As Witnesses to Allah [Original Mecha Quest]

[Havocfett]

Skill Scale

1: Untrained: You either have no training or no education in this skill
2: Green: You've received basic training and maybe some sort of certification, but you don't actually know what you're doing. [100 XP]
3: Trained: The baseline competence a professional has in their occupation. A character may only take 3 skills above this level. [100 XP]
4: Adept: Whether through natural talent or early success, this pilot has proved themselves to be a cut above the rest. Upon reaching this rank, a pilot gains a new perk at Rank 0. [400 XP]
5: Veteran: A level of skill only achieved through sustained experience and grueling effort. A character may only take 2 skills above this level, and requires narrative justification to do so. [800 XP]
6: Ace: A title given to the most skilled pilots. Upon reaching this rank a pilot gains a new perk at Rank 0. [2000 XP]
7: Champion: A level of skill that marks one as a cut above the rest on an interstellar scale. A character may only take 1 skill above this level, and requires narrative justification to do so. [3200 XP]
8: Ace of Aces: You are unparalleled at this skill. You may well be the best there is, you are certainly the best in the Rubicon War. Upon reaching this rank, a pilot gains a new perk at Rank 0. [6400 XP]

Background, Perks, and Subordinates

Every character has a background, one or two pseudo-skills that represent where they came from and what skillsets they've picked up along the way. Unlike your HASE skills, Backgrounds provide 1 Perk at Rank 3. Characters generally start with 1 background and might pick up a second.

Perks are techniques, specialized skillsets, and personal augmentations that enhance a character in specific ways. They unlock specific and powerful abilities, albeit ones that are often specialized.

Subordinates are groups of people who fulfill an important roll but are too numerous to be mechanized as a character. Squads of grunt mechs, engineering teams, marine detachments, bridge crew, and diplomatic staff. They'll be sparse to begin with, but ever more important as you recover from your initial losses. Their level can be reduced by casualties, at least until those casualties are replenished.

Additionally, Backgrounds, Perks, and Subordinates use a much smaller experience scale.

Beginner: [250 XP]
Intermediate: [750 XP]
Master: [2000 XP]

As Shahid's sheet cannot be changed by XP expenditure, it is going to serve as an example:

Abdulrahman Shahid

H: 5 [MAX]
A: 7 [MAX]
S: 8 [MAX]
E: 3 [MAX]

Spoiler: Backgrounds

War-world Supersoldier: [MAX]
The war would not end, and so to win they made a better gun. You were that gun, and the war did not end anyways. You would only learn why years later, when you met Hina Ayub, that better guns would never deal with the long-standing problems of the planet of Ain Jaloot. Still, when it comes to personal scale murder and physical excellence you are far beyond the human peak.

Commander [MAX]
You've been an officer for years now, and you're good at it. You have command experience from a single squad to an entire wing of mechs, and slot in easily to the role of mission commander aboard the Midgard Serpent. Tactical decisionmaking, managing subordinates, and human management may not have come naturally to you, but they're skills you've painstakingly trained and honed to be among the best in your field.

Spoiler: Perks

Last Argument of Kings [MAX]
SEN 8 Perk

Electronic compromise is never a good thing for the victim. Skilled EWar specialists can futz sensors, disable guidance systems, even spoof and jam comms. You've developed a signature electronic-warfare suite to let you do more. To get you access to the innermost functions of most mechs, allowing you to force partial shutdowns, simulate overheats and, for the best EWar specialists in the galaxy, force a meltdown.

Mastery Bonus: Last Argument of Kings allows you to do the unthinkable. Against a sufficiently electro-compromised foe, you can force their reactor into meltdown resulting in a horrific and invariably lethal detonation that will consume the target mech and possibly those around it. This is bound by range, electronic compromise, and the Engineering of the target.

Dead-Zone Effect [MAX]
SEN 6 Perk
Sensors are exactly what they say they are, sensor suites, and you are the master of their manipulation. You know how they work, how they communicate with other systems, and how to exploit them. By feeding them manipulated data, you can even temporarily overload their communication and sensor systems.

Mastery Bonus: You can deploy an elaborate basilisk-hack against all sensor systems in an area around you. It disables comms and causes non-visual sensors to give their pilots junk data. Pilots and ship crew are forced to rely on eyeballs, cameras, and instinct, while smart and drone weapon systems fail entirely. Systems will overcome the hack in time, but the process makes them more vulnerable to electro-compromise. Your Ghul Drones are pre-adapted to this environment, you may control them and interact with your teammates with impunity while in any Dead-Zone or jamming area

Until you regain access to GHUL KING or can assemble replacement Ghul Drones, you cannot control Drones while the Dead-Zone Effect is active.

Hive-King [MAX]
SEN 4 Perk
Drone Warfare is no longer the king of the battlefield it once was, but it's still a potent tool. The ability to attack a foe from all directions, the ability to repair, scout, and lay ambush remotely, the ability to drop sentries over an objective or VIP while you fight. All remain useful abilities, and you are their master.

Mastery Bonus: you may remote-pilot allied Mechs who have had appropriate software installed. They are not as effective as piloted mechs, but are still lethal combatants. In addition, you can maintain control of drones outside of a mech and can use them as intensifiers for electronic warfare attacks.

You have suffered a multiple aneurysm due to involuntarily taking control of eight warmechs when the Kipling was attacked. The implantations that allowed you to remote-pilot mechs and control drones on foot has been disabled until repaired. Instead, this skill 'merely' makes you a preternaturally skilled drone controller.

The Quick and the Dead [MAX]
AGI 6 Perk

You are an inveterate skirmisher. You can squeeze speed out of a mech that lesser pilots don't even realize is there, navigate rough and hazardous terrain with ease, and control the range between you and opponents with less AGILITY.

Mastery Perk: In a standoff you always draw first, and no matter your speed or turbulence you always maintain deadly accuracy. You gain a phase-cloak, a pilot-scale maneuverability system that desynchronizes you with reality for a short period of time. You cannot see or interact with people while desynchronized, and they cannot do the same to you.

