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Redshift Operators | Welcome to INTERSTELLAR FRONTIERS ONLINE 2! The VR links remain mostly functional. Sterile 2, callsign 'Bonfire' has stayed logged-in, obsessed with not even touching the logout button just in case. After all, if it hasn't kicked her out on an emergency system... well, whatever happened, happened. It's better to focus on what she can affect. She's listening in on the Silhouette, docked snugly against one of its fighter pads but refusing to accept any launch-lock just in case. This leaves her in the *incredible* position of conference-calling the briefing that's happening maybe 20 meters away, pacing around her near-opaque cockpit just visible out the window that looks over the fighters. Those who log in via VR will get to holoproject with her into the little briefing room, while those who visit in-person get to walk aboard the Silhouette using onboard teleportation relays and other suchlike. Cavern 3, Atlantis, keeps his sour eyes on everyone, invariably suspicious. Late-thirties, lightly-bearded, scarred at one cheek. Cavern 2, Chariot, was less sour, keeping her distance and watching the strangers with an analytical eye. Early forties, probably, with a graceful aging and an elegant, coordinated way of moving. Cavern 1, Gyges, already has his helmet on, one thin green line seared across his eyes to split the dark grays and reds of his helmet and its twin thick slicked-back antennae. And he brought snacks, of course. Those who are helping out with Bonfire's isekai situation are given access to the same convenient batch of armaments and build assistance they had last time -- provided they add a little red to their vessel to help mark them as allies and distinguish them from the blues of player forces when things get hairy in close quarters. Looks like, for one reason or another, Enemy Forces ship-maintenance systems work just fine with player arsenal systems. Like before, anything from mining melee, to cyber-warfare casting, to SWACS and repair support, to pure fighter combat, can help manifest someone's skills into the world of Interstellar Frontiers Online 2. Even multi-player ships! But crossing the ship interior/exterior boundary when you're not in the game-world in-person always makes the engine fritz a little -- hence the holocalls. |
KNK | Kage-no-Kaika are here in person, a pair of what are, by all visual indicators, half-masked, katana-armed kunoichi in scarred armor and silk. Sensors outside the visible light spectrum reveal a very different picture, but Violet would consider that rude to point out. Rose expects to do most of the talking, though that's on the assumption that this is more of a planning session than a social call. "Armor donned, foreshadowing ready -- at least one other person here is getting those transmissions from the stars, right? If not, forget I said that." "So, I got to come aboard, after all! Hehehe... hmm, wait, why're you the only one wearing a helmet? Are you shy? Even more shy than Bonfire?" "'Shy' isn't what I'd call her." |
Audrey Basque | Since last time, Audrey has developed FEELINGS regarding the appropriateness of her character looks. Sadly that's locked in unless she finds cosmetics, and it's not like she's a real pilot with a real ship she can just... bring over. If this had stayed a game, just a game, she'd mind a lot less! ... at least the cat ears are still cute. Audrey, whose callsign is Quasar - and whose ship is also Quasar, because it's both simple and calls back to certain tropes of the genre - shows up in the holo briefing room on time, still wearing that nearly cybernetic looking body/pilot suit with the tinted mask and mechanical cat ears on her head. The tinting on her mask is turned pretty high such that only the hint of her eyes and mouth are even visible. Which is FANTASTIC because she's tomato red under there for mysterious reasons. She has added red to her ship's paint (it's kind of various dark shades of black and grey, but now it's got red stripes), as requested. "So... Bonfire, how long have you been logged in, exactly?" |
Odette Raskins | Odette wasn't around for the first round in Interstellar Frontiers Online 2, but the invitation is too tantalizing to ignore. What she doesn't want, however, is to let anyone know she's actually joining them there. It's a rare opportunity to play the role of someone unlike herself, after all, so one of the new people that joins everyone and Sterile Squadron today is visibly unlike Odette in every way! Skull-protruding horns, large fangs, and red skin like an oni. White hair, in a messy ponytail held together by a silver bone decoration. A black spacesuit decorated with skulls and snakes and flames, not unlike a full body tattoo. Maxed out height and nearly-maxed muscle sliders, to feel as tough as she wants to be. Odette really hopes there's a voice modulator to hold all this together. After spending twenty minutes just trying to think up a name (eventually settling on the callsign Grotto), she spends maybe two minutes total putting together a build that's all in on damage and armor, speed and support capabilities be damned. Now she just needs to figure out what she's actually helping with. Holoprojecting into that meeting room, 'Grotto' eyes Cavern 1's snacks as she wonders how well taste would transmit through the link, but fights the urge to ask for some politely and just goes over to... She just needs to grab one. It's that easy. Just grab it. Just reach out, stop hover-handing around the snacks, and... She stares at Gyges tensely, then nods slowly after a moment before reaching for one. How do people just walk on by and do it so casually? She forgot that she's holoprojecting, though, and awkwardly moves her fist back up to her chest in a totally-intentional greeting of sorts before turning to the meeting and trying to forget she did that. "Red, huh? Good color. What are we aiming for?" She asks, pausing to consider Audrey's question before looking over at Bonfire. "Warriors need to sleep, too. Will your body deteri... Get weak staying in here?" |
Petra Soroka | Probably, the Beauty of Ash is distinctive enough in its own right to not be confused for any other players or their allies forces even without a marking. Even if there happen to be more mechs on the Enemy Forces side than IFO2 really allows for, Petra's is still gleaming translucent hardlight that refracts waves of iridescent light from every surrounding star, with an origami-animal profile and a glowing gold eye. There isn't, to Petra's pride, one in the universe that looks just like it. However-- there's still a little bit of narrative sense in putting a dash of red on it anyways. Practically, it represents a willingness to do what's asked of her in order to keep the peace, and eliminates an already vanishingly small risk for no cost. Narratively, it's a splash of image that indicates a particular moment in time and in the story, where Cavern Squadron and Bonfire are tentative allies in a way that feels destined to collapse somehow, leaving that splash of red as a melancholy marker of past bonds once further down the road. So when the Beauty of Ash clambers into the Silhouette and Petra disembarks from it, there's a stained-glass-like painted red marker on its shoulder. Petra is here in person, of course, but because of vibes, she's chosen the same outfit she had before, which is a slutty mech pilot jumpsuit with a jacket on top. She has goggles, but no helmet, which would be entirely pointless in space if not for the fact that she has a special gun she can put in her mouth to get a helmet that *would* allow her to breathe in space. Without that knowledge, though, she looks a little silly. "So... Bonfire, how long have you been logged in, exactly?" Petra snickers at Audrey-- with a bit of a pointedly smug look unrelated to this-- and wanders over to grab some of Gyges's snacks. "I mean, probably 'since we met her, with a couple extra hours tacked on'. Do you think she was playing for several extra days before that just for fun?" "Will your body deteri... Get weak staying in here?" "There's sort of two options for that, right? Either yes, and she's somehow here physically when she wasn't before, or... no, because she's a VR projection. But either way, there's mental benefits to taking care of your body. Even in VR." Petra nods, distracted for a moment. "I read a study about it since last time." |
