Celestia's Finest: The Sun Always Rises

[D.KnightSpider]

"Likewise." Sniper Scope tacked his greeting on to Brazen and Rose's.

He gave Akilah a polite nod, tuned the other ponies out of his focus and made a beeline for his equipment. Trust in a mechanic or pilot was well and good, but it paid to take no chances. Scope began the familiar process of breaking down his equipment and checking it for flaws or issues. The process went quickly. Then he added a few new pieces that he'd managed to filch just for this particular mission.

He paused and frowned. He keyed open his communication's port and found one particular draft message and attached it to a delayed sending mechanism. Should he not return to cancel the message in a fortnight, then his family would at least receive one final communication from him.

That done, there was one final item of business with which to attend. He retrieved a long-cold hayburger from his pack and extended it in Rose's direction.

"I believe this is yours."

[DigoDragon]

That done, there was one final item of business with which to attend. He retrieved a long-cold hayburger from his pack and extended it in Rose's direction.
"I believe this is yours."

Rose levitates the hayburger to herself and unwraps it, taking a bite. "Certainly tastes like it. Thanks!"

[D.KnightSpider]

"Think nothing of it." Sniper Scope replied with a wave of his hoof.

[Miltonian]

In a short while, a group of technicians comes aboard to carefully load a metal box (almost a coffin) and properly hook it up to the ship. Akilah whispers to the other three members of the squad. "I don't mean to be dire, but are we sure she's not the vampire?" He's only half-joking.

Once all the equipment she brought with her is loaded and secured, Star Chaser warms up the engines and goes through the relatively boring routine of requesting permission from the tower to launch, going through the pre-flight checklist one last time, and making extra sure the air cyclers were working. Forty minutes later, the Thunderbird roars through the upper atmosphere and toward the beleaguered station.

As Tartarus Station looms closer and close, the EDF can see it slowly rotating off-kilter. The Philomena spins with it, impaled upon the pylons that once held the trams between the Core and the destroyed prison module. A cloud of debris trails behind it, slowly sinking toward the planet below. Star Chaser whistles. "Sure did a number on that thing." She hails Command. "Commander Wildcat, we have eyes on the station. Making our approach now."

"Copy that. Good luck."

She looks back over her shoulder. "Alright, ponies! We have several options. Red Tape recommended we enter through the Philomena. The Royal Guard's ponies have already secured the hangar and are pressing toward the bridge, but they're making slow progress. They've been at it for two hours and barely secured the hangar. The Lunar Guard is holding back for now. They'll be trying to get the station's hangar open and take the station's Command Center. We could steal their thunder, but this ship probably doesn't have the weaponry to break through those thick doors. Or there's a third option. We could stealth our way in. A few of the staff managed to reach the escape pods when all this went down, which means there are a few empty tubes leading right into a nice airlock that a few enterprising ponies could use." She grins. "I like the last option best."

[Elbeyon]

A mechanical Love unbuckles herself. Coats of disjointed metal cover a mechanized frame underneath, servos dot her joints, and a plain visorless helmet covers her head.

"Awesome! Yes! That was amazing!," she says excitedly. Her machine reeves and clanks on the Thunderbird as she prances over to her metal box. She starts checking its ventilation, making sure nothing blocked it in flight. "And, I only threw up three times. That's a new record!" A puking emote plays on her helmet's chameleon circuits. A click and a hissing sound becoming audible as she replaces the air in her suit with the air around her. After the box seems ok, she moves over to her backpack.

"Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. I packed some anti-radiation pills for everyone." She shakes her bag till a couple of pill packets fall out and then she slips pack onto her back. "Anyone want some?" She'll give anyone that's interested a packet of rad pills.

[DigoDragon]

Rose will take a rad pill. "Everything good with your box-self?" she asks. Concern about throwing up in a box is on her mind. Eww.

[D.KnightSpider]

That was wonderful news about the frequency of Love's inability to retain her dinner, albeit far, far too much information for his liking. Sniper Scope wasn't entirely certain what necessitated her use of drones and boxes, but it wasn't his place to ask.

"Thank you." He replied in response to her offer of a radiation pill. "It is appreciated."

Leaving them to their nausiating discussion, he moved forward to survey the station alongside Star Chaser. A frown passed over his face. The station was definitely in a bad state.

"I agree. That is our best opportunity to get in and get out." Scope told Star Chaser. He looked over his shoulder at Brazen. "What are your thoughts?"

[Miltonian]

Fortunately, Love's box has not been disturbed by the rapid escape from the atmosphere. The slot was well designed for it. Power is fed directly from the Thunderbird, so unless the entire ship goes down, her systems will remain online and operational.