You burned out the Phase-Cloak to take the bridge of Midgard Serpent.

Titan-slayer [MAX]
AGI 4 Perk

Spacecraft, fortifications, superweapons, all fear the humble warmech. Pilots like you are why. You are intimately familiar with all the ways to kill fortifications and large spacecraft. You know where the weak-points in their armor are, where to fire to kill gunnery crews, core bridges, and down towers.

Mastery Bonus: Large fortifications and point-defense weapons cannot hit you unless you are distracted or pinned down by other forces. You are, for all intents and purposes, immune to them.

Close Quarters Energy Release [MAX]
HUL 4 Perk

Energy weapons suffer the travails of range more keenly than other projectiles. The farther they are from their target, the more energy bleeds away into the void, even in the dead of space. Rather than try and mitigate this weakness, you revel in it. Your energy weapons are tuned for near-point-blank firing and deal greatly increased damage at this range.

Mastery Bonus: Close-range energy weapon attacks disrupt an opponent's electronic defenses, making them more vulnerable to electro-compromise and Systems attacks.

Four Horsemen [MAX]
COMMANDER 3 Perk

The best commanders bring out the best in their subordinates, and merely being in your presence inspires your soldiers to greater heights. While deployed in a mech, everyone else in your Squadron gains a significant boost to combat effectiveness due to your mere presence. This only applies to your four-mech squadron..

Mastery Bonus: You may choose characters as Heralds as the story progresses. These characters double all Experience invested into them and increase the rank of non-Master subordinates they command by 1.

Over the course of the story there will be a total of three Heralds, two of which you will pick.

Bred For War [MAX]
WAR-WORLD 3 Perk

You are an impossible monster, built for battle and let loose on countless foes. You kill and kill and kill and kill and when the forces necessary to stop you are finally arrayed you reveal that you have more yet to do, and kill them too. You are fast beyond belief, and skill, speed, and incredible augmentation allow you to slaughter enemies that outnumber you by far.

Mastery Bonus: These bonuses extend even into the pilot seat. You can withstand punishment that would kill others, accelerations impossible for a normal human, and react before your sensors even recognize what's happening.

 

[Cornuthaum]

You have suffered a multiple aneurysm due to involuntarily taking control of eight warmechs when the Kipling was attacked. The implantations that allowed you to remote-pilot mechs and control drones on foot has been disabled until repaired. Instead, this skill 'merely' makes you a preternaturally skilled drone controller.

Click to shrink...

I take it that his headache level is between "Argh" and "Aaaaaargh", with a light side order of "I technically have a blinding migraine but the implants mean I still retain visual feed but wish I didn't"?

 

[Cornuthaum]

[x] Take the helm and tell Shorn to deploy. You'll put the Midgard Serpent and its jamming between the Pulsar and your shuttle while Shorn suits up and drives it off. (Risk Shorn, protect the Shuttle)

We can't guarantee that she'll survive. But we'll damn well both do our best to make sure that as many of our friends, our colleagues, our acquaintances, that the survivors on the shuttle will get to live and breathe a few minutes more at the very least.

Later, when Shahid and Shorn have a few minutes of free time, then they can weep for the fallen, pray for them or themselves or the living or the future, then, in those minutes, they can decompress, but for now both Shorn and Shahid are still Pilots in an active warzone and that means fight.

 

[Havocfett]

REACTOR - ONLINE
THRUSTERS - ONLINE
WEAPON SYSTEMS - ONLINE
SENSOR GRID - ONLINE
ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL

Girls and others, you are Shorn. You are angry, you are armed, you have someone to protect, and you have a duel to win and that means that you are in your fucking element for the first time today. Sure, a Pulsar isn't another mech or some jackass with a beam-sabre, and the Supermarine isn't your preferred ride, but those are details. Ignominies piled upon the ignominy that is the Rubicon Sector.

You get comfortable in the Supermarine's spartan cockpit, its alloy chair, metal-and-plastic control surfaces, and the dangling cable that passes for a neural link. As it boots, you realize that it feels distant somehow. Not the second skin of your normal ride, but a bulky glove, or a suit of armor. You can tell that it's there, control what it does, but there's a lag and that effortless sense of being just doesn't exist.

But your first cautious, testing step across the hangar bay floor goes fine, as does your second, and you don't care. It's a mech, a weapon. Something you can use to break the people who did this to you. You rip a massive spear from the makeshift arsenal built into the wall, rack case after case of missiles into your shoulders, and step onto the launch catapult.

"Echo Leader," you call, "Deploying."

The catapult launches. You are thrown back against your seat, rocking against crash webbing and safety belts as you soar into the void. The Midgard Serpent, covered in great wounds, disappears into the distance behind you as the Pulsar and its drone escort close.

You'd always had a Pulsar described to you as a Manta Ray with a scorpion tail. Flat, wide, rounded main hull with an enormous particle lance raised over it, where radiation spikes or destroyed reactor shielding won't kill the ship's small crew. You always thought it looked like one-and-a-half bananas. The whole banana was the main hull, laying flat on a theoretical surface, while the half-banana was perpendicular like the scorpion tail in the boring description. Sure, the whole thing was blue, but you thought it fit better than the entire manta ray thing.

But whether or not sea creatures or fruit were the appropriate analogy, the Pulsar had opened fire. A swarm of missiles swept away from its main hull, taking long, slow arcs to hem you in while the drones made a break for the shuttle.

"Drones are splitting off," you say, "Should I pursue?"

"They're mine," says Shahid, "Eyes on the Pulsar. Dead-Zone dropping."

Half of your cockpit goes dark. Sensor readings die and missile locks fail and every comm channel besides the one to Shahid, to the Serpent's Bridge, disappears. You are relying on skill, eyeballs, and instinct.

It should be terrifying, seeing the missiles spiral out of control out of the corner of your eye. Seeing drones drift, dead to the world as they are rendered blind and deaf. Seeing tight lines of weapon's fire turned into panicked sprays, forcing you to dodge wildly as projectile-trajectory calculations fail. You've seen other pilots, better pilots, panic as Shahid happened to them.

