carl says. "Whoever's the best shot with a rifle should probably have charged particle ready, while the rest use antiparticle. Cuts down on potential for catastrophic damage, I imagine. I'm hoping for this to be very quick." He finishes attaching the last bit of plating and switches his rifle to APTL. "I'm not a marine tactics expert, so I can't say for their objective, but let me take a quick stab at it to see if this can be used to our advantage. I can also try to identify some tactics for rapid entry and territory control, but I'm not so great on the finer points of that." I'll default a Strategy roll at -4 (technically, it is defaulting from Space specialty) to see if I can identify what the opposition force primary objective is, since that's what the Strategy skill actually does. If there's time enough, I'll also attempt a Tactics roll defaulted from Strategy at -6 to ensure that when we do get into the action, we're in an advantageous position.
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Apr 6, 2015 06:31
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Moon She turns the carbine over in her hands, trying to reacquaint herself, remember all the nuances of the weapon she’d figured out during her training, which seems incredibly long ago just now. “I don’t know that I’d worry too much about new infections – I’m guessing the most likely vector was the drone hub system in the hangar and everything ought to be in autonomous mode by now. Since they’re not being coordinated by a strong AI, their ability to make inferences is going to be fairly close to nil – it’s good, means they can’t make a call to abort and scuttle the ship if they’re overwhelmed, they’ll lack some of the precision you might be used to – but the same goes for our drones.” Sunny view of the situation. She looks to her crew and the unfamiliar sight of the armour and weapons affixed to the pilot suits and gives a firm nod. Moon doesn’t actually have many specific skills that’ll be of use here that aren’t on the basic template (unless she can use her repair or AI stuff), so she’ll be takin’ orders.
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Apr 6, 2015 19:03
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Alarus Alarus checked the drone from Carl, running a quick programming scan to seal off any backdoors in the AI code that may enable whatever is controlling the other drones to hijack their own. "If we take out one of the rogue drones try to save the data core. I'll do a scan of the code and see if I can figure out what the hell is going on." He slung the antiparticle rifle over his shoulder and attached the armor plating to his flight suit with the others. AI Programming 15, Hacking 15
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Apr 6, 2015 21:35
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"If you want a contingency plan," Everett says, pulling her ponytail back so that it can fit into the helmet she's securing back into place on her fresh vacc suit, "Have a panther fire a burst of heavy pressor darts into the reactor. They'll penetrate five or six internal compartment divisions, so we can make the shot from flight ops if we have to. Probably won't blow the ship up, but it'll vent hot plasma into every space between the cradle bay and the drive compartment." She locks a magazine of heavy rockets into her launch carbine. It's a finicky weapon, unsuited for general use, but technically part of the standard armory. Some marines prefer it because it can fire around corners, home in on enemies, and deliver a variety of unusual payloads. For the sometimes infantryman, the antiparticle gun is a lot more reliable. Remael nods at Carl but responds, "We have to assume they can't compromise our equipment just by glaring at it. If they could do that, they'd walk in here and we'd be helpless. When the drones are shut off and in their racks, they're connected to the central ship net. They must have delivered some kind of weaponized information payload to all the drone racks they were able to find on the network. Now that the ones we have left are in boarding mode, it's unlikely that they'll be subverted unless they're physically disabled first." Carl murmurs something back but is lost in thought staring at the map display. It doesn't really make any sense why the enemy halted their attack on the flight operations center. They're drones. If they'd succeeded, they'd have control of the ship. If they fail, even with their numbers depleted, they could blow the reactor or magazines and destroy the Okeanos entirely. They must have some secondary objective that requires holding the ship intact above taking immediate control of it... or they've found another way to get the required systems access without physically compromising flight ops. Either way, taking back control of the reactor and the magazines will put the ship out of immediate danger. Alarus can't find any obvious flaws in the attack surface defenses of one of the nearby drones. Which is the problem: drone AIs aren't particularly sophisticated, by intrusion resistance is one of their strongest qualities. They'll burn themselves out at the first sign of subversion. And their intrusion counter measures were designed by teams of post-sapient AIs and human AI programmers back on the garden worlds; those teams' technical expertise outclasses Web AI tech by lightyears. It's why the Web drone ships are so easy to hack into during combat, they're simply out of their league against a UGM hacker and AI team. Which raises the question: even with physical access or some kind of trojan payload, Web information warfare specialists never would have been able to compromise so many drones like this. They'd tried hundreds or even thousands of times and always failed.
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Apr 7, 2015 07:23
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Marek "At least its something," Marek replies. "It'll be enough to keep UGM assets out of the enemy's hands." Marek continues to get ready by attaching armor to his suit. "I don't think any of us four are good with firing hand held weapons. Since that's the case, I think you or Moon should carry the charged particle rifle. You two would be less likely to fire it recklessly. I'll go in first too. Its the most dangerous place to be, so I should be in that spot."
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Apr 7, 2015 20:44
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