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Post by Keeshya on Dec 9, 2007 21:12:05 GMT -8
Keeshya grunts as the lower side of the ship hits the bottom of the tunnel. The lower side. The part she's strapped into. Her body jerks in the harness of her seat and her head throbs for a moment, but at least the sentinel isn't holding on by her anymore. There's just the one now.
She swings the guns around, watching the monitors, searching. A slight snarl slips passed her lips. She can't find the thing. Where is it?!
As Stitch speaks she continues to search, biting her lower lip in concentration. 30 seconds. Right. No problem. Right.
That is if she can find that tenticled bastard.
"Cerhob, I can't see it. Do you see it?!"
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Post by cerhob on Dec 10, 2007 21:36:42 GMT -8
Cerhob mumbles to himself as he fastens his harness tighter. "Thirty seconds? Oh sure, hes not askin' much is he? I'll just free Neo while I'm at it."
His personal count has reached eight downed squiddies. Not counting his first mate's kills, plus the two that were on the the Phoenix, that should be way over ten. And a quick scan over his monitors, Cerhob counts at least fifteen more of the bastards closing in, and with the ship slowing down, they would soon be crawlin' all over the ship.
"Frack Stitch, what ever you have in mind, I hope we live through it."
Then on his screens he sees the last squiddie Keeshya was talking about. Cerhob swings his guns towards it. "Say your prayers bitch"
Cerhob squeezes the triggers.
Click goes the guns.
Blank goes his screens.
"Frack," goes Cerhob.
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Post by stitch on Dec 11, 2007 18:12:46 GMT -8
Stitch takes a look over the maps once more. "Twenty two..... Twenty three" he whispers into his headset as beads of sweet drip from his forehead.
Stitch lifts up the protective cover over the EMP switch, turns the switch to charge it and places his hands back on joysticks. "Twenty four.... Twenty Five...."
His eyes turn to the flickering scanners. With a blink the scanners are off line, all the maps and all over head lighting is off. Now realizing he has to fly this ship in the dark, Stitch swallows hard. "Twenty six....Twenty seven..." he says in a shaky voice into a now dead mic.
"Alright, here goes everything." Stitch says to himself. He can hear the beams from the sentinels that recently landed on his ship, cutting various parts and instruments. Its the reason for the loss of maps and power. Basing his piloting on memory now with the loss of the lights, Stitch pulls back hard, sending the Phoenix up in a steep climb. "Twenty eight.... Twenty nine..."
Stitch remembers from the maps that the tunnel the ship was in led to a massive intersection where six other sewer tunnels came together. This meant the top plate was much higher then in the tunnels. This is just what Stitch needed.
The engines strain at the climb. The remaining mag plates shoot out sparks in a dazzling display. The entire ship seems to scream out at this climb. Shes an agile ship, but with half of her mag plates now out of commission, and around seven squiddies on her, the girl just doesn't want to move. At the peak of the climb, where the ship seemed ready to stall out, Stitch yells out "THIRTY!" and kills the engines.
The Phoenix plummets. Stitch smiles. He can hear the other remaining squiddies fly above the ship, then have to follow the ship down on its decent. Stitch then pulls the EMP switch, letting the electro-magnetic wave hit every squiddie. They fall now, like heavy bricks through the cold air, some landing on the Phoenix itself.
The problem was that the dead weight of the squiddies pulls the aft end of the ship down, and towards the starboard side as it falls.
Through his window, Stitch sees the falling squiddies and smiles, just as the Phoenix comes to a screaming crash.
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Post by cerhob on Dec 12, 2007 19:10:49 GMT -8
As the dark void that surrounds Cerhob's head dissipates, the words "Twenty seven" and "Frack" echoes through his ears. Cerhob moves his hand to a damp spot on his forehead, brushes his fingers over the spot and holds them in front of his eyes. There was warm blood on his fingers. "What the hell...?" Suddenly, Cerhob remembers the attack, the loss of power and ammo and the long fall the followed
Cerhob does a quick check over his body. There is a sharp pain in his left leg, and a few broken ribs. He carefully unhooks his harness, grinning his teeth from the pain. He opens the hatch and limps out to the main deck.
The entire ship was slanted at an extreme angle. Cerhob had to hold on to the various pipes and wires to keep himself upright, while at the same time, holding his left side of his chest to keep the pain down. Most of the ship would be needing repairs. There were no lights that he could see.
"Hey! Anyone alive in this tin can?" Cerhob's voice echoes through the quite ship.
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Post by Keeshya on Dec 12, 2007 19:35:16 GMT -8
Keeshya's screens go blank as she feels the Phoenix begin its straining climb. She lets go of the joysticks (little good they do her now) and quickly checks each strap of her harness. With no idea what Stitch is pulling she can't begin to fathom what might happen next.
The last few seconds of the climb seem to drag into hours as she doesn't hear anything passed the "Twenty seven" and is met only with silence through the microphones and the rattling of the ship. Her slender fingers curl into the edges of her seat, her nails digging in and her knuckles whitening as she waits... waits....
A shocked scream rips passed her lips as the ship drops like a stone...
