Little Girls and Cute Dogs (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira went upstairs to join Mr. Archer in the control room, and a few minutes later they got their announcement from upstairs. "Today you'll be doing a special training session," came their teacher's voice, "where you'll be tested on your crisis response as well as your combat abilities." The empty room rippled, and suddenly they found themselves standing inside a small, confined area: an airlock emblazoned with the symbol of the Freedom League on the side. There were spacesuits hanging on racks to one side, the sleek, blue and gold ones favored by the League, shaped to match the body shape and costumes of the various heroes, complete with outside utility pack for Koshiro's paper.

"For the purpose of this mission, assume you are all adult members of the Freedom League. An alien spacecraft has come out of a wormhole near the Lighthouse and you three have been sent to explore it and figure out what's going on." Through a window in the airlock, they could make out the craft, a black saucer-shaped craft roughly as large as the League's own Lighthouse station. "The craft has Earth-normal gravity and breathable atmosphere, but be on your toes. Anything could happen."

[Electra]

"See," Koshiro said to Mali, nodding towards the suits. "Typically I'm the only one on my team who ever needs one of those stupid things. I'll check your seals if you check mine." Koshiro'd worn an environmental suit enough times in the simulator that he was able to get into it with a minimum of fuss, even with having to transfer over all his paper. He did pull off his hoodie and hang it on the rack, it was simply too bulky to wear. Clicking his helmet into place, he left the mask open as he went to check Mali's suit. "Citizen, can you tell anything about that ship from here just through the computer?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen stepped up and connected to the "base" computer, cocking his head and peering out the window of the airlock as he did so. "The base computer isn't compatible with the onboard systems. I'll have to get in there personally to see if I can interface with the starship's mainframe. If it even has a mainframe." Some alien designs made a lot less sense than others, as Sharl had had reason to learn to his peril. "As for where it came from, saucers are pretty generic designs for interstellar cultures," he added for the benefit of the two humans, "it's a shipframe that works with most FTL and antigrav designs, and it's pretty geometrically simple." He peered at the ship outside, which looked more like Earthly wrought-iron than anything else. "I'm going to guess that's a Lor craft, though, because it doesn't have the exterior guns of most Grue ships, and it's not as patchwork as most Khanate vessels. That's a ship that's been through some heavy weather recently."

[Thunder King]

Mali nodded and half understood what Sharl was saying, but she caught the gist. He was trying to connect to a network, if he could, and the ship design was simple and effective for...stuff, space stuff she assumed. For Mali, however, the suit proved to be an irritation. She'd never worn anything like that before, and it was obvious. She struggled to get it on, and eventually, figured it out. She turned toward Koshiro and walked around him, looking all over to make sure all the seals were in check.

She may have lingered for a couple of seconds, and hoped that Koshiro didn't notice or didn't care.

[Electra]

"All right, looks like we're good here," Koshiro told Sharl as he and Mali finished checking one another out. "Even if the air's supposed to be breathable, we may as well put the masks on for now. You never know." He matched words to action, his voice becoming a bit more hollow as he closed his faceplate and switched to radio communication. With his gloved fingers, he removed a handful of cranes from his bag and activated them, letting them fly in close formation behind his head and out of his line of sight. "Let's open the airlock and see what we've got."

[Avenger Assembled]

The airlock irised open, allowing the Claremont students access to the simulated interior of an alien spaceship. Holograms and illusions aside, the interior of the ship certainly seemed real enough, and it was a start when their own door slid shut behind them. Black pitted walls the same color as the exterior hull loomed on either side as they stepped in, green illumination coming from a series of narrow light strips along the ceiling casting oddly-colored glow everywhere. From everywhere there was the distant sound of low humming, and Sharl wrinkled his nose against the smell of mint in the air.

Citizen studied the alien writing along one wall, a square script Koshiro had seen before, and translated, "It's Galstandard," he said, then added for the others, "the standard language that's used in FTL ships for safety. Old style, too. Command deck is up one level, engineering is down another level, something called 'delivery' systems a level below that." He shook his head. "No sign of where the crew is. A ship built like this probably wouldn't be automated, there's no reason for corridors this wide or an atmosphere this good."

[Thunder King]

Simulation or not, the ship was amazing to Mali. She'd never seen anything like it before. Her eyes wandered all over the area, taking the whole scene in. She thought about the scenario they were in.

