Eclipse Phase (Private)

[wickedlittlecritta]

Devin drew himself up to his full, and admittedly unimpressive, height, and summoned every ounce of hypercorp outrage still in him. "You have the fucking balls to blame us? It seems to me like you're the one setting us up. Somebody make you an offer for Hammond's representatives you couldn't refuse, right? Who is it? Starware? Or are you playing around in the kiddie pool with Leong?" Devin made a strangled noise, like he was swallowing down more angry words, and then said, "What the fuck ever. We have bigger problems than you," he added, in his best imitation of his father's sneer. "Like keeping the most intolerable rich girl I have ever met from getting kidnapped while our guards are unarmed. Thanks for that, by the way. Can we go now? I didn't plan on dying today, if it's all the same to you."

DM to Abby: [You're not insufferable you're great I'm acting!!]

 

[TrashRabbit]

Vidar{Tacnet}: :eyes: :Knife: :sweat:

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Annora Arabella - Cargo Hold​

Gray Xu’s draw is on Devin, but the shot is never fired; for a few long seconds, she keeps it trained on him, contemplating the merits of pulling the trigger as gunfire echoes from the bow of the Annora Arabella. Only the sound of her neo-gorilla enforcer letting out one final uncomprehending scream before an eerie silence settles does Gray Xu finally raise the weapon from a center-mass shot. Gray Xu’s sight tracks something beyond the squad’s line of sight, a swear as her bodyguards move to protect her from whatever is right behind the team; a wild shot slams into a cargo container, wide of its mark.
“Shit - contact!!” Rushing Jaws calls out, turning around to catch sight of the assailants moving into the cargo hold; anyone turning around would see three human-looking borg morphs freefalling into the cargo hold, all finding crates to hide behind and taking aim at the gathering. “Find cover!!”

Mach was having none of this. He figured this was probably the other Mach moving in to secure his purchase, but he couldn’t tell. None of the borgs were obviously him, and he wouldn’t choose anything bio if he could help it. Even this shitty titty guard was a compromise, really.
“Unlock all the crates, I’m going for ramming speed!”
He/she roared, hitting the Neurachem hard and kicking off of his footholds harder. He said ramming speed and meant it. This guard could definitely hit something hard, but if the boxes were still secure, he wouldn’t budge them an inch.

Vidar figured if they all died terribly in the next twelve minutes it wouldn't hardly matter if he blew Devins cover or if Gray Xu's guards put holes in him.
He approached slow, and then sprung, taking hold of Gray Xu from behind in a choke hold, keeping her between him the guards more focused on the interlopers. He unhusked himself and sank his invisible fingers into their mind- they put up a good fight but not good enough. He did not admit how much he enjoyed such an invasive process. Playing with the chameleon skin had kept him occupied but this filled his attention. A challenge and puzzle of connecting thoughts and branching connections, a series of lightning quick decisions on his part, catching facts in a net as he went.
'all of it is gonna fall into the hands of these fuckers-' he followed the surface thought back, to the hands she'd gotten them from and the night cartel and their single hidden trove of Titan Tech on the periphery Martian TQZ. He had to hit the brakes, Deep scans were addictive sometimes, and he always wanted a little more than he got- always a bit like a hunger. He reeled himself in.

Heliotrope{firewall; pm to starglass}: source: Mars. TQZ. Night cartel. One cache. Under attack; unknown third party

He reached out to her again but this time into her thoughts and with a moment of cruel intentions induced the same terrible feedback he struggled with himself. In his own understanding it blossomed like a terrible pattern of light flickering across his neurons, expanding and oscillating, similar but unlike the rogue signals of seizure. The sense of touch was, in his opinion the most vulnerable sense in so much that it harbored an unholy variety of pleasant possibilities- and he knew this first hand.

“What the-” is all Gray Xu has time to say before Vidar’s touch wrenches a scream out of her. It happens quickly: a flare of rage at the intrusion followed by a bewildered shouting and thrashing as the sleight takes effect. Gritting her teeth, Gray Xu aims her weapon where she last thinks Vidar was and fires - wildy, the flechettes biting into the metal of a crate a good ten meters past Vidar.
Gray Xu’s bodyguards take aim at two of the borgs at the far end of cargo hold. The rapport of submachine-railgun burst fire proceeds the heavy thudthudthud of rail slugs through a crate, missing their mark - and the screams of one of the borgs, hit despite their efforts to take cover and blood scattering in globules in the null-g by the shot that did not miss.

[Be advised: cargo moorings released], Proxy transmits over TacNet as her operator moves into cover. [Cover may be effective, but will no longer be stationary.]

The intruders take aim at the two bodyguards and Mach, all three attacks hitting the mark - and none of them inflicting significant damage, the shot punching into Mach’s armor but failing to penetrate and the other two bodyguards not reacting to the hits much.

Here we go, Rushing Jaws smiles, the MRDR in his blood singing and his hunter’s heart crying out for battle as he casts off for the wounded borg. The pistol was a firearm, low-end but it would do, and Rushing Jaws means to take it. His cast steady and his mind sharp as the neurachem further sharpens his perception of time, Rushing Jaws is able to body-check the wounded borg before they can wheel around on him, put the borg in an armbar that wrenches a pained scream out of him, and grab the gun before it can sail off. It’ll do in a pinch - and we’re in a fuck of a pinch.

Devin was many things, but he was not a hero. Especially not when he was small, unarmed, and in a ship with crates of TITAN tech floating loose. So he booked it, as fast as he could in zero g, and made sure to get out of what appeared to be Mach’s direct line of attack--he didn’t know what he was up to, but he knew he didn’t want to be in the way. He didn’t particularly like the idea of behind one of the TITAN crates either, but hopefully the goons were trying to steal them rather than destroy them.

Mach wasn’t hurt by those shitty bullets. But he/she was thrown into something of a spin. Shit. He/she corrected in time to make the impact/landing, but he/she didn’t align himself for that perfect four-point landing that would’ve let him get off without a scratch. Instead, he/she landed hard on their knees, and felt it. At least the thug’s shitty borg felt it the same. And dropped their gun. A shitty kinetic pistol. Because of course these shitty rentathugs had shitty weapons and morphs. Mach grabbed it anyway and tried to shoot at the other two-... Other ONE with a gun, but both shots flew wide, and the recoil, while not strong enough to propel himself with, was enough to make it really hard to hold position. If nothing else, his angle on that guy from behind cover might make him run for new cover and get shot. Mach hoped so, he didn’t do this billiards bullshit to have it be worthless.

Between the MRDR and the Neurachem, Rushing Jaws is in his element. There is blood in the air, his makeshift pod around him and game afin. Time slows to a crawl as he brings the pistol wrenched from the hand of the borg around for a point-blank burst that perforates the borg, spilling blood and sparks alike with a shot to his core. Rushing Jaws’ mental speed lets him watch in real time as the borg fights to stay upright with one second before blood loss and critical injury cause his body to fail, blood continuing to coagulate or float off in clumps around him.
The thrill of the kill spurs Rushing Jaws on to take aim at the last armed borg, having caught out of the corner of his eye that the other one had been disarmed in a clever maneuver by Mach. The other borg isn’t far away and is focused on hitting the bodyguard, but the shot ends up being a lot closer than Rushing Jaws likes. The bullets strike home all the same, and the borg grips his side and cries out in pain, able to steady his momentum on a crate to prevent from spinning off.

As the borg stabilizes himself, Rushing Jaws catches sight of three more borg morphs entering through the primary hallway, steeled expressions on their face - and one of them with a particle beam bolter in hand. The three of them freefall toward cover, silent and preparing their weapons.

Mach frowned. So OtherMach cheaped out on quality so he could beef up his quantity. Not the worst play, Mach himself had considered it. But these assholes weren’t ready to fight a tank, even if it did have the most ludicrous set of honkers this side of mars. So he decided they needed some extra encouragement to get to that cover, flicking his pistol to full auto and spraying near the trio, screaming
“YOU THINK THAT ONE BOLTER’S GONNA SAVE YOU? I’M A GODDAMN TANK WITH TITS, AND I’M FUCKING MAD! I AM GOING TO PERSONALLY RIP YOUR BOSS’S NUTS OFF BECAUSE IF HE’S GONNA BE ME, HE OUGHTA KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO BE IN THESE FUCKING SHOES RIGHT NOW! THEY! FUCKING! SUCK!”
He/she screamed, unfortunately hearing the pistol go click right at the end… Suppressing fire typically ended if you ran out, and he/she just did… Shit.

