The Blades

[Unique]

Energy blade.
The prime weapon of so many.
Drake turned the scimitar over in his hands. It was always on, unlike some of the fancier models, but like all energy blades, it was hard to track it visually.
He looked up as the door opened.
The mission commander was just sending him out to meet his fellow expeditioneers.
It was an odd little term, but everyone around him had been using it lately.
Expeditioneer.
Drake stood up. The commander was Craali, elegant, with the odd near-hair more typical of the species. His large ears twitched in nervousness as Drake passed him.
Good. That meant Drake was dangerous.
He went down the hall and found a rather motley collection waiting for him.
Some Craali, some Human.
Several looked less thatn pleased. One looked a little murderous. He reminded himself to keep an eye on that one.
"All right," Drake said, "So is this the whole team?"
The commander nodded, a gesture the Craali had picked up ages ago. A good thing, too. Their equivalent was somewhat... rude.
"I won't be coming with you, but I will be wishing you good luck. Get to know each other before you go, but go soon. We need to know what it is that's out there."

(Okay, so there we go. Everyone have your characters introduce themselves as you see fit. )

[smity]

The Craali previously talking to himself in the corner stands up and walks to the center of the room. The color of his skin transitions from a dark gray to a light gray while moving into the better lit area.

"Does anyone know any get to know you games?" he says with a large smile on his face. "I'll take the awkward silence as a no. I guess I'll start us off then, and we can continue around the room if that's okay with everyone.

"My name..." the Craali hesitates, nervously playing with his hands, "My name is Zal'rek, or at least that's the name I gave myself. See I don't have the pleasure of a past home life, or even past childhood. All I can remember is for what I can gather to be the past few years I've been underground in a concrete facility of some sort. I was being trained to be a nonexistent assassination weapon. To cut a long grueling story short, the "program" I was in was shut down. I was ordered to be shot in my cell. I won't go into much detail, but I escaped. I now am wanted dead by people no one evidently knows about. I talk about this openly because if any of you were a threat you'd be trying to kill me right now. To add to it the only knowledge of today's cultures or values are the ones that I've learned in the past few months. The only thing I know how to do is kill. I come here not to seek fortune or for the glory of a faction, I come here because this is one of the few options I have in survival in this universe. Anyways, I try not to think about what little past I have. I'm alive now and live in the now, and right now I need to learn more about my team if I wish to work with them. Combat information about myself is that I prefer attacking from a distance while stealthed. I use my sniper rifle to achieve this. I'm also adept in support and healing magic for team aid. So who's next?"

Zal'rek looks around the room for the next person to step up.

[JupiterJazz]

Vrillka had been sitting here for the better part of an hour. She had never been around so many people that felt at least as dangerous as she her, and the air was becoming a bit stifling. The hope for a quick and easy mission was thrown strait into the void of space it seemed. Her priority was apparently another assassin who had ran away from one of the Syndicate's military ops, but that was all the information regarding the target in the file.

More then likely it's the other Craali since it's military but you can't be sure... her mind pauses for a second. I've seen dozens of humans under the thumb of the Syndicate, and a few of them assassins as well.

Her thoughts where interrupted by who appeared to be the so called fearless leader. At first glance he looked to be rather... hmm plain almost but he felt kind and deadly at the same time, she was getting the same feeling from the other Craali here as well. It was really an odd mix to feel.

Then she took note as the other Craali began speaking and within seconds her target had just revealed himself. Wow was he even fit to be an assassin? she asked herself, Looks like my mission just got a hell of a lot easier, not to mention he just gave me all of his combat specifications. Well the least I can do is return the favor.

(OOC: I'm gonna post her thoughts in teal that are directed as telepathic speech, all other thoughts will be regular itallics.)

Greetings, she closed her eyes as she concentrated to talk to everyone in the room, I am Vrillka and I am taking part in this mission as a representative of High Ambassador Hra'zhul for the Craali race. I specialize in medium to close range combat with a heavy emphasis on energy blade combat. My expertise in the magical fields are Telepathy, Empathy, and Psycokinetics. I can use other forms of magic as well but they require the use of blood as a ritualistic medium. This has earned me the name Blood Bath V. As you can see my mouth has been sewn shut and magically sealed, my only means of communication is telepathy out to a range of 30 meters.

[DeathKnight]

(Thoughts are bolded and speach is Red.)

