2071/MISSION: Ring of Thorns (2)

MISSION: Ring of Thorns (2)
Date of Scene:	21 April 2015
Location:	Flotilla Space
Synopsis:	The Starbound Flotilla pursue the Ring of Thorns, an Avian pirate gang, along with a few of their allies... a bit more aggressively, this time.
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, Staren, 320, 343, 428, 571, 626, Starbound Flotilla, 673, Corona Arclite, 750

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Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    RING OF THORNS
    "THE POULTRY SECTION"

    This planet is a frozen hole. A vast expanse of tundra, the rolling snowy plains, make for a hell of a surface to deal with. The Flotilla is all here; though many associates are still sticking to the orbital areas, the Core Fleet and many participants are all heading down to something closer to the surface, a proper engagement distance. Due to the sheer destruction rained upon the Chop Shop, this particular Ring of Thorns base is on a higher alert, with anti-air defenses active, but it should still be fine for an on-foot raid.

    Speaking of the base, it's in classic Avian style. Mesoamerican stone-like structures, mayan-esque layout and design, carvings and statues, but there's heavy, large gems apparently in use as power sources and projectile emitters for large stone machines here. It's got all the necessities of a long-term pirate base. Massive hangars, huge residential areas, agricultural centers, and loot storing areas scattered all around. The six CORE FLEET ships, along with the ships of all those who have come along for the raid, are likely all available for the shipless to deploy from, meaning that those aboard can easily teleport themselves to the surface without issue, as long as they're teleporting to around the edge of the large base. For those with heavy-duty vehicles such as Rebecca Kismarin, Albert's even fitted his ship with a sky-drop pod to help her deploy straight to the surface!

    "Alright! One more time. We're here for ships. They've stolen 'em, we're stealin' 'em back. But any extra loot, we're gonna be splitting up, so grab /all/ of it you can. Blackout, Kyra, and Zwei managed to steal a ship from them that lead us here, but it was punchy enough that they're gonna be high strung. Can't imagine why!" George's casual, cheerful voice calls out over the inter-ship intercoms. "These guys have loot, they have cash, they have ships, might even be some hostage prisoners needing rescue if you're really into that sort of thing. Most important thing is, get in, smash, grab, and get out. And have some fun! These are just pirates, y'know, not anything wrong with letting off a little steam. Watch out, though, these ones bring out some heavy weaponry."

    The ships are closing in now. "Arm up, grab a cold-protection nanoskin or snow infantry gear, and get ready. ETA's a minute tops or somethin'. Jump on a teleport pad and key in the data when you're ready to drop." Speaking of the ships and the teleport pads, those coming here aboard the Starbounder ships will find that they're fairly roomy, wide, and long double-chambered SPARROW-CLASS SHIPS, full of comfortable but secure seating outside the cockpit, as well as a tech station for them to get a nanoskin dispensed from, and a little teleporter pad that should be easy to operate to get down to the surface.

Corona Arclite has posed:
This was a big deal. Thieving pirates was right up there with the large scale gangs back home, and that was all the reason Corona needed to join in on the party, meeting with the rest of the Flotilla with her refurbished Novakid spaceship. It's the one that looks like a classic steam locomotive on the ouside, contary to it's insides.

More importantly, she decided to bring an extra bit of muscle of her own, and even got two cold weather suits from Moonfin for it. "They ain't the Purple Dragons," she had explained to Rebound, "but they're cut from the same sorta stinky cloth. In space. Ya can beat them up to your heart's content and take their stuff."

Once they were suited up she keyed up the teleporter and beamed down to where the rest of the group was meeting on the snowy surface, expecting Rebound to be not far behind her.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Waiting on the ships, Alexis slams a new magazine and a full power pack into her coilgun, the EM GASH giving an electronic whine as she chambers the rifle. She folds her mask back into place, her armor covered up in cloth and enviroment-regulating modules installed. Taking out pirate groups is something Alexis Maaka's quite amendable to, so she has no objections or questions.

    "I got the anti-air defenses, I came prepared." She says, tapping the C4 she brought along for the ride. As she equips a nanoskin in case her suit is damaged, she approaches a teleporter pad, waiting for the go-ahead to hit the ground.

    Once coordinates are set into the console, Alexis waits for the teleporter to get her groundside. "Here we go..."

Rebecca Kismarin (343) has posed:
     Rebecca respectfully declines any sort of ride in, as the 'Hand of Iapetus' is carrying the Captain's armory. The massive dropship burns into atmo with the rest of the descending vessels, the huge cargo bay doors in the back between the engines splitting open. The cavernous hangar is devoid of any life or crew, the technicians on board having sealed themselves away from the icy chill through airlocks. All that remains is a trio of vehicles. Three HERCs, a quadrupedal Mantis chassis, a slim and gangly Sensei chassis, and dwarfing the two combined, a thick and stocky Apocalypse.

     "Signals are green. Life support compensating with thermal shielding. LZ acquired. Dropping in three..."

     "Two..."

     "One."

     For a bunch of bricks, they fly pretty good. The trio of HERCs step out of the dropship as it remains in motion, falling together, microthrusters and gyrostabilizers managing to keep them upright. They land about as hard as thirty, fifty, and one hundred ton bricks would be expected to, sending plumes of frozen ground straight up into the air on impact. Single-use gravity dampeners soften the landing and the HERC's leg flexors do the rest. One by one, they stand, almost a duo of AT-AT's with an AT-ST running by their side. The little one's bunny ear sensor arrays extend and initiate scans from behind the line of the two.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
===ABOARD THE BLACK SUN===

Flint and several members of the maintenance crew are all gathered around what is probably the worst looking small vessel that has ever been pulled out of space. It's a small transport wing, meant for quick hauls and courier service between small systems.. Flint is inspecting it and he says, "Nono. It needs to be more on fire. And make it look crappier."

"Sir, that's as crappy as she gets. We could slather some burn paste to the hull and then it'll ignite in orbit, though. That'll make her much more fiery," Says a technician with a datapad while the two inspect the ship. Flint nods his head, "Let's go with that."

===FROZEN CRAPSACK PLANET===

A flaming small-transport descends into atmosphere from orbit. It has no subtlety, no espionage, and is actually very LOUDLY broadcasting its existence to the pirate base. Flint Hawke's voice rings out, "Mayday, mayday. This is Juniper's Comet, small systems transport. We just got caught in a solar blast while warping and our systems are fried. We're hauling 20 tons of purified ores that need to get to their processing plants. Please help us."

The ship SLAMS into the ground in an impact that would kill almost anyone piloting it on impact. Luckily, the pilot has a Pure based solely on the concept of survival, and so Flint simply lays slumped over the steering wheel, feigning unconsciousness while he waits for the pirates to come investigate the sweet prime target he dropped right on their doorstep.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Amongst the Sparrow-class ships of the Flotilla is a Starling-class, which happens to be the very ship that Juno swiped during the commotion at the Chop Shop yesterday. It has a blue and grey exterior, clearly of Hylotl make due to its conspicuous shark-like shape, complete with dorsal fin. The ship itself is also encumbered with thick, woody vines, giving it a gnarled appearance. At first glance it almost looks like one of those oddly-shaped fish that live at the bottom of the ocean where light does not penetrate.

    "I know, right?" Kyra laughs over the radio, "Extort someone with nuclear weapons and suddenly they get so serious. Hey Pavo, you know the shot?"

    Before they set out, Kyra had met with Pavo and given her a syringe filled with hazy white liquid as a 'gift'.

    "You should probably use it before we disembark. It's got some fun buffs in it but more importantly, it's a fast-working vaccine against the flu I made for the other Avians. An Avian flu, if you would! Granted, if you do get sick, it won't kill you but it will give you a very unpleasant time, which you don't need when being shot at."

    Additionally, the prior night she had Moonfin and Biteblade help her figure out the controls on the ship. It was pretty painful, actually-it's clear she's never piloted anything before. But she knows where to find the nanoskin dispenser and the teleporter pad now. She hits the first and then the second, arriving all geared up with...well she appears to be carrying two grenade launchers now. The CURE-ALL is on her back, obviously the CURE-ALL because it's shiny and golden. The other appears to be a gas canister launcher, on closer inspection.

Rebound (750) has posed:
    "Not sure how I feel about getting my particles all transported, but if it works on Space Heroes I'm sure it'll work here." Rebound says, as she follows Corona back into the teleporter room. Once they hit the surface, she was really shocked with just how...Miserable. She's seen New York in some of the worst winters she's ever encountered. And this beast that by a lot. Thank goodness for the cold weather suit as she hops up to where Corona is.

    "Holy hell, I knew this place would be miserable but I didn't think it'd be this bad!" She calls out over the whipping wind, trying to keep close and not lose sight of her vulpine friend in the snow as they look to group up with the others and assault this pirate base. At least she knows a thing or two about assaulting bases.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is making ready to deploy at this point she's got an idea of what she needs to do as she stands on her ship's teleporter. She's clad in a cold weather outfit that's got some very badass snowgoggles which are pulled down over her eyes for now. She make sure eveyrthing is done up and checks her gear before she makes ready to drop in. Her own Sparrow-Class ship the bluenose.

She now just waits for it as she gets ready to beam down, all her gear is ready, her optic cameo is set. It's time to get to work at this point. She just waits for the signal to beam down.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    Cold-resistant Nanoskin applied and AI helpers primed for emergencies, Rory rides down to the planet on a beam of light. She's wearing all sorts of belts with survival gear. All sorts of weird blobjects dangle from these belts, their purposes unknown at a glance. There's also some some small weapons (railguns, given the cold temperature) and currently dormant Saucer drones.

    "Why anyone would setup a base here is anyone's guess. Although there IS an abundant supply of water..."