Vidar had exactly two seconds in his opinion before the guards turned and shot at him- Cargo boxes were flying. He needed to get out of dodge fast. He flipped the adrenal boost- the pain behind his eyes was concentrated and sharp, like two hot daggers and he needed to take the edge off it to pull this next bit off. For his last trick he pulled his brain inside out- or at least that’s how he thought of it, letting his unconscious, which seemed to just always be crunching data take the lead. He disengaged from Gray Xu, disappearing like a ghost. He watched himself go through the lightning quick motions and vaguely understood the chameleon skin pattern he chose and found the whole process mildly impressive.

“Something’s in my hea-“ Gray Xu strains to scream, writhing as her bodyguards do their best to keep her safe against the incoming borgs. With a snarl bordering on feral, she takes aim at the last place she saw the ghostly outline of her assailant-
-and shoots wide, this shot not as far off the mark but still a clean miss.
Her bodyguards take aim at the next wave of borgs, identifying the one carrying the PBB as the most pressing threat: Gray Xu’s thrashing throws one of them and causes a miss, but the other is able to land a strong hit, the rail slugs tearing through the borg’s vacsuit and sending them tumbling in freefall.
The borg struggles to keep their grip on their particle beam bolter but quickly loses it on the weapon and consciousness itself, floating into the cargo hold with goblules of blood cast ahead of him.

Abby continues to huddle behind cover, and takes a moment to hack into the ship’s security cameras. What she sees does not please her.
[Fuck me. Guys we have more incoming. Looks like both the gorillas are down. Same with the slitheroid. The borgs on their way have jacked their guns, too. Give me like thirty seconds and I will loop you guys into the feed.]

Watching as one of their comrades is shot up by railgun fire and as bullets whiz past in a wide arc, the two remaining borgs freefalling in search out the nearest full cover, opting not to return fire and instead find the relative safety of reliable cover. Rushing Jaws’ latest target similarly commits to defending themself against another shot, seeking out and rushing for cover instead of attempting to return fire.
The fourth borg behind the crate, attempting to recover from the crate’s mass slamming him into the wall, makes a leap for the particle beam bolter that has just been released from the grip of their comrade. He is able to kick off the back wall and leap for it, timing his jump right to take the weapon as he sails for the opposite wall of the cargo hold.

Too exposed, Rushing Jaws thinks, watching as more borgs freefall into the fight. Opting to give some ground, Rushing Jaws kicks off for a crate a little ways back into the hold that ought to serve for good cover, turning back around to take aim for another shot.

With all the chaos around him, Devin considered tracking down and taking the TITAN tech. But all the boxes were identical, and he’d lost track of which had come from where in the scuffle. He pulled the one he was hiding behind open anyway, just incase, and found it full of iron bricks, the kind meant for fabers, each about a foot long.
It wasn’t a gun, but it was better than nothing, so Devin pulled one out.

Mach could see it: a bolter! He desperately needed a weapon, and there was a great one! But before he could move on it, the guard he’d tried to crush sailed past and grabbed it for himself. Well. Now it was time for Mach to REALLY crush him. So he jumped for a box, got his landing just right… and missed. He should’ve known that wouldn’t work twice.

Vidar ripped open a cargo container, spilling more steel units into the cargo hold. What was that boy doing. Who knew. Unconscious lead is great.

As he coasts for cover, Rushing Jaws lines up on the borg he’d wounded earlier, his angle better from up here. Time appearing to move slow around him, Rushing Jaws is able to line up the perfect shot on the borg’s neck-
-and delights in the bullets striking home, the borg thrown by momentum into the floor and tumbling inert around the cargo hold, his pistol floating off.
Watching as the cargo crate sails past and slams into the ceiling, Rushing Jaws realizes that another borg has picked up the particle beam bolter and lines up for another burst fire on him. The borg catches sight of him in time to try and hide, but Rushing Jaws’ angle is too good, and the bullets tear through his vacsuit. A wound that should have put him down fails to do so, and the borg struggles to right himself, swearing and delirious. Surprised that the borg survived a hit like that - practically able to see the wounds from his vantage point - Rushing Jaws nonetheless pockets his now-empty pistol and prepares for the next wave-

-that is prompt in coming. This time, two of the three borgs that enter the cargo hold are equipped with the machine guns taken from the neo-gorillas, steeled looks on their face. I want one of those, Rushing Jaws thinks, his jaw hanging open in a neo-orca smile as he plans his next move.

Mach, having very few options, decided his best bet was to go through the pockets of the dying for some ammo. Unfortunately the guy had like twenty pockets, and for some reason most of those pockets did not contain bullets or clips. In fact, most of them contained snacks. Why did this guy need so many granola bars, juice boxes, and packs of gum?

One crate was the exact number of crates Vidar’s brain decided he could take his chances on to find the goods, as yet another wave of mooks pooled into the cargo bay. He caught sight of devin and chucked his pistol at him, kicked off the cargo bin full of steel he’d just opened and took cover behind another closer storage unit.

“Wha- why you little shit,” Gray Xu snarls, bringing her shredder around to line up a shot on Devin; clearly still struggling with the spam, Gray Xu’s shot is wild, the flechettes missing Devin by a clean meter.
The bodyguards line up shots on the incoming borgs, one aiming for the borg with the bolter and the other for one of the machine gunners. One burst of rail slugs sails clean past the borg in cover, slamming into the far bulkhead; the other fails to fire, as the weapon simply fails to fire. The armored bodyguard looks at his weapon in frustration, swearing.

Abby instructs Proxy to hook everyone into the camera feed and, while the Muse is busy doing that, she quickly takes control of the box retrieval system and discern the coordinates of the final two boxes in the system. In the meantime, Proxy improvised quickly and is able to send not only the camera feed, but a map of the ship.

The three borgs already in play attempt to take shots on Gray Xu and Mach, two with pistols and one with a particle beam bolter; the bolter shot on Mach goes wide, its wielder wincing through the dire pain inflicted on him by bullet and cargo crate, while one of the bullets goes wide. One of the shots is on-target, but one of Gray Xu’s much more heavily armored bodyguards is able to dive in the way and absorb the shot without any apparent injury.

Amid the chaos, Rushing Jaws casts off, throwing his Fury’s weight into a barreling charge meant to throw one of the machine gunners off balance and seize his weapon. Able to catch him in a bind and slam him into the floor, Rushing Jaws binds one of his arms up and back, wrenching the machine gun from his grip with just enough force for it to still be within arm’s reach. “Mine now,” he snarls at the borg, MRDR in his veins and a savage smile on his Fury’s face.

Devin couldn't see Vidar, but who else would drop a gun on him without warning? He reached out and fumbled for it, and then brandished it at Grey Xu.
“I was looking for one of these, since you took mine,” he said.

The borg Rushing Jaws disarmed of his machine gun scrambles to get it back, attempting to elbow Rushing Jaws in the process; Rushing Jaws is able to handily intercept the blow and strike him one in the gut while grabbing hold of the machine gun with intent to murder-
-just as the other borg lines up a confident shot on him.
He doesn’t even have time to swear before the other machine gunner lets loose a full-auto burst, the bullets tearing through his vacusit and even the Fury’s bioweave and shredding his insides. Rushing Jaws screams in pain, fighting to keep it together and nearly spinning out before righting himself, everything getting dark and hazy.
The last pistoleer takes aim at Mach, but a pull of the trigger instead results in the weapon jamming on him, a swear attendant as he gets down to clear it.

Mach had one very simple objective: GET. THE. BOLTER. The muzzle flash, bullet holes, and twitching followed by Rigor Mortis told him he could have it if he was fast enough. Mach wasn’t quite in the zone-this body was WAY too shitty to blend into the background noise-but he was close.

