[Halo] Onyx Wind

[Erasmas]

Valen, not having taken his eyes off of the tank, replies. "Normal operations frequently need planetside drops. The atmo-bound ships fly in through those bay doors over there, and they load the Scorpions and Hogs onto them. They fly down and set up a temporary base and from there, the Pelicans can maglock them onto their underbelly... and drop them off into the hot-zones when Infantry needs."

Jason and Argyle quickly figure out how to finagle one of the hoses that usually feeds into the personal oxygen tanks stowed inside the station. Within minutes, everyone on the team is back up to 100%.

[Erik Vale]

"Sir, everyone is ready with a full oxygen supply. Shall we move onto the objective."

Argyle himself doesn't take a close look at the tank like everyone else does, he instead scans the room for things out of the ordinary, flicking between heat and normal vision.

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(1d20+7)[17] Spot. [26 Total]
(1d20+4)[23] Listen. [32 Total.]

Gnomere Complementry
(1d20+11)[28] Spot.
(1d20+9)[28] Listen.

[Erasmas]

You all finished refilling your oxygen reserves and then moved as a unit in the direction of the Scorpion. When you reached it and popped the hatch, you weren't quite expecting what it held inside. Strapped into the seat and definitely not conscious - you see the source of the secondary distress beacon is a gold-colored Spartan.

[Thump]

"What the- Valen! There's an unconscious Spartan over here, unknown ID! Mack, get his name for me."

"Attempting to access helmet now. Sit tight, we'll figure it out in a moment."

Ceara undoes the straps and lifts the Spartan out of the Scorpion, and sets him down next to it, seating him so that he is leaning against the scorpion. She gives him a sharp thump on the chest to wake him up.

"Oi. Wakey wakey!"

[Erasmas]

As Ceara lifts him out of the hatch, she can instantly tell that his limbs are stiff and rigid. Upon examination, his vitals are extremely low but stable. His callsign (X696) comes back, but little else seems accessible... it appears that his suit's systems are in minimal operations. By all appearances, he seems to be in a sort of impromptu cryo stasis.

[Erik Vale]

"Gno-"
"Already syncing suit systems. Tag identified, that's one we can remove from the MIA roster when we get home.Ok, I'm starting to get vital signs."
"Ceara, help me get this guy to the Oxgen, I think getting him breathing might be a priority since we can't exactly unsuit him."
"What a way to be found..."

[[Assuming I get the help.]]
Argyle and Ceara each pick up X696, one arm over each shoulder as they drag the ton of dead weight back to the oxygen, where Argyle immidiately preps to hook him up to oxygen.

"Doc, bring your med-bag, he might only be sleeping quite deliberately but it's unlikely, there is probably some sort of medication. Valen, I think I'm getting his AI for response, it almost feels as if it's booting up... I'll aim for medical notes from his suit first."
"Hmm... He doesn't have a camera. That could be problematic."
"Don't you start."

[DoctorFaust]

Groaning, Volsungs walks away from the tank he was admiring, but his pace increases as he realizes what they were talking about. Getting to Argyle and Ceara just as he starts hitting his stride, only managing to stop by running into the wall and tripping. Bouncing back up, he detaches one of his medkits and kneels next to the sleeping Spartan. "Ten hells. If it turns out that this guy is a II, I'm going to start fanboying so hard. Either way, lets see what happened to this guy during cryo."

[moomoo]

While golden boy Spartan is under the good care of Ceara, Argyle and Volsung, Anex starts to investigate the Scorpion and its surroundings, hoping to find some clues on what has happened.

[Erasmas]

Anex walks about the bay and sees little more than the sheer amount of damage caused by the firefight with the Covenant Corvette - there were plasma holes that entered on one side of the hangar and left out the other as if shooting through paper. And aside from the headless corpses strewn about, he found little else out of place. He found a few places where the bodies had been gathered together after having been shot or stabbed to death; some were even laser-burned, looking like they had been hit with a Spartan Laser. But it looks like whoever had done this grouped them almost into piles before taking their heads.