Staren has posed:
    After a bit more explanation about the mission, Staren decided not to bring his Sparrow-class and deploy on foot.

    Instead, flying alongside Albert's ship is what looks like a slightly bulkier jet fighter, obviously modified for space work. It's like someone took an F-14, added some bulk behind the cockpit, added sleek curves, and coated the whole thing in the kind of reflective armor that tends to show up on worlds with lots of laser weaponry. There are also a half-dozen add-on packs of some sort -- two massive boosters on the top, packs of unclear nature on the side, and two little packs tucked underneath with a missile launcher pack clipped to one. The wing hardpoints each have a pair of missile packs attached.

    Staren actually waves from the cockpit, wearing some sort of space flightsuit.

    When the dropship opens up, Staren looks at the machines with interest, and whistles at the sight of the Apocalypse. When they drop, armor closes over the cockpit and he dives down ahead of them to draw AA fire, shooting down missiles with his own and, he hopes, moving too fast to avoid taking much damage.

    He lands near the HERCs' LZ, his machine slowing down, and then transforming in a blur of tiny moving parts, into a 42-foot-tall humanoid machine with a bit of a fuselage shape to its torso, the packs now on behind its shoulders, on the sides of its legs, and on the back of the forearms.

    The head looks around in a surprisingly human motion as Staren tries to appraise the base defenses, especially anything that looks big enough to actually /damage/ his machine or the HERCs, or anything that looks tough enough to require their attention.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Corona keys up the DEFAULT LANDING ZONE, which is at a large hill just outside the base. It provides her a terrain advantage! There aren't alerts going off yet, but it's a short jog to the exterior defenses. It's primarily piratey Avians bundled in cold-weather gear, patroling at stone watchtowers with their ERCHIUS FLINTLOCKS. They're on high alert, but they're currently unfocused with discussion of a DISTRACTION ELSEWHERE. This is a good place to start a breaching advance. The others descending to the default landing zone find the same thing.

    There's several types of BASE STRUCTURE to pursue, from the look of it. Environmental, residential, storage areas, hangars, anti-air, communications, and similar are all on display. Where prisoners or similar might be is a mystery that might need solving. Maybe data's stored somewhere?

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Flint knows how to fuck with pirates.

    All sensors are focused on the ship incoming as Flint crashes it into outskirts of the base. When he 'comes to' it's going to be with a rather large amount of the Avian forces on top of him. They have not brought any medical tools, and instead they just have a /lot/ of ship disassembly tools. They won't even go to check if he's alive or anything; the hawkish birdlike men and women in piratey outfits just immediately start trying to scavenge his craft around him. This has left portions of the base open for...

Corona Arclite has posed:
    "Yeah, this is the middle of fucky'all nowhere. Kinda the point, I reckon," Corona murmurs in response to Rebound as she unslings her main hammer from her back. Is it go time? ... There's Flint making his DYNAMIC CRASH ENTRY.

It's go time!

The wry fox girl hops over the crest of the hill and starts down the opposite side, her light size and the wide soles of the winter protection suit keeping her from sinking in the snow. As she sprints towards a watch tower she she clamps one hand around the lever built into the breaker's hand-guard, extending it to its full length. As the pulsarium core charges up arcs of plasmatic energy crackle around the hid of the breaker.

"KNOCK KNOCK!" As she comes to the gate of the watch tower Corona plants one foot and twists to transfer the momentum into her swing, aiming to slam the plasma energized sledgehammer like weapon right through the gates.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Titanfall goes on elsewhere. Rebecca's squad and Staren land roughly together. The anti-air fire did, spin up, though on a delay due to Flint Hawke's distractions! Staren will find that the blasts are energy rather than missiles, but he'll also find that if he shoots the magnetically-coherent particle packets in the air, they'll get decoherent and explode before impact... At least most of them. The outskirts that they land on allow Rebecca enough time to perform a scan, collated with Staren's data. Both ought to be able to recognize the specs and power of some HEAVY WEAPON PLATFORMS incoming; large bipedal structures with twin guns mounted on them, apparently made out of stone and with a gem-styled cockpit. They also get a solid map of the anti-air defenses for others to use, but not too much else at the moment.

Rebound (750) has posed:
    It's generally Rebound's style to go over obstacles, not through them. Still if Corona is going to go through the watch tower's gate, Rebound is going to put her own skills to use. She rusehs forward, just a few steps behind Corona, and when she judges she's at the right point, she kicks off with both feet, sending her sailing up through the air. She's trying to land on the tower's upper levels and, considering the guard there, plant both of her huge feet into him as she comes in for a landing.

    It's more like a dropkick than a normal landing, but she'll come down on her back and if she does it right, her opponent will get knocked over the railing and down to the ground below her. Once she's landed she'll kip back up to her feet as quick as she can and move to secure any other guards that may be in the tower as well. And of course secure in this instance means kick them until they stop moving.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Pavo laughs as she takes the syringe! "Aye aye, doc! I'll put ye chems to the test, let's see how they do!" She's already drawing her cutlass and slamming the syringe into her thigh as she prepared to take to the ground, and then shortly after that to the sky! Wherever the Core Fleet intend to deploy, it's not with the main group, but presumably she's going to have a more potent cocktail of buffs working in her body with whatever she does! The Starbounders are all deploying in an independent party, it seems, to deal with another angle of approach; they can be met up with now, or later, based on what people need, it seems.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    TACTICAL MAP:
    RORY WHITE has established a TACNET through her Mesh Inserts. Anyone with compatible means to transmit and display data that's linked up adds to the data collection for impressive results. Be that some kind of camera or visual recording, sonar data, sound input, anything. No detail is left unanalyzed.
    As Rory scans over the distant base with telescopic optics, the external structure gains more detail. Entrances are marked in hilighted green. Avian pirates with weapons out are marked in red tagged with tiny lines showing their kinds of weapons and estimated ammo. (Given this is an unknown, the data for both is 'Rifle?' and '???')

    As weapons in use are analyzed, more data pops up. Kotone will get her usual firing arcs over her Augmented Reality, as will Staren - though he probably has them anyways. Otherwise, the main advantage this provides is a map one can glance at over a PDA or something similar.
    There's no telling how it'll get once everyone's INSIDE... or anyone manages to get into the security systems!

    Rory hurls a Saucer towards the distant base. its flight takes on a life of its own. Assuming it will go unnoticed in the chaos she tries to place it straight over the base and start pegging the entire thing with a combination of electromagnetic and sonar scans. It's a very active and invasive scan that would light up all kinds of every warning sensors ever, but...

    Rory doesnt' care. In the wake of all this chaos, she's trailing behind the others trying to get near the base!

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
Flint 'wakes up' and looks around as they disassemble what might be the shittiest configuration of metal ever held together by hopes, dreams, and heat-resistant turbo-adhesives, "Oi oi oi!"

He hops out of the cockpit, dressed in his usual outfit. He doesn't look that bothered by the cold, but then again every so often a black shimmer seems to faintly show under his skin as if his body is reinforcing itself against lethal cold. Either way, he looks outwardly angry, "Hey! You can't just disassemble my ship! I have a very important edict here saying you have to help me."

Flint takes out a folded sheet of crisp white paper and holds it out to the nearest of the Avians. If taken and unfolded, the sheet of paper has a very minimal amount of text on it, although that text is written in a very artful and professional-looking calligraphy:

This is a distraction so you won't notice I'm about to punch you in the throat.

    Regards,
    Flint Hawke
    Freelance Space Enthusiast'

And sure enough, as the Avian looks up from reading this paper, a Pure-enforced haymaker will be aimed right at the throat region in a likely-lethal strike. And then the Pirate Captain flicks his wrists and two blasters are in his hands. He unleashes a quick volley on the remaining Avians.

If they all die, he sets about to seeing if he can loot their com beads, access cards, and other clearance-related materials. He whistles while he does this.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The signs that the "vaccine" is active are immediate. Most visible of the effects is that anyone looking at Pavo will see four Pavos, only one of which is the real one, the other three being illusions. Magic particles intensify around the Avian, solidifying into a Wall spell that will reduce the damage of physical strikes and magical strikes-certain firearms may qualify for the latter here! Finally, Pavo will even feel a little stronger than normal, a temporary attack boost via Bravery.    Groundside, Kyra follows after Corona and the others, far more comfrotable in working with a group. Ultimately, she wants to get inside so she can really wreak some havoc with the biological payloads she's carrying. Outside, dispersal would be pretty poor and not hit enough Avians.

    She struggles after the group, her ordinance weighing her down a lot more than usual-but for her, keeping towards the back of the group was always a good thing. Still, she attempts to keep herself busy while catching up and starts to cast a Reflect spell on herself, eager to establish some protection on her against ERCHIUS FLINTLOCKS and LASERS but mostly LASERS. She presses a free hand to her chest and murmurs, only to be met with the feeling she's linked most recently to her magic not functioning as it is supposed to. Those in the local area will hear her swear loudly over it as she pries her glowing hand away from her chest and thrusts it upwards. There is a spark and a shockwave of magic particles that spread out laterally from her hand in a ring of blue light. Getting hit by it doesn't hurt, but...

    Overhead a storm immediately starts to brew, rapidly intensifying into a very, very thick blizzard. It approaches whiteout conditions very rapidly and starts to spread from where Kyra stands to the Ground Party's location near the base.

    Swearing some more, Kyra chases after Corona, now even more motivated to get inside the base.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    With the larger mecha soaking up most of the attention, Alexis takes this oppertunity to make her way towards the AA platforms. "Mechs...I shoulda seen this one coming." She mutters under her breath, before she begins to make her way closer towards one of the two mobile platforms. An additional teleport from orbit sends her bike groundside, fitted with tires intended for use in arctic enviroments. She makes a leap on the bike as it moves on autopilot, releasing control to her as soon as she hops on.