Vidars unconscious lines up his next shot with all the gentle lack of fuss as if he was deep in the flow of a particularly good game of candy crush- and unloads into the borg with machine gun and watches him scream, go limp and drop the MG.

Rushing Jaws watches with sadistic glee as the borg who’d shot him up is himself perforated with bullets from off to his left, catching Vidar’s shot on TacNet. [Nice fuckin save] goes out before he twists around and - fighting with all his might through the pain - lines up the three borgs and opens up with a full-auto burst. The one borg in front of his shot takes it bad, blood splattering onto Rushing Jaws’ vacsuit, while the second is able to dodge over a crate and evade the shot. The third borg, tumbling end over end, can’t correct in time and is shot full of holes - something in the back of his neck exploding out as the last of the bullets sail through.
“Cover,” Rushing Jaws grunts, glancing over and kicking off for cover, machine gun close as he focuses on making a break for high cover to avoid being shot like that again - the pain searing and the edges of his vision blurry. He hears shouting from down the corridor leading back into the crew quarters, and looks to see yet another group of borgs casting in to join the fight: [Fuckin shit, how many of them are there??]

He leaped. The weapon fell perfectly into his hands. Mach was basically an APC before now. Now? He really was a tank with tits, and he had his cannon. Unloading it on another one of those shitty poser borgs, those half-and-half idiots, felt RIGHT. In a way that was fucked up, but they WERE trying to kill him… hm. Maybe he could negotiate?
[you know you’re losing, right. You sure you want a failed op with like ten dead or dying mercs on our SHARED G-rep? I mean, I’m sure you have your own separate one, but I’m you. How long, ya think?]
He sent to his other self, hoping he was right about who sent these damn shitborgs.

Vidar, continuing his rousing reign of nonverbal violence, took aim at the borg going for the MG with great success and then laid down some fire on another behind cover. He didn’t respond to Rj’s message or even the Map penny had successfully blocked.

The two bodyguards flanking Gray Xu break from her side, casting themselves off to either end of the cargo hold closer to themselves and leaving Gray Xu exposed. They take shots at the borgs in cover, but their rounds strike the floor or crates without any of them hitting home, serving only to keep the borgs down.
Gray Xu, still twitching and grimacing from the spam, draws her gun back as Devin points a pistol at her. “You’re here for the tech - all of you. You want it? Fine - here it comes!”
Just then, there is a sharp clicking sound just before a loud hiss that cuts above the noise of the firefight around her; Gray Xu smiles an evil grin as she removes the lid from the canister she has held between her feet. From the opened maw of the canister, a silvery mist begins to spill out - lazily at first, but then animating and moving with an unnatural intention for mist. The mist coalesces and then fades, appearing and disappearing as it seems to grow to envelop Gray Xu within it. Her soft, grim laughter is cut short - and then she screams as though burning alive, throwing herself deeper into the hold.
The nanoswarm is loose.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

The sounds of battle seem to fade as the borgs and the bodyguards stare in horror at what is happening to Gray Xu. They are all in cover, but their guns are quiet. Gray Xu’s screams echo through the hold, the silver mist growing as the swarm coalesces around her.

Seeing what is happening causes Abby to shut down partially and revert to her old post-Fall nihilistic attitude. She disregarded her old plan, and immediately set about setting the ship loose from its moorings. In the middle of detaching the ship from The Silence, Proxy realized what was going on.
[Abigail, what do you think you are doing?]
[I’m sending us into the void. Obviously.]
[But why? Why not just warn the Swarm of what is happening]
[I’m gonna find that nuke, and I’m gonna use it to wipe out every TITAN artifact on this fucking ship. If I die, it’s gonna be on MY terms, not because the Swarm shot us down or because the fucking nanobots ate me.]

Visibly disturbed by Gray Xu’s release of the nanoswarm, the borgs left in the fight think of nothing other than shooting down Gray Xu and her bodyguards; one of them misses, but the other two hit with their first bursts of pistol fire: Gray Xu’s screaming hits a hitch as the bullets hit her, and even the bodyguard flinches as bullets throw blood from his center of mass. More bursts of pistol fire tear out through the hold, striking Gray Xu as she flails and screams - and wrenching a scream from the bodyguard as the burst finds a weak point in his armor; the bodyguard keeps it together under the onslaught, even as blood begins to clump near the site of the wound.

Rushing Jaws feels the barely-there lurch of the Annora Arabella as he hides behind cover, and knows what that means.
Māzǔ, was that-
[Sure was, just helped her beat the security AI.]
Fuckin a’, that’s a step in the right direction.
“Okay, need a pl-” Rushing Jaws mutters before wincing under the pain of his bullet wounds, knowing they’re serious if he can feel them over the MRDR. He tries to think of a plan, but the pieces are slippery: detach the ship, get it away from the swarm, call in artillery…
[RJ!]
“Right, imminent danger,” he says through gritted teeth.
Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [Didn’t even have to tell ‘ya - let’s get out of this firefight and up to the front of the ship so we can do the rest.]

The Annora Arabella moved, slightly, but Devin’s stomach churned. They were unmoored from the barge, and while long term that was good, it also meant they either had to get out or die too.
Devin had no plans on dying from a nanoswarm.
the Magpie: [Mom? I need help. Please come get me.]
He sent the coordinates of the Annora Arabella to Marina.
QueenOfHearts: [What did you do now?]
the Magpie: [It’s a long story but it’s ending with me and some friends dying unpleasantly if no one’s here to get us when we jump.]
QueenOfHearts: [If you die I have to kill you. We’ll be there.]
The Magpie: [THANK YOU!!!]
hara{TacNet, and pm to Marcus}: [New plan let’s get this thing away from the swarm and then get the FUCK off this boat. My crew’s incoming.]

Shots continue to ring out through the hold, the remaining borgs concentrating fire on the bodyguards; two rounds of burst fire from pistols miss the wounded bodyguard, but the other two don’t, hitting his armor consistently enough to pierce it in critical places and sending the bodyguard spinning, his weapon freed from his grip as he tumbles lifelessly in the microgravity.

“Swarm… Burst from Golden Gate. Anyone on the other side?”
[Marcus. This isn’t San Francisco, you need to move.]
“Damn it. No way to send relief?... I don’t think we can-... Understood.”
[Marcus. Get. Moving. Even if this was San Fran, you would be moving. MOVE!]
“Sorry, Gale… I’m… I-... I’ll tell her.”
He said, the last words he could give to a doomed man, running a quickshot on the far side. There was no way to save the man. All he could do was inform his sister that he would fight until the last. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the end of that one. Swarm was slow, but it had covered enough of the bridge to ensure no-one could cross. He couldn’t even be sure what set it off. Did Rob hit the bridge on purpose to cut people off? Was it a trap that some poor survivor tripped, searching for supplies?... Fewer and fewer runners, every day…
[Marcus, the swarm is moving on our position.]
“Roger…”
He said, reaching for controls that weren’t there. It took that bit of confusion to shake him out of this. Oh. Oh no. He was close, too close, he wasn’t in the certain death zone but he was too close, he’d have to fire off what messages he could and stack himself while it was still an option.
[Nerrix, Gray Xu has unleashed a Nanoswarm weapon. I do not expect to be recovered. If I don’t cast back, spin up a backup.]
[I’m fucked. Me, I am so fucked. Gray Xu opened a fucking deathcan. I’m probably gonna fucking stack myself. Backup me won’t know who you are, but he’ll need you. He’ll need help. He’s gonna be trapped forever, just like me. You need to talk to him. You need to set him free.]
He sent, then prepared himself for the inevitable...

This would the part, later on, if there was a later on, that Vidar would go “well good to know,” About himself. He went back for RJ. grabbed him by the back of his vac suit just as he felt eh morring come undone. The fear in him, at the moment was visceral, felt more in the body and as a single driving need. It was honestly for the best the rest of his conscious mind was on lock down at this point.

