Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Xiao Li Yu      Off in the void, among the debris of old, destroyed ships, asteroids, and space dust, there drifted a lone starship.. From it, an SOS was briefly issued, but then it was abruptly cut. Now, this vessel, large enough for an army, has gone dark. From the outside, no lights can be seen on in any of the windows. Just a faint glow of red among the darkness within.

     Auxiliary power perhaps?

     Regardless, the SOS definitely came from these coordinates. Upon approach, none of the ship's usual avenues of entry respond. None, that is, but an emergency landing bay for smaller craft. Seems that backup power was diverted to here. Perhaps by whoever sent that SOS? Regardless, the immediate surroundings are a mix of pitch black, with patches of red lightning lining the walls at certain intervals.

     There's only one exit to the emergency landing bay, that being around a bend on one side of the bay, at a walk strip, up some stairs, and then down a hallway leading to an automatic sliding door that's stuck at being half open...

     Oddly, there are no personnel to be seen at all, thus far.

     Where did they all go?
Mel Brock     A visual twisting of space that lasts for a fraction of a second is all that heralds the arrival of the Firestarter, the Marshal Cruiser ship belonging to one Mel Brock. It comes out of its superluminal jump outside the debris field, not going in any further; for a minute or two, it hangs there, silent, and then a bay on the lower front opens with a faint hiss. Out of that bay swings a smaller, red 'chaser' vessel, the Firestarter-C, no larger than a large car - or perhaps a small van. This is the craft that comes around and goes flying into the debris field, chasing the phantom SOS.

    When it comes into visual range of that big ship, though, the Chaser slows down, approaching at a more cautious clip to give its pilot a chance to do a basic sensor sweep. At the same time, she switches on the external comms, broadcasting across a wide array of frequencies and broadcast methods at once. "This is Marshal Mel Brock with the Union. We have received what appears to be a distress signal from this vessel, please give your current status." She waits a good ten or twenty seconds or so, then speaks again. "I repeat, this is Marshal Mel Brock. I'm here to offer assistance on a possible SOS, please respond."

    Only when the ship doesn't respond again, does she bring the vessel in closer, taking a quick visual sweep of the exterior before heading into the emergency bay. Once she's landed, she hops out with her sidearm in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and a helmet snapped to her Marshal jumpsuit that effectively turns it into a vacuum suit. She's slow and easy about proceeding, at least until she reaches the broken door. She'll spend the entire walk looking for signs of trouble.
Sarracenia      Although she was just out for a flight in her personal aircraft, Princess Sarracenia was quick to answer the distress call. She's been trying to put a better foot forward lately, and helping a ship in distress could put her on the path to people thinking she is better than Peach!

     But, Sarracenia was not expecting the size of the ship. Her small rocket-powered wooden craft looks like a paper airplane compared to the advanced starship. The princess is wide-eyed as she approaches, then hees as she imagines somehow commandeering the ship. Her navy would be unmatched with a flagship like this one!

     She maneuvers her fighter-sized craft into the landing bay, and a set of wooden skiis are deployed for the rocket powered wooden craft to land. The rockets swivel and flare with logic-defying agility despite the wooden nature of the aircraft, and the Dyna lands easily and gently. After checking to see if the area is sealed and the air is breatheable, the princess's cockpit opens and she hops out gracefully, bringing her DK Hammer with her. She lands beside the Dyna and looks around before heading down that corridor.

     When she spots Mel moving along ahead of her, Sarracenia calls out, "Halt! Identify yourself! Are you from this ship? Are you attacking this ship?" she says, hefting her hammer and pointing it head-first at Mel.
Staren MINUTES AGO:
    Any Unionites who need a ride on Staren's ship are beamed up into an interior that appears to be half futuristic factory and half medieval castle. The front half of the lower deck, which leads to the tiny bridge, is the latter, computer screens and high-tech tools mixed among an aesthetic of dark wood and stone, wioth the rhytmic hum of the powerplant and ventilation systems everpresent in the background. Staren takes the captain's chair, and with the help of an AI whose avatar appears to be a robot wizard, jumps to FTL without any sudden jerks or movements those inside the ship can feel. Hooray for artificial gravity and inertial dampeners!

NOW:
    The SSC Stranger than Fiction drops out of FTL near the ship. From the outside, Staren's ship appears to be a castle the size of a large house, with thrusters on the back and bottom and the little bridge canopy sticking out the front, with gun emplacements up on the 'battlements'.

    "Looks like a battleship." Staren comments. He tries hailing and such, before flying in with Mel. As the doors close behind them, he comments, "Ooooooo kaaaaay, /that's/ ominous. At least the bay appears to be pressurising." Staren heads back to the main room -- airlock access is off the same room where the teleporter landed -- He passes supply lockers, and offers his passengers light smart vacsuits and caseless submachineguns with special rounds for on-ship use and underbarrel riot foam grenade launchers ( http://pastebin.com/qprzxdcz ), then climbs down into the airlock -- a landing ramp has extended from the other side to the bay floor.

    Only one way to go. "HellOOOOoooo, anyone here?" he calls out. Noone. "Not a good sign..." He also starts searching for wireless networks or any wired terminals. Computers are a good way to gather information!
Black Arachnia One of the benefits of being a robot is that you don't need much in the way of life-support gear; Black Arachnia considers this a personal convenience, and one which she's happy to take advantage of. Besides, space suits tend to be bulky and clumsy, and she figures that you need as much mobility as possible when you're on what MIGHT be a rescue mission.

Or, she thinks when she hears Mel being accosted, when you might have to fight to protect yourself.

The Maximal spider crawls out of the hatch of Mel's ship, climbing up to the top of the hull. "Is there even anything here *to* attack?" Black Arachnia remarks lazily. "We picked up a distress signal; we came to help, not pick over the leavings. Of course, if you had designs on salvaging this ship for your own or something, you're welcome to come with us and help any survivors we find; if the entire crew is legitimately dead and can't be helped, it probably qualifies as legal salvage. If there are survivors, offering a reward is up to them."

And then Staren shows up in full-blown combat armor.

Black Arachnia struggles mightily against the desire to facepalm. She's NOT exactly overflowing with the proverbial milk of human kindness, and even SHE thought the point of a rescue mission is to look, well, nonthreatening. (... and this is coming from the GIANT CYBERNETIC SPIDER, who's probably not the most welcoming sight for anyone present.)
Rebecca Chambers Since she's not exactly skilled with flying space crafts, Rebecca decided to hitch a ride aboard Staren's craft. A rather unusual one but it works fine for her, since it gets her there just fine. While she's en route to the starship, Rebecca's taken the time to get herself suited up and readied her weapons, making sure to bring a sidepack so she can carry a few extra clips. The fact that the starship isn't responding to any communications has Rebecca feeling very uneasy. Once the ship arrives there, though, Rebecca's adrenaline is kicking into high gear as she makes her way to the airlock and down the ramp. She glares a little at Staren calling out loudly like that. She'd reprimand him for possibly alerting what's here to their presence, but decides not to. A slight feeling of relief is felt when she sees Black Arachnia arrive. With that, Rebecca takes a good look at the landing bay area, attempting to get a general feel for where they are.