    THe vehicle's tires scream across the ice and snow, leaving tracks in its wake as she closes in on the AA Mecha.

    She slings her rifle, instead producing a C4 charge she primes, and as she gets within range, she sets the bike on auto again as she sits up, and pitches the explosive like a softball. As soon as it impacts, the C4 charge will stick to one of the mech's legs before going off almost immediately.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa ends up at the landing zone appearing in a pillar of light which rapidly forms into her, and damn it's cold it's really freking cold. She's looking over her hud for a moment as she gets ready to turn on her thermo optic cloak as she gets ready to move out. She's going to head for the communications section hopefully there would be information there for the people who are being held hostage hopefully she can press off fot that and she checks the hudd she's got form Rory and everyone else.

<<Look I'm heading to the comm's hopefully there will be informtion there on where anyone they have are being held.>>

With that Kotone is moving out with some handy help from the Tac map,

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Corona smashes one of the watchtowers, blasting out a large portion of the solid shut gate nearby in a tremendous blast of force. This now leaves the BASE INTERIOR open, and Corona can rush in and head into further facilities inside! Unfortunately, she'll have had several FLINTLOCK ROUNDS headed her way. The erchius in the powder for this has made them have an outrageous kick to their impacts, though a high reload time. Fortunately, it'll have been interrupted halfway through by someone else, such as...

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rebound lands on the tower long before Corona destroys its support. The pirate there that was firing rounds at Corona will suddenly be slammed into the dirt, killed or knocked unconscious depending on Rebound's choice of technique, dropping his gun. And then the tower under Rebound is suddenly knocked over! As it collapses, Rebound gets a good opportunity to survey the interior and figure out where she'd like to jump to. Piratey Avian men with guns are patrolling rooftops, but there's a lot of sword-bearing groups in the spaces between structures. She can launch an attack on any of them, to cover any particular person's approach here!

Staren has posed:
    Oh hey, they have mechs on this world too!

    They're awfully small, though...

    Plans are made -- The HERCs look big and tough but less agile, so he'll put his speed to use. There's a blur of shifting parts again and the Star Hawk is now in the form of what looks like a plane with arms and legs extending out from under the body. Thrusters in the feet keep it hovering over the ground even at slow speeds -- but it quickly accelerates, the right arm pack opening to reveal a gatling gun that fires a stream of slugs at several times the speed of sound. Staren tries to spray the defending mechs to distract them and put them on the defense before zipping by, flying ahead towards one of the heavy weapons emplacements so he can get a closer look at it, and maybe help the HERCs target a weak point with whatever heavy weaponry they have!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rory springs into action! Her weapon analysis gives everyone connected a generalized DODGE BOOST, as well as letting her determine that these flintlock pistols are way more effective than any flintlock pistol should ever be, the mass of the projectiles and speed by which they're fired is more along the lines of what you'd see in some futuristic mass driver weapon! Rory also gets a good MAP of the facility, allowing her to map out DATA LINES as well as PHYSICAL LOCATIONS. This means she'll be able to determine the location of any specific data type or computer system she needs to breach to get done what she wants done here.

Rebound (750) has posed:
    Considering her particular fighting style it will be best for Rebound to stick to fighting the guys using the swords. Those guys down below would be the best bet, and so as soon as Corona breaches the tower and sends it falling, Rebound rides the collapsing tower for a few moments before she uses the extra momentum to propel herself off of the tower and towarsd the closest group of sword-wielding bird men.

    She has to remind herself that much like Corona, these guys are naturally bird people and not just former humans turned into bird people. Not that either of those will matter much when the hefty kangaroo comes sailing right towards the group. She tucks herself down and tries to land and roll, hopefully bowling over at least one of them as she lands. A quick sweep around with her thick tail to try to take some off of their feet before she rises up and raises her hands, "Alright boys, lets do this." The looks at whichever ones are still standing and motions for them to come attack her. Hopefully they'll be cliche and attack her one at a time. But she doubts they're that predictable. It's not like they're ninjas.

Rebecca Kismarin (343) has posed:
     The trio of HERCs move into their positions, a reverse delta formation with the 'point' at the back. The Apocalypse, Jupiter's Hammer, lurches forward as its massive legs make it look like some sort of lumbering giant. It stomps forward, the spinal-mounted cannon angling upwards as the mixed tactical data is fed into its targetting systems. There's a thunderous -BOOM- and a flash of light as the barrel erupts, spewing a huge sphere of energy towards one of the AA emplacements. At the same time, the shoulder launchers begin to expel their payloads as well, locking heavy missiles onto the emplacement's energy signatures.

     Somewhat 'smaller', the Mantis-chassis, 'Hellhound', runs interference. With a mix of Staren's proximity to the Avian vehicles and the combined sensor feedback, blasts of lime-green charged ballistics start to pepper the advance. The four top-mounted electro-flechette cannons fire one after the other to suppress and inflict damage to the stone-and-crystal constructs. Behind them, the Usagi remains stationary. Its missile racks open up moments after the Apocalypse's do, though they appear to sail in a long arc over the compound instead of aiming for anything in particular.

     Four missiles spread across the sky over the pirate base, dropping small sensor pods, creating a 'net' to further enhance the assault's tactical view, adding to the terrain map and attempting to highlight larger power sources. Like HERC sensors, however, they are still dismally ineffective when it comes to detecting individual humanoid targets...

Corona Arclite has posed:
    She didn't necessarily mean to bring the whole tower down, but hey, it's somebody else's structure, so Corona isn't inclined to care about collaterial demolition, either.

She's more interested on finding where the goods are stored. Parts and raw materials are typically what's on her agenda.

The Avian Pirates have mean attitudes, no morals, and anachronistic pistols that can make physics cry like a bitch.
Corona has small size, acute spacial awareness, and a familiarity for this sort of defense breaching combat.
Who's going to win? Let's find out!

As she comes into the corridor the Avians are whipping out their guns and firing, Corona drops backwards into a slide to avoid taking direct hits from the space-fucking shots. With one hand she pulls a cylinder-loaded gun from her toolbelt and as the avians stop to reload the foxgirl fires in their direction.

From the gun sprays a viscous semi-liquid compound that looks like it could be molten run-off from some industrial process, clinging to whatever it comes in contact with and burning down as it turns into a thick caustic mess that makes it difficult to remove.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The base is lighting up with alerts on a delay due to FLINT HAWKE and his distraction, but the Avians, baffled by the yelling of a dead man, aren't pointing any of their fancy Erchius flintlocks at him, just sort of staring. The leader of them is the one nearest the 'cockpit' of the 'ship', and he's the one that Flint's shoving the paper into the hands of. He reads it, squinting in confusion. And then: SQUAWK-CRUNCH. The man's on his back, dazed and dying, while his men are being gunned down.

    One or two manage to go for those Flintlocks and get a shot or two off -- and they have a kick like anti-materiel rounds, christ -- but they all go down eventually, leaving their POWER-CUTLASSES, their ERCHIUS FLINTLOCKS, and their comm beads and the leader's access card up for grabs.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Catching up, Kyra is there just in time to see the aftermath of Corona breaking a hole into the base. She can see the back of the foxgirl for a few seconds before she turns a corridor and it's enough for Kyra to scramble suddenly to catch up, diving in as the snow collects on her hood and boots. Stumbling inside, she takes up her gas canister launcher in both hands and presses onward, chasing after Corona.

    She doesn't move as quickly, though, looking for handy VENTILATION SYSTEMS she could dump a few of her gas canisters in to release the virus.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    The reason that Rory hasn't gone into the base herself is that she doesn't need to. She's tailing after Corona and Rebound though, keeping at a distance and using the snow and ice for cover...

    While a tiny robot no bigger than an insect flies after Corona and into the base. Believe it or not, it really does look like a dragonfly! It even flies like one. The tiny wings vibrate at tremendous speed and keep it going in any direction Rory wants.

    This tiny robot's a work of nano-art, to say the least.

    Lots of people like big mechs. Rory likes SMALL ONES.

    Small ones that can hunt down the security camera's and try to jack into one and gain access to the networks to begin hacking.

    Assuming these guys HAVE security cameras... if not, anything that looks like it's part of a network will do.

    It's also scanning for local wireless frequencies using all of the tech the Core fleet knows might be using that!

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
A couple of those Flintlock rounds catch him clean in the chest, staggering him and blowing huge chunks out of his body. But those wounds bleed an odd black substance and quickly seal shut. The pirate twirls the pistols in his hands and they vanish up his sleeves once more, "Dandy. Just dandy. Thank ya, gents."

He bends over and picks all the Flintlocks he can gather, sticking them on various holsters and harnesses inside of his coat. The power cutlasses are left behind, since he already has one of those. But a pirate can always use more flintlocks. The com bead is stuck in his ear and the access card is picked up, "Rawk. We need to protect the leader." He says in a shitty bird accent.

"Braaaawk, tell me where he be and I'll get a security detail to him," He adds, walking towards the base at a pretty casual pace despite the ongoing battle around the base. His own goal is a bit loftier, so he'll keep his pace up and let the others soak as much of the attention as they can while he plays the role of Saving the Leader for the moment.

