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Post by Morgan Bryn on Sept 15, 2014 19:07:39 GMT -6
"I recommend that both teams reach their objectives before we start misbehavin'," Eric stated, looking up from the map.
"But where's the fun in that?" Morgan commented, an amused expression on her face before Maelstrom interjected.
"Hate to butt in," Maelstrom said, "but I have some experience with raiding large secret bases full of horrifying experiments and guarded by deadly, unwholesome abominations. I find that the people who stay still generally die quickly. Can we at least get these shuttles taken care of so that we can be on our way more quickly? I mean, we're all good enough at what we do to talk while we work, aren't we?"
"Yeah, why plan in advance when you can fly by the seat of your pants?" Morgan questioned with a warm smile toward Maelstrom and more than a hint of sarcasm. The biotic had made it clear he didn't like her and didn't trust her, and she had no problem living up to his expectations, even if her smile was hidden by her faceplate.
“All right, let’s split up," Eric replied before the situation could go any further. He quickly delegated specific tasks to each member of the team before trundling off to the nearest shuttle.
Morgan followed silently, with only the briefest of glances toward Bridges' retreating team. Whatever they were musing over in the corridor, Morgan was fairly certain it was unpleasant and chose to focus on the shuttle instead... such as it was.
"Rather Spartan about the whole thing, aren't they?" Morgan mused, taking in the utilitarian interior of the vessel.
“This is damned weird. Whadya make of this here?” Eric commented, motioning to a large metal ring with a small rectangular HUD display attached to it.
Morgan approached it cautiously, the glow from her omni-tool lighting up the interior of the shuttle. "I'd say it's how they control the thing, but... exactly how they go about doing that...?" She shrugged, scanning the device, her omni-tool mapping out a blueprint of sorts to refer back to later as Eric focused on setting the charges.
From somewhere very far off, there was a sound of an explosion, giving Morgan pause. Her head shot up, movement in the bay catching her attention instead as she noticed Maelstrom quickly exiting the bay and heading off on his own. Hadn't Eric just said they should all rendezvous back in the center of the bay?
And they say I'm the trouble-maker...
"Uh... Eric? I think we've got a small problem..." Morgan looked back up to the taller man to see his attention was focused on reading a text message on his omni-tool.
When there was no immediate reply, Morgan tried again, but this time was met by static. She cursed under her breath, manually clicking on her external speakers with a touch to the controls by her ear before speaking up once more as Eric was typing a message out to someone.
"Maybe you're already aware, but I think Maelstrom just ditched us," she reported, her voice echoing louder than she would have liked.
Nothing like the cacophony of external radio chatter when you're up to your ears in enemies...
Morgan made a face as the read-out on her omni-tool confirmed their communications were being jammed. What was most disturbing to her, was the fact that the jamming wasn't a Collector signal, which meant the only place it could be coming from was the Vengeance.
The uneasiness in the pit of her stomach only grew. The Vengeance was Maelstrom's shuttle, which meant he'd purposefully cut them off from communication with each other only to run off on his own for unknown purposes. If this was part of the plan, it wasn't part anyone had felt the need to share with her.
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Post by Joe Fischer on Sept 16, 2014 8:09:27 GMT -6
Joe cursed himself as the boss displayed his message.
When was this put out? And how did I miss it?
He then pushed his frustration back; no good would come from it.
He nodded and resumed scouting forward.
*****
He took the left at the intersection and the second right as directed, which turned into a passage that curved to his right and sloped slightly downward.
About ten meters into the passage, something on the floor caught his eye.
It wasn't another pile of discarded body parts; it was the floor itself. There was something...off...in the way the floor lay. He raised his fist, the signal to stop.
He stood as far away as he possibly could while staying within the operational range of his omnitool's scanner. A quick scan showed no discernible traps; instead, it looked like some kind of hatch in the floor with a power conduit underneath it.
He looked back at Bridges and activated his external speakers. "Got a hatch in the floor boss, looks like there's a power conduit beneath it," he reported. "Want to take a look at it, maybe mess up their power systems a little bit?"
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Post by Eric Lysander on Sept 16, 2014 10:28:03 GMT -6
"Maybe you're already aware, but I think Maelstrom just ditched us," said Morgan, her voice echoing about the docking bay.
