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character information
name Ademaro age 33 species Human origin Dallas, Texas mech Gilgamesh (Alice) rp'd by Matt the Fatt >_>! ::had to fill this out for him..mwahahah!:: basic info Stationed in Berlin as a high-ranking pilot in the U.S.E. army, he has undergone nano-treatment, as is the norm with ace U.S.E. pilots. With nanomachines circulating in his blood, he is able to uplink with A.I.'s of any type. more... Gilgamesh
name Dice
name Lorelei
name Velisto
name Ezekial Cameron
name Caelum Aquila
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Vel and Dice's attempt to visit Ademaro had failed. They were shooed away by some annoying nurse.
"Well, that was a waste of time. "Yeah, this sucks. I hope Ademaro is doing ok.." Dice replied. Two strangers pasted, having a conversation about a certain mech. From the story Vel had previously told her, Dice new the mech they were speaking of must have been Ademaro's. "Did you hear that? The AI's still working. I don't know about you, but I'd really like to see it, myself. I'm gonna go on ahead," Vel explained. "Hmm.. sounds like some boring computer stuff if ya ask me." She laughed. "I'll catch you later. Thanks again Vel!" Dice went her own direction, not knowing exactly where that direction might lead. She clung onto the railing as she still didn't have her own pair of gravity boots. She'd take care of that problem later, but for now, she was rather curious about her mech and the new A.I. that was installed into it. She wanted to see it, but first she had to find it. She learned how to use the device that Lorelei had showed her and finally figured out how to get to the 'hanger' where the mechs were kept. She spotted her own Zedikiah very quickly, as there were only a few other mechs in the room. "Zedikiah!" She grinned, excited, but then something happened that surprised her a bit. "Welcome, Dice. It is nice to meet you. I am the artificial intelligence assigned to your mech, Zedikiah. You may call me by my code name, 'Julia'." The voice was feminine and sounded slightly computerized.. as it was a computer. "Oh.. uh. Ok." Dice laughed nervously. She sounded like an idiot, but it was her first time dealing with and A.I. before. And this one was in her own mech! She was rather excited about it. Before she could manually open her cockpit, it opened automatically. "Heh." She continued to grin as she seated herself inside. Once the door cockpit door was shut, everything lit up. "Lets go for a test drive, Julia." Dice said. She couldn't wait to see what Zed could do now that Julia was installed. "Certainly." Julie responded. The hatch was opened and in no time at all and Dice was piloting her newly revamped mech around the Hrunting. "This is great!" She exclaimed. "I don't have to do half the stuff I used to anymore." "I am glad your are satisfied." Julia told her. "I am the U.S.E.'s newest A.I. creation, after all." Dice took that statement as 'bragging' and laughed to herself. This A.I. really was advanced. Dice suddenly noticed something far away in the distance. It looked like.. a bird. But that was simply absurd. [No rhyme intended] "Julie, do you know what that is?" "Processing. It is another mech, not assigned to this post. Zooming in." A screen in the cockpit suddenly flickered on and Dice saw that this thing wasn't a bird at all, but it did have an amazing pair of 'bird-like' wings. "Ah.. shit. I wonder if its another attack." Dice said. "If you wish, we can make contact with this vessel." Julia told her. "Or attack." She added. "No.. we don't know if it's a bad guy yet. Can you send a warning out to the Hrunting? They can contact me and give me instructions on this matter." Julia did so and Dice waited for a command of some kind from the Hrunting. OOC: Whoo. Finally RPed. Sorry for being such a slacker. XD BTW, I wasn't sure where Katya's mech was located, so I guessed she was around the hrunting.. Obviously, I was trying to make some contact with her chara, but if I'm wrong about this and she's not around the Hrunging, let me know ASAP so I can edit my post. n.n;; posted by lUnAAAaaaaaaaaaa8D.
Izzy blinked several times, trying to think of a suitable response to what Lorelei had just told him.
"You mean, you have one of the Grendels? How did you get it in here withouth being noticed?" he was shocked and excited, practically skipping as he followed her to her mech. "It was easy." she answered. "I have a holding area in my mech. Since I don't need oxygen, the space that would have been used for the necessary equipment was left for me to store something that I wanted a closer look at later on." She was thinking about Dr. Cameron. He had worked closely with the mech designers, and knew that she might see something that either he or Lorelei would want to take apart and examine. "Your mech was custome-made? How did your creator get the funding for it? Did he design the mech and you himself, or did he have a team?" Izzy was speaking rapidly, letting every question he had pop out of his mouth. Lorelei smiled. One of those sensations went through her again. It was...nice. She looked for a good word to describe how she felt--and yes, she was feeling. She felt that she would enjoy Izzy's enthusiasm and curiosity. "I was built to house an experamental battle A.I., to see if mechs could be piloted satisfactorily by machines, therefore cutting down on the loss of human lives. Because androids don't need food or oxygen, and we can transmit perfect records of what we experience, we can be used to go on the more dangerous missions." Lorelei explained as they stopped in front of Valkyrie. "Also, I do not hesitate when I see an enemy. My thought processes are faster than that of a human pilot. As for funding, it was one of the rare collaborations between America and the U.S.E. And my creator only helped design Valkyrie," she put her hand on the mech's foot. "But I am mostly his design." she felt that was a sufficient reply. "He did an amazing job," Izzy blurted out, then blushed and cleared his throat. "So, the holding area?" Standing on the right side of the mech, they deactivated their boots and propelled themselves upward. "The holding area is on the back," Lorelei said. She was holding his hand again, so they wouldn't get seperated. When she got to Valkyrie's hip, she placed her foot on the mech and activated the magnets so she could walk up the rest of the way, noting that Izzy held on to her hand instead of doing the same. When she got to what would be the small of Valkyrie's back, she let go of his hand, forcing him to follow suit and walk with her. The paint on Valkyrie's torso was white, so it was easy to see the irregular square of grey paint if you looked closely. Lorelei knelt down by it and motioned for Izzy to do the same. "When every one else is gone from the hanger, come back here to this spot," she pointed to the grey square. "And press this in, like a button. It will open the door to the holding area, so you can get the drone into one here in the hanger that you can lock every one else out of." "Sounds good. When can we look at it?" Izzy rubbed his hands together, already seeing them taking the drone apart and seeing what made it stronger than the regular Grendel-type drones. Lorelei raised an eyebrow. She hadn't thought that he would work on it with her, but she saw no reason why he couldn't. "We'll work on it when we're both off-duty. Now why don't you take a look at my circuits and see if you can find anything?" OOC: It would have been longer, but I have to go get ready for a doctors appointment...so...I'll post more later. =p posted by Original flavored Kchan.
Everything had gone blank momentarily. Caelum slowly took heavy breaths as his white gloved hand slid down from his face slowly. His eyelids parted little by little allowing his violet orbs to get sight. Blurry for just a second... now everything seemed just fine. That stinging pain was a reminder... not a condition. He clenched his teeth as he cringed trying to retrieve lost memories, but to no avail. "Dammit..." He cursed silently, as he turned back to take a look at the station he saw before.
"Caelum, raiding into them is not a strategy that is considered intelligent. I can list you twenty-two reasons," Eruda's warm voice snapped suddenly. The young man looked towards the screen that handled the voice balance. "Caught my thoughts? I don't like that," He looked away and shook his head, "I don't need reasons, I know is senseless." He got a bit lost in thought, not really finishing his statement list. His golden hair swaying a little with his last paralitic movement in space. The orbital frame gave a loud crackle as the boosters poured the electrical flames out in order to keep speed. From the back of Andromeda, the long tail swung slowly with the air the speed of the wings could not break. The devastating machine continued its course towards that certain place with caution. Chains shimmering, and flying back, lashing at open black space. The frame's margin gave a radiant glow of darkened green shimmers as the metatron passed by, fueling the system. Crafted almost perfectly from an unknown person, Andromeda bursted faster and faster. "I insist that this is not a good idea," Eruda once again mentioned, oddly this computer was. Almost as if arguing back instead of suggesting or giving adecuate information. "There is nothing to loose. Maybe they might not even notice as I pass by." Caelum was far to carefree. He knew little about himself every single time he tried to remember some things. He knew his parents and all that stuff... but what ever happened to them? Is as if he had woken up from a long, long sleep... He tried not to think about it. Eruda would not let him when had the chance, perhaps the A.I. was a little more than what it seemed to be. Caelum had not programmed it, as a matter of fact he found himself attached to Eruda, he had never really heard other A.I.s that were so correlated in human contact as this one was. He was, in fact, sometimes even surprised to the things she could speak back at him. Andromeda & Eruda had been a gift, but sad it was that one of his lost memories was: Who was it? He faintly remembered this. He could only imagine and idealize. ooc: okay that was just... random and probably stupid x_x sorry. I just felt like posting. posted by Katya.
As Vel and Dice entered the room where Ademaro was held, one of the nurses looked up from whatever she'd been doing and made a face. "Excuse me, but no one is allowed in here," she said, striding over to them and lifting her hands in a halting motion to them.
Vel blinked. "That's right. Out!" The woman turned Dice and Vel around and literally pushed them to the door. "I'll inform you when you can see him," she said in a huff, then turned and went back into the other room. "Well, that was a waste of time," Vel said as they stepped out the door. The guard that Vel had threatened looked at her with a hint of amusement, but she ignored it and kept going. A couple of people coming from the opposite direction were talking about something that made her pause. "That mech's frame is in horrible shape, but the AI is operating like nothing happened at all," one said, looking almost confused. "That's unreal," the other said, awestruck. Vel blinked -- they must've been talking about Ademaro's mech. She hadn't thought about it having an AI, but when she thought about it, the idea wasn't so strange to her at all. But the fact that it was operating after such a beating sparked her interest. She turned to look at Dice. "Did you hear that? The AI's still working. I don't know about you, but I'd really like to see it, myself. I'm gonna go on ahead," she said, ducking her head in something of an apology. That said, she turned and walked quickly toward the gear dock. She was very excited to meet this AI, and being a programmer for these things certainly perked her interest even more. Upon arriving, she paused to see Gilgamesh. It was more beat up than she thought it had been. Mechanics were all around, working to repair it. 'I hope they don't yell at me,' she thought, and turned off her magnetic boots. She pushed from the platform she was on and floated in the general direction of Gilgamesh. When she got close enough to grab it, she pulled herself up to the cockpit. She paused a moment, glancing back as a few mechanics looked at her questioningly. She ignored them, and leaned into the cockpit somewhat. "Uh, hey. Anyone in here?" she said, speaking to the AI as if it were another person. 'Good afternoon. You must be Velisto. I am detached battle back-up unit Alice. It is a pleasure to meet you.' OOC: La. o_o; OOC-Matt: -=Edit.=- Alice must be everywhere. posted by Hchan the Hawttie.
'What was it that you found out?'
The mechanic floated slowly towards the open doors of the cockpit in Gilgamesh's stomach. He took a moment to steady himself, standing on the edge of the cockpit, while attempting to regain his composure. "They wouldn't let me see him... he was under strict military guard... but... There were so many people there. They were all burned... some really badly... and their LEVs weren't even hit! It was just the heat given off by that cannon that got them. I can't imagine how he could've survived." 'I can.' ************* Elsewhere ********** Ademaro lay in a bed, loosely strapped down, while several doctors and nurses fluttered about the room. He had been stablized, but he still needed treatment to help his nanomachines heal faster. The entire right side of his face seemed to have been burned, and if his eye was open, it would've been clearly blinded; however, nanoassemblers were quickly repairing the damage to the nerve tissue, which would grant his sight back in less than a day. His right arm was burned as well, but it seemed that he had recovered from most of his superficial wounds and burns already due to his own nanomachines. His leg had been broken, although no one knew how, in two separate places, both on the shin. They surmised that, from the looks of the injury, the straps and belts in the cockpit snapped from the intense heat of the blast, and he had no form of restraint when the mech was rocked by the cannon's blast. He was recovering, though, and much faster thanks to his nano-lined blood. He was still unconscious, though, and would remain so for the remainder of the day. "He's healed up quite nicely in the last couple of hours. Most of his burns are gone, and he's regained the use of one eye. By tomorrow morning, we'll just have that leg to worry about..." "He'll need some therapy for that leg for the rest of the week.. maybe a cane for a few days." A nurse, who was training to become a full doctor, wasn't as knowledgable about nano-technology, and asked, "Why aren't his nanomachines healing the leg?" "They are, but it's a hard tissue. It's a lot easier to put together the soft skin tissue than it is bone tissue. It's really common sense." Others were having similar conversations; some were administering extra nanomachines into the more badly burned parts of his skin that hadn't healed yet, and two doctors floated up to his head, where they pulled the eyelid open on the right side to reveal the blind eye. One doctor was instructed to gently hold the eye open with one hand, and with the other used an eyedropper to introduce drops of water on the eye every 10 or so seconds while the second doctor held a small laser arm over the eye. One who watched could slowly see color returning as the laser began its restorative work. Within an hour of that, the doctors began to slowly leave the room. He was stablized, and his nanomachines could handle the rest, but he was meant to be kept under supervision by a couple of nurses around the clock. Outside, two MPs remained stationed by the door, wearing gravity boots so they could stand at attention. Everywhere else, the situation was much more grim. People wailed for help, with burns scarring their body, and the ones less injurred cursed the Americans. There were too many injurred by the blast, mostly LEV pilots whose machines weren't nearly as fast as the specialized Orbital Frames. And one must keep in mind that, through the dozens of wounded and dying, this was just the people who were affected by the blast from Gilgamesh. The battle against the Grendels was much worse. OOC: Yeah, that post sorta sucked. Not much HAPPENED, though, so you can understand. Anyway... Welcome, Katya! posted by Matt the Pizza-eater. Yummy..