Angela | Angela doesn't look any different this time, though she is still sitting in her machine (cockpit shield open) as she's reading a romance novel. She is frowning to herself because she is feeling in a precarious position lately even though it is one difficult to articulate, which makes it worse. She almost waves off the snacks but thinks better of it a moment later and will take one (1) bag of snacks, studying it in her ship the way one might any other interesting specimen. There's fewer moments like these, as of late, as Angela tries out more and more food options--but it is still slow going because she didn't get much of an appetite along with her ability to eat. She doesn't like the idea of forcing it. She looks towards Audrey. Her frown deepens. She taps something on her phone and sends a message before going quiet again until Odette asks that question of hers. "Mm with careful maintenance you can keep a body functional even without brain activity for some time." She considers again and then types out another message on her phone, to Audrey. "I suppose theorizing about what keeps the body going when we hardly know where the body is or what the situation is a bit hopeful right now." |
Redshift Operators | "Neeever heard of that. Aside from those sun-worship guys." Gyges shrugs at Rose. "But don't worry! I can forget it. In fact I already have!" As to his helmet? He taps it at Violet. "I'm getting my anti-G blood saturation up. Nobody else does it, but I like breathing it in for a few hours before op time. As for me though, I'd *definitely* call Bonnie shy. She won't get out and come hang out for the briefing! And she won't even *consider* dropping the whole 'Sterile' thing." "Code - Dawn, Recite, Harmony. I actually did consider it. I just decided not to." Bonfire speaks up. "Because the only alternative you had was 'Cavern Provisional' and then you said--" "Hazing!" "Yeah. "Because I need to haze you! Hazing, hazing, hazing!" "You're not supposed to *say* hazing..." Chariot pipes up. "A man's gotta haze. We gotta induct while paradoxically harming!" "You really don't, Cavern 1." Bonfire grumbles. "The login time..." Bonfire shakes her head at Audrey. "That's what has me suspecting it's a Wonderland Scenario. If I were still in the VR rig, they would have pulled me out when Cavemouth closes at three," She says this with the confidence of having experienced it a few times. "Back on day one. We're a while past that. It's useful data to figure out how this whole game-world situation works. I might be here physically. But I *might* still be logged in... somehow." She shakes her head blankly. If Angela's messages are shared with her, she explains a bit: "Not like you can cram much medical gear into a Cavemouth stall, so since I didn't black out, we've gotta assume my body in the real world is missing, comatose, dead, something along those lines. I have some plans to figure out which, and other plans to deal with whichever one's true." Her hand trembles very slightly for a moment. She moves on. "I've been sleeping. Working out. Eating plenty too. IFO2's sense model is in-depth enough that it could be useless, but," She makes a bland, accepting gesture. "Plan for everything. Rather find out how my starvation works now, when and *how* it doesn't mean putting myself at risk." She gestures at Petra, who has accurately both filled in and defined her motivation for that. Her foot... taps a little, and she paces for a moment. "Don't know much about what's happening to my body, if I'm not physically here. Maybe one of you could track me down back in the real world? ...Sometime, if things look like that wouldn't be a huge risk." The Beauty of Ash was given a long slip of durable fabric that ties around a segment near the wrist, and leaves a long, dashing, *stylish* trail. Courtesy of, apparently, Atlantis of all people, with Chariot's enthusiastic approval. Those who partake of Gyges' snacks are treated to mostly protein-heavy cheesy meaty things, and those who express interest via hologram can get it brought to them via the staff of the Silhouette! For now, Gyges settles things down, spins up the big projector-screen, and explains the situation... |
KNK | "Huh, sun-worship? Weird. But no, we've been getting some ominous as hell transmissions from some stars." Rose shrugs. If Cavern squad has no info on that, then they have no info on it. Violet takes the opportunity to slip up by Gyges (slipping by being something very ninja-like) and give him a few finger-pokes. Ideally, this is just in time for him to chant 'hazing.' "Yep! Feels real to me." That's one mystery solved. Violet is also the only one, between the two KNK members, who partakes of snacks, pulling down her half-mask to omf-nomf things with enthusiasm. Rose keeps hers up, arms crossed, body language closed, though she doesn't so much as glance toward Violet during the acts of gluttony. Being not on any of the other ships, Violet is unable to conclusively prove the existence of other members of the party in the same fashion. Her finger goes right through Audrey's hologram with an, "Oops!" |
Redshift Operators | Gyges clears his throat while he steps to one side. Bonfire occupies the other side of the screen. One of those fancy tac-map powerpoints that the best operators have flits along the display. "When we get out of the FTL outlet, we'll practically be right on top of... ---------------------------------------- | /!\ALERT/!\ | | GRADE [DUSK] PLAYER FORCE | | --- | | COS "MIRROR" | | "DOSE" SQUADRON | ---------------------------------------- "...Or that's what I hear, anyway." "Code - Noon, Discord, Smoke. How are you doing that with your mouth?" "Don't worry about it. Now, this *probably* isn't a huge threat, but it's worth coordinating. They're probably prepped for us, our FTL style leaves a signal where we're about to come out of it, just in case you guys don't know. Bonnie doesn't know these other people well, apparently 'just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I know every other gamer' or something--" "Don't call me a 'gamer'." "--But they're *probably* other people 'logged in' like her. Or were." "Right. We don't know if that's just how it was in the world I was in before, and now it's different. In a Wonderland scenario, they might be..." Bonfire gestures oddly at the assortment of a few dozen starships. "They might just be symbolic stand-ins in this world. But if I'm still in a videogame, they're players. That might be able to solve some of our unknowns." "Most importantly," She zooms the map in on the Mirror. "This. This is the Mirror, a friendly -- now, sort-of-enemy -- station. Players could use it to send signals to other stations that would usually progress the game's meta-map. It was the origin of the signal that's put me in this situation, so there should still be a full copy of the signal here. And if the signal came from outside this world..." She brings her hands together firmly, nodding her wide-visored helmet. "Then we have strong evidence that it's probably a Wonderland Scenario and I'm fully reincarnated in this world. Because that would imply my presence carried on that signal, somehow -- and the Cavemouth Network is airgapped, isolated, near-impossible to breach from the outside." "Destroy Dose Squadron fighters," She says, marking them on the map. "Disable station security," She marks more turrets, barrier generators, and similar. "And carve a path for the Silhouette. Then, get in there and bring me a copy of the signal. That's the goal. Simple thing, but these guys are tough, and this is a defense-oriented location. Let's hear tactics to pierce the armor." |