Akilah joins the growing crowd at the cockpit. "The ship plowed through and struck the core. It looks damaged aft to fore. Even if we were to take it back, I doubt we could use it in an attack." He shrugs. "But take that for what you will. You are the ones who Chrysalis will want to kill."

With that cheery thought, they hold a brief consultation. Since they are all of equal rank and Wildcat leaves it 'up to your discretion', it comes down to a simple vote, and two members vote for landing on the Philomena. With a nod, Star Chaser swings the ship toward the hangar and slips inside. Just to be on the safe side, she sends out a short-range burst with the Thunderbird's clearance code. That way the Royal Guard won't immediately fill the airlock full of bullets without bothering to ask questions first. They tend to be a little gung-ho when it comes to that sort of stuff.

The Thunderbird docks neatly inside the hangar and the airlock opens with a hiss. Two stallions decked out in Royal Guard battlesuits wait on the other side, heavy weapons at the ready. "Scanning," one says, "They're not changelings. Body temperature is just right." Both relax and salute. "You four are Harrier Squad? Command said you might be coming our way. We could use the assistance."

[Elbeyon]

"Yep, she's fine. She didn't feel a thing, snoozing like a radio baby."

Love starts giving people the rad packages, insisting that they take extras just in case.

The Thunderbird broadcasting her signal is all fine and dandy, but she prefers relying on her own devices. She starts unpacking her relay station and sets it up as a back-up. She's one of the last pony's to go out of the airlock.

[DigoDragon]

"Yep, she's fine. She didn't feel a thing, snoozing like a radio baby."

"That's good. Hopefully we'll see her again soon with good news." Rose grabs her gear and exits the Thunderbird into the hanger.

[D.KnightSpider]

"We'll be back as quickly as possible." Scope informed Akilah and Star Chaser. "Please be careful until our return."

Upon disembarking, Sniper Scope returned the Royal Guard's salute. He said: "We are Harrier Squadron, yes. We'll provide aid where possible, but it is very likely that our orders will separate us from your division in the near future.

"What is your situation and how can we help?"

[Elbeyon]

Love chuckles. "I can't wait to tell myself the good news."

"Bye, Star Chaser. Don't do anything too awesome a.k.a. dangerous while we're gone." A kissy face sending a heart pops up on her helmet as she waves goodbye.

She salutes the Royal guard back and walks up to her team. Two drones fly out of her backpack. "Oh. I almost forgot."

The servo's & clanking of her suit stops. What a shame. Suits are just way cooler with the old fashion sounds effects playing.

[Miltonian]

"Safe travels, landstriders," Star Chaser calls, "And wingmate." Those terms are not normal pegasi ways of referring to other ponies, but she seems all too pleased with herself.

The two guard ponies give the report as quickly as possible. "We've set up a perimeter around the hangar and the cargo holds. Those areas are secure, but the rest of the mid-ship is contested territory. The changelings left rather quick when we showed up, but Ironbeak and the other corvid prisoners shot themselves over on the remains of the tram system and are putting up a fight. About half the non-changeling crew were either incapacitated in the initial attack or dragged off with the bugs when they retreated. When the ship struck the station, there were several fatalities and injuries. The captain and the remaining crew are holed up in the bridge. The corvids are between us and them. The engineering section in the rear is sealed to both sides."

He gestures to himself and the other guard. "We're here to keep the hangar secure. The rest of the company is fighting in the hallways or setting up barricades, turrets, and other defenses."

[DigoDragon]

"Sounds like we have plenty of work to do," Rose says. "Any specific place the corvids are holding up in the mid-ship?"

[Elbeyon]

Test time! She starts scanning the hanger to get some basic vitals on the ship. She leaves the groups immediate area to find some hanger operations, a info panel or power outlet. She checks for power fluctuations. Is the ship the correct temperature and the air fresh, or is life support malfunctioning? She starts pinging the various comm frequencies to see if the guards overlooked a channel. Between her scans wait times, she cruises around with the scout drones to check for security features and the connections they may provide.

[Miltonian]

"There are three corridors which run stem to stern," the guard replies, "All the rooms branch off from them. We're fortifying two of the halls with turret emplacements. Nothing should be able to slip by. Straight hallway with a lot of bullets flying down it will shred them. But the third is where we're trying to advance. The corvids holed themselves up in the ship's galley, which connects to all three. Bunch of crows in a room full of knives, right? They have a few weapons from the station too. They've made a barricade of their own from the tables and chairs. They're holding us off while they fight their way to the control room. Exchanging bullets isn't changing anything and close-quarters with a corvid is a bad situation all around."

