Skyside 6: Return of the Cheddar

[Earl of Purple]

Skyside Orphanage- Very Early Morning

Or perhaps Arsay was adopted out, to a noble family looking for a whipping-girl. An unpleasant fate for one who had already just been punished, but it doesn't get any of the children thinking that escape is possible. Matron Jellybubbles learnt her lesson after Eustace went; three escape attempts in the month after that. Gripthuk crawled under the fence and was caught attempting to steal a sandwich, so he spent a weekend in the box; he has been a model boy since. Noelle has been apprenticed early to a Guild wizard after she memorised three different codes to walk out the front door and Xakkari used his trousers as a rope to climb up the fence, but was caught on the other side. Between the injuries from the barbed wire and the taser used by the guard, he spent two days without food in the Orphanage's nursery. And now Arsay has just vanished.

There'll be rumours amongst the children that she escaped and wasn't adopted, but Matron Jellybubbles and her staff will deny them as 'rabble-rousing and malicious lies', and punish any caught spreading them.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Back at the Mad Front]

Affy have returned to Shazhan's lab and the ethereal have just feeded the information Affy has gathered about Jinn into a wall of his lab that has ports fort all sort of applications. "First I need to... ah, yes. Good enough." Assuming there isn't any malicious software/hardware within what Affy handed over, Shazhan will then put it in another port.
"Now let's see..." The wall doesn't actually seem to do anything but Shazhan is still looking at it intently. "Mmm... what he's been doing aren't technically considered serious crimes. But considering how information works within the collective he's been accutely aware of what he's been doing is illegal and yet continued doing it. That should be enough to stop him from ever coming out of the collective again, something he will be keenly aware of as well. Considering his passion, that should be all we need to convince him to help us."

The ethereal turns to Affy. "Once we're in there they will attempt to shut us down. They're quite prepared to track down and eliminate whatever is breaching their network, using any means at their disposal which are quite wast. What kind of countermeasures do you have? The first and most obvious one would be to keep them from tracking our hijacking location. Things can get pretty rough if they find out where we are."

[Back at the Mad Front]

"Yes, I have some ideas." Affy nods, rubbing his hands together. "Now the ideal solution to this would be indefinite access, but it's only a matter of time until we're rumbled, yes?" We're very much in heist territory here. Get in, loot what you can, get out quickly. "Now are you aware of any limit to how quickly we can, mmm, extract from it?" The more they can withdraw at once, the better...

"I have an idea for how to mask our signal, and distribute vast quanities of energy for us to, mmm, withdraw safely later. Assuming we're happy to risk them thinking the entirety of Inside is responsible for this. How does that sound?"

[Shadowcaller]

Tempest Row Spaceport

Minerva seems to ignore the sarcastic comment. She didn't have time for banter right now. "I have no concern for lesser heretics right now with all the mutants and xeno's wandering around. This planet is full of them though as far as I can tell they're not an immidate threat to the emperium." Minerva gestures dismissively at the exit. "These creatures you traveled with however very much are. My plan is to get someone that can free you and a crew that's willing to fight off an xeno threat." Most likely a bunch of heretics. "But I'm unlikely to find enough to fight off an entire rogue trader flagship so we need to settle for sabotage, which is where you come in, techpriest. I need an idea what section of the ship we could strike to deal the most damage. Hopefully wing-clipping the ship before they can move on to infect other planets. I'm not going to demand for you to go with us unless it's nessecary however. All I need is intel."

[Tellysandra’s Manse]

"A pony you say? That's fascinating. I've only heard that there is a smaller population of them in Inside, we don't see them up here much. Must be all the stairs that barely are adapted for humanoids to use, least of all ponies. This city's infrastructure is in a sorry state." The archwarlock shakes her head and then gestures to Butler. "But I digress. Why don't you join Butler and let him show you to your new room?"

Rein can feel free to describe the room, which supposedly is fancy enough for this floating manor.

"I have some business to attend to. But feel free to look around, just don't leave this section of the manor unless you're going outside. The guards are quite firm on that."