But this is what you were grown for. No matter how much you hate Lady Bamatraf and the Etisalat, no matter how much of their legacy you've thrown away, they gave you the one thing every Flash Clone gets to keep. The one thing you've held onto since you took your first breaths, sputtering and confused, out of the cloning pod.

They gave you a purpose. To fight, that others don't have to.

You weave into a burst of autocannon fire, passing inside the Pulsar's shield bubble. You volley a barrage of missiles, smile as the explosions stitch across its hull and two guns fall silent. You feint forwards, watch as the Pulsar spits out a veritable wall of spinning, careening, and utterly blind missiles to slow you, watch as two large anti-armor guns begin to unfold from its stern. Mandibles of a great, lethal insect.

Then you juke backwards, downwards, your own missiles ripping apart the Pulsar's launchers. They don't do more than scrape paint off the guns, revealing the bare metal underneath the beautiful blues and reds, but you didn't need them to. You just need the detonations to hide your form as you heft your spear, twist, throw and watch-

"Drones on your six," calls the Captain, voice distorted and disturbing through the jamming, "Do you need me to cut the jamming?"

You wheel around, and sure enough there are four of them. Flying despite the dead-zone, despite the fact that they should be dead to the world and unable to acquire targets or receive orders. You gesture towards the spear, trying to activate its recall, but the zone's still up, it can't receive the command, can't fire its retros to return. You thumb the missiles, loosing a volley that forces the drones to break up as you respond. "No worries, sir," you say, "I have this."

Then you're surrounded. The Pulsar continues to spew wild plasma into the void, while the new drones split up, harassing you with bursts of autocannon fire before breaking off to let an ally do the same. You can't hit them. Can't see where they're going when they leave your peripheral vision, can't fire seekers due to the jamming, and didn't bring a gun because you're a fucking moron. For a minute you're at least content to know that they can't hurt you.

A detonation rocks your right shoulder. Alarms flash red across the cockpit, and you can feel the distant, yawning void in your superstructure where one of your missile pods once was. Can see the displays screaming at you of the ammo explosion. Of the new vulnerability in your armor.

New plan.

You dash away from the melee, towards the Pulsar, working pod flinging the occasional missile at your harassers. Your spear is embedded in the corvette's anti-armor guns, impaling both of them. They can't fire without detonating, and they can't retract until the spear's gone. A perfect throw, really.

You grab it as you pass, manually priming the retrieval system. One of the drones flashes by on an attack run and you hurl the spear, slicing the miserable thing damn near in half. Thrusters flare as it returns to you and you catch it smoothly, predatory gaze settling on the other drones.

Only to realize that the Captain's screaming a warning at you. That you're too close to the Pulsar. That its defense guns are trained on you.

He's right. This far away they can't miss, not even blind and deaf. You get your arm up in time, a wave of barely contained plasma hitting it like a wall. Raging lights fills your vision, and you accelerate wildly to get away. The spear's safe, you're safe, but the arm is ruined. Servos melted to slag, fingers unresponsive, the entire thing fused into place in front of your cockpit.

"Are you alright?" comes the Captain's voice, still distorted but thick with worry.

"Cut the jamming," you say.

And as if by magic, your sensors are back. All at once you see the battlefield and everything happening on it, radio frequencies, data transmissions, targetting solutions and threat profiles and as it does you realize . They're not drones at all. That's comm chatter traded between them, those are cockpits on the bottom of their fuselages. "Sir, these things are manned," you call, "What the hell are they?"

There's a short silence before he gets back to you. "They're fighters," he says, "Some sort of disposable harassment craft" Disposable is right, the things are flying coffins. Unarmored, lightly armed, nothing to stop you from spearing them save luck and mobility. They're distractions.

And, as you fight, try to score another kill, you realize that they're succeeding. The Pulsar is charging its particle lance, trying to shoot past you. Electricity arcs down the barrel, the blue glow of charged particles grows steadily within. The remaining fighters are keeping you here, forcing you to look at them, engage them, and kill them. Selling their lives as their masters demand they do for the good of the mission.

Fuck That.

A barrage of seeker warheads that sends the fighters running. As they clear out, you turn towards the Pulsar and gun it. Thrusters flare to full, autocannon shells deflect off of your hull as you rush headlong towards the foe. You throw the spear, slicing through the arm holding the particle lance in place, then ram it a moment later, one foot kicking through the particle-feed and power lines, your remaining hand grabbing the gun by the barrel and pulling. The crew try to abort, but they're too late. Cables snap, pistons break, and the particle lance comes free. You swing with the momentum, crushing a fighter trying to harass you. Then you let go, grab the tangled remains of its power feed, and jam it into the Pulsar's bridge.

It's only half-charged, and that charge is dissipating fast, but that's enough. The bridge, the entire bow of the corvette, disappear in a sphere of blue and red. The remaining fighters flee, a ragged cheer from Margai's shuttle erupts over the comms, and you grin madly as you hear it.

"Good work Echo Leader," says the Captain, "Let's get out of here."

This is the worst loss suffered by a colonial force since the colonial era began. What did you manage to salvage from it?
[ ] The shuttle contains medical supplies and a trained doctor. Your medbay may be...less than ideal but you'll have qualified staff to treat the injured.
[ ] The Midgard Serpent isn't as damaged as it appears and the Shuttle contains plenty of emergency supplies. You won't be hurting for fuel or food in the near future.
[ ] There is a handheld printer aboard the shuttle with downloaded schematics and a modest supply of feedstock and catalyst. You can print anything smaller than a 3 foot cube that you have the schematics for.


Shorn

H: 4 [0/800]
A: 2 [0/100]
S: 1 [0/100]
E: 2 [0/100]

Bodyguard (Background): Intermediate [0/2000].
Shorn served a corporate master on a wartorn colony world, protecting her from assassins and in matters of honor. She won her contract and two mech victories before abandoning her, and has the skill to match. She is skilled in personal combat, VIP protection, and can maintain discretion during diplomatic events.

