Game-IV

General Boards => PBP Games => Topic started by: LordNecross on February 10, 2017, 08:40:05 PM

Title: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on February 10, 2017, 08:40:05 PM
This Thread is the Game Thread. To get to the OOC Thread Click Here (http://game-iv.com/index.php?topic=699.0)

Cold Shock
The void of space is vast and empty, the distance between star systems is impossibly vast and the space between galaxies even more so. The advent of faster than light technologies has made the distances between stars seem negligible for many space faring Species. Despite this the Universe is still vast and much of it uncharted, with many things hiding in the  cold dark void.

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(http://orig09.deviantart.net/e395/f/2010/013/c/2/void_space_by_maandersen.jpg)

A sleek silver grey ship drifted among the vast emptiness, the reflections of distant stars glinted off its surface as it silently went on. The inside of the ship was sleek and roomy, with long hallways and many rooms.

Aboard the bridge stood stood an imposing armored figure, standing before a digital projection, sifting through documents and information with swipes of his ceramic clad hand. It information listed different star systems and sentient species of interest. It seemed there was also a collection of dossiers on the screen, one was already highlighted.

A clear genderless voice chimed in through the ship's audio systems.

“Master Osiris, I have finished compiling information on the major players in this galactic sector, I recommend our next stop should be the Sol System, it would be pertinent to retrieve the candidate located in that system before proceeding with any others.”

Osiris stared at the semi-solid projections of data, his icy eyes going over every detail of what lay before him, he closed the dossier he was currently scanning through and shut the projection off, letting his eyes settle on the visual port that was roughly ten or so meters beyond it, he looked out seeing the endless display of distant stars.

“Agreed,” He said coolly, with little change in his nearly expressionless face,”While you are good with intelligence gathering, we require a specialist.”

He walked away from the command center he stood in and headed for a elevator at the back of the bridge and boarded it. He selected the lower levels, and it began to descend as the genderless voice began to speak again.

“This is exactly why I was created, our superiors need this group to work so their activity can go unnoticed, and maybe such a group might help with the galactic community.”

There was a slight pause before it continued. “Goodness knows with what I have learned they could definitely use it. These flesh things always have something to squabble about, even those artificial one are not better, I find it rather insulting.”

“I am a thing of flesh as well Aesen…” Osiris spoke in his smooth but cool voice.

A chuckle came through the speakers, “You barely are, and if all organics were like you there wouldn’t be any problems. Anyways, I hand picked these sentients according to the mission parameters, but there's always room for more or changes to the roster if something comes up. I tried to keep it to only the  big players in this part of the galaxy, but their is potential in some of the other species as well, I’ll let you know if anything comes up with that.”

The elevator door opened and Osiris walked out into a long hallway and entered a room further down and to the right, the door clearly said in a holographic projection that it was a firing range.

He walked in and found himself in a rather size-able practice range, he put on a helmet that locked into to his power armor with a hiss as he went  up to the range. He touched the table in front of the range as his helmet’s HuD booted up. The smooth surface of the table opened up and a sleek rifle appeared and rose up and soon the table was even and continuous like the rifle had always been sitting there.

He picked it up and checked it out looking at its settings on the side for power level, and its fire settings, being full-auto or burst. His HuD recognized the weapons operating systems and linked up to it, giving its specifications in the hud in a quick scroll by.

Mk. IX Overcharged Photonic Rifle
Shots Till Depletion: 200 Low Power, 40 Max Power
Current Attachments: HuD Linked Targeting System

A targeting reticle appeared in the HuD simulated in his vision as if it was an actual  physical projection from the weapon to its current target.

“Aesen run target program two.” He said coolly as he aimed the weapon downrange.

“Yes Sir, Program starting. I shall compile some ship credentials for docking, they won’t be able to trace us, but the documentation will fool their systems. We’ll make the jump when it’s done.”

Osiris didn’t respond as repeated blasts fired from his weapon, downing target after holographic target with deadly trained precision and controlled bursts.

“Ooh looks like only a 5 nanometer improvement from last time.” Aesen projected from the the sound systems in a jokingly sarcastic way, as Osiris finished the simulation.

Osiris simply set the gun down and it disappeared right back into the smooth white surface of the table as he headed out of the room and back to the elevator.

“Okay….The other Organics do have something over you. A sense of humor.” An audible sigh came from the on board  audio systems, as Osiris headed up to his personal quarters.

“All right the credentials are done, engaging stealth systems, making the jump now.” Aesen said in a more serious tone.
There was no sound no charge up or anything remotely flashy as it occurred, they ship simply appeared in the Sol System. However it seemed nothing reacted to its sudden appearance, even though the ship detected massive activity throughout the system.

“We’re here, systems active, we’ll slip into real-space when you are ready to make contact.” Aesen chimed and then went silent.

 Osiris looked at an optical feed from a screen in his quarters, looking at the hustle and bustle of the busy Human system, and replied to the shipboard AI,“Affirmative.”
Title: The Intelligence Specialist
Post by: LordNecross on February 14, 2017, 03:12:49 PM
The sleek ship, roughly four-hundred and fifty meters long, continued to drift in the human home system, still undetected with the method to its stealth still unknown.

"Master Osiris, we will be making another jump, I just retrieved updated information on our target. I apologize I should have been more attentive, and spend less time data-mining historical information." Aesen sighed through the comms-system.

"Making Course correction now, making jump to the Tau Ceti System, Mindoir Orbit. Stealth systems still engaged. I will disengage at a reasonable distance for approach and broadcast a request for docking."

Osiris merely nodded, as he sat cross legged meditating in his room, his power armor standing nearby unused.

Within moments the vessel was just outside Mindoir Orbit, it disengaged its stealth systems which made it appear to have arrived in system with more traditional FTL methods. It began broadcasting its credential and requesting docking with the nearby station.


(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mirrorsedge/images/b/b4/Widecity_6.png/revision/latest?cb=20160425103217)

Meanwhile, in the human city of Elysium, located on the colony of Mindoir sat a solitary figure in one of the cities' high-rise arcology skyscrapers. His apartment was in one of the buildings highest floors, looking over the vast city-scape stretched out before it, home to millions of colonists; most of them human, but with a small minority of alien immigrants and residents as well. The apartment was a well-crafted and highly functional space, gorgeous to look at and supplied with an integrated smart software system that responded to even the simplest of voice commands.

The figure honestly could care less, his apartment was provided and payed for by the company he worked for, Belltower Associates, the largest and most sophisticated private military and security corporation in known space, providing the maximum spectrum of security and military solutions to a wide variety of clients. This wasn't how Belltower treated all of it's employees of course, only those who the company considered valuable assets. Neal was considered such an asset, though in all honesty he would have been fine with a standard apartment, but Belltower had insisted.

What made Neal standout amongst the large number of contractors in Belltower's employ was his particular skill sets, knowledge as well as his past...career choices. Neal was employed as an "Intelligence Specialist" by Belltower, a fancy way of saying he collected a lot of data that Belltower used to plan it's various operations. Before Belltower Neal had worked for the Coalition Integrated Intelligence Service, the combined intelligence services of all the member-states of the Coalition united into a single service, where Neal had served as a field operative, often deployed on Deep Reconnaissance, Black Ops and various wetwork assignments. Before that he had been a soldier, the 105th Orbital Drop Brigade, one of the elite.

Neal got up from his seat and stared out across the city before him. From his vantage point the city looked peaceful, prosperous and busy, but he knew that was just a facade. Over the past few decades the Cold War between Earth and Hydros had only been getting worse, which had been reflected in the escalating race tensions between ki'jan and humans in various colonial cities and settlements. The number of riots and terrorist incidents had only been increasing over the years, becoming so bad that the various human governments had been forced to intervene using drastic measures. Owing to his job position, Neal had been aware for awhile now that the member nations were preparing draft legislation to relocate the ki'jan minority to "safe and secure" segregated districts, in order to get a handle on the escalating violence. Belltower of course had been contracted to aid in the relocation, and Neal's job was to identify all ki'jan families and individuals within Elysium that were to be relocated, in preparation for Operation Haven, Belltower's part in the planned mass relocation.

Neal sighed and poured himself another two fingers of whisky, before sitting back down. It was an ugly solution, but it was the best they had. He only hoped he wouldn't have to deal with any surprises during his leave, he had earned the rest after all.



Osiris unsurprisingly made it past the docking procedures due to Aesen's credentials, and after the initial strangeness of his arrival it was chocked up to him being a private mercenary and a pretty well funded one at that.

He took the next dropship to the planet's surface, he wore his full powerarmor suit but remained unarmed to avoid any confrontation.

Aesen's voice came through his helmets communications unit, "Master Osiris, the target is in an apartment near the top of the nearby skyscraper. I'll mark it down for you." Then on his HuD map a point appeared and he headed for it.

He entered the building and went to its elevator, selecting the correct floor and heading up, ignoring the looks he received from guests in the complex. He was rather tall when taking into account the additional height provided by his armor, luckily though no one seemed to want to bother him.

After a minute or two on the elevator he exited when it came to a stop and headed for the door that was highlighted in his visor's vision. He pressed the door buzzer and awaited a response.

Neal looked up as the buzzer sounded, sighing again and made his way over. He activated the vid display next to the door, and then just stared for a little while, trying to figure out why there was a heavily armoured figure at his door. Neal quickly went over to grab his sidearm, before returning to the vid display, speaking into it and saying "Um...Hello, armoured guy. Why the gently-carress are you at my door? And more importantly, why are you here? Did those Alien Rights activists send you? Because one, I am really impressed if that's the case...Annnnnd two, I don't give a excrement."

Osiris looked at the door, he reached up and detached his helmet and mag-locked it to his side. He looked at the door with his icy grey eyes and spoke,"No, I am here to discuss a business proposition Mr. Shepherd, I find myself in a need for someone with your skill set. I am unsure if you want to continue such a conversation through a door."

Neal continued to stare incredulously at the display, still feeling a little bewildered. Was this for real? Neal knew his limits when it came to alcohol, and he had not come even close to approaching a buzz today, and yet here was a heavily armoured figure out of nowhere wanting to discuss a "business proposition". For a brief moment Neal wondered if he had simply lost his mind, before saying "A business proposition? Okay, first how do you know my name and my 'skill sets' as you call them, and second who do you represent? Answer in that order armoured guy".

Osiris took in a deep breath from his nose, and released a steady breath from his mouth. "Information is easy to find, Belltower had it all, My associate is good at gathering information digitally."

He looked at the door, it would be Easy to have Aesen undo the electric lock, Osiris also had the tools to do it himself as well. It was  best to keep talking, the human would come around eventually.

"As for who I represent, myself, I am an independent entity. I cannot disclose who funds me or for what purpose as of right now. That can be discussed later on my corsair, I have it docked in the orbital station."

He stood there waiting,"So the real question is are you interested, If you do not wish to answer now I will wait aboard my ship."

Neal stood there a moment longer, then decided to hear the armoured lunatic out. The guy had just admitted to hacking Belltower, which in itself was no mean feat considering they were one of the top cyber-security and warfare specialists out there, which meant Belltower would already be looking for him. So he was either a lunatic or had a really fascinating reason for finding him.

The door opened and Neal said "Come in, but leave the armour at the entrance, we're informal here. I insist."

Osiris put the helmet back on as he stepped in to the door, and shut it behind him. He stepped to the side, so his armor was near the door, then the front opened and he stepped out wearing a tight body suit and combat boots, and his peculiar black headband of a non-descript materials.

"If it will help you decide." The Suit the closed up behind him and stood up straight.

Neal nodded, then went to the living room, Osiris following behind him. Neal picked up his drink, taking a sip before asking "Alright armoured guy, what is this all about then?"

Osiris found a seat and sat down,"The Galaxy is quite a big place wouldn't you agree? Humanity has barely scratched the surface, and their are things out their that threaten not just humanity by all sentient civilization."

He looked around the apartment, if he was being recorded or observed, he knew Aesen would already be interfering with that and tricking the systems.

"I am in charge of forming a group to combat the unknown, because my employers need a small group to do tasks that require low presence, something an army can't accomplish. A small group is more effective at getting key tasks done."

Osiris looked at Neal," One such threat will be one of our goals, however anything else we can tackle along the way is approved by my superiors. We will be operating without any government oversight of any of the local civilizations, and we will be able to help out in different parts of the galaxy. We will still have our original goal though, but that will take time and preparation."

Neal listened, his face expressionless as Osiris talked, asking "Okay, what is this so-called threat, and who are these superiors of yours? Didn't you just say earlier you were an independent party?"

Osiris looked at him,"I cannot disclose who funds me at this time, I am independent because if I die I will be forgotten as a failed experiment. I have full control of how my mission progresses, and how it is accomplished."

He was done explaining that part it seemed,"However I cannot fully discuss the threat either, but once I have gathered all my selections for this team then I will go into more detail. For now all you need to know is that it has the potential to cause the extinction of all sentient life in the galaxy if it continues unchecked."

Neal still remained skeptical "A threat to all sentient existence, huh? If you need me so badly and this threat is so... uh, threatening then why not tell me what it is? Hate to say this armoured guy, actually not really, but you're not very convincing with all this vagueness, okay? I actually worked intelligence and you sound like you're from a bad spy movie, not in a good way either, one of those movies that are so bad you want to shoot the director and burn down the theatre just to feel clean kind of bad".

Osiris looked at him a bit puzzled like he was trying to process his metaphor, like it was a foreign concept to him. Before Osiris could continue speaking his armor walked into the room of its own accord and sat down next to Osiris, and a voice came out of its modulator, it was impossible to determine gender of the voice as it was neither masculine or feminine, but some perfect neutral, while still conveying far more emotion than Osiris.

"Neal Shepherd, Osiris here, My Master and leader of this group needs you for your intelligence gathering skills. For your connections and combat experience as well. We can't just tell you what you are going to be up against right now, you may decide against coming, which would be rather unfortunate. It may be hard to believe but most human accomplishment up to this point would be hard to believe by those who came before."

The Armor looked at him,"Oh, by the way I am Aesen, the one in charge of finding you and the other candidates. If you find this hard to believe, its only going to get more difficult once you actually see it. If you truly need some more info, this threat is another species, and its building up momentum to rampage across the cosmos in numbers you can't imagine. We need your help, you will be compensated in the best way you see fit."

Osris looked at Neal as well,"If you truly need more proof, its aboard my ship. Otherwise I believe our time is up, You can decide now. Whether you get any sleep tonight over your decision is up to you."

"Uh..." Neal said as the armour walked in on its own, before listening to the AI in control, before finally saying "Okay, fine. Let's see this ship of yours, then you'll get my answer."


About an hour later they arrived upon the docking station orbiting Mindoir, they walked down the way to the larger docks for more size-able ship.

Osiris, now back in his armor, looked out the window of the station and pointed to his ship. "There, that's Aesen, the ship he occupies anyways. Let's go aboard then, then I can brief you a bit more, then I will want your input on the dossiers I have collected."

"I haven't said yes yet" Neal reminded him as they made their way towards Aesen".

As they made their way Neal asked "So this AI of yours...Is it fully sentient, or just mimics sentience, like a high quality synth?"

Osiris didn't say anything as they finally boarded the ship walking through the sanitation field that cleaned them briefly. Soon they were on and walking through the sleek hallways, it was easily seen that the tech on this ship was top of the line, however Neal could not tell where it could have been made.

"We'll head to the briefing room on the next floor," They said and boarded the elevator as it shut and headed up.

The comms started up, and the signature voice of Aesen came through,"Does sentience disturb you Mr. Shepherd? I wouldn't want my sense of humor to give you pause, as Master Osiris makes a poor audience."


Neal replied "No, it doesn't bother me, unless you have a red eye and start calling me Dave, in which case I'd fish around in your tender areas until I found the off-switch."

Aesen chuckled through the audio system, and then began to sing,"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two!"

"That was a rather entertaining movie, I just watched it now." Aesen said as a light humming came through the speakers,"I think I'll watch the rest of your Human movies right now."

Osiris and Neal entered a large room with a rectangular table, and plain white cushioned seating, the center of the table had some sort of orb, most likely a form of projector.

Osiris spoke up,"All right, since you are insistent on knowing right now, here." He said and turned on a three dimensional image that showed a Larger creature with a brutal appearance.

It was hunched over and extremely broad shoulders, and its skin was green and had a densely muscled frame.
(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/c/cc/OrkBoy1.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20130504104143)

It had a thick jaw and skull and beady reddish eyes the beget a sort of primal intelligence, the image then displayed numbers to show the height and average mass of the creature.

Osiris spoke up again,"This is a Krork, an average mature example, it is roughly 1.83 meters tall on average, but can be taller. There shoulder with is almost the same as their height, and their dense muscles tend to make them hunch over, and not show their full height. This thing could rip you apart, and beat you to death with your own limbs. However it is not their strength that makes them the threat they are. Its their numbers, and their ability to mobilize quickly."

Osiris decided to wait on his reaction before speaking more.

"Ugh" said Neal "It looks like some kind ork or ogre having a temper tantrum. So what do you mean by mobilize, as in their military capability or what?"

Aesen chimed in,"Its funny that you say Ork, its how they refer to themselves. Krork is an older name for them." After that the AI went quiet again.

Osiris nodded,"Yes it is their military capability, but its also he fast the are the fastest reproducing sentient race in the known galaxy, they reproduce through spores. They appear ape-like, but they are also plant like and fungal as well. They are born fully mature and ready to fight, and they have an instinctual understanding of technology, and once their spore make ground fall and ork population is bound to spring up within months unless you glass everything they touch."

Osiris walked around a bit and moved the images some more showing off some Ork weapons and vehicles which all looked ridiculously ramshackle and some clearly unorthodox designs.

"They make weapons out of everything, they form groups and societies instinctually. In small numbers, infighting keeps them occupied and manageable, but they reproduce so quickly that it is inevitable they will want to conquer other systems. When their numbers get big enough a leader rises up and directs massive war-bands that can command billions of orks and countless ships to take war to the cosmos. They are fueled by war, its all they know and they are always in search of conflict." Osiris sighed a bit, and shut the display off.

"Even your combined militaries could not take on an Ork 'Waagh' as the species calls it, a sort of battle-cry that also seems to mean war and battle and works as a rallying cry. They are tough creatures, their unique physiology lets them shrug off wounds you would think impossible, whatever they get their hands on they repurpose for their own use, whatever planet they touch they infest and change. So even if you win a battle, the planet will suffer them for generations to come."

Osiris looked at Neal,"That is why this group is needed, we have to take out their leadership. One by one, until we reach the top. No army could do this without great loss, that is why We need you and the others. If we succeed, they could be destabilized for thousands of years, with number so large as of now, they will split into bigger groups that would be to difficult to easily unify, which would give the galacy time to prepare and dwindle their numbers further."

"So they're like Kurgs, if they were hyped up on some kind of gently-carressed up mega-steroids that turned them into fungus" said Neal, examining the various pictures and data.

"So...you need a team of assassins to wack the leaders of the angry ogre people, is that the gist of it?" asked Neal.

Osiris looked at him, his helmet hiding the puzzled look on his face,"That seems right in the simplest terms, but if Assassins were all I needed, the selections wouldn't be so diverse. Overall that is the end goal, getting there is the real journey."

Neal sighed and said "You mentioned compensation AI guy?"

Aesen chimed in,"Yes Mr. Human guy, however you wish to receive it. It will be paid according to services rendered, so no overall payment, Though we can promise you will be quite well rewarded if we manage to pull this off, which I believe is entirely possible if everyone cooperates."

Neal nodded and said "Okay then, so I guess I'm saving civilization alongside Captain Killjoy and HAL 9000. So where to next?"

Osiris turned the Holo-display on again, information regarding the remaining people to be recruited.

"We now have you, and we already recruited the female Kurg, we wanted your input on who should be next, Aesen will determine their current location for pickup." Osiris finished as they scrolled through the information.

Neal thought briefly about how he had ended up in this situation, how just an hour ago he had been enjoying a nice whisky in his shiny apartment, and now he was being scooped up by a melodramatic agent and his smartass AI to apparently save civilization from being overrun by part fungus, part ogre aliens bent on killing everything for the hell of it.

Strangely not the weirdest thing to happen to him, but definitely making the Top Five.

He selected the dossier for the Iko, saying "Well if you want my input, let's start here with Mr. Dinosoid, his biological healing factor and service during the Vis-Zahati War would make him our next best choice. He looks like he can handle giant ogre people."
Title: The Merc, The Engineer, and The Extra Variable
Post by: LordNecross on February 21, 2017, 02:39:04 AM
After getting Neal acquainted with the ship and where his quarters were located, it was on to the next recruitment, the person in question was an Iko Mercenary, and after some digging he was discovered to currently be in the Independent Systems. The exact place was a well known and notorious space station called o Lavýrinthos, or the Labyrinth.

(http://i.imgur.com/GbVygqP.jpg)

The station itself was originally called the Corinthian Station, a colonial waystation started under joint governance by the EU/Coalition, to act as a port for colonists. The station proved to be too much of a financial drain and was eventually sold to a few private investors to make it into a major traffic hub between the independent colonies. However Pirates and more criminal elements began to take over and unregulated and non-standard expansion led to its new name o Lavýrinthos.

With the destination in mind, Aesen made the transition to space near the massive station and proceeded with docking with the station. This was far easier than docking over Mindoir which required far more authentication of the vessel to get a docking permit.

“Master Osiris, we have arrived at The Labyrinth, seems to be a rather interesting place. I’ll see if I can find are Iko on the station.” Aesen said as he delved into the rather easily cracked systems aboard the station, at least easy for a powerful unchained AI.

Osiris made his way to the docking port as he heard the clamps seal the ship in place, he made his way onto the station.

He found someone as well armed as him was typically not bothered it seems, and he could actually retain some weapons on this station, but it seemed the balance to this was everyone was armed as well.

The station was an absolute bustle of activity, with various different species on display. From Humans, to Kurgs, Kaveni, Ki’Jan and more. Some species seemed to have higher numbers than others but you could practically see every major species here.

“Aesen, where is the Iko located?” he said waiting for a response through his comms piece.

After a few second there was a reply, “Further down, he is in a Bar, the Barbed Wheel it seems, one of the cheaper bars on the station, It has a Kurg Bouncer out front.”

Osiris immediately made his way to the bar before Aesen chimed in again,”Master Osiris, two others from the Dossiers I compiled are here as well, I recommend we acquire them before we leave.”
“Good, work we have to do.” Osiris said to himself as he came up to the entrance of the bar.

The Kurg bouncer outside was at least 8’ 6” and he seemed thoroughly disinterested in his job as a bouncer for such a lowly bar as he seemed to be watching something on a datapad, from the sounds it seemed to be a live stream of some bloodsport from a Kurgeshan arena.

Having dealt with Kurgs recently, Osiris raised his chin to the Kurg who was caught a bit off guard and did the same before letting him through and returning to his distraction.

Osiris entered and looked about till Aesen visually identified the Iko through his HuD. Osiris began to make his way through the bar.



The Barbed Wheel was only one of many bars on the station. Sleazy, and filled to the brim with pirates, smugglers, prospectors - all manners of shady characters and delinquents. In front of the counter, on a stool much too small for him, the Iko was pouring himself his third drink this evening. Rum. Weak. Like water to him; he wondered if this would be enough to even make him tipsy before his wallet was empty. But what else was there to do in this practical hole in the ground? One more of this, he figured, then see where he went from there.

He noticed another Human giving him a weird look, which brought his thoughts to what a sore thumb he was in here. His scarred face, the oversized gun slung over his shoulder, and his brooding demeanor - not to mention how he towered over any other he came across in this place - generally gave him a wide berth, but he had still learned to tuck his long, brush-like tail in around the stool’s leg to keep people from stepping on it,. He was probably the only of his kind for the next few hundred thousand light years or so; most of these people had probably never even seen an Iko before. Not that he cared. What were these people to him?

He ran his finger once again along the long, thick scar under his right eye - like a bright blue furrow across his face - feeling the slight scraping of the tiny pieces of shrapnel that the medics had left in. No harm, they said. Riskier to take them out than to leave them there. He didn’t mind all that much, to be honest. The odd, tingling sensation of his touch once again rushed through his skin, up to his eye, down to his neck, making him shudder slightly. Repeating the process two more times, he swooped the entire glass once again, careful not to break the tiny thing in his hand as he had done two nights prior.

Osiris walked up to the Iko, who seemed to be the only of his kind here at the moment which was surprising, but maybe not so much due to their insular nature.

“Thada Nhaoragen, try the Kurg Liquors if that isn’t strong enough, order ones that are labeled non-toxic.” Osiris said as he sat next to the Iko, Aesen quickly deleted the text from his HuD so that his vision was uninterrupted. Aesen quietly told Osiris,”The rest of the conversation is yours.”

Turning slowly towards the stranger suddenly sitting next to him, Thada eyed the armoured Human up and down. His teeth were slightly bared in annoyance at the disturbance, showing even more the ones where his lip was chipped and scarred. Reaching with his hand to his left hip, Thada took out a plastic, see-through mask and put it over his snout before reaching to his back and turning on the mask’s oxygen supply. Breathing in deeply, he looked the stranger in the eyes, as well as he could, anyway, given the helmet that was in the way. “And who might you be?”the Iko muttered to the stranger, the deep tone of his large frame rasping from his throat. Putting down the glass on the counter, he straightened his back and looked the man up and down again. “That’s a lot of tin to wander into a hole like this. I don’t owe you money, do I?”

“No, but there is the possibility of you acquiring money if you would like a job, possibly a job you can be more proud of than previous ones.” Osiris said as he looked at Thada, who was only a bit taller than him if Osiris had not been wearing his power armor.

“I would like to discuss if your are available for employment.” He finished as he looked at a list of available drinks.

Thada stared at the man for a few moments, his breathing quickly normalizing from putting on his mask. “You travel all the way to this sleazy little hole in the ground, wander into this piece of work of a bar in full armour, and sit down right next to the only Iko in the quadrant. Not to mention you know my name…”Thada rumbled, his eyes hardening on the man in front of him. “You were looking for me. Me specifically. So either my reputation has preceded me a lot more than I thought, or this is a setup. Yeah, I’ve been around, tin man.”he puffed, his eyes narrowing further.

Osiris looked at him, not the least bit intimidated by the creature and then spoke,”You seem to be someone who has witnessed some pretty horrible things, like when you participated in the Vis-Zahati War, or genocide might be a good word for what you saw.”

“Finding your service record was easy enough, your kind stick out like a sore thumb here, so finding where you were was also not too difficult. What really should surprise you is I know what really happened on Shurra. Something you aren’t too proud of associating yourself with. I would think maybe you would prefer a job that might help more people, to make up for what the Vis did.” Osiris stood up again going to full height.

“If that doesn’t peak your interest though, you will be paid well.” He finished as he awaited a response from the agitated Iko.

Thada looked up at the strange man next to him. His stare remained, but it had softened a bit. “You’ve got some sort of dossier on me? Why?”he asked, visibly uncomfortable with this strange figure knowing so much of him while he was in the dark. “Why track me down? I’m just a mercenary. I fight other people’s wars for them, throw troublemakers out on their asses from bars, or just stand and look tough sometimes. If you’ve got no beef with me, why go through all this trouble?”

“I am looking for specific talents, and you fill the requirements. The war you participated in proves your worth, even if you are not necessarily proud of that fact. So do you want a job that is more than just dealing with bums, or being a bodyguard? If so then come with me, as I have a few more stops to make on this station. Otherwise enjoy some more weak alcohol and I’ll be on my way.” Osiris finished, it was up to the Iko at this point to choose and see where fate took him this time.

Meanwhile Aesen contacted Osiris again, “ Master Osiris, when you are done I have pinged the location of the next recruit, they are located in the apartment district of the station.” Osiris didn’t respond as he waited on Thada.

Thada simply stared at the man. He looked at the small glass on the counter. This felt a bit off - this wasn’t how you typically hired muscle. But he couldn’t deny that he was intrigued. Was it the mystery of the whole deal, he mused, or the chance to actually do something good for once, or was it just the promise of a stack of cash? Nevertheless, the Iko closed his eyes, sighed, then stood up from his stool and, leaving some tips on the counter, followed Osiris.

“My name is Osiris, you can refer to me as such from now on.” He said as he led him out and they headed towards the Xinda district.



