5912/Heavy Robotic Signatures Detected
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Heavy Robotic Signatures Detected | |
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Date of Scene: | 16 June 2018 |
Location: | Origin System |
Synopsis: | Zek wants a spaceship, so he enlists some help in clearing it out. It turns out it's a bit more complicated than that. |
Cast of Characters: | Zek, Kushiko, 6381, Crys Gattz, Staren, 596 |
- Zek has posed:
The target vessel is an unnamed Corpus cargo vessel of somewhat substantial size. The ship itself is long and boxy, comprised of multiple distinct segments, with vast rectangular compartments affixed to a central spine. It isn't exactly heavily armed; it's equipped with point defense weapons, apparently for deflecting debris, and the shield technology that sheathes it in a protective barrier is only going to do so much against determined attackers.
Except Zek wants it intact, so just shooting the hell out of it is kind of out.
The Warpgate opens to a derelict station in the vicinity of Neptune. The cargo vessel has docked there for reasons unknown. Exterior viewports show its massive bulk shadowing one side of the station. The path to the airlock is pretty straightforward, with dark corridors with high-ceilings lit by dense, faintly-glowing white vine clusters growing along the ceiling. Ornamental pools of stagnant water dot the path along the way.
Zek leads the pack. He's checking corners with his assault rifle, and giving a last-second briefing on the way. So far, it's been quiet as a tomb.
<"The plan is simple,"> Zek transmits. <"I'll make my way to the bridge and lock down navigation while the rest of you draw out the security forces. Then, we exterminate the crew and secure the vessel. After enough casualties, the captain will probably call for an evacuation, especially if they spot a Warframe in action."> Apparently, their reputation is somewhat well-deserved.
Zek rounds a corner, lifts his gun, and fires a shot that barely makes a cough. There's an electronic crackling, and the sound of something plastic and metal hitting the ground heavily. A small security drone, previously hanging around the airlock, is sparking on the ground with a hole in its primary optical sensor. He moves up to it, nudges it with one foot, and then steps over to the console adjacent to the secured airlock.
<"This ship pattern is usually heavily mechanized, so there shouldn't be a lot of people aboard. Expect mostly MOA attack bipeds and Osprey drones in support. We'll talk about splitting up what we find once it's all clear."> The faceless Warframe turns its black visored head back towards the group. <"Any last-second questions?">
- Kushiko has posed:
On one hand, Corpus designs were so... /boring/ and filled with so many angular bits and the like, all the way from their ships to their weapons. They couldn't be faulted for functional. Ergonomics? ...
Nah, we'll go with profit margins.
Ignoring that, though with a slightly more pressing concern as to why it docked with a derelict as it had here, Kushiko in the guise of Mag that had arrived and kept in sync with Zek's movements, the rifle she's using one of those boxier designs--the Lanka as it is better known, but attached to her hips is something more Tenno-made, as is a strange looking shrunken down disc-looking thing on the underside of her right limb.
<"Only thing I'm wondering is why it docked here."> the other faceless Warframe notes. Well, faceless beyond that gilded monocular point in the center of hers--it's?--head. Certainly looks feminine, ninja-tabi-styled boots and all as she gives the drone a mild prod with her foot. Back to the matters at hand, she situates at the other side of the door and prepares herself.
- Nova Terra (6381) has posed:
Nova has seen her fair share of spacestations and ships, so this is nothing all that new to her. She's also worked with a Warframe in the past, so those aren't either. Nova walks up to the downed security drone, shifting her large canister rifle to rest over her shoulder. Crouching down to examine the machine, she hmms to herself, "Shouldn't be a problem..."
The warning about what to expect does draw Nova's attention, "Primarily machines?" She rises, "Damn, I hate fighting machines. Can't read them." Nova ejects her clip for a moment, checking it, before sliding it back in and loading a round.
Nova quickly raises her rifle and fires off a single shot. The 25mm bullet smashes into another security drone returning from a patrol of the station. Nova turns back to prepare for the breach, smirking at Zek, "No questions." She lowers her visor down over her eyes and readies herself.
- Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz has no issues with not shooting and she hears its mostly drones? Memories of the mines on Ragol come back to her for a moment, She has an idea of what to do as they get ready to go she looks to Zek.
"I presume if they bug out let me run?" She looks to the Target wondering for a moment about this, as she now starts to check her gear. She taps a button on her bracer. A huge claw rezzes into being the entire thing goes up her arm the entire way and looks like she just tore it off some robot, at the end are a trio of Phamic claws intended to tear through heavy combat units of flesh or metal. In her off hand appears some kind of energy pistol.
"I like machines and oh a Terran Ghost?"
She's an old elite for those who go digging there's no real hiding it. She gives the tenno a look over for a moment then seems to be ready to go.
(OOC The Fal Claw https://imgur.com/a/GcsoPFe )
- Staren has posed:
Staren's in his heavier armor at the moment. The extra defense is welcome, but partly he kind of feels like his more iconic armor might have his reputation sullied, if it's seen mowing down corpus. Although he does plan to offer them the chance to surrender. Rather than the usual energy rifle and pistol, given the briefing on the enemy's defenses, he's carrying a railgun in 'assault rifle' form-factor, and has one of the Deadalus SMGs clipped to his waist. He shakes his head at the question about questions, and then steps in front of the airlock, ready to kick down the front door.
Metaphorically speaking. He waits for Zek to operate it, obviously.