Finally, he had set flight towards the stars again. Inside that one magestic system known as the Andromeda orbital frame, Caelum sat in blank, deep thought. The semi-translucent screens gleamed reflections to his facial features. His violet hues ganining this gray tone upon them with that hazel characteristic. His lips parted to makeshift some speech, but no sound came out. Maybe just a thought that was being whispered. The screen in the center of the sit came litted up with several colors and the rainbow colored bar took different heights as a voice came from almost everywhere in the mechanical monster. "Caelum. The destination was not set... drifting again?" The mechanical voice had in fact some sweet vocalization and a slight tint of emotional accent.
"No." Caelum smiled warmly as he looked to the vast almost empty space. Close to several planet's landings he just leaned back and looked down to where that colored bar was at. His digits came in contact with the light screen and then he blinked, "Say, Eruda..?" He tilted his head a bit as the machine instantaneously spoke a single sylable. "Yes?" He was to ask something that had to do with that long ago destruction of that colony, but soon his thoughts drifted as he saw several units on the far, far area. He halted the system. The orbital frame stopped. The frame consisted of red metallic armor decorated with chains to his side. Gleaming and heavy the chains swayed with force as the robot halted from its breaking speed. The black outlining of the robot shimmered now and then as the metatron reactions occured. Like black ooze flowing through the linen in its body. Behind, two sets of wings clanked as the boosting light shower stopped its propeling. Andromeda, the chained princess, remained silent just with the dangling of the arm chains and then head's crown brightly allowing the diamond like pendants come down. To wait. To see if it was a good idea to go by that area. Caelum Aquila frowned at the thought... Are you the ones who took my lifetime away? He angered. His eyes shut as his left hand came to cover half his face. Pain crawled to his nervous spinal cord and onto his cranial self. Outside. In the shell, the frame mimicked the same action. Almost crouching in space. Something wrong? Perhaps... perhaps just a condition Mr. Aquila needed to be more careful with. ooc: o__o sorry if it is short and out of nowhere, but you must understand that he is kinda... oblivious. SO! :D! Maybe he can be found sometime while cruising around. Hope... you like it x_x posted by Katya.
Vel watched Dice sit up, and the straps that were used to hold her to the bed gave way easily -- these kind weren't really meant to hold someone in. They were simply to secure a patient from floating right off the bed. [ooc: thought i'd explain that..e.e;]
She stood there [yes, stood -- she'd acquired some magnetic boots while the doctor had been examining Dice], listening to Dice as she described all she could remember happening. "That's about what the doctor said happened -- that it looked as though you had some kind of minor head trauma that made you pass out but he was totally lost as to what it was. He didn't stay here long, tho', so I guess it couldn't have been as important as what some of the people out there got..." "What happened with you guys? Is everyone ok?" Vel decided for the moment to avoid the second part of that question for the moment. "I'm not really sure. This huge cargo ship came and it had a bunch of drones on it. It attacked skylab and everything. Me and Lorelei and Ademaro went out to try and save it..." She paused there, her brows furrowing a bit. "Me and Lorelei made it out unscathed, but Ademaro ran into some bad luck. One of the drones was some kinda of bomb and he got caught up in that, and on top of that, something else happened. Some USA Army fuck took over his mech. They argued about it over the vox comm... apparently the Americans installed a cannon without Ademaro knowing it and decided to test it out ... but his mech was trashed too much to handle it and it fell apart." She paused a moment. The way she spoke about Americans hinted that she had some personal hatred towards them. "I don't know if he's okay or not. After seeing some of the other pilots that were out there... I just don't know how he survived that." "...I'm really sorry I wasn't there for you guys." Vel smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry about it, Dice. You couldn't help what happened to you...whatever it was. I was about to go see if I could get past all that security to check on Ademaro. Since you're awake, you can come with me." Vel helped Dice down the halls, letting her hang onto her as she used the magnetic boots to head to where Ademaro was being held. There were still a few military personnel at the door. Velisto breathed inward. "Okay, here we go. Maybe you should use the railings now. I won't look very threatening if I have a cute lady clinging to my arm like that," she said, allowing a subdued laugh out. She hadn't intended it as a come on -- she was straight. She rolled back her shoulders and lifted her head high, then strode forward. "Excuse me, gentlemen," she said, her voice sharp. When they all looked at her, she lifted a brow. "We're here to see the patient Ademaro." "No one's allowed in. Sorry lady," one said, stepping forward. Vel studied him a moment -- the way he spoke, his stance, and the cocky look he had; Vel identified him as the 'leader' of the three. She turned her attack toward him. "Well, I'm sorry too, sir," she began, then lowered her voice dangerously, "because if you don't move, I'll have to report to your superiors that you're disobeying a direct order." She had no idea what she was talking about, but it seemed to shake the guardman up a bit. "Fine," he said, trying to play it cool, but she could tell he was nervous now. "Go on in." 'Heh. That was kinda of easy. What a wuss.' She looked back to Dice, giving a little triumphant grin, and straightened it again when past the guards. Once inside, she walked forward through a small room, then as she came to the end of that, there was a wide doorway [lacking a door]. "Ademaro?" She said, peering in, and then her mouth gaped when she saw him. OOC: Wheeee. XD It's up to Matt to explain why she's gaping XD Sorry I used Dice a little there at the end..but I figured you'd rather have Dice come along instead of..sit ALONE..in the infirmary xD posted by Hchan.
"Dice, you're finally awake,"
Dice recognized the voice as Vel's. She realized she was in some sort of hospital setting. When she looked over, Vel was approaching her bed side. "Oh.. Hey Vel." She said with a smile. She was still trying to get all her thoughts together. "I found you in the hallway all passed out and I got pretty worried....so I brought you to the infirmary. I didn't much know what to do for you, so I asked Lorelei to help. Are you feeling okay?" "Yeah... Thanks. I was wondering how I got here." She laughed and sat up in her bed. "I'm feeling a lot better now." She rubbed her forehead with one hand and her stomach with the other. "Everything seems to be fine now.." She said a bit confused. "So ... what happened to you?" Dice closed her eyes and thought for a moment. How to explain all of this. Would it even make any sense? "Well, I woke up early to the sound of sirens, but something was wrong with me. I just felt really sick. Headache and nausea and such." She paused, thinking of what she should say next. "Something must have been up, so I got into my pilot suit and I was trying to find my mech.. but then I had some kind of horrible migraine or something. I just kind of passed and then I had a weird dream.. Now I'm here." She laughed a bit nervously, noticing for the first time that she was still in her pilot suit. Dice looked at Vel again. "What happened with you guys? Is everyone ok?" She swung her legs off the side of the bed to face Vel, put her hands behind her head and stretched out her back. She thought, suddenly, that she hadn't helped them at all. "...I'm really sorry I wasn't there for you guys." Followed by a sigh. A guilty felling filled her. OOC: Weeell, I'm glad I didn't quit after all. 8D Next time I'll try not to be all fearful of a fight scene. XD; posted by Coco, the white one.
"Well that was stupid." Lorelei said out loud, watching Solaris crash into the moon. "At least the drones are offline." she muttered, a speech pattern she had seen many humans doing and had picked up easily.
In her oppinion, it had been wrong of the U.S.A. to install the cannon without Ademaro's knowledge. Pilots grew fond of their mechs, even possessive at times, and finding out that some one had tinkered with Rhine and hand't told her, much less asked her...another surge in her chest. Again she ran scans and came up with nothing. She would have to get back and see if there was anyone there who could be trusted to take a look at her. A beep from her com unit demanded her attention. "Lorelei..." it was Velisto. "Have you seen Dice?" Lorelei was about to answer, but the link closed. Perhaps Vel had found Dice. She would check on her after she'd taken one of the drones in to have a better look at it. She would also check on Ademaro. It was possible that he hadn't survived the blast, which would mean that America was in deep, because Ademaro was one of the best pilots U.S.E. had. Back in the hanger, she noticed that Zedikiah was where it had been before. Perhaps she should go look for Dice..? No. She had to get the drone to some one who would be willing to hold it without tampering with it first. Then she would see how Ademaro was, and she would look for Dice. Lorelei had decided she would have to settle for Dr. Lao when she thought of something. The hanger was crawling with mechanics and technicians. She could easily pull one aside and ask him, very sweetly, if he knew of a place she could take the drone to look at it later. She smiled and scanned the hanger, looking at faces and pulling their names and seeing if they were decent people. She was about to give up when the name of a man up on a platform stopped her completely. It was Cameron. She accessed his background, to see if he was related to James...
Name: Cameron, Ezekial Firewall? What did that mean?...Ah, but he was an advanced technician. He could easily hack this part of the system just as she had and install a firewall to protect his records. She smiled again. He was the one she would ask. Ezekial was standing with another man up on a platform in front of Gilgamesh, and as Lorelei came nearer she caught the end of something he was saying. "...Aren't freaks." He spoke with a barely noticable Scottish accent. Lorelei cocked an eyebrow and deactivated the magnets in her boots and pushed upward so she would be level with him and the man he was talking to up on the platform. She floated slowly up, and caught ahold of the platform's base as he was saying something else. "...But the U.S.E. decided it would be better and cheaper to reuse the Gilgamesh. We don't have to worry about resources, anyway." Lorelei decided this was a good time to say something. "Excuse me," she put her hand lightly on his shoulder, because if she pressed down too hard it would send her drifting again. "I was out in battle, and I think something might have gone wrong with my circuits. Could you take a look?" She placed the toe of her right boot on the platform and activated the magnets in just that part of it. "I'm sorry, I have to work on this mech first. Maybe some one else..?" She shook her head, sending her hair out around her like a golden cloud. "No, I mean my circuits." She pulled her hair back and tapped her ears. "I'm an android." Both of the men looked at her in surprise. The one that Ezekial had been talking to, who she knew had been eyeing her almost to the point of leering, flushed slightly. Whether he was embarrassed or angry that he'd been checking out an android she didn't care to know. "Can you take a look?" she put a hopeful tone in her voice. "I...don't see why not..." He looked at the man next to him, who shrugged. "Okay, I'll take a look." Lorelei smiled winningly and took his hand, deactivated her boots, and with some tricky maneuvering she had them floating downward. When they touched down, it turned out they both had magnetic boots, which would make it easier to get to a spare set of tools. They introduced themselves and talked about what she thought the problem might be as they walked towards one of the walls of the hanger, which was lined with clear boxes with tools in them, to keep them from floating all over the hanger. "Sensations..?" Izzy, as he had told her to call him, raised an eyebrow. "You mean you're getting random sensory input?" "It's...I think that it's more than that. I did scans every time it happened, but I couldn't find anything...it was almost like..." she paused, considering how much to tell him. She looked at the lines of his face, the honesty in his eyes, and went on. "It was like I was feeling. You know? Emotions. But I don't have anything like that in my programming." Izzy's brow furrowed. "Come with me. I don't think there's anything on this wall that can help you." He started to walk away when Lorelei caught his hand. "Actually, that wasn't the only thing I wanted to talk to you about." She paused and stepped very close to him and put her hand his shoulder again, tilting her head a little to one side. "I have one of the drones on my mech. I want to look it over and I need some one to help me store it. Some one with access to locked holding areas in the hanger." OOC: I'm so sorry it, it just kept...growing on me. My posts seem to have the tendancy to do that, though o_< posted by Kchan.
"Did you see it? I heard it was quite a sight."
