Warner grabs his auto-saw, preparing to take action, whether that means saving a life or cutting it short. "Your call cap. Warner carefully moves towards the voice. "I'm a medic, Specialist Kuresa. Please stay with me. Say, who's your commanding officer?" Warner says to the dying soldier.
Info
I want Warner to 1. look for traps
2. try to quickly assess whether saving this person is realistic with the means we have at hand.
"If you think you can save her, by all means try," Hikaru says, giving the doctor a confirming nod to go ahead. "Just leave out the part of why we're out here." He looks toward the wreckage, frowning. I've seen enough crappy TV melodramas to know she's a goner if she's actually pinned. But maybe Doc can work a miracle.
"A medic?" the specialist asks, relief in her voice. "Um- my CO was Lt. Mendez, our tank commander. I'm pretty sure he's dead though,"' she adds.Warner
Please make a Wis/Notice check to look for traps, followed by an Int/Heal check to assess the trapped soldier (assuming the tank ends up being trap free.)
Cass takes an anxious breath, knowing his training offers him little to do while Warner triages the soldier. Instead, he sends the Black Owl higher into the air, scanning their perimeter for any approaching shuttles or land vehicles. Bad time to get rolled up on right now.
Moving carefully, but not seeing any mines, trip wires or other signs the damaged gravtank has been booby trapped, you make your way around the vehicle, finding one of the side hatches has been blown clean off its hinges.
Inside a gruesome scene awaits you. The interior of the tank appears to have been shredded by shrapnel. A body dangles limply from the gunners position in the turret, while the comms and command consoles have been sprayed red with blood and chunks of viscera, the source of which, a mangled corpse barely recognizable as human, rests slumped in the seat before the consoles.
In the pilot’s seat, towards the front of the tank, sits Specificalist Kuresa. You cautiously head inside the vehicle, getting close enough to assess her condition. She lets out a soft grunt of pain as you approach from behind as she tries to turn to see you.
Getting close, you can see that the front hull of the tank has been crumpled inward, crushing the young soldier in her seat. In addition she has been struck by several large pieces of shrapnel and has lost a significant quantity of blood.
As with most combat medicine, it is hard to be completely certain of a prognosis without the ability to run further tests and without the luxury of a fully equipped hospital, however in your medical opinion, wound is potentially survivable.
Her legs are without a doubt past saving at this point, but if safely cut free of the wreckage you believe you would have a chance at stopping the bleeding and stabilizing her, although even with that she would likely need to get to a hospital as soon as possible to have a realistic chance of survival.
"Got eyes on her, Doc? How you doin', Specialist'?" Kate asks grimly, images of all the cockpit cleanups she's done in the past flashing behind her eyes. People, soldiers, friends, crushed and smeared, their bodies mulched by the armaments of the opposing war machines. She fights down the bile at the back of her throat and continues working on the capacitor, grateful for the focus the project gives her.
"Just keep talking to me Specialist Kuresa. What I am going to do, is probably going to hurt like hell and it's important that you stay awake. It helps to tell me a story, like what where you doing today? Warner says in a calm and friendly tone. I'm going to keep her alive for now if her story is good. If not, I hope Mendez didn't destroy the logs. thinks as he prepares to amputate the woman's legs.
"Ok I can do that," the woman replies. "It was yesterday. There's a group of enemy scouts camped out somewhere in this area. We were sent out on patrol to try and flush them out. They got the drop on us though. Hit us hard in the ambush. I don't remember to much - we got hit in the second volley, as we were trying to work out what the fuck was going on. After that, stuff gets hazy. Some of the guys must have made it out of their tanks though, I remember hearing small arms fire for a while. You guys find anyone else?"' she asks as she follows Warner's instruction.Mechanics
Warner: Assuming you are performing the amputation, make a Dex/Heal or Int/Heal check.
Eridas is shaken as he follows behind. She's right... I'm the least capable here. Besides the mine, I've never been proper boots on the ground. I've never been this close to a... He hesitates, hearing the call. A survivor? We're not gonna just... let her bleed out, are we?" Eridas leans forward; he lets out a slow, steady breath. His eyes move away from the wreckage, and instead watches the sky for an ambush.
"Hey, beratna, take this for me, yeah?" Cass murmurs to Eridas, carefully handing over the drone remote to him or anyone else with an open hand. "Just keep it in the air, and eyes on the sky."
"Doc!" he calls, stepping carefully around the wreckage to follow after the man. "Let me give you a hand here. Just tell me what you need." He grimaces as he goes, still fearful of a tripmine. Fuck, man, I've seen some nasty warvids from the frontline. Please let it just be one of us leaving here without their legs today.