Meanwhile, Volsung and Argyle begin piecing together the story of the mystery Spartan. After several minutes of diagnostics and getting his suit's systems back up and running after filling him up with O2, the AIs were able to chat. Apparently, the AI and the Spartan had made the decision to put him into the quasi-cryo sleep because they both knew that it was going to be a while until any possible help arrived. It looks like their gamble paid off. The AI slowly allowed the cold of the space-exposed ship to introduce itself into the suit to lower his body temperature whilst injecting him with a mixture of onboard chemicals within his suit to closely simulate those typically used in cryo. Had he been a normal man... it would undoubtedly have killed him.

Almost fifteen minutes after getting his suit back online and running at optimum levels, he finally started to rouse.

[Erik Vale]

"Vital signs are moving towards normal... Valen, now might be the time to welcome him to the world of the living."

[Erasmas]

"Spartan, can you hear me? Hello; anybody home?"

Valen nudges the soldier's boot with the toe of his own as he speaks.

[ShadowFireLance]

The golden armored Spartan Shakes his head, obviously disorientated by the long Cyrosleep, and by the sudden awakening.

"Wha...What..Who Are you?"

[Thump]

"That's Valen. I'm Ceara, that's Anex, Volsung and Argyle. On your feet, soldier. We need your name and how you got here, before we continue."

She lifts the gold-spartan up to his feet, giving him a shoulder to lean on in case he needs it.

"We'll explain everything as we go, but you have to explain why you were in a Scorpion, taking a cryo-nap. And, if you can...", she gestures to the headless bodies, "...why we're dealing with headless corpses."

[ShadowFireLance]

"Sgt...Drake...I think, It's slightly harder then it should be to recollect...I was in Cyro because this damn ship went into lockdown, and I had no O2, You try doing that.
As for the headless bodies, I have no idea, at all."

[Erik Vale]

"Well then. It is good to have you back on your feet soldier."
"Short term Amnesia is a bad sign."
"Something we can't deal with yet. Lets hit all the other objectives and get back ASAP."

While Gnomere's voice is concerned, Iaoch is rather matter of fact. Almost cold, much to the disturbance of Argyle. If you could see it, it would have gone from concerned to annoyed, but you can't see it.

[Erasmas]

After helping Ceara get Drake's feet back underneath him, Valen moves in front of the Spartan.

"You were a part of Operation: Torpedo?", the Major asked. When he received confirmation, he continued. "Well, obviously that mission is no longer Priority; you've been under for probably around three months... give or take. We've got a few things that we were sent to do around here, Spartan, and you're gonna help us out... clear? You do that and you hitch a ride home with us."

Dante approaches and hands Drake and assault rifle and a magnum that he had pulled off of two dead Marines.

"I assume you know how to use these?" And then after a second, he reaches out and taps the barrel of the Magnum. "That's the dangerous end."

[RagingKrikkit]

Jason remained on the fringe of the group, observing in silence. He wasn't exactly in what one would call a "Talking mood", and decided to let the others handle that part for now.

[DoctorFaust]

Rising to his feet after disconnecting and stowing his medkit, Volsung snorts a laugh at Dante's "instructions". "If he doesn't know the business end of a gun, I don't think he would've made it to sergeant in the first place. " Clapping the gold spartan on the shoulder, he turns away and resumes staring at the tank. "I'm the group medic, by the way, and I might be able to give you something to help with the cry-amnesia. Would have been one of two medics here, but the other is kind of…mostly dead at this point. Depending on how far my AI was willing to follow my order, she could actually be completely dead."

[moomoo]

After his investigations, Anex returns to Valen and the group:
Can't find anything that explains all this out here. I guess we split up and go for our secondary objectives?

[Erasmas]

Valen nods to Anex's question.

"X696, you're with Crimson Team on Priority Two. I need you to get them to the bridge and recover the ship's AI, along with any intel quarantined there when it went to Alamo Protocol. Sapphire Team... with me. I want periodic reports on progress. Good luck."

And with that... Valen, Dante, James, and Jason moved off into the darkness, presumably towards the Engine Bay and hopefully the slipspace drive.