[Back at the Mad Fronts]

"Ah, I had a similar thought actually so that sounds like something that would work." Shazhan raises a finger of warning however. "Keep in mind though, when we're talking about 'time' in the context of this operation it's hard to measure with layman's terms. We're talking nanoseconds rather than seconds due to the nature of what we're going to be interacting with. This will be a doubledged sword however. While most of Inside will be unable to react in time, the collective is going to start scanning the entire city after the direct source in less time than most people can blink. It will likely take them at least a little while to scan the entire city however due to it's size, their lack of presence there, and the fact that they likely will have to start investigating every source in person." The ethereal taps his chin "They will likely confirm that due to the lack of advanced enough technology on most of these spots that the source is elsewhere and continue from there. Then they will likely reboot the entire system to close us off, but not before we have made of with wast amounts of energy. All we need to make sure all this ultimately can't be tracked back to us."

[Rebonack]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

"Oh! I can get our priestly friend out of there. You might want to stand back from the door a little bit, though," Zee says.

And assuming they do?

Her hand begins to glow incandescent white moments before she shoves it into the door.

Not like...

Phasing through it all ghostly-like.

Like at her touch part of the door turned molten and oozed out around her fingers. The prodigious heat doesn't appear to bother her at all. The seal, bolts, and hinges begin glowing cherry red. Then orange. Yellow. Bright white as they sag and droop. Then Zee gives the door a solid yank and hops back, allowing it to fall free. It clangs heavily against the floor.

Zee shakes her hand off as if she had been holding a plate that had been microwaved too long rather than being up to her wrist in white-hot metal.

"Hoo, spicy. What's next?"

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

When Zee starts using her weird psyker powers (or what the techpriestess interprets as such) the mechadendrite zips back through the hole in the door as though it was on a spring-powered reel. Which it might be.

After the door is removed, the Martian priestess floats out, leaving about five centimetres between the end of her robe and the ground. She's not very organic, with a magnetic impulse unit replacing its legs and hips, a pair of cybernetic arms, a row of mechadendrites plugged directly into their spine and cameras implanted into their eyesockets. They're bald and androgynous, due to hormone therapy to reduce bodily needs and desires, with a skull-and-cog tattooed on the side of their head. She wears a dirty and oil-stained robe with a hood, though the hood's down so she can examine her rescuers. The sight-mechadendrite also curls up to give her a better look at the Sororitas and Zee. Her ocular implants will flicker through thermovision, electromagnetic mapping and normal vision, though she's automatically measuring everything she sees. She's just holstering an arc pistol.

"Thank you for releasing me." Her lips don't move as she speaks, and the speech is transmitted by one of the mechadendrites. "If you wish to destroy the Hammer of Commerce by sabotage, there are several methods. The Gellar field projectors are of an archaic design, and poorly integrated with the vessel's other systems. As a result, they are exposed on the ship's hull. That would not be an immediate destruction, however, though it would leave the ship totally defenceless next time it entered the Warp. Alternately, if you can get me to the Engineerium, I can redirect the power from the atom furnace back into itself until it ruptures. Another tech-priest could do the job, but only one familiar with the vessel's layout could find the correct console without being detected. Alternately, I can point out three locations where the shielding is weak and the hull beneath is thin, enabling another ship to destroy the Hammer of Finance with a maximum of four shots of Class III anti-ship weapons. Other methods do exist, but those are the most effective I can think of at the moment."

The vegetable-rat runs off when the door is pulled off, startled by the loud noise.

[Shadowcaller]

Tempest Row Spaceport

Minerva stands back when it appears Zee is going to use her powers once more. She wouldn't argue with that method, in her experience a lot of violence usually got the job done.

Once the tech-priest is released, she approaches her and remains silent while the they answer the question. "I have a few more questions if you don't mind. First, what is your rank? Second, what weaponry does this ship possess, if any? Third, how many people does it take, minimum, to operate it?"

[Rebonack]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

It would be kind of hypocritical for a sister of battle to object to melting and burning problems until they aren't problems anymore.

Zee considers their options.

"So the 'stop daemons from eating everyone' stuff is all on the outside of the ship?" she asks again, just to confirm. "Does the ship have any point defenses to ward off a landing party on the ship's hull? Like... people in space suits and magnetized boots tromping around and smashing equipment?"

Zee maybe under-estimating just how big the average WH40k ship is.

