NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1686058" data-attributes="member: 515">Chapter VIDate: 166-993 Location: Brey Keaven's berth, Sentry DownportVargas, who bunks in a cabin next to the bridge, rolls out of his rack, grabs his gun belt, and draws the autopistol. He palms open the door with one hand while holding the automatic in the other. Finding no apparent immediate threat in the corridor, Vargas gets to the bridge and punches up the anti–hijack/intruder-monitoring system. Only the alarm for the (fake) port fuel processor has been tripped: none of the perimeter alarms nor the alarms on the internal iris valves show signs of unauthorized entry attempts. -----Martha awakes with a start. Quickly, she moves to a nearby console, attempting to access the security protocols and identify who or what may be causing the alert. From the console in her cabin, Martha discovers the same information as Vargas. Furthermore, she finds that no authorized entries have been made since Saro apparently returned about an hour ago. -----Swann bolts awake, the pleasant dream about the redhead in the naughty–schoolgirl outfit forgotten. By reflex, his hand grabs the body pistol under his pillow as he scans the room. Seeing no one, he rubs his other hand across his face and then rolls out of his bunk. He quickly pulls on his flak jacket, puts the body pistol inside a pocket, and straps on his autopistol as he exits his cabin. He draws the autopistol as he heads for the lift from the upper deck to the lower. He bangs loudly — once each — on the doors to Saro’s and Ian’s cabins as he goes past. -----Ian jumps out of bed, throws on his flak jacket, and grabs his gauss pistol as he heads out the door, exiting just after Swann’s knock. He takes the lift down with Swann, and the pair makes a quick plan. "Swann, you go through the corridor by the low berths, I’ll cut through the main cargo bay," Ian says. "And let’s try not to shoot each other, eh?" They split up once they reach the lower deck with Swann heading to the port airlock first. Swann finds the port airlock still locked down as before. Getting through the various closed iris valves does take time given that each requires the longer authentication method mandated by alert status protocols. Ian opens the hatch into the cargo bay and heads aft to the iris valve just outside the port engineering compartment, glancing around the cargo hold to see if anything looks suspicious. When he reaches the iris valve outside port engineering, he stands to the right side of the valve and waits. -----Vasilii is woken out of a sound sleep by the incessant ringing of the ship’s alarm and sits up wide-eyed. Jumping out of bed, he dresses hurriedly in the nearest jumpsuit and his flak vest. Looking excitedly around the stateroom for anything he could use as a weapon, he sees the Manstopper 6 magnum revolver that was purchased for him and that he hasn’t had a chance to put in the armory yet. Grabbing it and the ammo, he fumbles the weapon open and loads it. Opening the door slightly, Vasilii peers out into the lounge and moves slowly into the room. Hearing a noise on the deck below, he peers down through the hatch in the floor, and sees Swann securing the port airlock. -----Swann spots Vasilii as the merchant starts down the ladder. He lowers his autopistol and points it downward. "Evening Vasilii. It seems your blonde friend and her associates aren’t the patient, negotiating sort. I just hope our intruder isn’t a Wraith, or she’s probably long gone." Vasilii slides down the ladder and starts to follow Swann as he proceeds aft, his heart pounding. -----Kevon hops up out of bed, slips an ImpNav duty jumpsuit over his skivvies, and grabs his laser pistol from its secure footlocker before heading out the door. In the corridor outside his cabin, Kevon almost runs into Swann and Vasilii as he heads past them toward the bridge. Seeing Emile there upon his arrival, Kevon asks as he slides into the command chair, "Mr. Vargas, what’s the word?" "I think the word is ‘strange.’ The only alarm tripped was on the fuel processor. How’d they get in? I think we need eyes on the hangar bay now." -----Acting on a hunch, Martha pulls up the camera view for the iris valve camera that authenticates people leaving port engineering toward the corridor where the low berths are. She sees light spilling from the now–opened smuggling compartment, and the sideways–projected shadows of at least one large humanoid on the floor about 2-3 meters from the iris valve. The light also illuminates two rectangular boxy things sitting on the floor about a foot apart with their broad sides perpendicular to the corridor. Judging from the mirrored configuration, Martha concludes one is pointed towards the iris valve and the other is pointed deeper into engineering. The rectangular boxes are about 20-30 cm by 10 cm by 5 cm. They do appear to be angled slightly up from sitting flat on the ground. It’s really hard to make out any real details. There does appear to a blinking red light on top of each box. Acting quickly, Martha sets the grav plating in that section to zero-G, then switches it to 2.0 gravities a few seconds later, continuing the transition back and forth from no grav to high grav and back again in order to disorient and perplex the large humanoid until the crew can get there. As she does so, she relays the information on the contents of the room to the others, and tells them what she is doing to disorient the intruder, so they aren’t taken by surprise. -----Swann opens the iris valve to the port cargo hatch section, peeks around the edge, and then enters the compartment with his autopistol leading the way. After checking all the corners, he motions for Vasilii to come through. Eyeing the Vilani’s weapon, Swann says, "Make sure if you have to fire that gun, you know where the barrel is pointed — preferably not at me. And if you do have to fire it, be ready for a big kick. If you were in zero-G when you fired it, you’d probably hit 2-G acceleration in the opposite direction." Swann opens the iris valve into the low berth section, and repeats his entry process and search before moving on to the port engineering section iris. -----A minute or two after the initial alarm has sounded, Ian, Swann, and Vasilii are outside their respective iris valves leading to port engineering; they’ve received Martha’s update, but they haven’t keyed either door open yet. Kevon and Vargas are monitoring events from the bridge, Martha from a console in her cabin. Saro is still sleeping rather soundly.</blockquote>

Verification