Redshift Operators | Bonfire looks at Rose with a totally indecipherable expression (on account of the helmet, of course) and then scratches an arm with its opposite hand. "Mmm. Stars involved... well, that could be in-game stars, which would be other speaking NPCs in the Small Soldiers scenario, or it could be out-of-game stars, which would be in the Wonderland or Ender's Game scenarios... but I guess it doesn't really tell me much besides that someone who's big in their context is involved. Which," She presses her faceplate up against her face a moment, as if rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I mean, *I* could have told you that. But still, if we learn anything star-related, that could be useful." |
Audrey Basque | "Do you think she was playing for several extra days before that just for fun?" Audrey looks at the screens around her, wondering about that. Maybe... once or twice she's done something quite that unhinged, some popular released during a long weekend, but... she's not about to give Petra even more ammunition tonight. Besides, Bonfire responds. "That's what has me suspecting it's a Wonderland Scenario." "I see. Well, at least you seem to be taking it pretty well. In your position I would probably panic and..." Is that reassuring or making it worse? "Ah... sorry. We'll do our best to help you figure it out, though." Intermitently, she seems to be typing to someone. Don't worry about that. (It's Angela.) A WHOLE BRIEFING "So... possible PvP?" Frustrating. Especially if there's consequences. "And we have to make sure to mitigate our firepower so we don't just up and destroy the station. Can we get markers on the targets to avoid? If there's a chance destroying one generator might create a chain reaction or... something like that." Like the previous time, she positions her ship on the planning phase screen to soak up as much of the attention as possible. "I can keep their heavy hitters busy while more suitable vessels either destroy them or avoid them to focus on the station's security. Hopefully none of them are as overtuned as Cavern Squadron was." A slight aside to said squadron: "No offense." |
Odette Raskins | "Mm with careful maintenance you can keep a body functional even without brain activity for some time." "True. Th-" Wait. Crap. 'Grotto' isn't supposed to know that, is she? Well, it's not like she's established anything about this persona yet. She can work with this. "... The craftiest healers I've met spoke tales of such people living for years." "Rather find out how my starvation works now, when and *how* it doesn't mean putting myself at risk." Thankfully, Bonfire isn't in a coma, but visibly active with obvious brain activity! "That's sensible. Find out now so you can fight with more vigor in battle later, knowing all that. If you do not know where your body is..." It's a puzzle Odette has no way of solving yet. There's no way of knowing what could even be tracking Bonfire's actual body, or if that technology even exists where she's from. Filing it away, she eventually gets some of that cheesy meaty snack food, and she makes sure to hide even her hologram in a corner before eating and letting her guard down a bit. She comes back around once it's time to stare at the map, and she remains mostly silent as she tries to digest everything she's hearing. Hearing about Mirror being the origin point of the signal that brought Bonfire here in the first place is what she really ends up zeroing in on, though, and Odette tries not to let her heavily-modified face show how excited she's getting by just scowling instead. Or trying to scowl. She ends up looking mildly uncomfortable. "Then we track down their logs to find the signal's originator. From there, we can... Force an answer out of them, if need be." 'Grotto' declares, still uncertain if she wants to try establishing herself as a hardass brute or a more yakuza-y sort. "If it's defenses we must break, then we should strike hard and fast." Okay, maybe this can help her get some meathead cred. "We all fire at once at a single point to take out their generators, then move in to wipe them out!" "And we have to make sure to mitigate our firepower so we don't just up and destroy the station." Wait, crap, Audrey's right. And if there's a chain reaction that does blow everything up, wouldn't they lose their chance at retrieving any information about the signal at all? Weighing her thoughts carefully, Odette forma-beeflord eventually shifts her attention back to the map. "A main force to open a hole, then draw the defenders' attention away from the docks. A smaller force slips in to make the copy later. Will that do?" |
KNK | Violet follows up bothering Audrey to glide catlike around 'Grotto,' making some comment about "So this was an option, too?" She already knows she can't touch the holograms. "Whether they're remoted in, or just some kind of 'stand in,' that means the other players aren't at risk, either way. Good for them." It's hard to tell if Rose is saying that sarcastically. "We'll be better as part of the infiltration team than as pilots. KNK are very, very good at that. Who else will be boarding? What are our resources? I need to know if it's more worthwhile to breach and hold the door, or to breach and race for the goal." |
Audrey Basque | Violet finger-pokes Audrey's projection. "H-Hey!" Of course she feels nothing but-- that's still weird. "Well, I don't have a ship... and I'm not a pilot... and I really thought this was just a video game stunt promotion kind of thing, so... I couldn't really come any other way, unless I had a ride I could borrow, and-- even then, it'd be hard to contribute in the ship combat sections." If the environment would even let her. Would it let her? Now she's curious, but not enough to try. "Honestly it's pretty courageous of you all to just... jump in, not knowing if there'd be consequences if something happened to you here." |
Angela | Angela isn't sharing her private texts with Bonfire but she is speaking, vocally, on open comms. She definitely knows how to not use open comms. She read the whole tutorial! She wonders if when she finally leaves the facility for good, or at least without a chain tethering her to it, if she also will be unsure if she died or was comatose or something else--in truth, she isn't entirely certain that her experience with the multiverse wasn't a kind of 'isekai' herself. After all, it isn't exactly normal for her world to suddenly be connected to multiple worlds--even if the primary Warpgate was Lobotomy Corp's for a long stretch of time. "If you want, Bonfire, I can try to draw a page from you and see if there is additional insight--but it is a bit of a crapshoot. What I get may not be immediately helpful. Or ever helpful." VR has sure gotten strange, Angela thinks, at a certain point one might wonder what even the difference is between reality and virtual reality if one can simply fly into it. "Mirror." Angela frowns. "An uneasy term considering the situation." Angela isn't too concerned about destroying the Station until Audrey mentions it as something to avoid and then she thinks about it and decides it makes sense, for a clue-finding scenario, to avoid that. ''The craftiest healers I've met...'' "Mm....mm..." Angela says, frowning at the strange hesitation. Her suspicion level raises one point. |
