Log:Space Team, Scene 7

Space Team 2015/09/03 Breach Griffin Malcolm Indira Quiet 7

Indira smiles at Breach's question. "It would be unfitting for me to ask you to risk your lives for others while I stay behind in safety. Just remember, the civilians are more important than me." There has been an argument between the two in the past. Indira hired Rick's company (and Rick's services) to protect civilians that could be caught in the crossfire between Indira and anti-alien organizations wishing to harm her. Rick respectfully (?) disagrees and thinks Indira is Priority Number One.

She stands and adjusts her space suit before looking to Malcolm. "May I trust you to watch over Violet's safety, Special Agent Gibbs?"

"Of course you may, ma'am, it would be my honor to keep your Violet safe," replies Malcolm. He may be overacting just a little bit, because he presumes he can get away with it around Indira. That doesn't make him any less sincere in his aims to keep the civilian safe from harm.

Rick golf-claps at Malcolm and comments, "Yeah, yeah. You're the Hambone Knight. We get it."

At least he gets away with it with Indira. The ambassador smiles graciously at Malcolm and offers a sweeping bow to show her gratitude. "Do not mind Rick's comments. He seems to be defensive around you for some reason," she calls Rick out on his disparaging comments. "I will leave Violet in your care, Special Agent Gibbs."

She turns and starts to head out of the shuttle's hatch, still wearing a polite smile despite the circumstances.

Griffin rolls his eyes, but can't help but smile at Malcolm and Rick. He unholsters his weapon and ejects the magazine. He looks satisfied. He kicks it back into place deftly, and then taps a button on the side. The capacitors inside the gun whine as they power up. He reads the LCD on the side. Full power just like always. He clicks the button again and the coils inside the barrel charge and run through a short diagnostic test. The LCD checks off all systems are good. He smiles and with that seems ready to go.

"It's alright, Ambassador. Haters gon' hate," replies Malcolm, smiling broadly - if a bit unnecessarily - at Rick. The tall man gestures at Rick, it is mostly a 'shoo' gesture. Malcolm briefly wishes he had thought to bring a shoo fly pie... His great aunt Cecilia made great shoo fly pie that she used to bring to the family reunions every year.

Breach offers a grunt at Malcolm before pivoting to follow her out of the craft. As he emerges from the hull, Breach draws his particle revolver again and clompk-clompk-clompks across the deck after Indira. He'll show her who's defensive! He'll show everybody! No wait, that's not the right script at all. Whose script is this?!

Indira nods at Malcolm's comment. Maybe her kind know about the haters. Her stroll stops as they near the close sliding door leading inside the base. It's a wide door for transporting things in and out of the bay. Indira almost looks at it, intimidated. "Mr. Mason, Mr. Freeman, perhaps you should lead this mission."

Griffin nods. "I'll defer to Breach here. This is my first orbital mission- precisely the kind of thing chain of command is for." He says as he follows behind his companions. He can't help but grin at those words 'orbital mission.' Fucking awesome.

Man, if Rick Mason knew that Indira was afraid of sliding freight doors he could have controlled her movements throughout Colonial Bay with such ease and finesse!

And then Griffin defers to Breach. Breach looks at Indira, then he looks at Griffin, and then Breach looks at the door. He's pretty sure, technically, Griffin outranked him when they were both in the Army, this seems like bro-treachery.

Breach runs his hands along the sliding panels, gaze scanning around for some kind of control panel. Things like this always have a control panel!

There it is, on the right. It's a touch screen with foreign symbols that don't look like any earth alphabet he's seen.

"I don't suppose you know what these symbols mean, ma'am?" inquires Breach. She can practically taste the sarcasm and/or hipster irony rolling off of him in waves as he stands beside the touch screen.

Indira is still just staring at the door with an apprehensive look on her face. Like she's trying to look past it. She turns her head slowly to Breach. "Aya...oh." She steps over to the console and observes it for a few moments. "Yes. Hold on." She reaches her hand out to the screen. There are three main touch locations with symbols on them, and a series of smaller more complicated ones. Maybe those are part of a keypad. Indira takes a moment to instruct Breach and Griffin what they mean. "This is open. This is close. And the purple symbol here means lock." She does not press any of the buttons, though. She stands back and defers to the others.

