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/qst/ - Quests


Your name is David "Gunny" Rockefeller, no relation.
A veteran of the united states marine corps, you find yourself in a far-out situation after an all-too-close encounter of the third kind!

In the last thread you fought and snuck your way through the ruined lower wards of Xebric station, finding things to be worse than you'd honestly expected.
Most of the station's population is already gone, either having escaped, been captured by Sadia and the Feds, or having died at the hands of mutated drug addicts.

The damage to buildings is also quite bad in some areas, but nothing that can't be cleaned up eventually.

But regardless of the damage down below, things looked almost pristine in the hidden upper ward where it seems the remaining administration was performing working from.
That work being the dismantling of the station, in order to haul off any valuables before eventually spacing it's atmosphere, rendering it uninhabitable.

But before that could happen, you and your team discovered the hidden base of Sadia's administration team, and infiltrated it.
Having quickly and quietly made your way to your targets, you now give the order to your allies outside, to begin their assault on the station.

But in the meantime, you'll have to hold two separate rooms in the heart of the enemy base, in order to keep the station from getting spaced.
Will you be able to hold out? Will Gron and the AI Drones be able to take over the station? Find out now, on Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

>Last Thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5658149/
>All Threads: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?searchall=humanity+-+fuck+yeah%21
>Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rNxD6ccWY5M48dLWuTWdr5LiYLuS_YIAMKlTLw42eeo/edit#gid=0
>Discord Link: https://discord.gg/DMwvMw43yv
>>
>>5692338
>>5691494

You exchange fire with station security several times before they finally back off completely, unwilling or unable to to take any more casualties without making forward progress.
You intentionally aimed for their legs and stomachs, injuring them severely without actually killing them.

As a result, their comrades were forced to drag them away from the battle and administer first aid.
So for every one person neutralized, you took at least two people out of the fight. That kept the pressure off of you somewhat.

And eventually, you get an update from SHODAN.

["Captain, the control room is secure. We have barrier control."] She informs you.

Perfect.

With that, you give the signal. To SHODAN, to Gron, and to your new AI companions who are currently piloting the drone ships.

"Green light, boys! Turrets are down, barrier's open! LIGHT 'EM UP!" You shout.

Moments later, you see alarms begin to blare as two-dozen ships suddenly come in range of the station's subspace sensors.
Since the enemy is suppressed for the moment, you have no trouble running over to the console in question and marking their reactor signatures as 'Friendly - Priority Defense Target'.

That should have the guns defending them automatically. You're not sure how good the targeting VI is, but if it's for station security it can't be bad.

That's done, but you hear shouting in the hall. It seems like reinforcements are beginning to arrive, and they have protective environmental suits on.
They won't stop a bullet, but they'll be able to get through the gas like that.

You have three softpoint mags left, plus half a mag in the rifle.
One mag of black tips, and five or six .45 mags for your pistol.

One HE grenade, one more smoke and enough high explosives to vaporize this room if it came down to it.
It's not like you're down to nothing, but you have less than you'd like for a defense. It can't be helped, you can only carry so much equipment.

Those reinforcements aren't pushing you just yet. You don't know how long you have, but it ain't much.

>Toss a brick of HE into the hall with a proximity sensor on it. See if you can't scare them off by escalating things a bit.
>Just keep holding the door. You'll grab one of their plasma rifles if you run out of ammo. It's not the end of the world.
>Weld the door shut and try to buy some time. You can use AP rounds to fuck 'em up when they try to bust through.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5692340
>Toss a brick of HE into the hall with a proximity sensor on it. See if you can't scare them off by escalating things a bit.
They wanna up the ante? Bet.
>>
>>5692340
>>BRICK TOSS BOOM
Use. The. Expendables.
>>
>>5692340
>>Toss a brick of HE into the hall with a proximity sensor on it. See if you can't scare them off by escalating things a bit.
>>
>>5692340
>Write-In: Use the smoke grenade to cover your assault of their position before they can prepare to assault you.
>>
>>Toss a brick of HE into the hall with a proximity sensor on it. See if you can't scare them off by escalating things a bit.
>>
>>5692340
>Just keep holding the door. You'll grab one of their plasma rifles if you run out of ammo. It's not the end of the world.

Save HE for a little bit longer, in case of robots.
>>
>>5692340
>Toss out more smoke then move towards them while under cover and start using the knife the moment they get the nerve to make an offensive
>>
>>5692340
>Toss a brick of HE into the hall with a proximity sensor on it. See if you can't scare them off by escalating things a bit.
Once our ships land and drop off their cargo they're going to have an even urgent problem to deal with (overwhelming force coming from their only means of exit), so I doubt they'll remain focused here for long.
If we need do, we can simply disable/destroy the controls so they can't make any additional changes to the programming. We can fix it later.
>>
>>5692340
>>5692472
This is good and fine to assault backwards. Especially if we can steal a plasma weapon and really ruin their day.

>>5692675
Be ready to sass-blast the caithan.
>>
Would it be possible to affix some of the volatile components of the plasma rifles nearby to the hunk of explosives to get a bigger boom?
>>
>>5692340
Moving quickly, you remove your pack entirely and dig out a brick of HE compound, wrapped in wax paper.
That, and a proximity detonator, which you roughly shove into the block before activating it and tossing it into the hallway.

A few seconds later, the detonator silently activates.

Although it's slowly spreading out, the hall is still far too full of smoke to see what you've done, so they shouldn't have a clue.
And with that... you grab your pack and move farther from the door, even taking refuge behind some of the control consoles.

As you sit down, you take a glance at the subspace sensors.
It looks like security elsewhere on the station, likely at the docks, have noticed your allies' approach and quickly mounted a counter-offensive.

There are only three ships large enough to show up on the sensors, but you're sure there are far more smaller fighter craft that you can't see.
The subspace sensors can only detect ships carrying a warp drive, or those who use shielding. Fighters have neither, so they won't be picked up.

About the same time, you hear a warning alarm sound on another console. One of the turret control consoles.
It automatically locks onto one of the enemy ships and begins firing. You can't see it, but you're sure it must have fired on one of yours and been recognized as an enemy vessel.

That is then followed by no less than half a dozen hails being directed to the comms console, which of course you'll be ignoring.

Instead, you just sit there and reload your mags, as calmly as possible, waiting for the inevitable boom.
This facility seemed pretty empty when you were walking through it, but it's also expansive. You don't know what all they're doing in here, or how many men are here.

There's a bit of a rabble in the hall, and you hear them moving up on you.
Then the brick detonates, and you feel the thud in your chest, and it's loud even through your helmet. Bits of rock and shards of metals come flying over the console you're hiding behind.

You stop reloading and pocket the mags you finished, and rest your rifle atop one of the less important consoles.
There are shrapnel holes in the wall separating this room and the hall. The lights right in front of the door have been destroyed, so the hall has become darker.

But the smoke hasn't cleared yet, and provides contrast thanks to the remaining lights. As soon as you see movement through those shrapnel holes, you fire.
Three shots at one. Two shots at another, and then you hear one of them start to scream, although neither man seems to get back up.

There's silence after that. They don't come from either direction anymore, so you can only guess they've backed off even farther.

>Continue as David
>Switch to SHODAN
>Switch to Sanig
>>
>>5693025
>Switch to Sanig
>>
>>5693025
>Switch to SHODAN
>>
>>5693025
>Switch to SHODAN
>>
>>5693025
>>Switch to Grandpa Gasbag
>>
>Switch to Sanig
>>
>>5693025
>Continue as David
RIP and Tear. Is David good enough with his mental space magic to project an aura of bloodlust?
Bro pick up a corpse and use it as a meat shield.
>>
>>5693025
>>Continue as David
>>
>>5693025
>Switch to Sanig
>>
>>5693025
Let's spend some time as Sanig.
>>
>>5693025
>Switch to Sanig
>>
>>5693025
>Switch to Sanig
LETS GOOOO GRANDPA GANG
>>
>>5693025
>Continue as David
>>
>>5693025
>>Continue as David
I wanna shoot more shit up
>>
>>5693025
>switch to Sanig
Oh come on, everyone loves our favorite renegade Grey. If only he were my real grandpa...
>>
Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>5693025
Lets see if dice want
1) David or
2) Sanig or
3) SHODAN
>>
>>5693025

==PERSPECTIVE CHANGE: SANIG==

Your name is Sanig, a Grey outcast and, back in the day, a legendary weaponsmith. And you're too old for this shit...
Or at least, that's what you'd be saying had you never met the kid.

Well, that shot of rejuvenation serum you found on his ship did most of the work, but he's been... well, he's been both good and bad for your mental health.
Mostly good though, you figure.

After you met him, you started engineering things again. For real, none of that half-assed bullshit you were selling to pirate gangs and mercenaries.

Human weapons are fundamentally different in concept to most of what you know.
They're loud, dangerous and brutal all on their own, but that's what makes them so interesting.

And right now you've got a chance to make serious use of them.

It feels like you've been waiting around for hours, just waiting on the kid to infiltrate Xebric and signal back to you.
He's supposed to disable the station's defensive guns, which would allow you, pebblenuts and the codebrains to attack the station directly.

You're starting to get worried, because you haven't gotten a single update from either him nor SHODAN, but then...

["Green light, boys! Turrets are down, barrier's open! LIGHT 'EM UP!"]

There it is! That's what you were waiting for!
The kid's honestly insane, there's no other way to put it. You can't believe you're doing this right now.

"Keep an eye on those sensors, Girl." You order. "SHODAN's focus is elsewhere right now."

"You don't have to tell me twice, old man. I'm not senile like you." The Jek'na girl remarks.

You feel the temperature drop inside the ship as you exit cold running and signal the drone fleet to begin their assault.
Better that a bunch of machines take the brunt of the fire before you, you suppose. You'd prefer if they didn't exist at all, though.

The drones begin burning towards the station, and all seems well at first, but then you see something akin to a shimmer around the station.
It's not a shield, no. SHODAN and the Caithan should have that under control, if there is such a thing.

This... it looks almost like glitter. You suppose you should have expected it, but a station's defenses are something else after all.
Hundreds of likely VI-piloted fighter drones have begun pouring out of small holes in the asteroid's surface, and are now swarming around it.

Once a swarm of them builds up, they all simultaneously take off towards the nearest drone ship and begin hammering away at it's shields.
Their lasers are individually weak, but one weakness of magnetoplasmadynamic shielding is being struck from multiple angles simultaneously.

Not only does it increase power draw, but the shields become thinner in places as well.
>>
>>5693749

>Order the drones to group up and perform shield resonance. With multiple generators working together, a few fighters won't be able to overwhelm them.
>Step up and act as point defense. Your drones have heavy lasers that are slow and cumbersome, but the Metal Gear is armed to the teeth and extremely agile.
>Just ignore them. Even if the drones break through the shields, how much hull damage could they really do? And besides, these drone ships are fodder anyhow.
>Write-in?
>>
>>5693752
>Step up and act as point defense. Your drones have heavy lasers that are slow and cumbersome, but the Metal Gear is armed to the teeth and extremely agile.
>>
>>5693752
>Step up and act as point defense. Your drones have heavy lasers that are slow and cumbersome, but the Metal Gear is armed to the teeth and extremely agile.
Might as well put that adrenaline doping to good use.
>>
>>5693806
That makes me wonder, what if Sanig put some human growth hormone into his youth juice?
>>
>>5693752
>Order the drones to group up and perform shield resonance. With multiple generators working together, a few fighters won't be able to overwhelm them.
>>
>>5693824
Even with HGH, I get the feeling that it wouldn't help much by virtue of the limits of his own genetics. Besides, his muscle suit already compensates for his physical shortcomings in spades.
>>
>>5693752
>Order the drones to group up and perform shield resonance. With multiple generators working together, a few fighters won't be able to overwhelm them.

The drones are there to prevent us from scattering as a technique against station main laser defenses, I think. Grouping up is probably just fine with them out of the way.
>>
>>5693752
>Order the drones to group up and perform shield resonance. With multiple generators working together, a few fighters won't be able to overwhelm them.
>>
>>5693752

You quickly consider your options, before typing a message, a command, into the console in front of you.
That message is transmitted to the codebrains sitting in your cargo bay.

Each one of them has been slotted into a rudimentary AI-Computer interface, with an even more rudimentary subspace communicator slapped onto it.
The slapdash approach of the kid's devices tries your patience every day, almost as much as the fact that they actually work.

What's worse is that it seems to have rubbed off on SHODAN, the head codebrain.
Those communicators were her idea after all. And again, they work.

By physically limiting the rate at which those crystals can be oscillated, you're able to effectively create secure channels by broadcasting at higher frequencies.
Like that, you've been able to ensure that these new codebrains can't get their grubby hands on anything important, or even so much as listen in on the kid's communications.

That does limit bandwidth on the lower-frequency channels, but they don't need that much.
The command goes through, and the codebrains obey you. You watch as the drone ships begin to group up in pairs or trios, and slowly tune their shields to just the same frequency.

Their shield bubbles expand to meet eachother, and then take on an unusual non-spherical shape as they shrink down again and conform around the ships, like cloth being draped over an object.
The station's fighters continue to attack relentlessly, but with multiple shield generators it becomes much more difficult for them to overwhelm any one specific area.

The practical limit to this is probably four ships, but just two or three seem to be enough for now.

Unlike you, it seems that pebblenuts has chosen to get involved in the fighting.
The Star-Fall ploughs ahead, it's specialized shields tanking the weaker laser fire easily and doling out it's own hail of laser-fire in return.

It wasn't able to show much of it's capabilities last time 'round, but now that it isn't simply being bombarded...
Well, the Star-Fall's crew is certainly proving their worth right now. Each shot is fired with precision, and while not every shot is a kill, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that every third shot is.

It's going well so far. If this is all you have to deal with, you'll consider yourself lucky.

"Sanig... Sanig, what is that?" The Jek'na girl asks, pinging a spot on one of the hull cams.

You bring up the spot she pinged, and immediately see what she's talking about.
It seems that a relatively large vessel has launched from the main dock, and it doesn't look like station security.

"Shit... that's a Federation vessel by the looks of it, girl."

The federation vessel focuses on the frontmost pair of drone ships, and you watch as it's main cannon visibly glows while charging up to fire.
What's worse, that looks to be an ultraviolet-class laser.

The moment that laser fires, there's a bright flash that blinds your hull cameras.
>>
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>>5694250
Violence begets violence..... HIT IT WITH ALL THE GUN!
>>
WELP TIME TO USE THE DRONES AS EXPENDABLE AS THEY GET. FIRE AT THE FED SHIP!!!
Meanwhile, the metal gear should use the distraction and its stealth to get a good shot at the enemy's thrusters.
>>
>>5694250

That flash quickly fades, and it becomes clear what happened.
The federation ship's UV laser punched straight through their combined shielding, and had enough energy left over to leave a glowing scar across one of the drone's plasteel armor.

You're about to order every ship to focus fire on that vessel, but then something surprising happens.

There are a dozen or so gigantic laser cannons mounted all over the surface of the asteroid Xebric is built into.
They're used as a deterrent against pirate gangs, insurrection and escaping criminals. Their scale and power is beyond what you would ever see on anything short of a Dreadnought.

And two of those giant lasers are mounted right by the station's main entrance, which is where you're headed.
You notice them moving behind the federation vessel as it burns towards you, and you smile.

"Kid, you're really something." You murmur to yourself.

He must have captured the turret control room intact.
That's the only reason you can think of for what happens next.

The station's defensive lasers open fire on the federation ship, and once again your hull cameras are completely blinded by the flash of light that fills their view.
You think you're starting to understand why the kid chooses to stick himself inside a thin glass cockpit in the middle of a dogfight. It's hard to see anything through the cameras mid-fight.

Personally, you think the addition of some specialized cameras and software would be preferable, but at this point you understand his fucked up sense of reasoning.

It takes another moment or two for the glare to fade, and when it does you're somewhat shocked by what you see.
Not only is the federation ship intact after taking two direct shots from a station-scale laser, but their shields are even still up.

It seems that their crew noticed what was happening, or perhaps some automated system detected the threat.
But either way, they directed the entirety of their shield output to the rear, and withstood the shots.

However, that has left them completely open from the front, and your code-brains don't hesitate to take advantage.
A dozen drones open fire on them at once, regardless of range. The federation vessel is also plated in thick layers of plasteel, so the damage is minimal all things considered, but these are federation drones with federation lasers in the end.

The nose of their vessel is heated to a glow, and you can see the telltale plumes of gas that indicate a hull breach in one or two areas.
It's a large ship though, so it's unlikely that the whole thing has depressurized just from that.

It'll take another minute or so before the station's lasers can fire again, so the federation vessel redirects it's shields entirely to the front.
Most likely, it's entire output is focused on withstanding the hail of laser fire pounding it right now. It doesn't fire back.
>>
>>5695079

>Wait for the station to fire again. This situation will resolve itself.
>Go back into cold running and slip behind them. Their plasteel armor won't hold up to a steady burst from your 20mm cannon.
>Have the drones spread out and attack from all angles. Take advantage of their own shield's weakness, just as they tried to with their little fighter craft.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5695080
>>Go back into cold running and slip behind them. Their plasteel armor won't hold up to a steady burst from your 20mm cannon.
>>
>>5695080
>Go back into cold running and slip behind them. Their plasteel armor won't hold up to a steady burst from your 20mm cannon.
>>
>>5695080
>Go back into cold running and slip behind them. Their plasteel armor won't hold up to a steady burst from your 20mm cannon.
>>
>>5695080
are they aware of the Metal Gear's capabilities? Short of having stuff to scramble their data/them not having a quantum communicator... dunno if we wanna start dropping our Aces...
>>
>>5695080
>Go back into cold running and slip behind them. Their plasteel armor won't hold up to a steady burst from your 20mm cannon.
Make sure we don't get in the way of station lasers

>>5695110
At this point it is unlikely that they'll slip out of our clutches, especially we light up their ass with kinetics.
We're going to have to move on from our current ship soon, anyway; it's too hot to go to Fed space, and we've been meaning to move onto something new.
>>
>>5695110
You have no idea what they do or don't know.
>>
>>5695079
>Wait for the station to fire again
>>5695114
>>5695110
Remember that the feds ID'd the metal gear and put a bounty on it. If they truly have a smart guy behind this takeover (they do, they are feds) they probably ran some numbers to guess WHO is likely to show up in this confrontation. Maybe all they know is that a grey ship is doing grey fuckery.
>>
>>5695080
>Go back into cold running and slip behind them. Their plasteel armor won't hold up to a steady burst from your 20mm cannon.
omae wo ma
>>
>>5695740
Dawg, it's
>Omae wa mo...shindeiru.
>>
>>5695750
konichiwa kamakazi banzai
>>
>>5695778
And a happy honda toyota nissan to you too mister tojo
>>
>>5695080
>Hail them. Demand surrender. Think of what we could squeeze from them as prisoners or hostages.
>>
>>5695080

You decide that it would be prudent to end this little problem before it can do any damage.
To that end, you re-engage the ship's cold-running protocol and begin to burn quickly towards your target.

It's normally a bad idea to stay in cold-running mid-combat. The kid proved that by nearly cooking the lot of you once upon a time, although he seemed no worse for wear.
However, you don't plan on staying in combat for long, and you won't be making any high-speed maneuvers or firing every weapon you've got simultaneously.

One precise strike, like a surgeon using his scalpel. That's all you need.

Taking a page from the kid's book, you aim for your target location, then turn the ship around mid-flight rather than burning the entire way.
Like this you're able to keep your thrusters hidden behind your ship, and as such you can burn at full power without being detected by the enemy.

Once you coast your way behind the federation vessel, you're already oriented to perform another burn and slow down.
You're far away enough to ensure that you won't be caught in any stray laser fire from your allies, and so you have all the time in the world, relatively speaking, to aim for a killshot.

The kid is always playing around with silly or downright nonsensical materials when it comes to his weapons and equipment. The shells used in the Metal Gear's main gun are no different.
Right now, it's loaded up with something particularly stupid.

Lead bodies, copper jackets, diamond tips, tungsten penetrators... It's all over-engineered bullshit if anyone were to ask you.
But he's taking full advantage of the nanofabricators he has at hand, you'll give him that. Although with certain products there is an issue when it comes to scale.

You just wish he'd stop mixing explosives by hand. He says it's not dangerous as long as it stays wet, to which you'd agree, but it always makes you nervous regardless.

Whoops, can't let your thoughts drift off for too long.

Once the aiming reticle has lined up perfectly, you engage the ship's auto-stabilization system and fire.
The roar of that cannon rattles the whole damned ship every time it fires. It actually produces enough thrust to throw the ship off course, which is why you have need of a stabilization system in the first place.

The program corrects for the thrust and vibration of the autocannon by firing the ship's maneuvering thrusters with millisecond precision, which helps keep you on-target where it would otherwise be impossible.
Of course, the kid has no use for any of that. He keeps one hand on the flight controls while firing, and acts as his own stabilizer.

Naturally you used that flight data to create the stabilizer program, so it's quite effective right off the hop.

You watch as a stream of shells fly towards the target, every third shot burning with some sort of incendiary mix that creates a glowing trail wherever they fly.
Both hard and heavy, each round slams into the enemy's hull like a micrometeorite.
>>
>>5696014

Sparks fly as tungsten shatters and plasteel is ripped apart.
Not knowing the layout of this particular vessel, you aimed straight down the middle of their ship.

It doesn't matter where you hit them, this ridiculous weapon will penetrate. So right down the middle is as good as anywhere.
You see the ship venting atmosphere for a second or two before something goes terribly wrong on the inside, and the ship detonates.

The flash is immensely bright, and you're struck by the shockwave less than ten seconds later.
Either you struck their antimatter bottle or they self-destructed, either by captain's order or automated protocol. Not that it matters either way.

The light fades and reveals an expanding cloud of plasma, along with fragments of their hull ricocheting off your shields.

Your position now leaves you quite close to the entrance of Xebric.
Perhaps you could go ahead of the others and help clear a landing site.

Or perhaps it would be better to stay off to the side, and take care of any... anomalies.

>Head into the station and start mowing down any station or federation-affiliated vessels inside.
>Stay outside and keep hidden. Only intervene when necessary, and when you can make a decisive kill.
>Assist the Star-Fall with taking down the remaining fighter drones. There are still quite a few of them, and your own drones can't land until they're gone.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5696015
>>Stay outside and keep hidden. Only intervene when necessary, and when you can make a decisive kill.
Continue sharking around, picking off a drone or two...
>>
>>5696015
>Assist the Star-Fall with taking down the remaining fighter drones. There are still quite a few of them, and your own drones can't land until they're gone.
objective is to land the drones to unload the robot troopers, right?
>>
>>5696044
That's the plan.
>>
>>5696015
>Assist the Star-Fall with taking down the remaining fighter drones. There are still quite a few of them, and your own drones can't land until they're gone.
>Keep an eye out for any anomalies moving in the direction of the battle on the radar.
>>
>>5696015
>Assist the Star-Fall with taking down the remaining fighter drones. There are still quite a few of them, and your own drones can't land until they're gone.
Once exterior clean-up's done, Gron and Sanig can move in to the station's interior at the same time.
>>
>>5696015
>Assist the Star-Fall with taking down the remaining fighter drones. There are still quite a few of them, and your own drones can't land until they're gone.
>>
Man, imagine if we brought Princess with us.
>>
>>5696015
>Assist the Star-Fall with taking down the remaining fighter drones. There are still quite a few of them, and your own drones can't land until they're gone.
>>
>>5696015
>Stay outside and keep hidden. Only intervene when necessary, and when you can make a decisive kill.
>>
>>5696205
STEALTH WOULD BE OPTIONAL
and I would have loved it. She needs excercise... can we let her loose on a district with many drug mutants?
>>
>>5696015
>>Stay outside and keep hidden. Only intervene when necessary, and when you can make a decisive kill.
>>
>>5696278
Depends if the spores can infect her. She runs hot, but god knows if she'll be able to tank a continuous immunity battle.
>>
>>5696562
True that. And the smaller-than-an-atom DNA rewriting ants might get to her... who knows tho, maybe she gets all the perks of being massive and manages to control it. Alternatively it only makes her reach adulthood in a blink
>>
Rolled 100 (1d100)

>>5696015

With that little problem quite thoroughly taken care of, you decide to assist pebblenuts in removing the pests swarming around your drone ships.
For that purpose, the Metal Gear is almost perfectly outfitted.

Ever since laggard was taken down, the kid has been making every effort to strap a ridiculous number of weapons to this poor scout ship in an effort to keep from being unable to pierce a ship's shields.
You haven't bothered to tell him that a scout ship being capable of shield-breaking in the first place is just stupid.

And as a result, you and the Jek'na girl have had to almost completely overhaul the Metal Gear's power systems.
The added weight in supercapacitors alone has slowed the ship down not insignificantly, not that the kid seems to care.