Atreides Apogee {PM to Azathothwakes}: [What the hell is going on over there?? The Annora Arabella just detached from the barge without so much as a warning??]
“Fuckin shit-,” Rushing Jaws says aloud, fighting through his screaming wounds to staunch the flow of blood and stabilize his condition, all his training coming back to him in the form of unfailing muscle memory that ties shreds of cloth from the fallen borgs to stabilize his Fury.
Azathothwakes: [Situation evolving, stand by!]
“Sorry, gee - that’s about as polite as I can tell ya to fuck off,” Rushing Jaws mutters with a grimace as he ties up the latest bullet wound before feeling Vidar’s hand grabbing on to the back of his vacsuit.
“Fuckin shit am I glad to see you - let’s clear a path so we can get the others out of here.”

Mach was ready to blow his stack. He breathed. In and out. He put the bolter to his throat, he looked at the swarm… And it wasn’t even close to their side yet. In his experience, they were… A lot faster. So, he floated over to the others instead of taking his own stack out.
“Okay, what idiot fuck is coming to get us, and do they know there’s a fucking swarm loose? They should know that. They honestly should blow us all apart while they can. Tell them to start fucking shooting.”

Vidar didn’t answer, as Vidar was prone to do and instead took aim on the nearest fresh borg and put two out of four of his last bullets on this clip into his neck.

Having taken several bullets from the borgs, Gray Xu’s screams are even harsher than they were before as she claws at the wounds, glints of silver concentrating around them for those looking her way. Even so, she manages to stay conscious, her last moments ones of agony as her morph feels the hungering nanoswarm.
“Fuck you!! Fuck you all!! Taking my tech, my ship?? Choke on it, you fuckers-”
Fighting through grievous injury, her last bodyguard shows that he is no pushover: taking aim with another burst, he is able to strike one of the borgs in center-mass for a harsh hit. His second burst misses its target, overcorrecting for his injury, but it serves to keep the borg down.

Abby took a second before running to unlock the controls to the ship, successfully avoiding the AI watching things.
Manicpixiecyberhacker: [hey guys if someone could pilot the ship into the fucking sun that would be gr8. I am about five seconds away from screaming so uh. Dont ask me to do anything other than run or hack.]

Gray Xu still claws at her wounds, but now the silvery mist coalesces into a tendril-like offshoot that reaches out for the bodyguard engaged in fighting off the borgs. The bodyguard doesn’t catch sight of the swarm in time, and suddenly grabs his leg as the silvery mist envelops it, screaming as though it has caught fire. He thrashes wildly, his hands now beginning to carry the silvery mist as it devours him alive for feedstock. Through the swarm’s onslaught, screaming in pain, the guard is able to keep his grip on the crates and freefall for cover from the borgs’ assault, opting to go down fighting.

The last uninjured borg aims his pistol, his eyes wide with terror, but the gun only clicks; he swears and fumbles for a fresh magazine, loading it up and chambering a round before glancing around wildly at the rapidly devolving situation around him.

[I’ll tell them about the swarm when we’re off,] Devin said. [I don’t know about you, but getting blown up was not on my agenda for the day.] He pushed off the closest hard surface to propel himself as fast as possible towards the little cluster centered around RJ and Vidar.

“Good, here comes Devin,” Rushing Jaws notes out of the corner of his eye as he draws a bead on the last intact borg: switching to burst fire on the machine gun, his rounds strike home, sending the borg tumbling - but not enough, the borg grabbing hold of a cargo brace and swinging around into good cover.
“‘get you later,” Rushing Jaws mutters as he draws a bead on a fresh target, looking to add another notch to his barrel; instead of another burst going off, the weapon clicks in an ugly way. Swearing, Rushing Jaws is able to think fast and clear the dud bullet from the barrel before chambering a fresh round.
Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [Abby! Kick off our way! The cargo’s as good as feedstock with that nanoswarm loose - we gotta make a break for the bridge if we’re gonna keep our stacks here!]

Having seen their last intact comrade take fire from Rushing Jaws’ machine gun, the other borgs scatter for cover, hurrying to reload their pistols and unsure of which threat is more pressing: the well-armed mercenaries falling back - or the nanoswarm currently devouring both Gray Xu and the bodyguards.

At this point, Mach was sure these guys weren’t working for the other him. If they were, they would’ve withdrawn, or even came to a temporary truce. Of course, not being OtherMach’s crew, they wouldn’t know he wanted a truce unless he said something. Sooo…
“CEASE FIRE, CEASE FIRE! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE IN HERE IF WE DON’T PULL TOGETHER FOR A DAMN MINUTE AND LEAVE! YOU HEAR ME?”
The immediate reaction was noticeable: Because he came out to say that, they all seemed to be pointing their guns at him.
“Missed the Fall, really?”

“Ace shot!” Rushing Jaws calls out, watching the latest borg to fall spin off in a shower of blood from a precision shot by Vidar. He glances to the door - it would be close, but one more taken down would let him cast over and get to a good angle to suppress the others from. Dangerous, but the risk of being shot beats the almost-certainty of being targeted by that nanoswarm.
He pulls the trigger - and this time it’s a hang fire, the bullet going off erratically and causing the gun to kick hard with the burst. “Fuckin shit, not now,” he says, the kick agitating his wounds.
His target catches sight of him and ducks behind cover as he lines up his next shot, his three-round burst slamming into the crate instead of the borg.
“I’m going for the door, get ready to follow me - I’m gonna lay down suppressing fire to keep these borgs down, that’ll cover your getaway!” Rushing Jaws says to the others with him before kicking off for the entrance and tucking himself in around the corner. His ammo count on the weapons reads thirty-one - more than enough for suppressing fire. Gotta time it right.

Gray Xu can only watch, her throat hoarse and her consciousness fading, as one by one they escape, first the armored guard, then the shifting shape of the ghost that invaded her mind - its assault only now fading. The borgs are trapped between the group that came to deal with her - and the nanoswarm tearing the rest apart. One last defiant scream fills the cargo hold, fading as Gray Xu succumbs to her wounds, dying sure that the swarm will - if inadvertently - avenge her.

Gray Xu’s last bodyguard fights through the pain to take two last bursts at the borgs; neither burst finds its mark, and the guard drops his gun and screams as the swarm tears him apart, flailing and in agony before going utterly still, silvery mist all around him.

With both of its targets neutralized and feeding the swarm, it pushes on into the maze of cargo crates where the borgs are taking cover - opting to go for them instead of Abby, who’s managed to kick off in time to get to the cargo hold. One of the borgs notices the silvery mist moving toward it and manages to kick off toward the bulkhead in time, the swarm’s relatively freshness keeping it from being able to correct in time and instead skimming off of the crate that now clatters against and slightly displaces other crates.

“That’s it, everyone out - I’ll cover ya!” Rushing Jaws shouts, leveling the machine gun at the borgs and switching to full-auto mode again before opening fire not to hit any, but to keep them from being able to duck out or move from cover - trapping them between a hail of bullets and a TITAN nanoswarm while his pod- his comrades escaped. They could try shooting at any of his comrades, if they wanted to chance taking a machine gun bullet while already wounded.

Rushing Jaws’ suppressing fire has the intended effect of keeping the squad of borgs pinned down. One of them, the one having just successfully evaded the nanoswarm, attempts to dodge the hail of suppressing fire - and catches a bullet in the neck, spinning out into unconsciousness as the blood mingles with the nanoswarm. Several of the other borgs take aim at Mach, one of them even hitting, but the burst fails to penetrate his armor and the remaining pistol shots go wide. Rushing Jaws’ suppressing fire sweep spooks two of them back into cover, but one is unable to dodge another bullet that strikes hard and sends him tumbling off, something on the back of his neck exploding as he goes lifeless.

Those borgs were fucking doomed. Mach didn’t even really want them dead, but if they were this dumb, they already were. Their shots mostly missed, and the one that did hit only pinged off of Mach’s heavy armor in the one spot he really hoped it wouldn’t. It wasn’t the pain of a bullet bouncing off of his/her tit that got him. It was the fact that, due to this guard’s fucked up sensitivity settings, it felt painful AND mildly arousing. Mach was FUCKING DONE with this thing. Still, he got through the door without any real damage, so at least he wouldn’t get shot again on his way to the cockpit.
“DAMN IT!... Why did they have to shoot me right in the tit?”