Once Rebecca's gotten a good look at the general landing bay area, she narrows one eye and grits her teeth slightly as she attaches a flashlight to her Beretta, just below the barrel, before switching it on. Even though the light is very bright and powerful, she knows that alone won't be enough to cut through the darkness. Then she hears the sound of someone else talking, and she quickly spins around in the general direction of the talking. One of the people talking she recognizes as Mel Brock, having heard her on the radio before and knowing her name, but the other she doesn't quite recognize. "Who's there?" She calls out, a voice of authority mixed with a little uneasiness.
Shadowed Scales     Shadowed Scales Hid Bloody Claws... Knows nothing of space faring and dimensional travel. She could care less for such things and the science behind them, for they do not interest her in the least. What interests her is... To see beyond Creation, now that she is able to do so.
    Wandering has become something of a passtime for the aged Lunar, going where she pleases, devouring new life, and enjoying her freedom, while it lasts.
    What had begun as wandering, had somehow led to attaching herself to the underside of a 'metal bird', and holding on for all she was worth. Sarracenia is not alone, in that respect. But she probably wouldn't notice the small gecko holding onto the underside of her ship. Considering the massive metal behemoth size of the larger ship, people may perhaps be excused if they don't see the gecko at all, with its scales blending to a perfect mathcing metallic shade of the ship it comes in on.
    It silently watches as the princess brandishes her hammer at the other arriving boarders. And does prettymuch nothing to draw attention to itself.
Staren     To be fair, Staren wears combat armor pretty much anywhere dangerous. If some monster /did/ kill the entire crew, he'll need it -- he doesn't have psychic powers or magic to protect himself, after all. At least the white-and-green color scheme hopefully looks heroic instead of sinister! He has one of the SMGs out, but he doesn't point it at anyone. Instead, when he sees Sarracennia, he comments, "Ohhhh great. /You/ again."
Mel Brock     The instant someone speaks up, Mel whips herself around, leveling her weapon at the princess who is in turn threatening her with... a hammer? What. "...what in the..." She shakes her head. Not the time, Brock, not the time. "Marshal Mel Brock. I'm law enforcement, When I pick up a distress signal I'm obligated to check on it." She lowers the barrel of her weapon slightly, looking over her shoulder at Arachnia briefly, before adding, "So, uh, you wanna lower that hammer there? I'm not real sanguine on having a fight in the middle of a ship in unknown distress."
Xiao Li Yu      Calls out get no answer. It's deathly silent here. There doesn't seem to be any sign of trouble either. Just plain nothing but darkness and backup power. At least people brought flashlights, huh? Those help to illuminate the hallway past the door. Getting by it is no trouble, as even at half open, it's enough to pass through without wrangling any gear. There are no terminals to be seen just yet. Seems like the emergency landing bay doesn't have them on this side.

     As soon as they cease their little standoff however, and head through, they will find themselves in a cross section, a meeting of four cardinal directions with a hall going down each. Against a wall is a terminal, with a wide screen that displays a map. With the backup power on, the map is colored a bright red, flickering occasionally as it displays the various sections of the ship.

     The most notable sections appear to be... Cargo Bay, Crew Quarters, Bridge, Hangar, Sick Bay, Mess Hall, Research and Development, and Engine Room. Interestingly, all of the names for these areas are lit up. But Bridge is the only one that remains dimmed out. Is it locked off?

     Where will you go now?
Sarracenia      Sarracenia blinks as Mel speaks up, then smirks as she hears Staren. "Yes, it is I, Princess Sarracenia Sundew, Crown Princess of the Sundew Kingdom! I am sure you all feel much safer with me around." she says, lowering her hammer in the process and resting it over her shoulder. "Well then, it seems we are all here for the same purpose. To assertain if there are any survivors and what happened to this ship. If this ship is unmanned, I will be exercising the rights of salvage unless we can determine the proper owner."

     With all of that settle, Sarracenia moves through the partially open door. She seems unafraid of whatever danger they might face. Upon seeing the screens, she motions Staren and Arachnia to them. They seem the best candidates for systems analysis, after all. She takes a look, but all she can really do is look at the map. "If there are survivors, they could be anywhere, but the sick bay and bridge seem the most likely places. However, as we do not know what has happened, we should remain together. The bridge would be the best place to investigate. It should have readouts on the rest of the ship, correct?"
Staren     Staren rolls his eyes at Sarracenia's introduction. Staren makes his way to the crossroads and oh, hey, computer! They should at least look at the map -- after Staren studies it for a moment, it's added to his automap. Hmm, deciding where to go...

    Staren sighs as he's reminded of the Miniknog Laboratory. He can only hope that whatever happened here isn't as bad. "The crew quarters seems like a good first place to check for survivors... The sick bay or Research and Development might provide insight to whatever happened here. But first..." Staren attempts to use the terminal. "Let me see if I can find some logs or something." Searching for: Crew logs, automated system logs, the keys to the wireless network (if any), and lastly, any sort of ship intranet or database that might lead to clues about the ship's function, or perhaps contain crew video blogs or something.
Staren     Staren hmms. "If the information isn't on this terminal, the Bridge and the Engine Room are probably the best places to get an overview of ship status. Let's see if I can find out why the bridge is dimmed out on the map..."
Rebecca Chambers Rebecca sighs as well at Sarracenia's introduction, but decides not to make a big deal of it. After all, there could be a bigger threat than anyone's aware of here. She shrugs it off, but not before narrowing her eyes at Sarracenia briefly. After that, she makes her way out of the landing bay and through that partially opened door. Eventually she comes to the map and looks at it with the others.

After studying it for a moment, Rebecca looks to Staren as he thinks things over out loud. When he's done talking, Rebecca looks to him and nods. "All right, I'm going to check out the Sick Bay. There might be info there, and there might also be survivors too." She narrows her eyes a little. "Keep your guard up, though. We don't know what's going on here, but I can safely say I have a very bad feeling about it." With that, she heads off towards the Sick Bay, her gun at the ready and the beam of her flashlight sweeping around occasionally to make sure nothing's going to pop out and attack her.
Mel Brock     Good, so that's settled. Mel lowers her weapon entirely and follows along; at least until they get to the cross hallway. "Okay, so as someone who does this for a living - bridge is always the first call, but the bridge is locked. Next ones down the checklist are sickbay for survivors or medical information, engineering for mechanical information. Worth sending someone to crew quarters too, but that's fourth on the list. First thing is we need to figure out what happened here and how; if there's survivors, we'll find them either way."
Mel Brock     Also, there has been a long Japanese-style sword harnessed to Mel's back this entire time.
Black Arachnia Black Arachnia situates herself on the ceiling above the terminal, letting Staren either stand or sit in front of it as he finds most convenient. "Did anyone happen to notice on the way in whether there are noticeably damaged or missing chunks of the ship?" she wonders, reaching down with a manipulator to tap on the dimmed-out 'Bridge' logo. "Engineering sounds -"

She stops in mid-sentence, noticing something, then resumes, "Engineering sounds like the best place to find out why the Bridge isn't showing up on the network. Stay sharp, try not to stay openly-and-visibly-armed but be ready just in case anything jumps through a bulkhead and tries to tear off whatever passes for your face. We want to help survivors, not execute them, but we don't want to get needlessly killed either."

And she makes one little addition on a Union frequency ...
Shadowed Scales     It would seem that the ride is over. A subtle scurry off Sarracenia's ship and the gecko is on the floor, scales shifting in coloration to match again, soundlessly following the others as they move on. It lingers a beat, staring intently at the map, seemingly committing it to memory.
    It pointedly stays out of the decision making process- and will just follow everyone from the shadows.
    It is just a gecko, and as such its opinion is irrelevant.
Xiao Li Yu      Staren's searching of the terminal will find that video footage across the ship shows that things were running smoothly up until a week ago. The last recording shows the ship's crew moving through the halls, manning their stations, and generally going through the motions of a normal day in space. And then suddenly the whole place seems to shake. What follows is an explosion that knocks several crew members away, then everything blacks out. Nothing more has been recorded since then.

     There are no crew logs. Not because they never existed. There's a section on the server for them. But that section is glaringly empty. Someone must have deleted them. General files can be found in another section, giving information about the ship. Apparently it's an IGF-Class Starship "Trailblazer". A fully equipped battleship meant to house an army for long expeditions. Where it was headed and its purpose beyond that cannot be gleaned. There are no files on research and development.

     As Black Arachnia brings up, there was actually no damage to the outer portions of the ship. But a the log demonstrates, it certainly took damage from inside. Somewhere anyway.
Staren     "Rrrrgh." Staren grumbles as he's confronted with obviously missing files. "Someone deleted the logs. Why? Was this sabotage from someone on the inside?" Tak tak tak. "It says the ship is on backup power so the cameras can't be turned on. Now I /really/ want to know what was going on in R&D..."

    Staren steps away from the computer. "But it'd be better to not let anyone go alone." So he'll follow Rebecca to the Sick Bay for now.
Sarracenia      With it apparent that the bridge is locked off, Sarracenia goes with the engineering team. Hitting things with hammers always helps fix them, right? Of course, she has no expertise in ship systems, so...she will be mostly muscle if they run into something. "Alright, let us head to engineering." she says, as if she is in charge. Then, she starts down the hallway toward engineering, leading the way for the others.

     Upon hearing that Rebecca is headed to sick bay, she tsks. "If there were any personel left alive, they would be attempting to restore the systems themselves. I doubt there will be anyone in sick bay. But, I suppose someone should check, just in case."
Xiao Li Yu      ENGINEERING: Heading down to to the engine areas, there is are no hinrances. But the further and further they go, the more they notice that stray equipment like laser rifles, pistols, and other such things are strewn about, forgotten. And a sickly looking metal seems to be gradually coating the walls, floor and ceiling the more they go on.