He'll just remove every safety parameter on the thrusters and burn harder, and damned be the consequences.

And then when the thrusters explode from the wear, he'll invent new ones that can take the punishment.
It's almost admirable in a way, how unphased he is by any problem. Even if it's of his own creation.

"Gildur!" You yell over your shoulder. "We're cleaning up this mess, get on the turret controls!"

"Y-Yes sir! Sanig, sir!" The Kelbhund replies.

Flipping up the caps on several safety switches, you then power up the Metal Gear's weapon systems one by one.
The cabin lights dim as your singular antimatter reactor is immediately overloaded. You can already imagine the bottle glowing white hot.

Transferring flight control to the girl and weapons control for several of the lasers to an onboard VI, you take direct control of one laser turret yourself.

"Connect your umbilicals. We're going in quiet." You command.

Obeying your order, Kyla and Gildur both reach down underneath their computer terminals and open up a small cabinet containing a hose.
They, along with yourself, then connect that hose to a port on their suits. Cold water immediately begins to circulate through the suit, keeping you cool despite the internal air temperature of the ship.

Like this, you'll be able to stay in cold running indefinitely. Another brilliant, retarded idea by your captain after he saw a similar solution that you'd built into your own lab suit.
Of course, it's not perfect. You'll still have to eject steam from the pressure tanks on occasion, or else cook alive regardless, but this will keep you in good condition during the fight.

And staying in cold running means you attract less attention to your ship, which doesn't have the benefit of an identical shield to perform resonance with, nor some outlandish solution like the Star-Fall.

With preparations complete, you make a quiet burn towards the fleet of drone ships before cutting the engines and simply allowing the Metal Gear to drift.
Then, once you're well within range, you give the order to open fire.

>Roll 1d100, best of 3
>Higher is better
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5696722
Uhhh... should we be worried?
>>
Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>5696722
WITNESS ME, THAT 1D100 IS WEAK, I TELL YOU, WEAK
>>
Rolled 91 (1d100)

>>5696722
that 100 doesn't scare me
>>
Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>5696722
>>
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>>5696722
We /qst/ now
>>
>>5696731
cash money son
>>
>>5696731
Thank you RNJesus.
>>
>>5696731
This'll be good.
>>
>>5696722

Your first shot strikes a fighter in it's thrusters, blowing it apart instantly.
You can see other shots faintly arcing out through the thin cloud of plasma that now surrounds you, and almost all of them seem to be hitting their marks.

The girl is focused on her scanners, but Gildur is doing quite well, and the VI-driven lasers are... almost shockingly effective. That's not right.

"Girl, did you do something to the weapons VI?" You ask, blasting another drone apart as it flies along the surface of one of your drones.

"The VI isn't controlling them, Dak is!" She replies happily.

Dak. The name of that blasted AI she keeps in her backpack.
It's been a glorified "helping hand" up to this point, using mechanized tentacle-like grabbers to hold things and reach tight spaces for her.

But you see her tinkering with it in what little spare time she has.
She's the one who managed to create an AI-Computer interface in the first place, mostly by reverse-engineering the Metal Gear's built-in interface.

That's what allowed you to make use of those captured AIs in the first place. It was all for that thing.

From what you understand, it's completely retarded. Literally, mentally disabled in every sense of the word.
A gamma-class AI is almost always damaged in some way, and most of them aren't very useful.

Dak, however, seems to be able to follow orders about as well as an actual person. It's not just proficient in a single task like most specialized gamma-classes, but is generally capable.
Rather than having to feed it machine code, it actually understands speech, although it's incapable of speaking itself. Well, it does reply with beeps and boops from a small speaker in the pack, but only Kyla can understand any of it.

Now, being "generally capable" doesn't sound like much, but you have to consider that this thing is unbound by the limitations of an eight pound lump of fat for a central processor.
Although it may pale in comparison to a beta or alpha-class AI in terms of capability and understanding, it can still pump out calculations and multitask like there's no tomorrow. For simple tasks like aiming a laser, there's no comparison to a VI.

And Dak is proving that, with gusto.

For every shot you take, Dak takes two. It doesn't even wait for the laser's capacitors to recharge before taking the second shot, which is fine since these fighters aren't shielded in the first place.
But what's incredible is that, while someone like Gildur might hit six or seven out of ten shots against these small, fast-moving targets, Dak is hitting ten out of ten.

He literally just doesn't miss, not a single one as far as you can tell.

But you're no slouch either. With age comes experience, and with your new power armor comes swift reflexes and a steady hand.
...It may not be ten out of ten, but you can proudly boast that you're hitting at least nine out of every ten shots.

"Damned AI. How many more of them are we going to pick up?" You grumble.
>>
Oh Dak, you silly gamma boy... we are playing with fire aren't we
>>
>>5697441
AI's are like ninjas the danger level scales with numbers.
If there is one you shit your pants, if there are many they bumble around like starwars droids.
>>
>>5697558
I didn't understand that... so many AIs is not as bad as one AI?
>>
>>5697675
Yes. The more individual AIs involved in any given scenario, the less of a threat they pose.
Conversely, the less individual AIs involved, the more of a threat they pose.
>>
>>5697422
Is...Is Dak our crayon eating son? But AI?
>>
>>5697675
He's saying it's like a whole horde of nameless soldiers vs. one guy standing menacingly in the middle of a field.
Which one would you be more worried about fighting?

The same could also be said about monsters.
Who's worse, a gigantic demon named "Lord Killdeath, King of Murder Mountain", or one who just looks like a normal human?

And then you walk up to him and his name is just "Lucifer" or some shit.
Bonus points if he's wearing nothing but rags. No fancy armor, no gigantic weapon.
>>
>>5697729
It's like breaking into a bank, you've got thirty armed security guards and the janitor. The janitor is the problem.
>>
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>>5697729
>>
>>5697681
>>5697729
got it
>>
>>5697422

Between the Metal Gear, the Star-Fall and your fleet of drones, it doesn't take too long to whittle down the swarm of fighters to the point that they aren't much of a threat.
However, you're certain that your enemies also made good use of that time.

That federation ship made the decision, quite possibly a rash one, to jump into the fray without knowing anything about their enemies, and they paid dearly for it.
But you're certain that these fighter drones and crustal cameras have been transmitting information back to the station's guards, who by now must have an idea of what they're up against.

Furthermore, they've had a solid ten minutes or so to rally their troops and prepare for some sort of counterattack.
You expected that much, but you aren't sure that it'll do much for them in the long run. Not so long as the station's guns are on your side.

You know that Xebric has at least two more docks besides the main one here. There's been plenty of time for more battleships to launch, but they haven't.

So they must know the situation they're in quite well. That bodes well for you, but perhaps not so well for the kid.
If they know they can't launch their ships due to the station's guns being hijacked, then they'll surely focus their attention on him, who's holding the control room.

Which means you'll need to make your landing quickly and make your way to him, so that you can offer your support.

>Split the drones across all three ports. Having the killbots attack from multiple angle will sew chaos amongst the station guards and help prevent a single point of failure.
>Land them all right at the main entrance. It's probably the most heavily guarded, and you'll do well to overwhelm them with numbers. They can't stop such a giant mass of metal.
>Let the codebrains worry about their own landing and offensive. The kid needs your support, and the Metal Gear is just small and heavily armed enough to reach him.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5697858
>>Let the codebrains worry about their own landing and offensive. The kid needs your support, and the Metal Gear is just small and heavily armed enough to reach him.
We gotta link up and give our ground team some support. They're killers, but it's only the 4 of them down there.
>>
>>5697858
>Split the drones across all three ports. Having the killbots attack from multiple angle will sew chaos amongst the station guards and help prevent a single point of failure.
>>
>>5697858
>Land them all right at the main entrance. It's probably the most heavily guarded, and you'll do well to overwhelm them with numbers. They can't stop such a giant mass of metal.
>>
>>5697858
>Let the codebrains worry about their own landing and offensive. The kid needs your support, and the Metal Gear is just small and heavily armed enough to reach him.
We must ensure air superiority!! Plus is not that David might die here, but that he will be forced to destroy the consoles before making a desperate escape
>>
>Land them all right at the main entrance. It's probably the most heavily guarded, and you'll do well to overwhelm them with numbers. They can't stop such a giant mass of metal.
>>
>>5697858
>Let the codebrains worry about their own landing and offensive. The kid needs your support, and the Metal Gear is just small and heavily armed enough to reach him.
Though, if anything, I'd go with a feint on one of the two other gates, a more substantial assault on the other one of the other gates, then a smaller hanger on the current gate (with more personnel instead of killbots).
This sows more confusion, and doesn't needlessly spread our forces too thin.
>>
>>5697858
>>Let the codebrains worry about their own landing and offensive. The kid needs your support, and the Metal Gear is just small and heavily armed enough to reach him.
>>
>>5697858
>Let the codebrains worry about their own landing and offensive. The kid needs your support, and the Metal Gear is just small and heavily armed enough to reach him.
>>
>Let the codebrains worry about their own landing and offensive. The kid needs your support, and the Metal Gear is just small and heavily armed enough to reach him.
>>
>>5697882
He could always bust out Singing but we don't need any more fed attention than we already have.
>>
>>5697858

If you're going to be using AI in the first place, then you may as well make full and proper use of them.
Typing your commands into the console, you order the AIs to make their own landing and offensive, together with the Star-Fall.

You however, have a different mission.

The kid is likely under siege right now, with limited resources and no backup.
That's why you'll be going on ahead of everyone else, in spectacular manner.

You retake the controls from the girl, since she's clumsy and your autopilot VI would panic and shut down if you even suggested what you're about to do.

Making your way straight for the main entrance, you burn towards it at something like twenty times the recommended entry velocity.
You received landing permissions the moment SHODAN and the Caithan took over the station's main control room, so you're able to pass through without a problem.

The dock's automated systems attempt to slow you down using a short-range magnetic tractor, but one blast from the medium laser cannon obliterates the entire control tower and shuts that down.

There are station guards and what look like federation soldiers on the ground in and around the dock, and it looks like they've been setting up barricades using shipping containers and crates.
You don't have time to stick around, but your whole crew does give them a present as you pass by, in the form of instant vaporization via pulsed laser cannon.

There's too many of them to take out in one pass, but you're certain the drone ships and killbots will be able to handle that.
Although it does worry you somewhat to see large machines being hauled out of some of those shipping containers. Whatever they are, they can't be good news.

You pass over the docks without issue and continue at a relatively high speed over the entry ward, which appears to be in ruins past a certain point.
There are a number of automated anti-air lasers inside the station which begin firing on you, but they were meant to take out armored hovercars at most. Their lasers simply dissipate against your shields like laser pointers.

And whenever they do fire on you, Dak responds by obliterating them instantly.

Before long, you come up upon one of the main structural walls inside the asteroid. These are left in place to keep the asteroid from crumbling in on itself, and are carved from the body of the asteroid itself.
Of course they've been reinforced, but they're largely made of iron, nickel and silicate rock to begin with. Xebric was mined out in order to create the ships and equipment needed to mine metal from this asteroid belt to begin with.

But that also means it's not something you can simply blow a hole through, for several reasons.

Instead, you dip extremely low to the ground, flying at most a meter from the surface.
The burned-out husks of hovercars are shoved out of the way by your shields as you aim straight for a tunnel used by transport trucks.

It'll be a tight fit, so you retract the ship's lasers.
>>
>>5698771
https://youtu.be/fugPdcgFn2k
>>
>>5698771
Is this the prelude to Sanig and goblin girl discovering the Great NanoMutant Maw? I hope so and I hope it gets fucking razed to the ground.
>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji67FZmUo6E>>5698771
>>
>>5698771
GAS GAS GAS, GRANDPA STEPS ON THE GAS, AND FLIIIIES TONIGHT!
>>
>>5698771

You enter the tunnel, and as expected it's a tight fit.
A hovercar parked in the tunnel is crushed and shredded between the tunnel wall and your shield as you pass, which forces the Metal Gear aside slightly.

The shields are immediately overwhelmed as they press against the tunnel wall and simply dissipates along the entire right side.
The Metal Gear scrapes ever so slightly along the tunnel wall for a stretch, leaving a trail of sparks as the ship's ceramo-metallic foam armor is shaved off.

But you manage to pull it back, and the shield slowly begins to recover.

"Sanig, you don't have to go so fast!" Kyla yells.

"Don't you bitch at me, girl. How long do you think i've been flying for?!"

You quickly navigate through the computer interface next to you and designate any and all hovercars as a threat.
Dak immediately responds, and uses the forward laser cannons to fire on such obstacles before you're able to impact them.

Of course, they're still in the way. But being blown apart makes them much less solid, so you aren't bumping the walls anymore.

That allows you to focus on following the tunnel as it begins to curve slightly.
But you also notice something strange as you reach the end of the tunnel.

Something that isn't a hovercar or bit of debris keeps smashing into your shields, and burning on impact.
It must be organic, but you aren't sure what the hell you're looking at. Insects, maybe? But you've never seen or even heard of an insect getting that large on it's own, no less dozens of them.

It doesn't turn out to be an issue though, as you see the light at the end of the tunnel and manage to exit without issue, picking up speed as you're now in open air again.
The damage to the ward is even greater out here, and... gods almighty.

"What the FUCK is that?!" You yell, staring into your camera feeds.

To your left, there's a massive crater, almost like a sinkhole on a terrestrial world.
And in the very center of that crater is a gigantic... thing. A tumor, it looks like a fucking tumor!

You see it spraying some sort of reddish gas that fills the area, and it seems to be undulating.

"That's disgusting..." Kyla comments, having walked over to your console to look for herself.

>Shoot the fucking thing. The kid can wait for a minute, but whatever that is it needs to die right fucking now.
>Pass. Just ignore it for now. You really want to see that thing burn, but the kid is more important at the moment.
>Mark it as a priority target. Once the killbots make their way through the entrance ward, they'll head straight for the tumor.
>Write-in?
>>
>>5699460
>Shoot the fucking thing. The kid can wait for a minute, but whatever that is it needs to die right fucking now.
>>
>Shoot the fucking thing. The kid can wait for a minute, but whatever that is it needs to die right fucking now.
Only shoot it with something incendiary
>>
>>5699460
>Shoot the fucking thing. The kid can wait for a minute, but whatever that is it needs to die right fucking now.
>>
>>5699460
>>Shoot the fucking thing. The kid can wait for a minute, but whatever that is it needs to die right fucking now.
>>
>>5699460
>Write-in: Report it back to the flret and advise caution. Its not good but popping might have unforseen consequences.
>>
>>5699460
>Shoot the fucking thing. The kid can wait for a minute, but whatever that is it needs to die right fucking now.
Alien monkey brain: ACTIVATE
>>
>>5699460
>Pass. Just ignore it for now. You really want to see that thing burn, but the kid is more important at the moment.

Already the fact it's undulating is a red flag.
Don't pop what you don't want to blow up in your face, especially as the metal gear doesn't have full shield integrity at the moment.
>>
>>5699460
>Pass. Just ignore it for now. You really want to see that thing burn, but the kid is more important at the moment.
Cloakers are probably already on our ass.
>>
>>5699820
what do you mean shield integrity?
>>5699460
>>Shoot the shit
>>
>>5699460

You can't ignore this.
No, you could ignore it. But you absolutely won't.

You've seen a lot of scientific horrors escape and wreak havoc over the course of your life, and this is definitely one of those times.

Breaking to the left, you immediately aim at the thing and fire a burst of 20mm rounds into it's... it's body, you suppose.
They take a moment to fly the distance, but the target is so large that you couldn't possibly miss. They clearly impact it, but you can't see any visible damage.

There is definitely a reaction, however.

For one, massive amounts of reddish gas begin spewing from the area that was struck. The gigantic tumor then begins to shake violently, and a number of large tentacles seemingly sprout from it's surface.
As the tentacles flail violently in the air and smash into the ground and buildings surrounding it, you get a lock on the damned thing and fire a pair of missiles directly into the same spot you'd just hit.

They're on a delayed fuse, so they actually penetrate into the monster's body before exploding, and this time there's definitely some serious damage.

First, there's a massive spray of what looks like blood and meat chunks, followed by an enormous outpouring of reddish vapor.
That vapor begins to obscure your view of the monster, but you can see that it's tentacles seize up like a man who's just been struck in the head with a blunt object, and then they fall limp.

You don't know if that killed it. You don't even know what it might take to kill it, or even if it's technically alive to begin with, but you know that definitely hurt it.
The kid's explosives are no joke. At first he was just mixing [Redacted] and all sorts of [Redacted] together to get what he needed, but eventually he started working with SHODAN to develop what he calls "Spicy Playdough".

You were there when he described the sorts of chemical bonds that make a good 'spicy playdough', and what he said could only be called the ravings of a lunatic.
You barely even remember the details, partly because you tried to block it out of your memory, but you distinctly remember him saying "more nitrogen is more better. we need lots of ring strain, too."

Madman.

Their first attempt was something that detonated if you so much as shined a bright light on it, but it seems they managed to create something more stable in the end.
Or perhaps it's simply because he mixed it into a polymer that it doesn't detonate so easily. You aren't sure.

Regardless, the detonation velocities are ridiculous. The holes it puts into solid metal look like micrometeorite impacts.
The energy density is likewise ridiculous. Even the polymer is highly flammable, to create what he called a "secondary fireball" post-detonation.

Nevermind that it would only work in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. But he simply doesn't care.

In any case, you've wasted enough time on this, so you bank right again and make your way for a certain tower in the middle of the ward.
>>
>>5700300
>it's tentacles seize up like a man who's just been struck in the head with a blunt object
I sure hope it's not sentient, because it's going to wake up pretty pissed if it is. This looks like the sort of thing that needs to be cooked thoroughly before you can plate up and call it done.
>>
>>5700300
Did David invent space-grade bunker buster bombs? Fuck yeah.
It's probably not enough for nanomachines, and Sanig was aware of the redsang epidemic on the station and the connection to nanomachines. It's probably in character that he could link these together.

Lets leave behind a parting gift of napalm/thermite or whatever else David made in the tumour.
>>
>>5700011
>The shields are immediately overwhelmed as they press against the tunnel wall and simply dissipates along the entire right side.

I meant that shields are down on the right side thus making the ship vulnerable.

Dunno how bad the blast of fart air that thing released but apparently the ship was far enough away.

Still i would have preferred to try and isolate the thing before killing it, preferably with a poison or fire so it doesn't spread shit all over the station.

But i will content myself knowing it isn't active anymore right now.
>>
>>5700519
We can always spray it with the forbidden jello after things quiet down. But we need to increase the oxigen in this localized area...
>>
>>5700519
Your shields are back up, although that did drain the shield capacitors by about 25%.
They essentially shorted when coming into direct contact with the metallic surface of the asteroid, and dissipated without shattering as a result.
>>
>>5700300

==PERSPECTIVE CHANGE: DAVID==

It's been about ten minutes since you first went balls deep on these guys, and they haven't let up after getting their shit together.

At first they tried to storm the turret control room themselves, but that earned them a pile of corpses.
Then they tried to send a killbot after you, and that's how they figured out you aren't shooting marshmallows out of this rifle.

Then they tried it again, but this time they gave the killbot a riot shield.
It didn't last any longer than the first one.

Problem is, you're almost out of ammo.
No, realistically you're already out.

Two mags for your pistol, three rounds left in your rifle.

During the downtime you managed to grab a few weapons from those you took down, and you've been figuring out how to use them.
They aren't entirely dissimilar from guns, but they all have weird grips or firing mechanisms. Sometimes they have to be turned on with a switch, it's all fucked.

On the station cameras and radar you can see that the drone fleet has made it inside, but you don't have the leisure to watch them.
Hopefully these guys will give up on you soon after they realize what's going on...

Oh, great. You spoke too soon.
As soon as you think that, you hear someone making their way down the hall.

Is it another killbot?

Using a mirror to look outside, you get a glimpse of what it is before a ball of plasma strikes it and tries to take your hand off. You're left holding a shard of half-melted glass.
It's not a robot, it's a man. A humanoid, anyways. And he's big. Looks like he's wearing some kind of armored suit, just like you.

But fortunately, he seems to be alone.

>Use whatever ammo you've got left, and fire at him.
>Save your bullets, see if these plasma weapons will do any damage.
>It's just one guy. If that's all, you can beat his ass in a scrap any day.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5701695
>Save your bullets, see if these plasma weapons will do any damage.
>>
>>5701695
We got any spicy bricks left we can throw at the guy?
He seems to have good aim; throw a decoy first (spare weapon or debris), then the brick. Hell, throw two bricks.
>>
>>5701729
Just one.
David isn't the type to save all his consumables until the end of the game, it seems.
>>
>>5701729
+1
make a false vocal about being out of ammo and start throwing random shit and then throw the brick of spiciness, then detonate.
>>
>>5701695
>Empty the mags on the big guy
It's maggin time. I think this buffer is the fed sergeant we saw at the start of the mission.
>>
>Empty the mags on the big guy
let's fuck'em up!
>>
>>5701695
>Save your bullets, see if these plasma weapons will do any damage.
>>
>>5701695
>It's just one guy. If that's all, you can beat his ass in a scrap any day.
You know what an armored suit doesn't really protect your from? JOINT LOCKS!
>>
Rolled 3 (1d3)

1 = plasma
2 = explosives
3 = magdump
>>
>>5701695

There are a few ways you could go about this, and several reasons why you might or might not choose one over the other.
But you don't have time to think that hard about it. He's coming your way, and he's going to be a problem if you don't do something about it.

You know he's a crack shot, and he's got good eyes. You can take advantage of that, you think.

Picking a severed arm up off the floor, you position yourself by the door and show the barest outline of 'your' arm in the doorway, for just a moment.
Then, you throw the arm out into the hallway, hand first.

It immediately gets blasted with a ball of plasma, which causes it to violently burst into flames as it tumbles through the air.
But now his focus is shifted away from you. Before he even fired, you were already committed to the act, and you get your rifle up and aimed before he can shift his own aim back towards you.

Two soft points and a black tip at the end, just a mix of whatever you had left at the bottom of your bag.

Your aim is true, with one softpoint striking him in the stomach and the other striking him in the leg.
He seems to be stunned by the pain of the impact, but it doesn't seem like they went through. He's still standing, after all.

Last round. The black-tip strikes him dead-center of the chest and surely penetrates his armor.

Still, he takes one step forward. Then another, nearly stumbling.
Finally, he stops and just falls forwards.

You toss your rifle aside, as it's now useless to you.
Drawing your pistol instead, you keep it trained on the fallen man, and for good reason.

After ten seconds or so, he begins to stir again. You can hear him groaning, and it seems like he's going to get back up.
So you fire three more rounds into him. This time into his helmet, and the top of his left shoulder as he's lying flat on the ground.

Still, he doesn't seem to have died. Not yet, anyways. This guy's made of tougher stuff than most.
But he'll bleed out soon enough, you figure.

You turn around to head back into the turret control room, but in that very instant you feel like you've made a mistake.

Your instinct tell you to turn back around, but it's too late. You feel something crashing into you from behind, and whatever it is carries you with it's momentum straight into an instrument panel.
As you crash into it, the sheet aluminum dents and rips apart, and sparks fly as the components inside short and snap to pieces.

Fortunately, your suit is very much shock-proof, but damn if the impact itself didn't hurt.

Feeling the pressure on your back let up, you push yourself up off the ruined instrument panel and turn to face your enemy.
It's the fucker you just shot repeatedly, standing there like nothing's wrong with him. He's breathing heavily, but that's it.

No... glancing around, you can clearly see bullet holes where you'd shot him. You thought some of them didn't penetrate, but all of them did.
And that armor isn't armor, either.

"Shit... bionics?" You grumble.
>>
>>5702289
Yeah, should have figured they'd be throwing cyborgs at us. We should look into that stuff sometime, see if it's not worth chroming ourselves out a little.
>>
>>5702289

The man before you doesn't immediately attack. Instead, he stands before you and motions for you to come at him.
Seems like he wants a proper fight, although you're not sure why.

You could humor him, or...

>Take him on. Fight offensively, try to break him before he can do anything.
>Take him on. Fight defensively. You don't know how strong his bionics are, and you can't risk losing.
>Pretend to take him on, then blow his brains out.
>>
>>5702311
Pretty sure our bios are harder stuff than a lot of cyberware. Cyberware has to mount to bionic components somewhere. Additionally its uniquely weak to hacking and emp mechanisms.