One DID crash Inside a while back and it was pretty huge. But... maybe this one isn't as large?

"And if I'm understanding correctly, that just means the ship wouldn't be able to leave. Not without dooming themselves, anyway. They would still be a threat to us."

Just not to the rest of Mankind. Which is the sort of sacrifice the Imperium is typically willing to make.

And just for funsies, Zee whistles at the rat. The rodent should understand perfectly that this sound means that everything is safe and it doesn't need to hide. To anyone else it just sounds like a whistle. Zee is trying to get her Disney Princess on.

[Deathkeeper]

[Tellysandra’s Manse]

”It’s true. The stairs in this city are the worst for people with strange numbers of legs. She’s just lucky she got wings out of the deal.”
Anri nods to Butler and lets him guide her out of the room.

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

"Astral Enginseer third class." Which might help, but might not. It's a pretty low rank, as these things are reckoned; more ranks above than below. "Quite a few. A pair of nonstandard lasburner lances, a grapple cannon and five fighter craft in the shuttle bay. A minimum crew? Vessels of the same class are operable to a basic standard with approximately eight thousand." Basing it, again, on a file from the Dark Heresy game I was in. "Not all of the Gellar field generator is external to the hull, but the emitters are. And there are other vulnerabilities, I could write a prayer that would convince the vessel's machine spirit into ignoring the damage. There are some point-defence systems, but more intended to destroy bombers, fighters and boarding torpedoes." Any full-blooded genestealers would be able to operate in the void at full efficiency, however.

The rat stops and turns back, headed to feed upon the techpriestess' abandoned food bowl.

[Shadowcaller]

Tempest Row Spaceport

Psykers talking to animals wasn't unheard of. Though Minerva didn't want to know or understand much about them, she couldn't deny that knowledge of the enemy was important and she had experience serving with them.
Minerva tries to ignore these antics for now however and nods in response to the tech-priest. "Sounds like something that could be achived then, Emperor willing. I will need to start looking for a new crew, the mutants that commanded it have all been purged. But before I do, are there any immidiate concerns onboard the ship that needs to be attended to? I have been informed that there shouldn't be anyone else living onboard besides us."

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

"That's a bare minimum. The vessel would be most effective with twelve thousand crew." It's got room for more, as it's a salvaged Imperial Navy support vessel. "I do not know about the contents of this shuttle. Most of the cameras I could access have been destroyed. We could go to the loading bay and storage compartments, see what is loaded. It may prove useful in getting aboard the Hammer of Finance." The tech-priestess hovers off towards the closest loading bay, humming a strange tune as she goes along. The same one she was humming as she maintained her arc pistol, so Zee might recognise it. It's not a hymn nor a canticle, so I don't think Minerva will. Unless she's secretly interested in 80-year-old Down-Hive music, anyway.

[Rebonack]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

Zee smiles at the strange rodent before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small black rectangle. She touches it, causing it to light up, followed by touching several little pictures that appear. She holds the device toward the vegirat and a flash of light follows along with the sound of a shutter operating. There's some more fiddling as she begins following the tech-priest.

Soon enough Jaahlyn will receive a picture sent from 'Morning Glory'. It's the vegirat with some glittery filters added and the caption, 'friend of yours?'

Obviously this is some very important stuff Zee is up to, here.

What follows is probably slightly more important.

She touches the glowing screen again, eliciting a *badoop!* from the device.

"Hey Googelplex, show me some pictures of an exterior Gellar field generator," she says to the machine.

"Here you go," the machine replies in a synthesized, feminine voice.

Zee begins moving her finger along the screen, scrolling through images. "Oh, that's what all those gold statues on the outside of the ship are for," Zee muses. "I thought they were just decoration to make them looking like big space cathedrals. Kind of a shame smashing this stuff, they're really pretty. ...except all the skulls."

She glances up at the sister of battle and tech priest. "Why does all your stuff have skulls on it, anyway? It seems kind of morbid."

