Terrence knew the suggestion hadn't taken hold, it hadn't been nearly as forcible as he'd intended- but he couldn't help wondering if the Gef would've turned around and risked its own neck under any circumstances. Perhaps he was cold and calculating, or perhaps he just didn't care about his fellow raiders.
Stephen
Marshal stabilised!
See OOC thread for discussion of Medic speciality
The marshal has sustained severe burns to his torso, but the one upside of plasma weapons was their tendency to cauterise wounds and reduce bleeding. He'd live, Stephen deduced with satisfaction, taking out a vial of minomyre to apply it to the gauze pad.
Gef Raider's Health has hit zero! The Gef will fall unconscious unless he can pass a Health check versus the wound responsible: but at 27, that's impossible. KO'd!
The Gef realises too late what's happening. He raises his heavy gauntlet to block the strike, but too slowly: Cyril's blade slices through the air and gouges a deep cut across the Gef's face before shearing a lump of flesh and sinew from out of his collarbone.
For a moment the Gef retains his footing, but his eyes slowly roll back into his skull and he keels over like a heavily-armoured tree, blood fountaining from below his neck.
However, it's then that Cyril spots someone else standing at the airlock. A woman with an assault rifle.
Egos, you need to give me an Agility roll now, because she's going to try firing at you. You might want to call out to the others too, so they now there's more trouble!
As the Gef falls, Dustin turns his attention towards recoving the rifle he'd dropped earlier. His wrist ached slightly from using a heavier gun than he was accustomed to with his sync-macro. Sore and annoyed, his persona continued to grin like an idiot as the battle had been won.
"Trophies, ne? Gonna put this on my wall back home!" he exclaims as he retrieves the rifle, scoping it out and weighing it. If he tried to use the sync-macro with a weapon of this weight he'd probably tear every tendon in his wrist, not that there would even be much need to hide Imogen's use with it. This weapon would probably tear a gaping maw into the target anyway.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Hearing Cyril's shout, Cutter holsters his pistol and grabs his "bat". He makes his way towards the airlock and peeks in and sees a woman, if that's what you can call something that ugly, with a gun still pointed at Cyril. Smoke is rising from the muzzle of the gun signifying that it's recently been discharged.
Cutter then removes his head from the airlock passageway and looks to Terrence and Dustin. He signals with his left hand to let them know that there is one gunner there.
19+5 agility = 24 This is for me peeking my head in. I hope she doesn't see me, so I can hit her when she walks in.
The raider seems too absorbed in her rifle's settings to notice Cutter. She's clearly not well versed in its operation, and she's clearly shaken after she witnessed Cyril besting her towering colleague.
She manipulates its charge sliders in a halting, unsure manner and then puts her eye to its sights, slowly walking down the corridor and pointing the weapon at imaginary threats.
The hell kind of signal was that? Dustin thinks to himself as Cutter ducks back into position. Dustin thought about these guys, they were total amateurs, he realized. Why would they breach the ship in what was clearly a chokepoint? Why the hell did they announce their presence for? Should have hit us fast and hard. Maybe they were that overconfident. Or maybe his boss hired these goons to see if he was going soft? It wouldn't be the first time she'd done that. But he was breaking the first rule. You don't ask questions, getting lost in the reasoning was an easy way to get yourself killed.
Yet, finding out the truth would be nice. Hopefully at least one of these goons would survive the fight. He'd have to check later. He also instructed the Gibson to queue up a case of nausea after the fight. This would be the first time Dustin's been around death, once the haze of fear and euphoria wore off, it'd only be natural to do that. As Dustin mulled these thoughts over on the inside, he shifted nervously in his seat.
He was leaning forward, eagerly, his finger twitching around the trigger. He blinks out the sweat in his eyes, and sighs.
"Come on! Dun, dun! Let's go! Dun dun dun! It's time.... for the big show! na na na na na" He resumes signing his song, albeit in a hushed tone, ready to take a shot as soon as the time came.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Cutter's Focus versus raider's Focus: Raider wins (12 vs 14)
Rounding the corner and coming face to face with Cutter, the raider pulls the trigger, staggering slightly as the rifle's roaring discharge spits a dozen bolts towards the man.