Freya was unhappy, the “simple” contract she had taken on to return a stolen frigate had cost her her own shuttle and the lives off all but one of the other mercs who had signed on with her. Only the Taugrit; Lond T’Hora remained, but neither him nor Freya were big talkers, so after the last enemy had been killed an eery silence took hold of the blood-painted and bullet casing-littered hallways. Lond was currently piloting the ship back to ‘o Lavýrinthos’ While Freya made her way back to what was left of her shuttle.

“gently-carressing FLAK turret” she muttered “gently-carressing Janos and his stupid gently-carressing contract” She stopped to look at the mangled body of Julio Palio, a Ki’Jan and one of her dead ex colleagues. Freya wasn’t close to him, or to any of the other mercs on this job for that matter. She only first met them when they showed up at her shuttle roughly two days ago now. But still... What a waste she thought as she kneeled down to take his personal computer. If there were any next of kin contacts on the device she would let them know what happened to Julio.

She rounded the corner and was confronted with the burned out remains of her shuttle. Freya had managed to ram it into the hangar under heavy FLAK fire but since the fight had started right after they ran out of the craft she hadn’t had the time to take a proper look at her leased shuttle. It was clearly a total loss. “Well.. There goes all the pay from this job.” She said, to the corpses lying about in the hangar.

“1 hour to dock.” come the voice of Lond over her headpiece. “Right” Freya replied as she began to root around in the burned out wreck looking for her casual clothes “See you at the airlock in a bit.”

Her civilian clothes did not survive. So with only a few minutes until dock Freya showed up at the airlock wearing the lower part of her undersuit, her heavy combat boots and with her rifle strapped to her scar littered torso. Afterall, walking around o Lavýrinthos unarmed and unarmored was just asking for trouble, and after a mission like this Freya was in no mood for that.

She nodded at Lond as he showed up, also having shed most of his armor and stepped out onto The Labyrinth together. Jonas was already waiting for them outside, with a big fake smile and a handful of bodyguards. “Thank you two so much for this wondrous job well done!” He began, completely ignoring the sour looks of Freya and Lond’s faces. “I see you’re getting much more money than you signed up for! This deal just turned out great for everyone involved hasn’t it?” He continued. Freya considered telling him that that was a funny way of looking at a 80% casualty rate but Jonas had already moved on. “There!” the credits have been transferred, have a wonderful day!”

Seemingly done with the ‘conversation’ Jonas stepped around Freya and Lond and into the ship, his guards followed closely. Lond gave Freya a respectful nod before disappearing into the crowd, likely looking for a drink. Freya sighted and immediately made her final payment to the lease company, about two thirds of the money she had just earned. There still was quite a bit left, and Freya wasn't short on cash or anything like that. The whole mission was just a complete excrementshow and a waste of time and lives. She started in the direction of her apartment in the the Xinda district.

The Xinda was a relatively safe district, private security patrolled the streets and made sure the inhabitants were not bothered by the crime that was so common elsewhere on the station. At least.. So long as everyone kept paying their rents. After a short ride on a half empty public transport carriage she arrived at the district. The officer in charge of the gatekeepers gave her a respectful nod and opened up without question. She had worked for Xinda security on multiple occasions.

Her apartment was quite luxurious, it had a big bullet proof window and a stylish wooden floor, as Freya entered the fireplace lit up and her personal playlist started playing. Freya set down her armor and weapons on her spotless glass table and finally shed her heavy combat boots and undersuit. After a quick shower she changed into wide civilian pants and nondescript hoodie and laid down on her sofa. Just a quick nap before I go get a drink she promised herself as she closed her eyes.
She had been napping for roughly thirty minutes before several knocks were heard coming from her front door. Outside stood Osiris, waiting in front of the door, while Thada waited nearby, Osiris preferring to do the recruiting himself.

Freya shot awake as the sound of knocking on her door suddenly broke the soft crackling of her fireplace. Who could this be she thought as she opened up the feed from the security camera watching the door. The tall armored Human standing at her door erased all sleepiness from her mind and body. She jumped off of the sofa and reached for the blood-stained rifle still lying on her table, with a weapon in hand she took up position behind the fireplace. It gave her a clear shot at the door and the heat from the open fire would throw off many types of smart munitions and target-finding visors.

Freya briefly considered sending an emergency ping to Xinda security but held off for now. After all, the guy was patiently waiting at her door. Not kicking it in. Instead she opened up her omni-tool and connected it to the speaker outside.

“Yeah?”

Osiris just stood their,”Ms. Kalu, Freya Kalu. I have come to discuss a business proposition. No need to be defensive, you can come to the door.”

How could he possibly know she was acting defensively, let alone she was not at the door.

She slowly got up but kept the rifle in her hands. “I normally do not have business contacts come to my home.” she said “And you seem to have me at a disadvantage.”

“I do not wish to alarm you, I however figured since you were on the station I would contact you directly, in person.” Osiris said as he awaited by the door.

“I know about your time in the ‘Void Shakers’ and someone with your experience would be quite useful, and I feel that maybe a new job is what you need to recover your losses after your last job.”

The apartment was silent for short moment before the door unlocked and Osiris entered the home. The first thing he noticed was the wide tinted window that looked over the main market street of the Xinda district. The apartment was large but quite sparsely furnitured, there was an open staircase leading to a second story that seemed completely unoccupied.

Freya stood next to her table as if mentally debating something but ultimately laid down her rifle next to her bloodied body armor and turned to face Osiris, clearly expecting him to start talking.

He looked around for a bit before returning his armored gaze to the Kaveni, “Are you interested? I require your skills as a combat engineer for a mission of galactic importance, and with that importance comes equivalent pay.”

“The galaxy is a dangerous place, and I am forming a team to deal with things beyond the scope of the galactic governments, if you wish to be apart of this then come with me Freya Kalu. Any questions you have right now I can answer to an extent, but everything will be explained once I have acquired all the recruits for this venture.” Osiris finished awaiting her reply.

“Yes I am interested.” Freya admitted “But if the pay is as good as you make it out to be you could’ve hired an army here on o Lavýrinthos. Why go after individual mercenaries?”

He tilted his head a bit before returning his gaze, “If an army was the answer to the problem at hand, I wouldn’t be here. I need specialists, not fodder.”

“If you are interested, then follow me, I have one other...interesting selection, here on the station. Then we will board my vessel for our next destination.”

Osiris said ‘interesting’ for a very specific reason, he had little idea why Aesen even chose the next recruit for the mission, either he saw some potential that Osiris just did not, or it was just Aesen’s humor at work again. Humor a concept entirely foreign to Osiris in all but it’s dictionary definition.

“Very well” she admitted before giving her apartment one last look. “Let me just get my armor on and I am ready to go.”

Osiris nodded, and waited as she gathered her things, soon they were on their way. Thada and Freya following behind, rather quietly, the both of them contemplating what they had just got themselves signed up for.



“The Barbed Wheel, huh…”

“Weird name. Nobody really uses wheels anymore.” He spoke, seemingly to nobody, “But I guess, since everybody used wheels at some point, it makes sense…multicultural name and everything...”

People started gathering. People started staring. People started expecting and hoping.

This was Zeph, after all. Zeph was always a show worth watching. Anybody who kept up with Zeph’s blogs knew that whenever he specified a time and place to be, you crowded that place and stayed there until something amazing happened.

He sat down.

“Hi everybody!” Zeph exclaimed, smiling and waving at the crowd that had gathered in the alleyway

Even the ones who knew no human English replied back, loudly:

“Hi Mr. Zeph!”

They’d seen enough broadcasts to know the greeting protocol that Zeph derived from an ancient human epic. Zephirus noted that a universal greeting was a good way of indoctrinating his followers into a single, devoted “group.” Shut up Zephirus.

“Now,” Zeph began, speaking in English, which was the most widely translatable language for those in the crowd with auto-translators, “I’ve been feeling pretty lonely recently. Travelling the wide, wide galaxy’s rough with nobody to keep you company…y’know?”. At that, some girls in the crowd had their eyes almost bulge out of their sockets...literally, actually: Some species are actually capable of that.

Before the fangirls could say anything stupid, though...

“So, I went to the CSE to try and get a pet kitty cat!”

Zeph said something stupid first.

“Cats, if you weren’t aware, are these adorable little fluffballs of pure kindness~” Zeph spoke, seemingly dancing in joy, “Human culture is obsessed with them, and why would they be? Look at himmmm~” He squeed, bringing up a hologram of an especially adorable kitten. Some in the crowd went “d’aww” or similar expression, while most just stood there...waiting for something amazing to happen.

“So, I took one from the humans, and brought it up here!” Zeph exclaimed, “Buuuut….” He looked down, his smile faltering, “I guess cats don’t really do too well outside of human conditions, or something. He didn’t last very long on station, there must’ve been something toxic to cats in the environment..”

The crowd fell to a saddened hush...before Zeph brought his head up and added, “Thankfully, though, I learned that there’s a human culture called ‘Yapanese’ that uses the skin of these ‘cats’ for instruments!

He brought out a long, wooden instrument with three strings. It looked similar to a guitar, but the furry, square body differentiated it pretty thoroughly.

“I tanned little Zippy’s skin and fitted it around this baby,” Zeph spoke with an excited -almost childlike- smile, placing drums on the ground as he tuned the Shamisen, “it should make for a really good sound!”

The crowd gathered, the alleyway choked with fans and any interested passersby, as he started playing his exotic, soulful tune while simultaneously drumming with his feet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5frKigZGLdw& (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5frKigZGLdw&)

Osiris rounded the corner, coming upon the crowd, he had instructed both Thada and Freya to wait near the docking station while he picked up the final recruit on this station. It was also a precaution in case he needed to use his innate abilities in acquiring the next ‘asset’, as Aesen had debriefed him on the strange crowd that had gathered that would possibly need to be dispersed.

Then the power armored Human removed his helmet, and mag-locked it to the side of his waist. His icy gaze watched the strange performance, the stench of the crowd was mildly offensive to his enhanced senses but he did not show any discomfort or emotion for that matter as he awaited an opening before decided to do anything to forcibly stop the performance.

The song finished, and Zeph looked up at the cheering crowd. He looked from left to right, scanning the faces of everybody around…”Thanks everybody! The instrument isn’t actually that hard to play, all you need is-” until he came to one, single, seemingly dissatisfied face.

“Oh. Human. Humans have issues when their domesticated animals are killed..” Zeph thought

”The Human is armored. The Human isn’t here for your performance. The Human wants you, and you’re a criminal in Human territory.” Zephirus added, ”Bounty hunter, cat lover, musical critic...it matters not, we must run.”

Zeph nodded, it was always good to listen to Zephirus’ advice every now and then. He got up, leaving the Shamisen and drums on the floor as a souvenir, “Now, sorry for getting any of your hopes up, but I gotta jet! First one to get to the Shamisen can keep it!”

At the sudden rushing of the crowd, Zeph began to make his way through the crowd of admirers. Hopefully the sudden rush would keep the human off of him until he could stowaway on a garbage tug or something.

Aesen contacted Osiris, “Master Osiris, the target has been startled, he is attempting to escape. I am tracking his movements through the onstation security systems, I must warn you it has blind spots. I have accounted for them, but be warned.”

Osiris began his pursuit, the Vis’s location marked in his HuD, it was moving so Osiris kept pace with him. However he didn’t run, he didn’t want to make a scene, and he knew he was faster than the Vis but he didn’t need to scare him further, he needed to get him to stop.

Zeph turned back to look, he noticed that the human was still following. There wasn’t time to think: He didn’t live this long by being a complete idiot.

...Or, did he?

”No. That doesn’t make any sense.” Zephirus thought, ”Whatever this human has in store for you, it is likely high heat, and you’re still trying to avoid heat for the time being.”

”But it could be fun...and this performance wasn’t really, well, that exciting…” Zeph thought back

”That doesn’t matter. The point of this performance was to admit in public that you stole a cat so as to avoid suspicion for the murder of a CSE official on another world.” Zephirus replied, ”Flashiness is irrelevant.”

”You’re not in control, shush. Let’s see what he has to say, and dodge the bullets if he’s not the talkative sort.”

Zeph turned to look at the human after walking a short while, cocking his head and folding his arms. “Nice armor. I don’t recognize it.” Zeph spoke, “So, anything in particular you wanted from me? Or should we just bring the guns out now?”

They were still in public. Zeph’s fans weren’t too far off. This would either be one hell of a show, or a quickly rejected offer.

“I didn’t bring a gun.” Osiris said plainly to the Vis, on Osiris’s back was a plain, but sturdy Chain-sword, a type of weapon not really seen anywhere in the major civilizations, the closest thing to them were Vibro blades.

“Zeph, I have come to discuss a business proposition. I am recruiting a crew to do certain missions with me, and you are one of the names compiled in the Dossiers my associate has collected for me. I can guarantee you free energy, since you seem to be a Vis that frequently goes without sufficient energy supplies.” Osiris said, it was good that the Vis approached him so he wouldn’t have to waste time tracking him.

Zeph looked at the human, and adopted a thoughtful posture. Humans generally liked it when their body language was mimicked, “What kind of mission?” He asked, “Like, give it to me straight up. I’m trying to avoid getting caught for anything right now, so illegalities are a no-go.”

“I have a complete list of all the crimes you committed, as well as visual, audio, and any extra-net messages you have sent or received as evidence of you committing said crimes. The only reason you haven’t been incarcerated is due to sheer coincidence and you sticking to areas outside of the jurisdiction of where you are wanted. If you need more incentive to work for me, I could also erase said evidence.” Osiris decided that was a good offer to make to the strange Vis.

“As for the Job it will be explained further on my ship, I can assure it will not be illegal.” Osiris wasn’t sure that would always be the case, if they had to do things outside of his initial mission parameters, but for his main goal it was definitely not illegal as it would go completely unknown and unrecognized by the local galactic community.

Osiris swore he saw the Vis’ crystal shimmer bright orange for a moment, before settling back to azure blue.

“Take the offer, follow him back to his ship, slip the vibroblade between his ribs the moment he turns his back as soon as he tells you what ship it is.” Zephirus advised, as nonchalantly as one would iterate a instruction manual

”He might have somebody waiting for him, who’d release the info!” Zeph replied with exasperation, ”Also we shouldn’t kill, killing is bad. Also he’s kinda scary, he might hear the vibroblade.”

”Stab him quickly, then?”

“No, no stabbing at all!”

Zeph soon realized that he said that last bit out loud.

“Right!” Zeph exclaimed, scratching the back of his head as he engaged in the human behavior of ‘mock laughter’, “Well, seems you’ve got me pinned pretty solidly! So I don’t see any other response to that other than ‘When do we start, and where do I go, boss?’!”

“You can follow me, we are headed to the docking station. Once on board I will direct you to your quarters, you can stay there until I call for a meeting. Then I will debrief you all on the mission directive.” Osiris said as he put his helmet back on, a hiss from it sealing shut and slight hum of the shielding surrounding the helmet again, instead of his unarmored head.

They began to head towards the ship where Thada and Freya were waiting, the sleek 450 meter long ship visible through the large port windows.

”Shielding. We would have died had we had attempted a backstab.” Zephirus thought with some reluctance, ”I...may have been a little hasty.”

”Apology accepted!” Zeph thought back happily, smiling as he followed the strange human, ”Now, let’s follow this weirdo to anoooother adventure!”

As they neared the docks, Thada and Freya joined Osiris as well and then they headed down to the where the ship was docked and entered. Soon they were on their way to the next destination and the next recruit.
Title: The Privateer and The Scientist
Post by: LordNecross on February 23, 2017, 09:22:04 PM
Aesen’s visuals from the ship tracked Osiris and the three new Recruits as they headed towards  the ship docks.

Meanwhile Neal observed Osiris as well through the station's security cams, hacked by Aesen on his request. The first two recruits Osiris bumped into looked like hard bastards, so so far so good, then he saw Zeph and started to question the AI's sanity, wondering why they were recruiting a Vis busker of all people. The dossier did mention extreme...quirks in his personality, but not this.

Finally as the four of them entered the ship, Neal was waiting there, wanting to get a look at them in person.

Osiris spoke up first talking to the AI, “Aesen, lead the recruits to their quarters and get them acquainted with the Ship.”

“Right away Master Osiris, come this way if you three will.” Aesen said as Thada, Freya and Zeph were led to the elevator to be taken to the correct level where their housing would be, each having their own room.

Then Neal said "Hi honey, I see you brought the kids home, did you have a good day? Our pet has been annoying me though, where's the spray bottle? I have spray water all over his circuits."

Suddenly Neal was sprayed with direct precision with a few spurts of water from the ships automatic fire fighting systems.

“Bad fleshy! Bad! Bow down to your Synthetic superiors!” Aesen said in his characteristic joking way.

Neal looked up at where the water was coming from, visibly annoyed and said "See? This is why AI sentience isn't actively pursued. You do that again HAL and I'm going down to your core and rooting around in there until you think you're a duck."

Aesen chuckled again, “We’re getting along just fine Master Osiris.”

Soon Aesen was getting ready to plot a course to their next destination.



*Deep space, somewhere relatively near the independent systems*

The freighter convoy was moving slowly towards the navigation buoy that marked their next jump towards the independent systems. The cargo ship's sizes varied wildly, mainly because the company that owned them wasn’t exactly a "run of the mill" freight company. It was more something akin to a shell company that acted as an umbrella for various independent cargo operators.

The company took pains to conceal its activity in official channels, so it would be able to avoid a lot of taxes and drive up profits, but in so doing, gambled heavily with its cargo's safety. It mainly operated in routes that were charted, but not heavily patrolled by police forces.

The company wasn’t completely careless, as it would routinely contract the security services of other companies, usually the ones that offered the best prices. And these would usually subcontract privateers and small squads to fill the numbers. Khrelan was one such privateer and, fortunately, he didn't have to bring his own ship to this specific job.

(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/nomanssky/images/9/96/Freighters.jpg)

"15 seconds to jump point. See you on the other side." transmitted the main freighter.

"Roger that. " answered Khrelan and many other pilots escorting.

One by one each freighter and accompanying escorts jumped to the next system. Khrelan was one of the last, as he was in the rear guard.

"Alright, here we go." he said to himself as he keyed the jump sequence.

(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qU13BMpZn9c/maxresdefault.jpg)

What awaited him on the other side wasn’t the usual quiet star system, but hell. The convoy had jumped right into a rather well prepared pirate attack.

Barely two seconds in and two of the smaller freighters were already exploding, their engines and power cores breached by explosions from a small minefield laid around the arrival zone.

(https://media.tumblr.com/74bb0361becb52f433d3e2fa8c56792a/tumblr_inline_mkncn4psFA1qz4rgp.jpg)

"Evasive maneuvers! Head in and help the other escorts! Try to protect the cargo!" shouted Khrelan into his squad's comm channel. Fat good that it'd do, there were almost as many pirates as escorts. And the minefield was tearing up the cargo ships.

He got a bead on a pirate fighter. Khrelan kept him in his sights until he got a lock and fired a missile. It streaked ahead and hit the pirate on the engines as he was shooting at a friendly. Swerving right to avoid the explosion, the first thing he saw was a ship's wingtip zoom by his cockpit by mere inches away.

"The hell! Was he trying to ram..." said he to himself, but he didn't finish the sentence as the ship jolted aside when he got hit by a volley. Shielding took the brunt of it, but many more of those and his ship would go.

He turned the ship around just in time to avoid most of another volley. Adjusting the ship, he fired along the enemy's projected path. He got lucky as one round pierced the cockpit and killed the alien inside.

One quick glance at the radar and he saw that the battle was not going well for either side. Most enemy and friendly blips were already gone, replaced by the occasional blip of a pod. Ahead, two freighters were shooting away as many escape pods as they could manage before they blew, but it was a bit too late. A sudden explosion from one of them finished the other, and their shockwave severy damaged most of the pods that were trying to get away.

It'd seem that Khrelan would be lucky just to get out of this alive.

He got on another bogey's six and managed to get in a couple of good shots, damaging one of the engines and a gun. He was going to finish the pirate when a very loud message from the main freighter blasted across all channels:

"We're breaking up! We're..." and that was it. Its radio cut out as a large explosion gutted the ship’s bridge and quite a large portion of the hull.

"excrement!" Khrelan turned tail and ran, trying to get away as much as he could before the big ship's core ruptured. It didn't take long, as something inside the cargo containers cooked off, popping the core. The explosion tossed a lot of debris out, not to mention a deadly shock wave. A large piece of debris hit Khrelan's fighter and severely damaged the power banks that powered weapons. The shock wave broke a wing clean off.

He made sure his armor suit was sealed and punched the eject button. The cockpit of the ship detached and its boost engine kicked in. It was barely enough. His fighter blew as the escape pod was speeding away. The force was enough to toss it aside.

The last thing Khrelan remembered was being tossed around very hard before he blacked out.

*a couple of hours later*

Khrelan woke to a nasty headache and a tangy coppery taste in his mouth. He fumbled with his suit's controls to see if it still had some painkillers to dose him with. As the headache subsided a bit, he surveyed what he could see from his cockpit.

Debris, debris as far as he could see. The occasional pod tumbling about. He could see a large part of the big freighter floating around in the distance. And corpses. Floating corpses here and there, dotting the "landscape".

"Urgh..." moaned him. He was stuck in an escape pod, in deep space, in the middle of nowhere. And he'd have to nurse a nasty headache. Such luck.

Currently Aesen was plotting a jump for Arcadonian space to recruit the next selection, however Aesen was also monitoring chatter in the Independent systems. Aesen soon discovered one of their selections, the Taurgit Male, was working as a fighter pilot escort for a cargo convoy. The destination they should be turning up in was rather nearby, not that distance was too much a factor for Aesen’s advanced FTL systems, and so decided to make a detour.

“Master Osiris, The Taurgit should be arriving in a nearby system, I say we intercept them before jumping into Ki’jan controlled territory.”

Osiris looked at the Galactic map, projected before him as he stood in the command position on the bridge.

“Acknowledged, getting these recruits quicker is prefered. Alter the course, first the Taurgit then the Ki’Jan.” Osiris said plainly as he sifted through the map to the system in question.

Within mere moments the ship was in system, however there was no convoy or any ships for that matter.

“Strange, they should be here. I will scan the system...anomaly detected near a travel marker buoy. Wreckage, there was a battle here. Moving us closer.” Aesen said as the ship slipped instantly to its target destination.

Osiris looked out of the forward port, seeing the carnage that must have unfolded not too long before their arrival.
“Aesen, scan for life.” Osiris commanded with his perpetually stoic visage. After a few rounds of scanning only a single life form was detected.

“Master Osiris I have detected an escape pod, the life form inside is Taurgit, I am unsure if it is the one we are looking for, I have detected multiple other Taurgit corpses as well. Only one way to find out.” Aesen finished as he maneuvered the ship towards the pod.

“Locking onto the pod, pulling it in now. Head down to the cargo bay, I’ll bring him aboard. Let’s find out what condition the Taurgit is in and see if it is our guy.” Aesen said to Osiris who was steps ahead of him already, and heading down to the bay.

Meanwhile in the bay, the cockpit escape pod was pulled in through a tractor beam, and gently placed upon the ground in the cargo bay. The bay itself was large, there was a fully sealed off road vehicle nearby, and a drop ship attached to the upper rafters in the cargo bay.

It seems the Taurgit’s luck had turned for the better at the moment.

Khrelan looked on as the pod settled onto the deck. He had no Idea who was pulling him from deep space. Or why.

He tried the opening mechanism for the pod. Nothing, damn thing was stuck. He tried to kick the canopy off. It came off and clattered on the deck.

He got up and cautiously set one foot on the deck, but the pod shifted and he tripped, faceplanting onto the deck. His trunk, which was behind the pilot seat, fell on top of him.

“Urgh…”

Moments later after his mishap, the elevator at the far end of the cargo bay opened, and out stepped a large fully armored human, or at least he assumed human as the helmet covered his face.

The human came up to him and removed the trunk from the Taurgit’s back.

“Khrelan T'Vathoth? Is that your name? You match the description of our Dossier.” Osiris said in his cool and rather monotonous tone.

Khrelan eyed the human suspiciously as he picked himself up. He knew exactly where to find him, and knew his name.

“Yes, that would be me. Who are … you?”

Osiris took off his helmet, revealing that he was indeed Human, “Osiris is my name, or my designation. I was originally going to meet you after you finished your previous job, however having determined that you did not arrive at your destination, I investigated and found you floating in the void of space.”

“I have been acquiring specialists for my team, and your records show that you fit my needs. Would you be interested in this employment?” Osiris questioned the Taurgit.

“Well... seeing as my old job went up in smoke in a way that...either I'll be considered dead, or freight operators will distrust me, as I was the only one to 'magically’ survive...and seeing that you came along and scooped me up before I starved...yeah. A job would be good, even if it were an excuse to lay low.”

Osiris looked at the Taurgit, “Alright, then. The shipboard AI will show you to your room.”

Aesen chimed in, “Not so fast, I need him to go to the med bay. He is slightly injured, and also has a concussion. After that then he can go to his chambers.”

“Now if you would Mister T’Vathoth, follow the hollow projector arrows.” Aesen said to direct the Taurgit.

“Thank you.” said Khrelan, turning to follow the directions.

With that done Aesen began directing the ship towards its next destination and its final recruit. The ship immediately transitioned to orbit around Leticia, a colony of the Arcadonian Empire.



Arcadonian Empire
Planet Leticia
Letician Ecumenopolis

Hexagonal Layout Example
(http://i.imgur.com/VoFjceb.jpg)

Low atmosphere
(http://i.imgur.com/Nya2S8y.jpg)

Leticia, the world of water, the scientific capital of the Arcadonian Empire, home to over 3.7 Billion Ki’Jannian lives. The saturn-sized planet had its entire surface area covered by a mixture of shallow and deep ocean, The planet 95% water with the other 5% being a molten iron and other elemental core which provided the planet with a stable magnetosphere.

By all means, this planet wasn’t a normal occurrence in the universe, a complete 1 in a trillion chance with odds even higher when you take into fact that it was located a single star system over from Aquaris System where the Capital of the Empire, Hydros, stood proudly. The members of the Arcadonian Empire considered this place paradise for a reason.

With little to no land to build off of, this planet would have been a near dud for any other species aside from its water supplies, but for the Arcadonian Empire which thrives in the water it was a chance for them to put their architectural abilities to the test.

Hence the Letician Ecumenopolis was born. A floating city 1million km² in size which handled all housing, industry and food production the colony needed. The city split into several hexagonal districts of varying sizes which connected together to form the single city. To the unknowledgeable, it would look like any other floating city concept for any land based species, but to anyone familiar with Arcadonian Cities the floating city would only be the literal tip of the iceberg as once you hit below the water surface you would come to see a city even more vast with skyscrapers and buildings extending deep into the ocean depths.

This was the Arcadonian Empire, emperors of the oceans, protectors of the universes water supplies.

(http://i.imgur.com/YqEW4By.jpg)

Doctor Ailuin Noatak himself was a prodigy in the fields of biological sciences with a special focus on Xenobiology of all forms. From his own species and the other sentients of the universe all the way to even the smallest of microbes. Ailuin studied it all and was renowned and respected throughout the scientific circles of every civilization for equal parts his intelligence and curiosity as well as his insanity.

While in the past the Doctor had chosen to work for the Letician Imperial Laboratories, quickly making it to the top of the food chain in short time; the Doctor grew weary of the restrictions on his work. Yes he had achieved great things from running half the biology department to great efficiency to even heading up the foundation of a Colonial Security Xeno-Taskforce which had begun to be adopted throughout the known universe, the doctor simply wanted more.

To fight that he decided to form his own Laboratory, aptly named Noatak Laboratories, where he could research all he wanted with no restrictions and contract his highly in demand services out to external parties at exorbitant prices. This personal laboratory is where he stood, deep within the underwater districts. The doctor surrounded by a small handful of carefully chosen individuals whom he trusted enough to assist him in his projects.

In his laboratory he was surrounded by scientific equipment connected to his laboratory's supercomputer which was dedicated specifically to their work. Off to the side in a specially designed quarantine chamber sat incubation chambers and test tubes of various specimens and cultures housing various experiments.

At the moment, his focus was on an electronic microscope with a single sample on the inside.

Meanwhile in orbit, Aesen performed docking procedures with a station above the world where upon disembarking he was brought through an immigration checkpoint which contained every species but Ki’Jan.

Thankfully for Osiris however, Aesen had provided him with a fake diplomatic security visa’s allowing him to skip the lengthy primary line and get pulled into a secondary checkpoint filled with humans where he was questioned about his purpose for visiting and asked to declare his personal belongings to root out any illegalities, tag any weapons and grill him on his allegiances.