"It's unlikely an empty space ship would just arrive around like that..." Mali reasoned. "So either there's a crew we haven't met yet, or the crew's dead or out of commission because of something we haven't met yet. Even if there's a crew, they might not like us arriving like this. There's a good chance there's something hostile in here, so we should definitely be very careful..."

Experience had taught her a few things since her arrival at the school. Never trust the first thing you see and always listen to your intuition, were among them.

[Electra]

Koshiro nodded behind his mask. "If the crew were awake and friendly, they wouldn't just be leaving us to wander around on our own. Either something's happened to them, or it's an ambush. Everybody stick together." He looked at the sign Citizen had explained, then took out another handful of cranes. "If anyone is alive and needs help, they're likely to be on the command deck," he decided. "I'll have the birds scope out the downstairs just in case, but I think we should probably check out the bridge in person." Koshiro released the birds from his hand and they took off, zipping down the nearest ventilation shaft like they were late for an appointment.

[Avenger Assembled]

Koshiro didn't know enough about Lor science to interpret what he saw down below on the delivery deck, but he'd watched enough science fiction movies to recognize big, dangerous-looking machinery when he saw it: a massive cylinder lined with pulsing red circles of high-tech energy was aimed "below" the ship, while banks of computers all around displayed whirling Lor syllabry and readouts of information on whatever the 'thing' was that was at the heart of the delivery deck.

Up on the command deck, the three heroes walked into an ominously silent, albeit well-lit 'bridge.' It was a narrow, elongated room with a view of the Javelin station out the front viewscreen, with a rail and computer stations in the back (albeit with no seats) and another row of stations (these with seats, the big, capacious crash couches the Lor preferred) up front by the screen Sharl explained what they were looking at for the benefit of the two non-experts, but his mind was obviously elsewhere. "This is standard for older Lor military ships. There was a lot of political infighting in the old Republic, so the captain's station was such that he saw everyone else's back, but no one could see his. Unless they used an old design on purpose, this ship must be at least 500 Earth years old."

He walked up to the nearest computer station and studied the readout. "It says 'repairs complete'."

[Thunder King]

"Okay, so...I'm no expert, but that sounds like this ship should have been out of commission for a long time. Either that, or it somehow traveled through time. That's possible, right? Is that possible? Did something kill everyone on board the ship, and it just repaired itself? Did a completely empty space ship somehow drift off for five hundred years? This is all very weird and I think we have to look deeper to figure out the truth..." She turned to Koshiro, curious as to what his birds had found, but not sure if he'd even know yet or how his powers worked.

[Electra]

Koshiro studied the empty bridge with the others until his birds came winging back, two of them seeming to take point while the others hung back and flew in lazy circles around the bridge. He reached up and plucked one of the leaders out of the sky, unfolding it with a flick of his wrist so it was once again a square sheet of white paper. As he and the others watched, ink began to well up on the paper, forming mostly characters in Japanese at first, but then also creating moving pictures. The inked figures seemed to draw themselves, like watching stop-motion animation in real time. Koshiro pointed to the menacing-looking barrel on the delivery deck, its pulsating red lights suggested by ink bands that continually drew and erased themselves.

The other bird unfolded just as quickly, but all this one contained was more Japanese characters and a number of drawn signs in a language that Koshiro couldn't read. "No people on either deck," he reported to the others, "not unless they're all hiding somewhere. But that big thing on the delivery deck looks like it might be worth a real careful look."

[Avenger Assembled]

Suddenly, the panels all around them began flashing in Lor syllabry, bright green and blue characters that made Citizen jump and shove his hands into the control systems. "Reserve power activating!" he called to the others in an automatic translation. "It's...it's some kind of backup power system that went off when it detected enough humanoids on board the ship." His eyes widened and he pulled his hands free, playing along with the urgency of the simulation in surprise: this was a very good mockup indeed. The bridge, which is what this was, was coming to life with more than just the message: panels flared to life in more alien script, others showing a little blue and green marble in space that was all too familiar, others showing alien planets none of the rest of the team recognized.

"The main FTL drive is powering back up! Wherever this thing was, it's about to take us there - fast!"

[Thunder King]

"That...that's not good. I don't suppose there's any way to stop it?!" She looked around, at Sharl and Koshiro. "Well, I suppose the only thing we can do is figure out what to do once it gets there. Don't have a whole lot of choice in that matter, do we?" She said, glancing around.

She walked over to Sharl. "Do you have any idea where it's taking us? Friendly, unfriendly? Should we be on our guard or really on our guard?"

