Escape Trajectory: Makkuro — IC

[benderfan]

Max opens the smaller door, ready for whatever might be behind it.

[Namelessjake]

Opening the smallest door, you find yourselves in a small antechamber with wires running across the floor between machinery built into the walls. There are two more doors, one to the right and one straight ahead. The one to the right opens up into another small room about the same size as the antechamber. A single chair sits in the centre of the room in front of a control panel, while all of the walls are covered in screens. Glancing at the controls, it appears this is a VR set up for remotely controlling some sort of mining equipment.

The other door is labelled "Life Support" and leads into a larger room filled with machines which hum as they maintain the station's climate and atmosphere. The life support room has another door which leads out into a long L-shaped corridor. A door at one end leads back to the storage room while a door at the other end leads deeper into the station.

Map

[ratwizard]

“Life support,” Cass says, taking a look around the outpost’s systems. “You remember if Holland said anything about hostages? If it’s just Hartjen and his buddy, we could just cut their air and wait for them to choke. Lot less chance to get murdered that way.”

[benderfan]

Max looks appalled. "Absolutely not! Suffocation is an awful way to die, I can't believe you would stoop so low!"
 

[ratwizard]

Cass coughs an unexpected laugh out, raising his arms in annoyance. “You’d rather put us in unnecessary danger because you empathize for this scumbag? A job’s a job. This pirate would understand if the tables were turned.”

This noble’s kind of daft, huh?

[Scratcherclaw]

"And a laser round through the chest is any more pleasant?" Hikaru says to the newcomer, raising an eyebrow at his unusual form of honor. He shrugs. "Not sure there's any way to die that's not awful." Old age, maybe.

 

[benderfan]

Max seems flustered. "I suppose it's not, but killing a man by cutting the life support just...it's just...dishonorable. A job may be a job, but there are better and worse ways of doing a job. Everyone deserves an honorable death, regardless of what they've done."

I of all people need to believe that.

"Besides, were we not supposed to uncover what he's doing here in the first place? Can't very well ask him if he chokes to death."

[ratwizard]

Cass breathes a long sigh. Yeah, and the objectively worse way to do a job is taking a bullet when you don't need to. Who gives a shit about honor if you're dead?

He considers the Anthean noble's culture, however, and the fact that the man seems unwilling to bend on this principle. I guess it's not as fun, the life support plan. Plus, maybe they have backup vacc suits. We could be out here a few days, and that would give them even longer to plan their escape. Or revenge.

"I don't really give a shit what they're doing out here," the engineer says, not quite remembering if that was part of the job duty or not. "I'm just here to get them off-station. And if that means we do it your way, that's fine. But you're taking point."

[Fialova]

"Well, as long as a bullet to the head is honorable enough for you," Tess says with a shrug, as it becomes clear that the life support idea is a non-starter for their new companion. I didn't lug this big gun here not to use it. Anything we can do to reduce our own risk is worth doing. No point in dying for some suits or some insane pirates. "Shall we continue, then?" she asks, looking expectantly between Cass and Max, hoping that they have reached an agreement.

[ratwizard]

"Yeah," Cass nods, agreeable. "Next door, Max?" he asks, nodding toward the one at the end of the L-shaped corridor.

[Scratcherclaw]

Hikaru shrugs along with Tess, knowing now's not the time to be discussing the morality and honor of their job. I guess chivalry can wait to die until Hartjen does first. He nods, clutching his pistol tightly despite his sweaty grip. "Yeah, let's keep moving."

 

[FinalTemplar]

Eridas grimaces as he grips his rifle tighter. Up until that point he had mostly stayed quiet, trying to fight back his nerves. Something doesn't feel right about this... He thinks, glancing around at the room they had found themselves in. The last few minutes had been a bit of a blur for him, as he parked the ship and walked in with them. He shudders, returning himself back to the present to catch the end of the conversation. "Honor, that's n-not a word I hear used very often..." He laughs a bit. "I almost forgot it was a concept people believed in." He steps forward towards the door, "We just gonna open it then?" He asks.

[ratwizard]

"The top brass in the League Navy talked about honor a lot, back on Alldis," Cass recounts. "Then they'd go home to their child sex slave. Tends to destroy the meaning of the word."

[Fialova]

Tess frowns as Cass mentions the navy and the corruption within. I knew they were fucked, but child sex slaves? What the hell? I guess I don't have to feel so bad if we have to kill some of them down the line. She looks to Max, waiting for him to take point once again.