As he walks along, he sings to himself, "Fifteen men of the whole ship's list. Dead and bedamned and the rest gone whist. The skipper lay with his nob in gore, where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore, and the scullion he'd been stabbed times four.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Alexis Maaka's bike blasts through the snow, giving her incredibly effective hit and run capacity. Slinging at the robots, she manages to cripple one with a short-delayed blast that she immediately gets clear of! It goes down on one leg, still flailing its gem-guns urgently while its auto-repair tries to get the leg back in working order. If her plan was to salvage one, this ought to work; if she wants to finish it off, she's got complete access to the head now! The others haven't noticed their compatriot going down, and are similarly somewhat vulnerable!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Slipping in around the broken watchtower, this galaxy's lack of cloaking tech makes itself known again as Kotone is easily and quickly able to avoid any hostilities, despite the fact that Avians on high alert, brandishing swords and pistols, are called into action! She'll need to be careful to not have them slam into her. The communications center, though... It's locked up! If she wants to get in, she'll need some sort of ACCESS CODE! She could try to do a STEALTH TAKEDOWN of one of the Avians, call in help, hack it herself, or any combination, but the big stone door here is solidly stuck shut for the invisible girl.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Speaking of TItanfall...
        Alexis doesn't take long to leap off her bike, sprinting towards the downed mech as she draws her rifle in one hand, and her grapple in the other. Tossing the line up, she climbs to the top of the downed mech, nimbly making her way up until she stops at the canopy itself.

    She braces her rifle's muzzle against the joints on one of the gem guns, then fires a long burst until she goes to rip open the hatch, and she'll take out the driver as well with a deft shot or two.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The chicken-legged mecha are actually pretty good at tanking some of these shots. Though huge holes are blown in them, it seems like they've got enough redundant systems and self-repair mechanisms to keep going, though a second one's knocked down, leaving only two standing. The double crystaline mechanisms that make up the muzzles of one's guns light up, and begin spewing an intense red beam, sweeping around erratically. They're untrained pilots, but their gear's stolen from the clipped council, and it's way more brutally powerful than you'd expect. This one's going after Staren! Though it's going to pursue him -- swiftly LEAPING around! -- towards the base!

    Staren finds that everything's wired to those central crystals. Target those, and the anti-air should go down pretty easily... Gonna be TOUGH in this blizzard though!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rebecca finds the flechette rounds are fairly ineffective on these mecha, unfortunately. The stone they're made of isn't really stone, and it actually seems like, from the scans, they might not actually involve mechanical parts in the first place. Anti-terrain things may work more effectively! The second standing mecha LEAPS, high! It's trying to fire over the two in the front, knowing enough basic tactical awareness to get at the one at the back!, with its big laserbeam!

    Meanwhile, the TACNET is improved by sheer volume, letting the group get awareness of the individual ON-FOOT PIRATE MOVEMENTS. Meanwhile, the heavy blast that impacted one of those anti-air emplacements sends it down. One or two more down and the STARBOUND FLOTILLA will be able to provide airstrikes from above!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa has done well to get past them also had she not got inside before that blizzard started? She'd be much easier to spot, thankfully she's weaving in and out of the pirate's ranks as they move past her. She thinks about a take down to get the codes, but that would be an issue she thinks. She makes up her mind to attempt hack the door remotely and get past its security systems if she has ot she'll grab a pirate to hopefuly get the code or call for some help to get past the door. Thinking on that she does ask for some help if she runs into trouble with the door, for now she's going to try to do it on her own.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The essential equivalent of a napalm gun, Corona's weapon finds a lot of purchase. Everyone here's equipped with a cold-protection nanoskin. NOT a heat-protection nanoskin. Molten substances can take them down pretty swiftly! Corona's managed to deal with the interior area here, meaning she has free access to the inter-structure passages, as well as the basic info listed on walls and suchlike of where exactly things may be. Combined with the tacnet she ought to be able to get to any objective area she likes. The Hangar's the core objective, but various storage areas and suchlike are also available!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Kyra, meanwhile, can get in behind swiftly. Writhing, scalded Avians are still screaming in here, but they shouldn't be too much problem. Corona has dealt with most of those present here. There is, in fact, a ventilation system! It has to circulate a LOT of heat in here! Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be able to actually pick locations to flood with the viral agent, but this time, she can, because of the superior tacnet Rory and Rebecca and company have been establishing! It lets her pick specific ventilation shafts that are linked with specific sectors. Where does she want to clear out early?

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Down below it is! The watchtower collapses through the wall of the base, giving Rebound a clear shot to launch at high speed and on top of the pirates with the POWER CUTLASSES from above! Slamming into them, she finds that several are taken down, but those that aren't will prove surprising! Like her, they are focused on VERTICAL MOBILITY! Their hollow bones may be easy for Rebound to snap, but she'll have to contend with the fact that the half-dozen or so in the swarm she's attacked are also bounding up and off a nearby wall, trying to come down on her from above while the few that remain un-dazed after the leg-sweep try to hack at her knees!

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite ejects the empty canister as she's getting up, pulls a new one from her belt and reloads it, then reslings the weapon on her belt. Looks at the avians (or what remains of them) and makes a quick comment over the comm before stepping over one of the charred remains to examine wall listing. She pulls out her analyzer and uses it to snap a picture of the directory, both for herself and for others.

Then she takes off at a sprint down the corridors. The hanger is the main objective, but that doesn't mean she can't stop to check a supply room or two along the way. Because that would be a total waste of time even being there if she didn't. So while she's taking a path to hopefully get to the hanger in a decent amount of time, she's checking anything else she comes across along the way.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rory will find cameras! Ssss...sort of! Like everything else that's avian and technological, they're made out of some kind of crystal! There's some universal adapters on the gem surface, despite that making no fucking sense whatsoever. There's also wireless! For now, though, she gets in a good position to start any digital breaches she likes. Which may be a good idea to start! Given that Kotone is currently also doing her damndest to breach the communications room. Digital countermeasures are firing off, and Rory can see them clearly with this virtual perspective!

Rebecca Kismarin (343) has posed:
     The two front HERCs are forward enough that the Avian mech with its superior flight mechanics and size has no issue whatsoever with targetting the Sensei lurking behind them. The bipedal HERC's 'ears' twitch as the sensors try to account and adjust for the poor weather, the pilot responding a little bit late to the sudden burst of laser fire straight at it.

     The Usagi's shield dome flickers and glows an angry shade of neon green as energy licks the edges. The pilot had long since focused the shield facings full forward, the bleed of energy showing where the dome's edge tapers into the weak facings. The sustained blast might just pass through the deflector if it lingers much longer. Arms raise and the shoulder-mounted cannons rotate upwards to target the immediate threat. Geared for point defense, the Quickfire targeter has an easier time of locking on through the snow, especially with the beam of superheated energy drilling a hole in its housing's defenses.

     Both of the Sensei's arms erupt with a needle-like stream of charged atomic particle beams while the shoulder turrets unload a torrent of 50mm rounds that rival modern anti-aircraft guns.

     Up front, the two heavy hitters redouble their efforts. The Mantis attempts to focus the steady pulse of EF bursts towards crystal components rather than plinking at the stone while the Apocalypse's secondary guns, a trio of 40mm 'sniper' cannons, send volleys towards the next nearest AA emplacement. That Hellfire cannon needs time to cool down, even in the cold.

     Far up above, nestled inside of the stormclouds, the Hand of Iapetus holds position, focusing all of its technical efforts on piercing the blizzard and maintaining the tacnet's integrity with the shifting data and battlefield conditions.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Considering the options that Rory and Rebecca have fed, Kyra's quick to make a decision on where to deploy the majority of the viral payload. Though risky, she actually splits off from Corona. Of course, given the tacnet she assumes that all the friendlies are being tracked throughout the base as well so if she runs into serious trouble, they'll know where to find her.

    Kyra navigates to the prime ventilation shaft that, according to Rory's layout, would circulate air primarily to the COMMUNICATIONS CENTER. Once that goes dead, it's sure to attract even more Avians to check, which meant more victims. /Deaf/ victims. Using the butt of the CURE-ALL (which is far heavier), she breaks the cover off the vent, then aims her gas canister launcher down into it. With four consecutive THUNKS, she fires four vapor-spewing canisters down the vent.

    Satisfied, Kyra breaks away, following after Corona's path of destruction, knowing she'll encounter less resistance that way. She does eventually branch off just a little so she can stealthily check on some of the STORAGE AREAS.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Erchius Flintlocks acquired! Long reload time, but they're slim and powerful! The erchius powder in them gives them a brutal kick. Over the radio, though, Flint can hear something very familiar: Pirate chaos. These guys aren't tactically trained, and while they're individually pretty strong, they're not overall a well-trained organization. Which means that his injection of a query is lost in a storm of chaotic and slightly drunk yelling. He gets two responses: First, that the actual leader -- which is to say, Thornwing -- is going to be here within something like half an hour, giving them a harsh sort of time limit. There's also the local leader, and Hawke gets a good idea of where his control room is, around the Residential sectors. Conveniently located on this side of the base!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The 'kneeling' mech manages to right itself just as Maaka gets atop it! One of the guns is sputtering and dead though, which is convenient because it tries to point the gun up at Maaka, and instead causes it to break off almost comically. It's slightly less comical when the hatch of the hollow gem that makes up the mech's cockpit is torn off, because despite the Avian going down in a shot or two, it came out swinging with that Power Cutlass and attempts to run Maaka through before taking a few rounds in the chest and slumping, dead.

Rebound (750) has posed:
    Holy crap that's a lot of guys. The 'roo tries her best to deflect blows from the sword wielding pirates, but the ones coming from above have to take priority. She takes a slash along her thigh before she grabs one of the aerial assaulters and throws him into the guys attacking on the ground.

    She also tries to make sure to grab the sword from him as she throws him, so now she'll have a weapon of her own to fend these guys off with, "Sometimes I really wish I had a gun." She mutters, before she falls back onto her tail and kicks with both legs at two of the pirates. That's enough force to knock over a car that she's directing towards them. The sword also gets swung in a wild arc, trying to either hit somebody or at least keep them back

Staren has posed:
    Staren shoots the mechs... full of holes?? Wow, he didn't expect it to be /that/ easy!

