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Starbound Flotilla     Amalgam, or as it was previously known, Epsilon Maiia Minoris IV a. This planet, full of dense forests and sparsely covered with small bodies of water, is what the moon claimed by AMATERASU Lunar Mining Facility 01 orbits (which would, of course, be Epsilon Maiia Minoris IV b). But today, we're a fair far bit from the Flotilla's colony.

    Today, they're at a staging area high up on a mountain's peak. Here is where the team receives another brief, though they were sent this brief a long while ago regardless. It's a plan mostly formed by Pavo and Albert, it seems, and it's obviously a combination of their spirits.

"Avast, ye scurvey dogs! We got a Condor-class to be takin' down. These are the big prizes, ye know, biggest ships our kind get."
"A railgun. Biggest we have. Prototype ground-to-orbit defense tech. Maaka, you will operate."
"Aye, and while tin-can snipes it down, we need Rory and Kotone runnin' under."
"Yamakawa, keep White in range. Help where possible. White, Yamakawa, you will breach the network. Stop anything that will wipe the IFF systems. Shut down all offbound teleports."
"Ye gonna go groundside, because we're bringin' this whale down in the dirt! Kotone's gonna have to drive White alongside, ye see?"

"Vessel will begin an emergency landing, Staren and Arclite will begin pursuit. Staren, force the vessel down from above, prevent it from aborting emergency landing. Arclite, run under, recover any scrap you can and field-reforge it into a railgun slug using our craftworks if necessary. Ship shields can be bypassed by its own hull matter. Load our railgun if you don't have anti-vehicular ordinance of that kind."
"Big gun with a proper cannonball like that'll put it in the dirt for good if we keep it in-atmosphere! Yarharhar!"
"We can only do that if they have no opportunity to access their shield systems or activate their defenses. We need short-range high-power direct assault. The T.I.G.E.R. will board from above, deployed by the Rapacity, with Houken on standby as a passenger in one of the surface vehicles. Staren will keep up from above. Force it into the ground. Do not let it escape. Provide other support where necessary."
"Aye, and Maaka, ye improvise a boarding, best ye can, once ye run outta fun for the railgun if ye can!"
"Parsle. Optimized pathing, navigation. The falling vessel will devastate local terrain. Design is unknown. Find patterns in the risks, redesign the ground and air routes to minimize risks."

"Take all they have, give nothin' back!"
"Starbound squad out."
Starbound Flotilla     The target is skimming Amalgam orbit, fixing up the orbital minefield it keeps over critical trade routes. A tremendous Condor-class ship, aesthetically a cross between a massive stone temple and a vicious-looking ironside war machine. Scans show it bristling with guns and heavily shielded, with several redundant engine systems.

    Down here at the staging area, Maaka has been furnished with a massive railgun; it's something she can mount either to her own vehicles, or leave mounted on the tremendous cross between a van and a dune buggy that the Starbounders delivered it on. The gun itself is tremendous, several feet long and clearly an excessively compressed anti-orbital artillery piece designed for hit and run work.

    The area around the mountain has as little population as the Flotilla could find in the path of the vessel. Meanwhile, the SFS Rapacity has offered to take Taiga aboard; its interior is just as piratey as its captain, but the Starbounders know not to keep Taiga away from Nozomi for long. He's invited to load up into what looks like a cross between a gun and a teleporter, which is presumably the less dangerous variant of an orbital drop pod. Everyone else is encouraged to arm up and armor up as best they can here...

    Everyone ready?
Nozomi Houken     Nozomi is nervous to say the least. She's got the staff that the Flotilla gifted her, but she's clutching it more like a security stick than a proper weapon. Taiga is simply seated and waiting, but she's doing enough pacing for the both of them. "Aah, is this really going to be okay, Taiga...? It's..." The robotic tiger cants his head slightly. "It will be fine. I am well-suited to the striker role, and if it will save your participation in the battle, I have no objections."

    The TIGER does finally stand up on all four legs, but turns to address Pavel and Albert directly. "I simply ask that you bear in mind. In Rampart Mode, Nozomi and I serve as an excellent highly-mobile striker. Siege-breaking, emergency spot-defense, it is a role we are well-suited to. However, that is to be considered an absolute last resort. I trust I do not need to remind you of my user's less-than-favorable reaction to the transformation." After that testing facility, even the Flotilla have seen the haunted look in her eyes after she's been transformed. "If all goes as planned, it should not be necessary, of course." Was that sarcasm from the cat?
Staren     The SSC Stranger than Fiction is en-route to Amalgam orbit at FTL, on a course where it will drop to sublight speed at an ideal location for Staren to detach and launch the Star Hawk. At this point, Staren is suited up and sitting in the Star Hawk's cockpit where it's docked with the Stranger, looking out through the canopy at the distinctive streaks of light that shoot past while an Erchius drive is in use. He suddenly wonders what the streaks of light /are/. They're not stars, are they? He's thought about this before, of course, but something always seems to come up and distract him before he can really analyze it.

    Such as the impending operation.
Starbound Flotilla     Pavo's up on her feet, readying the teleporter. "Oh, aye. Be why we keep her on standby, ye know. Emergency for you, emergency for her. Not smart keepin' ye apart. Just smart keepin' ye two instead'a one." She cracks a goofy, irreverent smile as the teleportation field fixes around Taiga.
Alexis Maaka     Maaka grins as she gets settled into the buggy's seat. "Wheels up, time to go." Her buggy roars to life as the cyborg hooks the last of her connecting circuitry to the vehicle, giving her total awareness of the vehicle's current status. As she slams the accelerator, getting used to the limited rotation axis the turret provides as her co-pilot holds onto the vehicle for dear life.

    "OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD WHY ARE YOU DRIVING SO FAST!?" Kaz screams in terror, dressed in an armored vest and facemask while he frantically tries to give Maaka targetting data on the ship itself. Given the speed this vehicle is going, he's more concerned with Maaka accidentally smashing into something along the way. This isn't going to happen as easily as he thinks, however, as Maaka is gleefully and deftly maneurvering the buggy down the mountain path, having it leap and bound across gaps when not skirting the edge of cliffs. It's definitely a terrifying experience, despite Maaka's skill in operating most vehicles. "What's the matter, Kazzy? Never rode shotgun with a road warrior?" She laughs, lining up the shot as she gets in range to the ship itself with her railgun.

    "That's it, just a bit closer until we bring 'er down..."
Sarah Parsle Sarah is totally here and ready to rock.