As part of standard procedure, Telepathy was attempted to gain his whereabouts for the past several weeks, but with his innate abilities blocking any attempts and giving the inspectors headaches, suspicion was only raised and he was held up longer as more records had to be verified manually.

All in all the process took an hour, but once Osiris passed immigration, he departed, taking a transport from the station to the colony below.

Transport down to the surface involved a simple elevator ride down on one of the colonies orbital tethers, a rather comfy ride. For Osiris however he noticed that with the majority of the people on the lift being Ki’Jan, they all tended to put as much distance between themselves and him as possible.

Osiris paid them no mind, if he removed his headband they would have far more reason to keep their distance, he mostly waited till the ride was over.

Aesen contacted him, “I have been digging through the colony’s systems, and I think our person of interest is in a privately owned lab, I will mark its position in your HuD. Make your way there when the elevator makes it groundside.”

Osiris just continued to wait, seeing the surface getting closer as the elevator lowered.

With Aesen having completed his conversation, the elevator was just entering what was dubbed the Telepathy Zone. Given that Ki’Jannian Telepathy had a range limit of several kilometers when unimpeded, this was the zone where once the elevator entered the location Osiris should have been able to feel a dull, almost nonexistent pressure within mind.

With the elevator in this zone, the colony itself was highly visible with the windows of the elevator revealing a vast ocean with a single circular landmass made entirely out of hexagonal blocks which as it got closer to the surface revealed larger buildings.

The elevator soon made it to the ground and with the doors opened, the Ki’Jan speed walked out of the elevator, giving off the appearance of not wanting to be anywhere near Osiris.

Looking at the nav marker on his hud, Osiris found that the laboratory was within the Underwater portion of the city within one of the nearby district blocks which extended under the water a couple hundred floors. For his target in particular, the laboratory was at depth 85 and due to being walled off was a dry district that allowed him a pathway he could walk to.

Osiris made his way to an elevator to take him down into the the underwater building, keying into the elevator to go to the 85th sub-floor. Now he waited yet again till he arrived on the correct floor.

Going down Osiris was in one of many individual sized glass elevators which brought him down into the underwater portion of the district. Through the glass elevators he could see that the area itself was one large hexagon with a changing layout as it went deeper into the Letician Ocean.

Where on the first 30 floors it started off as an open floor design where each floor contained smaller buildings and rooms setup in the style of a market, upon going deeper the opened floor plans changed to long hallways of office buildings which had no storefront.

The trip in total to the correct floor took about a minute of travel and upon disembarking he found himself facing one of the large halls with offices branching off of them. According to the address on his marker, he followed it along and within a couple minutes made it to a rather boring looking office entrance with the words “Noatak Laboratories” above the entrance.

On the entrance to the office, the front of it was made of a glass panelling which revealed a waiting area with a single Ki’Jan behind a desk with the name of the company plastered on the wall behind them. Beside the Ki’Jan was a doorway locked off with some sort of identification pad.

Osiris entered the building scanning the area as he walked in. He walked up to the desk and looked at the Ki’Jan, this was obviously just a receptionist and not the person he was looking for. However he spoke up, “Is Ailuin Noatak present, and may I speak with him?”

Seeing Osiris enter the building, the receptionist was taken aback a little, but quickly pulled herself back together.

“Hello. The doctor is currently in. Do you have an appointment?”

Osiris should his fully helmeted head, “No, I have to speak with him about a business opportunity if he is not busy.”

The receptionist nodded. “I’ll see if he’s available.” pausing as she opened up a telepathic line to the Doctor, nodding a couple times before coming back after a short moment.

“Alright. He’s decontaminating now. Follow me.” The receptionist getting up from her desk as she led Osiris to the locked door and utilized the telepathic interface to open it, ultimately bringing him to the Doctor's office which consisted of a small room with a desk, table, seating area and several shelves which contained numerous awards. Built into one of the walls was a small fish tank.
“Just take a seat and the doctor will be with you shortly”

The massive armored human took a seat and waited, Aesen briefed him a bit on Ailuin.

“Master Osiris, this one will be a tough nut, he doesn’t like Humans. But you are barely Human as is, so maybe he can look past that. Meanwhile I’ll do some digging in his records some more.” Aesen said into Osiris’s Comms.

The doctor took several minutes, mostly owing to the decontamination process. Entering the room he had a smile on his face, but upon taking a look at the human sitting within his office it quickly disappeared. Before Osiris had a chance to say anything, he spun on his heel and walked out.

In the period of silence for Osiris, Aesen could hear the doctor chew out the receptionist over the buildings security. “Why didn’t you tell me he was human” The receptionist only apologized over and over again. “You know my feelings about them. I need to know these things first..” pausing for a moment as took a deep breath

After a moment the doctor re-entered the office and took a seat at his desk and stared at the Human.

“Dr. Ailuin Noatak, I am Osiris and I have come to your office to see if you were interested in a job that would make use of your unique skillset.” Osiris started out, not the least bit phased by the Ki’Jan’s Speceisism towards Humans.

“Well that much is obvious.” replied Ailuin rolling his eyes. “Out with it. What is this job.”

Osiris nodded, he preferred to just be forward about it, however he needed to save some information for debriefing the whole team.

“Dr. Noatak, you specialize in Xeno-Biology, the best in your field. The task I have been given requires specialists like you, and it is also imperative to the safety of the galaxy at large that we succeed in containing Xeno-Biological threat. You will be paid for your services in a way you see fit, and I assume this would also be a chance for you to study new life forms as well, and expand your horizons in your field.” Osiris offered as he explained.

The doctor nodded as he heard all of this. “If you are talking about the Xenomorphs then it is no secret I am working on a vaccination program to train the immune systems of the Ki’Jan, Kaveni, Iko, Taurgit and to some extent the Pheledioms”

Osiris looked at the doctor, “I am guessing the Humans aren’t a top priority for you Doctor? However I do not know what these Xenomorphs you speak of are, but I also must say that the threat I speak may be more troublesome, if not equally troublesome.”
Smirking slightly at the first portion. “The humans can work on their own vaccine... after they pay for my intellectual rights of course”. Coming the second portion however he looked slightly interested. “So a threat equally if not more troublesome, I’m surprised I haven’t heard of such a threat before. Can you tell me more?”

“I would prefer not to discuss it here, but I can tell you it involves a very persistent and ecologically damaging sentient race. They reproduce faster than Kurgesha, much faster, and can be ecologically damaging on any world they so much as make ground contact with. This is just the biological portion of the danger they pose. Militarily, they could overwhelm all of your known civilizations if they make it to this side of the galaxy.” Osiris explained, Aesen began immediately researching the Xenomorphs to figure out what they were.

Hearing the human refuse to get into more specific details, the doctor began to scowl a bit, thinking to himself that this was why he hated working with humans on a business level

“So they reproduce faster that Kurgesha, and are organized enough to travel the stars and form militaries. Is there anything else you can tell me, a picture, biological scan, reproduction method. Anything to let me know what we would be working with here.”

Osiris decided he would get the assistance of his AI yet again, as he didn’t want to divulge too much with another Ki’Jan nearby.

Osiris then spoke more after requesting Aesen’s help, “Doctor, I would prefer to speak more in private, the information I have is sensitive and should preferably remain unknown to your governments. I don’t know what else to tell you in present company, but if you agree all the information would be available to you aboard my ship.”

“If you are worried about a leak, there is no need to worry. All of my employees are under strict Top Level Scientific NDA and has never seen a leak of information before. The outer walls of this complex are also filled with a Telepathic jamming crystal.”

Aesen hacked into the comms, or well decided to use them since he had already easily bypassed all the buildings cyber-security measures. “Hello Dr. Noatak, I am Aesen. Master Osiris’s Assistant, or more charismatic better half, as I like to call myself.” The AI’s voice was impossible to attribute a gender to, which was rather confusing at first to one’s senses.

“I am his shipboard AI, and I just wanted to let you know your work is rather fascinating. However the lab you use is rather low-tech in my opinion, I am sure you would enjoy the lab I have assembled on the ship. It should suit your needs far better.” Aesen finished.

Hearing the unfamiliar voice emanating from the speakers he had paired to telepathically the Doctor was confused, but before he could speak up to voice his questions the AI revealed itself as an AI and his interest immediately seemed to pique.”
“An Artificial Intelligence. I didn’t think the Coalition States of Earth had advanced that far.”  The Doctor turning back to Osiris as he suddenly began to sense something was up. “This is why I don’t like humans, you are far too secretive” The Doctor now purposefully trying to open up a telepathic channel to the human in an attempt to retrieve the information himself given the humans needless secrecy up until now.

However immediately upon attempting to do so a sharp pain ringed out within his mind which caused him to quickly stop out of shock as he gripped his head and winced.
“What the…” he spoke quickly before catching himself and instead switching to look inquisitively.

“You’re not human… are you?”

Osiris nodded, “Not in the typical way, yes. I come from Human stock, but am…different, I would be considered a monster, or freak by some. I however have a device that makes it easier to be near others, if I was not wearing it, you would be in great pain. I assume you tried to touch my mind, such a thing cannot work on me, I am the antithesis of psionics. Now if you are more thoroughly interested, maybe you would consider joining my crew.”

The Doctor sat in silence for a minute as he thought this over. “You don’t work with the Coalition States of Earth, correct?”

“I do not.” Osiris said simply.

“And the pay for this job will be great...”

Osiris nodded, “In whatever form you wish, and it will be legal tender. Or whatever it is that would satisfy you.”

“And I will have the chance to research to my heart's content?”

Aesen spoke up this time, “Of course you can, and you will be in a great position to discover entirely new things. With better equipment as well.”

“Will I have to work with typical humans on this crew?”

Osiris looked at Ailuin, “Besides myself there is one other Human, I have recruited from most of the major civilizations in this part of the Galaxy. However if you can look past that, this is a chance you may never get again.”

Ailuin simply closed his eyes as he thought deeply some more. Reopening them some time later with a sigh.
 
“I suppose I can give it a chance.”
Osiris nodded, “Good, if you would gather what you need then follow me. I have a ship docked in the orbital station. You were the final recruit I needed, so I will be briefing you all aboard my ship soon, so that you are fully prepared for the task at hand.”

Osiris then stood up and awaited on Ailuin.

“That just leaves the question of what to do with my Laboratory and its Employees. I have a small handful of 8 individuals which assist me in my work. Would they be coming along or should I prepare work from a distance for them.”

“No.” Osiris said, “We can only take you, and it may be best that you don’t share the work you do on the ship with them, if you however choose to continue your previous work with them in long distance is fine, but new work and data should remain on the ship, until it is safe to release such information.”

Hearing this, the Doctor nodded. “That should be fine. The business does have years of work lined up for them to continue in my absence.”

After this the doctor paused. “If it would be possible, can I have a couple days to gather my things and say my goodbyes? I am currently in the process of working with a super virus and other various things which need to be handed over in person tomorrow. After that I will be free.”

“That is fine, I will be aboard my ship in the meantime, good day doctor.” Osiris said and headed out the door.

Aesen then spoke with Osiris through his helmet comms, “I have been looking into these ‘Xenomorphs’ they seem to be a rather dangerous species as well, not nearly as mobile as the Krork, but they seem to be rather dangerous once they get established. We may end up dealing with these creatures alongside our other tasks, it may be a good source of income.”

Osiris didn’t respond to Aesen, though a sort of understanding between the two was already apparent. Osiris knew that the mission was a length one, and while he was given good initial equipment, and a good ship, the only way to be completely sure of success was to do other work to acquire upgrades and better equipment for himself and the ship. If he proved himself enough to his superiors as well, he could get further modification and bring himself closer to his final ascension.

For now though the task at hand would be to get the team together once Ailuin was aboard, and see about getting them acquainted with what they would be dealing with.

During the week buffer he had, Doctor Ailuin Noatak finished up his current assignments and handed them over to the proper authorities. He had let his employees know he had taken on a personal research expedition and put his best man in charge of the laboratory to continue the projects. He assured them he would continue to help from a distance, but he would expect them to continue to uphold the high honour and intelligence he hired them all for.

Over the week he had had his personal items slowly brought to the ship in orbit and had said his goodbyes to his friends and family. On the last day he made his way up the ship with his final bag of gear.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on February 24, 2017, 06:00:56 PM
After Ailuin was on the ship, Aesen left the docks and headed out into the void before making a jump to a random uncharted part of space, away from any major space-bound civilization. The crew had been assembled, they had all been on the ship for quite some time and despite this most had kept to themselves for now, anticipating figuring out just what they had gotten themselves into, there would be many trials ahead for them, and Aesen wondered if he had made good choices. The AI however was confident in his selection, because even though his Master was rather taciturn most of the time, he was very intelligent and intuitive. Osiris had gone over the dossiers multiple times to be sure of the selection, and that it would fit the needs of the mission. For the most part he approved, despite a lot of doubt in the Vis selection, which Osiris found to be the really only questionable one. In the end he decided to put trust in Aesen's selection, and only the forge of battle would determine if any of the choices had been correct, as that would sort itself out quickly if he was wrong.

Currently Osiris was meditating in his room, visualizing combat in his head as he kept a steady breath, his hardened body calm and  not tense despite the pressures of his task.

"Master Osiris, are you read to call a meeting?" Aesen spoke to him through the audio systems in Osiris's private quarters.

"Yes, notify them that it is time for the briefing." he said as he got up and stretched out, flexing his muscles and cracking his joints. He only wore a tight body suit that covered his torso, only going down to mid thigh on each leg, and mid bicep of each arm. It was a mix of black, and grays in color with holes in specific areas were cybernetic ports could be seen for interfacing with armor, and the suit hugged his body, accentuating his musculature.

He decided to put on pair of simple tight black pants, of some breathable fabric and combat boots as well.

"My goodness, pants that aren't meant for combat! Now that people are onboard you can start dressing more like a person yourself master Osiris. I didn't assemble a wardrobe for you without reason." Aesen said with a sigh. "Its a start at least."

Osiris headed out and too the meeting room.

Aesen went over the whole ships audio systems, "All crew members, Assemble in the meeting room for mission briefing. Thank you."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on February 24, 2017, 06:30:17 PM
Krelan was in the medbay, checking the few bandages that he got for the light wounds incurred on his botched escort job. Excellent, he thought. Have to keep only the one on my left arm, the rest have already healed enough. He discarded the bandages in the...trash bin. Or at least he though it was a trash bin. He wasn't THAT much familiar with human spaceships.

PA system: "All crew members, Assemble in the meeting room for mission briefing. Thank you."

Hmm. Boss is calling. I guess we'll get details about this job now. He opened the door and walked through the mess hall, towards the ship's briefing/meeting room. He entered it and got a seat, waiting for the other crew members to show up. He pulled his personal datapad from his pocket and started fiddling with it, reading a book about some sort of fantastic story set in a future far removed from current time.

Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on February 24, 2017, 07:19:59 PM
Neal was sitting on his bed, cleaning his carbine as he mulled over the aliens he would be working with. Lizard woman and Dinosoid seemed competent, they carried themselves with the ease of confidence that came with hardened veterans, though such people usually had severe baggage as well. The giant cat person meanwhile, their demo expert, was a bit clumsy...or at least that was Neal's first impression, but the dossier HAL had provided had promised him an expert, so he would reserve judgement until he got more intel. The ki'jan meanwhile seemed to hate his guts for some reason, he didn't think his joke about being the love child of Aquaman and his aquatic date rape had been that bad...

Just then he heard HAL make the summons over the PA, finally it appeared Captain Drama was going to tell them more about the grumpy Shrek rejects. It would also give him an opportunity to get a better feel for the crew, and his intuition had never been wrong about aliens before...well, there was that unfortunate incident on Scillion-01, but that whole mission had been sketchy...

He sighed and reassembled his carbine before heading out the hatch, it was time to meet the crew.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on February 24, 2017, 08:19:23 PM
"We're in some deep excrement."

Zeph gave a sigh, despite the fact that he had no oxygen to exhale, "Look, he's not going to rat on us. This ship is ridiculous, this guy obviously needs us for something, and we have skills to offer that nobody else can match." Zeph thought with a smile, "Or, do you know anybody else who can speak every important language in the cosmos?

"His criteria for hired help might only include us because we've apparently a reputation for killing people." Zephirus replied, calm and critical, "We hold no special training in assassination or combat. The only reason we're able to kill is because the universe is filled with idiots, and every defense is exploitable. Speaking of which, about my plan to detonate the ship's reactor..."

"We don't know how to work that other guy's explosives. We don't know how to work the ship's escape pods. Killing is bad and these people seem nice." Zeph replied, hearing the intercom broadcast and heading towards the meeting room, "There's an aqua-man, a lizard-woman, a cat-man, a hu-man, and a horse-man!"

"You know we don't do to well with horsemen." Zephirus replied, shaking his metaphysical head, "The Iko never forgave us for the genocide. He had an odd look at us when entering the ship."

"I'll make up for the mistakes of our people, Zephirus~" Zeph replied with a grin, walking with a spring in his step, "After all, who could hate me?"

"You would be unpleasantly surprised to hear the answer to that."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on February 24, 2017, 08:30:23 PM
One-sixty-three
One-sixty-four
One-sixty-five
One-sixty-six


Spit shot out through the gaps in Thada's upper lip as he made growling breaths from his muscles starting to burn, staining the already humid inside of his oxygen mask. He was at one of the far ends of the ship's gym, pulling himself up until the rod he held touched the nape of his neck. Wearing only a pair of black pants that hugged his legs down to his ankles, he felt sweat running down his dark grey skin, under which his hard, stringy muscles clearly bulged out. He felt his arms starting to burn as the production of lactic acid started kicking off, but he kept his mind off it by pondering over the mission and the team he had just signed onto. What kind of people were these, really? He had really good feelings about some of them. That Kaveni, Kalu, gave him the impression of a hardened veteran; she had probably kicked ass longer than he had been alive. And Ursea, he liked her. He had fought enough Kurgeshans to know she was impressive even amongst them, and her style reminded him much of his own. She could have made a great Iko.

Then there were the others, and he was a lot less sure about them. The Taurgit seemed to have ran excrement out of luck just before they found him, but he had reserved judgement until he could get a more fair impression from him. The Ki'jan had left him alone since they all came aboard, and from what Thada had noticed he hadn't tried to poke around in his head. Then again, might be that he did and read his thoughts on what he would do to him if he ever pulled his tricks on him. Still, Thada figured, it would be a relief if he didn't have to break the good doctor's legs. Something he might just have to do with that human - Shepherd. His guts told him that little man was going to prove insufferable; he and that weird Vis. What was his name again? Eh, probably not worth learning anyway.

One-ninety-seven
One-ninety-eight
One-ninety-nine
Two hundred


Thada let go of the rod, slung a towel over his neck and picked up his water bottle, just in time for Aesen's announcement over the comms. Right, then, he thought as he started wiping the sweat from his forehead, a quick shower, then off to the brief. After a few minutes, Thada entered the meeting room and took the first best seat that fit his size. He was wearing his normal red trousers and black shirt while as always walking barefoot. He had lain his blue field jacket over the chair's backrest before he sat down. Tying his arms together while laying one leg over another, he waited, enjoying the sensation of the cold air through his damp hair.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on February 24, 2017, 10:05:15 PM
Freya stood watching the holographic fire in horror. How could they? she questioned silently, on one hand she was impressed that there was a fireplace in the corner of her room. But on the other hand, the fire in it was fake. This will not do she concluded, at the earliest major trading port she would see if she can get her hands on a few drums of oil or some other flammable organic compound. It should be relatively easy to place a fireproof basin inside the fireplace, and install a few automatic fire extinguishers around it. Freya did not worship the flame like the bronze-age Kaveni did so many millennia ago, but like many others she liked the stability and tranquility that came with the traditions that evolved alongside the Religion. A few centuries into the space age began it had made a huge resurgence across the Kaveni Empire. Living in a galaxy of steel and silicon it is good to carry a reminder of the simplicity and purity of life. "As we live our lives among the stars we should never stop paying tribute to what raised us up from the dirt." She recited with a smile.


For now she turned her back to the fireplace and picked up the tablet with dossiers about the other recruits from her bed. She already liked Thada, they had spoken briefly on o Lavýrinthos before boarding the ship. Ursea sounded dependable, which is just what you need from the sniper watching your back. Freya hadn't formed an opinion on Khrelan yet, but she had almost exclusively good experiences working with the Taugrit as a mercenary, so she did not foresee any trouble with him. Neal was undoubtedly an professional, just like Osiris. But she could not really get a beat on either of their personalities and motivations but their place and propose in this whole operation was obvious to her. There was also Aesen, the AI, Freya did not expect this turn of events. But the AI did not look like a liability to the mission, as long as its 'jokes' were not taken too seriously at least. The Kaveni had a much harder time with the last to members of this crew, she could understand the need for a scientist and had worked with those types before. But they had always stayed in a safe location until she had secured their workplace, instead it seemed like the Ki'Jan would actually accompany them on the missions themselves. And lastly there was Zeph.. Freya wasn't completely sure if he had actually been recruited or if he had simply hitched a ride on the ship and the AI hadn't noticed yet.

"All crew members, Assemble in the meeting room for mission briefing. Thank you." Sounded out of the speaker above her door, Freya immediately got up from her bed and made her way towards the elevator.

Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on February 24, 2017, 10:49:22 PM
Ever since The Doctor had arrived on the ship, he had stayed to himself. Aside from a quick visit to his room to drop off his personal belongings, and that one time he remembered to head back to fall asleep in his water tank; Ailuin spent the majority of his time within the ship's Science Bay. The first day or two spent on moving the equipment and setting it all up in an optimal position.

For those first couple of days, he had also temporarily taken claim over the ship's fabricators within the engineering bay to print items he incorrectly assumed the ship would have had on board.

"Seriously, how could we not have a X-39 series microscopic dropper set, or quantum magnification lenses" He thought to himself aloud on one such occasion. Thankfully for the most part the main equipment was there, and it was much more powerful than anything he had worked with in the past, however the exclusion of certain key items was baffling.

Of course, while he had the fabricators all to himself, he didn't waste the opportunity to print several metallic signs with many warning messages. One for each species and occasion so he could begin labelling projects in an attempt to babyproof it for the inexperienced which may find their way into his lab. The doctor finishing it up with two "No Humans Allowed" signs which he placed at the entrance of his Lab and on the door to his room. He knew it would do nothing to keep the annoying human known as "Shepherd" out, but anything was worth a chance if it spared him another of the humans incoherent and insulting ramblings about some stupid human fiction which made him want to telepathically assault the man.

In the remaining days until the meeting was called, he spent his time going over his personal notes about the biology of the other species on the ship to ensure he was up to speed. On one occasion he had even asked Aesen to gather some public resources on anything to do with the VIs split personality disorder since it was a topic he found himself lacking in.

When the call for the meeting came in, the Doctor was messing around with some viruses in a sterile chamber and ultimately because of needing to decontaminate was the last person to arrive.

Of course, when it came time to choose his spot at the table, he picked the position furthest from Shepherd.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on February 25, 2017, 05:24:43 AM
As Neal sat at the table waiting, he noticed with amusement that Ailuin, or "Allan" as he had taken to calling him, deliberately chose the furthest seat from him. During the two days the Doctor had been here, he had decidedly taken a passive-aggressive approach with him, even putting up signs saying "No Humans Allowed", which Neal had found privately hilarious, but he had made no mention of them...well, not yet anyway.

Seeing as The Humourless One was taking his time, he decided to get a feel for his "teammates", of course starting with "Allan".

"Hey Allan" Neal said in Ailuin's direction "The dossier said you're an expert in xenobiology, and it also said you served in a joint LCSA-Laboratory unit. Did you ever see any action? I didn't think Leticia had any xenobiological threats to worry about."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on February 25, 2017, 04:52:55 PM
Ailuin rolled his eyes hearing Neal try speaking to him. Given the couple 'conversations' he had had with him, he knew this would only end in Neal doing something that would get on his nerves again. Under normal circumstances he would have ignored the man, but given he had asked him a question in public with everyone's attention now on him, it would be rude to the other species present if he didn't ask this relatively mild question. He had ways to deal with the annoying human should he get on his nerves after all.

"Leticia has Xenobiological threats... That you don't hear about them means my work succeeded". All the while he spoke, he made sure to only make eye contact with the other species present, if they were listening in. "However to answer your question, I have been through military training. I have also personally trained myself from several incidents on Leticia and have spent years of my life within hostile environments under the Xenobiology department of Macello University".
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on February 25, 2017, 05:31:42 PM
Neal paid no mind to Ailuin's deliberate avoidance, but took notice that he addressed his answer to the group, rather than Neal. Ailuin was a team player then...or at the very least held the others in higher consideration. That was useful to know, he decided to press for a little more information.

"So what kind of threats have you faced then? I'm just curious to the extent of your combat experience."

Neal then fixed a mild look on his face, but was subtly studying Ailuin's reaction to his question, as well as how he answered. Neal had also been trained how to resist and confuse attempts at telepathic intrusion, so just in case he filled his head with mental "chaff", a flurry of random and useless surface thoughts, making his head the mental equivalent of being filled with static. Just for fun, he decided to fill his head with raunchy thoughts.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on February 25, 2017, 10:38:48 PM
Neal paid no mind to Ailuin's deliberate avoidance, but took notice that he addressed his answer to the group, rather than Neal. Ailuin was a team player then...or at the very least held the others in higher consideration. That was useful to know, he decided to press for a little more information.

"So what kind of threats have you faced then? I'm just curious to the extent of your combat experience."

Neal then fixed a mild look on his face, but was subtly studying Ailuin's reaction to his question, as well as how he answered. Neal had also been trained how to resist and confuse attempts at telepathic intrusion, so just in case he filled his head with mental "chaff", a flurry of random and useless surface thoughts, making his head the mental equivalent of being filled with static. Just for fun, he decided to fill his head with raunchy thoughts.

The Doctor thought for a moment on which thing he could boast of that would get the human off his back... ultimately deciding on an incident several years earlier. "There was an incident with a group of Odekk Colony Arthropods released by an Earthern corporation on Letician Tether #3" Ailuin placing extra emphasis on the words which implied humans. "They didn't follow proper containment protocols for animals of their classification passing through Letician space. They were 10 meters tall, four times wider and had skin and bones made of an iron like substance. My team was called in to deal with it."

Not wanting to recant the lengthy tale of battle, he jumped right to the end of the story "Ultimately, I ended up killing two of them, capturing one for research with my team taking care of the remaining six. The cargo bay of the tether absolutely destroyed from the creatures having gone haywire and several injuries and casualties involving dock workers."

Ailuin pausing for a moment. "Of course the gently-carressers refused to pay damages in the end." The Doctor not able to help himself in throwing an anti-human quip in at the end
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on February 25, 2017, 11:24:09 PM
Thada couldn't help but give an amused chuckle, his face cracking up in a small grin. He had planned on staying quiet and reveling in the sweet schadenfreude of Noatak allowing the human to get in under his skin, but the doctor's cracking of Thada's preconception of scientists with his attitude and choice of words amused him more than he thought it would. "The good doctor's got a mouth on him!"Thada smirked where he sat. "Aren't you science types supposed to use big, elaborate, scientific words that we mere mortals don't even understand?"

Switching the positions of his legs so the other was now resting on top of the first, he let the question go unanswered, instead switching focus entirely. "So you got some kills on the rack, then, and skill to boot? You worked for the Arcadonian military, then? Or did you learn fighting the mutated lab rats you pulled out of the sink?"he asked, grin widening noticeably on the last part.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on February 26, 2017, 02:29:04 AM
The Doctor thought for a moment on which thing he could boast of that would get the human off his back... ultimately deciding on an incident several years earlier. "There was an incident with a group of Odekk Colony Arthropods released by an Earthern corporation on Letician Tether #3" Ailuin placing extra emphasis on the words which implied humans. "They didn't follow proper containment protocols for animals of their classification passing through Letician space. They were 10 meters tall, four times wider and had skin and bones made of an iron like substance. My team was called in to deal with it."

Not wanting to recant the lengthy tale of battle, he jumped right to the end of the story "Ultimately, I ended up killing two of them, capturing one for research with my team taking care of the remaining six. The cargo bay of the tether absolutely destroyed from the creatures having gone haywire and several injuries and casualties involving dock workers."

