Cruise Control

[Tribunal Power]

Stepping in line beside Archer, she glanced over to him through as her visor faded to become translucent to adjust to the low lighting. "No dying today," she said with a tone that sounded like it should come with a grin, but with a face that gave none. "You're buying drinks, remember?" Finally, she gave a small smile, before glancing past him to see Vol motion to cut comms.

Hitting her killswitch again, she peered at him curiously before hearing his assessment. "I think that's exactly what this is," she said profoundly. "There's something on that ship that she doesn't want to get out of her own hands. If it's a set-up, though, what's in it for the Doctor?" She turned back toward the door, peering down to her rifle and taking the sling attachments in hand to clip them in place on the shoulders of her armor. "I think the Doctor is playing with fire. She doesn't want to let out any more on this than she has to. We won't know more until we're in. We go in careful and clean-- like she said, ready for anything."

Pausing a moment, she accessed the holonet through her HUD and dug for a moment, before holding out her datapad to project the hologram. "Got the layout here, from the manufacturer. Should be relatively accurate. I can link it to our signals so that we can see where we are on the map-- you should be able to access it at the terminals and on your datapad. Should give us some idea of where we're going. It's in our comm network now."

"We're forcing our way in at point twenty-four, so clear your corners. The black box will be in the cockpit, and any security logs probably in the armory/ Looks like the only way there is through the dining room and lounge-- points thirteen and twelve. That's putting us way out in the open. Anything you can do to lock the area down, Vol, I appreciate it." She checked the chamber of her rifle and the seating of the ammunition stick, before facing the door with a deep breath. She often found that jobs generally had either good pay or good intel-- rarely both. This one definitely fit the bill.

Going in blind was never advisable, but she was ready for a fight. As soon as Vol was ready, she was prepared for the door to open.

When the door opened, there would be a short hallway-- perhaps fifteen feet-- that stretched to the hull entry of the Nightlife. "Archer, be advised there won't be gravity in the boardwalk to the ship. If you don't have electromagnetic boots, I'd invest after this job. There won't be any cover-- it's a straight-away, so once the doors open on the other side, make sure you clear your field. Button-hook entry-- you swing right, I'll swing left, same time. Got it?"

Once the team was prepared for entry, it was up to Vol to open the doors. Xiu's blood was pumping hard in her chest-- she flexed her grip on her rifle and took a deep breath. She was ready.

 

[Talon maara]

Nodding Archer grinned as she mentioned him buying the drinks after their mission. Archer didnt have gravity boots but he wasnt really worried, he liked to move swiftly which in space, once you move you stay that speed till either you hit gravity or something stops you, So he planned on using that to his advantage.

all that rolled in his mind was how and where he would get a ship so he could repay his debt.....

'Maybe we could steal this and sell the ship?...'

Archer thought to himself. He just wanted to pay his debt to his friend off but wasnt quit sure how hed do it. Regardless of the Houks skill in combat and his size and strength he still respected yet feared his selonian friend/debtor.

"How long should this take?....hopefully not to long?...."

He questioned. Looking back at Vol he nodded signaling he was ready to roll when ever they were. Looking back to the door he held his rifle pressed up against his right shoulder while reaching down with his left hand he grabbed a nearby cargo hold strap handle and gripped it tight. He planned on thrusting himself through the door and to the left of the hallway as his companion took the right side. His heavy electromagnetic plasma rifle was locked....loaded....and ready to release its fierce blasts upon any opposition.

Doubt....so many questions ran through his mind wondering if that, what if they were doing involved killing innocent people....maybe it was a set up after all. Maybe their 'provider' was a bad guy sending them in to retrieve goods from some respectable people? Or maybe she will turn the galactic system against them? After all SHE is bad really too and can't be trusted seeing she used a hologram for communication in the Houks eyes. He preffered face time and seen it as a respect to the operators from the higher ups.

By any means neccessary the houk planned on making it out not only alive but with something he could help him get credits. Archer didnt fully trust his companions yet, This was the trial by fire for him.