Metaphorically. Her rocks are more like fine gravel that you throw under someone and make them slip. She waits in the briefing, considering the threat they're facing and what they're going to have to deal with. She nods as she is assigned tactical coordination and navigation. "You got it. Let's make sure they drop on something we don't give a damn about." She already has a tablet up, poking at it and hooking into the local network. When sensors pick up the ship and its telemetry, Sarah is already poking at the surface, splaying her fingers across as she taps at it. "Maaka." Sarah says. "I'm sending you some initial calculations. Hit the ship at this point if you can, aim for partial engine damage. This should cause it to change course to compensate, reducing its ability to deviate from the plan."

She zooms out, indicating several areas that the Starbounders have marked out. "Hitting any of these points will result in the lowest collateral damage. Don't waste all our work, people. If we can commandeer the ship, great."

She steps forward, the environment suit Staren gave her sealing around her. She's not going into direct combat if she can help it, but you never know. "Remove the ship's options. If you can prevent it from acting in ways we don't want, we'll force it to do what we DO want." She gets onto the teleporter. "Let's do this."
Corona Arclite If Maaka isn't squeeing at seeing the fancy piece of artillery, Corona most definately is. Or she might be doing so at the vehicle it's been brought in on. It's kind of hard to tell, considering her engineering tastes. It could very well be both. But not enough to get distracted by it, thankfully.

As the duo dole out the roles, she just breaks out into a broad grin. "Reckon Ah brought the rawht machine fer the job then!" Followed by a bit of a chuckle as she climbs up into the cab of her oversized steampunk 'truck'. The phrase being used loosely, considering it also sports a large drill on the front (so she won't have to worry about obstacles) and some sort of utility crane and other machinery in the back. A few cranks and lever jerking and it rumbles to life, belching equal amounts of smoke and embers out of the dual stacks behind the cab, and said drill rrrrrs loudly but doesn't spin more than idle speed so far.

Then Corona leans out of other side to motion at Nozomi. "Got nuff room fer two over here, lass!"

Once everyone is settled Corona puts it into gear and the heavy duty machine moves out with the others.
Starbound Flotilla     Sarah's data lines up. Maaka's gun is working fine. What comes of both is a wonderful symphony.

    When Maaka does choose to fire the weapon on Sarah's trajectory, the tremendous bolt blasts up... And then there's a delayed tearing of atmospheric processes, a vicious gout of fire that slams a shockwave all around Maaka. Thankfully, her buggy's out of the blast radius.

    The slug slams into one of the secondary engines. Shields go up shortly after, but as predicted, the vessel is going to go for an emergency landing. It's heading down, already skimming the surface with a rush of red light, and a streak of light visible from below. Moonfin hops on comms. "The sky is falling; the path ahead is rocky, uncertain, dangerous. Find your spirit and head south."
    "Alright kiddos, we're on the move! Sarah, you want a ride? Front row seats are tough to get!" George is actually local here, and offering his own little dune-buggy-style thing, ready to hit the road.
Starbound Flotilla     Seft's on comms in Staren's boat, a flickering holographic display. "Alert. Staren, the assault has begun. Linking to tacnet. Sarah can provide a path for you to stalk from above and bypass sensors." Can she, Seft? Well, Seft seems to, at least, have a ton of faith in Sarah Parsle. "Attack as soon as you see an opportune moment, or as soon as it appears that the vessel will attempt an escape."

    Sarah is getting data from Seft now. "Requesting. Miss Parsle, please solve a path through the detected sensory array for our flight combatant. This may also be crucial for Taiga's deployment."
Kotone Yamakawa Amalgam is starting to turn out to be a pretty interesting time here, for her. Kotone has been planning to get ahold of Saski and Miho, about setting up shop here but today? Events have caused these plans to be delayed. It's something new for why she's had her planns had been cut short? Pirates, that's why it's been cut short. She's got her orders at this point she's to work with Rory, and do what she can ot get into their systems. She's already got a dummy barrier across the back of her neck as she waits for more of the lowdown on what his happening.

"Got it get into their systems, wreck their teleporters, and wipe thier IFF. Want us to grab any data of worth while we're in there if we have a chance?"

There's a lot of people here, evne a few whom are new to her. She's got the rest of her rigged hooked up and she's making redy to go.

<<Rory you ready??>>
Alexis Maaka     "Firing now." Maaka brings the sky down the moment she pulls the trigger on that cannon. "Watch for backblast." She says miliseconds before it fires, then everything else is drowned out by the deafening report of that cannon. Kaz grits his teeth and yelps as he protects his hearing, while Maaka is content to let her suit and the windows on that buggy take care of guarding her ears. She's definitely hearing bells in her ears afterwards though, until the high pitched whine stops.

    "In pursuit as we speak, I'm gonna try and get aboard that sucker once it's close enough." She radios, kicking the buggy's engine into overdrive, tearing southwards to follow the falling vessel as it makes landfall.
Nozomi Houken     Corona has successfully managed to startle Nozomi. She looks between the... 'truck', and Taiga, who gives her a quick nudge of the head. "Go. I will be in contact." Then, Corona herself receives a simple look. "I hold you responsible for her wellbeing." There's another back-and-forth glance between Taiga, who heads off to board his own transport, and Corona's choice in vehicles... before a rather hesitant Nozomi finally climbs up into the truck.
Corona Arclite "Doncha worry none mechat, she'll be fine." Case in point, Corona reachs over to pull a safety harness down over Nozomi once she's in the cab. That's right, this thing has harnesses instead of seat belts. Or maybe Corona just prepared ahead for the potential rough road ahead. It's not exactly going to be a smooth ride, after all.

They keep their distance to avoid backblast shockwaves as the rail-cannon fires, but then the truck pulls up alongside the cannon-buggy. Long enough for Corona to flash Alexis a thumbs-up on the shot, and then pull in front of her. Corona reachs over to pull a lever and the drill roars to full speed, little whiffs of exhaust occasionally puffing out of the ducts behind it. It'll take care of any surface obstructions in their way so Alexis can keep a straight and steady path for aiming at the ship.
Rory White     Were it only possible, Rory would much prefer negotiating with the Ring of Thorns pirates. Perhaps convincing them of how much more they stood to gain by working on a proper civilization with the tools available instead of raiding.

    But the Ring of Thorns rarely listens to reason, huh?

    So if their wings need to be clipped first, so be it.

    <<As I can be!>>

    And that means... she's worried. She has a handful of drones ready to try and slip aboard to use for hard infiltration and establishing links if there's no way to spoof a wireless connection. SHE for sure wouldn't want ANY attack surfaces open for even a HINT of possible hacking of a SPACESHIP. The Cognizant Odyssey's communications hardware has some quirks that makes unauthorized connections nearly impossible to maintain. And it certainly doesn't broadcast anything unnecessarily!
Sarah Parsle Sarah doesn't need any more urging from George. She hurls herself into the dune-buggy, slinging her tablet along with her. The rest of her SYLLADEX is currently unavailable at the moment, considering how much of a pain in the ass it is to decode and unlock each card.

