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Post by Kaikoura on Feb 23, 2015 19:30:11 GMT -5
Kai flopped limply against the roof of the container, fortunately landing out of the way of the mechanical clamping arms that seized the box a moment later. They are slowly lifted into the air, Kai only dimly aware that she was moving again...her brain felt like pudding, and if the signal kept up too much longer it would be...only now that pain was joined with a fresh one, a heat which was quickly intensifying on the left side of her head. Her restraint device was beginning to heat up in one spot, a long, thin coil could now easily be seen as it superheated the metal around it.
Kai winced, but she could barely feel the scorching through her haze, so she mostly lay there as the crate drifted through the air. It spun around, just in time for Naja to be hidden from the operator as it moved towards the open hatch on the ship. Of course she couldn't hide from the bulky, heavily worn loading bots which guided the crate into position. As soon as it's down, one of them twists it's mechanical...face? It was only a large red light and a series of smaller sensors and things... towards her and begins sounding an alarm that the others quickly join in on.
Fortunately, as soon as they enter the ship, the tone going off in Kaikoura's head ramps down to a tolerable degree. Sounds come back, sensations, sensible thought! She'd still need a minute to function, hopefully Naja could hold out til then.
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Naja
Junior Member
"What do you mean there's no meat left?!"
Posts: 57
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Post by Naja on Feb 24, 2015 0:25:14 GMT -5
Naja hangs on tightly, grunting as she waggles there from the precarious ledge until she feels the shipping container touch the ground. She drops down and flops on the ground for a moment with a groan. "You okay up there?" she calls out to Kaikoura before tilting her head back and looking upside down at the cargo-bots. She eeps and quickly rolls up onto her feet, holding her fists up defensively. She reaches behind her for the stun prod she had earlier, only to find it gone. She must have dropped it earlier! In her defence the barely covering prison garb wasn't really good for holstering weapons. Naja growls in displeasure before glancing around to try and find something else very quickly.
She soon spots something and runs over to grab it. A broom! She runs back towards the cargo-bots before they can react, leaps up into the air, bringing it down on what she assumed was the robot's face. It shatters the red light and Naja gives a triumphant "Ha!" at it before noticing she's missing most of her broom and throws the remaining wood at the other robot, which merely bounces off it's metal form.
Welp, at this point the best she could do is distract them from Kai.
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Aye
New Member
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Post by Aye on Feb 24, 2015 15:06:51 GMT -5
The blue creature continued to watch from his vantage point high in the cargo bay, waiting in cautious anticipation. Chances are, whatever it was wasn't going to involve him but he didn't risk letting his guard down. The crane returned with it's same groan, dropping a crate down in the cargo bay and sliding it forward before moving away to leave it to the worker droids. But something was different about this crate. It was hard to see from this distance between the bars of the grate but there was definitely something with a bluish hue on the top of it. Then the droids sprang into alarm as their klaxons screamed.
His eyes then darted as he saw something move from the edge of the crate, dropping down to the floor. It moved quickly, leaped and then struck one of the droids which fell to the ground. It must have been strong to bring one of them down! But that would have to take a back seat to his problems now. He was well aware of the security protocols on ships like these and a blatant act of aggression like that would immediately prompt a ship-wide scan. It wouldn't take long before the damage report would yield an irregularity in the structure of the ventilation system and his little hiding spot would be compromised. Looks like the cat was out of the bag now.
High above Kaikoura and Naja, a maintenance grate seemed to come loose and fall, hitting the ground behind a shipping crate with a loud clatter. Shortly after that, however, something round and sky-blue seemed to roll from the hole the grate had left behind and fall. But unlike the grate, once the blue ball vanished from sight behind the crate, it made no noise to indicate it had struck the floor. As the majority of the loading droids were focused on the main security threat, Naja, one of them on the opposite end of the cargo bay went to investigate.
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Post by Kaikoura on Feb 26, 2015 10:03:32 GMT -5
The robot with the shattered lens in smacked with the broom, which causes it and all its compatriots to freeze in place. For a moment, the place seems to go silent as all robotic eyes fall on Naja. Then, simulaneously, they throw their robotic claws in the air, thier sirens wailing madly and charge Naja. The broom assault would be avenged! The only one that doesn't go after her goes after the blue thing around the far side of the crate, of course.
