middleofsomewhere | Not with a Bang: Side Missions

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Not with a Bang: Side Missions

On day nine of the month of Imagination voidtreckers may notice a new symbol on the SCA map. Lime green exclamation marks hover above several sections of Nion’s jungle. Tapping these exclamation marks will bring up additional tasks that need to be undertaken.

These appear at different times over the course of day nine and ten and do not seem to be linked to any specific team, anyone who wishes may follow their SCA to the marker and help solve the problems.

Task 1

Shield integrity is below expected levels in sector R-37. Potential for sabotage. Please investigate at the location indicated.

R-37 is a mile-wide area of jungle with a single solar station. and a cursory investigation will show that station to be the cause of the issue. Sirens wail and indicators flash red, both light and sound spilling out into the surrounding jungle.

The structure doesn’t seem to have taken any physical damage, but something is certainly wrong. The shielding in the air above this sector is flickering on and off, and no attempts to stabilise it work.
It will require a hard reset to fix; the map icon will pinpoint two towers on the corner of the station grounds from which this may be done. It will require a mix of people to physically climb the towers and access the controls whilst others reboot the system from inside the solar station building. The SCA will indicate locations and required interactions.

Task 2

Impacts upon the array have caused seismic activity in sector E-10, blocking a major river. Repair damage to the environment caused by the tremors.

It will be obvious when the Voidtreckers arrive in sector E-10, because the area is completely flooded. Trees are submerged and water is in places deep enough for Voidtreckers to have to swim, though for the most part they will be able to wade through the muddy water to find the source of the problem.

A sizable landslide has completely dammed the river running through E-10 at two points, causing the waters to swell and flood its surroundings. Whilst most of the wildlife is able to swim or climb and is therefore unaffected, one resident of the jungle is faring even better - the large plesiosaur-like reptiles that call the river home can now range much further afield in search of prey.

Voidtreckers should clear the river of debris, whilst avoiding dangers both environmental and reptilian.

Task 3

A violet panda pack has been detected in northern sector B-19, moving rapidly westwards. Given the lack of nearby solar stations, this movement is uncharacteristic. Please investigate.

Once Voidtreckers get into sector B-19 they will find the panda pack stampeding through the jungle. Some may wish to help them out and calm them down, but for those investigating the trail they have made through the undergrowth is clear.

Following backwards they will discover a blackened, smoking area of jungle, raggedly felled trees and a small crater where something has impacted heavily against the earth. The surrounding trees are partially ablaze, though the dampness of the foliage mean that none of the fires have grown large enough that they can’t be put out with concerted effort. A small river runs through B-19, within walking distance of the impact site.

Task 4

Solar Station 29 in sector Y-5 is taking fire from unknown assailants. None of its security drones are responding. Defend the station and identify the aggressors.

Their SCA will direct them to the entrance of Station 29. It is under attack by two large terraforming robots, identical to any of those already seen on Nion. There is also a complement of security drones with them, all painted with 29 across their chassis, and all attacking the station.

They are no tougher than any of the other automatons encountered thus far, but their attack is more coordinated compared to the simple self-defense of the stray robots. Even though they are focused on attacking the station, they will turn and fight anyone who tries to stop them.

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"This is a..." This time the pause wasn't because of static, but surprise.

"Voidcraft crew?" Her voice hitched slightly, "You void ministry?"

There's more static and she lets out a curse, clearly trying to keep the signal steady on her part.

"Not that it matters..."

He silently curses at his lack of foresight. As the group moves, following the trail of destruction, between answers and calls and static noises from the radio still nestled in his hand, Roland figures this is an important enough affair to return to at a later time. If they could. So he quietly summons his phone, useless by all accounts unless it had to do with capturing photos or recordings. So this is what he does; presses the red button on the screen of the Voice Recorder function and lets it run. It captures barely enough, just the end of the voice before Kaiba speaks and confirms who they are.