[Namelessjake]

You continue to press on, deeper into the mining outpost, opening the next door. This opens up into a fairly large room. You immediately spot another smaller door across from you, and to your right a large grated door. Behind the grate you can see the rough surface of the asteroid itself and a deep pit which descends into the darkness, presumably an elevator shaft down into the mines themselves. A screen above the grate displays a readout indicating that the elevator is currently at the bottom of the mineshaft. There is another small door near the elevator, but your immediate attention is drawn to your left where a door to the main hanger is left open, unable to close due to a body lying over the threshold.

They are wearing a white Asteria jumpsuit, the torso of which has been stained red with blood. Looking further into the hanger you see more bodies, twelve in total, all apparently the Asteria Corporation miners that operated the outpost. Most still have their hands and feets bound and lay in a line along one of the hanger walls, although, like the one closest to you, a couple are unbound and scattered around the hanger.

Map

[Fialova]

Tess grimaces as the sight of the numerous corpses comes into view, and she instinctively covers her nose with her arm assuming there will be a smell. "Yeah, so I don't think honor is really something that Hartjen cares all that much about," she says, as she begins to make here way between the bodies to check if any seem alive. By the end of this job, either we or those pirates are going to add to this body count. Let's hop it is them and not us.

[ratwizard]

"Help me check for IDs," Cass says, trailing Tess as he goes from body to body. "If this isn't the whole crew, then there's a possibility that Hartjen might have taken hostages."

He looks for any identification placards, badges, keycards, or other Asteria-branded equipment on them.

OOC

How fresh does the blood and gore look? Should I roll for that?

[Scratcherclaw]

Hikaru's eyes widen as the first body comes into view, shocked but not entirely that there was a casualty at the hands of the pirates. His face turns pale and he grows nauseous, though, as the massacre comes into view. "Everyone deserves an honorable death, hm?" the pop star says to Max, trying to retain his composure as best as he can. Lagunov said he was a psycho, but I didn't expect this... Guess we know what kind of monster we're dealing with now.

 

[Namelessjake]

Cass

Lacking any medical training you're unable to pin point exactly how recently the miners were killed. Although the blood is still wet and you can still feel some warmth in the bodies as you search them, indicating it was at least somewhat recently. Searching the bodies you find most have Asteria ID cards either in their pockets or on lanyards around their necks. All of them are all wearing variations of the same Asteria branded clothing too.

Looking at the ID cards you find two that stand out from the other low level employees. A man and a woman, both from the execution line.

Arjun Asen - Lead Supervisor
Sariah Wangari - Head of Outpost Operations

[ratwizard]

This is pretty fucked, Cass thinks as he uncomfortably searches through the ID cards and placards from the slain mining crew. I hope Holland wasn't expecting any of these poor bastards to come back to work tomorrow.

"These bodies are still warm," he finally announces, peering down at two cards in particular as he flicks a bit of blood off of his jumper's cuff. "Hartjen even killed the lead super and the head of ops. If he was gonna take hostages, it probably would have been those two. What the fuck's his deal?"

[FinalTemplar]

Eridas continues to walk along, not really certain what everyone else had been reacting to. He went to speak as he turned and -- suddenly, what little remained of anything considered "food" in his stomach had been expelled onto the floor a few paces behind the party, seemingly not used to *that* much gore and viscera. He wiped his mouth but kept his eyes closed as he tried to regain his composure. "s...ss....s-shit." He muttered to himself.

[Fialova]

"Whatever he wants with this station, clearly he means to simply slash and burn. Though if these bodies are warm, that means he might have killed them after we took out their ship. They might be waiting for us if that's the case." Looking around the hanger, knowing the bodies are all dead, she notices the small side door in the hangar. "Where do you suppose that goes?"

[Scratcherclaw]

Hikaru tries to take a deep breath, a lump in his throat as he listens to Cass and Tess. "If he did, he's even more of a psycho than we thought." Cutting life support is sounding a lot more honorable by the minute. Fucking wannabe knight. He shrugs at Tess, eyeing the door uneasily, knowing they might be caught offguard at any moment. "Hard to say. But the elevator's at the bottom, so maybe it's safe to check?"

 

[ratwizard]

"Can't get a fix on if we're walking into a carefully-laid trap, or the indiscriminate slaughter from a pirate who knows he's fucked and just wants to have a little fun," Cass admits. He sighs, his eyes lingering on the empty shaft. I remember last time we played around on an elevator. I ended up with a quarter of my shoulder missing.

With a shrug, he nods toward the small side door. "Guess we can scope it out. Max?"

[Fialova]

"Well let's hope it's the latter," Tess says. "It will be easier to get that bullet in his head if he is not expecting us."

[Namelessjake]

Opening the small door, you find yourself in another L-shaped corridor with two doors along its length and another at the far end. The flooring and walls are different in this section of the outpost. They are still far from homely but they give off slightly less of a raw industrial feel that what you have seen of the station so far. Also in contrast to the rest of the station, the doors here are labelled.