Griffin makes sure to inspect the symbols as best he can in a real touristy way. Sensitive hearers may even hear a couple of 'OOhs' and 'ahhs' as Indira points out the the different meanings of the interface.

Griffin thinks he's should go in first being the least likely to be injured, but waits for the CO's advice.

His eye begins to tick with the need to push the open button. 'MUST SEE INSIDE SPACE STATION OF THE FUTURE FROM ANOTHER PLANET' his mind repeats like a mantra.

"Give me a five count, Griff, then hit the open button," comments Breach. He doesn't wait for a response, instead pacing away from the interface and raising the particle revolver. Automatically, Breach cocks the hammer back and the gun's signature keening whine beings as the internal particle accelerator spools up with fuel from one of the cells in the cylinder. Breach takes an aggressive, marksman's posture and holds his gun level with the middle of the door.

Hopefully we're not fighting evil MUNCHKINS FROM SPAAAAAAAACE.

Griffin smiles as his wishes come true one by one.

He then unholsters his weapon again, and activates the laser mode.

He does exactly as he's told.

'5...4...3...2...1

He presses the open button. The door slides open smoothly with a hiss as the pressures equalize on both sides.

He fights the urge to sing something silly.

What amazing sights could await on the other side of the door? What is revealed, is, in fact, only a singular sight. The one attached to Quiet's INCAWS Rifle and pointed at nearly eye level into the hatchway. This puts the bore dead center mass of Griffin. It remains there for a long moment, its bearer in a braced combat crough, before it finally begins to lower.

"I gotta admit, I did not expect human-like alien with a giant rifle," comments Breach. He keeps his gun trained on Quiet as he looks over at Griffin, "Did you expect this? I did not see this coming."

"I totally did not expect to see THIS merc in space!" Griffin says excitedly to Rick.

Then he looks to 'that merc' and asks, "Wait- are you on a job?"

Quiet's weapon doesn't fully lower before it traverses towards the one pointing a wepaon at her. Her helm dips in a nod. In lieu of a lengthy explanation at muzzlepoint, she taps a button on her right forearm. A book-sized holographic forms, displaying a contract. The client is StarGuard. The contractee is Quiet. The task: station security.

"Nice!" Griffin says. "We're the calvary!" His tone seems to be even more excited than it was if thats even possible.

"Breach- she's a friendly." He nods Quiet's way.

"Oh introductions! Indira, this is Quiet, because... well she's super Quiet, but awesome at everything else. The revolver is Breach." He explains nodding in Breach's direction.

"That explains a lot," comments Breach. He slowly lowers his over-sized gun and holsters its at his hip. Behind the helm, Breach studies Quiet and the holographic contract for a few moments before shrugging. "So. What's the situation?"

'Ha! My first Space SitRep! Everything is better in space!' Griffin thinks as he waits for Quiet's update.

Indira is busy trying to scan for thought patterns and signs of life with her telepathic-like ability to sync up with people. Her head pans towards the darkened halls outside the bay, where lights flicker and emergency red lights illuminate the halls. "I have met Quiet once before. She and Special Agent Gibbs protected me from an assassination attempt. It was part of the reason I hired Bad Company," she says in a tone that implies she's distracted. Without making any eye contact with Quiet's faceplate, she asks, "Where are the rest of the crew? I don't sense any other minds near here."

Boom. Mic dropped. Indira had never let Rick know she was telepathic.

Indira can sense that Quiet is rather unhappy. The question of the crew sparks images of her pilot. From memories of his goofiness on the ride up, to his bloody body found at the shuttle. The same for Morales, and others whose names she doesn't even recall. And worry of those still unaccounted for and trapped.