- Zwei (596) has posed:
For reasons unknown (to everyone else), by the time the whole group arrives at 'the junction of no return', a piece of the wall stops leaning on itself and stands up straight. A second later, it ceases being all gunmetal and boring brushed blue, and fizzles down to a matte black and iridescent hexagonal underlayer, so that it stops pretending to be a wall either.
<<"Actually, I've got one. How much of this ship do you need? As in, outside a secure hull and functioning engines, obviously. What're you planning to do with it?">> A tiny two-fingered wave goes in Kushiko's direction, with glossy black-clad digits, but the degree of smug behind the helmet is sadly impossible to tell, marked with only three softly glowing gold dots.
- Zek has posed:
The Warframe in the lead nods slightly at Crys. <"They can run if they want. Unless you're particularly worried about combat footage getting leaked, I don't have any reason to shoot down escape pods today."> Zek could think of a few reasons to have to, but things isn't one of those days.
<"It needs to be structurally sound with intact propulsion, life support and auxiliary power,"> Zek tells the definitely-not-smug half of Zwei. <"I was planning to remove the spine and all the cargo modules once we'd searched them, and all that extra mass and power draw being cut will drastically reduce power requirements and stress on the engines. Actually,"> he admits, <"I picked this model because it should be easy to isolate its primary reactor and remove it from the grid. I thought you might want it.">
That doesn't technically answer what he wants the ship for, but it does indicate what he plans to 'do' with it, so... half credit?
<"Yeah, I was wondering about that, too,"> Zek tells Kushiko. <"There doesn't seem to be anything here. If I had to guess, I'd say there's another ship in the station's shadow and they're up to something illegal.">
The terminal chirps as he cracks the security encryption. The second drone coming down makes his head twitch towards it, then back to Nova, nodding slightly. <"Won't matter much in a little while, though,"> he adds.
The airlock -- big enough to drive a truck through -- opens. Sections recede into the walls. A second does the same at the far end, revealing a large open area with catwalks criss-crossing the space above. The ceiling is angled upwards in a manner vaguely reminsicent of a church's interior, with massive windows along the interior slopes of the 'roof' looking out on the stars like some sort of hugely unnecessary skylights. Cargo containers are scattered around, secured to the deck but apparently organized with no particular rhyme or reason.
Zek moves in. He looks left, looks right, and then jumps straight up, vaulting twenty feet into the air and grasping a narrow protrusion in the wall. <"I don't think I need to tell any of you how to find something and shoot it. I'll link back up with you soon."> He swings around one-handed, scaling higher, and then triggers a catch and slides into a maintenance shaft just below the rooftop, letting it click closed behind him.
As for options for things to find and shoot: well, there's a few, actually. Square double doors towards the bow and stern in the far corners of the room, up on the catwalks, slide open. A pair of figures in grey environmental suits layered with armor plates over vitals and big, heavy, box-like helmets walk out of the one towards the bow. One's carrying a two-barreled (vertically-aligned) rifle, and the other is holding some kind of tablet computer in one hand, chatting in a trade language. "...margins will be through the roof after transfer. Then we can afford /real/ jobs."
The one with the rifle shrugs his shoulders. "We wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't gambled so much on the Index."
"But he said the Void would make me rich if I had faith!" the first crewman whines.
The door to the stern has, instead, four MOAs marching in formation, robots with two long legs and small 'bodies' equipped with what looks like laser turrets. There's a hovering drone above them, pointing what looks like a lighting array in cyan hues down on the MOAs' heads. They look an awful lot like a security patrol.
If anyone had planned to be sneaky for very long, that's probably about to change.
- Kushiko has posed:
If Kushiko-Mag had a sense to do something, it isn't evident in an immediate fashion, but the truth is that that familiar unit is simply tolerated for right now--had they not done what they did to help Zek, there's a non-zero chance she'd effortlessly flow into a more murderous mindset.
...alternatively that might be the part of Kushiko that is Mag that simply wants to kill.
A slight grunt comes from her through that odd little Voidal echo of hers as she watches the airlock disengage. <"Wonderful. So something to deal with after the fact."> Which may require a diversion of some kind, unless someone here has a slightly more armed ship. In the meantime as she steps through, she gives the chapel-like entry a brief, contemplative look. <"Familiar as ever,"> she murmurs, mostly to herself, but audible enough for the others. <"Give me a heads up if you need anything cracked down here,"> she calls out to Zek. Not that she expects to, given the presence of others like Zwei (and to a lesser degree) Nova here, but if she's honest she'd prefer to do it herself.
Immediately however, she takes her own leap upwards towards the catwalks for two reasons: one, she's got something of a sniping loadout. Well, technically sniping loadout. A small mechnical pulse as the Lanka charges in about a half second, and she squeezes the trigger at the same time that electromagnetic energy rises from her. A simple gesture, fingers outstretched as she drops a sphere of magnetizing energy on the MOAs themselves. Which is perfect for the shot to be caught by the field to plow into at least one of them, though only fragments of the railgun-launched projectile will remain.
... doesn't mean the spherical field doesn't remain hazardous while it stays there, and really becomes a rather excellent way for others to launch firepower into and shred the remaining MOAs.
- Staren has posed:
MOAs. As the shooting starts, Staren opens the door to the bow and levels his railrifle at the two guards. "That's the sound of us mowing down your security patrols. I'm going to give you one chance to surrender and walk away, start a new life in the Multiverse, there's a warpgate on the station." Assuming he doesn't have to cut the speech short and shoot them if they try to alert reinforcements. If they fire back at him, he keeps speeching while firing, bracing for the impacts on his armor.