The claw detatches from the top of the metal box, but without the robots to lift it, it drags along the top of the crate. Kai was just sitting up when it started to move and she was, rather unfortunately, bowled over by it, toppling end over end before flopping to the floor. Fortunately, whatever pain was associated with that was lost in the throbbing in her head...and so she was able to pick herself up pretty quickly, which ended up being a good thing since the clamp then fell to the floor, just missing her, and creating a rather large hole in the floor of the cargo bay in which the clamp was now stuck.
The operator, rather unfortunately, did not seem to realize this as he began to winch the crane back into position, which caused the line to pull taut and jerk the whole craft to the side. Kai was thrown from her feet, tumbling right through the swarm of now rampaging killbots and then when the ships stabalizers kick in to compensate, back towards a door leading out of the cargo room. She ends up in a hallway, upside down and against the wall.
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Naja
Junior Member
"What do you mean there's no meat left?!"
Posts: 57
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Post by Naja on Feb 26, 2015 19:16:40 GMT -5
Naja grimaces, immediately regreting her decisions here. She ducks and rolls under a charging cargo-bot, causing it to collide with another. The huntress stands and bends down, preparing to leap up onto one of these strange creatures before suddenly toppling over sideways, and sliding across the bay floor into a cargo crate. She gets to her feet just in time to notice Kaikoura slide right past and says "Hey! Where are you..." in a vague attempt at getting her to stop. Clearly that was not going to work and at any rate she was kind of busy, having to then roll out of the way again as heavy machinery sticks it's claw through the crate next to her.
Some strange gunk spills out but Naja didn't have time for that. She grabs onto the claw and hefts herself up onto it, clambering onto the top of robot and trying to figure out if there was anything she could do. Not without a knife it would seem! She tries punching it but this only results in a hand that hurts. She looks around for yet another weapon before noticing one of the strange metal beasts trying to flee. Why? It must be trying to call the rest of the pack!
Okay, plan. Stop that runner, find the blue alien chick, pick her up, get out of here. She leaps off the robot and onto a cargo container, running after the fleeing machine.
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Post by Kaikoura on Feb 27, 2015 9:29:12 GMT -5
The craft jerks again as the crane operator tries to reel in the clamp. The stabilizers once again kick on, sending it rolling back the other way, making the whole thing rather like an unpleasant carnival ride. Fortunately, this isn't great for the bots who had a very difficult time remaining upright on the smooth metal floor once they tipped too far too either side. This of course was no concern of Kaikoura, who was now sliding down the hallway. People ran past her -crew probably- in a panic, trying to figure out what was going on with the ship.
They missed her completely in thier ongoing fight to stay upright, leaving her sprawled out on the floor of the hallway. Kai pushes herself up, her legs still not quite right, but she had to do something...they weren't out of the woods yet, so to speak. As soon as she's up, however, the ship jerks again, much harder this time and sends her tumbling. She smashes her head against the wall -or more precisely (and thankfully) her head restraint- which prevents a potentially serious injury. All at once, the bit of the jamming signal being broadcast into her brain stops.
It was replaced quite quickly with a warning siren coming from the ship itself...through her haze she began to wonder if she'd ever know peace and quiet again.
