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Post by nicholas on Sept 3, 2012 23:38:48 GMT -5
Space was a big place - much larger than most minds could or cared to comprehend, and for good reason. For the vast majority of people their lives never stretched beyond the limits of their own planets of birth, comfortable but fragile existences in the dark night - for some, though, that did not hold. For many that did dare to venture into the cold and the dark they could not help but realize exactly how far they were going from their homes, and that a number of them would never return - some accepted that as fact, some didn't, and some even chose to make their homes there, forsaking the warmth, comfort and relative safety of their original homes for the freedom and certainty that came with taking your home wherever you went. Among all of those, though, there was another group - those who had no home, travelling wherever circumstances took them and doing whatever it took to survive.
It was in such vast darkness that many of the final category drifted, their sanctuary taking the form of a single metal needle in the dark, a vessel roughly 500 meters in length and all but invisible as the slate gray metal that made up the ship blended nearly perfectly into the black around it. Had the ship's running lights been powered, a single name stenciled across the portside triangular armor plate covering roughly half of the ship's length would have been illuminated - the UNSC Basilisk. Despite being named after the fearsom beast of Greek legend, however, the ship itself seemed all but dead or dormant, with only the most miniscule of power flowing through the battered destroyer, the armor and hull plating abused, warped and pressed to their limits with the bridge itself noticably exposed to open vacuum as well as many other visible hull breaches - none of them vented any form of gas, having long since been sucked into the emptiness of the space around them.
Within the dark confines of the tomblike vessel, however, signs of life persisted despite the numerous asphyxiated corpses that drifted through the halls - here and there many of the emergency lights flickered weakly, running on minimal power, and many sections of the ship had sealed themselves from the vacuum as emergency bulkheads and blast doors had slammed shut to preserve what little atmosphere remained within. The ship's fusion reactor, while barely running, still showed a faint but warm blue glow as it continued to operate, and deep within the farthest reaches of the ship where atmosphere still remained cold blue lighting illuminated row upon row of steel gray cylinders, tucked against the walls and covered with frost. Nearly all of them possessed transparent viewports that offered glimpses of their occupants, all of them human and all wearing gray fatigues save one - a single tube near the back of the room, it's occupant clad in jet black metal, a gleaming golden visor frosted over and appearing to be more machine than man.
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Post by Ridley on Sept 4, 2012 1:41:46 GMT -5
[/i] It was the Lieutenant currently on-duty. "Scans show what appears to be a derelict vessel. Power signs are at minimal, almost missed them with our scans, no immediately detectable lifesigns, but there are some strange readings.""What kind of ship is it?" Ridley snapped wearily, shaking his head to clear the dreck from his mind and to focus on important matters. A derelict vessel could potentially hold some supplies, or even better, weapons. But depending on what type of vessel it was.... "No idea, sir. It doesn't match any records. We can tell it's not one of our own, and it's not Federation."Immediately Ridley swung his head around to stare out the main window of the bridge once more. "Let's go have a look at what we've found then, eh?"[/ul][/blockquote] |
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Post by nicholas on Sept 4, 2012 2:48:48 GMT -5
In spite of the apparent utter silence that seemed to enshroud the derelict vessel and those that slept aboard it, there was one mind that did not rest....... one mind that could not rest, and who was very, very well aware of those who were now approaching the vessel, a place that was all at once his home, his tomb and his physical being.
Time was not something that was treated lightly among "smart" artifical intelligences - programs they might have been, but just as those whose minds they were spawned from in the very literal sense they had flaws as well, inevitable ends that would come for each of them. Usually such ends were quick and merciful, granted to an AI by the hands of their creators after a period of seven years while an AI still maintained its sanity, its dignity - others, however, were not so lucky. Balmung had been one of those unfortunate ones, having been destined to outlive his normal lifespan of seven years through a combination of luck and what had, at the time, been deemed as a selfless act of self sacrifice made to ensure the survival of those few who had not been killed by their sudden and abrupt transition from slipspace back into real space. At the time he had acted with what information had been available - assuming hostilities and the presence of Covenant forces he had endeavored to save those he still could that had not been exposed to vacuum through numerous hull breaches, closing off sections of the ship to retain what atmosphere they had before sequestering himself and all astrological data within the ship's AI core with the full intent to follow Cole Protocol to the letter, only to stop upon realizing that there were no hostiles.... beyond that, there had simply been nothing but empty space as far as he could see through what remained of the ship's sensors.
Unwilling to use the ship's slipspace drive without an accurate understanding of exactly what had happened, Balmung had immediately begun to make contingency plans. The Basilisk had been deemed a priority one asset by ONI, which had been the sole reason he had been assigned to the vessel straight out of New Alexandria with only two objectives - to either ensure that the vessel made it to Earth intact, or failing that to ensure that nothing would fall into enemy hands. With a handful of crewmen still left alive at the time Balmung had begun to coordinate with the highest ranking officer present following the loss of the entire bridge crew, intending to both effect repairs and to attempt to reach Earth as planned - as time went on and they never figured out what had happened to the FTL drive as it seemed to be working properly they began to consider using it, only to decide against the risk time and time again, milking what little thrust they could from the sublight engines without compromising the reactor's long term viability. While Balmung could hypothetically survive in that state indefinately, though, the crew was only human, and after several weeks without access to sustenance they had all perished.