But no, it's the nuance isn't it? The person on the other end, where they speak now through the SCA's...She doesn't sound so happy to hear help has come, does she?

He decides to speak up then, catching gazes among the crew walking towards the end of sight. It's best to try and earn her comfort, a semblance of her trust, at least to get answers. Neither confirming or prodding too much, too soon.

"Ma'am, are you injured in any way? Please stay with us on the line."

Reno fell quiet after his last bit. As the conversation fell into the hands of the others and their interests, he lost interest. His free hand was curled into a fist and his other gripped his baton tightly as he twirled it idly. He looked tense though why might have surprised (or annoyed) some.

He turned away from the others again and looked back towards the signs of destruction. Roland had mentioned the tops of the trees had more damage than the clearing itself. Once the conversation revealed the woman had crashlanded here that made perfect sense. He'd been in a few crashed birds himself before...it wasn't fun, but he'd survived. At least she was staying relatively calm.

As the group began moving towards the crashsite again, Reno sauntered along. Eventually, he dashed towards the front, interest still waning from all this conversation, and hoped to scout out the crashsite for a bit more fun.

If it wasn't for the intrigue of the situation, he might have already walked away. But...a Turk couldn't rightfully walk away from this kind of info. As much as he hated the less flashy business, it was still business.

Curufin walked along silently and looked at the tops of the trees, and he too was thinking that the damage Roland had spoken of had happened logically. Funny he hadn't thought of that before. He speaks first to the others. "The ship must have descended in a long, low arc. That's how the tops of the trees were damaged. I guess we weren't thinking in terms of flying vessels until now."

And he clicked on his own SCA and answered the woman's question. "No, we're not the Void Ministry. Hold on, we'll be there soon.

It was hard to say whether they still had miles to go or whether they'd come swiftly to a clearing created by the woman's ship. But they'd be there before too long.

"We were...dragged along for the ride," Kaiba adds after a moment. There's so much they don't know about their situation. And he's not a qualified medic or fighter, even, so he's not sure how he can help...

But he's in too deep. Stray technician on the case.

Koumyou continued to just quietly listen in and follow. Why, this was like some sort of audio drama, wasn't it? How interesting!

"Well that's a relief." She laughed, a burst of noise over the radio, but it sounded pain.

"Names Halo, of the voidcraft Voidflash." Her voice went quiet for a moment, "Former voidcraft. Served me well though."

There's a little bit of static but for the most part the signal seems to have stabilised. "Suffice to say I'm going nowhere."

The trail is still curving, sometimes the canopy looks undamaged, for the trail to resume further on. It seems that there had been a real effort to keep the craft in the air.

"Name's Kaiba. Were you attacked?" he answered after a brief moment. That didn't sound good. And if she had been attacked, by who?

He picked up the pace. Not sure how he could help, unless there was something to fix, but they needed to reach her soon.

"I'm Curufin," said the Elf. "Halo, do you think your ship is too damaged to fly again? If it can be repaired, we may have enough expertise to manage it, though we can't be sure of that without seeing the extent of the damage."

He rather liked the name Voidflash. It sounded as though there was a whole culture of Void ships that the Voidtrecker Express's current crew wouldn't have any knowledge of or access to, being a rogue vessel. Hey, wait? What if the Voidflash was a rogue vessel as well?? Curufin started to walk faster. He was becoming more curious by the minute.

He kept looking up at the tree canopy. From the looks of the intermittent damage, it did seem as though the Voidflash had periodically bounced back up above the treetops, as though the pilot was still partially in control and trying to keep the craft from crashing.

He saves his own introduction for later, naturally cautious even as he worries about the state of Halo's injuries. The thoughts running through his mind are vastly contradicting; on one hand, there was the urgency to save her. On the other, the barrage of questions that Roland can't help but ask himself despite them.