- Nova Terra (6381) has posed:
As soon as the large airlock doors open, Nova is off and running. She's taking in the large room quickly, sweeping her weapon around in search of targets. None initially found, Nova darts up to one of the larger cargo containers. She presses her back against it, going still for the moment. As Zek informs them that he will return, Nova replies of the radio, "Understood."
Well, at least not all the enemies are machines. Nova's senses alert her to the presence of the Corpus crewmen even before they enter through the opening doors. The security patrol though, that she doesn't notice until she hears the clanking of their metal feet on the deck plating. Nova glances out from her cover to get an idea of the location and composition of the patrol. She doesn't recognise any of the machines, but figures she'll learn about them soon enough.
Nova opens the compartment in her wrist armour, pulling out a small spherical device. She arms the grenades and then throws it over the pile of containers she's using as cover. The device bounces into the field placed by Kushiko, attracted into the center of it and the patrol before it explodes.
After the blast from her opening attack fades, Nova leans out from her cover, raising her rifle. She pulls the trigger, the weapon spitting out another of those large bullets. But it doesn't stop with one as Nova has switched it to over to automatic. Nova handles the recoil rather impressively as she fires controlled bursts into the group of MOAs, trying to finish of any that survived the grenade.
- Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys nods to Zek. "I got no issues with letting them run. If they run they are being smart." That's all the old Elite has to say she looks at Zwei for a moment her one eyes narrows. She looks to Zwei, she's sizing her up, but she's got a mission. She seems to be moving for Staren for a moment and looks like she's ready to work with him.
"Like old times, ain't it Staren?"
She looks over at the rest of the team in turn and gets ready to move.
Crys wasn't planning to be too sneaky for too long as she keeps her weapons ready she does, however, pause for a moment she channels her internal energies for a moment and is now moving to stick to the wall and then move up to use the ceiling to get about as she keeps close to it she knows how seldom humans and the like herself? Look up. She's not yet just jumping into the fray just yet she's focused she's ready and it does not take long for her to drop in on the Moa's, putting the claw she has to use against the Moas.
- Zwei (596) has posed:
This'd be the part where it might be apt to say 'Weiss seems surprised', but there's no way to intuit that from her body language, or total lack of face. 'Sounds surprised' is partially correct, but something of a fabrication; there's no way she doesn't have total modulation control over something fundamentally fake. <<"Huh. Not that I'm complaining, but you really only need the auxiliaries? Are you planning to replace the primary power planet with something of your own? Or is this about maintaining a low power signature?">> she asks in a faintly conversational fashion, falling in with the group and moving in stride to the door.
She doesn't hide the initial impression of the cargo hold though. <<"Jeez, who builds these? Space is supposed to be at a premium on a ship, even a naval one, but this place is practically a castle. What the heck are the life support costs? Plus, giant windows looking straight into space? Are they just to show off or something?">> The fact that Kushiko says they look 'familiar' is only more bewildering. Speaking of bewildering:
<<Staren hasn't changed I see.>>
||Was there any expectation that he would?||
<<I guess it'd be strange if he did.>>
||It would be disappointing.||
Weiss takes a few accelerated steps into the cargo hold and then a short hop takes her far into the air as tiny thrusters light up blue-white on her black exoskeleton, soaring up to the relevant catwalk with such precision that it looks more like someone had been rewinded footage of her falling off of it. She completely ignores the MOAs for the moment, and instead focuses in on the two security guards, sweeping all of her currently allocated scanning power into a narrowed beam at just the two of them, ignoring the boxy helmets and instead peeking at the gooey bits behind them.
<<"Okay gentlemen, you're going to want to get off here! Unfortunately, you're also not going anywhere until you tell me what this ship is doing here, what it's carrying, why nobody else is here, where you plan on going next, and how many of you are aboard!">> Zwei doesn't /particularly/ expect they'll volunteer all the information right away, which is why Weiss is 'CAT scanning' their brainmeats for aggregated data when they're going to lie or withhold something and catch anything that passes through their thoughts at the moment.
Just to be sure however, the giant 'cathedral windows' give off a loud, resonant thump, and a large section of the tapestry of stars outside de-rezzes into a huge black shape crouched on the angled glass, staring in with burning gold 'helmet slit' optics. The implied threat is two ways: that Asche could break it at any second, and that he could easily get anyone who escapes the ship itself.
- Zek has posed:
<"I'm going to retrofit the ship with something different,"> Zek tells Weiss, speaking quietly over comms, despite his lack of a speech-generating apparatus on his Warframe. He must be being quiet, wherever he is. <"Either way, I didn't think saying thank-you would be enough.">
The shooting starts rather abruptly. The magnetic field that springs up turns to a shimmering bubble, warping light just enough to make it clear where it's been placed. The MOAs stagger under it, and their laser turrets extend and deploy, a quartet of high-pitched electronic screeches filling the room as the Corpus robots become very aware of the danger they're faced with.
Not that it really helps them. The Lanka shot neatly drops one, catapulting it off its feet and sending it in a weirdly looping fall thanks to the wonders of magical magnetism. The others begin to fire back, hosing the space around the door with pulse laser fire and raking the space between the airlock and Nova's concealed position the moment she so much as makes an indication she's extant. The drone above them turns up the intensity of its spotlight, giving them some kind of gentle glow, because apparently proper lighting is important for the Corpus?
The grenade goes off. The MOAs scatter, two of them running towards stairs leading to the deck, and the third trying to limp across the catwalk from the damage it's obviously sustained. One half of it is shredded from the blast; the rest is mostly intact. Surprisingly, the grenade didn't do as much damage as one would expect... and it didn't touch that drone that's hovering around them, silently shining that kind of weird spotlight down on the robotic units.