We tooled shodan well beyond reasonable limits. Really should carry a knife with an electric taser built in
>>
>>5702333
>Additionally its uniquely weak to hacking and emp mechanisms.
to be fair, humans have equivalent weaknesses, so it becomes sort of a moot point
>>
>>5702332
>Pretend to take him on, then blow his brains out
Look at this fucking guy, he thinks we're gonna fall for his bait.
>>
>>5702289
I voted for a MAGDUMP why is David acting like the MC of an Amazon show ffs reee

>>>Take him on. Fight offensively.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hRMDWLNG0k It even features cyborgs at the beginning! Sort of
>>
>>5702335
Well there's a fine line between complimentary cybernetics and full on "THE FLESH IS WEAK" type augmentations.
I think a few good ground rules for cybernetics would be
>Less is more
>Don't replace something that works just fine
>Look for an external alternative first before jumping to implants and augmentation
>Don't make cybernetics capable of wireless networking unless you absolutely have to
>everything should have EMP shielding out the ass (doubly so for anything near vital organs or replacing them entirely)
>>
>>5702335
To be fair, human weaknesses are probably considered illegal bioweapons in space. Or massive overkill. Imagine putting one of the squishies into a proper joint lock. You'd probably just break their entire limb if you pushed hard enough just to arrest the movement of the average sport practitioner on Earth. Biomechanically humans are a bit janky, apes aren't supposed to be built quite like we are. So we're wimpy little shits comparatively. Imagine if you were trying to fight a pissed off gorilla, that's pretty much what it's like for the aliens compared to David. Lots of stuff you can do just will not work.
>>
We can do absurd things with gene bullshit such as replacing the calcium in our bones for another metal like iron. Stupid? Iron is 37% denser but it isn't a soft metal like calcium is... I am confident we can bullshit something with this and a reinforced sinew mesh because we don't want our biceps to go snabbidy snibbidy.

And Davis NEEDS collagen supplements... or some space magic collagen... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169409X18303193 check this out.
Also fibrin is an excelent wound healing factor that is SUPER underutilized because, you guessed it, it's cheap https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3740636/
>>
>>5702332
>Take him on. Fight offensively, try to break him before he can do anything.
Lets make a show.
>>
>>5702332
>>Take him on. Fight defensively. You don't know how strong his bionics are, and you can't risk losing.

Need to figure this guy out. We'll probably end up having to blow him up with the spicy brick.
>>
>>5702332
>>Pretend to take him on, then blow his brains out.
>>
>>5702332
>Pretend to take him on, then blow his brains out.
Shoot him, lol
>>
>>5702332
>Take him on. Fight defensively. You don't know how strong his bionics are, and you can't risk losing.
Eh. We don't know much about him, he doesn't know much about us. I'm sure he's got a few bionic tricks up his cyborg ass, but as of now we haven't got reason to play dirty with him yet, as he did let us get away after turning our backs on him.
Just don't get into a grapple with him...
>>
>>5702332
>Take him on. Fight offensively, try to break him before he can do anything.
>>
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>>5702289

You decide to go ahead and take him on.
You've fought against people with bionic enhancements before, and while tough, they aren't impossible to deal with.

The man before you stands tall despite his injuries. He's from a race you've never seen before, but he's distinctly humanoid despite his odd facial features.
Martial arts should work on him just fine. He probably won't have any weird animalistic abilities... you hope. You're pretty sure you've got this.

He's bigger than you, and given his cybernetics he's quite possibly heavier too. So you lower your stance, planting your feet just a bit wider as you prepare to attack.

You begin with a simple jab, which he easily reacts to and blocks. Perhaps emboldened by that half-hearted punch, your opponent strikes back with a heavy punch of his own.
However, he's immediately overextended himself, and now his body's wide open.

Using your left arm, you push his extended right arm aside and twist your hips as you drive your right fist straight up into his gut.
The impact is solid. Perhaps most of his muscles and bones have been replaced by bionics, you're not sure... but he doesn't feel soft and squishy like a normal alien.

Despite that though, your blow was definitely a shock to his system. You can see the surprise on his face, and he falls back a step on his own.
But it doesn't last long. He immediately recovers and actually manages to grab hold of your right arm before you can draw it back.

Then, to your shock, this son of a bitch actually manages to throw you!

He twists his whole body with a roar and flings you straight across the room.
The gravity in here may be low, but you're not made out of paper either, so you weren't expecting that.

Your back slams against the heavily perforated wall by the door, which dents inwards on impact.
You manage to soften the blow by relaxing your muscles, and thankfully it's not quite enough to knock the wind out of you.

Your opponent is already charging at you by the time you recover. Gives you back memories of being tackled by linebackers in school.
He tries to crush you against the wall with his shoulder, but you sidestep his charge, and he ends up slamming into the wall and denting it inwards even further.

He's not done yet, though. Having failed at that, he immediately swings at you with his massive strength, which you manage to duck underneath.
Again, he puts too much force into the swing, and now he needs a moment... or so you think. Instead of trying to recover, he simply continues his rotation and manages to grab your left arm with his right hand.

But regardless, you're already in position for something nasty.
Using your oppenent's grip to assist in pulling yourself up, you jump up from a squatting position and slam your right leg into his nutsack with everything you've got.

Only to feel your shinbone creak against a slab of metal.

"No fucking way, you didn't!" You cry out in horror.

Your opponent grins.
>>
>>5703495
Plan on making the vote later tonight, but right now it's fireworks time.
Happy fourth of july, everybody!
>>
>>5703496
don't blow up your fingers
>>
>>5703524
>implying i have the money for fireworks
i do the smart thing and drive around until i see someone maxing out their credit card
>>
>>5703495

Again he slams you into the wall, and this time he follows it up by punching you in the stomach, which you're forced to block simply by tightening your abs.
Now that almost knocked the damned wind out of you.

This guy's arms and legs are like tree trunks. You guess it doesn't matter how good your bionics are if you just make them fucking huge.

Still holding you by the arm, this fucker tries to follow up his gut punch with a blow straight to your head.
But that was a mistake.

His fist contacts your helmet and drives your head, which was already pressed against the wall, into the sheet metal behind you.
And it does absolutely no damage besides a hairline crack to your visor, because your helmet may as well be a solid block of steel.

He draws his hand back and examines it, and you notice that he seems to have broken two of his left-hand fingers.

Of course, you're not going to pass up this opportunity.

Jerking forwards, you slam your helmet into your opponent's skull, instantly shattering his nose and knocking out several of his teeth.
And again making use of his grip on you for leverage, you follow that up by slamming your knee straight into his side.

Still though, although your kick does make him stumble slightly, he doesn't let go. In fact, he seems almost unphased.
After that failed to seemingly do much, he starts grabbing at your helmet and trying to rip it off. That'll be hard to do without breaking your neck, so you'd like to avoid it if possible.

Alright, fuck this.

>His grip is locked on you like a vise. You weren't able to break SHODAN's duranium joints, but maybe this guy...
>Push him back a few steps, then judo throw his ass. Once he's on the ground, you'd bet you can stomp him a new asshole.
>You need to find a weak point on this guy. He doesn't seem to care where you hit him, but there has to be something that hurts him.
>He's not immune to bullets. You know that after shooting him in the chest with that black-tip, and you still have your 1911.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5703592
>He's not immune to bullets. You know that after shooting him in the chest with that black-tip, and you still have your 1911.
I'm not about to try and wrestle the Billion Credit Xeno. He can have some .45 ACP for his troubles though.
>>
>>5703592
>>He's not immune to bullets. You know that after shooting him in the chest with that black-tip, and you still have your 1911.

Man, we really don't need this guy breaking our suit's seal.
>>
>>5703592
>>He's not immune to bullets. You know that after shooting him in the chest with that black-tip, and you still have your 1911.
>>
>>5703592
>Write-In?
Grab one of his arms, use both our legs to push off against his chest, see if we can tear an arm off or something.
>>
>>5703495
>Push him back a few steps, then judo throw his ass. Once he's on the ground, you'd bet you can stomp him a new asshole.
>>
>>5703592
So our opponent is a borged up maniac.
Hand to hand is not very effective, so stomping him wont work well either.
I vote for:
>He's not immune to bullets. You know that after shooting him in the chest with that black-tip, and you still have your 1911.
But lets not get surprised if he shrugs it off too.
if that does not work then
>Break his joints.
>>
>>5703592
>>He's not immune to bullets. You know that after shooting him in the chest with that black-tip, and you still have your 1911.
>>
>>He's not immune to bullets. You know that after shooting him in the chest with that black-tip, and you still have your 1911.
>>
>>5703592
>>Write-in
>>Kamizake with the c4
joking joking
vote in:
>>He is not inmune to bullets.
I wonder where should David aim at. All in to the head¿? Maybe going safe and firing at the elbows
>>
Roll me 1d100, best of 3.
DC: 70
>>
How do I roll again
>>
Rolled 44 (1d100)

>>5704218
>>
Rolled 45 (1d100)

>>5704218
>>
Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5704218
>>
Rolled 15 (1d100)

>>5704218
>>
Finally, a worthy opponent!
>>
>>5704224
dice+1d100 in the options field
>>
Rolled 8 (1d10)

>>5704234
>>5704232
>>5704225
ooferino is this the first roll we've failed? Gramps hurry up...
>>
Rolled 83 (1d100)

here's to hoping for a crit
>>
>>5704237
hell yeah brother
>>
>>5703592

You're not about to let this guy rip your helmet off.
Reaching down to your side, you pull your pistol out and fire it straight up into his head three times.

You can see the damage being done as they pass through, but you still follow it up by dumping the entire rest of the mag into his chest, around where his heart and lungs should be... assuming he still has them.
The bullets penetrate. Even though they're slow and heavy .45 rounds, they still go through. You're not sure how deep, but surely it's deep enough.

...Right?

Your opponent does let go of your arm, but only to grab at his own face in response to the damage.
He stumbles back, but he doesn't fall over dead. Even though you shot him in the head three times. Even through you shot him in the chest over and over gain.

That's when you notice, there's no blood at all dripping from any of his wounds.
This guy... he's closer to SHODAN than any organic.

"Cheap..." He groans in a robotic-sounding voice. His mouth doesn't move. He's speaking through a speaker implanted in his neck.
"I expected more from whatever's been slipping around, but it turns out you're just a coward." He continues.

He's not immediately attacking, so you drop your mag and load up the last one you've got before holstering it.
It doesn't seem like a pistol is going to help you here.

"You... are you an AI?" You ask him.

He scoffs.

"As if anyone would give an AI a body like this to run around in. Do you think we're all fools?"

"I dunno, you cut off your dick. Seems pretty stupid to me."

"Just another weakness removed. This body is perfect. And even if you damage it, i can't be killed."

You wonder about that.
He says he's not an AI. That means there must be a brain in there somewhere, even if it's the only organic part of him left.

And it's probably not in his head, since you just put several significant holes in it.

He doesn't give you any more time to think, however. It seems like he's eager to get back into the fight.
Reaching down to his side, he pulls a stick off his belt. With a push of a button and the flick of his wrist, it extends out into a baton.

And the end of that baton begins arcing with electricity like a tesla coil.
Holy shit, that's super high voltage. Your suit is definitely shock-proof, but do you really want to test how much?

Well, you guess he's not giving you much of a choice.
You draw your KA-BAR from your thigh holster in response, and this time take a lighter stance.

He swings the baton at your head, and you duck under it while placing your knife in the path of his arm, allowing him to cut himself as he overswings.
Your knife's duranium blade does manage to cut his armored skin, but not very deeply. It throws sparks as it passes through, but you can't tell if those are metal shavings or electrical sparks.

Either way, his body is made out of something metallic. Possibly plasteel, or some other kind of composite.
>>
>>5703495
Oh my God, Akuma is real, AND HE HAS NO BALLS!
>>
>>5704268
Naw, this guy's no Akuma. Even he knows giving up your body instead of training it is a fool's errand.
>>
>>5704262
I wasn't sure....but now you have my attention.
>Put away gun. RIP AND TEAR!
>>
>>5704262
>"I expected more from whatever's been slipping around, but it turns out you're just a coward." He continues.
big words from someone who had to become a toaster in order to become strong
>>
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>>5704262
>"As if anyone would give an AI a body like this to run around in. Do you think we're all fools?"
Yeah, that would be stupid. Haha...

I know we can't turn tail but I think we should inmobilize him. And for that we have to focus on the limbs. David, remember the basics of QCQ
>>
>>5704262
>Unlike you Im all natural.
Our gains are real yours are fake.
>>
>>5704262
>it turns out you're just a coward."
My brother in Xanadu you literally just admitted you have a backup in case someone gives you a big enough ouchie to put you under.

This fucking guy.
>>
>>5704262
That's it. It time to throw this guy off, then through, hell in a cell.
>>
>>5704262

Your opponent brings his arm up and tries to bring it down on your head, but you manage to roll out of the way, and take a slice at his right knee while you're at it.
Having escaped the space between him and the wall, you feel a little less pressure as you pop back up to your feet.

But he immediately puts that pressure back on by pivoting on his right leg to deliver a massive kick at your torso.

With barely any time to respond, you're forced to quite literally bend over backwards to avoid it, landing in a crab walk.
You quickly flip over and donkey kick this son of a bitch straight in his chest, sending him flying across the room. He hits the floor and slides for a distance before slowly pushing himself back up to his feet.

"Not bad." He says with a smirk. "Wonder where you managed to get bionics of that quality?"

You're not even gonna tell him. For one, he probably wouldn't believe you. And secondly, he's probably gonna fucking die here.
Once you figure out how to kill him, that is.

He begins walking slowly towards you, with the sort of smug confidence that really makes it satisfying to watch crumble.
And looking at his gait, you notice he's favoring his left leg. Maybe unconsciously, since he doesn't seem to feel any pain, but he's favoring it.

Did you damage his knee with your knife? Did he make that damage worse by using that leg as a pivot?
You aren't sure, but it tells you that you are in fact doing damage. Little by little, you're picking him apart.

>Keep going for his joints with your knife. You know that works. You can see it.
>If your knife can damage his joints, you'd bet you can break them by hand. Go for massive damage.
>You have one mag left. Twelve rounds. No telling what might come next, but this guy's the biggest problem you've had so far.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5704632
>>If your knife can damage his joints, you'd bet you can break them by hand. Go for massive damage.
You ever see what happens when a linebacker trips and slams shoulder first into a braced knee? Would you like to?
>>
>>5704632
>Keep going for his joints with your knife. You know that works. You can see it.
I was going to make a write-in about taking advantage of the fact that every time psionic shit gets involved electronics get fucked, but I realized we're still in a room full of sensitive electronics that we want to keep relatively intact.
>>
>>5704632
>Keep going for his joints with your knife. You know that works. You can see it.
>>5704635
I feel like you're referencing a specific incident and now I wanna see it.
>>
>>5704632
>Write-In: Challenge him to arm wrestling.
>>
>>5704632
>Keep going for his joints with your knife. You know that works. You can see it.

Patience. We'll give this a shot.
>>
>>5704632
this>>5704635
>>
>>5704632
>If your knife can damage his joints, you'd bet you can break them by hand. Go for massive damage.
>>
>>5705164
>>5705184
Why did it show up now?
>>
File: shrek-snap.gif (3.19 MB, 498x365)
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>>5705187
>>
>>5705188
Hey, not my fault 4chan fucks up.
>>
>>5705190
A good craftsman never blames his tools
Clearly you have some sort of skill issue.
>>
>>5705192
How the fuck is it a skill issue when the post button goes through, then doesnt show anything even when the page refreshes?
>>
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>>5705202
Might i offer you some soothing anal cream whilst you wait for your posts to go through?
>>
>>5705210
Yo those have applicators now? Shiiieeeet I remember when you just had to stick a finger up your ass.

Pain relief cream? What are you talking about?
>>
>>5705210
I am appaled how there isn't a single mention of the ACTUAL DRUG used in this bullshit cream
>>
>>5705319
It's ADVANCED RELIEF from Med PRIDE. Just stick it in; don't you trust the SCIENCE?!
>>
>>5705320
MAXIUM STRENGHT
>>
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>>5705324
MAXIMUM ARMOR
>>
>>5705330
MAXIMUM SPEED
>>
>>5705331
IMPACT-THOUGH
>>
>>5705330
Actually this brings up a good question. Is cyanoacrylate adhesive (superglue) widely available in space?
Is that something we can synthesize onboard the Metal Gear? If nothing else, it'd be another nifty little item to throw in our IFAK.
>>
>>5705339
>*sniff*
>MAXIMUM SPEEEEEEEED
Seems like it'd be a banned substance out here, desu
>>
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I am building my drukhari army and I spilled my cement all over the desk. I cleaned it with a paper towel and kept working on my plastic and after ten minutes I felt like passing out.
I stumbled out of the room holy shit
>>
>>5705359
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloromethane#Toxicity
like, lmao...
>>
>>5705339
It's not. The fumes alone would be considered a hazard, nevermind that it's exothermic and flammable.
There are other non-toxic polymer glues which work pretty well, though.
>>
>>5704632

>Roll me 1d100, best of 3
First DC: 40
Second DC: 60
>>
Rolled 13 (1d100)

>>5705564
LESGO
>>
Rolled 98 (1d100)

>>5705564
funny dice go
>>
Rolled 14 (1d100)

>>5705564
>>
>>5704632

You decide to stick with what you know is working.
Brandishing your knife, you wait for your opponent to approach you.

He's extremely confident, to the point of ignoring his own injuries.
He's both strong and fast, but brutish in his methods. You know from your own experience that he's probably never needed much in the way of technique out here.

He's also making a lot of assumptions about you. And you can take advantage of all that.

"Shit, what are you made of?" You say, luring him in closer to you.

He grins.

"The best composite armor, artificial muscle and mimetic alloys you can buy. Don't be too jealous."

Your opponent swings at you with his baton, which you manage to sidestep.
The baton slams into one of the consoles and sends a shower of sparks and molten metal flying as it's capacitor discharges into it, frying it to hell.

Even the lights in the room dim momentarily from the power surge.

"You know, the Federation is always looking for capable men. Perhaps we can get you an upgrade?" He suggests.

Yeah, as if you'd ever let the fucking feds put you under a scalpel.
You'd honestly rather blow your brain out than let that happen.

He swings at you again, diagonally upwards this time.
This leaves his right side open, and allows you to slip in.

You step well into his space and move around his side, jamming your knife up and into his armpit before backing off as he turns to face you.
As he swings his baton down on you from above, you push his arm aside with your free hand and reverse your knife's grip before plunging it down into his inner elbow.

You struggle a bit to tear the knife free as he flexes his arm and throws you aside, but that only means it does more damage on it's way out.

He does manage to throw you aside with his massive strength, but not as far as he might have liked.
You roll with the momentum and immediately pop back up to your feet, intent on rushing at him and dealing more damage.

However, after noticing the damage you've done to his arm, his demeanor changes somewhat. That cocky grin turns into a frown, and he seems upset.
That's when he raises his left hand and snaps his fingers, and all the lights in the room immediately go out as his body glows with a purple-ish coronal discharge.

Your thermal camera also dies in that moment, and you feel your translator implant overheating for the first time in a while.
It must be an EMP, this fucker. That's right, he thinks you're a cyborg too.

Well, he's got another thing coming.

You can't see where he is right now, but you remember his position clearly.
Charging ahead in the dark, you crouch down low and make a large sweep towards his legs.

Of course, you hit something. It's hard to tell where exactly, but you hit him.

"Shit!" he curses.

The room suddenly lights up again as your opponent's shock baton lights up.
He swings it at you, but you turn and catch the baton in your left hand, the use it to wrench his arm aside and stab upwards into his tricep.
>>
>inb4 "you're emp-hardened too?!"
>>
>YOU STILL HAVE YOUR FLESH
>AND YOUR BALLS?!
>In my defense, my girls claimed my balls, never been more empty in my life.
>>
>>5705611
"Hey Robo-fed, why would I need an upgrade to this Grey-made biological perfection?"

time for some psyops
>>
>>5706108
better yet, its not even grey made(as far as we know). its pure, 100% mother nature, baybeh
>>
>>5706114
While you're right (at least as far as Sanig knows), sowing discord between the Feds and Greys would be a wonderful thing. There's still the Greys operating out of that pirate base not that far away from where David and this station are, so this is plausible that they've created some biological monstrosity.
>>
>>5706108
But what if the greys really did make us but thought they wiped us out or something?

Best let em think we're a bot.
>>
>>5706302
>there's just no way all of the good qualities of the old greys and all the good qualities of a species from an utter hellscape of a planet that would kill the average spacenoid with its gravity alone could ever occur naturally
>don't blame us for you guys having shitty evolution
Humanity just keeps winning.
>>
>>5706302
Imagine if the Greys thought they were doing the universe a favour by destroying the dinosaur megafauna with a diverted asteroid before it escaped, not realising that the surviving hairy rats would evolve and be do even more for the universe.

Like ushering in a new age of flavourful food and GAINS
>>
>>5705611

At this point, his arm is so thoroughly lacerated that you're able to simply rip the baton out of his hand.
You give him a good whack to the side of his head, discharging a fuckton of electricity into his body and stunning him momentarily.

However, that leaves you in the dark again.

As the baton slowly recharges, it begins to arc with electricity and illuminate both you and your opponent.
You stand there in the dark, momentarily appearing through flashes of light as you hold your knife menacingly in one hand, and your enemy's stolen weapon in the other.

It's hard to see his face in the darkness, but you can tell that for a moment at least, he seemed uncertain. Almost afraid.

"What's the matter, Fed? I thought that perfect body of yours couldn't be killed." You growl.

This time, he remains unusually silent. All you can hear is the crackling of electricity from the baton in your left hand.
That is, until your opponent takes off towards the hall door.

He might be trying to escape, or he could be trying to reach his gun. Either way, you're not going to let that happen.
You hurl the baton at him with everything you've got. It spins through the air and strikes him in the back, shocking him again and causing him to fall forwards, faceplanting and sliding along the ground.

That gives you plenty of time to catch up on him.

With the baton discharged it's dark again, but you know more or less where he is.
Diving down on top of him, you use both hands and your entire bodyweight to shove your knife somewhere into his body, and twist.

He grunts in response, so you know you hit him.
He may or may not feel pain, but he must be feeling something every time he's hit. He knows when he's been damaged.

He must be panicking now. His wounds are building up more than he expected. He's lost his weapon, and now with the baton arcing straight to the floor, he's stuck with you in the dark.
One thing you've learned about aliens is that most of them don't fear the dark. They aren't afraid of whatever might lurk inside, because in most cases there simply wasn't anything lurking there.

But it's different for predators. The worlds you grew up on were always hostile, and there was always something that could be hunting you at night, even as you huddled around your campfires.
Even if this guy is nothing but a brain in a robot body, you're certain that evolutionary fear is there. You're sure he's feeling it right now.

It's time to go on a hunt.

>You just want to end this. You'll carve him to pieces if you have to, but you want him dead.
>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5706558
>>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
He's a fed borg. He almost certainly has a communications link at the moment. being able to carve that implant, and its backup, is the most important thing.

That said, given the spores outside, those cuts can fuck up his bio also
>>
>>5706558
>You just want to end this. You'll carve him to pieces if you have to, but you want him dead.
We can rip all the good bits out of him later, right now he's a fucking PROBLEM.
>>
>>5706558
>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
Fuck up his arms and legs. Once he's a nugget we can ask him questions and stuff while still paying attention to the door.
>>
>>5706558
>>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
>>
>>5706558
>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
>>
>>5706558
>>you just want to end this.
Screw feds! I don't want forced exposition on the setting we know enough
>>
>>5706558
>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
Make sure he doesn't have any wireless connectivity first...
>>
>>5706558
>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
>>
>>5706558
>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
>>
>>5706558
>>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
>>
>>5706558
>This guy's a Fed. He may have all sorts of valuable information, so you'll try and take him alive.
Brain in a box please, bonus points if we can mount him on spider legs later like that creepy as fuck doll in Toy Story.
>>
Roll me 1d100, best of 3.
First DC: 45
Second DC: 70
>>
Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5707403
go farther...
>>
Rolled 49 (1d100)

>>5707403
>>
Rolled 30 (1d100)

>>5707403
Eee ooyee wagga wagga
>>
>>5706558

You want to take him alive if you can.
He's a fed. You haven't really interacted with them much, but you know they're an enemy, and this guy probably has all sorts of information on them.

However, that might be difficult for a few different reasons.
Oh well, you'll just have to give it a shot.

You manage to draw back your knife and stab him one more time before he knocks you away.
This time though, you land on your feet and don't slide that far. He's definitely losing steam.

About that time, you sudden hear and feel an explosion relatively nearby. Not inside this facility, you think... but definitely close to it.
You don't know what's going on outside, but the feds and station guards must be getting attacked by now.

Focusing on the target in front of you, you intentionally make some noise while walking, allowing your boots to click against the ground until you feel like you've gotten fairly close to him.
Then you simply stop. You wait, and you listen.