Mechanics
Aid Warner's check, whenever he's ready for it. Int/Fix to try and loosen and excise any willing pieces of cockpit panel to give him more room to work: Int/Fix: [2d6+3]=8+3=11
Fuck, last thing I needed, a set of eyes. "Thanks, the drone can help holding my equipment." Warner shouts back. Guess this means doing everything to keep her alive for now.
"From the looks of it, some got away, some didn't" Warner replies to his patient, trying to calm her without telling obvious lies. "If there's anything that needs to be said, whether professional or personal, tell me now. You should be fine, but there's a high chance that you won't wake up from the meds for a couple of days."If there's any valuable intel left that can be distracted here and now, she'd better speak it.
Mechanics
Warner performs the field surgery after giving the soldier a chance to speak her mind.
Int/Heal[3d6c1+2]=7+2=9
*Warner has a medkit on hand.
"If I don't make it, have them tell my family I died in the fighting. That it was quick and painless," she tells Warner, before the medic starts his work. Cass' help proves invaluable, as he is able to strip away parts of the wreckage granting Warner better access to the soldier's crushed legs.
Working quickly, he preps Kuresa, administering painkillers before cutting away her uniform and applying tourniquets above his planned amputation. The cut is made quickly and efficiently, though despite the painkillers Kuresa's agony can still be heard outside of the tank before she passes out from a combination of the drugs and the pain. Unconscious but still alive, she is tended to by Warner, who stops the bleeding and stabilises her, before finally pulling her from the wreckage with Cass' aid.
As the unconscious woman is laid out on the sand, stable but in need of urgent further medical care if she is to survive, Kate finishs disconnecting the gravtank's operational gravitics, giving her the parts needed to try and enact her plan of jury rigging the container to make it over the chasm.
"God damn miracle worker, Doc." Kate says, once the specialist is extracted, stable, and unconscious. "I got what I need, let's bug out before any of her buddies show up." She hoists the grav stabilizer onto her back, secured against her pack, glancing at the others before heading back to the original wreck to pick up the parts stashed there.
So much for opsec, I guess. If she makes it, hope she don't remember my name. Didn't need a half-corpse, but maybe she'll be useful. She muses, her boots crunching on the dried earth and dust.
Cass ignores the soldier's screams and the whir of the buzzsaw, instead focusing his efforts on stripping the wreckage. Can't imagine being a battlefield medic. This is horrible.
He helps transfer the injured lieutenant to the sand, looking at her with pitying eyes — though already is his mind processing ways that she might be useful to their efforts, or a risk to them. "If we're gonna carry her, we'll need to improvise a stretcher. I'm sure we can find something from what I just tore out of that thing. Other option is leave her here, put up a beacon, and divert Eedlon away from where we're headed." He glances over at Kate. Is that a gravitic stabilizer? Damn, that's clever."You gonna strap that thing on the box?"
"Let's just find something quick," Hikaru says, grimacing as he looks over the unconscious body. "Wouldn't want her waking up and asking too many questions either." He frowns, looking toward the wreckage site for anything that might prove useful. This is out of my wheelhouse though. Someone else can make this stretcher. That's what delegation is, right?
"Not sure about a beacon anyway." The idol voices his concerns. "Sounds risky, ya know? Like, they'll wonder who set the beacon and see the obvious footprints in the sand."
"Get her a stretcher, I can't be expected to work miracles by myself." Warner orders the group as he carefully lifts out his patient. "Cass, need you in here for a sec." Warner gestures Cass to follow him inside the destroyed vehicle makeshift operation room. Cass, if he follows Warner in
"CO was Lt. Mendez. That might be the Lt., not sure." an unfazed Warner tells Cass as he points to the mangled corps behind the comms and command console. "Think you can extract the logs?"
"You got it, Doc," Cass answers, turning to Kate over his shoulder. "Chief, you think you can take care of that stretcher?" He follows Warner into the tank wreck. Warner
"Sure, so long as the electronics didn't take a tank round. Better question is if I can pull the logs before Eedlon shows up. What's your play here?"OOC
Is there an appropriate interface to try and pull the logs from? I do have my dataslab, and the Hacker focus level 1. Int/Program?