But that's all she really needs. She's here for coordination. With a dramatic point, she gestures. "Let's make some people have a really bad day, George."
Staren     "Acknowledged, Seft." Staren's HUD shows tacnet data and the status of his own ship, and a nice big countdown timer to the end of his FTL jump. He's finished his pre-launch checks for the Star Hawk and watches the timer count down. Just several more seconds and it'll be time to intimidate some pirates...
Starbound Flotilla     Albert gives a grunt over comms to Kotone. "Affirmative. Prioritize preventing IFF purge and teleport escape. Do anything else you can. Disable weapons, shields, slow it down, steal data about local Ring activity."

    Time to hit the road, though. There's a noise like an awful scream from above; the vessel is slamming through the upper atmosphere and it's starting to pass over the mountain. Better load up on a bike or something similar, and hit the road down the mountain path!
Starbound Flotilla     The path it seems to be taking is going through Glitch territory. Maaka is going to pass around the border of some nearby abandoned villages, from the look of it. It's enough open space on the rocky mountain path that Corona can pull ahead. It's gonna be some time, of course, before... The vessel begins to reach much lower ranges. Maaka and Corona are going to see that the heavily damaged engine is hanging by cords, it looks like... In fact, as it passes over a nearby monster-infested Glitch fort, the damaged secondary engine's connectors snap, causing the damaged module to rip into a watchtower nearby.

    It looks like it's trying to pull up a bit; the group has a clear shot to go for their push now. George, Kotone, Maaka, and Corona -- presumably in that formation -- will have to deal with the MASSIVE debris explosion coming down, raining chunks of abandoned watchtower, but if they can, this is as good a time as any to start properly shooting it down with full offensive power!
Starbound Flotilla     Taiga's locked on the teleporter. Pavo has beamed it up! "Alright, boat's gettin' down, ye ready?" She says, broadcasted nearby at a console. "Gonna be a heavy impact, ye know. Softer than a pod but that ain't that much better. Combat insertion for teleport's a tough thing. Get yerself all powered up. We be near time to hit the hull."

    The Rapacity is charging up. Time to slam the enemy with a strike from above! On Taiga's mark, Pavo's ship will beam it down... Violently. Taiga itself will be discharged in a tremendous bolt of red light, square on the surface of the vessel.
Alexis Maaka     "Corona, load up!" Maaka shouts into the radio, before she presses the acclerator once more. The vehicle tears through the village, nimbly evading abandoned carts while she tracks the falling ship. "Kaz, gimme a route." She glances to the terrificed technie, before speaking once more. "HEY. You okay?"

    "Y-yeah, I'm fine...." Kaz stammers, before he begins plotting out a course to follow. The buggy begins to slow just so Corona can maintain speed in front of them as Maaka signals for the techno fox to get to loading, popping open the chamber for the railgun so she can get to loading.
Corona Arclite "Hang on kid, this is where it gets a bit bumpy!" That's about all the warning her passanger is going to get before Corona veers hard as the watchtower comes tumbling down.

Though not so much to avoid it, as she aims right for where the wreckage is going to land in their intended path. This is why she brought the vehicle that has things like the massive drill on the front. She's going to tear right through the debris because that's the shortest and most effective route.

But there's still plenty of smoke and rubble flying around them from the collapsing structure! It batters and bounces off the cab and chassis, but Corona built her heavy duty truck tough enough that Tonka would be jealous.

The other reason she drove right into the path? So she could grab the remains of that broken engine with the crane grappler. As soon as it's held onto the automatrons in the truck's bed stripe off the remaining external plating and shove in through the manufacturing hardware. The crew said it was best to use the ship's own hull against it after all.

Don't loose it when you can reuse it!

As soon as the new shell is popped out, one of the automatronic cubes grabs it with it's segemented arms, using their length to reach over and heave the shell into the chamber of the rail-cannon.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone didn't trust many people to link to her like that, Rory was one of those few she did. It was a strange feeling linking up with another person like that, be they flesh or not. Her own avatar would appear a white haired woman looking clearly mechanical and in a techy body suit awaited Rory as they worked to get connected. Kotone is not on her own ship today, in a ground craft that she got the specs from the Argonauts form, she'd been tinkering with it and thankfully it leanded it self to the operation.

One might wonder how can this woman be driving? Given the cables in the back of her neck and even in several other sockets on her shell, also the half face mask she had on. She was doing several things at once and she was not holding back just how fast her cyberbrain could operate. The craft skipped and bounced a long but Kotone was doing a good job in keeping up with the target, though for the moment, most of her hacking were automated programs backing up Rory, while she focused on the road.

<<You know I was seriously going to be hitting up Miho and Saski today...>>
Nozomi Houken     Nozomi has been strapped in. She is currently holding on for dear life while debris rains down around the truck.

    In the meantime, the TIGER unit is now well and truly going into a situation for which he was designed. He is all business from the word go, waiting on the teleporter until he is warped up to the Rapacity, and then waiting again in a crouched position intended to minimize impact on his frame. With his attention on the various feeds from other combatants, he waits with a calm, patient stillness, until just the right moment, and then...

    "Mark."

    A heavy weight slams into the top of the ship, buckling the hull in a small crater around the projectile. The moment his claws are dug into the hull, Taiga launches himself like a bullet. Shoulder-mounted cannons swivel into place and start firing, tracking anything that might be a defensive emplacement - missile or torpedo launchers, projectile cannons, energy weapons; if it has even the vaguest resemblance to a weapon of some sort, Taiga is spraying it with energy shots. But his primary target is the shield emitters. Those need to be torn apart ASAP.
Starbound Flotilla     George slams the pedal to the metal when Sarah's in, and blasting on through the path means a small rain of metal. "Watch your head, kid." He calls out. "Mind keeping eyes up? I gotta stare at the road, you know, otherwise I might fall asleep." More faux idiocy, but now it looks like things are falling! Shards of debris, and this time, the bigger engine slamming into the watchtower. "Staren's about to jam into the airspace, we'll need some sensor bypass routes if you can plot 'em!"