“It’s his way,” Eric responded over his helmet’s external speakers. “But he usually stays in contact. Now that our comms are down…”
The ex-Marine looked to the other two Collector shuttles. “Dammit - what’s keepin’ those two?” he said aloud, rechecking his rifle. He brought up his omni-tool and displayed Esteban’s base map.
“Knowing Mal he can mow down anything in his way to get to the prisoners but the swarms are gonna cramp his style, especially once they know he’s there. If you still wanna play beekeeper I say we target the largest swarm on the map and seal ‘em in. That much fewer for him and us ta deal with. Maybe you can practice on that terminal Mr. B was on earlier n’ see if you can close and open the docking bay doors. I’ll email our status to Murdoch and th’ twins; find out if we should leave the door open for them before we head in.”
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Post by Esteban Bridges on Sept 16, 2014 11:34:53 GMT -6
Esteban's HUD displayed more data than Esteban was expecting. Countless veins of neon yellow pumped within the rough skin of the walls. He never seen anything like it. He ran his hand over the uneven surface while he moved, following one of the powerlines with his fingertips. A faint pulse ran through the vein. And another one. And another one.
"Got a hatch in the floor boss, looks like there's a power conduit beneath it," Joseph called back, pausing above an intersection of dozens of veins pulsating in flawless harmony. "Want to take a look at it, maybe mess up their power systems a little bit?"
Esteban nodded and took a step forward, taking a knee in front of the intersection. His HUD poured out estimates of power usage, power flow, and hundreds of other data points Esteban would need to understand what he was seeing. There was more than enough power flowing through this one conduit to light the Citadel for an hour. He could not help but wonder what the Collectors could be doing that would require that level of power.
Esteban extended his left arm out and over the conduit, the armor immediately consumed by the neon fire of his omnitool. He arched his hand over the panel in a practiced motion to scan it. Though his HUD did not register anything that resembled a trap, he needed to be cautious here. He waited for a moment with baited breath, staring calmly at the shifting readings flashing before his unblinking eyes. It was safe.
"I will need a couple minutes," he said up to Joseph and Karn while reaching down for the panel. For reasons he did not understand, the Collectors did not secure it. It popped right open. The veins brightened tenfold on his HUD, no longer being dimmed by the walls. Data immediately turned down the brightness of the HUD display, making it tolerable again for Esteban. "Good find Joseph. Thank you."
He nodded up to the former N7 before looking back down, starting to get to work.
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Post by Joe Fischer on Sept 16, 2014 11:49:25 GMT -6
"I will need a couple of minutes," Bridges said as he knelt down and popped the hatch.
Joe nodded and moved ahead about twenty-five meters to provide the boss with some security. As he moved away, he faintly heard Bridges say, "Good find, Joseph. Thank you."
He smiled. While he certainly didn't need the boss' approval, he would certainly welcome it.
*****
As he knelt down, keeping an eye out for any more Collectors, he wondered what Bridges was doing. He was tempted to look or even ask, but he restrained himself. In the military there was a saying, "Stay in your lane." What it meant simply was for everyone to do their jobs and not try to tell others how to do theirs, especially if it was a different job. He would just have to trust that whatever the boss was doing would benefit the mission in some way.
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Post by Morgan Bryn on Sept 16, 2014 16:37:16 GMT -6
“If you still wanna play beekeeper I say we target the largest swarm on the map and seal ‘em in. That much fewer for him and us ta deal with," Eric suggested. "Maybe you can practice on that terminal Mr. B was on earlier n’ see if you can close and open the docking bay doors. I’ll email our status to Murdoch and th’ twins; find out if we should leave the door open for them before we head in.”
"Pfsh, Practice," Morgan scoffed with playful cockiness as she walked alone over to the terminal at the far end of the bay. Glancing toward the third shuttle that Iskra and Meldom had been assigned to, she caught side of a figure crouched down beside it huddled in the darkness and quickly realized it was Iskra. The thief's eyes made a quick scan of the bay, but there was nothing to indicate Iskra would be hiding from anything in particular.
This isn't good...
Morgan approached the terminal, not giving any indication that she had seen the Drell, and pulled up her omni-tool to make it seem as though she was going over the terminal's function when in fact she was scanning through her own files for a program she'd used a number of times.
