middleofsomewhere | Orange Team Onward!

Orange Team Onward!

Arrival

Their flight path makes sure they are well out of the way of both the battles taking place and they get to the shield station within an hour as long as they fly quickly.

There are no enemy ships around but it is clear there has been an attack, the shield disk itself is damaged and there seems to be no power in the station.

Once they dock they will be met by some technicians who quickly explain the situation.

Help is needed everywhere. The power needs repaired, the shield needs repaired from the outside, there are injured technicians who need medical care. There is a small med-bay available.

Maintenance

Once the initial crisis is dealt with it is a case of keeping up with things. A patrol is needed to guard the station from other attacks, there are four shield stations in total and so the voidtreckers may chose to split themselves once things are a little calmer.

Keeping up the shields is an almost constant job, especially with the attacks. Once one thing is fixed it seems another thing is down. The maintenance itself is very technical but there are parts that can be done by the unskilled as long as they have direction.

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"Ryslig. Funny, I think I have heard it mentioned before -- when I was in another world. My informant wasn't very specific about it." He also went back to what he was doing, checking the docking bay for any clues whatsoever that might suggest the way the enemy had gotten in. He wasn't content with his own beam-me-up-Scotty hypothesis.

As as for Garrett's reticence, Curufn would understand that, a past world being a sore subject. He had the same problem. He wouldn't press Garrett to talk about it; he'd just accept it if Garrett didn't comment further.

"How did you people get into this station?" he muttered, when he passed close to the dead or wounded Empire soldiers.

"Oh yeah?" Garrett looked up at Curufin with a hint of interest whenever the elf mentioned someone else talking about Ryslig. Did that mean it was common for people to be dragged out of one world and straight into another? Great. "Well, it's not that great a place so I don't blame him for not talking about it."

The thief turned back to his current body and pilfered the few useful things (it wasn't much but he'd get what he could take) before standing up and moving again. He glanced at Curufin at the muttered question. He considered something for a moment.

"I could look for their entrance point if it'd make you feel any better."

"Maybe he had the same experience as you did, and that's why he didn't bother to tell the whole story." Curufin had long held the belief that it was common to be snatched out of one world and into another. It had happened to him three times.

He gave the casualties another quizzical look, as though he expected them to answer his question about the means of entry. But of course, none of them was going to answer. Curufin looked back at Garrett when Garrett looked at him and made his offer.

"If you have some means of searching for that entry point, I'd say go for it."

Garrett's extra limbs twitched in something that was not quiet amusement. "Probably. Everyone there had the same fate. He would have been noticeably unique because of it." Unless the person was luckier than Garrett and hadn't remained a monster. That would be so unfair.

"I'll look," he responded. "We can always ask one of them later."

If any of the unconscious ones would even talk when questioned. Garrett wouldn't be the one to try though, he wasn't suited to it. At best he could offer to look intimidating by his monstrous appearance but he wouldn't torture a soul. That was definitely not in his personal creed.

In the next moment of silence Garrett glanced around. His right eye glowed softly as he did so, just perceptively more brighter green than usual. The first thing the thief noticed was that there was too much nonsense here where the battle was for him to distinguish much. But if he walked away and Focused where the soldiers had come from he could pick out their footprints since he was looking for them. They glowed faintly in his eyesight--some ancient energy giving him better perception than what was natural. He tried not to think about it.

"Here." He said and started to follow the footprints to where they came form.

"A strange place, then, this Ryslig."

And he glanced again at the wounded and the dead. "We could ask some of them, though I doubt they'll give information." Curufin would never torture a person either. He had his dark side, but it didn't include anything like that.

He watched Garrett with curiosity as the man's eye glowed and he began to search the floor with his arcane senses. He followed when Garrett walked in the direction of the invisible footprints, which evidently he could see. Curufin could not, although he had a few powers of his own. His did not seem useful here, and Garrett's did. "Where does the trail lead?"

"This way," the thief replied.

He would get taxed if he kept this up for too long. However, he moved swiftly and it didn't take long to find the end of the trail. His brow furrowed as he looked up, sight reverted to normal, and glanced around. It was an empty space in the hangar.

"It...stops."

Garrett looked back down at the ground and Focused. The footprints ended, or rather started, from this point. He blinked out of his bleached-world vision and looked at Curufin.

"There are no more footprints."

Curufin continued to follow the thief. (Though he didn't know the man was a thief -- he had not seemed to notice how Garrett had stealthily slipped some of the dead or wounded soldiers' belonging out of their pockets and into his -- or if Curufin did notice, he had looked the other way.)

He stood with Garrett and stared at the deck where Garrett had indicated that the trail stopped. The empty space was not close to any of the station's spacecraft, but it was not far from the edge of the landing platform, where the vast overhead door came down to meet the edge. Spacecraft would skid into the hanger when the door was retracted. Curufin frowned and stared some more.

"Strange, that the footprints start from here. It almost seems as if they came from a vanished landing craft."

That idea made sense to Garrett as soon as Curufin said it, for which the thief was quietly thankful. It hadn't occurred to him. But when he thought about it now that it was pointed out, it made sense. This was a docking area. And like a wharf it meant ships came and went constantly, and any footprints would be lost if the ship took the rest with it.

At least now Garrett was certain he wasn't missing something with his Focus. That would have been awkward.

"All right. That makes more sense than vanishing footprints or worse--teleporting enemies. So they came here on a spacecraft, disembarked, and then attacked. But why didn't anyone notice the enemy spacecraft get in here? Could they...have one of our allies' crafts?"

That was a scary thought. If they had some sort of stolen craft they could slip past the outside defenses and keep bringing in more troops to attack on the ground, so to speak. It would definitely keep them occupied instead of fixing the shield components as much as they would like.

"We'd be in real trouble if they actually had a means to teleport themselves in here. If they've got some means to conceal a ship in order to land it unseen, that's a little bit less of a problem. All we have to do is arrange for guards to be in this hanger at all times, and sound the alarm. But if they were able to get a ship in close enough to land, then as you say, why didn't the station crew notice them before they got close enough to land? Surely the station's sensing devices should have been able to detect an Empire fighter or transport ship. And didn't our allies have ships patrolling this part of space? Those should have noticed, too."

Curufin was scratching his head in perplexity. "Makes no sense, unless you're right again, and the Empire soldiers were able to steal a ship belonging to our allies. If that happened, I hope they only stole one ship." But even one would be a problem for the Void Warriors and their allies.

"Is there a way to conceal a ship from...all this?" Garrett hadn't considered that option simply because it boggled the mind to think it possible to hide something so large. But maybe he should have considered magic? A way to make it invisible? And even some tech seemed magical to him so maybe it didn't require actual magic to pull off here. Damn.

"I don't think I like the sound of either option to be honest. I guess we'll have to keep a bigger eye out for ground attacks."

"I wonder if there is?" said Curufn. "There are so many technological marvels that almost don't seem real. . . such as artificial wormholes. Might there be a means to make a ship invisible? That would certainly explain the evidence you just discovered."

He didn't like the sound of either idea, either. Stolen ships or invisible ships.

"Yes, we'll have to keep a sharper eye on this hanger. Can't have this happening again."

Garrett shook his head back and forth in a slow manner. "That's the truth. I barely understand how they tamed electricity much less all the newer technology. This place is way beyond my own world or even the one I was trapped in before the train."

He sighed but stood up straight. "Yeah, you're right. We should tell the soldiers to," he waved a hand about, "do their guarding thing in here. I'll let them know what happened."

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Orange Team Onward!

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Good place to wrap?

Sounds good to me.