    Oh wait, they're still moving. What the heck, are they some sort of golem?

    Staren grumbles to himself. He did the same thing, after all... although the Star Hawk can't fight very well in golem mode.

    Also, they can JUMP! They're much more mobile than they looked, apparently, and the beam hits the passing Star Hawk in the underside, leaving a superheated scar of slag across the body. Now, it /is/ a giant robot, so it can take some hits, but it's now apparent that sustained combat will be... problematic.

    He's still going to go for the objective first, though. Maybe they won't have much range.

    A firing solution is programmed in. The Star Hawk does a tight loop-de-loop, and one of those wing-mounted missile pods is ejected and flung towards the group of mini-mecha -- the cover blows off, and five minimissiles flies towards /each/ of the walkers. Staren's not messing around -- these detonate in massive plasma fireballs that on a normal planet would scorch everything in a 15' radius to ash aside from armor made to take it. Here, though... Well, that's why he fired so many of them! Also, as a little extra, the packs on the legd deploy some sort of homing energy projectiles -- not particularly powerful, but he has effectively unlimited ammo. They leave trails of light, looking like one might imagine 'homing lasers', except they're obviously not lasers -- lasers don't work like that at all!

    The arms and legs fold up and Staren boosts towards the nearest crystal at full speed, transforming again and trying to violently crash into it. His machine activates giant beam sabers in its wrists and tries to plunge them into the crystal, hoping to shatter it with heat shock!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Remote-hacking works here, due to the convenience of wireless networks! While Kotone does get to get into the door's interior systems, it looks like the lack of access codes has activated brutal COUNTERMEASURES, apparently designed to attack an infiltrating Glitch or two, trying to inject some horrible code right back into Kotone's systems. That is, unless Rory -- or perhaps a certain BLACKOUT, who's in on the wireless hacking! -- can intercept them first!

Rory White (673) has posed:
    "Using gems for CAMERAS?! I could believe using it for data storage or maybe a magical focus, but a camera?!" she's not ENTIRELY new to magic as a concept. Or weird psionics. Or other Strange Tech things. Her world has plenty of fiction!

    But seeing it? Her thought processes always go blank for a few seconds. "Maybe Pavo can explain. At least they're using something nicer to work with..."

    The Dragonfly's rear end is more like a mosquito's, and it attempts to jack into the adapter. But the wireless connection is also made!

    As soon as the protocol is analyzed, Rory starts sending spoofed communications posing as the security transmission services giving false readings that there is an intruder at COMPLETELY the other side of the base from the actual asault and a lot MORE of them.

    Whether these are accepted is anyone's guess. She's much more interested in sniffing all of the transmissions and getting security footage put together!

    Finding the hangars, prisons, supply rooms and other goodness is top priority!

    Another thread links up with Kotone's efforts and starts offering aid, timing transmissions on a low level that are enough to baffle the validation checking pings and hopefully buy her some time...

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
"And there they lay, and the soggy skies, dripped all day long up staring eyes. By murk sunset and by foul sunrise-- Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum~." Flint sings to himself as he listens to the radio. Letting out a bit of a sigh, he hears the chaos and shakes his head. Really, how shoddily run was this operation? On HIS ship, this kind of rabble for an attack would be sorely punished. Space-keelhauling at least.

With a big of a shake of his head, the Pirate Captain keeps one Flintlock in his hand, twirling it idly. The control room sounds like a good enough destination, if nothing else. He'd been hoping to run into the opposing leader and simply force a surrender so he could take the base over, but that seems to be a farflung dream. Such is his sordid relation with lady luck some times.

The local leader would have to do. He stops in the snow and folds his hands behind his head after holstering the pistol, "The ropes creaking, ship's leaking, sails are on fire, and this whole bloody ship could go up like a pyre. We've got smiles on our faces, but we've seen this before. No telling just now what we have in store."

He takes off at a walk, switching his song as he keeps his hands folded behind his head and resolves to lazy-stroll his way over to the current boss's office. Shouldn't be too hard with all this chaos.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Even as the cutlass nearly guts her, Alexis seems utterly calm as she leaps off of the mecha. She checks the magazine before she hoofs it on the ground, making a dash towards the mech. Coiling up her grapple line, she then recalls her bike, leaping upon the vehicle in perfect timing as she speeds off towards the vehicle.

    She then narrows her eyes, before she throws the grapple to snag onto a leg belonging to the mech when she's in range.

    If it works, she'll go to make enough passes to tie the mech's legs together, tripping it and sending it falling onto its back.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Miserable planetary ball of slush? No, thank you. The mercenary operative known only as Blackout has been in orbit all this time, possibly hanging back with the Core Fleet's ships, and exercising her technical mojo by keeping her ear to the ground and her ship's sensors busy. She's been feeding intel to George for most of this time, while waiting impatiently for a systems check to finish (possibly running it after having HK-47 aboard, possibly because she doesn't trust him not to have tried to sabotage something).

Now that she's more or less cleared that, Juno Eclipse has switched over her communications to the Starbound Flotilla at large, and their allies. Just in time to help stop those ugly <span style="color:ountermeasures.

    [cxterm81">Blackout to Starbound Flotilla. Alright, I've got the ship's systems cleared. Leave this to me. Sorry about that radio silence. I needed to make sure my little droid friend didn't leave me any unexpected presents.</span>]

Her fingers all but fly over the controls, deft as a master harpist at their instrument. It's good to be back at the Rogue Shadow's <span style="color:ontrols.

    [cxterm81">A little creative slicing here, and a little aggressive countermeasures there...</span>]

Grinning a sour little grin, Juno leans forward in the pilot's <span style="color:hair.

    [cxterm81">Miss White, see if you can get me a feed on those security cameras, if you'd be so kind? I'm experiencing a bit of interference, which is probably the result of their pathetic efforts to get us out of their systems. Which won't work, of course~.</span>]

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Heading to the hangars, Corona splits off. She can wind up dashing around the place where Rebound is currently trying to fend off a dozen Avians with swords; this means they're not currently attacking Corona, thankfully! There's also crates full of gems, strange square things that seem to be like a local currency, and several weapon storage areas, where weaponized Erchius Powder is kept for use as in the flintlocks, among other valuables stolen from many ships and many dead victims.

    If she doesn't break off to help Rebound -- Rebound can probably handle herself, honestly -- she'll be able to crash through the hanger pretty quickly! Unfortunately, someone's had a very bright idea: Defend themself by jumping into a gunship they've stolen. The VTOL-like Apex spacecraft is clearly a Starling-class, and the tall hangar gives it enough room to move. It's sweeping a sensor around in a paranoid way to ward off attackers from the PRIME LOOT of the spaceships!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is dealing with a lot of input, she's getting good but she's not a AAA Wizard Class hacker by any means yet so the help is very welcome even with her defence barriers its not going to be fun thankfully Blackout is there to lend a hand for Kotone to deal with the counter attack. Still she's got a lot of power behind her even if she's not the most skilled hacker. Soon also Rory is also helping with her and this is very useful even if Rory in cyberspace? Is some kind of dread creature from the depths of cyberspace, the Cyber Karken if you will. Well compared to Kotone that is.

<<Blackout? Rory? I owe you one, these guys IT people are not as dumb I expected.>>

She keeps working to pop the damn door. Now she's got some people watching her back and she can focus on full out attacking the Avian's system.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The heavy mecha is stunned due to being unable to dodge in mid-air. Heavier cannons slam through the stone and force the mech's animation systems to recalibrate several times, though it gets a gap to recover in due to the blizzard! But sudden EF bursts to the crystals do real, serious damage, causing the mech to kneel from low power. All energy goes now into the beams, which it fires at the Mantis while its legs are cleanly drilled through and incapacitated by the Sensei. The Apocalypse fires on another AA emplacement, cracking the gem in half and causing it to explode! One of the Flotilla ships is closing in... It's Biteblade's, with that huge railgun mounted on top of it! One or two more AA emplacements should do it. That gun's also strong enough to take out a mech on its own, with the heaviness. if Staren can get the third, she'll be able to finish off these resilient little bastards.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Communications go dead as Avians go dead in the COMMUNICATIONS CENTER. Good work, Kyra! Kyra also manages to get a good look at several STORAGE AREAS, getting a chance to grab any of those piratey weapons she wants, as well as eventually finding an extremely rare, experimental ERCHIUS CANNON in one of the rooms, alongside high volumes of simple basic valuables, primarily stolen from Hylotls and Avians, with the odd Glitch king's treasury here or there. By the time she catches up with Corona, she'll probably get to see that same gunship patrolling around the hangars that Corona got to see...

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite lets out a wistful sigh at the sight of the storeroom, mostly at knowing she doesn't have time to just clear it all out. Fortunately Albert has a plan for that, and Hawke has a handle on just how much time they have. So she makes sure they've got the room tagged for the big sweep in her wake. The Flotilla will take care of the big and high volume stuff.

That doesn't stop her from grabbing a couple of the flintlocks, maybe another gun or two, and stuffing as much of 'money' cubes as she can into the largest pouch of her tool belt. Everything else she marks for later.

Rebound might notice her briefly run by, and though she doesn't stop the gal knows where she's headed and can follow after she's done teaching the birdbrains why you don't get in a boxing ring with a kangaroo.

Just as Corona is running into the hanger she hears the sound of engines running, and reflexively dives behind the closest obstacle she can. There's usually storage crates or tanks around hanger bays, right?