     But then they arrive. And what they find is... Well, there are several huge reactors that seem to serve as the power source for the ship. They're all powered down. But disturbingly, a corrosive black metal seems to have partially spread across each one, which total four in all. They're toweringly large. Several terminals are about, and offline, though one can attempt to turn them on.

     But then there is a distant muffled clang of a footstep across the grated metal flooring...

     SICK BAY: The way to sick bay is clear, though on the way, one will spy that down an adjoining hallway, the walls are charred black by what looks to be an explosion. Several dead bodies lie on the floor, casualties of the blast. This must be where the last recording took place. The bodies are wearing white military uniforms, now stained with blood.

     You can investigate that, or move on.

     Sick Bay itself is not too far, and upon arrival, the doors slide open with a delayed hiss. Low power and all. Inside, through the darkness and the red lightning, one can immediately spot a sort of medical lobby. There's a sign on the wall that reads 'East: Operations and Emergencies, West: Recovery and Supplies.'...
Rebecca Chambers Rebecca makes her way to the sickbay, stopping as she finds the dead bodies not too far from it. She shakes her head as she realizes they're dead, and are of little use to her now. If they have anything important, that'll have to wait until after she checks the sickbay for any possible clues. She makes her way towards the entrance, not jumping in the least bit when the door opens with a delayed hiss, unlike some people who might jump when that happened. With her flashlight to guide her, Rebecca is able to make out the sign which indicates what's in which direction. She squints a little in the darkness, trying to make out the directional sign more closely, before she slowly steps towards it, trying to get a better look at it.

"So to the west are the supplies and recovery, while the east is the emergency area and operating rooms?" She states the last part as a question, since operations could be a bit of a broad term here, and it could mean other things as well. After a moment, Rebecca turns to the east and starts down that hallway. "If there was an emergency here, odds are there might be some information in that area. If not, well, maybe the operating rooms have some?" She says to herself, believing that 'operations' does, in fact, refer to surgical units.
Mel Brock     "Could be people too injured to leave sickbay," Mel replies to Sarracenia, preparing to head for the engine room herself. "And if there's not, there'll at least be injury reports, treatment records. Info on what happened."

    And off they go to engineering, a trip that gets progressively more concerning as they go. The marshal notes the weapons, then the strange metal corrupting the corridor, and speaks into her radio the entire time. "Be advised, I'm seeing signs of combat here. Not recent, but notable. We also have possible unknown corruption in the ship's surfaces. Advise not touching if you can help it." And then they go into the engine room, and...

    "...what the hell happened here." Mel stops, looking up and around, with a deep frown. "Well, we know why main power is offli-" Clang. That was a footstep. Immediately, Mel turns and lifts her weapon, pointing it cautiously in that direction. "Hey back there. Can you hear me? I'm Marshal Brock, we're here investigating a distress signal." She's /hoping/ there will be a reply that makes it safe to lower her weapon.
Staren     Staren walks along with Rebecca, reacting much the same way to the bodies. But as they decide which way to go in sickbay, he has an idea: "We should check if any of the bodies has a security keycard. We might need one later." After they search sick bay, though. Stick to the buddy system! "If anyone's alive, I doubt they'll be in operations. Any patients who were here at the time would be in recovery." Still, he'll follow her to Operations, anyway.
Heaven's Armory     Hravn has been here all along, and it's not like she's hiding. She's not bringing out the more personable of her bodies, and remaining as just a sword, carried in the sheath at Mel's back. This prevents her from taking much action, but the area is rather dangerous, and she'd rather watch her wielder's back--something her form does not effectively prevent--than make herself more vulnerable. It also does not prevent her from communicating through some nonverbal means. Mel will get a wordless impression that could closely be described with these words: "The danger must be met before the goal is possible." A bit more clearly than that, "Weapons discarded, yet the wielders are missing."
Shadowed Scales     Now... Now the gecko is no more.
    The mystery of this great metal leviathan is one that runs deep and intriguing. Enough for the gecko to stop over one of the corpses on the way to the sick bay. She had been following Chambers apparently, stalking like a silent hunter through the metal corridors. She wasn't there before, but now she is.
    Like a dark beast as black as the night, Shadowed Scales Hide Bloody Claws emerges from the shadows, crouched over one of the charred bodies.
    She pays anyone even remotely close to her absolutely no attention in the least as she starts rifling through the bodies. She doesn't seek keycards, but rather to learn about the dead what she can. If there are burned clothes she rips them aside. She hoists an arm and lets it drop. Small actions that seem nonsensical and meaningless.
    Yet these bodies each tell a tale.
    She doesn't CARE if any of the others are even paying attention to her- or if her sudden appearance might cause startlement and aggression.
    "They are part metal." The reptillian beast says, voice raspy and throaty, as she motions to the skin of the charred bodies. Specifically at the black metal that seems organically laced into the flesh on faces and down the neck of one corpse.
Black Arachnia Whatever that 'metal' coating the walls is, Black Arachnia is torn between curiosity and caution; the latter gets the preponderance of her attention - but let's be honest, she can't ignore her curiosity, either. She's seriously tempted to start taking samples of it, but ... well, when she sees the more corrosive-seeming black metal, she decides quickly that she DOES NOT want actual samples of THAT stuff, at least not until she's got something appropriate to store them in.

Like a magnetic containment bottle with a failsafe that she can personally be sure will physically annihilate a sample that's in danger of not staying contained.

And there's a footstep, too.

The Maximal pauses briefly, triangulating the source of the sound as well as she can, then stealths up - actually disappearing completely, thanks to her electro-disruptor - and sneaking off in a hurry to try and come around from the opposite direction of whatever made that noise. She's invisible, she's as silent as she can get, and her robotic emission signatures are as thoroughly and completely masked as she could wish for.
Sarracenia      Princess Sarracenia, as the one in the lead of the engineering team (at least in her mind), raises an eyebrow as she sees the discarded weapons, then lowers her hammer into ready position as she sees that strange metal that seems to be spreading "...what in the kingdom..?" she murmurs to herself.

     She nods lightly at Mel before her eyes widen at the sight of the reactors and that black substance that seems to be corroding it. "I...could be wrong, but are those power generators? And...is it not a bad thing if the casing is breaking down?" she says just before that footstep.

     Despite her confident demeanor, Sarracenia lets out a little 'meep!' at the surprise sound in the otherwise deadly silent area. "Who goes there?!" she demands as she hefts her hammer in both hands. The weapon is as large as the princess herself, so it promises plenty of damage to whoever might attack her or her temporary allies.
Xiao Li Yu      ENGINEERING: There is no response to Mel's call into the back as she points her weapon. After a moment of silence, there is another muffled clang. ...And then another. And another. Black Arachnia meets no resistance she steals around the long way, past some thick piping, and round to the back of the sound's source. It's there and she notices the outline of a humanoid figure stalking along at a shambling pace. ".....gghhhh...." It groans lowly as it drags itself out and into the ray of Mel's light, revealing...

     That is a human. Or more precisely, that USED to be a human. They are now ...much much less human. Thing thing was tall, wearing a torn military uniform, with black metal spreading over it, skin pallid. Part of it's face is obscured, and where the eye used to be, is a red gleam of a light. "....uuugggggghhhhh...." It groans again, seemingly without intelligence. It raises an arm, and the metal covering it entirely shifts, forming into some kind of ARM CANNON that starts charging up quickly!

     And then it fires a shot of pure, red plasma right at Mel and Sarracenia.

     That is NOT a friendly.

     MEDICAL: Scales is indeed correct. These bodies are dead, but have corrosive material spreading across them... They don't move however. Dead as dead can be, apparently. By who would bother doing this? And why?

     Staren and Rebecca meanwhile head to the east, and there, they find a wing of rooms. All operating rooms. Each one of them is wide open, save just for once, which is locked tight. The sliding door open budge. But there is a pad by the door that seems to serve as a bio sensor. It also has a slot for a card key. Probably secondary access means. Vaguely, the two of them can hear heavy breathing from inside. As if someone is panicking...
Black Arachnia Well, that was a much better view than she EVER wanted of somebody shooting at her allies from behind the attacker.

Black Arachnia pounces immediately - she can't stop the first shot, it's up to Mel and Sarra to stay alive in spite of it, but she CAN do her damnedest to make sure there isn't a second shot. And given how little the group knows about what's going on here, her choice of intervention takes the form of a broad-spectrum paralytic cybervenom - not lethal to flesh or circuit, but intended to simply lock down EVERYTHING in the target's body, from voluntary nerves to data traffic.