The data she'd collected on the jamming signal not only indicated it was standard tech she was familiar with, but she recognized the particular pattern and had broken through it before, over a year ago. She was betting that meant it was older tech, which hopefully indicated the program she'd used last time should still cut through jammer, allowing her to establish a stable, shielded, link to a source of her choice.
Activating the subroutine, she minimized the program and got to work on the terminal in front of her. With the help of the program Bridges had supplied her, the controls were easily decipherable and closing the bay door would be a relatively simple task. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few comm controls, cargo loaders, lighting, and emergency shut-offs, that was the extent of the panel's usefulness. She'd have to find somewhere else to use Asa.
Glancing over her shoulder to Eric, who was still across the bay, she signaled him with a thumbs-up and pointed toward the door with a questioning shrug, meaning to ask whether or not he wanted her to close it. There was no sense in shouting across the entire bay and letting the entire base know exactly where they were.
[Reply Eric]
A quiet beep in her earpiece indicated the program she was running had completed its task and she was pleased to see it had found the jammer's frequency so quickly.
"Tsk, tsk, Maelstrom... you should really update your shuttle..." She commented quietly to herself with a grin, flicking off the external speakers and taking a moment to establishing a private connection directly to Iskra's internal comm.
A quick glance informed her the Drell was still huddled off to one side of the bay. Morgan's faceplate was opaque by design, but she was now grateful the Drell's was as well. With the jammer still in effect, the others were still cut off without Morgan's handy little toy, and there would be no way for the others to know they were talking.
"Iskra, if you can hear me, switch off your external speakers before you reply," Morgan instructed, her attention still focused on the panel before her. "Now, are you okay over there?"
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Post by Esteban Bridges on Sept 16, 2014 23:46:39 GMT -6
Esteban's attention was entirely on the problem at hand. If the radio was still operational, he would have silenced it. Any distraction could prove fatal, especially when dealing with energy on the level of this conduit. He took a breath, going over every bit of data flowing down on his HUD display. What he was planning was a touch risky. It was well within his skill-set, but he would still have to err on the side of caution.
He reached down to his side, sliding his hand into the hidden compartment next to his thigh, and pulled out his portable toolkit. No Engineer worth his salt would be without one. He did wish he could wipe his brow. Beads of sweat were gathering.
"Data," Esteban said, shutting off his helmet's external speakers. "Monitor power flows of the power conduit, designation beta two. Alert me of any change. Use monitoring program C3. Execute."
"Yes sir," his VI replied. Esteban's HUD display cleared somewhat, his VI now processing the data rather than showing it.
It's go time.
Esteban got to work, creating a symphony of motion that only another Engineer could truly appreciate. Every cut wire looked like the wires naturally detached from system wear and tear. Every deactivated node appeared to be from lack of system maintenance. It was a work of art. He was slowly forcing the entire conduit to re-route the power back to where it was coming from. If the Collector system operated like any other system, this would force system fail-safes to activate and cause a temporary shutdown.
Sabotage and destruction would be too easy. Also very easy to identify. No. That was not his style. Doing this worked within the system. The feedback would look like a normal shorting. The collateral damage would cascade outwards, making sure this would take days to repair. And without obvious signs of tampering, it would hide their presence for a little while longer....
Done.
Esteban carefully replaced the cover to the conduit, making sure that it barely made a sound before letting it go. He put away his tools, satisfied with his work and headed straight for Joseph. He could hear Karn behind him, taking up his position.
"We should go," he said through his helmet's speakers, pointing down the hallway. "We need to take this hallway. It'll fork in two directions. We take the right fork and follow it, taking the third tunnel to the left that we see... "
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Post by Joe Fischer on Sept 17, 2014 5:21:43 GMT -6
"Take a right, third tunnel on the left, got it," Joe replied, then got up and resumed scouting forward.
*****
As he proceeded slowly through the passage, he made sure not to just look straight ahead and to the sides, but also up as well. Shepard had mentioned that the Collector drones could fly, and adding a third dimension made him even more cautious.
Part of him wanted to hurry, to get to the objective as quickly as possible; after all, should the team be discovered, the chances of mission success dropped to virtually zero.
*****
"I don't get it," Corporal Fischer said to his platoon sergeant, a lifer by the name of Fisk. "It's kept me up at nights, trying to figure it out. What does it mean, 'Slow is smooth, smooth is fast'?"