She hunkers down, knowing she's not got long until that ship's sensors likely pick her up anyways, but it's just long enough to give out a warning and try to get a plan quickly slapped together...

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rebound beats up a bird using another bird. Two birds, one... Mixed martial arts throw. Hmmm, doesn't have the same ring. A pair of avians are slammed back by a massive kick, impacting another trio with snapping cracks, while Rebound manages to brutalize another pair of Avians! The others are backing off a bit, or rather she's beaten them up enough that the straggler survivors are easier to deal with. Now she has several choices: She can go cover Kotone's efforts at the communications room, she can go keep more Avians from hassling Corona in the hangar, or she can pursue avians that sound like they're gathering elsewhere in the base, in preparation for trying to muster more resistance to the mecha fighters outside!

Rebecca Kismarin (343) has posed:
     The mech will find the Mantis' shields to be more robust than the Sensei's, but only marginally. The lack of a focusing mechanism means the dome is equalized from all sides, the fast recharge built in only truly benefitting the HERC against more intermittent attacks from all sides. That beam burns a hole through the immediate shield facing, even melting through a good portion of the thermal diffusion net weaved into it. The top of the hull has a nice slagged hole in it, two of the EF Rotaries taken out with it but no truly vital systems destroyed with it. The remaining two cannons continue to focus fire on the mech, the pilot wanting to ensure that the stone-and-crystal construct is taken out.

     The Sensei, no longer at risk of being turned to scrap for the moment, angles its sensors towards the furthest crystal signature that Staren had pinged. Its primary missiles bays open up, dozens of missiles arrayed inside of them. The HERC braces, locking its legs auibly before the racks unload a hail of munitions in a cloud of fire that arcs through the blizzard to saturate the area and hopefully take a chunk out of the other power unit.

     The Apocalypse surges forward, cannons smoking and the Hellfire tube starting to glow as another charge builds. Its missile bays are empty, the handful of Darkfist missiles spent in the first barrage. Anything hostile NOT made of stone is met with arcing lightning from the tall vanes on the side of the HERC, though it's entirely likely the ELF weaponry will go completely unused this fight.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    No stranger to looting, Kyra will happily grab some stuff, including helping herself to a ERCHIUS FLINTLOCK or two. She'll also grab one of those sabers so she can give it to Dominic later. Very, very quickly Kyra runs up against her carrying capacity in loot. There is so much here she can't possibly clean it all up on her own (at least not without a portable hole). Instead, she marks the rooms on the tacnet Rory has set up, passing it on to everyone else that the rooms contained stuff in need of pilfering for the Flotilla. She also takes a moment to pull out her phone and take a picture of the ERCHIUS CANNON since it looked pretty important.

    Weighed down just a little more, she heads for the hangars, catching up with Corona, but not breaching the doorway to the place once she sees that Starling-class gunship flying around taking shots at them. "Ooooh shit, that's going to be a problem-here."

    Kyra's quick to lay down the protective buffs on Corona-both Protect and Shell to cover all their basis for damage here. "Hopefully that'll help if you actually get hit." she offers, hearing the foxgirl's preliminary plans to get in under the ship and breach it.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Staren manages to smash a scattering of micromissles at the mechs. He goes for all of them, but the small mech BOUNCES IN swiftly as soon as it sees rocket ports opening, trying to get another swift shot in and slam him down! It gets its beam off, but only just before several shots impact it, turning the rock to gravel and slag! With that, it seems the melted mecha can't pursue further! Thank goodness, Staren gets his chance to fire on the last anti-air emplacement, allowing BITEBLADE'S SHIP to come into the space above the two mecha.

    "Helloooooo cat friend, new friend! Floran hasss big gun for helping! You point, Floran shoot, everyone /diesss/!" Biteblade says, linking in with the tacnet! Staren and Rebecca can now call in AERIAL STRIKES from Biteblade's massive STARHUNTER cannon.

    Good thing too, because a lot of on-foot Avians have looted their own rocket launchers stolen from the Apex, and are beginning to assemble at the walls of the base!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rory and Juno manage to fight the countermeasures off of Kotone, preventing them from trying to fry her precious brainmeats! Thank goodness. This means Kotone lives to see another day, and manages to get the COMMUNICATIONS ROOM open! The communications room is full of DEAD AVIANS, apparently killed by some kind of biological weapon. Hey, thank god for prosthetics, right Kotone? Anyway, she can rush right in there and get access to RECORDS of where prisoners are being kept, used to taunt ransom victims' families. Using her own hacking and Rory's hacking, they ought to be able to pinpoint the proper location! It's a fair distance from here, but Rebecca and Rory's and Blackout's combined tacnet indicates not too many Avians between here and there... Maybe Kotone can get there invisibly!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Flint Hawke wanders by a kangaroo-girl decapitating a bird girl. He wanders by a cyborg in a room full of discolored corpses. He wanders by a room full of screaming Avians covered in molten industrial runoff. He wanders by Avians carrying desperate armfuls of rocket launchers. And he does not give one single fuck.

    He gets into Residential, mostly untouched by the chaos. The Avians here are sparse, most have gone off to help the others, but some are here in the more cramped rooms, wielding cutlasses. It shouldn't be too tough for Flint to fight his way to the top of the temple-like structure, through the dozen or so swordsbirds that challenge him on the way up!

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Juno works her jaw and leans forward, squinting critically at the pilot consoles of the Rogue Shadow. She's already leaving the countermeasures to Rory and seeking out the fragile computer core of the Apex Starling-class ship, attempting to win her way in through finesse rather than brute for<span style="color:e.

    [cxterm81">Easy, there. I'm already trying to overpower the native S.A.I.L. module. I think I've almost got a way in, and then all you've got to do is activate those thrusters.</span>]

She narrows her eyes at the readouts, simultaneously managing sensors and her attempts at forcing her way into the Apex ship's systems. Swallowing through a dry throat, her fingers all but fly as she coaxes her work out of the Rogue Shadow's systems. She's even put PROXY to work next to her, tasking him to help manage the <span style="color:ountermeasures.

    [cxterm81">Yamakawa, there aren't too many of them between you and your destination. If you book it, I think you can make it without being spotted, if you're careful.</span>]

The rapid-fire clacking of keys is almost deafening in the silence of the <span style="color:ockpit.

    [cxterm81">Arclite, keep at that ship. See if you can initiate the startup sequence on the engine. I make no guarantees; I'm trying to bypass that S.A.I.L. blind.</span>]

Rebound (750) has posed:
    Okay, so aparently the big guy is on his way. That's bad. But Rebound has to do what she can to help out in the mean time. She hears the sounds of the avians regrouping. That's a good place to help. So Rebound starts to make her way over where the gathering avians are trying to regroup.

    With the element of surprise and the fact that she's bigger than they are, she jumps into the fray, unleashing a battlecry and again swinging that sword around like a crazy person, "Ah hah! You're all going to get it! Better run while you can!"

    She is moving to kick and slash and generally make a nuisance of herself so that she can keep them from attacking the friendly mechs. She just hopes they don't have guns.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets the door open and enters into the comm room, she looks about the dead Avians will brifely check them for things like access passes and the like or other notable things. She'll move up to get access to the computers and move to start hacking what data she cna it doesn't take long given she's got help to get the information she was after.

"Hum I think I got the hostages location."

She thinks the pirates are dead and she's going to move on, there's a bit of a sick pit to her stomach for lack of another term. Memories of stuff about stuff she heard about happening in the third world war. That was a small mercy of cyberization the development of bioweapons had lessened somewhat due to full con soldier being able to laugh it off.

Either way she's cloaking again and going to make a run for the hostages.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
Flint Hawke wandered by a great many things. If there's ONE thing he can at least relish in, it's that he's not on a timetable. Between his ability to Unshift as a mode of transportation and his Pure preventing his death in general, he's pretty lacksadasical in his wanderings.

He had heard these guys weren't heat shielded. He was, himself, naturally heat-shielded. That's why he grins widely at the group of Avians that come to fight him, "Gentlemen! Ladies? Mm... Ah!" He pauses to think and comes up with a proper greeting,"My fine, feathered companions. I bring you tidings and good offerings."

He slowly takes off the hat he's wearing and bows his head in a jovial fashion. Perched atop his head of hair is a firebomb. Firebombs are an absolutely bitch to deal with in tight quarters and, as previously mentioned in the set pose, this is a very tight place. As he unbows, the bomb falls off his head and he kicks it. It flies forward and detonates in a massive cascading spray of fire and blastwave, the naturally fluid movements of the flames swiftly flooding out the halls.

The pirate himself idly skip-walks through the flames, very burnt, but already regenerating, "Ah. Guess that was not their taste. Mm." He comments, sighing a bit as he pulls that long blonde hair up so he can extinguish some flames at the end of it.

"Painful, but good to know I can survive it," He leans down and sniffs the end of his hair a bit, "Will need a bit of a cut, though. Can't have singed edged." He holds up one arm where part of his coat is scorched off. The flesh is already reknitting with black ichor and regenerating, "Daaandy~. Have to look good when a Cap'n is meetin' another Cap'n."

And then he's sing-songing his way off and up the stairs.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    <Connection established, Blackout! Feel free to use my Personal Area Network as a relay!> Rory sends back without it affecting her operations in the slightest. Calling her a Cyber-Kraken is not without its reasons--

    As a digital being she grasps how these kinds of systems can work with the same intuition that humans understand how to walk.

    Both Kotone and Blackout receive the messages in fact. <They use some of the best security I've dealt with in a year!>

    And her methods when dealing with an alien system through a simple wiretap are crude to say the least. She's had to analyze the protocol stack from the ground up! ... Thankfully a heavily specialized AI handles most of the heavy lifting, letting her do that in mere moments and have some good tools to work with.

