Gizmo
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"That... doesn't really sound like Samran-86..." the blond technician pointed out in a hesitant objection, looking uncertainly between his colleagues and the confident woman who'd bustled into the room. "Maybe we should--" His thought was cut off as Ana generated a sheet of ice and he jumped back with a startled yelp. "Kark me! Uh... you know what, forget I said anything. You just do whatever." 'Whatever' seemed to be working out pretty well for the human engineer so far, as the fire was quickly smothered under the brief coating of frost. The tusked crewmember gave Sei a strange look as she donned her environmental suit, eventually taking a few steps over to her while giving Ana a wide berth. "Hey, you're a Kahi'iru, aren't you?" He rubbed a hand along one of his pronounced teeth in a gesture of intrigued confusion. "How'd you learn to talk?" Glancing over his shoulder at the other two technicians, he explained, "These things don't even pass basic standard tests for sentience. Maybe this one's a mutation or something."
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Off the Either Ore's stern it wasn't long before the Communion fighters had closed enough of the distance for Paradigm to make them out with her own eyes. A trio of the silver, needle like drones in tight formation, they clearly saw her as well from the way they subtly adjusted the angle of their approach to aim for the woman moving through space under her own power. For the first time in thousands of years, Communion metal would be tested against Naram mettle! The airlock door irised closed behind Kharag and after a hiss of pressurization the portal in front of him opened to welcome him into the freighter. Less welcoming were the expressions of the half dozen Lor standing in a loose semi circle around him as he stepped forward. The Praetorian recognized the look on their faces, the look of those who had just had everything taken from them, the look of proud individuals forced to flee for their survival. Their weapons were not pointed at the green skinned warrior but all were held at the ready. Kharag would only get one chance to make a good first impression on these tired, emotionally worn refugees.
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Rock led the way with slow, cautious steps, his neck making a low scraping sound as he looked back and forth, scanning the path in front of them. When Eclipse suggested finding a way up to the next floor, he stopped and cast his gaze upward as well. The high ceiling was well out of even his considerable reach but the walls were not. Using his 'viewers to find a spot without a humanoid shaped heat signature behind it, the stone titan pulled back and let loose a punch with the force of a wrecking ball followed by another and another, each punctuated by a guttural grunt. "Rock." *KTHOOM* "Rock." *KTHOOM* "Rock." *KTHOOM* Before long he'd caved in the bulkhead enough to form a serviceable foot hold. Shifting his stance he methodically picked out a second spot and went to work again.
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Sure, give me a Bluff roll and a Power check!
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The freighter obviously wasn't designed to support half so many breathing bodies at once, especially not on a long trip like this. The crew did their best to compensate by rerouting power and cranking the filters up to their maximums but the Either Ore probably hasn't been capable of its stated upper limits in many a year. These guys are doing their best to put out the literal fires but they're maintenance workers, not engineers. Ana's going to need to get creative if she wants to get the drive core back up and running.
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Bliss landed atop the building easily and was immediately greeted by a surprised yelp and the sounds of scrambling. In one corner of the rooftop a piece of scrap sheet metal had been wedged in to create a small, crude shelter against the sun and wind. Just in front of it a young Lor, no older than eleven or twelve, had hurried into a guarded crouch, brandishing a makeshift shiv warily in the bounty hunter's direction. Silent, his lips were pressed tightly together and set into a face showing all the obvious signs of malnutrition. Bliss was hardly an expert in Lor physiology but the show of red hair atop the boy's head struck even her as notably bright, almost fire-like in the glaring sun. Not far away on the ground, Ruby and Roulette finally found the watering hole Zaul had suggested. It was hard to tell if the sign above the door was unreadable because it was written in an unfamiliar dialect or because of the sloppy paint work and erosion from blown sand. Inside it was dim, a welcome respite from the sun outdoors, and marginally less crowded. Not many refugees could afford to spend their meager funds on entertainment, it seemed. The magenta skinned bartender barely bothered to glance over their way as the pair entered, continuing to clean out a glass idly. He was the first person they'd run into since landing who looked like he put effort into his appearance, from his feathered white hair to the lean muscle on display between the folds on his undone shirt.
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As requested, the OOC.