"Nah... I was in engineering. They were pushing the engines hard to bring in support, so we needed all the manpower we could get..." "Man, everyone's talking about it... I wish they had a vid." "Everyone who saw it is in sick bay. Hell, some people got caught up in the blast! Fucking Americans..." "HEY, you two! Stop slacking! We got to get this heap of shit running again in less than a week!" Gilgamesh stood with clamps on almost every joint; the entire coloring was gone, replaced with an ashy grey, and charred black by the chest, shoulder, and head. It seemed like the head had been completely hollowed; a little more than half of the dome remained, but the insides looked like they'd been scooped out. If it wasn't for the clamps, the entire frame would've fallen apart piece by piece right there. Workers were on wires, hanging around every area of the mech, inspecting it. Two were standing on a platform that overlooked the entire mech from just above the head. "We've got a basic damage assessment... It's going to need to be completely rewired. We're going to have to take this thing apart and put it back together again... You know what that means?" "Son of a bitch. That's 24/7 work... and even then, in a week... Look at this! The thing's a fucking shell." "They're not saying anything about the pilot, but I saw a lot of blood in the cockpit... I wonder if he's dead?" "It was one of those nano-freaks. He should still be alive." "They aren't freaks." "Well, it sure as hell ain't normal to have little bugs swimming in your body... gives me the creeps just thinking about it... Let's look at this list so far. We've got to replace the entire sensory system... Motor control... hell, the fucking clock needs to be replaced! Why'd they list the clock?!" "Relax, we're not working from scratch here... They're sending in stuff right now. They have blueprints drawn up and everything... We're dissasembling this thing and rebuilding it with brand-new stuff the military just came up with. They were gonna use it to make a whole new machine, but the U.S.E. decided it would be better and cheaper to reuse the Gilgamesh. We don't have to worry about resources, anyway." Down by the cockpit, the computer lights began flickering online, one-by-one, until a faint voice beckoned to a few inspectors nearby. 'Can... can... can..eling... idle mode. Backing... back-up... equipment online. Rerouting p..power. ... ... ... Good morning. Awaiting input.' A man climbed along the stomach of the machine heard the voice, and began floating slowly towards it until he reached the edge of the cockpit, while two others followed, but stayed further back. "Hey...? ... What a resourceful A.I." 'This is detached battle back-up unit Alice. What is the current status of the assigned pilot, Ademaro Venemann?' "Uh... no one's told us anything.......ehm... How can you be online? A normal computer would've been destroyed... You aren't like the LEV computers, are you?" 'That's right. I'm completely different. Could you find out the status of the pilot, please? I am worried.' Worried?! Nothing like that had ever been heard of before. To him, it was like seeing a dog talking. "A...alright..." He floated away towards a catwalk, and hurried towards sick bay. The shock of a worried computer drove him extra-hard. The other two men floated to the cockpit; an A.I. that worried about its pilot was something definitely worth taking a break to look at. "So... uh... what happened back there?" 'A general in the U.S.A. Army took remote command of Gilgamesh. Apparently, they had installed, without the U.S.E.'s knowledge, a rail cannon in this machine. Because of their alliance with the U.S.E., I was obliged to respect their orders. However, because of this incident, I am no longer obligated to respond to U.S.A. command. I have deleted all outside-influence drivers, and I am now under orders from U.S.E. central command to never let anyone except for Lt. Colonel Ademaro Venemann access the mainframe of this machine. In regards to that incid...ci...ci...' A hiccup in the system, and the lights in the cockpit flashed off and on for a moment. '... incident, the Gilgamesh suffered heavy damage because of a Grendel-type drone that had been ordered to self-destruct at the hub of the Skylab station, and when the U.S.A. military took control of this machine, they fired the rail cannon at the cargo freighter that brought the drones. The Gilgamesh was not able to withstand the yield of the cannon, and suffered further damage as a result.' "... You really are an amazing computer." 'I appreciate the fact that you respect my status as an advanced battle A.I., but I insist that you return to your duty. The well-being of this machine is vital to my survival.' Bossed around by a blinking light. The man retreated in what was the most damaging blow to his ego yet in his short life. Just then, the mechanic she sent to get information on Ademaro returned, and he looked quite nervous, and a little pale. OOC: The end. For now. Dun dun duuuun. posted by Matt.
As Velisto approached, she watched Lorelei take out a hoard of grendels in one shot, as if it had been just a flick of the wrist. 'Wow...' She began to wonder if Lorelei would even need assistance.
"incoming feed." Vel glanced at a panel that appeared, and she saw, through the disfunction of the camera, Ademaro. He looked mad. She listened through the static as he threatened someone. "Eh?" Vel slowed Alcyone down and turned her. She watched Gilgamesh curiously. "Hey Alcyone, magnify view." The same system as before was used to magnify Gilgamesh. She stared intently, noticing the chest area was opening. "That ... sorta looks like ..." 'All LEVs and alliance ships, please vacate the premises. I repeat, all LEVs and alliance ships, please vacate the premises.' "Wh--.. shit," she muttered and drove Alcyone upward quickly. Once she got to what she assumed was a safe distance, she spun around and watched. Gilgamesh fired not a moment later and the Solaris was pretty much done for. "What the fuck kind of cannon was that?" When she looked back to Gilgamesh, she saw it was literally falling apart. "...." She just stared numbly. As LEVs carried the trashed mech away, Vel suddenly became aware that she hadn't seen or heard from Dice at all. She stared at floating wreckage, and hoped that none of it was from Dice's mech. She opened a channel to Lorelei. "Lorelei .. have you seen Dice?" She barely waited for an answer; she was already returning to the Hrunting. Upon entering, she found the fourth mech was still in the dock. "Wait here," she said to Alcyone as she brought it to a stop, not really thinking about it. "is that a joke?" she heard Alcyone say as she exited, and made her way back to the cabins. When she rounded the corner she saw the scientist floating in the hall. "Dice!" she called as she made her way over to her but she didn't get a response. "Dice, wake up," she hissed, shaking the woman's shoulders when she made it to her side, but to no avail. --some time later 8D-- "What’s going on now?" Vel smiled suddenly from another part of the room when she heard Dice talking. "Dice, you're finally awake," she said as she moved over to her. "I found you in the hallway all passed out and I got pretty worried....so I brought you to the infirmary. I didn't much know what to do for you, so I asked Lorelei to help. Are you feeling okay?" She wondered, then, about Ademaro. Was he alright? She didn't think anyone could have survived something like that. She frowned a bit, focusing on Dice once again. "So ... what happened to you?" OOC: That kinda sucked e_e;;;; I hope you don't mind that I said Lorelei helped Dice, Kchan n.n; I just think that she would prolly be able to do it e_e; Or something e_e; posted by Hchan.
"What.. is this?"
Dice's body floated limply in the blackness of space. Her arms hung above her and she was unable to move. "What’s going on?" She asked rather frantically. A panic came over her as she realized she could not move. Not to mention the fact that she was outside of the shuttle. How was she still able to breath? Would she die out here? She could suddenly hear sirens and warnings. Something was happening. Her eyes opened and she realized she was in her new room. The sirens were echoing in her head and her vision was blurry and Dice just couldn’t figure out what was on. It was like her brain just didn’t want to work. A sudden wave of extreme nausea came over her and she curled up into a ball, clutching her stomach. "Warning-warning. Enemy attack-attack." The ship kept repeating. "Wh..what’s going on here?!" She yelled in pain and frustration. She slowly crawled out of bed and slipped into a pilot suit that was recently issued to her. Stepping out of her cabin, she now faced the "map-thing" that Lorelei had tried to explain the previous night. "Umn.. how 'bout you tell me where my mech is, ok?" Nothing. "Hey..! Just tell me where Zedikiah is!" She pounded on it a few times. Dice remembered that Lorelei had offered her help if anyone was to ever need it. "Lorelei?" She wandered around for a bit looking for Lorelei or Vel or anyone. It came to her that they were probably in battle. "Duh.." The sirens were still going off. "I need to help." Unfortunately, another wave of pain came over her. She was sure that her head would explode and she cringed, curling up into a ball, then simply passed out on the spot. Another dream. She was in space again just floating. Mechs were fighting. A battle was happening and it seemed that she was right in the middle of it. At least she could move around this time. Dice knew it was a dream this time. A missile was fired and headed straight for her. Dice threw up her arms in instinctive defense, but she felt nothing of course. She fell back into darkness and slept. When she awoke again, she was in a white room, lying down on a bed. "What’s going on now?" She asked to no one. OOC: That sucked my butt. So, so, sorry. T.T There was no way I was gonna try to back track on all that battle stuff, so this was just a good way to get out of it. I suppose Dice is in some sort of hospital ward. She might have gotten sick from that astrid that hit London or something like that. Anyway.. blah.. I hope that was good enough. I apologize once again. n.n;; posted by Roonuh.
Gilgamesh rocked to a sudden stop.
'Engines have been taken offline by an external command. Someone is assuming control of Gilgamesh.' Anger swelled up in Ademaro. No one touched his mech but him. No one. "Open up a link to all channels." He waited until the vox came online, and then it was all he could do to keep his anger back. "Whichever asshole is screwing around with my Gilgamesh had better stop it before I find you. I swear to God, I'll pull out your fucking COLON through your EAR--" "You be quiet, Colonel. You have no authority over that machine in times of war." The voice was an aged one, gravelly, and authoritative. Some American general was speaking to him over the vox. "Shut off the vox so we can have a private conversation." "Screw you. I want everyone to hear what I'm gonna do when I get my hands on your American ass." "We've taken over the weapons systems of your machine. There's a cannon on there we want to test out. Our LEVs are escorting you as we speak." "A cannon? What the hell? There's no cannon in Gilgamesh!" "Not that you know of. We had it installed prior to it being sent onboard the Hrunting. We--" The comm was switched off. Ademaro knew at that moment, the American general was probably turning red with rage. He hoped the man had a stroke. "Alice, what do you know about this? You should've known what those fucking Americans did. Why didn't you tell me?" 'It was not my authority to speak of this weapon until it was required. I did not deem the situation to be dire, which would need to be the case in order for me to activate the Rail Cannon. I am sorry, Ademaro, but I myself was under orders not to reveal the existance of the cannon until it was needed.' He brought up a small visual through the last remaining group of sensor arrays in the head, managing to get a grainy image of what was in front of them. There were black patches where the sensors were blind, but he could gather that they were heading towards the cargo freighter that brought the Grendels. "They're going to shoot it. Why aren't the LEVs moving out of the way?" 'Rail Cannon activating. Opening armor plating.' Outside, it seemed that the chest of Gilgamesh was splitting open; armor plating slid to the sides, and even sections of machinery shifted over while two long metal plates revealed themselves. A blue charge formed inside the chest. 'Heat index entering warning levels. Ademaro, please activate the vox communication.' Alice's voice was then sent to all recieving channels. 'All LEVs and alliance ships, please vacate the premises. I repeat, all LEVs and alliance ships, please vacate the premises.' "What the hell? This thing's going to overheat Gilgamesh... it's gonna fry everything! Turn it off!" '30 seconds until firing. Heat index exceeding warning levels. There is a danger of permanent damage to Gilgamesh. The operator is advised to disengage the Rail Cannon at this time, at the pilot's wishes, and through logical reasoning. 15 seconds until firing.' "Son of a bitch..." He was pushing almost every button he could find in the cockpit, but to no avail. His mech had been taken away from him while he was still inside. The cannon fired, sending a large bolt of energy surging towards the Solaris. The blast tore through the ship's engines, and the force dropped the ship on a downward spiral towards the Moon. Every Grendel on the battlefield jerked for a moment, then went adrift as the ship plummeted towards the moon. The descent was slow, and all anyone could do was watch until it hit, exploding with a blinding force that sent dust and rocks flying up from its surface. The vox communication from Gilgamesh fell silent when it fired. The mech went adrift, its chest thrashed thoroughly; the amount of damage it sustained in the explosion weakened its structure, and it began to fall apart in front of everyone. A squad of LEVs flew forward, taking a hold of Gilgamesh around the waist and legs as to ensure it stayed together, and began towing it towards the nearest ship. OOC: I didn't intend for Gilgamesh to get so thrashed by this battle, but it just felt like more fun for me to have it done than just to have a battle... So, blah. That shows the sort of respect he gets from Americans, though. I dunno what I'll do about FIXING Gilgamesh... 'cause it's gonna mess up the timing of the RP a bit, but we'll figure something out. posted by AOL sucks ASS..
Lorelei was piloting Valkyrie, whom she started to call Rhine* to herself, back towards the drones when a large part of Skylab exploded, and she received another feed from Ademaro, showing the damage that Gilgamesh had sustained.
She was about to go help him, but paused for a second. He should be able to fend for himself...yes it was heartless to leave him on his own, but then, she didn't have a heart, did she? Besides, she wouldn't be able to get there fast enough to help him anyway. Also, there were escape pods and fire extinguishers. They would have to help themselves. Shortly after she recieved the transmission from Ademaro, Rhine picked up a high-pitched sound coming from the ship. When it had been emitted, all but a few of the drones started to come back to the ship. "Activate targeting missiles," she ordered. A panel on the top of Rhine's forearm slid open and a sort of cartridge popped up. Only, instead of bullets, it held missiles. Lorelei aimed at a Grendel that was closely surrounded by several others. "Target locked. Fire." The missile hit it's mark, destroying dozens of Grendels. Lorelei smiled. OOC: I wanted to keep this one shorter than usual because the "little" background on the significance of the name Rhine turned out longer than I expected e.e;... *The Rhine River is a river in Germany, that leads to the sea and towards Ireland. The shore along the Rhine River is very rocky, and one of the rocks is hollowed out in such a way that when the wind blows through it, it makes a ghostly singing sound. This is what started the legend of Lorelei, who sat at that cliff and sang in lament of her unfaithful lover until she died. Her spirit stayed there, and her song enchanted sailors who weren't careful, and caused them to crash their boats against the rocks. Of course, you can go on a river cruise of that part of the Rhine, and you can hear the sound if the wind is coming from the right direction. So...there. Me and my damned details! xp posted by Kchan.
"Out of my way, dammit!" Vel yelled, as she made Alcyone crush a grendel simply by the force of it's metalic fist. The grendel practically shattered, scrap metal pelting Alcyone's armour.