Given the haste in which she attempts to prime and apply the cybervenom, it's going to be a less potent dose than if she'd had time to get ready for it; she makes up for it with extra volume - plus, y'know, the little fact of her body mass riding her 'prey' down to the deck, de-stealthing along the way. (She *could* have kept the electro-disruptor going, but her allies are going to need to know what flattened the thing, and being visible makes it a little less likely that she'll be accidentally shot in the process. Only a little less, but she'll take it.)
Mel Brock     Slowly, slowly it shambles out. Slowly, Mel trains her flashlight on it. Slowly, realization dawns what she's seeing. "Oh, holy sh-"

    It opens fire.

    "Shit-!"

    The PsiMarshal's left hand releases her flashlight, and then with her palm open, it comes up. With it, accompanied by a horriffic screeching of metal, comes a fairly large chunk of deck plating. She's using her substantial telekinetic power to lift up a solid physical barrier that should be able to hold off the cloud of ionized gas for both of them.

    Should.

    "Hravn!" Her next step is to reach back behind herself, taking hold of the sword's grip, and dip into its power, trying to add to the defense the chunk of deck plating provides with a barrier formed from Hravn's abilities as well.

    At the same time, she starts jabbering into her radio again. "We have confirmed corruptive agent, I repeat, we have confirmed corruptive agent, unknown origin, suspected technological! Under attack by a corrupted crew member, it turned its arm into some kind of high-energy cannon, possibly plasma!"
Staren     Staren knocks on the last door. "Hello in there! Are you still alive and /not/ some kind of horrible monster?"

    He likes being straightforward.
Heaven's Armory     Hravn responds to Mel's will automatically, somewhere between a heartbeat and a breath. The unknown metal of her blade is aired, and the air condenses. It's not the strongest of defenses, but if the deck can be pulled up, it provides another layer. A solidified, immobile chunk of the ship's internal atmosphere may at least disrupt the path of the plasma shot, if all else fails, but there'll be quite a wind.
Rebecca Chambers At first, Rebecca frowns a little as her hope for finding anyone alive begins to go downhill fast. The operating rooms are open, and there appears to be nobody inside. The more Rebecca peers inside with her flashlight, the more doubtful she becomes. That is, until she notices one of the doors are closed. From the look of the keycard slot and the bio-sensor thing, it's more than likely been locked from the inside or something like that. And the sound of heavy breathing on the other side indicates someone might still be alive.

Keeping her gun drawn, Rebecca presses herself against the wall, then taps on the door a couple of times. "Hello? Can you hear me? If you can talk, can you tell me what happened here?" She speaks rather loudly, hoping that whoever's on the other side of the door will hear her. She scowls at Staren's approach, thinking that he's not quite taking this seriously enough. "Don't listen to him. If you can talk, tell us what happened please."
Staren     Staren also finally puts away the gun. If they run into a monster, he'll use his armor's beam cannons. The risk of breaching a ship like this with a stray shot seems pretty low.
Sarracenia      Princess Sarracenia may be brave (or reckless), but...she has not met anything like this. Some kind of infectious metal? Is that what this is? And...it fired at them! The princess is so dumbfounded that it doesn't occur to her to dodge until after Mel has raised that deck plating. The explosion of super-heated ions and metal sends her flying back, but thanks to Mel she is mostly unharmed.

     She gets back to her feet quickly, then charges forward. She sees Arachnia pounce the metal crew member and grins. "Excellent! Hold him down!" she exclaims, then leaps into the air as she charges and raises that hammer. And brings it down in a devastating strike that is aimed to crush the machine's head, and with the force of the impact she might leave a crater in the deck as well. "Begone, foul creature!"

     If the others want to preserve this thing for study or interogation, they better stop Sarracenia fast.
Black Arachnia "*Easy* there, hammer lady, you can crush his skull when we know we're done with it," Black Arachnia says quickly. How well is the cybervenom taking effect, anyway? She *is* keeping the drone pinned down beneath her ... and staying extra-alert to her dermal sensors in case anything tries infecting HER.
Shadowed Scales     Scales' observations... Fall on deaf ears. She pointedly revealed herself. She came out of hiding, on the rare whim of deciding to give aid out of collective curiosity, rather than hinder, harm, and assault.
    She stares deathly hard at Staren and Chambers' backs as they focus on the door and the whimpering behind it, than on her.
    It would be a perfect opportunity to just stab them both in the back right now.
    But that is not what she does as she stalks over.
    "Move."
    Her voice is nearly a growl, shoving past the two. She flexes her fingers, talon-like of gleaming silver moonlight erupting forth. The first thing she does is punch clean through the biometric reader and card scanner. She knows nothing of it. She knows not what it does. But it looks important and like it might be the reason the door is closed.
    Before she rams her clawed grip into the door, lithe body going tense as muscles strain, but then exert enough force to rend steel like paper.
Xiao Li Yu      The shot of plasma fires off, and it's met with a raised wall of deck plating, impacting with it, and eating partially through it, before sending remnant energy flecks flying every which way and dissipating with a rush of wind. That was quite a strong shot.

     But before it can let another one off, here comes Black Arachnia. Considering she had it's back wide open, there is no resistance at all to her injection and tackling to the ground. Oddly, it doesn't seem to react with pain whatsoever. It just groans, "...uuuuurhhhhhhgghh....." And then it shambles under the Maximal, attempting to move to no avail.

     But as she might fear, contact with this thing immediately starts up another phenomenon. The metal cover this thing's body starts to gradually spread, trying to her exterior. Black Arachnia would feel a very odd thing in her sensors. That being something vaguely akin to a hacking attempt. This material was attempting to assimilate *her*. But then the cybervenom takes effect, and all attempts freeze to a stop. "........." This thing is paralyzed now. And the material that was attempting to find purchase on Black Arachnia flakes off...

     What now?

     MEDICAL: Staren asks a silly thing, and whoever's inside jumps and yelps in a panic! "Go away! Go away!" Sounded female. And much more coherent than the thing being manhandled in Engineering. Relatively anyway. Rebecca's attempt goes much better, and there's silence, with more heavy breathing. "Why are you asking me this!? You're with them, aren't you!? I'm not opening this door, you can't fool me, you damn virus!"

     And then Scales DESTROYS the biosensor. And then RENDS the door open. There's a surprised scream and a shuffle before what's revealed to them is an operating room, much like the others. Inside, there's a woman in her late twenties, short black hair, medical gown on, and she's crouched in a corner with an energy pistol pointed at the doorway.

     Now, given that the first thing she sees is some kind of REPTILIAN THING? She immediately yells and open's fire with a shot of blue plasma right at Scales. "Nononono! Get out of here! You're not taking me! Die! Die! Die!"

     Oh boy.
Staren     And then there's a lizard. "What the--" he hesitates, because it talked. And theeeeen things get messy. Staren dives past Shadowed Scales to a position ahead of but slightly to the side of the woman so he's not in the line of fire between them, then rises and turns, beam cannons aimed at the lizard. As long as Shadowed Scales doesn't approach further, he won't shoot her, though "Do you know if there are any other survivors? If you're the only one left, we've got to get you to safety, NOW."
Mel Brock     The dust settles. Cautiously, Mel lowers the deckplating, watching the former human for several long seconds after it stops moving entirely. And finally, she mutters a perturbed, ".../fuck/."

    Letting the chunk of floor settle back into place (melted though it may be), she finally draws Hravn out of her sheath, such that she's got the long blade in her left hand and her sidearm in her right. This leaves her unfortunately without any hands to hold her flashlight... so of course, it simply floats up to hover beside her head instead. "You two injured? Arachnia, that shit breach your systems at all?" She's cautiously stepping forward to get a better look, but she doesn't dare get within arm's reach. "...Getting the hell out of here and coming back with a full hazard team is starting to look /real/ tempting right now. I can park on the Firestarter until they show up."
Sarracenia      The princess hears Black Arachnia only moments before she strikes, and so has only those moments to pull back her strike. Instead, she lands hard on the deck plating right in front of the creature. Her feet impacting with all that force behind her leap send a rattling echo through the room, then she huffs. "Why do you delay?! This creature and its metal flesh are obviously infectious! Whatever it was before this metal agent got onto the ship, it is a mindless threat now! It has obviously consumed the crew, and is attempting to take over the ship! We should destroy it while we have the..."