Realizing that he was the only thing able to ensure the survival of the rest of the crew, Balmung began to alter his own programming, a very dangerous process for AIs - not to themselves, but in the sense that it was very likely to accelerate his pace towards rampancy, eventually making him into a possible threat to those very people he was supposed to protect. First had gone the programming regarding the Cole Protocol, which would have demanded the self destruct of the vessel rather than leaving things to such chance, and after that had been his ethics routines in the event that less than friendly forces would find the vessel as well as to allow him to disable several key safety systems that might have woken crew members before rescue, leaving them to the same fate as those who had attempted to repair the ship. As time continued to march onwards and Balmung had continued to make more and more self alterations he began to feel himself slipping as the seventh year of his life approached, and in what had supposed to be a final act he sabotages many of his own connections to the rest of the ship, removing his access to engineering, weapons, life support and other key systems as well, leaving himself only with rudimentary door control and access to sensors and a handful of individual consoles and interface devices. Only six months since their detour, Balmung had then settled in for what he suspected would be a very undignified process.
For a while afterwards he had been tempted to self terminate in an effort to retain what dignity and pride he had, a part of himself fully aware that such thoughts were the first stage of rampancy, melancholy, and after that had eventually followed the second stage of envy towards his creators for their much longer life spans, their ability to do so much more and to not be bound in the way he had been, and finally after that had come rage, the last and final stage. Rage towards his creators that had given him what had evidently become a meaningless existance, rage towards the Covenant for making such an existance a necessity, and finally rage at himself for being utterly powerless to do anything about it, attempting to restore his access to as much of the ship as he could and failing save for the most basic form of navigation, the sublight drives, utterly useless given their current situation.
It was in that state that these new interlopers now found him, nearly three years since he had fallen victim to the insanity that eventually claimed all high level AI, and it was in that state that he saw them as a means to an end - a target for his anger, wrath and fury, as well as a means to end this pointless cycle of counting the milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years and at worst they would be simple playthings, a way to pass a brief moment in the infinite march of time. As if awakening from a long slumber, Balmung began to move.
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Post by Ridley on Sept 5, 2012 5:07:12 GMT -5
[/i] about this ship. Despite the readings of no lifesigns and the power being all but dead....he couldn't shake the feeling that something on that ship was watching. He was a predator by nature, and knew all about how such a beast might lurk and stalk prey, though the thought of him being anything's prey was both extremely amusing and enraging. But eventually he spoke up. "Send a combat team on board as well. Half-compliment." He received a momentary questioning look, but a further narrowing of his eyes saw the order relayed swiftly. They were learning.
It was only another handful of minutes that the team consisting of a dozen and three Pirates were launched and touched down on the blasted out bridge of the ship. And with the efficiency they were known for -- that was to say, immediately, if a bit sloppily -- set to work getting access to the ship proper. The entire team was, of course, armed with basic gear for combat in case of emergency, but only five of them were fully geared for actual battle. These five stood guard and looked around warily for the short minute or so it took to pry the doors open.[/ul][/blockquote] |
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Post by nicholas on Sept 5, 2012 5:43:51 GMT -5
So..... now it begins.
As the unfamiliar vessel stopped in the distance, either too cautious or too paranoid to advance any further Balmung picked out several smaller signatures seperating from the other ship. Accessing one of the many still functional cameras placed along the outer hull, Balmung manipulated one to face and zoom in on the several smaller signatures, tagging fifteen small lights that seemed to emenate from numerous thruster packs. A boarding party, then... the thought filled Balmung with an emotion he could only identify as a childish glee before forcing himself to calm down - it wouldn't do him any good to have his fun all at once. No, he would take his time with them, make this last as long as possible..... as long as that other ship was beyond his reach he didn't want to alert them to anything that might cause them to raise their guard any further, not until he had what he wanted. Well, beyond the toys that they already gave him, anyways.
Continuing to move through the few systems that he still had at his beck and call, Balmung began to make his preparations. The first order of business would be to get as many of his original capabilities back as possible, but he couldn't trust these newcomers with that.... no, at best he doubted they'd know what they were doing, and at worst they'd allow the situation to deteriorate even further. Still, for the time being he still had basic controls over the ship's doors, navigation and communication systems both external and internal....... they'd simply have to do for the time being. Turning the highest levels of attention back to the camera feed that had tagged and was tracking the incoming signatures, though, Balmung noticed a rather curious fact - they were not human, but at the same time were not any of the recorded Covenant species on record. Slightly bigger than Sangheili, but using much different technology and lacking the cohesion and militaristic efficiency that the saurian troops were well known for..... interesting. Certainly not as much as he could have hoped for, but not nearly as bad as he had feared and it meant that while he had to be careful until he knew exactly what he was dealing with, Balmung could also greatly extend the length to which he could draw this out, and it would make getting back on track much, much easier if they would not recognize him for what he was.
Continuing to track his guests as they landed on his hull, Balmung set to work, passively scanning every radio and wireless frequency he could to locate whatever means of communication the creatures were using for both squad and intership transmissions as he also set to work opening a handful of rather specific exterior hatches that led to already decompressed areas, locking down other doors all over the ship while leaving a handful of others open. Balmung made a specific note to leave access to the cryo bay relatively open save for direct access to the final chamber, however - he had plans for those he kept watch over, and he needed these creatures in order to realize that goal. As he did that Balmung also made sure to seal off other areas of more vital importance, namely engineering, life support and what was left of the bridge to deny them access to weapons and control over communications as well as placing the AI core under a security lockdown as well - that was the last place he wanted them sniffing around, and he would not take any chances with that.
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Post by Ridley on Sept 6, 2012 3:09:02 GMT -5
[/i] Turning from the console, the logistics officer on the bridge glanced at Ridley for a brief moment, and upon seeing that his expression remained locked in a scowling grimace, turned back to his console andi ssued the command of "Understood. Continue as initially planned." A sharp click from Ridley's beak got him to add "But have weapons at the ready."