They move to flank. Shots rain down from above, but Nova's canister rifle hammers shot after shot into the damaged MOA and, with a crackle and a flicker of cyan light, breaches the shield and tears it to pieces. The other two are nearing ground level, but Crys gets into the mix, knocking one off its feet and finding her claw's edges having a hard time penetrating the shield. When she puts enough force into it, she punches through, finding the armor beneath it an easier victim for claw-based robotic evisceration, taking it out of combat remarkably quickly.
The Crewmen, meanwhile, do what Crewmen do: they freak out. The one with the datapad looks up, stunned, and then bolts for the door. The other one swings up his two-barreled plasma rifle and starts laying into Staren with a respectable amount of automatic weapons-fire. The exchange of fire goes poorly for him, though, and one of the traded shots punches through his physical armor and drops him behind a metal plate on the catwalk.
- Zek has posed:
The panicked Crewman gets behind cover, not quite reaching the door, ending up using a vertical container as a piece of concealment. "Who in the Void are you people?!" he yells, shouting in that sharp-sounding trade language, his voice metallic from the helmet he's wearing. "I'm not telling you anything!!"
'...they should have offloaded the kid by now,' he's thinking. 'Just gotta hold out until they're back...' Weiss gets the impression he's working on some kind of delaying tactic, and that the cover he's behind is not actually just a big metal box.
The other guy isn't thinking much of anything, except that he's using emergency supplies to stop the awful bleeding. He's not dead, but he's too injured to do much besides battlefield triage and keep one hand on his weapon. He /really/ wants to shoot Staren again, though.
Alarms start to go off, buzzing angrily in the background. There's another electronic shriek from the door to the stern. It swings open, and another quartet of MOAs charge in, scattering through the room. They start laying down fire on the ground floor, while a larger, red-suited Crewman behind them steps out through the door behind them, swinging a triple-barreled energy weapon into line and promptly dumping a frankly unreasonable amount of laser fire down-range towards Weiss. The injured Crewman scrambles to get further away from her while that happens. Friendly fire is never actually that friendly.
- Kushiko has posed:
<"Tch."> This is the kind of verbal response that is all that Kushiko feels like giving at this point, because with the oncoming herd of MOAs, squawking and throwing down so much pulsefire amidst the alarms going off, something doesn't feel right about this little situation.
A glint of her shields as some of that firepower the angry birds seem intent on delivering, and abruptly Kushiko twists, launching herself forward rapidly towards the door to the stern. But as she does so, she releases another bundle of electromagnetic energy for a multipurpose reason. It *sounds* like an audible shockwave as she drops from her launch forward, planting two hands on the catwalk's surface as the release of energy--polarizing energy--to let it cascade over much of the cargo room itself, though the lion's share of the focus is on the MOAs amidst the Corpus.
This particular instance of her electromagnetic mastery plays out in that energy pulse that can very well disable lesser robotic foes, paralyzing them and making them unable to fight back. Oh, and it'll end up jamming some guns while doing a handy, /nasty/ job of killing their shields--and adding those same shields to others here, if they have the capacitance for it.
Even if they don't, some still might get a rather nice jolt of energy to their systems. <"Hit 'em hard!">
- Staren has posed:
The fleeing crewman is extraordinarily lucky, at least for several seconds. Then he probably becomes very unlucky. "Well. I guess that's that, then." Staren sighs, reaches into his bag, and throws a plasma grenade over the cover the guy is hiding behind.
Then reinforcements come in, and Staren fires a wild burst of railgun slugs in their general direction to make them keep their heads down (do MOAs' programming even care?) before running to get behind one of the cargo containers in the entry room.
From there he can play COVER SHOOTER 2018 with the moas. The front of his armor is already scuffed, scratched, and dented from the first guy's fire -- Staren tries not to add to that.
"Same deal to you!" He shouts to the guy in red. "Surrender and leave, you can't win this!"
- Crys Gattz has posed:
the Battle is joined and Crys is working she has to deal with a very different type of shield than she's used to it. She does well enough putting the claw to use and it soon finds she's having a lot better luck as she gets through the shield and she will soon be springing for another one, firing a pistol at the next few drones to comes with them. She's got to admit these guys are packing better hardware than she though and it's likely? Non Elites would be having a hell of a time busting in like this.
More MOA's and crewmen arrive, with some of those Crewmen packing far heavier weapons. It seems things are heating up now at this point and there's even more Moa's.
"ZONDE!"
That's when the lighting flies from her fingertips into the now larger mass of MOA's its time to see how good the Corpus is about surge protector use.
- Zwei (596) has posed:
<<"Well then, far be it from me to decline~">> Weiss says back to Zek, doing a little fake curtsy despite the fact there's no way he can see it through the comm. <<"Consider us even, then~">> Keeping up a little radio conversation on the side is a trivial use of computing resources. No reason not to show some gratitude.
Pretty soon she's staring down a terrified crewman though, tilting her head slowly as he rambles while wearing a helmet that makes her somehow even more faceless than him. She leaves the one bleeding on the ground, but the toe of her armoured boot slips under his gun and kick-flips it into the air, where she grabs it in her off hand and links to its targeting computer. Given any kind of charging handle whatsoever, she'll pull it just for dramatic effect.