***
With a soft moan she begins to come to her senses again and to sense her surroundings.
First, the throbbing between her temples and behind her eyes. Then, the feeling of cold metal against her cheek, followed by a slow warmth creeping down her cheek and the curve of her neck. The coppery taste of blood in her mouth, the smell that accompanies it.
Slowly she opens her eyes and blinks. No good. There's no difference. The hatch is so pitch black that it makes no difference if she has her eyes opened or closed.
Then, she notices the silence. Dead silence. Nothing. Not even a drip of water like you read about in books.
Reaching up, she touches the metal pressed against her cheek. The shard is protruding from somewhere and slices the tip of her finger. If she's careful, she may be able to get out from under the shard without slicing herself to bits.
She unlatches her harness as she hears Cerhob's echoing voice in the distance. Pausing, she listens. Had she imagined it?
"Cerhob?" Her voice cracks and is barely audible at the first try. She swallows hard and tries again, her own voice echoing now.
"Cerhob?!?!"
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Post by telemancer on Dec 13, 2007 4:46:38 GMT -8
"...sorry cap but you told me to watch the new guys..." Telemancer stood in the hatchway, averting his eyes, while Skyscream began pulling her jumpsuit on. "This better be good" growled Sky as she rolled off her bunk and headed towards Tele. "No it´s bad, they dropped off screen, first some squiddies and then...nothing" said Tele. "let´s head to the bridge and see what we can see" Sky snapped pushing Tele aside and heading up the passageway towards the bridge.
Tele followed his captain up to the bridge mumbling all the way..."what´s that you´re mumbling?" Sky asked as she strapped herself into her Recaro captains chair. Tele had often wondered who or what was a Recaro, the seat was the most comfortable on the ship and he sat there as often as possible when Sky was not on the bridge. "I wasn´t mumbling...I...I was saying that all I did was watch the screen and I called you when something went wrong...". "You did fine Tele, I am always a little sharp when my sleep is disturbed (she didn´t mention that it had been months since she had a really good night´s sleep)...now let´s fire this baby up and see what we can see"...
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Post by stitch on Dec 13, 2007 17:31:09 GMT -8
Stitch never passed out. He wish he had with the pain he was feeling. But for the time being he put it all aside. Right now he needed to get the back up batteries online. He needed them to make a emergency jack-in into the Matrix to contact the others.
He hadn't yet checked on any survivors.
Outside, Stitch could see the full extent of the damage. Seven of the mag boards were either damaged or missing. There was massive damage to the ships underbelly. When she landed, she must have slid on the ground, scraping away at the protective armor on the starboard side. Also both set of gun turrets were completely removed, as well as the sensors dish.
As Stitch climbed over a downed sentential, he noticed the large gash in the main power cuplink. That would explain the loss of power to the ship in the front, but still have power to the engines.
Stitch didn't even carry his 'Zapper' with him. He was sure the squiddies were dead. He thought to himself that once he was done inside, he would break down the squiddies and use their parts for scrap. Wouldn't be the first the he had to do it.
Once he reached the container where the back up batteries were located, he lifted them up and made his way back into the ship, limping in pain.
Once inside, he went to work attaching the batteries to the jack-in center. With a small flashlight he kept in his boot now locked between his teeth, he readied everything for the jack-in.
He limped to his well-used operator chair, and tested out the system. Bing. A few LED's were on and the main screen lit up. "Now's the time to make the grocery list." as he typed away.
Stitch was to busy to hear anyone else in the ship.
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Post by cerhob on Dec 14, 2007 23:53:42 GMT -8
Cerhob stumbles blindly though the halls of his ship until he reaches the hatch that he knows leads to the main deck. He pulls on the large wheel to open the hatch. When the heavy metal door does open, Cerhob's eyes widen at what he sees. In front of him is a lit deck, with one computer screen light and running.
Sitting in front of the screen, typing away, bleeding from his side was Stitch.
"Thanks for checking up on us!" Cerhob yells, in a way to startle his Operator. He then looks around. "Hey, where's Keesh?"
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Post by stitch on Dec 14, 2007 23:57:54 GMT -8
Stitch jumps at the voice, turns and looks to the figure who just entered on deck. "Shit Capt. I was just about to go lookin' for ya. I just needed to run some diagnostics on the Phoenix first you know. Make sure she was stable and all." Stitch knows his Captain can see right though his lie. Stitch also notices that Cerhob is in need of some medical attention. He stops his typing for a moment to look Cerhob over. "Shesh Capt, you don't look to goo..."
Stitch's eyes look right into his Captain's eyes when he asked the second question, "Keeshya? I thought you had her." Stitch then has a sudden flash of the hull of the ship, and the sudden realization that Keeshya could be in a lot of pain, if not worse.
Stitch gets up quickly and puts his hand around Cerhob's shoulders, helping him to his operator's chair. "Stay here Captain. I'll get you some aid and find Keehsya. I'm sure shes ok." Stitch doesn't wait for an answer as he takes off into the halls, leaving Cerhob alone on the main deck.
