One final chance: An FTL-RP

[dyno101]

(I feel like we're missing a lot of people. Where did everyone go? The last few posts have just been me, Stylesrj, and kestrelfan. Did they quit? We're sort of running low on characters. By the way, the station is a good chance for I_am_person to jump in the story.)

[SciGuy303]

(I'm still here. Arkangels just chilling in his hidden room meditating or whatever he does )

[I_am_person]

(I feel like we're missing a lot of people. Where did everyone go? The last few posts have just been me, Stylesrj, and kestrelfan. Did they quit? We're sort of running low on characters. By the way, the station is a good chance for I_am_person to jump in the story.)

Yes, yes, that's what I was thinking. In fact, I'm working on the post right now, it'll be long so brace yourselves for a wait. Also, you're sending the drone in with intent of, M.U.R.D.E.R. E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E., right?

[elijahdb]

I'm back. Sorry about that! I will post after I_am_person posts so that we don't get a messy story heading in two directions.

[I_am_person]

-A year later-

Cathos got into position in front of the monitor and received the hail from the pirate ship in weapons range, surrounded by various parts of stripped ships. Cathos waited lackadaisically as the pirate gave his short yet tiring speech. Couldn't pirates be more original? He'd heard, "There's room for one more." too many times, to the point where he was wondering if it was the same guy, just cloned.

After the shaggy looking slug finished, Cathos hesitated. While he could just blow the guy away with his flak and beam artillery, he wasn't in the mood. He'd rather let others take care of this job. His face turned sly as he started addressing the slug, who was getting impatient.

"I mean you can fight me..." he leaned over, flipped a switch, and turned on his level 6 weapons system threateningly.

"Or, you could get the hell out of here and instead raid a certain drone station that I've had a grudge on. I hear drone parts sell nicely." The slug looked suspicious, of course he did, it's in their genes.

"Don't believe me? See for yourself." Cathos sent the coordinates as well as a scan of the beacon. A map formed on the screen, and as promised, a single station and a jump beacon showed up. Calibrating, the computer labeled it as, 'drone parts and schematics'. No ship detected.

The slug observed the map, its antennae eyes moving from side to side. After a while, the antennae fixated towards our ship. Giving a slight glare, it jumped away.

"Jeez, they're not even going to be able to find the remains." Cathos hadn't noticed Nazia until he had spoken, turning around, he noticed his crewman's gaze. Fully clothed in a white latex-like suit which canceled out the oxygen sucked by its metal frame, the lanius who he'd originally bought as a translating device looked formidable yet crass as it looked at the screen.

"It's only a 40-drone defense matrix... along with a couple anti-ship batteries... Hey, it's not my fault that the station owners shoot pirates on sight." Nazia let out a single robotic chuckle and walked out of the room. Cathos faced the terminal again. After coding the Scrap Recovery Arm to collect some debris, he contemplated his next move.


It had been about a year since his then-newfound crew of an engi and lanius had built a remote-controlled, unmanned, and artillery wielding flagship. Alas, by that time, the first one was destroyed and the rebels were in chaos. After a while of trying to defend the last rebel stronghold, Cathos realized that they had to go on the counter-offensive. Recalling all the functioning unmanned scouts he could find in the area with the ship's master AI, he sent his small fleet into the heart of the federation fleet in a suicide run. The new flagship was powerful, yes, shredding through most ships instantly with its shield-piercing beams and newly found flak technology. Sadly, no single ship can do everything. For every squadron of ships it destroyed it took a missile, a stray laser, a hull breach. It was slowly whittled down along with his unmanned fleet. While fighting a losing battle with the federation cruiser that shall not be named, Cathos initiated a self-destructing sequence that engulfed both ships along with many more in a nuclear blast. Since the rest of the federation fleet couldn't pass through the anti-vacuum radiation, what was left of the rebel fleet could safely escape and regroup. Cathos, Genevas, and Nazia had saved the severely weakened rebel fleet, and nobody knew it.

Cathos didn't care, though. The once-powerful rebel fleet had almost no use to him now. While his connections did matter, they weren't game changers. He'd stopped agreeing with most of their ideals anyway. Obviously, he had stopped shooting on sight a long time ago. What really changed him, though, was when he found Genevas in a crash site during a mercenary job. Breaking all stereotypes he had about engi, the generic looking nanobot quickly joined his crew after he heard that Cathos was a Rebel. Apparently not all aliens agreed with other aliens.