<<"Oh, you're telling me whether you actually do it or not. Who's this kid? More Tenno? Do you have a collection of them or something, still in their original packaging?">> Unless she gets an immediately useful answer, she puts the punctuation mark on that sentence with a one-handed pivot of the stolen weapon and a loud shot through the Corpus crewman's thigh. <<"C'mon, you're a day away from changing jobs, right? Why die now? Isn't that kind of cliche?">> While she's talking however, still reading the crewman's thoughts, Asche perched like a gargoyle on the glass is focused on the container, firing his own tactical scanners through it to assess what could be inside the thing, and if it's a hazard Weiss needs to be stepping away from.
||Security alert throughout the ship. Likely to elevate to full lockdown if not addressed within the next 360 seconds.||
<<Kind of busy though. Can't the murderhobos handle it?>>
||Shooting, yes. The entire situation, unlikely.||
<<Okay. I can't exactly ignore this guy just yet. 45 seconds until I scout for a security console. 90 seconds until aborting interrogation, allowing a 30 second capture window after. I'll pick a console within 160 seconds total travel.>>
||Standby for castle procedures.||
When the big guy gets his target lock on Weiss, Asche disappears from the outer window with a splash of red tint to the blue planet outside, and then drops his bulk straight just past the catwalk inside, landing on a stacked cargo container just high enough to screen Weiss with his body, and carving deep gouges into it with his full weight on those talon-like feet. His center mass, all sloped and angled torso and shoulder plating, is what eats the barrage of fire. The translucent hexagonal weave coruscates and sparks white under the carbon black, spreading small ripples of light across the armour's surface where the bolts shower down on it, quickly starting to look like a constellation of glowing coals, and starting to smoke and smell like one too.
The barrage is going to be promptly terminated when Asche levels an oversized arm, depresses his wrist, and briefly punctuates the sound of Corpus weapons fire with the sharp, high-pitched, electrical bark of a low-yield RAISER being fired. Once. Center mass. Fusion payload. It'll get slightly more loud if Weiss actually has to abandon /her/ job too and shoot Staren's grenade out of the air too, given she is trying to interrogate here.
- Nova Terra (6381) has posed:
The pulse laser fire from the MOAs isn't that heavy, so Nova handles it by remaining behind her cover while she trades fire with her rifle. The fact that her bullets aren't going straight through right from the beginning doesn't go unnoticed, "These things have shields too!?" It's while Nova is reloading, sliding a new clip into her rifle, that Kushiko makes the group aware of her plan. Plotting to take advantage of it, Nova activates her cloak, the field of blue light washing over her as it makes her invisible.
The MOAs are likely left firing at Nova's former position as she stalks around the cargo bay, quickly making her way towards a new firing angle for a better advantage.
Slipping behind a new cargo container, Nova invisibly crouches and raises her rifle to aim at the new MOAs. She waits intently as she stares down her scope, holding fire and hiding her position until the right moment...
... The energy pulse is unleashed, at which point Nova fires off a shot before switching targets and firing another. She's aiming for the MOAs' turrets, the only obvious vulnerable point that she can identify. With each shot, her cloak shimmers, briefly revealing her location.
- Zek has posed:
<"Great."> Zek sounds quietly relieved, like it was a weight off his shoulders. <"Just let me know if there's anything else you're looking for.">
Electromagnets get heavily involved very suddenly. The combination of Kushiko's magnetic powers combined with Crys' somewhat more legitimately magical lightning does exactly what you'd expect to a bunch of robots: it scrambles the hell out of all their useful functions. The MOAs start firing wildly rather than in some kind of focused attack pattern, their basic flanking maneuvers turning into chaotic wheeling as they rush around, throwing sparks and turning the whole room into a more dangerous kill zone than it was before. At least it's not as focused?
Staren and Nova exchange fire with the scrambled MOAs, and without their shields, it goes over much, much better. The turrets come off one after another, the vulnerable points of contact blasted off by precision fire. The MOAs on the ground floor get shot down by Staren, clearing the ground and keeping them from suffering an unfortunate flanking attack. It turns out that they /don't/ have any sense of self-preservation; they're actually just a bunch of dumb attack drones with no real intelligence to speak of, and put themselves into harm's way if it means a better firing solution. In a long span of frenzied fire, the chamber is largely cleared of MOAs, with the remainder lacking weapons with which to threaten anyone, staggering around drunkenly as they struggle to do anything at all.
Weiss menaces a Crewman, backed into a corner while his injured buddy is uselessly trying to keep himself from bleeding to death. He is absolutely thinking 'surrender' but can't make his voice work enough to insist upon it. The container, meanwhile, is actually stuffed full of collapsed, ready-to-deploy drone units, each of them equipped with some kind of miniaturized mine layer. They're in an active power cycle right now, coming online pretty quickly.
"I, I -- Agh!!" Getting shot in the leg does not do wonders for the Crewman's morale. He grabs at it and backs himself into a corner, whimpering. "Not -- no! Why would they be -- /them/!" The undercurrent of fear at the mere idea that they'd have Tenno is easily detectable. So is the fragments of thoughts, bits drifting between awful jolts of red-hot pain: '-- trouble than they're worth I'm gonna die oh Void don't let me should've never taken this job Nef Anyo doesn't pay enough --'
Asche body-blocks the heavy automatic fire. The red-armored Corpus touches something on a panel on his arm, and a pair of drone units detach from a backpack he's toting around, shining those blue-tinted spotlights on him. He takes hold of his gun again -- and then promptly gets shot in the chest, catapulted backwards through the door with a bright flash of electric blue. The drones follow, lazily floating along. The door automatically slams shut between him and the room.