Petra Soroka | "You really don't, Cavern 1." 'Bonnie' makes Petra wince more than the chanting about hazing. Gyges is really charming, and given that he's got the 'enemy ace pilot' swagger to him still, Petra could very easily be swept up in his jokes, but Bonfire's reluctance is an anchoring point to the ways that Petra would ideologically prefer to align herself. There's no need to be a hardass about it, though. While popping a little space taquito into her mouth, Petra calls over to her, "Feel free to ring me up if you ever need someone less annoying to talk with, Sterile 2." "Maybe one of you could track me down back in the real world?" "I wouldn't mind," Petra volunteers, though she's not necessarily the best at the job. "Do you know the coordinates of your world? If you don't have a warpgate... it'd be hard, but not impossible, probably." Since Petra is physically here in the Silhouette along with Violet, rather than staying aboard the Beauty of Ash-- she *could*, but, she'd feel a little weird being translucently visible like Bonfire through her cockpit, only much more so, without the dignity of standing upright or even sitting-- she can, actually, get poked like Gyges. This puts her in the funny situation of being the only person verifiably real here besides the people who were referred to as 'NPCs' until recently. Petra settles down in a slutty pilot lean against the most available leanable structure, foot propped up against the wall and her arms crossed over her chest. She watches the projector screen from the side of the room, occasionally glancing towards Audrey or Angela for contextual support while trying to seem cool. "Other players... that's the most interesting thing, right? Can we risk attempting killing them, when it's not something we can rule out that *other* players were wonderlanded like Bonfire was? Any number of situations after that signal could've led to, like, you still being part of whatever bits of Sterile Squadron, like if there didn't happen to be any NPCs nearby to talk to." Petra holds her finger up and then points at the starships. "We should definitely try communicating with them somehow, or, like, boarding them like Violet was talking about if we can't, or straight up taking them as captives. If we do kill them, we should probably consider it, like, identical to killing a real person and not a gamer until we have a reason to think otherwise." "It was the origin of the signal that's put me in this situation, so there should still be a full copy of the signal here." "... And in that case, no matter who or what Dose Squadron is, we have to wonder what their motivations are for guarding the Mirror, right? Are they players protecting it because that's what that goofy lobby mission briefing told them to do for points? Or is this a different world from the game, and they're defending it because the signal... because something. The war?" "But still, if we learn anything star-related, that could be useful." "I would actually *love* to learn something star-related," Petra says Meaningfully while looking over at Audrey for a moment. She doesn't elaborate what she means by this but it seems weirdly intense. "The craftiest healers I've met spoke tales of such people living for years." Someone taking that specific Tone draws Petra's attention with narrowed eyes. "... Who are you, anyways? I didn't get your name. Is she one of yours?" She says with a head jerk in Gyges's direction. |
Redshift Operators | "In your position I would probably panic..." "Panic," Bonfire says firmly. "Is for people who can't take control of the situation enough to solve the source of fear. If I focus, and learn, and stay ahead of the current, it can't pull me under," Her voice is cool, even, sharp in the way that a well-cared-for tool can be sharp. "And I can't drown again." No tremble on this one, she's got it firmly grasped. "That's what makes games what they are. As long as you don't lose the mentals, you haven't lost completely. Until the very, very end." You're only negative if you're a bitch, or so they say. "... The craftiest healers I've met spoke tales of such people living for years." "Yeah. Heard about a couple 'death game' situations." She nods several times, pacing a bit. "'Blade Craft', 'Sword Art', I even heard some variant of IFO1 had a disaster like that. It happens. I'm just not speculating until I have something solid." "...The other players aren't at risk, either way. Good for them." "Unless any of them are here like Sterile 2 is, assume their 'respawn' works." The sour voice of Atlantis mutters as he shifts in his chair. "We've tracked callsigns and squadrons on these before. Kill them in one place, they show up somewhere else eventually. No reason to guess it doesn't still work." He makes a tense noise, hissing the air through his teeth. "Makes sense. Ruthless, skilled, self-destructive. They were just playing games the whole time." What do players look like to the NPCs of a game? Terrifying, in a way, it seems. "If you want, Bonfire, I can try to draw a page from you..." "If there's one thing I know above all else, it's who I am." Her voice is just as focused before. Even, steady, sharp. Every word clear and precise. "If you copy something out of me, all you'll ever get is me. You can do it if you want, but I have a feeling it won't tell me much -- the littler details of what's happening to me aren't a core part of who I am. Still, I appreciate it." As for the tactics... |
Redshift Operators | "Sounds like the best approach is," Gyges starts designating clusters of activity. "We'll rip apart as much as we can and bog down the station defenses." He gestures towards Petra. "She's got the point here. If Bonfire's intel on how the enemy thinks is right, they'll be focused on whatever's loudest -- probably gets them the most 'points' or whatever. Drops. Loot. I don't really know how it works. But if they try defending things more savvy-style, then," He does a few focusing, open-palmed motions. "We need infiltrator types instead. They'll bog *us* down, and it's easier for them. That's why I want la du mortigamiketojn over there," He gestures to Rose and Violet. "To actually be on-call for a whole, you know, fancy diversion scheme. But if they're like the guys we've been fighting for years, we'll break them down eventually. Attrition-style." "But for once it's not our goal. Honestly, we don't usually grab intel anyway. Kind of new stuff. And if the enemy, the 'players', are acting new too, well, hey! Maybe we'll just talk this out. Not like I didn't charm Bonnie--" "Code - Caltrops, Dawn, Heat. Can you stick to 'Bonfire'? Or Sterile 2, at least." "Not like I didn't charm Cavern Provisional with my amazing charisma, so I can get these guys too, if we can talk. And Bonfire can help! She's great." Bonfire puts two fists against the forehead of her helmet when Gyges says this, making a low "ghhhhhhhhh" sound. She refocuses. "Alright. We've got main-strat 'churn the players until their respawn tickets run out'. I'll assign groups for that. And we've got off-strat 'bog them down so that on-foot infiltrators can work'. I'll assign some groups for that too. Tertiary strat for... 'Charisma', whatever that would mean. Follow Gyges' lead for that." She rubs the temples of her helmet. "Apparently he can make any players do what he wants by being *so stubborn*, so you can depend on that. We'll call which strat to use when people start shooting..." Petra might have been meaning for that to hit Audrey most of all, but briefly, Cavern 3 'Chariot' flags her down. "I usually use it as my good luck charm -- long story. But we actually do have a Holy Solar bible if you're wanting to know about what solar stuff is around here." It's kept near the front. Looks like it's a tap-charm based on the finger-spaced indentation on the cover, and it's kept next to two additional charms: An immaculately-cared-for succulent and a small, sealed bottle of 2040 vintage Stinkeye's with a faded label. If Petra watches Cavern when they leave, she'll see their respective rituals -- Chariot taps the book, Atlantis cups the succulent in his hands once, and Gyges swirls the small bottle. She'll see it soon. Everyone's headed out on the op shortly. |