Hayden has been leaning against the far wall of the room for what seemed like days. He was the first to arrive and had been reading a small red book. As soon as his first teammate arrived he closed his book and placed it carefully back into it's rightful pocket. Once Zal'rek started this little name-game of his, he decided to move a little closer so that he could hear what he had to say, not much of it interested him.

A telepath, interestingly dangerous. Hey! You! Vrillka! If you can hear me jump up and down twice... no response... of course... that would have been pretty freaking cool though.

A little dissapointed, Hayden stands up to introduce himself.

"My name is Hayden Aatal, by the looks of the people in this room this mission is going to suck. Although that is nothing new for me, seeing how my life has been a living hell since my brother was drafted into this stupid military of ours. But enough about all that garbage, I enjoy fighting and am pretty damn good at it if I do say so myself. If you disagree, get over it because I don't really care. Sicne we are discussing our abilities I thought I should let you know that I can move faster than any of you at your fastest speed. I can see you with my eyes closed and from a mile away with them open. So don't think that just because you Craali you can sneak up on me." Hayden then looks over to Zal'rek, "You so much as point that rifle at me and I swear I will break your legs before you can find me in the scope. With that said, does anyone know where I can get some decent food around this dump?"
I wonder if I'm faster than a bullet... Hayden thinks to himself as he sits on top of a crate to awaiting the next person to speak.

[Unique]

Drake sighed. My turn, I guess.
He stepped forwards and jammed a thumb out behind his back. "Cafeteria's down the hall and to the right, second chance to go right you'll get, but since everybody's here, I think we hould stick together 'till we get to the ship. There should be food there. I think they gave us a Class-D Heavy/Small. Called the Grenya. My name's Drake. I'm gonna be in charge of space battles on this little mission of ours, I think. I'm good at thinking with a spaceblade. Limited range, limited agility... It's just another swordfight. I keep quiet about my past unless I trust you really well or I've woken up next to you more than three mornings in a row. I'll tell you right now that I don't make a habit of waking up next to aliens, so if you Craali get bored while we're out there, turn to somebody else. I'm here to be the voice of reason, too, it looks like." He looked around. Everyone seemed to be accepting his little introduction, which was about as much as he could hope for with a group like this. Hopefully, command knew what they were doing. It wasn't enough to send the best of the best. You had to send the most compatible of the best of the best.

[smity]

Zal is now back in his original corner continuing to wisper under his breath to himself and play with his hands, but looks very focused on the speakers each taking their turn.

Two people talk of food. Zal'rek's stomach aches with pain...he hasn't had a meal in days and hopes Drake is right about the food on the ship. Part of his agreement in this job was that he'd get fed after all. Despite his hunger however, he patiently waits for the other members of the new team to make their moves.

(Did the other two players forget about this game?)

[JupiterJazz]

(I was wondering that myself. Maybe someone should PM them.)

[Unique]

(Where I hang out, the loss of 1-3 players per RP is pretty regular. I'm not too worried. Just continue on.)

[DeathKnight]

(just sitting here waiting for orders basically)

[smity]

Zal's eyes bulge at the site of two of his team member disappearing!

( jk XD )

Zal'rek looks up from his corner momentarily ending his whispers.

"Soooo...to the ship?"

Zal'rek shrugs and walks out of the room. Minutes later he returns with a puzzled look and still is playing with his hands.

"Umm...heh..which way is the ship?"

[DeathKnight]

Hayden stands up and walks over to where Zal'rek is standing and looks down the hallway. He closes his eyes and focuses on the organic lifeforces of those in The Station. He can feel a large group of humanoids down the hallway and off to the left in a large room, due to the fact as they are spread out across a large area, and beyond that nothingness. Hayden gives a beckoning wave to his new comrades, "I think the Hanger Bay is down the hall to the left. Couldn't hurt to check right? Oh, and on the way to the ship, I am going to stop at the cafeteria and get something better than stale rations. All this technology and no one figured out yet how to make good-tasting rations... figures." Hayden opens his eyes again and begins to "walk" down the hall, at inhuman speeds, as fast as a normal human would run. His body becomes merely a blurred form as he moves, his movements near-impossible to predict to the naked eye. As he gets to the first door on the right he dissapears from view.