     And then that substance just flakes off of Arachnia. Sarracenia is left staring, then she coughs softly. "Erm...well, perhaps we could spare a moment to analyze. If whatever you did holds. But, it is still spreading over the ship and that power generator. That cannot be allowed to continue." Sarracenia reaches into the purse she always carries and pulls out...a blue mushroom! Even she isn't foolish enough to throw fire and explosives around in a spacecraft, so freezing the contagion is the next best option.

     She gives the mushroom a squeeze, and in a puff of smoke her dress goes from red to icy blue with white accents. She gives her hair a toss and smirks, then starts throwing cold bolts around, focusing on that generator first. If that is compromised, it could be bad. Of course, it is yet to be seen if the freezing will slow or stop the contagion. "Firestarter? Fire on any ship is very dangerous! Use cold!" she says to Mel.
Black Arachnia So, the paralytic-lockdown cybervenom actually neutralized the assimilation metal - and it did so before it could do more than start trying to eat through her dermal armor.

Thank Primus.

Once the drone goes motionless, Black Arachnia literally climbs up the nearest bulkhead to park herself on the ceiling one more time. "Okay, whatever that thing is, it's contagious - or was, before my cybervenom finished kicking in," she reports to her allies. "I'm going to synthesize a bunch more of that and make it much more potent, faster-acting .... I don't know how you want to ask any questions but I recommend having it completely immobilized, and completely out of contact with any surface or object."

She pauses briefly, then adds, "I'm not sure how to neutralize the cybervenom without touching it ... do either of you have a transdermal injector on you that I could load with a counteragent? Something disposable would be best. Or alternatively, we can leave it here - preferably dead so it doesn't wake up somewhere behind us - and just make haste to R&D."

Normally, Black Arachnia plays her own emotional state as close to the chest as she can manage. Her control may be slipping right now.
Rebecca Chambers "We're not with the virus," Rebecca starts to say, then Shadowed Scales appears and literally breaches through before she can even blink an eye. Now they've found the survivor, and it seems the survivor isn't interested in dealing with Shadowed Scales. When she fires the laser blaster at Shadowed Scales, Rebecca jumps back slightly while Staren dives in to shield the survivor from the lizard. At the same time, Rebecca's got her Beretta steadily trained on the lizard. She doesn't know for certain if this is a true enemy or not, but given the fact she just ripped the door open without bothering to wait makes her strongly suspect she's up to no good.

"Stay where you are! Don't move!" Rebecca yells loudly, keeping her gun trained. "If you can hear me," Rebecca calls out to the survivor, "We're here to help you! Just let us help you and everything will be fine! At the very least tell us what happened here!" Her eyes then move to focus on the lizard again.
Mel Brock     Mel just sort of stares at Sarracenia for a few seconds. "That's... that's the name of my ship. The Firestarter."

    To Arachnia, she shakes her head. "Leave it. We are way, way underequipped for a situation like this. Let's hit R&D if we can, then get the hell out of here. Let a hazard team of some kind sort this out."
Sarracenia      Sarracenia blinks at Mel, then blushes softly at her own folly. "Ah...o-of course." she says, trying not to look embarrassed. She huffs as Black Arachnia suddenly jumps away. "See? You should have just let me smash it." And with that, she twirls with her hammer outstretched and brings the head of it down on the head of the creature. Smash!
Shadowed Scales     Well the door's open now.
    As casual as can be, Scales rips it open and even pulls the metal free from the wall, tossing 'what used to be the door' aside as though it were thin plyboard.
    Then the gunfire begins. Now Staren pushes past her and takes aim, while the Lunar... Stands there.
    There's a slight grunt, but as the hysterical woman unloads that pistol, each bolt of superheated energy comes flying. Each one slams dead home upon Scales' chest. She barely flinches, dark patches of scaley skin sizzling as most of the energy dissipates on hitting her dead on, upon the swirling runic silver tattoos that adorn her entire body.
    Now she pointedly ignores the fact that Staren and Rebecca have drawn guns on her. She does not stay where she is, she advances.
    "The both of you. Fools." The Lunar spits in that gravel-road voice.
    "Was here the whole time. Tunnel vision." Snarled as she stalks into the room.
    If the woman is still shooting her, she's still blatantly ignoring THAT too as she approaches.
    "Not virus. You calm. You speak. You tell. What happened. Be brief." She pauses there.
    "Be simple."
Black Arachnia "Good enough," Black Arachnia states as she eyes the results of Sarracenia's work. The cryo-blasts she's tossing around get a fairly approving look from the Maximal as well - at least to the extent anyone can read a spider's expressions. "And it didn't get past my dermal armor, Brock, but it's sweet of you to worry about me." She pauses for a fraction of a second before adding, "It started trying, though."

The faster they finish and leave this ship to its destruction, the happier Black Arachnia will be; *she* doesn't trust quarantine warnings, especially when she isn't sure everyone investigating the derelict is Union. (But even if they were, and even if she had sufficiently skeptic-proof confirmation to satisfy even Black Arachnia's lifetime of professional paranoia, she'd STILL want it reduced to slag and plasma just on general principle.)
Xiao Li Yu      ENGINEERING: That thing definitely isn't moving. At least for now. The cybervenom is paralyzing both flesh and metal for the moment, which makes it momentarily safe to get off of it. Good thing too because apparently just touching it can elicit assimilation.

     Sarracenia's choice to start freezing things is...well, a choice. Ice shots are thrown about, and frost begins to spread across the walls and across the reactors. ...Whether it's actually working or not, there's no reaction from the viral substance to be able to tell. But hey, better safe than sorry, right?

     SMASH. The princess' hammer crashes right into the head of that thing, and it blows like a watermelon on the beach. The odd thing however, is that its brainmeats are laced with a lot of that black metal substance within the flesh and blood.

     It's really, really disgusting.

     With that, perhaps it's time to get out of here. There's nothing left to do, beyond take a glance at the terminals, if once dares to stay a second longer...

     MEDICAL: The panicked survivor lets loose shot after shot! ...To no avail. Nothing worked. And in a hopeless manner, she lowered the pistol, and looked between Staren, Rebecca, and Scales with a thousand yard stare. It was plainly obvious that she didn't trust these people at all, but... Well, if it were the virus, she would have been taken already.

     So she speaks.

     "...A week or so ago...? Something invaded our ship. It was like nothing we've seen before. It invaded our computer systems, then somehow, it managed to convert matter into nanomachines and start assimilating the crew, as well as the ship!" She drops the gun and balls up, hands over her head. "Oh god, it's probably watching us right now!"

     And then, as if having a moment of clarity, she stood up. "...This place needs to be blown up." With a manic look in her eyes, she looks toward the three. "Blow it up! Blow it all up! That's the only way to make sure it doesn't get out!"

     She might not fully be there anymore.
Mel Brock     "Let's go," Mel finally declares. This place is starting to worry her more and more by the moment. "I'll take point. Anything lobs more plasma at us, Hravn and I can take care of it." When she says 'Hravn', she tilts the sword slightly to indicate it. "You two be ready to counterattack." Safe, tactical movement; Sarracenia's got melee covered and Arachnia can strike from a distance or dart around either of them with her agility.

    Having recommended the marching order, she takes her own suggestion and moves to lead the way out, moving swiftly but cautiously. They're headed for R&D if nothing waylays them.
Staren     Staren's eyes widen a little as the woman describes what happened. He's BEEN to Rory's Earth. Seen... sigh... yet ANOTHER laboratory taken by such horrors. He just nods, grimly, at her assertion that the ship must be destroyed. "You're right. Okay, here's what's going to happen: We're going to leave, then send back a demolition crew with antimatter bombs or something. If there are any other survivors, where could we find them?"
Black Arachnia "Works for me," Black Arachnia replies, gladly(?) letting Mel take point. She may not get the best protection on the ceiling, but better that somebody who can put up a decent shield be the first person around any given corner or through any given door.

She does, briefly, consider whether to try and collect any of the remaining shards of the deceased (and bluntly decapitated) drone for later analysis. A quick review of what almost happened to her dermal armor results in the idea getting rejected several times over and consigned to the closest thing she *has* to a 'deleted' folder in her cerebrocircuitry's memory files. Much as she'd like to know how to stop this stuff from spreading in an environment where 'big slagging boom' isn't a viable option, she's going to have to stick with computer modeling instead of experimentation.
Sarracenia      Sarracenia...gets splattered not only with metallic goo but with actual human goo.

     Which results in a very loud and very shrill scream that can probably be heard throughout the ship, followed by a less loud but no less shrill "EEEEEWWWWW! This thing is supposed to be a machine! Wh-what is...!" She starts to look pale, then sick, and has to cover her mouth and run away from the smashed corpse of the apparently cyborg creature.

