The Dividing Line - Station

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-Outer Hull-

Talen caught up with Kars rather quickly. Or, at least, he would have. Turns out the station was really big, and finding a single person on its hull was a difficult task. Especially when you forgot to establish a rendezvous point. He also hadn't expected Kars to work so efficiently. Talen asked Reno to help locate him, and made his way over, acting as if he knew exactly where Kars was the whole time.

"You move quickly for someone so... Compact. I like that. What's left to look over?"

"Most people prefer the term, 'shortass'." Kars retorts, not thinking anything of it. "Well, I've done all the ones on the... uh... equatorial...? sensor ring, and about half done on the upper hemisphere here. Haven't touched the lower half yet. There's less on these top and bottom circuits though. One sensor on the centre ring got smashed by something, so that'll need replacing. Another one has some internal fault. Not a big deal." Filling Talen in on the state of things, whilst unpluging a short wire from the sensor panel and letting it zip back into the small hole it had came from beside his wrist. The hologram from a small diagnostic display on the same arm blinking green.



-Living Quaters- (Ko)

Arriving at the living quarters a while back, Ko had taken a moment to poke at every door that hadn't already had a name appear on it's panel. First criteria of a satisfactory room was a working door after all, she supposed. Peering into each one in turn and checking out what it had to offer. None surprisingly, mostly the same as the last. She quickly decided against the one with a nice coating of some kind of chemical rust however. 'Did we bring any janitors with us on this gig?' she ponders to herself. 'Because I might just shoot someone if I get asked to do it.'

In the end she decides to go for one of the rooms closest to the hangar. Seemed a fair tactical choice, with little else to go on. Or better than that...

Two rooms near to the hangar. Her very own room all to herself. With her name on it. She liked the sound of that. No sharing with two dozen other people. No fighting for the dry spot. No being forced to sleep next to lice infested Thomas or creepy Claire. And if she locked the door, even Kars would take a minute or two to get in and bother her. Could she get away with that? Was fun to ponder at least.

Done registering the two rooms, she thinks about what to do next. Could probably move at least a few things in here from the Hell Strafer. Kars always warned her about that being a risk, but it didn't seem like they were planning to leave just yet. She knew Kars wouldn't put up with performing grunt mechanic work if he wasn't willing to see this job through. She'd already done her gravity exercises for this time cycle, so that was out of the way. Hadn't used her guns recently. And Kars didn't seem to need any help with that special agent cyborg around. His name was Talen right? Pondering to herself a bit longer, she eventually figured that with things quiet at least for the moment, this was a good a time as ever for some "suit maintenance". And a great excuse to test out the fancy wash rooms now that life support was working again.

Setting out to quickly grab her suit maintenance kit from the Hell Strafer, she soon return to find the wash rooms. Little prosthetic legs working quickly to obey her note of enthusiasm.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-Med Bay-

Fletch grimaced as Draven called up Cait and murmured something into his beard quietly. With a beep, the tool finished its work and the cables seemed to be in order. So far, so good. Fletch was just packing up his stuff when Krell arrived. As soon as the Pan Kor started stripping, Fletch grunted. "Welp, that's my cue to leave. Privacy and secrecy and all that good stuff. Cable's safe, you can plug them in whenever," he called out on his way out the door.

"C'mon boy," Fletch grumbled towards Lemmy, who bayed happily in reply. "Suit's still in the quarters. Gotta get it back to the Quinn to move our stuff in." He reached down and scritched his head. "You have way too much stuff for me to lug around any other way. You're a real diva, you know that," he said with a lopsided grin as the two of them headed towards the living quarters.

 

[tomaito89]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

- Outer Hull -

"That's better than I expected, at least. All right, I'll take care of the lower half. Anything else I should know?"

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-Outer Hull-

Kars just glances about the hull briefly and shrugs in response to Talen's question. "Uh... neh? Unless you're hoping for tips on black-market shopping... No, not really. See ya in a bit at the long range antennas, yeah?"

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-Med Bay-

"Ah yes. I suppose you can keep the pants on." Caitlin corrected herself once Krell mentioned his difficulty with them. "Though that begs the question; What do you do when you need to evacuate? Face down, please."

While the pan kor resituated himself, she answered Fletch on his way out. "Will do, good luck on the rest." She told him, finally noticing Draven working away at one of the consoles. She gave a frown at that, before returning to the matter at hand.