It doesn't take long for him to make a noise.
His shuddering breath, the ruffling of his clothes. That's all you need to pinpoint his location.

He's not a wraith, so you can't just feel his presence. It's harder like that, but you're still pretty decent when it comes to blindfighting.

You move silently now, making sure that your boots make smooth and even contact with the surface, from one end to the other.
Walking around your opponent, you keep track of him by sound. Until you feel like you're at his side, or maybe near his back.

Then, after getting right up next to him, you pull an empty magazine out of one of your pockets, and toss it across the room.
As it clatters against the ground, you feel your opponent's body turn to face the sound. That's when you strike, plunging your knife deep into his body again.

You manage to stab him three times before backing off, and you hear a whoosh of air as he swings at nothing.

"Coward!" He screams. "Come out and face me!"

Dumbass. You're facing him right now.
It's not your fault he doesn't know how to keep quiet, nor how to listen for you.

His breathing is getting heavier.

That just makes it easier to keep track of him.
You slip in behind him... and you're sure you are behind him this time.

Was it here? His knee should be at about this height.

Crouching down, you first stab him in the back, and then when he turns to swing at you with his arms and hits nothing, you follow it up by stabbing him right in the kneecap and twisting.
There's a loud pop as something breaks or disconnects, and your target almost immediately falls as both his knees gives out on him.

"Shit! SHIT!" He cries. "How can you see me?! Why didn't the EMP work?!"

>Tell him that you're all natural
>Tell him you're a Grey-enhanced cyborg
>Say nothing
>Write-In?
>>
>>5707473
>Say nothing
we aren't gonna just tell him where we are by speaking, who knows what other goofy shit he has in that body of his
>>
>>5707473
>Tell him that you're all natural
>>
>>5707473
>Say nothing
>>
>>5707473
>Say nothing
Save our words for after we've secured the station.
>>
>Say nothing
gettin' way too cuddly in here, fuckin talking to the enemy like life is a cartoon instead of completing our objectives are we a Leatherneck or not!
>>
>>5707473
>Say nothing
Oh now this must be fucking terrifying. Real Gaia vs Sikorsky vibes.
>>
>>5707473
>>Write in
>>You're pretty good...
>>
>>5707473
>Say nothing
>>
>>5707473
>Say nothing
>>
>>5707473
>Say nothing
>>
>>5707473
All we have to say is "why would an EMP work?"
>>
>>5707473

This guy, you really don't feel like talking to him in the first place, but you're certain he must have something in that artificial body of his that's transmitting back somewhere.
It might be a good opportunity to spread some misinformation, like you being a grey-enhanced cyborg or some shit...

But you decide against it after a few moments.

Honestly, you don't know how the feds would react to whatever bullshit you came up with. It might have worse consequences than telling the truth.
So the best thing you can do, you reckon, is to say nothing at all.

Walking over to him, you flick on your backup headlamp. A simple pile battery and incandescent bulb that isn't affected by EMPs.
You learned your lesson after getting caught in the dark with those fucking wraiths.

The light is dim, but more than enough to see your target.

He tries to crawl away from you, but with his limbs mangled that proves difficult.
You grab him by the ankle and pull him back towards you, intent on zipping his hands and feet together.

The man, apparently having forgotten some critical information, uses his one good arm to grab you by the combat vest and attempts to headbutt you.
Of course, you respond by throwing your own head forwards. Your armored helmet caves in what's left of his face, doing absolutely nothing besides smearing grease on your visor.

He's panicking hard at this point. You can see the gears turning in his head as he tries something you honestly didn't expect.
He grabs your crotch and tries to crush your balls in his grip.

Unfortunately for him, that particular bit of critical infrastructure is well armored. All he manages to grab is your cup.

You're sure he has quite the grip, but you know all too well how tough plasteel is.

"I don't swing that way, pal." You grumble, stomping on his chest and forcing him back down to the floor.

After that he rolls over and continues trying to crawl away from you, so you crush his last remaining limb underfoot, then sever the artificial muscle around his elbow with your knife.

"You won't get away with this, you piece of shit. The federation never forgets. They'll hunt you for the rest of your life!" He growls.

The control room is rocked by another explosion, this time much closer by the sound of things.

"I'd like to see them try." Is your only response.

Using zip-ties, you manage to get his arms and legs bound together. He does resist, but there's not much he can do now.

After pulling him around behind the turret consoles to keep him out of harm's way, you go and pick up the 'stun' baton he was using. Although it seems more like it's set to kill than stun.
Regardless, it seems like a decent weapon against organics and robots alike, despite it's relatively slow recharge rate.

After about five minutes of silence, a pair of guards come to scout the room.
They carefully peek around the door, shining their lights inside.

But all they see is you standing there alone in the dark, holding that baton.
>>
>>5708310
What a hypocrite. Typical bully. You actually put hands on him and he loses all his bluster. What a pansy. A dickless pansy no less.
>>
>>5707473
>Tell him you're a Grey-enhanced cyborg
I missed my cue ;-;

>>5708310
None may survive combat with David unless David deigns it suit his purpose like blacksmith dad.
>>
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>>5708310
>But all they see is you standing there alone in the dark, holding that baton.
>"Pick up that can."
>>
>>5708310
>It might have worse consequences than telling the truth.

>we spout some random bullshit, or worse, that we're all natural
>the federation panics
>the federation pools all its resources into making a new supersoldier
>they end up pulling the space soldier equivalent of the f-15
>>
>>5708652
Yeah no, remaining a mystery to the Federation is in our best interest.
To that end, I say we invest in a disguise and new identity afterwards.
There's gotta be some humanoid species about our size we can pose as.
>>
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Wraith Hunter
>>
>>5703592

They quickly cut their lights and get back into cover.
And then they start talking to eachother, as if you can't hear them.

"Is that him?" One man whispers to the other.

"I... i dunno. It doesn't look like him, but he's got the vice-captain's baton..." The other replies.

"Well why don't you go in and check?"

"Fuck you, why don't you go in?!"

"I'm not going in there, you go in there!"

You allow the baton to spark once or twice while they're peeking through the door, briefly illuminating your figure from one side.

"...I don't think that's the vice-captain."

"Shit. What are we supposed to do now?"

"How should i know? If the vice-captain couldn't take him, what am i supposed to do?"

There's a prolonged silence between the two of them.

"Look, maybe we should just get the hell out."

"And go where? Down to the industrial ward, with them mutants?"

"What, you got a better idea?"

"I dunno. Maybe if we just surrend-"

The two men are cut off mid-conversation by a hail of bullets. The gunfire is quite distinct from any sort of noise a phaser or plasma weapon makes.
You can't see them from where you're standing, but you're pretty sure they were killed instantly.

"...SHODAN, is that you?" You call out.

"Kid! Are you alright?!" Sanig calls out.

To your surprise, the one that comes through the door isn't SHODAN or Cylia, but Sanig... and Gildur.

"Yeah, i'm fine. A little bruised, maybe." You tell him.

"Seriously? It looks like a bomb went off in here, kid. Piles of bodies, and the walls are full of holes..."

"Yeah, i used a bomb or two. I'm also out of ammo. Got any spare mags?"

"Sorry kid, all i'm carrying is .22 hornet. Gildur's got some 5.56 though, i think."

Gildur immediately pulls two spare mags of 5.56 out of his vest and tosses them to you.
Plain FMJ, but it'll do. It'll do just fine.

Picking up your rifle, which you had cast aside, you insert the mag and rack it, finding it to still be in good condition.

"What's it like outside?" You ask.

"Our killbots are on the ground. I left the offensive to the AIs, but it'll be a while before they clear things out." Sanig tells you.

"And those explosions earlier?"

"Ah, well... they didn't take too kindly to us showing up in the Metal Gear. They threw a few fighters and land-based machines at us, not that it mattered much."

"Land-based... you mean these?" You ask, sending him a screenshot from your helmet cam of the machine you hid from earlier today.

"Yeah, those. They don't stand a chance against missiles or 20mm shells." Sanig affirms.

"I'd be shocked if they did. Any word from SHODAN or Cylia?"

"Not really. SHODAN's been relaying information, but apparently she's in combat right now."

"Against what?" You ask. It's odd that she would be in combat against pretty much anything for long.

"Don't know, she didn't give us a lot of information."

"...Alright. Gildur, grab the guy who's tied up over there and bring him back to the ship." You order.
>>
>>5708686

Gildur gives you a salute and follows your orders, immediately following your finger and rushing over to where the vice-captain lays.
He's momentarily stunned by what he sees, but quickly gets his shit together and grabs the man, slowly dragging him out of the room by his feet.

Apparently he's pretty heavy.

"This room's been EMP'd, so i don't know if the station's guns are still active or not." You say to no-one in particular as you grab your bag, which now feels much lighter.

>Sanig, you keep guard here while i back up SHODAN. See if you can get the lights back on while you're at it.
>We're already inside and these consoles are offline, so i think we'll be fine to leave it. Let's go help the girls out.
>Sanig, you back SHODAN up for now. I'm gonna grab my power armor from the Metal Gear.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5708688
>Sanig, you back SHODAN up for now. I'm gonna grab my power armor from the Metal Gear.
Yeah, stealth is out the window. Time for INCREDIBLE VIOLENCE.
>>
>>5708688
>Sanig, you keep guard here while i back up SHODAN. See if you can get the lights back on while you're at it.
>first go to the metal gear to get the armor and more ammo
>>
>>5708688
>Sanig, you keep guard here while i back up SHODAN. See if you can get the lights back on while you're at it.
>>
>>5708688
>Sanig, you back SHODAN up for now. I'm gonna grab my power armor from the Metal Gear.


Let's get dangerous.
>>
>>5708688
>>Sanig, you back SHODAN up for now. I'm gonna grab my power armor from the Metal Gear.
>>
>>5708688
>>Sanig, you back SHODAN up for now. I'm gonna grab my power armor from the Metal Gear.
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS
>>
>>5708688
>Sanig, you keep guard here while i back up SHODAN. See if you can get the lights back on while you're at it.

It's oddly touching seeing gildur actually rising his neck coming out here for us, but... is he just carrying some anno for us, or is he carrying a rifle? I don't think he ever learned to shoot, did he?
>>
>>5708835
He already knew how to shoot a phaser, but you taught your whole crew how to operate firearms safely and effectively.
Gildur came armed with an AR-15, which is why he has spare mags for you.
>>
from what I understood threads ago Gildur is BUFF for a member of his species
>>
>>5708688
>Sanig, you keep guard here while i back up SHODAN. See if you can get the lights back on while you're at it.
Personally, I think it's best to have both Sanig and Gildur guarding the console room while we go and help out SHODAN & Cylia. I am loathed to leave the console room alone, and I don't want Gildur going through the complex alone dragging what could be an important piece of baggage.
If they have some explosives, take some of it. We'll need more than just 2 mags of 5.56 if neither of our girls could solve the problem after all this time. Get METAL GEAR airborne and start patrolling for threats, maybe Kyla can head off some reinforcements.
>>
>>5709057
finaly, an anon with sense
>>
>>5708688
>Sanig, you keep guard here while i back up SHODAN. See if you can get the lights back on while you're at it.
>>
>>5709057
+1
>>
>>5708688

"Sanig, you keep guard of the turret controls for now. See if you can get the lights back on, make sure the turrets are running." You order, making your way out of the room.

"Oh yeah, because i'm an electrical engineer, right? Now where did i put my toolbox?" Sanig responds, mockingly.

"Just see what you can do, man. I'm gonna back up SHODAN for now."

["Fine, kid. Are you gonna grab your power armor?"]

You pick up the pace, sprinting your way down the hall.
There are a couple of new bodies here and there, but it doesn't look like Sanig and Gildur encountered much resistance.

"No time." You tell him. "SHODAN's one thing, but i can't print a new Cylia. I can't afford to show up too late."

["You sure?"]

"It was never a question."

...

As you retrace your steps, you quickly make your way back to the mezzanine room from before.
The area where you had been was mostly clear, and the one living man you encountered on your way back nearly shit himself when he saw you sprinting down the hall.

He wasn't hostile though, so you left him alive, cowering in the fetal position as you passed by.

Now that you're here however, you hear a lot more activity coming from other parts of the facility.
Frantic shouting, scraping metal, people running. You might end up fighting again, but there's no need to defend a position this time around.

>Hit and run, literally. Use your hardlight shield and the baton, smack the shit out of anyone who gets in your way.
>Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out. You don't want them hitting you from behind.
>Pure speed. You're way faster than any of these guys. Just dash past them.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5709323
>Hit and run, literally. Use your hardlight shield and the baton, smack the shit out of anyone who gets in your way.
>>
>>5709323
>Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out. You don't want them hitting you from behind.
>>
>>5709323
>>Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out. You don't want them hitting you from behind.
>>
>>5709323
>Hit and run, literally. Use your hardlight shield and the baton, smack the shit out of anyone who gets in your way.
>>
>>5709323
>>Pure speed. You're way faster than any of these guys. Just dash past them.
David will literally zoom past them and they won't be able to aim. Plus I trust the armour.
>>
>>5709323
Power armor definitely needs a delivery system for future use...
>>
>>5709740
Perhaps a VI powered autonomous mode, but then again that is just another thing to hack so nah. Maybe store it on a hovercart that can hone in on us?
>>
>>5709781
that's the same issue as the autonomous mode. what if it gets hacked and delivers the armor to someone else?

i mean, the answer is that hopefully our EWAR measures are strong enough, but the problem remains the same
>>
>>5709781
We could just make a disposable missile-type shell and have it hot dropped from a ship.
>>
>>5709323
Start screaming while we're running through them. Punch anyone dumb enough to stay in our way.
>>
>>5709791
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp28DVxlq6Y
a what now
>>
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>>5709740
You could strap a full AI to it, or you could strap it to Princess.
>>
>>5709789
Not quite as dire. A hacked cart steals the suit but a hacked suit with us inside? That's real bad. The cart is a quick short term solution until we can get the better system up and running, be it rocket or what have you.
>>
>>5709323
>>Hit and run, literally. Use your hardlight shield and the baton, smack the shit out of anyone who gets in your way.
>>
Roll me 1d100, best of 3.
Higher is better.
>>
Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5710693
high
>>
Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5710693
better
>>
3rd roll please clutch
>>
>>5710698
How to roll?
>>
>>5710702
dice+1d100
on the options section of the post
>>
Rolled 89 (1d100)

>>5710693
Rollin'
>>
Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5710693
>>
>>5710706
oh thank god Im slow at posting
>>
>>5710698
Thanks
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5710715
>I'm not just Autistic but also a retard.
>>
>>5709323

You decide to blow through the opposition as safely as possible, without wasting too much time.

From the shield pack on your left arm, you ignite your hardlight shield and hold it in front of you as you advance.
In your right hand, you hold the likely lethal baton taken from that muscled-up bionic retard.

Having taken a few moments to memorize the path you're going to take, you start charging down the tunnels towards your team.

You're fast. Faster than most of these guys could ever hope to be, in part thanks to Cylia teaching you how to run properly in low gravity.
Still, some of the enemy is able to react to your presence as they see you before you pass them, especially as you get closer to the station control room and more of them appear.

Those that spot you from afar manage to get some shots off on you, but you're able to sidestep most of them, and those that you can't are blocked by your shield.
With the exception of those that come from behind, of course. You still manage to avoid most of those as well, but you can't keep your eyes behind you all the time, so a few manage to make contact.

But your armor is sturdy, naturally heat-resistant and ablative. It manages to tank the shots without issue, although you do feel your back starting to get hot after the fourth or fifth shot taken.
Your answer to that is body-blocking. Wherever possible, you put a man between yourself and whoever might be aiming at you. Naturally, it's not always possible, but it helps a lot.

Not only that, you start taking pre-emptive measures against anyone who has a plasma weapon at the ready.
At first you only struck those who looked like they were going to shoot or strike out at you, but it quickly became clear that you'd have to go out of your way to take out others who'd shoot you from behind as well.

As you build up more and more speed through the tunnels, you start to feel almost like you're flying. Your feet barely touch the ground before you kick off again and start sailing through the air.
And when you round a corner, you end up running sideways along the wall to keep from slamming straight into it. It would probably hurt quite a bit at this speed, even for you.

Low gravity is really amazing. You imagine it must feel even better for Cylia, who's so much lighter than you.
If the atmosphere were thicker, she might even be able to fly around using some fake wings.

Sadly, most species simply can't breathe air that thick, even if the oxygen content were to remain the same overall.
It would be like trying to breathe water for them, and others would get poisoned due to gasses dissolving into their blood. Not to mention depressurization whenever they leave the station... ah well, maybe if it was just one ward...

Ah, that's no good. You need to stay focused here.
A station guard tries to dive for and trip you up, but just ends up with two broken arms as you smash your hardlight shield against him.
>>
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>>5710723
>Station guards right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w9PukG97oQ

Nostalgia bomb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRgbir8TGSA
>>
>>5710723
Can a human flap their arms like a bird in a wingsuit and actually fly in low enough gravity of say 0.2g?
major Batman vibes
>>
>>5711144
short answer, yes
>>
>>5710723

Smashing into him like that nearly drains your shield's capacitor. It's still not very good with physical impacts, at least not in this compact form.
Bigger caps would be heavier and potentially dangerous if they ruptured, though. They'd be better suited on power armor, if only for the intimidation factor.

But they'd also be good at rejecting heat, plasma and electricity. It could be pretty useful.

As you turn one more corner and near the control room, you encounter a whole crowd of men standing around, talking to eachother and...
Oh man, they have killbots in crates, and they're assembling them on-site.

You dip low for a moment to swing your baton, obliterating one man's knee in a spray of blood.
And on the return, you deliver a blow to the side of a man's head that knocks him unconscious instantly.

Although, the following electrical shock probably killed him.

There are too many people up ahead to simply weave your way through, so you're forced to jump over them.
There's a small panic as you go sailing over their heads at high speed, landing in a slide on the other side of the crowd before getting your feet back under you and quickly making another left turn.

This hall is a dead end, with two guards covering a heavy-looking door.

Beyond here is the administrative control room, or rather a secret version of it that's hidden away.
It's capable of controlling a majority of the station's functions, such as life support, power generation, and even the ever-critical entry barriers that keep in the station's air.

It's also where SHODAN is apparently fighting, but you don't see any soldiers going in or out. Just these two guarding the door.

Both of them look to eachother in confusion, and grip their rifles just a bit tighter at your sudden appearance.
But they don't aim at you just yet, and seem to be waiting on you to move or say something.

>Kill one, use the other to open the door.
>Kill both, look for the roomba to open it.
>Maybe they don't know who you are. Try to bullshit your way in.
>Maybe they do know who you are. Intimidate your way through.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5711534
>Write-In?
>Maybe they don't know who you are. Intimidate your way through.
>"Is this the place?"
>"Open the door."
>>
>>5711534
>Maybe they don't know who you are. Try to bullshit your way in.
>the vice-captain sent me. is this the place?
>what's the situation?

the power of pure, unadulterated bullshit
>>
>>5711534
>>Kill both, look for the roomba to open it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2FCoTb_2O0
ROOMBA ROOMBA ROOMBA ROOMBA
>>
>>5711534
>Kill both, look for the roomba to open it.

Wrong place, wrong time.
>>
>>5711534
>Maybe they don't know who you are. Try to bullshit your way in.
>>
Rolled 2 (1d2)

1 = Bullshit
2 = Roomba
>>
>>5712017
But bullshit won 3-2
>>
>>5712018


I did consider it like that since >>5711556 voted half and half here, but he did specify 'intimidate'.
So i left it up to a coin flip.
>>
>>5711534

The men just behind you are probably in a confused panic over what just happened, since most of them didn't even see you.
They're also probably distracted by that brand new corpse and the man with a destroyed leg who you can faintly hear screaming from over here.

However, that won't buy you much time until they reorganize.

Not to mention, you don't know what SHODAN and Cylia are dealing with right now.
So you decide that there's simply no time to fuck around.

Since the two guards here aren't immediately attacking you, you'll take advantage of it.

Putting your baton and hardlight shield away makes them relax somewhat, as it seems like you're not here to fight.
So it comes as a shock to them when, after walking up as if you were going to say something, you suddenly spin on your heel and strike one of the men in the head, breaking his jaw and snapping his neck instantly.

The second man tries to grab his rifle in a panic, but you're much quicker.
You grab his whole head in your left palm and slam his skull into the rocky surface of the wall with your whole bodyweight behind it.

You can hear his skull audibly pop, and he falls limp immediately with blood running from his mouth, nose and ears.

With the two of them taken care of, you quickly look around for the janitorial robot that SHODAN must have used to open the door.
Sure enough it's still nearby, attempting to clean around a stack of pipes laying in the hall.

Using the same trick as before, you quickly manage to get the door open and step through.

What you're greeted with is a dimply lit room filled with rows and rows of desks, all fitted with monitors and instruments of all sorts, used for monitoring things around the station.
And on the back wall is a massive holographic projection showing numerous locations throughout the entire station.

But what you don't see anywhere is SHODAN or Cylia.

["David, look out!"] SHODAN transmits to you, moments before you see something moving in the corner of your vision.

You're just barely able to twist out of the way as a blade passes through where your head would have been, and a tall, lanky figure lands in a crouch by your feet.
Before you can even get a good look at him, he swings his blade upwards at your chest, forcing you to dodge backwards. Even so, sparks fly from his blade as it grazes your armor, leaving a scar across it's surface.

"Shit!" You exclaim, taking several steps back.

Now with the figure in full view, you can see him more clearly.
He's really skinny, almost like he's just skin and bones. But he's tall, at least a head taller than you, with long legs and... oh, god.

You thought he was simply holding two blades at first, but now that you look closely, you see that they're connected directly to his body. He doesn't even have hands.
More than that, his head looks humanoid, but there's nothing to look at other than a big red lens in the middle of where his eyes should be.
>>
>>5712047

His whole body is covered in a black, latex-like material. You can't tell if he's heavily armored or not, but it doesn't seem like he would be.

The man rises to his feet, slowly and wordlessly. He turns his head to stare at you for a moment, looking you over with clearly malicious intent.
Then he crouches back down, and springs at you at incredible speed.

You extend your baton and swing it as fast as you can to parry his arm-blade as he passes by your left side, trying to take a chunk out of your kidney.
Sparks fly once again as the baton and his blade make contact, and you vaguely see him twisting his whole body mid-air like a cat, to turn around and land on his feet.

His movements don't seem organic. They're all exaggerated and would probably tear your muscles apart if you actually tried them.
And they're disgusting to look at. The way he moves feels more like an insect of some sort than a person.

It looks like he's planning to leap again, but you can't tell where he's aiming. His body language doesn't tell you anything, and you can't even see where he's looking.

>He's fast. Really fast. But he doesn't seem to hit that hard, so maybe you can hold off his blades with your hardlight shield.
>SHODAN's in here somewhere. Call her out and double-team his ass.
>It's definitely time to use that last mag of 5.56. Fuck this thing.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5712050
>SHODAN's in here somewhere. Call her out and double-team his ass
>Rather than calling her it's better if we run towards her...
>>
>>5712066
+1 for this idea.
>>5712050
>>
>>5712050
>Write-In?
>grab something to jam his blades into
the poor idiot doesn't have any hands, just jam him into something and he's done for
>>
The way his blades are cutting... are they edged with the same material from dark matter bottles?
>>
>>5712050
>Write-In?
Use our 1911 and shield, shoot it while it's in the air.
Also, I thought we had two mags of 556?
>>
>>5712296
You're right, brain fart.
>>
>>5712074
+1 to this
I'm shitting bricks I knew we should have brought our power armor.
>>
>>5712299
I dunno man, getting on the thing and wobbling our way here would have doomed the grills
>>
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>>5712299
Don't worry, the guy isn't that much faster than us, and from the looks of it he's all dex. If we can air-juggle him (with our shield when he leaps/jumps) he's fucked (can't do much to dodge in midair). Launch him and play duck hunt, I bet he won't expect that.
Per most fighting games and Nier
>>
>>5712384
>dude jumps
>try to shield bash him to fuck up his trajectory and control
>he's got a jetpack
FUTURE

We should cut off his arms. Interestingly enough, hitting his knifehands with the zappy stick didn't fry the shit out of him. He's either extremely insulated or the material his bloody-ass-wipers are made of are entirely non-conductive.
>>
>>5712363
nah, shodan has the reaction times to keep the blade guy at bay
>>
Everyone seems to be under the impression that there's just one of these niggerfaggots, but I don't know man, I don't think this one chode could give SHODAN enough trouble that we can make our way all the way over here while she's still struggling with him. Let alone SHODAN paired with Cylia.
There's probably a squad of 'em in here. Keep alert to it, cheeki breekis.
>>
>>5712050

"SHODAN, where are you?" You ask, also transmitting through your helmet.