The first is labelled 'Workshop' and opens up into a small but well equipped workshop, which looks to mostly be geared towards repairing mining equipment. The next door along the corridor is labelled 'Ops' and the door at the very end of the corridor is labelled 'Mess'.

Map

[ratwizard]

As they continue along, Cass eyes the labels above the doors. "We should check Ops first," he whispers. "They might be up to something."

[Fialova]

Tess nods, and as they head towards the OPs door, she stands near the corner and makes sure to watch the path leading further towards the mess. If anyone is in there still, and they here us, I'll be ready for them.

[Scratcherclaw]

"Yeah," Hikaru says plainly, glancing back a moment at the massacre in the hanger, the sight still weighing heavily on him. "Maybe they've got security cams we can check out or something. Anything to give us an upper hand."

 

[Namelessjake]

You head into the Ops room and find yourself in a fairly small room with several work stations and screens. The workstations are on but appear to be locked, needing a user name and password for access. There are two more labelled doors that lead out from this room.

One to the left is labelled 'Office' and opens into a small office space with a desk a several chairs. A locked safe sits in one corner of the room.

The other door is labelled 'Control Room' and opens into the glass windowed room you had previously seen from the Makkuro. Here there are more workstations which appear to mostly be for communications equipment. If you look to your left out of the reinforced glass windows you can see the Makkuro's engine bells as she remains docked to the outpost. Straining your eyes you can still just about make out the lights of the Blackstar and her salvage team as they investigate the remains of the Kyo Maru. The workstations here are also locked much like in the first room.

Map

[ratwizard]

The uneasy feeling in Cass' gut grows as they continue through the barren outpost. Where the fuck is this asshole?

He scans across the desks of the Ops room. "Security cams is a good call. I can work on that." Absentmindedly, he peers out the glass at the darkened shape of the Makkuro. He admires the slick patrol boat for a moment, until a horrible, intrusive thought enters his mind. What if they're not here anymore?

"Pia, Martine, Marko — come in," the engineer says through his compad. "We're not seeing these clowns yet, but be careful for boarders out there. Check the sensors, use visual scans, whatever you need."

[FinalTemplar]

Eridas chews on his lip as he hears Cass basically vocalize the fears he had. The taste of bile still lingers on his lips as he continues along, trying not to look at the viscera once more. He glances down at the mess hall door before looking over at Cass; "Should I head back? Is it safe to split up?" He asks, a fierce look on his face. "Ain't no one touchin' her." He says, trying to grip his pistol tighter in the hopes that it'll stop his shaking.

[Namelessjake]

"Hey, no sign of them here," Marko replies over your comms network after a few moments - probably of checking sensor readings. "The airlock door is locked waiting for you guys to come back. We can retract the boarding tube too if you're worried," he adds.

[Scratcherclaw]

Hikaru sighs, feeling the tension in the air. "Think it's safe to assume they're down in the mine. Why else would the elevator be down there?" The pop star shrugs, unsure what they'd want with the mine in the first place. That life support idea is suddenly looking a lot more appealing...

 

[Fialova]

"I agree," Tess responds. "Though we should still check the mess hall as well. If we don't see them in there, and there are no further doors, the mines are the only remaining option."

[ratwizard]

Cass nods. "Just being cautious. We don't know what this asshole's capable of." Before they move out of the ops room, he points at the computers. "If we take a few minutes, I can try to gain access to check for vid feeds. That will give them extra time to plan whatever they're up to, though."

He looks to the others, expecting an answer.

[FinalTemplar]

"Take your time, the information we find may be valuable enough to be worth giving them the extra head s-s-start." He says, trying to exude some confidence. "If we know where they are, we might be able to figure out what they're planning, too." He nods, looking at Cass.

[Fialova]

"Hopefully they are truly distracted by whatever it is they are doing, and not lying in wait for us. It would be nice if we could catch them off-guard, and maybe have the upper hand for once," she replies, rolling her eyes a bit as she thinks about how often they've been ambushed or otherwise caught off-guard themselves the last few days.

[ratwizard]

Cass nods, more content for now to hack the station's network rather than go toe-to-toe with a trained killer. He slips out his dataslab, flicking forward. An array of cybersecurity tools and apps fan out before him in holographic display. Let's do what I do best, he thinks, a smirk growing upon his stubbled chin.

Mechanics

Int/Hack: [3d6c1+2]=7+2=9

Will re-roll if fail via Expert class feature.

[Namelessjake]

Cass works his magic on the security workstation, like most of you have seen many times before now with the events of the previous few days. It takes him a couple of minutes but eventually he secures access and you are presented with the station's security systems, comprised of remote door locking and security cameras.

