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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]
Last post by RyeTanker -Petty Officer Klaudia Cheung was an anomaly as far as Starfleet and Federation were concerned. Petty Officers were rather ubiquitous as far as Starfleet went. Petty Officer's with a degree from the University of Bern and an equivalent from the Vulcan Science Institute were very unusual, especially for someone who just reached her mid 20s. When pressed or drunk on why she'd chosen her present career path instead of being an officer or a researcher, the answer usually boiled down to This is way more fun. Still, she had her limits, and both her degrees had been in cybernetics. Propulsion engineering was something else; but she could hum a few bars and generally make it work. Thus, she didn't really have the ability to prevent the core from breaching, but she was able to divert enough power and bypass various systems to temporarily stabilize the core and give enough time for everyone to gather their equipment and get off the ship. With Chief Lau leading the way and Lieutenant Pren following, everyone quickly debarred.
Upon leaving, the Chief had made it abundantly clear to everyone that the main goal of the mission was to find a terminal with sufficient access to first find a map, then another one that would give access to the research database. Their main focus was anything Thalaron related. Klaudia was the most important person in the group since she had the know how to gain the information needed. Authorization had been provided that the station, and its personnel were to be considered expendable for the mission.
Several of the picked up crew looked uncomfortable, but with the upheaval the quadrant had suffered in the wake of the Dominion War, there were few complaints. Finding a computer with a map and access hadn't been too difficult and the human tech had taken a chance to download a map, which she forwarded to everyone's triciorders. She'd also taken a few moments to upload several ghost programs into the computer. With open data research networks required for R&D, the viruses quickly spread. Most were quickly eradicated by the terminally paranoid Romulans, but a few with different wrinkles survived and continued to worm their way through the networks. Thus came the first bit of good fortune as it were as several investigating security and researchers came by and were ambushed as the sensors in the area had been hashed and showed them in a room across the corridor. It had been comically easy really since the researchers martial skills were extremely lacking and in several cases they, had just gotten in the way of the security personnel. They'd also been looking wrong way and been efficiently mowed down. Lau was reluctant to terminate everyone right away and Cheung had asked for liver prisoners for a pass hack. Dragging everyone in, the petite Asian woman went to work finding a pass card that she could copy. She did find several, but it was the biometrics of the body she needed. Selecting one sleeping form, they'd dragged the body over to a door to see what inputs were needed. This was where they ran into their first stumbling block where a hand print was required to pass through the doors. "Chief, we can't drag him everywhere with us." Cheung had pointed out and Lau had nodded his understanding of the situation. Sighing, he reluctantly came to the same conclusion. "I guess it's unavoidable." Pulling his phaser, he changed the beam length and intensity, then grimaced as he held the hand out and used the phaser to slice it off. Cheung made a wretching sound as the chief gave her the hand. After getting over her disgust, she modified her tricorder to scramble some of the other sensors. With their ability to pass though doors and the sensor system throwing ghosts are all over the place, the group proceeded onward, occasionally hacking terminals as they went or bush whacking other passing groups of personnel.
[Command Centre]
Riov Vrikol i-Dorvik tr’Khev was livid. Some computer terminals were refusing to operate and mayhem was blossoming around the crash site. Garbled reports came from one area of some sort of monster massacring everyone in it's path. Resistance to the being was determined but appeared ineffectual. The other one was more ominous as groups would just disappear. There would be a garbled call of surprise, the sound of weapons fire, then static. He tried to pull up some more data on what was going on and then smashed his fist into the console as the keys changed colour or position causing and error to show on his screen of an unrecognized combination. "Have you eradicated the virus?" he called to the operations section. "It's much harder doing this through a tricorder since the terminal keys keep changing." The head of the facility growled his disgust then snorted. It was time to see how this group of rodents liked being chased.
Tapping his communications button, he managed to get the head of Robotics Research. "Beyus, we need time to sort out what's going on with the computer, or get the aliens who have caused us problems. What is the status of project Centurion?"
The researcher didn't even pause. "We have eight prototypes ready for demonstration. Four dissident suppression models and four combat models. They've passed all their tests to date and the combat ones show particular promise, especially with the scaled down energy shields..." Riov grunted his acceptance as he waved impatiently. "I'm sending coordinates for several Starfleet infiltrators. The mechs will have to do some searching since the life sign scanners are not functioning correctly in the area. The mechs are to subdue if possible, and terminate of necessary."
[Robotics Lab 6]
Beyus nodded and smiled wolfishly. His personal project was going to move much faster than anticipated with a live test. The prestige would vault him into the halls of power for far more advanced projects. Excitedly he went to the waiting prototypes and used his hand comp to begin the targeting parameter process as he received the targeting location. It was a fairly straight forward process since these mecha were designed to be juggernauts. This caused him to pause for just a moment. That ignorant strumpet, Duma, was also in the area. While undeniably intelligent, she spent most of her time seducing resources away from more worthy projects. She did usually leave her pass and have to return to her quarters to retrieve them. The scientist rubbed his eye brow for a moment and grinned as he punched in parameters. Target types were non-Romulans and unauthorized personnel. If some of the other staff were harmed, well you couldn't cook without breaking something.
Beyus was too happily programming his kill bots to notice the shift in colours of a panel over one of the mechs, and with the process being slowed down by the virus that Operations should have nailed down, it was not an inconvenience he had to deal with. It was truly annoying that tr’Khev was pestering him to get the bots moving, and the last one seemed to be having issues accepting its commands. In an annoyed tone, he'd ordered two combat mechs to each location along with a pair of dissident suppression mechs after the 'monster'. What nonsense! He'd thought to himself. Typical wailing ignorant children. The third ready dissident suppression mech followed the combat mechs to the 'ghost' location. This last one would have to follow when it was ready. It took only a few more minutes for the optic sensors to flash a malevolent green of a ready mech and the magnetic mechanical hiss of gears going into motion could be heard as the bot stood up.
"Unit Active. Targeting Parameters Accepted." it intoned in deep mechanical and resonant tone. All was normal and Beyus grinned.
"Warning, dissidents detected." The scientist's eye brows arched. What was going on? and his cursiosity turned to alarm as the optic sensors looked directly at him.
"Dissident, stand down and prepare to be subdued." The researcher's jaw went slack. This wasn't supposed to happen his mind gibbered as a stun projector pointed at him and blasted him into unconsciousness, sending his body flying back a few feet where it slammed into a table. The security guards at the door stared in shock and fumbled for their disruptor pistols. This drew the attention of mech. "Warning, armed insurrection in progress. Advancing dissident suppression level. Dissidents, drop your weapons and surrender." One guard manged to get his pistol out and pulled the trigger. The shot went wide in his terror induced haste and the mech responded by firing a burst at the standing guard. His bloody corpse slammed into the wall and fell to the ground smoking. "Active rebellion in progress. Suppress all dissent." The mech emotionlessly spoke as people began screaming while disruptor beams criss crossed the room. and soon the corridors beyond.
OOC:
Hans - There are 2 combat mechs and 2 dissident suppression mechs going after Knox
PC Haring - There are 2 combat and a dissident suppression mech going after the crew of the Mary Baldwin
Everyone - There is a 'malfunctioning' murderous suppression mech tearing apart the Robotics Labs. Of course Klaudia had something to do with it.