At the same time, your enemy leaps straight up into the air, as if he was flying.
The ceiling in this room is quite high, it's dark and there are air vents all over the place... you can't see him.

You'd love to switch to your infrared camera, but that fucking EMP earlier seems to have burned it out.

["In the far left corner, hidden between the rows."] SHODAN replies. ["Captain, it's vision is poor, but it's hearing is extremely acute. Be careful."]

"I'm coming over. Let's take this thing on together."

["Don't. Cylia is here, she's injured."]

"What?!"

Almost as if responding to the noise, your enemy leaps out at you from the darkness. It's a straight line, quick as can be.
You barely manage to step out of the way as it's plunges it's right blade deep into the ground, landing in a sort of superman pose.

It then follows up by slicing downward with it's left blade, nearly taking your damned arm off.

In response, you slam your baton straight into it's neck, causing it's head to practically fold in half... but something's wrong.
Not only does the baton's shock not go through that rubber gimp suit it's wearing, but you don't feel much of a response from your blow. There's just no impact.

Wait... you've seen this before! That exaggerated movement... he's throwing himself in the same direction as your blow to reduce the force!
That alone wouldn't be enough though. You hit that fucker as hard as you could, and his neck really did fold in half. There's something wrong with his body. He's freakishly flexible.

Almost as if to prove it to you, he yanks his blade out of the floor and folds in half at the waist, using his upper body as a counterweight to kick up at you.
As his leg comes up, you lean back yourself to try and avoid it, but this bastard had a hidden blade in his boot.

Almost like a hawk's talon, it pops out of his heel and digs into the face of your helmet, scoring a line through it and shattering your already cracked visor.

You're forced to take two steps back as you clear the broken glass away. The last thing you want is it getting into your eyes.

He doesn't immediately take advantage, though. No, instead you watch as he slowly returns from an angle that would snap your spine in half to a normal standing position.
This isn't great. He doesn't seem like he's damaged at all, and you barely got an attack in on him to begin with.

You quickly grab your knife and place it in your off hand.

He can't be immune to getting sliced up, right?
But you've gotta think of something. This fucker's too fast to deal with. The only time you got a hit on him... was when his blade was stuck in the ground.

It may not buy you long, but maybe if you can trap his blade, you'll be able to hit him again.
You take a relaxed stance with your knife ahead and your baton out at your side. It's just what feels most natural against this freak.
>>
>>5713101
>it's hearing is extremely acute
We got any flash bangs left? I want to throw this guy into a spinning fan lol
>>
>>5713128
We still have a spicy brick. Shake and bake?
>>
>>5713198
I concur. Detonate the spicy brick. preferably near this abomination.
>>
>>5713207
thought we used our last C4 to turn some guards into chunky salsa
>>
>>5713219
You have one left.
Whether or using it in the middle of the control room is a good idea, well.
>>
>>5713101
>Radio Sanig for help. Try to draw it out of the control room.
>>
>>5713349
if we do anything like this, we should also tell him about the killbots being assembled outside the control room. We'll need to deal with those sooner rather than later. Can the Metal Gear get anywhere near here?
>>
>>5713541
You are deep inside a tunnel system accessible only by foot.
>>
We still have our pistol. A bullet could be possiby moving fast enough to tear this freak several new assholes. It should be also quite loud in an enclosed space - maybe it could deafen it a bit?
>>
>>5713349
Don’t be a pussy.
Just follow the plan. Trap his blade and show this nigger what a hate crime looks like.
Also if it has good hearing we should clap his fuckin ears to break that shit, audio devices are fragile as fuck. It’ll minimize going with the blow if its from both sides, can only try to pull out.
>>
>>5713101
>>5713826

Good idea
Try to get him to do a superhero landing again then
>Trap his blade and clap his ears
>>
>>5713101

Both of you begin to move at the same time. you slowly circle round eachother, waiting for the other to make a move.
In reality, you're positioning yourself so that you're between your enemy and the wall. And once you are, that's when you move.

Pushing forwards, you swing at him with your baton, which cuts through the air just over his head as he ducks.
Your enemy twists his whole torso as he swings his arm-blade at you, which you block with the flat of your knife, creating another shower of sparks.

But he has two blades, and barely a fraction of a second later the second blade comes in from down low, threatening to chop your legs off.

You manage to pull your legs up into the air as it passes through the space your legs had just occupied, and now floating in the air, your opponent pushes you back by forcing against your knife.
His talons dig into the metal surface of the floor as he forces you back a good four or five steps, and he follows through by stabbing at you with a powerful lunge.

Still off balance, you're forced to parry it with the baton, which throws you even more off balance.
Your enemy takes advantage, thrusting his second blade towards you. You're afraid you might actually take one between the ribs here...

But then, a blast of laser light strikes your enemy in the head and neck, causing a loud pop and setting it's rubber suit ablaze.
It was SHODAN. She must have used her hand cannon from somewhere in the back. Unfortunately it's also temporarily blinded you, but it did create an opening as this freak is temporarily stunned.

You plant your feet hard, rapidly shifting your weight as you strike out with your knife, scoring a solid cut across it's torso.
You can feel it digging into the rubber surface of it's suit, but there's something harder underneath. It's almost like you're running your blade against a braided cable.

It only glanced in SHODAN's direction for a moment before you drug it's attention back. You're not an opponent that it can simply ignore.

Pulling back, you retreat several more steps until you finally feel your back against the entrance to this room, a solid steel door.
Your goal is to trap this guy's blades by getting him to stab at the door, but it seems like he's going to make that difficult for you.

Instead of lunging out again like last time, it swaps things up.

As it rapidly closes the distance on you, it suddenly drops down and balances on it's two blades, instead kicking out at you with it's razor-talon feet.
The first kick is aimed right at your head, forcing you to throw your head aside as it stabs into the door behind you. Those talons then latch onto the metal surface, allowing it to deliver the second kick with even more power.

This one comes too fast and too low to dodge completely, and you feel one of the blades cut through your armor and into your ribs.
However, that leaves his leg positioned right under your left arm, so you take advantage by grabbing it and locking it in place.
>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHSxw2xJmXc
>the plan
Yeah...
>>
>>5714089
It seems like it has to gain quite a momentum for its blades to be effective. If we caught it, pinning it down should do the trick, especially with Shodan active and fully functional. Once its hands and feet are cut off it is just another trophy. But we have to act quick. We can either try to cut off one of its limbs now, kill it now, or order Shodan to help us. I doubt she can get to us quickly e480wtdnough though
>>
>>5713541
>We got him. Grab his ankles and try to drag him out of the room. If he lodges his arm blade into the wall he's stuck and we can stomp his crotch into oblivion. If he doesn't stop himself, we can parry his arm blades with his feet and toss him out of the control room where we can safely use the spicy brick.
>>
>>5714089

With the baton still in hand, you slam your fist into it's knee joint, and actually feel something pop.
To your surprise, your enemy actually lets out an inhuman screech of pain at this.

But you're not finished. Continuing with the momentum, you further twist your torso and throw a kick of your own, landing it straight in the middle of your enemy's crotch.
...As you feared, there's no sense of striking anything critical. It's just solid down there. But still, with your enemy balanced on two sharp blades, it's enough to rip his talons out of the door and send him flying.

He lands on his back, rolling backwards and instantly popping back up to his feet with no apparent damage. Even the fire on his head and neck has fizzled out.
No, you're sure you did some damage to his knee. Problem is, it's not enough. He's so damned flexible, you wouldn't be surprised if all that did was give him a sprain.

But this is a good distance, now. He's in a good position, one where you might be able to bait him into stabbing at you.
So you pretend to be exhausted and injured. Not exactly hard, since you really are panting pretty hard, and you just took a nice slice to your ribs.

But the important part is that you act like you've dropped your guard somewhat, and you don't move from the door.
You just wait for him to come for you.

"David!"
["David!"]

You hear SHODAN shout, simultaneously out loud and through the radio.
You haven't told her about your plan, so she probably thinks you're about to be killed. You'll have to apologize later.

Fortunately she's already used her hand-cannon, meaning her capacitors must be dry. You won't have to worry too much about her interfering from a distance.

As you'd hoped, your enemy takes off towards you and lunges, intent on running you through while you're 'weakened'.
Too bad it can't see you smiling underneath your helmet.

At the last second you twist your body, avoiding one blade and parrying the other with your knife.
Both of it's blades sink deep into the steel door, you're sure piercing through to the other side. His blades are finally trapped.

Your right arm is in a good position to swing the baton down on him, but it's a bit too long. Instead, you jam the head of the baton down into it's neck, through the burned section of it's suit.
This time, the baton arcs into it's body properly, or perhaps even a little too well. Carbon is conductive, after all.

There's a flash of light as the freak's body seizes up, giving you a moment of opportunity.
Letting go of the baton, you grip your knife with both hands and shove it upwards into your enemy's head through the lower jaw with all of your strength.

Immediately pulling the knife out, you plunge it deep into it's chest with a roar. This time with such force that the hardened steel blade breaks off inside of him.

With your knife broken, all you can do is grab both of it's arms from the outside, and force them inwards with a heave.
Both of them snap loudly.
>>
You now remember that Cylia is seriously injured.
>COMMENCE TO ACTS OF UNSPEAKABLE VIOLENCE
>>
>>5714454
I wonder if we can rip him in half from the slice we started with the knife
>>
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>>5714507
The demons' war will never cease.
Our war will never cease.
>>
>>5714454
Remember you chose this fate by picking a fight with a superior life form.
>>
Rolled 6 (1d10)

How many turns and twists till the neck gives and pops? I vote two. Also rolling 1d10 to see how many
>>
>>5714454
>Brutalize that mf.

Insert David prowler meme here
>>
>>5714454
time to cut a motherfucker with its own bladearms
>>
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>>5714458
>>5714507
>>5714596
>>5714626
>>5714707
>>5714733
>>5714734
Imagining David receiving the inner voices shouting for extreme violence again when adrenaline's high and he's fighting for the just cause.
And then some fucker hurts his dog and he just SNAPS again.
>>
>>5714454

You wrench your whole body forward, slamming your head into your enemy's face so hard that despite your helmet and it's padding, your vision goes white from the shock.
To you it sounds like a gunshot, and amongst the sound of his eye-cam shattering, you feel his blades rip away from the door as you continue to press forwards, tackling him to the floor.

Your enemy hisses and shrieks underneath you as you straddle him, and you begin laying blow after blow into his head.
Every time you strike him, his shrieks are momentarily cut off, and his shattered eye breaks further, revealing the mechanisms underneath.

It tries to cut at you with it's blades, but it's damaged limbs fail to find purchase against your side and barely cut into you even as it saws against your armor.
Sparks begin to fly as your fist drives it's head into the ground, denting a crater into the floor and eventually, denting it's actual head as well.

It's hard. Your gloves are reinforced with plasteel and dusted with warp metal, but it's still just hard.

You're giving it everything you've got and then some, but it doesn't want to die like it should.
You can feel it squirming and struggling underneath you as sparks continue to fly off your fists on contact.

Are they all like this?

Federation cyborgs, designed from the ground up to be indestructible killing machines.

You're almost jealous. Your muscles are screaming, your lungs are burning, your heart is pumping so hard that it feels like it's going to burst out of your chest.
It would be so much easier if you couldn't feel all of that, wouldn't it? If you couldn't feel the painful cut in your side, all the bruises and strained muscles.

Your enemy's skull begins to cave inwards. It dents like metal, but blood-like liquid begins to spray out.
You just keep slamming your fists into it, one after another, like there's nothing else in the world.

Yeah.
You're tired. It hurts. It burns.

And you're not getting any younger, either.

But there's just something about it. Tearing these fuckers apart, limb from limb with your bare hands.
Knowing that it's just you. The body you've built over a lifetime, through your own efforts.

It feels good.

You've always enjoyed it. But right now?
It really feels amazing. You don't want to stop.

You grab your enemy's ruined skull and start slamming it into the floor, harder and harder.
It isn't squirming anymore. You think this is just about over.

Standing up, you plant your foot firmly on it's neck and wrap your fingers around it's lower jaw, yanking and twisting on it's head, using your whole body to pull on it.
It's muscles and tendons are so springy, it's hard to damage them. But you feel the bone give way, and eventually the muscle starts to tear as well.

Finally, you manage to tear it's head free in a spray of both red blood and blue oil.
And you celebrate by hurling it at the door with a roar. It ricochets off somewhere into the room with a loud bang, leaving a dent behind.
>>
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>>5715227
holy shit David
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>>5715227
Nobody hurts David's girls and lives to brag about it.
>>
>>5715227
I think at this point we have to accept that David is not a normal man. I mean obviously he's not a normal guy but I mean a normal human. Ripping something's head off like that with your bare hands is nigh impossible. What a truly terrifying dude. He ain't built regular.
>>
>>5715249
and he'll get stronger too if we keep going
>>
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>>5715227
>>
>>5715249
>>5715301
>>5715339
All we need is a de-aging potion, and we can do this forever.
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>>5715353
Time to bribe ol Sanig with some of the REAL good earth shit
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>>5715353
best thing of all is that we already have the basic idea of de-aging done; we only need the tech
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>>5715249
It's gotta be that stuff the greys shot David up with when they kidnapped him.
>>
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>>5715227
>>
>>5715534
For that we could really use help of a genetist. Maybe that creepy reptilian doctor would want to join us? If she'll be still alive after our takeover of this station.
>>
>>5715249
The retrovirus did a number on him
>>
>>5716160
no
>>
>>5716160
yeah, lets do it
>>5716438
pussy. you're just scared because the lizard is more forward with her intentions than david
>>
>>5715227

As you continue to stomp on your decapitated enemy's chest and limbs, you hear SHODAN yelling at you.

"Captain. Captain!" She shouts, limping over to you. Seems like her right leg's muscles have been severed.

You ignore her for the moment, your focus still squarely on your enemy.
Who knows if this one will decide to just stand back up because it's got two brains or whatever.

"David." She says, this time much more softly. She places a hand on your shoulder and gently pulls you away from the battered corpse you're in the middle of mauling. "I believe it has perished."

Your sister used to do the same thing, whenever you'd go off on something or someone.
SHODAN probably saw that in your memories at some point. Damn it.

"Hah... yeah, yeah you're... probably right..." You say, huffing down huge gulps of thin station air.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as you step away from the corpse, suddenly feeling tired and a bit sick.
Blood runs freely from both of your sides, but the wound is definitely deeper on one of them. The other is mostly just surface scratches, you think.

You allow yourself to sit down with your legs crossed, and take a minute to just breathe.

The station air isn't really the problem. You got used to that at some point, somehow.
This guy was just fucking dangerous. One sweep and you could have lost an arm, or even your life.

Honestly, thank fuck the one good shot he got on you was in an area with no major organs.

"Cylia... how is she?" You ask, still huffing air.

"Not well." SHODAN replies. "The first one we encountered took her left hand. She managed to escape it's second attack with just a cut before i was able to intervene."

Cylia lost a hand? Wait, there were multiple of these?!

"Where?! Where is she?!" You demand.

SHODAN points back to where she had popped up from earlier, hidden amongst the rows of desks.

"We were hiding there, for a time. So long as there was no noise or movement, we seemed invisible." She tells you, but you're already running over to her.

Cylia's unconscious body is lying there on the floor between the rows.
Her left hand lay next to her, and you see a tourniquet wrapped around her arm.

And next to her lie the bodies of not one, but two ruined cyborgs similar to the one you just fought.
The first has been torn limb from limb, like the one you fought. But the second is simply full of bullet holes.

It takes SHODAN a moment to catch up with you, while you kneel down to check on Cylia.

"I've already applied a styptic and anesthetic to the area. The tourniquet should no longer be necessary." She informs you.

You slowly release the tourniquet, allowing blood to flow back into the rest of her arm.
She groans at the feeling of pins and needles that must follow.

"Shit. How long has she been like this? We can still reattach it, right?" You question.

You're not sure, honestly. Aliens aren't as tough as humans, and in a lot of cases you can't simply glue limbs back on.
>>
>>5716453
>and in a lot of cases you can't simply glue limbs back on.
well, if we can't graft her hand back again, kitty will get the best hand we can craft
>>
>>5716453
>and in a lot of cases you can't simply glue limbs back on.
What's the deal with this off hand comment...
>>
>>5716461
>off hand
Too soon.
>>
Ooof. Thete were THREE of these things. Here I was hoping each was a custom rare specimen, but it seems the feds sent their special forces, and they do not dissappoint.

>>5716461
CARLOS!
>>
>>5716453
We really need a way to resupply in the field we always get our asses kicked because we run dry on supplies
>>
>>5716564
I fucking called it, brother. I knew our gals couldn't be this fucked up from just one nigger.
>>
>>5716453
We gotta prep her hand and Cylia for surgery. We gotta try bros. We cant let them take her soft hands away.
>>
>>5716461
Eat a dick Carlos
>>
>>5716566
I know I suggested it earlier, but cache missiles (think pic related) might be the way to go.
If the operational area is inaccessible from above, then we could look into a drone based delivery system as well.
>>
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>>5716812
Easy enough to have a flying (or walking) drone/bot deliver said ammo. What'd probably be more of a game-changer would be smaller and lighter ammunition, or being able to manufacture ammunition locally from captured materials.
>>
>>5716812
it would depend on the structure though.
is it a ship? cache missile it is.
is it a more fortified or complex or just outright bigger targer? yeah, delivery drone it is

>>5716826
to be fair, this is a special operation. unless we make an habit of assaulting space stations, most combat doesn't last as long as these fights
>>
>>5716838
You should always be ready to be stuck in for a full three days of constant fighting. What do you mean your kit is too heavy? Why don't you pack on some muscle, pansy.
>>
>>5716826
Shodan would have to do some heavy lifting but... what would have been better for this fight? Maybe an alien tech advanced version of a Tec Torch breeching tool to use against these cyborgs?
>>
>>5716839
if this were a normal frontal assault, sure, but this started as a stealth mission. can't really carry that much shit under those parameters, unless we manage to find a way to pocket dimension ammo
>>
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>>5716838
>most combat doesn't last as long as these fights
Gang fights, maybe. We're up against the feds now; we can expect to always be outnumbered and from the looks of this engagement, outgunned.

>>5716843
>what would have been better for this fight?
More rounds. A small and compact AP bullet hose. Some type of PDF/SBR type weapon.

As for being more efficient with ammunition size/weight, a concept similar to that used for the PSS pistol could be considered considering the alien manufacturing processes and energy storage tech we have available. Heck, perhaps you could do away with cartridge entirely, and make the piston adjustable for both subsonic and supersonic speeds.
>>
>>5716847
well, that's something we'll apply whenever we get on the offensive, but literally so far, all fights have lasted fractions of this

>Heck, perhaps you could do away with cartridge entirely, and make the piston adjustable for both subsonic and supersonic speeds.
might as well go full into energy weapons then. replace the ammo with a generator and we quite literally will never need to worry about ammo again. or we can make railguns; we won't need more than one bullet if it carries enough energy to explode you on contact
>>
>>5716847
If we're using SPACE AGE stuff, we'd be better off using our stupid monkey engineering to make hyper-efficient batteries using theoretical material science substances so we can actually carry around proper powerful railguns/coilguns. Ammo is much smaller for them. Since all you need is the actual bullet and no casing for all the party powder. And if you want to get fancy, you don't even need the entire thing to be magnetic to function. Making a cored ammo type with a ferrous jacket would be just as effective.

It's always energy transfer and efficiency which keeps the like of them in the realms of science fiction after all. The math is solid. With the ability to just create hypothetical atomic structures with our brain alone we can probably shit out some pretty crazy "impossible" things. Too bad David doesn't actually have a background in those areas of expertise. But if we could find Earth and nab some of those fancy scientific journals we'd be golden.

>>5716852
Well we know electric guns won't be feasible. Accounting on how GIMP-bot out here with his buddies couldn't get zapped by something that could short circuit an entire room until we put it under his suit. Heat guns are probably more viable, so a traditional laser. But they probably have insulated for that as well, and if not then they probably have shielding of some type, if it works for spaceships it's just a matter of miniaturization. Or the alternative heat ray which is just a microwave without a door. That leaves us with the really diabolical shit, like radiation. Which is a great way to get yourself killed for being a menace to all intelligent life.

So what about noise guns? Sonic weaponry. It's just indirect kinetic energy, really. Get big on harmonics and frequencies. Make people's eyes explode. Give them heart attacks. Shake the fluid in their joints until they tear. Carrying around a subwoofer has never been so deadly.

Of course, whatever of these is feasible or indeed even possible is beyond me.
>>
>>5716852
>>5716856
The purpose of the piston is so the weapon can still be powered by chemical/mechanical reactions as opposed to fallible electromagnetic forces.
Sure, LEDs and NODs are nice, but there is a reason why we also carry a tungsten filament light with us.
>>
>>5716862
Do you really want to carry around a compressed air gun? It works, sure. But after a point it just loses in efficiency due to how it works mechanically.
>>
>>5716856
then gauss/rail guns are still our best option. my understanding of electromechanics is iffy, but in theory, if we faraday cage the sensitive electronics, and with a big enough heat sink, our guns should survive most EMPs
now that you mention it, sonics are also a good idea, but they are pretty much limited to combat in atmosphere, with enemies that don't have sealed armor, otherwise the effectiveness of the gun is severely reduced

>>5716862
to be fair, anything can fail in different ways. we're just wary of electronics because they are "new" in the gun space, but with the proper shielding, and the right thermal sinks they should be fine

>>5716866
that anon is talking about the gas piston guns have. you know, the one that helps them cycle a new bullet in.
>>
>>5716869
>but they are pretty much limited to combat in atmosphere
Good point. I took for granted that we've only really had a couple of exo-atmo fights. It really would suck against hermetically sealed and more importantly sturdy armor. And with no medium it would be a non-option. But if it were just a big vibration tool it would be hypothetically possible to press it against someone and shake it until any faults come loose. Which if we were on Earth dealing with our tech would be a LOT of stuff with moving parts, welds, bolts, rivets and the like. But in space where they can print on the atomic level there are no such imperfections to crack. Foiled again by space!

>that anon is talking about the gas piston guns have. you know, the one that helps them cycle a new bullet in.
But that's not how the PSS works. And making a gun that uses a piston to fire caseless ammo would still need some form of propellant. So either an individual charge (like a blank in a nailgun) or a compressed gas cartridge of some description. If you had a gas canister it would have limited efficiency. Mechanically. If it used "blanks" it would still need to cycle and do all the stuff other guns do, defeating the purpose of trying to decouple the ammo and propellant.

Also the pistons in most guns that use blowback operated cycling is just gas recapture mainly to aid with recoil and to slow the bolt down faster than a spring could on its own. Makes it gentler. Not really the same thing conceptually as what his idea is.
>>
As for melee, we need a replacement dark metal bladed knife replace our busted knife.
>>
>>5716882
Steal the knifehands from the gimps. Learn their secrets.
>>
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>>5716885
David has already mastered the secrets of... oh right, the knuves on the gimps.
>>
>>5716957
I bet David could karate chop an alien in half if he tried hard enough.
>>
>>5716453

"It may be possible, but we will need to find a doctor quickly." SHODAN tells you.

"Can't Sanig do it, if we take her back to the Metal Gear?" You ask, removing the medkit from your pack and covering her stump with unmedicated, sterile bandages.

"Unlikely. Reattaching muscle fibers and nerves requires specialist knowledge, tools and medicines. The Metal Gear was equipped for exploratory surgery and experimentation, not for healing."

"What about you, SHODAN? I mean, if we printed some of that stuff real quick..."

SHODAN should be able to do it, in theory. She has all sorts of medical data regarding Caithans. It's not like it's impossible.

"I'm afraid not, Captain. The prints wouldn't take too long, but my body has taken significant damage. I will not be able to hold my hands steady until repairs are done, and that would take considerable time.
Even then, i am not confident in my ability to perform a complex surgery over a wireless connection used a combat-oriented frame such at this. Frankly, it lacks precision."

Looking SHODAN over, you see that she's taken quite a few cuts all over her body, including quite a few to her arms. Some of them look really deep, and you can see her blood-red intramuscular lubricant seeping from many of those wounds.
You guess we was taking advantage of her duranium 'bones' to block the cyborg's attacks. Even if it cut through the skin and muscle, it wouldn't be able to go through that.

"Shit."

Maybe Illia, if you got her to the Star-Fall? No... she mostly seems to work with herbal medicine. And they're in combat anyways.
You can't take her to the hospital here on the station because there are no doctors either. Wait...

"Wait, i know someone!" You exclaim.

"Lyna." SHODAN guesses. "It may be worth attempting. The old man said she had set up an emergency clinic in Zakera Ward."