Result: 1 point of temporary damage, 1 point of normal damage. Cutter's Health is set to 5.
Cutter feels several of the shots slice into his flesh, searing his arms, one skimming through the rock-hard muscles of his abdomen, another digging a furrow through his shin...
Put bluntly, he's amazed he hasn't been shredded.
Ryadic: If you pass an Agility test- DC15- you keep your footing and you can attack her as normal. Otherwise the force of the blast knocks you off your feet and you'll have to spend a "turn" righting yourself.
An all too familiar sensation seeps through Cutter. The feeling of blood leaving him is one that he has experienced before. As the shots rip through Cutter he stumbles back but regains his footing and his steady grip on his "bat". He grinds his teeth a bit and looks up to the woman that is the cause of this and let's out a feral growl. He cocks his "bat" back and swings with all his might.
Dustin lets loose at the lady's back as she fires on Cutter's position. There's no twitch of the wrist as he fires, this being both uncessary and liable to rip the tendons in his wrists given the size of the rifle. The scatter shot effect would do well in masking Imogen's fire, in any case. The shots are aimed loosely at an area of her spinal column. Hopefully his shots will take her out of commission quickly, especially since the gun she's toting packs a major kick itself.
That takes her Health below the halfway mark. Save to retain consciousness: impossible, DC30. KO'd!
Dustin's firepower: target can't defend self. Total overkill.
Cutter swings in a broad arc, an uppercut that connects so forcibly with the raider's chin that it propels her upwards, slamming her against the ceiling with a deafening clang...
...but before she can hit the ground, Dustin fires, a laser beam and a cloud of tiny photon bolts striking the already airborne body and reducing it to a smoking, bleeding mess that's sent skidding across the floor.
The raider's still-warm rifle hits the ground moments after she does.
Cutter goes down to one knee, using his "bat" for stability, he catches his breath and looks down at the obvious dead woman. He then surveys his wounds, which aren't as bad as they initially felt. He will recover with time, no doubt about that.
Cutter looks through the corpse for anything of value.
"Pew pew! Bag her! Dustin wins! OH YEA!" Dustin says as he moves from behind the chair, pumping the rifle in the air. Placing the rifle in his right hand he moves cautiously down the aisle and towards the mass of bodies, pointing Imogen at them to record (and also to ensure against any unsuspected surprises).
Dustin doesn't move directly into the crossway that leads over to the airlock, but while staying in the compartment nudges the fallen in reach with the rifle. Zooming in on their faces, he speaks to the camera. "Yea, yea, ne! You see that?"
He then proceeds to poke the tip of the rifle at one of the wounds of the closest man. "You alive, buddy?"
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Having stabilized the Marshal, Stephen looked on with disbelief as the woman rounded the corner, and was promptly obliterated. Stephen wasn't a particularly compassionate person, but he was still incredibly shaken by the sight. It wasn't the gore, nor the twisted expressions of pain the raiders shared, he had seen much worse on operating table and on test subjects. It was just that the sheer violence of it was completely novel to him. He had always solved his problems with either diplomacy, money, or subversion, and usually a good combination of the three. To see a conflict end in such brutality was something he really didn't anticipate.
"Barbaric..." he muttered under his breath.
Then, in an attempt to regain his bearings and lighten the mood, "Do you think she's uglier now or before?"
With some effort, he hoisted the marshal onto a row of seats, then turned towards Cutter.
"Hey, why don't you take a seat there big guy, and I'll have a look," Stephen said, as he dug his hands into the surgical kit for more gauze and another vial of minomyre.
The first nudge got no response, so Dustin poked the rifle into one of the wounds left behind. The man groaned in pain. "We got a survivor, yea?" Dustin stands over him and points the rifle down at his head as he continues to record. "Or maybe let's lie and say we didn't, ne?" Dustin doesn't even need to act out the sadistic bloodlust in that statement.
