Follow lars. Keep shot gun ready while looking out for any hidden threats.
You follow lars, shotgun at the ready, like a red neck hunting chimps at the zoo.
Keep attempting to follow Ms. Feyri despite her lack of movement. Be tired of not ever doing anything helpful. Contemplate sneaking back to the ship for science stuff if we don't get moving soon.
Hint hint, Lenglon. Unless I missed something?
You repeatedly bump into the back of Feyri's legs. You're beginning to wonder if this is the best way to do things.
>No, normally they use a rifle. These tubes are curious; they could be a way to put an active defense on certain areas of the building and were just unfinished. Or they could be here to fool us into thinking there's an SW when there isn't one. Which is honestly the best case scenario.
[@Steve] That would be good. Almost too good to hope for. I don't suppose the data from the blackship could indicate that the SW is a deception? Maybe an anomaly in the equipment manifest? Cause that data is now the only indication we have that there's a SW here, and I can move the blackship a lot more freely if there's no SW waiting to bear down on me with a LESHO rifle. Worse than that, if there *is* a SW here, and these tubes could be setup by the UE's or controlled Sods, we have no leads on the SW and probably won't have any unless he acts.
[@Crew] ... Sorry about that. I don't suppose they left the LESHO round for that tube? Take a look around and see if there's any sort of trail off the roof we could follow, or maybe something on the tube we could use to trace the controller. If there isn't, let's clear out of here and do some more sweeps. Maybe we can try and figure out where that heat signature is trying to go and head him off.
Continue conversing with Steve! Watch carefully for incoming LESHO fire, be prepared to accelerate away if I see any.
>Nothing in the data tells us what kind of people were on that ship, but I do have record of a LESHO rifle and rounds, which isn't the sort of thing a UE uses. It's possible that the records are a ploy, in case they were seized, like they were, but thats very elaborate. I'm not sure if I accept such a thing .Whatever is erratically opening doors is either a magnificent bastard with a plan or a mind-controlled worker creating a dynamic, false lead. "Steve, if I wanted to send a message off-world in this current situation, where would I go? And in case I wanted to cause as much damage as possible to the complex?" Milno asks, trying to make a sense of things.
Ask Steve, head to the place indicated. If no place is indicated, then land upon the Sword's cage.
>Causing damage to the base is going to be difficult. He's going to have to use explosives since I'm not gonna let him damage anything around here by overloading reactors or anything. And there's a limited amount of damage he can do with bombs; he can still do a pretty good amount of damage, don't get me wrong, but the facility is designed to deal with such things; he can't collapse the entire compound or anything. Unfortunately that means I have no real idea where he would strike if he was gonna go bombing. Other then the major facilities, which often stretch for miles.
In terms of getting off a signal, the most realistic way would be to find another ship and use it's long range coms to send one. There aren't a whole lot left after the whole nuke incident, but there are a few behind the sword. This is, of course, assuming he won't just try to make one. I don't know if he has the capacity, but this place is full of parts. Or he could try and find a facility here that builds things with long range coms and use them. There are a few places, though it would be hard for him to do it.
Which do you want to try for, bombing targets, ship coms or the construction areas?
"Great. Exactly how effective would my rifle be against this repair bot, because I assume it's built to take a beating? If it even is a repair bot. Dammit, why can't the spooks just give up. Make it easy on both of us."
Continue following the molten trail, using my trusty metal pole to check for traps.
You jog down the tunnel, smacking away at the walls with your pole like a blind distance runner, or maybe a sex maniac with a fetish for flat metal surfaces. Eventually, you catch up to the source of the molten trail: a basketball sized, spider like droid with a back covered in rods used for welding. It's slowly chewing through these rods with a white hot mouth of manipulators as it skitters across the walls and carves out random gashes for no discernible reason.
>Welding droid. Either a purposeful diversion or might just have been brain damaged when me and ARES were grappling for control. It shouldn't be dangerous, just go grab it and turn it off using the access panel on its belly. Before it melts anything else. "Great. Exactly how effective would my rifle be against this repair bot, because I assume it's built to take a beating? If it even is a repair bot. Dammit, why can't the spooks just give up. Make it easy on both of us."
Continue following the molten trail, using my trusty metal pole to check for traps.
...
"mrow"
Turn around and walk away. go to the top of the tower the SW was last known to be at. take my time and attempt to isolate and begin to follow his smell.
For Feyri:
It seems clear that the SW is making a lot of decoys on the opposite end of the area from the Sword. if the control room is of no value, what is the risk of the SW attempting to sneak into the Sword while we're busy? also, what could he do in the AI core?
"Grate, I need you to find out what the Shadow Walker is after. or figure out a way to scan for radio signals and triangulate where they are coming from. For some reason he has activated a lot of decoys as far away from here as he can."
Questions for Steve and Grate.
