Ariadne Guardpost 3: "the Origins"

Night_Shade · January 2004

Xect...alien blood as in Kharaa? ...nm, read back
*flips onto secure comms channel, Dea can hear me through the air but none of the other Draug can*
"Her blood's human...but there are living Kharaa cells and proteins floating all over it...they look almost like they're part of the blood too, far more so than simple drug injections. It's almost as though the Kharaa and human cells are working together, although I've never seen anything like it - usually they're trying to kill each other."
*looks up at the Draug cavalry arriving, and carefully puts down his HMG*
"I think it's a safe bet to say that they're Draug. Although, given the amount of cavalry that just arrived, we may not have much choice but to work with them."
*whispers, so Dea can't hear*
"at least, until that bomber arrives. Damn...crazy AI was right."
*[makes a closer scrutiny of the sample]*

PFCNublar · January 2004

*hears Night's analysis*
*quickly grabs rifle*
"Aww man. I smell and ambush; we better be careful."
*shoulders weapon keeps it pointed down*
"They are in front of us, behind us, and on our left as well as the right. At least they can't get away from us this time..."
*under breath*
"Man, this is gonna suck. Not like we have a choice anyway..."
*to the Draug*
"So...what's the plan? Who are you guys anyway?"

Gwahir · January 2004

"Hmmmmm kharaa cells working with human cells"
"Definition of a draug life form: Kharaa/Human hybrid"
"Sounds like a draug, but Dea didn't struggle, could be a ploy. I'm so confused. I don't think we have much of a chance of winning a battle. Either we phase to base and recycle this one or attempt to communicate and possibly die."
*Slings the shotgun over his shoulder as he obviously won't be using it*

edit: closing color tag

Khaim · January 2004

*Jawdrop*
{Over Voicecomm} "Ho-lee-S***... 10 sentries, not even a dent on the mechs... what are these things made of...?"
*shakes head*
{Over Voiceomm} "Well guys... unless those draug are guna help you out, I'd say you got a 0% chance of killing those mechs..."

Lord_Darkness · January 2004

"I feel better all ready."
*holsters P229s and draws shotgun, flicking the safety off*
[thinking]Damn it Merc, you better find out whats going on around here soon.[/thinking]
Meanwhile:
*Merc is hiding in one of the Recogniser tugs of the transport, a sheer drop was infront of her, the stealth subroutines had made her completly invisible to the guards, allowing her to sneak onto the rear tug of the transport, Mage was a better programmer than she thought, her mesh weapon, in its blaster form rested on her lap*
"Mage, if I could I'd kiss you for giving me these upgrades."
[continues to hide, waiting for the transport to leave]

Mr_Headcrab · January 2004

*Ed slings Wynona and runs out to Night and the Draug, Ed dodges between the mechs and gets behind Night.*
"Need coverin' fire if somthing goes awry- Eep."
*Ed notices the calvery come barreling in through the door, and nearly soils his armor."

xect · January 2004

Ceanjia: "Ok, that's enough. You start attacking me for no reason, you ally with the first Kharaa lifeform able to disguise itself as a human and you start trying to mess up my network, totally eliminating ANY trace of stealth I ever had on this network. I just had my main hidden user deleted, along with all my most important backdoors in the system because of the A.I. you just decided to send into the system.

Where does you allegiance lie, kharaa or humans?"

Gwahir · January 2004

"It lies with us!"

Night_Shade · January 2004

*opens public comm channel*
"Ceanija, I don't trust anyone around here except my squadmates - you, these hybrids, those mechs, anyone. We're the Frontiersman - we're trained to adapt to the situation at hand. You should know this, or at least have figured it out by now. These hybrids aren't shooting at us, and you opened fire without provocation on ... whatever these are ... while they were trying to communicate. From where I'm standing, you've got quite a bit of explanation to do, (sarcastically) Oh High And Mighty AI."
*picks up his HMG, checks it, holds it at the ready, and offers a hand up to Dea*

Khaim · January 2004

"Hmm where does my alliegence lie... Um... With whatever the other guys... Which hopefully won't get me killed here..."
{Over a secure Channel} "Well... if we do go after the AI hopefully these seiges will register the mechs as hostiles... 'cuz absolutely crap else I have here is guna work against em... Maybe just a straight up hack to one of the mechs... I'd rather not be trying to do that while getting shot though..."
*Glances around the CC and other buildings at the mechs*
"Yup... definately guna hurt..."
{Secure Channel} "Knowing the crazy AI's itchy trigger finger, if I tried to walk outa here before making a choice I'll probably get shot... Duno, maybe our draug friends could phase that rocket weilding nutcase over here... 2 on 1 draug would still be a little chancy though..."

Edited to add an -ing onto weild, whoops.

Gwahir · January 2004

{secure channel}"Right, on it"
*Gwahir casually slips out his PDA and [attempts to gain control of a mech, failing that, just disable it]*

xect · January 2004

"Oh my god, you really want to believe them don't you. Do you really think they've kept oh so diplomatic untill now. Really, do you think aliens would want to negotiate, aliens with the power to take over the human world. Fine with me, just ask them. Trust their word, take it for granted that the aliens speak the truth. Just do me a favor, ask any one of them to show you the barrel of their gun, check if it's clean, see if it's been fired."