"Kidding~" Dustin hops over the pile-up and moves beyond the airlock into the coach area. As he lands he slips a bit on all the gore from the Gef's remains.
"Keh! Almost ruined my suit!" he says, and then breaks out into an uneasy laughter. The simulated post-battle rush and crash was taking effect, just in time. Dustin turns around and kicks the leg of another of the fallen. "You dead, na?" He points the gun at the fellow, laughing a little more as he then enters the area.
When he finally gets to the the woman's remains, he says out loud. "Yea, yea! That's an improvement for sure!" Then lurches over into an aisle as he begins to vomit onto a chair. Oh how much he hated this ruse.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Cutter finds a very small case on the woman's belt- it's sealed with an impressively complex-looking magnetic lock. There's also her rifle: angular and covered in switches (and also a little blood).
Anyone can attempt to identify the rifle if they pass an Intelligence check of DC12, but they can of course use it without knowing its stats.
Cutter's wounds are successfully tended.
Cutter's Health and Strength are now 6, they'll return to 7 once he has time to get his breath back and recover.
Cutter's injuries looked a lot worse than they actually were. He'd have a fresh set of scars, but Stephen's dressings staunch the bleeding and the minomyre disinfects the wounds and speeds the body's natural healing process.
One of the raiders groaned at length from beneath his comrades. Imogen records every word, but most of the words sound like "urrrgh".
Alliah catches her breath for a few seconds in a comfortable seat before gently decharging the small pistol with a click, and stuffing it into her bag. Everyone seems to be okay, for the moment.
With a sigh, she gets up and sets off toward the first-class section.
"I'm going to go check on the cockpit. Don't head anywhere without me, now."
Cutter curiously looks at the Case attached to the womans belt. He removes it from her belt and takes a seat in the closest chair. Relief immediately washes over him as his body begins to relax after the very grueling battle.
"Thanks doc," he says to Stephen. Holding up the case he removed from the corpse of the woman, he asks, "Any clue what this is?"
Dustin stops wretching, and turns towards Cutter. He's noticably paler now, it seems as though the rush from combat has passed.
"I... I don't know." he says, looking at Cutter, his eyes glazed over. None of the personality is present in his response. He appears to be detached from this, walking past the woman's body and Cutter. He steps over the bodies, carefully and without a catchy phrase and returns to his seat. Before sitting down he returns Imogen to his inner pocket, and places the rifle on the chair next to him. On the outside, it appears as though he's in shock, as he stares into space.
Keh... amateurs. While he sits there, he mentally pulls up the video recording of the fight, skipping to the point where the survivor grunted. He plays it out slowly, trying to decipher what the man said to him.
Analysis: Trying to understand the playback of the audio on that grunt +4 int, +3 analysis:
According to the recorder's vocal extrapolation protocol, there was a 98.6% chance that the man had been trying to say "You weren't supposed to be here, we were set up" through his pain.
Alliah
As she approaches the cockpit door, it opens the tiniest amount, and then slides across fully when the man on the other side realises who it is.
"You guys... did it?" The co-pilot seemed equal parts impressed and disbelieving. "What happened?"
"Yeah... we've been slowly drifting towards the planet ever since they turned off their tractor beam. It looks like we're going to come in to land with their ship docked with ours, but the scanners indicate that they're heat-shielded too, thank god-"
The co-pilot is roughly shouldered aside.
"Ignore the scanners," the pilot says brusquely. “We’ll need to examine their ship, and break the docking if necessary. We can’t risk entering the atmosphere if their craft is going to burn up and compromise the Halaisi’s integrity- and I can’t say I have much faith in a scanner that couldn’t even detect their ship until they were trying to dock.”
The pilot sniffs.
“And what on earth is that burning smell? Did someone scorch the upholstery?”
"What can you tell us about their ship? Is there any way to communicate while we're on the raiders' vessel? I don't know if any of us have detailed experience with ship engineering, and a friendly voice can't hurt."
Alliah looks out of the doorway into the first-class section.