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Aye
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Post by Aye on Feb 27, 2015 18:45:53 GMT -5
The 'fleeing' machine rounds around the shipping container and comes to a halt, observing what it was that had fallen from the ceiling. The grate was on the ground, bowled outward from where something appeared to have struck it in the center and one corner which was bent in from where it had struck the ground. Beside it was an indistinguishable lump of blue fur. The cargobot maintained it's distance, running a cursory scan to see if it was safe to approach but before it could finish, the ship lurched again and the bot slumped forward, sliding towards the lump. In a flash, the fur sprang to life. In this case, actually springing towards the robot which was sliding it's direction. The thing quickly took form as yellow eyes appeared, needle-sharp teeth flashed and claws glinted from the tips of it's hands and feet as it lunched for about the closest thing to a 'neck' as these robots had. In truth, it was the coupling line from the central unit to the sensory relay but from an outsider's perspective, it would appear that the creature had latched onto the robot's jugular and bit down on it's electrical artery. Crimson coolant spurted from coupling line with each turn of the coolant pump, splattering over the blue creature and dribbling across the floor. Metal clamps flailed to try and remove the beast but with it's sensory capacity completely severed, it was clumsy and awkward. The ship lurched again as the crane's claw ripped open the metal floor of the cargo bay as it tried to drag away and the machine, without stabilizers or optical sensors, slipped on it's own coolant and fell over like a defeated Plain Borruk while the blue creature hopped off and landed on the ground beside it. As coolant continued to spurt from it's open coupling line, the cargo bot began to overheat and it's struggling slowly resigned to utter stillness as external functions were disabled in order to prevent catastrophic thermal damage and then shut off completely.
It turned it's head, red dripping down it's mouth and neck, pointed ears high and alert and yellow eyes focused squarely on Naja atop the shipping container considering if it was hostile yet. It didn't have much time to focus on it as another seven robots began to converge on them- not including the one that was busy picking up the two pieces of a broken broom.
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Naja
Junior Member
"What do you mean there's no meat left?!"
Posts: 57
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Post by Naja on Feb 28, 2015 6:18:24 GMT -5
Naja skids to a halt, partially to stabilize herself and partially because something had just attacked her quarry. She crouches and watches the fight, observing and learning. It was normal for beasts to fight one another in the harsh natural world, even in a completely bizarre land such as this. A new trick has been learned. The neck on these creatures is vulnerable. The question is, could Naja use her bare hands for such a task... it would be nice if she had a knife!
The huntress blinks when she realizes she's been spotted, and stares back at Aye carefully. "Awfully violent Lynian. Big too." she says to Aye, not expecting a response, but hoping for one all the same. "Funnily enough you're the most normal thing I've run into around here."
Her conversation is cut short though when the other robots turn up, and she has to bolt, jumping from the container and making for the direction she saw Kai slide away earlier. She simply wasn't going to be able to take all these things on at once and so the only thing to do was go back to running.
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Post by Kaikoura on Feb 28, 2015 9:56:20 GMT -5
A few more people rushed past Kaikoura on thier way to the main exit of the ship, since no one could seem to figure out what was going on, it seemed to be the unofficial consensus that getting off the ship was a good idea, at least to see what was going on. It helped of course that, docked as it was, there was only a skeleton crew aboard. They'd stopped at the door, most of them, since the pitching had done some serious damage to the catwalk...and since a rather angry Gyuun was coming towards them waving a firearm and demanding access to the ship. Fortunately for all of them, the crane operator was finally coming down to see what the problem was as well, so the ship would stay in place for the moment.
Kai slunk down the hall away from them, heading for...well, she didn't know really. A back way out perhaps? A hiding place? Somewhere she and Naja might lay low until the ship left the port? What she finds instead is the cockpit, a large partially rounded room looking out on the spaceport. The door slides shut behind her, causing Kai to spin around with a start and smack her Anai on the console.
"Ah!" she hisses, wincing heavily as she hears something that makes her forget all about it -a voice.
"Command line not recognized. Could you please input your request again?" it says. Kai falls and tries to slide back to the door, looking for whomever was talking...but there was no one.
"Um...hello?" she asks cautiously, hoping whoever it was would reveal himself.
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Naja
Junior Member
"What do you mean there's no meat left?!"
Posts: 57
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Post by Naja on Mar 3, 2015 8:02:58 GMT -5
Naja leaps down from the containers, making her way along the ground now, and heads for where she saw Kaikoura go. Thankfully these metal creatures were not exactly the fastest things around and so leaving them wasn't a challenge. She hoped the cat like creature would stay and fight them as a distraction, and not go after Naja because she didn't need ANOTHER thing trying to kill her right now. It's been a long day and she's kind cranky!