Vidar’s fingers flipped the witch and changed out the mag with the sort of routine muscle memory that was satisfying, he didn’t even look. The last few minutes was behind a piece of frosted glass. He remembered it, but he hadn’t been there, or he’d been so there that some part of him had just stopped. He checked the tacnet. There was a plan. Saw that penny had censored out a file for him.
Thanks.
[No worries boss.] She told him since, he was none the wiser to know she’d actually missed censoring it by nearly a seconds, having been too caught up with assisting Abbey and Proxy.
He raised his gun to his shoulder, ready to lay down some suppressing fire. He could feel where the blood from his nose was starting to pool and stick around the neck seal of his helmet, and it was flecked across the inside of his helmet. He couldn’t watch the swarm, made too much of the back of his mind squirm. He glanced at RJ, who had too many holes seeping little red pearls.
“Who the hell did you let shoot you?” He demanded, as if the only way RJ could be shot was if he consented. He remembered shooting several people, but didn’t specifically recall that he’d shot the person who RJ had let shoot him quiet spectacularly.

“Right - that’s everyone,” Rushing Jaws says, keeping the borgs down a little longer before ceasing fire and giving it a decisive kick off the support strut to get to the hall. He winces with the pain of exertion, his efforts to stymie the bleeding holding - if only just - and the pain only a fraction of itself thanks to the MRDR in his system. He is able to catch himself on the far corridor wall, balling up before kicking over into a nook for cover.
“The other motherfucker with a machine gun, the one I didn’t steal from - thanks for taking him out, by the way,” Rushing Jaws says in response to Vidar, getting into position and aiming downrange, waiting for a borg to fuckin’ try it.
Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [Hey Abby - if you can get these doors, we’ll be fuckin' home free!!]

Abby takes a second to breathe, then focuses on finding the right commands to lock the doors.
“Guys, this is getting really fucking real. I don't know what to do anymore.”

The bulkhead door to the cargo hold begins to close as the borgs turn and look back at the squad, a few even kicking off for the door as they realize what’s happening; none of them make it in time before the door closes, airtight seals engaging to cut off the atmosphere of the living quarters from the hold. There are a few scattered fists thudding against it, followed by muffled screaming and gunshots from within the hold. The sounds fade off, and then there is an instant of stillness.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Rushing Jaws
Annora Arabella - Main Corridor​

"You're doing fucking outstanding," Rushing Jaws says to Abby. "That door ought to keep the nanoswarm at bay long enough for us to get this done-"
Again, Rushing Jaws is cut off by a stab of pain, fighting for his own clarity of mind and steadying himself against the curved wall of the main corridor.
"This thing's still way too close to the barge for comfort - we gotta get up to the bridge, the controls should be free for us to throw this thing off the ecliptic. From there, we get to an airlock, make sure our vacsuits are on, and jump for our ride."

Atreides Apogee {PM to Azathothwakes}: [Agent - what the hell is going on over there???]
Rushing Jaws winces to see the latest message from Yasmin arrive. He scans over the catalog sent earlier, before the chaos, and comes up with his report.
Azathothwakes: [We got big problems here: Gray Xu let the swarm loose, we're doing our best to contain it.]
Atreides Apogee: [Ya allah - Gray Xu released a TITAN nanoswarm??]
Azathothwakes: [Yeah it's pretty fucking awful - we need to get this ship away from the swarm before we can destroy it!]
Atreides Apogee: [If there is a TITAN self-replicating nanoswarm aboard, the ship must be destroyed as soon as possible!]
Azathothwakes: [Yeah they also got a fucking antimatter bomb on board - we need to get this ship clear first unless we want to take out half the swarm with it.]
Atreides Apogee: [Shit... very well, I'll buy you some time. You've got to get that thing away from the barge!]
Azathothwakes: [We're fucking working on it!!]

"Anyone good to pilot this boat? We just need to get it away from the swarm, nothing fancy but we gotta get moving fast before that swarm finds a way through the door!"

Wasting no time, following the map leads the squad to the bridge of the Annora Arabella. It is not the best-kept bridge, the lighting relatively low and the furnishings betraying its relative age, but it is kept free of floatmess. A pilot's console is at the center of the chamber, with mesh interfaces and traditional manual controls standing by for input. A concave screen at the far end of the room offers a 'window' out to space, high-definition monitors connecting to cameras outside the ship offering a view of the nearby Peculiar Taste of Silence stretching a long ways out to the left side of the screen, along with the other ships of the swarm, some near and some far. Five other seats are present, and all of the seats can double as crash couches to strap into and brace for high-g maneuvers. Security alerts are blaring, as are proximity alarms now that the ship is free.

 

[Graystone713]

Mach Infinity
Big Rigs: Over the road racing
​

'Anyone good to pilot this boat'...? Mach's first thought was 'Who the fuck do you think I am, a driver's ed dropout? I AM A MOTHERFUCKING RACING MACHINE!' Before a very rational thought popped in. 'Oh. Yeah, I hired these randos off Guanxi on a Scum barge. Why WOULD they know who I am?...'
"I'll drive. I might not know much about space truckin', but I'm a goddamn racing machine. If anything CAN go fast, I'll MAKE IT GO AS FAST AS IT CAN."
He said, slamming his/her oversized butt into the pilot's chair, strapping in, and getting hands on the controls. Systems check didn't show anything wrong, aside from minor maintenance requests and a warning about untethered cargo and crew. Mach didn't give a shit about any of that (and hoped the one request from cargo bay didn't indicate the nanobots eating systems) and began to move this thing. The maneuvering thrusters were really imprecise, and the main engines, for all the thrust they put out, gave the ship a slow acceleration, to say the least. Damn, if pirates ever spotted this thing, it'd be shrapnel in two minutes, tops. It couldn't run, had no defenses... In a way, that was a blessing. It meant the ship couldn't get too far for them to be recovered (though Mach would still prefer to just jump out and float until a shuttle came by.) and nothing would shoot at their rescuers.

It took a lot of finangling and adjusting to get the ship on a course out to the black. With some acceleration, the fuel remaining, and a teeny bit of gravitational pull to adjust the course, it would definitely leave the barge's course, and the system itself soon after. Sure, if the fuel ran out early, or the drones ate part of an engine, it would change course a touch, but it wouldn't be able to return to the sol system... At least, not without a lot of help, and a couple hundred thousand years.
"Okay, this thing is definitely yeeting outta the sol system if nobody touches the controls or blasts out the engines in the next five or ten minutes. We got some time to jump before it hits speed, and I recommend we DON'T wait for the shuttle to get here before we jump. If we all got void suits, we can just float for a few. Heck, this thing's a synth under the fuckin' tits, so I oughta be fine. What about you guys, you-... Aw fuck."
he said, noticing the damn bullet hole in the fury's side. Well. Shit.
"... I'm gonna have to give you my suit, aren't I?... So much for my fuckin' deposit, void's gonna destroy the bio-bits."

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Annora Arabella - Bridge
​

"Fuckin a', off we go," Rushing Jaws declares in response to Mach; knowing full well who's just volunteered to pilot the Annora Arabella, he wastes no time in finding a free seat and strapping in. The ship is underway soon enough, with a shudder first as the engines and maneuvering thrusters spur to life, then with a more steady push as the thrust forces pin Rushing Jaws to the couch; he winces some more as the thrust aggravates his bullet wounds, hoping they've got a meditank on board that shuttle they can dunk him in. With the rest of the squad, Rushing Jaws watches as Mach finangles the converted ore freighter on a course to send it free of the scum swarm, first the Silence and then the other ships of the swarm disappearing from the window-screen until nothing but void and stars remains. An astrographic display shows the ship's course taking it well off of the plane of the ecliptic - exactly as planned.

