Not with a Bang Start and Ongoing

[voidtreckermods]

"Good Morning passengers. Today is day seven of the month of Imagination." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation

They have about an hour to prepare, a little less than usual but perhaps expected, given the urgency of the task.

The cupboards in the dressing room are open to reveal rows of tents, in all four team colours as well as some basic camp cooking equipment. They are in bags that should be easy enough to carry.

"Shortly arriving on System #6416. All passengers get ready to disembark. Next stop world 6416. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train rocks and lurches, bright colours of the void filling the space and then fading as they fly downwards towards a very green landscape.

Arrival and Initial Task

The train lands in a clearing, curving round in an attempt to fit. Once everyone who wishes to disembark has done it flies back into the air, vanishing from sight.

The air is heavy and humid, though it is not currently raining. The clearing is open to the sky and looking up will reveal a worrying sight. The sky is an angry red colour, colours shifting as if the clouds themselves were on fire. It's an unnerving sight.

Their SCA's show three points, one Orange, One purple and one that is half blue and half red. The three control centres. Each are a few hours treck through the jungle and it certainly feels like there is no time to waste.

Those that don't want to treck through the forest can start setting up camp, though the darkening sky might be a little distracting. As time goes on flecks of fire drift down, though they extinguish before hitting the forest floor.

Orange are to travel to the north, Purple to the south and Blue and Red must travel together to the west. Each route takes them through thick and unrelenting jungle. Flying is difficult here unless you can get up past the canopy layer, which means vision of the ground is severely hampered.

The control stations themselves are half buried in vines and require cutting into. If voidtreckers are unlucky they will meet their first security robots here, firing on the intruders. They might even meet their first giant Armadillos, the creatures are curious and may wish to investigate. They are not helpful or constructive to trying to power up the stations and prevent the destruction of the planet.

The control stations are simple enough to operate, but there's quite a lot that needs to be done in way of repairs and clearing. It will take a team effort to get it in working enough order to activate the shield.

The shield itself, when it is activated, is mostly invisible but there is a loud humming sound. The meteor, which has gotten more visible throughout the five hours, hits the shield and splinters, fire enveloping the whole sky. It is visibly terrifying, but no fire falls to earth, no rocks get through, the planet is safe.

Ongoing

Once the planet is safe the voidtreckers deserve a rest. But once the next morning dawns it is time to start with their next tasks, to make sure that this planet stays safe from future threats.

Red

The robots at the control stations are not the only malfunctioning security robots around. They roam the jungle, or are more often stranded in the jungle, powering up only when faced with a new threat.

Some are benign, terraforming machines whose only crime is using up precious power. These need to be dismantled so that power can be saved for the shield system. Others are security robots that will attack the intruders to the planet.

Though the machines are scattered they are often obvious, emitting warning alarms or flashing lights. Their SCA's will show some areas where there are larger clusters but machines can be found anywhere.

Purple

Their SCA's are filled with hundreds of purple dots, each a solar stations that needs cleared and brought back online. It's not the most glamourous job, the stations are deep in the jungle, the treck is difficult and most of the work needed is weed clearing.

But once the weeds have been cut away they will need to patch up the station, doing basic maintenance to get it back online. In some cases wires need to be patched back together but it shouldn't take any great feats of engineering to get the stations up and running.

They may run into some of the security automatons, needing to fight their way into the stations before they can begin the clean up operations.

Orange

Like the red team their SCA will show areas where there are clusters of the small insectoid automatons that need to be rescued and restored. However they can be found anywhere throughout the jungle, they are not too suited for the terrain outside of the stations and so they have gotten tangled in vines. They can be found powered down, stranded and in dire need of maintenance.

Tools and spare parts can be found in many of the solar stations that purple team have been locating. Actually repairing the robots takes some engineering knowledge but once they are restored they will go about their tasks in the stations. They will need help getting to the further flung stations as well as the main control centres.

They are very basic in design and follow pre programmed instructions rather than being able to hear and listen to orders. But once in the correct place they are very effective at their job.

Blue

Once the shield is up there is a faint humming that can be heard throughout the jungle if they listen closely and find it among the sound of rain and insects. But once they hear it, it is obvious where it is louder and more prominent.

Their SCA will pin point some of the larger control boxes but there are truthfully too many to show on a map. Not all of them have attracted Violet Pandas, but many of them have.

They are curious creatures, both of the power boxes and the voidtreckers. They are protective of each other but not so much of territory and therefore it is not difficult to move them on. Keeping them away is another matter, the power humming is interesting and they will unearth wires and chew through them. It doesn't seem to do them much harm, there is clearly safety stops in the system for such eventualities. It does however cut power off to entire solar stations and require a lot of patch work.

Good luck voidtreckers!

Comments

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs considered that for a moment, placing his weapon back into the Arms Band. It was an interesting variable, and once more spoke of Yuuki being far more than his initial first impression of him.

"How quickly?" Zechs asked, analyzing.

[reluctantjinrou]

"Minor injuries are nearly immedately healed. I still feel it though." Natsuno pointed out with a grumble. "But it's a momentary thing. I was bitten by a wolf on the last mission and that took about five minutes to heal, but it had a good grasp of my arm."

[zechs_isonfire]

"Then I'll suggest we avoid it if possible," Zechs said practically. Those sorts of abilities had their uses - but it would be Natsuno's choice if he wanted to suffer for the sake of being less fragile than ordinary humans. Zechs was not his commander, even if they were on the same team. He did not have the right to make the call to use him as ... a living shield, or something.