Hearing Dustin's response to his question, he notices the look on Dustin's face. He's seen that look before. He follows after Dustin.
"Hey kid, first real combat situation?" Cutter asks Dustin, with what could be called a smile on his face. He already knows the answer, but feels it's best to get him talking. He's seen people go mad after their first real experience in combat. He just won't let it happen to Dustin, he's actually starting to get used to him.
"I'm certain it's a short-ranged shuttle," the co-pilot says, with a reproachful glance at the pilot. "Specifically designed to ferry passengers from a planet’s surface to a station or ship in orbit. It should have the equipment needed to receive transmissions- and the heat shielding necessary for re-entry.”
“And… cooked Gef? Is that a euphemism or some sort of slang for something?”
"Sorry to interrupt, guys, but we have a new problem. We're closing in on the planet's atmosphere, and the crew doesn't know for sure that our guests' shuttle has heat shielding. It looks like we'll need to see to it personally."
Alliah suddenly notices the look on Dustin's face.
"Hey, if you're not feeling up to it... Noone has to go if they don't want to. You can just make sure everything goes alright here."
By the time Cutter approached Dustin, he had already finished his analysis of the video recording. He was reviewing what he felt was his abyssmal post-combat analysis, courtesy of the Gibson. Granted he was limited by being caught off guard, and having to perform as if it was his first fight the entire thing was just disgusting to him.
"Hey kid, first real combat situation?" Cutter asked. Dustin's glazed eyes met Cutter's eye.
He thought about his first 'combat situation', so many decades ago. Blood everywhere, 3 men dead and him left standing. He'd never feel that triumphant again... Yet, how many 'combat situations' had he been in since then, how many lives had he taken? He forgot. But that Dustin wasn't 'here' right now.
"We did the right thing? I mean... they're dead... they were the bad guys." he mutters, looking away from Cutter. "We're the good guys here, ne?"
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
"We didn't board their ship armed," Cutter says in response to Dustin's question. The glazed look still present in his eyes, it doesn't seem to reassure him. Cutter let's out a heavy sigh, and sits down. "It was either them or us. They pulled a gun on me, and you shot before they could. I appreciate that. We may have been wrong, who knows? But they certainly weren't friendly."
Cutter looks up as Alliah approches.
"Sorry to interrupt, guys, but we have a new problem. We're closing in on the planet's atmosphere, and the crew doesn't know for sure that our guests' shuttle has heat shielding. It looks like we'll need to see to it personally."
Alliah suddenly notices the look on Dustin's face.
"Hey, if you're not feeling up to it... Noone has to go if they don't want to. You can just make sure everything goes alright here."
Cutter stands up, gives Dustin a pat on the back and says, "You did good." He turns his attention to Alliah, "So what is needed?"
Dustin doesn't reply to Alliah or Cutter. He's not sure what to do at this point. Assuming the shuttle is functional they'd have to be able to pilot it to the surface. There was also the problem of the breached airlock on this ship. It just wasn't his day. He simply stares, this time at Alliah.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
"According to the scanners, it should have shielding, but the pilot doesn't trust them. Frankly, I don't trust the pilot, so if someone does want to stay behind, all the better. In any case, if the heat-shielding's screwed we'll have to find some way to break the docking seal."
And if we can find any hint as to who sent these guys, Alliah thinks, all the better.
Cyril sits down in one of the passenger chairs. He takes a complementary hand towel from one of the seats and wipes of his blade. He starts to speak but his eyes seem to fixated on the dead Gef and his weaponry
"I can stay behind. If that'll soothe people's minds."
After cleaning off his blade. He begins pressing a few precise buttons that causes it to morph in appearance to a small briefcase.
He stands up from his chair and begins to wait for an answer. As he does so he kneels over the Gef attempts to weigh his gauntlet and hand-canon. Perhaps seeing if he could possibly use it. His fixation almost seems like that of a kid at a candy store.