Well look at that, the tin man's got a heart after all, Rushing Jaws does not say in response to Mach's question, instead answering: "Hopefully not, 'long as we can find something to fix it with. Those MG rounds did a number on me and the suit both, and we probably don't have time to wait for it to stitch itself back together. I reckon we can find at least a spare vacsuit at the airlock, maybe a patch kit or repair spray-"

[Integrity alert!] flashes on one of the readouts, an overhead map of the Annora Arabella appearing on the window-screen before quickly panning to the cargo hold entrance; the cargo bay door, tricked into thinking that the cargo hold has been voided and thus sealed against a vacuum, sent out an automated alert as soon as damage to the door was detected. Security camera feeds would show the same silvery mist coalescing around a singe knife-like point, one slowly sawing through the door; the cut is miniscule, as it seems the work has only just begun - but then a nanoswarm won't need a very wide opening to pour itself through. Given time, its makeshift vibroblade might well get it through the cargo bay door.

"Hey that means it's time to go go go!" Rushing Jaws declares, unbuckling from the crash couch and floating up to make a jump for the door over the pain of his aching muscles and screaming bullet wounds. "Everyone to the airlock - now!"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Devin started to follow RJ and the rest to the airlock, but hung back a little, hunting. A ship like this had to keep repair spray, or a patch kit, or something on hand. The Motherfuck did.
"Aha!" he called, pulling a patch kit from a drawer. Then he scrambled for the airlock.
"I got you a present," he called to RJ, passing him the patch kit.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Vidar was straggling behind for the crash couch strap in. He came swearing the whole way wich might not have been any kind of tip off, save for the fact that the tacnet listed him as offline. That last map had been a small and final last straw, startling him so bad he wanted to throw something at everyone on the Tacnet. Marcus was free from sin. "Fuck." He said again as he unstrapped to bail. Norwegian swearing referenced horses and intercourse and dying a lot and the old slang was not something the translators handled well, so it came across as hyper literal nonsense. He needed to turn his tacnet back on but it would just be there waiting! and there was a nano swarm and he was more afraid of the map and he couldn't handle that. He didn't want to be that guy. And yet. He scooted after Rj toward what he hopped was the airlock- because fuck him he couldn't look at a map to know where anything was ever. He was starting to get a good case of the post brain power shakes. Some one was going to think he was extra-losing it and he was going to have to admit he was just a map-wuss.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

"You're saving my fucking life right now!" Rushing Jaws calls back to Devin, catching the patch kit out of the air and holding it to his side like a football as he grabs the next handhold and spins around for the airlock. So close. That door better hold. All around him, the single goal of getting to the airlock demands the focus of the squad, Rushing Jaws included. The last one before Devin, Rushing Jaws grabs a hand-hold to arrest his momentum and find a corner of the airlock not occupied by one of his teammates suiting up. He finds one and gently casts himself forward, the exertion agitating the wounds beneath his patch kit, suppressed only by the MRDR. He reaches the corner and stops himself, opening the kit and getting to work just as [Warning! Cargo Bay door integrity at 29%!]

Okay okay okay here we go, Rushing Jaws thinks, defaulting to his training in using these sorts of emergency patch kits. Drawing the lime-sized nanohive out of the kit, he removes the stylus and holds it to his vacsuit, the material trying to stitch itself back up but the process far too slow for the situation; after a few seconds, a light on the nanohive turns green, the swarm issuing out but too small to see without nanoscopic vision. All Rushing Jaws has to do is hold a laser pointer on the kit to his suit, indicating with his mesh inserts what needs patching up and what kind of material, before the nanobots cannibalize the storage bag itself for material to use to aid the smart fabric of his vacsuit. Within a few more seconds, the swarm relays a thumbs-up to Rushing Jaws' inserts, and he sighs with relief-

-just as [DANGER: DOOR BREACH! DANGER: DOOR BREACH!] sounds out on the ship's emergency intercom, a similar AR warning splashing on his entoptics - and those of everyone else with their inserts active. Rushing Jaws takes stock: Devin freefalling in, everyone else in, nanoswarm just breached the door-

"Seal the door now! D- Conor! Tell your ride we're in the port airlock- the port airlock! They better get here fast or we're feedstock!"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Port airlock," Devin repeated, sending the exact coordinates and then dutifully repeating the information about the port airlock to his crew.

Venetian Knife Fight: the fuck did you get into without us??
the Magpie: pls give me 5 seconds to jump into the void b4 u interrogate me, thx
Venetian Knife Fight: whatever
QueenofHearts: Cristiana
Venetian Knife Fight: what???
QueenofHearts: Enroute

"They're coming," Devin said, finishing getting his suit set.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

The last suits are ready before the airlock cycling is complete, the awful saw-grinding noise from the other side of the inner airlock door shifting from behind the squad to wherever the squad is making contact with the chamber. Alarms begin to blare, the sound also an implication of itself, carrying through the floor as red lights begin blinking from the inner door.

The outer door, however, opens out into empty space.

The ship's angle relative to the sun has positioned the port airlock out to the rim, and so the squad is greeted by a field of stars, their faint lights arriving here after unthinkable ages of travel. There is nothing else. No visible ship, no rescue drones, no chunks of asteroid or anything that might serve as a raft in the vacuum. Ahead, there is only true void.

And behind, a nanoswarm, Rushing Jaws thinks, warily eyeing the readout dropping to [Warning! 23% integrity] - dangerously close to a breach - as the swarm continues to saw its way through. He sets his inserts to broadcast as he positions himself to leap, then: [there's nothing for it but to jump and hope the rescue has drones ready to catch us - that door's gonna blow if the swarm breaks through, it's now or never!]

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Devin had never free jumped before, but he hadn't expected it to be a problem.

He hadn't expected to freeze.

There was so much space, so much darkness, and the stars were all so very far away, and he was so small. What if he jumped and no one got him? What if he floated in the void forever?

"Dev? Devin, you need to go," the Grim urged, but Devin couldn't answer. His knees were locked and his hands trembled and he could taste panic like acid rising up in the back of his throat.

Not even the approaching nanoswarm was enough to get him moving.

 

[TrashRabbit]

You could not see the stars in Oslo. The megablock was too bright and any time he could spy them they took his breath away and here with out his mesh on, was raw. How an infinite field of points could make him feel so full he wasn't sure- but maybe he as already dead, out here in all that nothing, maybe he'd never been born and maybe he'd never stop being, as infinite as that ahead- He was glad her was used to his brain's bullshit. It was nice to sit with it with out Penny- not wise. but nice. God he was dissociating.

He devised a handful of personal constellations in his briefest moment of hesitation. It was enough to notice that Devin wasn't going any where fast. He altered course and with out any warning- because what was a mesh insert today kryssvinds?- he grabbed Devin by the middle like a sack of og potatoes or a naughty child on his hip. And tumbled into the void- nano bots on their heels.

 

[Graystone713]

Mach Infinity
Lost control
​

Mach was fast. This was a fact of who he was. He couldn't slow down. Even without his reckless need for speed, his life moved quick enough to where slowing down was a luxury. His life was moving so damn fast now, he was wondering if he could finish the race. He wasn't actively wondering that now. Now, he was floating away from a ship filled with deadly nanomachines.

He was spinning, way too fast. His decision to jump had been hasty-rescue promised, with no proof it was really on the way. And he was truly, impossibly, out of control. No way to accelerate, no way to decelerate, no way to change course or even stop spinning like a damn top. He was perpendicular to the elliptical, and if his guess was right, he might faceplant into Jupiter's atmosphere some day. Would anyone notice and try to grab him? Could he use the limited atmosphere in his suit, or the explosive shots of the plasma bolter to correct course and save himself? Was it already too late?... Should he stack himself now, while he still had a gun and ammo?... He couldn't tell, but he felt like it was too soon and too risky to try anything drastic. He just tried to breathe. Think. Collect himself... If he didn't make it out, it would be another Mach. He could only hope his doppleganger would talk to him...