Zek's voice comes over comms: <"Bridge secured. Looks like the captain isn't here, though. That's weird, right?">
As if to punctuate this weirdness, a barrage of plasma fire comes hurtling through the airlock, shredding cargo containers and ripping apart the sides of the already-tortured catwalk Asche landed on, making the entire middle swath of the room that /seemed/ safe a kill zone really quickly. The distant yells in that Corpus trade language aren't clearly audible, but they're coming from the derelict the group boarded from, seem to be heavily armed, and sound absolutely pissed.
- Kushiko has posed:
There's something of a twofold thing here needing to be done--while in some circumstances the notion of letting the alarms run was good for say, getting a target you /wanted/ to come out, in this situation, it was not quite as good.
And just as she suspected, leaving the alarms on as long as they have been presents the group with the following situation. But that doesn't mean that they can't take advantage of it. <"Try and keep them occupied! We have an idea."> And with that said, she swaps weapons first and hunts down--using her suit's sensors--a nearby security console. But as she swaps weapons, there's a simple reason for it--it won't do much /but/ when she makes that circular thing on her wrist expand and unfold into her hand, she gives it a hard /toss/, sending it into the barrage of firepower coming in, the blade rebounding and richocheting before returning to her as she hustles to a terminal.
A terminal that she rapidly works at to quickly breach and gain access to two key things: first, airlock control. To preferably slam it closed on an unfortunate MOA or another crewman. The other would be to really screw with what the security systems are saying about where the group is.
- Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz notices the MOA's are getting dumber for lack of a better term and she'll make use of it. They are going all over the plac,e and now it's a more dangerous kill zone that mich is clear,. She takes several hits, her personal shield lessen the damage but the shots breach them and she takes a nasty hit, she's slowing down a bit from that but given her experiance she's able to push through it and then she weapon changes from her terrible claw and pistol. The new weapon that appears in her hands? It's a huge double handed chainsword, but less clunky than the Imperium of Man models, she turns it on and is quick to wade into the MOA's swinging it, aiming to cut down hopefully several in a swing or two.
- Nova Terra (6381) has posed:
The MOAs are dwindling and the large Corpus crewman is sent flying like a ragdoll in an exagerated physics engine. Nova takes a few moments to breathe... Only for plasma fire to start streaking into the room. Nova holds position behind her trusty cargo containing cover... Only for it to betray her and crumble under the onslaught! One of the plasma bolts strikes Nova, who grunts in pain even as her cloak shimmers from the disruption.
Letting the invisibility field fade away once more, Nova jumps up from her now holed cover, moving towards the corridor to the airlock. She stops just short of it, pressing herself up against the wall next to the interior set of doors.
Nova glances down at the sizzling scorch mark on her suit. The pain is sharp, but tolerable for the moment. Seeing Kushiko going for a terminal, hopefully to close the airlock, Nova attempts to buy her the time she needs. Nova reaches for one of the cylinders attached to her leg. Pulling it free, she throws it down the airlock corridor towards the approaching enemies.
Another grenade, this one explodes in a dazzling display of energy, disrupting organic senses and mechanical sensors alike. A high-tec flash grenade if you will.
- Staren has posed:
Moas don't dodge. Good to know.
And then reinforcements come from the last direction expected: Outside?! With plasma rapidly shredding his cover, Staren doesn't have long to come up with a solution. Unfortunately, he doesn't see a way to seal the airlock off quickly, so he settles for the best idea he can think of: Reaching into his bag and then running for cover, tossing a ball-like object through the airlock in passing.
It's like a flashbang that keeps going, the device a combination of powerful but compact cameras, lights, and speakers that detect eyes and optic lenses (aside from the party's) and shine blindingly bright lights in them, while emitting a deafeningly loud buzz.
Ideally, this would be enough to subdue a small crowd of people... but armed corpus may be a bit much for this riot control tool. Enough blind fire or clever use of moas or other gadgets can probably destroy it.
Still, that hopefully takes more than enough time for Staren to take cover in the room where Weiss is interrogating people and reload the magazine. "What do we have to sat to get your friends to give up already? Geeze!"
- Zwei (596) has posed:
<<"Oh good.">> Weiss says to the downed crewman, leaning over with her hands on her knees. <<"That makes this way less complicated. Answer the following: what is Nef Anyo paying you to do?">> Zwei has heard that name before, and so latches onto it the moment Weiss picks it up.
The questioning is only briefly interrupted when Asche reaches his enormous arm backwards, pivoting his shouder far beyond the human range of motion, and grabs hold of the drone container, letting it cook for just a couple of seconds before fastball hurling it into the airlock, directly into the path any incoming troopers will have to take, and splattering the mines inside wall to wall; the drone part is basically irrelevant. ||"Advise full disengage from the station, or else full decompression of cargo bay, Zek. Doing battle here continues to increase the likelihood of superstructure failure."||
Weiss slings the (less) injured crewman over her shoulder after that, descending from the catwalk right about when it's fit to violently collapse. <<"You know, if you tell me everything now, I won't have to abduct you, right?">>
- Zek has posed:
Crys cleans up the MOAs that are still wandering around before they get their robotic wits about them. This turns out to be a really good idea, because they start to close to melee to jump kick people instead of standing and shooting as soon as their weapons are totally disabled, so clearing the floor is a good idea. They turn out to be easy targets, unskilled in any kind of melee combat, and really unsuited for it besides.
Filling a narrow space with methods of dissuading an enemy advance turns out to work both ways. Riot control weapons and a high-tech flashbang go out, elliciting yells from the Corpus crew on the far side of the airlock. Glimpses down that direction will see several of the red-suited individuals, and someone in heavier armor wearing some kind of angular helmet, but they're not straying out from cover anymore. Shots return intermittently, keeping suppressing fire splashing across the edges of the airlock.