    From there it's a matter of sending spoofed transmissions and pretending to be the device she's plugged into.

    It's so much cruder than having an actual terminal that she can understand!

    But she has managed to quickly work out an interface that's letting Blackout do remote slicing, as she calls it, with extra precision by relaying from the Odyssey to Rory to the Dragonfly and into the Pirate base's systems...

    This hacking stuff is complex! Is it any wonder she's nto talking much?

    "I think I've done most of what I can on the digital front! Without having time to try and dig through their whole systems..."

    For now, she works on trying to locate their data servers if they have any. And just... DOWNLOADING EVERYTHING, starting with logs about prisoners and ransoms and ships in case that takes too long.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Maaka takes out one, and then the other is brought down too! These things like jumping around, but the hopping mech slams into the snow SOMETIME, which means she can grapple the leg and tie it to the other! The inevitable, almost comical result of this is that it doesn't actually fall onto its back, but rather, it attempts to jump again!

    It winds up slamming copmically into one of the base structures, crashing through a roof and down into some basement.

Staren has posed:
    Okay. Some of the big guns are down, but it's other things that are holding back the ground team now. <<Rebecca,>> Staren transmits, <<You handle the defenders at the wall and the rocket launchers. I'm gonna take care of that gunship.>>

    The Star Hawk transforms, and quickly zips over to the hangar.

    If there isn't room to go in as a humanoid, Staren just pokes his gatling railgun into the hangar and spews hypersonic slugs at the gunship.

    If there /is/ room for a humanoid... well, Staren opens up with a long burst from the railgun, then charges and tries to /grab/ it and start tearing it apart.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Corona remains undetected by the ship, hunkering down and getting buffed. Smart. Their relay for JUNO allows her to execute her plan of sending an engine startup sequence through the SAIL. Forcing it to execute an engine startup sequence means that it can't yank away and maneuver into a dodge when Staren grabs it! The mechan can't tear it apart, but this means that Corona can, with some protection, immediately breach the thing from below, or if Juno can hack it, via the wide opening of the cargo bay, while it's immobilized!

    From there it should be pretty simple to brutally kill the Avian pilot inside!

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Alexis is almost curious to look inside the hole in the ground, as she skids to a stop and reels in her grapple. "Hm." Shrug. She opts to hop off the vehicle, before she approaches the hole itself. Making a leap, she begins her descent with night vision on, landing whenever she does with a motion to grab her rifle.

    She'll just begin to sift through whatever she can that's inside the basement, looking to figure out what she can scavenge here.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Meanwhile, the Avians at the wall are finding a lot more difficulty amassing resistance here, because where they were intending to start a barrage of heavy weapon fire, using rocket launchers and energy weapons, their local energy net experiences a huge power failure shock, causing half of their munitions to be completely unavailable, meaning Rebecca only has to contend with the rocket launchers. Several of the Avians are dying under the barrage as well, the wide-area explosive effect blasting them right out of their base. Most of them, however, are going to be electrocuted to death! This is fairly one-sided, missiles towards Rebecca's forward line aside.

Corona Arclite has posed:
"Much abliged." A proper cowboy always gives gratitude for assistance, no matter how stressed for time they are. Juno is going to hack the ship, but seeing as there isn't much time, Corona figures she best try to stack odds in their favor by acting herself as well.

So when Staren stomps in and grabs onto the gunship to keep it from maneuvering around, that's when the foxgirl moves. Darting from her cover she runs underneath the ship and uses one of her grappler chains to snag the bottom near the panel Albert pointed out and pull herself up. "No time to do this the clean way," she muses, followed by a wicked little grin as she clenches the other hand and a plume of plasma energy hisses to life from the Arclight Cutter fitted into her glove. Corona just thrusts the plasma cutter into the panel to slice the locking mechanism apart so she can pull the hatch open. And so it can still be closed behind her so the ship stays space capable with a jury-rigging.

Once she's inside Corona slinks towards the cockpit, pulling the Erchius Flintlock she snagged earlire from the weapon storage, levels it at the back of the pilot's head as soon as he's in view, and fires. Hopefully her skill with unusual firearms will back it a quick and clean headshot.

Hopefully once the pilot is out of the way she can take control of the ship for herself.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Any that aren't going to be dealt with by Rebecca's explosive and electrifying display are going to find themselves kicked and slashed and generally beaten and stabbed senseless. Where Rebecca's power shenanigans cut the damage output by half, Rebound's disruption cuts it in half again to a fourth of its overall potential damage! They have guns, sure, but they're all anti-vehicle launcher type weapons, their hands are definitely NOT on their erchius flintlocks.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Oh, these guys aren't actually dead, they're just really fucking sick. PHEW. Thank goodness for that. One vulture-looking jerk tries to vomit aggressively at Kotone. Wow, what a dick. He had a good access pass though. And then it's time to book it out of here!

    The hostages are kept in a lower sub-basement area. There's a small family of Glitch, as well as a Hylotl, who are trapped in a dungeon-like prison area. Luckily, elsewhere, REBECCA KISMARIN has sent the facility's power systems into emergency mode. With the pass, she should be able to cut the emergency power and force the dungeon cells to open. Unfortunately, there's a bulky, six-foot-tall man with two cutlasses guarding them, wandering up and down the halls of the sub-basement area. If Kotone can get rid of him, the small family and the Hylotl monk, though starved and thirsty, ought to be able to get out and teleport to the Bluenose if Kotone has them do so.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
There isn't much sign to Juno's tension beyond the working of her jaw, but her fingers fly true over the ship's controls. She's busily attempting to hack the ship's control systems to allow Corona a better shot at controlling the little Starling-class, but she's got her attention split half a dozen ways on various subsystems of the Rogue Shadow. It's getting difficult to follow.

"Captain Eclipse, is your primary program faulty?" PROXY inquires politely.

"What?"

"You are producing a strange sound, presumably from your jaw unit."

"Oh." Juno realises belatedly that in her stress she's been grinding her teeth. "Sorry. Eyes forward, PROXY; let's finish up here before we think about anything else."

"Yes, Captain Eclipse."

Back to work, for the blonde pilot.

    [I've almost got you in, Arclite. Hold tight.]

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Close-quarters firebombs are, in fact, a /huge/ bitch to deal with. The swordsbirds find themselves burning. Man, there's been a lot of burning avians in this tiny little miniplot. Writhing pirates roll around trying to put out flames in Flint Hawke's wake. And then he steps upstairs to find the leader!

    The leader is a jovial big blue Avian in a small lounge that doubles as his control room. He immediately invites Flint in, pours him a drink, and settles down, eagerly asking what is very clearly a fellow pirate captain what exactly needs doing in order to get off this rock before Thornwing turns it into slag and ash. This is a man who understands the most important rule of piracy very well: Never be loyal, know when to cut your losses.

Rebecca Kismarin (343) has posed:
     The one-two punch of energy fire and ballistic fire would be a very real threat to the HERCs, even with the Apocalypse's sturdy shielding and armored shell. But without the means to crack the barrier, incoming rockets and explosives leave scorch marks and pitted dents in the plating rather than gouges and breaches. The pilot's stability remains high as does the shield integrity as the behemoth stomps towards the line. The Hellfire cannon unleashes another sphere of matter-shearing particles towards whatever big targets are remaining. Those sniper cannons are too unwieldly for small, soft targets so instead they -CRACK- and -BOOM- towards portions of the wall. When the Jupiter's Hammer gets close enough, though, the shoulder vanes light up, crackling with electricity.

     Electricty arcs from the tip of the vanes, two flailing tendrils of lightning crackling and popping as the flux whips rake across anything on the walls it gets attracted to. Meanwhile, the damaged but not crippled Mantis follows in the Apocalypse's wake, the two remaning flechette cannons peppering the walls with those razor shards. Further back, the Sensei only moves forward to enhance its portion of the sensor net, 'ears' raising higher to keep the team supported.

Rebound (750) has posed:
    Okay, she thinks she's done her part to help the cause at this point. Just as quickly as the kangaroo came rushing in and struck at the anti-vehicle avians, she vanishes, using her powerful legs to leap away. She's not sure which direction she's going but at this point, she just figures she'd better get away from the base.

    She just hopes somebody remembers to pick her up at some point. The last thing she wants is to be left abandoned in the middle of this wintery hell hole forever. Well maybe not forever, because she'll probably freeze before forever. A couple more jumps and she should be far enough away from the base to be clear.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
Flint Hawke smiles widely at the Captain, though he won't partake of a drink. Flint also knows the secondary rule of piracy: Never be loyal, kill the man threatening you.

That could be poison for all he knows.

The Captain keeps the Flintlock twirling around his finger as he ponders the offer from the blue Avian, though, "Ah, hrm. Well. The price of a ticket off. Yes, that would make me the toll man and you the toll-ee. Caged bird, so to speak, yes?"

Flint leans over his table and takes out a space pen. It's like a regular pen, but space-r. The Captain starts to scrawl out what appears to be an account number, followed by a secondary number, "You just be a good chap and re-route all your base's funding from this Thornwing fellow into my private accounts. And don't tell me they're all in his name. We're both smart men, or at least I know fifty percent of us are smart men. The other half the jury is still out. You kept his maintenance funds in a separate account."

Flint scratches the side of his head with the barrel of the gun, "You just go ahead and give me all that then, and we'll see you on your way. New beginnings, yes? Can't have you burdened by the fortune and material possessions of an old life. Don't worry about conversion rates, that launderer will tidy it right up into the Multiversal credit or what have you."

The Captain nods his head a few times, "Right right, let's get this on, then. He should be here soon, yeah?"