Just as Cathos was about to call him to the bridge for some consulting, a transmission notification appeared on the monitor. Wheeling over, he opened it. One of his old rebel colleagues appeared on the screen, in what looked like a rebel hub. Cathos hadn't seen him in what felt like a year, in fact, he actually forgot his name. Beer in hand, the man started talking.

"So, uh... Catheros?-hiccup." He was obviously drunk. "Err, I remember you talking about recruiting people for something a while ago, not sure if it matters, but some guys here are ex-soldiers, check it out." How drunk was he to randomly remember something from a year ago? Cathos wondered how the man was able to find and contact him. The angle on the other side of the screen changed to reveal a rebel hub, bustling with activity. A moment later, he lazily sent some coordinates. It was just a jump away.

While he didn't care to hire any rebel supporters who wouldn't approve of his crew, maybe it was worthwhile to go anyway. A store would be nice, he needed some fuel. After an unsure, "okay, I'll be there", Cathos closed the transmission, stretched his arms, and jumped.


Sorry for the Great Wall of Text

[dyno101]

(Nice entrance!)
Quintet stopped for a moment outside the door of the rebel hub. He saw, through the window, a video contact going on through a hand-held communications device. It had just ended when he got there, but he was barely able to intercept the last few packs of data to see what was going on. It seems he had invited another rebel to the hub and gave him coordinates.

"As if I needed more trouble. Let's see how I get in here..."

Quintet drew his weapon, a small plasma welder. He put on his best normal repair drone imitation bot to make sure he didn't blow his cover and entered the room silently, passing by a few rebels to quickly go behind the bar into what seemed to be the back room of the area. He quickly began to pretend to work on the pipes, and got a connection with the station's network, which allowed him to see all of its functions and what people inside it were doing. He knew exactly what he needed, more information on the sector and its rebel surveillance, and who had it. And they were about to walk in the front door.

[dyno101]

(I feel like we're missing a lot of people. Where did everyone go? The last few posts have just been me, Stylesrj, and kestrelfan. Did they quit? We're sort of running low on characters. By the way, the station is a good chance for I_am_person to jump in the story.)

Yes, yes, that's what I was thinking. In fact, I'm working on the post right now, it'll be long so brace yourselves for a wait. Also, you're sending the drone in with intent of, M.U.R.D.E.R. E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E., right?

Eh. You'll see.

[elijahdb]

"Targon Industries, how may I help you?" Targon walked out of his room, "Yeah. M-hmm." He grabbed a can of something, opened it and shoved it into his mouth, not paying attention to the spoiled taste. "Okay. Yeah, I'm docked on a ship. Coming down now. Hangar II? See you there."
"I'm going to go work on a bad engine," Targon said on the comm, "Some rock lady has mechanic malfunctions. See you guys later."

She knew Targon was there because he broadcasts a signal saying how far his ship is. She saw how close he is so she called him.

"I hate to break it to you," Targon wiped his hands on a dirty towel, "But this engine is a piece of crap. What were you doing to put so much strain on it?"

The Rock woman made a face. "We were running from some Zoltan ship declaring us hostages for "intruding" in their beacon of meditation or something." She growled. "Seriously, I never got those guys. They were about to catch up to us so we warped before the engine was properly charged. Personally, I'm surprised we made it."

She went over to a button that shut the engine doors. "How much do we owe you?" Targon shrugged. "15 Scrap?"

"Deal." The scrap was teleported into the hangar and Targon went back to his ship to check out the metal for goodies. "Metal strip, metal wires, met- huh?"

A faint green glow was pulsing underneath three scrap pieces. He pushed them aside and froze at what he saw.
"I can't believe I fell for this," he moaned, when suddenly the glowing bomb exploded, sending a wave of green hexagon patterned shield onto the walls and shutting the entire room down. Targon was temporarily blinded, but in a minute he could see three blurry Zoltan and two Rocks teleporting aboard.

"W'uall, looky 'ere." The Rock man chuckled. "If i' isn' our ol' friend Targon, from the academy." Targon leaped at him, but was suddenly dragged down by his limp robotic arm. He sprawled onto the ground, awkwardly landing in a heap next to the Zoltans.

"Remember Dyxie?" The Zoltan in the middle leered down at the one-eyed Mantis. "She wants Data's information. We're not the best at hacking, but you two together are. Go on, get up. We're not here to hurt you."

Targon raised himself from the floor and glared at the group. "I should've guessed you guys were behind this. But Elva, why Data? Dyxie could take this entire ship if she wanted to!" The Rock man laughed hoarsely.