The lifer considered the young Marine's question for a moment. "Okay, let me put it like this: You and your team are in a forest in enemy territory. You have to pass through a clearing to get to your pick-up point. How do you cross it?"
Understanding hit Joe like a bullet between the eyes. He smiled and said, "I scan the surrounding trees for enemy personnel. If there's none, ignore the clearing, move through the trees, continuously scanning for threats."
"Why?"
"I can't just send my team through the clearing," Joe replied. "If there's enemy personnel in the trees, they'll open fire on my team. Even if they don't tag anybody, we have to slow down to fight our way through."
The lifer smiled.
*****
He took the right and ignored the first tunnel, but as he scanned the second tunnel, he saw it was only a short one leading to an open room which appeared to be an armory.
That baffled him. How could they just leave their weaponry open and available to anyone who just walked in? Were they really so arrogant to think that no one could sneak into their base? Or were they just stupid?
His money was on arrogant. An organization run by idiots could not have survived as long as the Collectors had.
But how much of their thinking is really their own, and how much of it is the Reapers? he wondered.
He shook his head to clear it. That had nothing to do with the mission; let some egghead with nothing better to do figure it out.
He gestured for Bridges to come forward.
*****
"Looks like an armory down this tunnel, boss," he whispered to his employer. "Do we have time to pick up souvenirs? Or should we wait to do that while we're leaving?"
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Post by Eric Lysander on Sept 17, 2014 8:16:10 GMT -6
Eric composed a flash text to Murdoch:
… Murdoch buddy, Sorry for the text – I know you and the twins are neck deep at the moment. Mal’s jammer’s up. Fearless Leader and his boys have gone in and the rest of my team’s about to follow. If Morgan can crack the controls for the docking bay I was going to have her close the doors to secure the port. Or should we leave it open as a fallback spot? Eric …
After sending it he glanced over at Morgan’s position at the control panel as she tapped at her omni-tool. After a few moments she turned to him, giving a thumbs-up and pointing to the bay door shrugging. If she was able to get control of it that quickly it should not be much effort to access the other doors around the base. Morgan’s containment idea just might work. Eric held up his hand and then crooked his other arm to indicate that he was waiting for a response from Evac. The stowaway-turned-team member attended to the panel again. Eric took up his rifle and panned around him; Meldom and Iskra had yet to appear. And every passing second put Maelstrom into further jeopardy.
Eric brusquely walked up to Morgan. “Morgan… I’m gonna check the other ships real quick; we need ta get goin’ before the entire base goes on alert!”
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Post by dargene on Sept 17, 2014 17:04:12 GMT -6
Meldom had abandoned the bomb half way through setting it up to have a look at the interior and odd computer more, with a little time he was sure he could figure it out, it felt compelling almost to find the missing piece of the puzzle, he had managed to access the basic console and flip through a few things that made no sense before it locked him out with a frustrated sigh he set his mind on the bomb.
After setting the Bomb up correctly and wiring it for effect he exited the shuttle and nodded as he stepped out "Done" he said with resolve looking for Iskra. Upon seeing her crouching on the ground with her hands on his head he knelt down also "Iskra ?" He asked worriedly "You alright ?"
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Post by Esteban Bridges on Sept 18, 2014 0:29:47 GMT -6
Esteban's hand never drifted far from his side-holster, his armored hand fingering his M-5 Phalanx. Though the pathways were relatively safe, he could not help feeling on edge. He took a breath when Joseph gestured for him to join him while he looked around a corner. If he was reading the map on his HUD correctly, Joseph was looking in a small room.
"Looks like an armory down this tunnel, boss," Joseph's voice came softly from his helmet's external speakers. "Do we have time to pick up souvenirs? Or should we wait to do that while we're leaving?"
Esteban leaned over, taking a look down the same hallway as Joseph. His HUD confirmed the N7 Destroyer's words. It was an armory.
"We have time," Esteban nodded once to the mercenary. "It wouldn't hurt to grab a few grenades. I owe Maelstrom an apology for something I said to him earlier. Collector grenades would be a good way to say sorry."