Ailuin pausing for a moment. "Of course the gently-carressers refused to pay damages in the end." The Doctor not able to help himself in throwing an anti-human quip in at the end
Zeph sat in front of Ailuin, crossing his hands in front of his face as he looked on with a serious expression. The horseman and human were bullying the aquaman...

Time to pick a side.

"Fascinating, Doctor. How did your team deal with the multilaminar structure of their arthropodic bioreactive exoskeletons? Especially considering the fulminate composition and multi-myocardium vascular systems..." Adding his response in as soon as Thada finished speaking, "I must imagine that more primitive teams of mercenaries might have just shot at it, hoping to pierce the collagen walls in the right place heedless of possible epidermal necrolysis that might spread from its toxemic biofluids."

He hid his excrement-eating grin well.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on February 26, 2017, 05:06:02 AM
Neal, inwardly smirking at Thada's amusing skepticism, was about to add something when the Vis interrupted with his science babble. Neal did not have scientific training, and sure as hell didn't hold a doctorate in anything, so most of the words were lost on him. Neal allowed some surprise to show on his face when Zeph spoke up, turning to him and saying "Impressive, the energy hobo has a scientific background...your dossier certainly never mentioned that. Would you care to share with the class? I'm sure we're all very curious."

This was proving to be more informative than Neal had expected.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on February 26, 2017, 05:26:42 AM
Thada couldn't help but give an amused chuckle, his face cracking up in a small grin. He had planned on staying quiet and reveling in the sweet schadenfreude of Noatak allowing the human to get in under his skin, but the doctor's cracking of Thada's preconception of scientists with his attitude and choice of words amused him more than he thought it would. "The good doctor's got a mouth on him!"Thada smirked where he sat. "Aren't you science types supposed to use big, elaborate, scientific words that we mere mortals don't even understand?"

Switching the positions of his legs so the other was now resting on top of the first, he let the question go unanswered, instead switching focus entirely. "So you got some kills on the rack, then, and skill to boot? You worked for the Arcadonian military, then? Or did you learn fighting the mutated lab rats you pulled out of the sink?"he asked, grin widening noticeably on the last part.

While Thada gave of the impression of attempting to be purposefully insulting, he now had reason to take the fraction of his attention off of Neal. With this, Ailuin turned towards Thada and asked rhetorically "Well someone has to dumb things down for the man with the microscopic prefrontal cortex... Would you like me to speak with more complexities?" The Doctor pausing to take a breath before he got to the next part "Next to get to your actual question. I've been through military training.... not much mind you, but enough to not be a detriment to this team. However the majority of my combat experience comes from work in the field."

Zeph sat in front of Ailuin, crossing his hands in front of his face as he looked on with a serious expression. The horseman and human were bullying the aquaman...

Time to pick a side.

"Fascinating, Doctor. How did your team deal with the multilaminar structure of their arthropodic bioreactive exoskeletons? Especially considering the fulminate composition and multi-myocardium vascular systems..." Adding his response in as soon as Thada finished speaking, "I must imagine that more primitive teams of mercenaries might have just shot at it, hoping to pierce the collagen walls in the right place heedless of possible epidermal necrolysis that might spread from its toxemic biofluids."

He hid his excrement-eating grin well.

It was at this point when Zeph jumped into the conversation defending him he became shocked. Especially since what followed was by far the most scientific knowledge he had heard another person speak since boarding this ship. Not only that, but knowledge that gave the impression he knew what he was talking about. Ailuin could work with this as he jumped right into a full on scientific explanation of how his team and him managed to subjugate the gigantic spiders from Odekkan territory.

"It was a quite complex, multi-stepped process. As you guessed we could have entered the scene 'guns-a-blasing' as the term goes, but ultimately if the colony wanted to do that, they would have just brought in the local militia and as a consequence end up rebuilding half the station because of structural damages." Ailuin smiling as he recanted this. "Instead, we decided to break the problem into several steps of Containing the Threat, Neutralizing the Acid, figuring out how to bypass its iron/silicon-based exoskeleton and delivering the final blow in a controlled environment to reduce damages. Capturing one for further study was a bonus only if we saw the opportunity."

With the introduction out of the way, the doctor began going deeper into detail. "With the creatures still within the cargo bay, containment was simple. The first step was figuring out a base to allow us to neutralize the species acidic discharge... Thankfully at the time we had been working with Erythrocytic Carborane from archived Xenomorph tissue, so it was mainly a matter of diluting it enough and synthesizing it into an administrative form which was loaded into the stations fire suppression system and onto our equipment to prevent the corrosion from getting out of hand."

The doctor taking a breath. "With the potential damage contained, we moved to phase two which was figuring out how to bypass its multi-layered exoskeleton..." The doctor going further and further into detail as long as Zeph continued to show interest.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on February 26, 2017, 05:36:42 AM
It was at this point when Zeph jumped into the conversation defending him he became shocked. Especially since what followed was by far the most scientific knowledge he had heard another person speak since boarding this ship. Not only that, but knowledge that gave the impression he knew what he was talking about. Ailuin could work with this as he jumped right into a full on scientific explanation of how his team and him managed to subjugate the gigantic spiders from Odekkan territory.

"It was a quite complex, multi-stepped process. As you guessed we could have entered the scene 'guns-a-blasing' as the term goes, but ultimately if the colony wanted to do that, they would have just brought in the local militia and as a consequence end up rebuilding half the station because of structural damages." Ailuin smiling as he recanted this. "Instead, we decided to break the problem into several steps of Containing the Threat, Neutralizing the Acid, figuring out how to bypass its iron/silicon-based exoskeleton and delivering the final blow in a controlled environment to reduce damages. Capturing one for further study was a bonus only if we saw the opportunity."

With the introduction out of the way, the doctor began going deeper into detail. "With the creatures still within the cargo bay, containment was simple. The first step was figuring out a base to allow us to neutralize the species acidic discharge... Thankfully at the time we had been working with Erythrocytic Carborane from archived Xenomorph tissue, so it was mainly a matter of diluting it enough and synthesizing it into an administrative form which was loaded into the stations fire suppression system and onto our equipment to prevent the corrosion from getting out of hand."

The doctor taking a breath. "With the potential damage contained, we moved to phase two which was figuring out how to bypass its multi-layered exoskeleton..." The doctor going further and further into detail as long as Zeph continued to show interest.
Zeph nodded, listening with keen interest before turning to Neal's interruption,

Neal, inwardly smirking at Thada's amusing skepticism, was about to add something when the Vis interrupted with his science babble. Neal did not have scientific training, and sure as hell didn't hold a doctorate in anything, so most of the words were lost on him. Neal allowed some surprise to show on his face when Zeph spoke up, turning to him and saying "Impressive, the energy hobo has a scientific background...your dossier certainly never mentioned that. Would you care to share with the class? I'm sure we're all very curious."

This was proving to be more informative than Neal had expected.
Zeph smiled, Neal's obvious taunt completely lost on him. Cultural barriers were not so easily surmounted, especially when it came to sarcasm.

"Oh, actually, I just sat in on biology lectures at universities across the galaxy. You'd be surprised how little people care about who's attending a lecture when there's thousands of students in audience." Zeph replied, smiling innocently, "It's not going to be in my dossier, because it'll just be listed under 'places Zeph has been kicked out from.'"

"I sat in on one of Dr. Noatak's lectures a few times, guy knows his excrement. I just learned this stuff so I can figure out where to, y'know..."

Zeph's crystal shimmered orange for a moment, shifting from his usual azure blue as his expressionless visor stared right into Neal's eyes.

"Stab."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on February 26, 2017, 07:25:52 AM
Neal's eyes narrowed slightly at the change in colour, as well as the sudden uncharacteristic "stab" comment that came with the change, noticing the subtle shift with interest. This was likely the other personality mentioned in the dossier, the more withdrawn and dangerous personality. Neal was more than willing to bet that this Vis' fighting and killing experience came from this persona. Seeing an opportunity, Neal decided to try and engage with the other personality to learn what he could.

"You however" Neal said, addressing Zephirus "Were mentioned on the dossier, the chummy alternate personality. Well don't be shy, why don't you introduce yourself? Unless 'stab' is your way of saying hi or something."

Neal then waited for Zeph/Zephirus to reply, also noting to pay attention to how the others reacted to this personality as well.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on February 26, 2017, 07:40:10 AM
Neal's eyes narrowed slightly at the change in colour, as well as the sudden uncharacteristic "stab" comment that came with the change, noticing the subtle shift with interest. This was likely the other personality mentioned in the dossier, the more withdrawn and dangerous personality. Neal was more than willing to bet that this Vis' fighting and killing experience came from this persona. Seeing an opportunity, Neal decided to try and engage with the other personality to learn what he could.

"You however" Neal said, addressing Zephirus "Were mentioned on the dossier, the chummy alternate personality. Well don't be shy, why don't you introduce yourself? Unless 'stab' is your way of saying hi or something."

Neal then waited for Zeph/Zephirus to reply, also noting to pay attention to how the others reacted to this personality as well.
Zephirus remained silent for some time.

Just as Neal was about to continue, however, he spoke. Slicing through the silence with an unnaturally low,

"Hello."

It was a sound no biological being could mimic, as Zephirus threw away the standard Vis practice of modulating the tone of their vibrating body to appease biological ears. It hurt to listen to for some of the species in the room, and unnerved them more than they cared to admit. Thankfully, it didn't appear as though Zephirus had anything more to say, as the crystal shifted back to azure.

Zeph shook his head clear (a meaningless gesture meant to assuage the human, the Vis did not have anything valuable in their heads), "He doesn't speak much, Zephirus says giving away anything important to another conscious being is folly. Sorry!" He replied, bowing his head slightly in apology
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on February 26, 2017, 11:24:02 AM
Thada had just stared in stunned silence when the Vis had first thrown all that scientific jargon at him; Noatak's taunt went completely unnoticed. From Zeph’s careless personality, he would never had guessed him having that kind of knowledge.

After that business with this Zephirius, it didn't exactly help the situation. At that moment he felt he should probably have read those dossiers. Thada simply raised up his open hands. "I'm lost. What just happened? Why did lightbulb get spooky?"

[[  Warning Minimum 8 Sentences Required]]
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on February 26, 2017, 12:10:17 PM
Thada had just stared in stunned silence when the Vis had first thrown all that scientific jargon at him; Noatak's taunt went completely unnoticed. From Zeph’s careless personality, he would never had guessed him having that kind of knowledge.

After that business with this Zephirus, it didn't exactly help the situation. At that moment he felt he should probably have read those dossiers. Thada simply raised up his open hands. "I'm lost. What just happened? Why did lightbulb get spooky?"
Zeph looked towards Thada, spreading open his arms and looking the Iko straight in the eyes so as to convey trust and openness as he spoke back in Thada's native tongue, "My Crystal is split in the middle, as you might have noticed. One side contains my consciousness, the other contains another consciousness this body was born with." He explained, careful to use the right words

"Zeph is what I am referred as, Zephirus is what the Other refers himself as. We are in harmony, and one does not act without the allowance of the other, but Zephirus is far less understanding and patient than I." He explained, all of his focus on his enunciation as he formatted the next sentence in Iko rhymes, "I am an acrobat, the Other is an assassin. I am a wanderer, the Other is a gun for hire. I am a teacher, the Other accidentally rammed a drug freighter into the San Mondi Observatory."

That last sentence didn't rhyme, but it didn't need to.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on February 26, 2017, 05:09:35 PM
Neal gave Zeph a weary look as he spoke in the Iko's native tongue. He was already getting the sense the colourful personalities in this room was going to take everyone a while to adapt.

"Hey lightbulb" he said "If you're going to talk, use a language the whole class understands, a proper language like English. Otherwise HAL is going to have to keep up a running translation, and that's going to be a huge pain in the ass for me. Every time he talks it sounds like my ears are getting raped."

Neal wondered where Osiris was and why he was taking so long. The human Valium always seemed to measure his timing as perfect as he could.  Not for the first time he wondered if the AI was just gently-carressing with them.

[[  Warning Minimum 8 Sentences Required]]
Title: The Huntress
Post by: LordNecross on February 26, 2017, 07:22:14 PM
Ursea had been on the ship the longest, she had been recruited by Osiris after he had visited Dior. Something few Humans did, and he even went to the surface, something no normal human could every accomplish, at least for any extended period of time. She had been planet side as well, doing some hunting in the jungles of her homeland, away from the mercenary group she had joined when she was called by the Grand-Chief himself.

He had asked her to join Osiris, who had been granted rights to use her services as a Huntrak after he proved himself in unarmed combat against Kurg Gladiators. The Grand-Chief seemingly just wanted to test the Human, it had nothing to do with Osiris needing his permission, but the Human didn't need to know that it was only for his amusement. She was allowed to cut ties with her company and join Osiris's team, which the Grand-Chief personally saw to the team being officially registered as a legal mercenary group in Odekkan territory.

It was all very strange for her, she didn't know why a runt like herself was worth seeking out so specifically for some dangerous task that she felt there were far better Kurgs than her for the job. Her tune change a bit after she met Osiris, and when she saw her room. It had been furnished in a human style, with kurgish decor as well, however what pleased her most was a Vanity table filled with Human makeup and tools for it.  She also had a wardrobe filled with her customized clothing and some new ones as well that fit her tastes and her body.

She became quite comfortable, making herself quite at home on the ship, in its athletic area and other facilities as well. She had made friends with Aesen as well, she found the AI strange, it wasn't something her people currently had and it was all in all a rather foreign concept to her as her people were rather suspicious of synthetic life to begin with, and the discovery of the Vis and their ideology did not help. Aesen however made her feel quite at home, Ursea had even brought her partner, her friend and Pet, Suu-Suu the large 30 ft or 9.144 m long armored Centipede, known as a Guttluok in the dense and deadly jungles of the Odekkan homeland on Dior.

Ursea was however nervous about how others would percieve her friend and hunting partner, so she kept him in her room once new crew members began to arrive, and she asked Aesen not to tell them cause she didn't want to scare them. She new he was just a love-able little crawler. but besides on a some of the more developed Kurg Colonies, creatures from Dior were rarely seen at all by outsiders, as most times encounters with aliens and Dior creatures usually ended poorly for the Aliens which are not suited for dealing with them, so they have earned a quite poor reputation. Gessat'Huntracks were even more rare in the cosmos as they typically only hunted beasts on dangerous worlds, and Kurgeshan Culture was still poorly understood by most alien species. All these factors led her to keeping it unknown that Suu-Suu was on board, but they would be working with him so she would need to introduce them soon, she was just really nervous and not just for that reason.

Now that Ailuin, some sort of Ki'Jan Doctor from what Ursea knew, was on board she figure it would soon be time for a meeting to happen. Currently though Ursea was sitting in front of the mirror of her vanity table doing her make up while watching a human tutorial on the extra-net. Suu-Suu was curled up in circular pile of grayish black, with hints of blue, chitin and clittering legs right next to her, with his head resting on her lap. She was currently in her work out clothes, she had just finished napping after using the the elliptical for an hour and showering, the clothes were simply a pair of tight workout shorts that hugged her figure, and a sports bra that managed to contain her chest as it was a special order.
"All crew members, Assemble in the meeting room for mission briefing. Thank you." She heard Aesen chime.

She immediately jumped up, which caused Suu-Suu to recoil and flutter its many armored eye-lids as it started to wake with a bubbly gurgle.

"Shotek! What am I gonna wear! its a meeting, gotta look good right?! Formal? No no...Cute that's what I want." She said to herself as she hurried over to her dresser, tossing her shorts, bra, and panties in quick succession.

She dug through her dresser, and found a new pair of panties, she admired them for their frilly edges briefly before putting them on and moving on to pants. She fished out a pair of name-brand skinny jeans that she had special ordered, they were slightly weathered on purpose in places as apparently some Humans found pants with holes to be stylish, but she also loved the pretty pattern stitched onto the butt pockets of it so she slipped it on  and found a cute studded belt to go with it. She then found a deep purple bra with white frills on the edges and she slipped that on and got it strapped in. She rushed over to her wardrobe next to find a shirt, after a bit she settled a light yellow blouse with a heart shaped opening in the chest which would show off her cleavage and the yellow would be complimented by the purple of her bra.

She went over to the mirror and posed a bit in front of it, Suu-Suu tilted its head to the side a bit watching her. "Yeah, this is cute. Guess I'll leave my hair down for now." She said and tossed her long glossy dark grey hair a bit.

"Aesen...How do I look?" She asked a bit nervous, nervous enough to ask a body-less AI how she looked.

"You look cute, and sexy. You'll be fine, maybe it will distract them from the fact you have a giant dangerous insect as a pet." Aesen joked, though it seemed the first part was sincere.

"yeah..." Ursea sighed a bit as she finished putting on a pair of black designer boots that went up to her knee.

She walked out, with Suu-Suu clattering behind her, this was the first time he had been out of the room since the crew started arriving on the ship.

Aesen spoke up a bit before she headed inside, "Maybe your arrival will lessen the building tension in that room, Master Osiris will be there shortly."

The door slid open and Ursea walked inside and found an available seat, closer to where Osiris would stand and give his debriefing.

"Hi!" She said as she sat down and looked at the group, however not long after Suu-Suu began scuttling into the room, the door not shutting till his whole body was in the room. He immediately went under the table, touching feet and bumping chairs as he went to his owner.

He wrapped his body around the base of Ursea's chair and then rested his head on her lap, it let out bubbly gurgle sigh of contentment as its eyes clicked shut.

"Umm....This is Suu-Suu... My hunting Beast." She said and scratched the back of her head nervously.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on February 26, 2017, 09:28:26 PM
Freya was starting to regret signing up, she practically always kept it professional among colleagues. But it was obvious that not everyone in this crew felt the same way about things.

She was already irritated by the blatant (and childish) anti-human racism coming from Ailuin, but was hoping that the issue would be sorted out. Instead Neal began to antagonize the Ki'Jan further and Thada happily joined in. She did not like teaming up science types, she hadn't met a single scientist worthy of the term that wasn't a complete liability in a firefight. But Aliuin's file seemed to suggest he could be a first for Freya in that regard, it was at least impressive enough to earn the benefit of the doubt until she could actually see him in action.

Then Zeph joined in the conversation. Eager to show off his biological knowledge, he and the Ki'Jan spend some time stroking each others ego's. Biology wasn't her forte but it was not like she had ignored it completely while working on her engineering degree so long ago. After a career of military and mercenary work she could hardly remember what it was like sitting in lectures, but the knowledge she gained in those years remained in the back of her mind.

She could feel her doubts about this mission redoubling after Zephirus came out. So much baggage, so many liabilities.. she thought. There were uncountable ways how the split personality, or just the general childishness of the team could get everyone killed on a mission. The doubts evolved into a genuine headache as it became obvious that Thada hadn't read the dossiers. Freya couldn't help but sight audibly and exchange a look with Khrelan, the only other person around the table who had not joined into the conversation.

Freya was half considering chastising the lot of them for their childishness when Ursea walked in. Freya had read her dossier of course, but had not met her yet in person. So even though knew about Ursea's obsession with everything Human Freya was still very surprised with her chosen outfit.

Freya herself, as the only other female crew member hadn't nearly put the same amount of though in her appearance. She was just wearing some wide and comfortable pants. Her upper body was completely uncovered and her black and red scales were still slightly oily and shiny from a previous workout. Still it didn't matter how strange the Kurgash was. Anything was better then the previous conversation and Freya was more then happy to change the subject.

"Hey" Freya responded. It was slightly disconcerting feeling the 'pet' walk over her uncovered feet with it's many tiny legs but Freya manged to hid this emotion well, instead she noticed that Ursea seemed uncomfortable as she sat down on her chair.

"It looks strong, and even useful in a fight. It is male of female?" Freya asked.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on February 26, 2017, 09:29:07 PM
Neal was eyeing the Kurg as she entered the room, he had known there was a Kurg on board but she had kept to herself until now, this was the first time he had seen her. He noted she was shorter than most of her species, quite a bit shorter actually, though she clearly had the dense bone structure and musculature typical to Kurgs so he was sure not to underestimate her abilities. Strangely enough she also seemed shy, which was something Neal had never encountered in previous encounters. He made sure to keep that in mind in future interactions with her, perhaps tone down his mouth a little. Lastly he noticed she was wearing human clothes, not something that happened often, even with other species. Perhaps she was a humanophile?

He was about to speak up when he saw the giant armour-plated insect killing machine enter the room, and even more disturbingly saw it go under the damn table, before it curled up on the Kurg's lap. Neal just stared at the centipede from hell for a short while, with the foremost question in his mind being: "Suu-Suu?"

"Suu-Suu" Neal said flatly, working over the name "You...named your giant death insect Suu-Suu?"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on February 26, 2017, 09:30:02 PM
You could hear the Kurgeshan coming before you saw her. Large, heavy steps, and lacking that strict cadence that was so telling of Osiris' approach. Thada tilted his head towards the door and saw Ursea enter. He studied her clothes for a moment, taking special notice of the strange strange garment she apparently called pants. Rough and torn, they looked to be in terrible shape. What's more they were extremely similar to what he had seen Humans be wearing. His lips formed a second-long grin at the thought that maybe she had taken a human garment and ripped it while trying to fit it on. Human or no, they were definitely not the typical Kurgeshan clothes he had seen, but then again, he had mostly seen them in combat gear, shooting at him. Nonetheless, Ursea was definitely different. Perhaps that was part of why he liked her; she was a curiosity. Thada opened his mouth to greet her, then perhaps - he figured - try to get her into his side on the mounting argument, or perhaps ask her about her outfit.

Then another thing entered through the door.

A cascade of cluttering and bubbly gurgles as countless legs tapped in dissonance filed his ears, and in came an enormous train of chitinous plates and thin, sharp legs. The creature looked somewhat insect-like, but it sure looked nothing like any insect Thada had ever seen. In came in, and kept coming in. In fact at first it seemed to never end. Thada simply sat there, frozen, staring as this black,shelled monstrosity came wandering into the room. But when he heard it walking in beneath the table, he automatically lunged backwards, shooting the chair into the wall far behind him with a loud clutter. Stepping back from the table, he watched as the creature settled into its new place underneath the table, his mouth slightly ajar in stunned disbelief.

"Umm..."Ursea said calmly, scratching her head a bit, "This is Suu-Suu...my hunting beast."

Thada his head towards the Kurgeshan and stared at her with for a silent moment. "Your hunting...you've been keeping that thing in your room this whole time?"he said, pointing at Suu-Suu under the table.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on February 27, 2017, 01:01:30 AM
Sometimes playing dead pays, and pays a lot. At first Khrelan thought of giving his two cents on the discussion being made at the meeting table, but when Neal and Ailuin started exchanging barbs, he thought better. When Thada joined in, seemingly against the scientist, he saw that this situation would only escalate further. No one at the table, including Khrelan himself, seemed to be doing any effort at diffusing the situation.

And then Zeph joined in. All that technobabble was, indeed surprising. Something to make a mental note of. And then...

"Hello."

At this his prickled and twitched. He had forgotten how...bothersome real Vis speak was. Sometimes it felt like someone was raking claws across a sheet of polished metal.

When Freya exchanged a look with him, he nodded in agreement. This sort of behaviour was not really becoming of, professionalism.

It did serve to reveal a bit about the character of each person chiding in, which may have been Neal's intention when he prodded Ailuin. In that regard, it seemed to be working wonderfully.

And then... the Kurg entered the room. Wearing an ensemble of ill-fitting human clothes. And being all...bubbly. That certainly wasn't what he was expecting of a Kurg. Regardless, she was here and would be part of the mission, so he'd have to put aside that kind of thought really quick.

He then heard all the clattering and felt something bump slightly against his foot. He looked under the table to see what it was. And saw something that he certainly never saw in Taurgit solar systems. Something that looked like a very large...armored centipede. Ursea's hunting beast, by what she said.

"Huh. That's new."

Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on February 27, 2017, 05:14:40 AM
Zeph looked appropriately stoked, he was part of the cool kids now! He was very well aware that the others didn't think much of him yet, which was incredibly disappointing considering how famous he was. He tuned out Neal's comment completely, but Zephirus wouldn't stop picturing himself dropping cyanide into the human's water. "You're not going to do it. They'll know its us and I kinda like him! He's handsome!"

Zephirus conceded that the human was, indeed, handsome...just as the living embodiment of everything that was wrong with the universe walked into the room.

"Scratch that, there is nothing wrong with Kurgs, they're just a little trigger happy." Zeph thought back, setting the mental record straight...he had to take care that Zephirus didn't re-write their collective experience in a tainted way

"There is nothing you can provide to stop me from arguing that her kind is an abomination." Zephirus replied, respecting Zeph's right to debate as he continued, "All interpersonal experiences with Kurgs have been thus far negative, to say nothing of the fact that father was-"

"That's all in the past. She didn't rip dad's legs off, she didn't raid us, and she hasn't done anything to us yet." Zeph replied, trying to placate his other side, "The last Kurg we ran into threw us out of a airlock because you started a barfight to distract from another killing, it's unfair to judge the entire species based off of our tainted memories...Also, she's really pretty!"

Zephirus conceded that she was, indeed, pretty. He also made it clear that while this excuse worked for Neal, who was probably in their league, this newcomer was clearly out of their league, and so he would continue to despise her.

"Fair. Now shh, I wanna see if I can coax the bug thing to us!" He thought back, giggling softly as he gestured towards the hideously adorable hunting beast underneath the table
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on February 28, 2017, 09:52:55 PM
Ursea was a tad bit overwhelmed at all the reactions to her friend and pet, she sort of expected Suu-Suu to startle them but at least they hadn't tried to hurt Suu-Suu. If that had happened it probably wouldn't have ended well in that enclosed space.

She looked at Freya who had spoken to her first, "Suu-Suu is a male, he is very strong. Much stronger than me, so he is a big help when we encounter something I can't handle in a close fight. He helps me set up shots as well, keeping the targets distracted so I can hit weak-points. He has a lot of uses, he can get in places through vents and open doors for me too, even locked ones, he just bites through."

She massaged Suu-Suu's little antenna between her fingers as she talked, out of nervous habit, Suu-Suu letting out a deep almost purring like vibration. Suu-Suu kept close mostly because he could sense she was a bit nervous, Guttluok like many species on Dior had above average intelligence and problem solving skills. Suu-Suu could easily be rated at having the intelligence level of roughly 10-12 year old human child, of course with a lack for language ability, he could understand but not speak.

She looked at Neal next, He was cute, he seemed to be a middling age human from what she could tell, knowing more about human fashion than humans themselves, besides the fact they were the only race in galaxy so far that looked very similar to Kurgs, except smaller and less limbs. "He....well...He's my friend! We've been together since my culling, when I was just a Yulgesh. He is sweet, but protective."

She didn't really understand what he meant, the cultural context was different for her than him. Where Neal saw a monster, she simply saw a pet and friend, she wondered if Human's even kept hunting animals.

She was rather embarrassed though at Thada's reaction, she didn't mean to scare the Iko. Suu-Suu was just eager to be next to her so he went the most direct route, he hadn't been around any of them so he would need time to get used to them. She had at least trained him well enough to not hiss and bite strangers, she doubted any of them would survive the corrosive and toxic bite without immediate attention.

She looked at Thada, "Well I was afraid you all wouldn't like him...I wanted to wait and introduce him..."

Khrelan's reaction was far more muted, like he wasn't surprised that Suu-Suu was on board. That was a good sign at least for her, the strange Vis though was also silent. She was rather suspicious of the Vis, she wanted to give him a chance, but was it a him though? She did not really know anything about them other then the fact, that all she had been told about them was about their dangerous ideology.

Suu-Suu cracked open an eye, looking from Usea's lap at this Vis gesturing to him from under the table. The guttluok then tightened his body around the bottom of Ursea's chair, moving more of his body away from the others before shutting its eye, ignoring the Vis entirely.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on March 01, 2017, 06:03:46 PM
Zeph looked up, disappointed. "Little guy's attached to you, literally~" He spoke, taking a closer look at the creature, "I know the type. Intelligent species aren't a dime a dozen in this galaxy, sapience is a gift given to only a chosen few by mother nature's whims and wishes..."

"But," He added, smiling softly, "I've never actually seen a tame Guttluok before in the flesh...you must share a close bond with your hunting beast, to take it with you across the galaxy regardless of almost everybody's first instinct towards Suu-Suu...if only bonds between other races were so easily formed..."

Zeph looked towards everybody in the room. All humanoid, all capable of speaking language, all products of the exact same brand of convergent evolution that decided to favor bipedal, aggressive, horny geniuses...