    This might be a bit too chaotic for that, though. George is trying to maneuver around tremendous chunks of a stone watchtower that are raining around the group now!
Starbound Flotilla     It's going for emergency landing. Staren can dive in now, as he comes out of FTL; if Sarah's able to get that plan worked out, he ought to be able to bypass the constantly scanning arcs of sensor beams! In any case, it may be a smart move to close regardless, since it's going through atmospheric entry now!
Starbound Flotilla     Maaka's loading up now. Corona's SLAMMING through the wreckage like a madwoman, and fast-fabricating the tremendous slug for the railgun. The railgun itself is hot to the touch from that last firing, sizzling and steaming, but this is why you send a cyborg to do this job.

    But as it's loading... Incoming! One last bit of shattered engine module is still sputtering thrust, trying to slam into the automatronic arms among all the chaotic random debris. Someone needs to stop it! And sometime before the big jump over the trade road that the crew is about to go over. But if she can get this slug loaded, it'll mean a huge hit on the vessel...!
Staren     Several seconds after the railgun hit, Staren drops out of FTL a few miles from the target. The Star Hawk immediately launches and fires an opening salvo -- He's replaced his usual backpack loadout with one for fighting large groups like the Abyssal fleet, replacing his magitech and mad science superweapons with an extra 40 missiles with 5-mile range. Today, with Rory's help, all of the missiles' guidance computers have been reprogrammed to detect if they've breached hull and serve as a hacking node instead of detonating.

    The opening salvo is whatever size the Core Fleet advised as a good idea -- they're mostly medium high-explosive warheads, with some light and some specifically designed to be armor-piercing. It's more like a wave than a salvo, really -- Staren wants to keep them pressured and induce panic, making it seem as if the missile rain will continue if they don't emergency land faster!

    Staren then flies towards the ship, trying to hover over it menacingly at a distance. With no atmosphere in his way, there's no such thing as a top speed -- The Star Hawk's thrusters can put out a lot of Gs, and with his flightsuit Staren can tolerate most of them! Closer up, Staren can use his railgun and the much shorter-range missiles he has even more of.
Starbound Flotilla     Meanwhile, Kotone's rushing through. With her link, she can undoubtedly get the hack program somewhere appropriate. Staren and Rory can get their drones in, but after that, bypassing the passive jamming signals they pick up will need her own onboard transmitters. Which means she needs to keep close! Unfortunately, that also means she'll need to start dodging soon. The incoming ordinance threatens to cause a lot of debris that'll ruin her day, and the way the craft gradually lists from one side to the next means she won't be able to keep up anywhere but behind it!
Staren     ...The bombardment will continue until morale improves! Or, you know, shields are breached and we get a hacking missile or three lodged in that hull. In either case, thanks to tacnet the missiles of course will avoid TAIGA and anyone else trying to work on the target's surface. Wouldn't want to blow the prize or allies apart, naturally!
Starbound Flotilla     Taiga slams into the hull from above, ripping through shielding in as quick a bypass as can be managed. It halted, briefly, for a few seconds, but ended with the light dispersing in an intense shockwave, deploying Taiga fully and properly. Thankfully, he can prevent that from being too much more of a problem. The emitters are directional, of course, rather than simply functioning at all angles. This means that tearing the shielding apart on the topside like this means that Staren's followup will be tremendously enhanced!

    With claw and bolt, Taiga's able to blast open several high-power shield emitters and rip out their insides, but since they've prioritized the ship shields over the offenses, the ship soon fights back! Alerted to the violent intentions of the planet below, their weapon systems warm up, and tremendous ship-to-ship weapons are focused on Taiga, disregarding his presence on the ship's hull itself to try to fire massive gushes of dangerous laser at his face.
Alexis Maaka     "Get the car steady, I'm gonna do something stupid." "What?!"

    Maaka, without further adieu, leaps right out of the buggy. She uses her suit's paramagnetics to cling to the armor plating as she scrambles over towards the railgun itself. Her suit's alarms blare loudly at the extreme heat, while Maaka continues to open up the railgun's chamber.

    "CORONA! TOSS ME THE SHELL!" She calls out, and assuming she does that, the cyborg then slams that sucker home and shuts the breach.

    She isn't even back in the vehicle itself as she gives the signal to fire the thing off, Kaz frantically remote-piloting the buggy while he in between maneuvers takes ahold of the trigger and fires away at the ship. Maaka herself pulls out a grenade launcher, aiming it at a large concentration of debris before firing away.

    And she's grinning all the while, adrenaline fueling her systems as she pops back into her seat and regains control of the buggy. "I fucking love my job."
Rory White     Far too many people think that you can hack anything. Given a laptop computer you can simply turn off a power plant and shut down a city? Come on. No. Just no.

    Even more think that being an AI makes someone an excellent hacker. Well, there's some truth to that at least. But hacking isn't a glamorous, dramatic undertaking like flying a jet. It's far from casting a spell. It's a subtle art that, like ninjas of reality, few truly understand.

    Linking up with Kotone, Rory gets to work the instant SOMEONE manages to land a hacking drone on the pirate ship's hull! The spider-like drone locates a damaged piece of hull and burrows in with lasers, legs extending down into the superstructure and into wiring. Electrical or optical matters little, it splits itself in. This drone's functions are very simple:

    Sniffing. Listening to low level signals.
    Pass-through. Letting the signals pass through normally.
    Interception. Blocking signals.
    Spoofing. Sending signals.

    The moment the sniffer starts up, data packets flow back to Rory and Kotone, and by extension an array of linked Ectos running Kaos and Security AIs. The array quickly analyzes the low-level protocols compared against those gathered from the Starbound Flotilla's racial technologies. The goal is simple: spoof itself as sending ship diagnostic data to the pirate ship's S.A.I.L. Diagnostics and internal reporting.

    For Rory's plan is simple. All spaceships like this are governed by an instance of S.A.I.L. Hacking SAIL on the fly is no small order, but ships are made of thousands of tiny sub-systems. Internal sensors that report system status, everything from what doors are open to atmospheric conditions to if a component is overheating.

    You can't simply brute force admin access to S.A.I.L. That will set off alarms and be laughed off by any kind of serious security.

    So Rory doesn't bother.

    "They won't see ANY of this coming! ... I feel bad about it. If only they'd been more willing to negotiate." Rory bemoans to her friend.

    But the operation continues.

    Rory sets in motion, as soon as she can manage, a CASCADE of carefully crafted operations.

    Firmware update packages are sent across the spoofed connection, bypassing the S.A.I.L. interface through some maintenance back-doors. For some compoennts? They'll reboot almost instantly. Some will reject the obviously faked firmware images. A few others might be bricked... but that's alright.

    But there's a method to the madness of attacking subcomponents.

    Fooling S.A.I.L.