COMMANDER (Background): Nul [0/250]
Shorn hasn't been a squad leader for long, but she's a quick learner and was well-respected in Echo Squad.

Perks:

HUL 4: Gatecrasher: Beginner [0/750]
Gatecrashing's a time-honored staple among melee oriented pilots. You flare all your thrusters to full just before making contact, slamming you into melee at incredible speed. At this level, it's a tool to close the range with mechs and strike a strong initial blow against structures and spaceships.

 

[Sarpedon]

[X] The shuttle contains medical supplies and a trained doctor. Your medbay may be...less than ideal but you'll have qualified staff to treat the injured.

 

[Imrix]

Girls and others, you are Shorn. You are angry, you are armed, you have someone to protect, and you have a duel to win and that means that you are in your fucking element for the first time today.

Click to shrink...

This whole update reads pretty well as a fight scene, but I wanted to pick out this opening line in particular, because on the one hand, well, mood, but it's also just really good writing. This is the first two sentences we've had from Shorn, and instantly we know who she is, what her voice sounds like as a character. Fine work.

 

[notgreat]

[X] The Midgard Serpent isn't as damaged as it appears and the Shuttle contains plenty of emergency supplies. You won't be hurting for fuel or food in the near future.

Medical expertise is important but food and fuel are necessary for survival and getting to safety respectively.

 

[Cornuthaum]

[X] The shuttle contains medical supplies and a trained doctor. Your medbay may be...less than ideal but you'll have qualified staff to treat the injured.

Every wrecked starship has a reasonably serious chance of having some scavengeable foodstuffs on board; in most cases they might not even be mildly irradiated.

I've been mulling it over and it's either the medical expertise - because we're in a hostile system and having allies with skills we don't have is incredibly important and anyone from the Kipling'S fleet is, well, on our side - and the Printer, because the printer is basically able to make anything smaller than a three-foot cube that we have the schematics for which is going to be one hell of an advantage when we're talking anything from handheld firearms for outfitting people all the way to spare parts to unfuck the Midgard Serpent or our mechs.

But in the end I changed my vote to the doctors, because we still have an injured VIP that our previous commander literally died to protect by stripping off his rad-shielding to put on the VIP.

 

[Zeitgeist Blue]

[X] There is a handheld printer aboard the shuttle with downloaded schematics and a modest supply of feedstock and catalyst. You can print anything smaller than a 3 foot cube that you have the schematics for.

 

[SirLagginton]

[X] The shuttle contains medical supplies and a trained doctor. Your medbay may be...less than ideal but you'll have qualified staff to treat the injured.

 

[veekie]

[x] There is a handheld printer aboard the shuttle with downloaded schematics and a modest supply of feedstock and catalyst. You can print anything smaller than a 3 foot cube that you have the schematics for.

 

[Terribleangel]

[x] There is a handheld printer aboard the shuttle with downloaded schematics and a modest supply of feedstock and catalyst. You can print anything smaller than a 3 foot cube that you have the schematics for.

 

[Cornuthaum]

Actually...

@Havocfett Can we actually improvise printer feedstock out of existing materials or are we boned if we run out?

Similarly, how much food and water does the Midgard Serpent actually have at the moment? I kinda expect that no matter what we choose the other 2 will kinda-sorta come to bite us, after all.

edit: Changed my vote to the medical personnel. We still have a VIP principal that we need to keep alive, someone our commander literally died for by stripping off his radiation shielding to put around the guy.

 

[Havocfett]

Actually...

@Havocfett Can we actually improvise printer feedstock out of existing materials or are we boned if we run out?

Similarly, how much food and water does the Midgard Serpent actually have at the moment? I kinda expect that no matter what we choose the other 2 will kinda-sorta come to bite us, after all.

Click to shrink...

You can improvise feedstock. If you don't pick the supplies option you'll have enough to maintain your current crew of eighty + 30 prisoners for about two weeks, will need fuel within a week, and will be pretty limited in terms of available repairs.

(The Serpent is meant to house about 2200, so, uh, the situation is dire.)

 

[Cornuthaum]

(The Serpent is meant to house about 2200, so, uh, the situation is dire.)

Click to shrink...

....

say, what does it take to make flash clones...?

 

[Strypgia]

[X] The shuttle contains medical supplies and a trained doctor. Your medbay may be...less than ideal but you'll have qualified staff to treat the injured.

I want to vote for the ship being more intact, but Cornuthaum has a point about the VIP.

 

[Havocfett]

You are staring at a piece of your brain.

One of the mechanical bits, admittedly. The Exobrain you've had since you signed up, but that doesn't make it pleasant. You grip it in one hand, fake black hair and dark skin peeled back, exposing dried blood and scorched electronics within. Millions of dollars of designer programming and print-resistant electronics, reduced to a crescent of ruined metal.

A part of you. Of what you knew, and could do, and could trust yourself to achieve. Burned out, cut out, and held in the palm of your hand. That remote connection you'd had with the Ghul King, that casual ability to just dive into the infosphere at a moment's notice, to look into the electronic systems of the Midgard Serpent or wage electronic warfare from your mind. Dozens of dates, codes, and other minutiae you'd trusted to the perfect recollection of a mechanical mind. And it was gone.

You weren't even sure what you'd lost, really. Only had the faintest recollections of what you'd shunted away. Couldn't quite process the memories of feelings and sensations that were no longer available to you. All reduced to nonsensical, fragmented memories and input your brain couldn't process.

A spike of pain courses through your skull as the Doctor staples your skull shut. A bandaged hand reaches over your shoulder, open and waiting. "Kindly hand me your brain," asks Pelontraru Voeman. You hand it over, then turn around to hear the damage.

Doc Voeman is a large man, dark-skinned, with handsome features and a constant smile. You'd never met him before today, the Kipling was a big ship, and Voeman treated civilians and VIPs rather than its military personnel. He flips the brain through his fingers before dropping it onto a tray littered with flesh, hair, and bone. "Well Captain, your Exobrain burned out catastrophically. Your body fixed the worst of your damage, but your AR overlay, haptics, and implant interface were ruined," he says, "Once we can source replacements, we can put you under, replace the implants, the works. But until then-"

"Get used to a handheld?" you interject.