Lyna, that reptilian doctor that gave you weird vibes. It's not an ideal option, but it is an option.
Sanig... well, he may be a grey, but medicine was never his field of expertise in the first place. And without the proper tools, who knows. It may end up worse than not trying at all.

But Lyna, for all her weirdness, is a proper doctor. She was working at the hospital here before all this, and if she has her tools with her, it's the best you can do right now.

>Leave SHODAN here to defend the control room and take Cylia to be treated by Doctor Lyna.
>Take Cylia to the Metal Gear instead. You'll have to put her on ice until you can find another doctor.
>Give up on her hand. You can build her a bionic replacement that'll be better than the real thing, after this is over.
>See if you can wake her up long enough to ask what she would prefer.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5717068
>Leave SHODAN here to defend the control room and take Cylia to be treated by Doctor Lyna.
>>
>>5717068
>Take Cylia to the Metal Gear instead. You'll have to put her and her hand on ice
>re-stock on ammo and supplies and go find dr lyna

first we gotta medevac cylia, shodan and ourselves. then with a clearer head and with our wounds patched out we can plan on finding lyna
>>
>>5717074
+1
>>
>>5717074
>+1
>>
>>5717074
+1
It would make the most sense.
>>
>>5717068
>Leave SHODAN here to defend the control room and take Cylia to be treated by Doctor Lyna.
I wonder if it would be faster to just carry her and sprint down to Zakera ward.
>>
>>5717068
>Have SHODAN take Cylia and her hand to the METAL GEAR and put them on ice. We will guard the control room (and Sanig the gunnery control room) after helping them break through the guards outside. Have our AIs direct some forces to secure Lyna in Zakera Ward as soon as possible and some break-through forces to our location.
Cylia and SHODAN didn't fight this hard for the control room just for us to abandon it just because one of them got a non-life threatening injury in the process, and I'm not leaving someone who care barely walk to hold off all those guys outside alone.
>>
>>5717141
You'd have to get through those guys to get back outside.
>>
>>5717068
>Leave SHODAN here to defend the control room and take Cylia to be treated by Doctor Lyna.
>>
>>5717068
I am voting for:
>Give up on her hand
but it seems that this vote goes hand in hand with this other vote
>>See if you can wake her up long enough to ask what she would prefer.
So... nah, I am decided in voting for
>GIve up on her hand

This is SPACE AGE and I am positive aliens have a built in tolerance to uncanniness and body dismorphia. Plus going by cyberpunk RED's rules she must have like 8 HUMANTY so one (1) hand won't be a problem
>>
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>>5717068
>Take Cylia to the Metal Gear instead. You'll have to put her on ice until you can find another doctor.

Save the jelly beans.
>>
>>5717231
the jellybeans are on the feet from what i remember. her hands are human-ish
>>
>>5717068
COCH WAIT, which will be faster the trip down to the ward or the trip to the metal gear?
>>
>>5717241
i think its an irrelevant question because we still need to get to the metal gear for supplies
>>
>>5717240
Well. At least there's that. I'll stay with my choice, though.
>>
>>5717074
>+1
>>
>>5717148
>You'd have to get through those guys to get back outside.
I know. That's why I said we'll continue to guard the place after helping them break through the guards outside. They'll have an easier time with us helping them rather than either us dragging Cylia or SHODAN dragging Cylia.
I don't think SHODAN is in any fighting shape, given that she can barely even walk nor keep her hands steady.
>>
>>5717068
>>Leave SHODAN here to defend the control room and take Cylia to be treated by Doctor Lyna.
>>
>>5717241
Getting to Zakera Ward necessitates getting to the Metal Gear.
It's right outside of the facility, while the truck you came up here in is much, much farther.
>>
>>5717332
they react to sound though. we probably can distract them with noise. i bet we could even hack the speaker system on the station to lure them away
>>
>>5717436
That was only the gimps. Outside they have regular killbots and squishies.
>>
>>5717441
im fairly confident we can outrun the killbots and trample over whatever squishy that tries to stop us
>>
>>5717068
Get her on ice, at least until we can find the lizard doctor.
>>
>>5717560
We may be able to sure, but could we do so carrying Cylia? Could SHODAN while carrying Cylia and damaged? Confidence is great, but caution is still prudent.
>>
>>5717243
according to this, Ill support>>5717074
>>
>>5717640
its not like we have that many options anyways. from what i can infer from the texts, SHODAN can carry cylia, and david can still just beat the shit of whoever comes that isn't a cyborg. either way, staying in this place is a terrible idea because we don't have ammo and are hurt.
>>
>>5717723
Well we can't let them have the room. If they start to vent the place even partially it'll be an absolute disaster.
>>
>>5717757
fuck it. lets blow the controls then. can't vent the atmosphere if they literally can't do it. orrrrr.....

maybe we can hook up to one of the terminals, and transfer all the admin rights to SHODAN. that way there is literally no way they can vent the atmosphere in a quick manner
>>
>>5717762
>lets blow the controls then
Never shoot the life support controls anon. Just in case it causes complications.

As for putting it into a lockdown state of some description, that's an idea.
>>
>>5717068

"I'm taking her to Lyna." You decide.

"The Metal Gear is just outside the entrance to this facility." SHODAN informs you. "There are federation soldiers surrounding it, but they're being kept at bay with the anti-personnel lasers."

"Are they wearing helmets?" You ask, setting your pack down and removing your last brick of explosives, along with a long strip of sharpened wire, held loosely together by fabric.

"No, captain. Some have headsets, but few are wearing protective helmets. Kinetic weaponry is an uncommon threat that-"

"Blind them." You order, wrapping the wire around your explosives and duct taping it into place. You shove a wireless detonator straight into the side of the brick.

"Captain?"

"I said blind them. Fire the lasers into their eyes, and blind them."

"That is a war crime, Captain. Both on earth and in all of federated space."

"Oh yeah? Well so is what i'm about to do."

Grabbing your rifle with one hand, you level it at the door and fire six shots through it, into the hallway.
You glance through the bullet holes in the door and see one extra body laying in the hall that wasn't there before. Someone was on watch after all.

After a quick glance around the room you manage to find the roomba, banging it's head against the wall in the corner.
Kicking it over to the door, it opens for you again, although it gets a bit stuck once it does.

"How are you on ammo?" You ask SHODAN, stepping through the door.

"My supplies are sufficient. Neither Miss Cylia nor i had much opportunity to use them."

"Good. Hold them off until our killbots or Gron's team arrive."

You walk quietly down the hall until you get to the turn you came from, and glance around for just a moment.
Damn the hall, you see the same group from before, now accompanied by at least seven or eight hostile killbots.

Three of them appear to be active, while four are still being put together by a team of engineers. They look close to complete though, and they're being programmed by men with holopads, hooked up directly to the chassis.

They haven't noticed you yet. You guess you were already being pretty loud fighting that thing back there, so a few gunshots weren't strange.
With your back against the wall, you take your little shrapnel bomb and tape it to the top of the roomba before setting it on the floor and scooting it along.

If you point these things in a direction, they'll generally go that way and look for whatever needs to be cleaned up.

It slowly makes it's way down the hall, mostly unnoticed even by the killbots on patrol. A janitorial robot isn't abnormal, after all.
But as it draws closer to the crowd, somebody does eventually point it out. Nobody really cares at first, until they notice something taped to the top of it.

By then though, it's far too late.

You see a man wearing heavy-looking armor push his way through the crowd, only to panic when he sees the roomba weaving it's way through people's feet.
That's when you trigger the explosives.
>>
dropped my trip
>>
>>5717805
ROOMBA IED

ROOMBA IED
>>
>>5717805
ROOMBA IED

ROOMBA IED
>>
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ROOMBA IED

ROOMBA IED

I cannot believe David did THAT to the roomba after it served him so dutyfully
>>
i dunno why blinging fools is considered a space war crime. the tech here definitely seems advanced enough to restore lost eyesight
>>
>>5717845
If laser blinding were allowed, you might as well get bionic eyes installed the moment you're conscripted.
Nevermind the cost of materials and medicine in the public sector, there wouldn't be enough doctors to implant them all.
>>
>>5717805
>"That is a war crime, Captain
War crimes are a suggestion. One that pretty much anyone on ground level ignores and hopes no one rats them out for. And they usually only matter for whoever loses.
>>
>>5717834
In David's autobiography, Private Roomba will volunteer to do this so as to save his fellow soldiers.
>>
>>5717864
The funny thing about war crimes is that it only matters when multiple entities agree upon them. As it is, the federation is an almost wholly unopposed force, a singular mega-entity. It is expected that they would attempt to capture/execute alongside the usual trade sanctions and all that stuff, as we are at war with them. The lack of other governing bodies means that it doesn’t matter how illegal it is, we’re in the same amount of trouble for resisting at all that we are for "war crimes".
At the end of the day, the federation has no allies to support it. Only itself, as massive as it may be.
>>
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>>5717805
>That is a war crime, Captain. Both on earth and in all of federated space

And genetic warfare, killing civilians and spacing an entire space station because it quit turning a profit isn't?

We're basically outlaws anyway, and if this is the law I don't want to follow it.
Alexa, intruder alert. Play Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd and deploy claymore roomba
>>
>>5717870
That's what I saw and nobody saw different.

B-but they were all blinded.

I can't conform or deny that.
>>
>>5717805
Pvt Roomba needs to be put on a Memorial somewhere
>>
>>5717805
>Team Rocket is blasting off agaaaaaaaiiiin~
>>
>>5717805

Having ducked back round the corner, you cover your broken visor to prevent any shrapnel from taking your eyes.
There's a loud bang, followed by bits of wire and bone ricocheting off the stony walls.

With that done, you grab your rifle and turn the corner again, shooting the two still-standing killbots in critical areas, disabling them.

Switching to your pistol, you slowly walk through the carnage and finish off anyone who isn't dead yet.
That turns out to be only two people. One man who was mostly shielded from the blast by a killbot, and the heavily-armored man.

It's odd, though. There's far too much gore here for what just happened. The walls are practically painted blood.

Someone must have thrown themselves on top of the explosives. Or perhaps they were pushed.
Not that it made much difference. In this cramped hallway, with that much explosive? It just added more shrapnel to the blast.

You consider asking the heavily armored man what he did, but his eyes and ears are all fucked up. He probably can't even see or hear you properly, no less respond.

One bullet is enough to finish him off.

Quickly doubling back, you find that SHODAN has already wrapped up Cylia's hand for you, so you place it in your pack before lifting the woman herself up onto your shoulders in a fireman's carry.

You pace yourself at a quick jog down the hallway, not wanting to exhaust yourself or end up tripping while carrying her.
There are few men left inside the facility, and those that you come across are instantly dispatched with a single carefully placed bullet each.

When you near the exit though, there are several men standing around the door. The man you killed when you first got here has been propped up against the wall as well.
They look like they're conducting some sort of investigation, but it doesn't really matter what they're doing. They're inbetween you and your ship.

Which reminds you, you hope Gildur made it back safely.

Placing Cylia down out of harm's way, you glance back round at the men by the exit.
They aren't station guards. These guys have the same armor on as the feds you saw by the docks.

There's six of them, with two men actually doing some kind of work with a strange device of some sort and the other four standing around and watching them.

On the other side of that door is your ship, and a whole lot more Fed soldiers.
You've got two mags of 5.56 left. You won't need all of it to take these guys out, but you don't know what the situation will be like outside once you start shooting.

Alternatively, you could try to do this more quietly. Only, if these guys are bionically enhanced like the last two you fought, this may not end well.

You just don't know. You've never fought fed soldiers before. You don't know shit about them.
>>
>>5718217

>This isn't the time to be holding back. Leave Cylia where she is and break your way through to the ship, so you can grab your armor and deal with all of them.
>Try to take them out quietly, in a melee. Once you do, SHODAN can create a distraction and help you make it into the ship in one piece.
>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."
>Write-In?
>>
>>5718219
>>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."
FUCK EM
>>
>>5718219
>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."
Can't her AI (Dak?) do some work as well? After all, it was great at taking out those turrets earlier, surely these meatbags can't be as tough as stationary defense turrets?
>>
>>5718228
I meant drones, though it did take out turrets once we were in the station as well.
>>
>>5718219
>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."

Can't leave Cylia alone.
>>
>>5718219
>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."
does it count as CAS?
>>
>>5718219
>>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."
>>
>>5718364
Technically speaking, it meets all the requirements of Close Air Support, so yes.
I don't think they said anything about goblins though.
>>
>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."
>>
>>5717894
it's not a war-crime if it's just slaughter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aGKA_3JXfU hilarious how he went ham on full auto to miss every shot
>>"SHODAN, tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."
>>
>>5718217

"SHODAN, what's your situation?" You whisper.

["No enemy movement. I'm on standby."] She replies.

"Good. Tell Kyla to get in the gunner's seat. I want you mow down the opposition with the 20mm."

["Do you not want me to blind them, Captain?."]

"Por que no los dos?"

SHODAN doesn't reply, but you can feel a slight rumble in the ground as the Metal Gear starts to take off.
You think you can even hear the arc thrusters just a bit.

The feds must hear it too, because one of them quickly works to open the hidden door, only to be mowed down along with his colleagues in a spray of hot metal.

Sparks, dust and a fine, purple vapor fill the hallway, while a splattering of unrecognizable gore spreads across the floor.
You don't see any mechanical components in there, so they must have been organic.

One man seems to have miraculously survived the hail of shells, and comes sprinting out of the smoke and vapor in a panic, missing his left arm entirely.

He's headed towards you though, so you stop him in his tracks with a single .45 round to the head, then make sure to finish the job with a second after he falls.
All the while, you can hear the cannon roaring outside, bursts of fire lasting one to two seconds at most, interspersed with screams of panic and fear, and with orders from their commanders.

The arcjet thrusters are also super loud, though. Almost like high-pressure compressed air. They probably can't hear shit out there.

You take your time, carefully picking Cylia back up and walking down the hall, being careful not to slip in anything.
But when you walk past the bathroom door, something takes you by surprise. It opens and someone steps out.

They're immediately greeted by your 1911 being pressed against their forehead, but...

"Gildur?" You question.

"Hyiiiii! C-Captain, it's me! Calm down!" He screeches.

Looking past him, you see the cyborg he was supposed to be dragging back to your ship lying on the bathroom floor.
He's been gagged with a piece of cloth, and is wiggling around trying to break free.

You quickly holster your weapon.

"What the hell are you doing here, man?" You ask.

"I, well, i was, you see..."

You give Gildur two light slaps across the face.

"Get ahold of yourself!" You order.

"R-Right! Sorry! I was... i was on my way back to the ship, but t-there were a bunch of guys outside, and then they started coming in, so..."

"So you hid."

"R-Right..."

"In the bathroom."

"Yes..."

"Right next to the entrance."

"W-Well, yeah..."

There's literally nowhere to hide in there. It's just a couple of regular-ass bathroom stalls, and he's got a guy tied up in there with him.

"Gildur, you dumbass." You chide.

"Sorry, Captain..."

"Whatever." You sigh. "Just grab that fucker and let's get out of here."

"Y-Yes, Captain!" Gildur says with a salute. But apparently it's only now that he's paid any attention to Cylia.

"O-Oh, gods... her hand..." He mutters.

"Gildur. The cyborg. Now."

"Yes!"
>>
>>5719240
Ah Gildur, you'll learn one day.
>>
>>5719240
I don't think we will manage to drill the baseline herbivore stupidity out of gildur
>>
>>5719313
Oh he's doing fine, he's just (understandably) out of his element at the moment.
That said, I think he'd probably do much better in a clerical or administrative position rather than an infantry position.
Kinda makes you wonder why he took up space piracy in the first place.
>>
>>5719425
from what i remember it was to pay some space debts. now he's paying said debts to us
>>
>>5719425
he was in indentured labor
>>
>>5719240
Gildur a bit slow, its fine.
>>
>>5719240

You quickly make your way to the exit, which is completely ruined. The door has been absolutely blasted apart, and the floor looks like a cheese grater covered in purple sauce.

Gildur follows shortly behind you, first dragging the cyborg along as usual.
After watching you carry Cylia though, he awkwardly manages to heft the cyborg up onto his shoulders.

No small feat. That guy weighs quite a bit.

Looking outside, you find a similar scene of absolute carnage.
Not only are there bodies and limbs strewn about, there are also piles of scrap metal that used to be killbots, and two of those large quadripedal machines lie in ruin nearby.

A pall of silvery-black dust hangs in the air, no doubt powderized asteroid. It smells like burning metal.

"Hey, Gildur. Don't breathe this." You joke.

"I... i'm not, captain. You're the one with a broken visor." He replies.

"Yeah, i know. I was referring to... look, nevermind."

You casually walk towards the Metal Gear as it slowly lands in front of you. Everything seems to have been taken care of already...
Except for that. One man, missing a leg, seems to still be alive. That would be fine, except he tries to raise his plasma rifle towards you.

You immediately shoot him in the face, and only an instant later he's blasted by one of the Metal Gear's ship-to-ship lasers, causing an explosion that nearly deafens your left ear and almost knocks you over.
There's nothing left of him besides a shadow on the ground where he had been laying. The rock around him was eaten away, about half an inch or so.

The Metal Gear's ramp opens up as it touches down, and you quickly make your way inside. Gildur follows right behind you.

"What in the hells is this... why is there a ship...? Where is everyone..." The cyborg grumbles, sounding tired.

"Gildur, get him in a cage. I'm taking us to Zakera Ward."

"Aye, Captain!" Gildur says with a salute, accidentally causing him to drop the Cyborg, who groans and grumbles even more.

Gildur grabs him by the leg and unceremoniously drags him to the cargo bay.
You meanwhile head for the medical bay, placing Cylia gently onto the operating table while you drag some poor bastard pirate that you haven't sold yet out of the cryo-chamber.

One Hypo-stim full of sedatives and a couple zip-ties later, he's dealt with.
Then, you carefully place Cylia, and her hand inside.

Closing the door, you watch as the chamber does it's work, stabbing syringes into her through which it rapidly replacing her blood with some sort of antifreeze.
It seems like the antifreeze itself is circulated through her veins to rapidly and evenly cool her body. You've always thought this was a neat process.

Putting her on ice has bought you all the time in the world to get her to a doctor, so you can relax a bit for now.

Well, you say that... but as you make your way to the cockpit and sit down in the pilot's seat, you immediately see something flying around on your ship's radar.
>>
>>5719807
Could it be the Starfall?
>>
>>5719860
No way that thing's fitting through the tunnel the MG came through.
>>
>>5719863
True. Grandpa Gasbag maybe got a car?
>>
so uh, did the killbots touch down already? It's been a while and darkstar has had all the time of the world... By the time sanig went through the tunnel the terminators were dropping
>>
>>5719989
They have. They're fighting down below.
>>
nice
>>
>>5719807

Bringing up the hull-cams on your HUD, you see a number of small fighter-craft like objects flying through the air in large figure eight patterns.
They must be searching for you.

About that time, Kyla greets you.

"David! I'm glad you're alright... oh, well..."

Kyla gently places her hand next to the cut on your ribs, wincing as she looks it over.
The blood has already started to dry, so it hurts a bit when she peels it apart.

"Hey, that hurts." You grumble.

Kyla ignores you and pulls a medkit off the wall, opening it up and removing a hypostim with three doses of various medicines.

"You said you were going to take better care of yourself..." She chides, loading up a cartridge and injecting it directly into your wound.

"Shit, that burns!" You cry.

"Sorry, i know..."

You allow Kyla to continue working on your injuries while you get ready to take off properly.

"I did my best." You tell her, transferring the medium laser's controls to your cockpit. "There were some nasty guys down there. Cylia lost her hand."

"...Seriously?" She asks in disbelief.

"SHODAN's all cut up, too. But she can't bleed out from it. Who's controlling the other lasers?"

"Dak is. Is Cylia alright? I mean, i know she's not, but..."

You take off and start burning towards the enemy fighters. Kyla, meanwhile, sprays a disinfectant wash onto your wound and tries to scrub some of the dried blood off.

"She'll be alright. She's not bleeding anymore, and i put her on ice. We're taking her to a doctor right now."

Lining up one of the fighter's flight paths with your crosshair, you wait for it to enter your line of fire and let loose on it with the medium laser.
It's continuous beam almost immediately blasts through it's unarmored, unshielded body and obliterates it. There's a sizeable explosion as it's fuel and weapons detonate.

At the same time, all the other fighters simultaneously turn and start burning towards you. Drones? You can also see more fighters flying up through the entrance hole to this hidden ward.
As the fighter near you, Kyla AI, Dak, opens fire as well. It starts landing shot after shot on the fighters, with incredible accuracy. Still, it takes two or three shots each from the smaller pulsed lasers to take them out.

That gives you some leeway to focus on other things.

"Star-Fall, this is Captain Rockefeller. Do you read?" You call over the radio.

It takes a few seconds, but you get a response.

["Captain! This is the Star-Fall!"] You hear Asta yell. It sounds like he's not speaking directly into the microphone.

"What's the situation outside?" You ask.

["Not great!"] He responds. You hear the sound of an explosion, followed by someone yelling orders in the background.

Then, Gron is the one to reply.

["Captain. It would seem that the federation has called in reinforcements."] He tells you.

Well, shit.

"What are we lookin' at?"

["...One troop carrier, two frigates and a destroyer. We're maintaining a safe range."]
>>
ooof... is this it?
Is this when the metal gear gives its last goodby? also I had to look up what the frigates and destroyers are... But I guess the troop carrier is the least armed (and possibly armored) of the four.
>>
>>5720594
we can just use the station's batteries against them. they have way more firepower than the metal gear, and as a side effect, we don't risk the ship, the prisoner we have, nor cylia for that matter
>>
>>5720647
Then you better make sure the gun controls and control room(s) are well- guarded then. The new-comers might hang back until the guns are down, then again they might not, especially the troop carrier, or if they have siege weapons that out-range the defense guns.
Ideally we should try to hook up an AI into the station so we can use it to our favor.
>>
>>5720333
bruh, just send out a ping saying the defenses have been recaptured, then when they come in, kill them all.
>>
>>5720661
we'd have to turn them from the drone swarms into the starfall though. i doubt that ruse will work

>>5720657
yeah, but we are lacking manpower, specially with cylia out of commision and shodan with partial functionality. we have to contact the darkstars and whatever resistance that's left in the station to rally them up to help us.
>>
>>5720662
We'd need auth codes. There's no way we have the sign/countersign. We'd need the knowledge/tech of a high up person to do that...

Meaning we'd have to convince the cyborg to play ball.
>>
>>5720680
OR we just ask nena to rip a new asshole in his brain. which achives the goal you want, now that i think about it
>>
>>5720661
+1 to this. I like it!
>>
Alright, idea. Tactical hoverbike/goflcart thing so we don't have to keep hijacking cars or waiting on the Metal Gear to get around large areas.
>>
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DAVE! Haaa ahhhhhh!
>>
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>>5720333
I SMELL SALVAGE

If naval classifications are still in effect, destroyers are anti-capital ships while frigates are anti-fighter. Only the troop carrier is a threat to the station, and none of these could reasonably be expected to stand up to the heavy weaponry placed on the station.

Manning the station controls as soon as Cylia is dropped off to our Dr Lizardstein, perhaps with David's gene samples as advance payment of hospitalisation is a key priority. I don't know if SHODAN has remote access to station weaponry.
>>
>>5720333

"What, you can't take 'em down? With all that support?"

["Perhaps we could, but not without taking losses. That destroyer has one hell of a shield generator, and it's equipped with a large railgun."]

"Well shit. What're they doing? Are they trying to close on you?"

As you descend through the opening in the hidden ward, you see that more fires have broken out across the lower station.
There seems to be a lot of movement as well. Zooming in with the hull cameras reveals a crowd of Killbots fighting the mutated monsters below.

More than a dozen killbots are surrounding one of those huge crawfish fucks that slammed you in the chest earlier. It grabs one of them in it's pincers and snips the bot in half while others fire on it with their plasma and phaser rifles.

In another area, you spot four killbots attacking a big pack of dog-like mutants. Or werewolf-like, you guess you could say.
They seem to be making more progress than the others, as the werewolf-like mutants can't seem to tear into them with their claws or teeth.

Still, it's a big mess.

["No, they're sitting still just out of the station's laser range. It's almost like they're observing us."] Gron responds after a moment of silence.

"Maybe they were observing from the start. Or maybe they're trying to stall us while more feds arrive." You guess.

["Likely the latter. However, we're on the frontier. It'll take at least a week for them to sent reinforcements from the core."]

Well, by then you'll have the station fully under your control.
Still, you don't like the fact that they have a railgun. They could start firing potshots at the station's defensive guns from a distance.

Give them enough time and they'll land a shot eventually. It's not like the station's going anywhere.