The mech spun around suddenly, facing another. A mechanical arm bent to tuck it's hand onto it's chest, and blades protruding from the elbow area stuck outward. The engines roared and the mech flew at the grendel -- then veered just off to the side before the infected thing could react. The blade caught it and ripped it in half. "Whoo, I'm getting back into the old school flying now," Vel laughed, feeling rather cocky. A trio of grendels now came at her. "Pssh." She readied for them, but they paused momentarily in their approach as a blip came from Alcyone. "high noise has rent the sound sensors. calculations say it came from that ship." Vel's brows flinched as she looked in the direction of the the Solaris. "Magnify view," she said quickly and a green sorted green rectangle centered on it and amplified the scene enough for Velisto to see that Lorelei, she assumed, had attacked the ship and now an assortment of LEVs were attacking the dent she'd made. "Heh, looks like she's onto something," she said and looked back at the grendel-- they were gone. "What the..." There was an explosion somewhere behind her. Vel turned Alcyone to see Gilgamesh tumbling straight into Skylab. She was vaguely aware that the 'mark' on her map was now gone. She also at that time became aware of her map again and that the three grendels that had paused earlier had gone to guard the 'mark' [as Ademaro had destroyed it's other guards] until it exploded and now they were headed right at her. She had no time to react -- the first one simply slammed into her. "Shit," she hissed, rocked in her seat. Alcyone gripped it as they flew backwards and used a low level cannon shot straight into it. The thing was blown apart. The other two went right past her. "Huh?" She watched on the map as half the yellow dots were headed back in the direction of the ship. A few others still remained, chasing green dots. It was then she recieved a signal from Gilgamesh. It displayed damages it had recieved. She again looked at the map. Most of the yellow dots that remained to fight with some of the LEVs were gone now. 'Guess that's one less thing he's got left to worry about.' "velisto, i am becoming bored. will we assist the gilgamesh or the valkyrie?" "I, uh," she started, a bit unsure. "I think Ademaro will be okay now. There are enough LEVs there to preoccupy the last of the grendels here. Sooo...let's go check out what's going on at the ship." "understood." Alcyone turned and headed for the Solaris. OOC: Hope I didn't fuck anyone's plans up too much e_e; Uhm...yeah.... ...e.e; posted by Hchan.
So it's up to me. Fantastic. Gilgamesh's engines flared up, and the behemoth flew towards the marked enemy. He pushed the machine to full throttle, blasting past, and sometimes through, Grendels that put themselves in his way. He was catching up on the marked enemy steadily, and nothing seemed to be able to stand up to the sheer speed Gilgamesh was traveling at.
The reavers ignited, and he sliced several guard drones down until he found the marked Grendel. One arm launched itself forward, taking the Grendel by the torso, and holding it tight against his mech's body. The other arm was priming to stab the Grendel, when Alice interrupted his attack. 'Stop.' "What? What's..." The feed had already begun. Alice had run a quick scan of the Grendel when Gilgamesh grabbed it, and information was being fed to Ademaro's brain. Critical mass? Shit... This thing is a flying bomb... It's going to blow up!. The realization came too late. The Grendel exploded, ripping apart the arm that was grabbing it, and peeling plates of armor from the front of Gilgamesh. The less-protected head, in particular, suffered the most damage; the armor was completely torn off, and several pieces of the sensor equipment were either severely damaged or blown out completely. The Gilgamesh went spiraling away, as Ademaro tried to regain control of his machine. The engines were in fine shape, but the power of the explosion was too much to recover from, and the Gilgamesh spun out until he collided with the space station. The station itself didn't stop him; on the contrary, he tore through a piece of it. But the station slowed him down enough that he was able to regain himself by careful manipulations of the engines, and after a few minutes of nauseating spinning, he steadied Gilgamesh and brought it to a halt. What he could see through the damaged sensors of Gilgamesh was a horrific scene. The explosion hadn't occurred close enough to the space station to wipe it out, but about a third had been destroyed, with fires raging inside and out. The part he tore through was the arboritum, where they grew all of the foods and plants for the station. In a battle, it should have been evacuated. 'Unable to assess full damage. The right arm of this machine has been destroyed, and sensor output is down to 39%. Internal sensors are offline, as are all weapons systems. Visual feed is rapidly declining. Current state of hull undetermined. Current engine output is optimal. There is no need to send out an S.O.S. because Gilgamesh is still able to effectively evade enemy attack.' He pulled the sensor needle from his arm with a grimace, and slid it back into its storage compartment. "Send out a comm to all recieving lines, and tell them our status. We'll need assistance to get out." With that, he used what visual feed he had to determine the directions he didn't want to go, and pointed the Gilgamesh in what seemed like a way of safety. He ignited the engines, and flew away towards what he hoped was friendly space. posted by Mr. McMccermcs.
Lorelei slid her hands over the control panels, liking the feel of them against the thousands of sensors in her palms and fingers--wait...liking? No, that was wrong...she had no emotions. There had been nothing in her program that would simulate emotional reactions. She shook her head, linked to the mech, and flew out to meet the enemies.
She piloted the oddly graceful mech smoothly, gliding through space with ease. She knew every detail about Valkyrie, from the stylized wings on the sides of her head to the U.S.A. and U.S.E. decals on each of her feet. "Activate power sheilds." she ordered, and rammed into the droids at top speed. When she hit them with the shields at this velocity, they were smashed to pieces. If she could get behind them, others might follow, and the droids would have to stop heading towards the station to defend their ship. Not far into the fighting, she recieved a visual message from Ademaro. "I'm sending a visual marker to all pilots. The Grendels are up to something, and that one seems to be at the hub of it. Destroy it at all costs." Lorelei looked at the blue dot that indicated her location, and the yellow and green dots that represented the drones and her 'friends'. Getting closer and closer to the station was one red dot. That would be the mark. "Okay, I'm on my way." Velisto's voice came through, also with a visual. That was good. Ademaro and Velisto were both exceptional pilots. With them both following the mark, she would not have to go after it. "Some of you LEV's out there get your acts together and target the ship. If we take it out, there's a possibility that the drones will go offline." Lorelei said, using an angry, authoritative voice, even though she didn't have much authority, if any. She had taken her power shields down and was using energy blasts and missiles to get closer to the ship. When she was near enough to the ship, she activated her sword. "Activate Valhalla Sword." she ordered. She thought the name was a bit melodramatic, but it went with the mech's name. She swung the sword in a low arc and slammed in into the ship's hull. The ship's shields should have been much weaker; it was only a cargo ship, but they had taken most of the force of the blow. She had made a nice dent though, and she could see what looked light bolts of lightning crackling along the area she had hit. She had damaged the shield as well. A smile touched her lips. There were LEV's approaching now, so she pulled out and went back to using her previous weapons. "You LEV's, aim for that dent I made. The shield and the hull will be weaker there." She said as she flew towards the drones that had come to defend the ship. Another of those...sensations...seemed to go through her, but this time it was different. It seemed to go through her head and throat. It was like...what, pride? She blinked. That was stupid. She didn't have emotions. Another wave of sensation filled her circuits. It was as if she were being blocked from something she could easily attain...frustration? She shook her head violently and focused on the drones. She would deal with this when she got back to the ship. posted by -Kchan.
Velisto found that she'd spoiled herself with the special mech suit she'd usually wear when piloting Alcyone. It was a lot harder to do things manually as opposed to simply 'plugging in' and using mental commands to will Alcyone to do as she wished.
She found herself relying heavily on Alcyone's AI. Velisto thanked the stars that she'd programmed her so well. As Velisto was fighting off a pair of Grendels, there was a blip sound and Acyone spoke: "incomming feed." A sqaure visual came up, as if it were being projected from somewhere onto an invisible rectangular screen. It showed Ademaro. "I'm sending a marker to all pilots. The Grendels are up to something, and that one seems to be at the hub of it. Destroy it at all costs." "information loaded," Alcyone said and Ademaro was replaced with a map of sorts which showed on the screen a series of dots. The blue one indicated where she was -- green indicated 'friend', yellow indicated 'enemy' and there one was red dot; the 'mark'. Vel was almost overwhelmed by the number of yellow dots on the map. "Okay, I'm on my way." Grendels suddenly came from every which direction, as if they knew she was a threat. On the map she saw they were flocking to the nearest green dot. "God!" she hissed. She propelled Alcyone backwards quickly, and pressed a few buttons on the terminal. There was a loud click, followed by hum, as if something was building up. "Preparing cannon." At the 'stomach' area of Alcyone, where there was what looked to be a 'socket' of sorts, a ball of light grew steadily larger. Small, jagged streaks of energy crackled off the main body of it, looking very much like lightening. In the cab, Velisto tensed. "Fire!" The ball of energy shot several different streaks from it, again looking like lighting as they struck most of the grendels around her. They kept on striking until ball of energy in the socket was depleted. "seventy-five percent of enemies within range have been eliminated," Alcyone stated to Velisto, who saw on the map it was true. There were still quite a few left, however, and she saw one of the green dots near her on the map disappear. She glanced over and saw a mech exploding and the remaining grendels from that one were on their way to her. She opened a channel quickly to speak to the others around her. "I'm all tied up here, I can't help with the 'mark'." OOC: Uhm...man no one no one was posting..mech battles are fucking hard XD But I pretty much BS'd all of this so..x.e; Yeah. You better post too. And BS something XD posted by Hchan.
The Hrunting had come to a stop, and none too soon. He had stayed in the cockpit of Gilgamesh all night, and was still there up until the alarm sounded throughout the entire ship. He knew the strength of the Military, and was even advised by Alice to not rush out into battle just yet. However, when both Lorelei and Velisto bolted out through the double-lock bay doors, he didn't think he had a choice anymore.
Gilgamesh now flew, well away from the Hrunting, with its engines burning a bright yellow. During the time it took to fly from the ship to the now-under attack station,he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a small band of metal wrapped around his arm, with a small plug protruding from it. He took a needle out of a small shelf by the armrest of his chair, and slid it into the plug, which extended all the way into a vein. Within seconds, Alice began to uplink to the nanomachines flying about his blood. 'Uplink complete. I will now begin relaying sensor information.' "... Alright." He gritted his teeth as Alice uplinked; it used to be more painful, but even though he's gotten used to it, it wasn't fun. When the uplink was finished, he let out a sigh of relief. The arms of Gilgamesh were thrown forward as the reavers in its forearms switched to the 'gun' driver, and he began to shoot down enemy drones one-by-one. A single shot tore through the armor plating and ripped a Grendel in half, while another severed one of another's legs, causing its engine output to become uneven, and it was sent into a spiraling downfall towards Earth. Standard Earth military LEVs were flitting about, shooting wildly into the massive army of Grendels. The drones were still dropping due to Earth's firepower, but their numbers were too great for the number of LEVs flying around at that point. One in particular was equipped with shoulder-mounted missle launchers, which shot volleys of guided missles into the army of drones. Many Grendels were damaged, but they still faught on, since they had no human pilots to tell them it was hopeless. The reavers switched drivers and went into 'blade' setting, and beams of light erupted from them as Gilgamesh launched itself at a damaged Grendel. One reaver was stuck through the Grendel's chest, while the other hand took a hold of its head and tore it clean from the body. He then took ahold of the now-motionless Grendel and swung it, sending it flying at a couple more. They shot it down before it could hit them, but he used the time to fly around them while they were shooting and switched back to the gun driver, and proceeded to blast them all from behind. He noted that these Grendels were tougher than usual; they didn't explode, but rather were just torn apart. Gilgamesh fired up its engines, and flew towards the space station where he noted a team of five Grendels were headed. Before he could get to them, he saw them stop dead as a barrage of missles tore four apart, leaving one. It was strange; it seemed as though the other four had used themselves to shield the one... Another group of Grendels quickly flew to this one's side. He marked the target as Alpha, since he had the sneaking suspicion that there was something else going on than just an attack. He flipped on the open-vox comm. "I'm sending a marker to all pilots. The Grendels are up to something, and that one seems to be at the hub of it. Destroy it at all costs." That being said, Gilgamesh's engines burned, and it dove straight towards the enemy. OOC: There... that should be plenty for now. posted by The Great Hancem.
Because each cabin had a computer, when Dice and Velisto left, Lorelei connected with hers, and from there she connected with the ship's and then the satelite's computers and went into stand-by mode and "surfed" through various sites and satelite broadcasts to keep herself entertained and to pick up information.
Each of the cabins was equiped with a basic computer, which the occupants could outfit with any programs they wished, as long as it was approved material. When Lorelei had first entered her room, she assessed the computer's abilities and had a faster one with more memory installed, because it would have to be powerful, or when she connected with it, she would overload the circuits. It was for this reason that as she waited for morning to come so she could show Velisto and Dice to the hanger, she was immediately alerted at 2:46 a.m. when the Solaris came into range of the station's sensors. At 4:02 a.m. she came out of stand-by mode and linked her visual centers to the station's so she could view the approaching freighter. 4:57 a.m. arrived, and Lorelei watched the Solaris stop in the path of the Moon's orbit, and waited. If the order to attack was issued, she would go to Valkyrie. If not, she would stay linked to the Hrunting's computer and run a check through the satelite's computer every few minutes for updates on the situation. By 6:15 a.m. Lorelei had disconnected and gone to wait in Valkyrie. She decided that there would be no response from the freighter. No life forms had been found, and ships that had no passengers were programmed to give an automatic reply when asked for I.D. There had been no response, automatic or otherwise, from the Solaris. Lorelei was piloting Valkyrie out of the hanger by the time the Grendel drones had started attacking. She understood why she had been created. As a machine, she would analyze the situations and make choices without hesitation. She could be lost in battle, and the military could build another Lorelei. She would not hesitate to kill. She would not have emotional attachments that caused her to make foolish decisions. As this information was processed (and not for the first time, either), she was aware of a sensation that was new. Perhaps there was something wrong with one of the circuits in her "chest." She ran a check on her systems and everything appeared normal. She would have some one look at it when she got back to the ship to be sure, though. By 6:30 a.m., Lorelei had joined the ranks of the blockade and was fighting the drones. OOC: I'll post more about fighting and such later...because I'm getting sleepy, and the post is getting long...so yeah. posted by The Original Kchan.