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Ana and Seikahi’ino rounded the corridor corner to come face to face with a scene in chaos. The Either Ore's drive core looked surprisingly like an eight cylinder automobile engine stacked upward on one end and then mirrored in back so that a total of sixteen chambers pumped rhythmically at ninety degree angles. At least they should have; instead more than half of them were leaking something neon blue and foul smelling while another was quite simply on fire. A trio of crewmembers were racing about in a frenzy doing everything they could just to keep the situation from getting worse, a pair of Lor and one member of a tusked species neither of the passengers recognized off hand. One of the former, a weedy youth with a flaxen mop of hair turned to look at the unannounced arrivals. "Um. ...hello?" On the bridge, Eject rubbed her face with both hands before replying to the transmission, "Acknowledged, Devotion. We'll leave a key card under the mat." She followed up by ordering a group from the handful of refugees with some basic military or security experience to take up positions by the airlock. No sense making things too easy if these Praetorians turned out to have less than honest intentions. Suppose 'refugees' includes me, too, the mentat realized dimly, pushing the wave of nausea and urge to scream away for the time being. "ETA?" "Not... long," the copilot answered vaguely, catching himself before he could shrug again. "Maybe a dozen micro-cycles before the faster ships reach us. Another couple dozen for the big one?" His glum gulp was partly due to his inability to answer more specifically but mostly due to the picture painted by his own best guesses.
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"Ro-ock," Rock chortled as Eclipse knocked some sense into Cavalier, having seen the bit of physical humour coming from considerable experience. The captain was not one for talk of no-win scenarios or noble sacrifices. Minimizing one's losses was still losing and Eclipse liked to win. For his own part, Rock was certainly suitably impressed by the Star Knight's armor and resolve but his allocation of resources seemed questionable. After all, you could wrap a squishy up in as much metal as you liked and they'd still be a squishy, albeit through no fault of their own. Rock was certainly more durable than any squishy. With that in mind, he squared his massive shoulders and stood a little straighter at Eclipse's vote of confidence only to take a step forward and look into the ominous darkness of the tower's innards. The goliath was suddenly overcome with the nagging feeling that he'd been had. Letting his shoulders slump again, he grumbled a resigned, "Rock...," and led the way inside.
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"It'd be going better if you weren't karking interrupting me!" Nae-Dae chittered back over the comm line backed by the sound of metal clanging emphatically into metal. "She'll be ready when we need her," the mechanic promised with a prideful sniff, pausing before adding, "Just, uh, maybe try not to need her for a while yet?" Rock followed behind the other two in the away party, gingerly stepping around the frozen forms, or at least as gingerly as he could with the ground crunching with spiderweb cracks everywhere he put down his foot. Eventually reaching the tower, he gave it a long glare, looking up and trying to make out the top. He worked his crag of a jaw from one side of his face to the other, annoyed by how little he could discern from the bizarre monument. Making up his mind, he poked the side of the building with one finger. "Rock?"
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"Well a'course, chummers! Even buy you a round my own self. Tell the 'tender Zaul sent you, he'll get the message sure enough," the sheriff assured them accommodatingly, his serrated smile widening. Tearing a small datasheet off a pad, he jotted down a set of directions for navigating the overflowing town's chaotic layout and handed it to Roulette. "Now, don't go gettin' too rowdy and makin' a lawman look bad," he chided with a belly laugh as he sent them on their way. "Hate to see you gettin' inta any trouble 'fore you head on out again." Most of the refugees lining the streets did their best to stay out of the Voidrunners' way as they passed, recognizing the telltale signs of deadly competency, but in some cases there just wasn't anywhere else for them to be. The paths between the sand brown buildings were narrow and twisting, with as much civic planning as a dumped bucket of children's construction toys. Zaul's directions actually seemed to be genuine but they went only a short way toward making the maze any easier to navigate or the smell of too many people and not enough infrastructure any more bearable.
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"I suppose not," Morgen agreed, shaking his head, "but you try to keep decades worth of security configurations for this place straight. Generation after generation adding their own mark..." He looked about the darkened headquarters with an obvious sense of nostalgia before giving Travis a sideways look. "You seem unsurprised to see me." "Never look surprised," Travis reminded him with a huff. As if to illustrate, he produced another unused tea cup and poured a drink for his old teammate. "But no. All very unlikely." He gestured to the scene on the monitor, with several of his time-traveling great-grandchildren gathered about as more arrived from different timelines. "If you weren't behind it, would have shown up earlier." Morgen accepted the tea cup with pursed lips, his forehead creasing. "Not 'behind it', as such. Very messy, the whole matter. I may have pulled some strings here and there, perhaps. Bought the young heroes some time, if you'll pardon the inevitable pun." The flashing smile he gave the eldest Hunter suggested that whenever he was spending his off-hours had excellent dental care.