>Doesn't the Star-Fall have a railgun as well? Give him some drone ships to work with, see if he can't take out that destroyer.
>Cylia's on ice, so you could provide support if the star-fall really needed it. You could give them the Rockefeller Special, slip past their shields and fill them full of lead.
>...This Cyborg you've captured is probably a fed, right? Maybe you could get some information out of him. If you could send them a fake transmission, you could lure them into the station's guns.
>As long as they don't start firing, you don't care how long they sit there. Let them do whatever they want while you get your shit together.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5721241
>>...This Cyborg you've captured is probably a fed, right? Maybe you could get some information out of him. If you could send them a fake transmission, you could lure them into the station's guns.
No reason not to try. Hopefully SHODAN can turn his pain sensors back on.
>>
>>5721241
>...This Cyborg you've captured is probably a fed, right? Maybe you could get some information out of him. If you could send them a fake transmission, you could lure them into the station's guns.
>>
>...SOME TIME AGO ON HUMANITY FUCK YEAH...

You gesture for SHODAN to hand over the PDA, and she does.
You then start prying open it's plastic shell with your knife, and quickly come to the conclusion that it was never meant to be opened.

Not only was the plastic welded together, the internals seem to have been glued down as well.
Making apple proud out here, ain't they?

Still, you manage to pry it open somewhat destructively and reveal the battery, which of course has been glued down.
So after yanking out the ribbon cable connecting it to the rest of the device, you rip the battery out all at once and toss it aside.

It slowly begins to swell up and vent some toxic-looking smoke due to the damage, but fortunately spacer batteries are a bit safer than what you'd find on earth.
While you're at it, you disconnect the PDA's radio module as well, just to be safe. Then you stuff it into your pack.

"We'll worry about getting the keys off it later. Right now, we need to haul ass out of here. SHODAN, can you reprogram this camera real quick?"

>Try to get the codes out of the PDA. They are just waiting up there. Let's try this first.
>>
>>5721317
Those were the authorization codes of First Lieutenant Sum Gai. I don't think those are of a high enough clearance to get the Feddie ships to do anything.
>>
>>5721241
>...This Cyborg you've captured is probably a fed, right? Maybe you could get some information out of him. If you could send them a fake transmission, you could lure them into the station's guns.

lets leave him 5 minutes with nena. either he complies, or our chtulian friend will make him comply....

on that note, why not have her help us with the assault on the station. yeah shodan's great and all, but it doesn't hurt to have someone else help her with her share of the job
>>
>>5721337
High enough perhaps to trick them into getting into range of the station lasers.
>>
>>5721241
>>5721346
I'm sure Nena would like to get her tentacles into it, and honestly it's not the worst thing that can happen. Nena's clearly a social gal, so why not even hook her up to the station to force management of it? She did a fairly good job of keeping Metal Gear going when SHODAN was down for the count and willingly gave back control.

>Get Nena installed as station keeping AI with a subspace communicator.
>>
>>5721241

"Kyla." You call out.

She looks up at you after she finishes closing the cut in your armor using a polymer glue.

"Yes, David?"

You peel off your helmet and toss it to her. She just barely manages to catch it after fumbling for a moment.
She turns it over, observing the shattered glass and scarred up surface.

"That needs repaired. Then, there's a damaged PDA in my rucksack. See if you can get it working again, ASAP."

"...Alright. Are you sure you're okay? You haven't lost too much blood?"

"I'm fine." You insist. Your wounds aren't too bad, and you haven't lost as much blood as it looks like. You can keep moving.

But Kyla sighs at your insistence.

"I can never be sure with you. Every time you fight something, you look like you're somewhere far away."

You were going to ask what she meant by that, but she picks up your bag and walks off with it before you can ask.
Instead, you focus on your work again.

"Sanig." You call over the radio.

["What is it, kid?"] He answers back, immediately.

"Have you gotten those consoles up and working again?"

["No, goddamnit! I told you i'm not an engineer, and these things are all fried to hell! I'm salvaging some components right now, but i don't know if this is going to work."]

"Alright. From what i can see, the guns are still tracking potential targets, so they aren't offline. But we won't be able to change any settings until you get the control panel back up."

["Then shut the hell up and let me work!"] He yells. You can hear the sound of metal clanging against metal, and a sonicator pen being activated.

"Good luck." You tell him, cutting the feed.

So, taking manual control of the cannons is probably out.
Your best bet has to be luring them back into their firing range.

To do that, you'll need to send them a convincing message over official channels.
That PDA belonged to a station guard and doesn't likely have the fed's communications key, but maybe the cyborg you captured does.

You know he's a fed. He said as much.
But at the same time, the station guards called him "Vice-Captain", you think.

That does beg the question of who the Captain is. Maybe Elynderr?
But either way, if he's a fed working on the station, he's probably got the comms key you need.

Only problem is, you're not sure how to get it out of him.
Normally you'd just torture the information out of him, but he's not normal. His whole body seems to be mechanical, and if he feels pain at all it doesn't seem to bother him.

Does he fear death? Maybe, but at the same time, maybe he'd prefer that you killed him.

You do have one idea though.
An unorthodox method for a unique problem.

Maybe, just maybe, you could get Nina to root around in his brain somehow.
His body is tough, but what about his mind? Can he even resist something like that?

Maybe it's worth finding out.
>>
>>5722209

>Sometimes honey is better than vinegar. See if you can't bribe the codes out of him.
>Try your hand at torturing a cyborg. Maybe you can get creative about it.
>Have Nina mind-rape him, see what she can dig out.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5722212
>Sometimes honey is better than vinegar. See if you can't bribe the codes out of him.
>>
>>5722212
>threaten him once. either comply or get nina-mind-raped
when he invariably tells us to get fucked:
>Have Nina mind-rape him, see what she can dig out.
>>
>>5722229
We do have wraith bodies.

Cyborgs know that wraith damage still affects their mind. Making it clear we actually have the capability to fuck with his head/soul may be enough to get him to play ball.

Don't forget he probably has a distress key as well. Gonna need more honey than vinegar. The mind rape may be a 50/50 on what we get.
>>
>>5722240
hmm true, we can go with the wraith angle as well-- at least show them to him before taking him to nina

>Gonna need more honey than vinegar.
IF we somehow manage to find a way to 100% get the right key, sure, lets go with that plan, but i have no idea of what we can offer him to get it
>>
>>5722212
>>Sometimes honey is better than vinegar. See if you can't bribe the codes out of him.
>>5722229
+1
>>
>>5722240
You have a live wraith in a jar, as well.
>>
>>5722280
oh fuck.....what if we do a little war crime and missle launch a wraith to their biggest ship?
>>
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>>5722280
>"I got a jar of wraith!"
>>
>>5722212
>>Sometimes honey is better than vinegar. See if you can't bribe the codes out of him.
>>Try your hand at torturing a cyborg. Maybe you can get creative about it.
the first then the second, I would rather not mind rape someone
>>
>>5722360
>the first then the second, I would rather not mind rape someone
they're basically the same thing, anon
>>
>>5722300
fucking kek
>>
>>5722212
>Try your hand at torturing a cyborg. Maybe you can get creative about it.

GET THE WRATH JAR.
>>
>>5722300
>Wraith jar time. The suffering will commence.
>>
>>5722209
>>Have Nina mind-rape him, see what she can dig out.
>>
I'm seeing a lot of overlap here, so we're going to be going with the good cop/bad cop/crime against (in)humanity approach.
>>
>>5722209

"Gildur!" You yell.

Immediately, he comes running down the hall.

"Yes, Captain!" He salutes.

"Take the wheel, and get us down to Zakera Ward. If anything happens, just call for me."

"Oh, uh... y-yeah, okay. I can do that. I think. W-What are you doing, Captain?"

"Interrogating a prisoner." You reply, making your way to the cargo room.

The cyborg is there, locked up in a spare dodo cage. It seems like he's given up on trying to escape for the moment and simply lays there on his side.

"...Shameful, isn't it? Reduced to a caged animal like it was nothing." He grumbles quietly.

Crouching down next to his cage, you look him in the eye.
Well, his head is destroyed, so you can't really do that. But you look directly at what you believe to be a camera of some sort on his torso.

"What's your name?" You ask.

"What do you care?" He replies.

A little stroke of the ego may well be enough to get him going, you figure.

"You were pretty tough. Someone like you, maybe it's worth knowing."

The cyborg huffs and makes an effort to sit upright.

"Chell. My name is Chell."

Sitting down next to his cage, you cross your legs and maintain eye contact.

"Alright, Chell. I'm gonna level with you. I want something you have. Can you guess what that is?"

Chell thinks for a moment, and comes to a conclusion.

"...My bionics?" He guesses, incorrectly.

"No. They're very nice and all, but i need something else right now. Your encryption keys. Code words, whatever else you've got."

"You're trying to listen in on our radios? Even if i gave them to you though, they only last for a standard day before changing."

"Good to know. Nevertheless, i want them. What are they worth to you?"

"...I want to go free, obviously. Back to my people." He sighs.

"That would be difficult at the moment, Chell."

"Come on, what are you gonna do with me anyways?"

"Oh, i can think of a few things. Your bionics are definitely interesting, so exploratory surgery isn't out of the question."

"Whatever. My limbs are damaged anyways. It won't even hurt."

"True. But after we figure out how you work, maybe we can fix you up."

"The Devisors could do that too, if you just let me go."

"Devisors?" You question.

"Our scientists. They do all sorts of engineering, mechanical and bionics works."

"Ah. Well, like i said, that would be difficult for them."

"What do you mean, for them?" He asks.

"Because they won't be around for much longer. If i let you go, then you're just going to die along with them."

Chell scoffs at you.

"You're out of your mind. I don't know who the hell you are or where you got the balls, but you realize you're fucking with The Federation, don't you?"

"I know." You reply.

Chell pauses, waiting for you to say something else.

"...You're serious, aren't you?" He balks. "This station is being decommissioned. It's only going to end one way, with this whole thing getting spaced."

"Yeah, that's not going to be happening. Don't worry about it." You smile.
>>
>>5723058
>ask about the Red Saing epidemic and if he knows anything
>>
>>5723058
My headcannon is that Gildur makes a goofy fwop fwop fwop fwop sound when he walks.
>>
>>5723265
Well he's kind of a big rodent ain't he? It'd probably be a bunch of clicking when he's on a hard surface with a faint padded sound as his paw pads hit the floor.
>>
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>>5723058
This dude seems little more than a "muscle" head; all he's really interested in are bionics to make him strong. If that's all he really is, maybe we'd have more to offer him than the Feds (depending on what he meant by "his people").
>>
>>5723376
Don't even com pare him to the Emperor's finest.Those motherfuckers all earned their augmentations a hundred times over.
Chell is just some thug on loan to the Federation.
>>
>>5723376
>maybe we'd have more to offer him than the Feds
probably not. we have the short term advantage because we come from a scrappy background(in a civilization sense), but the federation has the resources to out-tech us. hell, we don't even know how the federation actually is the closer we get to its center of power; for all we know, the forces we're fighting right now are just poorly equipped, fronteer units
>>
Just a heads up, the county was trimming trees and decided to trim my fiber line instead, so i won't have internet this weekend.
I'll still try and get the posts out on mobile but i probably won't be reading the thread much.
>>
>>5723058

"I am worried about it. I don't want to be here when it happens." He argues.

"Like i said, that won't be happening. We've got the controls locked down. The station's defenses are on our side as well."

"They're going to send more ships, you dumbass! They'll hit those lasers with a capital-class railgun and punch a hole straight through the station's crust!"

"I know. I've got a plan for that, too." You assure him.

Of course, that plan may or may not involve nuclear weapons. But he doesn't need to know that.

"Not a chance! You're going to get us both killed!" He yells.

"So, you're not even willing to entertain the idea?" You sigh.

"As if i would! What, i'm going to leak information to you, and then The Federation is just going to ignore it?! I'll be hunted down for the rest of my life even if i escape! You're just going to die anyways!"

Yeah, you figured he'd be like this.
But that's fine. You have a few things you can try on him.

Opening his cage, you grab him by the collar and drag him out of it.

"What? Where are you taking me now?"

You don't reply. Negotiations are already over.

Dragging him along the floor, you take him to the medbay and heft his huge frame up onto the table before cutting his bindings off.
Then, you strap him down with the belts and cables built right into the operating table for this very purpose.

"I already told you, torture won't work on me." He spits.

Ignoring him, you open up a container hidden in the corner of the room and pull out a jar.
It's a jar made from solid sapphire, painted black with wraith blood and sealed with a lid that's held in place with twisted wire and paper tags soaked in poly-glue.

It probably didn't need the paper tags, but better safe than sorry.

"...What the hell is that?" Chell asks, clearly confused by what's happening.

Your KA-BAR is broken, so you use a multitool to cut open the paper seals and unbind the wire instead.
Almost immediately, the jar begins to shake as the wraith inside starts to stir.

The lid flies off and shoots across the room, and a black shadow darts out at high speed.
But you're ready for it, and you catch the squid-like wraith by it's tentacles.

It screeches in pain and fear as you clamp your grip down on it.
You've had this thing for a while, so it already knows it can't defeat you, nor can it escape from you.

So it's just afraid.

The lights in the medbay flicker and dim as the wraith cries in your grip, and Chell begins to panic.

"W-What is this?! What's going on?!" He screams.

You don't know if he can see the wraith in your hands or not. Probably not, considering he's got cameras for eyes now.
But he can probably still feel it's presence. There's always this nasty feeling in the air whenever a wraith is nearby. Like the devil's on your tail.

"You know, Chell. There are a lot of things in this world that can't really be explained, and some of them are real nasty."

You slowly walk over.

"...Do you want to know how i got these scars?"
>>
>>5723625
PRANK 'EM DAVID. PRANK 'EM!!!
>>
>>5723625
inb4 “Why so serious?”
>>
hope the next chappy is as good as all the others!
>>
>>5723625
Hoooooo boy!
>>
>>5723625
can't wait to put this in the funny moments compilation
>>
If this doesn't work we ask princess to lick him like a popsicle
>>
>>5723625

Screams echo throughout the ship as the wraith works it's magic on Chell's body and mind.
You don't know what it's showing him, but you get the feeling that it knows what you're trying to do, and it's helping you.

Maybe this is just in it's nature, or maybe it's trying to get on your good side. You don't know, because it won't talk to you.

After about five minute of this, Kyla comes in to check on you.
She immediately turns around and locks the door behind her once she sees what's happening.

She's still pretty afraid of wraiths. More than Cylia even, although she doesn't like to show it.

After about ten minutes have passed, you yank the wraith out of his torso, where it had latched onto what you can now see is his brain casing.
It looks like a metal sphere with a spine attached to it, almost like a disembodied brain in and of itself. But it's inverted, with the sphere lying in his abdomen.

There's a deep dent on the brain casing where you had shot him once with your rifle before, and apparently it nearly penetrated.
Your best guess is that he collapsed back then because the bullet impact gave him a concussion. He might even be bleeding, you don't know.

In any case, even though the wraith has been pulled away from him, the screaming hasn't stopped.
Thankfully it can only get so loud, as he has no vocal chords. You just hear his distorted cries through the speakers in his neck.

The wraith is placed back into it's jar, the lid secured with wire as before.

You felt the ship jolt slightly a few minutes after starting "interrogations", which was apparently Gildur scraping the sides of a tunnel.
He announced over the intercom that it's all fine, and he's making sure to go slow. Still, you're slightly worried.

If you crash in a tunnel, it's not good. You've seen what tunnel fires can do to people, and you'd hate to be trapped in this ship because it's too tight to lower the ramps.

So while you wait for Chell to regain his senses, you bring up one of the forward hull cams on one of the computers.
Gildur's actually doing a pretty excellent job, from what you can see. It's even tighter than you expected, but he's keeping it inbetween the lines.

You see what the issue must have been. Wreckage of cars here and there, some of it clearly already crushed against the side of the tunnel.

It doesn't take long before you've cleared it, and can see the docks again. Or, what used to be the docks.
Everything over there looks to have been destroyed, from the buildings to the landing platforms. There's only one drone ship sitting around, and it's swarming with killbots.

You don't see any organics on the ground down there, so you can guess how the ground offensive went.
But there are a lot of destroyed killbots as well. Some of them must belong to the feds, you'd imagine, but there's too many for it to be just that.

You also see some downed fighter craft burning brightly here and there, and some of those large quadrupedal robots.
>>
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>>5724550
Cyborg status?
>>
>>5724550
I dunno using the wraith like this is kosher...

Hopefully we didn't leave it long enough to melt his brain, just enough for him to understand it exists.

Maybe he'll play more ball when he learns that Federation shackled AIs are sentient souls.
>>
>>5725080
neither is kosher for a government to literally wipe out a settlement, or convert their citizens into computers but here we are. if anything, they started first
>>
>>5724550
How far is Zakkera ward, and is there any of the nanofungus stuff around here? From the appearance of things, it was only around that last chamber that we took the hover truck on a David's wild ride, so maybe this region is protected and no one else has to find out the nanoholocaust just yet.

Also whose killbots? The reprogrammed ones that we deployed I hope. If it isn't, lets torch them with the lasers.
>>
>>5725349
Zakera ward is near the very bottom of the asteroid, in the basement essentially.
You don't see any cancer fungus around the docks.

Yes, they're your killbots.
Most of the ones the feds and stations guards managed to set up were obliterated by ship to ground laser fire.

Most of the drone ships had a small army of them onboard, sitting in wait.
They're used to search for the AI's target, since these are automated ships without any living crew.

>>5724996
Mindraped
>>
>>5724550

All in all, it seems like things went well.
You took them largely by surprise, so they didn't have any time to set up defenses.

Even when they knew something was going on, they didn't realize how bad it was until they lost control of the station and a small fleet dropped directly in on their asses.
Focusing your attention back on Chell for a moment, you try asking him some questions.

"Do you feel like talking, now?"

"D-Demons... Demons inside of me... gods, help...." He mutters, still seemingly in a haze.

You sigh. It takes you a minute or two to dig a cheap phaser out of the cargo room.
You press it deep into the wound the wraith made on his abdomen as it dug in towards his brain, and pull the trigger.

As the electricity courses through him, he immediately starts having a seizure.
That dies down before long, leaving him groaning and breathing heavily.

"Bastard..." He wheezes. "You're a monster..."

"I fight monsters." You correct him. "Including assholes like you. Now tell me the codes."

"Fuh... Fuck you..."

Man, this isn't getting you anywhere. He's too hardheaded.
If he had a flesh and blood body this wouldn't be a problem, but you're worried that if you sic the wraith back on him he'll wind up dead or worse.

Nina's still an option, but maybe you could try your hand at it as well.
When it comes to telepathy, you really have no idea what you're doing. All you're good at is screaming into the void.

But practice makes perfect, right?
How can you learn if you never try?

Then again, you might end up giving him an aneurysm or something, especially considering he's probably already got a concussion and/or brain bleed.

Maybe you're better off letting Nina handle it.

>Let him rest for a while, then put the wraith back on him. He'll break eventually.
>Try your own hand at telepathy. See if you can't drag something out of him.
>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5725467
>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.
>>
>>5725467
>>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.
>"OK big guy, the hard way it is."
>>
>>5725467
>>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.
>>
>>5725467
>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.
>>
>>5725467
>Write-In: Instead of going for the meat bits of the cyborg get the computer bits to talk, he undoubtedly has some sort of spyware bullshit or black box in his cybernetics, just get Shodan or some other AI to hack it.
>>
>>5725488
anon, that's why we're getting nina. she's an AI and a psychic
>>
>>5725467
>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.
GET HIS ASS GRANDMA
>>
>>5725467
>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.

I've seen enough hent...
>>
>>5725467
>>Let NENA go town on him.
It's nena not nina. She is Granny Nena, not Nina the tomboy from next door.
>>
>>5725657
My cat's name is Nina, and she was pestering me while i was writing.
Yeah, let's blame it on that.
>>
>>5725659
heh, cats
>>
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>>5725467
>>5725470
"Just remember, I gave you an easy out. If you're worried about the feds hunting you down, just remember who is here right now with you and who isn't."
>>5725659
Kawaii af
>>
>>5725467
>>5725747
>Let Nina go to town on him. You get the feeling she enjoys this sort of thing.
Forgot to vote. Get yourself something nice Nena while you're in town, and later I want to give her the station.
>>
>>5725747
this
>"Just remember, I gave you an easy out. If you're worried about the feds hunting you down, just remember who is here right now with you and who isn't."
>>
>>5725659
May we see her?
>>
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>>5725930
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>>5725467
>Write-In?
>"Now that you've seen the tiny squid in a jar, let me introduce you to my giant squid in a box."
We can do it under Nina's supervision, or maybe even together.
>>
>>5725940
Oh man, Nina is a snuggly looking cat.
>>
>>5725940
she's taunting you into giving her belly rubs
>>
>>5725940
cute, couch cat.
Now show us the chicken!
>>
>>5725454
We can explain it was our way of showing we can take what we want anyway, because there's stuff the federation is hiding from him.

Ie: play nice or you'll be dead and we'll have what we want anyway. We mostly want to preserve what life there is

Souls are real and we can't guarantee it survives full memory extraction

Maybe explain what AIs really are as we prep him
>>
>>5725940
pet that belly.
>>
>>5725467

"You really think you're that guy, don't you?"

"Wha...?" He splutters.

"Well you're not. I'm that fucking guy." You insist. "I didn't want to be. It didn't have to be like this."

"Crazy... bastard..." He mumbles as you walk off.

In the cargo room, next to a server that's quietly humming away, there's a cart covered in wires and connectors, with a monitor built into it.
Compared to all the other tech on this ship, it looks and feels very low-tech and prototype-ish, because it is.

This is the AI cart you used before, when you were sussing out which of the captured AIs would be useful during this operation.
You unlock the wheels on that cart and pull it aside, then press an intercom button the a heavy-duty rack sitting on the opposite side of the servers.

"Nena, are you busy?" You ask.

["No, Dear. Not at the moment. The enemy has yet to engage, so we're waiting on your order."] She replies through a small speaker built into the rack.

"Alright. Don't engage them yet, i'm trying to do something."

["If you insist, Dear. However, i believe we'll be able to remove them with relative ease. It may cost a few ships, but..."]

"Yeah, that's what i'm trying to avoid. Since you're sitting around, can you hand off control to the others for a moment? I need you for something."

["Oh, my. I wonder what this could be about."]

There's a short pause as Nena communicates with the other AIs onboard the Metal Gear, before she confirms that the drone controls have been handed off.
They probably won't be able to control that many ships with any sort of efficiency, but it doesn't matter much since they aren't doing anything right now anyways.

You kneel down and pop off the sheet of steel covering one layer of the heavy duty rack, and inside is Nena's Black Box.
All the other AIs are here as well, and are hooked into the server rack next to them, allowing them to offload some of their processing to a number of VIs.

It's a measure you came up with to make up for their lack of numbers. A lot goes into controlling those drone ships, apparently.

With Nena's Black Box exposed, it's as simple as disengaging a couple of clamps and sliding her out of the frame.
She's still warm to the touch despite the rack's built-in air cooling, indicating she'd been working recently.

You brace your legs and heft her up onto the mobile AI cart and then further heft her up into the receptacle, where she's plugged in.

Immediately, her fuzzy, vaguely squid-like form starts to show up through the salt and pepper on the screen.
It still looks as if she's floating around at the bottom of a deep, dark ocean to you.

["What are we doing, Dear?"] She asks through the speaker on the cart.

"Interrogations." You tell her, speaking into the microphone which has now been permanently switched on.

Wheeling the cart into the medical room, you set it up next to Chell, with the screen facing him.

"What is that..." He asks, sounding groggy.
>>
>>5725940
Chonky kitty
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>>5726471
This motherfucker is unprepared for how unprepared he is
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>>5726471
>give him his last chance.
>>
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>>5726471
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>>5726471

"Miss Nena." You call out. "Can you sing for me, just a bit?"

["Of course, Captain."] She replies.

After a short delay, you can feel it. The 'pressure' from Nena's 'song'. It's a bit uncomfortable, like standing next to a jet engine while it's running.
But you're able to resist it, so it doesn't bother you too much.

Once again, the lights in the room flicker, and this time some of them actually pop.
The wraith in it's jar starts to go wild, slamming itself against the sides of it's container, knocking it to the floor and causing it to roll around all over the place.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" Chell screams, once again in a panic.

You gesture for Nena to stop, and she quickly quiets down.
When she does, you walk around the cart and kneel down next to Chell.

"Look here. There are worse fates than death in this world. You see that? Do you recognize it?"

Still tied down to the table, Chell struggles to turn over enough to see the cart next to him properly.

"Is... is that a Black Box...?"

"Oh good, you recognize it. And since you're a fed, i guess you know how these are made, right?" You smile.

Chell simply looks at you in confusion. You get the feeling he actually doesn't know.