The huntress breaks her way out into a hall way and glances about, calling out "Hey! Blue girl! Where are you?" because she STILL didn't know her name. She grunts and heads down the hall in a direction, hoping it was the right way and spots someone fleeing the ship running her way, or rather, trying to run past her. Naja prevents this however, grabbing the strange creature by the neck.. or what she assumed was a neck. "Oi, slug thing." she says, that being her best descriptor for whoever this was. "You seen a blue chick with a metal hat run by? Got squid legs for hair." The crewmember looks at her in partial fear, and a lot of confusion. Maybe he just didn't understand her. Naja sighs and was about to let him go before smiling and snatching something off his tool belt. She didn't know what this tool was, but it was made of metal, and looked heavy enough. Naja then walks off, ignoring the protest behind her.
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Aye
New Member
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Post by Aye on Mar 3, 2015 11:42:24 GMT -5
Well, the mostly-bald thing certainly wasn't a threat to Aye as it readily darted off towards the cargo bay door- which seemed like an odd thing for it to do as it had been one of the things that broke a cargo bot and it most certainly wasn't dressed like one of the crew. It was dressed a lot more like the gaunt creatures that generally strutted around districts with a fair amount of red, neon lights. Not as colorful as them though. But no time to focus on that. With the fleshy thing gone through a door that the cargo bots couldn't fit through, the bots were now squarely focused on him and the only clear exit was out the bay doors. He bounded towards the open rear door and with an agile leap, landed on the thick crane cable and began to scale it towards safety. No, not safety. It was actually the other thing. Danger, that's it. The powder blue creature didn't get far up the cable before he began to hear the sound of gruff barking from down below. He looked down to see a handful of broad-built, armored creatures with rather threatening rifles in their paws and faces that could only be said to resemble a bulldog. They had been trying to scale the damaged catwalk but at the sight of something blue escaping from the ship, they abandoned the notion of boarding and instead pointed their weapons directly at the blue thing. Gyuun weren't exactly known to be the smartest creatures.
The feline stood stiff, arching his back up and fur poofing out to make himself look bigger as he hissed. It didn't have much of an effect as the first of the creatures fired their rifle at him, energy blast just whizzing by him and singing his fur across his shoulder blades. Okay, new plan required and being on this crane cable would just make him a sitting duck. At least in the ship, he would have a lot more hiding places and chances to escape. He ran back down the cable but the cargo bots were waiting for him at the base- while two others had their torches blazing as they burned into the crane's cable having switched from attack mode to maintenance mode. Another bot had just finished throwing a broken broom in the bin and was now going to fetch a mop to clean up some coolant. He was stuck between a hard place and a place with guns. Time to improvise. With another leap, he used the tension in the cable to launch him up to the top of the ship and in a single motion, landed and moved into a sprint towards the top hatch on the ship. Two more rifles fired but he was moving so quick that one shot went wide and the other struck the outer hull. Klaxons raged across the entire ship now which was under the impression that it was under attack and the crew workers, no longer under threat by blaster-wielding guards were scrambling over the damaged catwalk to escape while their attention was elsewhere. The cat slid across the top hull and grasped at top bulkhead, yanking the locking wheel open and hauling open the heavy door. The guards were now firing indiscriminately at him and several more blasts struck the hull. He had only just gotten the door open before it began to close itself and he had to desperately squeeze himself through the opening before it slammed shut and locked itself as the ship went into a combat lockdown.
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Post by Kaikoura on Mar 5, 2015 11:38:10 GMT -5
The maintenance robots had made little progress cutting through the cable by the time Aye scrambled back down and leaped back inside. Since both he and Naja had left, they seemed to have reset themselves to get back to work. When the ship came under fire, they changed thier pattern at once, all zipping about to lock down the final crate into place before returning to thier docking stations. The doors of the cargo bay slide out quickly, but the thick cable of the clamp still embedded in the floor prevents it closing.
"Error with Cargo Bay doors" reports the droning male voice of the computer system. "Doors cannot be sealed. Please clear the obstruction."
"What?" Kai asked, since the message was also playing for her in the cockpit. "What am I supposed to do?" She'd been in cockpits before, obviously she had no idea how to fly a ship, but she knew what information was being relayed to her. A light began blinking on the console in an obvious sort of way, so she presses it. The viewscreen becomes overlayed with a diagnostic of the ship, showing the locking failure on the door, as well as camera views of the obstruction.