Odette Raskins | "So this was an option, too?" "Mm....mm..." "... Who are you, anyways? I didn't get your name. Is she one of yours?" "Given the chance to explore, of course I would use these grand options!" 'Grotto' bellows while laughing a little too hard, clearing her throat a moment later. She starts bringing an arm up to rest it on something nearby, then crosses her arms a second later once she catches herself going back to the habit of using her bag as an armrest. "I received an invitation, and I fell asleep. Once I woke up, though, I came here to lend my aid. My callsign is Grotto, but you can call me..." Wait. Dammit. She didn't actually come up with a name. Why did she even add that to her greeting?! Now she needs to come up with something fast. IS there anything in the room she can use? Dose? No, too close to medical. Dusk? No, that's already in use. Dose, dusk, dosukoi... Sumo? Heck with it, that'll have to do. "Honda." "Yeah. Heard about a couple 'death game' situations." "I've heard of these things happening before, but..." She starts, still carrying on in that faux-boisterous tone. "Didn't imagine those could be real... Well. No matter, if we just treat you as the general in need of bodyguards!" She's trying to sound casual about it, but there's still a notable tension of trying-too-hard in her tone. "We'll rip apart as much as we can and bog down the station defenses." Feeling a surge of confidence hearing that she's already on the same page as the leaders of this operation, Odette smacks herself on the chest like she's getting pumped up. "Then we'll be loud and wear them down at the same time, like a real siege! And if-" She looks over at Rose and Violet, then at Gyges. "-you can convince the enemy players to join us in all of this, even better." |
Petra Soroka | "'Blade Craft', 'Sword Art', I even heard some variant of IFO1 had a disaster like that." "Oh, I knew about the others, but I didn't know IFO1 did. Which is..." Petra holds a fist up to her mouth, thoughtfully gnawing on one gloved knuckle. "Kind of surprising, actually. But yeah, so far, it's not much like any of the other death game situations I've been in. How are the game mechanics and UI and stuff holding up in there actually, Bonfire?" "Kill them in one place, they show up somewhere else eventually." Petra shoves her hands in her jacket pocket, with a lingering look over in Bonfire's direction. "Well... it'd be good information to test, and I'm not going to fight *too* hard to do it the safe way, but... there is *one* reason to guess it doesn't still work. I think it's a good guess at this point that Bonfire herself wouldn't respawn, and... well, I'm not sure about any of the rest of us either. *I* at least definitely wouldn't respawn-- or, I guess, statistically I've ended up alive every time I've died, but it'd probably be a lot of work and I don't want to be a burden." "They were just playing games the whole time." "Jeez. Skilled? That doesn't sound like most gamers I know." Actually, that's not really true at this point, for Petra. Between Audrey, Arthur, Bonfire, and Nika, most gamers she knows are intensely fixated on precision skills and optimal execution. The least skilled person who plays video games she knows is... probably... herself or Lilian? But there was a time where Petra frequented Xbox Live lobbies to call people slurs over first person shooters, and so she retains opinions. "Actually... Bonfire, you said your hometown was pretty small, right? What's the size of the 'Player Forces' you guys are fighting, Atlantis? I wonder... if there was enough of a population for all of them to just be Ender's Game type stuff, or... if they're seeded around with other real people. I don't know. There's a lot of weird stuff that could be true that we don't know." "Drops. Loot. I don't really know how it works." "Imagine if you could brainhack your soldiers into following tactics by making a bunch of glitter pop out of their screens and a number go up each time they went to a capture point." If Petra has to do the war a third time, she'll consider gameifying it. Rita with the F.O.E. marker.... "That's why I want la du mortigamiketojn over there," Petra is jolted out of her post traumatic stress daydreaming by Gyges, shooting her face up and blinking. "Wait-- ridiru tion? Vi parolas esperanton? Cxu tion via eskadroj uzadas, aux cxu gxi estas persona?" "Not like I didn't charm Cavern Provisional with my amazing charisma," Petra rolls her eyes exasperatedly, but unfortunately for Bonfire, she's slightly incrementally more charmed by Cavern 1's amazing charisma. "And when you pester them enough to piss them off again, Bonfire can tag in to be the one who actually talks reasonably. ... Hey, you've got good enough atmospherics that I can smoke, right?" "I'll assign some groups for that too." Petra raises up one hand, with a lit cigarette smoldering between two fingers to politely interrupt the lecture before bringing it back to her lips. "I can do any of the three, but some specific stuff: I'm hard to put down, moderately alright at killing, and obviously an endless well of charm, but specifically, I'm telepathic to a range around the Beauty of Ash. I might be able to start a talk even if their comms are cut off, if I can get in close." "My callsign is Grotto, but you can call me..." Petra squints narrower and narrower at Grotto. "... I'm gonna call you Grotto. You have a callsign, but you 'woke up' here? Where are you from?" |
Odette Raskins | "You have a callsign, but you 'woke up' here? Where are you from?" "Huh?" Odette's confusion is evident even through the somewhat restrained expressions of her VR-face, and it takes her a moment to realize what Petra means. It's not quite the impression she was hoping to give, but this is something she can work with. "I hail from a place far from here. Another sector entirely, if you would believe it." She answers, gesturing out towards a window before remembering that she doesn't know where this place actually is in relation to everything else. "Somewhere out there... But I didn't wake up here. No, I woke up at home, but I overslept the first day." That much isn't even a lie, but it's something she can totally try and get some meathead cred with by laughing about it. |
Redshift Operators | "Wait-- ridiru tion? Vi parolas esperanton? Cxu tion via eskadroj uzadas, aux cxu gxi estas persona?" "Huh? Hahaha, v'a elparolo 'tas tre bizara, 'abino!" Gyges speaks sort of like the chav equivalent of whatever it is Petra's saying. "Jes ja ja jes, 'tas la lingvo de l'fako de advers~ism~ist~oj, m'miko!" Whatever he's saying sounds... bright and friendly? "Vivu la triunuo, heheheh!" Surely that was a clever joke, because Chariot briefly hides her mouth and Atlantis suppresses a short snort. "Yeah, I was wondering why your network handshaked an auto-translate, we had to swap back to Common to chat you guys up. Gxi'tas 'speranto cxar plej multe eln'a operacioj, ja." Emphatically: Even a fluent listener is going to have a little trouble because of the sheer volume of contractions and the absurd comfort he has in chattering. Either way, he's set to leave soon as well -- and thankfully, he's plenty fluent in "common", so his tactical maneuvering should be no trouble to comprehend. |