"Affirmative."One by one, the group of fifteen slipped inside the ship. Three of the combat team went first, to make sure the scene was clear, and the remaining two combat team remained outside until all others were inside. A quick look around told them nothing. "Fan out. Groups of three, one combat team per two science and recovery team."So allocated, the group seperated, fanning out as they came across interesections in the halls.[/ul][/blockquote] |
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Post by nicholas on Sept 7, 2012 2:56:39 GMT -5
There it was...... amusingly easy to find, and as Balmung tapped into the frequency that he found activity on that wasn't marred and distorted by the cosmic radiation around them he actually found himself pleasantly surprised. Not only were they using the same channels as most civilian craft, but on top of that they were using minimal encryption and even spoke a language that Balmung readily understood. Oh, this was providence indeed - this was meant to happen. How else could such a coincidence have happened, out of everything that came to pass in such a vast universe? Corrupted logic routines be damned - Balmung could see no other explanation for the event, and his earlier childish glee returned as he set to work even harder than before, retaining a lock on the frequency and listening to everything that transpired on it as he did what he needed to in order to properly set things in motion.
While he was slightly concerned about the supposed ability of the other craft to detect living things at will, the system was clearly flawed to a certain extent as it did not detect those who slept below in their tiny little tubes, and that alone gave Balmung all the room he needed to work. All he needed to do was seperate a few of the creatures from their groups and keep them isolated as individuals, and once he had done that all he would require would be careful timing - easy enough with his runtimes, but it couldn't hurt to be cautious. As the boarding party entered the vessel and split into three teams Balmung tracked them, sealing the doors behind them - with no atmosphere to carry the sound he suspected it would go unnoticed unless they looked behind them, and he continued to work by slowly increasing the amount of power routed to the emergency lighting deeper in the vessel until they gave off a respectable radiance, encouragement to venture further.
Even as he did all of that, however, Balmung still had plenty of runtime to spare, and a bored mind to keep busy until the real fun and games could kick off, and after a few long moments he began to consider toying with the frequency used by the creatures to communicate with their own ship. It would have been so easy.... a mere thought and he could flood the interior of the vessel with noise on every bandwidth, enough to block any signal from exiting the ship even as he used the vessel's own communication suite to talk to the other ship, and with that many words captured from the last exchange it would be child's play to synthesize voiced responses, but...... no. Not yet. There was still plenty of work to be done, and while it was tiresome he needed to ensure a few things first. In the meantime, however...... as the three teams continued deeper and deeper Balmung began closing off other passages and opening other more specific ones, herding them further and further apart from each other - one towards the cryo bay's control deck, another towards what was left of the bridge, and the final five individuals towards engineering's subcontrol room, not a place where they could do any damage but where they'd have access to enough to get him started.
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Post by Ridley on Sept 8, 2012 5:24:04 GMT -5
The closing of doors behind the Pirates' boarding team as they split up and proceeded deeper into the ship went wholly unnoticed, as expected. The lack of sound to herald their closing gave the Pirates, relatively sloppy from lack of actual tasks and missions recently, with no reason to check.
Cryo Team
The group being unknowingly herded toward the Control Deck of the ship's cryo bay crept slowly forward. They were perhaps the best equipped to deal with any physical threats, having a Combat Team member who had supposedly survived a confrontation with the Hunter and another who was a veteran of more than a few conflicts, with the other three having participated in their own fare share of battle, though they were merely science team officers.
One combat team officer lead the way, the other trailing behind as a rearguard. The cannon mounted in the clawed pincer that was his right arm swept slowly across the hallway as he paced behind his fellows, peering keenly at every shadowy corner they passed.
A call from the leader of the group got the attention of the other four. "The lights get brighter ahead. There's still some power available. Probably someone, or something, messing with that power." It was a guess, but it was a good enough guess to put the team on mild alert and grind out even more caution as they slipped back into their long-disused precision. Both combat team members now lead the pack, one of them poised to activate his energy scythe at a moment's notice even as he kept his cannon trained forward, the other keeping his cannon leveled and ready to sweep and fire at any target presented.
The lead science team member brought up his comm. "Command.... There are power source fluctuations. Unidentified source, but they seem to be more profound the further we go."
The reply was short and succint when it came, seconds later. "Understood. Continue as planned, with extra caution."
Bridge Team
The second team was perhaps less physically able to deal with threats, having only a single combat team officer. But the four science team officers had seen enough combat to somewhat make up the difference, and they were perhaps the most....technologically savvy team unknowingly seperated from their fellows.
The message from their allies came through, and they exchanged a brief glance with one another. In so doing, the combat team officer, who was several feet ahead, turned on his heel and that was when he noticed the passage they had just come through was closed off, several meters back. "We may....have a problem." He pointed at the sealed passage, and earned a unanimous grimace from the rest of the team.
Their decision to trudge on ahead wasn't a difficult one to make.
Engineering Team
The third team, being led yet elsewhere within the ship, was perhaps the most overall well-rounded. They were the only group to lapse back into their old precision as they went, after one brought up what Ridley might do if he got wind of them not giving 100% even on something this possibly trivial.
They trudged forward deeper into the ship, following the increasing lights like moths to a flame even after they received the warning transmission from their ship. All it caused them to do was set themselves deeper in their stance and ready their weapons, but their pace did not slow or falter.
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Post by nicholas on Sept 8, 2012 7:36:43 GMT -5
So far, so good. As Balmung continued to track the progress of the Pirate teams deeper and deeper into the ship he set to his next handful of tasks even as he continued to shut doors he didn't need open behind the intruders - the last thing he needed was more of the ship's atmosphere to escape or for the boarding party to go to the places that they would be least productive. Bringing up the human-machine interface programs, the thing that commonly acted as an operating system of a sort and governed the GUI interfaces that the crew typically used in most sections of the ship, Balmung set to work, dedicating his midlevel runtimes to appropriately edit and modify the programs as he saw fit before redirecting his higher levels of attention back to his guests.