Velisto was standing motionless as people ran around her. They moved their mouths but made no sound as they passed. She could only hear explosions. She looked up and saw the skies were on fire, and then something being thrown straight toward her. She shielded her face and screamed.
"Hn!" Vel's eyes flew open, her mouth agape; she breathed heavily as if there were no air around her. She felt a chill run through her body and she blinked sightlessly for a moment, listening carefully to her surroundings, but there was nothing to hear. It was silent. She pulled her goggles up from around her neck and onto her eyes. She waited for them to do their effects and then she glanced around the room. Cabin 9. Same as last night. She sighed slowly, letting her eyes close in relief. She'd been having nightmares like that off and on for a while, but nothing that felt....so real. She checked the time via her goggles. 6:31am. She decided it was an alright time to get up. She took a few minutes to untangle herself from the sleepingbag like thing that served as a bed and floated toward her door. Just as she opened it, she heard a hollow rumble reverberate through the whole ship. The sound froze her, and she listened -- it came again and again. One sounded rather close and it seemed to shake the walls. It was the same as before. "Shit, it's happening again," she mumbled. This time she would be ready. She pulled herself down the cabins quickly, this time seeming to have much less trouble than usual. She made it to the panel Lorelei had showed them and checked it for the hangar. Once she found the right path, she started for it. Not ten seconds after she left the panel that red lights along the hall started to flash. 'Enemy alert.' came a voice, computerized and female. 'Enemy alert, unauthorized entities have entered the perimeter. Enemy alert.' Vel quickly made her way to the hanger, growing more nervous with each sound that came from outside. When she finally made it, she spotted Alcyone and made her way toward it as quickly as she could. "Alcyone!" she said and the mech's arm lowered. She jumped onto the hand and it lifted her up somewhat so that she could climb into the cockpit. It was then that she realize she was weating her PJ's. "U...uh." "good morning, velisto. it is nice to see you ... in cow print." "Sh...shut up!" It was then that the Hrunting shook and lurched forward; Vel realized they were moving then. "Al, we gotta go out there and help," she said, strapping herself in. She wished she'd thought to put on her pilot suit. I would have made things much easier. 'I'll just have to do it manually.' With those thoughts, she pushed Alcyone forward to a second area of the hangar -- the door opened and she went in. It closed behind her and the room took a moment to set itself up for allowing her outside. The doors in front of her opened and she pursed her lips. "Alright ... here we go!" OOC: e.e;;; Man I don't think I am at all happy with this post but...yeah...e.e; posted by Hchan.
2:46 a.m.
Cargo Freighter Solaris detected by the space station's long-range sensors. Communication is attempted, but with no response. The freighter is watched. 4:02 a.m. Freighter comes within visual range of the space station and orbitting ships. As it has maintained speed with minimal power, the worst is expected, and several battleships are sent to watch the ship until it gets closer. Weapons are readied in case for battle, and mechs are loaded up and flown out. 4:57 a.m. Solaris stops at about the orbit of the Moon, and after a tense half hour of watching it, ships are deployed to investigate. They are given a time window of 15 minutes to see if any people are on board, then they are to destroy it with or without refugees. 6:29 a.m. Grendel-type drones deployed in the dozens, destroying several piloted mechs. Many are destroyed by gunfire, but still a great many more break through the blockade of ships to attack the space station Skylab 6. Defense weapons and ships are unable to stop invasion. Smaller drones are released from the Grendels and invade the station, destroying it from the inside out and slaughtering people inside. The Hrunting's security system seals the ship off, and the ship is auto-deployed, whether or not the people wanted to leave the station behind. Counter-drone forces are deployed to the station and begin destroying the drones inside and out. The Hrunting shuts down after it reaches a safe distance, and awaits input from a pilot. OOC: My idea here is to set up the event, and have everyone else RP it in detail... y'know, how their character experiences this, and then we'll move on from there. A-yup-yup. posted by UltiMatt the Grand.
As Lorelei showed and explained things to them, Vel found that she had no questions whatsoever. She explained them so well that there was really no need.
Again, she pressed the last button, and the word, "lavatory" appeared, with a line leading from the first dot another that indicated the bathroom. Lorelei turned away from the panel, and smiled politely. Vel laughed a bit, "that'll come in handy." Then she wondered about that -- using the bathroom ... in zero gravity. "...." She decided to keep that question to herself. When they came to the ladder, Vel groaned, but surprised herself by making it up without much of a problem at all. She was supressing a grin when she got to the top. Lorelei then explained the cabins. Vel understood this easier. It was very similar to her home on Mars. When they rounded the area to the cabins, Lorelei explained the lights. She wasn't sure if that was a nice addition or not. "This is my room. You are welcome any time." Vel glanced at the number of her room, then looked to Lorelei, smiling. "Thanks Lorelei, you're a big help." She bowed her head a bit, as if excusing herself. She looked at the numbers of the cabins. "Okay, which ever door I run into first I'm taking," she said jokingly, and then pushed herself down the hall. She floated expertly in a straight line a few feet -- right into a door. Cabin 9. "Guess this is it!" she said, laughing a bit. She attempted to right herself and put her hand on the panel and pressed the button. The light blinked as it registered her as the rooms new occupant and the door opened for her. She managed into it and let the door shut behind her. She tossed her bag aside, then rememembered the lack of gravity. It hit the wall and kept floating. "Uh, well...now that I'm all settled in," she said, then remembered she was alone. She'd gotten used to talking to Alcyone when she was 'alone', as she was usually around her when she wasn't with other people. She really wanted to see her now. Problem was, even if she left now, she probably wouldn't make it to the hangar for hours. She tapped at a button on the side of her goggles, and the time was displayed before her eyes. It was 10:24pm. 'Oi..so what can I do about it?' She went outside her cabin and looked up and down the halls, finding that one of the cabins Dice had taken. 'I guess those light things were pretty handy...' she thought. 'I ... guess I'll just wait 'til tomorrow.' She reluctantly went back into her cabin. 'I'm pretty tired anyway...' She turned, looking at her room. 'So how am I supposed to sleep without gravity?' She frowned. She already missed her home on Mars. OOC: I was originally gonna have her go see Alcyone, and see if Dice wanted to go with her too, but since Luna isn't on I just decided not to bother XD; No one else is on to try to plan anything to make the post longer anyway, 'cos I don't think I could make anything drastic happen at this point. ... yeah. x.O So that's that. posted by Hchan.
Lorelei led them down the corridors and towards the barracks, walking slowly so they could keep up. After a moment, she stopped beside a softly glowing square on the wall, about eleven inches high and eleven inches long, with numbered buttons taking up another inch of space along the side and the bottom. She motioned for Velisto and Dice to look at the square.
"If you get lost, look for one of these panels, and place your hand on it like this." she put her hand in the center of the square, and the soft glow flickered brighter. A map appeared, with a red dot, indicating the location of the square. "The buttons on the side indicate another level. If you press it," she pushed in the last button. "It will light up a path to the access ladders for the next level." A small line appeared, starting at the dot, and ending at another. "The buttons on the bottom will tell you where certain locations are on each level." Again, she pressed the last button, and the word, "lavatory" appeared, with a line leading from the first dot another that indicated the bathroom. Lorelei turned away from the panel, and smiled politely. "You can also just ask me for directions, if you wish. A complete map was entered into my memory, so if you have any questions, you can ask me." she paused, the smile widening slightly, dimples appearing on each cheek. "I suppose Ademaro will have to find this out for himself." Lorelei turned back to the panel, and put her hand against it again. The map disappeared and the square went blank, the light dimming again. They walked on towards the ladder that lead to the next level, and Lorelei stopped in front of it, her eyes dialating slightly as she deactivated the magnets in her boots. When she was free-floating, she grabbed a rung on the ladder and pulled herself up, closing her eyes and letting herself float upwards until she slowed, and she repeated the process. When she reached the top, she reactivated the magnets and climbed out of the way for the two women. "The barracks are this way. The cabins are numbered, but they're all the same, so just walk along and pick a number you like. Then put you hand on the panel you find at eye level next to the door and put your hand on it and press the green button in the corner. It will take a scan of your handprint, which will tell it who you are, since all of your prints are in the memory banks. Pressing the green button will save it as your room." By the time she finished, they turned a corner and were at the barracks. Cabins lined the halls, dozens on each side. "If you press the first location button on the map panels, it will tell you how to get to your room from where ever you happen to be. If the person occupying the room is not there," she pointed to the small circles at the top of each door. "That light will be out, as they all are now. When they are in, it will turn on." She had stopped in front the fifth room on the right, and put her hand on the panel. The door slid open, and she led them inside. "This is my room. You are welcome any time." OOC: This was a pointless post, but I didn't really know what to do...also, I figured I'd give them a way to find their way around without Lorelei, and I thought that it would be handy to have details like that for the rooms...the lights and stuff, I mean...so yeah. posted by Kchan.
"I don't need to see my quarters just yet. I'm going to go take a look around for myself... I'll meet up with you in a little while."
He took a hold of the railing, and launched himself with both hands so he went drifting down one of the corridors. He'd managed to bring up a map of the ship on the military shuttle, and he hoped he was headed for the hangar, where he figured Alice would be. After drifting forward for a few minutes, he found the floor drop beneath him, with rungs on four sides of the tubed corridor. He managed to drop low enough to hook a foot onto one of the rungs, and the rest of the descent was easy enough. When the rungs ended, he pushed himself down onto the floor below, and grabbed another rail before he hit the floor. Pulling himself along it, he found himself in a great, wide room, where four mechs were laid flat on their backs; to his left, he saw one mech of a design he'd never seen before. He didn't much care about new models, though; working with the military, he saw new models almost every week. He moved down to the intersection of walkways, pulling himself slowly with the railings, and saw Gilgamesh at the far left corner of the hanger, opposite of the first mech he saw. Anticipation swelled inside of him, and he hastily threw himself towards it. After a moment of drifting above the walk, he grabbed onto the chest of Gilgamesh, and swung down by the sliding metal doors of the cockpit. He snapped open a small hidden panel, typed in a few numbers, and the doors slid open with a loud hydrolic hiss. Dropping into the cockpit, the lights began to come online almost immediately. 'Canceling idle mode. Good evening, Ademaro.' "Evening, eh..? I lost track of time on that shuttle. I guess it is pretty late..." he paused for a moment. He knew he missed her, but he hadn't realized how much until he was back in his chair. "... I hope they didn't treat you too roughly, Alice." 'Do not worry. Gilgamesh was delivered to this ship on board a private security shuttle of the highest class, under escort. Apparently, they either place great importance on the well-being of military property, or they fear some sort of reprisal from you if any damage were to come of this machine.' "I'd like to say fear.. Do you know anything about this mission? An android said something about stopping the asteroids." 'I have in fact been briefed on the entirety of this mission. We launch in less than two days, with, so far, four passengers on board, although that is subject to change at the military's whim. Our first objective is to head towards the asteroid field, with pre-set coordinates that correspond with where Mars was when the asteroids began to bombard the Earth. We are to investigate, and with any luck destroy the cause of these attacks. Our second objective is circumstantial, but we are hoping to recover civilians still stranded on Mars. We begin by landing on the northern ice cap, by the city New Anchorage. The Hrunting will have sufficient supplies and space for all civilians brought on board, although at this point in the plan, power is to be siphoned from the four machines in this hangar to the core. This will leave the Hrunting defenseless except for the batteries, which is why I advise we avoid confrontation at all costs. Spare generators are being loaded onboard the ship, but if we were to engage in a full-scale battle against A.I.-controlled drones, we would not have enough power to rescue the Martian civilians.' "So why don't we just knock out the drones to let the Military in to rescue the civilians?" He could almost guess the answer already. 'There is a danger that the corrupted A.I. has planted itself in Martian computers and has taken over the entire planet. The Military planes to bombard Mars and decimate its surface with nuclear weapons in an attempt to eradicate the A.I. entirely. It will not risk having several ships stationed in orbit long enough for the A.I. to infect them; it is a much smaller risk to put the Hrunting in danger and, should this ship become infected with the A.I., the military would destroy us as well. However, rescuing civilians has been made an optional objective; there is no obligation to put this ship in harm's way more than necessary.' He sighed. It felt like the military was shafting them by putting them on this ship, and he had no choice, either. It was like a death sentance. "We'll see when that time comes, I guess..." He glanced over at a clock that he had installed in the cockpit himself, since he kept forgetting to wear a watch. "10:30... Pretty late. I'm gonna stay here tonight... Leave the doors open in case someone needs me, though. And wake me up at 6'." 'As you wish. Good night.' posted by Matt (who loves his Hchan very much. <3.).