Terrence sits, quiet and apparently forgotten at the back of the economy section. The pistol he had taken is in his lap. The adrenaline is starting to wear off. Seeing the remains of the dead raiders is hard. Usually, if someone dies, it means he didn't do his job well enough or fast enough and they got passed over to someone less compassionate. It's hard to reconcile death and success.
Still, better them than me.
The rest of the impromptu team mills around, the one woman goes up to the cockpit briefly and returns, saying that they need to go and inspect the raiders' shuttle. Something about heat shielding. Terrence is about to volunteer to go and snoop around - that kind of job is more his speed anyway - when a thought strikes him.
"Um, maybe I'm just being stupid here, but didn't the raiders cut a great big hole in this ship? Couldn't that be a problem?"
Cyril realises that the Gef's spiked gauntlet is actually a prosthetic: a bionic hand fused to his skeletal structure.
The hand cannon is a sawn-off heavy weapon, usually used to combat vehicles. As a side effect of having lost most of its barrel, it now lacks the magnetic stability of other plasma weapons: as a result, the gun's firepower was unpredictable, and likely to vary with every shot.
Miniaturised plasma cannon
Customised and damaged heavy weapon
Max 1 shot per post
Damage Capacity 1d20+5
+5 DC at very close range
Special: deals an additional 1N damage at damage levels where normal damage is applied.
Ignores up to 3 points of Armour.
"Um, maybe I'm just being stupid here, but didn't the raiders cut a great big hole in this ship? Couldn't that be a problem?"
Alliah shoulders her bag again and heads to the airlock.
"Yes, and a big one. We can think about ideas for that, but right now we should focus on getting the shuttle checked quickly. We're still being flown toward the planet's atmosphere."
"Mind if I join you?" Terrence gets up and heads over to the compartment containing his briefcase. He pulls it down and walks towards the airlock. "I've got some tools that might be useful."
"The rest of you, make sure the crew know that detaching from the shuttle is a sure way to kill everyone."
Cyril lifts up he miniaturized plasma cannon; momentarily he tries to hold it in confidence in one hand but is unable to and he laughs quietly in slight embarrassment. He is able to catch it and support it with the other hand before it falls to the ground; and later decides just to hold in a way most practical (like a shotgun).
He smiles at Alliah (as she seems to be in charge) and her followers and says "We'll be fine here"'.
He turns and begins to walk down the aisles looking around seemingly arbitrarily.. He murmurs to himself
"...just have to figure out where to hide his before we land..." looking down as his newfound hand-cannon
"Mind if I join you?" Terrence gets up and heads over to the compartment containing his briefcase. He pulls it down and walks towards the airlock. "I've got some tools that might be useful."
"Of course. Hey, I can't stop you. My name's Alliah, by the way."
Dustin stirs suddenly, seeming to have rebooted himself. He looks at Alliah and the others as they move somewhat clumsily following behind. In the worst case, the shuttle would have a functional airlock.
Holding the one rifle at hand he reaches the airlock, and notices the woman's weapon. He picks that up as well then hesitantly moves to catch up with Alliah and company.
Posts
Terrence knew the suggestion hadn't taken hold, it hadn't been nearly as forcible as he'd intended- but he couldn't help wondering if the Gef would've turned around and risked its own neck under any circumstances. Perhaps he was cold and calculating, or perhaps he just didn't care about his fellow raiders.
Stephen
See OOC thread for discussion of Medic speciality
The marshal has sustained severe burns to his torso, but the one upside of plasma weapons was their tendency to cauterise wounds and reduce bleeding. He'd live, Stephen deduced with satisfaction, taking out a vial of minomyre to apply it to the gauze pad.
Cyril
Health check versus Cyril's attack failed (22 versus 27)
Result: 1 normal damage.
Gef Raider's Health has hit zero! The Gef will fall unconscious unless he can pass a Health check versus the wound responsible: but at 27, that's impossible. KO'd!
The Gef realises too late what's happening. He raises his heavy gauntlet to block the strike, but too slowly: Cyril's blade slices through the air and gouges a deep cut across the Gef's face before shearing a lump of flesh and sinew from out of his collarbone.