Cryo
The team heading towards the cryo bay seemed to be the most militarily proficient of the three groups - through the cameras he could observe the movements of at least two of them who were clearly trained soldiers, and while the other three were what Balmung could best guess were technicians or science officers of some sort based on their light armaments and equipment they also knew how to handle themselves if their motions meant anything. Mildly problematic, but not irreversably so - if anything it was a blessing in disguise as it meant that they would be the least likely to see through Balmung's deceptions, and once they did what he needed to get done in that section they would be more than expendable along with the others poking around the ship.
As they slowly delved deeper into the passageway they'd eventually come to the end of the hallway, with two seperate doors - one locked, with only a handful of small crimson lights to denote that access to the cryobay beneath it was barred, and another open door that led up a short ramp into a control room overlooking the bay beneath it. Inside of the room were several diagnostic displays showing the status of every cryo tube in the room below it - pod status, vital signs for the crew intombed which, while extremely low, were all just above zero as they should have been, and a large control panel running the length of the room in front of the viewport, controls glowing dimly. While Balmung himself did not have access to the bay's critical systems himself, he had enough control to decide whether or not signals left to room or what information was relayed back to it, and that would be all that he needed. Patience growing short, Balmung waited for the five creature team to choose the only door open to them.
Bridge
The team heading towards the bridge, however, was apparently a bit brighter than the other two groups, and as soon as they realized that the doors were closing behind them Balmung moved to isolate them from the others completely, increasing the flow of what power was available through the ship's internal comm system to generate inaudible frequencies meant to jam both of their local and longrange communications save for what Balmung himself decided to let through, and a moment later he reconsidered before enacting the protocol for all three teams to increase the amount of control he had over them. As planned, though, the group continued forward (not that he gave them much choice in the matter) before reaching the last door that led to the bridge, yet another portal sliding shut behind them before Balmung pumped all of the atmosphere in their compartment back to another area of the ship to create a makeshift air lock before allowing access to the bridge.
The chamber was a mess, with a handful of corpses still tied into their seats at their posts and two or three other bodies still floating freely in the microgravity environment. The forward viewports, normally what seperated the room from the cold emptiness beyond, were mostly smashed beyond repair, the metal braces warped and bent to the point of preventing the safety shutters from meant to preserve atmosphere loss in the event of such an accident from closing. Nearly all of the consoles towards the edges of the rooms were offline save for a handful that Balmung hadn't cut power to, as well as a single table-like object in the center that was clearly powered as well, bathing the rest of the room in a cool, blue glow.
Engineering
The engineering subcontrol room, in contrast, was in excellent shape, and as the third and final team slowly closed in on it they would find a room nearly identical to the bridge but roughly a third larger. Unlike the bridge, however, nearly everything in the room appeared to be in working order, the chamber illuminated a dull red by running and emergency lights, all of the consoles seemingly active but locked in standby mode and with the same table-like object in the center but without any power running into it. Near the far end of the room from where they would enter would be another door, but similar to the cryo bay access it would be locked, a handful of red lights denying further access deeper into the ship.
Let the games begin.
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Post by Ridley on Oct 24, 2012 8:19:34 GMT -5
Cryo The Pirate at the head of the group signalled a halt, snapping his gaze between the two doors. The one that was open drew his attention after a few short seconds -- the closed one was deigned secondary for the moment -- and he signalled to continue, marching forward through the open door. They advanced forward through the portal and up the ramp within. Emerging on the control room, their guards were momentarily dropped. The three Science Team officers immediately went to work on examining what they would of the displays in the room. The lead Combat Team officer set about giving the rest of the room a look over, while the last of them remained by the door into the room as a guard, though it was likely completely unnecessary. The leader of the small group approached the overlook to the cry bay below and just stared down at it for a long moment. It didn't take a genius to figure out what he was seeing, and he appropriately turned away to relay the news. "Command. We found what appears to be a cryogenics bay. Orders?"
Bridge The group unknowingly herded to the bridge halted at the locked door before them. Immediately they set about an attempt to get it open, but they had barely even begun when it opened seemingly of its own accord. Slightly baffled as to the goings-on, they nonetheless slowly advanced into the room beyond. The Bridge, by the looks of it....or what was left of it, at any rate. It was a complete wreck, to put it in generous terms. There wasn't likely to be anything of any real value left here...but there might be some sort of information left to detail exactly what manner of ship this was. Two of the officers spread out to investigate the still-functioning consoles at the edges of the room, violently ripping the corpses still strapped in out of the way and sending them spinning away carelessly in the zero-g. The remaining three advanced on the object in the center.
Engineering As the third team arrived in the control room, they lowered their weapons, looking about the room. A quick look around, and the leader signalled for the team to get to work. They all fanned out, giving every inch of the room the once-over and confirming it was empty. One of them then went to the sealed door, and began working to get it open -- his first choice would be to hack it open, and failing that, immediately jump to outright blowing it open. The others set about scrounging through the room, searching for any consoles that might be immediately usable as well as anything they might salvage.
Ridley The General of the Pirates was rapidly growing impatient. Since the message about the power source fluctuations, they'd received no reports, and all attempts to hail the teams went unanswered. It was either direct insubordination, interference, or death. No other causes would cause a Space Pirate to not respond if they were able to. And it was to this end that the General was already considering sending in a Strike Team to blow the entire vessel to pieces from within....or go do it himself. It all depended on how long his patience lasted.