After the man had regained his upright position, he'd turned to say something to her, apparently something rude by the look on his face, but something made him stop when he looked at her. Instead he said:
"Don't worry about it," he finally said, still rather irate. "What are you girls doing here?" The tone in his voice made Vel's lips pressed together a bit, as if she was holding back some wiseass comment. She was thankful when Dice started to speak up, but the woman was cut off. "They are here for the same reason you are here. They were ordered to help stop the asteroids." Velisto's brows went down a bit, as if she were squinting beneath the goggles. She was walking on the ground firmly, without trouble, and there was something about the woman. She was somehow familiar. "Perhaps you should ask to be issued some magnetic boots, if the lack of gravity makes you uncomfortable. Mine," she tapped her foot with the hand that wasn't holding Velisto's bag, "Are built in." 'Android?' Vel wondered. She almost let her placid expression slip to surprise when the android woman smiled, because it looked too convincing. 'She looks so human.' "I am a battle android. I am to work with you...and help you find your quarters." After that, she aided Vel back to the wall, where she gripped the railing with one hand tightly [although attempting to make it look nonchalant] whilst the other extended to take her bag back. As she took the bag in her hand, the android introduced herself: "My name is Lorelei." Vel's lower lip went slack and there was an audible intake of breath. Lorelei. The name of the project on Deimos. She watched as Dice shook her hand, introduced herself and talked about the magnetic boots. "Y...you're the one from Deimos," she intoned with her voice a bit low, a bit emotionless. She didn't know why she felt so numb suddenly. "Uh, heh. Uhm, it's great to finally put a face to you, Lorelei," she said, smiling honestly, but still looking somewhat uneasy. "I guess you know I was working on the AI...but it looks like you're doing just fine without it." She looked at the others, then nodded a bit to Lorelei and the man she'd run into. "I'm Velisto," she said, then thought about what Dice had said. "I think I'll have to look into getting some of those boots too." She smiled a bit at Ademaro, looking a bit embarrassed for having no control in the lack of gravity. OOC: I dunno where I was going with this v.v; posted by Hchan.
Dice learned that Vel was a pilot and a skilled programer and also that she was blind. As Vel took off her goggles, Dice stared into her cloudy eyes. "Oh.." She said, surprised.
"They let me see," she said. "I was born blind." "Well.. that’s good then. Heh." Dice replied lamely. She couldn’t think of a better way to respond. Within the next few minutes they arrived at 'Skylab 6.' Dice grabbed her bag and floated away from her seat. It wasn't her first time in space so she was kind of used to it. Vel on the other hand.. "Are you gonna be ok..?" Dice asked her as Vel bumped into another wall. Finally, they made it to the Hrunting. "That's one bigass ship," Vel said. Dice laughed and replied, "Yeah it is.. It must be very advanced." She looked it over and it was like no other ship she had ever seen. "It really is quite a piece of work." Upon entering, Vel bumped into some man. Dice couldn't help but laugh. "Don't worry about it," he finally said, still rather irate. "What are you girls doing here?" "Well--" Dice was about to explain herself when suddenly another voice spoke up. "They are here for the same reason you are here. They were ordered to help stop the asteroids. Perhaps you should ask to be issued some magnetic boots, if the lack of gravity makes you uncomfortable. Mine," She paused to tap her foot. "Are built in. I am a battle android. I am to work with you...and help you find your quarters." "Wow.." Dice couldn't believe she was an android. She was too human like to gawk at like some other advanced machine. "My name is Lorelei." Dice extended a hand. "It's nice to meet you Lorelei." She smiled. "I really like your boots. Perhaps I'll get some and make my own alterations.. Heh." She could see it all in her head now. Anti-gravity boots with a jet pack inside for easy maneuvering while in zero gravity mode. "So.. I guess we will all be working together, then." She looked to the man and Lorelei. "I'm Dice.." She then looked just to Lorelei. "But you probably already knew that." She laughed. OOC: Whew, I didn't have enough time to make that any better. e.e; I didn't wanna get left behind though, so yeah. posted by Luna.
Placing her feet firmly on the floor with each step (courtesy of the magnetic ability of her boots), Lorelei walked calmly down the corridors of the battleship Hrunting, and ignored the jealous or surprised stares she got from the helpless people clining to handrails or propelling themselves through the halls. She had explained it to them at first, and suggested they get their own, but she soon lost interest in the endless task, and also of the glares she got from people who seemed to be angry with her because she could afford such frills. She then explained that she did not buy them, they were part of her because she was an android, and their looks became either bewildered, or snobbish, as if they couldn't believe they'd spoken to a machine as they would to another human.
So Lorelei walked on, down to the loading areas, where the other members of her team would be. She had a picture of each of them in her memory banks, as well as their names, but she had decided not to learn anything else about them. It might seem like an invasion of privacy to them, and telling some one about yourself helped build relationships. To work well with them, she must build good relationships with them, and invading their privacy by accessing their files was not a...she looked for an appropriate word...diplomatic, perhaps? Yes, that sounded nice. It wasn't a diplomatic way to start a relationship. She got to the main entranceway, where they should be right now. She looked at all of the faces, and spotted them all together. This was good. She wouldn't have to waste time finding all of them. She surveyed the cicumstances, and the first word that registered was "slap-stick," the form of comedy that Dr. Cameron had explained to her. The woman with goggles, that was Velisto. She had just lost her bag, and slammed into the man Ademaro, who was pushed by Velisto's force into the opposite wall, while Velisto's bag floated towards her. She caught it neatly, and waited for a good time to enter the proceedings. Ademaro turned to say something, most likely rude, but stopped. The other woman, Dice, stood by--well, she was floating in one area anyway, and seemed to be deciding whether or not to laugh. "Don't worry about it," Ademaro said. "What are you girls doing here?" This seemed to be the moment. "They are here for the same reason you are here." Lorelei walked up to them and stood with them in a loose circle around her. "They were ordered to help stop the asteroids." she noticed their stares, and blinked slowly. "Perhaps you should ask to be issued some magnetic boots, if the lack of gravity makes you uncomfortable. Mine," she tapped her foot with the hand that wasn't holding Velisto's bag, "Are built in." She gave them a bright but reserved smile and went on. "I am a battle android. I am to work with you...and help you find your quarters." she glanced at Ademaro for a second, deciding he would not nead much help finding his way around. He seemed to be used to the anti-gravity. Holding out her free hand to Velisto, she pushed her gently back towards the wall so she could grab the handrail, and then gave Velisto her bag. "My name is Lorelei." OOC: Well, that one wasn't quite as good, but I'm rushing it because my dad wants the computer...and I have to clean up before Hchan gets here...so...blah. posted by It'sthe K tothe C tothe H-A-N!...KCHAN!.
Grabbing a hold of the edge, he pulled himself around the shuttle door and into the docking tunnel. He slowly pulled his way up the tunnel, looking through the glass that surrounded him at the dozens of warships flying around the station. Every now and then, a standard military mech would fly much closer to him than he thought it should be, but after a few minutes, he made it inside the main gate channel.
It was a hopeless mess, with people clinging to rails as they made their way around the giant lobby. He flipped his bag over his back, securing the strap around him, and used both arms to pull himself along railings as he made his way through the maze that made up Skylab 6. As he got closer to the larger docks, he could see the Hrunting, and began to get an idea of just how large this monster was. The ship was much longer than it was wide, with a rather conish appearance around the front, where four holes formed a square about a quarter of the distance from the front to the back. Behind those, the ship began to level out a bit into a more cylindrial fashion, with the top smooth and shining, as if it had just been cleaned (although things rarely get dirty in space), but the underside seemed full of odds and ends, such as vertical lift thrusters, landing gear ports, weapons batteries, and other types of things he couldn't even name. The most impressive part of the ship was the engines on the back; they seemed to make up about a third of the overall length of the ship, and on each side was a single torpedo tube. The entire ship seemed more a more like a luxury cruiser from the outside the more he looked at it, besides the weapons all around. He then noticed on the top of the ship, a spine-like line ran down the middle of the entire vessel, while making an oval around a small bubble that he assumed to be the bridge. As he got closer, his vantage point of the ship changed, and he was able to see the very back of the Hrunting, where he noticed a giant door there, surrounded by the engines. It was small, but it looked large enough for a couple of mechs to fly out of without getting burned up by the engines. He wondered if his Gilgamesh was already on the ship... A few more twists and turns through the station brought him to the docking tunnel that led inside the ship. His breath was taken away as he was finally there, looking out at it from inside the tunnel; it was even bigger than it seemed just minutes ago. He had rarely ever been in space before, and wasn't used to seeing such humongous machines. When he finally regained his composure, he pulled himself just inside the door of the ship, and stopped there to look around. Very slowly, he crept inside the ship; it was almost pitch black, save for a few emergency lights that lined the corridors. He could see just enough to know what was a few feet in front of him, but the rest of the corridor was just lights, with no real definition of what more was out there. As he was started to search for some kind of dial to turn the lights up a bit, he felt something ram into him from behind, which sent him spinning, upside-down, into the opposite wall with a very dull thud. "Guh, I'm never gonna get the hang of this. I'm real sorry, mister." He groped at the wall behind him for a few seconds and found a bar that he could use to turn himself upright again, and saw a bag floating in front of him. Was it his? No, he still had his. He grabbed the bag and tossed it out of the way to see two young girls standing in the doorway of the ship. "What..." The rest of that sentance was are you, blind?!, but he stopped himself after seeing the goggles she was wearing. He still wanted to say it, being in a cranky mood, but his common sense told him that if she was here, he might not want to get on her bad side. "Don't worry about it," he finally said, still rather irate. "What are you girls doing here?" posted by Monkeypants.
Vel nodded as Dice explained herself, listening. She was vaguely aware they were in space now, but she was comfortable sitting as she was.
"So, what do you do?" "I'm a pilot, mostly, though that's not really why I'm here. Like I said, I worked on the AI on Deimos. It's more of a hobby for me, yanno, programming AI's. I do it for fun, but if people wanna pay me to do it, that's fine with me, yanno? Heh. Apparently I'm really good." She shrugged a bit, then grinned a bit. "But I've never been good with fixing mechanical things, so it's a good thing you were assigned here." After a moment, Dice asked something else. "Those goggles look really neat. What do they do?" "Oh ... heh," she said, and dipped her head a bit, her hair covering her face. Her hands went to her face and the goggles were lifted. She then turned her face to Dice, revealing that her eyes were dim, looking almost a solid colour of blue. She looked more her age, without the goofy goggles covering them. The way she stared somewhat sightlessly toward her would tell her the answer before she spoke it. "They let me see," she said. "I was born blind." She pulled the goggles back down over her eyes, her brow furrowing slightly. Not too long afterward, they arrived at the space-station, announced as 'Skylab 6' as they docked. As Vel unbuckled herself, she felt herself float right out of her seat. She laughed a bit, and whirled around to grab her bag-- ... "Uh?" She looked around and spotted it floating away. "Bah! Back here!" She pushed herself away from her seat, launching herself at it. She caught it and kept going. "AHHH--!" She hit a wall. "Ugh...I never get the hang of this anti-gravity shit," she muttered, and pushed gently off the wall to make her way into Skylab. After some wrong turns [due to her lack of control] she made it to the Hrunting. "That's one bigass ship," she said to Dice, laughing a bit. She proceeded to board it. Unfortunately, as it was bound to happen, she ran right into a man on the ship, and she accidently let go of her bag. It floated slowly away. She watched it hopelessly. At least it was on the ship she was supposed to be on. She looked to the man then. "Guh, I'm never gonna get the hang of this. I'm real sorry, mister," she said, ducking her head a bit. OOC: The man = Ademaro e.e; posted by Hchan.
FLASHBACK
While escaping, one of the few bigger ships (a cargo ship, that was actually small as far as cargo ships went) to get away from Mars picked up a distress signal. "Just ignore it, Shane, some one else will pick them up!" A frightened woman clutched the arm of her boyfriend when he started to maneuver the craft in the direction of the signal. He gave her a withering look, shocked by her selfishness, and shook her hand from his arm. "Jen, I can't fly when you do that. Besides, we're in this together. What if there are kids?" he said. The woman, Jen, sat back in her seat and looked behind her at some of the people who had gotten onto the ship with them. A little boy and his mother sat with their arms around each other, holding on as if their lives depended on it, the boy's face nestled against her chest, his mother's tears fallnig into his hair. A man stared down vacantly at the object in his hands. He was holding a dark blue hair ribbon.