Kushiko has a hell of a time getting to that panel. Her Glaive goes bouncing, and it comes back by the time she's started working on the panel, one blade wet with blood. Fortunately, it turns out that one is already cracked, and she gets in remarkably easily, starting to seal the airlock --
-- which then fills with partly-activated Ospreys and lots and lots of mines. They go everywhere, blanketing the far side of the airlock and the interior of it. The door cycles behind it, sealing up with some more scattered fire.
The panicked and now injured crewman doesn't know what to say to Staren, making a pained and puzzled noise. He twitches his blank-faced, mask-and-helmet-wearing head towards Weiss, then away, then towards Weiss again. "D... deliver the kids to his people?" A beat. He cringes, raising his hands defensive. "Th-the Mycona kids! And some relic or, or something!" He makes a very undignified noise when he gets treated like a sack of potatoes.
<"Roger. Engaging engines. You might feel a little jolt,"> Zek reports.
There is a very large jolt.
The entire ship shakes, and there's a sound of tearing metal that reverberates through the bay. The umbilical connecting the ship and the derelict juts out into space, and the airlock displays a slew of warnings, having gone into an emergency lockdown mode now that it's been damaged. As it clears the station, through the transparent ceiling sections, a briefly-visible shape of another Corpus vessel accelerating in the other direction can be glimpsed.
The alarms change tone. It goes from an intruder alert to an emergency evacuation notice. That's probably better than the alternative.
- Kushiko has posed:
Far and away, even Kushiko herself is surprised by the Ospreys and the mines they use going /tumbling/ there. She sweeps her hands over the holographic displays she summoned, largely to check to make sure--at least from here, that there's a positive seal--good, good. And the other, to check on the general layout of the ship--just in case.
And then there is that /jolt/. She actually has to brace herself, planting a hand and using a magnetic charge to keep herself from tumbling, though it does make her bend forward, nearly flailing before righting herself once more. Once she's sure that the 'jolt' is through, she relaxed. Relatively.
<"...Well, at least this is somewhat better,"> she dryly says, the frown audible in her voice, with or without having a face to present to others. She turns to Staren and Weiss' interrogation of the Having A Very Bad Day Corpus, finally able to pay attention at least to what's been said. The Mycona? Kids? She gives the tri-bladed weapon a slight twirl--the weapon floating slightly amidst her fingertips to shake off the blood from it before it compresses down and reattaches to her wrist.
<"Everyone alright, and are we going to have any problems getting somewhere this ship can be retrofitted?"> The latter part is more to Zek than the other Elites here; the general evacuation alert is somewhat concerning, if she's going to be honest, heading over to check on Crys and Nova among the others.
- Nova Terra (6381) has posed:
Nova replies to the suppression fire with her own, leaning out from the behind the airlock bulkheads to fire bursts back at the Corpus party. Forced back behind her cover again when a shot comes close. She's careful to avoid aiming in Kushiko's direction, or her Warframe at any rate.
Then the sudden charge of flying robots and their mines. If those things get close... It's at that point that the airlock doors thankfully seal. And soon enough, the ship shudders as it pulls free of the dock. The evacuation alarm begins to sound, Nova noticing those crewman remaining on onboard beginning to jump ship so to speak. Nova hopes any robots left behind can be dealt with without needing to get aggressive.
Nova slowly lowers her rifle, letting the barrel rest against the floor as she slumps a little against the wall. She moves her free hand down to the plasma burn on her side. A wince from the pain. But at the enquiry from Kushiko, Nova looks up and replies, "I'll live."
- Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz finishes purging the MOA's and will banish her chainsaw weapon again she doesn't go unarmed as a sabre appears in hand, with some sort of energy blade, givne the suriving Corpus who can are running? She's please but she's also hurt she's got hit by some of the Corpus weapons and her own shields only stopped a portion of it. She seems to be settling down now as her one good eye looks about she'll look over to Kushiko.
"I'm going to need to hit the med bay, damn those guns hit harder than I though.
"Sounds like there's more to this than just some shady deal..."
She looks over to Nova.
"Not bad, at all."
- Staren has posed:
At last the door is closed. Someone must have gotten control of the ship's systems! ...And then Staren falls over as the ship takes off. As he goes down, wings and thrusters start to activate, but it's too late and over two hundred pounds of armor only make it worse. *KLANG* He picks himself up and looks at the guard who was hoping to shoot him. "Consider yourself lucky. It's over. Just get to an escape pod or something already."
He heads over to where Weiss and the other guard are. "Alright, so what's this about kids? Where on the ship are they and why are you delivering kids to people?"