Through a nearby door, Love finds the hangar control room with all its flashing lights and fancy computers. However, most of those lights are lit up bright red and the word "WARNING" appears all over the place in big, angry red letters. Most of the panels have to do with hangar functions. Airlocks are out of alignment, power isn't being fed to the fueling pumps, there's an electrical short on dock 4, and all other manner of malfunctions probably caused by the impact. Another screen helpfully informs her to stay at her post as security forces have been deployed to deal with the problem and warbots will be along shortly to escort her to a safe location. In the corner, however, she finds one that gives the ship's status as a whole. And the prognosis is not good.

Structural failures all up and down the hull. A portion of the station has literally speared the ship straight through and required most of the bow section to be sealed off lest it completely lose atmosphere. The main reactor has shut down for safety purposes and the ship is currently on battery power, of which it has three days remaining at current consumption. Life support, thank Celestia, is in the undamaged engineering section at the rear. The systems themselves are fine, the only question is which parts of the ship are still connected to it. From the looks of things, water, but not air, has been cut off from the bow section.

Pinging the frequencies gets little response. The ship's comms are in the bow and were lost when it got impaled. Her personal radio, however, picks up a number of distress calls from all over the station. Guards trapped at the posts as the prisoners riot outside. The sound of gunfire and shouts always lies in the background.

[DigoDragon]

"Corvids in the galley, eh?" Rose says as her ears perk up. "What do you think, team? Time for us to get cooking?"

[Elbeyon]

Love pokes her head out the hanger's control room. "Ponies. There should be a warbot in the engineering room, if all of you are interested."

She starts pushing the data she's found to the rest of the group.

And, she retreats back into the room to finish her previous tasks. She turns the fueling stations off. They don't need any power in the future, that's for sure. She's tempted to do the same for the electrical short, but isn't sure what's going on in dock 4. She starts browsing the data while she calls up Star Chaser.

"Hello! It's me, Love. I realize you're probably busy with the ship and all, but if you could do me a favor that'd be great. Could you or Akilah play dispatcher and start connecting these distress calls together. You can use the back-up relay I set up to route everypony." She starts data dumping all her pings to the two. "I'm sure some scared ponies would really appreciate it if they could talk with each other."

Spoiler: OoC

Show

These tasks may take me a while. T. T Feel free to leave Love behind.

Could she try to splice into the security and get some cameras feeds (if those exist)?

[userpay]

"Well then." Brazen drawls as he steps out of their ride with solid hoof thumps, having taken a few extra minutes to confirm proper functionality with Akilah. "Ah warbot sounds mildly interesting for the defense crew though if engineering's closed off won't we need to liberate the bridge to unlock it?" Brazen runs through a simple diagnostic for his weapons as he considers. A few stray electrical sparks crawling from his front hooves. "Pity ah didn't bring ah satchel charge to deal with the corvids... Though the galley is the last place ah'd want to use one anyway. The military travels on it's stomach."

[Miltonian]

"Already working on it," Star Chaser replies, "Unfortunately, I can't tap into the internal comms for the Philomena or for the station from here. We're only picking up individual radio signals. If you could reprogram one of the intercoms near you to broadcast on a military frequency, I should be able to link it into our network."

When Love goes to try to open up the security system, however, she gets a very strong "Access Denied" from the temperamental computer. Access to the ship's AR would allow real-time tracking of hostile and allied forces on each linked-in pony's HUD, but setting that up could cost precious time. And, if Brazen and Sniper Scope have anything to say about it, the fight won't last long enough for her to finish and then make it to the front.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

If you'd like, make a hacking roll at -1. You don't have access, but it's a standard military setup that I'm sure Love's encountered before.

"Ship's going to be rebuilt from the ground up after this is over anyway," the guard pony interjects, "Long as you don't blow out the side of the ship and give us all some nice space to breathe instead of air, you'll find no complaints from us." The Royal Guard really likes their heavy weapons. "Our captain is up towards the front, at one of the barricades. We'll make sure no one enters your ship."

[Elbeyon]

Love comms Brazen, "I have a stack of frag grenades in one of my bags. Feel free to try to improvise something."

"Star Chaser, Love here. There is nothing I can do about reworking the comms now. I don't have the resources to dedicate to that and retaking the ship. Hopefully the bridge will solve our current communication problems."

The computer goes on the table. The cords from computer to terminal. "Dumping into VR. I'll be unconscious in two sentences..." Laser comm connected and secured.

---

Spoiler: Computer Stuff

Show

Her computer screen goes black, three hundred pounds of metal hit the floor, and then a blue load bar starts to inch across the screen.