    If all goes as planned, the POWER GENERATION reports go berserk, reporting that the ENGINES aren't producing enough POWER to keep all of the systems online. If Rory's called her reasoning properly? The teleporter will be deemed non-essential and shut down. Perhaps even the IFF transponder controls will be caught in this mess. It might also switch to emergency lighting and shut off a number of helpful monitors.

    The internal HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS sensors are also alerted to an abundance of DEADLY VIRUSES present within the atmosphere. If she's lucky, S.A.I.L. might automatically declare quarantine that will need to be hard overriden by the captain before anyone can teleport. They might also declare a DEADLY GAS LEAK, advising everyone adopt rebreathers and sounding god-awful alarms.

    At the same time, Rory works on establishing a maintenance connection to the IFF system, hoping to download ALL of its settings if she can spoof any kind of credentials to do so in the ensuing chaos!

    THIS is how hacking works.

    When you're from Transhuman space.
Starbound Flotilla     Staren's not going to find too much shield trouble. Taiga's landing means that the shielding was heavily torn away before the missiles hit; this means that armor-piercing missiles can tear through the hull, and keep the airspace above denied. Countermeasures go off aggressively, flak and chaff making a lightshow. These guys know the threat! They go for evasive maneuvers, while another chunk of upper hull is torn away, ripped out of the craft by the explosions. Oh christ, that was the cargo hold, everyone get ready for a bunch of crates of who even knows what falling out.
Nozomi Houken     Shred, shred, rip and tear. Your shield emitters are huge, but that must mean they have huge hardware. And huge hardware is easy for a sharp-clawed robotiger to tear apart. But there's only so long he can do that before people get angry and...

    ...and are they seriously shooting their anti-ship weapons at him while he's on their hull?

    "Hmph."

    It would be difficult for Taiga to aim his shoulder cannons in a situation like this. He's under some heavy fire. But the absolute insanity of the gunner crews means, in this particular case, he doesn't have to. He can focus entirely on evasion, keep himself alive, and damage them in the process by simply /leading their fire into their own weapons systems/. They'll catch on eventually, sure, but until they do, he doesn't have to lift a claw, so to speak.
Corona Arclite You know how well for the night Corona was prepared? Enough that when she reachs over to give the console between the seats a smack with her fist admist the madness, the old sound machine she built into the center churns to life, and starts blaring away from the speakers.

o/~ Give me the wheel! So we can move a little faster! I'll make it real! I'm not a glorious disaster. o/~

The automatron has just enough self-awareness to realize it's 'under attack' (even if unintentionally) and yank away at the last moment. The high speed debris slams into it's cubical body instead of its arms, toppling it off the truck, but it manages to somewhat awkwardly toss the shell back towards the vehicle as it does so.

o/~ What part of livin' says you gotta dies? I plan on burnin' through another nine lives! o/~

But the angle is just right that Corona can lean out of the cab, keeping one hand on the wheel while reaching out with the other arm and fire her grappler at the shell.

o/~ One more for measure, that's ten for the soul. Then never sleep so are you ready to goooo?! o/~

Corona reels it around and swings, letting go of the grappler to quite literally slingshot the shell back towards Alexis. "Alley oop!" Alexis is a cyborg, she can take a bit of extra momentum to catch it one hopes!

Then Corona ducks back into the cab and slams on the gas, making sure they'll have enough speed once they get to that jump.

o/~ Bloodshot against the clear blue sky; tick tock I think the well is runnin' dry!
My my... I can't lie... I need a shot again; that sweet ADRENALINE! o/~
Sarah Parsle George gives input, and Sarah nods, keeping her tablet at hand as all hell breaks loose in the area. As the buggy careens through the area, she splits her attention between the falling materials and the airspace, trying to make sense of the insane data flowing across her tablet screen. She trusts George to keep them /vaguely/ on the road. Ish. "Do whatever works!" She yells as George skids back and forth, sliding around and engaging in superior Mario Kart impressions.

In the meantime, she pulls her hands across what she's getting from Rory, looking for patterns, things she can use. Things she can /break/. She highlights several points. "Rory, these sections keep repeating. Does this look like something you can use? Might be a crappy hash." She expands the radar view, and grimaces as she compares it to the damage readouts. "Taiga looks like they're opening attack vectors along this side, Staren. Use your mobility to kick their ass. Start putting some damage into their engines in about 15 seconds, see if you can force them down into the optimal locations."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa is keeping her eyes so to speak on the road, it's not her own but the camera in the craft that are hooked directly into her brain now. She linked up properly with Rory and there seems to be no issues of computability. There seem to be none at this pint int time she's tracking the drones and someone does manage to land a drone, that's her cue as well.

She starts deploying more automanted programs to help and act as cover for Rory's own edit. Still having to be a script kiddy, but it's working. she knows she can't brute force A S.A.I.L but Rory has a plan.

<<I know but they picked this fight, we're not about to let them just rampage over the colony. If they want to place nice after an ass kicking, great. If not whelp? What can you do right now.>>

For once Kotone isn't very conflicted about this, but then again she knows just how nasty this group is in general from what the Flotilla has said.

The road is a major issue, as they have gone? There are no roads and Kotone's already starting to wheel the craft about not wanting to move in a straight line, as it's going to be pretty soon, that she and Rory? Will be coming under enemy fire, Kotone's smirking at Rory's plan, oh she likes it. You sneak in trick the system rather than out right take control by brute forcing the whole thing.

<<Rorry!? Hang on I'm putting the pedal to the metal>>

The Craft lurches forward and Kotone is keeping it fairly under control as she zips about, zig zaging. It's really almost like she's driving drunk, from how the craft is zipping and moving about. Yet as she does this, she finally gets into the hacking attempts on her own, taking a cue from Rory she attempts to feed false data to spam out the various camera feeds on the ship. They would finds text just overlaying everything glowing bright red and saying. Ye will belong to Davy Jones. Over and over again spamming out any useful information they might be getting.

<<You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that Rory!>>>

Hopefully her hacking attempt will make thing even harder to deal with Rory's own assault.
Staren     Whoops, Staren blew open a cargo bay! There might be valuable stuff there. Staren drops some camera drones off the ship to watch this debris field, hopefully they can retrieve the stuff before its orbit decays.

    Anyway, time to ease up on the bombardment. Haha, chaff. That only works when it's the /missiles'/ sensors you need to fool. Staren does actually laugh at this! With TAIGA, hacking drones, and some unexploded missiles serving as sensors, Staren and his missiles have plenty of positional information. Still, he tones it down -- bursts of railgun rounds at angles he expects to deflect, interspersed with explosions from the occasional armor-piercing missile or two. He's still doing /some/ damage, but with Rory distracting the crew, rather than melting huge chunks of ship with his plasma missiles, he's focusing more on making sure that the already-distracted crew hears an unending stream of noises of weapons hitting the hull, whether they have actual damage monitors up or not -- better if they don't, really!