He smiles grimly but ignores the line. "The good news is you seem pretty healthy. Your body repaired the damage from the aneurysms and you don't seem to have been seriously injured. Radiation will flush with a night's sleep and you're clear to Pilot again," he says, "If there's anything else you want me to look at, I can, but otherwise we're done here."

You freeze up, rub at a shoulder, as if just by feeling at it you can tell if your most important implant still works. "I-hmm," you pause, and gesture at the door for privacy. Nothing happens, no instant, subconscious interface. No casual examination of the people in the area, your likelihood to be overheard. No instant locking of the door, or remote-kill of surveillance. No fine notification for a private discussion with your doctor. Just a small reminder that you are not whole, and will not be for a while. You sigh and drop your hand, decide to trust that no-one will walk in. "I have a hormone injector. Right shoulder, I can't check on it remotely anymore so I don't know if it's working."

"Mmm, combat stims?" he asks.

There's a faint note of disapproval and you can feel yourself your mouth seize, nervousness clutching your tongue like you were twelve. "No!" you blurt, "It's, uh, Testosterone. And Estrogen blockers and-"

"Hormone replacement?" he asks. You nod, and he gives you a sympathetic smile, "That shouldn't be a problem, then. Can you show me the implant?"

You peel open your flight suit, revealing the corded muscle and thick hair that run down your arms. He grabs a scanner and prods at your shoulder for a moment until he gets a dejected beep. There's a concerned grunt, and you feel the arm go numb as he rubs an anaesthetic into your shoulder. Then you see the flash of steel.

"It peels back!" you shout.

"Oh," says Voeman, scalpel raised high, "My apologies." He slowly drops the scalpel onto his gore-littered tray and presses at your skin until he finds the seam where synthflesh meets the real thing. The entire experience doesn't take long, no matter how irrationally nervous you are about it. Once the false skin on your shoulder is peeled back, it only takes him a glance to confirm that your implant's fried and pull it out of your shoulder. Then only a few more minutes to find a replacement, load it with a hormone regimen, and seal your shoulder back up with the new pump. The anesthetic works wonderfully, the entire time you feel nothing in your arm save for a vague, pleasant numbness.

Then it's done. You thank Voeman and step out of his office, into the greater medbay. It's a cavernous thing, row after row of iron cloning pods leading into banks of life support pods and beds. A mere dozen beds hold patients, all concentrated near the entrance, leaving the room feeling vast and sterile. It was made to house far more, from a larger crew, through the thick of battle, and even with more than a sixth of your number injured it feels decidedly empty.

You pass the sole active life support pod, and as you walk by you glance at the occupant. Julissa, one of the crew you'd wounded while boarding the bridge. The other wounded prisoner had died of her wounds before Voeman got to her, while Alex, your unwounded prisoner, was currently in the brig. They had their own cell, for the other occupants were evidently POWs, and you didn't much fancy Alex's odds if you'd left them alone in a cell with their enemies.

Eventually you come to Yvette's bed, up near the entrance. She's swaddled with bandages and hooked up to IVs. Her blond hair has been shaved away and one eye swollen shut, the other blinks open to give you a quizzical once over as you approach. "

"Wanted to see how you were holding up," you say. You take a seat next to her and pass her a thermos of water when she gestures for it. "Gonna be honest, though. Looking at your face? Kinda regretting it."

"Baaah, I still look better than you," says Yvette. You share a laugh, then a long pause as you both feel the conspicuous, agonizing lack of Barber in the joke's wake. "Who've we got, pilot wise?" she asks finally.

"Me, you, Shorn," you say, "No-one else got to the Serpent before we jumped. No word from Enali but..."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

There's another pause, and she makes eye contact. Bloodshot vision pinning you. "When I get up," she says, "We're leaving a trail of corpses across this entire sector, yeah?" Her hand, swaddled in bandages, trailing IV drips and blood tubes, rises. Trembles as she struggles to keep it up, keep it from falling back to her side. Demands you make the promise.

Even if you wanted to disagree, you don't think you would be able to. You take her hand, and lean in close. "We figure out who is responsible this," you say, "And then we kill them all. Wallahi."

She smiles, and her hand drops back to her side. "'S good, then," she says, "Now go run the ship. I want to sleep."

You leave her to her rest, and step out into Midgard Serpent.

You have a mission to fulfill, after all.

Pick Two

[ ] Discuss command and your objectives with Oliveira.
[ ] Interrogate Alex in the brig.
[ ] Talk to the prisoners the Shield of Dabiq had stuffed in the brig.
[ ] Talk to Shorn about the state of the hangar and your mech complement.
[ ] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.
[ ] Talk to Voeman about the cloning pods.
[ ] Talk to Oliveira about the Rubicon system and your sensor readings.

non-pilot NPCs

Non-piloting NPCs don't have HASE stats. While still important members of your crew, their skills and abilities are represented solely through backgrounds, perks, and access to subordinates.

Pelontraru Voeman:

Sepoy Surgeon: Intermediate [0/2000]

Sphere VIPs need top-tier medical care while in the colonies, and many colonial medical schools siphon their best and brightest away from understaffed hospitals to serve their needs. Sepoy Surgeons is technically a derogatory term, slang for medical professionals who ignore their fellow colonial natives for a lucrative career serving coreworlders, but Pelontraru owns it. As far as he's concerned, it's proof that he's as good as any coreworlder surgeon, capable of a wide variety of difficult operations upon corporate VIPs. It also indicates an ability to navigate fraught colonial politics without running into trouble.


Triage Specialist: Beginner [0/750]

Corporate surgery wasn't always the plan. Pelontraru had been a first responder before he was headhunted, and had done his fair share of disaster response. Those skills may be disused and half forgotten, but he is familiar with treating shrapnel wounds and energy burns, and knowing when to give up on a patient.