"And yet, creatures of entirely different bio-structures can get along this easily...it's pathetic on our part, and I affirm once more that it displays that sapient life is hypocritical and selectively biased beyond reconciliation." Zephirus replied, growing steadily more enraged, "Whatever higher power decided to play this cruel joke on us, the punchline is far overdue. Kill everything, and leave nothing but the animals and the stars."

"Zephirus, stop blaming god. We've long since established that killing everybody is hard." Zeph replied, shaking his head internally as he stared forward at Ursea, "There's no point to this line of argument."

"Your pet's name means 'Urine' in a Human language, by the way." Zeph added, suppressing a smile, "Just, don't be surprised if certain dark-skinned humans start laughing a little when you say the name..."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on March 04, 2017, 12:29:36 AM
With the focus of the group no longer on Ailuin, he had retreated back into research while waiting for Osiris to enter the room. He did this utilizing the telepathic connection to his tablet meaning that if anybody else in the room was paying any attention to him, it would only look as if he was simply being quiet. For the good doctor, he preferred to put every moment of his time towards his research; meaning at a time like this when he was waiting for something, it was the perfect moment to jump in and run simulations on various lingering thoughts he had.

'It appears Sample X-9867-53 is a no go' He thought watching as yet another simulation came back with yet another dead patient. The doctor scowled at this 'I just can't get this damned chromosome to flip' he thought yet again, taking a moment to analyze a portion of the results before he tweaked the parameters and ran the simulation again. 

It was at this moment the sight of the door opening caught his attention, causing him to switch thought processes back to what was going on in the room. From the looks of things Ursea had entered the room. When prompted Ailuin greeting her along with the others. Aside from this however, he didn't really pay much attention to anything else until he saw a glimpse of the Animal enter the room and run under the table. From this his attention immediately left Ursea and followed the creature under the table where upon getting a closer look he finally spoke aloud again.

"I've never seen a Guttluok up close before, but I've seen the research on them. These things can be quite a handful" The Doctor spoke not breaking eye contact with the creature, almost as if scanning it with his own eyes. After a short extra moment of observation he turned back up to Ursea.

"Do tell... how did you manage to tame it"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 06, 2017, 06:25:29 PM
Khrelan didn't have much to say about the general discussion being made at the meeting room table. Meeting the last member of the team was indeed important but, aside from that, people were mainly picking at each other. He decided to keep to himself and go back to reading his electronic book.

The chapter he was currently reading was comprised mostly of corporate intrigue, no real action, which was taking its toll on his alertness. Khrelan started nodding at the table, until he colsed his eyes and unceremoniously fell asleep.

At first his dreams were an undecipherable fog, a misty landscape in a nondescript planet, where nothing of import really happened. It was just the mist rolling over the landscape. Not a creature in sight. An alien sun barely over the horizon, which in terran terms, meant it was just past daybreak.

Khrelan sat on a rock on top of a cliff, looking at a mostly grey sea.

Blasted planet, there's nothing here. No minerals, no resources, just this blasted mist rolling over the landscape. I'm tired of this.

But as soon as he got up, the cliff cracked with an ear splitting noise, sending Khrelan tumbling into the sea below.

He crashed through the surface of the water, but instead of sinking to the bottom, he just fell on top of a pilot seat inside a fighter. The "sea" outside of the ship slowly turned into the vastness of space, background stars gradually winking into existence. And then everything outside of the cockpit's window started exploding.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on March 06, 2017, 09:29:15 PM
Neal meanwhile rolled his eyes as Allan started nerding out over the giant killer insect, while inwardly he made sure to pay attention to Ursea's answer, it could prove useful in case the abomination turned hostile and needed to be put down or at least distracted. At this he also started studying the creature, looking for anything that might prove to be a weak point.

"Shoot it?" he thought to himself "Ideal answer, however natural armour might prove formidable. Pistol's not an option, carbine would be best. Knife it? Where though? Underside looks weak, but so are my intestines, don't want to be under it. Might have to wrestle it, not ideal, probably be hugged to death, death by Suu-Suu too embarrassing to be acceptable. Kurg might get angry, smaller but bone and muscle much denser than mine. Neck snap? No, neck muscles too tense, might think I'm massaging it, probably try to sleep with me then. Pelvic bones would be crushed, testicles atomized, not even my type. Unacceptable. Only chance is range."

All these thoughts went through Neal's head in an instant, though he made sure to keep his expression mild still and keep up his mental chaff. He then noticed the giant cat creature, Khrelan, nod off in the corner. Well that was just playing right into the stereotype, all that was missing was a sunbeam.

Neal leaned forward, snapping out the words in his officer's voice "Mittens! Wake up! Are we boring you?"
Title: The Pariah
Post by: LordNecross on March 06, 2017, 11:13:12 PM
Ursea didn't know what to really say to the Vis," I'll keep that in mind." She merely disregarded the Vis's babbling, she didn't really want to talk to it to be honest, maybe that would change with time. She had also found his insistence on claiming the her friend's name meant Urine in some alien tongue rather annoying, as if the same did not apply to everyone in the grand scheme of things.

The Ki'jan doctor finally spoke up as well, he however asked a question she would not mind answering. He seemed to want to know how she had tamed Suu-Suu, which was something she could never forget.

"Well, I tamed him while I was on my culling, I was not the strongest in the litter or the biggest. So I had to try extra hard to survive, I had always like animals though and when they were preparing us for the culling, I asked all I could about the land and its creatures. I spent time with the beasts of my clan to try and understand them, I was very little so I liked to pretend I could talk with them." She explained thinking she sounded a bit silly, but it was the only way she could tell it.

"As soon as we were dropped off in the heart of the jungle though, I realized how unprepared I was. We were set upon by the beasts and plant life almost immediately. I think five of us out of the several litters present were immediately killed, I remember them being dragged off into the underbrush," She said her gaze more towards the back-wall than the doctor now, " I got away and tried my best to survive over the next few days, I managed only by sheer luck. However I got hurt and lost my foot, it made it a lot harder to stay mobile and keep myself fed, that's when I found Suu-Suu, he was a lot smaller back then but he was still bigger and stronger than me. Taming Suu-Suu took time, I gave him my own food and tried my best in training him how I saw the elders work with their beasts. I am not sure how I managed it, I think he sensed that I needed him... Once I could at least get him to obey simple commands we started hunting, and we worked very well together. With food, I could heal my wounds and regain my strength, and soon I was able to train him better. Eventually we made it back to my clan with the rest of the survivors, and we were accepted back with open arms. I was a surprise for them though, they expected me to be one of the first to die."

She didn't notice Neal eyeing her and Suu-Suu, she was far too preoccupied in her own thoughts, then the Human called the Taurgit 'Mittens', which she didn't really understand why, it must be a human thing. Apparently Khrelan had fallen asleep, she thought that was rather silly so she giggled a bit before returning to her train of thought.

Which was that she was a runt in the eyes of her peers, Kurgeshan peers, but it was something she tried not to think about too much, this mission was just another among many distractions she afforded herself. Before she could say any more though, the door to the meeting room opened up and Osiris walked in drawing Ursea's attention.

Ursea watched him walking in, she had to admit to herself that their leader was an absolute hunk, and she wouldn't mind continuing to work with him. She wondered if she could get him to spar with her. She pretended to be attentive when all she was really doing was checking out his rippling musculature.



Osiris walked into the room, he had been watching there reactions to one another when forced to interact, he needed to see if Aesen had made good choices. Neal seemed to prove himself the most, his eye was keen for breaking down who he was working with, Osiris had always seen through his facade though. Osiris must be a rather frustrating person to work with, as he would not be so easily understood, but Neal had a far better chance of figuring him out than the Ki'Jan did, for obvious reasons.

He looked at each of them gathered hear, and began speaking, not giving them a chance to respond to him coming in.

"Hello, I see Aesen has gathered you all here rather early. Hopefully you are prepared to receive the briefing, which I will begin now." He said as he immediately grabbed his head-band and removed it.

The effect was immediate, the absolute, abject horror washed over them like sinking into an icy abyss. It was suffocating, and those that could sweat, broke into a cold sweat, and the paranoia set in. It was like being watched and not knowing where it was coming from, like death was stalking them at this very moment. It was an utterly unnatural feeling, one that made you want to jump out of your own skin and run, just to put as much distance between oneself and whatever the source of this feeling was.

The source was obvious though, it was undoubtedly Osiris. Everyone in the room felt this feeling to the extreme, without exception. However Ailuin felt it the worst, it was like feeling the antithesis to his existence press into his own, it was physically and mentally suffocating.

The pain the doctor felt was unlike any he had every experienced before, he could no longer sense the minds of others, his psionicly linked equipment immediately failed. His head hurt so bad it felt like it was ready to split open at any moment. The pain however was far too much for him to take, as he let out an agonized foamy gurgle and fell out of his chair and collapsed on the ground, he vomited whatever contents were in his stomach and immediately blacked out.

Then Osiris put the head-band back on, and the feeling was gone immediately. In the commotion, no one had noticed Suu-Suu claw its way  into the vents in the room, it vacated the room instinctually it seemed. When the presence had dissipated, Suu-Suu poked his head in through the vent and looked around before immediately going back to Ursea's side.

Aesen piped up from the sound system, "I do believe that they received that a little too well."

It was a wake-up call, this was no game, this was serious and if they thought any less of the task at hand they probably would not survive. He was not doubting their ability, but he had to give them a taste of the horror they could come to face out there.

Osiris looked about the room, "We will be fighting what is known as Orks, that is what these creatures refer to themselves as. Some of you already know a bit about them as I had to tell you to convince you to come aboard, others came for other reasons."

His voice was calm and collected, "What you just experienced was my presence, an absence of psionic energies, all of you are slightly tied to this energy in some way, this does not confer ability though. I am called a Pariah, I am an Anti-Psionic, my mere presence disables psionic ability. As I am part of this mission as well, it should be obvious why such an ability is needed."

He stopped for a brief moment, " I shall let the doctor compose himself before continuing, as I am sure the information I am about to provide will be very useful to him."

He stood and looked at them each of them having their own reaction to what just happened. Ursea just looked at him attentively, she had little choice after what she just felt, it immediately stopped her mind from wandering as it was. She would need to take a shower after this, as she had broken into a cold sweat like a few of the others. It gave her new perspective on who or what their commander was, he was assuredly not the kind of human they must have suspected him to be.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on March 06, 2017, 11:53:03 PM
Thada had been in the process of picking up his jacket from the floor when Osiris had removed his headband. The sudden, raw shock on his brain made his body simply collapse to the side as if he had been knocked out. Lying on his side and staring into the bottom of the chair he had sent into the wall, Thada quickly felt his breath shorten, and he realized the tube to his oxygen mask had gotten caught on one of the chair's legs when he fell down, tearing the mask off. But when he tried to reach out to the mask to put it back on, he realized he couldn't move a muscle, as his entire body seemed to have gone into some sort of lockdown from this abhorrent sensation. His vision started to darken and blur; all he could do was breath heavier, try to get enough oxygen to his brain, and focusing on staying conscious and try to weather through what seemed more with each passing moment to be a horrible dream. A part of him felt that it would be better to just pass out, to let go and get rid of the paranoia and the smothering horror. But his body refused; instincts had taken over; it was fight or die now.

Just as Thada felt his consciousness starting to abandon him, the sensation stopped suddenly and instantly. His body was left shivering, his hide covered in just as much sweat as before the shower he had just taken a short while ago. His vision returning to him, he looked up and saw that Osiris had put his headband back on. What was this? What was he? This was not at all what Thada had been expecting. A moment ago he had enjoyed himself by poking fun at the grouchy doctor, but now any notions of fun or play had dissipated. Thada suddenly got an insight into the true gravity of the situation, and what's more, he felt a cinder of fear towards Osiris flaring up within him.

He sat up, laying a hand over his face, the other fumbling for the mask which hung over the chair leg. "You have...my full attention...boss..."he panted, his already spent body left exhausted by the whole ordeal.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on March 07, 2017, 02:23:39 AM
Zeph's crystal immediately began glowing orange, standing out of his chair and reaching behind him for his knife before realizing that it was still in his cabin. Gritting his teeth, Zephirus began to feel his crystalline neurons quivering and inducing pain...begging him to do something about the situation...

"Pain is so gently-carressing annoying. Even as a warning signal, I don't think feeling this is worth-" Zephirus began, before being interrupted with a singsong voice going, "Pain reminds us of the danger we're in~ With no pain, there'd be no awareness of things that are actively killing us~!"

"I'm...well aware, Zeph." Zephirus replied, as his vision grew dimmer and his apprehension took hold, "We can rally the others to kill him, enough bodies piled onto him and we can twist his limbs until they-"

"No killing!" Zeph replied, regaining control over his body as the danger faded away and the crystal glowed blue once more, "He's not an actual threat! He's just kind of an impassive douchebag!"

He slid back into his chair, shivering as the pressure slid away and the fear dissipated. Nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, the pressure was gone and guns weren't drawn. Every hint of rationality kept Zephirus from leaping over the table and throttling Osiris before the man could rip his arms out. "Interesting t-trick!" Zeph exclaimed, before whispering softly "Goddamn would've been nice if he'd warned us beforehand thouuuuugh..."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on March 07, 2017, 05:16:50 AM
Neal had seen a lot of gently-carressed up things in his career, especially working as Coalition intelligence, which had taken him to some pretty dark places he doubted even the others had experienced. However nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for the sensation of utter, abject horror and nothingness that came over him. Even Neal's well-honed sense of calm and smartass attitude was stripped away by Osiris's anti-psychic presence. He immediately got up from his chair, the suddenness and force of it knocking it back as Neal instinctively started reaching for a weapon, any weapon. He had pulled out his combat knife and had shakely put himself into a combat stance, sputtering out "Holy excrement, gently-carress. gently-carress. What the gently-carress Osiris!? What the gently-carress are you!? The galaxy's most horrifying freak show? What the gently-carress."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on March 07, 2017, 11:49:53 AM
Freya jumped out of her chair the moment Osiris removed his head-band. Adrenaline thundered through her veins as she look around her like an cornered animal, desperately searching for a threat that she could face. But all she saw instead was the great Void closing in on her, clawing at the hull of this ship, desperately trying to surround her in its eternal cold, silence and darkness. The reality of space travel that she, and so many other liked to ignore came crashing down on her. Freya stared into the eternal abyss, and it laughed at her. It laughed at the childish attempt of life to challenge it. It laughed as all the awesome power of gravity could only temporarily and locally bring an halt to its endless entropy.

And Freya heard it laughing. Both as a soft voice inside of her own mind, and as a thunderous laughter coming from outside the ship. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. She wanted to escape, but the blackness had surrounded her.

Then Osiris put his head-band back on his head. Freya found herself halfway to the door of the room, but she had no recollection of doing anything but jumping out of her chair. She tried to compose herself while she walked back, but failed. So when she spoke her voice was still shaky and with a hint of fear.

"But.." She said, obviously having some second thoughts while she asked the question. "How do we" She made a gesture towards all the different races besides the Ki'Jan. "Notice your 'Anti-Psionic' ability? We do not even have normal Psionics." 
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 07, 2017, 04:56:40 PM
Osiris took off his headband as Khrelan was goin through a dream scene where he'd be repeatedly blown up while in the cockpit. The wave of abject horror and danger crashed over him and jolted him awake with a start, almost making him fall off his chair.

But it was as if that dreadful sensation of danger had followed him from his dream. It was as if the ship was something made out of paper, waiting to be crushed or torn apart, killing them all.

His claws extended and he raked  them on the table as he got up, leaving a nasty scratch on the flat surface.

He felt as if someone had shoved his conscious mind aside, making him act as an animal. His mind was trying to wrest control back, but at most he managed to stop himself from doing something really stupid at the meeting table. He just stood there, twitching and making angry faces, but never really lunging at anyone.

And then, just like that, Osiris put his headband back and the feeling simply disappeared. He slumped back on his chair trying to clear all of that crap from his head...

(https://cyprusscene.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/shocked-cat.jpg)

"But.." She said, obviously having some second thoughts while she asked the question. "How do we" She made a gesture towards all the different races besides the Ki'Jan. "Notice your 'Anti-Psionic' ability? We do not even have normal Psionics." 

"Adding to that, how do we fight against or resist whatever was that ..." said Khrelan to Osiris, " ...that you unleashed on us just now? I mean, if we're going to eventually go up against something like that during our mission, how do we keep ourselves from going into a rout?"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on March 08, 2017, 12:59:00 AM
From the moment Osiris took off his headband, Ailuin was in intense pain. His head feeling like it was going to split apart, a thin streak of blood coming out of one of his nostrils. The pain felt like a million telepathic voices screaming directly into his brain which he couldn't shut off no matter how much he directed his brain to. Letting out a gurgle, his hands went to his head as if he was about to begin clawing at it; stopped only short of his stomach churning to the point of vomiting. The doctor blacking out immediately afterwards.

Unfortunately it didn't stop there however, where his mind would usually have shut down and time skipped forward to him waking up; he instead was stuck in a state of perpetual nightmares. Ailuin trying to run away from something that continued to get closer, something that he could never escape from. This continued until Osiris put on his headband at which point the nightmares immediately stopped and within moments Ailuin began to stir, at which point he found himself next to the puddle of his own vomit.

Shaking his head, he slowly picked himself back up before looking right at Osiris while holding his head, justin time for Osiris to explain what just happened. "Ugh...So thats why my gently-carressing brain feels like its splitting apart." The doctor mumbled before pausing for a moment while making a mental connection to the incident from days earlier and making a note to ask more about it later.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on March 08, 2017, 09:18:21 PM
Aesen chimed in, "I could fill the air with very mild sedatives to calm everyone down, Should I?"

Osiris shook his head, "Entirely unnecessary." He looked about, he was not the least bit surprised by their reactions, it was the first time the must have ever witnessed such a phenomenon. While he was indeed a Pariah, on the scale by which potency of a Pariah's effects are judged, he was among the highest. With much weaker varieties known as blanks, the most they would feel is slight unease, and discomfort. The more potent it became though, they more the Pariah would be noticed and possibly killed due to fear of it, unless intervened by an outside party.

Osiris nodded, to Thada, "Good," He also took note of Ursea having a similar air of compliance, something he needed from them all," I Apologize, but it was needed. If you are to work with me, you must know what I am."

He also noted the Zephirus, or whichever personality of the malfunctioning synthetic had seemed to act in an aggressive manner, the Vis seemingly decided against that course of action, which was good as it would lead nowhere good.

Neal's reaction was all too familiar though, it was like a trip to a previous life before  he had become the enhanced soldier he was now. "Freakshow, maybe. I am something that is needed when we deal with psionics, the side affect is what you felt just now. I am one of the more potent of my kind, so people have more adverse reactions to it, making this head-band necessary."

He heard Freya's question and figured this would help everyone understand a bit more, "You are all connected in some way to the energies that make Psionic ability possible, whether its telepathy... or some other ability, it is due to these mental energies. This also means, through mutation and exposure you could develop them, possibly in unpredictable ways."

Khrelan also had a very good question, a skill they would need to even go into combat with him if they needed his abilities. "That is something that can be taught, you all have never experienced it before, it can be resisted as long as you do not develop psionic abilities. It would be a similar to how one resists telepathy, except focusing on something other than my presence, repeated exposure will help you develop immunity on your own, the feeling will never go away, but you can have less of a reaction to it. We can arrange for training between missions, if anyone needs it."

Finally it seemed that the doctor recovered, "Ailuin, because you are a telepath, being near me without my inhibitor will always be debilitating, in combat if I need to remove it, you will have to stay a distance from me, roughly 15 meters. This will allow you to still use your abilities without issue." He figured he had answered enough about himself, now onto the orks.

He enabled the holo-projector, that began showing images of orks and relevant information on them, detailed pictures on their anatomy and bone structure showed. "Now why this is relevant to the mission, Orks, they are also a naturally psionic race."

"All orks have a slightly reality changing gestalt field, it helps their technology to work when it shouldn't, mere belief by orks affects reality itself. This itself is problematic, but when I spoke about psionic energies, it can be thought of as a collective whole, an entire dimension made up of this mental energy, affected by all sentient races in some small capacity." He said as he looked at them.

"The rapid reproducing physiology of the orks,  their warlike nature, and genetically ingrained ability to work with and produce moderately functional technology is a danger. However their ability to affect and define this realm of psionic energy could have lasting and devastating effects on all known life. So even if war with them is somehow survived, the after effects could damage reality." He explained as more images appeared.

"This mission is two-pronged, one we must disable the ork war machine, and two it must be done before lasting damage is caused to this psionic realm. This other dimension would eventually be discovered by your species anyways, but the orks gaining full use of it first could be damaging." He finished with, it was a lot to absorb and had concepts that had not even been gleaned at by the sciences of the major sentient species yet. It was best to tell them though, as understanding would help.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on March 08, 2017, 09:40:01 PM
Neal, still recovering from the horror he witnessed, composed himself and put away his knife. He then listened intently as Osiris gave them the rundown. He could understand the preemptive strike to cripple their military capability, but the other part, the lecture on reality-bending psionics was not something he expected or really versed in. He was going to need to question Osiris further on this species' psionics if he was going to be able to use his talents effectively.

"Okay" Neal said "How exactly does their psionics work? Is this ability to will thing's to work passive or an act of will?"

Osiris then looked at Neal, he could tell he was a bit confused as to the nature of psionics, especially with regards to the ork. He brought up a few charts for reference to the effects.

Then Osiris spoke, "It is entirely Passive, they are not consciously aware of it, if that were possible...they would be rather unstoppable. It mostly affects the function of their technology as you will see, and it causes their beliefs to be true for them. The effect is only noticeable in orks, and attempts to use something they make not in the immediate presence of orks can have mixed results."

Aesen then chimed in quickly, "An example for you all, say a group of orks is in the a transport vehicle, and its almost out of fuel. Its running on fumes, and an ork notices it and says something. However the bigger more alpha ork in the group disagrees and says it is full, he punches the smaller ork and threatens the ones who disagree. He is bigger and stronger so they believe him, and suddenly the transport acts as if the tank is full, its fuel efficiency multiplies exponentially, allowing them to finish their trip without pause."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 09, 2017, 01:15:27 AM
"An example for you all, say a group of orks is in the a transport vehicle, and its almost out of fuel. Its running on fumes, and an ork notices it and says something. However the bigger more alpha ork in the group disagrees and says it is full, he punches the smaller ork and threatens the ones who disagree. He is bigger and stronger so they believe him, and suddenly the transport acts as if the tank is full, its fuel efficiency multiplies exponentially, allowing them to finish their trip without pause."
Khrelan simply blinked. Something like this was... unheard of. At least in regards to what little he knew about the galaxy.

"Wait....what? So, let me get this straight. Their collective belief... bends reality? Does that work with...eh...say broken or jammed weaponry? Or can they pull ammo from empty pockets? Or...can a vehicle go faster simply because it's painted red?"

That simply would not make any sort of sense.

"And you say that this sort of 'damage to the laws of physics' can become permanent? That would be ... yeah, that would be very dangerous."

He scratched his head in disbelief. That was all so hard to accept...

"Can their collective belief break our weapons, or vehicles, or any sort of device we use?"

Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on March 09, 2017, 02:22:26 AM
Zeph looked towards Osiris, and almost immediately, the crystal turned orange once more. For the slightest flicker of an instant, a look of pure...rapt adoration and excitement crossed Zeph's face.

Zephirus looked forward impassively, commenting only with "Impressive. I fully understand the need for such a strike team, now. You have our full support in ending this menace to the stars." In his unnerving and threatening tone

Generally, Zeph took control to prevent Zephirus from doing anything rash. As of this moment, however, Zeph was a maelstrom of emotions ranging from the sadness of "Let them live! We've no right to terminate such an awesome and amazing existence!" to the pure raging euphoria of "Finally! Finally! The universe finally makes gently-carressing sense! I told you it was all an illusion, Zephirus, I told you!"

To prevent Zeph from begging Osiris on his knees to reconsider the mission...to prevent Zeph from saying or doing anything idiotic...Zephirus remained in control until their combined rationality could stem Zeph's insanity. It was an event that rarely occurred, but such was the pact made between them that any personality with the higher rationality would be the one to control the body. It was a testament to how much Zeph loved the idea of the Orks that the murderous and psychopathic Zephirus was the more rational personality.

"Shush." Zephirus ordered to Zeph, as he spoke, "I must ask, then. Can we even kill them? If their belief can bend reality, and their belief happens to be 'I must continue fighting', it doesn't seem likely that blood loss would even be noticed."

Zephirus looked towards Osiris, his murderous intent and pure apathy towards all of creation radiating towards all present in the room. Life should not exist, least of all life that threatens the impartiality of reality.

"How can we kill that which does not believe it should die?"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on March 10, 2017, 07:24:01 PM
In response to Osiris' comments about being 15 meters away, The Doctor nodded. At this point he took his hand off his head, only to wipe his mouth and put his arm back on the table "That shouldn't be a problem. I'm more of a support role anyhow".

Ailuin remained silent while listening to Osiris' explanation of the Orks. The explanation leaving much to be desired. After this was done he made a mental note to gather all the files from Aeson that he could procure. He did however find the reality altering portions disturbing enough to warrant a comment. "So you are saying these creatures break even the most fundamental laws of our universe. Physically thats impossible. Quantumly probable... yet still insane. Theoretically, I don't even want to think about it." The Doctor pausing for a moment "Though, given this data, and what just happened... I am more inclined at the moment to believe you."

At which point Zephirus began speaking, raising an excellent point on how we could even kill such a threat.

"Biological Warfare is always an option." The Doctor began "You know, kill it without making it realize its dying"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on March 10, 2017, 09:11:18 PM
Osiris shook his head, "Let me explain further, they cannot will themselves to not die, they are not aware of their gestalt field. They do not entirely bend the laws of physics they supplement them with their psionics. Their technology and beliefs work because of their passive psionic ability. There are Psionics in their number that have powers that do in fact bend reality, I believe the most accurate description is magic, that is what it will seem like."

He looked at them and returned his gaze to the holo-display. "Orks are not themselves a threat to reality, the psionic realm that they pull their abilities from could become destabilized if they continue to rampage unchecked. When the psionic realm becomes destabilized it could break through to reality, then the laws of physics will be compromised."

"The orks by themselves won't cause this unless they spread too far, if we destabilize their command structure, they will keep their own population in check, and by the time a new leader emerges to unite them, your civilizations should have advanced far enough to be on more even ground with them." He said as he pulled up an image detailing a few effects their psionics can have, detailing how their weapons are made functional through the gestalt belief.

Osiris pointed to some ork weapon schematics, they were very simple, and seemed to use basic ballistic concepts, "Orks typically use ballistic weapons, however they also can use energy weapons if they build them themselves or steal them. From the image shown, you can see this gun would fire normally, if a bit unwieldy due to the calibers and lack of recoil reduction," then the image changed to something that was clearly missing key components to be functional, little more than a few random springs and some bolts, " In the hands of an ork this weapon will fire, because they believe it will. Their gestalt field makes whatever item they use, regardless of it it should, work due to the belief it should. This passive ability has limits though, if they became aware the gun shouldn't be functional, it would cease to operate."

He shut the image off, "Biological warfare will only work on them if it is virulent enough to entirely wipe out the surface of a planet they are on. Something more directed will only result in immunity, you might kill a good amount but the result will be even harder to kill orks. Any world orks land on, will eventually become infested without proper cleansing of territory they landed on."

Aesen chimed, "I feel the best learning experience will come when you encounter them, it should be rather educational. I will grant access to documentation we have on them, so feel free to browse it."

Osiris nodded, " I believe I shall conclude this briefing, We will be heading to a point of interest soon, we have some information that a very small exploratory group of orks are heading for a planet. We will head their to find out what has their interest, and wipe them out. Dismissed."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on March 11, 2017, 12:23:29 AM
Zephirus looked around the group. He wasn't especially good at small-talk when he didn't have a motivation, and he honestly couldn't care less about the fools onboard, but...

He needed to make an impression. He needed to show strength. He needed to establish dominance.

He stood up, stalking past Khrelan, Neal, and Thada slowly on his way to Ailuin. He slid his hand on each of their chairs, very nearly (but not quite) touching each of the mercenaries as he breached each of their personal spaces (most races have a roughly equivalent 'personal space' area). He deliberately slid his hand quickly on one of the chairs while Neal was still turning so as to allow the human to bump into his fingers, hopefully it would freak the human out.