Jen looked away, ashamed of the things she'd said. "That's odd...we should be right on top of it..." he tapped the screen with his knuckles. "Oh my God!" a shocked voice from the back of the ship. "It's a woman!" Shane and Jen exchanged an awed glance and Jen unclipped her buckle and walked to the back of the ship, past the man who had spotted the body floating out in space. She look out of the reinforced windows and gasped. "Shane! He's right!" Jen watched the body, its mass of golden hair floating around it like a melting halo. But as the hair moved, Jen spotted something wrong with the woman's head. "Wait...her ears...it's an android!" She was pressed against the windows as more people came to look. "Why would an android be floating out here?" "And why would it send a distress signal?" asked the man who had spotted it. The people on the small cargo ship decided that they should try to get the android into the ship by maneuvering the ship so the cargo bay would be directly over the android. The pilot, Shane, would then move the ship downward until the android was inside the cargo bay. Jen could watch from the windows in the bay, and tell Jen when to stop and close the doors by way of the communit linking the bay to the bridge. If Dr. James Cameron had still been alive, he would have kissed his assistant for thinking up the fail-safe that activated "Hilda's" distress signal. The fear that she would be stolen before she was put into action plagued Dr. Cameron, so an assistant who was fed up with listening to him worry, suggested that they install a signal that would automatically activate if she went for a few hours without being online. Because Dr. Cameron "woke her up," as he liked to think of it, whenever he unplugged her from the computers in the lab, he would know she had been stolen because a thief wouldn't wake her up. A thief would unplug her and haul her off. So, the distress signal would automatically activate itself, and anyone who could receive any kind of signal could detect it and and find her. It was this signal which led the cargo ship to the android that looked so much like the long dead wife of a recently killed scientist. When the ship made it to Earth and the story made it to the papers, the android was quickly confiscated by the military, because the few select members of the military he was working with were the only people besides his closest assistants that knew what she looked like. Other people knew he was making her, but not what she looked like or what her capabilities were because of his fear of her theft. When the group assigned to figure out how the hell the android worked found the "on" button, she "woke up" surrounded by strangers. "Dr. Cameron is not here, is he." it was more of a statement than a question. A woman shook her head. The android replicated a saddened expression and a swallowing motion, using the artificial adam's apple that had been placed there for that purpose. The people who saw and noticed it gasped and wrote furiously on their clipboards. This was truly an amazing android. If it weren't for the ears, you'd never know she wasn't real. "Did Dr. Cameron name you?" The woman asked. The group held its breath and inched closer. The android cocked its head and decided whether or not she should tell them that he called her Hilda. She decided not to, because he'd only called her that when they were alone, and she was programmed to pick up on that sort of thing, so she could learn even more about how to interact with humans, both in groups and on a one-on-one basis. She did all of this analyzing in less than a second. "No, he did not name me officially. Do you want the Lorelei schematics?" she asked. Assuming that she was talking about the plans to build her, they shook their heads and told her they already had them. "Why don't we call her Lorelei, then, if that's what he called the plans?" the woman (who the newly named android was seeing to be the leader) said. Lorelei extended her hand to the lead scientist. "My name is Lorelei. What is yours?" more furious scribbling occured as she introduced herself to each of the people around her. "Now Lorelei, can you tell us what happened to Dr. Cameron?" a man spoke this time. Lorelei shook her head. "Dr. Cameron told me that I must get into the disposal hatch and wait to be found. He said that I would probably not see him again, then..." she stopped for a second, her hand going to her lips, wondering if she should tell them he had kissed her good-bye. She blinked. "Then he turned me off. I do not remember anything else. The next thing I remember is you turning me on." further scribbling, and the interview seemed to be done. "Come with me, Lorelei." the lead woman, who had introduced herself as Dr. Lao, led her to an adjacent room, the voices of the other people fading behind them, but Lorelei's sharp hearing picked up a few remarks. "Did you see the way she paused slightly, as if trying to remember more? It's amazing, the body language he put into her programming!" "How do you suppose he came up with the idea of giving her the ability to swallow?" "No, I think it was just a visual addition not..." Lorelei tuned out their voices, and stored their behavior in her memory. She thought (if you can call it thinking) briefly about what they had told her...that they already had the Lorelei file. She did a quick review of her access logs, and found no records of anyone accessing the file. Perhaps he had sent it to some one else after all. She would ask later. She would ask some one that she trusted... Yes, Dr. Cameron had made an amazing android; one that could distrust humans after evaluating them, and these humans had failed the test.
OOC: Okay, that was horrendously long. Sorry! posted by Kchan.
Apparently, her assumptions about this 'Velisto' were correct.
"Yeah, hey," ... "What're you guys standing around here for?" ... "they're like fuckin' vultures or something," ... "What, you're dumb too? Take a hint..GO AWAY." "Heh.. yeah, they are pretty annoying." At least the woman had a sense of humor. "...but you can just call me Vel. Me and a few others were programming the AI on Deimos," She went on. "Oh, ok.. Vel." Dice said the name as if testing it out. "Ooh, I heard about that project. Some advanced android or something.." Vel went on to explain what she would do to the hacker if she ever found him and Dice laughed. "..oh nevermind. You get the point!" Dice laughed some more and said, "Yeah, I got it." "Ah, so....uh..what's your name again?" "Oh, I forgot to introduce myself.. How rude. I'm Dice." She told her. Vel then asked her what she did. "Well, I guess I'm supposed to do maintenance shit.. True, I'm good at it, but they really could have gotten someone else to do that. I think they mainly want me up there to do research. I was working on some stuff in London, but that lab kinda got destroyed and all.. so now I'll be continuing my work on this ship. 'The Hrunting' or whatever." After that explanation, Dice paused and thought she'd said a lot more than necessary. It was nice to be talking to someone who was sort of like her. A young female as opposed to those old men who worked in the lab with her. "So, what do you do?" Dice asked her and after she answered that question she just had to ask another, hoping it wasn't to nosey of her. "Those goggles look really neat. What do they do?" She just wanted to know because they looked really complex and interesting. They looked like something Dice would have made herself. At some point during the course of their conversation, the shuttle had lifted off. They were on their way now. Dice was glad she had met someone going up there, too and she decided that she liked this Velisto. OOC: Whee! Dice is fun. I like how she's coming out. n.n posted by Luna.
Two hours into the shuttle flight, and the space station started to take shape in the far-off blackness. He sighed, lifting himself from his seat, and floated over towards the largest window, which was still no more than a two-foot square. He managed to bring his feet down onto the floor, and leaned against the window, his eyes following the ships that hovered around them.
They were numerous, far beyond his patience to count. Behemoths of warships orbitted the Earth, with their fleet of mechs fluttering about in routine deployment paths. The stars were barely visible past the light of the ships, and it seemed as though the shuttle was weaving between them. The sun was blocked entirely by one in particular, which was directly in his light of sight,its great grey body blurred to darkness like an eclipse. He then turned to the great smokey sphere called Earth. He'd rarely been in space, and had never seen the Earth as it truly was. It reminded him now of a giant, rolled-up, sweaty grey gym sock. He shuddered at the thought of breathing the air he saw now covering that globe. Unable to tolerate looking at the disgusting thing any longer, he pushed himself away from the window, and drifted back to his seat. He caught the arm of the chair and pulled himself back into it, buckling himself in again. The Hrunting, a two-year-old warship, and one of the wing guards of the U.S.E. flagship Beowulf. Armed with thirty-seven gun turrets lining the shell of the ship, four foreward and two aft torpedo bays, and probably the best engine built to date.He scrolled past information that a search engine had brought back about the Hrunting, and skimmed over the information, trying to commit some key points to memory. Dropped the bomb that destroyed half of Cuba, the Hrunting has been the top choice for delivering the most destructive attacks, besides the Beowulf. It is one of the only ships in the U.S.E. fleet able to travel to Mars and back with power to spare, and... hmn. Well, that explains why it was chosen for this mission, I guess. And I get to pilot it... I wonder what its crew thought? Just then, a chime sounded throughout the cabin of the shuttle. Instructions were read for everyone to take their seats, as the shuttle would dock in 15 minutes. He shut down the console and folded it back into the wall where it normally is concealed, and sat back in his chair. Looking out of the small window next to his chair, he saw a great expanse of tubes and spheres; the space station, no doubt. On the far side was a long, narrow, cylindrical ship, silver and blue colors shining brightly on its hull. It looked more like a luxury ship than a warship. Europeans can't live without their silk sheets and robot maids. Spoiled brats. The shuttle pulled up alongside one of the docking tubes, and a hydrolic hiss shook the entire shuttle as locking clamps grabbed onto its side. A few seconds later, a loud clank stopped the shaking, and a message sounded that all passengers were free to disembark the shuttle. "Have a pleasant stay at Skylab 6." posted by UltiMatt the Conqueror.
Velisto had wandered the shuttle aimlessly, pausing every now and then to look at something she found interesting. She'd spent quite a few minutes talking with one of the androids, which had been given an AI -- it appeared to have been programmed with great care and love put into it. It made her miss Alcyone.
After the android went off to it's duties, Velisto found herself staring out a window, looking out at the ocean. It awed her in a way, that so much water was just sitting there, and that perhaps long ago it had been nicer. Things were so polluted on Earth, and the air was so thick with it that it was hard to breathe here than it had been back on Mars. Velisto heard a voice behind her, saying, "Oh, there she is," and for some reason she knew they were talking about her. She turned just as a few soldiers and a woman stepped up. One of her brows lifted questioningly, a bit of a frown on her face. "This is Velisto." 'Oh, is that all? Thought they were gonna bug me about somethin' I was doin' wrong again...' She faked a smile as they introduced her to the woman, which was easy to do thanks to the 'goggles'. "Uh.. Nice to meet you." Dice extended a hand. She paused a moment to look the woman over -- she looked like something of a scientist. She had the traditional white lab coat and everything. She'd never been too fond of scientists, but then again, she had to take a moment to consider her own outfit at the moment. She was dressed in clothes too big for her, which made her look even smaller than she really was. She looked like a kid. Or a junkie. "Yeah, hey," she said finally, shaking the woman's hand, then paused to look at the soldiers that were still standin there. "What're you guys standing around here for?" She turned to Dice, muttering in an annoyed voice, "they're like fuckin' vultures or something," and she turned back to the men, who were now glaring. "What, you're dumb too? Take a hint..GO AWAY." They left, but not before one of the more immature ones did some obscene gesture at her. "Yeah, you and your mother!" she yelled after him, then looked back at Dice. ".... uh. So," she started, grinning a bit sheepishly up at the woman. She decided she'd best get on her good side, since she'd be working with her. She'd yet to talk with any of the others that were going to be there. "So yeah, like they said, I'm Velisto...but you can just call me Vel. Me and a few others were programming the AI on Deimos," she said, smiling a bit before it turned into a frown. "Just wait 'til I get my hands on that damn hacker. I'll fuckin' stab his eyes out and kick his head and .. and then I'll .. I...oh nevermind. You get the point!" She laughed nervously, putting a hand behind her head and wondering if she'd said just a bit too much. She was about to say something when they were told to sit down. They were shown a place to sit and were buckled in. "Ah, so....uh..what's your name again?" A pause [Dice telling her name 8D]. "Heh, Dice, what're you here for?" OOC: Sorry I kinda posted a lot and used Dice vaguely XD;; I figure at the end of your post, Luna, they'd be getting onto the space station 8D posted by Hchan.
FLASHBACK
When his communit cut off his connection to Vel, he knew the shit had really hit the fan. The virus was going to take over everything...even... He turned his head and looked into the blank eyes of his masterpeice...it was the best android he'd ever built. He reached out his hand and caressed the sintheskin cheek. No. He would stop it. He wouldn't let the A.I. take her too. He unplugged her wall connection, and turned her on. The battery still had several hours left on it. He looked into her eyes, because he loved this part, when she came on...it had been an engenious idea, this little detail: When she turned on, her eyes (which her blank when turned off or in rest mode) flickered into life. Pupils appeared, dialating as they focused, as if she had been sleeping. "Hello, Dr. Cameron." the android said. He smiled. Her voice sounded so real. "What are we working on today?" she asked. He had been downloading the schematics into her memory banks for some time now...God, he was glad that he had. "This is the last of it, Hilda." She wasn't officially named yet, but he'd nicknamed her Brunhilda, because her mech was called Valkyrie, and then shortened it to Hilda. She was supposed to be the ultimate battle maiden. He walked behind her and opened the cleverly hidden panel in her back, that held a touch-screen keyboard and small screen to view data.