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Post by Keeshya on Dec 18, 2007 20:13:52 GMT -8
No answer to her yells. Great. Apparently he'd moved too far away or her voice just wasn't carrying beyond this hatch. It was possible. Once she yelled the sound echoed in the small area and she couldn't begin to guess if it reached out there.
Sighing, she finishes unhooking her harness and carefully slips the straps off her arms. She pushes back agianst her seat as much as she can to try and slip out from behind that shard of metal. As her body shifts she feels a tingling creeping up her left leg. Her leg was asleep. She scowls a bit, shifting and twisting to get out from that shard and finally managing to.
Then, she realizes that her leg is pinned between a peice of the hull and her chair. It has bent against her leg and the pressure cut off the circulation. But her movement is stirring the blood again and as the tingling fades she begins to feel sharp pain just above her ankle, gasping as it shoots like electricity up through her calf, knee and thigh.
What the hell?
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Post by Admin on Jan 1, 2008 10:18:06 GMT -8
Skyscream leaned forward a little as she studied the instrumentation before her. Nothing on the logs indicated what happened to the Angelic Phoenix. She glanced at her first mate before leaning back with a sigh.
"Guess we should check out the area they were last seen." Sky pointed at the display screen showing a map. "And do a weapons check with Format."
"Right away Captain." Telemancer started flicking switches and hitting buttons. "Should I alert the rest of the fleet?"
"Nah." Skyscream frowned at tunnels outside the spacious cockpit. "Not yet anyway. Don't want to draw too much attention."
"Should I call up Format to fly?" Telemancer glanced over his shoulder. "I know you two had an arguement but maybe he'd like to stretch his .. hoverpads?"
"Nah. Let him sulk in the construct for a bit. He needs a break anyway even if he is a program. We all do." Skyscream cracked her knuckles and sat up straight in her chair. It was almost to small for her height. Almost. A grin spread across her face. "I'll drive."
Telemancer began buckling into his chair as soon as he heard the words. The fleets flagship hovercraft was as big as a barge but Sky flew it like it was a single seat scout ship.
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Post by cerhob on Jan 7, 2008 7:29:55 GMT -8
Cerhob waited on deck for what felt like days. He had ceased to hear Stitch's heavy boots on the decking, and the main deck was all but silent if not thanks to his labored breathing.
Proping himself on his elbows in the over-used operators chair, Cerhob looks over the code on screen. It still takes him a bit to get used to it. He never was a hacker, and the code was still a second language that he never had gotten used to.
After a minute or so, Cerhob realizes he is looking at Tabor Park Square. There really isn't much going on, mainly blue pills hurrying around in their prison called life. On another screen is a list of parts for the Phoenix.
But then Cerhob notices a third screen, it's light flashing red. Cerhob turns it on, and it slowly comes to life. Taking a look over the code, Cerhob is now looking at the boot up screen of the loading area. He sees that Stitch already has programed a table with a yellow envelope on it.
Cerhob doesn't have much time to think about it by the time he hears a loud crash coming from the inners of the Phoenix.
"Stitch...?"
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Post by stitch on Jan 7, 2008 7:50:18 GMT -8
Stitch hurried down the hall and made his way to the hatch that led to Keeshya's last known location. As he got there, he wasn't shocked to see that a large crate had landed on the hatch.
"Hang in there Keesh" Stitch said to himself, as he threw his weight against the heavy crate. It slowly moved, reluctantly. Pain shot up Stitch's neck and legs. He grit his teeth and kept on pushing, now sensing urgency to his efforts. He realized now that Keeshya's side was the part of the Phoenix that she had crashed onto. Stitch said a silent prayer to whomever may be listening then a loud curse to himself.
Finaly Stitch was able to move the crate just enough so that he could open the hatch. Pulling up on the lever, the hatch opens up and with a sigh of relief, he can see Keeshya isn't a pancake, but she also isn't in the best of shape.
"Keesh! Hey ya. Hey what took you so long babe? I though you would have had this bird up and flyin' again!" Stitch tries his best to smile. He can see there is pain in Keeshya's eyes. Giving her a look over, he sees that her controls have been crushed onto her legs. "Shit, Captain is going to kill me"
Stitch slides down over Keeshya, trying to get an estimate of the damage to his ship, and also to Keeshya, "Hey Keesh, don't go no where ok?" Stitch says with a grin. He can see that the console hasn't broken her legs, but just pined them down. He gets out of the gunners turret and looks around. Finding nothing, his attention turns back to the crate. He opens it up and finds a bunch of spare parts for various components to the Phoenix. Seeing what looks to be a crowbar, Stitch pulls it out, and with it a large wrench comes flying out and hits the ground with a large crash.
Stitch shrugs and goes back into the gunners bay, slipping the crowbar between the gunners chair and the console. Stitch pushes down as hard as he can as the twisted wreckage of what used to be the belly of the Phoenix begins to budge. Moving himself out of the way, but offering his hand out to Keeshya, Stitch says, "Hey now, don't forget to thank me because you owe me one you know? Be more careful with my ship next time ok?" Stitch manages to pull off a grin as he says the last part, smiling at Keeshya.
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