Once Krell had settled properly, Caitlin approached, passing over a few anatomy pictures of pan kor on her datapad before setting it down, pulling herself up to sit on the edge of the table near his shoulder, taking a rather large syringe with her and starting to root around the back of his neck, under the hump. "Are you ready? I repeat, this is going to hurt, a lot."

Once he confirmed that he was, she'd start with the procedure, dabbing the base of his neck with antiseptic fluid before lining up the needle, slipping it between his vertebrae to draw out some of the spinal fluid. The pain arrived the moment the needle passed between the bone, the small snick of it pressing through skin and muscle nothing to the stabbing pain of it reaching it's destination, more than any gunshot or stab wound.

A few seconds later, it was over. Assuming Krell held himself together not to knock the scientist off the table in pain, she'd pat the needlemark to dab away the first drop of blood, then slid back down to her chair, setting the needle aside on a different table. "And that's it. I wouldn't mind a brain fluid sample, but we really should get some restraints for that. Or some stronger anesthetics. How do you feel? Some dizziness is usual, it should pass shortly."

 

[Caulder]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-Med Bay-

Krell re-orients himself to be laying on his stomach, his hands gripping at the edge of the bed. When the needle hits bone, however, his face curls in a mixture of pain and anger, his chin growths flaring out and filling with blood as his hands bear down on the bed, actually deforming the metal there from the force of his grip, before letting go when the needle was out. "That. Was mildly unpleasant." he says, rolling over onto his side and sitting up.

With a glance towards Draven, Krell turns to face the woman in the wheelchair, his arms crossing over his chest. "Just give me something that isn't valuable to squeeze and we can do without the restraints." he says, tilting his head and causing his neck to pop.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-Med Bay-

Draven said nothing, leaving Caitlin to do what she needed to with whatever she was doing. He was more concerned with having the devices ready before she got there. By the time she would get over to him, he'd have it working and be studying what seemed to be some kind of viral bio-weapon code. Actually, he had two different ones up.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

“I think not, for now. Your pain tolerance is truly impressive, but an errand twitch and the needle can bump the brain itself. One improper scrape, and you might twitch much more heavily. Or forget your childhood, or lose the ability to use the left side of your body. Trust me, it‘s much safer to do it according to the protocols.“ Caitlin explained, taking the syringe and ejecting some of the fluid into a test tube, which she sent spinning on a centrifuge. “Let me know if you feel any adverse effects, but you should be fine. I‘ll tell you when i have something for you, or need anything further.“

Putting Krell out of her mind for the moment, she moved over to where draven had been working, looking under his shoulder at the screen. “Interesting. Where did you say the second was from, again?“

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

Draven was silent for a moment, then with an almost depressed sounding tone he replied.

"My own people. They want to use it to wipe out the Nnyarthall, turn a bio weapon against them in return for what they did to humans in our galaxy. The problem is this won't discriminate between Nnyarthall and Telarin. I'm very dead set against this being used, and as long as I live, it won't be. But if something were to happen to me, I fear the rest of my kind might just use this and not be concerned with the collateral."

A picture was on the small data pad he'd brought with him of a stunning human woman with black hair. It seemed to have been left up there when he started working, as if he'd been looking at it before coming here.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

"Seems unlikely that it would even work, to be completely honest." Caitlin said, giving the personal picture a quick swipe out of the way before starting to point out similarities between the two strands. "The Nnyarthall are nothing if not thurough. I think it highly improbable that they would release a bioweapon without being immune to the substance itself. Your scientists have likely just changed the genetic coding for what the bioweapon is to target, it's effectively the same virus. Of course, the Tellarin have no such forethought for this particular stand, not being the creators of it. Tell your government that releasing this will work in almost exactly the opposite way in that they think."
"I'll study this copy a little more in-depth later, but I doubt that will change anything. Was there anything else you needed, Draven?" The scientist asked, looking away from the screen and towards the muscled alien's face, eyebrow half-raised in question.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

Draven nodded.

"I thought as much myself. I'd like something eventually to come out of this to make the Telarin immune to something like that in case the Nnyarthall get the idea of using one on them. First things first though, the one that kills humans needs to be addressed. The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty with this is that it's a one hundred percent kill ratio, and it acts like a necrotic virus, eating the body from the inside out, painfully I might add. I uh ... well, let's just say that someone I was very close with became infected by this, and she ... well she's gone now. I'm worried the bastards may try to release this directly on Earth."

For a brief moment, she saw pain flash through his features, but it was quickly hidden away again, and he shook his head.