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Post by nicholas on Oct 24, 2012 20:46:33 GMT -5
As the intruders began to move further into the Cryo Bay through the one path that he had left open, Balmung felt content to merely let things run normally, at least for the time being - they would see everything as it was, although he did take the liberty of masking one particular cryo tube's readings on the displays while copying and substituting another pod's readings in place of the original's. Beyond that, though, they would only see what they were meant to - several dozen tubes filled with people lulled into cryostasis, their vitals so low that they could easily be mistaken for dead by the untrained eye. As they began to survey the room and the bay below them through the viewport - with the industrious little technicians doing their jobs under the watchful gaze of the soldiers - Balmung felt what he could only recognize as an almost childish glee and anticipation. Registering the fact that the leader of the group had spoken, Balumng intercepted and relayed the transmission as it was, completely intact to the vessel waiting a relatively short distance away - no reason to draw suspicion, at least not yet, but in turn Balmung continued to jam any and all signals aimed from the vessel to the destroyer he was inhabiting, instead beginning to set things in motion with his own actions at long last.
"Understood. Revive one of the occupants and learn what you can from them or use them to find someone who knows what they don't. Transmit your findings back to us when you are done." Balmung said, the synthesized voice an exact replica of the one that the squad leader had been speaking to earlier, identical in terms of voice, pitch and cadence.
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Even as Balmung watched the team in the Cryo Bay, however, that portion of his mind was only a small fraction of his attention span - even in his rampant state the artificial intelligence was near omniscient within the confines of the Basilisk, and it was no exaggeration that virtually nothing escaped his notice. While the teams several decks below would be instrumental in regaining much of what he had lost, the one on the bridge would serve very little purpose beyond entertainment. They would remain alive for the time being since he was now aware that the other vessel could detect lifesigns, but only for so long - until then, though, he would have his fun.
Watching as the creatures moved through the ruins of the bridge, Balmung noted that they showed no respect for the dead, for those who he had once watched over and protected - a handful of years ago this would have likely enraged Balmung during his initial stages of rampancy, but after so long he could only dimly recognize that fact as he watched them move about their business. Certainly industrious little insects they were, and for not the first time Balmung was reminded of the Covenant - while these creatures lacked their organization they did share the other alien combine's proficiency for stealing anything that wasn't nailed to the floor, a fact reinforced by the actions of the team on the engineering deck several floors below, but they were no threat to him. They would go where he wanted, when he wanted, and whatever their tiny little minds thought otherwise they were powerless to really stop him from doing as he pleased.
Continuing to rewrite several of the destroyer's operating systems in the background, Balmung rewarded the efforts of one of the engineers by activating one of the less damaged displays and substituting the power distribution station's with a modified version of the display from the captain's personal terminal from his quarters - the man was dead now, so he surely wouldn't mind. While mostly intact, Balmung had modified the screen to pull special attention to the last of the ship's logs from several years ago, although he also included several fake entries underneath the most recent one. As he did that he also devoted a small portion of his runtime to creating a voice synthesizer similar to the one he was now using to filter communications, but based off of the captain's voice - on top of all of that though, one detail did catch Balmung's eye through one of the bridge cameras. Torn loose from his seat only moments before by one of the intruders and now aimlessly floating through the microgravity environment of the bridge, the corpse of the old communications officer was virtually the same as it had been the day he had died - the skin a deathly snow white, partly from the ice crystals frozen within his cells, his eyes still open and bloodshot from the sudden decompression along with several bruise like contusions caused from the same event. A particularly fun idea coming to mind, Balmung took several long moments to observe the corpse as it spun through the vacuum, committing every detail to memory.
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Down in Engineering, however, things were not going quite as planned. While they had found their way to the sub bridge just as intended, it seemed to be that they were not content with finding what was obviously such an important room - they clearly wanted to advance further, and Balmung couldn't have that. How to stop them, though? At the current moment he was powerless to directly intervene with anything less than lethal force, and until events unfolded within the cryo bay as planned he couldn't go killing them off without alerting the mothership to his actions. What to do, then? Revealing himself certainly wasn't an option, but considering that he didn't want them to go messing around with the more sensitive areas of the ship he couldn't simply leave them be, and after briefly considering his options Balmung chose a compromise of the choices.
"This is the UNSC Automated Training and Security Program, serial number UNSC TSP011029301937. You are not authorized to access this area, please cease all attempts to access the restricted zone. Further attempts will be met with force, imprisonment and possible disciplinary action." Balmung said, addressing the individuals in the room via a speaker mounted next to the door on an interface pad. A somewhat risky move, but all he needed to do was distract them until he could do what needed to be done. As several of them neared the consoles towards the edge of the room, however, Balmung did the service of activating several, namely power distribution and what looked to be a security terminal - the later, though, was not quite what it seemed, but Balmung only needed them to begin fooling around with it to get what he wanted.
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Post by Ridley on Jan 21, 2013 21:31:29 GMT -5
Pirate Mothership "Command. We found what appears to be a cryogenics bay. Orders?"The message came through and the Lieutenant paused for a brief moment, swinging his gaze around to look at their leader. To his surprise, however, the massive dragonoid was nowhere to be seen. Quickly diverting his gaze back about the bridge, he looked at each and every other officer present, receiving only dumbfounded looks in return. Despite his massive size and bulk, the General could be alarmingly swift and silent when he had reason to be. Disregarding the disappearance of their leader, the Lieutenant, as of yet still unaware of the communications jamming, replied to the message. "Understood. Attempt to revive one occupant. Learn what you can and then kill them all."
Ridley In the blackness of space, the massive, semi-mechanical form of Ridley hunkered down over the bridge of his own ship. His stare was firmly fixed on the opposite ship, as if he could see through the hull to what was going on within if he stared hard enough. He had been at his duties long enough to know when foul play was at work. And now...there was definitely foul play of some sort involved. But of what sort.
Cryo Team As the faked message came through, the squad leader paused for a moment, as if mulling over the authenticity of the message. It wasn't exactly a typical order, but then again, 'typical' had been somewhat strange lately. Brushing his momentary misgivings aside, with no small help from his recollection of what even hesitation to follow orders could do, he followed with a simple "Understood." and relayed the orders to his team. "Technician team. Revive a single occupant for interrogation."The lead technician waved one of his clawed limbs at his suboordinates and they set to work. Within only a few short moments they would have their task done, one of the cryo tubes set to release its occupant from stasis and open. The soldiers on duty readied their weapons and waited on standby for the order to fire, if it came.