 

[Sophos]

Abby was freaking out. Jumping into deep space with a nanoswarm behind her was unnerving to say the least. However, it was necessary, so she did it no matter how much she was terrified.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

One by one, they all jump: Vidar scoops up a paralyzed Devin in his arms with spare grace before casting off for the big dark, Abby manages to overcome the same fear to escape, and Mach’s attempt to put a spin in his jump has sent him tumbling into the void. Rushing Jaws can feel the swarm drilling through the door through the vibrations that rattle his morph, knowing that they have seconds left before it breaks through. Against the certainty of death by nanoswarm, the possibility of death in space isn’t a difficult one to accept; Rushing Jaws summons his strength and kicks off for true vacuum, the airlock’s chamber walls giving way to an endless sea of stars-

-a gust like wind propelling him further forward, Rushing Jaws looking back in fear despite him and his comrades being a good five meters away from the outer airlock door. The swarm has broken through, and with it the atmosphere contained within the Annora Arabella; the outer door slams shut almost as quickly as Rushing Jaws can turn around to look at it, pneumatically powered doors sealing to contain the atmosphere within the ship. Had they only been a few seconds late…

Rushing Jaws starts laughing within his helmet, his suit secured and everyone safe from the airlock trap they so narrowly escaped. It’s a boisterous laugh, a victorious laugh, one he doesn’t bother to mute his comms for.

[Fucking outstanding], he manages to say over his own laughter, doing his best to stifle it as they all sail off into the vacuum of space. Remembering that this is not in fact a good place to be, he tries searching the nearby space for any sign of the rescue shuttle as his angle permits; although not in the chaotic tumble that Mach is, Rushing Jaws also lacks a good angle on the swarm, instead watching as the five of them pull further away from the Annora Arabella that steadily gains in thrust toward whatever destiny Mach plotted for it. He only just gets an angle on the scum swarm - farther away than he first figured it would - in time to catch a glimpse of a ship with its engine facing them, a good ways off but closing fast.

Rushing Jaws’ ecstatic laugh is renewed as he watches the shuttle, named the Tasteful Cutaway, coast past them at a safe distance, its nose pointed back toward the swarm in a braking burn. Able to watch as the ship burns off its excess thrust, the shuttle’s cargo bay opens out to space, and something launches off, burning hard to overcome its own inertia and launch for the drifting squad. It closes fast, and turns out to be a nautiloid shell, itself carrying a pack of crab-shaped utility drones that launch off and zero in on each member of the squad.

Rushing Jaws remembers his safety training and extends all four limbs out as the drone approaches, matching velocity with his morph before taking hold of each limb and beginning a gentle burn to slow his momentum; Rushing Jaws feels himself strain against the drones’ grip but remains calm, the thrusters able to reduce momentum enough that the drone can start to bring him back toward the nautiloid. Looking around, he can see the other members of his team be rescued similarly: Devin and Vidar are held close to the rescue drone, as is Abby, while the one rescuing Mach has a harder time stopping his tumble - and moves with the kind of deliberation suggesting that someone had to jam it directly in order to finesse the rescue. All in good time, the five of them are delivered to the nautiloid, its small airlock able to cycle out quickly to allow the five of them one-at-a-time access to a pocket of safe atmosphere; as soon as his vacsuit confirms that it’s safe, Rushing Jaws disengages his suit’s vacuum seals and takes a deep breath.

As the others are brought aboard, Rushing Jaws finds a spot in the nautiloid’s ovoid chamber to nestle into and strap in. His breaths are deep and steady, just like he was trained to do so after an op, the MRDR still bright and delicious in his blood and the pain of his wounds beginning to sharpen by degrees. One by one, he watches the others come aboard, the airlock cycling with maximum efficiency to get them to within the nautiloid’s pressurized chamber as quickly as possible. Smiling - practically beaming with a neo-orca smile - Rushing Jaws takes up the gentlest humming of victory hymns bookended with the calls of his pod, reciting the names of his fallen podmates as closely as human vocal chords can approximate.

Once everyone is aboard and the drones fix themselves to the nautiloid’s hull, a warning chime sounds to encourage everyone to find a place to strap in: [Welcome aboard Fuckling airlines, this is your captain speaking - find a crash couch to strap into, we’ll be getting underway to match velocity with the Tasteful Cutaway and get you all back to the swarm.]

[They’ve got a medivat in here, you know] Rushing Jaws hears Māzǔpó suggest.
D’you think they’d be cool with me regenerating in there for a couple of days?
[Probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least stabilize some of these wounds]
I’ll be fine, ‘long as I can get to a tank on board one of the scum barges. I’d rather get this shit squared away before going under.
[Suppose that’s fair. How are we handling the rookies?]
Later. Let’s not die first.
[Understood]

Within a few minutes, the nautiloid is underway; Rushing Jaws just closes his eyes and his mouth, humming the victory hymns to himself as his body shifts within the crash couch’s safety harness and not paying too much attention to where they are in space or in relation to the shuttle. Instead, he checks the nautiloid’s mesh connections, and - pleasantly surprised to find it connects back to the swarm - is able to open a connection on the Eye to their agent back on the Peculiar Taste of Silence.

Azathothwakes {PM to Atreides Apogee, Starglass}: [Five of us just got off the ship, it should be clear to fire on in another couple of minutes. Nanoswarm contained, Gray Xu and unknown assailants lost, intel acquired, cargo effectively destroyed. I’m gonna need medivat time for this morph if you don’t mind setting that up.]

The nautiloid is gentle in its accelerations and decelerations, only burning hard when it has to in order to match velocity with the Tasteful Cutaway before guiding itself back into the cargo hold and securing its grip to the wall. The view out of the nautiloid’s copula out to the field of stars is replaced by the plating of the cargo hold and whatever is strapped to the walls, the light of Sol replaced by the lights within the hold as it is sealed and repressurized. It takes a few minutes, and then another minute for the atmosphere within the nautiloid to equalize with that of the hold, but another chime sounds as both airlock doors open out to the hold.

“Here we are,” Rushing Jaws announces, unstrapping himself from the crash couch and kicking off for the airlock once he can, wincing as the exertion agitates his wounds. Various crew members have already begun to enter the Tasteful Cutaway’s cargo hold as he exits the nautiloid’s capsule and finds a nearby handhold to grip on to, unsure of what kind of welcome to expect from Devin’s crew and keeping his hands well away from any of his (empty) guns.

“Hey there,” Rushing Jaws greets the scum bargers. “Thanks for the save - don’t suppose anyone has anything to take the edge off these high-caliber bullet wounds, huh?”

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"We're scum," Kostya said in response to RJ, sounding more than a little offended, hands in the pockets of his old Soviet space jacket. "You want some petals?"

"No," Armand told him, sternly, and went to help RJ get into the ship. Armand was rarely ever stern, but at six and a half feet tall, you listened to him when he was. "I'm sure we can do something that won't make it worse in the long run," he added to RJ.

Cris, sitting on a cargo crate behind them, said, "What the fuck, dude?" directly to Devin.

"Give them a minute to get on the ship, Cris," Marina said. She was only a little shorter than Cris and Armand, but was plainly where they got their sharp angles and prominent nose from. Cris frowned, but didn't say anything else. Marina went to Devin, and he let himself be pulled into a sweeping hug, not caring at the moment what anyone else thought. He'd had a very long day, and was so very glad that his mom was here.

"Thank you," he said into her shoulder, hugging her back. He swallowed--he wasn't going to cry here and now, in front of everyone--and added, "It's been a weird day."

"I've gathered," Marina said, dryly, and then started herding them all out of the cargo bay and into the common spaces, keeping him tucked under one arm in a way that always made him feel pleasantly small and deeply important. "Let's get out of the cargo bay and somewhere more comfortable, and you can tell us about it, hmm?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

Vidar let himself be herded into the living area, hesitant to lower their visor or remove their helmet; certain that at least one of his eyes might being doing it's best impersonation of a parrot with the pupil pinging big to small. Pair with a face full of blood he did not want to make a fuss, nor had he thought of a good way to explain himself. He had also not turned his mesh inserts back on and as the adrenal boost faded the pain just behind his eyes and the sort of static sensation in his toes and fingers started to make themselves unignorable. His nervous system was angry. Scientifically he knew his nerves had inflamed, that delicate nerve sheaths had been agitated by an signal load that a sapien could not quiet bare comfortably. He was torn between following RJ and keeping an Eye on Marcus. Marcus thought he was charge still, that they had hired them to do his biding, and marcus took that sort of thing seriously, seeming to think of hired guns as nothing more than npc's bound to his will. He was going to need to be contained at some point.