Roland doesn't know if Halo will be in any condition to answer them either, so he stews on them for now, walking with a characteristic sense of haste, radio in hand and phone tucked in his pocket where it could catch their conversations in recording. If they're lucky, Halo will reveal it in her own due time.

Koumyou alternatively looked up at the canopy as they walked, and scanned the jungle around them. With how quiet it was, the crash couldn't have happened too long ago, or the wildlife would have crept back in.

He finally said something over his own SCA. It was his first time speaking up over it.

"How badly are you injured?" How much blood was there, up ahead? Roland had asked after injuries earlier, but in the sea of questions from the others, it had gone unanswered. But there had been pain in that voice in his headphones. Calmly, he added, "Try to stay awake."

It would be a great deal easier to get other answers out of her if she didn't die, first.

Edited (last edit I promise sdflkjasdflk) 2020-11-23 05:00 (UTC)

"Well met Kaiba, Curufin and... the rest of you." She is quiet for a moment as she puts her thoughts in order but then speaks again.

"Yeah I was attacked. A ship of world miners. They aren't void travellers, just a local criminal ring. I've been tracking 'em for a while. They were waiting for the meteor storm to hit, so they could move in and were pretty pissed when the shields went up. Guessing that was you lot?"

There's a bit of noise, as if she is shifting, moving slightly.

""They drove me into the meteorite field, I escaped and followed them through a gap that opened in the field. Voidflash is dust, I evac'd. My leg is definitely broken and I'm bleeding more than I generally like to be." It's clearly an attempt at a joke, but her voice is strained.

Well, if she'd bailed before the actual crash, Koumyou's next question seemed quite reasonable to him; "Are you near the actual crash? We're following the path of damage to the jungle."

It wouldn't do them any good to simply track down the wreckage, and not the person they were searching for. The signal getting more and more stable had to be a good sign, but still... if she was up a tree somewhere off to one side of the path they were on, for example, they could breeze right by and not even know it.

"Yes, that was us," acknowledged Curufin. "We fixed the shield stations, powered them up, and stopped the first meteor from reaching the surface. Can you tell us any more about this local criminal ring? Would they have landed somewhere on this planet or be still orbiting it?"

And now he was as concerned about Halo as Koumyou was. "Okay, your ship is trashed but you got out in time. Anything you can tell us about where you're located? We can come and get you and take you to a doctor. We can provide some first aid when we find you, but it sounds as though you need a certified emergency physician. There's more than one of those in our camp or in the areas we've been ranging, and we can call them."

"World miners..."

Kaiba doesn't like the sound of that at all. How common are they? Will they be fighting them? Most likely.

"Here? What's on Nion that they were waiting for a chance to infiltrate...?"

He says quietly, affirming the same concern from Kaiba; just to them, or whoever can hear. Certainly he isn't fielding this question to Halo, not yet ready to bombard a clearly injured woman with talk of such business. Whatever suspicions or apprehensions had to be secondary until she was secured. But who was she? How did the five of them get wind of her distress signal? Did the train lead them deliberately here, with the pings on their SCA? Why was she so apprehensive of the void ministry, and as Curufin voices out, did her story mean they weren't alone?

The dip in his brow grows deeper. He touches his SCA, communicating at last, back to Halo.

"Are there any landmarks so we can locate your position faster?"

Edited 2020-11-23 11:15 (UTC)

"There's a price for everything," Reno said while looking at Roland. He wasn't in the conversation but he was paying attention enough to understand.

He let them continue on with it while simply walking forward. He kept slowing down to survey things and then dashing ahead of the group again just enough to keep in range but see further.

"They got through." She sounded certain about that at least. "The way the shield was flickering... I wouldn't put it past them to have had something to do with that. What their plan is now that the meteor shower is over I don't have a clue."

There's noise like she is shifting around. "I'm near the wreckage, I tried to land as long as I could..." More noise.

"Not much to see except trees, there might be some kind of solar panel?" A pause and more rustling. "Yes, a tower with a solar panel."