Searching the wreckage for something that could be used as a stretcher, you quickly find a hatch door, blown from the wreckage, that could serve as one Cass
There are a couple of consoles in varying conditions inside the gravtank. Most appear to relate to weapon control and other elements of operating the vehicle, but one has enough recognisable controls for you to understand it is likely the comms and command console. It does appear damaged, and currently turned off, but your dataslab should be able to provide enough power to have a chance at ripping some of whatever data remains.Mechanics
Cass slides out a dataslab from his pack, hooking it into what appears to be the central comms unit for the gravtank. He begins tapping at his screen hastily.Mechanics
""Intel is gold out here. I for would like to find out who in this area has the power to so decisively destroy an Eedlon tank squad. And if nothing else, we can always make a quick buck at an information broken." Warner replies as he casually wipes off the guts from the consoles. ""But you're right, no time to be thorough. I will go help with the patient, let's discuss your findings later." Warner continues, before heading out the vehicle.
Some of the data is corrupted and inaccessible, likely due to it being erased from the gravtank's databanks by shrapnel physically destroying the storage, while the data that does remain is heavily encoded with military grade encryption.
No stranger to such encryption measures, running several of your homegrown programs you are able to crack the security measures and gain access to the data.
It would take some time to properly sift through what you have, but at a glance you are able to find several maps, reconnaissance data and mission reports, along with other information on maintenance and supply schedules for the tank section.
Cass works quickly, the threat of more soldiers arriving on the scene spurring him forward. It's not everything but it's enough, he thinks, tapping in a command to extract the surviving, unencrypted contents onto his dataslab. I'll pick through it later with Warner. Maybe some of this will stand out to him.
Disconnecting his device, Cass leans back and stretches his back for a moment — the cramped interior not doing much for his posture. He climbs back out of the tank wreck, stepping back over to Creed. "I can take that back, thanks beratna. We ready to haul her?" he asks, nodding toward the unconscious soldier.
Tess flinches at the screams from Warner's operation. While used to the pain and death of her job, she is not used to the targets being so acutely aware of the pain. Damn, that is horrible. An amputation in piece of battlefield wreckage, all without being put under first? Just fucking shoot me before that happens, she thinks. Not confident she will be any help with their prisoner, she instead keeps her eyes on their surroundings, mag pistol at the ready in case anyone comes looking for the source of the screaming. We definitely need to get the fuck out of here fast, though. We just came so Kate could do some quick looting, now we have a body to lug around? This is a bad idea.
"She's out?" Tess asks, when the screaming stops from within the ruined tank. "Forget beacons or any more scraps, let's get out before we get spotted. We've already been here for too long." With Cass' words to Kate, he goes to aid the other woman with the stretcher. This is taking way too much time and energy. Should've just shot her and been done with it.
"That's the plan, sir," Kate responds, touching the end of a cigarette with an arc from her metatool, sparking the cherry to life. "I'm thinkin' the two of them should be enough to jump us over."
Her mouth purses as Cass asks for her help with the not-technically prisoner of war. Can't ya see I'm tryin' t' carry the parts? Ah well, I suppose I can carry her for a stretch, maybe ask one of the others to grab the other part. But would they handle it as carefully as I would? She muses, watching the two men extract the specialist from the wreck.
"Agree, no beacons. Too much time, too much attention." She says, setting herself to lift in tandem with Tess. "Why're we carryin' her, they're the ones that want to bring her along, and I got parts to carry. She asides to herself, just loud enough that only Tess would hear, if she were listening.
"Boys will be boys," Tess responds, shrugging as much as she can with the weight of the stretcher in her hands. "Let them play the hero, it makes them feel good."And a prisoner could be useful, either as a way to ingratiate our employers to us even further, or as a barganing chip if encountering the enemy. Not exactly a bad plan, but certainly way more complicated than just ending here and being done with it. She sighs, but continues on. This planet sucks, hopefully we can get off it soon.
"Hmm..well i got a idea." he says as he tosses his LMG onto the cargo box and then he hops onto it bracing himself "I have a weird feeling so i will chill up here and provide suppressing fire." Kaze looks amongst everyone and then he scans the area with his LMG at the ready
Active Pcs
Boulder(Pohaku) Kairon Lergaros, The Shaded Jester Eldrin Stormblade, Tempest-born Avenger Kaze Mori the Gunpowder Titan Tāne "Blade" Kauri
With Kaze atop the container, and with Kate and Tess carrying the wounded soldier on the makeshift stretcher, you head back towards the canyon, collecting the rest of Kate's salvage along the way, and soon reach its edge once more. The horizon remains thankfully clear of movement, for now, however the canyon still remains an obstacle with only Kate's plan as a potential way crossing.Kate
"We should test this thing before we commit," Cass advises. He looks down the canyon, frowning at the bottom far below. This is a risky plan. But backtracking and then walking through that deathtrap might be worse.