[Shadowcaller]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

Minerva only really knew music from her home planet, as well as some of the more widespread religious music of the adepta sororitas. Nonetheless, she will follow the tech-priest.
"It's the symbol of humanity united. We may be different from one another in life, but in death we are all the same as represented by our skulls." Or so goes the explanation Minerva is familiar with at least. Of course, people that obsessed over skulls would try to point out they're not all equal, but at least xenophobia had done a great job of largely replacing racism within the emperium.

"But considering the matter at hand, can you tell what's inside this shuttle once we're outside of it, Zee?" Hey, she mentioned her name!

But Zee might be distracted by her phone as she's quickly getting a reply.

Spoiler: Chat Log

Show

RatsInPeace: vegirat!
RatsInPeace: you in skyside?
RatsInPeace: their fur is made of plants
RatsInPeace: so cool

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

"You... have archeotech?" She turns and looks at Zee, though she continues moving in the same direction as before. "May I... have a look? I have heard of such miniaturised dataslates with vox systems and pictographic memories, but never seen one. The Arch-Fabricator of Iachthumuut has one in their technoreliquaries, but I was never permitted that far into the Forge-Temple." A misinterpretation, but not much of one. "Skulls are a symbol for the impermanence of flesh and the superiority of machinery." Slightly different interpretation to Minerva's, but more techpriesty. "The Hammer of Commerce is a refurbished battlefield wreck. Most of the emitters aren't original. They don't all match." Not a lot of the ship matches, as it happens. It required extensive rebuilding, and some of the systems came from other wrecks.

[Rebonack]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

"Different humans have different skull anatomy, though," Zee points out. Her background in biology is robust enough to have a reasonable grasp of what different sorts of human skulls their are. "But I guess that's a nice idea. We're all the same on the inside, sort of? I heard this story once about some kids making fun of a human for having a different skin color and their grandfather chided them. He asked if the man wanted to say anything. So he told them all to stick out their tongues! Then he told them, 'See? We're all the same color on the inside'."

Zee thinks her version is WAY cuter than skulls.

While this is going on, her sends a message back to friend.

Spoiler: Chat Log

Show

DitZee Doo: yeah shes on a shuttle
DitZee Doo: going up in orbit soon
DitZee Doo: get ready 4 rats in spaaaaaace

Then questions about phone!

"Oh, uh, sure. Hold on a sec..." she replies, closing the messenger program with a few screen pokes. She doesn't bother to tell the tech priest to be careful with it. Zee's pretty sure the robo-woman is going to treat it like a holy relic regardless of what she says. Then the palm-top computer is offered, its screen still glowing with various little pictures displaying this or that program Zee has downloaded over the past year. It's technically just a base-like smart phone. But considering how tech works in 40k it is likely still something of a wonder. "Here you go! I'll need it back when you're done, though."

That done, she'll add. "I can sense living things around me for a considerable distance. More if I really focus on it. I should probably mention we still need to find the rest of the crew from this shuttle since they're probably lurking around in the red-light district looking to spread their mutant seed."

[Shadowcaller]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

"They're all practically the same compared to all other beings. No one could mistake them for a xeno." Minerva shrugs dissmissively at Zee's remark. There were the foul eldar of course, but surely no true imperial citizen could mistake a human skull for an eldar one.

The tech-priest have earned herself a glare. How dared she! Minerva had seen the adeptus mechanicus symbol, it was half-bone skull and half-robot-skull. Therefore, the bone skull clearly represented humanity and not their mortality. She had no time for tedious religious discussions however, but it seemed like the tech-priest considering how she was fawing over that piece of, no doubt heretical, technology. Therefore, it seemed she had to wait for Zee and the priest to finish playing with their toys...

Meanwhile, inside said piece of heretical toy technology, a discussion is happening.

Spoiler: Chat Log

Show

RatsInPeace:
RatsInPeace: good luck little guy!
RatsInPeace: where y goign?

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

The priestess examines the device closely, not quite daring to touch the buttons or the screen since she doesn't know what does what. And she might damage it, as her fingers are both metal and mostly tipped with screwdrivers. Unless the screen is pressure-sensitive rather than heat-sensitive, she couldn't use it anyway. Then it vibrates in her fingers and she nearly drops it. "It has a noospheric datatether? Incredible. I've never seen anything like it. Hmm. Googelplex, show me... Show me pictures of this community." She's trying it out! Her heart's beating faster, she's smiling and she's trying to scan it with all of her scanning devices to find out what's inside and how it might work.