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Post by Maelstrom on Sept 18, 2014 0:42:49 GMT -6
Anelya's hands raced over the control panel as her eyes danced between the several screens all showing the data from each of individuals who had patched their omni-tools into the network. The first of the paired windows had opened and closed so quickly that her nerve conduction velocity would not even have allowed her to hit "send" manually on anything. Not that it mattered. The ship's VI, in a feminine human form, explained that the first window was to receive information. The second was to send the collated facts, such as relevant scans, positioning of teams, and threats. That window would be coming up in less than a minute.
She frowned as she looked at the screen, seeing several radio spikes that, while garbled, were still clearly the result of picking up radio transmissions from other members of the team at close range. That meant people were trying to use their radios, even with jamming in effect. Her brow furrowed, as she tried to figure out why anyone would do that.
"Everything okay?" Enaya asked, sensing her sister's confusion through their shared bond.
"Some of them have been trying to use their radios," Anelya said.
"What?!" Enaya asked. "Did they not even bother looking at the plan?"
"This jamming is more of a black ops tactic than a mercenary one," Anelya said, repeating the words Maelstrom told her only an hour before. "Maybe they're just so unaccustomed to it that they forgot."
Enaya was nervous, understanding the grave responsibility she had as the pilot of the only escape craft for the mission. As such, she parked the shuttle at the inner edge of the asteroid shell surrounding the base. The craft was running on extremely low power, aside from the jamming signals, the transmitter, and, of course, Emily. The thrusters fired every now and then to stabilize them and keep the cockpit facing the direction of their mech, who was hard at work demolishing the sensor, weapons, and transmitter emplacements all over the base. According to the reports Emily was feeding them, the blind spot he was creating would soon be large enough for the shuttle to enter the battle undetected and begin aiding him in the task.
The window to the next transmission was only seconds away, and Emily's databurst was almost compiled. Two things came immediately to Anelya's attention and she raced to include them in the packet, but it was too late. The databurst was already sent. The next window was two point one three five nine minutes away.
"Emily, explanation required for two omitted segments of data," Anelya said.
"I have a minute," she replied in her emulated personality. Anelya wondered why Maelstrom chose to leave it in place during the mission rather than have it operate in its more bare-bones mode. "What's bothering you?"
"First, why was the non-degraded radio signal not reported?" Anelya asked. It was isolated from the rest of the communications stream, so she could not decipher what had been said, but it was clear that some transmission had been sent that was not affected by the jamming signal. Having broken through the jamming, it was detectable by ship's extremely sensitive eavesdropping equipment. The Vengeance had been made for black ops, after all. Anelya only hoped the Collectors capabilities weren't as advanced, or they likely would have been able to localize the transmission, given that it was inside their base. Still, it was a craftily-transmitted message whatever it had been. None of the other omni-tools picked it up, and the Vengeance could not even identify the sender. Still, its presence had been detected. What was going through that person's head?
"Signal parameters conform those used by our own team. They were deemed irrelevant," Emily explained in the limited logic of a VI.
Anelya sighed. She would have to decide by the next window whether it was worth worrying the team with or not. Time was short, though, so she moved on. "Second, why was Maelstrom's position omitted from this update to the team?" She could not understand it. The system sent an update about him having killed four Collectors and that he was alive and well, but it neglected to include his position.
"He doesn't want to be followed right now. It was included in his instructions to me in the most recent data-packet."
"What if he gets in trouble?" Anelya said, genuinely concerned.
"Per his orders, the emergency override of the jamming signal has been transmitted to Mister Bridges and Mister Lysander. He, of course, has it as system administrator as well. Should serious trouble arise, any of those three can de-activate it in order to gain full communications functionality."
"What's going on down there?" Enaya asked, her fear seeping through their bond.
A dozen scenarios ran through Anelya's head. One in particular was disconcerting. It was possible there was a mole on the team and that Maelstrom was hunting that person down. There was one other scenario, though, that scared her even more. Maelstrom had confided in the two of them that a top secret organization once tried to control his mind. She swallowed hard as she considered the unpleasant thought. What if they didn't actually fail?
(Posted with GM approval)
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Post by Joe Fischer on Sept 18, 2014 5:50:22 GMT -6
Joe was surprised at the boss' response, in more ways than one: first, for actually agreeing to it, and second for mentioning he owed Maelstrom an apology for something. He considered asking what the apology was for, but he knew it was none of his business and kept his mouth shut.