"No, I think I've taken enough of your time. The sooner a way to combat this damn thing is found, the better. If you need help, I'll do what I can but ... this isn't my forte."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

"The woman in the picture. That was my second guess." Caitlin said in a clipped tone. "If they wish to distribute this virus, there is very little I can do to stop them, to be frank with you. It would take me time to come up with a safe and effective inoculation for this, and even were I to do so, the process of synthesizing and distributing it would likely take as long as the war we seem about to start. Even assuming we start with Earth first, they could infect the planet before I could even send the directions for a cure there, let alone bringing one myself."

The woman made a few gestures on her own pad, copying the data to her own stores, then flipping the display back to what she had on it previously. "Still, I will see what can be done." She offered, turning to head back to the centrifuge, pressing a button to cause the spin to begin slowing. Once it stopped she took the tube off of it, taking part of the separated liquid in a syringe and moving it to an analyzer. If Draven hadn't left by then, She'd glance over at him and raise an eyebrow, remaining silent.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

Nodding, the Ingrali was gone long before she would have even finished pressing the button.


((And now to wait for something for him to do.))

 

[tomaito89]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

Talen finished inspecting his section of short-range scanners, and moved to meet up with Kars at the long range ones. All in all, there weren't a lot of repairs that needed to be made so far, and Talen hoped it would stay that way.

Reno, meanwhile, was still scanning the immediate area just to make sure nothing snuck up on the team.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

(Will need a note from rule at this point, just to mention if there actually is anything relevant wrong with the sensor system, or if we can call it as good to go once given a routine poke.)

When Talen arrived at the long range sensor system, he'd find Kars there having opened up a bunch of panels and crawled most of the way inside the unit, shining his light around it's innards. Most mechanics would have had to dismantle half the assembly to get the same view.

"So. What d' ya think they've got in the safe?" Kars remarks as Talen approaches. If Talen seemed at all unsure about Kars' meaning, he'd soon elaborate. "The big armoured lock box. The central sealed off section of the station that Nadia mentioned in the briefing. Solid as hell, single door, locked up tight. That's a safe by my books. And I'd say it's more than a fair guess that it's the real reason we're here." the last part said as the Kopak pushes out of his crawl space and swings round to stand upon the side of the sensor housing, standing horizontally to Talen.

"You look like someone that keeps up to date with the high spec military stuff. Heard any rumours about special projects? Secret doomsday weapons? Shady R&D performed outside regulated space? Neh?" He would enquire, reaching over to his side to pluck a tool from a toolbox that was locked to the hull.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-OUTER HULL-
Generally the sensors were in decent shape. Nothing that needed immediate fixing, although some of the wires could stand to be replaced at this point.

All out of a sudden, Reno's sensors would flare up. Something was approaching the station, and it was approaching fast. An initial scan showed something perfectly spherical, about 12 m in diameter with a massive shield capacity. Within no time at all, it could be picked up by the naked eye by the pair on the hull if they looked closely - it almost looked like one of the distant stars had left its designated spot and started moving towards the station.
---
-LIVING QUARTERS-
Fletch sung something into his beard quietly as he approached the living quarters, his work boots producing a loud echo along the corridor that connected the quarters to the main body of the station. "Just a teenage wasteland, just a teenage WASTELAND," he suddenly belted out, horribly off key, assuming to be alone over there. Lemmy whimpered behind him, the runner at his side as always. The large man grinned and shook his head. "You're just jealous," he grumbled towards the canine as he approached his suit, the big lump of metal still sitting in the middle of the quarters.

 

[tomaito89]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

Talen observed Kars as he worked, thinking to himself how useful a similarly-sized chassis would be to some of his missions. Talen would have to put in a request to his boss. At mention of a safe, Talen gave Kars a curious look, that quickly turned to indifference. Talen shook his head. "Not my concern. I'll worry about it if and when necessary." At mention of special projects, however, Talen gave Kars a sardonic grin. "Even if I did have that kind of information - and I'm not saying I do - I... Hold on." Talen was interrupted by a frantic message from Reno.

"Talen! I'm picking up something... weird of the sensors! It kind of looks like a Telarin fighter, but its shields are way too powerful. And its moving really, really fast! You should be able to see it from where you are; I'll send you the coordinates."

As soon as Reno sent him the details, Talen turned to look at the object. "Thanks, Reno. I have it on visual. You focus on getting a more detailed scan, and I'll report this to the Commander." Pointing at the sphere and without taking his eyes off of it, Talen turned to Kars. "Look where I'm pointing. Do you see that?"