[PUSH 1P START]
[...]
[LOVE SHIPPED vs PHILOMENA]
Her screen flashes.
[PLAYER 2,3,4,5,6 NOT FOUND]

The camera zooms in over Love's shoulder. She's dead center of a ship's command center. On a raised platform, she overlooks five copies of herself and non-important npcs. She barks out a command to her comms specialist, "Request a comms channel again." The copy remains in idle motions as if they've dropped from the game. The camera flickers and her copies are replaced by Harrier Squad. Rose. Brazen. Scope. Star Chaser. Wildcat.

Rose answers her, "No response. Maybe, they're at lunch?"

"MoonMistress Dammit! Who forgot to feed Rose?" She slams her first on her chair. "Battle mode!" A siren and red lights go off. "We'll do this the hard way."

Spoiler: OoC

Show

I can roll now or when my hacking time is up. Let me know!

Hacking into Security
[rollv]3d6[rollv] vs 12 = 15 (Computer Hacking) + 3 (Single-Minded) - 1 (Standard Setup) -5 (Haste: -50% Time Required (Basic p. 346))

[DigoDragon]

"Pity ah didn't bring ah satchel charge to deal with the corvids... Though the galley is the last place ah'd want to use one anyway. The military travels on it's stomach."

"Yes, Brazen, please think of the chowder," Rose quips. "Alright, what's the plan? Head up the corridor without the turret, see if we can find an angle to take out the corvids and secure the galley?"

[userpay]

"Excellent, ah only brought non-lethal but ah galley is a bit smaller than I'd like for engaging a bunch of corvids in hand to hand." Brazen considers for a moment. "Well... The corvids have a minimum of firearms aye? Sniper why don't you take a peak and see if you can paste ah few from down the corridor?"

[D.KnightSpider]

"Affirmative." Sniper Scope nodded. "Let us proceed to get the lay of the land."

Along route, he accessed the information from Love. He wanted to familiarize himself with the layout of the vessel and find potential alternate means of entry to the galley.

[Miltonian]

The layout is very utilitarian and sparse. It is not designed to be defended from internal attacks. Most of the security comes from sealing off sections of the ship and holding the line at the bulkhead. As such, two of the three hallways run right down either side of the galley and the third passes over the top. Thus, blowing a hole in the floor and leaping down to attack would be an alternate method, though not one that would allow for much long range combat. The Corvids have picked their position well, a rare tactical insight from their kind.

And they are sticking to it. Approaching one of the barricades, the one to the top hallway, gives them eyes on a group of four ponies standing guard behind a quickly erected barricade while two more set up an automated turret. Through the gaps, they can see a shoddy barricade of steel tables and chairs facing theirs. Every so often, one side fires a shot at the other, but neither of them seems to be that great of shots.

[Elbeyon]

Hanger Command

"Try to go non-lethal. We're not these ponies' executioners." That's her two sentences. Love is out~

---

Love Shipped Command

Loud sirens scream. "Scope fire up the cannons. Prep the AA. Prep the bow missiles. I want a burst to knock out their shields before we move to sustained dps."

[userpay]

"Yah... But by escaping like this they've compounded their sentences much less invading another ship." Brazen peaks over the barricade. "Could maybe grenade them from the top while Sniper keeps them pinned down... Ah've got some stuns though ah think the frags would be more appropriate for this flock."

[DigoDragon]

"Thought we were doing this non-lethal, Brazen?" Rose said from the back of the group. "But I trust your judgement. Whatever you and Sniper feel would be best, I'll follow suit."

[Elbeyon]

Hanger Command

A mass of metal lies on the floor. Inside the armor, a snap shot of Love's head shows her clearly sleeping. Brazen's voice plays at full volume in the background. Love sleep talks, "Pew pew."

[Miltonian]

Lovespace

"It's no good, cap'n," Scope replies in entirely the wrong accent. And mannerisms. And everything, really. "Their shields are too strong. We got nae way t' penetrate them and I'm givin' her all she's got."

"Damn the shields!" Wildcat replies, exaggerating the way the commander normally talks, "Full speed ahead! We'll ram our way through!"

* * *

"If you can get close enough to lob a grenade in there," one of the technicians says frostily, "Be my--"

"Huzzah!" a familiar voice says over the team's comms. And the Royal Guard's, judging by their surprised reactions. "Frag the ruffians! Torch the crows! Thy plan is to my liking, good Brazen! For Equestria! Ah, would that I could lead the charge, but I am confined to this command center."

A heavy, more regal sigh follows this pronouncement.