The Dividing Line - Space

[Chibichibi]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

"I think the Klarr have some sort of freeze thing weapon on their ships! Meera, shoot this thing!" Maria sat back in her chair, waiting. She hated waiting, but what else could she do?

 

[Aust_Nailo]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

"M...Me!? Oh god, I knew something bad was going to happen. Why did I ever agree to do this?" Meera was still a tiny bit frantic but thanks to the words of her male companions had calmed down significantly. And seeing that her team had come up with some sort of a plan, Meera focused her weapons at the target. "Target locked in. Firing!" With that said, Meera opened fire on the rather large target, knowing even she couldn't miss.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

With a stroke of luck, Meera's bubble managed to hit the yellow spore dead on. At once, the tentacles that had torn their way through the mantis bodies went limp, floating randomly as the beast had lost control over them. However, the shield bubble technology wasn't meant to permanently disable a target. Regular shots would be needed until the yellow spore was secured.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Caitlin split her attention, rotating the Concordance to put the face with the secondary docking bay into line with the stunned creature, the guns on that side continuing to tear into the mantis corpses, trying to disable all the guns the spore creature had available to it. Inside, all the ship's flesh in the normally unusable bay was contracting, squeezing out and into other sections of the ship. She knew the thing could hijack biological systems, she did not want to have to fight for control of the ship, if it had the ability to do the same to live flesh.

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Maria hovered, torn between wanting to help and fleeing the scene. "Keep on it, Meera. If it looks like its going to start twitching again, take another shot."

 

[Aust_Nailo]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

"Understood! C...Charging weapons. Meera kept her eyes locked on the assemblage of creatures, waiting for the moment that they even twitched. However, her weapons were ready much sooner then she though and she squeezed down on the trigger, praying that they would keep the creature locked down.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

For now, Ko just drifts and maintains a watchful eye on the situation. Not forgetting her initial task, she made sure to keep a pair of gun cams pointed toward the station to watch for any Nnyarthall sneaking out from or along the perforated surface.

She was highly dubious of whatever the scientist woman in the creepy fleshy ship was doing, but knowing more or less nothing about either the spores or Caitlin's ship itself, she keeps her mouth shut and stands guard. Meanwhile, taking the opportunity to summon the rear section of the Hell-Strafer that had bee silently hiding nearby, over to her position. The automated system on the rear section lining up quickly and efficiently with it's counterpart. Maintaining her facing, Ko pilots back to dock with the rear section, with a fairly quick and practised looking manoeuvre...

That she cocks up a little at the last moment. A solid *CLUNK* reverberating through the frame of the craft, shortly before the locking mechanism manages to slide the rest of the way into place and the computer reports a successful docking regardless. In the void of space the sound was naturally only audible to Ko, but it didn't stop her cringing and looking round wondering if anyone noticed. "Shit. Err... did Kars notice? Seems distracted... was just a little bump. Nothing happened... nothing at all... " She mutters to herself.

A few more clunks, clacks and whirring noises vibrate through the hull as the ship automatically rearms and refuels. In barely a few seconds everything was restocked, and Ko hits the separation controls. The rear section ejects away again, and reactivates it's stealth device.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

The yellow spore, finally stripped of all its defenses, remained locked down as it was slowly steered into the Concordance's loading bay. Its form remained inert until it was well within the vessel... and then, just as the doors were about to close, a single tentacle shot out and latched to the outside of the ship, digging into its flesh.

All speakers on the vessel came online at once. They released a high-pitched ringing noise, not unlike a tinnitus. Slowly, it oscillated, transformed, shifted into a human-sounding scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHWHATAREYOUAAAAAAAAA-"

The closing bay doors severed the tentacle, and the Concordance fell silent once more. The appendage released its hold on the ship and slowly floated away.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Caitlin let out a smile as she eased the creature into the bay, starting up the containment fields around the inside hull, to make sure the spore couldn't eat it's way into the rest of the ship. It had been some time since she had a live specimen to-

Her thoughts were interrupted when the thing latched a tendril onto the outer hull, a high-pitched shriek suddenly reverberating through the entire ship, resolving into words seconds later. Both herself and her creation recoiled, a visible shudder passing through the flesh coating of the Concordance at the intrusion of the yellow spore, and she hit the control for the bay door, sealing the creature in a second later. The noise ended abruptly, much to the appreciation of her eardrums. The outer hull distorted near the bay door, flinging away the disconnected section of yellow into the firing arc of one of the turrets spaced around the ship, shredding the thing, just in case.

A quick check to make sure the bay was intact and still shielded, and then she was on the comm network, her voice giddy with joy and wonder. Did anyone else hear that? She sent out, quickly going through options in her head. The thing spoke, she was sure she heard words in the screech. If it was intelligent, there had to be some sort of sterile way of communicating with it...

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Ko watches quizzically as the spore is taken in and seemingly eaten alive by the strange semi organic ship. The way the bay doors seemed to chomp down on the escaping limb, followed by the visible shudder from the ship just after, just looked too much like a large creature swallowing something to her. She hadn't met the pilot or captain of the vessel yet, and if it weren't for the plenty normal sounding voice coming over the coms from it, she would have perhaps questioned if there were a pilot at all.

This ship was an ally and all, having proved quite useful against light targets with it point defence guns so far, but Ko couldn't quite shake the creeps it gave her.