Gwahir - You get roughly to the "enter password" screen, then the mech detects you, spins around and points a huge rocket launcher right into your face.

In the middle of it all, the Draug begin to present themselves:

The first one, the one that warped in begins:
"no, most of us arn't... quite... human. but you are. and as long as your on our base its our job to see that you come out of it alive. like i said we're the locals, and its our mess to clean up."
*moves to bring everyone togeather to talk*
"we need to get our objectives in order. get our AI's working togeather. get a stable comm system between our two groups. "
"the two biggest dangers are the draug and the AI. the draug have a lab somewhere where they are evolving and reproducing. they're becoming immune to most wepons, so far only fire has worked for shure."
"the AI is still in partial controll of the ship's systems and most of the mechs. we've only managed to narrowly avoid her destroying us all. we have to nueralize her before she kills us all."
"and there still are khraa aboard."

Another continues to name each of them in turn:
"Yea, what she said. Welcome abroad. *points to the woman* This is Dea, our sniper/scout, over there is Daza, our resident nut, Bills a medic, JD is the green behind me. And I blow **** up."
*Shoulders his gigantic Double Barreled Rocket Launcher (same model you saw in the hanger, you notice that it seems far lighter the way he handles it) and extends a hand to shake.*
"Just don't get in my way and we'll be find."

PFCNublar · January 2004

*looks at them*
"I don't understand...What happened to you guys. I mean, you guys seem to be human...Except for the blood."
*accepts the hand*
"Private Terran. Engineer and Weapons junkie. These other guys are all Privates also. There is Night Shade, our medic. Ghawir, the techie; Darkness, the guy with dual P229s and the funky hair; Spin, general guy who likes to shoot stuff, as we all do; Kathos, another guy with a gun; Ed, the lovely civvie who's a jack of all trades; and we've got Khaim in the CC. We had somebody by the name of Boggle, but he was late and missed the drop."
*takes hand back after a shake and continues on*
"If you guys could fill us in on what's with the funky AIs, where the Draug are, and other stuff that you haven't told us, we'd be happy."
*looks around*
"If you guys could maybe tell us the positions of the Kharaa especially and their status that would be good. Maybe you guys should keep at fighting the Draug, and we'll take the Kharaa. Besides the fact we aren't equiped to take on Draug, we're better at shooting Kharaa up. Quite some."


If I missed anyone, forgive me <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'>. Also, xect has a wee bit of a spelling error. It's "fine", not "find."
[/Spelling Nazi]

Night_Shade · January 2004

Now that we're finally getting the conversations back in synch...sorta... <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>
"Wait a second Dea..you keep talking about the draug like you're not one of them. If you're not Draug, given that tissue sample I just took... what are you? Damn, this is worse than a cheap horror flick - more twists in the story than a demented pretzel."
*opens that comm channel back up*
"Hey Ceanija, apart from killing that one Draug that attacked us in the hangar, you haven't done much to inspire trust in your version of events, either."
*salutes quickly as Terran introduces me*

Khaim · January 2004

*Twiddling thumbs back at base listening to the comm chatter*
{Over Public Voice Channels} "Hey... Do ya think one of you could set us up with a secure channel to talk without crazy AI-s on the line? I'm starting to worry about them and those shiny deathbots more than anything else around here..."

xect · January 2004

Ceanjia: "Tell me one thing, do you always wait for the kharaa to do something before you decide to stop them? So far, I've provided you with mechs, provided your buddy in the command chair with a nice set of legs, given you access to maps, set up your base, dropped your weapons and briefed you on the situation."

Mr_Headcrab · January 2004

*Ed waves as he is intorduced* "Cean, I understand what your saying, you've been a big help, but we were a little taken aback when the hostiles were anything but. As it seems, we're all on the same side."
*Ed reactivates Wynona*
"And in order to bury the hatchet, we should help get rid of your nasty mold problem. After all, It's the polite thing to do" *Ed smiles evily*

"Oh, and i assume the evil Draug are the ones that shot us down, So we cant leave until their gone anyway."

Lord_Darkness · January 2004

*walks up next to Terran, resting my shotgun on my shoulder, barrel pointed at a part of the ceiling behind us*
"Our AI, Mercura, is inside the system, hiding on a transport, I hope. Is there anywhere nearby we can get her out of there? Oh and if your wondering about Terran's remark about funky hair..."
*I take off my helmet and let my belt length hair fall freely*
"The others only found out about this a few days ago in the W.T. Hell after I found my fiance, Erin Townsend, dead. Merc was on a disc that was in the console nearby. I didn't tell anyone about it, I don't know why."
*I put my helmet back on, not bothering to push my hair under it like it was before I took it off*
Meanwhile:
*Mercura's still hiding in the Recogniser, strangely, the transport hadn't left the dock yet and had, according to the Recogniser memory files, been here for hours before our arrival*

xect · January 2004

Ceanjia: "You just don't get it do you? I don't know what you're thinking about, but I have seen those things fight, I have seen them kill. They might have learnt to deciet, they might have learnt to lie, but that doesn't make their blood any less alien. I don't want them to get into universe, I don't want to see humanity die. Are you with me in this, or are you with them?"