"Doctor," He spoke, ignoring Khrelan's winces and the stares of the others, "would you like to examine the Ork physiology data with me? I fear as though we're the only ones on board who would truly benefit from the information..."

He turned his head, slightly, almost as if acknowledging the others in the room. If any of them challenged him to a fight, he would take them on and trounce them. He could win against any of them...so long as he kept his distance and never actually went for a solid blow.

Khrelan would rip him to shreds if allowed, but a sparring match was not a death match. Zephirus knew his endurance would probably outlast the Taurgit if he consumed an entire battery before the fight, so he could tire Khrelan out to the point of exhaustion by simply dodging every blow until the Taurgit let his guard down.

Neal was more an issue. He would take largely the same strategy, but the man's training and endurance would take hours, if not an entire day to whittle down. He would have to take as many cheap shots as possible to the human's vital areas starting an hour or so into the fight, goading the man into breaking his composure. If he messed up even once, Neal could snap off his limbs...and that would be the end of that.

Thada was the biggest issue. He didn't think that he was fast enough to evade the Iko if he were ever to actually exchange blows. He would have to actually just run, dodge, and evade like his life depended on it while never actually throwing a punch. If he played his cards right and cheated a little...he could get the Iko to start relying on insufficient oxygen inhales, which would hasten the process of exhausting Thada. He remembered all of the Iko vitals, and with enough force he could probably strike them hard enough to enrage him to the point that the sparring match would have to be called off for risk of lethal force. It wouldn't be a physical victory, but it would be an intellectual one.

Of course, the best possible scenario was that none of them challenged him to a fight. As long as he provoked them unassumingly and individually (he didn't think the Kaveni saw him slide his hand across the chairs, so it might seem like an overreaction if one of them stepped up to him right now...), and he didn't actually instigate a fight, he would have both the moral high ground and a position of dominance. They would hopefully stop pestering him so much...
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on March 11, 2017, 01:28:21 AM
Thada made a silent growl from the back of his throat as Zephirius got a little too close for comfort. Did Vis have no concept of personal space? No, that's not it - he never had any issues of the like when working with others of his kind back when. Was he just socially inept? No, not that either. In fact, he realized, it was very much deliberate. Was he trying to nudge out some kind of reaction? Bah, no matter. What this weird Vis wanted or thought about wasn't all that important in relation to what he had just been told by the weird Human. He looked at the other operatives that were still in the room.

"So let me get this straight,"he said, working to put on his blue field jacket while he spoke. "We're gonna save the galaxy from some kind of angry half-animal-half-fungus aliens who can basically control reality with their own stupidity, whose guns only fire because they think they will, and who's got basically magicians amongst them? And to cancel out those magicians, our boss is some sort of anti-mage who can pop our heads just by taking off his headband? Excuse me, but is no one else seeing how utterly gently-carressed this is, or am I just the crazy one?"he asked, making a sweeping gesture at all of his now-colleagues.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 11, 2017, 02:05:23 AM
As soon as the meeting ended, Khrelan picked up his datapad to make notes. He also downloaded what he could from what the ship's AI made avalable, to start studying where he could hurt orks the most. It would not do to shoot them and keep missing the important parts. Sometimes striking the enemy down decisively is the only way.

He also did notice the Vis's "provocation".

Douchebag. He thought. But forgot that the Vis was not the telepathic one.

He fiddled with his sidearm, but left it clipped at his hip.

"Excuse me, but is no one else seeing how utterly gently-carressed this is, or am I just the crazy one?"

"It is utterly gently-carressed up. " said Khrelan while looking at Thada. "But better to know that right now and up front than later."

He got up, intending to go back to his cabin to study the files.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on March 11, 2017, 05:17:51 AM
Neal felt Zephirus brush up against him, and noticed as he did it against the others too. Neal was a keen observer of both human and alien nature. His training in ALIINT ops, dealing with aliens on a personal level, whether it was recruiting spies or counter-espionage, had given him insight into the psychological and physiological tells and quirks of various alien species. So when he saw Zephirus seem to intentionally invade everyone's personal space, like some kind of special needs person in need of attention, he was able to see that Zephirus, the ruthless personality, was probably power-playing everyone in the room. Neal felt sure of this when Zephirus started sucking up to Ailuin like the galaxy's weirdest teacher's pet.

Neal personally felt it funny that the schizophrenic Vis was resorting to such classroom tactics. However he also knew that this would pose a problem, the Vis clearly felt it didn't need to work with anyone here, and it's actions could cause conflict and division within the "team". He had seen corporals try similar bullying tactics, currying favour with the officers and senior NCO's at the expense of everyone else. Usually however the sergeants and officers saw through this and put them in their place rather quickly. Neal would have to do the same, if Osiris didn't.

Neal got up, ignoring Mittens and Dino's remarks, and calmly walked over to where Zephirus was standing, before saying with a plastered smile "While we appreciate your...enthusiasm over our assignment Zephirus, do recall we all have a stake in this. So remember that you're part of a team, so do remember to play nice with everyone, otherwise The One Who Must Not Smile might need to have a word with you, or even worse put us through some clichéd team-building exercise."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on March 11, 2017, 05:38:18 AM
With the meeting now over, The Doctor took a moment to lift up his Tablet to run a quick diagnostic on its Telepathic Transceiver given it had disconnected from him after the Osiris incident. That said, the diagnostic was more about getting data so he could analyze what exactly happened than to search for hardware errors. When the diagnostic began, Ailuin was just beginning to stand up when Zephirus made his way over to him and began speaking directly to him

"Doctor," He spoke, ignoring Khrelan's winces and the stares of the others, "would you like to examine the Ork physiology data with me? I fear as though we're the only ones on board who would truly benefit from the information..."

Standing up, he now turned to Zephirus and smiled at the last portion of his comment before beginning to reply. "I was actually on my way to the Science Bay to do exactly that." The doctor pausing for a breath. "Your company would be more than welcome, especially now that the bay has been retrofitted to better handle the biological sciences". he had paused, waiting for Zephirus to reply when

Neal got up, ignoring Mittens and Dino's remarks, and calmly walked over to where Zephirus was standing, before saying with a plastered smile "While we appreciate your...enthusiasm over our assignment Zephirus, do recall we all have a stake in this. So remember that you're part of a team, so do remember to play nice with everyone, otherwise The One Who Must Not Smile might need to have a word with you, or even worse put us through some clichéd team-building exercise."

Ailuin looking at him through the corner of his eye with an annoyed look on his face  waiting for him to finish his rant before speaking up.

"Excuse me Neal, I believe I was talking to Zephirus just now. Either get in line and wait your turn or go and do something productive with your life like going over the information Aesen released... or in your case going over them again given how humans tend to stick together." The doctor pausing for a moment, unsatisfied with his previous remark.

"Now, given we are no longer required to stay within this room I will be taking my leave to better analyze these documents and figure out some way to allow us to harm these creatures en masse. If you were smart, instead of following your warmongering-genes to fight... you would do the same."

Completing what he had to say, the Doctor simply began to walk out of the room
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on March 11, 2017, 06:39:27 PM
Freya had remained seated after Osiris dismissed everyone, further studying additional information on the Orks on her omni-tool. But she looked up when she heard the Vis talk.

"Doctor," He spoke, ignoring Khrelan's winces and the stares of the others, "would you like to examine the Ork physiology data with me? I fear as though we're the only ones on board who would truly benefit from the information..."

She shook her head is annoyance has this guy not worked together since middle school? she questioned silently does he think anyone is impressed by such a provocation? she was about to turn her attention back to her omni-tool when she noted the body language of Neal, Khrelan and Thada; the people Zeph had passed behind in order to get closer to Ailuin. They looked seriously annoyed, clearly some other provocation had taken place that she hadn't noticed working on her omni-tool.

Excuse me, but is no one else seeing how utterly gently-carressed this is, or am I just the crazy one?"he asked, making a sweeping gesture at all of his now-colleagues.

Freya nodded in agreement with the Iko, who had obviously already put the incident behind him. These Orks were indeed totally unlike any enemy she, or anyone in the galactic community had faced before. But her predatory eyes remained focused on the Vis, and Neal who just stood up to confront the Zeph's challenge.

"While we appreciate your...enthusiasm over our assignment Zephirus, do recall we all have a stake in this. So remember that you're part of a team, so do remember to play nice with everyone, otherwise The One Who Must Not Smile might need to have a word with you, or even worse put us through some clichéd team-building exercise."

An instinct from her many years as an NCO kicked in. Most Kaveni who joined the Void Shakers already had years of military service behind them but still on occasion she would have to work with new initiates who felt to need to 'prove their strength' by provocation and intimidation. They all quickly learned that such behavior had no place in an elite military unit, just as it has no place among the professional mercenaries Freya worked with after her military career. Sure, such practices were common among cheap mercenaries, but those people are just up-jumped thugs; only good for looking though and extorting civilians. Without even thinking about it Freya stood up too, lending strength to the 'correction' issued by a commanding officer towards the disobedient soldier.

"Umm, Freya right? Do you want to join me? Instead of sit here and listen to this argument."
"Sounds fun, I'll be right out." responded Freya, who despite her cheery response kept her attention on the confrontation taking place before her.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on March 11, 2017, 07:06:14 PM
Ursea watched Osiris leave, despite what had happened she still though he was a hunk, but she was a bit more conflicted now. If stuff like this could exist then what other horrors awaited them in the vast cosmos. She figured she would take a look at the data later, as long as he gun killed orks, it wasn't too important to know their physiology entirely. At the moment she was more focused on the fact that she was sweaty and she had put so much thought into her look only for it to be ruined unexpectedly.

She looked around seeing the argument unfolding and the Vis acting like a child, then she saw Neal stand up to chastise the Vis, rightly so to be honest. She looked down to Suu-Suu whose blinking multi-armored lidded eyes looked right back, "Hey Suu-Suu want to go swimming? Now that everyone has met you, I think its okay now. Just be a good boy, alright?"

Suu-Suu perked up at the mention of swimming, immediately he rushed over to the door, he lifted his head up and looked back expectantly at Ursea, and tapped his large sharp point legs on the ground in anticipation.

She then looked at Freya, the Kaveni was the only other female on the ship so she felt a sorta need to make friends with her, so she crinkled her hands together a little nervously.

"Umm, Freya right? Do you want to join me? Instead of sit here and listen to this argument."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on March 12, 2017, 02:09:59 AM
Zephirus turned to look at Neal after Ailuin walked out of the room, "Neal..." He began, with a serious expression, "You're..welcome to join us if you'd like to, but..."

And... a smile, as Zephirus' tone shifted to a normal one, proving to Khrelan and the others that he was intentionally speaking in the unnerving tone just to mess with them.

"I wouldn't like to patronize you. There are going to be terms and ideas thrown around that will go over your head, so I do believe it would be best for us to stick to our respective strengths." Zephirus continued, shrugging his shoulders, "You can hold a gun steady! You would do best to capitalize on that talent."

Zephirus waited. Five...four...three...two...

Neal took a breath, and his eyes focused. He was about to speak.

"And frankly," Zephirus began, as soon as Neal began to move his lips, "I don't quite get why you seem so... eager to lecture and berate I and Ailuin. Us aliens have done nothing to earn your ire other than exist, which I do understand to be quite an issue to several humans of less... enlightened castes and backgrounds, Englishman."

Zephirus turned back, and instantly raised his PDA as a loud ping sound came in, signifying that the requested data had been downloaded onto it. He had actually started loading it midway through his last sentence, having previously imputed the word frankly as his release word for the data to start streaming in. The last word was always a critical advantage, especially when it didn't look forced...

"Ah, that'll be the data, then. My apologies, Neal. We'll have to continue this at another point." He spoke nonchalantly, looking to his PDA as he raised a single hand in apology, walking at a moderate pace to where Ailuin had left the room
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on March 12, 2017, 04:56:36 AM
Neal watched Zephirus walk off, noting the condescension in the Vis's words. Already Neal had learned a great deal about the crew, but decided to go over the info provided on the angry psychic ogre people first, prioritizing learning about enemy weaknesses first. But he could already tell this Vis was going to be a problem, it's utter lack of regard to the crew and antisocial tendencies more problematic than Allan's own anti-human bias even. The other aliens seemed willing to work together however, so Neal's biggest concern was morale. If this Vis continued to play power politics, it was going to end up being a liability.

Neal simply said "Remember Zephirus, this is a big boy mission with high stakes. Right now you can choose to be a liability or an asset, and right now you're leaning towards the latter. So choose wisely, because I won't tolerate liabilities on this mission."

With that said, and the implied warning clear, Neal went off to learn how to defeat an enemy humanity was not yet ready to face.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on March 12, 2017, 05:39:46 AM
Neal watched Zephirus walk off, noting the condescension in the Vis's words. Already Neal had learned a great deal about the crew, but decided to go over the info provided on the angry psychic ogre people first, prioritizing learning about enemy weaknesses first. But he could already tell this Vis was going to be a problem, it's utter lack of regard to the crew and antisocial tendencies more problematic than Allan's own anti-human bias even. The other aliens seemed willing to work together however, so Neal's biggest concern was morale. If this Vis continued to play power politics, it was going to end up being a liability.

Neal simply said "Remember Zephirus, this is a big boy mission with high stakes. Right now you can choose to be a liability or an asset, and right now you're leaning towards the latter. So choose wisely, because I won't tolerate liabilities on this mission."

With that said, and the implied warning clear, Neal went off to learn how to defeat an enemy humanity was not yet ready to face.
Zephirus walked forward without hesitating, his hand raised in a parting farewell.

He walked through the hallway to Ailuin, waiting until he was far out of eyesight or hearing range.

He dashed to his room, slamming into the metal door before it opened for him before picking up the dagger on his pillow, berating Zeph in a microsecond for keeping it at such an open place before sliding out the vibroblade and-

NO.

STOP.

DON'T.

Zephirus fell to his knees, gripping the vibroblade tightly. "Zephirus, I know I promised not to use the nuclear option, but..."

"You've re-attained your rationality, stop IMPEDING on mine!" Zephirus thought back with a frenzy, slowly rising up to his feet, "We...have...to..."

"It was just a threat. Stop being silly." Zeph thought back, giving a rare frown as he crossed his arms in the mental space, "We're going to die if you kill him. You're not being reasonable. You promised we wouldn't be dissociative."

"We're being watched right now. The A.I knows I rushed to my room for the knife. We're already gently-carressed."

"So do the smart thing, drop the knife, and make nice with the scientist."

"...Do I have to tolerate the others?" Zephirus thought back, remembering the idiotic Iko who couldn't see the reasoning behind the Cleansing of Shura, the frustrating Kaveni who stood against him, the coward lion who didn't stand against him...

"No, let me do that. You've done enough." Zeph thought back with a sigh, patting Zephirus on the metaphysical back "Listen, they're all nice peeps. I think they understand not to gently-carress with you know...so you don't have to antagonize any of them. If Neal tries to mess with you by asking you to show yourself again, you have my permission to fight him..."

With that, the crystal reverted back to azure. Zeph rose from his knees, sliding the knife back into its sheath before placing it inside his desk. He still didn't want to kill the Orks...but he sympathized with the need to give his galaxy time to prepare for them. It wouldn't do if the green dudes just stomped everything that he's ever known.

He walked out of the room, walking through the hallways with a smile on his face before sliding into Ailuin's room. By force of habit, he walked without making a single sound, surprising Ailuin as he tapped the scientist on the shoulder. "That's for covering for us back there! You're a nice guy!" Zeph exclaimed with a smile and a slight laugh
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on March 12, 2017, 08:56:01 AM
"Great! I am going to go get my swim suit on!" She said as she got up and left as whatever had been going on seemed to conclude, she headed out the door following her overly excited Guttlouk as its lengthy body scampered at scary speeds towards the pool in the athletic center on that floor of the ship.

She was lost in thought as she walked down the hall and eventually passed through the rec area, she looked around, Suu-Suu having already passed her up. She wondered what this adventure would be like, how long would it last, and would these people she was working with get her killed. The sheer childishness she had just seen on display by the Vis was worrysome, and she knew the Ki'Jan doctor did not like the cute Human, Neal seemed to be rather sassy, but the way the Vis acted could be the most jeopardizing of all. Why had it been chosen to be apart of this ragtag crew?

She shook her head stroked her fingers through her long silky hair, as her other two hand rested in her jean pockets, "Spirits be with me... This is going to be the strangest job I have ever been on." She resumed heading towards the pool and the small locker area nearby. she had been wanting an excuse to put on one of her special order swimsuits for a while, even if no one else appreciated it, it was really for her benefit, as it made her feel good.

The swim suit in question was V shaped in the front, covering both of her breasts down the middle, but showing plenty of skin and cleavage. In the back it was only strings, and revealing her backside as well it being a thong one piece. The fabric was deep blue, and contrasted her light greyish orange skin, bringing out the orange in her skin more by contrast.

It felt good to be out of her sweaty clothes, she immediately bounded over to pool and dived in, she was literally a few meters away when she jumped. The low gravity on the ship, while normal for everyone else, made it very easy for Kurgs to perform ridiculous feats.

Suu-Suu was already swimming around beneath the water, blowing rings and swimming through them like some great insectoid sea-serpent. After she dove in, Suu-Suu began circling around her play fully until she surfaced.  He looked at her and clacked his mandibles a few timed before sticking his mouth in the water and blowing some bubbles.

She laughed, "You really missed the water huh? Its more fun without all Devig, and Ghurshet trying to eat us in the river." She said referencing the jungle rivers of her homeland, and a few of the aquatic predators found within. "This is a salt-water pool, refreshing!" She smirked as she laid back and floated, closing her eyes as Suu-Suu swam around the pool, enjoying himself.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on March 12, 2017, 09:48:01 AM
Having left the room after the escalating tensions, Ailuin made his way to the elevator where he went up a floor and walked towards his room. Locking the door behind him as he stepped in front of the mirror and frowned. "Ugh" he began to himself in disgust. "I can't believe I vomited because of that." The doctor inspecting his wet suit for splash damage, ultimately deciding it would just be faster to strip out and get a new one.

The Wet Suit was the standard clothing of the Ki'Jannian people, and it was common knowledge that each one tended to show off a persons status. Royalty had a different Wet Suit from the Peasantry, The Imperial Family Line having a different one from that of the branch families. Military and Police had their own Wet Suits which displayed their status, theirs being thicker of course and having more pockets and interfaces to which to interact with their work equipment and armours. In general, each industry had different variations for their own styles which typically fit within three categories, Casual, Business and Formal. Thats not to say that Wet Suits standardized a single look within the Arcadonian Empire, in fact that would be quite the opposite as each status had an infinite capability for modification within their assigned designs.

As a Scientist, he too had his own attire of unique wet suits and given that Scientists were viewed highly within the Arcadonian Empire his Wet Suits fitted that description. His Casual Wear like all casual wear was thin and mobile, displaying the emblems and designs befitting of a scientist. He had even customized the colours of his wardrobe to match his preferences. This was similar to his formal wear, which was much more dressed up than he typically enjoyed wearing.

Of course, the clothing he enjoyed the most was his Business Wear. Given his high status and unique position of authority he was allowed a certain degree of customization to his wet suits, something he put to great use with his business wear. The base design was that of the traditional High Classed Scientist garb which contained an attachable breakaway lab coat element built into it to it to protect the base suit from damage. Where he had taken liberties in modification was with his merging certain elements of the Colonial Security Wet Suit into it.

All of this meaning, the suit was thicker in certain areas to protect him in an unarmed or knife fight, contained attach points where he could attach armour if he so chose to and the part that he enjoyed and found the most usage out of being the additional secured pouches and magnetic hang points where he could store equipment or various other tools. It was truly a unique wet suit, one which from a distance displayed his high status and up close his achievements.

Throwing his previous one in the bin to be washed at a later date, he quickly put on the new one and once ready unlocked his door again and walked over to his desk to gather a few things before he made his way towards the science bay

He walked out of the room, walking through the hallways with a smile on his face before sliding into Ailuin's room. By force of habit, he walked without making a single sound, surprising Ailuin as he tapped the scientist on the shoulder. "That's for covering for us back there! You're a nice guy!" Zeph exclaimed with a smile and a slight laugh

When this happened, the Doctor spun around, ready to swing at the first glimpse of Neal if it turned out to be him. Thankfully however it was only Zeph and his composure softened in response. In this regard, Ailuin really did not enjoy that he had to dumb down his telepathic ability just for the sake of the crew. Through its passive ability of always being active he could essentially tell that there were nervous systems in his vicinity, but because he had to dumb it down to keep the other species from essentially kicking his ass with their superior strength he wasn't able to tell when one of them was sneaking up on him. It was this combination of events that allowed the situation where Zeph managed to sneak up on him.

It was a situation he did not like one bit, especially since he was used to always having a full situational awareness of everything around him.

To make matters worse, being a Ki'Jan which spent the majority of his time on an Arcadonian World, he wasn't exactly used to voicing his thoughts all that often. When interacting with other Ki'Jan it was simple. You speak enough to get the point across due to instinct and let Telepathy handle the rest and take care of any disagreements of thought. With other sentients however it was different. Not only did they not enjoy you probing around in their brain or in lieu of that, random voices that aren't theirs speaking in their thoughts; they relied entirely on physical and vocal communication to a fault. Not only that, but the tone of your voice and body language played a huge role in it as well. All concepts Ki'Jan interacting with Ki'Jan never had to worry about.

With Zeph speaking to him, Ailuin broke into a smile. "Thank you" Ailuin spoke pausing for a moment. "I never saw what happened exactly, but given Neal it was probably over something stupid. I just didn't necessarily think the team should be wasting its time fighting when we had all of this new and vital information to go over."

After this, the Doctor quickly switched topics. "Speaking of that, I was just about to head over to the Science Bay now so that we had hardwire access into the ship's systems to better analyze this information." The doctor pausing once again as he took out his tablet which he took out from under his arm and activated the holographic projector. On the holographic projector was a 3D model of an Orc with several areas coloured red

"Before that though, I remember you mentioning you are more interested into the portions of research which would allow you to more effectively stab something. Well, while I was gathering my items I had my tablet run a simulation on one of the pieces of data and this is what it came back with"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 12, 2017, 01:12:27 PM
Khrelan left the meeting room and the arguments behind. He absent mindedly looked at his pad to try and read the interesting bits of information about the orks. While doing this he went to his cabin. There, he locked the datapad in a safe and changed clothes into something akin to a "summer at the beach", t-shirt and long shorts. He then headed to the pool room to perhaps unwind and relax. He stopped at the door when he noticed that Ursea AND Suu-suu were sawimming around in the pool, arguing with himself if he should just walk in or perhaps back away, slowly so as not to draw too much attention.

"Ah, what the heck." he thought. "Don't intend to be the antisocial type".

He nonchalantly walked into the pool room and sat down in a... what he thought was a "lawn chair" at the corner, opposite to where Ursea was swimming. "Huh, so that's how a female Kurg looks in a swimsuit?" mused Khrelan to himself.

If anything happened he'd just break out his "smile".

(http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/999/374/08a.jpg)

Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on March 12, 2017, 02:31:27 PM
Now that the unpleasantness in the meeting room was over Freya went back to her room to change her clothes. In the elevator she realized that she didn't bring any special swimming clothes on this mission. So in her room she was left with a small dilemma, after thinking about it for a second Freya decided to just keep on the floral pattern shorts she was already wearing under her pants.

(http://i.imgur.com/tbm9jV1.jpg)

She grabbed a towel too and took the elevator back to the second level. Freya felt a bit unnerved walking around the ship only wearing some shorts but the halls were mostly empty. She passed Neal but Freya could not read the expression on his face, the Human only showed the emotions that he wanted other people to see, that much was Freya sure of.

When she arrived at the athletic center she saw Khrelan sitting under a sun lamp with his eyes closed and a weird smile, Ursea was already in the pool; and so was her pet. "Hey" Freya said as the opened the door and made her way to the side of the pool. She eyed Suu-Suu suspiciously for a second, as the beast swam around but got in the pool anyway.

Freya dipped her head underwater and completely submerged herself a couple times before letting out a sight of satisfaction and allowed herself to float around on her back on the salt water.

"Ursea right?" Freya asked "How are you doing?"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on March 12, 2017, 08:13:21 PM
Neal made his way back to his quarters, passing Lizard Woman as he did so but he paid her no mind, as he was poring over his field tablet over the intel provided to them about the Orks. While the artificial bipolar psycho and Dr. Git chummed up, and Lizard Woman went swimming with Ursea the Shy and Suu-Suu the Lovable Abomination, Neal decided to spend his time learning about the enemy. He entered his quarters, locking the door and then sitting on his bed as he wirelessly connected his tablet to a screen on his wall. Neal's quarters were rather spartan compared to the others, he had his bed, a card table in the centre of the room, a 10" screen on the wall along with a few posters of his favourite classics: Deadpool, Firefly, Gears of War and Frontier: The Void. They also included some of his favourite characters, Baird, Malcolm Reynolds, Wade Wilson, Jayne and Admiral Stukov. Neal's civvies meanwhile were pretty standard amongst humans, wearing a simple pocketed vest over a grey t-shirt, along with dark blue jeans and some sneakers as well as his favourite Belltower cap.

As the intel streamed onto his screen, he internally reviewed the briefing that had transpired a few minutes earlier. The Iko, Kaveni and Taurgit all seemed experienced and competent, the Iko had a temper but he seemed to have it under control. Mittens and Lizard Woman were quiet, and he had noticed Mittens kept mostly to himself. To Neal they formed the most obvious combat element of the crew, they seemed to get along and he could tell they knew what they were doing. The Kurg was definitely an exception among her species, shy and seemed unsure of herself, and was also fascinated with human clothing fashion. Her pet insect was a little alarming but appeared tame, at least when its master was around that is. Her dossier seemed to indicate she was an expert marksman and hunter however, so Neal mentally considered her as the crew's combat support element, an expert survivalist and sniper would prove valuable. Then there was Allan and the bipolar Vis. Allan was definitely anti-human, and had made every effort to avoid Neal, and the few times he had addressed him he had done nothing to hide his scorn. He would prove difficult to work with, but seemed eager to work alongside the other aliens however, Neal would use that leverage when he had to. He also had to be careful to keep up his mental chaff, in case Allan decided to go poking around. Allan fit into the support role in Neal's mind, bigotry aside he knew of Allan's reputation in his field, and knew he would be de facto head of their makeshift R&D. The Vis however was to Neal the biggest problem, the Zeph personality seemed carefree and irresponsible, it seemed more interested in fun and games and Neal doubted he was taking things seriously. Then his even more problematic other half, Zephirus, seemed to have no regard for anyone but itself, and seemed more interested in establishing dominance than cooperating. Neal would have to keep an eye on Zephirus, make sure he didn't jeopardize the mission. In Neal's mind he was a wild card, to be watched but perhaps had some value yet. Osiris and the AI...Neal had no idea what to make of Osiris yet. The AI just seemed like an asshole.

Putting those thoughts aside, Neal put his full concentration on the information before him. He was sure the good doctor would be looking into the Orks physiology and biology, so Neal instead went over their tactics, strategies, society, sociology, psychology, their hierarchy as well as anything he could glean from their latent psychic talents. How were they organized? How did they fight? What were the specifics of their hierarchy? How did their society function? Were there divisions among them? How did they think? What did they eat? What was their preferred habitat? What was their level of technological advancement? What was their economic system like? All these and more were questions Neal attempted to find answers to as he began taking notes, looking for weaknesses and just generally trying to understand his enemy.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on March 13, 2017, 12:58:02 AM
The Iko growled in annoyance as he exited the meeting room. That ordeal with Osiris had left him almost as sweaty as he had been just after his workout. He grunted as he felt his shirt hug his body with that disgustingly wet, sticky feeling. He needed a shower. Again. Thada headed towards his quarters, passing Neal on the way, though he seemed to be preoccupied. Not that he’d want to talk to that ass right now.

He entered his room and started rummaging around his clothes. His room was very simple by Iko standards, with very little decorations and completely lacking the many artworks that usually filled an Iko home, which always drew out a low, disappointed sigh from Thada. It had the usual large, open space, however, and it had a small shrine of stone in the middle, as per usual. Directly to his left, a large, flat screen hung on the wall, and in front of that was a low table with a single cup of solid stone. Further in was Thada’s hammock, which hung in the inner right corner. On the wall next to it were his drawings pinned up in an effort to fill up the empty space. There were in total over two hundred drawings, depicting landscapes, armours and weapons he had imagined, attempts to draw all the known races, including the Pheledioms, to varying degrees of success, images from differing Iko mythologies, and more. Many of the works dated back years, but a few had been drawn during the time Thada had spent on the ship. In the opposite corner was a simple cabinet where he kept all his civvie clothes.