    Until, y'know, Sarah asks him to tale out the engines. Railgun slugs rip and tear, plasma minimissiles melt...

    Staren wonders why they're not actually /attacking/ him. Maybe they can't see through their own chaff, or Taiga ripped off all the weapons. It's a lot of chaos to keep track of from their side too, after all!
Starbound Flotilla     Debris slams brutally into a grenade, spewing dust over the shut breach of the gun. Maaka has it loaded! And then, another shot. Everyone around -- every single runner down here on the ground -- will feel the shockwave of the gun firing again, as it tears the atmosphere apart on its way up, ripping a gash along the hull from below by bypassing the shields. A full wing of the vessel comes off, and its associated engines erratically blast thrust around. The wing slams into the vessel, forcing it to one side, and the wing plants at high speed into an empty, abandoned Glitch fortress.

    The cargo hold was blasted open before. Crates are falling out! Some of which are... Oh god, some of them are full of mines!! The ones it was going to maintain the minefield with! They've torn out a lot of its capacity to recover orbit, though, meaning that now they just need to keep up the pressure, and keep it in range of Kotone, so that they can't scrub the IFFs and bail through a teleport. Unfortunately... It also means that keeping on-track with the ship will involve rushing through the collapsing castle, as it collapses! Sliding around on collapsing floors are thick bundles of outrageously dangerous mines alongside potentially valuable cargo, a tremendous spaceship wing still blasting with active thrusterrs tearing through stone foundations, and elegantly constructed long-abandoned glitch architecture coming down.

    Gotta get through! Go through the main hall? Dodge around the moat? Try to ramp onto and over the rooftops? You don't want to get trapped under those stones, that's for sure...
Starbound Flotilla     Rory puts the thing into full panic mode. Not only is its debris scraping Glitch fortifications, but now the vessel is gushing flak, ejecting segments of power conduits, lighting up like a christmas tree, and violently shaking all over. They can't get enough coherence to access the IFF systems, though some automated sub-SAIL processes are going after it. For the most part, though, the pure chaos that it's inducing has shut down off-boat teleportation and has heavily delayed the IFF scrub. Unfortunately, downloading the IFF settings will be tough; they'll be needing a physical hardline for that!
Alexis Maaka     "Are we SERIOUSLY going through that?"

    "You're questioning my driving skills NOW?" Maaka doesn't seem to take the challenge lying down so much as she goes CHALLENGE ACCEPTED as she moves straight to the castle. THe buggy tears towards a ramp of some sort before she propells the vehicle airborne, landing it on the rooftops as she uses the buggy's all-terrain handling to get her moving across and continue the chase. Even as the buildings collapse around them, Maaka keeps her cool as she veers left and right, managing to get some sweet air in the process.
Corona Arclite In a few moments Nozomi is probably going to be -really- glad that this rig has those saftey harnesses, because they're gonna be needing them. "Ain't got time to go 'round!" That fortress may not be their primary target, but all the same Corona is approaching the problem as one would expect a siege engineer to do -- head on.

The wing may already be doing a great job of trashing the place, but after making a quick calculation as she's already got the gas open full throttle Corona pulls one of her control levels. A pair of launchers pop out of the sides of the truck and fire a pair of what appear to sapper mines, as the drill rises up into a non-use position. They hit a wall not trashed by the ship and blow it out, which causes the roof over that portion to shift down and forward until its edge hits the side of the moat.

The angle of material hangs there just long enough for Corona's truck to hit it full speed, rattle up the improvised ramp, and go hurtling like a steampunk missile into the air over the crashing, crumbling foundation.

Of course at the peak of airtime things seem to slow for a moment as Corona whoops and punchs the horn.

You can probably guess what a mid-jump space-redneck horn is going to play, but have an audio clip anyways https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAKksqKR3pI

Then the drill roars back to life, tearing through the top of a crashing exterior wall to make another abstract ramp for the truck to come back down on, hit the ground and speed back into the chase!
Starbound Flotilla     Evading is good. In fact, Taiga dodging around means that he can let them tear their own hull apart trying to kill him. It's working really well! That is... For a moment, anyway. Sometime when he lands on a particularly weakened chunk of hull, though... That's when something abruptly comes up from below. A heavy feathered hand, covered in vicious talons. It lashes out fast, inhumanly so, trying to wrap around one of Taiga's hind legs.

    "GET OFF MY BOAT." A roaring hawk-like cawing voice calls out. The pirate captain, clad in heavy-duty violium armor styled after pirates, has torn his way to the outside, and with a heavy gauntlet on his opposite hand, tries to PUNCH Taiga square on the head from below, to launch him up into the air for his gunners to shoot! The tremendous hawk-like Avian man -- he must be a good seven feet tall or so, plus armor -- is built like a brick shithouse and hits like a mac truck, so at the very least he seems like a potentially bigger threat. He is also showing how much they've given up on the teleporters.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa seems to have some clean up to do later, in the mess of mines ne eveything but right now they got to worry about the castles is coming down. The old fortress is raining stone and who knows what else. Kotone guns the engine and forces the craft on ahead. She's going to have to be doding wreckage, mines,a nd who knows what else. Then again there's enough around here.

<<Rory! I'm about to do something crazy!>>

She's going for the ramping option, the engine is gunned to full speed and she's heading for some part of th terrain that can be used as ramp. So Ramping she's going to go as she ends up airborn along with Rory!
Nozomi Houken     Scholars will debate the spelling of Nozomi's reply to Corona for decades to come. But the rendering which will eventually come to see general acceptance is roughly along the lines of, "Hwa-? HYAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

    Meanwhile, the TIGER suddenly finds itself subject to a very furious birdman. While he is not immune to being startled, it is a much more difficult prospect than it would be for most biological beings. Doubly so when he's fully powered up for fighting. So the hand that snares his rear leg manages to get the drop on even Taiga, but by the time there's a fist coming up towards his face, he's ready for it.

    CHOMP.