"You alright?" He asked Abby through his helmet, the coms still off. This was her maiden voyage into the depths of firewall after all and some one could perform well and then not be able to take the stress. He was one who almost fell in that category himself after all. He was taken aback about with how small and light his voice was, a suddenly remembering that this poor girl was possessed of a Norwegian ghost. His mind bulked for a moment and he shove six or seven intrusive thoughts back into his mental pocket.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Armand was the closest thing the Motherfuck had to a medic, and he got RJ settled and started patching him up to get into the meditank soon as they got to the common room. Devin prefered to think of it as cozy rather than cramped--even though the Motherfuck could technically hold a crew of about ten or twelve, it had never been designed to do so with anything like luxury.

Still tucked under Marina's arm, Devin introduced everyone, feeling slightly adrift as he did so. His crew wasn't supposed to know about RJ and Vidar, not really. Not even if he was introducing them as Jie and Tuesday.

"Tuesday, you gonna take the helmet off and turn your mesh back on?" he asked.

"I'm confused. How many fuck buddies do you have?" Kostya asked.

"Kostya, please," Devin said.

"I think they were up to something much more interesting than that," Cris noted, raising an eyebrow at Devin, who grimaced back at her.

"I just wanted to help a friend buy questionable tech, it's not my fault the seller was cuckoo for coco puffs," he protested.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"No." Said Tuesday.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"What the fuck ever, my dude," Devin said.

 

[Sophos]

Abby gave Vidar a grateful look, and waved her hand in a so-so gesture.
"I've been better, but we survived. No one has ever checked in with me before, so thanks," she said before looking over to the guy in the Soviet jacket.
"I would object but I heard you say something about Petals?" As she asked,, she pulled out the Drive she had gotten on the scum swarm and popped two.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Right, my name is Jie now, Rushing Jaws reminds himself to hear it said from Devin. It’s not a bad name, the one given to him as a pup all those years ago - only there are memories attached to it, some cut from his mind by the lab techs (and the motherfuckers paying them) and some he wishes they had. Still, it will do while there is an irritating need for secrecy.

“Thanks for the help,” Rushing Jaws says to Armand, not having to fight hard while Armand sets to work on stabilizing some of his wounds. Under the clear light within the ship and no longer distracted by the pressure of combat or survival, Rushing Jaws gets a good look at his injuries, and swears to himself; although the Fury’s own optimized healing and his own desperate first-aid have kept them from being fatal, the site of his wound is a mess of shredded flesh and splintered bone, the pain kept at bay only be the MRDR in his system. “Fuck me - this is gonna be days in a meditank alright…”

Rushing Jaws simply grips on to hand-holds while Armand does what he can, and instead flicks through his messages and the TacNet - finding to his minor chagrin that Vidar’s inserts are offline. Glancing to the ghost, Rushing Jaws sees him comfort Abby - who looks plenty rattled herself, dosing on more Drive than she’d need.

“You did real good out there, Wunderkind - drinks, petals, name your fix, I’ll be sure to get you some before I go in the tank ‘cause you fucking earned it.”

Azathothwakes {PM to Atreides Apogee}: [hey, your prospect’s shaken but she came through in a big way for us. Once we’re done partying, hit her up.]
Atreides Apogee: [understood. Coordinating on my end. Missile is away, you ought to be clear of the blast zone]
Azathothwakes: [oh fuck yeah, that ought to make for some fireworks.]
Azathothwakes: [word from Starglass?]
Atreides Apogee: [message from Heliotrope received, response pending.]
Azathothwakes: [rog]

Spoiler: Message for Abby

Yasmin Al-Rundi {PM to Abigail Hammond}: [Salaam, Abigail, and thank you for doing this. I can only imagine what it was you encountered on that ship, but you have helped to save a lot of lives today. We need be in no hurry to discuss the nature of what happened - eat, drink, be merry, and seek me out when you are ready. We will have a great deal to discuss.]

Azathothwakes {PM to Hara, Heliotrope}: [no word from Starglass just yet, suppose that puts us in a holding pattern for now. Worse places to stand by than on a scum swarm, huh?]

Rushing Jaws looks over at Mach, unsure of what to make of the other prospect. Seemed to keep it together back there, but…
[What’s up?] Māzǔpó asks, sensing his summons.
He’s unpredictable, he’s got a talent for calling attention to himself, and I dunno if we can trust him.
[Could be an asset as much as a liability]
How do you figure?
[Tactical distraction.]
Maybe. He had some moves back there, but that ain’t everything. I wanna know he's not gonna char us in his afterburners at the first opportunity when it's us against the shit.
[Fair point. We’re not responsible for him, ‘not yet anyways. Leave it to Starglass until you’re ordered otherwise, we’re trying not to die here.]

Rushing Jaws suppresses a laugh, the exertion agitating the still-distant pain of his injuries.

---

Meter notifies Mach of a new message on his Guanxi feed - from Grazie.

Spoiler: Message from Grazie

GrazieMeansThankYou {PM to SpeedMachZX}: [I’m hurt, Mach - you up and leave Extropia without so much as a note on the nightstand. I had to find out through the grapevine that you egocast off-station, and I can guess you’re out there for Nerrix. Once you’re safe, start getting some details to us about what all went down - what did Nerrix want and how did the job end up going down?]

[Nerrix requires a report], Meter reminds Mach. [Current paramenters: identify nature and source of cargo, identify reason for abandonment of deal, report immediately. I can produce a copy of the report to send to Grazie over a secure channel. Both will require roughly one half-hour to respond due to round-trip light delay; awaiting your input.]

There has been as-yet no reply from the interloper.

 

[Graystone713]

Mach Infinity
Cruise control

Mach was done panicking once he got inside. He needed way more time to process this. Another Mach. The deathcan. The tech he lost. The fact that Dropkick or whatever his name was knew these specific people enough for tearful hugs. The Neurachem algorithm tapering off in far more even ticks than actual drugs. Meter needing to be reconfigured again because if he was this fucking tight, Nerrix probably tweaked him or something. Yeah, he needed to focus that.

I swear to god, Meter. You’re not a fucking shitty AGI, you used to be a quiet subconscious thing that understood you were a low fork of ME instead of Nerrix’s yes-man. You were just supposed to be a parallel processor, basically. And if you keep suggesting I screw myself by telling Nerrix jack shit, I’m forced to assume you’re on his side. First report, bullshit for Nerrix.

[AI1T: Legitimate T-originals, night cartel supplied, tentative Martian origin.
AI2D: Imposter setup lookalike guanxi profile, convinced GX. Guards fired on her command, hostile acquisition made necessary.
AI3S: GX utilized catalogue item 2. All acquisitions lost. Hunting imposter (lookalike profile self-terminated) and possible offloaded tech/sources. Extended timeframe required.]

now. Grazie.
[I was gonna report when I got back, cool the damn jets. Can’t be sure Nerrix isn’t listening anymore, especially given the way my muse has been acting. This was supposed to be a simple T-tech purchase. And if Gray Xu has any backups to get spun up, she’ll probably be auto-blacklisted on here because she opened a motherfucking deathcan while she was docked to a barge. Dunno how much more I can say, but has your little group noticed anything odd? Things I’m supposedly doing like a million miles from extropia that I’m not reporting, reports that I’m in two places at once... Anything like that?]

That ought to satisfy him... And tell me how thorough he really is. Now. Are you going to send these to the right people? And delay sending Nerrix’s until a few minutes after Grazie’s is in the pipe?
He thought, the reports being written as they’d each want, the right requests made and questions asked, and the big question waiting to be answered: Was Meter still trustworthy?

Mach barely registered his teammates in the background. They were professionals paid for by underground favors, and if they weren’t ready to hunt down the other Mach or figure out this night cartel shit, they could take their pay and get the fuck gone... Mach was still shaken by things. He needed to sim something fast if he wanted to calm down. But he couldn’t, not yet.