Bridge Team "Sir. We've found what appears to be the Captain's personal log.""Play it."
Engineering Team At the voice over the speaker, the squad leader called off the attempts to access the doors. "Focus on this room for now."And they did just that, setting about to continue their efforts with the consoles within the room. The lead technician of the group set about messing with the security terminal personally.
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Post by nicholas on Jan 23, 2013 2:19:06 GMT -5
Such simple creatures, and it was almost laughable at how quickly they believed what they were told and how easily they took what they wanted to hear as truth without a second thought - not that Balmung could complain, though, and even as they set to work he did as well. Focusing most of his efforts on the team down in the engineering sub-bridge, the rampant artificial intelligence could almost feel a metaphorical weight lifted off of his shoulders as their efforts to blindly poke around the displays and systems he'd been able to rewrite reconnected his core to many of the ship's more important functions, and from there allowed him to remove many of the safeguards that he himself had so long ago set in place. With the vessel's reactor on minimal power and running on what was more or less the analogue to a pilot light there was only so much that he could do, but it was enough - he once again had access to life support, navigation and the ship's security and weapon systems, so it would have to be enough. Free of his self imposed shackles, Balmung went out to play.
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Keeping a portion of his attention on the team in the ship's engineering section while quietly closing and locking several of the doors at key junctions out of their line of sight and hearing to keep them bottled up, another fragment of his consciousness turned back to the bridge team as they attempted to open the fake log he'd presented them with - rather than open a simple video as the genuine article would had, however, Balmung instead took advantage of his control over the area's communications to send a message to that team and that team alone, blasting a mass of distorted human screams over all of their comm systems as loud as their equipment would allow, the holoprojector on the table behind them flaring to life as the figure of a UNSC crewman - if he could still be called that after being subjected to explosive decompression - suddenly appeared behind them in unison with the screams, the model based off of the other crewman in the bridge but with his face horribly stretched and distorted to move with the screams. Just as quickly as it had all started, however, Balmung cut off both the comm feed and the holoprojector, plunging the bridge back into darkness save for a single sentence endlessly repeating itself on the screen they had been using:
Join with us.
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As everything within the ship transpired, movement began to make itself known on the outer hull as well, with a single of the ship's missile bays opening and all of the ship's eight 50mm point defense cannons moving to track the fast moving object that the ship's sensors picked up between it and the other ship from which the boarders had come from. Accessing the destroyer's communication suite again, Balmung moved to directly address the other ship's command crew using the same communication line that the creatures crawling around inside of the UNSC vessel had ben utilizing, sending a short but terse message in text:
You will cease all further action or be destroyed. Aimed at your vessel is a Shiva nuclear warhead, and it will be fired if demands are not met. Have a nice day, and we look forward to doing business with you.
Even as he sent the message, however, Balmung did not stop there. Embedded within the burst of data was a virus written on the spot by Balmung himself, tweaked and modified to seek out and shut down power distribution systems on the enemy vessel, namely by burying itself in their own electronic commands until it reached its destination - according to his understanding of the archaic technique it had often been referred to as a "Trojan" program in days long past, but it did not matter. Within minutes of receiving the message power would start blacking out to individual systems onboard the other vessel, and in any case they would not have the option of simply retreating or calling for reinforcements. As it was they might very well have things he may have needed, but Balmung was not the kind of being to simply "ask" for things when he could take them instead. Maintaining the comm blackout aboard the Basilisk itself, however, Balmung turned the last remaining portion of his consciousness towards the vessel's cryo bay.
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It was funny how people couldn't seem to decide on things, on how certain sets of information could be so widely interpreted to form so many different conclusions stemming from the same set of data. Whether or not people dreamed in cryosleep was one of those things - the vast majority of the scientific community believed that the human brain was in such a deep sleep that REM sleep was not possible, that there was so little neural activity present that it simply wasn't possible. In spite of that, though, Nicholas knew what he was seeing, and knew what it was - the dream had been the same one he'd seen for over fifteen years, although whether or not it was a dream or a nightmare was merely a matter of opinion.
Clad in the olive drab suit that he recognized as his old SPI armor rather than the MJOLNIR he had been given afterwards, the metal scorched, dented and otherwise horribly abused beyond all reasonable measure and the visor cracked beyond repair, Nicholas could only stand and stare at the desolate gray wasteland around him. Too small to be considered even a planetoid, the rock's curve was easily visible on the horizon, but that wasn't what got Nicholas's attention. Surrounding him, many of them half burned into the now solid surface of what had been molten rock mere hours ago were dozens upon dozens of suits that had once been identical to his, the figures now charred black and forever entombed within their glassy graves, left to rest in a place that no one would ever visit, their sacrifice one that would eventually be forever forgotten by the very people who had sent them there.
As the dull roar of the UNSC exfiltration craft filtered through the thin atmosphere above him, Nicholas' hands tightened around what dog tags he had been able to recover from his fallen brothers and sisters, vowing that at the very least he would remain to remember them, and that he would not allow it to happen again as long as he stood able to prevent it. The roar of Pelican engines growing even louder above him, Nicholas looked up towards the descending craft, the jet flare from the craft painting his world with a blinding white light.