    The impact is jarring enough that sparks fly from more than one of the various joints in Taiga's jaw and neck, but he digs his teeth in good and hard, keeping himself from going sailing up into the line of fire. And with machine-perfect timing, up come the claws, lashing out again and again with similarly superhuman speed, striking for the Avian's elbow with claws that could easily rend steel. And just to forestall any shaking off, he digs his teeth in even tighter.
Starbound Flotilla     Sarah makes order of chaos. George makes chaos of... Uh, chaos. Sarah gives some solid advice on how to land this thing where it needs to be, and Rory some advice on opportune points of hackery. George, on the other hand, is driving like an insane person, which may be a distraction to her. The fact that he just slammed through the doors and through the main hall to get through here mean that sort of thing! It looks like she can direct it to get planted over nearer the coast, or within vehicle range of that mining facility the Flotilla has, depending on what kind of salvage would be best to snag! The former can get more materials, and the latter, with the future factory-boat, will get more tech salvage.

    Well, assuming it doesn't come down /on top/ of her, like the fortress is trying to.
Starbound Flotilla     Staren has Sarah's work to credit for not being fired at; her puzzly shenanigans have made sure he slipped mostly out of their sensors. But while they can't quite detect, they can evade. The other wing charges hard, diving and climbing... And, wait, what's that?

    There is a man -- with Taiga hanging off of his arms, teeth and claws lodged in his burly body. The vessel is in the atmosphere by now, but he doesn't seem to care about the fact that his armor is burning from the heat of re-entry. He's standing on top of the vessel. With one free hand, he reaches out, shouting something to crewmen who lob... A crate of mines to him. More loudly, now, so loud in fact that despite the nonsensical physics of the situation, he can be heard by Staren: "FUCK OFF."

    He physically heaves the crate of mines at Staren. The crate pops and disperses the horrifically dangerous little nodes of explosive at him. Optical target acquisition is a wonderful thing.
Starbound Flotilla     Corona, Kotone, and Maaka get some sweet air over the collapsing castle. Crates slam down around them, alongside tremendous chunks of hull and bits of wing, even a still-firing turret smashes into the roof and rolls through the area below. Her own hacking attempt has been counteracted, slowly, for now... Which means they prioritized her intrusion over Rory's giving Rory perfect cover. They're trying to hack back now, but totally lost Rory, and they're not in the most stable situation to be able to do that. It's mostly SAIL going after that, from the look of it.

    While Rory's working on the IFF preservation, maybe Kotone's best bet would be purging the auto-arming sequence from the mine deployment systems, or something like that, since several of the crates were exploding! Meanwhile, sometime after the landing, Maaka has one more shot, and it's really time for one. The massive chunk of wing is still carving a horrible gash through the ground after slamming through the fortress, Corona might be able to pick that up if she can dodge the mine crates, and land right...!!
Rory White     <<Do what you have to!>> Is Rory's response. She's, well. She's in flexbot form, and she's EXPANDED her body to fill the available space somewhat with some shock absorbption. Which looks a little creepy, but she doesn't need to be able to MOVE to do the hacking. Even if it gets bumpy.

    The physical world's a nuisance to her, really.

    So while her Morph is motionless, expressionless, her Ego is ablaze with activity over the Mesh.

    There's little she can do to stop sub-processes if their signals don't pass through her drone... so instead, she works on trying to fry the computers managing the processes by manipulating the power regulation!
Staren     Staren, who's been trailing about a thousand feet behind, moves closer... planning to grab the pirate commander, when suddenly MINES EVERYWHERE, and also reentry! Without even thinking, Staren dodges using the Star Hawk's speed -- a few mines clip the Star Hawk anyway, bits of his armor joining the falling debris that's going to butn up... and Staren's left in the wrong orientation, with alarms screaming at him as things start to heat up in the cockpit and how his fighter's belly is burning up as he desperately tries to keep from tumbling and blowing apart!

    It is nerve-wracking and terrifying, mercifully, Staren's so busy trying to stabilize his flight for reentry he has no time to think too much about it -- once his flight path steadies out, he's left shaking, though.
Starbound Flotilla     Taiga, meanwhile, has turned into a vicious blender on the Avian captain's arm. And he /does not give a fuck/. Now, that's not to say Taiga isn't doing some damage; he is absolutely shredding the power-gauntlet, and ripping off most of the arm section of that armor, but the captain has other things to deal with, mostly shouting at Staren. "Mine crate. NOW!" He calls down to crewmen below-deck, who lob a heavy crate at him. "FUCK OFF." He calls out to the Star Hawk above, slinging the crate at his distant foe with INCREDIBLE force. This armor must be powered!

    "I SAID GET OFF." The captain says. And then -- holy shit -- there's more debris coming off of the boat, because he turns Taiga's grip advantage around. He leaps up, and then he attempts to fucking elbow-drop the T.I.G.E.R. not just onto the deck of the vessel, but through it, through several decks below, and into the underside hull; if successful, the force of it will tear the opposite wing off of the vessel with its sheer impact, and slam TIGER out the bottom of the craft, a maneuver meant to throw them out of whatever lower openings get made.
Sarah Parsle The fact that George is cruising right through the main hall of a castle on a buggy is not lost on Sarah. Neither is the fact that the castle is falling down all over the place. "ARE YOU INSANE!?" She yells at George as she barely ducks a hunk of rock that almost hits her in the head. "Wait never mind, don't answer that." She sasses. Don't worry, she still likes you, George. For now. As they go skidding around through the area, Sarah hunkers down, poking at that tablet. "I'M MARKING A NEW SPOT!" She calls. "TRY TO SET IT DOWN NEAR THE MINING FACILITY!" Raw materials can be accrued easily. Good tech? Harder to find.

Meanwhile, another rock comes down, and Sarah slides over to hug up next to George before activating the Bubble Shield tech, flickering it to deflect the descending debris. "Damn I'm glad we found these things." She breathes.
Nozomi Houken     Transformed into Rampart Mode, the TIGER's strength and durability might be a match for the captain's. But not as Taiga. He realizes what's happening a split second before the impact of the first deck. By the time he's figured out what to do, it's the second deck, and he's already sustained notable damage. One shoulder cannon has ceased being able to track or fire, and there are sparks flying from more than one rent torn in the armor. But with action decided, by the time the captain rips through the third deck floor to keep going down? Taiga is just... gone.

    Letting go, shifting around and kicking off - with one last claw at exposed arm via his hind legs - Taiga hurls himself away with uncanny agility and begins tear-assing his way through the ship with one functional cannon. He doesn't even stop to hit crew, just bounds around them via ceiling or walls, firing while running full tilt. His goal is the bridge, where 'angry robot tiger with claws and a cannon' will be a very effective tool for stopping the ship.
Corona Arclite And bringing up the rear... Wait, is that the clockwork automaton?? Why yes it is, a chunk of the engine debris that hit it still jutting out of it's no longer completely cubical body. It lost it's chicken-walker legs when it fell off the truck and crashed, so it had extended more gear and segmented arms out of it's body, which it was using to clatter through the crumbling remains of the castle like a clockpunk Doc Ock to catch up.