- Zwei (596) has posed:
||Ship is fully decoupled from derelict dock.||
<<Supposedly derelict, anyway.>>
||It certainly isn't habitable now.||
<<Point, I guess.>>
Weiss brings the injured and probably terrified crewman down to the scorched and pockmarked area outside the now-closed docking bay, dumping him out for Staren to take care of (probably medically) and clapping her hands as if there were dust on them. Asche rumbles back to Zek in his usual like a disintegrating diesel engine. ||"The life support appears to be holding. There is no major hull damage, discounting the potential for it being caused by this type of piloting. Second vessel is retreating, not pursuing to engage. If you wish to perform a thorough inventory check, gaining several AU from Neptune would be advised, before a full spinal purge can begin. Please keep sensors active. I will move to intercept in the unlikely circumstance we are followed."||
<<"There we go, was that so hard~?">> Weiss chimes to the guy she'd shot through the leg. Rather than getting all edgy and dangerous about him talking about kids as cargo though, she only very briefly continues with one last question. <<"Would you know where they'd happen to be if they're still on board? I'd like to imagine they're out of my hair, since you seemed so confident the trade must have already wrapped up, but let's double check before we go ejecting cargo.">>
- Zek has posed:
<"Right. I'm setting a course in now. There are some solar rails that haven't been used in a while around here that aren't in the nav logs; we'll move over there and then check it all over."> Zek is being thorough. <"Active lifesigns and mechanical signatures on the ship are diminishing, though. Looks like nobody is sticking around if they don't have to.">
The injured and clearly freaked-out crewman shakes his head and raises his hands defensively, once he's back in a position where that's possible. "Th-they've already been offloaded! I don't know what they want, he paid for discretion and I just handle inventory. We just, you know... we go that way for biomatter, usually!" He points (slowly) towards the dropped tablet a ways away. "He, he bought the space, we provided it, we brought the cargo, he paid really, really well. That's all. That's all!"
He hesitates. "Uh... starboard pod three, opposite isolation storage. It should be... should be empty now, though."
- Staren has posed:
Staren applies nanobandages. They can't actually remove bullets, but they'll stop bleeding and keep the crewmen from getting worse. They'll have to either try their luck in an escape pod or wait for an elite to get them back to the warpgate network, though... "Don't try anything." He picks up the tablet, almost offers it to Zwei, then remembers she can just kind of read it anyway, and goes to confirm that the... 'biomatter' has indeed already been passed on.
Which is kind of concerning. He'll check that tablet too, and see who's selling kids to Nef Anyo. Some kind of kidnapping ring they need to take down?
- Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz trots over to the crewman pointy ears hotpants and all as she moves to squat by the crewman. "Your smart enough to co operate with us. I'd advise you are more careful about the jobs you take in the future." She notes to him she looks to Staren who has the guys wounds handled for now and she just remains here to keep an eye on the guy.
- Nova Terra (6381) has posed:
Seems like the surviving crewman is the place to be right now. Picking her rifle up once more, Nova walks over to join the others. She knows that Weiss has been the one interrogating him and so looks at her, "Has he given you everything that you require?" Her question denotes an offer to obtain more if necessary.
- Kushiko has posed:
A slight nod towards Crys and Nova respectively, before listening in and... staring at what Staren's doing. Well. Staring in a way, given her largely faceless visage. She's caught up. Frankly she thinks they should kill the Crewman but the current topic at hand keeps her from voicing this. At least, you know, publically...
This is really weird to her, but after a moment she simply shrugs, before heading off to go check out the pod mentioned. She can probably take some scans of it and the surrounding area if there's anything residual there, right?
- Zek has posed:
The tablet is still unlocked from the previous activation. It is in fact an inventory list, detailing what's in each cargo container:
P1: Cryotic cells (30 ct.)
P2: EMPTY
P3: Myconian technocyte goods (see capt. log)
[ISOLATION PROTOCOL // HAZARDOUS MATERIALS]
S1: Ferrite, unprocessed (8t)
S2: EMPTY
S3: Nef Anyo noggles (12,000 ct.)
Actually going down there involves going through the door towards the stern, travelling the now-deserted spine of the ship to get to the various cargo pods. Holographic signs numbering them in Corpus numerals along with scannable points indicating the contents are on each door. Port-side pod number three, the rearmost one on that side, is marked with hazard signs and is quite thoroughly locked. The one opposite that... isn't.
Inside is a number of stacked crates with Corpus script on them. Behind those is a small cluster of half a dozen bunks and some scattered toys and personal effects, all child-sized. On a small table is a piece of paper with a crayon drawing of a stick figure family with a stick figure girl being dragged away by a large red man with a triangular hat on his head.
Meanwhile, Zek enters the room from the bow-side door. He hops down to the floor and hustles over to the sitting crewman, crouching next to him. The crewman visibly recoils at the proximity of the Warframe. Zek's Warframe gestures at the crewman politely, and he asks, voice issuing from his helmet comm, <"Excuse me, but is it okay if I have this ship? I told someone I would ask.">
The crewman stares dumbly at him and, very slowly, nods his head.
Zek claps his hands together. <"Great! Thank you very much."> He stands up and bows deeply, much to the confusion of the Corpus on the floor.
- Staren has posed:
"Holy fuck." Staren stares at what is very clearly noq-empty quarters for a half-dozen kids. The corpus are /actually trafficking children/. Is this a regular thing or a one-time thing? Does it matter? <"We need to hold onto this pod for a bit. We should have Flamel check it for psychic residue to tell us what the hell is going on here!"> He accidentally raises his voice for the last part. Then takes a deep breath as he heads for the bridge. <"Does this place have security camera footage? Maybe they didn't wipe it yet...">
- Kushiko has posed:
It's hard to say what's more perplexing--checking out the pod itself and the strange Technocyte goods themselves, which makes her frown at the information her scanners are giving her...
... or the drawing. If her brow could visibly furrow it would now. She uses her own scanner, her sensors to take a holographic image of everything, before actually touching anything directly. The drawing, the actual setup for the kids to be here.
Even to Weiss, and Nova--who knows, they might be correlating and helping sometime soon. Much as she might not /like/ Weiss--there's potentially something more important going on here, and them being able to work on this along with others means there's more general analysis devoted to it.
<"Need to run a full analysis on the 'Myconia' supplies. At least they're following protocol for transporting it."> What goes unsaid is how that stuff is basically part of what she and Zek's Warframes /are/ but that doesn't need dwelling on.