Opting to not actually answer the open question herself, taking it as a rhetorical, Ko simply remains on watch for any further disturbances for now. After all, where there was one, there could always be more.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Spoiler

Welp, i don't know about anyone else, but I'm posting

Caitlin waited almost a full minute for a response, but none came. Eventualy, she figured the comms array may have been busted in the fight, but she could still pick up the other team's chatter from inside the station, so that wasn't it. Ah well, she had new work to do anyways.

This new creature was an enigma, and it certainly seemed intelligent. But it only attempted to communicate through Bob. She couldn't risk it taking greater control over the ship, or somehow reaching back through the ship and into her. That left few options that she could think of. Best to start with the simplest, and work towards the more difficult solutions as necessary.

Opening the shipboard comms as it had done, she sent a relay down to the secondary bay the creature was contained in. "You asked what I am. I am the closest thing to someone that understands you that you are likely to find beyond your own. Can you speak as you are? Are you capable of using a touchpad to communicate? Do you understand me at all? If so, find some repeatable action. Do it once for no, and twice for yes." She spoke, then waited for a reaction from the spore creature, watching from the cameras spaced around the room.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Alas, the spore in Caitlin's cargo bay did not respond in any way. Perhaps, as the spores seemed to be living mostly in a vacuum, they didn't have an organ to locate or process sonic waves. If Caitlin wished to communicate with the being, she would have to find a different way.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

If anyone else had been on her ship, that may have been somewhat embarrassing. Ah well.

It seemed like the creature had some form of memory with those things it tapped into. It had yelled at her in english, which Bob wasn't capable of, and far as she could tell, it hadn't reached through to the scientist herself. That gave her a pretty good chance of establishing a rapport with the thing, if she could figure out a save way to do so.

The thing's senses were mainly visual and touch. She could rig up a lightshow, but there's be no lexicon. That wasn't the right way to do things. Wasn't much better appealing to it's sense of touch, either. Sighing, She came upon one of her first conclusions, the one she was most hesitant on to begin with. She needed to find it an organic proxy to talk through.

Taking up the external comms again, she sent a tightbeam message over to Maria on the Star. "This thing is fascinating, it sent a message over my internal comms just before I had it sealed away. I'm trying to re-establish communications with it again under safer circumstances, but I'm having troubles. I figure my best bet is to let it have a Nnyarthall corpse again, with the weaponry removed. You have better scanners than I do, Can you tell if there are any corpses left floating around wtih at least the head and torso intact?"

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Maria hummed and pressed a few buttons. "Looks like I got one. Head and torso but that's about it. You sure you want to let it have control of something again? That thing tried to kill us."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

That‘s why i‘m not letting it have anything dangerous. Spore‘s aren‘t usually intelligent, i‘ve never seen anything like this before. If i can get a recording of it beforehand, as well as the autopsy, that makes it so much easier. Doubly so if i can record the connection between it and a corpse as well, instead of having to guess from the spore on it‘s own.“ Caitlin sent back, sounding excited.

Turning her attention back inwards, she started thinking of the problem of getting the corpse to the creature without setting it loose. She had no real airlock to the bay it was in. The hanger doors were a single hull themselves, and the shield that kept the air in was ineffective against anything else. She had the fields up to keep the spore from trying to eat at the inner hulls, but those weren't shapeable. The elevator led into a short hall leading to it, but it was too large for her use, and she didn't want to risk it getting in there, where she had no fields to keep it at bay. If she could shorten it somehow...

That may just work. She had to find a section of inner bulkhead to use, but she could screen the hall, of a sort. place the corpse between it and the door, and give the makeshift wall a shove as soon as the door opened. If she used Bob to brace the bulkhead, she could make sure it didn't press it's way in, and she could close the door again after, pressing the bulkhead right to it beforehand to make sure it stayed in the bay.

Nodding to herself, she checked the camera feed one more time to make sure the spore was remaining docile, then disconnected from the ship proper, leaving the lab for the main bay, where she kept the maintenance tools. She'd have to shift the spare flesh around some, but one of the bulkheads from the secondary quarters would have to do. She'd stop by the hall to the secondary bay, to make sure she had the measurements right.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Without anything to react to, the spore just hung in the hangar limply, occasionally bumping into a wall. Whenever that happened, its skin seemed to ripple and cling to the wall for a moment before retreating. One thing of note would be that the tentacle that got cut off seemingly started to regenerate, showing a stump-like growth instead of a clean cut.

Maria had little trouble securing the severely mangled body. The Mantis suit had been badly burned away in large portions, revealing the brown Nnyarthall skin underneath. Both legs and one arm were missing completely, with the other arm being blown off underneath the elbow.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Measurements, check. Cutting torch, check. A glance through the ship's systems informed Caitlin as she worked that the spore was already starting to regenerate, but was otherwise remaining docile, which was good.

Soon enough, she had the section of bulkheadcut out, slowly using the tendrils inside the ship to move it past her and into the elevator shaft, maneuvering it to the hall leading to the containment bay. Once there, she'd have it lined up, but bent over, allowing the corpse to be thrown over top of it once it arrived.

The bulk of the work done, the scientist breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was going according to plan, so far. How are things on your end, Maria? I have an impromptu bulkhead ready to make the transfer with, should be able to put enough mass behind it that the specimen won't escape. She sent, floating slowly down towards the active hanger, where she'd make the pickup, when it was time.