Without waiting for a response, Talen would open a silent communications channel with Nadia. "Commander, our scanners have detected something that I want you to have a look at it. Could these be the reinforcements you mentioned?" He then sent her a short video file that she should be able to view. It would show her exactly what Talen had just seen, overlayed with a few technical details.

 

[Caulder]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-Med Bay-

Krell grunts in disdain when Caitlin says they're still going to need restraints, pulling his suit back up over his hump and arms, sealing the seam up the front and flexing his fingers to settle the gloves in place, before hefting his the heavy chest-plate of his armor onto his hump, and pressing a button, the front snapping together with a hiss.

"Hope you don't mind my eavesdropping, but it sounded like something damn serious was being discussed." the Pan Kor says, pulling one of his gauntlets onto his hand and snapping it shut on his forearm, before doing the same with the other and stretching to make sure his chestpiece had settled correctly on his hump, before sliding off the bed and standing, walking over towards where Caitlin was.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-OUTER HULL-

"Mm?" Kars murmurs inside his helmet, turning his head to look the moment Talen did, not waiting for the pointing. "Yeah I see it..." He replies, looking on guard already. "...Telarin?"

Since Talen had handled informing Nadia, Kars was mostly waiting to see what the response was before making any real reaction. He did make a few taps at his forearm interface however. Elsewhere in the hangar bay, the engines of the Hell Strafer would suddenly wake up and the shields charge. The tiny craft still latched onto the ceiling.

- - - - -
-LIVING QUARTERS-

Meanwhile unaware in the living quarters, Ko was headed to whatever facilities the station had for washrooms, and carrying a space suit maintenance kit in what looked like a miniature toolbox. Hearing the dreadful singing coming from ahead, she's then greeted with the sight of Fletch and Lemmy coming round the bend of the gradually curved corridor. Fletch would recognise her, or at least her suit, as the one who had occasionally fetched tools and delivered scrap for him and Kars to work with, but who had otherwise never really said anything and just kept to whatever errand was given.

Ko up to this point though hadn't had to face Lemmy. Slowing down slightly as they came up to each other, Ko would eventually stop and awkwardly step to the side of the corridor furthest from Lemmy, sticking to the wall and keeping Fletch between them when they'd pass. She'd only ever known two others of these Garikian hounds before, both owned by the same man, and both higher on the food chain than anyone who failed him or otherwise pissed him off. Ko had endevoured to train herself to keep any signs of fear masked and hidden away, but some things were often easier in theroy. She'd seen things. And this particular hound had a freaking cybernetic jaw...

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Station

-OUTER HULL-

It took Nadia several moments to reply, she apparently had to study the footage. In the meantime the objects steadily drew closer, close enough for Reno's equipment to pick up a completely white sphere, covered in the seemingly random pattern of lines and circles that were characteristic for a Telarin ship. However, it fit none of the known models, being slightly bigger than an Alpha-model fighter.

"Well, the Telarin have been interested into this entire matter. I didn't expect them to arrive so quickly, though." The sphere drew closer and closer, first being as big as a pinhead, then thumbnail, then golfball for Kars and Talen - and it was not heading for the hangar bay. Rather, if the predictions from Reno's computer were correct, it was steering right towards them.
---
-LIVING QUARTERS-

As soon as Ko came into view, Fletch quieted down suddenly, his cheeks reddening beneath his beard at being caught singing. "Oh, I didn't umm... Didn't... have an idea there would be anybody over here," he finished, getting more quiet towards the end. Yeah, this was just what he needed. Embarassing himself in front of Kars' co-pilot. Angry at himself and at his day so far, he stomped forward only to stop in confusion when Ko stuck to the wall. "What's the matter? I don't bite..." His eyes widened for a moment, and he turned towards Lemmy, who had his head turned towards Ko in curiosity. With a heavy thud the runner sat down and started wagging his tail, the short stump thumping against the ground rapidly. "What, him? That drooling mutt? Aww, he's harmless," he chuckled and turned on the dial, making the shield on the far side of Lemmy flare up to force the runner closer to the big man. Lemmy indeed had started drooling from the gap between his lower jaws - whether this made him more or less threatening was up to Ko.
Fletch knew better than to force Lemmy's affections on the other person. Confrontational therapy hadn't worked very well for him, either. Then again, none of them had worked very well.