Once in the cafeteria he simply gets enough bread to satisfy him for a few hours and a bottle of water. once finished in the Mess Hall he heads over to the second door on the left, looks in and begins "running" back to the meeting room. if you were blinking when he turned back at you he's already back by the time you open your eyes. "Hanger Bay is the second door on the left. Our ship is a small one really, basic scout ship. It's going to be cramped in there... Minimal armaments, just one teeny tiny infared laser. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get this damned mission over with. Hayden begins to walk normal speed so that everyone can keep up as he walks to the ship.

[Unique]

(An infrared laser would be nothing. All ships are shielded with the Ubershield™ as well as most people. The only weapon anyone would bother adding to a ship is something very similar to the energy sword. A large part of this was having ships. With swords.)

Drake followed Hayden into the ship and looked around. He had been exaggerating a bit. It wasn't large, but it wasn't exactly tiny. It was more... small.
Unlarge?
In any case, it was bound to be modified. It had a number of upgrades, of course. The main upgrade, of course, wa that what he'd taken for an infrared laser was, in fact, not the asteroid-clearing thing that it was supposed to be, but an energy blade. Well, technically, it was called a gigablade, but that was a small detail.
Drake had checked the ship's specs. Upgraded shields, better engines, much nimbler than the standard model.
It wasn't an overt threat, but it was meant to say to whatever alien was encountered, "we can fight."
Drake liked that.
"All right, everybody on board. Let's get going."

[DeathKnight]

(lol sorry, the concept of space ships with swords confuses me a little... FLY BY!)

Hayden realizes his mistaking the Laser for a Ship's Energy blade once he gets closer to it. Once on board Hayden instinctively looks around for any place that could be used as a fortification in the event that the ship was boarded. He also claimed his sleeping quarters, seeing as he was the first one on-board. Upon finding the sleeping quarters, Hayden instantly walks over to the bunk farthest from the door. "Mine, back off." After claiming his place and putting away his SMGs and extra blades into a code-locked footlocker at the foot of his bunk. He shouts out to his comrades, "If I find out anyone was messing around with my stuff, we're going to have ourselves a big f****** problem." With that said Hayden goes to check out the supplies in the cargo hold.

8 weeks worth of basic rations. (stale bread, canned foods, water) For each member of the Recon Team
6 standard issue military Colt.45
and for the piece de resistance, wait, what? no can-opener... damn military suppliers....

Hayden walks back to the main chamber and announces to everyone, "OK! This mission officially sucks, they didn't even leave us anything good... looks like they were really hoping that we would bring our own stuff." Hayden then goes about the rest of the ship getting a feel for it.

[smity]

Zal'rek springs his way up the rear cargo ramp. He looks around in with much determination in his eyes. A near feral smile appears across his face. He leaps towards a crate labeled rations and flips the latches on it. He opens the case and takes out a bland silver packaged unmarked ration bar. Standard. He tares through the packaging and devours the brown nutrition bar. Not bad...not bad at all he thinks to himself. He begins tucking bars into his belt.

"Where is a weapons locker for my rifle", Zal asks with a mouth full of the meal bar. He gulps it down and waits for a reply. No one responds for moments afterwards and Zal begins playing with his hands again...he looks around the room beginning the whispers to himself again.

[Unique]

Drake watched all this with amusement and then sighed and went up to the control room. He had to familiarize himself with teh controls. "Ship," he snapped. "Give me simpattern one-one-five. I want control of the blade direction, and give me a display of maximum and minimum blade length."
The ship hummed a tone at him and set to work. Less than a minute later, the simaluate image of empty space with the ship hanging in it appeared in front of him.
This was the combat display.
Excellent. He started put the little ship through its simulated paces. It wouldn't tell him exactly what to expect, but it would tell him what would make things break.
Steering the energy blade was a bit difficult. The mount was still the laser mount, so he had some trouble getting swift movement out of it. No major challenge, only enough to make it fun. He'd have to steer the ship to swing the sword effectively enough, but he'd worked on a frieghter like that once.
With some very attractive people...
He missed the ISF Behemoth...

[JupiterJazz]

Vrillka made her way to the first mate's quarters. Not as extravagant as the captain's but much nicer then the common quarters, and at least I can ignore that annoying human most of the trip, she thought.