[Rebonack]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

Well.

It's already known that Zee is a psycher AND a heretic. Is it really that much of a shock that she has heretical technology, too?

"Here are some pictures of Skyside," the phone's synthesized voice replies. Then it begins displaying small pictures of the city. Pictures from a distance. Pictures up close. Pictures of well known land marks. Most of the pictures are the more flattering sort, the kind that the folks in charge of Skyside would prefer to have at the top of the Googelplex image search results. There are a few, though, of the nastier, dirtier parts of the city. Chances are the priest isn't interested in the pictures as such. More interested in the fact that the machine is able to recognize the request and then find the requested data in the first place.

The screen is heat and electrical conductivity sensitive. Sadly screwdriver fingers wouldn't really work for interacting with it. This is quite clearly a device designed to interface with pure human flesh.

"We've got towers built all over the planet that send and receive signals from phones like that one," Zee says. "We use a connected data network called the Internet to send quires or messages or pictures of rats."

Sending pictures of rats is deeply important.

"There are data-bases that contain all the human knowledge that we've amassed so far. Machines like those are able to ping the data-bases for whatever someone might want to know! It's like having a library you can carry around in your pocket."

And a great way to send mean tweets about celebrities you don't like.

Not sure how advanced the scanners are. Zee's phone is pretty standard. Lithium ion battery, liquid crystal display, touch screen for poking, radio receiver/transponder, and of course a little computer. Do the 40k folks do anything with integrated circuits? Rebo honestly doesn't know.

Zee taps her index fingers together as she walks. They still need to find a crew for the shuttle AND do something about the other gene stealers. Maybe she should go hunting for them? If she had a connection with the sphere of data she probably could have just ripped the knowledge straight out of the gene stealers' skulls. But alas, that really isn't a thing she can do.

"Just to be clear, I can clear up any infection these guys have spread. The people they've come in contact with don't need to be killed," Zee says. Minerva is, after all, pretty big on purging.

[Shadowcaller]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

At this point, there are few things Minerva would be shocked to learn about Zee.

Her being an eldritch (xeno) horror would be one of them though.

The battle sister stares at Zee coming with these bold claims. "How do we even tell they were infected in the first place? I doubt they would have as clear signs as these mutants." She inquires, hoping that the techpriest would finish with that heretical contraption before she decided to take it from her. "I should remind you that the longer we linger here, the more time they will have to spread their foul taint upon this world."

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

"Ah, my mistake. I thought you were interested in the vessel's cargo." And Earl forgot that they should have got there by now. Either way, she changes direction to head to another exit.

She'll hand the device over after looking at the pictures. "I am familiar with how a noospheric datatether transmits data. Were I a few ranks higher, I would have one implanted into my skull, with a cable along my spine to serve as the antenna." Even if mobile phones use a different signal to radios. "I would be interested at discovering how this hive is able to soar as it does. That knowledge could prove... Very useful." She's picturing legless Titans flying above the battlefield, raining down fire and death upon swarms of hapless and helpless xenos.

[Rebonack]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

Being a completely normal human is something Zee is pretty skilled at.

Maybe not completely normal. A psyker? Even though the immaterium is about as diametrically opposed as a thing could possibly be to Yezekiel. She has the sneaking suspicion that Minerva wouldn't really appreciate that distinction, so it's probably a great idea to just continue laying low and being (relatively) normal. Otherwise there would be lots of shouting about daemons and getting shot at and Zee really doesn't have the time for that sort of thing.

She takes her phone back from the tech priest and quickly replies to the last message.

Spoiler: Chat Log

Show

DitZee Doo: Big ship up in orbit has spooky alien problem
DitZee Doo: Not as bad as skinwalkers
DitZee Doo: Might have infected in skyside
DitZee Doo: Slow burn generational thing
DitZee Doo: Problem if fleft alone
DitZee Doo: Going to stop at source

Then the phone is stowed away in her pocket! She probably won't have any reception here pretty soon. There's probably a distinctive lack of cell towers on giant space ships.