[Electra]

"There's no time to get back to the airlock," Koshiro reasoned, even as he headed quickly to one of the crash couches, "so we're going along for the ride. But we don't know how bumpy it's gonna be with no crew. Better strap in." He sat down on the couch and shrugged into the harness, fumbling for a moment with the unfamiliar mechanism before figuring it out. The cranes settled in next to him, the better to not become projectiles at high speeds. "Can you send a message to the station so they know what's happening?" he asked Sharl.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I can do that," said Sharl, tapping at one of their suit communicators as he dispatched a sub-spatial message back to the 'Lighthouse'. "OK, Morse message away using the 'Shanghai' code." He hadn't quite understood the meaning of that particular phrase at first, but upon explanation earlier in the year he'd decided it made well enough sense. "And I can...oh, crap!" He turned and flew through the walls just as Koshiro and Mali took up shelter in one of the bridge's crash couches, emerging against just as the alien countdown reached its zenith. There were distant concussions, and they seemed to drift "Had to hit the explosive bolts, so we wouldn't-"

Before he could finish his sentence, suddenly everything seemed to warp and ripple around them; the air, the consoles, the deck, their bodies, and there was a bizarre moment of CHANGE-before suddenly a massive wall of acceleration hit them like a rollercoaster, pinning Koshiro and Mali to the couch like they were stuck on the downloop of the fastest rollercoaster ever. Over the sound of the roaring engines, Sharl wedged his emitter in a crack in the console and called off distances and locations that meant little to the two humans before suddenly, just as rapidly as they'd stared, the ship slammed to a halt, the crash couches stretching taunt to hold Koshiro and Mali safely in place. The stars visible through the monitors were unfamiliar, the planet beneath them a strange shade of red and brown ocher.

"...sixteen hundred of your light-years. We're on the other side of Deneb," said Sharl, gesturing at a bright, distant star in the alien sky. "And more to the point, we are well into uncharted space. Uncharted Grue space, at that," he added, his eyes wide as he reminded himself it was just a simulation. "Wow."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap...other wormhole signatures just opened up," said Citizen, getting into the moment easily, perhaps because it was something he'd spent most of his early life imagining. "The other side of the star system, though. We've got maybe twenty minutes till they're inbound. The coordinates, though...I don't know, this is _weird_. This area's never been charted because it's so deep in Grue space. It's only ever been seen on super-intense scans. I don't know why a ship like this would be pointed here in the first place!"

As Citizen spoke, distracted by the displays in front of him, a panel rose out of the crash couch near where Koshiro and Mali had taken shelter, a square shape with a glowing humanoid hand outline visible on it. "It just doesn't make any sense," Sharl muttered as the hand outline started to glow.

[Thunder King]

"Okay, so...recap. Alien space-ship, very old and probably Lor. Suddenly taken way the heck away from Earth, into uncharted Grue space. So...situation completely messed up."

She looked around, wondering if she should pull herself to her feet, or if they'd make another sudden jump. It certainly wouldn't do to be pulled in like that, after all.

She dusted herself off a bit and glanced at the other two.

"I'm no expert on space, but I doubt the Grue will be very happy with our presence. Any idea if we can get out of here?"

[Electra]

Koshiro cautiously peeled himself off the crash couch, making sure he was still all in one piece after the insanity of warp-speed transit. "Well, he can't be expecting us to steer the ship," he reasoned, thinking of Mr. Archer in his viewing booth. "None of us know how to do that, and it's not exactly a life skill here on Earth anyway. There's got to be something else we're supposed to be doing..." He arched an eyebrow at the sight of the glowing panel rising from the couch. "All right, that might be a clue. Let's get this party started." Reaching out, he pressed his hand to the panel, right overtop the outline of the hand. Whatever happened, at least they weren't gong to be wasting time!

[Avenger Assembled]

Koshiro felt a distinct sensation of warmth as his hand settled onto the glowing hand outline, then suddenly a voice spoke from the speakers in plain, albeit weirdly-accented English. "CAPTAIN'S NEUROLOGICAL SCAN COMPLETE. LANGUAGE ADJUSTMENTS MADE TO MATCH UNKNOWN LOR-DERIVED LANGUAGE." There was a click as everyone in the room stared at the consoles that were now speaking a language the two humans could recognized. "234.403 STELLAR YEARS SINCE ACTIVATION. MISSION REACTIVATED. TARGET ACQUIRED. PRIMARY WEAPON PRIMED. ORDERS?" Down below, they could hear the ship coming to life as the touch of an organic being shook it back into mechanical awareness.