     She reaches the door to engineering before she finally slows down, then has to take a moment as she comes to a stop and leans forward to put her hands on her knees, panting to keep herself from being sick. It takes her a few moments to collect herself, but when she does she still looks pretty pale as she follows after Mel.

     Both Mel and Black Arachnia get an earful of her whining after that about how her dress is ruined and since when to heads explode like that and how in the heck do you get greymatter out of hair!
Heaven's Armory     Hravn looks none the worse for the explosions, of various types, so long as Mel keeps her out of the goo's range. The envenomed nanotech probably wouldn't hurt, but it's an unnecessary mess that she'd just as soon leave Sarracenia to experience. She's not /that/ curious. While she continues to watch the environs in her nonvisual way, and stay alert for any need to repeat her defensive measures, she also says a few words that buzz via radio.
Rebecca Chambers "Destroy it? Well, if there's a self-destruct system on here we can..." Rebecca trails off as she realizes something. "No, we can't do that just yet. We have to get you out of here first! I'm sure the Union medical can help you out!" She tries to remain optimistic here, despite what's obviously happened here and how hopeless the whole situation seems. She looks to Staren and narrows an eye a little. "That... might work... but first things first. We have to get this survivor out of here!"

She looks to Shadowed Scales and scowls. "Stay back! Try anything funny and we will shoot!" Before moving to try to help Staren evacuate the scared survivor. "Just come with us, you'll be fine." She moves closer gently.
Black Arachnia "Well," Black Arachnia abruptly states (to interrupt Sarracenia's stream of complaints, no doubt), "if you'd rather strip naked so you don't have to worry about the gunk in your clothes, I'll be glad to give you a quick and dirty haircut to make sure you don't have to find a shampoo that'll clean it out of your hair."

She COULD have pointed out that it was Sarracenia's own fault for using a blunt, heavy, melee weapon to deliver that coup de grace; certainly there were other options which would have been less splatter-inducing .. but the Maximal spider doesn't even point out that Sarracenia brought that on herself.

Honestly. When someone's weapon of choice is the sort of weapon that makes things (especially important pieces of enemies) go splatter, you'd think the wielder would be USED to this kind of problem.
Shadowed Scales     Shadowed Scales asks for answers.
    The panicked, delirious, possibly mad woman gives her answers.
    Shadowed Scales does not UNDERSTAND the answers she is given beyond 'something got on board the ship'.
    Chambers still threatens to shoot her.
    The Child of Luna takes a slow, mind-cleansing, calming breath.
    She casually picks up the nearest piece of furniture in one hand and tests the weight...
    The then promptly throws it with the force of a speeding truck, at Rebecca Chambers.
    Before she casually turns around and walks out of the room.
    She'll start heading in a random directon. More than likely it will take her in the direction of Sarracenia, Mel, and Black Arachnia.
Xiao Li Yu      R&D: Mel, Sarra, and Black Arachnia leave Engineering, and head for Research and Development. Strangely enough, the ship HAS to know that there are people on it now. ...But nothing jumps out of the shadows to strike at them. What is this 'virus' doing? Is it really just a directionless weapon? Or does it have it's eyes on something more important?

     Their arrival at R&D is met with a set of automatic double doors. They slowly slide open, and inside, they find....many many different tables, with all manner of half complete weapons and gear strewn all about. Some huge pieces like firearms for what must be a giant, and other such things can be seen. And there is also an elevator that appears to go right down into the hangar. But it's not operational right now.

     Additionall, there are a number of terminal workstations lined up in sections off to one side of the department, where people must have done loads of programming and referencing.

     Beyond that, the place is also partially covered with that viral nanomaterial. It's spread across the walls, parts of the floor, and across incomplete weapons and other experimental projects. ...One of the terminals actually appears to be on. And data is scrolling across the screen at a rapid pace.

     MEDICAL: The woman looks frantically at Staren, and then shakes her head. "Others? I don't know! They're probably machines now. That thing grabbed everyone, EVERYONE! I've been stuck in here a week, just keeping quiet, thank god there wasn't a camera in here or-Self destruct? That's on the bridge, in case the NGE forces ever took over, but the bridge is locked. That thing got on it, and ittok everything over! Oh god...what do I do?"

     "Oh I know, we can overload the engines, no they've been shut down damn it-" She's going a mile a minute now. It's sort of hard to pick out anything useful from her. What Scales does just drifts right by her, as she gets more and more lost in her own ramblings.

     This one is rapidly losing usefulness. It might be better to drag her out and stop listening, huh?
Mel Brock     In they go, and Mel's flashlight sweeps across the room before she brings up her pistol to point at the active terminal. "Arachnia. Can you tell me what it's pulling off that? Maybe stop it?" If the bridge is shut down, but that stuff's still /infested/ the bridge, this isn't just an aimless infection. This is targeted. Either this stuff's sniffing up data on its own, or someone infected this ship with it. Either possibility is deeply worrying. "If you can't, we blast it then leave."
Staren     "Hey!" Staren shouts at Scales, but... she's not the priority right now. Staren thinks about a course of action for a moment or two, then nods. "This way." He leads the woman back to the crossroads. "Okay, first off, any people you don't know that /aren't/ half-mechanical monstrosities are probably on our side. Second, the giant mechanical spider lady is also on our side, so no shooting!" He points to the hallway leading to the landing bay. "If attackers come, you run down that way and hide in the ship that looks like a castle. Now, we're going to check the rest of the ship for survivors, then... either arm the self-destruct and leave, or if we can't do that, we'll leave and attack it with WMDs from afar or something, we'll work it out."

    Waiting at the crossroads, Staren deploys camera drones to go search the ways noone's gone: Cargo Bat, Crew Quarters, and Mess Hall. (And the Hangar if that's not where they landed.) Staren himself will stay at the crossroads to make sure people don't get cut off by the Things.
Sarracenia      Sarracenia's color returns quickly at the comments from Black Arachnia, then quickly turns into a bright blush. "H-how dare you suggest such a thing! A princess cannot simply discard her clothing in the middle of a public space! And long hair is required for all princesses!" she says, but it does have the desired effect of getting her to shut up the rest of the way to R&D.

     When she sees the room, she doesn't know what to think. There are so many weapons, and lots of that terrible nanomachine stuff around. "What sort of ship is this? What are all of these contraptions? Weapons? Are they going to rise and attack us like that horrid man who was only part machine instead of fully machine so I would not get splattered by such revolting things?"

     Sarra really does have only one useful skill, and that is smashing things. So, she just watches the others and keeps her eyes open for threats. And throws a few more ice bolts around to see if she can slow the spread of the ship's infection.
Rebecca Chambers Rebecca is hit by the chair and goes down for the count. With a cry of shock and pain, she is knocked out for a few moments. She does recover though, albeit with a bit of a headache. "Unnngh... dammit..." She slowly stands up, using the knocked over chair to try to steayd herself and shakes her head. "St-Staren?" She asks. She looks around and doesn't see him, but she does see that the woman is also gone. She doesn't care if Shadowed Scales is still there or not, as she has a bigger problem to deal with right now. She tries to bring up Staren on radio but gets no response. Thinking on her feet, she takes off back towards the crossroads where the map originally was. She's hoping to run into Staren along the way.

Her instinct pays off as she arrives at the crossroads, albeit still a bit unsteady on her feet. "Ungh... we... have to... get outta here..." Rebecca says, her speech unsteady because of the trauma to her head. "Ungh..." She adds, holding her head.
Black Arachnia Black Arachnia's first thought, upon seeing the (very) active terminal, is that she needs to get to it and try to grab data - although a quick survey of the surrounding deck, ceiling, and bulkheads crosses that off in a hurry. She'd never make it without setting at least one foot in a layer of nanocorruption.

Her second thought, occasioned by Mel's query/order: switch to robot mode and obliterate the terminal with lasers. She then comes to the conclusion that *that* might not be quite enough --

And then she has the third thought, based on the discussion of antennae and broadcasting. Considering how completely the drone went down ... well, there's one distinct disadvantage to Idea #3, particularly if the nanocorruption works faster than she anticipated, but it's a borderline acceptable loss. That's one of the other - if not 'nice' then extremely practical - things about being a Cybertronian: lost parts can be replaced, somewhat more conveniently for her than they can for most organics.

And almost as soon as Mel fininishes saying 'we blast it then leave,' Black Arachnia shoots her mouth off, aiming her mandible grapnel across the R&D lab at that highly active terminal, digging her palps in and injecting all of the broad-spectrum paralytic cybervenom that she'd been synthesizing since paralyzing that drone they ran into in Engineering.