 

[Strypgia]

[X] Talk to the prisoners the Shield of Dabiq had stuffed in the brig.
[X] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.

Two of the most important things to know right now are 'Who else were these guys shooting at, and how did they know where/when to hit us?' and 'Is this ship going to hold together long enough for us to make it back to friendly territory and/or if someone else tries to shoot at us again?' (with a sub-question of 'how long do we have food, water, and air for?') So let's get on those, then check on things like our mecha and why the ship was staffed entirely with clones.

 

[veekie]

[X] Discuss command and your objectives with Oliveira.
[X] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.

What we need to achieve. What do we have to do it with

 

[Cornuthaum]

[x] Discuss command and your objectives with Oliveira.
[x] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.

1.) Wat do now?

I prioritize this over the prisoners bc we weren't the operational commander who knew All The Things the Kipling punitive force came into the system for. Figuring out what Corp interests motivated this, plus whichever governmental interests, and our general goals beyond DON'T DIE, is more important (to me) than figuring out who the people ambushing and killing us were also ambushing and killing.

2.) how do now?

It's inevitable that our supply situation is a complete trainwreck and/or on fire, but we need to know how wrecked, how on fire and/or how irradiated.

---

That said:
Considering that Shahid, as a trans man, needs to make sure that his hormone balance stays the way it should be, I'm hella glad we got the doctor o_o

And, of course, an oath of vengeance, much deserved. Good stuff, havoc, good stuff.

 

[Imrix]

[X] Discuss command and your objectives with Oliveira.
[X] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.

Yeah I'm with Corn, "What the frak do we do?" and "are we about to blow up/starve/suffocate" are the immediate questions. Interrogating prisoners is liable to take a while, so while the questions Stryp raises are important, they're kind of necessarily longer-term concerns.

 

[FlatlineAskari]

[x] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.
[x] Talk to the prisoners the Shield of Dabiq had stuffed in the brig.

Getting a sitrep on the ship is obviously important if we want it to continue keeping us alive. Hard vacuum sucks.
The prisoners - well, opfor seem pretty casual about the mass casualties so far. If they kept these people alive rather than EVA'ing them, odds are they're significant one way or another. Might be intel assets, might be politically important. Whichever, let's find out.

 

[Gally]

[x] Discuss command and your objectives with Oliveira.
[x] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.

The other options are important and should definitely be taken care of, but these stand out as top priorities.

 

[SirLagginton]

[X] Discuss command and your objectives with Oliveira.
[X] Talk to Margai about the state of the ship and supplies.

 

[Havocfett]

Your alarm wakes you up for the second time in five hours. Low, intrusive drone jolting you upright, causing you to wince and rub at the stitches that now run across the back of your head. You are bleary and confused for a long moment, not sure why you aren't getting automated notices, why half your brain seems to be gone, why you don't see the alarm's source and cause in your peripheral vision.

Then you're back. Awareness rushing in, the memory of what you've lost flooding to you, the fact that you'd rigged alarms to a looted PDA at the front of your mind. You hop across the expansive captain's quarters in a single bound, scooping up the PDA with one hand and a gun with the other.

It's the brig. Again. Unauthorized access, mere seconds ago.

Your heart doesn't race, exactly, but you feel the flush of anger and focus and brutal calculation that accompanies your combat mods. That odd, detached feeling of power that fills the void where an adrenaline rush isn't. And you begin to run.

You arrive a minute later, ears strained for the sounds of weapon's fire, power tools, or screaming. You had to stop someone from trying to kill Alex earlier today, and if you have to do it again you are going to be incredibly pissed off.

But it's calm when you arrive. No-one's entered the brig itself, just the control room, and you can hear half of a low, muffled conversation from within. You land just outside the door, heavy and loud. Whoever's in there will know that you're coming, and that they are not leaving without a Conversation.

They don't stop talking.

You wrench the door shut behind you, half-functioning motors protesting at the treatment. The control room for the brig is small, but far more militarized than the Kipling's was. There are pop-up barricades bolted to the ceiling, a small arsenal in the wall farthest from the door, and every surface in the room is armored and angled to give cover against attackers. Whoever made the Midgard Serpent clearly expected to have to put down prison riots or escape attempts.

Margai is the only occupant. He's hunched over a comm console, odd lighting reflecting warmly off of his black skin, a datapad and stylus on the console in front of him. The camera is turned to Alex's cell, where they sit on a rough steel bench and stare at the camera. Occasionally, Margai reaches out a long, willowy arm and jots down some notes.

You stomp a foot, loudly, and Margai doesn't seem to notice. Instead asking Alex a question about safety overrides and drive shunts that you don't begin to understand. So you step forwards and, voice as flat as you can manage, begin to speak. "Engineer Margai," you say, "I don't believe I approved an interrogation. Especially when the Prisoner should be sleeping."

You see his eyes widen as he turns around. You can see him begin to panic as he stumbles over his words, trying, and failing, to explain himself. You ignore him, and instead step over to the comm booth.

"Ensign Alex, did Engineer Margai threaten you, denigrate you, or attempt to coerce you during your conversation," you ask.

Alex furrows their brow, mulls over your words as they consider their answer. "No," they respond, "He, uh, he just had questions about the ship."

You release a breath you didn't know you were holding. Tension and reserved judgement of your best Engineer dropping away in an instant. "As a prisoner of war you have the right to uninterrupted sleep, to safety, and to not be compelled to answer questions," you say, "If those rights are threatened, tell me. For now, do try and get back to sleep."

There is a moment of abject confusion before Alex cuts the lights in their room. This long glance of simple befuddlement at the idea that prisoners might have rights or standards of treatments, or that being awoken in the middle of the night to answer engineering questions was anything but entirely normal.

"Margai?" you ask.

"There was some weirdness with the engine, sir," he provides, "I-it was after the jump. I thought something might have gone wrong, so I figured I should. Uh. Ask the bridge crew. And she's the only officer. Who survived, uh-" He scratches at one knee, clearly regretting what he's saying as he says it, "Who survived you, sir."