He nodded to him. "Let's work on clearing out this part of the jungle. Between the two of us, if we can both avoid getting hit, we'll make good time."

[reluctantjinrou]

"Not a problem, I'm not actively looking to get hurt." Natsuno commented. He might not be a capable fighter, but he would manage somehow.

"Let's keep moving then, I'm sure we'll find more malfunctioning robots." He was glad fixing them was someone else's problem, he just had to stop them, right?

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs nodded in agreement, and walked with him, checking the SCA as he went, as that would at least alert them to nearby targets, it seemed. However, he was mostly paying attention to the surrounding jungle. With all of the brush - and since the robots were far from stealthy - they should have enough of a warning to not be caught by surprise.

"Your strength surpasses mine," Zechs said bluntly, "but I know how to maneuver in battle. Listen to me in a fight, and I'll help keep you from getting hit."

[reluctantjinrou]

"I have no problem with that." Natsuno said, shaking his hair out of his eyes before he gestured at the next robot in their path.

"Tell me what you want me to do."

[zechs_isonfire]

"Let's find our next targets first," Zechs told him, as they continued to move. Of course, before long, the SCA was beeping again, and he held up a hand.

Zechs indicated the markers. "They're moving south and east, here. That machine we saw, shot mainly from the front of its body - so from behind, we are relatively safer. If we can move behind this group of machines, we can take them out before they manage to focus on you as their target."

[reluctantjinrou]

He listened and peered at his SCA to see the markers. Then, Natsuno looked around a moment, as though figuring out how best to proceed.

"Got it." It made sense, take them out before they realized you were there.

[zechs_isonfire]

Though he needed to slash a bit through the undergrowth to let them continue forward - Zechs still tried to move them as quietly as they could. Thanks to the SCA, they could at least circle behind the group of robots in a kind of arc, and he hoped they masked their approach decently well.

Unfortunately, neither of them were particularly used to fighting in jungle - and Zechs' skills in attempting stealth were mainly if he was in a mobile suit, not on foot. Not all of that translated exactly perfectly.

With luck, however, they might be able to sneak behind them, undetected.

[reluctantjinrou]

He wasn't used to the jungle, but he was as stealthy as he could be, so as soon as he got to the nearest robot, he jumped up onto its shoulders and tried to subdue it by punching it in the head.

That was how it worked, right?

[zechs_isonfire]

... Sure. Let's go with that. The robot was spinning, firing wildly, but it couldn't really manage to aim at Natsuno when he was on its shoulders - so the boy actually was in a rather safe spot. At least, until the other robots turned to fire at both him and the robot.

Zechs followed him quickly out, however, to slice the robot Natsuno was riding on through the middle. "Jump!"

He could use the momentary confusion to slice at another. "Target those at nine and ten o'clock!"

[reluctantjinrou]

The lesson was that he was going to have to learn to take down his robot target faster.

Natsuno lept when he was told to and landed all to easily on the ground with barely even a noise.

He zipped around the robots he was directed to take out and approached the first with a forceful blow to its midsection.

[zechs_isonfire]

That blow at least crumpled a lot of its internals, and the machine wailed with a terrible sound as it collapsed backward, quickly overheating.

The security robots wanted to destroy both of them, clearly, but Natsuno was the flashier threat. Still, before another could really get a good target on him - the boy was superhumanly fast - Zechs cut another one down, protecting Natsuno's back.

[reluctantjinrou]

He heard the crumple of a robot behind him and he nodded. "Thank you."

Natsuno set his sights on the next target. At least he could duck and weave, and move fast. Those were the skills he brought to the table if nothing else.

[zechs_isonfire]

Faster than a normal human being, certainly, and that was to their advantage. Moving much like that - Natsuno strafing and weaving while delivering heavy punches, and Zechs cleaning up any stray robots behind - they'd easily work through the group they had targeted and destroyed them.

After, Zechs was taking steadying breaths as he was slowing down his heartrate. From the borrowed Arms Band, he pulled out a bottle of the water he stored there, and offered Natsuno one. "Here. You've been learning quickly - good job."

[reluctantjinrou]

Natsuno was maybe annoyingly refreshed. He wasn't out of breath, nor was he sweating, but he accepted the water.

He took a gulp all the same, it wouldn't hurt him.

"Thank you. I've been doing my best." He admitted. "I do want to learn."

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs had already figured that Natsuno wasn't like anyone he'd encounter in his own reality - even those enhanced like Heero Yuy had been. But he wouldn't begin to guess at his nature, given how weird the realities the train's passengers could be.

"That's all you really need," Zechs told him honestly. "A drive to succeed and improve yourself. I'm glad to see it."

Instead of the defeatist attitude he'd witnessed other times, when they were on the train itself.

[reluctantjinrou]

"I want to at least be useful." It wasn't that he'd found some kind of zest for life yet, but he didn't want to be a drain or detriment on others.

"If nothing else, and at the moment, I don't have enough skills."

[zechs_isonfire]

That's exactly where Zechs had landed himself. And, honestly, the reason that he kept going, despite everything he'd done. If he didn't have his skills, and his duty, the utility he served in his reality ...

"Then let's consider this mission further training," Zechs told him. "I'm far from an expert in hand-to-hand combat, but at least I can help you get better used to your awareness in battle generally."