Any of purple team who check their maps would be able to see a nearby purple dot, showing one of the solar stations nearby, a bit of a walk but not too far, the route to it seems to match up to the trail of damage they were following.

"Dammit."

The reaction is immediate. They got through. He tries to pick up the pace, the void radio disappearing back into his Arms Band. If solar panels were the nearest thing to Halo, then that could only mean Roland and Reno would have visibility on that, right? He hopes the SCA's were still working in that regard, already worried out of his mind that their signal back to the rest of the train was being jammed and not knowing why or who was doing it. The purple dot appears, right en route, so he begins to jog, the urgency never more pressing than now. They needed her answers, they needed to know more, apart from rescuing her from the wreckage.

"She's close!" He says, making gestures with one hand on where to go with his eyes on the map. There's still the possibility this was a trap, but between his paranoia and the idea that there were dangerous stragglers somewhere on this planet where the Voidtreckers were - faces of those special to him already making rounds in his mind's eye, please let them be safe - what else could they do?

Edited (HI HI, if the five of us would like to talk about stuff, I'm on discord and/or can activate a Plurk account if all of us are there :)) 2020-11-23 18:37 (UTC)

Koumyou was back to listening instead of asking questions over the SCA, and joined in on trying to pick up the pace.

His only question now wasn't broadcast, the priest breaking into as quick of a run as he could get away with without leaving anyone behind. "--Are any of you versed in field medicine or healing magics? I am, but I'm not a professional."

As with most things, the Sanzo priest was willing to let someone else do the work if they were better suited to it. But he wanted it sorted before they reached her, to save time when there was active bleeding to contend with.

Edited 2020-11-23 19:50 (UTC)

Kaiba joins them in a sprint, shaking his head. "No, but if anything's salvageable from that ship I can get it. Glad we have you."

But could they make it in time...

Curufin replies to Koumyou, "I have experience with battlefield first aid. Five hundred years of war will tend to provide that kind of experience! I can stop bleeding if it's not internal, bandage up a wound, carry an injured person on my back or slap together a makeshift stretcher. I don't have healing magic, though. That's not my specialty. If you do, I don't think anybody's going to care if you're not a professional."

He adds, for the benefit of all. "I have fighting skills, in case we run into those world miners."

And, becoming aware that Roland has checked his Purple Team map and ascertained that this little group of five is not too far from the station that Halo has described, Curufin picks up the pace and then runs to catch up with Reno -- just in case the criminal ring is hiding somewhere in the trees and the Voidtreckers have to fight before they can help the injured Voidflash crewmember.

Edited (I'm on Plurk but would have to know what time people would want to talk. I'm not on Discord and would have to make an account.) 2020-11-24 01:05 (UTC)

"Yeah... I tried to stop them." She sounded tired and fell silent for a few moments as they continued to follow the trail and get closer to that purple dot. The line stayed open though and small movements could be heard, she was still there.

After a few moments though she cursed. More noise could be heard over the SCA.

"Robots, I'm taking fire."

A gun shot, followed by more noise of fighting.

Indeed they will be able to hear it outside of the SCA, they are close now and Reno up in front especially will be able to pin point the sound of fighting, not too far away.

Reno didn't pipe up when it came to the conversation. Though he had healing magic if it was needed, his attention was on other things.

The sound of gunfire. He glanced at Curufin, who he was certain also heard that through more than the SCA line, and then quickened his pace even more. His baton was ready, sparking to life at his side as he ran ahead.

Curufin definitely heard the gunfire. He met Reno's eyes and nodded, and sprang into motion. He ran after Reno and caught up with him, drawing his sword. The sword flared suddenly with blue-white light, as Curufin charged it up with his own power.

He was going to be fighting people who had guns, but that didn't worry him much. He had Elvish speed and agility on his side, not to mention the power he was now accessing. He kept an eye out for the station Halo had mentioned, and for her presence and that of the robots who were evidently firing on her.

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