After a short digging, Thada took out a new, white shirt, taking off his old one along with his jacket and throwing them in his hammock, still growling silently to himself. He turned around and was about to leave, when he looked at the shrine in the middle of his room. It was a small,simple construct, made first of a thick slab of solid stone, square in shape and with slightly heightened edges. In the middle of it was a square-shaped pedestal that formed into a cage with a hatch, and on top of the cage was another, smaller slab that formed a roof. The whole construct was surrounded by small, red pillows. Within the cage there was supposed to be a flame burning from a deep hole in the pedestal which was to be filled with oil. For a moment, all of Thada’s frustrations were set aside, as he noticed the flame had burned out.

Kneeling down in front of the shrine and resting his knees on the pillows, Thada opened the hatch on the cage while he took up a large pitcher with a long, thin spout, and filled with clear, orange oil. He poured the pitcher’s contents into the hole inside the the cage until he saw it almost reaching the top. Taking a small wick that lay by the side, he lighted it with a lighter he had in his pocket, and poked it into the hole. Immediately, a small, yellow flame erupted from the hole, and a faint, pleasant smell started emanating from it. Thada put out the wick, closed the cage hatch, then got up and went out the room again.

Coming back into the Athleltic Centre, the Iko’s frustrations quickly returned as he saw that Ursea had brought her horrible “little” pet with her into the pool. And Freya was somehow willing to get into the water with it. Fine, wasn’t his problem if she got her legs nibbled off. That bug, though…

“Hey!” Thada yelled as he walked past towards the showers, once again shirtless. ”Your paintrain better be housebroken! I don’t want to see those drains clogged up with toxic bug excrement!”
He wouldn’t wait for a response. His only intention was to get himself washed off. He barely even noticed Khrelan creeping on a chair nearby.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on March 13, 2017, 02:29:02 AM
"You know what," Zeph spoke, shaking his head as he looked at the data, "This is silly. Word processing using translation software is entirely inefficient."

Zeph tapped his chest, smiling softly.

...Five seconds later, as Ailuin looked on in confusion, he tapped his head, where most sentient lifeforms had their thought processing abilities.

================================================================
The doctor smiled warmly in return as he immediately picked up on this. For Ki’Jan tapping one's head was generally considered the universal signal for telepathic communication. So on this signal, he immediately opened up a telepathic link to Zeph’s mind.

Compared to Telepath-Telepath communication, the process between a Telepath-Non Telepath was a little different and slightly more complex as he had to keep the communication flowing both ways instead of only in a single direction; but it was nothing special or overtly complex. All it really meant was he had to read the other's fore-mind while sending his own thoughts in.

The initial Telepathic connection within Zeph manifested itself as an initial slight tingling sensation in his head, something owed to the process of connection. In fact if he wasn’t specifically paying attention to and expecting it, he would have missed it entirely. But after the initial sensation which quickly went away there was nothing to give the impression that the connection was still active.

With the connection underway, the Doctor shut off the holographic projector and instead piped the 3D model and accompanied information released by Aeson directly into their Telepathic communication tunnel. The two beginning their walk to the Science Lab while throwing thoughts back and forth analyzing the data
==================================================================

Feeling the connection, Zeph continued in his mind using the Ki'jan language out loud to voice out specific concerns as he read the data, "Gills imply oxygen dependence (inner reasoning (Zephirus): Asphyxiation possible, lung puncturing possible), high pain tolerance and very survivable (wounds of little importance), extreme regenerative ability not intelligent in nature (cannot bring its body parts together, but healing capability for smaller wounds must be similar to an Iko at the very least.)" Zeph thought, visualizing each possible lethal situation for the Orks for Ailuin to see, "Capable of re-attaching a decapitated head? That doesn't seem possible...unless the fungal cells of the Orkoid physiology can enter into a sort of hibernative state in states of extreme duress to prevent necrosis...wait, maybe..."

Looking deeper into the data, Ailuin immediately picked up on a blood analysis which was done on the creature's blood. Sending his information over the channel ”From the looks of it, the Orks have a green coloured blood with a high chlorophyll content within it. In that case it might be entirely possible that these creatures rely on some form of Photosynthesis. To what extent we would have to look into it, but it might be a starting place if that proves correct”

Every moment in Zeph's synapses felt like liberated thought, synapses flowing in smooth motions to utterly unconnected thoughts, wild conjectures sprouting from half-remembered memories and ideas...

"Necrosis itself rejected? (Inner thought: Autolysis process vastly different in Ork biology? No programmed cell death for Ork cells? {Replicative and chronological aging tests needed to prove the nature of Ork survivability}). Neurons most vulnerable, Ork death possible through extensive damage to cranial area proves neurological dependence..."

While all of this was going on, Ailuin had found a genetic scan of the Ork organism, beginning to go through the information with precision. It didn’t take long however for something to catch his attention, and upon skimming over the data further he was left with even more questions than when he started.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this” he sent over the channel. “The genetic markers are ordinary, but the structure of it. It’s all jumbled and chaotic in a way that screams unnatural. Psionic creatures tend to have more specialized encoding within their DNA to allow themselves to manifest their psionic powers… but this is even more abstract than the most complex Psionic creatures”. The Doctor matched this up by sending several information bursts of some of the more complex Psionic creatures he had the chance to interact with.

Sparks of eureka flowed freely within Zeph's mind, like a floodgate of golden realization flowing down a river of possibility. The shared realization was felt across both minds as a shockwave of truth, eliminating all possible alternative theories one by one until only one hypothesis made sense...

”They have to be artificial. There is no other way around this. Biology alone wouldn’t produce something this chaotic.” Ailuin thought

"They’re designed." Zeph spoke with incredulity, grinning wildly, "There's...no valid reason why a fungal organism would need its thought processing ability to be located in the exact same place as an animal organism...every part of this biostructure...the design of its seemingly non-apoptotic phenotype cells...it screams intelligent design."

"Weapon." He, Zephirus and Ailuin thought, almost simultaneously. The echo of their combined voices in a single thoughtspace was almost disorienting for the trio of minds

It was at this point they finally made it to the Science Lab


==================================================================
==================================================================
[Ork Physiology(Minor)- Required]The information was rather preliminary, more time and effort to studying them would be required for more nuanced information, however it could easily be seen from even this that Orks were similar to many mammalian species, especially Earth Apes. However though, it was to be noted that they seemed part fungus and plant all at once, more study was needed to determine what sort of problems that could cause for fighting them. All in all though it seemed they had a heart, lungs, and a brain the places you would expect them, and those were obviously somewhere to aim, especially the brain.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 14, 2017, 06:12:03 PM
He had't been able to rest like this for well over... years? A decade? Yeah, a decade seems more likely. It was almost always from one deployment to another. From one job, to the next job.

No holidays. No vacations. No time dedicated only to himself, louging around a pool, getting some well deserved R & R.

He knew, or rather guessed, that this was likely just the calm before the storm, that this "moment" wouldn't last long, so he took th opportunity to just laze around and do ... absolutely ... jack excrement.

He felt Freya come through and get in the pool, asking Ursea how was she doing.

He opened an eyelid, just the minimum ammount possible so he could see what was going on.

So, that's what a Kaveni female looks like in a ... bathing suit? thought Khrelan.

And then:

Quote
“Hey!” Thada yelled as he walked past towards the showers, once again shirtless. ”Your paintrain better be housebroken! I don’t want to see those drains clogged up with toxic bug excrement!”

Buzzkill. Way to kill the vibe.

Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on March 16, 2017, 07:38:12 AM
Ursea stopped floating and swam a bit closer, gliding through the water quickly, swimming in lower gravity was interesting, it was like being weightless. The only thing that was more weightless than that was the void outside the ship, but that did not matter at the moment.

Freya was interesting, she had never seen many Kaveni Females, and she had definitely never seen any Kaveni out of their clothes.

"I am great, Suu-Suu is enjoying himself, he is harmless so don't worry. He only attacks if I tell him, or he senses danger." She smiled.

"You have very pretty scales, and good hips. Its so weird not seeing breasts though on a female, I guess cause you aren't mammalian," She laughed making awkward small talk,"I err... anyways, thanks for coming, its pretty awkward being on a ship full of men... for the most part."

 She dunked her head back under water and blew some bubbles knowing she was rather weird, she wasn't much of a people person, preferring the solitary life on a long hunt. That however did not mean she did not crave social interaction, but her always being perceived as the runt did not lead to great social skills.

"Anyways, what do you think of the rest of them-" She started as Thada decided to shout at her.

Quote
“Hey!” Thada yelled as he walked past towards the showers, once again shirtless. ”Your paintrain better be housebroken! I don’t want to see those drains clogged up with toxic bug excrement!”

She  looked over at him incredulously, "What do you mean? do you imply I am not a good Gessat trainer?" She just shook her head and returned to relaxing in the water.

"Suu-suu is a good guttluok, I trained him well... I hope everyone grows to like him...I didn't want people to get scared. I guess its just cultural differences." She said mostly to herself.

Suu-suu had not paid any mind to the current  happenings, but he had noticed his name. Being a beast and a pet, it did not have a universal translator so it only heard the crew's native tongue. It however responded to tone of voice and what it could sense, such as heart rates and the subtle scents of hormones. This requirement though meant it had little regard for the Vis, as it appeared as little more than a moving object in the Guttluoks simple mind.

She looked over at the Suu-Suu who had finally crawled out of the water to relax in the artificial lights of the large room. "See he is gentle, he is not feral. Sorry I got sidetracked, I was going to ask what you thought of the crew."
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on March 16, 2017, 07:26:09 PM
"Good to hear" Laughed Freya, enjoying the warm water salt water as it touched the normally very dry skin between her larger scales on her neck and her torso.

"I know he is harmless, but still... He is very large." Freya swam around some more without any effort. Ursea noticed that the Kaveni remained afloat even if without moving, but didn't know if that was due to her reptilian nature of the the salt in the pool.

"Thanks." Replied Freya  to the compliment. "You look great too, evolution is funny like that sometimes; giving so many species in the galaxy breasts. They're nice."

"I think I've gotten used to working with men to be honest. We live in an egalitarian galaxy, but there is no denying that you find more males working in the military and as mercenary then woman. Is this your first time being part of a mercenary team?" Freya asked.

Freya looked over as Thada called out and interrupted their conversation, she kept her mouth closed and saw Khrelan still lounging in his chair; doing nothing.

"Neal, Thada and Khrelan seem to know what they are doing, as do you." Freya paused "I am not sure what to think about Osiris. I am kind of freaked out by him after that display earlier. As for Zeph and Ailuin... They are the odd ones here and seem to be drifting towards each other, let's just hope they're willing to put their preconceptions and baggage behind them and do their part in this little team."

"How about you?" Asked Freya "Got any good gossip you want to share?"

Ursea pondered for a moment, " Not really, I just want to enjoy the water for a bit, then I was going to head back to my room, make sure we are ready for the mission coming up. Its probably going to happen soon."

Ursea noticed Khrelen now that Freya had briefly glanced at him, she also decided not say anything.

"I think I will head back after a little bit longer." The Kurgeshan woman said as she laid back again to float some more.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 16, 2017, 08:17:38 PM
Khrelan got up from the chair and started doing stretching exercises. The ammount of crackling and popping that came from his joints was something fierce.

He looked around to see if Thada was still around. Didn't see him. Checked to see where Suu-suu was, so as not to have any surprises by bumping into the beast. Which seemed to be... relaxing? napping? out of the pool.

Khrelan didn't know how long it would take for Urseas's hunting beast to get used to the rest of the team, including himself, so he decided to play cautious.

Moving nearer the pool he greeted Freya with a short "Ta", bringing a fist toward his chest. "Hello Freya." He didn´t know how greet a Kurg, so he decided on "Hello Ursea. I hope that little outburst from Thada won't make you feel unwelcome here."

"Have a nice...er...swim."

He turned around and walked out of the room, heading towards his cabin. Perhaps he could fetch his sniper rifle and practice in the firing range.
Title: It Begins
Post by: LordNecross on March 19, 2017, 08:00:19 AM
A Full day had past since the briefing, the team was an interesting bunch to say the least and only time would tell if they would be functional together.

Osiris was currently in the bridge going over some intel for their first task, the crew had not been notified yet, but they had already jumped to the target system. The system in question was in the far reaches of the galaxy in unexplored space that had not been visited by any of the major species from which he picked his recruit. The system had a yellow phase star that was mid-life and the system included a few gas giants in its outer reaches with a very dense nebula cloud surrounding the entire system. The innermost part of the system contained three rocky planets, two of them were very close to the star and orbited in much shorter intervals than the third rocky planet.

This third planet was their destination, it was in the habitable zone of the system, giving it a rather temperate climate. It was easily seen even with normal telescopic optics that there was greenery on the surface of the planet. Further exploration of data Aesen picked up indicated the planet to have water in collections of lakes and rivers, with no seas or oceans except for one super massive lake on one side of the planet. It seemed to be the perfect garden world, temperate with a breathable atmosphere, something the orks would ruin merely by setting foot on the world.

Osiris looked at the data being projected in the bridge, “The orks have already landed it seems, its a small craft. This will be a good exercise for them, see if they are ready.”

“Master Osiris, I have detected an anomaly on the surface, I detected first with surface scanning equipment, but now that the clouds have moved a bit, its visually noticeable. It glints in the light.” Aesen observed as he pulled up an image that did indeed showed light reflecting off of what could be a metallic object.

“It appears to be partially buried in the ground, scans indicated the object to be at least a kilometer long. From what I can tell Its a ship.” Aesen finished.

“That has to be why the orks are here, but why in such a small group? We will need more information, but we can’t get that until Landing. Gather the team, tell them to arm themselves and to meet in the docking bay, we will take the drop ship down to the surface.” Osiris said as he walked out of the bridge and took the elevator down.

Aesen the spoke on the ships Audio System, “ All crew Members, gather your combat equipment and all other necessary items. Gather in the Docking bay, we will be descending planet side in the drop-ship shortly.”

With that the call had been made, it was time to test them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re-b9DVn17E
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Grif101 on March 19, 2017, 08:30:49 AM
Neal was laying on his bed going over the data on his pad when the call came out over the comms. Apparently they had arrived in their destination.

"Go time" Neal quietly said to himself as he put the pad down and began putting on his equipment. Neal quickly slipped out of his casual clothes, putting on his black BDU's taken from his storage space. He quickly then laced on his combat boots, before slapping on his body armour. The Commercial Combat Vest was based on designs used by the armed forces, and consisted of bare, blackened metallic plates strapped on his legs, forearms and torso, resistant to rifle-grade ammo as well as shrapnel. Next he put on his web gear over his armour, being sure to fill their pockets with ammunition, his field tablet, rations, water pack, his Combat First Aid Kit as well as his weapon maintenance tools. Next he strapped his combat knife to his chest, snugging it tightly before holstering his pistol to his outer thigh, racking the slide then putting on its safety before holstering it. He then picked up his GA-21 Pulse Carbine, opening up its body and inserting a clip, before closing it up with a satisfying *click*, setting the carbine to auto before switching on its safety. Putting the carbine down, he then slipped on his full helmet, the HUD lighting up as it began scanning and interacting with the environment, as well as interfacing with his armour and weapons, showing his biosigns and weapons status in the top left of his visor.

All this he did under four minutes, having years of practice getting ready for combat drops and insertions in an often short window of time. He did a quick pat down of himself, going over a mental checklist in his head to ensure he had everything, before leaving quarters and locking the door, then heading off in the direction of the transport bay, his boots making a distinct *thud* *thud* sound as he moved at a brisk pace, already mentally preparing himself to face off against what promised to be an...interesting opponent.

(https://www.halopedia.org/images/f/f6/Halo3_ODST-Rookie.png)
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on March 19, 2017, 10:12:54 AM
Zeph sat in his room, hooked up to his charger as he meditated, when the call finally came in...

The crystal glimmered orange for a moment, as Zephirus began to chant in Vispeak while slowly caressing his knife:

"Let life be fuel for the stars, so that stars may remain. Let each bolt strike true, and eliminate another spark from the raging fire. Let our knife stab into the deepest recesses of their soul, and eliminate all trace of the parasite we call life. Our existence has value, our life has meaning: Our fire burns brighter than the cosmos itself, for we are its savior and guardian, and the last fire to be extinguished shall be our own."

"Let it burn, let it burn, let it all burn to the ground. Stir the ashes, crumble the atoms, and return all to perfect symphony: For we are an abomination, and so is everybody else."

Zeph returned, crystal glimmering blue, as he smiled and slung his Zivine Particle Beam LMG around his shoulder with an electric camo strap. He strapped his knife to his waist, and strode out to meet the rest: Devoid of armor or any clothing whatsoever...all it did was slow him down, anyway. He walked over to the transport bay, grinning as he prepared to meet and greet the reason the galaxy existed in the first place:

Entertainment.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Tobbs on March 19, 2017, 02:14:21 PM
The skin was always the best part, Thada thought as he downed another chunk of the bird in front of him. That's where all the seasoning stuck, and where that wonderful crispy taste could be found. With the steel point in his hand, he slid off the golden-brown surface of one of the bird's legs, and quickly snatched it with his sharp teeth before swallowing it with a single gluttonous gulp. He took a moment to look around the mess hall again. Just like most other times he was there, he was alone, which he didn't really understand. Did really none of them eat at this hour, or did they eat inside their rooms or something? Bah, lunchtime is lunchtime; he doesn't need someone to interrupt his meal anyhow.

 "All crew Members, gather your combat equipment and all other necessary items. Gather in the Docking bay, we will be descending planet side in the drop-ship shortly."

Thada looked up when he heard Aesen's voice. His face cracked up in a toothy grin. Finally, a good fight coming. And not just a fight, but actual combat. He'd mostly fought drunk troublemakers and cheeky wannabe thugs who thought they were something because they had knives for the last few years. This battlefield dry spell had gone on way too long. He looked at the still steaming-hot bird on the plate before him. Taking a last large bite out of the leg he was holding, Thada got right up from his seat and with brisk steps walked towards the elevator.

Going down to the bottom floor, he promptly entered the armoury. He wasted no time in getting equipped, starting with tearing off all his civvie clothes and throwing them on the floor next to him. He then worked on his combat suit - a tight-sitting, single-piece outfit made of a suit of thin super-insulating fabric covered by a sturdy layer of carbon nanotubing, which itself was covered by another layer of fabric that held the countless micro-electronics that would electronically connect all the pieces of the suit. On top of this were two dozen plates of varying sizes, made of some sort of ultra-light metal alloy that he didn't really know the science behind. On the large breastplate hung a smaller, thin, curved plate in three thin tubes. He promptly took this plate and placed it over his neck, and felt the familiar sting of the tubes piercing into his neck, connecting his arteries with the suit's internal adrenal pump. After this he quickly put his oxygen mask back on and took a few deep breaths to make up for the oxygen lost. The plates covered the vast majority of his body, but there were still spots here and there left bare so as to not compromise mobility. This was made up however, by the personal shielding that quietly hummed to life when Thada activated his suit's electronics. He cursed himself yet again for losing his helmet, as the shielding only went as far as the plates could sustain it. His suit only went up to his neck as well, which meant his head was completely exposed with no form of protection. He ran his finger once again over the largest scar on his face; they would not exist had he not lost that damn helmet.

Having put on his armour in a short three minutes, Thada then took the wristblades he had locked up nearby. He put clamped them onto his wrists, testing each by moving up his hand and watching as the long, thin blade shot out with a loud clang as the mechanisms pushed it out as fast as they possibly could. After that, Thada took out his trusty Stinger - the large submachine gun he had carried with him all these years. Loading in a full magazine and locking four additional mags onto the magnetic slots on his lower back, he then put it on safety and slung it over his shoulder, then went out the door, ready to report to the docking bay.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on March 19, 2017, 06:35:32 PM
Freya hummed along the tune of an ancient Kaveni war-song as she undressed in her room and changed into her armor's undersuit. One by one she checked every compartment for being airtight, all seals ok. Freya walked out of her room with only her head uncovered by the form-fitting black carbon fiber and fabric suit.

Freya entered the elevator and made her way to the armory, still humming along with the song. She began attaching armor plates to her undersuit, starting with her torso and legs. The heavy armor itself wasn't airtight, this made it very easy to attach and reattach the plates. And it made sure that Freya could still use the suit without trouble even though half of the plates have been replaced somewhere in her long military and mercenary career. Finally, when every overlapping plate was attached she put on her gloves and helmet. The helmet was the only armor piece that made a seal with her undersuit. Now that Freya's body was completely removed from the ship's atmosphere she turned her attention to her weapons.

She took her assault rifle with an underside grenade launcher, Freya took a mix of explosive, anti-personal and flame grenades. As well as a few charges of heavy explosives. Finally she filled her remaining pouches with ammunition and various engineering tools. She made sure the water canisters build into her leg armor were filled to the brim.

Finally satisfied with her kit Freya got back into the elevator and made her way to the docking port.

Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on March 19, 2017, 07:30:25 PM
Having worked late into the night on the Ork Physiology and other documents that were released. When the alarms came in Ailuin was slouched over and fast asleep at one of the terminals. Because of this, it was only his Telepathic Tablet piping the ships comms into his dreams that caused him to finally stir and awaken to catch the message on repeat. Wiping his eyes he quickly got up from his seat and made his way to his room where he would begin to quickly gear up and gather his things.

During the walk he had the information of the planet they were going piped into his head so he knew which customizations for his Wet Suit he would need, which wasn't much considering he was already within his customized Wetsuit which he had used during his time in Colonial Security.

All he had to do to be completely ready for combat was to detach his labcoat element from his suits attach points and throw it into the hamper before walking over to the single Combat attachment he had. The attachment just being an extra layer of protection to protect his suit and him from being punctured by knives or bullets in addition to a simple holographic projector on the arm piece and additional pockets which he had prefilled with portable science equipment that connected into his tablet which was within his Wetsuits front pocket.

Thinking back, it had been awhile since he had last worn it, five years to be exact. He didn't let this slow him down however and soon he was fully suited up and ready. The last thing was his weapons. The Doctor walking over to his desk where he picked up his Photonic Pistol and Nanoblade Dagger, attaching them to the magnetic hardpoints on his thighs.

Walking out of the room, the doctor stopped to grab his suit's helmet attachment which he had hanging on the wall before heading to the shuttle bay. The entire time it took was a minute from start to finish, not including the time to get to his room and to get to the shuttle
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on March 20, 2017, 03:14:58 AM
Khrelan was in his cabin, when the call came. He had set his pad to buzz him awake if such a summons was made. And the damn thing worked, waking him up right in the middle of a very weird dream. The last he remembered of it as he wiped the bleary eyed look from his face was a planet, with part of its surface blown apart and flung into space, exposing various layers of the matle and core.

He quickly discarded his civilian clothes and got into his armor undersuit. He then made a beeline to his locker in the armory, tough he had to jump over what seemed like thada's clothes strewn on the floor. He suited up, donning each armor piece in sequence. For last, he put on his helmet, which went through a seal test.

He then fetched his weapons, attaching them to their respectives maglocks. His sinper rifle on the back, his pistol at the side of his hip. Both weapons already had a clip inside. He then took out 4 extra clips for each weapon and attached them to their places.

Checking that he had everything he intended to take with him, he closed and locked his locker and walked out of the armory, heading to the hangar bay.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on March 23, 2017, 07:57:40 AM
Ursea was currently in the athletic center, she had woken up early to get in some exercise before the upcoming mission. She wasn't sure when but she figured it would be today, hence why she was awake.

She was on the training mat, which was near the weights and exercise equipment, it was a rather large space to allow for various types of exercise as well as sparring. Currently however she was doing sit ups on the ground, each crunch straining her core muscles. The reason for the strain though was that the training mat space was capable of variable gravity, and this had many implications for training and sparring. However its more simple application was training under higher gravity conditions, which meant doubling the gravity for Ursea. For the Kurgesha, double gravity meant something else entirely, so it was inadvisable for most others to attempt such a setting without working up to it, and assuredly not for extended periods of time.

After a few more reps though she was done, sweat drenched in her tight yoga pants and sports bra, and she got up and headed briefly to the washroom where she splashed her face in some cold water a few times before heading up to her room to clean up.

It wasn’t long after this though that the call came through, it was time to prepare for battle, and so after a quick wash and dry she slipped on her tight body suit, which was a matte black suit with a carbon weave that had a kinetic reactive fluid throughout it, hardening to help dull or deflect impacts. The suit by itself though was only good for stopping low caliber weapons and shrapnel, it was merely the final line of defense. Next came a vest and some padding for vital areas, the vest was made with layers of dense carbon fibers and light plates embedded within, hers specifically was a light variant covering only her chest and central mass. Other pads were attached to her thighs to protect the vital arteries from damage, and provide latch point for her final armor attachments. The final most important part of Kurgeshan Soldier armor is the armored plates, specifically ceramic plating typically with a core of dense metal alloy which varies depending on the quality of materials, but typically standard issue gear is more than enough. She only had a few plates, one on her front that protected her neck, and chest. This one had a matching plate on the back that helped to protect the spine and back of the neck as well. The frontal plate is angular to help in deflecting enemy fire and dispersing impacts. The few other plates she had attached to her forearms, shins and the sides of her thighs. Overall it was a light version of typical Kurgeshan soldier armor, as befitted her role.

“Alright Suu-Suu its time,” She said as she finished and put on her helmet which sealed shut with a clamp and hiss, “We are going on a new hunt.”

The Guttluok perked up a bit after she said this, and the duo headed out, down to the Cargo bay to stop by the armory for her weapons than join the others.


Osiris had wasted no time after the others had been called, he was already armed and armored down in the bay, watching as the drop ship lowered from the ceiling. He held his power shield in his left hand, the large metal and ceramic shield was unadorned, only meant for it practical application and not for show. Magnetically clamped to his left hip was his chainsword, similarly it had no adornments, a practical weapon for a practical warrior. Lastly was his laser rifle, which was attached to his back in case he needed the range.

He turned around and watched as the various members of the team he assembled appeared, each seemed to be ready or as ready as they could manage for the fight ahead. That was all that could be expected, for now at least, and the task at hand would be the easiest they would face, of that he was sure. So it was best to start here, this exercise would test them in combat and help in intelligence gathering which would be very important in times to come.

When they were all assembled they boarded the drop ship, which was sleek but spacious enough for the whole team, including the beast as well.

“Be prepared, we will be ground side soon, we will be landing in a clearing that will cover our arrival. We will observe first, then attack after a plan of action is decided. This may not always be the case every time, you may be expected to go in under fire in future tasks, so use this opportunity as I am sure most of you have experience real combat before, and for those that haven’t you must learn quickly.” He said to them as the dropship's door shut and sealed. A slight hum was heard as its stealth systems engaged while they exited the ship, and headed down towards the planet.
“We have taken some orbital images of where we will be landing, the Orks seem to have set up around some alien structure that is protruding from the the surface of the planet, we will need to clear their presence outside before we attempt to make our way into the structure. Be prepared.” He said as he held onto a rail on the ceiling of the drop ship interior as he looked at each of them through his helmets visor.

An image of the surface projected on screens in the drop ship holding area, it gave a pretty clear overview of what was to be expected, from what they could tell there were some smaller green creatures as well, but the picture was not zoomed in enough to give any close visual detail besides the layout.


(http://gdurl.com/KE7I)

Grots/gretchin are cannon fodder, they are armed with knives and low caliber revolvers, you may kill them with impunity, just do not god mod. For this tutorial though orks will not be considered cannon fodder, you will need to make rolls against them. Any time you use a skill though, a roll is needed, I can edit in what happens. Make very clear which enemies you attack and what you are doing. Other than that, have fun and be creative.

Soon the sound of the ship touching ground in the clearing was heard, it was time. The Drop ship ramp went down and they headed out making their way toward the edge of the forest but no further as Osiris held up his hand to signal them to stop.