Opening the security cameras you are able to view all of the area you have explored so far as well as the mess, adjoining crew quarters and med bay. You can also see that the small door next to the elevator leads to a small room containing the main elevator mechanism.

Cycling through the different views you are immediately drawn to the view of the elevator, where you spot movement. The elevator has just arrived back at the top of the shaft and four armed figures are making there way out of it. Two of them appear to be wearing vacc suits with their helmets attached to their betls, while the other two appear to be two humanoid mechanical bodies - most likely VIs. One of the humans appears to be wounded, leaning on one of the VIs for support, and the other VI is missing an arm, a loose bunch of frayed wires dangling from its arm socket.

Hitting a button on the console in front of you, you are able to hear what the camera's mic can pick up.

"The fuck were those things?!? This wasn't mean to go like this. The Augury didn't mention any of this," the wounded man says through gritted teeth. "Zuri's fucking dead now too, what the fuck Damien?!?"

"When have they ever been specific? Forget it though, there's not much we can do about it now," the other man replies. "And don't cry over Zuri - she was going to bite it sooner rather than later. She wasn't cut out for this life... I'm not getting anything from the ships on my comms, are you?" he asks, fiddling around with a radio on his left shoulder.

Map

[ratwizard]

Cass winces as their target steps off the elevator, with more bodies than he was hoping for. "Fuck," he manages, before pointing to the VI's missing arm. "At least a couple of them are injured or damaged."

Stepping back from the screens, he spins to face the others. "What's the play here? We want to take them by surprise? We have a slight numbers advantage, too, but it still feels like a huge risk."

Here's hoping this noble wasn't lying about his skills.

[Fialova]

"I'm not sure, but we need to decide fast," Tess responds. "If they are trying to contact the Kyo Maru, chances are they're going to come here to do it. We could hide in a side room and ambush them, maybe? They clearly do not know we're here, and looks like they are shaken up by whatever did... that. It should be easy to take them off guard."

[Scratcherclaw]

Hikaru grimaces as their quarries come into sight. He eyes the vacc suits and helmets and sighs. Guess it's good we didn't rely on taking out life support then. He focuses on the screens for a moment before turning towards his companions. "That could work," he says to Tess, trying to think of the best possible play. "Could use that remote door locking to our advantage too, yeah?" He looks to Tess and Max, knowing they're the most skilled among them. "You two have the most experience here, so I'd say it's your play."

 

[Fialova]

Tess thinks for a moment, before responding, "they are injured and scared, and we don't want a fight if we don't need one. We should lock them in a place and negotiate if we can. Clearly something went on in the mines, and it would be smart to find out what before we leave here. Otherwise, the next people who come here might get hurt as well."

She pauses, before adding, "and if worst comes to worst, we can just leave them locked in place, cut life support, and leave knowing they are not going to be a problem anymore."

[ratwizard]

"Not a bad call," Cass says, jumping onto the system once more. "Let me see if there are any toys at our disposal here."

He quickly scans through the security suite, hoping for any kind of remote access to lock down specific parts of the station. There's gotta be something here.

[Namelessjake]

Cass

Scanning through the security systems it appears you have the ability to close or open any of the doors at will. You also are able to lock them although, from the state of the airlock on your way in, you surmise this would only slow down Harjten's crew rather than trap them.

You notice there are also controls for the outer hanger door and the airlock you entered through, although these presumably have further safeguards in place and would not open immediately.

[ratwizard]

"Looks like we can open, close, or lock down any of these doors," Cass says, working quickly through the systems, being very careful not to accidentally trip any buttons so while he explores. "We can slow them down, especially if we somehow get them into the airlock or hanger."

He thinks for a moment. "What if we locked them down, flanked them behind closed doors, and then tried to get them to surrender? We could use the intercom here to make demands."

[FinalTemplar]

Eridas nods. "I like that idea, Cass. Lock 'em in, make demands. They're not getting off this rock unless we let them." He smirks a bit, looking at the cameras.

[Scratcherclaw]

Hikaru nods along to Cass, liking the idea of playing it a bit safer against people like these. "Yeah, that seems smart," he says, still keeping an eye on the security feed. "Ruins our surprise, but they seem spooked enough as is. And it's not like they know how many of us there are." He shrugs. I wonder if tossing them into space is dishonorable to a certain wannabe gentleman too.

 

[benderfan]

Max nods in agreement. "That seems like the best solution. Keep them put, surround them, then demand their surrender."


Certainly better than choking them to death, at the very least...

"And as Mr. Hikaru says, they don't know how many of us there are. Perhaps we could employ some...tactical exaggeration in terms of our numbers."