After settling in she pulls a tiny vial of blood from inside her jacket and draws a circle on a small desk in her room. She makes the hand seals for fire, and creation before finishing the ritual by waving her hand over the circle. The blood begins forming into a plate of lemon cover shark steak, and she settles down and begins eating.

[deathstalker]

Jayel dashed from one place to another, hair still mussed and out of place. Finally he found someone who bothered to tell him where the Grenya was housed.

He cursed under his breath, as he ran, hoping that he would still make it. He had not really planned this...but the girl had been so nice to offer and so they had spent a night and he had woken today to her telling him he was supposed to get on his mission, the same "glorious" mission he had told her about in such detail the evening before.

So, here he was.

He finally got to the bay and to the ship, but the ramp was already closed and it looked like it would be taking off quite soon. He grabbed the headset one of the bay technicians was wearing, put it on, spoke the command word and then opened a line to the Grenya's communications systems. This meant that Drake's simulation was interrupted by a little beeping that told him there was someone wanting to talk to him. Yes, right now.

Outside, Jayel looked at the ship with a bored face, his arms crossed on his chest and waited for the captain to respond.

(OOC: Hey, I decided to go ahead and post anyways. If you don't like it, just tell me. :P)

[Unique]

Drake sighed.
"You're late."
"You're irritable."
"Congratulations, you win the prize for stating the obvious. I'll lower the ramp for you. I was wondering if they'd killed one of my crew."
Jayel watched the ramp lower and scrambled up before it had hit the ground. At least he was apologetic about the whole thing.
Still, Drake had to fight down a doomed feeling in the pit of his stomach.

[smity]

Zal'rek watches as the new comer boards the ship. He smiles and waves.

"Hello, are you to join the crew? I don't know if we'll have enough beds now, but I can always make a hammock out of cargo hold netting if that's the case. It's better than the solid concrete I've been sleeping on for weeks now." He takes a ration bar from his belt and holds it up. "Want one? Quite tasty."

[deathstalker]

Jayel stumbled into the ship, with a slightly cocky smile on his face as he at first said hello to Drake, then noticed he had the headset on.

"Oh, well, he should not have let me take it anyways," he said to himself.

He then turned to notice the Craali male waving to him. Well, for a member of that race, this guy seemed quite harmless. But he still was not going to accept any ration bars from a stranger.

"Yup, here for the ride. Just slept in a little, that's all. No thanks, you can keep your stuff. My name's Jayel, if you want to know."

[DeathKnight]

Hayden feels the new prescense aboard the ship before he hears the conversation going on near the ramp. He decides to go introduce himself against his better judgement. "Hey! new guy! Just so your clear don't touch my stuff and I won't have to kill you." Hayden says with a lighthearted but at the same time serious smile. "Anyway, name's Hayden Aatal, and that's all you need to know besides the fact that someone is going to die on this mission and it sure as hell isn't going to be me." Hayden says more seriously. With that said he walks over the the hall leading to the bridge and looks back, "Drake, when can we expect to be out of this metal death-trap and shooting some blood-thirsty aliens and saving the universe? I ask you this since you seem to have the captain vibe about you, just don't expect me to call you sir."

[Unique]

Drake tapped a few controls. "We're just waiting for clearance, and then we get out, hit standard distance, and, and make the jump. We've got an electron drive on this thing, so the journey time will be mostly in realspace, but the distance we're going is great enough that we'll have to spool up three times o get there. Takes almost a day to spool up the mains on these little crates, so that gives us a transit time of three days."
Hayden nodded. "And when do we get out?"
Drake grinned like a wolf looking at a rabbit and pounded a hand down on a button. "Right now."
Indeed, the hangar doors were opening. The rush of air escaping the launch station was thunder that faded to a hiss and then silence.
The Grenya lifted off and jetted out into space.

[deathstalker]

"Right," Jayel drawled when Hayden had finished his speech and disappeared into the captain's room to talk with Drake.

This was going to get interesting, he thought to himself at the same time the ship began to lift off.

[JupiterJazz]

Vrillka had just about dug in to her food when the engines fired up and the ship blasted out of the hanger at full acceleration. She tried to grab on but the sudden change in geforces slid her right out of her seat. Although she had managed to stop herself from hitting the floor, she could only look on helplessly as her plate slipped off the desk and broke, her steak bounced halfway across the room.