Quiet finally lowers her weapon and stows it to key in several rapid taps on the proto-tablet on her right forearm. The holo changes to a schematic of the station, albeit not very detailed and with entire sections missing. Locations of know breeaches are highlighted in red (not THAT Breach), contact in yellow, known survivors in green. Most of the green are in operations, med lab, and quarters.

To the lower right of the holo is a camera snapshot of some kind of ... bug.... creature. The upper right is filled with text as Quiet types.

ALIEN INCURSION ???

PREDATORY. HIT AND RUN TACTICS.

EMERGENCY POWER ONLY. SHUTTLE DOWN.

The snapshot is of an alient with a long, multi-segmented body and grayish flesh covered with mottled black and mauve chitinous plates. It has eight eyes, rows of sharp teeth, and two horn-like projections at the top of its head. A number of tentacles protrude from its mouth, and it has six spidery limbs protuding from each side of its body. Even blurry, it doesn't look friendly at all.

"Why'd it have to be tentacles?" Griffin grumbles under his breath.

"Indira, do you know what Giggles is?" He asks as he turns to face the ambassador.

Breach has been very busy being /VERY/ quiet (no, not that Quiet) with his arms folded across his chest. He is very pointedly staring at the side of Indira's head. Everyone can probably feel the waves of, 'What else haven't you told me?' rolling off of Breach as he stares.

Indira has started to stare at Quiet, picking up on some of her thoughts and feelings. "I'm so, so sorry. I..." she starts to offer condolences when her eyes start to focus on the picture. She stumbles back a few steps in terror, covering her mouth. Whatever she says next, it's in her native tongue and sounds like a prayer or curse. "Kaldri bosh! They cannot be here...not this far."

Her fingers part enough for her to speak without being muffled. "Your friends who passed were the lucky ones. The Tyrixx prefer to consume their victims alive," she says in soft dread.

Now Quiet joins in the staring at Indira, albeit from head on. A dismissive hand gesture clears the holo for pure text and rapid typing.

I'VE LOST GOOD PEOPLE, HERE. WHAT ARE THEY? WHY ARE THEY HERE? WHAT ARE THERE TACTICS? STRENGTHS? WEAKNESSES?

"I'm going to need more bombs," comments Breach, voice completely dry and humorless as he watches Indira's fear. He does not slacken his posture, arms folded across his chest, and orange-lensed helm staring dead at the side of Indira's head. Breach is, however, now frowning sourly as he seems to appreciate the magnitude of the situation.

Griffin clicks his gun over to Mass Accelerator Rounds. He says nothing as he waits patiently for more intel. Quiet's questions were perfectly succinct and to the point. He'd thank her if things didn't seem like they were going to go downhill quickly.

Indira for once seems flustered as all eyes and minds are on her. "Vreel khat na! I've never meet them. Only stories. They eat. They consume worlds. Their peoples. Their resources. They're territorial. Cruel. Stay...stay in the light," she whispers fearfully, then looks to the poorly lit hallways.

"Please tell me you guys have night vision." Griffin says after hearing Indira's fearful description. He walks through the door into the poorly lit hallway and clicks a button on his headset activating his nightvision. He clicks another button and brings up heatvision in a smaller window on his HUD.

"As a matter of fact, I just developed some nightvision," comments Breach. He doesn't seem to be joking as he continues to stare at the side of Indira's head. Shouldn't there be Scanners sound effects by now? Breach points back toward the Sky Saber parked in the shuttle bay. "You need to return to the ship, Indira."

Quiet listens. Her posture suggests... well, she could be frowning. She could also have had a really bad day. Possibly both. She nods to Griffin's rhetorical, even if it is rhetorical.

After a few moments to consider, she types out marching orders.

WE TRAVEL AS A TEAM. WE CAN SECURE HER WITH THE OTHERS IN THE CREW QUARTERS OR OPERATIONS. THEN WE SECURE A PATH TO A SHUTTLE BAY AND TRY TO GET ONE OPERATIONAL.

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF YOUR SHUTTLE?

Indira looks to Breach and starts to manage her fear. "But there are still civilians on the ship," she says with some guilt. "How can I hide while they're in danger?" She may be scared, but she's not a coward.