For a moment the Gef retains his footing, but his eyes slowly roll back into his skull and he keels over like a heavily-armoured tree, blood fountaining from below his neck.
However, it's then that Cyril spots someone else standing at the airlock. A woman with an assault rifle.
"Trophies, ne? Gonna put this on my wall back home!" he exclaims as he retrieves the rifle, scoping it out and weighing it. If he tried to use the sync-macro with a weapon of this weight he'd probably tear every tendon in his wrist, not that there would even be much need to hide Imogen's use with it. This weapon would probably tear a gaping maw into the target anyway.
Raider's attack roll (14) versus Cyril's Agility roll (18): Raider misses.
Cyril dives towards the economy department as a burst of photon bolts sends a cascade of sparks flying off the floor behind him.
"Watch out," he shouts to the others, "there's a gunner!"
Cutter then removes his head from the airlock passageway and looks to Terrence and Dustin. He signals with his left hand to let them know that there is one gunner there.
The raider seems too absorbed in her rifle's settings to notice Cutter. She's clearly not well versed in its operation, and she's clearly shaken after she witnessed Cyril besting her towering colleague.
She manipulates its charge sliders in a halting, unsure manner and then puts her eye to its sights, slowly walking down the corridor and pointing the weapon at imaginary threats.
Yet, finding out the truth would be nice. Hopefully at least one of these goons would survive the fight. He'd have to check later. He also instructed the Gibson to queue up a case of nausea after the fight. This would be the first time Dustin's been around death, once the haze of fear and euphoria wore off, it'd only be natural to do that. As Dustin mulled these thoughts over on the inside, he shifted nervously in his seat.
He was leaning forward, eagerly, his finger twitching around the trigger. He blinks out the sweat in his eyes, and sighs.
"Come on! Dun, dun! Let's go! Dun dun dun! It's time.... for the big show! na na na na na" He resumes signing his song, albeit in a hushed tone, ready to take a shot as soon as the time came.
Rounding the corner and coming face to face with Cutter, the raider pulls the trigger, staggering slightly as the rifle's roaring discharge spits a dozen bolts towards the man.
Cutter fails to dodge (12)
Cutter's Health check versus firepower (21 vs 20)
Result: 1 point of temporary damage, 1 point of normal damage. Cutter's Health is set to 5.
Cutter feels several of the shots slice into his flesh, searing his arms, one skimming through the rock-hard muscles of his abdomen, another digging a furrow through his shin...
Put bluntly, he's amazed he hasn't been shredded.
I decided to take a 20, so that would give me 20+ STR which is 7 (or 6 after I take the 20) +3 Melee.
Assuming LoS is maintained:
Attack rolls -
1d20+10 → [10,10] = (20)
1d20+10 → [2,10] = (12)
Result: 2 normal damage, 1 temporary damage
That takes her Health below the halfway mark. Save to retain consciousness: impossible, DC30. KO'd!
Dustin's firepower: target can't defend self. Total overkill.
Cutter swings in a broad arc, an uppercut that connects so forcibly with the raider's chin that it propels her upwards, slamming her against the ceiling with a deafening clang...
...but before she can hit the ground, Dustin fires, a laser beam and a cloud of tiny photon bolts striking the already airborne body and reducing it to a smoking, bleeding mess that's sent skidding across the floor.
The raider's still-warm rifle hits the ground moments after she does.
A long pause, as the smoke and various airborne detritus drifts about the cabin.
"Is that it? You see any more?"
Cutter looks through the corpse for anything of value.
Dustin doesn't move directly into the crossway that leads over to the airlock, but while staying in the compartment nudges the fallen in reach with the rifle. Zooming in on their faces, he speaks to the camera. "Yea, yea, ne! You see that?"
He then proceeds to poke the tip of the rifle at one of the wounds of the closest man. "You alive, buddy?"
"Barbaric..." he muttered under his breath.
Then, in an attempt to regain his bearings and lighten the mood, "Do you think she's uglier now or before?"
With some effort, he hoisted the marshal onto a row of seats, then turned towards Cutter.