Her left eye was twitching as she walked to the bridge, as soon as she was outside the entrance she practically screamed at Drake only CAPTIAN! You mind giving a warning before you do something like that ever again!? Her eye was still twitching as she looked into the bridge room.

[DeathKnight]

As the ship blasted out of the hanger bay Hayden decided that he should sit down and watch the stars fly by through the bridge viewport. As Vrillka walks onto the bridge with her eye twitching he looks over at her, "Eesh, what's the matter with you? or is that normal? Hayden asks in a natural sarcastic tone. He knew he had no buisness asking but he very much enjoyed pushing peoples buttons to see how they'd react, and Vrillka being a female Craali made it that much more fun to test her limits.

[smity]

Not being strapped down, or even seated Zal'rek is thrown to the back of the ship during launch. His body twists and spins like a cat as he moves through the air. He lands on all fours, the g forces holding him to the wall. He waits for the ship to exist the atmosphere and kick in it's artificial gravity. He throws himself off the wall and spins to his feet just as the gravity levels begin to change. He walks to the bridge kindly grabbing Vrillka by the shoulders and moving her out of the entrance way. He smiles at the little twitching ball of anger as he does this, knowing he very well could lose his hands if not careful. He then strolls over and plops himself down on a seat near Hayden. He begins dismantling his rifle and cleaning each part with his scarf.

"Her eye looks funny" Zal says in a laughing tone, eyes closed and smiling. "What happened?" His speech is very odd when observed. In between breaks of speech his mouth continues to move as though saying things after each word. An unrecognizable whisper is uttered from these mouth movements.

(Can anyone give me a good description on how interior of the ship flows? I'm really confused.)

[DeathKnight]

Hayden chuckles and says to Zal'rek, "I don't know what happened but i'm sure it will make for a really interesting story. haha.


((Working on a blueprint of the ship wil have it up in OOC in an hour or two, it's how I see the ship anyway.))

[Unique]

(Gracias, DK.)

Drake sighed as he watched Vrillka twitching irritably in the corner.
"That was a bit harder a punch than I expected, and I thought we had the dampers working. Sorry. I'll try to be more careful in the future."
She glared at him and then turned away. See to it that you do, captain.
"You know, technically, I hold no rank. I'm just the mission leader."
She cast another glare over her shoulder and Drake shrugged.
"All right, we're off, we'll be making the jump in twenty-two hours. Our top range is three thousand lightyears per jump, and we'll be making three jumps, plus maybe a short fourth, depending on if our mysterious friends want us getting any closer than a dozen lightyears off. Beyond that, we have to watch for piracy in the local area. We're on the corewards border here, so we have to be careful. Most pirates have ships like ours: one blade, two engines, electron drive, but some have hypermatter generators that'll let them jump around the battlefield at will with their drives. It's not easy to fight an enemy like that. If we run across pirates, odds are we'll take the first jump early and have the distance incomplete, but we'll be better off for it."

[deathstalker]

Jayel felt the ship lurch, but he managed to hold on to his seat well enough and keep his balance. He'd gotten on a seat right away. He was not sure about how smart he had been to come onto this mission, the Aatal guy looked like a wild card, the Craali woman who had dashed to the captain was just scary and the other Craali, well...was the closest thing to a loser Craali Jayel had seen for some time.

Then there was the captain - or the guy who was piloting. Jayel himself had taken some lessons, but mostly because his professor insisting and he had wanted to get good enough grades, and if he did air sims instead of bending over for the professor, the easier for him.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for the moment.

[smity]

Zal'rek, finished cleaning his gun and placed it across his lap. He turned around in his chair to gain access to a computer terminal. He begins typing away at it and endless amounts of text begins streaming across the screen at a rather fast rate. His eyes scan the information as it goes by. One of the last things he had been taught to do at the assassin training facility was to quickly gather unbelievable amounts of data on targets. He decided for right now he would redirect this skill to instead gather information on the ships data base. He finally stands up after about an hour of this, not even blinking once, and walks to the engine room. He re-positions his rifle on his back as he does so. He enters the room and looks all around. He places his hand under a mesh of machine parts and pulls a switch. A few lights flicker on and something makes a whining noise as it powers up. He walks back to the bridge. As he heads to sit down he turns to look towards Vrillka.

"Launch dampers are fully operational," he says and takes his original seat. He begins searching for other random information that the ship had for him to learn.