You take a deep breath, letting the awkwardness and tension of the moment settle as you exhale. After a pregnant moment, you speak, "Are we currently in danger of exploding, and were we in danger when you woke them up?"

"No, sir," says Margai.

"Then you should have waited until they finished sleeping," you say, "I trust that this isn't going to happen again?"

"I didn't-I didn't mean to-" tries Margai, "I wasn't trying to harm them, sir."

"You were nervous, and paranoid, and only had one person to ask," you say, "You didn't do anything malicious, but the rules of war exist for a reason and they are going to be more important than ever moving forwards. I can trust you to keep that in mind, I hope?"

"Yes sir," says Margai.

"Alhamdulillah," you say, and you clap a hand upon his shoulder, "Now it sounds like the ship has some problems I should be aware of, and the Officer's mess has quite a lot of coffee I haven't yet gotten to sample. If we head over, perhaps we could solve both problems?"

Margai glances to each side, as if there's some trap here that is waiting just out of view for him. Some brutal vise just waiting for him to slip up. Eventually, he nods.

"Perfect."

The coffee is like nothing you've ever had before. There are beans, and a grinder, and you and Margai stare in amazement as a small, sputtering machine brews your coffee. There's no food printer, and you drink from smartmatter mugs instead of printed disposables. Add a waiter and it would be a truly monstrous luxury, the sort of thing only enjoyed by rich core worlders and corporate executives. The sort of thing you'd dreamed of as a child, a sign that you had truly made it.

But the coffee is rancid, and you have to suppress the urge to spit it out.

"I suppose people mostly pay for the experience," you say, affixing your coffee with a pained stare. Margai nods an agreement, then downs his entire cup in a single, tremendous gulp. You stare at him in blank amazement, and he shrugs.

"I thought it better to get it over with," he says, and pulls a beaten-up datapad from his pocket. "If you have a moment?"

You take a look at your coffee, decide against repeating Margai's feat, and take the datapad. There's a rough map of the Midgard Serpent on the display. A color-coded damage report mostly red and orange, with tinges of green and a few pockets of blue. A rather small inventory list runs down the side of the screen. Categories, you guess. It's bad, but doesn't look catastrophic at first glance.

"Well, we've clearly taken some nasty damage, but it doesn't look overly catastrophic," you say. Margai winces visibly at that, and you desperately hope that your reaction doesn't make it onto your face, "But I don't get the scale of our supply stores. What's an OSOD and KSOD?"

"One Soldier, One Day, and One Thousand Soldiers, One Day, respectively," says Margai, "Alex told me."

You glance back at the datapad. Your eyes go wide as you do some math. "That's barely two weeks of food," you say.

"The main store-room was destroyed during the battle, as was the Pilot's quarters," says Margai, "Railgun round, I think. It, uh, it passed through-" He draws a line across the datapad with his finger, from just above one of the hangars, down and through the Pilot's quarters, the main kitchen, the ammo bins, and finally an auxiliary fuel tank. "-And caused secondary detonations in both of those. That vented the main crew cabins, cargo, and a primary fuel tank, which in turn wrecked most of the engines."

"How are we flying," you ask flatly.

"Well, uh, an auxilliary fuel tank in the starboard hull was shielded by the engines. Most of its feed lines were destroyed, so it's not spewing fuel into burning engines. The engines we have working aren't much but, well, as long as we're not in atmosphere we're fine," says Margai, "I mean, slow, but fine. We can manage a week or two of normal operations."

You look at the readout again, appreciating the catastrophic consequences of each splotch of red and orange. "How bad is this damage, exactly?" you ask.

"Our armor is fatally compromised, we have the stern point defense but it's all manned and so mostly useless, but we're big enough to take some hits. We have, uh, one capital-grade plasma cannon ready, and one hangar's clear for combat launches while the other should be able to manage cargo transfer. And, uh, the shields work OK. They're keeping the atmosphere in, mostly."

"So we need fuel, food, parts, crew, and repair specialists," you say, "Our only defenses are shielding and size, and our offense is one gun and the hangar bay?"

Margai does not meet your eyes, but he nods. He seems rather surprised when you clap a hand on his shoulder.

"Well, we fly, we shoot, and we make oxygen. That's all we really need," you say, "I trust you to work on the rest as we go."

*

Li Oliveira has taken over the largest room in the ship. The exposed piping and industrial cladding of the rest of the vessel is pointedly missing. Wood and ceramics line the walls, warm, hidden lights replace exposed, stark blue bulbs running along the halls. A holo-table dominates the center of the room, while steps lead to sleeping, cooking, and workspaces that line the walls. The furniture looks expensive, high value prints or hand-made you cannot tell. You do not know who this room was meant for, but they were clearly afforded luxury no-one else on the ship could dream of.

Li Oliveira smiles winsomely as you step in. He leans forward in a grand wooden chair that is adorned with carvings of some great, winding serpent. His suit is worn and battered, but it's clean which is more than you can say for your hardsuit, and he manages to play it off as rugged and dashing instead of blatantly damaged. A silver teapot rests on the table in front of him, a luxury you are only aware of due to your…relationship with Diplomat Ayubi.

"Captain Shahid, I wanted to express my condolences over Hisham's death, and my eternal gratitude for his sacrifice," says Li. He draws a pair of silver teacups from beneath the table and pours you a cup. "I owe both of you my life."

The tea itself is astringent and incredibly strong, you recognize it but can't quite place the type. "It was our duty, sir," you say, "Any pilot would have done the same."

"But few would have succeeded," says Li. He taps at the edge of the holotable and it begins to humm to life, though it takes rather longer than you are used to. "I know we have not had much time to adjust to our new situation, but I wished to discuss our position as well as our priorities moving forwards."

The table finally flickers to life, displaying the Battle of Rubicon Gate. The swarms of warships fighting each other, the massive Kipling being torn apart by them, the thick clouds of fightercraft, drones, and mechs. The Midgard Serpent departing the field, and then the Kipling attempting an emergency jump and exploding, flinging hypervelocity shrapnel into hyperspace. "What do you need to know, sir?" you ask.