 

[The Captain]

Vol nodded at Saffron, openly reactivating his commlink so as not to arouse suspicion from their benefactor. Taking one more look over both the schematics and the ship's systems, their situation was far from ideal. Huge portions of the ship's systems were either heavily locked off, or segmented to make it difficult for an individual to access them. What little control he could exert was closing most of the side doors along their path, closing off paths for any potential threats on the ship. However security, life support, and the power systems were all beyond his skill, locked off by near military-grade cyber defenses.

"I've done what I can to help from here, but it would take hours to hack into the deeper systems from here. If we can get to the cockpit or central computer, I might be able to do more." Vol stood up from his seat, remotely linking his datapad to the ship's computers and cocking his blaster rifle. He stuck behind his more combat ready companions as they maneuvered toward the docking tube doors.

 

[Tribunal Power]

"Reeves wants the ship back; if we can fly it, we'll take it to her. Do a couple jobs like these, and you can buy your own," she said, shrugging to Archer with a grin.

She looked back to see Vol approaching with his datapad in hand. Nodding to his words, she replied, "Then the cockpit is our first stop," she said. "We'll need to hang a left around the corner, then a one-eighty to go through the dining room. Cockpit is straight ahead after that."

And with that, they were ready.

The doors opened, and Xiu took long, careful strides into the corridor, her boots holding her firmly in place. Once all three were in the hall and in position, the doors closed behind them, and Xiu initiated a short-wave scan of the door ahead. The results told her the next room was pressurized; that was comforting. Taking up place on the left and leaving Archer room to take up the right, she signaled for Vol to open the door with his datapad.

The doors hesitated, but opened with a whoosh. Xiu wheeled into the breach barrel-first; there was a flat wall in front of them with a scenic image of Coruscant from orbit and a slogo saying 'Leave it behind, and go for a ride!' Xiu ignored the irony of the advertisement on a derelict yacht and continued to scan left. Ahead on her side was an wider section of the hall and a doorway that led to the engineering dock, only half visible from her angle. The rest lying around a corner to the right, which she cleared quickly and backed off.

On Archer's side of the room, there was a long straight corridor that angled at one point where a door jutted out; according to the map, it led to the starboard cargo bay. There were no contacts present in the immediate area.

"Awfully quiet," she mumbled into the comms,sidling along the wall to prepare to look around the corner on her side. "We're clear to approach the dining room door, point thirteen." Knowing the left side of the ship was still unknown, she faced that direction with her rifle shouldered as she stacked on the closed door to the dining room.

 

[Talon maara]

Archer followed suit with Xiu, he held his rifle to cheek ready to squeeze the trigger and release its blue plasma bolts into its target. Upon arriving to their breaking point archer pied the corner clearing as much as his eyes could see, noticing the long hall and noticing he couldnt see passed the break in the wall about halfway down the hall Arc motioned silently to the others as his vision was obscured a few feet from infront of him. But he kept his sights down the corridor.

"Awfully quiet"

His female companion stated, Archer nodded in confirmation trying to maintain his posture.

"We're clear to approach the dining room door, point thirteen."

As soon as she mentioned it Archer stayed back a few seconds to let the others go infront of him, so the Houk could block their rear both with his size and weapon if someone or something attacked from their rear. Arc didnt like this one bit. A tiny ship that had alot of visual blocks, which meant security was never going to be completed unless they could actually clear said sections.

"Arc agrees...."

Archer muttered over the comms

"Ship to tiny.....arc doesn't like the security..."

 

[The Captain]

At Saffron's signal, Vol remotely opened the doors to the ship, while taking his position behind Archer at the door. Once they were open, he let his better armed associates sweep the immediate area before moving between them on their way to the cockpit. Safe between two heavily armed mercenaries, Vol was able to refocus on trying to gain more control over the ship from his datapad. This was proving to be a difficult task, as he was still accessing this ship through Saffron's, and since that was an outside terminal the ship had pulled up extra layers of security for him. There was no way anyone could have externally sliced this ship, at least not without incredibly advanced and expensive equipment. This was looking more and more like an inside job every second.

"Ship too tiny...Arc doesn't like the security..."

"Ah, a point we can agree on." Vol replied, briefly looking over his shoulder at the Houk. "This ship has more cyber security than a civilian vessel should be able to afford."