"What's your mission?" asked Sharl, shooting a worried look at those incoming ships.

"SHIP DISPATCHED 234.404 STELLAR YEARS AGO TO STERILIZE GRUEN WITH RELATIVISTIC ION BOMBARDMENT TRIGGERING QUANTUM INCINERATION OF PLANET. OPERATION: ANNIHILATION."

Citizen put his hand over his mouth, eyes wide. "Oh my God, that's...that's the Grue homeworld!?! What?"

"GRUEN MATCH CONFIRMED FROM STELLAR RADIATIVE FREQUENCY AND PRESENCE OF META-MIND ACTIVITY DETECTED IN STAR SYSTEM. ESTIMATE 18 INTERVALS UNTIL INTERCEPTION BY GRUE STARSHIPS."

[Thunder King]

"Need to turn that off." Mali said. "Don't want to blow up the Grue homeworld, that could spell all sorts of trouble. We need to get this ship out of here, fast." Mali said.

She glanced around the area, hoping, perhaps, that there was some sort of control device she could use. The ship had been sent to destroy the Grue, and she wasn't really keen on doing that.

She momentarily forgot that it was a simulation, or at least, convinced herself it wasn't. She had to react naturally, anything else wouldn't look good. Still, she had no idea what to do.

[Electra]

"Hold on one second," Koshiro said, looking at the other two, then out the viewscreen. "The Grue are really bad guys. They try to destroy us pretty regularly, and their favorite way is by murdering people and stealing their lives so they can infiltrate Earth. I didn't live in Freedom City last time the Grue invaded, but I know it was nasty and a lot of people died, even with the heroes working all out. They do the same thing to the Lor, and they have been for more than 200 years, or this ship wouldn't be here. Two hundred years of murder and invasion and just waiting for us to slip up so they can take us out once and for all. Maybe we can end all of that right now. They're a hive mind, right? If we get the bulk of them, that'll throw them into chaos for a long time. Maybe it will even free the ones that are left from mental slavery."

[Thunder King]

Mali shook her head. "Heroes don't kill, even bad guys, even very bad guys. If I let an entire planet of people die, it's no different than killing them myself. I know how bad the Grue are, I know their invasion was awful, but still, we have to be better, we can't take the easy route and just kill them. If we let this happen, if we don't try to stop it, we're no better than they are. The blood of millions, maybe even billions, will be on our hands. I won't take part in that."

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen was suddenly acutely aware of everyone there; his best friend, the pretty girl they were both trying to impress, and Mr. Archer and little Eira watching up in the booth. "...can the blast be focused?" he asked the ship's computer, speaking out loud and in English rather than directly connecting to the system for the benefit of the others. "Can you blast the location of the Meta-Mind without sterilizing the entire planet?" It was the first thing that came to mind, and seemed a fairer deal than the old doomsday device's original setting.

"NEGATIVE. BLAST CANNOT BE CONSOLIDATED BEFORE INTERCEPTION BY GRUE HOME FLEET," intoned the computer sonorously. "FIFTEEN UNITS UNTIL INTERCEPTION," it added. "RECOMMEND DISCHARGE OF PRIMARY WEAPON WITHIN TEN UNITS TO ALLOW ESCAPE FROM HOME FLEET ELEMENTS VIA INTERSTELLAR PORTAL TO CAPTAIN'S HOME STAR SYSTEM."

[Electra]

"That wouldn't help anyway," Koshiro pointed out. "Destroying the Meta-Mind would probably destroy the planet anyway, it would just be slower and more gruesome, like letting a bunch of animals starve to death and eat each other. They're not really people, see? They're like bees or ants, with enough sentience all put together to become one really malevolent, aggressive virus thing. If we hurt them but don't destroy them, they'll come after us. If we just leave, then whatever harm they do in their next invasion is on our heads because we could've stopped it and we didn't. We're supposed to save peoples' lives, and sometimes that means wiping out diseases."

[Thunder King]

"I...didn't really know that." Mali said quietly. "I just, I mean, it's people, isn't it? We'd be killing people? There are sentient Grue right? At least a few? I mean, what if there's another Pseudo down there? What if we detroy something vital, what if destroying the Grue destabilizes something, I mean. This is just too big, can we make this decision on our own? Are we smart enough? Do we know enough about what's going on?"