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Miss Americana heard a sharp intake of breath followed by something low and guttural; she didn't need to be able to make out the words to recognize it as a curse. There was more muffled, hurried conversation before Midnight removed his hand again. His voice was rougher now, the measured calm obviously taking more effort to maintain in light of the scope of what he'd just been told. "Hundreds. Hhn. Martian ship not equipped to combat that. ...need to prepare. Be in contact." Just before the line disconnect, a voice from the distance shouted, "Hello? Hey! You can't just leave me here! He--!"
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Producing a pair of macroviewers from the pouch hanging at his side, Rock raised them to the twin points of smouldering magma that denoted his version of eyes. The glazed greenery beneath his feet was reduced to powder as he took a few steps away from the Horizon, high pitched tings merging into low crunching. The infrared readings of the surveillance gear drew his attention to a tower at the end of the street, the structure giving off more heat those surrounding it. With so many paths converging in one place he assumed it was important somehow, even if it was nothing more than a particularly ostentatious traffic director. "Rock..." Tucking the macroviewers away again and pointedly avoiding making eye contact with any of the disturbingly preserved corpses, he pointed to the building with a stoney forefinger. "Rock."
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There was a significant pause over the line, followed by more animated discussion from the deep female voice and quiet but insistent tones from Midnight, all muffled by a gloved hand over the receiver. Eventually he removed the obstruction and rejoined the conversation. "Pardon. Define 'destroyed'." There didn't seem to be much room for ambiguity but standing atop the roof of a sky scraper and reflexively looking upward at the stars in the night sky, the black clad vigilante had to hope he'd somehow misunderstood even as a sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach assured him that he had not.
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Alright, you're all in the same ballpark, so: You get the impression that at least part of what Zaul is saying is true; you'd be willing to bet that Tigg really is dead. How that happened is a little more up for debate. Zaul's not even really trying to convince you that he's being truthful there, he just wants to make it clear that in this town the facts are what he says they are. He's pretty relaxed for a guy dealing with this influx of refugees but he's not too excited about the idea of a bunch of heavy armed professionals sticking around. He wants you gone.
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The patriotic paragon heard something that sounded like nylon cord quickly unspooling along with more protests and begging from whomever Midnight was interrogating. The detective's footfalls were too quiet to carry but the whimpering became harder to make out, suggesting he'd moved away for a modicum of privacy. "Hhn. Americana. Have ship. Low fuel. Exotic isotopes." There was a brief conversation between Midnight and a throaty female voice that Miss Americana couldn't make out before he continued to answer her questions. "Sensor suite... variable. Describe 'threat'. Grue? Preserver tech?" As calm and level as he kept his voice the second option was pronounced a little more forcefully and the woman on the other end of the line could have sworn she heard the material of a glove clenching.
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Rock Notice check.: 1d20+10 16 Also, anybody can make a DC 15 Sense Motive check to get a more specific idea of what Rock is saying at any point. Also also, Rock has Binoculars; Super-Senses 4 (Visual; Extended 2 [1000’ Range Increment], Infravision, Tracking) [4EP] !
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Almost immediately Miss Americana heard a soft click as the line opened but there was no answering voice. Instead the communicator relayed the rustle of air rushing swiftly past followed by a meaty impact and the unmistakeable pop of a limb being dislocated from its socket. A pained cry of surprise was joined by several shouts and a cacophony of gunshots. Heavy whumphs and whimpering groans preceded the chorus of weapons diminishing one by one until there was once again silence. A beat later a quiet for crystal clear voice demanded, "Speak." "I'll tell you everything I know!" a panicked reply promised from somewhere nearby the receiver. "Just don't drop me! Don't drop me!" "Not you."
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Nae-Dae's response was mostly unintelligible moaning but Eclipse was able to make out something that sounded like, "Oooh, my poor baby, what have they done to yooouuu?!" On the upside, if the Irreran was passing up the offer to put together a shopping list it meant that her substantial treasure trove of horded components and baubles was up to the task of repairing what the Horizon needed repaired. Extricating himself from the Rock-shaped dent he'd left in the bulkhead when they'd finally hit solid ground, Rock placed a hand on either side of his head and worked his neck back and forth with alarming popping and cracking sounds. With that done he took another moment to flex his equivalent of muscles, lines of red hot magma flaring up between the uneven chunks of stone that made up his body. Satisfied, he shook himself in a motion somewhere between a wet dog and the contents of a rock tumbler before meeting up with Eclipse at the loading ramp. "Rock?"