"Hey, why don't you take a seat there big guy, and I'll have a look," Stephen said, as he dug his hands into the surgical kit for more gauze and another vial of minomyre.
"Kidding~" Dustin hops over the pile-up and moves beyond the airlock into the coach area. As he lands he slips a bit on all the gore from the Gef's remains.
"Keh! Almost ruined my suit!" he says, and then breaks out into an uneasy laughter. The simulated post-battle rush and crash was taking effect, just in time. Dustin turns around and kicks the leg of another of the fallen. "You dead, na?" He points the gun at the fellow, laughing a little more as he then enters the area.
When he finally gets to the the woman's remains, he says out loud. "Yea, yea! That's an improvement for sure!" Then lurches over into an aisle as he begins to vomit onto a chair. Oh how much he hated this ruse.
Cutter finds a very small case on the woman's belt- it's sealed with an impressively complex-looking magnetic lock. There's also her rifle: angular and covered in switches (and also a little blood).
Cutter's wounds are successfully tended.
Cutter's Health and Strength are now 6, they'll return to 7 once he has time to get his breath back and recover.
Cutter's injuries looked a lot worse than they actually were. He'd have a fresh set of scars, but Stephen's dressings staunch the bleeding and the minomyre disinfects the wounds and speeds the body's natural healing process.
One of the raiders groaned at length from beneath his comrades. Imogen records every word, but most of the words sound like "urrrgh".
With a sigh, she gets up and sets off toward the first-class section.
"I'm going to go check on the cockpit. Don't head anywhere without me, now."
"Thanks doc," he says to Stephen. Holding up the case he removed from the corpse of the woman, he asks, "Any clue what this is?"
"I... I don't know." he says, looking at Cutter, his eyes glazed over. None of the personality is present in his response. He appears to be detached from this, walking past the woman's body and Cutter. He steps over the bodies, carefully and without a catchy phrase and returns to his seat. Before sitting down he returns Imogen to his inner pocket, and places the rifle on the chair next to him. On the outside, it appears as though he's in shock, as he stares into space.
Keh... amateurs. While he sits there, he mentally pulls up the video recording of the fight, skipping to the point where the survivor grunted. He plays it out slowly, trying to decipher what the man said to him.
Analysis: Trying to understand the playback of the audio on that grunt +4 int, +3 analysis:
1d20+7 → [20,7] = (27)
Wow. screw this roller. You know how awesome that 20 roll would have been... y'know... IN COMBAT?! >_<
According to the recorder's vocal extrapolation protocol, there was a 98.6% chance that the man had been trying to say "You weren't supposed to be here, we were set up" through his pain.
Alliah
As she approaches the cockpit door, it opens the tiniest amount, and then slides across fully when the man on the other side realises who it is.
"You guys... did it?" The co-pilot seemed equal parts impressed and disbelieving. "What happened?"
"Mostly the big guy beat the crap out of them with a bat. How is the ship doing? Are we still on auto-pilot?"
"Yeah... we've been slowly drifting towards the planet ever since they turned off their tractor beam. It looks like we're going to come in to land with their ship docked with ours, but the scanners indicate that they're heat-shielded too, thank god-"
The co-pilot is roughly shouldered aside.
"Ignore the scanners," the pilot says brusquely. “We’ll need to examine their ship, and break the docking if necessary. We can’t risk entering the atmosphere if their craft is going to burn up and compromise the Halaisi’s integrity- and I can’t say I have much faith in a scanner that couldn’t even detect their ship until they were trying to dock.”
The pilot sniffs.
“And what on earth is that burning smell? Did someone scorch the upholstery?”
Alliah looks out of the doorway into the first-class section.
"Oh, and you're smelling cooked Gef."
"Hey kid, first real combat situation?" Cutter asks Dustin, with what could be called a smile on his face. He already knows the answer, but feels it's best to get him talking. He's seen people go mad after their first real experience in combat. He just won't let it happen to Dustin, he's actually starting to get used to him.