*****
As he entered the armory, his mind was reeling from the apparent lack of security. When he was an N7, the armory was a unit's most secure room; in order to open it, the unit armorer would have to go to battalion headquarters to get a passcode for it, which was changed daily, and then it was only opened when there was a need for the weapons inside, such as a mission or going to a practice range.
His eyes fell on the racks of assorted weaponry, and all thoughts of poor security disappeared. He felt himself becoming giddy, like a kid on Christmas morning who got even more than he asked for.
There were two racks each of several different types of weapons. Shepard had described the sort of weaponry he had faced, and it seemed like Collector arsenal closely resembled that of the rest of the galaxy; they had submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and grenades. On the off chance his fellow N7 had missed something, he looked for shotguns and heavy pistols, but didn't see any. That made sense; Shepard had said when things got up close and personal, the drones had resorted to biotic blasts and arm blades.
As someone who had spent a good portion of his career learning about all the major handheld weapon systems in the galaxy, he was tempted to take one of each, but resisted; that would prove to be too cumbersome even for him, so he settled for an assault rifle, which actually fit nicely into the cinch on the back of his armor.
"Hey Karn, see anything you like?" he called back to the krogan, but got no response.
I guess he prefers it up and personal, he thought. I wonder if he'll get the chance.
He felt no shame when he admitted to himself that he hoped the mission could be accomplished without violence. As it had occurred to him time and again, if bullets started flying, there was a very good chance none of them was making it back; they were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, and it would only be a matter of time before they were all killed or captured, perhaps turned into victims of the very actions they were trying to prevent.
And Udina keeps selling us out, he thought, and rage surged past his emotional controls, but only for a moment; he needed to keep his cool, not only for his sake, but for the rest of the team.
Satisfied he was done, he took up a position back at the entrance. "Me and Karn are ready when you are, boss," he said.
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Post by Eric Lysander on Sept 18, 2014 10:52:28 GMT -6
Eric proceeded to one of the remaining Collector shuttles to find Meldom walking down the ramp. “Done,” the salarian nodded confidently.
He then looked about and something caught his eye before Eric could say a word. Meldom walked over to a corner of the bay and knelt beside a quivering figure crouched down on the ground.
Iskra.
Meldom voiced his concern for her as Eric knelt beside her as well, taking one shoulder. His tone however was a bit sterner than his friend. They were on mission now and the time for hesitation or doubt was over.
“Iskra, we need to go,” stated Eric matter-of-factly, trying not to sound disappointed or angry. “You knew what we’d be goin’ up against. Those prisoners are depending on us… on you.”
Eric dropped a subtle hint about her ulterior motives for signing on for this mission. “You wanted to make a difference, remember? Can’t do that by crawlin’ inside yourself. You do it by standing on your feet. One step after another.”
Eric’s hand moved from Iskra’s shoulder to just in front of her, in wait for her hand.
“C'mon… you came this far...”
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Post by Esteban Bridges on Sept 18, 2014 13:27:22 GMT -6
Esteban stood guard at the mouth of the dimly lit hallway, peeking around the corner to make sure the hall was empty. He found himself hating being in the room. His HUD showed the walls, floor, and ceiling were filled with pulsating lines of energy flowing in one direction away from the room. It reminded him of a circulatory system, the electricity pumping like blood.
"Data. Shut down HUD display, but continue monitoring." Esteban had enough of staring at the way power flowed within the walls. It felt maddening, oppressive.
"Yes sir," Data responded.
He walked over to a small open crate overflowing with small egg-like shapes. He bent down and palmed one of them, testing its weight in his hand. It looked like the grenades Maelstrom was so proud of back on Barce. He frowned, staring at it. Esteban did not like using any weapon that he did not know inside and out. He does not know this grenade. He does not know how it was constructed.
Esteban slowly turned it in his palm, inspecting the exterior of the grenade. He knew Maelstrom would like these. But it would not be right to just give these to him without first examining them. He twitched his left hand, triggering the auto-activation sequence for his omnitool. Esteban waved his lit palm over the grenade in his right hand, scanning it into his files. Data would auto-catalog the weapon and display all relevant information on his HUD.