That should accomplish two things: first of all, 'paralyze' the terminal - lock it up completely, prevent it from processing any further input or output in any direction. The other thing should be to similarly paralyze the infection itself - again, freezing all processes which are routed through any part of the nanomass ... and Black Arachnia is consciously hoping (or outright gambling) that the nanocorruption within the ship's systems is, in fact, a single physically-contiguous mass that goes from R&D to Engineering to communications arrays or wherever. If it is, then this dose of cybervenom ought to be potent enough to course through ALL of it.

Of course, anything that's been corrupted and isn't physically linked to the mass is likely going to get, as its last signal from the 'main body,' a warning that something just happened, and that'll likely bring some drones to investigate. But it should at least neutralize the threat of the nanocorruption stealing the ship's data.

As for the mandible grapnel - well, if there's any indication of the nanocorruption taking hold after the paralytic takes effect, then Black Arachnia can simply detach the 'cable' that connects the grapnel to her systems, followed by using a leg-laser to blast the grapnel itself - she doesn't want to leave USEFUL bits of herself behind, especially not here. If the grapnel survives this unbesmirched, she'd be happier not to lose it - but she's willing to cut off a replaceable piece of herself to help get this done.

Hopefully nobody's going to have major issues with a giant cybernetic spider running around who's now missing anything resembling a mouth, or the spot where a mouth should be.
Shadowed Scales     The young woman who arrives at R&D, panting, looks a bit out of sorts. Addled and lost perhaps. Her dark hair is a mess, and she looks like she's been through hell.
    In truth, Kielen Jarat was a young scholar from the East in Creation. An up and coming researcher of the First Age, and thusly her studious appearance... Lends well to wearing a uniform that matches the ship's crew. It's a replica of the one worn by the delusional woman that had been found in medical.
    Truthfully, she probably doesn't look out of place at all, wild-eyed, bewildered, and roughed up, as though she's been trying to just keep alive for a week, as she comes stumbling onto the group.
    "Ah..."
    Wild eyes look to Mel, Sarracenia, and Black Arachnia. There's a moment of gobsmacked silence. And then.
    She parrots.
    "This place needs to be blown up- that's the only way to make sure it doesn't get out."
    Oh hey look. A 'local' who COMPLETELY agrees with Mel's sentiment.
Mel Brock     Mel watches quietly, letting the spiderhacker do her spiderhacker thing - even when that thing turns out to be 'jam it full of cybervenom', she's not particularly fussed. It's as good a delaying tactic as any.

    The appearance of another survivor, on the other hand, now that's cause for a more active response. "...yeah. Yeah, I'm with you 100% on that. It's not safe to go after the self-destruct, but we can call people in with heavy ordnance to erase this thing. For now we've gotta get off the ship. You alright to travel? Not hurt anywhere?"
Xiao Li Yu      MESS HALL: ...There is nothing here. The corruption has spread across it rather librerally, and a few shambling Assimilated can be seen stalking through the aisles between tables. Some meals ave been left half eaten...

     CREW QUARTERS: A lot of empty rooms, a few dead bodies, and then a couple more of those Assimilated crew members wandering like zombies. One door appears to be closed shut much like the door in Medbay.

     CARGO BAY: Lots and lots of materials. Bulk ammunition, medical supplies, conveniences, and the like, all in crates and unsorted. Corruption has spread through here, but there doesn't appear to be anything remarkable.

     HANGAR: The Hangar is NOT where they came from. That was Emergency Landing. The Hanger is filled with a distressingly large number of mobile suits and space craft, along with weapons and maintenance equipment for them. The bay is empty, and corruption has spread all across it. It's entirely thorough, unlike the half hearted job other areas have seen. One of those mobile suits' eyes gleam to life, and it looks directly at the drone that came in.

     The machine moves, and reaches behind it's back, towards a handle of what can only be a beam saber. All other mobile suits in the hanger come to life as well with a green gleam of their eyes.

     OH BOY.

     R&D: Mel has the right idea. As does Sarracenia. Those ice shots fire out, and spread across the area, frost building up across the surfaces. AND HEY A SURVIVOR! That's totally right in tune with matters here! HOW UTTERLY CONVENIENT!

     Black Arachnia fires her claw and it immediately impacts the terminal and injects into the system. The effect is immediate. The terminal freezes and crashes with error messages, and then the material on the walls and floor start writhing wildly. And that's just what they can see here.

     From throughout the ship, alarms go off, and creaking and trashing follow. THEN something...interesting happens.

     A GIANT PILLAR of pink energy comes PIERCING up through the floor, and then starts cleaving across the floor, barreling right everyone in the lab. And from below in the hangar, Staren's drone will see...

     ...The hangar gates leading into space openining up as every single mobile suit and space craft down there flares to life, then start blasting off. Apparently, they had no intention of being here any longer. One mobile suit remains, cleaving through the hangar ceiling, and the floor of R&D with a beam saber.

     On the terminal screen, it's frozen at one particular page.

     'Operation Star Cluster'

     'Objective: Large Scale Eradication of Intelligent Life'

     'Preparations: 80'

     'ADAM Assimilation: Complete.'

     And then, the screen flickers, and changes to a countdown. It's at 00:04:59, and counting down...

     That can't be good. Like, at all.
Black Arachnia You know what *is* good at a time like this? Running.

Black Arachnia releases her grapnel's hold on the terminal and reels the thing back in as fast as she can, pivoting with a quick skitter of legs on ceiling, and takes off - right as a mobile-suit-size beam saber goes cutting through the floor of the R&D lab, making things way too exciting for anyone's comfort.

Actually, maybe she should make sure Mel and Sarracenia and that random survivor are making time as good as her own, but that'd slow her down more and the other three all seem healthy, ambulatory, and motivated enough to make good time on their own.

What Black Arachnia *can* do is check her internal 'maps' of the ship's layout, based on the terminals she saw earlier and how her team actually got from the landing dock to Engineering to R&D, and make sure they're on the most efficient route. Forget waiting until the countdown hits zero, she wants to be off the ship and out of danger's reach by the thirty-second mark if not sooner.
Mel Brock     The sound of rumbling and movement down below gets Mel's attention - and then a beam saber carves up through the room. Immediately, she tackles the survivor out of the way, not even thinking twice about it. Only when it's gone by does the marshal move to stand up, offering the TOTALLY A CREWMEMBER a hand and looking around the room...

    At which point she spots the countdown.

    "...Run. Run run run RUN. BACK TO THE HANGAR."

    She practically yanks the poor survivor girl to her feet, and then starts to book it for all she's worth - though never quite outpacing the poor survivor or Sarracenia. "Hravn, if you've got anything to get the three of us out of here, now's the time!" She's not just saying it, either. She's pushing her will into the sword, trying to draw out something, anything that will get them there faster or safer.
Sarracenia      Sarracenia can't keep herself from letting out a surprised shriek as that huge energy sword slices upward through the deck at them. She leaps back quickly, then takes off down the hall as well! But, she takes a moment to grab the apparent survivor's hand before she starts running. The princess is surprisingly fast in heels. "I-is this what heroes experience all the time?!" she exclaims as she runs, throwing ice bolts behind her in some vain attempt to slow the slicing blade.

     Back to the hanger! Must get back! Get to the Dyna and get out of here and make sure this ship is completely disintegrated! "We cannot destroy this ship fast enough! Everything must be burned! I do not think my navy has the appropriate weapons for it, but...someone must!" She doesn't know about the corrupted mechs and fighters heading out into space. If she did, she might consider calling in her navy.
Heaven's Armory     Hravn does, in fact, have something. The focus of her magic is all around them. The effect will be centered on the blade, but spread more or less evenly for some distance, at least taking Mel and the conveniently-found survivor, assuming the latter consents to being yanked around in service of saving her life from whatever the countdown promises. Sarracenia and Black Arachnia will at least feel the effects, if not be taken for a ride.
    The air hums for a moment, then rings like a bell. Hravn glows to obvious effect. The air then picks up with a sudden gust that just keeps going, sustaining itself like a storm in a wind tunnel, and using the entire ship's passage for that purpose. The air roars from behind and seeks to carry along any within as curiously cushioned passengers, pushing toward the center of the space rather than dashing anyone against the sides. Rarely would one meet a storm of such apparent intelligence, but here it is. Twisting down one turn or another is no great, further obstacle.
Rebecca Chambers With Mel taking care of the survivor, Rebecca decides that there's only one thing left to do, and that's to RUN! Of course, with the woman she's trying to evacuate, running as fast as she can isn't easy, since she has to help this woman. Despite being injured and holding the woman, Rebecca still manages to keep a good pace, even if her movements veer off course a little. She hopes that once she's back inside SAIL, she can find a place to get a drink of water or something like that. Anything to help her feel a bit better. She doesn't bother stopping or looking back, just continues to run as best as she can until she reaches the emergency landing bay.