Then, another voice breaks the silence of your radio system: "bomber A incoming, requesting pickup site, I repeat, requesting pickup site. Do you copy. Bombing commences in 10 minutes and counting.

Night_Shade · January 2004

Xect, are we allowed to react to posts in the other thread before they get copied here, or do we have to wait for you?
*talking, no radio* "Oh, this just gets better and better. That bomber'll never even get close, not with an AI aiming those station guns. We've gotta warn em!"
*turns radio back on* "Hmph. Maybe I don't get it, maybe I do. But I do know one thing, Ceanija, and that's that as a medic I'm not about to kill something that isn't trying to kill me. So unless you can establish that it is in fact trying to kill me - at which, so far, you've been rather unsuccessful - I guess I'm not on anybody's side."

xect · January 2004

You reacting before my posts is fine with me, after all it gets a bit slow ifI have to re-post all they do. But to avoid things getting confusing, paste what they're saying into the thread first.

Khaim · January 2004

*Goes about re-dropping the sentries that died, and another seige cannon*
{Over Public Communications} "I'll try and take care of getting ahold of the bomber, between the CC and the ship we can probably piece something togather that can contact the bomber from this range... If anyone want's to come back and help me on the engineering part of the job, feel free."
[Grabbs his PDA off the CC top and goes about hunting for any communications pieces to try and contact the bomber and call off the strike for now]
{Over a Secure Channel} "Hey, you guys pick which side we are guna be on... Just uh... give me fair warning so I can try and hack the seiges into recognizing the mechs as enemies, or somesuch... Getting shot by those things wasn't on my agenda when I woke up this morning, and it's one thing I don't plan to add..."

PFCNublar · January 2004

*fingers radio and responds to Khaim*
"Yeah, I'll be right up..."
*turns back to the people clustered in the hallway*
"I've got to go back to base. Talk about engineering skill stuffle and radio...stuffle. Let me know how the diplomacy stuff turns out."
*turns around yet again and walks off the base*
[Once I'm there, I help Khaim try to set up Communications]

xect · January 2004

Terran reaches the docks relatively untroubled, though the mechs in the hanger still seem suspicious. One of the Draug, calling himself Boggle, follows him, saying "You might need someone who has a little more experience with the system".

"*One of the Draug, introduced as Epoch, returns the salute*
"We're not draug, well not fully. We just wanna survive like you guys."

Ceanjia (over ship speakers): "Well, if you're not draug, what are you then? Where are you coming from, and why's there alien blood in your veins if you're not aliens?"

Khaim · January 2004

*Sees terran run into the docks and walks over to him*
{Whispered} "Take care of building the communications stuff, and maybe see if you can rig that rocket launcher to aim at one of the mechs... I'm guna try and get these seiges to target the mechs when I tell em to."
[Goes back over to sit on the CC again and starts attempting to change the Seiges target recognition information to target the mechs.]
{Yells to the Draug following terran(aka Boggle)} "Go help Terran out with the communications stuff... assumming the deathbots don't shoot at ya."

xect · January 2004

The sieges turn towards the mechs, searching for a gravity signature. However, they see nothing. The mechs aren't stationary enough for the sieges to be able to target.

PFCNublar · January 2004

"I have to say, thank you Ceanjia for understanding. Though we may not be taking the path you wish, thanks for the support."
*looks the mech over*
"A bit banged up, but nothing this thing should worry about. Turret bullets are anything but armor piercing. Most of 'em just ricocheted."
*goes on over the buildings*
*walks on a path that passes Boggle en route*
"[whisper]Say, if you want...Try to rig that RPG to target the mechs as Khaim requested. We may need it sometime, though we probably won't and shouldn't fire it. Ceanjia seems to be cooperating.[/whisper]"
[Tries to finish building the structures quickly]

Night_Shade · January 2004

"Hey, wait up! I have an idea."
*runs back to the hangar bay*
*over public radio* "I'm gonna take a sample of that Draug we splattered everywhere. If it looks different from Dea's, well then we know for sure."
*gets back to the hangar bay, waves at Boggle before finding a convenient chunk of Draug and [tries to get a sample and analyse it]*

Khaim · January 2004

*Bangs head on the CC at the seiges*
"These bloody things are HOPELESS!"
*sees shade run in and yell about samples*
"Hey, thats a good idea man, good thinking.... Too bad these turrets arn't as smart as you."
[Goes about building up the sentries dropped earlier and helping Terran and Boggle]
*Mutters about stupid seiges and chucks a random piece of ship wreckage at one of the seiges out of annoyance.*
{Over a public channel} "Hey... if 344 has control over a ton of mechs, where are they? All the mech's I've seen are the 4 psycho deathbots with us..."

Gwahir · January 2004

sorry I haven't posted, had to get some things done.

"Right, I'll help out at base"
*phases to base*
[Works on the siege system and tries to get it to accept 3D coordinates for manual targeting]

Ariadne Guardpost 3: "the Origins"

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