 

[Tribunal Power]

The level of cybersecurity was disconcerting. Why would a civilian pleasure yacht need that kind of protection? She waited for her allies to join her on the door to the dining room, before pressing the button on the wall to open the door. To her surprise, it worked; the door separated and opened before them. What they saw on the other side of the door was grizzly.

Blood was spattered all over the floor and walls, and bodies of those who appeared to be civilian guests were lain about. Many of them were severely disfigured-- broken bones, limbs hanging on by a thread of sinew, and flesh torn from bone. Scraps of shredded clothing lay here and there, much of them bloodsoaked; some of the bodies were clothed, but a handfull of them wore clothing that was torn apart or gone altogether. The stench of death was ripe and when the door opened, it wafted into the hall like a rolling fog. At the opposing end of the dining room was man in a uniform and low-level padded armor, with a weapon beside him-- likely ship security. The unexpected carnage in the room was horrifying, but Xiu remained vigilant-- and just as she took a cautious step into the room, she saw movement.

A human female, who was lying face-first in an uncomfortable position against the far wall of the room, stirred. Her back was torn open, and as she used her elbows to lift herself up, blood fell from the wound.

Seeing she was trying to stand, Xiu stepped into the room and shifted to the left to allow her allies to enter and take aim. "You! Human! Show me your hands!" she demanded, her voice booming with command presence through the speakers of her helm. The woman ignored her, lifting herself to her feet, using the wall as support. "Hands! Now! she shouted again, and again received no response. The woman turned to face the crew, and Xiu saw her face; the left cheek had been torn away, revealing teeth, some of which were shattered or missing. A sickly brown infection of some kind possessed the left side of her face-- and much of her skin, for that matter, was the same color. A sick feeling sank into Xiu's stomach as the woman faced her. Then, she began to approach.

Xiu had seen enough. Whatever she was, it wasn't anything good, and it certainly wasn't a human female civilian anymore-- and Xiu wasn't taking any chances on this job. She fired her rifle with a loud clap; a slug ripped through the woman's chest, exploding from her back and sparking against the wall. The creature staggared back, but continued to approach; Xiu fired two more rounds into the chest to similar effect, and the creature collapsed in a heap, stirring slowly on the floor with a gurgle. It glared up at the crew with dead, soulless eyes.

"Check these bodies," Xiu said to her companions as she approached the creature. "They're not all corpses. We don't need any more of these getting up." She swallowed the sick feeling in her throat and approached the one she dropped, putting a final round into its head from a safe distance. It stirred no more.

 

[Talon maara]

Archer pushed through the door as he saw His female counterpart blow two holes into the semmingly lifeless body as it stood before his eyes. Lifeless....????? It was nothing new to see dead bodies but to come back to life? Well that was a whole new story.

After watching her put the final round amidst its skull Arc approached its body and pressed his barrel into it eye to see if it was still animated. The smell of the metallic iron aroma of blood in the air reminded archer of many gruesome sites hes seen. But nothing such as this.

Archer looked at his fellow members and dislocated his comms.

"What was that? Archer is second guessing this mission as a one way ticket....."

Archer didnt like the looks of this whole ordeal. It made him uncomfortable and uneasy.....one that didnt over take him much of the time. But for his teams sake he maintained his composure and studied the room scanning the remaining area around them.

"We must finish and go home. Archer doesnt need ship this bad....."

Nodding rapidly archer looked to his team in the utmost urgency.

 

[The Captain]

While Vol's conscious was never that strong, he still found the sheer carnage of the room sickening. This wasn't an explosive, it wasn't pirates, this level of savagery was reserved for animal attacks. As he tried to wrap his mind around the gore they were surrounded by, he noticed Saffron shouting at an injured woman moving on the ground, and he didn't need to be a doctor to know she shouldn't be moving at all. Saffron managed to gun down the woman, although not without some effort, before putting it down for good.

"We must finish and go home. Archer doesnt need ship this bad....."

"I believe I have a better idea, I say we return to the ship, I remotely open all the doors here, and we leave the airlock open." In truth, Vol wanted nothing more than to abandon this mission entirely, the living dead was not in the briefing. However, he knew the doctor was listening to them, and most likely had some potentially lethal incentive to make them complete the mission.