Zee briefly peeks at the cargo crates again. Just full of grain (and sand) weren't they? And of course a couple veggi-rats. Everything seems fine enough in here? The shuttle must have just been after food stock and a chance to sow more gene stealers.

"Same way I recognized these guys," Zee replies with a shrug. "Distinctive non-human DNA."

She glances over at the priest. "Do you know how long the shuttle has been planet-side? If I know how long they've been cavorting with the locals then that'll give me an idea of how big of a problem I'm looking for."

Small problems are better than big problems.

"I honestly don't know how the island flies. Biology is more of my thing."

[Reinholdt]

[Tellysandra’s Manse]

"A pony you say? That's fascinating. I've only heard that there is a smaller population of them in Inside, we don't see them up here much. Must be all the stairs that barely are adapted for humanoids to use, least of all ponies. This city's infrastructure is in a sorry state." The archwarlock shakes her head and then gestures to Butler. "But I digress. Why don't you join Butler and let him show you to your new room?"

Rein can feel free to describe the room, which supposedly is fancy enough for this floating manor.

"I have some business to attend to. But feel free to look around, just don't leave this section of the manor unless you're going outside. The guards are quite firm on that."

[Tellysandra’s Manse]

”It’s true. The stairs in this city are the worst for people with strange numbers of legs. She’s just lucky she got wings out of the deal.”
Anri nods to Butler and lets him guide her out of the room.

[Tellysandra's Manse]

"This way ma'am," Butler says, leading Anri to her new room.

The interior is about as lavish as you'd expect. A massive bed against the back wall, fluffed to perfect softness using the best luxury levitation and air magic. A large patterned rug dominating the floor. Against one wall is a novelty fountain that runs with water in a soothing continuous stream, complete with sculpted Angels and Demons motif. It can be turned off should it be more troublesome than relaxing. A large tv hangs on the front wall, for entertainment.

There used to be chairs and tables on the rug, which Anri may notice from the depressions that haven't fully faded yet, despite Butler's best attempts to smooth them over. They were removed for the purpose of giving Anri more room to maneuver. In fact, a lot of things were repositioned so that she didn't have to worry about knocking anything over just walking into the room or around it.

"Here we are ma'am. Will you be needing anything else ma'am?"

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Back at the Mad Fronts]

"Oh, don't underestimate Inside, Shazhan. It is absolutely advanced enough to be responsible for something like this, if you think of the whole city as one big thinking machine." Affy grins. This was going to be fun. "Although ideally I don't want them to become aware of exactly what's going on. Let's, mm, say that making it look like the cause is in Inside is more of a white lie than an absolute falsehood." He drums his fingers on his cane, "But maybe we can sow some more discord to keep them distracted for longer? Is there, mmm, any way to detect what they'll be doing? We could alert Intersection to some impending threat from a hostile force, possibly cause some conflict there to draw things out for a while."

[Shadowcaller]

[Back at the Mad Fronts]

Shazhan turns back to Affy and holds up his hand with three 'fingers' in the air as he was pressing them against something. "Not detect but predict. They will be sending drones, small hard-light constructions equipped to scan the city." An illusionary drone appears in the space that Shazhan was pressing his fingers against and rotates around slowly. It's nearly a perfect purple sphere about the size of a football that have no recognizeable features.
"They're not especially intimidating, but I've used similar constructs to help KABAL's drug dealing within the city. Now, I doubt KABAL would be very happy if we claimed that they were attacking the city but as the attack is false they can later accuse the city of bias..." He waves his hand dismissively. "Or something. The point is that such rumors would create a lot of confusion. Especially if I used my own drones to attack the city at the same time. There would be no way to tell which drones were hostile and which ones are peaceful as mine would be able to copy their's apperance as they transfer into the city. It would be a diplomatic disaster." Staring at the illusionary drone, he taps the bandages forming his 'chin'. "However, involving KABAL and the drones might draw their attention to me so perhaps something else would be more suited. But on the other hand, they would suspect me either way. Not something we can do anything about unless..." Shazhan looks away thoughtfully. "We frame someone else for everything. There are people of flesh outside the collective with some level of access to ethereal technology. I'll contact them under the guise of someone else, perhaps a member of AMEN, and pay them to take the fall for the whole thing. My people wouldn't even know how to punish people of flesh for a crime this grave so it would likely work out on their end too." The ethereal turns to Affy. "Or am I just overcomplicating things now? I have a tendency to."

