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

Greens · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:58 pm

The moment Mr. Lochert requested it, Ace's hands scrambled to strip the radio from his belt, still a frazzled from the impending doom looming ominously over their, and everyone else in the colony's collective heads. His call to action was simple enough: "Uh, crew? We have a problem. If you're hearing this, we need you back at the ship ASAP. We picked up some... UF... Os, on... r-radar. And require..."

"Oh, f^$* this. There are missiles coming at us! Get your asses over here!"

Shaking his head, he let go of the button and threw the device back at his side, bringing his attention back to the situation at hand. But he did not like what he heard from the other end of Rock's conversation. In fact, the more he heard, the more his eyes widened and his lips parted, looking more and more appalled and confused until he was finally staring at the transmitters like it had just told him everything he'd experienced up to this point was a simulation for studying purposes.

"Oh..." he said, trying to think of what to add.

"...Wow."

Seafarinhare · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:07 pm

Hoji stood in complete silence as the situation unfolded before his eyes and ears. First the "pretty rainbows" as a colorful individual stated. Then the parrot-like responses they were getting from the other end. It was all adding up to speechlessness for the Justice Defending raccoon.

He looked around at the others as they cursed, stated what he was thinking, and generally tried to come up with a solution in a pinch. And what a pinch it was.

He finally piped up, looking over at Rock, "What's the ETA on those things?"

Kythe-X · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:17 pm

Animus had spent a good portion of the distorted conversation genuinely listening. To her, the incoming transmissions from the 'aliens' were in some weird space language, or at least that was how she was interpreting it. Up until the point where Rock pulled a nursery rhyme out of nowhere, she was quite content. Then the less-than-comprehensive response came and suddenly her imagination kicked into overdrive, likely for the worse.

Rather dark and gloomy images popped into her mind featuring scary woods, little miss muffet and giant silhouettes of spiders creeping after the poor girl. Lord knows why she was thinking this way but it kept her rooted to the spot for the moment and to everyone's reprieve, kept her quiet save for a few innocent little mumbles.

Thankfully (or not so), Ace's exclamation woke her up from her daydream-turned-nightmare. Again, her lackluster attention span saved her from rethinking about the gloomy world she'd conjured up not a moment ago, and she began to dwell on thoughts of missiles and once more, her sci-fi fantasy set in. More lasers and more "pew pews" from Animus as she made gun gestures towards the monitors and control panels.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:21 pm

The primate sank into his seat. Jam's funny comments weren't lost on him, but at the moment, all he could bring himself to do was shake his head. When Badge spoke, though, he paused. "Good question," he mumbled. "Tau? Any estimates? Confirmation that their trajectory is definitely set on us?"

Tau · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:21 pm

Tau simply responded via the ships intercom once more, though now limited his response specificity to the bridges intercom.
“I can confirm the objects are on a similar trajectory to the colony’s orbital path. At their current velocity it will take approximately 5 minutes until the closest orbital pass.”

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:57 pm

Five minutes.

Rock weighed his options with deep consideration. If it had been fifteen... well, it wasn't fifteen. That was all that mattered. He had to work with what he had to work with.

"Not enough time to intercept," he murmured in conclusion. His eyes remained downcast, focused on some insignificant portion of the console for a moment, until he arrived at his solution, and raised his head again. "I'm gonna call for a full evacuation to the interior areas just in case anything strikes around here," he stated reluctantly, more to Tau than anyone else, at the moment. "Judging by the size of the projectiles, and potential destructive power if they are actually missiles, d'you think this is a sufficient precaution?"

He was in full-on business mode.

Tau · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:24 pm

"As I cannot determine the nature nor yield of the warheads of the suspected missiles, I cannot confirm if these precautions are adequate." Tau paused a moment. "Theoretically, it is possible to modify shields to assist in protecting the colony from the projectiles by rerouting shield power from regions outside of the impact areas." There was another brief pause. "I can briefly reroute one of the shuttle's communications channels to both of the bays' audio systems if desired, to save time."

NPC · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:29 pm

"United Federation," the radio crackled again, "Over. We are. Over. Little Miss. Little Miss Muffet, over. Little—"

The transmission was cut short. A tremendous crackle resonated through the speakers, as if a wire had been crossed somewhere, and the voice disintegrated into a wall of tonal static.

The radio lost the signal, and went silent. Across the ARK, antenna arrays complained in unison as they fought to cope with the radio-waves pounding them from somewhere below. The ARK was being jammed.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:42 pm

"Sounds good to me," Rock sputtered out, as if impressed with mere fact that it might have been doable for them. "If we can't get any turrets running, it's the next best thing." (Obviously, he assumed that if that much was possible, it would have been one of the first things that the ever-gun-conscious Tau would have tried.)