Staren has posed:
    Staren caught a ship! He holds it to keep it from getting away until Corona has control, then lets go, surverying the contents of the hangar and checking on the radio if anyone needs anything. Still, looks like this is about done...

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets back from teh agressive vomit, well most of it, she did get the pass off him. She says nothing as she tries to get it off, then cloak again. She's now made to the sub-basement area and is looking to see what she can do to get them out. Thanks to Rebecca the power systems are not out and she should be able to use the card to cut the back up iwers to the cells. However the huge man is wandering about the sub-basement and she's got an idea. She does have an arc thrower for such reasons, it's only got power for two shots, it doesn't mnake it good for large scal use, but uses like this? She's going to attempt to sneek up on the guy and give him a good jolt which should hopefully drop him.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rory gets all the prisoner data. She also gets access codes for ship after ship, which, when routed to Albert, allows the Starbounders -- they're catching up on the hangars now -- to jack several ships easily, as well as letting Juno secure REMOTE PILOTING on a second Apex ship, and letting Kyra get another craft. It essentially enables much of the functional remaining ships to get into orbit as soon as they have digital control or someone behind the wheel. There's also all the data scavenged from the vessels themselves -- some of which is incredibly valuable scientific data, among other things -- and some data about more Ring of Thorns cells that could be turned over to authorities.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Juno forces the controls into manual. The pilot doesn't realize that's a GUN at the back of his head until it's too late! We will leave the details of his gray matter tastefully unspoken. What matters is that Corona takes control of the Apex gunship! The STARBOUNDERS have also arrived here! All except Biteblade, who's currently using this advantageous position to take out more anti-air systems, to clear a path for an exit. The ships are FREE! Free to be piloted out as fast as they can. The Starbounders are jacking five ships here, plus a ton of spare parts lying around, while Kyra is encouraged to snag a second, and Rory finds information that Blackout can use to remote-pilot a third right out of here.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Oooh, goody! Remote piloting! That's always fun. Fortunately, Juno has PROXY to help her manage the particulars, and remote piloting isn't something too difficult for her to figure out on the fly. The Rogue Shadow has a tremendously sophisticated computer array, so managing something automated like that isn't too diffi<span style="color:ult.

    [cxterm81">I've got one of those ships via remote systems. Let me know when you're all ready to leave. Maybe there's something useful on its core I can dig out for you later.</span>]

In the meantime, she'll move that Apex ship into joining the others, gunning the engines for all they're worth once they've got an open corridor ahead of them. It's a little unsteady, but that's the best she can do without actually being in the pilot's chair herself.

    [I'm keeping an eye on local space. If they try tailing you all, I'll see what I can do from here to support and keep them off your six.]

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra, who had been waiting just outside the hangar doors so she does not get SHOT by the Apex gunship, peeks in every now and then to see what's going on. Fortunately, the radio provides a better update of the progress over the gunship's erratic flying. It isn't long before both the ship is neutralized and the other Starbounders come sweeping in-or at least most of them. She's about to ask about Biteblade but she checks the tacnet first to find her position. "Hi guys!" she greets cheerfully, "Clear out the storage rooms?"

    She slips into the hangar regardless of the answer, picking one of the remaining ships, enabling her fake ship hijacker reputation she used yesterday on the outpost to actually become reality.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite pushes the dead Avian out of the seat, and makes a note to clean off the brain splatter later. But she deals with occasionally having to shoot down bandits from day to day so it doesn't bother her much.

That and she's focused on the matter at hand. Fortunately after picking up her own ship she's gotten some good familiarity with flying them. She doesn't land it entirely, but since it's a VTOL she only has to hover low enough to open the cargo bay and let the Starbounders toss in some of the loot they've been looting, and hitch a ride themselves if they need by.

Once that's all sorted out she gets the gunship out of here, off the planet and reuniting with the rest of the Flotilla ships.

Staren has posed:
    And now it is, apparently, time to get out of here! If there aren't enough pilots, Staren sends the Star Hawk away on autopilot and hijacks one of the ships.

    If there are enough pilots, Staren keeps watch outside the hangar until everyone's taken off, then high-tails it out of the atmosphere!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Maaka follows along to the hole, and winds up in the sub-basement! This looks like it was some kind of storage area.She's not finding much that's unusual though! Just some more cash, some valuables, and...

    ...

    Oh YEAH.

    Maaka has found what appears to be some kind of ancient Glitch sword mixed with futuristic Hylotl tech. An internal wire-tension system made it possible for its old holder to keep it, flexibly, inside a standard Glitch mechanical arm, to which it is still attached. It may be compatible with Maaka. Quick, take it and run before anyone sees you.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Rebecca has cleared out most of the wall with her vicious assault of flechettes, electricity, and similar. Hellfire works wonderfully against those huge gems. They may be a bit wounded, but they've essentially won. Which is good, it gives them plenty of time to clear back a little. The night sky is now being host to several dozen very large Avian ships on the horizon. It may be time to get moving!

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Alexis stares at the sword-arm thing, before she takes it. There's no real reason not to, honestly. Grabbing it, she then nabs whatever else she can until she begins to climb her way out. This might end up a good find, if she can figure out how to put it to good use anyway.

    Until then, she'll just shave the arm down until it makes a decent grip for the blade.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    Rory's own retreat is very simple. She orders the Dragonfly to fry itself and overload, burning itself out entirely and recalls her Saucer. It's really simple since she's remained outside the whole time!

    Mesh connections are wondrous like that. They have kilometers of broadcast range in open air and about a kilometer when surrounded by lots of barriers.

    This definitely wasn't a kilometer away."I suppose that's about all that can be done now..."

    With a sad look for the base, she waits until her Saucer's right overhead and grabs it, engaging the teleport beam. ZOOOOOOOOSH!

    Back to the Odyssey.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The friendly blue avian is a little concerned at that; Hawke can see him sweating a bit. Parting with his fortune is a little bit of an issue, but he's also a smart and savvy enough pirate to know that living to make another dollar is better than dying with a dollar in your hand. Still keeping his friendly composure, he says that he thinks that's quite a reasonable thing to offer, and he'll go ahead and take that then. He then rather immediately transfers the 'Pixels' in the base's name, and immediately offers a wireless link to his TELEPORTER BEACON so that Hawke could take him along in any teleportation. Hoping, of course, that Flint isn't planning on screwing him over. He does make sure to mention the pixels he keeps stashed around his backup ship, without mentioning where he stashed that backup ship. Apparently he has a backup ship specifically meant for situations like this! This guy is a really savvy pirate.

Rebecca Kismarin (343) has posed:
     Another hard burn descent, the Hand of Iapetus breaking through the blizzard and lowering three of the four massive cargo elevators on the underbelly. Cold rushes into the hangar bay, empty as before to save the unprotected human crew from the biting cold. The HERC pilots guide their machines, damaged but not broken, towards their respective platforms. Salvaged chunks of crystal and stone and more litter the internal hoppers. As the heavy lifts start to ascend, so does the dropship, rising and making for the Flotilla even before the three elevators are even sealed.

     Rebecca, in the control room, just stares at the tactical readout screen, shaking her head. "...another race of sentient goddamn robots... 'mostly good'... I'll believe it when I see it." She runs a hand through her hair, the other planted on a console edge.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    The incredible uses of invisibility continue to be critical. An arc thrower throws its arc rather well here, and drops the large man, though he goes for wild, blind swings behind him before the pain overwhelms him and he winds up twitching on the ground. The cells, of course, can be easily opened now. The Glitch family are all very stoically excited, with a lot of "Begging. Thank you, thank you, please help us." And "Desperate. Take us with you on your ship, please." The Hylotl, as Hylotls are, basically just sort of assumes this is natural, and remains monkishly silent. They'll follow Kotone to the surface and hopefully back to the Bluenose, albeit briefly, before they go to the Connoisseur.

Flint Hawke (320) has posed:
Flint hmms and rocks on his feet as he watches the funds get transferred, "Very good, very good. I'm glad we could reach an accord about this matter. Just one thing!"

Flint thinks it over and then sighs, "I agreed to let you leave, not take you with me. You're going to have to find your own way to your ship. Do watch the fire just downstairs, though it should have burned out by now." He nods his head a bit, smiling.

"I'm going to name you...Bluejay. That works well enough, since your actual name is unimportant to me. Mister Bluejay, please do survive! It was a pleasure doing business with you, but you should be going," Flint mulls it over, "And, on that note, so should I!"

"UNSHIFT!" Flint snaps his fingers, remembering a word he was stumbling for on radio, "That's what they call it when I do that."

"Ah, that would have bugged me for so many cycles," He shakes his head and laughs a bit, clearly just holding a one-sided conversation for the most part, "Anyway. Toodles~."

And just like that, Flint seems to vanish out of existence.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Biteblade covers Rebecca's squad effectively. Staren covers the people retreating from the hangar, a small fleet of eight ships plus change. Maaka will have no trouble beaming back to the Crimson Shadow, and Rebound will have no trouble beaming back to the Steamhammer. Kotone and her entorage will have no issue getting back to the surface. Flint in his unspace won't be affected by what comes next.

    An Avian cloaked in the shadow on the bridge of a huge flagship growls and orders a bombardment, but by that time, one thinks, the Starbound Flotilla and their allies for today are likely gone, alongside a copious amount of valuables, more than a half-dozen ships, a variety of incredibly useful ship parts, some hostages who are thanking Kotone and Rory profusely for saving them, and a whole boatload of generalized happiness all around. Laughing and hooting and yelling in a generalized celebration, the Flotilla blasts off out of the system.

    "Bluejay" downs the drink he poured for Captain Hawke. The poison therein kills him painlessly before the first bombardment starts, saving him the pain of being around when Thornwing lands. Never let good rum go to waste.