KNK | '-you can convince the enemy players to join us in all of this, even better.' "Yeah!" says Violet, with completely untrustworthy enthusiasm. "I am pretty curious what we'd see on cutting open those 'player' ships -- the ones you guys thought were drones. Would they be all decked out and ready for an occupant, even if they're remotely controlled? Or, is that just Bonfire's? It's not like they'll be different sizes, right?" 'Honestly it's pretty courageous of you all to just... jump in, not knowing if there'd be consequences if something happened to you here.' "Being able to join up on something that matters without risking your life is what's weird, if you ask me." Rose doesn't even mean this as an attack. It's such a natural thought to her that she might not be able to perceive any splash damage. "All life is struggle. If you want to keep living, you do your best to control the risks, but you don't stop fighting. If you're not moving, you might as well be dead already." "Besides, it'll be fine! If someone's shooting at you, just don't get hit! And if you get hit, just don't take it in the face! You can survive pretty much anything else, you know." "As long as someone's there to pull you back." "Yeah, obvies." Rose is called something by Gyges. "What was that? Something didn't translate. You a dead languages guy?" 'Occult language guy' is another possibility, but she's pretty sure those two categories overlap, anyway. Either way, she can't be too accusatory, given that KNK is from the same. 'We need infiltrator types instead.' "Yeah, that's what I'm figuring. If you don't need us for the attrition plan, we can refit our ships for breaching. Fuck, just get us close enough, and we can cut our own way in, airlock or no." "Ooh, that'd be bad for anyone inside!" "Yes." "I hope they've got spacesuits, too." "Sure." |
KNK | 'Mmm. Stars involved...' 'But we actually do have a Holy Solar bible if you're wanting to know about what solar stuff is around here.' "What? A... huh? Just to be clear, stars don't actually talk around here, right? I figured it was a really determined bit. Whoever it is identified themselves as a specific set of stars, so that's what I asked about, but..." Rose tilts her head, uncertainly staring into the distance of a corner. |
Redshift Operators | "What was that? Something didn't translate." "Ought to ask your pal there." Atlantis is a bit gruff. "It's *our* tactical-talk." "It's-- uh, it's hard to translate, but you're 'the li'l murder buddies', but it's sort of like you were a band or a kids' TV show." Chariot is nearly blushing with how awkward that is to say. "Gyges. Come on. Don't be weird." She admonishes her squad leader. "No!" He is probably beaming under his helmet. ""My callsign is Grotto..." "We'll stick to callsigns until this is done." Atlantis says, narrowing his eyes, and then... instead of looking at Odette with skepticism and mistrust, he grumbles, "Something's weird for everyone. Well if you weren't one'a those enemy fighters, whatever, but that's some weird thing of yours. See if you can figure out some way to traceback what happened. We're trying to figure a bunch of crap out, might as well figure yours out too." His caution isn't universally hostile, sometimes it's just... mistrustful of specifically the gaps. "Stars don't actually talk around here, right?" "Not to us. I mean *especially* not now. But there's-- it's super complex, we can talk about it after the op. Solarism's big around where we live though." Chariot looks like she *wants* to explain, and will, but she knows she'd be explaining it for hours... They've gotta deploy! |
Audrey Basque | "Panic," Bonfire says firmly. "Is for people who can't take control of the situation enough to solve the source of fear." "Ah... yeah, fair enough," Audrey replies, because... YEAH, FAIR ENOUGH? That's certainly a life philosophy she could learn a thing or two from. She's been bombarded with so many what-if worst case scenarios, mostly hypothetical, and she still doesn't have an answer for most of them. Any, more like. "Mmm. Stars involved..." "A... huh? Just to be clear, stars don't actually talk around here, right?" "If you want to get technical, stars do talk, but I won't bore you with the astrology lecture. They, ah... don't normally talk that clearly, or on public broadcasting lines, to advertise game events though. So... I don't know. I guess it COULD just be someone who thought naming themselves after a constellation would sound cool," says the nerd who called herself QUASAR and her ship also QUASAR because space IS cool and she won't hear otherwise. "I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later." "Yeah, that's what I'm figuring. If you don't need us for the attrition plan, we can refit our ships for breaching." "I can cover you. My ship's still using a defensive loadout with some of those taunt flares, so... it's my job I guess! Pet-- Cyborg too, I think." "Solarism's big around where we live though." "I don't suppose you have digital copies of that to pass around? I'd love to peruse, but I'm not sure I could take a physical copy considering." |
Angela | Angela hasn't made any other offer or even talked since her last statement. The term Solarism sounds familiar, but she must not have dwelled on it in the moment because even with her memory she doesn't really get any information from the term. "Stars have an important place in our society too though I do not know if I would call it 'worship' considering there is just as much eagerness as to drag a Star to the earth than it is to see on rise up." She glances over to Audrey, but she's already talked with Audrey about this in the past so she doesn't get any more repetitive about it. But this time she listens to Audrey speak of the stars--it might be very relevant soon since they'll be steal--hunting a bunch of them down. Yes. "We were summoned by stars to be here." She says thoughtfully. "In retrospect, that is kind of strange." |
Odette Raskins | "You can survive pretty much anything else, you know." "As long as someone's there to pull you back." "That's the spirit!" 'Grotto' chimes in with a hearty laugh, relying heavily on her avatar's less-expressive face to mask the fact that she's trying to sound braver than she feels about all this. It IS supposed to be a game to everyone that isn't Bonfire at the very least, so she shouldn't have a reason to be worried. Still, if there really is chance this turns out to be something like those other games that were brought up earlier, can she really afford to be so casual about this? "Besides, there'll be plenty of us to pull anyone out. We'll be fine!" She boasts, once again trying to convince herself that there really isn't anything to worry about. "Well if you weren't one'a those enemy fighters, whatever, but that's some weird thing of yours." "Eh? What's weird about it? It's strong, like the earth!" Odette feigns being upset, putting it on just a little too much to make it clear she's doing a bit. "A traceback, huh? Yeah, sure. Whoever gets inside will have an easier time doing that, but if we can hit it from multiple angles, we'll have more data to pull and look into for finding your signal." |
Redshift Operators | Interest in Solarism will have to hold. The gang are launching -- Bonfire dismissing her hologram and going to radio, and Cavern heading to the launch bay. The FTL visual-effects outside waver more and more, a subtle countdown that compliments the very literal countdown on display in the hangar, just like in that first encounter... Three plans are set. But only one will be used. Everyone's assigned their groups. The outlet opens up. A loud rattle. A heavy shock. "All elements, launch, launch, launch!" Gyges is surprisingly professional, direct, and calm. Launch catapults electromagnetically fire combatants out of the hangar at incredible speed, railgunning them at the potential foes. But Bonfire is the one who has gone ahead of everyone, with Atlantis moving close behind, gun readied and target locked onto her just in case this is still some ambush... "Sterile 2, Bonfire calling Dose 1. Request you stand down and lock master sheath, Code - Sympathize, Vaccinate, Night. Repeat, Sterile 2, Bonfire calling--" "DOSE 1. ALL ELEMENTS - CODE - CAUTERIZE, PLATING, NIGHT." The noise is abrupt, harsh, underlied by static. It cuts through Bonfire's words as if she weren't saying anything at all. "Sterile 2, Bonfire calling Dose 1. Do you copy? I repeat, Dose 1, thi--" "DOSE 2 - CODE - PLATING, DAGGER, NIGHT. MASTER SHEATH ON." "Dose--" "PANOPTICON THREE MAIN ENEMY FORCES ELEMENTS, ONE HEAVY THEATER, UNKNOWN EXTRA MASS. FANG 3 AWAY." The missile whirs past her, toward the attacking force. "Sterile 2 to Cavern 1, I can't... Something's happened, they're not responding. Code... code... ugh, what do I do..." The savviest knowers of Bonfire mentality would recognize: That vulnerability is real, but she's only releasing it because she, herself, is trying to forge a bond of her own. It is no sudden lapse in control. She is still in command. Tense chatter on Cavern channel. Gyges yells at Atlantis, eventually. "Cavern 2, fuck's sakes, focus on *these guys*! Cavern 1 engaging! Stick to main plan!" He surges forward, inviting the others along as well, into the ensuing violent furball of aerospace combat. Bonfire doesn't join in. Atlantis is still stunned, locked onto her. Chariot grunt in rising annoyance, until shouting, "Christ. Cavern 3 engaging, slow up Gyges!" And kicking off as well... |