Once she finally arrives, she spots SAIL and quickly boards it. She looks for a place for the survivor to lie down before she gets a drink of water quickly. "I hope you know what you're doing, Staren!" She mutters, before looking to the survivor. "We're going to get you to someplace safe, don't worry."
Staren     Staren gathers info. Things are bad, time is tight, the smart thing to do is to just leave...

    But there might be more survivors. He has nearly five whole minutes. That's enough time to TRY to do something.

    Staren runs to the crew quarters, leaving a drone to monitor it. Staying outside of sight of the door until the last moment if he can, he readies a couple of hellball grenades (all fireand heat, minimal shockwave) and a bunch of HEAT missiles, then tosses everything in at once (missiles prioritize targeting the infested's weapon systems). Yes, there's some risk the door the survivors(?) are hiding behind might be taken out, but they're gonna die or worse anyway, so... it's a harsh decision, but one he doesn't have time to angst over.

    Hopefully, that takes care of the infested, and he can go to the door: "Listen! I'm here to rescue you, something really bad is going to happen to the ship in less than five minutes, you HAVE TO COME WITH ME NOW!"

    Otherwise, he has... minutes, to try and finish off the Infested with his other weapons, and well, he DOES carry a substancial arsenal... "Can you hear me in there?! You have to get out of here! Open the door and run past me, I'll hold them off! We have less than five minutes until... something REALLY BAD happens!"
Staren     Meanwhile, the SSC Stranger than Fiction's screens display an amber-monochrome image of what appears to be a robot wizard. "Do not worry," S.A.I.L. says, "I can take ample care of all of your piloting needs."
Xiao Li Yu      The beam saber cuts through the floor, and cleaves after the three... four, in an arc, until they finally scramble out of it's range. There isn't another slice. What follows instead is the sound of thrusters going off, and then a blast as something exits the hangar below.

     The run to the emergency landing bay is thankfully clear as everyone hauls ass to their assorted ships, survivors in tow. Well, one survivor, and then one 'survivor'. But no one here seems to actually know that. Sneaky snake.

     They are free to take off and get out of dodge before the entire thing blows up and takes them with it. But before that... What exactly IS Staren up to?

     He's charging into the Crew Quarters like a genius, weapons loaded. Grenades are tossed and missiles are fired, impacting the various infested entities with a burst of fire of heat that spreads across the bodies of the shambling beings and causes them to gradually lose functionality.

     The door is charred and burned, but still holding. Inside, there's a surprised yelp, and someone shuffles after hearing Staren's voice. "...S-Someone's out there?" The voice of a middle aged man sounds out. There's some hesitation, and then with a click, the door slides open, revealing a lone crew member. He wore a dirtied military uniform, and was free of any assimilation. Though he looked haggard and nervous, with unkempt facial hair in a beard.

     "It's just me. The others...tried to get out and find help. But failed." But this wasn't the time for explanations! He reaches at his hip and pulls a pistol, aiming at shambing things that were coming in from the way opposite of Staren's path. They all raise their arms and start firing plasma bolts.

     "Whatever you were planning to do, do it now!" The survivor hurriedly states, returning fire frantically.
Xiao Li Yu      The frantic, frazzled, not entirely there survivor that Rebecca helped along has to be urged to settle down into a seat, and she still doesn't relax, wringing her hands, eyes darting this way and that. "This place could be infected too... the virus...it's everywhere..." Not going to relax, this one.
Staren     Staren fires riot foam grenades to stick any remaining Infested to the floor. "Hurry, back to the intersection!" He runs with the survivor. "Okay, here's the deal: If you have ANY quick way to get onto the locked bridge and set the self-destruct within... two minutes, I think we can pull a complete win. Otherwise, just run to the emergency landing bay!"

    If they go to the bay, he grabs the survivor as soon as they're in sight of the castleship, and both are beamed aboard. S.A.I.L. immediately begins getting them all out of dodge!
Rebecca Chambers Meanwhile Rebecca attempts to calm the survivor. "It's going to be all right. Just please try to calm down." She shudders a little as she remembers the time she had to deal with an unruly patient, which required a sedative to calm them down. "Please, listen to me. We're going to take care of everything, so I want you to take a few deep breaths. We've got everything under control."
Mel Brock     Once the Chaser is clear, Mel will accelerate out and take the little vessel back to its 'mothership'. The Firestarter isn't equipped to handle more than two or three people actually living in it (and, at the moment, Mel is only stocked for herself), but for just transporting people it's got a fair bit of room. What it doesn't have, however, is 'anything more than a very basic, bare-bones medbay'. So after waiting around long enough to see whether Staren gets out alive when the countdown reaches zero, the ship will then make a jump to head for the nearest station they can drop the 'survivor' off at.
Black Arachnia To be fair, Black Arachnia DID figure something would try to kill them in reprisal for her stunt with the cybervenom; she just didn't think anything was going to go for the degree of overkill embodied in a giant robot trying to kill a few things small enough to pilot it by beam-sabering through the ship's superstructure for it. If she draws the short straw for writing up the report, she might have to apologize for that.

At the moment, though, she's more concerned with getting off the ship alive. And then, of course, there's that whole 'Operation Star Cluster' and its objective of 'Large Scale Eradication of Intelligent Life' - certainly something that warrants further investigation and probable interdiction.

Preferably by actual elite front-line heavy combat types, because the best Black Arachnia personally could do about a giant robot or a planet-cracker or something else in that category of oversized and nasty is to hack its control systems. Which may WORK, but it's not going to save her life if, say, three of them are ganging up to try and kill her at the same time. Not to mention dozens or hundreds or more of others trying to kill people who aren't her.

You know. Just a practical consideration. But until somebody can work out exactly Operation Star Cluster is starting from, there's not a whole lot to do with that terribly dire warning, except to secure herself on the Firestarter (probably on the cabin ceiling, it's not like anyone else is sitting there) and let Mel get them out of the blast radius.
Xiao Li Yu      The man shakes his head at Staren's plan, "You are crazy? You want to go right into the hornet's nest? And that's assuming that there's a way to open the bridge from the clutches of that... thing, in two minutes!" Ack! He ducked under a shot that just barely missed his head, and then he darted out.

     "You say there's two minutes? Then let's get out of here! There's no time!" No way was he ggoing to the bridge. Surviving this one was enough for him. So it was to the intersection and then bolting off to the emergency landing bay.

     Several infested shambled out from other hallways, and shots were exchanged, before they vanished into the bay and teleported into Staren's ride. And with a blast off, they left that creepy starship behind.

     5...4...3...2...1...

     KA BLAM!

     Space lit up orange and red as the Trailblazer literally went out in a blaze og glory all it's own.

     Perhaps they should send a cleanup crew later to make sure nothing more got out. ...But that was already discounting the fact that an entire army's worth of mecha and space fighters got away for some 'Operation Star Cluster'...
Sarracenia      Sarracenia lets Mel take the 'survivor' as she flees for her wooden fighter. She is just about as out of her mind as the survivors at this point. This sort of actual danger is completely new to the spoiled brat of a princess! The Dyna's systems take almost no time to power up, considering it hardly has any systems. She just punches her rocket engines and makes a break for it!

     As she rockets away from the scene, the princess finds herself slowing. That wasn't heroic or princess-like at all! Just abandoning her allies to their fate? But, she isn't about to go back! That was actually scary, and she could have gotten killed!
Staren     "I was crazy enough to come get YOU, wasn't I?" Staren replies, but he doesn't second-guess any further. Off they go!

    And the Trailblazer goes off too. "Wow. I guess we didn't need to use the self-destruct after all." He scratches his head. "Alright, we're going to find someplace safe you can all be treated for any injuries and debriefed. I'd certainly like to know when all this started..."

    Staren looks to the female survivor. "And don't worry, I've got something for that." He goes to a locker and grabs some bracelets, slapping them on everyone, as well as a device the size of a shotgun shell to clip to their clothing. "These will detect and fight any nanotech that got on us. Since none of us are turning into those... things, hopefully we don't have any severe contamination.