In the distance they could see a huge 38 meter long ship, it was an ork landing craft, it seemed cobbled together with thick metal plates and bolts and adornments of tribal like skull visages, its paint scheme seemed to involve various colors, like reds, yellows, black and blue. It looked rather damage though too like it had seen combat before coming here. Near its entrance they could see some orks, and a plethora of shorter thinner green creatures that the larger orks seemed to be in the process of bullying the smaller creatures. They would need a closer look to gather other details.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on April 06, 2017, 08:52:08 PM
When Osiris was done addressing the group, there was still some time left before the shuttle made its way down to the drop point. Not wanting to waste any time, Ailuin took the stage addressing the group. Starting with a breath Ailuin began to speak up.

“Over the past day I as well as Zeph have had the chance to go over the released data on the Ork Organism.” he began bringing up his hand and activating the holograph projector which displayed a stream coming from the Telepathic Tablet he kept tucked away in his suit.

At the moment, the projector was projecting a 3D model of an Ork which several areas shaded in different colours. “To start with, what you see now is a model of the Ork which I have managed to reconstruct from the files. More specifically however, the coloured areas correspond to areas of weaker structural integrity.” The doctor pausing for a moment. “Basically where you should aim to hit if you want to inflict the most damage.”

At this moment several key portions began to discolour and fade away to refocus on specific key areas, the doctor going through each one, ensuring to keep the topic strictly on a ‘How do I inflict the most damage’ basis rather than going over the minute biological details that the crew had no obvious need for knowing.

In these areas, the Doctor noted areas where the skin was most thick and thin, which areas were the most deadly, which ones would result in the most organ damage and even where to hit if they just wanted to torture. Once the low hanging fruit was taken, he moved the conversation to a slightly more complex topic as he began to speak of the Orks regenerative abilities, the thickness of their bones and redundant organ systems seemingly designed around having extra of everything.

He then jumped into their gills and spore capabilities followed up with some basic theories of their capabilities when you considered everything together.

“There is much more, like how every aspect of this creature screams of being an Artificially Engineered creature built for war… but we’ll leave off here. If you want to know more, feel free to speak to me after the mission.”

Osiris nodded, “Ork physiology makes them tough to kill, it is not uncommon for them to continue fighting even after major organ damage, except for the brain. Shots to the center mass will work, but be prepared incase it doesn’t.”

It was at this point the shuttle landed and the group left following Osiris’ signals as he led them to the edge of the forest.


SCOUTING


“All right, then.”Thada cracked his neck to one side, then the other. The group having arrived at the edge of his forest.
Adjusting his grip slightly on his Stinger, he looked around the bush somewhat, then eyed the rest of the crew before turning back to the undergrowth. He could see some movement of those things beyond the grove, but not very much at all from this distance. He looked back at the team, particularly at Osiris. “I’ll go on ahead, get some recon and keep you on a live feed.”he said, speaking mostly out the side of his mouth. “I’ll keep you posted. Time for the kids to see how an Iko does it.”

With that, Thada entered the undergrowth in front of them, much quicker than one would think from how little noise he made. In fact, he was half-running through the bushes and over the rocks, his feet almost instinctively stepping to avoid obstacles and making as little noise as possible. Holding his weapon pointing straight out underneath him, he kept his body in almost a straight line with his head and tail pointing straight in opposite directions. As he approached the treeline, he sunk lower and lower towards the ground, until he was going almost as low as he possibly could when he finally came out into the open. He beelined to the side of the lander, making sure to move quickly and quietly, always taking the path that offered the most cover.

As Thada approached these creatures, he felt his heart starting to quicken - not out of fear or fatigue, but of excitement. Fieldwork! After so many useless years of bar bouncing and petty bounty hunting. A stray thought wondered if he was truly born for this, or if his years on the field had ruined him in a way. Sifting through a large patch of tall grass, Thada crept closer and closer to the greenskins, until he was even close to hear their rough, loud voices. He peeked out through the grass, taking in what sights he could.

The Larger and broader Orks seemed to be in the middle of having fun with the Grots, their voices were deep and gritty, and for some reason Thada’s Auto-Translator was picking up their speech.

“You Ruddy lot needz ta know yuz place! Ha HA!” The Ork with what seemed to be a rather brutal looking whip said as it cracked across one of the large nose of one of Grots, spilling green blood from it.

“When Weez gettin’ da new ship,” One of the other ork boys spoke up in from of the crowd of Grots, obviously addressing the Ork with the whip, “Weez been here fo ‘ourz and ‘ourz, I wanna get Killy!” It pleaded with a laugh.

A few of the other Ork boyz were pushing one to Grots back and forth between them, “Can we kill deez snots? I’m bor’d.”

“No Boyz, these gits are needed to keep da ship runnin’, li’ mekky boy will ‘ave a fit if weez kill em’” The Ork with the whip laughed.

Thada sunk back further into the undergrowth. He couldn’t see the Orks as well anymore, but he had seen what he needed, he opened up the radio to the group and began to relay his information.

Khrelan decided to do some Recon himself while the team discussed tactics. Seeing that Thada started off on a Recon run towards the orks around their junk Lander, he crept towards the tree line in the direction of the ork group around the structure.
At the tree line he crouched low on the ground, detached the scope from the rifle and looked through It, trying to glean Any details he could on the orks at the structure.

From what Khrelan could see there was an ork in front of some large metal walls and a bunch of grots in front of some boxes and crates. From where he was though he couldn’t see too much though beyond that, the orks were armed with large blades and heavy pistols it seemed.

Zeph made his way to the edge of the forest, crouching at a log still inside the forest as he peered at the Landa group. He sat behind one of the logs, laying back upon it as he took out his knife and began playing with the dirt. They’d tell him where to go and what to do over the comms anyway, bunch of trigger-happy soldiers…




Reaching the edge of the forest, Neal went prone when Osiris gave the signal to halt, holding out his arm and motioning downwards with his hand as he did so to signal the others to do the same. As Neal lay there, he quickly checked his TAC-MAP on his visor display, seeing the general layout of the area. Two groups of Orks, one at their ship and the other gathered around the structure, presumably defending it. He focused on the group closest, a few dozen metres out, his visor sensing his intent a zooming in, but it was still hard to see clearly. Neal did a quick mental estimate of the forces involved, there was approximately half a company of Orks...and some little green guys milling about, from what Neal read he was pretty sure they were “Grots”, the lowest on the Ork hierarchy. They were individually pretty useless in a fight, used mostly for labour and for the Orks’ own amusement, but a swarm of them could still pose a problem. Meanwhile the crew amounted to little more than a light infantry section, so they were outnumbered and outgunned.

Neal, without looking away from the Orks asked on the comm “Osiris, what’s the status for orbital support? Can Aesen provide us fire support?”

“Once we Clear the Landa group, Aesen will take out the ship, it would be best to find out more information first before we destroy their ship.” Osiris said as he looked out in the distance, trying to come up with plans in his head.

Neal took a quick glance Osiris, thinking why in the hell they should take out the Orks the hard way instead of letting Aesen lay waste to the whole Landa Group, ship and all. If Aesen could take out their ship, he sure as hell could take out the milling ogre rejects and their little gremlins at the same time. It would vastly swing the odds in their favour, cutting down the garrison to a more manageable size. Besides, what if they attempted to take-off during the firefight? Not to mention their friends elsewhere would quickly come to join the fun.

“Why not have Aesen take out the whole group with their ship?” Neal said “A missile or two and those giant pricks and their little friends will be toast, we’ll take out their air support and significantly reduce their numbers in one go, making this mission less suicidal and more just plain unwise. We recon both groups, ascertain their true numbers and disposition, then paint their landing site for an orbital strike. What’s left we’ll be able to manage. Hell why not have Aesen just provide continuous fire support?”

“One reason, if there is any information we could glean from anything in the ship, destroying it would be counter intuitive. I am here to test you, this is the easiest situation we will ever come across, normally an orbital strike would be good if we were not here for more than combat.” Osiris said as he looked over at the Landa, if they couldn’t handle this then there would be issues down the line when they would have to face the green tide at its strongest.

“After that is done, then we can destroy their only means of escape.” Osiris added, wanting very much to move on to making a plan.

Neal slowly gave Osiris a look. Did he just say he was there to test them? The man was holding back support to test them.

“excrement...the bastard is a gently-carressing lunatic” Neal thought. He had known from day one that Osiris was dangerous, in addition to being a real oddity, but against his better judgement he had chalked it up to a case of eccentricity and his parents not hugging him enough. But now Neal could tell his wasn’t just dangerous to whatever got in Osiris’ way...he was dangerous to his own damn allies too. Neal had seen this type before, his was a CO that went and got his own men killed through arrogance or incompetence. He knew they could disable the ship without destroying it and still rain fire down on the Orks.

Neal growled at Osiris “You know damn well we can take out the ship without completely destroying it. You also damn well know our ship can give us much needed support. Cut this testing bullexcrement and release the damn AI to give us some damn fire support, we need it to even the odds.”

“Inadvisable, do you really want to take the chance that our anti-spacecraft missiles will not utterly destroy the highly temperamental Ork Craft? If that is what you wish, I will leave the decision up to you. Ork vehicles of that size tend to explode quite fantastically.” Osiris noted not caring to bother with any arguments, if this was the direction Neal wanted he would not stop him.

“Make the call, then, after that though we need to discuss how to approach the structure. Or should we attempt to gather intel from the ship before destroying it, which is highly likely.” Osiris looked at Neal through his visor awaiting on a response, this was wasting time.

Neal looked at Osiris, eyes narrowing before asking “Aesen has a railgun at his disposal, does he not?”

Aesen chimed up,”Very Big one’s, And I am not ashamed of them. Shall I shoot the Ork Landa to satisfy the Human?”

Osiris still looked at Neal, “Your Call.”

Neal said “Aesen, you see that big group of Orks by the ship? Target them and the ones by the structure, one round each. Place yourself in necessary position to reduce impact yield. Then tell me what minimum impact yield is, wait until my mark to open fire.”

“Minimum yield will definitely be bigger than a bread box, if you must know.” Aesen joked at first before running a simulation a few times, adjust impact angle to minimize yield, which would still be a rather large impact regardless, all that could really be done was make sure the blast did not reach them.

“Well?” Neal asked.

“22 Tons, I can manage that.” Aesen said on the quieter side,”It’s as low as I can get it taking in all the variables.”

“.022 kilotons? That’s rather smaller than I thought you could manage, but should do the trick. Okay now, wait for a bit.”

Osiris nodded, “Acceptable, I will wait then until we make a move on the Structure, after the blasts it should be an easier trek. I recommend that our snipers stay on alert though, keep an eye on the larger Orks. Cover Thada in case something happens.”

Neal nodded “I was just about to mention that, while he’s doing that, those logs and boulder up ahead. They’ll do for cover, even after Aesen’s strike I don’t fancy going out in the open, so we let them come to us. Set up a defensive position, then mine the sides, funnel them into a killzone. Freya? Know how to make a fougasse?”

“A fougasse?” Asked Freya “Yes, one of my TSX-20 charges will do nicely for that, I can also set up some ordinary grenades to trigger remotely. But I don’t think I can get in position to set everything up without the Orks noticing me” Freya gestured at her body; encased in an heavy suit of armor. “Someone else will have to do it for me.”

“Is anyone willing to set up Freya’s Traps? Hopefully without being noticed.” Osiris said as he looked around.

Ursea nodded,”I might be able to, but I wouldn’t be able to provide cover fire while doing that, and she would need to teach me…”

Neal said “We’ll have Khrelan provide cover, Freya you go ahead and show Ursea what needs to be done. Khrelan, find a spot along the tree line to set up.”

“It is really simple” explained Freya as she turned to Ursea “I will prepare the charge here, you will just have to carry it to position and dig a hole to put it in.” Freya took out the TSX-20 charge from one of her larger armor pouches on her hip. “The yellow side will go up.” She added after a moment of thought as she began to knead the plastic explosive into an optimal shape.

“Then you just have to fill up the hole with nearby rocks and pebbles.” And get back here quietly. Freya took a detonator out of a separate pouch and carefully inserted it into the TSX-20 charge, the malleable explosive immediately seemed to harden up. “Don’t worry about handling it roughly, it will only go off when I give the command.”

“Do you have an entrenching tool?” Asked Freya “You can use mine if you don’t have one.”

“I think I have something for diggin in my survival kit, so I should be fine.” Ursea said as she took the explosives.

“So anything else?” Ursea asked the group.

At this moment the radio came alive and Thadas voice began to come through. “Lander group makes a total of twenty-one hostiles - six big ones, fifteen cannon fodder. They’re lightly armed, mostly makeshift scrap-guns and knives. The big ones seem restless; they’re bullying the fodder, talking about killing them, even.”

This followed up as Khrelan reported in as well. “Can’t see much from here unfortunately. There’s one ork outside along with some of the canon fodder. Ork seems to be sporting a nasty sword and pistol combo. Couple of crates. Everything else seems to be obscured by metal walls set up in front of the structure. Probably more infantry behind those.” spoke Khrelan in the radio channel. Indeed, there was not much else he could do aside from using stealth to cross the open field through the tall grass. He re-attached the scope to his rifle and swung it in the direction of the Lander. “In position for cover fire.”

Neal looked at Ursea and said “Alright, you know what to do, we’ll cover you.”


SETUP


With the order given and both Khrelan and Zeph ready to provide cover fire if things went badly for the trap setting. “Here I go.” She said, “Suu-Suu stay here.” She said to her Pet Guttluok as she scratched him a bit under his head and she disappeared into underbrush. She moved from cover to cover, disappearing into any patches of grass or other changes in the terrain she could use.Yep,

She crawled to a point in front of the cover facing the orks and the Landa and she begun digging and assembling the traps as Freya had instructed. She could hear the Orks roughing up the smaller grots and the grots shouting in retaliation in the background. She wondered how long it would be till they decided to explore their surroundings. They did not sound like they would be amused and distracted for long.

She finished packing in the gravel, pebbles and stones she  could find around her and soon was done setting up the fougasse traps,” Well that’ll have to do….Ursea reporting in, I think the traps are good, I’ll make my way back now.”

When Ursea came back and Thada and Khrelan reported their findings, he opened up his TACMAP and quickly worked out a plan.

“Okay” Neal said “As it stands, we’re outnumbered and outgunned, and that will likely be the case after the orbital strike. We don’t have the firepower or numbers to go on the offensive, so we do the next best thing, we lure them to an ambush.”

Neal pointed up ahead “There, those logs and boulder should provide us with some cover, we dig in and draw them into a killzone. Freya, take some grenades and mine both sides of our position, about six grenades on each side should do. Thada, we might need you to ensure they head towards the killzone, preferably our nice little fougasse trap. Now thankfully this group seems to be a small raiding party, so besides the Mekboy there isn’t any particular clever ones around, so their base aggression should work in our favour. We funnel them in best we can, and mow them down.”

“Roger that.”Thada muttered back. “I’ll be sure to keep any bullets I end up pulling out of my ass as trophies.”he said. He looked back at the orks through the grass. A low rumble sounded at the back of his throat. Bait. Again. Two words he never thought he’d be thinking. That human sure wasn’t winning any early points with him right now.

“I’ll set up the grenades as mines closer to our position.” Confirmed Freya “If they get close to us they will do some damage.”

Neal nodded “Alright, you all know your tasks, let's get to it.”




After Freya had set up the mines, Neal did a quick check of everyone's position, saying "Sound off".

A quick flurry of confirmations confirmed everyone was in place. Neal then sighted down his optics down the corridor they had setup, and said "Aesen, fire on my mark. 10."

He could see everyone tense up in preparation for the inevitable Ork assault. They seemed as ready as they could be.

"9"

The doctor was out of the way, which was good, but Neal still knew they could very likely get past their line. He only hoped Osiris hadn't gotten them all killed.

"8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2..."

This was it, time to see how the Shrek rejects handled in a fight.

"Fire"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on April 19, 2017, 05:43:22 AM
"Fire" Neal said into the comms.

Aesen obliged, " Firing low yield shot."

A crack in the air was heard and the orks and grots looked around, "Wuzzat?" One of the orks near the landa said as only moments later the group was rocked by a huge explosion. It kicked up dirt, gravel and grass and made a large cloud as well. The screams of grots and the orks near the landa could be heard as the area was wracked by the impact.

The Landa was rocked by the impact as well, exacerbating the damage that the landa had already sustained before their arrival. It began to smoke a bit but overall it was still intact.

Whatever was left of the Orks by the Landa, began to move about, most likely still stunned by the impact. "Raaah! Dere's sumfin' out there get 'em boyz! Move it you gitz!" Shouted the Ork with the Whip and pistol. It seemed about three quarters of the grots had been killed in the blast, and all the orks had some how survived, but they were obviously hurt, as they were bloody, with shrapnel from the impact lodged in various parts of them, one of them was even missing an arm, holding his missing arm in  his other hand and attempting to put it back on unsuccessfully.

"Drop it ya zoggin' git! Get killin!" The Ork with the whip shouted again. One of the other orks, this one having a big piece of rock lodged in one eye, "Kill wut? Which way?" It said in much duller tones.

"I don't kno! Juss get moovin'!" It shouted back as it cracked its whip.

They did not have much of a chance to decide which way to go and vent their rage.

Aesen broadcasted again, "Firing second shot at structure entrance, 50% power this time, normal payload."

The air cracked as the shot ripped through the atmosphere, though the round impacted long before the sound could be heard, except it did not impact.

A large shimmery light flickered around the structure like some sort of bubble, and the round deflected off it and hit the landa directly with full force. The shoddy ork contruct reacted violently, and exploded fantastically.

"Get down!" Osiris shouted and put his shield up, dropping to a knee and bracing it. The shock wave rocked them, causing a few of the trees behind them to topple and others to sway from the force.

The group managed to drop just in time, protected from a shower of rocks and flaming wreckage. As the dust cleared it was apparent the landscape had changed, the landa was gone, a glowing smoking crater was all that remained, the wreckage however had added a great deal more of cover between them and the structure, they could more easily traverse the no longer open plain.

As they got up and observed their surroundings a high pitched scream could be heard getting louder and closer with each moment.

Osiris turned on his chainsword, which roared to life with a deadly whir. He swiped it upwards and caught an unfortunate Grot with the chainblade, spattering the ground and his armor in green blood as he halved the creature before it hit the ground.

"We need to move on the structure. The Landa is no longer a goal." Osiris said as he shook the blade off.

Aesen chimed in over comms, "I did not detect any energy from the structure till immediately after firing the second shot, It seems the Orks are making progress in whatever their goal is. Warning the orks know something is coming, extra orks and grots have come out of the structure to investigate."

It was time to see how they adapted to change.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: Ragez on April 30, 2017, 03:24:52 AM
Zeph ducked and covered behind a thick tree trunk as the explosion sent rocks and flaming wreckage across the soon-to-be battlefield. His crystal pulsed repeatedly in excitement as he crouched down to the ground and held up his LMG. He...should've paid more attention to the planning process. That was way too much of a surprise.

"Real war's something else, huh..." Zeph noted absentmindedly, laying down on the dirt as he calmed his frantic thought patterns, "We can actually die now. It's not just running away from idiots with terrible aim or hanging onto satellites for dear life anymore. The shrapnel could've shot right into my chest, or the Orks we're about to go against can just bukkake me with machine gun fire until I'm nothing but inert shards of crystal in the dirt...."

He thought more, barely paying attention to his comms as he looked over from his trunk towards the carnage and devastation.

"Huh. Weird feeling."

"I know like this goes without saying, and I'm just saying this because you're trying to consciously block the information, but that 'feeling' is called the fear of death. It's a programmed, instinctual reaction that you can't do anything about." Zephirus thought back, mentally gripping Zeph by the throat, "And let me make this entirely clear: I do not want to die. Take any means necessary to live past this, or I'm going with the nuclear option myself."

Zeph sighed as Zephirus' grip refused to loosen, shaking his head, "Look, you do this every time we're in a dangerous spot. If I never took risks, we'd have be dead of starvation or boredom a long time ago!" Zeph reasoned, smiling softly, "Just because the stakes are a little higher this time, doesn't mean we ought to change that pattern!"

"That is an incredibly poor argument to jumping right into certain death, which is what I know you want to do."

"Alright...then how's this?" Zeph began, standing back up as his particle beam LMG activated with a low hum, "Everybody here dies quicker than we do. Biologically, we're probably the most resilient species in the entire cosmos because we're basically made out of imagination and a tiny crystal."

"So?"

"Despite that, everybody else here is going gung-ho right into battle. Everybody else here wants to fight." Zeph stated, gripping his gun tightly, "...Do you want to be the one pussy here, Zephirus?"

No comment was reached. No further words needed to be spoken.

He was not inferior to these idiots, and he would prove it beyond any reasonable doubt.

The two ran right into the fray, paying little heed to the flaming debris as they vaulted over a hunk of wreckage and opened fire on the first batch of Grots they saw. Zeph's entire body roared with a distinctly inhuman screech as bolts of energized particles burned holes in the little green things before proclaiming over the comms:

"Engaging the Grots! Try not to shoot me in the crossfire guys!"
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: mikethor007 on April 30, 2017, 09:33:08 PM
As soon as Khrelan saw the second shot from the ship hit something that looked like a forcefield and hit the landa, he dropped into a prone position, trying to avoid the worst of a blast.

And the blast came quite spectacularly, as something inside the ork Landa gave way and it exploded. Quite a bit of flaming debris went overhead, but the worst of it was the shockwave. It threatened to pick him up and flip him like a pancake, but fortunately it didn't happen. Some of the trees around him were not so fortunate, being either entirely uprooted or split in half.

He surveyed the field after the spectacle. Large debris thrown around. Lots of cover. Landa and its entire team of orks and grots gone. But the orks at the structure seemed to be in a tizzy now, and would soon come out from the walls to battle whatever had hit them this hard.

He did what he could do from where he was: from his prone position he aimed down his sights at the single exposed ork among the grots. Remembering the pointers given by Ailuin, he aimed for the head.

Khrelan stopped breathing and gently squeezed the trigger just right. His sniper rifle let off a shot that sounded more like a mix of a cough and a clank, as the round sped off the muzzle. He hoped the sound would be masked by all the hubbub.

The projectile hit the Ork right on the forehead, splattering his brain on the metal wall behind it. If the round went through the wall or got embedded in it, Khrelan did not know. The ork slumped backwards and slid off the wall to the ground, in plain view of the grots that were around him.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: killer rin on April 30, 2017, 11:20:57 PM
With the second round having come down, hitting off of the forcefield and smashing the landa to smithereens, Ailuin like everyone else had ducked down behind the closest cover he could find as chunks of rock and debris flew past them.

"I think that was a little too much power" Ailuin spoke telepathically into his comms unit towards Aesen before turning to assess the situation some more. It was obvious from the scene that the original plan had mostly been chucked out the window with the change in battlefield scenery. To make matters more complex, several groups of Orks had come out of the structure to investigate adding to the number of troops by the structure. The turret was also still fully functional adding additional difficulties of which they were going to deal with in the phase two of assault but now had to be moved up to phase one.

Being the support role in this group, he sat in wait for the others to make the first move. It was obvious that if he was the first to attack all the fire would be concentrated onto him and given his weaker structure they would have made short effort of him. It also wouldn't be long until someone jumped into combat and In his wait it was no surprise when Zeph rose to the challenge charging head in towards the conflict. After another second he heard Sniper fire emanating from the direction of Khrelan and an Ork in the distance falling to the ground. It was clear combat had begun and with this meant that he had to act quickly in order to provide support as best as he could.

Thinking. "So Zeph is charging directly into combat like a madman. Khrelan is providing sniper fire so that turret will be pulled towards our location unless its attention is pulled elsewhere. Alternatively, Zeph is going to be lit up faster than a deep-sea lantern if it discovers him first. The rest haven't begun to move yet, but given the events they likely will begin soon. So our best course of action is going to be rendering that turret inoperational. I'm too far to get a good accurate read with my pistol so I'm going to have to rely on my Telepathy and stun him until we get closer".

With his action decided, he took a deep breath then slid out from behind cover to get a good look at the location, not that he needed it. He just wanted to ensure the Grot manning it went down and then using his Telepathy he immediately opened up a channel, bashing his way through the Grots mental defences before immediately beginning to flood the channel with junk information and data. Triggering its own memories to put it into a loop of remembrance and for good measure flipping a couple neurons to make it think its brain to recreate a harmless phantom-pain akin to having sat upon a series of needles. All of this to stun the creature and hopefully make it also fall out of the turret.

"I've temporarily disabled the turret" Ailuin spoke over comms. The battle had begun and he was ready to backup his team.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: wisekill1 on May 05, 2017, 07:59:23 PM
Freya braced herself as Aesen opened fire on the unsuspecting Orks. She had been close to artillery and orbital impacts before but as the shaking of the ground began to dissipate she realized she hated being close to the receiving end just as much now as she did at the start of her military career. She raised herself from the ground and quickly observed the changed battlefield. There was wreckage from the Landa all over the place this is not good she thought the open field was a killing zone working in our advantage, and it's completely gone now. But at least a large group has left the structure, even if dealing with them out here has just gotten much harder it is still easier then taking them out in the close quarters of the structure.

Freya strained to see the Fougasse position at the corner of the cliff, it was covered in an additional layer of debris but her Omni-tool confirmed that the charge was still live and ready to fire. Any moment now the Orks will come charging around the cliff and run into her trap.

She took her time to see what her team was doing. A few were still shaking from the impact and recovering, but surprisingly Aluin was up and making himself useful. The turret wouldn't be out of commission for long, it was only a matter of time before a new Grot manned it; but it was a substantial advantage nonetheless. Khrelan had started picking off targets with his sniper rifle, Good Freya thought, I don't want to fight one of those Orks up close.

And finally Zeph was- Is he charging with an LMG?! "Get in defensive positions! Let them come to you!"

Freya turned her attention back to the Fougasse. Any minute now the Grots will come charging around, and she would see if this carefully prepared trap will swing the favor of the battle back to their side. There was no way the proximity detonator was still reliable after that bombardment so she eyed its location with her finger above the remote detonator function of the Omni-tool. Breath in. Breath out. Just wait for them to get there.
Title: Re: Frontier: Cold Shock
Post by: LordNecross on June 29, 2017, 11:08:04 PM
The Battle was hectic, chaotic as gunfire roared and beastial cries of the Orks and Grots filled the air. The group was doing their best, but they were not a cohesive unit like they should have been, though with some direction from Osiris and Neal they got back in control of the situation.

The First matter was getting Zeph to stick to cover and make use of his LMG in a more practical way, which he learned charging forward unarmored was less than a good idea. Osiris took it into his own hands to get the Vis into cover, which he did quite literally as he grabbed Zeph from behind and forcibly tossed him behind cover then quickly brought up his shield to stop oncoming fire.

The Grots deciding to attempt to be clever decided to charge around the cover they group was in, and much to Freya’s satisfaction that meant they were going to run straight into her trap. The fougasse went off as expected once the grots attempted their ill-thought out flanking maneuver.

With the majority of grots dead, all that was left were the much larger orks which didn’t wait a moment to get into combat, Osiris made his way into the fray. His chainsword clashed with the heavy and sharp metal slabs the orks called choppas. He was heavily outnumbered but he seemed to be in his element with close combat, and he also set up good targets for both Ursea and Khrelan to shoot at. With the two snipers, the orks were handled very quickly as the two popped them left and right which allowed Osiris to make his way closer to the structure.

Closer to the structure, the ork turret suddenly swiveled to aim at Osiris to seemingly shoot. It seemed Ailuin’s mental attack had worn off, the top of the turret however popped open and the grot jumped out and started running away from the structure towards the hill. It shouted some gibberish, obviously frightened beyond reason, however it was soon snatched up in the jaws of Suu-Suu where it met a gruesome demise.

Soon the group had made it near the entrance, Osiris turned to address them but was suddenly rushed from behind by a screaming ork wielding two hefty blades. Luckily though Thada had been flanking around during the fight, peppering the orks with SMG fire, Thada put this Ork down more personally as he pounced him like a predator and stuck both wrist bladed into the back of its neck severing its spinal cord. It dropped like dead weight, leaving Thada’s blades dripping with green blood.

Osiris looked at him and nodded, “Good work. Now,” He began as he turned to the rest after this bloody affair, “We will explore the structure and determine what it is, and why they are here. With combat done Aesen should be able to give us some better ground penetrating scans to better understand what we are dealing with.”

Aesen broadcasted through their comms-channel, “Affirmative, It shouldn’t take long to get an idea of how deep the structure goes, and maybe we can figure out what it is. Whatever it is though it has shielding capabilities, and if the orks managed to get that working there could be other potential hazards.”