Redshift Operators | The station itself... is distorted, disjointed. A quarter of it is decayed. A quarter, pristine as the day it was built. Another quarter, under construction. A fourth, an entire asteroid, one that wasn't meant to have a station mounted to it -- or at least not this station. Small automated vessels construct the under-construction quarter, deliberately oxidize and wear down the pristine quarter, and salvage the decaying quarter for parts to bring to the under-construction quarter. If one looks very closely at the in-game display, the listed monetary value of this station just keeps rising, indefinitely, as the constant rearrangement of the station affects the economy in some way or another. Amidst the heated combat, a lone Room-Dungeoneering Roguelite Protagonist escapes from samsara and jets off into the distance. |
Petra Soroka | "Hahaha, v'a elparolo 'tas tre bizara, 'abino!" "Hahh? Rigardu kiu fika parolas! Vi parolas kvazaux vi macxas brickojn." In response to Gyges sounding friendly, Petra, of course, sounds the same way she always does, which is as if she's brattily puffing up and raising her hackles at absolutely nothing. She relaxes a bit, though, dropping back into her lazy little lean on the pillar and taking another drag on her cigarette. "La tuta fako, tamen? Cxu gxi 'tas intencis esti kodlingvon? De kie mi estas, ne ofte uzas gin." "Cool, anyways," Petra drops out of the other language, back into English. "Bonfire, you don't speak it, right? Normally a language difference wouldn't be... notable at all with two sides of a war, but Esperanto specifically's something that.... If the Department of Adversity didn't teach it specifically to everyone for tactical speech, then it's something that would have to be manually spread, isn't it? I mean, it's not like people *coincidentally* learn the language." "Being able to join up on something that matters without risking your life is what's weird, if you ask me." Petra leans forwards, joking a bit. "I mean, honestly, I feel like the risk's higher with putting on a VR headset at this point, haha. At least when I'm here physically, I know that none of the rules can fuck me over more than they're fucking everyone else over." "So... I don't know. I guess it COULD just be someone who thought naming themselves after a constellation would sound cool," "I don't really think that's it. They had the same sort of cadence as, uh... um... what were they called..." Petra has forgotten the word for positron. "... A type of AI I met a few of before. And, I mean, it could just be a normal AI, or synthesized speech, or whatever, but the way they're talking doesn't seem... entirely *healthy*, right? And they did call out Sterile Squadron specifically by name, but we only have Bonfire left, so.... So... I don't know. But it's fucked up somehow." And then it's deploying time! Petra is, as she mentioned, kind of on the side of not immediately killing the players, just in case any of them ended up like Bonfire. This is not really because she values the sanctity of Gamer Life, even though she'd reluctantly admit that she's trying to do that a *little* bit, but because the information loss from killing their enemies is hard to swallow in a mystery scenario like this one. The Beauty of Ash streaks out of the launch bay, telekinetically accelerating through the vacuum rather than slowing down for the engagement, and slamming into the side of a player ship like a little baby RKV. Unlike an RKV, though, even though it seems like the spray of hardlight shards from the impact might just turn into ionized waste matter, they scintillate rapidly through the visual color spectrum before pulling back into the Beauty of Ash again, reforming it clinging to the side of the ship. Several puncture points are surrounded by massive dents where it collided, and the Beauty of Ash uses those to cling on for just long enough to send a wandering telepathic query into the ship. <<Hi?> Anyone <in there/at home/call-and-response>?> If it's just a digital fascimile, then there's nothing Petra can do-- even if there's a person in there, if they don't bother to communicate back, then Petra won't know! But in that case, either if there's no one inside or if she's being *rudely ignored*, then she's entirely within her rights to have the Beauty of Ash dig its legs in a little farther into the hull, then launch off again to finish it and go flying into the rest of the furball. |
Redshift Operators | Bonfire kicks off. Atlantis brings up her rear. When Petra pings the enemy force, within... she can feel it. An indistinct gamer-shaped mind -- as if their VR headset were bringing them in further than expected for an online game. And, being a gamer, they detect even the *thought* of the sound of a woman's voice and attack instantly. Whether she was comprehended or not, she was attacked without hesitation. When efforts are made to breach player ships, what emerges from them looks like... digital wafers, thin clusters of pure black material fracturing into rectangles and dispersing, before the entire ship breaks apart and the reactor therein detonates, incinerating the entire mass. Efforts to decode the language... The sputtering static has even less comprehensible patterns. But they're just as thick. Did the signal in the real world do something to the functionality of the other chat clients? However, there's one voice that can be heard among the player-aligned frequencies... and it's a very, very easily-broken encryption. Distorted and erratic due to signal loss, the few fragments are a man's voice in the middle of speaking to subordinates, based on the tone -- no other info to hear. |
Odette Raskins | Under normal circumstances, Odette would be watching the station's status and numbers, perhaps even joining the infiltration team to see what kind of anything she could find to help uncover the mysteries behind Bonfire's predicament. As 'Grotto' the spacefaring oni, however, she's taken on a far more combative role. She shoots, she intercept attacks with her ship, and she shoots even more. Gyges calls for fire support, and Odette obliges. Her positioning winds up being a little too aggressive at times, absorbed as she is in trying to play the role of a heavy gunner, but it feels.... Kind of good, to change things up. It's certainly not something she could do outside of this space-shooting context. "Come on, get somewhere safe and I'll pa-" Wait. She can't actually do that. "-aaste whoever's on your ass in the meantime!" |