 

[Tribunal Power]

"Don't worry about it, Archer," she said, to comfort her companion. They're just moving targets.

Xiu looked over the bodies in the room. None of the others moved, and after the gunfire, she figured they probably would have gotten up if they could. She sighed and shook her head, looking to Vol. "I don't think we should take this ship anywhere," she commented. "The only thing I've ever heard of that did anything like this is the Rakghoul virus, and that's highly contagious through contact. I wouldn't want to take this ship back to a station-- what if it spread somehow?"

She turned to face him, adding, "But I like your plan of venting out the ship. If we went back to the Word and closed the exterior doors, would you have access to do that remotely?" If he could do it, it would save them the dangerous task of possibly encountering more of these creatures on the way to the cockpit and armory. Xiu didn't like the idea of traveling through the passenger lounge to get there-- that was probably where the majority of these creatures were, if any still lived.

 

[Talon maara]

Archer scanned the room, knowing this was a bad mission. Trying to kill something...already dead....ish? Either way Archer wanted his money and to leave. Walking up to the cockpit archer had tapped the door rather ruthlessly to see if he heard anything behind it. Turning back to his group archer shrugged.

"Either way....we need to hurry and leave this blasted ship."

Slowly stepping towards the rest of the crew he stood ready to fight? Or try to blow the bodies out the ship. Archer loved fighting but this? This was something different. All too new for the Houks taste.

 

[The Captain]

"No, I'd need to wirelessly connect to a terminal on this ship. Just about any computer will do, but it might take time to set up the connection-" A long, sickening, gurgling sound cut his sentence short, and was followed by the sounds of feet dragging along the metal floor, lots and lots of feet. "-time we may not have." Slipping his datapad back onto his belt, Vol drew his blaster rifle and moved closer to his heavily armed companions, eyes darting about wildly as he searched for the source of the sounds. Given the ships labyrinthine interior, that could easily be the echoes of a few creature very far away, or an entire army shambling ever closer.

"Either way....we need to hurry and leave this blasted ship."

"I agree wholeheartedly, this is a horror show..."

 

[Tribunal Power]

Xiu nodded to her companions, looking to the door ahead of them as the sound of shuffling came from beyond it. "Then the plan remains the same," she said. "We need to get to the cockpit."

She crossed the room, rifle shouldered, coming to the door that led into the passenger hall. According to the map, the rounded room had a series of doors on either side that each led to a passenger quarters. On the opposing side of the room was the door that led toward the cockpit, as well as the armory and some other stations. Gripping her rifle tightly, she stacked on the door and waited for her allies to show they were ready, before hitting the keypad to open the door.

When the door opened, two bodies slumped forward at them through the doorframe, slapping into the ground. Xiu had taken care not to stand directly in front of the door, and as the bodies fell forward, Xiu fired on them. Both bodies jerked as they were hit, both writhing on the floor-- if at first Xiu was not sure they were alive somehow, she was now-- until the final rounds cut them silent and still. She looked up, rifle pointed into the room, to join her allies against whatever stirred within.

 

[Talon maara]

Archer nodded with his rifle raised to his cheek he scanned their surrounding. Arc had himself emplaced infront of Vol as he was trying to protect him just incase, not that he really needed it. The houk onlooked as the doors opened and Xiu began to open fire, he remained vigilant. Watching deeper in the room for possible movement.

After her dispatching of the threats he slowly stepped forward, with his left hand grabbing the shoulder of his companion he stepped past her. Archer was going to move in first, to ensure if anything happened HE would get assaulted and not them.

The houke was unsure of what he would see, but that was all up to fate. (OOC: Or in this case @Tribunal Power lol) regardless of his nerves arc kept slowly pieing the corner, turning on his light to help him see the obstacles if need be.

 

[The Captain]

"Once more unto the breach..." Vol kept his back turned to his companions, keeping watch behind them for any incoming aberrations. He trusted that they would fend off any incoming creatures on their end, or at least provide enough of a distraction that he could escape. He kept his eyes peeled, darting around the rooms and corridors for any sign of movement. Thankfully, the rasping, shambling noises didn't seem to be drawing any closer, which meant that they were most likely stuck in locked off areas of the ship.