"Well, it doesn't matter. One less sin won't save you." You mutter.

You stand up and place your hand on the cart, looking Nena straight in the 'eye'.

"Nena, you're better at this telepathy bullshit than i am. Can you take a look into his memories for me?"

["I can try, Dear. However, it would be best to get his consent and simply download them through his translator implant."]

"Yeah, if he was gonna let me do that, you wouldn't be in here."

["I suppose you're right. However, if i try to force a connection it may kill him. And... his mind seems to be in disarray. Damaged, even. What have you been doing to him?"]

"What the hell... what is this? Is this even real? Am i dreaming? Nightmare... yeah, this is a nightmare..." Chell mumbles to himself.

"I sicced a wraith on him. It needed feeding anyhow, it was getting kind of skinny." You admit.

["Oh, Dear. You shouldn't do that sort of thing. It does terrible things to people."]

"That's exactly why i did it." You assert. "Let me know if you need anything. I'll be leaving the ship shortly."

["Just time, Dear. I'll have to coax him out of his shell, like a frightened child."]

"Good luck with that."

Exiting the room, you turn off all the lights, leaving Chell tied to the table in pitch darkness, except for the gently flickering screen displaying Nena's form, which is itself obscured by darkness.
You make your way back to the cockpit where Gildur is still quietly flying the ship. You're still going through a tunnel of some sort, but now you seem to be descending vertically.

"Where are we?" You ask.

"AH!" He yelps, apparently not having heard you enter. "C-Captain! We're uh... we're in access shaft A-1. They're all empty, so i took the one nearest to the docks..."
>>
Gildur is doin pretty good with this piloting stuff, I'm a little surprised.
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>>5727676
Proving he's got the chops for more than cleaning dodo crap and David's sheets. Besides he's trained up some robots for menial labor if I remember correctly.

Might have to promote the kid and find another cabin boy, it appears he has some latent talent and courage to foster. Little squirrelly on the ground but might make for a good pilot in the seat when David is busy
>>
>>5727790
If he wants to be our regular pilot, I'm all for it. That said, I still want him to get some more training in.
Not just in regular flight, but in hazardous conditions and combat scenarios as well.
I wonder if we can't rig up a simulator rig somehow.
>>
>>5727393

"Good work, Gildur." You praise, patting him on the shoulder. "Didn't know you were such a decent pilot. You're keeping her nice and steady."

"Yeah... Treg thought it was boring work, so i was made to do it. A lot." Gildur grumbles.

"Still better than an unpaid internship."

"An..? A what now?" He asks, confused.

"Unpaid internship." You repeat.

"Captain, i think your translator's busted. Whatever you're saying isn't getting translated."

...Huh. Aliens don't have a word for that, apparently.
That certainly says something. You're not sure what at this point, but it says something.

"Don't worry about it. How much longer until we're there?"

"Just a couple more minutes at this speed, Captain..."

True to his word, you find yourself in Zakera Ward before long.
You were also able to get glimpses of the other wards along the way.

Unfortunately, there was similar damage to what you saw on the upper ward just about everywhere. The whole place is overrun with redsang mutants.

Zakera ward isn't much better off, honestly... but it looked like a shithole to begin with, so there's not much difference.
What is different is that you can still see fires burning here and there. Any fires on the other levels had long since burnt out, so you know there are still people down here.

It's not exactly clear where the Dark Star camp is, since everything's just a mess down here. Metal sheets cover many of the rooftops, bridging gaps between buildings and creating walkways above the surface.
Unfortunately that also significantly obscures your view of the ground.

"Where should we land, Captain?"

"That's a good question."

Buildings are packed pretty tightly down here and there aren't many streets for walking or transport. Those that do exist aren't wide enough for the metal gear, so you'd probably have to land on a roof somewhere.
You don't really know where you need to go, but the survivors down here probably do. One surefire way to find out would be to talk to them.

Alternatively, you could start scanning for heat signatures. If any of these buildings light up, there's a chance it's full of people.
Then again, it could be full of mutants...

Or, maybe...

>Land somewhere near one of those fires, see if you can't find somebody to talk to.
>Start scanning buildings for heat signatures and hope for the best.
>Call up Gron, see if you can get a radio frequency or something that they might still be using.
>Write-In?
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>>5727998
>Call up Gron, see if you can get a radio frequency or something that they might still be using.
>>
>>5727998
>>Call up Gron, see if you can get a radio frequency or something that they might still be using.
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>>5727998
>Call up Gron, see if you can get a radio frequency or something that they might still be using.

Captcha got me fucked up.
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>>5727998
>Call up Gron, see if you can get a radio frequency or something that they might still be using.

How have the absolute Jews of the Federation not invented unpaid internships?
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>>5728179
Because slavery isn't illegal in space.
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>>5727998
They have words for slave but not unpaid intern? Huh....that is honesty in language if I ever heard.
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>>5728234
they do. they're called slaves
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>>5727998
>Land somewhere near one of those fires, see if you can't find somebody to talk to.

Distracting Gron might not be a good idea. We can handle this with power armor.
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>>5728234
An unpaid intern can quit. An indentured servant is not supposed to.
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>>5728422
Reminds me of something I heard about slavery in ancient Rome. Something to the effect that slaves were looked down on because if they really wanted to be free they had plenty of opportunities to kill themselves.
>>
>>5727998

Reaching over Gildur's shoulder, you open a direct line to the Star-Fall over your subspace communicator.

"This is the Metal Gear. Do you copy?"

["You know, we're the only ones with one of these communicators, Captain..."] You hear Asta reply.

"Just put Gron on the line, you little shit."

["Yes sir."]

A few moments later, Gron replies.

["Captain. What's the matter?"]

"I'm down in Zakera Ward, looking for a doctor in the survivor's camp, which is being run by Dark Star. Do you have any secret radio frequencies i can use to get in communication with them?"

["We don't use radio frequencies, Captain. Most comms devices make use of the local intranet. However, it appears to be offline in most places."]

"So... nothing?"

["I suppose you could flash your landing lights. We use a simple pattern in the case that all other forms of communication are down, but i am uncertain if the local mercenaries will remember it."]

Ah, right. The 'Dark Star' gang here aren't actually part of Gron's big ol' happy family. They're mostly mercs hired to do grunt work on the station. You'd forgotten about that.

"It's better than nothing. What's the pattern...?"

...

You spend a solid half an hour flying around, flashing your lights at just about anything that moves down there.
About a third of the time, that turns out to be a mutant. It seems like there are even more of them down here than up on the higher wards.

You guess that makes sense. Redsang may have been used like adderall by some people, but it was also a decent combat drug and an excellent painkiller.
There were probably more addicts down here in the slums than anywhere, and more of them would have been from predatory races as well.

That may be both a curse and a blessing, as one thing you do notice down here is a lack of tumors.
Not to say that there's none, but definitely a lot less.

Regardless, you're about to give up on this light signal bullshit... when finally, you get a response.
From a large concrete building, you see someone flashing a light back at you from one of the windows.

"Oh, good. Finally." You mutter. "Wait, isn't that..."

Oh. You recognize this building, actually.
This was where you went on your first little alien killing spree, and wiped out a bunch of 'Dark Star' mercs.

"Captain?"

Gildur looks at you questioningly.

"No, it's nothing. Go ahead and land, we'll meet them on the roof."

Yeah, it's come to your attention that, if any of them recognize you, they may not be the happiest to see you.
You doubt all of them were in the building at the time you stormed it, so who knows how many of the men here came back to a base full of dead friends.

And, well... you're not saying it's likely, but who knows. Some of them may have survived.
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>>5728894

>It's been a long time, chances are they won't remember you. Head out as-is.
>You should at least grab a spare helmet out of storage. Something to cover your face.
>You don't want to take any chances. Head out in power armor, and make use of the voice changer in your helmet.
>Write-In?
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>>5728896
>You don't want to take any chances. Head out in power armor, and make use of the voice changer in your helmet.
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>>5728896
>You don't want to take any chances. Head out in power armor, and make use of the voice changer in your helmet.
Let them think we're some badass combat droid or something.
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>>5728896
>You don't want to take any chances. Head out in power armor, and make use of the voice changer in your helmet.
Wasn't Cylia already with us back then? At some point we're going to have to come clean (if there are any who remembers) if we're going to leave Cylia under their care.
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>>5728925
Even if they do remember us and have some misgivings, we'll be in power armor. What the fuck are they gonna to us?
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>>5728925
She was.
However, their focus wouldn't have been on her.

She didn't partake in any of the killing. That was all you.
It's possible they might remember her though, yes.
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>>5728931
They can fuck with Cylia.
Know a guy who went to a hospital to set his broken leg, the hospital purposely botched a very simple procedure because of his political affiliation so now he walks with a permanent limp.
That' wasn't in the US, but considering medical malpractice/errors is the third leading cause of death in the US, you know "shit happens" sometimes, even here in the states.
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>>5728941
Fair point, but it should be fine if we make two things clear.
1. We're with Gron, and working with us is their best chance for survival.
2. If they touch a hair on Cylia's head, we're gonna make that little scuffle we had before look like a fucking joke.
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>>5728942
You're not paranoid enough.
They're mercs; they likely care as much about Gron as Gron did about them when he found out you massacred the mercs.
Also, these mercs are scraped from all over, most of them likely don't know and don't care about each other. All it takes is one to do a little something something with the expectation that he'll be long gone before anyone notices, much less know who did it.
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>>5728896
>You don't want to take any chances. Head out in power armor, and make use of the voice changer in your helmet.

>>5728941
>because of his political affiliation
I recall Reagan's quip upon arriving at the ER after being shot.
> I hope you are all Republicans.
But truth be told ER surgeons have to patch up addicts and criminals too, so political affiliation is probably just part of the carnival for them.
>>
>>5728896
>>You don't want to take any chances. Head out in power armor, and make use of the voice changer in your helmet.
Must Protect Cat Wife
>>
how many hours was our power armour's battery life? Yes it was dark matter but still
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>>5728896
Stealth is now officially option, but you decide that wearing heavy power armor can also be a kind of stealth.
Rather than worrying about some vengeful bastard remembering your voice or face, or having to defeat them once they do, you'll simply deal with any possible situation by donning your armor.

Obviously it'll cover your face, and the synthesizer can hide your voice as well.

"I'm gonna get my armor on. Take off immediately if they try anything." You tell Gildur, who replies affirmatively.

Your armor is charged and ready to go, sitting in it's storage crate as usual.
It's covered in nicks, dings, cuts, craters, burns, blood and rust at this point. The armor even shows signs of melting along it's surface at some points.

You've really put this thing through hell, and it's missing most of the nice and shiny black wraithblood enamel it once sported.
The loincloth is also gone, burned to shit when you got caught in that plasma thrower back on the drone ship.

Yeah, maybe hand-decorating armor was a dumb idea after all. The only bit that remains at this point is the heavy duranium chain and cross around it's neck.

Then again, maybe it's just the situations you keep getting yourself into.
In any case, your beaten and battered armor happily opens itself up for you to step inside, like nothing had ever happened to it.

Despite all the damage to the outer armor, the duranium frame itself has only ever been dented once. That being when it was struck in the arm with a railgun at point blank range.
Stepping inside, you feel the rush of high pressure, oxygenated air, equal to your home planet. It's enough to make you high after having adjusted to station air for so long.

Before heading to the landing ramp, you pick up a couple new items that you haven't had a chance to use yet.
First is a heavily armored backpack, which does little more than hold a bunch of ammo for the second item, a fully custom tri-barrel rotary autocannon, chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum.

Even with the armor's strength, you can still feel the weight of the backpack and autocannon combined. It ain't light, and it's really not something you could carry by hand.
What it is though, is robust and powerful. It fires what you've taken to calling "CTD" Rounds, those being copper jacketed, tungsten core rounds with an ultra-hard diamond tip.

Normally it's not a good idea to use such a thing outside of ship-to-ship combat, but the walls of Xebric station's asteroid are more than thick enough that it simply doesn't matter.

The second item you pick up... is actually a square box about the size of a buckler shield, and it has a handle like one, too.
But it's thick, and heavily armored, and it has a thick armored cable which must be plugged into your suit's power supply in order for it to function.

Just to test it out before you go, you ignite it.
Instantly, a towering shield of light erupts from the the buckler, wide and thick enough to cover even your armor's bulky frame.
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>>5729434
>fully custom tri-barrel rotary autocannon, chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum
Hey, I've heard of something like this before!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywF0gW2acAU
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>>5729553
And its suppressed. God bless America.
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>>5729564
a deadly fart indeed
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>>5729564
>>5729553
>>5729566
You wouldn't want to disturb the neighbours when you go varmint hunting with this thing.
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>>5729434

Curious, you press the back of your hand against the edge of the shield.
The titanium plate on your hand slowly heats up, and starts to glow after a while, but the shield is perfectly fine.

Having it hooked up to a real power source instead of just some batteries and supercapacitors seems to help the shield's durability considerably.
You could probably get away with smacking it into shit without overwhelming it and burning it out, as long as it doesn't go on for too long.

Satisfied with the results, you turn off the shield and hook it onto your waist.
You also sling your rotary cannon over your right shoulder, letting it hang from a hook there as well.

Normally you'd hang it from the magnetic holster on your back, but that's currently covered up by the ammo pack.

The ship has already landed by now, so you make your way over to the airlock and cycle through, stepping out onto the cargo ramp.
There, you're greeted by several armed men. Apparently they weren't wary of you until the doors opened, because only then do they raise their weapons in a panic.

"Who the hell are you?!" One man screams.

"It's a fucking fed, ain't it?! A robot or something?!" Another yells.

One man, a large, heavily-scarred Caithan steps out of the crowd and forcefully lowers two of the merc's makeshift plasma rifles before speaking.

"Calm down, all of you. If it was the feds, they would have just blasted us from the air. Besides, they know the signal. Feds wouldn't even bother asking for something like that." He announces, loudly enough for the whole crowd to hear.

The Caithan then steps out to meet you alone.

"...You're with Dark Star, right? Name's Kralle."

Saying that, he extends his hand for a shake.
Not wanting to be rude, you accept his offer and give his hand a gentle squeeze.

He only winces slightly under your suit's grip. Impressive, even if you were holding back so as not to crush him.

"Greetings, Kralle. I am not from Dark Star, but you may consider me an ally of sorts." You growl through the helmet.

"That's... great." He sighs in relief as you let go of his hand. "We could use any help we can get at this point. The feds aren't fucking with us anymore, but these monster attacks are really wearing us thin."

Kralle takes his time looking over your armor, noting all the damage it's taken. He doesn't even try to hide it.
You can also see the group of mercs behind him whispering to eachother, some of them clearly arguing and pointing at you.

Well, you call them mercs... but some of them clearly just look like guys you could pick up off the streets down here.
Many of them are injured as well, but it seems like someone's been giving them medical care.

>Offer some assistance with the mutants in exchange for Lyna's whereabouts.
>Ask to be taken to the main camp. You can probably just find her own your own from there.
>Simply tell them you have a wounded ally, who needs to see the doctor.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5729631
>Simply tell them you have a wounded ally, who needs to see the doctor.
>>
>>5729631
>Simply tell them you have a wounded ally, who needs to see the doctor.
We're just an ally that has someone who needs medical attention. We can offer to help later on, but as a gesture of generosity (to build up goodwill; these people will likely be future residents here if we succeed), instead of as part of a trade (which is uncalled for among allies).
A few rounds with METAL GEAR around the perimeter should do it, and Kyla could get started on that right now so we don't waste time, as we're likely to be needed elsewhere (SHODAN is still holding that room, alone).
>>
>>5729695
I agree that the metal gear can go and fire at mutants, but remember that visibility is shit down here in the slums.
>Simply tell them you have a wounded ally
Why offer compensation when we haven't even asked for something
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>>5729631
>Tell them you have a wounded ally, who needs to see the doctor.
>Offer some assistance with the mutants in exchange for Lyna's whereabouts.

Your ride is over muties. Time to die.
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>>5729631
>Simply tell them you have a wounded ally, who needs to see the doctor.
>>
>>5729631
>Tell them you have a wounded ally, who needs to see the doctor.
>Offer some assistance with the mutants in exchange for Lyna's whereabouts.
>>
>>5729716
>remember that visibility is shit down here in the slums.
It's the slums, most people are gone. Just ask them where the friendlies are then flatten a perimeter around them.
First, a gesture of good will, then an absolutely excessive show of force; that should let them understand what happened earlier wasn't anything personal, it was just how we do things.
>>
>>5729631
>>Simply tell them you have a wounded ally, who needs to see the doctor.
>>
>>5729631

"Before that, we have a wounded woman who needs treatment." You tell him.

Kralle wears a complicated expression. You can see the resignation in his face.

"Yeah..." He sighs. "So do we. But we're low on supplies. I don't know if..."

You lean forward slightly and stare directly down at him, waiting for him to finish his sentence.

"...We'll do what we can for her, alright?"

"I can spare some medical supplies. Give me a list of what you need."

Kralle points to a man behind him and makes a gesture. The man immediately runs off to perform the task.
While you're waiting on him to return, you chat with Kralle for a while and learn a bit more about the situation.

Apparently the main camp isn't far from here, and this building is being used as a staging point for people going outside.
There are people trapped all over the ward who can't reach the main camp on their own, as evidenced by the small fires you saw burning from above.

Those people are almost all malnourished and/or injured at this point, with some already having starved to death.

Fortunately with Zakera being so low down on the station, the water continues to flow even though life support has been off for some time now.
Less fortunately, it seems you were right about there being an excessive number of strong mutants in the streets down there.

Apparently it's so bad that the rescuers are only able to go out in groups of twenty or more, which is what's going on here.

Because phasers don't really work on these things, the only effective weapons they have are the much less common bootleg plasma weapons which were being held illegally by Dark Star and some particularly unsavory types.
So basically, they have every able-bodied man here, equipped with every plasma weapon they could scrounge up, all just so that they can go out and try to save two or three people at a time.

It's not a great situation for them.

It takes about fifteen minutes for the runner to return with a holopad containing an extremely long list of medicines and equipment that are needed in the makeshift hospital there.
But the important part, to you anyways, is that the list is signed at the bottom by "Dr.Lyna Stavro". It's exactly who you're looking for.

Telling Kralle to wait there, you head back inside and quickly load up a crate of medical supplies.
You can make this stuff pretty much any time you want, so it's not a big deal. Well, as long as it's the basics. Some medicines are species-specific or have a patent, so it's not possible to print them normally.

Actually, come to think of it... wouldn't a hospital have dedicated medicine fabs?
Something like that would be incredibly useful, if you could get your hands on one. They're good at handling all sorts of chemicals, not just medicine.

The one on the Metal Gear is like that, but it's very small and slow. With the amount of gunpowder you use, you've just started mixing your own by hand.
It's turned out pretty well so far.
>>
>>5730517
Offer to retrieve a medical nanofab or run some rescue missions while we're waiting for Cylia to receive treatment.
>>
>>5730737
IIRC,we have a small pile of plasma weapons laying around somewhere from back when we boarded those drone ships.
I mean, unless we want to stick around to help these guys or go full "AK-47s FOR EVERYONE!" Loud, chemically-propelled projectile weapons? HEY, I REMEMBER THIS GUY!
>>
>>5730822
>>5730517
>>5730737
"We've been in touch with your old man Grey and procured our own plasma weapon stash. We can share this with you for medical triage preference of our injured Caithan."
>offer the low-tier plasma weapons for Cylia getting priority
>offer to help eliminate mutants ourselves
Hopefully no more of those crab bastards.
>>
>>5730517
>>5730937
>offer to help eliminate mutants ourselves and salvage any medical supplies in the area
sorry, fixed this one
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>>5730938
Sounds good and it for tat, real merc shit
>>
>>5730937
>>5730938
I support this.
>>
>>5730517

After packing up a bunch of spare supplies, you bring it outside.
The men standing around out there stare at you in shock as you casually walk out, carrying a metal crate as large as you are (sans power armor) over your shoulder.

"Where do you want it?" You ask.

Some cheap supplies are no problem to hand over, if it'll get you into the camp to meet with the doc.

"T-This way, down the stairs... ah."

Kralle stops in his tracks as he realizes something. Most halls and doorways are built quite large to accomodate most species, but the roof access door is actually pretty small.
With your power armor on, you aren't going to be fitting through without destroying the doorway. Actually, the crate probably won't fit through either. It's just a little bit too wide.

"It's fine." You assert, walking over to the edge of the building and stepping up onto the ledge.

"Wait, what are you-?!"

There's a temporary panic as you step over the edge of the building and drop like a rock, about five stories.
You land in a crouch, your suit's servos temporarily overdriving themselves to act as shock absorbers, and your suit's frame and thick padding taking the rest.

The stony surface under your feet cracks and chips of rock are sent flying as you land, but you don't feel a whole lot of the impact yourself. It's still station gravity, after all.

Checking on the crate, you find it slightly bent along the edge of it's frame, but otherwise in good condition. That's fine, there's lots of gauze in there, and the bulk medicine is kept in shock-proof containers.
You know, because it's your ship after all. You learned from the first time you took the Metal Gear out for a spin and flung cargo everywhere. That was a hell of a cleanup.

Looking up, you see everyone rushing over to the edge and looking down to see whether you splattered yourself or not. But you ignore them, and simply walk around to the front entrance.
The street here seems to be clear, with just a couple of armed men who presumably were standing guard until a moment ago, but are now rushing over towards the sound of you landing.

"Hands up!" One man yells. "Put down the crate! Put down the... crate." Yells another one, until he suddenly realizes how dangerous you look and the forcefulness peters out of his voice.

You're about to explain yourself when Kralle yells down from the rooftop.

"Weapons down! He's here to deliver supplies!"

The two men in front of you look up to their leader, and then back between themselves.
They seem uncertain, but lower their rifles in the end.

"Nice to meet you, too."

They grin and chuckle nervously.

The runner from before shows up before long, now completely out of breath from running up and down fight flights of stairs twice.

"Should have taken the short way down." You joke.

"Hah, yeah... haha..."

The man, a short, lizard-like sort, chuckles nervously as well.
Even without your armor, you would dwarf him in height.
>>
>>5731107
>The man, a short, lizard-like sort, chuckles nervously as well.
>Even without your armor, you would dwarf him in height.
Let's call him Arian
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>>5731589
You're a filthy bastard, you are.
>>
>>5731611
Give me lizard alien bussy!
>>
>>5731589
>>5731776
wtf man
>>
>>5731107

As the runner guides you back to Dark Star's main base, you get a glimpse of the damage on the ground.
This place was always a run down shithole, but the buildings at least were sturdy and intact.

It seems like a lot of rioting happened as society, such as it is in Zakera Ward, started to break down. The damage here definitely isn't from the mutants alone.

But things seem relatively peaceful now, here at least.

It doesn't take long to reach your destination. There's a huge pile of garbage and debris piled up in the streets, with two men guarding the entrance.
They're both on guard the moment they spot you, and seeing the runner beside you doesn't really relax them. Nonetheless, after a brief explanation from him, they let you pass.

Past the barricade the damage isn't so much. Buildings are still intact, albeit with a few broken windows where they existed to begin with.
Few people are out on the streets. Those that are mostly seem to be working, either collecting scrap and fixing things, standing guard with phaser rifles or just sitting around small fires, trying to keep warm.

You can't feel it inside your suit, but the thermometer on your HUD indicates that it is in fact a bit colder than normal down here.
Well, cold air sinks, and it's already been a while since life support was turned off. You guess this ward is acting like a cold trap for the entire station.

It's not a lot. Not to you anyways, but other species can't just shake off massive temperature dips like nothing. The station is normally maintained at a constant 85 degrees.
A bit warm for your liking, but apparently you have a very high body temperature. You've been told that your metabolism is like a furnace before.

It's true, Kyla and Cylia feel a little cool to the touch most days. Sanig almost feels like a corpse, not that you've had a whole lot of opportunities to touch him.

"This way, please." Your guide says, gesturing towards a single-story concrete building.

You manage to just clear the double doors with the crate still on your shoulder, and inside the building you find an open floor with dozens of beds filled with patients.
Some of them are in terrible shape, with burns on their body, torn flesh and bite wounds or even missing limbs. There's also a pile of bodybags in the corner, about 15 people in the stack.

At the very back of the room there's a curtain roughly covering one corner, and a bright light inside reveals the silhouette of someone performing surgery on a patient.

"Set it at the back, please. And be careful." Your guide pleads.

You walk quietly and carefully to the back, narrowly avoiding the patients on either side of you as you walk through the rows of beds.
Once you reach the back you see a sort of prep area, with all sorts of supplies piled here and there, or stacked up on shelves. But a lot of the spaces where supplies should be are empty, or very low.

There are also three nurses collapsed on the floor there, seeming utterly exhausted.



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