And manages in the process of doing so to grab up one of the crate of mines while doing so, swinging beneath it's body in two spindly arms while the other limbs rappel it along.

Corona actually stops the truck for a moment (likely much to her passanger's relief) to peer back watching the machine clunking along despite it's damage, the Babbage-like clockwork computing making it a simple but very dilligent to its tasks machine. "Well Ah'll be. That thin' is jus' 'bout stubborn as Ah am."

The clockpunk drone clambers up onto the back of the truck, and Corona floors it to catch back up to Alexis and the others. The drone pulls the chunk of engine out of it's body, and tosses that into the reforging machinery along with the previous debris.

And then dumps in some of the mines too. It was just programmed to pick up debris and put it in the machinery, it doesn't actually calculate on what those materials might be.

The result, thanks to the additional mines, is a railcannon shell spat out of the machine that's actually packing a bit of additional explosive punch in it's payload.

The automatron picks up the shell, and in an effort to try and avoid last time's problem, actually grapples over to the buggy instead of just reaching across, and loads the shell.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa own hacking attack, got the pirate's attention as she hoped, they kicked her out. Yet that was the plan, she kept them focused on her, while Rory could get into more vital systems nad do what she needed to get done. She's far from done, she lets out a very unlady like woop as the craft takes to the air for a moment and comes in for a landing. Kotone's back in the system even s the craft slams back into the ground and keeps oging. She's sees the mines go off and gets an idea, they want to get the bits of good cargo falling with the bad, later right? So that's what she's going to do. she's trying to purge the auto arming systems of the mines. They can deal with them later, prehaps even put them to use for the colony's defence. For now she's just trying to purge it and shut them the heck down.

She also keeps her view on the road as she and Rory speed through the old castle!
Alexis Maaka     "CORONA, LAST TIME! LOAD UP!" barks Maaka, caught up in all the excitement as she gets the railgun ready for one last shot. She doesn't have an over the top action sequence this time, instead she simply begins to level herself with Corona for a quick reload before she takes aim at the ship itself. The fox will have that handled quickly enough, and Maaka goes back to driving crazily once she confirms the shell's been loaded up.

    "Alright, one last round it is." She says, before pulling the trigger, aiming for the opposite end of the ship from before as she angles the cannon.

    Kaboom.
Starbound Flotilla     Rory's frying the insides through power regulation hacking, filling the bridge with smoking computer systems. At long last: Here we have an explanation for control consoles blowing up in showers of sparks. This will be more relevant once Taiga gets here, but for now: As long as they put the thing down somewhere safe, and they can get into it quick, they'll have the IFFs!

    Something notable for Rory's detection now: It looks like some of the systems are being dedicated to launching escape pods. These... Won't escape Amalgam's gravitational pull, but rather will wind up somewhere distant at most. What Rory does with that is up to them, but it's unlikely that the pirates will survive the impact en-mass.
Starbound Flotilla     Staren's getting fought off pretty effectively here, which means the captain can turn his attention to other matters. Good thing, too, since he's several decks down from Taiga. While he's a hulking brute of a man, more likely to tear your skull off than haggle a price down, he's also... Not an idiot! Taiga's disengage from him, so with a heavy grunt, he tears off some wrecked plates from his arm and jams his handprint against an escape pod panel. In another timeline, perhaps, he tore his way back to the bridge to fight Taiga, eventually going down with the ship. Right now? No way. Know when to fold.

    Taiga gets to the bridge, where the systems inside are terribly overloaded, which means they'll be accessing the manual helm! It's... Well, it's a giant wheel, because of course it has to be inconvenient to a feline body type. Most everyone's either fleeing or fled, which means that Taiga can try to hijack the helm systems now; the damage and the opposed digital defense is enough that he can't quite get it where it needs to go... It'll overshoot! Thankfully, they have Maaka and Corona here. One more chunk of hull, one more slug, one more bit of punch that's more than anyone expected. The mine-slug is loaded and blasted. Maaka won't have long to make this shot, so Taiga will have to move quick to get it shifted! Thankfully, unlike an Avian, he can probably survive the impact.

    Mines falling everywhere, but, finally, the ground runners don't have to worry so much about the explosions around them. They've been defused! And not a moment to soon. One final lancing blast, a heavy slug tearing through the hull, rips the thing apart down the middle when it explodes halfway inside. Crates of mines, and a whole lot of other salvaged cargo, are flying everywhere, slamming into the ground far and wide. It'll be tough to find, but hey! Nobody ever complained about bonus collectibles. The ship is disgorging its load of escape pods as it splits, and the two halves slam into the very base of the mountain, skidding along the ground to a very, very dramatic stop about an hour's drive from the mining facility.

    Rory will detect they've got about an hour before the IFF systems scrub. Looks like plenty of time to salvage them out and recover the codes and hardware configurations necessary to get the trade vessels through the field!
Corona Arclite Once its clear the ship is actually going to make landfall for good Corona hits the brakes and brings the steam-truck to a screeching halt. The drill is still spinning down to idle as she climbs partway out of the cab, hanging onto the support rail with one hand and pulling her goggles up with the other. Then thrusts a fist in the air. "Yeehah! That's how ya do it!"

Then turns her head a bit to look back, just thinking about all the stuff the ship scattered in it's downward reunion with solid ground. ".. Though we're gonna have plenty of pickin' up to do, too."

Almost lazily the automatronc click-clacks as it hops off Alexis' cannon-bugger and scuttles its way back to the truck. It hops up into the bed and collapses in on itself, though even with it's arms and emitters retracted it's not entirely a cube anymore due to the damages it took.
Staren     Staren comes out of reentry and flies to the crash site, coming in for a landing to help with IFF retrieval. There's a lot of other stuff to do, too, but that's less time-sensitive.
Nozomi Houken     Taiga is a smart cat. He knows what he can and cannot do. What he cannot do? Well, that's easy. 'Steer a spaceship'. He is a cat. That is a job for birds. Fortunately, there were plenty of birds around. There are few still there now, and they're fleeing, but that's a minor inconvenience.

    Because what he /can/ do? Is 'grab one gently-but-firmly by the neck with his mouth, drag them to the helm, and calmly inform them of precisely how he would like the ship steered'.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa sees that thigns are about over at this point, the enemy is bailing on the ship between her and Rory they have control of the ship and the mines. Well what's left of it there's a good deal of salvage to get too. She's going to do what she can to help Rory as she brings her craft to a halt.

"So that was fun, you all right Rory?"