OOC
How many of us could fit on top of the lift at one time?
Good thing we don't have anyone who wants to kill each other or we'd be in a wolf, goat, and cabbage puzzle.
The grav container is about double the size of an irl shipping container and is rated for 100 tons of cargo. With your cargo weighing 50 tons, space and weight shouldn't be a concern and you should all fit.
"Yeah, last thing I wanna be is dying in a pile of scrap like her," Hikaru says, cocking his head toward their rescued enemy soldier. "I doubt anyone passing by would give us the same mercy." He looks to Kate, crossing his arms anxiously. "You're sure this'll work, yeah?" She's proved herself before. She's smart. I just hope she's thought this through.
"If it makes 'em feel better." Bein' a hero usually gets ya killed, though. Kate murmurs back, focused on not dropping the unconscious woman. "Ain't much testing we can do, trip's gonna be one-way if we don't go with." Kate says to Cass, after setting the wounded soldier down and approaching the grav container. "But, we've already spent this much time, we're about as committed as we can be. If you really want to make sure, you can double check my wirings and such." She adds with another glance to the other engineer.
She gets to work, searching the thing over for the optimal placements for the stabilizers, running wires and soldering them into place, fastening things down and securing them into place. "I'm about as sure of this as I can be, Captain. She ain't gonna be pretty, but field work rarely is. If y'all didn't want to die, shoulda stayed back on the ship." She says from the dust underneath the grav container. That was harsh, they ain't been to war, I'm sure this is all new to them. Well, except Cass, but he was intelligence, they never see any real action. And Tess has at least been in some scrapes, but I dunno if she's seen anything at this scale. Kaze maybe, Doc maybe too, but I dunno much about them in general. So, I guess its just Captain and Creed who are fully green. Now, where were we... Oh, there you are, socket A, meet cable C. Kate loses herself in her thoughts, her mechanical training taking over, leaving her free to muse about her new crewmates while she works.
"Nah," Cass says with a wave of his free hand. "You don't need me checking your wiring. You're the better welder anyhow. If you say it's safe, I trust you."
A lump tightens in his throat, but the assurances of the ship's doctor at least placate him somewhat.
"Let's hope this is the most dangerous thing we'll do today," he says with a sigh as he climbs aboard the grav container, continuing to pilot the Black Owl above and beside them.
Kate works quickly and the base of the grav container is soon a mess of wires, hooking up the salvaged stabilisers to the containers flight control systems and power cell. What it lacks in appearance however, it appears to have in functionality, as once the mechanic is done the grav container sits noticeably higher off the ground than it did before. Despite its apparent effectiveness, such jury rigged equipment is likely to burn out after a significant stress test, meaning you probably only have one attempt at crossing the gorge atop the container.
"Fuck it. If we've only got the one shot, let's do it," Hikaru says, eyeing the floating container warily. Just gotta trust her. Besides, better to go out on our own terms instead of in a Diktat prison camp or something. He climbs atop the container, still hoping their one-way trip is as safe as Kate assures.
The stretcher carrying the wounded Eedlon soldier is carefully lifted atop the grav container before the last of you climb aboard. Holding on as best you can, Kate urges the container forward. As it goes over the edge of the caynon, it shudder and dips slightly as the gravitics struggle to keep it level. Kate's adhoc rigging up of the gravtank stabilisers seems to work though, as metre by metre the container slowly crosses the gap.
After a few tense seconds, that seem like an age, the container levels out once more as it floats over solid ground once more. A pause of silent relief is suddenly cut short as the salvaged gravtank parts spark violently before several loud popping noises are heard - the jury rigged booster giving out after its short maiden flight.
As Hikaru steps back onto solid ground, he feels a weight lifted from his mind and shoulders. Oh thank god... If that canyon were a fit wider... But we made it. He looks to his crew, trying to play it cool despite internal anxiety. "Not bad. Nicely done, Kate. Let's keep moving then, yeah?"At least anyone following on foot would have to take the long way around.
Cass' stomach lurches when the stabilizers struggle against the weight and size of the container, but he grits his teeth and holds on. Then, it's over. Can't believe that worked. Here's hoping we have an alternate route back that doesn't take the rest of the day.
"Good shit, Chief. Your talents were wasted at Asteria," he says with an uneasy grin. With a free hand, he does his best to help the injured soldier down — unfortunately quite nominal in effect.