"Display," he whispered into his microphone so Data would show him the results of the scan. He gathered up four more grenades and put them into storage while the information flashed on his display. He read and smiled, heading back to the entrance to stand watch and wait.
"Me and Karn are ready when you are, boss," he heard Joseph say while approaching.
"Good," Esteban replied through his helmet's speakers, gesturing for Joseph to go first. He would follow behind the N7 Destroyer, of course.
"Sir," Data spoke up in his ear. "The first cycle of the jamming signal is finished. Sent out our position to the Vengeance."
"Good," Esteban replied, walking calmly. He wasn't sure what to expect next, but he believed his team should be equipped enough to deal with it.
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Post by Joe Fischer on Sept 19, 2014 6:00:22 GMT -6
"Good," Bridges said, gesturing for Joe to proceed.
"After I take the next tunnel on the left, where to next, boss?" Joe replied.
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Post by Esteban Bridges on Sept 19, 2014 15:22:42 GMT -6
"After I take the next tunnel on the left, where to next, boss?"
Esteban typed instructions in on his omnitool for a quiet moment, pulling up a fraction of the map on his HUD display. A small green dot glowed at one of the dozens of intersections, telling Esteban exactly where he was at. He could see a few possibilities. A few of them looked like they winding paths. His eyes followed each pathway carefully, imagining what each would be like. One of them looked like a possibility to him, except that it opened up into a very sizable room. He did not want to be so out in the open yet.
Esteban searched the small section of map, frowning. Nothing looked exceptionally good to him. "Give me a moment," he replied quietly. His eyes followed one path in particular. It looked like the most direct path, cutting through two rooms in the process. At least they looked like what could pass for rooms.
"We will follow the tunnel on the left for 15 meters. It widens somewhat. But if we follow the right wall, it will take us to a pathway which goes 11 meters, then branches in three directions. We take the center path and follow it. We should end up at some sort of room...."
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Post by Weyrloc Karn on Sept 19, 2014 16:54:34 GMT -6
As the two discussed their plans to venture further into the endless tubes and caves of the collector made ship, Karn would take interest in the armory, after a moment of contemplating. He holds his hand on the side of his helmet as he looks around inside the armory, at the rather interesting variants of alien technology, even alien to him.. "Hey, what do you think would put a hole in those.. Praetorian things you guys keep gettin' so worried about?" He speaks aloud, through his helmets speaker. The krogan had taken interest in what sorts of damage he could create with the explosive devices housed in the secure crates, all the explosive wonders that sparked inside his brilliant mind.. At least, he believed they were brilliant. They were reckless, but effective plans. He had a keen sense of how to cause a good bit of chaos, but under his current circumstance, he still had a good deterrent against any problems..
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Post by Joe Fischer on Sept 20, 2014 6:02:58 GMT -6
"Hey, what do you think would put a hole in those Praetorian things you guys keep getting so worried about?" Karn suddenly asked.
A tactical nuke, Joe thought to himself. He then said aloud, "Based on what I've read and heard from the others, nothing...at least with what we're carrying."
He looked over at Bridges. "So, what I'm hearing, boss, is we take the next left, then it forks, and we take the right fork," he said. "Shortly after that, it then splits into three tunnels, we take the center one and end up in a room. Is that it?"
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Post by Esteban Bridges on Sept 20, 2014 14:29:09 GMT -6
Praetorian.
Esteban turned to watch Karn while he spoke. He wished he could have had the chance to scan the dead Praetorian with his omnitool. There was a lot that was not known on the thing. It looked like some strange cross of organic and synthetic life, but he was not sure if that was for intimidation purposes or if it was designed by a madman. A simple scan would have answered that. He hoped it was an AI or VI piloting the thing.
"Based on what I've read and heard from the others nothing...at least with what we're carrying," Joseph answered the Krogan's question. Esteban considered that for a moment, deciding not to add anything to that. He was not sure how easy or difficult it would be to pierce the armor of the thing.
"So, what I'm hearing, boss, is we take the next left, then it forks, and we take the right fork," Joseph said. "Shortly after that, it then splits into three tunnels, we take the center one and end up in a room. Is that it?"
"That is right," Esteban confirmed, glancing between the N7 Destroyer and Krogan. "We should get going. I dislike staying in one place for too long. It feels like we might become a target."
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