Tempest Row Spaceport

"I was interested in the cargo." Minerva insists, her voice getting increasingly tense with all the unessecary talk about technology. Had this so-called priest no sense of urgency at all?! "I wanted to check it out before we go hunting for the crew. However, now we might as well get that over with as we're already turning around. If Zee can't detect anything living from the cargo it probably isn't dangerous but I still wouldn't open it alone." The sister of battle gestures at the tech-priest. "You're going to stay here and make sure no one gets onboard while we go outside. Is that acceptable?"

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

"Then you two get to looking, I'll go through the cargo. The shuttle arrived one hundred and eight hours and twenty three minutes ago." She's been cooped up inside without the ability to see the sky. She doesn't know what the local time is, nor how long the days are. Just when the landing procedure was initiated and how long ago it was according to the chronograph she's got built into one of her eyes. "My mechadendrites have a better reach than any traps they may have installed, and it will give me the opportunity to see what state the loading servitors are in." Probably a bad one, if Zee couldn't sense their life.

[Rebonack]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

"All I noticed were cereal grains, seed stock, and vermin," Zee says. "Nothing insidious at all. But if these guys are up to what I think they're up to keeping a low profile is in their interest. They're going from world to world spreading their infection as they do. That's bad news for our world and any other world they've been in contact with. It's fortunate that we caught them only a few days after they landed. AND it's a good reason to make sure they don't leave."

Zee knows well enough what these infections eventually lead to.

She's read about it!

Way back when that ship crashed in the Nexus years ago. Being able to read up on these various universes is really handy.

Unless stopped, Zee's going to be heading outside and straight for the nearest dockworker she can find. Not a ship crewmember, someone who actually works at the space port.

Her question?

Where the red-light district is.

That gets her some... well... appraising looks. And told she doesn't have to go that far to get some action. As is oft the case, Zee's response is one of utter obliviousness to the man's intentions and she insists that the she's after some pretty specific evil-aliens-that-are-trying-to-take-over-the-Nexus-killing sort of action. The dock worker admits that's a pretty specific thing to get off on and provides Zee with the directions to the brothels closet to the space docks.

"Alright, I know where to start looking!" she calls out to Minerva. "Given that they're pretty distinctive looking bald guys it shouldn't be THAT hard to find them."

Especially if she cheats by sneaking outside of reality and looking around. She hasn't done that yet but she probably will soon.

[Shadowcaller]

[Tempest Row Spaceport]

"Then I have no more objections to opening the cargo. Just make sure to close all the entrances after us so they don't get back on board the ship. They likely know it better than you do so make sure to grab something to protect yourself with. Whatever weapon you prefer to use." Techpriest were usually good at making weapons at the very least.

Following Zee, she had no real problem with asking around for a brothel. The opinions of heretics and heathens were worth less than raindrops in the ocean. Normally, she'd have them split up as she was pretty sure either of them could deal with these creatures alone. But as she wasn't capable of detecting the infection like Zee could she might as well just help keeping the infected in check.
"It shouldn't be no. Now let's hurry, there's no time to lose."

[Earl of Purple]

Tempest Row Spaceport

"I have a map of the shuttle loaded into my brain. I know where all the access panels are and I can rig up booby traps on all the doors. I will be secure." She has plans! And she's already grabbed a weapon to use- the arc pistol Zee saw her cleaning.

And off they go! To...

The Silken Whisper

It's a pretty ramshackle place, a three-storey shack made of metal plates scavenged off scrap heaps and salvage dealers. It's built on an old landing pad, one that hasn't been used since a space-plane missed its landing and smashed into the supports underneath. The name is painted on the front of the building in white paint, but it's badly faded. There's no door; simply a hole where people can walk in and out.