"C'mon baby, just a lil more, you can do it, you can make it, I believe in you." Kate murmurs, as the grav container holds itself aloft across the canyon. Her ears keyed into the pitch of the grav stabilizers, she waits for a change or a break or something going wrong, sending them to their doom. As the ground comes into view, and the first few telltale snaps of wires and capacitors burning out sound from the improvised additions, she breathes a sigh of relief. Oh thank fuck she held. Should probably get all that junk off before we get there, don't want them thinking we tampered with the contents. Too bad they didn't last, I coulda made a gravbike out of them. She thinks as she climbs down and disconnects the important bits before starting to clear the rest of it off hurredly.
"Thanks y'all, just gotta clean up a bit then we'll be off. 'S a whole lot easier to take off, just gotta make sure all the original connections are good and then you can just start stripping it." She replies, rambling about the technical details in place of properly accepting the compliments and praise. She does awkwardly return Cass' grin, before ducking back around the grav container.
Creed keeps quiet, and just watches as the others do their tasks. He passes the drone back to Cass, and walks with the others. After crossing the gap, he sits back and knows he isn't much help here. He scratches the back of his head awkwardly, desperately missing the comfort of his pilot's seat. We'll all be back at the ship eventually. Everything is fine... He thinks, and mourns the amount of walking he still has to do. He tries his best not to complain outwardly, but through his motions and silence, it's very clear he's not having a good time.
With the grav container stripped of its temporary parts, you continue forward, entering another cluster of rock formations, similar to the one you passed through on the other side of the canyon. You get a few hundred metres when, as you round one of a giant stone pillars, you spot a man crouched down behind another large rock, as if hiding or taking cover from something on the other side. A drone of his own, smaller than the Black owl, floats over his head, occasionally darting quickly in and out of the cover. While still a little far to make out the finer details of the man's appearance, he looks to be dressed for a fight, though not in a military uniform, and holds a combat rifle of some kind in his hands.
"Hey! Who ever you are, don't shoot!"The man suddenly calls out to you - seven strong and with a grav container in tow, your shore party is fairly conspicuous up close.
"Get over here, but don't step out from this rock, not if you're fond of your current head," he shouts, waving you over to him.
Cass takes cover in the rocky outcropping, immediately on alert. With Warner taking point, the tech instead works on his drone control unit, piloting the Black Owl into a better angle to peer around the rocks at whoever might be pinning the stranger down. This is about to get a lot more complicated, he considers, shaking his head in exasperation. Mechanics
Who the fuck's this guy? Hikaru wonders, eyeing the man carefully. And what's he doing out here by himself? He stays silent for the moment, hoping to get some answers. Hope he's not the enemy. That'd be fucking awkward.
"We can talk - talking's good," the man shouts back in reply to Warner, as Cass pokes the Black Owl above the rocks to begin surveying the situation ahead.
"Look, I don't really care who you are, I'm not out here for you - I'm a Shikari," the man adds, identifying himself as belonging to the Anthean guild of bounty hunters. Cass
You cautiously pilot the Black Owl, cresting the rocky outcropping. You can see the man and his drone, which appears to be a Stalker variant, armed with a submachine gun and advanced racing style gravictics.
Ahead you can see that once again the cluster of rocky pillars give way to some open terrain, where you spot a small off-road buggy not too far away - mostly likely the way the pinned down man got here. Further in the distance, another offshoot of the main canyon cuts across your path, however, this time the gap is thankfully bridged by what looks to be an ancient sandstone bridge, weathered and crumbling slightly but clearly still standing and structurally sound.
Near the bridge, about 800 metres from your current position, sits a small ruined tower of a similar construction and age to the bridge. As you are surveying the crumbling tower, you spot the flash of a weapon being fired. With quick reflexes, you dart the Owl back down behind the cover of the rocks.
Cass suddenly darts the Black Owl back down into cover and a split second later you hear the whizz of a round passing overhead followed by the crack of a weapon firing in the distance.
"That's who I'm here for," the Shikari shouts, hearing the sound of gunfire. "It'd be a lot easier to do this without having to yell."
Cass curses under his breath as he pilots the Black Owl back into cover. "Sniper nest, 800 meters out, right next to a bridge across the canyon," he whispers to those near him. "The position seems improvised, but who's to say they don't have an emplaced MG up there too. We should be really fucking careful, here."
Glancing around at his companions and their gear, he nods at Tess. "Hey, maybe you can get a closer bead? See how many we're dealing with? I can draw their attention off you with the drone, give you maybe three seconds."
He cocks his head toward the voice. "As for that guy, he's fucked without our help. I say we use it to our advantage. Sniper fodder or a paid rescue, it's your call."