"J'ah, she cud. Bu' the stupid AI here got codes eb'rywhere. She need your help to get pas' them."

"Targon, dear, we're proposing a deal." Elva said. "She doesn't want to bust this ship. All she wants is Data. But she doesn't know how to get past the codes. You two together, however, can get through anything. Help us out, and we'll give you a full copy of Data.

"Yes, we know that this AI has been holding Data from you." Elva quickly said, noticing Targon's look of shock. "Why else is Data stored into the hard drive? Your choice, hon."

"It's going to take more than that to break me." Targon finally stated huffily, crossing his arms.

Elva grinned. "We have information on Engi-Lanius hybrids." She sang out, and dangled a USB stick right in front of Targon's eye. "Take it now, and it's a deal."

Targon growled in frustration, then grabbed the USB and put it in his pocket. "Fine! But that's all we're doing. Just getting Data out. After that I come back here, we never saw each other."

Elva winked. "Bingo." She pressed a button on her sleeve. "Six to beam up." They vanished, and the room suddenly turned back on, the only evidence of the event being scattered scrap and a room re-filled with oxygen.

Sorry for the long post. Targon shouldn't be found immediately, because the group had stopped alarms from blaring Targon's capture.

[stylesrj]

Tabitha took the opportunity of the ship's docking to once again go shopping for new ingredients. As she left the airlock and entered the station, once again she felt a sharp pain in her head as she disconnected from the neural network.
"I should see a doctor about that..." she remarked "I can never get used to that."

She passed by a group of soldiers dressed in Rebel uniforms; they didn't even give her much of a passing glance as they spied her civilian attire. She opted to go for the "space biker" look this time around instead of blatantly wearing her Federation colours.
Another man walked past her in a crowd and bumped into her shoulder. "Nice tattoo" he chuckled, pointing to the triangle on her cheek and chuckling "You're such a corporate shill... X-Dynamics? Seriously?"
Before Tabitha could respond, he had run off laughing.
"That was weird" she remarked, continuing on her way.

Meanwhile the weird guy put a hand to his ear and said "I've made contact with the synth. No sign of her counterpart. Should we bring her in?"
"Negative. They haven't suspected anything yet according to the intel. She still doesn't even know..."
"Copy that. Keeping tabs on Tabs..."
"Stow that joke soldier."

X-Dynamics is a big company like Waypoint-Junta but they do things like shipbuilding, genetic engineering and manufacturing of drone schematics and parts. They don't take sides in the Federation/Rebellion conflict, unlike Waypoint-Junta which seems to shoot every Federation ship on sight because the Rebels paid them a lot of money. X-Dynamics does have their own private security fleet and transports but they're for protection against pirates.

[dyno101]

Quintet noticed a strange interaction with Tabitha while she was entering the station. He kept a bot on tracking the two suspicious characters and hacked a different repair drone to go spy on them. It was likely they were unrelated reactions, but double-checking wasn't a problem. The drone was set to keep a close eye on them and, after a while, it was evident that the two weren't going to do anything else suspicious.

He archived the camera recordings of the two strange interactions and noted to himself to talk to Tabitha about it when they get back to the ship. Suddenly, an incoming figure alert came from the drone in the rebel hub and he began to operate it manually. He saw what looked to be a patrolling rebel guard, and was doubly careful to act normal, but continued to monitor the situation. He managed to scan down the guard to see that he was an ex-soldier who had taken up an open guard position in the station, and tends to make his shifts in the rebel hubs.

"Hey, you! Drone-face over there. Grab me a drink, I'm bored."
Quintet was instantly temped to kill him and hide the body, but knowing what was at stake, he refrained and simply continued pretending to repair the pipes.
"Come on! You're built to follow commands. Now.. go grab me a drink."
Quintet looked up.
"Small child, do you even know what coding is? Drones are not song request machines, and a repair drone is even less respond-able. You need to be at the remote control station to affect it at all. Go get your own drink, dead-brain."
The guard simply walked out of the room, dazed.

Quintet continued to review the station. Other than the two events with his crew, nothing interesting had happened, and his target still hadn't arrived, so he simply contacted some more of his old allies and gave them new assignments, but even that got boring after a while. He mulled over where Soong had gone, hoping she had just never found a station and died in the escape pod. Checking the tracking device revealed she was in a station a few jumps back, which wasn't a worthwhile trip.