On the inside, the ground floor is a simple bar with a long counter against one wall, with a shallow staircase leading up. The barman behind the counter is a bulky Luxan, with tattoos on his chin, a braided brown moustache hanging down his chest and eight tenka hang down his back. An antique Qualta Blade pulse rifle/sword hangs at his waist, and he wears a robe that hangs open over a tattooed chest. Next to the door is another bouncer, another xenos, this one more recognisable to Minerva- the Kroot is leaning on a bladed rifle and looks a little bored. There's open tables in the centre of the room and more private booths along the walls, mostly inhabited either by drunken spacers or empty. A variety of scantily-clad women, all wearing collars, walk around delivering drinks and occasionally accompanying a spacer upstairs.

As Zee and Minerva enter, they are approached by a young human woman wearing gold body-paint, a plain steel collar, sandals and a silver bikini. Her eyes are a little tired, and her smile's forced. Her head's shaved, and her eyes are blue. "Good morning, ladies! How can I help you? Drink, or a room?" She offers Zee a cheap menu.

Zee can sense quite a few life forms in the building. On the top floor, most of the rooms have potted plants; they're the best rooms for a reason. There's also thirty-four humans, fifteen Sebaceans, ten twi'lek, the kroot, the luxan, a pair of elves, three halflings, four Romulans, an Andoran, two Nebari and four half-elves. There's also three of the missing five crew here, but their mostly-human DNA might blend into the background a little. Or Minerva could just look in the booths, as there's one where the blue-skinned Andoran, one of the crew, and a Nebari play cards whilst a female halfling dances in the middle of the table, providing a slight distraction.

[Hattish Thing]

The Silken Whisper

Also within the building (and therefore detectable too Zee) is a somewhat unfriendly looking goblin woman who she'll recognize from the Thanksmas party the pair recently(?) attended at HALO headquarters. Larza has since gotten rid of her flashy holiday clothing, and can now be seen clad in a form-fitting black top crafted of some sort of kevlar weave. Her dyed hair falls in messy strands over her face, and a pair of black, plasteel goggles rest upon her head, carefully worn so as to avoid clipping her large, pierced ears.

Dark circles under her eyes suggest poor sleeping habits, and though considerable effort has clearly been made when it comes to the application of various cosmetics, numerous mistakes concerning the goblin's use of lipstick and highlighter suggest a lack of familiarity with the stuff. Her nails are painted black, matching the glossy material upon her lips, and gold piercings hang beneath her nose and ears. A single mole frames the side of her mouth, and her naturally surly looking face displays an uncharacteristic smile as she engages in a game of cards with several spacers.

Though her eyes are on the cards, the goblin glances over towards the dancers periodically, clearly enjoying herself. Just then, however, she notices Zee, instantly recognizing her. The goblin attempts to hide beneath her cards, but unfortunately, happens to be facing the entrance directly.

"Oh, sh*t."

"Uh, hi?"

---

Spoiler: Larza

Show

--

Skyside - Warehouse 89

At around 8:00 PM, a small gathering of unpleasant looking men with expensive guns and armored vests approach this warehouse, led by a serious looking man in a well-tailored gray suit.

[Earl of Purple]

Warehouse 90

There's a long row of warehouses in this part of Skyside. Most are used by various trade and merchant consortiums to store goods before it's moved around. Others are used as lairs by supervillains, or superheroes, and a few have been turned into factories and controlled by gangs.

The armed thugs are a pretty common sight around here, though they still attract a lot of attention. Warehouse 90 is between two others; Warehouse 89, which has a concrete statue of a cat-headed woman standing outside, with a club slung over her shoulder and a shirtless man in an owl mask on the roof. Warehouse 91, however, has been boarded up from the outside, and thick foliage is forcing its way from between the boards. It looks like the warehouse was set on fire at some point, but the plants with their red-tinged leaves are still growing strong.

But the thugs aren't interested in Liam's neighbours! They're interested in Liam. Currently, Warehouse 90 has its massive garage-type roller door open, with a battered old Volkswagen Beetle lying half in and half out. Currently, the bonnet has been removed. There's a dark-skinned man with a bald head and mismatched eyes, his left an icy blue and the right a much darker green wearing an oil-stained white t-shirt and a pair of jeans drinking a cup of coffee as he works on installing a device into the boot of the vehicle. The device is strange; it looks like an engine, with a lot of mechanical parts, but it sounds like clockwork and it's all powered by a large wheel that is spinning even as it's being installed.