SYSTEM READY. . . He took a deep breath and scrolled down. PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD. . . He typed in Lorelei. Sure it was the name of the program, but he had never had a reason to be extra secretive before, and there was no time to change the password now. ENTER DATA. . . He put the disk into the slot and waited. PROCESSING. . . "Comeoncomeoncomeon..." he mumbled over and over. He glanced over his shoulder. There were screams coming from outside in the hallways, but they were still far away. PROJECT: LORELEI SAVE. . .Y/N? "Yes." He said with relief, and shut the panel. "Hilda, come with me." He was the only person that she would obey unquestioningly. The rest of the time, she was programmed to study the situation and decide which action would be best, just like a real woman. Well, a real, logical woman, anyway. They hurried down a hallway that could only be accessed by going through the room they were just in. He listened to her running. There was no mechanical whirring, no way to tell she wasn't real by watching her movements. He stopped when they got to the shuttle that was stationed there for safety purposes. He had never been very religous, but he thanked God again, this time for the stubborn way that his predecessor had demanded so many escape shuttles. He put his access card into the slot. Nothing happened. "Shit!" There was no way to get out. He didn't know what to do...he had to at least save Hilda. Looking around frantically for some means of escape, he saw the disposal hatch. He bit his lip, realizing that he was probably going to die. Taking Hilda by the hand, he led her to the disposal hatch. "Hilda, you have to go into this hatch. I can't come with you. You'll have to wait for some one to find you." He looked into her eyes. The guys on his team were right. He'd made her to real, and now he loved her. "Do you understand, Hilda?" she nodded. He'd also downloaded body language and facial expressions into her memory banks. "I must get into the disposal hatch and wait to be found. You will not come with me." She paused. "I will not see you again, will I, Dr. Cameron?" "No, Hilda. You won't see me again." it was his turn to pause, using up the precious seconds that were left in his life. "Hilda, look in your memory banks under 'kiss'. Do you know what it is?" he watched as her eyes dialated sligtly, which was one of the only ways to tell she was looking for the definition of a word, or saving information. "Yes." She raised an eyebrow, adopting a curious expression because she didn't know what a kiss had to do with anything. "I'm going to kiss you good-bye, Hilda." Dr. James Cameron, PhD, thirty-year-old human born on Earth, kissed the machine he had painstakingly built to look and act like the human woman he had lost. He knew it was wrong of him, both to kiss her and even more-so to have made her look so much like his dead wife, but that didn't matter now. The screams were getting louder, and as he helped his creation into the disposal hatch that would eject her into space and then turned her off, he hoped that the hacker responsible for all of this would burn in Hell. Dr. James Cameron, PhD, pressed the eject button, and waited for whatever was coming. posted by Kchan.
Just a few months before, Dice had been working in a major laboratory facility on outskirts of London. Her job was to develop and test new chemical weapons to be used in space. It got a bit tedious at times, but she was very well paid.
She had been doing this kind of work for years now, even though she was only 25. Her advanced knowledge in science and math got her through schools very quickly and all the major weapons development companies were practically begging for her to work for them. Including the military. The lab she worked at now worked with the military, somehow, but she didn't really know or care all of the details that were involved in their association. It had all happened so fast. She was just working on a new solution, when there was a huge explosion. It caused her to drop everything she was doing, literally. "Shit!" She grabbed and towel and placed it on the broken glass and chemicals. Taking a look outside of the window showed that a panic was starting to form. People were all running away from the facility, screaming. "What the hell happened? What’s going on?" Dice wouldn't find out the answers to those questions for a while. She could smell smoke and decided it would be a good idea to get out of the building herself, but first she had to gather her research. She'd come so far just to leave it there to burn. Several people who ran by yelled things at her like, "Are you crazy?" and "Get out of here!" It was really annoying. "Fuck you! Why don't you just worry about yourself." Which they did.. Finally all the information she had was recorded on a small disc. She ejected it from the computer and stuck it into her pocket. She then proceeded to exit the building. After that, Dice didn't remember exactly what all went on. She just found her mech, one of her greatest creations, and flew away from the destruction. For some reason, she decided to go to the USA, to New York city. She stayed there for a little while and learned that an asteroid had struck and pretty much annihilated all of London. Lucky for her, the lab was just out of reach of all the major destruction. Sometime later, the military tracked her down and summoned her to a base in Florida. She went along with it, not knowing anything better to do. Her home was destroyed. Basically they wanted for Dice to go work on some ship called the 'Hrunting' and do lab and maintenance work. "Maintenance?! Just who do you think I am? Some kind of.. junky mechanic?" She asked the general, outraged. "Not only maintenance, dear. You will be continuing your work on the ship as well. You'll find that the Hrunting’s lab facilities are top notch. You still have all your research don't you?" He asked. "Don’t call me 'dear' and yes, I do have it." Dice pulled the small disc for her pocket. "It's all here, but what makes you think I'll agree to all this anyway? What’s in it for me?" "I'll tell you the truth. You don't really have a choice in the matter. Besides, we've looked at the mech you've created and it is an excellent piece of work indeed, even by our standards. We've provided it with its own highly advanced A.I. I'm sure you'll find it much more efficient." "What? You've tampered with Zedikiah?" Dice clenched her fists angrily, but she took a moment to think about it. Her programming skills had always been lacking and that’s why Zed didn't have an A.I. in the first place. The military always did have the latest and best computer technology. The lab on the ship was probably outstanding, too, just like the general had said. Maybe this wasn't such a bad deal after all. She was still pissed though. "This is pretty fucked up, you know? You can't just.. force people around like this." She paused and after a moment went on. "However, I'll agree to do it.. seeing as how I don't have a choice in the matter." She glared. "But you better bet that I'll be getting paid much more, now." She laughed. "Of course you will." He put on a fake smile. "I'm glad you've finally come to your senses. Lets waste no time now. You'll be escorted to the shuttle immediately." And that was that. Some soldier escorted her onto the shuttle and they looked around for a bit. At some point along the way they ran into some chic with goggles. She didn't look to friendly, but the soldier introduced her. "This is Velisto. The two of you will be working pretty closely I'd imagine." "Uh.. Nice to meet you." Dice extended a hand. OOC: OMG, that was horribly long and I do apologize. v.v; I must credit Kchan for the name of my mech. Thank you Kchan! I hope my post was ok. I dunno what the hell I'm talking about, so if it sounds dumb just lemme know. o.o; posted by Luna.
****Story Details****
January 06, 2201 (Earth-reckoning)
Deimos, a moon of Mars, is the site of a brand-new experimental program. The station is assigned the task of creating an advanced battle A.I., one that can far out-think any other A.I. programmed to date. This A.I. is to be developed as a joint venture between the U.S.A. and the U.S.E., as one step towards a complete unification of the world's government. However, a mysterious hacker working from a stealth ship orbitting Deimos embedded a virus into the A.I.'s program, called "Batalha Nova". This virus was originally meant to destroy safety programs that kept the battle A.I. from becoming inconcievably violent, but because of the advanced nature of the A.I., it adapted to the virus, and in fact used its programming to grow into an entirely sentient being capable of rational thought. However, the A.I.'s rationale was still the destruction of all threats to her own safety. The whereabouts and identity of the hacker remain a mystery. However, almost as soon as Mars lost contact with the Deimos station, it found that its capital city was under attack. The A.I. overran the programs of thousands upon thousands of Martian defense drones, and the manned Mars military was far too weak and unskilled to defend against this onslaught. The result was near-annihilation for the Martian people. Eight shuttles escaped, from an estimated 400 that had launched in a desperate act to flee from Mars. The rest were either shot down, or infected with the A.I. and made to crash. Three months later, Earth became the target of several incredibly fast-moving asteroids. Far too small to have any global effects, these asteroids did, however, manage to wipe out entire cities, and in some cases more than one city. The Earth then mustered up all of the military it could to defend against the onslaught of asteroids, and thus the skies are always full of warships. While things don't quite seem bleak, fanatics are still preaching that the end of humankind is nigh, and mass panics are commonplace in larger cities. The Hrunting, one of the most powerful of the U.S.E. starships, is cleared of all personnel and assigned the task of ending the asteroid bombardment, at least long enough for Earth to invade and destroy the Martian threat. If possible, it is also responsible for the rescue of stranded Martian citizens in the unattacked cities of the north pole; the plan is to destroy the moon Deimos and completely scortch the entire surface of Mars, with or without the survivors, so that the A.I. is completely eradicated. "God asked no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice; you must take it. The only choice is how." posted by UltiMatt (just setting up the strory..).
"The attack at Mars is but a prelude of things to come. Mars had almost no defense, and as a result, millions of lives were lost within a few hours of the initial attack. Afterwards, patrols between here and Mars were raised, but Earth was relatively unaffected until we started getting hit with rogue asteroids. They've already wiped out several cities, and the entire world's military is preoccupied with Homeland Defense. That's where you come in."
His hands were rubbing together in front of him. It was freezing, and he hadn't brought any winter clothes, since he was under the impression that the heating system would've been well maintained in Moscow. I wonder if I passed out right now, they would actually put me someplace warm..? Inconsiderate bast-- "Are you paying attention?" The general had gotten himself directly in front of Ademaro, who was standing in front of a screen showing the scorched planet of Mars, with the moon Phobos slowly making its way across the lower right corner. Some spots were grey, where the heaviest assaults had taken place and where some of the more terrible weapons were used. Ademaro now had the man's beady eyes drilling into his skull. "Y... yes sir. It's just, I'm a bit cold, and your men out there wouldn't give me a jacket." "If you deserved those robots floating around in you, you wouldn't ask for a jacket." The general scoffed at him, and stepped away. Ademaro turned his eyes back to the screen, where Deimos began to peek, up in the left-hand corner. "So what am I doing here, anyway? You didn't call me here just to watch me freeze my ass off, did you?" With a sigh, the general continued. "The U.S.E. stationed one of the ships from the Flagship fleet, the Hrunting, at an American station. You've been selected to pilot it. Unfortuneately, I don't know what you'll be doing, but I know it has something to do with the Martian incident. Your shuttle leaves in less than an hour. Your Galagesh or whatever has already been sent up." "Gilgamesh." "Don't talk back to me. Get your stuff and go to the I-PAD, now." Ademaro hurriedly left the room, with two soldiers following behind him. The corridors were a greyish blue, and by some windows frost began to form. The entire base felt like a meat freezer, and he seemed to be the only one wearing less than five layers. He arrived at his room, and entered, while the soldiers waited outside of his door. He hadn't unpacked since arriving yesterday, so he just grabbed his duffel bag, filled with whatever 'momentos' he could take with him from the Moscow base, and left the room not five minutes after entering. Once again under escort, he found himself outside in the biting cold winds, with snow blowing almost sideways, raking across his face. He ran about fifty feet to the shuttle door sitting on the launch pad, where the heating actually worked. When he first got a chance to actually look around, he found that soldiers from the base were taking their breaks inside the shuttle, sipping coffee or reading a book. They seemed much more cheerful than the ones on shift. "I shall take that." A low-class android took his bag from him, and on treads, rode away to stow it. It seemed odd for a 30's-age robot to be serving aboard a military shuttle, but with all resources going towards weapons development, it wasn't all that surprising. Although it would still make sense to fix the damned heaters when they broke. He wandered around the shuttle for about half an hour, looking out the windows that faced away from the base, which gave a spectacular view of the Russian landscape. He stayed near the window, watching the snow blast by until he was told to take his seat, where he was buckled in tightly. He wondered about Alice, now, and hoped that he would get to see her after landing at the American station. In the meantime, though, he would have a few hours after they got into orbit to do some research on the Hrunting. "If those Americans try to arrest me, I swear to God..." posted by UltiMatt.
'Earth,' Velisto thought dimly, her lips pursing to give her a sour look. She was standing in front of the shuttle flight that was headed for one of Earth's space stations. Like most born on Martian soil, Vel had quite a disliking for Earth. She could have lived without ever stepping on the ground of this tainted planet, but she'd been given little choice...
--*flashback 8D!!*-- "A hacker? When?" Vel as she gripped her telecom, frowning at the screen of the hand held visual communicator. This was horrible news -- she'd been working with these people on the AI for months, which was to be given to an android she'd never even seen. The fact that some dick on a high horse was going to fuck up all their work had her way beyond rage. "Just an hour ago. Something's wrong, She's acting up. I don't know what the fuck that virus did but it's doing something and I can't get to it. I need you t--" The man was interrupted by an alert buzzing and the feed began to fade in and out. "What the fu--" The screen went blank, save for bolded red letters, 'CONNECTION LOST'. Velisto sat there, staring at the screen. She'd just gotten back home from Deimos the night before, and now she was going to have to go back again. "I hate this job," she mumbled as she began to change. Just as she was zipping up her suit, she heard a loud crash that shook the room, and alarm went off. An electronically simulated voice began to speak: "District 1 of Chryse sector is offline, all occupants please evactuate immediately to the nearest district." "What the hell?" Velisto was in district 9, which was very close to district 1. She paused a moment, listening for anyone, or anything. Nothing. Silence. She turned her her 'laptop' and began to punch at the keys, when another crash was heard, but this time it was closer, and followed by several others. "District 3, and District 5 of Chryse sector are offline, all occupants please evactuate immediately to the nearest district." "What the FUCK?" Vel hissed, as she went to her door and it opened. People were running around out there now, screaming for escape shuttles, or suits, or they were just plain screaming. Behind her, Vel's laptop buzzed and the screen started to fluctuate. She turned to see numbers scrolling on it's screen over and over again. ' 02 01 20 01 12 08 01 14 15 22 01 ' Another crash interrupted her and she turned and ran from her room. From the clear glass areas in the halls she could see the others districts -- or what was left of them. Fires were all over and wreckage and... --*end flashback e.e*-- Vel had been motionless as she had thought back on the scenes. So much had happened. She'd helped some people escape, with her Alcyone to defend them from the drones that had been attacking. She knew now that it was the virus that caused all of this. Whether or not the hacker had intended it, she didn't know. For his sake, however, Vel hoped it hadn't been intention for that to happen. She sighed and stepped on board the shuttle, happy to be leaving this hell hole. "This place fuckin' stinks. How the hell do people breathe here?" The comment earned her a few glares, but she ignored them and continued on. OOC: Oops..that was pretty long 8DDDD;;; And I dunno if it was even that good, but oh well n.n; I hope it wasn't too confusing. posted by Hchan.
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