"I'm certain it's a short-ranged shuttle," the co-pilot says, with a reproachful glance at the pilot. "Specifically designed to ferry passengers from a planet’s surface to a station or ship in orbit. It should have the equipment needed to receive transmissions- and the heat shielding necessary for re-entry.”
“And… cooked Gef? Is that a euphemism or some sort of slang for something?”
Alliah closes the door behind her and moves off to join the group.
Alliah suddenly notices the look on Dustin's face.
"Hey, if you're not feeling up to it... Noone has to go if they don't want to. You can just make sure everything goes alright here."
"Hey kid, first real combat situation?" Cutter asked. Dustin's glazed eyes met Cutter's eye.
He thought about his first 'combat situation', so many decades ago. Blood everywhere, 3 men dead and him left standing. He'd never feel that triumphant again... Yet, how many 'combat situations' had he been in since then, how many lives had he taken? He forgot. But that Dustin wasn't 'here' right now.
"We did the right thing? I mean... they're dead... they were the bad guys." he mutters, looking away from Cutter. "We're the good guys here, ne?"
Cutter looks up as Alliah approches.
"Sorry to interrupt, guys, but we have a new problem. We're closing in on the planet's atmosphere, and the crew doesn't know for sure that our guests' shuttle has heat shielding. It looks like we'll need to see to it personally."
Alliah suddenly notices the look on Dustin's face.
"Hey, if you're not feeling up to it... Noone has to go if they don't want to. You can just make sure everything goes alright here."
Cutter stands up, gives Dustin a pat on the back and says, "You did good." He turns his attention to Alliah, "So what is needed?"
And if we can find any hint as to who sent these guys, Alliah thinks, all the better.
"I can stay behind. If that'll soothe people's minds."
After cleaning off his blade. He begins pressing a few precise buttons that causes it to morph in appearance to a small briefcase.
He stands up from his chair and begins to wait for an answer. As he does so he kneels over the Gef attempts to weigh his gauntlet and hand-canon. Perhaps seeing if he could possibly use it. His fixation almost seems like that of a kid at a candy store.
Cyril removes his thin alien-mask/hooded armor and hides it beneath his shirt.
Still, better them than me.
The rest of the impromptu team mills around, the one woman goes up to the cockpit briefly and returns, saying that they need to go and inspect the raiders' shuttle. Something about heat shielding. Terrence is about to volunteer to go and snoop around - that kind of job is more his speed anyway - when a thought strikes him.
"Um, maybe I'm just being stupid here, but didn't the raiders cut a great big hole in this ship? Couldn't that be a problem?"
Cyril realises that the Gef's spiked gauntlet is actually a prosthetic: a bionic hand fused to his skeletal structure.
The hand cannon is a sawn-off heavy weapon, usually used to combat vehicles. As a side effect of having lost most of its barrel, it now lacks the magnetic stability of other plasma weapons: as a result, the gun's firepower was unpredictable, and likely to vary with every shot.
Customised and damaged heavy weapon
Max 1 shot per post
Damage Capacity 1d20+5
+5 DC at very close range
Special: deals an additional 1N damage at damage levels where normal damage is applied.
Ignores up to 3 points of Armour.
Alliah shoulders her bag again and heads to the airlock.
"Yes, and a big one. We can think about ideas for that, but right now we should focus on getting the shuttle checked quickly. We're still being flown toward the planet's atmosphere."
"The rest of you, make sure the crew know that detaching from the shuttle is a sure way to kill everyone."
He smiles at Alliah (as she seems to be in charge) and her followers and says "We'll be fine here"'.
He turns and begins to walk down the aisles looking around seemingly arbitrarily.. He murmurs to himself
"...just have to figure out where to hide his before we land..." looking down as his newfound hand-cannon
"Of course. Hey, I can't stop you. My name's Alliah, by the way."
She heads through the airlock, cautiously.
Holding the one rifle at hand he reaches the airlock, and notices the woman's weapon. He picks that up as well then hesitantly moves to catch up with Alliah and company.
Identify/info roll on Woman's rifle: 1d20+7 → [9,7] = (16)