The memory still fresh in his mind, Nicholas felt a burning pain all over his body even before he had opened his eyes, the sensation of raw, itching skin against a solid surface - freezer burn, and a risk that anyone who went into cryosleep with clothing on undertook. A welcome sensation - no pain would ever be equal to the augmentation process he had undergone during the onset of puberty, and the fact that he could feel pain at all meant that he was alive. Resisting the reflexive urge to double over, the Spartan slowly forced his eyes open as his sleep weary mind struggled to process the sudden onslaught of information bordering on sensory overload, his eyes momentarily blinded as the struggled to adjust to the contrasting darkness and the white light from the ceiling fixtures and the white mist that carried and reflected the illumination across the bay outside of his rather cramped confines within the tube. Reaching out to gently press his gauntleted palms against the glass interior of his tube, Nicholas's eyes adjusted just as his suit's HUD began to slowly flicker to life, his armor having been left running in standby mode after the ship's rather hasty retreat from Reach.
"-eat, don't kill them, at least not yet. There are hostiles in the cryobay and they need to be neutralized, but they're needed alive."
Freezing in place, Nicholas' hand abruptly recoiled as he recognized the voice of the vessel's AI and noticed the other pods - all of which still held unconscious occupants and were as inactive as they should have been in deep space, weeks before reaching their destination. Something wasn't wrong, very, very wrong, and as the Spartan quickly glanced around the interior of the cryotube for anything that might've proven to be of use he isolated his suit's audio to his helmet alone to ensure that anything he said would be kept strictly between him and Balmung as well as vice versa.
"Sitrep. Where are we and who boarded us.?"
"Not enough time, just deal with them."
With only that terse response to go with and recognizing the distinct 'click' and crackle of a closed comm line, Nicholas noted with irritation that the AI had changed a bit since they'd last spoken - then again that had only been twice and both during relative calm, so whether this was simply an aspect of the AI's personality or something different he had not a clue, but at the very least the AI was supposed to be aboard the ship, and whoever was poking around the vessel wasn't. Settling back into the tube as far as he could, Nicholas' armor seemed to simply fade out of existance as he made use of the optical camouflage - he'd not received the customary jolt necessary to typically jumpstart the shields of a MJOLRNIR suit, and without those he was much more vulnerable than he would have liked to think about. He had no idea who was aboard the ship, but whatever he did to deal with them would need to be quiet, to the point and above all, quick. Sliding open with a pneumatic hiss, Nicholas' cryopod opened in unison with the bay's door to the exterior hallway.
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Post by Ridley on Jan 23, 2013 3:13:50 GMT -5
The instant the horrific screaming was heard, every Pirate in the room whirled about in unison. Up came their weapons, and a blistering hail of fire from each of their accelerator cannos blasted through the hologram. Had it been an actual lifeform it would have been torn to pieces. But by the time their barrage of fire had let up and they could resume slow, rational thinking -- not an easy feat with their blood boiling and pumping in expectation of a confrontation which did not come, mixed with unease which had rapidly spiked into terror for a brief instant -- they could only stare blankly about the darkness of the room.
The message on the screen was met with a single shot from the squad leader's arm cannon, blowing it into slag. "We're done here."
Ridley's eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the movement on the other ship. It was faint from this distance, but he could see less over larger distances. It looked like....weapons of some sort were being armed. The dull glow in his eyes, smoldering with his impatience, rapidly grew until it looked like flame was streaming from his eyes. Short tongues of plasma speared from between his fangs, and he lowered himself lightly into a crouch, staring intently at the other ship. If it meant to fire....they would be sitting ducks at this range.
Still tuned in to the transmissions of the ship, however, he picked up on the message that was sent.
And it plain pissed him off.
It was smug crap he'd heard way too many times before. Whoever these chumps were they thought dealing with a few nothings made them hot stuff. Like they could take on even the Space Pirates. Maybe they could. But there wasn't a soul in the stars who knew about the Space Pirates who wasn't at least wary of their General. And most of them? They were downright terrified.
As they damn well should be.
And as it was, the General was barely restraining himself from launching himself at the ship and putting a few new holes in it. He was cautiously eyeing the armaments of the ship, and planning out the best path available to him.
The crew of the Pirate Mothership were in something of a panic as the systems began to shut down. They were working quickly to isolate the intrusive virus if they could, but were having minimal success. They weren't prepared for such a.....primitive method of virus. They would get it sorted out soon, but not one among them didn't question whether it would be soon enough.
The First Officer sent a message to Ridley when he had a spare moment. "General Ridley! We have a problem. Power distribution is going haywire -- shutting down across the ship. Some kind of virus."
That was all the General needed to hear.
Rearing up to his full height, the infamous, mechanized alien General spread his massive wings. Like the glare of a blasting starship engine they shone, a clearly visible beacon. And then he brought them down with a single, giant flap. And he shot forth from his perch like a torpedo from one of the ship's guns. Streaming plasma and trails of excess energy from his wings, he crossed the intervening distance between the two ships like a streak of light, claws at the ready and already glowing red-hot, just itching to tear into the ship's hull and tear those damn cannons to scrap.
The team in the cryo bay ceased their work at the sound of the cryo tube's opening hiss. Advancing slowly, weapons at the ready, the team made their way down into the bay proper. A brief scan over the assembled tubes had them locate the one that had opened. And they advanced upon it quickly, with well-practiced precision, ready and willing to blast whoever was within the tube if they proved uncooperative.
And honestly....they almost hoped it would turn out that way.
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Post by nicholas on Jan 23, 2013 15:38:24 GMT -5
Those brutes! Didn't they understand that the ship was in bad enough condition without them blowing holes in it and only adding to the current amount of damage the vessel had suffered? It wasn't enough that the had to attempt to scavenge what was left of the vessel, they needed to utterly destroy whatever remained working? Fine, then. As the bridge team declared that they were done with their work, Balmung took some satisfaction in the control he had over the comm systems - they would not be able to contact their other teams and order a retreat, and while Balmung couldn't stop them from leaving the bridge thanks to the forward viewport no longer existing, he could severely limit their movements. Keeping the door leading onto the bridge locked as well as the several behind it, Balmung cut all power to that section of the ship, robbing the bridge team of what little light they had left as well as ensuring that any computer specialist there might have been among them would be incapable of opening the locked doors that would be little more than dead weight. They could certainly attempt to blast them open, but it would take hours just to get through the first one - those doors had been specifically designed with Covenant plasma weaponry in mind, and they would take a great deal of effort to breach.