"Um...it looks like the...thing is still in the way" she says to the computer.
"Hey! What are you doing there?" barked a voice suddenly from behind her, a new voice. There stood a figure with four extremely long arms, pale white, sitting on slightly bent legs and wearing a fair bit of regailia, likely the captain. She gasps and backs away from the console at once. "I'm te-terribly sorry" she squeaks, bowing deeply to the creature.
He lurches forward and smacks her hard, knocking her down to the floor. "Damn girl. You're the reason those nikkta are shooting up my ship aren't you?"
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Naja
Junior Member
"What do you mean there's no meat left?!"
Posts: 57
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Post by Naja on Mar 5, 2015 16:17:47 GMT -5
Naja keeps searching the ship with without stopping, breaking into whatever rooms she can find, getting really nowhere, although she does find a bucket. That doesn't really help her though and so she continues on, running out of people to yell questions at as they all seem to be fleeing the ship, as if they were rats scarpering from it sinking although she's sure she saw no actual water outside. Naja grunts and just continues on. So much for stowing away. She's starting to think they might just have to steal the whole ship, and she barely knows how to pilot a wooden boat let alone a huge metal ship that probably flies.
The huntress pauses at the sound of distance gunfire, or something similar to it anyway, along with loud alarms... until she spots a fancy dressed alien go through a door. She quickly heads after him, just in time to see the possible captain smacking Kaikoura. "Hey!" she says with a frown. "Get your freaky white grubs off my accomplice." she insists, swinging her makeshift weapon at the guy. Kaikoura might recognize it as a maintenance jack. All Naja knew was it was metal and heavy.
Unfortunately for Naja, the captain was surprisingly quick, and even worse, had four arms. Naja blinks as her arm is grabbed and held midswing, and she immediately throws a punch with her other, and has that one disabled too. The captain says something she doesn't understand, and next thing she knows she's got yet another hand coming her way, bundled into a fist, and applied directly to her abdomen. Naja lets out a pained wheeze as she's winded, trying to stay standing.
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Aye
New Member
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Post by Aye on Mar 6, 2015 14:27:50 GMT -5
The top hatch slammed shut behind him and engaged the lock but to the feline's curiosity, he could still hear the sound of their fire hitting the hull. Something must have been preventing the shields from raising- when it hit him that the Cargo Bay must still be open. The loading bay mechanoids must have come out of their combat mode routines and not run their maintenance checks before disengaging- likely due to the combat lockdown- which would mean that the loading crane's line was still tied to cargo hook embedded in the bay floor. He realized he couldn't risk entering the Cargo Bay again without alerting the bots and even if he could, there was no way he could sever the industrial cable without their help. The only plan he could come up with would be to try and storm the flight deck, manually set the cargo bots to maintenance mode and hijack this crate before more authorities arrived.
Though he hadn't gotten a very good look of the vessel from outside during his short excursion or when he had initially stowed away, the internal layout got him to thinking that this was a heavily modified USC 460M. And if that were the case the flight deck shouldn't be far away. Keeping low and moving quickly, the blue creature ran on all fours towards the cockpit.
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Naja
Junior Member
"What do you mean there's no meat left?!"
Posts: 57
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Post by Naja on Mar 10, 2015 0:55:14 GMT -5
Naja takes another punch, wincing and gritting her teeth. "Four arms, is not fair." she protests weakly before slamming her head forward and making impact with the captain's skull. He snarls, staggering backwards, opening his eyes and glaring at Naja through the pain, but his expression quickly turns to horror as the last thing he sees is a maintenance jack, blurring towards him.
Naja lets out an unhealthy wheeze after that, but seems to get over it fast enough, pull herself together and looking towards Kaikoura with a smile. "What a prick." she tells her before reaching down to help the blue girl up. "So uh, how do we commandeer this boat?" she says, looking around, idly pressing one of the buttons on the console. She had no idea how to use it, what it did or what it was even called, but it had little glowing things on it just screaming to be pressed. "Only it's kind of gone to shit outside and we should probably leave."
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