[Erik Vale]

"See you on the ship sir. Drake, I'm sending over tactical information now."
"Ok, suits are linked and Data is up."
"Good, lets go."

Argyle turns and begins moving towards the Nav-point that just appeared on everyone's HUD's towards the bridge, continuing his scan of the area.

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A question, should Valen be in any way uncontactable, who is treated as team leader in the case of players being unable to democratically decide things. [Not asking for favouritism, just a point of interest.] I'm fine with a answer of: 'DM Steps in', or 'Valens never out of contact'.

[DoctorFaust]

Tearing himself away from the tank, Volsung walks back to the ground while unslinging his needler. "Link is confirmed, 3. Anex, Ceara, Drake, do try and keep up."

[moomoo]

Anex, who was already heading in the direction of their objective, smiles at this:
Don't you worry, I'm already ahead of you.

[DoctorFaust]

Chuckling, Volsung walks out of the hangar as he finishes prepping for combat. "It's good to see that at least one of our new recruits has spirit," he says with a smile.

[Thump]

"On your six; if something pops up, tell me where and it's gonna get a lead milkshake for a snack."

[Erasmas]

CRIMSON TEAM

Argyle, Volsung, Anex, Ceara, and the new edition of Drake head off in the direction of the bridge. You all find much the same... the ship is thoroughly derelict, with more holes in her than a sieve exposing various parts of her to the open black expanse of space. She wouldn't be able to hold atmo unless she was inside of one. Life support was gone all over and even the emergency lights had been shut down. Luckily the gyroscopic-powered Gravity Generators didn't run on power and would spin on forever... unless something knocked them out of whack.

This certainly seemed to be the case for a couple of the sectors that you found yourself in, where you had to float yourself across bays and along hallways, gently pushing off of ceiling, wall, and floor alike. And in many of the place you pass through, you find the same troubling evidence - Marines and Covies having fought along side one another and all of them... missing their heads.

Sooner rather than later, all of your O2 levels begin to drop around the 25% mark and with the schematics that several of you downloaded before coming aboard... you are quickly able to locate another Emergency Oxygen Supply Station. Argyle replicates the work he had done before in the cargo bay where you found Drake and before long, you are all filled back up to 100%.

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An example of what the Summer Storm's hallways look like, minus the lights of course.

[Erik Vale]

Argyle leads with quiet [for a sparten] steps, his gaze sweeping as he flicks between normal and infrared vision. Gnomere updates movement tacks fluidly to optimise search patterns whilst updating the map for the fastest route that also moves past 02 stations.

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Taking 10 on Search, Spot, Listen, Move Silently for results of 17, 17, 14, 24 [Ok, I haven't included suit penalties on that last one. I also cant remember them off the top of my head.]

Gnomere is taking 10 on Knowledge Tactics fo 24 to maintaining optimal position in case of surprise.

[moomoo]

Anex follows Argyle closely, also keeping an eye/ear out for any danger.

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Also taking a 10 on Spot Listen Move silently gives 25/29/26

[Erasmas]

All is eerily silent as you press forward, the lack of atmosphere preventing any sound to reach your ears, other than that which occurred within your helmet - leaving you with naught but the sound of your own breathing and the rhythmic beating of your heart.

Many of the passages that you begin to come across are so choked with wreckage and debris (or are wholly mangled themselves) that forward progress through them is impossible and you are forced to double-back a ways before choosing another route. The further forward of the ship that you travel, the more and more this seems to be the case. Eventually... you find only one viable path that continues on towards the bridge. This hallway runs just on along the side of the ship, near the top of the massive plasma hole that had been blown into the side of the Storm's hull. About halfway down the corridor, you could see that the left wall was completely open to space, the twisted beams and peeled-back "flakes" of exterior splayed out like the tentacles of some sort of underwater creature. More importantly, it appeared that the floor was no longer intact.

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[Erik Vale]

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From your discription, I take it that is only the left side of the corridor, not all of it.

"Don't fall in. Argyle might let you float away."

Argyle continues his lead, himself moving as if the hole wasn't there, himself able to just jump and then thrust over and wait while others had to pick paths along walls and such.