"This was a bad idea." Ate muttered as she stood at the threshold of a room that had been flash frozen by a coolant leak... and then set on fire.
Trying to find a way to medical through the front of the ship sounded like a good idea at the time, but almost every turn she had made since deciding on it had been a dead end filled with some kind of horrible occurrence... Like the room full of burning ice that was sitting in front of her right now. The other path was "only" crushed flat, though a raging inferno blocked it from view of the corridor to Medical and Engineering. She'd had to navigate the forward Mess [which was… a mess, to say the least], to even see it.
With a very human huff of frustration Ate turned around and marched back to the mess bay that was actually in one piece. At this point she had half a mind to just walk straight to medical. Surely a plasma bolt to the face would be less of an annoyance than the way this ship seemed to block her every move.
With a silent set of transmitted orders she had her mostly operational mech take up a guard position, while her undamaged fodder bot lifted her up and stuffed her into the vent.
The place was dusty and cold but that hardly even registered to her as she carefully picked her way through. The tunnel was noisy, the thin metal popping and banging with every move she made, her stinger was held up in front of her like some kind of talisman to keep any more 'bugs' she ran into at bay.
When she passed her first junction in the system she noted that her anxiety was spiking. The simple T junction was deceptive in it's apparent harmlessness as every additional path to get behind her increased the chances that something would be able to rush up behind her before she could turn the stinger around. She reached inside of her coat and fished out one of her pistols. It was awkward to crawl with both hands full but she didn't want to risk ending up getting mauled.
She carefully crawled over a grate that opened up in one of the corridors, almost directly over the squad of JFC mechs. She watched them for a moment. The Squires were standing stock still with their weapons pointed in the most vulnerable directions while a larger Knight stood at the middle of their formation, mantis like arms ready to slice apart enemies with its Aetheric Blades, while its 'normal' arms held an Aetheric Blaster. She made extra sure to move very slowly to avoid making any noise as she passed them.
Finally the opening to medical loomed ahead of her. She could see the bleach white walls and the bright lights. She passed another junction, scooting along faster than before... only this time her fears came true. A faint screech of metal drew her eyes behind her and the large dark lump, flexing its mandibles as it rested at the junction she had just passed made her freeze. She started to scoot backward slowly, turning her stinger around as she went. She... didn't want to think about the possible damage firing an aetheric weapon in such tight quarters would do... it would probably kill the monster yes, but it might also super heat the air and blast her into medical like a shot from a cannon.
An entrance her father might appreciate but would still be best to avoid...
The thing slowly flexed its legs and squeezed around the ninety degree turn, slowly crawling closer to her. Did it not see her?
She scooted along faster, until she finally bumped into the grate, behind which was medical... and either a swift death at the hand of JFC mechs... or safety, also at the behest of JFC mechs...
Why the hell were these the only choices?
She pressed her back into the flimsy metal and it bent quite a bit before the grate popped out of it's mount and fell to the floor, with her along for the ride.
A human might have been disoriented by the impact with the floor enough to miss the mechs standing around the room turning towards her but even a human reeling from smacking their head on the floor wouldn't have missed the ball of plasma flying over her head and frying the alien that was hanging halfway out of the hole she had just fallen out of.
"Unknown Construct; you are not authorized to carry that weaponry. Please disarm yourself at once." Her savior - a JFC Squire - requested… remarkably cordially, all things considered. Behind it, a Knight loomed ominously. Around the room, she saw another Squire, several wrecked Auto-Docs, and… a functioning Auto-Doc, complete with human patient.
She was… a bit short, really. Probably wasn't terribly taller than Ate herself.
She was also being sedated by the Auto-Doc. On the bright side; if she was reading the display right they were probably stable.
The Squire prevented her from examining them much further, however. "Unknown Construct; Please disarm yourself. This warning will not be repeated."
Right… that.
Dropping her weapons, Ate raised her hands nervously.
"Thank you. Please identify yourself." ...well, unsurprising, but… Hm.
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Please choose one of the following three choices.
[] - Lie. Ate will attempt to back her lie up with her CWS as necessary. She may fail, but she might be able to acquire certain privileges depending on the Lie. The Higher the Reward; the Higher the Risk. The Lower the Reward; the Lower the Risk.
-[] Write-In a Lie.
[] - Tell the truth. Ate will probably be corralled to the brig, her weapons confiscated, to await the Survivor's awakening.
[] - Ignore the Mech. She might be able to get away with this for a while, but what would she do?
-[] In Favor of...? (Write-In).
Voting will close on Saturday this time; at 11 PM as per usual. In part because we feel this may be a point where you should discuss your options… and in part because we kind of want to take a little time off from the Quest, lol. [Mostly me (Aeir), probably; I've been using pretty much all my after-work time on it, so… I don't want it to feel like a second job.]
Please don't hesitate to ask questions, as always. I'll work on catching up on various Codexes I haven't written in spare time in the meanwhile. Perhaps on that note, is there one in particular you guys would like to see?
As an aside; Radon was responsible for most of this Update save the very end, so please give him your regards.
(And ghost spiders.)
I was working on an NPC in the meantime.