He reached for the mic to begin his announcement. And... before he could do anything, the chaos started.

"..."

Business-mode snapped off for a moment.

"This's some kinn'a bullsh—"

He was drowned out by the sea of noise, and forced to turn off the radio equipment. Massaging a temple, the ever-tired monkey stood from his seat and looked at those behind him. His eyes settled on the blue-and-white raccoon.

"Badge,... could you help us out with somethin'?" he asked with a sigh.

Seafarinhare · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:59 pm

5 minutes. That was certainly not much to work with. He shook his head. It seemed as though they would have to play the defensive game on this one.

As Rock began probing their local killbot for information, Hoji seemed to be staring at the ground, as if deep in thought. He snapped out of it pretty quickly, though when Rock called his name, "Yeah? What'd you have in mind?"

The simian's exasperation in asking this favor not lost on the ice blue raccoon, but nonetheless ignored.

psikeout · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:10 am

Badge may have misread his body language, but it was understandable; Rock was just exasperated with the whole situation. But he also knew who the most... personable person present was.

"Would you let all the refugees know what's happening, and get'em deeper inside the colony?" he asked, then motioned out the windshield toward a high-mounted set of windows over on the far wall. "There should be some way to use the PA system from in there."

He glanced back, and quickly appended what he said with one more note: "I'm not tryin' to send you on footwork or anything, by the way, it's just that I gotta get some stuff together, Jam sounds like a little girl over radios, and, well,..."

He looked toward the self-proclaimed alley cat for just a second, then back to Badge with a shrug.

"Ace is Ace."

What was that supposed to mean, anyway?

"What's that supposed to mean, anyway?"

Seafarinhare · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:48 am

Hoji nodded to the white-furred simian as he explained what it was he needed help with, and then why he wanted Hoji to do it over the other available options. Not that it really mattered to him. He was not above simple legwork, in the name of Justice.

"Got it." He said before exiting the craft and headed toward the control bay that Rock had gestured to from inside the shuttle.

Once there, he got inside the small room and looked around at the controls. After a moment or two to examine the microphone and the doohicky that it was attached to(and a nearby map of the Cargo sectors surrounding the hangar they were in), he looked for a switch of some sort to power it on, or what have you. Usually, a "Vol." label over a little knob or a power symbol was a pretty good indicator. Failing that, he'd...figure something out.

After tampering with it for a bit, he would tap the microphone with his finger, "...Is this thing working?"

And if he heard a booming echo through the intercoms outside, he would continue:

"Ehem... Sorry to disturb you all, but... Something alarming has come up. We're sure it's nothing, but as a safety precaution, we're going to need to move everyone deeper into the colony."

He paused, thinking of what to add to give people some sort of direction.

"This is for everyone's safety, so please don't panic and move calmly and quickly through the checkpoint and toward Large Cargo, please."

"...This is not a drill." He finished, unable to help himself.

Kythe-X · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 8:50 am

Animus had picked up on the sudden urgency behind Rock's voice. It was obvious the rest of them were still worried about the rainbows causing harm and the creepy static wasn't exactly reassuring them but Animus didn't seem too fussed at the moment. she was still living in wonderland and she had every intention of providing her own two cents. She made a quick hop, skip and jump over to Rock's side and in range of the transmitter to Tau.

"Hey Mister Mysterious Roboty Voice, if you do that thingy with the shields, and the rainbows aren't so bad after all, wont they change their mind and think WE'RE bad guys? They might think we're getting ready to go all pew pew on them!" she said, deluded optimism hanging thick in her voice. She based her claim vaguely on the idea that the ARK didn't exactly look friendly and inviting to begin with, at least from what she saw on her way here.

Tau · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:48 pm

“ Mister Mys... “ Tau's voice trailed off followed by several moments of silence. Given the fact that the feline was both an unfamiliar individual and the fact Tau wasn't entirely used to handling children ( nor was such high on his list of preferences. ) it took the A.I. a moment to consider the proper, least troublesome, response.

“Unrecognized user, your request for information has been denied. “ Tau wasn't some unintelligent mindless machine.. but acting like one sometimes had its benefits.

Kythe-X · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:31 pm

Taken aback slightly by the sudden tonal shift, Animus expression changed from one of genuine intrigue to childish pouting. She was tempted to slam her hand on something but she managed to resist at least THAT outburst.

"Hey, Mister Moody Mean Machine! You're the one who bought up the shieldy thingy in the first place! I wanna know what happens if it all goes wrong!" she said loudly down the transmitter. While her tone suggested otherwise, she didn't exactly look enraged... at least not yet.

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

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