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The OOC! Let's see some Sense Motive rolls.
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"Tigg y'say. Tigg... Soriel, why's that sound familiar to me?" Zaul asked the comparatively shorter of his two Broan deputies, stroking his chin with one hand and placing the other on his hip. The gesture pushed back his coat a bit, revealing the somewhat conspicuous lack of a holster or any other obvious weapons. The deputy obligingly produced a slightly crumpled piece of datasheet and began scrolling through it. "Looks like that was the name'a the slab we hadda clean outta Wov'lc's place, boss." The sheriff snapped his fingers more than a little theatrically. "That's the one! Chummer sat onna wrong bar stool, ended up shy a prodigious amount of vital fluids. Remember we had the devil's own time scraping up the leftovers. Seem t'recall was some Khanate ex-pats did the deed?" "That's what the reports says, boss." "That's what the reports says," Zaul repeated, spreading his hands helplessly. "I surely hate to say but it's lookin' like you mighta wasted a trip. Ke'Pinree can be a dangerous place, you don't watch you you're crossin'."
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"Rock!" Lumbering to his feet, the first mate dashed off into the belly of the ship with indelicate, resounding footfalls that would have been more concerning if the sounds from outside the Horizon hadn't been louder. Reaching the lowest point in the vessel in short order he located the hefty lever that manually dropped the ships landing gear and pulled down on it hard. The first thing Rock noticed was that the landing gear still hadn't deployed. The second thing he noticed was that the metal lever had torn in half under the force of his enthusiasm, the larger part of it now sitting in his stony grip. Pausing for a moment, nonplussed, he tossed the broken lever over his shoulder and instead stooped over lower deck plating above the heavy machinery. Digging his sizable digits into the floor he pulled with a gravelly huff, ripping up the deck with a protesting creak of curling metal. Spotting the hydraulic piston below him, Rock adjusted his weight and delivered a swift kick into the exposed mechanical workings, stomping once, then twice. With a great shudder the abused pistons shifted downward, forcing out the landing gear from the bottom of the Horizon Keyed a nearby intercom, the triumphant titan announced, "Rock!"
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The Lor officer didn't even attempt to cover her exhausted groan. "Of course you're Terran. It's always a karking Terran. Ever since that mess on the ringworld. Clearly the universe hates me." She pressed her palms together in front of her face and with great effort composed herself. "Alright. Alright. Miss, it's great that you got off your isolate, learned to use real technology and got yourself certified, that's super. Genuinely impressive. And your friend is... practically intelligible. But right now what I need is for everyone to just stay put and not touch anything sensitive. Please." With a light cough, the copilot called her attention. "Er. Ma'am? ...sir? I've got a ship registering as the Devotion on scanners, heading towards us. And, uh, also these little ones? Coming from behind us?" Eject took one look at the monitor and whirled around to point emphatically out of the cockpit. "You two! Back to the cargo bay and out the way now!"
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"Well now, with friends like that, don't see what a bein'd need with enemies," a deep, whiskey smooth voice chimed in as the trio exited the 'port. The speaker looked like he had a fair amount of Lor or maybe Zultasian in his ancestry but the smooth black orbs of his eyes and teal tint to his complexion suggested a more complicated family tree. He might have been a little under six feet or a little above but his relaxed posture and long, sun-bleached hide jacket made it hard to say for certain. The heavy garment didn't seem to bother him even in the considerable heat, perhaps in part due to the matching wide brimmed hat sitting atop his head. Presently he tipped the hat to the new arrivals. "Howdy, chummers, y'can call me Zaul, I'm sheriff 'round here. And you'd be the Voidrunners, eh?" With a wide smile that showed serrated teeth, the lawman raised his hands in a shrug that was half apology and half nonchalant showmanship. The pair of musclebound Broans flanking him gave the trio less friendly, appraising looks, one of them adjust the strap of the carbine slung over her shoulder. "News travels awful fast in a place like this and you bounty hunters're darn near celebrities compared t'most folks we're seein' lately. Jennik said it was a bounty brought you all the way out here; why don't you tell ol' Zaul who it is you're lookin' for?"