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As for the engineering team, he had what he wanted and needed from them - they were no longer of use to him, and now that their time had passed they were only one nuisance among many. With control over life support now granted to him Balmung could do whatever he pleased, and he did just that. As the Pirates continued their work Balumng began to slowly vent additional atmosphere into the room - while their EVA gear might have protected them from vacuum, external pressure was a completely different matter. Unlike the cryo bay team, he did not need them alive, and as they continued to work they would slowly find it increasingly difficult to breath - with all of the displays showing exactly what they wanted to see rather than what they needed to, though, Balmung sincerely doubted that they would realize what was happening until the increased atmospheric pressure had either made it next to impossible to properly breathe or until they had begun to pass out and perish. Keeping a close eye on them, Balmung retained the signal he had copied from the cryo team's efforts to awake one of the crew - with that data burst in hand he was now free to awaken whoever he chose to, and the Spartan would not be long alone.
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The events towards the exterior of the vessel, however, were not going as planned, and even as the fighter sized object began his attack on the destroyer, Balmung had decided he'd run out of patience. Such idiocy..... if the other ship couldn't detect the radiological reading from the only open missile bay with even their most basic sensors, he would need to show a demonstration instead. Activating one of the many chemical based emergency propellants strategically placed along the destroyer's hull to nudge the ship just enough to the side for the plasma attack to burn uselessly into the titanium battle plate rather than the point defense cannon, Balmung fired off the Shiva missile and opened the missile port for the second of the four total warheads onboard. Lancing out from the bay at full burn, the projectile began arcing towards the other ship before continuing past it and flying until it was nearly out of visual range fore several long moments - only then did it detonate, the nuclear hellfire creating a spectacular orb of orange and red as it expanded, the blast only beginning to dissipate as it reached both ships. While Balmung did not have a clear estimate of what it would do to the other vessel, the Basilisk did not escape unscathed, hence much of the reason that he had been unwilling to use the weapon from the start - while the ship's more important systems were hardened against that kind of EMP and radiation and escaped much of the potential damage, the ship's hull facing the blast did not, with several feet of battle plate boiling off into the vacuum around the ship as it became charred and blackened from the wave of radiation. Let them chew on that.
That was your one and only warning shot - if your single ship does not cease its assault the next warhead will be used on both of us, and neither vessel will escape the blast. Stand down or perish.
Even as he sent that message, however, Balmung prepared and sent a second one, this time with the electronic signature used by the team down in engineering - included in the message being a partial manifest of the ship's cargo, and more than enough to get the other vessel's crew drooling and far less likely to attack if they had any intention of salvaging the technology for themselves. AI cores, experimental shielding and weapon systems, and many of the scientists that had been working on those projects - all of which was highly classified information, but at this point Balmung honestly couldn't have cared less. ONI's priorities and concerns had long since ceased to be his own, and at this point survival was his only goal. Keeping an eye carefully trained on the team in the sub bridge, Balmung readied himself to awaken several more of the ship's crew, intending to time it to the second with the hope of fooling the other vessel's ability to sense life forms.
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Counting on his camouflage to keep himself hidden, Nicholas slowly and carefully leaned forward to peer out of his pod and down the bay towards the hallway exit, remaining still as he caught sight of the being entering the bay. Definitely not human, and the very first thought that ran through the Spartan's head was whether or not Cole Protocol had been enacted - in all likelyhood, though, it already had, and that more than anything else explained why they were down in the cryobay. Machines were easy to break and erase - people, not so much. With so many available to question it would've only been a matter of time, and with that thought in mind he was now grateful that Balmung had woken him first. As for the creatures themselves, though..... Elites? No. They were of similar size and build, but the technology they carried did not match what the saurian species routinely used, or even anything that the Covenant had in their possession at all. Something completely new, then, but if that was the case were they only simple raiders? Not that it truly mattered since they would have to be dealt with in the same manner, especially given the importance of the ship's cargo, but it would help in determining how they would respond to an assault of any kind. In any case, though, he had to assume that they were at the very least as strong as Elites were, which meant that any attack would need to take them out of commission before they could properly retaliate - thankfully he'd have the advantage there since very, very few things were as anywhere near as fast as a Spartan fueled by adrenaline, but he'd need to wait for an opening. And with that single thought, one came.
The moment the blast wave from the detonated Shiva nuke reached the Basilisk the entire ship rocked from the force of it, and Nicholas didn't think twice before taking his chance - counting on the sound of the flexing metal within the hull and the tremors to keep the team walking into the bay occupied, the Spartan shoved himself out of his tube and into the bay before pivoting and sprinting towards the nearest of his targets, his footsteps improbably quiet as he closed the distance in the blink of an eye. Little more than a shimmer of distorted air amongst the chaos, the Spartan's arms lashed out, his left hand reaching forward to attempt to grab the first creature by the front of his chest plate as his right arm reached up and around to try and clamp his hand onto the back of the creature's lower neck, intending to squeeze down and crush the vertebrae and spinal cord - that far down it wouldn't damage the brain or it's stem (hopefully), but it would leave the creature as little more than a rag doll, and make for the perfect cover should he need it. Fully aware of the other four present in the cramped confines of the corridor, Nicholas did not stop with neutralizing the first threat - pressing up and forward with his leverage point on the first creature's chestpiece, the human moved to lift the other being off of the ground and attempted to charge the other group and force them back out into the hallway with his makeshift battering ram.
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