Redshift Operators | Amid all the chaos: Atlantis breaks off from his maneuvers, catching the lost Violet and flinging her back after he yanks her onto his ship's wings. He's able to mostly match velocity so they don't die on impact, then mostly match his velocity to their spinning vessel. But not much else, this fight demands maneuvers for even his durable hull. The tense battle has worn Dose squadron down to its best units, and they're still putting up a hell of a fight. Grotto gets plenty of encouragement. Mostly from Chariot, but even a little from Gyges. Gyges, though... is mostly focused on Bonfire. Hollering at her. In the middle of a tense dogfight, inappropriately. Bonfire's dodging around some incoming fire to get a lock on one of Gyges' pursuers... "Sterile 2, evading." "No no, come on!" Gyges is yelling. "You gotta try it on!" "DOSE 4 HARMONY BROKEN. BREAKING LEFT, PUSHING." "Sterile 2 to Cavern 1, hold vector, readying panopticon lock on your pursuit." "DOSE 3 PANOPTICON SPIKE. ENEMY FORCE HARMONY UNBROKEN, NEED COVER, NEED COVER." "No no! Not 'Sterile 2', you have to try on 'Cavern Provisional!'" He sounds like an ecstatic child, playing around and waggling his ass insolently to make his pursuer dodge out of Bonfire's line of sight. She sounds like she's rolling her eyes. "Sterile 2 fang 3 away." "Come on! I've got this whole hazing ritual and everything!" Gyges wobbles a little like he's going to pull the foe fully out of her target lock. "You can't deny a man his hazing! Hazing, hazing, hazing!" He chants like child. "Atlantis, c'mon, tell her you'll be super seriously extra-untrusting if she doesn't say Cavern Provisional." "You are literally going to die if you keep this up, shithead." "I'm gonna die if I'm deprived of the power of friendship! I gotta have a newbie to haze!" "...Cavern 2 to Cavern Provisional. Please acknowledge." Atlantis sounds AGONIZED right now. With great agony... "Cavern Provisional to Cavern 2, copy. Ash one." Bonfire grumbles through gritted teeth as Gyges cheers and Chariot and Atlantis both needle him endlessly for his bullshit. |
Redshift Operators | In the interior... The ever-shifting halls and walls don't ever-shift quite fast enough to make Rose's life hell, or life hell for anyone who eventually joins her. She has the opportunity to take down the turrets after Dose Squadron is mopped up. Inside, there's a wealth of old signal data, a wealth of old information in varying levels of encryption. But finding the one that matters is more simple. Match it up to the record of the signal that hit the first station, and bingo: There it is. It's too densely encrypted to even start guessing at the content. But it's tagged. It was sent from a communications console inside this very station -- based on data loaded from existing storage. The signal, whatever it is, came from inside the game, and so Wonderland, at least by Bonfire's reckoning, is fully disproven. This is no vast and wonderful new world. This is still the same setting as IFO2. There's also a man, and a small team of varyingly-colored soldiers, behind him. If one looked past his heavy rifle, one could see through his helmet: The Lieutenant, brandishing the gun at Rose, and saying: "Hands over your head. No more signals. Whatever you sent -- you're gonna reverse it now." Looks like it's not just Enemy Forces who have more to say now. |
Odette Raskins | After that hard fought space battle in which Odette isn't quite sure how much she truly grasped what happened or how the game works, the EMT masquerading as a warrior loads herself right into her ship's EVA-pod to join Rose on the inside. On the way there, she gets a better look at the station being repurposed in different directions, although she misses the numbers rising thanks to her gaze being fixed on all those vessels working on the structure instead. "Did anyone else see those ships working on the station outside? IT looks like they're stuck in some kind of expansion... Loop of some sort. Is there any point to that, you think?" She asks nobody in particular while checking the place out. She's no expert in hacking, but she can at least mess with any unsecured computers to see if anything happens to be conveniently open with details about the signals or other opportunities/sidequests. She might not get to investigate for long, though, as the Lieutenant and the squad of soldiers arrive bearing guns and threats in equal measure. Inhaling sharply, Odette raises her hands slowly in compliance, although she's still (wearing the appearance of) a tall fighter-appearing invader. "Send...? We're not sending anything! And-wait. You're..." She needs to confirm something. "Can you understand us? Are you really here?" |
Petra Soroka | Well, they're only semi-conscious, *and* they're gamers! Not that the latter would be possible without the former, of course-- Petra thinks, conveniently excluding every single gamer she knows from that categorization. Now that the gamer horde is thrown into a rampage by the presence of a woman, Petra feels like she's been given free reign to rampage in return, only checking back in with the radio when the Beauty of Ash is surrounded by a corona of shredded hull shielding and drifting internals carried by the momentum of their obliterated ships. <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Violet says, "Oookay, made it! Wow, they coulda shot me while I was getting in! That would suck. They didn't, though! Oh, did you notice their ships just got, like, weird computer bits inside?" <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "I'm still thinking 'remotes.'" <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "Turrets are down." <J-IC-Scene> Cavern Prv. "Bonfire" mutters slightly -- then laser-focuses. "Internal cockpit instancing... That reduces probabilities on a *few* scenarios..." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "There was definitely some kind of, like, conscious response inside them, but... yeah, looks like gamers remoting in." . . . <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Because they didn't respond like a person, but it's not like a-- like, you can't get *any* telepathic reponse from a computer. So it's maybe like the IFO headsets were always *inclined* to do something like this from the beginning? As in, that there's some amount of the person playing that's dragged into the game. Or something." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "My gut feeling is that whatever happened to Bonfire's baked into the whole design of it, yeah." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "That it 'could' happen to any of them, maybe?" <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "You think maybe the ship reconfigures to having a real cockpit, with a kitchenette, if it gets a real person all of a sudden? That bit seems less plausible. Like, 'why'? Lot of effort to make that kind of transformation." <J-IC-Scene> KNK. Rose says, "Seems more likely she's a special case. Or maybe Sterile squadron was." Now Petra doesn't feel any more sure than she did before. Or... not that much more sure, but there's a couple possibilities that are more ruled out than they were. With the battle quieting down and the glowing fracture points on the Beauty of Ash gradually filling in with glittering shrapnel, Petra pouts and shuffles around in her cockpit to grab her radio again. ". . . Cyborg to Cavern 1. How come you're only hazing Sterile 2, anyway?" The Beauty of Ash can seamlessly transition between spaceflight dogfighting, and walking hunched along the hallways of the station. Petra doesn't even need to get out to go prowling around after Rose, though she will if she can lend Rose a hand with fucking with the tech. This means that when the Lieutenant shows up with a squad of soldiers, Petra is not in her big cool mech that could eat the gunfire without problem, but instead in her slutty jumpsuit with goggles pulled up to her forehead, tapping with a web of many-tendriled morphmetal at the screens. "No more signals. Whatever you sent -- you're gonna reverse it now." "Ah, well..." Petra carefully follows orders by putting her hands up, and just hopes that 'weird metal blob' isn't something they would consider included in that statement. "We were actually investigating a signal that got sent out, probably the same one you're talking about. It'd be nice if... we're on the same side, actually...?" |