Well, getting out of the hole you've wandered into is ok, but getting up to that roof is gonna require going through the unexplored and uncharted tower to get up there. Sure you wanna do that?
>Sneaking onto the sword is...well frankly thats the best thing he could do for us. I can't really let word of the Armory master still being alive out, let alone the Doctor, but if he wanders into the ship then they can deal with him without any sort of issue. The AI core I assume you're talking about is the one Jim went to. It's just an access point and he can't do anything in there, I won't let him. The actual core of ARES and his slaved sub-controllers are buried so deep that they have to have shielding against magma flows. Getting down to them is pretty much a non-issue. hmmm, alright then, look around on the computer of the ship if it has one, look at any important files or something.
[aux:1-1]
GreatYou run up behind Skylar, whip your laser rifle out and press it against one side of the control console bank. You then proceed to squeeze the trigger and drag the rifle across the entire length of the control, completely and totally ruining them. The Ship, now at the whims of a misfiring and damaged system, jerks back up into the air and starts jerking around like a mechanical bull having a seizure.
"I'M HELPING!" you shout, as you're flung back down the hall and land, head first, in the toilet.
Follow the religious zealot, wait for things to do.
You could try reasoning with the welding bot. You invented robots after all. And welding!
Exit ship, attempt to strip incomplete LESHO tube. Re-enter ship if time allows
[dex:5-1]
You jump out of the ship just as it jerks up and away from the tower. You don't jump quite hard enough and end up landing half on, half off the roof.
[Str:3]
You can't manage to drag yourself all the way up onto the roof, but at least you don't slip and fall off.
"Shoulda done...more chin ups in Gym..."
"We didn't come this far to do this halfway. We must find out for the glory of Steve."
Keep going.
"Whoever made this welding droid look like some sort of creepy crab spider thing as a weird sense of humor."
((Is Bishop nervous? He's helping to hunt down an invisible killer that's armed with a nuclear weapon, loves to set deadly traps and is extremely hard to pin down and he's doing it in cramped and dark tunnels with no cameyes to help see. Of course he's nervous, what sane man wouldn't be?!))
"Steve, I've found your sensor problem. It doesn't look good. Looks like someone dug the thing out of the wall with a screwdriver or something. What do you want to do?
Also, have you considered pumping in a gas of some sort into the tunnels and watching for disturbances in the gas from moving objects? That might help with getting through his cloak.
And can you please redirect someone to my position pronto? I'm feeling a bit exposed here by myself..."
Wait for Steve to reply. Constantly check my surroundings and keep my guard up incase the SW is near. Make sure to protect my neck and head incase of assassination attempts!
>Hard to say. I would think an SW wouldn't bother slowly digging out every sensor like that. It seems like something a scared amateur would do. For now, wait for backup then keep going. Xan inexplicably feels a bout of paranoia coming on.
Grow chitin thick enough to be bulletproof while following Lars.
[will:6+1]
You transform into a solid mass of chitin. Your brain is extremely well protected...except you can't move or see or feel or anything really. Trade offs.
Check around the missing sensor for clues. Also see what ways out of here are and where someone is most likely to go from here.
This area is fairly restrained in terms of side paths, the sensor deadzone itself is basically a little cul-de-sac of tunnels that don't go anywhere. If the person that removed these sensors is still here, he's in that cul-de-sac and there's only a few ways out.
Head back to the Sword. Locate the AM.
"Miss 'Feyri' suggested I try to find a way to triangulate radio signals. Do you have anything like that in stock, or would I have to make it myself? And if the latter, can I pretty please use Tinker? Oh, and could I borrow a little of the aircraft control thingy's radio stuff useage?"
If A is true, acquire radio triangulation thingy.
If A and B are false, follow Morul.
If A is false and B is true...Tinker time!
Warning: This is based on an imperfect understanding of the triangulation stuff. And an even more imperfect understanding of what tech is available.
If C is false:
First, find a couple radio receivers or whatever you call those things that pick up radio waves. Stick them on opposite ends of a stick, long enough to put distance between them but not so long that it becomes unwieldy. Hook them up to a power supply and a computer.
Program the computer to isolate specific radio signals (as opposed to background noise, or other radio signals) and determine location, using the direction the signals were coming from and the time difference. Hook it up to a little display to inform me of these things.
Tinker-Test it.
If C is true:
Just have one radio receiver and the computer, plus anything it takes to connect the computer to Steve. Still do the calculation stuff, taking into account the stationary location of the tower.
Regardless:
If successful, calculate how much it would cost to buy the bits and buy them from the AM, if she doesn't let me have them for free.
"Radio triangulation is possible, but you're gonna need three points of reference. And that means three receivers. And they're gonna have to be a good distance apart and pretty powerful. Also, what are you gonna use it for again?"
"Gonna have to be more specific about that last part."
Author
Topic: Einsteinian Roulette (Missions 9a, 10, 11, and Heph post war survey team) (Read 436991 times)