"Well, I'm more here to advise your decision then make one of my own. However, if you're offering, I had a military history question," notes Li, "Is there precedent for our situation? For the Kipling's destruction?"

"Colonial monitors are-were generally assumed to be proof against anything short of another monitor, sir," you say, "The Kipling can't even frag jump, I have no idea how the Admiral managed it, or if he survived the process."

"Surely there is some protocol for this?" Asks Li, and you suspect he is pleading with God more than he is with you.

"Sir, if they believed a monitor could be downed in combat, they wouldn't have attached so many civilians, so many families, to the complement," you say, "All protocol assumes that you can only lose a monitor to incompetence and poor luck. The colonial system doesn't work if you can just shoot them."

There is a short pause as you both realize what you just said.

"This can't leave this room," says Ambassador Oliveira.

"It blew up. There were millions of witnesses, we can't hide that," you reply.

"The Omninet is down! We absolutely can," snaps the Ambassador, "I've talked with the corporates these pirates took prisoner. There's still a Corporate government fighting for the sector. We offer them pardons in exchange for cooperation. The only truth the rest of the galaxy knows is the truth whoever controls the sector tells them. It is the only sane option."

"Fifty six thousand people were aboard that ship, sir, multiple warfleets watched it happen," you reply, "With all due respect, sir, corporate malfeasance got us into this mess. I don't see it getting us out."

"Corporate malfeasance is the least of our problems! This isn't Goguryeo," replies the Ambassador, "CGVD made mistakes, yes, but those are not worth our time considering the current situation!"

You share an unpleasant stare with him. In Goguryeo, CGVD had hidden the fact that a Sector meant to have about one hundred million citizens instead had about three billion people and multiple minor insurgencies. You'd picked up Shorn there, been embroiled in vicious combat for six months, and then slapped CGVD with a fine they'd forget in a week and left the system to corporate rule.

"Not worth our time?" You whisper.

Officially, instances of population fraud were exceedingly rare, and the Goguryeo Sector case was a once-in-a-century phenomenon. Less officially, colonial production targets simply could not be hit with legal populations and legal treatment of workers. You'd travelled as much as most Coreworlders, during your time aboard the Kipling, and you had not yet seen a Colonial system that did not hide at least a few hundred million people from the official census.

Hell, you'd been born in one.

"Not worth our time?" you say again, "How many people have died over-"

And despite all of that. Despite all of your history, and your knowledge, and the stress of the last twelve hours, you still surprise yourself when you see that you've crumpled your teacup, when you realize that the voice yelling is your own. That you are standing up, your heart is hammering its way out of your chest, and there is a visible dent in the floor where your foot rests. That Ambassador Oliveira is leaning away from you, fear on his face.

You breathe deeply, once, twice, then ten times before you are calm enough to sit down. Before you trust yourself to speak. "I apologize, Diplomat Oliveira," you say, "That was unbecoming of me."

Li takes a minute to compose himself, eyes refusing to leave you and your broken teacup. "It," he says, the words agonizingly slow, laden with deep offense and fading terror, "Was." There is a deep breath and an uncomfortable silence before he is composed enough to continue. "But I admit that I could have been less flippant. I imagine much of the surviving crew share your opinions on CGVD's-" There is a short, pregnant pause as he searches for a word. "Mistakes on the matter."

"But," You say simply.

"But," agrees Li. "While they are responsible for what's happened, the corporates are likely to be our easiest shot at real resources." It makes sense, but some part of you recoils at the thought of putting your trust in the people who caused this situation in the first place. Another doubts how useful they'll be if they let the situation get this bad. "I'm not an officer anymore. Our priorities going forwards are your call, but I encourage you to consider the corporate option."

As much as you want to dismiss it out of hand, you can't.

"Well then, Ambassador Oliveira, our first priority is to-"

[ ] Re-activate an OmniNet Relay

While activating the Gate is a lost cause, at least for now, re-establishing unfiltered Omninet access will allow you to request reinforcements, acquire information and technical schematics from beyond, and put up an unfiltered, free-access information network across all or part of the Rubicon Sector. It will deal with one of your biggest problems, that you are fighting absolutely blind.

[ ] Reform Task Force Kipling

Fundamentally you are here to crush pirates, and even if those pirates are in actuality some sort of rebel war-fleet, your duty is still to destroy them. The Kipling is gone, but there were other sides in the battle. Reconnect with survivors, recruit more ships, and reform a military force capable of warring against the Shield of Dabiq.

[ ] Contact remnants of corporate government (.7x)

The prisoners in your brig indicate that some form of corporate government exists and is in the Sector. While they were clearly violating the law, your ultimate objective was and remains re-establishing corporate rule over Rubicon Sector. If you can get in contact they can provide resources, coordination, information, and troops that will be invaluable for your operations. You can discuss their role in the matter...later.

Corporate Ambassador Li Oliveira

Li Oliveira is not your ally, not your subordinate, and not a good man. He is a corporate military beatstick turned corporate diplomatic beatstick and he is loyal to corporate masters. While your goals largely align, your mission includes protecting him, and one of your best friends died to save his life you need to remember not to trust him. Doing so will have catastrophic consequences for you, and for every innocent in Rubicon Sector.

Despite this, he is a master diplomat and negotiator, and was supposedly an adept ground forces commander during his career. You will both need each other's help in the days to come.

Head Engineer Francis Margai

Backgrounds

Mech-engineer Intermediate [0/2000]

Francis was a Printer technician on the Kipling, sure, but he was also your most experienced Mech-engineer. When you didn't have time to print a new mech, or they were busy with some other job, he was adept at repairs, modifications, and ad-hoc jury rigs. Now that the convenience of a mech-printer is unavailable, those skills are more valuable than ever.

Ship's Technician Null [0/250]

Francis didn't actually work on the Kipling itself. He had an incredibly basic overview of some of the hangar mechanisms, but ship repair wasn't his area of expertise. He is, however, what you have and he's kept you from blowing up so far.