Breathe In Half Stop (Ch. 3b: Day 1, pt. IV)

Tau · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:19 am

The monitor flickered a moment in response to the inquiry and the displayed information shrunk slightly, shifted to the right side of the screen, and gave way to a side-by-side live thermal image of each object in question on aside the original text readout.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:38 am

Rock sat bolt upright and squinted at the screen. "Gotta be %$#*@in' me," he garbled, then jumped to his feet and started striding hastily for the bridge.

"Can you set up a comm relay so we can try and hail'em from here?" he asked as he marched briskly up the inclined corridor. Yeah, the objects looked more like missiles than ships, but he was apparently still gonna give it a shot.

Kythe-X · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:53 am

"Annie.... Annniiieeee.... ♪Annie, Annie, give me your answer do...♫" Animus muttered for a moment before breaking into a short song, eyes shut and swaying back and forth contently. The little smile that crossed her face would pretty much confirm she was pleased with her new nickname, even if she had an odd way of showing it. Before she could continue with the (misinterpreted) age old song, her attention was drawn elsewhere.

Naturally the appearance of many randomly shaped rainbows on the monitors had her captivated in seconds.
"Oooo...pretty..." she cooed, moving towards the screen, Rock's cussing thankfully landing on deaf ears with her. She hesitantly raised a finger to poke the larger of the three blobs. "Rainbows..."

Tau · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:27 pm

"Searching frequencies," Tau's voice responded over the intercom. He'd first attempt was to make use of one of the colonies higher powered communications arrays to hail the objects in question. If the preferred method proved too difficult for which ever reason, Security, damage or other wise, he'd simply default to making use of the shuttles communications systems. Regardless of which method used, Tau attempted to establish an open channel by notifying the objects with a generic wordless communications request to any of the objects either capable or willing to receive.

"A direct link will be established in the bridge if a confirmed connection is made with any of the objects." There was a short pause. "You may prerecord a message to be relayed upon connection now if you wish."

Mie · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:23 pm

Jam looked neither alarmed nor as bothered as she should have by the apparent approach of more-than-likely unfriendly probably-missiles. Her head had craned slowly toward the monitor, a dull, half-lidded expression conveying concentrated fatigue trickled from her head downward, further exacerbating her already poor posture.

"Ah," was the monkey's understated response, as Rock flew past her. "Of course."

Turning on her heel, simultaneous to dragging in a deep, long breath through her nose, Jam lunged forward, but stutter-stepped to an abrupt stop, glancing around at first Badge, then Ace, and lastly, their little stow-away. With a grimace, she bit her lip, and fished for something to tell them.

"Uh."

When that was all she could come up with, she shook her head, sprang lightly off the balls of her feet, and beelined for the bridge, soon disappearing after Rock.

Upon their expedient arrival at the helm, she had but one dread-laden request:

"Please tell me you have a back-up plan when calling the missiles and asking them to stop doesn't work."

Greens · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:09 pm

"Ah," Ace blurted simply the very moment he saw the quote unquote 'rainbows bloom upon the monitor. "Ah, crap." Granted, he didn't spring into action the same way Rock did, (that came just after Jam did,) but his synapses as a whole seemed to sharpen remarkably, for all the good that did them. He made his way to the bridge in a haste, but spared enough time to inform the new girl if what was really going on in his own special way.

He turned his head just long enough to speak: "Yeah, these pretty little rainbows might just blow us to Hell, girl." Sadly, he seemed devoid of compassion to spare, given the circumstances. "Didn't we just turn the shields back on!? Why're we all actin' like we oughta hide under our desks?"

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:33 pm

Their walk was one full of questions and uncertainty. Rock was focused on the task at hand, and didn't really have a lot of time to share information, but he blurted the most important thing: "The shields are for debris, not missile attacks."

He strode into the bridge, and straight over to the helm, where he took the pilot's seat and reached immediately for the radio controls, and began seeking for any current channels with activity. Surely they weren't the only ones addressing the situation, right?

"Use your radio t'call the team back, alright?" he meanwhile asked Ace hastily. "Might need everybody."

A few seconds later revealed no radio traffic of consequence. No one was talking. No one but them had any idea what was happening. With that confirmation of an utter lack of administration aboard the ARK, he raised the mic to his mouth, and...

... stopped again. His mouth opened, then closed, and he exhaled sharply and blinked. It just occurred to him that he had no idea what to say. He licked his lip, drew another breath, and paused, staring at the microphone as if it was a snake about to bite him. He shook his head and came up with something, regardless, and depressed the button.

This was the radio message Tau received to relay through the ARK's transmitters.

"Attention, approaching vessels. This is the United Federation Space Colony ARK. Please identify. Over."

He waited with bated breath for a response, staring intently out the windscreen at nothing in particular in the bustling docking bay below.

Kythe-X · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:42 pm

"How do rainbows hurt people?...." Animus said with a distinctly worried tone. Something she was so enthusiastic about was apparently going to cause them all bother and this was quite shattering to her, at least for a moment. Then she lost focus and proceeded to follow the group as they moved towards the bridge, though, keeping her eyes on everywhere BUT what was ahead of her. She landed up wandering directly into the center before morbid curiosity resulted in her immediate halt. More things to explore and look at, while the rest of the group were panicking over the rainbows. She caught ear of some of their complaints though and her childish mind sought to provide ideas.

"Doesn't this thing have big pew pew laser cannons or something? Like the ones on the starships from TV? If the mean rainbows try to hurt us, we could make them go boom!" she said excitedly, the naivety of her idea was so thick that people could almost imagine exactly what she was picturing - a large interstellar game of laser tag with a few more explosions.

NPC · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:02 pm

There was the space of about seven seconds.

"United Federation, over," crackled back a voice, warped and distended by solar interference, and by incredible distance.

Mie · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:19 pm

It was amazing how long Jam stared unblinkingly and intensely at precisely nothing, while the response to Rock's hail tumbled around in her head, clutching the headrest of the pilot's seat with gradually increasing pressure. Momentarily, her eyes flitted to the quaint pink cat; they seemed to harden and focus momentarily, but Jam ultimately didn't respond.

Eventually, she blinked, cast a bewildered look at their effective team leader, licked and then pursed her lips, and asked, "How possible is that? If Tau can hack the ARK's defense systems, couldn't we just pick off the missiles if they get too close?"

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:31 pm

"Sh-sh-sh hang on," Rock hurriedly hushed his onlookers with a raised finger, brows furrowed. He tried responding to the broken message.

"Approaching vessels, we are experiencing interference," he said slowly and plainly. "Please repeat your transmission in full. Over."

NPC · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:47 pm

"United," said the voice.

"Federation over. Over."

"Over," it continued, shortly and abruptly, speaking garbled word pairs as if reading them out of a code book. "We are, over."

"Federation over."

"In full. Federation over. We are. Federation over. Over."

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:52 pm

Rock's expression sank at the reply. He blinked several times, then, in tired deadpan, as if testing the waters for the inevitable truth, replied:

"Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey."

...

"Over."

NPC · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:01 pm

"We miss. Over. We miss her United Federation, over. We are Muffet. Over. We—"

Mie · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:02 pm

With simultaneously slumping shoulders, Jam huffed a frustrated sigh, nursing the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

"I think we're screwed," she told Rock flatly. "Over."

Breathe In Half Stop (Ch. 3b: Day 1, pt. IV)

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